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Published: July 17th 2008
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Sometimes in Thailand you see things that you just can't believe are happening. For instance, walking down the streets of Bangkok at 1 am and seeing an elephant outside of the bars... Or seeing a monkey slam dunk a basketball... Or going to a restaurant and noticing that the women serving you is growing a little bit of a beard and really doesn't look like a woman at all... you get the point.
Well, if you are short on time and can't read any further, then I would take 30 seconds out of your busy day and at least see the video I posted of the elephant dancing and playing the harmonica. Maybe that isn't amazing to some of you and maybe you need to be there in person, but I think that's one of the highlights of my trip so far.... Forget the culture, ancient sites, etc. this place has monkeys riding bicycles and elephants playing musical instruments! Plus, Thailand actually has spicy food. As many of you know, I haven't gone a week without Mexican food in my entire life and I sometimes go on 3-4 days bienges of nothing but Mexican food soaked with Tapatio or Cholula.
So here I'm in heaven. The locals actually don't make the food very spicy for the tourists, so I have to tell them to make it as spicy as they would eat it, which often leads to them giving me a side of hot chili peppers... and my eyes watering for the next 10-15 minutes. Now the only thing missing is a tortilla. Damn, I would kill for some El Terasco, La Tolteca, or Pedro's right now... Hell, I'd even settle for some Qdoba...
Ok, I'm done with my rambling. So we are in Phuket for 4 days staying along the southwestern shore of the island at a place called Kata beach. Its a medium size bay with really clear warm water, light colored sand, and actually some small but fun waves. Considering the disappointment in Brazil with surfing, I spent the first day hanging out at the beach and surfing. But for some reason, someone doesn't want me to enjoy surfing on this trip. About an hour before sunset, I decided to go surfing again and while taking my first wave, a kid who was just learning how to surf let go of his surfboard and it flew
up and hit me in the side of the face. At that point, I thought that was the end of my round the world trip because instantly I felt this huge indent around my temple, a couple inches from my eye. I wasn't sure how bad the injury was but I put some ice on it and just waited to see if it got better. Turns out that after a couple days the swelling went down and all that I was left with was a black eye and maybe a slight fracture to my cheek bone (at least that's my diagnosis). Even a week later and it still doesn't feel the same, but its not as noticable as I thought it was going to be.
I'm not sure if it is the time of year or what, but the night life in Phuket is nonexistant. Part of the problem is that around sunset the clouds come in and it starts to rain, but it also seems like it is more of a destination for families and couples. Oh well, after over a month of going out nearly every night, its about time for a break.
The next day
we took a trip to the Ko Phi Phi Islands. Even though this is the low season, everything is really cheap so there are a ton of Australian and Japanese tourists all over the place. They packed our boat with way too many people and then once we got to the islands we saw about 20-25 boats all filled with tourists. So much for trying to get away to some place less touristy. Even so the islands are still amazing. The water was crystal clear and the islands have huge cliffs. The first island we went to was Ko Phi Phi Leh, which is a smaller Island with a really long bay with a white sand beach and cliffs on all sides. We did a short hike across the island to the bay on the other side, which was about all that we could do with the time we were given. After that we went to Ko Phi Phi Don, which is the larger island with approximately 6,000 residents. The first stop was at Monkey Beach, which is a small beach that is filled with monkeys that will come right up to you and eat right out of your hand,
if you let them. This island was also one of the main areas hit by the tsunami in 2004. Our guide told us that approximately 3,000 people were killed on the island, many of which were tourists. Now, the island has been redeveloped and there are small bungalows and restaurants that line the coast. If I get a chance to go back to Thailand at some point, I think I would spend a couple days relaxing on this island or another smaller, less crowded island in the area. There was a bar that played reggae and it just looked like a really relaxing place. Plus, when you are on a boat tour your time at each place is short and does not allow much time to explore the islands.
We also had a chance to go snorkeling off the coas of Ko Phi Phi Don and Egg Island (a small island close to Phuket). I had heard that diving in Thailand was not as good as Hawaii or Austrailia, however it turned out to be better than I expected. Along Ko Phi Phi Don, the water was clear and there were a lot of butterfly fish, parrot fish and
other small reef fish. The coral was also nice at some spots, but you could see that the amount of boats and divers had taken its toll since there was a lot of coral bleeching.
The last full day we spent riding the mopeds up the coast to Patong Beach and checking out a monkey show. Patong Beach, in my opinion, was a larger version of Kata with a beach that wasn't nearly as nice. They had the exact same vendors selling the exact same styles of shirts, so after checking it out for a couple hours we headed back to Kata. For some reason, monkeys are hilarious to me. Maybe its just me because most of the other people watching the monkey show were parents with their kids, but I swear that they have unpredictable tendancies that they combine with really quick moves, which makes them funny to watch. Anyway, this show had monkeys that would dive into a pool of water to retireve a key, climb up into the rafters to retrieve a coconut, slam dunk a basketball, or sell you some sort of local medicine.
Another big thing that is difficult to miss in Thailand
is vendors selling counterfit clothes. You can walk for blocks and see the exact same stuff as the last several shops. There is no variation at all. They have the exact same 2 styles of Billabong and Volcom shirts regardless of where you shop. But the worst are the suit shops. They have guys standing outside asking if you want an Armani suite every time you pass by. For 4 days, we were asked several times a day if we wanted to check out some suits. I don't even know why anyone would come to a small beach town looking for business attire, but there were easily 15 suite shops in Kata alone.
Up next is Bali, Indonesia, which we are expecting to be similar to Phuket but we saved up enough Starwood points to stay at a 5 star resort for 4 days to relax and try to further recover before heading to Tokyo. Plus, there are some really great surfing spots in Bali which I might give a shot despite my bad luck with surfing so far on this trip.
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