AlanAbroad

Since we had made a hasty departure from Sky Garden the previous night, we werent given the chance to make plans to meet up with Chad and Garrett the following day. We'd already decided on going down to the beach to hang out with Niki's friend Johnny and enjoy some beers in the sun and sort of hoped that we might bump into them there again. We were a little slow going that morning after consuming so many mystery green, blue and orange beverages the night before, so we had a relaxing morning hanging out with the puppies downstairs while we used the wifi and enjoyed our complimentary breakfasts. Its amazing what a little food, caffeine and puppy time will do for a hangover and soon we were back on our feet and headed to the ... read more

We get up the next morning and have our tasty free breakfast (egg sandwhich with local lombok coffee) and get our things together to head down to the beach. We roll up onto the beach in roughly the same place as before when someone again recognizes Niki from last year (I suppose carrying a hula hoop around does help a little). This time its a guy named Johhny, a friendly local surf teacher. We sit down and have a few drinks with him and chat. As it turns out, he's already served a couple Canadians that day and he says they might come back. Sure enough about ten minutes later these two guys wander up. Their names were Chad and Garrett and they're from Saskatoon. They've been in Kuta a couple days and spending some time ... read more

We touch down in Kuta Bali a few hours later. The airport in Kuta is situated at the end of a massive beach and if you look carefully on approach, you can see surfers out in the break. The Kuta airport, like Phuket airport, is quite small and its a quick trip from the plane to the customs desks. As we're standing in line for customs, we're reminded just how strict the anti-drug rules in Indonesia are as theres a sign next to the customs lines that reads: DEATH PENTALTY for bringing drugs into Bali! Frightening stuff. We clear customs and get to baggage claim rather quickly and past the row of literally 15 money changers all shouting desperately for you to exchange cash with them and out into the sea of cab drivers clambering for ... read more

After a quick night on Phuket, we woke early the next morning to catch a cab to the airport for our flight to Indonesia. The airport on Phuket is fairly small and the flight we caught runs at the same time every day. As a result there was a single line of people in the airport at that hour, all heading to the same location. We waited in line, got our seats sorted, grabbed a quick breakfast sandwhich at Subway (apparently, in Thailand you arent allowed vegetables on your breakfast sandwhich, go figure..) and piled into the line for customs and departure. We knew we had overstayed our visa by three days and that we'd have to pay a small fine at the desk but we weren't prepared for the outrage the customs official displayed at ... read more

Niki returned the next day and we had a fairly relaxed last couple of days on Phi Phi, enjoying beers on the beach, walking up the viewpoint and laying in hammocks arouund the island. Niki got in a couple more fun dives and we decided for our last night in Phi Phi we would do an overnight camping trip to Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley, the smaller neighboring island. Maya bay is made popular by the Leonardo DiCaprio film "The Beach". Its an amazingly busy beach during the day, with hundreds of tourists catching longtails over or taking chartered boats to the beach for the afternoon to swim, snorkel and lay in the sun. I'd been warned by a lot of people that it was a huge tourist trap in the day and that you'd ... read more

The next day Amber mentioned she had a couple days off before she had to catch an overnight bus back up to Bangkok. Niki and I had initially planned to stay in Phuket for just one night but since Niki rarely gets to see Amber I opted to head back to Phi Phi and make sure our room there was paid for and give Niki and Amber a day together to party and catch up. We grabbed some breakfast and I hopped on a motorcyle taxi to take me back to the harbor on the other side of the island. If you ever get a chance to take a motorcycle taxi in Thailand I highly recommend it, it was possibly one of the funnest 20 minute cab rides I ever took as he sped through the ... read more

We filled our guns and left the cafe behind as we made our way into town to look for Amber. We plowed our way through the crowd and made our way up to Patong's main street, Bangla Road. Bangla was cut off to vehicles for Songkran so it was just jammed with people, all soaking wet and having 5 second water battles with people as they walked past. Every shop, bar and restaurant on the street was filed with people defending themselves, shooting out into the crowd - the whole thing was a real sight to behold and was incredible fun. About every 100 feet or so enterprising people set up garbage cans to fill your tank at for a fee; 10 baht for normal water, 20 for ice water. Ice water is absolutely the way ... read more

We got up relatively early and packed a day bag to head over to Phuket for Songkran. Since we were just going for the night we cleverly took our dry bags as overnight packs. We were headed down to the bakery to grab some breakfast snacks for the boat ride and as we were coming around the corner we saw that the artists who work at the local art shop had set up a road block, stopping everyone who tried to pass and politely dousing them with water. It was somewhat comical to see as they were really trying to be polite about it; just wetting the hands of an elderly couple that went by or the arms of those that really didnt want to get wet. Niki and I approached hoping to get by with ... read more

After a very relaxing sleep (in which we werent swept out to sea) we met up with Ricky and his two new friends Samantha and Scarlet for breakfast and some time on the beach (somthing we were all slightly hesitant to do). We had discussed getting a longtail boat to take us to various snorkel sites around the island but after the previous day, we all decided it was just a little too soon and settled on sitting in the water and drinking a few beers. Niki busted out a hoop session for us, drawing a round of applause from all in view on the beach. After a litte more sunshine we walked up into the streets and hit one of the better restaurants on the island called Cosmic for some pizzas and a few more ... read more

After a few days of drinking, eating and beaching, we'd decided to mix it up and possibly rent a kayak and do some snorkelling out to one of the smaller bays around the island. Niki knew a guy from her previous trips to Phi Phi that was able to hook us up with some cheap kayak rentals (200 baht each for two hours) so we took our dry bags, snorkels and masks, my camera and not much else (something I'd come to regret a little later) and paddled out into the bay. The water on this side of the island is fairly shallow for quite a ways out so aside from being incredibly warm, its also relatively calm and you can see the bottom really easily. It made for some great kayaking and it didn't take ... read more