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Published: January 22nd 2011
Thailand Adventure!
Canada - Bangkok
After a total flight time of about 18 hours in the air I arrived in Bangkok without any hassels or missed flights...although there was a close call in Tokyo connecting to Bangkok (BBK). But I made the last call for boarding and was in Bangkok in no time. Ashley was very kind to meet me at the airport and had a private cab lined up for our ride back to her apartment. to Rockstar status, thanks babe. The following day Ash took me to her work to meet some of her co-workers and we also went shopping at one of the many malls over here, MBK. The setup on a lot of the floors is very reminicent to Istanbul's Grand Bizarre. There are countless rows of vendors, many of them selling the same kind of stuff. There is entirely too much to see and Ash has made reservations at Sky Bar. Sky Bar is one of the many bars perched on top of the many towering buildings in BBK. We had a great dinner and enjoyed the 360 degree views from the top.
Chiang Mai
We arrived in Chiang Mai on the 10th
and had arranged with the owner, Yul, of the Home Stay to get picked up. We jumped in his truck and were off to the Tonnam Home Stay. There are about 8 bungaloes here and we had reserved the one that has a patio which overlooks the river that flanks the Home Stay. Almost immidiately we jump in the pool to cool off, then head to the local market for some grub. We pickup a full chicken, papya salad, and rice for lunch. Most of the afternoon was spent laying around the pool and getting some much needed R&R. Yul, his wife, daughter, and a few assistants often offer to cook dinner for anyone staying...for a minimal cost of course. He also let's you help cook with him in the open bar / kitchen. It's really cool being able to watch him cook authentic Thai foods. Tonight we eat green curry with prawns, deep fried appetizers, and muscles. There are about 8 of us at dinner and we all have a great time trying to interpret each other. We have Thai, French, and Americans. The next day Ash and I take a strol through Chiang Mai and get a 2
Doi Suthep Gong
When this type of gong is rubbed correctly it begins to vibrate and gives off a load humming sound. hour massage each before going up to the Dui Suthep Temple. After climbing the 200 steps up to the temple we rang the plethra of bells, for good luck. This temple id guilded with gold virtually everywhere and is quite a bright area on a sunny day. The following day we get picked up at the Home Stay at 1:30PM for our Flight of the Gibbons. This was truly a treat. Our group of 8 people were fitted with harnesses and we were off for the first zip line. For about two hours we fly from one elevated platform to the next, zig-zaging accros the valley on ziplines. It is very thrilling to be well over 200 ft off the ground looking out over the whole valley then just as quickly you are flying back into the canopy and onto the next one. After we were finished we were served a some Thai food for dinner before being dropped off back at the Home Stay. The next day is the National Thai Elephant Day and Ash and I decide to go check out Maesa Elephant Camp. When we arrive the show has already started. There are four elephants painting pictures,
Bells
These bells are rung for good luck. And rung they were. painting really cool pictures. They also have elephants throwing darts, playing basketball, team log stacking, massages, and other cute gimmicks. After the show is over Ash and I take a ride on an elephant. This was pretty cool and we kinda just mossied about for a while until our 'driver' takes us back where we take a few pics. After a brief visit to the elephant art museum we continued on our journey to the Tiger Kingdom. We chose not to pay to go into the cage and have pics taken with the tigers. All the tigers were extremely larthgic and almost seemed as is they had been sedated. The handlers had to poke, prod, and annoy the tigers just to get them to open their eyes for the pictures. We got some lunch and went back to the Home Stay. Yul had concocted a great Vietnamese BBQ. He had all the raw meats on the table and a in the middle of the table was a device with six individual bowls on it. The bowls were heated from beneath and each of us cooked the meat we wanted and then wrapped it up in lettuce, flat noodle, parsley, etc.
They were absolutely delicious. After dinner we went to the Sunday Night Market. Here we shopped for a good part of the evening, then met up with a young German couple we met at the Home Stay for some drinks. A little after midnight the four of us grabbed a tuk-tuk and went back to the Home Stay. We all took a midnight swim in the pool before bed. What a great night.
Bangkok
When we arrived back in Bangkok we got unpacked from our excursion at Ashley's place and got some laundry started. After having some delicious Kraft Mac 'n Cheese for dinner we called it a night because Ashley had to work in the morning. I went with her in to work, and because she literally works in a mall I figured I could get some shopping done. I spent most of the day at a nearby mall, MBK, which had more of the selection I was looking for. This mall was insane. Each floor seems to have its theme. One with electronics, one with clothing, one for jewelry, etc. And these floors are HUGE, they just keep going and going. All the people selling
things are packed in tight and often offer similar items to the others around them. Anyways, I found a few little things to buy and got fitted for some dress shirts. After this I went back and found Ashley as she was leaving work. We left quite quickly because Ashly had bought tickets to a theater performance that was starting about an hour later. We had to take the sky train for 20 min to a stop where Ashley was told was right next to the theater. When we got to the stop it was clear she was slightly mislead. We quickly grabbed a cab and he knew where we needed to go, which was NOT 'right next to the train stop.' No big deal, we made it a few minutes late and were ushered to our seats. This show was touted as the 'cirque du soleil' of Thailand. Needless to say I had pretty high hopes. It was all in Thai so we were kinda lost to the plot but it was comedic watching the performers. They didn't really put on a performance I was expecting, but it was obviously a low budget production. The cool parts were when
they brought live animals on stage and they actually walked an elephant in a 'parade' through the aisles in the audience!! That was cool. After the show we grabbed a taxi and Ashley took me to a new area of Bangkok. We walked up a somewhat seedy side street looking for a place to eat. A few 'lady boys' were giving me cat calls, it was hilarious. We found a nice sit down restaurant and had a nice dinner before going back to home for the night.
The next day Ashley took me to see the other campus she had been teaching at in Salaya. Salaya is about an hour from Bangkok by Skytrain and taxi. This campus was a legit school campus and was located in a really cool area. We had also come to see one of here students play a recital. When we went to the performance room it was completely empty...hhhmmmmm. After talking to a few people we found out that he was actually performing later that afternoon. As we had some time to kill Ash took me to see her 'office.' She had quaint little room with a piano in it, otherwise completely empty.
We hung out here for a while and she played me a beautiful rendition of The Fray's "You Found Me." She is so talented : ) Realizing we had some other plans for the afternoon we decided to fore-go her student's recital and head back to Bangkok. When we got back later we ran into one of her neighbors, Lynia, from Sweden. We invited her to come over later on. Ashley's apartment looked like a hurricane went through it, so we spent some time cleaning up and packing for our trip tomorrow. Lynia came over later that night and we had a few drinks and watched a movie.
Koh Phi Phi Don
Apparently we drank a bit more than we thought. By the time we got on the train to head to the airport Ashley had expressed that she wasn't feeling very well. By the time we were about half way there Ashley had to jump off the train for fear of puking. Sure enough she walked briskly to a trash can, waited till all the other passengers had exited the area, and puked what little water she had drank that morning. One of the nearby police
officers asked her if she was OK and called someone to come help her. A little old lady came by with a medkit and gave Ashley some medicine to help calm her stomach. We jumped on the train and made it to the airport without any further stops. This little delay put us a slightly behind schedule and as we got to the check in desk and got our bag checked we had about 30 min till our plane took off. Luckily some of the attendants pushed us to the front of the security line...bonus! About an hour later we were in Phuket and headed to the ferry that would shuttle us to Koh Phi Phi Don (PP). We took the opportunity on the ferry to start a great sunburn and have a few beers. Once on PP we made a few errands, then took the water taxi to the hotel to check in. The hotel was literally right in the beach and our bungalow stood back about 20 off the sand in the shade of some palm trees. This is awesome. We got all our stuff settled in and went swimming. The water was the perfect temperature. Not to
cold to chill you, but warmer than the breeze coming in from the ocean. We just played in the surf and enjoyed paradise. Later, after stocking the fridge with snacks, beer, and water, we went and got some dinner at the hotel's restaurant. This 'restaurant' consists of a bunch of tables setup along the beach. As we enjoyed our meal of shrimp, steak, and pad thai we watched the sun droop out of sight and were amazed at how beautiful this place was. As we had were scheduled to scuba dive at 7:30 in the morning we decided not to go out on the town and opted for an early night. This was working out nicely until the scuba shop called us at 9:45PM to reschedule, who does that?! I'm pissed. They tell us that the new time is now 12:45PM the next afternoon instead. Whatever. They can't keep us down, we'll win anyways.
After the decent breakfast provided by the hotel in the morning we took the new found opportunity to lay out on the beach...this never gets old. If all else fails, I could be an extremely successful beach bum...oh yeah. Around mid morning we got all
our stuff together and headed for town. A trail heads out from the beach and up into the jungle towards town. It's a relatively worn trail and even sports lights in some areas for night travelers. The walk takes about 15-20 min if you're keeping a steady pace. This was not us though, we were on the tourist route, stopping at every beach and admiring the beauty. When we got to town I wanted to go grab a burger. Both of us were craving burgers since neither Canada nor Bangkok seem to be able to get it right. The burger joint I spied yesterday turned out to be a gem. The guy manning the grill knew what he was doing and cooked us up some delicious burgers. Ashley killed hers quickly and seemed confused when it was gone, "Did I just eat that whole thing?" After joining our diving party we were off to the boat with weight belts in hand. Once aboard we met our dive master and were off to our first site. Once in the water it all came naturally, being that I hadn't been diving since I was a Cub Scout in a pool. Ash was
a natural and had been certified in the last five years...no big deal. As this was the rookie dive class we only dove about three meters. This was awesome though, there was tons of sea life everywhere. We ran into a small black tip shark and a sea turtle in the first 15 minutes down, great start!! We kinda just mozied along and followed our dive master around the reefs, checking out the different schools of fish and crazy sea anemones. When our air depleted we surfaced and the boar picked us up. We then dropped anchor in the main cove of Koh Phi Phi Leh, the uninhabited sister island to Koh Phi Phi Don. After lunch we executed some awesome flips off the top deck of the boat and made it look good. The second, and last, dive we took was off another island close by. This dive started in deeper waters off the North side of the island and a current basically drifts you around the island. While slowly swimming along we saw another shark, and a LOT more marine life. It was so clear and beautiful. After we had virtually drifted around the whole island we surfaced
and marveled at the experience. Our guide informed us that the water was actually not very clear at all today. Yikes, couldn't imagine a 'good' day. We then jumped aboard and headed back to PP. After we got back to PP we went to our bungalow to cleaned up. Later that night we went to a few bars and one of them even had hookahs. We ordered a few beers and a hookah with cherry flavored tobacco. I hadn't smoked hookah very much since I was in Syria so it was awesome to get to enjoy the cool scented flavor on the beach. As we sat on the beach enjoying the waning light a crew of fire dancers started warming up. Most of them had fire sticks that were flaming on both ends. As the night grew on they would do crazier and crazier maneuvers. Whirling, twirling, throwing, spinning...it was insane. After we had our fill we grabbed a water taxi back home. AWESOME DAY!
The next day we went into town to grab some snorkel gear, however, I pulled an epic fail. I forgot my wallet. IDIOT. We quickly made a judgment call and decided to spend the
day on the beach...oh darn : ) We threw on the sunscreen, laid out our mat on the beach, opened some cold ones, and got down to business (doing nothing). It was the best fail I have ever completed. Intermittently making runs to the water to 'cool' off we had a ball hanging out and enjoying some true R&R. We had been planning on going to Ciao Bella for dinner and as the evening approached we got our lazy butts off the beach and got ready for the night. With the Full Moon making an appearance we got a table ON the beach at Ciao Bella. This was legit. We got wine a few meals to share and watched the surf lap at our toes. After the delicious dinner we walked down the beach to Stones Bar again and watched the fire dancers over a few beers. While there a local dog took a liking to us. As we left and started walking up the beach he joined us. He would walk ahead, then look back as if asking why we were so slow. As soon as we got to him I'd say "Good boy, let's go!" and he would
take off in front of us and lead the way again. Everybody thought he was our dog, it was hilarious.
Rounding out our last full day we were determined to go snorkeling. I must have left my brain on the mainland though, because this time I forgot my ID at the bungalow. No ID = no rental. Not letting this get us down we decided to go hike up to the viewpoint, which was on our to-do list. This was an easy hike that was paved the whole way. The view from the top was incredible though. You could see virtually one whole side of the island. Looking down you could also see where the island hour glasses in to a small point, it was ridiculous. We stayed up there for a while then started back down. On the way we found a large gathering of monkeys on and near the trail. At first I thought they were just innocent little monkeys, but that changed quickly. As soon as I was near a few of them two of the larger males ran up to me very aggressively and starred me down looking for a fight. See that he had
claws and mug that would chew me up I gave him the benefit of the doubt and kept walking. They didn't follow us, however, I pulled the camera out and went back for more. Getting a few shots of the monkeys and causing them to grow anxious at our presence we continued on only to find more. This time an older monkey that was was white in the beard approached us was also very menacing. As we went down the path we warned others going up of the monkey business ahead of them. What a great hike. It was nearing 2PM and we didn't have a plan for the rest of the day being that I thwarted our attempt to rent gear. As we were eating lunch I noticed a sign that advertised a snorkel trip around the island...with an afternoon option. I thought this might be a good idea. When we were finished Ashley spied a store that had the same advertisement, and the trip started in 20 min. Sweet! We quickly signed up and were off with a group of people to the pier. Splitting up into a few smaller groups we all climbed aboard some larger water
taxis. Our first stop was actually at "monkey beach." This was a small strip of beach with cliff faces going straight up for two hundred feet all around it. On this beach were a bunch of friendly monkeys roaming around. They were nice because the locals give them bottles with Coke in them. They grab the bottles of soda and run off with their prize. Back on the boats we stopped in a cove of Phi Phi Leh that we hadn't been to yet. It had a relatively narrow entrance and opened up. There were beautiful cliffs rising out of the bay with lush forests covering the landscape. We anchored for 20 minutes and swam around without snorkel gear. This was just a beautiful swimming hole. We were rushed out because the tide was going out and the boat wouldn't make it out of the bay in 30 min. Continuing around the island we anchored in another cove. Donning the mask and snorkel we jumped in the crystal clear water. It was about 15-20 ft deep everywhere and there was a ton of sea life. We snorkeled around and dove to the bottom for closer looks at some of the
fish. Our guide had brought food to feed the fish and soon there were swarms of fish trying to get the food. Swimming through schools of fish was a riot, I couldn't stop laughing. This was a lot of fun, but after about 30 min we were called aboard for our next stop. Now we had almost circled the whole island and we again dropped anchor, but this time in the main bay of the island. You could now go up on the only little beach of the island that was specifically for turists, or wade out into the bay and do some more swimming. We opted for swimming. Not knowing where we were exactly going to be going we took Ashley's new Sony camera with us. I had bought her a waterproof case that we put it in. After 15 min of swimming around we found out this case was not waterproof :-( AAAAAHHHHGHGGGGGG!!! We quickly took it back to the boat and took the battery out. Crap. Oh well, we went back out and found some shells and more sea life. This wasn't the best snorkeling area and we were happy to move on. I thought we were
going back now, but we still ahd one more stop to my surprise. This wasn't in a bay, just by the side of the island. This stop was one of the best for sure. It was deeper than the other areas we had stopped at and had some different marine life to check out. I had forgotten how much I loved swimming and couldn't get enough of it. Once everybody else was back on the boat Ash and I gave in and got back on the boat. As we circled the last piece of the island and were on our way back the sun started to set on the horizon. We got the best seat in the house for this view. Back on the island we got cleaned up at the bungalow then headed back to town. We visited a few bars that night and had a really good time trompin around the island like we owned it : )
Our last day on the island consisted of beers on the beach...yes please. It was like those dumb corona commercials, but we were drinking good Thai beer...Singha!!! We basked in the glory of the sun and island till noon
then checked out and went back to the pier to find our ferry. When we got back to Phuket we had a few hours before our flight and went to get some food. We found a nice little restaurant on the beach and I think I order about 5 meals. It was disgustingly delicious. While we ate we got to witness God's wrath as an intense lightning and thunderstorm pounded the island. After that feast we headed to the airport and were off for Bangkok.
Back in Bangkok
Making a relatively early start to the day Ashley wanted to take me to Muang Boran. To get there we took the sky train for about 25 min, then grabbed a taxi for another 30 min ride. I was constantly surprised at how cheap everything was. The half hour taxi ride cost all of 10 bucks...absurd. Ashley described this place as having many of the most famous buildings, statues, and temples rebuilt as replicas in this huge complex. Although not all of them were to to the original size, you were allowed to walk through them and and touch whatever you wanted. The whole complex was also setup in
the shape of Thailand with all the replicas established where they would have been on a map. We rented a golf cart and zipped around the complex, stopping at some to climb up the temple stairs, then jumping back in the cart. It was so hot that day it was all we could to keep moving and putting the breeze in our faces. After cruising around for about an hour, that was how long the rental lasted, we had seen most of what was offered and headed back towards the front gate. We grabbed a taxi and headed back towards the sky train. When we got back into the heart of Bangkok we went to go get dinner with some of Ashley's friends and co-workers. We met them at a great Japanese restaurant, Fuji. They have such good food. I played the over indulgent American and ordered two meals for myself. After dinner a few of them joined us to go out to a bar. A band was playing at the bar and we had a few drinks. It was a fantastic night, and it was great to meet Ashley's friends!!!
Due to the previous night's festivities we slept
in till the afternoon and didn't really get our wits about us till that evening. This was going to be a treat. Ashley had planned ahead and bought us two tickets for a riverboat dinner. When we got aboard and were shown to our seats. As we pushed off and started down the river traditional Thai dancers began dancing. Their style is very exquisite, and interesting. After a bit we helped ourselves at the buffet line. There were numerous choices, from sushi, to traditional Thai noodle dishes, to five different kinds of soup. Taking samples from many of them I quickly filled up, on just that...many samples. The rest of the float we went on the outside balcony and found that nobody was at the aft of the boat. Perfect. It was the perfect romantic setting for our last night together. We passed under gigantic bridges, past lit temples all along the sides of the river, all the while grasping at our time together as it slipped away. Once we were docked again we reluctantly got off the boat and went on our way.
'Spectacular ' doesn't begin to describe the time I had with Ashley. But as all
good things come to an end, I had a rapidly approaching plane ready to end the fun and bring me back to reality. We took our regular route from her apartment down the local city streets, as the vendors were just setting up for the day, up the escalator to the sky train, connected to the other train heading to the airport. It was hard to say goodbye again, after having just had so many adventures together. It was an unbelievable experience and I can't think of anybody else I would have wanted to absolutely dominate it with. As we kissed for the last time it was hard to let go of her : ( 22 hours, 6.5 movies, 4 take off / landings, 1 book, and 5 hours of sleep later I was back 'home.'
EPIC THAILAND TRIP ACCOMPLISHED!!!
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Ashley Holmberg
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Climbing on Phi Phi
I have found a number of places that provide guided climbing tours and equipment rentals. Also, some friends from work said all you really have to do is rent the equipment and show up at the pier and the fisherman know pretty much exactly where your head's at and where to take you. Just strike a deal with them (around 500 ฿ for the day) and they'll take us to go do our own thing for the day! Maybe a day guided climb might be better though- Here are a couple of places that provide those services as well as informational websites about the best climbs and where is safest (some of them havent been rebolted since the 80's... SKETCHY)!!! MY SHOES ARE COLLECTING DUST- we're gonna change that ;) http://krabidir.com/phiphiclimbers/index.htm http://www.spidermonkeyclimbing.com/courses.html http://www.railay.com/railay/climbing/climbing_phiphi_update.shtml http://www.phiphiholidays.com/rock-climbing-more.htm More to come :)