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Published: March 16th 2009
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Now, where did I leave off? What time is it? What day is it? What is my name?
This is what goes through our heads every day. Lets see. We left off at Bangkok and the ping pong show, by the look of the sun I assume it is around 6:00pm, and I now know it is Monday because Alex and I set aside an entire day to go to the Indian Embassy to try and get our visas only to discover it was Sunday....who knew?!!
Well our tans our a little darker (despite Alex's daily regime of 45 and shade on the beach) , we are full of instant noodle soup from the 7/11, and our body clocks are set at bedtime at sunrise. We have been to Bangkok and back and finally feel like real, raw travelers. How do I know this? Your measure of hardcore traveling is based on if you can survive a day in filthy clothing, your foot being peed on from the stall beside you, you sleep on some sort of hard lumpy rock that the Thai like to call a mattress, you pull a long black hair out of a 25 baht
pad Thai and still eat it - need I go on?
We arrived in Bangkok white and frightened, we are back dark and savvy.
We like to refer to ourselves as 'Team Budget'. Our normal routine is arriving in a new place and sniffing out the scene for the cheapest eats, guesthouses (otherwise known as DUMPS) and the basic necessity of a traveler: 7/11. It actually fills our day and we have a lot of fun making sure we keep our spending on track. It is hard when you meet a lot of vacationers who are not on a budget that don't understand why you cannot eat for $3 CND. We literally count how many instant noodle soups we can get for one restaurant meal and walk away in a traveler snobby huff. That's not to say we haven't ate a few good meals, shopped till we dropped on Ko San Rd and had some of the BEST massages of life.
Ko Phi Phi was our first stop - the best part of this island was the FREE buckets (the pails we are drinking out of in the pictures). This island was aesthetically breathtaking, and was a hot spot for every 20 year old from England, Sweden, and elsewhere to party. My first (and so far only major) injury was the night we collected 6 promotion flyers from the beach advertising for "Free Buckets" between very specific 10 minute intervals throughout the night. So of course, Team Budget was all over this and set out in the night with literally a map of every free bucket place between 10pm and sunrise. On our way to our second bucket Alex discovered we only had 3 mins for our next bucket at another bar. In a blink of an eye she was off, running as fast as I have ever seen her run. In fact, the ONLY time I have ever seen her run. The German we were with started running after her, turning back to me (running after him) shrieking and laughing wildly, "Shez an Alcoholic!! Shez an Alcoholic!!!!" Just as I nearly let go of a full bladder laughing and running, I tripped on a rope on the street (what the Thai like to call a speed bump), my bucket went flying and I hit the pavement. The bad news is I scratched up my ankle, the good news is we all got the free bucket. Stolen item count: 1 beach towel.
I hate to say it, and I only do because I am comparing it to a lot of other awesome places, but Ko Samui was total shit. Prostitution is everywhere and we experienced a dead mouse situation in our bungalow that I would rather not get into. That's all I have to say about Ko Samui.
Ko Pan gang kicked our ass. We left for the full moon party a few days prior and basically everyday is a party, full moon or not. It is insane and we loved every moment of it. We didn't do much sight seeing in Ko Pan gang because we usually woke up around 1 or 2pm, ate fruit and muesli, hit the beach for a few hours and caught every sunset possible. A party is a party is a party, but NOT in Ko Pan gang. We have a few pieces of advise for anyone who goes there:
1. Don't go in the pool - what ever you do. You will be drunk, sweating from the heat and dying for a dip but don't go in. If that water was 90% chlorine it would not kill the grossness that lies within those waters.
2. Hold onto your flip flops.
3. Don't rent a motor bike unless you want to finish your trip in bandages and crutches.
4. Don't EVER go in the pool. Gross.
So the first night I went in the pool and lost my goddamn flip flops! There is an not so underground operation going on in Ko Pan gang where they steal your flip flops from the sides of the pools if you did not take advise #1, the beach and anywhere else they can get their sneaky feet into and they resell them (USED) back to the tourists in the shops. Stolen item count: 3 pairs flip flops. An Irish friend gave me his because he had like 3 pairs, they were 2 sizes too small but fine for Team Budget. Here is a break down of the rationalization:
Kiki "But these flip flops don't even fit me"
Alex " Yeah but can you get used to them"
(Side note: Back in Bangkok I bought a new pair for 20 baht (basically a steal) but then managed to run through wet cement in a mad dash to the Indian Embassy to apply for our visas. The look on the poor Thai mans face crouched down where my foot mark lay in his just smoothed out wet cement was priceless. )
Ko Tao was chill. We left for Ko Tao for a few days with 5 of our Israli friends we met in Ko Pan gang...Big hearts and hugs for these amazing guys. We really just chilled here. The most exciting thing of note is that Alex fell of a Motorbike but there are not scratches to report - luckily!
Canadian travelers are not very common, but we have managed to keep running into two guys from Saskatoon in two of the islands, and now again in Bangkok. I nearly spit my Sangsom and Coke out of my mouth when one told me he took a poo in the ocean. Typical Canadian.
There is really so much to tell and not enough blogging time to sum up Thailand, if it weren't so expensive (Team Budget) to use the internet we would have wrote more. Next stop is Siam Reip, Cambodia.
(ps - picture uploading is making me mad, so catch latest photos on facebook!!)
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