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Published: July 15th 2009
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Ko Phangan
Almost any shot you take from the beaches of Thailand are postcard worthy... Hey all!
So we're on Ko Samui now winding down our last days on the islands before we part ways in two days as Leila heads North to start her volunteer work in Chiang Rai and I move on to Cambodia. Sadly the weather here is a little crummy, so we haven't been hitting the famous beaches too much yet, but the town we're staying in (Lamai) is very nice and sort of reminds us of an island version of Kao Sahn back in Bangkok. Back are the stores selling polo shirts for $6, chic boutiques offering custom tailored Armani suits at rock bottom prices, and course 7-11's on every other street corner (on Ko Tao I only counted two, probably the lowest concentration we've seen anywhere in Thailand)... and even the first McDonald's we've seen since our first days in the big city. We settled down in a guest house with the first AC we've experienced since that time as well, and set up our base of operations at a beach restaurant nearby called Swing Bar which, true to its name, has swings for seats at the bar! So we're hanging out here enjoying the live music at night
Ko Phangan
And yet another... and waiting for the weather to clear up so we can make something of ourselves. We also explored the area a little bit, and last night found a sort of town square with open air bars surrounding a boxing ring for what appeared to be a free Muay Thai boxing event. Unfortunately for our fragile little minds, we didn't realize until after the first match started that it involved not full grown adults, as I hope one would normally expect, but kids literally no older than 8... and they were absolutely brutal with each other! It was pretty disturbing... they were throwing each other to the ground in ways that would have sent most kids crying to their moms... but these kids, serious and focused, kept pulling themselves up from the floor for more. What's worse, this fight was determined by a knock out... which also happened to be the moment we decided not to stay for fight 2.
Ko Samui is a very nice island though, there is a very impressive Buddhist temple north of where we are, featuring the famous golden "big Buddha" which stands about 12 meters tall, and some other beautiful temples throughout. There's even
Ko Phangan
Good snorkeling here bullfighting here!
One interesting thing I found about having visited three different islands here is noticing how they all have their own unique flavor. Ko Samui is world renowned as a family vacation spot (with kiddie boxing thrown in, apparently), Ko Tao is a beach bum paradise and ideal retreat for obsessive scuba divers, and then there's Ko Phangan... where visitors come to party all night long! Honestly, while it was far too clubby to be my kind of scene it was still a blast anyway to be a part of the crowd, bar hopping with sand and various spilled drinks mixing between our toes, music blasting from giant loudspeakers and huge signs spelling out the names of bars in huge fiery letters... it was outrageous and you had to love it! Many people arrived in their swimwear, decked out in glow paint and glow hair gel, waving around glow sticks and whatever else they could find... it was sort of reminiscent of that Bud Light commercial with Conan O'Brien... "vroom vroom the party starter!" There was a guy dressed as a leprechaun dancing on the bar, another one wearing angel wings sitting on his friend's shoulders all night,
Ko Samui
Dreary every day so far... and yet another wearing glow stick sunglasses... almost no words to describe it other than just downright silly. While our Danish friends went off to some Danish bar somewhere along the strip and Sean met up with some friends from back home, Leila and I met up with Steen and Andre (also from Crystal Resort in Ko Tao) and went into the fray with Luke, the guest house manager I mentioned in my last entry. It was fun, and we even successfully accomplished our emergency routine in case we ever got separated (everyone meets outside the 7-11... naturally!) and after a few hours of enduring the insanity we called it quits and took a taxi home. One last incident for the night, one poor Dutch girl clambered into the back of the cab (remember, taxis here are actually pickup trucks with two long seats on each side in the back) just as we were about to take off, passed out without saying a word, and half an hour later woke up and asked if we were in the port town yet, which was just 5 minutes from where we started. So she basically had to wait until the driver was
Hat Rin
Full moon party in full swing done dropping everyone off, then return her back to town, still decked out in glow paint, glittery feathery mardi gras mask on her head and all. All I could think was I'm glad that wasn't any of us!
Ko Phangan is famous for its full moon party every month, but it's also a famous for its beaches and snorkeling, which helped us a little with our lingering symptoms of withdrawal from Ko Tao. The guest house especially was great to hang out in, especially in the evening when they put up a screen in the restaurant and played movies for the late dinner and drinks crowd. Sadly we didn't have a chance to say goodbye to Sean before he left, but we heard from him once he arrived in Bangkok where he somehow ran into our friend Bono from our dive classes in Ko Tao. It's odd that in such an apparently big country with so many things for visitors to do, running into people you know seems to happen pretty often.
So we have one more full day in Ko Samui before we take off. I switched up my plan, so that instead of going up north
Glow paint
Someone getting painted up for the big night with Leila and doing a loop through Laos and Cambodia on my way back to Bangkok, I'm doing the loop in the opposite direction instead. So my next stops are Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville and Siem Reap (where Ankgor Wat is) over the next week or 10 days. After three weeks of beach bumming I'm about ready to move on. Cambodia is still recovering from is grim recent past so it promises to be pretty heavy, especially in Phnom Penh, but I'm looking forward to posting my observations when I'm there.
Hope everyone is well!
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