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Koh Phangan
Koh Samui PierWe enjoyed our time in Malaysia, especially considering the epic snorkeling day that we had, but we were honestly quite eager to return to Thailand. The weather was better, the food exceptionally better, and the people (tourists & locals alike) friendlier. Don't get us wrong - we would definitely return to Malaysia. We only touched the tip of the iceberg and feel there is so much more to explore. However, we were looking forward to our final week of our honeymoon which would be spent relaxing on the beach by day and partying by night in Koh Phangan.
The morning of our flight, we awoke to our hotel phone ringing and the receptionist asking if we still needed the taxi we had ordered for 6am. Casually looking at the clock and thinking we had overslept by 30 minutes, we realized that it was 6:21am and we had overslept by nearly an hour! Without even speaking to each other, we threw our clothing on and belongings into our backpacks and ran out of there on turbo charge. The taxi ride was an anxious 25 minutes, feeling grateful that there was no traffic and our driver seemed to understand our sense of
Koh Phangan
The perfect way to spend a day... relaxing on this hammock urgency; but also fearful that we would miss our 725am flight boarding time.
What we haven't shared is that we actually booked this flight last minute, and had another flight booked later that morning. The second flight would only have given us 1 hour to make our connecting flight to Thailand, and seeing as we were flying internationally and had no experience as to the size of the airport, we had decide to forgo an anxious trip and leave Perhentians a night early in order to definitely make our connecting flight. How ironic that at this point we didn't even know if we would make the newly booked flight!
Well, obviously we made the flight and in no time we had landed at Kuala Lumpur Airport. We transferred to the older but much nice Sultan Aziz "Subang" Airport after some much needed coffee shop time at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. We enjoyed every last drop of our extra large lattes, the first real coffee we had the luxury of savoring since Railay, which felt so long ago but really was only last week!
Before we knew it, we had landed in gorgeous Koh Samui Airport. This
is a beautiful airport as many told us in advance, but we have to say that our vote still goes to Kona Airport in Hawaii, for the most beautiful outdoor airport!
We went directly to Koh Phangan, by purchasing a van + ferry ticket for 350baht each. It was a quick trip over to Koh Phangan, and after taking a 15 minute songthaewa (ie. a pickup truck that has benches in the back for passengers to sit on, and it may or may not have a roof) for 150baht, we had arrived at our pre booked accommodation, Koh Phangan Beach Resort.
At first glance, this place is stunning; so much so that we skyped Stephs parents & Colin's brother the next day and showed off our gorgeous accommodation that was only costing us 700baht per night. However, we should have paid attention to the "terrible" reviews on TripAdvisor because under the surface, "terrible" doesn't even begin to cover it. The owner and his wife have no concept of customer service or even just of being nice people in general. They have a large list of absurd rules, including one that states you cannot drink alcohol purchased elsewhere on
Full Moon Party Crowd
Full Moon Party Crowd their property. We had walked to a local market and purchased some beers and they actually made our friend buy a beer from them when we returned and were just hanging out on the PUBLIC beach!! The drink prices were double those of anywhere nearby, and we firsthand experienced them trying to scam us! We were told that a bottle of Sangsom cost 350thb - we decided to purchase one along with Cokes and ice since we enjoy pouring our drinks to our desired strength (half and half of course!). One of the "rules" is they prefer people to settle their tabs every few days rather than pay as you go. They claim the reason for this being that it is easier for them to manage their incoming cash (or so I read in the owners response to a negative review on TripAdvisor). The Latvian female owner told us to pay after we had eaten the next day...... And the next day when we went to settle, the price had suddenly been raised to 700baht! Both owners were rude, arrogant and dismissive regarding this, telling us that they can charge what they want when they want, and to deal with
it or get out. It didnt matter that the day before, one of the owners directly told me that the price would be 350 baht - they decided the price would be raised, and that was that.
Another of their insane rules is that you must forfeit your passport to them upon check in. As well, since it was full moon period, we had pre booked and pre paid in advance, so we were in a position where we could do very little about this newly doubled bar bill. Of course there is always that fear that you will end up in Thai Prison if you go ape shit, so after we reminded the owners that they work in customer service and should learn to treat their customers with respect rather than attack them for asking a simple question as to why their bill was doubled, we opted to take a refund from the remaining nights we had booked and get the hell out!
We were VERY lucky that the place just down the beach where our fellow British Columbian friends were staying, along with our new friend from nearby Portland, Oregon, had one room left for the
Koh Phangan
My Wok & Me same price. And although the resort didn't have to same "cool luxury with a pool" superficial appearance, ultimately it was the kind of relaxing place we needed to be for the final leg of our trip. Plus, we want to chill on the beach and listen to OUR music! Koh Phangan Resort plays house and electronica loudly all friggen day! We love house music but sometimes its not appropriate to listen to, when all you want to do is veg out on the beach reading your book and alternating between the hammock in the shade & on the sand in the sun, earbuds in & your iPod playing songs by your favorite artists.
Our decision to change resorts proved to be a wise one. The final leg of our trip was spent doing exactly what we just described up above, as well as hanging out with Adam, Alex & Zach, and of course, partying.
Yes, that brings us to the one & only, infamous FULL MOON PARTY!
When planning our trip to Thailand, we knew that the FMP was an absolute must to check off from our bucket list. We've heard more than once that it is
Koh Phangan
View of the Gulf Coast from our plane from Malaysia more hype than anything, but we wanted to check it out for ourselves. Another tip we had heard was to check out the Haad Rin beach the night
before the FMP - apparently, the party is almost as good as can be expected the next night. We found this to be a very wise tip, as we had a blast at the Pre-FMP!
For starters, the buckets were anywhere from 50-200 baht cheaper. We weren't required to pay a 100 baht admission fee, as we were the night of the actual FMP, and the crowds were much less too (but still a significant amount of partying was going on). We had such a blast that night and couldn't even imagine what the FMP was going to be like, if the night before was that great!
After taking it nice and easy the day of the FMP, we headed in to Haad Rin with a group from our resort around 10pm, neon painted bodies & clothing and all. The beach was packed and the night started off great. Steph had painted the Vancouver Canucks logo on her arm which gained her a lot of attention. We even met a
couple who is from the same suburb of Vancouver as us and went to nearby schools with mutual friends. Talk about a small, small world! Unfortunately it started POURING and a lot of people ran off the beach quicker than our minds could process. Being from Vancouver, we are used to rain, and if it is combined with hot temperatures, we may even like it a little bit! We spent some time with a crowd underneath a hut that had an electrical current running through it's roof. The guys loved electrocuting themselves but we all quickly grew tired of that and out of drinks so the partying in the rain continued. Eventually the rain stopped but we were surprised at how few people were left on the beach.
We ended our evening munching out on various food available in Haad Rin - fried chicken, pizza, chicken sandwiches, burgers...... Colin & our friend Adam stuffed themselves silly! Although Colin nearly got in a fight with a Boston Bruins fan, we made it home in one piece around 430am, exhilarated from our first FMP experience. It lived up to it's reputation, but we would say it did so in a positive
way. We had heard so many warnings and negative things about it; for example, needles from IV drug use littered across the beach and glass bottles thrown everywhere, pickpockets, etc. However we didn't notice any of this and felt at ease the entire time.
The day after the FMP meant our trip was really coming to an end. We filled our final 2 days with a cooking class at My Wok & Me, which was exceptional value at 1200 baht each and included a bike ride to a local market and 3 dishes. We soaked up the sun, lying on the beach and in the hammocks at the resort, reading Game of Thrones (Colin) and Hunger Games 1, 2, & 3 (Steph). Those final days were the perfect finish to a perfect honeymoon. We didn't want to come home, but we were so relaxed and had no doubt that we would be returning to Thailand again one day soon.
After a quick flight to Bangkok via Surat Thani, and a couple hours on Khao San Rd meeting up with our friends we made on the trip, we found ourselves back at Suvarnabhumi Airport checking in our backpacks for
the final time. We had a 10 hour layover in Beijing, spent back with our guide Joe climbing the opposite end of the Great Wall from the beginning of our trip. We both slept for the majority of the 10 hour flight to Vancouver, and in no time we were back at our home in Coquitlam, dreaming up our return to South East Asia.
*we would like to dedicate this blog to the memory of the man who was staying at our resort, Field Paradise Bungalows, and was found the morning of the Full Moon Party, deceased on the beach nearby. This is a somber reminder that life is short and precious, and our time can come at any given moment. We all took comfort in knowing that this man was exploring the world and living life to the fullest on the day that he passed away*
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