Heaven and hell, not where you'd expect to find them.

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Jan 27.

Today was one of the best days of my life!!!

I woke up next to the girl i love with all my heart. After lazing about in bed for a while 😉 we stumbled down the street for some breakfast at the 89 cafe. I had the museli mixed with a bunch of fresh fruit and yogourt, jenn had a banana pancake, They were both excellent. After that we hopped onto a songthrew, which is essentially a pickup with two benches along the back. It took us to Ao Nang beach.
I can see why morgan says this is his favorite place in the world. The scenery is just stunning. Nice light sand beach, probably a couple km long, skirted by giant cliff faces, covered in vegetation.
We spent an hour just walking down the sand, with our feet in the warm ocean water, taking in the view, the perfect 30 degree weather, sunny with the occasional 20 second shower to cool us off. We sat at a cute little tiki bar and had some tropical drinks, way more expensive than usual, but still comparable to the price we might pay in canada, and totally worth it, just for the experience.

Right around that time, we saw our first monkeys, swinging in the trees behind the beach, cute we thought. After a nice sit on the beach, and a dip in the ocean, we found out what trouble those little bastards can be.

First we saw a little one sneakily try to steal the dress of a lady who was sunbathing, fortunately the guy she was with scared it off. Then we saw a group of the little fuckers run up on some poor girl and rip a sandwich right out of her hands, and when she tried to take it back, they hissed and showed their teeth and generally looked terrifying.
It was about this point that a large group of them started working their way towards us. Okay, we decided, time to go. So as we're gathering up our stuff, one of them grabs my sandal and starts to walk away with it. Well i growled and yelled and stomped at it, and thankfully it let go and skittered off. Cary 1, monkeys 0.

So after that fun, we hopped on another songthrew (this one costing 10 baht more for some reason) and headed back to krabi town. After a quick shower to wash the sand out of my butt, We had lunch at the "chilling" bar. I had the green curry with beef, jenn had a pork and basil salad, both were excellent. with a couple of cokes, the bill came to 200 baht, or about $6.50, pretty typical prices here. Ifr there is one thing thailand has to offer, its cheap, delicious food.

After a quick trip to the travel agency/internet cafe, where we picked up our ferry tickets to koh phi phi from the most delightful little thai lady, we headed across the street to the massage parlour.

Let me just say, I've never had a professional massage before. It is possibly the most amazing experience in the world. We layed on tables right next to each other while two thai girls worked stress out of places we didnt even know were stressed. For one hour, we got our feet, hands, arms, legs, necks, temples, boobs, shoulders and almost everything else massaged and rubbed down with oil. At the end of the massage, we dressed up and there was hot tea waiting for us on a fancy little table. Couldnt have been more relaxing. Then it was time to pay, 600 baht for both of us, or just under 20 dollars!!! I sure felt like a million though.

Walking out of there we headed up the block to an adorable little bar playing reggae music, with a sign that said "JODY" ordered a couple sangsom and cokes from the thai hippie with dreads down to his waist. He introduced himself as tom, and his cousin as boy, so easy enough to remember. So we sit down with our drinks, in pretty much the most relaxed state possible, when tom lights up a gigantic spliff and passes it around the bar. Insane this country is. We spent a couple hours there, sipping our drinks and talking to tom and boy as well as a quiet little swede and a fantastic german couple who live here 10 months of the year, running a travel agency for europeens. Some of the nicest people we've met without a doubt.
We went on to learn that tom is closing his bar down in 5 days and moving it off to an island that has yet to be developed at all. I cant wait until our next trip to thailand, when we can see what he does with that place. I'm sure it will be awesome.
Anyhow, turns out that tom also works on dreadlocks when hes running the bar, so tomorrow morning i'm going to get him to put a couple hours in on mine before we hop on the ferry. I can only hope Phi phi is half as awesome as krabi.

I've truly found paradise.

Jan 28

Woke up today and grabbed some breakfast @ the wild west cafe, had some tasty sandwiches, that were each accompanied by 6 french fries. Oh thai people, same same but different. Anyhow, pretty much every restaurant has baskets of condiments that come to the table depending what you're eating. One of the staple sauces, that you see everywhere is this lovely chilli sauce, called sriratcha, but its not the sriratcha i know that is more of a chilli paste, this one is almost like spicy ketchup or something, anyways, its delicious and I'll be sure to bring home a couple bottles.

The doorways in Thailand.... Most of the outer doors to places are of similar size to ones you might see in Canada, allowing people of all sizes to enter and exit without a problem. But its the things like bathrooms that have doors that are maybe 5'9", perfect for turning the top of my head into one big goose egg. Fuck you, doorways of Thailand.

train of thought derailed...

After breakfast we went back to Jody bar and got Tom to work on my dreads for a while. He made us some hand ground iced coffees and went to work with a crochet hook, pulling all the loose hairs into dreads and generally tidying up my head. After a couple hours we had to go catch a songthrew to the pier, so we said our goodbyes, exchanged emails and went on our way.

The pier was actually pretty neat, in a bus station sort of way. There was a gigantic military ship, sitting up on dry land, that seemed to have been converted into a restaruant or something.
Our ferry was suprisingly decent, I was half expecting a rusted out old barge, so anything but that was nice.
The ferry was HOT!!!! we sat inside for a while but it was so stuffy and hot we had to go up to the top, which was out roasting in the sun, but at least there was a little bit of a breeze. Anyhow, i got sunburnt and possibly a little sunstroked... After an hour and a half we arrived at ko Phi phi. Gorgeous!!! big green rock faces jutting out of the blue ocean.
Our gear in tow, sweating like mad we tried to find a place to sit down and have something to eat, and drink (no water on the ferry, only fanta.) So we stopped at the first place we came upon, it was a fancy hotel terrace restaurant. Our jaws dropped a bit after seeing the prices on the menu, but we ordered and it was really really well prepared food. Some of the best so far. When the bill came, the total was something like 450 baht. About 17 bucks or so. We would be hard pressed to eat so well in winnipeg for that price. I guess we're just so used to things being really cheap that anything more throws us for a loop.

After eating and resting for a couple minutes, we went off in search of a guesthouse. We couldnt find anything less than 800 baht a night. So we settled for a room in a kinda scuzzy place, with a fan and a bathroom. Good enough. We paid for 2 nights and after walking around for a while i think we wish we'd only booked one. Don't get me wrong, the setting is more beautiful that anything I've ever experienced, but this place is kinda full of dicks. None of the locals smile, the tourists are all the kind of people i like to avoid in my everyday life. There is loud music pumping everywhere, we can hear it through our walls. Maybe i'm just cranky 'cause i got too much sun today, but unless this place redeems itself soon, I might go as far as to say that I hate ko Phi Phi. We'll see what tomorrow brings before I make that judgement though.

If you want to see pictures, go to this link...

http://picasaweb.google.com/CaryBilcowski


Jan 29th, quick update.

Last night we headed out of the room for a walk on the beach, aside frrom the pumping electronic music it was really nice. I had a delicious kebab and we sat on the beach and watched a distant thunder storm over the mountain things.

Today so far I've twisted my ankle real good and gotten very pissed off at this town. We leave tomorrow.

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