Island Paradise in Thailand

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We're now on the last leg of our trip. A mere week and a half before we are back in the US again. It's going to be weird not sleeping in grimy hotel rooms, but I think that I'll welcome the change.

Anyways, Thailand has been a trip. It's so different from any other country that we've been to thus far. Both in culture and scenery, as well as how we've approached it. It seems that up until Thailand we have been constantly on the move and incredibly active every moment possible. However, we're starting to wear out a bit and decided to slow things down a notch. We have experienced less of the culture and less activities, but instead have opted to relax a bit and absorb some of the most beautiful islands and beaches that you could ever imagine.

We started the trip in Bangkok and spent a day and a half exploring the city. Bangkok is a chaotic city with tons of traffic, and it's definitely a culture shock. The street food can be totally bizare but it's all super cheap. We took a river taxi a short ways down the river from where we were staying to check out the Grand Palace. Like I've mentioned before, Hesam and I aren't huge on sight-seeing, but this was different. The Grand Palace so impressive that both Hesam and I were in complete awe without really even understanding what we were looking at. It had giant statues of bizarre mythical creatures, temples that were completely gold, huge murals depicting strange mythical scenes, and a massive shrine to the "Emerald Buddha." Every building is covered in ornate carvings, mainly Buddhas, and every item in The Grand Palace was constructed with such attention to detail that it was very impressive. The rest of the day in Bangkok we did a lot of wandering, as well as went to the Vietnam embassy in order to get our visas. We got some Thai massages, which cost like 5 bucks for an hour, and ate some weird mysterious Thai food. We also bought a bit of new clothes since it's so cheap here.

The following day was a big holiday here because it was the queen's birthday as well as some Buddhist holiday. Therefore, all temples and sights were free, as well as taxis in tuk tuks and everything government owned was dirt cheap. (Tuk tuk's are motorcycles that have been converted into a three wheeled taxi with a small bench on the back and an excess of personal panache.) Hesam and I took advantage of this and saw all kinds of different Buddha temples and shrines including a 15 meter standing gold Buddha, and the lucky Buddha who is supposed to grant your wishes once a month (and we were luckily there on that day). We also went to the government owned tailor in which we got custom tailored suits for half of their already cheap price, since it was a holiday.

That night we took an overnight bus to the island of Ko Tao. Ko Tao is a quiet little island in the Gulf of Thailand, which is covered in jungle and serene little beaches and coves. We stayed at a little hotel that was on the far side of the island that was right on the beach in a little cove and the only structure in sight. However, to get there, you had to climb up and over the mountain in the middle of the island on a very unkempt dirt road. In order to make this easy, we rented some dirt bikes and it actually made the ride really fun. The ride was steep and moderately difficult, even on a motorcycle. However, we were brave (or foolish) and made the ride in the dark with just the light of our headlights. It was pretty crazy riding through the thick jungle and seeing frogs and bats along the road as we rode by the light of our headlights. On the island, we did some snorkelling. It wasn't even close to as spectacular as the Red Sea, but still had water in the 80's and planty of tropical fish. I even saw a cuttle fish swiming around a mere 5 feet from me. We topped off the afternoon by finding some huge boulders that hung over the water and jumped the 25 or 30 feet into the water. It was a little creepy climbing out of the water since you had to climb over huge rocks that were covered in crabs and these weird fish that would flop along the rocks out of the water.

The following day we caught a boat to Ko Phangan, which is another tropical paradise island just a few miles from Ko Tao. This time, we stayed more in the city and found an awesome bungalow that was literally right on the beach. Our doorstep had one step onto the sandy beach. The beach was glowing white with bright emerald water and was so relaxing that we ended up actually staying a few days here just relaxing on the beach. We read on the sand and jumped in the water when we got hot. There were tons of beachside bars so we would just drink fruit smoothies and cocktails and relax. It felt really good after the last two months of being so busy and on the go every moment of every day. One of the days we decided to rent these cheesy little scooters for a mere 5 bucks per day, and then explore the island. We rode for hours and went up and over a large mountain in the middle of the island. We got a map that said that there were some waterfalls near by so we went on a mission to find them. However, the road quickly disintrigrated and soon we found ourselves riding on steep, windy dirt roads on these cheap scooters that had slick tires, barely any power and negligible breaks. We were miles from town and there was nothing but the random little local bungalow along the road. Hesam went down once on the scooter. It was a minor fall without any injuries, but it later proved to be a problem.

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