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Published: August 28th 2007
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Southern Thailand!
While my blog has been a bit behind, i've been relaxing in southern thailand! it was the perfect place to end 4 months of travel and try to have some "down" time before i get back to a busy schedule in the US. I'll say just a bit about it and post some pictures.
FIrst of all, the return to Bangkok was definitely a bit of culture shock! i went to khao san road so that i could catch a bus south, which is basically backpacker's ghetto! What a shock to have internet everywhere, copied CDs for sale, western salads, and ATMs where I coudl finally get some money! Now that I"m not traveling with my friends, i'm back to more budget travel, i.e. overnight bus rides, and AC being a non-requirement 😊
I got the overnight bus to the east coast, in the gulf of thailand, and went straight to Ko Tao, which is a major diving capital and probably one of the cheapest places in the world to get certified - they issue more open water certs than anywhere in the world except Cairns. Ko Tao is a cute, comfy little beach town with
loads of foreigners - i'm in low season, i can't even fathom high season! there are lots of cute restaurants, stores, bars, and ppl zipping around footpaths in motorcyles. there are some bits of quaintness to it, like the fact that you take off your shoes EVERYWHERE you go, before you go inside. when i wasn't diving, i hung out at the pool, got some reading done, and swam in the unbelievably warm ocean!
most of my time, though, was spent diving. i did my advanced course and think that i improved quite a bit. the divign is excellent, though visibility is not peak, i saw tons of cool fish, corals, and a number of sharks. I also did my first night dive which was fine, I think i prefer day. the best part is turning off our flashlights underwater and checking out the bioluminescent plankton.
I ended up spending a number of nights on Koh Tao, but when I was finally able to drag myself away I headed for the west coast - on the adaman sea. Between a REALLY long boat ride, followed by a bus, I had to overnight on the mainland in a nice
town called krabi which is base of many outdoor activities, but not really a beach town. I met a Dutch guy named Gertjan who I ended up travelign for almost a week with. For some reason, I always seem to be around Dutch people. It might be safe to say that I get along / make the most friends who are dutch when I"m traveling. Anyways, we caught a tiny boat to Railey the next morning - not technically an island but not accessible overland, so it really feels like one. Railey is a world famous rock climbing spot, and it's all gorgeous limestone (it looks a little like halong bay. i wonder why you can't rock climb there?) we had a very ghetto little hut which was actually quite expensive for $4.50 each per night. There was a toilet that doesn't flush (you wash it down with a bucket) which wasn't new for me, but what WAS new for me was not having a Sink. so, you sort of use one hose for everything in the bathroom, and then just...spit on the floor when you brush your teeth. and aim the thing at your face with one hand when
you want to wash your face. it was interesting.
Gertjan and i had tons of fun climbing. we did a quite long 30m one that gets really difficult at the end, Gertjan went first and didn't make it to the top. Once he came back down, he said, if you make it up there I"ll buy you dinner. I was like, done! I was quite proud to make it to the top, and he insisted on living up to his bargain and bought me delicious curry for dinner that night! we met lots of cool ppl on railey, it's very small and basically everyone there is clmbing (because that's what one does there), so it's a bit of a community. The first night we went out to dinner with this awesome canadian couple and hung out at a bar chatting with them until late. We had actually met them on the krabi-railey boat. At the bar the first night, i met a french couple who had been on my diving boat for 2 days. They were doing the fire shows (twirling the fire sticks) that they do here in s. thailand, only these were semi-dangerous indoors. the next day
we met a couple of girls climbing, an american and a swedish, and arranged to meet up with them and again spent the evening with them, as well as some scottish girls we picked up! everyone on railey seemed particularly cool for some reason, the entire environment was very, very chill. both the american girl and swedish girl had stayed at the same place gertjan and i were staying, but the american girl moved after one night, and the swedish girl had to upgrade rooms after she awoke to a rat in her bed one night. hmm, i had more trouble sleeping after i heard that story.
Next, we took off for a quiet little island called Phi Phi, which i really liked, particularly since we apparently got there at the tail end of massive rains! it was a busy place but somewhat laid back - no cars or anything on the island. this place was destroyed by the tsunmai, but i couldn't tell the difference. we did some great diving, including sunken ferry ships (speaking of, another ferry ship sunk last week here, luckily i wasn't on it!). i found it funny that the dive shops have all
fixed the price of diving, which is literally, to the baht, the same everywhere.
I met a lot of fun travelers and gertjan and i would hang out with them at beach bars every night! we also took a nice sunset cruise and visited the place where they filmed "the beach". On my last day, yesterday, I was walking down the street, i passed a restaurant and then another and noticed the menus hanging outside were identical, i thought to myself, "that makes sense, it's cheaper for them to just go in together and get one guy to make the same sign." (the basis of this being that basically all the restaurants all serve the same food here! or even if they put it on the menu, doesn't mean they actually have it in stock!) When i caught myself thinking this about the sign, it just made me laugh and realize how long i've been outside the US!
So, i rolled into bangkok at 5:30am this morning, after an overnight bus ride from the south which wasn't bad at all. I'm currently checked into a really ghetto hotel and deciding if I should withdraw more money from the
ATM to go shopping! Tonight, i'm meeting up wtih two of my classmates from Bangkok who i've heard so much about and have graciously been hosting many ppl as they pass through the city. Then tomorrow, I"m off for the US with a 7:30am departure! Looking forward to seeing many of you soon!
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justin
non-member comment
Look at you, Miss Adventure, diving, climbing, improving foreign relations; they should get you on a discovery channel show like "man vs. wild" (which is the best show ever) - it can be "Jaime vs. Wild" or "Woman vs. Wild", though you'd probably get sued for copyright infringement on the latter. Travel safely home, good luck with the long flight and the jet lag!