Thailand for the Holidays

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season! It was a bit strange to spend ours in Thailand on the beach, but we were lucky enough to be with a big group of our girlfriends so it was incredible!
We left Bangkok on an overnight bus to Koh Phangan, an island off the eastern coast of Thailand. Koh Phangan is known for its amazing beaches and full moon parties. We found a great guesthouse not far from Sunrise Beach (the main beach), but on Sunset Beach (a really chilled out quieter beach) in Haad Rin on the southern tip of the island. The beach parties here are incredible. There's a row of bars that go right onto the beach, and each one plays different music and has flame throwers doing different activities. There's fire limbo, fire hoola hoops, even a giant fire skip rope. We both jumped in the giant skip rope, bailed the first time, but did so great we got a round of applause on the second try. We went to the full moon party on the 12th, absolutely incredible night! The beach is jammed full of people from all over the world, and the party goes all night until the next day. We had so much fun.
The beaches in Koh Phangan are unbelieveably beautiful. White sand, turquoise water.. but you feel bad the next day when you go down to the beach and they are still cleaning up the mess from the night before. This is definitely an awesome place for backpackers.. great vibe and atmosphere 24 hours a day.
Next we took a ferry to Koh Samui, another island not far, to meet Amanda! Koh Samui was alot of fun, but so westernized.. it felt like we were in Florida. The main street was lined with McDonald's, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, etc. On December 18th we picked Amanda up from the airport! It was so incredible to see her.. my housemate from home meeting me in Thailand! Amanda had been voluteering in the Philippines for 6 weeks, so she had tons of great stories for us. We spent a few days laying on the beach and partying at Henry Africas and the Green Mango.
Next we made a long trek from Koh Samui to the mainland and then across to Koh Phi Phi, a tiny island off the western coast. Koh Phi Phi was very badly hit by the tsunami in December 2004, so we were wondering how much redevelopment had happened, but they've managed to do a ton in the past 4 years. For the most part it's hard to tell that something so devastating had happened here. But if you go out of the main streets you can tell that there is still a lot of work to be done. Pulling into the harbour was paradise, it was a perfect blue sky and turquoise water. On the 23rd, Jenn, one of my best friends from home arrived with Cort, her housemate from Australia! It was an amazing reunion, they'd been backpacking for the past couple weeks on a break from school, so we had so many stories to exchange. Koh Phi Phi was pretty much just one big party. The majority of tourists here are Swedes, and they celebrate their Christmas on Christmas Eve, so that night was an incredible party! The vibe on the beach was unreal and everyone just partied until the sun came up. Because of this, Christmas was spent with a bit of a hangover.. but it rained all day anyways. I got to see all my family over Skype on Christmas morning, which was incredible! So nice to see everyone all together, even though I was a bit sad I wasn't there aswell. But the 5 of us girls all went out for a Christmas dinner and had duck, turkey and smoked salmon.. so I can't complain.
It was interesting to be in Phi Phi over December 26th, the anniversary of the tsunami. A number of people told us stories about it, and friends they lost. They told us that the main streets flooded up to the 2nd story, which is so hard to imagine when you're standing in those streets today. Someone said that around 1500 people died on Phi Phi alone, and around 90% of them were Swedish tourists. But it's good to see that the Swedes still jam into this island as though it never even happened.
We took a boat trip around some of the islands, including the beach from the movie "The Beach". It was so beautiful, but sad that it's such a tourist attraction. The bay is filled with boats bringing in tourists who have destroyed all the coral around it. But we snorkelled in and did what we could not to add to the problem. We also visited Monkey Beach, which as the name suggests, has a few dozen monkeys hanging out right on the beach.. but it's sad because they are so fat from all the food tourists feed them, especially the ones eating out of chip bags. But the tour was great to see around the islands and we did some great snorkelling.
We went for a few nice seafood dinners on the beach, which definitely didn't feel like backpacking! I had white snapper one night, and prawns the next, we had a few bottles of wine.. it was definitely well deserved over Christmas time!
On the 28th we took a ferry to Phuket to meet Holly, another one of our best friends from home! We picked her up at the airport at about 2am, and showed her Patong Road, the main touristy road full of travellers, cheap vendors and ladyboys. At about 5am Jenn, Holly and I grabbed a few Heinekens from 7/11 and sat on the beach chatting and catching up until the sun came up. It was so great to talk to Holly and hear how everyone is doing at home. We didn't stay in Phuket long as it's FAR to touristy, so we headed back to Koh Phangan for New Years. Had another great time partying on the beach here! We arrived on the 30th so it was hard to find a good place to stay and we ended up about 30 mins from Haad Rin and Sunrise Beach. It was really exciting for Jac and I to show everyone the beach party, because the energy you get as soon as you step onto the beach is indescribeable.
After New Years Amanda had to head back to Bangkok because she's off to New Zealand. Jac and I had to leave on the 2nd because our 30-day visas were up so we grabbed a flight to Penang, Malaysia. Getting the ferry to Koh Samui for our flight was a bit of a nightmare. There were far too many people for the amount of space on the ferries. We missed the first one, I made the second one, although I was almost trampled in the process. Jac didn't make it, so she had to wait around for the 3rd one. But finally we were on a plane to Malaysia!
Malaysia is such a nice change from Thailand, the people are so friendly and genuine here. It's not nearly as overrun by tourism and they also seem to have better english skills, so it's easier to communicate. But the big difference is that in Thailand they will do anything to make money off you, and because tourists haven't totally warped Malaysia, people are much more relaxed and caring.
We stayed in Georgetown on the island of Penang. It felt alot like the beginning of our trip again. The guesthouse quality was noticeably lower and you barely saw any foreigners. It was actually a really nice change. We went to the night market for dinner all 3 nights and it felt like being in Singapore again. The same food stands, that you order from and they bring the food to your table. Jac and I order bbq sting-ray one night, which was delicious. They had musical entertainment singing a selection of soft rock songs from artists like Celine Dion and Whitney Houston!
Holly, Jenn and Cort came and met us in Georgetown for 1 night, and we met a group of older Malaysian men who took us karaokeeing with them after dinner. It was such a funny, random night. They bought Jac and I a Chinese desert that looked delicious.. crushed ice with red syrup and chocolate ice cream. But when you dig down to the bottom you pull up a spoonful of beans, corn and some kind of black jelly. It was interesting to say the least.
Jac and I took an overnight train down to Kuala Lumpur the next night. We found a hostel in Chinatown, it's a bit rough around the edges but it seemed like an appropriate way to end our trip. KL is a really nice, modern city. We walked to Little India for lunch one day. Went to the Central Market and went to a fish spa. You put your feet in a pool full of fish and they eat all the dead skin off your feet. It feels so weird, I could hardly stand it at first, but they did a decent job. We've visited a few mosques here, today we went to the Masjid Negara which is one of southeast asia's largest mosques. It was really beautiful, and we spoke to a woman who works there to get some insight into Islamic religion. Malaysia is a muslim country, and we've been used to Buddhism for the past while. We've bought a ton of pirated movies and have been the hit of our hostel with our selection, so we've just been hanging out here at night watching movies.
Tomorrow we take a bus to Singapore and fly to Brisbane at night! We can't wait to get to Australia. I can't believe 3 months have flown by already. We've had such an incredible trip, we've seen so much, done so many amazing things, met such interesting people, learned so much. It's hard to believe that this part of our trip is over. The best part of the past 3 months has been the freedom we've had to do what we really want to do. We had no plan when we left Canada, so we've been able to go wherever we chose, whenever we want and do what we want to do. And because everything is so inexpensive here we haven't been restrained by money. This freedom is an incredible feeling, something that I will always hold on to. But right now I can't wait to find a home and get a job! I'm sure that feeling won't last forever, but I'm going to enjoy it for now! Australia here we come!

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