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Published: April 2nd 2010
After landing in
Phuket, we quickly learned the most common question heard by tourists in Thailand. "Where are you going?" Everyone wants to know where you are going, because they all have means to take you there. We paid for a shuttle to take us to Phuket Town, but they needed a minimum of 6 people to make the trip worth their while. Unfortunately, there were only 2 other people that were waiting to go to Phuket Town. So we waited about 5 minutes before one of the drivers from the shuttle company told us that we should just pay another 100 Thai baht for a taxi and they would take us right now. We ignored him and started talking with the other 2 people that were waiting with us. As we were doing that, all of the drivers are talking together and looking at us. So 10 minutes later another driver asks us all to pay another 50 Thai baht and they will take us to Phuket Town right now. We all agreed that we should just pay, so the 4 of us stuffed ourselves and our luggage into a small sedan and rode to Phuket Town.
Once we
arrived, we were met by a very happy and helpful staff at the guesthouse (budget hotel) where we were staying at. The next day we walked out the front door of the guesthouse and the first thing we heard was, "Where you going?" We learned that the best way to tackle this question was simply to answer with, "no thank you" and smile right back at them. Otherwise, you would be talking with them forever waiting for a chance to end the conversation in a polite way. Phuket Town was a full of small motorcycles (most of which where carrying 3 or 4 people), street vendors, buses, restaurants and small shops. Most of the people were very friendly and smiled at everyone.
We were very anxious to see the famous beaches, so the next day we took a bus to
Kata Beach. This was a busy tourist town, bustling with bars, restaurants and hotels. After the bus dropped us off we walked around and found a very nice hotel that gave us as deal. We then went to the beach to cool off in the ocean while admiring the sunset.
The next day we took a bus to
Phang-Nga. This was a very small town and most tourists only stay 1 to 2 days, but we found it very charming. The next day we booked a boat tour of the
Phang Nga National Park were we saw
James Bond Island, a floating city and some beautiful scenery.
The next day we spent walking around the small town and planning the rest of our journey. We then took a bus to
Krabi where we stopped to have lunch. Then we traveled by boat to
Railay Beach. What a beautiful place this was, with clear water and beautiful rock formations. Here we relaxed by the beach for a few days and took a boat tour around
Koh Phi-Phi and
Maya Beach, which is where they filmed the movie The Beach.
After a few days on the island we headed back Krabi. Where we jumped on a bus to
Khao Lak. That evening we had a break from Thai food and had some authentic pizza and pasta. As we were walking back to our hotel we saw a miniature Doberman pincher chewing on their owners shoe. We could not resist petting the little doggie. He was still in the
puppy stage and was very fun to play with.
The next day we rented a small motorcycle and explored the coastline. Xiomara even tried driving for her first time! We found some great beaches, including one that had an abandoned hut which we claimed for ourselves. That evening we went to one of the local restaurants and after we were seated, two men and a baby elephant walked up to the seating area! The elephant did a few tricks and one of the men handed out some flyers for elephant trekking. This was something that we were very interested in, but we wanted to do it with an eco tour company in hopes that they would treat the elephants better.
The next day we walked to a restaurant that was located on the main street in town. After lunch we sat down on a bench and waited about 5 minutes before a bus that was headed to
Khao Sok stopped right in front of us.. We have had great timing in Thailand so far with buses and boats!
After arriving in Khao Sok we were met by 4 people holding big signs filled with photos of the
hotel they worked for. They rushed up to us and were all talking in broken English at the same time! Talk about high pressure salesmanship! We agreed to go with a guy who seemed to have the best looking place of them all. He told us that he would take to other hotels if we did not like his. But when we wanted to go somewhere else he said that he was too busy so he dropped us at the main street and we walked to another hotel. The Kho Sok Rainforest Resort. The staff was very friendly and they claimed to be an eco lodge. The hotel had about 12 bungalows and was located right next to a river. After we were shown our room by one of the staff, he pointed out some monkeys in a nearby tree. He then asked what our names were and then said "I am Sexy Man." We both laughed and later discovered that one of the other workers was named Jackie Chan Man.
After putting our bags in the room, I went down to the river and tried out the rope swing. We then wandered over to the hotel restaurant and
enjoyed some great food! The family that owned the hotel was also seated in their small open air dining room and made us feel like part of the family. We later played jenga (the tower of building blocks game) and Sexy Man kept making funny comments. If you were taking to long, he would say "today not tomorrow". He also referred to himself as the champion. When I asked if he was the Jenga champion, he responded with "Yes, everything."
The next day we went elephant trekking, although it was not quite the experience we were looking for, it was still fun. When we arrived were directed to an elevated area where you climbed on top of the elephant and then we were off. The guide was on foot, armed with 2 sticks, one of which had a spearhead on the end of it and the other was more of a flexible whipping stick. He was constantly talking and shouting to the elephant and a few times he used the whipping stick, but then we tried to look at him every time he got close enough to use it. This seemed to stop him from actually hitting the elephant.
It was a bumpy ride to the small waterfall. Once there, we dismounted the elephant and went swimming for a few minutes before returning. We climbed back on top of the elephant and returned back to the starting point where we fed the elephant some cut up pineapple pieces and then parted ways. We were a little sad to leave the elephant, even though we were not allowed very much time to get acquainted with him.
A guide picked us up and drove us to a monkey temple. There were some locals sitting around watching the monkeys that were roaming around freely. Our guide bought some bananas so that we could feed the monkeys. It is so interesting to see how much they resemble humans.
We then had an afternoon jungle hike to see their famous big red flower. These flowers bloom for only a couple of days and then they die. So they can be very hard to see. During the hike we noticed something moving in the treetops in front of us. Our guide hurried off the trail towards the noise and motioned for Xiomara & I to follow. As we walked as quietly as we
could, I couldn't help but think of the deadly King Cobra that inhabited the area. Our guide stopped suddenly and told us that there were two Gibbon monkeys ahead of us. He called to them, "whhooohooo." To our amazement, our guide spoke perfect Gibbonese! They called back to him and then came flying through the treetops in our direction. Stopping once they pinpointed our location. They just sat an observed us for a while from a safe distance and then moved on.
After returning to our hotel, we swam in the river to cool off. Unfortunately, some of the fish were hungry and if you stayed still for too long they would bite your feet! Lucky for us, they were not strong enough to break through the skin.
The next day we lounged around in the morning and then explored the town in the afternoon. We walked to one of the other eco resorts, that was very nicely built. It also had the river beside it and it was full of monkeys! They were even swimming! So again we observed these monkeys for several hours. There was also a rope swing that we used to plunge into the
river.
The following day we took a tour to
Chiaw Lan Lake, which has limestone outcrops protruding from the lake that reach 315ft. (95m) above the water level. We felt like we were in the tropical version of Milford Sound (in New Zealand). As we traveled by boat through the emerald green water, we looked up in astonishment to see a perfect circular rainbow around the sun. Everyone in the boat looked at each other and asked, "has anyone ever seen this before?? Thoughts of Extra Terrestrials and Armageddon raced through my head. But then we all came to the conclusion that it was just a beautiful rainbow that circled the sun. When then reached the floating lodge, where we swam in the lake before having lunch and traveling by boat to a trail head. After hiking for about 45 minutes we reached the entrance of the
Tham Nam Thalu Cave. From there we used headlamps to trek through the bats, bugs and subterranean streams for about 1 hour. The theme song from the Indian Jones movies was playing in my head the entire time as we climbed, jumped and even swam to reach the other end. I think
that I even started to hum the tune.
After our tour we traveled by bus to
Surat Thani. Once again we had excellent timing at the bus stop. After traveling for a few hours we jumped off the bus and found ourselves right in the middle of the city. We walked for a about 15 minutes before we found the hotel that we had read about in the Lonley Planet book. However, it seemed that they described the hotel much better in the book than what our eyes were telling us. We looked at one of the rooms and Xiomara found a giant man eating cockroach waiting in the bathroom for its next victim. So, Xiomara's knight in shining armor appeared right on time to slay the fearsome beast. But we still did not have a great feeling about the place and I did not feel like staying up all night on guard duty, so we handed the key back to the hotel manager and told him that we had changed our minds. We apologized for the inconvenience but assured him that he had one less man eater to worry about.
We headed back out on to
the busy street. It was getting late and our bags were getting heavy. So we decided that tonight we would splurge and stay at a nice hotel that was also mentioned in the Lonely Planet book. As we turned down the street where the hotel was supposed to be located, we noticed a decent looking hotel and checked out one of their rooms. To our surprise, the rooms were very nice. They were cheaper than the hotel before and there were no cockroaches included!
After a great nights sleep, we walked around the city and researched transportation to the island of Koh Tao. That evening we checked out a night market that felt like a fair. The streets were full of vendors selling everything from fruit shakes to DVD's. We seemed to be the only non Thai people there and it was a very cool experience.
The next morning we took a bus to
Don Sak pier were we boarded a boat that stopped at Koh Samui and Koh Pha-Ngan. Then we had to change boats to get to
Koh Tao. Once we stopped in Koh Tao, it felt similar to when we landed in Phuket. Everyone wanted
to know where we were going. Fortunately, we called and booked a room ahead of time and they sent a taxi to pick us up. After waiting for 5 other people we all piled into a pickup and rode through the washed out dirt roads to the other side of the island. We then arrived at the Diamond Beach Hotel. It sounds fancy, but it only costs $15 per night! The beach was beautiful and there were very few people on it! Xiomara and I looked at each other and said "now this is what I was expecting from Thailand!"
The next day we spent snorkeling the reef and I climbed up to the top of the rock island for a bone chilling jump into the deep blue sea. The photo makes it look like I am going to land on top of a kayak. But don't worry, it is just an optical illusion. We passed the afternoon by laying in the shade and reading our books while listening to the waves crash against the white sandy beach.
The next day I went back to the busy side of the island and rented an ATV (four wheeler) and
Xiomara and I toured the island. The roads around the island are rocky, very steep and full of ruts. So it was a self guided adventure tour. We found some great scenic points and some beautiful beaches. We finished our tour at the Sunset Bar and then headed back to our hotel.
The next day we woke up to rain. Xiomara chose to stay at our hotel for a relaxing day. As for myself , I could only sit still long enough to finish breakfast before I jumped on the four wheeler to drive on the muddy roads. Some things never change!!! I returned to the hotel in the afternoon soaking wet with a big smile on my face. After the rain had subsided, Xiomara and I went into the town and walked around some of the little shops. We then had dinner at the Zanzi Bar.
The following day we packed up our things and purchased boat tickets to
Chumphon were we walked around for a few hours while waiting to take the night train to
Bangkok.
As our train screeched to a halt, we boarded and searched for our seats in the dark train car.
It felt like a old bus, the seats did recline but felt like they could fall apart at any moment. We tossed and turned until about 5 am when all of the lights flickered on.
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Papa de Estados Unidos
non-member comment
Cosmic!
Hijos: Man, you guys are living in another dimension. For sure! Super, super cool! Will break out the laptop at the next 4:20 meeting and show off your postings. Miss and love you both sooooo much! Papa