It's been a hot minute, but Matt and I have been away for...6-ish weeks now. I've honestly lost count, like we all do when we're on holiday and the date/day doesn't matter. Nonetheless, I feel obligated to give you all a little tidbit of our trip so far. Landing in Bangkok after two 7+ hour flights, we took a bus to the Bangkok bus station, booked an overnight sleeper train to Surat Thani, on the coast, and an inclusive ticket with a bus/boat combo from Surat Thani to Ko Phangan. In all, we traveled for more than two days without a shower or a change of clothes. Sitting in the Bangkok train station for over 4 hours in jeans, when the temperature is 30 degrees and you just got off two plane trips isn't your idea of a good time. But, arriving in Ko Phangan and checking into the hostel and having a shower was the best thing to happen in two days. :)
We stayed through the Full Moon Party, on the full moon every month, where the whole island, and people from neighboring islands, party on the beach from 8p-8a, or longer. There's native boys twirling sticks on fire, a massive jump rope on fire...most anything you'd think would be fun, but then its set on fire and drunk people love it. Anything dangerous when you've had a few beers looks like a really good idea. We consumed buckets: a small sand-pail type bucket with your choice of alcohol (local will always be cheapest) and your choice of mixer, and red bull with about 6 straws, because you're always sharing with your new-found friends. (ps. The red bull here is exponentially more potent than that anywhere else in the world, so it's killer). After dancing the night away and wondering when the sun came up, Matt and I made our way back towards the hostel in search of food. Unlucky, we didn't find any so we just went to bed instead.
After Ko Phangan we headed to Ko Tao where I did my PADI Open Dive Certification. I was hemming and hawing forever about it, but after being approached on the ferry over I picked Ban's diving center. It included accommodation for the duration of your dive, plus your materials. Not to shabby, I thought, and Matt could stay for the same price as it was a double room so there was no penalty for him not doing his dive certification with me. It took four days, and was an amazing experience. I've got a bit of exercise-induced asthma and was a bit wary of the regulator (the air hose, basically) being able to give me enough air to not set off an asthma attack, but things went swimmingly. Not even my fear of sharks scared me away from this. It's unreal being weightless under the ocean just cruising around.
Next was Krabi and then Ko Phi Phi. On Ko Phi Phi we took an all day boat trip to see a few islands and snorkel. If you've never seen the movie The Beach, look up the island they're on in the movie, and that's one of the beaches we went to. It was really great, the weather was amazing, and our group was small.
Bangkok was our next stop, and after a 13 hour bus ride we were happy to be there. We splurged a little for a nice hotel for a few nights, then booked into the most amazing hostel. It had everything we'd want, plus an included breakfast that exceeded our expectations. The only down side was that we were a bit more out of town than we had been. But it was worth it. We were lucky enough to be there for the King's birthday, which was an 8 day celebration followed by 3 days of holiday (yes, please!) so the entrance fees was free to get into the Royal Palace and the other popular temples.
We spent one day looking around a very posh mall that had one floor dedicated to selling Lamborghini's, Porshe's, Bentley's, Spyder's and the like. The rest had Fendi, Gucci....any high-price brand name anyone like me couldn't afford but drooled down the display window. We booked another over-night train to Chiang Mai, in the north, which was supposed to be a really cool little city.
I think of everywhere we've been, Chiang Mai has been the best. Its a walled city, with more city surrounding that, but its very chill. Very few people bother you to sell you things, unlike Bangkok, and its relatively quiet. We tooled around, did a walking tour of the most popular temples, did the Saturday and Sunday night markets, both of which were MASSIVE. And we rented a scooter and drove up to a temple on a mountain and then checked out the area around Chiang Mai University.
The best thing we did there was a trip out to see the elephants, and to ride and bathe and feed them. We booked through our hostel, and unbeknown to us, we were the only ones to book on that day. We were picked up by the friendly owner of the hostel, Paul, and driven way out into the middle of nowhere, past every other elephant sanctuary or center. We got a bit nervous, passing everything and being the only two in the truck, but it turned out great. We changed into our mahout clothes (a mahout is the person who drives and keeps an elephant) and then learned 6 basic mahout commands in Thai, and then practiced them on a 4 year old baby elephant named Dodo. He was so precious...and big despite his being 4 years old. After that we had some lunch and then were told what elephant we were to ride that day to the river. I had a full-grown female (males are too aggressive to ride) and Matt had the same, but his was pregnant as well (which explains her numerous groans). Watching Matt get settled on his elephants neck seemed like a piece of cake. When they had mine ready next to the porch and I was supposed to just jump onto it, it seemed like a giant. Its so weird, but you look at elephants and you think, 'they're massive', but when you actually get up to it, on the ground level, it is the most enormous living thing I've ever stood next to (and been asked to jump onto!) in my life. It blows you away how big it really is up close. We rode for about an hour and a half to the river where we rode them into the river, and since Dodo came along, the mahouts had him shoot water out of his trunk onto me and Matt. Then we washed them in the river, throwing water from buckets onto them and brushing them with a hard-bristle brush. As much as I don't like to support organizations that exploit animals for human enjoyment, this trip seemed to be the most humane and the animals treated the best of anyone I've talked to who've done trips or any I've read about.
From Chiang Mai we got a 5 hour minvan to Chiang Khong, spent the night, and then crossed the border into Laos. From there we took a two day slow boat down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang with an overnight stay in Pak Beng. It was definitely an experience but I wouldn't do it again. The only plus side to it was that you could sit on the floor and stretch out instead of being crammed into a bus seat for 16 hours. And we met two couples that we pal-ed around with for the next few days.
Luang Prabang was a small quiet town, with some pretty temples to see. We got up really early one morning to see the locals give alms to the Buddhist Monks.
Then it was off to Vang Vieng for Christmas and tubing down the river. Luckily one of the couples we met had people meeting up with them in Vang Vieng so we had a big group of people to tube with and to eat a proper Christmas meal with that night.
After a bus to the capital, Vientiane, we flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for New Year's Eve. Phnom Penh doesn't have much more to offer than S-21, a Khmer Rouge prison during their genocidal rule from 1975-79, and their killing fields out in the countryside, and a few markets. It was really educational, especially for me, having written about the Khmer Rouge in Uni to see S-21, a brutal prison housed in an old primary school where people were taken, tortured, and after 'confessing' were taken to the killing fields and executed. We spent a day doing that, and learning about the rulers and how something like that could happen. Very sad.
From Phnom Penh we left the 1st of Jan, 2011 (!), I can't believe how time flies, and we came up to Siem Reap. This is where Angkor Wat and other amazing temples are. We did a two day tour in a tuk-tuk around the temples, getting up at 530a and 630a two days in a row.
Siem Reap is very similar to Chiang Mai so Matt and I have fallen in love with it as well. Its much quieter than Phnom Penh where you couldn't walk down the street for 10 seconds without someone in your face about a tuk-tuk/postcards/books/tours. Literally, every 10 seconds. It was tiring. It's been great weather, we've shed a tear for you in snow and negative degrees, but we wouldn't give it up for anything. Hope everyone is doing well, and that your Christmas and New Year's celebrations were merry. Much love to all! xx
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