That is the first text you read in the airport when you arrive to Bangkok "AMAZING THAILAND". And it sure is amazing. I was lucky to meet two crazy and funny swedes in Vietnam and they convinced me to join them to the even crazier full moon party at the Island Koh Phangan, so my first week in thailand has been intensive partying at night and chillin out on the beach during the day. There is soooo much to tell I don't know if I have the energy to tell you about it all. The full moon party was insane, a FREAK SHOW, people were completely wasted either on alcohol or drugs and acting like animals, I guess that says it all. So I personally did not enjoy it too much, it was simply an interesting event to observe "human behaviour". After Koh Phangan I wanted to go to the more chilled out island Koh Tao, but the thing was everyone who had been to the full moon had the same idea, so pretty much 10 000 people did the same thing. It was a night mare trying to find an acommodation. ON the way there I met two Irish sisters, Michelle and Lisa, real party animals, totally mad, but lovely girls! So we deciced to find a place together, finally after calling 20 hotels we managed to get a room at a man's house. He basically had rebuild his house so the rooms could be rented. The house was amazing, made of bottles. The location however was far up on the hills in total darkness, far from the beach. So the first night going back from a beach party we managed to go completely lost in the dark, ending up being surrounded and chased by stray dogs.....TOTALLY SCARY, NERV WRECKING, but again another crazy story to tell. we had to control ourselves from not panicking and running away like idiots so the dogs would not sense our fear. But still we managed to take some pictures during this scary walk home, so we could still laugh about the whole situation.
Then came the sleepless part, with having insects crawling on you during the night and the dogs still barking outside our room, basically the whole night. We all had to pee so desperately but we were to scared to leave the room because of the damned dogs. The next morning the first thing we did was to hit the beach and try to find a bungalow. We were really lucky to find one just on the beach. This was when the nice chilled out time began. But too much chillin out bores me so after a day of sunbathing I decided to go diving. It was aaaamazing, I even got to see a SHARK, a Barracuda and tons of other beautiful fish and corals, I was so amazed by the beauty in the sea, I just froze watching these creatures. And surprisingly I did not freak out or panic when the shark came, I was so sure I would, but it was just an amazing creature to see swim beneath you. I am defintely doing it again! They even have turtles here, but unfortunately I did not get to see one.
I just loved Koh Tao, but at the same time it was sooooo touristy, you basically only meet tourists, which was fun, but at the same time I did not feel like I was in Thailand. Therefore I decided to leave to a city called Nakhon, which a Thai woman had told me to be very cultural with lots of temples and mosques. So I took the night boat from Koh Tao to the main land last night, which turned out to be another sleepless, nervwrecking experience. It was a small wooden boat, with two floors, but the floors were so low you could not really stand up, and the "sleeping seat" was basicallly a carpet on the floor. To our great luck, it was quit rough and windy last night so most of the trip the whole boat was swinging up and down on the water and it almost felt like it was going to break apart everytime it hit the water. Now I can almost relate with the thai people why they don't fear death, or at least they don't seem to, maybe because they get to experience things like this soo much so they get used to it, I am almost getting there.
So this morning I arrived to Nakhon, completely exhausted. It is an interesting city since you can't find any tourists and most people don't speak english and they stare at you a lot when you walk down the street. There are supposed to be tons of temples to see here, but I was so dead walking this morning I could feel how my knees were like jelly, so I decided to go for a nap, which lasted for 5 hours! I just woke up and there is tropical rain and thunder, so I guess I won't get to see the temples today.
I guess I do miss the tourists a bit, so I will head to Krabi tomorrow morning which is on the west coast of the peninsula, close to Phi Phi and Phuket. But the positive thing about this city is that it is amazingly cheap, basically you pay less than half then on the touristy islands.
That was far from everything that has happened here, but I don't want to bore you guys with every detail, so until next time, take care!
hugs from a "druged from tiredness",
Amani
