Southeast Asia

Vietnam!

jsgknaus — Fri, 3 Jan 2014 12:00:00 GMT

So it has been over a month since my last update, sorry everyone! But don't worry I've been keeping a journal to show people so all is not lost :)

This was written a week ago... --> now in the south but "We are now in Northern Vietnam, after spending a couple weeks in Laos which maybe I'll recap here eventually! I'm currently writing this on Cat Ba Island while bundled up in full sweat gear under a somewhat flimsy duvet, because it's freaking cold here! (And the past few weeks of our trip have ranged from somewhat chilly at times to 'I'm unprepared for this weather with just my sweatshirt and leggings"). But I still can't complain because we were thinking of going north to Sapa which was highly recommended but then it snowed there... And this is still probably warm compared to Jersey! Anyways, we've been in Cat Ba since December 20, but we got here fairly late that day so there's not much to tell about then, other than we had some great Pho with vegetables at a little local spot

December 21
We signed up for an all day kayaking excursion around the various bays and islands here and started nice and early at 8:15am and it was still quite chilly. We took a traditional Vietnamese junk boat out to the first kayaking spot, Lan Ha Bay, where our guide Rose showed us around the super calm water and various islands. We first stopped at a little beach and skipped rocks like the children we are, and then checked out a 'shipwreck' which was just a boat made out of concrete that had washed ashore/sink (not surprising that a concrete boat wouldn't fare well?). Then Rose mentioned that she wanted to try and find a hidden lagoon and of course we were on board, so we all paddled our way around nooks and crannies in the massive rock mountains looking for any openings. We soon found it and venture through the slit until our kayaks could go no further and then we jumped out into the water (knee deep and surprisingly warm for how freezing the air was) and checked out the lagoon. It was pretty cool, a secluded area surrounded by rock walls, with one side having a little cave/beach and the other some more water and rocks (sounds a lot less cool than it looked haha). After checking that spot out for a bit, we returned to the kayaks and continued on to a bigger lagoon that was very pretty with water even calmer than the bay and a traditional fisherman pulling in his net. It would have been an awesome spot to swim around but unfortunately we were way too cold for that so we just floated around and took pictures until we returned to the boat for lunch.

Our next stop was a short boat ride away that put us closer to Halong Bay. Here we had more people join our kayaking crew and we all set off for another beach and under some fun cave-y archways. After the beach we all went off in separate ways for some solo kayaking and Hila and I found another cool lagoon! We headed back to the boat and at 4ish the boat headed home. On the way, we saw another boat parked near some rocks and people were making a fuss and then we realized it was because there was as family of endangered langurs sitting on the ledge! It was so awesome that we got to see them since they are really rare and only like 65 exist today! And we saw 5 including 2 babies! After all the excitement we made it back to shore where we had dinner, played some dominoes and retired early.

December 22
Today we shared a motorbike and explored the island some more! We stopped at the local market and picked up some fresh fruits and veggies for the ride and then head off to the national park. We first stopped at Hospital Cave and were led on a quick tour through the various rooms carved into the rocks that were used to house Vietnamese soldiers during the war. We saw where Ho Chi Minh slept and the pool and cinema areas as well. We almost had to pretend we were Canadian when the guide asked where we were from but he got distracted and never asked again ;)

Back on the motorbike we went until we got to the national park entrance! There we paid our entrance fee and stated our 40 or so minute trek to the peak/viewpoint. We decided to count the stairs and got to well over 500 until we gave up, unable to classify what rocks on the vertical climb counted as steps anymore! At the top, the view was really cool of all the mountains around us and a town in the distance. It was even cooler from atop the rusty, rickety tower labeled 'Danger No Climbing' where we had a complete 360 view around!! Sorry mom and dad... We made it back down safely obviously and munched our snacks before snapping more pics and heading on the journey back! Eventually we got to the motorbike and then ate at a great local spot called 'Mr Zoom', where we also had dinner and breakfast before leaving on the 24th!

December 24
Made it back to Hanoi where we were staying one night before venturing off again somewhere new. We celebrated Christmas Eve with some new friends we met on the bus ride home, Andrew and Eliza. Dined at a local spot that literally only had 9 menu items (mostly fried) but was constantly packed. We ordered a bunch of things and shared them all with our duty free wine that was delish! Then we joined everyone - locals and tourists - in celebrating Christmas Eve with drinks and silly Santa gear.

December 25
Slightly hungover with time to kill before our bus at 7 pm to our next destination, we wandered Hanoi some more before catching a $5 movie at the Vincom Theatre :). At 7pm we boarded our lovely sleeper bus to Phong Nga. It was 3 rows of almost completely reclined bunk beds with 2 aisles separating them. Quite cozy for us short people, but I imagine not as comfortable for others. We ended up getting separated and I had a top bunk window bed in the front of the bus with 3 hilarious British people who kept me thoroughly entertained until the bus went lights out at 9pm... Don't be fooled, lights out did not mean sleep seeing as the ride was quite bumpy and the horn was in CONSTANT use, as is customary throughout Vietnam. I managed to get a few hours of sleep though until we were thrown off at our stop at 5:30am- I can't even get started on the logic behind that - but we called the hostel we wanted to stay at and they eventually picked us up. Our whole point of getting to Phong Nga was to check out some of the incredible caves that recently (2011) opened to the public, so when we were told the tour we wanted to do was every other day meaning leaving right now or in a couple days, we chose now!

We booked a full day tour to two caves with swimming and trekking and lunch. We went to Porcupine Cave as well as Red cave, with treks through rice fields, tall wheaty looking fields, up and down jungley mountains and of course through the caves. We learned about the different formations in the caves and how various floods affected them and we got to take a freezing swim through Porcupine Cave to our lunch spot! The day was really fun and quite tiring so we passed out early at about9pm...

Muang Ngoi - Laos

jsgknaus — Sat, 7 Dec 2013 11:19:00 GMT

December 5
We got up early to pack, return the bikes and grab some breakfast before the 8:30 pick up for the bus to Muang Ngoi. All seemed to be going pretty well until we had to argue with all the bus drivers about not squeezing 4 people into 3-person seats on the bus. The ride was the usual, driver flying around the mountainside like it was a video game but this time a level harder with the added challenge of swerving around the potholes in the ground and 900 people in the streets. Needless to say, it was extremely difficult to sleep but was only about 4 hours - and no one puked, so it was bearable. At Nhang Kiaw (?) we grabbed a Tuk Tuk to the boat and munched on some coconut cookies until 2pm when we piled onto a long tail for the hour journey to Muang Ngoi. Muang Ngoi is super cute, kinda like Tonsai in that it's off the beaten path; has only one "main" road where everything is with a super cool huge mountain towering in the back. Most of the cool restaurants have riverside views and are great at night, the sun sets behind the mountains and the moon floats in the black sky, great stars too!

December 6
Breakfast at Ning Ning's - had Shakshuka that was actually just an omelette with tomato onion and TONS of garlic. Little kitty jumped on my lap while I was eating so I shared my breakfast with it! Then we journaled on the porch for a little. Found in the guidebook that we should go on a hike so we did! Saw a little cave - got really dark and we heard a noise so we ran out squealing hahah. Then we crossed a cute little stone path across a baby stream and walked some more and found a ton of flowers with sooo many butterflies! Really pretty ones with blue and turquoise, monarchs, little white little yellow, orangey ones! So exciting and so we spent a good half hour there on the side of the road just trying to get a good picture of them :-)
Kept walking, came to a fork in the road - went towards Banna and Huay Ban villages. Saw fields with cows, took some pics with them for another 15 minutes haha. Massive beehive anger over the path to the bridge that Hila walked so I went through the water.
Saw kids fishing - had caught a snake and fish!
Walked through more fields and caught a glimpse of a snake but it was gone when we tried to find it...Went to Banna, wandered through the town and got lunch at a restaurant on the end with a cool view and hammocks. Ordered curry but they made me really boring noodles instead. Wished we had our books and more food. We walked home and stopped at the weaver/restaurant on the way home and scheduled weaving for the next day!

Dec. 7
Woke up early and had the buffet breakfast which was tasty! Then went to our weaving workshop which ended up being us doing some weaving for 30 minutes each and then getting really bored haha then we spent the rest of the day journaling and reading next to the river...

Luang Prabang - Laos!!

jsgknaus — Wed, 4 Dec 2013 11:18:00 GMT

Nov 27
Day one of Laos adventures starting with a cross over the border and beginning of a 2-day slow boat to Luang Prabang (very calm Mekong River ride! Cold at times) Read A LOT.

Nov 28 - Thanksgiving
Pak Beng stop on the way to Luang Prabang - a little hellish haha forgot it was thanksgiving and had a boring dinner but then remembered and found an apple

November 29
Luang Prabang finally! Adorable city, has a curfew at 11:30 so gets a bit boring especially during the week. Lots of French influence and really pretty flowers and clean! Great night market with tons of handmade stuff: scarves, bags, slippers, clothes, jewelry, everything! Foooooood! So many fruit and sandwich stalls that are delicious. Thus began my coffee shake obsession!

November 30
Walking tour of city - museum, temples, got lost across bamboo bridge
Went out at utopia bar

December 1
We started the day with a late breakfast at Joma, which was a bit disappointing and left us hungry so we grabbed some shakes at the stalls in the market. We were staying in a guesthouse pretty far from the main city center so we decided to switch somewhere new and ended up at Tephavong. It was nice and very close to everything for about the same price! We wanted to check out the viewpoint that the boys told us about, but ran into our new English friends (Grant with the ponytail and Willy) so we just walked and talked with them until they had to catch their bus to Vang Vieng. We then crossed the bamboo bridge and ate a delicious late lunch at Dyen Sabai consisting of our favorite eggplant dip with sticky rice and Lao fondue! Next we stopped over at Garden of Eden again to hang out and see some jewelry! We ended up being there for quite some time and Nic even taught us how to make really cute bracelets :) We basically spent the whole night there and she even made us some great Laos food - we helped! We picked some little veggies and peppers, fried up some tempura eggplant and of course ate a lot! We even tried some pig brain, which was surprisingly delicious but I wasn't about to have more than one taste since it was not only pig brain, but also a foul looking mush haha other than that, Nic had cooked up some traditional buffalo laap which was tasty, sticky rice, pickled veggies, sautéed veggies, morning glory with garlic, soup, and a couple other things that I can't really remember haha all delicious too!

December 2
We checked out the viewpoint and Buddhas foot which were pretty cool - lots of Laos stairs haha! Our new running joke is about how Laos "stairs" are crazy and they are all uneven, steep, random sizes and shapes even if they're like 'nice' paved ones...

December 3
We woke up at 5:50am and bundled ourselves as best we could with the one outfit we had leftover from laundry day so we could go see the daily ritual of giving of alms to the monks. It was freezing cold and we had no idea where we were supposed to be walking, but soon found the procession of monks walking single file along the sidewalk receiving donations of sticky rice and bananas, and other things that I didn't manage to see. It was very crowded with tourists snapping pictures everywhere but it was still a nice thing to experience. We're hoping to catch a calmer one in a quieter town. We fell back asleep for a little and when we woke, decided to rent a motorbike to head over to the Kuang Si waterfall. The ride was really nice other than the occasional massive potholes in the road. We got some shakes at the entrance and wandered in. The first thing we saw were some adorable yet slightly awkward looking bears in a rescue center. They were a bunch and they were just hanging out in hammocks or wandering around their home. Afterwards we found the waterfall which had several levels to walk up, each being cooler than the rest. The water was so clear blue and magical, it looked like a fountain of youth or something haha. We bumped into Alex (Dutchie) and he told us Chef had food poisoning at home, so we all trekked together to the top of the waterfall! At the top Alex started feeling not so hot and on our way back down he may have spewed a bit :-/. He quickly went home while Hila and I hung around for a bit longer - Hila went on the rope swing but I was way too cold for those shenanigans... We hopped back on the motorbike and made the 45 minute drive freezing our butts off as the sun set! In the evening, we had some dinner and headed back across the bamboo bridge to Garden of Eden to hang out and drink a couple beers before going out. Nic and Lola were there and we had some delicious beer snacks - lemongrass, garlic & kefir lime peanuts + banana chips nom! At around 8:30 we walked back across to Utopia where we were expecting the lively party we had encountered the last time. Unfortunately for us, it wasn't a Saturday and the mood was pretty chill so we got bored and just wandered back home.

December 4

Today we slept in until 11 and had a nice little breakfast at a bookstore cafe while we planned our next steps for Laos. After deciding that we would travel to Muang Ngoi the next day, we booked our bus as well as some mountain bicycles so we could check out Tad Sae Waterfall. We were told the cycle would be mostly flat and about 15km, but it was mostly uphill (and we quickly found that our bikes were quite shitty) and felt like WAY more than 15km. The worst part was that we had no idea if we were even going in the right direction seeing as there were no signs for the waterfall anywhere. We reached a massive downhill (after walking up a pretty big uphill) and rested our weary legs on the lovely ride down, all the while wondering how the hell we would get back up... We made it to the bottom and kept going but after seeing the same road over and over we eventually started to get discouraged after biking for more than an hour so we stopped at the next gas station and asked for directions. With a little nod and an arm wave, we were directed left, or so we assumed, and we started pedaling up the dirt road that curved left off the main street. In hindsight, it was so lucky that we stopped and asked there because we never would have made the turn off the main road if not. Up and down some dirt hills, we finally made it to the river where we caught a mini long tail for the 5 minute ride to the park. Inside the park was beautiful! Just like at Kuang Si, the water was clear blue and the whole place looked unreal! We pranced around in the water taking pictures and dipping our feet - it was pretty late and the sun wasn't as hot so we didn't go all in :(. After seeing all there was to see, we were starved and decided to make our way back home. After no debate, the decision was made to take a Tuk Tuk back home/up the treacherous mountain so we bargained a fair price and hopped on. Little did we know that we were waiting for 3 more people and that they were taking their sweet time in the park. Several empty bags of chips and cookies (they were very empty to begin with) and an hour later, the crew finally made it back and we set off... Our Tuk Tuk driver asked us to lie about the price we were paying if they asked (can't help it that we're awesome bargainers... Just kidding we were just broke and he took our low offer) but we didn't lie. Oops. Anyways, the sun was down and the mountains were quite chilly as we drove home but it was only about 20 minutes until we were back in town. We showered and messaged the Dutchies to meet for dinner as it was all of our last nights together! Agreeing upon Indian, we all dined until we were too stuffed to move, and then we reluctantly moved... First stop was Nic's (Garden of Eden) where we bought some great jewelry and said goodbye, and then we went to Reggae bar that was unlike any other reggae bar we've ever been to. The boys wanted to play pool so they put their names on the list and we drank a couple beers at the bar while waiting for their turn. Little did we know that there was plenty of entertainment in store for us while we sat. At one point, a Madonna song came on, which inspired about 10 of the 15 people (mostly males haha) in the bar to all join in on some sort of "electric slide" dance routine in the middle of the bar, which then continued on - with slight variations for songs - for the rest of the night. The pool table was lively with some excellent players and eventually the boys were up. The Dutchies played the pair that beat the duet that had been on the table since we arrived, and they somehow managed to beat them - the first time at least, when the other team accidentally hit the black ball in ;). The second game wasn't so lucky and the boys were knocked off pretty quickly. By this time it was 11:15 and the curfew would be in effect soon, so we meandered our way home and said sad goodbyes to our favorite Dutch munchkins we'd been traveling with for weeks.

Mae Hong Son loop (partial)

jsgknaus — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:15:00 GMT

November 21
Camping in the national Park!

November 22
Cave lodge - walked to the cave through the slippery rocks in the river and then realized there was a much faster/easier way once we got to the cave :)

Nov 23
"Whitewater kayaking" at Cave Lodge and then back to Pai again for a night!

Nov 24-26
Super speedy ride from Pai to Chiang Mai again, relaxed and roamed the city - said bye to some of the Dutchies (only Alex and Chef now) and the four of us are heading to laos!

Pai

jsgknaus — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 11:03:00 GMT

November 18
Today we drove from Chiang Mai to Pai on motorbikes in our little biker gang of 6 - super fun!! It was my 3rd time driving so maybe not the best since the roads were not for beginners (up and down mountains) but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and we made a bunch of stops to take pictures and eat so it was totally fine and dandy! At one point, around 4pm I think, it started downpouring and so we all took a pitstop about 30km outside of Pai at a national park to wait it out... But it wasn't letting up so after about an hour, Roy and I decided we would rather just go in the rain - it was getting late and already dark. Roy bought a raincoat off some random Thai guy but I didn't have any rain gear - remembered and then forgot when we were packing our smaller bags for this trip ugh so I just got soaked haha... Hila, Chef and Alex waited but left like 30 minutes after us and ended up having to drive in the rain anyway. I actually had a ton of fun driving in the rain and dark and fog though :). We had a Thai guy who lived near Pai lead us through the mountains and it was definitely really helpful. Some notable things:
- saw like 20 cows huddled together in the rain on the side of the road at night
- the other Thai kid who rode with me and Roy and the guide totally wiped out at one point in the rain on a mountain, pretty crazy! Roy and I had to swerve around him!

About an hour in the rain later, we got to Pai and luckily in Chiang Mai we had met this guy, Peach, who owned a hostel in Pai and reserved room for us all! So he somehow managed to find us and lead us back to Peach Pai where we got to take hot showers and chill until everyone was back - gave us a shot of whiskey to warm us up haha! Once everyone made it safely back and showered, we went to dinner and came back and hung out a little - I passed out at like 11 with my hand on my book haha exhausted

November 19
Hot Springs

November 20
Waterfalls

Chiang Mai

jsgknaus — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 20:26:00 GMT

November 15

After going to bed at midnight, we woke up at 5am to catch our bus for a visa run at 6am. Creepily empty and dark outside, we managed to find a Tuk Tuk who took us to the bus terminal where we had some healthy breakfasts - Mcdonalds for me and Subway for Hila... Should have gotten another hash brown since I was still starving after. Anyways, we rode the bus but both had a tough time falling asleep even though we were so exhausted.

4 hours later, groggy and confused, we hopped into a Tuk Tuk with several other people to take a 10 minute, 15B ride to the border. Once there, we were astounded by the chaos around it - there were people standing everywhere and little stalls selling trinkets - but we found out that the border is not usually like this and that a revered monk was having a procession across the border literally at the exact moment we decided to cross ... Literally the exact moment meaning we were standing at the Thai immigration window showing our passports when the officer just walked outside to take pictures instead. Luckily we found some American man who said we could follow him through the procedure since he's done it before. We realized that the whole process actually would have taken ~5 minutes had we not had to push our way through mobs of people chasing this monk and deal with the distracted officers. Luckily for us the parade was farther now and the streets mostly cleared out when we had to cross back to Thailand from Myanmar and we no longer had to fight our way anywhere.

All in all, it was pretty interesting to witness the parade and it took up some extra time so we ended up with only a couple hours to kill. We found a little restaurant that was quite busy - always a good sign - and had wifi! We ordered some lunch (and it actually came out vegetarian this time) but Hila's green curry came out cold which weirded us out and spoiled our appetites. We hung around there until we decided it was time to head back to the bus station to get back to Chiang Mai.

November 16

Today we're doing an all day cooking class

We were the first people to be picked up, at around 8:30, and our instructor was so friendly and nice. We were handed a laminated sheet with all the meal options and told to check off 5 that we wanted to make. Of course Hila and I made a point to choose different ones so we could have double the variety :). We picked up 4 other passengers, Jamie - 22 year old British guy, Raquel - 18 year old British girl, Ralph - German man, and ___ youngish Canadian girl...

We drove for about 25 minutes to a market where our teacher showed us all sorts of things - we examined different kinds of rice, looked at some curry pastes, taste tested fried bananas and fried sweet potato - and lastly went into the butcher area which was pretty horrifying and really made me question eating meat ever again... At one station there was live fish and frogs, and Jamie ordered some frog which the woman at the stall horrifyingly slaughtered in front of everyone (Hila and I squeamishly looked away but I glanced back over too soon and saw her skinning it or something blegh). We passed by big pig heads and blobs of meat before escaping back to the vegetables where our instructor explained to us about lemongrass and types of basil leaves, etc... Happy things woo! We then hopped back in the bus to the adorable farm where our instructor lived and the class would be held. There, we each stood at our own little stations and began crafting delicious meals! We started with different soups - I made Tom Yum with tofu and Hila made chicken in coconut milk soup - amazing. After dining on those, it was back to the stations to make our curries and chicken dishes! We all started with a slight variation of the same 5 ingredients, which we mashed with a mortar and pestle into curry pastes! Yummy! We then returned to our stations and added ingredients to our pastes. Hila made green curry and I made Kao Soi so my meal had noodles, half of which I boiled and the other half deep fried :). After our curries were made, we moved on to our chicken dishes - I made Chicken with basil leaves and Hila made Fried Chicken with Cashew nuts! With those complete, it was time to help our new friend Jamie fry up his poor little frog (which Hila and I both took a bite of anyway...)! It tasted kinda like chicken and was not as strange as I'd assumed it would be.

After lunch we had a little bit of down time where we read and journaled as the 'staff' prepped for our final dish and desserts! For our final dishes, I made pad Thai and Hila made fried rice with pineapple - both to die for - and then sticky rice with mango and pumpkin in coconut milk yuuummmm! Afterwards, I managed to harass this amazing woman for all she was worth and got the recipe for my favorite rice cakes, and Hila's favorite, papaya salad WHICH we got to make - and put 10 chilies in which was unbelievably spicy so I only had like 3 bites before I died for about 10 minutes. Then, some of our group was in a big rush and annoying, so we hurried our way to the lantern festival. At the festival, we waited for about 1.5 hours listening to monks pray and stuff which made us pretty antsy... Finally, we heard over the loud speaker that it was okay to start lighting our lanterns (Hila and I shared one) so we held it over one of the hundreds of torches all lined up in the grass (that somehow were lit all of a sudden hahah) and then everyone lit theirs and theeeeen there was a big firework and we all sent our lanterns off and it was actually the most magical thing I've ever seeeennn!

November 17
Hungover (eh still drunk), we went and got some breakfast to recover - the stupid Asian in our room woke us up at like 4am packing up or something? So annoying... But then we decided to rent bikes and drive up to Mae Rim waterfall - climbed the 10 different levels and went swimming a bit!

Bangkok 2

jsgknaus — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:53:00 GMT

November 12

We basically spent our hungover day eating and sleeping, but we did also manage to be somewhat productive... In the evening we went to Jhasper Fashion so David could have another fitting for his work clothes and afterwards headed over to this humongous, 10-story, extremely confusing mall to look for some fancy clothes to wear to the sky bar. We failed miserably at finding anything, so we gave up and just went to the food market as planned. The market was in Nana and we had:
- Khao Soi Kaa (some soup dish with chicken)
- a rice noodle dish that we ordered as vegetarian but actually came out loaded with weird fish and stuff that we didn't like
- aweeeesome Tom Yum soup
- superb pad Thai made by some crazy chef who was featured on some Iron Chef show or something
- mango with sticky rice mmmmmm so good

November 13
Feeling refreshed after waking up at 10am in our pitch black cave of a room (no windows!), we wandered to the Israeli restaurant down the street where we dined on some delicious Shakshuka and pita and Israeli salad :). Midway through we made up our minds to go to Chiang Mai for the lantern festival, rather than go to Cambodia like our plan from 12 hours prior... Therefore we researched buses and visas (we'd have to do a visa run now since we've almost been in Thailand for 30 days!!!) and found that doing the run from Chiang Mai would be cheaper and better overall. So, with that settled we embarked on what we thought would be a 1 hour journey to the bus station to buy our bus tickets for tonight. We went local and caught the 15 bus to BTS (the sky train station) which ended up free somehow, and we also met THE CUTEST little, old Thai man who struck up conversation with us about Miami (and knew the UM Hurricanes!!) and told us about how in the 50's he hitch hiked from Massachusetts to Florida! His English was phenomenal and we had such a great time talking with him! Our stop came so we had to get off the bus, and we quickly bought our tickets for the sky train and rode it to Mo Chit (which I had a really difficult time not saying awkwardly since everyone was pronouncing it "mo' shit"...). Once we got to the Mo Chit stop, we figured it would be easy to find the bus terminal since we assumed it would just be there... Everyone made it seem that way? So we asked someone to make sure and they pointed us towards exit 1 and we were off. We took a glance at the map, saw "Department of Land Transportation" as the only possible option and made our way there. Once at the DLT, we wandered inside what was definitely the government building I'm sure you all assumed it was when you first read it, and looked extremely out of place and confused. We managed to flag down the help of some business guy who drew us quite an unhelpful map to the bus station, that we followed straight into a huge market with flowers and food - It was nice but definitely not the bus station. So, we enlisted the help of the only white guy we found and he told us to take a cab, so we did. Dumb and dumber finally got to the bus station ~1.5 hours since we first left, and managed to purchase some tickets for the VIP bus to Chiang Mai that night at 8:30pm. With that out of the way, a funny little Thai man at the information desk drew us a new map guiding us to the local bus area where we could catch the 3 all the way home, which is what we did! And it took another 1.5 hours in traffic, with a creepy man behind us pointing at stuff, weirdly touching my hair, and mimicking us clapping or something, and another dude who woke himself up with a cough/spit up that was quite pleasant. We decided not to hate on the bus ride too much though since it only cost us 8 baht and there are protests going on in Bangkok which were probably the reason for the unnecessarily long trip. We eventually got back to the Universe Inn and gathered up David to go get an awkwardly late lunch/early dinner at that hole in the wall spot we liked earlier! Afterwards, we bought some new tank tops on Khao San road and coconut ice cream on Rambuttri (?) and headed home to shower and pack.

Knowing what not to do, we were able to efficiently get back to the bus station by 8:15 to get on our extremely ballin' bus ride where I'm sitting in giant reclining seats with my fuzzy blanket and bread/cupcake snack box in my lap!

Bangkok

jsgknaus — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 11:41:00 GMT

November 11

Dreading our 3 hour ferry ride to Chumpon, we prepped with some Dramamine a little too early which resulted in extreme grogginess and antisocial behaviors on the taxi ride to the ferry, but also a nice nap on our surprisingly empty and calm ferry ride. Well rested, we then waited a few hours for our bus in the most boring place on earth where we wandered to a market and essentially just got laughed at for being tourists over and over again. With a lot of effort, we managed to order something easy - green tea a from one of the vendors and waited at a little picnic mat on the grass. Instead of the plain green tea we were expecting, we were presented with what basically tasted like melted green tea ice cream which we sipped politely before disappointingly making our way back to the boring bus station. Eventually the bus came and our 8-hour overnight ride to Bangkok went quite quickly! We arrived in Bangkok near Khao San road at around 6am and wandered for a while until we found an acceptable place to stay. Feeling pretty well rested, we managed to find somewhere to eat breakfast (had a really good falafel sandwich?!) and David, one of Hila's friends from home who's also traveling, met us there! Having been to Bangkok before (and only there because he decided to evacuate Vietnam before the storm) he was a phenomenal tour guide and took us around to see the temples! Among them were The Grand Palace and The Big Buddha which were flooded with tourists taking pictures left and right.

Exhausted, we made our way back to the room and napped, with plans to meet our Dutch friends for dinner and drinks later. We couldn't wait for them, as hunger makes us impulsive people, so we set off for a dinner place recommended by David's hotel receptionist. It was literally a hole in the wall (like, literally ... no doors or anything) with plastic tables and chairs strewn around the street and it was CROWDED! We had to wait for a few minutes before a spot for 3 opened up at the end of a shared table. The group we shared the table with was a few older (like 60's) people who told us they'd been coming to eat there for years! It was quite tasty and probably the most authentic dining experience we'd have for the entirety of our trip hahha

Afterwards, we went to Khao San road with our Dutch friends - and ate scorpion!!! Which was surprisingly really tasty haha - and drank and danced at some random bars and had an all around fun time! Now we're hungover.

AY LUBEN

jsgknaus — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:21:00 GMT

November 5

First off, I'd like to say thank f'in God for Dramamine and that I officially change my last opinion of the worst ride of my life. Our 3 hour ferry ride to Koh Tao was quite possibly the worst experience of my 22 years of life. We knew as soon as we pulled up to the pier that it would be a rough ride, but we had no idea what was in store. I have no idea how to describe the ride other than that it felt like a 3 hour rollercoaster ride to Hell and that I actually wanted to die. I think 90% of the passengers threw up, including one lady who, thankfully we didn't see, went to vomit in one of the trash cans as we hit a big wave and thus proceeded to smash her forehead on the wall. Basically, when we all walked onto the pier in Koh Tao, we looked wrecked haha but luckily when we got to our hostel, the 3 boys already in the room weren't horrified and chatted us up. They were from England and ended up being great fun and we spent most of our time with them for the duration of our stay.

November 6

I signed up for my open water scuba certification classes in the morning (and stay free at the Hostel for the duration of my course) and was told to come back at 4:30 for the first day's activities. Having the whole day ahead of us we all rented some motorbikes and hit up some great beaches around the island where we swam in awesomely clear blue water and played 'HORSE' with a volleyball we found. At 4:30 I went back to the dive school for the 3 most boring scuba diving videos ever, finally finished after what felt like 5 hours (but I think was only 2), and then meet back up with Hila and the boys to get dinner and eventually go out to the one bar that was open. This was also the start of our new pancake obsession, nutella and condensed milk over a crunchy crepe basically. Mmmmmm we got so many every night to follow :-D

November 7

Day 2 of my certification started at 9:30, and we finished up the last 2 videos, took some quizzes and then split at 11 for a 3 hour break. The afternoon portion was in the pool and we learned a bunch of skills and practiced everything before our first real dive the next day. After my class was done, we pretty much did the same thing as the night before but another girl, Abby, who had been traveling with the boys earlier, met up with us and joined the fun.

November 8

My third day, and the day Hila and Nate were also scheduled to dive, I started earlier than them to take my final exam (got a 94 wee!) And then we all went on the boat to our dive sites. Unfortunately since we were all in different programs, we didn't dive together or spend much time together on the boat but the dives b were still lots of fun and we saw some cool fish and underwater life! My group practiced more skills but this time officially in the ocean and we survived them all, and then we swam around for ~40 minutes at each site. The two we went to were called Twins and Sairee Bay. The boys were headed back home to England soon and leaving Koh Tao the next day while Hila and I would be diving so we had some drinks and said or goodbyes early.

November 9

Our last 2 dives were scheduled for the morning and we had to be at the dive school by 6:30am! We crawled our way over and had to settle for 7/11 croissants since our pancake man was nowhere to be found that early. We done at Green Rock and White Rock, practiced more skills and saw more cool stuff, which I would post pics of, but got them on a CD and have no way of transferring over... So you'll all have to wait until I get home to see haha

By the time we got back at noon, the boys had packed up and left, so we took naps to recover from our early wakeup - and I ended up sleeping for 5 hours... We made a new dorrm friend, Dave, who we hung out with that night.

November 10

Today we had to check out at 10am, and are currently sitting in a cafe charging all our devices and killing time before our 3 hour ferry and 12 hour bus ride to Bangkok. WISH US LUCK!

Khao Sok

jsgknaus — Tue, 5 Nov 2013 14:04:00 GMT

November 2

During the day we hung at the beach and got mani/pedis - the pedicures came out nice but the manicures did not dry and we managed to mess them up within seconds - side note: Hila had a ladyman do her nails ;)

In the evening we walked around the shops where I bought a nice journal to keep all my little bus passes and papers I've been collecting along the way, as well as some green friendship bracelets with our Canadian buds :)

November 3

Today we set off for Khao Sok National Park and caught a local bus to the Krabi Bus station we stopped at once before. From there we just made the 11:00 am (got there at 10:57 to be exact!) minibus driven by what very well may have been the 2nd worst drive known to me (first being the one in Fiji that actually made someone vom out the window haha). I came to the conclusion that the cars here must be much different and more difficult to drive, my first assumption being that our driver felt like he was playing a video game, because I've never seen anyone lean their whole body left or right to turn a wheel... Don't get me wrong, it was kinda fun since the ride still felt like we were in a video game or The Fast and The Furious 7 seeing as we were weaving inches away from cars and driving on the other side of the road and all sorts of other illegal stuff haha. That being said, I'm also positive I was the only one with my seatbelt on [be proud Mom and Dad!], but with my seat being a direct shot out the front windshield in an accident, I felt it was necessary - or maybe I'm just not as into video games as I thought.

Seeing as all car rides (even the most ridiculous ones) make me sleepy, I cursed myself for the 14th time for forgetting one of the many travel pillows I have at home... Regardless, I popped in my headphones and sat back to enjoy the ride.

Some notable things and commentary from our trip:
- more of the same Thai landscape as all the bus rides we've taken, but lots more sunshine! Interestingly, everywhere we've actually stopped and stayed has been very different, but all the journeys to and from have looked very similar!
- we stopped to switch out the dried flowers hanging from the rearview mirror for some fresh ones - unnecessary? unless they're some danger prevention omen in which case totally necessary.
- snacked on some "smoked" almonds that were not what "smoked" means in the US... More like barbecue - Hila put it well, "they're not exactly bad...but not good"
- I have no idea how bus stops work here... I think people are just picked up on the side of the street
- not going out last night was such a blessing in disguise because if we did I (Hila) would have def vommed

We made it to Khao Sok and two Spaniards in our minibus told us they were staying at the jungle huts so we followed them there and booked a cute little room for 300B per night that has a nice fan, electricity AND hot water!! It's 4pm now and we just had a late lunch at the jungle huts restaurant and are figuring out tomorrow's activities!

November 4

Our morning started with a 7:30 wake up and breakfast in the foggy mountains before we embarked on an organized Lake Tour we booked the night before. We rode for about an hour by car, with a stop at a market with fresh fruit, nuts, spices and meats for sale. Curious as to what the stall by our van was selling, we asked the woman about the vegetable she was chopping, only to be offered a free sample of some delicious little coconut/pumpkin pastry! Mmmm, at that point we decided that we would definitely be asking more questions at markets :)

We got to the pier and bought our national park entrance tickets, hopped on a long tail (scored some VIP seats in the back of the boat woo), and drove through the big lake for an hour until we reached the main area of floating huts and tables and a little swimming area. Shortly after, we ate some lunch (and requested vegetarian) of sweet&sour vegetables, oyster sauce veggies (I think), fruit and of course rice.

Then we took off on the long tail again to the jungle where we trekked through mud and rivers for about 1.5 hours, stopping to look around at tarantulas, bamboo, and all sorts of other jungle-y things! We made it to Namtaloo Cave, put all our belongings in waterproof bags and ventured in to see bats and frogs and rocks! Inside, we waded/swam through cold water that puts our cold showers to shame! At the end, we all shut off our lights for a couple minutes and just sat in the pitch blackness - accurately described by Hila as "the kind your eyes never adjust to". Afterwards, we hiked back to camp where we dined on some more fruit, fantastic fried sticky rice with banana inside, and some cake-like dessert baked in a banana leaf - again, mmmm. My stomach is growling as I write this...

Eventually, we just reversed our first journey and got back home to the Jungle Huts. Showered and starving we made our way to the restaurant where we hung with our friends again including Spider lady, monkey lady, Roy and Alex, as well as some new friends Yoop, Chef, some Canadians and some really young, awkward Israeli boys who we forced Hila to sit next to and entertain :-D.

November 5

After some deliberation about whether we wanted to stay one more day so we could go swimming in the lake with Spider Lady, we realized the date and decided to head up to Koh Tao since our visa would expire in 10 days (!!! Went so fast!!) Having heard that it was now monsoon season on the East side, we were skeptical but still wanted to give it a try and learn to dive!

We caught a 12pm minibus to Surat Tani where the ferries to Koh Tao leave. Luckily our driver was much calmer and very nice - but we took some Dramamine juuust in case...we'll let you know how it goes when we get there!

Long Time No See

jsgknaus — Sat, 2 Nov 2013 18:15:00 GMT

So it's been a really long time since we've blogged but I guess it's since we've been having too much fun :) ...and also probably since we haven't had wifi in about a week...so here's a recap of our lives in Ton Sai (even though I just posted the other 2 posts minutes ago but I wanted to put the maps.....) :

As soon as we got to Ton Sai, it started raining and we were miserably roaming the "island" (I call it an island because it is unreachable by road, but it's technically a peninsula...) looking for a place to stay that was in our price range (aka Dustin's seeing as Hila and I would have been totally okay spending way more for a better place haha). We eventually gave up for a little and hung out at a coffee shop up the road where we were molested by mosquitos, but had some fantastic Chai tea and chatted with some longer term backpackers.

Feeling restless, Hila and I took off to find some place to stay for cheap and we found some concrete bungalows. I'm getting really annoyed with typing on my phone so I'm sorry but I'm going to wrap this up in bullet points from now on since there's a lot to cover haha

October 29:

- beginner rock climbing course (made it to the top and snapped some cool pics)

- tried again with some expert friends later on, made more friends! Including a pro skydiver/base jumper who I'll be hunting down for a skydiving endeavor when I get back to the states :)

October 30:

Went kayaking FOREVER and climbed the biggest, probably most dangerous muddy cliff ever to the Railey Viewpoint (that was not really worth it...) but we got an intense workout haha

October 31:

Our friends Will and Jake took us rock climbing again around the island, and then 4pm was a little island competition held by the Australians - called
Thong-a-thon (because Aussies call flip flops "thongs" - where teams of 3 went racing around to find as many flip flops as possible, but of course our team didnt feel like running so we sat and drank beer instead :)

November 1:

We left the island, and apparently a bunch of other long termers did as well because it was the first official day of the High Season and tourists were coming meaning prices were raised. Ironically, we were sad to go and miss all our friends already unlike our first day when we were miserable without electricity, hot water, and wifi (oh did I forget to mention that we didn't have any of those the entire time) and we were confused as to how people could stay there for so long (we had intended to leave bythe 30th).

Nov 2:

Now we're back in Ao Nang until tomorrow when we will be catching the bus up to our next stop: Khao Sok, a national park where we plan to hang out for a couple days on our way up to Koh Tao where I'll be getting my diving certification!

I'll try to write again soon! :D

Krabi - Ao Nang

jsgknaus — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 22:00:00 GMT

(Still October 25th)

The 4 of us got to Ao Nang where we found really inexpensive bungalows to stay in (granted we walked around with our backpacks for a few hours before agreeing on something haha). Anyways, these bungalows were pretty damn cheap and we got what we paid for, meaning holes in the walls and cold showers hahah shout out to Hannah + The Rubin Fam for lending me their cocoon travel sheet seeing as it has come in handy every night since then! :)

Dustin had mentioned that his main reason for his trip to Ao Nang was for the RedBull Cliff Diving Finals the next day, so we managed to book last minute tickets to the awesome event and retired to bed.

October26

The cliff diving finals had us up and waiting for our long boat to Hong Island at around 9am. It was so much fun! We took a 40 minute long boat ride over and when we showed up, there were a bunch of other boats in the area all with people watching and swimming around. Of course we immediately jumped off the boat and made our way closer to the divers - so close that I'd be surprised if we weren't on camera :-O seeing as we were about 20 feet away from where the divers were landing in the water!! The American came in 2nd, with a Russian winning 1st, and afterwards we did some snorkeling and had lunch and headed home. We had made some Canadian + American friends, who were our age teaching English in the area, that we ended up partying with for the rest of the night!

October 27

The whole day we basically spent recovering and hanging out with our new friends on the beach while we planned out the trip to our next destination, Tonsai (about15 minutes by boat).

Koh Phi Phi Don

jsgknaus — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 21:55:00 GMT

We got to the island of Koh Phi Phi from Koh Lanta by a nice 1.5 hour ferry ride. We walked off the pier and instantly knew this place would be much more lively than our last! There were tons of little shops and people wandering around everywhere so we were able to ask for directions to the hostel we'd booked. The island was a lot smaller than expected and the walk to Backpacker's was only about 15 minutes. The hostel was definitely a step down from Pinky's in Koh Lanta (but not the worst we would see...). We were put in a room lined with bunk beds, but only a couple other beds were already claimed so we figured it wouldn't be too rough and it wasn't. Once set up, we decided to go to the beach which was just around the corner from our hostel (actually it had a through way directly to the beach but we obviously didn't figure that out until way later).

Our first day wasn't very exciting, we just hung around the beach and ate but we made some friends with a group of Russians who we hung out with for a while and learned some Russian phrases that we can barely remember, except "Rasreef Moshka" or something that basically meant awesome or breathtaking which we were constantly saying about the island sights. Even better, they invited us onto their longboat to Maya Beach the next day :-).

Still being slightly jet lagged, we both woke up at 8 for our long boat excursion only to assume our Russian friends had left without us. We decided instead to walk up to The Viewpoint, but after breakfast we heard a knock and the Russians had just woken up and were making their way to the boat then. We joined them on the boat to Maya Beach where the movie "The Beach" was filmed... It was so beautiful but also incredibly crowded! We snapped some pics and swam and eventually headed back to the main island since the Russians had to leave at 3.

Once we parted ways, we headed back to the dorm and found that most everyone had been relocated into our room for some reason - but it turned out to be good for us since we made some more friends and tagged along for an eating contest that they were going to try. Lucky for us, we didn't even bother to try the eating competition because it consisted of a 3-patty (4 bun) with condiments hamburger that was about 9 inches tall, coleslaw, potato wedges AND onion rings in 30 minutes. A group of guys a table over from us somehow all managed to finish successfully, but the 3 people in our crew were extremely full at about the halfway point. Our Croatian friend, Pacho, managed to finish the burger and coleslaw, but didn't want to ruin his night by finishing up the "fries" and onion rings. (My vomit-phobia self was also grateful seeing as we were all sharing the bathroom in the dorm now too). Exhausted and full, we ended our night relaxing on the beach watching fire shows and sipping beers until we were too tired.

The next day we were ready to leave Koh Phi Phi to head to Ao Nang so we packed up our bags and headed up to the Viewpoint for one last photo op. Gary and Aoife accompanied us to the top of what felt like 95 stairs followed by a10 minute walk up a steep hill, but the view was pretty cool so it was worth it :)

Pacho was also leaving Koh Phi Phi so we all made the 3pm ferry to the mainland, on which we met another friend, Dustin, who joined us as well. The ferry ride was nice and a friend of Dustin's who played ukulele serenaded everyone for a little while!

Same Same But Different

jsgknaus — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 21:22:00 GMT

October 22

A little tired out from the previous day's adventures, we started our morning with a relaxing (and pretty advanced) hour and a half, beach front yoga session at a bungalow hotel up the road called Sanctuary. Our instructor was a little, old, Asian yogi who astounded me with his ability to get us into holding various yoga poses on our own, including a headstand! After the session he even told us that with regular practice, we could be great yogis ourselves in 10 years - he even gauged our ages right (as in 20s) unlike everyone else here who thinks we just graduated high school. Feeling refreshed, we had a delicious breakfast consisting of fresh fruit and yogurt for Hila, and definitely the best carrot orange juice I've ever tasted, and French toast for me :-)

We stopped at a 7/11, which are everywhere, and picked up some necessities - lotion for my sunburn and fun flavored mentos :-) - and got these weird stamps with our change so we asked Mama Nong what they were. Apparently it's some 7/11 game where you can trade them in for stuff once you've collected enough so we gave them to Mama since we really have no use.

Our next stop was a great secluded beach on the southern end of the island by the restaurant Same, Same But Different. We alternated between swimming in the perfect temperature water and reading while roasting in the sand for about an hour when we just couldn't survive the heat any longer. Sipping delicious, ice cold, iced teas with lemon (which tasted more like really lemonade-y arny palm palms) we made up our minds to go visit Old Town. However, once we started our ride back north the rain picked up and we quickly changed plans to head home. We made it just in time before the rain picked up and rested up a little.

Once the rain subsided, we ventured out to our beach to watch the sun set, but again the clouds blocked most of it. We decided to try going to town for dinner but the rain held us back again so we ate at our regular spot, Freedom Bar, and called it an early night.

October 23

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHAR O'LEARY!

Today we're leaving Koh Lanta to head to another island, Koh Phi Phi Don, which is apparently less "couply" and has a lot more backpackers so we're hoping to make some friends our age - preferably who speak some more English... We're taking a ferry for an hour and a half and then staying in our first shared dorm which should definitely be interesting, so we'll let you know how that goes when we get wifi again!

Ta Ta For Now!

Photos: Thailand

jsgknaus — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 12:35:00 GMT

Cave dwelling!

jsgknaus — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 08:31:00 GMT

October 21

After a day of mostly relaxation and getting to know the area around our bungalows, we decided to be a little adventurous! We rented a motorbike which I drove (luckily the roads were waaaaay calmer and flatter than in Phuket when Hila drove haha oops) and ventured to a cave on the southern end of Koh Lanta.

A short drive and a minor setback in the wrong direction later, we made it to the caves where we met our tour guide Rudy (we think...). He didn't speak much English but was very nice and effortlessly (meaning only he did it effortlessly) led us up the steep hills through rubber trees and shallow streams. Our 30-minute trek ended with a little break at the cave entrance which upon first glance looked like a 2-foot hole in the rocks. Profusely sweating and already looking pretty dirty, we pulled out our handy dandy handkerchiefs (Shout out to Mama Knaus who knew they'd come in handy...! Probably should have taken your advice to bring some more :-D). With our headlamps strapped and ready to go, we embarked down the decently sturdy bamboo ladder into the darkness of the cave. The tour took us across big rock passages and more bamboo bridges past awesome stalactites/mites (?), pools and waterfalls, and close to some very large spiders that I hope to never encounter in a confined space - or really just ever - again.

We finished our private tour by scaling back down the hill to the camp and then we hopped onto the scooter in search of some lunch. Our original plan was to stop at a place recommended by Mama Nong (our bungalow owner) and then venture off to another cave/waterfall. Big surprise, we didn't manage to find any signs for the restaurant before we saw one for Tiger Cave so we figured we might as well just eat on the way back.

We got to a clearing where we assumed the cave/waterfall expedition should begin, but none of the handful of people around paid any mind to us. So we set off down one of the paths we saw. A good 5-10 minutes in, we started to wonder whether anyone had actually walked this path in a few months due to the overgrown foliage and strewn leaves in the way. Regardless, we could still see that there was a path and it ran next to a flowing river so we figured we'd probably find the waterfall eventually. With our sneakers extra soggy from crossing the river twice and our stomachs rumbling for food, we decided that "eventually" wasn't cutting it and we turned back. The highlight was definitely the little monkey we saw jump into a tree to watch us as we walked! The lowlight was definitely the last step out of the jungle when I scratched my ankle on some sharp twig and looked down to see that a tiny leech had made me lunch! I spastically plucked it off and alerted Hila to check herself which ended up being helpful since she had also gotten one on the way out too! Kinda grossed out and mostly tired from all our hiking, we decided to hop on the scooter and get some food on the way home.

We stopped at a great restaurant at the top of the hill dubbed something like "The Viewpoint" for its amazing cliffside seats overlooking the ocean and a beach. We attempted to clean ourselves up a little, with only minor success, and then ate our delicious curries while gazing at the water.

Back at the bungalow, it was around 3pm so we decided to rinse off at the beach and relax. The water was pretty rough so we instead indulged ourselves in $7, 30-minute massages right on the beach. Feeling gloriously relaxed, we walked a bit and found a bar with hammocks and lounge chairs where we posted up to read while the sun set. Unfortunately the clouds blocked our view of the beautiful sky but we stayed anyway. Deciding that 6pm was an acceptable time to start our nightly routine, we went back and showered, got some dinner, used the wifi in the lobby, and by 10pm were tucked in bed :)

The beginning

jsgknaus — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 10:07:00 GMT

October 15-17

I began my journey to Thailand with a 4:30am wake up and dragged my tired self to the car. Luckily, there was no traffic to LGA before the sun came up, though we got a little lost (maybe my fault...) but all was well and mommy made it home in time to get to work on time! My flight to Chicago took off 15 minutes early and landed 40 minutes early so I was able to creepily hide behind a pole in an attempt to surprise Hila when her plane came in! With 4 hours to kill, we wandered around the airport, ate some sandwiches and and bought absurdly expensive (but amazing) chocolate for the plane!

When we boarded our plane, our seats had been switched so we weren't together but then Hila's rowmate (they were in the very last row on the plane) was willing to switch seats with me - and her name was Julia too! Best of all we were in a 2 seater so we didn't even have to worry about sitting next to weirdos... But the bathroom was close so there were some annoying lines after meals... But all in all the flight ended up being pretty great, we got our vegetarian meals before everyone else got their food, although meal times were pretty confusing and we basically ate dinner twice... Including once at home time 2am... I watched gatsby and the heat and tried to sleep, and fell asleep with 6 hours to go with the tv radio on Bob Marley which I dreamt was playing on some stereo that I couldn't turn off.

We finally got to the Hong Kong airport which is huge, really cool looking and confusing... We had to pick up our luggage and recheck in and realized after security that the dumpling place Hila found in a magazine was outside the "restricted" area... So we tried to find some comfort food and had the most random breakfast/lunch/dinner? And spent $15 on a cup of tea, and 2 mini pancakes - while Hila spent the same and had a cup of tea and a bowl of what we assume was Campbell's soup with extra salt... So we decided to find somewhere to relax and we found some cool reclining lounge chairs to sit on while we killed 12 hours.

Eventually 8:55am rolled around and we finally boarded our last plane to Thailand! It was funny because we walked all the way to our boarding gate, only to take a bus from there to a gate right near our sleeping spot. The plane was full, except for the third seat in our row so we took full advantage and flew quite comfortably for the next 3 hours.

We landed around noon and our airport pickup was waiting to take us to our lovely hostel "Baan Kamala". We settled into the room and even though I think the bed could have been a piece of wood with sheets wrapped around it, it was the most comfortable bed I had seen in almost 45 hours and I was beyond grateful for it. We forced ourselves to stay awake and ate lunch and then wandered around the area and down the beach. At around 5 we decided it was acceptable to eat dinner and pass out, so we went back and did just that!

October 18

Today we woke up at 5am, an hour before the sunrise which we sort of watched from our window. Unaware of what time the village commotion began, we set off in search of breakfast at 7 only to find that maybe 10 people were awake, and nothing was open. After wandering around we stumbled across a cute little coffee shop where we drank some Iced Americanos and ate a couple cookies. From here we decided that we would rent a motor scooter for the day and explore Phuket some more. At around 9 we split a granola bar and headed to the front desk to get some keys! We rented the bike for 250 Baht (less than $10) and set off with our only guidance to "turn right" and a map showing nothing helpful (though we only figured that out a few hours later).

Let me start off by saying that 1) it may be a miracle that we survived with only a scratch 2) it's pretty much only funny now because we survived with only a scratch - but in hindsight, it was hilarious.

We mapped out a couple places that we wanted to visit including the temple, Wat Chalong, and the Big Buddha and maybe the south most point to watch the sunset. Hila learned the ropes quickly and we took off at full speed (except more like 1/4 speed the whole time and cars were beeping and passing us like no other). We soon learned that Phuket is very clearly UNmarked and whatever traffic laws there may have been, are completely obsolete. People basically drive anywhere and everywhere and in all directions but my trusty guide Hila played it safe (thank goodness)!! We ended up getting lost and passing a few landmarks more than once, sometimes twice haha, and the journey to the beach and Wat Chalong was waaaaaay longer than the map had fooled us into being. We somehow eventually made it though, a few sunglass and shorts tans later - so we took the much needed break from the bike and explored!

We were starved by the time we made it to the beach and shared a coconut while we decided what to do next. Inside a diving school, we were able to ask a nice Aussie man where we could grab some lunch and after eating we set off to Wat Chalong!

Midway through our journey there, and having already been out for 3-4 hours, we were both dead set on just making it home somehow! Lucky for us, Wat Chalong magically appeared so we made a little (much needed) pit stop and explored the temples!

Eventually we got back on the bike and with a map in one hand and the road before us, we somehow navigated (I'm convinced that it was completely luck) the highways and streets all the way back to Kamala! Our little bike was almost on empty so we bought 2 liter bottles of gas (for $3) and filled it right up, vowing never to touch a motorbike again once we parked it at the hostel.

October 19th

With big plans ahead of us for our lovely ride to Koh Lanta, part of Krabi Province, we packed up our bags and headed down to the lobby to ask someone about our transportation options... We had researched hostels, ferries, and buses the night before but were skeptical about booking anything since we weren't exactly sure about the accuracy of the bus/ferry schedules. Eventually we were able to translate that we wouldn't be able to take a ferry for various reasons, but that we could take a bus for the 4-6 hour ride along the coast.

All checked out, we followed our receptionist's directions and found the bus stop for our first ride, just as two large buses, that we assumed were ours, passed right by. Sitting in the sweltering heat with no time frame for when the bus would actually come or what it even looked like (we were told it was blue), we were pleasantly surprised that we only had to wait about 15 minutes. To begin, our expectations about the vehicle were far from accurate - rather than being the air conditioned greyhound we had seen earlier, it was a medium sized rectangle on wheels with cushioned benches lining the windows and another down the center. We boarded through the hole in the back and chose a seat in the front by the driver. Confused about how to pay for our ride, we looked around at our fellow passengers and the driver for a clue but everyone seemed unphased. The bus sat unmoving for about 5 minutes, further adding to our confusion but eventually we took off at a pace slower than the one we chose the day before on our motor scooter adventure... The breeze was great as we wound up and down the mountains picking up passengers along the way until the bus was filled with people squished together and even hanging out the back "door". Two of those passengers also happened to be a couple scrawny boys covered in bandages with a motor scooter incident to blame. (Like I said, it's a miracle we survived our ride the day before with a bruised toe as the only injury we sustained).

We were told that the ride to the monument would be about an hour on this bus and upon trying to estimate our arrack time,came to the realization that Hila had left her watch at the guesthouse. If it weren't for the helpful bus driver getting out and asking us where we were going again, we would have completely missed our stop. This so called "monument" was 1) not marked whatsoever 2) definitely not a monument 3) not the bus 'hub' we were hoping it would be.

As I said, the bus driver asked us where we were going and then informed us that this stop was the monument so we threw our bags out the window and climbed over the 20+ people in our way to the back. Standing on the sidewalk in utter confusion, two bus attendants (or something) in yellow crossing guard vests asked us about our next destination. We said we needed a bus to Krabi or Koh Lanta and confused, they offered us no assistance ... So we set off walking towards the major traffic circle near where we were dropped off. Looking clearly out of place, we managed to get a very helpful store attendant to help us - very helpful meaning he even ran after us barefoot across the circle to direct us to the right spot, and then translated to the ticket seller where we were going! We bought our ticket to Krabi and waited a few minutes for the bus that we ended up having to run to since it flew right by. Thankfully, this bus was greyhound-esque, with the main difference being the green seats and pink window shades, but it was comfortable, mostly empty and best of all air conditioned!
The journey was smoother and shorter than expected and our stop in Krabi was a clearly marked bus terminal! As soon as we got off, someone assisted us to buy our ticket for Koh Lanta and all we had to do was wait! We were told the next bus was too full so we'd have to wait another hour, but when the first minibus arrived we were shuffled on and it worked out perfectly!

The whole ride was pretty comfortable except for the annoying teenage girls in front of us who slapped each other and cried the ENTIRE time. This ride was expected to take 2 hours, but ended up more like 4 since we had to take 2 ferries - one of which we waited for in traffic for at least an hour - but FINALLY we made it to Koh Lanta!!

We were dropped off at Pinky's Bungalows where we are staying for a few days. Greeted by the nicest lady, Mama Naa (or something), we were shown around and then to our adorable bungalow with a comfortable bed, tv and AC. Starving, we made our way to the little restaurant that Mama had mentioned and had our first actual meal for the day! We also met a nice American from Bergen County, NJ, who has been traveling since February and was able to give us lots of advice and stories. Exhausted from our long day of sitting in buses, we finally made our way back home to sleep!

October 21st

I'm strapping on my helmet while writing this from our Koh Lanta "Pinky Bungalows" lobby, since we were convinced that the roads here are 10x less crowded and much safer than Phuket! Today we're off to explore some caves and waterfalls so we'll let you know how it goes when we're back!