THAILAND
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Aug 26 - Sept 3 |
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What a difference
a day makes!
Thailand, August 26, 2000 thru September 3, 2000. Written by
Aaron
A ninety minute flight out of Vietnam and suddenly, quite suddenly, we were back in the US, or at least a full on Western city! We flew out a couple of days early from Vietnam to meet up with a friend of mine who happened to be in Bangkok, but was flying out on Monday, August 28, the same day we were supposed to arrive! So we flew standby, got on, and on August 26 we arrived! It was reverse culture shock! We saw Mark Decker's Bangkok, and that is the posh side of Bangkok. Mark got us hooked up at the Lakepoint Service Apartments and for thirty-two bucks a night we were treated like kings! It was very nice, the room is beautiful complete with a DVD player, a full kitchen, even a washer and dryer! We knew our real backpacker Brit friends, Gail and Vince, would die! So much for roughing it! Best of all, Mark took us to a nearby mall, the Emporium, that made Valley Faire in California look like an inner city K-Mart! There is a movie theatre, ten levels of expensive stores, and even a grocery store full of Western food. Laura and I wandered around, looking at all the food, and we were just amazed. I couldn't stop laughing.
We had a brunch at the Oriental Hotel, an exclusive, again, very expensive hotel, voted the best hotel in Asia! It was delicious! There went our entire food budget for Thailand! We hung out with Mark until he had to go, but his wife was staying with her family in the nearby town of Damoen Saduak, a couple hours east of Bangkok, where there was a floating market. Mark's father-in-law owns and runs a coffin factory, and so we got to stay above the factory with the family in the newly remodeled guest room. Nalin was very kind and apologized for her father's taste, he designed the whole room. It ran the length of the factory, was completely tiled in pink, and was probably forty yards long. We dubbed it the Pink Pagoda! All of Nalin's family, her father Jung Ra, his wife, and all of the five out of six daughters we met, were all very kind. They carted us around, and we ate delicious food,dirt cheap! We learned how to say "Rangka kon tai" which means "Give us the Tai price!" (pardon the spelling). The floating market was amazing, women had whole kitches on their boats and there was a lot of nic-nacs to buy.
We also went to a Buddhist temple nearby and talked to a Danish Buddhist monk for a couple of hours. It was interesting, Thai Buddhism is different from other kinds of Buddhism, and talking to a practioner was enlightening,though at times it was kind of like talking to a fundamentalist Christian, some of his ideas were similar. We then went to a park where monkeys were everywhere! I was chased by one mother and her swinging child, but I wasn't hurt. All too soon, we had to leave Nalin's home, but we were on our way to an island paradise!
Mark Decker, Nalin Decker, Laura and Aaron in the Lobby of the Lakepoint
The Oriental, brunch is lovely there, quite gorgeous
Floating market, floating kitchen
At monkey park, who is watching who?
Jung Ra, his wife, Nalin, Laura and Aaron in front of the coffin factory
Heaven At Last!
If you haven't wanted to see any of the places we've visited
so far, read on.
Koh
Phi Phi - Sept 4 -19 Written by Laura
Koh
Phi Phi would be quite different any other rainy season, where
the temperature is a warm 105 and the it rains constantly. However,
the gods smiled upon us and we wound up staying two weeks on
this island paradise with great weather! Due to the low season,
we got good prices and low numbers of tourists. Because Ko Phi
Phi is such a small island & can get so crowded, we felt
very lucky to have two wonderful quiet weeks there.
Where's Ko Phi Phi you ask, look at the map above and look for the small island directly east of the island Phuket just before you hit mainland Thailand, that's it. We flew from Bangkok to Phuket to jump start our vacation, we were ready for fun in the sun. Unfortunately, Phuket felt like Lake Tahoe to us. It was beautiful, but you needed to stay at a nice resort (one we tried was $90 for the cheapest room during low season!) to have easy access to the beach. One of my friends had recomended us a great beach and cheap place to stay, however, once we got there we found it closed (due to low season) and this west coast section of Phuket was not safe to swim as the currents change during the rainy season. So we immediately moved on and decided to try Phi Phi.
Little did we know that we had choosen a place we'd never want to leave. Luckily Phi Phi is protected from the open ocean by Phuket, so the water is really clear and calm most of the time. One day diving we had 40m visability! Also the island has many services that we found other places didn't have, such as email connection, telephones, and stores, so we really lucked out.
Ko Phi Phi seemed to be designed by God as a vacation spot, the water is crystal clear, the coral and fish amazing, lots of sea caves, beaches and coves to easily explore by kayak, dramatic clifs dripping with green vegetation, trees and interesting erosion sculptures, and white sand that felt so smooth it reminded me of fine pastry flour (can you tell I miss cooking?). The other great feature is the way the island has two large bays. The island is shaped like a dumbbell and the handle in middle is only a few hundred meters wide the beautiful long beaches on both sides. In between are a 3 main roads and many tall coconut trees. We stayed on the more scenic and quiet west bay, but only had to walk 2 minutes to get to the east bay where we'd catch any boats.
There are no cars on Ko Phi Phi, the only way to get to different parts of the island is by longtail boats and everything is brought in via boats. You can't even hike through the interior to get from place to place, the cliffs are too steep and the brush too thick. Everytime you walk down one of the main streets, men call out to you "boat, boat, taxi boat?". We fell in love with these boats, we have some pictures iof them in the following Krabi section. They are like big wodden kayaks.
Our first day we signed up for an all day snorkling tour. There's two islands which make up Phi Phi, Ko Phi Phi Don, with accommodations, and Ko Phi Phi Leh which is left untouched as a marine park. The movie "The Beach" was filmed on small beach on Phi Phi Leh and we saw that beach during the snorkling tour. We went to about 5 sites that day all around the islands and saw amazing numbers of fish & coral. That's when we decided to do our first open water dive in warm waters from here. Before we left CA we had gotten certified but weren't sure diving would be for us. Visability was very low and the water was so cold and the equipment so heavy, I wasn't sure it was worth all the effort. We signed up with Visa Diving and went on two dives to Bida Noi and Bida Nok the next day. What an experience, we are now hooked! We ended up going diving for five days during our stay, for a total of 10 dives. We also completed advanced certification for deep dives, and did a wrek dive at 25 meters, really neat! We liked that so much we did it twice. I also took my first stab at underwater photography, which was fun. We're so hooked that we've now decided to visit Sri Lanka and the Maldives during our time in India just to go diving. We met some great people, both fellow divers and our instructors, and had a really wonderful time.
Another fun thing we did was kayaking. Not only are the islands dramatic with their cliffs and vegetation, but there's many small islands either right next to a large island, or sitting off in the middle of the ocean. The island & beautiful beach in the James Bond movie "Man with a Golden Gun" is in this area, we didn't go see it but it looks similar to many of the islands we kayaked around. And over time the limestone has erroded away to produce caves and interesting features. We rented kayaks, took or snorkels and explored both the east and west bays, had a great time as well as met lots of interesting people and had great conversations. Funny, we've met many Europeans and Australians, but hardly any Americans. And believe it or not, if they are from the US, 9 times out of 10 they are from the Bay Area! We met a really fun group of women from Sweden, chatted with them for an afternoon. Met a fun couple from Austrialia, had a nice dinner with them as well. And I met a woman from Belgium traveling with her husband and young child. She turned out to be a soulmate and we had a couple wonderful long chats, helps me not miss chatting with my girlfriends so much.
What else, well the fresh seafood everynight was wonderful. The lounging at the beach was also great. I haven't been this tan since I was a lifeguard, and that's using SPF 30! The tops of my feet are dark dark brown, Aaron says I won't need a visa for India. What equatorial sun will do. But after two weeks we decided it was time to move on and see other parts of Thailand. Its funny, it was so hard deciding which pictures to use on the site, and even I couldn't believe how beautiful they turned out, even with a simple digital camera!
Welcome to Koh Phi Phi, I'm your host, Mr. Rourke...
Take a look around. Here's six pictures from left to right which show you the complete bay where we kayaked, swam, ate dinner, and sunbathed. 1 2 3 4 5 6
One of our many beautiful sunset dinners
One adventerous kayak trip landed us here, Secret Cove
Aaron's new hena tatoo at Secret Cove
A rock wall at one of our dive sites, Bida Nok/Bida Nai
Laura in all her diving gear, its about 10 million times lighter & easier than diving in CA!
Sunset on our way back from the wreck dive
Us enjoying the ride on the dive boat
Our diving instructors & leaders at Visa Diving
A lucious sunset over the bay, Farwell Ko Phi Phi!
Krabi Province
-
Ao
Leuk, Rai Leh beach Sept 19-24 -Written by Laura and then Aaron
After leaving the wonder and beauty of Phi Phi, we went inland, into Central Thailand to go to a national park. We wanted to do some hikes and really spend some time in the jungle so we decided to devote a whole day to Than Bokkharani, or Than Bok as the locals call it. Unfortunately, once we arrived, we saw this was a mistake. We learned that National Park doesn't mean big or undeveloped. Lonely Planet Thailand, our guidebook, swore that the national park was something out of Disney, and so, we made our way through Krabi to Ao Leuk, the Des Moine of Thailand. We found a bad room, cheap-cheap, and the national park was more like a city park. We wandered around the whole thing, which took fifteen minutes, then wandered around scenic Ao Leuk, another fifteen minutes, and then we had nothing to do. We met a couple from Sweden, and they had just gotten off a long boat tour of some caves, and so we ran over to the office, booked the boat, and toured some caves along the river. It was low tide, and the guy was nervous, and we had to hurry, but it was fun. That night, we listened to Voice of America on a little radio we brought, and chatted. It was pleasant, but the next morning, we woke up and got the hell out of dodge, the inital taxi truck thing we took broke down, but a bus picked us up and before lone we were living la vida loca in Rai Ley Bay.
Rai Ley Bay wasn't as nice as Phi Phi, but it was quiet, and the huge rock walls were very striking! We also saw all of these beautiful, genetically superior people walking around, men with ripped muslces, petite woman with lots of definition, and it took me a while to figure out that the reason why they looked so good was because Rai Ley and Krabi all cater to rock climbers! Rock climbers have some nice bodies, let me tell you. So, we sucked in our guts, and wandered around. We took a boat ride with some Americans snorkeling, but the snorkeling wasn't as good as Koh Phi Phi. Little did we realize that we spent two weeks in one of the best places in Thailand, during the low season that is. During high season, Phi Phi sounds like a nightmare. A storm came during the end of the day, but we were safe in our hotel by that time. The rains are amazing, just when you think it couldn't possibly rain harder, it does. A funny story. So we thought we'd save money by staying in a place without A/C, rough it in Rai Ley. So we got a room, no Air Con, just a fan, but the room was designed for Air Conditioning, there was no ventilation, nothing. I was feeling a bit dodgy, and so I went back to the room, no Air Con. I sweated under the fan that just stewed the dank, steaming air around. Laura came back, and we both quickly agreed, we needed another room, So at nine o'clock at night, we changed rooms, and we both worshipped the A/C!
The next day, we went to Ao Nang, to book an elephant ride, and that was great fun! The elephants were more fun to look at than ride, but we rode it. The seat was so high! And I kept worrying that the elephant might think we were too heavy and pitch us off, but that never happened. And the driver assured us that the elephant was used to carrying big farangs like us. We also saw some more scenery used in the movie "The Beach." No big whoop. Ao Nang was not nearly as nice as Rai Ley, though there were more services. Getting back turned out to be a big adventure. We had taken a long boat from Rai Ley to Ao Nang, and we were told getting back to Rai Ley would not be a big deal. So after the elephants, we went to the beach, but no one would take us. They just kept pointing down the beach. We went to where they were pointing, but again, they wouldn't take us. There was a storm, and waves were crashing on the beach. The long boats were going around a cape, and finally, we figured that out, walked to the cape, and got a ride back. I became a little distraught, however, and yelled and screamed and acted a fool. As the Thai say, Mai Pen Rai, which means, "No problem."
Probably our best day was kayaking around Rai Ley. We explored caves in our kayaks, Laura was far better at navigating the caves, and I was my usual bull in a China shop. We also found a new home, between two islands there was a hidden cave we stopped at to explore. It was perfect! We had pictures, but the camera got wet, and the film was ruined, but that's okay. Mai Pen Rai. We'll remember! We found a trail up the mountain that lead to a lagoon; it wasn't a trail, it was a series of ropes that lead up this cliff face that was slippery with mud and trees. I left Laura to scramble up the mountain, along with a German guy and his Canadian girlfriend, both rock climbers, both svelte and beautiful. We got to the top, started down the other side toward the lagoon, but there were three drop offs that you had to scale down by rope. And again, everything was slippery with wet, red mud. We both went down the first precipice, following a couple from Peru, but at the second, only two went down to the third, and the third seemed to be nearly impassable. I didn't try. It was three days before my thirtieth birthday, and I wanted to live to see it. The lagoon, in the middle of the rock mountain, didn't look as impressive as I thought either, mostly just muddy water. The next day, before we left Rai Ley, Laura and I went back and we climbed up the mountain again, and had a great time. Laura is one tough woman! The trees are clinging to the mud and rocks of the hillside, and going up, there are a lot of handholds, so we didn't use the rope going up. Coming back down we did. Then we left Krabi and returned to Bangkok, oh Bangkok, mother of our comforts, sister of our dreams. Our room at the Lake Pont was still as nice, and we basked in the glory of the views and the luxury!
Picture from the Than Bok National Park, a very interesting tree!
The famous, naturally formed pools at Than Bokk
The view of the river from the Longtail boat on route to the caves
Aaron and Laura in the foreground, storm and Rai Ley Bay in the background
Aaron and Laura, elephant trekking, onward Sahib
The Hills of South Central Thailand, as seen from the back of an elephant
Bangkok Oasis - The Lakepoint Service Apartments, Sukhumwit and Soi 16
On Monday, October 2, we are going to be leaving for Nepal. After a month in Nepal, we will be leaving for India for ten weeks, though we'll most likely be taking side trips to Sri Lanka and the Maldive Islands, one of the best diving destinations in the world! We are not going to be taking the laptop (which we've nicknamed, 'The Baby') with us to Nepal and India, because of weight and safety concerns. So, the next update will be done in January. We will still have email, but we won't be able to update the website. We have been overjoyed to know that so many people have been logging on, following our adventure, and we appreciate all of the support. So, until January, wish us luck.
We are off to the rooftop of the world,
and then on to India, a place that spawned two of the world's
religions.