Koh Tao KA POW!

Koh Tao

Another tropical island of Thailand checked off the list. And what a blast it was.  Very cool place and the number two place in the world to get certified for diving. Which I did :)  Spending most of my days in training and the nights eating delicious food and drinking down fruit smoothies.  Finished several more books and explored the Island on motorbikes. oh yea, this place is tiny. Like a 15 minute motorbike from one end to the other tiny. haha it's awesome, but I can already tell I'm feeling a little restless.  Renae met a couple of english blokes that are a blast to be around. Ash and Dan are the nosiest, most obnoxious pair I've just about ever met. And they are so much fun, haha good times. She has been exploring around the island while I'm out diving. Unfortunately the weather decided to stop cooperating on the last few days of our stay in Koh Tao, but no worries, we're still all smiles and glad to be here.  Although the flooding is somewhat a hassle, we happily checked off another chapter in the unforgettable book of thailand. O.K. now for some silly end trip stats

Mosquito bites endured: 5zillion (Renae made sure I was updated daily)

Borders crossed: 9

Ladyboys seen: upwards of hundreds

Pictures taken: 2586 (thus far)

Motorbikes Crashed: umm 3?… 

Bugs eaten: 1 scorpion, 1 Grasshopper, lots of crickets and grubs

Fruit shakes consumed: I averaged 2.3 per day

Flights:8

Trains: 1

Bus: too many to fathom
Amount of rice eaten: copious
Money spent: somewhere in the range of $2400 for two months time.  I had a great time. not including flights

Checklist:

Diving Certification ✓

Unforgettable friends ✓

Bridge entrapments ✓

Motorbikes crashed ✓ (thanks to Renae)

Ladyboy Show ✓

Birthdays celebrated ✓ in full fashion

Riding Elephants (next time- we'll be back...)

Full moon Party complete with debauchery ✓

Bangkok Pingpong show ✓ (idk if it counts if I don’t remember it…)

Waking up on the beach ✓

Too many hours travelling ✓

 Ok this list is getting long. ✓

Having the best time of our lives... ✓✓✓✓✓✓!!!!!

Alright, back to reality. Sike! detouring to Mexico!

It's been an amazing trip throughout SEA. All kinds of experiences and learning.  Can't wait to go back. My only regret was not having more time for thailand. We were there for about 2.5 weeks and we needed more like 2.5 months to fully appreciate it.  Such a unique place. Very cool from the east to the west to the north to good ol Bangkok.  I will definitely be returning sometime in the future.  Had the absolute best time traveling with Renae :) I'm sure she'll be heading back out again soon in the future as well.  That's all for now. Enjoy the pictures. 

 

Thailand – Koh Pangnan

FULL MOON PARTY

All the stories are true.  Well, at least that’s what I’m told. Haha just kidding although the days surrounding the full moon party are a bit of a blur I’m fully aware that I had an excellent time.  Epic Pool parties that would make project x jealous; to tens of thousands of people on the beach dancing in the glow of the moon, people here know how to do it right.  Unfortunately I was told to not bring any valuable except for money to any of the parties on Haad Rin(the main beach) and so I don’t have any pictures to show.  Although this doesn’t explain the lack of pictures back at our bungalow when everyone was getting ready for the full moon party with neon body painting.  Cerveza anyone?

Koh Pangnan has been the island of fun and new friends for certain.  Renae and I found a great little bungalow a short distance from the beach for rather cheap when compared to our neighbors.  We rented a motorbike and made good use of it exploring the island in all directions, luckily neither of received koh pangnan tattoos (road rash) which put us in the minority group of the island.  The day after the full moon party you couldn’t walk anywhere without seeing people strutting their awesome gauze accessories around their ankles, knees, and arms.  Road rash to the max.  The roads here are quite sketchy and the sand on them does make them any more appealing.

The beach on Koh Pangnan where we’re staying is called Haad Yao. It is a nice stretch of sand with bungalows and hotels all along the sand. Each place has it’s own little restaurant right on the beach and you can find people you know everywhere you go. Basically Renae and I eat breakfast on the beach.  Eat lunch on the beach.  And munch dinner on the beach.  All time in between is spent snacking and drinking on this beach.  It’s a demanding life. I know. 

Apparently Renae is quite popular in south east asia, she tends to find people she knows from this place or that all over. We've run into John in two countries and several different locations, it's not even a coincidence or a surprise when we run into him any more.  haha good times and good people

OH right, I spent my birthday here as well.  Pretty good one in my opinion, brought it in by spending time with new friends enjoying the night ocean and watched the sun come up.  John (renae's friend from highschool) was also hanging out with us.   Went a nice little morning run (about 2 minutes in this place is all it takes to start sweating with the humidity and the gnarly hills) to work off the night prior before heading out to a pirate bar on the beach about a 5 minute taxi ride away. Actually it was about 4km away now that I think about it because Renae and I both ended up walking back. Good times.  Bringing in 24 years of age on Koh Pangnan was quite awesome.

            Met Steffni and Franzine from Germany, who joined Sean (from Canada) and myself on a hike to bottle beach. I think renae was taking it easy that day. But on this particular day laying on the beach, swimming and reading was not doing it for me so I told Sean we should get on the bikes and set out to go find bottle beach.  The german girls had been the original ones to tell us about the secluded beach that few people went to because of the 1.5 hours hike to it. After persuading the girls that they could lay on the beach any other day, we all set out on a pair of bikes racing towards the north side of the island.  Navigating directions from the locals we ended up in a nice little vista point where we parked the bikes next to numerous others and set out in search of this lonely beach.  Well long story short we hiked for about 30-40 minutes before coming face to face with solid rock face that was impassible without the use of ropes.  We were just following a creek bed running up the mountain that we thought was the trail, turns out it definitely was not.  After careful consideration and exploring we decided to head back; turning around a few other hikers we met along the way.  Not letting that stop us, we got back to the bikes and then walked around searching for any other trail heads and found another which had a bunch of water bottles hanging on the branches of the trees…

Bottle beach right?

Haha yep. So we set off again, a little more pressed for time at this point as it was later in the day.  Oh yea, btw note that this hiking was exactly strenuous, but for some reason I’ve never sweat so much in my life, I’m not sure if it was the lack of breeze or the humidity, but I def went through 3 liters of water within the 2.5 hours of hiking.  Once we crested the mountain we headed down the other side with an encouraging breeze at our faces all the while following the hundreds of trail markers that hung on tree branches. Usually I’m not stoked on finding trash on trails but these seemed to make sense and had purposely been placed on the trail for markers.  Well we finally made it.  It was great, but a little anticlimactic as it was not as lonely of a beach as we had hoped.  There are in fact no roads to it, but water taxis were fully employed here to support the 20 or bungalows and couple restaurants.  It was still a much nicer and more mellow beach seen, but a little disappointing to find that it was not very secluded.  We opted for a nice boat/taxi ride back to the port where we got a ride with some guys from our beach back to where out bikes were parked.  All in all a great day hiking followed up by the full moon party.

Was a little tough leaving this place. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not too stressed though, I'm sure thailand will be on my itinerary once again.

 Oh yea, I liked making all kinds of sand castles on the beach as well.

Vang Vieng!

   Alright. I'm slacking and writing this from a hammock on an island in thailand.   :)

So Vang Vieng... We arrived in this little town in the middle of nowhere around midday after navigating our through the capital city of laos to transfer into a minibus for the last 2.5 hours of our trip from Pakse to Vang Vieng.  Oh and its pronounced how it's spelled.  So we were dumped out onto the street from our minibus and needed to find a place to stay and get ourselves orientated.  2 hours later we had full stomachs and a place right in front on the main strip.  As it was around 2:30 we decided not to head to the blue lagoon as planned but rather a shorter trip to a nearby cave.  Hiking a flat 2km through rice fields and mild forest we paid 10,000 kip ($1.25) to enter and explored all around.  There are caves everywhere in laos.  We were pretty far in when our guide told us about a pool of water within the cave that we could go to for an additional price.  We didn't think it was worth it and were happy with our cave exploration, but it was surprising to hear that the pool was another hours walk further into the cave.
Next day Renae and I rented some mountain bikes and set off in search of the Blue Lagoon, not before relocating to a nice little hotel next to the river.  A nice clean private room with 2 beds was 60000 kip ($6.50)  Well our bicycle quest was not one our butts would soon forget.  The road was very similar to baja with an extra helping of large rocks washboard.  We made the 7km trip out in just over an hour. Stopped to visit with a nice little baby monkey that the store owner had saved when it's mom was killed. I didn't ask how that happened, but you never know.  Well we paid our entrance fees and were pleasantly surprised to find the Blue Lagoon delivered on its promise. Eerily Vibrant.  And lots of fish too! (to Renae's disdain)  Spent the entire day hanging out at the blue lagoon making friends and a planning to hit the infamous river float we left early, but did not make it back in time to complete the river float before dark.  So we settled on a delicious dinner on the river listening to terrible tunes from the united states that everyone knew. lol  Met a fellow traveler named Laura from Germany that showed us around a little.   Unfortunately Laos has a nationwide curfew at around 12 am everything shuts down and people head to sleep or bonfires on the river.
   The next day Laura couldn't make the river float as she was leaving that day so Renae and I ventured out on our own.  Armed with newly purchased dry bags and drinks and phones we set out to experience Vang Vieng's main draw.  Apparently late last year the Govt of Laos was urged to do something about the large amounts of deaths that were occuring on the river. People were getting too drunk and drowning. I heard numbers around 30 deaths in a month. Pretty Sad.  So the Laos gov't respsonse?  Call in the military and order everyone out of the bars and burn them to the ground one by one.  It was immediately effective. not so many deaths anymore.   We had a great time out on the river and made some more friends.  One of the bars was having it's grand reopening and we hung out and got to sample what the river float used to be like. Fun times.
   The next couple of days Renae and I explored around this fun little town and made friends with our awesome hotel companions.  Good times and experiences shared from all parties.  The food was excellent and prices even better.
 Oh haha, so there are these wooden plank and cable suspension bridges all around Vang vieng as the town is centers on the convergence of rivers and streams.  Lol late one night Renae found out just how safe these babies are.  She was heading back towards the hotel when she fell through one of the rotted planks and got stuck.  Haha, it was quite a site, and after a quick rescue she was doing okay and eventually a smile replaced the tears.  She had been there a good 5 minutes before her cries for help were heard over the music back at our hotel (about 300 feet away). 
  I also forget to mention Renae tried to kill me earlier that day!!!! lol not really. we just had a little crash with the motorbike we had rented.  Low speed involving crossing a river and mud.  We both survived with minor scratches and bruises.

    

Laos, SABAIDE

Pakse, Laos

Smile Wars.  It happens everywhere I go. I'm staring at them they're staring at me. I crack a smile they one up it. teeth are bared and dimples show. And it all ends with both parties laughing at... Absolutley nothing. It's great. haha Laos has to be my favorite country thus far. Everyone is super happy. Even when I'm not the happiest camper they are still super stoked on everything.
   Oh yea, the constant plethora of waterfalls, climbing, rivers, hiking, exploring, swimming definitely helps in defining this one my favorite.

   Renae and I chased waterfalls around a small transit town in southern laos for a day.  Rented a couple of bikes and headed out towards the horizon.  Saw 3 waterfalls, swam in one which was perfectly refreshing. About 110 km under our belt and we headed back towards town for some refreshments and dinner.  We were racing the sunset to try and dine right next to the Mekong dinner, but were a little late; only catching dusk by the tail.  It was still a nice sight though, getting to watch the red sun sink behind the mountains.  For dinner we went to a nice little restraunt hanging over the river that serves you up with a hot pot and you get to cook your own stew right on the table.  They spoke zero english and so I resorted to drawing a few pictures to try and understand what exactly we were ordering. We ended up with a tasty fish stew.

    The next day we put our little picture menu to work again to try and figure out what the people at the market were selling.  here are some great pictures from the outdoor market.

After spending most of the day with a couple of Aussies we hopped onto a sleeper bus and headed to our next stop vang vieng overnight.