Thailand 1.1

Picking up where we left off in the Thailand 1.0 post… We arrived in Krabi; we gave the hotel name to our taxi driver and he dropped us off in front of this restaurant. I was certain we were going to have to get into another cab and go to the real hotel, because there was no way there was a hotel attached to this:

Except there was. We felt pretty sketched out about the whole thing, but the room ended up being nice and there were no giant lizards, so all-in-all, not a bad deal.

We basically only had one full day in this place, so we did a speedboat tour of the neighbouring islands. Beautiful Koh Phi Phi.

It was great, we went to a bunch of the different islands, had lunch and went snorkeling. Snorkeling is an amazing thing and I wasn’t quite prepared for it.

The next day, we went to Phuket. A 2.5hour bus ride on an AC mini-bus turned into a 6.5hour bus ride on an AC mini-bus that did not have much AC to speak of. Most people were pretty grumpy by the end. Myself included.

Our hotel appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, but turned out to be quite close to “Old Kata Center” which was a quaint little town near the beach.

The beach wasn’t nearly as spectacular as ones we had become accustomed to, but we spent a day there regardless. And because it was overcast, it was my first day on the beach without having to apply copious amounts of sunscreen.

Naturally, I burned the shit out of my back.

In order to keep my mind off the pain from my sunburn, I thought it would be best to inflict more pain on myself. If only to act as a distraction.

But also because it’s pretty. No, it wasn’t licked on by kittens and, no, it won’t come off in the shower, regardless of how much I thin my blood while I’m in there.

Next up was Chaing Mai, so we flew north and found our way to our hotel. Which ended up being so magnificently amazing I questioned how we were able to afford to stay there.

We ended up doing three tours, one included the zoo/aquarium, complete with elephant ride.

But also, pandas were involved.

The next other was a temple tour (but believe me, these were not the first, nor the last temples we would see… not sure if I ever have to see a Buddha again). Regardless of quantity, the temples were amazing, and the pictures don’t do them justice.

Last tour involved many animals. Including a monkey show, that was way more of a show than the last one.

And also tigers, even though I didn’t pet them.

And 10 levels of waterfalls that weren’t worth it after the 6th.

Seriously – I think that was the best one and we spent more than an hour walking up never-ending staircases to get to the top.

Did I mention we did this while in the jungles of Thailand? And that it was 35 degrees Celsius and humid as fuck? Yeah, I wasn’t super stoked with this part of the day.

And back down to Bangkok we went.

Next up – part three. I’ll finish off the snapshots of my snapshots and will provide some amusing anecdotes, that I’m sure you’re all waiting for.

Please note – aforementioned anecdotes do not include underage debauchery or ping pong balls.

Thailand 1.0

Here’s my attempt at summarizing my holiday in Thailand in one post. Highly doubtful, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum because if we learned anything from my last round of Mexico posts is that too many posts leads to more than a month between the start of my vacation and the end… and that was only a week long story.

I arrived at Bangkok International Airport and found my shuttle with no problem, albeit a lot of walking because BKK is the largest airport ever (well, that I’ve been in anyway). My friends showed up at the hotel shortly after I arrived and we went out for lunch shortly after that. As I was walking down the streets of Bangkok, I was stunned at the heat, the humidity, terrible air quality and dirtiness of the streets. I attempted to eat my lunch, but it was like eating fire, so I had to switch meals with my friend’s husband. Glad he likes spicy food. That’s about the time my body went into complete shock. I did not feel well.

Went back to the hotel for a nap, after which, I awoke with my body having come to terms with being in a foreign country. We went out clubbing to celebrate. There’s this street known as Cowboy Street… most of the bars are strip clubs with hot Thai girls (sometimes ladyboys) outside trying to get you to go in. There was this one club that had a girl outside holding a sign; the sign said “Over 50 hot girls inside. A few ugly ones and even a couple fat ones”. Seriously. I should have taken a picture.

We found a club that had a live band. It’s quite funny watching a cover band singing English songs realizing that they probably don’t speak English and have no idea what they’re singing about. This was the funniest song they played. (Turn down your speakers – it was loud and maxed out my camera mic.)

Pretty Fly for a Thai Guy

The next day we went to MBK, which is a ridiculously large mall.

Keeping in mind, I was already on the third floor. Still, picture doesn’t do it justice.

Day after that, we flew south to Koh Samui. We spent one day on the beach at our resort.

The next day we did a tour of the island.

Viewpoint:

Penis rock:

I was chatting with some Australian boys at this point of the tour; one of them said “It looks just like it did in the picture”, I said “Really? I thought it would be bigger”. It took him a split second to process what I said; if he had been drinking something it would have been a spit-take. Safe to say we were buddies for the rest of the tour.

Monkey “Show”:

Which consisted of this monkey climbing a tree and knocking down a couple coconuts. It wasn’t much of a show.

Mummified Monk:

Story is that he died while meditating 30 years ago… so they left him in that position and made it a tourist attraction. I just wonder why he was meditating with a pair of Ray Bans. Not very monk-ish.

That night, Ree went into the bathroom to shower. Within minutes of her being in there I heard “Oh my God. OH MY GOD!!” I called out to her and she said “You have to come in here and see this… maybe with your camera!” I went in and this is what I saw in our shower:

It was probably 6-8” long (not including the tail). And it scared the crap out of me.

The next day we moved again, this time to Krabi and this time to a hotel that wouldn’t let giant lizards into our room.

Stay tuned for part two.

I return!

Hey folks – I’m back!!

Made it to and through Thailand and back home all in one piece. Many stories to tell… probably too many, but I’ll try to do up a snapshot of my trip. There will be pictures involved, so first I must unpack my bags and download the pics from my camera. It’ll take a bit of time (… Gorm…), but fear not, it’s in the works!

My last day in Thailand it rained like you wouldn’t believe. I joked that it was Bangkok’s way of preparing me for home. First night back in Canada, we’re hit with our usual November Rain storm.

I’m outta here!!

Alright, folks, this is my last post before I leave for Thailand. “Last post” makes it sound like there will actually be something to it. There won’t be. I’m sorry for getting your hopes up.

So… I’m leaving tonight and won’t be back for over 2 weeks (17 days, I believe). I’ll be safe and will take tonnes of pictures and eat all kinds of food (which I’ll take pictures of, like a fricken champ!).

Don’t miss me too much!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!