Thailand

Welp folks, I can definitely say I am kicking back! As I mentioned before, Thailand is all about the beaches, and we are all about taking advantage of that. After staying at our "posh" upgraded awesome resort, here is a pict of the pool and sea:

we totally feel spoiled. We did make it to Koh Samui for the day:

which was pretty chill and relaxing. Then came back to Koh Phangan for the infamous Full Moon Party, 11/24/07. There were a couple of pre-parties on the beach, this pict came out bad, but its basically 02348923049832 people dancing:

and that itself was SUPER fun. Then the full moon party itself was craaaazy! We danced the night away from 11:30pm till about 6:30 am. There were all sorts of music playing and it is such a fun atmosphere. EVERYONE is out to have a good time, and you can see that. Of course you see lots of craziness happening as well, but those are details I shouldn't share on this public site. Haha ha!

After the full moon party, we took a trecherous boat ride to Koh Tao. Yes, it probably wasn't the smartest idea to take a boat ride after a night of staying up and drinking and high tide due to the full moon, but what can you do? I somehow managed to not throw up, but I can't say the same for every 3rd person on the boat. Seriously, I've never seen a something so bad. You know its bad when the crew is walking around carrying plastic baggies to throw up in and kleenex. And this perfume (??) thing to put under your news thats supposed to help with nausea? Unfortunately, Char was one of those people, and yea... the poor thing, it really really sucked. Here's a pict of it, all those people that are leaning over are throwing up, ew!

We barely made it off the boat and were whisked to the nice Ban's resort:

where we have spend the last couple of days recovering on sleep and being hung over. Oh, guess what? It was the funniest thing. So here we are at the restaurant and they are playing this already made DVD player from the full-moon party the night before (so quick), and.... there we were! We saw ourselves dancing the night away! Glad I wore a red dress that was easy to spot and that Char had this cute hat on! Yea! So if you ever catch a video of the Full Moon party in Thailand in Nov, look for us! Or, since we both felt the need that we had to buy it, ask us to see it!

I went scuba diving the other day and that was pretty much the reason we came to Koh Tao, its supposed to have the best diving in all of Thailand. But of course, as luck would have it, its the start or finish (who knows?) of the monsoon season so the visibility was TOTAL crap. Its probably the worst diving I've done. But we still saw some cool things, big o turtles, trigger fish, bannerfish. Its no Great Barrier Reef, I'll tell ya! Sooo... thats about all that we've done during our stay in Thailand, beach hopped. And relaxed:

Now we are in Bangkok. I remember coming here a couple of years ago and not liking it... but now I do! The weather is beautiful, and its actually nice to be in a city. There is a ton to do in Bangkok - you can go blue in the face from looking at wats and temples. Or just hanging out. We actually met up with someone we met in Xi'an, China (LH, Tam!). Crazy to see him again and realize that its been 2 months since we last hung out and we have all sorts of fun stories to share. Ahhh... the beauty of traveling, always running into people!

Guess what? We saw Thai boxing! It was sooo fun! Its easy to get into it. I learned that Thai boxing is different than regular boxing because they can kick with their legs, so most of the time, the fighters are guarding their face (more than usual, I guess!) and their kidneys, ha ha!:

Here is a pict of the awesome and huge (45m!) reclining buddha and the grand palace:

All and all, we spent 2 full weeks in Thailand its amazing. I know I usually like to do a little recap, like I did China, and I wanted to do one of SE Asia, but its kinda more for more and I don't have too much time now. Out of the SE countries, I loooved all of them in their own way. Laos for the people and the atmosphere, Vietnam for the sites, Cambodia for the temples and the food, and Thailand for the beaches. Fun fun! Now we are off to Nepal and India for the next leg! Woo hoo!

p.s. I know, I know... I'm a little obsessed with sunsets!!!

By the way, HAPPY THANKSGIVING and happy 3-month travel anniversary to me! Its nice to be in Thailand, the land of great beaches for this special time of year. Actually, if it weren't for someone else who recognized our "American" accents and wished us a happy thanksgiving, we probably would have forgotten about it. Nevertheless, this is probably the most non-Thanksgiving I've ever had. I had rice with pineapple and cashews for dinner, and then we treated ourselves to pancakes for dessert. No turkey and mash potatoes for us! I hope others will eat extra on our behalf!

Anyhoo, to back track our a little, from Cambodia we bused it, actually took a personal taxi (long story) to Bangkok where we caught a flight to Phuket. After less than a 24-hour stop over there, we took a ferry to the great Phi Phi island. That is where The Beach is filmed and is frequently named one of the best beaches in the world. When I came here a few years ago, we took a day trip to the Phi Phi islands and I remember it being wonderful, crystal clear blue water and white fine sand. So needless to say, we were pretty excited to lay back and have some beach time after all our travels. We spoke too soon. According to our guide book, there was this super cute little beach resort that had nice bamboo huts and bungalows, and was given a "thumbs up" by the guidebook. So we got dropped off there by the water taxi (the only ones to get dropped off there so that should have been a hint) to find a deserted and desolate tiny tiny beach that was totally under construction. What the? We asked the price and found it waaaay overpriced and over our budget. D'oh! So the reception was kind enough to tell us to take a "5-min" walk over a hill to get to Long Beach, where there were plenty of budget hotels. No problem, we thought. So with our bags and everything we started the slow climb..... up and over this jungle area. Seriously, it was a jungle. There was no route just a walked-on mud path that was barely wide enough to fit ourselves. Not only was it hot and extremely humid out, but we literally were walking through this jungle that had steep, slippery inclines and declines that we practically had to slide down. It was trecherous! People were hardly climbing up and were looking at us with disbelief that we were doing this 'trek' with all our bags. We emerged from the path dripping with sweat, covered in mosquito bites, and just gross. Then of course there are no roads or sidewalks, so we had to trudge through sand from place to place to finds things not available or waaay too expensive. We finally found one and not caring that it was smelly and musty, it was close to the beach. We practically threw our bags down, changed, and did a Baywatch enterance into the clearn, warm waters. Niiiiiice! There we watched the sunset and finally could settle. What a journey! Was it worth it? OF COURSE! The beach was fantastic, soooo pretty:

Then started our 1st few days of real 'vacation' from beginning this journey. Our decisions soon came to: should we have a pineapple shake or mango shake?

Should we have a sunset massage or dusk massage? (we settled for the dusk by the beach):

How can you beat that? And some good eats!

Soo.... that was pretty much 2 full days on Phi Phi!!! Laying out, catching some rays, and relaxing. No worrying about anything. Next stop is Koh Phangan where we are now. Another day's journey, another adventure with our accomodations. In Koh Phi Phi... it was kinda gross. Centipedes and strange bugs about, water in our room from the non-insulated walls, blah! So when we got to Koh Phangan and got ourselves to even a worse place, this one covered with ants, an outside "bathroom" area (no sink, just a basin, I could go on and on), we almost had had it. We slept there, but, as is becoming routine, I had all these bad dreams about bugs and ants and stuff. Daaaaaaamn it. Sooo..... as luck would have it (it is Thanksgiving, huh?), we found a sweeeeeeeeet accomodation just down the beach from where we originally were staying. Of course, we decided to splurge for it, but its worth every penny. Guess what? It has toilet paper! A garbage! Tiled floors! A separate shower area from the bathroom (in Asia they are mostly an all in one, so you pretty much are sitting on the toilet while showering). All these MAJOR luxuries we haven't had. And, yes we are paying a LOT, there is even a computer with internet, a TV, and a fridge in our room. And did I mention the spectacular view from our private balcony?

We can't get enough of it! Soooo... life is good! In all honesty, we had to do this. I don't think I could take yet another couple of days, or week, of really bad accomodations. So here we are! Another few days here while we party at the infamous full-moon party!