SOUTHERN THAILAND
KOH SAMUI
The island of Koh Samui served as a travel hub for us to get
to Koh Phangan, another island nearby where the Full Moon Party is held. We
only stayed there for a night before moving on and that worked for us after
seeing the island littered with resorts and hearing it was more suited for
families and honeymooners.
After waking up to planes flying over the guesthouse/resort
since 6am we finally got up and made the short walk to the pier to catch our
ferry. The ferry ride was only an hour and a half long and one of the smoothest
rides we’ve had.
KOH PHANGAN
The sole purpose for staying on Koh Phangan was to go to the
Full Moon Party for Adrian’s birthday. A couple of days would have sufficed but
most of the hostels and guesthouses in Haad Rin (where the party is held)
including ours require you to stay a minimum number of nights so we would be on
the island for 5 nights.
We got there the day before the night of the party and
already the island was packed with backpackers. The Full Moon Party is a big
draw because it is the largest beach party in the world seeing 30,000 for New
Year’s full moon and about 10,000 any other one. It started out in the 1980s as
a group of tourists partying on the beach until the sun came up and has since
evolved into an almost commercial activity.
With drink buckets in hand and bodies painted in neon paint,
we made our way down around midnight and managed to stay until 5am. We had a
blast but we didn’t find it as full on as many people made it out to be. Sure
there were people who got carried away and I’m sure there was theft just
thankfully not with us. We had fun watching fire dancers and dancing on the
beach.
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| Welcome to Fullmoon Party Haad Rin |
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| Birthday Mai Tai for Adrian |
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| All dressed up for the party, just need some neon body paint! |
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| Drink buckets |
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| A shot of some of the party |
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| The Full Moon |
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The next morning was pretty quiet and continued to be for
the rest of our time on the island as the swarms of backpackers made their way
back to the mainland or on to another island. It was almost eerie how quiet it
got. A lot of shops closed up including the 7-Eleven down the street from us
and would not be reopening until just before the next Full Moon. The locals
seemed to be happier and friendlier once things calmed down. Very understandable.
On our last day we rented a scooter and cruised around the
island, spending some time at nicer and cleaner beaches.
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| Our Superman scooter |
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| Delicious papaya salad |
KOH TAO
Koh Tao was our next stop and is known for the cheapest
place in Thailand to learn how to scuba dive. After hearing friends’
experiences, knowing how much I love the ocean and marine life and conveniently
being friends with an ex-instructor on the island, we figured we would give it
a go.
Adrian signed up for a one-day “Try Dive” while I booked the
two-day “Scuba Diver course” but luckily the dive center was accommodating so
we could do the first day together. With signing up for a course, we got a
couple nights free in our own hut which we thought was a pretty cool deal.
The first day started off a little weird because we were
supposed to start with watching tutorial videos but instead jumped into
classroom teaching and learned about the equipment we would be using. We had a
break for lunch then next thing we knew we were out in shallow water at the
Japanese Gardens. We learned some underwater skills like clearing a half full
mask and finding your primary air source if it gets knocked out of your mouth
as well as things like neutral buoyancy and signals for communicating
underwater. Then we were off on our first gradual dive!
It was such a surreal feeling being able to breathe
underwater but also unnerving knowing you are relying on this equipment whereas
if anything goes wrong snorkeling you can easily just pop your head up out of
water. Equalization of the ears wasn’t as hard as we thought it might be.
Our first real dive was after our skills session where we
took a boat to the other side of the small island to “Twins”. Here we were a
bit more nervous because we began our descent using a buoy and rope as opposed
to swimming easing ourselves into depths. Once we descended things were better
and we could enjoy the dive a bit. We went as deep as 11.9m and spent 34 mins
down there. During that time we saw butterfly, angel, parrot and banner fish, a
white eyed moray eel, Christmas tree worms, sea urchins, anemone fish and
groupers. After seeing all that Adrian signed up for the two-day course as well
and we spent the evening watching videos and doing some “homework”. While it
would have been useful seeing the videos before going into the water it worked
out so both of us could watch the videos at the same time.
The second day started with watching the rest of the videos
and taking a multiple choice exam. We had a lunch break then headed out to
Japanese Gardens again to work on some more skills. We learned how to clear a
completely filled mask, breathe underwater with no mask on, remove a cramp in
your leg, tow and push rescues and a controlled emergency situation ascent.
Our second dive was a lot more comfortable and we were
feeling much more confident but still not quite enough to go for our Open Water
certification where you can dive to 18m as opposed to 12. On the second dive we
saw a lot of the same and unfortunately some new fish known as wrasse fish
which bite you. Adrian was being
attacked while trying to complete his skills and our instructor was bit on the
ears twice.
By the end of the second day we were Scuba Diver certified!
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| The classrooms we learned in |
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| Photo with our German instructor, Mickey |
Most of our time spent on the island was devoted to diving
but we did some wandering around the markets and to find food. Although the
place we stayed at was well-equipped and we didn’t really need to leave if we
didn’t want to. We had our basic fan hut, a restaurant and bar on the property
and the beach and ocean just in front. We saw some beautiful sunsets from here
and met some cool people.
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| Day time view of the ocean/island from the restaurant |
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| Evening shot |
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| And panorama |
After four full days on Koh Tao it was time to continue our
island hopping to Koh Phi Phi on the West (Andaman) Coast.
KOH TAO TO KOH PHI
PHI
We started our coast to coast trip on the night boat from
Koh Tao to Surat Thani. By 9pm we were boarded and had left the pier; maybe
half an hour later the cabin lights were turned off. Not quite tired yet we pulled out the laptop
and watched some “Game of Thrones”. Once the laptop died we decided to call it
a night and try to get a few hours of sleep.
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| The night boat from Koh Tao to Surat Thani |
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| Inside the night boat |
Adrian managed to get a pretty good sleep but I was waking
up and tossing what seemed like every hour. By 4:30am we docked at Surat Thani,
an hour earlier than scheduled. Thankfully the shuttle company expected that
and they were at the pier ready to pick us up. We were transferred to the
“minibus terminal” where we sat around and had a bit to eat before our minibus
picked us up to take us to Krabi on the West Coast. Ten of us backpackers were
squished into a minibus along with all our bags so thankfully the ride was only
three or so hours long and full of nodding off.
Once in Krabi we hung around a guesthouse which was the
organiser of transferring us to the ferry terminal to go to Koh Phi Phi.
Another hour of waiting around, 10 minutes transfer in another minibus and then
we were boarded the ferry. With so many legs of travel I thought for sure
something would go wrong along the way but Thailand transportation impressed
us. An hour and a half boat ride and we would soon be on Koh Phi Phi to do some
more diving!
KOH PHI PHI
From first sight, Koh Phi Phi was absolutely beautiful - sheer
cliff faces, jungle, turquoise blue waters and supposedly abundant and diverse
marine life. Our “resort” was situated up in the hills a bit away from the
action but still well within walking distance. We opted for this as the island
is known for partying and we were more there for diving. Every night is a party
night and even though we were tucked away, the music from the beach still
reached us. Earplugs served us well here and in many places before this.
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| A photo from the pier |
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| There isn't any public transportation on the island so we had someone from the resort help us with our bags using a push trolley. |
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| Wandering around the island |
While the island is a beauty from afar, actually on the
island is a different story. You are required to pay 20 Baht when you come onto
the island which supposedly goes towards the maintenance/garbage cleanup of the
island. But even the walk up to our guesthouse/resort you question where the
money is going because it sure isn’t going towards resolving the garbage
problem. Phi Phi suffered a lot of damage from the Indonesian tsunami of 2004
but I think the problem now is more too many Western litterers. It was both sad
and frustrating and I hope at some stage they can organize monthly cleanups
like Koh Tao does.
After checking in and some recovery from the walk (this
island was the hottest and most humid place we had been to yet and didn’t get a
room with A/C), we headed back into town for some food and to book our “fun
dives” with the company our instructor once worked at and obviously
recommended.
I called it an early night that night struggling with a headache
and not doing so well with the heat while Adrian was able to go out and see
what the night life was like. Unfortunately I am more susceptible to
overheating and headaches so I struggled a bit on the island as well as other
places in SE Asia so far but thankfully Adrian is understanding and helpful but
will still go out and do his own thing so I don’t have to feel like I am
holding him back.
We booked our dives for the second full day on Phi Phi so we
could sleep in and recover from the missed sleep during the coast to coast
trip. So our first full day was spent bumming around the town, Tonsai, lounging
on chairs on the beach and getting pumped for our first “fun dives”.
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| At the beach |
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| Sunset at our resort/guesthouse |
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| A view of the party from our resort/guesthouse |
Our dive day was an early start getting to the dive center
for 7am. We had some tea and coffee and then headed to the boat. We were
staying on Phi Phi Don while our diving was around Phi Phi Ley. On the way we
met our two dive instructors and got prepped for the first dive. Not before
long we were at the first site – Bida Nok. It was absolutely amazing! The
marine life was so diverse and abundant. We went as deep as 11.6m for 36
minutes. During that time we saw a devil scorpion fish (poisonous), a ghost pike
fish (rare and difficult to see), a sea snake (second most deadliest animal in
the ocean [glad I found this out after seeing it]), big blue sea stars and
crown of thorns starfish and to end the dive a reef octopus!
Lunch was spent in Maya Bay which is a huge tourist area
because the beach in this bay was featured in the film “The Beach” with
Leonardo DiCaprio. There were way too many people so we were happy to start on
the anchored boat in the bay and swim to a smaller and quieter beach.
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| "The Beach" from a distance |
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| The smaller but quieter beach we swam to |
Our second dive was at Malong-Palong and it was just as
exciting as the first! We went as deep as 11.7m and stayed down for 34 minutes.
On this dive we saw a Hawksbill turtle right away which was the highlight of
the dive but we also saw a juvenile lion fish, yellow snappers, sergeant
majorfish, moorish idol and nudies.
While on these dives we had a videographer down with us who
made a DVD for purchase. Because it was our first fun dives and we saw so many
amazing things we decided to buy it. It was such an incredible day and we look
forward to more of them, hopefully in Vietnam and the Philippines.
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| This is the best we can do for dive site photos until you can watch our dvd with us |
Although we could have easily stayed longer on the island,
there was still a lot more of Thailand to see. So after two full days on Phi
Phi we caught a boat to Phuket.
PHUKET
Phuket more or less served as a travel hub for us between
Koh Phi Phi and Bangkok to start our mainland Thailand travel. After what we
heard from other backpackers who spent some time there we were glad we only
planned to stay two nights and one full day. I’m sure we could have stayed in
another town on the island which would have been nicer but we chose Patong
because fellow travellers had stayed there and there were some cheap
accommodation options available.
The majority of our time there was used playing catch up on
e-mails and Facebook but we did do a bit of wandering around. We made it to
Patong Beach which was pretty nice but also pretty crowded with sunbathers and
people zipping around on seadoos. The rest of the town wasn’t anything special
and although we heard about it we were still bothered to see older Western men
with their younger “Thai brides”. The island is also apparently run by the
mafia so I didn’t feel particularly comfortable.
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| Patong Beach |
On the upside the guesthouse we stayed at was nice and all the
staff was friendly and welcoming. It had a restaurant attached and although it
was a bit more expensive than other places we ate at, the food was tasty and
had good portions.
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| A1 Island Guesthouse |
Our time passed quickly and soon we were on our plane to
Bangkok.
We have been in Bangkok for five days now and leave tomorrow
to Sukhothai to see some ruins. From Sukhothai we will then go to Chiang Mai to
do a hill tribe trek/elephant ride, take a cooking course and Adrian would like
to do some muay thai training for a day. We will post another update when we
have finished our time in Thailand.
