Southern Thailand

Part two of our Roam Thailand Trip...

Summary of our trip:

Day 8-9 Bangkok
We returned to Bangkok by night train from Chaing Mai. Since we've been in Bangkok already, we had a better idea of how best to use our time. The first morning we woke up and checked out the Weekend Market or "Chakuchat?" which is basically sorta like a huge flea market with a lot of locals and tourist there. We found some pretty good deals here. It was so hot so we came back early to our hotel and went for a dip in the swimming pool. We spent the rest of the evening in Khao Sanh road to do some more shopping. Kary and I decided to check out the Floating market the next morning. Kevin opt out of this trip b/c of the transportation to and from here is supposed to be 2 hours each way and we had a whole day of travelling to our next destination after. Kary and I didn't enjoy the floating market as much as we thought we would. It was way to busy and we spent way to much on transportation and didn't get to see much. We were on the small boat for a good 45 mins but barely moved at all in the river since it was so packed. The highlights have to be the coconut pancake and the variety of exotic fruits that we tried though, minus this one fruit (forget the name..it's green) where we opened it and found a whole bunch of bugs as well as worms in it! Yuck! The rest of the day was spent travelling to our next destination.


Day 10-11 Khao Sok National Park

Khao Sok (apparently the original name literally means "dead body") National Park was pretty beautiful. It is one of the oldest rainforests in the world. We spent the first afternoon there tubing/ floating on the river. There were tons of fishes on the water, especially where we had to jump into our tubes. Our leader tried to divert all the fishes to another side, but there were so many, they were everywhere. We just sucked it up and jumped in, making sure all parts of our bodies were within the tube so the fishes couldn't reach us. After tubing, we visited the monkey temple. There were tons of monkey, and they were a bit timid. We fed them bread, and took tons of pics here. We made a quick stop by a waterfall after (quite tiny compared to Niagra falls) and snapped a few more photos.

I decided to opt out of the optional tour to the lake and caves, and spent the day catching up on my sleep, reading and getting another Thai massage. The rest of my group went and they had a great time, but I was happy to catch up on my much needed sleep.

During our stay at Khao Sok National Park, we stayed at a bungalow right by the river. Of all our accomodations, including the stay at the village tribes' group housing, this was my least favourite. The bathroom had holes in it through out and everytime I went to use the toilet, I was greeted by some sort of creature. First, there was a frog in the bathroom that i had to scoop up with a bucket and a lid, and set free far from our bungalow, and then there was the gecko. Just to let you know, before this experience, Kary and I didn't mind geckos. We actually liked them b/c they would eat all the mosquitos and insects. but things changed. After our second night at the park, I quickly ran to the bathroom the second night after dinner and slammed the door quickly b/c i had to pee so badly. When I looked up at the door, I saw half a gecko's body-it's tail to be exact- wiggling in the corner of the door, b/c I smashed it in half by accident when i closed the bathroom door. I freaked out b/c it was so disgusting and I didn't know what to do. I was literally stuck in the bathroom b/c I was so scared that if it's not dead, and we open the door, it would run all over our room. After looking around the door for a bit, Kary finally saw the other half- it's head- in the corner and we were both freaking out. We finally decided to open the door and Kary opened it a bit and shut it again, but it didn't move. So I got her to open it all the way and we both ran across to the other side of our room. The gecko still didn't move. We couldn't sleep in our room knowing that it's just hanging there, so we decided to go get one of the guys to remove it for us. On our way back to find the guys, Kevin decides to scare us in the dark. We didn't see or hear him, and when he jumped out at us, we both screamed! He was laughing so hard, but Kary and I were both so pissed off, we started punching him. We finally found our group leader and got him to get a couple of the staff to remove the dead gecko for us. But when we got back to our bungalow, the supposedly dead gecko wasn't hanging on the bathroom door, the way we left it. We started freaking out again, but found it climbing the wall above the door. They removed the gecko, while laughing at us, and we were so scared of what else we might find in the bathroom, that we decided not to use it that night. We were so happy to leave that bungalow the next morning. We were then off on another long bus ride followed by a ferry ride to our first island, Ko Samui.


Day 12 Ko Samui

Ko Samui is one of "Thailand's most popular vacation getaways". But we got there later in the evening so we decided to just check out the night markets in Chaweng Beach. I didn't really like the shopping there. People were less friendlier there and the prices weren't that cheap. I managed to practice my bargaining skills, which was much more better now after spending some time in Thailand, and managed to get some pretty good deals on a pair of jeans and shorts. I bought my first pair or rock and republic jeans for 700 baht only. It was 1,000 baht in the malls at Bangkok but I lied to the guy that I saw it for 700. The hightlight of the night market has to be the gelato that we ate though at a little shop called, "Time Out". We were greeted by three teenagers, greeting us in sync "Sa-wah-dee-ka". For ~100 baht, we got so many scoops of ferrero rocher flavoured gelato. It was so yummy!

We spent the next day on a snorkelling tour to Koh Tao and Koh Nang Yuan. I've never snorkelled before, in fact I used to be scared of water when I was younger (previous drowning incident). At first, I was not used to using the gear and actually held back while Kary and Kevin went further into the ocean, but Kary convinced me to take more risks, ensuring me that I'll be fine with my life jacket. I'm glad I decided to listen to her. I've never had so much fun in the water before. We saw tons and tons of coral reefs and all types of fishes. My favourite part was looking for fishes to feed the piece of bread I had in my hands, and then freaking out once they came near me for the food. I ended up throwing all the bread far away from me. I'm such a chicken! haha. oh well. The intercontinental lunch on the ferry for this tour wasnt' bad neither. For 1,700 baht, this tour also included a submarine boat ride where we supposedly go 3m deep into the ocean and are able to see fishes through the glass walls. We were disappointed though b/c the windows were so blurry and we could barely see any fishes at all. But the snorkelling was definetly worth the money.

We spent that evening checking out a Muay Thai boxing match at the Chaweng Stadium. There were quite a few matches including one b/w two boys no older than 8 y/o, another b/w two girls, and my favourite which was b/w a short and tall guy (it was pretty much like David and Golliath). The latter fight was worth ~280,000 baht but of course David ended up winning, but we think that fight might have been fixed.

The accomodation at Ko Samui was another bungalow but it was a bit better than the last -less creatures. Although we did find a giant gecko in our room. Unfortunately Kary got a lot of bites during our stay at Ko Samui, and we're not sure if it was mosquitos, bed bugs, or some other insects from the ocean. I think we both agree that there is waaay much more mosquitos in the south than the North. We're both covered all over with bites.

Day 13-15 Ko Tao

After all the travelling and activities, we finally got the chance to relax in our resort and soak up some sun and swim in the ocean. This was my favourite part of the south. I thought the south would mean more time at the beach, and we didn't get a chance to enjoy it until now. Ko Tao is really beautiful..they call it a "beach paradise" and I was so happy to just get a chance to relax and work on my tan while sipping pina coladas and Mai Tai's.

The next day was spent waiting around for buses and ferry's. The ferry ride in the evening was the worst one yet. The boat was rocking a lot and I got super nauseous. I was so happy when we got off that ferry. But this was followed by a quick dinner and another night train.

Day 16 Bangkok
The night train wasn't as bad though..not as much mosquitos like our last one. We got a bit of sleep and was woken up at 5am this morning. We reached Bangkok at 6 and have been trying to kill some time off before heading to the airport for our flight at 4:30. I'm going to miss Thailand for sure, but I'm partly glad to be heading back to Hong Kong. No more mosquitoes!

RECAP THUS FAR

In a month, I've been to Hong Kong (~7 days), Singapore (~3days) & Thailand (16 days). I've rode an elephant, tried snorkelling, went bamboo rafting, visited some village tribes, rode on many night trains & ferries, got 4 massages, and tried different types of foods. I'm having the time of my life and can't wait for the rest....







WHAT'S TO COME

2 nights in China (Mei Xien)
2 days in Hong Kong
6 weeks in Australia (Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney)
4 weeks in India (Calcutta)