Day 98: Ko Samui

Sarah and I got an early start to the day because we wanted to go check out some of the island's waterfalls. We made our way to the Na Muang waterfall, the more popular waterfall on the island. The drive was nice, we were able to get out of the gaudy touristy area and see the more local side of the island.

Once we got the the waterfall park, we were back in the tourist zone. Elephant rides, large truck rides, ATVs, zip lines, and water slides. They have destroyed a natural park and made it into a tourist frenzy. Right when we walked in there was a place where you could feed bananas to some elephants. It was so cool to see them chowing down and I just had to feed her a couple. I felt the trunk of the elephant as I fed her and it was so coarse, like a tough leather shell.

Before we started to make the trek to the waterfall all these guides came up to us and said, "it too far to walk, you should ride elephant or take truck." We kept on walking. I was extremely disappointed to find out that the road leading to the waterfall was paved! I just shook my head in disgust, who wants to walk to a natural waterfall on a paved road? Where's the fun in that? Once we got close to the waterfall, we did have to make a small trek to get there. Before we got there, there was a natural swimming pool, so we jumped right in. The water was ice cold, so refreshing after the long walk under a scorching sun. While the pool was slammed with tourists, it was refreshing. I can only imagine how terrible it would be during the tourist high season.

After cooling off, we walked up to see the actual waterfall; it was off a beaten trail so I don't think many people realized it was there, many people just got stuck in the small waterfall that made the pool. Fine with me, we almost had the waterfall to ourselves. The waterfall was 262 feet tall, pretty tall, but not as much water as I was hoping for. We spent a good amount of time climbing the area and walking some small trails to check out our surroundings. When we walked back down, we decided to hangout with some of the elephants that we resting and eating. I played with one of them, petting her and watching her eat. Her entire skin was so tough and the hair on her head was really strong, and kind or prickly. You could see the blood on another one of the elephants were they had beaten her with these sticks that had a sharp hook on the end of it. It was pretty sad, you could see the pain in her eyes. While it is sad to see, I tried to look at it in a different perspective. These animals are massive creatures with thick skin; when they are beaten with a stick, it would be like someone tapping us on the arm, saying "go that way." The spikes are used to protect the tourists. When an elephant gets scared or rattled and starts a stampede, there is nothing that can stop them, so the guides use the spikes to stab the elephant when they start to get out of control to protect themselves and the tourists. Not sure if that is true, but it helps to lighten the mood.

Once we finished our journey at the park, we took the moped further south to see what else we could find. We stumbled across a small secluded beach with a handful of people one it. We took the time to walk up and down part of the beach before we decided to head in and get some rest.

Afterwards, we rallied with our UK friend and headed to this all you can eat BBQ joint where you cook your own food. There was a smorgasbord of options: chicken, pork, shrimp, liver, duck, chicken wings, French fries, veggies, noodles, and some random mystery meats. We spent about 3 hours cooking and eating food. After the Brit and German stopped, I continued to eat for about a hour. I was so hungry! The other two just kept laughing, as I was fulfilling the stereotype of an "all-you-can-eat" American; whatever, I was hungry. Two rounds of ice cream and I full mango later, I had to call it quits; I looked fully pregnant.

We headed back to our hostel, fell right into a food coma, and slept the night away.

Day 97: Ko Samui

I spent the morning planning what to do after Thailand. There are so many options and things that I want to see, but as time passes, the days get hotter and the monsoon season starts keeping up on us. My plans off travels have changed so often that's it is hard to decide where to go once my time is done in Southeast Asia.

Regardless, I met up with a German girl named Sarah and we decided to go check out one of the beaches. We decided against going to the Chaweng beach because it is super crowded and would probably remind me of the filth of Pa Tong beach in Phuket. Me made our was down via moped to Lamai beach, which is supposed to be more secluded. The beach was very nice and there were plenty of palm trees to give us some natural shade rather than pay to rent a lounge chair and umbrella. We grabbed a Som Tom Papaya salad and some chicken on a stick and relaxed on the beach all day. The beach was rather empty, so I wasn't disgusted by a flood of tourists and an ocean overflowing with trash and jet skis.

We eventually made our way back to the hostel so we could get some rest before the night. A group of new comers and new friends gathered to hit the town. A guy from the UK brought out a deck of cards and had us playing some good games while we were eating dinner. After dinner, we migrated over to the nightlife scene. The German girl really wanted to go into an exotic dancing club, as she had never seen one before; we walked in and figured out the cheapest drink was $12 and turned right back around. We found a great bar where we could sit down and play some good drinking games with the carsd. After a couple rounds of buckets (small buckets filled with your choice of a liquor and a mixer), the group split between going in and staying out. On our was back to the hostel, the guy from the UK wanted to use the restroom at the McDonalds. When he came out, he was accosted by a ladyboy. He/she was all over the Brit and wanted to go home with him. Luckily the German girl stepped in and said she was his boyfriend (it always helps to travel with a girl); the Brit was freaking out every time the ladyboy would touch him, thinking that he would get some sort of disease. We finally made it back to the hostel, disease free, to sleep off the night.

Day 96: Ko Samui

Today Pichai and I went our separate ways, he is headed to Bangkok and my plan is to head to Ko Tao, a smaller, less touristy island north of Koh Pha-ngan. As you can tell from the title of this post, I didn't make it there. Once I got to the harbor to purchase my boat ticket, they had already sold out of the tickets to Ko Tao; now I was faced with a choice: stay here an extra night and go to Ko Tao the following morning, which would require me to then take a ferry back past Koh Pha-ngan to get to the airport on Ko Samui; or just go to the big tourist island of Ko Samui. I chose the latter of the two.

Unfortunately, the ferry didn't depart for another 5 hours and I only had 450 baht in my pocket with no ATM in sight. I popped into an Irish Pub, which was across the street, and booked a good hostel and learned a little about the island. After lunch and a couple drinks I had 100 baht left. With a storm brewing in the air, the ocean provided a choppy 2 hour ferry ride. I am usually prone to sea sickness, as any deep sea fisher who has been with me can tell you that, luckily I held my stomach.

Once I got onshore, I had to find a ride to the other side of the island. Being limited on cash actually saved me money. Everyone was asking for 200 - 300 baht, eventually, one guy gave in and gave me a ride for my last 100 baht. When I arrived at my hostel, there was no one there; I waited and waited and no one showed up. Finally this German guy who was staying there showed up. After waiting long enough, we popped into a local restaurant and had some great food.

Later that night, we got together with some other people in the hostel and went to another Muay Thai boxing match. This one was very different from the last. There was no big stadium, it was a stage with seats surrounding it with bars spread amongst the crowd. Ladies (and lady boys) would come up and take our drink orders. They were loud and annoying. Almost every westerner that was there had a Thai prostitute around his arms, no lie. There was even a father and son in front of us with two of them. Talk about a father son moment. It was pretty disgusting to realize what was around us, but then again, it is Thailand. The male fights were much better than the ones I had seen in Phuket, you could actually feel the pain from each successful kick.

The fight ended late and most of us just took it easy in order to see the island tomorrow.

Day 95: Koh Pha-ngan

Struggling to pull myself out of bed, we finally made our way to grab some lunch. Afterwards Pichai and I headed back to the beach to relax. We didn't stay too long as the sun was out in full force; I thought I was going to incinerate at any moment.

We eventually headed back to the hostel and I relaxed/slept until later in the afternoon. As it got closer to dinner time, we met up with the two British girls in the food market. To be honest, I was disappointed, as I was expecting to see all types of crazy things to eat: worms, crickets, scorpions, cockroaches, etc. It was more of a touristy spot with a bunch of not good food to choose from. We first went to a sushi bar, each roll was worse than the one I ate before (I would suggest steering clear of roadside sushi), the I went back for some pad thai (a traditional Thai dish), thinking, 'how could they mess this up?', sure enough, they found a way.

Despite the bad food, it was great to sit down and talk with the girls for a couple hours. It was similar to our conversation the night before, interesting to hear all the differences in the way we talk and act. One of the girls has been teaching English in Thailand since October, heading back to her home in Italy in June where her boyfriend is waiting for her. The other girl is working for a bank in Ireland. So we have a teacher, a banker, a cop and me. You couldn't ask for a group of more different views on life than this; it was great.

Eventually, as the market winded down, we went our separate ways. Like I said earlier, it was like waving goodbye to a good friend.

Day 94: Koh Pha-ngan

We started off the day by heading to find some breakfast. On our drive I spotted an open lot with a view of the ocean. The beach is so amazingly beautiful; I kept saying that. Everything that I was expecting an amazing Thai beach to be is right here. Islands out in the distance, shallow calm waters hiding sand bars and coral, and an empty beach full of beautiful palm trees with groups of bungalows sprinkled down the coast. I instantly stripped down to my boxers and dove in. It was quite a euphoric moment.

After breakfast, we returned to that lot and hung out on the sand bars for most of the afternoon. We didn't do anything, just laid on the sand bar with the ever so gentle waves rippling up our bodies like a slight electric shock. Talk about where would you want to live? give me a bungalow on this beach and I will die a happy man.

Since tonight is the Full Moon party, we decided to drive down to the beach where the party is to scope out our next amazing night. We grabbed some lunch right on the beach. This beach was full of tourist; the ocean was riddled with jet skis and the beach polluted with frisbees. While this beach is nice and fun, I much prefer our relaxing spot. This beach got us really excited for this night to come, they were already setting up two large stages and stockpiling the alcohol; a recipe for a good time.

We eventually met up with two of Pichai's friends that he had made a couple days ago. We sat down for dinner close to where we ate the night before and started our night. It was great to sit down with three British people and here the differences in the way we talk. Even things as small as the different ways we say 'garage' are amusing. After dinner we made our way to the beach for the Full Moon party. It was great to see how messed up everyone was, whether it was from too much alcohol, drugs, or a combination of the two. One guy was rolling around on the beach with a table in his hands. It was amusing to see, but he is probably laying in a gutter somewhere now. They even had sleeping areas on the beach so people could sleep away everything that they have ingested.

Good music, great people, and a full moon.

Day 93: Koh Pha-ngan

I had an early morning as I started my trip from Phuket to Ko Pha-ngan. This is the first time since Nepal that I will be traveling on my own. While I do enjoy being with friends, it is always great to travel on your own. Sometimes you just want to be alone and dive into the unknown by yourself. Now I am back on my own trying to traverse this world while making new friends along the way.

The bus ride was absolutely miserable. No A/C with a strong sun kept me baking like a turkey in the oven; there were times when I thought I was going to throw up. The bus finally dropped me off at Don Sak where I awaited my ferry to take me to Ko Pha-ngan. Ko Pha-ngan is an island off the eastern coast of Thailand. Tomorrow is something called the Full Moon party, a big party that is thrown on the beach during the full moon of the month. Perfect timing.

When I got on the ferry, I sat down right in the front next to an Asian looking guy. He got up and walked around for a bit and when he sat down he said, "cheers mate." "So where in the UK are you from?" I asked. Turns out the guy was born and raised in London, but his parents are Thai. After an hour or so of talking and a couple rounds of beer, we became good friends. Turns out he has an extra beg in his hotel room and offered it up to me. Just shows what talking to the person next to you can lead to.

Once we got situated in our room, we went out and rented mopeds so we could get around easier. $3 for 24 hours it is not a bad deal at all; you end up paying around $2 for a cab to take you anywhere, so why not have your own mode of transportation? On our way to find some food we picked up three girls who were walking back to there bungalows. The girl on my moped was from Germany and was telling me all about the Jungle Party that was going on tonight. After Pichai and I dropped off the girls, we headed off to grab a bite to eat before heading off to the jungle! We found an amazing place called the Art Bar on the side of a mountain with an amazing view of the ocean. Turns out they were cooking BBQ chicken and pork and it was free. Yes, legit, free, all we had to do was buy a drink, and they were not even overpriced. Couldn't ask for a better appetizer of the night.

The jungle party was wild! Stage in the middle of a palm tree forest, neon paint, and fire dancers. Awesome night.