Tales from traveling through Thailand:Part I

After a solid two months of traveling around Thailand and Laos, I'm back to my village of Pla Pak! Accumulating over 150 hours of bus, ferry, and airplane time I was on the go exploring a country that I'd been living in for the previous 5 months. I'd be impossible and possibly very boring to tell you everywhere and everything that I've been up to but I'll try and give the best snip-its of what I've done to in the next few blog postings. I arrived back in my village yesterday and had my first day of teaching today so you can imagine I have a lot of catching up to do as I try to recoup from traveling but also get back into the full swing of teaching. I also have hundreds of pictures to sort through.

I can try to break my traveling adventures into a few different parts

I. The Islands

II. Northern Thailand

III. Laos

IV. Mom and Dad come to Thailand!

These are the main sections from my trip starting with our 10 hour overnight bus to Bangkok and flight to Krabi (southern province in Thailand).

When I first arrived in Bangkok after spending the last 5 months in my tucked away village my travel friends and I were eager to enjoy some of the treats of western culture that Bangkok has to offer. This included an A/C room, hot shower, a trip to the mall, western sandwich, and a mani/pedi. All set for the white sand beaches and clear blue water we jumped on a plane ready to get some time on the beach. Within the next 2 1/2 weeks we enjoyed the beaches of Ao Nang- a big tourist destination, Tonsai- Hippies and rock climbers, Koh Lanta- a quiet laid back island, and Koh Pi Pi- party island central. With a good week or so being a complete down pour of rain we still manage to have a good time and enjoy the world renown beaches of Thailand. However we were not alone with Thailand being a top tourist destination for many Europeans and Australians. We were met with huge sun-burned masses of "white people". After only seeing the other 13 volunteers sometimes in the city it was a bit of a shock to see all the tourist and hear more English than Thai. Many of the cities were completely catered to tourist and it seemed hard to believe I was even in the same country. Another adjustment was the type of clothing. In my village women rarely if ever show their shoulder or knees and now I was seeing men in speedos and topless Europeans! I wondered what the Thais thought of this, which I'm sure they are use to by now.

A funny story of before I left my village some of my female co-teachers approached me asking about my travel plans. A more outgoing teacher curiously asked " You wear one or two piece bathing suit!?" Without thought " Two-piece". This sent them into a giggle saying," ohhhhhh Miss Universe, Miss Universe". I guess they associate Bikinis with Miss Universe? I found it hilarious. Then they went on to explain how Thais are very very shy and no wear bathing suit. You will rarely see a Thai in an actually bathing suit but rather just their normal clothes!

Once we got to the beaches it felt good to be able to wear a tank top and shorts that don't go down to my knees.

Here is a long tail boat. This is the main way of transportation between smaller islands or remote beaches. The cloth rapped around the bow is to bring good luck. We took this to explore islands off of Koh PiPi and get to Tonsai beach which is only accessible by boat.

Viewpoint at Koh PiPi. It seems perfect that this photo as the looming clouds overhead. On this party island it rained the majority of the time, flooding the streets. This did not stop the huge European rave scene on the beaches every night. To get off this island we had to take a 1 1/2 hour ferry to Phuket during the storm and lead to one of my most uncomfortable traveling experiences. The ferry felt like a toy boat going over the swells rocking back and forth and then crashing down after going over the way. You can imagine this led to many upset stomach and a crowd of people hovering over the trash can! yuckk

A bay we snorkeled in at Koh PiPi. Our boat driver instructed us to "go swim". This left us treading water for 30 minutes.

It felt so nice to be next to the water again and I forget how much I love being near the ocean! The next part of my journey the rain stilled followed me and led to more serious problems for not only me but southern Thailand as we headed toward the Khao Sok national park.