Enchanting Thailand

Greetings from Trang, Thailand!

Our beachside bungalow on Ko Bulon Leh

In Ice Cube's words, today was a good day. Let me tell you about it. Hearing about our day goes a long was to understanding why Thailand has been so enjoyable. This morning Erin and I woke up in our thatched bamboo bungalow on the remote island of Ko Bulon Leh about 30 feet from the turquoise blue ocean, with a fine white sand beach spanning the distance between us and the Andaman Sea. Today was a travel day so we were up early at 7-ish. I wanted to squeeze in a snorkel before we left so I threw on my new boardshorts (stylish counterfeit Billabongs I picked up last week for cheap) and walked down the beach. There I spied a small (2 foot) blacktip reef shark in the shallows. I walked a bit further and headed into the sea. Below me unfurled an amazing colorful world of soft and hard corals and thousands of fish of all types and sizes and colors - clownfish, angelfish, parrotfish, butterflyfish, yellowtails, and others. This particular snorkel was highlighted by a giant manta ray. The day before it was an eel - purple, ugly, 4 feet long and six inches in diameter. The day before that on a different island it was a big shark - 5 feet long that scared the you-know-what out of me and send me to shore even though I know it wouldn't eat me.

The view from our bed. Not a bad view to wake up to every morning.

In any event, I snorkel down the length of the reef, swim into shore, and wander back to our bungalow. Along the way, I'm trying to take in the blue sky and surrounding islands and limestone rock formations that jut out of the sea. As I return to our bungalow, Erin is just getting back with our breakfast which consists of a pot of coffee and muesli with fresh fruit and yogurt. The fresh fruit is incredible - banana, mango, papaya, watermelon, and my new favorite pineapple. The pineapple here is out-of-this-world. As we eat, we stare out over the amazing scene before us and hear the water lapping up to shore.

After breakfast, a quick shower, paying our bill (500 baht or about $15 a night) and checking out, we catch a longtail boat to the ferry that will take us back to the mainland. On the ferry ride, the captain turns to me and points and says, "Big fish" in broken English. I look out and see a pod of dolphins jumping through the water to the side of the boat. Once back to the mainland, we stock up on fresh fruit for the day - pineapple, oranges, and bananas - for the equivalent of $1.50. We catch a sawngthaew to the next town. A sawngthaew is the local taxi which consists of a pickup truck with two benches lining the back. We make our way to the next town which is on the public bus route. We're now off the tourist path and in a town where the locals don't speak much English. We sit down on one of the many streetside restaurants (more like a food stand),and I order Pad Thai for me and Pad See Yoo for Erin - to the waitress' amusement as she tries to understand my Thai with my farang (foreigner) accent. We wolf down our meal of noodles and chicken and shrimp and pay up. The bill comes to 50 baht or about $1.50.

Next we wait by the roadside and catch the next bus with the locals to Trang where we're headed. After a brief scare that the bus has broken down but which turns out to be just a 10-minute delay, we get off in Trang. It's a city but a relatively small and easy one to tackle as far as foreign Asian cities go. We find the backpacker's hostel we're seeking and book a mediocre room with a fan (but no A/C or TV) for 180 baht, or about $6. From there, the day is less eventful. We spent most of the afternoon in an internet cafe getting caught up with all of our emails and personal business, perused a few bookstores, and just enjoyed a nice meal of pork with garlic and pepper and curry chicken with rice for less than $5. Tomorrow is another travel day.

The beauty of today is enjoying the natural wonders that Thailand's beaches and ocean provide, getting comfortable enough to start to be able to get around easily off the tourist path, enjoying the amazing food and wonderful people of Thailand, and doing it all for a small price. We're really starting to hit our groove here, just as we did in Nepal after a few weeks.

We arrived in Thailand on January 4th in Phuket where we were met at the airport by Erin's cousin Johnny. Phuket is large island on the SW coast of Thailand with beautiful beaches and lots of action. Johnny is a Canadian native who is a safety engineer on an oil rig off the coast off Australia and now lives in Thailand. He's married to a beautiful and bubbly Thai lady named Pim, and they have an adorable two-year-old son Arthur.

Johnny, Pim, and Arthur went above and beyond and showed us around the big island of Phuket for the first few days we were in Thailand. It made for an easy adjustment to a new place. They took us to a nice waterfall, a Gibbon (type of monkey) Rehabilitation Center, a Buddhist temple, several viewpoints, and a few tasty restaurants. We enjoyed our time and especially our gracious hosts.

Cliff and beaches of Hat Rai Leh West

From Phuket, we struck out on our own and made our way down the coast by bus to the Krabi area. We spent four days on the beautiful beaches of Rai Leh (Railay) West, Phra Nang, and Ton Sai. The Railay area is one of the top rock climbing areas in the world, owing to the huge limestone rock formations that tower over the beaches and rise out of the sea. I was expecting it to be a real low-key climber's spot with just a few backpackers and climbing bums about, but it is also very developed, and there were lots of people of all kinds. This didn't slow us down, though. We broke out of our idleness from the last month and were quite active. We swam and snorkeled a bunch. We rented a kayak and went sea kayaking around the rock formations and to private beaches one afternoon just before sunset. The next day, we went rock climbing with a local guiding service. Having not climbed in quite a bit, we were quite psyched with our performance, and it was great to get back on the rock. We also enjoyed lots of meals looking out on the fiery red sun setting over the ocean.

Sunset over Andaman Sea and Hat Phra Nang

From Railay, we ventured further down the Andaman coast to the port town of Pak Bara and arranged a ferry ride to some remote islands off the far SW coast. We spent about five days on Ko Lipe which is a tiny, gorgeous island surrounded by the islands and oceans of Ko Turatao National Park. Ko Lipe is only a square mile or two in size so you can walk from one side to the other in minutes. There are lots of nice beaches, many secret coves, and nice coral reefs just offshore. The island is also home to a village of chao leh (which means sea people or sea gypsies) who are not Thai in ethnicity but came to these islands from Indonesia about 100 years ago. Erin managed to set up another e-book program with the local school on the island so that added a nice dimension to the trip. Ko Lipe is developing quickly and had its share of tourists, but it was a very low-key place where we could kick back and relax and really get into the slow and easy Thai beach life. We really started to hit our stride on Ko Lipe.

Longtail boat on Ko Lipe coast

From Ko Lipe we hopped to Ko Bulon Leh which is closer to the mainland but even more low-key. We lucked out with our cheap but perfectly situated bungalow by the sea. Erin and I enjoyed our last few days there immensely, and both agreed that Ko Bulon Leh may end up being the highlight of our whole trip to Thailand. We'll see, as we still have about 3 weeks left.

The plan from here is to head to the east coast and stay on Ko Tao, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. The we'll wander up to the north of Thailand, likely via Bangkok. The Chang Mai area in the north of Thailand is known for its rich ancient culture, many old Buddhist temples, lush jungles and forests, and mountainous terrain. It will be a nice complement to the beach life in the south. Then we will venture over to Laos and make our way down the Mekong River and to the towns of Luang Prubang and Vientiane. From Vientiane, we'll fly to Siem Reap where we will meet up with Ben and Casey and a friend of theirs to explore the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat. After Angkor, we'll check out the capital city of Phnom Penh and the killing fields from the dark era of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. Finally, Erin and I will split on our own for the last few days and hope to find a beach in either Thailand or Cambodia for some final R&R before flying down to New Zealand at the end of February.

Looking forward to enjoying the ride! And pictures are forthcoming. Due to technical difficulties at the web cafe we're using, we can't get them up today which is disappointiong, but we will soon, I promise.

Drew