This Land is my Land, this Land is Thailand

We all (Mel, Matt, Jer and Josh) just got back to Singapore from an amazing experience in Thailand. This is long. Feel free to read part now and more another day. Click here for 1/4 of our pictures. Click here for 40 more.

After my last posting, Jer and I flew to Bangkok and met up with Matt and Josh (Matt's friend since age 11). In short, we spent a weekend in Bangkok, flew down to Phuket, bussed up to Khao Sok National Park for two days, vanned to Krabi, taxied to Ao Nam, boated to Railay and stayed there for about five days. Then we boated to Ao Nang, taxied to Phuket airport and flew home.

A bit more detail...Bangkok was filled with lots of people, vendors selling things on the sidewalk, wats, and amazing food. We stayed in the tourist area, packed with street food, cheap clothes and fake IDs. Jer and I visited the Jim Thompson house (after nearly dying at least five times in the tuk tuk ride on the way over). He (Mr. Thompson) was one man with amazing taste.

Friday night we met up with Phu and Ryce, two of Matt's friends from grad school. We had a great dinner - in terms of the conversation and the amazing dishes that Ryce chose. Yum. My favorite dish was the shrimp with noodles.

Saturday night we met up with Matt's other friend Noi and her husband Bob. This time we dined on the river and also ate amazing food. My favorite dish was the pomelo salad.

Sunday we flew off to Phuket. One might think that when you're staying at a big hotel in the centre of touristville you might be able to find a way to get to the airport for less than US$50. We finally did, but it took a lot of inbred fighting (between the four of us - mostly me, though) and a man who tried to get an extra $10 at the end. Also, our ticket didn't say which airport in Bangkok we were flying out of, so we (mostly I) were worried the whole taxi ride about going to the wrong airport.

From Phuket airport, we taxied into Phuket town, ate at a bus station restaurant and hopped on a local (but air conditioned!) bus to Khao Sok National Park. It ended up being a four and a half bus ride up the coast and then inland. We saw an area called Khao Lak which was totally devastated by the tsunami. The truth is, though, that we have no idea what it looked like pre-tsunami, so I can't comment on that.

Somehow when we got dropped off on the side of the highway, there was a woman waiting for us (not that she knew we were even on that bus - I seriously don't know how she got there), and we hopped in the back of her pick-up truck to get to the Nung House.

The Nung House was an experience in and of itself. Matt and I got the honeymoon suite - at the end of the row of shacks. We did have a toilet, and we even had a cockroach and three snails, but they had no shells! We had blue curtains and a frilly pink mosquito net. We had water when we were lucky, and a manual flush toilet. Matt and I were okay with our room, but Jer and Josh, down the road, were "less impressed."

We stayed in this rustic area in order to access Khao Sok National Park. We all woke up at 7 in the morning to get a start on the hikes that Lonely Planet recommended. We stopped in at the visitors' centre and asked about the leeches that were briefly mentioned in the LP book. They said they hadn't heard of any leeches this year, and we should head out, and the trail to all of the seven waterfalls should take us all day. We were pumped and started walking.

Jer didn't feel well, so ten minutes in, he turned around.

Josh was hot and uncomfortable and after 45 minutes, and the first waterfall, he turned around.

Turns out they were the bright ones. When Josh left, Matt checked his feet and found the first leech. 35 leeches later, Matt and I saw a few lame waterfalls and were pissed and bitten. It took us three hours to get to the end, and it took us 50 minutes to get out. We stopped at the visitors' center on the way out, and the guy said that if he had told us about the leeches, we wouldn't have gone on the hike, so he didn't want to do that. Oy.

On Josh's way out, he was pointed at and laughed at, and then 20 people (he said they looked like they might have been Thai or from somewhere near Thailand) surrounded him and took a picture with him.

We ended up sitting at the restaurant at the Nung House for about 2 days playing euchre and a bit of hearts. Luckily they had great food and it ended up being great atmosphere, so we had a good time, but we weren't too happy about the park. As Jer put it - "Khao Sok khao sucks."

We took a minivan on a crazy ride to Krabi. As expected, they dropped us off outside of Krabi, and we had to use their collaborative tourist services to get ourselves out of there. We had run out of Thai Baht, so we asked how far it was to Krabi town. We were told 1km, so Jer and I decided to walk to change some money. After 10 minutes of walking, we stopped into the only hotel we saw, and we asked how to get to Krabi town. They said to take one of the pick-ups that has benches in the back, and it should cost about 10 baht a person. It was about 5 km away. We hopped on the first one we saw, and we asked to be dropped of in the centre of town. Jer and I started relaxing and high fiving each other. Then we realized that we had NO idea where we were, and that after we got money, we would have to get back to Matt and Josh. We watched every turn and even asked a guy on the truck where we were, but it was impossible to get a straight answer. After finding a place that was open (new years day...), we tried to find a truck back. When trying to make sure that we would get dropped off in the right place, no one spoke English, and we couldn't figure out how to tell them where we needed to go (apparently the road has no name!). We walked (and sweat) for about 30 minutes, and finally we hopped in the back of a truck that would get us to the right place if it kept going straight. We ended up getting back, and it was quite an adventure.

We had to trust one of the collaborators, (though he did want all of the money up front, which we obviously refused), and for a small amount of 800 baht, he promised us we would end up at our hotel. We drove for 15 minutes, got off at a pier, walked with all of our stuff out to a long tail boat, jumped in and ended up on Railay East. Our final accommodations were much nicer than the previous two. Josh was happy.

This peninsula is basically the most beautiful place I have ever been. It has amazing limestone cliffs sticking out of the blueist, most gorgeous greenish waters. The beaches were unbelievable. We explored the island, and then Josh, Matt and I took a boat into Ao Nang, across the bay, to find out about kayaking and diving. It was a super touristy area with lots of places to eat and sleep. I'm not sure I loved it, but it did have a great, laid back atmosphere.

The next few days were filled with gorgeous beaches, an outstanding kayak ride around the cliffs and islands, a totally shady snorkeling trip, awesome diving, lots of pad thai, a couple awesome hikes/walks, and nights of euchre and hearts.

Some highlights included the following.

During lunch our first day, we spotted a cat that looked like a VERY SICK version of the cat that we're friends with at home (Matt calls her Hunter, and I still refuse to give her a name). This cat even had the same meow. We were watching her through lunch. When we were finished eating, but we hadn't yet paid, the cat walked over to Matt's chair and jumped up on the chair, which made him jump up in order to make room for her (she was really gross looking). It was hilarious.

We signed up for a sunset snorkeling trip, and the trip ended up being gorgeous and fun, but it was super shady. The company never took our names or hotel room numbers or anything, so if god forbid something happened, they would have no idea who we are. In addition, they told us to stay in buddies, but they never checked that we had buddies. There was no one watching us, so if someone needed help or became a distressed swimmer, there was no one to help them. At one point, when everyone was snorkeling, they switched boats, and the new boat was way farther out. People who were snorkeling saw their boat driving away. Then, to top it all off, we came back in a long tail boat with NO LIGHTS on it, IN THE DARK. I didn't freak out as much as I could have/should have. We did see good fish, we saw an amazing sunset from a beach that was perfect, and the food was good.

The morning that Matt and I woke up to go diving, I could not stop scratching my legs. I had noticed some bites the couple days before then, but I thought they were mosquito bites (I didn't think about the fact that they were only on my legs...). That morning, I had TONS all over my legs and feet, and they were miserably scratchy. I looked on Matt's legs, and he also had tons of little red bites (though he didn't seem to have the same allergic reaction that I did...), and I realized that we had bed bugs. Yuck. The hotel's solution was cortizone cream. They also offered to have someone spray in our room. We made them switch our mattress since they couldn't switch our room. Nevermind that the maids wanted to put the same sheets and pillows on the new one, but it was only one more night...

Wednesday, Matt and I had met a taxi driver in Ao Nung who said that he would drive us to the Phuket airport on Saturday. He said he would meet us downtown at 10:30 am. I was a bit untrusting, but we realized that we would find something to get us there if we paid enough money. Today, at 10:25 when we got off our long tail boat with all of our stuff, sure enough, the taxi driver was waiting for us on the beach and even carried some of our stuff up to the car. He was the friendliest guy ever, and he indeed took us to the airport, and we left the most beautiful place on earth (that I have seen so far).

Again - click here for the highlights of our pictures. Click here for 40 more.

I have lots more to say, but I will write more about it all this week. This is just too long. Tomorrow I'm turning 30. Wow.

(Title of this blog compliments of Jer)