Wrapping up Thailand...

 

February 21, Montha Than Waterfall in Doi Suthep National Park, outside Chiang Mai.

From the start we'd planned to spend a good amount of time in South East Asia. With the inexpensive living and the tropical islands, it's not hard to see why, but here we are, 70-something days into our trip and we've only managed to hit two countries so far. We are enjoying ourselves so much that we just want to stay everywhere we land (added bonus; I don't have to move my still-too-heavy bag as much). And although there are still so many Thai islands to explore, we are finally ready to head to our next country, Malaysia.  To accommodate the slower pace and stretch the trip we've embraced a more budget approach, although I think we've reached an agreement that A/C is always worth the few extra baht. We have also learned that Johnny prefers a sleeping temperature of 23 Celcius without either of us having the foggiest idea what that is in Fahrenheit. 

The end of February still found us in Chiang Mai with lots of night market snacks and a motorbike trip to Doi Suthep National Park. I received a harsh reminder that an international motorcycle license does you no good if you leave it in the hotel room safe, and I left a traffic checkpoint with a 500 baht ticket (about $15). The police were very nice and it all seemed above board, but I couldn't help but laugh at myself as I was one of about a dozen westerners in the line at the police office, all there to pay their ticket for the same thing. 

When it was time to head South it was another 12-ish hour bus ride to Bangkok where we made our 3rd stop over in that city, this time staying in the backpacker neighborhood of Khao San Road. After two quick nights, it was back on an all-day bus to head to Surat Thani. A bit off the typical tourist route besides a pass-through to get to the islands, we opted to stay there a couple nights to see something different from the usual westerner route. The next stop required a short ferry ride, and we found ourselves right back with the tourist crowd on the Island of Koh Samui at Chaweng Beach. 

We had another motorbike day there to explore the island and check out its many beaches. One night we visited the fancy beach resorts, but quickly found that even the cheap local rum, Sang Som, was out of our price range. We still ponied-up for a round to catch the impressive fire show before we headed off the beach and into the main drag for slightly cheaper drinks and Johnny's Mcdonald's treat with lots of American Ketchup.  

Overall we found Koh Samui a bit pricier (about $40 a night for our room compared to our typical under $20), so we changed plans and decided to go check out the islands off the West Coast instead of continuing on to the neighboring Koh Phangan. Famous for its full moon party, we were going to land there too close to the next one (March 7) to want to pay their increased hotel prices. The cheapest ones at over $150 a night would totally blow our budget.

Before leaving Koh Samui, we had a night near the ferry pier at Nathon Beach, which was a very different vibe than the "party beach" and a very underrated beach that I basically had to myself for the afternoon. It was then off on the ferry again to spend a few nights in Krabi, a good jumping-off point for many of the more famous islands. 

Krabi ended up being a favorite stop of mine, with some good night markets and views of the river. We had an excellent motorbike day there that included a hot springs waterfall with pools you could sit in. I absolutely loved it and was pleased it wasn't too crowded, as it involves a lot of awkward climbing over rocks in swimwear to get to some of the best pools. We also hit a Tiger temple that involved 1,260 stairs to get to the top of the temple. Great views and ultimately worth the climb, although we definitely had to go it at our own pace and, needless to say, Johnny beat me to the top.

We had one more stop on land in Ao Nang before we were island bound. More of a party town, it also had some gorgeous beaches with striking rock formations all along the coast. We made the quick longboat ride to the nearby Railey Beach to catch sunset, and got our fill of live music, fire shows, and pool. I'll make a sidenote here that Johnny and I have made a habit of playing pool many of the nights we go out. Pool tables are prolific here, although many of the bars use them as an "icebreaker opportunity" for Western men to strike up a conversation with the local bar girls or self-described "ladyboys". With as much as we've been playing, I've only shown very minimal improvement and will probably have to dash my dreams of returning from this trip as a professional pool player. 

From Ao Nang, there are many islands to choose from and we had a lot of back and forth about where we would head next as we near the end of our time in Thailand. Initially leaning towards some of the more popular spots like Koh Phi Phi or Phuket, we ultimately decided to head to one of the quieter islands, Koh Lanta, known for being less developed than some of the other options. We settled into Koh Lanta for close to a week to give us a chance to plan our Malaysia border crossing and get caught up on some of our real-life to-do list (silly taxes). We took a motorbike for our whole time here so that we could casually explore the island and I invested in a cheap snorkel mask so I could jump in the water for some of the beach snorkel spots. Overall a chill and relaxing spot with lots of time spent looking at the beautiful blue water and sunsets from the beach restaurants and cafes. Now off to Malaysia!

March 10 - Johnny and his motorbike. Watching the sunset from Long Beach, Koh Lanta