All Thai'd Up

~~  Every birthday should be one year long.  ~~

We had been previously made aware that Cambodian buses are not allowed to enter into Thailand so we'd have to change into vans that would be waiting for us when we got through customs. As usual when traveling, things don't always go quite according to plan. After a miserably long and slow process of checking out of Cambodian customs and into Thailand's we found everyone from our bus-load standing around in a group. No one knew where to go and no direction was being given. We sat there confused in the blistering heat for about a half hour before noticing that most of the people we had come with were gone, having snuck away one-by-one. Any one of the guys in charge who were standing around there looking just as confused would only answer, “I'm not your tour guide.” no matter what we would ask them.

Finally Muc went to investigate. He found that everyone was sitting about a block away outside of a convenience store. We made our way and sat in the 90-something weather for a bit; and then a while longer; and then another hour. Still no one would tell us any information or direction beside to say in an annoyed voice, “Just wait. I'm very busy.” when we'd try to ask them where the hell our bus was or when it would arrive. At one point, a bus came and they loaded to the brim with people and luggage. At first we were really annoyed that we weren't getting let into it, but that sentiment changed quickly as it sat parked in exactly the same place that it had arrived to for another hour! In the end, it took us more than 3 hours of sitting clueless before we got on a bus. Even after making us sit there for what felt like an eternity, there was no apology or explanation offered.

To add insult to injury, they even made one girl get back off of our bus to wait longer despite having plenty of empty seats on it because she had booked through a different company. If only because I was looking for an excuse to curse these guys out, I tried to come to her aid but with no success. After some nasty words were exchanged, she got off the bus to sit in the sun some more. “Welcome to Thailand!” I said sarcastically to our van-load as soon as our bus finally got on it's way.

I realized later that it wasn't the delay that bothered me, but the complete lack of communication or apology that made me want to pounce on the intestines of our 'guide'. (Yeah, I kind of wanted to do that!)

It was a very LONG day but we finally arrived in Bangkok just after dark. Bangkok is a huge, bustling mega-metropolis with people from all over the world. I instantly came to think of it as Southeast Asia's version of New York City; and although I've never been to New York, I'm pretty sure that's about right. Despite its size and bustle, it felt comfortable, safe and very welcoming to it's hundreds of thousands of tourists.

We had the good fortune of being with two experienced Bangkok travelers – Muc and Jason had spent a couple of weeks there each. The main backpacking area is along Khoasan Road and the guys lead us directly to a great little spot where we set up shop for the week. We were instantly reminded that we were on Thai budget now as we had to shell out more than double what we'd gotten used to paying for our accommodation in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The action-packed and very welcoming backpacker area of Bangkok, Khaosan Road.

Ronald McD showing off his world sense and open-mindedness (or at least an uncanny ability to sell cheesburgers!) along Khaosan Road.  

After my first sandwich from Subway Restaurant in more than a year (delicious!!!), I dedicated a good amount of time resting and writing during our first night there. Day 2 was for exploring and making our plans for the rest of our time in Thailand. We had a tuk-tuk (a kind of motorbike taxi) take us around the town and quickly found out why his prices were so cheap. Everywhere he'd take us was in hopes that we'd buy something there and he'd get a cut from the owners. We figured the joke was on him when we would buy exactly nothing, but it wasn't quite that simple. He would take us one place that we wanted to go and then two of his own, but we got so tired of it that we finally just bailed on him and had to find our own way home. We had spent the whole day, and still never even saw the palace that we had originally set out for!

Also, during the little tuk tuk rip off, we ALMOST made our first major mistake of the trip when one of his stops was at a travel agency. A big and fat fast-talking Welsh-man got into our heads and had us worried that we wouldn't be able to find any affordable places to stay on the islands we were planning to head to as our next stop. Before we knew it, he had our whole trip laid out for us minute by minute and was talking about numbers close to $600!! He kept cutting stuff out and giving us 'discounts' in a way that when it got down to $390 each, we were starting to actually consider that it might be worthwhile.

Just then, Sarah was able to step in and help us snap out of it and get out of there without blowing a cent. When we got back to the hostel, it took her less than one hour of internet sneussing to get us everything that fatty had been offering for just under HALF of his best offer! Gotta' love her!! ;)

We had a variety of options to sift though for the upcoming days. Thailand has dozens of islands on either side of its isthmus and all have very different offerings. In the end, we decided to skip the legendary 'Full Moon Party' on the eastern side's Ko Pha-ngan. It was a tough one to miss because there's a good chance it was once in a lifetime, but sometimes you have to balance – over-priced and over-crowded Euro-trash drunk fest in the East... OR... more relaxed beaches and snorkeling of the west?? Again, I'd like to thank my wonderful fiancé for the level head and past-her-years maturity on this one! Finally, the path was decided with our first stop being to Phi Phi (“PEE-PEE”) and the surrounding islands. Having to choose between a 12+ hour bus ride for $20 or a 1 hour flight for $60, we booked a one-way flight to the port city of Phuket (“POO-ket”, you pottymouth!! ;) )

Feeling like we'd pretty thoroughly seen Bangkok, we decided to commit the day that remained before our flight to a unique day-trip in a smaller town called Kanchunaburi about 2 hours away. The trip included our transportation, WWII museum, lunch, bamboo river-rafting, a 20-minute elephant ride through the jungle and a visit to the tiger temple!! At about $40 per person, we couldn't beat the price and couldn't justify missing these once-in-a-lifetime shots!

Sarah and I hanging out with our newfound elephant friends. We decided mama deserved a snack after carrying around our extra weight!

Posing with a tiger who (I'm pretty sure) was unsedated! This giant's calm nature and willingness to NOT eat my face can be attributed to having been raised by monks in their Tiger Temple. Kanchunaburi, Thailand.

The day after Kanchunaburi, we made our way to the airport and arrived in Phuket with about a 30 minute delay on our plane. The last boat for Phi Phi would leave some 25 minutes later and we were 45 minutes away from the dock. As that was the last boat bound for our destination that day, we were just starting to realize that we'd be stuck in the dumpy port city of Phuket over-night when we met an amazing taxi driver who told us he'd get us on the boat if we rode with him!! We had nothing to lose so we jumped in and held on tight. He flew through the city – passing on the shoulder, running red lights and whatever else it took. At one point he even called the guys at the port and told them we were coming and to wait for us! We tipped him good and ran to the boat that took off almost immediately after we boarded. We made it!... and we could finally relax.

Moments later, Muc came out of the interior part of the boat with three glorious, icy-cold cans of beer! Amid the chaos, we'd nearly forgotten that it was St. Patrick's Day and of course, the one-year anniversary of the night Sarah and I met in Daejeon! We sat in the sun for the course of the boat ride and arrived in Phi Phi in plenty of time to find a suitable hostel, get some dinner and don any green we could find for the festivities!

That night, the other's dropped out one-by-one, but Broey and I barreled on into the wee hours. At one point, we earned 17 baht (about 60 cents worth) while Joe played guitar and I sung and danced outside of a convenience store. That turned into a groovy crew just singing along with us and hanging out. Much later than that, we would ourselves sitting in a circle on the beach doing the same. Anyone who wanted could grab a guitar and everybody sang whenever they felt like they might know a word or two. Knowing that our time in Southeast Asia would be ending soon after, Joe left his guitar with another traveling man who would be sure to put it to good use and we stumbled back to the hostel right around dawn. It was truly beautiful and a night I will re-live as many times as my life allows me to!!

We would spend the next couple of days bumming around beaches, snorkeling and playing plenty of frisbee around the amazingly gorgeous islands. We even got to spend some time on Maya Bay – made famous as 'The Beach' when Leonardo DiCaprio filmed his movie there about 10 years ago. If you know me, you know we searched HARD, but couldn't find Leo ANYWHERE! ;)



Finally getting to relax and enjoy a beer for St. Patty's Day after BARELY making our boat ride to Phi Phi. 



World-famous Koh Phi Phi's main port where thousands of toursits pour though every day.



Sarah the wonder-babe and I at Maya Bay - locally known as simply 'The Beach' after Leo's movie.

Would you like some breakfast? Have a seat! :)



Muc enjoying the beautiful snorkeling off of one of the Phi Phi Islands. Gorgeous enough weather and setting to cure even the most severe of St. Patty's Day hangovers!

 Next stop was Koh Lanta as recommended to us very strongly by our good friends and ultimate frisbee organizers, Kobe and Woody. This is a neighboring island to Phi Phi – much bigger, but much less touristic and crowded. Most of our time there we rented motorbikes for less than $7 a day and tooled around the island freely. For the first time in our trip, the weather played a major role as we had to dodge a major downpour at least once daily. The downtime was used to try to get caught up on some long overdue FB photog and blog updates for..... well, you guys! :)



Sarah soaking it all in. Lanta National Park on the Southern tip of the island.



Certainly in the top 5 (at least) sunsets I've ever seen in my life!! Koh Lanta, Thailand.

Broey and I living up to our favorite Karaokee song of all time.... Born to be WILD!



And in the end, we must wish Muc a warm farewell with one last late-night dance party rager together. Godspeed my friend!!

From Lanta, we made our way to the port city of Krabi. Krabi in and of itself doesn't have too much to boast of, but it IS the gateway to all of Southern Thailand's uncanny and epic rock climbing. Of course, I had been WAITING for this stop excitedly!! Each morning there, I would wake up like a kid on Christmas morning just to find out it was pouring rain.... again.... and again until it was time to go!

I was temped to be upset (or even devastated) by the realization that we would NOT get to climb in Thailand, but had to keep reminding myself that that IS travel. We took a big gamble leaving only a three days climbing window in Krabi. And, as we all know full well, for every gamble there is a winner and a loser. I have been winning more than my fair share lately and so figured it was simply my turn to absorb some crappy (unseasonal) luck!

I'm sure if you're reading this far, you know that I'm not the kind of person to sit and sulk for very long though! What's the UP side of all this rain?? While rain might making climbing difficult or impossible, it actually improves water levels so the white water rafting would be great instead! We headed out our second day for some class III and IV rafting for about $30 per head. The day also included hanging out with some monkeys and some simple cliff jumping into a waterfall! The weather held off okay for us and we ended up turning a bummer situation into a surprise Thailand highlight!

Waterfall jump! Unfortuanately we got no pictures of our white water rafting because we arrived just a bit after the bulk of the group and the cameras had moved on.

Monkey Temple! Literally thousands of friendly monkeys walking around plainly everywhere!

Of course, the consistent rain didn't cut out our ability to party down! Broey and I had a blast at this groovy funk Reggae birthday party with the locals one of our nights on Koh Lanta.

Our time in Thailand was up and we would be heading for India shortly. We left ourselves what amounted to just a long layover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We had been told we wouldn't want to stay much longer than that and found the tip to be a good one! Kuala Lumpur seemed to be little more than a city full of ultra hip, fashion-conscious popularity contestants. In other words, it reminded me of Asia's version Los Angeles. I wish we would have had time enough to explore Malaysia properly, but that plan fell by the wayside when we had extended our stays in each of the previous three countries.

Kuala Lumpur's busy posh night-life scene. It depends what you're into I suppose, but if you're anything the same type of traveler that we are, one night will suffice!



And of course, THE iconic image of Kuala Lumpur, The Petronas Towers. Formerly the tallest building in the world and still the tallest set of twins.


After a night of walking around scoffing at the Gucci stores and snapping photogs with the towers, we were on our way to a place that even the most well-traveled people I've known have warned about. It was time for New Delhi, India!!!