Island Hopping

We had a couple days left in Chiang Mai after bungee jumping. We decided to go see another Muay Thai boxing match (we saw one a few days earlier). It's basically like kickboxing--they can punch, kick, or knee each other. Most of the matches we saw were teenagers. We also saw two female matches. This night we lost $30 betting on four different fights with these old, kinda shady Thai men.


The next day we took a Thai cooking course with the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. This is the same place Becky and Mario (my sister and bro-in-law) took a 3 day course. We just did one day and cooked six courses including Pad Thai wrapped in a fried egg and Green Curry. My apron was on backwards the whole time, and I didn't notice until the end.





Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. On our way home later that night we found a frog. I'm on the right, Dad.
We said goodbye to Chiang Mai after a full week there. I have a lot more pictures and stories but don't have time to share them all here. With 10 days left in Thailand we decided it was time to head south to the islands. We flew to Phuket from Chiang Mai to save a day of buses and/or trains. Phuket, as you know, was where the 2004 tsunami killed thousands of people. Well, it has recovered and is as gross as ever. The part we went to, Patong, might be described as the seedier Thai version of Vegas. Thai hookers and "lady boys" abound, as do clubs, bars, and tour booths.





In stark contrast to the craziness behind me, I witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd ever seen.

We got out of there as fast as we could the next day and went to beautiful Ko Phi Phi (ko pee pee). It's a small island with a few different beaches on it.






We stayed at Long Beach or Hat Yao. We're in the low tourism season so the beach was not very crowded at all. It was very relaxing with amazing clear, warm water to swim in.


Beauty doesn't come cheap however. Our air conditioned bungalow here was a whopping 1,000 Baht/night. We hadn't spent that much since Bangkok. That's $30 US, or $15/person.



I made the mistake of ordering pasta the night before. I'm pretty sure the tomato sauce was just ketchup. I played it safe and ordered some Pad Thai the next day. It was tasty.

We only stayed one night and the morning of the day we left, we paid a local guy to take us on a private 3 hour longtail boat ride around Ko Phi Phi Leh. This is where the movie "The Beach" with Leonardo Di Caprio was filmed. We got up at 7am to make sure we beat the horde of large tourist boats that start to flood the area around 9 or 10. The water was beautiful and clear. "The Beach" is enclosed by large green cliffs and really makes you feel like you washed up on a secluded island in the middle of nowhere.

We got only about 20 minutes to ourselves before we saw the tourist armada on the horizon, but it a valuable 20 minutes. The beach got filled up quickly, so after another 20 minutes of swimming, we left our paradise for a quick stop on Monkey Island (more of a beach, really).

The tourists not having fed them yet, they were slightly more aggressive than our friends in Lopburi. They kind of growled at us and grabbed my arm once wanting food. It was a little scary. This guy was cool though.

After Ko Phi Phi, we stopped in Krabi for a night. The nice English couple we met on our trek in Chiang Mai, Mark and Alison, happened to be staying in the same guesthouse as us. Their "Rough Guide" and our "Lonely Planet" both suggested it. We played pool with them that night and made plans to meet up where we are now--Ko Phangan (ko pawn gone).

This is the party island and has a similar vibe to Phuket, but mostly young people and not as big. There's one narrow road lined with restaurants, bars, and guesthouses.

It's a short hop to the beach, where Aaron and I got a drink and watched people play with fire.

This is the line of booths on the beach, all with someone literally begging to sell you alcohol as you walk by.

Tonight is the Black Moon Party, so we're hoping there will be more people. There is a party for every phase of the moon here, the Full Moon Party being the huge, all night, 12,000 person party. We missed it by a couple weeks, but the Black Moon should still be fun. We're going to meet up with Mark and Alison for it in a few hours.

Sorry for the huge blog, but there was a lot to cover and I haven't had much time in the last few days.

Hope you're all doing well. Blog to you later...