Bangkok Round 2 & The End :(

I was dreading going back to Bangkok because I knew that meant our trip was over. But of course we made the best of our last night there. Actually Jenna stayed another night because her flight was a day after mine, but it was our last night together.


Once we got back there we immediately checked in to the same place we had stayed last time. Our plan was to go shopping but it started to rain, so instead we got massages. It only rained a few times throughout our trip, and every time it did, we got massages, lol. :)


So once the rain let up, we went out on the street to grab some food before getting ready for the night. Before our trip Jenna had pre-paid for some tickets to go see a lady boy show. We figured seeing a show on our last night would be fun. Our taxi driver took us to the wrong place at first, which made us late for the show, but only by about 15 minutes or so.


The performance was actually really good! They were highly entertaining. It's amazing how accepted the lady boys are in Thailand. It's just known as part of their culture, and they benefit from it with these shows. Mainly it's them dressed up, dancing, and lip-singing to songs. There were even kids in the audience. 

Afterwards we were able to take a picture (for a price of course) with the lady boys. 

Once we were back on Khao San road, we walked around & browsed the shops one last time. Unfortunately the rain didn't let up too much, so the street wasn't as busy as our first night there. We ended up going to a couple places for drinks, then realized we were so exhausted that we couldn't keep our eyes open. It was probably best that we didn't stay out until 9am again, haha!


The next morning I packed up my stuff & headed to the airport. Jenna went to see the grand palace temple & thai boxing that night, which I wish I could have made it to, but there's only so much you can do in 12 days & 11 nights in Thailand! My 10 hour layover in China on the way home was unfortunately not as fun as the first one due to it being overnight. Had my lovely Korean bank card have worked I would have been able to stay in the hotel at the airport. But of course it didn't & I had no cash left. So instead I was stuck tossing back & forth on what felt like concrete chairs in the lobby. On the bright side, I finished an entire novel! haha! 

Overall, my adventures in Thailand were unforgettable. I was so happy I got to experience it all with my best friend! Since Leigha couldn't make it to this one, the three of us have decided that next year we will do Costa Rica together! Already looking forward to it!!


XOXO,
Amanda

Ko Phangan & Phuket

This is the part of our trip we wish we would have thought out a little bit better. In order to get to this island we had to use an entire day for traveling there, as well as an entire day for traveling back. We considered not going once we realized this, but we had already booked a place to stay for 3 nights on that island. Plus we had to see what the hype was all about.


Since we were going on the weekend of the full moon party, most places require a minimum of three nights paid in advance. Some places closer to the beach where the party was required 5 nights...craziness! We figured we'd pay for 3 since it was cheap, but we only stayed for two. So getting there turned out to not be so bad. We took one ferry for a couple hours, then boarded a bus for about 4 hours, and finally another short ferry ride to the actual island.

Our first mistake was that we decided to "lay out" on top of the ferry to get some sun. The result of this was that we fell asleep and woke up to major sunburns! Ooops!! I mean, I did want a suntan, but not this bad! Luckily I brought aloe-vera with me, so it soothed the pain a bit. Here's some evidence of my mistake lol...

Once we arrived to the pier of the island it was already dark. We immediately got on a tuk-tuk (on this island the tuk-tuks were small trucks with covered truck beds on the back) that said they would take us to our resort we had booked.


Well, what seemed like an hour later (after they dropped off everyone else at their places) they finally go to our place and pointed at the sign that had the name of our resort on it. So without thinking we grab our luggage and jump out. We finally look up at the sign and notice it says 2km ------->. Having lived in Korea for a bit I'm getting used to using km instead of miles in reference to distance, so I knew that this was gonna be one hell of a walk for us with all our luggage. Not to mention my sunburn made it nearly impossible to carry my backpack on my back!


Finally a guy walks by and asks if we need help. We ask if he knows where our place is and he said that his friends went there to eat at the resorts restaurant the day before and they literally had to hike there. He said that trucks and motorcycles couldn't drive the path to the resort because it was too narrow. At this point we freak out and wonder what the hell we're gonna do. 

We end up going to the resort next door to borrow a phone. We call them & finally a truck stops to pick us up. They then tell us that if we are here for the full moon party that we most likely don't want to stay at their resort up in the mountains (no shit! lol) but that they have another resort closer to the beach area that we could stay at. The lady said that the resort we signed up for is more for people who come to relax and "get away" for awhile. Not what we were looking for, lol! 


So they take us to these cabins and we ended up getting our own little cabin in the woods. :) It was actually really nice! She asked for a bit more in regards to price, but we were just happy we weren't stuck in the mountains so we gladly paid. We swear their internet never said anything about how impossible it was to get there. After all, we found it on the full moon party website. But then again, that was probably why it was cheaper and only required a 3 night stay. Oh well! Here's a pic of our cabin. :)

We put away our things, grab another tuk-tuk, and head to the beach to check it out. The "real" full moon party was the next night, but we knew people would be out partying the night before. We stopped for some pad thai near the beach before venturing out for the night. We ended up having fun, but it started to rain around 1 or 2am so we headed back to beat the rush of people trying to get tuk-tuks.


We spent the next day shopping and found some great stuff. I bought 3 hand-crafted bracelets from this guy who carved your name in Thai on the bracelet for really cheap. Made for a great gift for myself, as well as souvenirs! Of course we bought some "full moon party" t-shirts, lol.


The night of the party I was lucky enough to meet up with some friends of mine from Korea! Kristin & Maggie! After Jenna and I met up with them, we all decided to get some glow in the dark body paint designs. 

This was a "must do" for the themed party. I decided on stars on my arm and we all got a fun design on our faces. So with body paint & a full bucket drink in hand, we were ready for the party. 

Of course the beach was even more packed with people than the previous night, so it was hard to move around. Overall, we weren't very impressed with the party. It was more of a hype than anything. An excuse for a massive beach party & for people to get drunk, take drugs, and act like complete idiots. While we did have fun, we could have done without the party.

The next morning we were boarding a ferry to Phuket. Our last stop down south before heading back to Bangkok to end our vacation. Now this was the part where we really became frustrated with our decision to come to this island. The travel agency we used to get from Ko Phangan to Phuket turned out to be a major bust!


First they didn't tell us where to check in our ferry tickets. So we went straight to the pier to discover that the ferry is about to leave & we haven't checked in our tickets (which was about a mile away from the pier). Luckily these guys told us to hop on their truck and they drove us over to the place and back in just enough time. Also, they put us on a car ferrry! All the ferries we had been on before were not like this one at all. We didn't even find the seats (if there were any) because they tossed us and our luggage on to where the cars were parked and we had to squeeze our way through to climb some stairs to the next level. Once we got up the stairs, we threw our stuff down and just sat there for the rest of the trip (on the side walk-way) lol.


Once our ferry docked they put us on a tuk-tuk. Then a van. Then a bus. But before the bus departed we waited over an hour for it to be full before we could begin traveling. Once it was full we were on there for 4 hours. Around hour 3 of the bus ride, some idiot thought it would be a good idea to piss in a bucket that was on the bus. We were wondering why he walked down the little steps towards the exit door, until we heard the sound of peeing. Made for a great smell...gross! The bus already smelled bad enough. Finally a girl got up and asked the driver to pull over for a bathroom break and informed him someone had already pissed in a bucket.


After the break and another hour on the bus, we arrive to Phuket. Where they put us in a van to finally go to our hotel for the night. We arrived in Patong (an area of Phuket) 3 hours later than scheduled. Since it was close to midnight we were so mad that we almost decided to stay in and sleep so that we could make it to the beach in the morning before our flight back to Bangkok that afternoon. But, we got over our bad moods & got dressed to explore the night life of Phuket. This turned out to be very interesting. We came across more lady boys than we did in Bangkok. And trust me, guys aren't their only target. They try to scam girls for money as well.


We also had to deal with children in the streets trying to sell things. It was actually pretty sad to see them on the streets at 3am begging. We literally had to peel them off of us! Overall, we had a fun night and found a couple fun bars to hang out at that wasn't overrun with prostitutes lol. Below is one of those bars...this guy convinced us to come in for free tequila shots! :) 

The next morning, after a few hours of sleep, we woke up early to hit the beach for one last time! Luckily my sunburn had subsided so I was able to enjoy the beach. We basically took some pics, wandered around, got some smoothies, then went back to the hotel to get ready to head to the airport. 

We had heard that Phuket was a bit overrated, which is why we only decided to spend one night there. Turned out perfect for us even though we were low on energy afterwards! Our final stop was Bangkok for round 2!

XOXO, 

Amanda

Ko Phi Phi & Maya Bay

After a few hours on a ferry we were at our next destination. The infamous Ko Phi Phi island! And yes, it's pronounced "pee-pee" lol. I was saying "fee-fee" but it turns out I was wrong. Our mission for this island was to go camping on Maya Bay, which is where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. My favorite actor happens to be Leonardo DiCaprio, so I was rather excited to stay on the same island that he did...like ten years ago, haha :)

Since we were camping the first night there, we didn't need a place to stay, but we went ahead and set up one for the next night as soon as we got there. We had some time to kill before heading out so we wandered around the island to check things out and shop. We came across a lady with a monkey who was charging 100 BAHT to take pictures with him. Of course I wanted a picture, so the second I took out my money, the monkey grabbed it from me! Lol :) He knew what was up! 

He seemed super nice & Jenna snapped a couple pics with my camera before I decided to pet him while he was on my shoulder. I quickly realized he didn't want to be pet when he leaned forward showing his teeth. Jenna actually captured the perfect picture of him showing his true thoughts on me trying to pet him, lol. Luckily he did not bite me because the lady grabbed him & put him in my arms, kinda like cradling a baby. This seemed to make him happier and I took a couple more pictures. Then Jenna took a turn with him, but knew better than to pet him haha!

Later we were loaded up on a boat with about 30 people headed to our camping destination. Our first stop on the boat before arriving was to snorkel. The boat stopped off in a perfectly clear area of the ocean for us to snorkel for awhile. Apparently I suck at snorkeling as well, lol. I think it was because I tried to swim around too fast & snorkel at the same time so I couldn't control my breathing that well. However, it was amazing to see everything below me! A few people cut their feet on the coral, but I didn't snorkel long enough for that to happen. Instead I chose to join the people jumping off the top of our boat :) Oh yea, before snorkeling we got to see some historical "viking caves" (3rd pic below) and hear the stories about them.

When we arrived to "the beach" I noticed all the tourists leaving. By law, after 6pm nobody is allowed on Maya Bay...except for us of course! That's what was so cool about it. We had the entire island to ourselves & had access to not only great food (prepared by our hosts) but plenty of drinks as well! When you purchase your camping ticket they include a free bucket drink :) Can't remember exactly how much we paid, but it wasn't that expensive at all for everything we got.

The night time consisted of hanging out getting to know the people who were camping with us & playing drinking games in a giant circle. Our tour guide Coco was one of the funniest guys I've ever met! He was super nice & I could listen to him talk all day. His English was outstanding, but his accent made his voice so funny to listen to. He definitely made the trip awesome! We managed to play an entire drinking game, which I doubted could happen with 30 people, but it did! Afterwards we ate some food & then continued drinking and hanging out. Eventually I got tired so I took a nap while other crazy drunk people went for a night swim to find the "glowing plankton" in the ocean. When I woke up I re-located to the actual beach to set up my sleeping bag and pillow for the night. I was so excited to sleep on the beach! BUT, of course it decided to pour down rain the instant I started to fall asleep. So, I hauled ass back to the camp site & we all had to line up like soldiers on a covered wooded plank to sleep for the night. 

The morning after everyone was tired, hungover, and ready to get back to the main island. Coco insisted on taking group photos, including a jumping picture, lol. Even though everyone complained at the moment, I think they were glad we took pics later on. I know I was. I love the pictures! We also got the chance to snorkel again at a different spot on the way back. My favorite part was feeding the fish bread. One of the tour guides found it funny to throw bread on the people in the water so that the fish would jump on them. 

Finally we made it back to Ko Phi Phi & took a shower. We decided to nap later in the day, so instead we had lunch and then went to Dr.Fish, which is where the fish nibble off your dead skin on your feet and legs. Sounds gross, but it was so much fun! It tickled like crazy, but after awhile you get used to it. It was only 15 minutes long. The lady who worked there insisted on taking tons of pictures for us. After Dr. Fish we went for a foot/leg massage. Massages are insanely cheap in Thailand, so I was spoiled to getting one almost every day! After massages we went shopping & finally took a nap before venturing out for the night. 

This night happened to be Thailand's queen's birthday, which meant that alcohol was not sold. However, you could drink in restaurants for some reason. Which is why Jenna and I went to three different restaurants that night, lol. We stayed until closing time in each of them & finally gave up around 2am.


The next morning we started our journey to a far away island, Ko Phangan which is where the infamous "Full Moon Party" is held.


XOXO,
Amanda

Krabi & Railay

Monday afternoon we boarded the plane to the southern area of Thailand. Had we stayed in Bangkok I'm sure we would have had a blast, but might not have survived due to party over-dose.

We arrived in a town called Krabi & stayed one night there before we ventured to the first island we wanted to explore. Since we had a relaxing night in the small town, we were up at 7am ready to go Tuesday morning, only to be disappointed because nothing was open! Luckily we found a couple guys with a long-tail boat who offered to take us to Railay. We were kinda hesitant at first, but discovered that this is the common thing....long-tail boats are everywhere! 

So we loaded up our things & arrived in Railay a mere 15-20 minutes later. This turned out to be our favorite island because it wasn't over-run with tourists. We stayed in an awesome bungalow for two nights, had a spectacular crystal-clear beach to swim in, and found a great bar with good music & a fire show.

The first mission was to go on an elephant trek. We went to another island about 20 minutes away for the day. We enjoyed the elephant ride, but wished we could have actually pet & fed them. After the elephants we were taken to what they called a "tiger temple," which turned out to be a Buddha temple with statues of tigers everywhere. We were lead to believe there would be real tigers, lol. They left us here for two hours & we were wondering why they left us here for so long when we had signed up for a 3-part package, including kayaking as the final activity. Turns out they forgot we signed up for that, which is why we had to so much time at the temple. However, they did give us a refund for the kayaking part, so we weren't too upset.  

Back on Railay island, we decided to find the beach for an evening swim. Along the way we came across a group of monkeys hanging out on the a fence line. We took some pictures but didn't have any food to feed them. The beach turned out to be beautiful. The water was so clear & we made it in time to watch the sun set. Made for some great pictures! Look closely at the last picture for the monkey eating a coconut in the tree. Kinda hard to see unless you see it in full size, but it's my favorite!

After our swim we went to a place called "The Last Bar" where we saw an amazing fire show, as well as some good-looking Thai guys, haha :) We made a few friends and had a great time trading stories & listening to some acoustic cover songs that a couple of the guys were singing. Before we went out that night we had signed up for rock-climbing the following morning. Of course our night out led to a bit of a hangover the next morning, so we re-scheduled the rock-climbing for 2pm instead of 9am lol. 

After nursing ourselves back to normal (aka sleeping in) we had some lunch then headed out for our rock-climbing adventure. Now I'm not sure why this happened, but when we got there, the instructor said that his boss told him to take us on the "advanced" route instead of the "beginner" route like we had signed up for. He promised us we wouldn't be doing advanced climbing, but we would be seeings some better views due to route we were taking. They didn't charge us extra, so we figured why not?!

This route turned out to be a walk across the island, a short trek through part of the jungle, a hike through a bat cave, rappelling down the outside wall of the cave, AND THEN a climb up the wall on the outside of the cave. Oh, not to mention we had to jungle trek back to the beach & then walk across the island again once we were finished, lol. The pics below are of the bats in the cave & the view outside from the top of the cave. Made it worth the hike!

The cave was great until we were sitting down relaxing and I looked up to see how close the bats were above our heads! My favorite part was rappelling down from the cave and then belaying for the instructor while he set up our course to climb. He kept repeating "my life, my life!" while I was belaying, which meant he was trusting me with his life, haha :) As for the actual climbing part, I kinda sucked to be honest! I blame it on being exhausted from everything else, but it is a bit more difficult to do than it looks. I've only climbed on the practice walls inside a building before, so trying to grip onto real rocks was way different! I made it about half-way up before my arms were shaking uncontrollably and I had to come back down. Then Jenna gave it a try and got just about as far as I did. We decided to ditch our dreams of ever becoming professional rock-climbers...sad day, haha!

After a tiresome day of attempting to climb, we headed back to the beach for another evening swim. This time we remembered food for the monkeys, but they seemed a bit greedy & we had to run away fast before they all started jumping off the fence for food. The funniest part was when one jumped off, stood in front of Jenna (who had the cookies) and put one hand on his hip and held out the other hand as if demanding a cookie, lol. We wished we would have had our cameras for that one!

We really wanted to go to the beach during the day, but we kept planning so many activities during the day that we never had time to sunbathe on the beach. We kept saying, "we'll lay out on the next island!" but sadly we never did. Oh well, we did much more exciting stuff!

That night we got manicures & pedicures since we gave up on being "tough girls" lol & then we went out for our last night in Railay. We were supposed to hang out with the rock-climbing instructors, but there was a mix-up on which bar we were supposed to go to so we ended up at "Last Bar" again & watched the fire show. Wasn't as cool as the first time because their best guy wasn't there, but was still an enjoyable night. The next morning we packed up for our ferry ride to the next island adventure...Ko Phi Phi! 

XOXO,

Amanda

Shanghai & Bangkok

So I've been procrastinating on updating my blog. Mainly because there's so much to write about!! So I will attempt to summarize my vacation to Thailand in as few posts as possible.

Jenna arrived before I did, so she had a couple nights by herself. I left on a Saturday around noon and didn't arrive until about 1am due to my 8 hour layover in China. But the layover turned out to be better than expected due to running into a friend at the airport before I even left Korea. Standing in line I notice a girl who looked familiar in the line next to me waiting to check in for the flight. Turns out it was my friend Anna who was on the same flight as me. We ended up being able to sit next to each other on the plane & then spent the 8 hour layover having fun in China.

Now people keep asking me how we were able to "sneak out" of the airport since we didn't have China visas, but I have no idea why nobody ever checked us. We went through the immigration booth & they stamped our passports with the necessary documentation & we were free to roam around the airport. The next thing I know we had exchanged some money from WON into YUAN and were on the subway to the middle of Shanghai city. Considering the subway was attached to the airport, we "technically" never left the airport, haha!

We spent the day exploring what we could with the few hours we had. We made sure to leave enough travel time to make it back early for our flight. The main pictures we took were of a famous tower & the circular walkway in the middle of the city, as well as the tall buildings & a ten story mall. I bought a couple key chains & a Buddha ring to make my trip to China "official" lol. 

I met Jenna at her hotel in Bangkok around 2am where we caught up & got ready for our adventure. The next morning we headed to Khao San road to explore. We ended up finding an awesome place to stay that was only one road away from the most popular street in Bangkok. We actually ended up staying there again at the end of our vacation.

The first bad experience of my vacation happened that morning when I discovered my ATM card would not work. My bank in Korea had told me that since my card said "Maestro" on it, that it would work in other countries. Since it was a Sunday, I had to wait until Monday morning to call them. That's when I found out that they had "made a mistake." They said that because I had opened my account at a small branch of NH and not the main branch of NH, that my card would not work overseas. PERFECT! I was sooo pissed off, but finally after calming down I fixed my problem of not having money. I had my mother transfer money from my account in Texas to Jenna's account so that I could access it. Even though I was able to have money for my trip, it was still a hassle to keep up with who's money was who's since we were taking money out of the same account & taking turns paying for different things, such as food and hotels. Needless to say I wish I could change banks, but since I all of my bills are set up for automatic debit out of my account, it would be a hassle for my co-teacher to help me change everything. Oh Korea!

Back to Sunday...I borrowed money from Jenna for the day & we went shopping on Khao San road & tried some street food. I had never had Pad Thai before, but it was amazing! Much better than Korean food for sure! Due to a slight rain shower, our shopping was cut short a bit, so we ducked into a massage place where we got a foot massage & facials. Afterwards we rested in our room to re-charge our batteries for our first night out together in Bangkok.

It turned out to be one of our best nights! We started at a small street bar that had a few tables set up on the side of the road. After a couple drinks there we moved to another place that had a set-up on the street as well. That is where we discovered the infamous "bucket" drink. Essentially it is a full bottle of alcohol (not your normal sized one, but def not a small one) mixed with a splash of whatever mixer(s) you want poured inside what looks like a sand bucket you'd use on the beach. We had many of these throughout our trip :) They are meant for sharing, and that didn't take me long to figure out after I  drank an entire one by myself, lol. 

So after the bucket we moved to another bar with a patio area and thought it would be a great idea to get a beer tower. Obviously too much for us, but luckily thanks to the beer tower, we met a group of 3 guys from Ireland who we shared it with. From there on the night's moments kinda blended together, thanks to the bucket and tower, but the next thing I know everyone is partying in the street, due to some of the places closing around like 6am. Around 8am we are in McDonald's eating breakfast & finally fell into bed around 9am. Pretty sure we got the full experience of what it's like to party in Bangkok on the first night, lol.

I promise we didn't just drink the entire time on vacation :) I'll now move on to the next part of our adventure in another post.

XOXO,
Amanda