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So yah.. Thailand.. good stuff.. My pics are here. Korby’s are here. Paul’s are here. Jenny’s are.. somewhere.. And Ali’s are.. well, I don’t think she’s back yet from traveling..

Blog posts, in order of the trip…:

• sf to bangkok.. malls and cabs and tuktuks – 9/8-10
• grand palace, and the night train to surat thani… – 9/11
• railay beach.. chillin’ and diving.. – 9/12-13
• ko phi phi.. it’s pronounced, “pee pee” (heehee) – 9/14-15
• phuket.. it’s pronounced foo-ket.. yah. things got a little harrowing… – 9/15-16
• last few days in bangkok… and home.. – 9/17-18

And.. a map…

And.. stats:

• Number of pictures taken: 915 (not including pics that I deleted)
• Number of pictures posted: 387
• Number of movies taken: 32 (still working on these.. I’ll post some soon)
• Number of near calamities: 3 (earthquake in Indonesia, plane crash in Phuket, typhoon in Taipei)
• Number of massages: 3
• Number of different types of transport taken: 14 (car, tuktuk, train, bus, skytrain, subway, river ferry, back of a pickup truck, mini truck, hotel shuttle, longtail boat, ocean ferry, elephant, airplane)
• Number of times we were ripped off by wily Thai folk: 2 (that we know of)
• Number of pad thai’s eaten: 5 (you’d think that in thailand, pad thai would just be called “pad” but it’s not.)
• Number of occurences of gastrointestinal distress: 0 (phew! lucky!)
• Number of non-floating markets visited: 3
• Number of huge Bangkok malls frequented: 2
• Number of trips to McDonald’s: 1
• Number of super sweet Thai Beaches visited: 3

Yay, Thailand. Land of smiles for sure.

Well, we made it back to Bangkok and all of the craziness in Phuket seems a world away… Since we had one more day in Bangkok, Korby, Jenny and I decided to hit up the famous Damnoen Saduak Floating market a few hours outside of Bangkok.. We got up at like 5am and caught a cab over to the Southern Bus station… We obviously looked like tourists, since as soon as we got out of the cab, we were shuttled to a waiting bus that was headed for the floating market. The 2 hour bus ride only cost 65 baht, and through the whole ride, we were the only tourists on the whole thing… Thai folks of all slices (schoolkids, old women, young peeps, everyone) came and went. And then finally after two hours the bus starts to go down a dirt road, finally arriving at some sort of pier.

We exit the bus, and are greeted by a friendly english speaking person, who charged us WAY too much for a one hour tour of the floating markets. Grrr. Nothing like feeling like you’ve been ripped off. The thing was, the bus had dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, so it looked like we were kind of stranded.. I’m not sure if you can walk to the actual floating market, but once we got on the boat, it was a good 20 minute boat ride through the canals until we got to the market..

Thailand Tip #6: If you want to go to the floating market, take the bus down.. and then maybe walk or get a ride to the market, but don’t pay a lot. Once you get to the market itself, you can hire a little motor-less boat for like 300 baht an hour. These folks are quite wily about getting money out of our American hands. Grr! Go check out the real markets, like in Chinatown and the Flower Market — those were both much, much cooler, imho.

Anyway… the market was ok. It wasn’t really worth taking a bus for 4 hours r/t and then getting kicked in the ass by some wily thai folks. And on top of it all, one of my goals for Thailand was to find some mangosteen, and I was JUST about to get my hands on some when all of a sudden.. vroooooooom.. our boat dude races us out of the market and deposits us at the bus stop. Fecking hell.

I mean… As Korby correctly predicted, the floating market did produce some pretty cool pictures, which make the place look pretty cool, which will probably trick some other tourists into going. So, I’ll only post ONE obligatory pic from the floating market here.

After the floating market, we just walked around for a bit, and found a really cool *real* market. I mean, that was pretty damn awesome and I had some tasty thai food for 20 baht. Like, that’s what stuff is supposed to cost in Thailand.

Thailand Tip #7: If you’re pulling out a 1000 baht note, you better be getting a lot of change back, cuz you shouldn’t really need a 1000 baht note to buy anything really in Thailand.. Except if it’s obviously touristy or made for Americans. We tried to pay for a few cabs with 1000 baht notes, and we had to go to the hotel to make change cuz the cabbies didn’t have that much change.

We got back to Bangkok and went over to Chinatown just to wander… That was refreshingly cool… We really had no idea where we were going, but in just wandering, we stumbled upon a fascinating market in the alleyways. The alleys were maybe 10 feet wide, and jam packed with all sorts of vegetables, foods, and sundries (what sundries are, I’m not sure, but it seemed appropriate here)..

And, since it was Chinatown and all, I got to use some of my Mandarin Chinese skillz. All over Bangkok, I kept seeing these amulets:

I really wanted to get one, but since I really have no idea what they are, or how much to pay, I refrained.. All I know is that if you’re serious about shopping for one, you apparently need to carry around a little magnifying glass, and look at it real close and stuff. The one that I really liked was the image of a figure with his hands covering his face… When I asked the woman what it was for, she just told me it was for “good luck.” Aha!! That one is called “Phra Pitta” and it is a protection amulet.. Cool. Ooo.. a NY Times article on the amulet markets.. Looks like next time I go to Bangkok, I’ll be ready to shop.

The next day, we headed to the airport for our flight back to San Francisco. Of course, things couldn’t be simple.

Typhoon Wipha was in full force, and hitting Taipei right as our flight was about to take off. So, our flight was delayed by 3 hours. But, after the ordeal in Phuket just a few days before, I was a little rattled by the whole flying experience. Hmm.. Is 3 hours enough for a Typhoon to pass? Hmm… at least we weren’t flying China Airlines, who only delayed their flight by 2.5 hours… By the time we actually took flight for Taipei, the real delay was more like 4 hours, but as we descended into Taipei, it was clearly not quite over. It was a slightly terrifying landing — we could see crazy winds outside, and hear as the pilot fired up the engines to accommodate for them. That said, the pilot made one of the smoothest three point landings that I’ve ever been in. Kudos to the Eva Air pilots on that one…

The flight home to San Francisco was safe and uneventful.. and then we were home.

After the harrowing ferry ride, we decided to posh it up and stay somewhere super swank in Phuket. It was monsoon season anyway, and the west coast beaches were ill advised to swim in due to high surf and undertow conditions. Besides, it rained all day, so, maybe it was nice to stay at a swank resort.

We headed to Ao Bang Tao, on the northwest side of the island, to a ring of six luxury resorts, “Laguna Beach,” away from the supposedly sketchy realms of Patong beach. We stayed at the Laguna Beach Holiday Club, for an incredibly low rate for the two room suite that we were given. I mean, it was a low rate for the US quality accommodations that we received, but actually not even bad compared to the prices for the places that we had been staying at.

Our room overlooked the golf course, so it was a bit cheaper (the more expensive ones overlook the beach). But whatever, it was super swank, and we were happy. I treated myself to another massage — this time, it was $45 for a 2 hour massage, which is more expensive than the usual $6/hour ones.. Then again, the usual massages weren’t in such a gorgeous setting — I mean, this spa was something straight out of a California retreat.. Super fancy shmancy. It was one of the most relaxing massages I’ve ever had, and then afterwards, even the shower was awesome — it was an open air shower, set in the jungle, with a cool stream of water pouring from a bamboo pipe in the stone wall. So nice.

Wandering around the beaches at night, we bumped into an Elephant. He was super friendly. Oh yah, the next day, we got to ride around on an elephant, but I didn’t have my camera, so I don’t have any pictures of that. But she looked and smelled just like this lil’ guy, only a little bigger. I must say, however, that riding on an elephant isn’t really that comfortable, and I can’t really imagine riding an elephant to be that great of a way to get around. But, still, it was pretty awesome.

Korby had to leave from Bangkok the next day, so we bought some plane tickets from Phuket to Bangkok via one of Thailand’s many low cost airlines, Nok Air. Before we left for the airport, Korby and I decided to skip the expensive resort food and head into Patong for some lunch. And, I also wanted to see just how sketchy Patong was.. After a spendy 600BHT cab ride, we get to Patong.. It’s pouring rain now, and we only had like 30 minutes to spend there anyway.. We hop into the nearest tasty looking restaurant, have some tasty Phat See You for 20BHT each, and then hop a mini-truck back to the resort for 500BHT. Wow. Talk about a mis-match in what things cost… I mean, where have you ever had a meal that cost 1/50th of what your cab rides cost? And yes, Patong was kinda seedy, with lots of old white dudes walking around with young Thai women, but I’m not gonna judge or anything.. It was actually a lot nicer than I thought it was — the beach is gorgeous, and there are definitely some non-seedy looking establishments amongst the seediness.

And then, we head to the airport, ready to board our 6:25pm flight for Bangkok. When we get to the airport, the staff at the desk inform us that our flight has been canceled due to a “runway issue.” Um.. what? We ask for more detail, but none is to be had, and we start running frantically around the airport to the other airlines to see if we can get on another flight. Thai Airways says that we might be able to get on standby, so we wait there for awhile, but that line doesn’t seem to move. We look into the bus from Phuket, but we had just missed it. Grrr. And then the real news comes.. A plane had crashed on landing at the Phuket airport. Wow. That’s really awful. All of a sudden, the inconvenience that we were experiencing didn’t seem that bad. It’s horrible. As the news slowly moves around the airport, the feelings of anger and inconvenience seem to disappear.

So, we have a few options.. wait for a flight the next day from Phuket, try to get a flight from Krabi (3 hours away), or try and get on the night train tonight from Surat Thani (5 hours away).. We decide that flying from Krabi is our best bet, and even if we can’t get a flight tonight, maybe we can get a flight that next morning.. We hop a cab, and after a slightly harrowing ride through twisty Thai country roads in a huge storm, at around 9:30pm, we arrive to an empty Krabi airport. We run to the front desk, and explain that we came from the Phuket airport. They explain that we had elected to take a refund for our tickets, so there was nothing they could do.

Korby asks, “Really? There’s nothing you can do?”

The girl thinks for a second, and then suddenly 6 Nok Air representatives appear out of nowhere. One girl is on the cell phone, another is barking orders into a radio. The dude is typing furiously into the computer, and another starts tagging our bags for check in. It was simply the most amazing act of quick acting customer service that I have EVER seen from an airline. I was in awe. So, it was just our luck, but the 19:50pm flight to Bangkok was delayed, and was sitting on the runway, just about to leave. They tell it to wait, and we start sprinting through the airport. We carry our checked bags along with us through the security gates, and even the security dudes were all cheering us on, yelling “GO! GO! RUN!” as we sprinted through the Krabi airport.

We scramble up the stairs to the awaiting plane. A full plane of people stare at us as we settle into our (first class, woo!) seats.. Wow. Now, we realize that after the whole Phuket disaster, we ourselves are attempting to fly out of this storm. Maybe that’s a little scary. But, the pilot does a fantastic job, and the flight is super smooth. Phew.

We get to Bangkok, which now feels comfortably familiar, and check into our hotel in the hopping Silom district.

From Railay, we boarded a longtail, which then transferred us to a ferry, headed for Ko Phi Phi. Woohoo.. Boat to Boat transfers are fun.. It was short ride to Phi Phi, slightly choppy, perhaps due to the many storms that were swirling around the region. We get to Phi Phi, and almost immediately we start to wonder if we should have stayed on Railay.. Phi Phi is a lot more crowded than Railay, and a whole lot more backpacker-y.. Instead of a pristine beach that we had all to ourselves, we were greeted by hordes of touts, each promising “cheap cheap” prices to stay at their bungalows.. And, it didn’t help that a storm blew in, right as we were landing.. So, after wandering Phi Phi from hotel to hotel to hotel for awhile, we decided to send out a scouting party to try and find a nice place to stay.

It wasn’t that places on Phi Phi weren’t nice, but after our super swank digs on Railay, we were a bit spoiled. Hmm.. Anyway, after a bit, we were able to find a nice place to stay in the middle of town, and then we headed for the pier for some fun.

Phi Phi actually consists of two islands, Phi Phi Don, the larger island, where most of the stuff is, and Phi Phi Le, the smaller island, which is relatively uninhabited. So, we decided to take a “sunset cruise” that would take us around the islands and visit various beaches and stuff.. Except… because of the storm that had blown in, there was going to be no sunset that day, and therefore, no sunset cruise… Grr. Oh well.. We were about to leave the pier, and then this dude pops up and is like, “I take you guys, ok?” Hmm.. sure! That sounds great!

We happily hop into the longtail as he practices what I’m sure are unsafe fueling procedures… But, I guess he knows what he’s doing, cuz we didn’t blow up or anything. That said, it sure was a harrowing ride across the channel to Phi Phi Le… Considering the “big boat” had canceled its trip for the evening should have been an indication that a smaller, more rickety longtail would have been a more harrowing ride, but I don’t think we gave it much thought until we were riding up and over like 12 foot swells. We were drenched to the bone from the rain and the crashing surf, and I was really glad that I had bought a dry bag to give some level of protection to my camera gear. The orange life jackets sat mockingly in the bow of the boat; it was too harrowing to even leave our seats during most of the ride to even think about putting them on… Weeeee. Kind of like a roller coaster, except this ride had not been engineered with a recognized factor of safety. Our intrepid cigarette-toting boatman was able to shuttle us safely to Phi Phi Le without incident.. When we got there, we pulled first into a gorgeous private turquoise cove where we did some swimming. The water is like warm bathwater, and swimming in it is a dream. And we felt like we were the only people on that whole island, which, for the most part, was true..

We get back into the boat and head for another cove, where our guide points to a small hole in a bank of sharp, craggly rocks.

“Beach, in there,” he says. “In there?” we ask. He nods. We nod. Confident that we have all the information that we need, we happily hop out of the boat and swim for shore.

The rocks are uneven, the surf is a bit rough, and I get banged around a bit on the rocks. I try not to keep visions of my newly minted ankle getting crushed between some cruel vise formed by rocks and surf. Korby screams out as he cuts his knee on some sharp bits, but soon enough, we all are able to scramble onto the rocks. Our progress through the hole in the rocks is aided by a bunch of ropes that form sort of a handhold over your head. The ADA would definitely not approve of this.

On the other side of the hole, is a small beach, and a path.. there’s a small sign that says, “Maya Beach –>”

Our feeling of being isolated on a tropical island is interrupted by a dude walking by, chattering on his cell phone. (Aside: during our entire time in Thailand, I must say that I had better cell phone coverage than I do in my own home in San Francisco. Um, good job, Thailand.)

We head down the path, and then emerge in a gorgeous white sand beach, shaped like a crescent moon, surrounded by huge sheer cliffs of limestone. We are the only ones here. Apparently, this is the beach from “The Beach” (the movie). It’s spectacular. And it’s still raining, but Korby, Jenny and I still run all around the beach, frolicking in its magnificence. It’s awesome. I mean, we only stay like 20 minutes, but it’s pretty damn cool.

It was a shame that we couldn’t stay there longer, but at least we got to hang out there for a little while. But, it was getting late, and it was starting to get dark. We headed back to the rocky hole, climbed back through, and were happy to see our longtail waiting patiently in the bay for us. Our guide handed us some snorkeling gear, and we spent like 30 minutes frolicking in the reef, swimming with all of the colorful parrot fish, clown fish, and other assorted cute little reef critters. I got pretty good at free diving, I think.. Dammit, a few months ago, I had the opportunity to buy a Suunto D3 for $35.. it was on sale, but I didn’t get it cuz I was like.. “hmm.. do I really need a freediving watch?” Grr. Freediving is hella fun. I mean, scuba is fun too, but when freediving, you’re unburdened with all of that gear, and it feels awesome, swimming underwater with just one breath of air..

We climb back into the boat, ready to continue our tour, when our guide points to a huge dark storm cloud and says, “Maybe we do island tour another day. Go back now.” We trust his judgment. For the return trip back, we don the life jackets, which seems like a good idea considering the growing size of the waves.. But, the trip back seems relatively less harrowing and we putter quickly back into Tonsai harbor on Phi Phi Don..

We get back to the hotel and learn that there was an 8.2 earthquake in Indonesia — similar to the one that caused the disastrous Tsunami in 2004. Yah, the one that destroyed Ko Phi Phi. Exactly where we were. Um. The first we heard of the “tsunami warning” was that they had canceled it. Um, that’s nice. Eep.

After an evening of drinks and fire dancing on Phi Phi at the Apache Bar, we board a ferry from Phi Phi to Phuket. The weather finally clears up a bit, and the sun greeted us for our departure from Phi Phi.. We boarded the ferry, taking a nice spot on the top sun deck. Everyone on the sun deck is spread out in full suntanning mode. A calm breeze blows from the southwest, all is good.

One of the ship crew motions to Paul, who has his SLR camera out in all of its picture-taking glory, “Put camera away. Get wet.” Paul looks at him with a puzzled look, I returned a knowing glance to him, both confident that our 30 foot perch above the water would surely keep us dry.

Um, we were wrong. As soon as the ferry leaves the calm safety of Tonsai harbor, things get real dicey, real fast. The swells we had seen yesterday in the longtail had grown bigger, and now, the huge ferry was being tossed about in the ocean like a bath toy. Waves started crashing violently into the bow of the ferry, sending sea spraying 50 feet into the air. We got drenched. The boat was rocking like crazy from side to side, and all of the plastic deck chairs were sliding all around the sun deck. Luckily, I had secured myself a nice spot in the corner of the deck, so my chair was firmly situated. After I decided I had enough, I retreated to the relative safety of the lower decks and took a nice nap for the remaining ride to Phuket. Paul, unfortunately, did not fare as well. Apparently, one of the drawbacks of being a 6’4″ polish man (in addition to his famously small bladder) is an increased sensitivity to motion sickness. Poor guy. Yah, I don’t think that he enjoyed that ferry ride at all. But hey Paul.. look what I found — next time we hit up the Andaman coast, we can take a seaplane instead. Ooo. Fun. The silver lining of Paul’s unfortunate ferry ride was that none of us took pictures of the aftermath. But don’t worry, we have plenty of other embarrassing pictures. (Now would be an appropriate time to link to paulandjablow.com.)

We departed the train in Surat Thani and hopped a 2 hour bus to Krabi, where we were dropped off at the bus station. The bus station was seemingly in the middle of nowhere, so we were at the mercy of the services there at the station to get us where we needed to go.. To get to the Krabi pier, we got a ride in the back of a pickup truck, turned bus, where we boarded a longtail for Railay.. It started raining as soon as we got near the beach (I guess that’s why there’s less people during the monsoon season)..

The rain was refreshing after the overnight train/bus/pickup truck/longtail journey, and finally, we were at our destination. Railay was recommended by Pius, and so far, it did not disappoint. Although Railay is technically attached to the Krabi peninsula, it is cutoff by sheer limestone cliffs to the north, and as such, is only accessible via boat. We waited out the storm for a bit, and then headed out to explore the area a bit and find a hotel..

We headed to West Railay, which has a nicer beach than East Railay, and also some of the nicer resorts.. We stayed at the Railay Village Resort, which was recently renovated, and reopened in September 2007. As in.. it reopened the month that we got to Railay — we were the first ones to stay in the newly renovated rooms, so that was pretty frikkin’ awesome. There were a few quirks with the rooms, as to be expected in any brand new place.. like.. our original room smelled like swamp gas or something, so we moved to another room… and little design details hadn’t been thought about.. like the fact that the bathroom had *clear* windows which afforded everyone in the main room a nice view of you on the pooper. I mean, they were relatively small quirks — overall, the rooms were large, clean, and comfortable.. some details were great, like the heated bathroom floors, and the nice darkwood decor.. Good stuff, overall.

The second day, Korby and I decided to go on a dive trip. We headed out on a longtail to Koh Si. It was monsoon season though, so visibility wasn’t going to be great — these were my 10th and 11th dives ever, so I’m still fascinated by the sheer prospect of being able to breathe underwater, so honestly, as long I’m there, I’m happy. Half of our first dive was spent doing some refresher exercises, clearing the mask, removing regulator, etc.. and then we swam around for a bit. We saw some cool wildlife, including a black tipped reef shark. Sweet. The second dive, we went around the back of Koh Si, and for the first 10 meters, visibility was awful. We descended and lost Korby somewhere along the way, so we had to resurface to find him again. After that, Korby decided to go back to the boat, so Koa and I finished up the dive… we didn’t see anything much different than the first dive, but it was still damn fun. Besides us, there was only the two other people in our longtail diving at this spot, so it was pretty nice to have this dive site all to ourselves…

Railay is well known as a climbing destination, so I had hoped to get some climbing in during my time there — but, we got back a little late from the dive, and I frankly was a bit tired, so I opted for a massage overlooking the beach instead. So nice, and you can’t beat the $6 price.

The next day, we planned to hop on the ferry to Phi Phi, so I decided to take an early morning hike to Phra Nang, the beach on the southern tip of the peninsula. Access is somewhat limited since the ultra-luxury resort, Rayavadee basically blocks access from West Railay. I figured that at 6am, the guards wouldn’t be there.. I was wrong. I tried to sweet talk my way into Rayavadee, but he would have no part of it. So, I had to walk all the way back to East Railay and then walk south down the beach until I found the little path to Phra Nang..

I can see why Rayavadee wants to have Phra Nang all to itself — it’s pretty fecking nice.. White sands welcome you to a lovely south-facing beach, guarded by several huge karst (limestone) formations.. Aside from the security guard policing the southern side of Rayavadee, I was the only person on the beach. And then, a rainbow appeared as if I didn’t know that this beach was something special…

Yah — Railay is awesome. I’ll be back, soon, hopefully.

Thailand Tip #5: Go to Railay.

Thanks Pius, for your recommendation, you have staved off your punch in the gut for a little while longer.

Our final day in Bangkok, we hit up the Grand Palace, spectacular… So colorful and amazing. And we had to wear pants and closed toed shoes. When you get off the ferry and walk towards the temple, there are dozens of tuktuk drivers that claim that the Grand Palace is closed. If you believe them, then they will offer to take you on a big tour of Bangkok instead. So, don’t believe them. It’s open.

After the Grand Palace, we toured Khao San road for a bit, which, according to another world-traveler, Dana, is the epicenter of the Asian backpacker world. Well, it sure was backpacker-y, filled with tons of young travelers all looking to get their hair braided, buy redbull tshirts or find a hostel to crash at for awhile.

A really weird thing that we saw all over Bangkok — abandoned half finished buildings. I never really gave it much thought that you hardly ever see back here.. Paul mentioned that here in the States you have to secure a bond that would basically guarantee that the project won’t run out of money, but I guess that is obviously not the case in Thailand. Hmm.. apparently that building is the “Sathorn Unique,” whose development halted in 1997 after the Asian financial crisis… Yikes.

Anyway, after a full day in Bangkok, we boarded the overnight train headed for Surat Thani, on the southern peninsula of Thailand.

Our accommodations aboard the train were decently nice. We got “first class” tickets which meant that we had an actual cabin, as opposed to just having a berth in the main cabin. I mean, it wasn’t super swank or anything — little cockroaches occasionally were seen scurrying around, it was fun. We had two adjoining cabins that we could open up into each other, and a friendly steward named Aud that kept bringing us buckets of Singha.

Thailand Tip #4: Singha makes the train ride fun.

Our flight from SFO left at 1am on Saturday, September 8th.. Every time I told people when my flight was, they would respond with “Oh.. Friday night.” Hmmm. Is 1am on Saturday technically part of “Friday Night?” I mean — to me, 1am Saturday is part of Saturday morning, but apparently to many people, it’s part of “Friday Night.” Weird. But I digress.

Jenny and I were on the same flight, which went from SFO to Taipei, and then we switched planes for Bangkok. The 15 hours of flying went by surprisingly easily, and after a lot of sleeping, a few movies, and two tasty meals (I like airplane food, yum), Jenny and I arrived in BKK.

Thailand Tip #1: When taking a cab from the airport, make sure you get a TAXI METER cab, and ask to use the meter — if they quote you a price, it’s probably too high.

We hopped a cab to the hotel where Paul was staying, and got ourselves settled.. it was like 11am, so we had some time before Korby arrived at like 5pm, so we headed to check out the famous Bangkok malls that both world-travelers Pius and Chad had told me about. Yay! We traveled halfway around the world to go to a mall!

We went to Central World, which is a huge mall in the middle of Bangkok… it was like 90 degrees with like 90 percent humidity outside, so my SF-acclimatized self was happy to get into the aircon for a bit. Since it was a Sunday, there was a huge market going on in the downstairs part of the mall, so that was fascinating to see all of the people milling about, doing their grocery shopping at an open-air style market, in a mall. Most of the other stuff in the mall would have looked pretty at home in the states — designer boutiques, clothing stores, electronics, etc… And the prices of the fancy stuff were just about the same as back home too. They were selling down jackets at the Hugo Boss store that we went into. Yah, um, that’s nice.

We did some of the touristy stuff, saw the Grand Palace, and took a longtail to see the canals in Thonburi..

Check out this cool cat that was just hanging out in some shrine in the flower market:

I checked out a Muay Thai Boxing match.. I had front row seats which seemed only to be filled with other tourists, since it was like 2,000 Baht, which is kind of a lot of money, but whatever, I was able to get the tickets for 1,800 — maybe that was a deal, maybe not.. who knows.

Thailand Tip #2: You will be ilked out of some money by some wily people. Oh well.

Thailand Tip #3: Tuktuks will take you for a fun ride. You may not end up where you tell them to go, but it will be fun.

Well… I safely made it back from my vacation to Thailand.. I posted 387 pictures of the trip for your viewing pleasure, but I’ve actually had a few people comment on the sheer number of pictures that I’ve posted (too many for anyone that wasn’t on the trip to go through), I figured that I’d just write up a blog post with a few stories and a highlight the best pictures…

And so…. here we go…

Paul, Korby, Jenny and I decided to get out of the country for a little vacation — none of us have ever been to Thailand before, and since flights were looking pretty reasonable, we decided that it would be a good idea. My friend Ali also joined us for a portion of the trip..

We only had a plane ticket in and out of Bangkok — everything else was pretty much unplanned. My main goals were to just see some cool sights, maybe get some diving in, and spend some quality time chilling at the beaches.

So… I haven’t taken a proper, unplugged from the Internet vacation in quite some time now… So, I decided to hope over to Thailand for a few days with a few friends, Paul, Korby and Jenny. My friend Ali is gonna meet up at some point too; she’s recovering from burningman and needed more than a week off.. I leave Saturday morning at 1am. Woohoo.

I’ve never been to Thailand, but after talking with some seasoned travelers, I think our tentative itinerary is:

• Arrive in Bangkok on 9/9, wander the city. Go to the malls.
• Hop over to Angkor Wat for a day or two. See stuff.
• Make our way down to the Beaches and Islands.. Maybe Railay beach, near Krabi..

September is supposedly “Monsoon Season,” so it shouldn’t be as crowded. Hmmmm.. Monsoons, eh? Lemme check the weather….

Uh.. great. According to Pius, it only thunderstorms for a little bit every day, and then it’s clear. Well.. That’s cool with me. We didn’t really have a rainy season at all this year, so it might actually be nice to see some rain. And Thunderstorms even.. That would be cool.

Alas, that is all we have really planned now (which is not very much). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.