So Long, Siam!

Well, our trip has come to an end, and we're ready to get home. We're leaving for the airport in an hour or so for our long trip home. We'll post some more pictures and fill you all in on the end of our trip then.
Thanks for reading everybody!
-Chris & Kate

The Adventure Continues!!!

Hello again! Only one week left here in the "Land of Smiles" and we are soaking it up in Chiang Mai. Since out last post, we have been kayaking in Mangrove forests amongst limestone sea stacks and zip-lining through the jungle. We have also strolled through some pretty cool night markets and thrown back a few beers in some western themed bars, complete with confederate flags and rock n roll music. This place is a trip!
So, after sitting in the hotel in Krabi for a day, drinking soda water and eating plain rice, I was ready to hit up Krabi Town. We took a cab to the downtown area, which was on the water.

You can see the rad limestone pillars the rise up from the sea in the distance. We walked along the seaboard for awhile then headed over to the night market, which had stalls selling weird fruits like durian and tons of food, both gross and scrumptious. They had everything from dim sum to this orange slushy that looked so tasty (looks can be deceiving).

 Chris tried some spicy chicken satay and I settled on the old Pad Thai standby. I had to give my stomach a gradual reintroduction to Thai food.
Next, we went to this super kitschy western bar called "Buffalo" where the young Korean owner served us on the wooden deck out front. The stereo played 70s soft rock hits like REO Speedwagon.

 
 We turned in early because we had plans to go Kayaking early the next morning. This was one of our favorite parts of the trip so far.

The water was so still and peaceful, the air was a bit cooler than on land, and we saw a giant jellyfish, a 3 foot long water lizard, and quite a few monkies chillin' in the trees (or in your kayak if you let 'em). The kayak trip was 3 hours and only 600 Baht per person (less than $20).

The same day as the kayak trip, we took a 2 hour taxi ride to the Phuket airport and flew to Chiang Mai. We got here around 11pm. So, we just checked into our hotel, walked down to the mini mart for a couple of beers and went to sleep.

The next day, we set out on foot to see this beautiful city. We are staying in the old city, which is a square surrounded by a moat. It's pretty easy to navigate and we saw some sweet sculptures and temples in the morning.

We continued our walk through the afternoon, stopping for some drinks at Roof Top Bar, for a nice view of the sunset and the city below.

Next, we walked down to the Night Bazaar, where we did some wheeling and dealing for cool Thai Fisherman pants (You know you want some).

After All that walking, we were too tired to read menus and find good Thai food. So, we went all American and said "Sa Was Dee" to good old Ronald.

The McDonald's here does 24 hour free delivery, no minimum order! They also have unique menu items like pineapple pie, corn pie, and chicken terriyaki.

Today, we went on our jungle zip-line adventure. But, I have been typing for too long. So, ya'll gonna have to wait for those pics! Tomorrow, we will be riding elephants, mountain biking a white-water rafting. Stay tuned friends!

Back on the move

It’s a quiet Monday in Krabi, Thailand. It seems like no one is here. The beaches and hotels are empty. We arrived here yesterday afternoon and I have been battling a case of food poisoning for the past 24 hours. YUCK. When we got to our hotel, I was not ready to go anywhere. So, Chris and I sat on the bed and proceeded to undo my braids. After 5 days of tight corn rows, my hair was a frizzy, tangled mess. Which made for good pics.

Taking the braids out felt good. But, my stomach still feels bad.

So, I am sitting here in the Air Conditioned hotel room while Chris is braving the heat to get some lunch. I’ll be having rice a soda water, which is all I’ve eaten in Krabi.

Aside from the past 24 hours on the toilet, this week has been great. Our stay at View Cliff resort was just right. Again, I think we were the only guests there at the time. So, we had the beautiful beach cove all to ourselves.

 The beach at View Cliff 

 The balcony outside our room  

The hotel was great, but we didn’t spend much time there because we were busy diving around and exploring the island on our rental scooter.

This is the patio of the dive school where we would sit each morning and drink a coffee while our instructor reviewed the reading with us. The view was lovely.

  

The last two days of diving, we explored the ship wreck of the HTMS Sattakut (A US Navy WWII ship) that was sunk late in 2011 as an artificial reef. Even after only being sunk for 9 months, it was already home to many fish and some corals too. After being out on the water for 5 or 6 hours with only pineapple and tea, all of the divers would look forward to being greeted by the samosa man. I know Samosas aren’t Thai. But, these were so good and only 20 Baht a piece (60 cents) YUM!

Kate enjoys a samosa

The last day of diving was the best. We went on a night dive! The boat departed the dive school at sunset, and on board were 6 of the people we had been diving with all week. It felt like we were amongst friends! There was a couple from Mumbai, India (Bino and Antima) a couple of guys from Australia and a man from England named Steve. Once the boat reached the dive spot, we swam around and waited for the sun to set. We dove with big underwater flashlights and on that one dive Chris and I saw a huge turtle, 5 or 6 blue-spotted rays and a CUTTLEFISH!! We had really hoped we’d get to se a cuttlefish and we were the only ones on the boat that saw it. At one point, our instructor had us stop on the sea floor and turn our flashlights off to watch the bioluminescent plankton swirl in front of us as we moved our hands through the water. FAR OUT!

Fully satisfied with our diving experience, we spent the next couple of days just hanging out. The bar/restaurant near our hotel had good food and ambience.

We had dinner there, played some pool and met a really nice couple (Kat and Pat) from Quebec, Canada who have been traveling for months. They enjoyed watching Game of Thrones at the restaurant, so we immediately hit it off. 

Having the rental scooter was great, it really allowed us to explore the island, and at only 150 baht per day, it was cheaper than one cab ride.

      

Our last night on Koh Tao, we went to the Rasta Bar for some drinks, and a few games of Jenga and Connect 4 with the bartender. Just about when Kate had enough to drink, our friends from the dive school showed up and asked us if we wanted to go out with them. Of course we did, so we hopped back on scooter (I was sober) and followed them down to Sairee beach to Lotus Bar, which was hopping with a bunch of wasted Europeans drunk on buckets (literally) of tropical booze. We grabbed some pillows on the sand and watched some awesome fire dancers while enjoying  a bucket of our own, and some pad thai. Around 11:30 or so Andy, a Norwegian dive instructor, had to leave to pick his Thai girlfriend up from work. Bino and Antima kept the party going, inviting us to follow them to Babaloo, an extremely cool bar on a secluded beach.  We checked out the funky bar which had an ice chest full of beer and live fish, and sat out on the beach for one last drink.  As Kate and Antima decided to test out the hammocks slung over the water, Bino and I made bets about who would fall in first. We both agreed it would be Kate. Yet somehow she made it out unscathed, and just coherent enough to get into the taxi. We left the scooter at the bar, as I had finally caught up with Kate. It was a great way to end our stay on Koh Tao, and the next morning we were back on the high speed catamaran headed to Koh Samui.

Goodbye Koh Tao! We love you!

After spending the past 10 days or so on such a tiny island (1 mile wide and 2 miles long) we felt like we were arriving at a big city on Koh Samui (even though its only 15 miles across) We checked into a little bungalow resort called Secret Garden. It too was located directly on the beach, and gave us a great view of the sunset.

Kate and I had dinner here, which was just okay, but unfortunately not worth it, as this is where Kate got food poisoning.  The next morning we got up, had breakfast and headed to the airport for a 45 minute plane ride to Krabi. Kate spent 20 of those minutes in the lavatory.

Another 20 minute cab ride later, and we arrived at our new hotel, The Emerald Garden in Ao Nang.  The hotel is really nice, there’s a couple of pools and tropical vegetation everywhere. We’ve spent the past 24 hours lounging around the pool and in the room, giving Kate time to recuperate. 

She’s feeling a lot better now, and we’re gonna head into town tonight to check out Krabi and grab some food. Tomorrow we’re going sea kayaking in the morning, and then heading over to Phuket for a plane ride up to Chiang Mai.

Change of Plans

It is Tuesday evening, June 12 and we are sitting in the open air lobby of View Cliff Hotel in Koh Tao writing post cards, booking our last flight and hotel stay for the trip. We had planned to be on our way to Koh Samui today, then on to the Andaman coast. Alas, we have fallen in love with Koh Tao and with SCUBA diving. So, we will be staying here for another 5 days and doing our advanced Scuba certification! We just can't get enough!

We hear we won't be missing much in Koh Samui. It's a lot like Koh Tao, just more busy and popular with the young party crowd. The laid-back vibe here is just what we're after.

Today was a break from diving. We checked out of our fancy room at Sensi paradise, rented a scooter, and now we're staying a little further from town at a cheaper place so that we can spend our money on diving. Last night we rode the scooter down to Sairee beach and had dinner at Simple Life restaurant. The spicy squid salad rocked the party for only 90 Baht ($2.50).

After that, we parked the scooter at our hotel and walked up to Moov bar for some drinks. This place was rad! They had bean bag chairs, a tree house, an art garden and a free pool table. The decor was Moroccan inspired and the drinks were so cheap! Fueled by Cuba Libres and Singhas, I won 4 games of pool to Chris's 3. The DJ played Euro dance music, to Chris's dismay.

This morning we scootered over to the dive school to tell Adnan that we want to do the advanced course starting tomorrow. He showed us some photos of our last dive that he posted to the New Heaven Dive Shop facebook page. He signed our Dive Logs for the last 2 dives and gave us our text books for our new course. Over the next 3 days, we will be doing a Deep Dive (40 meters!), learning AWARE Fish Identification and even going on a night dive. We figure SCUBA diving may never be this easy and cheap. So, we're going all out!

After checking in with Adnan, we went down to a Thai massage parlor where Chris was relieved of the neck pain associated with the firm Thailand beds (30 minutes for 200 Baht = $6) and I got my hair braided in corn rows. This humidity is no place for my mane. I had three ladies working for 2 hours to braid my hair and add some sweet rasta beads. Now I am set for this weather.

It's almost dinner time, so that's all for now. Lots of Love to all of you!