Part 2: Thailand

DESTINATION #2: THAILAND

Continued from before…. Our Siem Reap-Thai border bus was horrible terrible the worst. And once we were ordered off the bus at the sketchy border, the staff split and we were forced to navigate across on our own. Basically we waited in line forever, walked 300 meters across the border (being sure that no one slipped drugs etc. in our backpack to transport across…) then went through customs, and finally got on our van to get to Bangkok. 

Finallyy arrived in Bangkok (Kao San Road) around dusk (despite the 1pm guaranteed arrival time). Kao San Road is backpackers paradise. It is a pedestrian only crazy crazy street with shops, people selling everything (tattoos, sex, bathing suits, banana smoothies, fake passports, etc.) we grabbed dinner after quick internet café rendez-vous and decided to spend the night there. The energy of the city is contagious and it is so different from Cambodia despite being next door. 

More good news? Pad Thai IS better in Thailand! It is so delicious… peanut-lime-scallion heaven. We have been eating pad thai for literally every meal.

We hostel shopped for about 30 mins, and settled on the Wild Orchid Villa off Kao San Road. Then we quickly went shopping for tops, bathing suits, etc. and went out around midnight. There are so many bars/clubs everywhere but we first went to an upperdeck bar with live music which was so fun and then went to a few clubs. Kao San night life is surprisingly a bit disappointing – I would have taken Shanghai over Bangkok easily. The police actually shut down many of the clubs around 1am which was unfortunate.

The next day, after breakfast we met up with our guy friends from CIEE who were also in Bangkok and explored more. Unfortunately, the only available train down to Surat Thani was at 5:30pm so we picked up snacks, drinks, and books then headed over to the train station. The train was super slow but hands down better than a cramped bus. We even had individual little sleeper beds. 

We arrived in Surat Thani soo early, then took a bus to Don Sak pier. Our 7am ferry arrived at Koh Phangan a few hours later (we all laid out during the ride and got sun burnt!)

The island is quite a bit bigger than I expected and the locals are so used to tourists that they refuse to budge on prices. When we arrived we grabbed lunch at the market then searched for a hotel near Haad Rim for the night. We stayed at Great Bay Resort which was totally fine… 

Went for a swim/walk, made friends with some British people, then walked 30 mins back into the ferry town to get neon Half Moon party outfits. We had dinner at the night market again (mango sticky rice is the best thing in the universe) then got ready for the party! 

Half Moon was actually a lot of fun. We wore neon, painted our bodies/faces, and danced in the jungle all night. There were DJs, fire dancers, platforms everywhere, weird lights, crazy everything…

The next morning we woke up early and hit the beach (recovered..), and then after checking out and going to town to book ferry tickets home we found a new hotel in the northwest (Haad Gruan, just above Haad Yao). It was very… rustic. Like little bungalows in the jungle, no a/c, little light, mattresses on the floor, stone bathrooms built on the side, etc.

The beach wasn’t great but it was still a beach I suppose. For dinner, we walked to Haad Salad and had the most incredible bbq fish for dinner! We picked our red snapper fresh and they seved it up for us with delicious salad, grilled corn, etc. all for $10!

On our last day on the island, we woke up, swam, laid out/read, then headed into town. We got amazing smoothies at this little german bakery and then rented “motobikes” to explore the island.. it was so fun!  We drove all over the west half of the island, and stopped whenever we saw something cool. We stopped at the national park to hike up to the Phangan waterfall (which was very dried up since it is dry season after all), and then hiked to the top of a high hill for glorious views.

The terrain was rough, hilly, but despite the dry season still somehow lush and tropical. After climbing down, we biked in a huge loop and then stopped by our first resort for a last minute swim.

Our raja ferry departed at 5pm. It was a huge ferry and we watched the most beautiful sunset.

Our train wasn’t until 11:50pm though so we had yet another meal when we got to the station (spicy vegetable thai soup) and waited. We met two rambunctious little boys who didn’t own shoes or bathing facilities, but were so sweet and hilarious. We taught them card games and they taught us handshakes. We took an airconditioned car (only choice) which was freezing, but we slept well.
When we finally arrived back into Bangkok we tuktuked to Kao San, got street pad thai (and duh mango sticky rice). By this point, we hadn’t showered for quite some time and were DESPERATE but had to wait until Hong Kong. In the meantime, I was getting sicker and sicker with a scary unidentifiable illness. I’ll spare you the symptoms but in my head I had either Dengue Fever, Malaria, or was about to have a heart attack. It didn’t help that our flight to Hong Kong was on Pakistan Airlines…