SE Asia Trip

On our last day in Koh Samui we played football golf, or as I would like to call it, soccer golf, which was literally golf played with a soccer ball. We played with 2 Germans and 2 British guys so we were surrounded by football hooligans, and we had a great time! After Samui we flew to Phuket for a night, where we just shopped and took it easy. The place was overflowing with tourists and creepy Thai people trying to sell you everything and anything. After Phuket we took a boat to Phi Phi which was a nice getaway from Phuket. This island is absolutely beautiful. The rock formations and beaches are stunning. On our first full day here, Ron went diving and saw sharks and other crazy sea creatures, and I went fishing with our Brisith friends. We were so stoked to go fishing because apparently it is common to catch massive barracuda and other cool fish, but it was a little disappointing. We only caught a couple small little trout like fish! We took it easy that night and met a group of Americans that had studied in China and were really nice. Yesterday we took a boat to Maya Bay which is where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. It was beautiful but the weather wasn't great, and they wanted to charge us to actually go on the beach, so we just went snorkeling and moved on. We then went to Monkey Bay where we saw 30 monkeys! They attacked you unless you stood in the water on the beach. Once you had food they were friendly and would hold your hand! It was awesome! We saw a couple of baby monkeys and a little fight between two alpha males. We're heading to Railay today and I will update the blog again later!

UPDATE

My last blog post was not very detailed so I thought I would rewrite it while I have some time on the ferry back to Phuket.

Our last full day on Samui was great. We decided to rent a car because taxis were so expensive and the car rental was fairly cheap. They drive on the wrong side of the rode, but Ron had experience driving in Hong Kong and we were meeting up with our English friends who would be fully comfortable. Our original plan was actually to surprise our English friends by picking them up at the pier, but we didnt get up early enough so they had left by the time we got there. We instead went to look at the "Big Buddha" which is literally a big golden Buddha. The Thai Buddha is not fat like the traditional chubby Buddha that we're used to, so it is not overly recognizable. After that we had lunch at a restaurant that sat right on the water, it was beautiful.

After that, we managed to find our English friends, Zoe and Nathan, so we picked them up and went to Football Golf, or as we would call it, Soccer Golf. It is exactly like it sounds, golf with a soccer ball. It was a ton of fun and the weather was perfect. The Germans and English were much better than us, but it was all in good fun. After playing soccer golf for 2 hours in the scorching sun, our only choice was to go for a dip in the pool. The ocean was not really an option in Samui since the water temperature was comparable to a stale bath. That night we went to a bar to play pool, walked around a bit, and capped it off with some late night McDonalds.
The next morning, we flew out of Samui to Phuket. We had to say goodbye to our German friends for good, but we would meet up with Nathan and Zoe in Koh Phi Phi in 2 days.

Phuket
We arrived in Phuket by plane and had an hour long bus ride to our hotel in Patong. This area is diluted with tourists and East Indians. There are not a lot of Thai people around. The city was comparable to Bangkok but maybe a little smaller. We decided just to shop and get a foot massage before dinner, then grab a drink and call it a night. The nightlife was a little overwhelming with Thai people trying to force you into there club or into sex shows so we didnt stay out.

Phi Phi
We got to Phi Phi at around 3 o'clock the next day and met up with our English friends for lunch. Our hotel was very nice, but the pool was broken, which was disappointing as it was very hot. We could use the pool at a sister hotel, but it was a bit of a walk. Phi Phi is a really small island with no cars or taxis, just bikes and walkers. That night we found a mellow bar right on the beach where we could just relax and have a couple beers. We were pleasantly surprised to find that this bar had a fire show that they called "the best in the galaxy" and it actually was the best one we'd seen. The things that these Thai men could do with fire was crazy. We went to bed early because Ron was diving the next morning and I was going fishing.

Ron woke up at 7:30 and I woke up at 8 to do our respective activities that day. Ron loved diving as he saw sharks, lobsters, and eels, while the fishing wasnt so successful. I had a great time anyways as I have really grown to like our English friends so a nice little boat trip around the island was fine. But we each caught one small fish when we were hoping to catch some big game like barracuda and grouper. We were both done our activities at around 1 so we grabbed some lunch and relaxed for a while. We found a restaurant that was playing a "Friends" marathon, which was a nice little taste from home. We had not watched TV in a whole month so it was a very welcome break from the rugidness of Thailand. After lunch we hiked up to a View Point on top of the island. It was a big hike with a lot of stairs and huge incline, which after 3 weeks of drinking, eating, and sitting on the beach was a little tough but also a little nice. I definitely needed some exercise. The view point was stunning! I dont think I have ever seen anything so beautiful. You could see both sides of the island as the sun was beginning to set. The weather hadnt been that great in the morning, but it cleared up right when we got to the top to give us some of the best scenery in the world. We took it easy again that night, opting to go back to the same beach side bar to have a couple drinks with the English and a couple Americans that Ron met diving from Kansas and Dallas.
We slept in a little the next morning, got some breakfast, and then headed to the beach to hire a water taxi. We went to Monkey Bay, Maya Bay, (where the Beach was filmed), a snorkeling sight, and back to Monkey Bay again because we couldnt get enough. Monkey Bay was everything I wanted it to be and more. The monkeys were on the sand and all of the people were standing in the water, but we didnt want to look at monkeys, we wanted to play with them. So we walked up onto the sand and quickly realized why the people were in the water as the monkeys started chasing us and swiping at us. We discovered that you need to offer them some food if you want to be close to them, so we got some pineapple and were able to hold there hand and get good pictures. Maya Bay was a little disappointing as they wanted to charge us to go onto the beach, so we just dropped anchor about 200 feet from shore and went for a swim. The snorkel site that our taxi man took us too was quite amazing. It was probably one of the best places that I have ever snorkeled, which is saying a lot considering the amount of snorkeling Ive done. I even found NEMO! There were a ton of clown fish which really excited me, because I always wanted to see a real Nemo. There were angel fish, crazy neon fish, and much more. After that, we still had an hour with our taxi boat so we headed back to monkey bay and had just as good of a time. We had more food to offer them so we got better pictures and had much more fun. My sunglasses had broken on the boat so I have them to the monkeys who tried to wear them upside down! It was so cute. We headed back to Phi Phi, got dinner, and decided to go out because it was our last day with our English friends. We went to a bar called Banana Bar where we had a couple drinks on the roof and met another English girl and an Australian guy as our group kinda snowballed. After that we went to the party beach where we found a table and watched ANOTHER fire show. We had a great time talking with new people and reminising with the English.

I can't believe that it has been 4 days since my last post. Koh Tao was wonderful. We decided to do a diving course to get us certified, and the first day, we just watched a video about the course, then had drinks at our pool side bar. We have been hanging out with a couple from England a lot, and they have pretty much become life-long friends. We just chilled with them, and also met a group of Canadian girls from Toronto to hang out with. The next day we did classroom for diving in the morning, then did dive training, and one shallow dive in the afternoon. The feeling of floating underwater was what I imagined zero gravity would be like... amazing. However, my ears were hurting and I was feeling claustrophobic as we went deeper. We went 8m deep that day and I couldn't really imagine going any deeper and feeling okay about it, much less enjoying it, so that is all the diving I did! Ron completed the course on Saturday and Sunday and had a great time. On Friday after the dive that I did do, my ears were hurting and I was not feeling great so I went to bed at 9pm and woke up at noon the next day. I was still not feeling great so I am really glad I didn't force myself to dive again. Instead i sat by the pool, read, listened to music, and soaked in the sun. On Sunday, Ron was done diving at noon so we went into town to shop a little and see if there was anything interesting... which there wasn't.

On Monday (today) we left for Koh Samui which is much more of a touristy place than where we have been. It is nice, but we enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of the other two islands more. We ended up at a buffalo fight tonight, and boy, was that an experience! What is a buffalo fight, do you ask? Well, we were wondering the same thing. Two massive buffalo were separated by a screen, and when they took it away, they started ramming each other. Once they were head to head, they began stabbing each other with their horns. It was so cruel, they were bleeding everywhere, and I was the only white person there, so we couldn't even ask how it ended. We were sure they were going to fight to the death, which would have been so sad. We found out later than the buffalo never die in these fights. At this fight, just when it looked like one of them is going to die, he turns around and starts running away. Now these buffalo are in a bamboo cage, and as one buffalo is chasing the other I'm looking at this fence and I realize that no way that this fence is going to stop a 1000 pound buffalo, so I started running! And sure enough, about 2 meters away from where we were standing, the buffalo broke free, rammed into the second fence that held the people in, and ran off into the forest. It was crazy, my heart was really pounding. I went from thinking that a buffalo was going to die, to thinking that I was going to die... I don't think I have ever run that fast. It was quite the experience!

I'll write another post soon

Geoff

Today is our last day on Koh Phangan. On Tuesday we went up to a beach on the north side of the island called Haad Mae Haad. It is the nicest beach I have ever been to. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great so the pictures aren't as good as they could be, but the water was clear, the sand was white and the snorkeling was amazing. That night was the Full Moon party and it was overwhelming (in a good way). There were at least 15,000 people from all over the world on one beach. We have become amazing friends with a British guy so we hung out with him, plus a couple of crazy Mexicans, a couple from the Netherlands, and lots of British people. I didn't drink very much because I wanted to have a good time and remember it! Wednesday we were tired so we hung out by the pool and ate a ton of good Thai food. At night we sat by the beach and listened to music with all the people we've been meeting. The power actually went out and a guy had his guitar so we just chatted by candle light and listened to music. That was actually one of the best nights of my life. It was so relaxing and we were talking to so many interesting people from all around the world.
We head by boat to another island, Koh Tao, today (Thursday) where we are going to go scuba diving.

Thats all for now,

Geoff

I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted, because I'm having too much fun! For our last night in Bangkok, we hung out with our new friend from Edmonton. We went to her hostel, met everyone that was staying there, and then went to a club called Route 66. It was the craziest club I have ever been to! There were 5 rooms, all with different DJs, different themes, and different music. It was a very good time. We haven't been sleeping much, but we'll sleep when we are home!

On Sunday, we flew south to an island called Koh Samui and then took a ferry to the island of Koh Phangan where the Full Moon party will be. On the plane we met four Irish girls that were super nice and outgoing. Then at the ferry station we found a group of 3 Australian girls playing cards, and a group of 3 girls from Toronto who wanted to join in on the fun. So there was me, Ron, and 10 girls hanging out at the terminal! We were having the time of our lives. We sat with them in our own little room on this ferry... it was the best ferry ride I have ever been on!

That night we had all planned on meeting up, but it started raining and thundering so we decided to stay in and hang out with a British couple we had met. We had great conversations over a couple of beers, and then when the rain stopped we headed to Haad Rin, the beach where the Full Moon Party will be. There were people partying everywhere, it was crazy! We then watched the Euro soccer final and went to bed.

Today we went for a walk down the beach and met some people from Toronto and Kelowna. Tonight we'll go to a bar in the jungle with the Irish girls, don't think that we'll drink like they will! Tomorrow we are going to do a Thai boxing course and at night is the Full moon party. I realize that it sounds like all we are doing is partying, but we are really just meeting a lot of people and hanging out!

Thursday night was the first time we went out except for when we first arrived. We went to Khao San Road, the backpackers quarter, which is where all the hostels are. We went to a bar with the girl we met from Edmonton and played drinking games and talked sports with a bunch of Irish people. It was a ton of fun.

We decided to take the day off sight seeing on Friday and had a day by the pool. We got some beer and took them up to the pool on the roof and vegged out all day. We then went to a Thai boxing match at night, which was extremely cool.

Today we went to a weekend market. It was huge! They sold everything from clothes and electronics to animals. You could buy rodents, dogs, cock fighting roosters, or mini-turtles. The puppies were so cute! I would have bought one but I don't think Casey and Sadie would be willing to share the attention. We then went for foot massages which were $5 for an hour, and they did your arms and back, too. Tonight we will go back to the backpackers area and since I lost a bet on the soccer game, I have to eat a cricket or a worm!