Bangkok

I caught a 620 cab to the airport with the girl from the Netherlands and an obnoxious woman from Germany. Patricia's flight was about half an hour before mine and we ate breakfast together before she took off and made a plan to meet in the arrivals hall in Bangkok. While buying the instant noodles, I started talking to a girl from Chicago who was on my flight. She had started a women's empowerment non-profit in Peru and was in Thailand for the one young world leadership conference. 

When we got off the plane, we wandered back and forth for about half an hour before giving up and assuming Patricia would meet us at the hostel. A bus would've taken a few hours so we caught a cab which ended up being about an hour and costing $4 each. Plans change so often and it's difficult to communicate when travelling. It's important to not be too wedded to an idea. 

She hadn't gotten to the hostel yet, so we left her a note and went to explore. Kao Shan road is one street over and if filled with stalls selling food from pad Thai to fried scorpions. (I had both). We walked around for a while and I bought gifts for my family (They'll have to wait to find out what they are). Bargaining takes place everywhere and prices vary hugely between stalls and streets. My favorite time to bargain for is noodles. I don't argue the price, but rub my belly and say something like I'm so big and need food to be strong. They laugh and smile and pile my plate high with twice the original portion. 

We found a temple nearby and inside, there was a monk in a glass box that I'm still not 100% sure wasn't alive. The way he was positioned and with the lighting, he may have been really really deep into meditation. 

Then we fell victim to our first Bangkok scam. A super pushy tuk tuk driver got us into his cab, because we wanted a tour anyway. He brought us to a really nice temple and told us about the city before telling us he wanted to bring us to a shop because they'll give him a gas coupon. We knew it was a scam, but we didn't have anything else planned and there wasn't pressure to buy so we went. They brought us beer and we sat there talking with the way-too-slick salesman for a while about the suit I'd need for our wedding. We got caught up in discussing the extravagant special day we were having and I ended up leaving with a custom-made abysmal suit. They had it ready and brought to my hostel by 11pm last night. It's very brightly colored and almost fits. The pants are nice burgundy and I could wear them to reasonable events and the full suit would be alright for parties or weddings, maybe. It was a fun experience and cheaper than what I'd pay back home but definitely fell for the tricks. I feel like an idiot. 

After the shopping, we went to meet the pick up for a Thai cooking class we had signed up for earlier that day. A woman was waiting at our hostel and we walked to get two other students before going to the restaurant/cooking school. 

When we walked in, a brightly dressed Thai woman had us put on aprons, introduce ourselves and then sing a Thai cooking song. 

The class consisted of us and two (other) couples. We started by making a chili paste and peanut sauce as a group. When the instructor said one table spoon of anything, she just grabbed a handful of the ingredient and threw it in. This is my kind of cooking. 

We each had our own stove and the hard part of buying and preparing ingredients had been done for us already. We started wth tom yum soup. I changed the recipe and didn't use sugar and barely any soy sauce. We ate the dishes we made between courses and Jillie's tasted super salty because she didn't add enough love. 

We also made a coconut curry and of course, pad Thai. Mango sticky rice finished off the meal. 

At the end of the cooking. The instructor got us up and taught us the moves to a Thai dance. It was unexpected and one f the couples was hesitant to get into it. While I didn't quite have the footwork down, I've long since stopped being self conscious while dancing. It's at least partially helped by the fact that I'm with people I'll probably never see again. 

We walked around some open markets for a little while and then walked down kaoh Soan road. It gets super busy at night. We went to a bar on the second story with a balcony overlooking the (all-but-unnoticed) action on the street. We had a drink and a half while talking and dancing to the surprisingly talented live musician playing very fitting songs from 10-30 years ago. 

We walked through an area by the grand palace which was lit up with string lights and spend a while waking through the gardens. 

Her cab picked her up at 4am for her flight home. 

One of the best and worst parts of travelling is meeting people that you connect with, and then having to leave them. I've only been traveling alone for a few days and have met multiple people that have changed me for the better. 

-AB

Thai food made with love

Kao Soan filled with energy

Welcome to Bangkok 

Krabi

Two cups of coffee did little to cure my Thai whiskey hangover. I followed the directions on the note next to my bed and woke my neighbor to catch the 10am ferry. It was simple to buy the ticket right before getting on the boat and if it had been sold out, there were two more ferries later in the day. 

I lost my friend sometime between walking downstairs and buying my ticket but he was on the boat when I got there. He's also going to Bangkok through Krabi but he's taking an overnight bus (that costs more than my flight and gets him there an hour before I do). 

After checking into the pak up hostel, I went for a walk through the town with a really cool personal trainer/gym teacher from the Netherlands and another girl from Germany. The hostel is a converted school and is one of the nicest places I've stayed since leaving home. 

We walked along the river and explored the area a little. I had wanted to get to the tiger temple, which is 1237 steps up a mountain but the busses there weren't running today and I didn't feel like paying for a cab. On our walk, we passed a few monks coming out of a temple and went to spend about an hour exploring it. In Asia, temples hide in the most mundane places. 

I was sharing my room with a girl from Minnesota and a Jewish guy from California. He's checking on a product release in China and stopped by Thailand for a week on his way home. Not a bad set up. 

We walked around the night market in the pouring rain and got some street food for dinner. Vendors are friendly and always ask me to say hello to Obama for them. He's seems to be a popular president in this part of the world. 

The bar near the hostel was a perfect mix of active and calm and everyone was very open to meeting new people. There's also a huge diversity of experiences and life stages. It's not unusual to meet people who have been backpacking for a year right next to someone on a week long trip. Traveling alone makes it so easy to make friends. I had a couple drinks, played pool with some girls from holland and then went to sleep. 

-AB

Krabi town

Back on the mainland

Backpack life

Goodbye Gretchen, hello Koh Phi Phi

Our final meal together was a breakfast of garlic fried rice and coffee across the street from our hostel. The ferry shuttle picked me up at 750 for the 8am ferry. 

The ferry was about an hour and a half and was a reasonable size. I sat on the top deck and started talking to a German named Martin who just finished his masters degree. There have been so many Germans traveling. I'm not sure if it's the bigger traveling culture or the relative wealth that sends them all here. 

After the ferry I went to check into my hostel. It was a single room dorm with about 15 beds directly by the door to the street. My standards for cleanliness and comfort have gone way down since leaving home and the hostel had AC, which made it perfect. It might be the hottest day I've had since leaving India. 

I went to meet Martin, a Swedish girl and another girl from Alaska. She's one of the only Americans that I've met so far. We all hiked up to viewpoint in the center of the island and were rewarded for the climb. While we were relaxing at the top, someone proposed and everyone started cheering for them (she said yes). My new friends wanted to head down pretty soon so I told them I'd meet up with them later. 

Soon afterwards I started talking to a group 5 from Botswana, one Columbian and one Brazilian. They're all working at TCS in India and some work only a few hours from Juanga. It's crazy how small the world is. I went to eat lunch with them and we had a ton to talk about. We played frisbee on the beach for a while and then watched the sunset while drinking this awful Thai whiskey. This is definitely more of a party island than the others I've been to. People say you haven't been to Thailand without going to Koh Phi Phi. The beaches are all taken straight from a postcard and the island has no motor vehicles. It has some package tourists in addition to the backpackers and has a much more energetic feel. 

After sunset, I went to shower and change (into my only other outfit) and went to meet some of the friends I'd made at the banana bar. No one I recognized was there yet so I started talking with some girls from Denmark. They're was a beer pong table there, and while we were playing (with Thai rules that are all wrong) some of the people I knew showed up. One of the games we played was with some South Indians. I really think that out of all the nationalities I've met, Indians are the most hospitable and friendly. We all walked back to the beach together and danced for a while along a few of the clubs there. The music quieted down around 2:30 and we sat for a while by the waves before heading back to the hostel to sleep. 

-AB

Ko Lanta

I slept maybe half an hour in the hot buggy bungalow last night and gave up around 6. I walked out to sunrise beach and caught the tail end of sunrise before stopping in a bunch of places for breakfast. The street which had been so busy the night before, was deserted and quiet. I bought an egg roll and got a toasty and smoothie to bring back for Gretchen when she woke up. Drinking coffee and walking up and down the deserted beach was a good way to start my morning. 

Our ferry left at 9 and now I understand why they say it doesn't operate in bad weather. The boat was a 45 foot long speed boat with three 250hp engines. The waves were so large at the start of the journey that they were coming way over the bow and soaking all the passengers and their bags. We rode into a small rainstorm and the waves got bigger but it calmed down a little about an hour in. Holding on to the seats was more of a workout than it should have been. The ferry was about 3.5 hours total and stopped at a bunch of islands. Sometimes to drop off or pick up one passenger. We often pulled up to a smaller longboat to and traded passengers there as well. 

There was a Danish couple traveling on the ferry as well and we haloed them hold up a blanket to keep the spray off their 6- month old. 

When we got to koh lanta, we took a tuk-tuk to our hostel on the beach. A tuk tuk is a scooter with a covered side-car cart attached to it. They'll hold about 5 people and are the Thai version of Indian rickshaws. The receptionist was super friendly and told us about all the things to do on the island. It's the biggest one we've been to and it felt like a place where Thai people actually live for things other than tourism. After a quick meal, we rented a scooter and went to explore the island. We had some great views along the scenic road and went to the "old town" which had a bunch of markets, temples, and a historic port. I almost bought gifts for my sisters but I wouldn't have had room in my bag. 

On the way back we stopped and relaxed on a quiet beach and watched the sunset. 

We had booked two tickets to a Muay Thai boxing match for that night and we got picked up in a tuk tuk around 8:45. The fight was held in a warehouse converted to a boxing gym and there were at least six fights. The early ones were children, some looked as young as eight. They wear gloves, which is good, but no other padding. There's a lot of elbows and knees in Muay Thai and watching children fighting was crazy. The match starts with the Thai national anthem and then each fighter does a small ritual. They wear lei's and something that looks like a tennis racquet with the strings removed before the fight. 

There were a few knockouts and the adults hit super hard. It's easy to look at the kids fighting from a western point of view (violence is bad, they should be wearing pads, etc.) but this isn't our world. Having the discipline and direction that comes with martial arts can be a postive thing for young people and all of the fighters showed great sportsmanship and camaraderie, even while kicking each other in the face. The fights ended around midnight and we walked back and passed out immediately. Ferry ride at 8am to koh phi phi and leaving Gretchen in the morning. 

-AB

Glinting on the waves

Reflections of our journey 

The sun sinks lower

This is how they sell gasoline. 

Freediving

We reserved another night at the hot buggy bungalow and then went to find some breakfast. I had two meals and coffee and then we bought two tickets for the speed boat to Koh Lanta for tomorrow morning from a super friendly Taiwanese man. 

I'm sitting outside the dive shop now, waiting for the instructor to get done teaching the safety rescues for day two of the course. She said I couldn't sit in and listen without paying for the full two day course, which makes me mad. This is also the most expensive activity I've done so far at 4000 TBH, (about $120). I'm pretty sure it'll just be me and one master-diver-in-training along with the guide. Our instructor holds national freediving records in Ireland, which is super cool. 

*im officially hooked. 

We went out on one of the longboats with the huge loud engine and slow speeds to a couple hundred feet from the one of the island's points. The boat dropped us off with the orange bouy and left us. With me, there was the instructor, a dive master in training, and a woman who was on day two of the two-day certification class. We went over the technique again and I watched them dive before I tried it. There was a 20 meter weighted line with a knot at 12 meters. On the first day, you aren't allowed to go past 12 (36 feet). We did some relaxation breathing and I put on my flippers. The first thing we did was constant weight diving. I had a weight belt on with a 1 kg weight on it to help counteract my buoyancy. We practiced duck dives a few times and then I did 6 cycles of the breathing before going down. The goal is to streamlined and very relaxed. The rope acts as a guide and is there for emergencies. The most difficult part was looking straight ahead (parallel to the surface) and not down where you're going. My first dive I made it down 6 meters but it felt so much deeper. You have to the equalize every couple feet to protect your eardrums and equalize the mask only at the deeper depths. We'd take turns watching each other dive and I hovered 3 styles of diving. The constant weight and two forms of free immersion. The free immersion is without fins and it's pulling yourself down using the rope either head or feet first. It was easiest to stay relaxed feet first and I was able to get down to the 36 feet on my first dive. I felt like I stayed down at the bottom for a while before coming up but it was probably only a few seconds. Until about 10 meters, you are buoyant but beyond that, you start to sink. I could just start to feel the downward pull at the bottom of my dives. The ocean was super deep and visibility was probably around 15 meters. Seeing the little diver in the huge ocean is the image of my fear of deep water. We saw few fish but lots of tiny clear jellyfish and one lion's mane jellyfish the size of my torso. Freediving is all about staying calm and relaxed. It's more similar to yoga than it is to scuba diving. We were out near the bouy for about two hours and I got about ten dives in. I want to go deeper. It was the dive masters first time using a GoPro but he got a couple passable photos of me underwater. 

After the diving, I met up with Gretchen and we went for a walk to the beach on the other side of the island. We're staying on sunset beach and the other side is called sunrise beach. Gretchen walked back along the road through the center of the island and I tried walking around the circumference of the island along the water. I made it about half way when it started pouring sideways for about 10 minutes. I made it past a couple rocky points before getting stuck and having to climb up over the one hill to get back to our beach. It was a nice walk and took about an hour and a half. Herds (packs? Swarms? Groups?) of crabs would scatter across the sand as I walked toward them. I also cut my foot. It's not a real hike unless I leave with a momento. 

I met Gretchen back on the beach and before we went for a thanksgiving dinner at this tiny backpacker cafe with cheap great food and tons of drink options, I got a Thai massage. It's a little like getting beat up, but I think I feel looser. I'm glad I tried it. 

We had wanted to find an American to celebrate thanksgiving with but after two hours looking, we determined that we're the only two on the entire island. I would love to be able to be with my family but I'm also thankful for all they've given me. Not many people have the resources to be able to travel and the upbringing to want to. 

I drank a beer watching the waves and then went to sleep. 

-AB

Down below the waves

A jellyfish drifting by

The world is silent

Practicing a rescue 

Seven wells, two ferries.

** I forgot a day in here. We took a bus down from the highlands to Penang and then barely caught a ferry to langkawi, where we are a huge dinner because we hadn't eaten since hostel breakfast. We drove around on the rented scooter for an hour and a half trying to find out hostel, the tipsy gypsy, before going to sleep. **

We left our wonderfully cold room around  9 and went down to the beach for breakfast. There were no ATM's nearby and we were leaving Malaysia do we wanted to make it through the day with just the ringgits we had left. 

We walked down to the beach and then scootered about half an hour to another side of the island to see the seven wells waterfalls. I'm getting the hang of driving on the left side of the road and it's much easier without gretchen's bag stuffed between my legs. We'd pass big groups of monkeys running or sitting along the side of the road. 

We had to pay 1 ringgit to park and then started hiking up some steep steps. (About 600) to the falls area. They were a bunch of super clear pools with worn-away Rock between them. It looked like a fun water slide. We went out on the overlook beige and then we're going to go swim when a Chinese man told us up the trail further it was "more fresh". Sounded good to us, but after a while on the trail, didn't see anything that looked like a swimming area. I jumped into part of the stream, just to make the hike worth it, and then we went back to cool off in the first spot. I tried sliding down the rock slides and was successful, but opened a few cuts on the heel of my hand. First real use for my first aid kit! 

We hung out for a while and the scootered back down the mountain to the hostel. We were a little pressed for time and got back to the ferry terminal with barely enough gas left in the scooter. 

At the terminal, we learned that despite what we'd heard, there was more than one terminal on the island, and our ferry left from the other one. We bought a new ticket from here, and I was able to cancel the first one (which was great). We were crossing into Thailand so after going through immigration on the Malee side, we had to hang over you passports to the ferry operator.  I was convinced we were never going to see them again. The ferry was another high speed boat and took about an hour and a half to get to koh lipe. 

We got off on a floating dock in pretty big sweeps and crammed into a fishing boat with questionable seaworthiness. On the beach, we had to get out into knee deep water. Immigration here was a shack on the beach and took 5 minutes. 

The beach is beautiful and our hostel is a bungalow right by the water. Gretchen went to lay in the sand and I walked down the beach to try to find a coconut. On the way, I got distracted and talked to a free diving instructor. There's a two day clinic going on and she said she'd teach me the theory tonight and let me join the class tomorrow. 

We walked around the main "walking street"  for a while and ate a Thai food dinner before coming back to meet the instructor at our bungalow. The theory was really cool and took about 1.5 hours. Part of it covered breathing techniques to slow your heart rate to save energy. 

 I'm much much more comfortable in the mountains than I am in the ocean and this should be a challenge. I'm meeting here at 11 am to go out on the boat. 

This seems like more of a vacation island than the backpackers island we were on yesterday, but they're both beautiful. 

-AB

Diving deep

Oceans frighten me

Face your fears

The 6 P's

Breakfast was the hostel special. Three white bread sandwiches with jam. Nave was staying at a hotel last night and he met us at the hostel for the tour at 8:45. 

We were picked up in an old 4/4 truck and stopped to get a few other small groups.  Like everywhere we've been, there were some gap year students from Germany. Taking time off before college is much more of a norm there than it is in America. 

The tour started with a butterfly farm, which we went to first to give the clouds time to clear. Lots of cool lizards and snakes but the most interesting exhibit was a North American chipmunk. 

After the chipmunck, we bounced up a winding mountain path to the highest point in the highlands, 6666ft. On the way up, we stopped for pictures at one of the tea plantations. At the top, We climbed up a fire tower and had a great view of the surrounding tea plantations and hills. 

I'm pretty sure the guides words were " get out, walk around and down take pictures and I'll meet you below". It was unclear if we were supposed to walk along the road, so Gretchen, Nave, and I led two of the German boys straight down through the tea plantation. There were almost paths used by the harvesters. We wandered our way downward for about an hour before meeting up with the road and our now-slightly-miffed guide. 

The mossy forest was the next stop. We were led on a short walk through the  jungle. The center of the forest is closed this year to limit the damage done by humans. While it would have been nice to see more of the forest, it's much better to see people taking care of their natural resources. 

From the hike we went to a strawberry farm and bought ice cream tea and cake. We didn't realize that the truck was leaving without us and my tea was still too hot to drink. It was strawberry flavored and the first tea I've been able to have without milk and sugar and I was GOING TO DRINK IT. we almost finished the ice cream in about ten seconds and I poured the rest of the tea into that plastic cup to cool it off and take it with me. . It became sugar/milk tea like always but worth it I guess. 

The tour also included a cactus farm and old market, which were nothing special. 

We were dropped off around 2 and ate a Malaysian meal ordered by our local, Nave. He's been talking about waterfalls since I first mentioned the highlands and we were going to try to walk to one after lunch. 

Gretchen had had enough hiking for the day and she went to explore town and relax. 

After asking for directions twice, we started walking toward where we thought the trailhead was. There were signs for the falls and after inching past a pack of barking strays clutching our selfie stick(nave) and stick(me), we started down the clear, almost-paved path. About halfway down it, there was an offshoot marked trail 8. We had looked at a list of the trails on the bus ride the day before and trail 8 was ranked "very tough". We couldn't decide if we wanted to do it so we flipped a coin. It came up for the shorter trail but we ignored that and started scrambling up the jungle time. Nave stopped a few times to rest as we struggled our way up through the jungle and it started to drizzle about midway up the first climb. We resolved to see how far we could get before the rain really started and then we'd turn back. After about 30 minutes of hard climbing, we got to a summit and started down the other side. The sign at the bottom said 1hr back to where we started or 1.5 hours to go on, hit the taller summit and then a road. The signs weren't very informative on their own, but someone had sharpied on estimated times and more directions. We flipped another coin and then kept going. It started raining hard about halfway up the second climb and we put on our emergency ponchos for about a minute before realizing that we'd be hot and wet, instead of just wet. We used them to cover our packs instead. At this point, we figured we were closer to the end than to where we had started, so we just pressed on. We came to a few more ambiguous signs and after about two hours spiced with falls, thorns, countless spiders and a stinging plant, we made it to the summit. 1884 meters. By this point, we had expected to be long back, but now our only options were an impractically long climb back through the rain or to start down one of the other two trails. 

At the top, Nave noticed a leech attached firmly between his middle and ring finger. I pulled it off (after a few attempts) with my bandana and soon after, found one under my right ankle. I'm not sure the proper way to remove leeches, so I yanked on them and squeezed them between my fingers in an effort to get them off as fast as possible. They're not dangerous, but very unpleasant. By the end of the hike, I had found five or six on my feet. I missed on on my big toe and by the time I found it, it was almost the size of my pinky. Pulling it off left my toe numb for half an hour. 

The plant that stung Nave left a red welt about the size of two silver dollars on his forearm and it was starting to itch like crazy.

Hiking through the pouring rain and ankle deep mud, our goal was to get to a road by sundown. I had carried my backpack with me and had everything we needed to spend a night in the jungle, but getting back by dark was a good goal. After fording a few streams swollen by the rain, we came out on a road by the golf course, just under 4 hours after we started our 30 minute walk and a few minutes before sunset. We hitched a ride back to the correct town (we had come out past the next one) with the first passing car. Showering felt amazing and after hanging my stuff up to dry, we went downstairs with some of the hostel mates and tried the "burger challenge" which was a fried chicken sandwich as big as your head. It was full of weird things like cucumbers and pineapple. I could've eaten two. 

Back at the hostel, some people were watching transformers while I planned the next leg of my journey. 

-AB

Leeches on my toes

Stick figures serve as our guide

A walk in the woods

Leaf bug

Highland tea plantations we weren't supposed to walk through

Nave napping near the start of the first climb

Summit!

Yup, that's the path 

We made it