Shawn here, we've gotten pretty behind... this post only goes up to about a week and a half ago. Hopefully we'll catch up soon.
After all of those temples we were ready for some island life. We flew out of Cambodia into Bangkok and immediately boarded an overnight train down to Surat Thani where we got on a bus and then a ferry and eventually landed on Ko Pha Ngan. Whew! There are three popular islands off the southeastern coast of Thailand, Ko Samui is the biggest and attracts tourists from around the world. Pha Ngan is a bit smaller and frequented by backpackers looking to party. They have huge full moon parties that amount to thousands of drunk tourists along the beach pictured above, named Haad Rin (this was the view from our bungalow). We stayed here for three nights, hitting the half-moon party at a different beach the second night. Nothing much to tell, it was kind of fratty but we had a great time. If you want to experience culture though these islands are not the place for it. And the food on Pha Ngan sucks.
The same beach at night. It looked like this til about 5am. That's what happens when you sell tourists buckets filled with ice, a pint of thai whisky, a can of coke, and a can of red bull for $5 (seriously).
Ready to ditch the party scene we headed to Bottle Beach on the northern side of Pha Ngan, only accesible by boat, where we were greated by this gal. She's a Great Hornbill and there seems to be only one of them on the island. A Thai guide told us she had lost her mate. This tragic event started her along a path of playful terrorism. As Lauren and I were walking along to check out a room she swooped right over our heads. The beak of this thing is at least a foot long, the wing span probably five feet. All of the people who worked in the 4 bungalow "resorts" on the beach were used to her coming in to the open air restaurants and doing things like say, stealing all the napkins out of a napkin holder. She also likes to dive bomb people and try to bite them (not meanly though, she's more like a dog).
Bottle beach. At night if you swipe your hand through the water it lights up via phytoplankton.
The view from our bungalow on Bottle Beach.
It was a lazy few days. We swam, read, ate, and... relaxed.
After bottle beach we moved on to Ko Tao, the diving island. As an aside, here's a picture of a standard toilet in a hotel room anywhere in southeast Asia. You flush by dumping water from the bucket into the toilet. Notice there's no toilet paper, that's what the butt-sprayer to the right is for. And finally the showerhead is just above and to the right of the toilet (not pictured).
We went to Ko Tao to get our Open Water Scuba Diver certifications. Its really popular to do the course in Ko Tao because the underwater sights are beautiful, there's 20 to 30m of visiblity, and the course is cheap by world standards. Its a four day course. Unfortunately on our first dive (which was in a swimming pool) Lauren had ear trouble and was told by a doctor she couldn't continue until it healed. But she wanted me to continue and came along on the dive boat a couple times. Above is an island off of Ko Tao that has a lot of popular dive sites around it.
Taking the first plunge off of a dive boat.
Suiting up.
Stepping on in.
The first open water dive for me and the people in the class. We kneeled on the bottom at about 4m and did some exercises and then swam around exploring at 12m. The first dive wasn't so easy, there was lots to think about, like trying to stay at the same level (if you breathe in you go up, if you breathe out you go down, thank you buoyancy). And I had to pee.
The next day though things got much easier. Here we are waiting to go down along a descent line. It was really amazing once I was comfortable under the water. Its pretty much like flying.
Meanwhile Lauren was having almost as much fun on the boat after discovering that it was crewed by four really cute kittens and their mother.
Like Vietnam, there is lots of trash in Thailand (though its not as prolific in the touristy areas). This is back on the mainland where our ferry from Ko Tao dropped us.
And on to another overnight train we hopped this time heading back to Bangkok, where we'd take another train (12 hours) to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. It seems that no one in the sleeper cars knows about the restaurant car in the front of the train. It was all Thai people riding up here. Some young guys that had had their share of whisky (for example in the bottle on the left) made our aquaintence, even though they spoke maybe 20 words of English.
I think we were holding the middle guy's head up for this shot.
Ms. Forbus finally makes an appearance.
