wyn157: April 2008

last entry on thailand!

we spent one day at patong. it turned out that it was just like bangkok... congested w/ bad traffic and many stands selling stuff on the streets. and the hotels weren't even on the beach, since the beach was separated from the town by a very busy street. we had a good time walking around, but ultimately, it made us really glad we'd opted for nai yang beach. :)

it was amazing that so many ppl were walking around outside when it was sooo hot and humid. i mean, gopooh and i felt like we were melting away, but it was nothing compared to so many other ppl who were drenched in sweat. and they didn't seem to care! they walked leisurely w/o wiping anything from their faces. huh. how did they tolerate it? if anything, this trip to thailand has showed us just how much we don't belong in hot weather for any longer than a vacation. :p

oh yeah, and we are sick of thai food! in patong we'd been walking along the street enjoying the night scene, but when it came time to eat, i just wanted some A/C. so we went to the first place we saw that was cool, and that just happened to be a pizza place. i know, pizza in thailand?! but y'know what? after more than a week of almost all thai food, it was heaven. the next day it was back to thai food haha.

phuket is surrounded by small islands w/ gorgeous rock formations and caves. we wanted to fully experience some of this, so we took a day tour by the famous john gray's sea canoe.

it started out beautifully. we went out on a boat to all these rock formations, and the tour guides rowed us gracefully through a whole bunch of caves. we took plenty of pictures and ate plenty of good homecooked food on the boat. there was also 'free time' during which we were free from the tour guides, so we went swimming and did a little kayaking ourselves.

then, after dinner it started to thunderstorm. the boat was anchored and we toughed it out, thinking that it'd go away the way many storms in phuket do. but it didn't go away. the original plan was to kayak deep into this one particular cave and release the thai offerings we'd made earlier, but b/c of the storms, it was no longer safe to do that. instead, one by one we went to the outside of the deck and released our offerings into the water, and the tour guides kayaked through the storm picking up the offerings. (no littering, y'know.)

it stormed all the way back to the dock. i hadn't been wearing my scopolamine patch since we'd been out kayaking and swimming all day and there was no way the patch would've stuck on my skin anywhere. and of course i got sick w/ the swaying storm waves! so gopooh and i ended up at the very front of the boat, outside in the rain, w/ towels piled on top of us to keep us warm from the cold wind/rain. and i was holding plastic bags just in case.

it was 1.5 hours back to the dock, and it sucked, but at the end of the ride i felt better. i was so grateful when my foot hit solid land though. moral of the story? sea kayaking through caves is great... but maybe not for those prone to motion sickness.

the remainder of our trip was spent at the indigo pearl on nai yang beach in phuket. we chose nai yang beach as opposed to the more popular patong beach b/c of that reason alone -- it's populated but not too populated. we're not into the crowded beaches, y'know?

as it turns out, i preferred the pools to the ocean. i've never been one to lounge around poolside, but there was just smthg about those infinity pools. i swam a bit, but mostly i leaned against the stone edges and looked out, or lounged on top of the stones. it was fantastic.

unfortunately for gopooh, he spent 2 hours snorkeling and came back as red as a lobster. he developed blisters and everything -- ouch. it must've been the fact that he never re-applied his sunscreen out in the sweltering heat. or maybe it was all the walking he did to find just the perfect snorkeling spot, which he never found. i'm glad i didn't brave our snorkeling gear this time around, since apparently most of the coral reefs got wiped out from the tsunami and they're still slowly growing back.

we both enjoyed eating on the beach. it was funny b/c a bunch of times our orders were wrong. like we'd order garlic chicken and an order of noodles... and we'd get chicken w/ vegetables and garlic noodles. haha. but everything was still really good.

the one thing i didn't like was that there were all these stray dogs on the beach. i always fed them every chance i got, but one dog made me especially sad, b/c she had a collar on and ate from our fingers the way pets do, so we knew she must've had an owner at some time. awww. i know there are hungry ppl there too, but nothing tugs at my heart the way a dog is so helpless and dependent when truly hungry.

on our 1-year anniversary, we took a day trip out to kanchanaburi. gopooh had researched tour guides online and booked us on a tour w/ a reputable group. it was nice b/c it was just us, the guide, and the driver. they picked us up at our hotel bright and early, took us around the bridge over river kwai, on an elephant ride, to the tiger temple, and then dropped us back off afterwards.

the bridge over river kwai is really neat. for those who don't know, it's a bridge that actually doubles as a railroad track. there are little podiums that extend off the track for tourists to stand on when a train is passing by, so they don't get run over. it was really scenic.

the elephant ride was neat. those elephants will eat anything... pineapples, wood... but we also had bananas to feed them, and when they saw us holding them, they started wandering over to us. most of them were chained at the back foot (paw?) so they couldn't charge at us, but there was one free-range elephant nearby who came right at us. the way they grab bananas w/ their snout is hilarious, and it feels weirdly wiry against your hand. they also move their trunks aside so you can stick food directly into their mouths. it was cool! they're so greedy though -- they sometimes held 1-2 bananas in their trunks and stuck their snouts in your face waiting for more!

and of course... the tiger temple. we absolutely loved it. we got to pet tigers of all ages, as well as feed a nine-month-old cub milk tablets from our hands! it was really cool. but man, i got bitten by an ostrich last year, and gopooh got bitten by a tiger this year! he was trying to get to the milk tablets in gopooh's palm, but the fingers kept getting in the way, so he bit them... and wouldn't let go! luckily, no blood was drawn. :p

we also got pictures w/ a couple tigers' heads on my lap. it cost an extra 1000 baht, but it was totally worth it. (gopooh decided he didn't need that.) they were so adorable w/ their giant paws. awww. one of the funniest pictures though, is of me and the biggest tiger there. i'm sitting on the ground right next to it, and he's looking right at the camera. partly b/c of the perspective, but also partly b/c he was gigantic, it looks like he could swallow me whole!

we also got to feed a moonbear that other ppl didn't know about. she was bigger than we expected, but she looked like a little teddy bear when gobbling down the mango and milk tablets! she had some long claws though, and almost clawed through T's shirt trying to play w/ his arm. ahhh animal experiences -- gotta love 'em!

despite all of its beautiful sites, bangkok can also be sketchy. we were warned ahead of time to beware even of taxis, b/c they sometimes take you to certain places for commission. like my brother said that when they were trying to get to a chinese restaurant, the taxi driver took them to a different restaurant in the middle of nowhere b/c he knew the owner. the food was still fine, but still, that is sket-chy.

when we first got to bangkok, we got a 30-minute taxi ride to our hotel for 300 baht, or ~$10. however, on our way back to the airport, we were charged 450 baht. and the thing is, the second guy turned off his meter, so he just charged us what he wanted. even though it was only $5 more than the first taxi ride, it was 150% of the metered fare! needless to say, he got no tip.

the true shadiness of bangkok emerged at night though. it was a lot like nyc in that there were t-shirts and burned music everywhere. but it was full of ppl inviting tourists to 'ping pong shows.' i initially had no idea what they were, but apparently they're sex shows. i'm guessing that that use... ping pongs? there were also 'tiger shows' but i can't even imagine what props they use haha.

on some street corners there were 5 guys all shouting out "ping pong show ping pong show!" i had many flyers w/ diagrams shoved in my face. our second night out, we got accosted so many times just walking to dinner that we decided to count the number of times we heard "ping pong show" or "tiger show." we stopped counting after we hit 30 though. hahaha! as disturbing as it was, it was freaking hilarious.

so, bangkok was definitely the most urban city of our trip. during the day we visited temples. i thought the coolest one was wat pho, b/c of the huge gold-plated reclining buddha. it was almost as tall as the building. it was pretty impressive, and it was extra cool b/c the temple was open to the public, whereas most of the others don't let you inside some of the buildings.

and of course you can't talk about bangkok without mentioning the golden palace and wat phra kaew (temple of the emerald buddha). i had to borrow one of their sarongs, b/c my outfit was taboo. i knew that sleeveless shirts and shorts were banned, but apparently so are mid-calf capris. yet somehow, above-the-knee skirts are ok? that sucked. it was inconvenient b/c the line to get the sarongs was really long, and it was so uncomfortable b/c i wrapped the sarong around my waist on top of my capris and almost melted in the heat, but whatever, i survived.

the grounds were simply gorgeous, w/ all the elaborate gold and color. unfortunately, the princess of thailand had recently died, and following tradition, her body was being preserved w/ the viewing being held in the grand palace hall. so we weren't allowed to see the hall, which is s'posedly super elaborate. :( oh well, the outside was still really pretty.

well, we're back from thailand! we had a great trip -- it was a fantastic way to celebrate our anniversary. thailand is one of those 'in' places to visit right now, but surprisingly most of the tourists we came across weren't from the u.s. maybe the torturous flight there has smthg to do w/ it? i mean, we met these americans who are currently living in saudi arabia, and they said it only took them 6 hours to get to phuket. 6 hours! man, i was so jealous.

overall, i would say that although bangkok was sketchy at times, it was more unique and exotic, and we loved our day trip to kanchanaburi. i mean, where else can you pet tigers and hold a grown tiger's head in your lap? we also got to play w/ these adorable tiger cubs and pet a moonbear. phuket was beautiful, and although the nearby caves were cool, i feel like you can go to the caribbean and do the same thing.

phuket was relaxing, but i'm glad we didn't only visit phuket, b/c to be honest, i would've felt ripped off if we'd flown halfway across the world to swim in the pool and lounge around on the beach. i'll write more later!