After returning from 2 months in Southeast Asia, I have to say that Thailand indisputably takes the cake for most photogenic destination. While Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos all offer plenty of beautiful spots and interesting culture, when it comes to jaw-dropping turquoise beaches and nearly deserted tropical islands, there is simply no contest. Here are some photo highlights from my month in Thailand this February.[...]
We arrive via ferry and wander around to find beachfront accomodation, which ends up being an expensive ($25/night) bungalow on the sand. Techno music pretty much plays all night, but I am way partied out from Full Moon Party, even though weeks have gone by, so I find it a bit annoying. It is a fairly touristy spot that I wouldn’t really visit again, but the whole point of coming is to get some more scuba diving i[...]
For me, the undisputed high point of our time in Thailand is on Koh Lanta. It is, in every way, exactly what you’d envision if someone said the tropics. We’ve just come across Thailand from Koh Phangan, where we all nearly died from the metho they pass off as mixed drinks for Full Moon Party, and then spent a few days in Patong being absolutely grossed out by a ping pong show. The journey is long, so we[...]
Our journey to Phuket, on the west side of Thailand, is no small task. From Koh Phangan, we take a taxi, a bus, a ferry, another taxi, another bus, a tuk tuk, and one more bus. This last bus has overbooked so, even though we paid the same money as everyone else, we ride on the floor for 5 hours and finally arrive at 1 am. Well, the bus actually breaks down, so we have to take another taxi the last 10km to our destin[...]
After extending our stay on Thailand’s Koh Tao to finish our Advanced Diving cert., we are many days late to meet friends on Koh Phangan for the infamous Full Moon Party. Tad is already in Thailand and reaches the island without much trouble, but Ash flies in to Bangkok and has to navigate her way down the coastline on a series of buses and ferries, before arriving in Koh Phangan and learning that the hostel[...]
After an agonisingly long journey from Bangkok, we are finally living the Island Life. We’ve booked in to do our dive certification at Ban's, the second largest dive company in the world, beaten only by ProDive in Cairns. It’s pennies on the dollar to get certified in Thailand compared to Australia, so we are loving life. Not to mention the free resort accommodation that comes with our class! Koh Tao is a pre[...]
Inspired by The Beach, which I just finished reading, I want to stay right in the thick of things on Koh San Road. We are not disappointed, arriving in the evening to absolute chaos. The street is filled with market stalls and food vendors, but it is also largely occupied by the thousands of chairs and tables that restaurants and bars have placed out in the middle of the road. Those tables are filled by drunk and dr[...]