After all the people in India and the craziness of Bangkok, we headed off to a group of islands off the eastern coast of southern Thailand for a few weeks. We took an overnight train to Surat Thani, which is the travel hub for the islands. The Thai trains are much worse than the ones in India. There are no separate compartments and your bags seem unprotected in the aisle. We woke up several times in the night to intense jarring. It almost sounded like the train was going to come off the tracks! The train was also over 2 hours late getting in (we had gotten used to the punctual Indian trains), though fortunately we had booked all of our transport together, so a bus was waiting to take us to the ferry port.
From Surat Thani, we took a ferry to the biggest island, Ko Samui, which has mostly large resorts and caters to package tourists. The island was pretty quiet for two reasons - the monsoon season was just ending and the Bangkok airports were closed due to the political protests. Chaweng Beach, where we stayed, is known for being the most popular Samui beach with the best restaurants and nightlife. We loved having some lazy days to lay out and read on the beach, with the background interruptions of vendors peddling everything from ice creams and fruit shakes to handmade jewelry and henna tattoos. (Rutvik was probably the first brown guy ever to lay out on Ko Samui!!) We also loved running barefoot on the beach just before sunset – rarely do you enjoy the run itself as opposed to feeling great after the run! The best part of Samui, though, was the little area around Ark Bar, where restaurants set up lounge chairs on the beach at night to lay on while you eat, drink, and do hookah. You can get freshly caught fish or choose from a menu of Thai, Italian, and all sorts of other food. Fire dancers perform.every night and people walk around with animals. Kelli got to cuddle with a very cute monkey (somehow the iguana and the python didn’t make the cut). We had a lovely vegetarian Italian meal here to celebrate Thanksgiving island-style.
Though we spent most days on the beach, one day we rented a motorbike to explore the island. With Rutvik driving, this was an adventure in itself, but it also gave us the chance to check out other beaches on the island and some of the local temples and cultural sights. We visited the Big Buddha and the Mummified Monk (check out the picture – this guy apparently foresaw his own death and his body remains “undercomposed” today), got blessings from a monk, sampled the wares at a local rum distillery, toured a local Muslim market, and went to check out the Hin Da and Hin Yai rocks shaped like male and female genitalia! We had a good laugh at the “gas stations” on the side of the road, where we bought gas from liter bottles to fill the bike.
Next we headed to Ko Pha Ngan, the less developed neighbor of Ko Samui, which is known for its monthly Full Moon beach parties and backpacker friendly courses in yoga, reiki, cooking, massage, etc. Haad Rin Beach was ideal - superfine sand, clear water, and blue skies. Because the water was shallow and clear for quite a ways out, it helped Kelli to begin to get past her fear of the ocean, and we took numerous dips in the waves. While the beach was smaller and had fewer vendors than Ko Samui, the crowd was more fun for us - mainly 20-something Aussies, Brits, and Israelis.
At night, locals set up a line of stands, selling beach buckets containing small bottles of liquor and mixers. The vendors get creative and decorate their stands with funny signs and make jewelry out of straws to try to get our business. Our favorite bucket was Thai Sangsom rum mixed with mango juice, a splash of Red Bull, and fresh lime. Like on Khao San Road, there is lots of good cheap late night street food, like crepes, noodles, and fruit shakes. We fell in love with the noodle and “smooty” stand outside of our guesthouse and made friends with the owner. Most restaurants on Haad Rin show movies throughout the day, and, for some reason, episodes of Friends were especially popular. Internet on Haad Rin was very expensive, more than three times the price in Bangkok. It was also strange that laundry and all travel packages from the island cost exactly the same from every shop. We later found out that Haad Rin has a council that sets fixed prices for all these services and shops can be fined or shut down if they don’t stick to the set price structure. More noticeable in Ko Pha Ngan than the other places we’ve been in Thailand are the massive number of stray dogs and all sorts of insects. The mosquitoes were worse than anywhere else (India included, which is saying a lot). Kelli was concerned that she might need a blood transfusion after the first night on the island. Fortunately, they say there’s no malaria there, though we’re not taking any chances and continue to take our pills.
After spending so much time lounging on the beach, we were ready to be more active and signed up for a five day massage class affiliated with our guest house. We spent 30 hours learning oil based full body massage. Our instructor, Wi, was a very sweet Thai girl and an extremely good masseuse. She meticulously taught us how to massage the back, legs, arms, shoulders, head and face using other Thai masseuses as models. One day, while teaching foot massage, she noticed that Kelli had a knot in her foot in an area that related to her intestines. At the time, Kelli hadn’t recognized any issue, but her insight proved spot on later that night and we were pretty amazed. It peaked our interest in reflexology. On the last day, Wi supervised as we gave each other 2 hour long full body massages. We are now Government of Thailand certified masseur and masseuse!
The massage class ended a few days before the island’s famous Full Moon Party. The massive influx of people arriving for the party crowded the beach, restaurants and stores. Walking on the streets became a hazard as motorbikes driven by first timers whizzed by us. The locals take full advantage by spiking the room rates and scheduling lead up parties at different locations every night. There was the Half Moon Party, Shiva Moon Party, and other parties sponsored by local bars. Unless you attend these parties, you miss out on the fun as every other location feels deserted. To get to the Half Moon party, we agreed to take a songthaew (a truck taxi with benches lining the back) at an inflated price, since it was the only way to get to the party, of course. Not satisfied by fleecing us once, however, they staged a “Thai accident” about halfway to the party, parking a truck in the middle of the road so that no songthaews could pass. Not surprisingly, there were plenty of songthaews that simply happened to be waiting on the other side to take us the rest of the way for the same price we had originally paid. Crooks. Such annoyances aside, the parties were hopping, the music was generally top notch, alcohol was moderately priced, and the hordes of crazy people made it all that much more fun. The Full Moon Party definitely lived up to its billing. There were literally thousands of people drinking and dancing on the beach, dressed in costumes and covered with glow in the dark jewelry and body paint. The party lasted all night and a few hardcore partiers were still passed out on the beach when we rolled in the next afternoon. It’s a party we won’t forget anytime soon.
After the Full Moon Party, we headed to the third major island in these parts, Ko Tao, which is scuba diver central and certifies more scuba divers than anywhere in the world other than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We had signed up for an entry level PADI Open Water Diver course (certifying you to dive up to 18 meters in the open ocean) at Crystal Dive Resort. The academic portion of the course consists of five lectures followed by a final exam. Then you spend several hours in a swimming pool learning the basics of breathing under water, operating the equipment, emergency measures for equipment malfunction, etc. Once we passed the academics and learned various skills in the confined pool session, we were ready for the open water. Kelli did not feel comfortable with a few skills in the pool and decided that she wasn’t ready for the open water dives. Rutvik went on without her. The conditions for the first open water dive were far from perfect, with choppy waves and low visibility. Rutvik was definitely nervous at first but his confidence increased with each dive. By the last dive, the group had mastered most of the skills and spent about forty minutes exploring the coral and fish at the bottom of the ocean. To celebrate the end of the course, every diver jumped off the top deck of the boat into the ocean. The last two dives were captured by a videographer and then shown in the resort bar on the last night. Very cool! We’re looking forward to doing more water sports soon as we plan to head to the Phuket area on the other side of Thailand for the holidays.
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