World ExploraSean: Thaislands

First of all....Thailando Calrisian. Second of all...Blogger said it was saving my changes...it was not. This is the second time I had to write this, so it's all sorts of lazy.

When flying into Thailand, I scoured the internet for the cheapest possible option, which meant flying from Kuala Lumpur to the little known city of Hat Yai. I literally did no research ahead of going there, but figured I would be able to get to my destination of Krabi by some sort of bus. When I arrived and got ready to go through immigration, my eyes caught sight of the signs stating you needed to show your ticket out of Thailand in addition to your passport. Being a professional backpacker, I did not have this, because I wanted to be flexible on when I was going to leave. Luckily they didn't care and I got through just fine!

I ended up meeting a guy from Germany, Nikolaus, that was also planning to go to Krabi, so we set out on our adventure together. We booked everything at the airport, with prices that made no sense. It was 350 baht to get a 30 minute cab from the airport to the mini-bus pickup spot in town and 400 baht for the five hour drive to Krabi. During our bus ride, I'm also about 90% sure I saw a drug deal go down. Our mini-bus randomly stopped at a random stall on the side of the road and got out of the car to go talk to someone. During this time, another guy came up and started reaching under the front seat, while grinning and staring into the back of the van. He did this twice, before sauntering back from whence he came. Two stops later, the driver got out and checked under the front passenger seat and afterwards threw an envelope behind the stick shift of the car... So yeahhhhh, pretty sure something went down.

Arriving in Thailand was shocking to me, because it was way more advanced than I imagined. They have running water everywhere, paved roads, nice vehicles, fast internet, good accommodation. I was imagining a very poor and dirty country, but that's not the case at all, it's actually pretty well developed. Krabi was tiny, had a cool night food market, but seemed to be more of a transport hub to go do other stuff. There were tons of day trips out of Krabi, as well as boats/buses leaving to Phi Phi, Tonsai, and Railey Beach at regular intervals. After one night there, Nikolaus and I went our separate ways as we went to different islands. I made my way to Ko Phi Phi, which is known for it's brilliant views and wild partying.

Crafty Krabi Crab Claw (You can't say it 5 times fast!!!)

I was praying this wasn't my boat to Phi Phi

Phi Phi was packed with tourists, so it was difficult to find a hostel, but after about 20 minutes of wandering around I found a 17 bed dorm room for 250 baht. Did I stay there because it was named after a Nic Cage movie, The Rock? Of course! And like a Nic Cage movie it left me disappointed and desiring to have my money back. After dumping my bags I hiked up to the viewpoint to catch the sunset, but the spot was packed with tourists, taking away from the natural beauty of the place. It was a precursor of what Thailand would be like for me as I apparently came during the peak tourist season.

After climbing back down I met up with Italian Peppe from my Indonesia trip to catch the fire shows that occur on the beach. They have the basic fire juggling acts, but they also have jump roping with a giant piece of fiery rope. Southeast Asia is nuts! We also hit up a bar called Stoned, where we rocked that joint...if you know what I'm saying.

Phonetically you'd think Phi Phi was pronounced Fee Fee, but it's actually pronounced Pee Pee, like as in my wiener

Lookout Point #1, not bad

Lookout Point #2, Amazing! Never tried to catch sunsets back home, no I try and catch every one.

Fire show (sorry for the poor quality - iPhone)

The next day I had the option of paying for a tour of the surrounding archipelago, including the island where they filmed The Beach, or hiking around the island for free. Ergo, I chose option two since I'm poor as fuck and look like shit. I journeyed past the two lookout points from the night before and ended up at a secret third lookout point, but the view wasn't as good as the second. Then I made my way down to Runtee Bay, which involved hiking through the mosquito infested forest for 20 minutes. I was rewarded for my efforts though as it was a secluded stretch of beach with hardly any tourists and the Dutch ones that were there hooked me up with some fried shrimp. People are too damn nice to me!

Secret Lookout Point 3! Not as good as 2

You have to love the jungle paths, the steps are just roots

Runtee Bay, definitely worth the effort, not worth the mossie bites

A Slice of Life is right...

Eventually I started making my way back, but decided to just take another random path and see where it led. I ended up going down some dirt roads before finding some cars, even though the island is not really supposed to have vehicles. I also loved knowing I made it back to the main part of the island solely based on the fact that locals that run around with wooden carts literally yell, "BEEP, BEEP!" nonstop because they don't have actual horns.

That night I was pretty tired from my full day of hiking so I declined to go out...Also there was a group of four dudes in the room that were just huge tools and I didn't want to be associated with them in public. They rolled in at 3 in the morning and decided they needed to scream their conversation to each other for an hour even though they were in parallel beds. At one point a girl asked them to please talk outside, of which their response was to completely ignore her. Typical obnoxious Englishmen!!! Always bothers me when people disregard others, like they're super cool and their drunken conversations are real treat to everyone. To be fair though, I couldn't care less about them being loud, because I'm used to the hostel life...well that and the fact that mosquitoes were treating my body like an all you can eat buffet, so I had no chance at sleep anyways. I would love to see Phi Phi in the low tourist season, because after being to the Gili Islands, Phi Phi was basically just a dirtier, more touristy version, so I wasn't that impressed.

There are 9 more bites in the folds of my neck fat. 67 on my left arm alone, close to 200 total

The next day I bought a ferry ticket to Phuket, so I could get there a few days ahead of Christmas and have a base for the holidays. Before catching the boat I asked a few girls where to stay and they told me Patong Beach, so that was the mini-bus I hopped on when I arrived. Luckily one of the guys on the bus had already been there, so I followed him over to Kool Backpackers, which was on Bangla Road, which is the center of all of Phuket's madness. The hostel guys ended up putting me in a room with a group of three people that accidentally booked the full 6 bed dorm, instead of just the beds they needed. Since they had already paid, I just paid them for the room. I could have switched to a cheaper dorm after the first night, but I figured I'd suck up the extra 50 baht a night and help them out. After all, it's Christmas time!

Thus my roommates were two Asian Aussies, Nick and Sarah, as well as a Brit, Alex. Nick and I decided to grab a few beers and orient ourselves with the area while the others took a nap. We ended up at a bar that had a bunch of stripper poles and sure enough some Go-go dancers showed up. The moves some of the girls were doing on the stripper pole didn't seem possible, strength wise, for your average woman, leading us to speculate as to whether they were actually lady boys. We'll never know for sure, but if they would have hit on Nick we could have been sure they were indeed. He was a lady boy magnet, much to his chagrin.

No clue what this creature is supposed to be or how it's related to Christmas, but when in Thailand...

A lot of the clubs on Bangla Road have stripper poles, this one even had a twerking machine that girls could stand on that would make their asses shake....I mean not that I know from being in there, that's just what I heard from the other guys.....yeahhhhhh

Tiger Bar, I didn't see any tigers there, but I did spot a few cougars....

After our third beers were emptied, we grabbed a bucket to go wake up our fellow dorm mates. For those of you unsure about what a bucket is, it's the popular drinking option in Thailand. You get a bucket filled with 6-7 shots of booze, which is then mixed with M150/Red Bull and/or other mixers. M150 is the Thai version of Red Bull, but seems to be quite a bit stronger. Legend has it that it's laced with amphetamines. The M150 destroys your ability to sleep and pretty much negates your need of it. Thus we were all out until 4 or 5 in the morning.

The next day we grabbed a quick lunch and then decided to make our way to Kata Beach. All the beaches we passed on Phuket were packed with tourists, but it was still a good place to catch a tan. I also splurged and got some ice cream, nothing beats eating ice cream on the beach, one of the many perks of my travelling ways. That night we randomly hopped in a tuk tuk that took us up to No. 6 restaurant on the hill, which was up a crazy go kart track. The ride alone was an adventure. After dinner we headed out for our Christmas Eve drinks. I just wanted to have one or two, but ended up staying out until the wee hours of morning.

Kata Beach

I thought I had made it back safe at 2, but then Nick and Alex showed up separately at the exact same time I did, so Nick dragged me back out Around 4 or 430 in the morning we ended up in a strip club. I have never been to a strip club and have never really had a desire as I think it's kind of creepy, but I just roll with what happens on my travels. It was a bunch of Eastern European women, who are likely just sex slaves, trying to whore themselves out to you. It was the creepiest, most depressing Christmas Eve moment of my life, so I ducked out after about ten minutes to catch some shuteye.

First - crazy amounts of power and phone lines, Second - Slutty Santa's Helpers

Lady Boy!!!!

Christmas Eve in Phuket

My first Christmas abroad

The next morning we all congregated in the hallway, most of us hungover, some still drinking beers. Luckily one of the girls at the hostel had organized a Christmas dinner, so 15 of us headed to an Irish pub called Molly Malone's for a feast. The food was delicious and they had all the main staples of a Christmas dinner, it was amazing. It was pretty expensive at about $30, but totally worth it to me. That night we also went out again to celebrate the big day.

Christmas Crew

The Australian in our group, Ash, decided our thing was going to be putting tons of straws in our buckets, so every bucket we got had like a hundred straws shoved into it. This prompted to piss off one of the bartenders who stole our bucket and demanded an extra 100 baht, which was pretty ridiculous because you can buy a package of 9 million straws for 10 baht at 7/11. However, we paid the guy and got our bucket back. What a Grinch, have some holiday spirit bro! One of the British guys, Luke, ended up staying out till 4:30 with me, so I could keep my late night return time in tact. After getting hammered for three days straight, I took the next day to recover and book the next leg of my journey.

New haircut, spilled drink on my shirt, millions of straws. Cowabunga!

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Spongebob Squarepants!

My next destinations were Ko Tao and Ko Pha Ngan, with the latter hosting the largest New Years Full Moon party in all of Thailand. 50,000 people on one stretch of beach. Would I find a cute girl to share some midnight smooches with me?!?!?!?! Would she turn out to be a lady boy?!?!?! Oh my gosh, the suspense!!!!!!! I guess you'll find out on my next blog...

Random GoPros