Tuk-Tuk in Thailand

After one last breakfast in Krabi, we took the local bus to Surat Thani, the jumping-off point for the islands of Koh Samui, Koh Phagnan, and Koh Tao. We've been trying to take local transportation over tourist transportation whenever possible first to save a few bucks, and also to get the real feel for the country. The buses in Thailand are much nice than in Indonesia; however, they take just as long and cost about 4 times as much. 5 hours later (after what we were told was a 2.5 hour bus ride), we arrived in Surat Thani and caught a local minibus for an hour ride to the ferry pier. We just managed to get a ticket onto the last ferry to Koh Phagnan, and later that night we were smack in the middle of Hat Rin, home of the infamous Full Moon Party. One doesn't need a full moon to party on Koh Phagnan - if you like techno, buckets of booze, and people acting strange, this occurs every night on the beach. We came to this island just to see what all the fuss was about; after one more night we were sighing and thinking how old we felt. It was just not our scene.

Crossing our fingers that no more motorbike accidents were awaiting us, we island hopped over to Koh Tao, where scuba diving awaited! A recommendation from some Finnish guys we met in Indonesia took us to look at Phoenix Divers at Sairee Beach. We liked the people and price, so we booked our SSI open water diver certification course. Air-conditioned televisioned bungalow bliss and breakfast were included, so we spent the next 4 days in relative luxury compared to our previous country's options. Also included was an excellent instructor from Sweden, Susie, all to ourselves. Remarkably, it was refreshing to actually be on somewhat of a schedule; our whole lives since kindergarten are pretty much scheduled, so it feels great to get out of that, but also nice to have someone else tell us when to be where for a change. It took the stress off of us for several days, which we definitely needed.

Needless to say, we had an absolute blast, and got to see some amazing marine life on our 4 dives, including a Finding Nemo-ish clown fish family in its anemone! Sairee Beach itself was beautiful, with calm water and amazing sunsets.

Phoenix Divers come highly recommended by us, if any of you take the plunge, so to speak, and want to dive in Thailand.

We thought we should see another part of this beautiful island, so we chose Taa Toh Resort in Taa Toh bay. It was a great location and isolated from the nearest town, but the staff were so unfriendly that it took away from the beauty, and unless you had a motorbike (which we're still not keen on), you were at their mercy for dinner. During the day, we slyly waded through the bay to the other town in the bay of Chalok Baan Kao to explore and eat lunch, but at night we didn't dare try that.


We left with a bit of a sour taste in our mouth, which was unfortunate, as the previous 5 days had been some of our favorite so far! A ferry took us to Chumphon, where a 3 hour "layover" ensued, until we finally got on our overnight bus to Bangkok.

The bus arrived at 5:30am, and delirious from the lack of a good night's sleep on the bus and wondering exactly where we were and what to do now, we thought we were dreaming when we noticed people still walking around with beers in their hands and shots still on the tables. No, this was Khao San Rd., where street bars were just being taken down at 6am. As no hotels were open yet, we found a coffee shop, sat for a while, then ventured away from the party street. We eventually found a nice quiet guesthouse overlooking the river, and from this base we took in a tiny bit of the sprawling city of Bangkok - we got lost in the Chatuchak Market (huge, everything you could ever need, including green abelskiver-type sweets):

...river taxied and Skytrained to Siam Square (massive, interconnected, air-conditioned malls), and trekked all the way to the U.S. Embassy (we needed more visa stamp pages in our passports) to find it closed. After just 2 nights in the City of Angels, we left on another night bus to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai has been one of the easiest places to like so far. The old city is surrounded by an old moat and wall, meant to keep out the Burmese attackers, and there are dozens of historic wats, or temples, throughout.

The cuisine is more northern-style than what we've had so far, which means many more kinds of spices, herbs, and vegetables than the more southern areas that cannot grow these delicious additions. One of Ryan's favorites has been pad paenang, a chicken curry with kaffir lime leaves and chilies:
Another nice thing about Chiang Mai is that we had a contact here. Doug, who has worked with Anna's dad, moved here 20 years ago, met a local woman, and never left. He was kind enough to take us to a restaurant serving good Mexican food (which of course we'd been craving!), give us the phone number of a local tuk-tuk (3-wheeled mini-taxi) driver:

and put our minds at ease by backing up our 9 GB of photos so far! It is definitely a comfort to know someone who knows the area, so thank you very much, Doug, for helping us out!

The day we got into Chiang Mai, Ryan decided to look at our passports for some reason, and let out a groan when he realized that we'd overstayed our Thai visa by one day. When we researched coming here, you got an automatic 30-day visa upon entry, but after the Bangkok airport debacle (during our Australia visit), they changed it to 15-day. Well, dumb Americans that we are, we never thought to check. Asking around, we found our best bet to be a day tour taking in sights north of the city, all the way up to Burma where we could easily cross and renew our visa. It turned out to be a good day of sightseeing, including boiling eggs in a natural hot spring (U.S. idea, anyone?):

...seeing the Golden Triangle where Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos (and China a bit farther north) come together and where the opium trade was once booming:

...native hill tribe communities, including the Mien and Akha people who still wear traditional dress (we both bought bracelets from a one-eyed widowed Akha woman, shown below):

...and officially crossed the border into Myanmar, one of the most tempermental nations:

The next day we finally got to an open U.S. Consulate, and spent the morning waiting for our passports to double in size with more visa stamp pages, then spent the rest of the day wandering around. Chiang Mai has many main streets, but off these mains are lanes called "soi's;" for example our guesthouse is on Soi 2, Ratchawithi Road. That night a fire broke out a few soi's down from us, cutting off the power right in the middle of Anna's shower. Luckily, there wasn't much damage, just tall flames and lingering smoke. Zen, the tuk-tuk driver, took us on a tour of Chiang Mai area where we toured several of the magnificent wats (several were being painstakingly restored by hand):



...went to see how paper umbrellas and Thai silk are made, ate delicious northern Thai food at Huen Phen restaurant, and decided to buy a laquerware elephant to send home for our non-existent house. It was a day of learning more about the crafts and culture of Thailand, and we were very glad we got the opportunity.

We also had a funny pup watching us eat breakfast:

...saw an amazing show of hundreds of almost weightless balloon lanterns being flown up into the sky for a festival to honor the North Gate of the moat:

...and sampled a REAL ice cream sandwich:

No wonder we like this place so much.

Next up is the most bombed country in the world, Laos. Cross your fingers that we don't step on any hidden landmines. Thanks.