Well, it’s a week or two later and we’re still hanging out on the beaches of Southern Thailand. After staying at Bottle Beach for a week, we moved on to Railay Beach, and now we’re on an island called Koh Lanta.
It’s been a fun few weeks hanging out on the beaches. We’ve enjoyed relaxing in the sun and sand and we’ve had some pretty exciting nights out as well. We’ve been hanging out with our friend Anthony and a whole slew of random travelers we’ve met from all over the world. People from Canada, USA, Australia, Germany, England, Sweden, China, Korea, and many more… The islands are a major draw to tourists, so this area of Thailand has really attempted to capitalize on it. There is really very little Thai culture to speak of in the areas we’ve been. Even the food in Thai restaurants has been dumbed-down for the western palate. Everywhere you go, you are walking past resorts, shops, restaurants, touring agencies, and thousands of other tourists, so it makes it very easy to travel, but unfortunately it all ends up being very unstimulating. Nevertheless, we will continue to enjoy the beach life for a bit before we move on.
Bottle Beach on the island of Koh Phangan was definitely the most ideal place we’ve been yet. The remoteness of the location, combined with its stunning scenery, the fantastic beach, and great service and food from the resort staff for very low prices, has created such an ideal place that we could easily have stayed there for several weeks and still enjoyed every moment. We met people there that were staying for five weeks, and I can’t say I blame them.
We had perfect weather for our first five days there, but then on the sixth day (when we were planning on leaving) a storm came in and forced us the spend another day there. The only way out of the beach is via a small boat or a really rugged road, so the storm knocked out both of those options pretty quickly. Later in the day, the weather cleared up and we were able to enjoy our final day on the beach before we were finally able to leave the next day.
Anthony, Joh, and I left Bottle Beach and booked a trip (truck-to-ferry-to-bus-to-van-to-boat) to Railay Beach over on the west coast of Thailand. The others we were travelling with had made it out of Bottle Beach before the storm came in, so it was just the three of us again. The travelling went well, and by mid-afternoon we had arrived. Railay Beach is not technically an island, but it acts like one. It is the tip of a peninsula that is difficult to get to from the mainland, so all the people and goods arrive on the beach via boats. The small village there is quite small. There are a small handful of beaches, a few shops, restaurants, bars, and a whole slew of resorts. There were no roads so everything was connected by a series of walking paths. The western side of the peninsula has the best beach and the best views, so of course the most expensive resorts were there. We ended up staying on the east beach which had a dirty beach with a pretty bad smell coming off of it. We sucked it up though and resolved to just hang out on west beach during the day and find other thing to do other than sitting around near east beach. Railay Beach is famous for it’s large rock cliffs – which of course means that the Thais have capitalized on that opportunity and created a thriving rock-climbing business there. Of course, we booked in for a session of climbing and ended up having a great time. The guide we were with brought us to a wall that had a good range of easier to harder climbs. We all knocked out the first few climbs pretty easily, and then progressed throughout the morning to some more difficult climbs. The final climb proved too much for all of us as one-by-one, Joh, Anthony, and I just were unable to scale the final section of the cliff. It was a great way to finish though, because we knew we had pushed ourselves to the limit.
We spent a few more days in Railay and then booked a boat out on Monday. We (Anthony and I) had gotten up at 5:30 that morning to watch the Super Bowl. Unfortunately it was all for not, as the only bar with a decent TV had 200 channels but not one of them had the game on. So we (and a few other random Americans that had also gotten up early) made due with an internet connection to nfl.com and followed the game by staring at a news-ticker that let us know what was happening. That lasted all the way up to the final seconds of the game (which as you may know were quite tense moments) when the laptop’s battery died and we had to go scrambling to find a power outlet. We finally got it plugged in just after the game ended, and got the final score. It was definitely the strangest Super Bowl experience we’d ever had.
That afternoon we left Anthony on Railay and Joh and I moved on to Koh Lanta. We had a really good few weeks hanging out with Anthony, but he had other plans (something involving Swedish girls and a private lagoon). Two hours later via ferry we arrived in Koh Lanta. We hadn’t really researched Koh Lanta too much so we didn’t know what to expect. The resort we ended up in is alright. It’s a quiet resort on a quiet part of the island. Apparently this island is a favorite vacation spot for people from Sweden. This resort (and presumably the other resorts on the island) are full of Swedes. It’s alright though – they seem pretty friendly. Our resort is right on the beach and has a great view of the sunset – but unfortunately it’s pretty expensive to stay right on the beach. We ended up in the $20 room way in the back, pretty much beside the huts that the resort staff live in. We don’t really spend any time in the room anyways except for sleeping. The beach and lobby are pretty good hang-out spots.
We plan on being here for another day or so and then moving on. Travel plans are uncertain at this point, so stay tuned and we’ll update soon.
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| Bottle Beach, Koh Phangan, Thailand |
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| Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand |