Day 46-51

We flew early in the morning to Bangkok, and arrived at 8am. Becca extended her extended ticket, and I extended my flight so that we could fly out of Thailand together. We are now officially leaving Thailand March 22, 2007. We took a cab to Kohsan road and stayed at My House guesthouse. We spent most of the day at MBK mall. The air conditioning attacked us to the super busy mall. The mall was swarming with people. The mall was about 6 or 7 stories tall. Later we went back to kohsan road to eat market food. The food is amazing at the market, its so cheap and tasty. For our last night together we decided to hit up a bar that serves beer towers. The beer tower has a tap and holds about 4L of beer and has a center section that is separate for holding ice. We met some German's that loved Becca. The one guy was about 5'5" and told Becca to stand up, she towered over him, so he talked to her the rest of the time standing in a chair. We told the guys that we were 30 years old, and that Becca had kids at home "Kimmy and Timmy!" We spent the rest of the night chilling at our guesthouse. Becca and I ended up staying up the whole night and caught a cab at about 4:30am to fly back down to Koh Samui. We said bye to Kathryn. We will miss you tons....Good luck in New Zealand!

We booked our flight with Bangkok airlines, and they have amazing service. They had a passenger lounge with complimentary food, drinks, comfy couches, and free Internet. Its a little bit more comfortable than taking a 12 hour over night train ride. ("Do I work for Bangkok airlines?") We arrived at Koh Samui safely around 8am and headed over to Lami beach. The first open guesthouse that we found we crashed at, until the late afternoon. When we woke up we didn't realize that we checked ourselves into the trailer park of Lami beach. The resort had trash everywhere. We took another nap around 4pm and it lasted till 10am the next day......we weren't even mad we were impressed. We looked around for a better guesthouse when we had a clearer mind, and we found The Best Resort. It had a pool, and nice rooms for the same price as our trailer park trash guesthouse. We figured it had to be the best resort since thats what it was called "The Best Resort". We did a bit of shopping around Kah Samui, and checked out its night life. The streets were lined with lady boys, it was pretty disgusting. Koh Samui has an older crowd atmosphere so we decided to enjoy the pool for a couple of days then head to Koh Phangan.

On March 9th we left for Koh Phangan. We road scooter taxi's to the ferry pier. Throughout the ride we saw guys carrying propane bottles, dogs, and all of their children on their scooter. We met up with Lisa on Sun Set beach at Haddrin. We headed back to stay at Sea Side, and the guys that work there were happy to see that we came back. We have decided to hang around Haddrin till we have to head back home...........we have officially lost track of time, hopefully we remember to leave on the right day??????

Day 42-46

We took off for Chiang Mai from Vangviang at 10am. The first bus drove us to Vientiane which took about 3 hours. Becca sat with a heater between her feet which looked super comfortable, not to mention it kept her toasty warm the whole trip. More heat is always a good thing in Thailand right? We got onto a new bus in Vientiane around 4pm, and we had to pay 2500 kip to leave Lao (about 25 cents). We drove over the friendship bridge back to Thailand.......HOME (well familiar ground I guess). We changed buses again in Udonthani, which left around 8pm. For the final and longest stretch we rode a bus that had reclining seats, blankets and a snack pack for take off (we were riding VIP style). The snack pack had an apple, water cup, jelly cookies, and an orange juice (which I later found out was an orange flavoured yogurt drink.....pretty sick). I sat beside a girl from Victoria. We had the same travel backpack and I almost swiped hers instead of mine. I could have had a whole new bag of tricks. The roads were unbelievably windy. I fell asleep, and dreamt about being tossed around like a ping pong ball, oh wait we pretty much were being tossed from side to side in the bus. We would randomly stop along side the road while the driver would pick up packages that were being sent to Chiang Mai. We had a scheduled rest stop at 1am, and we got a free meal or a free pop. The meal looked like pork vomit on platter under a heat lamp..........mmm tempting. We decided against explosive diareaha and drank a Fanta instead (pop). We were scheduled to arrive in Chiang Mai at 8am, so we hopped on board to drive for 7 more hours. We arrived in Chiang Mai safely but super exhausted. We found a room at Johadda guesthouse. Its owned by an Assuie-Thai couple and they had a kangaroo statue on the top balcony. We slept until the late afternoon trying to forget about the bus trip nightmare!

Recovering from the bus trauma trip, we hit up a pub near our guesthouse. Customers wrote on the walls of the pub with sharpie markers. A certain Collen wrote "Oilers cup run 2006". Looks like their cup run might be a faint dream since they are stinking up the NHL!
We shopped around the night Bazaar (market). The market is set up every night rain or shine, holiday or no. It was neat-o!

We switched guesthouses for the next couple of days, and moved into the GM Blue Guesthouse. They had a nice court Yard, no drain pipes directly above my bed, and they actually let us put TP down the toilet. We checked out a Buddha temple, then tracked down the nearest cinema to watch a movie. The Tuk Tuk driver dropped us off at the mall so we could hit up a movie. We couldn't find an open door. We hiked around the mall searching for a way in. We got to the opposite side of the mall and saw a concert in the distance in the middle of the parking lot. We decided against crashing the Thai concert and continued our search. We found a parking lot, where we were informed that the cinema was on the 4th floor, but no one had a useful clue to where an entrance was. We finally found an open door in a shady part of the park-ade and headed up to watch Babal. After the movie was over the cinema was dead. There were no Tuk Tuk drivers in sight to take us home. We started walking in the direction which we assumed was toward home. After walking for a good 20 minutes we finally hitched a ride home safely.

We spent one afternoon chillian and relaxin' in a pool near our guesthouse. We met a couple from Calgary who had just come from traveling New Zealand. They gave Kathryn some useful hints and wished her luck on her trip. Later we hit up the market for the last time to finish our shopping. We bartered for everything , even the beer.

We headed out early in the morning to hit up Bangkok with Kathryn for our last night toghether in Thailand as the "Triple Trouble Yaul!"

Laos

We have decided that Lao was definitely the highlight of our trip. Who wouldn't want to laze around on a tube, drink BeerLao, fly off 30 meter high swings, and be a millionaire all in one day. Kathryn has officially left us for New Zealand and we miss her tons.........COME BACK TO THAILAND!!!
I decided to rehash some of our trips events in Kathryn's honor. One night we were playing cards (asshole to be exact - sorry about the language but that's what its called). Kathryn had put herself in a very dangerous position. She had been president for the last few rounds and had one card left. We were all laying doubles hoping to surpass her one card. She finally layed down her card but then snatched it away as quickly as possible thinking she was making an incorrect move, and hoping that no one had seen her card. Becca and I clearly saw a 2 of spades, if you are unfamiliar with the game 2 trumps all other cards (by our rules). Kathryn kept the card pasted to her leg, ashamed at revealing her previous card. Becca and I played the game on edge waiting for any minute for her to play the card. We finished the game with Kathryn at the bottom still with her card pasted to her leg. She finally flipped the card over and realized that the card was a 2 of spades and the whole time thinking it was a 5 (which is a low card). Oh Ballywood......

Who is Ballywood you ask???? Well we decided that we would start calling Kathryn Hollywood since she always took the longest to get ready..........who was she putting a show on for,the Thai men? One night in Koh Pi Pi Kathryn was approached by a man saying "Pakistan? .......Pakistan? Excuse me miss are you from Pakistan?" We all knew that Kathryn was getting tanned but didn't realize that people were mistaking her for being brown (are you related to Rahul?). Hence forth she was called Ballywood!

Throughout Laos Ballywood insisted on carrying her water bottle around on her head. She insisted on being proper. I decided to take one for the team and shove her aside to knock her bottle off her head. She was not at all impressed and threatened to hit me in the face with her water bottle. Later in the evening I picked up an ice cream cone just before heading up to play cards for the evening. Ballywood was doing her usual ritual with her amazing bottle of water act, when she stumbled and the bottle tumbled off her head. With her cat like reactions she tried grabbing the bottle before it hit the ground, but instead her reactions were not cat like at all and she ended up swatting the bottle straight into my ice cream cone...................... I cried like a baby and stared at the end result in dismay!

We will miss you Ballywood!!!

Day 36-42

A couple of the restaurants here play either Friends, Simpson's, or Family Guy. While mid episode of Friends we would hear the beginning of another friends episode across the road. We met some Australians who taught us a fantastic game called "Ship, Ship-ha". The one Australian busted out some pretty cool card tricks, and put David Blane to shame.

Majority of the tourists that hang out at VanVianne spend most of their day floating down the river on inner tubes. The tubes cost $4 to rent, and the tubing company was lending out Mountain Eq. Co-op water proof bags. We slowly floated down the river to a zip line swing that tossed you into the river. Riding the swings into the river had only one underlying condition, you had to buy a BeerLao...... no problem! After mastering the first zip line, and pulling out some back flips, we decided to float to the next swing (or maybe it was because a couple of ten year old girls showed us up on the swing). The next swing had about a 15m drop off. It was goooooood. We timidly took the risk and plummeted into the water. We hoped onto the floating train to the next swings. The next two swings were a tad larger. They had about a 20-30m drop off. We understood why BeerLao was the drink of choice, to ease the pain of the notorious belly flop! However, the belly and back flops proved to be the most entertaining. The third bar along the river had a volleyball court, which we played most of the afternoon then dove off the swing platform to cool down. While floating to the last swing we realized that we were pretty big pansies for being scared of the first swing. We left the last swing just before the sun went down.

All of us woke up the next morning with sore muscles, we had ripped them after all the intensive activity the day before. We lazed around to recover, and got one of the restaurants to play Blazing Saddles, then Little Britain, and we ended the day off with Family Guy. We had a very productive day! We decided to hit up the tubing track again before leaving Lao. We tried leaving Lao on Feb. 27 but were very unsuccessful, so we decided (without any hurt feelings) to hit up the tubing escapade once more. VanVianne has a little gold mine on their hands. We finally left Lao on Feb. 28 on a 22 hr. bus ride to Chiang Mai.

Day 34 - Backtracking a bit.........

We packed up from our little shanty tent, and said goodbye to Erin. The resort loaded up our bags onto a scooter with a side car. Becca and Kathryn sat in the side car while i had to snuggle with the driver. The roads from our resort to the beach are all downhill so the driver put the little cart into neutral and rolled out of Ton Sai. The taxi boat from Ton Sai to Krabi took about an hour. We shopped in the market to kill some time before our flight to Bangkok. We picked up some rad speakers for our MP3 players. Basically to play our music in the air like we just don't care. Our cab driver pumped old school techno the whole ride to the airport. Reminded me of back in the day cruising with Keith at lunch time in Sylvan. On the flight to Bangkok we hit some turbulence on the plane which made Kathryn freak out. So I put my engineering hat on and explained the concept behind turbulence, not to ease her pain but to try to sound intelligent..... I was very unsuccessful!

We got into Bangkok at about 9pm. Kathryn and Becca wouldn't be able to extend their trip till the following morning since everything was closed. We decided to ride the flat-track escalator up and down the airport......... for a little bit of entertainment for the evening. We decided to set up camp in the airport since we had to wait until the morning for the girls to change their flight, and to book a flight to Lao. We moved into a nice little neighbourhood. It was spacious and fairly quite. The chairs were made of aluminium which made them a little uncomfortable but the atmosphere was very inviting, until a Thai family moved in next door and started taking over the whole premises. We ended up moving into a very high class area, with cushioned seats and everything. We had two rows of chairs to lay on. Kathryn and Becca were on half of the bench and half on their bags, while I tried sleep in an "L" shape, half on Kathryn's side and half on Becca's side. At 4am there were people standing all around us cheering and celebrating the Chinese New year. Bangkok airport never shuts down. The girls got their flights changed, so I guess its off to Lao??? We hung around the airport waiting for our flight with Lao airlines to hit up Veintianne, Lao. We grabbed some Starbucks (mmmmmmm so good once it hits your lips). Someone stole our cards the night before so we had to kill time with useless chatter.

We got our visa's stamped then took a 3 1/2 hour cab ride to Van Veinne. We hit up a guesthouse that Luke suggested, and it was perfect.............Luke you have finally made it into our good books , jk you were always there ;).

This pic is a little random, we were just missing the islands. Scubasteve.........................

Day 35

So we're in Laos?

Day 32-33

We got up early to catch a day tour from Ao Nang. The tour took us to Crystal falls, which is a natural hot springs. The water had fresh water which was so nice to get away from the salt water for the day, and the water was about 35° C at the top. We sat on the rock formation and relaxed our muscles from the chaotic last two days. Then we hiked up to the Emerald pool. It looked man made because the water was so clear and had a gorgeous emerald glaze. The rocks were slippery surrounding the pool so we tried to use them like a crazy carpet. I just about did a face plant a couple of times (okay like 5 times)...... it was a nice trip. The next stop was Tiger Cave. There were monkey's everywhere. People were feeding them chips and pop. Nobody likes an over weight monkey. We hiked up stairs that lead to stairs that descended into a valley. Crazy i know, we went up stairs only to go straight back down stairs. There were a bunch of bungalows set up for the monks. We saw some trees in the valley (who knew). One of the trees was 900 years old and had been struck by lightening. Last stop was the elephant trek. Kathryn and I hoped up board the riveting ride. By riveting I mean a thumb twiddling, and slowly rocking side to side extravaganza. It was out of control but hey it was an experience. We met up with the guys from the US and Holland for supper (I mean dinner as they made a point of correcting us). We headed to a fantastic joint that had crazy delicious pizza. My wisdom teeth have been moving the last couple of days so the pizza was less of a delight for myself but word from the other girls was nothing but good. The one American grabbed the bill and the rest of us pitched our share for the meal. The waiter returned and showed Kathryn the bill saying that they undercharged us by 500 baht. We all looked at each other saying that we all had pitched our share, but lone and behold the American whom had the bill earlier pulled all the cash out of his wallet which totaled exactly 500 baht. I piped up with "so just going to pocket all that Cash, eh?" He returned all flushed with "oh now i can't buy you all beer". So he was about to pocket about $14 American........... typical American. We decided to avoid the American thieving dual.

Kathryn and I received the best news all trip. ................Becca, Adam, and Andre missed us and decided to come down to Railay. We met up with the crew in the evening after they came back from a fishing trip. They caught a barracuda and some tuna. We got one of the restaurants to BBQ the fish for supper, it was fantastical. We kicked around Railay and played connect 4's with the locals, and hung out with Peter Kathryn's buddy. Kathryn and I missed the last taxi boat to Ton Sai so we crashed with Becca, Adam and Andre. We slept on their pool side lounge chair cushion. Kathryn and I are incredibly good at making our sleeping situation almost impossible, but it always seems to buff.

Kathryn and Becca have decided to extend their stay, and we have all decided to go to Laos. We fly to Bangkok on the 20th to sort out flights then its off to Laos to go rafting and swing into the river.

Day 30-31

So its Feb 14 - Single Awareness day ...... yeeeeesssss
Officially maybe the worst day on the whole trip thus far. Kathryn, Erin (Becca's cousin) and I parted from Becca, Adam And Andre. Single tear when we hugged them goodbye. We took a ferry to Railay, and we arrived at about 5pm. We had to jump into a taxi boat, which took us to Railay. Erin watched our bags while Kathryn and I scoured the area for a place to stay. Everywhere was full or cost 40 000 plus baht (little bit our of our price range). For one of the resorts we hiked 60 plus stairs to find out that they were full. We hopped onto a taxi boat to go to Ton Sai (people said that it was cheaper and that they should have accommodation?????).
We wondered around Ton Sai for 2 hours ~ 7pm. Kathryn and I decided to settle with sleeping on the beach, and decided to focus on finding a tent. We saw a couple packing up a tent and asked where they got it from. They had brought it from home.......BUT said that we could barrow the tent for the night because they were going to rent a larger tent in a quieter area ~9pm. We set the 1, possibly 2, person tent at the resort where the Switzerland couple was staying. A girl from Vancouver lent us a mattress to sleep on. We showered to reduce the stress of being homeless. We checked out the live music on the beach, and Erin got her first glimpse of the fire jugglers. Ended the day with the three of us cramming in the, not at all spacious, tent. Kathryn and Erin crammed themselves against the tent walls while I dominated the middle 180° from the other two. Unbelievably cozy......high season rocks our world!

We met all of our neighbors whom were also rocking the campers lifestyle. There were 2 girls from Vancouver, one guy from England, the Switzerland couple, two Americans, and a guy from Holland. We quickly snatched a larger tent so that we don;t have to touch each other while we sleep (Kathryn was disappointed). We tented on a huge concrete platform at Mountain View resort..... pretty much the backpacker/hostile trailer trash. Limited coverage from the sun and no fans we started the day off right at the crack of dawn. We toured around Phrangan cave and checked out the resort that was about 100 000 baht a night. Apparently its the resort where Fat Boy Slim stays where he kicks it at Railay. In the Afternoon we hit up rick climbing on the east Railay edge by the ocean. The view was amazing. We utilized our spider man like skills. We met a family from Victoria that know Dr. Mick (Corrina's dad). At the end of the day we sat on the beach and watched the sun set which always seems to amaze us as though we have never seen it set before....... We miss you Becca, Adam and Andre!

Day 28-29

We chilled for a day on the island since the trek over was a tad exhausting. Kathryn, Becca, Andre, Adam, Erin and myself all went on a day tour to the islands around Koh Pi Pi. We went to Mai Beach (where "the Beach" was filmed). The beach was puked on with people. We saw mosquito island, monkey island, we went snorkeling, kayaking, and jumping off the top level of the boat into the water. I attempted a back dive/flip which resulted in a belly flop, and I ended up bruising my shins. We shot gun Chang (Thai beer) while watching the sun set. Our next move was to take a group photo, and Adam was sitting on a chain that closed the opening for the diving board. Kathryn hopped on with him and they broke the link. It it wasn't for the diving board Adam would have plummeted into the water backwards. Later that night we went to a bar called Reggae. The bar has a boxing ring, and anyone can get suited up to box. The lovely Becca stepped up and fought a girl from New Zealand. Becca dominated while Kathryn was making connections with the opposition to have a roommate in New Zealand. We met a bunch of Canadians on the walk home and everyone busted out the Canadian Anthem. When we got home a Swedish pregnant lady was not impressed with us. Adam smoothed over the situation by asking her out for lunch, but Mood swing momma was having none of it. The yelling slowly faded long enough for us to fall asleep.

Day 26-27

We decided to take an over night ferry from Koh Toa to Surratthani. The ferry left at 9pm Feb 10 and was scheduled to arrive at 5am Feb 11. The 8 hour ferry ride did not quite add up, since it took 4 hours from Surratthani to get to Koh Phangna and then 2 hours to get to Koh Toa. Becca put it perfectly when we arrived and saw our boat "No wonder it takes 8 hours we are going to be riding on a tug boat." Looking for luxurious accommodation, first class service and 5 star dinning? Look elsewhere! Accommodation includes 1/2 of a dirty mattress, 80 plus people in 50' by 10' room. Nice and cozy (got a touch awkward at times). We didn't realize that we signed up to ride a floating homeless shelter. At first glance you would think there was enough life preservers, but giving a quick head count and we realized that we will need to leave the wounded behind....Becca! The beds are a touch close and mighty cozy. Kathryn is exactly 1/4" from me and we are debating on spooning; however realizing Comatose Angie would force Kathryn to remain in spoon position. Shy, naive and young, the heroic Kathryn and the mighty comatose Angie considered their options.They established the mighty mighty comatose spoon. The gravel slowly taking its role on the queasy boat ride the two doze off to the sweet music of the Pussy Cat Dolls "Dontchya wish your girlfriend was hot like me...." From Surratthani we were loaded up on a truck the size of a ford ranger. The driver fit 16 people on the back and in the the front of the truck and 16 bags, so approximately 32 people. We jumped in the front cab, so hopefully to minimize scrapes and bruises if the truck tips over going around corners. We waited in a sketch diner to load into a bus (similar to the size of a grey hound). Mission impossible 3 was the movie of choice for the ride (sweet something to make us all fall fast a asleep). We were just about to fall asleep when the driver booted us off the bus and loaded us up into a 9 person van, which we sat in for 4 hours to Krabi. Surprise we were taken to another diner and sat for another hour and a half. We finally reached the Pier at 11am to head to Koh Pi Pi, but we managed to miss the morning boat and had to wait till 3:30 pm to catch the next ferry.

While waiting at the Pier we herd news that koh Pi Pi was on fire. The plan was to meet Andre and Adam on the island, and we hadn't heard anything about the degree of the fire. Andre and Adam met us at the Pier in Koh Pi Pi. The fire was contained and didn't stop the party on the island at all. We didn't get checked into our bungalow until 10pm and we had to trek over rocks with our giant bags and head laps, just your usual refugee expedition.

Day 24-25

The boat taxi was a lot smoother heading back in the morning, we were all a little disappointed. We had a 2 hour wait for our ferry to arrive so Becca and I went on the hunt for food. We lost count the amount of times were asked if we needed a taxi to drive us somewhere. Everyone here is so willing to help you to get to where you are going..........aka super annoying. We found and nice little dinner in the shadows of one of the side streets. The food was amazing. It always seems to be the shady places that have the best food.

We arrived in Koh Toa and found out that Becca's cousin (Erin) was stuck in Ko Phagna and wouldn't been able to meet us until the following day. She started traveling on Tuesday and didn't meet up with us until Friday. We arrived at Koh Toa on the 9th (aka Kathryn's birthday). The sun sets were amazing on the island.


We decided to make Sea Shell bungalows our home for the night. We took Kathryn out on the town for her birthday. We picked up a micky and two liters of cola. Felt like the old days in high school mixing in the shadows, but this time on the beach. We had a blast dancing the night away. Kathryn definitely enjoyed her b-day.


After all the partying we headed up 7 eleven and Kathryn was convinced by some local girls to get a pork paddy burger, which looked vial. The paddy was grey, and Becca's was florescent orange. I decided to stick with the banana chocolate pancakes which proved to be the best option in the morning. The next morning we were working up by a roster and three of his hussy's. As soon as we were up they moved on to the next bungalow.


Erin took an early ferry and we quickly met up with her. We hung around the beach again all day (tough life) and big surprise we tossed the Frisbee, and recapped the eventful night with people that we met the night before.




Tonight we are taking a night ferry to Surratani, which leaves at 9pm and gets in at 5am. Then we will be taking a bus to Ko Pi Pi to meet up with Andre and Adam. We are hoping for the best for our trip. It should make for an interesting story, or at least an interesting experience.

Day 21-23

Bottle Beach was definitely an experience to get to. We took a cab to the main ferry Pier, and then we had to take another cab to the north side of the island to catch a taxi boat to the beach. The lady setting us up with the cab kept telling us that the water was too rough and that the water will calm down in exactly 5 days and therefore should spend 5 days at a resort that was just north of the Pier. We were having none of that noise. So we made her get us a cab and decided to check it out for ourselves.

We arrived at the taxi boat area and quickly saw that the water was really clam. (what a dirty lyer) We took the taxi boat which had a Nazi flag on it to the beach, it was a little rocky but apparently Becca loves to ride the big waves. People on the beach were quick to react to the politically incorrect flag and decided that we were the Nazi's. We knew instantly that we would make a lot of friends on. Bottle beach is very secluded. and we were super pumped to step away from the crazy scene and re cope from the full moon. We soon realized that the beach was mostly couples and people that generally crashed around 9pm. The Thai people loved us because we were about the only ones to stay up past 9pm.


Again we basked in the sun, tossed the Frisbee and swam in the ocean. Pretty much loving life right now.





We took a quick tour around the beach. Basically the beach consits of three competing bungalows and forest. We hiked up a set of stairs that led to a house built on the side of the mountain.


We are heading to Koh Tao in the morning to meet up with Becca's cousin, and to party for Kathryn's 23rd birthday. Hopefully the waves are the way Becca likes it for the way back to the ferry.

Day 14-20

Kathryn finally arrived it was so nice to finally see a familiar face. We also met up with Becca, Andre, and Adam. Kathryn need some time to game up for Thailand so we decided to lay on the beach, toss the Frisbee and swing from a rope into the water. You know your typically day down here. We checked out Andre and Becca's palace in town, definitely a tad short of being luxurious but they survived. We hit up the Full Moon party in true fashion. Andre had paint all over his face, and the rest of us tried to classy up with our own intricate paint designs but it got a little messy, but we survived. The morning following full moon Becca, Kathryn and myself strolled into town still rocking our outfits from the night before and saw other fellow full mooners braving the day light with paint all over their bodies as well. Nothing short of good times.


Andre and Adam decided to head over to Koh Samui so Becca made the smart decision to move into our bungalow and travel with Kathryn and myself. We stayed at Sea side till Jan 6th. Becca, Kathryn and myself had to share a double bed. We established that I am a comatose sleeper, Kathryn is very squirmy, and Becca is constantly looking for more room for her uber long limbs. We decided to head up to the north east side of Koh Phanga to Bottle Beach. We said goodbye to Lisa. Lisa and I are hoping to meet up in Bangkok since we have the same flight home.
So off to Bottle Beach for some more Frisbee tossing in the ocean and basking in the sun.

Day 9-13

Lisa and I have had quite the adventure finding a place to stay. Hattrin is so narrow that on one side of the town the sun rises and on the other side it sets. We are on sunset beach, its more relaxed than on sunrise beach(where the full moon party takes on full force). We were originally at Coral bungalows and we managed to get a 500baht room. The resort had a swimming pool and amazing food. We decided to pay for a week at the resort, however, they recently have invested in Internet bookings and told us we had to be out of our place by the 31st. Most of the places here fill up based on first come first serve, and the earlier you get here for the full moon party the easier it is to get a nice place to stay. We ended up getting into a bungalow at Seaside which is way nicer. The view is amazing. We have a hammock set up on the porch and we can see the ocean when laying in it. The resort is super chill, they play hippie music so pretty much i am in love with this place. For happy hour the beer is 40 baht, so every night we have been watching the sun set while chilling in the hammock and drinking beer for just over a dollar Canadian (can't get much better...paradise!)

I toured around the town to see where Luke stayed when the boys came here. It was ridiculously far away...... silly boys. I hiked up to Sunsmile resorts. The view was pretty amazing, there were boulders everywhere and it was really relaxing to sit on top of them and listen to the water crash into the rocks. Over on the beach there were 5 kite boarders on the water. I may have to give that a rip before leaving.

I experienced my first bucket here on the island. The drinks come in buckets with straws, and the bucket will have about a mickey of hard alcohol, red bull (real red bull not the watered down stuff back home), and pop. The night clubs blare their music while everyone dances on the beach, best party ever. I figured I should start to game up for the full moon party. We also watched flame jugglers, pretty much fell in love with them........jk fell in love with their mad flame juggling skills.

Since we were a little under the weather this morning (little too much wobbly pops) we decided to head to town and get a massage. I had a Swedish oil massage and it cost $9 Canadian. Kathryn arrives tomorrow on the 11:30am ferry. I am stoked to see her.

Can't wait to bask in the sun tomorrow.........until next time keep fit and have fun!

Day 6-8: The Islands..Finally

I flew down to Surat Thani in the morning to catch an afternoon ferry to Koh Samui. (Islands on the South East side of Thailand) As soon as I landed they had a huge bus waiting to take everyone to the ferry. It was nice since the operation was smooth unlike Bangkok. The ferry ride was about 2 hrs. long, and I met a couple of Canadians traveling on an Intrepid tour.

Landing in Koh Samui there was taxis everywhere trying to get you to go to the report that they work for. I ended up getting sucked into a ride to a place called Palm Tree Resort. It was more money than I wanted to pay but the place was really nice. The rooms were concrete so there weren't any bugs. The resort has a pool and a restaurant. It rained a little bit the one morning, and stupid me left my book by the pool while it was raining, and its now like 3 times the size it used to be. I am still trying to air it out.

I ate at a bar on the beach that has lay down chairs. The music was really loud, and Love Generation seemed to be the song of choice most of the night. After dinner the bar had a fireworks show on the beach which just about gave me a heart attack since i didn't expect the loud bang. They were pretty sweet though.

I rode on a scooter taxi with my huge bags to catch the morning ferry to Koh Phangan. Taxi's at Koh Samui are not as efficient as in Bangkok, which just means less chaos. It took about an hour. I met a girl from Ottawa, and we decided to share a room at the Coral Resort. The room has an extra bed for when Kathryn gets here. The resort is on the sunset side of Hat Rin. It's so beautiful to watch the sun setting while hanging out by the pool. Lisa (the girl from Ottawa) is back for her 3rd full moon party, and knows a few locals which is nice.

I met one of the guys that works at the resort. He is from England and does all the ad's for the resort. I introduced him to Xavier Rudd, and he wants to start playing Xavier's music at the resort which will be sweet. I am enjoying Koh Phangan more than Samui, it has a younger crowd, and nicer beaches. I am planning on chillng here till Kathryn arrives (t minus about 5 days). Lisa and I might rent a scooter to check out the water falls here. I'm off to lay by the beach and catch the sunrise.