Same same but different: Thailand

Thailand in 10 crazy days

Krabi, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Bangkok.

Thailand is famous for being the first country Westerns should visit from Asia, so we couldn't miss it for recess week. With our backpacks just packed and our cheap flight ticket in our hand we left our 'home' and in less than two hours we were stepping on the exotic Thailand. Krabi was the beginning of our crazy route that planned to cross half the country in only 10 days from South to North, from west coast to east coast. Challenge accepted.

  

We slept at Ao Nang instead of Krabi because it was next to the sea. We went to see the sunset just after leaving our stuff in our guesthouse. 

On our way we were surprised to see more westerns than locals. We realized soon that Thailand was touristy, indeed. Specially comparing to our previous trip to the Philippines.

At night the town of Ao Nang turns into a busy mix of restaurants and bars. Local artists show their master pieces - and prefer tourists not to take pictures to them.

Feeling still a bit dizzy from the previous long trip, I couldn't join to my friends plan of visiting with motorbikes the surroundings of Ao Nang with some jungle, waterfalls and buddhist temples.

Next day we took a ferry to Koh Phi Phi, a very small island without cars or even roads. To move from one corner of the island to the other you can either walk (about 40min through the beach) or take a taxi boat.

We stayed at a nice and cheap bungalow resort with a small cozy beach in the back and a restaurant where you could eat at a terrace with sea views typical thai food for less than 3 euros a dish. The fried rice with vegetables and cashew nuts, and the sticky rice with mango where my favourites. We didn't have very good weather, but the place was really amazing despite the clouds. 

The following day we took the classic day-trip with a thai longboat around Phi Phi and the surrounding islands. Snorkeling was incredible with cristal-clear turquoise water and hundreds of tropical bright-coloured fishes and corals. Unfortunately we didn't see the clown-fish 'Nemo'!

 Lunch in the desert white-sand Bamboo island, followed by a funny stop in Monkey Beach where monkeys seem cute -specially baby monkeys - but then try to steal your water bottles or any food they find.  

Last stop was in Phi Phi Leh, the famous tiny island where they filmed 'The Beach' from Di Caprio. Indeed, the place was astonishing yet too many tourists took away some of the attractiveness from it.

We did some hiking up to a hill in Phi Phi where you could see the entire island from a nice viewpoint before leaving with a ferry to Koh Samui. To get there we had to take a bus and cross to the east coast, then take a ferry again. Honestly, the way was long and tiring but we enjoyed a nice Pad Thai - fried noodles with soya beans, egg, chicken and some thai sauce - and relaxed in the hostel in Lamai Beach when we arrived. 

We took some motorbikes for 2.5 euros the day -not including the gas - and we followed the coast road. We visited an elephant camp and we did a sweated trekking through the jungle that led to a wonderful waterfall in which I had a refreshing bath. 

 We also stopped at some buddhist temples - one of them with a monk mummy exposed - and came back before taking a ferry to one of our highlights of the trip: the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan.

This massive beach party was started by a couple of backpacker friends that decided to repeat every month a beach party they made once during a full moon night. More and more people joined during the past years and now around 25.000 people from all around the world can be found in this beach every time the moon is full. The tradition of the party has become to wear shiny bright-coloured sleeveless shirts and paint yourself with shiny colours too. Fireshows, cheap buckets and 5 different music areas make it a really amazing experience! 

17 long and tiring hours of ferry and train during the night brought us to our last stop: the most visited city of Asia, the exotic capital city of Thailand, the place to be... Bangkok!

Kao San Road has become the meeting place of every backpacker in Bangkok and many bars, hostels and shops and food stalls make it a must-stop place for every tourist, specially for the crazy atmosphere created at night. 

We stayed at Rainbow Hostel: 5 euros a night for a stone-hard bed in a dorm with an outside toilet with shower. Fair price, truly backpacker. One of the bizarre things of Kao San were the insect stalls where you could try scorpions, bugs of any kind, cockroaches, worms... We decided to try the crunchy grasshoppers: better than expected. The only bad thing about it was the spikes of the legs that stayed between your teeth...!

 Bangkok offers a great combination of cultural sightseeing with many buddhist temples and museums, and crazy nightlife.

We had the opportunity to enter a temple and see how the monks prayed. To get in there are strict rules such as wearing proper clothes that cover you - which is quite annoying due to the 35ºC and the high humidity that makes you sweat constantly...

The floating market is one of the most typical attractions of this city. However, it is not directly in the centre but in the outskirts of Bangkok so we had to take a van to get there. The river channels flow between wooden houses and vendors use their small boats to sell their merchandise directly from the boat on the water. To be honest, it has become such a tourist attraction nowadays that there is no real local market anymore: only standard souvenirs and touristic products are sold there, apart from some fruits - I only bought some nice bananas.

 

A funny pic of a local seller:

On the afternoon we went shopping in Chatuchak market, famous for its cheap merchandise and the variety of stuff you can find there. In fact it was really huge and very crowded so we got lost in the narrow streets of the market looking for all kind of items. We bought different things ranging from fake watches to imitation clothes of famous brands and chinese shorts. Everything under 4 euros each.

We finished our trip with an improvised tour around the countryside of Bangkok. We took a bus to a town called Kanchanaburi without really knowing what we would find there. A driver convinced us upon arrival to hire him for the day to drive us to some waterfalls, an elephant camp and a cave temple.

Despite the lack of preparation we were lucky to get to a nice place for an elephant trekking:

Getting closer to the Myanmar border and following the river we got to a buddhist temple that was built in a cave. An old railway enhanced the beauty of the place reminding us to an Indiana Jones film. 

The last stop that culminated our crazy day trip was a wonderful waterfall where local people came to spend their Sunday with their family. We had a 1 euro fried rice with chicken and, after some hiking in the jungly area, we experienced the magic moment of simply sitting under the endless fall of the mountain water on our backs, surrounded by a silent that was only disturbed by the birds tweets echoing in the jungle.