Thai Time

More of Pip and Anneli's Excellent Adventures...
"It feels like we've done so much since I last wrote in Chiang Mai! We took the train down to Bangkok, in a second class sleeper with ac, which was really nice. We arrived in Bangkok at 7am and checked into our Guesthouse and then took off to explore. We had some amazing street food, toured markets and went to a few temples. The temples and palaces in Bangkok were massive. We went to Wat Pho, where in just one of the many buildings, lay the reclining Buddha. I can't remember the actual dimensions, but it was hard to get it all in one picture! We booked our train down to Surat Thani in second class with a seat and fan for overnight. It was wayy better than we were thinking it would be. All the windows on the train were open so it wasn't too hot. Wasn't very easy to sleep however as there are Thais walking the isles trying to sell stuff all through the night and are very loud! No, I do not want to buy a whole chicken at 4:30am on a train! Haha When we arrived in Surat Thani, we got right on a bus for a couple hours that took us to the pier where we enjoyed our first sights of the beaches and islands on a ferry to Koh Phangan. This is where we met up with some of our University friends, which was awesome. The Full Moon Party was ridiculous and awesome as around 20,000 people go to it every month. So it worked as a place to coordinate our travel plans for a couple days. I've attached a picture of the beach as it was when the sun was rising. People were still going strong! We retired to the rocks to watch the mayhem by this time. We were staying at a little place called JB huts, which was fantastic, it was about a half hour drive from the beach with the party, so we we're able to be free of the music when we left. Our hut had a beautiful view of the ocean from our hammock. And the beach was just 2 minutes away from our hut, although, more like 15 on the way back up. We stayed 3 nights there and then said goodbye to our friends and headed to the other side of the island. We had been looking forward to this place for literally months. When we were first researching places to go in Thailand we were on Google Earth on the iPad, and just kept zooming in on one spot in the ocean and it ended up being an amazing looking place, that we promised to go to, and here we are! It's called Mai Pen Rai bungalows, and is on the east side of the island that is a lot more remote. Unlike the other parts of the island that have electricity all throughout the day, Mai Pen Rai is in an area with electricity from 12-4 and 6 to midnight. So it gets pretty hot at night without a fan, but everything about it is worth it, because this is as close to paradise as I can imagine. We are staying in a rock side bungalow with a view of the bay and green hills and ocean. In order to get to our hut, you walk across the beach and then crouch and walk through a little hole in the rocks which leads to stairs that go up. Yesterday we went exploring on the rocks for a couple hours in one direction: we found a bat cave! First we just saw a cave and wanted to check it out so we hopped in the water and swam up to the surrounding rocks. We got up on the rocks, still aways from the entrance to the cave, and started getting close. Then we stopped for a second as we just realized that what we were hearing was not the birds, but the screeching bats! As we got closer, it reeeeeeked, and there were huge spiders. I just went far enough to say I'd stepped inside but I definitely didn't stay long. What an amazing adventure! Our place is in a national park so there are lots of things that are on our list to see. There are tons of waterfalls and we are going to rent kayaks to go explore around the coast and see a couple small islands that we've spotted that are really close to the coast. We have two more nights here and then we are taking a boat to Koh Tao where we will be scuba diving! If you want to check out the bungalows, the website is thansadet.com."

I don't think we want to know too much more about the infamous Full Moon Party...!