Megan and I believe everything happens for a reason and traveling continues to remind us of this truth. After the intense border crossing and the longest day of travel besides the trans pacific flight, we ended up on a ferry to Koh Chang, an island in the gulf of Thailand near Cambodia. On this ferry ride, we witnessed an absolutely stunning distant lightning show. It was overcast and the moon was out, sometimes hazily obscured by invisible clouds in the night sky. The clouds transformed into ephemeral chandeliers when bolts of lightning revealed them. As we gazed towards the advancing storm, I overheard a conversation going on behind us between a family of tourists and a Filipino scuba instructor who lives on Koh Chang. Ready to feed our new addiction for diving, I struck up conversation with him and learned that he lived just down the street from our resort. We exchanged numbers before reaching the island and I resolved to call him later, following our upcoming ten hour coma.
The next morning, we began our island hopping journey by lounging on a picturesque beach, ordering pad thai and a steady stream of beer of course! After dinner, Megan wasn’t feeling up to a Friday night out so I called our new acquaintance, Jhez, to hear his plans. He ended up picking me up on his scooter and showing me a great night on his second home. The first bar he took me to featured a Filipino band covering metal songs from Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Metallica. He demonstrated his deftness at pool against me and a member of the band over a few rounds of Tiger beer. Next, we made our way to a bigger venue with a larger all Filipino cover band doing pop and rock songs. We took turns buying a few rounds before I was at the end of my Friday night budget. Before we left, I had the chance to use the restroom at this resort restaurant and was pleasantly surprised when the bathroom attendant did a full chiropractic routine on me, satisfying every joint in my spine and hips! He drove us back to his house after midnight and I had the pleasure of conversation with his roommates, his old neighbor and the delight of eating Filipino style pork, raw seasoned vegetables and steamed rice. I returned to the hotel room with a full belly, full of stories of the night out and surprised that I had managed to meet a dozen Filipinos in one night on a Thai island.
The next morning, we began our island hopping journey by lounging on a picturesque beach, ordering pad thai and a steady stream of beer of course! After dinner, Megan wasn’t feeling up to a Friday night out so I called our new acquaintance, Jhez, to hear his plans. He ended up picking me up on his scooter and showing me a great night on his second home. The first bar he took me to featured a Filipino band covering metal songs from Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Metallica. He demonstrated his deftness at pool against me and a member of the band over a few rounds of Tiger beer. Next, we made our way to a bigger venue with a larger all Filipino cover band doing pop and rock songs. We took turns buying a few rounds before I was at the end of my Friday night budget. Before we left, I had the chance to use the restroom at this resort restaurant and was pleasantly surprised when the bathroom attendant did a full chiropractic routine on me, satisfying every joint in my spine and hips! He drove us back to his house after midnight and I had the pleasure of conversation with his roommates, his old neighbor and the delight of eating Filipino style pork, raw seasoned vegetables and steamed rice. I returned to the hotel room with a full belly, full of stories of the night out and surprised that I had managed to meet a dozen Filipinos in one night on a Thai island.
The following day went much the same as the previous, minus all the beer - eating and reading our Koh Chang stay away. That evening, as we passed the restaurant we had eaten at the night before, a woman came out running after us, insisting that she had short changed us on our bill. We gladly accepted the apology and I resolved to return to the bar to buy a round and join on the music jam session after witnessing a piano at the rear of the stage. I returned to the quiet bar at about 9:30, sat down at the bar and ordered a beer, thinking I may have been better off back at the room. Noticing I was a newcomer, the friendly woman who returned us the money started small talk with me about my stay on the island, travels and the whereabouts of my sleepy girlfriend. Soon enough, the bar began to fill up with seemingly regulars all conversing one another around me. A middle aged European man approached the bar and ordered a gin and tonic and one of the regulars came over to greet him. They talked about their weekend so far and when their conversation came to a halt discussing hangovers, I interjected, quipping something zen like you, “You gotta take the bad with the good”. I was immediately welcomed into the conversation between Andrea, the Frenchman and Mark, the Romanian. Soon after, Andrea went back to his friends and bandmates preparing for their upcoming acoustic set. Mark and I talked for about 30 minutes about traveling, occupations, and youth. He manages two luxury hotels, one in Phuket and one in Koh Chang. He bought me a round before giving me his phone number and, after the first acoustic set by Andrea and his band, took his leave to the next hangover party. When their next set ended, Andrea asked if I wanted to join in on bass for the next set. After learning that their keyboard was out of commission, I agreed, hoping I wasn’t going in over my head. It ended up great; we played four songs including one from the Rolling Stones, one Beatles track and two blues jams. The bar bought the stage a round (myself included now) and we spent an hour in conversation afterward. All of the guys and girls here were from France and I had fun attempting to speak any of the language I could recall. I left close to midnight thinking: this island rules.
View from our private bungalow..many good talks happened here.
We got off the speedboat to Koh Kood on its last stop the next morning after passing several postcard beaches on small islands. The long, thin wooden pier wobbled slightly with the six of us and our luggage arriving to Koh Kood Resort. It is set at the far edge of a perfectly “C” shaped bay with half a kilometer of pearly sand giving way to rocks and jungle. We spent our afternoon getting buzzed off cheap beer and Patron (which we found in Siem Reap for a good price!) and gorging on giant fried grouperfish for dinner. At four in the morning, Megan was awake at the same time as me with the same idea: a moonlight swim. It was fantastic; the night was so clear and cool and the water so warm shimmering with a nearly full moon, just romantic as hell. The beach in front of our resort (like many in the gulf of Thailand) has such a gentle slope that the shallow waves groom the sand in such perfect lines that it massages your feet as you walk into the ocean. Being here makes you want to appreciate every fleeting moment you have in this life.
As part of the birthday package we planned for ourselves (by we I mean mostly Megan), we hopped aboard a speedboat to a crowded marine national park to snorkel two separate pinnacles, spotting squid, a variety of butterfly fish and lots of pretty corals. We returned to the hotel at about two o’clock feeling carefree as can be, passing the remainder of the afternoon talking, reading and steadily forgetting about the rest of the world.
On April 2nd, our birthday, we had two fun dives scheduled and by about ten o’clock we were into our first dive which ended up being mediocre because the amount of fine particles in the water reduced the visibility to five meters or less. The second dive was all about corals and boy did we see a ton! Like an underwater rainforest just eight or nine meters under water. It is fascinating to see the interaction of fish with the different corals, using them for protection, camouflage or food. Upon our return to our resort mid afternoon, we continued our 24th birthday celebration with the better part of the bottle of Patron anejo, a bottle of champagne, a delicious grouperfish beachfront dinner topped off with chocolate cake (which we shared with a few eager kids). They dimmed the outdoor lights and sang happy birthday to us before we blew out the candles, it was wonderful.
I won’t bore you or purposely make you envious of our perfect birthday retreat, but it was mainly spent relaxing on our secluded bungalow porch and on the beach listening to each tiny wave bat the sand, the crinkle of a dry leaf falling to the ground, the creak and rustle of the wind playing in the trees with the birds’ sweet songs - this is paradise. We also got a ride to a disappointing dry season waterfall, a private firefly river boat tour under the moonless sky, a painfully good Thai massage and got lots of Thai language practice with the friendly Cambodian staff members. Saying goodbye to Koh kood was hard after five days (I’m a sucker for endings) but we knew it was time to move on...to another island but not before making a stop in Bangkok along the way.
The journey from Trat to Bangkok was pretty painless and we got a room in the heart of the city easily enough. After booking sleeper bus followed and an early morning ferry to Koh Tao, we got an early nights sleep. We spent following the day shopping and exploring parts of Bangkok’s Siam Center that we had missed our first time around. It was really impressive; the Siam Center is three parts ultra hip (and ultra expensive!) mall and one part museum, one part movie theatre complex and one part special event venue. They merge high tech advertisements, revolving exhibits on different themes and high class shopping all under one huge roof. The exhibit we browsed was centered around deconstructionism, or breaking down seemingly evident conceptions and designs in fields ranging from fashion, art, architecture and beyond. We also witnessed a group breakdance competition and a crowd of screaming teenage girls outside the mall waiting for a boy band to appear on stage. After an early dinner, we boarded our cockroach infested “sleeper” bus, arriving at the ferry terminal at three in the morning and desperately trying to catch an hour of sleep before our seven o’clock ferry. Once we were herded onto the ferry we both couldn’t help but fall asleep.
The journey from Trat to Bangkok was pretty painless and we got a room in the heart of the city easily enough. After booking sleeper bus followed and an early morning ferry to Koh Tao, we got an early nights sleep. We spent following the day shopping and exploring parts of Bangkok’s Siam Center that we had missed our first time around. It was really impressive; the Siam Center is three parts ultra hip (and ultra expensive!) mall and one part museum, one part movie theatre complex and one part special event venue. They merge high tech advertisements, revolving exhibits on different themes and high class shopping all under one huge roof. The exhibit we browsed was centered around deconstructionism, or breaking down seemingly evident conceptions and designs in fields ranging from fashion, art, architecture and beyond. We also witnessed a group breakdance competition and a crowd of screaming teenage girls outside the mall waiting for a boy band to appear on stage. After an early dinner, we boarded our cockroach infested “sleeper” bus, arriving at the ferry terminal at three in the morning and desperately trying to catch an hour of sleep before our seven o’clock ferry. Once we were herded onto the ferry we both couldn’t help but fall asleep.
We arrived to tiny Koh Tao groggy and excited to begin diving the next day. The island itself reminds me of a miniature Kauai, a rapidly changing paradise with picture perfect sunsets just about every night. Easily in reach of Bangkok, it is a divers garden of eden and thats exactly what we spent about half of the week here doing. The first full day we spent half of it diving in crystal blue water with our young Aussie dive master, Kevin. The clarity of the water with almost 100ft of visibility, vividness of the coral colors and sheer variety of fish we saw convinced us to pursue our advanced open water certification through Crystal Dive shop beginning the next morning.
On the first day, we covered underwater navigation basics and a course titled peak buoyancy which helps you hone your hovering abilities, gets you comfortable upside down and teaches you different styles of kick cycles for efficient propulsion. The next day we finished our first deep water dive, going nearly 100 feet underwater in perfect 100ft of visibility. I think this dive will always be my favorite because it introduced me to what we’ve been missing and we were blessed with the clearest waters for both this dive at southwest pinnacles and our first wreck dive. Malu, our Dutch dive instructor, said she had never been to either site with better visibility which is somewhat of a bummer because now Megan and I will forever be comparing our other dives to what we saw that day. After a shallower third and final dive focused on fish identification and data collection, we went to go finalize our certification at the dive shop and celebrated that night by booking two fun dives for the following day. They were great but just not up to par with the previous day’s dives (of course). It was a lot of fun getting to know the dive masters, masters in training and instructors Kevin, Alex and Malu and we ended up partying with them for Buddhist new year (Songkran). Besides a lot of trigger happy children with squirting us with their water guns, I was playfully slapped in the face with a chalky sun protection powder (Burmese tradition) by our dive boat captain. In the evening we watched talented fire twirlers and danced among drunk dive masters and divers alike.
The rest of our Koh Tao stay was spent eating good food of every variety, reading, and getting used to the ever abrasive feeling of sand all the time (I know, paradise problems). We departed to Koh Phangan a week after arriving in Koh Tao and were greeted with two days of steady rain. On the boat ride over, I befriended a guy who was quirky and greasy named Benito, a substitute teacher from Montreal with a leftover Indian accent from his extensive travels. When he’s not enjoying travelling, he’s not enjoying his work he says and only puts up with it to travel as much as possible, with a six month stay planned for Phangan. Made me hope that I can find a field of work that I can be in the future so I can enjoy both of those parts of my life.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot to do on an island when its raining so we cruised through a few books. Phangan reminds us of a larger, more spread out Koh Chang, complete with the dozens of bars to cater to the always present partiers. Our resort is pretty cool, set up right against a narrow beach with shallow sand extending out at least 100 yards into the ocean where the locals walk around grazing for tiny shellfish. Thursday, April 18th was our first full day of sun and we were lucky enough to have nothing but sun for the remainder of our stay here. We took advantage of it immediately and rented a scooter for four days to explore the very hilly island’s many beaches. The highlight of this for me was when we visited the full moon beach neighborhood, to sunset beach. It was here where we invaded a resort beach and I met a group of Israelis who invited me to a game of two on two beach volleyball, Top Gun style. My partner and I lost after a grueling game that ended up a score of 22-24 and me exhausted and sweating profusely. We ate a memorable meal of real caprese salad and chicken shawarma before doing a bit of shopping in Haad Rin town. One morning, while eating breakfast at our favorite cafe, Nira’s, an older Polish couple stuck up conversation with us quite suddenly. We learned that our travels had mimicked each other’s almost exactly, as they had started in Thailand, continued into Laos, Vietnam and then Cambodia before meeting us. It was a lot of fun swapping travel stories and getting motorbike advice from a lifetime motocross rider. They were just getting ready to head home after three months and it made me, for one of the first times, start to miss home.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot to do on an island when its raining so we cruised through a few books. Phangan reminds us of a larger, more spread out Koh Chang, complete with the dozens of bars to cater to the always present partiers. Our resort is pretty cool, set up right against a narrow beach with shallow sand extending out at least 100 yards into the ocean where the locals walk around grazing for tiny shellfish. Thursday, April 18th was our first full day of sun and we were lucky enough to have nothing but sun for the remainder of our stay here. We took advantage of it immediately and rented a scooter for four days to explore the very hilly island’s many beaches. The highlight of this for me was when we visited the full moon beach neighborhood, to sunset beach. It was here where we invaded a resort beach and I met a group of Israelis who invited me to a game of two on two beach volleyball, Top Gun style. My partner and I lost after a grueling game that ended up a score of 22-24 and me exhausted and sweating profusely. We ate a memorable meal of real caprese salad and chicken shawarma before doing a bit of shopping in Haad Rin town. One morning, while eating breakfast at our favorite cafe, Nira’s, an older Polish couple stuck up conversation with us quite suddenly. We learned that our travels had mimicked each other’s almost exactly, as they had started in Thailand, continued into Laos, Vietnam and then Cambodia before meeting us. It was a lot of fun swapping travel stories and getting motorbike advice from a lifetime motocross rider. They were just getting ready to head home after three months and it made me, for one of the first times, start to miss home.