Koh Phayam

After leaving Kao Sok, Arwyn and I traveled together to Koh Phayam. We had no plans or reservations but loosely had decided we would hire a bicycle and ride around to find a place to stay. We had a really good time of traveling. It was easy connections and no confusion. The trip included: a ride in the back of a pick up, a van, a bus, a siangthew, a ferry, then a bicycle. We were fortunate that the ferry was delivering a load of mattresses to the island, so we staked them out and had the best seat in the house. 

When we got to Koh Phayam, we executed our plan and hopped on bikes. We got a little lost and were hungry and tired so it got rough for a moment. However,  once finding the beach  we wanted to stay on it was only a matter of walking from one bungalow reception to the next. It is he strangest thing here how people will say "no, we don't have anything," you counter with " are you absolutely sure?" And they will say something like  "well you could stay in bungalows 4 or 7 I guess..." This leaves me wondering if they are truly interested in filling their rooms. Haha. Anyway we ended up with a nice place on the beach. The Sefrieds got in the next afternoon and we met their ferry as it came in. They were able to get a place nextdoor. 

Thaddeus rarely preferred to use the door. 

We had a good time here on this island. It had a different feel to it. A couple of key things: there are no cars on the island, so it's bikes and scooters only. There is also no centralized or provided electricity. So bungalows would run generators for a few hours a day, but otherwise there was none. Our place had electricity from 6 to 11 every night. We spent our time here exploring beaches and cruising around on our scooters. The island's roads were more like bicycle paths, so it felt like you were exploring someone's private ranch. 

Thaddeus would ride in front of us as you see, and on the better parts of the road he got to help me with the throttle. He had a blast!

The Seifried gang left a day before us to head back to the first place we had stayed we got to Thailand and Arwyn and I set to planning where we wereto go. We settled on an island in the Gulf of Thailand called Koh Tao. We arranged our travel, and set out to watch the sunset. 

We had a nice dinner at our bungalows and then walked onto the beach where I set a paper lantern afloat out over the harbor. 

The next morning when leaving, finally saw a couple of Great Hornbill birds in our trees. It was a good start to our travels and next chapter of our trip. 

Koa Sok National Park

Our second stop on the tour was Kao Sok National Park. This is a main Thailand stop mostly due to its beautiful lake but also for its preserved forest which is home to many animals including wild elephants. Thaddeus is pictured below, excited with his new tree house accomodation. 

Arwyn and I opted for a bungalow like this one. The place was situated on a river and was run by a really nice family. It was just the women running the place as the husband was in Bangkok taking part in the protests there. 

We went on a hike on our first day. It was nice. We came across the Banderlog and scooted off when the started to get a little uppity with us. Thank god my sister Kim wasn't with us. 

I was really hoping to find wild elephants; Arwyn was perfectly happy to find the one stray dog roaming the forest and gave him all of our Pringles. 

We stopped for a swim which was refreshing and a little scary too. We had seen the biggest snake I have ever seen outside a zoo only hours earlier nearby. It was black and about 6-8' long. 

The big event of our stay was our day long boat tour of the lake. The longtail boat had serious air leaks in its fuel line and the driver nursed it along the whole time. It only died like three times, which places it in the "acceptable" category for Thailand. 

We stopped midway at a floating station of bungalows. Our guide ordered us lunch and we went for a swim and a kayak. The whole place was "mostly floating" on bamboo rafting. It was a really cool spot. 

We headed up a river to go hiking and caving. We came across some monkeys swimming across. 

After hiking for a while, we came to the main event, which was to go under a mountain through a 2 km cave which followed a river. The water got up to chest deep at times. It was a really great experience. There were bats overhead almost the entire time. Here is Thaddeus preparing to enter. 

A fun boat ride home!

A really special note is that made friends with a German man and his Thai wife. She was a fine chef and ran the best restaurant in town. We went there lost meals and she took us on as her students in her kitchen. She runs a cooking school as well but refused to let us pay. We helped her prepare the curries for the night and helped prepare other dishes too.  Gotta run. 

Our first days in Thailand 2

The next day we watched Thaddeus in the morning so his parents could go for a hike. We got Thai massages and then rented bikes. We went back to the beach and when we were leaving it started to rain. I was riding Thaddeus on the handlebars through a single track jungle trail and he was kicking the leaves and branches out of the way with his feet- all of this in the rain.  It was fun. We rode into the village and took the view in at the dock. 

We found a restaurant that was built on an old uneven pier and had a great dinner. Everyone was happy from our biking adventures. We rode home in the rain and dark and had a genuinely happy time of it. I felt like I was a kid with my bike gang again, only now through the loud jungle sounds and beautiful sights of Thailand. 

Arwyn and I woke early the next morning and went for another spin. We found some ladies cooking on the side of the road and stopped to get breakfast. The ladies watched us with friendly interest as we tried every type of food we ordered, and rendered big smiles when we showed them we liked the food. 

The whole family road into Aonang in an open taxi ( last pic in blog) where Arwyn and I took our first Thai cooking course. It was fun and informative- and we left stuffed with the food we made. 

After the class we walked through the town and checked out the beach. This place is a big jump off point for local islands. Here are all of the boats coming and going with people. It can be seen as the strangest bus station in the world. 

Arwyn talked me into getting a fish pedicure. This is where the fish nibble on your feet to clean and remove dead skin from them. They did a good job on the feet but I thought I was going to die from a solid 20 minutes of tickle torture. Laughing uncontrolably for that long felt good, and taking care of our feet became a secondary benefit. 

That night we went to a fruit market, piling all five of us in a tuk tuk, and tried many strange varieties of fruit. Then we caught a cab home. The open cabs are like pick up trucks fitted with benches inthe back. It was a nice open air ride home in the warm night air.  

First days in Thailand

I have had some technical difficulties with the phone and posting on the blog. It more so boils down to user error but I have deleted this blog post 4 times now before I was able to post it. I am sorry to leave all the readers hanging, but I am now going to try and catch up on our trip by writing shorter posts. 

This is a picture of our place from the sand flats at low tide. Thaddeus, Ben and I went out here on our first day and chased crabs and found these snails that left these cool tracks.  

We woke up the first morning at 5 am to Muslim prayers over loudspeaker from a nearby mosque. It turned out to be one of the highlights of our mornings. We would listen to the prayers, mixed in with the sounds of jungle critters, and go back to sleep. I was able to record them one morning- check out this link:

http://soundcloud.com/akaiser98/morning-prayers/s-DGbGE

We all walked to a nearby beach. 

It was very secluded. We had to walk through plantation land, around a closed gate and then down a 100 ft cliff, but it was nice. We watched the sunset and enjoyed the view from a stone arched lookout point. 

We had a way to go to get home so we decided to hitchhike and were lucky to get picked up by some Germans staying in our place. We all rode together in the bed of their truck. 

More to follow tomorrow. For now, they are turning the generator off at our bungalows so I must post before the power goes out. 

Off to Southeast Asia

Well Arwyn and I are back on the road. Since our last post we have spent some good time back home with our families. 

We left on Monday night at 8:30 pm after Mr. Rogers made us a hearty bar b que dinner. 

We flew on  a Turkish Airlines flight to Kuala Lampur via Istanbul, Turkey. It was a tiring 12 hour flight to Istanbul and due to a mix up, we had a 16 hour layover. We spoke to the airline and they gave us a really nice hotel and transfered us to and from the airport. 

We had a nice dinner, some strong tea, and bought some Turkish delight to take with us. 

From Istanbul to KL was another 10 hours and we saw the sunrise over the mountains in Asia, diverted course to avoid a country's airspace in the Middle East, and flew over India. 

It took us around 38 hours traveling to get to Kuala Lampur. We made it to our guest house in KL just after midnight and crashed. When I awoke  at 3:30 am I met Autumn and Thaddeus in the hallway as they were just arriving. 

We toured around KL the next day and I saw so many old landmarks from my last visit here a couple of years ago when my brother and sister lived here. Arwyn and I snuck out early and grabbed a Malaysian breakfast of roti and curry with the famous te tarrik, a strong sweet tea. 

We went to some markets, ate in a local food court and just walked around, spending time together. We then caught a 9:30 pm train to Thailand, duration 15 hours. Off the train the next day at around 2 pm the next day due to delays. Then we hiked across town to the bus station and caught a 5 hour bus to Krabi. I had arranged for a taxi to grab us off the bus in Krabi and from there it was only a 30 minute drive to our guest house. We really worked hard to get here. We all had our moments but I have to say that the one who handled the traveling stress the best was Thaddeus, who was perfectly content to sit on a train for 15 hours (his favorite part of the trip so far).