The Big Thailand Post

Salinger strikes again after months of inactivity. What can I say? Both my father and Liz's mother asked where the hell my blog had gone, and my father even said something about how he has to follow my life via Rachel Ready. Incidentally, some of the Thailand photos over there were taken by yours truly (passive voice intended), but I leave it to you to sort out which ones. My photos are all in a slide show at the end of this post.

Our two-week trip went as follows: flight out of Macau to Phuket (stopover/customs in Bangkok). Spent a few days in a Swede-infested beach community in Phuket before grabbing a bus over to Krabi Town. Stayed in Krabi Town for a night, then took a boat to lovely Ko Lanta ("Koh" means island in Thai). Crashed at two different beaches on the western and southern coasts of Ko Lanta, then took a bus back up to Krabi and, from there, a car up into a somewhat mountainous, more forested, non-beachy, and less-Swedish area called Phanom Bencha. Enjoyed Phanom Bencha for a night, then back down to Krabi where we booked a bus-then-boat trip across the straight to Surat Thani City on the east coast, and on to Ko Phan-nga. We tried two different places in Phan-nga before ferrying back to Surat Thani for our flight home. As an overview for people that don't know me but happen to stumble across this entry: I and my two traveling companions (Liz and Rachel) are all somewhat experienced travelers, though none of us had been to Thailand or Southeast Asia before (Liz and I currently live in China); we were traveling on a shoestring in February (second most expensive time of year in Thailand, just after peak season); we were not interested in party hotspots or in being overly-backpacker (despite the fact we all had backpacks); we were not looking for anything too spiritual or back-to-nature; we sought out more relaxed places instead of areas known for transvestites and psychedelic drugs; we never booked anything more than a day or two in advance, save for our first hotel in Phuket; and we prefer eating good, authentic, and spicy Thai food.

First, Phuket Island (pronounced "poo-ket"). Phuket Island is roughly the size of Singapore, and is perhaps the original Thai beach resort destination. I found it to be overdeveloped, expensive, and full of Swedish people. Personally I wanted to leave from the moment we got there, but in retrospect it was probably a pretty good way to start the whole trip: we got Mexican food; we sat on a really nice, somewhat crowded beach (Hat Kata...FYI, "Hat" means beach in Thai) for about four hours; and the din of tour buses and unhappy Swedish children made me appreciate every other, better place we visited. Initially we didn't want to go to Phuket, but friends of ours gave us the impression that going to Southern Thailand without going to Phuket would be like going to Fenway and not singing "Sweet Caroline" - it's just something that you've got to do, no matter how kitschy and overdone you find the experience.

We went immediately from Phuket airport via minibus (note: take a taxi instead - it's worth it unless you're traveling alone, and probably WAY faster) to northern Hat Kata, where we had booked a room at a place called Fantasy Hill Bungalow. The internet reviews said this place was nice, though there were complaints that it was at the top of an epic hill and that you might need a sherpa and some oxygen containers to make the ascent. Okay, I am exaggerating about the complaints, but let me say that this place was FINE. The hill took about 30 seconds to walk up and was not very steep. FHB felt off the main road (in a good way); the proprietor was nice; the rooms were clean and affordable; and the breakfasts were completely adequate. My only minor complaint is that it is a bit of a slog to get to the beach, but then again so is everything in Kata besides Club Med.

After some discussion, we decided the best course of action was to stay in Hat Kata for two nights and then leave for the greener pastures of nearby Krabi province. We caught a songthaew (basically a covered pickup truck with benches on the sides) to the Phuket Town bus station, and from there easily got a bus over to Krabi Town. Lonely Planet and other guide books crap all over Krabi Town, essentially saying that you shouldn't spend any time there unless you are forced to do so. Well, go to hell Lonely Planet and other guide books - I really liked the place. Sure, it lacks charm and is sort of a small, non-descript stop-over town, but it has some really redeeming qualities: a great, cheap used bookstore (located downtown, on the street that runs along the river/bay); a cheap, clean, and VERY affordable hotel located next to said bookstore; a really cool night market that pops up on the weekends; and, speaking as a denizen of barbecue (both American and Asian), Krabi has a fantastic outdoor barbecue at night, right on the water next to one of the ports. Plus, I got up really early in the morning (for some unknown reason), went for a walk, and saw a family of rabble-rousing monkeys that appeared to live in or around the roof of a house near the aforementioned barbecue. MONKEYS! Yup, I got everything I could have hoped for out of Krabi Town.

After booking our ferry tickets the night we arrived in Krabi Town, we hopped on a very crowded boat destined for Ko Lanta (technically called Ko Lanta Yai, the more popular and southernmost of the two Ko Lantas). The boat, about the size of a double-decker bus, was somewhat pleasant. It was a very nice day and the crew let the passengers splay out on the uncovered deck and watch the Islets, fishing junks, and long boats go by. Unfortunately the boat was so stuffed with people that it was near impossible to get our bags once the boat docked in Saladan, but what is a minor inconvenience when you're on your way to miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers) of pristine beaches?

For our first night, we booked a couple bungalows at the Kantiang Bay Beach Resort, located (appropriately enough) in Kantiang Bay. The resort (basically a handful of adequate bamboo bungalows, priced around 700THB/night, and handsome concrete cottages, all right on or very close to the water) and Kantiang Bay in general were nice, quiet, and clean, except that the three of us agreed that perhaps we had overshot the "relaxed" beach target and had found a place that was downright sleepy. The beach itself was nice but not spectacular (Thailand has high standards), the place had a sort of overly-isolated feel, and the restaurant options were severely limited. In fact, we ate at this place (it had some sort of whimsical, seafaring name, like the Drunken Sailor or Jolly Skipper) which has something that I, a man that stands at six-feet-four-inches tall, loathe: cute seating arrangements. In addition to normal tables and chairs (which were all full when we arrived, and in a less appealing part of the restaurant), they have small, low tables with beanbags instead of chairs, or small, low tables with low-hanging chairs fastened by ropes to the ceiling. This adorable crap drives me bananas. How the hell am I supposed to make this work? How the hell am I supposed to drink one of their overpriced beers and eat one of their admittedly tasty burgers when I don't know where to put my freakishly long legs? They should have yoga lessons on the appetizers menu. I ended up waiting for the people next to us to leave so I could steal a beanbag to stack on top of my beanbag, thereby allowing me to sit in a reasonable position at a reasonable height with my reasonable plate of reasonable western food on my reasonable lap. All this reasonableness aside, we left the next day and went to my favorite place on the trip: Ao Phra Ae, a.k.a. Long Beach.

We arranged for a songthaew to drop us off next to the access road for Long Beach, then hoofed it up the beach until we found a place that struck our fancy. I can't recall the name of the place, but it - like many other beachfront resorts - had mixture of traditional-looking, two-person bamboo huts, as well as the more redoubtable yet spacious, modern concrete affairs. We went for the concrete because there were three of us and it made more fiscal, groupthink sense to band together.

I have nothing but positive things to say about Ko Lanta's Long Beach: the beach was gorgeous (; there were a lot of people around but never enough to make the place feel crowded; and it wasn't too expensive. The food was sort of a mixed bag...our favorite place was called The Funky Fish (I think), which was right on the water, served good Thai and western food, and made good drinks. We had everything there, from pizza, breakfast, and buckets of liquor to one of the spiciest Thai curries I'd ever had. We also had a really awful meal at another place, but why dwell on the negative?

The three of us decided to take an all-day snorkeling trip, chartered through one of the travel agencies on Long Beach. Side note on Thai travel agencies: in my limited experience, the travel agencies all tend to be about the same, selling the same trips for comparable prices while trying to gouge you into buying something more expensive. As far as I know, most of them aren't trying to straight-up swindle you. The trips are real, the tickets are real, and the prices they quote you are probably fair. And by fair, I mean to say that they won't try to charge you more than the next travel agency right down the street. My advice is to shop around when you first arrive in a given town, pick a place run by someone who at least seems nice, and then to go back to that same place for bike rentals, trips, bus tickets, etc. As with anywhere, the promise of future exchanges of money for goods and services tends to keep things both amicable and on the level.

Anyway, back to the snorkeling. I can't recall the price for the trip, but something in the neighborhood of $20 seems to ring a bell. We chose to go for the cheaper "slowboat" snorkeling trip; however, because there were not too many folks going snorkeling, the company chose to take everyone out on the speedboat. This was good because we would get to visit more dive spots, but bad because the boat would be more crowded. The speedboat was also being used to ferry people between different island resorts, so when we initially got on the boat with a bunch of snorkeling gear, there were a bunch of upset-looking Swedish families, angry that their transport was delayed. I was angry that they had so much stuff with them and took all the good seats, so let's call it even.

While snorkeling we saw all kinds of fish, coral reefs (shouldn't the plural be coral reeves?), bats living in small caves in nearby karsts, and lots of lovely scenery.

After a day of snorkeling, we decided to get away from the beach (begone with you, damned pristine beach!) and go up to a cool park area called Phanom Bencha. We stayed at the Phanom Bencha Mountain Resort, which advertised a beautiful, more secluded setting, fewer tourists, delicious food, and guided tours. I'm pleased to report that they followed through on all accounts except for the guided tour: when we arrived, we told them we wanted a tour the following morning. The evening prior at dinner we met our tour guide, who also happened to work at the resort restaurant. As was our habit during our trip, we had a few drinks and called it a night early; our guide was still up carousing with who I think must be the resort's owners (some foreigners to whom I did not speak). The next morning, we went down to meet our guide and were told he had a family emergency and had left early in the morning. Maybe he did. Maybe someone was actually sick. To me, the whole thing seemed fishy, but what can you say when they tell you there was a family emergency?

We decided to go hiking in the jungle on our own, in an area in the mountains behind the resort. It was very beautiful and hot. Unfortunately Liz and I had already hiked around on some of the paths the night before (we saw a trained monkey retrieving some sort of fruit for his owners!) and Rachel realized that she wasn't that into hiking; therefore, since we did not know where we were going, we hiked for about an hour, came back, packed up, and got the hell out of there.

Now, I don't want to undersell Phanom Bencha Mountain Resort, because it is really beautiful, quiet, and mostly devoid of tourists. We also really like the small but refreshing stream-fed pool, with its stunning views of the forest and mountains. However, I want to make one thing very clear to anyone who stumbles across this blog looking for a review of the place: it is not even remotely close to Phanom Bencha Park. There is at least one giant mountain between PBMR and the park. A guy at the resort told us it was at a four-hour hike to even get to the park. Your options for accessing the park are to either arrange for a car to drive you there and back (which I think would have cost in the neighborhood of 800 THB) or rent motorbikes. Those extra fees, added onto the park entrance fee, the price of the resort (1300 THB for a four-person bungalow - much more expensive than your cheapo beach accommodation), possibly hiring a guide, and the cost of getting yourself all the way out to PBMR in the first place make this a somewhat pricey excursion. For us, I think it was very underwhelming, though that was due in large part to the somewhat shady lack of an available tour guide. I will always remember the Phanom Bencha area as a beautiful, unsullied setting surrounded by rubber trees, and will try to forget about how disappointing the resort was.

We went directly to the Krabi Town bus station, said goodbye to the Andaman coast, and booked a bus-ferry package across the straight and out to Ko Phangan, an island in the Gulf of Thailand best known for the Full Moon Party (more on that in a bit). The first bus was pretty quick and painless, unless your name happened to be Rachel. We got to Surat Thani, had to do some frantic bus-changing on the side of a busy road, and not-so-promply drove for another 45 minutes to a port south of Surat Thani. Finally, we were ready to get on the boat, along with about 1,000 Australians, United Kingdomers (?), and Frathouse kids who were jacked, pumped, and stoked to take a bunch of hallucinogens and go the Full Moon Party. We had heard of the Full Moon Party at Hat Rin: go, take something that will make you see elves and wizards, dance to drum and base until 6am, and try not to get hit in the face by someone spinning fire or shooting off bottle rockets. Fortunately for us, we had all been to Renn Fayre before and didn't feel the need to put ourselves into an altered state.

All 1,003 of us plodded onto the massive ferry like cattle being led to the slaughter. The ferry was also mostly quick and painless, save for our possibly drunk ferry captain not being able to dock the boat in the slip for about 20 minutes. After disembarking, Rachel arranged for transport to a decent beachside resort on the Northwestern portion of the island, a.k.a. as far away as possible from the Full Moon Party. I don't recall much about the this resort, except for the following: we met some nice travellers from Ireland and ended up playing King's Cup with them until the wee hours; we saw a monkey retrieving coconuts from up in a tree, and then opened one of said coconuts and drink the sweet juice within; and we relaxed on the beach and did nothing.

We left after two nights and went to Bottle Beach (a.k.a. Hat Khuad) on the island's northern coast. It was beautiful, secluded, and there was one restaurant right on the beach that we went to every day. As Bottle Beach was our last beach stop before leaving Thailand, we didn't do much: lounged around the pool and on the beach one day; went to the closest port city and had a garlic fish (amazing) another. All in all, it was amazing. I think it was Liz's favorite beach, and my second favorite behind Long Beach on Ko Lanta.



Note: this post was written over the course of an embarrassing number of months. Liz's computer died and we were sharing, making the whole blogging thing very difficult. I apologize if the end (or any other part) seems totally tacked on.