MB & J

March 6, 2007

Thailand is Freakin' Sweet

Where to start? Thailand is freakin' sweet! We arrove in Bangkok at 3:45 AM Saturday morning. We slept for a couple of hours but were anxious to get out in the city. There wasn't an itinerary which we planned to follow, so our first stop was at the suggestion of our cab driver in transit from the airport to our hotel; Chatuchak Weekend Market. I am not much of a shopping person, but this market was awesome. It was slammed with small booths full of really cool stuff including tee shirts, backpacks, home accessories, sunglasses, paintings and so much more. The kicker was that everything was wicked cheap. This wasn't just your average flea market kind of place either, the products were all fairly unique. We didn't see the same thing twice throughout the entire market. My favorite purchase was a Lowe Alpine backpack for 600 Baht (that's about $18, for the lay person). It's a Sirocco II 50+15, which is small and could be a womans pack, but will be perfect for some short backpacking trips where I plan to stay in shelters. Or will double as a pack for MB if we go hiking together. MB is really tired of hearing about this buy, I've gone on and on about how cheap we got that pack. We also purchased some really cool tee shirts, some cheap sunglasses and straw hats. Next stop was the Grand Palace. The architecture is pretty cool, but its also extremely gaudy. Mostly covered with gold and shiny metals. The richness is part of the whole idea and it is certainly an experience to see. This is also the home of The Emerald Buddha. Thailand has a mostly Buddist population. Thailand has the most pride in their government, king, and country that I have ever seen in a country. At least Bangkok was that way. Throughout the city there were people selling yellow polo shirts with a Thai crest over the heart and everybody was wearing them too. We were told that this is in celebration of the Kings 80th birthday, which was in December but people will buy the shirts in honor of him for the entire year. His picture or a likeness of him is all over the country, he is a really popular guy. That evening we chilled by the 11th floor outdoor hotel pool and bar. The next day we had a similar routine, we liked the weekend market so much we went back and stayed for most of the day. However, before the market, we went downtown to look for a new digital camera, the LCD screen on ours got cracked somehow. It turned out that our camera was taking pictures just fine but we couldn't see them, so we ended up just getting a 2 gig memory card instead of a totally new camera. The travel books say that cameras are super cheap in Thailand, but we found that they were only about $100-$150 cheaper than the US. After the market we went to sightsee another temple. Then back to the hotel for food and drinks.

Koh Lanta

After 48 hours in the big city of Bangkok, I was bored with shopping and Buddist temples. I was ready for beaches, blue water, and ice cold beer. Southern Thailand is a narrow strip of land bordered on either side by the Andaman Sea to the west and Gulf of Siam to the east. There are dozens of small islands in both bodies of water. In one word it's Paradise. We stayed at the Baan Lanta Resort on a Kan Tiang Bay on the island of Yai Lanta. We spent the next six lazy days outdoor adventuring and eating. There were several highlights: scuba diving, snorkling, kayaking, hiking, the evening fish grill, Lanta Laanta Festival and all the cool people we met. The biggest highlight for me was scuba diving. I was actually pretty hesitant about going, because it has been 5 years since our last scuba adventure. I wasn't sure if we would remember everything and do everything right. There's not a whole lot of room for error when you are 18 meters under water. Just the gear itself is intimidating. MB finally talked me into it. We did a short refresher course with the dive shop in the pool the day before our actual scuba day. This really helped my confidence level and all that knowledge rushed back. Our guide and coach was a french guy named Greg. He was also teaching a girl named Camilla from London, who was getting her open water certification while on a 2 week vacation with her husband Jonathan (already certified). We enjoyed talking with them, they were a fun couple to meet and chat with. So we were off to Koh Haa, a grouping of very small uninhabited islands about and hours boat ride from Kan Tiang Bay. Our first dive was about an hour to a max depth of 18.2 meters. We saw lots of beautiful fish, underwater plants and coral. Upon reaching the bottom we immediately saw a sea turtle. Greg pointed out the dangerous scorpion fish along the way. We also saw a couple of clownfish, which if you've seen Finding Nemo is the kind of fish that Nemo was. Our second dive was also about an hour long to a max depth of 12 meters. We saw a lionfish, a couple of porcupine pufferfish, giant moray eel, trumpet fish and moorish idols. These of course are just naming a few, we saw tons of different kinds of fish. I enjoy seeing them all plus all the vegetation, but these listed are the ones that the regular divers seemed to be the most excited about seeing. It's something from another world to be swiming deep in the sea among these tropical fish. I have a renewed passion for scuba diving. I was able to rent an underwater camera and took a ton of pictures. It is hard to pick up all the vivid colors of the underwater world without actually being there, but some of them came out pretty good.

Another day we went snorkling, which is almost as good as scuba diving. MB and I rented masks, snorkles and fin from the dive shop and took off on our own just around the bend from our own Kan Tiang Bay. One day we took the free kayak out and paddled around the area viewing the beautiful sea, mountains just behind the beach and cliffs jutting up from the water. Another day we rented a scooter and rode all over the island. We first went down a long dusty road to a trailhead to hike to a waterfall. Little did we know that the water actually only falls during the rainy season. So the waterfall was just a trickle, but that didn't matter because it was a beautiful walk through the jungle of Koh Lanta. We had heard about the Lanta Laanta festival, but originally thought the dates were different. As it turned out, the festival was going on while we were there. During the scooter day we came upon everyone setting up booths in Lanta Old Town on the east side of the island. Since we had the scooter we decided to go back at night, during the festivities, and see what it was all about. There were tons of booths for clothes, food, games, art and much more. There was live music and some kind of play which we couldn't tell what was happening. It was packed with both locals and tourists, all having a great time together. The restaurant at Baan Lanta was fabulous. Every night a little after dark they would load up an old small wooden boat with ice and the days fresh catch. There was a huge selection each night: king mackeral, red snapper, white snapper, tuna, squid, crab, tiger prawn, shrimp, baracuda and more. Basically my evening meal was decided as I strolled up to the outdoor beach side restaurant by picking which fish I wanted and telling the grillmaster how he should prepare it. It was glorious.

The Thai culture is one to be admired. They have a unique style in architecture and food, at least from my experiences. We truly enjoyed our short time there and found it very hard to leave.

Check out the pictures in the photo gallery.