Yes! I am still alive and enjoying my vacation. I know I have not done this in about a week, but hey I had to enjoy the luxuries of paradise. Last time you guys heard I was Chiang Mai. I'm currently back in Bangkok now, enjoying my last days in the unbelievable country of Thailand. So what have been doing this past week? Just enjoying paradise.
So lets go back a week, and give you a taste of what I have been doing. Last Saturday, I went to a Muay Thai fight, one of the coolest fights I have been to, it seemed like anyone could fight. The fighters ranged from what seemed like 10 year old kids, lady fighters, and of course of Thai heavy weights. The next day got to take a half day Thai cooking class. Which was amazing. First off, the class takes you to the local market where you get to learn about all the ingredients of the most popular Thai foods. After about a 20 minute lesson on what to get at that market, it was time for us to get to work. We all got to pick out 3 meals that we wanted to cook. My three were: hot and sour soup, drunken noodles, and jungle curry. Which of course were one of the hottest meals that we could make. So first came the hot and sour soup, the cool thing about the cooking class was that the instructor, who had some jokes, went step by step, from how to cut the vegetables to how to not eat Thai food like a "westerner". So after cutting the vegetables, the heat was turned up and the actual cooking was put into play. Which believe it or not most of the dishes are really easy to make and the ingredients can be found in any supermarket. After cooking the soup, we had the pleasure of enjoying the soup. Next came the laughable drunken noodles, it's called drunken noodles because the dish has a number of different noodles and meats all mixed together rather than the other dishes which only have a certain meats and noodles. After another round of prepping and cooking the ingredients, came another round of eating what we have just made. Lastly came the jungle curry, being one of the hotter curry dishes that you can make, it made me both cry and cough while cooking it due to the number of chilies that are in the dish. Then came again another round of eating. I couldn't believe how much food that we had made. Most of the group, including me, had to take the leftovers home.
After the cooking class, being so full that walking seemed impossible, it was time for me to chill and hang out around the hostel before my flight to Phuket later that night. Before leaving though, I had to check out Chiang Mai's famous Sunday night market. Which is basically a mile long swap meet lining the road of downtown Chiang Mai, and of course the Thai way, they don't close the road. You had to watch your back even when purchasing stuff cause you always had the risk of getting hit.
After a short late night flight to the island of Phuket, the next day I had to endure a 6 hour bus ride to the city of Surat Thani where I was going to take a ferry to the island of Koh Phangan. The bus ride was a great experience, I was the only foreigner on the bus. The bus was usually for locals, stopping at random rural towns throughout the trip. The trip wasn't all bad either, we got to drive through the interior rainforest of Khao Sok National Park. This place was beautiful with gigantic limestone formations and having the rainforest covering the mountains. At some points it felt like at I was in the valley of a green Grand Canyon. I mean like I previously said, the pictures just does not do any justice, but here are some from my ride.
Once getting to Surat Thani, I had a couple of hours to kill until the overnight ferry to Koh Phangan. So why not eat. It's really had to put in full detail how the street vendors really are the best places to eat, and they are on every street and ally way you can find.
Finally I arrived to my destination of Koh Phangan at the wee hours in the morning, even before the sun decided to show up, 5am. This place is, no joke, paradise, with white sandy beaches and crystal clear baby blue waters. This is where I was going to stay for the next four days. Not to mention in my water front beach bungalow. The next four days included nothing but laying out, snorkeling, and reading. But not all was perfect, the first bungalow that I had, I wasn't alone...I seemed to make some new roommates with a couple of rats and cockroaches. I will leave it at that. Haha Lets say I won't ever book with that beach bungalow hotel again. After about three different rooms in one night, I found a bungalow that didn't have either mouses in the walls, mouse poop on the tables, and cockroaches in the bathroom. But after that stressful night all was well.
After a few nights in paradise, my last night ended up being one of Koh Phangan's Half Moon Party. Koh Phangan is known for its world famous crazy Full Moon Party. Basically a party/rave on the beach that lasts all night till 6am. From what I have been told, the number people that attend the Full Moon Party gets up to 30,000 people. The Half Moon Party isn't has big that that, nor is it on the beach. The Half Moon Party is a rave in the middle of the jungle on the island that about 5,000 people attend. So after meeting some people from Austria at dinner, we all decided to go. And it was basically a crazy fun time, after getting all painted in neon colors, we heading to the jungle. At the party, it had two different stages blaring music, with dancers and guys spinning fire balls and fire wands. It was a great time. The next morning however, one word, rough. But I had the day to lay out and recover before once again enduring on another 14 hour journey that included a late night ferry and bus back to Bangkok.
The last three days are going to spent back in Bangkok. Which I'm currently at. I will have one more post about some more Bangkok adventures when I leave on Tuesday. It's crazy to think that I'm at my last few days.
Peace!!
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