Island Paradise

My home for the last month was Haad Yuan Beach on the island of Koh Phangan. What is it like to live on an island? Here are some pictures of my life in paradise for the last month.

Here is Haad Tien Bay and Haad Yuan Bay behind it. The bays are perfect for swimming and cooling off on hot days. Our first week on the island we hiked up to this viewpoint as we explored our new home.

Sunrise walks made for good days and fun photography.

Koh Phangan is really known for its full moon parties. Thousands of travelers (literally 6,000 revelers) gather on Haad Rin beach to get drunk and party all night long. I had to check it out!

Once they get drunk, they get silly and try to do stupid things like jumping ropes of fire. We have been seeing backpackers with burns on their legs from this for months now!

Getting to Haad Rin involved an arduous hike through the jungle. Luckily, this viewpoint provides a much needed break where you can rest and catch your breath.

Other fun activities include hula hoop Sundays and all night long raves at Eden, the local bar in Had Yuan.

Of course we had to eat and one of our favorite places was The Bamboo Huts.  Can you spot Ali doing her yoga homework?

These are the wonderful ladies at The Bamboo Huts that prepared so many of our meals. Notice the mud they put on their face. That is the locals' idea of sunblock.

 So here we leave you with the wonderful view from Bamboo that made the perfect setting for our meals. I am sure we will miss this when we are hiking through the freezing Himalayas.

How to get to our secret little island retreat

Alison signed up for yoga teacher training in Haad Yuan, a beach area in the island of Koh Phangan. So how do you get to Haad Yuan? Pretty easy. First take a flight to Bangkok. After spending a few days there this is the odyssey you must follow:

First a minivan will pick you up at your guesthouse. Ours happened to pick us up at four in the morning. Everybody and their luggage will be packed like sardines on the van.

The van took us to the airport. At the airport we had to get on a bus to board our plane. 

The bus took us to one of hundreds of planes lined up in the tarmac. Air Asia has an impressive fleet. Here we could board our plane.

No fancy ads on this airplane. It almost could have been a southwest airlines flight.

We landed on a small airport on the south of the mainland. We were the only plane there. Still morning time.

Here we would hop on a bus that would take us to the ferry terminal.

Lets hop on the bus with the funky colors for a magic trip.

Once the bus dropped us off at the ferry terminal we would wait a couple of hours for this rust bucket to arrive. After lunch and a nap this ferry would take us to the island. 

Ah Thong Sala is within sight. We are getting close!

Close but not there yet. At the pier in Thong Sala we had to hop into an island taxi. Basically a pick up truck with benches in the back. Off to Haad Rin.

Once we arrived at Haad Rin we would have to hop on a water taxi. The water taxi is a long tail boat that would take us to Haad Yuan.

The journey was long, after one minivan, 2 buses, one airplane, 2 boats and a tuk-tuk, it took us all day to arrive to Haad Yuan. Looking around it was clearly worth the hassle even if we are tired and hungry. Too bad we did not find open rooms the night we got there...

Rest and play in Bangkok

After visiting a bunch of temples and museums we needed some fun. Here is what we did:

We went to the floating market. Bangkok used to be called the Venice of Asia and a lot of business used to be done in these markets.

Ali went on a shopping spree. No worries, when custom made shoes cost less than a six pack of beer this was not a financial disaster.

Mackerel anyone?

The spirit of the floating markets lives on here. Talk about point and pick food.

Our tour to the floating market included a boat ride to see fireflies and upon return we found this traffic jam. 

After the floating market Ali needed yoga to recover.

The shopping spree continued. Since I imagine some day I will need a job, I decided to get a custom tailored suit. How could I not, since the whole suit cost me less than renting a suit in the US for just one day and should look better than ever.

We took an easy day off to go to an amusement/water park with the Musik family.

Where we would get devoured by a lion and puked out by a panther.

We went on some pretty crazy rides. Notice there are no lines or crowds? Take that Disneyland.

The water slides made this my first water park ever.

I caught air while sliding down the 7 story tall speed slides - the tallest in South Asia.

And of course we had cartoon celebrities like… maybe my sis knows who this is.

Thai kitty says goodbye and chillax. 

The Temples of Bangkok

After arriving to Bangkok and selling the bikes we spent some time visiting the temples and museums like most tourists. Here are some pictures of the temples and architecture of Bangkok.

We stayed in the Phra Nakhon District in Bangkok. Within walking distance we could walk along the river and see the Santi Chai Prakan Pavillion shown above.

The Phra Sumen Fort was close to our accommodations and delighted us every night. 

We visited the royal palace. This is where the royal family used to live until they moved to a better neighborhood.

The place is amazing and Ali is clearly having a good time.

The walls are painted with gold leaf telling stories that mix religion, mythology, and history about the Thai people.

Of course the whole place is dedicated to Buddha. There is no official state religion in the Thai constitution, which guarantees religious freedom for all Thai citizens, though the king is required by law to be a Theravada Buddhist.

I found even the bell towers to be magnificent.

One temple is dedicated to the Emerald Buddha. The story goes that this Buddha was covered in plaster until it was struck by lightning and the Buddha was revealed. The Buddha has three sets of gold clothing and quite an amazing story.

There are many museums in the Royal Palace. We went to the the Royal Textile Museum as well as the Thai Historic Weapons Museum. No photography allowed in the museums so you miss out.

I leave you with the artsy picture of the week. Bye.

Getting to Bangkok

After crossing the border at Vientiane we cycled towards Bangkok. The roads in Thailand are in great shape for road bikes and the air quality was more suited for any form of highly aerobic transportation.

We made our way from the border to Udon Thani. The city was definitely busier than Laos and was a preview of what was coming.

We found this dinosaur museum in the middle of nowhere. We decided not to pay the entrance fee as it appeared not a single sign was in English.

Now that is a cool sidecar!

We randomly found the Seven Day Resort while cycling in the middle of nowhere. The day was getting really hot so we decided to stay.

We got our own private villa and dinner for less than a dinner deal at Chili’s.

Our next destination was the city, Chaiyapum.  Our restaurant there had such delectables as shown above.

We knew we had arrived at a fancy hotel when the silverware was wrapped. Nevermind the fact that it is wrapped in toilet paper. 

As we got closer to Bangkok the roads got busier and the shoulders narrow. Combined with 93F/34C and high humidity weather we decided it was safer and best to take a luxurious double decker bus. With our second level/front window view we could see we made the right decision.

So this was the last ride we took. It was an insane 10 km from the bus station to the hotel.  We stopped at the Queen’s garden to smell the roses (and for a map check) as it was the craziest biking we had ever done: cars, 100’s of scooters, pedestrians, traffic, tuk tuks, and road construction.  A few hours after we arrived at the hotel we would sell our bikes to eager buyers on Craigslist and our biking adventure came to its end.

We rode a total of 1100 km/684 mi and climbed 9134 m/30,000 ft in Thailand and Laos. That is as much climbing as an average jetliner does for a cross country flight. Best of all we had a great time and a great adventure.