Koh Phangan
We stayed on this little Thai island for three nights. It is about an hour ferry ride away from Koh Samui and known for it's full moon parties. We aren't really sure where the whole full moon party idea started, other than random backpackers creating it years and years ago, but this has now morphed this whole island into a moon party haven. Literally, there is a "moon party" every week. It goes full moon, half moon, black moon, half moon, full moon in weekly cycles, meaning any week you arrive on Koh Phangan you are likely arriving in time for a big party!
We had a really nice resort, right on the beach. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't that great. Our first day was mainly filled with travelling from Koh Samui over on the ferry, and by the time we had our selves all organized and down to the pool, the rain started! We've done pretty well for weather thus far, so we can't really complain about a bit of rain!
The next day started off a little nicer, but ended the same way--rain!! We managed to go for a nice beach walk around our resort, and then ended up taking the afternoon off to relax, like most of the Thais. The second night on the island, our resort had a big pool party. Like we said above, this whole island is known as a party haven (a quite beautiful party haven, at that!!) and our resort is known as the "original" pool party location. It was quite humerous to watch the backpackers party away into the wee hours of the morning. It was pouring throughout the entire pool party, but that didn't stop most from entering the pool!
Our third day we checked out the beach that has the full moon parties. It is a beautiful crescent of white sand, about 5km long. The waves were very very intense, but it was a relaxing beach day none the less. That evening we put on all the neon clothes we could muster (the parties are under black light), painted ourselves up in glow in the dark paint and headed into the jungle to experience a half moon party. It was really like a disco in the jungle--dance floors, bars and DJs located all around. It was quite an experience to go. We estimate likely 3000+ people were there. The party begins around midnight-1am and goes until 10am. We definitely were not there until 10am, but we did see some kids continuing the half moon party in our resort pool when we went for breakfast around 11am the next morning, after we'd had a nights sleep! It was funny, though, cause you start a party in the dark, you definitely aren't thinking about sunscreen. These kids were wearing neon clothes and body paint, and were developing a nice red tinge from now having been in the sun for six+ hours without really realizing it!! All in all, we had a great time and didn't feel all that old!!
We had a very long travel day after the half moon party. Being out on Koh Phangan, it involved a three hour ferry ride to the main land, then an hour and a half bus ride to the nearest town, then another bus ride out to the train station. We started this whole ordeal at noon from our resort, and boarded an 8pm train (that was 2 hours late!!) and arrived into Bangkok around 10am the next day. The overnight train is quite neat. So during the day, there are two seats, but at about 9pm a Thai worker comes around and converts the train carriage into a long bedroom. The bottom bed is a combination of the two day-time seats, and the top bunk falls from the ceiling, turning each two seat area into a bottom and top bunk. The entire carriage is full of these top and bottom bunk areas, which are closed in with curtains, and there are probably twenty or thirty beds in the whole carriage.
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| Had Rin Beach Koh Phangan; Steve is walking with our newly found dog friend! |
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| Pic from the overnight train. You can see the bunks (behind the curtains) and the seats. We will take some other pictures of the overnight train to give you a better idea. |
Bangkok
When we arrived on our overnight train (which was actually quite comfortable!!) and quickly freshened up at the train station. We were scheduled for another overnight train up to Laos the following night, so we just left our stuff in storage at the train station and headed out to explore.
We had really enjoyed our first few days in Bangkok and were happy to spend a bit more time exploring. This time we walked down to the large river through Bangkok and took the local ferry boat up and down the river. This city is absolutely monstrous, so it was a good way to see a few of the sights without spending your whole day in a car. However, the rain decided to stop our agenda--it came down HARD about half-way up the river. We rode the ferry back to our starting point and took the break in the rain to find a restaurant to hide out in till the rain ended. Well, we had a delicious lunch, but the rain didn't stop!! So our back up plan for the day, although not too touristy, was to go to the giant shopping center and see a movie. We saw a silly movie (Journey 2....if anything, it's a renter, but you won't miss anything by not seeing it at all!) but the whole theater experience was incredible. The mall we went to was amazing. All high end stores; they were even selling Ferrari's and Maserati's in the mall! And the theater lived up to this class; we've been to formal theaters in Toronto and New York that aren't as classy as this place! And there was a neat Thai twist to the movie that made it a worthwhile experience: they always tribute the King before each movie, so we got to stand with the other Thais and listen to a few minute song and movie about how wonderful the King was. Very interesting!
We had another delicious dinner in the street (we are definitely going to miss this!) and boarded another night train to North Eastern Thailand at 8pm. We had another great sleep on the train and arrived into Nong Khan, a town that borders Laos, around 830am.
Laos
Getting off the train and over the border involved lots of steps, but wasn't nearly as painful as we had anticipated. It takes about two hours to get all the steps done, and then we arrived on a bus that they said was heading to Vang Vieng, the city we were hoping to get to. Our bus drove into the capital of Laos, and we were told we needed to switch to a different bus. Long story short, that bus was too full, so we got to stand in the rain (again!!) and waited for another bus. Luckily a bus came to get us and we headed off to Vang Vieng....only 120km north of the capital, but estimated to take about 3-4hours! BAH!!
Lonely planet states that the roads are now sealed in Laos, but that the buses are so old they always break down. Well, sealed roads is questionable and our bus definitely did break down! We were lucky to only have to wait for 30 minutes, but about an hour or so later we picked up a bus load heading to Vang Vieng who had been waiting for 2 hours on the side of the road! We arrived into town at about 5pm, after a full day of travel.
Laos is significantly less developed than Thailand, but is a beautiful country. Lots of mountains, forest and beautiful rivers. That's the draw in Vang Vieng--a giant river that you rent tubes and float down. Over the years, numerous bars and attractions have been added to this river, turning it into a party river. We had a great time tubing the river with our new dutch friends and Steve enjoyed a few of the swings/slides that this river hosts.
Today we rented bikes and rode 6km out of town to this little Blue Lagoon area. Now, we should have known that if the main roads were that bad, this little dirt road wasn't going to be in the best condition. But, we did survive the bumps and the mud and made it out to a little bit of oasis at this blue lagoon. Its a deep swimming hole that is quite cool, but a refreshing welcome after the long, hot bike ride (it was 34oC in the shade!!). We then rewarded ourselves with a delicious dinner on a patio, overlooking the river with beautiful sunset views over the mountain. This area reminds us a lot of the Fraser Valley, Vedder River area. Now, if we can only convince the BC government to put up bars and water attractions along the Vedder River tubing!!!
Sorry no pictures from the blue lagoon--we haven't had time to upload those pics yet. More pics to come!
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| Tubers heading over to the river. |
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| Very beautiful river valley, surrounded by mountains and lush green forests. |
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| Ang and Steve tubing |
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| Steve swinging into the river! |
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| The view from our dinner overlooking the river at sunset. |
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