It was a pretty uneventful drive/train ride from Vang Vieng to Bangkok which took around 20 odd hours. Back in Bangkok I quickly realized how nice it is to be at least somewhat familiar with a city. I barely had to consult my guidebook to figure out where I was going and how to get there. We soon found ourselves back in the Khao San Road area back at a hostel I had stayed in previously, the New Merry V. The minute we had our room and my bags were dropped off, I set out to accomplish my primary goal... acquiring a travel visa to enter India. Having been overcharged repeatedly by tuk-tuks in Bangkok, not to mention the brutal traffic, I elected to see just how cheaply I could make it all the way across the city from the tourist district to where the Indian Embassy was located. I recalled a conversation I had had with another traveler some time back about a cheap river taxi service which ran up and down the Chao Phraya River through the middle of Bangkok. Sounded worth a try.
I was in luck, a river taxi dock was mere metres from my hostel and I was soon on a boat headed in the right direction for about a dollar US. Along the way I managed to catch a glimpse of some of the monuments lining the river. The few that stuck out for me were The Grand Palace, Emerald Buddha Complex, and Wat Arun (The Temple of Dawn). After a relaxing, and thankfully breezy, 20 minute cruise, I disembarked at a Skytrain station which took me to within 5 minutes walking distance of my destination, and for only another $1.30 US. Total cost to get across Bangkok: about 60 Baht or $2 US and 40 odd minutes. The same journey over land might have taken about an hour through traffic and cost upwards of 100 Baht. Sweet! My good mood at my small financial victory soon paled as I entered the Indian embassy and proceeded to wait about 2 hours to hand in my passport and visa application forms. They informed me that I would have to come back in 7 days to pick up my completed passport with visa... looks like I would be stuck in Bangkok for a week.
I took an alternate routing back to Khao San Road which had me wandering through Bangkok's Chinatown for awhile and running away from overly aggressive tuk-tuk driver's trying to tell me I would have to pay 200 Baht to get where I wanted to go... scam artists! I managed to get back for even cheaper than my outward journey... 30 Baht on the Skytrain and 15 Baht on the boat.. $1.50 US... yeah! Once back at the hostel, Sam was in the mood for a nap so I went out to explore a bit, and wouldn't you know... I ran into some of my Fruit Vans friends from New Zealand, Gabriel and Lanna... small world! We got to chatting over a late lunch and decided to regroup later in the evening to explore some of the Bangkok night-life together. In the mean time, Sam was frothing something fierce over going to check out the Tiger Temple, Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, near Bangkok, so we booked a day tour along with a couple of his friends we ran into for the next day. That night Sam, Gabriel, Lanna, and myself enjoyed some of Bangkok's night time offerings before turning in.
In the morning Sam, Andy, Fi, and I were ready to go by 10 am when our mini-bus picked us up. Sam, being something of an animal nut, was giddier than a 10 year-old in a candy store at the prospect of playing with tigers. After a couple hours on the bus, we arrived at the tiger temple.Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua has been around since at least 1994, although some suggest that the Theravada Buddhist temple may have been there longer. The abbot of the monastery had always been partial to animals and had taken to rescuing a variety of birds. In 1999 a solitary sickly tiger cub was brought to the abbot. Apparently a poacher had killed its mother and captured it. A wealthy Bangkok local wanted to buy the cat to have it stuffed. It was injected, while still alive, with formaldehyde solution to begin the embalming process, but was rescued before the process was complete. At the monastery, the abbot nursed it back to health after which it lived a few more years before dying of physical complications brought about by the chemicals it had been exposed to.
The story goes that soon after the cub was brought there, a wild boar turned up on the temple grounds with some injuries. The abbot nursed it back to health and released it back into the wild. The next day the boar returned to the temple grounds with nearly a dozen of its companions who quickly made themselves at home. Ever since, locals and animal rescuers have been bringing horses, water buffalo, deer, various birds, and, of course, tigers to the temple to be cared for by the abbot and the other monks and volunteers at the monastery. As of March 2011 there were almost 90 tigers living on the monastery grounds.
As soon as we got off the bus Sam was moving rather quickly to the ticket booth to see if he was in time to buy some feeding time with the tiger cubs. I was famished, so I enjoyed some free complementary lunch while the others began wandering into the animal sanctuary. It was a sweltering afternoon with the mercury reaching up to the 40 degree mark, we were all constantly bathed in a layer of our own sweat. As I strolled across the grounds a family of boars jogged by while I waited for a small herd of water buffaloes to cross my path. I headed for the quarry area where adult tigers napped in the daytime heat and visitors could pose with them under the supervision of at least 2 handlers per person. We were assured that all of the tigers had been raised since being cubs by human handlers and so were well imprinted with humans. Nonetheless, they are large animals which required a degree caution when approaching or petting.
After some big pussy cat petting we ambled over to the tiger exercise area which was a large enclosure with some water for them to play in. And play they did... although I sure wouldn't want to be "played with" the way these cats were with each other! Soon it was time for Sam, Andy, and Fi to go and exercise the tigers (I didn't want to shell out the $100 US to do so) while I explored some more of the sanctuary. I saw more horses, buffalo, deer, peacocks, Asian black bears, tiger cubs, and boars. A couple hours later the sanctuary grounds began shutting down for the day, so we headed back to our bus and towards Bangkok. Our plan for the evening, taking in some more Thai culture by going to a Muay Thai exhibition fight.
My bags packed and Sam on his way home, I decided to do some hostel hopping. Earlier in the week Sam and I had explored some other hostels and found one which seemed to have a cool vibe to it, so I headed there. Even though they were asking about 100 Baht more than I was willing to pay, I did it simply for the atmosphere of the common areas. Throughout the day I caught up on some blogging and hung out with Maggie a bit before randomly running into Wiktor again. Apparently it was his last night in town and he was up to some no good... so I joined him to make sure he didn't get too carried away. After some interesting exchanges and mistaken destinations with a tuk-tuk driver, we ended up at some high end dance club. After a couple hours of over-priced drinks and some dance floor shenanigans I decided to call it a night.
In the morning I was pretty unsatisfied with my accommodations so I packed my stuff and headed for the cheap hostel Wiktor had recommended. For $4 US a night in my own room, the sweaty heat didn't bother me so much. As I was checking in I ran into Wiktor and Sebastian at reception. Turns out Sebastian had to stay in Bangkok a few more days to get checked out on the progress of his malaria treatment and Wiktor was going to be hanging out until later in the day. After some handshakes and fare wells I decided to trade up the books I was finished with for some fresh reading. On my way out of the hostel I ran into Kissa again, she and her friend were headed for Koh Tao and awaiting their bus. I had decided that once my passport was sorted out I'd spend the last few days of my time in Thailand on the island of Koh Tao, so we agreed to meet up in a couple of days once I arrived there. And off I went to book my bus to Koh Tao for the next evening, solo it up with my books and some blog time. Wouldn't you know... while blogging, my fellow Canadian, Matt, from Sihanoukville looked me up... we met up, played some pool, and ended up dancing at a Khao San Road club with some other random traveler friends. That night ended with sunrise... ahhh Bangkok.
I slept in the next day and actually stayed in my room an hour passed the checkout time so they wanted to charge me an extra night... oh well, at least I had a place for my stuff and to chill out till my Koh Tao bus. I was eager to get my passport back from the Indian Embassy and get out of Bangkok, so after sorting out my room off I went. It only took me about 4 hours to make it out to the embassy, gather my passport, and make it back to my room... the ques at the embassy were amazingly long and slow. I spent the rest of the day reading and blogging till my 6pm bus down south.
Like so many other bus rides in Southeast Asia, this one was uneventful. We reached Chumphon at like 3am and the boat to Koh Tao didn't leave until 7-ish... thank goodness I had me a couple new books to digest and a fully charged MP3 player to keep me company. The boat reached the island around 11am and one look at the crystal clear waters and white sand beaches told me that I had made the right choice in spending my last few days in Thailand here.
Koh Tao was originally an uninhabited island. The first record of there being a population of any size is from the early to mid 1800's when the small island was called "Bardia" by European sailors. In the 1930's until 1947 the island was used for political prisoners until they were all pardoned and removed from the island making it uninhabited again. Soon after, some locals from neighbouring islands decided to set up residence on Koh Tao and its population has been growing ever since. In the 1980's the island was discovered by backpackers and in the 1990's it began its life as a scuba diving mecca of sorts. Currently, the island boasts many world recognized scuba diving certification schools and caters almost exclusively to the crowd which that draws as well as people in search of less hectic beaches than those found on nearby Koh Samui and Koh Pha Ngan.
After 13 hours or so of traveling I just wanted to get to the beach and relax in the tropical Gulf of Thailand waters. On the boat ride over some scuba school touts approached me and, after consulting my guide book, I agreed to head to one in particular... besides, they provided free transport to their beach side dorms and free accommodations for people taking their courses. About 5 minutes later I was checking in to a beach side paradise along Sairee Beach. Life is good. I spent the rest of the day testing out the variety of beach chairs and decliners along the beach, floating around in the transparent waters every 10 minutes or so to cool off in the 35+ degree heat. Near the end of the evening I ran into a couple of people sharing my dorm room who were scheduled to start their scuba course in the morning, so we went to the classroom where we were to have our introductory meet and greet. Part of the intro was for us to fill out our personal information and go through a medical checklist. One of the conditions on the checklist that had to be considered was a collapsed lung. About 11 years ago I had experienced a spontaneous pneumothorax which was fixed within 3 days. But having had such an injury precluded me from participating in the scuba course without the written approval of a western physician after a thorough physical checkup. Bummer... no cheap open water diving certification for me.
Not being able to go scuba diving didn't mean I was not going to dive at all. In the morning I checked into a new hostel, (as only scuba students could stay at the one I was at), and asked around for a reputable scooter rental. By 11:30am I was on the road ready to explore the small island of Koh Tao. I had heard there was a bay around the south of the island where people could sometimes spot Whale Sharks, so I decided to make that my destination for the day. After a slight detour up some crazy steep pothole infested dirt roads, I finally found Shark Bay... and was it ever worth the short journey! The 6 metre deep waters just off the beach were so clear that they seemed only 1 or 2 metres deep. I quickly rented some goggles, a diving snorkel, and some fins so I could get out of the heat and into the dazzling depths of this bay.
The last time I had been snorkeling in an area with coral reefs was about 26 years ago in Hanauma Bay off the south coast of Oahu of the Hawaiian Islands. It had been too long, apparently, because once I got into that underwater world of schools of colourful fish engulfing me, I was hooked. The diving snorkel meant that I could actually submerge myself to whatever depth I could reach on a lung-full of air. I managed to reach down to about 7 metres in search of underwater treasures. I spent 4 or 5 hours exploring the waters around the southern end of Shark Bay, until I realized that my bare back had been exposed to the equatorial afternoon sun the whole time... whoops... time to cover up. I returned the snorkel gear and began my short ride back north along the west coast of the island. On the way I passed a sign for a place called "High Bar" and I recalled a conversation I had had about the place with another traveler a few weeks back. Apparently it was perched atop one of the higher hilltops on the island overlooking the bay of Chalok Baan Kao... a beautiful place I went up to relax at during sunset.
The next day I just couldn't stop thinking about the shoals of fish I had floated among the previous day in Shark Bay. But I felt like I wanted to explore something new and different. A little research pointed me in the direction of Mango Bay on the northern tip of Koh Tao. I extended my scooter rental for another day, got a poorly drawn tourist map, and began my journey north. Now there's something people should know about Koh Tao... it is small has few roads, and most of those roads are dirt roads suitable for 4x4 vehicles. In addition to these factors, the hills on the island are STEEP and the roads simply go straight up them, so exploring on a scooter can sometimes be a little nerve-wracking. After an hour of puttering up and down crazy hills I found myself getting close when I reached a lookout overseeing the stretch of Sairee Beach. I pressed on but the hill I was going down became progressively steeper and more rough. I had no fear of going down it, but I had my doubts as to my scooter's ability to go back up. About 2/3s of the way down I decided to turn back. It's a good thing I did because the portion of road I turned around at was the steepest by far and on the way back I already had to push the scooter on foot with its throttle all the way open to get the bike up. I surely would've been stuck had I gone further... at least, that's what I'm telling myself.
I spent the rest of the day restaurant and cafe hopping around Sairee Beach and Chalok Baan Kao. When the night life started to pick up, I retired back to my hostel and finished off the books I had brought from Bangkok. In the morning I returned the scooter, with no damage this time, checked out of my hostel, and traded my books for some new ones. All that was left for me to do was hang out until my taxi came to take me back to the boat docks for the journey back to Bangkok. As I was strolling down the yellow brick road "that's the name they give the main walking/scooter strip along Sairee Beach, who should I run into!? Kissa! We had not managed to connect since we last saw each other in Bangkok, but it was good to see a friendly face after running a couple days solo. Her and her friend and I had a snack together and caught up a bit on our travels, but, alas, my ride was leaving shortly. So after a short reunion I was off once again.
Another 13 or so hours later I found myself in the middle if Khao San Road at about 4am. I tried all my favourite hostels, but they were all full. I remembered a cheap one that Sam and I had come across previously, so I set my course for there. I was in luck... they had an air conditioned single room with shower for cheap... and they would let me rent it for the exact 24 hrs. I needed it (4am-4am the next day) till I left for the airport, sweet!
After some sleep I figured I'd try to pump out some more blog, so went to my favourite air conditioned internet cafe along Soi Rambuttri. While online my buddy Matt looked me up again... he was still in Bangkok. It looked like I would have something of a sendoff after all. We met up later in the evening at my favourite pool table where we compared notes on our Southeast Asian experiences before deciding to explore some more of the Khao San Road scene. We ended up at street-side cafe sipping drinks and practicing a new magic a roaming tout had sold us and taught us. After some practice we sought an audience with anyone we could find... we found a couple of random traveling gals at the table next to us. After some small talk we all decided to go dancing. By the time we hit the second dance-floor I could no longer go to sleep without risking missing my flight... so I simply danced until it was time to go... said my fare wells... grabbed my bags from the hostel... and hopped in a taxi for the airport. A true Bangkok exit if I do say so myself.
Southeast Asia was a blast and, so far, it's the place I'm going to miss the most. I met so many awesome people and had an awesome time. I can hardly wait to go back! Look out India... here I come!
I was in luck, a river taxi dock was mere metres from my hostel and I was soon on a boat headed in the right direction for about a dollar US. Along the way I managed to catch a glimpse of some of the monuments lining the river. The few that stuck out for me were The Grand Palace, Emerald Buddha Complex, and Wat Arun (The Temple of Dawn). After a relaxing, and thankfully breezy, 20 minute cruise, I disembarked at a Skytrain station which took me to within 5 minutes walking distance of my destination, and for only another $1.30 US. Total cost to get across Bangkok: about 60 Baht or $2 US and 40 odd minutes. The same journey over land might have taken about an hour through traffic and cost upwards of 100 Baht. Sweet! My good mood at my small financial victory soon paled as I entered the Indian embassy and proceeded to wait about 2 hours to hand in my passport and visa application forms. They informed me that I would have to come back in 7 days to pick up my completed passport with visa... looks like I would be stuck in Bangkok for a week.
I took an alternate routing back to Khao San Road which had me wandering through Bangkok's Chinatown for awhile and running away from overly aggressive tuk-tuk driver's trying to tell me I would have to pay 200 Baht to get where I wanted to go... scam artists! I managed to get back for even cheaper than my outward journey... 30 Baht on the Skytrain and 15 Baht on the boat.. $1.50 US... yeah! Once back at the hostel, Sam was in the mood for a nap so I went out to explore a bit, and wouldn't you know... I ran into some of my Fruit Vans friends from New Zealand, Gabriel and Lanna... small world! We got to chatting over a late lunch and decided to regroup later in the evening to explore some of the Bangkok night-life together. In the mean time, Sam was frothing something fierce over going to check out the Tiger Temple, Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, near Bangkok, so we booked a day tour along with a couple of his friends we ran into for the next day. That night Sam, Gabriel, Lanna, and myself enjoyed some of Bangkok's night time offerings before turning in.
In the morning Sam, Andy, Fi, and I were ready to go by 10 am when our mini-bus picked us up. Sam, being something of an animal nut, was giddier than a 10 year-old in a candy store at the prospect of playing with tigers. After a couple hours on the bus, we arrived at the tiger temple.Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua has been around since at least 1994, although some suggest that the Theravada Buddhist temple may have been there longer. The abbot of the monastery had always been partial to animals and had taken to rescuing a variety of birds. In 1999 a solitary sickly tiger cub was brought to the abbot. Apparently a poacher had killed its mother and captured it. A wealthy Bangkok local wanted to buy the cat to have it stuffed. It was injected, while still alive, with formaldehyde solution to begin the embalming process, but was rescued before the process was complete. At the monastery, the abbot nursed it back to health after which it lived a few more years before dying of physical complications brought about by the chemicals it had been exposed to.
The story goes that soon after the cub was brought there, a wild boar turned up on the temple grounds with some injuries. The abbot nursed it back to health and released it back into the wild. The next day the boar returned to the temple grounds with nearly a dozen of its companions who quickly made themselves at home. Ever since, locals and animal rescuers have been bringing horses, water buffalo, deer, various birds, and, of course, tigers to the temple to be cared for by the abbot and the other monks and volunteers at the monastery. As of March 2011 there were almost 90 tigers living on the monastery grounds.
As soon as we got off the bus Sam was moving rather quickly to the ticket booth to see if he was in time to buy some feeding time with the tiger cubs. I was famished, so I enjoyed some free complementary lunch while the others began wandering into the animal sanctuary. It was a sweltering afternoon with the mercury reaching up to the 40 degree mark, we were all constantly bathed in a layer of our own sweat. As I strolled across the grounds a family of boars jogged by while I waited for a small herd of water buffaloes to cross my path. I headed for the quarry area where adult tigers napped in the daytime heat and visitors could pose with them under the supervision of at least 2 handlers per person. We were assured that all of the tigers had been raised since being cubs by human handlers and so were well imprinted with humans. Nonetheless, they are large animals which required a degree caution when approaching or petting.
After some big pussy cat petting we ambled over to the tiger exercise area which was a large enclosure with some water for them to play in. And play they did... although I sure wouldn't want to be "played with" the way these cats were with each other! Soon it was time for Sam, Andy, and Fi to go and exercise the tigers (I didn't want to shell out the $100 US to do so) while I explored some more of the sanctuary. I saw more horses, buffalo, deer, peacocks, Asian black bears, tiger cubs, and boars. A couple hours later the sanctuary grounds began shutting down for the day, so we headed back to our bus and towards Bangkok. Our plan for the evening, taking in some more Thai culture by going to a Muay Thai exhibition fight.
Muay Thai is Thailand's national sport and has been around in one form or another for hundreds of years.
Muay Thai is also referred to as "The Art of Eight Limbs" or "The Science of Eight Limbs" because it makes use of punches, kicks, elbows and knee strikes, thus using eight "points of contact", as opposed to "two points" (fists) in boxing and "four points" (hands and feet) used in other more regulated combat sports. This difference from other martial arts can be seen as an important one based on the crowd's responses during the several matches we watched. Whenever a fighter would begin a series of knee blows, the entire stadium would shout "Knee! Knee! Knee!" in unison... quite the energy. After the fights we headed back to Soi Rambuttri to finish off the night.
The next day I was escaping the heat in an air conditioned internet cafe when I got word from my friend Maggie who I had met in Vang Vieng, Laos... she was in Bangkok for a few days. We decided to meet up and hang out for a bit. As we were heading down Khao San Road in search of some of Maggie's friends, who should I see... Kissa from Cambodia and Vietnam... small world! We all headed to a restaurant to socialize a bit during the early evening. After a couple hours we all went our own ways to rest, recuperate, or plan for the night to come. As I was nearing my hostel I came across some youth doing some street break-dancing for tips. I decided to watch the show for a bit. While I was doing so I felt a hand on my shoulder so turned around... it was Wiktor, a polish fellow I had met in Vang Vieng. He was hanging out in Bangkok for a few days before heading back home to Europe. He was traveling with Sebastian (another fellow I had met in Van Vieng), but Sebastian had contracted Malaria somewhere in Laos so was understandably under the weather. I found out which hostel they were staying at to meet up later... turns out they were at the hostel right next door to my own, and paying a fraction of what I was. I went back to our room and collected Sam for our last night out on the town together before he headed back to Australia.
My bags packed and Sam on his way home, I decided to do some hostel hopping. Earlier in the week Sam and I had explored some other hostels and found one which seemed to have a cool vibe to it, so I headed there. Even though they were asking about 100 Baht more than I was willing to pay, I did it simply for the atmosphere of the common areas. Throughout the day I caught up on some blogging and hung out with Maggie a bit before randomly running into Wiktor again. Apparently it was his last night in town and he was up to some no good... so I joined him to make sure he didn't get too carried away. After some interesting exchanges and mistaken destinations with a tuk-tuk driver, we ended up at some high end dance club. After a couple hours of over-priced drinks and some dance floor shenanigans I decided to call it a night.
In the morning I was pretty unsatisfied with my accommodations so I packed my stuff and headed for the cheap hostel Wiktor had recommended. For $4 US a night in my own room, the sweaty heat didn't bother me so much. As I was checking in I ran into Wiktor and Sebastian at reception. Turns out Sebastian had to stay in Bangkok a few more days to get checked out on the progress of his malaria treatment and Wiktor was going to be hanging out until later in the day. After some handshakes and fare wells I decided to trade up the books I was finished with for some fresh reading. On my way out of the hostel I ran into Kissa again, she and her friend were headed for Koh Tao and awaiting their bus. I had decided that once my passport was sorted out I'd spend the last few days of my time in Thailand on the island of Koh Tao, so we agreed to meet up in a couple of days once I arrived there. And off I went to book my bus to Koh Tao for the next evening, solo it up with my books and some blog time. Wouldn't you know... while blogging, my fellow Canadian, Matt, from Sihanoukville looked me up... we met up, played some pool, and ended up dancing at a Khao San Road club with some other random traveler friends. That night ended with sunrise... ahhh Bangkok.
I slept in the next day and actually stayed in my room an hour passed the checkout time so they wanted to charge me an extra night... oh well, at least I had a place for my stuff and to chill out till my Koh Tao bus. I was eager to get my passport back from the Indian Embassy and get out of Bangkok, so after sorting out my room off I went. It only took me about 4 hours to make it out to the embassy, gather my passport, and make it back to my room... the ques at the embassy were amazingly long and slow. I spent the rest of the day reading and blogging till my 6pm bus down south.
Like so many other bus rides in Southeast Asia, this one was uneventful. We reached Chumphon at like 3am and the boat to Koh Tao didn't leave until 7-ish... thank goodness I had me a couple new books to digest and a fully charged MP3 player to keep me company. The boat reached the island around 11am and one look at the crystal clear waters and white sand beaches told me that I had made the right choice in spending my last few days in Thailand here.
Koh Tao was originally an uninhabited island. The first record of there being a population of any size is from the early to mid 1800's when the small island was called "Bardia" by European sailors. In the 1930's until 1947 the island was used for political prisoners until they were all pardoned and removed from the island making it uninhabited again. Soon after, some locals from neighbouring islands decided to set up residence on Koh Tao and its population has been growing ever since. In the 1980's the island was discovered by backpackers and in the 1990's it began its life as a scuba diving mecca of sorts. Currently, the island boasts many world recognized scuba diving certification schools and caters almost exclusively to the crowd which that draws as well as people in search of less hectic beaches than those found on nearby Koh Samui and Koh Pha Ngan.
After 13 hours or so of traveling I just wanted to get to the beach and relax in the tropical Gulf of Thailand waters. On the boat ride over some scuba school touts approached me and, after consulting my guide book, I agreed to head to one in particular... besides, they provided free transport to their beach side dorms and free accommodations for people taking their courses. About 5 minutes later I was checking in to a beach side paradise along Sairee Beach. Life is good. I spent the rest of the day testing out the variety of beach chairs and decliners along the beach, floating around in the transparent waters every 10 minutes or so to cool off in the 35+ degree heat. Near the end of the evening I ran into a couple of people sharing my dorm room who were scheduled to start their scuba course in the morning, so we went to the classroom where we were to have our introductory meet and greet. Part of the intro was for us to fill out our personal information and go through a medical checklist. One of the conditions on the checklist that had to be considered was a collapsed lung. About 11 years ago I had experienced a spontaneous pneumothorax which was fixed within 3 days. But having had such an injury precluded me from participating in the scuba course without the written approval of a western physician after a thorough physical checkup. Bummer... no cheap open water diving certification for me.
Not being able to go scuba diving didn't mean I was not going to dive at all. In the morning I checked into a new hostel, (as only scuba students could stay at the one I was at), and asked around for a reputable scooter rental. By 11:30am I was on the road ready to explore the small island of Koh Tao. I had heard there was a bay around the south of the island where people could sometimes spot Whale Sharks, so I decided to make that my destination for the day. After a slight detour up some crazy steep pothole infested dirt roads, I finally found Shark Bay... and was it ever worth the short journey! The 6 metre deep waters just off the beach were so clear that they seemed only 1 or 2 metres deep. I quickly rented some goggles, a diving snorkel, and some fins so I could get out of the heat and into the dazzling depths of this bay.
The last time I had been snorkeling in an area with coral reefs was about 26 years ago in Hanauma Bay off the south coast of Oahu of the Hawaiian Islands. It had been too long, apparently, because once I got into that underwater world of schools of colourful fish engulfing me, I was hooked. The diving snorkel meant that I could actually submerge myself to whatever depth I could reach on a lung-full of air. I managed to reach down to about 7 metres in search of underwater treasures. I spent 4 or 5 hours exploring the waters around the southern end of Shark Bay, until I realized that my bare back had been exposed to the equatorial afternoon sun the whole time... whoops... time to cover up. I returned the snorkel gear and began my short ride back north along the west coast of the island. On the way I passed a sign for a place called "High Bar" and I recalled a conversation I had had about the place with another traveler a few weeks back. Apparently it was perched atop one of the higher hilltops on the island overlooking the bay of Chalok Baan Kao... a beautiful place I went up to relax at during sunset.
The next day I just couldn't stop thinking about the shoals of fish I had floated among the previous day in Shark Bay. But I felt like I wanted to explore something new and different. A little research pointed me in the direction of Mango Bay on the northern tip of Koh Tao. I extended my scooter rental for another day, got a poorly drawn tourist map, and began my journey north. Now there's something people should know about Koh Tao... it is small has few roads, and most of those roads are dirt roads suitable for 4x4 vehicles. In addition to these factors, the hills on the island are STEEP and the roads simply go straight up them, so exploring on a scooter can sometimes be a little nerve-wracking. After an hour of puttering up and down crazy hills I found myself getting close when I reached a lookout overseeing the stretch of Sairee Beach. I pressed on but the hill I was going down became progressively steeper and more rough. I had no fear of going down it, but I had my doubts as to my scooter's ability to go back up. About 2/3s of the way down I decided to turn back. It's a good thing I did because the portion of road I turned around at was the steepest by far and on the way back I already had to push the scooter on foot with its throttle all the way open to get the bike up. I surely would've been stuck had I gone further... at least, that's what I'm telling myself.
I spent the rest of the day restaurant and cafe hopping around Sairee Beach and Chalok Baan Kao. When the night life started to pick up, I retired back to my hostel and finished off the books I had brought from Bangkok. In the morning I returned the scooter, with no damage this time, checked out of my hostel, and traded my books for some new ones. All that was left for me to do was hang out until my taxi came to take me back to the boat docks for the journey back to Bangkok. As I was strolling down the yellow brick road "that's the name they give the main walking/scooter strip along Sairee Beach, who should I run into!? Kissa! We had not managed to connect since we last saw each other in Bangkok, but it was good to see a friendly face after running a couple days solo. Her and her friend and I had a snack together and caught up a bit on our travels, but, alas, my ride was leaving shortly. So after a short reunion I was off once again.
Another 13 or so hours later I found myself in the middle if Khao San Road at about 4am. I tried all my favourite hostels, but they were all full. I remembered a cheap one that Sam and I had come across previously, so I set my course for there. I was in luck... they had an air conditioned single room with shower for cheap... and they would let me rent it for the exact 24 hrs. I needed it (4am-4am the next day) till I left for the airport, sweet!
After some sleep I figured I'd try to pump out some more blog, so went to my favourite air conditioned internet cafe along Soi Rambuttri. While online my buddy Matt looked me up again... he was still in Bangkok. It looked like I would have something of a sendoff after all. We met up later in the evening at my favourite pool table where we compared notes on our Southeast Asian experiences before deciding to explore some more of the Khao San Road scene. We ended up at street-side cafe sipping drinks and practicing a new magic a roaming tout had sold us and taught us. After some practice we sought an audience with anyone we could find... we found a couple of random traveling gals at the table next to us. After some small talk we all decided to go dancing. By the time we hit the second dance-floor I could no longer go to sleep without risking missing my flight... so I simply danced until it was time to go... said my fare wells... grabbed my bags from the hostel... and hopped in a taxi for the airport. A true Bangkok exit if I do say so myself.
Southeast Asia was a blast and, so far, it's the place I'm going to miss the most. I met so many awesome people and had an awesome time. I can hardly wait to go back! Look out India... here I come!
