Growing up with a silver spoon meant my family spent a lot of time in the Caribbean when I was a kid.  This was the era of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, so I was surrounded by older dudes in Hawaiian shirts with overly tanned wives drinking colourful concoctions that always had a mini umbrella out the top.  One of many things I fondly remember about those vacations was the soundtrack of the beach; songs like Groovin (the Young Rascals), Red Red Wine (UB40), and Baby I Love Your Way (Peter Frampton) were constantly playing.  When I got older and started heading to the beaches of California a new soundtrack started to form, one that I thought was infinitely cooler since I, as a teenager, was infinitely cooler (or so I thought) than overweight drunk lawyers in the Cayman Islands.  Songs by the Dove Shock, Warren G and Sublime were always in my Sony Discman (with 9 second ESP I might add, pretty awesome).  The reason I bring up this music is because I’m currently looking out at the turquoise waters of the Andaman sea on Klong Dao beach, a beautiful stretch of sand on the Thai Island of Koh Lanta.  Here, the music of Jack Johnson has taken over.  I have nothing against Jack Johnson, I used to like him a lot (I still do but less than before, overexposure tends to do that to an artist) but I do find it a little unfortunate that the islands and beaches of SE Asia, which I like more than those of the Caribbean, don’t have their own home-grown sound that matches the vibe of the ocean.  I will make the statement that when it comes to music on the beaches all over the world though, there is still one king to rule them all, one king to find them, one king to bring them all and in the music bind them.  That king, deservedly, is Bob Marley.  He’s still the one voice common to every beach we’ve ever been to.  I’m hoping you can tell by my reference to the Lord of the Rings that I no longer think I’m infinitely cooler than anyone else, including overweight drunk lawyers having fun, dancing and singing to Kokomo in the Caymans.  However, I do hope that one day I won’t be that drunk, overweight dentist trying to get people to do the Macarena with me.  Fingers crossed.

After Myanmar we returned to Bangkok for a night so that we could have my stitches finally removed.  Once that was done we headed to Phuket for a night before taking a ferry to the island of Koh Lanta, briefly stopping at Koh Phi Phi.  Phuket is kind of the resort hub of the area, with all the big hotel brand names setting up shop.  Further south are the islands of Koh Phi Phi, made famous by dreamy Leonardo Di Caprio in the movie The Beach.  Phi Phi, like many other Thai Islands, used to be a backpackers haven, but the place has completely changed with overdevelopment and speedboat day trippers from Phuket.  Some still think it’s paradise while others, especially those who knew what it once was, are on the verge of tears when they see what has happened.  The Thai government had a chance, under horrific circumstances, to redevelop Phi Phi sustainably (supposedly it’s currently an environmental disaster waiting to happen due to its fragile ecosystem) when it was basically wiped out by the tsunami in 2004.  However things now, unfortunately, look just like they did immediately pre-tsunami.  Di and I decided to head further south to the larger and less-famous Island of Koh Lanta, which has a more groovin (I’m bringing that word back for this post) vibe and extremely long stretches of beach along its coastline.  Since we had been moving around a lot, we also decided to spend 5 full nights here without checking out the rest of Krabi province even though it’s considered Thailand’s most beautiful.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived was that most everyone had really blonde hair and blue eyes.  Further questioning provided some answers; most of the tourists were from Sweden, with the rest being largely from other Scandinavian countries.  We had barely met any Scandinavians over the past 10 months, and now we were surrounded by them.  Most of them were families on their Christmas vacation.  Supposedly once the infrastructure was set up and direct flights opened up from Stockholm word of mouth got back to Sweden and they all started to come to Koh Lanta.  The Swedes, however, don’t sound like the dude in the funny IKEA commercials back home, their English is far better.  That was a shame really for me, as I’m a fan of hilarious accents.

Anyways, we went scuba diving with a recommended Swedish company, and the service was amazing compared to our other dive trips so far.  We basically didn’t have to do anything but put on our mask, BCD and fins and jump in the water; everything else was done for us.  We went diving around the islands of Koh Ha Yai.  When we told our German divemaster that our last dives were in Palau, he conceded that here the diving was catered to families who rarely dived anywhere else.  He thought we should try diving around Thailand on a liveaboard, which is a boat you live aboard (hence the name) and where all you do is scuba dive, sleep and eat for as many days as you want.  He, and other hardcore divers, was of the opinion that the underwater experience would be unparalleled.  He was basically implying that though the tourists on the boat would find the diving awesome at Koh Ha Yai, we might not.  He was right.  The diving was still good and enjoyable though so no complaints.  We also did have fun hanging out with a Swedish couple on the boat and we met up with them later on the island for food and drinks.  The rest of our days were just basically spent groovin; we scootered around the island checking out other beaches, paddle surfed, got Thai massages, and ate delicious Thai food.  Life was good, and we could definitely see ourselves retiring somewhere in the south of Thailand in the future.  Being surrounded by Swedes but not knowing their writers, I also decided to read the Stieg Larsson Millenium trilogy which Di recommended and which turned out to be pretty entertaining.  I’ve mostly been reading non-fiction on this trip so Swedish mystery novels were a nice change. 

We spent Christmas day here yesterday, my first without my large extended family around in a long time.  I did miss them a lot but we skyped them to send our xmas greetings.  Our xmas dinner was pad thai and curry, nothing like my aunt and uncles’ turkey and stuffing but Di and I were still happy to spend it together and thankful for our amazing year so far.  We also decided that though we’ve enjoyed travelling mostly in the developing world, we’re ready to slow things down as our trip is coming to an end and we are starting to get tired of harder travel.  So, from here on out, life will be on easy street; no more “tough” countries.  We’re going to head to Kuala Lumpur after this just for a couple of days before flying to Taipei for New years with our friends.  After that, if all goes well, we’ll finish things off in Australia, HK and Japan where we also have friends.  Groovin! (I don’t think that word works here but I’m using it anyway)

So in the immortal words of Trooper (in the lyrics of a song that happily reminds me both of Caribbean beaches and my days at UBC where it was a sort of theme song for the sunny days in our residence house) I’d like to finish off by saying:

We’re here for a good time, not a long time, so have a good time, the sun can’t shine every day.

Merry Xmas everyone

As soon as we arrived at the Bangkok airport, we felt relieved to see modern amenities like soap, toilet paper, and paper towels available in public washrooms again, something we hadn’t seen much of in the past month.  As Eug mentioned before, by this time his leg was as swollen as an elephant’s, and we were in desperate need of a comfortable place with four walls to sleep in.  Our tent on the island was not bad, but we are city people after all.  We were soon reassured by the sight of our spotless b and b.  We arrived at 6am and our considerate host Charn made us breakfast and directed us to a private hospital so Eug could get his fat leg looked at as soon as possible.  The hospital, complete with valet parking, looked like a five star hotel and the emergency nurses called the doctor right away.  The competent general surgeon showed up very quickly and took care of the wound.  From that day on, he saw through Eug’s progress with great care and attention.  We paid daily visits to the hospital for the 8 days that we were in Bangkok.  We didn’t plan to stay that long initially but we had to because of Eug’s infection.  That in turn, gave us a different perspective of Bangkok.  Usually people just fly into this city to transfer to other beach destinations in Thailand.  We were also just planning to transit through to Yangon in Myanmar.  However, having spent more time here, this city eventually grew on us.

For the first few days in Bangkok we didn’t do much sight-seeing.  We re-organized our itinerary after the doctor confirmed that Eug could not get stitched up so soon.  We decided to postpone our Myanmar visit until his leg was healthy enough.  Good thing we paid for full fare tickets so we could change the dates without having to pay a fee.  Our new itinerary was to head to Chiang Mai for a few days, then back to Bangkok to visit the doctor again before going to Myanmar.  We started sight-seeing in Bangkok when Eug felt better.  Our first sight was to see the golden Buddha in Wat Trimit.  As we were walking there, these 2 nice and talkative Thai moms came up to us and started chatting with us.  Long story short, we ended up taking a private boat ride with them on the Chao Phraya River and got scammed!  Sigh.  In hindsight it was pretty stupid of us not to have asked the price before we hopped on the boat.  We both assumed they were locals so they would know or get the local rate.  We must have been pretty exhausted mentally to let all our guard down.  At the same time, we didn’t want to think that everyone who tries to be friendly is up to no good either.  That’s a tough one.  We ended up having to pay the boatman (their partner in crime) $100 which was a lot considering the public boat is only $5 and renting the whole boat privately would have cost about $30.  We were even too tired to get really pissed at them, we were just really mad at ourselves.  We’ve been generally good at gauging locals, and for our 1 year trip this is the first time we got scammed so I guess it’s not that bad, especially since we’ve followed friendly locals many times in many different countries.

The next day we visited the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaeo, and Wat Pho where the enormous reclining Buddha lies.  It was my first time seeing Thai temples, and I found them impeccably well kept.  They looked brand spanking new!  Usually when we visit heritage sights we can tell which parts are restored and which have remained untouched since the beginning of time.  But all the temples here looked as if they were just built yesterday.  The golden blinged out exteriors and the clean and simple interiors of the temples were definitely unique to see.  We didn’t plan this but the weekend we were here just happened to be the King’s birthday.  There were various celebrations throughout the country and we managed to follow the crowd to the busiest area where people were lighting their own candles while jointly singing the royal anthem.  There were many fireworks and innumerable lanterns being released into the sky.  It was priceless to see people’s faces as they sent their lanterns floating off (check out the pictures we took in Flickr under Bangkok and Chiang Mai set).  We decided to follow suit and it turned out to be the most unforgettable experience.   Watching thousands of lanterns drifting across the evening sky above the temples was incredibly magical.  We later did walk long enough to see the lanterns burn out and fall to the floor.  Some were caught by pedestrians like us and some just landed on the rooftops or the ground.  I felt badly for whoever had to clean them up.  We also tried to tackle the countless street food vendors in hopes to try at least half of all the different Thai food on offer.  I’m glad to declare that we did a pretty decent job.  From chicken rice, curries, and pad thai, to wonton noodle soup, grilled pork neck salad, and street meat skewers, we were very satisfied after one week’s time. 

Up north In Chiang Mai, we visited the famous Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.  Besides the soothing ancient temple and a good view of the city, we really enjoyed the short blessing ritual performed by this elder monk.  We knelt in front of him as he dipped a miniature broomstick into a pot of water and flicked the stick so drops of water splashed our way as he chanted along.  He was skilled in making sure everyone got plenty of drops of water before he tied a white wrist band around each and everyone’s wrist.  Eug liked him a lot.  We also did a cooking course in Chiang Mai.  That was super fun!  We spent a day with Yui from A Lot of Thai cooking school.  She’s probably the friendliest person I’ve ever met.  She didn’t stop smiling at all the entire day we were with her.  She had the cooking school for a few years and among her students was Gordon Ramsey, the British celebrity chef that swears all the time.  He did a show with her too.  We learned to make pad thai, tom yam kung (hot and sour prawn soup), green and panaeng curry chicken, chicken with cashew, spring rolls, and mango sticky rice.  As you all know, I’m not a good cook at all, but I really liked what I made that day.  Yui’s class was awesome.

We had an amazing time in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.  Chiang Mai is easily liked by most tourists because of its relaxed atmosphere, chill vibe, and cultural sites.  Bangkok, on the other hand, is a dynamic metropolis with a new and efficient metro, ancient temples, modern hotels and malls carrying international brands, and delicious food.  Bangkok unfortunately has the seedy image of being a sex tourist destination, but if you stay away from those sleazy neon-lit areas offering ping pong shows (if you don’t know, don’t ask), this city has a lot to offer.  There’s a vibrant social and arts scene, bustling food and shopping markets, and age-old buddhas in meditative temples.  What’s impressed us most so far (apart from those 2 scamming moms) is that Thailand really does live up to its moniker ‘The Land of Smiles’.  We’ll be heading to Myanmar for a bit, but after that we’ll return to Bangkok to continue our way to the south of Thailand where tropical beaches beckon.  Can’t wait!