Koh Samui

Sarah's last stop on our Thai journey was Koh Samui. I'm gonna be so sad when she goes!! Dad was very generous with his Marriott points, so we got to live a little more luxuriously for a few days while staying at the Renaissance Koh Samui. The hotel was really amazing. It doesn't hurt that we received a free upgrade to villa with private pool. After walking into the room, Sarah exclaimed "this is the best place ever!" I'm beginning to wonder how many best places ever there are. 

Our honeymoon resort pool

We had a delicious seafood dinner overlooking the sea at the hotel restaurant after making ourselves comfortable in our villa. Then it was off to bed because we had another early morning of scuba diving ahead of us in Koh Tao. 

Koh Tao - view from the dive boat

Across Thailand, we've heard mixed things about which place is best for diving. Though it was dark in Phi Phi, so we couldn't really see, I'm going to have to agree with those who give the vote to Koh Tao. It was truly incredible diving. I finished my advance open water scuba certification doing a 30 M deep dive and fish identification adventure dive. Sarah is going to finish hers on Saturday after I leave and we'll both be Advanced divers! We really loved our dive master, Steve, from Discovery Divers. The boat was one of the nicest I've ever been on, the service was amazing, and the food they served us was even good. I've never eaten curry on a dive boat before!

Blue-spotted ray

After diving, we relaxed by the beautiful infinity pool drinking delicious coconut cocktails before dinner. For dinner, we went to this thing called the Thai Experience run by two (really cute) British guys. The whole idea is about bringing together travelers to teach them about the Thai culture over a long, lubricated five course meal. It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious!

Enjoying the Thai Experience

On my last day in Koh Samui, we took a cooking class at Island Organics with Lat. Her class is held at her home in the hills of Samui where she and her husband Cameron have an organic farm. We picked vegetables from the garden before getting started. The menu for the day was a ginger and tofu stir fry, followed by Tom Yum soup, yellow chicken curry and a spicy larb salad which Sarah made the traditional way with pork and I substituted for chicken. The food was really good. I'm looking forward to my first few dinner parties when I get to Seattle!

Beach-side fish stand

We returned to the pool after the cooking class and witnessed the hotel restaurant literally catching people fish-to-order for their dinner. There was a little stand set up on the beach and a fishing boat not too far off in the water. About every 45 minutes or so, a guy in a kayak would go from the beach out to the fishing boat and return with fish to take to the restaurant. I wish I was here for another meal! After some more pool time, it was time for me to say goodbye to Sarah and head to Bangkok to start my volunteer work for the next three weeks. Lucky Sarah still has two more days in paradise and the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan ahead of her. I can't complain though, I still have seven weeks in Southeast Asia!

Koh Phi Phi

Next stop on Sarah and my Thai adventure was Koh Phi Phi. To get to Koh Phi Phi, you have to fly into Phuket and take a ferry. We spent one night there which was enough. It was definitely not by favorite place. Think sex tourism and lady boys. After going to see the Big Buddha, we boarded the ferry for some fun in the sun. We spent the first afternoon getting to know the town and trying to set up a dive for the next day. Sarah told them she was asthmatic which didn't go over too well. The cute guy from South Africa trying to get us to dive agreed to let her go with a doctors note, so it was off to the doctor for Sarah! With her note in hand, we woke up early and went to the dive center where we were turned away any way. Fail. With a whole day ahead of us and no plans, we decided to book an island hopping your instead. The boat was awesome!

Monkey Beach

We started at Monkey Beach, which is a beach full of monkeys. Very, very aggressive monkeys! The trip traveled on to this little bay where we hopped in the water and were surrounded by millions of little striped fish that looked just like Flounder from the Little Mermaid.

Sarah swimming with the fishies

 The trip ended at Maya Beach, the beach made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio's movie The Beach. Not a bad substistute for diving! 

Koh Phi Phi Beach

We made it back in time to book a night dive with a different dive shop which we didn't tell about Sarah's asthma. Learned that lesson! The night dive was pretty exhilarating. I'd only done it once before and it was as cool as I'd remembered. At one point during the dive, the dive master has us all turn off out flashlights and sit at the bottom of the ocean. Then we had an underwater dance party flailing our arms and legs to make the phosphorescents glow. Amazing!

The Viewpoint

On our last day, we met Hana, a friend from LBS, at the beach to hike up to the viewpoint. It was scorching hot, but the hike was worth it. The view was really breathtaking. 

Cousins!

After relaxing by the pool for a few hours, it was time to take the ferry back to Phuket to meet Mr Boon, our local cab driver. Had it not been for his speed-demon driving abilities, we wouldn't have made it to the ferry on the first day or the airport on the last day in time. I definitely underestimated the size of Phuket. It's huge! Koh Phi Phi was amazing and I hope to go back one day. Three days was not enough!

Khao Sok

In front of our lakeside bungalows

After waking up super early to fly from Bangkok to Surat Thani, Sarah and I met our driver to take us to the Morning Mist Resort in Khao Sok National Park. It was well worth the early morning because by 11 AM we were headed out to go elephant trekking. Our elephant was named Samboon and had spotted ears that he kept flapping to keep himself cool. The guide let us both move down out of the saddle and onto his neck to get a more upclose and personal feel for elephant riding. We needed to cool off (and nap) after our ride, so we went to the hotel pool to relax a bit.

Khao Sok National Park

After a light lunch, we had our first of hopefully many Thai massages down the rode at Country House. After the massage, Sarah proclaimed "This is the best day ever!" Sounds like the trip is off to a great start to me! We had drinks at a place on the river before another delicious Thai meal before hitting the hay early in our little treehouse hut. 

Inside our tree hut

The next morning, we were picked up at 8:30 for a two day-one night jungle trek. We drove about an hour into the park to a pier and boarded a longboat to venture further into the jungle. When we arrived at our lodging for the night, we found a row of bamboo bungalows hovering above the lake. We immediately dove into the lake for a swim and some kayaking before lunch. 

The longboat we took to the bungalows on the lake

After lunch, we hopped back into the longboat to begin a three-hour hike through the jungle to a cave. Imagine all of the creepiest, crawliest creatures you can and that's what was in the cave. We saw loads of bats, spiders the size of your hand, snakes and apparently there were also leeches milling about. Fortunately, none of our leech checks detected a leech so the heebee-jeebees I had the whole time might have been a little unwarranted (aside from the giant spiders, bats and snakes). As we ventured further into the cave, we trudged into deeper and deeper water in this underground river until the point that we were literally swimming because you couldn't touch the floor. In any other country, you'd have to stop before you even reached the water, but not in Thailand! You just swim right on through. I felt like a true spelunker. 

Incredible sunset over the lake

When we got back to the bungalows, Sarah and I felt like we deserved a beer (or three) and tossed back a few with our new German, Dutch and Canadian friends while having another swim in the lake. Sarah announced again at this point that this was "the best day ever!" It might be hard to keep topping such awesome days for ten days straight, but hopefully Thailand won't let us down. 

Creepy cave

Boracay

After two days in Manila, it was time to head for the beautiful beaches of Boracay! The LBS crew loaded into our nearly private Cebu Pacific airplane to start the journey from plane to boat to bus to tuc-tuc until we finally reached Sur Boracay, our hotel for the next four days.

The beach in front of our hotel

After a hectic few weeks of traveling around Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong, some R&R was just was I needed. Gemma and I spent the next few days sunbathing, getting massages and reading with a little time interspersed for a few activities. 

Sunset in the Philippines

I met up with some of the guys on the second morning to go diving. The water was unbelievable clear. We saw some eels, a water snake (ew!), lots and lots of fish, a cuttlefish, and loads of blue starfish. I got back to the hotel just in time to catch the others before heading out for a sunset cruise. We ventured out to a gorgeous secluded beach where we watched the sunset. On our way back, they stopped the boat and we all hopped off to swim. I didn't have a bathing suit on, but it didn't matter! I jumped in in my dress. 

Not quite on the board...yet

On the third day, a group of us went to the other side of the island to take kite boarding lessons. I felt a little cheated because I was told we would get to actually ride a board. Apparently, kite boarding is really hard (go figure), so they spent the whole three hours teaching us how to handle the kite. Maybe next time I'll actually get to strap into a board!

Sunset cruise with the LBS gang

If I learned anything about the Philippines during the week, it's this: the islands are really beautiful, the people are extremely friendly, and the food is pretty disgusting. Aside from the fact that I got food poisoning from some bad food on the beach, they eat duck fetus! Not joking. At our final dinner, Rach bought a basket of duck fetus (feti?) and held a competition to see who could eat one the fastest. Three lucky (or were they?) people won a free massage the next day. The fetus is still in the egg which is then boiled. You crack open the top and suck out the "soup" before cracking the rest of the shell and eating the fertilized egg. Needless to say, I did not participate in this competition. Only three people were brave enough to try, so they all got a free massage. One of them also got sick. Poor guy. Hope that massage was worth it! If you're curious about this disgusting custom, read on in the Wikipedia article about balut.

EW!! Duck fetus

Manila

RAfter a short stopover in Hong Kong to meet up with 80 of my classmates who were there for one of LBS's global business experiences, 60 of us made our way to the Philippines. Two of our classmates are native to the islands and took advantage of the fact that we were all in Asia by showing us their country. The trip started out with two nights at the New World Hotel in Makati City, Manila. We enjoyed a fun opening dinner of not so tasty Filipino food before a big night out at Raven, the penthouse club at the W Hotel. Of course, only the best for LBS. 

On our second day in the Philippines, we took a bus to Tagaytay to ride mini-horses to the top of Taal Volcano, the smallest active volcano in the world. I was afraid I was going to break my horse, it was so small. The heat was pretty excruciating so I stuck to the horse, but a few of the more ambitious guys in the group decided to hike the 4 km to the top. 

We had another group dinner at a place called Mamou after our fun day out. Called it an early night after dinner to pack before heading to Boracay early the next day. Manila really impressed me with how modern and developed the city is. There are a lot of American chains in the malls, like PF Changs, California Pizza Kitchen and Starbucks. I guess the Americans left their mark!

Siem Reap

The final stop of our three week Vietnam/Cambodia adventure was certainly the piece de resistance. Beginning with sunrise over Angkor Wat and ending in the ancient city of Angkor Thom, we spent our last two days hiking up steep stairs, sweating in the scorching heat and learning about the interesting blend of Hindu and Buddhist influence throughout the Khmer Empire as far back as the 9th century. 

We started our first day at the legendary Ankgor Wat joining hundreds of eager tourists looking upon the largest temple in the world. The bas-reliefs carved in the 12th century are so well preserved they could have been carved yesterday. 

After Angkor Wat, our driver took us to Ta Nei, a seldom visited temple that ended up being one of our favorites of the day. Off the beaten path, this temple was completely overgrown with trees and roots and empty of the tourists that plagued Angkor Wat. We literally had the whole place to ourselves! We then continued on to Ta Keo where we had to climb some scary steep steps up to the top of the temple for a very worthwhile view at the top. After Ta Keo, we moved on to Ta Phrom, also known as "Tomb Raider" as it was featured in the Angelina Jolie movie from a few years back. I never understood why she and Brad Pitt adopted their first child from Cambodia, but after realizing that she had filmed on location here for close to a year (and seeing the adorable Cambodian children), it all makes sense now!

Our last stop before lunch was Pra Roup, a temple designed a bit differently than those we had seen thus far. It was built out of brick and was covered in lion statues. Oh, and there were more stairs to climb!? After a brief (and pretty unsatisfying) lunch of Cambodian fare, we continued on for the final two temples of the day. The first was Banteay Srei, a beautiful pink sandstone temple about 45 minutes from the main Angkor Wat area. At this point, we'd seen so many temples that I sadly have to admit that they all sort of started blending together. The last stop of the day was Banteay Samre. I think I was too hot at this point for my brain to work properly, so I can't remember what made it special. 

After our long day of touristing, we went to the pool at Le Meridien for a swim and to cool down. The fun had really only just begun though because we had a big night ahead. The hotel recommended a place call Mahob for dinner which was fantastic - one of the best meals of the trip! Laura and Gemma ordered steak which came out on a hot stone for them to cook it themselves. I had tuna tartar with mango and a chicken curry that was delicious. Oh ya, and George ordered beef with fire ants. Ewww! (Actually, I had a bite of ants, and you can't really even tell they are on your form.) After dinner, we went to Phare, a local circus troupe that tells the story of the Khmer Rouge struggle through dancing and acrobatics. It was a really amazing show that brought us all to make generous donations at the end to help the students of a performing arts school in Battambang revive the Khmer culture that was lost during Pol Pot's regime. 

Laura's flight was earlier than ours, but we didn't cover Angkor Thom and Bayon in our tour on the first day, so we woke up again at sunrise to beat the crowds to the ancient Khmer capital city. It was well worth it. The New Years celebrations brought our the locals in full force. The whole city was buzzing with partying Cambodian families and worshipers alike. Different from the other temples we had seen, Bayon has all these really cool heads on all of the towers. Historians don't actually know what the significance of the heads are or who they are meant to represent. We wandered around Angkor Thom after Bayon to Baphuon which is a pyramidal representation of mythical Mount Meru that marked the center of the city that existed before Angkor Thom. Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside because we were in shorts and our guide had misinformed us about the necessity to cover our shoulders and knees. We ended our Siem Reap experience by walking along the Terrace of the Elephants and through the grounds (and New Years parties) back to meet our van. Our time in Cambodia wasn't enough. I left wanting more. The people are so kind and seem so happy despite their tragic past. I will have to come back one day and explore some of the beaches!

Nha Trang

Traveling can be tiring, so we made sure to include as much R&R in our itinerary as possible. Nha Trang was the perfect answer to our desires allowing for us to lie on the beach or by the pool for three days with absolutely nothing planned. Laura was sick the whole time with some sort of sinus thing, but at least didn't miss out on any activities and was able to sleep through the worst of it.

Since we literally did nothing but read, swim and eat, I don't have a whole lot to say about Nha Trang, but this:

- The Sunrise Hotel has a great pool, an average breakfast buffet, free lawn chairs and umbrellas on the beach and horrible lunch

- Sunset at the Sailing Club is awesome

- The Louisiane Brewhouse is another great beach club to chill out, have a drink or watch the sunset

- Russians...so many Russians!