Koh Shhhhhhhh

Koh Shhhhh
Ryan has a break in classes so we're running away to a remote island that I won't name so the power of the Internet doesn't ruin it. Maybe I'll turn you off of it by telling you the only room that is within our budget is our worst room to date. We call it "camping with air conditioning." Amenities include: sink that immediately throws its contents onto the floor so you might as well just spit on the floor, four foot hole in the wall that's covered with a board that's held in place at the corners with duct tape, other duct tape covered holes which haven't deterred the mice chewing holes in them, mini ants galore, water that sometimes runs and sometimes doesn't, wifi area is located under the blistering sun, and the remote area means the motorbike rentals are expensive.

Aside from that, we're practically by ourselves, on the prettiest beach we've ever seen with water so clear it seems strange you can't drink it. It's a postcard view in every direction. It was a week of morning workouts and swimming, really basic Thai food, beach hopping, and amazing sunsets with great beach dogs. 
Our beach dog Sandy was a cold-hearted killer. He would dig out sand crabs and play with them until they were dead, then go dig up another. Every property here has a pack of dogs associated with it which can get a little scary walking at night to try and play with the rumored bioluminescent plankton.
Our go to restaurant within walking distance with kind people and good food and lots to look at. 
This is our incredibly fat house monkey Mulan. She bares her teeth at women but loves men because she eats their body hair. If Ryan passes her without petting her, she clasps her hands together, rocks her body and makes a nibbling motion with her mouth while tilting her head from side to side. It looks like she's talking to you! 
Loose sand does not make for good motorbiking conditions. 
Clean up station for a really yummy Northern Thai food restaurant. 
One night it looked like a storm would strike at any minute and we had perfect front row seats. 
Until a man more dedicated to sunsets than I, claimed the spot right in front of us when there's no one else on the beach. Go figure. 
But he missed the rainbow sky finish. 


Slice of Pai

Pai
People warn about the road to Pai, about the 762 turns in the three hour drive, about how even those with a sound stomach get sick. Being known to deal with bouts of car sickness myself, I doped up on Dramamine and arrived safely and thoroughly out of it. Ryan and Marc were dripping with sweat because as much as the van has A/C, it cannot compete with the 12 bodies and a boiling hot lava road that heats the van floor so you cannot touch it. But we're here in this small hippie town in the mountains. There's talk of how Pai is no longer the real Thailand, that it's overrun with backpackers, but for us it's low season and we made four new friends instantly so that's fun. The night market shows how much westerners have influenced this town with so much lasagna, loaded baked potatoes and mac n'cheese. And you better believe I was first in line for a loaded baked potato! Mmmmm home, sort of! 
We started with a day of touring the main spots in a songthaew (pickup truck taxi with covered padded benches). You'd think I'd be prepared with Dramamine to go out on this tour but I completely forgot and almost lost it by the first stop. These turns are serious. After asking him to slow down, I ended up sitting inside with our driver Andy. His sister is teaching him English to help with his tour taxi business and made him a mix CD of American music to help. We sway through the hills listening to original and interesting remake versions of "Achy Breaky Heart," "Don't Speak," "Torn," "Kiss Me," and so many more. I was really loving our singalong! Our friends Kat and Roy were in another car but on the same route so we saw them the whole way. They're chefs from Boulder, CO and are using their travels as research to open an international tapas food truck when they get home. Great idea!!

First stop was a great view and a crazy "manual Ferris wheel". We needed more muscle to be able to pull down the seat to get a fourth person on, but then I really don't know what happens when all seats are full... Then we hit up the caves where we're handed to a guide who doesn't speak much English so we only learn the names of the formations. There were three formations of "tooth", one "monkey," and one "boob." Good thing caves are cool to crawl around anyways! On our raft ride through the caves with huge fish following us, our guide slaps my back and when I look back to see why, he says, "spider," and I don't want to be here anymore.
We hit up the lesser known hot springs where the locals hang. Received mud masks from the kids and I spent the next hour losing my suit while throwing them and splashing all around. Onto a swimming hole where all sorts of locals gathered to get drunk or have a shower or just play in the running river water. 
And lastly, sunset at the Pai Canyon which is unlike any canyon I've seen before. Instead of admiring the depths from the wide rim and walking trails down into the canyon, the narrow top edge of the canyon is the only place to walk with a steep drop on either side. 
We explored the next few days. One day at the famous Circus Hostel where my existing love for hula hooping grew after practicing with some women who really know how to move. Another day hanging with our British buds Josh and Zoe, motorbiking to a dry waterfall, hanging at the pool club, catching sunset with a massive Buddha and drinking blue raspberry shakes on their porch. 

Pai is so great because you can do so many things within easy walking distance. You can go to an insane party, chill out at a groovy lounge, learn circus tricks, hang at the pool club or chill by a quiet river all at your fingertips. There's great live music and such open friendly people that we felt if we didn't leave, we would stay forever. But it's SO HOT that instead of paying for a pool club every day, we're running away to the ocean!


BANGARANG!!

Chiang Mai
So happy to be back in Thailand! I was able to wash and more importantly, DRY my rice paddy disaster clothes! Random strangers helped us anytime we looked confused! Food is available at all hours of the day and it's so good! And it's well over 100 degrees everyday ugh... guess you can't win them all. We head straight north to Chiang Mai to settle in a bit before the insanity of the Songkran festival starts up. Songkran celebrates the Bhuddist New Year, what started as dripping blessed water onto your loved ones has turned into city-wide water fight and we can't wait! Our friends from our Vietnam travels are all meeting up here so we know it's going to be "absolute carnage" (as spoken with a Welsh accent by our buddy Frank).

We end up renting a room above the best Thai restaurant in all the land, Krua Sabai. Binh is our wonderful host and chef who doesn't speak much English but we found a common language in food and laughter. It was love at first green curry for Binh and Ryan. When she came out of the kitchen to see Ryan wearing a bandana Rambo style to soak up his sweat from this spicy dish, she nearly fell over laughing at him. Pretty sure we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner here for three days straight, working our way through her menu and all of it was aroy mak (very delicious)! Khao Soi is the dish Chiang Mai is most known for. Binh doesn't make it so she took us out to try some. After properly spicing up Ryan's bowl, we take our first bites and Binh is not happy. She makes awful faces and it's obvious this meal is not living up to her standards. She heads back to the food stand and gives them her opinion which included a lot of finger wagging. We then head to her friend's shop who speaks English so she can translate to us exactly what was wrong with it and promises to find a real bowl of Khao Soi for us. 
Dani and Alex came into town first and aside from the didgeridoo band that never showed, my cheeks hurt which means it was good times at the jazz bar and I love them. 
But let's get to the important stuff, it's my birthday and Ryan gave me elephants and I'm swooning! We went to the world renowned Elephant Nature Park, a true sanctuary for elephants rescued from tourism and logging industries (many elephant camps call themselves sanctuaries to appeal to kind-hearted tourists but don't actually change their practices). So yes, there's a very serious side to this gift that you need to know about. Please please please read this article on the domestication of elephants as it puts words and video to my feelings of extreme heartbreak for these animals enslaved for Facebook profile pics. The treatment is so extreme that some elephants commit suicide by stepping on their trunks.

Ok now that you know the real deal about elephant tourism and will never ever give your money to anywhere but a true sanctuary, let's get on with our day at Elephant Nature Park. We fed them, we rubbed them, we bathed them, we watched them play and they're just the coolest and I want them all to be my best friend. I can't stop smiling and to make it even better Alex and Dani are there too! Great minds. 
Girlfriend did not go out and pierce her ears for fashion's sake but she is stunning! 
This female's leg was broken from a log that tumbled onto her. Watching her try to walk around made us cringe. ENP is hoping they can perform surgery to help her. 
Washing the biggest female at 4.5 tons aka practicing for Songkran water fights. 
Lek, founder of ENP, seeing the elephants love her is magical. 
After ENP opened, other elephant camps opened up in the area offering all of the no-no elephant tourism activities. We watched as elephant rides passed with heavy metal cages and heavy tourists and a mahout on their backs. It's hard not to throw rocks at them (inappropriate childish violent reaction) when we just visited with elephants whose backs are no longer curved as they should be from that exact practice.  

We made friends of Americans Kevin and Kara at ENP and joined forces with Alex and Dani, and Peter and Lauren for a birthday dinner of street food at the insanely packed and huge Sunday Night Market. With lightening bolt face tattoos, buckets of mojitos and an awesome reggae band, it was a great birthday night with new friends on the other side of the world. Even got to blow out my candle! 
While Ryan's busy studying, I head to the "Grand Canyon" of Chiang Mai which is really just a large quarry swimming hole. The cliff jumping becomes the main spectacle with cheering crowds gathered below on bamboo rafts. One jumper in particular was having a tough time gathering his nerve. His bathing suit spelled PYREX in huge white letters across the front, thus becoming his name to us in the crowd. We watched and chanted for him, never wanting to look away so we wouldn't miss his jump. After two hours it finally happened and crowd went WILD!! #isawpyrexjump 

Finally, it's Songkran time and we're amped up as we try to make water balloons with lame kits from "Toys R Us". Equipped with matching "Frozen" guns and loads of sunscreen, we're ready, let's do this! 
Yes that's Ryan aiming right for me... and yes I dance with my water more than I shoot anyone. But this is the most fun party I've ever been to! Everyone becomes a little kid full of mischief and joy. Smiles are everywhere. Even the buckets of ice water are shocking but wonderful in the heat. You start to not even care about people throwing the dirty water from the city's moat. The electronic music is blaring and everyone is dancing in the street all day long. I'm convinced, we all need water fights in our lives on a regular basis. Post Round One:
And yet we find the energy to keep going!
After months of teasing us with the possibility, our back home bud Marc has arrived and will hang with us for a bit before heading to a teaching job in Hanoi. 
Three days of water fights later, we're exhausted. So fun! So tired. And walking around the city we're happy to finally not be constantly soaking wet but simultaneously wishing someone would throw a bucket of water on us because this heat is just too much. We seek solace at the Sticky Waterfalls. These falls contain a mineral that has soaked the ground, as if someone poured concrete down the slope. This mineral makes the rocks feel dry so you can literally walk right up the falls! 
And I can't leave out the Chiang Mai Ladyboy Cabaret! A fantastically entertaining show full of surprises. For example, the back of this lady's dress scoops all the way below her butt in which she's holding a single red rose to place in a lucky fella's mouth. And that lipstick singing Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You", so good! 
Chiang Mai is really great. There's so much to do, so much art and healthy food, so many temples and yoga so difficult you can't raise your arms for three days or maybe that's just me. It's really hard to leave this place, which is why we keep extending our stay...
The best seats for the Jazz club, the grass across the street. It's sweaty in there. 
Ryan and Binh continue to bond over his love for her food and now instead of him ordering from the menu, she chooses what she wants to make for him. Binh believes that Ryan was Thai in a former life and she calls him her son. She just gets him. And they cool off together under the fan. 
She really is our Thai mother and often reminds us of Ryan's mom (hi Donna!). One night after turning off the shower and toweling off, I accidentally turned the shower back on. The leftover water had sat in the little wall mounted water heater and turned into lava and I screamed as it hit me burning the pattern of the water spray into my stomach and upper thigh. I hear Bihn hurry up the stairs, Ryan slowly comes out of our room and tells her, "it's probably just a spider." We don't have any ice so I stand in a cold misty shower till my skin cools down, it's nothing serious, just temporary. Bihn gives me tiger balm oil spray and as I'm laying down in front of the air conditioner, Ryan sprays my burns, the oil catches in the A/C breeze and lands right into my eye!! My whole eye and all of that sensitive skin surrounding it is on fire with tiger balm as I run to the sink to flush it out. Bihn finds me at the sink and I pantomime what happened and she bellies over laughing at me, calling me, "Ba Ba!!" which means crazy. 

Binh treats us to a cooking class and oh man, we need to learn these secrets. We pick three dishes and get to work. Since we have a language barrier, I'm taking notes on everything and will just have to make sense of them later. The dishes are surprisingly easy and oh so delicious! And if we can find the ingredients you may be fortunate to have your tastebuds dazzled by our fried green curry, Esan fried fish salad and pad kra pow. 
She also took us out to a lake for a picnic dinner and sunset hang. The salt encrusted fish was fantastic and the lake reminded us of home aside from the smog covered sunset. Binh finally found a bowl of Khao Soi that lived up to her standards. And with that, we say our goodbyes as we head further north to Pai. We'll miss being so well taken care of, thanks Binh!!!



Popular Posts

  • Moldy March
    Hanoi is where our friend Monica is living and teaching (we vacationed with her and her brother Tim on Phu Quoc) and she informed us ...
  • BANGARANG!!
    So happy to be back in Thailand! I was able to wash and more importantly, DRY my rice paddy disaster clothes! Random strangers helpe...
  • Dipping our toes in
    A waterfall hike was on the docket first thing in the morning. We were told we should rent a scooter for any of the hikes but that seemed ...
  • A Relaxed New Beginning
    Our ride out of Cambodia to Laos had some issues as expected... But the border crossing was uneventful and we're excited to be in th...
  • Temple Playground
    With both of us getting sick over the past two weeks, we opt to stay at a house with a kitchen in Siem Reap and meet several couch surfers d...
  • Happy Trip
    We arrived back in HCMC in District 2 in a lovely home with a lovely host family where we could do laundry, woohoo!! The family was so nice...
  • Lanta a little longer
    We settled into a beach workout, ocean swim, lunch, shower, schoolwork/relax in A/C, sunset and dinner  regime. Our workout spot is also o...
  • Life is beachy
    We've been taking it easy lately. It's been way hot and Ryan's heat rash is not happy, so we've kept it to short outing...
  • Onto Vietnam
    Leaving Thailand was sad but exciting as we head to new experiences in Vietnam.  We spent just an evening and a day in Ho Chi Min...
  • More Motorbikes Please
    We head further north to Luang NamTha , only another nine-hour cramped twisting turning ride to a tiny town known for trekking into the Nam ...

Follow Us

@bethsayhey