Circling through SE Asia

Because we were in Bangkok for a few days again before we left, we had time to take a day trip to Ayutthaya, land of Buddha heads falling on the ground after invasions and then trees propping it up magically.

The best (and cheapest) way to get around Ayutthaya was to rent bikes and try not to get killed in traffic.

The temples were scattered throughout the whole city!

And they seemed more ruined than Sukohthai’s.

Here I am thinking someone was going to arrest me for climbing up. 

And there were really pretty parks scattered around too.

We tried not to wake the reclining Buddha.

Back in Bangkok, we found the best massage place from the whole trip! 

They had ropes like this on the ceiling so that the masseuses could walk on our legs.

In Bangkok we once again hit up the fancy malls. 

And got stuck in the pouring rain. (Yay, monsoon season!)

We took this same picture about 3 months before.

We had a layover in China, where a convenience store sold this:

After 33 hotels/airbnbs, 3 sunglasses lost, Louie tripping 38 times, 22 cities stayed at, 5 countries (7 if you include our short ventures to Laos and China), 2 email penpals found, and lots and lots of chicken and rice, we were off to Vancouver. 

Our minivan ride to Pattaya was very long and we weren’t really sure what was happening half the time. I’ll just let my snapchat story show you how that went in case you missed it...

We didn’t really realize Pattaya was the sex tourism capital of Thailand until we got there, thus the many go go bars: 

OR that there had just been a sewage spill into the beach recently, but at least we could look at it.

We also rediscovered Bingzou here.

There was a fairly large walking street too.

At some point we experienced a monsoon and had a pizza delivered for dinner because we couldn’t go outside.

Our elevator started leaking too, but we were lucky and haven’t really been rained on too hard for this whole trip. 

Besides that, Pattaya’s floating market is the largest in Thailand!

It was filled with colorful sights, food, and souvenirs!

Siem Reap is a very touristy city because everyone there goes to see Angkor Wat.

On the way there from Phnom Penh, there was a lot of rice paddies and county side. 

And cows that our bus driver beeped at to get out of the way every so often.

I missed most of it, clearly.

We decided to stay at the Funky Flashpacker Party Hostel. According to them, it’s “the #1 Party Hostel in Asia”. This was the view from our room:

Siem Reap had very lighted and colorful night markets.

The tuk tuk drivers here were not very pushy at all. 

To go to Angkor Wat we decided to get a tuk tuk driver for the day. The temple complex is huge, and they sold 1, 3, and 7 day tickets! 

We got the 1 day because you can only see so many temples in so much time, and hit up the main ones. 

They were so old! There were wooden steps on top of the stairs because they had become so worn down/did not exist. 

Once again, these temples were very different from the many others we’d seen on this trip, and some of the carvings looked so well-preserved! 

They had done refurbishments, though, which is probably why tickets cost a whopping $37. (Everything else is so much less expensive!) 

This was yet another “younger” temple, but less refurbished. 

And then, my favorite, the jungly one.

Where trees decide they’re gonna grow where they want!

There were so many trees like this seemingly walking around in slow motion.

When we returned, we found our tuk tuk driver (his name was Mr. Ree haha) asleep, so we took a picture and walked around a bit more. When we returned, he was hurriedly putting away his hammock, probably hoping that we hadn’t seen him. 

From Jakarta, we went to Kuala Lumpur for an overnight layover: 

So when we got to Phnom Penh to finally eat some brunch (yes, it ended up being french bread with ice cream), this is how I ate it: 

In Cambodia, everybody kept telling me to be careful with my purse and phone because of snatchers out there. Also beer was as cheap as 50 cents and no more than 1 usd. The currency there is USD unless they’re in denominations of under a dollar, in which case they use the riel which is 4000 riels=1 usd.

One of the first things we did in Phnom Penh was go to the S21 Museum, which is one of the places where the Khmer Rouge questioned and tortured people in the 70s. (We did not go to the killing fields because this was more than enough to rattle the soul.) 

The museum itself was super well-organized, informative, and heartbreakingly sad. If you’re ever in Phnom Penh, go just to see what people are capable of. :( 

On a lighter note, we also went to a central market, which was HUGE and had mostly jewelry in the middle, and everything else you could imagine surrounding this building. 

You could tell that the infrastructure here is lacking compared to, say Thailand. Sidewalks are falling apart, and even this large central market was dated. 

The tuk tuks here were of a different style, and the drivers were not scammers, so we ended up riding them a lot :)

Also, can I repeat that beer was 50 cents to a dollar? At our hotel there was a all you can drink deal of 3 hours for $5 so we took a day off of going anywhere to do that and play cards. 

We also visited the Russian Market. There wasn’t anything Russian about it that we could see (apparently many Russians used to go there...?), but they sold motors and metal things aside from the usual souvenirs. 

Unlike Bangkok’s $30+ entrance fee to the Royal Palace (which we didn’t go to because we got on a scammy boat ride instead, if you recall), Phnom Penh’s royal palace was only $10, so we went. 

It was still a ripoff because why are we giving money to the Cambodian king, who already has this huge palace in which I can’t even take pictures of the inside because they’re scared to let the world know they have so much shiny gold?

There were lots of these gray bell structures like this all around the palace. 

And a whole room dedicated to showing different means of transport for the kings. 

We went back in this super flowery tuk tuk. :)

And before we knew it 7 whole days had gone by and we zipped off to Siem Reap, but not as stylishly as these people: 

Yogyakarta was similar to Surabaya except that there were *slightly* more tourists and many more ancient temple things. 

They also seemed to have more art. Like this.

And Indonesian Spiderman eating local food.

“Hmm which one will I try? None of them look good.”

Since we were only there for a couple of days, the only thing we really did was visit the Prambanan temple complex.

This is Louie before he died. 

And here he is coming back to life. 

We still are not sure if each temple had someone inside, but that’s what it sure seemed (and smelled) like. 

Thankfully you could escape to right outside the musty smelling statue place easily. 

The temples’ style was unlike any other we had come across thus far, and apparently an earthquake in the early 2000s destroyed this place and they had to restore it. It’s impressive. How were they able to do that? 

We were asked for selfies with people from the area so many times. When we asked if WE could have a picture with them, too they seemed a little taken aback, but they obliged. 

We got this photography spot idea from a pro who nearly laid down on the floor while taking his photo.

Seriously every few minutes we got a selfie request.

Thankfully it didn’t rain, but if it had we would have been ok. 

Because it was a large complex to walk through, and because Louie flashed me the biggest child-like excited smile when he saw the tandem bikes, we rode the rest of the way on a tandem bike. 

Me: “Why is this thing moving around so much?!”

Louie: “We just went over a bunch of bumps!”

but in reality this was happening:

That evening we went to a restaurant with no chairs. 

Then we went to Jakarta for the night, but there wasn’t much to do there, so the next blog will be on Phnom Penh. 

After we went on the bus that took us to Gilmanuk, the western edge of Bali, we took a short ferry to Banyuwagi on the island of Java where we stayed for the night.

This was the way to the ferry:

On the ferry we encountered some English-speaking Javanese family who took our picture. We also exchanged email info with them to ask them recommendations about our trip. It was a sign of the impromptu selfie suggestions to come in Java. 

We stayed in Banyuwagi for the night, but we ended up with no pictures there. It was a very small, dusty town where some people managed to find us a homestay where they didn’t even take our names. It has been the only place gross enough for us to justify not showering there. 

Also in Banyuwagi that evening, we passed a group of kids playing on a street and I decided to ask them where chicken was because we were hungry. I rubbed my belly and said “ayam?”

They must’ve thought I was calling them chickens because a little boy, probably no older than 5 waited until I gave up waiting for a response and kept walking to shout back, “B*tch!” 

That’s what I get for calling them chickens! The little girl in the group, though made an eating motion and pointed us to a restaurant. 

Once inside, the lady there goes to get someone who can speak a tiny bit of English. He is very nice and tells us that both of our meals would cost a total of $3CAD, which was about half off of what we’d pay for a meal in bali. O_O

That’s really all for Banyuwagi. The next day we got on an early train to Surabaya. 

Our hotel had funky not-aligned things going on like this TV. 

There wasn’t much going on in Surabaya. We had plans to go to Mount Bromo, but decided against it because it was so far away and apparently the mafia charges exorbitant amounts to enter and the only way to avoid them was to take some backroad. Either way, we were only in Surabaya 3 days before jumping on a train again so we chilled more. 

Aka we hit up the mall, where I bought 2 drinks that were gross tasting and went into the arcade and I beat Louie at air hockey yet again. The sunsets here were very pretty, and people stared at us a lot because apparently white people don’t go to Surabaya. (The only other white person I came across was at the mall, and we smiled at each other for a good 3 seconds because LOL our people!) 

Our hotel had a nice restaurant at the top floor with a good view. 

And we figured that since we were in Java, we should try more coffees. We just ended up discovering we don’t like french pressed coffee...

Also we realized that the pizza specials came with a special drink, so why did we order sprite with it???

And this is the point of the trip where we miss food from home like a lot. This is me looking tired of the food and skeptical of this green pizza xD

No kidding, we went to a fast food chicken place at one point where we had to wait over an hour in line to order, and they gave you rice in a hamburger wrap with no fork. We ended up eating rice like a hamburger. No one else was doing that, but we weren’t brave enough to pick at it with our hands. 

When we left for Yogyakarta by train we missed it by only a few mins, so we had to cough up some $$ to go on a business class train, where we saw the same white people we saw in the mall!  Coincidentally, they are not pictured. 

After spending all of 5 minutes in the domestic terminal of Jakarta, we decided to take an earlier flight from Jakarta to Bali instead of waiting at the airport all day. The organization here was terrible and we almost boarded the wrong plane!

As soon as we arrived to Bali, we saw so many sculptures like these, which the island is known for:

Also, there were many many temples with bushy, straw-like tops like these scattered throughout the island:

We were lucky enough to stay at a nice villa for three days where someone came in to cook us breakfast every morning: 

And there was also a lot of beach time to be had.

I got a pretty bad cold that had me feeling like this for a few days.

Eventually I found the right medicine to take. It was all in Indonesian! 

We also went snorkeling again!

We even saw rainbow fish! There were some in the Perhentian Islands as well, but we weren’t able to get a picture like this: 

Later that day we also went parasailing! 

We were only up in the air for about a minute, but it was a pretty thrilling experience!

Then we changed villas and stayed in a more remote area where the beaches were very blue and beautiful.

We also stumbled upon this hotel while trying to look for a restaurant. Needless to say the restaurant in here was way over our budget. However, we did get some good advice from someone who worked here on where to go to eat and things to see. She definitely thought we were guests and also probably thought we were bored teenagers whose rich parents took us here. Haha nope!

The following day we went to see the Tegenungan Waterfalls: 

Our driver took us to this place for lunch where they greeted you with a flower.

And afterwards we were off to the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud. It was very surreal. It felt like we were in the middle of the Jungle Book. 

I was able to learn how to look for lice on Louie’s head from the monkeys.

And we were able to get bananas to lure monkeys on us.

My monkey didn’t want to rest on me. 

It was slightly terrifying. 

The monkeys were able to go inside a sacred temple, but we weren’t, so we could only look at them from behind the fence. 

Afterwards we went to the Batur Volcano: 

And finished the day going to a way too expensive beach restaurant for which our driver probably got a commission. lol

Also, Sangha’s room had interesting things going on...

After Sangha left, we stuck around in Kuta and accidentally came across a baby turtle release into the ocean! 

There were TONS of people and TONS of baby turtles being released into the sea.

We also learned how to be magical that evening. 

The show we went to combined a Balinese story with magic. It was very weird but fun. Louie made me go up and be a volunteer to help them with their magic tricks.

We were there for about a week longer after that, so we kept going to the beach :)

Our last night in Bali we stayed at a place with a weird toilet/shower combo:

We finished off Bali by going to the Uluwatu temple, which was on a cliff. They also had a sunset dance/play that was very good: 

I’m not sure how so many people managed to fit. The people in the center were the musical accompaniment. They hummed and sang in a really peculiar clicking manner throughout the whole play.

And the view of the sunset right to the left of it was amazing.

The fire they used as part of the play was questionable considering how many people were packed into the stadium, but it was very cool to watch. Here the monkey lord burned down his enemy’s palace. Throughout the play, the monkey went into the crowd and took selfies with them haha.

This was the main character princess person.

After that we went on a very old rickety $5 bus to the other side of the island to go on a ferry to Banyuwagi. The side of the bus was falling apart, so that was interesting. 

There were so many gorgeous things to see and do in the Lion City! I really don’t know what else to say about Singapore except that it was amazing! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.   

We spent the first three days away from the city center (unintentionally) discovering some gems such as this Mexican restaurant/mural combo:

And this slice-of-cake building (I’m not sure what its real name is but wow it was sharp looking!) 

This was the same cake building from another angle.

And the “honeycomb” building, as we named it, had workers (honeybees) strapped to it cleaning the combs. See bottom left.

The fountain of wealth was displayed from the basement of one of the MANY huge malls:

There was an Arab street/neighborhood containing this mosque, and very good cheap eats:

As well as cafes where they sell...well they’re very up front about it: 

The theaters by the bay, inspired by durians:

Spikey trees in Fort Canning: 

And slick memorials: 

The city itself is so organized, open, and clean! It truly is a jewel! 

We were lucky enough to stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel with Sangha, one of Louie’s friends from work:

THIS WAS OUR VIEW:

IT WAS AMAZING:

SERIOUSLY

Marina Bay Sands had a Comic Cafe with bleh food:

And, again, very close to/attached to MBS was the ArtScience Musem. This is what they think babies might look like in the future. Take a good look at the hole in it’s head. That’s to “more efficiently intake medicine”.

This was our view at night from the roof:

We saw a light show from the top and decided to go to the next one shortly after.

It was amazing.

This was the double helix bridge! (The shape of DNA!) 

Which was right next to the ArtScience Museum (white flowery building). 

We also went to the Maxwell Hawker Center, where we ate some Hainanese Chicken Rice. 

A++++++ Would recommend!!

And of course, the only reason we stayed at the MBS hotel: for the pool.

The Gardens by the Bay also featured a light show at night: 

One minute the trees were one color...

and the next, they were a different color:

This is the same helix bridge by day lol: 

We took a stroll to Merlion Park, and I pretended to quench my thirst:

And finally stopped at the National Museum of Singapore, where we learned that at one point, Singapore tried to merge with Malaysia after the British and even Japanese had invaded. (That lasted only 2 years because of political differences between the two countries.) 

After we got back from the Perhentian Islands, we stayed in Kuala Besut for one night. We had originally scoped out a hotel on tripadvisor that had good reviews, but it turned out to be closed. So the lady we asked for directions took us to a sketchy looking building with a really nice room for a fair price, so we ended up staying there. This was the sign out in front of the door. I guess we stayed at the “Hotel” hotel...? 

There was nothing wrong with the room other than some ants and the proximity to the Ramadan prayers that were loudspeakered seemingly into our room at 5:30am. 

Kuala Besut was a small port town with lots of weird animals around in random places. Like these cows chilling by a huge food bazaar on the street. 

Or this goat that came to say hello while we were doing laundry: 

That’s all I have for Kuala Besut because we really just stayed there to sleep in an actual bed after our tent/rats camping experience. 

Afterwards we got on a night bus to Georgetown, where there were lots of beautiful temples and street art. It is a port town as well (but on the other side of the country) and so there were lots of immigrants from India, China, and Europe who came to live here. This was reflected in the mix of architecture. For example the Hindu temples we saw looked like this:

And the Chinese ones had more this style: 

And of course, the McDonald’s were housed in very European-like structures. (This was dubbed “The Fanciest McDonald’s” by Louie.) 

We also went to a lot of mall areas because it was pretty hot...

I ended up playing this dancing game in which you can play against anyone in the world. I beat two Chinese girls >: )

Louie beat me at darts, and I beat him in *gasp* air hockey. *cough* 

In any case, we didn’t do as much as we could because we needed some rest/Louie didn’t feel too good and thus he succumbed to the temptation of playing candy crush (but only for a few games): 

We left Georgetown to go back to Kuala Lumpur, and we could not for the life of us get a cab to take us to our hotel. Why? Because it was too close to be profitable! D: So we walked aimlessly, and I got crabby, and it was hot. We couldn’t even walk to the hotel because we’d have to cross a highway to do so. 

As we stood with our heavy backpacks, stumped as to how to get to the hotel (I was just tiredly and angrily trying to laser-beam a hole into the ground), a nice woman around our age and her mother pulled up to us and told us they had seen us get rejected by all of the cabs! 

“I can get you an uber!” she said. Well the ubers didn’t want to take us there either. So her mom ended us driving us. 

(THANK YOU SO MUCH KIND SOUL WE’D PROBABLY STILL BE AT THE BUS STATION IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU <3) 

Anyway, after a long tiring day we went to Pizza Hut (LOL) I started bawling because somehow, in the conversation I was having with Louie, he said “imagine you left me in a gutter somewhere”. It became too much to handle and all of the emotions of trying to get a damn cab came rushing out. 

The clearest, prettiest water we’ve come across on this trip was on the Perhentian Islands. Our boat took us right to the beach of the Rainforest Campgrounds where European volunteers checked us in and their litter of doggies welcomed us:

We don’t know his name. All we know is that he is a friend that likes to be petted by Louie.

This was the view from the little cafe. I didn’t have my camera on me, but in these waters we saw rainbow fish! Like from that book in Kindergarten, remember!?

And these were the tents we stayed in. Also where, as I’m sure you heard from my social media SOS the rats went on top of during our 3rd and final night camping:

Even with the rats crawling up our tent at night, it was worth it. 

Louie didn’t think it was so scary and proceeded to fall asleep shortly after, while I welcomed emotional support from people (thanks Abraham and Dr. Roz). 

There were a bunch of other beaches within walking distance--Coral Beach: 

Long Beach:

We had drinks just to lay down under these shades:

Seriously, it was beautiful:

I’m not sure where that flag is from....

And now we will see a bunch of pics from my low-quality GoPro wannabe cheapo camera. We went snorkeling and saw sea turtles!

AND SO MANY FISH

And...coral? Is that coral? Also is it dying? Why is it so pale?

Louie showing off his sick dance moves to the fishes:

Mr. Fish photobombed us.

There were seriously so. many.

It was an amazing few days, and worth it even considering my rat trauma. On the way back to the mainland, the water looked smooth and delicious!

Our journey into the rainforest started with driving to this river and speeding via boat. 

The water looked really murky, but was actually pretty clean! (Someone told us they showered in it?!)

The trees in Taman Negara apparently don’t have any rings, so I do wonder how they decided that the rainforest was the oldest in the world. There aren’t any seasons, and so (we were told) this is why the trees don’t have rings. 

Also we got transported via the fastest railed pick up truck yet:

We took a jungle night walk through the jungle with a guide, and it’s a good thing we did because the spiders there were the size of dinner plates :O

The only good night picture we got was of a scorpion because they GLOW IN THE DARK WHEN THERES A BLACKLIGHT?! There were snakes, spiders, leeches and lots of different varying-size bugs. 

 The next morning we went on a hike on the other side of the river.

There were lots of rickety canopies high up in the trees! (They didn’t let you take pictures while you were crossing them, sadly.)

To be honest, if I were to engineer a bridge I would also use a ladder as stairs down. It’s like the duct tape of bridges.

It was kind of foggy up there, and there were butterflies everywhere so the adventure felt Real.

I think Louie’s actually smiling here?? :O

Remember I mentioned leeches in the rainforest? Well during our hike, I noticed Louie kept fumbling with his shoes. The whole morning. Well it turned out to be a leech that was sucking all of his blood out.

The little devil had the tenacity to drink up until it was like 5x it’s thickness and then throw the blood back up. And then (not pictured) proceeded to SWIM IN A POOL of thrown up blood. I guess I would do the same if I ate multiple times my body weight in food. But still. Animals. 

Later that day, we visited a aboriginal tribe in the area, where they showed us how to make fire and darts to kill monkeys (I mean food) using local plants. That bulgy part at the end is the mouth piece. 

Here is Louie, Malaysian hunter version (LMAO):

Here I am shooting a monkey. Normally, only the men go hunting for food, but (not to brag or anything *cough*) after I had my shot they said maybe they should start letting women go. 

To be fair, though, it was only a stuffed monkey:

I’m not sure if the people there were pissed off that we were there, but apparently they don’t mind people visiting as long as they get paid, so I guess it’s good for them. Not many of them speak even Malay. 

 I tried to wave to the kids, but they didn’t even wave back: 

Just as all hope for ever using airbnb again was almost lost (after the cockroach place), we snagged a 3br penthouse for only $26 USD/night in Bukit Jalil (they have since increased the price to ~$70 USD....??)

This place wasn’t right in the city, but with an infinity pool, sweet observation deck, and even hammock gardens, we weren’t complaining. 

This was the view from the balcony (yes, that is a rainbow):

And from the roof:

We had this pool all to ourselves!!

And I practiced how to be able to drown a little less in case I’m ever thrown overboard:

Speaking of being thrown overboard, it seems like many of the sidewalks in Malaysia (particularly the area we were at in KL) wanted you to die. 

I wonder how many drunk tourists trying to get home at night ultimately fall to their deaths...

There were some fancy restaurants near us. Like this gold one we were too plebeian to go into: 

And we had the most picturesque waffles and lattes:

We sadly said bye to the penthouse after a couple of days and finally went into the city! (Mainly Chinatown.) I bought an overpriced dress here U_U.

And of course we gawked at the Petronas Towers:

There are SO many malls within walking distance in KL (including a multiple story mall for electronics ONLY).

Louie found a bunch of his people (wearing Metallica shirts *cough*) listening to some tunes, too:

Here is a look into our experience of the logistics of defecating in SE Asia, for those who wonder.

(I warned you to unfriend me.)

We start, for comparison purposes, with the toilets in YVR airport. Notice the button flush, open-ring seat (which not only is more economic because it’s less plastic, but also more hygienic according to this).

Then, also for comparison, we have the long haul plane toilet, complete with handles on the seat (???) for when the turbulence (or flatulence, too, I guess) gets rough. Louie says it’s for guys to lift the seat up lol. 

Then there’s our connecting flight bathroom in Xiamen. Although this post has “toilets” clearly defined in the title, I figured it would be worth it to commend the Chinese color-coded towels that are only for cleaning?

And their 10x mag mirror in case you feel like plucking your eyebrows?

The toilet was pretty nice in Xiamen, complete with rotating plastic cover:

Then we got to Bangkok and discovered the butt sprayer, common everywhere in Thailand (and Malaysia). 

The shower was actually a separate entity, which you could slightly see to the left.

The fanciest public bathroom I’ve ever been in probably in my whole life was in the Siam Mall in Bangkok. Louie took a pic of the urinals, and my phone camera’s pics do 0 justice to this bathroom’s splendor. 

 In Sukohthai and pretty much everywhere else we stayed in Thailand, however, the shower is infused into the room that is the toilet. Apparently this is called a “wet room”. There are also hot water heaters everywhere (the big white thing on the wall next to the shower head). 

Oh, and in Thailand, the plumbing system doesn’t disintegrate toilet paper so you have to throw it all in the bin or get fined if you clog anything.  O_O

After Sukohthai, you’ll recall, we went to the jungle. Here we found the most basic toilet thus far: 

There was a pail in the thing of water (pitch black hole on the left) to “flush”. lol Not gonna lie, that was pretty grimey. Louie mentally forced himself not to poop. Also, you had to bring your own toilet paper. Fun! (Edit by Louie: Ana went in here barefoot! grooooooooooosssssssss) 

I also “showered” aka washed my hair and face in the river because that was the only option.

In Ko Lanta I found this jungle toilet I’ve already shown you where I probably got bit by mosquitoes on my butt. 

In Chiang Rai (White Temple public bathrooms) I found this beauty, probably the shiniest stall ever. 

Complete with reminder not to smoke or not put your feet on the toilet seat:

That same day, Louie encountered this bus terminal toilet, again flush yourself technology: 

All in all, you don’t really know what you’re going to get. There’s a lot of variety in the quality of toilets, just as you would find in the western world, I suppose. 

That’s pretty much it for the toilets in Thailand. In Malaysia, there are a lot more squatting toilets, but they’re optional MOST of the time. I think this is due to the fact that there’s a substantial population of Chinese immigrants, and the squatting toilets came from there? Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s my guess. 

This stall was right next to a normal toilet (with bowl) in a bus station, for example.

I will leave you with the most amusing toilet I’ve seen (located in a cafe in Malaysia): 

[These two pictures should be stitched together...]

In the vehicle-less island of Phi Phi, guesthouses have sturdy wheelbarrow/dolly hybrids that they use to transport luggage through these narrow streets: 

We thought we got a deal when we found a place for $15 right next to the beach, but then we stepped into the lobby: 

We checked in, thinking maybe our room was better? Nope. There were also two dead cockroaches in the bathroom. As soon as we turned on the air conditioner, a HUGE cockroach slowly poked out of it. I saw Louie’s face of pure disgust and internally laughed because that’s when I knew we were going to gtfo. 

We found a much, much nicer (and more expensive...) and cleaner place, but although Phi Phi is probably one of the nicer Thai beaches we encountered, it is very run down by tourism and well, cockroaches.

It’s also very much a party island, with lots of young people and fire shows. This is a bad picture, but there were 4+ people playing with fire like it was one of those ribbon twirlers from Barney. 

Oh, and the leader dude walked a tightrope WHILE twirling the fire. Louie’s got a video in case you’re interested in seeing insanity.

And of course the leader dude can jump rope on his butt. As in parallel to the ground. As in pulsating plank position. As in horizontally: 

We rented kayaks for the whole next day to explore the surrounding beaches, one of which was Monkey Beach: 

They were not at all afraid of humans, and they even knew (more than we did) that there was a cap in the front of the kayak where you could store things, so they would come and undo the cap to look for things.

 After seeing how they could chase people around with their teeth showing if they don’t have a paddle on hand, I stayed with my feet in the water and pretended to be a big monster because they seemed to be afraid of it. 

We also found a little beachy area with no one in it on our way around the island. It was pretty tiny: 

After that, the waves started getting pretty rough, so getting out of that beach was a struggle. We also attempted to keep going to more beaches, but by that point the waves were SO big, and we were getting closer and closer to where they were crashing against some rocks that we decided to call it quits a little early and go back. 

The morning we left, we decided to climb up to the viewpoints, and it was definitely worth all the stairs and sweat: 

And finally (this is for you, Austin) we got back on a ferry back to Phuket for our flight to Malaysia, and Louie saw Chase De Leo and his bag. 

After getting to Koh Lanta, I spent the next few days getting over food poisoning. This involved a lot of toilets such as this jungle one with mosquitoes in it. This was at a restaurant. (Thai toilet post coming soon!) I blame a coffee drink that I made at our airbnb. Pro tip: Don’t use kettle things that you have to pump out water from. My guess is that some of the water I used was old and not bottled water. Louie was somehow fine, so it must have been that????

Anyway, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been because all we did in Ko Lanta was beach it up. 

It was a bit rocky at low tide.

That’s all I have for Ko Lanta because we were only there a couple of days and also food poisoning.

 Next, we drove to Ao Nang in Krabi, which had better beaches, and I was even feeling better enough to help these fishermen out: 

The waters were bluer and the weather was nicer, too. 

There was also a jungly bit (part of a National Forest) right by the beach that warned us not to feed monkeys. Also, I bought these Thai pants thinking it was a dress. I wore it as a dress before realizing it...Not sure how that happened...

One thing we noticed both in Ko Lanta and in Ao Nang was that there was quite a bit of garbage in on the beaches. Not sure if it’s because we went during low season or because pollution has gotten a lot worse :(

After getting through the jungle bit, we went to this beach. I will leave to the reader to use their imagination as to what we nicknamed this island. 

After that we got back on a ferry to learn that sitting at the very front row is a bad idea because you will get sea sick. 

And that’s how we made it to Phi Phi! 

After sitting through a 2-hour flight with THE LOUDEST PERSON ever (Louie said he never felt like kicking the seat in front of him more lol), we made it from Bangkok to Phuket. We stayed in a place in Old Phuket Town, where there were some nice deals on sunglasses so for your viewing pleasure...#noFilter:

Heeee. Ok I’m done with the selfies. There were also very creepy mannequins in the large shops: 

We weren’t staying too close to the beach, so we got on a Thai cab to Patong. Can you tell? 

It was a bit cloudy when we were there, but there were good shops and nice food around like you would expect. 

Oh, and ALL of the electrical cables:

There were raisins in this pineapple that Louie picked out.

And then we went back to Phuket Town in style??????

After it was off to the island of Koh Lanta by Ferry. I think I trust airplanes more cos the ferries sound like the elephant we rode when you’re at the bottom level. 

We took only a day trip to Chiang Rai-- home of the gorgeous White Temple! 

Our day began with a stop at this hot spring near a large market where they charged you to use the toilets: 

There were pumps splashing water out, so I think it was more of a stop to go shopping...not very impressive lol. 

Afterwards we actually went into the White Temple. There was a long path to get to it, and every so often you’d hear people say “Don’t stop keep moving!” so that the flow of people didn’t get too congested.

Leading up to the actual entrance were these hand statues reaching out from under us :O. On the other side someone (rebellious teenager?) had painted a sole middle finger red.

It was so intricate and gorgeous! We tried to ask our tour guide how long it took to build but he said “Oh! Forever!” haha. 

There was a pretty wishing well where you can stand according to your zodiac sign: 

After leaving the White Temple we went by boat to the golden triangle: the point where Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar meet. Our tour guide suggested that Louie leave me in no man’s land.

I was not expecting to add Laos to the list of countries visited on this trip, but why not?

Apparently there is an island here where, a long time ago, you could trade 1 kilo of gold for 1 kilo of opium. Everything was written in Thai, English, and Chinese. The river it’s on goes up all the way to China, and lots of Chinese businessmen did business and such here. 

We also stopped at the Karen long neck tribe, but Ms. Tum didn’t tell us it would cost an additional 300 baht, so we just sat that one out. -___- 

After that we got on an overnight train (with beds!) back to Bangkok to catch our flight to Phuket.