The end of Thailand, beginning of Japan

We left off with us back in Koh Samui, this time staying at the more upscale Baan Chaweng Beach Resort and Spa. It was a nice place with good deals on their older bungalow rooms. We didn't do much on Samui - ate at The Deck and got massages. In a rare moment of poor decision making, we ended up getting a foot massage one night in a sketchy room on Hooker Alley. It was by far the worst foot massage we've ever gotten. From the way the masseuses were greasing up our calves and rubbing our legs up and down, it was obvious their real skills lay elsewhere.

After another day relaxing on the beach on Koh Samui,
we took the ferry back to Koh Phangan and headed over to The Sanctuary. The hippies who worked at The Sanctuary botched our reservation and so we ended up negotiating a stay in their nicest bungalow for a cheaper rate. The bungalow was incredible - a 360 degree tree house built high up on the cliffs overlooking Haat Tien beach. With no walls or windows we had a number of guest roomates from the animal kingdom including a ridiculously large bat who flew into our room causing us, in so many words, to fucking freak out.

Our bungalow at The Sanctuary


View from our bungalow at The Sanctuary when we weren't hiding under the bed afraid of the bat


Another guest roomate. His mother was a leaf, his father was a praying mantis. We call him Mr. Overholt (shout out to our Hale Jr. High Class of 1990 readers).


Other *lesser* bungalows at The Sanctuary


People go to The Sanctuary to fast and do colonics. But the food in their restaurant is too good, so we compromised with a 2 day raw foods only "mini-cleanse" and then food free-for-all after that. We also indulged in a Balinese Body Scrub at the Sanctuary's spa that included a full body rub down with a hot ginger scrub, a cool down dunk in homemade yogurt, and then some sliced cucumbers layered gently over your face. The Body Scrub occurred on day 2 of our mini-fast. Ande tried to eat the cucumbers as they were being applied to her face.

Noodles of the Sea, Noodles of the Sand - beach at Haat Tien in front of The Sanctuary


Flowers. In Thailand.


After The Sanctuary, we headed over to the northwest side of Koh Phangan and spent a couple days on the beach at Haad Yao. We stayed at the High Life Bungalows perched on the southernmost cliff above the beach. It was a cool place and very cheap. The name pretty much says it all; the friendly receptionist didn't bother to put down his joint when he checked us in.

View from High Life Bungalows


After leaving the islands, we spent a few days in Bangkok with Ande's college friends Kate and Matt. They're teachers in Bangkok and claim to have at least 4 kids in every class named Porn. The Noodles had both been to Bangkok before and hated it. But Kate and Matt were such amazing hosts. They showed us a side of Bangkok we didn' think existed - a cool and fun side where you're not sucking down tuk-tuk fumes 24-7. Here's Kate's and Matt's expressions after the Prime Minister of Thailand walked into the sushi restaurant we were eating in (his name is *not* Porn).


Tan or just dirty? Kate and Matt take the Noodles to a Bangkok bar called Tapas. There were no tapas. Only whiskey.


Next up, the Chadachuk (sp?) weekend market in Bangkok. You can buy everything there - underwear, monkeys, pad thai. And at last Jen was able to get a good bargain on those giant, dried pea pods she loves.


Some thoughtful shoppers put together this shrine to the god of Fanta.


Kate and the rest of the Thai fitness buffs spend their days jogging, stretching and aerobicizing 80's style in Bangkok's Lhumpini Park. But when the Thai national anthem is broadcast over loudspeakers every day at 6pm, everyone immediately stops in their tracks and stands at attention. Being the superstar host that she is, of course Kate managed to get us to Lhumpini Park exactly at 6pm in time for the show.

Standing at attention for the national anthem. When the song was over, we continued with our 10 km jog.


We left Bangkok sad to say goodbye to Kate and Matt and a city we were just getting to know all over again. But arriving in Tokyo, we were greeted by another incredible host in a long line of incredible hosts - Kirstie (Peen).

Kirstie-chan and Jen embrace the madness of the world's busiest intersection in Shibuya, Tokyo


Shibuya main intersection by day


Night view from Legato Bar in Shibuya - known as one of the best views in Tokyo


Peener takes the Noodles out to lunch in a glass pod - Ebisu, Tokyo


After the glass pod, we ate Japanese food in an Indian teepee. Nawa restaurant in Ebisu


There is one Japanese hippie and we met him and his dog inside our teepee at Nawa


Noodles went shopping in Daikonyama and Harajuku and discovered Tokyo's latest boom: designer dog clothes. The saleslady helped us put the clothes we liked on these dog manequins so we could eyeball whether they would fit our dogs at home.


The real Harajuku girls.


We started another boom in Kirstie's apartment that night - kind of like reverse strip poker, but with Korean Posoi instead of poker.


Kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi in Roppongi Hills


Sculpture outside Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills; onset of typhoon Amadeus

Flied Lice Wit Wej-ta-boas

We arrived in Bangkok's charming airport and took the first available flight down to Krabi on Thailand's Southern Peninsula. We ended up staying four nights on the white sandy beaches of Railey at the Railey Bay Hotel and Spa (highly recomended!). It was stunning. Pool, private bungalow, beautiful grounds. $20 a night.

Railey Bay Beach (in front of our hotel) - Krabi, Thailand


Our hotel in Railey by day


View from our hotel in Railey by night


While in Railey we opted to skip spending several nights on Koh Phi Phi since all the research as to whether the island was completely torn apart after the tsumani totally varied depending on which Thai person/Farang/internet site we checked. Intstead we took a day trip out to Phi Phi on a speed boat with some random Euros, an unlucky Canadian and the awesome Team Intel - a group of Intel employees from all over Asia who decided to work on their tans down south before heading back up to Bangkok for workshops on synergy and team strategies.

The boat ride to the first island was only 45 minutes but Jen and Ande can now recount the worst 45 minutes of our lives. It was beyond awful - huge waves, no lifejackets, some 14 year old Thai boy at the wheel. Jen barfed. Ande looked like a key lime pie with curls. Of all the third world refugee boats we have been on throughout our travels, this was by far the roughest ride.

This boat had Jen barfing within the first 20 minutes of our 6 hour tour


But once we arrived at Koh Phi Phi, it was gorgeous. At least the parts that were not affected by the tsunami.

Beautiful Koh Phi Phi


Jen at Koh Phi Phi Don


The tour continued with stops on neighboring islands and beautiful coves where they dumped us overboard for an hour or so and told us to look at some fish.

We shnorkeled here - cove off the coast of Krabi


Bamboo Island


Jen puts on her Thai fisherman pants


Deep thoughts


Cool view of some island


Someone does not want to get back on the speedboat


After the boat trip, we had dinner with one of our trip mates Jeff, also known as Canada's unluckiest guy. All of Jeff's traveling stories ended with him in total misery. Once he was riding a baby elephant in Chiang Mai who insisted on lifting mud up by its trunk and spraying it all over Jeff's face. This was right before the baby elephant decided to go off track away from the rest of the crew marching through unmarked paths so that Jeff's dirty mud face could get clobbered with every tree branch and limb they passed. On another trek, Jeff walked 2 feet off some path and ended up in a wasps nest. The funny thing is, as he was telling these stories, a GIANT cockroach landed on him causing him to flap around screaming and squacking till the beast FLEW off. Poor dear.

After Railey, we took the bus/boat route to the other side of the peninsula to the island of Koh Samui. In typical Thai fashion, what should have been a 3 hour excursion took all day. The Thais piled loads of Farang into mini-busses, then deposited us at random pit stops along the way. At each pit stop we were forced to wait for the next mode of transport to come and get us. Conviniently, there was food at every stop. At one stop, which consisted of a thatched porch and two spaced out of their minds Thai guys behind a counter, every farang went up and ordered fried rice with vegetables. The two Thai guys took turns screaming out their orders and giggling. "Flied lice wit wej-ta-boas!" When the orders stopped coming, a cute Israeli and Ande went up to see what the delay was in receiving their rice. The Israeli scanned the menu of rice, noodles, ham and cheese sandwiches, and a huge sign declaring NO SOUP. "Eh, why no soup?" asked the Israeli. This sent the Thai guys into convulsions of laughter and repeats of the word, 'soup' over and over until one of them looked at Ande and in his most swuave manner asked, "Lady - you wan cigarette?" "Uh, no thanks. Just the fried rice with vegetables I ordered." Sure enough, five minutes later, "Flied lice wit wej-ta-boas!" was screamed out and Ande and the Israeli finally got their food.

Two busses, one ferry, and one cab ride later, the Noodles finally arrived in Koh Samui. The place has become almost unrecognizable since we were here in 2001. Shops were being built on top of shops crawling over the already crowded sidewalks. McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut are all competing for space amongst the heavy traffic of motorbikes and taxi cabs. One thing has stayed the same though - pasty white pervert guys with Thai girlfriends on their arms are everywhere. The beach too is still beautiful and there's still some good shopping, but after one night we decided to take off again for the nearby island of Koh Pangan.

On Koh Pangan, we checked into a perfect little bungalow (Sun Cliff) that hung over the side of a mountain peering right onto the beaches of the Sunset side of Haadrin (Koh Pangan's main hub). We spent our days lazily wandering from the beach to little cafes, catching up on the latest summer blockbusters - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, War of the Worlds, etc.

The merpeset in our Koh Phangan treehouse


We're back on Samui now. Anxiously awaiting the arrival of our next Guest Noodle, Jen. In a few days we'll go back to Koh Pangan, to Hat Tien beach and spend a few luxurious nights at the Sanctuary. Can't wait!