Happy (early) new year to everyone! It's been an amazing couple of months here in Southeast Asia, but now it's time for us to head off to the next adventure- Africa! Steve and I are spending our last official day in Bangkok, getting a few last-minute errands run (e.g. sitting by the pool at the Sheraton catching up with some of the staff we've gotten to know since this is the 6th time we've stayed here), satisfying our craving one last time for watermelon fruit freezers, SkyTrain waffles (as in you buy them at a stand at the metro, and we just found out today they have a new flavor- cream- and they're awesome), and doing a little internet since we're not sure the next time we'll have a good connection will be.
We just arrived back into Bangkok this afternoon, after spending a week in southern Thailand on an island called Koh Libong. We stayed at the same place as Tom & Christina did in November, except our experience was a little different since it's the high season and overflowing with Swedes. Literally, at least 1 out of 2, probably 2 out of 3, tourists you meet in that area is from Sweden. We met a girl from Finland who now lives in Sweden, so I'm counting her, too.
We had an amazing time on Koh Libong- it was everything you could want out of a beach spot- cute little bungalows for very cheap considering the season (only $30/night for a bungalow that's only steps from the beach), delicious food at awesome prices, and perfect little hammocks to relax/read/nap in. They call themselves a resort, but that's a bit of a stretch considering it's so small.... but they did have $6 thai massages on the beach. If we had to be away from our families for the holidays, this was definitely a good place to do it!
It was definitely an adventure getting there- we declined the resort's offer to arrange transportation for us, considering it would've cost more than a night's stay, so we decided to try to figure it out on our own. What we didn't count on was the lack of information (and ATM's) at the tiny airport we flew into, or the fact that almost everyone on our flight had pre-arranged transportation. After much debate, we decided to skip the tuk-tuk to town to hunt down the right minibus and went for a shared private car with another couple going in our direction. Turns out the guy was American, living in Thailand for the last 4 years as a teacher, spoke OK Thai and was very helpful in helping us get to an ATM and the correct pier where we were to catch a boat to our island. His Thai girlfriend was completely unhelpful- maybe she's acted as translator for too many tourists, but our opinion of her was a little less glowing. So we got on the boat heading to our island (complete with a few locals and even a motorbike) and landed and our adventure wasn't quite over yet. We loaded ourselves and our huge backpacks onto two motorbike taxis, and drove over very bumpy dirt road for about 20 minutes. It might have been scary, except I was about a head taller than my driver so i could see where we were going and anticipate serious bumps ahead of time, and we were going pretty slow. By the time we arrived, we had ended up saving about $2 over what the resort quoted us. Ironic, I think yes...
So we spent Christmas on Koh Libong, and on Christmas Eve had a special buffet dinner at our restaurant (there was only one other resort near us, and their restaurant was tiny, so we ate almost every meal at our place.) The buffet included some amazing Thai curries- and one of my favorites papaya salad that was made fresh before your eyes, also nice because you could request the very unspicy version :-). After dinner, the Christmas carols playing in the background were turned down and Santa made an appearance (he was a very skinny Santa, and had a striking resemblance to one of the staff members) and he brought gifts for the children and bottles of Chang Beer for the adults. Steve and i spent Christmas day reading in the hammocks, swimming in the ocean, and generally laying around.
We passed the rest of the time on the island snorkelling, canoeing around another island and some other beaches, eating delicious food, Steve got a LOT of Lonely Planet Southern and East AFrica read, and I got some reading / napping of my own done. We also met some really nice folks (Swedes) at our resort and passed the time having dinner / chatting with them. On our way back to the mainland town of Trang we took the local minivan which we intended to take on the way out there. it was significantly cheaper, but took a LOT longer to get there and at one point in time we had 15 people crammed into a small minivan designed to comfortably hold about 7. At least we can say we travelled like the locals at one point.
I'm not sure when the next blog entry will be, but it will be from somewhere in Southern Africa. Now STeve and I have a marathon flight schedule to look forward to (connections in Moscow, Paris, and Amsterdam) to get to Cape town. Ah the joys of flying using points :-)
Happy 2008!!!!!!
Anna & Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment