On this lovely morning, we set sail (or rather, fired up engines) for Malaysia. What began as a trip of convenience, to avoid buses and a possibly problematic Thai/Malaysian border, proved to be a trip highlight. Nine hours of relaxing on the open air roof of a speed ferry, cruising on the Andaman sea, skirting tropical islands was nothing short of spectacular. The final leg from Koh Lipe to Langkawi, Malaysia was in a small speedboat with an incredible sunset, just to polish off a perfect day.
Sea gypsy house, mostly they live out of their boats.
Bisecting Koh Lanta
Note the longtail in front of the island for scale.
Pulling up to a tiny fishing village for lunch.
Lunch was great. It was hot enough out for me to make this face. Remember, it's the cold season.
Langkawi, our first glimpse of Malaysia.
The immigration into Malaysia was easy as pie. That guy in the boat was Bernie, from Austria, a guy that reminded me of my old friend Ian, was working on a PhD in biophysics, and got a mean drink on with us that evening. As Langkawi is a tax haven in a Muslim nation, this was the last vestige of cheap drinks we were to see in weeks, so we took advantage of the German imports for 3-5 ringgit each (~ $0.66 - $1.66).
Day two on Koh Phi Phi found me wandering around the beach of Tonsai bay, the southern of the twin bays at this abundantly beautiful, yet completely partied-out island. It was a strange place to be, where the natural wonders of the world were so vibrant and clear, and yet the crowd inhabiting the place was heavily skewed toward the 20-23 year old Greek house set, who seemed far more interested in getting flippant bamboo tattoos and pounding buckets than admiring the turquoise seas over white sand on a magically dual-bayed island of frighteningly abrupt limestone karsts.
This is the life of an architect(ure student), always chronicling the interesting tidbits for future recycling. That is not wood.
A remnant boat from the 2004 tsunami.
"The Cliff."
The day proved most relaxing, as we generally just took it easy and got our bearings. Plans were carved out for our other full day on the islands - a trip by longtail boat around the nearby Phi Phi Ley island that included cliff jumping, a visit to famous Maya bay and swimming with phosphorescent plankton.
An early morning hike above our bungalow revealed to me some astounding views. Phi Phi Ley is seen in the distance to the left, with Tonsai bay, The Cliff and Loh Dalam bay consecutively closer in view.
A photo of what we are riding in, from what we are riding in. Whoa.
Preparing to climb some limestone razors.
Pileh bay.
The 100m cliffs of Phi Phi Ley
To me, one of the most defining photos from our whole trip.
This Friday the 13th evening concluded with some tasty Margaritas, a hooka of shisha and the best fire dace Erica or I had ever seen, all at a small open air restaurant on the beach along Tonsai bay.
Lighting Erica's cig with a spinning fireball. Somewhere there exists a shot of me in the hotseat doing the same...somewhere (hint: it's in Erica's camera and she's still in Borneo.)
This is a retroactive log of the things Erica and I got up to through southern Thailand and Malaysia. I waited until now to start this because, in short, I was on vacation. Blogging = work. Vacation = not work. I'm gonna do these however is convenient media-wise; some days may have their own entry, some entries may be an entire 5 day stop. However it works, I care not!
So, here's what I learned, above all else, about travel: "Density of Experience." I could never, ever, ever detail out everything we did if I had a lifetime, because it's 24/7 nonstop new places, people, things, sights, sounds, smells and tastes. What you see in this log are handy highlights, because giving a play-by-play would be disingenuous, I could not accurately portray any one thing we did, let alone three straight weeks of insanity. If you really want to know what these things are like, you gotta get out here and get them yourself.
Day 1 -
Early flight out of Bangkok for Krabi.
There was a bus waiting outside the plane for us. This is a shot of how far they drove before stopping to kick us out.
Full teak tree trunk staircase.
Delicious Krabi stuff while awaiting the ferry to Koh Phi Phi.
On a boat.
Viewpoint from Koh Phi Phi
The evening played out with us tooling around the "town" on Koh Phi Phi, a small series of foot streets crawling between the twin beaches. While I got to do such fun things as be seen in public in short shorts, pet dozens of cats, drink a bucket of booze for 160 baht and chow down on mangosteen, the highlight was our dinner of green and panang curry, both wielding otherworldly flavor and texture, and fresh shrimp from the surrounding seas.
