Tiger Kingdom

On the outskirts of Chiang Mai is Tiger Kingdom. This place houses lots and lots of tigers and is a prime tourist spot. For a fee you can enter the cages with the tigers, petting and watching them, provided you don't touch their heads or approach them from the front. Since I had the chance to pet cheetahs in Africa, I wanted to round out my big cat experience with tigers. The young tigers were adorable, playing together and generally acting like gigantic kittens. Wish I could've taken one home.

The big male tigers were huge! Way bigger than the cheetahs, but I suppose that is to be expected. There were 3 adults in the cage, 2 males and 1 female. One of the males was completely knocked out and dead to the world. The other male seemed a little more alert, but not by much.

The sleepy males made me wonder about drugging, which can happen in some facilities that house tigers and cater to the public. However, the female in the cage seemed very alert, as did the tiger cubs. Perhaps I can chalk it up to lazy males...

Ko Phi Phi - night life

Beyond its beautiful beaches, Ko Phi Phi is well known for its wild nightlife. I think this aspect was reflected best in the place I stayed. My dorm, The Rock, was by far one of the worst I had stayed in. It was cheap, but the doors were open all day, allowing tons of mosquitoes in the room. These also weren't just any mosquitoes, but ones that could transmit dengue. And there were no bed nets so you were eaten alive at night. The best part though was the atrocious graffiti all over the walls. The girl next to me had "A fetus died in this bed," written above her in pink day-glo paint. This dorm was a place to sleep, but not a place to hang out or spend a lot of time in.

One major plus, the bathrooms were very very clean, although no toilet paper was provided. And it was situated on top of a hill, so there were nice views of the beach in the morning.

Other than the dorm that had the drunken ramblings of many travelers scribbled on the walls, the town was pretty cool. The beach was wild, with nightly fire shows that included flaming limbo and jump rope.

One of the funniest things for me was seeing drink buckets set up on the sides of the road. For about $6 you can get a bucket which comes with a bottle of alcohol, a mixer and free ice. Deadly. This made people watching in the evening pretty entertaining.

Ko Phi Phi - snorkeling

The second day I was on Ko Phi Phi I decided it was time to brave the water with my open wounds. Surely the salt would be good for it, right? I booked an all day island hopping tour on a longboat and covered my cuts with water proof bandages. A little sunscreen and I was ready to go.

The first stop was feeding some monkeys. Monkeys kind of freak me out. I always worry that they will bite me and I don't have rabies shots. However, these little guys seemed safe enough. It was funny when they would tug on peoples' clothes to get the food from them.

The snorkeling was beautiful, with lovely coral and colorful fish everywhere.  On the bottom in some areas you could see broken coral. This is from the tsunami that hit in 2004 which devastated the islands.

Broken coral

Some areas there are overhanging cliffs that people were climbing. I didn't get a chance to deep water solo, but it looked like tons of fun.

One of the coolest parts of the day was visiting Maya Beach. This is where The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed. It is a beautiful place, even with all the tourists.

At the end of the day we watched the sun set over the ocean. On the way back the longboat was going full speed, then we heard a plunk and we suddenly stopped. The propeller had fallen off. We waited for about 15 minutes for another boat to tow us back to shore. I love that the boat was that sound and sea worthy.

Ko Phi Phi - climbing

When I finally reached Ko Phi Phi after 2 ferry rides, a bus ride and an overnight stop in Krabi, I felt like Goldilocks. It was just right. I loved it immediately. It was beautiful, with bright blue clear water and longboats all through the harbor. I walked through tons of fun shops until I found the Rock, a hostel high up on the hill. It wasn't the best accomodation, but I'll get to that later. I immediately hit the beach, which had beautiful white sand. The tide was down, exposing a lot of rock, but I didn't care. I finally had a beach in short walking distance. It was a perfect beach town in my eyes. I also loved that I could walk everywhere. No more motorbikes!

Because of my leg wounds, I decided to not swim for a few days. Rock climbing seemed like a good alternative. I went with Spider Monkey, which is a great company with cool guys on staff and reasonable prices. Half a day of climbing cost me $40. The limestone cliffs were stunning with lots of fun hand holds. I tired quickly though. It had been a long time since I was a regular climber.

The other climber was a girl named Kathryn from California. She was really fun. Our guide for the morning was Jillian. He was from Holland and had been a mechanical engineer until he quit his job to travel. He got certified to climb and works as a climbing instructor on the side. Not a bad gig.

The view from the top was spectacular. What a reward.

That evening I found a yoga class. Sadly, this one wasn't on the beach, but it was in one of the fancy fitness centers in a beautiful resort. A perk of attending this class? Full access to the steam room, sauna and shower with hot water. My hostel had only cold water. I felt so luxurious.

Afterward I was walking through town and bumped into Kathryn. She had her own fiasco with a motorbike that afternoon. Hope my clutziness isn't contagious. We went and got cheap massages by the beach. Since we were so close to the clubs there was pumping rave music the whole time. It was surprisingly soothing.

Crashing in Ko Pha-Ngan

Ko Pha-Ngan is home to the infamous full moon party, a drug-laced day-glo paint affair with hundreds of people. For example, I met a guy that had been rufied at the party. He came to on the beach with almost 8 hours missing, kicking a soccer ball. Everything had been stolen from him: phone, wallet, shoes, even his shirt.  Needless to say, I chose to miss the full moon party. I was trying to find a laid back beachy town. I found a decently priced dorm, but it wasn't really near too much. I had to walk a pretty good distance to find an area of the beach that was suitable for sitting. Definitely beautiful though.

I made some friends in my dorm, Simon from England, and Seth and Joel, the Canadian duo. The Canadians had one of those small go-pro cameras and interviewed everyone in the dorm with it. Everyone was really cool and I was definitely glad I had them, considering how my visit Ko Pha-Ngan played out.

The issue with this island is that it's really too big to walk and there isn't a lot of public transport. So people rent motorbikes (scooters) to get around. Great idea, right? Not so much for me. I came up with the great idea of renting motorbikes and riding to a waterfall hike on the other side of the island, followed by the beach. The guys were all for it and we signed our lives away, jumped on our bikes and headed off into the distance.

Long story short, I ended up crashing my motorbike within 30 minutes. Straight was ok, but turning was out of the question apparently. I caught some sand, lost control, the brakes didn't work and crashed into a curb. They also drive on the opposite side of the road. I am sure that didn't help either. Thankfully I wasn't hurt badly, just some fantastic road rash.

The guys were great and brought me to a pharmacy so I could tend to my battle wounds while they brought my bike back to the hostel. Seth documented the aftermath of my crash with his go-pro. Can't wait until that makes it to youtube... The woman quoted me 5,700 baht for damages to the bike, about $200. Mind you, it was all scratches. Only one panel was popped out. I got her down to 2500 baht (You can negotiate anything here), but it still really ruined my day. So we skipped the waterfall, found a beach, acquired some Norwegian girls and I drowned my sorrows in some pina coladas. We hung out on the beach until late when a storm rolled in and we had to run back to our hostel in the tropical rain. All things considered, it ended up being a pretty good day.

I found out later that my roadrash is called a Ko Pha-Ngan tatoo because everyone crashes motorbikes there. Apparently you haven't done Thailand properly until you've crashed a motorbike. So glad I could join that club.

After this incident, I was done with Ko Pha-Ngan and decided to make my way over to Ko Phi Phi. Third time is the charm, right?

Ko Samui

It took 16 hours on an overnight bus trip, followed by a ferry to reach Ko Samui. I will tell you, I was disappointed. I went to Chaweng beach and I found it overpriced (noodles were 130 baht!) and crowded with resorts. They were so clustered along the beach that it took me a long time to figure out how to get off the beach once I walked down it a ways. The tourists also weren't backpacker types. Maybe I was in the wrong place, I certainly didn't research anything before I showed up. However the beach was gorgeous, if a little rainy when I was there, with warm refreshing water and gigantic waves.

On principle I refused to pay more than 80 baht for rice or noodles, so I ended up eating at 7-eleven for almost every meal. We have 7-elevens in the states, they are nice little gas stations stores. In Thailand, they are staples for backpackers that need cheap food and beer. They will toast sandwiches and heat up frozen meals for you. I was a big fan of their spicey cup of noodles for 15 baht (50 cents). I chose flavors based on pictures since everything is written in thai.

I made the best of the beach, did some kayaking, found a gigantic horsefly.  But I got out of Ko Samui as fast as possible. Hopefully Ko Pha-Ngan will be more of what I was looking for.

Eating bugs in Bangkok

I have crossed several borders in my travels over the past few months. The Cambodia to Thailand border was by far the worst. There were tons of people, it was scalding hot, there was no food to be found (or atleast stuff I didn't want to risk eating) and the lines were endless.  After about 2 hours, I made it through to Thailand! Finally! Thailand has been at the top of my list for years, so I was super pumped.

I met some kiwis and a Californian couple on the bus and they were heading to Khaosan Road, party central in Bangkok, so I decided to tag along with them. Khaosan was a madhouse, but a fun one. There were tons of little shops selling weird shirts and street food stands as far as the eye could see. There is nothing like having pad thai whipped up for you in about 2 minutes. And it only cost 40 baht for a plate, $1.33. I stayed close to this road for the next 2 days while I waited for a bus south. It was a great time.

The highlight of course, were the vendors walking around selling insects to eat. There were trays of scorpions coated in soy sauce and one woman with an entire cart of deep fried delicacies.  After taking inventory, I decided I would sample a scorpion and a giant water bug (Bellostomatid). I had heard the giant water bugs taste like cinnamon.

First was the giant water bug. Excuse the slightly blurry photos, but I still think they capture the absolute revulsion on my face. It was disgusting. The worst texture ever, awful taste, really just disgusting. Someone lied to me, there was not a trace of cinnamon in there.

So excited

Thinking about it

Starting to taste it

That is just awful

For the life of me, I couldn't finish the little bug. I felt bad because it had died to feed a tourist, but couldn't bring myself to stomach the rest of it. Next up was a tiny scorpion. This was much tastier and I ate the entire thing.

There were several other creepy crawlers on the bug cart including grasshoppers and meal worms, but I decided that was enough for the moment. I will hit up the rest of the cart the next time I'm in Bangkok. Now it's time to head to the beach.