Day 38 - Travel to Phuket

Eager to move on, we woke up early (for us) at 8:30am and checked out of the Zoe Crap French Resort.  Ty helped me drag the bags to the main road and I hopped onto a tuk tuk to Cyana Beach Resort while Ty scooted over with our rented motorbike.   We met up with L & L, had some lovely tasting omelets and then I got some pool time with Lora, which was great because our shower didn't exactly work at the Zoe French resort.

View of the beach close to the Thongsala pier

Together we caught the noon ferry boat - they got off on Koh Samui and we continued onto Surat Thani.  At Surat Thani we caught a 6 hour bus to Phuket and after two minibus transfers and a lot of waiting, snoozing and watching the Sopranos we arrived into Phuket at 9:30pm.

We were hopeful when we checked into the Patong Voyage and were surprised to find it was clean, had AC, a shower that worked wonderfully and even a patio!  After cleaning up a bit we hit the town for some dinner and then walked over to Bangla Road, the Phuket version of Khao San Road.  We listened to a local band play some great Adele covers, saw a street magician and were in bed by 1:30am.

So many motorbikes...for rent??

Crazy Bangla Road

Adele cover band

Biggest gal-bar I have ever been to

Sex-pat 

Day 27 - Fun times in Koh Samui with friends!

I was actually fairly excited to leave Phi Phi because we had already seen both sides of the island, snorkeled, done the nightlife and wore ourselves out at the Natacha Hotel (about $15 USD/night - bare bones!).

We retraced our steps and rode a ferry to Krabi, took a Greyhound bus to Surat Thani and were waiting at the Koh Samui dock when we bumped into the couple we had met on Phi Phi at the Natural Resort!  I was really happy that they were going to Samui too and we made plans to meet for dinner and a little adventure out on the town.  We were taking a page from another couples' books and had not booked any accommodations as we were only in Samui for one night, then ferrying over to Koh Tao the next day, whereas our friends were staying at a pricey resort.

We split a cab with L & L, our new travel buddies, and after wandering a bit found the Backpackers Hostel, which had only been open for a few months.   It was absolutely meant to be; we were walking down the street with our bags and randomly struck up a conversation with a traveler who had been staying there for 2 weeks.  We booked ourselves two beds in the 10 bed dorm and got ready for a night out!
In high spirits we got after it...we had dinner at a fairly nice restaurant, then drinks at Solo Bar, a bit of a walk to Ice bar (-7 celsius temperature), then grabbed some buckets (no Red-bull!) at a small place across the street from the Green Mango club.  Once the Green Mango got busy (around midnight) we wandered over and danced, danced, danced.  We all took a turn on the small scaffolding/stage that was there - Ty even did a front flip off of the stage and... nearly landed it.  

Solo bar - spendy

Green Mango - empty at 9, packed at 12

Cheap-bucket buddies

Interesting scenery in front of this cabaret (sexpat central)

Ice bar finery

                      

                                                             Crazy skilled Magician

All ice!

Before making our somewhat drunken way home we came across Burger King (which I hadn't had in ages) and had a snack there.  L & L grabbed a cab and took off for their resort and Ty and I used my HTC phones GPS to find our way back to the Backpackers hostel at about 2:30am...yikes!

Day 21 and 22 - Chiang Mai to Surat Thani to Koh Phi Phi

Terrible Travel Day of Nov 13th and 14th!
After a quick breakfast/lunch of Tom Ka Gai soup and fried rice at the Riverside restaurant we chilled by the pool for awhile before our flight.  After cabbing to the airport we caught our flight to Bangkok which was thankfully painless and included a croissant snackwich!

We bumbled our way through transferring to the Airport Express and Light rail train to get to Bangkok's main train station to catch our reserved 6:30pm overnight train to Surat Thani.  We found the train station, but were too late for our train so we had to get tickets for the 10:50pm night train, and not even sleeper bunks...only the AC recline-able seats were left.

Very VERY disappointed, we tried to salvage the evening by exploring Bangkok's Chinatown for some noodles!  Except we had to drag our bags and were sweating in the 95 degree weather, despite it being almost 9pm.  We grabbed some beers after our dinner and chilled by the train station like rock stars...thanking God that at least we were able to get AC seats on the train!

Lucky Platform 5

After watching five Modern Family Episodes and probably disturbing the other sleepers with my giggling, I was able to sleep for most of the night, thanks to Night-time Tylenol Cold medicine. Poor Ty kept getting awakened by a seat slamming into his knees (totally inconsiderate night train behavior) from the gal in front of us...

November 14th found me at 6:30 a.m. when we pulled into Phunphin, a tiny station outside of Surat Thani.  Because of our train f-up we were told we wouldn't make our reserved ferry from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi but were able to book a bus to Krabi and ferry transfer to Phi Phi instead.

Waiting for our ferry...

Local doing some fishing

Our ferry boat, full of happy, tanned folk returning from the island...a good sign

The view from the ferry...Koh Phi Phi is gorgeous

  

                              

                              

                                    

         

                                               

                              

                             

We pulled into Koh Phi Phi's main pier, Tonsai Beach and found out our hotel was on the secluded, expensive side of the island, which was great but when we were quoted 1200 baht (40 USD) for a boat ride we decided to have something to eat and drink and see if this price was for real.  After some pasta, beer and pizza we found out that our hotel did provide a shuttle boat for cheaper but we had just missed it (the last domino falls)...

So we did end up paying the steep price but it was a beautiful night and we saw the gorgeous lights of each beach up on the way up close...We were welcomed with a glass of delicious fruit juice and a moist  towel then taken via golf cart to our sweet little hut! Zzzzzzzzzz...