The next ferry took us to Koh Samui, the most famous and (over)developed of the islands. With good reason, however, the beaches are incredibly beautiful. The sand is perfect and just stretches on and on. We were lucky to find an amazing bungalow in a perfect location at the same cheap price we had been paying. Our bungalow, on the gorgeous beach of Lamai, was a tiny but cute A-frame and was literally on the sand itself. For the next two days, we never left the beach. We swam and relaxed, drank fruit shakes and whole coconuts. I went for a run on the beach in the morning, from one end of Lamai to the other. In the afternoon, Maren and I both got Thai massages at a little hut next door to our bungalow. 200 baht (5 euros) for an hour long massage and well worth every cent! A Thai massage is a unique experience that involves some stretching and sometimes painful pressure. But overall it felt fantastic and relaxing. In the evening, it started raining, the first we had seen in Thailand. It rained very hard but didn’t last long as we watched the World Cup from a bar next to the beach.
Both Maren and I could have used a couple of more days on Koh Samui. We were lucky to have found such a perfect place to stay and relax without huge crowds of people. But it was time to move on to the other side of Thailand. We took a ferry back to the mainland, and then a bus across the peninsula. We ended up in Krabi, a port town that is the gateway to a few beach destinations along a peninsula. We arrived fairly late in the evening, and decided to stay the night in Krabi before continuing. We found a decent hostel and went to a night market next to the harbor for a late dinner. We had the cheapest food and drinks of our whole Thailand experience. Delicious fried noodles with fresh seafood and vegetables plus a beer for under a euro!
The following morning, we went down to the pier and negotiated with a boatman to take a longtail boat to Railay Beach, about an hour away. Railay is famous worldwide for its rock climbing. There are incredible limestone peaks and cliffs on both ends of two beaches running parallel to each other. In the middle is jungle with paths running between the beaches. The tide moved the waves in and out by nearly 500 meters! We arrived at high tide, but in the morning people had to trek (or get a tractor ride) through muddy tide pools just to get to a boat to leave. Again we found cheap and amazing accommodation: we stayed in a wooden bungalow that felt like a condo in a jungle setting right next to the beach. We spent the first afternoon just exploring the area. Railay is a very small place, and it only takes a few minutes to walk between the two beaches. There was an amazing lightning storm late in the evening which we watched from the beach. It was far away but lit up the clouds for hours.
I decided to go rock climbing the next day. It wasn’t cheap, but I wanted to check out why Railay is so famous for climbing, and those rugged limestone cliffs looked pretty inviting. Maren is not a big fan of heights, or at least of voluntarily climbing up cliffs. She walked through the jungle to spend the day on Railay’s ‘third beach.’ I went with my Rasta-looking climbing instructor to a popular area of cliffs at the end of our beach. There were about 8 other climbers around, with dozens of different routes up the wall. I first went over the basics with my instructor as it had been nearly ten years since I last climbed. In the following couple of hours, I did 5 different climbs. The second and third were my favorites. The second because it took me 25 meters high and had incredible views over the bay and the beaches. The third because it was the most difficult and I barely managed to do it without falling. By the 5th climb, my forearms were completely useless; I could barely hold my own body weight with both hands! I called it a day and met Maren over at the beach. We walked through the water to a tiny island, then over some rocks to the secluded tip of the Railay peninsula. There were bizarre and beautiful limestone cliffs and stalactites and caves all around.
The final stop in Thailand was Koh Phi Phi (pronounced ‘pee-pee’). From the beach at Railay, a longtail boat took us out into the bay, where we transferred to a ferry to Phi Phi. It was raining during the trip, but our good luck with the weather continued. We arrived at Phi Phi with blue skies. The first view of the island is similar to the islands off the east coast. But soon after walking through the town, we realized Phi Phi is quite different. There is only one real town, though it is fairly big. There is also not much need to explore the island as everything is close by, particularly the best beaches. Phi Phi has a very interesting shape that, like the Railay peninsula, produces two beaches right next to each other facing opposite directions. Unlike the rugged beauty of Railay, however, Phi Phi is just a pure picture postcard beauty. The beaches are just flawless. We heard from various people, including our guidebook, that Phi Phi is quite expensive, especially for accommodation. Fortunately, this was not true at all. We managed to find a nice secluded bungalow right in the center, just a one minute walk to the beach. The price was becoming a broken record: 6 places in a row were each just 300 baht a night.
Our first mission on Phi Phi was to head straight to the beach. It was crowded, much more so than any other place we had been in Thailand. I felt as if we had suddenly left the low season and entered the high season. It wasn’t any trouble finding a spot on the beach though. After recovering from the sun-drenching, we walked up a path at the edge of town. It took us up a hill to a couple of lookout points, the highest of which had a perfect view over the island. Afterwards we went for a Thai massage right next to our bungalow. In the evening, we found countless restaurants and bars, all seemingly packed. Phi Phi seems to be a magnet for backpackers, many people seem to stay much longer than they had planned. Some of them work at the bars, get free accommodation, and party every night. We checked out the beach bar scene at night. There were fire shows, dance parties, and buckets and buckets of booze. Phi Phi is definitely a place to drink and party a few days of your life away.
We rented a kayak the following day to enjoy the perfect weather. We left right from the main beach and paddled out of the bay and just around the corner. We reached a beach called Monkey Beach, though we didn’t see any monkeys there. The only people there were leaving just as we arrived, so we had a 100 meter long stretch of sand all to ourselves. The beach had some of the most amazing sand I have ever seen, or should I say, felt. It was wet and soft and we just sunk right into it. After an hour of playing around in the water and sand on our own personal slice of paradise, we paddled back to the main beach. In the evening, we finished off our Phi Phi experience with yet another Thai massage;) We awoke in the morning to heavy rain, which was fine by us as it was to be a travel day. I put on the poncho my mom had given me just in case (thanks mom!) and we made our way to the pier.
Maren and I decided to try and save some money and make our own way to Malaysia, instead of buying an expensive bus and boat combo ticket. We first took a ferry back to Krabi, followed by a shared taxi to the bus station, and a cheap bus ride across the Thai peninsula to Hat Yai. From there, we asked for any bus to Malaysia, but got rejected by everyone we asked. There didn’t seem to be any ‘normal’ busses heading across the border, which seemed very strange. We finally gave up and bought a ticket from a travel agent to take one of the tourist busses. I still have no idea how the locals make the trip. We still managed to get to Malaysia at way under budget compared to the expensive package price, but unfortunately it was getting late. Our bus left in the evening, and we thought we would arrive in a town called Butterworth late at night. Butterworth is where we had planned to get off to take a short ferry to Pulau Pinang. Once on the bus, however, they told us we wouldn’t arrive until past 1 in the morning, when the ferry wasn’t running. So we had to scrap our plans mid-bus ride and turned our trip into an overnighter all the way to Kuala Lumpur, the bus’ final destination. Next up: KL and Singapore.
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