Hunt and Kim Travel SE Asia: The Southern Thailand Islands

Elated, grateful, ecstatic, free, excited, and humbled are all feelings we have experienced in the few weeks of our SE Asia adventure. Our trip has already exceeded all of our expectations in the first few weeks. It started off with a long 24 flight from Portland to Bangkok with a short stop in Seoul, South Korea. The airport there looked like a huge shopping mall with tons of designer shops. When we arrived in Bangkok we checked into our hotel late and tried to adjust to the new time schedule. We wanted to accomplish the mission of meeting up with two of our best friends, Mike Chappel and Lauren Schwab. For those of you who don’t know Mike was in a band Hunt booked (Head for the Hills) and Lauren was Kim’s roommate and one of her best friends from College. They only had a week left of their Thailand trip so we were determined to meet up with them as soon as possible. We found a travel agency in the crazy huge city of Bangkok with a little help from some nice locals who stopped us on the street. They asked if we needed help in English. We booked a plane/bus/boat ticket to the island of Ko Samui in southern Thailand to meet our buddy’s. When we arrived to Ko Samui we greeted by Lauren and Mike with big hugs and had a drink while hearing about their Northern Thailand adventures. We soon found that Ko Samui was a little fast paced and to many young rowdy travelers were occupying it. We decided to head to the more laid back and highly recommended island Ko Tao, It was about a 2 hour boat ride away. The boat ride was VERY bumpy and not the most comfortable with 5-8 foot seas. When we finally arrived in Ko Tao the whole group was excited but tired and needed to find a place to stay. We all agreed that the further we head away from the main pier and downtown the cheaper the accommodations would be. We were soon rewarded for our decision when we finally found our home at “Freedom Beach”. We found beach front bungalow’s (PICTURE BELOW) for $23 a night with hot water and indoor plumbing (which can be rare).

^view from our bungalow^
We however did not have any AC and it was not bug proof but we got by just fine with a strong fan and bug repellent. We rented motor bikes (PICTURE BELOW) for $6 a day to get all over the Island. We spent the next few days motor biking to different beaches, bars and restaurants.

The four of us clicked like we had been traveling together for years. We all decided this would be the first of many trips to come. We did a ton of relaxing on the beach, playing cards, and even lots of snorkeling. This part was especially awesome because Kim and Lauren both have a tiny tiny fear of sharks.

We learned our favorite bars all over the island like “The High Bar” (Picture of view below) It was so high up we had to walk up a mountain to get to it. Our motor bikes weren’t even able to make the climb. When we finally reached the top we quickly found the climb was well worth it.

^view from the high bar^

We also came across some really interesting animals on the Island. We saw a small monkey in a tree, a four foot bat, and a Kimono Dragon (a six foot lizards that eats which eats chickens, cats and dogs). On the more friendly side of animals there were tons of local Island dogs (pictures below) and unlike our other travels these wild dogs were more than friendly. Some dogs would even follow us for many hours and cause arguments between the couples at the end of the night because the girls wanted to let them in our rooms to sleep.

We all treated ourselves to Thai massages which were nothing short of amazing, We both agreed they were the best massages we had ever received only costing $8 per hour. We tipped them $1.50 each and it made their week. You could tell how grateful they were for this small amount of money to us but HUGE amount of money to them. We have been pretty good about sticking to our $30 a day budget. We spend about $3-$5 each on a amazing sit down meals.

Throughout our trip so far we have done a ton of comparing Thailand to other places we have traveled. We have noticed many things like the lack of a language barrier. It came as came as a pleasant surprise how much English is spoken here. Lots of Thai people speak English and most all travelers (whether from Spain or Germany) speak English as well. Pretty much everyone uses English to communicate all over Asia. In Thailand people are pretty happy when you make a effort to speak a few key words from their language . For example hello, goodbye, and thank you. We found that Thailand is unlike other country’s who almost require you to speak the language to get by. One of the major differences from other places we have traveled are, the respectful gracious people we have come across, and certain Thai customs and superstitions. When you walk into most establishments you take off your shoes before you enter, even a grocery store or restaurant. Hunt was pleasantly surprised to learn that Thai breakfast did not vary much from Thai lunch or dinner. It is pretty standard to get a chicken or pork dish for the first meal of the day. The difference in travelers safety here have been huge, we have felt very safe the majority of the time.

The amazing part of our trip is that we continue to adapt and change our plans from feedback from other travelers and research. We are now considering going to Indonesia (which has 13,466 different Islands) instead of India. We now also are thinking of doing Northern Thailand, into Laos and Vietnam instead of starting off with Cambodia (mostly for visa reasons). It has been so exciting and fulfilling in our first 20 days of travel. We can NOT wait for the rest of the trip. We are going to try and blog after each country or main section of the trip. Please feel free to email both of us if you want to keep in closer contact. Thanks to everyone in our life for making this possible and making us feel like two of the luckiest people in the world.

Side note: We are writing to you from our hotel room in rainy Bangkok. Rain is not a welcome thing here with all the recent flooding.

HK

Here are a few more pictures we thought you may enjoy

^Population is now about 3,000 and there are 2 police men^

^Kim in Bangkok's busy hussle^

^at a great view point bar that took some skillfull off road motor biking^

^MEE KROB which is a fried noodle served with a broth of vegetables, that is poured in the metal bowl and the noodles are cooked in front of you from the hot broth^