NAI YANG BEACH

If you're ever at the Phuket Airport and have some time to kill, Nai Yang Beach is just around the corner. After Dana and I figured out our flights and realized that we had a few hours on our hands, we took off for the closest beach. It's pretty nice, and mostly full of locals. There's a nice grove of trees between the beach and the road, perfect for a picnic, and a number of little food stands where you can order tasty things to eat. I wandered down the beach a ways and came across some guys building a new boat. It was a nice way to spend my last few hours on the islands before heading back to the city...

KAMALA BEACH

On Saturday, after a few hours on the beach, Dana and I left Railay and took the ferry back to Phuket. We stayed on Kamala Beach, which is on the west side of the island just north of Patong. It was pretty cool I guess, except that our hotel smelled funky. It was called Benjamin Hotel... more like Benjamin Ho-smell. I don't recommend staying there if you're ever on Kamala Beach. We did take some cool pictures that night though, I mean, I think they're cool. The next day we would head to the airport and part ways, Dana off to Ko Samui and me back to Bangkok...

NOT SURE WHAT TO CALL THIS ONE

Dana and I had our second impromptu, self timered photo shoot on Phra Nang Beach. I hope we inspired some people. I bought some new swim trunks on Ko Phi Phi because I accidentally left mine at home, I picked the most obnoxious ones I could find. If you think these photos of us are dumb then maybe you can enjoy the turquoise blue water, the white sand, and the beautiful limestone rock formation in background? Life is good in Thailand...

PHRA NANG BEACH VIEWPOINT

Last time I was in Railay I hiked up to a viewpoint overlooking the beach that faces east. I had noticed on some maps that there was another viewpoint in Railay, but I didn't know where it was. Well, I found it last week, but it was kind of off the beaten path. At the end of Phra Nang Beach there's a hidden trail that goes up under some low hanging trees, up towards the bottom of some cliffs. I wandered up the path and followed some voices that I heard through the brush, they were rock climbers, there were tons of spots to climb and a handful of people scaling the walls. I walked along the base of the cliff in my bare feet and made my way up and over to a cave in the side of the rock face. In the picture in the upper left you can see the cave towards the bottom right of the big limestone rock formation. I climbed up and into the cave and looked around, it was pretty big. I wandered in pretty far, and on my way back I noticed a beam of light shining down a tunnel in the rock. I shuffled through the tunnel and came out onto a little ledge, the viewpoint! The sight was quite nice...

PHRA NANG CAVE

Phra Nang cave is on Phra Nang Beach, the most beautiful beach in Railay, it's the kind of beach you see on the cover of travel books. I'd been to Phra Nang Cave before, when you first walk up it's off to your left at the base of a huge cliff that lines the end of the beach, you can't miss it. Inside the cave is a shrine. The first time I walked into into the cave it didn't take me long to notice that there were a few wooden penises propped up on a table in the sand. "That's interesting...", I thought to myself, "I wonder what that's supposed to mean?". Then I looked around and realized that the little wooden wieners on the table weren't alone, and that I was standing in a cave full of wooden cocks. Everywhere. Some even as tall as my shoulders, big wooden cocks in the sand, of all shapes and sizes. There's a little plaque next to the shrine that explains the relevance. Apparently, once upon a time an Indian princess was killed in a ship wreck just off shore, and her ghost ended up occupying the cave. Local fisherman believe that by offering these wooden phallusess it will bring them good luck and keep them safe on their journeys. Am I missing something here? How are these things related? The ghost of an Indian princess, wooden phalluses, and fisherman wishing for good luck? Oh well, it's definitely interesting, and I guess the fact that the shrine is located in a deep cave kind of balances out all the phallic symbolism...

BACK TO RAILAY

I can't get enough of Railay, that place is awesome, this was my third time going there. Dana and I thought we would stay for a night and then check out some other islands, but we ended up staying for the most part of three days. It was already early evening when we got there so after checking into a place to stay we went to the west beach to watch the sun go down. It was alright, I mean don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, but I've seen better... So, Dana and I decided to light up the beach with an impromptu, self-timered photo shoot. It was fun, and we ended up adding it to our daily list of things to do. It's pretty ridiculous, but I thought it might be interesting to mix it up and put a picture up of something else besides beautiful islands and breathtaking views...

KO PHI PHI LEH

As I mentioned back in April, Ko Phi Phi is made up of two islands, Ko Phi Phi Don and Ko Phi Phi Leh. Ko Phi Phi Leh is the smaller of the two, and is where the Danny Boyle movie The Beach was filmed with Leonardo DiCaprio. The island has no residents and is only open for day trips, and because of the film it has become hugely popular. Dana and I decided to check it out, so we hired a long tail boat and took off for the island. Once we left the bay at Ton Sai Village the swells got pretty big, the water is rough during the monsoon season. Our first stop was this beautiful, emerald green bay (the picture in the top right). And although most boats just come in, cirlce around, and leave, we asked if we could get out and hang out on the one little beach there for a while. It was real nice. After that we took off for Maya Bay, the place were they filmed The Beach. Since we were in a small long tail boat, and the sea was rough and dangerous, we were forced to access the beach from the back side of the island. We anchored the boat in a little harbor and jumped into the water to swim ashore. The picture on the bottom right is of the ladder we had to climb to get onto land. The waves were rather big at times and we had to pull ourselves to shore using a series of ropes, it was exciting. Once we were on land we hiked through the jungle on a little path to the beach. The Beach beach was beautiful, I guess, but it actually wasn't that great. It was jam-packed, I can't even imagine what it's like during the busy season, and there was quite a bit of trash on the ground. There were a number of obnoxious speed boats in the bay that were revving thier engines real loud, and some doofus had beached his sailboat like thirty feet off shore. We stayed there for like five minutes. The best part about it was getting there. After that we headed back to Ko Phi Phi Don to catch a 3 o'clock ferry to Railay...

KO PHI PHI DON

I stayed in Phuket Town Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning I caught the first ferry to Ko Phi Phi to meet up with Dana. Dana and I have been friends going on ten years now. We met in college in Ohio and then ended up living a few blocks away from each other in San Francisco, she's a great friend (and an excellent travel buddy!). It was really nice to see a familiar face and we ended up spending an awesome five days together.

This was my second time going Ko Phi Phi, my first time being back in April when I first arrived. Although Ko Phi Phi is one of Thailands most popular islands, it was a little quieter this time around being that it's the middle of the off season. Dana and I stayed in Ton Sai Village and hung out at the beach all day. It was nice to get back in the water again. That evening we hiked up to the viewpoint to watch the sun go down. The sunset wasn't that great, but the view was amazing, and the monsoon season had brought some nice flowers into bloom. That night we had pizza and beer for dinner, and then finished things off at a karoake bar full of locals.

THE GRAND PALACE

Last week was great, I had an unexpected six day weekend! On Tuesday morning Mac and I took off for downtown Bangkok to meet up with our friend Nina. Nina's a teacher as well, and her school was also closed down for the week because of the swine flu. Mac and Nina were planning a trip up north to Chiang Mai, and after hearing that morning that my friend Dana was on Ko Phi Phi, I decided I would head back down to the islands. We booked our tickets, none of which had us leaving until later in the day, and then decided to check out the Grand Palace while we had some time on our hands. The Grand Palace was built in the late 1700s, and although the present King Rama IX doesn't currently live there, it has been the home to most of Thailand's royal families. The entire complex is made up of a bunch of different buildings - temples, galleries, goverment offices, libraries, a monestary, and tons of statues and murals. It's quite big, and it's immaculate, so clean and well kept. The architecture and the attention to detail is amazing, buildings and statues covered in mosaics, and entire walls painted with intricate murals. After seeing as much as we could in a few hours, I parted ways with Mac and Nina and took off for the airport to catch my flight to Phuket...

BACK TO THE ISLANDS

Gosh, I guess I haven't really posted too much yet in the month of June, and we're already half way through! I have some stories to tell, about my neighborhood and my job as a school teacher, but for some reason I just haven't gotten around to telling them yet. Well, on Monday, after my last class of the day, I was informed that I our school would be shut down for the rest of the week because of the swine flu. Scary... slash awesome! But mostly scary. Anyways, I got the hell outta dodge and caught a cheap flight back down to the islands. My friend Dana is traveling around Thailand right now, and instead of waiting until the end of the month to meet up in Bangkok, I thought I would take the opportunity to hang out with her while I have the week off. So here I am, back on the island of Phuket. Tomorrow I will catch a ferry to Ko Phi Phi where I will meet Dana. More island hopping I guess...

THANYABURI

I live in the province of Pathum Thani, just north of Bangkok, in a district called Thanyaburi. Type it in on Google image search... actually don't, nothing interesting comes up. But I like it. I like my new neighborhood, and I'm definitely warming up to it. I'm not really sure if there's a central part of Thanyaburi, but from what I've observed it's just kind of this busy stretch of road. There doesn't seem to be much else, the streets that branch off the main road seem to just trickle out into quiet residential areas.

My building is a couple hundred yards off the main road. I live in a very simple and basic, third floor apartment. It's one room, a bed, a desk, and a dresser. I also have a little fridge and a fan. There are some windows that face north, directly into the building next to me, and a sliding glass door that faces west, opens up to my balcony, and lets in wonderful evening sunlight. I access my bathroom from my balcony, it's kind of weird, I have to be careful not to flash anyone when I get out of the shower. I don't have any hot water, but so far I have had no desire to use any. It wasn't the cleanest place when I first moved in, but I spent a good day or two scrubbing it down, now it feels like my own.

On the corner there is a 7 Eleven and TESCO Lotus Express, very convenient. There are also dozens of little food carts and an amazing night market just across the street, but I'll talk more about that later. A lazy, slow moving river parallels the busy main road, and on the far side of the river are a bunch of little shacks. It's an interesting juxtaposition, a bustling road lined on one side by big businesses and loud billboards, and a stones throw away are a bunch of rickety, primative shacks along the river. The top half of the picture is one side of the road and the bottom half is the other. You can literally turn your head from side to side and see these two different worlds. The top right picture is what I see when I look from my balcony down towards the main road, you can kind of see the little river shacks past the traffic.

The best part about my living situation is my commute. I can see my school from my balcony and I can walk there in about five minutes. How convenient.