Sawasdee Ka Thailand - Girl's trip in the land of smiles!

Brellowgirl
Feb 12, 2016
15 min read

I am so greatful for amazing friends in this lifetime. The ones I meet while traveling become best friends within days, sometimes even hours but the one's I'm talking about are the ones who know more about yourself than you know. They are the ones who I spent highschool nights with when my parents and I would fight. They're the ones who picked me up after having my heart broken by boyfriends. Our idea of a good time was always going over someone's house, baking brownies, painting our nails and throwing on a movie. My girls have traveled the world with me and here we are after thirteen years of friendship in Thailand!

1.10.16

Always leave enough time to get to the airport and stand in line… I never learn my lesson haha. We thought we had plenty of time but we were stuck in massive amounts of traffic with two hours before my flight left so Kirk took the lead and hopped out of the taxi to start walking to the airport. I’m glad he was with me because the whole time we were sitting in the taxi my heart was beating so fast because for every minute that would go by and we hadn’t moved I would get more and more nervous that I would miss my flight. There were plenty of others doing the same thing and it looked like a mass exodus walking along the highway to the airport so we weren’t alone.

I hate saying goodbye and it makes it even harder when the person you’re saying bye to cries. I mean, we were both crying, don’t get me wrong but yeah, goodbyes, they’re no good. We had to pry ourselves apart so I could stand in the security line, Kirk had a few more hours before his check-in.

I got to Bali in the afternoon and took a taxi straight to my hotel in Denpassar. It’s not really a touristy area but it was a cheap hotel and it had good reviews so I decided to stay there. The second I walked into the greeting area at the airport swarms of taxi companies crowded around me asking if I needed a taxi. I needed to exchange money first so I did that while I scoped out a reputable company. They were all trying to rip me off so I started exiting the airport and saw a booth for taxis and it looked less sketch so I paid them and got a receipt, walked out and around to the parking lot where a driver came up to me and took my ticket and led me to the car. I forget his name but we talked the whole time and he was really interested in my life back home. He said he liked me because I reminded him of his wife because we had the same skin color haha what... I got out of that taxi fast. I only had about an hour to chill before my friend Norio came over to go out. Norio is from Japan and I met him on our camping trip to the outback. We walked around and got food in this food court area nearby. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to eat but I chose a staple Indonesian food, rice. Haha, it’s called nasi goreng and it’s just basically fried rice. I also got myself a beer and that meal cost me like $1.50. We finished up eating and then walked down the street to find another place to nom. Japanese people are serial eaters. Actually, maybe it’s just me. We went to a few places but none had air conditioning and it was so hot out so we kept walking. We found a sushi place that served beer AND had air con so it was a definite win.

Two things I noticed right away in Bali were the sidewalks were so extremely dangerous to walk on. There were holes in the pavement that fell like 6 feet down, broken sidewalks, I mean, it was really really bad. If you were looking at your phone and not paying attention you could get seriously hurt. Every couple of meters there was a hole in the sidewalk or road. Not anything covering them either, just a hole.

I also noticed that there were little boxes made out of palm leaves with flowers and sometimes incense EVERYWHERE. Some were right in the middle of the sidewalks or right in front of establishments or restaurants. You have to be really careful not to step on them because they’re Balinese Hindu offerings set out in the mornings by the locals. I loved seeing them and it was a nice splash of color and purity in an otherwise distressed area.

1.11.15

I can never sleep the night before something important happens. Last night was no different. I finally turned the lights out around 2am when I decided some rest was better than none. Even with two and a half hours of sleep I still woke up a few times in panic mode thinking I had missed my alarm. At 4:30 I rolled out of bed and packed my bags. Even with sleepy eyes I remembered to brush my teeth with bottled water so I wouldn't get sick. At 5am one of the hotel staff knocked on my door to tell me my taxi was waiting outside. Sweet. I thought that the city would be just as quiet and sleepy as I was but the second we pulled out of the hotel I realized there was a whole other side of the city that was alive at night. People walking along the streets balancing large parcels of probably whatever they were going to sell for the day, people sitting at restaurants and of course, so so many scooters. I'm glad I decided to leave at 5am and not 5:30. I was so surprised seeing so many people out and about. The food court area where Norio and I had dinner last night was packed with people. I tried to figure out if these were people who just didn't go to bed or if they were early birds, I couldn't figure it out. I'm almost at the airport and my driver has had the entire pitbull CD on during the drive. I wonder if she listens to this on the regular and it makes me laugh.

I land in Bangkok and have to get to the train station so I grab a taxi. I make it to the station with 10 minutes to spare before my train leaves. If I miss this then I have to spend the night in Bangkok and can’t see the girls until tomorrow. There aren’t any first or second class seats available to I just buy whatever they have really fast-third class, run over to a little stand to buy some crackers and water and run to my platform. So, my ticket was about $3.50 for a 5 hour train ride south to Hua Hin. I get onto the train and realize why… the seats were wood and 90degrees. I sat in a four seater with some Thai women. There were no foreigners in that car at all. The Thai women tried to talk to me but they didn’t speak any English so we basically mimed our way through a conversation. One of the ladies asked if we could switch seats because she wanted my seat so she could talk to one of her friends so naturally I said of course. She led me to her seat down the carriage and I stayed there for the rest of the trip. I sat with two girls close to my age and their grandma. It was one hell of a ride. Vendors came by every 5 minutes selling all kinds of things like sweets, sausages, rice dishes, drinks, etc. The girls practically bought everything and ate the entire time and every time they finished something they just threw their garbage right out the window. I was so shocked. One of the girls laid down under our seats to take a nap and I freaked out. People were walking around the train barefoot and it was so freaking hot. Like, I was dripping. I sat with my backpack on my lap the entire trip and I was just so intrigued with all that was happening on this train. At one point the girl who was sleeping woke up, took a pocket knife out of her purse, cut the top off a plastic water bottle and filled it with ice so she could have cold water. A bit different from trains back home for sure haha.

When I got to Hua Hin and I walked over to the hotel where the girls were staying, got changed and went up to the infinity pool on the roof. It was so surreal to be hanging out with my girlfriends after being away from home for so long. We could be apart for months but everything seems like it always was when I’m with them. We spent the evening at the night markets eating food and shopping for souvenirs. The night market was so lively. It was like being at a carnival with all the lights and smells. People calling out to us with menus while we walked by and vendors trying to sell you jewelry, clothes and every kind of knock-off you could imagine. There were a bunch of stalls that had fresh seafood that you pick off the cart, then they weigh it and charge you per kilo and they’ll cook it however you’d like. There were prawns the size of my forearm, it was really ridiculous. I got an ice cream in a coconut so I could walk around and eat it while I people watched. They take a green coconut and scrape the insides and then leave the scrapings at the bottom and then scoop ice cream into the coconut. The coconut at the bottom ends up being sweet and stringy like the jelly you can get in bubble tea, so so good.

1.12.16

Breakfast at the hotel was AWESOME because I got to eat RICE!!!!

It was a mistake though because today we had an intensive cooking class where we got to learn how to make some popular Thai dishes. We started the morning by going to a food market where you could literally buy any kind of ingredient for Thai cooking. We saw all kinds of eggs, which was cool. We even saw pink ones and were so confused. We learned that those eggs are duck eggs that have been boiled in tea and salted and then they paint them pink so they’re not confused with the other eggs. We bought vegetables and spices like kaffir lime leaves, galang-which looks like ginger but doesn’t taste like ginger, baby eggplant which are SO cute they’re little round balls the size of your thumb, fresh peppercorns, lemon grass and a bunch of other stuff. As we walked through we saw some crazy things…buckets of live frogs that were covered with netting so they wouldn’t jump out, mounds of chicken feet, live eels and catfish that they chopped up right in front of you…I had to leave that area.

We took a taxi to the cooking school and were asked to take our shoes off at the entrance. It was cool cooking without shoes on, it made me feel more like I was cooking at home.

We made a full four courses including a green curry (made the curry paste from scratch), spicy tom yum soup, pad thai and a dessert with coconut milk with little noodles made from tapioca flour.

I learned that if you're making curry paste to only use the bottom part of the lemongrass. With galangal - wash, don't peel and even though it looks like ginger, it’s not a good substitute for it. With small garlic you can leave the skin on when you make pastes and when you’re using a mortar and pestle just do up and down pounding motions because if you rotate while you grind the paste it’ll get watery and you don’t want that.

After cooking and eating most of the day away we headed to the bus station to take our bus south to Phuket only to find out that there was no bus for the time we wanted. We opted to take the overnight bus instead so we had a few hours to kill in Hua Hin. The girls went for manicures and massages and I watched haha. We got to walk around the night market again and then hopped on our bus to get out of town.

1.13.16

The bus was ten hours and pretty spacious. There was a lady who brought us all water bottles and little snacks but didn’t look like she was happy with her job at all. It was pitch black when I got on the bus so I used my cell phone flashlight to look around and found a huge swarm of little ants in between my seat and the window…lovely to know you’re sharing that kind of company on a ten hour ride. I slept most of the time and a little before we arrived in Phuket I woke up to the coolest sunrise. The sun was peeking out from behind banana plantation after banana plantation. We just kept driving and all I saw was farmland and sun rays, it was beautiful. We got to our hotel, checked in and then walked over to Patong beach. The stretch of beach we were on was quiet but I’ve heard that it can get pretty rowdy. It was so hot out but the water was perfecttt. So warm. We rolled around and then spent the evening walking around Bangla Rd. It’s like Phuket’s main nightlife road with all kinds of bars and sex shows. Vendors were selling all kinds of food (we even found scorpions, crickets and tarantulas) and there were so many drag queens trying to get tourists to come watch their shows. It was crazy.

1.14.16

We left in the morning to take a ferry to the Phi Phi Islands. The cool part was when we got to Phi Phi and had to take a long boat water “taxi” to our resort. The guys just threw our bags onto the boat and we were off! We had an awesome view of the water from our bungalow and we spent the day at the beach until it started pouring on us. We stayed in that night and ordered room service which was super nice ‘cause that’s one thing I typically don’t do back home. We even made friends with a kitten who followed the hotel staff into our room when they brought up the food. Kitty got some of my fried rice and egg for dinner. All the cats are cared for here and look pretty healthy.

1.15.16

We’re up early to go snorkeling but the company we were expecting to go out with was fully booked so we walked around the streets for a bit looking for another company. We found a boat going out and we booked a spot on that took us around the Phi Phi Islands. We visited Maya Bay (made popular by the movie “the beach”), mosquito island, monkey beach, bamboo island and shake point. A few of the spots we stopped at we were allowed to snorkel and some others we just dropped anchor and sun bathed on the beach. When we got to monkey beach there were all these little monkeys scaling the cliff face trying to get to our boat so that they could get fed. One managed to jump on our boat trying to get some left over pineapple, it was really cute.

When we got back, we grabbed our bags and headed off to our next island, Ko Lanta. We were supposed to be there a bit longer but we got in in the evening and had to leave first thing in the morning. In Ko Lanta, our resort was really nice. From our room there was a pool right outside our sliding door. We went swimming, then headed over to the reggae bar on the resort. We watched a fire dancer perform and had some drinks before heading out to town.

In town we did some souvenir shopping until there was a huge power outage. It was actually really cool haha. I was in the middle of buying something so I had to turn my flashlight on and pay the guy in the dark and find the girls. We made our way through the market with our cell phones and found out that the entire city was in darkness. We walked down the street, found a place to eat and by that time the power had come back on.

1.16.16

Our island hopping continued as we found our way to the quiet island of Koh Yao Yai today. Francesca almost dropped her suitcase into the water on the way onto our speedboat haha I was so scared that it was gonna fall straight into the water. It’s crazy though, there aren’t stairs or anything to get onto the boat, you literally just jump on… Anyways, the island is quiet and we checked into a resort so we’re just relaxing. There’s an infinity pool that looks out into the bay and we’re in a really cute bungalow. I love it here. We just relaxed today, went swimming for a while and then had dinner at the restaurant here. The restaurant is so cute, everything is outdoors and there are string lights everywhere (my favorrrriteee).

1.17.16

Adventure day! We booked a long boat tour with the awesome lady boy receptionist at the resort. She was so cute and asked us what kind of fried rice we wanted so she could have lunches packed for us for our boat tour. Our tour guide’s name was Yoobe and he came to greet us in the morning and show us our boat. When we walked out past the restaurant to the water though the tide had receded like crazy and our boat was about 300 meters out in the water. It was actually really cool walking on the wet, muddy sand that we saw covered in water the evening before. We got to our boat and were off! I honestly can’t even tell you where we went. We first stopped at a beach where we waded around and laid out a bit in in the sun. We then went to a monkey beach but stayed in the boat while Yoobe threw some pineapple to the monkeys. Some wanted the fruit so badly that they were standing and trying to balance on little rocks and falling into the water trying to catch the fruit. It was cool watching them swim around though and they looked happy to see us with treats for them. There were even baby monkeys who came out to see what was going on. So cute!!

We stopped at Koh Lao La Ding which is part of the Than Bok Khorani National Park in Krabi and Yoobe took us walking down a little path to a quiet rocky beach for some pictures.

We went to some coves to take pictures and then stopped at a beach for lunch. Yoobe was so cute, he took all of our towels and laid them out on the sand for us and then took out our lunch boxes and boxes of fruit and put them on the towels haha. We had lunch and then hopped on the boat for more. Our last stop was a beach where the girls went swimming while I went for a walk. Yoobe said there was a cool lookout point but that we’d have to hike a bit to get there. I only had flip flops and he just laughed at me when I started following him while wearing them. When we got to the start of the path to the top of the mountain I realized there was no way I could wear my flip flops. It was practically vertical into the woods and there was a rope tied to trees all the way up to help grab on to. Not as dangerous as iron rungs, I don’t think, but challenging nonetheless. I ditched the shoes and went for it. Yoobe held my camera and I had a blast feeling like a 5 year old climbing the dirt rocks. Not wearing shoes was the coolest thing. I felt the earth under my feet, climbing over big tree roots and sharp rocks. It was a good feeling of connection and I was so happy. We stopped ¾ of the way up and Yoobe got out water bottles haha. I passed on the water wanting to just get to the top, so we did. The view from the top was beautiful. I saw Amy and Fran way down below and they just looked like specs in the water from the top. We took some pictures and headed down. Halfway down there was a couple coming up and they were sweating pretty good (I mean, I was drenched at this point too, it was crazy hot out). Yoobe asked if they had water and when they said no Yoobe gave them his. That is Thai culture. Thai people are so incredibly giving. They say it’s the land of smiles and I totally believe that. Since being here everybody has been so helpful and kind to me. It was a great experience getting to the top and seeing the view even if it was a short hike.

1.18.16

Back to Bangkok for us. We leave Koh Yao Yai in the morning. We need to take a taxi to the pier and then ferry over to Phuket. Our plane ride was fine except for the bumpy landing. When we got outside to grab a taxi there were all these machines and you take a number from the machine and it gives you a lane number. You walk over to the lane and there’s a taxi waiting for you there in a parking spot. SO EFFICIENT. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and then spent the evening walking around Siam Paragon Mall, a huuuge mall with an unbelievable food court. It’s like being in a Japanese subway with all the food stalls. We had dim sum and ice cream and fried bananas sprinkled with sesame seeds. So so yummy. We went to a huge market where we shopped around and Aims got her nails done. In the evening we adventured down the infamous Khaosan Rd. It’s like Bangla Rd in Phuket. Basically just a really touristy street of vendors and food and bars and clubs. We bar hopped a bit then headed back.

1.19.16 Got out in the late am and took time to walk around Bangkok. Saw the giant reclining Buddha and the Grand Palace. We also saw the emerald Buddha. Every time you enter a temple or place like that you have to take your shoes off. At this place we had to put them in a bag and my bag just smelled like overwhelming feet. Lol. No lies. The Emerald Buddha was really small but then again it’s probably priceless. I don’t know what I was expecting really… We had dumplings for lunch in China town and by that time I had to head back to the hotel to pack up my things and say goodbye to the girls. I got on the overnight bus around 10pm.

Such an amazing time with my girlfriends, although when we're together it's always a good time. Thank you for coming to visit me, Fran and Amy, I really appriceiate it and am so glad I got to experience a new country with you guys. Take it off the list and let's add another on! Miss you both already <3

My solo travels in Thailand are coming up, stay tuned ;)

Much love,

Cas