Island life on Koh Phangan and some solo-ing

Brellowgirl
Feb 20, 2016
15 min read

Traveling solo has kind of been my push into adulting. I'm taking care of myself mom, I promise.

1.20.16

The overnight bus dropped me in Chumpon at 4:15am and I had to wait until 6 for a taxi pick up. I met two older guys while waiting at the pier, Phil and Bruce from Boston, they were SO hilarious. Just everything they said made me laugh.

We had to walk a loooong pier flanked by two huge looking catamarans. Our bags were thrown onto the front of the boat. Hundreds of them stacked on each other. The water was so extremely choppy and every time the boat went up and down I was sure the bags were going to go flying off the boat.

At that point I had to pee since leaving Bangkok the night before. I decided to go on the boat since I had a few more hours. Bad choice. I left the inside of the boat to go outside and could barely keep my feet on the ground because the boat was constantly up and down. Even when I was sitting my whole body was coming off the seat. There were people thrown along the edge of the boat who couldn’t stop puking. There were about 4 of them. I slowly made my way to the toilet… the whole 10 feet to get there thinking I was going to be thrown overboard. The first toilet had a girl my age splayed out on the floor with her face in the toilet. SO freaking gross. The next toilet was mine. It was completely wet inside, like all the walls and everything. I hesitated and asked my body if it could help me out and hold it for a few more hours but I was there and it betrayed me. I had to go. I went in and the boat bumped and I got thrown into the wet wall. Whyyyyyy?!?!?? It was terrible. Sometimes I just hate being a girl…that was one of those moments.

My boat finally gets to Koh Phangan, my stop. This is the island of the full moon parties. I found a workaway at a backpackers hostel called Vagabond and I plan on staying for about two weeks. I walked to the hostel from the pier which wasn’t too bad and check in. I’m in a staff dorm with a Ukrainian girl named Liza. This is going to be awesome!

1.30.16

January is gone. I'm sitting in a Thai mechanic shop with Oliver because the front wheel of our scooter couldn't retain air so we had to get it replaced. The mechanic gave Oliver a gift of a giant banana haha. He's gotten through half of it and can't find a polite way to get rid of the rest. In his defense, it's a huge banana. I can’t stop laughing.

My past ten days on the island have been crazy wonderful. I’ve learned the ins and outs of the hostel and met so many cool travelers from all over the world (pretty much one of my favorite things to do). I’ve been working all day every day and after ten long days of work, today was my first day off. This island is crazy. There is literally a handful of parties every single night-in the jungle, at waterfalls, on the beaches, at pools… There are bars where you can buy drugs-whatever you want. There are amazing view points and hikes and secret spots to watch the sunrise. I sit at reception in between cleaning bathrooms and turning over rooms and it’s the perfect place to work so I can meet everyone that comes through.

I’ve been eating meals across the street at a little restaurant every day. The girl that works there is named Mymin and although she doesn’t speak much English she’s super nice and always smiling and giggling. She loves my friend Oliver haha.

I woke up this morning with no plans but I knew I wanted to see the island. I was afraid to ride a motorbike though because in working at the hostel I’ve seen more than half of our guests have motorbike accidents. Huge gashes, burns, cuts, bruises some on the legs, some on forearms and even a few head wounds. Not really what I need to cut my trip short. Nonetheless I didn’t want to be stuck at the hostel on my day off. It was already a few days after the full moon party so all my friends had checked out and there was only one person who had just arrived. In comes Oliver to save the day. I made friends fast and he agreed to be my chauffer. We went out with Liza and her friend David and went to climb some waterfalls on the island. It was a great day spent outdoors instead of behind the reception desk. We ended at Amsterdam bar to watch the sunset and met a cool couple from NY who had quit their jobs, put all their things in storage and left to travel. I love hearing stories like that.

2.2.16

I wake up so many times through the night and finally when my alarm goes off at 5 I don't want anything to do with it. I quietly pack the rest of my things and say bye to Liza. I walk to the hostel and look for Tachi, the stray dog that Oliver and I named, but can't find him. I should have said bye last night.

This island. I met so many awesome people I can’t even begin to list them. I played in so many waterfalls (there was one day devoted to just hopping from fall to fall and they were all different). There was one waterfall, Paradise, that had a rope swing that I mustered up the courage to jump from. There were swings on beaches, there were shallow bays we just sunbathed in, amazing sunsets, night walks on the beach and lots of stargazing. I went to the night market pretty much every evening to grab food and people watch. There were so many vegetarian restaurants on the island with such great food. There was an ice cream shoppe that had the most amaaaazing homemade banana ice cream. I love bananas.

There are proper gas stations, but if you need quick, cheap gas there are stalls all over that have racks of glass bottles filled with gasoline. Most of the bottles are reused liquor bottles lol.

I was the unofficial chalkboard artist for the hostel, drawing out the daily activities on the board. There was one night that Shine, the manager of the hostel, threw a pizza party and made homemade pizzas. I don’t like pizza much but he made me a veggie pizza and it was super yum. He also cooked lunch one day and made a Croatian dish called paprikas. Ugh so good. One of the staff guys at Nomad, Willian, is Japanese but is from Brasil so I got to practice my Portuguese with him a bit. He made coxinhas one day (one of my favorite Brasilian snacks. They’re deep fried croquettes filled with chicken and cheese). As you can see, most of my time on the island was spent eating of course. How could you not when food is so inexpensive and delicious? At the markets I can walk around with $3, not spend it all and eat my body weight in food. You can get a fruit smoothie with all kinds of exotic fruits for less than a dollar. Such a good way to get a vitamin boost. On average I spent about $1.50 per meal and in most cases a bit less depending on where I ate.

There was a party attended in the jungle and a full moon party. Both didn’t exceed my expectations but were fun nonetheless. OH, did I mention Liza, the other volunteer is a fire dancer??!!????! She’s been spinning fire in front of people for only like three months now but she’s amazing! She spins fire fans and let me play with them one night when we were at the sister hostel, Nomad House. In my past life I must have played with fire because I was so entranced every time I watched her. She performed at the Jungle party and I spent most of the night watching her and the other fire performers have fun. She’s a few years younger than me and has been traveling for two years now. She’s nuts.

There was a walking market one evening that was like a carnival without the rides. There were stands with side attractions and so so much weird food. I mean, to me it looked weird. I got to try mango sticky rice but I don’t know what all the hype is about. I prefer just mangoes and just rice by themselves.

One thing I absolutely love about Thailand is that you can get food anywhere at any time. Their food culture is so incredible. On any given street you can find a food cart ready to go. Pad thai, fried rice, noodle soups, bbq, etc. You can’t ever go hungry in this country. Even the stray dogs are fed well and taken care of. The food is good too. It might skeeve some people out to eat from food carts all day but in most cases the turn over is so fast and the griddle so hot that it’s more hygienic to get food from carts. There are lots of regulations for food carts now that keep them clean because so many tourists are eating from them anyways, that I’ve never gotten really sick from any and the food has always been on par or better than a sit down.

Anyways, I digress. I left the island and took a boat to the mainland, Surat Thani, where I got a flight to the north-Chiang Mai. My hostel here is really cool. I’m in a 10 bed dorm but all the beds have curtains for privacy so it’s awesommeee. It’s almost like having a private room. The hostel is clean too. One thing about Thailand is that most of the showers are combined with the toilets. So it’s just one room with a potty and a showerhead so if you take a shower, everything gets wet. It’s super annoying and I think it’s gross. This hostel, however, has a separate shower. Score! There’s a food market right down the street and then a huge bazaar about 15 minutes away. I’ll check it out eventually. One of my friends from Vagabond is in Chiang Mai so I met up with him for dinner then headed to bed because I have long adventure days planned!

2.3.16

Solo traveling gets lonely but it’s cool to know that I can entertain myself all day and not get bored of myself =P I leave the hostel early and grab a songatew which is a taxi pick up truck with seats and a covered bed lol. Super ghetto. So I wanted to go to Doi Suthep which is a temple on a hill that you get to by climbing up like 300+ stairs. The stairs are really cool though, they’re flanked by giant colorful dragons on either side. Anyways, I eventually get there after being rerouted a bunch of times. I meet another solo girl traveler from China and we ended up hanging out all day. Her name is Tian Hui and it’s the first time she’s left her country. Her English isn’t great but with the help of this translating app she has we get by and it’s always fun to mime haha. We grab lunch before going up to the temple and then start the climb. She tells me that she has a 3 year old daughter back in China and that she’s divorced. Her daughter lives with the dad because Tian can’t afford to bring her up. It’s really sad to hear this and understand why she’s traveling. We spend time at the temple and it’s really a mystical place. All shrouded in gold with people on the ground praying in front of every Buddha figure. There are rooms that you can walk into with monks sitting in them. They’re filled with giant buddhas and other relics and if you go in and kneel down in front of the monks, they’ll bless you. Tian and I went inside one and bowed our heads and received a blessing from one of the happy monks. He shook water on everyone he was blessing and I couldn’t help but smile through it.

It was a nice place to just be quiet for a bit and Tian said that she felt something in being there. I like this girl.

We went back down and walked around some more before taking a songatew back to the city. Chiang Mai is comprised of the city and the “old city” which is a 1sq km square surrounded by some old walls and a moat-really really cool. We stayed on the outskirts near Chiang Mai University. We walked around the university for a bit and then took a songatew to a wat (Buddhist temple) that I found in Fran’s lonely planet guide book. This wat was in a forest and was called Wat Umong. The sun was setting when we got there and it was just the most serene, beautiful place. No other tourists, just monks walking around sweeping leaves, roosters walking around everywhere and little stray dogs (found some puppies we played with for a bit). As a tourist you can go there to meditate and they have pre-scheduled days where you wake up at like 4:30am, clean, meditate, eat, clean meditate, etc. haha. You also have to wear all white, very conservative clothes and let go of all your possessions for a two day cleanse or however long you decide to stay. Really cool, but I don’t know if I could do it. Nonetheless, very interesting. So we walked up to the temple and found out it’s about 700 years old. There are these really cool tunnels that we explored that have buddhas inside little crevices. Overall, a really unique wat in the forest. I think it was just what Tian needed.

We finished the evening by going to night markets, of course! Our first was one right near the university. There were so many places to eat and shop! We grabbed noodles from a restaurant within the night market and then shopped around for a bit. Then we went to the Chiang Mai night bazaar which was closer to my hostel. It was HUGE. I mean, ridiculously huge. Allll kinds of vendors selling allll kinds of things. I bought some souvenirs for the family and we walked around for a bit before parting ways.

2.4.16

Day 2 of officially solo traveling. I booked a trip to Doi Inthanon, a national park here in Chiang Mai. It’s about two hours away so the bus comes to pick me up around 9am. I make friends quickly with a British couple who left their jobs to travel. They’re one year younger than me. I typically don’t like going on tours but I wasn’t sure how else to get to the national park and then on top of that if I was even allowed to tour the park by myself or if I needed a guide. The tour I booked ended up being 1,000baht (about $30 for an all day tour with meals and transportation) so it wasn’t too bad. We started at a Karen Hill tribe which I particularly didn’t like. I hate walking through villages like that as a tourist, in a group. It’s just so rude. Walking around taking pictures of their houses and land. It makes me feel bad and uncomfortable. There we saw some women weaving scarves and throws on big looms and we also learned that coffee beans are a big crop in this area. We then went to two waterfalls in the park. Siritharn and Wachiritharn. At the second waterfall there was a restaurant where we had a delicious lunch. The British girl and I along with one other lady ate veg so they prepared super yummy vegetarian dishes for us. So much food, I was so happy. We had time to walk around the waterfalls and then moved on to the Angkha Nature Trail which is a walk through a moss covered forest. Loved seeing the moss and it was really cool in the forest. I had to wear my sweatshirt.

The highlight of the trip, of course, was going to visit the Chedi’s of the King and Queen on the mountain. It was the most amazing sight, like straight out of a storybook. There were manicured gardens lush with flowers. Flowers that don’t even typically grow in Thailand. They were imported from European countries. Roses??? There were roses. Haha. Amazing. I was confused when I got there because the typical picture you see when looking up Doi Inthanon is taken from above and I thought it was from a lookout but when we got there there was nowhere to take a picture of the whole garden and two chedis until I spotted it…a sandy hill that had footprints in it and worn grass like people had climbed up over and over. Looked dangerous. I looked around and then decided to ask my tour guide if I could climb up there to get a picture. He said that as long as the guards weren’t watching he would close his eyes and pretend I never asked him permission. He also said he’s done it before haha. That’s all the confirmation I needed to get up there. I slung my camera on my back and raced up trying to stay behind trees so that no one could see me from the bottom. It was a pretty steep climb but I was graciously rewarded at the top. It was the most perfect picturesque view of the gardens, king and queen chedis and mountains. WHOOO, I felt alive! Snaped some pictures and ran down before anyone missed me and before I got caught. Anything for a good picture ;)

In the evening I hung out with two Canadian friends, a girl from California and her travel buddy who all happened to be in Chiang Mai (met them all at the hostel on the island). We had dinner at the food market and then checked out some bars in the area. All were chill but pretty dead so we called it early.

2.6.16

My stay in Chiang Mai JUST so happened to overlap with the 40th annual Chiang Mai Flower Festival! It was a beautiful, colorful day of amazing flowers everywhere! I met up with two travelers from North Carolina who I met in my hostel and we spent the day together. We started in the morning passing by the parade that was happening. We made a pic stop at the post office so I could send a package home to my fam and then we took a tuktuk to a hole in the wall restaurant that was supposedly the most famous place to get kow soy, a thai curry noodle dish. It’s a red curry with egg noodles in it and a chicken drumstick and then topped with fried noodles. It’s served with some kind of pickled green and raw sliced garlic. It was delish!

We walked around the festival together and saw all the competitions of orchids and bonsai trees. There were installations of giant girl mannequins that had floral dresses and sashes and they were just gorgeous. Literally flower everything! There were huge floats in the parade that were completely covered in blooms. Some were fake, some were real but nonetheless really really cool to see. I was in heaven and my friends just laughed at me so being so amazed the whole time. I eventually split up with them so I could go temple hopping before having to catch my bus.

Both Ryan and Christine, my friends from NC left Chiang Mai to go to Pai today too. We just took them at different times. Pai is a little hippy village north of Chiang Mai. It’s about 3.5 hours away and the bus to go there cost me $4.85 CRAZY.

2.7.16

I'm sitting at a cafe in a little hippy village called Pai and it makes me laugh every time I see someone walk by all bundled up. It's beautiful out, what I think is the perfect temperature, 75 and sunny. You can tell where people are from geographically by the way they dress. I’m used to the cold and I think this is beautiful, thus I’m wearing shorts and a tee but most of the Thai people are wearing jeans with winter jackets and scarves, it’s cute.

I’m staying at a backpackers called Purple Monkey. It’s super simple accommodation but the atmosphere is cool. I’m in a 24 bed mixed dorm-I’ve never seen such a big dorm room. It’s literally a huge room (kinda outdoors) filled haphazardly with bunks. Every bed has a mosquito net and there are four shared bathrooms. While not squatty pottys, the toilets aren’t flushers so after you go to the bathroom there’s a big bucket of water with a pail and you have to fill up the pail and pour it into the toilet which pushes everything down. It’s a process. You can’t put toilet paper down the toilets so there’s also a “bum gun” which is like a hose bidet but I’m pretty terrified of using it so I haven’t haha. The hostel itself is really chill. There’s a cool outdoor bar area with a sitting area and pool table. There’s also an aboveground pool, courts and my favorite, a seating area on the roof of the dorm room that has hammocks and cushions to chill. I spend most of my time here.

Pai is an adorable village and I wish I could spend more time here. I walked around with Ryan and Christine last night and got some yummy roasted organic veggies from a cute Thai woman with dreads. Actually everyone here has dreads. I want dreads. If I came back home with dreads my momma would kill me… We checked out a jazz bar called Edible Jazz and enjoyed music by the very talented Signe Krog & Hvetter. The duo was absolutely amazing, you can check them out for yourself here!

2.8.16

So I’m a bad girl and my visa expires tomorrow and I don’t know where I’m going yet…I met a group of guys from El Salvador who are studying in Taiwan and are on break for Chinese New Year and they’re going to Cambodia and invited me to tag along so I think I might do that since I feel like being spontaneous. My bus leaves back to Chiang Mai in a few hours and then I stay the night and take a train to Lampang (about 2 hours away where my fight to Siem Reap leaves out of).

I’m in Chiang Mai now, staying closer to the University this time. When I got into town there were fireworks going off for Chinese New Year! I took a tuktuk to the west side to my hostel called Baan Mek. It was very very cute and Japanese inspired. Super clean and well decorated. The owner left me a key since reception was closed and when I went inside I found a little fluffy gray kitten to play with! I dropped my stuff off in my room which was just big enough for a single bed. Still very cozy and comfortable. I went out to walk around and find some food and found a street vendor who was working her butt off so I decided to get food from her. She was truly a one woman show cooking dish after dish from her food cart. She had fresh vegetables and ingredients that she was chopping for each dish and it just amazed me that she didn’t have anything pre-chopped. I ordered three dishes from her HA and took them back to my hostel so I could hop on my computer and plan while eating.

I'm in Cambodia now and can't wait to share everything with you guys!

Much love,

Cas