Bangkok, Thailand: Fish Spa and Reclining Buddha

On July 21st we flew from Koh Samui to Bangkok. We hadn’t booked any accommodation, but since we had both already been to Bangkok we weren’t too worried about finding a place. The first guesthouse we walked into had rooms available for $12 (CAN) per person with a king sized bed and private bathroom right next to Khao San Road (the backpacker area of the city with lots of shops and restaurants). We booked the room immediately!
We then decided to check out a Fish Spa. The Fish Spa is a spa where you put your feet into a fish tank full of garra rufa and cyprinion macrostomus fish - otherwise known as Doctor Fish. These fish feed on dead skin, and they will nibble away at all the dead skin on your feet leaving the healthy skin to grow. I had seen these spas when I was in Bangkok 8 weeks ago, but I had a bad cut on my feet at the time, so I couldn’t try it. Now that my feet were healthy I was ready to try this unique spa experience! (They are banned in most areas of Canada and the United States).
It was a very interesting experience! When we put out feet into the water all the fish swarmed us and started nibbling! We screamed in shock and kicked our feet out of the water! We eventually got used to the sensation and we allowed them to eat away our dead skin as we tried to hold back giggles (we are both ticklish).

After the treatment our feet felt amazing! They were so soft! I guess these Doctor Fish worked pretty well!
The following day (July 22nd) we decided we would spend the day seeing a few temples. We thought we would walk from temple to temple, but quickly got disoriented on the confusing Bangkok streets. A Thai man stopped to help us out with directions and recommended a few temples for us to visit. He then arranged for a tuk tuk to drive us around to each temple, wait for us to visit them, and then bring us to the next spot, all for only $1 (CAN). We thought it sounded like an amazing deal! Anytime we’ve tried to get a tuk tuk to bring us anywhere we had been paying at least $3 just for one way. We didn’t think much of it, and started on our journey to see the temples.

Our first stop was the Wat Inthara Wihan: the home of the 32 meter high, 10 meter wide standing Buddha called Luang Pho To or Phrasiariyametri. The Buddha was enormous, very impressive and beautiful as it is decorated in glass mosaics and gold. It took over 60 years to complete. The complex consisted of the Buddha, a temple and a courtyard. Since there was a festival going on, the temple courtyard was decorated with lanterns. The festival was to celebrate the changing of the dress on the Buddha for rainy season.

Our next stop was the Wat Thewarat Kunchon. This was a small but pretty temple and our Thai friend told us it was one of the oldest temples in Bangkok.

After that temple things got a bit strange with our tuk tuk driver. He took us to a tailor shop so we could have custom clothing made. We both weren’t interested as we had already made clothing in Vietnam. We were then dropped off at a tourist office and he told us to go inside and look around while he filled up his gas tank. We obliged but we really just wanted him to take us to our next stop!
We decided we didn’t want his services anymore and asked if he could drop us off right along the river, close to the Grand Palace, so we could walk along the river and find somewhere to eat. He brought us down to the river, and pointed over to the water and said that this is where we asked for. We assumed he was right, so we paid him and hopped out. He quickly took off before we realized that we were actually in the middle of Bangkok, miles from anything touristy, but still along the river.
We were surrounded by locals, none of whom spoke English. We asked them to point to where we were on our map so we could figure out how to get back. It turned out we were very very far from where we wanted to be. I guess a $1 tuk tuk chauffeur was too good to be true! After waking aimlessly for about 10 minutes we finally found a taxi (a real taxi, with real doors and a meter) to take us to where we actually wanted to go. We paid almost the same amount for our 20 minute taxi ride back than we did for our tuk tuk driver’s few hours of work!
We were a bit discouraged after our abandonment of our tuk tuk driver, and laughed at how lucky we thought we were with how cheap his services were. Oh well, I guess you win some and you lose some. At least we were safe and made it back to civilization in one piece!
Once we were back in the tourist area, we walked to the Wat Pho, otherwise known as The Temple of the Reclining Buddha. This temple was built on the site that was the center of traditional Thai medicine, and thus the temple is known as the birthplace of the traditional Thai massage. There is a massage center and massage school on the temple grounds, and tourists can experience traditional Thai massages there.
The Reclining Buddha is one of the largest Buddha statues in existence and is housed inside the temple. The gold plated Buddha is 46 meters long and 15 meters high.

 

Outside the temple housing the Reclining Buddha is a small garden centered around a bodhi tree, which is said to be grown from a cutting of the original tree where Buddha sat while awaiting enlightenment in India.

The temple grounds were very beautiful and we spent some time walking around them. They reminded me of visiting the Grand Palace (here in Bangkok) 8 weeks ago.

After all this touring we were exhausted! We spent the remainder of the day shopping for souvenirs for our family and friends and resting up for the following day of touring in Bangkok!

Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, Thailand: Last days on the islands

After the Full Moon Party on July 17th we still had 2 night nights booked at our resort on Koh Phangan. We spent that time resting and relaxing by the pool.

The resort we were staying at was quite interesting. It was run by a large Thai family who spoke very little English. It’s hard to say whether or not the resort was a “nice” resort because there were so many inconsistencies. The pool area was awesome and had 4 basins on 3 levels (there is another level below that is not visible in the photo above). We were staying in a private bungalow with air conditioning and hot water (those two features are not a given and you generally have to pay extra for them); we also had a private terrace.
There were also a number of negative aspects, for example, when we arrived the lock on the window in our room was broken. This meant that anyone who walked to the front of our bungalow could easily slide the window open and climb in. We told the front reception and they told us to make sure we always took all our valuables with us wherever we went so that if someone came in they couldn’t steal them. That wasn’t an acceptable answer for me; was I supposed to bring my laptop and passport to the Full Moon Party? Anyway we persuaded them to fix it, and they did.
A couple days later our tap water turned brown and we were unable to shower or use the taps. We complained to reception but they told us that everyone in the resort had brown water and they were working on fixing it. We had brown water for the remainder of our time at the resort. The wireless internet also stopped working. When we asked if we could use the computer in the lobby instead they told us that it was “sleeping” and no one could use it anymore.
It was all very strange. We also had some issues with the restaurant. The resort was so isolated that we had no choice but to eat at the restaurant. We never knew what we would get no matter what we would order. One day I ordered boiled eggs for breakfast and they brought me 2 very runny eggs; the next day I ordered the exact same thing and I got 1 very hard egg. When I asked where my 2nd egg was they didn’t say anything to me but silently went back into the kitchen, boiled one, and brought it to me 15 minutes later. Other times we would both order the exact same dish (green curry for example) and Mads would get hers 15 minutes before mine came out. One day I wasn’t feeling too well and needed some toast, so Mads went and asked for a plate of plain toast. It took about 20 minutes and 4 different family members to prepare the plate of plain bread for us. We couldn’t quite figure out what went on in that kitchen! This was definitely one of the strangest places we’d ever stayed at!
We were happy to leave on July 20th when we boarded a boat to take us back to the island of Koh Samui. We booked one night there before our flight to Bangkok the following morning.
In Koh Samui (after our experience in Koh Phangan) we felt like we were living in luxury! We had beautiful clear tap water, and our bathroom even had a rainfall shower! We had a luxurious king sized bed and a very nice private balcony. The restaurant at the hotel was also fabulous, quick, our meals were exactly what we ordered, they arrived at the same time and we enjoyed them while sitting on the beach!

We spent the afternoon enjoying the sun and the water. This was our last day on the beach for the remainder of our trip.

Since it was our last night in a beach resort we decided to treat ourselves to a festive cake to celebrate our trip thus far and to say goodbye to the beautiful beaches of Southeast Asia! We had spent nearly an entire month hopping from one beach resort to another (with the exception of our 3 days in Singapore) and we had an amazing time! We bought a pink cake decorated with crabs to eat on our private balcony:

Eating the cake reminded us of when we were 15 years old and we used to buy large cakes from Loblaws together and eat the entire thing in one sitting. Sigh….Oh the joys of a teenage metabolism! Now that 10 years has past since those days we opted for a “mini” cake!
We thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring the Thai islands and we were sad to say goodbye to them. But we were equally as excited to see Bangkok! We had both already been there (I was there 8 weeks ago ago when I started my trip), so we knew the city already and could spend our time having fun and exploring some other areas of the city that we both hadn’t already seen.

Koh Phangan, Thailand: The Full Moon Party

On July 16th we left the island of Koh Tao, Thailand and boarded a boat for the island of Koh Phangan: the location of the world famous Full Moon Party.
The party takes place on Haad Rin Beach on the island of Koh Phangan, which is said to be the 3rd best spot in the world to view the full moon. The party originated in the mid 1980s when a group of travelers spent the night dancing to trance music under the full moon on Haad Rin Beach. It quickly gained in reputation by word of mouth and eventually gained global recognition as being one of the biggest and best beach parties in the world, bringing from 20,000 to 30,000 partiers to Koh Phangan every month on the night of the full moon. The experience of attending a Full Moon Party has been called the “ultimate party experience”. The party starts after dark and continues until the sun rises the following morning. Partiers dressed in fluorescent colours and covered in fluorescent body paint spend the night dancing to R&B, dance, trance and pop on the beautiful sandy beach, drinking buckets of alcohol while the waves crash gently onto the shores behind. We actually planned our vacation around the date of the party because this was a party we did not want to miss!

When we arrived on Koh Phangan on July 16th (the day before the party) we didn’t know what to expect of our next 4 days on the island. We decided to check out the beach and party area during the day to scope out the scene. Everywhere we looked all we could see were young people in their 20s and early 30s. I’m pretty sure we didn’t see a single person outside of that age range that didn’t either work at a restaurant, hotel, store, etc. There was not a single family or child in sight, they had all cleared out in preparation for the party.
The town reminded me of Vang Vieng, Laos: home of the famous tubing party down the Nam Song River. If you didn’t read my Vang Vieng blog post, tubing in Vang Vieng is one big party where people ride down the river drunk in inflatable tubes, stopping at bars along the river where they pick up buckets of alcohol. It is another major party destination in Southeast Asia. I actually saw many people in Koh Phangan wearing Vang Vieng tubing souvenir t-shirts. Vang Vieng has totally been taken over by these tourists, all in their 20s and early 30s, and every establishment is tourism related.
The area around Haad Rin is very similar. All the restaurants, bars and shops cater to the tourism industry. They have lots of restaurants that continually play episodes of the TV show “Friends” or “Family Guy” where tourists spend hours catching up on their favourite episodes. I saw similar bars in Vang Vieng and I found it so strange to see a bar where everyone was facing the televisions watching “Friends” for hours upon hours!
Another thing we noticed is the abundance of medical clinics all throughout the streets, and the number of injured people walking around. I had seen more people in crutches during my few days in Koh Phangan than I had cumulatively through my whole trip!
Even though the Full Moon Party took place the night of the 17th, the nights leading up to the party had massive pre-parties, which we decided to take part in. I can honestly say I have never seen so many people all in the same place in my entire life!

Our Full Moon Experience lasted 2 days, as we joined the pre-party on the night of the 16th as well as the real party on the 17th. Both nights were quite different though, and we actually enjoyed the pre-party on the 16th more than the real party on the 17th.
On the 16th, even though there were massive amounts of people, the crowd was a bit more manageable, and it was easier to dance and mingle. On the 17th the night was pure madness. The island only has accommodation to support about 2/3 of the party-goers, so about 1/3 of the partiers come on boats from other islands just for the night of the party. The party on the 16th was exclusively for the people with accommodations in Koh Phangan who decided to party on both nights, while the 17th is everyone from Koh Phangan plus hundreds more people who came across on boats. These extra people made a world of difference and at least doubled intensity of the party.
Regardless of the number of people, we had fun on both nights.

Buckets of alcohol are the drinks of choice at the Full Moon Party, and you could purchase them with different combinations of alcohols and mixers from booths along the beach:

The beach was lined with fluorescent accessories for purchase:

Swimming to cool off was an absolute must after dancing in the crowds of people.

The beach also provided people a sleeping area:

In addition to the crowds of people dancing, there were also bubble waterfalls and slides:

Being the biggest beach party in the world also brings some negative impacts and dangers. The party is known for it’s dangerous drug culture and potent buckets of cheap alcohol. We were warned of all the dangers of the party including the potential for theft, injury, and most seriously: the potential of having our drinks drugged without our knowledge. We were aware of these dangers, and made sure to take necessary precautions while partying.
It is impossible sum up the sheer party madness and energy that makes up the Full Moon Party. I believe it is a party that each person needs to personally experience to fully understand the impact and extent of the experience. All I can say is that we had a great time, it was an unforgettable experience; one that I am happy I had, but I would not necessarily choose to have again. We survived the Full Moon Party safely without any injuries or losses, and we gained lifelong memories and the chance to tell people “I experienced and survived the madness of the Full Moon Party”.

Koh Tao, Thailand

On July 13th we left the island of Koh Samui and took a boat over to the island of Koh Tao. They really try to maximize the number of people on the boat, and therefore do not have enough luggage space! They loaded up all the luggages at the front of the boat, both inside the passenger area and outside on the front deck (you can see in the photo below the luggages on the deck are covering the view outside the front window),

The reason for the influx of people to the Thai islands is the fast approaching date for the famous Full Moon Party, taking place on July 17th on the island of Koh Phangan. When you looked around on the boat almost everyone was young (in their 20s or early 30s). It seemed as if all the families had left the islands and in their place flocks of young people were arriving. The Full Moon Party brings about 20,000 to 30,000 people to the island of Koh Phangan every month for the party. We were gearing up for the party too! We had 3 nights booked in Koh Tao before heading over to Koh Phangan to join in the festivities.
Our resort was right on the water, and the waterfront was lined with restaurants and resorts.

The beach here is pretty different than the other beaches. The tide goes down during the morning revealing a very wide sandy beach area. It slowly rises throughout the day and by the evening the water is so high there is barely any room to walk along the beach without getting soaked!
When the tide goes out it leaves these interesting sand piles along the beach. We couldn’t figure out how they were made, but we think some sort of animal makes them.


Another thing to note about this beach is that it is very shallow, you could walk for a while in the water before you can actually swim. Because of this, the water is so warm, and almost feels like a hot tub!
The atmosphere here is also very different. Everyone on the beach is young, everywhere you look all you see is young people (in their 20s and 30s). I know this is because of the Full Moon Party, but it creates a very different atmosphere than if you have a mix of different ages, people and families. Also, since Koh Tao is known for it`s incredible diving, many people flock to this island to go scuba diving, or to learn how to scuba dive. Every morning flocks of people line the beach and board the boats with their oxygen tanks, flippers and diving gear, ready for a day of diving.
We spent our time in Koh Tao mainly relaxing on the beach. We had been doing so many day trips on boats to see different sights that we hadn’t had a few solid days of beach time in a row.
We ate breakfast overlooking the water every morning:

And we had dinner out at one of the beachside restaurants every night.

During the day we got massages, went for walks along the beach, read and relaxed on our private balcony.

While walking along the beach, at the end oft he sandy part we found an area with cool rock formations, and cottages built between the rocks:



The cottages looked really nice and secluded, and I`m sure had a beautiful view!
While we were here we also had our laundry done. It’s interesting having your laundry done in Asia. You bring it to a local laundromat,  you pay per kg of clothing, and they will wash your clothing for you and hang it to dry outside their establishment. We walked by the laundromat later that day on our way to dinner and we saw our underwear and clothing hanging out to dry on the side of the road, on display for all to see!
Koh Tao was awesome, and we loved the vibe and atmosphere of the island and of the people. We really enjoyed our time here, but were beyond excited for our next destination: Koh Phangan and the Full Moon Party!