Krabi
Getting Krabi was just a base for us to go from.
With only one day there before taking a boat to Koh Lanta, we had time to visit one beach.
My uncle picked one that was surrounded by mountainous cliffs, and therefore only accessible by boat. Railay beach.
It is a bit rock climbing spot and has pretty sweet beaches.
Some are actually quite gross and dirty, but the one we stayed on was really nice.
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| Fam love |
We stayed the entire day there, and just talked laying in the sun. We saw a couple monkeys walking around the island, but I had seen so many in Cambodia that I didn't even bother to take pictures. At this point, monkeys are just like antelope to me. But much meaner. Which is why I had to fight a monkey. But this happened much later with the Jabo, and is a story for another blog.
My uncle and I went on a nice long walk and just talked about life in general, it was awesome.
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| He insisted on taking this picture of him in his new house. He's waiting for my father. |
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On the ride to Krabi from Khao Sok, Antoine told me all about the Eminem concert he went to in August. I was and am so jealous. Except now I can tell him that I officially bought front row tickets for the show in NYC in August, so hopefully he reads this.
When we first got to the beach, Antoine and my uncle found something quite particular.
And by particular, of course I mean that they found a penis shrine.
You read that right, a penis shrine.
So, I think I may have mentioned this before, but the people of south-east asia worship phalluses (phalli?)
So this has been explained to me by several people, but apparently it has nothing to do with Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. It dates back to even before that, and all the people regardless of religion adhere to the cock worshiping.
Asking a local about it on Krabi, I was told the fisherman offer dicks to the gods and pray that they catch many fish and come back safely. The phallus is supposed to symbolize human fertility and prosperity. Later in Bali, Indonesia, a taxi driver told Jabo and I that everyone has a penis statue at home.
Every morning you rub the penis for good luck.
And again at night.
Rub the penis, get good luck..
South-East Asia is awesome.
.
.
That night, we wandered around Krabi and took in the local sights while my cousins purchased Thailand souvenirs.
I found a lady selling bracelets. She could write anything on these bracelets. I took a quick glimpse and for some reason, the first one I actually read was "GOD IS LOVE"....then I read all of the others and nearly choked laughing.
CAUTION: do not look at the image if you get offended by vulgar language.
I also found one of the best advertising signs I have seen in Asia. It was so effective that we had Changs at that bar, even though it wasn't happy hour.
Chang is fun because though it says 6% alcohol on the bottle, it's Thailand...
So it is an AVERAGE of 6%.
In reality, it ranges from 5%－9% and you never know which one you get until you finish the bottle.
Big Chang will ruin your life kids, and it is the funnest beer in the world.
BIG CHANGGGGG!
The next morning, after sleeping in our huge villa, we got picked up by the world's fanciest van that took us to the ship dock. Then we would head to Koh Lanta, where my family's vacation would end.
The van felt like The Bellagio hotel in Vegas, I don't know how else to describe it.
Our boat was nearly 2 hours late, but that is to be expected, it's Thailand.
It's only irritating if you keep western standards. Just assume things like this will happen, and take it easy.
I'm turning into a no worries hippie when it comes to things being late or stuff not going according to plan.
At one point, on the way to Koh Lanta, the boat stops and is quickly surrounded on all sides by small boats.
It felt like we were being hijacked.
Except these small boats were picking people up from the big boat to take them to smaller islands without us having to stop in any port.
One of the kids working on one of the small boats was priceless. He was holding a sign with the name of the resort he was working for.
But it looked like he was protesting for some cause we didn't know about. The name of the resort was Freedom.
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| Occupy Thailand |
Koh Lanta
Jabo wasn't going to show up until two nights later, so that first night I stayed in my cousins room in the nice resort they had reserved.
I kept having to sneak around because the resort people did not know I was staying there.
The next day, though my Aunt was very apprehensive about the whole idea, I convinced them we should rent scooters and check out the entire island.
It worked great, we had 3 scooters. The three guys driving each with one of the girls behind us.
We went all around the island and stopped at awesome beaches while taking an awesome scooter road trip.
My cousin Antoine was especially excited because he drives a 50cc scooter back home and the one he rented was 125cc.
So my uncle decided to dedicate a picture especially for her.
With our scooters, we found a beach with very few people.
Though I remember taking pictures, I can't seem to find the ones of the fort we built.
It was a survivor style fort we made on the beach, just to show that the beach was ours.
The water was amazingly warm and perfectly clear.
We stopped at what Koh Lanta calls it's "Sea Gypsy Village."
Sea Gypsies are squaters like every other gypsy, but they are based on boats and come onto shore illegally, wherever they feel like.
They don't really have a permanent residence.
When the Tsunami hit Koh Lanta and the rest of Thailand a few years ago, part of the island was devastated. Including the sea gypsy "homes."
Luckily, the King of Thailand is a really nice guy, and after the Tsunami, he gave all the sea gypsies citizenship. So now they're legal.
So we went to their village.
The ride there was really fun, but the village is exactly what I expected a gypsy village to look like. It was dirty and filled with people just sitting around.
Luckily, I had a few empty vials, so while I was there, I filled up on gypsy tears.
Everyone knows gypsy tears protect against AIDS and communism.
I'll be selling them to anyone interested when I return, but be ready to pay a premium for the tears.
On the way to the village we stopped for lunch and went into a hammock shop. I think the owner was a cat, who had it's own miniature hammock. But I can't be sure, he didn't speak english.
That night, we watched the sunset over the beach.
We had drinks and dinner at this tiny little shack on the beach.
It was called NoNang bar, but just called it Tony's.
That's because the only waiter/bartender in the place was this Thai guy named Tony (or Tommy it was hard to understand, because he didn't speak any english at all).
Tony was badass and looked like a Thai Captain Jack Sparrow.
He never wore a shirt and usually had some sort of bandanna around his head.
That first night he showed us a huge book filled with color drawings from all of the guests he has had.
The people that he likes, he asks them to draw a picture.
Of anything, the beach, your home, or anything that comes to your mind.
My uncle drew him something and then he gave us his drawing that he made that day.
We vowed to go back to Tony's.
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| Day view of Tony's |
And we did. Almost every night.
Jabo was supposed to meet us in Koh Lanta that night. However, he partied too hard the night before in Phuket, and missed his boat.
Koh Rok
Therefore the next day, he missed out on the best snorkeling trip I have ever been on.
The trip took us to 3 different islands, one hour off of the coast of Koh Lanta.
I forget the names of all of them but, the best one was undoubtedly Koh Rok island.
We even saw a Komodo dragon there!
I have never seen anything like this in my life.
And the visibility...MY GOD!
I could see just as far underneath the water, as I could on land.
Just unbelievable.
Luckily, I had my underwater camera this time, so I can actually show examples.
But even the pictures don't do the place justice.
At one point, I saw a HUGE moray eel at the bottom on the coral. It was easily 6 or 7 feet long. I took a picture and a video but there isn't really a reference so it's tough to correctly gauge it's size.
I don't know if uploading videos work on this, I've never tried before....
My goal the entire time, was to find the anemone fish (or clown fish) that the movie Finding Nemo made famous.
And I found some! They are just as bright and colorful in real life as they are in the animated movie!
They're such bros!
They just chill in their sea anemone the entire time with their family, just like in the movie.
However, one thing that the movie doesn't tell you is that these fish have little man syndrome.
The second I would get too close, the Papa Clown Fish (Marlin) would come up to my mask and pretend to attack me.
He would actually open and close his mouth snapping it's tiny teeth at me. I've seen them do this to other fish when they get too close. With fish it actually works, so the clownfish look tough.
But when I would just float there after they barked at me (they actually make a barking noise underwater when they snap) the fish would get confused and kind of retreat before fake attacking me again.
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| These are the first ones I found, they were really deep. |
I ran into several fish that were territorial like that, but all clown fish had little man syndrome. All I'm saying is that if they were human males, they would drive a huge lifted truck.
When we got back....The Jabo was there.
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