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From Bangkok to Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi, Thailand


We Brits arrived at Bangkok airport around 9am, wondering how we were going to get through another day without crashing out...particularly since the day turned out to be so eventful.

We hardly had time to recover from the flight before we found ourselves making yet more introductions - to the other half of our volunteer group: five Canadians, an American and another Brit. Steve, Jessi, Megan, Maddie, Paige, Callie and Emma respectively. And, of course, to our lovely project leader Claire, a native Thai who lectures at Bangkok university and who would, over the next two weeks, show us the Thailand tourists hardly ever get to see.

The minibus journey to Kanchanaburi gave us our first culture shock - the fearless bikers who weave in and out of traffic with their motorbikes impossibly loaded with everything from planks of wood to small children kept us occupied for some time, while the hair-raising 'exploits' of our driver (overtaking on a bend with a car coming at top speed in the other direction, anyone?) triggered motion sickness all round.

Our first stop in Kanchanaburi was, pedictably, the bridge over the River Kwai, where we had our first taste of the local cuisine and marvelled at the complete lack of health and safety regulations while crossing the bridge and attempting not to fall through one of the gaping holes or get mown down by the train.

Now, for the moment we had been anticipating the most: our arrival at our two-week volunteer project, based at Moo Baan Dek (translated as 'Children's Village School'), a school and community for orphaned, abandoned or unwanted children. Our role at the village would be to teach the kids basic English, play games and generally give these children the love and attention they desperately need. I'll write more about Moo Baan Dek later.

At the entrance to Moo Baan Dek (a little bit sunny...)

The village is built in the jungle - but it has been tamed by volunteer workers over the years and also by the kids themselves, who have quickly taught the more terrifying jungle creatures such as spiders, snakes and scorpions to keep their distance for fear of dissection! The schoolhouses and dormitories are basic but strangely beautiful wooden structures and our volunteer house is no different: the downstairs dining area is open and the bedrooms and bathrooms are functional: our beds were thin mattresses on the floor but we had flushing toilets - the ultimate luxury! The best thing about our house, however, was the fact that it was built on the bank of the River Kwai. The view of the river, jungle and mountains was just incredible, and one I will never forget. Photos (below) just don't do it justice.

So after settling into our house we set out to explore the village. The kids came to greet us right away, mostly to get their hands on our digital cameras! We walked down to a jetty on the river: there is a calm pocket of water where the kids are allowed to swim. Our first day at Moo Baan Dek was truly surreal, but it was about to get even more so...


Exploring the jetty, and first encounter with the kids


permalink written by  lucy3119 on August 8, 2009 from Kanchanaburi, Thailand
from the travel blog: Thailand 2009
tagged Thailand and Kanchanaburi

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Day 22: Ko Samui, Thailand (17th cruise day)

Ko Samui, Thailand


Day 22: Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

17th cruise day: Ko Samui, Thailand

We had another time change last night and so I awoke late (7:15am) and it was only 6:15am! I was able to dose for a few more minutes before waking up to the sunrise and to the lowering of one of the tender boats which passed right by our window! We got up and put on our bathing suits, grabbed breakfast from the buffet and then met in the Cabaret Lounge to queue up for our tender. Our tour to Chawang Beach was supposed to be from 8:30am – 12:30pm. At 8:15am we were called into the tender and took seats up at the front so we could get a good view of the island as we approached. The ship had dropped anchor pretty far away and so we had a good 15 minute tender ride.

We pulled into a pier where there were several minibuses that housed 9 people. It was about 8:50am at this point and we started our ride across the island. The drivers were pretty crazy, as all seem to be in Asia, and they constantly passed the cars/trucks in front of them and weaved around the motorcycles that were supposed to be staying in the half lane that bordered both sides of the roads. Unlike Saigon where the drivers constantly honked at one another to pass, these drivers just flashed and blinked their headlights as they pulled into oncoming traffic in the opposite lane.

The island itself looked like a typical Caribbean island with small buildings housing stores, internet cafes, restaurants, and the odd bike shop. The buildings sat among rows and rows of palm trees and other vegetation that had a sickly green-brown, dried out color. It was hot, but not oppressively hot, as it was probably only in the mid 80's today with a nice breeze. There were stray dogs all over the island, but they looked well fed and nourished and they never came over to bother us. The island wasn't as dirty or impoverished as some parts of St. Maarten are or other poorer Caribbean islands, but it wasn't a very upscale island either. It was well developed as we passed through many busy streets crowded with supermarkets and other retail shops. Ko Samui is one of Thailand's most popular beach islands and it has its own airport to cater to the tourists.

The minibus dropped us off at Chawang Beach, which is the most popular beach section on the island. It had back to back resorts, each one very small in size and built almost on top of each other. We poked through one resort which was painted in very bright oranges and blues and would have been an eyesore had there not been a lot of beautiful dark wood bars and lobby areas to counteract it. The resorts were not glamorous at all – very bare bones, more European in feel. And as for the beach, we were very disappointed. Chawang Beach was supposed to have crystal clear water and pristine white sand beaches. I don't know how white the sand was, as there was so little of it! I think there was only 10 feet of sand before the surf pounded in. The water was a beautiful turquoise color, like what the Mediterranean must look like, but there was a lot of debris (sticks, leaf remnants) floating in the water. And the water was quite rough with waves large enough to body surf to shore. The beach had jet ski rentals and very, very cheap massages, which were offered on large wooden platforms on the beach. People from our tour jumped on those massages as it was less than $10 USD for a 1-hour full body massage.

Hunter and I laid on a beach towel and went swimming for about an hour before the heavens opened and a downpour started. We ran for shelter, ducking into a nearby resort, and then poked in a few shops on the main road of the beach, which held rip-off American brand clothes and fake purses, and lots of surfing attire. Several shops were actually closed and some restaurants didn't open until 12pm. There wasn't much to see or do so luckily the rain stopped after 15 min and we could head back to the beach for another 40 minutes of sun before meeting the minibus for the ride back to the pier. We got there just in time to take one of the few remaining seats in the stuffy tender and we were on board the ship before 1pm.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sunbathing on the 11th deck. It was the perfect tanning day as the boat wasn't yet moving (several passengers were quite delayed getting on the ship and then they had to raise up the tenders). We stayed out until 5pm when we showered for dinner. Dinner wasn't too bad, although our main courses (meatloaf and turkey) weren't too tasty. Luckily dessert was delicious, although we passed on the Baked Alaska because we didn't want to wait around for the waiter parade. We were at the table by ourselves again and really enjoyed the 4th night of eating alone.

After dinner, we went back to the room to pack. I had missed the passport pickup earlier in the day and they delivered it to our stateroom. Somehow I managed to fit everything in and we placed our bags outside the door on our way out to the 8:30pm final show, which was a comic magician (terrible) and a different comedian, Mike Flint (almost as terrible as the magician and the same guy Hunter saw the other night). I slept through practically the whole thing. We then walked around the ship to take pictures, dropped off some books in the library, laid on lounge chairs gazing at the stars, and then poked our head into the Tahitian Lounge to see the Ballroom Dancing with the crew – no one was there except Luke (the singer) and Ruth (the head dance captain), who are obviously dating :) We went back to our room to change and throw our evening clothes into the suitcase before it was taken away, ordered room service water and milk, and then set to typing up our final email of the day and use up our remaining Internet minutes. It was a very nice, relaxing day – just the way it should be on our last day of the cruise!

permalink written by  mohicanfan on January 2, 2010 from Ko Samui, Thailand
from the travel blog: Beijing/Shanghai and a Princess Southeast Asia Cruise - Dec 2009
tagged Thailand, Asia and Cruise

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Day 24: Flights from Bangkok to New York

Bangkok, Thailand


Day 24: Monday, January 4th, 2010

Flight home from Bangkok, Thailand

2:15am started our very long travel day back home. Our adventure has come to an end :( We had showered the night before and just had to throw on clothes and check all our bags were packed before heading downstairs. There were actually a lot of people working in the resort and we checked out quickly, with the receptionist bowing the formal Sawaskeekdat, the traditional greeting meaning “good morning,” “good afternoon,” “good evening,” “hello,” and “goodbye.” It is nice to have just one word for all those meanings! I had 733 Baht left and the taxi ride was only 500Baht + 100 Baht tip and was a quick 30 minutes (no traffic – including the one police check point inside Bangkok) and we got to the airport before all of the Princess Cruise transfers. We had a short line but it was a bit slow moving. We got our tickets and seat assignments for Bangkok – Narita and then cleared passport control. The airport was beautiful. It looked brand new and had a very open feel to it with super high and curved ceilings and gates that were below the main walkway. We had to go through several levels of screening – the traditional carry-on baggage screening, and then a full body pat-down and shoe search at the gate, along with a hand search of the carry-on luggage. Finally we were on board the plane and we were one of the first ones on, so we had plenty of time to fall asleep before the plane even was completely boarded!

The flight to Narita, Japan was over 5 hours and we ate a breakfast omelet meal and a turkey sandwich snack. Hunter and I slept the rest of the time and didn't even watch movies. Once in Narita, we had a good 4 hours before the flight was to depart, so we sat in the nice Continental Lounge and had free drinks (another Gin and Tonic for Hunter) and snacks of chips, pretzels, apple pie, etc. I left for a short time to go to the transfer counter to get a seat assignment as it wasn't printed on my ticket (although I had it on my itinerary). There was no line and I made it back for another half hour in the lounge. The outlets accepted US style plugs and there was free internet, so we easily passed the time catching up on all we missed in technology and entertainment in the US these past three weeks!

We boarded as silver elite on the flight to EWR and had the same style plane (with plugs) and the same seats 17A and 17B as we did on the flight from EWR to Beijing. We had just as many meals – a dinner within the first hour of Chinese style beef and rice and noodles or a choice of perch and salmon (we chose the beef), followed by a mid-flight snack of a sandwich and ice cream cup, and lastly another full meal (fettuccine with cream sauce or an omelet – we chose the pasta) before landing. Hunter and I watched 500 Days of Summer, followed by the Pixar film Up, and then slept for a full 6 hours, thanks to our 2 Tylenol PM tablets.

The flight landed at 4:45pm (12 ½ hours later) and we were one of the first ones off the plane, as we were seated at the front. We had no wait for the passport control and only a small wait for our checked baggage to come through. At this time I couldn't tell if my connecting flight to ORF was on time, and if it was, I would be cutting it close. I dropped off my two large suitcases to be checked through and said a teary goodbye to Hunter who headed for his taxi. He had to work the next day! He had a long ride as there was bumper to bumper traffic due to a truck accident. I cleared through another round of carry-on baggage screening and then learned my fight was delayed until 7:20pm. That delay turned into a much longer delay and the plane didn't leave EWR until 10:30pm. I finally landed in ORF at 11:35pm.

Hunter and I agree that this was by far our best trip yet. We spent great quality time together and experienced so many new sights, together. We wouldn't have changed one thing about the trip and are thankful it all went so well. Now, we just need to decide when and where our next adventure will be!

permalink written by  mohicanfan on January 4, 2010 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Beijing/Shanghai and a Princess Southeast Asia Cruise - Dec 2009
tagged Thailand, Asia and Cruise

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Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand


dummy to see how this works

permalink written by   on November 3, 2006 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: A Taste of the East
tagged Thailand and Bangkok

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Seoul Long Korea, Hello Thailand

Seoul, South Korea


Wednesday Kris had to do some work and decided to chill out at the hotel and go for a swim. We have been very good and have both hit the fabulous gym here every day so far! We were thinking of playing racquet ball or tennis but they wanted like $60 to rent the court and equipment so we passed on that. I decided to head out and do a little sight seeing and some shopping. I didn't buy anything, but I had fun people watching. Wednesday was South Korea's memorial day, so it was PACKED everywhere.
I checked out Gyeongbok Palace which was enormous and very cool. It is very typical construction of most palaces in Korea.

I also thought this photo of the 'shoe arcade' was worthy of posting. I saw this from the street corner and decided not to walk thru the mayhem. I also checked out Dotta in Dongdaemun and Myeong-dong.

We decided to head out that night and went to Hongdae area to find a bar. It was such a cool area, the University area, where lots of young people are hanging out. We grabbed a quick pizza there too. Then we ended up going to a bar underneath Mute in Itaewon. Wow so impressed with the 'mixologist' bar tenders there. They were lighting drinks on fire and making layered drinks and all kinds of interesting things.

Thursday we slept in a little (finally!), hit the gym and relaxed until our flight that early evening. Thailand here we come!

We landed in Thailand around 11pm and found a fixed price cab to take us on the hour trek to our hotel in Karon Beach Phuket. My first impression was that Thailand was a little sketchy, but hey it was late at night and the airport wasn't exactly state of the art. The people seem to be insanely hospitable, and the Hilton Arcadia hotel is insanely awesome! We got the hotel on Hilton points and a few extra dollars. I've never been much of a resort person or so I thought, but this is really a resort, and I definitely love it! Can't wait for Thailand adventure to start.

permalink written by  blondie on June 7, 2012 from Seoul, South Korea
from the travel blog: Asian Persuasion - June 2012
tagged Thailand and Seoul

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Monsoon Season in Phuket

Phuket, Thailand


We received our rental car bright and early this morning since we couldn't pick it up last night. Everyone is so friendly here so far - the culture is amazingly hospitable and sincere! Thailand, or at least Phuket, is nothing like I have ever experienced before. Kris and I are just baffled at all of the crazy things we have seen today. I think Kris said it best, it is a ghetto paradise. Unbelievably beautiful, but also almost third world looking.
Driving is definitely an interesting experience. First of all, yes, they drive on the left hand side of the road. And Kris has been challenged with not only that, but also driving a stick with his left hand. We keep making 'wind shield wiper' left had turns because the turn signal is also on the other side. Driving anywhere definitely takes a while because the roads are very narrow and we are sharing them with scooters, tuk-tuks (little taxi truck thingies), elephants, cars, buses, people, you name it. It's really not that crowded, it's just a lot of things going on, plus pouring down rain here and there. But without a car, it would be difficult to see a lot of things in the short time that we have here.

Since it is monsoon season, it has been rainy on and off all day - and like 100% humidity. This is truly a jungle!! But that didn't stop us from getting out today.
Here is a snapshot from our hotel room. It is so humid that the camera fogged up as soon as we stepped outside.

We headed to the Big Buddha, which everyone said we had to see. No matter where you go around Phuket, even out at sea, you can see the Big Buddha from high up on the hill. We got there in just enough time to see Big Buddha, make a tile donation since he is still in progress, and we even got some fresh made coconut ice cream, all before it started pouring down rain.

We drove a little farther on the east side of the Island to Phuket Town and walked around the town a bit. We grabbed lunch at the a place called Kopitiam where we got some tom yum soup, more coconut ice cream, and the best ever fresh almond milk.

To watch the sunset, we drove to the southern tip of Phuket to a vista point. We hiked to the bottom of the rocks, where we spent a few hours watching the sun set, even though it was very cloudy and ready to rain again!

There was also a Buddha shrine nearby. It's amazing how there are just random Buddhist displays everywhere with little trinkets, offerings and incense. Sometimes there are beautiful elaborate displays in front of the most run-down looking buildings.

We finished off the night eating pad thai at the Pad Thai Place for 120 Baht, which is $4 USD. The operation was totally outside, and very basic - eg the dishwasher was a person 30 feet away using a bucket and a sponge. Although the food was good, I truly wondered how in the world they weren't losing money on two pad thai dinners with two drinks all for that price... and then my mind started to wonder if we were going to have stomach or other issues in the morning :)
I guess we'll find out.



permalink written by  blondie on June 8, 2012 from Phuket, Thailand
from the travel blog: Asian Persuasion - June 2012
tagged Thailand and Phuket

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Ko Phi Phi Thailand

Ko Phi Phi, Thailand


I've been so blessed to be able to travel to some beautiful places in the world, but I think yesterday's trip to the islands off of Phuket just took the cake for the most beautiful place. That combined with how genuinely friendly, nice and helpful the Thais are, makes Phuket one of the best places I've traveled to ever!

I thought I could navigate us to the port so we could take a ferry to Ko Phi Phi (Islands about 42km from Phuket's East coast), but I overestimated my capabilities to figure out just exactly which port we should be heading to, and what company's ferry we were looking for. I got the departure times from the hotel and I thought I had the ferry company's name, but we ended up just stopping and and asking someone directions. Luckily the locals are super helpful and we were up early, so we had some time to spare. We ended up following a woman on a moped to Chalong port, and after talking with some folks, we ended up settling on a speed boat tour of the islands (with Anda Varee tours) which included lunch and snorkeling for 1500 baht each (about $50 USD each).

A little more than I thought we would spend for our original plan to take a ferry to the islands, but this was an all day tour, and it was sooo worth it!

We left around 9:30, and it took about an hour to get to our first stop, Maya Bay, at Ko Phi Phi Lae. They filmed part of "The Beach" here, and you can see from the photos how beautiful this beach is!


Next stop was Loh Samah Bay for snorkeling. Kris went and said the water was a little cloudy and couldn't see much. I passed to stay with our belongings. We didn't plan to exactly do this tour, so we had a few cell phones we probably shouldn't have brought.

We went through Pilleh Cove, where the water got very shallow and was a beautiful blue green turquoise color, and then we went on to Viking cave. There is a type of bird that makes these nests I think from saliva? They are thought to have medicinal properties by the Chinese, and they are expensive. Because of this, the nests are protected, and in this Viking cave where they are plentiful, they have security guards on watch, and no tourists are allowed to visit the cave.

Monkey beach was the next stop. I really liked our guide because he was so in touch with the nature. He disapproved of feeding the Monkeys on Monkey island, because they are starting to rely only on human tourists for their food. They now bite tourists and now after generations of tourists feeding them, they are starting to have a have a hard time finding their own food. He also disapproved of feeding the fish bread, because the bread gets caught in the corals and then the fish start to attack the corals to get the bread, destroying the reefs.

We took a lunch break at Ton sai Bay on Ko Phi Phi Don, which is the largest of the Phi Phi Island group.

Then we traveled about a half hour to Ko Khai Nai, which was a tiny little island. Kris grabbed a beer and I had a coconut cocktail (fresh pineapple and coconut cut up with a machete right there!) and we swam for a while in the beautiful water. The beach had some large rocks in some places, and Kris decided to climb one in particular, and was met with the force of mother nature. The rock was sharp, and Kris had a few gashes, one in particular that was gushing blood all over. Luckily our guide had some bandages and there was another person on the trip with a similar rock cut that had to be attended to. When we got back to the hotel, we got Kris fixed up a little better by the resort nurse.

Somehow we picked the perfect day to go on the island tour. It was sunny the whole time except for about 15 minutes of rain. I did get a tid bit of sunburn on my shoulders despite my SPF 30. I think I should have reapplied after all the swimming.

So today, between my slight sunburn and Kris now impaired foot, we decided to lay low. We checked out Patong beach area where we got a few souvenirs and met an Australian couple, and I had time to hit the gym. And yes, mom, another post card for you that we mailed out today :) We also met another interesting few people in the Hyatt club where we turned the hours-devours into dinner. I also finally learned how to say hello and thank-you in Thai a bit more properly.

Tonight we took delivery of the 45kg big Buddha that Kris liked at the shop in Phuket Town called Hi.So. It's too heavy, so we'll need to figure out how to ship it tomorrow before we leave for Bangkok.


permalink written by  blondie on June 10, 2012 from Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
from the travel blog: Asian Persuasion - June 2012
tagged Thailand and Phuket

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To Bangkok or Bust...and we Busted

Bangkok, Thailand


The hour leading up to us missing our flight on Monday from Phuket to Bangkok should have been the worst part of this trip so far, but somehow we were able to turn it into something (kind of) fun!

We started the day figuring out the best way to ship our new 45kg Buddha statue that was delivered to us the night before. We knew that we would have to spend a little time figuring this out, so we had the woman at the Hilton business center help us out. Around 9:30am we popped down to the business center and she had gotten us several quotes from FedEx, All Freight, and Thai Airways. Turns out 'All Frieght' was the cheapest, so we went with them. I wrote up a good comment card for the woman's manager because she was so helpful. Kris added some additional packing materials to secure Buddha, and All Freight came to take him away. The entourage that came to pick him up was quite interesting; two little guys, a girl, and a 'Lady-man' who was extravagantly waving his hands around and thanking us profusely for coming to Phuket and Welcome to Phuket (uh even though we told him we were on our way out of Phuket). They put it in the truck and we bid farewell. It should take 20 days to get Buddha at home. I think it was around noon at that point, and we already had our stuff packed and in the car ready to go, so we took off.

For as great as i am with directions (for those of you that don't know, i am damn near a human compass and I am always our navigator) I am just as fully aware that for whatever reason I suck at military time. If I had blogged at the time of our honeymoon, i would have written about the time we missed our ferry from Ibiza to Mallorca because I bought us two tickets for 01:00 (1AM) but I had Kris and I trekking to the ferry with all of our luggage that same day at 1PM (13:00) only to find out we had missed our ferry by 12 hours. I then proceeded to lose our first class tickets so we had to sit in the lower ferry deck with no a/c and Kris almost passed out and puked. Way to go Elaine. Ok so here is lesson #2 (I'm sure there have been more incidents in between here, but none as significant as these two).

I was sure that our flight was at 2:40pm, so on our hour drive to the airport, we decided to stop at the beach for a few minutes and get a bite to eat.
We got to a cool beachside restaurant when Kris decided to double check our flight time, and we discovered our flight was at 1:40pm (13:40), which was in an hour at that point! We were still at least half hour's drive drom the airport at that point. So we quickly got up and ran back to the car and took off as fast as we (safely) could. We pulled up to arrivals and I took our bags to the counter and checked in while Kris tried to return the rental car. Well Avis proved to be extremely difficult to find and we ended up leaving the car in the arrivals lane and pleading with them to get it for us! When it was all said and done, the Avis folks seemed to be in no hurry despite our time constraint and I think we missed our flight probably by about 4 minutes. We rallied pretty quickly and were able to get another ticket on a different airline that left in a half hour. I got my bag back, but Kris' was already on its way to Bangkok.Our original flight cost us $40 per ticket and our new flight cost $80, but I guess it could have been worse. We arrived in Bangkok to find Kris' lonely bag on the belt. The 30 minute cab ride cost us all of $9. I sure love how cheap this place is!!
At least we were in good spirits when we arrived and we got to the hotel just in time to still get some snack on the club floor :)

Our hotel, Hyatt Erawan, was in a pretty good central location within the city. The Erawan shrine was also right outside of our hotel. Tuesday we headed out to see a few of the famous 'wats', Buddhist temples. We really didn't take the time in Phuket to check any out from the inside, but that's probably just as well since we enjoyed the beach and water more and there is none of that in Bangkok.

First was the Grand Palace & Wat Phra Kaew, which houses the Emerald Buddha. The Buddha statue fell sometime in the 15th century, and its plaster cover cracked to reveal that it was made of solid jade. It was subsequently stolen by Laos invaders in the 16th and the Thais invaded Laos 200 years later to retrieve it back. The palace was built later to house the Buddha, and it's considered the country's most revered Buddha image. This was the largest wat and very impressive! To get into this wat and some others, men need to wear pants and t-shirt at least, and women need to wear pants or a skirt and cover their shoulders. We got stopped by some scammers telling us that we could not go in because we had shorts on, and that at noon, it would be open for us to wear shorts. He offered us a tuk tuk (little motorcycle taxi thingy) ride to the nearby tourist destinations and he had a Pitt hat on and wanted to talk about Pitt. Luckily I remembered reading in my Lonelyplanet book about this scam and we declined. Apparently they try to take you to all the fake gem places and other garbage. I told Kris I wanted some street credit ha! So the Grand Palace was in fact open and I had a scarf for my shorts and Kris got the 'loaner' pants they have there onsite (you can see our awesome clothes in the photos). So the guy's 'noontime shorts are ok' scam was a load of crap.

The second wat we visited was Wat Pho, home of the reclining Buddha. This represents Buddha's passing into nirvana. It's the longest Buddha at 46 meters long and 15 meters high! Huge!

The third wat we went to was Wat Saket, the Golden Mount. This wat was up on a hill so that you could see around the city which was cool. By this third wat, Kris was starting to pass out from heat exhaustion, so we went back to the hotel to rest up a little.


Kris' foot was still hurting him, so we got the hotel's mini medical office to fix it back up again with some more steri-strips which seemed to be working well. Then we headed to the mall across the street from us to get some air conditioned food. Kris says he had his best Tom Yum soup there. I got radish cake which I loved when I was in Taiwan but somehow this wasn't as good. We've also been eating a lot of raw Thai coconuts from the street vendors and we've gotten better at bargaining for them. We were paying up to 40 Baht and we ended up with getting them for 20 Baht.
I had always wanted to try a Thai yoga massage, so I later in the day, I looked up some reputable places to get a massage. A Thai massage is a little different, where it is like a passive yoga stretching with massage and you wear clothes. We picked Health Land and Kris got a regular massage for 90 mins at 850 Baht or 28USD and I got a 2 hour Thai yoga massage for only 450Baht or only 15USD! Kris didn't like his massage much and I couldn't tell if my massage was energizing, or if I got hit by a Mac truck. It was a bit intense and I think I may have bruised a muscle or two. I woke up Wednesday morning a little sore.


permalink written by  blondie on June 14, 2012 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Asian Persuasion - June 2012
tagged Thailand and Phuket

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Ko Tao, Thailand

Ko Tao, Thailand


http://misterb7.tumblr.com/search/ko+tao

permalink written by   on January 4, 2013 from Ko Tao, Thailand
from the travel blog: misterb7's Travel Blog
tagged Travel, Thailand, Asia, Island, KoTao and AroundTheWorld

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I found heaven in Phuket

Phuket, Thailand


Romcation has found paradise. In the movie Groundhog Day a weatherman finds himself living the same day over and over again. I deeply wished for that to be the case while I was in Sri Panwa.

"If you only had one day to live, what would you do with it?"
I wouldn't mind repeating any one of the few days that I had in Phuket over and over again.

Surrounded by the Andaman Sea. There is a private beach and countless swimming pools. You will never have a shortage of places to cool off and if that wasn't enough each and every room and Villa has a private pool.

As sunset approached we would be sure you make your way to the Baba Nest. It is located at the highest point in Sri Panwa. A "Crows Nest" like outdoor wooden patio which acts like an Island ontop of the mountain providing 360 degree views of the Ocean. Lounge on the bean bags, grab a drink, and enjoy the pink, purple, yellow, orange sunsets that ensue above the Oceanic view.

We were staying in Villa X-23, ah-maze-ing!!! The sunset here looked liked it belonged in a Katy Perry music Because I couldn't lay in the cotton candy clouds eating candy, I decided to sip an espresso martini. It was the most perfect way to end one of the most romantic days of my life. If only it really was "Ground Hog day"

Pictures and more on our blog :)

permalink written by  romcomcation on December 30, 2014 from Phuket, Thailand
from the travel blog: Romcomcation
tagged Thailand, Paradise, Phuket and SriPanwa

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