Thailand Part 4: Krabi p.2

Hi.

DAY 6:

The guy we met told us about an island nearby that was supposedly had amazing beaches and views, and was only a 30-minute boat ride away. So we had our brunch at our favourite restaurant at Krabi Town, got our snacks and drinks from 7-11, and headed off to the pier. Because of how hyped up people made it seem, we were pretty underwhelmed when we reached the island. After walking around, we found out that it was Railey Beach! One of the islands we visited on our Four Islands Tour. It was slightly disappointing, because as much as we love that island, it just wasn't as amazing as people made it seem.

We had to leave the island after a few short hours, because the last boats back to Krabi had to leave quite early. So we went back to our hostel to wash up and headed out to Ao Nang to hopefully catch the sunset. We ended up missing the sunset, so we went around Ao Nang to look for souvenirs. While walking, we saw flamboyantly-dressed transexuals asking people to go for their shows, we saw people walking around with monkeys on their shoulder, and even a guy with a hawk/some type of huge bird. It was quite a walk.

We then took a songthaew back to Krabi Town, and I got myself dinner from 7-11 and Lellel got a horribly disappointing meal from the food street. We also walked around and booked a Phi Phi Island Tour, then headed up to the hostel for an early night.

DAY 7:

We had no plans for this particular day, so we decided to sleep in. We went to have brunch at a restaurant right behind our hostel, only because our favourite restaurant was closed. We were so upset, that we went to get ourselves ice cream after brunch before heading back to our hostel.

We decided to head back to Ao Nang again to hopefully successfully catch the sunset. We had to wait for quite awhile before the sunset, so we just chilled by the beach and listened to OPM and took hilarious jump shots. The sunset was came and went, and we had a nice walk along the shore.

We got on a songthaew to head back to Krabi Town and had a mini panic adventure. Initially, we were the only people in the songthaew, but shortly after, these two Caucasian girls got on, and a bit after that, this Caucasian dude got on and started talking to the girls. We didn't mean to eavesdrop, but they were talking quite loud, so we heard their whole conversation, and basically the guy was flirting with the girls and was trying to get them to have dinner with him and explore Krabi Town. The girls were obviously getting more and more uncomfortable with his advances and even tried to get him to stop talking by pretending to sleep, but the guy kept talking and even touched her thigh and brushed her shoulders, which made the girl go, "why does everyone keep touching me", but the guy just laughed it off.

We were quite sensitive to the whole #onlyyesmeansyes #consent #feminist movement because of events that we've read about while we were on or trip, so we were looking at each other and both in a state of panic. The guy started lying to them about the time of the last bus back to Ao Nang and the price of a taxi trip back to Ao Nang, and it was just ridiculous. Somehow, we couldn't just butt in and said that he was giving wrong information, because it felt so weird. Thankfully, we all got off at the same stop and were heading into the same direction. I wanted to go up to one of the girls and tell them what's up, but the guy would just not leave them alone, even though the girls were obviously avoiding him.

Eventually, the girls lost him when they crossed the road, and I managed to catch up with one of them and tell her about the bus and the taxi, and just rushed off. Like a secret spy who just passed off information to an international correspondent. I really hope they turned out okay. We spent the rest of the night slightly scarred, and just drank it off back at Top-Up Bar.

DAY 8:

It was our final full day in Thailand, and we had the Phi Phi Islands Tour booked for the day. We got picked up from our hostel early in the morning and got dropped off at Ao Nang where we had to wait for the rest. We got on a speedboat this time, and even though we shared with at least 30 other people, it still felt kind of baller.

Our first stop was Bamboo Islands, and oh- my- goodness- even just typing those words gives me heart palpitations. This was hands down, our favourite beach out of every one we've been to. The water was extremely clear, the shore was incredibly clean and wide and spacious, the water had the most amazing tint of blue. I cannot say enough good things about Bamboo Islands, it is so beautiful. The only tiny negative thing we could say abot it is that some areas are really rocky, but it was seriously no big deal, it was that amazing.

We went snorkelling twice, and it was freaking hilarious. The life jackets kept going up, making it horribly difficult to actually get any swimming done, but that was what made things super fun. Every stop there was during the whole tour was just amazing. The waters were amazingly clear and had the most beautiful shade of blue . Even our lunch stop was nothing short of amazing! If you wanted to go on this particular tour, I would definitely recommend going with Ao Nang Orchid. Good service, good transport, good people, just sweet.

After our great tour, we were driven back to our hostel and we washed up and did a little packing before heading out to have dinner. When we got back to the hostel, we headed up to the rooftop for our usual Top-Up Bar drinks & chats session, and all hell broke lose. Our bar was closed! We were absolutely devastated, we didn't know what to do. We ended up buying our own drinks from 7-11 and brought them up to the rooftop. Later on, we found out that Playground Bar was open the downstairs, which was total shit.

The rooftop was a feeding ground for mosquitoes, so we moved down to the balcony  and had our little set up of drinks and fun. We planned to stay up at that spot until sunrise, and just not have a wink of sleep until our flight. We ended up meeting a couple of guys and chatted with them for most of the night.

DAY 9:

I didn't get a single second of sleep, and at around 5am, I went to shower and did some last minute  packing before heading up to the rooftop to catch the sunrise. We then headed down to get on our bus to the airport. And then that was it. We got on a plane, and got back to Singapore.

Bangkok - Chiang Mai - Krabi p.1 - Krabi p.2

Thailand Part 3: Krabi p.1

Hi.

DAY 1:

After a two-hour plane ride from Chiang Mai, a half-hour bus ride to downtown Krabi, and a 10-minute luggage drag from the bus terminal, we finally reached Pak-Up Hostel! If you're looking for budget accommodation, definitely check out Pak-Up! It's at a great location, has spacious rooms, clean areas, good showers, it just overall great and I enjoyed my stay there and will definitely come back.

We reached the hostel at a slightly odd timing, too late to travel anywhere, too early to pass out, so we just took a nap and went down to the food market street to grab dinner. We wanted to head up to the bar, but it was closed, so we decided to just take an early night.

DAY 2:

We headed out of our hostel and took a songthaew down to Ao Nang. The drive down was a lot longer than we expected, but it was pretty cool, and there were huge mountains and cliff type things all over. We reached Ao Nang and got brunch at an incredibly plain and touristy restaurant. It was alright, but the star was our iced chocolate milkshakes and coffee, which was pretty good and I would do many things to have it right now.

After lunch, we headed out to look for travel agencies to book our activities for Krabi. We ended up (harassing) joking around with this guy and managed to reduce our package prices to half! We booked a white water rafting and ATV package, and a 4 island tour.

After we booked our activities, we went on our search for a good spot at the beach. A very kind lady offered to lend us her stall's beach mat for free, which was really lovely of her. We walked all the way in to the edge of Ao Nang beach, and settled ourselves under a tree. It was insanely hot, so we just ended up taking a nap and chilling to music by the beach. By the time it wasn't so painfully scorching, it was low-tide and the water has almost completely left the beach.

We headed off to walk around Ao Nang to look for a good place to have dinner, but the restaurants around the place were more expensive since the place was more tourist. We ended up at this empty plain place with alright food. Then we walked around and bought our beach mat, then headed back to our hostel.

The bar was finally open that day, so we headed up and got ourselves some drinks (partayyyyyyyyyy). We ended up meeting this guy who was also staying in our room and ended up chatting with him for a couple of hours, which was really cool. He was the first person we've had a long chat with since we went on our trip, and it was nice to get to know people. We ended up going back to our room really late, like after the bar closed and turned off all the lights.

DAY 3:

We got up fairly early to get ready for our adventures of the day! We got picked up by a pretty fancy air-conditioned van, which was a lovely change from all the rough busses and songthaews we've been taking, especially considering the drive to the location was at least an hour and a half. We ended up somewhere in Phuket and got ready to head out for our first activity.

We started with a 5-kilometer white water rafting session, where Lellel and I happened to join this hilarious group of Singaporeans. We were quite disappointed when we learned that we weren't paddling, but it turned out to be a good thing. There was no way any of us could paddle successfully because the current was too strong! It was the complete opposite of the rafting we experienced in Chiang Mai. We were bouncing up and down on our rafts, from the white water drops and waves, and not from getting stuck over a rock. We also had this super cool guy as el kapitan and who did flips and tricks with his paddle. The whole ride was just super enjoyable and made me wish we went on a longer course.

After water rafting, we had a buffet lunch, where as you could see, I got a bit carried away. You need to make the best out of your money, amirite? The group we were with had a waterfall trek with their package, and even though it wasn't part of ours, the lady in charge told us to go on ahead anyway instead of making us wait. So we took a songthaew down to the base, and went on a short trek to the waterfall. It wasn't as beautiful as the one we went to in Chiang Mai, but it was definitely as cold! We didn't bring proper swimwear, so we just chilled by the waterfall and didn't go in.

After the trek, Lellel and I got driven to the base of the ATV area. The briefing was quite scary, because they kept emphasizing on how much we have to pay in case we ruin any part of the ATV. Besides that, and the scorching direct heat, it was pretty fun! It was an ATV tour around the place, and I think we went around the hills/fields for about an hour. It was pretty fun, if you forget aobut the part where we got at least five shades tanner and possibly got sunburnt. When it was time to leave, we got on the back of the boys driving ATVs to get to our van and I swear on my future dog's life, I thought I was legitimately going to die. He went so fast and I literally had nothing to hold on to, and he had to go down a really steep slope and he did really fast turn,  I still cringe whenever I think about it and it still scares me.

We got on the van and thought we were heading back to our hostel, but we actually headed up to the Monkey Caves. It was another place that the other group had paid for, but wasn't actually part of our package. It was like a temple within a cave, and there was this one monkey who just didn't give a single fuck. We didn't really do much around there and just waited around 'til we had to head back home.

When we got back, we just washed up and headed out to have dinner at the food market street again. Then we headed back up to the Top-Up Bar where we just chilled and talked and listened to drunk white people sing.

DAY 4:

We were pretty exhausted from the previous day's activities, so we decided to take a bit of a rest day and sleep in. I can't remember much about this day except for the fact that we had a really late breakfast/lunch at this place near our hostel, and the only reason we decided to eat there was because they had free wifi. We then went back to the hostel to take a nap, then headed out to explore more of the town. We sneaked into what looked like an abandoned building with incredibly creepy grafitti on the walls. It looked like there had been people sleeping there, which only made things creepier.

We then went to check out the Krabi Town Night Market. We thought it would be like Chiang Mai's night bazaar, but it was actually a night market. There were a couple of eateries, but it was mostly selling ingredients for cooking and a whole lot of fruit. Since we couldn't get anything to eat from there, we went on the explore more of the place and decided to have dinner at this place that turned out to have our favourite fried rice! The food was really good and it was fairly cheap, and even though they didn't have wifi, we went back to the place a couple more times during the trip.

After dinner, we then walked around the place some more and once again ended up drinking at Top-Up Bar.

DAY 5:

We had to get up early on this day, as we had a Four Island Tour booked. We took a songthaew along with other people who were staying in Krabi and drove down to Ao Nang where we got on long-tail boats that would drive us to the four islands. Now I'm telling you, Thailand beaches and waters are gorgeous. I love the different shades of blue, how clear the water is, I just love everything about it! I remember our first stop was at Chicken Island, which is apparently appropriately named as it is in the shape of a chicken. There was definitely a ton of people in the place and there were just a swarm of boats lined across the shore. The beach was so good, that the insane amount of people didn't even deter me from liking this place!

After island-hopping, we stopped at this one island so we can have lunch. I can't remember much about the other islands, except for the final stop, which was Railey beach. The water wasn't as clear as it was in the other islands, but it was still pretty cool. It reminded us of a paddlepop. Yes, the ice cream. This turned out to be our favourite island among all four, despite it being the paddlepop that it was, simply because it was actually deep enough where we could swim in it and the water was really cooling. There was also wooden penis sculptures everywhere, which of course us ignorant folks found very amusing. There was also this cave you could swim out to in the corner where you could hide away from the sun.

After the trip, they drove us back down to Ao Nang to get on the songthaews to drive us back to our hostels. When we got back, we showered and checked our social media, and got ready to head out. It was finally the weekend, so we decided to check out the Weekend Night Market. This was finally like the night bazaar in Chiang Mai, but in a much smaller setting. They had numerous street food stalls, clothes shops, and also an art walk. We had our caricatures done by this amazing artist, and we turned out so adorably cute! They also had a stage setting and people were singing and performing and it was really cool.

We weren't too satisfied by the street food we got, so we decided to buy food and drinks from 7-11 and had an al fresco dinner at the porch of our hostel. I have to say, meals from 7-11 ain't too bad! It was even better, not to mention cheaper, than something we would have gotten from the food street. After eating, we went on a bit of a night walk around Krabi, before heading up to Top-Up Bar.

Bangkok - Chiang Mai - Krabi p.1 - Krabi p.2

Thailand Part 2: #chiangmaihikeclub

Hi.

DAY 1:

After a two-hour flight from Bangkok, we finally reached Chiang Mai. Our accommodation was slightly out of the main city area, so we took a quick cab ride down to our place. We stayed at a place I found on AirBnb called HeyHa Guesthouse. The place was great! We had a very spacious and clean private room with an ensuite bathroom, and even had a tiny balcony area where you can place a chair out if you wanted to smoke. It even had a place to hang your laundry and a common dining area with utensils and a microwave. The hosts were incredibly nice and accommodation too. I would definitely recommend this place to anyone who wants to stay in Chiang Mai.

It was an odd hour by the time we settled in, so we just took a nap for a couple of hours before heading out to explore the vicinity. We decided to walk to JJ Market for dinner. We expected a night market, but it was actually a road lined with bars and restaurants on both sides, some with live bands playing. We decided to go for this chill-looking place with a pop art-themed decor and Thai pop music playing. The waiter could barely speak English and they didn't have an English menu, but he managed to convey "fried rice, chicken and pig?" and we both just nodded our heads. It was quite funny, and the food turned out pretty good!

We chilled and talked over some drinks for awhile before walking down to 7-11 to grab a few necessities and a few more drinks. We ended up playing card games in our room, wearing our ridiculous flower crowns, before passing out.

DAY 2:

We got up and got ready to leave the hostel to head down to the X Centre for some activities. I didn't have enough money in my wallet, so I was going to take more cash from my pouch, but it was completely empty when I opened it. Yes, I was robbed blind of all the money I had left for the rest of my trip. I thought about everything and there was literally no logical explanation on how someone managed to take my money out of my pouch, but whatever. To be honest, and Lellel can vouch for it, I wasn't really upset about having my money stolen. I guess what's done is done, and all I could do was move on.

We decided to forgo the X Centre and went down to search for food instead. Most Thais don't have proper kitchens in their homes, so there are a lot of street markets/stalls where they sell cooked food you can take away. The vendors couldn't understand what we were saying, so it was hard for us to get food, and we ended up getting roasted chicken, sticky rice, and tomyum soup. We even met a Filipino guy who's been studying in Thailand almost all his life, so he helped us talk to the vendor to order food. We also got strawberry smoothies, which we love! I absolutely love how there fruit juices/smoothies everywhere in Thailand and I cannot have enough of them. So we took our lovely food back and had lunch at our place, before I took a nap and Lellel did laundry.

When we both got done, we took a tuktuk down to the old city to check out Chiang Mai's night bazaar. It was street after street of stalls selling nearly everything you would ever need and want. I almost got myself a butterfly knife just for the fun of it, then I remembered that it took me 20 years before I could start a lighter, so it probably wasn't a good idea.

We ended up having dinner at a slightly touristy Thai restaurant, which was a mistake. Tip to anyone who's traveling in Southeast Asia who wants authentic local food, never go to a restaurant where there were more white people than there are locals eating. You just won't be getting the real deal, plus you'll probably pay a whole lot more than what it's worth. On the other hand, we met this guy with an incredibly painfully strong eyebrow and booty game that I could just not stop staring. His ass was perfect, like it was carved by God Himself, and I still think about it to this very day. No amount of squats could ever give me an ass that amazing.

After an alright dinner, and an ALRIGHT! ass, we were walking around to check out more of the night bazaar when we heard a beautiful beautiful sound. We followed it like ants to sugar and ended up in, what will eventually turn out to be, our favourite bar in Thailand, Colour Bar Garden. They had a live band playing, and the singer had such amazing stage presence, you'd think she was playing a show in Madison Square Garden.

Like I am not kidding, I am in love with this band. Any time the thought of them ever pops in my head, I legitimately get upset that I can't just take a tuktuk down to their bar to hear them jam out live. It has really taken a toll on my emotional well-being.

DAY 3:

After an amazing night of just chilling at the bar, we got up the next day and got ready to head down to Tiger Kingdom Chiang Mai. It is basically a place where you pay to get to hang out with actual non-drugged tigers inside their space, and pet them and touch them and take photos!

They have four different enclosures you could go in for different price points, and we decided to go for the cheapest lot which was the oldest tigers, who were around one to two years old, and they are essentially just gigantic cats.

They are lazy and just walk around really slowly and calmly, and just like to slouch around under the sun. You can pet the tigers and touch them, and it sounds unexciting, but it really was super cool! To be that close to a "wild animal" is just amazing.

After frolicking with the giant cats, we drove down to the Saturday Walking Street to check it out, and wow. It was practically the Night Bazaar on steroids, with the addition of having a lot more street food. Most of their items can be found at the night bazaar, but they are much cheaper at the Saturday Walking Street.

After we roamed the whole place and bought a couple of stuff, we headed down to the main city to book our activities for the next day before driving down back to the Night Bazaar to grab dinner. We ate at this tiny hawker centre-type food area, which was fairly good and cheap, and went straight to Colour Bar Garden to chill out and listen to our fave Thai band again. I just cannot say enough good things about them.

DAY 4:

It was our final full day in Chiang Mai and we booked an activity package that consisted of elephant riding, white water rafting, bamboo rafting, and a trek to a waterfall. So we got up really early and took an hour long songteow ride to adventure!

Our first stop was at the Orchid & Butterfly Garden, which we did not know was part of the package. We both completely did not have any interest in this, so we ended up just walking around and taking photos of irrelevant things.

After another long ride, we reached the base of an elephant camp and got to ride on them, which was horrible. It was just a long 30-minute ride of just pure regret and self-hatred. Please do not ever go on elephant rides or support elephant camps (not sanctuaries) in any way. The elephants go through "crushing" which is basically the crushing of the spirit of young elephants by chaining them away from their mothers so they get "trained" and don't lash out against humans. It is horribly and everything about it is just wrong.

After an incredibly heart-crushing 30-minutes, we drove up to the start of our "white water" rafting course and put on these really ~glamorous~ bright orange life vests and helmets that just made me feel like the orange version of a chunky lemon.

The rafting itself was just straight up incredibly hilarious! The water was pretty much still, so we had to paddle our whole way through. And since the water was really shallow for most of the ride, we got stuck on a lot of rocks, which got everyone in our raft just bouncing up and down chanting "shaking! shaking!", it was so funny!

After all that ridiculousness, we swapped the "white water" rafting to a quiet and peaceful bamboo rafting, where /el kapitan/ tried to flip us all over once, but besides that it was all serene and zen. After the full rafting course, we took another drive up to the base of our trekking area. We went on a 30-minute trek at this really beautiful area and ended up at a waterfall.

After arguing with myself for the longest time, I just said fuck it and went in the straight up freezing water. Lellel took photos of me by the waterfall and I just look incredibly miserable because of the cold, but I really did have fun! It was so refreshing after our trek, and even though I was uncomfortable during the ride home cause I didn't get to dry off properly, I was really glad I went in to swim.

When we got back to the guesthouse, we quickly washed up and got ready to head out again for dinner at the night bazaar again. We ate at a different stall at the faux hawker centre again, and then our whole world came crashing down when we found out that our favourite bar was closed for the night. We were so upset that we decided that we would just buy drinks from 7-11 and drink our sorrows away, but just our luck, there was some national event going on the next day so they are not allowed to sell alcohol to anyone. Amazing.

DAY 5:

After a rough night, we got up early to do some last minute packing and took a songteow to the airport to take a flight to our next, and sadly final, destination. Krabi!

Bangkok - Chiang Mai - Krabi p.1 - Krabi p.2

old school surveys whaddup

Hi.

I've got a couple of posts on draft right now, but it takes too much out of me to finish them up, so here's a quick old school survey post just so my blog isn't dying.

If you’ve ever tried drugs or alcohol, what was your reason for first trying it?

I've tried both. When you're a kid, you just automatically think that most things adults forbid you to do is actually something cool they just want to keep for themselves. Not to mention the fact that mainstream media made drugs and alcohol look fairly fun and enjoyable, so it just made me want to try them.

Do you think you could ever have an abortion if you unexpectedly turned up pregnant right this second?

Any serious thoughts that involves me having a child gives me horrible /anxiety/ and my heart actually starts beating faster from fear. I honestly do not know how to answer this question. I personally don't think abortions are okay, but sometimes it just logically makes sense, and it's so easy to say, "no I wouldn't because that's murder", but what do I know.

If you were far from home and needed to sleep for the night, would you choose to rent a crappy motel room for $60 or sleep in your car for free?

I would definitely sleep in my car for free, because anyone who knows me would know that I am cheap. If I had extra money to spare, I would maybe sleep in hostel, just because I would like to meet new people.

Is there a color shirt you’d NEVER wear?

Pink. Just plain pink. I would wear clothes with a hint of pink, but nothing majorly pink.

What did you have for breakfast?

I woke up at 2pm today, and didn't get out of bed until 4pm and was too lazy to make myself anything, so I had my first meal at 7pm and it was KFC.

What was the last movie you watched?

Camp Takota! Which I love. I've seen it multiple times and there are two major scenes that just takes my heart and kills me. First is the drinking scene up at the cabin, because the holy trinity just looks like they're having so much fun. Second is the quarrelling scene at the crafts hut, because holy shit, who knew these three pun-totting alcoholics knew how to do drama.

If you could see any musician live, front row, who would you choose?

Fall Out Boy. Again. I've seen them live once, and I will gladly pay money to see them again. They were amazing, and it was everything I've ever wanted.

When you say you love someone, do you mean it?

Yes. I am very anal about choosing to tell someone "I love you". I don't ever say it, I don't ever text it, I don't ever think it even. So if I ever hear me tell someone that I love them, you bet your fine round ass I mean it.

Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow?

For the first time in a long time, no! Despite not needing to go out for work tomorrow, I plan to not sleep in. I made a couple of plans to make some changes in my life, and a couple of them start tomorrow, and I just hope that everything will turn out well!

As of this minute, what is going through your mind?

I'm thinking about how my plans could easily fail, just like how all my previous plans of change have, and it's definitely scary and uncomfortable, but eh, I'll live. You fail once, you get up twice, amirite?

Where’s the last place you went?

If you mean just in general, Stamford American School for work. If you mean traveling, the last place I've been to was Boracay, Philippines. And yes, a blog post regarding that trip is in the making.

Does it bother you when people try to make you jealous?

Yes, it really does. I'm secretly extremely competitive, not just in games, but just in general. So the little things really /grinds my gears/, and I find it really annoying, but it mostly just makes me want to keep working to be better than that person.

Do you have drama in your life?

As of now, no, I really don't. People say this a lot, but I mean it when I say that I live an incredibly boring life nowadays. I am currently working from home, so I don't go out and meet new people. I'm incredibly broke, so I can't exactly go out and meet new people, let alone go out and meet up with friends. I don't really have anything going on for me right now, but hopefully all that will change if I succeed with my plans.

I apologize for the lack of /published/ posts recently. I'll put them up throughout this week.

I hope you're all doing fine and is living a much more exciting life than I currently am.

Goodnight.