Koh Phi Phi Viewpoint

*Edit-This was a draft for the last many months that I never got around to, so I finally decided to post these pictures from my vacation to Thailand even though no one will likely read this. Sept. 2007*


Here are some cool pictures from the viewpoint at Koh Phi Phi.


Looking down on the town.



The beautiful clear water.



Soaking in the sun :)



Enjoying the His wonderful Creation.



My mom calls this a National Geographic picture.



There were so many boats out investigating the harbor.



The damage from the tsunami is still quite visible--there are no palm trees in the village.



Thailand is almost all Buddhist--this is a spirit house.



New tsunami signs warning people to get to higher ground.



Construction to rebuild the village to its originally state continues years later.



Some of the bigger resorts were completely destroyed and will take longer to rebuild.

Koh Phi Phi Arrival

In my previous post, I mentioned that our arrival on Koh Phi Phi was eventful, now let me elaborate.
We arrived to the island by ferry. As we came into port, we saw an alarming event unfolding on land--the island was on fire! We learned later that the largest bar on the island had caught fire and it quickly spread to the neighboring bungalows. Thankfully, we were staying on the opposite side of the island, but it was quite the first impression!
Koh Phi Phi has no roads; the island can only be covered on foot, or by bike in town. To get from one point to another, we hired longtail boats. The boats are able to travel in shallow water and have engines mounted high enough so as to not damage the coral reef.
Our resort was beachfront and it was truly a tropical paradise. The bungalow was probably only 50 feet from the water--it was incredible to fall asleep at night listening to the waves. Playing beach volleyball, eating amazing Thai food, and simply relaxing consumed my four days there.



Relaxing (AKA getting burned) and awaiting our arrival to the island.



A slightly tattered Thai flag proudly flying over a jasmine garland.



Fire in the hole!



The dock with all the tourists gawking at the fire.



All of the longtail boats lined up in town (notice the pole and attached rudder at the end of the boat--hence the name longtail).



Getting ready for our first longtail trip.



Our driver fearlessly piloting us to our resort.



Our bungalow was named The Lion King, or, as Daniel nicknamed it, Simba's Pride. To get the grand tour of the bungalow, click here to see a video.



My bed, complete with protective mosquito netting!



The minimalist bathroom (absent is a sink, mirror, and toilet paper).



One view from the bungalow porch.



Looking another direction from the porch.



The crystal clear water and beautiful, open horizon of the ocean.


I know I'm getting a bit behind, but I just can't resist writing thorough, if late, posts on these events. Maybe someday I'll get us back to China and then I can give a full report on what's new here! :)

rpm

The 3rd Overnight Train of My Life...

..and the 3rd overnight train too many. I can't say that I'm a huge fan of overnight trains. The whole argument that it saves money on lodging (since the train has a bed) is bogus in my mind. Train beds should not be qualified as real beds ever. If I cannot turn over in bed without falling off, it's not a true bed.

Perhaps I should back up. Rewind to September of 1997. I'm 12, going on 13 (picture middle school awkwardness, with permed bangs and everything! Oh yeah, it was bad). I was on my way to northern Russia (like above the Arctic Circle, near Finland) as an exchange student. I was traveling with a group from my school and had a 26 hour train ride from St. Petersburg to the town where we would be staying for three weeks. I'm not sure what we did for that long on the train, as this is before iPods and DVD players--I think I remember having to do some science homework, but that couldn't have taken the whole time. Anyway, the climax of that trip was receiving lice from the bedding, which I didn't discover until about a month later, due to said perm. It was a great trip overall, but the train part was definitely not a highlight.

Fast forward to January of 2004. I had just spent the month in Germany with my college and we had a few free days at the end of the trip. I went to visit my friends from camp who were from Prague. The trip would have been a lot quicker if I left from Berlin, but we ended our group travel down south in Bavaria. So I had to travel across most of central Europe in order to meet up with them in Prague. That overnight trip was characterized by a very loud snorer and some shouting border patrol demanding passports at like 4 AM. Again, a wonderful, but cold trip, where the overnight train was underwhelming.

Now the present--February 9--but on another continent--Asia. We managed to score front-row seats on the flight and we landed in Bangkok with an hour and a half to get to the train station. The flight attendant told us to expect it to possibly take that long with traffic, so again we found ourselves holding our breath, hoping that everything would go okay. It actually only took maybe 40 minutes, so we had time to grab some dinner at the train station. Dessert was probably the most exciting thing, as there was both Dunkin' Donuts AND Dairy Queen. I had my first blizzard in months and I bought a donut for breakfast. When we got on the train, we discovered that our tickets were second class, which meant no AC. Now, Thailand is pretty close to the Equator and no AC=one stuffy night. Thankfully, the windows were wide open and the ceiling fans were blowing, but it was still a bit warm. It was really fun to ride through the suburbs of Bangkok, the city just seemed to go on and on. Around 9, they came around and made up our beds. We all had top bunks, which was fine, but we either could close the curtain and block the fan and keep the light out OR we could have the curtain open and feel the fan but let the light in. I chose to feel the fan and suffer looking at the light; I can't say that I actually feel asleep, but such is life. It was an interesting experience, especially with an elevated squatty for a toilet (if you thought a squatty potty was fun, try one on a train!) Anyway, we got off at around 6 AM, only to hire a van to drive us to the coast, where we later caught our ferry.

The ferry ride was wonderful; it was warm and sunny and we decided to sit out on the deck. Remember how I said that Thailand is close to the Equator, well, we forgot what that meant in terms of how powerful the sun is. There's nothing like arriving to your tropical designation already sunburned--definitely not the smartest thing I've done in my life!

Here's some pictures:


Lindsey, me, and Megan right next to the emergency exit on our way to Bangkok.



Pulling out of the station in Bangkok.



Karri, me in the background, and Jamie getting settled for our 11 hour trip. (Notice the free space above our heads, that's where our beds were hours later.)



The man who came around to make our beds, the metal near his back is the steps/luggage storage for the top bunk (also notice the huge fan to circulate air at the top).



My bed!



The peaceful Thai landscape.



The foggy Thai landscape.




The blurry (think: artsy photo) Thai landscape.



Each person in our group took their picture outside of the train.



It was quite the (dangerous) process.



We got off at Surat Thani and hired a van to take us to the coast.



Loading the ferry.



Soaking up the rays on the ferry to Koh Phi Phi (me, Megan and Jamie).

The next installment: Our eventful arrival on Koh Phi Phi.

Peace,
rpm

Brought to You by the Number 50

This is my 50th post and to celebrate this milestone, I'm going to interrupt this normal programming about the trip with some relevant data.

In the two weeks we were gone, we had:

A Grand Total 54 Different Rides on 16 Different Types of Transportation!

• 15 were by taxi
• 7 were on longtail boats
• 6 were in mini-vans
• 4 were by plane
• 3 were by truck taxi, ferry and bus
• 2 were by cable car, city bus, MRT (subway), motorbike and car ferry
• and we had one trip each by car, train, van taxi, and elephant!

And now, the promised train pictures--


rpm

Macao

The next morning, we took taxis to the dock where our ferry was. When we went to check in, there was a sign saying that our ferry had been cancelled. We were quite worried, since this was the leg of the journey where there was little room left for error. Oddly enough, we were able to still print off the tickets electronically from the machine, so we didn't know what was right. Then a man came over and told us that they had known for a month that our ferry wasn't going to run that day, but somehow the online system still allowed us to buy the tickets like two weeks prior to the trip. This was time number one of many when it paid off to be travelling in a group. He refunded our money in Hong Kong dollars and arranged for us to go with another ferry service on the other side of Shenzhen. The one catch was that our original ferry got us to Macao with about 3 hours before check-in; the new one gave us less than an hour of leeway. But with no other opinion, they piled us and all of our stuff into a minivan and we drove across town. The man that handled our situation even came with us, which he totally didn't even need to do. We got a nice scenic tour of Shenzhen and arrived at the new ferry a half hour later. The same man helped us get our new tickets and exchange the leftover money (the new ferry was cheaper) and then he disappeared. It was nice to be taken care of--good customer service can be hard to come by sometimes in China. The ferry ride was uneventful, other than that it got us to Macao significantly later than we expected. By the time we got on land and through customs, we had less than 15 minutes to catch a taxi and get to the airport. For the first time ever in China, I actually told a taxi driver to go fast (Macao used to be a Portuguese territory, like how Hong Kong used to be a British territory, but now both are Special Administrative Regions of China). Somehow, we made it and were able to get checked in ok. We flew one of the Asian equivalents of Southwest Airlines, (Thai) Air Asia and we actually got to the gate with enough time to stand in the long line, since everyone crowded the gate, wanting to be on first, because there were no assigned seats. From there, our journey took us to Thailand.



Jamie and I standing in front of our ferry.



The ferry wasn't so exciting, it almost felt like an airplane, but just on the water. Certainly the seating was like an airplane--no leg room whatsoever!



Waiting to get the next stamp on my passport, with the port of Macao in the background.



Somehow in midst of the craziness of hailing a taxi, I had time to take a few pictures in Macao--yes, those are fish hanging out in front of the restaurant.



Thailand, here we come!



Looking back at the airport from the airplane.

Next up, our interesting train ride...

rpm