Scott and Sarah go to the beach!

After work on Thursday April 4th, Scotty Bass headed to the Dulles Airport to catch a 10pm EST flight around the world!  About 12 hours later, on Friday evening I hopped on a 10-hour overnight bus going South from Chiang Mai.   Early Saturday morning after three months apart, we were finally reunited at the Bangkok airport!

<3 Love!

Scott's first time out of the country! In front of our hostel in Bangkok.

Waiting for the Sky train.  Scott brought the biggest bag ever.  N00B.

For our first day in Bangkok we.... slept all day.  Fine by me! We were both exhausted.  We went to a sweet rooftop bar and out to dinner, but I think Scott was asleep the whole time.  Next day we flew to Krabi!  Who likes Bangkok anyway?

Our first plane ride together!

So cute.

Took us almost all day to get to the beach because we bussed down to Trang, another province South of Krabi.  This place has less tourists, but is just as beautiful.  

We thought that people were trying to rip us off by taking us to what seemed like a friend's bus company.  I just wanted to go to the regular bus station.  Turns out they were probably helping us out because we ended up at the bus station with no English anywhere.  Good thing I could speak a little Thai and then a really nice man helped us out.  We went to a different bus station, waited a while, walked around some markets and rode on another mini bus from the center of Trang to the beach.  It was a little hectic but fun for Scott (and me) to see more of real Thailand, and not the touristy stuff.  We were the only white people for a good while.  Compared to Phuket where everyone is white besides the employees, this is refreshing.  The beach that we got to that evening was all Thai people.  The room we stayed in was pretty simple.  The beach wasn't clear blue water and white sand, but it was still beautiful.

Hazy, but pretty pretty nice. 

White boy

Me being pathetic

Pak Meng.  Cute little town.

Next day we caught the ferry to an island called Koh Ngai / Koh Hai.

We thought the first beach was kinda nice.  HA!! Ha ha.  Yeah right.  Then we came to our little island.  Not anything on this island except for a few beach bungalow resorts.  We paid $30 (/ 2) a night to stay HERE: 

Ferry to Koh Ngai

Our bungalow

View from our front porch

We didn't really lay around on the beach too much even though we could have.  We ate a lot of really good food, as the name of our place was ' Koh Ngai Seafood'   We chartered a longtail boat with a few other girls to take us out to explore the other islands.  We snorkeled around the island in the picture and it was the best snorkeling I've ever done!  (Haven't really been snorkeling much)  I really thought it was just as fun as some of the diving I've done.  While we were snorkeling a guy on our boat was fishing underwater with a spear. 

We also went to Emerald Cave!  Lot's of tours take their groups here so there were a bunch people all holding on to ropes with lights and life jackets swimming through this cave to get to a 'hong' or room in the middle of the island.  I didn't have a life jacket and our 'guide/boat driver' only used a lighter while we swam through the pitch black tunnel.  Once inside we felt like we were in Jurassic Park.  Here's a picture from the internet, plus some more of Scott's.  

Meew

 

Bananas in coconut milk + Bananagrams!  We played so much bananagrams, brought it everywhere.  Scott used to beat me, but now I beat him all the time and playing with two letter words is too easy.


After Koh Ngai we headed north to Koh Lanta.  We stayed at the best little bungalow compound in the jungle owned by a Muslim man named Hutyee Boat.  I MISS HIM.  He got the name Hutyee added to Boat when he went to Mecca apparently.


When you talk to him on the phone he yells.  "saRAH from ameriCA!"  Or when you walk by him, he'll say the same thing.  Or when we're in our bungalow, he'll yell the same thing from outside.
"You want motorbike?  Yes. HAVE HAVE HAVE."

There is actually a separatist movement in the South with the Muslims, and some unrest/violence.  Thailand is 95% Buddhist, and the 4% of people that are Muslim live in the South.  There's not violence where we were at the beach.  It was interesting to see a different culture compared to the North.  Hutyee Boat said he didn't like Songkran.  (After all, it is a Buddhist holiday - stay tuned for the post!)

His wife made us dinner both nights.  Reallly good fish and curry.  I never ate a fish whole, just ripping it apart with my hands.  They really didn't speak much English, but it was enough.  It's times like this when I wish I was better at Thai.  I asked him what his cat's name was in Thai and he said it didn't have a name, it's name was "Mɛɛw" .. means "cat" in Thai.  Scott and I thought this was hilarious. 

Also there were some people being a little loud sitting on the porch of their bungalow and I ended up chatting with them and seeing their place.  They told me they had been living there for 3 years.  WTF.  I didn't believe them, but then when I talked to them a little bit and saw their very lived in kitchen and bungalow I realized they weren't joking.  Hippies. They told me about when Lonley Planet discovered this place and how it has changed since then.  Not too much fortunately.   Who lives in a bungalow like this for 3 years?! Haha.

Our Bungalow

One day and rained and Scott and I laid around.  The other day we rented a bike and drove around.  Ran out of gas once... found some gas.  Kayaked to a small uninhabited island and hung out on a little beach.  Good times.










After Koh Lanta we made our way in a minivan back up to Krabi to catch our flight. We didn't have time to go to a beach in Krabi, but had fun in the town at the markets.  We took a longtail boat to a cave and saw some monkeys too!

Laying on the bow of the boat.  Weeee!