Koh Phangan: How We Spent the 20 Hours We Had There

We had to take a ferry to Koh Phangan and it didn't suit either of us very well. I felt nauseous while Rick spent his time vomiting. Lovely start to Koh Phangan. We arrived there and it was beautiful. Upon arriving to our hostel, we really wished we had more time there. It was great. We had our own hut with a hammock out front. The hostel had its own little beach, a beach bar, tons of lounge area. It looked awesome. 

The Half Moon Party is a party that happens once a month in Koh Phangan. These parties started with just the original Full Moon Party, also once a month, but I have no idea why it started or who started it. But as I said, they have expanded to the Half Moon and also the Black Moon Party. I think that they're just looking for any reason to have a party. Regardless, everyone we talked to who had been to Thailand and one of these parties said we had to go. Lucky for us, the Half Moon fell right in the middle of our trip so off we went.

Koh Phangan was where we had planned to meet up with a former teacher from Gloria, Emily. She finished her contract a month ago and thought she would be travelling Thailand alone so we were all really excited to meet up for the Half Moon Party. An even better part of it was that she ended up traveling with Amber, Ashley (two more former Gloria teachers), and their friend Kelly. Since the Half Moon Party was closer to our hostel, they would be coming there later. So we headed to their beach for the afternoon.

They were staying on Haad Rin beach which is the main one. This beach is where the Full Moon Party usually is and I could see why. It was a massive beach, and it was beautiful. It was really nice to see some familiar faces! We relaxed on the beach, ate lunch, and caught up. Rick and I were pretty exhausted from our major day of traveling so we headed back to our hostel to take a nap, and have dinner and planned to meet back up with the girls later.

They came to our hostel at around 10 PM and we had lots of fun drinking and painting each other with some crazy designs. The Half Moon Party is full of black lights so everyone paints neon paint on themselves. Another thing I thought was funny was that all throughout the town, stores were selling shirts that said, "Half Moon Party!" or "Full Moon Party." And I thought to myself, no one would actually wear that shirt TO the party! Boy, was I proven wrong. I couldn't even count how many people were wearing those shirts, to each his own I suppose. 

The party was very cool and I am really glad we went. The atmosphere was really cool. Lots of black lights, lots of people wasted. So many European bros were there, shamelessly hitting on any girl in sight. One of them just walked up to one of my friends and started kissing her, no hello, nothing. Rick saw it and pushed him off of her. So that was an interesting experience. Another interesting part was that they sold laughing gas for $200 Baht for one balloon, we didn't partake in this.

About halfway through the night, we lost two of the girls we were with. Cue panic. So many random people. We searched for them for over an hour and were starting to stress out but finally, they came back. They had found some guy passed out behind the bathroom and got him sent to the hospital. After that, the party felt over for Rick and I so we headed back to the hostel. Taking a taxi back was a challenge, the driver wouldn't leave until he had a full van so people kept leaving to look for another ride. So frustrating. Eventually we made it back to our hostel, slept for two hours, and woke up in time for our 7AM ferry ride.

Wasn't feeling too great about this 7AM ferry ride

This guy was sleeping waiting for the ferry, it was clear he had been at the party as well

We had a ferry ride, a bus ride, another ferry ride and we arrived. Ko Phi Phi was our next destination.

While in Koh Phangan, we stayed at Coco Gardens. It had its own beach, their restaurant was amazing, a beach bar, each hut has its own hammock, more hammocks near the beach. Would have been amazing to stay longer. The staff was really nice, answered all the questions we had and hooked us up with a taxi to take us to our early morning ferry. If you are going to Koh Phangan and don't want to stay on Haad Rin Beach, this resort is perfect for you.

Travel Travel Travel: Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Koh Phangan

We left Chiang Mai bright and early to get back to Bangkok where we then had to wait until 9:00 to start our 12 hour bus-ferry trip to get to Koh Phangan for the Half Moon Party. A mistake we made when planning this trip is we booked all of our accommodations first and then booked our transportation around the country; not knowing that it would sometimes take a full day to get places. Live and learn.

We decided to make the most of our almost full day in Bangkok. We went to the Siam Paragon shopping mall where they will watch your luggage for free, presumably so you are free to shop as you please but as soon as it was safe, we were out of there. We headed to the Jim Thompson House. When we had first been planning our time in Bangkok, we had originally ruled out the Jim Thompson House but after reading a bit more about it, we were both really interested and excited.

Eating in Bangkok

It was only 100 baht to get in but because we were both under 25, it was half price. We headed in and were told we had to wait a half hour for the next English tour which we were fine with. We decided to head to the restaurant, and I would definitely advise against this. While the admission price to Jim Thompson is cheap, the restaurant was so expensive! 300 baht ($10 CAD) later (for only TWO drinks), accompanied by rude and slow service, and we were on our tour. Now that I am reading this, I think living and travelling in Taiwan has made stingy...

The house was beautiful and the story of Jim Thompson was interesting. I am glad we changed our minds and ended up going here. If you are ever in Bangkok, I would highly recommend making a stop here. There are two souvenir shops here and they are very different. The one outside of the actual exhibit is ridiculously expensive for all different kinds of silk, purses, Christmas ornaments; not really worth it unless you are very into silk. However, the store inside is definitely worth a visit. They sell reprints of the original paintings that Jim Thompson collected for very reasonable prices.

After our souvenir buying, we were off to explore a bit more. We ended up just walking the streets for a bit before heading to where we were taking the bus to Koh Phangan. We decided to go there early to check in and eat some dinner. We booked our combination bus and ferry ticket through Lomprayah. After booking this but before the trip, I had read some horrible reviews online about Lomprayah and I was actually terrified for this trip. I insisted we buy a lock for our suitcase and was scared to fall asleep for the fear that someone would mug me. But this was not the case, it really is true that more people take the time to write reviews if they had a bad experience. Our experience with Lomprayah was not perfect (how could it be with an overnight bus ride and a ferry ride at 5AM?), but it was nothing even near the horrors I had read online and subsequently scared myself with.

Exploring Bangkok

Carrying around luggage made Rick crazy

Waiting for our bus

Finally on the bus

Sketchy rest stop

Long lines

13 hours later.. we were in Koh Phangan.

Chiang Mai: Elephants and Ziplining

Day two in Chiang Mai started pretty early again. We had a pickup at our hostel at 8:00AM to go to Baanchang Elephant Park. Rick had booked this for us before we got to Thailand. It wasn't our first choice actually but we ended up being very happy with it.

If you don't know me very well, elephants are my favourite animal, ever. Seriously. When I go the zoo, it is all for the elephants. And when we first talked about going to Thailand, this was always something we knew we would do. Safe to say, I was excited about this for awhile.

Right when we got there, we were introduced to our guide for the day, Tom. He gave us a rundown for the day and instructed us to change into our new outfits. Everyone had to wear what Tom told us is traditional mahout clothing. A mahout is an elephant trainer, they have their own elephant that they take care of 24/7.

So we were all in our new clothes and we set off to feed the elephants their daily snack of bananas and sugarcane. I still think that feeding them was one of the highlights. Most of the elephants just wanted you to put the food near their trunks and then they would feed themselves. But a select few let us put the bananas right in their mouth, it was unreal.

Once the elephants were finished their snack, we were taught the basic commands for riding an elephant. First, we were taught how to tell them to lay down so that we can get on top of them to ride them. Then we were taught how to tell them to turn right or left, go straight and stop. This was all in preparation for our hour long jungle ride on the elephants.

Learning to ride

We took a break for lunch and the food they made us was actually pretty good. I always assume that a free lunch means a bad lunch but this wasn't the case. Next it was time to ride our elephants.

Rick and I had paid for an elephant each rather than riding one together. I was a little scared at the idea of riding this huge elephant by myself but still excited. The mahouts started bringing the elephants over and they brought over the cutest little baby. I said to Rick, "Oooooh!!! I really want the baby!!!" He assured me that it wouldn't happen, that there was no way they would let anyone ride the baby. And then it was like they called my name on the price is right; the baby was mine!!!! I was elated and less scared at the idea of riding a 10 foot tall elephant as opposed to a 25 foot tall one.

Once we started riding, it was clear that teaching us the commands was just a technicality. The mahouts walked beside us and our elephants the whole time, leading the way and giving them directions. Rick says that his elephant did listen to his directions some times but who knows if I believe him.... Regardless, it was an amazing experience. While Rick was riding his, he got to feed him on the way. Both of our elephants decided to shoot water at us and we led our whole group.

If the day had ended there, I would have been more than content but it wasn't over. The final part of our day with elephants was bathing them. We all got into a lake and swam, played with, scrubbed, and washed our elephants. It was surreal. At the end of it, the mahouts showed us a little trick where the elephants spray us with their trunk.

I would recommend Baanchang Elephant Park to anyone visiting Chiang Mai. Not only was it a great experience but they do treat the elephants humanely there. Another bonus is that throughout the day, our guide was constantly taking pictures of us when we were in situations where we can't. For example, Tom got some great pictures of Rick and I riding our elephants, and bathing the elephants. The pictures were put on Facebook by the next day, free of charge for us to download.

Our next day was fully planned with ziplining. We booked with Flight of the Gibbon; which was the most expensive option but the entire experience was fantastic. They picked us up from our hostel which was convenient and they drive us back after we were finished. After our day riding elephants, our legs were in a lot of pain. We were both worried that our ziplining adventure wouldn't be as enjoyable but that wasn't the case. However, the day after ziplining, our legs felt even worse. 

Our group was small and we made a good friend named Laura. She was supposed to do the trip with her boyfriend but he had food poisoning, we had a lot of fun with her. It was a lot of fun and they don't really give you a chance to be nervous which was good for me. Our guide, Cash, was awesome. He was very funny and made the experience even better. We ziplined for about two and a half hours and then they provide you with a free lunch. After, your group heads to a beautiful waterfall and a hike to take pictures. It was breathtaking but I was tired so I sent Rick off on his lonesome while I relaxed.

The only negative about ziplining is they take all these beautiful photos for you, and tell you they are free throughout the trip. Then, when you finish, we are told that only ONE photo is free and we can pay for them to upload them to a dropbox. We ended up buying it but I felt it was just a money grab. The ziplining is already pretty expensive, why not just offer the photos for free on their Facebook page like the Elephant Park? Regardless, the photos were nice. Maybe not worth the money we paid however since we also got our own photos. Here are some samples.

Gibbon!

Hanging out in the jungle

Our guide Cash

  

After we decided to explore Chiang Mai a little more on our last night there. We headed to the night market and stopped a few times at some restaurants for a drink. The night market was nice but I think we would've been more impressed if we hadn't have been to so many night markets in Taiwan.

While in Chiang Mai, we stayed at Your House Guest House. The location was great, the price was amazing, and the rooms were good too, especially for what we paid. Not to mention, the staff there was amazing. So helpful. On our last day, our flight was at 7AM so we had to be there an hour early. They couldn't find us a taxi so one of their staff members woke up at 5AM to drive us. I would recommend anyone to stay there.