Good-bye Paradise

Koh Phangan is a great little island and Thong Nai Pan is a great little beach resort community. So why is it that after only two weeks, we’re itching to leave this perfect tropical “paradise”?

Could it be the heavy humidity and the constant dampness? Could it be the aggressively hungry mosquitoes hiding in the beautifully landscaped grounds of our cottage? Or the sand flies feasting on us as we tried to dine on the sand at beach restaurants? Could it be that we got tired of drinking Chang beer (and we haven’t been able to get our hands on a Guinness since we left Bangkok weeks ago)? Or maybe it’s because we’ve tried all the restaurants in the area worth eating at and got tired of ordering the same things over and over?

Whatever the reason, it was definitely time to move on. Like Europe, Asia has a ton of low-cost airlines flying all over the place, so we booked a flight to Chiang Mai with Nok Air for about $180 the day before we decided to leave. When we changed planes in Bangkok, we noticed another change: almost all the foreign tourists disappeared. This was a good sign. I think we’re back in Thailand again.

(See more pictures of Koh Phangan)

Full Moon Party

Until now, I’ve never been to a frat party. But after attending my first Full Moon Party, I can now say I have. Billed as the biggest party in the world, Koh Phangan’s monthly Full Moon Party is an all-night affair that supposedly attracts up to 30,000 people in high season. It’s high season now, but I doubt there were more than 10,000 people at last night’s party. True, 10,000 people is nothing to sneeze at, but as far as parties go, I’ve been to more interesting ones in Champaign-Urbana.

The party takes place on Sunrise Beach in the town of Haad Rin, which fortunately is on the opposite side of the island from where we are staying. Party-goers from surrounding islands start arriving at dusk and by midnight, the entire beach is packed with very drunk people. Upon arrival, you are greeted with rows and rows of vendors selling “buckets” of booze – usually a pint of hard liquor and 2 or 3 kinds of mixers inside a small plastic toy pail. The concoction is mixed for you with ice and then you stick a straw into the mix and start drinking. Next, you can hire a local artist to paint your body with designs using fluorescent paint. Then you head for the beach and dance all night long to really bad DJs playing trance music. That’s essentially the ritual. What makes this a frat party is that just about every party-goer is white, in their early 20s and doing exactly the same thing. No variation, no creativity, just the standard conformist follow-the-herd mindset you see on any college campus frat row. Even everyone’s haircuts looked pretty much the same.

As usual, the very enterprising Thais rise up to challenge of servicing thousands of people all night long with booze, food and even emergency medical help -- all for a price. Even the taxi rates go up on party night – perhaps the extra surcharge is for putting up with the drunks all night long. So I guess I can say "I went." But if we’re staying another month, I have no urge to go again.

(See more pictures of Koh Phangan)

Koh Phangan

Everyone has a fantasy of what a perfect tropical paradise might look like. For us, the fantasy turned into reality when we discovered a beach community called Thong Nai Pan on the island of Koh Phangan. Thong Nai Pan is actually two bays, each with its own community and distinct personality. There’s the little bay called “Noi” and a larger bay called “Yai,” which is where we decided to land. Here, the vibe is definitely lower key – there are less people around and time just seems to slow down to a crawl.

As usual, we booked one night at a random resort, then started shopping for a place we can call home. As it turned out, just a few doors down the beach from where we landed was a hidden paradise called Dolphin Bungalows. Owned by an Australian woman and her Thai husband, Dolphin was unlike anything else we’ve seen. As soon as you enter the grounds, you’re surrounded by lush tropical greenery. All their cabanas were surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens in a jungle theme complete with ponds. We managed to snag one of their roomier cabanas for $30 a night. This felt like home, so we decided to settle down and hang out for a while.

Dolphin sure made it hard for us to leave their grounds. Each table in their outdoor bar/restaurant area is housed in its own open-air pagoda-like cove with comfy cushions and an inviting entry way. Their menu was also very different than the same-same copycat menus of typical resort restaurants. For example, we’ve never seen a morning glory hash brown dish before anywhere – and it was delicious ("morning glory" is the local name for water spinach which some restaurants will list as “hollow vegetable”). There are more than enough tables for everyone and the guests typically just hang out in one of their coves as if the whole restaurant area was a communal living room.

Right outside our resort entrance was a big beautiful beach and maybe a dozen other beach resorts, each with its own restaurant. On the beach were longboat taxis ready to take us anywhere. Up the road is a small village with tiny roadside eateries so there was a wide range of eating options to choose from. All-in-all, I think this is as close to paradise as we’ll get.

(See more pictures of Koh Phangan)

Koh Tao

Hua Hin is a resort town for Thais. But Koh Tao is a resort island strictly for foreigners. Both destinations offer an incredible range of services, from restaurants to hotels to shopping. But the difference between Hua Hin and Koh Tao is a visible racial divide. In Hua Hin, foreigners mixed with the Thais on the streets. But in Koh Tao, almost all the tourists are European, Australian or American (there’s a smattering of Japanese here as well, but they seem to only like to hang out at the Nangyuan Island Resort). So what you see as you walk around is a clear division of races – all the people being served are white and all the people doing the serving are brown. This divide is also felt in the interactions between the races. Sure, all the Thais are very friendly, but in Hua Hin the smiles seem more genuine. In Koh Tao, it’s abundantly clear that they’re only interested in your money. That said, it’s still amazingly cheap here even with Koh Tao’s inflated prices. Typical entrees are $2 to $3 at authentic road-side Thai eateries. An amazing variety of fresh seafood barbecue can be had for about $10. Our roomy air conditioned bungalow by the beach was $40/night but smaller ones can be had for $20 without “aircon.”

In Koh Tao, we decided to stay at a beach community called Sairee Beach mainly because of the abundant variety of accommodation choices available. As is our habit, we booked one night at a random hotel on the Internet, then walked around town to see what else might be available. Pictures on a web site don’t always tell the full story and there’s nothing like asking to see a room before you take it. So after shopping around and looking at several places, we discovered the AC Two Resort (not listed in the guide books and not on the Internet). It was a perfect location at a great price -- right on the beach “boardwalk” and within easy walking distance were dozens of eateries, massage parlors, travel agents, etc. But the hidden gem on the island was a lady-boy bar called the Queen’s Cabaret with a nightly show of enthusiastic drag queens who lip-synch their hearts out with elaborate costume changes between sets.

After 6 nights in Koh Tao, we decided to move on. Next stop, the island of Ko Phangan.

(See more pictures of Thailand)

Hua Hin

After 3 nights in Bangkok, we were rested enough to continue our journey. We decided to venture south because we wanted to see what Thailand’s famous beaches were like. Thailand’s eastern gulf coast has 3 islands that are famous tourist destinations, so we decided to start with the closest one – the island of Koh Tao. To get there, we could have taken an 8-hour bus ride to the ferry, but since we had time on our hands, we decided to break the trip up into more bite-sized chunks. Because the town of Hua Hin is only 3.5 hours south of Bangkok, it made sense to for us to make a pit stop there.

Hua Hin is a resort town that is the equivalent of "the Hamptons" for well-to-do Bangkok city dwellers. The town is a miniature version of Bangkok and has everything Bangkok has to offer packaged in a much more manageable size. There are 4-star hotels as well as small cheap guest houses in hidden alleys. Since we had a budget of $100 per day, we decided to splurge a little and booked the Araya Hotel. Araya turned out to be a comfy mid-range hotel within walking distance of some of the best seafood restaurants in town, an excellent night market, and lots of bars with pretty young Thai girls just hanging out looking for "action." I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised to also see an unusually large number of older white men with younger Thai women walking around town as well.

Just like in Bangkok, there was an abundant selection of amazing street food to try in Hua Hin. Every night, certain streets are transformed into a giant food fest, all set up with makeshift temporary kitchens that are dismantled by midnight. In order for regular restaurants to compete, they're forced to also bring out temporary kitchens onto the street to attract passersbys. This makes for a wonderful spectacle of street theatre every night as vendors and waiters beckon you to try their unique specialty. After 2 nights of overeating and indulgence, it was time to head for the ferry to Koh Tao.

(See more pictures of Thailand)

3 Nights in Bangkok

Bangkok is a super megapolis that is indeed the crossroads of Asia. As an international hub with thousands of international travelers from all over the world criss-crossing here, it's no surprise that Bangkok has some extreme contrasts. Bangkok has everything any big city has – pollution, traffic jams, dirty alleys with rats. But Bangkok also has some of the best food we've ever tasted and it’s very, very cheap.

There is no way we could do Bangkok justice in three days, so we didn't even try. We booked the Shambara Hostel for 3 nights which was just enough time to recuperate from the long flight. The hostel was in a great neighborhood known as Khao San Road which has a bustling night market and plenty of dining options just steps from our door. Ever since watching Anthony Bourdain’s TV show, I've been fantasizing about Thai street food. So as soon as we got up the next day, we went out to hunt up some breakfast grub. Just by luck, we stumbled upon a little street vendor that had about 20 dishes already prepared and ready to eat at 6am. Yes, the dishes were spicier than what we’re used to in the States, but it was a really flavorful and potent spicy jolt that clearly announced that we’re no longer in Kansas. The next day, we discovered that within one block from our hostel was a “vegetarian alley” lined with several restaurants that specialized in healthy and organic options. Naturally, we had to indulge. And my find of the day was a street vendor selling stir-fried insects, which she seasoned with a little fish sauce and some secret spices. Yum!

For contrast, we also took a tuk-tuk to the city’s premiere shopping mall, the Siam Paragon. This was a super high-end mall that somehow took all of Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile and stuffed it into one big building. But the real reason we went to Siam Paragon was to take a peek at their famous food court. In the lower level of the mall was every type of street food available in Bangkok served up in a pristine sanitary environment. The food looked fantastic, but for some reason it just didn’t taste as good as the real thing. Maybe it was just my imagination, but there’s something special about Bangkok’s street food that just can’t be duplicated in any other environment.

(See more pictures of Thailand)

Taking Off

It’s New Year’s Eve and it’s time to take off. We decided to do a one-way car rental from Champaign to O’Hare in Chicago to solve one nagging little problem: What do you wear when it’s 20ºF in Illinois and 80ºF in Thailand? We definitely did not want to be carrying winter coats with us for 3 months. Our other options (Amtrak, Megabus, Lex Express) would all involve freezing our asses off trying to get to our Korean Air flight. And as it turned out, the rental car option was cheaper than our other options, so we lucked out. As is our habit, we stopped by Whole Foods on the way to the airport to pick up some tasty snacks – just to make the other passengers jealous.

The 19-hour flight from Chicago to Bangkok was uneventful. We had a 2-hour layover in Seoul and Bonnie had the right idea: she indulged in a massage. This is the second time we’ve flown an Asian airline across the Pacific and both times the service was impeccable. The stewardesses looked like dolls dressed in very stylish uniforms. And their demeanor was completely different than American stewardesses. It may sound like a cliché, but these girls were softer, more subservient, more eager to please. Was this just a cultural difference or was this Korean Air's training? Korean Air also had nice little touches even for passengers in economy class: slippers and toothbrushes were provided for everyone. And the individual seat-back entertainment center had more movies than anyone would want to watch. I would definitely fly Korean Air again without hesitation.