Friends in many places

Took a quick flight back to Bangkok and made my way back to the infamous Khoa San road. 

Khoa San road is one of those places that just never changes. Buckets of alcohol, fries insects, aggressive tuk tuk drivers and custom suit makers, horrible pad thai and extremely vulgar clothing. Might as well get a little bit of everything in. It's main purpose is to serve as a via point to spend a night before flying or taking a bus somewhere nicer.

While walking the street stopping at each store for a beer, I decided to get a foot massage after a long day. You seem to meet the nicest people that sit down beside you for a massage. Ended up having a nice chat with an Asian man and his wife from Paris. An engineer for Intel computer chip company, he fluently spoke 6 different languages. Turns out everyone in Europe gets something crazy like 5 weeks mandatory vacation... Get with it Canada!

So while sitting there getting a foot massage with my new buddy, Singah beers in hand, I recognize two boys from home walk by. Next thing we know it was  another night on Khoa San, a BBQ 'd scorpion and a few buckets later, and I may or may not have missed my bus to Cambodia the next morning..... Not even mad. Flying out that night would be far less painful, and allowed a full day to hang out in a lively city in the state of emergency. 

Went to MBK shopping centre which is the heart of the protests. Inside is a regular shopping mall selling high end camera gear and clothing, then step outside into a crowd of Bangkok residents mid protest, sleeping on concrete, singing, and standing up for there political opinion. 

Traffic is Bangkok is painfully slow at times, and leads to some anxiety when catching a flight into Cambodia..

Back to The Land of Smiles

Back in the early summer of last year I started thinking about how much overtime and vacation days I had mustered up with the intention of going somewhere really far, again. 

Ideally wherever it was had to be warm,  adventurous, and a major differentiation in culture. I felt like eating weird food, getting a tan, seeing how differently people live outside our bubble at home and do some cool shit.

$1000 flight into Bangkok. Can't be that, other than the Thai Government declaring a state of emergency the day before my flight, do to ongoing civil unrest with an election coming up. 

After spending a couple weeks in 

northern Thailand in 2011 and talking to backpackers while in Costa Rica early last year, I knew there was more to Southeast Asia I must see. Having 5 weeks to spare, there will still be so much of this part of the world left unseen, which is still saddening. 

Thought it would be best to get out of the bitching cold back home for a bit more spoiled back packing for a couple days in Southern Thailand, with some white sand and turquoise water. 

Nearly 40 hours of flights, connections, taxis and tuk-tusks later...

Krabi- Less touristy (I hoped) and with nearby access to some of the best rock climbing in the world. Night markets and good food at night, island hoping and rock climbing by day.

I've found this part of Thailand to be slightly more expensive, but still; 400 Baht ($12) to get picked up at the hostel, driven to Ao Nang, and taking a boat around to four different islands, lunch included, for an entire day. Also, snorkelling, topless Europeans and caves, how cool?

A couple days of travel and it's not hard to get into the swing of it