Koh Tao / Krabi / Koh Lanta!

Hey guys. I'm back into Bangkok, I flew Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur back to Bangkok yesterday. I had a blast, my latest adventure was pretty cool. The total trip time was about 3 weeks. I left Bangkok with some Thai friends because we were headed to the island of Koh Tao. To get there, we took an overnight VIP bus to a port down south and then took a high speed ferry to the island. It was pretty nice and convenient, only cost the equivalent of about $25 CND to get all the way over there.
The reason we were going to Koh Tao was because the island was having one of their annual island celebrations called the "Koh Tao Underwater Word Festival". I was happy to go because the purpose of the festival is to promote environmental responsibility for the island and includes the annual underwater cleanup project along with other initiatives to sustain the island (such as recycling all the islands toxic waste like batteries and whatnot).
So me, Frank, Blue, Pim and her boyfriend stayed on Koh Tao and we met up with another friend named Art. All of us had a great time. Frank and I participated in the underwater cleanup dive where we pulled out quite a bit of garbage from the ocean. We also scuba-dove at a beautiful location just off the island. Later the next night we had the foam party where they filled up this big outside area with a bunch of foam and we danced the night away, soaking ourselves in foam. And yes, apparently the foam was biodegradable and environmentally friendly :). I absolutely loved Koh Tao, it is one of the most beautiful islands I've seen in Thailand so far. I have a few more to see.

I had to leave a day early to take a bus to Krabi, another area of Southern Thailand. Brett was already in Krabi and I was meeting him there. So I arrived via an overnight bus to the town of Krabi where I met another Canadian on the bus traveling as well. We exchanged information and stuck together for a bit because traveling as two is better than one! Once I met up with Brett, we went over to the island of Lanta, called Koh Lanta. It was a beautiful secluded area of the island with lush tropics surrounded by steep mountainous terrain. It was definitely one of the more beautiful serene locations I've been to in a while. You almost forget what the rest of Thailand is like when you've been spending time in the noisy, stinky, loud, polluted city of Bangkok. So Brett and I stayed at this cool little "resort" called "Yaya Resort". It was only about $20/night CND to stay there. The resort had a restaurant and played movies at night. We spent a few days here lounging on the beautiful beaches as shown in the two beach pictures above. We also would spend our nights finding random restaurants on the beach serving a variety of Thai, Western and other interesting cuisine.
So that's about it for my Krabi/Koh Lanta trip. We went to Malaysia right after this, and I'll post that in a new entry as soon as I can. Malaysia was a lot of fun, can't wait for you to see the pictures of it!

Oh those Americans!

Hey, it seem like i'm becoming obsessive with feeling the need to update this but I guess it makes mom happy. Anyways, I got this youtube video from Hong so I thought i should post it because it's just too funny. Any chance I get to make fun of americans.

Pictures!

Hey so I don't really have a lot of time to write an update, I will soon I promise! But I'll upload some pictures to tide you over.

I made it into Malaysia

Well hello once again. I have a few minutes so I thought I'd let everyone know I've made it into Malaysia. I'm on an island called "Penang" and in a city called "Georgetown". I've been really impressed by the interesting culture so far. Everyone appears to be really nice. And not the kind of nice where you know they want something in return, just plain NICE. People are always helping us on the streets without wanting us to buy a suit or a tuk tuk or ANYTHING. And it's so nice and clean here, not as much pollution as say...Thailand. Anyways, we took a small cramped bus from Krabi to Malaysia today. So we made it into this really nice little guest house. It's quite cheap and really quite cool. The guesthouse is really cheap and fun, lots of people around. Oh, there are people waiting for the computer and I've been a while, I'll try to post pics soon!

Going to Malaysia

Hey guys. I just wanted to leave a quick post to say I'm going down and over to Malaysia tomorrow. We're taking a bus to "Penang" which is an island in Malaysia. After a few days there, we're going to head to Kuala Lumpur! I'm so excited! I've always wanted to go to KL, so this should be good. Anyways, I hope everyone is well!

Jeremy :)

Sawadee Khrap!

Well hello. Sorry for the lack of updating but I have been travelling around on remote islands where there is no internet, or the internet is really expensive. Anyways, I've been in Koh Tao for the last 5 days, it was really fun! We of course did some more diving, I did 4 more dives to make my total 11 now! We saw some amazing sea life, including a shark. Yes that's right, a shark! I also saw a giant sea turtle that was bigger than me. The marine life in Koh Tao is amazing that's for sure! We went to the Koh Tao Underwater Festival which is an annual celebration of the island. I got to dive and cleanup the ocean floor, we picked up quite a bit of garbage. So that was pretty cool! We also then went to the foam party and that was a gong show. After that, I left my thai friends and went to Krabi to meet up with Brett. We've since been travelling and island hopping around. It's been great so far, unfortunately I don't have any way to post photos yet but I will in due time! I have to renew my visa in a week so that should be interesting. Anyways, hope everyone is doing well, ciao for now.

I'm going away

Hey guys. Well I'm leaving to go to Koh Tao, Krabi and Ko Phi Phi for a week or two. I'm not sure exactly how long but I'm going with some Thai friends so it should be fun. My friend Brett from Vancouver ended up coming to Bangkok a week ago and stayed for a few days and now he's trecking in Chiang Mai. So the plan is to go to Koh Tao for maybe a week and then meet him in Krabi and do some mor traveling.

In Koh Tao, they have a diving/restoration event this weekend. I guess once a year they have a festival where they clean the waters by removing garbage and educating people on how to respect the environment around them. Plus at night they have huge foam parties. It should be a blast, i'm excited to be going!

Of course I'll have my mobile on me, so don't hesitate to call me (preferably not in the middle of the night for me) and we can chat. Love you all, be well!

Jeremy

Ayutthaya

Well hello again. I guess it has been a while since I've updated my blog. I've been meaning to but haven't had the time exactly lately. I had gone to Ayutthaya with Sacha last week. It was really culturally enlightening. Ayutthaya is an area where many Kings have ruled and fought and many temples were created and destroyed. It was a good time to go because I had just watched King Naresuan movie which follows the time when the soon to be King Naresuan is growing up in the mid 1500's in Ayutthaya.The graphic below shows the headless Buddhas that now exist in one of the main temples in this province. The reason for them is when a battling tribe had conquered the temple, they cut the heads off. The Buddha image is very well respected and to deface a Buddha image like this would certainly have upset the Thai.