Hello from our minibus from Phuket to Krabi Island. How you take a bus from island to island when there appears to be no bridges in this region still remains a mystery to Jess and me.
Since I've last blogged, a lot of interesting things have happened. I will try to cover them all while simultaneously tuning out the blaring Thai emo-pop music in the back of this van that the driver has selected. Per usual, Jess and I are the only Americans on the bus and everyone looks at us with interest and vague amusement.
This bus ride is five hours (approx.) Which means anywhere from 3 hours to endless, soo thank you and ka poone ka blog for entertaining me.
Enter new vocab:
Farang: slang word used to describe non-thais and white people in Thailand. Origins: we think foreigner (but they pronounce the "g")
Thailand is very Farang-friendly...BUT we have found the constant haggling and ripping-us-off-attempts to be humorous at best and deeply annoying and frustrating at worst.
Jess just made friends on the minibus with some Thai teens quietly playing Jo-Jo's, "too little too late."
Back to our travels: after my last post, jess and I hitched the hotel shuttle back up the mountain to check out the poolside happy hour. At this two-for-one happy hour, we ordered an Or-bama which was orange mango banana drink. More interesting than our drink, however, was a friendly couple from Australia (husband from S africa) who were completely as fascinated with us as we were with them. They were staying at the hotel with their four children (all between the ages of eleven and sixteen-eek!). The father spoke Africaans and I guess English but jess and I struggled to understand anything he said...this is after he told us how he is forced to "tone down his accent" so americans can understand him. The couple had lived in Key West for a few years in the late eighties and thus their perception of the states was mostly based off of television shows and movies... I.e. They thought New Orleans was like deliverance. (Ha ha) and that all americans do tons of drugs. The mom also mentioned how American spring break is so interesting to her and she saw "real Life american stereotypes" like "a jock.". What she was most curious about however, was sorority life. She couldn't understand or figure out the greek life phenomenon that is so popular in "american uni's.".
Although the mom admitted she was a "country girl" and therefore pretty sheltered and ignorant, she explained how many things that are normal and commonplace in the states (like leaving home for college, for example) is just not really done where they live. Anyways, we loved the couple and sat with them for over and hour talking not only about sororities but history and the economy/job market. She didn't really get how I could be "so brave" to want to move to DC and leave my home! It was nice to get an outside perspective on what we think of as pretty normal for us.
Later on, we wandered down the mountain for dinner at this little beach shack called "the White Orchid." From the table we could see little flashlights in the water that belonged to fisherman who look for fish when the tide goes in. I think I would be scared to walk around in knee high ocean water in the pitch black night. The owner of the restaurant came and sat with us for most of the night. She (Angela) made us this amazing garlic pepper salmon, spring rolls, and then mango with sticky rice for desert. We were there for awhile enjoying her frank sinatra tunes and her bubbly personality. She completely lost her restaurant in the Tsunami and had to literally run up the mountain when she saw it. We liked Angela so much that we told her we would come back the next night and she said she woiuld make us anything we wanted on or off the menu.
The next day, jess and I woke up early to get picked up at 730 at our hotel to get transfered to the marina. We boarded a speed boat with about 20 people on it and ventured out to the Phi Phi (pronounced pee pee) Islands. Our tour guide, leonardo, was very nice and first took us to the island where the beach was filmed (the movie, The Beach). Although it is now overrun with tourists (even in the low season) it was still sooo beautiful. After Maya island we stopped around a lagoon to snorkle and swim around. Post-snorkling we went to lunch on another island and some creepy aussies tried to hang out with Jess and me. Their pick up line: "do you girls have any sun cream?". We didn't really understand anything thye were saying, although I guess it was english. We did, however, make friends with everyone on our trip. There were four people who had also just finished school from the Phillipines. They were soo funny and asked if they could facebook us and took a million pics with us. Their english was pretty good and it was really cool to hang out with people our age from Manilla! The other two groups we got close to on the boat (which was a little speedboat that crashed through choppy water I have a huge scrape and bruise on my elbow-yuck), were families from Australia and New Zealand(keewees). The Australian family had two cute little girls who were 5 and 7 and the dad was a diplomat who used to work at the Australia embassy in DC and who had some upenn interns! Now he works at the embassy in Papa New Guinea. The other family was a dad (who now lives in Singapore) and his three daughters (one of which jess thought looked like Rose) who grew up in bangkok and are now moving to the UK with their mum. It was so interesting to hear about their lives and experiences which seemed so exotic and foreign to me! So far one of the best things about our trip has been all the culturally different people we have met. It is also nice to see what we have in common with them. I guess if you go far enough away, you'll be surprised how similar we all are!
The last island we visited was a tiny white strip of beach. Some Thai production company was filming a commercial but we couldn't get that close.
Funny sidebar: people that worked on this island continuously haggled us to buy things like beach chairs or ice cream. Jess and I did not bring money on the trip because waters and food was included. We would tell the vendor, sorry we don't have money. This did not make them stop approaching us. Finally I said, "sure we will have two ice cream bars. Are they free?". The guy looked confused but then said "work one day and you get free ice cream.". Jess laughed and said sure. Jess carried the ice cream sign for about five minutes before the vendor granted both of us free ice cream. Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch? (Or ice cream).
At the end of the day we headed back to our hotel where we sat by the pool and watched as the hotel staff scrambled to prepare for some important guest who they wouldn't tell us who it was. Or maybe they just didn't understand the question.
Things we liked about our hotel on Kamala:
1. Our honeymoon looking room with a bed on a platform
2. Our view of the ocean from our window
3. Delicious breakfast
4. Infinity pool and water slide
5. The golfcart drivers.
Things we didn't like:
1. Our first room. It was on a huge cliff and was a pain to get to and had lots of lizard late night activity.
2. Lemongrass water (ewww tasted like tortilla chips but as a juice)
3. The shuttle refusign to take us into town at 1130 because checkout was at noon.
Last night we went back to Angela's for dinner and played with her adorable niece. She told us to come back the next day and get presents but we were a little sketched out so we bipassed that.
I think that is everything so far... Back to my busride. Miss and love.
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