Well it's about time to leave Thailand. We've been here 3 separate times now, totaling around 40 days, and we're ready to move on. The last few weeks have been spent in typical southern Thai fashion- on the beach. It tops 90 degrees everyday even during this (the cold part of the year) and the water temperature is perfect. The beaches were great, and we're super glad we came, but the sheer number of tourists here is a bit aggravating. Things are consequently more expensive, and the Thais in general have a tendency to try and rip tourists off. We were outright lied too on multiple occasions in an attempt to get extra money out of us- it worked the first time and the first time only.
Anyway, we spent the first 6 days on Ko Lanta, a beautiful little island with a very laid back feel. We didn't do much. We were told there wasn't any snorkeling off the beach (an attempt to get us to buy a snorkeling package offshore), but we went exploring anyway and found, among other things, thousands of fish, coral, 2 puffer fish, crabs, and best of all a gorgeous spotted moral eel. Not bad for there not being anything to see.
After 6 nights on Lanta, we moved to Railay. Railay isn't exactly an island in the traditional sense. It's actually a peninsula, but the part of it connected to the mainland is 100% blocked off by limestone cliffs, so everything has to be brought in by boat and it's just as isolated as an island would be. We chose to go to Railay because it has world-class rock climbing, and we spent a full day climbing routes and then quite a bit more time bouldering. It was a blast, and the only place we've been climbing where you see world class beaches and beautiful oceans from the top of a climb.
We are in Phuket, Thailand right now and we fly to Medan, Indonesia (Sumatra) tomorrow. Volcanoes, crater lakes, orangutans and lush rain forests (not to mention very few tourists) await, so we are looking forward to it!
The itinerary on this page has been updated through the end of the trip, and all pictures thus far have been uploaded. Also, I got a pretty good reaction out of the pictures last time, so here is a link to the 'select' pictures from Thailand in an easy-to-view form.
Pictures from Thailand
Thanks for reading!
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