Billie Besos

Part one: Thailand

Friday evening in Koh Phi Phi – 02/08/19

So I have somehow broken my phone after just under a week in Thailand, brilliant. How did I survive five months in South America without even a scratch? Definitely not trusting a word Apple say when they say a phone is *waterproof*. I thought I would use this phone-free time to write another blog post while the others are on their phones.

So far we have been to Bangkok and now Koh Phi Phi and my first impressions of Thailand are good. Bangkok was chaotic, the driving was on a par with South American driving, and I couldn’t have stayed there for more than a few days, but it was a good place to start our trip. We literally experienced so much of it in just a few days, from a rooftop bar, to Pad Thai for dinner EVERY night, and we even went to a Ping Pong show; I think I have been scarred for life. We also visited some beautiful temples and just got a general feel for the Thai way of life. It’s scary though, because a day after we left Bangkok six small bombs went off around the city; this world is crazy.

Overall Bangkok rating: 8/10 would recommend for a bustling city with lots to do.

Friday afternoon on Koh Samui (a whole week after I started this post) – 09/08/19

Update: my phone is working. Touch ID is broken and the lock button takes about 10 presses before the screen lights up but it could be worse. Ok, I haven’t been great at keeping this updated but the truth is we have actually been so busy, and when I’ve had down time I’ve pretty much just needed to nap. We have almost been in Thailand two weeks now and we have done SO much. I was worried that we would be rushing to fit things in, but actually we have spent the perfect amount of time in each place, and fit in everything we wanted to do, even if the result is now me lying on my hostel bed feeling shattered, with a stye in my eye, a probable ear infection and mosquito bites from head to toe. I can’t complain though really because we have had the most AMAZING two weeks. I won’t bore you by going into too much detail but I’ll summarise what we’ve been up to this past week.

So… Koh Phi Phi was an interesting one, and despite hearing so much about the islands from people who have been there before, I’m not sure I would go back there. Yes, the islands were beauiful, with a stunning viewpoint over the area that was hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami back in 2004, and yes the nightlife was fun, with a mixture of bars, muay thai fighting rings and fireshows on the beach. However, I couldn’t help but think that the islands have suffered because of tourism. One day we decided to do a classic boat tour from the islands to some of the top ‘instagram’ locations such as Monkey Beach and Maya Bay. Pretty much from the beginning we were feeling seasick and not that impressed. Monkey beach had sounded so cool and yeah, we did see some cute monkeys, but it was nothing like the pictures and there was so much rubbish everywhwere. Our boat did take us to a few more cute spots and we did some incredible snorkelling, but I think our overall verdict was that it wasn’t worth the money. Maybe if the weather had been a little nicer (we had hardly any sun) we might have thought differently. And just in general, the island was so filled with rubbish and had a little bit of a lads holiday feel i.e. there were buckets of alcohol being sold on every street corner. And no, I’m not trying to be a grandma, because we did have fun on the island and it was a great spot for night life and parties but on reflection, it wasn’t as good as we expected it to be.

Overall Koh Phi Phi rating: 6/10 good spot for partying but wouldn’t return.

After a few nights on Phi Phi, we then had a looooooong travel day over to the eastern side of Thailand. After some bumpy ferry rides where we thought we may literally be blown off the top deck, we made it to our next island destination of Koh Tao. Koh Tao is a much smaller island than Koh Phi Phi, and it was where Lucy and I had planned to do our PADI Open Water diving qualifications. Now this island was way more up our street. We stayed in a pretty dingy dorm room while we were there which had NO AIR CON, but we didn’t let this ruin our stay. Lucy and I had the best experience ever doing our PADI, while Bea and Freya chilled out a bit, and we would all meet for lunches or dinners at the cute spots on the beach. This and the surrounding islands were beautiful and exactly what I had pictured when I had read about Thailand.

Overall Koh Tao rating: 9/10 would definitely recommend (especially for scuba diving).

We then moved on to our final destination in Thailand, Koh Samui, which is where we are now. On arriving at our hostel, we were relieved to find we had a lovely room with a sea view and AIR CON. It was exactly what we needed after a pretty jam-packed few days. This hostel is exactly how hostels should be done – family run, with lovely home-cooked food and the owner even sat us down and gave us loads of info on what to do on the island. This made us kinda sad that we only had two nights here but to be honest, its been raining a lot since we got here so it’s not a big deal only being here a short while. Today, we spent our morning at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary on the island which we pre-booked back in Bangkok which was such an incredible experience. The sanctuary rescues elephants that have been abused or used for riding or what have you. It was so magical being able to feed them, and even BATHE them (!!!) and the oldest one was an 80 something blind female who was our favourite. I don’t feel like we have been on Koh Samui long enough for me to rate it, but what we saw was good (we stayed at a hostel called The Chill Inn).

So we have ended our Thailand trip on a high and now we’re super excited to be flying to Bali tomorrow morning. Next stop: Ubud.

Ciao for now!