Back to Bangkok, back to home

 

After leaving Steve and taking a taxi towards the harbour with Emilie I felt like shit! She tried to cheer me up but I just felt so down.. We went to grab something to eat and tried to do some last shopping there. The night ferry was a nice surprise for us. We had thought about the worst of the boat but it had beds!!! I slept so so well that night! We woke up to our alarms at midnight and went outside to the deck to check out the stars. The boat's lights were too bright around it so we couldn't really see too much. There were couple of man outside smoking weed and tried to get us to join them. On the other end of the deck there were maybe 6 people from Laos and they were sat down on the deck and playing drums and singing some songs. They were drinking some homemade alcohol thing... Also they tried to get us to join them and I really wanted to go but Emilie wasn't that eager.. I stood on the deck listened to their music, the ocean and admired the starry sky.

We arrived in the middle of nowhere at five in the morning. The place looked like an industrial area.. There was nothing there! There were lots of backpackers and no one knew where to go. On the other side of the street there was a tiny market to which we all went to sit down. Then we just waited. And waited. Taxis came and left. No one wanted to take us. We had this paper which said that a taxi or bus would give us a ride somewhere to get a bus to bangkok. After like an hour or so a car came by. He was picking us up. The problem was that there were too many people to that one tiny taxi. Some of the guys were standing in the back and I squeeshed inside the car with the driver and one an other girl.

 

Luckily the drive wasn't long at all and we got out in front of this coffee place where they told us to wait for a bus. I was freezing! It was early in the morning and we felt really tired. The bus arrived and our 7,5 hour bus journey back to Bangkok started.. The bus was so full of people! Some people actually had to stand... I was too afraid to put my backpack down so I had it under my legs inside the bus.. Comfortable? No!

 

We stopped to eat at some point and then continued again. Almost the whole time I managed to get some sleep but it still felt to take so long! At Bangkok bus station me, Emilie and this young girl from Hongkong struggled a long time to find a bus to the center of Bangkok. We literally tried to ask everyone at the bus station but no one spoke english. Eventually we took a bus 107 and sit in it like 40 minutes and arrived close to Khao San road and decided to get out and find it. It looked so different during the day than night. Everything you could imagine of buying can be bought from there. Thai massages with happy endings, fake IDs, fake certification, cloths, food etc etc etc.
 

After wandering and wondering Khao San Road we went to this small place with internet to try to fix our plans with Emilie. I was supposed to go to Marie's place but she was so mad at me for not coming back to hang out with here before going to home. I had made a decision to stay a longer time with Steve in Koh Tao..

 

 We said goodbye to the young Chinese girl and set off to see the grand palace outside. It looked really nice on the night time. We hang out for a while in this park close by. Then took river boat to see the famous river by night and then with BTS we headed towards Marie's place. We knew that she wasn't home and would arrive only late but we hoped that we could at last get inside the building. We were really lucky since we got in almost immediatelly when some guy living there opened the door for us. Since we didn't have keys we climbed up to the roof and roof top pool! It was so relaxing! Looking the city down, sitting your legs in the pool and just chatting about life. We hang out there for almost three hours before we went to sit behind Marie's door to wait for them.

 

The night wasn't the most pleasant one's since Marie was reaaallly mad at me.. On a Monday morning 1st of July it was time for me to head back to home. Marie was on a little better mood in the morning so I actually got an opportunity to explain about my situation with Steve to her. I felt a bit better but I knew she was still mad at me for ditching her for a guy. I tried to explain to her that he wasn't just a guy. I got up after 7 am and did my last packing and I was off. It took me one hour to get to the airport and surprisingly I felt okey. I had been messaging with Steve a lot and I just enjoyed my last bits of my travelling alone. The feeling of being able to be free and survive on your own in a city of millions of people. Being confident about where to go and finding your ways. Previously I've posted one article about travelling,  here is an other one I came across this summer:

 

 18 Life Lessons Learned from Traveling

At the airport there were massive queues for the back drop. Good thing that I was really early there since I had to wait almost an hour in the line. The airport itself was massive, probably one of the biggest ones I've ever been in. The first flight was 11 hours and that was just a torture!! I felt like I had fever, I kept sleeping and waking up. Sweating. I watched three movies, read, listened to music. At this point I coulda used some company. The plane change only took an hour and the second flight went really fast. :)

After 20 hours or traveling I was safely back at home. Before my trip so many people kept telling me why on earth am I going to Thailand in the middle of the rain season? Yeah, well, rain season. It didn't rain everyday and when it did it lasted around 10 minutes. It was still around +30 every day.. Why not? Thai people were so friendly and welcoming, I didn't have any stomach problems or I wasn't afraid of being robbed or anything like that. My first trip alone was done and I was proud of myself! Not in any point I felt like I wasn't safe or alone. There was always people to hang out with or just be by myself.  Meeting Steve and still being together after six months was something I coulda never believed would happen to me! So travel people! Traveling teaches you so many life lessons that you won't regred it! TRAVEL! :) 

STAY POSTED to read about my holiday in Barcelona :)

 

Last days in Koh Tao

The next morning me and Steve went to eat breakfast together and after it was time for him to leave for a snorkling trip with his friends. While Emilie was hanging out with the dutch man I was enjoy myself by the pool reading magazines. People who know me can imagine that I wasn't staying still for a long time.. I went to walk around the beach and the walking streets. Just enjoying and taking it all in. I walked all the way to the very end of the beach and I found a lovely swing from there! I sat there a long time with my mango juice admiring the view and enjoy the day.

 

 

 

Then it was time for our snorkling trip through Pooh's diving place. I waited for Emilie and she was really late so we missed the trip. I coulda gone but I already had been snorkling there so I wasnt' that eager to pay again..

 

I tried to sunbathe for a while on the beach but it was so hot day that I could barely lie down for 5 minutes and I had to go to swim. The first time ever was when I felt even more hot in the water than on the beach. The water was boiling hot! So I decided to go back to the cool pool and then to take a nap. I was in the room maybe for 20 minutes or so when I woke up to a knock on the door and Steve was back from his trip! :)

 

In the evening it was Castle party time at this wanna be castle place.. While we were getting ready I was starting to feel a bit sad since Steve was supposed to be leaving early in the morning and I was having a huge crush on him.. I really enjoyed his company and being around him. But Steve surprised me that he and his friends had decided to stay one more day longer in Koh Tao.. I wonder whose idea it was to stay.. ;) So suddenly we gained an extra day to be together.

 

The party was supposed to be THE after party of the full moon party... Well, it wasn't. We took a taxi with punch of other people to there. We were Emilie, Jeroen the dutch guy, me and Steve and also some of his friends were there too. At the party we stared at the stars and Steve showed me the galaxy. :) Not much else to say about the party, that's how good it was :)

 

Then on the Saturday morning after eating breakfast together it was time to start packing... I was leaving at 9 pm, so we still had the whole day but I was feeling really down. Would all this fairytale end now? :(

 

We checked out from the hotel and we left our backs at the reception for the day. We had a nice day together! We hang out on the beach and in the boiling water. I went to say bye to Pooh and then we treated ourselved and went to eat in a restaurant. So far we had always eaten from the street food booths, Pad Thai! :D

 

We had talked a little about what would happen after I'd leave but at the restaurant Steve wanted to look for the tickets to come and visit me in Finland! After eating it was sunset time and we took couple of pictures together.

 

 

 

I was feeling reallllyyy sad when the time got closer and closer to nine o'clock. I suck at saying goodbye so I wasn't looking forward to that.. And I knew I would cry so..

 

Before leaving we were trying to find Steve a place to stay but places were really booked and expensive. We found him a place to sleep in a closed restaurant or small pub... Free and uncomfortable.

 

Kissing someone goodbye really ain't the easiest thing to do.. Especially when you in such a short time feel like I felt for him.. We agreed on dating and keeping in touch.. We had roughly planned a date when he would come and visit me in Finland..  We have been in touch since the day we met. Eventually he came after me to visit me in Finland for two weeks in the summer and I went to England to meet his parents. Now we have lived together for 10 weeks in Finland! And today, we have beem together for 6 months. :) <3 

 

 

 

Still enjoying Koh Tao

On a Thursday morning we went to eat breakfast together with Steve to a buffet which was included in the price of our room. Emilie didn't want to eat so it was just the two of us. After eating we had this big plan to go and try to chance our room to a smaller two bedroom one since Emilie didn't have so much money and she was willing to sleep on the floor with her sleeping back. Our plan worked out well and they got us a smaller room and to our surprise when we went in, there happened to be two beds of which one was a double! So we actually ended up paying less for a almost same size room!  We were lucky that they even had free rooms since after the full moon party the island is packed and there are usually no free beds anywhere..

In the morning or early afternoon we hang by the pool enjoying the sunny day. On the boat over Emilie had met this older Dutch guy traveling alone so Emilie left for the island's  view point with him, I didn't wanna join them since I had already been there. Me and Steve were left alone and we went to walk around and do some shopping. On the way Steve finally forced me to go to the pharmacy  to get something for my throat which was soooooo painful and had been already for days.. I got these pills and pain killers and they cost me a lot (in BAHTs..)! We also went to meet Pooh since she wanted to give me some t-shirt to give it to her friend back in Finland.

The day went past really fast just wandering around and figuring our plans for the night. When Emilie was back we went to watch the sunset with her while Steve was somewhere with his friends. Me and Emilie booked a snorkling / diving trip for the next day. 

After the sunset we walked back to our room and there was a short power cut and the whole island went dark right after the sunset. See below.

Shower and pad thai time was next. Poor backpackers that we were we spotted some free drink coupons and of course went to have those at this one bar. Then we went to our hotel's outdoor restaurant / bar and ALL of Steve's friends happened to be there too.. I was a bit nervous since they had noticed him being with me all the time and I was nervous what they might think of me. Me, Emilie, the Dutch man Jeroen and Steven hang out together while Jeroen insisted buying us beers all the time! I really really did enjoy myself that night! We also went to the next door bar CanCun for couple of more beers after most of Steve's friends had left. 

I have written to my notes of this day: The best night ever! 

Koh Tao part 2

Once I arrived back to Koh Tao I immediately noticed Pooh in the harbor and we left with her scooter. We drove first to her beautiful bungalow on the hill, not far from Sairee beach! I absolutely loved it!! So cozy and felt like home! Then she showed me where she worked at Sairee beach in this diving place almost at the end of the beach.

Steep hill to her bungalow

The view !! 

When she had to work I headed straight down to the beach to sunbathe. After like 15 minutes or so I was soaking wet so I left for a walk around by the beach. I ended up eating at this Eltoro place with wifi. She had promised me to use her scooter to get around more easily. Well, I had never driven one so I was nervous.. But I figured that it cannot be that difficult since so many people drive those things everywhere. I drove myself back to her place and up to that steep hill. My heart rate must have been like a million after I shut the engine and I was fine! :D Grabbing my gym clothes with me and I was off again, tho this time I couldn't start the engine anymore... There were these chickens coming from nowhere just where I was parked at! I laughed to myself alone there with me, the scooter and the chickens!! Hilarious! Anyway, after trying to start the engine for a while without any result, I gave up. (Only afterwards I found out that you need to take the stand off before trying to start it...) 

Nice warm out to walk to the gym. The gym was modern western gym with mostly free weights there. It was really expensive, I think I paid 200 BAHT for a one day pass! It included water and a towel. In that small gym there were 11 men and me. They looked at me just a bit when I entered the gym.. :D 

After the work out it had become dark and since I love stars I decided to walk to the beach and hang out there. I also went to a restaurant called Hippo bar. Then at around 10 ish I walked back to Pooh's place where she was already waiting for me. 

On a Wednesday morning I woke up facing the wall like 10 cm from my face and there were two small lizards there.. After absolutely freaking out and watching those for a while the eventually crawled down under the bed from the corner of the walls and the bed.. That was enough sleep for me and I went to take a shower.. Pooh had already left and I had to walk to the beach once again.. Down by the hill there came this young looking girl driving her scooter so I figured I might as well try to get a ride from her. The first thing she told me was that why am I going to the beach since it was a tide and there was no water on the beach.. I went for a breakfast and I got a message from Steve telling me that he was finally on the island and wanted to see me.. I was really cautious with him since after all we had only just met and currently he was with 9 of his friends. 

I told him that I'm gonna go to the beach if he would want to see me. I had been on the beach like 10 minutes when I saw him walking down the beach straight towards me.. I was so nervous! :D I ended up hanging out with him the whole afternoon. Since I was waiting for the French girl Emilie to arrive and we didn't have any place to stay and neither did Steve. So me and Steve went to this Wind resort hotel to get a room for three. Steve was traveling alone around the world but now he was having a holiday with his friends who were on a slightly different budget what came to hotels or restaurants etc.. 

Then we walked to Pooh's place to pick up my stuff and the rest of the day we hang out by the pool waiting for Emilie to arrive and catch something to eat together. When Emilie arrived she was a bit surprised of the whole situation since only like five days before we had been traveling together in the northern Thailand and now there was this guy hanging out with me.. She obviously she had plenty of questions for me to answer... But I guaranteed to her that we where just friends and nothing really going on. Didn't take long since I had to eat my words.. 

In the evening we all left to walk on the beach with our beers with us. We ended up at the end of the beach sitting on these huge rocks listening to live music from the close by restaurant, talking and admiring the starry sky. Rather soon we had to move since the water was raising really really fast and the rocks were getting under the water. 

We walked back to our hotel and there was some party going on near by which ended at 4 am so only after that we were able to get some sleep.

FULL MOON PARTY!

Then, at 11pm it was time to start drifting to the beach from the restaurant (20 meters..). There were two small boats and so many people that we were wondering how on earth are we going to fit in those.. These small boats, almost like rowing boats but only with engines, would have probably seated around 20 persons but in our boat there were 40 people.. Behind and next to me and Marie there were some Spanish guys sitting and they offered us a towel, and at first we wondered why.. Well, once the journey got started we noticed how much the water splashed inside.. Not long after we were already soaked and with the towel tried to cover our faces and our make ups.. :D The whole boat trip lasted around 30 minutes and it went so slowly. The full moon was nice tho! And it felt like it was really low :) Once we came around the corner and saw the huge beach and all the lights and started going closer we noticed the noise and how many people there were on the beach! At the beach our boat captain accidentally collided into another boat and we thought that both of them broke down. People jumped from the boat but since I'm not the tallest I didn't wanna get totally wet by jumping to the water..

At first I was a bit terrified of the party since it was so crazy in there! We agreed on a place where to meet if someone got lost. I didn't even feel like drinking since I had heard so many horror stories from the party. Little by little I started feeling better and me and Marie always shared a bucket of alcohol and we were really careful of looking after it. People were wearing neon colored t-shirts, vests, shorts etc! Everyone had body paints painted all over! Of course we had to go and buy some too! 

I'm not even sure what to write about the full moon party because it was just something you have to experience yourself. Local people said after the party that on the busiest months there are from 7 000 to 13 000 people. Now there might have been around 5 000 people.

We changed places quite often because the music was different in different places. And of course me and Marie wandered around the beach by ourselves and between the beach on the walking street. We sat down on the walking street and met some guy from France and he was so annoying! We sat in front of this massage place with ladyboys. Me and Marie ended up writing to his back ladyboy cause he wanted us to write something but to our opinion he was quite annoying.. :D

While we were hanging around close by the main stage I went to buy some water for Pucca who wasn't feeling that well.. I went alone to the closest booth there and bought the water.. Then I colllided into this wanna be Ukrainian guy from UK. ;) He ended up spending the night with me and my friends cause he had lost his friends and hopefully because he enjoyed our company also. :D  We sat on the beach talking and also drinking once in a while. Before we noticed it was time to head back to our resort, it was 7.30 am and we hadn't even noticed the night go by.

My friends left for our resort but I decided to stay with this special guy. We stayed at the party for a little longer. The beach started to get emptier but still the hard core party animals (definitely not me! xD) stayed there. The sun was rising even higher and it was breakfast time. We spent the day at the beach or the walking street trying to haggle the prices down for me to get back to my resort.. Well, I hadn't really thought it through all the way since I didn't realize that no one wanted to drive just me back to my resort.. The boat rides were expensive and the taxis were asking so much.. I ended up giving my facebook to Steven and eventually we managed to haggle to taxi price to 900 BAHT.. It took my almost 90 minutes by taxi to get back to my resort..

Back at my resort I had tons of questions to answer while floating in the ocean. Some of our group had a huge hangover and we had fun laughing and teasing some of us.. After hanging a while on the beach we headed towards the near by water fall which ended up being a total disappointment! It wasn't even a waterfall.. Just water coming down on some near by hill.. Around 7 pm we ate at the resort's restaurant and I was so tired since I hadn't slept at all! Right after eating I had to go to bed, the others didn't stay up much longer after me.

Tuesday morning! 

On Tuesday morning I was dead tired even though I had a proper good night sleep.. I hang most of my morning in the hammock and my thoughts were constantly going to this man I met.. The previous day he had sent me a message on facebook that he would want to meet me on Koh Tao were accidentally both of us were going..

We ate again at the restaurant and were talking a lot about the service in there, it was so poor and slow! Mai Pen Rai is a simple phrase that sums up the attitudes in Thailand.  It basically means no worries or don't worry about it. And it definitely did just that! We went to eat early to have enough time to eat slowly before we had to leave. Eventually we almost had to grab the food with us to make it to the taxi.. The taxi journey felt so long once again. Me, Marie and Lea went to the beach next to the harbour after the taxi journey was over. When all the others left I stayed alone for couple of more hours and I went for a strawberry juice and update my friends back home that I was still alive after the party. I quite enjoyed being alone. :)

 

Then It was time for me to head towards the boat back to Koh Tao. Back home in Finland one of my client is Thai and her friend lives in Koh Tao. So I had sent her a message on facebook and she had offered me to stay at her place for the night! :) Back to Koh Tao and towards relaxed days on the beach!! :)

Koh Phangan

The next morning me and David were really sporty, we got up around 7 am and headed to the long beach for a morning jog!! The view and the silence were breathtaking. It was weird to run barefoot but so nice to feel the soft sand under your feet. :) Then we headed straight to enjoy the buffet! We ate so much in there! Delicious! 

Then we left for driving around the island. In the beginning it was rather difficult since we had many strong persons and each had opinions where to go to. We drove to this view point on the top of the island. I've never seen roads like that. They literally were so steep that when I went to lay down I was basically standing! The scooters weren't strong enough to get us up the steepest hills! The higher you went to roads became sand roads and had HUGE holes in them from the rains.. 

The view point was nice, tho we had to pay like 200 BAHT each to go there!! There was one small hut there and some local people were smoking pot there. We climbed even higher than the view point and it was nice there. But on our way down from the view point Marie fell with her scooter.. Our scooter was the first going down and we noticed some sand on the asphalt and shouted to Marie driving behind us to be careful.. Then we heard a huge crash but we couldn't stop immediately since the road was so steep. David ran back up and me and Lea waited with the scooter but when we didn't heard from them we went back up too to check the situation. Marie was okey considering the situation. Her legs were scratchy, and arms too.. The scooter was in bad shape.. Marie was brave enough to drive it back down even tho the roads were scary! We got our backs from the hotel and headed to negotiate the price we'd have to pay..

I can't remember how much we paid but it must have been around 1000 BAHT or so. Then we had time so we headed towards some restaurant on the beach just to enjoy the day and try to forget what had happened. :) The boat was SO OVERBOOKED!! That it was even a bit scary.. We literally didn't have any space, we stayed on the roof of the boat laying down on the bow of the boat.. I felt so sea sick there cause I only felt the rough sea and didn't see anything. Most people there were feeling a bit sick. Some young people on the boat were already drunk for the full moon party..

At the harbor we again waited for a while for people to take taxis to their resorts. We wanted to book tickets back before heading to our resort. Since the others were all working in Bangkok they had to leave back on Tuesday and I had decided to go back to Koh Tao since I really liked the island a lot! After our tickets were booked we took a taxi to our resort in the northeast of the island. The road to the resort was crazy!!! Dangerous! The journey there took almost an hour even tho the island is not that big but the driver had to drive really slowly to get there and to survive from the roads. Once we got there, omg, WHAT A PARADISE! I've only seen pictures and scenes in movies and this time it was real. Unbelievable. The resort was surrounded by the ocean and jungle. In the middle of nowhere. Internet worked only near the reception. One restaurant. Beach. Bungalows. That's it. 

We were already so amazed from the resort's restaurant and the beach but once we started walking towards our bungalows I was speechless. We all were.  My words definitely won't do the justice to the place and the location were it was. We had to walk on the beach, climb on the slippery rocks at the end of the beach, almost crawl under this huge rock and once we opened the door to the bungalow.. WOU! Check the photos! 

After getting over the shock of how amazing the paradise resort was we changed to our swimsuits and went to swim around 6.30pm! Then it was time to take showers, decide our clothes for the full moon party and head to eat at the only restaurant in our paradise resort. Then it was time for the FULL MOON PARTY!