Ellen Lin : backpacking

Showing posts with label backpacking. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Travellen Chronicles: Koh Tao and Phagnan

After Hua Hin we went took a overnight cargo boat from Chumphon to Koh Tao. It was only my brother and I with a bunch of cargo workers. Despite it all, I slept like a brick and in six hours we landed in the beautiful Koh Tao at 6am.

Chumphon

Cargo Ship

Hello Koh Tao

This island is super touristy as it is a resort town but it has its charm and is easy to get lost in. Every night on the beach there are fire dancers and performers as well as on the beach bungalows to relax in. Right when we got to our hostel, we booked a snorkeling tour for the same day, had breakfast, changed, and got picked up to go snorkeling.

The first stop I literally almost died. A couple of factors:

1) Crazy waves and wind
2) No life jacket
3) I can't swim too well

So after having my life flash before my eyes and every breath I take being a mouth full of sea water as well as being slapped in the face by waves, one of the tour guides came to my rescue and I was back on board. My brother puked because of motion sickness, and the other four girls didn't go snorkeling after that first stop. BUT after seeing how the waters were so much calmer in the 2nd stop I jumped on in...with a life jacket of course and it was crazy amazing. The last stop of our tour was Koh NangYuan. There is a 100 bht entry fee and you are not allowed to bring any plastic onto the island. Seems very effective since the whole place was free of trash but filled with tourists. We climbed up to the viewpoint and got a sweet view, I am definitely coming back here to get PADI certified in June. We got back to our hostel at around mid afternoon so I took a nap and then went to a Hatha Yoga class across the street. It was whatever, nothing challenging, the flow was choppy and the instructor kind of sucked. Oh well,

Touristy stuff in Koh Tao

The next day we took a four hour ferry ride to Koh Phangnan and met up with our friend, Harry, at Baan Tai Backpackers Hostel. Very cool hostel with a nice vibe, right across the street from the beach. That night a bunch of us went to The Black Moon Festival which we were wary about at first since it costed about 600 bht for a ticket but I had a lot of fun, mainly because of the company of a certain German boy. The party used to be on the beach but this time it moved to a new location, up in the mountains. There was one dance floor with only Psy Trance playing all night as well as small vendors fire shows, and an area of fire pits overlooking the island. Met a lot of fellow travelers and had great conversations all night down at the pits. It was a cycle of talking, getting a drink, and going pee. We left around 4am, negotiated a 100 bht/person motorbike taxi back to our hostel and walked across the street to watch the sunrise on the beach :) Then I passed out at 6am and checked out at noon to make our way back north where my brother leaves for India and me to Chiang Mai.

Tourists on the ferry

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Travellen Chronicles: Hua Hin and Phraya Nakhon Cave, Thailand

Hua Hin Train Station

Phra Nakhon Cave

When I was researching preparing things I wanted to see in Thailand, stumbled upon a picture of the Phra Nahkon cave on reddit in r/caveporn and immediately went "I HAVE TO GO THERE." It has only been a little over a week into my trip and feel like seeing the splendor of the Phra Nakhon cave to be a major highlight.

However, figuring out how to get there was no easy task. There was next to no information on the cave besides booking an expensive package tour which we knew was a rip off. After doing some research, we booked a bus to Hua Hin which is around three hours south-east of Bangkok near the Gulf of Thailand. Although we missed our real bus at 3:15 pm, we got on the next one on 6 pm haha. It was a small shuttle bus that only seats about ten people and the most odd thing was halfway through we stopped along side of the road and this shoddy looking Thai man wearing a gold chain demanded to see every ones ticket. The thing was, ours was taken at the bus station before we boarded the vehicle, he didn't understand English, and my brother and I were the only foreigners in the bus. He seemed really angry so thank god this lady in front of us asked us where our tickets were and where we were headed so she told the man and he gestured with his hands to be on our way. He didn't look like a bus worker or anything and it didn't look like a bus stop. Who knows who he was, mafia? haha.

The brother

After three hours, we made it to Hua Hin! It is a small beach town that is pretty resorty where Thais come here on vacation as well as a lot of westerners but was a pleasant surprise. The vibe is super chill, the night market is filled with cute things to buy and the city is known for their bomb sea food. The hostel we stayed in is called Tin Tarad. Super clean, homey with nice air conditioned rooms, good location and great staff but the only downside is that there is no common room to meet other travelers.

Clean room with free water? Yes please.

Seafood dish and BBQ skewers

Sea food coconut milk soup

Breakfast before visiting the cave.

The next day we woke up super early and booked a bus to Pranburi which took around an hour. When we got there, we tried to communicate that we wanted to go to Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, it took forever. Then after negotiating a price and waiting, a car showed up and we got in. Our driver was awesome, funny, and informative; he even stopped mid way to quickly buy some fried banana for us to eat. The drive was about 45 minutes and I got to see some amazing mountain formations on the way. We got to the national park at around 9 am, paid a 100 baht entry fee. You have the option to take a 800 baht boat along side the coast that takes you 10 minutes from the cave, or trek 2 km there. The boat ride seemed like a rip off and we like trekking so we did the latter. The trek was amazing, there was a little bit of everything; we walked past a small beach with cute bungalows, climbed up a lot of stone steps that reminded me of my Machu Picchu trek, and saw beds of beautiful limestone rocks.

Fried banana

Rock porn

Then at 10 am we were the first ones at the cave, before the tourists came, and when the lighting was absolutely perfect. I was overwhelmed with how tranquil and wondrous this place was, my eyes and heart were bursting with feelings and completely was at peace the entire time (and I was also sweating buckets ). After taking lots of pictures, doing a quick sketch, and bending into some yoga poses, we decided to leave after the place got filled with school kids on a field trip.

We left the next morning to Chumphon via train where we are going to make our way to the island of Koh Tao and Koh Phangan. Hua Hin's train station is the most beautiful in all of Thailand, I found this out after I sat there for 2.5 hours painting it haha. It was funny since before I knew it, a lot of people have gathered behind me as well as a group of Taiwanese tourists who were pointing their DSLRs at me. A bit flattering, but also nerve wracking.

Reading some Steinbeck! Cannery Row.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Travellen Chronicles: The Beginning

What I will be living out of for the next 4.5 months.

I am finally here in Thailand at the start of my 4.5 month backpacking trip through South East Asia with no definite plan. A few days ago I was boarding my plane at LAX watching the Los Angeles city lights slowly disappear as the plane took off. I had middle seat on two of my flights and had layovers in Japan and Singapore before getting to Bangkok but I made it!

After getting off the plane, I took the City Line train into the city where I switched to the BTS Skytrain three times to get to my hostel where I would meet my brother. I really like the metro system in Bangkok, it reminds me of Taipei, very efficient and clean. My brother has been travelling for 2 months and we are going to spend about a week together before he flies off to India and Nepal and I move on to the north. We spent the day eating delicious street food and walking around seeing the city, I saw some protest sites but I never felt unsafe as the US media wanted me to.

My first coconut! I forsee at least 100 more.

We went to MPK which is a huggeeee department mall that has everything where my brother got a mount for his GoPro and I got a SIM for my iphone. Then literally minutes after I got my iphone working, I dropped it and cracked the screen, WELCOME TO THAILAND, ELLEN. Oh well, I also don't forsee myself topping up my sim because wifi is everywhere. For the rest of the evening we took a ferry down to check out a night market, to our dismay it was a posh touristy one but it was still fun. We had curry for dinner and some shaved ice for dessert, afterwards we got massages. 9 Dollars for a 1 hour thai massage? Fuck yes.

The next day we made our way to The National Palace. It was blazing hot and here in Thailand, a strict dress code is enforced for temples. So that means sleeves and legs need to be covered at least to mid calf. I was sweating balls but the Palace was HUGE and absolutely gorgeous, we also had a hilarious tour guide that was all jokes as well as informed us about Thailand's history, royal family, and customs.

The longest painting in the world. Depicting the history of Thailand.

We were near Khao San Road, a road known for its nightlife, so we taxi'd over there and met up with our friend. We set up base at Silk Bar for a few hours on the balcony seat where we ate, ordered a beer tower, and people watched as the sun went down as the road became party town. This street is ridiculous, its filled with travelers and everyone is fucked up. Nitrus Oxide (laughing gas) was being sold on the streets as well as scorpions on skewers. We went to a club at night and it was just filled with fist pumping and bro-tanks that got old fast (aka was too sober). If I wanted to spend money on alcohol, I would rather do it in a location where I wouldn't feel like I'd be ear-raped. It was still a good time but I was knackered from the day so we called it a night and went back around 1am.