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Asia

Thailand – Ko phi phi & Krabi

  1. First day in Penang, Malaysia
  2. Settling in – To work in Penang
  3. Weekend trip to Singapore
  4. Wrapping up life in Penang
  5. Beach hopping in Phuket, Thailand…
  6. Thailand – Ko phi phi & Krabi
  7. 12m cliffjump in Phi Phi Laguna, Thailand

The next morning i took the ferry to Krabi and I just spent most of my evening in the hostel room and rested up. I slept so much and the next morning I was finally feeling well and from there on out I didn’t have any problems with my stomach.

The evening before I wanted to go drink a beer but I decided to abstain so as to not push my luck. The hostel had a really nice bar though!

Around noon I took the plane out of Krabi to Kuala Lumpur and that was the last I saw of Thailand.

My buddy over at loosetranslations.com has made a great post about Kuala Lumpur if you’re interested

Beach hopping in Phuket, Thailand…

  1. First day in Penang, Malaysia
  2. Settling in – To work in Penang
  3. Weekend trip to Singapore
  4. Wrapping up life in Penang
  5. Beach hopping in Phuket, Thailand…
  6. Thailand – Ko phi phi & Krabi
  7. 12m cliffjump in Phi Phi Laguna, Thailand

… or how I ended up sleeping on a beach, waking up with the sun on a beach chair at Lam Seng

An introduction to Phuket

I don’t even know where to begin. I started my trip what seems like ages ago – although it was only 16 days ago. The first week I spent in Thailand: Phuket – Ko Phi Phi – Krabi. This post is about Phuket.

Phuket was interesting. It was very touristy – especially around Patong Beach; The party beach of Phuket. However, I was very lucky that Alena whom I met last year on my trans-siberian railroad trip in Irkutsk near the beautiful Baikal Lake were able to meet up for the 4 days I was in phuket.

To all of you that don’t know phuket. It’s an island that is connected by bridge to mainland Thailand. It has 15 beaches and a buckload of (white) tourists. The most touristed beach is Patong beach which is also where the infamous Bangla Road is; A road about 200meters long with only bars and 100’s (yes!) of people trying to sell everything from cheap shots to russian girls to ping pong shows. Too much for me as I’m looking for something a little less “set-up”.

Lam Seng Beach

So basically what we did every day was rent a moto-bike and go beach hopping. South the first day, north the second and east the third 🙂 We found some good beaches but the best experience in my opinion was a beach called lam seng beach (from memory) which had no swimming and there was pretty much noone but the local shopkeepers. We sat down, got a beer and enjoyed the view. As the hour progressed we got to talking with the local guy (who had a pet monkey btw) and he offered thai whiskey. Before long i could of course not drive the moto home and it also started raining. So they offered us to sleep at their place which we did. We had thai whiskey and beer and talked with the guys in the shop (who also lived and slept there) and fell asleep under a beach umbrella in the cool rain with pillows and blankets. We woke up at 6:30 with the sun next morning and drove home. Truly amazing.

Lam seng beach
Lam seng beach
Pet Monkey :)
Pet Monkey eating my head:)

Conclusion

We had a great time beach hopping but I must say that I don’t really like Thailand that much and we did see a lot of dirty places and less than sanitary restaurants. Moto riding is fun in Thailand though – perhaps worse than in Penang. I got some great moto gopro footage but that will have to come later

Wrapping up life in Penang

  1. First day in Penang, Malaysia
  2. Settling in – To work in Penang
  3. Weekend trip to Singapore
  4. Wrapping up life in Penang
  5. Beach hopping in Phuket, Thailand…
  6. Thailand – Ko phi phi & Krabi
  7. 12m cliffjump in Phi Phi Laguna, Thailand

It’s been a while but Penang has been keeping me busy. Usually I go out every night – either for a bit of food, to smoke a shisha or just for a pint. This means I’m kinda tired in the evenings and just end up watching netflix and falling asleep. The last two weeks of my stay I’ve been working a little later than usual and I’ve been answering emails (working) to get the last work done before finishing the project I was assigned.

In the weekends I usually travel myself somewhere (Langkawi, Singapore) or as in the case of the last weekend I had two friends, Grace and Marilyn, visiting from Singapore. I was also home in Europe one week (including two weekends) so I’ve been kept busy!

Life itself is starting to settle in. There was a period after about a month where you kinda have seen the most obvious places and where everything stops being super exciting but you don’t really have any good friends that you can always call up and have a chat with as they are all going about their own lives as well. But after two months you’ve seen the same faces a couple of times and you start to get an actual friendship going which is nice. Unfortunately now it’s time to leave. I’d imagine that given 6 months in Penang I’d start to feel almost at home.

Settling in to a new place
Settling in to a new place

Sorry about my less than amazing MS Paint skills. Strangely enough I haven’t really had this problem although I’ve been on long term abroad stays before. I guess the vast difference in culture just gets to you – you don’t even know how to order food or what you’re supposed to do at night. My colleagues from work made everything a lot easier though and took me out to do stuff which was very appreciated!

But on a more positive note I’m gonna miss Penang until I’m back around 22. september as I’ve really started to grow fond of the place. I’ve also taken a liking to Moto-bike riding which is like a scooter in Denmark but they go over 100km/t and there are virtually no laws when you are on one – so it’s nothing like at home 🙂 If I were to stay longer I would definitely buy one.

I also had my 30th birthday and was celebrated by all my friends here and even the Hotel staff 🙂

Also, Shaun you British wanker, I’ll be seeing you around

IMG_20150831_233321

So I finally finished project Friday the 28. and september 2. I was on the way to Phuket! This flight marks the beginning of a 3 week vacation around south east asia and I have no idea where I’ll end up going but Borneo, Redang, Perhentian, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Bali and even Sydney are good choices.

Till next time Penang!
/Andreas