Day 16: Ko Samui to Ko Phangan and back

-So Marco and I took a day trip to Ko Phangan to check out where the full moon festival would take place. We took a ferry over, which took about 45 minutes.

-Once we got over there we realized how happy we were that our hotel was on Ko Samui. During the day Ko Phangan seemed like a mess. The beach was just gross and smelt so bad. It's definitely the type of place where you go to party and drink. There's really nothing else to do there.

The beach:

Where we had some tea:

-Anyway, Marco and I walked around and explored. We had some tea at this nice little store run by a foreigner. We walked along the un-stinky side of the beach and decided to catch the earlier ferry home.

-Once back at the hotel we did nothing of course. We did discover a super cheap restaurant across the street though.

Day 15: Ko Samui

-Today was just a big beach day of laziness. We ate some complimentary breakfast facing the ocean. Then we sat, read our books, and did nothing. Marco finished The Golden Compass and loved it. I finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which was amazing. I then started on Lord of the Flies, which everyone thinks I'm crazy for reading but I missed out on it in middle school and have always wanted to know what happens to Piggy. I successfully avoided getting burnt, but not stung. There are these weird invisible stingy things in the ocean here that are pretty painful. Some people seem to just ignore them but Marco and I could not.

The view from our deck chairs:

Just relaxing:

Marco reading:

The Book Thief- highly recommended, a great book:

Day 14: Phuket to Ko Samui

-We woke up for a 6:45am last buffet breakfast, checked out and left the hotel by 7:30am.

-We were a little early to the airport so lounged around before flying to Ko Samui in a tiny little plane.

-Once we landed we took a mini-bus from the airport and got dropped off at the wrong hotel. We were a little disappointed because once we realized we couldn't drink the delicious mango juice that they had given us. Luckily they were super nice and called the bus company to take us to the correct hotel.

Map of Ko Samui Island:

The bay our hotel (Chaweng Resort) is located in:

-We finally got to our hotel. It's not nearly as nice as the one in Phuket but it's perfect for what we need. There's a small pool and some chairs by the beach.

-Ate some delicious Indian food for lunch and took a brief afternoon nap before finally heading out to  the beach to catch some last minute sun rays. Our hotel is on the wrong side of the island to see the sunset but it was still gorgeous.

-We walked along the beach to find somewhere for dinner and then walked on further to the Arc Bar. The Arc Bar is a big backpacker hangout. We got a drink and were accosted by a monkey. This guy was trying to make us pay for a picture with his monkey and decided to try convince us by just dumping the poor monkey on us. We didn't buy the picture.

Day 13: Phuket and Ko Phi Phi

-We woke up early in the morning to have some breakfast before our 8am departure time. We signed up for a day trip to the Phi Phi islands the day before.

-We arrived at the super busy and chaotic boat harbor where tons of people were waiting to go on their various tours. We were told ours would be smaller, but nevertheless we had 35 people crammed onto one small speedboat. Only the people sitting at the very front could see the water.

-We snorkeled off of Khai Nai island. There was surprisingly a lot of fish and most of the people only snorkeled right next to the beach, so once you got out there were even more. The tour gave us bread to feed the fish and Marco loved to throw it at me so I was swarmed. We walked around the island some and had a beer, and ended up being 10 minutes late to the boat (somebody heard the time wrong and wouldn't believe me...).

Views of the island:

-We moved onto another island- Hin Klang- where we snorkeled from off of the boat. This place was almost better because other tour boats weren't there. We saw some beautiful fish and everything from my marine biology tours came back to me.

Hin Klang island:

-It was still a little too early to go to lunch so we boated over to Bamboo Island to lounge around on the white sands and enjoy the bright blue water. This time we were back to the boat on time and managed to sit right at the front.

Marco and I in front of the water:

Me:

-We scooted on over to lunch on what I believe was Leamtong Beach (I lost my itinerary so am trying to piece this together). There was a buffet full of pretty gross food if I'm being honest. I stuck with plain white rice and spaghetti.

-Monkey Beach was next. The tide was too high for us to go onto the beach so we fed the monkeys from the boat. They just sat in the trees and we handed them bananas. One of them tried to jump onto our boat but was pushed off (these monkeys swim apparently). This was Marco's favourite part of the trip hands down.

Marco feeding the monkey:

-We made our way over to Phi Phi Ley. We passed through Viking Cave, where locals apparently collect bird nests to make bird nest soup. Then we went through Lho Samah Bay and Phi Leh Cove, both of which were gorgeous.

Viking Cave:

The bay:

The cove:

-Our last stop was Maya Bay, which is where The Beach was filmed. Unfortunately it was pretty touristy and tons of boats were there, but if you looked past that you could see how beautiful a place it was. Marco and I swam most of the time and waited early for the boat so we could get a place in the front for the final journey back.

Marco and I in front of the bay:

-On the way back our boat ran out of gas so the crew pulled over to another island until another boat arrived with fuel. We didn't want to bob along on the water since many people, myself included, were feeling a little sea sick. Lets just say there are worse places to be stranded than a beautiful island. All of the tourists had left also. The only downside was when the guide mentioned this is the island with sharks around it. Right after we had been swimming of course and at sunset.

Our deserted island:

The impossible dock to walk on:

-We finally made it back to the pier, and after a terrifyingly fast car drive we made it back to the hotel. Unfortunately we were just a few minutes late for the sunset, and for happy hour.

-We took one last swim in the pool and booked our van to the airport the next morning. Yet again we ate at the same restaurant. Italian for me, and a seafood buffet for Marco- his heaven.
Marco's heaven:

Day 12: Phuket Pool Day

-Ate a delicious buffet breakfast. It's the closest I'm going to get to a Mag Muff bacon, egg, and cheese in a long time.

-We had a lazy day lounging by the pool and didn't leave the hotel all day.

-Ate some pizza for lunch then bought some drinks at happy hour. Found out that the delicious mango tango we had been drinking was not alcoholic. Oops.

-We ended up watching the sunset from the balcony again. We tried to walk over to the pier but half of the resort is closed for reconstruction.

View of the pier we tried to get to:

-We ended up eating Italian for dinner again. We've had way too much rice and tandoori chicken in the past week. Then played some cards before heading to bed.

Day 11: Penang to Phuket

-Had breakfast at the hotel before taking a taxi to the airport.

-Once we were through security we wandered around looking for food, unfortunately most of it was pre-security.

-Had an hour-long plane ride to Phuket where we took a mini-bus to our hotel. Of course they stopped half-way to 'find out which hotel we were going to' (aka shameless ploy to try and make us by day trips around the island with them).

Flight over Phuket:

-We stayed at the Amari Coral Beach resort which was gorgeous. It was so nice and beautiful. We used a discount hotel website and managed to get a deluxe room overlooking the water. After settling in, and drinking some delicious lemongrass tea, we went to the pool to relax. Had a pina colada in a coconut and then a couple more drinks during happy hour. It was paradise.

Marco at the restaurant with our pina coladas:

The beautiful pool (my camera was a little humid):

-We watched the sun go down from our balcony and then ate a delicious Italian meal.

View from the balcony:

Me on the beach:

-Walked into town after dinner, but it was pretty deserted and touristy so we went back up to the hotel.

Day 10: Cameron Highlands to Penang

-We had the worst night sleep ever as someone was trying to fix the door across the hall at 1am in the morning. It was the loudest, squeakiest thing ever. Luckily another girl came out to complain and they stopped.

-We woke up early to get ready for our 4 hour jungle trek. We met the guide outside the store and walked off to the jungle! It was pretty cool. We climbed to the top of a mountain, saw a turtle in the path, and generally just examined the vegetation and trees around us. The tour guide- a Malaysian Indian- had two main conversation topics: 1. food, 2. money. The money part was a little awkward as he kept talking about his budget and that. The food part just made me hungry as he was pretty much naming every single food he knew. We also walked along to a little waterfall across town. It was pretty average.

Huge lemons:

In the banana leaves:

King of the jungle with a crown of ferns (made by our guide):

 At the top of the mountain:

The turtle we saw:

Trying to swing Tarazan style and failing:

The mini waterfall:

-After the tour we walked into town and had some more lunch at the Indian cafe.

-Our minibus to Penang picked us up from the hostel at 2pm and we prepared  for our long (5 hours) journey back to Penang.

-We finally got back to the hostel in Penang and had dinner at another hostel on Love Lane. We learnt it was called Love Lane since the rich men in the area used to meet their mistresses there.

-Once done with dinner I skyped with my family finally! I saw our new goldendoodle puppy Hagrid Phinneas Liddell!

Hagrid sleeping:

Day 9: Penang to Cameron Highlands

-We woke up early for a mini-bus ride to the Cameron Highlands. It took about 4 hours but we got some reading in.

-Arrived around 12pm and checked into the KLS Pines. Booked an afternoon tour and went into the town for some Indian food before we set off.

-Our tour picked us up around 1:45pm and we drove off into the mountains! Driving there was probably one of the scariest things ever. The road was pretty much one-lane and we were turning around very sharp corners. However, because this is Malaysia, there were no mirrors around the corners and the driver just had to honk continuously to warn anyone oncoming. There were a few close calls. Plus the driver kept stalling the car, at one point we were just rolling down a hill with no engine.

First view of Teletubbie land (aka tea fields):

-We finally made it to our first destination: Gunung Brinchang, a mountain at 6, 666 feet. Unfortunately it was pretty hazy (we later learnt this was from all the burning of the jungles in Indonesia to make space for one crop harvesting).

Panoramic 1: Created with panoramic setting on my camera, which I just discovered, and a great website: http://www.dermandar.com/create/

Panoramic 2 from the top of the mountain:

Marco climbing the viewing tower:

-We then headed off for a little jungle trekking, or what Marco and I thought was going to be jungle trekking. We were all ready to go with our bug spray, walking shoes, etc. It turned out to be a 10-minute trek through the "Mossy Forest," which my tour brochure here says is the oldest forest. Hmmm.

Marco in the "Mossy Forest:"

Hiking with the guide:

Unfortunately a little blurry, but some of the vegetation in the forest:

-From there we took another treacherous journey to the tea plantation and factory. The Cameron Highlands is a big producer of BOC tea. Marco and I headed right in to have a cup of tea, but apparently we weren't supposed to do that and our tour guide came running after us- we had to do the factory tour first where they told us about how the tea was made. After that we finally had some tea and pastries. The tea fields were just gorgeous. It felt like we were in Telletubbie land.

A panorama of the fields:

Marco the tea farmer:

Another view of the fields:

-We then went to the Butterfly Farm, Strawberry Farm, and Rose Garden. In the butterfly farm it seemed like half the butterflies were dead and just sitting in the leaves. None of them were moving. They had some creepy snakes though and the ugliest creature I have ever seen. It was literally a hairless rat. Disgusting. The Rose Garden was huge. I love things like that but Marco hates them. And the Strawberry Garden was pretty boring. Marco bought a sour strawberry milkshake.

Dead butterfly?

View from the rose gardens:

A strawberry at the farm:

-We headed back but hit this huge traffic jam. What should have taken 30 minutes took about 90 minutes. There was a big night market in the town before Tanah Rata which was the hold up. Once we got back we ate some more Indian food then headed back to the hostel.