Singapore

I had slept on the couch so that Alyssa could have the small air mattress to herself but I had slept surprisingly well. We had put Jane in Yan and Jason's room since she was still pretty sick and coughed throughout the night. Once we were all awake, we knew we needed a plan of how we would see the city since Alyssa and I only had two days there. We didn't really know what was in our area but we had a short list of places that we wanted to visit in the city so we decided to venture out in search of Little India and hopefully find somewhere to eat there. It was a long walk to Little India, but with Alyssa's keen sense of direction and her trusty iPhone GPS, we were able to find it. There weren't many actual restaurants for us to choose from, so we decided upon a little food stand in the middle of a courtyard that a lot of locals were eating at. We each tried to order just the chicken masala and rice but they prended not to understand and gave us a full meal of different things. It was ok in the end though because the extra things they gave us were pretty tasty. The one thing I didn't care for was that all of the Indian people were eating the food with their hands, not with silverware. I know that is their culture and that it is normal for them eat like that but something about people eating with messy hands makes me wasn't to vomit. I had to make sure not to look around at all while we ate. It made me think I might not be well suited to visit India.

After lunch, we walked around the rest of Little India. There were tons of shops packed with shoppers selling gold and jewels and I couldn't figure out how everyone could afford those things. Luckily for us impoverished backpackers, there were also some cheap trinket shops so Jane was able to get a new pair of sunglasses for $3. After wandering for about an hour, I grew bored and so we decided to head back to our side of town.

We stopped at a grocery store to get some provisions for the next few days so that we wouldn't need to eat out and to get some alcohol since they had great pool at the apartment complex and we figured that relaxing poolside with a drink is never a bad choice. The grocery store was pretty pricy so we couldn't end up getting some of our usual staples like yogurt but we were able to get some fruit and snacks. When we got back to the apartment, the clouds had rolled in so we decided it was too cold to go to the pool and instead made drinks and watched "Home Alone" which was the only movie we could find on their tv. That movie is still cute after all these years.

As evening fell, we decided it was time to venture back out into the city. We wanted to go back to China town since we had only gotten a short look at it the night before and figured we could get dinner at one of the many restaurants there. China town was a abuzz with people, most of whom were buying gifts for the New Year. Jane looked for a gift to bring back to Yan and Jason but we couldn't settle upon anything that we liked. We did try some of the beef and pork jerky that they sell up and down the streets. It was really delicious although I didn't think it warranted the line around the block that had formed to purchase it.

 

We ended up walking down one insanely crowded street where they were selling candy. They were different types of mochi and jellies which Alyssa and I are not overly familiar with. We kept asking the salesman questions about different ones and he kept popping them open for us to sample. By the end, we had each eaten about 15 mochis and felt like we were going to throw up. But since we had eaten so much merchandise, we thought we should buy a few. We chose ten mochis and handed them to the guy to weigh. Of course, they charged us three times as much as they said they would and had thrown a bunch of other crap into the bag to increase the weight. In the end, we didn't care much; we should have seen it coming but we were high with sugar, lol.

 

We thought it might be a good idea to get some real food before we crashed from our sugar rush. We tried to get a table at one of the restaurants around us but there was some unspoken line of people waiting in the area, even though they didn't take names or ask how many of you there were. We figured we would end up getting screwed on that since we didn't speak their language and they seemed like they could care less about helping us, so we ended up going back to the same little kiosk that we had eaten at the night before. The food there was cheap and good so we knew we'd be satisfied. After eating, we headed home to wait for Yan and Jason to get home from the airport and tell us about their vacation in Hong Kong. Alyssa and I would be headed there next so we were interested to hear what they recommended for us to do.

 

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Last day in Thailand- Hello Singapore!

We had to leave at 3:30pm to catch our flight to Singapore so we knew that day would be a relaxed one. We woke up, leisurely packed our things and lazed about since check out wasn't until noon. I returned our motorbikes and was relieved to get our passports back without issue. We checked out of our room and walked down towards the beach, in search of a good breakfast spot with wifi. After checking out many menus, we decided on "Karon Cafe", which had a wide variety of breakfast items. The variety is important since we all have very different tastes. Alyssa got the breakfast buffet so that she could have unlimited fruit, muesli and coffee, I got the orange/cinnamon french toast and Jane got some sort of Thai breakfast. Sadly, the wifi was the fake wifi we've come to expect so we couldn't get anything done while we were there.
After breakfast, we all parted ways. Alyssa headed to the beach while Jane went off to do some shopping. I needed to write some post cards and book some of the hostels and flights we would need for China, so I headed back to the hostel where I knew I'd have reliable internet. I was able to complete my post cards, buy stamps and mail them which is quite an accomplishment for me! I then grabbed some lunch at the same restaurant we'd had dinner at the night before to have my last Thai meal. Alyssa spotted me as she was walking back from the beach, so we headed back to the hostel to meet up with Jane and head to the airport.

We had ordered a private car to take us to the airport which was a few dollars more expensive but would also be much quicker than taking the hostel shuttle. I sat in the front seat and I was glad that I did because the driver was crazy kept slamming on the brakes and jerking us around for the whole drive. Alyssa ended up getting really car sick as a result. We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, despite the driver's fears that we would be late. We had purchased our flights separately but had all miraculously ended up in the same row. I was not the other side of the plane, but that was fine since I just wanted to read anyways. The flight was short and easy. When we arrived, we found a cab and were glad that they use the meter in order to determine price instead of the usual bartering we have to do. It was a bit of a drive from the airport to where we were staying, but the drive was beautiful. The city was so advanced looking and they had so many interesting light installations set up along the waterfront. It was clean and well organized and I immediately thought that it was one of the most modern, architecturally beautiful cities I had been in. We were staying at a friend of Jane's who lived in Singapore with her boyfriend. Yan and Jason were very nice to let us crash in the living room for a few nights and we were happy to not have to pay for room and board.

When we got to their apartment, they were still out of town for one more night so we dropped our stuff off and headed out to find some food. We had seen a China town as we drove into the city and it looked really done up for the New Year, so we wanted to check it out. There were a bunch of little food stands with cheap Chinese options, so we picked one and got some delicious spicy ramen.

After eating, we walked down the street into China town checking out the light installations. It is the "Year of the Horse" according to the Chinese calendar so China town was all dressed up with horses. The lights were really amazing. We walked around for a bit but then decided to head back to the apartment, do some laundry and go to bed so we could explore the next day.

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Fairwell Te Tee/Kata beach

We woke up early so that we would be able say goodbye to Te Tee. He was taking the 11:30am shuttle to the airport, so we put on our beach attire and headed down to the lobby to rent motorbikes for the day. We had some concerns since we had read some bad reviews about people who had rented motorbikes and provided their passports as collateral. In the reviews, the shop owners had said there was damage to the bike upon its return (even though there wasn't) and demanded money or else they wouldn't return the passports. Te Tee had been able to rent a bike the day before without giving them his passport (just giving them some extra money as an assurance) and we were looking to do the same. Unfortunately, none of the shops would agree to rent to us without of passports so we finally decided to rent from our hotel, figuring our passports were probably safest with them. We got two bikes since Jane didn't feel comfortable driving her own and would ride with me. I hadn't driven a motorcycle in many years so it took a few minutes to get my confidence up, but after a couple minutes down the road, I felt pretty comfortable. I was more worried about keeping Jane safe and not scratching the bike than anything else, but we were going relatively slow and easy so there were no issues. We made it down to Te Tee's hotel but we couldn't find him. Apparently we had gone to his room when he had gone to the lobby and then vice versa but we finally met up with him for our farewell. After he le, we stayed by his pool for a bit and then decided to go check out Kata beach.
Kata was a nice beach although it was defitely more crowded than Karon. We couldn't find three beach chairs all togetehr so when we finally found two, we snagged them and then Alyssa spread her towel out int he shade of someone's umbrella that they weren't using. Since we stayed there for a few hours, we ended up securing three chairs eventually and no one even realized that we hadn't already paid so we got full use of them for free!

After a full day at the beach, we headed back to the hotel to shower and change and then walked down the street from our hotel to where all of the restaurants were located. We had looked up reviews for a place this time because we wanted Thai food for our last night in Thailand but we didn't want to be disappointed by the food like we had the last few times. The place we chose was actually pretty good and we had gotten a wide assortment of dishes so everyone found something they liked. And we got to have our last serving of morning glory (some Chinese vegetable that I didn't even know existed) which is always delicious. We took our time with dinner, heading home a bit early since we knew we would have a travel day the following day which is always exhausting.

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Karon Beach

We woke up and headed to get breakfast. Taya only had until early afternoon because she had to take a shuttle to the airport, so after breakfast we headed to the beach for a few hours. Jane wasn't feeling well, so she went back to the hotel to rest. After a few hours of beach time, Taya had to take off so Alyssa took her back to the hotel. Te Tee and I stayed at the beach lounging under the umbrellas and reading. A few hours later, Alyssa came back down and found us so that we could go get lunch. We decided to just grab Subway since it was quick and easy and we'd been disappointed by the Thai food in Phuket.

After lunch, we decided to head over to Te Tee's hotel. He still had his motorbike, so Alyssa and I piled onto the back and I was surprised how we he could maneuver it with all of our weight aboard.

Once we got to his hotel, we decided to hang out at the pool for a while. It was nice and they had lounge chairs for us to relax on.

We hung out there for most of the day and then headed back to our hotel to meet up with Jane and get ready for dinner. Te Tee and Jane wanted to celebrate my birthday early since we wouldn't be together on the actual day, so they took me out to dinner at "Two Chefs"- a western restaurant that had gotten great reviews. The restaurant was really nice and they had an amazing live band. The singers had such unbelievable voices and could play any song you requested. We kept joking that we had found the. Thai Justin Beiber except this one actually had talent, lol. On top of that, our food was amazing! We had a really great time.

Alyssa had surprised me with a birthday crime brûlée at the restaurant but since no one else had gotten dessert, we had to stop for a roti on the way back to the hotel. Sadly, they were not as good as they were in Chiang Mai and no one was satisfied with them.

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Beach day on Phi Phi and Ping Pong show

Te Tee, Jane and I slept in until about 8:30am. I miraculously had no hangover which I attributed to drinking lots of water and getting 8 hours of sleep. We lounged around a bit and then packed up and headed down to breakfast.

Taya and Alyssa had checked out earlier that morning because they had hired a private boat to check out a different island, so it was just the three of us for the day. We decided to go to the local beach since it was so close and really beautiful. We stayed on the beach for three hours tanning, snorkeling in the crystal clear water and drinking delicious fruit smoothies.

Unfortunately the last ferry back to Phuket left at 2:30pm, so we needed to leave the beach midday in order to get some lunch, get back to the hostel to get our stuff and get down to the dock. Jane and I grabbed some sandwiches at a French bakery which were surprisingly good and hustled back up the hill to collect our things.
We were supposed to have an attendant take our stuff down to the dock at 1:30pm but when 1:45pm rolled around and he still wasn't there, we became a little bit nervous. We decided we would walk to the bottom of the hill and meet the attendant there because he was supposed to be coming up with some people. We met him just as he was loading the people arriving into the truck, so he threw all of our bags in the push cart and sensing our urgency, began running down the mountain. We could not keep up with him on foot by walking, so we had to run too which was actually pretty hilarious. We made it to the dock right on time and met up with Alyssa and Taya. The boat had not yet arrived, so we waited in line for about 15 minutes until it pulled up. Since there were already boats at the dock, our boat pulled up along side another boat and we had to walk across two other boats to get to ours which was kinda weird. We weren't all able to get seats in the shade, but since Te Tee did have one in the shade, I sat at his feet so that I didn't melt out in the sun.
There was one sad part to our ferry ride. They had loaded a local guy on a stretcher onto the boat connected to an IV and with a nurse, but sadly on the ride back to the mainland he died on the boat. I didn't see it first hand, but Alyssa had gone down to the lower deck to use the bathroom and saw the whole thing. It was awful because he was really young and I just kept thinking how that would never have happened in the US.
When we got onshore, we had a car waiting to transfer us to our hotels in Phuket. Te Tee had opted to stay at a nicer hotel so we dropped him off first and then the rest of us headed to our guesthouse "Karon Living Room".

We had gotten two rooms for the first night and since Taya would be flying back home the next night, we would move into one room for the three of us the next day. We got settled in and waited for Te Tee to meet us at our place. He rented a scooter so that it would be easier for him to get around and so he zoomed over in no time. We walked down the street to a restaurant that lured us in with a free salad bar. Sadly the food was not good. Te Tee said that Thai food in the South is nowhere near as good as the North and I had to agree.

After dinner, we headed out for Taya's last night with us. We were determined to see one of the infamous ping pong show and Te Tee was excited to see our reaction to it. We went to "Patong Beach" which has a street full of bars and clubs, most of which are advertising their ping pong show. We checked a few overpriced venues before settling on a bargain one. The guy said the women are not as attractive but we didn't care since we weren't really there to check out attractive women. We sat at stools right at the stage and had a front row view to the entire show (which was way too close for Jane, Alyssa and Taya so after a few acts they moved further back). The show was absolutely crazy. If you are not familiar with what a ping pong show is, it was made famous by women shooting ping pong balls out of their vaginas. Now, ping pong balls is the very least of what they do. They were pulling out strings of razor blades, live birds, mice and fish, smoking cigarettes and using a blow gun to shoot a balloon out of your hand... all with their vagina. Yes, it sounds sick and it is. Why did we go to see this? Because you have to, you're in Thailand! I do feel sorry for the women who make a living doing this stuff though, it's just sad. But I have to say, I was in awe by some of the acts, they almost have talent.

After the ping pong show, the group seemed a little scarred from the experience so we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

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Phi Phi Island

We had to get up at 6:30am because the ferry to Phi Phi island left at 8:30am and we needed to get packed up and catch a cab to the dock. I had slept but only for four hours so I was a bit tired. The hostel included breakfast but unfortunately that only consisted of instant coffee, bread and some ruined fruit. We tried to flag down a cab in front of the hostel but none passed by so we asked the front desk to call one for us. They were supposed to show up in ten minutes so after twenty minutes, we were annoyed and panicked about being late. A cab was driving by, so Alyssa flagged it down and we all piled in. As we were about to pull out, the cab that we had called pulled up. He was trying to get us to get into his cab instead, but we had already loaded all of our bags into this cab and had no desire to unload/reload everything. We were already running late so we asked our driver to leave but the other driver kept insisting that we get into his cab. After a few minutes of refusal and us basically screaming at him, we finally left in the original cab and headed to the docks. Once at the dock, we confirmed our tickets and got on board. I can't sit inside the cabin because I get too sea sick without some ventilation, so we headed up to the top deck. Fortunately, we were early so we were able to secure some seats in the shade. It was an hour and a half journey, which was very relaxing and the others were able to sleep a bit.

When it was time for the tour, we all piled into a longboat along with about 15 other people. Jane and I had witnessed our guides drinking copious amounts of rum previous to departure, so we were wondering just how the tour would go. Our guide was actually really annoying and one of those people who thinks he's hilarious when he's anything but. Our first stop was monkey island. When we arrived, there were no monkeys to be seen, so we continued on to an area for cliff jumping. You had to pay extra to cliff jump so we declined, but we had to wait about 45 minutes for everyone else to go. One guy slipped as he was about to jump and did a full accidental flip landing right on his back and head. He was really injured and his whole back was red, torn and bruised up.
We then headed back to monkey island and the monkeys had returned. They were smaller monkeys than I had previously seen and they would come right up to you. Our guide started offering them bottles of water and they would hold onto them and chug them. It made me wonder if they had enough fresh water on the island and was kinda sad. Alyssa had been getting really close to the monkeys until one of them attacked her. You could hear her scream wildly as she ran away from it. Luckily, it didn't bite her and she was unharmed.

We left that part of the island and made a long journey over to Maya Cove. This is the place where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. It was really beautiful although sadly, it was pretty cloudy. We hung out on the beach for an hour and a half, getting pelted by sand with the occasional gust of wind.

When we left the island, we were told we'd be going for a ten minute snorkel in the bay. Since snorkeling was the only reason we'd taken the tour, we were pretty pissed off, especially given that the sun was going down and you could barely see anything anyways. Then the guide said we weren't going to do the night time swim to see the iridescent plankton. I told him that was unacceptable since that was the reason we'd signed up for the tour. He said the water was too rough but I knew that was bullshit. He was drunk since he had continued drinking the entire time he was on the boat and I'm sure he just wanted to get back to shore early so he could party. Thankfully, the guide gave us 45 minutes to swim around during the snorkel. It would have been a really beautiful spot to snorkel if there would have been more light- the coral was nice and there were tons of fish. We watched the sunset from the boat, during which time the boat driver tried to start driving off and forgot to pull up the anchor so one of the ropes got snagged in the motor. Maybe you shouldn't operate a boat while wasted. They were able to fix the boat so we began our trip back.

Taya had gotten really cold from being in the water and the trip back was insane with waves pelting us in the face with water the whole time. I turned around backwards and held my towel between my arms like wings so I could shield all of us from getting so incredibly wet. Turns out, the water was calm enough for us to see the plankton, so we pulled into the cove where they congregate. We had to wait about 30 minutes until it was pitch dark and we could see them. During that time, the people on our sister boat that had been traveling with us began to drink heavily with our guide's encouragement. They pulled out a snorkel bong which they used to do beer relays.

They were getting crazy which was pretty funny to watch but since our guide was wasted too, he was being increasingly rude to us, saying we weren't fun. Since he wasn't paying attention at all, we all just jumped in to check out the plankton on our own. There weren't as many as I'd thought there would be, but when you moved your hands around, you could see little specks of green light in the water. It was pretty cool. After spending about 10 minutes looking at plankton, we headed back to the island.
On our walk back to the hostel, Jane and I picked up a drink bucket, complete with Thai whiskey, coke and some sort of red bull. We had to take showers and get ready so we figured we might as well have a fun drink while we wait. The combination of favors totally masked the whiskey taste and it was delicious. But the time we left for dinner, we had finished the bucket with the entire whiskey bottle in it. Te Tee doesn't drink, so he wasn't quite having as good of a time as we were and when we met up with Alyssa and Taya, they said they could hear us screaming in our room from across the complex.

We went to dinner at a Spanish tapas place that Taya had wanted to try. It was already 10:00pm, so we had been drinking on an empty stomach and I wanted to eat everything on the menu. I ordered some tandoori chicken tacos and nachos to share with the table. Unfortunately, neither of them were very good, but it didn't really matter since I was ravenous and was going to eat it anyways. After dinner, Jane and I debated long and hard about whether to go to a club or not. We wanted to, but we were starting to feel tired after eating dinner and no one else wanted to go out. We decided to head back to the hostel and get a good night sleep which would be the best way to prevent a hangover.

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