For those of you looking for it, Paradise is a
13 hour bus ride, 5 hour van ride and 2 hour boat ride from Singapore; the
island of Koh Phi Phi. I spent 6 of my
12 last days there during which my daily routine included SCUBA diving, hiking
through the mountains on the island and lounging around the beach.
The SCUBA diving I did was part of an Open
Water diving certification course through a company named Sea Frog. It’s a small dive shop run by German guy and
they’ve got an Aussie, an American, an Israeli, a Swede and a Canadian who work
as both Dive Masters and Instructors. It’s
got to be one of the most chilled out places to work I’ve ever seen. The pay is enough to live off of on the
island and you get to do tons of diving.
After a few years when I’m in a position to take more time off to travel
I can definitely see spending a few months working at a place like this one.
After Koh Phi Phi I spent a few days in Tonsai
Bay on the Railay Peninsula. While
attached to the mainland, the peninsula is completely cut off by a chain of
mountains, so all utilities are produced locally. My bungalow cost me a whopping $2.50 a night,
had no electricity and occasional, disgusting running water that I reluctantly
took one shower in because I knew I had a 15 hour journey to Bangkok that would
be even more miserable if I started it already grungy. After just two days of hanging out on the
beach and hiking around the peninsula, I was off, just one last time, to
Bangkok.
Bangkok is one city deserving of its
reputation. I happened to overlap with
my uncle and cousin there who happened to be on a father son trip in South East
Asia, so I got to stay with them in their 5-star hotel instead of my usual dumpy
backpacker-ghetto digs, which was a much appreciated change of pace. During the three days we were there together
we checked out Chinatown, the Khoa San Road area, the Grand Palace, the Amulet
market and a few temples. We also took a
day trip to Autthaya where there are some pretty well preserved Khmer ruins
(similar to Angkor Wat).
Honestly, I think the nicest part of the whole experience was not having to plan anything for a few days.
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