This summer my girlfriend and I spent 4 months in South East Asia backpacking. We were both able to save some money from our jobs during the winter season and booked a ticket to Bangkok. Without a plan where to go or what to do we set of to what became the best trip of my life! Now it’s a bit late to go back on all the details and it would be a way too much to write in one blogpost. But to give you an idea of how great my summer was I’ll try pouring it into a nutshell.
After arriving in Bangkok we went straight up north to Chaing Mai. Found ourselves a great hostel and ended up staying more than a week. This gave us the opportunity to take time to do a two day trekking tour, some cooking classes, a visit to Chiang Rai, crusing on the scooter and still time to relax and enjoy Chaing Mai itself.
After that we slowly went south again sniffing up some culture in Kanchanabury and Sukhothai.
By this time we were nearly traveling 3 weeks and were slowly looking forward to experiencing some beach life. After a long journey that took us back through Bangkok and then further south we finally reached the islands. Our first one to visit was Koh Samui. Once again since we weren’t in a hurry we extended our stay because it was that great.
My girlfriends birthday was coming up and I booked us a fancy resort on the next Island Koh Phangnan. Pretty nice change to live in luxury for a couple of days! It made us feel so thankful.
The island had much more to offer, so after the luxury, we found ourselves a charming backpackers resort we fell in love with right away: Shiralea! And no surprise, what was meant to be a 4 day stay turned into a 10 day stay. Oh and I got completely hooked on diving!
After that our finances did ask some forward planning. We wanted to go to Malaysia and a cheap flight meant booking it early enough. So in order to still see a bit more of Thailand before our flight we left Shiralea on Koh Phangan heading to more touristic areas, Krabi and Phuket.
Both Krabi and Phuket weren’t really our scene. The limestone beaches were beautiful but the overkill on tourism spoiled it for us. Long tail boats ruining what little coral that was left, “deserted islands” where boats needed to wait for a parking spot, tourists lunches included plastic and spoons being thrown in the ocean and we actually had to go looking to find some Thai food?!
We understand that we are tourists as well but this is not a tourist industry that we want to be a part of.
Our thoughts on THAILAND: Land of many curries ,where nearly everything is made out of bamboo, where booze comes in buckets (and rum is the cheapest), and buckets are used to flush toilets, where boys can be ladies and ladies are probably boys, where massage places and ATMs are more common than street signs, where “same same” shirts actually make everyone look the same and not different at all, where "NO" is the most used word as an answer in Bangkok, where the moon has nothing to do with waves but only with parties and last but not least where paradise is affordable for people with only a backpack instead of a suit.
We"ll be back soon!
After arriving in Bangkok we went straight up north to Chaing Mai. Found ourselves a great hostel and ended up staying more than a week. This gave us the opportunity to take time to do a two day trekking tour, some cooking classes, a visit to Chiang Rai, crusing on the scooter and still time to relax and enjoy Chaing Mai itself.
After that we slowly went south again sniffing up some culture in Kanchanabury and Sukhothai.
By this time we were nearly traveling 3 weeks and were slowly looking forward to experiencing some beach life. After a long journey that took us back through Bangkok and then further south we finally reached the islands. Our first one to visit was Koh Samui. Once again since we weren’t in a hurry we extended our stay because it was that great.
My girlfriends birthday was coming up and I booked us a fancy resort on the next Island Koh Phangnan. Pretty nice change to live in luxury for a couple of days! It made us feel so thankful.
The island had much more to offer, so after the luxury, we found ourselves a charming backpackers resort we fell in love with right away: Shiralea! And no surprise, what was meant to be a 4 day stay turned into a 10 day stay. Oh and I got completely hooked on diving!
After that our finances did ask some forward planning. We wanted to go to Malaysia and a cheap flight meant booking it early enough. So in order to still see a bit more of Thailand before our flight we left Shiralea on Koh Phangan heading to more touristic areas, Krabi and Phuket.
Both Krabi and Phuket weren’t really our scene. The limestone beaches were beautiful but the overkill on tourism spoiled it for us. Long tail boats ruining what little coral that was left, “deserted islands” where boats needed to wait for a parking spot, tourists lunches included plastic and spoons being thrown in the ocean and we actually had to go looking to find some Thai food?!
We understand that we are tourists as well but this is not a tourist industry that we want to be a part of.
Our thoughts on THAILAND: Land of many curries ,where nearly everything is made out of bamboo, where booze comes in buckets (and rum is the cheapest), and buckets are used to flush toilets, where boys can be ladies and ladies are probably boys, where massage places and ATMs are more common than street signs, where “same same” shirts actually make everyone look the same and not different at all, where "NO" is the most used word as an answer in Bangkok, where the moon has nothing to do with waves but only with parties and last but not least where paradise is affordable for people with only a backpack instead of a suit.
We"ll be back soon!
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