The Bro Trip

We did it. After searching for the sun and a clear blue sky for a month, we finally found it in Chiang Mai, in the northern part of Thailand. You don't really get more inland than this, so the beaches of the south will have to wait.

We flew here from Koh Samui, desperately trying to get some sun. After our diving course on Koh Tao, we thought we could find the sun on Koh Samui. We didn't. Rain, thunderstorms and just cloudy. And that was the forecast for the next 7 days at least. We had enough. We went to the airport on Koh Samui about 9 o'clock in the morning, without tickets. Walked up to the first ticket office we found and asked for two tickets to Chiang Mai. They were a lot more expensive than we thought, so we discussed it and checked the web for lower prices. We couldn't find any cheaper than that and almost missed our plane because we were stalling. We actually begged them to sell us the tickets, so it took us 15 minutes from the moment we bought the tickets until we were on the plane!

We've been here in Chiang Mai for 6 days. Sunny and about 30 degrees every day. Finally! Though, we've been really inactive. Just been lying by the pool every day after breakfast, enjoying life. It's a really nice city. A cultural and educational city. But we're tired of temples. They do have other things in Chiang Mai. Tomorrow we're going to do an elephant trekk and the day after tomorrow, we may visit tiger kingdom and pet the tigers, can't be dangerous, can it?


Chiang Mai.


Our sanctuary.


First night in Chiang Mai at a mobile bar.

Two nights ago we were out celebrating Marcus, it was his birthday and also the king of Thailand's birthday. But we didn't celebrate him, we're not very fond of him. We met up with some friends that we've met earlier on our trip - Erin, Hannah & Tim. We all went out for dinner and then moved on to the bars. However, because of the king's birtday, many bars and clubs were closed! And 7-eleven wouldn't even sell beer. Took us a  while but we found a place in the end. Had a really good night and got home about 3 o' clock.


Dinner with friends - Hannah, Tim, Marcus, Chris & Erin.


Birthday boy was happy.

Yesterday, Liz came to Thailand and to Chiang Mai and has now joined our trip. So Chris n' Liz spent the day together and Marcus had a cooking class that was really nice! Today we went to the zoo, saw some cool animals like pandas, white tigers, koalas, jaguars, gibbons and elephants. It was a nice zoo. Lots of interesting animals. That's all for today. Hopefully we'll give you a new update tomorrow!


A lazy, drooling panda.


Hungry fellah?

/ C & M

We're right now on Koh Tao, chilling in our hotelroom. It's been a really slow day. Woke up about 1 o'clock, had breakfast, but we're now back to bed. Had a late night yesterday with some celebrations, here is why:

After Koh Phangan we decided to go to the island that was just north of where we were, Koh Tao. The reason? To learn how to dive and get our diving certificates. Koh Tao is said to be the cheapest place in Thailand, maybe even in the world, to do this. It's a small island, way smaller than Koh Phangan, but on this island, there are no less than 43 dive schools! So that's one of the reasons it's so cheap here. We booked everything before we left Koh Phangan, paid 9800 baht (ca 2400kr) for 4 days of diving course with free accomodation. We came to Koh Tao on tuesday, had a quiet day and began the course on wednesday.


Sunset at Crystal Dive Resort.

On the first day, all we did was watching movies and answering questions in our book that realated to the movies. Learned the basics of diving and all of the biological and physical things you really need to know when you dive. The second day, the theoretical stuff continued. We took our final exam and of course, we passed it. With that, everything in the classroom was taken care of. Now it was time for the practical part of the course - the diving. Later on the same day, we wetsuited up, learned how to asseble and disasseble scuba gear and went to the pool here on the resort. We were in the pool for 5 hours, learning "basics" such as mask removal, mask cleaning, boyancy, switching regulator (the breathing thing) and taking all of the gear of - everything under water. Pretty cool. The next day, it was time for our first open water dive. The depth was set to 12m and we descended holding a rope, since it was or first time. We did two dives that day, the first was a fun dive, which means that you're just swimming around looking at everyhting around you - fish, corals and other weird stuff under the surface. It was really nice! But our best moment during the day happened on our second dive. that dive was more of a skill dive, repeating most of the things we learned in the pool. But during a skill briefing, while we were all on our knees on the bottom, a school of hundreds of barracudas came swimming next to us. At first it looked like they were just passing by, but insted they started to swim around us and at one point, wherever you looked, there was like a wall of barracudas. It was awesome!


Wetsuited up!


Ready to descend!

Our second day started 7 am (too early). You are not in the mood for diving when you're tired, cold and hungry. But as soon as we got on the boat and we felt the warmth of the sun, we got psyked and excited! The two planned dives we did that day was also being shot by a cameraman following us around deep below the surface! Not only were we now expected to do our skills underwater flawless, we also had to perform well in front of the camera. We found no problem doing this however, seeing as we are supercool. Everything went well, and as soon as we had ascended, we were certified divers!!


The diving crew! 

Later that night we all met up at the dive resort bar for some drinks, watching the newly edited movie (We all got to pick the music for the soundtrack)! It was great fun watching, and we all had a good laugh! After that we took a taxi to Sai Ree Beach just north of the dive resort and had a few beers, watched some soccer and chatted through the night.

Feels good being a diver! Of course, more dives and more training is required to be a GOOD diver, but that's a later issue ;). What's important is that we now can begin to explore the underwater world!

Tomorrow our trip continues to Kho Samui, south of Ko Tao And Kho Pa Ngan to check out the beaches there, in search for the sun.

/C & M

Alright, so - not that much blogging lately. Sorry about that. It's been a busy week! We are now on the island on Koh Tao, spending lots of time under water. More on that in the next blog post!

So, since we left Cambodia much has been going on. We got to Bangkok last monday (15th) by bus from Siem Reap. As always, there were stops at the border with the usual routine (passport check, waiting) - went pretty smooth though. We settled down in Bangkok at some random place on Khao San Road, the tourist street of Bangkok. Pretty basic: two beds, a bathroom and no hot water. We're gettting used to that! Our three day visit in Bangkok was pretty much the same every day. We had breakfast, strolled up and down Khao San Road and the surrounding streets, getting to know the city vibe and looking for cool t-shirts.



Khao San Road in Bangkok.

After two days, we decided to book a bus ride to Ko Pha Ngan - the home of the (in)famous Full Moon Party. The bus ride however, wasn't very nice. Before we booked the ticket we already heard stories about people on the bus going through your luggage during the night and so on, so we knew what was coming. The bus ride itself went smooth, and after we arrived at the ferry terminal, we noticed that they actually had been looking in our bags. But we had all our valuables in our handluggage, so nothing was missing.

We arrived to Koh Phangan on Thursday afternoon. Found a cheap bungalow, it sucked. We went out the first night, had an awesome night. But when we came back, our room was partially flooded. The bathroom was covered in sand, and most of the room was filled with water. Marcus backpacks, especially the handluggage was soaked. Chris's belongings survived though. We switched bunglows after that. Went to the same place as two other guys we met on the ferry, stayed at. Hulley, a Canadian guy and Hans / Jesus, a norwegian maniac. Had lots of fun with them, we're actually sharing room with Hulley right now on Koh Tao. But anyway, to summarize our days before the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan in one word - party! We actually had one day when we were swimming in the ocean, a really nice day and beautiful beach. But other than that: party! We were out drinking every day, rarely came home before 5am. There were poolparties, beachparties and lots of other kinds of parties. Everywhere in Koh Phangan, they sold buckets of alcohol. You actually bought a bucket with whatever drink inside you wanted. Such as Red Bull / Vodka, Rhum & Coke or Gin & Tonic. And they were only 150 baht (38kr). Really dangerous. And fun! :)


Hat Rin beach on Koh Phangan, this is where the magic happens!


Aah, the buckets. So many memories... and so many memories lost.

The Full Moon party itself was amazing. The beach was crowded with people, everywhere! And with a bucket in their hand, of course. There were dancing, drinking and other activities, such as fire limbo & fireskipping (rope skipping, but with the rope on fire). People, including us, also painted themselves in flourescent neoncolor with various motives and writings. It was a crazy night. We partied until the sun came up and we came home about 8 o' clock. Can't really say it was the best day after that, but we survived. We had so much fun in Koh Phangan and we'd love to do it again!


This is what the beach looked like during Full Moon Party...


...and this is how we looked during Full Moon Party! :)


The beach in the morning, Full Moon night. The party is still going strong!

We left Koh Phangan on tuesday for Koh Tao, a smaller island just north of Koh Phangan. So still in the gulf of Thailand. We're here to get diving licences and it's going well. Will tell you more about that next time.

/C & M