It's so strange that it's Christmas Day - definitely doesn't feel like it at all! We're on a train that we've been on since 7:30 last night and it's noon now. We were supposed to arrive over 2 hours ago, but I don't really mind sitting here and watching the views. The Northern part of Thailand where we are now looks different - more lush and more mountainous. It's very pretty.
But back to where I left off. We loved Koh Lanta - much more than Koh Phi Phi. IT just had a more natural and personable feel to it. It was also not nearly as crowded, which I found odd, considering how nice it was. It's definitely a place I could settle down. We had another beer on the beach while watching a beautiful sunset and then dinner at ourhotel, again watching the ocean. While we had a drink waiting to go to the boxing match, a Thai girl at the bar was putting on eye makup and kept wiping it off. I told her it looked nice and she asked i she could do me. She pulled out a whole makeup kit and more than 30 minutes later, I supposedly look like a Thai pop star she showed me in a magazine. It was a little much for me, but I wore it the rest of the night. I tried to get a picture with her. She was quite beautiful without any makeup, but she said she couldn't have her picture taken for 3 days or something like that.
The boxing match was really fun. For some reason, they were giving the tourists Santa hats. A lot of tourist places here have Christmas trees, etc. which is funny since it's really a Buddhist and in Koh Lanta, mostly Muslim society. Anyway, we saw 9 matches, but most were of kids of varying ages. One of the youngest kids completely knocked out another with a knee to the head, which was pretty crazy. The last match was with Rob, the guy who brough us to the hotel. We even rode over to the stadium with him before the match. We had to stop so he would get his oil to put all over (they all did this) which smelled just like Icy Hot. I think it tenses their muscles or something. We unfortunately didn't get many pictures of his fight because he knocked out the other guy in only the 2nd or 3rd round. It was pretty awesome. There was a huge party back at our hotel after to celebrate. Ro started training when he was only 8 and this seemed to be a job for him as he was subsidized by the boxing. He has a son around that age and said his son would box as well. We stayed up the latest yet at that bar.. until maybe 2:30 AM. At one point, the power went out. We walked out on the beach and saw so many stars very brightly lit. wonderful day, indeed.
We left Koh Lanta the next day and headed to Krabi, a city on the water that is a common hopping off place to many islands. We tayed a hotel where a brother of one of the guys from Emerald worked. It as the Phi Phi Andaman Legacy and was the cheapest hotel yet at only about $20 a night.
We wanted to go to the Tiger Cave Temple and were told the cheapest way to go was by renting a motorbike (less than $10). I was a little scared to do this in a bigger city, but Scott drove this time with me on the back. We turned down one road that said some cave was at and drove quite a long way. It was a beautiful drive with lush foliage and beautiful peaks all around. We saw only Thai families around and even a school letting out. When we got to the cave it was not obvious and some local kids were waving and yelling to us. We drove on a little bit more not knowing what to do and then went back to them. Once we parked, we walked toward what looked like a cave, but the kids started yelling in Thai and pointing a different way. It took us a while to realize that we were just supposed to walk in another way. We didn't find what we were expecting, but instead just a cave. We finally found a sign with a little bit of English stating that it was a very old archaelogical site. Cool, but not the temple and Buddha we were looking for.
So we got back on the motorbike and finally found it with tons of people and tourists. There were a lot of little temples around and we could see the stairs leading up to the big Buddha on top of the peak that you could see from all around the city. We also immediately saw tons of monkeys all around, but as we started walking up the over 1200 steps, there were monkeys everywhere. They were all over the steps and trees and you had to walk one foot next to them just to get up the steps. They mostly ignored us. The funniest thing was watching them slide down the hand rails, just like kids do - check out the video. One started to grab my leg again, but I ran away. When we came back down, there were only a few monkeys still out there, but one was not so friendly. When I tried to walk by it and stop for a second so Scott could take a picture, it started hissing at both of us. We ran back up the steps and anytime we tried to come down it would hiss again. We finally got pass it and then it started fighting with another monkey. One mean one!
It about killed us getting to the top and going doing all those, some extremely steep stairs, but it was worth it to see the top. Amazing views and statues - awesome.
There were quite a few Buddhist monks around since there must have been a monastery there and when we were leaving, we saw one throwing something on a trash can that two monkeys were around. We didn't see everything, but it seemed like one came out of the trash when the Monk was trying to throw a bottle away and then we heard it break on the ground. Scott then saw the monk with a fist who was treatening to hit the monkey. I never thought I'd see a monk raise a fist! It was too funny.
We had dinner at a night market that had lots of stalls and different food - many local people were there. We had a fried noodle dish and frie rice dish at one place and then waited in line for some pancake things at a place that looked to be the most popular. We're not sure what they put in the wrapped sweet pancakes - a purple sweet paste in one and green in another - but they were awesome.
The next day we flew back to Bangkok, where we had most of the day to spend before getting on the train. On the cab rid to the bus station, the cab driver pulled over on the freeway and look a leak on the side of the road - it was hysterical! Once in town, we didn't have much of a plan, but couldn't visit any temples because we had shorts on. We walked into Chinatown and got lost for a while before finding a place for lunch. Scott had a spicy pork dish that was so spicy, his head was vibrating and ears were stinging by the end of it.
We walked around for a couple more hours through little India (Chinatown was too crazy with crazy herb smells all over and just crazy packed), a market with fabrics and all sorts of stuff, a flower market and all parts of town, many which had no tourists. After feeling completely exhausted and lost (we're not big fans of Bangkok), we got a Tuk Tuk (cab on back of motorbike) to come backpacker part of town. The Tuk Tuk driver seemd very nice and had pictures up all over. At one point, he took a picture of the King and Queen (who you see pictures of everywhere here) and covered up his license - that wasweird. We had a beer and then got another Thai masssage. This one hurt me much more because my calfs hurt like hell from the stair climb the previous day.
Next was our Christmas Eve train ride. We're in the second class cabin where you have 2 seats on each side that look at each other. They fold down at night and then there is one bed on the bottom and then a loft folds down for another upper bunk. The slow-rickety train didn't make for great sleeping but we did well enough. We wondered why the train was stopped for so long during the night and have since discovered that our motor died and had to be repaired. Apparently the same thing happened today. It's 2PM and we're still not there - Merry Christmas!
Actually, it's at least pretty humorous. We found toilets that went straight through to the rocky ground below - luckily, there are toilets you can sit on closer to us. We also found a dining car where a big party is going on. As long as the beers keep coming, we're having a perfectly fine (albeit interesting) Christmas Day.
I finished the book "Lamb" for my bookclub, which was probably one of my favorite yet - can't wait to discuss it with the group. I just started reading "A Year in the World" that Katie gave me. It's about traveling and one line really struck me: "Traveling pushes my boundaries." This is so true and prat of the reason I love coming to these completely different places. I get an uncomfortableness, yet also an excitment that I could never really get at home. You have to accept putting yourself into a completely different land and culture and take up a whole new set of rules, views and sometimes even values - fascinating!
