Making it to the Gulf of Thailand!

SooOoOo!!
Hi!!

Cindy here!!

And I'm almost ending my Thailand trip! So quick! Time sure flies!

So the last time I wrote a blog was about entering into Khao Sok National Park on October 15th by myself. For three days there, I stayed in a stone bungalow, trekked the rainforest in the RAIN, camped in a floating bamboo hut ON the lake in the middle of the jungle, bamboo rafted to a cave, and rode in a long tail boat through the magical lake.. Chiaw Lan Lake which is located at the park. For those traveling to Thailand... this national park is a good place to go if you want to experience such great ENERGY and high vibrations. The plant life is incredible and you will definitely get a worth while experience in. You can do many treks there! I did all this through Smiley's Bungalow. They are the warmest, sweetest family I've ever met. Their nephew Gone, was my trekking guide who was always bare footed. They will treat you like family there!

Then I grabbed my bags, hoped onto a minibus, and was transported to Krabi! Krabi is located in the south western part of Thailand. From there I was transported to the pier by another minibus. .then took a 2hr boat ride to Koh Phi Phi (Phi Phi Island). All this took about, 6 hours to do. $15.00 ! I checked myself into a guest house into Ton Sai Bay area..which is the main part of the island hustling and bustling with restaurants, bars, tattoo parlors and easy access to two beachs! My stay was going to be $15.00 a night! I had a sunset dinner alone on the beach and it was marvelous.

The next day, I booked an all day boat tour to all the surrounding Koh Phi Phi Islands. THIS IS a MUST do! I only paid $15.00! The boat tour started at 9am and ended at 5pm. They give you all you can drink bottled water and lunch! The boat takes you to various BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS omg!! You can snokel, kayak, swim and play on the beach while the boat docks at each island for awhile. The boat stopped in back of Koh Phi Phi Leh. I had to jump off the boat, and swim to a ladder swinging off of the side of some rocks, climb up it to get ONTO the island and then hiked through the trees for about 5min.... to find an incredible beach filled with tourists, blue waters, soft silky sand and sexyness. This was called Aoh Maya (Maya Bay), where the film "The Beach" was filmed. My other favorite stop was BAMBOO ISLAND... omg...it was pure rawness of what PARADISE is!!!!!!! Turqouise clear water, SOFT powder like white sand, neon colored fish, and a fantastic view!! mMmmm...

I then stayed on Koh Phangnan for 4 days. This is on the South Eastern side, Gulf of Thailand. So I had to venture across all day long for 9 hours to get into town on Koh Phangnan! Luckily, I became friends while on the journey with an incredible and adorable european boy who is currently living in Thailand!!! His name is Paul! We stayed one night together (in seperate rooms) in a guesthouse in Had Rin. $8.00 a night! I made another friend, Erick, who was on my long tail boat the next day while I decided to go to a secluded beach and chill out!!!! I went to Haad Tien beach and booked myself into the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is a health, spa, wellness, detox, and yoga resort! You can stay there and do a detox program, or do some yoga in the buddha hall, or get a massage, chill out in the tea temple with your chocolate chai and raw snacks, or just sit on their beach and CHILLAX! I chose to stay in the dorm style area which was $8.00 a day. You can totally get a nice bungalow amongst the jungle trees overlooking their beach as well! I was able to do some osho and tantra meditation, eat really well, get an orthopedic massage from a specialist from Berkeley, and I was able to explore the area of this place as well. Nearby is BAMBOO HUT! Paul came over to my beach and we walked over to the other beach where Bamboo Hut was and had lunch with me there. It is by far one of the best vegetarian restaurants I've ever had... better than Santa Cruz and San Francisco. I guess this side of the island, the food is much better because of the whole wellness community aspect of living. People are there to do yoga and detox.. therefore, good food needs to be around. Don't get me wrong, most of Thailand food is awesome, but this side of the island had more of a "cleanse" feel to it.


Paul, Erick and I were invited to an underground party on the island, that not a lot of people knew about. It was held on Friday night October 22, the night before the official full moon party. Paul again rode a taxi boat to my side of the island to meet with me. We then hiked into the jungle, heard the bass beat and followed it to an open area where it had a DJ stage, bar, and nice chill out area for people to lay and hammock around! Trance, house, and progressive beats filled the floor! I loved it here!! The full moon high above us.. shining down... and nice intimate setting! I imagined J.Lo's music video "waiting for tonight" while being here.. i loved it! AND... the bartendar showed us the BOX of MAGIC MUSHROOMS which is used for their mango fruit mushroom shakes omg!! We got there early, and I HAD to ask her what the fuss was all about the "magic mushrooms". I went to bed at 3am.. woke up at 9am and still heard the music blasting in the distance!! haha


The next day, I checked out of The Sanctuary and checked into a different place called POWER BEACH RESORT on Ban Tai Beach, about 10 minutes from the Full Moon party. I used this day to chill out before heading out into the night with Paul (who was staying in Had Rin). Then off to the FULL MOON party! The moon was out and bright...the streets of Had Rin was filling up...and the music on the beach was BLASTING. Along the entire beach, there was about 9 stages of music. Each stage had something special; fire dancing, fire jump roping, slides, different music, and all kinds of people! This is the biggest beach party I've ever been to!! Known to get up to 30,000 attendees in the high season.
It was a good time with Paul, I enjoyed witnessing this experience and being a part of a collective whole celebrating freedom, but being around a lot of drunken people isn't my cup of tea. Plus, this changes the whole attitude of the Thai culture...which I'm not too supportive about.

Now I am in Chiang Mai.. I will write more later about how this past week went with me being with my other side of Family and going to some other places. I am tired now.. but I wanted to update you all!!

xoxoxoxoxox