Thailand's beaches . . . all of them

A couple of weeks ago I flew into Phuket, probably the most popular destination in Thailand because it's where The Beach was filmed, and rightfully so. Lesson number one of the trip was to have at least some idea of where you're staying when you take a plane/bus/whatever anywhere. There are always TONS of cab and van drivers waiting at every check point, asking "Where you go?" And if you don't know, they commence trying to make plans for you, it's pretty great and all. We ended up staying at this cool little bungalow a short walk from the national forest/beach--yeah, it's both. It was probably the most beautiful beach I've ever seen, postcard scenes all around and stuff.
We only spend one night in Phuket, taking a cab the next evening to Phuket Town to check out the night life, in which I was the only one to partake--everyone else's loss. The next morning we took a bus to Krabi where another thousand people with tuk tuks attempted to lure us into various 'deals' and such. Fortunately we were all to abruptly awakened from our naps to make executive decisions about our lives, so we went to a nearby restaurant to eat. Turned out that the owners of the place also co-owned a hotel conveniently located in Krabi Town, and offered us free transportation to our various excursions around the surrounding islands. So we cancelled our previous reservations and went with them.
Still a bit tired from traveling so much we opted to wander the town instead of rock climbing or anything more ambitious. Shayanne and I randomly decided to take this boat tour, which ended up being pretty cool. We were taken to this mangrove forest to see monkeys and to a fish farm owned by some local villagers. The woman who was mostly in charge of things there had three kids aged 1 to 13, was attending college in Phuket for a degree in Community Planning, helping to run this fish farm and was also in charge of a home-stay program in her village--truly amazing woman. We hung out there for a while sipping on coconut milk and talking to her.
The next day we woke up early to go kayaking. Even the ride in the back of a truck through town to get to the place was beautiful. The four of us plus a traveler working in Bangkok and an older British couple took a 20 minute boat ride to the first island for snorkeling and lunch. It was great, there were tons of beautiful fish swimming all around us below the limestone cliffs. There was also a hiking path where boats had washed up from the 2004 tsunami, it was astounding to see. Lunch was delicious and very filling. Then we went kayaking, going through two little stone cut-outs in the sides of the cliffs because the low tide allowed for it. We landed in this awesome little lagoon where there were crazy looking trees, more cliffs and tons of starfish. We kayaked back and got back on the boat to go to the second island where my friends and I were coaxed into trying some home-made Thai liquor with some presumably already drunk Thai people. It was not very potent but it tasted pretty good to my surprise. We snorkeled some at that beach as well, but it was generally a bad idea because the tide was still low and we all got cut on the coral.
That night several more people from the university on the island came to our guesthouse and we planned to go rock climbing the following day on Railey island. Turned out that it was too crowded and difficult for beginners like myself, so I opted out. However, I did take a strenuous hike that was essentially like very easy rock climbing to this lookout point over Panang beach, again, gorgeous. Panang beach itself was really cool because about half of the beach sits in the shadow a limestone cliff which we hung out under. Julia and I also went exploring around the cliff at low tide and found a Thai book washed up on one of the rocks, I was going to take it until I realized it was a stupid idea to carry around a soggy book. It was here that we also found a great place to cliff jump, around 30 feet up. Some guys from the US and Sylvania jumped first, to show it was safe--no worries family. I made Julia jump. She has thanked me several times since. Seriously.
That night I took a bus home that was supposed to last 13 hours but actually took 20 due to road blocks around 5 hours north of Krabi due to military and police conflicts. That sounds much more exciting than it actually was--traffic. Lots of traffic.
I took a couple of midterms that week, all A's of course. School here is amazingly easy, for me especially, I literally do next to no work, it's great. Other people here do have stuff to do though, so it's just lucky course selection I suppose.
The weekend after that I went to work at an English camp just East of Bangkok. Transportation there and back, food and lodging is all taken care of, plus you get paid for each day you teach, it's amazing. We stayed overnight on mattresses set up in some room in the school, which was actually not that bad. The day I taught lasted from 8 to 4, you go introduce yourself to the some 120 or so Thai kids from 13 to 17 years old (but you would never know they were that old for the most part, they definitely seem younger). We each had a group of 20 or so kids who we did random projects and activities with, just helping them to learn new words in English, like playing word association games and coming up with chants for our teams. The day ended with what they call the 'powder game' when all of the kids sit in a big circle, passing 20 or so little containers of baby powder around to the 'music' which is just the camp leader, Rob, singing random songs, it's pretty funny. When he stops, the kids with the powder stand up and put it on whoever Rob says, which of course was eventually on us. We took some pictures with the kids and then they descended on us before we left, whipping out their camera phones to take their pictures with you and asking you to sign their workbooks. It's really bizarre.
Then, this past weekend, I went to another beach (surprise!) called Hua Hin, which is just a few hours from Bangkok. The train we took there was very reminiscent of those you see in Slumdog Millionaire, haha, no joke. I whipped out the iPod and listened to Paper Planes, I'm not going to lie. A large Dutchman met us across the street from the station and offered us a room at his place, King's Home, for 250 baht each, which turned out to be pretty comparable to others in the area. Haha, he gave us a map to get there and let us go, then rode up next to us a few blocks later on a motorbike with his wife, who'd so graciously offered to walk us to the place. Oh Thailand. It worked out. The beaches there were not as nice as those in Krabi and Phuket, they've spoiled me. We went walking to find what we hoped were nicer beaches but were turned around by the Thai military because we were approaching the King's beach, cool huh? There were lots of large rocks on the shore where people sunning themselves look like beached fish. For much of the next day there I stayed at the pool at the Hilton, which opens up directly to the beach, allowing pretty much whoever to just go up and if you act like you belong, you do--no one questioned me. That was one nice pool--complete with bathrooms with western toilets AND toilet paper, lounge chairs, palm trees, the works. We took a bus home the next night.
Who knows what next weekend will bring . . .