All caught up! Southern Thailand and Malaysia!

Ok, well I've gotten pretty far behind on my blog so I'm going to sum up Southern Thailand so that I can start writing about what's happening now! After Ko Phi Phi Dan and I went to Krabi and my favorite part was when we took a longtail boat out to Chicken Island in the late afternoon. All the tours were on their way out and after a short time we had the white sand and blue waters almost entirely to ourselves. Our longtail returned at low tide, and with the water receding, we just barely made it out in time before the bottom of our boat became stuck on the coral. After Krabi we made our way south and ended up on a small Island called Ko Mook. It was long and skinny, and our beach had just a handful of resorts with bungalows lining the beach. To get to the other beach you had to walk through the jungle up a hill and through the woods. On my way back to our bungalow I was just about to head into the jungle when the woman at the restaurant offered a word of caution, "Watch out for the cobras". I laughed but she told me she was very serious, so with a stick in hand I made my way out a little to close to dusk for my comfort.



Dan headed on at a faster pace to get to Ko Lipe so we split for a little while. I stayed behind on Ko Mook and ended up meeting two cool Germans, one a dive instructor and another a backpacker vacationing with her parents who had come to meet up with her for a bit. We spent each night in the hammocks by the bar discussing travel and trying to take in how cool it all was but never succeeding. Next I moved on to an even smaller Island, Ko Hai. It had only 2 bungalow hotels and a nicer hotel called Charlies in the middle. I stayed in the cheapest bungalow but helped myself to the nice pool at Charlies in the afternoon. There was interesting snorkeling around the bend and I spent most afternoons making my way through the various lagoons. It was here that I first started feeling sick but I didn't think too much of it, I'll fill you in later with how that turned out. Next I met up with Dan in Ko Lipe, a much busier island full of shops selling pancakes, sticky rice, and foot massages. I always enjoyed going to the quieter islands for awhile then spending a few days on the busier ones drinking shakes, eating crepes, and watching movies at night in the cafes. Dan and I had dinner one night with a girl I met at the internet cafe. Her name was Jane, she's Thai, and she'd just moved to Ko Lipe to work in the internet cafe. She was sweet and after talking for awhile she told me she was finding it hard to make friends on the Island, especially since she worked 7 days a week from 8 am till 8 pm. I invited her out to dinner with Dan and I and she was so shy it was cute. It turned out it pays to make friends with the internet girl though because I ended up saving a couple of hundred baht on internet during my time on Ko Lipe :-)







Next I made my way through a few Islands in the Tarutao National Park. At this point Dan and I parted ways because he was heading back north, then onto India, and I was moving south towards Malaysia and Indonesia. I was really glad I went to the national park islands because they were completely devoid of just about anything touristy. I stayed in tents on the beach and ate at the uh, interesting, national park restaurants. In Ko Tarutao I met a group of Brits and a Polish guy and we hired a boat to take us to Crocodile Cave. The boat took us to the entrance, then from there we walked a bit in till we found the kayaks in the river in the cave. We got in and paddled for about 10 minutes until we came to a point where we pulled them up to a muddy bank. The only light illuminating the stalactite filled cave came from our head lamps. It was slow going through the mud which felt more like peanut butter as we made our way up into a large opening.





At the end of my Thai island hopping I was still feeling sick. I had nausea and stomach pains every time I ate and I was very fatigued all the time, to the point where it interfered with my ability to do and see things. I saw a doctor in Southern Thailand in Hat Yai but he did very little. So I took a minibus across the border into Malaysia and across to Penang. I saw two doctors there but unfortunately they completely misdiagnosed me. So I decided after a week with them that I should move on to a large city. I met a nice American family who lives in Kuala Lumpur at a hotel in Vietnam over Christmas. I called Kathleen, the mother, and explained my medical situation and asked her if I could take her up on her offer to stay with her family for a couple of days. The family was soooo sweet and ended up hosting me for a week and a half! It was a complete blessing as I was so sick and it was so comforting to stay in a real bed and curl up on the couch with a DVD instead of staying in a hostel bed and curling up on a chair in the Chinatown market. I saw two more doctors and I was finally diagnosed with an intolerance to wheat. So I'm cutting wheat out of my diet for 3 weeks, then I'll slowly reintroduce it in small amounts. So I can eat one cookie, a piece of toast, or cake, or something small once in a while so that my body does not become completely intolerant.



I enjoyed staying with Kathleen and Derald and the girls so much, and it was sad to say goodbye when I got back to travelling and took a bus up to the Cameron Highlands. The best part of the highlands was the cool mountain temperature. The hostel I stayed in was also just the kind I like with a lounge with internet that felt more like a lodge then a guesthouse. I took a tour one morning, and that was definitely my favorite part of my stay. We visited a temple, market, a crazy bug and butterfly place (the pictures will do it more justice then my great description), gorgeously colored gardens, and a tea plantation. The tea plantation was my favorite part, as the round mountains covered in mossy green tea plants was so unique.







I had a rough ride moving on from the Cameron Highlands to where I am now, the Perhentian Islands on Coral Bay. It was a 7 hour mini bus ride through winding mountains, and with my stomach still sub par I had motion sickness the whole way coupled with a lovely headache. The 30 minute speedboat ride in which the tip of the boat flew up and landed on the water as if it was hitting concrete every 10 seconds did nothing to relieve my headache. But after a hot shower in the guesthouse (hot water was something they lacked in the chilly Cameron Highlands) I was felling much better. I was just talking to my mom on gchat and she said I should write about the different people I've met here. I meet so many its hard to keep track of everyone let alone remember names, but I'll do my best. My first evening I met two English guys who invited me out later with an English couple to go to the other side of the Island. To get there you had to walk through the jungle, the path filled with termites, and lucky for me I had flip flops. (Well actually they aren't really my flip flops. Mine I left outside of the dorm room in the Cameron Highlands and I returned to find a mismatching two sizes two big pair in their place. Haha I look like I'm wearing clown flip flops) The guys though forgot to wear shoes, we usually go barefoot all day in the Islands, and the termites bit up their feet so badly they drew blood. We were all grateful to reach the other side and hung out at the beach bar called "Safety Stop" with low tables, lit by candlelight, with mats to sit on.





The next day I chatted with the Finnish guys next door to my bungalow, but I find the Finnish a bit hard to warm up to. The following day I was checking out a book stall when I hear a polite British accent inform me quietly that my dress was tucked into my bathing suit bottom. Mortifying. Well I tried to suck it up and laugh about it (I was still dying inside) and ended up chatting with the Brit, an American, and some Spanish girls. Then later I met a cool group of Irish guys. For dinner I ate with a cute German couple that I met on the speedboat over to Coral Bay, they were a riot and I had a great night chatting with them and enjoying the barbecue of fresh fish. The following day I took an amazing snorkel trip with the same Irish guys and a fun girl from Singapore. The girl, Pamela, and I ended up having dinner later that night and chatting for a good 3 hours and afterwards we joined the group of Irish guys to watch a soccer game. Haha so I guess all this to say that people always ask me if I'm lonely when I travel, sure sometimes, but with a interesting group of people like this I never get bored!



Since being here in the Perhentian Islands my favorite experience, in a long time, was our snorkeling trip yesterday. I had the opportunity to swim around shark bay where I saw 4 or 5 reef sharks about 1 to 2 meters long (don't worry, the reef sharks are harmless). Later we saw giant sea turtles, right out of finding nemo. Here's a pic I found online of them. And lastly we went snorkeling around the base of a lighthouse in the sea, and despite my month snorkeling in Southern Thailand, I saw the most brilliant colors I've ever seen. The huge sea floor was covered in multi colored reef, clams, sea anemone, and brightly colored stingray. I was surrounded for much of the time by schools of hundreds of fish in different sizes and neon colors. I darted through the middle of one school and felt their slippery bodies touch my skin. If this storm stays away I'm going to try swimming out there again with some fins this afternoon.

Well I did it! I caught up on the last 8 weeks of travel! I'm impressed if you actually read all of it and made it this far! You can check out my photos (I'll post Malaysia photos soon) by clicking on the link below.


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