Thailand - Kanchanaburi, Bangkok, & Koh Samui

The final Thailand post! 💃

Since I am so fabulously behind on these posts I can say that after spending a few weeks in Europe -- we miss Thailand!!! So, so much.

Visiting Southeast Asia was an incredible journey that exceeded all expectations. We spent eight glorious weeks eating our way across the region by bus, train, ferry, and plane. Adventure, recreation, and the friendliest and most helpful and kind people all added up to an extremely positive experience. Living was easy, not to mention cheap.

The places we visited are a part of a much larger backpacking route -- the Banana Pancake Trail, which spans from Nepal to the Philippines. We will certainly be back to see more of it.

Even though it was wonderful, I sure am glad to be done writing about it!

June 14th, 2022 - Phnom Penh to Kanchanaburi ✈️ 🚌

We took a tuk tuk to the Phnom Penh airport and headed to check in. The airline counter asked if we had $500 in cash and if we had onward travel booked. Vitali and I looked at each other and then at the two staff members.

I had read about this requirement when reviewing entry/visa requirements for various countries -- usually immigration wants to see a return ticket booked prior to granting you entry. So far, no one had asked.

We then looked in our wallet and remembered we had a $100USD bill along with about 3,500THB stashed away. This amount seemed to satisfy the first requirement.

As to the second... I explained that we were planning on flying out of Thailand to Frankfurt on the 26th, but we haven't booked the ticket yet. The man was very hesitant to check us in and we could see him waging a debate in his mind. He said to us, quite emphatically -- "I know the US passport is number one but immigration in Thailand may turn you away if you don't have onward travel." He explained that if we are denied entry to Thailand then the airline is responsible for bringing us back to Cambodia, and he doesn't want that to come back on him.

I told him that we'd book our ticket to Frankfurt right now and he waffled for a bit but eventually deemed us a low enough risk to check us in. We thanked him tremendously and hoped it would be fine.

We sat down, booked the flights, and waited to board the plane. As we were waiting we saw a person walk by in a full on white haz-mat suit, booties, mask, and visor. Then another. Then three, then a whole group of (what looked like) Chinese tourists geared up for travel. Interesting.

The monsoon was threatening to begin in earnest and there was quite a bit of turbulence on the way back. About an hour later we landed, just before Vitali was ready to pull the emergency evacuation handle and jump out of the plane.

Glad to be back in beautiful Bangkok International (how many times had we flown through here? The answer is EIGHT TIMES!), we headed for immigration. After I handed over my passport and a moment had passed -- Vitali asks me from the next counter over -- "Where are we going?" "Kanchanaburi." "What?" "Kanchanaburi". "What???" The immigration officer laughed and let me through. We had our required medical insurance ready to present but weren't asked.

Vitali got questioned a little bit more and as I slowly walked away from the counter I overhead an American at the next counter in the other direction.

"Medical Insurance?"

"I don't have it."

"This is a requirement, and you must have it."

"What do you mean?"

And it escalated from there. This guy didn't have what was clearly outlined in a requirement for entry. I left before I saw whether they refused the guy or not but somebody was starting their trip off on the wrong foot!

We met our grab up at arrivals (coming through eight times we knew where to be picked up to leave the airport the fastest) and headed first, to PIZZA. We were downright regulars. I ordered the usual, with sausage and mushrooms and Vitali ordered a seafood hot pot. YUM!

We got another grab to one of Bangkok's major bus stations and wandered around extensively before finding where we needed to be. We headed up to second floor first because it appeared the correct route. There were no boards indicating the bus departures but we found a help desk who pointed us to the ground level, in that direction. Okay. We go there and nope that's not it but someone else points us in the opposite direction, stall number 10. We head there and nope, that's not it either. So we keep wandering, looking for the little pink stall that looks like the photo from the bus company, until someone sees us. Someone from the Kanchanaburi Express! Somehow this person knew we were looking for her and checked us in. She even switched our ticket to an earlier bus since we were there earlier than expected. How nice!

The bus ride was about two hours long and we discovered there were some bogans (in the best way) aboard. Two older gentlemen from Australia (who had wet coughs and weren't wearing masks either, which I strongly feel violates the social contract of being a guest in another country where masks are mandatory), these guys asked us a question just as the bus pulled in to Kanchanaburi. "Is this Kanchapa or whatever?" I responded, "Yes, this is it." "We don't know where we're going, we just heard about it and came... we'll just follow you."

So we got off the bus and walked over to a songthaew to get to our place. The Australians had disappeared. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Our guesthouse was at the end of an alley, and supremely adorable. There were cute little statues, decorations, and plants arranged everywhere that made the place seem quite cozy.

We checked in ($20USD/night) and spied some cats lying about. Maybe we'd make a friend?

We headed up to our room which was on the second floor and had the FIRMEST BED we had ever encountered. It was like lying on the floor.

On our way out that afternoon one vociferous orange kitty came by to greet us. He was very friendly and even let us rub his belly!

After aggressively petting the kitten we followed our noses over to the night market to find some dinner. This was a nice one -- a maze of food stalls serving up every type of goodie you could want. We found some more quail eggs, corn off the cob, mango sticky rice, and some sort of barbecue chicken.

We stopped at 7 eleven on the way back to round out our dinner with some yogurt and boiled eggs.

Mango sticky rice is soooooooooooo good. It comes with a coconut milk syrup that you pour over the rice and it is:

The rice is just a little bit salty which perfectly balances the sweetness of the coconut and mango.

Vitali said his chicken was unbelievably good too. He found the same vendor the next night for dinner but the mango sticky rice vendor was gone. 😭

We sat outside that evening and pet the orange nugget, who was a cuddle bug.

June 16th, 2022 - Kanchanaburi

When we looked out the window in the morning we saw the kitten was waiting for us!!! Awwww.

We pet him some more while we waited for our grab. I wore my knee-covering Cambodian skirt since I knew we would be visiting temples.

The cat walked away when we went to leave and we hopped in and headed to Wat Tham Suea. It was quite unlike anything we'd seen before.

For 20 baht you could take a little cable car up the hill.

The view from the top was lovely.

Beautiful architecture.

And a gigantic Buddha!

We could walk up the inside of the tall temple that looks like an icing tip. It had seven levels, representing the seven steps to enlightenment.

Each level had different finishes and decor, every one higher becoming more and more ornate, until we reached the top level, which was tiled in a beautiful golden shade and affixed with circular plates.

The view out the window from up here was pretty nice. Below, a Chinese style temple.

We walked back down and looked at the building we were just in. Incredible.

We wandered around a bit more.

Marveling at the detail of all the structures.

We bought some more water since we were sweating excessively and had already consumed the liter we had.

We called a grab and lo and behold it was the same guy who had brought us here. He said it would have been hard to call a grab so he had waited for us! We negotiated with him to take us to another temple and then drop us off in town.

We headed over to Wat Tham Pu Wa, another contemporary temple, although this one was partly underground. The exterior portion looked to be in a neo-Bayon style.

The gardens around the area were impeccably landscaped. There were also giant bird sculptures?

We entered the temple which led down into a cave where a monk was giving a lecture to a small group of students. The atmosphere was quite beautiful.

A monk motioned for us to pose and take a picture with the below -- Buddha's foot.

We met back up with our driver and headed back to town. We had him drop us off at the Bridge on the River Kwae, made famous by the novel and film in the 50s of the same name (which are works of fiction). There was a segment over the bridge and Vitali later claimed the course record.

This bridge was part of the Burma Railway, or the Death Railway, a 258 mile track between Thailand and Burma (now Myanmar), constructed by the Japanese between 1940 and 1943, using civilians and prisoners of war. The Japanese wanted the railway to supply troops and weapons during WWII. Between 180,000 and 250,000 SE Asian civilians and over 60,000 allied POW were subjected to forced labor to construct it, facing horrific working and living conditions. 90,000 of the civilians and 12,000 POW died due to disease, malnutrition, physical abuse, exhaustion, and the dangers of constructing a railway with limited tools in a dense jungle and mountainous setting.

The bridge was bombed by allies twice; once it was repaired and the second time it remained damaged for the rest of the war. The treatment of the workers on the railway during construction was later judged a war crime.

We went through a small museum nearby -- the JEATH War Museum. There were collections of weapons, dioramas and descriptions of living conditions of workers on the death railway, a huge amount of first hand accounts of POW, and many displays of the detritus left behind by the Japanese.

Those are artillery shells.

We decided to walk back to our guesthouse, a two mile slog through intense heat and humidity.

We did stop for a meal though, at the only restaurant listed on findmeglutenfree. It was a vegan restaurant, and the lady was cooking right on the deck out front. I was able to talk to her about what I couldn't eat and she understood fully, and was so thorough as to bring me over three bottles of sauce to see if I could have any of it (I could not).

Somehow, even without all those extra sauces she managed to create the BEST green curry I had in all of Thailand. It had so much complexity and depth of flavor. And it was SPICY. 🤤 Vitali got some pineapple fried rice which was very good too.

Once we made it back to our guesthouse I spent the afternoon working on the Egypt post, lost all of my work, and then started over. Good times.

June 17th, 2022 - Kanchanaburi

We walked to the bus station and wandered around until we found the bus to Erawan National Park. The driver told us it was 60 baht each (one way), and that the bus would leave Erawan to come back here at 4pm. There were a lot of trips listed on the board by the bus but a lot were crossed out -- I guess service was downscaled with the pandemic.

We loaded on 10 minutes before departure, admiring the shiny interior of the bus.

2022: Self Portrait

The seats were East Asian sized and extremely cramped!

Maybe 10 other people showed up in the minutes before departure and before long we were bouncing along the 60 un-air-conditioned kilometers to Erawan.

We made it to the gate of the national park where we stopped and everyone had to purchase a park ticket. It was relatively expensive at 300 baht per person.

The bus parked at 10:30 and we unloaded, making a bee line for the trail -- the organized tours would start showing up in an hour so we wanted to see the falls before they got busy.

We hardly made it 200 meters before I espied some beautiful compositions!

These stunning cascades weren't even named. The primary rock here is limestone, and the way the dissolved calcite had deposited was extremely pleasing to view.

You were allowed to swim in parts of the pools but a life vest rental was mandatory.

The color of the water was a surprisingly intense shade of turquoise.

The first named waterfall was #1 - Lai Kun Rang. It was quite delightful with a wide lip along the edge of a deeper pool. There were large fish swimming inside too -- about 8"-12" big.

We came back by #2 - Wang Mat Cha on the way back down later because there was a group of people taking selfies. It was a little busy with people swimming when we came back by.

#3 - Phan Nam Tok was my favorite. There were raised platforms for chilling here, which I would have liked to done, but we had a lot of waterfalls still to see before the crowds got big. So we reluctantly left.

#4 - Oke Nang Pee Sue had an interesting shape. We were starting to see that water flow seemed like the end of season low.

We passed many more unnamed cascades. Vitali admitted the new tripod was actually much easier to handle. This did not stop the exasperated sighs whenever I asked for it 50 feet from the last spot.

The path continued upward, slowly with increasing numbers of wooden steps.

#5 - Buar Mai Long was unique in that it spread out across a large area with various pools leaving and rejoining the main flow; trees punctuated the rounded limestone formations here and there, all in an extremely photographable way. Some more people were swimming in the pool below this picture.

#6 - Dong Pruk Sa was similarly pleasing.

During the last half kilometer a bunch of army dudes started passing us, hiking uphill over occasionally technical footing in slides. Badass.

Finally -- we made it to the top #7 - Phu Pha Erawan, where 30 or 40 army dudes were playing on the waterfall. The flow of army dudes from the trail was constant -- one group would hang out and take photos, leave, while another group had just showed up. Was it a team-building exercise? They were all posing, flexing, and running up and down the falls which we suspect had a sticky surface like another set of waterfalls elsewhere in Thailand. Otherwise, how could they manage?

Eventually all the army dudes cycled through and slowly left.

We sat our feet in the pool for awhile while we had a very ticklish fish foot exfoliation. They did a really good job and after my feet were soft as butter.

These guys would just put your whole foot in their mouth.

Just kidding, these little guys did the work.

We headed back towards the trailhead, noticing the below, which we didn't understand.

After some googling, I learned that the colorful dresses and ribbons are part of a shrine to Phi Nang Ta-khian, an ancient female spirit inhabiting a takian tree. She haunts the area around the tree and if you cut one down for timber she will haunt your house from the structure! The spirit can also take the form of a beautiful woman who will sing mournful songs to entrap wandering wicked men in her limbs! The dresses and ribbons are offerings for blessings of good luck.

We had some extra time so we stopped at a cafe area to rehydrate.

We picked up some stickers as we are wont to do in national parks, and took the obligatory selfie in front of the park sign.

Just as we were getting back to the visitor center it began to pour rain.

We loaded back into another bus that felt like the inside of a bamboo steamer basket. We watched as a harried dad became increasingly agitated searching for a missing item, ripping open his backpack, cursing under his breath, interrogating his family... he was pretty much freaking out. And then he found his missing item in a pocket, and merely uttered an "oh" and sat back down deflated.

90 minutes later we were back in Kanchanaburi. We stopped by the same vegan restaurant but the lady told us a huge group of 30 was about to come in and to come back at 8:30 and she could cook for us. So we did, but she was still busy when Vitali went back so she gave us some steamed veggies and some sort of banana pudding. It was good but we were still hungry!

June 16th, 2022 - Kanchanaburi to Bangkok 🚌

We said our goodbyes to the sweet orange boy and then walked to the bus station to catch our bus back to Bangkok. Once we were back we headed to our hotel ($34USD/night) in the middle of Bangkok Old Town. It was really nicely decorated and had a cute cafe on the ground floor.

And a wall.

Then, we headed for more pizza and to our storage unit. It was time to clear it out and ship back our goodies and extra luggage to the United States. We had to cut to the teeth since we would be schlepping our packs across the Dolomites.

We ended our lease at the unit and bought a large box from them. Fortunately, the box was very sturdy. We brought the box back to the hotel and started to pack but realized we didn't have any tape.... so Vitali walked to the post office where they didn't have any tape for sale but he was free to take tape from the roll. So he unrolled and makeshift re-rolled about 30 feet for us to use. 😂 We had a little bit of a conundrum on whether we could pack our poster in the box or not. It just fit diagonally but we decided to ship it in the tube they gave us to keep it from being crushed.

I forgot to mention in the second Thailand post but after we came back from Chiang Rai I went back to where I had bought the nice shirts in Chiang Mai and ended up talking to the owner and her sister who designs and hand sews the shirts. I knew it! I told her I loved the shirts so much and then I bought two more. I kept one with me and packed up the others to send home. Vitali found a nice cotton shirt too.

June 18th, 2022 - Bangkok

We headed to the post office first thing, carrying 14kg of stuff (and a poster tube) with the wild hope that it would make it to the US. I had read that the Thai Post is extremely reliable though so I felt pretty good about it.

The roads downtown were empty at 8am.

We had our package weighed and the lady added red vinyl straps to the exterior for extra support. She told us we could pay about $280USD for surface to the US -- on a slow boat... and it should arrive in 3-4 months. Hmmm. She kept looking -- we could pay $329 for air, which would take 2-3 weeks. Yes please! It ended up getting there only SEVEN DAYS LATER. Amaze.

We stopped for some coffee and then headed to sightsee Old Town on foot.

Even though we had transited and stayed in Bangkok before we hadn't made it to the most significant sites there yet.

We walked first by the Giant Swing, previously used in royal ceremonies. I read the ceremony was discontinued after 1935 due to several fatal accidents....

Then we walked by another temple, Wat Ratchabophit Sathitmahasimaram Ratchaworawihan, dating to 1869. Phew. It was supremely fancy and had hordes of volunteers cleaning and dusting every surface.

It was unique in that it had four of the main temple structures arranged around a circular structure with a chedi at the middle.

We walked through a park which was quite beautiful.

And then through the flower market which had a tremendous amount of stalls and variety.

And so inexpensive. You could get an actual large bouquet of flowers for a few dollars.

We walked down an alley that looks like it was used for staging goods.

Fun fact: Thailand removed cannabis from its list of narcotics on June 9th, making sale and possession fully legal!

Then we went through the veggie market which was huge. There was a whole section filled with the orange-yellow offering flowers. I wished I had a kitchen and fridge.

We continued walking and were approached by a tuk tuk driver who pointed us over to a tourist map, explaining he could take us to several temples for only 35 baht. He said we should go with him because today was a public holiday and this other place I told him we were walking to was closed. I asked what holiday it was and he paused. He looked at me and made a big gesture -- "Holiday for -- the Buddha!"

That was the worst of the tourist scamming we experienced in Thailand. So we told him no thanks and continued walking. We were trying to get to an overlook over the river to see Wat Arun but kept running into dead end alleys. Down one alley, we saw a sign out front with poke on it... I looked at the picture closely. Maybe I could eat it?

The restaurant was called Make me Mango and everything on the menu was mango or mangosteen based. Mango is one of my favorite fruits so we stepped inside to the very tiny space and ordered a mango poke bowl and a mango/mangosteen smoothie.

We headed towards one of the two tables in the back and then the waiter motioned to the steps upstairs -- oh -- there was an upstairs?

It was such a fun space.

They brought our food up to us and it was quite good.

I got my view to Wat Arun out of the balcony up there.

We continued walking and ran into another tuk tuk driver who tried to convince us the royal palace was closed until 1pm and that we should go with them to see these other temples. We told them no thanks and continued.

The royal palace had construction going on outside and there were a few moments of confusion as we figured out that we had to go all the way around the adjacent block to get to the entrance. Eventually we understood where the signs were pointing us and made it there. We had to make sure to wear pants and covered our shoulders today, which was great in the 95 degree heat and humidity.

We paid for tickets and extra for an audio guide which we had to return in 90 minutes (and walk all the way around the block again!!!)

The Royal Palace complex has been the official residence of the King since 1782 and has seen various additions, renovations, and fires. This is why there are so many different styles of architecture and a seemingly organic arrangement. Below is the official map which shows the huge variety of buildings on the grounds.

We followed the crowd towards the temple quarter.

Below, Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, dating to 1783, the most sacred temple in all of Thailand. It houses the Emerald Buddha which is said to be the nation's palladium. A palladium, which I recently learned, is an object of great antiquity on which the safety of a nation is said to depend.

The ornamentation of every surface on the structure was astonishing.

Kings have successively added and renovated parts of the temple -- I wonder how ornate the original temple was?

How much labor to add all of these individual pieces to the facade?

We visited all of the buildings around the temple before entering.

Below, the lavender building, Prasat Phra Dhepbidorn, the Royal Pantheon, which was originally built to house the Emerald Buddha but was found to be too small. The building has two chedis adjacent, honoring the mother and father of King Rama V.

There was even a model of Angkor Wat built by King Rama IV so his subjects could see what it looked like!

Below, Phra Mondop, for housing scripture, and the golden chedi is Phra Siratana, for enshrining relics of the Lord Buddha.

Below, two of eight garuda, a demon guardian, guarding the Emerald Buddha.

Surrounding the courtyard were galleries with intricate paintings telling legendary stories.

The main story depicted is the Thai version of the Ramayana epic -- the King of the demons abducts the wife of King Rama and hopes she will fall in love with him. King Rama goes to battle for her with his friends and relatives while the king of demons has a demon and monkey army. Eventually love prevails and the queen is freed.

Below, Hor Phra Gandhararat, where the Buddha image within is used for invoking rain or other agricultural blessings.

Below, a closeup of the belfry, which is clad in porcelain.

Finally, we approached and entered the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, who was clothed in his summer outfit. The temple was packed full.

Then we left the temple quarter and headed towards the residential and working area. Below is a photo of the primary audience hall of the King, which isn't normally open to the public.

There was a nice bonsai collection too.

Below is Chakri Maha Prasat Hall, the Royal Residence, built by King Rama V in 1877.

This little golden pavilion was where the king would remove his ceremonial clothing before continuing on business.

Below is Dusit Maha Prasat Hall, built for lying-in-state of the royal family.

The ticket included admission to a small museum -- the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, where we learned a bit about the queen mother of Thailand, and saw some of her textile collection. No photos allowed inside!

We finished sightseeing and went to return the audio guide which, thankfully, did not require walking around the block again: there was a shortcut.

We headed back towards the hotel, our clothing pretty much soaked with sweat.

Old Town Bangkok was visually, closer to Phnom Penh than the newer parts of the city where we had stayed before. It had a lot of personality.

Who left this awning here?

In the evening we headed to a rooftop bar that was supposed to have a nice view.

In Old Town, they use traditional woven trash cans for garbage pickup! Look how beautiful they are.

We ended up taking a shortcut along a canal and through narrow alleys that felt a little sketchy but was probably fine.

We made it, and had some two for one happy hour drinks as the sun set.

There was one other photographer on the roof with us.

After the sunset was the real show though.

The bar was on top of the below poshtel.

We walked back to our hotel and stopped for some roadside barbecue chicken, complete with dining table and plastic chairs on the street. Vitali said it was delicious.

June 19th, 2022 - Bangkok to Koh Samui ✈️ 🚌 🛥️ 🚌

We wanted to end our trip with some time relaxing at the beach. But which beach? We considered Ko Chang on the way back from Cambodia -- but realized it would be rainy there now. That left the islands in the Gulf of Thailand -- Koh Samui, Koh Pha Ngan, and Koh Tao. Koh Tao was supposed to be the chillest, Koh Pha Ngan the wildest, and Koh Samui the old standard. I looked at so many properties... and ended up choosing one on Koh Samui. It was the closest island to the mainland, and we'd have to take the ferry from Surat Thani because flights direct to Koh Samui were over double ($200USD/each compared to $90 each.)

We woke up at 3:30 am and met our pre-ordered grab to take us to the airport, where we checked in and made a bee-line for the Coral lounge where Vitali had a plate of shrimp.

Most of our flights during the past 8 weeks had been on Thai VietJet, which had these catchy songs they'd play in the plane while boarding/deboarding. Please, please, watch this music video. It will be the highlight of your day.

The flight was uneventful and once we arrived in Surat Thani we got a grab to the Lomprayah pier. We checked in and then waited to be picked up by another bus that would take us to a different pier. I was confused but later realized they didn't have enough volume for multiple pier departures so they were shuttling passengers around to a single point. We were given a yellow sticker that said Koh Samui and noticed other passengers had other stickers for Pha Ngan and Tao.

I popped a dramamine and allowed it's sleepy embrace to envelop me. I later learned Thais prefer an inhaler version of this -- which I saw multiple women using while on boats but didn't know what it was.

We were dropped off at the other pier and waited while small speedboats came and collected first Koh Tao, then Koh Pha Ngan, then us. We were expecting a large catamaran that would make all the stops consecutively but I guess because of the pandemic, again, they were doing this as it was more economical. Fun story, a few weeks after we visited one of the boats caught fire and people had to be rescued.

The boat ride was uneventful and we were soon dropped off on Koh Samui where we thought there would songthaews hanging around but there were none. Fortunately we saw the Lomprayah shuttle service minibus was still there and we managed to pay 300 baht to be dropped off at our hotel.

8 hours after we left Old Town we were now at our hotel in Koh Samui where we checked in and immediately spied MORE CATS!

Below, the property's spirit houses looked well cared for. There was also another cat snoozing the day away.

Our $30USD/night room was quite comfortable -- it had a couch and spacious balcony.

We ate at the restaurant for dinner and I managed to explain I needed to eat gluten free. They were able to make green curry for me and it was quite good. Vitali had what he described as the best coconut shrimp he has had in his life. And I once watched the man eat 52 shrimp in a single sitting. 👀

We watched the sunset. The beach right in front of the hotel is so shallow that at low tide it retreats substantially.

June 20th, 2022 - Koh Samui

And so the days took on a shape. Roll on down the 100 uneven steps to breakfast...

Eat a delicious meal.

And then head back up to the room and relax, but make it Thai Beach.

After we were confident we wouldn't have to roll ourselves due to our hearty breakfasts, we journeyed to the grocery store on foot, which was 2.8 miles away... and got a taxi back, because it was just Too. Hot.

Hmmm

In the evening, we'd watch for the inevitable sunset.

And the following show of electrical activity, which I was slowly learning how to photograph.

The shape of the night.

June 21st, 2022 - Koh Samui

We decided to walk along the beach today.

The shallow exposed beach was a little mucky and filled with ocean creepy crawlies. It was hot AF.

We were at the headlands of the island -- and it came with some incredible ocean carved rock.

In the afternoon, we watched the clouds form.

In the evening, we went back out to photograph the rocks.

We ate another dinner in the restaurant and watched another sunset.

June 22nd, 2022 - Koh Samui

When the tide was in the beach was beautiful.

Poor little palm tree doesn't know where it is.

We went out in the evening again to try and capture the sunset.

We saw a storm in the distance.

And the leading edge of a front.

And we perched ourselves on a rock as the tide filled in around us and the front rolled through. In those moments, we were storm chasers.

After the sun set, I finally captured some good lightning!

June 23rd, 2022 - Koh Samui

I decided to try the more traditional breakfast today, a savory rice porridge. Oh my god was it soooo good. It had pork meatballs and was so salty and umami. 🤤

We walked along the beach in the other direction, passing various resorts and more interesting rock formations.

And evidence of fishing!

See: upper right. Vitali walked out to this rock that must have had a nest on it because he started getting dive bombed by a sea bird.

The beach and sky were lovely.

Below, a dead pufferfish, just in case you were curious what that would look like.

Where we stayed.

In the evening, a substantial downpour came through.

Dinner, and after sunset -- another strike! Damn those trees though.

Vitali's dinner.

June 24th, 2022 - Koh Samui

We walked out to the headlands before sunrise to try and get some photos.

The universe cooperated.

We headed back for breakfast and set about with our relaxing for the day.

We tried to go kayaking but couldn't seem to find the time to do it when the tide was in. In between all of the relaxing, we hardly had any time at all!

In the evening, more storms. After yesterday's downpour we noticed a solar panel on the adjacent fancy house had shattered! Then the day after that, it was fixed.

A more subdued sunset, but with some beautiful deep blues.

June 24th, 2022 - Koh Samui

We made another trip to 7 eleven and picked up the most amazing Thai snacks.

Leave it to the Thais to cleverly solve annoying problems.

Our last sunset.

June 25th, 2022 - Koh Samui to Bangkok 🚌 🛥️ 🚌 ✈️

We arranged to have Lomprayah pick us up with their shuttle and take us to the pier, where we were then taken on another bus to a different pier to wait for our boat back. Eventually it came, the ride was uneventful, and we docked back on the mainland where we were bussed and dropped off in town. We had a grab cancel on us so we flagged down a songthaew who drove us to the airport while it started pouring rain. We got quite wet in the back.

The flight back was uneventful too. Tonight would be our last night in Bangkok. We got a grab to our $16USD/night windowless room in Sukhumvit, purposefully chosen as it was near Octave, the rooftop bar at the Marriott. The rooftop bars in Bangkok are legendary -- see: The Hangover, but also outrageously overpriced. $30USD for a drink? No thanks. This one was outside the city center a bit but was supposed to have just as good a view. Drinks were a more reasonable $8. There were three levels with the very top having a DJ.

The view was epic.

After that, we were quite exhausted and headed back to our hotel.

June 26th, 2022 - Bangkok to Frankfurt ✈️

We headed back over to the storage unit to be there at 9am when it opened so we could pick up the two small packages we had delivered there -- a cooking set and pocket stove, and some electrolyte chews. We needed these for our trek since we had decided not to have our things in the US shipped to us here -- it was too much of a logistical hassle. However, when we got to the storage unit -- no one was there! It was a Sunday, and we needed to get to the airport asap to fly out of the country! We called the number on the door for after hours problems but didn't receive a response until several hours later. We waited around for 45 minutes and someone did eventually show up. At first we couldn't find our packages but then found them separate from the big pile in the lobby. Phew!

We got a grab and headed to Bangkok International for the last time.

We had found flights to Frankfurt on Thai Airways for only $390 each. That was the cheapest ticket we could find to get us to Europe in anticipation of our trek on July 19th.

Recognize this story?

The flight departed at 12:25PM and would arrive at 7:00PM local time, 11 and a half hours later. We planned to spend one night in Frankfurt and then hop on a bus the next day to Munich.

We noticed at the gate a lot of white people looking at us. What was that about? Find out in the next post...

- - -

Thailand was amazing. I could go on and on ad infinitum about what a wonderful experience it was. We will definitely go back to see more of the beautiful country, eat more delicious food, pet more cats, and when we have jobs -- indulge in some of the fantastic shopping.

My tendon had been the spectre of the entire trip though -- starting from when we had just arrived and totally disabling me -- through what felt like a long, slow (but consistent) recovery. By the time we left Koh Samui it was feeling alright. I still had pain and stiffness in the morning and after sitting but at least it was strong enough to walk on sand (which was a huge milestone for me when I had ruptured it initially -- walking on sand is basically 100% your calves and achilles working in concert). I was starting to become more hopeful that I'd be able to complete the Alta Via 1 trek in Italy, 8 days of hiking across the Dolomites.

We now needed to figure out a path from Germany to Italy over the next three weeks that included ample time to incorporate some hiking to get our trail legs back and get my tendon used to the load.

Goodbye SE Asia!

What awaits us in Europe?