The Chinese really do know what they are talking about: time does fry when you are having fun. We have been on the road for a month and a half and have already breezed through both Tanzania and Thailand. After our relaxing weeks in Tanzania where we rested comfortably on the hills of Lengijave most days, we entered into backpacker mode once in Thailand. Before saying goodbye to Elliot and Jana, I did have the questionable pleasure of tasting a few Tanzanian delicacies. Together with Elliot I walked over to Lice´s house (Lice works for Elliot and Jana) nextdoors to thank him for the help the last couple of weeks and pay a modest tip. His thanks in return was to invite me over to his family´s house for some goat meat. They were preparing for a wedding ceremony and barbequing the goat as a gift to the parents of the bride. Didn’t sound too bad in my mind. We´d barebequed goat around the campfire a few nights before and it was delicious. Well, it turns out they were saving all the good parts for the dowry so really what I was invited over for was the leftovers, which started with the tongue and went downhill from there. It all ended with a massive bowl of goat intestines, smelling just the way you´d expect goat intestines smell. With the basic mental strength I have in my possession I managed not to throw it up. I kept telling myself this was my Bourdain moment and failure was not an option.
Our 12 hour Nairobi layover turned into an 8 hour Kilimanjaro delay. Turned out they had a superb lounge so no problem. The 8 hours disappeared in a haze of whiskey/coke, beef samosas and the Australian Open final. I also managed to take a fantastic 1 hour nap in a massage chair, while Olof attended to Oskar Fulvio, who was busy abusing the pool table.
In Bangkok we met up with Donald and Kateryna (Donald is a dear (ex)colleague and (non-ex)friend and Kateryna is his wife; they are on a 6 month honeymoon trip, also courtesy of Delta Skymiles). After 48 hours we moved on to Khao Sok, an awesome national park with a man-made lake best described with pictures.
Post Khao Sok, our journey turned into a joint struggle to find The Beach. Not talking about Leo´s beach but our own, perfect beach. This proved to be a bigger struggle than we first thought. We all wanted to check out Phi Phi Islands just beacause that is the actual setting of The Beach and just so we could check it off our list. It turned out Phi Phi Islands were more like Poo Poo Islands and one night proved one too many. We did not even bother to do the day trip to “The Beach.” We set off to Koh Lanta, a place loved by Swedes for some reason. A subjectively estimated 25% of the island´s tourists are Swedish, and that might even be conservative. We ended up renting a bungalow at the same beach and hostel that my brother had inhabitated together with his family on their journey a few years ago. At this point I was happy to just relax for a few days. Turns out the beach did not meet the standards of the other three adults in our party. I found this mind boggling, and somewhat dramatically started raising the issue that if we are just going to travel around finding the ultimate beach and never relaxing we will ruin our whole travel experience. The way the others described this place you´d have thought we were looking at an Estonian sewage pool.
At this point, perhaps it is time to reflect on what constitutes a perfect beach. The Beach needs to have 1) Fine white sand 2) Turqoise water 3) Awesome snorkelling 4) Excellent scenery 5) Mindblowing sunsets 6) Absence of other people 7) Access to good food 8) Access to good beach bar. Some of these attributes become more or less contradictory, so no single beach can fulfill all of these (for example: if you want awesome snorkelling, you need corals, which in turn means the beach will not purely consist of fine white sand; if you don’t want people around, odds are there is no good beach bar and no good restaurants in sight).
It is also interesting to reflect on the amount of research you do before your travels. Olof tends to make fun of me for over-thinking our travels, but that was before we joined up with Donald and Kateryna. Their process goes something like this: Read Lonely Planet or similar for rough inspiration, start googling more information, check out some images online, re-visit Lonely Planet for more details….ok, so far we are more or less the same. The next step though sets us apart: Google Maps Satellite View. They would seriously look at satellite images of beaches and assess the color of the sand and the turqoiseness of the water before making a decision. I admit I never thought of this, and find it quite brilliant. I was happy to settle at Koh Lanta, but with the extensive research by the two-man research army and a desire to find something better, we decided to move on. Next destination: Koh Kradan, one of the Trang Islands located south of Koh Lanta. The eastern beach had most the resorts on the island but at the southeast point we found what we believed to be the ultimate spot. White sand: somewhat; Turqoise water: Indeed; Snorkelling: Definitely; Scenery: Some; Sunsets Nope; Absence of other people: Yup; Food: Lackluster; Bar: Non-existent.
We ended up staying there for five awesome nights. During the days we would either snorkel or go on a daytrip to a nearby island. We were having a great time with Donald and Kateryna but unfortunately they had to continue their journey with a Philippine flight ticket calling on them to head north. During one of our joint day trips from Kradan, we had visited an island called Lao Liang, which (of course) Donald and Kateryna discovered and originally wanted to head to instead of Kradan. We decided to join forces with the parents of Zeno, an Italian-Austrian kid who Oskar Fulvio befriended at Kradan, and head to Lao Liang. And once again, we found the ultimate spot. White sand: somewhat; Turqoise water: Indeed; Snorkelling: Yup; Scenery: Amazing; Sunsets: Nope; Absence of other people: Yup; Food: Surprisingly decent; Bar: Contradicting the paradox (ie. really good).
This place was just flat out awesome. One single beach on the whole island, surrounded by crazy cliffs and beautiful reefs. The only way to stay at the island is in tents, which are actually quite comfortable and much preferred over a shitty beach bungalow. The place is also a Mecca for rock climbers and the “resort” was founded by rock climbing backpackers around 10 years ago. Initially we had planned on staying for two nights, which quickly turned into five. We would basically just lie on the beach and if we felt energized we would go watch some of the rock climbers. I actually tried some climbing myself, which went surprisngly well although it got increasingly uncomfortable and embarrassing as my fear of height set in towards the end, ultimately leading to unsuccessful mounting of the end goal.
Another activity was trying to guess who on the island was a climber and who wasn´t. Fit 25 year olds: Definitely; Backpacking 45 year old Swede misfits: Definitely not; Spanish middle-aged nudists: Fuck if I know.
The only thing we regret about our stay was that we couldn’t experience it together with Donald and Kateryna. After all, it was thanks to them that we ended up there in the first place. We really wished they would have had the opportunity to stay there longer as they definitely would have loved it. Unfortunately, our time was up and we had to move on. Life could be worse though as our next stop was Railei Beach, the heaven where we spent 10 days during our last trip in 2010 together with a bunch of friends. Our good friend Jesse and his family had generously made their amazing house available to us for our stay, but of course this time our good friends weren´t there to enjoy the place with us. Railei is a far more popular and touristy place than Kradan and Lao Liang, but it remains awesome, even though the number of people at the beach had easily tenfolded since our last stay here (combination of 5 years passed and proximity to high season). White sand: kind off; Turqoise water: Yup; Snorkelling: Not really; Scenery: Amazing; Sunsets: BEST IN THE WORLD, REALLY; Absence of other people: Nope; Food: Fantastic; Bar: Not needed, we had a fridge.
So, in conclusion, our search for The Beach ended up with three. We were of course sad to leave Thailand, but incredibly happy to get to our new destination Cambodia, starting with Siem Reap and the amazing temples of Angkor. We have only been here for 24 hours but already love the place, famous for the most amazing temples in this world, but also includes a nice modern touristy city. Being able to redeem some starpoints for a few nights at a nice hotel also helps. My only beef with the place is that one´s ability to barter with a local becomes significantly more difficult when the counterpart is missing limbs. At lunch today we were approached by a man who handed us a note describing how he lost his both arms from a landmine, yet still had to provide for his family, 35 years later. He was selling books and of course Olof jumped on it. So now we had to buy a book we didn’t want. I mean what kind of person negotiates with a land mine victim? (He wanted 10 USD, I offered 5, we settled on 7.)
Alright, pretty sure this blog was longer than my senior capstone paper in college (no exaggeration). If anyone is still reading: cheers.
Post Khao Sok, our journey turned into a joint struggle to find The Beach. Not talking about Leo´s beach but our own, perfect beach. This proved to be a bigger struggle than we first thought. We all wanted to check out Phi Phi Islands just beacause that is the actual setting of The Beach and just so we could check it off our list. It turned out Phi Phi Islands were more like Poo Poo Islands and one night proved one too many. We did not even bother to do the day trip to “The Beach.” We set off to Koh Lanta, a place loved by Swedes for some reason. A subjectively estimated 25% of the island´s tourists are Swedish, and that might even be conservative. We ended up renting a bungalow at the same beach and hostel that my brother had inhabitated together with his family on their journey a few years ago. At this point I was happy to just relax for a few days. Turns out the beach did not meet the standards of the other three adults in our party. I found this mind boggling, and somewhat dramatically started raising the issue that if we are just going to travel around finding the ultimate beach and never relaxing we will ruin our whole travel experience. The way the others described this place you´d have thought we were looking at an Estonian sewage pool.
At this point, perhaps it is time to reflect on what constitutes a perfect beach. The Beach needs to have 1) Fine white sand 2) Turqoise water 3) Awesome snorkelling 4) Excellent scenery 5) Mindblowing sunsets 6) Absence of other people 7) Access to good food 8) Access to good beach bar. Some of these attributes become more or less contradictory, so no single beach can fulfill all of these (for example: if you want awesome snorkelling, you need corals, which in turn means the beach will not purely consist of fine white sand; if you don’t want people around, odds are there is no good beach bar and no good restaurants in sight).
It is also interesting to reflect on the amount of research you do before your travels. Olof tends to make fun of me for over-thinking our travels, but that was before we joined up with Donald and Kateryna. Their process goes something like this: Read Lonely Planet or similar for rough inspiration, start googling more information, check out some images online, re-visit Lonely Planet for more details….ok, so far we are more or less the same. The next step though sets us apart: Google Maps Satellite View. They would seriously look at satellite images of beaches and assess the color of the sand and the turqoiseness of the water before making a decision. I admit I never thought of this, and find it quite brilliant. I was happy to settle at Koh Lanta, but with the extensive research by the two-man research army and a desire to find something better, we decided to move on. Next destination: Koh Kradan, one of the Trang Islands located south of Koh Lanta. The eastern beach had most the resorts on the island but at the southeast point we found what we believed to be the ultimate spot. White sand: somewhat; Turqoise water: Indeed; Snorkelling: Definitely; Scenery: Some; Sunsets Nope; Absence of other people: Yup; Food: Lackluster; Bar: Non-existent.
We ended up staying there for five awesome nights. During the days we would either snorkel or go on a daytrip to a nearby island. We were having a great time with Donald and Kateryna but unfortunately they had to continue their journey with a Philippine flight ticket calling on them to head north. During one of our joint day trips from Kradan, we had visited an island called Lao Liang, which (of course) Donald and Kateryna discovered and originally wanted to head to instead of Kradan. We decided to join forces with the parents of Zeno, an Italian-Austrian kid who Oskar Fulvio befriended at Kradan, and head to Lao Liang. And once again, we found the ultimate spot. White sand: somewhat; Turqoise water: Indeed; Snorkelling: Yup; Scenery: Amazing; Sunsets: Nope; Absence of other people: Yup; Food: Surprisingly decent; Bar: Contradicting the paradox (ie. really good).
This place was just flat out awesome. One single beach on the whole island, surrounded by crazy cliffs and beautiful reefs. The only way to stay at the island is in tents, which are actually quite comfortable and much preferred over a shitty beach bungalow. The place is also a Mecca for rock climbers and the “resort” was founded by rock climbing backpackers around 10 years ago. Initially we had planned on staying for two nights, which quickly turned into five. We would basically just lie on the beach and if we felt energized we would go watch some of the rock climbers. I actually tried some climbing myself, which went surprisngly well although it got increasingly uncomfortable and embarrassing as my fear of height set in towards the end, ultimately leading to unsuccessful mounting of the end goal.
Another activity was trying to guess who on the island was a climber and who wasn´t. Fit 25 year olds: Definitely; Backpacking 45 year old Swede misfits: Definitely not; Spanish middle-aged nudists: Fuck if I know.
The only thing we regret about our stay was that we couldn’t experience it together with Donald and Kateryna. After all, it was thanks to them that we ended up there in the first place. We really wished they would have had the opportunity to stay there longer as they definitely would have loved it. Unfortunately, our time was up and we had to move on. Life could be worse though as our next stop was Railei Beach, the heaven where we spent 10 days during our last trip in 2010 together with a bunch of friends. Our good friend Jesse and his family had generously made their amazing house available to us for our stay, but of course this time our good friends weren´t there to enjoy the place with us. Railei is a far more popular and touristy place than Kradan and Lao Liang, but it remains awesome, even though the number of people at the beach had easily tenfolded since our last stay here (combination of 5 years passed and proximity to high season). White sand: kind off; Turqoise water: Yup; Snorkelling: Not really; Scenery: Amazing; Sunsets: BEST IN THE WORLD, REALLY; Absence of other people: Nope; Food: Fantastic; Bar: Not needed, we had a fridge.
So, in conclusion, our search for The Beach ended up with three. We were of course sad to leave Thailand, but incredibly happy to get to our new destination Cambodia, starting with Siem Reap and the amazing temples of Angkor. We have only been here for 24 hours but already love the place, famous for the most amazing temples in this world, but also includes a nice modern touristy city. Being able to redeem some starpoints for a few nights at a nice hotel also helps. My only beef with the place is that one´s ability to barter with a local becomes significantly more difficult when the counterpart is missing limbs. At lunch today we were approached by a man who handed us a note describing how he lost his both arms from a landmine, yet still had to provide for his family, 35 years later. He was selling books and of course Olof jumped on it. So now we had to buy a book we didn’t want. I mean what kind of person negotiates with a land mine victim? (He wanted 10 USD, I offered 5, we settled on 7.)
Alright, pretty sure this blog was longer than my senior capstone paper in college (no exaggeration). If anyone is still reading: cheers.
Wonderful!!! Enjoy your adventure...
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