Thailand

It's taken me too long between posts again, but whatever! Before Tom jetted off to Mexico we went to Thailand for 10 days and spent most of it on Koh Phangan (the time not spent on Koh Phangan was travelling to and from our house and the island!). 

We've been to Thailand before but this was our first time on Phangan - home of the full moon party and a bunch of Australians in fluoro. We opted out of staying at Haad Rin, the main beach, instead booking at Thong Yang Bungalows which fit our three criteria - cheap, right on the beach and good food. 

We fought over the hammock quite a bit.

The beach itself was lovely but the swimming was a bit crap -very shallow and painfully rocky. Here's the view at low tide, right before the full moon.

We still had a marvellous time. Tom planned out his Mexico travels and I read 5 books and we both drank a bunch of beer and Sangsom and ate a lot of the delicious food offered up by the restaurant at Thong Yang. The owners had a few dogs including two very cute puppies who spend most of our vacation fighting each other. 

The sunset from our/my apartment isn't great, so it was nice to bask in a few good ones while we were there.

I also celebrated my 29th birthday! Tom and I went to an awesome beachfront restaurant and I got to eat one of my favourite foods - laab gai. A dish which can only really be described in a gross way - meat salad. I also had a delectably spicy ginger mojito AND there was a surprise market in the town next to the restaurant so we loaded up on cheap pad thai, peanut satay and mango sticky rice to take back to our bungalow for a midnight snack. Awesome.

We didn't stay cooped up in the bungalow the whole time. We visited Haad Rin twice - it's gorgeous, but I wouldn't want to stay there unless I was an insane party animal. Surprise! I'm not.

The first time we visited, those dark clouds in the photo above burst into one of the most intense rain storms I've ever seen. Tom and I were stuck in a bar overlooking the beach for a good few hours waiting for it to let up! After it eased, the bay was especially pretty - a big rainbow arching through the sky, the sand dazzlingly white against the dark clouds... great stuff. 10/10, would visit again.