Our Trip to Thailand: A Beautiful Disaster

Now I want to start off by saying that our long weekend trip to Thailand was NOT a disaster. Far from it. It was absolutely amazing! What WAS a disaster was the trip we had intended to take. We had planned to take a low-budget, backpacker-esqe trip to our northern neighbor, Thailand. It has been on our bucket list forever and we couldn’t wait to get over there since we live so close now. We got our flights on AirAsia for a super great deal, and I found a place online where I thought I could live out my “hippie” fantasy for only $18 USD/night. So our dream destination was going to be dirt cheap. We were going to stay in a beach bungalow that played reggae music all day, allowed you to walk to one of the most famous beaches in Thailand, had a great bar and free wi-fi. It sounded like a dream! Now, the hitch was they didn’t have A/C, but who needs that when there are pristine beaches at your back door?! Well…

When we first arrived, our breaths were taken away by how truly beautiful the landscape around us was. We had to take a famous longboat from one of the larger beaches in town to get to our bungalow that was on Tonsai Beach. The longboat dropped us off on the beach just as the sun was setting, surrounded by limestone cliffs and jungle. We were so excited to start off our adventure! We walked up further to find our bungalow, and quickly realized that our bungalow was pretty deep back in the jungle on a rugged, unlit pathway. Right away the ocean breeze seemed to disappear and it was HOT. I mean VERY HOT! We thought, “We will go have dinner and drinks, come back and just pass out.” We can do this for 3 nights, right?

Our bungalow was located in a little village of sorts, right off Tonsai Beach. The little village of Tonsai is interesting because it used to be right on the beach. The bungalows, the bars, little restaurants, everything was lining the beachfront. A few years ago, all of the land was bought up by a developer and forced the village to move behind their property line. They built a huge concrete wall as a barrier between their beachfront property, and the village. People have graffitied all over the wall, which makes for some interesting artwork and messages (see pics below). But most of the people in Tonsai hate the wall and think it represents corporate greed and is a reminder that they are no longer welcome on the beachfront. Tonsai is known for being a haven for rock climbers, backpackers and hippie-types, and that is pretty much all the people we met and found there. We made some great memories just people watching at the local bars and restaurants. The drinks and food were so cheap, and the food was so incredibly good.

Our first night without A/C I’m not going to lie, was miserable. I figured out that I DO need A/C when it is 88 degrees (Fahrenheit) with 86% humidity, and NO breeze. I am sorry, but I do. I talked a big game about embracing my “hippie” and my “free-spirit”. Well my free-spirit enjoys modern comforts. LOL! I feel a lot of people, especially on social media, portray that they are “hippies” because they wear flowers in their hair, go to music festivals, listen to non-mainstream music and own a lot of fringe. This is what I thought too, “Oh, I can totally do this whole hippie thing. Out in nature, embracing the elements.” Well after experiencing it, and I mean REALLY experiencing it, no A/C turned out to be the least of my worries. All of the power came from an extremely loud gas generator. A generator that only worked from 6pm-6am. That means your tiny fan to keep circulation in your bungalow doesn’t work most of the day. Your lighting to get dressed in the morning, non-existent. There was only cold water available, and the toilet system was, um, interesting to say the least. You’re probably saying “Courtney, didn’t you know all of this before you went?” And my answer is “Yes. Yes, I did. But I’ve been camping before (easy!), and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.” So I did it. For one night…

After our rough night of sleep, we decided a day of relaxing at the beach would help. We hiked the path from Tonsai to the famed Railay Beach. The hike was quite challenging in the heat, but it was actually really neat. We ended up at Railay Beach West, which was gorgeous! It is much cleaner than Tonsai, has crystal clear waters and still has restaurants right on the beach. Next time, we definitely want to stay on Railay Beach. We dipped in the water (simply heavenly in the heat!), relaxed on the shore, did some shopping, and had a nice lunch. It was a perfect morning.

After lunch, we decided to make our way over to Railay East, where there are more shops, restaurants, resorts and bars, and eventually over to Phra Nang Beach and Nang Cave Beach. You can walk to all of the different beaches. Let me just say, Nang Cave Beach was the MOST stunning beach I have ever seen. Limestone cliffs, stalactites hanging down over the water, lagoons with crystal clear water around, it was spectacular! We stayed there for the rest of the afternoon.

After a relaxing and refreshing day spent at multiple beaches (just what we needed!), we made our way back to our bungalow to get “cleaned” up. We took ice cold showers, which actually felt good considering how hot it was, got out of our sandy swimsuits and decided to try out a Thai massage. We found an awesome place right in Tonsai that was so cheap, and truly authentic. I mean we were basically in an open air shack, with the traditional mats on the floor, a small fan blowing in our face and Thai women walking on our back. It doesn’t get more authentic than that! We really enjoyed the experience. So much so, we went back the next night for foot reflexology! They maneuvered our bodies in all sorts of weird ways, worked out all of our muscle knots, stretched and even cracked our backs. It was awesome! LOL!

After our Thai massage, we went to grab some dinner at a local restaurant that was close to our bungalow. We had Penang Curry and Chicken Pad Thai. Both dishes were SO good! I cannot rave enough about the food in Thailand, it was beyond delicious!

After dinner is when things turned…we were both pretty beat from the sun, literally! We were sunburnt, sweating profusely and ready to make our way back to the bungalow to try to get some sleep. It was pitch black on our way back, and as we were walking on the jungle pathway I felt a sharp pain in my foot. It felt like I had stepped in glass shards and they were lodged in my foot. It was one of the most painful things I have EVER felt. I, of course, start screaming and immediately tell Luke “I’ve stepped on something, I think it’s glass!”, so he shines a light on my foot. It was not glass. I had just been stung by a scorpion. Yes, that’s right, a SCORPION! I immediately start panicking. We are in the middle of the jungle, we had to take a boat to get here, from the boat ride it was another 45 min to a hospital. I thought, if this is a poisonous scorpion, I am totally screwed. We remembered that there was a small clinic that we could walk to that was by the Tonsai Bay Resort. The resort was actually on the beach, in front of the wall that separated the village from the beach. As we made our way there, I was in a lot of pain, crying and sweating profusely. The woman at the clinic was very helpful and nice, and assured me that there were no poisonous scorpions in that part of Thailand, and that the pain would stop shortly. She gave me an ice-pack  to put on it, an antihistamine so it wouldn’t swell, and some pain reliever. She told me to “be glad it wasn’t a snake bite” because that would’ve killed me, and she jokingly said that if things didn’t get better by tomorrow she would “cut off my foot” for me. Got to love a sense of humor when you’ve just gone through a traumatic experience. But it actually did help.

After all this, Luke could tell I really did need just a good nights sleep in A/C. So he went ahead and booked us a room at the Tonsai Bay Resort. He told me when he looked over and saw me in tears and sweat, both dripping down my face, he knew we needed to move to an actual hotel. So, I lasted just one night in my “hippie” fantasy. LOL! The room was nice (hello, A/C!), had an actual walkway (no more scorpion bites!), and was well-kept.

By the next day, my foot was much better and we were ready for another beach day. This time instead of hiking, we took a boat over to stunning Phra Nang Beach. We found most people in Thailand to be very nice, friendly people, however, the longboat drivers are the exception. They try to rip you off, and make you wait around until they have as many people as they can cram onto one boat. They all seemed to be scheming together and unwilling to budge or help you out in any way. We did find one older longboat driver, and he worked with us to take us over to the beach for a decent price. Just beware when traveling to have patience with these guys. Once we got there, it was pure paradise and we decided to spend our whole day there. It was fabulous!

After our beach day, we got more delicious Thai food (Tom Yum soup with prawns and more Pad Thai), ice cold beers and did some shopping. Walking through the shops and stands was really, really cool. They have local art, fresh fruit smoothies, street food, souvenirs, all kinds of things.

After our beach day, we went out to watch the sunset and get drinks. It was our last night in Thailand, so we reminisced and laughed at our memories we had made and cheers-ed to a great trip. The next morning, we made our way to the airport. We went all the way through check-in, security, immigration AND got ON the plane. Only to find out that our flight had been booked for the day before. (This was Monday, and our boarding passes had been for Sunday’s flight.) I totally screwed up and got the dates wrong. You see, one thing in Asia that is different from the US is that you can check in and get boarding passes for your flight up to 14 days before you fly. So it’s not like I had to check-in or anything and since I was enjoying the beach so much, I didn’t even double check our boarding passes, which was dumb of me not to do. But, I am still mind-boggled by how literally six different people looked and checked our boarding passes in the airport and NOT one person said anything to us. Of course, they wouldn’t let us on the flight, even though there were empty seats, and the late flight was fully booked. So, we had to purchase new tickets for the next day’s early flight and stay one more night in Thailand.

We found a cheap place that was closer to the airport, in Krabi town. We were both frustrated, HOT and sweaty (our new look in SE Asia), bug-bitten and tired. All we wanted was to be in our own bed. After checking in to the hotel, catching our breath, and realizing that we needed to be positive (I mean we are in our dream destination for one more night, after all!), we decided to go explore Krabi.

What we found was a totally new side of Thailand that we hadn’t experienced yet. We found a lively open-air market, a beautiful Buddhist temple, busy streets and delicious seafood.

The market was right down the street from our hotel and we walked around it for about an hour. Everywhere you looked there were different dishes, colors, smells and people. We enjoyed fried fish cakes that were to die for, grilled pork on a stick and fruit smoothies. We looked up, and noticed the sky was the most beautiful shade of yellowish-orange. We realized how lucky we are to get to experience new cultures and places, and our frustration seemed to melt away. It turned into a beautiful memory.

After the market, we enjoyed fresh seafood at a place called Poo Dam. We keep telling ourselves if we are the only tourists in the restaurant, and surrounded by locals, you know it’s good. This place was insanely delicious! We even got to pick out our own crabs. We had a mix of soft shell crab (lightly fried with garlic), blue crab and black crab (peppered) and pork fried rice. The meal was totally worth staying an extra night! LOL!

So, as you can see, we had many “disasters” on our first trip to Thailand, but it was a remarkably beautiful trip. The low-budget trip we intended to take didn’t go as planned, but we made memories that we will remember and laugh about forever. International travel is something I am learning my way through, and will just keep getting better at (hopefully!) the more we do it. Nothing truly ever goes according to plan perfectly, and we have learned to try to let positivity overcome frustration. I chose the title “Beautiful Disaster” for this blog for a couple reasons. One, because it is the name of a song I love by my favorite band, 311, and two, because out of what seem like “disasters” at the time usually becomes something beautiful. That is what Thailand was for us, and we cannot wait to get back to it one day.

Happy travels,

Courtney