Tropical The Island Breeze

Life is good.  For the past week, I’ve been doing nothing except lying/partying on beautiful beaches, taking amazing day trips, meeting people from all over the world, and sleeping until I felt like getting out of bed (except for tomorrow morning when I will have to catch a 6am ferry- ouch!).  A minor stomach bug has set me back a bit, and I forgot how heavy my big backpack could be (especially in 90+ degree heat), but overall, things have been running pretty smoothly.  I’ve done a lot over the past week, so I’ll try to condense this post as much as possible.  It’s much easier to write about a two-day weekend as opposed to a seven-day week.  I know…poor me!  In a nutshell, every day has been quite lovely.

 
After attending my friend Claire's birthday party in Bangkok over the weekend, I met up with Angela and Audrey on Monday on the island of Koh Samui.  We stayed on Chaweng Beach, which is one of the prettiest (and also one of the craziest) beaches on the island.  We hit the strip of bars/clubs that night, and on Tuesday, we took a day trip to Angthong Marine Park.  I wanted to go to the park the last time I was in the area over New Year’s, but it rained for three days straight, so I was excited this time when I woke up to sunny skies.  We had an incredible day snorkeling, kayaking, and relaxing around the park’s clear waters and huge limestone formations; at moments, I really felt like I was in paradise.

On Wednesday morning, the girls took an early ferry to the island of Koh Phangan, but I took a later ferry because I wanted to spend some time on Chaweng Beach.  I actually really like taking ferries by myself because I tend to meet a ton of cool people.  Additionally, it’s really easy to get caught up in making travel plans, so if I can live in the moment and stick around somewhere a little longer, I will choose to do so.  With that in mind, I bought a coconut, put on my iPod, and just stared at the light blue water.  Ahhhhh.

My ferry was packed with other backpacker/vacationers who were all headed to the island for the same reason, the ‘legendary’ Full Moon Party.  This was my second FMP, and the crazy all-night beach bash proved to be a great time once again (international debauchery on a massive scale).  I didn’t worry too much about taking a ton of pictures this time around because I dedicated a whole post to the party before, but I managed to take some pictures around the chilled-out Greenpeace Bungalows (the awesome place I stayed with other friends from my program), as well as of the ‘legendary’ pool party at Coral Bungalows, where we all partied the night before the FMP.  

Coral Bungalows' pool party

View from my chair at Greenpeace Bungalows

Me contemplating Snooki's rumored pregnancy

Full Moon Party

 
Nothing like a little tropical rain at 2am

We had a relaxed night on Friday night, and on Saturday, we all took the 8am ferry to the island of Koh Tao.  All of the girls packed up their stuff and decided to spend a night on the island, but I decided to go just for the day because I had paid for four nights at Greenpeace (and we were all going our separate ways on Sunday anyway).  I left the girls at Koh Tao and immediately boarded another boat for a nearby island called Nangyuan.  

Is this real life or fantasy?  The viewpoint over Nangyuan.

 
Me at the bottom

 Ziplining across islands.  What?

Tomorrow, I'm off to Krabi and will be visiting a few more beaches over the next week.  'Same Same But Different' as we say here in Thailand!  Until next time....Sawatdee kah!