It's an Exciting World

We had a relaxing morning and played a good bit of poker.  We checked out of the hotel and I went to pick up my jeans.  Steph also went to get the jeans, but she wanted more changes done; she should get them in a week or two.  We took a pair of cabs to the airport and ended up getting there relatively early.  We hung out in the airport and studiously spent the rest of our Baht.

The flight was late getting in, so we were going to be late to Taipei.  That means that we were going to be late for the connection.  They held the plane for us and we made it.

We got back and we took the Supershuttle to Beachhead.  We hung out at Beachhead for a bit and then everyone went back to their own place.

We went down to the river, to a park by one of the ferry docks. It had a lot of people a stage set up and a great view of the river. We wandered through everything and saw a few parade float style boats tethered to the moorings along the park. Many of the krathongs that had been put in the water had already gone out, but it was still very pretty. We wandered past the ferry dock and decided not to head down to Wat Arun. We kept walking and got to one of the large bridges. We took the stairs up to a fantastic view of the river. From the bridge we could see nearly all the parade boats and a few places that had begun launching lanterns in mass. We Also saw a few places put out a couple of fireworks. We decoded to head back to the park where we got separated for a bit. There were a lot more people and the boat that was tethered had launched. We then got some snacky food and Steph launched a krathong. I got to see a burnt out lantern come down in the park and it was a rather peaceful sight. We walked over to Khaosan road and got some food. Then we decided it was time for a massage. Adam went to the hotel to read and the rest of us went to a massage parlor close by. They were able to get us in with Steph and I getting back massages with oil and the others getting foot massages. Both Steph and I had trouble with the giant pants and how they tied which was amusing. When we exited the massage parlor the lanterns were still going at a fast pace and it was very pretty to watch.
After that Steph and I went to the room and fell asleep.

I’ll post the pictures other people took here when I get them. My phone was dead that evening.

We decided to take it easy before the festival started. I took a nap and the others went up to the pool area. Afterwards everyone, except Jeremy went to the Cozy Bar. Jeremy got sick again or his sickness got worse. Steph gave him some antibiotics so he should hopefully not be too bad on the flight home.
We played some poker at the Cozy Bar and had some food as well. Many people, including me, had their phones already go dead so we got a few people who were going to take all the photos. We did a run back up to the rooms and headed for the river.

Nick Adam and I went to the weekend market to look around. There are over 15000 stalls and it covers the area of several city blocks. I found it interesting because it was a big mix of locals and tourists. The stalls had almost anything you can buy in Bangkok. We wandered around for a while and picked up some food and drink. Then Adam and I wanted to have a nice sit, and Nick went off on his own. After that we went to the pet area under Nicks recommendation. It was cool they had lots of puppies, a few kittens, bunnies, lizards, mice, sugar gliders, and other rodents. They also had all sorts of pet clothing there. We walked around a bit more, I got a set of wooden cups, and we decided to leave. We texted Nick and Steph to tell then we were leaving and had some sweets while waiting for them to reply. I got some amazing Thai ice tea ice cream with pumpkin and jelly. Nick decided to stay and Steph had just got done with the ear infection clinic. We got in a cab where the driver didn’t speak any English and told him to go to Khaosan road. We got dropped off there and walked back to the hotel.

I woke up early this morning at about 7:30. I got a lot of stuff uploaded and then got a message from Adam that he was at the canal cafe. I went to join him and Steph slept in. I got to the cafe and there was a special on Thai coffee and tea. We took advantage of it until they were completely out of both. I then stopped by the tailors for blue jeans and ordered two pair. Adam and I took a walk down to Khaosan road and then got a message from Nick that he was up and wanted to go to the weekend market that has 15000 shops. At one shop per second it would take over 4 hours to go through. We stopped by the hotel and I took Steph to the tailors so she could get some jeans. Her ear was hurting so we left her behind to find a travel clinic and Adam, Nick and I went off to the market.

After settling in at the hotel Adam and Nick went to the bar on the corner Cozy House. Steph and I joined them followed by Jeremy. We had some drinks and food since we didn’t get much of a lunch.
Everyone got dinner at a small place near our hotel and it was really tasty. After that we split up with Adam staying behind to rest. Jeremy walked with us for a bit but left before we did anything.
We walked the three or so blocks to Khaosan Road and it was interesting. There were two main streets with Khoisan itself being super commercialized and the secondary street being the backpacker paradise. We had a hard time finding the previously booked hotel but we eventually found it down on of the smaller alleys. It was rather nice and decently quite since it was half a block from the main areas.
Steph, Tina, Nick, Amit and I had tea at a cute tea shop called Moka and then Steph Nick and I got foot massages.
I went back to the room and Steph, Nick, Amit, and Tina played poker at a Cozy House bar.

We got going a little earlier than needed to get to the flight to Bangkok and it was good that we did. The first thing we ran into was that a power line was sagging on the one road over the mountain. This caused a big backup but we got through relatively quickly. The second issue was that I thought Nick had gotten the flight with miles and he thought I had reserved all internal flights. He was able to get on a flight leaving 40 minutes before ours.
We played poker while waiting again and I got very lucky with the cards. The flight was painless but we had to bus in from the landing and the bags took a long time to show up. Nick got a van and we headed off for the hotel. Like in Pukhet we changed hotels to somewhere nicer and more quiet. We had planned on staying in Khaosan Holiday and switched to Nouvo City Hotel.
To get there we ended up driving by some of the royal buildings. There had been protests going on and the government made three military protected areas of the city. We ended up driving through one on the way to the hotel. It was amazing the lengths they went through to protect these areas.

When we got back to the hotel I got Tina, Jeremy, Steph, and Nick to come launch paper lanterns with me. We first had to find them and that took a while. We had a rotee break in the middle.
We found a place that had the lanterns and then walked back to close by out hotel. We had a good time launching them and it was really nice to watch them until the disappeared through the clouds.

Video of lantern launching

Had a pick up at 10:45 for sea canoeing. We had a long relaxing breakfast before that and I had way too much to eat. We had about an hour to Pukhet Town where we waited to get on the boat. Since most of us were a little sun burned so we pucked up hats. Nick and I decided to get the rice patty hat and I think it was a good decision. I left mine somewhere but wasn’t planning to take it back to the us anyway. Once on the boat we had a one hour ride out to the islands and we got lunch and a quick introduction. We were introduced to our guides. The lead guide was Ti who paddled Steph and I around. Jeremy also had a guide paddling him around but the others decided to paddle themselves.
The first section in the water was going through a long cave called bat cave that connected to a hong also known as a lagoon. The hong was mostly dry since we needed it to be mostly low tide to get through the lower parts of the cave. With the low tide there were large mud flats that had lots of crabs and mud skippers on them. The mud flats were also home to mangrove trees and they looked somewhat out of place in the middle of a mud flat without the water around the base. I got a few good panoramas of the hongs but I’m not sure if they will display correctly on the blog.
After exiting through the first cave we went down the shore to watch the monkeys play. We then went along the cliffs and got picked up by the main boat to go to another island.
On the second paddle we went through Two more hongs and got to see some good pinnacles. We then got some time to paddle around ourselves and swim which was very enjoyable. The canoes weren’t easy to control since they were inflatables.
After free time the guides showed us how to make krathongs. These were modern krathings made of banana trunk, banana leaves, nails, flowers, incense, and candles. The banana leaves are folded to look like a lotus flower. The flower buds can also be cut to look like birds and Steph got a lot of those on her krathong. We went back to the bat cave to launch them in the dark and have a good controlled recovery. We recovered and extinguished them and then got put out all other lights. We then splashed around the water for a great bioluminescent show. This kind of bioluminescence was small particles that had a decent duration. The other type I have seen before is quick sparks. The last kind that I’d like to see is the milky kind.
We exited the cave and started heading back to Pukhet. Along the way we sat up front and watch the lighting in the storms on either side of the boat. It was a very nice cruise back.

Videos:
Into the bat cave
In the bat cave
Exiting the bat cave
Mud skippers
Monkeys
Sea eagles / kites