After two weeks had elapsed, I once again found myself on a bus, thus triggering the Pavlovian blog writing response. I've spent the past fortnight in the gulf Islands of Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, and I will briefly detail my experiences in each.
Koh Tao, the smallest of the three, is fairly compact and filled to the brim with diving schools; as I mentioned in my previous post, the PADI course was my main reason for visiting. Truth be told, I didn't do much there apart from the course, as I was quite exhausted at the end of each day and didn't have much energy to explore. As for the course itself, I found it quite challenging. I'm a poor swimmer and rather out of my element in and under water, like a fish flying an airplane, or a squirrel flying an airplane, or a cream cheese bagel flying an airplane. My life priorities changed for the duration of the course as my vague, back-of-the-mind daily goal of not drowning took on a greater immediacy. I was probably among the worst students they ever encountered, but I completed the course by the skin of my teeth. Hopefully the skill will come in useful during the remainder of the trip.
After Koh Tao, I hopped to Koh Phangan (well, I hopped to the pier, and took a ferry from there). Koh Phangan is best known for the full moon party which takes place like once a month maybe? I gather that the island fills up considerably around the event, especially during the peak tourism season. By design, I was there in between parties, and it was ideal - there was no need to constantly fight the crowds, but there was a decent amount of people at the hostel to hang out with. After the relative hard work of the PADI course, I spent my five days on Koh Phangan relaxing intensively, mostly at the beach and the beautiful inland lookouts, and altogether it was my favourite of the three islands.
I moved on to Koh Samui, the most developed of the three islands, mostly to go to the Chabad house for Rosh Hashana (Jewish new year) though I stayed for a few days afterwards. I went there for some of the meals and a bit of shofar (detached ram's horn used for ritual purposes) blowing. It was a bit large and impersonal and though people weren't unfriendly, I didn't find the atmosphere particularly conducive to conversing with other guests. Part of the fun of traveling is engaging in armchair/deckchair sociology. It's interesting to speculate why certain countries have strong backpacking cultures and others don't, even when superficially they are highly similar (eg. Germany as compared to Austria, the Netherlands as compared to Belgium). In a similar vein, people from different countries travel differently. From what I've seen so far, Israeli backpackers are much more likely to be in couples or small groups, and prefer to stay in bungalows or guesthouses rather than in hostels. In any event, I was feeling a bit under the weather over Rosh Hashana and the following couple of days, which definitely (negatively) affected how sociable and outgoing I felt. For the same reason, I didn't do too much on Koh Samui, except for a speedboat trip around the Angthong Marine National Park, which included snorkeling and sea kayaking, and was a lot of fun.
Based on what I had experienced in Bangkok, I had been worried about the weather. Luckily, I've had mostly sunshine and clear skies since then - it was completely dry over the past two weeks, save for an hour or so of rain, and I can only hope that my good luck continues in Krabi, on the Andaman coast.
The plan is to spend another week or so in the south of Thailand and then depart to Cambodia. Monday will mark the longest period of travel I've ever undertaken, and I feel like I'm heading into uncharted waters, but it's going well so far and I'm feeling good about it. I'll try and post again soon, and my next post may contain an explosive revelation in connection with the US presidential election.
Jews - have a happy new year, gentiles - continue the existing year happily.
Love David
A small representative sample of photos:
Koh Tao, the smallest of the three, is fairly compact and filled to the brim with diving schools; as I mentioned in my previous post, the PADI course was my main reason for visiting. Truth be told, I didn't do much there apart from the course, as I was quite exhausted at the end of each day and didn't have much energy to explore. As for the course itself, I found it quite challenging. I'm a poor swimmer and rather out of my element in and under water, like a fish flying an airplane, or a squirrel flying an airplane, or a cream cheese bagel flying an airplane. My life priorities changed for the duration of the course as my vague, back-of-the-mind daily goal of not drowning took on a greater immediacy. I was probably among the worst students they ever encountered, but I completed the course by the skin of my teeth. Hopefully the skill will come in useful during the remainder of the trip.
After Koh Tao, I hopped to Koh Phangan (well, I hopped to the pier, and took a ferry from there). Koh Phangan is best known for the full moon party which takes place like once a month maybe? I gather that the island fills up considerably around the event, especially during the peak tourism season. By design, I was there in between parties, and it was ideal - there was no need to constantly fight the crowds, but there was a decent amount of people at the hostel to hang out with. After the relative hard work of the PADI course, I spent my five days on Koh Phangan relaxing intensively, mostly at the beach and the beautiful inland lookouts, and altogether it was my favourite of the three islands.
I moved on to Koh Samui, the most developed of the three islands, mostly to go to the Chabad house for Rosh Hashana (Jewish new year) though I stayed for a few days afterwards. I went there for some of the meals and a bit of shofar (detached ram's horn used for ritual purposes) blowing. It was a bit large and impersonal and though people weren't unfriendly, I didn't find the atmosphere particularly conducive to conversing with other guests. Part of the fun of traveling is engaging in armchair/deckchair sociology. It's interesting to speculate why certain countries have strong backpacking cultures and others don't, even when superficially they are highly similar (eg. Germany as compared to Austria, the Netherlands as compared to Belgium). In a similar vein, people from different countries travel differently. From what I've seen so far, Israeli backpackers are much more likely to be in couples or small groups, and prefer to stay in bungalows or guesthouses rather than in hostels. In any event, I was feeling a bit under the weather over Rosh Hashana and the following couple of days, which definitely (negatively) affected how sociable and outgoing I felt. For the same reason, I didn't do too much on Koh Samui, except for a speedboat trip around the Angthong Marine National Park, which included snorkeling and sea kayaking, and was a lot of fun.
Based on what I had experienced in Bangkok, I had been worried about the weather. Luckily, I've had mostly sunshine and clear skies since then - it was completely dry over the past two weeks, save for an hour or so of rain, and I can only hope that my good luck continues in Krabi, on the Andaman coast.
The plan is to spend another week or so in the south of Thailand and then depart to Cambodia. Monday will mark the longest period of travel I've ever undertaken, and I feel like I'm heading into uncharted waters, but it's going well so far and I'm feeling good about it. I'll try and post again soon, and my next post may contain an explosive revelation in connection with the US presidential election.
Jews - have a happy new year, gentiles - continue the existing year happily.
Love David
A small representative sample of photos:
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