Category Archives: yoga

Koh Tao

Koh Tao is an island in the Gulf of Thailand near Surat Thani. Since I came to Thailand, I haven’t done much travelling but a friend from home was on vacation there so it gave me an excuse to get out of Ao Nang and see a little more of Thailand. Koh Tao also has climbing so it was an easy decision to go for a few days. Anong and I packed our bags and headed out.

Getting to Koh Tao (from Ao Nang)

Just got off the bus. Waiting for the ferry on the pier at Surat Thani.

Koh Tao is kind of hard to get to. There are a few options. The first and probably quickest is to catch a flight from Krabi Airport and fly to Koh Samui. Bangkok Airways does one flight a day for about 3100 baht. Once to Koh Samui take a taxi to one of the piers then a ferry to Koh Tao. Total price would be around 4000 baht per person including taxi to / from airports and total travel time around 4 to 5 hours depending on how schedules line up.

The next option is to take a take a Songthaew from Ao Nang to the Krabi bus station and get a bus to Surat Thani. Find your way to the pier then buy a ferry ticket to Koh Tao. I’m not sure how much this would cost but I’m guessing around 700 baht and it will likely take all day and might require an overnight stay in Surat Thani depending on how the ferry schedules line up which would eliminate any savings.

The third option and what I think is the best value is to book a tour package through one of the resorts in the area. I ended up at Slumber Party Hostel because they are close to where I live and they provided me with a package through Lomprayah High Speed Ferries that included pickup in Ao Nang for 1100 baht per person. Total travel time was about 8 hours. It also looks like tickets can be booked on their website.

Coming back, I was able to book tickets online through Seatran Discovery that included drop off at my room in Ao Nang for around 900 Baht because they were discounting tickets for some reason. Standard price is 1100 Baht.

Where To Stay

Sairee beach.

Sairee beach has the highest concentration of resorts, restaurants, and things to do. I’ve also heard it can be very loud at night with many bars playing loud music all night. I ended up staying about 1 kilometer past the end of the beach at Koh Tao Hillside Resort. It was nice and quiet but I probably wouldn’t stay here again since my room was rather run down and not very nice for the price paid. But the pool was nice and the restaurant had pretty good food. If I go back, I might try staying on the other side of the island where it’s even quieter and more secluded.

Getting Around

Depending on what you want to do / where you want to go you’ll need your own transportation. Taxi’s on the island are ridiculously expensive. I heard one couple was quoted 400 baht (just over 11 dollars) to go from Sairee beach to the pier which is about 5 minutes away by car and only 2 or 3 kilometers away. But a quick search online shows motorbike rental shops are notorious for scamming tourists and charging outrageous fees for small scratches on the bike that were already there at the time of rental. But be careful. If you’ve never ridden a scooter or motorcycle before, Koh Tao is a bad place to learn. It’s hard to believe but the people on Koh Tao drive even worse than the people in Krabi. On top of that, the roads are filled with potholes, covered in sand or dirt, and some of the roads are extremely steep. I had heard good things about Oli’s Motorbike Rentals and that they were an honest shop. So I took my chances and rented a 125cc Honda Click from them. I also left my passport with them even though it made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. The bike was had just enough power to get Anong and I with our climbing gear to the top of Mek’s Mountain where we went climbing. No incidents while driving and Oli’s is indeed an honest shop. If you find yourself on Koh Tao and need a motorbike, use Oli’s.

What To Do

The main activity on the island is diving. From what I hear the diving is very good and PADI diving certifications aren’t very expensive. But I wasn’t stoked on the diving. Instead, Anong and I found some other things to occupy our time.

Go Climbing!

The island is littered with massive granite boulders and some cliffs so we hired a guide through Good Time Adventures to show us around. It’s not necessary to hire a guide but since we were only there for a few days I didn’t want to waste time finding the best climbs. We went climbing the first day with Good Time Adventures then two days later went back to Mek’s Mountain on our own.

Try Something New

Good Time Adventures also gives flying trapeze lessons. I’d never tried it before but it looked like fun. It was lots of fun but one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done.

Eat and Drink A Lot

Lap Gai from some unnamed Thai restaurant on the side of the road.

Som Tam Thai from the same restaurant.

There are lots of good restaurants on the Island. A few I recommend are:

tHAITA iTALIAN RESTAURANT. Simple Italian food prepared with fresh ingredients. The best dinner I had on the island and it was reasonably priced.
Bruschetta
The Gallery. Fancy Thai food. I only had a drink and an appetizer here but based on what I saw I’m sure everything else is also delicious.
Le Petit Palace. European / American food. I had a hamburger here that was very average. But I liked the place anyways because they have a good but pricey selection of beer. I had a Deschutes IPA for the first time in 9 months and it was delicious!
Thai-Riffic. The Thai food here is sort of westernized but it’s still pretty good. But the real reason to come here is for the dessert and baked goods. They are delicious. Finding this place was extremely difficult. It’s not on the map where Google says it is and asking local Thai people where it is doesn’t work because they only hear “Thai restaurant” and say oh, there are 3 on this street and point you in the completely wrong direction. But we persevered and eventually found it.
Pad Grapow Moo

Practice Yoga

We went to Grounded Yoga two times while we were on the island. I though the teachers were good and drop in classes are fairly priced at 250 baht.

Pre class warm up with high plank.

Yoga students after class.

Get A Massage

There are many massage shops all along Sairee beach. Standard price for a one hour Thai massage is 300 baht. A bit more expensive than Ao Nang but not too bad. We went to one place and got ok massages. The next night we tried the spa at our resort and got a much better massage but it was 100 baht more. I’d say it was worth it for the better experience.

Watch The Sunset

This is the resort next to the one we stayed at. It looks very fancy and much nicer. I checked online and it was about the same price ! 😦

Windy and cloudy but still very nice sunset dinner at Aminjirah

Go Explore

Driving around the island is also fun. There are several large hills / small mountains and driving up to them provides beautiful views. There are also some temples and shrines on the island that we visited.

Thai Buddhist temple.

My best impersonation of Alex Honnold

Well, that’s about it. 5 days on the island and I was ready to come back to Ao Nang. But it’s been raining every day since I got back. I might need to go on another vacation to a less rainy part of Thailand.

Bangkok

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A friend of mine from work was coming to Bangkok so Anong and I booked some airplane tickets to visit her (thanks for the hospitality Jackie!). During the day Anong and I explored Bangkok, visited temples, and sampled the many options for food in the city. In the evenings we met up with Jackie and her friends for dinner and drinks.

On the 17th, we arrived in the afternoon. Getting from the airport to the city isn’t too difficult but it does take some time… We flew into Don Mueang Airport which means we had to take the A1 bus to the Mo Chit Bus Station which connects to the BTS (Sky Train). Once in the sky train station it was pretty easy to figure out how to get to Jackie’s place. I think it took about 2.5 hours to get there though. Once we got off the BTS is was a 20 minute or so walk. It didn’t take us long to find some street food.

If I go to Bangkok again I think I will try flying into Suvarnabhumi Airport which I think connects to the subway and BTS which would save lots of time by avoiding the bus ride. A little later in the evening we all went out for dinner at a Thai restaurant then met some other friends for drinks at a place called Small’s Bar. They had a pretty cool rooftop seating area.

The next day was a gruelling tour of all the wats (temples) in Bangkok. Well, not all of them but we went to 7 or 8 wats and a couple other shrines so it felt like we went to all of them. But first Anong and I went to a yoga studio for a nice morning workout. It was interesting trying a new yoga studio with different teachers and a different style of yoga. Anyone in Bangkok should check out Roots8Yoga.

Now for the wats! I think the first place we went to was called Chao Pho Suea Joss House. I can’t recommend going there. Once we got close to the entrance a few ladies selling incense, candles, and other things start quickly talking to us and showing a price list of various things. Anong is discussing various things with them. This is all happening in Thai so I’m not really sure what is being discussed. I don’t have a good feeling about this but I thought I’d just let Anong do her thing since it’s important to her and it seems they agreed on an offering tray with a few things on it for around ฿200 which didn’t seem too bad. So we go in side, light the prescribed number of incense sticks at each spot, burn some candles and do our thing. Meanwhile some dude is talking over a loudspeaker and some lady is following us around seemingly explaining various things to Anong but this is all unusual to me so I ask why is this lady following us around. Not getting a clear answer I just go with the flow. About 10 minutes later we walk out and back to the stand that sold us the tray of things and they tell us it’s ฿790! What!? Being in a little bit of shock I just pay it unsure of what service they provided for 10 minutes that was worth ฿790. After explaining to Anong that I don’t like being taken advantage of and that we can not spend ฿790 at every wat we go to we were on our way.

For any visitors to Thailand, here’s the standard operating procedure when visiting temples.

You can bring your own incense and candles. But if you use the incense and candles at the temple, they usually suggest a donation of ฿5 to ฿20.
More popular temples will have vendors selling flowers outside. Flowers will cost between ฿25 to ฿100 but none of this money goes to the temple so skip it.
When going inside the temple, take off your shoes.
When inside, light incense, say prayers, burn candles, take pictures. Pictures are almost always ok. Just be quiet and reverent.
There are usually 1 or 2 monks inside the temple. It’s ok to talk to the monk and you can get a blessing from the monk. It’s not required but a ฿20 donation is appropriate.
There will be other donation boxes inside the temple. Donate any amount you feel is appropriate.

The next stop is Wat Phra Kaew. It’s inside the Grand Palace and is one of the most popular tourist spots in the city. Outside they have a recording that plays every minute or two to remind people the palace is open every day and to be suspicious of anyone approaching you. Apparently a big scam is to tell tourists the palace is closed today then take them on a tour of gem and tailor shops with high pressure salesmen. It’s nice to see something being down to cut down on the tourist scams. The price to go inside was ฿500 for tourists! Thais are free. Thanks Thailand for yet another reminder that although you are happy to take my money, I am not really welcome here and do not belong. Still feeling sick from the last experience it was an easy decision to wait outside while Anong went in. It was so crowded that Anong wasn’t able to take any pictures so I feel like I didn’t miss anything. Here’s a couple pictures I got while I waited.

Before Wat Phra Kaew we saw this:

Mother Earth Squeezing Her Hair. A shrine to Queen Patcharindra who set up access to clean water for the people.

And this:

Next was Wat Pho. ฿200 to get in (free for Thais). No thanks. Here’s a picture of the ceiling over the bench I sat on while waiting outside.

After Wat Pho we went to Wat Arun. Wat Arun had lots of interesting things to look at. Most of which can be seen without paying a fee. There is one section that does have a fee but it’s a more reasonable ฿40 so I ended up paying that and got a few more pictures.

After Wat Arun we bought some boat tickets and rode up and down the Chao Phraya River (Thai: แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา) and saw a few more temples. Note the “Ch” is pronounced with a ‘J’ sound. At this point all the temples started looking the same so here’s a few more pictures:

Done with the temples! Here’s another street food picture. They are making Kanom Krok. My favorite Thai snack / dessert:

On the 19th, I went to yoga in the morning. After yoga we relaxed then headed out on the BTS to explore Bangkok a little bit. We did a little shopping at MBK but didn’t buy much. Walked around, and ate some food.

On the 20th, we went to see the Erawan Shrine. It’s a statue with four faces.

Then we went to China Town.

Durian Gan Yao!

Of course we went to more wats!

Painting on a ceramic pot.

This is a solid gold statue of Buddha. This picture cost me ฿40

The temples in China Town reminded me of Hong Kong.

The durian was delicious.

Then we ate pizza at Via Vai. A guy we were with is friends with the owner so we got this extra fancy pizza. We drank red wine and ate some more normal pizzas. Best pizza I’ve had in Thailand so far.

And on our last day, we just went to the airport. Back on the BTS to Mo Chit. Then take the A1 to the airport. It was a bit of an adventure finding the bus station and the bus. I learned that Thai people are happy to give you directions even when they don’t know the location of where you are trying to go. The bus stop didn’t list the A1 bus so I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to come here. Anong asked someone and they said walk up to the next spot about 100 feet away. Still no indication that the A1 bus would come here and nobody can explain to me why it comes here when it’s not listed as stopping here. Eventually a #29 bus comes. I’m not sure how but Anong quickly figured out it also goes to the airport and we confirmed it with the bus driver. So we get on the bus and about a half mile up the road pass another bus stop with clearly marked sign for the A1 bus. Eventually we made it to the airport and got to the gate 20 minutes before boarding.

Bangkok was a fun city. I’d like to go back to sample more of the street food and see some of the other areas. I was really amazed at how much food is in the city. There are many restaurants but the sidewalks are packed with food vendors at all times of the day. I was also pleasantly surprised with the taxis. I’d heard horror stories about taxis not using the meters, over charging, and refusing to take you to where you wanted to go but the couple times we took a taxi we did not have any of those problems.