Southern Thailand: Koh Phi Phi

As I mentioned last week, I want to detail my trip to Southeast Asia in a series of posts that will hopefully break it down into digestible chunks by city, region or country, should you ever find yourself planning a similar trip.

My friend Jessica and I arrived in Bangkok, spent 12 hours there, and flew out the same night to Phuket. (Since we didn't spend a significant amount of time in either city, I won't write about them -- mainly because if I ever saw someone write a post on San Francisco and he/she had spent only 12 hours there, I'd freak out 'cause I'm pretty sure you couldn't do the city justice in half a day.)

Koh Phi Phi by day 

Beautiful, peaceful sunset preceding a night of vodka buckets

"The strip"

On our second day in Thailand, we took a two-hour ferry ride from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi island. Koh Phi Phi is...an experience. Apparently it used to be a very tranquil vacation destination before the 2004 tsunami, but it's now a complete tourist trap with hostels and bars catering to twenty-somethings looking to drink vodka out of buckets and get laid on the beach (as evidenced by the fact that the beach was littered with booze bottles and condoms each morning). While Koh Phi Phi might have been my vision of heaven as a 19 year old, it was a little much for my ripe old age of 27. We stayed in on our second night after a very aggressive first night on the island, and could hear (and feel...literally) the EDM music blaring until the wee hours. The main party strip is on Tonsai Bay, and if you do choose to stay there, I would recommend staying at The Beacha Club*. Our hostel was just next door but it was disgusting, and I looked longingly into the windows of the clean, bright rooms of The Beacha Club as I walked past each day.

*For most of my travels in Southeast Asia, I booked hostels very last minute with no issues. Koh Phi Phi is small and popular, so it is worth planning ahead (5-7 days should be sufficient) to ensure that you don't end up in a grimy hostel. 

The saving grace of Koh Phi Phi was monkey island. Jessica and I woke up early (you can do this when you're the only people on the island who aren't hungover) and rented a kayak on the beach to head to monkey island. The beach on Tonsai Bay is pretty grimy (remember the aforementioned beer bottles and condoms?) and I was disappointed that we had yet to see the lush, white sand and clear, blue water I was envisioning thanks to Google images of Thailand. We found that beach paradise at monkey island and were so, so happy to swim around by ourselves without fear of swimming with garbage. We didn't see any monkeys until a guide arrived with a German couple. He knew how to call for the monkeys and almost instantaneously there were at least a dozen of them scampering and swinging across the beach. I LOVED this (although they got scarily close to my GoPro) but Jessica was far less excited by our new furry friends so we left soon thereafter. 

Sadly, I did not eat a single meal on Koh Phi Phi that I would recommend. For the most part, food is overpriced and caters to a Western palate (e.g. Pad Thai with tomato sauce...?). This will not be the pinnacle of your cultural experience in Thailand, but you will certainly leave with a story or two. I'll refrain from telling mine here, since my mom reads this :). 

Love is Love

Oh, what a happy day here in San Francisco (and across the U.S.! And apparently in Canada, too!)!

My heart feels so happy and full for my LGBT friends today. As a country we're very late to the party, but I'm still so proud of America. It's been interesting to watch the evolution of feelings towards marriage equality -- in high school "so gay" was a derogatory term used freely and excessively, whereas now it's completely taboo to refer to anything as gay that isn't, well, gay.

In my personal life, it was incredibly cool to watch my parents befriend a young gay couple in Salt Lake City. Not that they were homophobic, but I can't say I ever really expected to dance with my parents to "Summer Lovin'" at an HRC gala with a bunch of men wearing lip gloss.

I'll be celebrating tomorrow by (naturally) going to the brand new SoulCycle Castro studio with my gay BFF. And in the meantime here are some of my favorite posts (because my newsfeed has been vomiting rainbows and I love it) to commemorate this momentous and long-awaited day:

1. Palm to face (Not touching but too funny not to include.)
2. The Onion had a field day with this one.
3. How We Changed Our Thinking on Gay Marriage. I especially like the clip from the Baptist pastor.
4. TedTalks on Love. I haven't actually watched these yet but I love LZ Granderson from reading his blog posts on CNN, so I imagine this'll be good...
5. So much love!

Have a wonderful weekend celebrating equality :)

An unexpected adventure

When I write, I try really hard to avoid cliches...or over-quoting...or inspirational quotes entirely (that's a lie; I LOVE inspirational quotes - guilty pleasure?) but the impetus for my two months in Southeast Asia really can best be summarized by a Rolling Stones song.

You can't always get what you want...but if you try sometimes...you get what you need...

I know, I know. But really.

A few weeks into my last job, I remember having a very bittersweet moment in which I realized how much I was loving everything about my new role. I see myself staying here for years! This is what I've been waiting for! My career path makes sense now! These thoughts were almost immediately followed by a dark cloud in which I realized that if I were to stay at my company for years, I would forego the opportunity to take a few months to travel in my twenties, which had been in the back of my mind since college.

As life tends to go, I jumped the gun with these thoughts, and a few months and a horrible boss later (let's talk sometime about that Madeline Albright quote, "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women", k?),  I found myself in an unexpected position with both time and money.

Without much thought or planning, I booked a oneway ticket to Bangkok, and somehow convinced one of my best friends to join me for the first week.

The thing about unexpected adventures is that you have very little time to set expectations. I felt my heart stop momentarily as I gazed out at the sheer beauty of Nong Khiaw, Laos - a village completely unknown to me before I hopped a bus randomly because I had a few days to kill before a flight. I fought with a Canadian who decided -- in Hanoi -- to get a tattoo of American planes dropping bombs on Vietnam, because he "hated the country." I felt genuine pangs of sadness as I hugged Jess, John, and Saawan goodbye -- three people with whom I rappelled down waterfalls in Vietnam, ate green curry in Thailand, and whose advice and friendship I came to rely on as I was thousands of miles and a 12-hour time change away from my friends and family in the U.S. I didn't have time to plan for any of these emotions or experiences, and that made my reactions to them so much more authentic.

I felt deeply and without distraction, and I focused. I focused on who I was with, what I was doing, what I was seeing, thinking, and feeling. Sometimes it wasn't fun or magical or beautiful, but it was all meaningful. Even the less than ideal moments culminated in an overall experience that, though I didn't seek it out, turned out to be something that maybe I needed.

I'm so happy that since I've returned, several people have reached out to me asking about my itinerary. I would love to share more about my trip, and I'll be doing so over several posts on the blog.