Hi, dear! Today I’m going to tell you the story of my life in Thailand. I love travelling and I’m interested in different countries, especially exotic ones. Recently it has been popular to spend winter in warm countries, specially with Russians as we have such cold winters. I’ve seen lots of videos on the lives of travelers and a year ago I decided to go to Thailand. This was a New Year’s present I gave to myself.
When thinking of Thailand, most people imagine Krabi, Phuket, Pattaya and Bangkok. As for me, I haven’t been to any of those popular touristic places. I’ve been to Bangkok, though, because I flew there from Russia. I was there almost a week, living in a hostel located near the best known street of Bangkok – Khao San Road. So every day I passed it and saw crowds of tourists. Bangkok is a beautiful city with magnificent Buddhist temples and sculptures that impressed me the most.
But it is suffocating in there so I set off to Ko Pha Ngan Island. To get there, I travelled to the port of Donsak and took a 3.5 hour ferry ride. It felt like a mini-cruise. Ko Pha Ngan is an amazing island and, above all things, there are few tourists.
The island started developing tourism just recently and there is a lot of construction going on. For instance, the roads are built by the Burmese with the use of modern technologies. In Russia the roads are much worse. It is hard to get around the island on foot, and having a motorbike or a scooter is a must as there are many hills which make it hard to ride a bicycle and the roads are too narrow for a car. Naturally, there are no high-rise buildings and the island looks like a village. The sunsets and landscapes of Ko Pha Ngan are just stunning.
Muay Thai is well developed here. I was amazed when I found out that one of trainers in the island club was Russian. His name was Dima and he helped me and told me about the lives, customs and traditions of Thai people. I also went to training sessions and watched the Thais and tourists box. The locals love watching tourists and Thais on the ring as Muay Thai is an important tradition and the fights are real shows.
First I lived with Jane, an American, who I helped with housework. Then I lived with my friends from Moscow. There was an elephant camp nearby which offered tours around the island on the elephants. While it sounds great, the elephants screamed loudly all the time, because the Thai trained them cruelly. Greenpeace would hardly be happy about it.
The most amazing thing about the island is that it is formed of rose quartz. Once I went with a group of enthusiasts to mine it. We rode though the tropics for a long time, then went down the waterfall and climbed over the rocks along the sea. But more about it in the next post …