Thailand & Cambodia are awesome!
- Thread starter warpus
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warpus
In pork I trust
I have no idea actually, all I know is that they are limestone cliffs. Wait till you see some of the other beaches, the formations get quite spectacular.
warpus
In pork I trust
The monkeys of Ao Nang Beach
At the end of the beach I found a bunch of monkeys.
There were a lot of them around.. as well as people who showed up to watch them or take pictures of them. One guy in particular was getting especially friendly with the neighbourhood monkeys.. or rather they were getting especially friendly with him.
At times it wasn't easy getting good pictures.. the monkeys moved around very quickly and usually very frequently. You had to sort of wait for one to come near you, or casually shuffle up to one somehow without scaring it away. It wasn't easy, they're super suspicious of everything you do if you're near them.
The following picture contains the private parts of a monkey.. So be warned (I guess)! I am going to use my discretion here and post this picture without any spoiler tags though, because.. well, look at how cute this monkey is. Unless you hate monkeys, you should probably look at this picture.
A favourite monkey activity is to fight over scraps of food, things that could be food, and things that are just fun to fight over.
At the end of the beach I found a bunch of monkeys.
There were a lot of them around.. as well as people who showed up to watch them or take pictures of them. One guy in particular was getting especially friendly with the neighbourhood monkeys.. or rather they were getting especially friendly with him.
At times it wasn't easy getting good pictures.. the monkeys moved around very quickly and usually very frequently. You had to sort of wait for one to come near you, or casually shuffle up to one somehow without scaring it away. It wasn't easy, they're super suspicious of everything you do if you're near them.
The following picture contains the private parts of a monkey.. So be warned (I guess)! I am going to use my discretion here and post this picture without any spoiler tags though, because.. well, look at how cute this monkey is. Unless you hate monkeys, you should probably look at this picture.
A favourite monkey activity is to fight over scraps of food, things that could be food, and things that are just fun to fight over.
warpus
In pork I trust
The monkeys of Ao Nang Beach 2
I figured out why the monkeys were so friendly rather quickly.. People either fed them or were careless enough to let them take their stuff. I watched a monkey walk up to a lady, grab her bag (with a bunch of fruit in it, I think), and run off. The lady wasn't even looking in different direction or anything.. I don't think these monkeys really held the tourists who came to watch them in a very high regard. We were potential food sources for them and that's it.
Monkeying around involves things such as this:
Then a monkey jumped on my head. It seemed interested in digging out stuff out of my hair, as if I had something delicious stored in my skalp.
I figured I might as well take a selfie with it on my head. I only got half my face, but good enough..
I figured out why the monkeys were so friendly rather quickly.. People either fed them or were careless enough to let them take their stuff. I watched a monkey walk up to a lady, grab her bag (with a bunch of fruit in it, I think), and run off. The lady wasn't even looking in different direction or anything.. I don't think these monkeys really held the tourists who came to watch them in a very high regard. We were potential food sources for them and that's it.
Monkeying around involves things such as this:
Then a monkey jumped on my head. It seemed interested in digging out stuff out of my hair, as if I had something delicious stored in my skalp.
I figured I might as well take a selfie with it on my head. I only got half my face, but good enough..
warpus
In pork I trust
The stupid monkeys of Ao Nang Beach 3
This guy walked up to me and started going through my camera bag.
Then he sat on my lap.
Then I had two monkeys on my lap..
One of them kind of climbed up onto my hand..
A not a very good picture of the situation was taken by some tourist:
Look at those eyes though. Doesn't it look like this monkey is plotting something?
Well, it bit me and drew blood. I think it was fully my fault, because I was trying to balance myself better and for a bit extended my right hand in a way which I think the monkey found threatening. It must not have liked it at all, because that's when it bit me. I had to push it off, it went in for that bite with a vengeance. So it was probably my fault, but from now on I sort of hate monkeys. They have lost my respect.
I immediately stood up and started sucking on the wound. That was probably the worst thing I could have done at the time, as I would later learn.. but what was done was done.
I remembered seeing a pharmacy earlier, so I started walking in that direction hoping that they would have advice for monkey disease treatments. My biggest worry was rabies.
This guy walked up to me and started going through my camera bag.
Then he sat on my lap.
Then I had two monkeys on my lap..
One of them kind of climbed up onto my hand..
A not a very good picture of the situation was taken by some tourist:
Look at those eyes though. Doesn't it look like this monkey is plotting something?
Well, it bit me and drew blood. I think it was fully my fault, because I was trying to balance myself better and for a bit extended my right hand in a way which I think the monkey found threatening. It must not have liked it at all, because that's when it bit me. I had to push it off, it went in for that bite with a vengeance. So it was probably my fault, but from now on I sort of hate monkeys. They have lost my respect.
I immediately stood up and started sucking on the wound. That was probably the worst thing I could have done at the time, as I would later learn.. but what was done was done.
I remembered seeing a pharmacy earlier, so I started walking in that direction hoping that they would have advice for monkey disease treatments. My biggest worry was rabies.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Missed quite a bit. A museum too, one of my favorite kind of destinations. Great pictures as always. 
warpus
In pork I trust
Yeah, but pretty much wild I think. I should have known better not to let one on me.
Missed quite a bit. A museum too, one of my favorite kind of destinations. Great pictures as always.
Thanks! There's a lot of beaches, islands, rock formation, etc. pictures coming up, a change of pace from all the temples.. but unfortunately I don't think I remember any more museums.
warpus
In pork I trust
Dealing with a monkey bite
The first thing I did was walk to a pharmacy to ask for advice. They told me not to worry about it.
This didn't sound convincing enough to me at all, so I went to another pharmacy to get a second opinion. I got the same answer there... So I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch and asked my waiter for advice. Sometimes waiters know things, you know? Well, this particular waiter said that back home in India there are a lot of monkeys, and they bite people all the time.. and it's all cool. So I probably shouldn't worry about it.
So he left and I went online with my mobile device to look up monkeys and potential problems resulting from wild monkey bites. Turns out that monkey bites can lead to rabies, which can lead to death, and that you should go get something done about it within 24 hours of the bite. I found stories online of people getting bitten, and the general consensus seemed to be that most of the time nothing's going to happen, but every once in a while it can kill you. So the smart thing to do is to go get rabies shots.
I devoured my meal and went to yet another pharmacy, where I was finally for the first time told that this was a possible problem.. especially since the bite penetrated the skin and there was blood. I was directed to a medical clinic, at which I had to take off my shoes outside, and explain again that I was just bitten by a monkey and that I need the appropriate medical attention.
Lessons learned: Always get a 4th opinion, never trust waiters.
Before anything could begin I had to make a decision. Did I want cheap Thai drugs injected in me or expensive western ones? I went all out. It probably didn't matter, but I wanted the best treatment possible. I was on vacation after all, and this was my life on the line here. There was definitely money in the trip budget for this.
Turns out the rabies shots were a rabies shots schedule. I got one shot there, had to come back for another one in a couple days, and then have a third one in a different part of the country.. then one on my very first day back at work here in Canada... and a fifth one that didn't end up happening, due to recommendations of Canadian health care professionals.
After the shot was done the nurse left the room. I got up from the bed and started gathering my things.. but my towel was not there! The one you see in the picture above.. I had definitely put it just to the right of me, right before the nurse started treating the bite and administering the shot. I thought I was going crazy, but it was definitely not there. I didn't see her taking it either. And the thing with this towel was that the guest house would charge me a relatively hefty fee if I lost it. Plus I would feel bad for losing it, and the owner of the damn place drove me to the beach even.. so I felt like I should respect the guest house and its towels.
Only one of the nurses spoke decent English, and it wasn't really that great. So it was not easy explaining that I thought that one of them must have taken my towel when I wasn't looking. I had to basically start by explaining what a beach towel is.. and we didn't really get very far there. Google was involved and many conversations between the nurses in Thai that I did not understand at all.
And see, this part of the story I can't remember at all, but then I did finally somehow get my towel back. I think somebody appeared from the back with it. Or it was just sitting there. It's an odd missing memory, but the towel was finally there and everyone was incredibly amused at both the situation and the fact that the thing I had been trying to explain to them was a beach towel.. and everything was okay and I wouldn't have to pay the towel fee or die from rabies.
I also got a regiment of western antibiotics, which I had to take twice a day for the next 10 days, limiting my alcohol intake windows extensively. All the drugs ended up costing me $124, but this did not include future rabies shots.. Each one of those would be about $40 each. So as you can see it's not fun at all in any way when you get bitten by a monkey.
So let us never speak of monkeys again, but before that happens here's a video I took of them monkeying around. The last bit of the video is sideways. Let's say I'll edit that part out later..
Link to video.
Editor's note: Dropkick at 1:48
I took a couple pictures on the walk back to the guest house.
I don't really have any other memories from this day. My notes don't say anything and there aren't any more pictures. I probably just ate a bunch of Thai food at some restaurant on the strip and then slowly made my way to the guest house.. where I probably ate more food. It was very good, the chef was usually either the owner's wife or some other lady which sort of looked like her. It's even possible that there were three ladies and not two, but either way, the food never let me down. It was very very good.
The first thing I did was walk to a pharmacy to ask for advice. They told me not to worry about it.
This didn't sound convincing enough to me at all, so I went to another pharmacy to get a second opinion. I got the same answer there... So I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch and asked my waiter for advice. Sometimes waiters know things, you know? Well, this particular waiter said that back home in India there are a lot of monkeys, and they bite people all the time.. and it's all cool. So I probably shouldn't worry about it.
So he left and I went online with my mobile device to look up monkeys and potential problems resulting from wild monkey bites. Turns out that monkey bites can lead to rabies, which can lead to death, and that you should go get something done about it within 24 hours of the bite. I found stories online of people getting bitten, and the general consensus seemed to be that most of the time nothing's going to happen, but every once in a while it can kill you. So the smart thing to do is to go get rabies shots.
I devoured my meal and went to yet another pharmacy, where I was finally for the first time told that this was a possible problem.. especially since the bite penetrated the skin and there was blood. I was directed to a medical clinic, at which I had to take off my shoes outside, and explain again that I was just bitten by a monkey and that I need the appropriate medical attention.
Lessons learned: Always get a 4th opinion, never trust waiters.
Before anything could begin I had to make a decision. Did I want cheap Thai drugs injected in me or expensive western ones? I went all out. It probably didn't matter, but I wanted the best treatment possible. I was on vacation after all, and this was my life on the line here. There was definitely money in the trip budget for this.
Turns out the rabies shots were a rabies shots schedule. I got one shot there, had to come back for another one in a couple days, and then have a third one in a different part of the country.. then one on my very first day back at work here in Canada... and a fifth one that didn't end up happening, due to recommendations of Canadian health care professionals.
After the shot was done the nurse left the room. I got up from the bed and started gathering my things.. but my towel was not there! The one you see in the picture above.. I had definitely put it just to the right of me, right before the nurse started treating the bite and administering the shot. I thought I was going crazy, but it was definitely not there. I didn't see her taking it either. And the thing with this towel was that the guest house would charge me a relatively hefty fee if I lost it. Plus I would feel bad for losing it, and the owner of the damn place drove me to the beach even.. so I felt like I should respect the guest house and its towels.
Only one of the nurses spoke decent English, and it wasn't really that great. So it was not easy explaining that I thought that one of them must have taken my towel when I wasn't looking. I had to basically start by explaining what a beach towel is.. and we didn't really get very far there. Google was involved and many conversations between the nurses in Thai that I did not understand at all.
And see, this part of the story I can't remember at all, but then I did finally somehow get my towel back. I think somebody appeared from the back with it. Or it was just sitting there. It's an odd missing memory, but the towel was finally there and everyone was incredibly amused at both the situation and the fact that the thing I had been trying to explain to them was a beach towel.. and everything was okay and I wouldn't have to pay the towel fee or die from rabies.
I also got a regiment of western antibiotics, which I had to take twice a day for the next 10 days, limiting my alcohol intake windows extensively. All the drugs ended up costing me $124, but this did not include future rabies shots.. Each one of those would be about $40 each. So as you can see it's not fun at all in any way when you get bitten by a monkey.
So let us never speak of monkeys again, but before that happens here's a video I took of them monkeying around. The last bit of the video is sideways. Let's say I'll edit that part out later..
Link to video.
Editor's note: Dropkick at 1:48
I took a couple pictures on the walk back to the guest house.
I don't really have any other memories from this day. My notes don't say anything and there aren't any more pictures. I probably just ate a bunch of Thai food at some restaurant on the strip and then slowly made my way to the guest house.. where I probably ate more food. It was very good, the chef was usually either the owner's wife or some other lady which sort of looked like her. It's even possible that there were three ladies and not two, but either way, the food never let me down. It was very very good.
warpus
In pork I trust
When I first reached for that towel and it wasn't there, I panicked. I was out of it, but was pretty damn sure I put it right there beside me. Doubts started floating through my mind anyway though.. "What dumbass I am, I get bitten by a monkey and now my towel is missing"
Good thing I wasn't shy about bugging the nurses and clinic administration staff about it. A lost towel isn't really a huge deal, but the guest house would have charged me an arm and a leg for it. Plus it's just not right to lose your towel.
warpus
In pork I trust
Railay Beach
I was going to be staying near Ao Nang beach for a couple days.. There is a lot of cool stuff in the area, including a very old jungle 100km or so to the north that contains older & more diverse biodiversity than the Amazon rainforest (Khao Sok National Park). There is a really pretty looking lake in the middle of this park, and I was eager to go kayaking there.. but unfortunately this part of Thailand had been receiving a lot of rain and all the kayak operators were shut down. Several other top options were rained out as well.
It was cloudy out, with occasional rain, but I wasn't going to let a day go to waste.. I woke up early and ended up on a loud wooden boat, which took me on a "4 island" day trip.
And when I say loud wooden boat, that thing was LOUD. The girl beside me and several other people held their hands over their ears for long durations of the trip.. Others, like me, put bits of toilet paper in ours. This worked surprisingly well..
Not too long after departure we were at our first destination: Railay Beach
Railay Beach is very popular with rock climbers. It was recommended to me by a friend who is from Thailand and partakes in the sport... I don't, but it was impressive watching people scale those steep cliffs.
There are two parts of Railay Beach - east and west. Both are only accessible via boat. It is truly a beautiful place and not at all an island.
One of my top 5 photos from the whole trip was taken here:
The weather was cooperating so far..
I had about an hour to explore and bum around on the beach...
I made my way to the other end of the beach.
The cliffs would not stop looking impressive for as long as I continued to stare at them.
I was going to be staying near Ao Nang beach for a couple days.. There is a lot of cool stuff in the area, including a very old jungle 100km or so to the north that contains older & more diverse biodiversity than the Amazon rainforest (Khao Sok National Park). There is a really pretty looking lake in the middle of this park, and I was eager to go kayaking there.. but unfortunately this part of Thailand had been receiving a lot of rain and all the kayak operators were shut down. Several other top options were rained out as well.
It was cloudy out, with occasional rain, but I wasn't going to let a day go to waste.. I woke up early and ended up on a loud wooden boat, which took me on a "4 island" day trip.
And when I say loud wooden boat, that thing was LOUD. The girl beside me and several other people held their hands over their ears for long durations of the trip.. Others, like me, put bits of toilet paper in ours. This worked surprisingly well..
Not too long after departure we were at our first destination: Railay Beach
Railay Beach is very popular with rock climbers. It was recommended to me by a friend who is from Thailand and partakes in the sport... I don't, but it was impressive watching people scale those steep cliffs.
There are two parts of Railay Beach - east and west. Both are only accessible via boat. It is truly a beautiful place and not at all an island.
One of my top 5 photos from the whole trip was taken here:
The weather was cooperating so far..
I had about an hour to explore and bum around on the beach...
I made my way to the other end of the beach.
The cliffs would not stop looking impressive for as long as I continued to stare at them.
warpus
In pork I trust
Railay Beach 2
Context:
No wonder this place is a rock climbing mecca!
Among all this beauty I found something that I probably won't be able to show here - 30+ wooden penises of various shapes, colours, and sizes sticking out of the sand in front of an altar.. A fertility altar. It's quite a sight actually, especially the big black one with the red helmet.
Either way, it was definitely time for a swim...
The water was quite warm, even in the shade of that giant rock face. It was a quite .. delightful experience. The best word I can think of to describe how it felt is the German word herrlich. It seems more appropriate than any English word I can think of for some reason.
Everything seemed to be working out after all.. it wasn't even that cloudy!
I found a decent spot in the sun and lazed around on the beach for a while.. Then it was time to head back to the boat way at the other end of the beach. And obviously I showed up right on time.. because that's the polite thing to do.. so I had a couple minutes to kill while we waited for everybody else to show up. I didn't really mind, it gave me more time to try to get more of the beauty into a picture.. It wasn't easy! Nothing just seemed to compare to the real thing.. The immensity of the place just didn't seem to translate at all to any pictures I was taking..
Context:
No wonder this place is a rock climbing mecca!
Among all this beauty I found something that I probably won't be able to show here - 30+ wooden penises of various shapes, colours, and sizes sticking out of the sand in front of an altar.. A fertility altar. It's quite a sight actually, especially the big black one with the red helmet.
Either way, it was definitely time for a swim...
The water was quite warm, even in the shade of that giant rock face. It was a quite .. delightful experience. The best word I can think of to describe how it felt is the German word herrlich. It seems more appropriate than any English word I can think of for some reason.
Everything seemed to be working out after all.. it wasn't even that cloudy!
I found a decent spot in the sun and lazed around on the beach for a while.. Then it was time to head back to the boat way at the other end of the beach. And obviously I showed up right on time.. because that's the polite thing to do.. so I had a couple minutes to kill while we waited for everybody else to show up. I didn't really mind, it gave me more time to try to get more of the beauty into a picture.. It wasn't easy! Nothing just seemed to compare to the real thing.. The immensity of the place just didn't seem to translate at all to any pictures I was taking..
Goodfella
Showing results for
Man With the Golden Gun anyone?
warpus
In pork I trust
James Bond island was actually on the itinerary for this particular day trip, but we did not get a chance to stop there because the windy conditions would have made it dangerous to navigate to the beach.... or something similar. Which is too bad, but it probably would have been packed with people otherwise anyway, and I hate crowds.
warpus
In pork I trust
Ko Poda Island
The first actual island on the "4 island" day trip was Ko Poda, a fairly small island that I couldn't really find much information on. It's about 8km from Ao Nang beach.
We had lunch here, which came along with us on our boat. So we didn't need to buy anything off the "boat restaurants", but they were there if anyone was feeling especially hungry or didn't agree with the provided food.
There weren't many people here today, and a Polish couple I met during lunch told me that they had heard it was a fairly large beach and connected to others - so after lunch I went exploring.. I had about an hour until it was time to leave - more than enough time to explore a bit, lie around, read my book, maybe go for a swim..
So I went off looking for a slightly secluded spot to throw my towel down on. Along the way I took pictures.
The first actual island on the "4 island" day trip was Ko Poda, a fairly small island that I couldn't really find much information on. It's about 8km from Ao Nang beach.
We had lunch here, which came along with us on our boat. So we didn't need to buy anything off the "boat restaurants", but they were there if anyone was feeling especially hungry or didn't agree with the provided food.
There weren't many people here today, and a Polish couple I met during lunch told me that they had heard it was a fairly large beach and connected to others - so after lunch I went exploring.. I had about an hour until it was time to leave - more than enough time to explore a bit, lie around, read my book, maybe go for a swim..
So I went off looking for a slightly secluded spot to throw my towel down on. Along the way I took pictures.
warpus
In pork I trust
It's not polite
Plus, to be fair, girls in bikinis are everywhere... beautiful scenery like that isn't. There were plenty of Russian men on vacation in southern Thailand as well.. .. . .. And do you have any idea what Russian men wear to the beach? It's basically what Canadian women wear to the beach, minus the top, plus 80% of the time a GIANT beer gut. I'd rather have women in bikinis in my shots than Russian beach wear, and there was way too much of it around. It ruined a bunch of my pics. I was trying to focus more on keeping those dudes out of my shots than making any sort of conscious attempt to include girls in bikinis. They were much more fun to talk to anyway, rather than trying to get creeper shots of them.
That's not really my style, but a girl in a blue bikini did get in a couple of my shots. She was photographing a rather empty part of the beach that was also rather scenic.. Standing right in the middle of it. I wasn't going to miss the shot, so I made her a part of the scenery. It works... nature is nature.
warpus
In pork I trust
The rest of the "4 island" day trip
I found my "secluded enough" spot on Ko Poda island and took a short nap. It was amazing to just lie there and do nothing, even if the weather wasn't exactly perfect..
Months before the flight to Bangkok one of the "dreams" I had in my head of what was going to happen in Thailand .. was this. Sure, with nicer weather, but the other requirements were all there: Tropical beach, perfect sand, clear water, seclusion. And not a thought about what might or might not be happening in snowy southwestern Ontario, Canada.
So it was a very enjoyable "nap", or more like 20-30 minutes of me lying there listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, drifting in and out of consciousness...
... until my trusty travel watch started beeping.. It was time to go..
but first a couple more pictures..
On the way back to the boat I noticed that the clouds were starting to look nasty.. I think the following picture exaggerates how bad it was a bit, but it was definitely going to be raining at some point.
We missed out on Khao Phing Kan island because it was too dangerous to approach. It is known for being "that island from that James Bond movie" and so you will see and hear it called James Bond island in promotional material, by tourists.. and from my experience by pretty much everyone who has anything to say about it.
But we did not miss out on Chicken island... which looks like a chicken.
I would say it actually more closely resembles a fist. My roommate agrees with me. The resemblance can be seen even better from this angle:
Next up on the itinerary was some snorkeling, which is something I'd never done before.
The water just couldn't have been any more clear.
There were a lot of yellow fish in the water, as you can see but also some red fish and if memory serves me correct, green. And a whole bunch of other colours. But the yellow ones seemed to dominate.
As you can tell I don't know much about fish.. so I can't tell you much about them, but they were really fun to swim beside and spy on.
I really enjoyed my first time snorkeling. I don't have one negative thing to say about it, other that my goggles seemed faulty and every once in a while leaked water. For the most part it wasn't a problem, but it did mean that I had to resurface every once in a while to clear out the water and reapply everything from scratch. This got tedious after a while.. After 20 minutes or so of spying on fish I was done.
I found my "secluded enough" spot on Ko Poda island and took a short nap. It was amazing to just lie there and do nothing, even if the weather wasn't exactly perfect..
Months before the flight to Bangkok one of the "dreams" I had in my head of what was going to happen in Thailand .. was this. Sure, with nicer weather, but the other requirements were all there: Tropical beach, perfect sand, clear water, seclusion. And not a thought about what might or might not be happening in snowy southwestern Ontario, Canada.
So it was a very enjoyable "nap", or more like 20-30 minutes of me lying there listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, drifting in and out of consciousness...
... until my trusty travel watch started beeping.. It was time to go..
but first a couple more pictures..
On the way back to the boat I noticed that the clouds were starting to look nasty.. I think the following picture exaggerates how bad it was a bit, but it was definitely going to be raining at some point.
We missed out on Khao Phing Kan island because it was too dangerous to approach. It is known for being "that island from that James Bond movie" and so you will see and hear it called James Bond island in promotional material, by tourists.. and from my experience by pretty much everyone who has anything to say about it.
But we did not miss out on Chicken island... which looks like a chicken.
I would say it actually more closely resembles a fist. My roommate agrees with me. The resemblance can be seen even better from this angle:
Next up on the itinerary was some snorkeling, which is something I'd never done before.
The water just couldn't have been any more clear.
There were a lot of yellow fish in the water, as you can see but also some red fish and if memory serves me correct, green. And a whole bunch of other colours. But the yellow ones seemed to dominate.
As you can tell I don't know much about fish.. so I can't tell you much about them, but they were really fun to swim beside and spy on.
I really enjoyed my first time snorkeling. I don't have one negative thing to say about it, other that my goggles seemed faulty and every once in a while leaked water. For the most part it wasn't a problem, but it did mean that I had to resurface every once in a while to clear out the water and reapply everything from scratch. This got tedious after a while.. After 20 minutes or so of spying on fish I was done.
