Sunny days, sweaty nights

We are seriously diggin' being on the beach!

We successfully met up with our friends Sean Gorman and Jordan Kalinchuk from Alberta, friends from Lake O'hara. After meeting up in Bangkok we headed straight south to the islands.

It's beautiful, and hot, and we've just been soaking it up. The only occasionally frustrating thing is that it's absolute high season, so accommodation is hard to come by and rather expensive compared to what we're accustomed to... We've had a few stressful moments trying to find places we can afford to stay, because the little humble places we can afford tend not to advertise or take any advance bookings.

Jon and I have 9 days until we need to make our way back up to Bangkok to fly home, so we're doing a little bit of island hopping. We're on Ko Lanta right now, and next maybe Ko Phi Phi, and then back to Railay for some climbing after Sean and Jordie's friend Cody comes down to meet up with us. He's going to bring a bunch of Sean's climbing gear from home so that we can save some money on rentals.

Phranang beach on Railay was probably the most amazing beach I've ever seen. It's flanked by towering limestone cliffs covered in climbers, the water is warm and crystal clear, the sand silky and white, and there's all these fun cliffs to scramble about on and jump into the water. We could have just stayed, but there's a lot of cool places to see so we're island hopping and we'll just go back.

Today on Ko Lanta we got scooters (of the slightly temperamental semi-functional variety) and scooted around the island exploring various beaches, and stopping periodically for snacks. There were some utterly magical deserted beaches, I had had my doubts that such a thing still existed in Thailand until we saw them today. Ko Lanta is the largest population of muslim Thais in Thailand, but we're finding them moderate and tolerant of the tourists. Largely accustomed to and seemingly non judgemental of bikini clad and beer drinking backpackers.

Southern Thailand is such a saturated tourist destination that we don't feel like we get as much as a sense of "real" Thailand here - there are almost as many foreigners as there are Thais. We all knew what we were getting into, and the beaches and jungle are certainly worth the time down here. It's just that our time in rural Laos, northern Thailand and urban Hanoi felt a lot more authentic than this environment.

I admit that on some levels I'm having trouble being in the moment these days. My impending return home has me preoccupied with things like jobs, places to live, finances. I am dreading saying goodbye to Carina. In some ways I look forward to getting home, but the cold dreary Vancouver winter will be hard to face. Conflicted emotions.

Eryn is scoping out jobs for me, and Maya is going to take me in as a roommate for a few months before I return for O'hara 2011, so that's falling into place. I'm trying my best to remain in the present, where I am right NOW, and enjoy the last two weeks of this adventure.

So here's a few snap shots. That's me jumping off a little cliff. I swear it looked waaay higher when I was standing on it. The water was really deep, it was so much fun.

That's a snap of Sean and Jon on the train so you can see what the inside of a second class sleeper train car looks like before they convert the seats into sleeper bunks. The train cars are old and gritty and have a lot of charm, cool staff and bedbugs, unfortunately.

Carina buying some noodles from one of the mobile beach restaurants that move from beach to beach selling food.

Sean playing his guitar while we waited for the long tail to take us from Ao Nang to Railay.

...and I couldn't resist the gratuitous shot of everyone walking out of the water. That's Carina, Emily, Sean, Jon and Jordan.