Sawatdee Khrab!

Ralph and I finally made it to the beach! And we aren't wearing the same clothes that we were wearing for four days straight! Mama's happy.

After staying awake all night and seeing Dave Chappelle start out strong and then bomb at Cobb's Comedy Club, we left our apartment in San Francisco at 9 a.m. local time on Saturday, April 16, and were in the same clothes until the afternoon of Tuesday, April 19. The reason was not so much because we wanted to really get into the grimy backpacker spirit, but more because Air China "didn't have us in their system." So a four hour layover in Beijing became a 28 hour layover, and included two pump-fake "maybe we can get you a seat on standby." They could not.

At around 9 p.m. on Sunday evening Ralph and I booked the cheapest airport hotel room we could find... and it was disgusting. We hoped that staying up all night on Friday night would help our jet lag, and it did, so we awoke around 9 a.m. and headed downtown to see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We weren't really sure of the best option to get there since I had done no research on Beijing whatsoever, but after the tourist desk said they could arrange a $200 car for us for the day, we took their city map and saw we were 100 yards from the start of the subway system and so decided on public transportation at a handsome price of $16 round trip for the both of us. On the non-peak hours we were traveling, it was just one notch down from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w01yQ_idLw. The Forbidden City was very cool... all I can say is that it was like being inside a gigantic, beautiful Russian nesting doll with a narcissism problem... so many squares and palaces, I needed a rest just looking at the rooms left unseen on our audio tour.

Then we got on our flight that landed in Bangkok at midnight on Tuesday morning. We had already booked a flight down to Surat Thani for 7 a.m. and decided the best plan was to just sleep on the floor of the airport. It was a really nice airport, better than most in the States, and other people were sleeping there, too... but it totally killed all the work we had done trying to get adjusted to the time zone. When we landed in Surat Thani we took an hour long shuttle van ride to the docks (they played Iron Man 2 during the ride) and got on a high speed Catamaran just like the Bomba Charger in the British Virgin Islands (a boat that a few years ago made me seek out Stugeron, a motion sickness pill not approved in the US, but I might take up a battle cry for). This boat was much slower and the water wasn't choppy so I didn't get sick, hooray! Earlier in the day we had decided to go to a smaller island off of the bigger island Koh Samui, and so upon disembarkation we took a taxi to the Haad Yao beaches of Ko Pha-Ngan.

We didn't know where we were going to stay, but Lonely Planet suggested Ibiza Bungalows (http://ibizabungalow.resort.phanganbungalows.com/) so there we walked... sweating our asses off the whole 50 yards from where the cab had dropped us. The bungalows are very basic, in the way that there is just a bed and cold water-only shower head over the toilet. But the bathrooms are clean and don't have other people's hair in it like the Beijing hotel's did, so I'm thrilled. Ibiza's restaurant also has the best food. We're definitely coming home with Buddha bellies. We also have a view of the beach right from our front porch, which I love... and all for around $17 a night! Yesterday we rented a moped and drove around the whole eastern coast of the island. It is gorgeous! And very hot! This morning Ralph taught me how to drive one. I think we'll be renting mopeds again soon. Today we just hung out at the beach and had our first Thai massage (on the beach)... which was again a rewarding price of $8/massage. (To every friend I have, get your head out of the gutter.)

I can't finish without giving a shout out to our girl, Lisbeth Salandar. I'm on the third book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy and Ralph just finished yesterday. She's like our third travel companion.

Tomorrow we're heading to the other side of the island for a few more days of sun and reading. Then we're probably heading to Chiang Rai in the northern province and may meet up with our friends Michelle and Breck who are on an extended trip.

Thanks for listening! :) We'll write more in a couple days.

xoxo

Megan