Another stamp in my passport - THAILAND!

With the bike accident, I now have 3 weeks off work and no plans! Cycling the West coast is out... and Thailand is in! I booked my flight on Wednesday and was off to foreign land on Sunday. I was only able to book 15 days since I booked it so close to the travel time, flights back were sold out or very expensive. So I had 2 weeks to do whatever I wanted in this great place! I was flying in and out of Bangkok. I had read the Lonely Planet and had a game plan: 1 day in Bangkok, night train down to the south and boat to islands on the East coast (the Gulf of Thailand) island hop a bit then head over to the West side and island hop a bit more before heading back to Bangkok for my flight. Bangkok was a cool place, a bit dirty though. I stayed on Khao San Road, which is known for being a backpackers haven. I met a group of people who were from Africa, hung out with them for the night! It was a fun time. The next morning, I was up pretty early for a run around Bangkok, then was off to see some sights and would need to be at the train station by 6pm for my train! I waited to book the train until I arrived in Thailand, and it was much cheaper then booking it online. It was very quick and easy to book all my travel (boats, taxi's, trains) on the go! 
By midday of day 2, I had arrived on Ko Samui! I decided to stay here for one night! It was beautiful. I made sure to get a massage and enjoy the beach. I booked the afternoon boat over to Ko Phangan, which for me was a little more my style for an island. I made my first stop a place called "Backpackers Thailand" a place run by someone from Austrailia, asked a few questions about the island and met some people who were there and had the same idea as me. The 3 of us shared a cab up to Hat Yao, the place that was recommended as one of the islands best beaches! I was very pleased with this recommendation! After locating a good place to stay, the first thing I did was head down to the beach and get in a swim!! I ended up spending 4 days on this island. It was so much fun! 
The first night I had a dinner with my new friends, the following day I did a tour that involved: elephant ride, crocodile show, a temple, hiking to a view point, a waterfall, lunch, seeing a beach, walking to an island, and snorkelling! It was a great tour!!! The next day was my relaxing day, I read and soaked up the sun, I also rented  a kayak and explored some of the other beaches, I had dinner at the Night Market, I had to take a cab there, was able to take a motorcycle taxi on the way back! Very cool way to travel. The night market had great authentic Thai food, for very very cheap! The following day I made the transition to my next island - Ko Tao! This island is very tiny, 21km in diameter, I could run the whole thing and it would be a 1/2 marathon! Now if only it wasn't covered in rain-forest, then I could have run it! Instead of running around the island, I ran on the beach I was staying on, took a scooter on the island road, checked out most all the beaches, hiked up to 2 different view points, and did one AWESOME tour!!! The tour was really great, I spent my morning abseiling down about 30meters on a rock that was about 300meters up on a mountain top! It was very nerve-racking the first go-around. 

After the abseiling, we went to another rock and began climbing, then over to one more rock to climb again! The afternoon part was postponed to the next day, since we had a quick rain and the zip line was too wet to use. I spent my afternoon on the motorbike! The next day, the tour finished off with a boat trip to one of the top 10 beaches in the world, doing an island to island zip line, hiking up to a great viewpoint, and snorkelling!! It was great! I watched a near-perfect sunset, and boarded the night boat to make my way to Krabi! 
Krabi is the town on the west side of the country, it's home to Ao Nang and Railey beaches! I found a great little bungalow on Ao Nang, right on the beach and it even had hot water (a luxury you have to pay extra for in Thailand, I was able to find a place that didn't change extra for it!). I made this place my home for the time I was on the West Coast. I lined up activities for the days I was there. Rocking climbing at Railey beach, great limestone massive rocks, and it's known to be one of the best places in the world to climb! I did a boat tour of 3 different islands, it included snokelling, and seeing a really cool looking cave, one of the beaches we was was the beach where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. 

The next day was a kayaking cave tour, we toured 4 caves via kayak, then did a walk through the rain-forest and saw a wonderful waterfall. While here, I also rented a scooter, explored a few beaches, and had a fun dinner with my friends from Seoul! Finally, I had to make my way back to Bangkok, spend a few hours there seeing the 'weekend market' and mailed a few things to the states. Then I was off to the airport to make my way back to Seoul! I met a ton of people on this trip from all over the world! It was an amazing experience!!! I cannot wait to set sail and add a few more stamps to my passport!