Ryan here -

I don’t know where to even start, when was my last post (more about that later)? We have spent the last 20 something days in Malaysia and Thailand. As far as Malaysia is concerned, we pretty much just flew into Kuala Lumpur stayed for about 24 hours and took the train up into Thailand. Our whole goal in Thailand was BEACHTIME. And I think we accomplished that goal. We decided we would hit 3 islands, (1) Koh Phi Phi (2) Koh Phang Ang and (3) Koh Tao.

We hit Koh Phi Phi first after a brutal train-bus-boat connection. By the way, I have developed a hate for buses. China and Thailand ruined bus travel for me. My max time on a bus is 4 hours, anything longer I am going to pony up and pay extra for some other means of transportation. Anyway, Koh Phi Phi was wild. We hit Koh Phi Phi during the Thai New Year and it was pretty crazy. You see during the Thai New Year it is the tradition to pour, spray or dump water on everyone (if you don’t like to get wet – stay away). Basically it is a giant water fight. Jamie was hilarious- he would just disappear for hours engaging in water fights with strangers and his superior water gun. Thai New Year:

After Koh Phi Phi, we headed north to Koh Phang Ang- home of the famous Full Moon Party. We were expecting even more craziness but found that since it was not the Full Moon the place was actually pretty chill. Here we would spend hours on the beach and in the ocean. We also rented motor bikes and just cruised around the island for hours checking out other beaches. And another rare thing was that our hostel actually had a gym, which we took advantage to try to get in shape for kilimanjaro (less than a month away). Picture of us riding the motorbikes in the often quite sketchy or nonexistent road in Koh Phang Ang:

Then we headed further north for the small island of Koh Tao. Koh Tao was a really laid back place. We decided to get our open water PADI certification in Koh Tao and it was really cool. Jamie and I wanted to get it so we could take advantage of the great diving when we get to the Red Sea. Scuba Picture:

After Koh Tao, we had a couple nights in Bangkok. We were a little nervous about Bangkok because there was a large protest that had begun to break out into fighting. The UDD (the United front for Democracy against Dictatorship) are holding an almost 2 month long peaceful protest against the corruption in the government. Recently, the Thai Army has taken control of the city and has started shooting the protestors who seem to be mildly fighting back with their limited resources and only when provoked. Apparently a bomb went off outside our hostel somewhere the first morning, but I didn’t hear anything (kind of scary isn’t?), only heard the report from Koye. So we decided to check out the protest and we quickly learned that the Red Shirts were peaceful protestors just standing up for corruption. We joined them for a while in their protest for democracy (we felt like we believed in that enough to relate) and bought red shirts and other things. It was actually a really cool experience, but probably a little stupid. Here are some pics:

Final Thoughts:

I love it when you travel to the point where you lose time. Meaning, I really have no idea what day it is and often do not care about the specific time of day either. Maybe it is the beach lifestyle that drowns all your concern about time. Whatever it is, it is a feeling I don’t often experience. We are time driven people, always looking forward to the next Friday or the next meeting. It is nice to disregard time for a while and just enjoy life. I don’t think you need to embark on a trip like this to feel this way, but I hope you all can disregard time for a little bit every year. Our lives are too short on this earth and focusing on time will just make it go quicker. That brings me to the second lesson I am learning lately, how we should enjoy the moments that life gives us. I was discussing this with the guys and our friend Natalie from England: how we as humans tend to have this ‘grass is always greener’ attitude. We are never completely satisfied (and I believe that nothing earthly can completely satisfy us). For example, when I was at home working a part of me always wanted to travel and now that I am traveling like I have always wanted to – a part of me always wants to be back at home. I think that this same scenario can be applied to every area in our lives. So…I have been taking time to enjoy the daily life and try not to focus on the future too much. After all, life is just as much about the journey as the final destination. I think if we slow down and enjoy the moment we will realize how truly blessed we all are.

Thanks for reading and may you enjoy the moment but quietly prepare for the future.

Love you all,

Ryan

P.S. More posts to come from Koye (yeah Koye is going to catch on some posts now that he is home) and Jamie too. Jamie is working on uploading his massive amount of photos…be sure to check them out because they are really really good. If you want to see some less-than-professional photos refer to the Photo page because I uploaded my Thailand photos.

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