The South and the coast..

The southern part of Thailand is situated between the Andaman Sea on the west and the Gulf of Thailand on the east. Punctuated by a dramatic coastline and hundreds of islands it is a narrow elongated part of the mainland, which ends in the south where Malaysia begins. Here, tourism is active throughout the year, the prices are at least double, everything is tailored for tourists, and it is difficult to discern the original features of Thailand. But, as in any tourist country it is possible to find a little peace of Paradise. The coast is so breathtaking and beautiful that it is definitely a must see.

The coast offers many pleasures and activities. We found our little paradise in lying down on the beach, freeclimbing, swimming with colorful fish that you can touch without them fleeing, coconuts and socializing with the standard local rastaman. 

 

However, we started our trip in the south with one of the world's oldest jungles. The Khao Sok National Park has a jungle over 160 million years old. You can move independently on marked trails and you can take tourist tours that include riding elephants, sleeping on the lake in bamboo huts and the like. We have made the 14-kilometer walk in the jungle, and rejoiced the views, the moist and hot air, monkeys and the eco-system so powerful that that it swallows you without any problem. As we came to the south of Thailand during the monsoon it rained every day with brief downpours. However, this is still a rainforest where rain comes uninvited and where occasionally everything is transformed into a jungle stream. So leeches also like it and they are the only annoying “pain in the ass” here. Every 200 meters it is necessary to remove leeches from the shoes and pants. Mosquito repellent helps, but despite the fact that we put our pants into our socks and had trekking shoes, they still managed to enter the socks and get to the toes.

The Khao Sok Jungle (see pictures above).

A strange bug that constantly cocoons into a ball (see picture above) and they annoying leeches that crawl up your pants continuously (see picture below). These leeches cannot live in the water, just on moist surfaces and do not transmit infectious diseases.

The Steripen, a great little device that purifies water with UV light (see picture above). A good gadget in nature and hostel rooms. :)

Our loyal friends come to visit every morning (see picture above).

After weeks in different jungles we headed east to the island of Koh Pha Ngan for a dip in the Sea, and to the west to Rai Leh, Krabi and the islands of Koh Phi Phi Don and Koh Phi Phi Leh. One important piece of information that is useful is that the buses that drive to the shore frequently have reports about theft. One statistic tells that almost 90% of trips to the South of Thailand end up with lost things from the bags of the tourists as someone is going through the bags in the trunk of the bus. These special “employees” are working with the company and hide in the trunk of the bus. This is a routine and the police can't do anything because the tourists who complain have never proof that they were on the bus and do not even know or recognize the bus again. We knew that so we brought all the important things we had with ourselves on the bus. However, they stole a headlamp from Mateja’s backpack and my Swiss army knife, my surf shorts and small scissors from my first aid kit. Very strange about these scissors in my opinion. But others in the bus lost money, laptops, clothing and cigarettes. The advice is to bring absolutely everything with you and if something is still missing just forget about it and go on smiling. Also, it would be good to take the picture of the bus plates and company before departure.

The island of Koh Pha Ngan, an island known for its world famous Full Moon parties offers hermit, exotic beaches (see pictures above).

This palm is waiting from its beginning to throw a coconut at someone's head (see picture above). :)

The north coast of the island of Koh Pha Ngan has several beaches that are somewhat remote, so it is necessary to have a bike. The roads are not great, but there are not many people on the other side. We were the only tourists on Had Khuat (The Bottle Beach) where a few locals fished and ate coconuts. Coconuts for free at each step (see picture above). :)

Mister Coconut! :)

Rai Leh, the climbing paradise with a dramatic coastline. Travelers always stay longer than they thought. The relaxed atmosphere and the local rastaman lifestyle attracts a lot of tourists (see pictures below).

The main activity here is freeclimbing. You can climb everywhere, and it is also possible to do climbing trips and deep-water climbing of the surrounding islands. Rai Leh has three main beaches. One is for boats and is filthy, one is beautiful and for tourists, and one is full with climbers and members of the hippie culture. Besides climbing, you can watch a beautiful sunset, play the ukulele or slackline (see pictures below).

Boldering beside phallic symbols or hundreds of penises (see picture above). They told us that the young couples bring the penises as a gift into this sanctuary for increasing fertility when they want to have kids.

A local rastaman which makes great coffee and the rastaman climbing instructor (see pictures above).

The cutest monkeys we saw. They are called the dusky langur or the leaf monkey. They eat only plants and they do not approach people. When they are born, the youngs people have golden fur that later becomes gray with white shades around the eyes as shown above.

The island of Koh Phi Phi Don (see picture above) is known for its beauty and parties on the beach. Half the jobs here are taken over by foreigners, it's incredibly more expensive than in the rest of Thailand and the coast is dirtier. However, you can recognize the hidden beauty when you look behind the facade.

The main attraction of the island of Koh Phi Phi Don is the "fireshow" which happens every night in every bar from at least a dozen bars / clubs on the coast. In fact, there is no other program. You can jump burning ropes or dance fire limbo and win free booze. With burned chest hair I've earned about 6 drinks. :)

Ha-ha, this is something that made me laugh. The "Sailing Booze Cruise" (see picture above) is a tour the Canadian Captain Bob started, who after years of sailing the entire world stopped here and started offering sailing tours around the islands, jumping off cliffs and drinking! The program starts with drinking after the first jump off the cliff.

The smaller and uninhabited island, known for its Maya Bay beach from the movie "The Beach" is Koh Phi Phi Leh (see pictures above). The Maya Bay beach is very touristic. Everything is full with tourists and boats. However, it seems that we got there in time of the highest attendance and even the boats were in rows. Therefore, I waited a bit to make a picture. But the rest of the island is beautiful and full of hidden coves. We did some snorkelling and I have to admit though that the bottom is gray, the fish have almost all existing colors in fluorescent variants. It’s disco time under the water!

Maya Bay (see picture above).

Below are some more pictures from this region..

This is a very nice and tasteful fruit (see pictures above). Similarly to durian just with less spikes. It's called "the jack fruit" and you eat this yellow "hearts" inside his hard crust.

There are a lot of rubber tree plantations. The Indian term "kao-ochu" means "tree of tears" because of the white sap that is collected and sold on the market for the production of rubber. The quantity of the juice depends on the recovery of the trees because they need to remove the bark to start the juice leaking.