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travelexperienceblog · 7 years

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After having one of the best times of our lives in Vietnam for 17 days, (Vietnam Article- https://3travelbug.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/vietnam-home-of-adventure/) we finally left for Thailand. Initially, we were going to give ourselves a couple of days in Phuket but decided against this and headed straight to the islands. Arriving in Phuket late at night from Ho Chi Minh City, we went straight to bed so we would wake up early(ish) before getting a ferry over to Koh Phi Phi. The next morning, we checked out some markets in Phuket before heading over to the ferry point. Disclaimer: Before we set off on our travels, we had researched how to get from one island to another. We found very confusing information that made it sound very difficult and hard work. However, we got 6 ferries in total to all the islands and back to the mainland, and never experienced any issues and problems at all!

After arriving in Koh Phi Phi after a two-hour ferry journey, we headed over to our hostel. We had originally just booked a one-night stay at a hostel that I would not recommend. After we had checked in to our hostel, we decided to spend the rest of the day at the beach and just drink a few beers. This is one of the reasons that makes Phi Phi such a wonderful place to visit. In the daytime, you can just relax by the beach and then have a crazy night out.

The next day we checked into our new hostel where we would spend the next couple of days. I would definitely recommend Blanco Beach Bar hostel. This hostel offers trips, tips and a mad night every single night. From its fire dance shows, limbo competitions and its infamous hand grenade challenge, there’s no chance that you will not have a great night. As soon as we arrived, we signed up for their boat party. There are two prices you can pay either 1300Baht or 2000Baht. Obviously, we went for the 2000Baht, which included 10 free drinks after the boat party, a Blanco boat party tank top and a barbeque. Whilst on the boat party you can jump off the boat, snorkel and kayak, as well as meeting a load of new people that you’ll be spending the rest of the night with. It’s safe to say that the boat party is worth its money as you get drunk on the boat, as well as being able to “cash” in your 10 free drinks when you get back to the hostel.

After the boat party finished, we met up with one of our girlfriends and her friend, and one of our friends we had met in Cambodia. We’d like to say that we remembered the night. However, as you can imagine, the amount of drinking that is involved staying at Blanco’s means that night becomes hazy. What we know for sure is that there were a lot of drinks, party games and competitions. Even in our drunken state, we managed to come runners-up in the beer pong tournament. Our third and final day in Phi Phi started with a lay-in before walking around some of the shops. Later we headed to the beach where we relaxed all day, before “crashing” a pool party at the hostel next door. However, this wasn’t the best so we headed back to our hostel to get prepared to go to the viewpoint in the evening. To get to the viewpoint you have to climb hundreds of steps before finally getting there. Nevertheless, the view overlooking the island with the sun setting is phenomenal and definitely worth the climb!

Back at the hostel, we decided as it was our last night, that we would attempt the Blanco’s infamous hand grenade challenge. For 600baht, you have to do shots of tequila, amaretto, jaeger, vodka and some even mixed with beer. Safe to say we were all hammered after this. The good thing about staying at Blanco’s, is that the limbo competition means every time you do the limbo, you get a free shot (however it is watered down). Nonetheless, after you’ve been doing this for a long time it still gets you really drunk.

After a second crazy night out in Phi Phi, the five of us decided to get a ferry to Krabi and stay at Slumber Party Hostel. Known for being the best party hostel in Thailand, you can imagine what happened here. There’s only one word to describe Slumber Party – MAD. Free food at 8pm every night, quickly leads to getting people downstairs before free shots are dished out by the reps. A funny story was when one of us was showering, they came into the bathroom and poured a free shot into our mouth whilst we were showering. In other words, stay at this hostel if you want to party hard! The pub crawl here is immense. Paying onto the pub crawl gets you: Slumber Party tank top as well as a bucket of alcohol. (The bucket is literally just alcohol, or might as well be). The pub crawl leads you to several bars where the party doesn’t end and continues all night. The nights out that we experienced at Slumber Party were some of the best of our trip.

The second day at Krabi, we decided to do the hostels “Island Awesomeness” tour where you visit Krabi’s top beaches and go snorkelling. The first thing you do when you get off the boat at the beach is a shotgun at 10am. Safe to say many people struggled with this. Nevertheless, the day was packed with awesome stuff, from seeing the best beaches, going through caves to a secret swimming point and snorkelling. The cool thing we were shown when we were snorkelling, was to take some rice with us and squeeze it and all the fish would come. The only problem with this is, as we ran out of rice the fish started to bite us!! When we arrived back there was no time to relax, as we were forced to go on the pub crawl for the second night and enter the beer pong tournament. Unfortunately, we lost in the first round but we met loads of people so was worth it anyway. The second night we all got split up with one going home with a girl, one going home with his girlfriend and another “enjoying” his time with a lady boy…

The next day we took a flight from Krabi over to Koh Samui where we stayed at a hostel called Casa Luna. The hostel was very nice and the receptionist was ever so helpful. He recommended us to rent some bikes and explore some of the island. We only planned one night in Koh Samui as we had heard that it was overpriced and not worth it. However, if we had more time in Thailand we would have stayed for at least one more day as after a week of hard partying it was nice to just relax. During our stay in Koh Samui we drove to some waterfalls and trekked up the mountain to Na Muang Waterfall 2. This was awesome as we saw an amazing sunset with a stunning view. However, we would like to point out that when you get there, there is an option to take a truck to the waterfall. The people their claim its 30minutes away. But this is not the case!! They charge you 100baht to take you 2minutes down the road and then you have to climb for 30minutes. Do not fall for this scam! After we had finished watching an amazing sunset, we decided to head to a sports bar and watch some football before leaving for Koh Tao the next day.

Arriving in Koh Tao by ferry at early evening, we checked into our hostel, Taco Shack 1 and headed out for some food! We can recommend a fantastic restaurant called Seafood by Pawn. We enjoyed it so much we went back three times over the course of our stay in Koh Tao. The restaurant is usually really busy (a testament to how good it is) but the service is also really good! They serve excellent fish dishes as well as any Thai curry you could want. When you go to Koh Tao you can’t really come without trying diving. Our hostel was advertising trying some fun dives and this really interested us. One of us had already got their open water in Cambodia earlier in the trip and recommended it to us. If you book with Taco Shack 1, in the morning you are collected and driven over to the sister hostel Taco Shack 2 (The diving hostel). Here, we decided that we would go for two fun dives to see if we liked it or not. At the beginning, you learn the basics of scuba diving before heading out to a max depth of 12m. We enjoyed it so much two of us wanted to get our open water and one of us our advanced. However, the problem was we were leaving Koh Tao to head over to the half-moon party in Koh Pha Ngan the next day. Nevertheless, we decided to come back to Koh Tao after the half-moon party and take a diving course.

Arriving in Koh Pha Ngan and staying at another Slumber Party Hostel, we quickly saw that we had made a huge mistake. Remember us telling you we wanted to go to the half-moon party? Well.. the half-moon party happened the day before we arrived. “Luckily” one of us was quite ill meaning that we would have missed it anyway as we always like to stick together. Nevertheless, it was an annoying mistake as we booked our stay at our hostel in Koh Tao in another two nights. As the island was pretty much dead, we decided to go and take on “The Challenge”. Like the total wipeout course you have probably seen on TV, there are obstacles that you must complete to get to the next level. We spent the entire day here and enjoyed it so much. The only problem is because it’s all upper body exercises, after spending five hours here we were dead. Still, when we got back to the hostel we headed out with some friends that we met and enjoyed a good night with the hostel!

After spending two nights in Koh Pha Ngan, we headed back to Koh Tao to start our diving course! The next couple of days in Koh Tao was spent with the two of us learning our open water courses, and the other, learning his advanced. Just a top tip, after saying in both Taco Shack hostels, I can honestly say that the Taco Shack 2 is a lot better. Although further away from the pier, it offers a great pub crawl and offers diving courses as well! The next three days were some of the best of the entire trip as diving is such a cool and incredible experience. We were all glad that we decided to head back to Koh Tao, even if it did leave us being skint. At Taco Shack 2 we met loads of people and got a good group together, where we went out and enjoyed the pub crawl! Passing our diving courses on our final day in Koh Tao was such a fantastic way to end our island experience. All three of us agree that Koh Tao was our favourite island and diving only added to that! Now we were leaving Koh Tao it was time to head to Bangkok and see the rest of Thailand.

Thailand: Islands and Krabi – Adventure Hard Party Hard After having one of the best times of our lives in Vietnam for 17 days, (Vietnam Article- we finally left for Thailand.

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