Pad Thai in Paradise

And we’re off! After a quick day in Perth, Australia’s biggest city on the west coast, Charlie, Jimmy, and I were on a plane to Phuket, Thailand. Because my last exam was on November 10, my friends in the US will be in school until mid December, and Duke doesn’t start again until mid January, we decided to take a bit of a round about way back to the US – via Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. With our entire luggage from an entire semester in Sydney on our backs, we set out an epic Asian adventure.

First stop: Phuket. Phuket is a peninsula town in southern Thailand that we flew into from Perth. We found out pretty quickly that we weren’t in Kansas any more as soon as we stepped off the plane. We were barraged by tons of tour groups, taxi drivers, and salesmen, fighting to get us into their cars. Other than the heat, the people, and the chaos, we happily welcomed the lower prices, which we gladly welcomed to make up for our time in Sydney. After finding our guesthouse we headed straight for the Pa Tong beach. The temperature was absolutely perfect: the air was warm but not sweltering and the water was so refreshing but not cold enough for us ever to want to leave. We body surfed and napped on the beach finally able to relax and celebrate the completion of our exams. When we got hungry of course we had to go for the Pad Thai, even better than Newtown but not as different from Aussie Thai food as I had expected. That night went explored the night markets, finding our way to Phuket’s finest street food and for dessert? McFlurry at McDonalds. We wandered our way into an underground market at about 10pm that was clearly closed down. There was one stall that was just packing up but welcomed us anyway. They had a tank full of small fish called doctor fish that therapeutically clean and regenerate your feet by eating the dead skin off. Immediately jumping on the opportunity (we had heard good things from other travelers), we stuck our feet in the water and had the most ticklish and giddy experience imaginable. Then we called it a night because we had a ferry to catch in the morning.

The real reason we came to Phuket is that it was our passage onto of Thailand’s beautiful islands, specifically Phi Phi Don Island. The small island had no cars or tuk-tuks that dominated the streets on the mainland. Instead, there were small footpaths that people walked day and night. The island was filled with authentic Thai restaurants, shops, a beach (of course), and acres of forest. To get a better feel for the island, we hiked up to a viewpoint overlooking the island and that’s when we really knew we were on vacation. We wasted no time finding our favorite Thai restaurant with all the classic Thai food you see in the states plus another menu full of other dishes I had never heard of. We tried pretty much everything on the menu by the time we left the island five days later. And for dessert? No McDonalds on this island, we had “Thai pancakes” which really means banana Nutella crepes. Yum.

The next morning we went on an all day boat tour around Phi Phi Don and its smaller, uninhabited neighbor, Phi Phi Le. We went kayaking around and snorkeled with angle fish. We went to Monkey Beach where we saw tons of monkeys. They turned out to be a bit more aggressive than I had anticipated and had a bit of a rumble with a few of them. The highlight of the day was definitely going to Maya Bay, otherwise known as THE Beach, from the 2000 Leonardo DiCaprio movie.








The movie is about a man searching for meaning in his life and winds up on a quest to find this pristine beach on a secret island. He ends up living on the beach with people trying to keep it secret to maintain its natural beauty. THE Beach is incredibly beautiful but it is sad to see how overpopulated it has become since the release of the movie, especially since the movie as all about keeping the serenity of Maya Bay intact. After watching the sunset on the ocean right outside Maya Bay, we headed back to the mainland for hour-long Thai massages. The massages were so good we could barely get out of the massage beds and seriously considered spending the night in the massage parlor.

On our last full day on the island, we went SCUBA diving in the Andaman Sea. While it wasn’t quite the rainbow of coral in the Great Barrier Reef, it was quite a site to see and a great day of diving. On our first dive we saw boxfish, heaps of coral, entire schools of thousands of tiny fish, and a beautiful green turtle. Our second was a bit more daring; we were shark hunting. We went out to a dive site known for black tip sharks. And we found them. After descending to 18 meters below the water, we saw about 20 sharks darting back and forth along the ocean shore. We surfaced for some yummy Thai food onboard and befriended the dive staff on the boat on our way back to the dock. That night, our last night on the island, we decided to venture out to the beach on the island where there were 10 bars lined up playing music of all sorts, projecting the sound out to the ocean. We ended up at the same bar that our SCUBA company frequented and enjoyed the night hanging out and swapping diving stories. The next day got on a plane and headed north. Next stop Chiang Mai.