Email to friends. 06/21/2009

Hi, everyone.
Well, I am back in South-east Asia for a few weeks, starting in Bangkok, and traveling south through Malaysia all the way to Singapore.
I am more than half way through the trip already and I’ve been having a blast.
The Monsoon weather has been luckily sparing us most of the time, despite a couple of heavy rainy days and one massive thunderstorm. The heat has been constant and really humid, but with a bit of breeze, the evenings and nights can be very nice.

I first met an old friend from LA (Todd, that some of you know) who has been living in Bangkok for nearly 2 years. We went to check out an evening Thai Boxing match at one of the 2 main stadiums before heading to a very cool Jazz bar downtown.
The day after, I met with the backpackers and group leader I would be traveling with for the rest of the trip.
They happened to be all women –5 of them: two Irish, one British, one Deutsch and the Thai group leader.
Yes…this can be a curse or a blessing (and it would definitely be the same in a reverse situation –5 guys and a woman). But beside some jungle situations that got quite…entertaining, things turned out totally fine and we got along very well.
It was my second time in Bangkok, and I was more familiar with the city, which made me wish we had stayed a little longer to explore a bit more. Maybe next time.
After Bangkok, we headed toward Khao Sok National Park, a natural gem in the southern tropical jungle, full of sightseeing and outdoor activities. The accommodations were very basic but nice (and the bugs as big as plentiful), the food was amazing, the people were really friendly and it was a lot of fun: river tubing and boating, Hiking, cave exploring and elephant riding.
We then continued further south to hit the small town of Krabi, a nice coastal city in the same area as Phuket and the Phi Phi islands. The low tourist season allowed us to enjoy the beach without the crowd.
While in Krabi, we had the opportunity to take a tour of the Phi Phi Islands and see where the movies “James Bond (The Man with the Golden Gun)” and “The Beach” were shot.
Here is the first set of pictures on this trip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophevacher/

We have now crossed the border and are in Malaysia.
In the next email, along with new pictures, there will also be, hopefully, a little movie.

But that, my friends, is for the next episode… 

Talk to you soon.

Christophe