They began to feel a summoning. It wasn’t the purpose of the trip, it wasn’t as certain as this. But months before, with eyes closed, a picture formed. White sand beaches, crystal clear water, turquoise melting into a burning horizon, endless sunshine; a slower pace. But upon landing in a land with paradise repute, instead met with a horizon doused in inevitable seasonality. The will of the calendar had caught up with them. The rainy season had reared its ugly head. It appeared as Mother Nature had responded with willful intent to thoughtful request. In submissive reply, pace slowed in contrast to torrent. Days spent with mind colouring in bleak scenery. But amongst discouraging condition, enjoyment was still to be found. Hours of happy to celebrate socializing and coin were met with friendly conversation and domination in combinations of four. Batteries recharged, an open window provided auditory invitation. Meeting the morning, brimming with the suns optimism, they made their way towards a sandy canvas soon to be painted with the brush strokes of board through wave. It was in this moment, this ultimate, optimum, flawless, consummate, quintessential moment, that picture took shape. But even in times of happiness, when hearts wish to pause the hands of time, one cannot slow the inevitable constant that is adventure. A city sneaks up in wonderful surprise only to launch towards magical lands numerously portrayed. This time even Mother Nature would not dare tarnish eyes first laid. A serene setting with unique geography lending itself to diverse experience with views from above and below. Alas, yet again were they met with the trying, punishing, onerous task of having to depart paradise. But the map could not be ignored. Titles jumping off of page, too tantalizing to disregard. Onwards. Forwards.

The last leg of our journey through Thailand brought us to the southern shores. We began in Phuket, which is well known for its tropical coastlines and laid back atmosphere. Many of the countries most popular beaches and resorts are found here, thus creating an interesting combination of tourist mongering and genuine natural beauty. We were decidedly in search of the latter. When I first dreamt up this trip, sitting on a barstool at The Alibi Room in Vancouver, BC, my picture of Southeast Asia was almost entirely made up of second hand experiences. Friends and family that had travelled to this storied section of the world. I was left with the picture of paradise. A beautiful, humble, raw and accessible paradise. Therefore when I began to form the idea of a trip in my head I was drawn intensely to the idea of the white sand beaches and turquoise water many of us attribute to the daydream of perfection. I had such a wonderful time travelling through Tokyo, Bangkok and Chiang Mai, but a part of me was always thinking the trip really began when our toes dug into the sand. The other motivation and powerful force pulling us towards the sea was a new love affair. As with any fresh romance, or what many would call the “honeymoon phase”, it is hard to keep the two apart from one another. At this point in our trip I had been two months from a surfboard, and I was longing for swift and satisfying reunion. But before meeting with my fiberglass mistress, we had to put up with some rain.

We landed in Phuket airport to our first true encounter with the rainy season. It was inevitable, and frankly we felt fortunate to have avoided this reality for so long. Our decision to come this time of year was based on timing in our lives and cost of travel, so since we had at least two months to work with, we were willing to sacrifice a few days here and there. Kamala became the first victim. This was the first beach town we visited, which was on the popular west coast of Phuket, but not nearly as populated and gentrified as other areas. The weather was a bit of a blessing in disguise as it forced us to take it easy for a few days after a full on couple of weeks. We walked the beach and the main streets and had a memorable night at a beachside bar that began with happy hour Mai Tais, continued with endless games of connect four and conversation with friendly ex-pats and ended with our new best friend bartender serving up random shots of her own creation. Five hours later our hotel was fortunately just a short stumble away. Our luck with hotels continued on this leg as our beachside accommodation included a lovely garden and outdoor pool. Being the rainy season, few hotels were rarely even close to capacity so they aggressively cut their nightly rates and allow budget travellers like us to stay above our station. We took full advantage throughout the whole trip including our next stop in Kata where we had an incredible bungalow with an outdoor patio opening onto another gorgeous pool. Kata is a much larger town in comparison to Kamala, but nowhere near the main hub of Patong, which after a cab ride through confirmed the college town meets Thailand vibe we were adamantly avoiding. But none of this mattered. Kata finally allowed for the all-important encounter. It was surfing time.

As with a starving man filling plate with notions of his eyes being bigger than his stomach, such is the heart of our noble traveller holding dreams of skill further along than the reality of his body. Although my love affair with surfing is pure and of rare air, the truth is that at this point I had surfed twice in my whole life. But does love at first sight not apply to experiences? Does it not prove an underlying personality trait that I am unable to stop my hands from extending the thumb and pinky while clasping the other three fingers tightly to palm? That “brah” can roll so smoothly from tongue, is this not half the battle? After two days of surfing in Tofino, my brother and I immediately began a WhatsApp group titled “We’re surfers now”. You now have sufficient background to understand why Katie was pretty consistently annoyed with me for these past months and why I was excited to be greeted by blue skies and friendly waters in Kata. Multiple vendors rent equipment directly on the beach so it didn’t take long to negotiate a steal of a price. I was intensely excited, but admittedly nervous. Five foot waves to even an average surfer is child’s play, but to a beginner it is intimidating. And when adding in an aggressive rip tide on this particular beach, I was worrying about more than just balance. However my enthusiasm could not be deterred. The photo above is an epic portrayal of this very moment (photo credit to Katie B aka @katiebventures). In life, one finds very few moments to truly be humbled. Staring down a wave curling behind you only to feel what seems like an unharnessable amount of force pushing and pulling opposite of intent and objective is a moment to properly respect nature and to appreciate how freaking hard surfing is. A few slams quickly reminded me of this, only to be followed by a few successes, to create the beautiful dichotomy found in learning a new skill. Katie took a few waves as well and encountered similar revelations. After a few hours there was an inescapable ringing in our ears. Was it the painful crashing of waves? Yes, but no. It was Mai Tai time!

The rest of our time in Kata was spent lounging on the beach by day and retreating to our pool and bungalow in the evenings. There was a bit more of a nightlife scene here, so we were able to walk around the main streets and check out a few different bars. The thing most worthy of mention though is something that we would find out to be a super common occurrence after the fact, but as with every other traveller that came across it for the first time, we were amazed. Ice cream rolls. I almost don’t want to tell you to Google it just so that if you ever stumble across it in person you will be just as astonished. The basic idea being that they take the raw ingredients of ice cream, include toppings of your choice, pour over an extremely cold surface and proceed to perform a ballet of frozen deliciousness. Once the concoction has mixed to the appropriate degree, it is spread and flattened and then expertly scraped into thin rolls of ice cream to be delivered as bloom from cup. Absolutely incredible to witness their expert hands, and at the same time a delicious desert. Win win. It was a wonderful few days in another beach town but we had to keep moving. To break up the journey, and in an effort to see parts of the country less travelled, we decided to spend a night in Phuket City, which often takes a backseat to its more post card friendly brethren. Phuket actually has a bus system that is loosely comparable to what we consider public transportation. Theirs is a little looser, with a schedule that is a best guess, and a price that is up for negotiation, with vehicles that have four wheels and are long, and a route that probably gets to where you’re going and a “sure there’s more space. Could you just slide over a bit?” mantra. We loved it. And it was a great precursor for another surprise, the city itself. We knew to expect a less tourist focused environment, but we weren’t prepared for a genuinely cool town that can stand boldly on its own two legs as a proper destination more than worthy of time spent. After finding some craft beer bars, some great food, a rooftop bar and a cool coffee shop in the morning, we were immensely satisfied with our choice for an overnight. The Travelling Gentleman now has dreams of living in this city, riding a scooter with a surfboard attachment and going directly to the beach after getting off of work each day. Not a bad life?

Our night in Phuket City was to allow for departure towards our next intended destination, the Phi Phi Islands. Remember the whole, “…which after a cab ride through confirmed the college town meets Thailand vibe we were adamantly avoiding,” thing? Well we couldn’t avoid it forever. Phi Phi is another place known for its party atmosphere. One might call it the Ibiza of Southeast Asia. No no, we didn’t call it that. The Ibiza hostel on Phi Phi calls itself that. But if you look beyond the party scene you will find an incredibly beautiful island in the middle of the Andaman Sea that lends itself to some unique geography creating the opportunity for incredible panorama views as well as amazing underwater adventure. As part of the party culture, this is one of the places where young people go on holiday, and then never leave. Walking through the streets we were accosted for coin as usual, but instead this time by Australian and British accents attempting to sway us towards their scuba diving excursion or tattoo parlour. After speaking with some locals, we learned that Phi Phi was devastated and almost entirely washed away during the Tsunami in 2004. However after the destruction, many of the villagers saw it as an opportunity to clean up their island and rebuild it in a more reputable way. Unfortunately foreign investment and the reality of a tourism-reliant economy had the island rebuilt in almost the mirror image of its previous self. So again, research of an industrious young lady warned us of the situation and we found ourselves in another pleasant bungalow far from troubling crowds.

The island is roughly in the shape of a capital ‘H’ and spread around the island are a few higher-class resorts, but the main buzz happens within the crossbar of the ‘H’. The topography is such that there are two shores sandwiching this area, one side having the harbour and the other side having the beach. Packed in the tiny space in between are the majority of the islands restaurants, shops and bars. It creates an interesting dynamic, but also comes as no surprise that the bar hopping, party all along the beach culture has propagated. The benefit of this, however, is a vibrant, youthful energy providing plenty of things to do. We hiked up to a gorgeous viewpoint, sat in the water at low tide that stretched half a kilometer and even managed to catch a Chelsea match at the Irish pub (alright back off, I said it was a touristy island) and the highlight was surely our snorkeling trip. But before we get to that, I know there is a burning question at least one of you has been dying to ask. “Cool cool cool that all sounds fun, but have you seen any bugs yet?” On the way to our bungalow, and within two minutes of our front door no less, yes, we encountered a spider. Now, to say this was a spider would be an understatement. This was a demon sent from the bitter depths of hell sickly imagined by the tortured imagination of Satan himself. My goodness. This thing became an attraction. As one of us (no need to name names) basically crawled on the other side of the path to prevent any chance of catching a web, people would be stopping and pointing all day long (at the “spider”). Even coming back to our room one night as we were trying to take photos of lizards on lights a couple of guys staying in the next bungalow asked us if we saw the spider. We totally slept fine that night. Seriously, it wasn’t a big deal. Like at all. Barely even thought about it being right outside. Non-issue. Honestly. And then we snorkeled the next day.

A lot of the excursions in Southeast Asia are hard to validate. There are so many tour companies, so many people doing the exact same thing, that if you’re lucky you met or know a local that you can trust to give a good recommendation, but more often than not you are trying to use whatever “does this seem legit” radar you have and hope for the best. This was our strategy for snorkeling, and luckily we had a fantastic experience. We began on Monkey Beach and had our first proper experience with these native beasts. Since it was our first encounter we were definitely in the group of people thinking these little guys have claws, teeth and maybe rabies, so we were hanging in the second row. A sharp cliff dropped down to a pretty tight little beach crammed with tourists and it was clear the monkeys knew the routine. Guides came with fruit and swarms of them were running around and very comfortable with people. Our transport for the day was the classic boat that is often pictured in stereotypical Thai depictions, which is called a Long-Tail Boat, so it was a fun experience spending the day in one of them. We rode around to various caves and lagoons taking breaks to swim and snorkel. And in case anyone is wondering how many super funny guys make Finding Nemo jokes when they spot a clown fish on a snorkeling trip, the answer is a million. As we approached the late afternoon the plan was to finish the circle around the island and head back for the sunset cruise, but our guide said he received reports of the water being a bit choppy so we would wait around for a little bit. Now I can’t say what the water was like before, but I can say I don’t think we waited long enough. It’s hard to feel stressed out in such a beautiful atmosphere as Thailand, but I think our ride could best be described as “sketchy”. As any transit passenger knows, the best way to find out the reality of the situation is to look at the drivers face, and even in what felt like questionable conditions, life couldn’t have been more relaxed for our man on the controls so all was well. We got our “sunset” view aka when the sky kind of changes colour about an hour before sunset, but you get what you pay for. But that didn’t matter because we were anticipating the last and most exciting part of the trip. Once it gets dark, the plankton come out. The majority of our group had had enough excitement for one day, so we dropped them on the beach and headed back out to the cliffs where the plankton feed. Along with at least twenty other boats we sat eagerly awaiting the sky to get darker and darker. Finally a voice yelled out it was time and we jumped into the water. A few minutes go by…nothing. Resurface. “Do you see anything?” “No, are we in the right spot.” “Is there a right spot?” A stranger’s voice, “you have to move your hands.” Uhhhhh what? Goggles back on, face submerged, a hand strokes the water. Transformed into animation, a streak of light emerges from the darkness. As if our spirits found a way to communicate. All senses blocked underwater but one. Our eyes in a trance of wonder. Had we turned the world upside down? Were we floating amongst the stars? The turbulence from a hand stroking the water causes a vibration, which mixes a set of chemicals and causes the plankton to glow. Science. It was an absolutely unbelievable and surreal experience and an incredible finale for our time in Phi Phi. The island gets a bad rap for reasons such as those stated above, and even though most of them are true, we still had such a fun time here. I believe just like most places that an experience is what you make of it and we absolutely found our fun on Phi Phi.

Our time in Thailand was coming to an end, so we took a ferry to the province of Krabi where we would stay a couple of nights before flying out of their local airport. This was another town that is relatively off the beaten track. Few tourists make their way here, so we were able to experience another city more through the eyes of a local. It was a small place and we were only there a short time, but as per our usual objectives we found a couple incredible outdoor food markets and a few cool craft beer bars. Thailand was very kind to us and absolutely lived up to its moniker of The Land of Smiles. A friendly, welcoming, youthful, exuberant, proud and lovely people. Before coming here I had a picture in my mind of what Southeast Asia was going to be like and this country blew away my expectations. I will never forget that Thailand was the first country I visited in a part of the world I have forever desperately wanted to visit. It was the perfect introduction.

No Regrets.

The Travelling Gentleman