island living. .

after bangkok, josh and i headed for koh tao in search of some island life.
after a long train ride and an EXTREMELY rocky boat ride, we arrived tired and travel-weary on koh tao.
the island was quaint and small, with nice beaches -- but it turned out it was mainly devoted to scuba diving, which we, it turns out, cannot participate in.
after staying a night at a scuba resort, we traveled north to haad sanrei where we found a cheap bungalow close to two of the shore towns. the bungalows were nice and clean and were owned by a lovely motherly lady. we beach bummed a few days, reading and relaxing, and also took a long very steep hike up a mountain to two view (where you can see both shores of the island at once).





also of note in koh tao, i had the most delicious pad si yew i have had since i've come to thailand -- so far, nothing can beat it. (also pictured: josh's american breakfast)


after koh tao, we took a much more pleasant boat ride to koh phangan, where we ended up staying for about a week. koh phangan is a much larger island with more to offer than just scuba diving so we made it our home for a while. we stayed at the awesome haad rin thai resort, where we made friends with the front desk lady, mam. (we even took her out to dinner one night which made for a fun adventure since she spoke little english and we spoke even less thai.) haad rin, the beach we were staying at, was full of restaurants playing illegally copied movies all day long and random party buses cruising the town. we frequented a local bar/restaurant most days and also took a few trips on motorbike to other parts of the island to see other beaches and to check out waterfalls.













overall, it was a little more touristy than we would like, so we packed up and left for krabi.