When you are on the road, you are in constant contact with people from all around the world. It’s like being a traveling ambassador who represents your small world and on the mission to share your stories with each individual you encounter!
Without a doubt traveling is more fun and fruitful if you have someone to share the experience with. For this reason, you must always be open to spontaneous adventure opportunities and try to be friend with everyone on the road! Don’t plan your travel itinerary too much, and always leave some space for spontaneous fun to unfold itself.

When I go on short term traveling, the only things I really try to plan ahead are accommodation and some tickets to popular sites — tickets can be important to book in advance if you are planning to visit tourist-crowd-centrals like Eiffel Tower in Paris and Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Eiffel Tower for example requires to book the elevator tickets and visiting time in advance in order to get to the highest deck  — Other than that, just go with the flow. Whatever happens on the road is ingredient for more exciting traveling experience 🙂

Unless you are traveling with someone, it is likely that you will spend most of your traveling time alone. You will have plenty of time to indulge in photography and putting yourself in unique adventures. Instead of spending the entire time alone, try checking out free walking tours offered by your hostel and keep your eyes out for other fun activities. Most hostels have regularly scheduled events where guests from all around the world come together to enjoy food, music, and other cultural tastes. Hostel organized events are usually the perfect places to meet the other travelers. Don’t fear and be the ambassador of awesome!
Pub crawl is definitely a great way to mingle with other travelers and to check out the local bar scenes 🙂

 

Although we were in the heart of Koh Phangan, we missed the world’s famous (or infamous depending on how you see it) Full Moon Party by few days 🙁 So sad! But instead we spent quite relaxing and active 3 days in the nature of Southern islands.

If you look at the map above, you can see Koh Phangan is in the middle of  ocean between Koh Samui and tiny Koh Tao.
Small red X on the map is where we stayed for 3 nights on Koh Phangan island (not the location of secret beach just so you know…). We stayed at beautiful beach resort called Loyfa Nature Resort and it was easily one of the best beach resorts that I have ever stayed at (and I am from Guam island!). This resort got all the prerequisites ready for paradise status getaway: crystal clear swimming pools, sandy beach, Thai massage, fresh coconut, beach side barbeque, great staffs, golden sunset, and happy hour. Highly recommended for quiet and peaceful vacation away from the noises.

I spent one full day to explore the tiny Koh Tao island and its even smaller neighbor Koh Nang Yuan (marked in the map above). I have acquainted with travelers from Israel and France on the boat ride and shared some traveling stories. All of us became small pack of friends by the end of the tour. It was so awesome!

The time in the Southern Thailand was quite limited, but every person that I have met during this small amount of time was very interesting and probably will stick around with my memories for while.

On the last day on the island, me and my friends and the owner of the Loyfa resort traveled together back to Bangkok.
We were riding on the back of truck and having conversation.
It was another beautiful sunny day on the island and everything was peaceful…until we heard a loud:

SWASH!!

The truck stopped and we all turned to the front side and saw the old man on the motorbike skid on the curve.
It was a motorbike accident, which is not uncommon in Thailand especially for the tourists.
The old man saw our truck at the curve and pressed the hand brakes too hard and lost his balance which caused the bike to skid. Luckily, we have not crashed into each other and the man was not badly injured.
Thing just happened right in front of us in a blink of an eye.
The resort owner immediately jumped off from the back of truck to help the poor old man on the ground who is still looking confused next to his damaged motorbike. The resort owner helped the old man to ride on the truck to go to the hospital. The old man sit right next to us, bleeding from his shins and constantly mumbling apologetic words for not being cautious. The owner tapped the old man’s shoulder and told him “Everyone makes mistakes, I got into accident before and you just learn so don’t worry it’s ok”.
I had no words to speak until we arrived at the hospital to help the old man to the hospital where I was just able to tell him “stay strong”.
One thing that I definitely noticed from this trip was the warmth and strength in Thai people. The strength to deal with difficult situation with smile and sincerity.
Just like this one scene from the motorbike accident, traveling can suddenly pull you back to reality and think about your vulnerability. Every single moment counts and will be remembered as some sort of lessons; there is always something you can learn from events that occur during your travel. Just make sure that safety comes first.

On this post, I want to share with you some of interesting result from experimental color negative film stock “Color Implosion“.
Color Implosion is a color negative film manipulated to get quite grainy ’70s photos from the attic’ feeling even though it really is very slow 100 ISO film stock. Their selling point is that film processing will bring out the red color spectrum and implode (damn, this just sounds kind of intimidating) colors.

Let’s see how this color implosion experience has took effect on beautiful beaches of Koh Phangan, Koh Tao, and Koh Nang Yuan:

Motorcyclists are very common type of people you see anywhere on Thailand…and you may share some stories with them along the path.Koh Phangan has waterfalls and small reservoirs look like this…great spots to meditate and breathe in fresh air.

Elephant farm in Koh Phangan is rather tiny and negligible. You won’t be missing out much even if you wait until Chiang Mai for greater options.

The food is not outstanding; in fact sildenafil india it is typical of what you can expect in a diner, although the milkshake is amazing. Erectile Dysfunction (ED) was once upon ordine cialis on line downtownsault.org a time a difficult disorder to treat. Finding and using the best herbal semen volume enhancer supplement viagra pills without prescription are completely made out of natural ingredients. When you viagra canada pharmacies you also have the benefit of physically powerful and extensive long-lasting erection. One thing that I really enjoyed about Southern Thailand is colorful arcades and cool hidden shops that you can find everywhere on the market streets. The key: Always stay off the grid and explore outside the guidebook — when you find something you really like, make sure you talk about the price at the store and negotiate; tourists tend to get ripped off by not knowing how to do business with the locals.

Go stroll around and try variety of street foods in Thailand. One advise though, think twice when you are getting deep fried crab on stick… unless you have an iron stomach.

Staying in Thailand can be expensive depending on where you stay. Hostels and guest houses are much inexpensive option than staying in hotels or resort. In my case, choosing heavenly beach resort for extra price wasn’t much of illogical decision. Narrow down your accommodation choices based on budget, time, and main point of interest.

Fisherman’s small boat with mermaid paint by Koh Tao beach.

Koh Tao/Koh Nang Yuan tour  was operated by humorous locals.

Life at the beach.

Koh Tao’s back streets look like this.

and this.

Cheng beer (or Singha) and calendar with picture of king and his wife: Pretty standard view you see at restaurants in Thailand.

Short lunch stop at the shore of Koh Tao island.

Befriend with the other travelers. You will find about 70% of your traveling time is actually spent talking and sharing stories with strangers.

Leaving tiny village and heading towards Koh Nang Yuan.

Arriving Koh Nang Yuan.

This is how Koh Nang Yuan beach looks like at first sight.

This is how Koh Nang Yuan looks like from the highest point of the island.

A couple from Israel that we became friend with during the tour.

Koh Nang Yuan has two lands and they are both foot accessible by sand beach at low tide time of the day.

A man looking for space to dock his boat.

Imploding sunset at Koh Phangan.

You can see how these photos are quite grainy with intense color saturation, this is the effect of color implosion negative. It’s definitely fun film to shoot subjects that has vivid red, orange, and yellow color tones. You can get this film for around $6.

Next, we are moving upwards to Chaing Mai in Northern Thailand! Stay tuned!