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!

Film photography has one major disadvantage from digital photography that is: very limited frame count .

Usually, single roll of 35mm film takes 36 exposures and sometimes even less like 17 exposures. Think about how many pictures 4GB SD memory card can hold for your DSLR camera — at least 220 pictures even when you are shooting in RAW format — now think again, just 36 pictures? That’s barely enough to take the pictures of everyone getting excited at the airport even before leaving home!

Laugh at me if you wish, but this is the exact reason why I picked the film camera over digital camera for the Southeast Asia trip.

Why?

Well, if you know you only have 36 frames to capture the adventure of lifetime, then you will be more conscious about not wasting a frame for less interesting subject right?
After all, 10 rolls of film enabled me to shoot close to 320 photos so it allowed me to shoot ample amount of “second chances” to perfect some important scenes (cover photo at the top for example, this was pure result of bracketing).
When you become conscious to make each shot count, the limitation of frame count will not be disadvantage after all 🙂

Another reason why I went for film is because you don’t see how the pictures turned out until they get developed. It’s kind of nice to think there is some exciting prize to look forward to after the trip.
There is nothing more photographically rewarding than seeing your beautifully composed film photographs get printed on fine sheet of paper. It’s just whole different degree of awesomeness, and brings back traveling memories in fresh perspectives.

Taming film photography takes much practice and it can often be very frustrating (yep, all those blurry days and unexposed rolls…I will never forget them) but this is also why it often captures the slightest of moment in quite organic and surprising ways.
When the picture is taken at perfect exposure and timing, it sparks the magic.
I choose analog photography for that exact reason, and thrilled to see how each frame captured people’s life in Southeast Asia 🙂

First day in Southern Thailand was pretty much endless adrenalin rush from red eye flight and overwhelming excitement of free-spirited traveling!
Few hours after landing Suvarnabhumi Airport, I was already on the run to Don Mueang Airport — the original main international hub of Bangkok — to catch the earliest Air Asia flight down to Surat Thani.
Despite its reputation as budget airline, Air Asia offered above average service in my opinion. I used Air Asia multiple times during this trip and it has been quite pleasant experience (i.e., no luggage got lost, no major flight delay, sexy flight attendants).

On the road, I’ve met several long-term backpackers who strongly recommended me to travel the country by train and boat.
Apparently, it is much cheaper than catching the flight and you can also see the country side better — it sounded pretty awesome and I am definitely going to do that next time in Thailand. Unfortunately, land traveling tend to take very long time and it was not ideal for this 1-week adventure.
I did however ended up taking one night-train from Chiang Mai (North) to Bangkok during this trip, which was fun experience and really allowed me to see beautiful landscapes of the country — but it did took very long time to travel (10 hours on train as oppose to 1 and 1/2 hour flight).
So if you are traveling on tight schedule and considering to maximize your site-seeing time, flying is probably the wisest option.
One-way flight fare is around 27-50 USD for most domestic flights.

Just to share some experience with flight booking – If you are going to book the flights on Air Asia.com, make sure to set your currency display preference at the very first flight search page. Otherwise you won’t be able to change it until the last confirmation page!
Just like you will see on other budget airlines, booking page will prompt you to add extra luggage services and in-flight meal options. So you can add/subtract as needed. One thing, travel insurance is selected YES by default so unless you really want that to be included you have to manually detach it. This part can be little tricky.

Also another thing — beware of baggage weight limit!
Check the airline’s website ahead of time for baggage limitation and make sure to book the flight with good baggage option. If you don’t pay the fare in advance, it can cost you quite a bit of additional baht from your money pack at the check-in counter 🙁
Travel lean and minimize weight as possible. If you are traveling only with your TSA ok size carry on, you can easily get pass the weight limit policy. Make sure you print out the boarding pass ahead of time, or use the self check-in to avoid unnecessary yaddi-yadda at the airline’s service counter (which happened to my buddy, sadly).
If you absolutely need to check-in your non-carry on baggage, make sure to have your flight confirmation printout (or email on your smart devise) and present it to the agent. Again, make sure you get the right baggage option at the flight booking stage.
Remember, there’s always thorns in roses’ stem… and there are reasons why budget airlines can stay less expensive than the other airlines. Excessive weight fee is something you can avoid if you plan it ahead of time 🙂

After about 1 and 1/2 hour flight from Bangkok we touched down on Surat Thani and bought (1) shuttle tickets to boat station, and (2) speed boat ticket to Koh Phangan.
Shuttle service form the airport to boat dock was about 90km apart and it took another 1 and 1/2 hour drive to get there.
Southern Thailand was in perfect season with no sign of continuous rain or intolerable humidity…just many mosquitoes that apparently love certain people and hate certain people.
Rustic view of country road from the shuttle’s window was somehow reminiscent of countryside of Karuisawa in Japan, and brought me some nostalgia. Boat dock and the view of islands from the speed boat reminded me of some random scenes from Danny Boyle’s “The Beach”.
All of these were perfect views to burn on my 36 frames of Fujichrome Provia 100F.

I am big fan of Fuji slide film — particularly Fuji’s Provia series — it’s unfortunate they are bit pricy, but I really like their color and contrast.
One super cool thing about the slide films is that if you process them with the negative film processing method (C-41 process) it will shift certain spectrum of color. I don’t quite know how to explain this…but it’s cool and very dreamy looking.
If you ever get hold of positive films to shoot, I highly recommend playing around with this cross-processing method.
You can take your film rolls to photo store and request the slide to get cross-processed 🙂

Thank you for reading through my second posting.
Here’s the result of cross-processed slide films that I took on the way to Koh Phangan island.
These are all shot on Fujichrome Provia 100F slide film which has been long expired since the 90s.

Hope you enjoy!

Next up is Koh Phangan island adventure and beautiful Koh Nang Yuan captured on experimental film stock “Color-Implosion”.
Stay tuned!