Walking on water

One of the things that really caught my attention while in Thailand was how much the tides changed. After spending all day swimming in the ocean with the tide in it would be shocking walking back out to the beach after my daily nap. All of a sudden you would have to walk another 200ft just to reach the salty blue ocean. Depending on the beach you could then walk out another 200ft and still be only calf deep.

After cruizing all around Koh Phangan we found a nice little dirt road leading to an empty beach with a sand bar calling our name. We ran through the shallow waters to our destination and set up a cute little picnic with fresh fruit we had just bought along the road. Since we loved our private beach so much we decided to had back into town and buy a few ice cold brews to watch the sunset with our own little slice of beach front.

Dance till dawn

Like many travelers before us visiting the Full Moon Party in Haad Rin on the island of Ko Phangan is a rite of passage. Swelling up to 30,000 partyers during the peak season it's no doubt it is one of the ulitmate beach parties in the world. We danced, jumped through fire, and slipped down slides all the while drinking beers, buckets of fun, and lot's and lot's of Redbull until the sun welcomed us to another day. 

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Bottles of free beer!

After a few days sweating it up in the Jungle we headed to find another island. We probably would have skipped Koh Phangan, but the infamous full moon party was too near to miss. This would plop us on this island for 6 nights giving us one night to recover from any wrong doings. Once we swam in the most popular beach we set out for something a bit more remote. Forcing us to take the risk of renting another motorbike (they like to scam foreginers about previous dents) to find a beach to our liking. 

We cruised north seeking out bottle beach with Nathan in search of clear waters and quiet sandy beaches. Once arriving north, you have two options to reach bottle beach. This first being a three hour hike through dense jungle, the alternative we took was a nice boat ride around the bend to our destination. The beach was as I imagined, although lacking the free bottles of beer.

Nak Muay aka Foreign Boxer

Muay Thai is referred to as the "Art of Eight Limbs" because it makes use of punches, kicks, elbows and knee strikes, thus using eight "points of contact". We were excited upon arrival as we put on the traditional boxing shorts making us at least look the part. From then on, we were ready to fight. They started the workout out with us jumping for 20 minutes on a tire (which is a cheap alternative for a trampoline, sorta). When our feet and legs couldn't take anymore, they took us off to stretch our legs and put on some gloves. 

They showed us some basic moves, then we were fighting like pros… Or so we thought. They constantly showed us the weakness in our defenses. The guys kept yelling at us to kick or punch, but their accents were so strong, it was hard to tell if they wanted you to knee, kick, punch, or elbow them.  Our new friend Nathan was also able to join us in the Muay Thai fighting experience. It was also nice having a group session, so you could get a break while the other two people were with an instructor.