Maybe it is a sign of how relaxed I am, or perhaps that we no longer feel like ‘tourists’ in Chiang Mai but I find myself in the spot where I have almost nothing to report…

We arrived here on Saturday afternoon and were pleasantly surprised to see our friends Ian and Tee waiting to meet us at the airport! Normally we grab our bags and then try to search out a taxi to our hotel, but the face of friends in the crowd made for a great start to the day.

After dropping our bags off at the hotel we all went back to Ginny Cafe to sit and have some food and drink and start to catch up – even thought we have been away for a year things just pick up like we were never away!

All we have done for the last few days is unwind and relax.  We have gotten in a few trips for a massage, and just been walking around the city, sitting by the pool, and hanging out with our friends.  I would love to be able to report that we did something really exciting, but I can’t.. and to be honest I don’t feel bad about that 😉

I think I shall keep on with this pace 🙂

Mrs. Columbus and I often dream about what it would be like to just stay here and not go back, but alas this is not the time for that, and it is time to start making our journey back to our family and friends back in America.

However, there is always time for just one more adventure..

The world is a gigantically small place. People say it’s a small world all the time, but I have now had a 2nd encounter where I have been able to really see how small it is.

While traveling around I noticed from some Facebook postings that an old friend from my high school days was posting pictures from familiar places that I have seen or been to in Thailand.. I sent him a message and after some posting back and forth it turns out that he was indeed in SE Asia, and that we had missed each other by less than a day in Chiang Mai at one point!!

I was happy to chat a bit and offer him some thoughts on other places he was planning to go, but figured that the opportunity to meet was close but not going to happen.  The end of our trip changed that result though!

As we are planning our last flight back to Bangkok to catch our international flight home, I get another message on Facebook that he is going to be passing through Bangkok as he and his wife go onto the next leg of their trip.  A small amount of shuffling later and we are going to get back to Bangkok in time to meet up for dinner on our last night in Thailand!!

So here we are, half a world away from the small town where we grew up and I am out for dinner in Bangkok with Spencer Seyker!!

It was a great night out with Spencer and his wife Christie and I can’t think of a better way to end the trip.  The world is truly a small place sometimes!

Our trip to SE Asia is winding down and we are definitely moving into relaxation mode with our time here in Khao Lak. We were upgraded to a lovely pool access room here at the Fanari Resort, and so we have been able to take some time to just sit and enjoy the pool right outside our door when the sun is out.

We have had a couple of days where the weather has not been too co-operative, and one of those was a full rain out. We can still sit outside on the terrace as even with the rain it is still nice and warm, but we are not venturing too far from the hotel. It does provide for some quite time to catch up on some email and a bit of work and I managed to get done a few things to whittle down the backlog of things that would otherwise be waiting for me when I get back.

The forecast looked like it was going to open up a bit weather wise so we decide to rent motorbikes again and try and get in a bit of exploring. Now that we have gotten comfortable with a few new means of local transportation with the rental cars and motorbikes, it has allowed us to get out and see even more things than we could have on private tours and day trips.

There is an island north of here called Koh Koh Khao that is our goal for the first day, but we only get about half way before we see the dark clouds rolling in on the coast and decide that there is no point on riding towards the rain. We decide to try for a side road up to a waterfall, but the road deteriorates to just a muddy path fairly quickly and decide that  we should just accept defeat for the day. We did have a nice day while the sun was out though, and found a few quiet little beach stops along the way out.

The second day was much better. The skies had a nice bit of light cloud so as to not be roasting hot, and we did not see any rain all day aside from about a 3 minute burst right at the end but we were stopping for a drink anyway!

This time we ended up making it all the way to Koh Koh Khao. After about a 45 minute ride up the coast you come to a small town where we are told that we can catch a ferry across a small straight to the island. We are not exactly sure where to catch the ferry and because the town is small and out of the mainstream, most of the sighs are only in Thai, but we figure that the place is not that big we will just follow the shore until we find it. Our first guess seems good from the road and we turn off towards some boats, but it turns out to be a fishing dock, and we try to ask for directions, but our Thai is not that good, and the people’s English was not that good and after some hand waving a nice girl offered to escort us to the right place.

As we often find out here things are not often the same for the locals as they would be for us back home, and it turns out their definition of ferry is not exactly what we might be used to. The ‘ferry’ for us and our motorbikes is actually an old longtail boat that has a bunch of plank decking instead of the seating that a longtail might usually have. The boatman tells us it is 40 baht each (about $1.25US) to cross and then makes some gestures that we should climb aboard. The surf is rolling the boat a bit as we walk on, but the boatman drives our motorbikes about like it is no big deal and then sticks a bit of wood behind the tire so that they don’t roll around too much during the short crossing – no straps or ties or anything and I raise an eyebrow a chuckle a bit, but who am I to question something that they have clearly been doing for a long time.

The ride across is about 10 minutes and in no time at all we are unloaded on the other side and ready to go. The whole island is only about 30km long and there is basically one main road that runs down the center of the island with occasional branches off to some of the resorts along the beaches on the west coast, or off into the fields that cover the rest of the island. Except for a few small foothills towards the north east corner the island itself is mainly flat, and in reality is more like a big sandbar. I would say that 90% of the entire island is less than 10 feet above sea level.

The impact of low season is even high here as it is a bit more remote, and during our entire ride on the island I think we only saw other tourist one time, and other locals not a whole lot more. It was quite awesome to have the entire road to ourselves most of the time, and we would just venture off onto some of the side roads to check out the beach or whatever they led off to. Most of the resorts here were closed for the season, and either wrapped up in a sort of screen to keep the weather and sand out, or were undergoing maintenance in preparation for the next high season. We even saw a few places that clearly just had not been able to make a go of it and were getting beaten down by the elements.

We reached the north tip of the island and there is another ferry dock here where you could catch another longtail boat to another island farther north, but we don’t want to chance not getting back for the last ferry to the mainland so decide to just explore a bit more on the island we are on. The map shows a road that goes down the east side of the island in behind the foothills that are there, and notes a couple of waterfalls to see, and we figure that we have time for that. If the road is on the map, it must be good right? We don’t get too far down the road before it changes from concrete to grave and then to packed dirt with washed out sections, but we are still on the ‘road’ and still looking for the waterfall.

After bouncing around on the rough trail for a few kilometers we come to ‘the waterfall’. By technical definition it is accurate because there is water and it is falling – about 2 feet. At first we think it is a trick like the place we saw in Cambodia where the actual falls are just around the bend, but that is not the case here and farther ahead the road only turns into more of a goat path so we decide that the smart choice is to give up and go back. It is getting late in the day anyway, and we want to get back before dark.

After crossing back on the ferry and back down the highway towards Khao Lak we decide to ride to the south end of the area to where we stayed back in 2009 when we came with the kids. This area has gone through a lot of reconstruction from the 2004 tsunami, and then a ton of growth on top of that, and lots of places don’t look even remotely the same as just a few short years ago.

A few of the places are the same, and one of the restaurants we went to is still around – although closed for the season – and we get down to the beach where we spent time with the kids. It is nice to see the place that we have some good memories from and it makes us think of seeing them all soon when we get home in a few days.

We have one more day here that we plan to just take it easy and enjoy the pool and then it will be time to pack up once again to make the trek back to Bangkok and then the long flight home.

We have quite enjoyed our time in Cambodia, and I could see us returning to the coastal region again in the future, but with the weather turning against us all the signs suggest that a change of venue will give us a better chance of enjoying our last week in SE Asia. It is low season everywhere so we know that it comes with some chances of being rainy, but the forecasts for the south of Thailand while still scattered look more favorable than Sihanoukville where we were planning to go next.

A short bus ride back to Phnom Penh and a couple of one hour flights later we have landed in Phuket and are on our way to Khao Lak. We have been here back in 2009 when we came with the kids and quite liked the area so figured it would be worth some more exploration time.

Our hotel, the Fantari, is about a block from the beach, and has a lovely pool, so even if it rains a bit the chances of unwinding here are pretty good. There is even a massage place less than 100 feet away from our hotel room so that is the clincher for me 😉  They even have real breakfast here with a full buffet of bacon, eggs, fruit, bacon, bacon, and did I mention bacon?! Makes me happy, happy, happy.

Hopefully we get enough decent weather to go out and do a bit of looking around – even perhaps rent some motorbikes again, that would make Mrs. Columbus happy, happy, happy!

I am not at all embarrassed to admit that we have not done a whole lot the last few days. Our hotel has a great little pool and a nice sitting area, so we have been taking full advantage of that along with spending some time visiting with our local friends.

We have managed to find a nice little massage place close to our new hotel and in addition to being able to get a good massage, the owners are really friendly and we have had a nice time chatting with them while getting our daily relaxation!

We know that our time here in northern Thailand is approaching an end, so we are trying to get out with our friends here as much as possible. We have had a few good nights out with Tee, Ian, Richie and Landon, and we also had the chance to meet Richie’s girlfriend Vanna,  and Landon’s girlfriend Tiew.

We also managed to have an nice night out with Ian and Tee at The River Market restaurant – a bit of an upscale place featuring a sort of Thai-Western fusion type menu. The restaurant is situated along the bank of the Ping River and it was very nice to just sit and relax and enjoy the great food with our friends. Tee always does so much to help us out and take care of us, so it was nice to see her relax for an evening as well!

After dinner we walked up towards the old city, and stopped for a couple of drinks at the Interbar. They have been a fixture in Chiang Mai for a very long time and feature live music. It was very interesting to hear Thai musicians perform American music, and we got a chuckle from time to time from their rendition of the lyrics, but overall a great night out.

Our last day/night in Chiang Mai was a little busy.  Trying to get some goodbye time in with all of our friends along with getting the laundry sorted and all packed up kept us fairly well occupied. We had lunch with Landon and Tee, and then dinner with a couple we met at our new favorite massage shop, an Aussie fellow and his Thai girlfriend. Then it was back to Ginny Cafe for me to say a last goodbye to Ian and Tee for another year.

Our time in Chiang Mai was great as always, and we are sad to be moving on, but take some comfort in knowing that we will be back again soon and have developed some great friendships here.  Phop gun mai na krap!