Back to Island Life

In case you were worried about my mental health after three days in a city last week, I'm happy to report after a week in Koh Phangan I am back to normal.  Saying our island is remote is an understatement.  It's a 1.5 hour drive from the airport to the ferry then the fastest ferry is 2.5 hours to the island.  And it's just what I needed.

The first week has been crazy with returning to the full group of remotes, welcome events, exploring the island and the epic full moon party.  The full moon party is one of the biggest parties in the world on a beach in the Southern tip of the island.  The night before full moon is a jungle party with DJ's in the trees, body paint, a Muay Thai boxing ring and so much more. Never one to miss a party I made sure I got in a nice evening nap for the midnight start time for both events.

Hopefully after the craziness I'll be settling down into my slow island vibes I had going in Bali.  Hard to say though because I'm currently on a flight from Koh Samui to Phuket to meet up with my cousin and best friend who are en route here as I type!


Me and my tres amigos (haven't lost that Spanish yet!) on the beach night one.
After a flight from Bangkok, long taxi ride, ferry, and another long taxi ride to
the island we were greeted with bean bags and Singha the local beer.

We obviously headed straight for the beach to catch the
sunset.  This is one of the least impressive ones we've caught
on the beach so expect more in my next post.

This is the same sunset from one of our pools that overlooks
the ocean.  They also grill fresh fish, meats, veggies and have
tables set up in the sand.  It's the most pampered place we've
stayed at all year.

This is at the healing center next door which has AMAZING veggie food, yoga
classes that face the beach, hammocks and a very very cute little puppy.

This month's office is called Beachub and is - you guessed
it - right on the water.

And this is the front half of our office.  We have sitting hammocks, laying
hammocks, and desks with chairs at them to accommodate us.

As part of our welcome event, we went to a cooking class!
I never thought Thai food would be easy to cook - and I was
right.  It's a lot of different ingredients and when it hits the
hot pan you better not mis-time anything!

This was our first dish - Papaya Salad. It's got green beans,
fresh tomatos, green papaya, a few Asian sauces (made
different for us veggies), peanuts, and really REALLY
spicy red chili peppers.

Our second dish was fried basil which is not what it sounds
like.  They fry a very different type of basil called "holy
basil" that is part of a delicious spicy sauce, served with
steamed rice and a fried egg.

We also learned how to make a red curry which was easily
the best dish we made.  Other dishes not shown include:
Pad Thai, fried cashews and green curry.

My cooking partner Martin and I whipping up our fried basil.


After we got our culture on we headed to the beach for a
bon fire and to release lanterns.  We all wrote a message on
them, waited until they were super hot and full, and let go
sending our messages out into the universe.  My message
was "Leave only your footprints" something I've found
important during this year of travel.  It was SO cool
to see the night sky lit up with our messages. It's a very
small version of the world famous lantern festival in
Chiang Mai that lets off tens of thousands of at the same
time. 


Our lovely little bon fire!

Managed to sneak up and photobomb a group pic.  Also sneaking in with a
photobomb is our city manager Jo in the front.  This was the beginning of our
night so I'm sure you can imagine how it went from there. 





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