The thing about the beach is the sand...

The thing about the beach is the sand, and so we decided, after all, to visit Koh Phangnan after all. Originally we heard it was an all-out drug-fueled rage-fest destination, and so we avoided it, but it turns out the other side of the island is empty and so we decided to hop on a catamaran to check it out.

<---- Holy crap, we thought building our deck was tricky (Dre, Joe, Bob, Drew, we'd like a new deck here if you get a chance =)

Anyway, so we get to the island just in time for a looming monsoon - you can see it in the distance in this photo. I'm trying to act all cavalier in the photo, but I know it's comin'.

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Boo Ya!

Despite the drizzle, we decided we liked the whole secluded paradise thing and so we decided to hang for a few days in a little bungalow and see what else the island had in store, which turned out, quite delightfully, to be just about nothing...

and so Ty enlisted the aid of a local nail technician to get her all pretty (she begged me to get my Wookie-ass toes tamed too, but I was way too dang macho and so I got soooooper artsy with our camera in the meanwhile.

You see those soothing blue hues? This is the stuff spoken word poems are made of - ahhhhhh.

Okay, so I'm not going to lie, I quickly became jealous and began to crave some pampering too. After some preliminary research I found, side-by-side, the only two massage options that our quaint stretch of sand had to offer

Option # 1

Option # 2

Naturally, who wants to bother with a "magic" massage when you can have an "Ok" massage. Duh. Holy smokes by the way, "Thai Massages" are more like "Thai Beat Downs." They really smack you around.

Yet another one of my Ansel Adams moments... No autographs please.

After our manis, pedis and butt woopins, we happened upon a spectacular couple from Holland, Tom and Manon - we grabbed some beach-side BBQ with them. The evening turned longer, as they tend to, and we ended up sharing some great laughs while hiding out under- cover during yet another monsoon.

But unfortunately, like we've learned from our Buddhists peeps over here in Thailand, all things are transitory, and this part of our trip, too, had to come to an end...

Ty and I bidding fond farewells to the island life on our last magnificent evening on the beach. Next stop, Bangkok (not pictured is our quite unintentional stop at the red-light district - it was dark and scary and very, very brief).

The next morning, we hopped a bus and ended up in Ayuthaya, an ancient city sprinkled with amazing ruins and Wats: here are some of the highlights.

The guesthouse - "Welcome home!"

Yeah, we read Lonely Planet (apparently we were the only ones), you gotta cover your skin in the temples - hence all the long garments and the sweating... Ty's diggin' her temple garb though - Hot!

After a long day of temple-hopping, Ty, or "Tom" as she's referred to by confused Thai people (her new nickname has been officially reduced to "T"), became a little delirious on the Tuk-Tuk between ruin sights.

Yikes.

We thought this was magnificent.

Hundreds (thousands?) of years ago the Burmese sacked Ayuthaya and burned and destroyed it; what's left are these ruins. If you look closely, you can see fragments of buddha sculptures beheaded and burned.

Lookin' pretty chic I think.

Of course there were hundreds of baby elephants wandering around (no, we didn't pay anything to have this picture taken, ahem).

You know who really still get a big bang out of working with elephants? Thais.

<>

Yeah, I'd like to say it wasn't as steep as it looks (this would warrant an "Oh Gad!" from Karalyn).

Check little white me out for frame of reference.

A quick snack in the market before the next stop.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was watching the people pay homage and respect to Buddha - I'm reading Siddhartha again and that's final (Demian, you up for another round of Siddhartha - boop?)

Our favorite photo of the day.

We've concluded we dig this place enough to stick around for another day or so, and then we're off to Lopburi (I guess there are monkey's there and we're suckers for cute and furry - you gettin' this tex?) and then it's off to Chiang Mai where we might actually get a job and stuff - maybe. More later...