GRAINNEBINNS

The main reason we decided to go to Koh Lanta was to visit the Lanta Animal welfare centre. I had come across some posts on instagram about the centre and insisted we paid a visit. I am so glad we did! Lanta animal welfare centre has been running for about 17 years now and I was so amazed by the work they do. Their main goal is to sterilise and vaccinate stray animals in order to prevent overpopulation as this is the main reason they are often abused. If the shelter feel the animal has a safe environment to go back to they will release it however if not they will work on rehoming the cats or dogs worldwide! Having been here almost a month now and seeing literally dozens of stray cats and dogs it's amazing to know places like this do exist and do their absolute best for the animals!

We helped out by giving some of the dogs their morning walks and lots of love and cuddles! I walked Andre, who was a pleasure! Before arriving to the shelter Andre was hit 3 times by a local with a machete whilst trying to look for food and yet he was still one of the friendliest dogs there! I have no doubts he will have a bright and loving home to go to one day!

PHI PHI

After almost 3 weeks into our trip we finally made it to the beautiful island of Phi Phi. We initially planned to stay for 5 nights but ended up staying 6 instead & what an amazing few days we had!

For such a small island Phi Phi has a huge amount to offer, on one of the first few days we headed up to the Phi Phi viewpoint where the entire island is visible. We just lay on the cliff top for about an hour admiring the view it was beautiful!

BOAT DAY

Heading to all of the surrounding islands while at Phi Phi is a must! We did a full day tour, we were all completely shattered by the end but it was worth it! We left at 9:30am and finished at 7pm. The tour included the famous Maya bay from the movie "The beach" as well as monkey beach and a few other bays and national parks. Sadly we had to swim or kiyak to all of them so it was very hard to bring my camera to get some pictures!

The day cost 1100 baht (about €28) but this included the fee of 400 baht to go onto maya bay and the national parks. We also got a meal on board and for me it was great I was able to request no meat or egg.

As much as I loved this trip, I would still rank the snorkeling trip in Koh Tao as my favourite day trip so far!

OUTFIT

I literally saved this outfit for a day it would be worth wearing lol! The camouflage jokes were continuous throughout the whole day!

I picked up this super cute bikini from a shop in Koh Tao for about 200 baht which is about €5 or €6 and styled it with my fave camo bucket hat from Nine Crows!

I bought the glasses for about €2 on one of the stalls at the floating markets in Bangkok and the bag is my usual one from forever 21!

Phi Phi Budget & Where To Go

Whilst I absolutely adored Phi Phi it is slightly more expensive than a lot of the other islands so you do spend a little bit more per day. Even small things such as bottles of water are twice the price and it was also the only island we had to pay a small fee of 20 baht (less than €1)to enter. Its still relatively cheap just more expensive than other places.

In terms of where to go and what to eat or do, you're never stuck for choice. I even found a vegan/vegetarian restaurant with such a huge selection of foods on the menu, but even the days we didn't eat there it's been pretty easy to order vegan everywhere. Most places do tofu if you ask and will cook fried rice or noodles without egg once you ask!

At night time the beach goes crazy with fireshows and plenty of music. The music was mainly EDM and we were kind of looking for more of a chilled vibe most nights so were absolutely blessed when we discovered a bar called banana bar. Every night at 7:30 they play a movie. Its also a Mexican food place so we had the best of both worlds. If you're visiting Phi Phi and need a break from the madness of the beach I'd highly recommend here!

As well as avoiding the main beach during the night we did the same thing during one of the days also, we walked towards long beach, it's on the other side of the island but only about a 30 minute walk. Something well worth doing if again you need a break from the madness!

PHUKET

After our 6 nights in Phi Phi we finally decided it was time to move on and we jumped on a boat to Phuket.

In Phuket we visited the Wat Chalong temple. It was absolutely beautiful. This was surprisingly our first temple of the trip.

The temple was free admission we just had to pay a taxi from Patong which after bartering with a taxi man we managed to get for about 330 Baht return each!

Our stay in Phuket was short and sweet.

Thailand, see you in August!!! Next stop Cambodia!

Grainne

asia

KOH SAMUI - KOH TAO - KOH PHANGAN

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Well what a week it's been, making our way around 3 beautiful islands! In such a short amount of time we managed to do and see so much! Here's some of the things we got up to!!!

KOH SAMUI

Seeing as we only had two nights and 1 full day in Koh Samui we didn't really get up to too much as we were all completely exhausted from the journey from Bangkok. We spent the whole day on the beautiful beach in Chaweng. This was our first beach of the journey so we were all fairly excited about it.

KOH TAO

Despite its apparent reputation of being the "murder island" Koh Tao has been one of my favourite destinations so far. Such good vibes on the island, we stayed in the area Sairee beach and the beach was amazing there!

Our first morning on Koh Tao we decided to rent paddle boards and drift out to sea for a bit, it was a really cheap and fun activity to kick off the day!

That evening we went to a really cool place for food, it was a Korean BBQ which meant we basically ordered our food raw and then cooked it on a pot type thing on the table! Surprisingly it was even pretty easy to eat vegan there! Currently I am finding being vegan and eating out much easier here than at home!

On our 3rd day on Koh Tao we had the most amazing day, Scuba diving and snorkeling are big on the island so we went on a day trip snorkeling! We went with a company called oxygen and I couldn't recommended it enough!

The first stop of the day we went to a tiny little island called Koh Nuan Yang.

My favourite thing about this island was how environmentally conscious they were. Before getting off our little boat we were told no bottles or cans were allowed onto the island and if you are caught you are charged a fine. Also no towels were allowed on the beach because it collected too much sand and flippers were not allowed for snorkeling as they kill the coral reefs!

We climbed to the viewpoint on the island which was really breathtaking both on the way up and seeing the view lol!

After the island we visited 5 different bays at 2 we managed to see turtles which was so amazing just swimming over them! At other bays we saw some coral reefs and loads of beautiful colourful fish!

KOH PHANGAN

After a slightly relaxing week it was time to jump on the ferry again and get ready to party on Koh Phangan, home of the full moon party!

The night before the full moon party we headed to the jungle party which was so so magical! It was like being at a festival, everything was designed to gorgeously there too!

The full moon party was honestly spectacular! I think I danced for about 12 hours straight! I would go as far as saying it was one of the best nights of my life! When it got bright there was people picking up the straws and litter so quickly which was impressive but I still felt the need to give them a hand and join in lol & once I did I managed to convince some other party goers to help out too! It was amazing!

Koh Phangan you were amazing but we're all ready for some rest now! Today we packed up again and headed to the other side of Thailand! Were in Krabi at the moment and heading to Koh Lanta tomorrow!

I'm so excited to do the islands on this side of Thailand! Everyone talks about how beautiful they are! I'm hoping to volunteer for a day at an animal welfare centre in Koh Lanta which I'm super excited about! There are so many street dogs here and sometimes despite knowing I can't touch them incase of diseases I sometimes feel so helpless so it will be nice to be able to do something for them in some way!

Grainne

asia

BANGKOK!

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ARRIVING!

After leaving Dublin on Wednesday at about 15:30pm we finally arrived to Khaosan Road, Bangkok at about 4:30pm on Thursday. Our travelling was fairly smooth other than one thing, nobody made us aware that two of us were on a separate connecting flight once we reached Doha. We all ran to the same gate only for two of us to have to run back to where we came from as well as getting a train! Thankfully, we didn't miss our flights and we all got there safely eventually!

The Hotel

The hotel we stayed in was called the Dang Derm! It was right on Khaosan Road so was super central and close to everything, it was also super clean and had a great rooftop pool. Khaosan Road gets a bit crazy at night though and because our room was right out the front my bed was literally vibrating from the sounds of outside at one point. Everything ends relatively early (1-2am) so it's not that loud for the entire night!

The Floating Markets

After so many people recommending it we decided to do the floating markets tour and it was worth every penny! It was 650 baht which works out at about €16 and included our bus there and back as well as all of the activities throughout the day!

After driving for about 1 hour 40 minutes we finally arrived at the first stop of the tour which was a market on a train track. We were confused at first and thought maybe it was out of action or something but then we were told to be back where we met at a certain time as that's when the train would be passing. It was totally insane, all of the markets along the tracks were mainly selling foods such as meats or fish and when the train was due they packed everything off of the tracks and then waited for it to pass before returning to normal!

Once the train had passed we jumped back on the bus and went to the floating markets.

All of the stalls were great, most of the items at the stalls were handmade and were sold for so cheap!

We got lunch and got a table on the waterfront where we sat on the floor and had to take off our shoes!

I picked up these shorts on Khaosan Road and had so many people scream MUAY THAI while holding up boxing fists lol.

After two hours wandering the floating markets we were taken on a boat along the river where we got to see fireflies lighting up the trees! Sadly none of our cameras could really capture it. It was so so beautiful it was like tiny little fairy lights illuminating all of the trees and bushes! Riding along the river was also extremely refreshing after such a busy day! This was the end and the highlight of the tour!

The whole experience was amazing and something I'd highly recommend!

The Food!

Being vegan I am well aware eating abroad is never going to be a walk in the park. When my first meal of vegetable noodles arrived, it was fried with egg which I spent about 5 minutes picking out and I was starving all I wanted to do was eat some normal non airplane food, even though the vegan meals on board were surprisingly great! I learnt from that experience to just ask for anything I order without meat or egg and so far so good. I am a huge fan of noodles rice and veggies at home so I've no problem eating them almost everyday lol!

Moving On!

Whilst Bangkok was a great time, I'm not totally sad to have said goodbye! We were there for a total of 3 nights and 2 full days and that was plenty! It's quite heavy! Today (Sunday July 2nd) we caught a flight to Surat Thani. We didn't really have any kind of plan for our arrival as we didn't think we'd make it on time to catch a ferry to an Island but a woman in the airport got us a super fast driver after creating the impression that staying in Surat Thani for the night wouldn't be as good as just moving straight on! Thankfully with minutes to spare we made the ferry and are now on Koh Samui. We're here until Tuesday before moving onto Koh Tao!

Super excited for some beaches!!!

Grainne