Daylight

The following morning, after arriving on the island was definitely exciting. Everything that we had been so thrilled with the night before was now shed in sunlight, which made for a whole new experience. We had truly found paradise (for a group of 22 year old's with no money).

This picture below is a prime example of how we held it down in the Ice Beach Bungalow Resort. Embedded in our recent SF roots was the concept of the stoop session. This is where you post up on the stoop of your home and then proceed to chill, watch people, and basically shoot the shit for hours on end. We did just that....and I'm sure that Ice Beach Bungalow #'s 1 and 3 got the rep for it.







Mikey (the only one of us with an afro, for those who don't know him) is the Thailand local within our group. After studying abroad through the same organization in 2006, Mikey moved back to Thailand once graduating in 2008 to work for a human rights non-profit organization in north-eastern Thailand. Located in Kohn Kaen city, in the Isaan province; Mikey and his organization are doing incredible things for the poorer sect of Thai people that often go unheard. Being the one with the local knowledge, Mikey's first destination for us that morning was to the liqour store to purchase a few bottles of rice whiskey. If there was ever a drink to supposedly put "hair on your chest," it would be rice whiskey. Straight gasoline. However, we all participated in the local flavor while we listened to Mikey's unending and incredible stories.
Below is a snapshot of Mikey indulging himself in some rice whiskey and M150 (Strength, courage, devotion).


Our first sunset. This was taken on lonely beach which happened to be the closest beach to our bungalow (a whole 1 minute walk away). Thailand has some pretty amazing sunsets.









Thanks to the happy shake epidimic of 2008. I saw Carillo (aka the baby) asleep in this position more than not. This one's on the beach, but he fell asleep all over the place.





Our first night, we decided to choose a restaurant for us to frequent the rest of our stay in Koh Chang. This way we figured that we would be able to make good with the staff and eventually learn a lot more about them. This turned out to be the best decision we could possibly make. By the end of out stay, we were straight homies with the owner and waiting staff of the small hut-like eating establishment. And the food was delicious.
I think that the restuarant employees (Kwon especially) ended up liking us so much because of scenes like this one below with Carillo and Freddy.......or it could have been the fact that Mikey speaks nearly fluent Thai.


Kwon (the woman sitting next to Mikey) became an instant homegirl, if not our Thai mother. She was first our waitress at the restaurant that we chose to frequent but then soon became our Koh Chang tour guide. We knew that she was down when she offered to make us a special Thai meal that was off the menu the very first night. One of the days she hopped on the motorbikes that we had rented with us (3 deep) and showed us some spots to check out accross the island. She had said that she knew what was up with us when she saw us walking back to our bungalow with a bag full of rice whiskey. "None of the tourists drink that shit," she said. Thanks Mikey.


Happy shakes took casualties in more ways than one. Freddy suffered an incident here.