We all knew that Sophie’s (@somiraculous) entry to become STA Travel’s World Traveller Internship was likely to be a treat, and that’s exactly how it turned out. Determined to make the last 50 her video features ceramics (think Ghost), fashion, music from the Kinky Wizzards as part of her work for Oxjam, testimonials that see her likened to Russia and her travel writing as featured in the Foretean Times.
But why am I descrbing it, sit back and enjoy! And think about whether you’d like to see her taking the position of World Travel Intern for STA Travel. If so vote here.
In a similar manner to last week I’ve decided to go through Flickr and see what visual loveliness there is based around travel – I’ve gone with the Beaches of Thailand. The selection and was partly inspired by yesterday’s post, Thailand beaches with Jamie and Laura.
This leads nicely into the first image, which is of Sunset Beach, the very place Jamie and Laura visited. The picture of peace and quiet was taken by dmytrok. That’s the sort of shop you’d never mind popping out to when you realise you’ve run out of milk.
The next image is a little more dramatic – thunder clouds roll in over Ko Samui. Paalia captured this approaching storm.
Judging by the caption on this image of Koh Lanta by nurpax it seems it was uploaded from Finland, “-16C in Helsinki, no palm trees in sight.” Maybe the uploading of the picture was intended to warm him up. Could the same work for me? “Written about in London, no palm trees in sight…”
Y-Not_? Gives us Koh Phi Phi… Not entirely convinced the photograph was taken to remember the beauty of the location (see the photo title). However, the vibrancy of the beach is clear to see.
Next is another beach from Koh Lanta - sparse, stunning and so very, very tempting… taken by pandemia.
If you’ve got your own Thai beach photograph to add then leave us a link below. Or get in touch with us through our Flickr profile. Right, I’m of to plan my next beach visit. My most recent excursion to see the sea was to Morecombe – it’s not really the same.
Jamie and Laura have left Australia and have been experiencing the best of Thailand beaches. They arrived in Koh Lipe and have been working on the tans for a couple of weeks now.
“Koh Lipe is really small, you can walk to most places in about ten minutes. There are three main beaches, Sunrise, Sunset and Pattaya. We stayed on Pattaya beach which was the busiest, but the best beach was definitely Sunrise.”
The post besides giving great information on the beaches they’ve frequented also names the restaurant Spidermonkeys and the Thai Pancake Shop as great places to get a feed. Also they make a note that the book swapping shops aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and therefore suggest taking plenty of reading material with you to save on the baht.
Moving on to Koh Phi Phi saw lots of snorkeling (see above) and they also visited Maya Bay, which is where the Leo DiCaprio film The Beach was filmed. Unfortunately a low tide meant rather than clear crystal waters there was just exposed grey coral, not what they’d expected, but this didn’t but too much of a downer on the day.
Since leaving the beach scene they’ve passed through Phuket to Bangkok. There they had a full day to celebrate Jamie’s birthday, which they did with golf (on the 18th floor of the Baiyoke Hotel), ice-cream sundaes and a massage… very nice.
Our STA Explorer Jimmy, who also goes by the name of Asia By Foot doesn’t update all that much on his blog, but he keeps us in the loop by other methods. We recently received an email informing us that he’d been honoured by a tribe in the form of receiving a tattoo – they used sticks and it took nine hours. You could say he’s an adventurous type; see the final paragraph of this article.
He did post yesterday though, offering two links to pictures. One of which is this excellent Thailand photo gallery. I’ve included a few images below. Click on them to see them full size and with comments explaining a little about what Jimmy was up to.
The other link was also to a photo. Now bearing in mind that Jimmy likes to integrate himself fully, click on this link with caution. I imagine it was less painful than the nine hour tattoo, but I can’t be sure. However, he looks happy enough. Comments welcome…
