We flew from Bangkok to Phuket then took a car for an hour and a half north to Khao Lak. Its a sleepy little beach town that the dive trips to the Similan Islands leave from. It reminded us of the Florida Keys with every other shop being a dive shop. We had a reserved a 2 day/ 1 night live aboard through Khao Lak Explorer and spent the time we had in Khoa Lak exploring local beaches.

​The first impression of Bangkok is that it's a huge city. Once our bus hit the main highway outside of town, it took over two hours to reach the stop downtown. There are many modern high rises in every direction. They do have real highways here which is a nice change of pace from Cambodia and Vietnam. And people actually use lanes and stoplights! Our Airbnb was in an apartment complex off an alley. It's wasn't next to much, but at a good central location between most of the sights. For dinner, our first we walked to a mall food court to keep things easy. The malls are huge, modern, and extravagant. We had some Thai food and tried to get acquainted with the spiciness of the food in this country. As you move north to south through Southeast Asia, the weather gets hotter and the food gets spicier.

Siem Reap is the base camp to explore the nearby Temples of Angkor. This was a massive captial city for the Khmer Empire around 1000 years ago and the area is dotted with temples that were built in a stretch of about 500 years. Siem Reap is a 30 minute ride from the temples and is pretty cool town to chill out in. It has some awesome night markets and bars to cater to the tourists at night, while they explore temples by day. We spent three days hanging around the town and visiting the amazing temple ruins in Angkor.