And Here Goes the Start of my Beach Bumming

Greetings from Thailand! Sorry I've been MIA- getting my lazy ass off the beach was hard to do the past couple of days. I reached my first beach in Malaysia 4 days ago in the island of Langkawi. I met great people- most who were from England enjoying their 'gap' year between college (aka high school) and university. There's no way in HELL I would have been able to travel alone back then! I spent a lot of time on the beach, and during the torrential 1-hr rain storms I would enjoy great seafood. 2 days ago I went on what I thought would be an easy bike ride to a beach 8 miles north of the one I was staying at. Unfortunately, the bike had no gears so when the road started twisting and turning uphill it was HORRIBLE. The sun was beating down, and then it poured, and then the sun beat down yet again. I motivated myself by picturing this beautiful, isolated beach in my head. But then I reached it, and it was trashy. Oh well, all I cared about at that point was resting my beaten body. After a while I realized there was no way I could repeat the trip back and pleaded a taxi to bring me and my bike back to my hostel.
After a gruesome 12 hour journey by ferry and bus yesterday, I am now in Phuket, Thailand- a tourist haven. This town has gotten so big that there are absolutely no backpackers here- only families and older couples. I was a bit scared because the language here is so different and I have gotten so lazy in planning ahead that I hopped off the bus with not much of an idea of where to go. I dropped the name of the only beach I remembered in Phuket called Kata Beach- and away I went on a moped taxi. I haven't been on a moped since Vietnam and I forgot how thrilling it is to zip through town on one. Kata Beach is beautiful- the waters are much clearer than Langkawi's. I was walking around last night and all of a sudden something was poking me and I realized it was a trunk....of a baby elephant! Gah! What I thought was a statue was actually a live elephant, and his trunk sniffed around my hands for bananas. I would have taken a picture of it if it didn't cost money.
Tomorrow I'm headed off to Ko Phi Phi- one of Thailand's most popular islands. Since I arrived in Thailand by boat, I only have 2 weeks before getting kicked out. So I am literally island hopping for the 2 weeks. Hopefully I'll do some snorkeling and if I'm even more brave- some scuba diving!