As soon as I booked a trip to Thailand, I knew I had to visit Awe. I went to Northwestern University with the owner, Peter, where we studied journalism and quickly became very close friends. Thankfully, Peter decided to take a departure from the world of news and move to Thailand to open his resort. If he hadn’t made all those choices, I would have never stepped foot on one of the few spots where one can still feel that she has the world all to herself… a world that is a little piece of paradise.
I am now a practicing entertainment attorney, but when I traveled to Thailand in the late summer of 2008, I had just sat for the California Bar and was looking forward to getting away from it all. My first stop was Bangkok – a city of continual vibrant energy and an endless array of amazing things to see and do. I loved it, and I hope to return soon. However, by the end of my stay there, I was looking forward to the divergent experience of days spent lounging on a beach, evenings spent witnessing awe inspiring sunsets, and nights spent lounging at a seaside eatery hearing the waves lap up on the shore. Awe delivered all this and more.
Koh Phangan is a gorgeous, untouched place… while the sister islands of Koh Tao and Koh Samui are also beautiful, you only really feel like you have escaped when you land on Koh Phangan. It is the sort of island you dream up in your head when you tell people you are going to island hop in the Gulf of Thailand. Then after a short taxi ride from the pier, you arrive at Awe. Here you have find a wonderfully modern cottage house that serves as your home away from home and a gorgeous pool with black tiling that is still the best looking pool I have ever seen. If you are finished with lounging in the pool and enjoying the waterfall wall, then just hop on out and move over to the calm beach just mere steps away. If you just want to soak in the sun rays, then hop on one of the hammocks nestled between palm trees. If you get hungry, just wander next door to the delicious restaurant. The ambiance is relaxed, the food yummy, the prices are great, and there is a TV in case you get a yearning for some news and contact with the outside world.
Je suis française mais je vis aux États-Unis depuis l’an 2000 où j’ai fait la connaissance avec Peter, propriétaire d’Awe Resort. Je voulais rendre visite à mon bon ami et voir ce véritable Paradis, alors j’ai voyagé toute seule de Chicago à Ko Phangan, il y a 2 ans. C’était inoubliable! Je ne sais pas ce que je cherchais en Thaïlande, mais j’ai trouvé plus que je pouvais imaginer.
La Thaïlande est vraiment mon coup de cœur! J’ai vraiment eu de la difficulté à quitter ce pays. En venant de l’hiver froid de Chicago, Je ne pourrais pas être plus heureuse avec ce dépaysement. A mon avis, on peut trouver vraiment de tout dans ce pays. En explorant les plages immaculées avec sable blanc et mer turquoise, les temples sacrés et les merveilles du paysage, je me suis trouvée en communion avec la nature. L’île de Ko Phangan est un coin du monde tranquille.
J’ai adoré mon séjour au sein d’Awe Resort. J’en ai gardé un très beau souvenir et le recommande vivement. Après avoir fait du tourisme à travers l’île je peux dire que c’est le meilleur logement de tout Ko Phangan. Le confort et le décor est haut de gamme. Les villas sont simplement magnifiques, les chambres très confortables. L’extérieure des Villas donne un côté très chic. Je n’oublie jamais la belle piscine privée! Le luxe absolu! Le Personnel quant à lui est très accueillant, très professionnel, très obligeant.
J’ai trouvé du repos et du calme en Thaïlande, et je rêve de mon retour.
It is hot as hell, all I want is to be naked, and all I can think is how hungry I am and how *clean* Bangkok is.
I haven’t seen Peter since college, when we were both competitive, geek-chic journalism students at Northwestern University in Chicago. But this night in August, 2010 finds us in a night market in Bangkok,
me uprooted from the New York media world and in the middle of a year-long, round-the-world trip with my husband, Gabriel, and Peter settled as professional yogi and real estate developer in Thailand. What the hell happened to the two ambitious little Asian journalists?
Who cares? We plunge recklessly into the market near Peter’s home in the city. After a year in the developing world, and coming off of two months in India, Bangkok seems abundantly, embarrassingly delicious
and rich. We eat sushi. We eat ice cream. We drink Thai iced tea. We drink Thai hot tea. We drink sake. We eat barbecued squid, with two different chili sauces. We sweat. We eat lychees. We eat papaya salad.
We eat rambutans. We eat little elastic fruit-shaped candies, shiny jellied versions of Japanese marzipan. We browse sweater selections – who the hell wears sweaters in this weather? – with the prostitutes from the high-end houses nearby. We drink Singha. We sample makeup next to impeccably groomed ladyboys with unmistakeably male feet. At 1 a.m., we stop in for a bite at Peter’s favorite neighborhood seafood
restaurant. Surrounded by shouting children, revelers, and the occasional farang, we eat salted fish, beef salad, mango salad, sticky rice. We drink more Singha. Gabriel and I are drunk, intoxicated on Thai beer, spice, perfume, seafood, heat, each other, and Peter.
That was the first night.
Six weeks later, we’ll be lucky enough to visit Peter’s ancestral home in Ratchaburi and sleep in the garden-within-a-home that he rebuilt with materials from the original structure. We’ll share a meal of bitter eggplant and steamed vegetables and pray with Buddhist monks at the temple central to his family. We’ll play vicious games of hearts, detoxing our skin with clay facials and aloe vera (just because we pray doesn’t mean we’re not vain as all get out). We’ll visit the summer palace of Rama VI, and Peter’s cousin TKTK will teach me how to tie flowers in my hair. Gabriel and I have become as comfortable kneeling at stupas as we are squatting on plastic stools at street stalls, and it’s easy to see that the heart of our Thailand trip is both this lovely family, and revealed by this family.
In late October, at the close of our 10 weeks backpacking through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, we finish our trip how we started, in Thailand, and feeling excessively alive. Instead of hustling down a buzzing Bangkok street, Gabriel and I are floating on our backs in the eternity pool at Awe, sipping fresh coconut and
listening to the buzz of cicadas. A gecko lounges lazily near the water, testing the grass. A fisherman anchors his small boat, walking to shore with his day’s catch in a basket on his head. Sun glints off the glass doors of our villa, and for one rare moment, Gabriel and I aren’t thinking about anything, not planning, not reflecting, not talking, not loving, not arguing. We just are. This is Thailand’s gift to us, and we are not understanding, but we are grateful.
Born in Chicago, raised in small town Thailand, worked as a journalist for a US Military publication and reported from DC during the September 11 crisis. That drove me to yoga and beach life. Awe is my baby.
