Professional Beach Bums!!!!

Well here we are again, set to leave another country! We have had a fab time here in Thailand and it has gone so quickly. We have only today left and are flying out tomorrow afternoon to New Zealand.



So what have we been doing?



We spent the first 4 days in Bangkok where Emily had a couple of days down time seeing a few local sights whilst Dawn headed out to see the Grand Palace, Wot Pho where there is a 46m long Buddha and a few other thing along the way - a giant swing and 30m tall gold Buddha to name a few. It was a day of amazing architecture, gold and jewels everywhere. The next Day Dawn went on a sightseeing trip to the Cemetery where the prisoners of war who died building the Burma railway (bridge over the river Kwai) were remembered, it was amazing how many of the young men were from Herts and Beds. Dawn then travelled on the railway through Death Valley where most people lost their lives. With such amazing scenary it is hard to imagine the pain and suffering that took place here. The day was then finished relaxing by a beautiful waterfall.



A must see visit to Pat Pong was an experience, in fact scary more than embarassing. We were sent to a club to see the various ping pong and Miss razorblade girls. We were told that we had to buy a drink only and the show was free. First we walked into a seedy looking dark bar, hardly anyone there except for naked girls standing around looking very disinterested (in fact one of them was nonchanlantley scratching her bum!) We ordered our drinks, the show was very slow maybe one thing every 10 mins in between we were hounded by the girls to buy them drinks or to tip, then the big scary bouncer ladies came over demanding that we each pay 800 bhat for the viewing! At this point we felt a bit scared as we were trapped in this darkened club! We drank quickly and watched an original game of hoopla and blowing out birthday candles (wouldn't be accepted at local village fetes)! Then ran out of there. We did try a second club but it was the same runner exit as the first! We then headed back to Khao San Road in which we are staying at feeling sad that the girls have to do that for their living.



Khao San road is a really funky buzzing place in which we likened it to Camden Market. Its a backpackers hub and sells various fake Id's, clothes, tatoos, piercings and the road is lined with neon lights. Usually we would hate this but it has a friendly charm to it.



We both visited the floating markets which are just outside of Bangkok, its complete hustle and bustle and hard to by things on the water as the boats keep moving apart or you simply just float by before you can show an interest in something!

We then took a night bus and ferry to Ko Phangan. What a beautiful island! We stayed in the north of the island at Mae Haad View. It was suggested we went there by a guy called Russell we met on the bus. There was only one beach hut and so Russell very kindly let us share his for the week, we had the room and he slept on the balcony in a hammock!!! We had a great time, half of the week was spent relaxing on the quiet beach and the other half was broken into sight seeing and hospital appointments for Emily!

The hospital visits occured due to scooters being the only way to get around the island. Both Emily and Russell were adventure junkies and so headed off on a day of searching for waterfalls and snorkelling sights. Dawn had gone across to Ko Samui for the day. The day started well, the snorkelling at the local beach was nice then Emily and Russell headed off on the bikes into the jungle! There are few concrete roads on the island and so they ended up having to drive the bikes up and down some serious dirt tracks. Emily's bike was rubbish, it couldn't make it up half the hills and so she had to walk it up the hill whilst using the throttle!!!! The hills were sand, gravel and full of gullies, at times they had to splash their way through rivers. It was basically dirt biking on automatic scooters!!!! It was damn scary but also exhillerating until coming down one hill that was covered in loose gravel, fortunately Emily was almost stationary as she was slowly walking the bike down whilst sitting on it but the back wheel slid on the gravel the bike toppled over onto her skidding her against the gravel. This resulted in her sadly having to rip her sarong for a bandage as her arm was gouged pretty badly. In the evening a trip to the hospital resulted in 6 stitches but all is ok now!!! It was a fun day with no regrets as it was an adventure!!!!



Dawn found Ko Samui quieter than she had expected, but the first beach was nothing like the Lonely Planet described it (a romantic fishing village with quiet beach), it was a quiet fishing village with no beach and little facilities, just one expensive restaurant. Due to the Chinese new year it wasn't quiet either, with fire crckers going off every second!! After an expensive breakfast, Dawn headed to the second most popular beach (which the book described as busy), but Dawn found it touristy, but not too in your face. After shopping and chilling on the beach, she headed back to the port and spent time on the beach there (the nicest one in her opinion, athough the book says it is dirty and smelly!) and got the posh Catermaran back to Ko Phangan.



We got into the party spirit and went to a black moon party. It was really good fun and set on the beach. The atmosphere was brilliant with people skipping a burning rope and juggling fire. There were very psychodelic paintings dotted around that glowed in the UV light and the music was trance but it was well Dj'd and kept us dancing till about 6am! Funnily enough we chilled out on the beach the next day. It was nice driving back as day broke as we got to see all the local tradesmen preparing their stuff for the day, many were cutting meat and laying it out.



Another day was spent walking in the Jungle to the highest point on the island. Dawn was challenged by creepy crawleys and having to wade across a river and climbing some boulders. She did well though but chose to not go into the dark depths of the jungle so waited for the wanderers to return by a serene man made lake.



Emily did have a second attempt at the off roading but she took a quad which was slightly better as it could actually get up hills and hold the road. It was great as waterfalls were successfully found and lovely tucked away beaches. Dawn took to the sea this day and had a go at snorkelling with her lilo and loved it!!!! (since this she has become quite the water baby!!!)

We left Ko Phangan by taking a night boat to mainland. This was fun as the upper deck (the only deck we could use) was lined with mattresses in a true dormitory style. Everyone had a mattress to sleep on for the 6 hour journey. It was nice except for them being rather narrow and therefore every now and then waking up to find yourself face to face with a complete stranger. When we reached mainland we jumped into a mini van that was going to take us to Krabi. However it took us 100m and dropped us by the side of the road where we had to wait for 2 hours for another bus to take us to our destination (did i mention that it was 5 am!).

From Krabi we took a long boat to Reiley Beach. At first we weren't over impressed as we were greeted by a muddy beach, having to clamber out of the boat, wade to shore with all our bags oh and Emily managed to slip over and fall face down in the sea soaking all her stuff! We then manged to get a room in the cheapest place, a nice hotel type village thing, however this was still extortionate compared to what we have been used to! Reiley has been developed away from backpackers. It is now a cluster of swankey resorts and families, we did feel a bit out of place until we discovered the paupers end of the beach (the smelly end!) It smells due to the sulphur given off from the Mangroves but cor it is a hold your nose experience. There we found cheap internet, restaurants and bars, the place became a tad more appealing.

We did make the most of our few days there, we walked over to Reiley West beach but it was too crowded and so discovered another small, crowded but more picturesque beach at the end of the peninsula. Here there is also Princess Cave which local fishermen believe that hundreds of years ago an Indian Princess was shipwrecked and died in the cave. Now local fisherman bring very large colurful carved wooden phalluses here as an offering to recieve good luck! Quite an unusual sight! We paid a visit to another cave-Diamond Cave, this was impressive as it went right back into the rock, very deep with a board walk all the way through it but the cave is also home to a huge sheet of quartz which was a beautiful contrast to the bare limestone walls.

Dawn took a day trip to see Bond Island (the man with the golden finger was filmed here), she also visited a cave with another Buddha inside and a floating village. Emily that day decided to explore a hidden lagoon which was inside the headland. The lonely planet said that it is a tough trek inducing vertigo attacks-Emily feels it was mildly described as in fact it included trekking through the jungle alone, having to climb down sheer rocks using knotted ropes to assist with the ascent and descent but obviously no harness and her blue beach dress kept catching on the rocks!!! She felt like a rock climbing Barbie!!!!! (much to the amusement of climbers she met at the end!) The lagoon was a muddy puddle which incidently Emily fell straight into!!!! Yuk! It was another adventure though and forced her to face her fear of heights!

Valentines day was spent on a speed boat exploring Ko Phi phi Ley and Don. Ley is where The Beach was filmed. Apart from the crowds it was truly beautiful and Dawn had ago at rock climbing here in a bikini, sarong and bare feet (She was going for the Lara Croft look rather than Barbie!) Phi Phi Don was sobering as 6000 lives were lost here during the Tsunami. It is so hard to imagine what it must have been like at that time. It is now being redeveloped into an expensive resort area again pushing out the backpackers. Everywhere you go in this area (the Andaman Coast) there are Tsunami evacuation signs and collecting areas. It was a great day out with some amazing snorkelling and Dawn braved the open sea without her lilo or lifejacket!!!! She even dived down to get a better look at the Clown fish (Nemo)!

We then went up the coast to Khao Lak in which we joined a three day dive trip living aboard a boat on the Similian Islands. It was an intense 3 days for Emily as she did 9 dives, ate a lot of rice and saw absolutley amazing fish, rays, seahorse but no bruce the shark! There were so many it was like being in an aquarium. Dawn again braved the snorkelling and was treated several times to close viewings of Turtles-1 being the Green Turtle!

From here we went back to Bangkok for last minute shopping, throwing out of really manky clothes and getting lost in China Town.

Goodbye Thailand!

Random fact of the day:
Birds nest soup is thought to act in the same way as viagra and unfortunately Swallows nests are raided and sold at a whopping 100,000 Bhat for 1 Kilo of the nest! That is eqiuvalent to nearly 2000 British Pounds!