Thailand

Turned out the last leg of travel from Chiang Mai to Phi Phi was probably one of the worst yet, taking 22 hours all in all. We took an overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, which neither of us slept on. We then took an airport bus to the airport to catch a flight to Krabi, where we took a fancy minivan which was supposed to take us to the pier to catch a ferry to the island. However we were instead taken to a travel agent 5 km short of the pier, where we were told we had to buy a ticket for the boat at a seemingly overinflated price. I cracked at that point, and there was a bit of shouting and f'ing and blinding between me and the scary lady at the travel agency, who knew an impressive number of swear words in English. To cut a long story short we managed to get the taxi guy to take us all the way to the pier, where it turned out the price for the ferry was exactly the same, however, I was glad we weren't giving it to the woman. Turns out there are different prices for locals and tourists on the ferries, the locals paying only a third of the price for the same trip, which is a bit of a joke. Anyway, we eventually made it to the island, and spent 6 days on the beach, which was magic. Got great weather the whole time, got a bit burnt, but have ended up sufficiently tanned. We did loads of snorkelling. Saw some really big black tip sharks, which Jenny didn't enjoy too much. We returned to Bangkok a couple of days ago, and have spent our time shopping and lounging by the pool. Other than that, not been up to anything too exciting. Going to the massive weekend market today to buy more stuff before flying back home very early tomorrow morning. Can't believe it's been a year. Not looking forward to the cold back home, stripping the tan off us within seconds no doubt. Jenny's champing at the bit to return home. As for me, I think I'm done with all the long distance buses, and ready to get back to reality, although would find it difficult to turn down a chance to go round again if it presented itself. Been such an amazing trip. Anyway, this'll be the last entry.....until the next trip.

The bus trip from Luang Prabang to the border at Thailand, didn't disappoint, another test of endurance for 12 hours. Firstly there were no allocated seats, so we had to arrive at the bus station an hour before it left. The locals were clearly expert at this, and many of them looked like they might have pitched up 2 or 3 hours before. So when we produced our ticket we were pointed to the bus and told to go find seats. Every seat had someone's bag strategically placed on it apart from the very back row, so we took a window seat each. Then we sat outside and waited until about 15 mins before we were due to depart before everyone piled onto the bus. There was then an hour and a half of chaos and no air-con whilst the bus was loaded to bursting with people, and they strapped various things to the roof.

Not satisfied that there were enough people on the bus having filled all the seats, a stack of of tiny plastic stools was produced, and lined down the aisle. So, once there were approximately a million people on the bus, and no oxygen left we got going, an hour and a half after we were supposed to. As usual, this was a false start, as we drove round the town to a petrol station for them to fill up the bus.....with the engine running, which I always find a bit concerning. Then for the next 12 hours, through the night, we had to listen to blaring loud Lao music. I felt a bit sorry for the people in the cheap seats in the aisle, as the road was really bumpy and windy, so most of them stood and clung to the ceiling hand rails, as opposed to sliding about on their stools. The bus arrived at our destination, Huay Xai, at 5.30am. Two and a half hours early! Due to the blind conering at 100 miles an hour the whole way there. So we were dumped at the bus station, in the dark, freezing cold. We took a songtheaw - (literally translated as "two rows") which is a van with 2 benches along the sides in the back - to the immigration office. It was closed and didn't open until 8, so we had to sit around in the freezing cold for another 2 hours, which was fun.

We did eventually get across the Mekong river, that acts as the border, and caught a bus on the other side to Chiang Rai. We were both shattered for the next couple of days.

We didn't get off to a very good start in Chiang Rai, as there didn't seem to be much to do, although there is a market it's mostly residential. When we were wandering about we saw little wooden signs directing to "Chiang Rai Beach", which we thought was odd, as Northern Thailand is landlocked. There is a river though, so we decided to play it by ear and go on a little adventure to find it just by following the signs. There were quite a few signs, then they disappeared. We walked about 2 miles in the blistering heat to the outskirts of town where we found a massive motorway style sign to the beach. By that stage we'd had enough, and decided that it didn't in fact exist and the signs were just there to take the piss out of tourists, so we walked the 2 miles back into town. The main feature of Chiang Rai was the night market. The main square has tables in the middle and is lined round the outside by food hawkers. This was great. Really cheap, good, spicy food for next to nothing, and free entertainment on the stage. There were also quite a few child beggars.

There were lots of locals selling souvenirs, and a woman doing tarot readings. We passed by her and she was very interested in Jenny. She said she had a "very lucky chin". I just about wet myself, and have been slagging her ever since.

From Chiang Rai we took a bus 4 hours West to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai's got alot more to it than Chiang Rai. It's th 2nd biggest city in Thailand. It's pretty touristy, but there's loads to do and see. Lots and lots of temples. Think we've seen enough temples to last a lifetime. They have some extra gold ones in Northern Thailand.

We did go and see a variation on the theme on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, at Wat u mong. This is in the forest and quite overgrown. It also had a series of tunnels to wander through, and a lake with giant catfish and turtels to feed, which was a bit different.

We did a Thai cooking class on our second day. This was excellent. It was just us and an Australian guy. We started off by agreeing what we were going to cook then took a trip to the local market, where we were told all about the various typical Thai ingredients. We also bought the ingredients for our dishes. We then got into the cooking itself.

It was good fun, really simple, and the end product was almost retaurant standard, even if I do say so myself. We cooked 5 dishes and they were all great. By the end we were all stuffed.

Really worthwhile, definitely going to try and recreate them back home.

Yesterday we splashed out and went to the Elephant Nature Park about an hour North of Chiang Mai. This was pretty amazing too. There are various companies that offer elephant related activites, trekking, riding, mahout courses etc. but the elephant nature park is dedicated to saving asian elephants from the illegal logging industry, and from Burma. They have a lot of elephants that have been injured or abused over the years. The emphasis of the park is to allow elephants to roam free and socialise as they would in the wild, or as near to it as possible. With as little human interaction as possible.

It's an incredible place. Being able to get so close to them, and watch them roaming about in their little groups was really impressive. Whilst many of them have lots of problems, they all looked really happy and enjoying what they were doing. All of the mahouts - elephant drivers - have been retrained so they don't use the metal hooks that other operations use to control the animals. They use voice commands and positive reinforcement. None of the elephants are made to carry tourists, as most of the other outfits do. Apparently elephants backs are not designed to bare much weight, and so to ride them is not good for them.

We got to feed the elephants watermelon. The elephants would line up and stick their trunks out and we would place the fruit in their trunk. We fed the old granny one, 75 with only one tooth.

Accordingly, she had had her watermelons specially peeled. We then got to go and follow the elephants to the river and help wash them, with buckets and scrubbing brushes. This was really incredible too. We were basically allowed to wander amongst the elephants freely and touch them.

Quite frightening at times, as they are such enormous, strong animals, and they just wandered where they wanted too. Of course once they had all been cleaned, they got straight out and sprayed dust all over themselves.

The younger ones all headed straight for a muddy pool and were pushing each other in and sliding about in the mud, having a great time.

It was so great to watch, and we were literally 10 yards away. We then got shown a pretty distressing movie about traditional methods of training, where they break tohe spirit of the elephants and poke them with sharpened sticks. Not very pleasant to watch. We also got to meet the founder of the sanctuary, a little Thai woman called lek. She answered everyones questions, and gave loads of background about the place. It was really interesting. We then got another opportunity to wash the elephants before we returned to Chiang Mai. All in all a really great experience that I'd recommend to anyone.

I think Jenny might want to return to live there. You can volunteer and it's a shame that we didn't have a bit longer, as that would have been fun.

Today is another boring day of hanging about for a night bus back to Bangkok, where we are catching a plane to Krabi tomorrow morning. Last real bit of travelling, as we've only got a short time left, we're going to be taking a bus, plane and boat in the next 24 hours, and with any lucky be back on Ko Phi Phi by tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure Jenny's chin will see us through.....

Stayed in Phuket for a couple of days. Phuket is crap. Full of fat families and Burger joints. From there we moved to Khao Lak a few hours up the coast. This place was a lot better. We stayed in the only cheap place, surrounded by big plush resorts, run by a giant weird Dutch guy. He was really helpful though. So far as the plush resorts go, our time would come in Bangkok anyway, so we were happy enough slumming it for a couple of nights more. Didn't do much whilst in Khao Lak other than lie on the beach. We did hire a moped so that we could get to beaches further afield which was good fun. The roads are mental in Thailand though. It's as though there's an unwritten rule that scooters aren't allowed to actually drive on the road, because everyone drives on the hard shoulder. Was pretty exciting stuff. Especially when Jenny decided she wanted a shot. That went fine. Then a shot with me on the back. That ended with us heading for a bush and Jenny gashing her toe quite badly. All good fun though. Refuelling the scooter was pretty unusual as there weren't any petrol stations, rather we found an old woman selling bottles of gasoline at the side of the road. 20baht (30p) for a litre, which she poured direct into the tank.

We also treated ourselves to a massage on the beach whilst we were staying here. This started off well, but it all got a bit violent and sore for me, especially on the legs. Left feeling a bit sore and with a slight limp. Not sure I'll be rushing to have another one anytime soon. When we left to get the bus to Bangkok, we got a lift up to the main road from our Dutch host who told us a bit about the Tsunami which raized his, and all of the other properties around his, to the ground. He said that he and his family had to clamber onto the roof of their place to survive, and that half of his residents didn't survive. His car had been washed 3 km inland, along with a police boat, which he pointed out, standing in a bit of waste land 3km inland at the mainroad. All very sobering.

We endured a 12 hour bus North to Bangkok, arriving there at 4.30am. We sat about for a few hours before heading to the Oriental hotel where we would be living it up for the next week, with the folks. The Oriental is mental. Fanciest hotel either of us have ever stayed at. We were greeted with somebody helping us with our bags and handing us a garnet of jasmine.

For the whole week we were treated like royalty. Was amazing. They have something ridiculous like 2 staff member for every guest, so everything is taken care of for you, almost as far as wiping your arse after using the toilet. They even had a guy whose sole job was to press the button to call the lift. Very oppulent. The rooms were unbelievable as well. Just having a room with running hot water and pillows that weren't made of wood was a bonus for us, but they provide you with fresh fruit every day, little posh snacks at night, and everytime you leave the room they sneak in and fold your clothes and tidy everything up. Superb. I ordered room service for the first time ever, turkey sandwich, which was brought in on a trolley and seved on a silver salver which was pretty cool.

Was good to meet up with the parents as well, and not to have to stress about anything for a whole week. We did quite a lot of different activities whilst we were in Bangkok.

Our first outing - me, mum and dad - wasn't quite as successful as it could have been. We attempted to go and see the grand palace, which is a series of temples and the previous royal residence, in the centre of Bangkok. We had been warned about people telling us that the place was closed, and not to listen to them. Unfortunately we couldn't find the entrance to the palace and wandered round the outside of it for a while eventually having to ask a few people where the entrance was. We were told 3 times that it was closed by different people. The last of whom was at what looked like an entrance, and was wearing what looked like a uniform. We were told it was closed til 1pm and gave us a map with a couple of other tourist attractions marked on it. Then from nowhere a tuk tuk driver appeared and told us he would take us around the sites for 30 baht (50p). This seemed to good to be true and was. Although he did take uas to the places that we wanted to go to, he also took us to a gem shop and a suit shop. After these two excursons we got fed up, and so did he, so he took us to some crappy temple that was like a building site and dumped us. We did eventually get to the grand palace after a lesson learned. The temples at the palace were pretty amazing. Really ornate and dripping in shiny things and gold. Unfortunately the Jade buddah - the most sacred Buddah in Thailand - was involved in a ceremony when we got there so we didn't get to see it.

I managed to get the three of us booted out of a taxi on our way back to the oriental from our meal on the second night. Taxi driver didn't put on his meter and I pointed this out and told him to put it on. He threw a figure at me, and I again ordered him to put the meter on. He pulled over and told us to get out. All a bit embarrassing, but we got a free fare near enough as the taxi that we flagged down literally took us round the corner and we were at the hotel.

All six of us went to the bridge on the Kwai, which was quite interesting, although we were only allowed 5 minutes there, due to tight time restrictions. Was quite impressive despite what I'd been lead to believe about it. It's not massive but it's some structure to have been built given the circumstances.

We took a walk across it which was pretty hairy, given that it's only really wide enough for single file and we met plenty of people coming the other way. There are several large gaps to the side of the railway that had to be carefully negotiated to let anyone past. There was a bit of a panic when we were heading back across when a train appeared, but it stopped to pickup tourists before getting onto the bridge so we survived.

Next stop on this combo tour was a trip to the tiger temple. This is a tiger sanctuary run by monks. Was pretty amazing to be able to interact with the tigers in the way that we did.

We all got a shot of touching their backs whilst they wnadered down to the canyon where there were more photo opportunities. Jenny got well involved (obviously) going for the head shot and pulling their tails etc.

It became apparent pretty early on that the tigers had been given some sort of sedative to calm them down enought to have sweaty tourists poke and prod them, as the first big one to appear was zigzagging its way down to the canyon as if it had had one too many. It was all good though, and at the same time amazing to be able to get so close to them. There was one very annoying greasy twat who wouldn't listen to any of the warnings that were being issued by the guide (eg keep away from the tiger's mouth) and kept straying off towards the tigers trying to get the perfect shot. I think I can speak for everyone else in that we all would have clubbed together to made a hefty donation to the monks if they'd fed him to the tigers. He was so annoying.

We went and had a scope about chinatown on another day which was interesting. Lots of weird things being sold on the streets. Lots of gold shops to catch my eye. These pailed into insignificance when we (eventually) got to the Golden Buddah which is a 13 foot high solid gold buddah.

Very shiny and impressive. We almost didn't make it to this site, as again we were helpfully told that it was closed that day by a taxi driver who was more interested in taking us on a canal tour. After the grand palace experience we'd wised up to this line though and did eventually find it.

We ended up on a canal tour a couple of days later which was interesting. Not least for the fact that the smaller tributary canals seemed to be teaming with massive water dragons. Wouldn't have wanted to have fallen in. We cruised along lookingat all the ramshackle houses built right over the edge of the Chao Phraya, the river running through Bangkok. We stopped briefly to feed the fish which was good fun.

The fish were massive (presumably the reason there were dnosaur sized water lizards in there too) and we were encouraged to throw whole rolls in for them which they gobbled up no problem. We stopped off at a "snake farm'' next. This turned out to be a very run down and pretty depressing zoo.

The star attractions were the snakes which took part in a show hosted by a creepy guy on a microphone, and involved various snakes being tormented for 10-15 minutes, culminating in them milking one of them. All quite entertaining, but not very educational or fair on the snakes it seemed. The other animals were all pretty unhappy looking in their tiny cages. Jenny and Wendy were particularly taken by a cute baby gibbon that was out and about. Just a shame that it'll ended up in one of the tiny cages that the others were kept in.

Whilst we were staying in Bangkok we went to some very smart restaurants. For Roddy's birthday we went to the Banyan Tree, which is a restaurant on the 61st floor of a skyscraper on the top and open to the elements. Was an amazing view and food.

Was pretty windy though. After that and as a treat for him we went to Patpong - the red light district. We had a couple of drinks in a dodgy little bar and spotted ladyboys going past and watched all the seedy old men with their thai prizes. Was interesting. Not quite as in-your-face as I'd thought it might be, although Roddy was given an impromptu, unwanted neck massage whilst he was in the toilet which is pretty in-your-face I suppose. We didn't go to see a ''ping-pong show" which all the bars were advertising as I don't think either me or Jenny could cope with the embarrassment of seeing something like that with mother/father respectively in tow.

We also ventured across the Chao Phraya on one of the complimentary Oriental boats to have a traditional Thai meal sitting on the floor at lowered tables. They put on some traditional Thai entertainment whilst we ate. They had traditional dance which was interesting.

Especially the girls' fingers which were all hyper extended which looked pretty uncomfortable. That was followed by quite an odd mini-play with people wearing masks, and then a mock fight.

We took a trip to the famous chatuchak market. The biggest market in the world. It was massive. Sold nearly everything you could imagine. We spent a good half day wandering about here looking at all the weird and wonderful things on sale. We probably spent half of that time in the pet section as Wnedy and Jenny got all doey eyed about the puppies on sale there. The market wasn't quite what I was expecting, and I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a bit more in your face, ramshackle. In actual fact it was very civilised, neat and clean! It was interesting all the same though.

In between all of our sightseeing we all did a bit of relaxing by the pool, and eating and drinking well. Was a really amazing setting with the hotel right on the edge of the Chao Phraya so you could watch the cargo boats and tourist boats chugging up and down all day. All in all we had a great time relaxing for the week. Was good to re-charge the batteries, fatten up on good food, before heading off to Cambodia. We were very grateful to our parents for putting us up in a hotel round the corner from the Oriental the night that they left, to ease us back into traveller mode. We said goodbye to them on Sunday night and got up early on Monday morning to catcha bus to Cambodia........

We headed off in search of sun on a longtail to Railay, which is a beach just the next bay round from where we were in Ao Nang.

Was a bit choppy and rainy so we got soaked both on the boat and attempting to get our rucksacks into the thing in the first place. The sun did finally decide to start playing along just as we scrambled off the longtail onto the beach at Railay.

Railay puts Ao Nang to shame. Such a beautiful beach and no tacky little shops. It has the sheer limestone cliffs rising out of the sea at each end of the beach which was pretty cool. There were quite a few plush resorts that the beach backed onto, but pretty well hidden in the undergrowth. Unfortunately for us we had to trudge past the resorts, wishing we could afford to stay there, right through the undergrowth into the forest to find the cheap places. We ended up getting our own little wooden, thatched, bunglaow/forest hut effort with veranda and cushions to lie and relax on which turned out to be really nice. We'd gone to see another place that was a lot simpler and cheaper further into the bushes but I spotted a spider in a tree that was the size of my hand, so we decided against staying there.

The weather turned from thereon, and we've had glorious sunshine pretty much everyday for the past couple of weeks, which has been great. We spent most of our time just lounging on the beach and swimming in the bath temperature waters which was good. The Thai's know what they're doing when it comes to cocktails, either serving them in hollowed out fruits.....

or in buckets......

or the bars just sell you the ingredients and leave the rest up to you........

all that cost less than 3 quid which was pretty good.

From Railay we caught a ferry South to an Island called Ko Lanta. We caught a longtail boat out of Railay bay then had to transfer from that onto a little ferry out in the sea which was interesting. The ferry was overloaded with people all sitting hanging over the edges which was a bit disconcerting at first, but we just squeezed in and survived the 2 hour trip unharmed. There was the usual chaos that has greets you at every bus station and ferry port over here, with people tugging at you and shouting taxi in your face. We opted for a motorcyle and sidecar to take us to the main beach, which was an experience.

We spent our first night in a fancy beach hut at a resort, right on the beach which we thought was a pretty good deal. We later discovered that there was an open sewar running right under it that carried everyone elses filth past which made a very unpleasant smell. We were provided with an air freshener but it only made the smell even worse.

We left the next day. The beach at this place was pretty good though, and we got our first sunset over the Andaman Sea which was pretty spectacular.

Jenny had spent a good hour and a half constructing a big sand sculpture of a turtle in the sand. She was just finnishing off the head, when a pack of dogs caming running along the beach, made a bee-line for the turtle and jumped all over it destroying it.

Very funny.

We caught another sidecar down to the south of the island the next day, and found a much quiter and cheaper place to stay. We made sure to check for the telltale air spray as soon as we got sown round our hut this time. All clear. We stayed at an amazing quiet little family run private beach resort. Really incredible, and we were paying a third of the price we have been most places. The beach was nice, but a little rocky which made it a bit of an expedition to get into the sea, but other than that we both loved it, and stayed 3 nights. We got into a routine of just relaxing on the beach with our own little thatched shade booth

then gazing out to sea at the psychedellic sunsets and pirate ships going past,

whilst lying at the low tables of the local bar next door, enjoying a Singha or a cocktail, before heading out for something to eat, before returning to the bar to watch the nightly fire show.

Absolutley great. Could have stayed there a lot longer. The only major decision to be made when we were there was whether it was to be green or red curry.

Both brilliant. Jenny got a bit bored of the sun sometimes but there were plenty of crabs for her to torment, and sticks to do it with, all along the beach, so she was happy too.

From Ko Lanta we caught another ferry North to Ko Phi Phi. Ko Phi Phi is a breathtaking place.

It's a series of islands, most of which are massive limestone cliffs jutting out of the sea. The water is absolutley crystal clear and the beaches are white sand. It was quite touristy, but we expected that. And I don't think that can detract from how spectacular the place is.

We ended up staying in a place right at the top of a hill overlooking the whole bay which was really nice. The accommodation was good - big spacious huts on stilts. An American guy in front of us was mumping and moaning about having to pay for one, describing it as 'a bit ghetto'. We thought it was fine, apart from the 10 flights of rickety rusting stairs that we had to climb every day to get up to the top of the hill.

Ko Phi Phi's water is so clear it was unreal, and it has some of the best diving in the world, so we booked up for 2 dives out at the 2 most southerly limestone islands Bidah Nok, and Bidah Nai. We thought it wise to try a bit of snorkelling the day before doing this seeing as we hadn't done any since my little episode with a shark in Panama. You can snorkel right off the beach at Paradise beach where we were, and saw so many fish......and sharks, which was pretty smart. There were lots of Black Tip sharks patrolling about the water, but they were only about 1 - 1 and half metres long, and probably more scared of us than we of them. They were reasonably inquisitive though. But nothing like the monster in Panama so everything was ok. The next day we went diving. This was different class. We did it with a couple who were doing their last day of the open water course, so we could take it quite easy, and it was nice to have less experienced people there seeing as we hadn't dived since March. I can't rant and rave enough about the diving though. It was just immense.

We did it from a longboat which was very very slow in getting us to the islands and back, but very cool all the same. No sooner had we got down than we saw a stingray, then a Leopard shark about 4 foot long chilling out on the bottom. We saw all sorts of amazing fish, nemo, huge shoals of baby barracuda, lion fish......the list goes on. Our guide was good and pointed out all the interesting stuff, and at one point when we werelooking at lion fish under the coral, another 4 foot long lepoard shark came swimming up behind him and glided up the face of the coral. Leopard sharks are docile by the way, otherwise I would have been hyperventilaing and soiling my wetsuit. Really crazy stuff. We were both absolutely flying after it. Learning to dive is a must for everyone we've concluded.

We left Ko Phi Phi this morning on a ferry North to Phuket Island. We are currently in a little beach place called Hat Kata. It's not really very great. Unfortunately it has to compete with all I've just written, which is a hard act to follow, admittedly, but it's REALLY touristy here, and the prices are ridiculous. So don't think we'll spend much time here. Looking into heading North to quieter places before arriving in Bangkok on Sunday to meet the folks.

We had a bit of an episode last night with some unwanted wildlife trying to share our little hut.

This big badboy came through the roof to shelter from the rain. Not sure if the pictures translate very well exactly how big it was. It was VERY big. So big that you can see the pink of it's eyes reflecting the flash. Horrible. Jenny eventually took control of the situation and got rid of it. We were both doing a lot of checking of the bed before getting under the covers last night.