Born To Be Wild!!

Hey everyone, its 31^st today and everything on this island is pointing towards the Full Moon party tonight, although its not really a proper Full Moon party because its not Full Moon, last night somewhere in the middle of Koh Pangan in a jungle was the Half Moon party. The proper Full Moon party is 2 weeks away yet. The day before yesterday we rented a bike and headed for Haad Rin, this is where the Full Moon parties are staged. Considering up to 30,000 people attend these parties once a month I thought to myself that the beach was very small. But still it looks like its gonna be off the hook!! Whilst in Haad Rin we decided to buy some outfits for the party, think along the lines of Mr Motivator and Timmy Mallet!!! Then add a deck chair to the equation and you might be close to what we look like. Pictures will be on Facebook very soon. Riding the bike was an enjoyable experience, I even had my own speed limiter in miss Alex, I was not aloud to go above 15mph!! A 20 minute bike ride took us an hour!!

Whilst in Haad Rin Miss Alex decided to go and see a nurse about some bites on her legs that had become infected. So miss Alex had her blood pressure taken and temperature, filled out a form, waited 5 minutes then headed for the clinic down the road. I must say everywhere we have been in Thailand ie Pharmacies and clinics have been really well kept and clean. As soon as we walked through the door of this one though we were met by a pile off vomit on the floor!! A young Aussie lad was hobbling about after he’d come off his bike. Maybe miss Alex was right with the 15mph restictions!! We waited for 10 minutes before miss Alex was seen by the “doctor,” who insisted miss Alex needed injections. 10 minutes before this, miss Alex had told me under no circumstances was she going to have injections in this filthy clinic, with vomit on the floor and used needles sat on a tray. The doctor said she could take tablets and cream, this was a result, because over here in Thailand medication is very cheap. So a nurse cleaned up the bites and plastered them up for her. When it came to cost they told us for all the tablets and cream it would cost 8100 baht. (£160) at least Dick Turpin wore a mask when he robbed people!! Miss Alex being a nurse was a godsend, she realised by name that most of the treatment was not necessary and took only the anti biotic cream. The clinic charged 500 baht (£10) just for the pleasure of seeing the doctor and 600 baht (£12) for the cream and to clean the dressing. The clever part here is on the way home miss Alex stopped at a pharmacy and bought the necessary treatment herself, ie anti biotic tablets, anti histamine tablets and dressings, at a cost of 1200 baht (£24) At this point now the infections are healing so miss Alex got it spot on and made a good judgement call. I however being a typical lad and believing everything I’m told, would have taken the 8100 baht charge.

The guesthouse we are staying at is called Seagate, it’s right on the beach front and is full of Kiwis and Aussies. Not really had much to do with them, its fair to say we miss our Koh Samui group. Also we had to pay for a toilet roll top up yesterday, I’m thinking if these want to play games like that they could find them selves with newspaper blocking the drains soon. I thought she was joking when the woman charged me, infact I actually started laughing. I waited for a response and just got the usual blank stare back. Miss Alex then told me this sometimes happens in Guesthouses.

Hopefully we’ll arrange today to meet the Koh Samui gang tonight for a bit of a reunion. We did meet up with Harry and Laura yesterday and rode around the island on 2 bikes. Stopping off at various places along the way. At one point we saw elephants, this photo opportunity was not going to missed by miss Alex. After seeing the elephants up close I cant wait to do a really good treck with them up in Chang Mai I know this is probably gonna be miss Alex’s favourite part of Thailand so we want it to be an experience, and Chang Mai is meant to be the best place to see the Elephants. We want to bath them and play in the water with them and have a ride too maybe even feed them. For some reason as I’m writing this I have that famous advert playing in my head, the Cadburys Rolo advert where the kid teases an Elephant with a rolo and snatches it away last minute to eat for himself, years later the Elephant spots a bloke in a crowd of people at a carnival and recognises the bloke as the little boy and gives him a whack. I’m just hoping I wasn’t mean to any Elephants as a child!! The next stop on our bike ride was a waterfall, I personally thought this waterfall was brilliant, it was nothing spectacular as in volume of water, it was more of a trickle. But the water was coming down on a 45% angle as opposed to a straight drop. It was following the rocks zig zagging in and out making its way down. Unimpressed with the waterfall Laura, Harry and miss Alex suggested we walk up to the view point. The sign said 500 metres. No chance it was only 500 metres away. It was a tough climb to the top and all 4 of us were feeling the midday heat at the top. But what a sight it was! Looking out to the east of the island we could see for miles. Harry is a top lad and he could talk to Martians if they landed, as it was no Martians were there, just a Scottish couple and within seconds we had 2 new people to our gang for the New Year party. The more the merrier!

 After the viewpoint we headed back down which was equally as tough, and we decided to take Harry and Laura to Haad Rin to show them the beach where the party will be. Over the last year I must have had 6 punctures on my car, and true to form being in Thailand on bike makes no difference to me whatsoever. POP I had a “flatty.” But because I’m a positive person I always look as if the cup is half empty ……… or is it half full? Anyway 50 yards up the road was a garage. On a small island like this it could have been over on the other side to where I was. I got my inner tube replaced for 250 baht £5, bargain eh!! That was our day on the bike over, we decided to head back before my luck ran out and something major in the engine blew up. This would have been the case with my car back home I’m sure it knew when my luck was down, it always seemed to kick me hard! I didn’t wanna take any chances here as id have to pay for all repairs. I could just see myself at the side of the road like Basil Fawlty hitting the bike with a bamboo cane if it did blow up.

The weather has picked up a lot since we came to Koh Pangan and the rest of today will be panic tanning because miss Alex is convinced we’ve lost a shade of brown since Phi Phi.

2011 has been a really enjoyable year, even if it did start at the very bottom of the pile, I was working for a scaffold firm called Sterling and every Friday usually ended up with me and my mate Longy going into the office to argue over £20 that was missing from our wage. Now I’m Starting 2012 at the very top with miss Alex in Thailand on a beach in the sun with no such worries about £20 here or there. I couldn’t ask for a better start to the year. As this is my last blog of the year I would like to wish you all a very happy new year from miss Alex and me, to our parents we love you so much xxx

Living for the night-time

We arrived on Koh Samui the day before boxing day, we were already sad to be leaving Kho Lanta and were wishing we hadn’t pre-booked Christmas in the UK because we would have liked to have stayed there. Anyway after a bus, boat, bus, boat trip we arrived, we met a fab couple on the journey- Laura and Harry who we’ve seen abit since.

The taxi dropped us off in the middle of a road next to a sewers works and gave us instructions to follow a dirt track infront of us, turning right at the end and we would eventually come to “Nid’s Bungalows” we’d previously booked. It was overcast, spitting with rain and our hearts were already sinking at the prospect of spending Christmas here. After flicking mud from the track all up our legs we arrived at the front gates of “Nids” which looked like a building site, there were works going on everywhere creating a pool and a new dorm. The existing bungalows were shabby, we wouldn’t normally mind but we were paying £10 each to stay here a night (the most expensive place we’ve stayed so far!!) The restaurant advertised only appeared to be open when they felt like cooking and you were only given one choice of what you could order!!! It was very weird! Almost straight away we set out to explore the area hoping the more we saw of Samui our spirits would be lifted, so it was back along the dirt track and a 10 minute walk to we hit the main strip that looked like we were in Falaraki, very, very commercialised and expensive. The beach was actually gorgeous but the bad weather meant we never got to enjoy it. It was now that we realised the dream Christmas of lying on the beach drinking cocktails and staying somewhere that was a bit of a treat wasn’t going to happen and embarrassingly have to admit I did shed a little tear!!!

We woke on Christmas Eve to the sound of pouring rain so spent most of the day in the communal area playing cards. It was here we met the people (apart from Laura and Harry) that made Christmas, another couple both called Sam (weird hey??) two girls called Sarah and Louise and the funniest Irish girl ever Katrina! Mister Alex and me decided that while the weather was bad we were going to live for the night-time and make the most of Kho Samui’s party’s! So I spent my first ever Christmas Day hung-over!!!!

We woke up on Christmas day at 11:30 again to the sound of pouring rain, as the hangover required we hit the Irish pub on the main strip for a massive fry up! It was amazing!!! We then headed back to the room to open presents. We’d decided to do each other a little santa sack of little presents so we had things to open. It was really nice, I got some vest tops, beach shorts, 2 bikinis some copied DVD’s to add to our collection and bracelets and anklets, thank you Mister Al! Also big thank yous to mine and Mister Alex’s mum and dad we’ve combined the money and had a few treats over Christmas and we are going to use it to stay somewhere nice (with a hot shower) over the next few weeks.

We arranged to have Christmas diner with the friends we’d made at Nids, mister Al and me had seen a good diner advertised at one pub called the Duke and we’d all booked for 18:30. We got there about 15 minutes late and were told the diner was being cooked so we could order some drinks while we waited. A lot of glasses of wines and cocktails later we still hadn’t had our diner, everyone was really hungry it wasn’t until someone looked at their watch we realised we had been waiting 2 hours! Just as we were about to get up and leave one meal came out and happened to be put in front of me, it was missing half the things it was meant to have, everyone was angry and started complaining, I was so hungry I picked a corner of the potato- it was cold!!! This tipped everyone over the edge and we all left, as we were leaving my meal was quickly given to someone else in the restaurant!!!!

Everyone was downhearted, (boy Sam was distraught!), and Mcdonalds seemed to be the only option left for Christmas Diner! On the way to Maccy D’s Mister Al chanced his arm and nipped into the Irish pub we’d had the fry up earlier and amazingly, despite advertising the need to book Christmas diner, the Irish bar had a table for 7 free for diner!!! The Irish bar saved Christmas!!!!

Spirits soon rose as soup, prawn cocktail and pate starters arrived within minutes of us ordering and when the main came there was even brussel sprouts, stuffing, our own pot of gravy and the potato’s were boiling!!!! To top it all off as Christmas pudding was served a one man live band began playing classic Irish tunes while dancing around the bar! Amazing!!

Again we slept in boxing day and headed back to the Irish bar for another big breakie followed by a full body massage, (thank you mums and dads). We celebrated in true boxing day style that night with the Nid’s crew and Laura and Harry. We had an amazing night, the buckets were flowing, everyone was loving it and when we got in the last club I immediately spotted a stage to dance on and without a word to mister Al he found himself with my handbag and I was gone soon to be doing my crazy dance on stage!

We didn’t crawl back to Nids until 5 in the morning so naturally we slept in again the next day, and why break tradition we met Laura and Harry for a fry up in the Irish bar!! Poor Laura got electrocuted as she was walking to meet us by some live wires sticking out of a wall on the street! Crazy Thailand!

We got to Kho Phagnan today where we are staying somewhere called sea gate, basic but cheap. For New Year where we are hitting the full moon new years party! Everyone we met on Samui’s on the island over the next few days so hopefully we will get to have a bit of a reunion. The suns been back out again today but even though we are dying to do a bit of sunbathing we collapsed in our room this afternoon exhausted after our Koh Samui antics, so mister sunshine you better be back out tomorrow!!!!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas, it was weird not being at home to celebrate with everyone, missed everyone alot. Although it wasn’t the Christmas abroad we’d been dreaming of the people we met made it for us!

Lots of love to everyone, mum and dad the internet seems better here so hopefully we will actually be able to see each other and understand what were saying on skype!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Taxi Ride

 The day after our 4 islands trip was a sun bathing day, in the morning after breakfast miss Alex said she needed to go to the chemist to get some new drops for her eyes, which were sore. A mixture of road dust when she did her crazy frog impression on the mopeds, sea water and sand. So we headed out of the complex onto the main road to flag a tuc tuc down. I reckon some of the tuc tuc drivers in Bangkok should head down to Koh Lanta because we couldn’t see one for love nor money. Finally we managed to flag a lady tuc tuc driver down, we told her we wanted a chemist. Jumped on and straight away she asked if she could nip back to her house because she had cooking on and needed to turn it down. We laughed and said we didn’t mind at all. After a couple of minutes of miss Alex and me sitting and waiting for this lady to make sure tonights tea wasn’t burnt she appeared, this time with a parcel. Once back on her bike she asked if we would mind dropping this parcel off to her daughter on the way to the chemist, once again miss Alex and me laughed and said we didn’t mind. We pulled into the school and drove through the kids play ground, I was thinking to myself that this would never happen back home. You’d need a good CRB check before you could drive through a school playground in a tuc tuc. This was so surreal, the lady stopped her tuc tuc outside a class room and invited miss Alex and me to go with her to meet her daughter in her school. We both looked at each other and couldn’t believe it. We’d originally gone out to go the chemist to pick up eye drops. We followed the lady through the school to the canteen where her daughter was eating with her friends. The tuc tuc lady even urged miss Alex and me to grab some food and eat, but we felt cheeky enough, imagine us pigging out and getting a free lunch. The daughter was 6 years old and her mum introduced us to her, the girls name was Sarwadia. She was besotted with miss Alex and couldn’t take her eyes off her, she even curtsied and gave her a massive smile.  It was a brilliant experience to see the local children at school and to be fair the conditions didn’t look to dissimilar to back home, apart from the heat. We could hear children in distant classrooms repeating after the teacher, just like I did in primary school. All this for a trip to the chemist, which we still needed to go to.

We finally got to the chemist after the school and got the drops miss Alex wanted, the tuc tuc lady sat outside and waited patiently for us to take us back to the guest house. By time we arrived back at the guesthouse I felt as if I knew the tuc tuc lady, half expected her invite miss Alex and me to tea in the evening but no offer came. This is where miss Alex came up with the idea of buying a tuc tuc in Vietnam and driving the length of the country in a tuc tuc. Partly because she doesn’t want to ride a bike and the other part because she can lull about like a house cat with the backpacks in the passenger cab whilst I stress and try to navigate a tuc tuc out of Ho Chi Min city, (we’ll see about the tuc tuc but I still prefer a moped).

Everywhere we’ve turned up (Phi Phi the only exception) I’ve thought, where the hell have we landed here!! But once were ready to leave somewhere I always find myself thinking that I’d love to come back and spend more time there. Koh Lanta is no different. The beach we stayed on called Long Beach (it was a long beach) was so laid back and chilled. Every next bar looks more chilled out than the last bar. Our guesthouse was called Green Garden Resort. It was a family run business and they were all very friendly. Including the ginger cat that followed us to our room every night hoping for a bed or food, it got neither!! (flees.com) The beach bar was fantastic and had little beach huts overlooking the sea to relax during the day in the shade, or drink and eat in. If we do head back to Koh Lanta I’d like us to try a place called Bee Bees guesthouse. They had tree houses right on the beach to sleep in. Miss Alex has since said no chance! She reckons we’ll be riddled with spiders.

We’ve both enjoyed our runs on the beach at Koh Lanta, no shoes required, although at times we must have looked like we were break dancing along the beach front. The tiniest of pebbles can feel like a massive rock! My top tip of the day is to watch out for Thai fisherman and the fishing lines. I found out the hard way by upending myself on his line, which was conveniently neck high. The bar overlooking this all happened to be watching for that split second and I had to carry on running embarrassingly along the beach like it didn’t hurt. On the way back conscious of the fisherman with his fishing line I managed to do the same thing. I didn’t duck low enough. (muppet)

Yesterday we headed for Koh Samui, this is where we’ ll be spending Christmas. Basically we are going from the west to the east of Thailand. We left at 7:20am  and arrived at 4pm. It was a boat, bus, boat journey. On our journey we got talking to a couple who had stayed on Koh Lanta, we swapped funny stories of what we’d done since travelling and they told us of an English guy with another guy on 2 bikes. One of the lads was holding a camera in left hand and riding the bike with his right. Simple enough if the roads are nice and flat. Koh Lanta the roads are not nice and flat. So the lad had come to a part of the road with lots of bumps and started to lose control of his bike still filming in his left hand, of course the right break is the front brake so little it needs just little touches. He had no back break because he was holding his camera. He fell off. Instantly miss Alex and me thought this must have been Tom. (remember our 2 friends who we kept bumping into). He had told us of this incident on his bike and thought even after supposedly leaving the 2 lads to go off and do their travels away from us, we still found laughter in that other people, strangers had seen his silly incident.

Today was a typical Christmas Eve for me, like always iv managed to leave my shopping til the last minute, the only difference is I don’t have my good mate Army Dave (I know a few Daves) to call up at 9am and drag around town with me helping me pick presents. Weve both agreed on a limit to get a couple of bits that might help us when travelling, like thin vest tops to replace the thick hooded jumper Mrs Boyd made me pack. I’ve since had to lose the jumper to make room in my bag.  

Merry Christmas people, love you lots and speak soon xxx

Kho Lanta's Lush

 We’re staying on a beach where all along there’s little guesthouses and bars, much removed from the party in Phi Phi these bars are so chilled and relaxed, with cushions and hammocks. We spent the first night in one called Riviere resort but weren’t that impressed so moved on the second night to Garden Beach which is cheaper with a fab communal area and a chilled out relaxed atmosphere.

The first night we got here we fancied a night out, having seen all the bars and guesthouses in the day time but not realising they are more for quiet drinks and chilling. We ended up in one bar sat overlooking the sea with a gorgeous but very strong bucket chilling on bean bags and chatting.

The second day we moved accommodation and were sat catching some rays on the beach when we looked up and who should we see but Sam (one of the guys we did the camping trip on Maya Bay with)! Him and Tom had come here the same day as us on a boat at the same time but we hadn’t seen each other until then! It was good to see them though and that evening us 4, a guy we had also met on Phi Phi from Australia, Dave, and 2 Swedish people spent the evening chilling in the bar, drinking and chatting. Part way through the night I spotted a lady walking along the beach selling lanterns that you light and release over the sea. Mister Al and I let one go together, it had a rocky start where it nearly landed in the sea but with everyone cheering it on in the bar behind it took off and could be seen floating in the distance for ages! Was a cool thing to do together and to watch it floating off into the night sky, although it was really hot holding it before it had warmed up enough to release!

Yesterday we decided to rent mopeds and explore a bit of the island. I didn’t last long though! Anyone that knows me knows I’m not the most confident driver in the world; yes I won the worse driver award at college! I went a small way but decided it was far too stressful so jumped on the back of Mister Al’s where I was his very own private radio- screeching when he went any faster than 40KM/hour, singing jingle bells and telling him to slow down on the corners. It was cool to see more of the island and the little secluded beaches.

First we headed to a waterfall on the south of the island. As we pulled up to where you park the bikes we noticed that the area was also used for elephant trekking. There were about 5 big ones, one was massive with really long tusks, and 2 baby ones. We want to do elephant trekking at some point but this one was only short and quite expensive so we just had some lunch while watching the baby ones and after asked if we could have a photo with them. They were 3 and 4 years old and very gorgeous. One put his trunk out to Mister Alex’s hand, think he thought he had some food for him! As we were having lunch who should turn up again but Tom and Sam!!! We swear they are stalking us!!

It was a bit of a trek to the waterfall, on the way we stopped off at some bat caves. The path wasn’t always there so we mainly walked along the river/stream to make sure we were going the right way. As we were walking we suddenly heard this screeching, really high-pitched sound that went on for ages, we think it was a bird but we didn’t actually see it. The waterfall was very different to the 7-tiered one we saw in Khanchanaburi but still lovely. It was quite high and flowed slower down the side of the rock creating a little pool at the bottom, made for another good photo shot.

After this we had a little ride to a viewpoint looking over the sea and nearby islands before heading back and treating ourselves to what appears to be Kho Lanta’s speciality meal. It’s called Hot Pan, we saw a group of people having them on our first night here, a choice of meat with veg flamed in the pan, absolutely delicious! Think we are going to have another tomorrow!!

Today we had booked on a trip to see 4 islands nearby and do some snorkelling. We had to be ready to be picked up at 8:20 so last night I set my alarm on my phone. The thing is I’ve kept my phone on UK time so we know what time it is there. So for us to wake up at 07:30 I should have set it for 00:30 but instead I set it for 12:30!!! Luckily Mister Alex suddenly jumped up at 8am, it was panic stations but we made it for the pick up, even having time for some toast! We thought it was a bit weird when our taxi didn’t pick anyone else up on the way to the port and got a lot of strange looks from all the Thai men there, not sure what went on but we were than taken back to the guesthouse, told to wait for another taxi (a van which we sat in the back off) who then put his foot down big time to get us to where the boat was waiting we realised someone had made a mistake somewhere and we were very late! Very weird as we had passed the turning earlier on our way back to the guesthouse! When we got there my hair resembled cousin It from the Adams family and we were faced with a completely full long tail boat all waiting for us! As we stepped on Mister Al made a joke how it was my fault they’d all been kept waiting as I’d slept in but not one person on the packed boat even cracked the smallest smile. As the boat was full we had no choice but to sit on the front bench in front of all the other tourists staring at us on the anchor ropes!

First was a snorkel stop where we saw the usual black and yellow striped fish, rainbow coloured-fish and coral. It was just as we were both saying when we were back on the boat that we need to do diving or something so we can see some more interesting sea life that a French girl turned and asked me if we’d seen the black tip shark or the huge jellyfish!!! How did we manage to miss them?!

Next was Emerald Cave, the reason we did the trip. This is a secluded beach, surrounded by big rocks and when you get there looking up is like being in a volcano surrounded by greenery, beautiful! To get there you have to swim through a cave tunnel cut out of the rocks. It twists and turns so is pitch black and then the light is visible at the end showing a glimpse of the beach. Apparently it was used by pirate’s years ago to store their treasure! We all had to wear life jackets for this! I thought it made it harder to swim as it kept going over my head!

Next stop was a nice little island with a few hotels on with their private beaches for lunch. The weather had started to change, as it always does when we do trips, so we ordered an Irish coffee to warm us up to go with our rice. As we were sipping away I realised the restaurant was playing silent night, was really cool to be sat in my bikini on the beach with an Irish coffee and listening to Christmas songs!!!

The final stop was another snorkelling stop but as I mentioned the weather had started to change so we didn’t want to get wet and cold for the boat trip back so didn’t go in. The people that did didn’t have long though, another long tail boat pulled up next to us and the men told us that the weather was changing and the waves were getting bigger and our boat was too full so half off us had to go in the new boat. We were lucky because we got in the new boat and found it had a screen that was dropped down over the front so we hardly got wet despite the rain and waves splashing over the boat, the boat we were on before didn’t have this so everyone got very wet!!!!

As I’m writing this we’ve just had tea and are sat in our own little private beach hut overlooking the sea. The suns just set, beautiful reds and oranges! We are spending one more day here and then moving on, on the 23^rd December to Kho Samui an island on the other side of Thailand for Christmas.

Lots of love everyone xxxxxxxxxxx

Maya Bay Overnight Camping Trip

The aim of these blogs is not to sound repetitive and both of us say the same thing, but to give our own individual views on our travels. Since our last couple of blogs we have mainly caught up on tan time, with the odd party here and there. Plenty of eating, it seems that each night we eat is better than the last. Just a little warning we do look Tantastic, Rachel, miss Alex’s friend who is coming to meet us in January had best start hitting the sun beds now so she’s not playing catch up!!

As miss Alex wrote in the last blog we booked a one night camping trip to Maya bay. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but the movie The Beach was filmed there. For this trip I would have quite happily paid a lot more than 2300  baht (£46 ish), especially if I’d have known there would be only 6 of us on the trip. As far as we were concerned the less people the better. Sometimes when a large group do the trip it can turn into a big beach party. Every night on Phi Phi is a big beach party so Maya Bay we hoped was an escape from this. We were told that the number of people can range from 4-30. The trip before we did it had 28.

On the way over the tour guide introduced himself to us as Chocolate. He is a cracking lad and an excellent host. He told us he’d lived on Phi Phi all of his life.

As if to tease our group on the short boat ride over to Maya bay from Phi Phi, Chocolate informed us we’d be stopping for 30 mins to snorkel in the sea. Once again I found myself wishing the 30 minutes away just so we could get to Maya bay and enjoy “the beach” to our selves. Miss Alex did spot a turtle from the boat. Then at the top of her voice screeched “TURTLE!!” grabbed her snorkel and dived straight in and made after the turtle. Time she got over there the turtle had gone, probably the pain ringing from his ears.

We pulled into the bay, finally. This is going to sound proper cheesy now but at this point I had All Saints song Pure shores playing in my head. (the theme song for The Beach) The Bay was virtually empty and the first thing we did was to take full advantage of it and walk the length of the beach. Taking pictures, it seems now of every step we took. As miss Alex said the weather was not fantastic but it didn’t really matter. There’s a big difference to a mild day on the beach in West Kirby and Scarborough and a mild day in Maya Bay. Once it went dark we headed back to the camp to meet the other “campers”.  Little fact for you, it goes dark in Thailand between 6 ish and 7 all year round.

A Spanish couple called Rodrigo and Hellena, and two British lads called Sam and Tom, at the time we didn’t realize it but fate has since pulled us in the same direction on a few occasions. Earlier that day miss Alex had heard 2 lads on Phi Phi beach, chatting to 2 American girls. The subject was “fit” singers. The 2 lads in question just happened to be Sam and Tom. It was at the point where Tom asked the girls if they knew who Cher Lloyd was that miss Alex nudged me and burst into a fit of giggles. Back onto Maya Bay now and once we all introduced ourselves, the usual laughs when miss Alex and me say our name, Chocolate took us to a spot where thousands of crabs meet up every night for dinner. The crabs where huge!! When Chocolate picked one up it was making a hissing sound. I took a couple of pictures.

After this it was Dinnertime, we were peckish by this point. It was 9pm but the food was worth the wait, and again it seemed better than lasts Tea. We had a Panang curry, stir fried veg and a Thai style chicken soup. All soaked into the usual bowl of rice. Then it was Buckets, Beers and some card games. Chocolate told us he could fire dance, the obvious next step was for us to ask him to do a fire dance, which he was more than happy to do for us. He was brilliant. He even told us he could play guitar. All this on the best beach in the world. It was ours for the night, just 6 of us. A few yawns later and the whole group went to bed. Each picking a spot on the beach to make theirs for the night. So we got our roll mats and sleeping bags and headed to the beach. Miss Alex didn’t want to be too near the bushes but not to near the sea as the tide was heading in. We lay there for a while just looking up to the clear skies, by now all the clouds had disappeared and the stars were out. The moon seemed to light the whole bay up and the sound of the waves no more than 20 foot away from us.

The group had talked the night before about all waking up to see the sunrise. I was the only one to do so. I woke up just as the night sky was starting to turn light, and the mountains ahead of us were becoming much clearer, rather than just silhouettes. The sun was starting to hit the mountain in front of me and in the shallow water I noticed a dark patch moving. I got up to inspect and it turned out to be little tiny fish. Honestly there must have been at least a million of these all swimming in sync. Think back to the Carling advert and the birds in the sky all moving, this was very similar. An amazing sight. Miss Alex eventually woke up and guess what? She was knackered!! Its almost as if she is programmed to say these words to me every day. Its just automatic and she doesn’t realize she says it. The beach by now was starting to fill up and I felt disappointed that the beach was not ours anymore, these people were probably thinking the same, booking a taxi boat early morning to get to Maya Bay before any one is there and 6 people in sleeping bags scattered on the beach.

Breakfast was served at 8, and after a few group photos we were soon back on the boat heading back to Phi Phi. The sun was incredibly hot now.

We have since left Phi Phi and now find ourselves on Koh Lanta. A bigger but quieter Island about an hour away from Phi Phi. Sam and Tom from the camping trip are staying here by chance and last night we had a few beers together. Talking to people about Phi Phi, it seems that the Island is changing a lot. It is becoming more and more of a holiday Island like Ibiza, rather than a place for Backpackers. I would deffinatly go back there with miss Alex and overall we did enjoy our stay there, but its time for a change and Koh Lanta is a welcome change.

Speak soon xxx

BOOOOOM!!!!

 On Monday we’d spent the day chilling on the beach and then went for a fab run up to the viewpoint, its so hot and we get really sweaty  but we are both loving being able to run everywhere we are going. After freshening up we went into the centre for a bit of a night out. We ended up back in the boxing bar where Mister Alex had the fight the other night and Anthony and his friends were all in there too so spent most of the night with them again.

Anyway everytime we’ve gone to this bar I’ve sat there and said how much I wanted to get up there and have a fun fight but we’d thought it would be abit risky going in against someone we didn’t know because not many girls would do that kind of thing on a night out and the kind that would, would be girls that had done abit of some kind of boxing or martial arts. However after we’d had a few drinks and we’re on our way to being abit tipsy a girl appears in the ring and they’re asking for someone to go against her. She was a little bit bigger than me, blonde had done her make up nice and was with her boyfriend too so I thought she probably wanted to have abit of a laugh like me so with some egging on from the group we were with a found myself raising to the challenge!

The first warning sign was when I went over to meet her before the match and she told me she hadn’t had a drink where I’d had a little bit! We got into the ring and we were both laughing at how silly we looked with the gloves, socks and headgear on, the first round started and we met in the middle, touched gloves and then the next thing BOOM she hits me right in the face!!! And then again! And again!!! With a pain in my nose I decided I was having none of this so lashed back and to be fair to myself I apparently did pretty good although I felt bad when I got her in the face! The round seemed to go on forever but they’re only one and a half minutes, just as the bell rang for the end of the round I suddenly felt my legs go beneath me and she’d tripped me to the floor and on my back, shes obviously done abit of some form of martial arts! I think I got abit scared then my nose was killing and the fact she’d just swept the world from beneath me made me really not want to do another 2 rounds with her, I honestly thought she’d actually broken my nose (it’s ok though just a little bruise if you look hard and it’s abit sore) so I told Mister Al and the guys in my corner I couldn’t do it (actually my words were “get me out of here NOW”). After and today I’ve been abit angry at myself because I’m just too competitive to quit like that and the guys all told me after that if I’d gone back and protected my face more I would have been fine, apart from the tackle to the floor I was getting her pretty well, but I suppose some stupid, drunken fight in a bar isn’t worth breaking your nose for or maybe getting a black eye for Christmas so I did the right thing. I’ll just have to call her for a re-match after we eventually do our Thai boxing training!!!!

As Mister Al said we are loving it here, looking forward to doing the overnight trip to Maya Bay that Mister Al talked about and going to Ko Lanta at the end of the week. We went to the viewpoint to watch the sunset last night which was beautiful, although we got bitten to shreds by mosquitoes!!!

Lots of love xxxxxxx

Which way to the beach?

The 14 hour coach journey from Bangkok to the island of Phi Phi (pee pee) is well worth taking for this paradise.  Even if it happened to be miss Alex’s new “worst nights sleep ever!!”

Yesterday we took a day long boat trip around the island. Starting at 10.30 in the morning. The long boat held 16 passengers, the engine in full view on the aft, with a propeller at the end of a 15 foot pole that was submerged. The aft is where the driver piloted the boat around, sitting on a little wooden box. Miss Alex spotted a toothbrush in the engine that looked like it was being used as a plug to stop oil from spilling over!! As we set off from the pier I didn’t feel like James Bond but still it was a pretty cool way to travel about for the day.

The first stop was Sharks point, here we were encouraged to jump in and snorkel and look for these so called friendly fish!! Once again I was a bit unsure but once miss Alex dived in before anyone could say JAWS!! there was no way I could not go in after her. Putting the fins on, is an epic exercise in its self and then manoeuvring around the deck of the boat with massive fins on the end of your feet. I felt like Coco the Clown!! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t really get the buzz when I see fish. Its cool but once you’ve seen a yellow fish with black stripes it’s a box ticked as far as I’m concerned, especially with the discovery channel nowadays. I’d much rather see something I’ve not seen in person yet like turtles or dolphins, possibly not sharks though without a thick glass aquarium between me and them. Maybe the fact that we where all looking for sharks, I was a bit nervous but I felt like I couldn’t wait to get out at this point. There was no sharks spotted and when it was time to get out I wasn’t too gutted.  

On the way to the next stop the driver of the boat pointed out dolphins in the distance, I didn’t see them but I really wish I’d caught a glimpse.

The second stop on the boat tour was a desert island called Bamboo island, about 40 mins from Phi Phi. It happened to be our lunch stop. So there we were sat on a desert island eating our packed lunches. I’ve heard the terms of untouched beaches and golden sands but this really was. The best way I can explain it is, imagine West Kirby Beach or Scarborough beach feels like sugar, well this beach on Bamboo island felt like caster sugar. It was so soft and fluffy!! As the sun was behaving at its glorious best this was a perfect opportunity to sun bath for an hour. (miss Alex was catching flies in her mouth!)

Next we sailed over to a neighbouring island called Makito. I’ve no idea why and don’t know what it means sorry! Here we went back into the water to snorkel. Which meant more fish!! However these little cheeky chaps had a taste for human skin. A girl who was on our tour got bitten by one and it drew blood. Probably didn’t help with our boatman throwing a loaf of bread into the water for the fish to feed on! Miss Alex also got nipped on the shoulder, no blood though.

The next stop was always going to be fun. Monkey Beach, back on Phi Phi. Miss Alex doesn’t trust her £200 rabies jabs as much as me and decided to stay on the boat for this one, leaving me with camera in hand. I spotted a bloke who had a bunch of bananas to feed the monkeys. I thought to my self, I’ll follow him and watch him feed the nice little cute wild monkeys (at a safe distance). There had been a lot of stories about these monkeys, thieving and even attacking people on this beach, but as there was a good hundred people I fancied my chances of not being one of the stats, as long as I stayed near the back of the pack. One bloke was holding out his water for the monkey to take and drink. The monkey grabbed the bottled and shot off up into the trees out of sight. 2 minutes later out of nowhere the bottle hit the same bloke. I’m guessing it was aimed and it made a lot of us laugh out loud. Another bloke was antagonising the monkeys for a reaction, he was flicking sand at them and making hissing sounds as his wife was filming him next to them. (idiot). They seemed to leave him alone until one monkey let out a cry and in a flash about 50 monkeys jumped down from the trees and onto the beach. Without any warning or stand off, they all ran at us. The Idiot was the first to give it Billy big steps and head for the sea. All of the humans made a mad dash for the water hoping the monkeys wouldn’t follow us in.  Once it calmed down small groups of people were slowly inching back onto the beach again.

The final stop was to Maya Bay. Maya bay is the actual beach from the film The Beach. Now when we told the tour operator we wanted to go see a scene from one of Leonardo Di Caprio’s films we meant The Beach not Titantic. The boat ride over from Phi Phi was horrendous. Nothing on our boat escaped the sea waves as they crashed over the sides. The weather had turned the sun had gone in and I’m sure your all happy to know it was freezing.  But when we arrived at Maya Bay, words could not simply describe the little bay that is hidden away from the world. It is STUNNING. I don’t think the water gets much deeper than waist height. There are camping trips that go on in Maya Bay. Miss Alex and I are deffo going to book on for a night before we decide to leave Phi Phi. The thought of staying on this secluded island with no city lights to interfere with the night sky and sleep under the stars is just amazing. Too good a chance to miss I think.

I think its fair to say I love Koh Phi Phi we both do and so far have had an amazing time here. Over the next 4/5 days were going to move on to Koh Lanta. The tan is starting to move along nicely and I’m really starting to get into this backpack malarkey. I still miss my parents and my sister and brother and all my great friends but the way I see it, I ll have so many stories to tell them when we come back home. I feel lucky to be doing this trip.

Speak soon xxx

Arriving on Phi Phi

On Tuesday, after spending the day in Bangkok taking it in turns to sit with the bags in a café and going to look around the street stalls at 18:00 we got on the overnight bus.

I remember from last time I was in Thailand the overnight bus was not my favourite experience but this time it was worse!  The seats were leather, ripped, old, cramped, dirty and the “toilet” on board was more like a tin bucket that stank and there was no light! At first we were fine, we’ve got into copied DVD’s since we’ve been here so watched “Bridesmaids” on Mister Alex’s laptop. After a couple of hours we had our first stop so everyone could relieve their bladders as no one was using the toilet on board. We bought some goodies here and once back on the bus I started tucking into my tolberone, it tasted really funny looked in the wrapper and there were loads of little ants in my chocolate! Lovely!

After an hour or so sleep we were woken at 24:00 by the bus lights all suddenly turning on and the drivers shouting that we all had to get off for the next stop. When I say shouting I mean shouting, no one was allowed to stay on and sleep. After half an hour we were back on the bus again only to be woken again at 05:00, told to get off and we had an hour until we were allowed back on. By this point everyone was bleary eyed, dirty and no one was in the best of moods. At 06:00 it was back on the bus again for 2 hours when we finally reached Krabi. From here it was another 2 hours by boat to Phi Phi.

Again I’ve been to Phi Phi before for a few days and knew it’s something special but coming round the corner to the island I realised my memory has not done this island justice! It is just stunning. Coming in from the boat theres islands coming up all around, green and full of colour, the water is a mix of blues and as Phi Phi island comes into view your greeted with white sands, palms with green covered mountains surrounding the sand. Absolutely beautiful!

We took a gamble coming here and hadn’t pre-booked anywhere to stay wanting to explore our options once we arrived. So we get here after hardly any sleep, boiling hot, dirty and declined any help from the guesthouse touts, took a map and set out to find ourselves a bargain. At first we struggled, all the guesthouses in and among the bars were charging 1000 to 1500 baht per room (£20 to £30 a night). We had seen on the map a little huddle of guesthouses that was a trek from the port but just out of the night life and a couple of minutes from the beach so we humped our bags there and hoped one would have a room. We were in luck, the first 2 nights here we stayed at “Tropical garden bungalows” for 800 baht a night between us but we moved this morning to “Harmony Lodge” (virtually next door) as we’ve got a room for 600 baht with free breakfast :).

Phi Phi island is just that, it has a beach on either side with the port being on one side. There’s no cars or roads just little streets with bars, restaurants, street stalls selling lots of nice clothes and lots of push bikes to get around! There’s a lovely chilled out and relaxed atmosphere here.

There’s so much here I can’t remember from last time, we’ve both fallen in love with it. Yesterday we walked up to the viewpoint that gives you a view over the island, absolutely breathtaking, well worth building up the sweat getting up there!

There’s 3 different points you can look out at the view and as we got to the third point we came across a little shack where they make fruit shakes but they also had 2 little pet monkeys! The lady told us the man who owned the shack had rescued them when they were babies either from older monkeys or from people developing the land we’re not sure which she meant! They clearly loved the man who had rescued them they wouldn’t leave him alone. Mister Alex was brave enough to let one on his shoulders but I was a wuss, too scared they might scratch or bite.

We’ve spent the rest of yesterday and today chilling on the beach. Yesterday Mister Alex bought a football that we played with for about an hour until a little Thai girl (about 2 years old) decided she wanted to play with it and us. She was obsessed with rolling it down the beach running to pick it up and then throw to me or to Mister Alex and we’d clap our hands, very very cute! So she ended up going home with Mister Alex’s football, how could we have asked for it back?

Last night we went out and had our first bucket (or 3). This is like a spirit and mixer served in a sand castle bucket. We went to a bar first that did thai boxing with professional boxers but also people from the bar can go up and have a go in the ring and everyone that takes part gets a free bucket. It didn’t take me much to persuade Mister Alex to put himself forward to do it! He went up against a guy called Anthony who it turned out was there with a couple from New Zealand and 2 girls from England and after the fight we ended going to a beach party with them and having an awesome night. Mister Alex did mint in the fight, but apparently lost to Anthony but after watching the videos back we’re a little bit unsure why! I thoroughly enjoyed being Mister Alex’s corner man, I was getting right into it! Think I’ll put myself up to have a go next time!

Waking up this morning, feeling a little fragile, Mister Alex realised he’d hurt his foot from kicking Anthony last night and it’s bruised so we went to get him a thai foot massage and since he was there I thought I might as well have a full body massage too. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, a thai massage is more like being pulled and stretched and actually hurt quite a bit at times but it sorted my hangover out anyway!

We’re not quite sure how long we’re going to stay here for, there’s a few trips we want to do here but we’re not in a rush we’ve got until the 23^rd of December when we go to Kho Samui for Christmas so we’re going to share our time between here and an island nearby that we want to visit called Kho Lanta.

Lots of love to everyone xxxxxxxxxxx

Change of Plan

We arrived in Bangkok on the 4^th by bus, the ride felt much safer with my eyes shut. There were times on the bus coming from Kanchanaburi where I prayed for Go Go Gadget legs as I thought we were about to gain a 10 foot extension to the front end of the bus. Over here they have great trust in the brakes but I’ve seen the state of some of the cars and I don’t!!

On the way into to Bangkok it was surprising to see how bad the floods still are. Down the side streets they have adapted and made walkways above the flooded water. At times the water looked 3 foot deep. It was smelly and you could see on lampposts where the water had previously been. There was a slimy moss about 5/6 foot high.

 We found a nice guesthouse near Koh San Road (backpacker town) with Internet and food. It was an ideal base for a couple of hours until we headed to the boxing training camp we’d arranged for the next week. On the way to the boxing as we were getting nearer and nearer I could see miss Alex was not happy. I couldn’t blame her really as the taxi turned into what I can only describe as a scrap metal yard. It was pitch black with no lights and the taxi driver himself didn’t really know where we where. At one point the taxi driver jumped out of the taxi to go and look for the boxing gym and I must admit I thought we were going to get mugged or kidnapped. He jumped back in the taxi and took us further into the slum then suddenly pulled up and said “here we are!” Miss Alex hated me right now for booking this boxing course and it only got worse when we entered the boxing gym.

A 5 minute walk from the taxi with our bags still in the boot and unlocked! The punch bags in the gym were hanging from the ceiling that looked as if it was about to fall down, the ex world champion boxer we had been promised to train us looked more like Rab C Nesbit slouched on a bench in the corner and the bedrooms had …………. A bed. Nothing else, no lamp or bed sheets or bed table. The whole place had a bad feel about it. I think miss Alex wanted to do a couple of rounds in the boxing ring with me there an then!! She would have killed me.

We made an excuse about no one else being there and I said we’d be back next week, fully knowing I had no intentions of stepping foot in the place ever again. There was still the challenge of getting out of the slum and back to Koh San Road hoping our bags were still in the boot of the taxi. We did get back to Koh San Road with all our bags and to be fair the taxi driver knew why we’d left the boxing gym, he’d seen the state it was in. He was thinking of other gyms we might like to go and see (for a very high taxi fair) Our new plan was to find a guesthouse for the night and have a strong drink after the nights episode. 

Miss Alex found a place called B&B guesthouse, clever name eh!! And the very  clever bit is they don’t serve food! But still the room was very nice.

The new plan was to look for a way of getting down to Koh Phi Phi for a week or 2. (near where the beach was filmed mum, google it)

Bangkok has been really busy because it’s the kings birthday, he was 84 yesterday. The celebrations last night where phenomenal and it felt like the whole city came to a stand still to join in with his celebrations. Young families, old grans, travellers and even cats and dogs headed to the park to soak up the atmosphere. The fireworks were spectacular and the sight of hundreds of floating lanterns in the sky was a picture that no camera could do justice.

I finally think I’ve learnt the trick to stop being hassled for suits. I told one guy “never” he replied “never?” and I said “never!!” and since then he must have spread the word to other shops and I’ve not been hassled.

Today miss Alex and I are homeless, we’ve checked out of B&B guesthouse and I have the littlest hobo theme stuck in my head. As I write this miss Alex has gone for a walk down the Koh San Road and I’m sat in another guesthouse (one that supplies food and drink) supping water. We have to wait until 6 tonight for our coach to Krabi where we get the ferry across to Koh Phi Phi in the morning around 6am. We are taking it in turns to watch over the bags.  I’m really looking forward to Koh Phi Phi and I hope it is the same as I have in my head.

Speak soon xxx

Kanchanaburi by mister Alex

We arrived in Kanchanaburi in the evening, then decided to look at the tours, because miss Alex had told me how good the tours were close to Kanchanaburi. We decided on The Tiger Temple one afternoon and a full days tour visiting Erawan Falls and Hell Fire pass and a trip on the Death Railway.  There is a festival at the moment for the Kings birthday who I must say I feel like I’ve known him for years. There is a picture of him on every lamppost, every living room wall and even in one of the toilets in the bar I went to the other night. But due to this festival the Bridge Over The River Kwae is shut to the tours, but still open for the public to go to. Our first full day we took a walk from the guesthouse. Obviously hadn’t learnt our lesson from the other day when we tried to barter with the tuc tuc drivers about a price, this time miss Alex asked a tuc tuc driver how far it was to walk and he replied 2km. Miss Alex turned to me as if she knew better than him and muttered “rubbish, come on were walking, it’s a ploy so we’ll jump in his tuc tuc ” so we walked!! I’ll tell you now it was deffo 2km and the rest, in full midday heat. But it was worth it when, just before the Bridge we came across a lady who had 2 tigers. One aged 2 months and the other 7 months.  She was offering us the chance to feed either of them, miss Alex s heart melted and fed the youngest. She loved it and there is a video that no one will ever get to see because looking at it now we look like proud parents of a brand new ball of fluff!! The Bridge Over The River Kwae was interesting to see and I feel like I’ve now seen an important symbol of the Second World War.

Tiger Temple was always going to be my favourite leg of this journey. It was an hours bus ride from our guest house and I was excited all the way. I couldn’t wait to meet these big wild cats face to face. Once the tigers awake from there afternoon snooze each day is a chance for 30 people to stay behind and take them for a short walk and then watch them play. Miss Alex very kindly let me do this as we had enough money only for one and there was only one spot left from the 30. Not once did I feel threatened by the tiger as I walked him. The barrier separating the tigers and us lucky 30 was a flimsy light metal frame about 4 foot high and I’m gonna be honest, if a tiger had woken up on the wrong side of the rock then he could very easily have made us his next delicious dinner!! But like I said earlier, not once did I feel threatened. It was an absolute privilege to be there watching them play together in the water.  As miss Alex said I do not believe for one second that these tigers are drugged in any way. Animal lovers from all over the world come here to volunteer they would not do this if they thought so. If any one reading this ever comes to Thailand, I urge them to go to Tiger Temple. It was my favourite moment so far.

Today was the full day trip, We went to Erawan Falls, Hell Fire Pass and had a short journey on the Death Railway. We had a full morning at the Falls. These are seven tiered waterfalls. Every picture we’ve taken looks like a postcard. The tour guide told us that the 7th tier was 2500m high, she mentioned to watch out for the wild attacking monkeys. So us being as competitive as we are, we rushed up to the top taking snaps of every other tier on the way up. We were not disappointed when we reached the top though. It was stunning. Fair play to miss Alex she was the first to get in the water, any apprehensions I had about getting in the water were soon gone as miss Alex belly dived in the water. I had to go in at that point and no sooner had i carefully got in the water waist deep, miss Alex starts screaming that there’s something clinging on to her foot. I had no choice now, as much as I wanted to get out I had to stay in the water, but she was right. There were fish in there, massive fish that have no teeth and suck on human skin. They cant bite and don’t really hurt but it’s a funny feeling when they are all over your legs. There is a myth that Chinese people love to take a great picture, well I can squash that myth right now. We had asked this lady with a face like she was chewing a wasp to take a pickie of miss Alex and me under the waterfall with the water splashing on our heads, she took the camera begrudgingly and took the 3 worst pictures ever!! You cant even make out me or miss Alex, so our dangerous stunt of climbing the waterfall and posing like we were Peter Andre and the timote girl was in vain.

The next trip on today’s tour was Hell Fire Pass. This is part of the railway that was built, as miss Alex said by the POW’s and the local thai people. 12,000 POW’s died making this train line from Burma to Thailand. The train line was for the Japanese to get troops and equipment to the front line quickly. Without being disrespectful, this wasn’t something to enjoy although it was very humbling to see, and once again I feel like I’ve just seen a major part of the Second World War.  The conditions that they were made to live and work in were horrific. The food was very basic and from the photograghs on show, the POW’s look very close to deaths door. The scenary around hell fire pass is stunning and would it not be for the tragic acts that were committed there it would be very peaceful palce, but I constantly felt a bit haunted. LEST WE FORGET RIP x