Last few days in Thailand

I am just continuing on from Cj's post on Koh samui as he forgot to mention the chilli flake incident. I experienced my first chilli to the eye as i some how managed to flick into my socket from my noodle soup. It was sooooooo painful. I didn't realise how bad it was until i literally pulled out a huge chilli flake. Don't ever get chilli in your eye.

Krabi-

We expeinced our 2nd upgrade in krabi. We showed up to 3bees guest house without a booking and lucky for us, they only had the premium room available so the italian owner accommodated us in there for the same price as the regular rooms. It was literally painted in a vibrant orange so the room was extremely bright early in the morning but a nice room with movies and occasionally a hot shower.

The nice beach in Krabi requires a boat ride round the limestone cliff. The narrow speed boat took us to Railey beach. This beach is one of the nicest beaches i have seen so far. The water is clear blue, the sand i so soft and the beach is nestled within a cove so we explored the caves next to the beach. Pure mineral water drips into the sea from the limestone cliff which made our skin feel amazing. We left Railey beach about 6pm to head back to Krabi town for dinner. 

It rained heavy the next day so we had a bit of a sunday bed day watching movies (full use of the upgrade). When we did decide to go out we got soaked through, even with our mac's on so this day doesn't have much to tell.

Phi Phi

We left Krabi the next day and got a short boat ride to Phi Phi.  Pretty much everyone we have met has told us to go to Phi Phi so we were expecting paradise and because the film 'the beach' was filmed on Phi Phi's Maya bay. 

We arrived and yes, from the boat looking onto the beach it looked like paradise. The beach was surrounded by huge lime stone cliffs. The sea was a clear blue and the sand was golden.

We got onto land and was escorted through the tiny town to our hotel. The town is literally tiny. No cars, mopeds or tuk tuk's exist on this island as the roads are simply too small. It's more like walking through narrow alley's full of shops, restaurants, bars an tattoo parlours. There was a buzz here, it was lively and busy, full of just tourists. The thai's seem to just live there for the tourism so it felt like there was way more westerners then thai people.

We settled in our room which was on the ground floor facing the street. It was basic but good enough. We headed to the beach and i felt so confused with the place. We could see why people say it's paradise because it looks beautiful but we were sitting on the beach surrounded by litter left by previous tourists, the sea was very shallow and full of broken coral by the boats which just made the sea full of fumes. It felt like it was once paradise that has now been ruined.

Cj and I joke that we have become eco-travellers (hippies) because we were annoyed with the drunken lads crawling on the floor through the town (its only about 9pm). Phi Phi is quite a big party place, we went to a few bars and ended at the beach club with a dance floor on the sea shore.

To round up what we thought of Phi Phi, we didn't really like it. It was so obviously ruined by western tourism. It was completely not what we were expecting. 

On a lighter note, we climbed to the top of the island to the view point and this is where to find the paradise. After seeing places like Laos, our expectations of a beautiful place are a lot higher. 

We left Koh Phi Phi a day early to head to Koh Lanta. 

Koh Lanta-

Our luck continued and we received our 3rd upgrade to the supreme apartment.

We decided to end our month in Thailand with a nice resort as they are so cheap. We chose escape cabins. The rooms are apartments looking into the swimming pool. Our room had a queen size bed, DVD's and a kitchen. It was so quiet at the resort we pretty much had the pool to our selves.

Our adventurous and exploring side lacked a little on Koh Lanta as we didn't really leave the resort. It felt so nice having a luxury room and a pool that we only went to the beach in the evenings. 

The island of Koh Samui

I'm writing this as I leave the island on a boat to Krabi. We spent three days on the island, that is the largest and most  commercial of the three Gulf Islands. This has come at a price with it not being as pretty as the others.

That coupled with the fact it rained on the first two days causing the hotel power to be cut twice, meant this wasn't as good as our previous trips.

With the rain we couldn't really enjoy the beach. We stayed next to the Ark bar, right on the beach, famous for it's all day music and beach parties.

With the rain we decided to go to the cinema, saw a random film, was terrible. But theThai national anthem was great to witness before the film started. A complosory sing-a-long before each screening!

Food was great on the island though, we had some great bbq'd street food one night on the cheap! But one of the best dinners I've had on tour so far has to be a bbq on the beach. We shared a whole seabass with bbq'd corn on the cob, jacket potatoe and salad! The fish was something else literally melted in the mouth!

We had a few nights out in 'Green Mangos' and the pool bars. More buckets and dancing. Finally the sun did come out and we lazed on the beach and slept off the hangovers.

We are now heading to the west coast of Krabi town and the beautiful Phi Phi islands. We have around another 10 days in Thailand before we head south to Malaysia.

The Turtle Island

After a short boat ride we arrive in Koh Tao and headed to Sarrie beach, the heart of the diving island. We checked into our beach front hostel which is litterally 2m from the sea.

We were blessed with some scorching sun shine and spent our days on the beach and snorkerling in the bay. Food on the island is unreal as we ate on the beach front and feasted on the fresh fish.

We had a few nights out in the town, heading to a Lady Boy Show and watching the ladies perform a nunber of pop karaoke numbers in their skimpy dresses! Some very convincing, others not so.

On one of the days we rented a canoe and headed out of the bay and into some rock pools; here you could see the crabs running on the rocks and tropical fish swimming on the sea bed. We spent the afternoon snorkeling here.

However as there is little to do on the island, other than enjoy the stunning natural landacape, theres sadly not much else to report. Tan line has come along well over the last few days though!

Our next stop is the final Gulf island of Koh Samui.

Koh Pang Yang at Full Moon

So the internet has been pretty bad in the hostels over the past 10 days, hence the back log of blogs; that and when the sun is out and the beach is calling, its hard to get motivated to write!

Safe to say its been a relaxing ten days with nights our partying and lazy days spent on the beach. After our 'billionth' sleeper train we find ourselves heading to our first island Koh Pang Yang.

The island is famous for its Full moon parties, which is exactly what we headed to. We booked three nights here in a set of beach bungalows around the corner from Haad Rin beach.

After topping up the tan the full moon finally arrived, we got our UV rave gear in check and painted ourselves head to toe in fluorescent paint. There were thousands of people on the beach drinking buckets, skipping in fire and dancing the night away.

Our first point of call was getting a few buckets down us as we explored the music stands and watched cocky tourists get burnt on the flamed skipping ropes...

...things get a bit hazy after this. I know we had some food,  danced on many stages, found a group of people from Finsbury Park, had a few more buckets, fell off a stage, ate a doughnut,  found a UV hat, got chatted up by a gay man and called father christmas!

Next thing I know the sun is starting to rise and we leave to get one last kebab and head back to our bungalow to rest our feet! We slept through till the afternoon and ventured out for food and to sun bathe the alcohol out. 

Not a lot happened the day before and after the full moon party. We sunbathed and swam in the sea mostly. A very chilled island when your not off your nut at somesort of rave.

Next stop is the turtle island of Koh Tao.

Bangkok has you now!

We have now landed in the more relaxing part of our trip, so unfortunately this blog has taken a bit of a backseat. Mainly because our days at the moment, are consisting of sunbathing on the amazing thai beaches and eating our body weight in carbs. So, here is an update finally as we are having an 'admin' day due to the storm here in koh samui.

We arrived in bangkok from Vientiane, Laos 3rd October. Our journey took 15 hours. We took a train across the friendship bridge into the thai border then a night train to Bangkok. 

We stayed at D&D inn on koh san road for one night. We hoped to stay here for 3 nights but we had a bit of a mare as the only room available was street facing with a window. This resulted to a night with the Dj, drunken shouting and disco lights blazing through our window. We attempted a night out on koh san road in the hope that we would be too drunk/tired to notice the loudest nights sleep ever. But after 15hours of travelling, our age got the better of us and we had to endure the boom box bedroom. The next morning we checked into tranquility. A hotel on the road next to koh san. Such a good decision. 

We had 3 days in bangkok...

Day 1: the plan was to get a taxi to MBK Shopping mall but whilst trying to hale a taxi, Cj became the ultimate tourist and agreed to do the temple run with a tuk tuk driver for 40 baht each We knew about the scams so we were dubious as to whether we'd actually see the temples. And yes, after seeing two temples, the tailor factory and several random 'tailor made' market shops (so the tuk tuk driver could get his petrol coupons) we got screwed over. The plan was to end our temple run at MBK where we originally wanted to go, but of course on the last temple sighting our driver did a runner and left us stranded. Luckily, we hadn't paid anything yet and we were only a few miles from MBK so we just walked and got the temple run for free. 

We hit koh san road in the evening and ended up at 'the club'. The military curfew kicked in at 2:30am so we moved onto 'lava' club where that didn't close until 3am. It was a good night out which consisted of buckets, beers, dancing and scorpions. Oh yeah, Cj bought a fried scorpion on the street for us to eat. It wasn't that bad, just really salty and crispy.

Day 2: regretting our decision to go out the night before a 6am alarm, we made our way back to D&D inn at 7am to wait for our mini bus to the floating market. We stopped at the train market first, where the market moves out the way every time a train goes through the middle. You literally stand inches away from the train. The floating market was really good. One of the most cultural (as well as touristy) things we have done. 

Day 3: we had a mare this day. We wanted to go to the top of sky bar where the hangover movie was filmed. We arrived at the entrance, only to be turned away because Cj was in shorts. Its about 1pm so it's probably empty. So, instead we walked around waiting until 7pm for our night train to surat suani. We then had problems with our train. The AC wasn't working in our carriage so just the last carriage had to get off and wait for the train people to fix it. We were left on the platform whilst the train drove off, no one knew what was happening, so we didn't know if we were even getting a train that night. Luckily after an hour the train reversed back into the platform with a new carriage and we continued our journey down south. 

Elephant camp in Chiang Mai

I had one aim for Chiang Mai, and that was to see the elephants. So after a few hours researching elephant camps in Siem Reap i found Ran-Tong elephant rescue centre. I knew i didn't want to ride an elephant with a basket or go to a place where the mahouts use sharp spears so i was happy to spend £80 on elephants at Ran-tong so we could ride bare back. I will also admit that i didn't really discuss my elephant plan with Cj so he did end up With 2 very un-manly days on the itinerary. 

The journey to get to Chiang Mai was long and involved an 8hour bus from Cambodia, a dodgy walk across the border from Poi pot to Thailand (Cambodian beggars were literally grabbing my ankle to get money as we walked to the Thai immigration office) and a 15 hour night train from bangkok to our final destination. We arrived at our £3 a night hostel Teeraya boutique, which had a pool, the next morning. As nice as the pool looked, as soon as we got in it we realised it wasn't very clean, the hostel was nice though and we managed to bag a free upgrade from a dorm room to a private room with a balcony and a free nights stay, all due to Cj writing the wrong room number on his elephant form and confusing the receptionist by taking up beds in the dorm room. Pretty good tactic in the end.

Our first day at elephant camp was a half day ride on Ku moon, which was the elephant given to us for the trek. She was 18 years old and the staff were trying to match- make her with a male in the hope that she will get pregnant at any time. Therefor she was uber confident and always wanted to be at the front of the trek, leading the other elephants the way. the mahouts taught us some elephant commands, how to climb onto the elephants and how to look after them. 

The commands (sound like):

Pi- Go

Sur- left

Qua- right

Hull- Stop

Milong- lie down

The chinese pair who were on the trek too  loved the 'go' command and all we could hear the whole way on the trek was  'Pi, pi, pi, pi' which sounded just like the seagulls from Nemo. 

After feeding all the elephants several bananas we trekked on Ku moon around the camp then went into the pool to bathe her. Ku moon seemed to prefer to sit and roll throwing Cj straight off her back into the mud bath. So, whilst everyone else was just wet up to their waist, Cj was drenched head under.

Our second day at camp involved the baby elephant Tun di who is 1 and a half. I signed us up to the full day baby program. We learnt how to make Tun di's baby food and feed her. She was so cute. In the afternoon we got to join the elephant trek and ride Ku moon again. 

After our adventurous 2 days with the elephants we had another day left in Chiang mai. We did a bit of exploring taking a look at night bazaar and visiting a very cool market with many things for me to buy. 

We departed Chiang Mai after 4 days by bus to the border to then head into Loas. I wanted more time in Chiang Mai as i would have liked to see the hill tribes and maybe visit Pai, so i definitely want to come back here.