Chaweng beach, Koh Samui


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Koh Sahn Rd, Bangkok

On the ferry

Dinner on the sand

Sunset cocktails

Yep, we are travelling again!

The plan is to live and work in London for another year, wandering around the UK and Europe in our spare time and holidays.

Right now we are on a 9 day stop-over in Thailand. We are hanging out with friends Penny and Melinda from home, and Melinda's British boyfriend, Ben.

Spent a few days in Bangkok; grimey, hot, stickey, busy, noisy, in your face but exciting as always.

The rest of the time (minus about 18 hours spent in taxi, sleeper train, bus, ferry and songtau getting down here) is being spent on Koh Samui. Ahh, Koh Samui; silky sand, warm clear water, warm weather all the time, fruit shakes, BBQ'd seafood on the beach, curry, seafood Pad Thai, touts...

We went over to Koh Phangan via speed boat last night for the infamous Full Moon Party. As mad as they say it is. Sun was up when we got home. Think i'll step back out onto the beach and have a lie down...

We had to fly via Hong Kong to get to Japan, so we had decided to stop over for a couple of nights and have a look around, not really knowing much about the place at all. It turned out to be a cool city to visit.

Hong Kong island and surrounding areas are really picturesque; steep green mountains plunging into a deep ocean, ringed by clusters of tall skinny buildings around the shorelines.

We utilised www.wotif.com and got ourselves a half price room at the Novotel Harbourview, a four-star hotel in downtown residential Hong Kong.

We enjoyed dining out on authentic Chinese cuisine (yummy Chicken and Black Bean) from a nearby market, riding a double decker tram, and exploring the ultra modern city. The views from Victoria Peak, above the city, were spectacular.

The weather was also interesting. While we were there Hong Kong`s frist typhoon for the season was approaching, making it overcast and rainy for most of the time we were there. We left before it arrived though.

On our way back to Bangkok we stayed two nights in Sukotai, a dusty town half way between ChangMai and Bangkok. We hired pushbikes and toured the Sukotai Historical Park - temple and building ruins from Thailand's first capital and golden age, back in the 13th century. It was interesting to try and imagine what life in the city must have been like back then.

Sukotai was an interesting town. Despite the historical park just down the road, there is virtually no provision for tourism in town - no 'Farang' or western restauraunts, no email cafes, and one travel agent, who couldn't really even help us much with getting back to Bangkok. We ate at the night market and hardly saw another foreigner the whole time (it was great).

We caught a sleeper train back to Bangkok from nearby Pitsanalok, and spent our last couple of days in Thailand shopping and hiding from the hot sun.

We had decided that we wanted to be a bit adventurous whilst in Chiang Mai and were looking into going on a three day/two night trek in the jungle. There are SO many different treking agencies in Chiang Mai (literally hundreds) so we were finding it difficult to choose one. We had heard that a lot of people go on the treks to smoke opium and that a lot of the guides regularly get stoned on the trips so we were anxious to choose a reputable company (the thought of being out in the jungle close to the Myanmar (Burma) border, which is closed due to conflict between the two countries, with a stoned guide was not really that appealing!).

Whilst on a cooking course (see previous post) we met two Brisitsh girls who told us about a volunteer program that they had been on for the past two weeks. The program is designed to protect and work with elephants that have been mistreated, a problem amoung a lot of the trekking companies. We had also heard a lot of other stories about the mistreatment of elephants on tourist treks and were reconsidering whether we wanted to go on a trek at all. Therefore, this program sounded like a great alternative as it also encompassed a lot of the other activities included in the regular treks and some additional things as well. The girls directed us to the office and we met with the organiser of the program, a Thai woman, Lek. Lek explained that there was a three day program that we could join in a couple of days time, so we signed up. The program is called, you guessed it, Jumbo Express.

The first day we were driven, firstly, to a small farm to pick up three other volunteers who had been on the two week program and for whom this would be their final three days. We then drove up into the mountains (absolutely stunning jungle scenery) to a Karen Hilltribe Village. We spent the afternoon exploring the village and attempting to teach the children our names. The hilltribes have their own Thai dialect and rarely understand any English. The children were able to say "Aimee" quite well but "Shane" was beyond their vocabulary. Shane also tried to teach them the English word for "pig" (as there was a huge grunting pig right by where we were standing). We weren't sure if they were understanding what Shane meant until we heard them saying "Aimee, pig" and then disolving into fits of Thai giggles. It did not take us long to work out that these cheeky little children had perfectly understood the English word for "pig"! Shane was greeted with a dark look from me.

Some of the village teenagers invited us to play volleyball with them at the local school, well they pointed to a volleyball, us and the school so we think they were inviting us to play! Once we started playing we realised that we had been somewhat hussled as these girls were amazing at volleyball. They could whack that ball for miles and had no problems absolutley thrashing the rest of us. We ended up playing in mixed teams and soon drew a large crowd of village children. There was much laughing and hillarity and we were not sure if this was with us or at us!

That night the villagers gathered at the house where we were staying (one of the local's hut's) to recieve medical treatment, which is part of this volunteer program. We had a supply of fairly mild and general medications to dispense and spent the evening engaging in a comical display of charades in an attempt to understand which medication the villagers required. Shane and I predominately worked with the children, feeding them de-worming medication from a syringe and giving them vitamin C tablets. Our guide spoke some of the local dialect so this helped us a lot.

The second day we packed all of our things into multiple plastic bags and jumped onto two bamboo rafts waiting for us at the river. The rafts literally consist only of bamboo - 16 long poles strapped together with strips of bamboo to tie them all together and a bamboo pole to push the raft along. There was a Thai guide who steered from the front and the rest of us all got to have a turn steering from the back. This was a task that was not nearly as easy as the guide made it look. For example, if you didn't turn it in time (and the guide ALWAYS turned his end in time!) the back end of the raft fishtailed into the nearest bank with it's trees and overhanging branches, resulting in you having to practically lie down to avoid being knocked off or stabbed with a branch. It was the best fun!

We rafted for a total of about four hours on the first day, stopping once to hike into an elephant camp where the elephants are kept for the regular treks. We inspected some of the elephants there that had bruised backs from the saddles that are used during the trekking elephant rides. However, soon after our guide rubbed an elephant version of Deep Heat onto the animals they were saddled up and sent off with a group of tourists on their backs. Shane and I had fun trying to keep out of the way of a cheeky baby elephant who was intent at trying to charge at us. The second night was spent in one of the villages where regular treks stay and the time passed with much drinking of the local Thai Beer Chang.

The next morning we treated (well, really watched the treatment of) more elephants. It was amazing to be right up next to these huge adult elephants and being able to touch them. One of the elephants, whilst having a particularly bad sore treated, put it's trunk up into it's mouth and bit it as if to stop the pain. It was so cute but also sad at the same time. We spent another three hours rafting by which time we were really confident and began trying to push each other off the rafts with our poles and swimming in the water beside the raft. We also went down some (fairly tame but exciting on a bamboo raft) rapids and ended up getting stuck on top of a large rock. Our guide literally had to get in the water to push us off. He didn't look too inpressed but we had a ball!

Finally, on the way back to Chiang Mai we stopped back in at the farm and were able to play with the two baby elephants that are being cared for there at the moment. Both elephants have been rescued from tragic circumstances by Lek's organisation. The elephants are very playful, one of them taking every opporuntiy to try and charge at anyone in his path. It is a very amusing sight to see 10 adults all scuttling out of the way of a charging baby elephant! He also has a tendency to sneak up on unsuspecting people by walking backwards and then kicking sideways into people's legs. The younger of the two babies is much more affectionate and will allow you to hold his trunk a blow into it, an elephant way of saying hello. I even got to feed a bottle to one of them.

We arrived back in Chiang Mai filthy and exhausted but completely satisfied that a great time had been had by all.

We have uploaded some photos from Ko Pha-Ngan. Please excuse the poor quality. We had this film developed in Bangkok, and they didn't do a very good job.

The photos can be viewed in the post entitled Beach Hopping.

We went north from Bangkok, to Chiang Mai, the capital of Thailand's north. We opted for the overnight bus instead of the sleeper train, based on price (although we much prefer the train). It all turned out to be a bit of a schmozle.

The bus was to leave from a street corner near Khoa San Rd at 7pm. When it turned up we all piled on, except for the six of us who didn't fit; apparently they had sold too many tickets. We were left on the street and waited while one of the Thai organisers made thirty-something phone calls. Eventually a mini-bus turned up and took us to a bus station 20mins away, where they bought us tickets on a 9pm bus with some other bus company. It got worse. Because we were the last 6 people on the bus and because it was already nearly full of Thai people (the other was a backpacker special) we were given seats in the small 8-person downstairs part of this 'cruise-ship of the highway' type bus. The windows were painted blue, so we couldn't see out at all (like being underwater in a swimming pool at night), and we covered our noses to lessen the stench from the toilet. We stopped only once, and arrived at Chiang Mai at 5am. I think the driver had driven a little fast, which explained why we felt a giddy. The bus we should have caught at 7pm arrived 3 hours after ours at 8am - a 5 hour longer trip. It's the 'Thai way'.

Chiang Mai is a pretty nice city; much smaller and more laid back than Bangkok. While we were there we did a one day Thai cooking course, which was excellent. It started off with a tour of the local food market which explained what all the local fruit, vegies and meat was. We cooked (and then ate) Tom Yum Kung (spicey prawn soup), Spicey Glass Noodle Salad, Stir Fry Vegies, Pad Thai, Thai Green Curry, Penang Curry and bannana spring rolls.

We did a little shopping in the famous Night Bazaar, exploring the tunnel like avenues of stalls which run through the streets. Our packs are getting way too heavy now. We hung out with a couple of guys we met on the bus to Chiang Mai - Jesse and Ray from California.

We hauled ourselves up on the public air con bus to Chiang Rai, a couple of hours further north, and from there we visited the Golden Triangle where Thailand, Myanmar (Burma) and Laos meet at a wide brown junction in the Mekong River. We took a longtail boat ride and even set foot on supposedly Laos land (for a 20 baht fee). Considering the tourist attraction that the Golden Triangle has reportedly become, there were very few other tourists there that day, for which we were grateful. We only just made it back to Chiang Rai for the last connecting bus back to Chang Mai - an extremely full and cramped 4 hour fan bus ride.

Let me explain fan buses. Most of the public busess in Thailand (non-air con buses) have orbiting fans hanging from the ceiling - the kind with the blue blades you might sit on a bench at home. The buses are also built for Thai sized people (not Farang with long legs) so the seats are narrow and set close together. The dash and sourounding area are normally decorated with bright coloured religous artifactrs, bowls of fruit and large portraits of the King*. Luckily Aimee and I are now experiencing this weird phenomonan where whenever we sit on a bus seat our eyelids become heavy, our heads loll on our necks and pretty soon we are snoring and drooling against the window.

*The Thais love their King. Large pictues of him, and sometimes the Queen, can be seen hanging inside just about every bus, restaurant or shop. He looks uncanily like Price Charles, but he never smiles.

We spent a week in Bangkok. Ko Pha-Ngan to Bangkok was 24 hours straight traveling and went something like this: At 10am a Longtail boat from Hat Yao East, the beach where we stayed, to Hat Rin, a town further down the island. Hat Rin to the next town around to catch a ferry, in the back of a ute taxi on Ko PagnYan's only sealed track, a concrete path so much like a rollercoaster we all threw our arms in the air going through the dips. Then a ferry to the mainland, via Ko Samui, and a bus to the train station in Surat Thani. At 7pm we borded our first sleeper train, arriving in Bangkok in the morning, getting a taxi to the Khao San Rd area, and trudging around to find a guesthouse, around 11am.

We spent a week in Bangkok. Unfortunatelly, the first couple of days were spent sleeping off colds. After lots of fruit shakes and VCD movies in guesthouse restauraunts, we were fit again and ready for Bangkok. We went to the Grand Palace, saw the Emerald Buddah and the large gold Reclining Buddah, and another temple called Wat Poh, with yet more Buddahs. We did a walking tour of the old part of the city, and found our way into a dried fish market, where Aimee practiced holding her breath for as long as she could. While walking we cut through a uni where protesting students were killed by the millitary in the 70s. When we got sick of walking we practiced our new fire twirlers in the park (they are practice twirlers, made with fabric flame, so the hair is safe...) and got caught in the rain each afternoon.

Our visa was set to expire before our flight left Thailand, thanks to arriving from Malaysia a few days early, so we spent half a day going down to the appropriate office to get it extended, which is easy enough to do, required you hand over the required payment, of course. Afterwards, while fire-twirling in Lumphini park nearby, we were treated to a massive demonstration of free areobics in the park. That evening, while we were down that way, we had a look at Pat Pong, the famous Go-go bar area. It is a little sleazy, but not as much as I had expected, thanks to the smothering effect of the tourist oriented night market which crowds the alleyway there.

Khao San Rd is totally soaked with Farang (Thai for Western tourists) and really is a false Bangkok experience. Despite this we did find a really cool bar a few blocks away, and it was over a busy road (in Bangkok that means really, really busy) so it might as well have been in another world. It had 4 floors, including a cafe with great Thai food, photo exhibition gallery, couches and pooltables and a rooftop bar - and no Farang, only a scattering of Thais.

One day we took a half day tour out to the floating markets. We were extremely dissapointed to find ourselves, along with 50 other mini busses and a fleet of coaches, at a market which is staged for tourists - very few boats selling spices, fruit, veges and handcrafted goods (as in the postcards), but instead lots of tourist junk which can be found at any other market. They threw in a visit to a coconut factory (which was really just a simmering pot of coconut extract in the corner of an acre of more tourist trinkets). If you are in Bangkok and want to go to a genuine floating market, hire yourself a longtail boat at the docks and you can get to one without tourists.

We decided to skip the tours, and took ourselves out to Kanchanaburi, two hours by bus away, for a couple of days sightseeing. This is the beginnning of the Death Railway, between Thailand and Burma, which was constructed during WWII by the Japanese, with the help of Allied POWs. We went to Hellfire Pass, an hour north, where thousands of Aussie POWs died building railway cuttings through the rock by hand. The museum is really modern, and well run by a Queenslander. Obviously not many people complete the 3 hour walk along the railway and back, because he sent us out with a 2-way radio and a guide (a Thai dude with a bamboo stick), to make sure we made it back OK. It was really moving to see first hand the devastating Death Railway. Later we pushed our way through tour groups to walk over the bridge over the river Kwai (of the movie of that name).

Back in Bangkok we realised we were well and truly sick of Bangkok, particularly the bustle and agro of Khao San road. A few hours after arriving back from Kanchanaburi, we hopped on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai, in Thailand's north.

Hi everyone. Sorry it's taken us so long to post again. It seems like we are moving so fast and it's easy to get behind. We are actually in Chiang Mai at the moment but I'll try and get you a bit more up to date.

We had originally planned to spend two weeks at the most at the beaches in Southern Thailand but we loved it so much and there was so much to see that we stayed for two and a half weeks before dragging ourselves up to Bangkok.

After Krabi we caught a longtail boat to Ao Nang, another beach on the West Coast, specifically with a kayaking trip in mind. There is not much to do in Ao Nang except to go on various "adventure" tours. We went on a full day kayaking trip through mangrove forests, lagoons and limestone gorges. There was only six of us on the tour (you've got to love the low season!) so it was quite personalised. Shane and I got to test out our cooperation skills (two people to each canoe), a test which I am not sure that we always passed. I also spent half the time trying to convince Shane that we didn't always have to way out in front of everyone else!

From Ao Nang we caught another boat over to Ko Phi Phi, the island made famous by the movie "The Beach". We spent a few days lazing around on the beach (when the wind was not whipping sand all over us - don't you feel so sorry for us??) and waiting for the weather to calm down so that we could go over to the smaller island (Ko Phi Phi Leh) where they actually filmed the movie, but it never happened. None of the taxi boats would go over there, although one speed boat operator did say that he would take us for 3,000 baht (usual price about 200 baht). The catch was that he would drop us off halfway into the bay and we would have to swim the rest of the way. Given that no other boat operators were willing to go out into the choppy sea we decided not to take up his kind and completely generous offer (sarcasm intended).

On a whim we decided to head to Phuket, even though we knew it would be completely touristy. We got on a larger boat to get there and the first pangs of doubt set in when we were handed two sea sick tablets each when boarding. Not a good sign. We took one each and were eternally glad that we did. The huge swells caused the boat to sway wildly from side to side and crash through steep swells and deep troughs. I seriously wondered if the boat was going to stay upright at one stage, although it did make the trip exciting. There were a lot of very sick people on that boat. On the boat we met another backpacker from England but of Thai decent. We ended up staying at the same Guest House and looking around Phuket together. As both his parents were Thai he could speak the language and it was really interesting for Shane and I as he could translate everthing for us. He also taught us the Thai word for "I don't want it" which has come in incredibly handy. We spent one rainy afternoon watching the replay of the Friday night Carlton and Richmond AFL match in an Aussie pub, eating a sausage sizzle (Thailand sausages...hhmmmm), with a bar full of Australain Navy saliors who were docked at Phuket for a couple of days. When you've been away from home for ages there is nothing better! I was the only female there (in a bar full of saliors!! - much to Shane's disconcertion...hee hee). The weather looked cold in Melbourne. There is not much else to say about Phuket except that it is incredibly tourist oriented and somewhat sleasy. We only stayed two nights.

Next we headed across the country to the east coast and Ko Samui. Given that it is only the wet season on the west coast the weather was much nicer on this side. It was Shane's birthday whilst we were there (8th July) so we spent two days alternating between swimming, sunbaking and eating fantastic food at beach front restaurants, once sitting right on the sand. By this time we had already been in Southern Thailand for two weeks and knew that we had to keep moving but both really wanted to go to a quiet, relaxed beach as all the ones we had been to so far had been quite developed and touristy.

We spend our last few days at the beach on a secluded little cove on Ko Pha-Ngan, the so-called backpacker's isand and home of the famous full moon parties. We were thrilled to find that there were only about 20 people all up at this particular beach and there were no Thai touts trying to sell us sarongs/shoes/toe rings/ice creams/fake tattoos/you-name-it on the beach. We had a little beach hut on the headland overlooking the beach, with a sea view from our bed and a hammock out the front - bliss! The staff were all extremely friendly and very "relaxed", often popping down behind the bar for long peiods of time during which a blue haze of smoke would eminate skywards. Often other guests would also join in this strange and mystifying practice, emerging with glazed eyes and slack smiles plasted on their faces. Visions of 20 years in the Bangkok Hilton provided a strong deterent for us to ask too many questions or join in. Despite this illegal activity surrounding us, we had a fantastic time on Ko Pha-Ngan, the perfect conclusion to our (multiple) beach sojourn. It was all we could do to drag ourselves away and head to Bangkok.

(P.S. We actually have a film developed from Ko Pha-Ngan and are currently trying to find a scanner so that we can post some photos - so keep watching!)

View from the restaurant of Hat Yao beach on Ko Pha-Ngan

Riding the Longtail boat, Ko Pha-Ngan

Unloading the packs, Hat Yao, Ko Pha-Ngan

We left Penang for Krabi, Thailand, via a 10 hour mini-bus trip, punctuated only by a 2 hour break in Hat Yai to change buses. We wasted the two hours, and our first fist full of Baht, in a Pizza Hut with a Norwegian couple, whom we met on the bus.

We arrived in Krabi at 10:30pm, without prearranged accommodation, and trudged all over the place with the Norwegians and a couple of Lonely Planet guidebooks, looking for some. We settled on the Star Guesthouse, across from the pier. Our room seemed designed to trap the odour from the sewer drain outside but at only 150 Baht (about Aus$7.50) per night, it was pretty cheap. Even a local shopkeeper responded with 'Ahh, very cheap!' when we mentioned where we were lodged.

We discovered the night hawker food market across the street was excellent and we sampled our first 'fried chicken and cashew nuts' dish. It was so good we went back the next night and had it again (Nick - Aimee dedicated hers to you, as requested). I also sampled my first 45 baht (A$2) Beer Chang longneck.

We moved from Krabi to Railey (East Hat Rai Leh) beach by Longtail boat. Railey (pron. Rah lay) has two bays which are straight from the classic Thailand postcards; a curving fine white sand beach and luminous green water dwarfed at both ends by limestone pinnacles. We spent a few days there swimming, and lying on the beach. We also paddled around the limestone islands in an ocean kayak.

Krabi, and the headland at the end of Railay Bay in particular, is the mecca for rockclimbing in Thailand. There are hundreds of awesome limestone climbs there, and some people staying at Railay were there on a climbing holiday. We did a half day climbing course (just the two of us and an instructor) and completed four climbs, right on the water's edge. Owen and Roly, if you guys could just give up your addiction to snow and cold weather, you would love it here.

At one of the night spots in Railay there was a demonstration of fire twirling using traditional Thai fire twirly things (two chains with small flaming sand bags on the end). After the demo a girl, who thought it looked so easy that she had them lit for her first attempt, had a go. She got them tangled a few times, and at one point set the back of her hair on fire. It flared up, but she still didn’t realise. Eventually one of the staff ran out and patted it out, in front of a startled crowd. She kept going as if nothing happened, and singed herself a few more times. It was really funny when we realised she wasn’t hurt.

The rainy season has arrived here. This means that it is also the low season, so most things are considerably cheaper (accommodation sometimes by half) and it isn’t crowded like the high season. It also means that the wind is nearly always blowing and it rains at some point on most days. However, the temperature still rarely gets below 30 degrees (even at night) and we get to spend a lot of our time at the beach, most of which are sheltered. I hear the weather is worse in Melbourne ;-)