Week one of my trip has faded into a distant happy blur of beaches, buckets and Bangkok.
I ticked off my Bangkok list within a couple of days...
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| Koh San Road |
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Nibbly foot fish (was pretty tickly at first but then awesome) |
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| Tuk Tuk races |
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| Pad Thai from a cart for ~1 NZD (25 Baht). Mmmmm. |
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| Chang Beer |
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| Buddha |
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| Annette got self portrait done - she didn't want one but he drew her anyway. |
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| Hiding our knees and shoulders in these rented outfits for temple visit |
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| Royal Palace temple |
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| Bought a bracelet - none of these ones though eww. |
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| Bargaining on Koh San |
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| Communal bucket sculls |
And a Ping Pong show. No photos of that though.We also managed to lose our friend Geoff in Bangkok, Hangover 2 style. He eventually turned up on Koh Phangan a few days later though so all was well.
We stayed on Koh Phangan for about 5 days. The entire Island is devoted to young people who have come to sleep, eat, drink buckets and happy shakes, get tattoos, drive scooters, and maybe do some beach related activities like diving and snorkelling in between. Not a bad place to be! I did my first dive one of the days – visibility was fairly average I think but I saw a huge jellyfish billowing away which was pretty cool.
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| Drinks at our hostel |
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| What a bargain |
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| Success! Tasted like petrol but I completed my first bucket. |
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| Grant's bikini |
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| Beach bungalows pool party - water was waaaay too murky but we got in anyway |
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| Dave and Sam couldn't wait for the 31st to get their fluoro on |
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| Tuk Tuk complete with hammock |
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| Cute kid boxer at Muay Thai boxing show |
The New Years party on Haad Rin beach was craziness with about 30,000 people packed in. Worst bit was when the tide started to come in and wash up all the bottles and disgustingness and force everyone even closer together. At about 4am I saw out of the corner of my eye a guy wearing top to toe pink fluro who turned out to be none other than Matt Cushing. Such a pleasant surprise!
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| New Years Eve!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| Geoff painting the Chang logo on Grant |
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| Claire, me and Annette |
Island hopped to Koh Phi Phi on the 2nd for a couple of days. Similar to Koh Phangan but slightly less crazy.
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| Boat to Phi Phi was quite crowded |
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| We found a digger |
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| Annette dominated at table tennis |
Highlight of Phi Phi was hiring a speed boat for the day that took us to a bunch of Islands and beautiful beaches (including 'The Beach' beach), snorkeling, cliff jumping, feeding monkeys and the best part when our driver stopped the boat and said "Now you swim with sharks". Freaked out for a second but they were just reef sharks, big enough but harmless. I spotted one after quite a bit of searching and chased it around for a while.
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| Water was so clear |
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| Paige feeding monkey |
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| Maya Bay - where some of 'The Beach' was filmed |
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| Maya Bay - 'The Beach' beach |
Next was Phuket - probably a better holiday destination for a middle-aged single man to be honest! But an experience nonetheless. Every bar had dozens of poles for dancing girls and there were lots of lady boys about.
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| I think I've seen this in an e-mail forward before |
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| Pretty soaps |
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| Our last night out with everyone - I think my meal cost me 100 Baht and drinks 400 for 2 cocktails. But worth it cause it came in a pineapple! |
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| Jenga to keep you in the bar - they get pretty angry if you refuse to play |
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| Ring the bell for shooters for the bar. I think Mike rang the bell 3 times at 1000 Baht (~50 NZD) each time |
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| Annette did well selling ping pong shows and the like |
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| Grant and a bracelet man |
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Annette and I had another day in Phuket waiting for Jay Jay to arrive, so took a boat tour. The boat took us to James Bond Island and some caves that you kayak through, some you have to lie down to get under. Very touristy, and some caves had actual kayak traffic jams.
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| James Bond Island - I guess it was in a James Bond film |
JJ, Annette and I flew to Chiang Mai the next morning at great expense but the train/bus options would have taken at least a day and the travel agents were not being at all helpful with it - "tomorrow - full", "only can book before 10pm and now is 10:05pm, you're too late", "don't book trains here, no can help" etc etc.
We found a hostel for 4NZD in Chaing Mai which was a relief after the South of Thailand prices (I think I was paying $34 per night in Koh Phangan for example). Food was also much cheaper and just as tasty.
We did some token temple visits and gawked at the Monks wandering around.
A friendly local started chatting to us outside one of the temples and mentioned some 'Royal Flora' garden show that was on that night. We didn't really know what it was but we boarded the free bus to check it out. Turns out it was some celebration of the Thai King's birthday and it was massive! It was full of Thai tourists who had travelled from all around to come and it was nicely free of other westerners. Even the Thai's were taking photos for a change. It was all very over the top....
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| Garden of lights. |
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| Temple |
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| Wish the King a happy birthday in a gold leaf in a gold tree |
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| Painted cow |
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| A float in the parade |
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| Lanterns |
We visited the Tiger Kingdom to spoon some huge tigers. We didn't so much like how drowsy the tigers were - they claim they are just lethargic during the day but I'm skeptical.
We visited a very local market selling all sorts of things including live snakes and turtles, fried larva, and some very fresh fish that were still flopping around on the table. I can never get used to the bad bad smells and general lack of any form of food hygiene practices at these types of market, e.g. chicken carcasses lying out for sale in the hot sun with flies crawling all over.
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| Bubble tea - the 'bubbles' are big balls of tapioca. Strangely good. |
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| Fried larva |
I learned to cook Tom Yum, Pad Thai, Thai green curry, and chicken and spicy basil stirfry like a pro...
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| Pad Thai and Tom Yum |
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| Making curry paste is hard work |
We did a 3 day trek from Chiang Mai through some villages, to waterfalls and through pretty scenery, plus elephant ride and bamboo rafting.
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| Annette and JJ on one of the few flat parts of the walk, through someones field |
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| Played with stick insects |
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| Heat rash from the camp fire |
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| Huge stick insect |
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| And put this stick insect in my hair for fun |
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| Lunch was noodles in a banana leaf |
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| Waterfall we hopped under |
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| Stick games |
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| Villager - these guys sat with us the whole night in squat positions, they make it look so easy. |
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| Bridge |
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| Elephant |
Pai was next, apparently 762 curves from Chiang Mai making it an enjoyable van ride.A pretty little town set in a valley with lots of backpackers and very laidback feel. We got a Thai massage here cause we felt like relaxing after our trek. Ha! What a joke - Thai massages are another word for torture that you pay for.
We hired scooters for a day and explored some waterfalls, a canyon, and a Chinese village. The village had an entertaining manual Ferris wheel that was pretty fast when it got going. We went on it with some Asian girls who shrieked away the whole time - hilarious. We kept getting stopped on the way to the waterfall by people trying to sell us opium.
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| Bridge into Pai |
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| A new way to advertise waxing |
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| Canyon |
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| Chinese Ferris wheel |
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| Waterfall |
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| Lots of tasty food stalls in Pai - these are banana pancakes but I also tried some Quail eggs and black sticky rice pancake that looked a lot like a cow pat but tasted delicious. |
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| Spicy Pai hostel - bamboo open bungalow and a campfire outside. |
Phew! So that was Thailand in brief.
