Right, I've posted some pictures on flickr, as I'm still figuring out resizing issues for blogger.

The link is :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schloo

Right, this is my last day in Thailand, and unfortunately it is spent wasting my time in Bangkok before I head off into Cambodia, so I am going to use it to get up to date on the places I haven't written about yet. I've also gotten my photos on CD so I'll either lob them on here, or on some hosting website.

Right...

Ko Tao

Ko Tao was the next island we headed to after Ko Samui. There is actually another island sandwiched in between Ko Samui and Ko Tao - Ko Phagnan (God knows if I've spelt that right) - and this is where the infamous Full Moon Parties are held. However, those parties are all about excessive drinking, excessive drugs and excessive shit music, and most definitely not my cup of tea. We figured the island would be just as busy and touristy because of these parties (there's about a million of them even when it's not a full moon) so we skipped it out in favour of Ko Tao, the last and smallest island in the group of three.

I had originally planned on learning to dive in Thailand, after seeing how stupidly expensive it was in Australia, and two girls we met on our Chiang Mai trek recommended that Ko Tao was both the cheapest and the best place to dive throughout Thailand. It turns out they were right, as it only cost me 9000 Baht (132 pounds - damn these Thai keyboards for not having a bloody pound sign).

The course was over 4 days, taught by a very nice American called Mike. I won't go into details about the course simply because it's probably not that interesting unless you're able or are learning to dive. All in all, we learnt about the lovely things that can happen to you under the sea (air bubbles in blood, nitrogen sickness, the need to re-pressurise your body to name but a few), and the usual scuba bits, how to stay buoyant under the sea, how to go up and down, etc.

When I was first learning the course, it was very much like learning to ride a bike (I've tried learning a fair few skills in life, but I'm too lazy to keep them going, so a bike is the best comparison I can come up with). When you first see all the equipment, and the giant book full of info you have to remember, it's just like, 'Bloody Hell, I'll never get all that within 4 days' but by the end of the course, and the last dive, it all seems to fit into place, as Laura told me it would. But thinking back now, as I'm writing this, I can't remember all the nasty ailments that can befall you whilst under the sea, and how to get rid of/ prevent them. Shit.


Ko Tao as an island was as much of a highlight of Thailand as Chiang Mai had been. Way less touristy, apart from all the divers, and the beaches were a million times nicer than any I saw on Ko Samui. I will make sure to post a pic of the beach somewhere, just to make you all jealous. The locals here are also extremely friendly, we'd made quite a few friends by the time we left Ko Tao.
Annoyingly, one of them had invited us to go snorkeling with her down south, where there were Barracudas and other cool yet scary fish, but we had already booked our ticket off the island by that point. Still, it was a nice gesture.

The final highlight of Ko Tao for me was our resident foot long lizard who apparently came free with our bungalow. We at first tried to get rid of the newly dubbed "Kenneth", but he proved to be a bit of a slippery character (literally) so we decided to let him stay. We became quite attached to the wee lad actually, and as we discovered more smaller lizards in our room (Ken Junior and Phoebe) we decided he had probably taken his kids and gone on the run from his wife. Don't blame him as geckos are loud bastards when they get going, and seeing as our Ken never made a sound, we decided it must be the females who made all the noise (nagging).
Poor Ken, he will be sorely missed.

On to...

Krabi

From Ko Tao we caught a night boat and a bus to the mainland town of Krabi, where we stayed on Ao Nang Beach, recommended to us by some people from our dive school.
The night boat was really amusing to me - it reminded me of the Brownie 'Pack Holidays' I used to go to when I was little. The completely rubbish holidays that were in fact a weekend spent sleeping in a hall in a village somewhere down the road from Leighton. Not quite hardcore holiday partying.
We used to line our sleeping bags around the sides of the village hall, packed in really tightly, with a path to walk from one end of the hall to the other, running down the middle. The layout of the night boat was exactly the same, except that you had about a foot of space to call your own. So it was actually a bit like being a small child again, come to think of it. Still, it was an experience :)

Whilst at Krabi, we went on a tour of the nearby islands, including the ones where The Beach was filmed, Ko Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. There was no way we were going to Thailand and not seeing those! It was most definitely an experience being on 'The Beach', I could see why they chose it as a set, clear waters and amazingly fine sand. Although five minutes after you've stopped admiring the sand you begin to curse it, simply because being so fine, it gets into places that I wouldn't like to mention on this blog, and sticks to every item of clothing you own, even if it's been nowhere near a beach.
It was interesting to see that there were almost no remains of the devastation caused by the tsunami here, I had forgotten there ever was one til I saw the tsunami evacuation signs.

Overall we stayed in Krabi for about 4 days - any longer at it would probably have killed me, as it was just so bloody hot there, pushing 40 degrees sometimes. Around 99.9 % of my time was spent in some sort of water, whether it be a shower, the sea, or my own sweat. Mmm....


Anyway, I think thats me fairly up to date in quite a big nutshell. I am going to see if I can work out how to post photos on here now. If it doesn't work, I will post a link to some sort of site.

Ko Samui update

The last time I posted on this, we had pretty much just arrived on Ko Samui, in the south of Thailand. We've now moved on since then, so it's time another update :)

Ko Samui

It seems that whenever you head to any island in Thailand, you get bombarded with people trying to sell you to their hotel, and this was the case when we headed to Ko Samui. Being the first island on our list, we didn't realize this, although we were pretty cheap and were sold by the guy who offered us a free taxi to his cheap bungalows on the other side of the island. It turned out to be a good choice actually, as the bungalows and the resort they were set in were amazing, palms trees and butterflies everywhere, and a shower which wasn't directly over the toilet. w00t!
We spent 4 days at the resort, most of mine was spent on the beach, whereas Ness was a bit more limited, having sunburned herself so badly that she was confined to bed for a couple of days. It wasn't sun cream error though, it was the result of bastard anti malaria tablets, which make you really sensitive to the sun.
A day or so into our time at Maenam (the name of the resort) we discovered that we had accidentally stumbled into a stoner's paradise. There weren't many people at the hotel (and Ness and I were the youngest ones - don't think we were in a backpacker area at all) but the few people we did see were sparking up all day long. I even saw one middle aged English geezer smokin' the Joe at 10 am in the morning. Pretty much hippie paradise.
We later discovered the reason for all the blatant smoking (and pretty much drugs in general, seeing as some guy offered Ness weed and ecstasy) was that the former Chief of Police of the Island either lived or worked at the resort (I forget which), and so police never bother to go to Maenam at all. So the former Chief of police is pretty much drug pimping the place, I reckon.

Maenam was nice for relaxing overall, but I got a bit bored towards the end of our 4 days, so we moved onto another area of the island called Lamai Beach. I say beach in the loosest possible terms, because we actually stayed an hour's walk from the beach itself, seeing as the beach bungalows were stupidly expensive. We did manage to do the hour's walk a couple of times though, it's amazing how far some people will walk for a beer.
The beach itself was nice, but was full of buff English men in their late 30's/early 40's prancing around in tiny swimming trunks with big 'bulges', showing off to whatever Thai girl (presumably paid for) was hanging off their arm. They might have thought they looked cool, but I personally thought they looked like the biggest woofters I have ever seen.
Ness and I have increasingly noticed the amount of middle aged Western men who walk around with a stunning Thai girl on their arm. Quite disturbing really, being as these men pretty much come out here for 'sex holidays'. Still, least it means they don't try to hit on me or Ness.
Lamai beach itself was pretty much a tourist resort full of Europeans. You pretty much could have airlifted it into Spain, and no one would have known the difference. It is very hard to remember you are in an exotic country like Thailand when there are fat middle aged bald English men with chains round their necks and their shirts off, wearing England baseball caps and waving pints of beer around in 'pubs'. Big fat old Chavs in other words.
Ness and I only stayed in Lamai for one night, funnily enough.

I have a bit of time to spare as Ness has badly sunburnt herself, and so I can't really do anything today, so I thought I'd update on the places we've been to so far.

Chiang Mai

As I might have mentioned before, Chiang Mai was lovely. I think it must have once been the old capital of the north of Thailand, as it's layout is separated into the 'Old City' which is a square in the heart of Chaing Mai, with four gates leading out into the newer city parts. It was more laid back there compared to Bangkok, there is less harassment from tuk-tuk drivers and touts. We also managed to source some temples, unlike Bangkok, where rain, crap maps and aggressive tuk-tuk drivers left us disoriented, and generally losing the will to live.
We have been trying to take photos of the orange robed Buddhist monks that roam the streets of Chiang Mai, but to no avail. They are very stealthy and seemingly don't like having their pictures taken. As soon as they see someone reaching for their camera bag, they turn and walk in the opposite direction. Which is a shame really, as I saw a monk on a mobile phone walking past a Honda dealership and it would have made the best picture ever. But fear not, South East Asia is predominantly Buddhist and so I will get a picture of one of those elusive orange robed deities yet.

The main reason we had gone to Chiang Mai was that we had booked a 3 day Hill Tribe trek from Bangkok to the Pai area in the hills of Chiang Mai.

The trek itself was amazing, we got to see a lot of the countryside in the hills, including rainforests and giant bamboo plants lining the river. Also the hugest butterflies I have ever seen.
The first day of the trek was hiking up a steep hill in 30 degree glaring sunlight feeling like I was going to collapse at any second. I soon got used to it however, as there was a lot of trekking up steep hills over those 3 days. Ness and I can proudly say that we were both physically fitter than we had previously thought, as we were at the front of the trekking group pretty much the entire time, whilst the very nice but annoyingly gorgeous girls in our group were huffing and puffing about 56 million miles behind us. I have never felt so smug in my entire life.

Both nights were spent in different hill tribe villages. It was interesting to see some traditional Thai village life, but when you think about how many tourists must tramp through these same areas, it adds a sad edge to things, as you're not seeing anything original or unique at all. It seemed as if we were walking round a zoo at some points, and I felt quite sad for the villagers, who must get gawped at all the time by Westerners with cameras. I felt a tad guilty as I was one of those Westerners, although the lady I asked to photograph thought she looked hilarious when I showed her the picture on the camera screen.
It was still fun to stay in those villages though, they don't have much electricity so both nights were spent playing drinking games round a fire. I have never learnt so many new drinking games in my life, but I know never again to play them with Thai whisky.

The lowest point of my trek was when I was terrorized by a giant black beetle whilst in a bamboo shower hut. The hut itself didn't have a roof, and so the beetle clearly spotted me from whatever lair it had been hiding in, and immediately zoomed over to circle the top of my shower where the roof would have been. On a few occasions it would zoom off elsewhere, but my relief would be short lived, as it would always return to sit on the top of the door to the shower, and stare at me.
You may think I am exaggerating this story, but I swear on my own life THAT BEETLE WAS WATCHING ME. It most definitely had some sort of terror strategy planned, as it would fly round the shower, fly off elsewhere to lull me into a false sense of security, and then return to it's perch on the gate to stare at me some more.
This routine continued for at least 10 minutes, as I couldn't get the gate door of the shower open, and so I had to crouch, shouting obscenities at the beetle, for about 10 minutes until one of my trek group walked past and helped me open the door.
Sometime after I had recovered from my ordeal, I was pleased to hear that the bastard beetle had been killed by one of the villagers, and so thus ended it's reign of terror upon sweaty Westerners who only wanted an innocent shower.

Thinking back to that story now reminds me of the terror Ness and I also suffered at the hands (or trunk) of a psychotic elephant. There was an elephant trek at the end of our tour, which basically meant that everyone sat on some elephants and they walked in a line through the forest for a fair bit.
Ness and I had dubbed our elephant "Heffalump" (from Winnie the Pooh) and it was soon apparent that Heff had some Rage issues. (Or even Sanity issues).
I say he had Rage as he kept starting up with a growling noise, and then progressing to violently sucking up and blowing out air with his trunk, and manically swiping at passing trees/bushes. Whilst everyone else's elephant happily trotted along behind the trainers, Heff decided to do anything but. He veered down steep banks, ran in the reverse direction, went left when everyone else went right, and vice versa. Ness and I both feared for our lives atop that maniac beast. There was ultimate relief when the ride stopped and we could get as far from Rageful Heff as possible.
It was only later that one of the girls on the trek mentioned that they hadn't picked Heff to ride because he had "Crazy Eyes". Ness and I have both vowed never to sit on top of another elephant.


After Chiang Mai we went back to Bangkok, but that was far too boring to write about. We are in Ko Samui now, although I have only been here for a day or two, so I will update with that another time.

It is bloody hot here, BTW ;)