More from Thailand

Its Mojito Madness night at our local bar so we thought we'd settle in with a big old jug and do another blog update. Its a hard life, this travelling...

Last time around we were sat in a bar in Koh Tao with Alex's friend Bekka, and I was nursing a foot infection. Since then we haven't done all that much moving around; we really liked Koh Tao and stayed there for ten days in total, then briefly visited hell on Earth - sorry, Koh Samui - before making the longish trip west to the Andaman Coast, ending up in Koh Phi Phi.

The main reason for staying in Koh Tao was getting some diving in - we tried to talk Bekka into doing a Discover Scuba dive but after a days snorkelling she seemed content to stay on the surface. So whilst it was still the three of us we crammed in quite a bit of fun and games, starting with a day out on quad bikes.



This was really good fun, you could explore pretty much the entire island - its only 20 km square, and there is really only one main road - in a day. The road quickly gives way to dirt tracks as soon as you leave the main town, which provided ample opportunities for off-road adventuring. Our mission was to visit all of the small bays around the island, and we made it to most of them. This was our favourite :



As we had two quads we rotated drivers throughout the day. Bekka won the Evel Knievel award for stunt driving hands down - her approach to getting up the steep bumpy bits consisted of screaming and then going double hard on the throttle. Extremely effective, but it also had Alex screaming for dear life as she clung on the back.

After having a brief panic due to running out of petrol, we managed to get back to the main road and hit the local crazy golf. It turned out to be a pretty decent 18, with some suitably crazy bits :



Despite an impressive hole-in-one from Bekka, James came away with the victory (after obviously taking it far too seriously, and shouting "spirit of the hole" at anyone who dared to take shortcuts.)

The next day was our last day with Bekka, and she'd requested one last day on the beach to maximise her tanning time. That night we hit the town and started off with a 3 litre beer tower at Choppers before heading to Lotus bar, the main club on the island.



We said our goodbyes the next day and faced the reality of it being just us two again.

Next up was diving, we booked in with the cheapest diving school we could find and crossed our fingers (the budget has taken a bit of a hit in Thailand :-S) Luckily the only complaint was the lack of a decent lunch on board - the dives were still amazing and no one got left behind - bonus!



I think that day we visited Japanese Gardens (loads of different coral types) and White (or maybe Green) Rock. The second dive site had a smallish wreck we swam through, and a pretty fierce current, so it was quite challenging but good fun. Its an amazingly knackering past-time, and because you normally start so early in the morning it pretty much writes off the rest of the day. Afternoon naps become epic 5 hour sleeps, and you get this weird floating sensation when you close your eyes... all good fun though =)

We'd developed a bit of an evening routine by this point - cocktails at sunset on the west facing beach. The bars all have lounging around cushions on their decks, making it the ultimate in relaxation.



Obviously after a few cocktails it would be wrong not to try some tree climbing, and fortunately there were a few palm trees dotted along the beach that didn't pose too much of a challenge :)



We wanted to do another dive - to a site called Chumphon Pinnacle - which everyone said was the best site around Koh Tao. But the weather conspired against us for a few days, so we stuck around and filled in the time with more beach lounging and another day of exploring on the quads.

Giles - this one is for you. Inspired by your comment about the half-finished road and cliffs from our drive around Samui that time, Alex and I had to go even further off-road to try and find something to beat it. This "road" lead up to the reservoir at the highest point on the island... I wouldn't have fancied it in a car to be honest, the quads just about fit on the bit of track that wasn't totally churned up.



We also visited the cove we both liked from the last trip, and Alex grabbed a snorkel and mask and went exploring. (I'm not sure you can see her that clearly in this photo, but she made it out to a rocky outcrop in the bay.)



The next day we got lucky with the weather and the cheap and cheerful dive shop were going out to Chumphon, so we signed up and headed out. It was well worth the wait, as this was definitely my best dive yet. The site is centered around a huge underwater pinnacle, which is far enough out in the ocean that it attracts all sorts of creatures to stop and have a break there. Sadly we didn't get to see anything amazingly exciting (Alex was hoping for a sight of the rare whale sharks that sometimes stop off), but we swam with school of large angelfish, and thousands of other assorted swimming things.

After one last day of lounging around, we decided to move on. It was a toss up between heading West then towards the other coast, or taking a few days to visit Koh Samui properly. We were a bit worried about the weather on the other coast - it is their rainy season now - and hadn't heard anything from Bekka to say it was sunny, so we booked a boat over to Samui. Within about 10 minutes we got the message from Bekka saying it was amazingly sunny, and Koh Phi Phi was one of the best places she'd been yet... typical timing!

We'd booked the ticket at short notice so we were resolved to going to Samui for a few days. We still had about 12 days left in Thailand as well, so it made sense to try and make the most of each area.

I'd been to Samui before with the CMC gang, but we pretty much spent our time there in the confines of a lovely 5-star beach resort. I can vaguely remember we went out one night (when Si's brother Dave came over to meet us?) in the town, but my hazy memories didn't prepare us for the reality of Samui's big towns four years on.

We landed in the main city, Chaweng, and quickly found a cheap room along the main road. The town is pretty much one massive long road that stretches down the coast, with plenty of fancy hotels on the beach and lots of bars, shops and food places along the main road.. and even a couple of branches of Boots too. It was all nice enough, but the beach was hawker central, to the point where you'd get harassed every five minutes without fail.

In the evening the place became a cross between a poor man's Ibiza and the most salacious parts of London's Soho. Almost all of the neon-lit bars featured gangs of Thai women being chatted up by much much older western men. Not really the sort of night we were aiming for, that's for certain.

We wrote that off as a bad choice of town, so the next day we headed down the coast to the quieter town of Lamai. We found a really nice place to stay, and then rented a moped again and went exploring. We hadn't done any uber-touristy stuff for a while, so we headed for some waterfalls and stopped off to do a quick elephant ride on the way =)



This was probably the highlight of Samui - it was just the two of us, the elephant and a chap to make sure it didn't run amok. After we'd got about 10 minutes away from the main buildings the chap jumped down and wandered off behind us leaving the elephant free to wander. Fortunately it seemed pretty well trained, and we got to sit on its neck, and see it picking up a huge palm tree trunk whilst we were clinging on for dear life. All good fun. We also visited the local branch of Tesco, which was quite the culture shock after spending so long in tiny beach shops.

That night we hit the town again hoping for better things... but no such luck. Lamai was just as nasty... the faint hearted might want to look away now (also note to family - might not want to send this bit to the grandparents :p) This is an oh-so-creative collage of some of the bar names we found on our walk around town :



It really was this bad. There were two areas in the town which just contained bar after bar - a bit like stalls at a fair - chock full of girls with older blokes lining the seats around the edges. I know you hear the stories about sex-tourism on the news back home every now and again, but it was a different ball game coming face to face with it ourselves. Maybe we being a bit prudish, but it was quite an easy decision to head off to the west coast the next day.

The journey was another bus-boat-coach-boat epic, taking about 11 hours... but as soon as we climbed off the ferry and walked down the jetty on Koh Phi Phi it was totally worth it. This place is 100% desert island paradise.



We've been here a few days now, and are really enjoying it. Its definitely overcrowded - and this is the low season as well - but its not too overwhelming as pretty much everyone here are backpackers. The main town is built on a strip of land between two big hills, and has a beach running down both sides. The bars, shops and hotels are all packed in along this strip, so everything is really close by.

The only downside is things here are really pricey! We paid 1600 baht for two dives in Koh Tao, but here they want 2500 baht. There seems to be some price fixing cartel action going on, which hardly seems like cricket. Our daily budget is only 3000 baht, so for both of us to dive it means we can't eat for a couple of days :( We still can't decide on that one... we might do some rock climbing as well, or do an overnight camping trip on the island they filmed "The Beach" on - but they are also really expensive sadly.

We've only got 8ish more days in Thailand before our 30 day visa runs out, so we are starting to think of where to head to in Malaysia. We both really hope its more like Vietnam than Thailand - the over-development of the islands and crazy prices here mean its not in the same league as Vietnam. Still, the beaches are amazing, and the views are breathtaking, so it can't be all bad... =)

End of Vietnam, start of Thailand

Its update time - and this time we're writing from a totally packed bar in Ko Tao. So yep we've managed to make it from Vietnam to the fourth country on our trip - Thailand. Before we get into that too much, we've got the end of the Vietnam story to tell...

We were coming to the end of our time in Nha Trang last time, and we spent a few more days there doing more touristy stuff after the diving related fun. One of the more bizarre attractions we visited was called Vin Pearl; its a cross between Jurassic Park and Alton Towers, a theme park set on an island over the harbour from Nha Trang. Motorbike taxis have been a fairly common form of transport for us in Vietnam, so I took the chance to grab a photo on the way to the port. (They call them "Honda Om", which apparently roughly translates to "motorbike embrace", which pretty much sums it up.)



If you went all-in on that last update and read the diving blog we linked, you'll have seen the pylons for the cable car that links the two together. Its a completely weird experience, going on a cable car over water. The boat must have been too much effort or something... anyway they managed to make the whole trip over very disconcerting by playing really strange music into a poorly connected speaker inside the gondola. (For the gamers out there, think the entrance area in Bioshock - twenties music with bursts of static, all that was missing were flickering lights.) Anyway it doesn't look very sinister when you get closer, and fortunately everyone was alive when we got of the cable car - no sign of escaped dinosaurs or anything.



The concept seemed quite good - there were a few pretty good rides to go on, a waterpark, and a pretty big aquarium as well.



This was really good, they had a whole load of different fish and it gave us a chance to take pics of the sea creatures we'd seen whilst diving - they'd populated quite a few of the tanks with the local wildlife.

The waterpark was really good fun too - neither of us had been to one for so long we were like kids running around for a good hour or so to try everything out. They had a really cool slide where you sat in a two person dingy thing and got pushed down the side of a huge watery halfpipe. It was obviously tuned for the locals as with my slightly heavier bulk we almost shot off the other side. I dont think Alex has ever yelled so much, but thankfully we landed back inside the ride and it was quite a laugh after that bit =)

This one was quite a tame one in comparison, but near to the changing rooms so we could get the camera out.



We'd been in Nha Trang for quite a while by this point, so we'd tried most of the bars and it was a toss up between the Sailing Club and the place from the last blog (Louisianne Brewhouse) - I got hooked on their pilsner and Alex on their dark lager.



And that was that for Nha Trang. We were sad to leave again, it didn't have the character of Hoi An but it was a bit more lively and the diving really made it brilliant. We left south for Ho Chi Min City (formally known as Saigon) on a night bus - this was a really weird concept... picture a typical coach but double bunks running down both windows and one down the middle. Again we fell foul of the local's scale, neither of us could really lie down flat in the beds but somehow we managed to make it through the 10 hour overnight trip.

People had tried to prepare us for the shock to our system when we reached the city, it was a lot like Hanoi but a lot bigger and lot crazier.



We arrived at 6am and grabbed a taxi from the bus stop to the backpackers area, but unfortunately for us we'd fallen straight into the sleepy-tourists-straight-of-the-night-bus-wont-notice-the-meter-shooting-up scam. After a barely ten minute journey we were facing a 5 quid plus charge when we knew full well it shouldn't have cost anywhere near that. After a fun bit of early morning shouting we managed to extricate ourselves without too much of a dent in the pockets... after that we needed a sit down and went to get breakfast.

But within minutes of finding a cafe we were approached by a slightly bewildered Australian girl who had a pretty horrific tale of drunkenness and alleged taxi-based drugging and kidnap from the night before. She was so disoriented she couldn't find her way back to her hotel, so we did our best to help her out - hard considering we'd been in the city for all of about 15 minutes by this point.

Talk about a warm welcome to a new place... Saigon was going to be a challenge. Fortunately we'd only have to face it for a couple of days, as our flight to Bangkok was looming.

The differences between Hanoi and HCMC/Saigon were pretty clear straight away - Saigon seems a lot more cut-and-thrust capitalist than the capital, and still seems a lot more affected by the war. We headed for the "top attraction", the War Remnants Museum.



It started with a load of captured US weapons and whatnot, but quickly moved onto the horrific stories surrounding the American's use of illegal chemical and biological weapons. There was an entire room showing almost one hundred photos of the victims of agent orange/dioxin poisoning through the generations taken by Japanese humanitarians working to raise the ongoing issues facing the people. This was a totally shocking eye opener for us, neither of us having been around at the time and only having picked up bits and pieces from history. Some bits of text were obviously presented from a propaganda/bias point of view - the communist terminology is pretty thick at points - but you just can't argue against the pictures.

(I don't know if we've mentioned it before - travelling is making us a bit more political - I guess it can't fail to raise your awareness of issues you haven't necessarily had to face back home. This stuff really opens your eyes to the nonsense that goes on in world politics, how the US can really sit on a high-horse about anything to do with bio/chem weapons after this is just beyond crazy.)

The next day was a bit more of the same - almost like war tourism - we visited the Cu Chi tunnels just outside of the city. These are a section of the actual tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the way which have been tidied up for the tourists. There were a whole load of things to do there - it all started with a hilarious propaganda video that must have seemed like a cracking idea when they made it in what must have been the late 70s. (Seriously, its like the terracotta army place, update your videos at least once a decade!)

What made us chuckle the most - and I really don't remotely think we should actually have been laughing but no one could stop themselves - was the part of the video that was praising the so called "heroes" of the resistance. The commendations they gave out to these people were amazingly bloodthirsty - one you girl had managed to clock up "Tank Killer", "Plane Killer" and the "Killer of Americans" medals. Crazy.

The first stop after that were the trap door entrances, and everyone got a chance to try and squeeze into the opening. I didn't take any chances with my bulk... so Alex had to go for it instead =)



We had a fairly detailed introduction to all the types of vicious traps that were used - our guide chuckled merrily as he speculated one of the spinning death pit traps was "probably big enough to kill an entire platoon" - it was equal measures shocking/bizarre/eye opening.

The supposed highlight was a section of tunnel that had been expanded a little so we could actually fit.



The full length was about 200m, but we managed about 110m before blind panic set in and we had to get out. It was just about tall enough to walk at an extremely uncomfortable stoop, but it was so hot and stuffy. Then he tells us the original tunnels were only 80cm square, which we would never had fit inside.

After that took the opportunity to fire an AK47 at their firing range. They had all sorts of stuff you could shoot if you shelled out (ha) for the expensive bullets - all the way up to the massive machine guns from Rambo. The AK was the cheapest and most authentic (we could have tried an M16 but we were definitely siding with the locals at this point) so we bought 10 bullets and hopelessly missed the target with every single one of them :p The bang is incredible, way louder than anything you can imagine from a film. The best bit of this was seeing the crazy old chap who chaperoned us (who had clearly fired a fair few rounds himself in his day) grinning like crazy as Alex gave it a go - its clearly more a boy thing.

The flight to Bangkok left in the evening the following day, so we packed for the plane and headed for the airport. We'd kind of made a slight balls up on the planning and managed to overstay our visas by a day, but having checked the government website it seemed there was a one day grace period to leave the country. But try telling this to the people at the airport... from the look on the face of the check in lady it was like we'd just shot someone. There was no way we could get our boarding passes, so I had to go and talk to the immigration people. But the immigration place was after security, where I couldn't go without a boarding pass (real clever airport design eh). I finally convinced them to let me through and managed to find the chaps with the guns - after about 10 minutes of confused english and apologetic noises from me they scribbled something on our exit cards and said it would be ok to leave. It probably said something quite rude in Vietnamese, but hey it got us through the airport without having to shell out for a visa extension. Closest call yet.

So that was it for Vietnam - an amazing month bookended by hectic cities but best remembered for the amazingly relaxed time we had along the cost on the way down. Like we said before it maybe a result of the timing, but Vietnam is definitely the highlight of countries we've been to so far. Anyway, next stop Thailand...

(Arg I'm writing too much again, will try and cut to the chase a bit more!)

The first plan in Thailand was to meet up with Alex's friend Bekka in Ko Pha Ngan - one of the classic backpacker island destinations on the west coast. It was a bit of a mission to get there - the flight into Bangkok followed by a train, a bus, two boats and a couple of jeeps! But we made it, and our first hit of Thai beer rewarded us when we arrived :



We launched straight into tourist mode and rented a jeep to go sightseeing. The first place we found with a spare jeep was a reggae bar around the corner, so we ended up cruising around in style in the rasta-mobile.



Our intention was to visit some of many waterfalls on the island (its only small, takes about 30 minutes tops to get from one end to the other) but unfortunately we'd got the timing wrong and it hadn't rained for almost a year - so we saw a lot of lovely forest and some rocks, but pretty much zero water. So instead we stopped off at anywhere that looked interesting, and along the way we passed an elephant trekking place which had some say looking monkeys tied up. Its impossible not to go and have a look even though its not exactly a nice thing to do (quite a lot of these things we'd never get away with in Europe, shooting guns, petting tied up monkeys, definitely guilty pleasures), but anyway this monkey took one look at Alex and attacked.



Only kidding, it was just trying to rob her and went straight for her purse. I guess the monkey has to keep the elephants in bananas some how...

The real reason we'd made it all the way to Ko Pha Ngan was for the legendary Full Moon beach party that happens... well, every full moon. It has got something of a chequered reputation, its not unheard of for people to come a serious cropper due to bad drugs and over indulgence, but its something of a must-do if you are backpacking in Thailand. To be honest I wasn't looking forwards to watching a load of drugged up students dancing around to trance music all night... but it just shows you shouldn't listen to everything people say - we all had a brilliant night and would definitely do it again. On with the pictures =)

We'd also met up with some friends of Bekka's - Lisa and Nisa - who also knew some friends from their native germany who were heading to the party too. So we ended up with a really nice gang of people to go out with.



The setup was pretty simple - you buy booze in the form of crazy buckets: 80% vodka, 10% coke and 10% syrupy thick Thai redbull. There were stalls selling this stuff lining the beach, along with lots of hippy style stalls selling body paint and other bits and bobs.



There was also quite a lot of flaming stuff to look at - these guys were amazing :



There was also a burning skipping rope for those loons who were too far gone to know any better... fortunately there were medical centres (and sleeping-it-off areas) all the way along the beach.

It was really good fun sitting around on the beach chatting, and wandering up and down the beach checking out the sites. We found a particular booze stall that unfortunately didn't give us the discount we hoped for...



We'd booked a taxi to make our escape at 4am (the red bull in all the drinks made this a very easy stretch) so things obviously got a little sketchy towards the end of the night (you'll notice the paint on Bekka looks like it was applied by a monkey, whilst the paint on Alex is all nicely done - guess which one of them is the art student ?)



We've had a special request from Alex's Mum to show you where we were staying - the standard sort of accommodation in these parts is the beach side bungalow :



After a few more days on Pha Ngan we caught the ferry northwards to Ko Tao - this is where I learned to dive a few years back on my previous trip to Thailand. Unfortunately I managed to pick up a pretty mild foot infection so I've had to take it easy for a few days, but Alex and Bekka have been out exploring. Their first nights entertainment was textbook Thai entertainment... a Lady Boy show.



For Giles, Brownie, Si and Si - Siam Scuba is still here and looks to be going strong, but the place we stayed has been knocked down long ago. I remember it being right at the edge of town when we stayed there, but the place is soooo much bigger now, so many more bungalows and dive shops. For a long time I didn't think it was the same place we stayed, but sure enough I'm writing this from Choppers bar which I'm pretty sure we had a pint or two in during our last visit. Good memories =)

Thats about it for now, hopefully my foot will sort itself out (our hotel is opposite a medical centre, we're fine Mum :p) and we can get some more diving in. After that, who knows...