Arnie, Nick and Joes big day out

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Hello everyone. I have finally managed to find the time (and effort) to email you all! It has been about 6 weeks since we left England so there is a lot of news.
So, we landed in Bangkok on the 6th Nov. Isn’t the nicest of places, lots of pollution, very hot and too many tourists. We stayed for a couple of days until Joe caught his flight to Australia. Most of that time was spent celebrating the beginning of the travels. Anyway when we got rid of Joe we booked a bus to Chang Mai (12 hour journey) and also a trek. We intended on having a days rest to recover from the journey, but when arrived we were persuaded to go on the trek straight away.
We jumped on a small truck and headed to the jungle. The first stop was elephant riding. It was quite worrying when the elephants were struggling to get up a river bank and started to slip. All was good and the guide got some good photos of us.
Got off the elephant and started the trekking- sweaty stuff. It was only about 20 degrees but it can get up to 45, we were lucky. After about 4-5 hours we arrived at a hill tribes camp where we were to stay the night. They are refugees from Burma who live in bamboo huts in the hills, miles from anywhere, no education or healthcare all self sufficient. Was really interesting, our guide (who was brilliant) spoke good English, told us all about how they lived and their history.
After they cooked some Thai curry for us, all the children sang songs, and to our surprise we had to sing famous English songs to them. Nick and I couldn’t think of any so the German lads decided which English songs to sing!!!
Day two was deeper into the jungle. The tribes dogs are trained to walk a few hundred yards in front to hunt dangerous animals. When we had to cross a rice field the dog would run off, sniff around so we knew if it was ok to walk across. If the dog started to bark we would all stop and the guide would go in front with his catapult ready to kill any snakes.
A friend of the guide also came with us, Buffalo Bill. He showed us what was poisonous and what we could eat. He drinks moonshine and smokes all day, eats BBQ rat and squirrel for dinner. He apparently could walk in the dark for two days and still find his way back to camp. His only english words are "lovelyjubbly" ,"lovelyjubblythebaby" for the ladies, and "diamondgeezaaa".
We stayed close to a waterfall that night where there was a deap lagoon to swim in. They cooked us more good food, drunk more moonshine and slept in bamboo huts again.
Day three started with a short trek to the bamboo rafts. To steer them you stand at the back with a large piece of bamboo, like punting (so it would have been a walk in the park for you dad). So after getting thrown in the river, we met up with the transport again and headed bask to Chang Mai.
After spending a couple of days relaxing we got a a bus down to Ko Pa Ngnan for the Full Moon Party. On the bus journey we met an Australian (Justin) who we travelled with for the next ten day, and have visited him in Melbourne, we’ll get to that later though!


Journey to Ko Pha Ngan, took about 27 hours by bus and ferry. Cost about 10 quid! Stayed on the quieter side of the island on a really relaxing, quiet beach. There was a restaurant on the beach who did a fresh sea food BBQ every night, so we ate there every night.
The Full Moon Party was exactly how you can imagine it- loads of messed up people dancing and passing out on beach, quite amusing, loads of fire jugglers (couldn’t resist having a spin on the Poi).
It was so nice here we had to spend a few more days relaxing (and getting over the hangovers).
We hired some peds out for a day, it was a really good way to see the island. There aren't really all that many roads on Ko Pha Ngan so spent alot of time on dirt tracks hunting for beaches and waterfalls! We went across to a tiny Isand called Ko mar and looked around for an hour or so- beautiful.

We managed to drag ourselves away of Ko Pha Ngan and headed to the even more beautiful Island of Phi Phi Don. This was sandly hit quite badly by the Tsunami, the was 800 dead and 1200 missing. It was amazing seeing the pictures of how it looked, and reading and hearing about their recovery efforts, they are doing pretty well.
We decided to do our open water scuba diving course here as it is one of the best places in Thailand to do it. We decided to learn with one of the smaller companies as it was only Nick and I with the instructor So we spent the next few days diving in stunning turquoise waters surrounded by limestone cliffs and perfect beaches. The instructor, Kate, was brilliant and we both felt very comfortable with her. She later told us that we were here first ever pupils, so it was a first for everyone. If there was a disappointment it was not seeing any sharks or turtle, but we fixed that later.
After our diving we spent a few days relaxing and exploring the surrounding attractions. Phi Phi Lay was the main. This was the Island were ‘The Beach’ was filmed. We hired a long tail boat to the Island and were told to swim though the cave towards the back of the Island and walk across the island as it the most impressive way to come onto ‘The Beach’.
After spending a few hours chilling we got back in the long tail boat and went to a small beach called monkey Island. We thought the monkeys there would be shy and it could be hard to get photos. We couldn’t have been more wrong. As soon as we pulled up a monkey jumped on the boat, went straight into Nicks bag, got his book and sunnys and threw them into the sea- comedy. The monkey then turned round and slapped me, Nick found that part funny.
The next day we made the sweaty walk up to the few point. The view was amazing.

That evening we booked a boat to mainland, bus to Kuala Lumpar, flight to Sabah (East Malaysia) and a bus to Kinabalu national park, to climb Mt Kinabalu, 4100 metre. The climb starts at about 1800 metres. We were briefed on what we need ta take with us the evening before the climb. They said it was likely to be cloudy as it is monsoon season so we might not see such a good sunrise at the top.
Started climb at about 9am and weather was good! Best start possible, aimed to get up to our resthouse for the night before the rain set in. The first climb was just unrelenting steps on rocks and trees for 6km. Good weather for the climb still quite warm though. The last 1km up to the resthouse killed us, very hard work. Made even worse when you see tiny locals carrying logs and supplies up the mountain without much problem! Took about 4.5- 5 hours to get up to Laban Rata, our resthouse for the night. Weather was suprisingly still clear, although it was changing every minute from clear to mist and back again, stunning views from here, watching the sun set from above the clouds is pretty cool. Went to bed at 6pm as had to be up at 2am to start the climb to the summit! This is where it got hard.... it was cold and the air was thin, the last 3km to the summit is just a constant granite slope upwards with thick white rope to drag yourself up on. I have never seen so many stars (see what you mean Amy), luckily it was a clear night, hopfully that would stay for sunrise. Nick was on a mission, he stormed off and I didn’t see him again until the summit. I climbed with three Swedes who were in the same group as us. We had to rest every 30-40 steps or so cos it was so tiring. Eventually we got to the top at about 5:15, in time for sunrise. It was amazing; there is not higher point in south East Asia so we really did have the perfect view. There were quite a few clouds but there were all below us so it probably made it look even better, the guides said we were really lucky. After taking about 50 photo it was time to start heading down. This ruined the legs even more than going up. The aching didn’t stop for about 5 days. It was bad enough being the only ginger in Malaysia, but being the only ginger in Malaysia who cant even walk properly got a lot a stares.
Still had a few days before our flight back to Singapore so headed to Sandakan on the East coast of Sabah. This is really off the ‘travel track’ and there was not much to do. But there was a scuba diving centre so we were temped to do some more diving. They said there was a 99.9% chance of seeing sharks and turtles, so we went for it!
We decided to do our advanced diving qualification as it is the cheapest place in the world to do it. To get to the dive sights we have to go on a boat for about an hour to a small tropical island called Sipidan. Sure enough on our first dive we saw about 3 sharks and 10 turtles. The turtles are really friendly and surprisingly big. One of our dives we took a camera down and got some good snaps.
After the course we read that Sipidan is the 3rd best place in the world to dive- what a find.
We then flew to Singapore, spent a day looking round then flew to Australia to hook up with Joe and Pam. Really nice place in quite a small town, just chilled for a bit.
We went to visit Justin in Melbourne for a few days. He and his friends built a hut it the middle of the countryside. It has a log fire, water but now electricity and can sleep about 10 people. He knew what he was doing as he is a carpenter by trade (contact for you Tim, hes got lots of work going next year, 2006). He has a small wood burning oven which he and a couple of his friends cooked us a roast- good nosh. We went for a ramble in the 4 wheel drive which we managed to get it stuck. Played with the rifles and shotguns for a while (only shooting cans, not kangaroos).
Pam flew out from Sydney on the 27th so we went to see her off. We then caught a train to the Blue mountains where we plan to se waterfalls and cliffs!
Anyway, this is the biggest emal if ever writen and I'm tired now. I'm sure your bored aswell!!
Happy Christmas everybody.
Chris.

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