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... To another installment of "Ball Soup in Thailand!". We now cross live to Ao Nang Beach, Krabi Province, for a special on the scene episode of today's program, where Nemo is locked in a small and humid net cafe. Over to you Nemo!!!"
Thanks Bob! I'm sitting here in beautiful Ao Nang beach, and I'm beside myself with excitement as two sweat beads are having a race down the inside of my Thai. It's a fine line between pleasure and pain. But seriously, Aleks and I are sitting here catching up with all the people we have to catch up with, and in addition to this, have a lot to tell you.
We last left you in Ko Lanta, after spending our day riding around on the scooter. The next day we managed to get absolutely nothing done; beetling around for the last few hours of our mo-a-bike rental, buying little presents for the fam in Poland etc, and in the hot stormy afternoon sitting around at Blue Andaman reading our books, drinking a few beers and generally being sloth-like.
That night we hung out with Team Brazil for a little longer, and planted our asses squarely
on the deck of the Sound Bar. The bar's owners had luckily come out of short term retirement - this meant for us that there was more booze than just beer, beer or warm beer coming from the bar, so we jumped right in and had a glass of nasty white wine or 4, and a sickly cocktail of death, both of which were immensely enjoyable after a constant stream of Changs and Singhas.
We then were given some of a questionably large cigarette by Muslim Alex, which Mr Brazil and I decided to smoke with gusto. I decided (impulsively, as I always do) that it was time to see if the Green Demons of 6 years ago were real... Would I barf happily off the side of the deck shortly after smoking and go to bed in the ocean, or would the reggae music and the bonfire make it an evening to remember? Well, we sat around the bonfire and smiled a lot, and somehow in the process I lost my legs and instead moved around by holding my arms out like an Aeroplane. We all decided very quickly to go to bed, and whilst sitting on the
bed later having being goaded into giving Aleks a foot rub (pfft!), I decided that even though I came out okay, the Rasta life just isn't really my thing :D
A couple of uneventful days later, it was off to Krabi town, the Capital City of Krabi in an air-conditioned mini-van with an old ship engineer-type guy from Austria, and Bill (pronounced Bull), a restauranteur from Sarth Efrica. The trip went quickly and we went on two very safe car ferries (ahem!) before arriving in Krabi.
We were certain that upon arrival in Krabi-town that every raindrop in the history of the universe had been sent on a mission to saturate us. As exciting as the tourism office was, we could only take so much of being flogged crappy rooms at double-price so they could score commissions, but still had to wait for at least 20 minutes while the Tornady passed. Eventually we got across the road, got absolutely saturated AGAIN, and had a lovely lunch of something resembling sandwiches. It was here that we began to discover that Krabi was a vaccuous black hole for the money of the traveller. Prices immediately doubled in everything food and
drink, but luckily we found a room for 250B in a little boarding house down the road with a lovely couple of ladies running it.
We had a bit of housekeeping to do in Krabi - namely me posting home all my dive manuals to Sydney and getting my Visa extended at Krabi Immigration. Bye bye 2800B. But unfortunately that's the way it goes in this corrupt little place. If it weren't for those two things, we definitely wouldn't have stayed. Krabi, although quite pretty in terms of greenery, a pretty Buddhist Temple and not smelling like a donkey's butt, is a fairly large and commercial place, packed with brand names and mad taxi drivers. Except on Sundays. The place is like a gut-shot Energiser Bunny on Sundays, with the only place open being a few terribly priced restaurants, and a Rasta bar, complete with hyperactive drug-peddling Louie, a miniature Bob Marley who kept telling us his name. After several hours of cocktails and many offers of interesting substances from Louie, we bailed to get some 'normal' food at a local Italian joint.. as I have mentioned before, sometimes you need breaks for air in the midst of the
Thai food... so that was quite nice. Oh, and another dose of Thai pancakes with Banana, Nutella and other stuff afterwards.
Next day saw us off to Dawn of Happiness (pronounced Daw-happeenet in Thai) in Ao Nammao beach. This place happened to have been habitated by Mama and Papa Wetzlich nearly 15 years ago, back in the days of their sweaty Thai adventures, and Aleks was absolutely adamant that we were going to see if it was still standing, so I obliged as I usually do. We managed to get a private mo-a-bike tuk-tuk taxi where-you-goeeeng to take us out there for 100B, which was quite interesting, as I'm sure that the combined weight of the driver, the bike and the side car was less than Me, Aleks and our four bags. But we got there in style to find that D-O-H was still there! Excellent stuff. We parked our bums there for the night and did some walking and reading and bumming. Met a pommy girl from Fulham called Olivia.
I would just like to point out at a break in the story that some of the best food that we have had, and one of the
most extensive menus that we have seen so far, has been courtesy of the guys at little old DOH. Beautiful Thai Pancakes with Thai Salsa for breakfast, Stir-fried pumpkin in a lovely sauce, and awesome cheap cocktails at night. Mine was called Monkey Madness, so I had to get it obviously.
Next day - to East/West Railay, the Mecca for every loudmouthed stupid American (sorry Sean), arrogant Frog and yabbering UK lad in Thailand. Yep, it's the rich side of town that you see in all the Thailand photo sites. It's stunningly beautiful (look up West Railay Beach on the net) and accordingly EXTORTIONATELY expensive. We took a longboat to get there for 140B, and stayed at YaYa resort on Easy Railay. I would advise all of you to never, EVER go there. Although the room was satisfactory, the water was brown in the shower and the toilet and smelled like rust/dirt, and the staff were the most miserable pack of jackasses I've ever seen. No smiles, no hello's, no thankyou's. Piffle. After settling in our room we went for a look around at the other places, and then beach-geared-up and over to West Railay Beach. Wow. Stunning.
Had lunch, cried over the price, sat on the beach and swam, then wandered off to the pub where we sat next to (you guessed it!) a table brimming with loud Yanks! Make no mistake, I LIKE Americans like Sean and the ones that stay IN America, but when the even-louder ex army jock with the armband tattoos and "Big Dick's Restaurant" T-shirt turned up and started giving high-fives, we'd had enough, haha. So we had dinner at the same place we went before, cried, and then went early to bed. After waking up an hour later, both unable to sleep, we finally got back to sleep only to be woken up by aforementioned UK knobs at 2:30am. I eventually dragged myself up there and told them to can it. They turned the music down, and their speaking up accordingly. Bloody foreigners.
So that brings us to today. We've moved to Ao Nang, which is a bit less Vegas and a bit more Noosa, got a lovely room for 400B ($15) a night and another Scooter for 175B ($6.50), and here we are.
Now that the lady who owns the Net cafe has just lit up a fat
joint next to her granddaughter, I'm going to make a move before the smell gets too overpowering.
Rubs and tickles,
Fishy
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