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Published: December 26th 2007
Sunset on Kata beach
As the sun-baked revellers drifted off into the night, the local fishermen emerged to reclaim the seaHeat, everywhere and fragrance perfuming the air - flowers, vegetation, herbs and spices. Insects, geckos, birds, even snakes slither by in the undergrowth and you're thrilled when the heavens open and cool water rains heavily on the palm trees. Beaches of white sand, jade sea, filled with fish of all colours and sizes, and below them again, the coral. Thailand - beautiful, lush, at times friendly, at others full of schemesters trying to get their hands on your last few Baht. The type of lacksadasical governance that can frustrate you when the boat is two hours later, or the bus doesn't arrive, or a coconut almost falls on your head, or the generator goes and you're plunged into darkness, yet that can thrill you when you're handed a jeep or moped with no questions about your insurance, or licence, just a hand out for three euro in payment, or a gecko falls on your head (Alan) or holding on for dear life on the back of a tuk-tuk, half dreading the moment, half thrilled. We've been here for three weeks, and it's been amazing.
Humid heat engulfed us as we made our way from the air-conditioned airport to find the
Koh Nangyuan
A stunning island near Koh Tao surrounded by spectacular coral and a huge vriety of marine life way into town. Jackets, hoodies, extra layers of t-shirts were peeled off and so began our time in Thailand. The plane had been delayed, some mechanical fault, unnamed, and we were tired, late, homeless in Bangkok. Time was marching on, and we decided to take a taxi to the city centre. Our taxi driver was charming, friendly and inquisitive about who we were, what we were doing in Bangkok, how much we wanted to spend on accommodation. By the time he took over the conversation and started offering Alan a suit, I was relieved to sit back and enjoy the city which was whizzing by at breakneck speed.
An hour later, when the taxi driver was taking the longest amount of time possible to eek the last Baht out of the meter, pretending roads were closed, and trying to force us to take his friend's accommodation, I was less pleased. We abandoned the taxi driver, him frustrated that we didn't take his friend's place, us frustrated at how much Baht he had taken from us, and we made our way to the Khao San Road, our annoyance put to a side as we were stopped in our tracks by
New life
Thailand is very lush and fertile hundreds of Thais all wearing yellow tops in honour of the King. As we neared the road, we came to a sudden halt - throngs of people all looked up as the sound of the first firework went off. The King's eightieth birthday. There's nothing like fireworks to welcome you to a country, we both found ourselves smiling.
Luckily the first hotel we tried had a room free, and so a few minutes later we were walking down the Khao San Road, delighting in the commerce, lights, excitement, hedonistic fun that assaulted our senses at every glance. After such a long time in China, this was so different, and warm, I wasn't sure if I was dreaming. The next day we got up and had a swim in our rooftop pool - over the next two days we visited the pool seven times, which I think is good value for money. Even though the hotel was full, the same twelve or so people spent a lot of time in the pool so we were sad leaving our little gang and the blue rectangle of water. Bangkok was very much an administrative stop for us this time, we are going
Khao San Rd. Bangkok
Noise, commerce, ladyboys and many big pink westerners - total culture shock after China! back to spend some time where we'll look at the sights, before flying to Singapore, so we spent time arranging flight changes, getting supplies and other necessary things after a few months on the road.
A couple of days later, having had the first of many annoying encounters with Travel Agents who (and other travellers we've met have confirmed this) seemed to want to confuse and frighten us into buying expensive rooms, we left frustrated, and then after having a laugh at their scare tactics, we ended up buying our accommodation online and flying to Phuket ourselves. When we got there there was no problem with accommodation - so for anyone in a Travel Agent in Thailand where someone is trying to sell you a room for three thousand baht, you'll get a room on spec at much less if you drop in yourself. There was no shortage of accommodation from what we saw.
We made our way to a beach called 'Karon' which is on Phuket. We took a mini-bus (thinking we were smart as it was cheaper than the taxi) which made an unannounced detour via a travel agent in the middle of nowhere, all passengers
Aoife on Phi-phi
Beautiful! This was by far the hottest day we'd experienced since arriving in Thailand had to get out and sit with an individual travel agent who would say, 'where you staying?' and try to sell you trips and so on. Eventually everyone piled back in and we drove through Patong, which isn't very nice at all, and then after most people got out, looking a little worried and saying things like 'well, I suppose we can't complain' and 'maybe the beach is nice' the bus went on to Karon. We weren't sure what to expect.
First off, the beach in Karon is beautiful - clear jade water, velvety soft almost white sand - within twenty minutes I was in swimming about, it was gorgeous to swim in. And the food - amazing - Thai food - whether it's street food or in a restaurant, has been a total sensation for our tastebuds, delicious. The place we were staying was nice, owned by an English man, Michael de la Roche who used to play football for Westham and managed a team - he also has an Irish connection, and was very involved in arranging Phil Lynott's tribute events and had loads of photos of himself with famous footballers (Pele and so on). Karon town
isn't gorgeous though - lots of bars with bored looking Thai women (and men-women) trying to entice men to come in. The crowd the place attracted was strange too, there are a lot of resorts so it was real 'family' or 'single older man looking for Thai lady' segmentation, strange - we didn't really fit in. The next beach down, Kata was gorgeous - lots of long tail boats and men stretching out fishing nets in the evening while a girl would sear kebabs on a charcoal barbq on wheels for a few cent. There were a lot of evacuation signs in the event of a Tsunami, but thankfully other than that the effects of the recent disaster were not so evident.
After a few days of eating and swimming we moved on by boat over first off to Phi-Phi where we made a brief spot - that island is amazing, something from Coral Island or Robinson Crusoe. Shoals of fish swimming in clear waters, stunning vegetation and karst like rock formations. Then we went to Ko Lanta, a predominantly Muslim island which is really laid back, only around 20,000 people live on the island. We were staying on
Klong Nin, a really cool beach with loads of beach bars, wooden temporary dwellings, beach huts, impromptu flame throwing in the night-time. Where we were staying was right beside a Mosque so every few hours a rather bored sounding Imam would burst into rambling prayer, his voice trailing off at the end of every sentance, as though he were shy or embarrased. It was a lovely few days, very relaxed, looking around a little stunned at the coconut trees, realising we were actually in Thailand. The island is really empty and it feels as though the vegetation is about to take over all the time - you get the impression that if you planted anything it would thrive, and a walk down the road is an auditory dream, with frogs, insects, cicadas all talking away amongst themselves. One morning I headed off by myself for a swim and tried to find a new way down to the beach, walking across a rickety wooden bridge my eyes were drawn to a movement in the grass, and I was amazed to see a snake slithering through. It was bliss for a swim, with whole long stretches of beach entirely to yourself. Our
place had an orchid garden and just walking around was a pleasure as there were millions of butterflies, huge and small, all different colours and patterns. One night on the way back from a few drinks by the sea Alan was opening the door to our room and a gecko fell on his head - I thought this was hilarious but it was alarming for him I'd say.
Leaving the island by mini-bus involved taking two individual car-ferries, and by the time we arrived in Krabi we were already nervous about making our connection. The driver didn't seem to know what he was doing and brought us to a travel agency where five of us were put into another mini-bus - a couple from Eastern Europe, Ashley, a London-Indian and ourselves. We got chatting with Ashley as we made our way to Surat Thani. However on arrival in Surat Thani we were dumped outside another travel agency where a smug looking woman sat in command of her office and tried to extort an extra 350 baht out of each of the five of us. 'That ticket you have, it is for the slow boat' she said, 'and so you
arrive in Ko Phangan at 10.30, maybe 11.00 or even 12 tonight.' We looked at her in disbelief, all five of us having been told that our ticket would get us there at 6.30. Getting annoyed at her she said, 'hey, you say I cheating? I not lying or cheating.' And when we didn't seem to buy her proposal she then said mysteriously, 'you know what, maybe the boat even take longer, as the sea very low today is' and then added, 'so you want buy fast ferry tickets or what then?'
Well the five of us took a vote and the couple, who had accommodation booked, decided to wait for the boat, slow or not, low sea or not. In a bit of an annoyed panic Ashley, Alan and I requisitioned a tuk-tuk driver to drive us to the pier. He wasn't too keen on the idea, but we were so exasperated at this point that we demanded a lift and ridiculed his prices, getting a reasonable price in the end and tossing our bags onboard. After fifty minutes driving at 30 miles per hour along a highway where we were being overtaken by grannies and jeeps at
Aoife swims pt.1
In our hotel pool in Bangkok - total godsend in the humidity! a ferocious rate, the tuk-tuk driver getting looks of object disbelief from people walking by and being beeped to heavens, we consulted our guidebooks, sure that the driver was driving in circles. However we soon realised that the pier in question was over 70 kilometres from Surat Thani and so we hadn't probably chosen the wisest form of transport. The journey took an hour and a half... It was very funny, and I don't even think some people we passed had ever seen a tuktuk in them parts. At the pier we ran into some hippy-type travellers who were trying to sell us their tickets and make their way elsewhere, we offered them the tuk-tuk but they said, 'hey man, it's fine, there's always a tuktuk in this country, isn't there?' We got the feeling they didn't realise that they were 70 kms from the town but we were in a hurry so made our way to the ticket stall where we bought tickets for 110 baht to Ko Samui, the island beside Ko Phangan.
Exhausted we arrived in Ko Samui, determined not to be ripped off. Instantly circled by taxi drivers who refused to put on the meter
Fire thrower on Koh Lanta
THis dude was the coolest guy on Koh Lanta - really energetic and chatty, and handy with the flame-thrower we stood around confused until we spotted a moto piled with bags and people. It was a lot cheaper so we got on it, however there wasn't an awful lot of space, and luckily for me two German guys, a couple, made room for me. Alan, Ashley and our new friend Alex clung on to the rear, as we bumped our way to Lamai Beach. It was dark and we were exhausted, but Alex found us a good place to stay beside the boxing arena and the lady of the night part of town (classy). That evening we toasted one another with a Singha and ate gorgeous food from the street vendors. Later Alex introduced us to some of his lady friends who worked in a bar of the locale, and we played pool. The next day we meant to move on but were tired of hawking our bags around so we moved rooms and decided on a whim to learn how to Moped, which was great fun. My first move was to plough my moped into a grassy verge, but lucky for me the guy renting them to us thought this was hilarious. I think they were taking bets
Alan is happy
He has green curry and a large bottle of Chang on whether we'd come back in one piece as we spluttered our way out of the place. The gas is sold from plastic bottles at the side of the road and we got our tanks filled. I thought we'd do a little bit of driving, but we were out all day. We drove past beautiful butterflies, forests of palm trees, down side roads and waved at a man who was taking his monkey for a cycle. We stopped at a waterfall, which was lovely and cold after all the heat, we began walking up to the top and Alan saw a huge iguana, but I was wearing flip flops so had to retreat after a while and nearly got hit on the head by a falling coconut, which was alarming and hilarious all at once. We ended up doing a circuit of the island, stopping at a beach where mostly Thais were swimming in the tumbling waves. Eventually we got back to Lamai and met up with Ashley for some dinner. We meant to go to Thai Boxing but were distracted by good conversation.
The next morning we woke up and headed off for Ko Phangan, which is famous
Queasy rider
Alan tears up the asphalt on Koh Samui. Sort of. for its full moon parties. We took a taxi and ferry to Haad Rin and moved into a room at 'Friendly Bungalows' near the sunset beach where we've been staying for the past few days. The town is very cool, relaxed, bohemian. It's a bit like a music festival atmosphere with lots of jewellery stands, food and being an island in Thailand, lots of scooters and oh-so many travel agents. We share our bathroom with a gecko and again is an abundance of wildlife - gorgeous butterflies, birds, even a monkey (not in our bathroom though). There's loads to do - we went mopeding and I bought a snorkel and went out to the coral - it was amazing, so much so that we booked onto a trip to Ko Tao and went snorkling off a boat and saw an amazing array of fish - truly spectacular and very moving, a real highlight for me on the trip. Alan was so moved by the snorkling that he went in again with our camera and sadly it has met with its demise (sniff), but yay, we'll have to get a new one, so apologies but our photos end a few days
Transcendental!
Having failed to achieve spiritual enlightenment in Tibet, he does so on Koh Lanta! ago, we've been snapping with disposables for the past while, which has raised some questions from our fellow travellers as backpackers generally pack pretty fab cameras!
We stayed for Christmas and went to the Full Moon party on Haad Rin on Christmas eve, and it was great as Sean from college was off diving on nearby Ko Tao and we got to meet up with him. It was a bit mental - the usual sleepy party feel every night where a flame thrower is watched by forty or so people was replaced by thousands of travellers all painted in fluorescent paint drinking a cocktail of spirits from buckets, several flame-throwers all throwing at the same time (or maybe that was the buckets making us see more than double I'm not sure). The next morning I awoke and went swimming in the clear sea, passing a sleeping reveller on the beach who was watched by two inquisitive chattering birds, it was Christmas.
We ate Indian food and watched movies in Lazy House bar, chatted with fellow travellers, swapped gifts - Alan got a t-shirt with Slash on it made by a local designer and I got some lovely anklets
Aoife can see the sea
Getting ready to snorkel again. She is now a confirmed fish-botherer. and wooden ear-rings which we watched being made. Then we rang home and it was lovely to check in with the family. On Christmas night we talked about how great it would be to live there forever, it's so chilled out.
By Stephen's Day we were waving people we'd met off and saying goodbyes, while looking at the newbies arriving wide-eyed off the ferry, and going into our breakfast place, the Kingfisher (free wi-fi) we noticed they were showing the same Friends DVD - it was time to leave. So we booked the boat and bus to Bangkok for tomorrow and a flight to Phnom Penh the next day, so good-bye Thailand and hello Cambodia - we'll hopefully head on then to Laos and maybe even get to see some of northern Thailand before heading to Singapore and Australia.
Nollaig Shona!
Grá agus dea-ghuí
Alan & Aoife. xx
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Niamh
non-member comment
Hey guys!
Hey u 2..all I can say is wow..what a trip u's are having!!Ive checked in with u's a few times and I end up logging off a dark shade of green!Ur entry about thailand took me right bak..fun times for sure!!Really sounds like u's have it sorted..seeing and doing it all and yet taking no crap from the lovable but tricky locals!!cant wait to hear the rest..when I need a break from lesson plans and assignments u 2 have replaced bebo for me!!