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Published: January 5th 2007
Palace Dog
Check out the ball inside its mouth - you can't remove it, but you can move it around.I'll update this text later - got to go climbing now! But here's some pictures of Xmas in Thailand.
Singapore 19th-22nd
Arriving back into Singapore from Indonesia was a bit of a culture shock in reverse - everything was really westernised again and people weren't hassling us all the time to buy fruit/t-shirts/transport/anything else you could think of.
My brother came out to meet us on the 20th and after a fairly large amount of shoping to buy some sandles and an evening out for a 'quiet' pint or two, we had to decide where to go next. Our original plan had been to traverl through Malyasia over Xmas and head up to Thailand - unfortunately there was heavy floodingh in Southern Malayisa so the trains weren't running and all the buses were full. We made a snap decision to fly straight to Bangkok and travel down through Thailand to meet up with Chris again at Krabi for some climbing and chilling. So we left Chris behind
Bangkok 22-24
Arriving in Bangkok after not much sleep from the past couple of days, we got a taxi into the city (getting totally ripped off by
the taxi driver-hey ho) we went to our hotel and chilled out for a while on the pool on the roof and just relaxed for a couple of hours. We then headed out onto the Khao San road which is pretty accurately described as a backpacking ghetto in Bangkok - quite a weird mix of western tourist backpackers and local traders and lady boys trying to sell their goods/services!
The next day we headed out to the grand palace which despite being told by every local that the place was closed on our way there was in fact open and had been all day (people tell you its closed and then try to take you off to a 'special' temple they know and get you to buy some stuff a some stalls they then get a hefty commission from the shopkepers). Anyway, we'd read the warnings about this scam so went to see the temple and it was pretty fantastic - absolutely massive place with loads of temples and palace buildings to look at and photograph.
That night we headed out to watch some Muay Thai (kick-boxing) stopping by at the really good Night Market for a couple
of hours on the way, where I bought my first travellers necklace of the trip (it broke 1 week later). The kick-boxing was good to watch - we seen one knock-out with a kick to the head, but most of the bouts went to point scores at the end so were a bit more dull for the casual spectator like us.
Kanchanaburi 24-26
The next morning we got a taxi to the bus station and a 3 hour bus to Kanchanaburi - this is the town by the famous bridge over the river kwai. We got ourselves settled into a really nice bamboo lodge down by the riverside and booked our day trip for the next day (Xmas day) - this invloved elephant trekking, bamboo rafting, waterfall swimming, a trip on the railway and viewing the bridge itself.
Xmas day was excellent fun, but turkey, family and presents were definitely missed - although playing darts with some israeli's and french folk in the local pub made up for things somewhat...
The next morning we went to the museum which was really worth it - the history behind the construction of the railway between Burma and Thailand
is pretty harrowing - 10's of thousands of allied POW's died but far more local people died and their deaths were not recorded by the Japenese. Anyway, I won't recount the history of the place but it is pretty scary stuff.
Khao Sok 26-29
On boxing day, after we visited the museum in Kanchanaburi, we headed back to Bangkok on the bus and caught an overnight train down to Khao Sok which is a National Park in the south of thailand. We were really lucky to get on any train as we hadn't booked anything, but someone managed to get the last two sleeping bunks in second class - which was pretty comfortable.
In Kaho Sok, we rented another really nice bungalow by the river, in the middle of the rainforest. We went for a couple of treks in the jungle to see some nice waterfalls - it was really humid and we both were sweating loads so swimming in the waterfall pools was really nice. We also had a play on the rope swing on the opposite bank of the river to where we were staying which was cool fun - only probably was that the
water you landed in was only just over a metre deep so you had to time your splash-downs carefully...
Krabi/Railay/Ton Sai 29-2nd Jan
Climbing, snorkelling, kayaking (goat/chicken island)
After the previous week of 'proper' travelling we decided to head to the beaches for Chris's second (and last) week of the trip. We got a minibus down to Krabi where we met up with Chris Sceats again, and took a long-tail boat across to Ton-Sai beach - it's all attached to the mainland of thailand but you can only access the beached by boat. The beaches here are pretty nice, but the place was extremely busy so it feels more like a package holiday destination than a deserted paradise island. The beach we stayed at was a little different though, as it was a wee bit cheaper and a little harder to get too (5 minutes extra walk) and was full of backpackers and a lot of climbers. Ton Sai is a sport climbers paradise, full of EXTREMELY steep limestone cliffs - we managed to do some of the easier climbs but I'd love to head back when I'm a bit stronger to have a go at some of
the crazy stuff we saw people climbing.
We also met our first nasty mosquitos here - Around 5pm on the first day we arrived we had our ankles savaged (particularly Christopher) when we were out climbing - but most of the lumps seem to be going away now (2 weeks later).
Apart from climbing we spent some time chilling on the beach, playing frisbee and bat and ball, and doing a bit of snorkelling. We hired some kayaks on my birthday and paddled out to goat and chicken islands (about a 40 minute paddle) to some fanatastic beaches and nice snorkelling.
That night (new years eve) we went down to the beach party which was awesome - there were loads of fireworks, people putting on fire shows (basically twirling a flaming stick around to music) and there were loads of little lanterns sent up into the air (like mini-hot-air balloons) which looked really cool. As with a few nights when we've been travelling we spent the night chatting to some random folk - this time it was three girls who worked in singapore, and one english girl) and had come up to Ton Sai for a week's
holiday. One of the girl's, Jany, took some cool pictures of the night which you can see at this link:
Jany-Pics In case you are wondering - the tight rope walking and rope climbing are there as there are so many climbers around and these are popular climbing tricks. Although most people try to walk the tightrope without having their hands held...
Ko Phi Phi 2nd Jan -6th Jan
After Ton Sai, we caught the boat on the 2nd January across to Ko Phi Phi which is another place famed for its gorgeous beaches (particularly Maya bay which is 'The beach' from the hollywood film). Again, we were a little bit underwhelmed as it was really busy when we were there. However some parts of the island iare awesome and some of the quieter beaches are really nice. Ko Phi Phi seems to be the place that everyone young in Sweden heads to for some Winter sun, and the night-life is setup to accommodate them. Anyway, we had a fun few days here, lying on the beaches, doing a little bit of climbing (which was much quieter, and less steep, than Ton Sai) and some
really good snorkelling around some of the surrounding islands.
Apart from Christopher getting even further savaged by mosquitos it was a pretty relaxed time.
On the 6th we headed across to Krabi again, where Christopher got a flight back to sunny N. ireland. Chris (Sceats) and me stayed in Krabi for one day, going climbing in the afternoon to 'Tex's camp, where a thai guy named Tex and his english wife have a rope adventure course and are building a bar to try to attract more climbers to stay there. Anyway, there's not a lot of climbing there (about an afternoon's worth) but we got chatting to Tex and his children and even climbed with one of the guys who was working there. Really nice afternoon.
On the 7th we headed for a full day of flights (yes, we are posh travellers!)and sitting around in airports, via bangkok, up to the northern town of Chiang Mai.
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david b
non-member comment
Ho and another Ho, oh merry Christmas
Climbing pictures, I shall expect climbing pictures. Preferably including local wildlife needing a seagull basher applied to it en route. Hope your BMC subscriptions are in good order!