Island hopping

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So one more day on Koh Phi Phi turned into about 6... The next night I met an American girl, Bethany, and an Australian guy, Gerard, at what was supposedly the best restaurant in town: Papaya. The most notable thing about this place was actually their long haired cats who slept in the fridge!! Bethany and Gerard invited me over to sit with them, as I was the only other person in there who actually noticed the cats.
We ended up having a really fun night at another bar on the beach - and I finally discovered the joys of buckets. They are actually little buckets - normally with Sam Song (a local Thai whiskey), and red bull and whatever fizzy you want it mixed with. We found a place that did really cheap vodka buckets - and I shamefacedly have to admit that we became regulars over the next few days :-)

I would love to show you the photo of the cat in the fridge, but I had my camera stolen... It's my own fault really... I'm too trusting, thinking that it's OK, if the bag is near me, and although it was pretty much touching my leg, I was turned the other way talking to some people on the beach at night. Someone walked by a bit too closely, making the sand by my foot move, but I didn't think anything of it, until I went to get something in my bag 20 minutes later, and found it gone. Then I remembered the guy who'd walked too closely and went searching in the direction I'd seen him go, and there in the sand I first found a pouch I'd had in my bag, slung on the ground, and a bit further up I found my bag - minus mosquito spray and camera! :-( I went looking for it, of course; spoke to a local guy who was 'hanging around' and who mysteriously disappeared after telling us to keep looking - like it wasn't an obvious theft. Anyway, it's the worst thing that's happened to me so far, and it's not really that traumatising. I was very lucky to have backed up all my photos and films the day before, so I only lost the footage from the night before (with the cat in the fridge), and from that day, when I'd been on a snorkeling trip.

Snorkeling was a really nice way to spend an afternoon --- there were 7 of us on a long tail boat, including a dad and son from near Newcastle who I was talking to throughout the day. I loved snorkeling - there are so many fish on the corals in the bay around Phi Phi. I kept thinking I'd seen them all, and then a new one would swim by. The cutest ones are of course the Nemo fish (clown fish) who live among the sea anemones on the ocean floor. The parrot fish were really striking too, with all their colours.
We stopped in several locations on our afternoon trip and snorkeled or swam around in bays surrounded by the steep limestone cliffs that are so typical of southern Thailand. In one bay, the captain of the long tail boat started feeding the fish with the edges of the fruit he was cutting up and the water was actually churning with the fish trying to get to the food first. It was quite funny swimming among them even though they were completely oblivious to us humans at that point.

We also stopped at a place called Monkey Beach which very descriptively is a beach full of monkeys. Now, this I'm really upset at having lost, because after a while on the beach when the monkeys realised we didn't have any food for them, they lost interest in us, until suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see the English guy jump to his feet. I actually had this on camera: He's jumping to his feet after having sat in the surf for a few minutes, with a monkey on his back with an arm around his neck and another around his chest, trying to bite him. As he gets up the monkey jumps off with some shrilling shrieks. A few other monkeys are moving towards him as if they want to get in on the action too. It was really good footage - so maybe keep an eye out on YouTube for "monkey attack on Phi Phi" :-)

The next day I walked out through what Bethany had described as a jungle path, which was actually just a path through some vegetation with huts and houses almost always within view, out to a place called Long Beach. The beaches on Phi Phi are really beautiful - really white and with beautiful turquoise and green waters around it. Long Beach was particularly nice as it wasn't swarming with tourists like the beaches nearer to town.

After spending a day on the beach, licking my wounds after having lost my camera, and feeling pretty sorry for myself, despite being on a beautiful beach with white sand and turquoise water, I went snorkeling again, this time bringing along Gerard and his camera. I've really gotten into my photography on this trip, and felt almost naked without my camera! So here are some photos from my second trip on a long tail boat - although we forgot to take any photos of us in the snorkeling gear!
This trip was quite different from the first, as it was a private tour, and our guide, a great guy called Bangdate, jumped in the water and took us on a swim among the corals and through some sea caves, while pointing out various plants and fish. It was very cool swimming in spots I never would have on my own.

After this, I finally got my arse in gear, and bought myself a ticket to Koh Lanta - another island near Krabi, which is much bigger than Phi Phi. It took me forever to get there, first by boat to Krabi, trying to find the right travel agent in the bus station where the boat lands, then with one minibus to another travel agency and then waiting for ages until I was picked up by a minibus there. I left Phi Phi at midday, and was supposed to be on Koh Lanta by 6pm, but I didn't actually get to my guest house until almost 9 o'clock at night! Traveling in Thailand is not an exact science at all. You can never count on the time they say it's going to take, and they keep moving you from one place to another, loading you all into a minibus just to take you 500 meters up the road and then unloading you again, to wait there for another means of transportation - very confusing.
But I was really glad I did it. My guest house on the hill side of a beautiful bay on the southern end of Koh Lanta, was really, really nice. The travel agent in Phi Phi had pre-booked a room for me there, which was supposedly a bamboo hut with just a fan and cold water for 400 Baht pr. night (ca. 6GBP), but they actually gave me a really nice room with a fridge, aircon and a really big hot water bathroom for the same price. They had a really nice restaurant and bar where people just hung out at night talking and reading their books and listening to music. It was just what I needed after 6 days of partying and activities on Phi Phi.
In the morning I rented another scooter and drove south on a very hard to drive on dirt road, to a national park - but when I got there, it didn't seem like it was worth the entry fee, as it was raining and no-one could tell my what special things there were to see apart from monkeys - so I drove back up north and then turned east as someone had recommended a restaurant with a view over the bay between Koh Lanta and the mainland. It was really gorgeous, strewn with islands - and while I was sitting there, the afternoon call to prayer started sounding across the fields below.
Southern Thailand is mainly Islamic, and you see girls with head-dresses everywhere, and once in a while you'll hear the loudspeakers in the tiny villages. Koh Lanta is the farthest south I've been so far, but the closer you get to Malaysia, the more Muslim the country is. Near Krabi, it's still a mix of Buddhism and Islam.

In Thailand, all roads lead to Bangkok - it really is the center of the country, and you have to come here to go to another part of the country. After a grueling 18 hour bus journey, I arrived back in Bangkok for the fourth time, as I wanted to buy a new camera and get a visa for Vietnam, before making my way up north to Chiang Mai.
I found a camera, similar to my old one, but in the Japanese version, which cost much less than the original - I am really happy with it, as I can still use my extra battery and the same memory cards as with the old one. Oh, it was nice feeling like whole person again ;-) I also bought a watch, as I was having trouble keeping trek of the days - down here it really doesn't matter if it's Wednesday or Sunday - except when your visa is about to expire and you suddenly only have x days to do all the stuff you'd planned, but not got around to. So now I have a cute little Casio watch that I can swim with, which also tells me the day and the date, and reminds me to take my malaria tablet every morning :-)
I also met up with Gerard from Koh Phi Phi again in Bangkok, as we had discussed going trekking together in Laos. He's here on an extended holiday until the 17th of October, after which he's going back to work in Brisbane. Luckily, he didn't mind going via Chiang Mai to Laos, so we spent a couple of days exploring Bangkok while waiting for my Vietnamese visa.
We went to Chinatown one afternoon, and spent some time in a temple, as there was some kind of festival going on. I don't know enough about Buddhism to say exactly what was going on, but everyone was dressed in white, and around the stalls in the area, everyone seemed to be selling paper replicas of material possessions. If anyone can enlighten me, that'd be great, as I can't find any information on this in my guide books...
After walking around the markets for hours, looking at and smelling all sorts of foods and vegetables and fruits I have never seen before, we needed to sit down for a while, so we went to the Grand China Princess, which has a revolving restaurant on the 25th floor, where we had a cocktail and watched the sunset. Following this theme, we then went to the State Tower, to the Sky Bar - Sirocco - on the 64th floor, to admire the night time view of Bangkok. It's amazing how different it looks by day and by night. Somehow the millions of lights that come on at night highlight just how big the city is.
The next day we took a boat tour on the Khlongs of Bangkok - they are the small canals that run in big circles from the river through Bangkok, back to the river again, instead of streets. We would have liked to see the floating markets, but they are best on the weekends, apparently or very early in the morning, which we didn't manage to get to see. It was still very interesting to see the stilt houses that line the Khlongs, and see how many Bangkok citizens live as well. Most of the houses seem to face the other way, and have the canals as their back 'garden'. There wasn't as much activity on the Khlongs as I had anticipated, but then it was an overcast and at times rainy afternoon. There were a lot of boys fishing along the way, though. And we saw a couple of boats trying to sell us souvenirs as well. Otherwise, life seemed very languid on the Khlongs - like a reprise from the hustle bustle of the streets with all their shops and stalls and vendors... We even stopped at a lotus farm, which was very beautiful in the misty monsoon rain.

In the evening we went to the train station to catch our train to Chiang Mai. I was very excited to be going on these overnight sleepers, as I'd heard about the chairs that the train attendant would come around and turn into beds at night, but my patience was to be tested once again while traveling in Thailand :-) Our train was late by more than an hour and a half - and then we spent another half hour waiting by the platform before we finally got moving. It was a very cool train though. The attendants were really sweet and very professional, taking our breakfast orders and at 10pm, they came around and made the bunk beds. I've attached some photos of before and after. I slept in a bottom bed - which was very comfortable - except for the 7am wakeup call. Seeing as we were so late, I didn't really understand the reason for waking us up so early, as we didn't need to be finished with breakfast by 9, as we would have if the train was on time. But once I was up, I was very happy to sit and look at the changing landscape outside. There aren't many rice fields down south where I'd been until then, and it was very stunning seeing these bright green stretches and valleys of land, lined by mountains and hills. I'm not sure the photos I've attached really do it justice.

Although I've already left Chiang Mai again, I'll leave that part of the 'story' for another chapter of this blog, as I still don't seem to be able to keep my blogs short, and I haven't had much time to spend in internet cafes. So stay tuned for the story of how I got attacked by a tiger and my journey to Laos.

Lots of love,
Kristine

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Photos

Bethany and Gerard
And one of many very cheap vodka buckets :-)

Nemo
Not a photo I took, of course - but they're soooo cute! :-)

Chinatown
There was a buddhist holiday they day we were in Chinatown, and everyone was wearing white.

Chestnuts being roasted
Uhmmm, they were gooooood :-)

Comments

[Mette]

Superchilled cat
Awh man bring back sooo many wonderful memories!!! I've got pics of the chilled cat in the fridge at Papaya as that was Jonathans local and we always ate there..so whenever you miss the cool cat, check my Thailand pics on fb..he's there ;) Take care hun, sounds like you're having a ball of a time!!! Mette xxxx