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Published: June 10th 2007
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we arrived in bangkok on the overnight bus from chiang mai at around 4.30 am. we headed up koa san road in search of a guesthouse and what we found was a bloody mess. this was the bangkok that everyone talks about that we had missed on our first visit due to having stayed on the non-tourist side of town. neon lights. my god! every single major food chain, innumerable pubs, bars, seedy clubs. tourists lying in the gutters (probably in their own vomit), big hairy white men pawing at tiny woman-child prostitutes, big groups of drunken lobster-like irishmen screaming bad renditions of bohemian rhapsody in the hope that their mates in kilkenny can hear. frightening.
the following day we ran into lee, the canadian dude from our trek in chiang mai which was cool. spent most of the day (and night) drinkin beer and playing cards with him in an irish pub. also caught up with joe and his girlfriend emma for a couple. just before leaving for the bus the next day, ruairi and i walked passed this chick who looked really familiar, then i realised that it was 'katie' from the show 'shipwrecked-battle of the islands'.
we used to watch it religiously back in london (i used to get ruairi to tape it when i had to work on sundays!). we got a photo with her and were really quite excited by the whole thing-pathetic really. this was the biggest highlight of bangkok.
oh yeah-another ridiculous ruairi story (i know you love them). walking past a massage parlour with the signage 'for men-by men'. ruairi turns around and says,
'dere's somethin' for you larry!'
me- 'mmm, dont think so ruairi- it's men only...'.
ruairi- 'straight men doe!',
me-'hmm-dont think so ruairi!'
i nearly wet myself-one for the files-brilliant!
we got a to ko pha ngan after 18 hours of bus, tuk-tuk and boat. we got taken to some beachfront bungalows which turned out to be dirt & rock front. couldnt swim or anything which was crap. when we asked the european owner where the beach was he said 'you're on it'. rude, robbing mongeral he was. we left the following morning in search of white sands and clear water and we got it. nice little bungalo on a huge sweeping beach and just a short walk from the eclipse moon party that evening (yes
my beach snobbery had an alterior motive). we shared 3 buckets of vodka redbull at our bugalows and trudged up to the party, already feeling quite 'woo-hoo!'. not long after being there it bucketed down, total torrential down pour, at which point i lost ruairi as we ran for different shelters. i ran into some aussie guys (starsky & hutch) from our bungalows and watched them play imaginary skippy. 2 guys swing the imaginary rope and the 3rd guy jumps in. i was getting geared up for my jump in, but people kept walkin through and starsky was getting really mad at them. i was so mesmerised by the whole thing i forgot there was no rope and i remember thinking 'god people are rude!who just walks through the middle of a game!'. ruairi found me eventually and was carrying on about ribs and stuff and said he was going home. i wondered home a few hours later with 5 fluorescent armbands, a fluroscent orange batman tattoo on my arm and cuts and holes in my feet from walkin over coral with no shoes (which id had to run after when i saw them floating off into the sunrise after
having kicked them off). ruairi was in a worse state when i got in. vomit all down the walls and clutching his rib cage complaining of being broken. turns out hed tried to jump over a handrailing which turned out to be a pile of deck chairs which in turn collapsed underneath him. ribs not broken, but we're pretty sure it's cracked. now he's gotta take it easy.
phuket isn't much to report. very touristy. annoying aussie, obnoxious, resorty, hair braided, tank topped, bogan d***heads on a weird power trip. aaagh! entire familys of them. bit like bali really (before the bombings).
ko phi phi was really cool. we spent a couple of nights here just kinda hanging out. we took a boat trip on the second day to the smaller phi phi island where 'the beach' was filmed. unfortunately due to a few waves we couldnt take our long-tailed boat in to the bay as it was too dangerous the driver said. i was really pissed off as it was the main reason why we went on the trip. the most annoying thing was that we watched 4 other similar boats go past us and straight in!
apparantly the folk on the other boat that was with our tour, completely cracked the shits, so the driver got angry back and told them that one of them could drive the boat. he obviously didn't realise that there would be an italian stallion on board to take him up on it. so this dude takes over and half way in realises that he's about to capsise the boat and has to hand back over. wish id bloody seen it! apart from that though, we saw another beautiful beach and did some amazing snorkelling, it was like swimming in a huge nemo fishtank! the driver was throwing bits of bread into the water right on top of me practically and thousands of multicoloured fish would just swamp me (occasionally mistaking me for food and having a nibble). we got in at 'shark point' too, nothing dangerous or bigger than 1.5 m, just reefys. someone would yell 'SHARK!' and people would actually swim towards it-it was really surreal. me and ruairi didn't see one though-you needed to be away from the group by yourself to spot one, but that freaked me out too much (i was content with the clown fish).
currently in krabi, just a little 'in between' kinda town. nice to be outta the tourist trap towns we've been travelling through of late. headed for ko lanta tomorrow.
so thats all for now. next time i chat to ya i'll probably be in malaysia...mmmm....laksa....
larry
keep the comments comin thick n fast! love em! (even the slightly offensive ones!)
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Kate
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are you going to koh tao or koh samui?
larry are you going to samui or kho tao? let me know if you are love you chicken. kate