Blogs from Southern Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 17

As Lonely Planet had specifically, clearly and categorically stated NOT to cross the border from Malaysia into Thailand at Sungai Kolok, we thought this would be a marvellous wheeze and hoisted our backpacks on and trotted off to have a chat and be terribly British with the border guards. Slightly disappointingly, it all went so swimmingly that we were totally unprepared for the fact that Thailand is an hour behind Malaysia (not helpful when checking train times) and that if a Thai person makes a mistake, they really, really, really will not admit it, apologise or try and make amends in any way. We staggered into the train station with visions of a slightly better first class journey than our last and bought tickets for the express. We were told that it was delayed until 2pm ... read more

This morning we had a traditional thai massage, we thought massages were meant to be relaxing? Well these ones were all bone clicking and twisting pain, it was quite awkward seeing as the masseuses spoke only a word or two of English… we’d prefer to be better acquainted with people before taking our clothes off and having them move their hands uncomfortably far up our legs… We were maneuvered into several different positions, the majority reasonably uncomfortable (glad no photos were taken here) and we were stretched, pulled, pressed and pinched. Lets just go with saying it was interesting… (may opt for a different style of massage next time) After having thai noodle soup- a meal we’re really starting to get used to now, although we avoided the grey lumps which we suspected to be liver, ... read more

We started the day by going to Buddhist ceremony at a local temple, there were about 20 monks and we had to be careful not to touch them and not to point our feet at the gold Buddha statue. We then went to pick up Alanna’s babysitter, and her son “Beer” (it’s only a nickname but he doesn’t know how he got it). He is studying English so we had a little bit of conversation with him, though he says we talk too fast for him! Due to weather conditions we didn’t end up canoeing as planned, we instead took a trip to some tunnels built by communist Chinamen, it was so much more interesting than expected and also a lot steeper, we had to climb a lot of steps with only one handrail, sometimes not ... read more

To get from Cambodia to Ko Pha-Ngan in Thailand we travelled for about 35 hours straight and took three buses, a taxi, a train, two more buses, a boat, another taxi and finally a longtail boat. By the time we arrived we were both feeling pretty spaced out, hungry and in serious need of some alcohol. The worst part of the journey was the sleeper train from Bangkok to Surat Thani. We were both looking forward to a good nights sleep in the cosy little beds that they have on Thai trains. Unfortunately we were booked onto what must have been the oldest, noisiest and most filthy train in the whole of Thailand (if not the world). To make things worse it was infested with fearless cockroaches that were literally climbing the walls. I hardly got ... read more

The bus was a bit of a mission but luxury compared to some we'd taken. We arrived at the ferry port after 7 hours at 4 in the morning and had another 3 hour wait. Some time was passed by talking to a middle aged Swedish guy who was with his wife/woman from Laos. He had been drinking the whole journey and was mainly complaining about being hungover. The boat took 3 hours and we mainly sat there, mouths wide open catching up on sleep like everyone else. After the mad scramble for our bags (since you just leave them out on the deck) we attempted to find accommodation. After getting a 4x4 to the main accommodation beach we found that it wasn't that easy for our price range as a lot of diving places booked ... read more