Blogs from Phetchaburi, Western Thailand, Thailand, Asia

WILDLIFE FRIENDS FOUNDATION THAILAND With Globalteer Everything you need to know about the elephant project in Thailand and recommendations Those of you using Globalteer to undertake the elephant project in Thailand should take a few minutes to read this. It will help you to determine if this project is for you, as some of the below information is not available from Globalteer: 1) Works starts at 6.30am every day. 2) You will work between 10 and 12 hours, 6 days a week (the hours stated by Globalteer are considerably less, so be prepared to work long hard hours) 3) Breakfast is very basic; they provide you with bread, butter, jam, tea and coffee. Sometimes water, butter and tea runs out and there are no extra supplies due to bad management. Things like cereals, snacks and drinks, ... read more

Fish-Massage, Fish-Massage! Die ersten sechs Stunden Flug gingen recht holprig vonstatten. Wir knuepften uns beide einen drei Stunden Film vor (Avatar) und die andere Haelfte der Zeit verbrachten wir mit aufgeregt sein und Essen. Von Dubai haben wir nicht viel sehen koennen, da es finstere Nacht war. Jule war mit seinem Eichhoernchenpulli aber der Star am Flughafen! Nach weiteren sechs Stunden in der Luft landeten wir dann heil in Bangkok. Die Lage am Flughafen war zuerst etwas unuebersichtlich, denn alle Traveller standen in etwa so geordnet in ihren Reihen, wie Festivalgaenger an einem Donnerstag in Scheessel. In etwa eine Stunde verging bis wir endlich thailaendischen Boden betreten konnten. Der public Taxistand war schnell gefunden und sofort war klar: Thailaender haben einen Faible fuer knallige Farben. Wir bekamen ein gelb-gruenes Taxi mit einem sehr schweigsamen Fahre... read more

I've got guns! I can't believe it - I've always had the puniest arms ever but from all of this lifting baskets of elephant food and poo and going "banana picking" (very misleading because we don't pick bananas in the slightest; we carry the entire trees onto tractors in the hot Thai sun) for the first time ever I actually have visible arm muscles. I can't stop tensing them. My whole body feels like I've been really using it. It's really good. It's almost the end of my time in the wildlife sanctuary now and it's gone very quickly. Once I recovered from my injuries/illness and some more newbies came that I got on well with everything got much better and it's been a lot of fun. Life outside of the centre primarily consists of trips ... read more

I arrived in elephant land on Tuesday. It's actually part of a big wildlife rescue centre full of all kinds of amazing animals like Gibbons, Macaques, a Tiger, Crocodile, monkey, Hornbills, Bears and of course Elephants. Not exactly peaceful but still a really cool place. It's built in an ex Mango Grove so the whole place is full of Mango trees and falling Mangoes. Mangoes are not usually my favourite fruit but I have grown to like them much more after smelling the lovely sweet, fresh mangoey smell of the mornings. However, they fall reeeally hard from the trees and make enormous bashing sounds so I'm genuinely quite worried about one landing on my head. I take my life in my hands just leaving my room each day. The people in the centre are generally really ... read more

Another one for you.... We left the peninsular of Raleigh due to thinning wallets. It wasnt entirely a shame to go because it was absolutely pissing it down and so all there was to do was essentially eat and converse with other travellers (not a bad thing at all but fairly mundane and repetitive). We left to go back up further north and so got a coach back up to Bangkok. Nothing exceptional really happened as it was a 14 hour cramped coach journey (I could hear moans of anguish fom behind me at times, but the bastard deserved it). When we got to Bangkok we immediately headed out again to catch another bus - one that would take us to Petchaburi. The normal custom is for the bus conductor to alert farang to their impeding ... read more

Following on from my last entry.... So we got on a bus to take us to Petchaburi, made famous by the exploits of bridge building that occured here in the second world war. It is more commmonly known as 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' or simply 'Death Bridge'. As I said, a bus. It was not however a direct route. When we boarded it immediately became clear that this was not to be a journey of comfort. The coach was jam-packed full of scouts both male and female (who, annoyingly burst into laughter at the sight of us - they were obviously aware that this was going to be a very bloody amusing journey). The bus truly was packed. Neither myself nor Sam could stand up but as there was no where to sit (and ... read more

A sugar-coated, milky-smooth voice, coming out of bright-red, lipstick-plastered lips of the bus' male steward, whispered delicately in Vibert's ear. In a language he couldn't understand. At Midnight! This was Vibert's dream. He shot upright from his recliner seat, his panicked eyes struggling to adjust in the harsh white glare of the bus' florescent lights. Shanna eyed him curiously. Over the public intercom flowed the sugar-coated, milky-smooth voice, coming out of bright-red, lipstick-plastered lips of the bus' male steward. It was midnight and, apparently, we were stopping for 'dinner'. "Rats", said Vibert (or something more Caribbean-ish). He had just fallen asleep. We had departed Krabi many, many ago before and he had found it difficult to fall asleep. 'Dinner' break took a better part of an hour and five hours later, we arrived at our stop. ... read more

For the past two weeks Nick and I have been scouting out places to take the family when they arrive in less than 2 weeks. Our first stop was Chumphon where we spent a few days; this is where you can catch boats to the islands on the East coast of Thailand (Koh Tao, Phangan and Samui). There wasn’t much to do in this small town so we moved on to the bigger town of Hua Hin up the coast. Hua Hin was nothing like we expected, the guide book had called it a seaside town but it was more like a seaside city. There were lots of hotels, restaurants, tailors and a lot of traffic. We walked down to the beach which was near to our guesthouse and were surprised at how clean and ... read more

Yesterday was my day off and myself and 3 of the other girls I'm traveling with decided to head to the National Park for the sunrise. The driver that was arranged to take us spoke no English just Thai and no one had ever worked with before but somehow came highly recommended. Under normal circumstances that would seem pretty fishy I'm sure. So we get to the national park and the driver pulls over and looks at me and says something in Thai. Having no clue what he said I just stay put until he comes and gets me again so that I can pay the entrance fee. While climbing up to the top of the mountain, we had to cross 3 brooks and up a pretty steep hill. We then hit a traffic jam where ... read more