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Loh Dalam Bay - Ko Phi Phi
My favourite beach in ThailandWell, some of them anyway - there are so many!
THE BLOGS ARE BACK, and now that I have some free time again you'll be able to get right back up to date. I can almost hear the screams of un-contained excitement and glee from here...
An update on my current situation: I've still not left South-East Asia, due to meeting a young lady named Fern. Had I not changed my flight dates I would have been halfway down the East Coast of Australia, having spent a few weeks in India by now, but instead I'm back in Bangkok, where Fern and I have just today started renting an apartment on a monthly rate. I'll be leaving her in January and making my way very quickly to Sydney to see my family.
So, back to where I left off in my last blog - the month of August.
It started with some very big news. I had gotten back from Cambodia with my mum and seen her off at the airport (via Dubai, where her hand luggage got pinched
) when I checked my emails to make plans to meet up with James A fire-jumping leopard
Doing what leopards do best. I think. again. He was in Ko Samui where he'd been holidaying with his fiancee, who had joined him for three weeks from England. Well, it seems that absence had made his heart grow fonder because I learnt from his email that he had decided to throw the towel in on his travels and return to England with his missus. I completely understood his reasons and didn't resent the situation at all. But when I see him next I'll fookin kill him!!!! Only joking.
Four months into my year of travelling and I'd be all alone in the big wide world. In a twist of fate, the journey that had been the dream of Arthur and James was to be left to me to complete. But I was determined to see it out and I didn't have the same ties as my two buddies who I can't wait to see again back in blighty.
I had a couple of days in Bangkok before I was to get the overnight coach down to Ko Samui to link up with James. It was in this time that I met Fern. I didn't know it at the time, but it was to be King of the road
Cruising Samui in style by far the biggest event in my travels. We only got the chance to spend a little time together but she seemed smitten with me, which I must confess aroused my suspicions a little (not that I'm not used to women falling at my feet, you understand!). I couldn't be sure whether her affections were genuine, or whether I was being lined up as her unwitting 'meal ticket'. I now know that it is the former.
I learnt a valuable lesson on the journey to Ko Samui and that is to never sit near the carsy on a coach. It might smell of roses when you board, but it soon deteriorates! I also had the pleasure of being squashed between the window and an immensely obese man who chose to sleep turned away from me in his ill-fitting trousers. My nose was filled with the smell of piss and my eyes were filled with the unappetising sight of two thirds of his crack. I couldn't move. There was some humour in that journey though. Late in the night I woke up and felt strangely comfortable. The big guy had appeared to go elsewhere and leave me to revel in Me and Howie
The end was drawing near.
And no, his hand isn't on my knee! my new-found feeling of freedom. Did I find him and thank him? Did I hell! The first stop for me was the previously out-of-bounds toilet, however, my foot embedded itself into something strangely soft when I hopped out into the dark aisle. From the guttural grunt below it was quickly obvious that he had decided that an evening spent sleeping on the floor was far better than an evening in one of the coach seats!
I was tired when I got to Samui but happy to see James and happy to see the sun again after the miserable Bangkok downpours. The days in Samui were largely the same: swimming pool in the late morning, beach in the afternoon, 9-ball in the early evening and hitting the bars at night. Without a ladyfriend there I was able to devote some time to the second test of the Ashes. I've never been a cricket fan, but even away from the hype that (I'm told) enveloped England, I became hooked. This was the test that we won with two balls remaining, and in doing so we levelled the series at 1-1. The Aussies in the bar, who were getting progressively louder as My home in Ko Samui
Hot, small and full of mosquitoes - but only a stone's throw from the beach. their tail-end dug in, were nowhere to be seen after the jumping and beer-spilling had died down. They do love their sport, bless 'em!
A few days later and it was time to say goodbye to James. He was catching an internal flight to Bangkok before linking up with the flight back to London. I followed his taxi to the airport on a rented motorbike to see him off and I was surprised to see that the airport check-in is a surprisingly ramshackle affair, although they do weigh the luggage. James, who had been living out of a bag for four months weighed in at 14kg. His girlfriend, who had been to Thailand for three weeks weighed in at 45kg. Unbelievable!
I spent a lot of time alone for the remainder of my time in Samui and although I was budgeting, I still managed to spend an unhealthy amount of time in the sports bar, where cricket and football were plastered all over the screens. It was here that I saw the first day's action from the Premiership. They had the West Ham v Blackburn game on live and I got there about two hours early just to make sure there would be no problems! We were awful in the first twenty minutes and we went in 1-0 down. I was thinking 'here we go, this will be a long season' before we came out and blitzed them in the second half. I think I might have broken the high jump world record when we scored our third - in fact, I probably came closer to breaking the pole vault world record!
I had planned to go to nearby Ko Phangan for the full moon party on the 20th, but I'd already been to the island and I wasn't enamoured with the thought of a night of chaos while I was on my own i.e. with nobody to look after me. I called ahead to some guesthouses that were full and then decided to knock it on the head. Instead, I would go to Ko Phi Phi.
My last night in Samui was spent waiting for the Denmark v England friendly to start. It was on at 1am local time and after I'd watched the game, dropped the rented motorbike back and got to sleep it was 4.30am. My 5.30am start the next day was traumatic enough, but it would have been better if England hadn't been turned over 4-1. The journey to Phi Phi that day was a weary one and my mood wasn't helped when we arrived in Krabi town at 2.45pm only to be told that the last boat to Phi Phi leaves at 2.30pm every day. Everybody's on the make here and I'm sure that it's all timed so that we're forced to spend a night in the agent's guesthouse. I wasn't overly stressed because I wanted to see Krabi at some point and I hadn't booked ahead in Phi Phi. I made a point of booking a guesthouse with a different agent and set off on my weary way.
I spent time just wandering around Krabi that afternoon and it was a place with a much more authentic Thai feel than Ko Samui, which is a big tourist resort. It was nice to be able to walk down the street and not have every shop try to beckon you inside. The prices were also cheaper than in Samui. I went to a night market in the evening and although there was a wide array of exotic food there, I didn't Women's beach volleyball
A thrilling spectator sport recognise most of it and plumped for chicken, pork and rice. I can't eat spicy food without regretting it the next day, but when I'm very hungry I sometimes take the risk, as I did that night with some chili sauce. Big mistake. I woke up with a bad belly the next morning that stuck with me onto the boat over to Ko Phi Phi at 9am. The choppy sea wasn't helping matters and my discomfort was only alleviated by a harrowing visit to the on-board loo which involved holding the door shut with one hand, holding the seat lid up with the other and squatting in such a position that my shorts didn't touch the messy bowl or the soaking wet floor!
Ko Phi Phi was my first visit to an area that had been affected by the tsunami. Phi Phi island is not big, but the vast majority of tourists and locals live on the small isthmus - 'a narrow strip of land connecting two larger masses of land'. In this case it's a narrow strip of land lined by a beautiful beach on each side. When we approached the pier on the boat I was surprised not to see more damage, however, on closer inspection it was clear that the area close to the pier had been largely rebuilt, but the areas further away were still mostly in ruins, if anything remained of the buildings that had once been there at all. It amazed me how some of the 50ft coconut trees had had their uppermost foliage ripped off by the water.
A great deal of cleaning up had been done in the eight months since the tsunami, but it seemed as though reconstruction had been much slower. I later learnt that there were hold-ups with government planning permission and other red tape that was delaying the 'return to paradise'. I immediately fell in love with Ko Phi Phi and it still remains my favourite place in Thailand by some distance. The only downside is that the prices there are a good 50% higher than most other places in Thailand. The locals speak of the extra costs incurred when shipping goods to their island, but that does not justify such a significant mark-up. Instead, I think that there is an element of price-fixing, which I don't resent given how many people lost their livelihoods when Arriving in Ko Phi Phi
Dense trees and hotels were all you could see before the tsunami the tsunami ploughed through the isthmus.
I was on my own when I first arrived and starting to feel a little lonely. There's only so much emailing, reading and writing that a man can do and I must admit that I get bored very quickly sitting on the beach as I'm not a sunbather. I bet your hearts are bleeding for me as you sit in freezing cold England and read this!
I'd taken a cheap room at a guesthouse and decided to take a dip in the communal pool. It was there that I met Darren and Gayle, fellow Essex dwellers. They were both very friendly and through them I met a lot of people. We all went out that night and after a few rum buckets we were 'well on our way'! I had my first taste of a fire show later that night, which is basically people swinging burning rags around on chains. To be fair, it's a lot more technical than that and I'm sure that I'd be useless if I tried. Were I eighteen again I'd have bought some practice chains and tried to learn because I was hugely impressed with it. It would make for an excellent party trick back home, on that occasional night when it's warm enough to actually venture outside!
A couple of days later Paul, Mira, Clare and I went on a boat trip around the local islands. It was good enough, but the weather wasn't too great, making the snorkeling average. The underwater visibility is not so good when the sun isn't shining and the fish seem to swim deeper when it rains. We had a good laugh taking the kayak out and deliberately capsizing it every two minutes (more fun than it sounds!). We were also diving from the top deck of the boat, which I would never have got bored of!
Paul and Mira left the next day and Clare and I decided to use the time to do some voluntary work. There's not too much left to do now on the island, but I was happy to find out that a Memorial Garden was being built and that they needed help. Being involved in a project like that felt like it would be more rewarding than picking up litter, if none the more helpful. The garden is being funded by a couple Tsunami damage 1
Take a close look at how high the coconut tree without a top stands that lost their one year-old daughter in the tsunami. They also lost a large number of older family members and it was very saddening to hear of the events of that day from the mother's mouth. They weren't sure if they would have enough funds to complete the project in time for the one year anniversary on December 26th, but when I was there this was still a long way off and it seemed as though work on the site had not long started. My days there (just three, before you think I'm blowing my own trumpet!) were largely filled by moving sand in wheelbarrows and filling sand bags.
I took one morning off from the work to go on a guided walk around the island. It was a 'tour' of certain places that had a relevance to the tsunami and our guide was an English lady that had been working as a volunteer for some months. I learnt that official death toll figures were not available because nobody had an exact idea of how many people were on the island and so many bodies had never been recovered. A good estimate is that 8,000 people were on Ko Tsunami damage 2
This was the school (which was empty at the time). Behind are piles of twisted tables and chairs. Phi Phi when the wave hit. 800 bodies have been found and a further 1,300 people who are known to have, or are strongly believed to have, been on the island at the time are still missing. Eight months on and they must all be dead - that's just over one in four people in Ko Phi Phi who perished on the morning of Boxing Day 2004. I also learnt that a lot of the Thai people on the island didn't have insurance on their lives or properties and that many kept their life savings hidden in their rooms. For some, the wave swept away their families, their businesses, and everything they had ever worked for.
At the end of the walk we watched two amateur videos shot by tourists who were on the beach when the tsunami came. Recognising the location and seeing a long movie of events unfolding was fascinating, if that's the right word. The first sign of anything amiss was when the water level started to drop really quickly. One couple were trying to get on a small taxi boat, but as they walked out to them the water dropped away leaving the boats beached. Fire dancing
Getting warmed up They were amused and they were saying how bizarre it was as the locals had never seen anything like it. I didn't see it on their film, but I was told that many local children ran out a long way to collect the fish that had been left flapping on the now dry seabed. Few of these children survived because after the water receded, it quickly rose again and we got a quick glimpse of the wave coming in the distance before the cameraman started running for his life. He survived by running to the third floor of a nearby hotel, from where he filmed the powerful water surging through the isthmus and ripping smaller buildings from their foundations. Although the water level rose to 7 metres, the crash of the wave when it hit the land was high enough to break the top from the coconut trees, one of which you can see in the photo below.
It was pretty much just Clare and I on my last few days in Ko Phi Phi. We spent a lot of time int the evenings watching the fourth Ashes test and I was really surprised when I found out that Fire dancing
In full flow Clare was a big cricket fan. It felt odd to have the finer points of cricket explained to me by a woman as I always thought cricket was followed almost exclusively by men, but she did revert to type briefly to remind me that Shane Warne was 'dreamy'!!!
I'd been meaning to climb up to the viewpoint for the whole time that I'd been on the island and I finally summoned up the energy on my final day. It was quite a slog in the heat, but well worth it as the views were superb. I had seen a photo from this spot that was taken before the tsunami, and looking down now, the extent of the damage was very visible. Take a look at the photo that I took below and then have a look at a 'before' shot by clicking here.
Clare and I jumped on the boat and left Ko Phi Phi the following day. We headed south as we needed to cross into Malaysia and then immediately u-turn and return to Thailand to get a new 30-day visa stamp. We knew that there's a lot of unrest in South Thailand at the moment as Muslim Fire dancing
Showing off! extremists are attempting to force the government to give them their own state. Apologies if my facts here are slightly wrong, but this is the story that I've learnt from the Thais that I have spoken to. The long and short of it is that the South of Thailand is 99% safe, but there are often small-scale bomb attacks and security is tight.
Clare and I were going to the border by road and we had to change onto a small minibus that was full of locals for the final leg. This wasn't a problem, but the driver showed contempt when I tried to, politely, confirm that we were actually on the right bus. He looked dodgy and he had an even dodgier looking sidekick. Not fully confident, we went with the flow and just hoped that we would be taken to where we expected. As we got into the far south of the country, there were an increasing number of roadside checkpoints and after night fell our minibus was ushered over by a man with a flashlight. We stopped in what seemed like the middle of nowhere and we were surrounded by about eight men with flashlights and Rum, Coke and Red Bull buckets
They are big but they're not clever rifles over their shoulders. Clare was scared and I must admit that I wasn't feeling too cocky at that time. In situations when I can't gauge the gravity of what is happening, I look to others who should know more than me and feed off of their body language. It works a treat when we hit turbulence in an aeroplane and I see the cabin crew smiling happily and getting on with whatever it is they are doing. In this case though, it was dark, remote, nobody spoke English, and the Thais on the bus were all still and quiet. The driver and his croney looked very uneasy and I was doing my best to look unconcerned for the sake of Clare, who was very worried. The security men checked the ID cards of the Thais, and Clare and I were asked for our passports. I was worried that there would be a problem with mine as it was about 7pm and my visa expired at midnight. I guessed that the border would be closed and therefore, strictly speaking, they had grounds to take issue with me overstaying my visa. Clare had her passport to hand and by the time I had rummaged to the bottom of the bag to get mine, the security man(/policeman/soldier - I don't know exactly?) had finished looking through hers and was content enough that he didn't want to check mine in any detail. Phew! We were on our way soon after and both very relieved when the lights of civilisation greeted us again. We also managed to rush through the border just before it closed that night, sparing me any overstay problems and charges and meaning that we could head back up to the safer parts of Thailand again asap the next morning.
That day, Clare and I travelled back up to Krabi and then bade each other farewell. She was going back to Ko Phi Phi and I was off to do some exploration of the other islands and coastline nearby. My first stop was Ko Lanta, a fairly big island that had also felt the force of the tsunami. I didn't see any evident damage though - in fact I didn't see much at all there as the place was very quiet. Although low season, the other islands that I'd been to still had a fair number of tourists there. Here, little was open and the liveliest hotel on the island seemed to have about twenty people staying there. The peace and quiet would be heaven for some, but not me. My impression of Ko Lanta wasn't helped by the cloudy weather and choppy sea and I spent that afternoon wandering nowhere in particular on foot and braving the waves. I hired a motorbike the next day and drove to the pier to book myself a ticket to a different part of Krabi. I also used the bike to drive to a protected conservation area of the island. The road there was a mixture of mud and slippery wet rock and in some parts the journey was treacherous due to the incline of the hills that I had to navigate. The conservation area was nice, but the drizzle reminded me of home and after climbing up a small unmanned lighthouse I was on my way back again.
The next day I arrived in Railay. It was not as quiet as Ko Lanta, but there were enough people there to create a little atmosphere and the sun was shining again. There were also two lovely beaches and the water was very Me and The Gang
On our snorkelling trip around the islands warm. I only stayed a couple of days, but I crammed a lot into that time: rock climbing; visiting an impressive cave; climbing a rope up the side of a karst to reach a lagoon; dodging monkeys; sunbathing; swimming; and watching the sun set.
It was the first time that I'd tried rock climbing and although I'm perfectly aware of what climbing is, I didn't really think too much about what it might entail. It sounds stupid, but when I stood at the base of the cliff before my first ever climb, the reality of what I was doing only just occurred to me. I had to climb 80 feet up a vertical limestone cliff with no man-made footholes or hand grips. The rope tied around my waist would not hoist me up, I would not even know it was there unless I needed it. Looking up, I thought that it was the kind of cliff that I could climb about ten feet up to impress my mates before ambling back down again. However, my first climb went well and I was too preoccupied with clinging on for dear life to scare myself by looking down. I did six Watch out Redgrave and Pinsent!
A flattering shot of my ever-expanding waistline climbs of a similar height in total and although the climbs that I had done were graded as the easiest on the 'international classification scale', I was happy with what I'd achieved.
The next stop on my itinerary was Ao Nang, another coastal area in the Krabi province, just along from Railay. It was quiet, the beach was average, and I only stayed a day. Rather than lounge on the beach though, I decided to go to a Thai cooking class. I was there for a few hours and we made a total of about twelve delicious dishes. I got a recipe book at the end and I'd love to use it to make some of the same things when I get back to England, although finding the right ingredients will be a struggle.
My last stop before heading back to Bangkok was Phuket (pronounced Poo-Get). Similar to Samui in terms of the tourist decay, I didn't really like the place. The bars and nightclubs that were crawling with working girls were of little interest to me, and I saw enough drunk British lads 'on tour' to last a lifetime.
I spent my only full day there buzzing around on a rented motorbike, the highlight of my exploration being the viewpoint that you could see all three major beaches from. The beaches themselves were ok, but swimming was out of the question due to the strength of the water. I only had to wade out up to my knees to feel just how strong the undercurrent was. That evening, I drove to an Irish bar, listened to some bad covers and then went home early. I parked the bike in the same bay outside my room as I had parked it in earlier that day and turned in for the night. When I got down to it the next morning I found that it had been padlocked through the front wheel. My first suspicion was that it was a thieving ploy, but I fortunately saw a bit of yellow paper flapping by the kerb further along the road. When I checked it out I saw that my registration was handwritten on it and guessing that it was a parking ticket, I took it to the place where I had rented the bike, where the man translated the Thai and told me that I'd parked on the wrong Would ya?
Ladyboy Cabaret = Men dressed as women, dancing awfully and lip syncing (badly) to cheesy 80's pop. Needless to say, I was enthralled! side of the road. A rather bizarre system, parking on that road was permitted, but on even numbered days you had to park on one side and on odd numbered days you had to park on the other! I had once had my car clamped in London and had to cough up 75GBP, however, this time my taxi to the police station and back and the fine itself totalled 4GBP!
I got the bus back up to Bangkok later that morning, which is where the next blog will start.
Enjoy the photos. Remember that you can click on them to enlarge them. You can also make comments on this blog and send me a private personal message at the bottom of the page.
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Ryan from Canada
non-member comment
Awesome blog!
Now THIS is a blog! haha Sounds like you're havin a wicked awesome time dude! I'm jealous! haha I'm hoping to get over there next year! Looking forward to the next blog! Thanks for sharin!