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Published: October 27th 2014
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Ok so I think we left off with jack drinking his piñacolada...
The next day we decided it would be a good idea to rent a bike and see what else was on the island, apart from a load of closed bars and restaurants.
We drove around for a few hours and found more or less nothing, after being recommended Koh Lanta instead of our first choice Koh Chang we were pretty cross it seemed like the wrong decision for sure!
We made our way back to the guesthouse where it looked like our deserted huts were starting to fill up! We met some Irish blokes that had just come from Krabi (our next stop) in their opinions both Krabi and Lanta were expensive sh*tholes and they're idea of Thai paradise is Koh Chang... Great!
They did have some good news, they found a bloke from Essex in a bar who owns a restaurant and does a Sunday roast... And yes it was Saturday! Probably the best news we'd had in weeks :D
Decided to do some island hoping Sunday day time then make our way to the restaurant for our roast!
So we woke up bright and early for
island hoping which we were doing with the Australian couple we had met the night before... We wasn't really sure what it included we just knew we would be stopping at four islands.
First island done a bit of snorkelling
Second island a bit more snorkelling
Third island .... We arrived at a limestone island in the middle of the sea and the guy doing the tour started to hand out life jackets, no one knew what we would be doing yet everyone proceeded to jump overboard when directed to. One of the women on the boat was stung by a jellyfish that had wrapped itself around her whole leg and the rest of us just bobbed around waiting to be told what we were doing floating around next to a rock.
So the guide jumps in the water which was pretty choppy splashing up against the rocks and says follow me..
One by one everyone starts to follow the guide when we finally reach a hole in the rock/cave. As we got closer the wind coming from the cave was enough to give you a free facelift but as we were already in the ocean and the boat
seemed pretty far now everyone carried on into the cave.
Slowly the further we got into the cave all light had vanished and we were sitting in pitch black with the sound of the waves hitting the walls and the faint voice of the guide saying 'Mind your head!!'
I could barely see jack two inches infront of me let alone whether or not I was going to bang my head on a rock! This was when I realised we were going to die here in this cave... But then after 5 minutes of bobbing I saw the light! We had made it to the other end!
As we swam out of the cave the water got a lot shallower and the cave opened out to a tiny little beach which was pretty impressive!
After around half an hour on the beach the guide said it was time to leave as the tide was rising pretty quickly!
Got back to the guesthouse and tried to google map the roast restaurant, neither of us could remember the name so we had no chance of finding it on google! However, we did find an Irish bar/restaurant with pretty good reviews so
we set off on the bike for some proper grub! I ordered a steak and ale pie with homemade chips, peas and gravy. Jack ordered chicken and stuffing wrapped in bacon with chips, a white wine sauce and a load of veg it was incredible I nearly cried with happiness at how full I felt, I thought I'd left this feeling at home when we boarded the flight!
The rest of Koh Lanta was pretty average, went to the opening of a new bar with our Australian pals and done some more driving around on the bike.
Krabi...
Arrived in Krabi around lunch time, we were staying on the main road with all the restaurants and bars so it was a pretty good location! Jack had a hair cut we got some pizza and went out for some beers.
The next day we decided to go on a kayaking trip which was really good.. Had a water fight on the kayak as it was so hot, jack wasn't impressed as the water was brown and I was getting him face on.
After lunch we left for the fresh water pool which was really cold so I didn't
wanna get in but jack was climbing trees launching himself into the water so I'm pretty sure he enjoyed himself!
(As you can probably tell I'm getting bored of writing this now and were nearly at our destination so I'm going to quickly go through what we did next)
Found a bar with a live band so spent the night getting boozy there and listening to the music on the street (jack had another piñacolada) it was probably the best bar we've found so far as it was actually open and quite busy!
Next day we were up early as we had to leave the guesthouse, our flight to Chiang Mai wasn't until 8pm so we had it of waiting around to do and today was the day the sun decided to show it's face! We spent all day in and out of air conditioned shops and restaurants until we were finally picked up and taken to the airport.
We arrived in Chiang Mai around 10:30pm and got a transfer to the guesthouse.
Trekking!!
We booked up a 3 day 2 night trekking tour whilst in Chiang Mai we wasn't sure what it would involve or what
was meant by trekking so we packed our basics and made our way to reception to wait for our pick up. We met a Hungarian couple who were also doing the trekking, but they were a lot more prepared than us in their trekking boots and combat trousers.
We sat in the back of a pick up truck for around an hour until we reached the start point, by this time it was about 12 so you can imagine how hot it was now. We had some lunch and started to make our way through the rice fields up into the mountains.
After around an hour of uphill walking id definitely had enough and was grateful when we came across a waterfall for our first break. After being told many times it was slippery and to be careful I still managed to fall down it!
More trekking and around another hour later we arrived at our camp for the night, bamboo huts next to a huge waterfall!
We spent the night playing games around the campfire and getting to know everyone before going to sleep on a bamboo slab with a mosquito net - neither of us slept.
The
next day half of the group descended back down the mountains to finish their trip, we still had one more night left so we carried on climbing up until after a few hours came to our next camp. Oh but before this we ate lunch with some mountain people who served up freshly caught rats!
We arrived in the Karen village just before it started to piss down so we were pretty lucky. We were greeted by what seemed like the whole village trying to sell us everything and anything we would take. I think beer was the only thing purchased. After having dinner on the floor we started to play some more games. As there was no electricity in the village it was so dark and by about 8pm everyone was ready to go to bed. We stayed up playing card games until one of the locals an old guy came strolling over to our hut climbed up and made himself at home. He told us story after story and had us all in fits of laughter until it really was the middle of the night and time for bed!
The next day we made our way to the
bottom of the mountains and to the bamboo rafting which was naff.
After a much needed days of sleep we tried out white water rafting which was wicked! Could have been a little more rapids but overall such a good experience!
Left Chiang Mai got to the border slept for the night and we are now making our way down the river to Luang Prabang in Laos.
The end....
I know the most important part are the photos so I tried not to waffle to much 😊
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