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Published: March 30th 2008
Congratulations Marie and Ben on the birth of your baby girl on 26th March 8lbs 4oz !!
Our next plan was to head for Thailand's southern beaches and perhaps do some island hopping on the west coast, which by all accounts, and from previous experiences, we had heard was the best. Less developed, more chilled.
After the trek we returned to Chang Mai for one night only. We were dusty, dirty and tired. We decided to give the 'Smile' - not! a miss and booked into the 'Green Tulip' - a lurid lime green building, but new and modern inside, with comfy beds (no bugs!). It had shared bathrooms, but they were so clean and plentiful we decided to give it a go. After 2 nights of sleeping in huts on the floor in the jungle it was just what we needed. If I could tear Stuey away from the lady who rang the place of course! Now you all know what he is like for stopping to chat to anyone, anywhere no matter where you are or going....with that fake Oz/s. africa/Dinas twang...'hey how ya doin'?'... Well the Thai people are extremely friendly and will also engage in
chat...which means that every 10m of walking anywhere we have to stop for Stu to tell them he is 'a surfer and really likes surfing'. This lady, and her quieter husband, who ran the place was a little crazy and insisted on grabbing us as we went in for hugs and chat....I really needed a shower first! But is was nice to have such a reception by a total stranger I guess. (You know me I'm not a great fan of hugging!!). After a fill with our usual fodder from the night market we hit the hay...another early one ahead.
6.30am again!! we were up and in a taxi for the airport. Remember the flights I booked on the wrong day.... well that was the schedule for the day, on the right day of course. Delightful Air Asia, Chang Mai to Bangkok, arriving around 10am ish, that all went smoothly, except the breakfast at the airport that stung us for around 450B each...which by Thailand's prices is expensive!!
The next flight, at around 1pm ish would take us from Bangkok to Krabi in the south. Now I have never flown with other budget airlines in the UK, but
apparently they work in the same way, which was all new to me. The time you check in is irrelevant to what seat you get. And there is no such thing as queuing in Asia. The seat you get on the plane is first come first served basis. Which really doesn't matter when you think about it,...but when they call the flight for boarding it's a stampede, lots of short people pushing and weaving in between all holding hands in a line, so when one pushes in under your arm, the whole family comes too! But once you are through the gate, it's all down to how quick you can power walk (without actually running....cos that would be really sad!!) across the runway...aren't we glad of those long legs now! Even if we didn't make it to the front of the queue we would usually manage to make it to somewhere near the front of the plane, sitting together.
On this occassion however, we didn't actually make it this far, not for another 3-4hours anyway. We could see maintainance guys sat on the runway under the plane with the wheel off, but thought they would sort it soon, even though
they just appeared to be chatting and smoking!!. Everytime the air stewardess picked up the microphone to speak, everyone assumed it was a call to announce boarding and would prompt the usual stampede to the gate, but instead it was yet another announcement of further delays. I'm sure they were doing it for fun. To placate the crowd they offered us snacks, which again following a stampede to the front, turned out to be a hamburger from burger king each!! It could have been a whopper at least! (this was the first western type food we had eaten since leaving the uk)
Anyway when we arrived in Krabi airport it was raining. We hadn't really planned where we would stay initially, but thanks to the delay it was now getting dark and its always alot harder to figure out what is what by night. We took a bus to the nearest developed beach called Ao Nang, where we thought we would just base ourselves for one night until we figured where else to go. By the time we got off the bus it was tipping down.. a typical tropical thunderstorm. We were loaded with our packs. Despite all our
waterproofs we were soaked through in minutes, and still had nowhere to stay. We started that tiresome act of asking at every guesthouse we passed. Fortunately as it was such a touristy area they were easy to find. We really needed to get inside now. But everywhere was full! Finally down a side street we found a fabulous little place called 'Popeyes' It was fantastic, just what we needed. Really clean, modern and comfy, with somewhere to dry our clothes. We ended the night with a beer in a cool bar close by that Stu wanted to go in because they were playing Bob Marley.
The next day it was a typical hot humid glorious day in Thailand. The beach was about 100m away and was sandy with turquoise green water. BUT it was very touristy, loads of Europeans toasting themselves on the beach, and of course cos there was no surf it didn't cut the mustard for Stu. We had heard that there were a few beaches only a 15min longtail boat ride away. Railey Beach (east and west) being again quite developed. A smaller beach called Hat Ton Sai, and another beach that I can't remember the
name of, and we have sold our LP Thailand book, anyway it doesn't matter cos we headed for Ton Sai. Now this beach is the 'Bells Beach' of rock climbing (think Point Break, the bit at the end when Bodi surfs to his demise!.....too much time around the surfer I know!). Anyone who is any kind of rock climber comes here. As you can imagine the scenery is pretty spectacular too. Huge overhanging cliffs dropping into the sea or onto a sandy beach that can only be accessed by boat. It also has lots of cheap bungalows so its attracts backpackers too! Like us.
There were no cars and only 2 dirt track roads, the rest of the place consisted of small bars and beach bungalows. It was the secluded near-paradise we had been searching for...at least for now anyway. After all the cities we had been through we decided to just stop a while and do nothing much. We looked at lots of huts, but as always decided on the first one we saw. The PAASOOK, our hut was roomy and atmospheric, it was set back a bit in the trees. Unfortunately, we hadn't brought our stuff and
had another night back on Ao Nang, so we went back and indulged in the tourism with a bit of retail therapy. It was a bit like Torremolinos in its heyday. They even had the guys who want to take your photo with a rare (drugged looking) primate and charge you a fortune. We were glad to move on early the next morning.
Well what can I say about our time on Ton Sai? It started really well. We relaxed on the beach, a bit of swimming and snorkelling, and watching the climbers. Apparently climbing is rated on a scale of 1-25, and this area was rated as difficult 20-25, so it was impressive to watch these guys. That evening we went to watch the sunrise and some people base jumped off the cliff onto the beach - amazing. After dark we sat on the beach in a bar having a few drinks watching the stars and listened to the Dire Straits album they were playing....yes we are old now, especially when we realised we knew all the words to 'Romeo and Juliet'! Which then turned a bit heavier with a little blast of ACDC! Just as we were
about to move on, some guys came and entertained us with Fire Poi, to yes, you guessed it, Prodigy's 'Firestarter', and other greats, cheesy I know but it was kinda cool too!
On the beach we saw wild macaques, snakes and huge spiders...as well as scary Germans.
The next day was a little rainy at times, but we still chilled at the beach, read some books, played cards. We ate BBQ chicken, papaya salad and sticky rice from a street vendor. it was great, but I think it came back to haunt Stu. On our third day of doing very little we decided to hire a kayak and explore the other beaches and stretch out a bit with the snorkelling. As it was again a little overcast the obvious thing for Stu to do was to go without any suncream.....despite my best advice! The first mishap occured after we had been in the kayak about 10mins, we had a waterproof bag with all our valuables, tied to the back of the boat. Stu decided he wanted to snorkel and attempted to daintily place himself into the water without causing much of a ripple, but instead what occured was
a huge splash and he managed to completely capsize the whole thing, including me (still clothed) and all ourstuff. Like I said our stuff was safe...oh except Stu's new arnette sunglasses that gently floated to the ocean floor. Despite our best efforts to find them, they were gone. Nemo is a cool looking dude tonight. The rest of the trip was pretty good. We saw some fab fish and reefs, a water monitor lizard on the rocks and went in some caves. We also made it to that other beach I mentioned earlier which was really beautiful.
Later that evening, Stu developed a fever and bad stomach ( obviously at this point he was dying with malaria!!) I put it down to the sunburn through lack of suncream while kayaking for 4 hours in the sea near the equator! We had 12 hours or so of him running back and forth to the loo, despite the usual immodium/dioralyte etc.. and had to put it down to a stomach bug......he was insistent it was the papaya salad and chicken. I was feeling fine and have a stomach like iron, so went back for some more. while he slept it off.
The next day there was some improvement but his mood was not good. If you have ever met Stu when he is not feeling well it's not a pretty sight....very moody and aggressive.. (Lisa ring any bells..??) In fairness, he was pretty sick and although our hut was lovely our inside/outside bathroom was pretty basic and unpleasant with lots of livestock. We decided to call it a day and head back to the mainland in search of a more comfortable place for him to recuperate.
So with the wounded soilder in hand we took the boat back to Ao Nang. Unfortunately we couldn't get a room back in the Popeye, but the Jinda guesthouse provided an equally appealing room. He pretty much stayed in bed all day. I had free range to shop alone...yeah, nobody to tell me I was breaking the budget. I bought a few things and brought some goodies from the street stalls back to eat in the room. I also took the opportunity to book the flights for the next part of our journey, Borneo. We decided that as he was struck by illness we wouldn't be able to go to the islands and not
be in any fit state to do his PADI as planned, here, but maybe later elsewhere. So we thought we would make our way to Borneo as soon as possible to make it in time for his 30th birthday, we both felt that Borneo would be a highlight for us. Thailand was amazing as ever, and if we had more time we would love to have reached those islands. The time we did have fulfilled all our expectations and more. (not the illness though!)
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mike
non-member comment
mmmm Papaya salad
My favourite not too hot mind and chicken on sticks yum yum.. hope you feeling better soon :)