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Published: April 15th 2013
As soon as Donna’s parents saw the beach on Koh Phangan on a ‘Skype-walk-and-talk’ last July (isn’t modern technology wonderful?), the decision was made about where we would be taking them on holiday. Everything was booked by mid-January and we started to get daily countdowns by e-mail from them, which were remarkably accurate, even down to the minute! This is the first of two blogs of our time with them.
We had managed to book flights to arrive within an hour of each other into Bangkok and we arrived first, giving us time to sort out the sim card for our phone and scoff a black forest cornetto - have we ever mentioned how good the cornettos in Thailand are? We were very excited to see Jan and Paul and we started the holiday in luxury, albeit by sneaking into their swanky Mercedes chauffeur serviced car (courtesy of Emirates) to our hotel! Our second bit of luxury was a posh hotel…well posh for us at 1700 baht (£34) it was the most we had spent on a hotel in a long time but you know, it was nice to have duvets, bathrobes, shampoo and cupboards which lit up
Kids nowadays hey?
Heads always stuck in technology!when you opened the doors!
Our first two nights were spent in Bangkok, with one full day to do a bit of shopping, get Donna’s hair done and eat as much as we possibly could! We managed to arrive into Bangkok when the elections for Governor of Bangkok were being held which meant two dry days (i.e. no alcohol could be sold) and all bars closed! We were shocked when we read the newspapers and found out the turnout for this election was over 65%...something the UK can only dream of in elections! Restaurants seemed to be exempt from this alcohol ban and luckily the Indian restaurant we chose to eat at was serving some to go with the fabulous food. This was another luxury experience and we had proper tablecloths and napkins, although Neil was very disappointed the waiters didn’t tuck his napkin into his jeans like they used to in India 😉.
After our disasters of previous years travelling on Donna’s birthday we had decided this year to try and break the birthday curse (previous disasters have included a motorcycle accident where Paul ended up in emergency surgery, an emergency landing of
a plane, the theft of all our money and credit cards and flight cancellations). This wasn’t to be the year and now we have all agreed, no more travelling on Donna’s birthday. The day started off well enough, we got to Don Mueang in time for our flight, grabbed some breakfast and the flight landed in Surat Thani a little late. This is the point things unravelled a little bit. The 10am Lomprayah fast boat to Koh Phangan was cancelled (admittedly something we had never heard of happening!), we could either wait until the 1pm boat and risk not getting accommodation/getting to our destination that day or make alternative plans. So to cut a long story short, we were driven to Donsak pier by a crazy man who had a unique ability to drive at 120km per hour and text on two phones at the same time! We made it in time for the 10am car ferry and although it took 45 minutes longer and it was rocking something awful (making both Neil and Paul feel sick), we arrived in one piece at Thongsala.
On arrival at our beach paradise we managed to get a couple of
lovely bungalows and there were only two problems…an OCD gecko and cockerels with a death wish! Somewhere between the outside wood panelling and the inner wall of our bungalow was a gecko which liked to chirp (yes, this is the correct term – we Googled it!) in three lots of three just like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory! This gecko always managed to chirp either as we were about to fall asleep or in the middle of the night waking us up with a jump and as he was inside the wall it amplified the sound so it was really loud! To add to the comic value of the chirping gecko, it sounded like the noise from Family Fortunes when contestants get the answer wrong! Now the cockerels really did have a death wish and were sooooo annoying. Every morning, once one starts cock-a-doodle-dooing, they all start and never bloody well stop. We hate cockerels with a vengeance and every morning at 5am without fail we got a wake-up call from around 7 of them, followed by a thud, a squawk and the scrabble of cockerel feet as the owner and staff of the bungalows tried to chase them
away with a broom. Not that it mattered, it didn’t deter them at all and they just got bolder and bolder until one morning Donna’s parents woke up to a cockerel on their balcony admiring their clothes hanging out to dry!
After a few days of doing nothing but lazing on the beach we hired a car and did a day trip driving around the island to see different sights – there was no way we would hire mopeds! Our first stop was a beach on the far north-west coast called Haad Mae Haad, it was a very quiet beach with a reef quite close to the shore and the snorkelling is meant to be excellent here. There was also a little island which you can walk to at low tide across a spit of sand, unfortunately the tide was too high to walk although some people were wading up to their waists coming back! Our next stop was on the north coast - Chaloklum where the smell of fish was rather overwhelming so we high tailed it out of there to drive through the centre of the island to find a waterfall which had absolutely no
Our bungalows...
nice, but the neighbours were a bit dodgy ;) water in it at all because it’s been too dry!
The next part of our trip was very interesting, driving to the north-east coast was quite an adventure and we were very glad we had a truck to do it in! If you look at the videos you will see what we mean. The road alternated between being sealed and paved, in good condition and pot-holed gravel where even the truck had difficulty keeping traction! The road was also steep and windy and very narrow, but with Paul’s expert driving we made it in one piece and arrived at Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai where we promptly had a swim and then went in search for lunch. After lunch we had another swim (well, we swum and Mum and Dad slept on the beach!) and we then headed for the beach next door (Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi) as we were very curious as to what it was like. We stayed on Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi 11 years ago on our second ever visit to Thailand. Wow, how it had changed…we couldn’t even find anywhere to park because the whole village behind had built up so
much and blocked access to the beach completely. Disappointed, we left noting how many posh resorts there were there now and that they had all gated off their property (and had security guards stopping non-guests from going in!) and there was no way to get down to the beach.
So back on the wibbly, wobbly way (a nickname we gave the road which seemed appropriate!) we made our way back to Thong Sala, and after a coffee and cake stop and a supply stop at Tescos we headed back to our beach and to return the car. The day ended on a bit of a downer when the car hire place decided to try and scam us for non-existent damage. A couple of hours of negotiation later with the little shit who ran the car hire place, we gave him a ‘gift’ of 1,000 baht to make the problem disappear. Yes, scamming still happens to us even after all this time and Koh Phangan seems notorious for vehicle (car/bike) hire scams, but we were determined not to let it ruin our great day out and just decided to get even by posting about it all over TripAdvisor
and other websites 😉.
As always, the food in Thailand was excellent, whether we had Thai feasts or Western-type food. On Mother's Day we actually paid a visit to the very weird British pub on the island, the Masons Arms. Why we say weird, well it was like a British country pub with beer gardens, wood panelling and everything in the middle of a tropical Thai island. So we went all out and had roast dinners, fish and chips, wine and Guinness! The food and drink was excellent, although a dishonourable mention goes to the owner of this place - we were the only customers he had and he couldn't be bothered to pull himself away from the game of pool he was having with his staff to come over and say hello or thanks for your custom. In our eyes, this is the height of rudeness and very un-British.
Now some observations about our time on Koh Phangan! When you mention the name Koh Phangan to people, most of them associate it with the worst excesses of tourism like the Full Moon Party. However, only one small part of the island is like
this and when you get away from the party areas it really is a quiet, beautiful and peaceful island and kind of reminds us how Thailand used to be 12 years ago! Our favourite beach and the beach we stopped at for lunch are really lovely and very, very quiet – we (again, like last July) couldn’t believe how few people there were on the beaches and that you could have such tranquillity but all the amenities you could need. As part of our day trip, when we stopped in Thong Sala town we were actually quite shocked at how many really skanky looking tourists were there…we mean real soap dodging, dreadlocked and very, very smelly tourists (haven’t they heard of a shower?) who literally mustn’t have showered in a good two weeks. Perhaps it’s because we live in SE Asia but it always shocks us when people just don’t make an effort with their appearance or bother to shower. So much in SE Asia works on looking presentable and these people were getting very dirty looks from the Thais around them and we even heard one tourist haggling over a 20 baht plate of Pad Thai – yes, seriously!
Mum and Dad on the beach
we were all being silly and posing for the camera Another thing we noticed was that the number of Russians on the island was unbelievable – actually everywhere in SE Asia and Hong Kong there has been a phenomenal increase in Russian tourists over the last year. However, after witnessing the behaviour of some Russians and speaking to the Thai owners/workers in resorts, this increase doesn’t seem to be the blessing you would think it would be for the countries they are visiting. Several Thai owners and workers have said to us that although Russian tourists have deep pockets and spend a lot, they would rather do without the money they bring to their business. The descriptions of the behaviour these workers and owners have experienced (and what we witnessed as well) was jaw-dropping to us and we just couldn’t believe people would act with such disrespect in another country!
Actually, this leads us to one observation about the Thai’s and Thailand…they will not change much for anyone! We have heard from other travellers (and experienced for ourselves) some countries really changing to accommodate certain nationalities – like printing and displaying menus only in a certain language or shops only serving particular nationalities (India
Our posh hotel in Bangkok
nice to have a bit of luxury ;) and Vietnam spring to mind!). The Thai’s however, don’t go in for any of this. When we first visited Thailand over 12 years ago, we did actually imagine that the country would have changed beyond recognition by this point in time. Every time we go to Thailand, we still get surprised as to how little English is spoken (even in tourist areas) and how little influence ‘the West’ has on Thais – you only have to walk around a supermarket in Thailand to see this! It’s something we actually quite admire in the Thai’s – with tourist arrivals topping 22 million last year, it’s a pleasant surprise that they haven’t sold out to the highest bidder!
One thing that does puzzle us is the price of alcohol in Thailand. We know that there are quite high taxes on alcohol (instigated by Taksin's government) but, as an example, cocktails were 150 baht minimum (that's £3.19) which to us seems shocking because we can get cocktails at twice the strength/size in Hong Kong (one the most expensive cities in Asia!) for HK$30 (£2.50). The price of alcohol is something we can never get our head around in Thailand, and
the prices are actually comparable to neighbouring Muslim Malaysia which has a reason for the alcohol to be expensive!
We did nothing much during our time on our paradise beach – we ate, we wallowed in the lovely clear water, we ate some more, we ran on the beach some mornings (we had to do something to work off all the food we were eating!) and generally had a lovely relaxing time. It was nice going back to the same place, some of the resort owners and workers in the restaurants remembered us and welcomed us back like old friends. We also did a lot of people watching on the beach – again, we will mention how little people seem to enjoy themselves when they are on holiday, barely smiling and looking so miserable as if they had had a gun held to their head and forced to go on holiday. Mum and Dad were really enjoying themselves and were complete opposites to some of the other tourists we saw on the beach.
This lack of enjoyment on the part of people we see is now becoming a regular occurrence and it actually got
us thinking. As most people reading this blog know, we left the UK in 2006 and have only been back once for a two week visit; observing people from a distance, whether they are from the UK or Europe it seems like the joy for life is being slowly eroded and people don’t really know how to enjoy themselves any more. We are very lucky – being able to live in SE Asia and have an extremely good standard of living. These people are on (probably) their only holiday of the year and they are completely miserable! We know we have been living in Asia too long where certain things are concerned (more of this will be coming in a future blog!) but we are astonished at how little enjoyment people seem to get from their lives. We have definitely come to realise that life is for living and it’s too short to be unhappy or do things you don’t enjoy!
On that note, we will leave you with the promise of speedboats, snorkelling and island hopping to come in the next blog!
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I always enjoy reading about your latest vacation in Thailand...
and this time with your parents. Your insights are great. I look forward to hearing about your plans for the future.