Advertisement
Published: August 28th 2009
So after a 12 hour coach ride from Siem Reap (Cambodia) to Bangkok (Thailand) we arrived on the infamous Koh San Rd, ready for a much needed night on the town!
We had two just two days in Bangkok, before we were to head down south to meet our friends from Australia, so we decided that it was best to head out that night and to have the second day to recover.
Once the decision had been made it was back off to one of our favorites from the last time, the Irish pub in the center of the Koh San. Once there we got things started in the usual fashion before meeting up with a couple of like minded Canadians. Drinking games and some Sangsom whiskey got involved before we randomly met up with a group of Irish girls that we had met the last time we were in Thailand down on Maya bay!
After a few more bars and a few more people joining our entourage, I called it a night, hoping to find the now missing Millsy on route somewhere.
It was a great night and a perfect way to start our time back
in Thailand!
The second day was spent wandering around the stalls and markets and generally killing time until our night bus/boat down to Koh Pha Ngan where were to meet up with the Aussies.
The bus ride got off to a great start with Me, Millsy and two others getting put down in the V.I.P suite for the first 6 hours, where we had our own TV and much more space than that of the people upstairs. Unfortunately our luck was not to last. At around 3am all the passengers on the bus were dropped off in the middle of nowhere, with no explanation. We all sat there in the early hours of the morning at the side of the road for well over an hour wandering what the hell to do before finally another bus came and took us to the port where we were to connect to Pha Ngan.
A relatively short wait and then 3 hour boat ride took us to the port in Koh Pha Ngan, where we transferred on to Coco Gardens beach resort in Ban Tai where we were to spend the next 10 days catching up with our friends.
They turned up within a few hours and before long things were back to usual. We headed off that night to a bar called Cool Running's, for an evening of beers and pool! Good times!
The next day was the 6th and time for the main reason we chose Pha Ngan as our meeting point, the full moon party. We had a couple of drinks with the crew at Cocos before heading for another couple at Cool Running s, where we got a taxi to the beach of Haad Rin, where the party was held.
The night started exactly how it should of, with a bucket each and straight out on to the beach where we all got painted up with glow in the dark paints and headed in to the melee of party goers (around 25,000) after a few hours of dancing around and usual Thai party antics (fire breathing, flaming limbo and so on) I found a bar playing some drum and bass, though the other guys wern't that in to the music, the buckets and such had taken hold and there was no stopping me. So saying my farewells to the guys, who headed
home not long after, I literally danced for around 6 hours at the bar (and occasionally on it ) with the German girl I had befriended.
I made it home at around 11am the next day and after finding the rest of the crew we had a much needed breakfast and swapped tales of the last nights events! Obviously that day was not spent doing much.
The next day however we headed out on our rented motorbikes to explore the island after catching some rays at Chalaklum Bay we did our best to make it up the very steep hills of the dirt track that led to the north east part of the island. Almost inevitably there were a couple of accidents which not only ruined some of our party's confidence but also ended up being very expensive.
We did however still take the bikes out the next day up to Chalaklum bay where we spent another day chilling on the beach and generally relaxing. That night we headed back out to the Cool Running's bar, which was fast becoming our regular, before heading back to Haad Rin to see what the after math was like.
It turned out to be a lot more chilled out and because of that the drinks were even cheaper so we indulged ourselves for a few hours before we starting our trip back to Cocos. En route home we bumped In to Em, who had been our bar maid whilst we were staying at Relax Beach resort the month before. She was working in Piercing studio so me an Ian decided to get piercings (?). Millsy went first and unfortunately for him they didn't seem to know what they were doing. They finally got the piercing in, but by that time and after that performance, we took our leave and headed home! (the piercing came out early the next morning)
On the 10th we headed back to Chalaklum and played some mini golf, which was wicked fun, then back to Running's for some beers and pool.
The 13th was Ox and Jules last day so after some mandatory beach time we headed out to a bar on top of a hill over looking the west coast of the island, where we sat and watched an incredible sunset.
After saying our goodbyes the next day, Me and Ian
had one last party to attend on the island. The half moon party was totally different to the full moon. It was set in the jungle and with just one main stage, it was a much more intimate event, we had a great time and rocked out until the early hours!
The next day was our last on the island before catching a 25 hour bus down to Kuala Lumpur. We spent as much time on the beach as we could and then made our way to a sports bar to catch the opening day of the English footie season.
It was up early the next day for our transfer which turned out to be a long day of stop start bus journeys, until we finally made it, at around 5am to a hostel in the cities Chinatown.
We had a day and a half there before our flight to Bali (Indonesia).
We landed in Bali's Denpassar airport on the 17th, where we were immediately greeted by a friend we met in New Zealand who was Waiting for his girlfriend Kate, a friend of mine from home. After a quick catch up we shared a taxi in
to Kuta the main tourist center in Bali, where we bedded down straight away for a much needed kip.
The next day we went to check out the beach, true to its reputation, Kuta has a beautiful beach with great surf, the weather was perfect..... and it was full of Aussies on vacation!
We spent the day on the beach watching the surf, before heading back to meet up with Kate and Dave for a night out in town. It wasn't the busy night we were expecting, but that gave us all a chance to properly catch up on events since we last saw each other at the wine and food festival in Blenheim.
We headed out of Kuta the next day (me and Mills) on to the east coast of the island to a town called Sanur, which promised the same beautiful beaches but with a much more relaxed cultural surrounding.
And it didn't disappoint. After a bit of traipsing around we found a perfect base point in Bintang Bungalows. A nice small place complete with swimming pool and a kitchen.
We spent our last 6 days in Bali, and the last 6 days
of real traveling we had left, doing an outrageous amount of relaxing!
We spent the days at the beach soaking up the 35 degree heat, the afternoons wandering around some incredible markets and craft stalls and the nights at the night market sampling all the local delicacy's on offer for incredibly low prices!
On our third day we met back up with Kate and Dave, we had another night out, which started with some Indonesian rum, very questionable, and then took us out to the much more relaxed night life of Sanur. It was our last proper night out before heading back to the UK so we made the best of our quiet surroundings, and ended up having a really sweet night, which finished with, thanks to Millsy a couple of beers and Phill Collins greatest hits! Oh dear!
On our last night in Sanur, we headed out to try the local beverage made of fermented coconuts, Arrak. It was rank but it had to be done and with that inside us we made our way to the airport where we had a long wait until 6am for our flight back to KL.
When we arrived back
to KL we checked in to same hostel as before and spent the next day going to the sights, inclusive of the KL and Petronas towers and the city forest.
With our flight to Brunei only hours away,where we will stay for one night until our flight back to London Heathrow, the only thing left to say is that the last 15 months have bin an incredible experience. So many amazing country's and cultures. Some incredible friends made, and a real home found in Blenheim.
It's going to be hard to get used to the idea of not traveling for a while. But with the prospect of our family and friends, the new football season and a nice pint of cider, were leaving feeling pretty happy about things!
Until next time (whenever that may be)
xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.417s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.1827s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Akeisha
non-member comment
Thailand again...
Well, well... look who is still hanging out on Koh San Road. Hello Baby-Sam. Glad to see you're doing well. It is a place where anything goes and we all know how much fun that can be. All the best to you and it's great to see you living your life with such enthusiam. Well done and take care ...xxx