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Published: January 8th 2007
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Well, sorry i went a bit quiet then so this might be a bit of a mammoth blog to catch up. We were in Thailand for a month arriving after 2 days on a hard wooden seat in a slow boat from Laos (this trip deserves its own entry, ive been a bad blog writer but if you want to read about it go to Toms at: http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Krabi/blog-110807.html). We arrived in Chang Mai for the weekend of the King's birthday celebrations, which meant all the places to stay were full and all the museums closed. Eventually, after sending the guys off on a hunt for a hotel we managed to find an overpriced hovel to call home for the night. My time in Chang Mai was spent mainly shopping at the massive night markets, wandering around the flower market and meeting up with some friends from Vietnam and Australia who were all there at the same time, which was a great coincidence.
From there Tom and I went to Pai for a couple of days to do not very much. Pai is a little town up in the moutains which involves a 3 hour drive round almost hairpin bends to
Muay Thai boxing
These guys were only about 15 but absolutely brutal get to. We did hire a moto and venture out to a waterfall, which im sure would be more impressive in the wet season. We also drove out to some hot springs but were offended at the 380 baht price difference between foreigners and Thais so decided to give it a miss.
After 2 nights there we got a bus back to Chang Mai and had to kill an afternoon before getting the overnight bus to Bangkok. I love travelling now but its not all fun. Lying half on a wall, half in a flower bed in a square, having ants crawling all over my back but feeling too ill to do anything about it and having nowhere to go with only the prospect of a 12 hour bus jouney ahead was not one of my favourite moments. I just wanted a hug from my mum. However that wasnt going to happen and we had to get the bus and luckily i felt better although Tom caught it then unfortunately. We arrived in Bangkok about 5am and ended up in the most disgusting place yet as everywhere was full and we were too tired to argue so we had
2 nights in a smelly room with flies, cockroaches the size of my hand and no sink or window, although it did have a huge state of the art tv (bizarrely as they hadnt spent money on anything else) which we spent a day watching before feeling well enough to spend a day shopping. We'd had enough of Bangkok then and decided to head down to Krabi in the South. First though we wanted to visit Kanchanburi to see the bridge over the Kwai River, as it was only a 3 hour ride away. We caught a bus that morning and visited some great museums which explained the story behind the bridge and visited the well kept Allied War Cemetary. Its the first time ive visited somewhere like that which has been associated with WWII and it was quite moving especially looking at the ages of all the soldiers, most of which were similar in age to me. However, the bridge itself was surrounded by market stalls blaring out loud music and selling tat ruined the feel of the bridge and was a real shame. We headed back to Bangkok and waited for an hour before getting on another 12
hour bus ride to Krabi.
Krabi itself isnt that impressive a town, its mainly a jumping off place for the islands. However we struggled to find somewhere to stay (not fun again at 6am) and thought the islands would be even busier so we stayed there for 5 days and took boat trips out to the islands including Hong Island and Phi Phi Lei, where we visited the beach from the film 'The Beach'. The rest of the trips were full of lying on white, soft sand beaches, swimming and snorkelling in crystal clear seas, sitting under palm trees and generally fulfilling all the cliches. It really is absolutely stunning there.
Next was a visit to Ko Lanta where we'd booked a hotel for Christmas. Ko Lanta is mainly full of families and couples but it does have an amazing beach where we lay for 4 days, sunbathing (not that it did me any good, only been here an hour when i had a Malaysian man come up and tell me i was really white and also tried to take my picture quite randomly). Ko Lanta is packed with Scandinavians who all celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve so
that was the big night while Tom and I were just warming up. Christmas Day ended up being quite quiet but we spent it on the beach trying our best to feel christmassy, luckily we had chocolate santas and furry robins from Tom's sister and little stockings with hats and cracker jokes from mine, which helped. Christmas dinner was a deep fried fish (we tried to have it barbequed but somehow that got lost in translation) and lots of Samsung whiskey.
We then had to head back to Krabi so we could travel to Ko Phangan the next day, a 6 hour journey they promised which ended up taking 12 including 2 hours in the backend of nowhere waiting for a bus. Eventually we arrived in Ko Phangan at 11pm and got a taxi to our resort, which was really nice with a wooden bungalow with a porch outside and its own beach. Ko Phangan is known for its beach parties and we were there for 2 of them, New Years Eve and the Full Moon Party - huge parties with thousands of people, music, dancing and a lot of buckets of Samsung whiskey. On the days we weren't
Fireshow at Ko Lanta
Guess it beats Eastenders as entertainment on Christmas Day partying or recovering we headed out to the middle of the island to see a waterfall and a wat. All the roads on Koh Phangan are up and down ridiculously steep hills, the road to Hat Rin (the main town) being a particular nightmare which tom and our little moto handled well. The road in the centre of the island consisted of steep hills and a potholed dirt road, quite an interesting little combination which our moto decided it had had enough of and that it wanted a rest lying down in the bushes by the side of the road. Unfortunately i was driving when it took this decision (all on its own i should point out) but after refusing to start it got over its little tantrum and all was fine. The waterfall itself was a small stream trickling over some rocks on a hill.
After 8 nights on Ko Phangan we had to head to Malaysia, personally full of regret at leaving Thailand as i had had an amazing time there. Getting to Malaysia was supposed to be a 9 hour boat and bus journey to Hat Yai in Thailand and then 4 hours the next day to Penang in Malaysia. We arrived after a 13 hour day (notice a trend??) in Hat Yai, late at night in the rain. We found somewhere to sleep which had a tv and air con (complete luxury) but no hot water again (grr --coming on for a month since my last hot shower) and a couple of visitors in the night (see below). The next day we got to Penang without any problems and stayed in Georgetown. Its full of little streets, great architecture and some good Indian restaurants in Little India. We spent our time wandering, shopping, looking round the museum and seeing a film. Today we arrived in Kota Bharu after a long bus jouney through some stunning countryside - lush trees and cloud topped mountains - unfortunately in a freezing cold bus driven by a driver who seemed to think he was driving a formula one car not a huge coach on quite steep mountain roads. All adds to the fun though. So a couple more weeks here before we head home.
By the way apparently ants do have brains and can think to a certain extent although they dont know what to do in unusual situations that they havent been genetically programmed for - proving me right!
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