2 days in, and a complete change of plan....

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So....i'm pretty darn hungover (or possibly still drunk?) so this is gunna be a half arsed blog entry i feel....

I've been in thailand (and the start of my travels) for 4 days now.....so here's a brief summary of whats been happening....

Flight sucked. 11 hours of horribleness (although Kung Fu Panda was awesome)....

On the first day (thur) i was just chilling and finding my bearings around the area (it happens that the hostel i had booked up is just around the corner from where i stayed last time in thailand - so walking through all the places i knew was really nostalgic)...

I met up with a few guys and went out for a drink with them. We then ended up meeting about another 4/5 people so in the end there were about 8 of us....

anyways....next day (friday) i ended up going on a 10 baht (about 15p) tuk tuk ride which should have lasted an hour. 4 hours later i returned, and had spent 600 british pounds! The dirt cheap tuk tuks are all a scam basically - they are commisioned by different companys to bring tourists to their shops. This guy was commisioned by the thai travel authority so we stoped off in the travel agent....

I spent the next 2 hours speaking and planning a route with the travel agent which lasts about a month....My initial plan was to leave bangkok on monday, head to northern thailand, then cross the border into loas, and cambodia and then come back to Bangkok before going to the southern islands....What i didn't realise is that if i were to reach the islands in a month or so's time (my initial plan), i would spend 3 weeks on a beautiful paradise island - In moonsoon season.

So here's the new plan (from memory):

sept 8th - take the 14 hour bus ride to Krabi
9th - 14th - on the beach in Krabi. (1 day snorkelling on a national park, and 1 day white water rafting and then ATV riding (like a quad i think?) through a jungle...
15th - boat to Ko phi phi and spend the night there
16th - a camping trip to 'maya bay' - which is the 'beach' in the movie 'the beach' (the beach where the swede gets eaten by a shark)
17th - back to Ko Phi phi for another night
18th - travel overland to Ko Samui (Ko phi phi and krabi are on the west coast)
18th - 22nd - staying in Ko Samui
22nd - 25th - travelling to, and staying on Ko Phangan (arrive the day of the half moon party. Which is a rave in a jungle) - and i may be djing at the hostel bar on that day too!
26th - 30th - travel to, and stay on Ko Toa where i'm doing a scuba diving course.
1st - travel back to bangkok and spend the night there
2nd - night train to Chang Mai (north thailand)
3rd - 7th in Chaing Mai (including a 3 day/2 night trek through the jungle where you spend a night living with a hill tribe - you know - the ones with the stretched necks with all the rings around them!) And then riding elephants and floting back to Chaing mai on a bamboo raft!
8th - 10th - The 2 day slow boat into Loas....

and then after that i'll make my way though loas and into cambodia - before heading to Malaysia, borneo and singapore....

The trip includes all accomodation, transport and activities, so its nice not having to think about anything for the next month!

Then yesterday (sat) i got the bus into Siam Square which is a bunch of huge New York/Japan style malls and crazyness. I then jumped on another bus to Lamphini park (i suppose the bangkok equivilant to Hyde park) to read and relax after the sensory overload that is Siam....A big difference between UK and Thai parks - in the lake in Thailand they have HUGE catfish and tortoises who fight over the bread!!! UK 0. Bangkok 1.

And then last night i ended up heading into ko san road (the main 'backpacker hub' on bangkok) and meet loads of different people and playing drinking games till 6.20am (i somehow ended up drinking for 'team ireland'?!)

Had to leave my hostel at 11am this morning, so woke up feeling shit, packed up and left...and checked into another hostel down the road called 'My House' - which is where we stayed 6 years ago when i was last in thailand....the rooms horrible but i decided to stay here more for nostalgic reasons (and its 200bht/night - about 3quid)....

In a little bit im getting the river taxi down to Chinatown to get my China on....

So, that, really briefly, is whats been going on since arriving....

Will try and get some photos' online soon....

Hope everyone is well and i'll update you all sometime soon (when i'll be burnt to a crisp on the thai islands!)

Untill then......

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