Ladyboys, Turtles, Cheeky Monkeys and a near death experience....

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17^th-20^th

Khao Lak and Similan Islands

Oh night buses, what a joy! This was Helen’s first Asian night bus experience and she was in for a treat. Nice karaoke style programme on the TV, until lights and TV were all turned off at 8pm and the snoring started. She also had the added pleasure of sitting next to a woman who had a child on her lap. Luckily she was a nice lady and a pretty well behaved child. We were woken up half way through the night for a compulsory pit stop, everyone off, “no you cannot stay on the bus and yes you must take your complimentary smelly milk drink things, all three of them.” After a confused half an hour or so Helen decided she would buy a neck pillow to help her sleep. She had a bit of trouble choosing which colour to get, obviously she needed one to match her outfit!

Anyway we arrived in Khao Lak at 7am and promptly started wandering around aimlessly hoping the guesthouse we had booked would jump out at us. We decided to ask someone, the one person we could find awake sent us in the wrong direction. After 15 minutes of walking we realised it must be the wrong way and stopped again to ask someone else. We eventually go there, only to find out we couldn’t check in again. We could use their outside toilet though which was a bit grim. We decided to have ourselves some breakfast and check out the area. It was a nice little resort, very touristy, but nice and quiet and we could wander down to the beach and enjoy some sun, sea and sand!

We spent the next few days seriously chillaxing, enjoying some amazing food and drink and some nice sun, sea and sand.

On the 19^th we headed out on a trip to the Similan islands with a tour group called Fantasea! We were in for a treat; the trip was led by a group of men who were tour guides by day and lady boys by night. To be honest they were lady boys by day most of the time as well. They were very entertaining from the start, with lots of campness and theatrical poses and exclamations!

The trip was on a speed boat and we were warned that we may get sea sick. The “ladies” offered us some seasickness tablets to help prevent it. Helen and I decided to give it a go as we didn’t want the day ruined by being sick, Michael has a very strong stomach, so no need for him to try! The ladies warned us, “Only for over 12’s and only take one. If you take two see you tomorrow!” These tablets were strong, very strong and Helen and I spent the trip out to the islands completely zonked out, looking around on arrival at the first island so did most people who had taken them. I felt like I’d been… well… drugged I suppose! We managed to get ourselves off the boat at the first stop to enjoy the gorgeous white sand and blue seas, after a few minutes though Helen and I were out for the count again! Michael enjoyed taking pictures of us; I look like a dead chicken.

Time for more yummy food and then we were off to another island to do some snorkelling. It was beautiful water, so clear and there were tonnes of really cool fish for us to swim with. Michael and Helen both managed to cut themselves on the coral, Helen on her hand and Michael on his big toe. Michael’s toe was bleeding quite a bit and when the lady boys saw it there was a lot of gasping and fussing around. One of them went straight to work on treating him and putting a plaster on. Problem was what to put on the plaster to keep it from getting wet?? No problem a thumb from a plastic glove did the trick, resourceful Asians as ever! It did look like a condom though and it was pretty funny watching the lady boy put it on Michael’s toe!

We spent the rest of the day visiting more islands and doing some more snorkelling. Luckily the effects of the tablets wore off and we were able to do more than just pass out on the sand!

At one of the snorkelling spots our main guide started screaming his/her head off and was pointing into the water dramatically. We assumed there must be a shark and I started to feel a bit panicked. However, it soon transpired that her excitement was due to a huge sea turtle! It was awesome; it looked just like the cool dudes in Finding Nemo. Michael was caught unawares at one point when it swam right up to his face. It was a little intimidating when you saw the size of its beak, could have taken a huge chunk out of us if it wanted to.

The day was finished off with some pouting and posing for photographs. Lots of fun, great tour!



21^st – 23^rd

Feeling thoroughly relaxed we got on a bus to Khao Sok on the morning of the 21st for a few days in the jungle! We were told to wait at the side of the road and wait for a bus to pass through and hope that it would spot us and stop. Slightly dubious we did as we were told and luckily enough it worked. On to the bus we got with the rest of Thailand, three people to a seat and lots of people standing, and it was very hot. Fun times, especially with a cocktail hangover! The silver lining was that Helen made herself a friend in a very, very smiley Thai lady who clearly fell in love with her!

When we arrived in Khao Sok we jumped off at the side of the road and were greeted by a young lady who suggested we should stay at her place, I was a little dubious but Michael and Helen were on board. I was wrong to have been dubious, the place was called Palmview and it was lovely! We got a small wooden bungalow for a very good price and then we were introduced to the family. There was mama, papa, their son Kahn and nana running the place and they were so sweet giving us a very warm welcome! In the afternoon mama insisted on introducing us to their goats and their geese. She also taught us how to say goat and goose in Thai, which was fun! Then we headed out for a bit of an explore of the area. We had heard that monkeys were often seen near a small lake nearby so we headed through the jungle terrain to the lake. No monkeys but a beautiful lake! On the way back we headed past lots of holiday bungalows where we heard a few shrieks. We went to inspect and found a group of monkeys eating some food that they had stolen from outside someone’s bungalow. The shrieks were coming from a drugged up European girl who had her bottom hanging out of her pants. She was very loud and very annoying, luckily she ran off to try and find some more food (probably had the munchies!) so we and the monkeys were left in peace! They were a scrappy little bunch and we had fun filming and photographing them, until one of them charged full pelt at Helen, at which point we scurried off! Unfortunately it started to rain on our way back, very hard. We were not prepared for this and got completely caught out. We were soaking by the time we got back to the bungalow and our camera was soaked. Gutted, luckily Helen was with us so she kindly took pictures for us whilst ours was out of action. Thank you Helen, I’m sure you’ll recognise your piccies on here!

After drying off we enjoyed some of mama’s food that evening and chatted to mama, pap and Khong and got to know about their lives and family! We also booked onto a tour for the next day to Chieow Laan lake and Nam Talu cave in Khao Sok national park.

Early start the next morning, no worries mama had already cooked our breakfasts for us! The guy picking us up was a bit late, so mama got herself on the phone to tell him to hurry up. Do not mess with mama!

After we were joined by our two guides and a few more people we headed off on a drive to the lake. The journey across the lake on boat was spectacular. It was some of the best scenery we’ve seen; similar to that we’d seen in XingPing, Yangshuo, Halong Bay and northern Laos. We arrived at a restaurant on the side of the lake and had a chance to go for a dip in the lake before tucking into a yummy lunch. Then we were off through the jungle for a trek to the cave. There had been a lot of rainfall recently and so a lot of the trip was spent wading through water, at one point it came up to the tops of our legs, or in Michael’s case his knees! When we arrived at the cave after an hour or so we were told we would need to leave our stuff behind with one of the guides as the water was very deep inside and we would need to swim some of the way through. We were also told to put our torches in something waterproof, so we put ours in the sun cream bag! It was pretty scary inside, the water was very high, and it was pitch black. Michael and I only had one torch between us and Helen’s torch had pretty much given up. We followed the other guide and the rest of the group through the water, at one point we all had to swim as it was too deep to wade. We eventually came to a part which looked impassable, it was very narrow and the water was very high and the only way to get past it was to climb up the rock faces at the side of the cave. The guide scampered up and three of the German lads followed him up, slipping on the way up. Helen was next and we were all very dubious, we did not want to follow. Helen, was extremely brave and gave it a go….but halfway she slipped off completely straight into the gushing water below. I screamed her name and everyone let out a collective gasp. Luckily Michael grabbed Helen’s arm and she was have dragged by him half pulled by the gushing water into my arms. She was OK, as she told us straight away, but needless to say we were all very shaken up. Things could have been very different. We were all sure we did not want to follow the others now, so we told them we were waiting for them there. This wasn’t much fun, we were all pretty deep in water and getting cold, it was very dark and we had no guide with us. Luckily though the others did not go too far and were back with us fairly soon, although they encountered problems trying to come back down the rocks. We then all made our way back out to the sunshine. We were still a bit shaken up, especially Helen; although she didn’t show it much (she’s well hard!) The guide who had not come into the cave then told us about someone who had died in the cave a couple of years ago because there was a sudden downpour and they were washed to their death…great, thanks for not telling us before. We ‘googled’ it later, he was telling the truth!

After this we had a short walk up to a waterfall and then back through the jungle, wading through all the streams and rivers again on the way back. It was good to get back to the boat and get to the lake for a quick swim before the final boat journey back. In the truck on the way back we were all invited to a free BBQ that was including in our trip. We were told to bring drink and the food would be provided. We couldn’t pass up an offer like that and so after a shower back at mama’s place we went back out, in the pouring rain to a small garage type building for the BBQ. The German lads from the trip were there, and the guide but no food. After what seemed like forever some rather dubious looking meat was brought out for us. Then the guide brought out what he said was a cooked pig’s willy. We tried some, it was tough and chewy, none of us were convinced it was a willy; it turned out it was a pig’s tail. Won’t bother ordering it if I ever get the chance again. Helen snuck off at this point to buy some crisps from the shop next door, good decision! We stayed for more drinks and then a rather large Thai guy turned up in a pimped out car with blue neon lights, huge sub, speakers, the whole works. He started “pumping out the tunes” for us all to enjoy!

We felt a bit worse for wear the next day so we chilled out for most of the day. In the morning we tried to sunbathe but the geese kept coming up and threatening her with their very loud honks. They were pretty mean looking so we all decided that wasn’t going to work!

Later on Helen took a walk into the jungle whilst Michael and I lazed around. And finally got our camera back up and running, hooray!

We played cards that evening and we were joined by one of the lads from the tour called Michael. Some girls who were staying at mama’s place had just got back from a similar tour we had done, but they had stayed over an extra night. Helen and Michael asked them if they had gone to the back of the cave and they had no idea what they were talking about. It transpired that they had not gone nearly as far in as we had, “because our guide told us it wasn’t safe!” Wish we’d had their tour guide!!!



24th

So it was time to say an emotional goodbye to mama, papa and Khong, who had been such amazing hosts. Khong dropped us off to catch the bus back to Khao Lak and gave us his Facebook address so we could find him! The bus back was the usual crammed full affair. I got a seat halfway through next to a lady from Switzerland. She had trouble understanding my accent a few times and when I asked her if they have 7/11 stores in Switzerland I think she thought I asked her if they had elephants in Switzerland. By the time I realised what she thought it had gone too far and so I just had to accept that she thought I was a complete idiot….never mind!

When we got back Helen realised that she had left her passport at Palmview, doh! Our guesthouse owner in Khao Lak was lovely and helped Helen to ring Palmview. Helen got through to mama, this conversation sounded hilarious, mama clearly couldn’t understand Helen. Helen managed to get her to understand who she was by shouting the Thai words for goose and goat at her. This worked, however mama did not understand anything else! She decided in her wisdom to put papa on the phone instead, bearing in mind papa’s English was much worse than mama’s! Finally Khong was put on the phone and the message got across! Unfortunately they were not going to be able to bring the passport so Helen would have to travel back to Khao Sok the next day to get the passport.

That evening we had another yummy meal and some cocktails, hooray!



25^th

So poor Helen got up bright and early to head back to Khao Sok to get her passport. When she got back she met us on the beach for the last of our sun sea and sand before we had to catch a night bus back to Bangkok.

26^th

Another wonderful bus journey, with same lady as last time ordering us off the bus halfway through the night. We arrived super early again (5am) and got ourselves a taxi to Sivarin guesthouse, the taxi driver took us round the houses a bit and we had to direct him rather firmly, not sure if he was conning us on purpose or if he was just confused, he was a bit old and doddery! Sivarin unfortunately wasn’t open so we sat outside on the tables and waited for opening up. When it did open Helen and I were able to sit on a comfy sofa inside and get some sleep.

Once we’d got into our room and showered we did some more wandering around Bangkok and went to Ethos, our favourite café in Bangkok for some amazing humous and falafels!

That evening Helen was catching a plane back home so we said our goodbyes, me very tearful! We had such a cool time with Helen I was very sad to see her go.

27^th

Today we were catching a plane to Singapore for a one night stop over before jetting off to Australia. It was a very short, painless flight and we arrived early afternoon. On stepping into the airport and then out of the airport we were taken aback, Singapore is crazily clean and there is clearly lots more money here than anywhere else we had been so far. It looked a lot like suburban America, with wide streets and huge houses. We couldn’t get over how clean it was, and how quiet! We got to our hostel and went out for a meal at a food court. Some yummy food, and cheap, the beer was not cheap though, bummer! We both wished we had more time here as it seemed like quite a cool place.

28^th

So a very early wake up call, time for some breakfast and then off to the airport to leave Asia for Australia.

As we flew away from Asia we were both feeling a bit low (despite being 30,000ft in the air!) We had the time of our lives in Asia. It was such an amazing adventure from first arriving on the smelly, dirty streets of Beijing to the pristine streets of Singapore we had seen a lot. We both still feel so privileged to have been able to spend so much time in that part of the world and hope we will be able to return one day. To be honest we really didn’t want to leave, but it was time to look forward to some completely different adventures in Australasia.

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Photos

terrifying Ronald McDonald!
would you let your children eat at his place???

smiley wavy man
this guy said "hello" smiled and waved at us evey time we passed him at the end of our street in Bangkok

no smoking alcohol
you may drink it though?