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Published: October 12th 2010
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View over Haad Tien
From our bootcamp restaurant After the momentous last minute decision to stay working and living in London for another year, I had two weeks of work at my new role and thankfully I really enjoyed it. The other people were more my own age and they had a fussball and table tennis table in the office. What more could you want?! In the two weeks before I flew out, time flew by but I managed to catch up with most people at my 'leaving' drinks, see the start of Leed's new season and leave my flat. Then I was off to the airport and just as the bad weather was closing in on the UK, I headed for Bangkok where it was hot, sticky and humid.
I arrived quite late and crashed at a hotel near the airport after wandering around a bit and having a magnificent garlic chicken dish. The food generally was pretty fantastic. Far too early the next morning, I was up and out to the airport and down to Surat Thani. From there, it was an hour bus ride to the coast before a 45 minute ferry to Koh Pha Ngan, another 20 minute bus ride to Haad Rin, then
My Bungalow
With a great view over the bay of Haad Tien a rickety boat ride across to my home for the next 2 and a half weeks, Haad Tien. In the baking sunshine, I climbed up the stairs, soaking my shirt in sweat in the process, before I found reception and was led to my private bungalow and met my room mates - the geckos, spiders and mosquitoes. The first thing I did was dump my backpack and head straight down to the beach where I melted into the sea, not just from the heat, but the last time I had been swimming in the ocean was in Peru over a year previously!
In the afternoon, I started what was my purpose for coming to Thailand, the Muay Thai Boxing Bootcamp. The sessions followed roughly the same routine as we warmed up ourselves, mostly consisting of skipping, or on the crosstrainer or bikes, then shadow boxing in front of the mirrors and on the bags before getting in the ring and practising techniques on the pads and sparring. From the first session I realised how unfit I was, but over the next two weeks with 5 hours of training a day in very hot temperatures, I lost a lot of
Peter buying a bucket
Not at all swayed by the interesting advertising slogans weight (not that difficult considering how much I was sweating eventhough I was drinking 6-7 litres of water a day) and by the end I was the fittest I had been in my life, despite all the aches and pains I had picked up.
As always on my trips, the most fun comes from meeting other people, and it didn't prove an exception here as we had a really good group training. The majority were like me and were doing it for fun and fitness, and we often spent the free time relaxing on the beaches or in the restaurants - funny how after 5 hours of training a day in 30+ degree temperatures you don't have a lot of energy for much else. There were people from all over the world, including another Kiwi from Wellington, a 50 year old former bouncer from Western Australia, an English lass who actually lived within 10 minutes walk from my old flat in London, as well as a South African, Belgians, and more English and Australians.
And as that time of the month rolled around, there was a group of us who headed over to Haad Rin for the world
Full Moon Party #1
Welcome to Thailand famous Full Moon Party. Though I can't say I had heard of it before organising this trip, it is basically a giant rave on the beach which attracts people from around the world, usually up to 10-15,000 people packing along the beach. I'm sure the prices of alcohol have something to do with that as well -a 'bucket' (300mls of alcohol with mixers) comes in at anywhere between 2 and 6 pounds. So tourists and locals alike are loaded up with alcohol and fluroscent paint as they dance the night and morning away, before waking up to sunshine and amazing beaches. A tough life really.
I would like to say I accomplished a lot in between training but like everyone else I just had no energy and my hammock was often my best friend as I polished off several books. Before long I was coming to the end of my training, and although I loved it, my body was grateful for the rest. I was quite proud to have improved my skills to the point if I had stayed a week longer, they wanted me to have a proper fight. Next time.... So I farewelled Haad Tien and made
my way back to Surat Thani to my flight north, but as it was the weekend, ferries were running very irregularly and I got to the mainland - still short of the airport by about 100km, about an hour and a half before the flight was supposed to depart. So I summoned the power of the Thai baht and told the taxi driver I needed to get to the airport in 45 mins, an hour at the latest. So off we sped, and often doing speeds of above 140-150km per hour, I made it with 3 minutes to spare. Once I had checked in, I relaxed and looked forward to Bangkok.
Upon arrival, I found my hotel and had a mini look around before crashing for the night. The next morning, I was up and about heading out to see what I could in my one full day here. In the end I was glad I only had one day. The Grand Palace and Wat Pho were incredibly beautiful, but the city itself was crowded, polluted and generally didn't show anything worth staying any longer for.
The next day I was up to Chiang Mai, and this place
was everything Bangkok was not. Chiang Mai lies in the shadow of a mountain and surrounded by forests, so already it had that going for it. But even just walking around town, it had a better feel to it and with attractions dotted around the region, as well as the borders to Laos and Burma, I could have spent a few weeks here. In the end I settled for a one day adventure trek and I started off with a elephant trek (who took great delight in using her trunk to spray my last set of clean clothes in muddy water), followed by a one hour jungle trek to a waterfall where we had a refreshing swim, then the one hour trek back, white water rafting and bamboo rafting back to our truck. So I was nice and exhausted for my last night in Thailand and the next morning I was up early to head to the airport for the serveral flights that would take me back home to NZ.
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