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Published: March 5th 2008
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The coach journey south was our introduction to some of Thailand's lies and scams. Our VIP coach trip from Bangkok to Krabi, which wasn't VIP at all (no suprise there), promised to depart around 19:30 hrs and arrive approximately 09:30 hrs the next morning. Now, this being Thailand, I for one would not expect those timings to be accurate. However, more than failing to deliver, this trip deliberately deceived everyone on board when we were all prematurely dumped at 06:30 hrs at a roadside cafe. Only once our bags were offloaded and the coach disappeared, were we given an explanation.
A coach that we were told was going to Krabi, turned out to be loaded full of people all going to several different locations, and had dropped us all somewhere inbetween....and now for the scam; The bus that would take you to your destination of choice, would be at least an hour and a half wait, for us it would be three and a half. So marooned at this cafe, you could either spend your money on refreshments as the sun came up, OR jump on one of their conveniently available mini-buses (at extra cost of course) in order to finish
your journey earlier. Weary from overnight travel, a lot of people took this option, but the few of us that stuck to our guns were eventually taken to our buses when it became obvious we weren't gonna take the bait. To cut a long story short, 4 hours later we were in a very basic room where we stayed for one night before settling for a further 3 in a bungalow-type room in the resort of Rai Leh.
Rai Leh was a small peninsula with both cheap and expensive places to stay ranging from 10 to 500 pound /night. It's Thailand's no.1 resort for climbers due to the challenging limestone karsts that rise up almost vertically out of the ground and dwarf the bays on both sides.
We've relaxed here with days by the pool, foot massages on the beach and re-oganising ourselves and our itinerary for Thailand.
From Rai Leh we boarded a ferry to Ko Phi Phi Don where we had no accommodation booked, and just chanced our arm on getting something; which we did.
Most of you will have heard of Phi Phi, either as a paradise resort or as victim of the 2004 Tsunami.
Limestone Karst
It's these karsts that bring the climbers to Rai Leh. It is situated in the emerald shallows of the Andaman Sea. An island consisting of two sides of those high limestone karsts I mentioned earlier joined in the middle by lowland and beaches where most of the tourism is situated. The Tsunami ploughed right through this area wiping out most of the small businesses and accommodation. There are now at least two towers at either end of the resort with warning beacons and clearly marked evacuation routes throughout the streets, (although see picture). There is also a Memorial garden to remember those who lost their lives in a time prior to those warnings being put in place.
You can't help but feel the people here have been too quick to rebuild businesses instead of first rebuilding a better infrastructure for the island, and in places it's a mess, and definitely not the paradise you'd expect. Litter and rubble line most of the main streets (there are no roads or cars here) and cannot be contributed to the Tsunami, as I dont believe all the beer bottles and cans are still around from 3 years ago?? It's hard as a Westerner to fully appreciate the struggle of a developing country, although
we did see the Masai tribes people who have less but retain some form of pride in their immediate surroundings. But here their attitude to making money and only living for today can't be sustainable for long?? Both water and sewage systems would appear to have come a poor second to getting tourists back, and with alledgedly little government guidance, who can blame them? You can't help but get a sense of greed here, rather than a need to survive, like a bad council estate no-one wants to clean up and pleads poverty, but everyone smokes and has a mobile phone.
As you can probably tell, so far we've been a little disappointed with Thailand and the one place we didn't want to stay has proven so far (apart from the smog) to be the cleanest - Bangkok.
Our mood was further dampened by a bout of food poisoning the day we arrived on Phi Phi. Ironically, this we contribute to the only western food (a pizza) we've had since landing in Thailand. So laying low for a few days and fasting for 40 hours hasn't done much for morale.
When confident of venturing further than the pool, we took
A formation of gold quartz.
Found in the Diamond Cave (Rai Leh). a long-tail (traditional Thai boat) over to Ko Phi Phi Leh (smaller, sister island to Ko Phi Phi Don) where the movie 'The Beach' was filmed. Here we did some snorkelling in the clear jade coloured water. Unfortunately, 90% of the coral here has been mashed, maybe by the Tsunami, but more likely before that by carelessly dropped anchors or by tourist's clumsy flippers...........(am I on one or what??).
Ko Phi Phi Leh also houses the Viking Cave where the local Thais scale great heights on precariously erected bamboo scaffolding in order to reach the nests of the swiftlets. These are the main ingredient that go towards making the originally named delicacy 'Birds nest soup' and a kilo of the swiftlets homes can fetch 1million Thai baht (65thb to the pound). We stopped on the way back (still on the water) between the islands to watch the sunset, this was done reluctantly by our driver who showed his disinterest by lying back into a pretend sleep while those of us on board watched the colours of the sky change..............something WE never tire of.
The next day saw the return of upset stomachs and bad weather. Both meant venturing out
Clear waters.
Shame about the coral. could result in wet legs.....
We caught the ferry to Phuket next, where 4 billion people were herded onto a boat thats' capacity was about 200. The weather improved but I hadn't. We came to Phuket in order to try and do some diving on the famous Similan Islands but in my condition it was too risky so we've missed out. Also liveaboard (4 days and 4 nights) dives to the Similan Islands would have proven to be costly in both time and money, although with the chance of 14 dives are good value for money.
Well, the past 10 days or so were supposed to be a time of relaxation, recuperation and a break from the pace that we've been travelling at, and although they haven't quite turned out that way, stopping for a few days was a good time to be 'unwell'. We chose to fly from Phuket to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, as this was cheap and would save us alot of time. So with our travelling pause over we continue on our way....
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