Coming Full Circle

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We're actually in Malaysia now so once again we've been seriously lazy with the updates so this might be quite a long one.

Koh Chang

We made it into Thailand on the 17th April and our first stop was the island of Koh Chang near the Cambodian border.
We arrived after dark so just picked a guesthouse out of the guide book and headed there. The rooms were too expensive for us so we were just walking out when the owner said he did have some 'cheap cheap' bungalows out the back. There was a reason they were 'cheap cheap'.
The bungalow was essentially a shed on stilts with a makeshift bed/platform and the added bonus of built in ventilation in the way of gaping holes in the floor. We've had worse so we took it and had a wonderfully uncomfortable and sleepless night.
The next day we found somewhere else to live.

We only managed about an hour on the beach as it was just too hot to sit in the sun so we went off in search of a fan to sit under.
It turns out they have fans in bars.
Hoorah!

That evening we had possibly the worst meal of the trip so far.
We like to try and eat where the locals eat as much as we can as the food's normally better and cheaper so we tried a little place that seemed to fit the bill.
Vickie had some curried rice and I had some grilled beef. Seemed fairly standard stuff.
I'm surprised Vickie's rice didn't burn through the table as it was so hot and my beef was not beef at all, it was just lumps of fat without a shred of meat on. Vickie looked like she was going to spontaneously combust and I was trying not to retch as I forced down about 2 lumps of rancid fat. We left quickly telling the cook how delicious the food was hoping they didn't see our full plates before we were out of sight.

Neither of us had a great feeling about Koh Chang for reasons we're not entirely sure of so we booked a boat to go to the neighbouring island of Koh Mak the next day.

Koh Mak

We made the age old mistake of having a couple of drinks the night before getting the boat.
Consequently Vickie spent most of the rocky 2 and a half hour ride in the toilet disposing of her breakfast.
Some of the boat crew found this quite amusing. Vickie didn't.
Once we were on dry land we found a great little place to live. We managed to get a bungalow right on the beach for about 7 pounds a night.
The thing we found most appealling about Koh Mak is that there's nothing there apart from an empty beach and just a few bungalows. So we spent a few days doing very little apart from reading, swimming, eating and sleeping. Have I mentioned just how hard this life of travelling can be?

One night we were having dinner in our bungalows restaurant when we heard a high pitched scream. It came out of a big Essex bloke who was eating a couple of tables over. Turns out a snake was crawling over his lap, which I suppose would make a lot of men scream like a big girl. Still funny though!
The staff then set about chasing the snake and trying to kill it with a very small stick which unsurprisingly took some time. It certainly beats a caberet show.

After 3 days we decided to move on before we slipped into a relaxation induced coma. So we took a very wet speedboat ride to the mainland and jumped on a bus.

Bangkok

We made it to Bangkok on April 24th , the third time we've visited this city and the second time we've been here on this journey. The last time we were here was in January after coming in from India.
Making it back meant we'd come full circle and completed what's known as the Indochina Loop which encompasses Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. This fact left us feeling conflicting emotions. Partly a sense of accomplishment for making it through this amazing stage of the journey but also tinged with sadness for the exact same reason.

On arriving in Bangkok it felt strange to come back to somewhere we're so familiar with especially as familiarity isn't something we're particularly familiar with these days.
We checked straight into the guesthouse we stayed in the last time we were here. Once we were rested and showered we took a little wander and we saw a group of girls that had been on our bus from Koh Mak. They looked a bit hot and bothered as they still had their bags with them and were obviously still looking for a room. We could have told them about our place having plenty of rooms but I was too busy trying to stifle a smug laugh as one of the girls had spent half the bus ride banging the back of my seat as she objected to me reclining it slightly. Sweet justice!

Our first full day in Bangkok was spent in hospital.
I won't go into the details but basically we'd not felt entirely right since getting ill in India months ago so popped to a clinic who referred us to the hospital. To cut a long and mildly embarrasing story short we were prescibed some antibiotics and sent on our merry way.

The last time we passed though Bangkok we went into a tattoo parlour and both had tattoos designed. Vickie designed her own and one of the guys designed one for my leg. It turned out that mine would have cost a rediculous 700 quid as it was a bit large so that was out but Vickie booked herself an appointment to get hers done. However, she bottled it and we left for Northern Thailand.

This time round she finally plucked up enough courage to get it done so we sheepishly went back to the same tattoo place and gave them some bollocks about us having to rush off last time.

The appointment wasn't until the next day so Vickie had plenty of time to work herself up about how much it was going to hurt and was she doing the right thing etc etc but when the time came she was in and out within 15 minutes and she didn't even cry.
I'm afraid I wasn't much emotional support whilst she was having it done as the owner had me helping translate their advertising for them.

We went for a post trauma drink and feeling a little jealous and wanting some body mutilation of my own I popped back in and had the middle of my ear pierced.

Then the next day we were both feeling that we still hadn't had enough pain so we went back yet again and had our lips pierced.
Bangkok does strange things to people. (Well, us anyway)

That evening we were just on our way home after having bits of metal forcibly inserted into our faces when we saw a couple of guys playing guitars on the street so we decided to have a drink and listen for a while. After a couple of drinks Vickie was saying to me how she'd like to get up and sing with them when they asked if anyone wanted to come up and sing with them. Strangely enough the old lady serving drinks shouted out that Vickie could sing and this was all the encouragement she needed.
She sang 'Baby Can I Hold You' by Tracy Chapman and 'Hand In My Pocket' by Alanis Morisette which seemed to go down well with the slightly inebriated audience.
The guys playing, Adam and Charlie, were lovely and we ended up chatting with them and several other random people until 5am which inevitably meant the next day was decidedly lazy.

We did try to get a bit of culture one day by going to the National Museum but when we arrived we found it was the only day of the week that it was closed. So with culture out the window we took the tube to Chinatown and had a bit of a wander round and ended up in Lumphini Park which was a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle.
As we were walking throught the park Vickie nearly shat herself when she saw a massive monitor lizard and a couple of the locals found this particularly funny. As it turned out there were loads of them swimming in the lakes and sunning themselves on the banks. We even saw a few tortoises for good measure.

The rest of our time in Bangkok was just spent stocking up on bits and bobs for the rest of the travels.
Once that was all sorted we took an always lovely 16 hour overnight bus down to Krabi.

Krabi

Once we arrived at Krabi bus terminal we had to decide which beach to go to so we plumped for Ao Nang. After we'd found somewhere to live and had a bit of a wander around we realised we may have made a mistake. Everything was so expensive and the town itself was fairly uninspiring with identikit restaurants along the beach road serving exactly the same menus at exactly the same over inflated prices.

So the next morning we packed the bags and made our way to Tonsai Bay which is only accessible by boat. We jumped in a longtail for the ten minute ride and it turns out that the boats can't get all the way up to the beach at certain times of the day as there's a mud flat so we had to wade the last bit. Me being a gentleman/mug carried Vickies rucksack as well as mine and as a result ended up sinking knee deep in mud and worrying about soaking all our worldly possesions. Vickie, without the extra weight of a bag, had no such problem. It must be lovely to have your own personal sherpa.

We found a hut with no electricity and a pretty horrible outside loo and shower for about 4 quid a night and then went for a wander around. Immediately we could tell it was low season as most of the places to eat and drink were closed and we sort of got the feeling that we were intruding and shouldn't be there.

We'd met a really nice guy called Cal on the boat over and we'd booked into the same guesthouse so over the next few days we met up a few times for drinks in a tiny little bar over the road from our place and played the universal travellers card game of Shithead, just with the odd regional variation.

One day we decided to go over to West Railay beach and our guide book said that it's possible to walk over the rocks around the headland from our beach. Vickie wasn't too keen on the idea but I managed to convince her it'd be fine. I have to admit she was right as what initially looked like a fairly easy way round turned into clambering over big mounds of sharp and slippery rocks. We made it over just about in one piece with a few cuts and just as we did the heavens opened and it pissed it down. It turned out that the beach itself wasn't all that impressive but we had a bit of a wander round and when it came time to head back to our beach we referred once again to the ever trusty guide book for another route back. We could have got a five minute boat ride back but the wonderful people at Rough Guide to Thailand suggested an alternative which was apparently a none too strenuous walk.

We thought a sedate walk back might be nice so we headed off down the suggested track. After a few wrong turns we found the right path and after a while realised we should have got the boat. It was steep and slippery and at one particularly steep point Vickie froze and it took a few minutes before her legs started working again. We finally made it back covered in mud, knackered and cursing our guide book.

The next morning we took a ferry to Koh Phi Phi.

Koh Phi Phi

We first came to Phi Phi in 2007 and it was that holiday that spawned the whole idea to go travelling in the first place so we were looking forward to returning to the place we loved so much.

As soon as we walked off the boat we could see there had been some serious changes in the 2 years since we left. Not only had the whole port had a major facelift but what used to be winding sandy pathways were now paved roads with shiny new restaurants and pricey looking boutiques lining them.
Not quite the tranquil island paradise we remembered but still a beautiful place.

On our first evening we bumped into a guy calling himself Captain Bob who ran day trips on his yacht around the neighbouring island, Phi Phi Ley, with stops for snorkelling and lunch. He was saying that he didn't have anyone else booked so we could maybe have the boat to ourselves. It sounded pretty good so we booked it for the following day.

When we arrived the next morning Captain Bob told us because he didn't have anyone booked would we mind going the next day when he had more people. This somewhat went against his sales pitch of us getting the boat to ourselves but there wasn't much point having an argument with a guy who we'd then have to spend the day with so we agreed.

The next day we did actually get to go on the trip and it turned out to be good fun. We started by being dropped into the sea and then had to swim to Monkey Beach. After a pretty knackering swim it turned out there were no monkeys so we chilled out for a while and swam back.
Then we went and did a bit of snorkelling although this wasn't Vickie's favourite part as she'd never used fins before and Captain Bob was insisting she give them a try. She got a bit frustrated and got back on the boat.

The next stop was the beach where they filmed 'The Beach'. This agian involved a fairly long swim and a scramble over rocks. Almost as soon as we arrived the wind picked up and we were getting blasted by the sand so we all had to leg it back the way we came and swim back to the boat. Vickie was pretty knackered at this point so we had to call for someone to come over from the boat in a kayak and tow her in. Bless her!

After that we just had a sail around and a few beers on deck which I took full advantage of as you could have as many as you wanted and I felt a duty to recoup some of the cost of the trip. The result being I got very drunk and Vickie had to guide me home, which is a first as it's normally the other way round.

We spent another day relaxing on the beach before heading off to Koh Lanta.

Obviously we're still not up to date with the writing but Vickie's written about the second half of Thailand in the next entry.

Lots of Love

Jack & Vickie

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Photos

Bangkok
The Tattoo

Bangkok
Post tattoo drink