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Published: March 22nd 2011
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After a very pleasant flight from Australia in which Alexa watched a world record four films (without some would say a good one among them), we touched down in Thailand, the final country on our travels and immediately found ourselves thrust into the hustle and bustle of a Bangkok rush hour. For those of you who have been to Thailand before you will probably agree that Bangkok is a necessary evil that has to be endured in order to travel on to either the spectacular jungles in the north of the country or the beautiful beaches in the south. The most common form of transport in Bangkok is the tuk tuk which is a sort of motor bike with a little open air carriage on the back. This open air feature ensures that it is possible to appreciate the full array of different Bangkok fragrants which generally range from mild sewage to full on unbearable sewage depending upon what area of the city you happen to be visiting. Another feature of the tuk tuk is that after you have negotiated a reasonable 'foreignor's fee' with the driver for your journey (which is normally still at least twice what a Thai person
would expect to pay), it is then a complete lottery as to where you are going to end up. If you are lucky you could arrive at the destination previously agreed with the driver. If you are not so lucky you may end up at a random jewellery or furniture store where you will be given the hard sell on any number of products that you have no intention of buying (as after all you had not asked to be brought to this place) and then are kicked out in disgrace when you have the audacity not to buy anything. The reason that tuk tuk drivers take unsuspecting tourists to these random establishments is that they are given petrol vouchers by the establsihments for getting you there. When you then politely enquire to the driver as to why the hell he has taken you to a random jewellery or furniture store instead of your previously agreed destination it is is uncanny how they suddenly forget any English that they were able to call upon when negotiating the original fee! All that said, Alexa and I were pretty fortunate in that during our brief time in Bangkok the only random store
we were taken to by a tuk tuk driver was a suit shop which we had consented to being taken to on the basis that we had wanted to get some suits made and as every other shop in Bangkok would seem to be a suit shop we thought that this would be as good a way as any of selecting one. As it so happened the tuk tuk driver took us to a very nice suit shop who duly made us some very nice suits so it all worked out very nicely. After spending a couple of days in Bangkok trapsing around the seemingly endless number of temples and markets we decided to head south and spend the last few weeks of our rather long honeymoon soaking up some rays on the spectacular Thai beaches.
Our first destination down south was Phuket. Decimated by the Tsunami seven years ago, from what we saw Phuket has now made a full recovery. The beach, albeit slightly on the crowded side for our liking, was beautiful and less than a stones throw away from our hotel. To top it all off our local beach side cafe did the most fantastic fruit
shakes which for a brief few days actually became Alexa's drink of choice over her usual caffeine fix! The highlight of our time on Phuket was a boat trip which took us around a number of smaller islands including the spectacular James Bond Island (which featured in 'The Man with the Golden Gun'). We were also able to do some kayaking (which yes did bring back bad memories of Alexa almost knocking me out with one back in Seattle - see ealier blog) which allowed us to explore an array of underground waterways and amazing hidden lagoons. At times we were having to lay completely flat in our kayak as the passageways were so low. The only disappointment of the day was the seafood buffet served up for lunch which meant that I ended the day somewhat on the hungry side!
Our next stop was the lively but still very quaint Phi Phi. Phi Phi is considerably less built up then Phuket and as such carries a bit more charm. The centre of Phi Phi is a maze of different stalls selling just about everything and anything and at times I am convinced that Alexa was deliberately trying to
get us lost there. Phi Phi also has an amazing ice cream shop which we would always end an evening in irrespective of where we had eaten dinner. The best beach on Phi Phi was the stunning and aptly named Long Beach and it was rather sad that we did not discover this until our penultimate day on the island. Again the highlight of our stay on Phi Phi was a boat trip, this time featuring snorkeling with black tip sharks off the intimidatingly named Shark Point, feeding extremely cheeky monkeys on Monkey Beach and following in Leonardo DiCaprio's footsteps (fortunately in respect of the film 'The Beach' rather than 'The Titanic' (sorry Colin!)) in visiting 'The Beach'. This was actually somewhat of an anticlimax as there were so many people on 'The Beach' that we could hardly move, whilst all of the boats moored there resembled a sort of watery M25.
Our last two stops in the south of Thailand were Koh Lanta and Railay Beach. Both of these locations were considerably quieter than either Phuket or Phi Phi and were exactly what we were looking for before returning to the real world after seven months of hard
travelling! The resort at Koh Lanta was probably one of the nicest that we had stayed on in our entire trip whilst the beach at Railay was absolutely breathtaking. Aside from soaking up the rays, drinking copious amounts of gin and tonic and re-naming five o'clock 'Chang Beer, Nuts and Cards o'clock' we didn't really get up to too much in either Koh Lanta or Railay. That said, neither of us are very good at doing nothing so we did do a few beach runs to pass the time whilst we also did some climbing in Railay. Our journey back up to Bangkok was an eventful one and involved wading through the sea to get on a speed boat, a leaking bus and a very long night train. We nevertheless made it in one piece and boarded our flight back to the UK the next day, sad at our adventure of a lifetime being over but excited at seeing the people we care about (not to mention being able to watch football at sociable hours again!)
In terms of a trip summary we are both in agreement that it was the natural wonders of the world that amazed us
more so than the cities we visited. This is reflected by the fact that our top three experiences included treking the Inca Trail in Peru, our Monument Valley/Grand Canyon trip in the US and walking the Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand. Our favourite cities were San Francisco, Sydney and Vancouver, whilst Le Paz in Bolivia would be among the places we would be unlikely to return to in a hurry (and certainly not to spend another Christmas!) We met some fantastic people along the way and look forward to catching up with them all again soon. We are also the only people that we know who had both sets of parents gatecrash their honeymoon as we spent wonderful weeks in New York with Alexa's family and New Zealand with mine. We are now looking forward to returning to normality and to starting married life for real (although we have been assured that this novelty will be shortlived!) We hope that you have enjoyed reading our blog and seeing our pictures but must warn you...we will still bore you with our travelling tales next time we see you so watch out!
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the lewis gang
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wow !!!
Hello Mr & Mrs Kelly! well, we are absolutley speachless at your amazing journey over the last months.....breathtaking! well youll soon be back in colder climates, but, as you say, this is where the journey begins........you both look amazing, and are such a well suited couple with your fondness of sports, good food ( Ben , can be a bit on the pickey side here, but, Im sure , Alexa will soon have you eatng your greens!!!) Enjoy your last couple of days, safe journey back, and good luck with the interviews Beno xxxx lots of love to you both xxxxx Michelle Barry Jade Conor xxxx