Summer holidays (part 3)

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For the last two weeks, I had the pleasure of my darling friend Tree (also known as Nina 2 & 3) staying with me. This was the last leg of a 3-month world trip, so of course, it commenced with a two-hour massage at my local massage parlour. We also went shopping at Chatuchak market, which is pretty impressive for someone's first day.

I took yet more time off work for Tree's stay, and so we went down south - first to Koh Samui, and then to
Khao Sok National Park.

On the coach down to Samui, Tree and I met three glorious Greek-Australian guys from Melbourne, who, surprise, are family friends with my mate George back home. Melbourne - it's just a tiny country town, really.
Safely arrived in Samui - a feat in itself, considering the amount of smoke there'd been in the coach due to the overheating engine, and the number of times we'd had to stop so that the drivers could bang on the engine with a spanner - and settled in our resort* with its own beach 14 hours after leaving Bangkok, I stepped outside our bungalow onto the sand to start tanning... only to be thwarted by a gorgeous thunderstorm - the first real rain I've seen in Thailand since November.

That evening, in the main town of Chaweng we dined with my mates Mandi and Sarah who had also, coincidentally, come down to Samui. From there we went to the Reggae Bar - which was playing reggae - Bob Marley of course - on CD when we got there... but this soon gave way to what would loosely be called a 'band'. There were instruments being played, and people making noises, which they might have alleged constituted singing, but all in all, it was pretty bad... thankfully, so bad that it was funny. I particularly liked it when they did hip hop songs, and they rapped American lyrics with Thai accents. Noice. Another highlight was when they sung their own special version of one of Kylie's most popular songs: "Can't Get You Off Of My Head." :D

Reggae Bar was at the end of a street full of prostitution bars, which provided an interesting experience in getting there. The women were not discriminatory in touting for customers and were pulling at the women in our group to come into their bars, as well as the men. It was absolutely awful, seeing all these women for sale, such a gross atmosphere. You know, Thai culture prescribes that Thai women are demure and modest, and its really foul watching them have to act in a certain way because that is what is expected of them by the arsehole farang men who come to buy them.

Having had our fill of brill music, half our group went off to the main nightclub strip… which was also pretty bloody awful. There’s something dreadful about Thai tourist towns or tourist areas of Thai towns - they all look the same, they sell the same crap (shell/bead necklaces, sunglasses, ripped CDs, fake designer clothes, silk handbags and scarves etc. etc.), their restaurants have the same menus, and they all cater absolutely and solely for the tourist market. There is so nothing Thai about them - it’s just farang tourists, self-absorbed and hedonistic (myself excluded of course). If you ever go to Samui, don’t stay in Chaweng - it’s dreadful. The beach is long, but not even that pretty and its dirty. Yucko!
Anyway, this strip of nightclubs played the same year-old music that is played at all farang-oriented places around Thailand, had lots of drunk tourists on the pull, and Thai people with big lizards and other animals posing for photos. Unfortunately, I’d been drinking Samsung that night and can confirm the presence of amphetamines in said whiskey - despite having had only a few hours of crappy sleep on the bus the night before, I was not tired at all. So we wandered round for a while, before heading home, and getting to bed around 5am…

The rest of the time in Samui was spent in pretty much the same manner - beach, hanging out, Tree and I waiting - and waiting - for the boys to wake up or finish doing their hair/make-up/whatever it was that took so long, bit of dancing, some bad alcohol, and great company.

From Samui, Tree, Andreas and I headed to Khao Sok while the other two went to Koh Pha-Ngan. We had booked a ticket for the 8am ferry. Thinking it took about 20/25 minutes to get there, and me being a bit of a stresshead, we were ready to leave just after 7. In the sawngthaew - Thai ute/pick-up with benches in the back for the passengers - we started craaaawling towards our destination. Then, in the next town, the driver just stopped and waited… when I told him that we had a boat to catch, he said that if we paid a fortune, he’d take us there quickly. Instead, we jumped on three motorbikes, with our big bags and all. This was much quicker, especially because the motosai (motorbike taxis) drivers like to race each other. Of course, this is very safe and we were all wearing helmets. Nevertheless, we still missed the ferry by 15 minutes… leaving our packs with a surprisingly friendly and helpful travel agent who told us that the next ferry was at 2, we went to eat and get massaged. Misfortune became fortune as our masseuses took a liking to us, and then drove us to this gorgeous beach where there were no other people, waited for us while we swam, drove us back to town, and let us use their shower.

After a moderately eventful minivan trip - it looked at one point like we were going to have to wait two hours, rather than half an hour for our van, because we refused to book accommodation and pay for it with the crappy company which was taking us - we arrive in Khao Sok and stayed at Freedom Resort. DON’T STAY THERE! It sux. The dude who runs the place - from Perth - is a scammer. We ended up moving to Art’s Riverview Lodge, which was beautiful but the staff there were PMS-ing hardcore (and they were men too!) and not particularly honest.

We had a really lovely time Khao Sok, going for a couple of hikes - one to see the giant flower (which wasn’t that giant when we saw it), Rafflesia, and one where Tree and I found this gorgeous swimming hole with a couple of rapids which we sat in like a spa. There was nooo one there. Khao Sok is only 40km inland from Khao Lak, which was destroyed by the tsunami, so there’s not many people going to Khao Sok at the moment. Which was great for us, because we had a national park all to ourselves! The path for the waterfalls was… errr… well, there certainly was a path, but it wasn’t a very well-beaten one. Quite narrow in parts, and with huge fallen trees across the path at various points. It was great, we really felt like we were out there with nature, you know, man?

Getting back to Bangkok was of course, not without its adventures. The staff at Art’s had assured that there was a bus from Khao Sok to Takua Pa, where we got the bus to Bangkok, every half an hour. Of course, when it came to actually leaving, the next bus was in over an hour meaning that we’d miss the nice bus to Bangkok. Resourceful young women that we are, instead of waiting around, languishing in the afternoon heat, we stuck out thumbs out and hitched a ride to Takua Pa with a very nice and very fast man and his child. It came up in the conversation that he’s Muslim, so he then asked what we were… Tree asked if she should tell him, and I confidently replied yes, because all the Muslims I’d met around Krabi hadn’t appeared to understand me when I’d said that my family were Jewish… however, this man did. There was a definite “Ah…”. Oh well, he really didn’t seem to have problem with it, but it felt as though the irony of the situation was appreciated.

Tree’s last weekend in Bangers was a pretty damn good one. Off the night bus from Khao Sok, we had a little nap, and then straight to Chatuchak Market for five HOT hours of shopping. That night, we had a feast on this gorgeous old rice barge, Loy Nava with our mates Shaun and Susan, and from there Tree and I had drinks at Sirocco, this uber-cool bar, on the roof of the second-highest building in Bangkok, with, obviously, a incredible views. The design is breath-taking. Our last stop of the evening was Pak Klong Talaat - the flower market. It’s just stunning. If you’re ever in Bangers, you have to go there - the sight of hundreds of orchids and other beautiful tropical flowers is glorious.
Sunday started with a cooking class at this delightful place, May Kaidee’s - the teacher, Porn, took a shine to me and told me that I can come back during their quiet periods, and practice cooking with them! And she gave me a hug 😊. Then more shopping in the glorious chaos of Chinatown, then the most incredible two-hour massage, and then a very sad parting as Tree left to go back to Oz. I’m still missing you maate 😉

Xxx
Nina.


*According to its website, "We provide you and opportunity to truly relax, to get to the fast-paced lifestyle with its comp laxities." Direct translation from BabelFish perhaps?

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Photos

Nina 1 and Nina 2&3
At Coral Cove

Coral Cove
Maya hangin' out in da rocks

Sunset
@ Coral Cove... tropical paradise, eh?

partying
With our new-found friends from Melbourne at one of Chaweng's clubs.

Our friendly masseuses
These were the women - with a cute two-year old - who took us to the beach.

Samui -> Khao Sok
Tree and Maya on the ferry from Samui to the mainland.

Khao Sok
Maya chilling at our bungalow at Art's Riverview Lodge.