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Published: January 18th 2010
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So it's now my turn to write the blog after Hannah demanded I do more than sit around playing Football Manager all day. Back into Thailand and I must say we had been looking forward to getting there and spending Christmas day in Chiang Mai. The journey there from Luang Prabang consisted of a tuk tuk to the bus, a 15 hour sitting up night bus where the driver sang along to his karaoke tunes all night, a tuk tuk to the Laos border, a ferry to the Thai border, another tuk tuk, a three hour bus to Chaing Rai, another chicken head and foot curry, yet another goddamned tuk tuk and finally one more three hour bus! It turned out being justified as we were to have an amazing time here!
So for Christmas Day we were thinking of something low-key, a bit of dinner and a few drinks - only to be persuaded by our aussie friends that a day of jungle trekking, white water rafting and elephant riding was a much better alternative - and although there was the customary hangovers present I can only describe it as one of the most memorable Christmases going, regardless of
our elephant having a seriously bad itchy arse and almost overthrowing us into a river when he stopped numerous times to itch it on rocks!
Chiang Mai is in the north of Thailand which meant that it wasn't as hot - this being a fantastic relief from our hardships of having to deal with 40 degrees and all day sunshine throughout most of our travels so far! It was also fantastically cheap when it came to beers so I managed to indulge myself with 3 litre pitchers of Chang for only £3 whilst I watched the Rangers vs Hibs and Man U games - Hannah of course was out at the night markets with the other girls spending spending spending! Also, and I still can't believe I agreed to it, I did an all day cooking class with Hannah which surprisingly turned out to be great fun - I now know how to make Panang Curry, stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts, spring rolls, Tom Yum soup and even deep fried banana - the only problem is I'll have to cook more when we get home.....WHY!
So after Chiang Mai our next stop was the capital of Thailand for
New Years - Bangkok and the infamous backpacker spot, Khao San Road! This is basically the street where all the backpackers come to in Bangkok for cheap booze, accomodation and a wild party so it was no surprise that we spent New Years Eve here. It certainly didn't disappoint and we somehow managed to crawl back to our seedy guesthouse and got up for the New Years day flight to Phuket - never again will we ever book a flight on New Years Day!
When we arrived in Phuket we weren't too bothered about staying too long as we'd been here only 2 years before on holiday and it was actually quite depressing thinking about the contrast in hotels from our last stay here. So we decided on a quick exit and headed out to the beautiful Koh Phi Phi, an island on the south west of Phuket where the film 'The Beach' was filmed. After our partying exploits with our aussie compatriots in mainland Thailand, we were looking forward to a very much required detox relaxing period on the beach pretending to be Leonardo Di Caprio. But not 2 minutes after arriving on the Island did we bump
into Anne, Jarrod and Stu again which meant only one thing - buckets on the beach, watching an amazing fire show by the locals, a Muay Thai boxing match followed by more drinks on the pier and night swimming! It just doesn't get any better! However we hardly managed any sleep at our guest house as the fan was so weak it was like sleeping in 30 degrees heat each night! And also our toilet didn't even have a flush, you had to use a bowl of water (or in my case 4) to flush the damned thing - talk about roughing it proper!
Anyway, after dragging Hannah to a pub to watch the Rangers vs Celtic game, which she promptly left 5 minutes into to have a massage with Anne (I was the only Rangers fan in an Irish bar with 20 Celtic fans and went nuts after we equalised) we left Phi Phi for Krabi which was a very nice small town on the coast. We only stayed here one night but during the day we both hired motorbikes and headed out to the Wat Tham Sha otherwise known as the Tiger Temple (not the Tiger temple
with actual Tigers that I was DYING to see in Chiang Mai but which Hannah wouldn't allow because 'apparently' they're bad to the Tigers...nonsense). Just to make things easy, the temple was at the top of some huge mountain which we had to scale via the 1367 steps - I kept asking if the view at the top was worth dying for and was reassured by fellow travellers that it was well worth it - they were quite right. The view from the top was amazing and we stayed at the top for about an hour simply because it wouldn't stop raining. We then hung about the bottom for a further hour as Hannah kept feeding the monkeys and we were finally on our way back to the guest house when disaster struck and I got a flat tire!
SO, after Krabi we headed off to the eastern Islands of Thailand: Koh Tao, Koh Phangnan and Koh Samui - these islands really can be described as paradise! It was like we were having a holiday on our holiday - snorkelling in crystal clear waters, chilling on the hammock at our beach side bungalow watching the tide roll in on
Koh Phangnan then partying it up at the half moon party followed by more sunbathing, relaxing on Chaweng beach on Koh Samui - it was extremely difficult to leave it behind but after 3 weeks of Thailand and a fortnight chilling on the beach we're looking forward to a different scene in Malaysia. Until next time!
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mum and dad/janet, mustafa
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greetings
Hi Both. The latest round of pictures look fabulous. Can't believe what a great time you must be having. Will you be around for a skype this Sunday? Miss you loads. Love xx