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Published: August 16th 2012
I’m sat at the dining table at my mum and dad’s in Holmfirth, Yorkshire having a brew and listening to Simon Mayo on Radio 2. My mum is cooking tea and my Dad is upstairs watching Last of the Summer Wine. I thought I’d best escape and write my blog before I got too sucked into the hilarious plot line about Compo being put in a bath with wheels or something.
I’ve not slept great since arriving back on Saturday and as a result of sleep deprivation I’m struggling to distinguish between our travels (holiday) and reality. Subsequently I’m not sure whether whilst in Bangkok I saw some transvestites riding around on zimmer frames fixed to the top of some black cabs singing Spice Girls songs or whether that was something in the closing ceremony in the Olympics. Maybe a bit of both.
Similarly to the closing ceremony of the Olympics this grand finale blog of our 12 months of travel (holiday) will feature a bit of drama, a specialist lighting show and some live music but luckily for you will not involve any of George Michael’s dancing. If you want to make the blog
a little more interesting please feel free to print it off, cut it up and rearrange it into the shape of John Lennon’s head or a giant octopus.
Anyhow, what am I on about? I last wrote to you when we were on a bus to Bangkok. We headed straight to our hotel which was in the old part of the city. We were near this road called Ko San Road which was lovely. It’s like a ghetto with loads of rubbish bars full of drunk idiot backpackers wandering about in vests. Oh and yes loads of ladyboys all over the shop. We went to see the Golden Temple and also did the customary thing that most tourists do in Bangkok of getting ripped off by tuk tuk drivers. They offer to take you round all the sights for an absolute bargain price but in between each ‘sight’ they take you to various shopping outlets to try to make you buy stuff so they can get commission. It didn’t work, we bought nothing and the joke was on them – we enjoyed the ride.
We only stayed a couple of nights in Bangkok, you
know, because it’s horrible then we headed off back to Singapore for a few nights. We’ve had a bit of a history on this trip of having a few ‘brown trouser’ moments when going to the airport. Usually involving us taking a detour to the post office en route to the airport resulting in us cutting it a bit fine to say the least. The ‘Airport Drama of the Week’ this time was the taxi not turning up to take us to the airport which meant the owner of the hotel had to drive us there at about 200mph in his pick up truck.
We stayed at the same hostel as we had previously stayed in Singapore (the one that looked like it was off of Tron). It was good to be back as we’d done the touristy sights last time we were there which meant this time we could just take it all in and spend most of our time eating. Oh yes and there was also ‘The Stone Roses’ gig which was the reason we went back there in the first place. As to be expected the gig was ace although it was quite strange
as I had this weird feeling all the way through the gig – I was sober. There was no bar in the entire arena. People were stood having civilized conversations with each other prior to the gig and not at one point did I see anyone throw a pint of urine over the crowd. At one point this woman walked through the crowd with a little bottle of red wine she’d sneaked in. She nearly started a riot. Worst bit was they’d taken a bottle of water off Judith on the way in so we literally had no drinks the entire time. Very odd. Top gig though.
I’m looking forward to catching up on all the important news whilst I’m back. I’m going to start with my Mum’s copy of ‘Woman’s Weekly’ as there are a couple of interesting articles - ‘Rediscover Quiche’ and ‘What’s wrong with having an old face?’
Singapore is the cleanest place in the world. The streets are so clean you can eat your dinner off them. We actually did one night whilst watching a light and water show at Marina Bay. The show involved a film being projected onto
water jets along with laser beams and bubbles all in time to crazy loud opera music. It was like being on acid. I thought it couldn’t get any more over the top when the flame throwers started blasting fire everywhere. There’s that much cash kicking about in Singapore that they just had this massive show for free every night for seemingly no reason. Good though.
Judith wanted to get some new tea so we went to a Chinese tea shop. All we wanted was to buy some tea but we ended up getting roped into doing a tea ceremony. A tea ceremony is a formal thing where someone sits and makes the tea for other people but it has to be done in a particular manner. We learnt how to pour tea and also how to drink tea. The water has to be poured at the correct temperature, at the correct angle, into the correct part of the tea pot which of course has the correct amount and type of tea in it. Then to drink it, you have to sit with the correct posture, holding the cup at the correct angle and sipping at the correct
pace. It basically ended up being me getting bollocked by this Chinese lady for the entire time we were there. Judith on the other hand did everything perfectly and was praised by the Tea Sensei.
I went to the petrol station today and saw that a pack of ‘Chip Sticks’ costs 45p in the reduced section at the counter. I thought inflations was up at about 3% not 300%. Jees. Chip Sticks used to be about 6p when I were a lad which of course was only a few years ago.
We left Singapore and headed back to Thailand flying back into a place called Krabi in the south. We were to spend the last week and a half of our trip dossing about on beaches. First of all we headed for a little island called Koh Jum in the Andaman Sea. We took a taxi from Krabi to a little village by the coast where we would pick up our boat to the island. We went to one pier which just had a chicken on it and no boats so we figured we’d best go to the other one which had a couple
of boats and a Thai bloke in an England shirt with two hats on who was carrying around a plastic chair that had 3 legs. This was deffo the right one. We took a boat to the island sharing it with one other local and various supplies for the island including 3 carrier bags full of defrosting raw chicken that were dripping chicken juice down the boat. At that point we decided whilst on Koh Jum we’d eat veggie and fish only. We arrived and got into a homemade motorbike sidecar contraption which took us to a junction and then another bloke picked us up in a jeep. This bloke was called Mr Shouty Shouty man and was the owner of the guesthouse we were staying in. Mr Shouty Shouty man was very nice although he did shout a lot.
We stayed with Mr Shouty Shouty man for 5 nights in total. Whilst there we did absolutely nothing. We woke up, had breakfast, sat about, had lunch, sat about and went to the beach, watched the sunset, had dinner, watched Game of Thrones, went to bed and repeat. For a few nights we were the only people
in the guesthouse and I think (although I can’t prove it) we were the only tourists on the island. It were mega.
Mr Shouty Shouty man had a family engagement back on the main land which meant he could give us a lift to a place called Surit Thani. This was great and saved us a few quid although there was the shouting thing but you get used to that after a bit. He did also take us to a place for breakfast where we had fish rice porridge (sounds minging but was awesome) and dim sum. Thai food is still the business although I’m not entirely sure they have an understanding what levels of spice non-Thai’s can handle. I can handle a decent level of spice (I have to I’m from Bradford), but in Thailand I ask for food “only a little spicy” which I think they must understand as “please make this salad the hottest food under the sun. I want this food to put me in physical pain to the point that I contemplate chopping off my own tongue. In fact why even put any salad in it at all, can you just serve
me a plate of chilies please?”
We spent one night in Surit Thani and then headed off on a bus to a port about an hour away where we would pick up our boat to Koh Tao where we would spend the remaining 9 days of our trip. The boat was to stop at a couple of other islands (Koh Samui and Koh Phangan) before it dropped us off. The full moon was due in the next few nights which meant that a lot of the people of the boat were heading to Koh Phangan for the ‘Full Moon Party’. It was almost like every idiot we’d met whilst being in Asia was on our boat. I’ve never in my life seen as many fisherman pants or tie dyed clothing in one confined place at any one time. We met a couple who were complaining to us that when they were travelling (on holiday) in Vietnam they like went to this place like and there was like no other backpackers and there were just like Vietnamese people everywhere like. Vietnamese people everywhere, no backpackers, where was this place I want to go?
Koh Tao
is famous in certain circles as being one of the best places in South East Asia to scuba dive. I’ve become particularly fond of swimming with the fishes so was very much looking forward to it. Judith on the other hand hates diving but had her arm twisted with the pristine beaches and crystal blue waters, oh and food obviously.
We stayed in a simple but very nice wooden bungalow overlooking the sea. We went out for a few drinks to a beach side bar one night with a couple we had met. It was all very pleasant until someone started fire dancing at the very same moment a song from ‘The Beach’ came one. It was a little bit too much of a traveller cliché but what you gonna do?
You get a lot of the diving cliques out and about on a night in Koh Tao retelling stories about fish and erm well just fish. Those guys are crazy. I once saw some of them do a shot each, it was hilarious. I mean how mental can you get. Crazy guys. Ha ha a shot. Wow that’s amazing. Shots. Brilliant.
As much as I don’t like socializing with Divers (because they’re morons) I do like socializing with fishies so I managed to get in 4 dives whilst there. I think I made a good impression on my ‘dive buddy’ when I first of all put my wet suit on backwards and then fixed my tank on backwards. I’m sure he felt really safe with me by his side. I bet he thought he was diving with one of ‘Kris Kross’. Either that or a simpleton. I think the dive instructor had been subject to too much Nitrogen Narcosis in his time as he kept calling me ‘Francis’ for some reason.
It’s polite in most shops and restaurants in Thailand to take off your shoes before entering. Loads of people have those Haviana flip flops in Asia so when you got into a restaurant there are about 50 pairs of the same flip flops outside the door. I don’t know how anyone finds their own. Especially when I accidentally mix them up a bit on my way in.
We left Koh Tao after diving, snorkeling, eating, walking, relaxing, Game of Throning, sleeping and drinking
for a week and a half. Judith also learnt how to do Reiki so just be careful when you see her or she’ll do some Jedi magic on you. The boat and bus up to Bangkok was weirdly the smoothest connection we’ve had all trip. We’d moved out of the Backpacker Ghetto for the last night of the trip and booked ourselves into a nice hotel in the Financial District. You know you’re in a decent size room when you walk in and say “where’s the bed?” because its that big. Happy days.
We spent our last day of the trip going shopping and walking around and pointing at stuff and generally having a much nicer time than the first time we landed in Bangkok. There’s so much knock off stuff available in Asia. The big thing are these ‘Beats’ headphones that Dr Dre makes in his shed or something. You can get fake anything. Even fake ‘Goretex’ jackets. The one thing you want a Goretex jacket to do is keep you dry so what’s the point in buying a fake £20 one from Thailand? Sometimes they don’t quite get it right though. I saw a kid
wearing an AC Milan Shirt with Chelsea badges on the front with ‘Gerrard’ written across the back.
We flew back to merry old England at midnight on Saturday the 11
th August. The taxi to the airport was on time, there were no problems with check in and the plane was on time. No ‘Airport Drama of the Week’. Which could only mean one thing - the flight was the bumpiest flight of all time. They’re just like bumps in the road I tell myself. Bumps in the road at 30,000 feet in the sky. I hated it. We landed early morning into Heathrow and waited a few hours for the connecting flight to Manchester. It meant that we could watch a bit of the Olympics, most of which we had missed. There was a group of lads sat next to us whilst we were watching the diving. Everyone’s an expert now aren’t they? “Oh his legs weren’t straight on that one”, “He should have done a pike”, “He needs to reduce his splash on entry”. Those lads look like they’ve not seen a swimming pool in person in years. I’d take their advice on ‘Greggs’ or ‘Toby
Carvery’ but when it comes to diving I think I’ll listen to the experts.
We arrived into Manchester Terminal 3 to be greeted by our families before all heading back to my mum and dad’s for a slap up dinner. It was great to see everyone waiting for us, plus it meant that we got a free lift home.
Well what can I say? For the first time in the whole trip I’m a bit unsure of how to summarise my blog. We’ve travelled 63,000 miles (yes I’ve worked it out) stayed in 95 hostels and 34 campsites, eaten some of the best and worst food the world has to offer, seen things that made us both laugh and cry, embraced people and cultures worlds apart from our own, thought I was going to die a few times, met some life long friends and ultimately spent the best year of my life so far with my awesome wife and have loved every minute of it. What a good do!
It has been a pleasure to write all this stuff down as I have the memory of a goldfish but thanks very
much for reading and all your nice comments. I’ll miss doing them.
I’m going to have to go my tea is ready. What we having? Chips and gravy of course.
See you in a bit
Ste and Judith x x
More Photos Bangkok and Singapore
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151009971002532.426970.581642531&type=3&l=a946b5e8cd Koh Jum and Koh Tao
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151009994732532.426976.581642531&type=1&l=610e4f14f6
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Aww....all good things must come to an end...
Your blogs have been a thoroughly brilliant read. You will have to start saving for another trip...or at least give us all monthly updates of life in darkest Yorkshire.... ;) Cheers :)