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Published: December 9th 2017
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After a month in India we were looking forward to the change that Thailand would offer for a couple of weeks! We were also looking forward to seeing some familiar faces in the shape of The Perham’s who we were meeting in Bangkok before heading south to the islands. Before that though we had to negotiate the small matter of a country mourning the anniversary of their King’s death and a five day funeral ceremony which led to most of the city being shut down when we arrived - not helped by the fact that I felt like I was pretty close to my own death bed by the time we had arrived still feeling the effects of a nasty souvenir from our last few days in India! I’d like to say that being the well researched conscientious travellers that we are we were fully aware of what was happening in Bangkok the day we arrived and were fully prepared for it. But you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realise that this couldn’t be further from the truth and when the taxi driver told us that the roads around Khao San Road where we were staying were closed
we laughed it off thinking it was probably just a scam to try and get more money out of us! It wasn’t until we got to a closed road and saw thousands of people wearing black and queueing in their masses did the penny drop that something pretty big was happening. We had to walk the last couple of kilometres to the hostel which looking at the map didn’t seem like a big deal but with every turning there were airport security scanners and important looking people telling us we couldn’t walk down their road and we would have to go back the way we came and try another route. With every rejection I felt myself melting a little bit more and closer to my body failing me in a fashion that a country in mourning probably wouldn’t have taken too kindly to! Luckily, Julia took charge of the situation and managed to find someone who could call the hostel and get someone to come and meet us and bought me a Magnum to provide me with the energy to make it the last little bit!
We had two days in Bangkok before The Perham’s arrived and with the
cremation taking place a lot of the city was quiet and closed which gave me enough time to recover and get better. There was no alcohol being served or music being played in the area, which is well known by backpackers around the world for just that, out of respect and it was actually quite interesting to see the Thai people pulling together handing out food and water to each other as they were all paying their respects. There was also something slightly amusing about watching groups of westerners wandering up and down Khao San Road trying to figure out where they could get a drink and clearly thinking that this wasn’t what they had signed up to !
I met Rich and Col (The Perham’s) when they had been travelling 7 years ago in Malaysia, through a mutual friend Danny who I had gone to meet. Since then I’ve been to their wedding, multiple Glastonbury’s, enjoyed many more nights out and it’s pretty cool how things have gone full circle and they were now coming out to meet us on our travels. The plan was to fly down to Krabi and spend a night there, then Koh Phi
Phi, Railay and Koh Lanta for four nights starting with the more livelier island first and working our way towards the calmer, more relaxing destinations towards the end of the two weeks. The guy’s had also very generously paid for us to stay in the same hotels as them in Krabi and Koh Lanta which we were very thankful for. The opportunity to stay in a proper bed with clean smelling sheets, have a warm shower and not have to fight over the angle of a fan because it was blowing more on one of us than the other really was a godsend! They also made us honorary parents of their travel companion ‘Stinky Pig’! A toy pig who when you pressed his belly would sing a song which would end with him farting! Whilst the song is playing you would roll a dice to see which way the pig is passed and if you happen to be holding the pig when it passed wind you would then do a shot of whatever the designated drink was, in this case Siam Sato which was like a rice wine and not very nice at all!
The buckets certainly flowed in
Phi Phi and multiple cheese and ham toasties from 7 Eleven were devoured in a drunk or hungover state. We did also manage to walk up to the viewpoint where we enjoyed a Russian guy taking a ridiculous amount of pictures of his wife and two daughters in various poses as well as the scenery and we also hired kayak’s to get us round to Monkey Beach. Railay was probably our favourite place and we spent a large amount of our time here on the beach which was ideal for a spot of frisby and French boules. We also visited Pranang Cave a.k.a Penis Cave which was two caves on a beach that was filled with carvings of penises of all different shapes, sizes and colours! The idea being I think that if you leave one there it is supposed to improve your fertility. On the way to the penis cave we had also spotted a signpost to a viewpoint which pointed up a steep cliff that people were climbing up and down so Julia, Rich and I decided we would give it a go the next day. It was hard work getting up there and in some places a test of nerve but it was great fun. Once you get to the viewpoint you then have the chance to climb back down the other side to a lagoon - we’d all read varying reviews online that made this part of the journey more dangerous than the other but we egged each other on and went down where we were rewarded with a refreshing swim in a lagoon surrounded by tall cliffs before climbing back up and down again! Koh Lanta was spent largely just chilling by the pool apart from the last day where we all went on a boat trip around some nearby islands. We got to stop off and go snorkeling at a couple of stops but the highlight was trying to swim through a cave between two chains of Chinese tourists that were being dragged by a poor Thai guy swimming at the front!
It was a great two weeks and we can’t thank Rich and Col enough for all that they did for us whilst they were here - the little bits of luxury, the buckets, travelling tips and seeing some friendly faces were very much appreciated after a couple of months on the road!
Thailand to me had felt like it had calmed down a bit since I last visited in 2008. Whilst we still saw the fire shows in the bars we didn’t see any of the flaming skipping ropes and flaming limbo poles that I’d seen back then on nights out - although we were on different islands and there is also the possibility that I’ve maybe grown up a little bit since then as well...maybe! The plan is to visit Thailand again at the end of our time in South East Asia but enter from the north of the country and work our way back to Bangkok where we fly to New Zealand from in February.
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