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Published: December 5th 2016
N.B. Some photo credits go to Debbie (big thanks) as we 'lost' our camera back in Bangkok the first time 😞
Phuket 28th Nov-4th Dec'16
So our journey to Phuket was not without incident, now maybe it was coincidence that the big night out on the beer in Udon Thani was the day before flying, maybe it was lack of food the day before, maybe it was a bug, but whatever the cause by the time Howard and I arrived at the airport to meet up with Deb, Liam and Karen, poor old Debbie was looking the worse for wear! Liam was flying an hour before us and the 3 of them had set off to the airport a couple of hours before us.
We said our goodbyes to Liam and he set off on his epic Udon-Bangkok-China-London journey and we waited for 2 hour flight to Phuket. Meanwhile Debbie made several dashes to the loo, then the flight was called and we had just shown our boarding passes to go down the tunnel to the plane when she threw up all over the carpet. She was worried they might let her board so we all quickly marched
Boat trip to Phi Phi
The beach looking chocka compared to 5 years agoon, grabbing as many sick bags as possible while trying to look inconspicuous. No prizes for guessing who sat next to her passing said bags etc while Karen was across the aisle with her fingers in her ears and pretending not to be with us and Howard looked out the window!!
We got there though and finally made it to our lovely Deevana Hotel, Debbie went straight to bed and Howard and I spent ages getting our room changed as it stank! Finally sorted we left the invalid playing with her phone and us 3 hit the town.
Again it was a total assault on the senses after our relatively quiet stay up north. We walked past 'restaurant' after 'restaurant' all selling seafood - all of which was still alive in plastic tubs out the front, with everyone trying to convince us to come in. Eventually we found somewhere with a more varied menu and went in to eat, a live band was playing and it was mega noisy and my seafood pizza looked nothing like my usual one at Borges!
Finally fed we ventured up a side street full of small bars and all full of
young girls screeching and dancing and dirty old men, we managed one beer and left. Then we came across the Bangla Road, managed to avoid the tours offering ping pong shows and turned round to discover Rock City. Needless to say we spent the rest of the night there, great stuff!
The next day and Deb was still a bit rough but we all lazed round the pool and rested.
The days and nights are all blurring now but we visited Nicky's Handlebar, a brilliant biker style bar with amazing decor and great western food, went back to Rock City and saw more bands. We all did a boat trip to Phi Phi Don, which was a long way for those of us who don't like boats. It was beautiful on the island though and we had a swim and a look about. For Howard and I it was quite a shock as we stayed on this island when we did our travelling before and we couldn't believe how things had changed. The dirt road was now paved and there was a flash pier front, eee how things move on!
Howard and Karen took another boat trip
to James Bond Island which they both thought was fantastic, while Deb and I lazed round the pool and did nowt but dodge the rain occasionally, us lasses took advantage of our free massages which I can't describe as relaxing but great in a painful kind of way!
We had the big night out on the Friday before we left, which involved setting off after tea and happy hour drinks at the hotel, where Howard managed to snort beer up his nose, no one could stop laughing and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the night. We taxied to the Hard Rock Cafe , which I thought was a but rubbish really, then began the pub crawl - and this time we did keep moving on. We got to the Bangla road, got pulled into bars, drank beers, sang along with bands, all had a turn wearing Karens PVC cap, called out Harold every tine we saw a dirty old man (think steptoe and son), avoided the girly bars, Karen had words with the ping pong show touts and some how managed to arrive unscathed at Rock City. By now the staff knew what we
drank, we danced, we sang, we mountaineered up the steep steep staircase to the loos and survived the descent and by 2 ish Howard and I called it a night and left the others to it. Walking back the streets were eerily deserted, everything was closed up and we stumbled gratefully into our lovely soft beds. By the way the beds up north were rock hard and like camping out, made your bones ache. God knows what time the others got back but none of us made breakfast the next morning!
Bangkok 4th-6th Dec '16
It would have been a quick flight to Bangkok except we were delayed by about 30 mins but this had a knock on effect and everything from landing to baggage was subsequently also delayed. We finally arrived at Deb and Katens posh hotel about 7.45 pm, Howard and I then walked up the road a bit further to our more modest but lovely hotel Tara Place. We all just dumped our gear and met up again for our final night together down the Khaosan Road. Once again when we went there 5 odd years ago it was a much more laid
back, hippy, backpackery bars and stalls type of area, now it is mental! And spreads over 2 roads, every bar vying for business, trying to out blast each other with 'music', football on screens everywhere, market stalls, street food stalls and people selling all kinds of ghastly insect type things fried on sticks and signs for laughing gas??? everywhere.
Getting on to the quieter road we managed to find a bar with rock music and got a table, we then had the ladies trying to sell us hats, wooden frogs with a stick to make the croaking sound, bracelets, you name it and they had it. Just like in Sappa in Vietnam one lady took a shine to Howard and put the fancy beaded hat off her head on to his and was all giggly. So of course we had to take photos and get carried away and buy friendship bracelets, would have been rude not to. By now it's after 1 am and Debbie and Karen had to be up at 6.30 am for a trip so we walked back and had a bit of an emotional final farewell and now it's down to the Teesside Travellers Two.
So I'm sat in our airport hotel with a coke zero typing up this blog, knowing I've probably missed out loads of little incidents and stories but I've done my best and have a newly purchased very apt Chang T-shirt to remind me of these past couple of brilliant, mad, mental, crazy 'beer' fuelled weeks!
Cheers to the Magnificent Seven!!!
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