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Published: January 4th 2009
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First stop back in the land of smiles was Bangkok. The unrest at the airport had only just finished but it seemed to be business as usual in the Khao san road area. A couple of days chilling and not a lot else.
We took a 12 hour sleeping bus journey down the south and were sorely dissapointed when we thought we had arrived but actually had another 4 hours to go to our destination in Krabi and then another half hour after that - it was pretty hard going.
Ao Nang was the first port of call - a nice enough stretch of sand a couple of days relaxing - we could see this was going to be a holiday from our holiday with many souvenir shops and lots of western food around. Ao Nang beach is home to a lovely bunch of monkeys who come and steal from you and jump on your back or look inside your bag for food or in the case of one nice individual was just quite happy to sit on your lap. Quite funny seeing Neils face when one started scaling up his leg to get his juice and then funny
for Neil in return when one was practically pulling Viks dress down in public.
We headed to another stretch of beaches round the peninsular to Rai Leh and the beaches were far better than at Ao Nang. Rai Leh is famous for rock climbing up the limestone cliffs so we signed up for this having completed some kayaking round the beatiful bays in the emerald water. We spent a lovely evening drinking beers on the beach waiting for the sunset. The following morning with a little hangover we set out for the rock climbing. We learned how to belay first as we were expected to hold each other on the ropes whilst the other was climbing. Our guide was very impressive as he nimbly scaled the cliff face and tied the rope on for us. Neil was first to have a go and it was proving difficult from the off with nearly nothing to hold onto and the fact that Vik was holding him on having only been shown how to do it a minute earlier. Rock climbing is scary! At first you have no trust in the rope and are scared to fall so sweat your ass off
trying to hold on to little finger holds using your legs to thrust you up. You need strength for this game and after scaling 4 different routes on the cliff both Neil and Vik were knackered and had to stop the session half way through the 5th climb as our arms were aching. Neil was also rather concerned when his calls for "tension" on the rope were no longer being answered by Viks weary arms so it all seemed like a good time to stop. It was facinating afterwards as several monkeys came along and also started to climb up the cliff face making at all look very easy.
Rai Leh made a lovely place to stay but the food we had was attrocious. Points to remember when eating out in Asia - 1. Dont expect your food to be hot (even though it is meant to be) 2. Dont expect to get what you ordered 3. Dont expect things in a logical order (i.e. drinks may arrive after you finish eating) 4. Dont expect that you will be eating at the same time as your partner 5. Paying more money in a better restaurant does not guarantee that
points 1-4 will happen and 6. think yourself bloody lucky that your are getting anything at all or if it ever goes the way you expect.
We also did the ubiquitous tour of the famous islands of Pi Pi (beach from the beach and all that!). First stop was stunning Bamboo Island - the water was so blue and the sand so white it was incredibly beautiful - but you only get 30 minutes to sit on it before being whisked off to Pi Pi for some decent snorkling, Maya bay and Pi Leh Lagoon. All very very beautiful but very touristy and actually so many boats in the way of everything there is barely any safe room for swimming so it does dampen the whole experience down a bit. Also, we found the whole thing completely un-eco friendly. The guide on our boat was quite happy to stand on the coral and therefore other tourists were just doing the same. When we have done other trips like this elswhere the guides usually always point out that you should never do this but there is no eco-tourism here at all - there is just about as many boats as
you can cram in and its all done in a rushed fashion to get em in and get em out again and get the money with no respect to the environment - Naively we didnt realise it would be quite like this in advance - but afterwards it was pretty obvious that it would be like that.
Anyway - we decided to head off to somewhere that we thought would be more eco-friendly in the national marine park of Tarutau near the border with Malaysia. Being this far south you feel like you have already entered Malaysia as the population are mainly muslim and there is a different feel to the place.
Initial impressions of Taratao were not that good as there was supposed to be no further development on this island (which there is very little) but there was construction going on (dont know what for though?) making it noisy and trucks whisking about now and then and also the litter on the beach. This initial impression was probably unfair though as we spent a bit more time. The rubbish was washed away again as it was going through the spring tides (big full moon tides) at this
point so the beaches were cleaned up automatically! (admittedly not good though) and once the sun came out on the second day it really brightened the place up to show itself off. We did a little rainforest hike and were joined by 4 Thai ladies - who were lovely and gave us a sandwich as we had been stupid and didnt bring any lunch. They were desperate to feed us with all their food but we just gratefully accepted the sandwich. They also managed for us to pay less for the truck we had to hire as the Thais get it cheaper than we "farang" do. On our last day in Taratao we had about half a kilometre of white sand beach to ourselves with not another soul on it whilst we lay there - quite incredible compared to Krabi - although a little too quiet after a few days.
Next and final stop in Thailand was Koh Lipe. A place that the hypocritical Lonely Planet asks you to think twice before going as it has development on it with hotels etc.... and think about the fact that this might also happen to Taratao. Well we have had it
with Lonely Planet preaching this kind of bull - because if they didnt publish lonely planet in the first place then people wouldnt go to half of the places that have probably been developed as a result of their bloody books. Anyway - that book has let us down a few times! On the boat there you go past an amazingly beautiful island with a natural stone arch on it and it is probably one of the most beautiful islands we have ever seen. There is absolutely no development there and probably and hopefully never will be.
Arriving in Koh Lipe was breathtaking. The water was the most beautiful aquamarine with very white powdery sand and has views to the next big island covered in rainforest. We chose to stay on the quieter and cheaper Sunrise beach, which was a great choice as there is only some nice simple beach huts and not much else. It is completely dark late on at night and so after a few beers and nobody around we went skinny dipping in the full moon - it was hilarious! All though in retrospect the next morning it was a little crazy - as there
is glass on the beach and god knows what in the water that we couldnt see - but hey ho! we came to have a good time.
A short stay on Lipe then we went off to Langkawi on the speed boat from hell which left us like drowned rats feeling very sick - hard to beleive that we are already in Malaysia and part of the trip is finished already. Definately not ready to stop yet!
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