Thailand - Take 2

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After our flying visit through Vietnam, back we went to Thailand. We landed in Phuket and headed to a small beach resort called Karon Beach, where we were staying for a few nights. Even though we could've been anywhere, on any beach resort, it felt good to be back in a civilised place. It was pretty quiet there, perfect for some much needed chill time on the beach 😊

Our first challenge was to buy some beach towels and not get ripped off, which sure is a challenge in Thailand. Our bartering skills were pretty spesh by this point, so we got them down to half the price the guy wanted - happy days. Off we went to the beach, thinking that our towels would be a super investment as we could lay on them and wouldn't need to pay to use sunbeds. We put our towels down on the sand and settled down, lovely. Within about 30 seconds the wind picked up and blew sand all over us, the suncream on our skin made it stick nicely too, really comfortable as you can imagine. Simon has a huge hate for sand as it is, so I tried to convince him it would calm down in a few minutes. It didn't. We had a little break and went back later in the afternoon, when the wind had calmed down and all was great 😊 The towels were a bloody great buy.

It was pretty touristy there and there didn't seem to be many backpackers around, but it was a nice beach and a cool place. We saw the most amazing sunset too, so it was well worth it.

Our next destination in Thailand was the island of Koh Phangan...and we had an exciting journey ahead of us in order to get there (or not). When you speak to the travel companies who you book the transport through, they have a very clever way of wording it, 'it's 8 hours from here in Phuket to Koh Phangan'...so, surely that can't be too horrendous. Well...firstly we were once again the unlucky ones who got picked up last and as a result we got the last seats in the minibus........in the front next to the driver. Brill, no leg room and basically no room to move. Bearing in mind everyone in the back had luxury seats with enough room to stretch their legs out. Oh well, atleast it was only a 5 hour journey - easy. The mini bus dropped us off at some travel company Surat Thani, where some nice people organised the next bit of our trip for us...acommodation for Ko Phangan including free taxi transfer and the rest of our transport for Thailand pretty much - saved us the hassle, so we thought. After a few minibus journeys, getting dropped off in random places and no-one telling us what was going on, oh and an hour's drive in an un-air conditioned coach we arrived at the port and eventually arrived on Ko Phangan.

We were relieved that we'd pre-booked acommodation, atleast we didn't have that to worry about and it included a free taxi that would apparently collect us from the port...this is where the real fun began. No taxi to meet us. Of course the pay phone was playing up so we couldn't call anyone to see what was going on, luckily a nice lady in a travel agent called the resort for us and got someone to come and collect us. They turned up to get us...no apology at all and pretty miserable to be honest, we couldn't wait to get to our bungalow on the beach that we'd been promised....hmmmmm we shall see. It only took 5 minutes to get there, which was already a bad sign because the place we'd pointed to on the map where we wanted to stay was definitely further away....good. It was dark by this point too, we were, as usual in Thailand, greeted by 2 skanky dogs. Our 'beach bungalow' wasn't a bungalow and wasn't on the beach, so all in all we'd been stitched up, YES!

Luckily we had only paid for one night and were paying for the other 2 when we left. Well, we went out straight away in search for another place to stay. It was pitch black and pretty remote, but we found the most amazing little resort on the beach and told them we'd be back the next morning! We had to try and escape without the people from our place seeing us...so there we were backpacks on. Unfortunately one of the girls was sitting in the main area when we walked through to leave at 8am the next morning. She asked where we going and Simon casually said we were going for a walk. Yep, we often go for walks with all our luggage, it's great exercise.

Our bungalow was basic - basic as in no hot water and a self-flush toilet, but we ended up staying there for 5 nights and skipped Koh Tao, we were far too chilled out for any moving around. The place was so cute and we were basically part of the family by the time we left... I made friends with the kids there (I had to try very hard to not steal the little boy - he would've fitted in my backpack and everything!) and Simon made friends with their 3 million dogs and cats, which felt the need to hang around everytime we ate...lovely. The food there was awesome, the bar was even better.
One afternoon we went for a stroll and ended up in The Mason Arms, a classic english pub...to say we tempted fate was an understatement. When we went in the sun was shining...when we came out it was pouring with rain - that's what I call a true english experience. From then onwards the rain fell...and fell.

After Koh Phangan it was time for Khao Sok national park and another exciting journey beckoned to get us there. To be fair it went fairly smoothly until we got dropped off at some random place (again no-one knew what was going on and treated us like idiots). Some guy tried hard to convince us that, in addition to the money we'd already paid to the travel company for our transport, we'd need to pay more for a taxi to get us to our acommodation. By this point we just went with the thinking that every Thai person was out to con us, so pretty much told him he was talking rubbish. We were right too...shocking.

Khao Sok national park was lovely though and our pre-booked acommodation this time was ace. A cute little bungalow set amongst lovely gardens surrounded by jungle was our home for 2 nights, it had a proper flushing toilet and everything...and hot water. We met a cool english couple who we spent some time with there - more Chang was consumed.

Seeing as we'd already done the jungle trek in Thailand, we got a ticket into the national park and did some of the routes that you're allowed to do on your own. We had a good old walk, part of which included walking up 400 steps to what was described as an amazing view. Well, let's just say the brochure must've been written years and years ago because that amazing view was now overgrown by trees. So back down we went....that bit of the walk was Simon's idea, so atleast I had someone to blame 😉

After a tiring day, we were sitting outside on our balcony area drinking and playing cards, when all of a sudden we were invaded by monkeys, 4 of them! It was really funny, one of them picked up our bottle of beer and went to have a bit and also picked up our pack of cards (he was a definite party animal that one!). I ran inside the room and left Si to deal with them, with his caring nature for animals.

As if we hadn't had enough fun with Thai people trying to con us, we had more to come. We'd pre-booked acommodation from Khao Sok to Khao Lak, so waited for our pick-up as we'd been told to do. A taxi guy turned up and....here we go again. He tried to tell us that we'd need to pay him to take us and get the money back that we'd already paid, from the travel company. Simon was suffering with a slight Changover, so Liddy was in charge of showing this guy who's boss...and I did just that. I gave him the number of the travel company so he could call them to sort it and he claimed that they'd given me a fake number...blah blah blah. In the end he drove us to the bus station - he HATED us and I'm pretty sure he was attempting to kill us if the speed he was driving had anything to go by.

Bring on Australia.

Khao Lak (the worst hit place in the tsunami) was a cute little beach town and the only place we hadn't pre-booked acommodation for. Typically, everywhere else we'd been to would've been fine to turn up in without pre-booking, but this place was different. There weren't many backpacker places, as we discovered after strolling up and down with our backpacks on in the 30 degree heat. In the end, I left Si sat outside a shop with our stuff and I went on the hunt....we got a bungalow and were the first people to stay in it as the resort was only just finished (so the tsunami did have its plus side).

Had a few nice days there, lots of beach time and visiting a Tsunami Museum that infact wasn't really a museum at all - gutting. We stocked our bodies up with lots of Chang beer and Thai food...plus a few Maccy D's, for the end of the Thailand adventure.

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Comments

[Auntie Jude]

Backpacking couple
Lovely to read your blog - sounds like you're expert in how not to get ripped off now. I know you are now in Australia which is where I would really love to go so hope you enjoy. Weather here improving thank God - never thought I'd ever get fed up with cold weather. Had to rake out an old warm jumper! Everyone well here - Mick and I are going up to look after Mia in half term and Finian's just getting over chicken pox. Love for now xxxxxxxxxxxx