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Published: January 16th 2013
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Onto our fourth week in Thailand and I think we would agree hands down that it was our best yet. It sounds cheesy but I'll say it anyway- The bad days and the waiting game of 12 hour bus/coach/boat journeys are all worth it for the good days and the amazing things that you can be a part of out here. When you're 6 hours into a 12 hour journey, you've exhausted your itunes library and the smelly man next to you is trying to snuggle into your shoulder, all can seem a little bleak. When the bags are put down, you've got a room and you head out to explore the new however, that period is disregarded in an instant and you forget it ever happened.
With a few days of rest and recovery under our belts after full moon mania, we left Koh Phangan on January 3rd and took the short boat journey over to its neighbouring island, Koh Samui. It is a bigger island but definitely quieter and a bit more relaxation orientated. The parties are there for the taking but you go and find them rather than them finding you. Sarah has been having some strange
sleep "occurences" in the past week and they all kicked off on the transfer from Samui pier to Lamai beach where we decided to stay (they've actually got worse since the malaria tablets/hallucinagenics have kicked in but I will have to explain later). I was woken from my gentle slumber by somebody screaming "When did we buy pringles?". With not a pringle in sight I turned around to eyeball the culprit and found a confused looking Coppard who had managed to wake up not only herself but the whole bus without even being awake. It was special.
We liked Samui from the moment we got there and after 4 nights staying in a bungalow on the edge of a cliff with intermittent electricity and eggy jungle water, the villa we found at
'Utopia Resort' was an abolute palace. We had just walked along the beach and found ourselves a suitable Bob Marley themed bar with suitably liver destroying cocktails when out of nowhere a monsoon style storm/ hurricane swept across the beach in a matter of minutes. We couldn't possibly go back out in the rain so the only possible solution we could find was to stay under cover
and keep the drinks coming. An hour later, brains a little fuzzier, the rain beating down harder and man who looked like a hairy pirate garbling strange noises and trying to steal our things, we decided to run home and pray for the weather to clear.
Our prayers were answered when we awoke the next morning to find the sun beating down. We ate, drank, sunbathed, finished our afternoon off with another manicure then headed home to have afew drinks before heading over to Chaweng beach for a night out. We had booked a boat trip over to Angthong Marine Park for the following day, picking us up at 7am, so we agreed not to stay out too late for the sake of our heads the next morning.
Sitting in McDonalds at 4am (once again) after a night of dancing on the tables in '
Ark Bar', it became apparent that our plan had not quite come together and we headed home, bracing ourselves for the punishment our livers would inflict in just 3 hours time......It was worse than anticipated and though the queasy rocking of a boat didn't make us feel particularly fabulous, it somehow set us up
well for the day ahead.
The boat took us out to Angthong Marine Park which is a smattering of 42 beautiful islands, just under two hours away from the coast of Samui. Our first stop; a 20 minute hike up to a lookout point of around 300 metres where you are greeted with a breathtaking view across the marine park. The climb was a little treacherous but well worth the effort and we cooled down with a dip into the sea and a spot of sunbathing back on the beach. Second stop was another island, similar in size, and another climb up some vertical stairs to look out over an incredible green, limestone lagoon nestled in the centre.
Never have I seen a boat filled with such a jazzy array of speedos on parade amd as we lay on the beach at the end of the day, we were approached by one of the chief offenders, in his 50's and very jolly with a tummy to match. Now, my knowledge of Russian is nil but if possible, he had an even worse grasp of English yet was relentless in trying to ask us out to dinner. We feigned
continual misunderstanding and in the end he resorted to communicating through drawing pictures in the sand. When this did not work, he called over his Russian wife to ask us out instead (ODD!!!). Politely, we declined and headed back to our luxurious abode for some well earned sleep.
We headed round to the Andaman Coast the next morning, arrived on Koh Phi Phi in the afternoon amd to mark the celebration of our final few days in Thailand, we began splashing out immediately. Its definitely one of the more costly islands but even taking this into consideration, we treated ourselves to a very nice room, slightly (massively) above our measly backpacker budget. With our visas running out, we unfortunately only has one full day on the island but it was our best yet.
Everything started off splendidly with a huge breakfast buffet in which we indulged to great lengths. Koh Phi Phi is split into two sepearte islands; Phi Phi Don is the first, overflowing with hotels, restaurants, bars amd dive centres. Phi Phi Ley is its neighbour, a half hour longtail boat ride away and an uninhabited national park, home to some incredible clear water snorkelling and
the famous '
Maya Bay' where "
The Beach" was filmed. After a morning on the beach, we took a longtail boat over to Phi Phi Ley and embarked on an afternoon of swimming and some incredible snorkelling in the crystal clear waters surroundign the island. With the sun beating down and lighting up the water, you could see perfectly and we took our time gliding through the water and getting freaked out by the shoals of fish skimming past our ankles. To complete an incredible afternoon, we stopped off at Maya Bay which truly is one of the most stunning beaches I have ever seen and took an hour to take in the beautiful beach, the nature laden jungle and the incredible limestone cliffs risen up around us.
Such a day would not be complete without a magnificent supper and afew Mojitos to wash it down. After inhaling some incrdible fajitas an '
Anni's' restaurant, we got chatting to Julian, Henry and Sam, 3 Australian guys who shared with us some travelling horror stories they had picked up along the way. I won't repeat any of them here because my Mum reads this and I think she'd like to remain in
the dark, but they literally gave me goosebumps all over. With these pleasantries out of the way, we carried on the evening together and headed to the beach parties where they treated us to round after round of bacardi breezers, all of which were strawpedoed. A great night out, Phi Phi definitely rivals Phangan in its ability to throw a party and gave us the best end to our best day yet.
Our final stop for just one night before heading up to Laos was the docile island of Koh Lanta where we dozed by the beachside pool and scoured the beach for shells before beginning a mammoth journey from the far South to the NongKhai, Thai-Lao border in the far North. Our time in Thailand had come to an end and we had enjoyed it so much. Trekking through the jungle on elephants, cooking rats for breakfast, lounging amidst sleepy island life and indulging in a bucket of Sangsom here and there, it had been an incrdible month to kick our travels into motion.
On January 10th, we took a sleeper train from Bangkok up to Laos and on we continue on our South-East Asia adventure. I'll report back soon x
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