Advertisement
Published: March 30th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Hello again everybody, hope everthing is OK back home with you all.
Since the last post, we've been pretty busy. From Phi Phi, we got a looong bus up to Bangkok, where we stayed on Khao San Road, which is the backpacker ghetto of the city. It was nuts - absolutly heaving all the time, street markets (where Ro and I spend too much money on things we didn't strictly need - I even bought clothes!), bars etc etc. Also, food stalls everwhere - lots of Pad/Pat Thai, which is a noodle and veg dish that they cook up in from of you opn little carts; BBQ'd things; shake places; and occasionally you saw a cart of deep fried insects being wheeled about. I was tempted by a bag of locusts, but i chickened out in the end.
Whilst we were there, we did a bit of sight-seeing, and saw a variety of buddist temples and the Grand palace - pretty good way to kill a few hours. There was so much gold and stuff everywhere, and some of the statues were vast - saw the 'reclining budda' statue at one of the 'Wat' in the city that
was about 60m long and 30m high. Of course, me being me,I forgot to charge my camera the whole time we were there, so my photo's are...well, I don't have any of Bangkok. Oops.
Oooh - we also got kidnapped by an angry Tuk-Tuk driver. A Tuk-Tuk is a like a taxi, but it's a cross between a motorbike and a car. Anyway, it turns out that loads of them run this scam - they offer a tour of a few sights for fairly low amounts of money. They take you to a couple of them, but then try to drag you to a silk factory/suit shop/travel agent etc etc where they get paid a bit of money by the place. Anyway, we were somewhere deep in Bangkok when he told us this, and when we refused, he started getting dead angry, and threatened violence at one point - so we got out, and wandered about until we decided that we were fairly lost, and had to get a proper taxi home. That was fun, haha.
After a couple of days in Bangkok we had had enough, so headed out west, towards the Burmese boarder, to a tiny
little town called Sangkhlaburi - actually, we were intending to cross over to the boarder to extend our Thai visa, but they don't let you do that there. Maybe should have checked that first... Anyway, really nice place, very relaxed and slow compared to Bangkok, and relativly nice and cool, because its up in the hills. Didn't do much here, just ate a lot.
The following day we went to a town back towards Bangkok called Kanchanaburi, and visited a massive waterfall, called Erawan falls - big, 7-tiered thing, where you could swim in all the pools and things. Then back to Bangkok that night, to catch a bus towards Ko Tao the following morning.
Ko Tao is lovely - and we did our first diving! We just did the open water PADI course, which lets you dive to about 18m below the surface, and saw loats of cool fish, like schools of barracudas, but no sharks this time - although, apparently they do get whale sharks in the area occasionally.
So, the course took four days, and then we have spend the last two days messing about on the beaches, and driving over the islands dodgy,
sandy roads on motorbikes. I'm glad to say I didn't crash. And Ro escaped with only couple of grazes, and a slightly emptier wallet (after a lengthy arguement with the rental place, who apparently tried to rip her off massively, she had to pay a bit of cash to cover the scratches).
So, today, we ship out to Ko Pha Ngan, where we have booked a place to stay for then next 5 days of so - its full moon party time! No idea whats its going to be like - about 8000 tourists decend on the beach every month to have what I can only assume is a rave. Uh oh.....
Once again, photo's are missing because I can't upload them right now, but I will do as soon as I can. Also, its just occurred to me that we have to go back to Bangkok to pick up out passports at some point (we had to leave them there to get our Visas for Laos, Vitnam and Cambodia sorted out), so I can get some photos of Bangkok then. Joy.
Anyway, take it easy, and see you guys soon. But not that soon.
Si.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0475s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
SUE SHILLABEER
non-member comment
Hi Simon Just spent the last 20 mins or so printing off your blog as Grandma is intrigued as to what you are up to. Can't wait for the next installment. Sue