THAILAND - Bangkok, Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and the famous FULL MOON PARTY

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BANGKOK

So we arrived in Bangkok after a 12-ish hour bus journey to be dropped in the middle of a road (literally the middle of the road!) but luckily right next to the backpacker area. Mangaged to find a nice, but quite expensive room for the night and had a wonder around the area.. Love at first sight!!! It reminded us of a little Asian Glastonbury festival! lots of stalls selling great clothes, hippy things, handmade shoes, lanterns.. the works!!! And that was just in our little lane..

KHAO SAN ROAD
Khao San road, the famous farang (foreigner) territory was twice as good, twice as big..! And to top it off there was a MacDonalds!!!!!! After 3 months of nothing but Asian food we were gagging for something naughty from the western world.. We had a double big mac each.. oooops!!! naughty but very very nice!!! So by this time it was quite late and we packed it in to get a fresh start the next day.

We got a scamming Tuk-Tuk to take us round the city "1hour city tour for 20 baht (around 30pence)" Great! ...or so we thought.. He took us to the giant gold standing Buddha and to a temple,and to a goverment run tourism agency (TAT) where a Welsh man from Sketty, no less, tried to get us to book 4weeks of tours and excursions with him. (luckily we didnt as we met lots of people who we found out got very ripped off by him!) the tuk tuk driver then tried making us go to a jewelry store and when we refused he chucked us out!! We had to walk 4km back to our hotel!!!! Little did we know that this 'scam' is actually a deal that the drivers have with 'sponsors' i.e. jewllers, tailors etc that if they bring customers to their shop the drivers get 5 litres of free fuel. No purchase neccessary on the tourist part.. so we quickly learned that 5mins in a shop is worth the bargain on a very very cheap taxi ride!

So after our lesson in Tuk Tuk the next day we arranged with a driver to take us to the sights we had missed the day before.. We saw the amazing sleeping golden Buddha.. (its maaaasssive, 15metres high, 46metres long, finished in gold leaf!) and to go the the Palace, which was right next door to the Buddha, but in true Bangkok tuk tuk style he took us 30mins away to his 'sponsor' so we made him drop us in the town centre to go and check out the shopping, and see if Gareth could get his laptop fixed. The malls there are mental.. absolutely huge.. Its like rolling all the malls in Cardiff in to one and then some, to get a rough idea of size.

Got a tuk tuk home who took us to a jewellers.. I didnt mind so much.. got to try on lots of pretty sparkly rings and pretend like Gareth had popped the question!!! Gareth was not amused..

We got back and mooched around Khao San road, it takes on a whole new life in night compared to day, thankfully we managed to find a nicer and cheaper hotel than the one we were in so we moved out and saved ourselves 150 baht a day! (3 whole pounds!!)
We spent the night on Khao San in a bucket bar (literally a bucket of booze, like a kids beach toy sand bucket.. not too big!!) Made some friends, even some french friends..!! (Tu est content maman!? il y avait un Quebecois, je ne lui comprennait meme pas. Trop bizzare l'accent!!) Its hilarious though, as all the stalls have tables and chairs on the road as soon as the police drive through everyone scarpers to get everything off the road, then goes back to normal when they've gone. Daft!

Spent the next few days just relaxing and waiting for our Danish boys and my friends Sid and Sarah to turn up, the weather wasn't too great anyway so nothing lost there..

The boys arrived on the 30th Oct and we spent the night on Khao San eating fried crickets and beatles and things!! We shit you not, these were real big bugs. We even had some ant salad which was really nice! (Check the pics). Had an early night so as to go sight seeing with them the next day to the Erawan Museum and the Ancient city just outside Bangkok.

The museum was not much of a museum, but was pretty cool. A massive 3 headed elephant on top of a domed building (which houses the museum) there is only 1 (basement) floor of museum artefacts the rest is decorative stairs made out of crockery, spoons, plates, bowls, all broken to pieces of mosiac; quite beautiful actually.

We couldnt be bothered to go to the ancient city as it was getting late in the day and we wanted to go back to Pantip (the electronics mall) for Anders to look at cameras and get software for Gareth. Found a sushi street stall outside the mall selling pieces of sushi for 5 baht each, thats about 10pence!!!! yum yum!! As you can imagine we had shed loads.

That night was Halloween, and on Khao San they put on a massive shindig, stages, bands, dj's the works.. And Sid and Sarah were also arriving so double party!!! There weren't too many people dressed up which was disappointing but lucky for the guys as they almost went out wearing my clothes, and me wearing Gareths!!

We found a stage playing some great tunes and boogied around, with kids in masks chasing and pinching us. I found it hilarious that the only people dancing were us farang (and mostly brits too!!) with the locals looking at us in confusion and not quite understanding the whole dance music thing.

Found Sid and Sarah, after much girly screaming and happiness we headed to a bar for some grub as they had just come off a 14hour flight. By this time boys were all a little bit merry and the Danes had started coming onto some poor Belgian twins so we sent Gareth on a mission to rescue them from embarassment.. instead they all ended up dancing in the rain trying to do break dancing with the locals. Funny! I sent Gareth, Martin and Anders off to a Ping-Pong show, and Me, Sid and Sarah were sensible and went to a night club!
A great night was had by all...

Recovered for the day and got ready to leave for the night bus down to Koh Tao Island to finally do some scuba diving..!!

KOH TAO ISLAND IN THE GULF OF THAILAND

Arrived in Koh Tao t find we were at the not so nice resort of Crystal dive centre, as usual, the brochure made the place look a tad nicer than the reality. We swapped to their other resort, further up the island, the beach was much nicer but we were told that the restaurant was only open at night and therefore I would have to go to the other resort just to have my inclusive breakfast, and the promise of a TV in the room was no where to be seen.. So we swapped back!! The day we got there was for chillin after the (again) long bus journey.

The next day I started my PADI Open Water Diver certificate. Unfortunately we found out that although Gareth had already done his certificate and had already booked 4 fun dives he had to do a 'review' at the extortionate price of 1800 baht!! He had booked 4 fun dives to come with me and so I had to take them instead.. oh well!! Gareth as you can imagine was tamping!

I had 2 days of intensive training, both classroom and in the pool skills . Then it was out to sea!!! I was a bit disappointed though, the water wasn't verry clear and the coral wasnt very colourful either. The saving grace was when I did Gareth's fun dives I saw 3 sharks the first time, and 2 the second time. 1 even came within about 2metres away from me. It was amazing. But while I was on the boat having to wait for the other group to do their second dive they saw a Whale shark.. the only thing I really really wanted to see and they saw it while I was on the boat!!! Typical!! (however we are goin to be going somewhere in the Philipines where we are guaranteed to see them, as its mating season in Dec, so I'm really looking forward to that!)

KOH PHANGAN

Again, completely fobbed off by our brochure to the "4 star resort".. we had a teeny tiny room next to the communal toilets, with a window but no window panes (bars luckily though) and a squatting toilet. Lovely!! Tried to kick up a fuss with the owner, a Brit no less, a very unreasonable Brit, so we had to lump it!!! We couldnt get a refund and couldnt affor the 'luxury' rooms available sooo...

The only reason to come here is the full moon.. and thats what we came for.. The first 4 days were horrible.. rain rain rain, non stop rain.. We were not happy!!! Fortunately we had a cracking bar next to our resort, with Doctor Nicky the bar man.. the coolest Thai man ever. We spent our days there watching films and eating great Thai food and watching Nicky get hammered on whisky while saying 'OH MY BUDDHA'.. haha, so funny.

The day before the party we had a great surprise.. Our Danes had told us they definately weren't coming to the full moon, and who shows up..!!!??? THE DANES!!! Fantastic! Sid and Sarah also arrived and we all had a pre-party party at our resort. Really good night and the best bit was the bar manager was from Cardiff and he knew Gareth's mates from home.. Andrew and Tim. So as you can imagine anything went, without a care in the world.

Thankfully the water gods let up, and the day of the Full moon was dry! (apparently the full moon is a festival to the water gods and it never rains on the night.. ironic..!)

The party itself is immense.. Its Glasto on a beach (but not as many people) Around 10 thousand people, give or take, and bar after bar after bar pumping tunes out towards the sea across the beach, Fire dancers, UV painting, all genres of music. Too cool!!!

I found myself a bar playing my kind of tunes and planted myslef in front of the speakers and did not move for 3 hours!!! The only thing that got me off my little self made stage was Sarah running up to me flashing a big sparkly engagement ring as Sid had just popped the question. Lots and lots of tears and blubbering. As if I couldn't have been happier that night anyway, beautiful friends, on a beach, great music.. then he goes and pops the question to one of my best friends.. HAPPY DAYS!!! Top night!!!

Then it was soon time to head back to our side of the island. Manged to get a big Tuk Tuk going our direction, it was already pretty full, but that doesnt matter in Thailand. Lucky I'm small, I squeezed into the end of the bench, Gareth braved it hanging on the end, more people got on too, there must have been about 20 people on that car, and then Gareth thought it a good idea to jump up onto the roof!! I was panicking as he was drunk (as usual) and some silly Essex girl was winding me up saying that he was standing up and dancing on the roof!!!!

Got home safe and sound and slept most of the day off as we needed to get off very early to Malaysia the next day at 5.30am...

So thats Thailand.. 5 countries down.. loads more to go..!!

Stay tuned to the next episode of Li and G's travels!!!!

CONCLUSION OF THAILAND
Has to be said Thailand is way over hyped for what it is. Yes the people are great and the place for what we seen of it is nice but for all the talk people give of it is a little too much. No where near as cheap as you get told even though there are the odd places selling cheap food and goods but most of it is geared up for tourists.

Overall great time but next time we would spend less time in Bangkok and maybe go further north and go and see the one place we regret not going to and that is Phi Phi (from the film The Beach). Also a tip for every one.. NEVER BOOK A PACKAGE TOUR.. just do it yourself!

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