Thailand

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Touching down in Bangkok at midnight, we arrived to staggering humidity, around 30 degrees!! With the stress of our cash cards not working on arrival, we were penniless and whilst trying to contact our bank, the locals on the above floors were not making things any easier - harassing us, whistling at us, trying to get our attention in any way to use their taxi so they could try and rip us off! Situation sorted, we were off to the backpacker district in Bangkok, Kho San Road. We soon found somewhere to rest our heads after the long flight and tried to get some sleep whilst putting up with the drunken karaoke sounds in the near distance. After a rather sleepless night, the next morning we searched for alternative accommodation, although what we found was not too pleasing. We probably found the cheapest room in Bangkok (200 Baht) which is around £4.00. The room was grim, airless and the mattress - like concrete: this was our home for the night. That day we grabbed a few cold drinks and watched the craziness of Kho San Road unfold. Over-harassing suit selling touts; women stroking wooden frogs with sticks creating a frog sound - walking the street literally all day; tuk-tuk drivers shouting at you every 10 metres; scrawny cats & dogs skulking around for dropped food; crazy street food vendors; hundreds of clothing stalls and general mayhem. The following day we had planned to do some shopping on the road, however due to the extreme heat, this was impossible. That night we watched the transition from daytime to nighttime on the road, where after dark the road is filled with ladyboys, beggars and even more sellers!

We heard that month’s full moon party was happening on one of the Thai islands, therefore left Kho San Road on an overnight bus to head south. The bus we took was rather surprising. Somehow we had managed to acquire our own room with enough space for 5-6 people complete with sofas and TV. Unfortunately we ended up sharing it with 5 others, the TV didn’t turn on and we mistakenly chose the upright seats as opposed to the sofas! In our room on the bus, we met two Danish guys who told us the prices they had been paying for bus tickets, rooms, suits etc and we were all left in laughter at their tales - they had been ripped off at every given opportunity since they had been in Thailand, and knew it! After arriving at the port the next morning, we took a short ferry to the island of Kho Phangan to be met by tons of hotel touts and taxi drivers ready to over charge you as much as they possibly could. We jumped in the back of a cheap, shared taxi (50 Baht each as opposed to the taxi drivers’ 500 Baht!) and headed to the area of Haad Rin. Being the full moon party period, most accommodation was fully booked or ridiculously over priced. After a short walk up the beach we managed to find somewhere reasonably priced - a small bungalow complete with our own hammock. That afternoon we chilled in our hammock while the torrential rain continued to downpour.

A few hours later we were both covered in fluorescent paint ready for the full moon party! The full moon party basically takes place on a beach in Haad Rin, where up to 30,000 people party until sunrise! On our way to the beach we were stopped on a back alley by an unofficial roadblock demanding we pay 100 Baht each to pass, this was crazy as the event is and has always been based on the fact it is a free ‘gathering’. A Thai woman backed up by a few Thai men, and a police officer, was screaming ‘100 Baht! 100 Baht!’ while people were being pushed and shoved trying to get past the barrier without paying. We eventually made the beach, and the sight of 10,000 people partying on a beach under the full moon, was madness! After several buckets (a normal alcohol drink - but served in a huge kids bucket!) it was clear we were not going to be amongst the partygoers still dancing at sunrise. The next few days on the island involved relaxing and sunbathing whilst trying to wash the fluorescent paint off of our skin for several days!

A couple of days on, we took a ferry to the island of Koh Tao, apparently one of the best diving and snorkelling locations in the Thai islands. We headed to the Hat Sai Ri area of Koh Tao where we found our worst accommodation on the whole trip so far! Our room was a concrete shed out amongst the jungle type terrain! Grim is the only word that can describe that room, Grim! We couldn’t use the shower at all, because the actual toilet wall was ¼ missing at the top, therefore there was a huge gaping hole that led to outside, so mosquitoes would fill the toilet at night, leaving it impossible to enter without being eaten alive! The beach on Koh Tao was beautiful at night with bars protruding on to the beach and small areas to relax lit by candlelight a few metres away from the waters edge. The following day we did a snorkelling trip with some friends, around the perimeter of Koh Tao. The coral and marine life wasn’t that great as visibility was quite low and we were only taken to what seemed to be dead coral! A reef shark was seen by all, however we were completely un-phased by this as had previously swum with and fed them underwater in Fiji. However, on our 2nd or 3rd snorkelling location a girl on our trip shouted ‘shark’ - being inquisitive & assuming it would be a reef shark, Holly swam over and looked down below in time to see a huge (what we think may have been a ‘Blue’) shark unexpectedly swim underneath her, at which point she saw it best to head back to the boat!

After a day or so we headed to Koh Samui. We were shocked to discover there were a Tescos, Starbucks, Mc Donald’s and a Boots on the island! Craziness! Give us the Fijian islands over the Thai islands any day of the week! After staying in absolutely disgusting accommodation for 2 nights on Koh Tao, we decided it was time for a small taste of luxury. We checked into a budget hotel costing around £16.00 for the night, which was as good as any nice hotel room that could have been found in London! We didn’t see much of Koh Samui as we probably would have liked to, mainly due to our budget but more so the extreme heat. We visited the beach by day, and at night headed to an evening of ‘Muay Thai’ (Thai Boxing) at the local stadium. On arrival at the ticket booth, we were shocked to find out the tickets were near £18.00 each. We couldn’t afford this but really wanted to see the Thai Boxing. A plan was needed there and then! Kev asked the man near the entrance if we could take a look inside quickly, he obliged, so we moved into the stadium and waited a few metres in from the entrance to see the inside. A few minutes later we made a rather fast walk and hid ourselves in the crowd! Result! We had sneaked in! We enjoyed a good few hours of Thai boxing goaded on by a small traditional Thai band that played faster as the boxers attacked each other! Before each fight we witnessed each Thai boxer praying, walking the ring and performing rituals before competing.

After a few days on Koh Samui, we headed via the mainland, 3 buses and 2 boats over to Koh Phi Phi island. This was not the most pleasant of trips due to having upset-dodgy stomachs from food we had both ate. Holly had an unpleasant experience on the coach, whilst Kev had to run back onto a soon to be departing ferry to find a toilet! A day or so after relaxing on Koh Phi Phi, we did a boat tour around the island stopping at various points of interest. Our first stop was a small bay called Monkey Beach, filled with, you guessed it, Monkeys! Was very nice to see the monkeys in a natural environment able to roam free, however, and as always someone had to take it too far. A tourist decided to wind the monkeys up by offering food then snatching it away, and walking right into the middle of their territory - he got bitten, probably caught rabies and it was his own fault! No sympathy there. Another of our stops was Maya Bay (made famous by ‘The Beach’ film). We stayed here for a few hours soaking up the sunshine, enjoying the magnificent and beautiful surroundings, and watched the sunset. In one of the bays we pulled into, there was the opportunity to cliff jump from around 50 metres into the water. Thankfully a couple that were on our boat told us one of their close friends had done this same very jump over a year ago and it ended in disaster. She became partially paralysed due to the way she landed in the water and the force of this against her body, and tragically she can’t now have children. Needless to say, neither of us took the opportunity to jump! That night we decided it was time to go and see a Lady boy cabaret show on the beach. There was an opening fire show, in which every piece of burning equipment hailed into the air seemed to be attracted to Holly on its descent, with burning poles, bars and balls dropping almost on her lap! After the dangerous fire show it was time for the ladyboys to hit the stage! This was just confusing! And this thought echoed though the crowd of voices saying ‘that can’t be a man!’.

After our time on the islands we headed back to Bangkok. We tried to get a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the Grand Palace, which was only a 10-minute walk in the end. Every tuk-tuk driver would say ‘we make two stops’ - basically they try and take you to their friends clothing shop/travel shop and take a commission of any money spent. We were even more surprised to find out not one tuk-tuk driver on Kho San road would take us direct to the Grand Palace! Every single driver wanted to take a visit to their ‘sponsor’ or ‘friend’. Eventually we walked to the Grand Palace where they seemed to have a very odd system of allowing some women tourists to walk around in skirts and flip flops and others needed to have long trousers and closed shoes on - needless to say Holly was head to foot covered by a t-shirt, sarong and trainer pumps, sweating profusely! But we thought it better to be respectful than not.

Our time in Thailand was full of mixed feelings. Having previously visited the beautiful untouched Fijian islands earlier in our travels, we were very critical of the Thai Islands. Turning up to see a Tescos and Starbucks on an island was a complete world away from the Fijian islands we had explored in the past. The Thai islands all seemed to be generally dirtied, smelly, boozy, and rather un-appealing. There were some beautiful parts to each island and obviously having a bigger budget would have led us to explore more untouched, remote, and probably more beautiful parts of each island. However, with our budget in mind we stuck mainly to the well-travelled tourist areas of each island, as this was the cheapest option transport & accommodation wise, so therefore may have been limited in our view of the Thai islands. Another down side to Thailand we found was the complete lack of honesty towards tourists. It seemed every kind of service we needed whether that be transport, accommodation or food, was overpriced. After a while this can be very wearing - having to constantly barter for simple things. For example, the one bus we had booked would turn into 3 buses, 4 stops and an hour-long diversion to pick up a friend of the drivers!

We had planned to visit northern Thailand (Chang Mai) once we had done a loop travelling through Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. With this in mind we departed Bangkok and headed for Siem Reap (Cambodia).

The night before we were due to leave Bangkok on a cheap bus, Holly stumbles across a rather worrying section in the Lonely Planet book advising against people booking cheap buses to Siem Reap from Kho San road, as this was apparently named ‘the scam bus’ and an absolute nightmare of a journey for various reasons…..Oops…Too late….our scam bus was booked!…..More to follow in the Cambodia blog!!

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