Thailand - part one

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Right then after around 30 hours of various different buses, mini-buses and boats i arrived at Koh Phi Phi on the 24th June, an island at the bottom of Thailand. On the route there I stopped in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Hat yai (Thailand) and Krabi (Thailand) to change transport services and get some much needed refreshments. Once in Phi Phi i immediately booked in to a guest house, got a big feed, had a beer and was in bed by about 9 at night. The next couple of days I spent just relaxing on the beach and wandering around the main touristy area of Phi Phi, Ton Sai. Whilst walking around I went up to the main look out point looking over both Ton Sai bay and Loh Dalem bay which was beautiful and went on a rather aimless mission trying to find another look out point which resulted in serious sunburn after walking about an hour up a hill only to find a building sight.

After spending a few days by myself I met back up with Barbs and his brother John on the 27th June and I went over to Phak Nam beach to the Relax Beach Resort where they were staying. It’s an amazing beach and we pretty much had it to ourselves maybe sharing it with 7 or 8 other guests. We spent most of that day snorkeling which was incredible, seeing all kinds of weird and wonderful sea creatures. That night we headed back to Ton Sai for a night out, we ended up going to a few bars including Carlito’s, the tiger bar and ending up in a place called Apache where at mid night they were giving away free buckets (a small bottle of Sangsum whiskey, coke and redbull), result!!!! After a great deal of bad dancing we decided to call it night and I left Barbs and John trying to get a taxi boat back to there resort whilst I headed back to my guest house. Around an hour later I got a knock on my door it was the two of them failing to convince anyone to take them back at 4 in the morn so they stayed at mine getting me in a lot of trouble with miss Lee the owner of the guest house.

The following day with my tail between my legs I checked out of my guest house and decided to get away from the hustle and bustle of Ton Sai and stay at the relax beach resort with the others. Before the 3 of us headed to Phak nam beach and the resort we met up with Barbs's other brother, Tom and then booked up a couple of trips and some flights to get us up to Chiang Mai in a few days time. Once back at the resort we decided to go snorkeling again and just generally relax. The evening was spent eating the amazing food the resort had on offer and getting stuck into a few buckets.

After another day of snorkeling and relaxing we said goodbye to all the friendly staff at the relax beach resort and the amazing beach that is Phak Nam bay and set off to go camping on Maya bay on 30th June. The camping trip set off at around 4 o clock and on the way there we stopped off by Viking Cave and did some more snorkeling, again seeing incredible fish and coral. Once at Maya bay (where the film the beach was filmed) we settled into a cold beer and watched the sun set before having some pretty choice food of curry and rice followed by barbequed chicken wings. Once dinner was finished the buckets began to flow and the drinking games came out. After about an hour or so of games a group of us decided to go for a swim over to another part of the bay. This proved to be an extremely painful and slow mission as the tide was out which made for extremely shallow water and a number of sharp rocks to contend with. Once back to the main part of the bay we went on a little walk to see some crazy looking chicken craps and spent the rest of the night drinking and being merry before finding a quiet part of the beach to lye down look up at the stars and fall a sleep. In the morning we had a swim and a feed before returning to the main island Phi Phi Don. On the same day we showered and got cleaned up at a public toilet and got on a boat to Phuket. From here we got a taxi to the airport and jumped on a plane to Bangkok.

We arrived in Bangkok at around 2 in the morning and immediately ran into a few issues, the first being arriving on Koh San road sober (everyone else at that time were pretty smashed) and the second being the hotel we had booked for the night had made a cock up and over booked and didn’t have room for us. Luckily we found another guest house just down the road for the same price. The next day 2nd July, the four of us had a little look around the city wandering to the river where we got a boat down to the sky train. From there we caught the train to Sian square had a look around some of the many shopping malls and went to the arts and culture museum. That night we were back on the move again and flew from Bangkok to Chiang May. Again we arrived pretty late but were luck enough to be able to catch some of the night Bazzar (night market) after checking into some pretty good accommodation for around 250 baht each for air conditioned private rooms with cable TV. The night Bazzar had all the usual merchandise on sale from clothing to general audiments, but towards the end of the night we found an awesome tea shop. At said shop we spent around an hour tasting a variety of different teas and generally enjoying the shop keepers enthusiasm in what she was doing and her friendly manner. All four of us ended up buying something.

From doing a little research on the internet and chatting to various people we decided to leave Chiang Mai the next day and head to Chiang Rai to see the Thai jungle. After around 4 hours on the bus we got to Chiang Rai bus station where we were picked up by a member of the Akha hill tribe and taken to our accommodation for the next few days up in little bungalows in the hills with the tribe. It was the most amazing drive on some pretty interesting roads up to the hill tribe with incredible views over the jungle and of the Maekok River. Once there we moved into our private bungalows, enjoyed the views from our windows and went up to the common area where we eat some traditional Akha food and booked a jungle trek with a difference for the next day. I say with a difference because during the trek we were told our guide would be collecting various herbs and vegetation to cook us lunch with and true to there word this is what happened. We set of at around 9 the next day and immediately our guide found a pineapple which we all got stuck into. Through out the trek, Ameir our guide would stop and point out various fruit and vegetables the jungle has on offer, this included rhubarbs, pineapples. Bananas, pumpkin, cucumber, chili, numerous amounts of berries, mangos and a whole load of different herbs which he would collect and use for our lunch. After around four hours of trekking through the jungle and the mountains crossing the river on numerous occasions with all of us slipping and getting very wet feet on different crossings it was lunch time. All Ameir and his two helpers who were college students training to be guides took with them was vegetables, noodles, eggs and some soup stock. All the cooking equipment, herbs and water came from the jungle. On the menu was a Pad Thai type dish (noodles, vegetables and egg), an omelet and sticky rice followed by some jungle tea. All of the dishes were cooked over a fire in bamboo trunks cut down on our trek and all the water needed was taken from the river. The vegetables were cut on giant bamboo leaves. In one trunk was a load of vegetables with water to make a kind of a soup, in another was just eggs and veg to make the omelet and in another was the jungle tea. Ameir stuffed giant banana leaves at the top of the trunks to make them cook quicker I suppose. Once the soup had come to the boil Ameir dug a whole in the ground place banana leaves over it, poured the soup in, added the noodles and covered it with another bamboo leave. Once it was all ready it tasted incredible and we eat out of cups Ameir made for us from bamboo trunks and chop sticks also made out of the bamboo. After lunch the heavens opened and we were hit by heavy rain which made walking up to the summit of the mountain a little interesting. Once at the top however the views again were just out of this world and the rain didn’t really matter, if anything made it all look a little cooler. After the summit we walked back down which was extremely slippery due to the rain and after a few near misses from us all John (Barbs bro) became the first casualty and fell on his arse which was amusing. Before returning to the tribe we checked out Huai Kaew waterfall and got back at around 6 extremely wet but very satisfied with the trip. That evening we went up to the common area where we had dinner and enjoyed the company of the hill tribe joining in with all the various different games they had invented. On our second day with the hill tribe we got taken down to the B.Ruum mid Karen village elephant camp, and it was again raining heavily. We went on an elephant ride which was great fun and after that we went over to the Pasert hot springs.

On the 6th July we said goodbye to the Akha Hill tribe in the pouring rain, and once back in Chiang Rai me and Barbs took the bus to Chiang khong where we were going to cross the border into Lao. John and Tom decided to head to Malaysia and catch a bit of sun for a few days before meeting back up with us in Vietnam in mid July. When we got to Chiang khong we settled into a few beers and an all you can eat buffet for less than a quid before planning to leave for Lao the next day on the 7th July.

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Comments

[Anne Palfreyman]

Wowzers!
Sounds like you guys are having a great time. Love the photos. We just got back from Bali - hope you enjoy it as much as we did!