Thailand

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Well. I arrived in Phuket town feeling a little shady to say the least. I managed somehow to find my way to a backpackers close enough to the center of town, aptly named ‘the Phuket town backpackers’. After checking in to my mediocre room, I basically felt like I could have slept for a few days, however I decided first to check my e-mails and during my short stop I managed to meet a few English girls who somehow persuaded me that a night out in town was a good idea. So it was back upstairs for a quick shower then out on the tiles (after a feed) to see what Phuket had in store. The night started out fairly lame, with all the travelers bars nearly dead. We thought we would give it one last shot and tried a locals club a little further outside of the center of town….. It was going off! We settled in to few cocktails then needless to say a wee bit of dancing followed. Before too long we had had our fill and so decided (to my immense relief) to try to find a taxi back to the hostel. There was, however, no taxis running that late so we had to climb aboard scooters, 3 to a bike, and deal with the white knuckle ride that ensued. Finally I arrived back at the backpackers and got some well earned rest after being awake for the last 48 hours straight!

Once I had finally awoken, I decided I would do my best to find a nice beach for my brother (john) to come and meet me at the day after, so without much research I made my way over to Patong beach. Unfortunately a freak monsoon hit as I was riding there in my open topped taxi, so everything I had clothes and all got drenched. After walking around Patong town feeling fairly miserable, I eventually found a nice hotel at a reasonable price to base myself (the Lawan Residence). Once checked in, showered and clothes hung up to dry, I had a little walk around town to try and get some bearings. Much to my disappointment it was not the idyllic sanctuary that I had hoped for. Though the beach was nice, just nice, not incredible, the general atmosphere of the place was like Magaluf on steroids! Every single bar catered to the drunken masses with promises of almost unbelievably cheap drinks and give-away promos. Though I’m not one to shy away for a party or two, it did not seem like the ideal place to be catching up with my bro, especially after not seeing him for over a year!
But what was done was done so I bedded down for the night and hoped for sun the next day, so I could at least make the most of the beach facilities.

It was sunny the next day and I took full advantage of the beach at hand. I killed time baking in the sun, writing my previous blog and eating yet another meal of pad Thai noodles.
Now, John was getting in at around 1pm and the hotel closed at 11, so the only reasonable option for me was to wait in the bar adjacent and hope to see his taxi pulling in. I passed the time in the bar playing some unusually simple but extremely entertaining Thai bar games with the staff, until finally I saw his taxi arrive.
After throwing his bags in the room, we had to head across the road, back to the bar as I had a bill to settle. Now my heart had to go out to john at this point, he had just finished a mammoth journey from England and he had been dropped straight into the absolute pits of Thailand. All we wanted was to catch up and have a quiet beer but the bar staff were relentless and quite literally did not leave us alone. All though it was clearly all good hearted after a beer or two and a cocktail it was defiantly time, for john especially, to get some kip.

Needless to say the next day we slept in for the morning a good bit of the afternoon. Once fully rested we headed out to the beach for a bit of swimming and body surfing in the increasingly intense ocean.
Then in was on to the most important matter of all. Getting out of Patong. We decided after a bit of deliberation to go to Phi-Phi Don. Though the main center of this small archipelago's island was a bit overcrowded and therefore not the peaceful paradise we were after, we decided to chance it and head up coast a bit until we found the perfect spot.
So once that was booked we went out for a shish, my first, which was really fun, and then on to a restaurant on the water, where we chose from a vast array of freshly caught fish and seafood, cooked to our liking. It was amazing. Quite possibly one of the best meals I had had since leaving the UK over a year before.

So the next day we were up early for our transfer to phi-phi. A short mini bus then a longer boat ride took us top the main port town on Ton Sai. After a quick breakfast we paid the fist long tail (boat) we saw the equivalent of 5 pounds to take us up the coast and away from the backpacker’s cattle market of Ton Sai. After our fist choice beach was found to be closed for the season, we continued on around the peninsular to Phak Nam Bay, which we immediately decided was going to be home for the next few days!
It was the perfect little getaway. Calm turquoise water, an ample beach littered with bungalows, and a bar. All surrounded by luscious rain forest. Once checked in to bungalow just off the beachfront we took a look around the ‘Relax Beach Resort’. The hilarious waitress, Em, welcomed us straight away and after a quick drink we rented snorkels, for the not unreasonable price of 1 pound a day, and set off to discover the surrounding ocean. From that first trip out around the corals it almost made me think that scuba diving was pointless. We saw so many fish in all various shapes sizes and colors, and spent a good hour or two floating in the shallows and silently spectating as the fish went about their business. That night, the final reason for us staying on that island for as long as possible came in to play. The restaurant. We had a great meal of Massuman and Penang Thai curry’s whilst sat next to the beach watching all the late night crabs scuttling in the sand. Perfect. The whole next day was spent doing much the same. Chilling, eating and snorkeling. Not a bad way to spend a day in the 30+ degree heat.
On the third day we woke early to walk through the jungle to the view point and then on to Ton Sai to check email and meet up with Ian. The walk was a little demanding but pretty cool, and the view point was beautiful, with a great perspective of the beaches and there surrounding islands. After we met Ian we headed back to the relax resort and introduced him to our world of serious chilling out. Then after a beer we decided to accompany Ian back to Ton Sai (on the boat this time) and have a few drinks in town. One thing led to another and by the end of the night we had near enough taken over the ‘apache’ club. Drinking possibly one too many buckets and almost defiantly dancing too well….or something like that.

It was the early hours when me and john decided to try and get about back to our resort. Unfortunately all the boat taxis had gone to bed for the night and although we managed to wake one up with some relentless drunken waffling, he only told us that the seas were too stormy and he couldn’t take us back. So we went and found Ian’s room and pretty much passed out the minute we got there.

The next day after not nearly enough sleep it was time to go and welcome my other brother Tom to life on Phi Phi. After his boat came in and we re-acquainted, he and Ian came back to the relax resort and checked in to a new 4 berth bungalow right on the beach. We spent the day doing some particularly amazing snorkeling and playing a great deal of shit head over a feed and a few beers. Then though there were a few people now on the beach with us no one had seemed to notice the beach cocktail bar, so we got the ball rolling. A few cocktails down and on the buckets tom had by this point assumed position as bar man and music selector while the rest of us played jenga and continued the beach bar fun! It was a great night and a wicked way to spend the first night with tom since leaving England in may 08.
It was another relaxing day at the beach that followed the previous night’s extravagance, some great food and beach time. But NO drinking!
We left relax the next day, very sad to go and the staff would be missed. But we had a date with ‘Maya bay’ and a night camping on ‘the beach’.
We left for the trip at about 4pm from Ton Sai. Unfortunately the trip had changed immensely since the first time me and Ian had done it back in 06. it had obviously become the thing to do and therefore the idiots and swarms of travelers came with it.
It was much more impersonal and sterile. The beach was still beautiful, though it came accompanied with a dose of litter that did not look right on the once tranquil beach paradise. And the people on the trip were all good value, it was just unfortunate that there were so many. We drank a bit and went swimming with the phosphorescent (where I got savagely cut up by the coral when we decided to swim for the adjacent beach, with a few Irish girls in tow) and fell asleep under the stars. It was good fun, just not the quiet getaway we all had hoped for (and me and Ian had the fortune of having 3 years prior). We got back to the main island at 10am the next day, all feeling a bit ripped of, we wasted time until out boat back to the mainland and back to Phuket, where we transferred, pretty much, straight away up to Bangkok.

We headed in a taxi to the hotel we had previously booked on the Koh San road. When we got there was no record of our booking and the place was full. Not what we needed after traveling all day. We ditched our bags there and me and john headed to find an alternative hotel. We eventually found one that didn’t look too much like a whore house and finally got some shuteye at around 1am.
We went on a boat trip the next day from the Koh San to central station. Then on the sky train, winding our way through the skyscrapers to Siam square. We wandered around there for a while then headed to the art and culture center. A very impressive building that was unfortunately full of , well, nothing very interesting at all, so me and Tom jumped in a tuk tuk and visited some temple and a few mandatory tailors.
When we met Ian and john again it was time to head back to the airport for a short flight up to Chaing Mai.

Once we had landed in Chaing Mai we checked straight in to a hotel in the city's center. A really nice place, and great value rooms with a balcony and a pool! That night after regrouping and deciding on a plan to leave the next morning to Chaing Rai, we headed off to the night Bazaar in search of a local meal and some random shopping. The food was excellent, some of the best we'd had, and a short walk through the bazaar led us to the most amazing boutique tea shop. After treating us to a wide selection of unusual teas served in the most precise manner, we bought a few samples and headed back to get some rest before our trip up to the mountains in Chaing Rai the next morning.

An early bus, took us to the main bus station in Chaing Rai where we were greeted by a rep from the hill tribe village we were to base our selves in for the next few days. A pretty hairy, but great fun, ride on the back of a ute up a mountain on dirt tracks took us to the Akha Hill Tribe village. The cabins we checked in to were amazing considering the location so we settled in and had a night of cards and beer on top of this mountain surrounded by jungle, not a bad location place to be.

The following morning we had a jungle trek/jungle cookery class booked, so it was up early, and after meeting our guide, Amar, we set off.
It was a great trek and Amar's enthusiasm, knowledge and sense of humor made the whole experience unforgettable. After collecting various herbs and leaves from the jungle en route to our lunch destination we sat back and watched as our guide, and his two assistants prepared us an outstanding feed cooked in bamboo canes sealed at the top with bunches of leaves and then thrown in the fire. They also made a hunggy (a small hole in the ground lined with banana leaves then filled with vegetables and noodles and covered in boiling stream water then sealed over and left to cook.

The food was amazing and the methods and proficiency they showed in preparing it was a real highlight of the trek. After lunch we continued on a demanding course through the humid jungle to the top of one of the hills where we had a beautiful vantage point of the whole valley. By this point it had started to rain, and our way back was down a variety of steep, muddy hills. As we only had basic trainers with us it was a bit of a challenge to make it down without a few falls ( which none of us managed ). We eventually ended up at the Huai Kaew waterfall, which was a refreshing, in more ways than one, end to our jungle experience.

That night was spent having a few beers and joining the locals in their games which were basically designed to make the gringos look stupid! And it succeeded! But it was great fun and a nice end to a very successful day.

We took matters in to our own hands the next day and opted to just 'freestyle'. So we headed off relativly early to the elephant camp at the bottom of the mountain. The rain had really set in by this point and there was no real chance of it slowing. But determined to make the most of it we set off on a 1 hour elephant ride, which was great fun, and i even got to drive(?) for the last half which was a wicked experience.

From there we took a boat up river to the Passert Hot Springs. They weren't the most amazing hot springs ever but it was a good thing to do to pass the remainder of the rainy day.
Once back at the hill tribe we ( me, John and Tom) decided to have a Akha sauna, which was more of a steam room with heaps of herbs from the jungle to give it a potent aroma, and also using vine blood which was a new one for me. But in was great fun and though in was off to a slow start, by the end of our time in there the fire below, that was producing the steam, was pretty cranked up and it was a real jungle steam room!
We ended our time in the hill tribe with another few beers and some excellently cooked local delecasies.
All in all, the Akha Hill tribe had bin the perfect getaway from the crowds and coupled with the trips that we had done from there, it was a great and unusual way to see the northern region of Thailand.

The next day was another hair raising trip on the back of the ute. This time in the driving rain, back to the town of Chiang Rai.

After a few snap decisions, both my brother's decided to leave in there quest for the sun, which left me and Ian to take a extremely local bus north to the border town of Chaing Kong where we were to cross the border the next day, over the Meekong, in to Laos.

Its bin a great experience and opportunity traveling with family and with the prospect of a week or so in Laos before meeting back up with them in Vietnam, we left Thailand feeling pretty pleased with the last 3 weeks!

Until next time
xx

P.S It has to be said that the majority of the good photos that i will post for this blog were taken by my brother Tom who had not only the equipment but a much better grasp on photography than i!! so cheers Tomo!

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