Curries, Sangsom & Moon Parties

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Phuket
Back over to Asia again for our first holiday of the year, we got our good old cheapie flights again from the Goldy to Kuala Lumpur, hung around the airport for about 5 hours then jumped on another flight bound for Phuket. It was a big day of travels to get there but the hotel we stayed in was fairly new and pretty schmiko and a fair way away (but still walking distance) from the craziness of the beach and the nightlife of Patong. The first day we hit the streets and got our bearings and were instantly bombarded by expats all over the place trying to trick us into timeshares and upon arrival in Patong Beach you are greeted by a huge billboard warning you of this! I made the fatal mistake of talking to the first one that came along but within minutes you pretty much get the idea of what they are about when you are the lucky person with the winning ticket for a hotel stay, electronic goods or a bunch of cash - yes, all too good to be true. I guess the poor suckers are just trying to fund their stay but what a way to do it.

Walking down to the beach we were greeted with rows upon rows upon rows of sun loungers, and I mean the whole beach was covered with them, we have never seen anything like it. It was really sad to see and I can imagine that 10 - 12 years ago Patong Beach would have been a pretty nice place to bake and relax but now the Thais just try to sell every square metre of it, definently not what we came here for but it was nuts to see it anyway (and all the European men who still think its sexy to wear banana hammocks - just can never get over that). The streets are lined with markets and we wasted no time kitting sam out in all the latest Billabong and Volcom rip off clothing, good shopping here, definently better than Malaysia where all I managed to buy was a sarong. That night we hit the famous Bang-la Road, a road lined with pubs, littered with people and covered in neon. We found a pretty central place to sit and drink some lovely Sangsom (local Thai whiskey) and red bull and take in all the sights, the sights mainly being a bunch of lady boys just outside dressed up in drag and taking piccys with people going past and trying to get them in to see their show. Along with them you have every second person trying to lure you in to see a ping pong show, something Sam has experienced in his last trip to Thailand but not something I felt I never had to experience for myself! We of course got stuck into the curries that night and pretty much for every meal for the rest of our trip (apart from brekky).

The second day we hired a car (took many pics of it before leaving the lot as it is known for the owners of the rental places to try to rip you off and invent damage that was already there) and made our way down the coast driving past Kata and Karon beaches which are much less populated than Patong but still much evidence of sun loungers. We made our way up to the Big Buddha statue which is a work in progress, thousands of marble tiles are being laid to create him and once completed will be the biggest Buddha in Asia coming in at 45m high. The afternoon we drove to another temple, Wat Chalong and walked around and took in all the peace and serenity that you would expect from the Buddhist religion and from this temple you could even see Big Buddha perched way up on the hill over looking Chalong and Kata. Due to Sam losing our laptop charger lead somewhere in KL airport we headed into Phuket Town in the afternoon and were lucky enough to find another one, don't know how we managed that but we did so we got to see a fair bit in one day in our little rental car and Im glad to report that we didn't get charged for any extra damage at all.

That night we caught up with Sam's workmate from NCP, Sarah and her hubby Dave who now reside in a nicer part of Phuket, Kamala Beach. We ventured from the bar we were drinking in (which was surrounded by Aussie bars - ick!!) and headed off to Bang-la Road again and ventured deep into the guts of it to another bar surrounded by all the mayhem that draws so many people to it. My first trip to ther toilets here was interesting, Sarah guided me down a long dimly lit narrow lane and right at the end of it was the ladies, though in closer inspection and looking around me I realised I was at that point the only real lady in the ladies!! Too funny, I didn't quite know where to look. After more Sangsom and redbull and free shots of vodka with fishermans friends (yes throat lollies and vodka - not to be knocked until you try it) Sam and I said our goodbyes and headed back to our swishy hotel room for our last nights sleep in Phuket.

Koh Phi Phi Don
We booked a bus - boat transfer to get over to Koh Phi Phi Don which left about 11 in the morning, it wasn't too painful a trip to get there but as we didn't have any accomo booked there thinking we could barter on it a bit, it was a bit of a mission but we found a bungalow just off the beach on the Ton Sai Bay side of the island (away from all the backpackers). We wasted no time after settling in, booking our first couple of dives for our holiday and that night went to a half moon party at a cool reggae bar called the Bohemien Bar right on the beach. As the full moon party was only a week away in Koh Phangan, the moon was more like three quarters but you get the idea that the Thais like to party at all stages of the moon which was fine with us! We saw our first fire show which has really inspired me to get out my pois and learn some more fancy moves - those boys were stellar and very very talented indeed. See the video attached, mind the commentary - I was a little loaded and a lot excited about the performances.

We got up early to jump on the boat to head out for the first of our two dives and straight away we both noticed how many people there were on the boat and on other boats heading out to dive. We headed out to Bida Nai for our first dive and as soon as we were in the water we could tell that the visability was not very good. Dissapointingly we could only see about 5 - 7 metres which is unusual for this time of year but we just got unlucky with the conditions and with the amount of people around us, the dive wasn't the best though we did see a couple of Leopard Sharks which we have not come accross before. We stopped just off Maya Bay for lunch in between dives, for those who don't know, this is where a few scenes of the movie 'The Beach' was filmed and due to this fact it's popularity has increased somewhat and the whole place was lined with boats and people, our dive instructor tells us that this is even pretty quiet to what it normally is, needless to say we felt no need to catch a boat out here at a later date - makes you wonder how they get those perfect postcard shots hey?!? Maya Bay would have been a really special place to visit many years ago. Koh Phi Phi Don has no cars on the island and due to its small size, everywhere is pretty easy to get to by foot though people on bikes can be a little annoying in the tiny little streets.

After the bad vis we had on our first two dives (and being told conditions were not going to get much better) we decided to not dive anymore in Koh Phi Phi and just relax on the beach on our second day. We ventured over to the other side of Phi Phi (Loh Dalam Bay) for lunch one day and also found a bar that holds Muay Thai kickboxing matches where you can jump in the ring yourself and fight another traveller for a free bucket! Both fights we watched were obviously staged but the boys were still getting into it and it was cool to be ringside and watch it all. I finally got a traditional Thai massage for only $10 (300 baht) for a whole hour and it was really relaxing until she started cracking my back which made me a little nervous due to all my back issues, I left feeling physically sick like after a visit to the chiro but after a little while I started to feel really good - the whole cracking business kind of put me off getting another one though.

Koh Tao
Koh Tao was a bit of a mission to get to, we took a boat to Krabbi and caught a bus all the way over to Surathani which because we were travelling 'Thai' time took about 2 hours longer than it should have. From there got another boat to Koh Samui where we stayed for one night just near the main port. The next day we were on board another boat bound for Koh Tao finally. We really lashed out for our accomo in Koh Tao and stayed in the Ko Tao resort right up on the hill in Chalok Baan Kao. Again, we escaped the crazy side of Sairee Beach/village and chose to stay on a more relaxing side of the island. The resort was lovely with a balcony (complete with bath tub) overlooking the bay and an infinity pool that does exactly the same. We straight away organised our first double dive trip for the following day and headed over to Sairee Village for some more currie delights right on the beach.

We were warned that Koh Tao was ridiculously overcrowded for diving as it is the cheapest place to dive in Thailand and so busy in fact that they have built many artificial reefs to cater for the amount of scuba that goes on there. We were bound for Chumpon Pinnacle, a pretty well known dive site when the weather turned and we ended up going down at a closer site called Twin Peaks. The visability again was shite (about 5m) and the people!! For the first time ever, down at 19m, Sam and I lost our dive instructor. He was pretty useless really - due to the amount of people down there he should have hung a bit more closely to us, but due to my super optics we found him again. The whole experience was pretty horrific really and by far the worst dive we have ever done, due to there being so many boats, we were dropped off about 60m away from the site and had to swim our way over to it amoungst some good size swell and after finally descending we wasted a fair bit of air waiting for one guy in our group who had issues getting down. They flagged the second dive due to bad conditions and I cracked it anyway (along with quite a few other divers). To top it all off I came down with a really bad cold that afternoon, went downhill really quickly and couldn't move out of bed (only to have a bath on the balcony) until the next day, Sam even bought me dinner in bed (I'm a lucky girl).

The next day we hired a couple of 125cc scooters for only $5 a day - cant really go wrong with that price. So with only thongs on our feet and no helmets we scooted around the island for the day. Most of the roads were easy to ride on but a lot of them were dirt and all over the shop and at one point there was a local guy on a dirt bike watching us both in amusement as we tried to scale this track which eventually got the better of us and had to turn back. There are hundreds of stray dogs on the island and I couldn't resist a visit to the animal clinic to see all the good work they do. You can actually volunteer there if you are staying for a long period of time, the work they do there is so selfless. Many stray dogs (and cats) are hospitalised there due to being hit on the roads and they carried out a huge neutering/speying programme some time ago on the island and one of the workers there tells us that 95%!o(MISSING)f the strays have been fixed which is phenomenal. I bought a shirt and we made a donation for the animals - good little bit of karma for us both. Koh Tao is known as 'Turtle Island' as it was an important breeding ground for the Hawkesbill and Green Turtles but we were told that due to all the development of restaurants etc on the beaches where they used to nest, they have all left now - pretty sad really, we felt that there was a lot of work to be done conservation wise, for both the island and the marine ecosystems, but maybe it is also too late.

Koh Phangan
Only half an hour by boat to get from Koh Tao to Koh Phangan and lucky we had the good sense to book our ticket early as it is full moon party baby!! We headed up to the north west side of the island (again well away from Haad Rin Nok where all of the action is - so old aren't we!) In between Haad Yao and Haad Chao Pao Beach we stayed in a little bungalow just steps from the water. The sunset on the first night was exquisite and due to rain the next couple of nights, it was the only good sunset we saw on the island the whole time. Not mucking around, as soon as we booked in to our accomo we went straight to the local shop and bought some mixer and beers, sat on our little balcony and began drinking for the big Full Moon party night ahead. The hotel had a shuttle going to Haad Rin Nok so we all piled in for the half hour journey down to the south side of the island. We bought some dinner off a street stall (not such a good idea the next day) and wasted no time in getting a bucket of Sangsom and red bull - with extra vodka to taste.
As Sangsom is known to have something 'special' in it, whatever it is it makes you a little loopy and Sam seemed to get pretty loopy pretty damn fast which made me slow down a bit as someone had to keep their wits about them and get us both home eventually!!

We have never seen anything like it, techno and fluoro everywhere and party goers littering the beach and streets, so many bars selling buckets and the odd pusher trying to sell you treats (only Sam got offered these, I think I looked a little too straight laced, he he!). We wandered from beach bar to beach bar getting lost in all the doof doof, I wasn't really getting into the tunes as much as Sam who was quite clearly in his element by dancing with strangers. We found the fire shows which were accompanied by some good old drum and bass (my fave) and chilled out for a bit taking in the madness of our surrounds. We did about three and a half hours at the Full Moon party all up before catching a taxi van back home again to the peaceful little bungalow we were staying in, it was fun to go to and we were not the oldest there to our surprise but I think its a place to be enjoyed more in your early 20's or if your Sam who never gets old regardless of age. We can happily tick it off our bucket list.

No dive companies operate the day after full moon which dissapointed us because we wanted to avoid the crowds, we were hoping for some good beach weather but it rained off and on so we organised our last double dive for our last day of holidays and headed back into Thongsala for some tat shopping. Our last day we were blessed with perfect weather, the conditions underwater were still shite with bad vis but our two dives we had at Sail Rock were potent with fishies and it was easy to see that if we could actually see, this site would not dissapoint. Sam and I spent as much time in the sun on the boat in between dives and after as we felt our tans were not quite up to holiday standard.

In all, Thailand was good - not our best holiday as all of our beachy holidays revolve around diving and as the diving was no where near up to the standards of past trips we have spent underwater, we left feeling a little unfulfilled but any break from work is always welcome. Our advice is to not go there to dive unless you like a lot of crowds, the beaches are lovely and what we saw of it, the place has a lot to offer - I think the Perhentians in Malaysia has ruined us both, we will be damn lucky to top the diving there but we are always looking too. Next beachy holiday will be our Honeymoon next year, I think I can hear the Cook Islands calling.......

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Photos

Bida Nai
Where we went diving - Koh Phi Phi Don