Krabi to Bangkok

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SHELTER FROM THE STORM 19-03-07 MONDAY

We had booked a kayaking tour for today and was due to get picked up at 8.30, me and Ben went next door for some breakfast, the previous night Ben was brave enough to order something called morning glory from there and I fully expected him to get deep fried donkey penis but what turned up was a load of grass, anyway I ordered a fried breakfast which was fine apart from a couple of dodgy looking sausages which could have been dog penis and worse still salad on the side naturally I left the salad.
The bus turned up on time and it was only picking up me and Ben in fact it was only me and ben on the kayaking trip which was a bonus, it’s always better when there’s less people unless your on a tour with a bevy of Swedish girls.
We arrived at Bor Thor village which was a cool little village that had a Jetty with a Thai restaurant at the end, we met our guide who was a local from the village called mahn or something like that, he spoke good English and was very inquisitive and wanted to know everything from where robin hood was from to “in England I hear you have the ginger people”.
Ben had done some kayaking in boarding school in Wales so he seemed to know the score with steering through the mangroves, the scenery was awesome and we kayaked into three caves the first had amazing stalagmites hanging from the ceiling when we exited the cave we found ourselves in a beautiful lagoon, we headed to the next cave through some mangroves and spotted some local crab fisher man, we got to Tham Lod Tai cave which had some cool lime stone formations including a stalactite that was being formed, the last cave was Tham Pee Hau Toh which had ancient rock paintings and archaeological shell formations (from when the sea was inland), after this we headed back to the jetty for lunch.
We had an amazing lunch, apart from being made sick by an old bloke in speedos, I swear if I ever go Travis Bickle I’m going to shot every speedo wearing moron I see, after we had finished our guide came up to us and said the rain was coming, everything looked fine to me but 5mins latter the temperature droped and the rain came in big sheets, we were suppose to be going to a natural spa but both me and Ben decided we couldn’t be arsed doing that in a storm so after sheltering under Bens towel and dashing for the bus we asked to get taken back to Ao nang, spent the remainder of the afternoon booking an Island tour for tomorrow elephant trekking the day after and a flight to Bangkok the day after that, then we went for a drink and had a few games of connect four and jenga, just had a great meal at a food stall and am going to spend the rest of the night having a few beers and watching a few dvds over at bens as I’ve been kicked out of my room(overbooked)and shunted across the road which is an alright room but doesn’t have a T.V, fridge air con or flushing toilet.

FOUR ISLANDS IN ONE DAY 20-03-07 TUESDAY

Woke up this morning feeling rough, the new place I’ve been shunted to is quite a bit noisier and all I could hear all night was mopeds going past, also I had a bad case of Delhi belly so didn’t get much sleep at all, the bus for our island trip came at 8.30 and we got bussed down to the beach front, were various people were being herded onto different tours, none of the tour operators seemed to know what was going on as they were trying to organise to many tours at once, we eventually got put on a bus and were driven to another beach and on arriving were told that our ticket was only a transfer to Phi Phi, when we booked the tour yesterday it was clear that we had booked a four island tour that included a 3 course dinner at Phi Phi, We spent some time explaining this and had to drive back to the tour shop were they appeared to confirm that we was right, so we were driven back to the other beach again and put on a boat.
Anyway after all the messing about we were on our way on a speed boat with 15 people on board most of which were speedo wearing men who kept spoiling the beautiful views with there hairy arses, WHY do they do it, it can’t be comfortable and is offensive to everyone, apart from that my mood was starting to lighten and we arrived at our first island which was stunning after soaking up some rays and visiting a penis shrine in a cave( like an ancient Ann Summers) we got back on the boat and headed to a snorkelling spot, the snorkelling was quite good and Ben had a waterproof housing for his camera (which was the same model as my camera) so he got a couple of good shots.
After the snorkelling we went to another island for lunch which turned out to be a small portion of rice, at this point me and Ben realised that we were on the wrong tour, after we asked around the other people on the tour we found out we were not going to Phi Phi or Monkey bay and the tour were on was a cheaper island tour, ahh well I’ve had worse days, the islands all seemed to look similar anyway so I tried to look on the bright side, we headed for the final island and did some more snorkelling which wasn’t that good, but I did get to see some monkeys so it wasn’t all bad.
After our island tour me and Ben went back to see the tour operator who was very apologetic and refunded the difference without question, and we made certain our elephant trekking was genuine and not sheep petting or something anyway, after such a stressful day we headed for the pub for a beer and to play connect four and jenga.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YA 21-03-07 WEDNESDAY

TICKET TO ELEPHANT RIDE

It was Bens birthday today so I treated him to an nice rendition of happy birthday Marline Monroe style this morning, we were due to do an elephant trek, but decided to go to the beach front for some breakfast first as we had an hour before the bus came so hoped on a tut tut, and got dropped off outside a pub that does English breakfast, the breakfast was good honest stodge, and we had time for a couple of games of connect four before getting a tut tut back, it turned out we needn’t have rushed as the bus was half an hour late, on the bus there was three friendly Belgium people, a Japanese guy, a couple from London, and a miserable ozzie couple from Sydney who were on the honeymoon but may as well have been going to a funeral, even when we went to a fish farm and I cracked the blind lesbian in a fish farm joke I got no reaction ahh well screw them anyway.
We got to the elephant place and I got my first close look at an elephant, they really are fantastic animal with great expressive faces and huge foreheads, we got up on to a platform and me and Ben got onto the howdar (elephant saddle) it was a strange feeling getting on such a huge animal you could feel its bristly hairs and its bulky shoulders under your feet, we headed off into the jungle over a stream, I had a great time and our elephant seemed to do his own thing if he wanted something to eat he would veer of track and just start ripping things up, the only thing that spoiled it was our elephant driver insisted on listening to a personal radio which ruined the tranquillity a bit, and the ozzie couple in front of us were practically making love, I’ve heard of the mile high club but that’s ridiculous, anyway after the trek we went to watch the elephants wash themselves in a natural pool which was cool you could see in there faces how much they were enjoying themselves, after this we went to see a baby elephant which was a bit depressing as it was chained up and rocking back and fourth, but the guide assured me that the elephant was only chained up two hours a day.
The next stop was a swimming hole, we got off the bus and headed down a road with various food stalls and markets along it, at one food market he had these ugly looking creatures that looked like something from Jurassic park called king crabs , we got to the entrance to the swimming hole and just outside we seen some local fisher men who had caught a huge flat fish, the swimming whole was nice but over crowed with local people and tourist so we gave swimming a miss and walked around the perimeter instead, half way round we seen our friend Mahn who was our guide on the kayaking trip, it was his day off and he was having a bit of RnR, he told us it was normally quite but as it was school holidays was a lot busier, we had a quick beer at one of the stalls then got on the bus for the final stop a cat fish farm, it was a lot cooler than I thought it would be the cat fish were huge and they had separate sections that contained all sorts of marine fish from little sharks to cow fish, inside there was an aquarium with lots of little tanks with nemo and dory and various other fish, anyway its Ben’s birthday so we should really be getting to a pub about know, were off to Bangkok tonight so I don’t think we will get to drunk but we’ll see.

I’M SO TIRED 22-03-07 THUR

So here I am exhausted in Bangkok, over the last week I’ve had very little sleep and the past four days we’ve been on tours or travelling, not that I’m complaining I’m having a great time.
I’m not a big city person and up to now Bangkok has exceeded in everything I dislike about cities, it’s overcrowded, polluted and manic I’ve only been here half a day and am not in the best frame of mind to judge it so I’ll see how I feel in a couple of days, we’ve already booked a tour for Saturday that takes you by train to the bridge over the river Kwai and then on to a tiger temple, were monks look after abandoned tigers it looks great and you can get up close and personal with the tigers, I think I’ll have to be a bit careful though as I’m running low on digits, we have also booked our bus down to the island of Ko Tao on the same night, Ben is doing his Padi open water course and I’m going to book a load of dives.
We got our flight from Krabi airport and landed in Bangkok’s brand new airport, it’s the biggest in Asia and everything looks nice and new, we had a little problem getting a taxi but soon sorted it and were on our way into Bangkok at first things seemed quite clean and normal but then you descend into a thick smog and crazy traffic with tut tut’s darting in and out of everything and taxi drivers doing there best to hit them, the city is a mish mash of slums, skyscrapers and temples, we got to our hotel which is not to far from the grand palace and on a street with lots of market stalls it was really noisy so it looked like I might not be sleeping for a while yet, luckily when we got inside, the hotel seemed clean and organised with an internet café, tour operator, laundry and suit maker in the lobby which turned out to be handy when booking our tours (as I’m writing this Ben’s just come back from a full on Thai massage and complaining that he’s been beaten up, soft southerner) our room is away from the main road so its not as noisy as I first thought.
We decided to hit the shopping straight away and after a meal got a tut tut to plantit plaza were I had been advised I’d be able to pick up an under water housing for my camera, the tut tut driver was definitely Buddhist and believed in reincarnation, because he didn’t seem to care if he died or took us with him, I gave up smoking nine years ago and may as well have not bothered after breathing in Bangkok’s fumes for half an hour, we got to the plaza, it’s a skyscraper that specializes in electronic goods, there was six floors all with similar looking stores, we started looking around the camera stores but it was becoming clear that the only under water housing’s they sold was for cannon’s camera’s, my camera’s a Fuji f30 (best compact camera 2006 and tailor made for diving) we got to the fifth floor and I felt like having a tantrum, I’ve been trying to get hold of this housing for two months, anyway had given up hope of finding one by the time I got to the sixth floor and asked a disinterested shop assistant if they had underwater housings and was ready for her to point me to more of bloody cannon’s when I seen it sitting there like the holy grail the fxf30, I could of jumped across and kissed her but that cost 500 baht, flushed with success the tut tut ride back didn’t seem to bad, not having a mad one tonight me and Ben are getting a few beers from the spar and watching a bit of telly and should be well rested for tomorrow.

STEVO’S THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

THERE’S NO “I” IN TEAM BUT THERES FOUR IN
"PLATITUDE QOUTING IDIOT”

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Photos

Me and Ben outside one of the caves
The view from this cave was amazing

Having a meal on the jetty
Not long after this the storm came

Connect Four
After a hard day there's nothing better than a game of connect four with your beer

Jenga
After a hard day there's nothing better than a game of Jenga with your beer

Comments

[King Jay]

Hello Ste
Hi Ste. Glad you are still alive I have some news to tell you about me But i will send it by mail