Island Life and a Bangkok Pit Stop

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We left Krabi on a minibus for our flight from Phuket. The drive took 2 and a half hours and was possibly one of the most terrifying experiences of our entire trip! Safe driving isn't exactly a Thai specialty and our driver was no exception! He felt the need to overtake everything on a bend, and when it poured down with rain and could barely see out of the windscreen, he sped up! We did manage to arrive in 1 piece and had a bit of a wait in Phuket airport until our tiny plane to Samui was ready. It was only a 40 minute flight but we did get tiny sandwiches to go with the tiny plane!

We found a cheap hotel room in Chaweng and settled in for the night. We were just saying how nice and quiet it was being just off the main road until we heard what sounded like heavy earthworks just outside the door.... we then discovered that the nightclubs are all open air and start up around 9.30 and don't stop until 2.30! This coupled with the fact we were directly under the flightpath from the airport didn't make the quietest of stays, but we did have cable TV and a bathroom!

For our first day in Chaweng we headed down to the beach. It wasn't the greatest beach we've encountered on our trip, but it had sand, sea, sun and people walking around selling drinks and ice cream! If you wanted anything you didn't have to move! After a hard day in the sun, we ventured out in the evening to check out the various stalls selling everything you can imagine. We also managed to find a small Thai food stall on one of the side streets so we didn't need to fork out at the expensive tourist restaurants!

The next day the weather took a turn for the worse. It was very grey and overcast, not at all beach weather so we had a walk around Chaweng and did some shopping. Chaweng is very touristy which is a catch 22 situation. It's quite noisy and you can't move for people trying to sell you things or get you in a taxi! But then everything you need is right on the doorstep and there is alot more to do in bad weather! Unfortunately for us the weather didn't really get any better for the next few days. We planned to hire a scooter and go exploring but it didn't seem like a great idea in the pouring rain. Instead of getting better, the rain got worse and we had quite a few power cuts (Thai wiring isn't that great!) but unfortunately for us the power cut's were on the same day we decided to hire a DVD player for some entertainment during the rain! The other annoying thing was it only cut our block, so all the thumping nightclubs still had power and we were sat reading in the candlelight with no fan! We had to stay a couple of extra nights because of the weather as the sea's were really rough and not great for sailing, but eventually it did clear up and we got our boat to Koh Tao.

This time we got a catamaran, which was alot better than our previous boat experiences and it took just over an hour and a half to reach Koh Tao. They even put a film on. It was rubbish and had the guy from Lovejoy in it, but at least they tried to entertain us! When we got on dry land we were overrun with people shouting "DIVING! DIVING!" at us, which is quite annoying when you just want somewhere to sleep! We finally found a taxi (actually was just us sat in the back of a pickup) and got ourselves a hut just off the beach. The sun was out so we pitched up on the beach and made up for our lack of sun in Samui!

We were staying in Sairee beach and had a good look around that evening as there are lots of cool bars on the beach and little shops dotted around. We had an evening meal overlooking the sea and headed back to our hut. The next day was not good, the rain came again! We had got up early and gone to the beach being hopeful the early cloud would clear up. Joe went to go snorkelling but managed to slice the bottom of his foot on a barnacle on a rock so that was the end of that! Then came the rain. Again. Luckily we got back to the hut just in time. There was a brief stop in the rain so we were going to have a look around the town, and then the rain came back with vengeance! We sat on the porch for about 15 minutes thinking it would get better but it just got worse! Eventually we just got our raincoats on and went to a cafe for some food as we were hungry! Finally the rain stopped (no sun though) so we went for an evening walk! The rain seemed to have an effect on the entire frog / toad population of Koh Tao and all you could hear was croaking and moaning ALL NIGHT! We even had a resident toad in the bathroom who squeezed under the floorboard every time you went in (sometimes took a little encouragement with the shower....)!

Finally, on Tuesday we got some sun. We took full opportunity and parked up in the beach for some serious relaxing! The next day we had to get our boat at 3. The taxi was picking us up at 2.30 and we had to check out at 10..... this meant a very boring day sitting under a tree reading! Kim had to buy another book only to find the first 25 pages were missing! We did get a replacement though and eventually, after what seemed an eternity we got our boat back to Samui. Unfortunately there were no seats left when we got on so we had to sit up on deck on plastic stools! It seemed like a very long trip back to Samui! Finally after many hours of waiting around we arrived in Bangkok and got to our hotel.

The next day we were up early and headed to the Grand Palace. We had to make sure we covered our arms and legs therefore we were extremely hot! The Palace is pretty spectacular, many gold shiny things! The surrounding walls are adorned with intricate murals of Thai history. We watched a guy painting a section for a while and were amazed at the amound of detail. We walked around the many buildings and statues feeling rather hot! There are a few guards with rifles around the place who alot of people saw as a photo opportunity! It's not quite like the guards at Buckingham Palace though as some of them were smiling and chatting, one guy didn't look impressed though (and kept a tight grip on his rifle....)!

After getting totally "Grand Palaced-out" we headed back to Kho San Road and did a bit of shopping! We also decided to take a de-tour and ventured into the surrounding roads and markets. We were feeling pretty worn out, hot and sweaty so decided to treat ourselves. Kim had a facial and a manacure and Joe had a Thai massage, all for the mighty sum of 450 baht (about 7 pounds!) Bargain!

That evening we booked a tour to the Floating Markets the next morning. We had an early 6am rise and took the 2 hour minibus ride to Damnoensaduak Floating Markets. We were ushered into a wooden longboat and were paddled along the various canals and markets by an elderly thai lady and her grandson. We got to wear some really cool sunhats (no sarcasm there at all....) which were provided free of charge! There were quite alot of boats which led to alot of traffic jams and being buffeted against the other boats and the sides of the canal! There were other motor boats as well which created big waves as they went by which rocked us around quite a bit and left us in a cloud of exhuast fumes. It was really cool to see, people were trying to sell you things as we went by and we had a girl in front of us who asked the price for nearly everything she saw but never actually bought anything. Because of this we kept getting stuck while they tried to sell things to her! We finally made it through all of the boat traders onto dry land and it felt good to walk around the market and stretch our legs after sitting rather cramped in the boat for an hour. We bought a few souveniers now that we are well experieced in the art of bartering, Kim was proud for getting a lady down from 500 baht to 80! It was then time for the long drive back to Bangkok.

For our last evening in Bangkok we went to our favourite veggie restaurant and went all out and ordered loads of food and a few beers. Our eyes were a bit bigger than our stomachs and we struggled to finish, but hey, it only cost £6! We had to get an early night as we were up at 3.30am to get our taxi to the airport. Airport food in Thailand is no better than anywhere else in the world and we ended up having falafel kebabs for breakfast at 5am! We had a short 2 hour flight to Singapore before the marathon 12.5 hours back to Heathrow! We were pretty lucky as we had the row of 4 seats in the middle all to ourselves.

Finally we arrived back in grey, dull England. Apparently it was quite warm but we were freezing. Kim's Mum and Dad met us from the plane and we had more travelling to do as we had the long drive home to Heathrow. We got to Joe's house at about 10.30 on saturday night, 25 hours of travelling! His Mum and Dad didn't know we were coming back and so they got a surprise when they opened the door!

So finally, after 14 planes, countless taxis, 6 boats, 4 hire cars and rather alot of buses we arrived back in England and now it feels like we never left! In fact, we're probably in work with a lot of you reading this! We've had such a fantastic time and met so many great people, it feels very strange to be home, but we need to get some money to save for our next trip! Thanks for reading all of our blogs and keeping in touch with us on the way!

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Photos

the rain in ko samui falls mainly....
..everywhere we are

home
complete with the resident toad

finally some sun!
koh tao

Comments

[Griffin Gaines]

Congrats on Finishing Your Trip
Glad to see you guys made it home in one piece. Good luck with work and drop me an email every once in a while. I'll be in Louisiana treating patients (that's where I ended up in training). I was great meeting you guys in Los Angeles and I hope you guys get to come back to America some day. Take care and thanks for letting me share in your adventure. Thanks again, Griffin Gaines