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Hustler
Kelly tries to beat the barman at his own game in Monkey Republic, Sianoukhville (and very nearly does) We were overdue some beach time so were looking forward to Sianoukhville in the south of Cambodia, but there's really not much to write home about the place. The beach was nothing special- dirty in places but pleasant enough and there wasn't that much going on in the town. We rented bikes one day and cycled all around but it wasn't very big and so we'd seen all there was to see within a couple of hours.
Our guest house was ok for a couple of nights- a British owned place called Monkey Republic; with great music, food, drinks, chilled out vibe and dirt cheeep (and i do mean filty!) wooden shack bungalows for $6. On the last but one night however we'd had enough of the creepy crawlies (found a tarantuala sized spider and an ant's nest in the room) so upgraded to a proper concrete hotel room with hot shower situated across the road for an extra squid (you can't knock it at that price). The best thing about the town was the nightly ritual of beach BBQ- we had the scrummiest chicken and seafood platters with homemade coleslaw and chunky chips for less than 2 quid!
Sunset on Ko Chang
Wish you were here?... I bet you all do Moving on from Sianoukhville we travelled across the border back into Thailand. After an interesting border crossing (there was a strong military presence but massive lack of information as to where we should be getting passports stamped, standing, walking etc.) we were in a A/C van travelling at light speed, heading to the port. We then took the slow car ferry across to Ko Chang (Thailand's largest island after Phuket). We found a nice little bungalow right on white sand beach, which is where we stayed for a few days to recharge our batteries. We were afforded glorious sunshine (must have been in the high 30s every day) a decent beach and awesome breakers. It was nice to be back in Thailand and took us no time to get right back into the swing of things with currency conversion a cinch and hunting out the best value brekkie and cheapest Chang beer outlet secondnature.
After a couple of relaxed days here we made our way to Ko Samet- one of the smallest islands on the East coast as we geared up for Kelly's big day (turning 28). I had done a little bit of research prior to our arrival
This is the life...
Beach, beer and me bird. Nice. so after getting Kelly settled on the whitest of white beaches we'd ever seen (Haad Se Kiaw) i rented a little motorbike and travelled the length of the island going from beach to beach, looking for a little treat. It came in the form of Ao Phrao resort which was situated on the little private beach of the same name on the west of the island. And it was bliss! The place was a proper resort and our 'suite' was a proper hotel room with an impossibly large bed, powerful shower (with sea view), chaise lounge, big screen TV, mini bar and our very own veranda looking out to the sea. So for near on 3 days we lived the high life.
The bar next to the resort (Buzz Bar) served great modern cuisine and every night we took advantage of the happy hour they held on all cocktails. On the 25th itself we spent the day on the beach (Kelly went for some pampering) and then had cocktails followed by the most amazing meal at the resort restaurant (you'd be forgiven for mistaking the tiger prawns for lobster because of thier size!) I also managed to pull it
Beach babe
Swinging around on White Sand beach, Ko Chang out of the bag and organised a birthday cake which was presented at the end of the meal to a chorus of 'Happy Bird-day' from the Thai house band (she's never going to forgive me for that one).
All in all, our time at Ao Phrao was over far too quickly- just as we were getting used to being treated like royalty, it was time to leave. The resort speedboat took us ashore where we (somehow) befriended an American couple and thier children (turns out that they were staying at the Ao Phrao resort as well) and they insisted that we share thier private A/C minivan all the way to Bangkok with them. They'd already paid for it and wouldn't take no for an answer- so instead of the rigmarol of trying to organise our own, painstakingly slow transport back to the capital, we hit the road with them-boring them all with our stories and pics from the last 3 months while offering them all some leftover birthday cake (just so grateful that we'd managed to hitch a ride with them for free).
Once in Bangkok we dropped our bags and headed out- ready for some serious shopping.
Easy Rider returns
My little runaround on Ko Samet The plan was to get pretty much everything we needed for the coming months and then before we left, to send home a big package of all the stuff that we didn't need (either stuff that was now useless or souvenirs that we'd accumalated over the last few weeks). We hit the infamous Siam and MBK Centres, Kelly got a couple of pairs of jeans, tops, Tshirts and toiletries while i managed to get some board shorts and the odd T shirt. We also managed to send that package home, lightening the load on our back ever so slightly. We'd also organised a flight down to Ko Samui to continue our island hopping adventure.
We flew Bangkok Airways (a 'boutique' airline apparently) which was nice enough (visited the exslusive lounge prior to the flight and took advantage of the free interent and ate loads of free cookies) and arrived at Samui airport an hour or so later. More like a theme park than an airport, we then got dropped at one of the reccomended beaches via the airport bus. We managed again to find decent accomodation right on Maenam beach- which had crystal clear water, was clean, not too
Midnight boxing anyone?
I'm always up for a challenge busy and looked out onto Ko Phangan. Again, staying here for days and days would have been all too easy but we wanted to meet the friends that we'd made out in Vietnam, who, last we heard, were somewhere on the island which was a mere 20kms away. So after a few lazy days we made the 45 min trip across.
We arrived on Haad Rin (Full Moon Beach Party Beach) but soon realised that they were at the other end of the island! Knackered from the trip we decided to stay a night. And a messy night it was as the Mekong Whiskey, Red Bull and Coke buckets were far too cheap and easy to drink. Even though the next Full Moon party was a good 25 days away the beach was pretty lively. Waking up the next day with monster hangovers in tow we got an island taxi over to Salad beach and headed straight for the resort. It was a prretty amazing deal- a really nice A/C room with breakfast and a nice swimming pool all for 900bt (around 13 quid a night). Seeing Alan and Kate was so nice- we had so much to catch
Birthday reTREAT
Our suite at Ao Phrao Resort, Ko Samet up on that we spent more time there than we intended (way more!). In fact, Kelly did her dive course there- she managed to squeeze a 4 day course into 2 and a half days and was lucky enough to enjoy one on one tuition. Kate and Kelly even buddied up dived together on the last day- while Alan and I cooked ourselves by the pool, in a sweating competition. All in all, we had an amazing week with the guys- a few drunken nights, lots of good food and great company. We were sad to leave but on the 6th day, we made our way to Ko Tao.
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Bridge and Cyn
Bridge and Cyn
Awesome!
Wow your photos bring back soooo many memories! Very jealous! Trying to persuade Cyn to take me back for my 30th!!! Fat chance! Cant wait to see your Ko Tao photos!