The land of the Thai's - Budda, raving and buckets!

---

All this kicks off on the 28th July 2008, the year of the Rat if I’m not mistaken! So good bye England, good bye job, friends, family, rain and hello sun, sea, sand and adventure…

Round the world in 365 days stopping off at:
Spain-->France-->Italy-->Thailand-->Laos-->Vietnam-->Cambodia-->Thailand(again)-->Malaysia-->Singapore-->
Malaysia-->Singapore-->Indonesia-->Singapore-->Australia-->New Zealand-->Cook Islands-->America-->England…-->Turkey

Date I left the UK: 28th July 2008 (Delaney Family Cruise before actual Travel)
Expected arrival date back in the UK: 27th July 2009 (Delaney Family Villa after actul Travel)

It’s finally happened, all that talk of travelling around the world wasn’t just talk! I’m off to the land of the Thai’s first of all. But not for the first time, more of the same same but different and no doubt windmill fuelled dancing madness at the full moon party again is to be expected.

I’ll try to keep it all up-to-date but if I forget or I’m somewhere without internet, (I know, scary) I haven’t gone missing, I’m just busy, no doubt sitting on a beach sipping a cocktail out of a coconut!

Highlights of my trip so far.
- Full Moon Party - sweat band madness (Thailand)
- Camping on The Beach, Maya Bay (Thailand)
- Trekking in Chiang Mai (Thailand)
- Tubing, donuts, whiskey and rope swings + Dentist Chair (Laos)
- Nha Trang - the mighty Vinpearl (Vietnam)
- Rock climbing - RaiLay (Thailand)
- Angkor Wat - History at it’s most epic (Cambodia)
- Meeting Helen in Nha Trang (Vietnam)
- Meeting Helen in Thailand
- Diving SDI course in Nha Trang (Vietnam)
- Diving with turtles at the Gili Islands (Indonesia)
- New Years Eve in Sydney (Australia)
- Seeing a penguin in Sydney harbour (Australia)
- Kayaking down the Me Kong River and falling out on every rapids (Laos)
- Big Budda jeep drive, Jay knows what I’m talking about! (Thailand)
- SE Asia transportation
- New Zealand South Island camper van fun
- Skydiving over lake Taupo
- Nevis Bungee Jump, highest in the world!
- Zorbing in Rotorua, awesome
- Could go on forever so I’ll stop for now…

Lowlights of my trip so far.
- 30 hours on a bus (Laoes to Vietnam)
- 28 hours on a bus (Thailand to Laos)
- Death scooter ride, knee and foot injuries!
- Dam rude Indonesian’s people
- Stress to the max of getting a job and a place to live in Oz
- SE Asia transportation!
- Ordering some food and been given desert or something else equally random

What I’ve learned from my travels so far...
- The less rules there are on the road the less accidents there seems to be
- The higher the price the lower the offer for it and just go from there
- The walk away tactic when bartering, ALWAYS lowers the price by at least half
- Asian’s can’t sing as demonstrated by there love and my hate of Karaoke
- 7/eleven’s are lifesavers at times of intense heat -A/C for free!
- It isn’t possible to get bored of just sitting on the beach
- SEA scooter accidents will happen, just close your eyes and hope for the best!
- Squat toilets aren’t fun when drunk and in need of a movement!
- SE Asians have no spatial awareness and walk right into you even though you are about 3 times as big and taking up most of the pavement with your gigantic backpack on.
- Roads are now death walks but I have come to realise cars will always go around you if they can…
- Queue’s just don’t exist anywhere but the UK, so now I just barge my way to the front of most queue’s, unless another western gigantor beats me to it!

---

Well, me and Jay have landed after a monster journey from the UK, a little drunk and a little sleepy in Bangkok airport. The heat hits you like a wet fish in the face and with that were off to Khao San Road! We arrive with Burger King and McDonalds in sight and find the D&D guesthouse, it’s got a pool on the roof so pay the little bit extra for the room, think it was 400Bht between us so about 3.50 each!!

First port of call for Team James is as usual food and a drink, we head out to the madness that is Koh San Road and have an explore, a smorgasbord of tat, suit makers and eateries are on offer as well as the obvious ping pong show's and street vendors! We opt for the eateries! Masaman Curry and a large Chiang beer for about 150 Bhat, works out about 2.80 in the queens sterling, delish! Time to head out and party I feel, out we go feeling nice a relaxed after our many beers throughout the day! It’s not long before we have collected a fair crowd of Irish and English travellers as we end up at a bar called Gulliver’s, of which I feel neither I or Jay has any recollection. I think the memories started once we got to McDonalds and Jay decided to prove his worth by eating a very small green chilli, should have seen the man sweet. With the heat and the chilli I think he must have lost about a stone of weight in water alone! Good job! Day one over and done with, fully recovered from jet lag and with the buckets fuelling us I’m sure the jet lag won’t hit the sides!

Day 2 comes along and were ready to see the temples and what else Bangkok has to offer… we manage to get a tuck tuck for 20 Bhat for the whole day thanks to a local guy in a temple helping us and pointing us in the direction of the best temples such as the lucky budda, big budda and other such temples as well as the visit to a tailor shop for some fresh new suits, much in the fashion of anchorman! (I went for the jet black James Bond look) Back on the buckets and the chicken on a stick for dinner in the evening as well as coming up with a plan of attack for the rest of Thailand.

After heading to the local TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) and booking pretty much all of our transport and accommodation for the next 30 days we are off to Koh Phi Phi for some beach action. We hop on the night train and the fun of South East Asian transportation begins, from Bangkok to Surat Thani we pass such a diverse landscape from the skyscrapers of Bangkok, shanty towns along the train tracks were we saw a man in a suit with no shoes on, on a mobile phone all the way to the concrete jungle that is Surat Thani. After the interesting sleeper train were they fold out your beds from the seats at about half seven in the evening we were ready for the next leg of travel to get to Krabi and then onwards to Phi Phi. We are hearded onto a local coach with the rest of the Westerners and we cross central Thailand which took about 6 hours, most of which consisted of sitting in waiting areas, the actual travel took about 3 hours, figures! We arrive at Krabi peer and hop onto the ferry to Phi Phi, the small islands we pass are like little paradises with golden sand and crystal clear water lapping at them, not long till we get to enjoy some of that. On landing at Phi Phi we hit the hippie bar for some much needed rest, chicken, chilli basil and beers!

Me and Jay had an awesome time on Phi Phi, camping at The Beach, Maya Bay, where I’ve never seen so many stars and shooting stars as I have done that night. We woke up to the sun rising and breakfast been cooked by the little Thai guy, Em, or slim shady as he liked to be called, no idea why, thought it better not to ask! On our return to the main island we decided to rent a kayak, got hold of some snorkels and headed over to a small bay just off the main island. We established both me and Jay are either really unfit or the water was particularly choppy that day, I feel the later!

Back to the reggae bar to watch some drunk people enter the Mai Thai ring and beat each other for a free Thai bucket and school some kids at pool booth style, well at least Jay is trying to master the Booth bops around the table, not quite there to be fair! On that note, Jay’s getting a whooping of epic proportions when it comes pool, to be expected! Met up with a guy from uni, Gaz and his girlfriend who will be at the full moon party in a week from now, ended up at the hippie bar once again for more fire shows and dragon sticks.

Off to Koh Samui for some more chillaxing >>> Usual Thai transportation but we have gotten quite good at the card game shithead and reading, so were passing the time quite well! We arrived in Koh Samui late in the evening at Lamai and opted for an early one so we could explore the beaches the following day. The accommodation was a little sweaty due to the fan just moving the hot air around and sharing a double bed! We opted to head over to Chaweng as we had heard it was the main place for travellers and tourists alike plus we had met some people who were also going to be there from Phi Phi. Me and Jay thought we would venture for a swim in the bath temperature sea water… which, was pretty good apart from… SEA LICE!! Little creatures that either bite or sting you all over and I do mean all over and you can’t get away from them, little buggers even sting you somehow once you’ve left the water, no more swimming next to the sewage pipes for us!

The scooters… by now I know you have all heard that I came off of a small 50cc scooter where instead of pulling on the breaks I pulled on the accelerator?! Don’t ask how, but, do enjoy the picture! On returning the broken scooter that a small Asian guy “fixed” for me I rocked up hiding my grated foot and weeping knee with trainers and trousers in 40 degree heat, he didn’t suspect a thing and once around the corner I could start limping again! Change of plan and we hire a jeep with Michelle and Christa and off we go to find the big budda and a few waterfalls, obviously Jay would be driving! We found Budda and what can only be described as a hose coming out of a rock that they called a waterfall, funny as hell after hobbling up a load of rocks to get to it!

5 days till the full moon party and there are people arriving on Samui chilling out before the storm of the Full Moon begins. My leg is looking ok at this point with only slight weepage and a slight smell of almonds?! Met a few guys where we are staying in Lamai, oh yeah, we headed back to Lamai as we were booked in via the TAT, one of them is heading over to the full moon party so we will be heading over with him in a few days. Lazy days of sitting by the pool and nursing the wounds!

Off to Koh Phangan and our hotel on the outskirts of Haad Rin, right opposite the Sky Sports Bar so we watched a few games of football with the locals till the early hours before a day on the beach. We decided the next day to head into the main part of Haad Rin and spend a day watching movies, family guy, friends and chilling on the beach before a night out for the pre-full moon parties which were pretty awesome, everyone going mad dancing fuelled by Thai buckets and copious amounts of Chiang beer. Met a few groups of quality lads who we are meeting at the Cactus bar for the full moon, GET INVOLVED seemed to be my words of choice for the night as well as a few of us sporting fine fluorescent headbands, just like been in the 80’s, the 80’s!

Recovery and the long journey north to the city of Chiang Mai for hill trekking, elephant treks and the hunt for some shoes in my size. We opted for the bus back to Bangkok followed by the sleeper train to Chiang Mai, whilst in Bangkok we visited the Golden mount and then back to Koh San Road for some more cheap cheap t-shirts and some more frog selling harassment! We leave Bangkok for Chiang Mai at 6 in the evening and arrive at 6 in the morning the next day. Chiang Mai is a lot more sombre compared to the madness of Bangkok and seems quite western with shopping malls, but, no shoes in my size, the largest we could find was a size 10, dam these small footed hobbit’s!

The mountainous 3 day trek with the aid of elephants, bamboo rafts and hip flasks!
Day 1: Elephant trek and the first part of the trek to base camp village.
Day 2: The trek continues to a waterfall and up through the hills to another camp
Day 3: Downhill trek and bamboo rafting
Day 4: Rest in Chiang Mai with DVD’s and beers!

The trekking was amazing, the village kids were hilarious and our guides were really good and didn’t get lost, even “boy” as the youngest one was called seem to know where he was going!

Off to Laos for tubing, jungles and from what we have heard roads from hell… the adventure continues!

---

Photos

Khao San Road
The madness that is the Khao San Road, awesome!

Maya Bay, "The Beach"
Phi Phi, camping at Maya Bay, where the beach was filmed, jumping as the sun sets.

The scooters of death!
The infamous Thai injury that everyone warns you about but you go ahead and do it anyway!

The Jeep Day
Exploration of Koh Samui in the jeep, jay's handling of the off road had something to be desired! ;)

FullMoon August 2008
Buckets, headbands and windmilling!

Long boats on Phi Phi
The boats that take you around the islands in Thailand

Tuk Tuk, Bangkok
By far the craziest and most fun way of getting around is the tuk tuk!

Elephant Trekking
Borrowing the elephant stick and Jay the catapult to get the elephants moving, we were gentle.

Chiang Mai Village
The village kids that sang to us and could only speak there local tribal language, not Thai?!

Trek Jump
The whole trekking gang at the end of the three days chilling out at a waterfall.

Maya Bay, "The Beach" various
some arty pictures of general thailand!

Thailand Laos border
the crossing into Loas where you hop over the river to get your visa and the trip to Laos begins...

Comments

[James Kim]

Minging Foot
Some cool pic's there matey, especially enjoyed the one of the foot. Wish i saw the incident as i bet it was funny as!