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Similan
paradiseWith our objective in Prachuap complete we boarded a bus in the morning headed for Phuket where we would meet up with the friends we had made in Bangkok. Benya lived and worked in Phuket and Wine, Jesse and Boi were flying down from Bangkok. The bus journey was 10 hours, which is a short one by our standards, but we really felt it. The journey was uncomfortable and seemed to drag on for ages. Nevertheless, we arrived in Phuket with bus narcosis and as Benya was still at work we were picked up at the station by one of her friends. We jumped on some bikes and were transported to a house that Benya had arranged for all of us to stay in. Not only was it a luxury to have our own place, but it also worked out as ridiculously cheap accommodation, as very little money changed hands for this much welcomed and appreciated privilege. Yet again we had landed on our feet and been totally sorted out, a pattern to which we were becoming used to. We were also pleased that it was situated well away from the tourist hotspots and it was great getting off a bus
and not even needing to think about where we were going to stay. This house was to become our base camp for the next couple of weeks as we visited the islands and beaches around Phuket. The guys coming from Bangkok had trouble booking a flight and we reduced to travelling by bus arriving later than initially expected.
Martin: On our first day we hired motorbikes with which Benya and some of her friends took us to see some of the sights around Phuket. There was an interesting incident involving Pete, a motorbike and one of Benya’s friends. We were riding around Phuket and we had three bikes between us. Benya was on the back of my bike and Pete had one of Benya’s friends (that he hardly knew) on the back of his. The windy rolling coastal roads were a pleasure to ride and I was having a lot of fun. I looked into my rear view mirror to check how Pete was doing and noticed he wasn’t there. I stopped the bike.
Pete: It’s important to note at this stage that this was only my second time riding a bike, and I’d certainly never had anyone
Patong Beach
What a lovely view! on the back before. It was uncomfortable to say the least but so far I’d been getting on alright. That was until we came to a hill. I approached in third gear. The bike slowed dramatically and Martin disappeared off into the distance. I shifted down to second but it still wasn’t enough. This was where I made a schoolboy error. I selected first…….my bike thrust forward with more power than a N.A.S.A. space launch and took off into a wheelie. The lady on the back fell off and a split second later so did I, the bike jumped into the air and since I still had hold of the throttle, it took me with it. The bike and I bounced around the road for a while until eventually I got it back under control. No damage to the bike and I was showing no wounds either. Thank god!!
By this time the lady had got up and was dusting her self off, I’ve never been so happy that I knew how to say sorry in a foreign language. I repeated this several times and she seemed to accept it quite willingly. She even got back on the bike.
Monks day out!
maximum respect to Martin for capturing this moment She was a brave lady. I took it steady and caught back up to Martin and the others. The lady dismounted and related the story to her friends. I watched as Benya approached me with a serious face. I knew I was about to get a lecture!
Martin: When Pete told me what had happened and I noticed the fear in the eyes of his passenger I really tried to compose myself as to the seriousness of what had just, and could have, happened. Instead I burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter that I am sure Pete appreciated. He gave me a look of ‘its not funny’ but I just couldn’t help it and things were about to get worse. Benya marched over to Pete and started giving him a huge lecture on how gears work. This was to a man who has driven hundreds of cars and worked in a garage where he has watched people take numerous gearboxes apart with their bare hands. If there was a man in that crowd who knew how a gearbox worked, Pete was it.
By this point I had managed to control my laughter, however I could feel more
A distant look of wonderment!
Martin Matthews. one of the great philosophers of his time. building inside of me. Although she had no idea, she then patronisingly explained all aspects of gears. Which ones you start in, which one you cruise in, and taking great length to explain which was best to go up a steep hill. Pete meanwhile, knowing he had made the school boy error and crashed the bike, sat there lapping it all up and trying to look like he was paying attention and didn’t already know everything she was telling him. The laughter began again but this time it was much worse. It was one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in my life. Lecture over, Benya’s friend gave a long slow look at the empty space on the back of my bike, and when Benya returned to fill it, reluctantly got back on Pete’s bike looking very scared. I rode off down the winding road, laughing hysterically to myself, leaving Pete to collect himself and follow my dusty tracks.
The rest of the day was spent riding around on the bikes and visiting various beaches. No more wheelies were pulled and the day was rounded off by visiting a well known sunset spot. As always the clouds
Excellent scenery!
see if you can spot Pete playing guitar! moved in at the last minute. Unlike everything else, we don’t seem to have much luck with sunsets.
The next morning the guys from Bangkok arrived and armed with our designated driver “A”, we busted on down to Patong Beach. Pete and I were the only ones in the sun as Thai people try their very hardest to stay out of it. We took down some body surfing action. The waves were good and we thoroughly enjoyed it. That night we all went out to a Thai club to get our groove on. We stayed out late safe in the knowledge we had a designated driver for the ride home. Sweet!
We all hopped a ferry the next morning headed to the Phi Phi Islands that are renowned as being some of the most beautiful in the world. They slightly resembled Halong Bay but most of the coral was intact and the water didn’t stink of shit. One of the first things we noticed was the damaged caused by the Tsunami. There are still a lot of buildings that have not been rebuilt, there is debris everywhere and you can easily spot the damage inflicted on all the
Sunset 1
Although the clouds moved in, we thought that this picture was stunning! vegetation and trees. It really brought it home.
Besides this we had an awesome couple of days most of which were spent relaxing, as always, on the beach. Whilst exploring the islands we started chatting to a Brit who was running a dive shop there. We explained that we wanted to do our PADI Open Water and asked him about various locations we could do it. Our initial plan was to go down to Ko Lipe which is a small island of the west coast of Thailand near the Malaysian border. We also told him that we were heading down to the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia. He told us that the diving in the Perhentians was cheap and good. He recommended that we did it there instead. After a little research we changed our plan accordingly. This happens a lot when you travel.
We chartered a longtail boat for the day and went snorkelling and visiting local islands, one of which was the location used for filming “The Beach”. We both indulged in some snorkelling with Black Tip Reef Sharks which was awesome. The water had such a diversity of marine life and it was hard to
Phi Phi islands
At the end of the day they're just your regular big old rocks! get out each time the boat had to move on. It was interesting to see that none of our Thai friends could swim and they strapped on ridiculously big life jackets every time they went in, even when they had two qualified lifeguards in the water with them.
Pete had some fresh Red Snapper for dinner and Martin ate rice as per usual. An allergy to fish is a bastard when you’re island hopping in Southern Thailand.
In simple terms, the ferry back to Phuket was fucking freezing. They took air con to a new extreme. It was even colder than England.
We got back to Phuket knowing that Jesse and Boi had to get a flight back to Bangkok that evening. We headed for some evening beach action before we dropped them off at the airport. It was hard to see Jesse leave as we had become close friends with him. The realisation that we were probably not going to see him again for a long time was tough. Hopefully he will be coming to England soon and we can take him for a beer down the pub, but in the meantime the wonders of
e-mail and MSN will enable us to keep in touch with a great friend. We were all tired and still cold from the Phi Phi trip so we headed home to get some well deserved rest.
After a couple more days of chilling out and visiting local pubs and clubs we made the decision to visit the more remote Similan Islands with Benya and Wine. This is a national park 80km of the west coast of Phuket. Reluctantly, we had to book a tour in order to get there. Much to our surprise, and delight, it actually turned out to be pretty good. A lot of snorkelling was taken down, and free drinks and a wholesome lunch were enjoyed. Martin ate rice again. Damn you fish! We can’t describe how good the snorkelling was. It was super super awesomeo. The visibility was incredible and there was an abundance of various coral and fish everywhere. It was nice to see that the Thais had taken the term “national park” seriously, as there was no damage to any of the coral and we didn’t see a single piece of litter. This place actually looks exactly like it does in the postcards.
Of the group of seven islands only one has accommodation. It was expensive but well worth it. There were only around 50 chalets on the whole island, one restaurant and something that they had named a shop but this was a loose term as it didn’t sell anything. As a result there were very few people there and this meant that at some points we had picturesque white sandy beaches to ourselves.
One word you could use to describe the place is “paradise”. Feel free at this point to be extremely jealous. Visiting “paradise” does have its drawbacks. Now that we have both seen some of the best beaches in the world, everytime we step off a boat onto the sand we look at each other and one us says “It’s not Similan is it”? This however, is a small price to pay.
We hired some masks and snorkels and the four of us spent the next couple of days chilling at the beach, as there is nothing else to do. But believe us, in “paradise” you don’t need anything else. Did we mention this place was “paradise”? How many times can we write the word “paradise”?
Boi and a massive life jacket
She obviously had little faith in our lifeguarding skills Is anyone still reading this?
“Paradise”
“PARADISE” was awesome but eventually we had to leave and return to our house in Phuket.
That night we were reunited with our designated driver A and were taken out to a place called Timber bar which had a really cool band playing. When we returned we were all a little worse for wear and Pete managed to stagger into the Buddha shrine that was mounted on the wall, removing it completely and smashing it to pieces. Nice moves. We discussed how this would probably bring him bad luck for the rest of his life, but the girls, being Buddhist, told him not to worry about it. We have decided that Buddhism is our favourite religion. It is so relaxed and peaceful and everybody in the world could learn at little from this. Except the Buddhists, because they already know.
Martin: Mum, I haven’t told you yet but you are soon to learn that I now have a tattoo.
Pete: Carol, I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him. In fact I actively encouraged him and I got one too. Please forgive me.
The girls had given us Thai names
Travel Pillows
totally useless and these were to be used as the subject matter for the compulsory travellers tattoos.
Martin: Mine reads “Thrawon” pronounced tar-won which means the first. It stands for a lot of things. Including the first sibling of my family, and signifies that I will be the first in many things. It was also my first tattoo so it fits quite nicely. Obviously it is written in Thai and not English because that would just look stupid.
Pete: Mine is “Threerathorn” pronounced ti-ra-torn which simply means the second sibling. Martin has clearly got the better deal. But nonetheless it is a Thai name which is better than most people have at home. So there. Feel free to consult pictures of “paradise” again at this point.
Martin: Sorry did you say “paradise” mate?
Pete: Yes mate….. “paradise”
Anyway we are getting a little distracted. After checking a few places we found somewhere where we were happy to have ink stabbed into our flesh. There was a lot of good work on the walls, the guys were obviously good artists. Although, there was a picture in one of their books of a chap who had the Liverpool FC
Jesse's fairwell
Some nightime beach action emblem tattooed on his shoulder. This wasn’t surprising as Liverpool is a massive club in Thailand. However, the motto read “you’ll never walk alon”. Yes it is not a typo it does say “alon”. Poor bastard.
Sorry, back to our tattoos. There isn’t really a lot to say except that they didn’t hurt, look great and we were both really pleased.
On our last night in Phuket we held a chilli eating contest. We had both been eating chillies with every single meal that was consumed, including breakfast.
Martin: Although I lost on a so called technicality I was clearly the champion. I devoured a whole table spoon pilled high with raw chillies and only cried a little bit. I was luckily that Pete was having an off day as he would have been “hot”, excuse the pun, competition.
Our next port of call was Krabi. A rock climbers paradise (not like Similian though, that was “paradise”). It is one of the few places in the world where you can start your climb straight off the beach. So after spending one night in Krabi town the four of us set sail on a boat to Tonsai
Similan
paradise Beach to take some of this action down. It was off season so the place was deserted. Except of course for the hardcore climbers who would show up no matter what. We spent three days just chilling and bouldering with some of the locals. It was thoroughly enjoyable.
From Krabi our next destination was Hat Yai, a disembarking point to get to Malaysia. Wine was coming with us and had a friend who could put us up for the night. Benya however, had to go back to Phuket as she had some work to deal with. Yet again it was another really tough goodbye and it was hard to see her go having spent the last couple of weeks with her. We jumped on our buses and headed our separate ways.
We arrived in Hat Yai in time to do a little bit of shopping. It is one of the cheapest places in Thailand and we wished we had had more time to abuse it. Nevertheless, Pete got a couple of t-shirts and we also acquired a pair of mini speakers for about three pounds and they are remarkably good. We crashed for the night as we had
an early start the next morning.
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Jesse/BKK
non-member comment
I hate all of you...
I hate all of you that put my picture with that useless travel pillow. It looks horrible. Not the pillow, but me. hahaha! Hey dudes!...I dunno where are you now, may be heading to Australia, right? Hope you have all the joys, hapiness and safety trip na krub. can e-mail me: jc33arg@hotmail.com