Advertisement
Published: June 11th 2006
Edit Blog Post
People have all sorts of sayings and words of wisdom, but for me it's simple. "He who backpack in Thailand, smile longer with waterproof bag" Well that's what I thought when I saw a dog casually walk up to my bag and mark his territory.
We had only left our bags for a few minutes and always within eyesight, but it was enough time for the local canine to show us who was boss. No harm was done and all was fixed with a quick rinse with bottled spring water and besides I needed to reclaim the territory. J
After sadly moving on from Kata beach, we headed to Phi Phi Island where we met some more people and quickly settled into the local beach side bar, Hippies. It became our regular, not so much for drinking but more for the atmosphere as every night turned into a mini beach party. It was a complete fluke we arrived on a Sunday which happened to be for the Half Moon Party. It's a lead up to the Full moon party here at Kho Phangan, but on a much smaller scale. So we had a few great
Im over it
Where's my Sherpa? nights on the beach with locals and watched many fire shows. The pics here give you an idea, but a fire show really needs to be seen live to fully appreciate the speed and talent these people demonstrate with ease.
The Phi Phi islands are completely different in terms of…well everything. The larger of the two, Koh Phi Phi Don is the main island where all the accommodation, nightlife and shopping is. The smaller is Koh Phi Phi Leh which has no real accommodation and is basically a protected national park dedicated to day trippers and sightseeing. So having seen the movie "The Beach", I had to see Maya Bay for myself. You know the secluded and almost perfect beach they stumble upon? I'll attach pictures, but without decent camera equipment I couldn't do it justice. If you haven't seen the movie, rent the DVD as it's not a bad way to spend a few hours and it may inspire you to check Thailand out for yourself. Although the star is Leonardo DiCaprio, so I have to warn you about the acting…
The monkeys in the pics are from a small beach near Maya
bay. We stopped there for a few mins and they jumped up on the boat to see what we had to offer. They were quite used to tourists and just wanted to say hi and hopefully get something to eat or drink. That's Craig's hand in the pic trying to make friends.
What's next…well after a few days at Phi Phi, we transferred to Ko Samui via a bus, the back of a ute and a night boat. The boat is a great idea as it travels overnight so you get accommodation in the one ticket. It wasn't very glamorous, in fact I don't think you could even call it a bed, but it did fine and we woke at 6am to the sounds and smells of the local port on Ko Samui. Getting back to the ute, it was actually part of the official transfer that we handed over good money for, was fine for us, but I think some other more conservative tourists would not risk life and limb as easily as we did. But this type of transport is normal and accepted here so there really isn't much choice. Safety is a concept that
I don't think the Thais really have the grasp of yet! At various stages of this trip I have noticed how easy it would be to seriously hurt your self here. Roads can be partially complete, power wires drape the footpath, transport is just insane, what road rules and food sold on the side of the road looks like it would make a dog sick…. But somehow it's easy to forget about the luxuries we have in Australia and get used to it all here and think of it as kinda normal after a while.
At Ko Samui we hired out mopeds and went riding in search of the nearby local temples and waterfalls. The mopeds are just hours of fun and took us up steep dirt roads and places that were only used by 4WD's. Some of the hills we climbed would have taken hours on foot and a lot of bottled water and in this heat you would have to be mad to walk. There is also this burning desire to drive hired vehicles a bit harder that you would normally….all within the manufactures specifications and within the law of course. 😉
To be honest, the day we arrived at Koh Samui was the first time we actually put on the backpacks as all our other trips were door to door type service (utes remember) which meant it was easier to just use the carry strap. After 10min of "backpacking" we both decided a serious weight reduction was needed once we settled in. Maybe it was the way the straps were setup but our bags just weighed a tonne. Check out Craig's face as he sat exhausted in the early hours of the morning in search of accommodation. I felt the same but had my camera out to get the sunrise and couldn't resist the shot to capture our mood at the time. Since then, we have been constantly trying to justify things to shed from our packs. "We don't need that many clothes; everyone sweats, it's normal to smell…." I might have another look at my pack tonight and see what can go.
Yesterday we arrived at Koh Phangan which is another small island in this area that hosts the Full moon party. It's a huge beach party started by some people celebrating a friend's birthday on a
full moon back in the late 80's. Now it attracts thousands of people from all over the world including two Australian travelers with heavy backpacks.
Cheers,
Darren
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0319s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
dog
non-member comment
Bow wow wow wow wow
Had a look at your photos and Bond Island looked beautiful... Don't worry about the smell, yourself and Craigo are stinky bastards anyway!! I gather the fun you had on the scooter was inspired by the fun we had in NZ and moved you to have more - all within legal limits of course as I did while driving car or moped! I'll keep looking at the site to see what you've been up to and keep sending messages to you both. Till I look next time I hope you stay well..