Thai Fun

Firstly, very sorry I havn't posted in such a long time. It's not even that I havn't been online so I have no excuse. Please forgive me and I'll tell you about my time in Thailand from Bangkok.

The "sleeper" bus from Bangkok coupled with a boat got us to the island of Koh Samui around midday. The girls had arrived their a couple of days before us and we had no idea where they were. The most recent message we received went something like this: "this beach is really quiet so we're heading to another beach called chakeng, i think!". Later we found that there is a beach on Koh Samui called Chaweng Beach Resort so we threw in our cards and headed there. We found an expensive guest house (I only say expensive in relation to what we paid in the rest of SE Asia) and threw down our stuff. After we got some food we went on a mission to find the girls and, as expected, they were chilling on the beach.

Koh Samui was a nice island but there wasn't an awful lot to do there other than the beach. So we relaxed and just enjoyed a bit of worry-free time. Next we caught the boat to Koh Tao. It's a much smaller island than Samui and is well known for its prestigious diving at cheap prices. I was very much tempted to put myself in debt with my credit card and fork out to get an Open Water PADI. In the end I decided that when I have more time somewhere to dive, I'll get my PADI. Maybe in Australia if I have time and money. We had 4 nights in Koh Tao and we were blessed with some pretty good weather too. Since it's wet season at the moment it's quite difficult to determine the weather and sometimes it gets so muggy you're praying for a massive storm to hit - inevitably it does! We had time in Koh Tao to try some real Thai food (though I'm lost for their names right now) and have some nice walks up along the beach. We stayed in a small bungalow right near the beach, which after a day was covered in sand and smelt of eggs. (The eggy smell could be explained what with a stream right outside extruding the same smell... or it could have just been me drinking too much coffee and eating eggs again!!) The sea in Koh Tao (or at least our beach) was a bit disappointing. It was incredibly shallow, even when the tide is in and simply isn't as fun to mess around in. AND, and, there are no waves! Booring.

So when you are chilling out at a nice beach resort and soaking up the sun the last thing you'd expect, especially considering all the stuff we've done in the last 4 months, is a bad accident. We rented some motorbikes and drove north to a beach with some spectacular views and great snorkeling. We got there in good time, though the hills were a little scary. After a drink at the bar we went down to the rocky beach, accessible by a rickety bridge made of twigs and the like. The rocks were quite spike so I lowered myself in slowly. Andy standing atop a boulder about 6' above the water asked me how deep it was. I told him it was just deeper than me and should be fine to jump in so long as he clears the rocks below. Don't know what happened next except that following a pin drop into that water and a hard landing of the sea's surface, Andy had cut his foot open in two places and had to go to hospital to get stitched up!

So that was... fun (sorry Mum's). We all went back to Bangkok and had our last day with Alice before she had to fly home. We arrived in Khao San at 4am with the road a rife with prostitutes and lady-boys, so we went to one of the few 24hr places in Bangkok... McDonalds! We waited until 5am for breakfast to start and after some food went out looking for cheap guest houses that had opened early. By 7am we got ourselves in a room and I figured that instead of going to sleep I'd stay up and try and get an early night that evening since we were getting up at 4am to take Alice to the airport. It was a nice day, though a very tiring one, and it became very difficult to sleep even with the fatigue setting in. Since we stayed actually on Khao San road this time, and above a club at that, it was incredibly noisy.

It was time for Alice to go to the airport. We took a minibus there and stayed with her until the last minute to say our farewells. She wasn't as upset as I thought she'd be, but there was one moment after Briony went to find her friend who'd just landed in Bangkok where Alice didn't want to go up the escalator back to the departures area. Eventually we got her up and after saying our prolonged goodbyes she left us to leave our world of traveling and back to England. It was very sad and I really miss having Alice around. So Briony's friend, Alice's replacement, Annie had been drafted in. She was knackered after her flight from England and she pretty much passed out as soon as we got her to the room. We also met up with a friend from uni, Phoebe and her friend Manda who also just arrived in Bangkok that day. We decided to meet up to have some drinks and then to head off to a Ping Pong show. Although I don't regret going, I will never, EVER, go again. It's hard to describe without leaving out any gory details but I can just say that I didn't realize so much could fit up there... seriously. They were pulling out colourful sting with bells attached to it for a long long time. And the noise of that banana being fired 10' in the air will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The next day I went out to visit the Royal Palace and the Emerald Buddha. It is a fantastic and huge complex that's extremely bright. We had the sun out all day and it lit up the golden spires and colourful mosaic glass amazingly. It took a long time to walk around and it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be. I'd heard it was comparable to the Forbidden City in Beijing, but it definitely wasn't as ridiculous as that! Also went around the National Museum, which was really interesting in relation to all the dynasty's and kings the country has had in the last several hundred years, but dragged a bit toward the end with ceramics and pottery. We also read about a king who had completed many great feats. One of which was he dreamed he was victorious in defeating a crocodile - his astrologer made the connection that he would in fact defeat the Burmese. There was a lot of random captions like that!

Next day I visited Wat Pho. A slightly less busy temple renowned for it's 75m long reclining Buddha. Picturing that in your mind isn't as easy as just "Yeah, another big Buddha". 75m is funking huge!! My camera screen is still bust but I tried to take as many pictures as possible so as to give some image of how big this thing was. The rest of the temple was really nice, though not quite as spectacular as the Royal Palace. It was, though, a lot cheaper to visit, and I didn't have to wear long trousers.

That afternoon an incredible thing happened. Mother of all that is random... we happened to bump into Owen, another friend from uni!!! It was really, really weird. I remember reading on Facebook a couple of months ago that he'd come to Thailand but by now had completely forgotten about that. So after a reunion we all went to the weekend market to buy some tat. We went out for some drinks, mostly reminiscing uni times and talking utter crap. We went out to a bar with a live cover band, which played an odd mix of songs ranging from You Spin Me Right Round to Bohemian Rhapsody to Killing in the Name of (RATM). It was very strange.

I didn't want to get too drunk though since the next day (today) I caught a minibus to Kachanaburi, a couple of hours north of Bangkok. Andy remained in Bangkok since he can't really walk on his foot and is yet to see a lot of the sights in Bangkok and Briony and Annie caught a train this afternoon to Chang Mai. So I'm here on my own for the first time since coming away. At first it was a little daunting, but actually it's really exciting. I was chatting to a Ukrainian bloke in the minibus and we decided to go tomorrow on a tour which includes Elephant riding and trekking and walking up a 7-tiered waterfall (one of the best in Thailand apparently) followed by a visit to some caves and a trip along the famous Death Railway, which goes over the 'Bridge Over the River Kwae' (let me know if you've seen the film). So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I promise I begin posting more regularly now.

Sorry again. I miss you all and wish you all the best!