7 days later...

Hello!

Its been a long time and much has gone on.

We moved to Koh Phi Phi for the last 6 days to visit my cousin. It is weird living on a small island for a week.
One this you realise is that hot water is luxury as is air con.

But you soon forget this when you look at the surroundings:

Stayed in a cheap little place to start with a fan but it was too stuffy and uncomfortable. But to add it was cheap, as in  5 Pounds each per night. So splashed out at 8 pounds a night for aircon. I know what your thinking Wooooo big spender!

So I went scuba diving around Koh Phi Lea - where the film The Beach was filme. That was amazing!
Best part to summarise would be swimming after a leopard shark until it lay on the sea bed and we watched the fish swarm around it.

Down side to the island would be the tourists working there. Bars hire them to hand out flyers every night. So you start to get a bit pissed with every drunken boy or girl trying to give you a piece of paper.
I'm a fairly patient person as you might know but after 4 days of this I took one thanked them and promptly tore it pieces. I didn't hang about to hear what they said as I was late to see my cousin but still.

Most of our time there was trekking around the island and spending time on the beaches. Apart from one nasty little bout of food poisoning I had from a fruit shake which took me out for a afternoon and evening. Sorry no pics of that!

Now we have arrived at Koh Phangan, where we have another very nice room. We are going to explore now and tomorrow we will be meeting some friends from earlier in the trip for some drinks. No pictures from any of them have emerged as of yet so good news there :)

Home in a week. Its going to be weird, but no more sewage smell! (in all fairness koh phangan doesn't smell).

Bye!

Matt

TT - no more I think.

Pictures - Labeled and finally uploaded.

(9th - White Temple) Pretty amazing for something only 11years old.

Best no drinking sign ever.

Topped only by the best no smoking sign ever!

Scorpian in a bottle. I bought a snake though.

More northern Thailand

Me- at the most northern Thailand.... yeah i know but I've not got any proof I've been here.

One of MANY stray dogs. This one follows us all the way on a trek in the Jungle.

Us on a Eleplant.

The elephants...

Note - the riders made the elephants list by hitting them with a pick. True story.

Waterfall in the jungle.

No she didn't fall. Though I rocked the bridge a little. Just a little!

One grumpy tiger...

Me with the grumpy tiger.

Ah Chiang Mai....

Where I am staying now, and the view of Phuket. Jealous?

Beach at Phuket.

Lastly one funky looking glass of long island ice tea.

There might be facebook photos soon too as some new friends have some drunken photos... oh dear.

Catch you all soon.

TT : 5

Matt

Video Post 1!

Ok Video was taken 7th of a Thai street market - one of many!

Chiang Mai!!

Chiang Mai is amazing.

Had to get that out there.

Quick post from a nice little bar where we got absolutely hammered last night. So drunk, but yes I can't believe how much better Chiang Mai is than Bangkok, I say to anyone coming here to see Bangkok but spend more time here. Last two days summerized:

 !I rode an elephant and a bamboo raft (not at the same time))and today I have stroked a tiger

Amazing. I will upload photos when I have enough time. Caitlin and I are off to find a 3 pound Thai foot massage before flying to Phuket. Oh yes.

Peace out y'all.

Matt

Train rides and Golden Triangle

Afternoon all,

Well i'm going to quckly say that I had written a good post but this crap computer didn't save it so I will have to rewrite it, also time is limited so it will have to wait.

Quick update though, yesterdays train ride was pretty good. 12 hours and 2nd class gets free two meals and 4 free drinks during the day. Better than some flights I've been on.

One last mention about Bangkok though, I dont' know if they hate Mondays or if it was the act the holiday weekend was over but the tuktuks were not in the mood for bartering. One actually spat his cigarette out at us and drive off which I thought was funny.

So the train, yeah. It was good but towards the end dear diary, cockroaches made another appearence. One or two at first but the closer we got toward our destination more appeared.

 Felt like a bloody surrvial game and we were waiting for pick up to save us form the hordes. Ok not that bad but I like that analogy :)

Today we went on a day tour to Chiang Rai to see the hot springs, white temple (Wat Rong Khun) then to see the Golden triangle to which we got to go into Laos. Then to the Burma border, I have pictures and more vids but this will have to wait until tomorrow I guess.

Later.

Matt

Thigh slapping time

Hello again!


Just a recap when writing last nights entry Caitlin told me she saw a cockroach in the room and killed it. Seems the little bastards aren't so easy to kill as when she went back up it was gone. When I arrived on the scene she told me she managed to kill it. I saw its tiny crumpled remains. And one leg was still moving! I should have taken a picture as it was kind of weird seeing a 30min dead cockroach with no body to speak of still moving.
And this little guy was in the shower this morning:

But anyway...



So this morning we decided to get the boat to China town. However we got on a boat going the wrong way. We ended up outside of Bangkok to see a boat race of random things.

It didn't seem all bad as we should be close to the weekend market we thought.... apparently locals don't see white people often as we were stared at by everyone... it started to get a bit sketchy.
I tried asking a local tuktuk about the nearest train. But unlike the others he was not interested.

This is the most sketchy part. I noticed a small truck appear with blacked out windows and two guys in the back staring.
The truck then pulled round and stopped near us taking to this tuktuk. I surrounded us with locals trying to get their help until the guys got bored and left. Then we headed back to the boat.

Finally got a boat to china town (right direction!) china town was nice, but taxis and tuktuks were telling us part of it was closed and wanted us to go to tourist places we had already been, but when we got past them everything was still open.

One random guy told us Gold Mount was closed; it wasn't.

Being to think locals know nothing about Bangkok.

Mmm got tickets for rest of holiday, sweet. Will show places I will be staying when I get there to reassure that they are as nice as I made out.

Dinner in the Siam centre and then onto Patpong the read light district

So many people wanted us BOTH to watch a ping pong show - this was slightly sketchy.
We then walked down another alley which happened to be the gay alley.... Caitlin said my face was the funniest thing she saw all day.


Before we left we had a drink in a go go bar. Actually alright, not pushy people like before! I don't have photos though as I didn't think I would get away with it.

Back now and ready to go to Chiang Mai tomorrow! Long train journey so may not update until tomorrow night or Tuesday.

Keep up the good work!

Matt

TT:3 - disappointing

Bargin Bucket!

Hello all!

Ok firstly I was too busy and tired yesterday to give an update so I will make up for it.

4th - Flight was delayed, I didn't board until 9:30! So had to rush at Abu Dhabi, but apparently noone else on my flight did as we were waiting for them... people suck.
Flights over were pretty good screen in back of the chair with a lot of films and TV shows and a bit of a sleep, I was lucky on the first flight as I was in the isle and at the back so could put my seat right back.
Second flight someone was in my window seat but I just took the isle (people are the same everywhere) Much harder to sleep when its so bloody sunny outside! I actually used the eye mask, it seems you get to that point of tiredness where you just dont care anymore.

5th -

I met Caitlin at the baggage area, she hadn't been waiting too long and we both weren't too tired (so I thought) so we managed to get a public taxi from the airport - non public are apparently dodgy!

Took the taxi an hour to get us there but only 450 baht which comes too ₤9.50! Bargain 1

Right, so the hotel [http://www.lamphutreehotel.com/ check it] we hadn't booked, also the taxi dropped us off at this shady bridge where someone was going to show us. I didn't think this was the place but after walking past all these local thai's sitting cooking food outside where they lived there is this nice hotel! I will post pictures, you will understand then if you think it doesn't sound odd at the moment.

But as I said, shady but nice. Also turning up, they gave us the Deluxe room at standard price Bargain 2
This is in a separate building round another shady corner with so many run down looking buildings and one really nice one at end.

We got some nice authentic thai food after.... actually no we didn't we got pizza from a random place which seems pretty clean. Though walking there there are so many thai cafe's packed with people eating on a really short side walk. Thats is the main thing other than the temples and buildings here I've noticed. People everywhere where you wouldn't expect. Its hard to describe but just looks so different, along with the one woman lying on the floor and the stray dogs running about. Also I saw one bird, only one. In a Tesco!  But I will come to that.

6th -

I slept for 14 hours, I didn't think I was that tired but that King size bed (awesome) is comfy and the aircon. Hard living all around I have this room, weird. But yeah I got up at 2, Caitlin apparently 10:30... I couldn't be woken, meh.

Trying to recover what was left of the day we set out and randomly as we had no idea where we were found an ex police man who explained where we were what we should see and explained about the taxi-tuktuk situation. Seems that public taxis and tuktuks get free fuel, which makes them a bargain to use.
He hailed down a tuktuk and off we went to see the Giant Budda. This tuktuk costs 20 Baht - 40p! (but wait) He said he would wait for us to get back to him, which we were not sure about but he insisted.

Then he took us to TAT, a tourist infomation where a nice woman pretty much planned out holiday and saved us a lot of money. Nice hotels and flights (one hotel is actually a hut on a beach on the island with the full moon party. Bargin 3 ₤500 - this also includes train and hotel in Chiang Mai, treks in Chiang Mai, flights to Phuket, hotel in Phuket, boat to Phi Phi, flight from Phi Phi to island and flights to bangkok. So Bargain!

After we then went to see the Black Budda which I have a video of and will upload tomorrow hopefully.
Next he took us too a special tailoring shop which is sponsoring the free fuel or tuktuks and taxis. A man at the black budda explained the free fuel again and gave us some history about thialand formerly Siam, most of you probably know that but i didn't. Anyway I got fitted for a suit, I don't have one and it will be hand made with a shirt one jacket, one sport jacket and trousers. How much? For a tailor fitted suit, hand made and sent to England? oh and a tie! 21000 Baht.... but I barterd down to 16000! ₤335! Bargain 4!

The Tuk tuk, who still waited! then directed us to a river taxi. He asked for 20Baht, but he had been with us all day and only asked for 40p!! We felt we had to give him 100 instead which still didn't seem like enough.
But Bargin 5 - ₤2!

A river taxi then took us to the MBK mall which was bloody massive! Had Pad Thai for dinner which was really nice. We then decided to walk home where we found a Tesco! Or Tesco Lotus, we got some snacks for the train on Monday, this is where we saw the bird. Inside the Tesco. I guess birds like aircon.
Anyway we walked home avoiding anymore tuk tuks, not that they are bad just wanted to walk. This took an hour and now are back!

Photos and videos tomorrow! I guess people won't read this until Monday or something so goodbye for now :)

Matt

TT : 1

Pre Flight Check-in!

Evening all!

Long time since the last blog and this first one will be short. Just waiting to see what Gate I will be departing from, no idea what the plane is like but must be better than the Air Transat ones!

I will have a quick stop off at Abu Dhabi before going to Thailand so might have something to report there.
Absolutely shattered!  Been walking the length of London the last two days, which is nice but I'm glad to be sitting down for the best part of 13 hours to recover. (Thats including the stop off.).

I've left Caitlin to her flight from the other terminal, thought she arrives 2 hours before me, she does not leave for another 2 hours. Alright for some!

Ok thats is for now, keep watching I plan on putting up pics when I can.

Bye!

TT : 0