Take Five - Thailand

Sawatdee Krab! Here lies the Thailand blog. March-April 2008.

Well, what can you say about Bangkok that hasn't been written before? Nothing, it's a steaming pile of poo. Actually that’s a bit harsh, I’ll try again…..

We dropped our bags in a hotel right on the Koh San Road, which probably would not have been our first choice if we’d planned ahead, but it was dark, everywhere was fully booked and we didn’t know where the hell we were. Plus the glow of neon beckoned us in, a bit like a saggy old prostitute would to a drunk outside a Soho strip joint…you can’t come all this way and not visit the Koh San! We popped down to Chinatown, but it was nothing special, just a market selling tat you would never want to buy unless you had to. The Grand Palace and the Temple of Doom, or whatever it was called was passable, but we’ve spent the last two months looking at temples, pagodas and wats all of varying degrees of decoration, grandeur, age and repair. By this point we just wanted to sit down in the shade and have a cold drink.

The newer part of town around Siam Square is all very Cosmo. Rachel had her hair cut at a hip ‘n’ happenin’ salon all the cool Thai kids seem to go and it cost a reasonable 8 pounds, so you can’t argue with that. We also popped in and played a bit of Ten pin bowling and succumbed to the fact that we are both pretty rubbish at it. So, bang goes my idea of hustling in the bowling dens of America when we’re skint. I'll just have to sell a kidney to some poor Latino in downtown LA who hasn't got health insurance.

We also liked travelling on their River Taxi, Sky train and Metro. The Metro carriages are so well air conditioned that condensation drips off the hand rails and it’s like sitting in a fridge. With it being 38degrees outside you could happily ride around all day. The only way they could make the journey more enjoyable would be to serve beer, I’ve put it in the suggestion box so fingers crossed.

The hassling in Bangkok gets a bit too much though. It‘s not just shouting out from stalls hawking for business or passengers for their Tuk Tuk's or Moto’s like in Cambodia or Vietnam, which although annoying at times is quite easy to ignore. These guys have taken it to another level. They stop you in the street and tell blatant lies, trying to con trusting tourists into either a. getting an overpriced taxi just down the road or b. taking you to a crappy gem store where they can get commission from the owners. "Where are you going?…oh that shopping centre doesn't open until (checks his watch) 3pm, it's a Buddhist holiday!" What?!?!?!? Another one is telling you the temple you want to see is closed because the queen died two weeks ago, or they won’t let you in dressed like that so better to go this way. We got stopped by three different people within 100 yards trying that…one even stood outside the gates to the temple where you could clearly see people walking in to the bloody thing! It's just so boring to have to put up with. So, if you ever come here remember one thing…Stranger Danger!

After faffing around in Bangkok we decided to jump an overnight train and go up to Chiang Mai in the north. So we went to the station, bought two ‘cockroach class’ tickets and sat out our last day in a Bangkok bar with our eyes closed.

Chiang Mai was like a breath of fresh air...not in the literal sense as the town sits in a valley so during the hot, dry months smog originating from forest fires and minority tribes slashing and burning their land is trapped and hangs over the town like a thick hazy blanket. It’s a lovely town though and much more affordable than Bangkok, a very agreeable $10 a night room doesn't lie.

The main reason why most travellers come up here is for trekking. You can’t get from your bed to the bathroom to take a piss without passing a guide trying to sell you a tour through the jungle. For us the choice was so overwhelming reverse logic dictated that we didn’t do any of them. So that’s what we did. Instead we decided to go to an elephant sanctuary, ride an ATV quad bike, go to a Thai cookery school and hire out a moped to ride around town like the cool kids. We definitely wanted to see some Asian elephant’s while we were here, but we had heard that they are mistreated and overworked on some tours, so we went to the Elephant nature foundation (www.elephantnaturefoudation.org) instead. It does exactly what is says on the tin: it’s a sanctuary for elephants, saved from maltreatment in villages and from logging companies etc. Its been on the Discovery Channel among other things. The photos speak for themselves so I won’t go on about it, but I will say it’s an amazing place and although quite expensive for SE Asia standards, worth every penny. We fed the elephants and gave them a bath in the river…Yes it is a bit girlie I know, but who cares. Giving a four ton elephant a back scrub with a broom is one of those moments that makes you sit up and realise you really are a million miles away from everyday life back home…unless washing elephants is your job back home that is, then it would be exactly like being at home and that would be rubbish. Lek, the founder of the sanctuary, then turned up with a newspaper reporter dude and gave us a little talk about the place. Rachel also made friends with a baby elephant and received a few elephant kisses. He even stole a hat off a guys head and gave it to her as a preset. At one point I thought he was going to throw her on his back and run off like King Kong in to the sunset. Unfortunately he didn‘t……I mean fortunately he didn’t…..that was spell check’s fault, dammit. Definitely another highlight of the trip so far.

On the second day we booked ourselves in for a Thai cookery course at the cleverly named ‘Thai farm cooking school’. Rachel made spring rolls, we ground our own paste to make green and red curries, and stir fried some other Thai meals, which I can’t remember the name of. I won’t say the dishes I cooked were good because ‘good‘ can’t describe the complexity of flavours that infuse on the taste buds from my curries. Just wait until we get home and I will amaze and confound you. We cooked our food and ate it that day.

On the Third day we hired out a 125cc moped, dressed up in our best Mod gear and had a fun ride up a hill overlooking the town. We then stopped at another temple and a minority Karen village...I say minority village but it was as authentic as those you find at Epcot in Disney World. We also popped in to a Bug Museum which is owned by a lovely and slightly eccentric old Thai man, who is one of the leading authorities on all things Mosquito. He has personally discovered many different varieties over the years and the museum had an assortment of bugs and butterflies all nailed on the walls or in glass cases for you to look at. He had loads of facts and figures too: Did you know that some species are vegetarian and others are actually helpful to humans by eating the larvae of the harmful mosquitoes that carry dengue fever and malaria?. If he’s around he will talk to you until you slip out the back door when he’s not looking...or into a coma, which ever comes first.

On our last day we went on a half day ATV tour. Pretty average for an off-road tour and pretty expensive, but it was a change from what we have done before. In the early evening we wandered around the Sunday market, which was fantastic. They shut off a long street to traffic and it seems like the whole town comes out and sets up a stall. Good food and drink and just a good atmosphere. If you ever head up to Chang Mai plan in some time to wander through the Market, in our humble opinion it’s the best in Thailand.

Heading back to Bangkok we were forced to get an overnight bus because they had cancelled most of the trains (on the news they said they had to pull them out of service to be fumigated as they were all infested with bedbugs and cockroaches…which didn’t really surprise us). We bought a Government 1st class ticket, not really knowing what to expect, particularly when we upgraded ourselves to super duper VIP’s and the woman behind the counter gave us ten tickets each, all written unsurprisingly in Thai. Happily, not only was the bus faster than the train, it was comfier, cheaper and not infested with cockroaches…although we never found out what all those tickets were for.

Back in Bangkok we checked in to a hotel not far from the Ko San Road and that night we had a nice surprise, hundreds of bedbugs. There where so many we had a fat Gecko sat on the pillow gobbling them all up like it was Gecko Christmas….actually thinking about it that wasn’t really nice nor much of a surprise, with this being a sh*tty Bangkok hotel...ah well. We decided to head for the Andaman islands as soon as possible.

Getting from Bangkok to the islands seemed at first like it was going to be a ball-ache of a journey. We heard stories about Bangkok travel agencies being crooks and on the bus down they would rifle through your bags and steal your pants. After careful consideration weighing up our other options and being way too lazy to make our on way down, we decided to risk it. But, you know what, after all our reservations we had no problem getting to Koh Tao bang on time and in possession of all our pants, so you can’t say fairer than that.

Koh Tao is a beauty of an island. Probably the main diving hub in Thailand, but there are loads of quiet beaches that are pretty much deserted with not a wind break in sight, a shock to us being used to Bournemouth on a Bank Holiday. We stayed at the quiet end of Ao Chalok Ban Kao beach in a hut on the hill overlooking the sea. It had it’s own resident spider, which we christened ‘Freddy’ after that song by the Who….well I thought it was a Who song then realized it’s ‘Boris the Spider’ not Freddy…ah well, stupid brain. Not unlike Chang Mai where we didn’t trek, we didn’t dive in Koh Tao either. Instead we spent our time snorkelling with the fishes in Shark Bay during the day and sipping cocktails watching far away thunderstorms by night. The best bit was probably stepping of the beach in to 2 feet of water and having a small black tip reef shark brush past our legs. Oh and if you go, there is a wicked place called Chopsticks, near where the ferry drops you off, that does Chinese food just like it is back home.

Four days later we packed our bags again, said goodbye to Freddy and hop skipped and jumped on to a ferry to Koh Phangan. A larger and more popular island than Koh Tao and home of the Full Moon Party (where apparently up to 40,000 people have been known to parrrt-aaay the night away on a beach). Unfortunately we got there and there wasn't a full moon in sight, which was a shame. We could of rocked out at the half moon party, but what’t the point? Full moon or nothing, is my mantra. So instead we headed up to the quietest beach at the opposite end of the island.

We stayed in a resort on Hat Chom beach managed by a lovely lady with the lovely name of Bovi. Only pick-ups can navigate up and down the crappy roads at this end of the island, plus they also only have electricity between 5pm-8am. Our hut was massive, with hammocks on the balcony and sat right on the beach front. The weather was great, the water was clear and warm, you could snorkel right off the beach, the food was tasty (the restaurant served the best Massaman curry I’ve ever had) and the beer was cold. Looking back we should of stayed here for four weeks instead of four days.

You couldn’t question Bovi’s commitment to the good health of the Island either. While giving us some advice about where to stay in other parts of Thailand she excused herself and ran fully clothed in to the sea, where she swam over and confronted two Thai guys in a small boat who were hanging around the reef. After a few minutes of arguing they skulked around the corner and Bovi came back dripping wet but carried on like nothing had happened. Apparently the guys were farming for sea cucumbers (big fat worm-like things that roll around on the sea bed cleaning the sand, which in turn keeps the reef healthy). They sell them to the Chinese, who stick them in tins and sell them to Beijingers as a tasty nutritious meal.

One night the whole resort shut down and everyone went to see some Muay Thai boxing. One of the German guys staying at the resort was fighting, so to show support all the staff and guests jumped in to the back of a couple of pick-up’s to go and watch him. It’s a popular sport here and quite a few foreigners come over, train for a few weeks and then fight a local Muay Thai boxer if they so wish. Now I’ve never been to a Muay Thai fight before and still don’t really know much about the sport, but I’m going to give it a go and describe it to you as best I can. To a few some of my observations are very uneducated and possibly slightly insulting to an ancient, spiritual and graceful martial art ……for that I humbly apologise, honestly I’m not worth it.

There was six fights on this card, each of which consisted of five 3 minute rounds. It was a small venue, with the fighters on one side of the ring getting their pre-fight massages and on the other three sides sat or stood the crowd getting pissed on bottles of Singha and eating popcorn. There were also a few ‘VIP’ plastic chairs and fold-out tables set up at ringside if you needed somewhere to lay down your pizza.

Before it all got underway pop music blared out over the tannoy. How in God’s name can they expect the contenders to psych themselves up for a fight when they have to listen to ‘One Love’ by Blue I don‘t know. They should be playing survivors ‘eye of the tiger‘.

The fighters walk into the ring wearing the obligatory dressing gown and what uncannily looks like, what I can only describe as, a stringless tennis racquet on their heads. Before the fight starts they pay homage to their teacher by performing a little dance in the ring. These got more extravagant as each fight passed, and for a minute I thought we were watching American TV show ‘So you think you can dance’ instead of a brutal martial art. I swear one guy was actually doing the hand jive!…maybe his coach was a Grease fan?

As the fights start they play some cool Indian stylee Thai music with which the fighters sway their head's in time to, just like snake charmers hypnotising their opponents. At times the fights seemed a little sloth like, with the competitors moping around the ring like sulky teenagers between flurries of kicks and punches. They did play up to the crowd though. One fighter gave a WWF Hacksaw Jim Duggan stylee “hayoooooh” salute and the crowd responded back, it was bloody brilliant...or you would think so too if you are my age reminiscing about watching wrestling on TV when you were younger. After the first round they went to their respective corners, and the trainers brought out huge paella dishes to catch the water and sweat dripping off the fighters, which they then sold to a Tapas restaurant in Phuket. After a quick mop of the brow the bell rung and they were all back up on their feet ready to go again. The best bit was probably when the referee, who was weirdly dressed like a postman, broke up clenching fighters with a few flying kicks of his own. I also liked it that the supporters really got in to the fights and any punch or kick that made contact got recognition. In what other sport would repeatedly kneeing someone up the bum not only get a huge cheer from the crowd, but a point from the judges?! After a few fights it was our guys turn. He was an older guy, who unfortunately couldn’t have look more German if he had parachuted in and goose stepped around the ring. After a wobbly start he kicked some arse and was the victor. Then we all cheered and went home happy.

Other than that we didn’t really see the rest of the island. We took a stroll down the road and saw trained monkey’s knocking coconuts out of the trees, but spent most of our time not doing much on the beach. After the four days we decided to pack our bags and head for Phuket on the other side of Thailand.

The ferry journey to the mainland was pretty dull, although there was a girl on board with an extraordinary large suitcase. Now a suitcase wouldn’t normally hold my scarily ever-decreasing attention span long enough for me to comment on it, but this was no ordinary suitcase. I’m not exaggerating by saying this was probably the biggest thing Thailand has seen since the dinosaurs. It was so big it had its own gravitational pull…I swear there were actually smaller Louis Vuitton bags orbiting it! The only reason I can fathom to have a bag that big is either to A: smuggle large quantities of drugs or B: to smuggle Eastern Europeans into France. It only just managed to fit down the corridor of the boat and when we disembarked the hobbit sized girl had to actually drop it and let it roll down the stairs because it was too big to control. What was that about!?! It’s called BACKpacking fo a reason dummy.

Sorry I went off on a tangent there, where was I? There’s not a lot to say about Phuket Town. It’s a pretty average place with no real sites of interest. I guess you would normally use it as a base to go off and explore the beaches and it’s probably the most cockroach infested town we’ve visited so far. It was a lovely hostel we stayed in though. They had DVD players in your room and a huge library of films to watch, plus free internet. We stayed a couple of nights before heading over to Ko Phi Phi Don by, you’ve guessed it, another bloody ferry.

On your way to Phi Phi Don you pass by the other island Phi Phi Ley, which looks just stunning. Sadly, on Don, we parked ourselves just outside the small port town, which is probably one of the most overrated places ever. I would suggest avoiding this place like the plague, if anyone was stupid enough to ask my opinion. It looks nice, but it’s over priced and over populated and the local’s aren’t that friendly either. During our short stay, we booked a half-day snorkelling trip around Koh Phi Phi Leh with a company that only takes out small groups at a time. The total opposite to one of the boats you see taking out 200+ people, who then spend the whole time kicking each other in the head with their flippers rather than seeing any fish. It ended up being a very small group as no one else booked on, so it was just us two and the guide! We saw the Viking cave with swift nests and snorkelled in areas where no one else was snorkelling. There were so many different fish, large and small. I don’t know what they were all called, but type ’colourful tropical fish’ in to Google and what comes up we probably swam with it. We also popped over and looked at Ao Maya beach, where ’The Beach’ was filmed. A quite frankly shit beach, spoilt by the hundreds of tourists crammed on it at any one time and all the speed boats flying around. The trip was all going great until I felt seasick, threw-up while still wearing a snorkel and nearly choked to death on my own vomit while floating in the sea. Unfortunately after that we had to cut the trip short, but it was fun while it lasted. It was coming to the start of the monsoon season so we saw some spectacular rainfall and lightening storms, but being tight on time (because we had to be back in Phuket for Songkran, Thai New year…yes another bloody one!) we got back on a ferry and headed for Koh Lanta.

Rachel pulled a muscle in the base of her back while picking up her bag on Phi Phi, which slowly got worse to the point where she couldn’t walk. We managed to make it to Koh Lanta and the pleasant Hat Khlong Dao beach, but after that it completely seized up and unfortunately she had to spend nearly all our time on Koh Lanta holed up in our chalet with no TV. Luckily the staff at the resort were unbelievably helpful and even brought Rachel’s dinner to her bed a few times! We popped in to a clinic and Dr Halitosis gave her a prescription of very strong painkillers, which help ease the pain a little. She did see our second wild snake of the trip though. A small Red and Black venomous one, which I nearly stood on, because even though it was curled up on the porch of our hut I didn’t see it…I could have been bitten and died! After the drama of staring death in the face for a second time in a week, we just sat out a few days and headed back to Phuket Town in time for the Water Festival. Songkran is just one big water fight with everyone walking the street with super soakers and buckets of water drenching each other. Probably the only time and place where after throwing a cold bucket of water over a stranger you are met with a huge grin and a thank you. For those couple of days just popping to the corner shop becomes a military operation if you wanted to stay dry.

Rachel’s back was slowly getting better, but we used it as a bit of an excuse and took advantage of the great DVD collection in the hostel, watching all the Indiana Jones films back to back, and living off 7/11 microwave pizza. We took a day trip by Songtaew (the local bus) over to Hat Karon beach. Nicer than I was expecting although slightly overpriced and full of Dutch and Swedes on package holidays and fat old Germans with their Thai ‘girlfriends’…Plus it rained.

After a lot of contemplating about what to do next we decided to jump on a bus and head straight for Malaysia. We had planned on going to Railey and Krabi but there was a climbing festival on so accommodation would have been scarce and expensive and although Thailand has some of the most amazing beaches we have ever seen, it was time to see some civilisation again.

To get to Malaysia we had to go through a town called Hat Yai. Being in the Southern end of Thailand it’s seen some Islamic separatist unrest in the past - bombings of the train station, arson and shootings, that sort of thing. Both the UK FCO and US Dept of State websites for Thailand advised that only necessary journeys should be taken through that area. But experienced, hardened explorers like us laugh in the face of danger, so we pooh-poohed their advice and ploughed southwards. We were in Hat Yai a death defying 2 minutes for a quick bus change, but sadly it all seemed quite normal…so we just smirked in the general direction of danger and moved on to the border. The border crossing was very simple and easy again and we were in Georgetown on Penang island before we knew it. Now it’s was time to pass the travel baton on to Malaysia.

We had a lovely time in Thailand and the biggest tip we could probably give anyone travelling here is; if you find an island or beach that you really love and feel at home, it’s probably best to stay there because the sand is not always whiter on the other side.

That’s all for now. Bye. Joe and Rachel.x