So it's been a while since the last blog -sorry! We spent a night in Singapore before flying to Phuket. Although we only saw a snapshot of Singapore we really liked it. It was so easy to get around on the metro/underground and we found our hostel after a short walk. We ate at a local food court and had a nice time mocching around!
After quite a bumpy flight to Phuket (I was scared) we were excited to be meeting with our friends Heather and Garth who were on their way to Australia. We stayed at Karon beach and they were just around the corner at Kata beach. Stayed at Beshert guesthouse which was superb, would highly recommend there! We spent the next four nights enjoying dinner, beers, pool but mostly Mojitos with Heather and Garth. We also celebrated Garth's birthday with a variety of cocktails, rubgy, mini golf and the boys enjoyed some Thai whisky!! Phuket was good fun and we really enjoyed hanging out with friends.
We reluctantly left Heather and Garth in Phuket and made our way to Koh Phi Phi Don. We decided to stay on a gorgeous quiet beach around from the port -Long beach. It was stunning, I have never seen anything like it in my life. We spent time chilling on our beach and swimming in the beautiful sea! Spectacular views and there were maybe 4 other people on the beach with us! We decided to walk the 2km around the coast road to the main town to watch the rugby etc. This was a cool, a real busy party town with some cheap beer and food! We ended up going to the Reggae bar to watch some Muay Thai and drink some buckets! We had our own party that night! We bought snorkels and enjoyed snorkelling at Long beach, lots of beautiful fish! We left Koh Phi Phi Don after a few nights and made our way to Koh Lanta.
The ferry trip to Koh Lanta was pretty rough and the boat had to stop half way to rescue a bag that had fallen off the ferry and floated away! Whoopsie! Everyone was quite confused by the stopping and it was raining so hard that the bags were pretty soggy!! Still we all made it (bags included) to Koh Lanta. We shared a taxi with some nice Aussies we had met on the boat to Klong Nin beach. We stayed in a cute bamboo shack in a small, lovely beach hut place. We hired a bike and cruised around the island checking out local food shacks and driving through gorgeous little villages. Leonardo Di Caprio has a house there so we went to find it, think we made it to somewhere nearby. We had to abort our mission as the weather turned on us, it was fun trying though! We also went walking through the jungle to find a Waterfall, this was a great adventure. Wandering up the stream/river, through bush, popped into a cave and eventually under the canapy of jungle and dark clouds we found the waterfall. We stopped off for a paddle as it the pool at the bottom wasn't very deep or big! By the time we had finished the monsoon came down -really, really heavily! We walked as fast as possible back along the stream (that was quickly growing) and through the rather soggy jungle back to the bike. It didn't stop raining for hours and hours and the roads were pretty poor on the way back. We made it safely back to the shack with a dirty bike and a funny story! The weather didn't really improve too much so we hid from the monsoon. We managed to get a few swims in and a few trips out on the bike. We even saw a big black Scorpion when we were out and about. That was very cool but very scary too! Although we didn't have the best weather I really enjoyed our time there. After a few nights we decided to head of to Koh Phangan.
The trip to Koh Phangan was quite long as we were picked up early. We took the bus over to the ferry and crossed over to the mainland. After a furious bus trip to Surat Thani we were dropped off at a bus station. We had a bit of time before our trip to the ferry so we found a nice local place and had some lunch! We then got a bus to the ferry pier and jumped on the ferry to Koh Phangan. The ferry ride was much better than our previous trip!! Koh Phangan is stunning! We stayed at a gorgeous resort, up the rocks from a gorgeous little beach at backpackers rates! We hired a bike and explored the island, full of beautiful beaches and scenary! I had my first scooter ride here, certainly scared Rads but I really enjoyed myself! I loved Koh Phangan and could've stayed there forever! We found a few great places to eat including an all you can eat (pay for what you leave) BBQ place. I'll try and put a photo up of the BBQ place it was tasty and fun. We popped over to Haad Rin which is where the famous full moon beach parties are held. Unfortunately we missed every variation of moon party, we may pop back in November for the next full moon -not sure! I loved Koh Phangan so did Rads, I'm sure we'll head back one day.
We left Koh Phangan and took a ferry to Koh Tao. Koh Tao is big for snorkelling and diving and there are some great deals there. We plan to revisit there to complete our PADI dive training (so many great deals) one day. We hired a bike (are you noticing a theme yet?) and explored as much as we could, there are few 'good' cement roads. We drove as far as we could near Tanote Bay to go snorkelling. I have never seen anything so incredible in all my life! The marine life was fab, it was basically a drop off 20metres from the beach with an abundance of marine life! Everything from interesting fauna to big fishies! I loved it! By far the best place we have snorkelled! Well so far!! I'm already looking forward to our next trip to Koh Tao! We found a bar and enjoyed the rugby world cup, NRL and AFL games. The bar was called Choppers and they advertised a pub crawl there, guess what? We went on the pub crawl! It was awesome, great games and great people! If you're ever in Koh Tao and fancy a night out -do ittt!! After a pretty heavy night out we were booked on the ferry to Koh Samui the next morning!
The ferry was really, really rough! It stopped at Koh Phangan on the way to Koh Samui where we had to change ferries, we could've easily got off and stsyed there! The ferry was not the best idea on a bucket hangover! Still, we made it to Koh Samui and shared a Songthaew (taxi like a larger tuc tuc) to Lamai beach. We seem to be on a pretty good spree of 300 baht per night rooms (£6/ $9.50) that are good quality! I liked Lamai beach, we took it easy there for a bit. Rads wanted to show me a few places around Samui so we hired a bike (again) I really enjoyed doing our own thing and exploring with the bike! We visited 2 food markets on the island and saw such a wide variety of fresh fish, meat and veggies on sale! We had the best (and biggest) bowl of Roast Pork Noodle soup for 30 baht (60p/$1). We have been really getting into noodle soup in Thailand, it's so cheap and tasty! Could go for some now (writing this from the slow boat in Laos)! We had pre-booked flights to Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai so we only spent a couple of nights on Koh Samui.
The day we travelled to Chiang Mai we took a variety of different transport. I think it's something like; 1 minivan, 1 taxi, 1 tuc tuc, 1 Ferry, 3 coaches, 2 shuttle buses and 2 planes! It was a massive day! We stopped in Bangkok Airport for a few hours and treated ourselves to a Mc Donalds (something we regretted afterwards), Rads found a double Big Mac and I challenged him to get it. After minimal persuasion he had it! It was actually nicer than a standard Big Mac! Enough of the food talk, so we got to Chiang Mai and took a taxi to Junior Guesthouse, the staff there are amazing and made sure that we had a great time! We wandered around Chiang Mai visiting the temples, including the oldest temple in Chiang Mai! We hired a bike and travelled up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple. The monsoon hit when we were there so we took our time to go around, taking refuge under anything and enjoyed the beautiful temple. We carried on along the road to Doi Pui Hmong Village. This is the home of a hill top tribe who have regenerated their town to sell local clothes and other local handicraft. This was really cool and we were about 1,685 ft above sea level! Literally driving through the clouds to get there! We wandered around the village and paid extra to go to the gardens and waterfall. It was a beautiful place, quite and serene with stunning views of the mountains! We saw a couple of opium poppies too!! We decided to carry along the mountain to find the hill top tribe camping area and another hill top village. We stopped to help a pregnant lady and a man get their car out of a muddy lay by but it didn't work. We left but it was ok because another couple went to get help and later they drove passed us -shouting thank you and waving! Phew! We couldn't drive to the second village as the roads weren't too good and we were unsure if we would make it back with the fuel we had left! I really enjoyed this adventure though! We planned to spent the Sat watching the Rugby world cup and the AFL grand final. We eventually found a couple of places to watch the games. We met a really nice Aussie chap and his sister. They were living in Chiang Mai and ended up taking us to some great local spots. We went for dinner at 'the fish ladies' (not her official name but how she was known to the aussies) which was super yummy! I even ate fish -and like it!! We spent the rest of the night drinking, playing pool and ended up at a Jazz bar! The musicians were fab and after a lot of Thai whisky we were all having a dance! A great night with great people! The next day we went to meet the Aussies and watch the NRL final. We were massivly hungover but it was ok! We agreed dinner at Warorot market and then we all wandered to the Sunday Chiang Mai 'Walking Market'. This market was incredible! So many different stalls of handicrafts, clothes, cushions, soaps, street massages, key rings etc were on sale. Food stalls were located in temple grounds and the hustle and bustle was fab. We had some fresh juice, a few nibbles and tried Quail eggs, they were super yummy! I liked them! After walking around maybe 1/4 of the market (which took a couple of hours) we were really tired so called it a night! Loved the markets! The next day we were headed further north to stay near the Laos border. We found a deal with our guesthouse to get us to the border, but that is another story............
