Thailand

Booked our tickets off phi phi island and managed to get a hostel booked at the same time. Great..... except for the complications that followed the next day. We had check twice to make sure all was ok the day of booking!! So off we went to the peir the next morning ony to find out that she booked us on separate boats and seperate taxi's. Grrr.... Sorted out after alot of running, sweating and sore feet. I picked the wrong day to start wearing flipflops!!! The boat run over was pretty ok, apart from the large number of ladyboys queing for the ladys toilet, and then not remembering to put the seat up and watering all over the seat. Louise really appreciated the 20 min queue wait and then the wet seat that came with it, especially seeing as the mens toilets were empty.

so arrived in Phuket, landed at our prebooked guesthouse, the name of it ...wait for it...Loveli Wedding Guesthouse 5 storey brand new building, flowers everywhere with everything decoraded in pink!The family that owned it ran a wedding shop and massage palour downstairs! Im sure our reactions were priceless! besides all that it was actually the cleanest bigggest cheapist room we stayed in in Thailand! so we stayed in Phuket for 4 nights. Didnt really get up to much here just chilled out on the beach, got some thai massages in and some yummy thai food from down the street!We ventured onto the strip twice while we were there....scary place to be at night!biggest population of he/shes we have ever seen definitely 1 in 3 and thats just the ones we noticed! Super Sleazy place!
Went into the irish bar on the strip "scruffy Murphys", pub was so out of place there, had some beers and watched really good live band, altho their version of Roxanne was not nearly as good as Baz's!!

Evening all! going to be a short one

We are still in Thailand, have just arrived in Phuket after a long day of complications- Nothing unusual about that tho, In fact i think things would be very boring if everything ran smoothly!
Since we last updated we have pretty much become beach bums! We moved to Koh Phi Phi last Monday. This was a major culture shock not sure what we were expecting but it was about 10 times crazier. So as soon as the boat docked we had the usual swarm of people trying to get us to stay at their house.... after we bypassed these we went into this maze of streets. At this stage it was very hot and we had no clue what we were at. so dropped off our bags with some travel agents and decided to go and hunt for a room.... this was much harder then expected! High season has just started here! must have went into about 10 places that were full...then came accross the ones that were way out of our budget. getting pretty desperate we settled for a small new guesthouse that was very cheap. cheap because it had no ceilings or floors and some seriously messed up roosters living outside the window! anyway it had a good shower and thats all we cared about at that stage!
So if that wasnt energetic enough for one day we decided to head to the viewpoint...up the mountain...approx 700 steps!! steep steps, dont think i would have went up if i thought about the coming back down again
Anyway that was worth it , view was really cool! I think we collapsed on one of the beautiful beaches after that.
that night we met up with Bernie and Keir ( Krabi friends) for a small few sore heads all round the next day.

Phi Phi is a nice place but its is seriously overloaded with tourists, you can guess that by the price and difficulty of getting somewhere to sleep. I'm sure it was once a really beautiful place and it still is in a way but the amount of construction and building things on top of each other is a bit much.

Denis booked himself into an open water diving course for the next 3 days, after we found a new room cos the mozzie bites were starting to get a bit much! So we moved into a lovely place right beside the beach that was twice the price but worth it! It made Phi Phi a much better experience!

I spent the next few days reading and working on my freckles while Denis became Mr Scuba!

Diving course - Denis's entry
We weren't too sure how long we would stay on phi phi after we first arrived. It didn't seem to match what we were expecting but there was also supposed to be excellent diving there. I had wanted to do the course for a few years now and it only cost 200 euro compared to 700 odd back home. So i went into a dive school get some info I was told that I would have to swim around a large boat 3 times and then thread water for ten minutes as part of the course. This scared me off doing but I was very disappointed. The fact that I was hungover and not feeling in the best place at the time didn't give me much confidence either. But Louise knew how much i wanted to do the course so she convinced me I'd be ok and showed me how to float(cme in handy for 6 of the 10 minutes threading water). I went back to the dive shop and got more assurances that I'd be grand so booked the 3 day course.

There was two others on the course with me, a Swedish girl and a lad from Armagh (Marc Thompson). neither of them had dove before so it took them a little time to get used to the whole under water breathing and safety stuff. The dive instructed was very patient and very good at calming and making sure we were all ok. The first day was spent on the beach in shallow water gong over the basics.

The second day we headed to Phi Phi lai. We had two dives that day, more safety procedures which were a big mad when you were 10m at the bottom of a reef and there are leopard sharks and turtles swimming around you. We spent about 2 hours in total diving. Me and Marc had to surface before the others cause we took deeper breaths that the girls(bigger lungs). At lunch time came the dreaded swim test. I let all the others go first cause I wanted as many instructors keeping an eye on me as possible. We I jumped in to do the swim my instructor wanted me to do the breast stroke, slowly. I tried this for half a boat length but was knackered, i managed to finish it but needed a few mins to catch my breath. The threading water went ok for the first 4 minutes, (which seemed like 20) after that I was wrecked so I floated for the rest of the time, much to the amusement of the whole boat. They didn't know that floating was allowed, ha ha. I passed the written exam that evening.

The third day we had a different instructor, a French girl who didn't seem as aware of us as the other instructor. She spent most of the time looking ahead of us, not really checking we were ok. It was hard get her attention when we needed something. She even sent me and Marc to the surface by ourselves when marc reached to the low air safety limit. We were floating around the island for 15 mins before we found our boat. It was a good laugh tho. We seen a whole rack of fish and coral on the two days diving. The most spectacular of which was a 10ft leopard shark. I floated over him about a meter above him while he slept. He woke up and cruised along beside me for about a minute. I was told they were completely harmless, as they are bottom feeders but he sure was an intimidating looking critter. We also saw some massive silver finned tuna, scorpion fish, nemo's, turtles, Squid, a few big octopus, and hundreds of large shoals fish. Its was really amazing down there and the feeling of weightless was something else. I also spent almost three days off the beer while doing the course. Wooh!

Well... We took the overnight train from Bangkok to a port close to the island of Ko Samui, In the upstairs bunks again. It was a pretty long un eventfull night. We got off the train at 6 in the morning to RAIN! We hadn't been expecting this, we got on a bus that was to take us to the port but the boat was cancelled due to bad weather... (not a good sign). We to the bus south for another hour then got on another ferry. Rough wasn't the word for the sea's. Reminded me of the torry ferry in November. The journey only lasted for an hour thankfully. We got off the boat and took a taxi to our beach huts. The taxi guy totally ripped us off but we were happy too be on dry... well I should say wet land. It turned out the guy who owned the huts had mailed us telling us it was miserable and we should not come. We were the only ones in the resort bar an old english couple and George the MASSIVE belguim sheppard dog. The flood water lucky hadn't touch our resort but the road to it was pretty much washed away. When we talked to locals they all seemed to say it was the rainy season..... where as all the guide books say rainy season ends in October.... (Thanks Lonely planet).

We went for food in the resort that night. I ordered the red curry with beef, but first got prawns...then got fish.. then got pork.... not a good start and I even made moo noises to try and help them understand. Much to louises ammusemnent. Still I setteled for the pork which was delish after all. We decided to take a run up the town and have a beer to figure our next move. We ended in a bar called jordans, run by an english guy called stuart. Apparently he used to work in the engineering department of the jordan F1 team. He had the look and swagger of an old english gangster, even had a pretty nasty scar on his face. Still he was a good laugh, we got plenty of info on where to head next and he even dropped us home in his pickup! We we got to the resort he kindly kept George the dog occupied while we ran for the beach hut! Sound boy!

The next day wasn't as wet but still no sun, we decided to book a ferry and bus to Krabi on the other side of the coast of thailand. Early start to the day, 6 o'clock pickup. We meet a cork couple who had been on the island for 7 days and it rained steady for all seven. They were heading to Ko Phi Phi to find some sunshine. We had a good laugh with them, the four of us were dropped off at a road cafe without much information as to what was happening next. The grumpy driver just pointed at our sticker on our shirts and said! Off ... Off.. It turned out to be a good thing tho because the next bus to pick us up was a VIP bus... seats recline all the way back. Lousie made the most of it and got a good sleep.

The bus drop off point was more of the same.... outside town, with only taxis to take you to krabi. The cork couple headed to Phi Phi, hope to meet them again along the line We haggled an bit then got two americans to jump in with us aswell. The taxi's in Krabi are old supped up, boy racer Toyota Carinas. We stayed in krabi one night in a pretty basic 3 euro a night guesthouse with a roof top bar. Cool for the sunset. We meet another couple that night, who had been traveling in india! They seemed to have a bit of a nightmare over there... Glad we left it off the list now!

Next day we headed to Ao Nang, 25Km up the coast with a nice beach. We jumbed into the back of a pickup, threw our bags on the roof and paid a euro for the trip. We we're lucky with our accomadation when we landed, the first palace we tried had a clean bathroom, close to the beach and cheap enogh. There seems to be alot of new buildings in Ao Namg... especially after the Tsunami. The beach here is unreal and the weather scorching. Its also full of Nordic people. On our first day we needed to get our laundry done, we waled around to make sure we found somewhere with washing machines. Next day we arrived to collect the stuff, looking forward to some clean clothes only to find they smelt like a bog hole! Not impresses we went back to get our cash back! The scene that followed cannot be described in words completely... lots of "it stinks.... you know smells really bad" then them all smelling it and talking amoung themselves. I nearly burst out laughing it was so comical, but I held it back and louise made it clear that a refund was the least we'de be expecting for ruined clothes. Go Lou! They handed our the cash pretty lively after that. That night we passed them all sitting around playing cars and getting full. Not surprised the clothes didnt wash. We got our wash sorted with a nice lady round the corner. Thanks nice lady!
Ao Nang is the first place on our travels where the pasties(westerns) out number the locals. We spent the last four days sitting on the beach, and eating out, Red curry every night! Trying to find the hotest so we can go back! Its so nice here we decided to stay two extra nights, after all we have the Ko Samui days to use up.

We took a four island tour on the local long tail boats today. The boats are powered by large, open diesel engines, not the safest for the skippers hands by the looks of them. We went snorkling in Tup island and Poda island, relaxed on the pure white beach of chicken island (named cause it looks like a chicken) and went to see the Pranang Cave! On the way back it started to rain, but hopefully it wont last. We're heading to Ko Phi Phi tomorrow, no hotel booked so hoping it works out. We might even bump into the two couples we meet on the way here. I think its so nice they are staying extra days.

Hope alls well with ye all back home.

Oh and we cant upload any pics yet cause we maxed out the limit for november with the last batch.

Den and Lou

Cant believe its been only a week!! firstly thanks for the major send off and all the wonderful presents! much appreciated!

Well, Finally getting to update the blog now, internet connection and the adjusting to the hectic Thai and mainly bangkok way of life has taken almost a week. The flight over was very long, ended up watchng the rugby in the airport lounge while waiting for our flight to board. Landed in Bangkokat 4pm, the heat was something else, the sky was very dark and thunnderstorms weren't far away. We decided to give the many heckling taxi drivers a miss and try and find the local bus to Ko san road. It turned out to be a lot easier that expected. I ended up sitting beside a canadian who had been living in Bangkok for 21 years, I did my best to get as much infor from him in the 35 minute journey in. He seemed to be a quide for forgien reportes in the city, There was a japanise and german group of reportes with him who seemed to be doing some sort of political documentary and quote "we're being followed by under cover police or "dequihn". Louise had the pleasure of attempting to speak in sign language with a german traveller. We arrived in Ko San Road just as it started to get dark, the smell of the place is something else - rotten eggs is the closed thing I can descibe it as. We made our way round to the royal hotel, the junction took some manovering and we just managed to get in before the heavens opened. Our room was ok, 1700 bat per night, about 35 euro.(deserved some luxury to get over jet lag!) We headed downstair to go out but the rain sent us back. we did a little haggeling to buy an umbrella and headed out into the night. Lashing rain and 34 degrees... HOT and Wet! again alot of taxi and Tuc tuc men hasseling us with "where you go" etc. We walked down Ko san road. This place is Nutts! Its abit like a sunday market at home only everything is cheaper and dirtier. We headed back to the hotel to have something to eat but decided to have a Chang beer instead... phew thats stuff is strong. I also not totally with it from the flight proceeded to tip the waitress 20 bat thinking I was paying for the drinks. We headed to bed weary for travelling.

Next day we had a nice brekkie of fruit and pancakes in the hotel and headed and booked our overnight train tickets for chang mai in a "tourist information office". These places are total rip off merchants, we wanted to sort visa's for vietnam but they wanted 60 euro and also said we needed one form cambodia which was another 40 euro. We decided we would try sort it out ourselves as the markup was almost 300%. We left the office and heading walking, we wanted to see some of the Wats or temples of bangkok. Lots of taxi and tuc tuc hasseling again. Your supposed to just say no and walk away but for the first 20 or 30 times I felt it was rude to walk away without being polite. I soon changed this. We eventually got talked into a "government tuc tuc" Spent 4 hours looking at temples and didnt have to pay as it was a special holiday. There was of course a catch to getting a 50cent tuc tuc for the day. After every two temples we were brought to a "government shop" a tailor or jewelery shop. We finally bout a miniture tuc tuc for the fridge. When the driver asked what we bought, he was disappointed to find it cost 2euro. It turnes out that they get a cut of what we buy. He finally dropped us off when we wanted to go realising that we weren't going to buy big. We were finally at the great palace, the location of the emerald budda, but to our disappointment we couldnt go in. Not sure why, could havebeen our open sandals or the fact that we weren't thai - special day for thai buddists. Later that night we found a massive shopping centre where we tried some of the thai food as it looked alot cleaner than on the streets. Once we eat and bought somm knock off ralf shirts we went to hotel for some more chang beer and bed. Jet lag stilll with us.
Next day we took our luggage to the train station for storage as we were heaidng to chang mai on tha overnight train. We dropped or bags and took the metro to lumpini park. The metro and the underground was spotless, really clean with an armed solider at the entrance checking backpacks. Train was also spotless with english anouncements at each stop. We spent a while looking for the park, it turned to be at the other side of a crazy jucntion. We finally got into the park and spent the day chilling out by the water. We headed back and stopped for something to eat(starbucks) in a massive building devoted to plastic surgery and dental reallignment. Full of rich americans!! We headed back to the train station to wait for outr 7:30 train to chaingmai. The train was pretty dounting at first, we had the upper bunks(think submarine bunks) accross for each other with was good, but apparently the lower bunks were better. We met to english girls who had booked the lower seats below us. Had a quick chat with them, then the watched a DVD! Flashpackers! The sleep on the train we surprisingly good, the rocking of the carrage helped and the small space was enough to store our valuable in our sleeping bags. The flashpacker below me had her phone stolen when she went to the bathroom. All our stuff had been locked down or in our bags so we had no problem. The 10 hour journey had taken 16 hours but it did help us catch up on some sleep. We got a taxi (toyota hilux with two planks for seats to the guesthouse called "your guesthouse". 5 euro a night and was ok but the shower wasnt great. we decided to book or trek with them also as they didnt hassle us as some guesthouse reportidly do. Only 15 euro for 1 day trek also which was really good. We didnt fancy spending more time in the jungle just yet as it was still all abit strange and new. We headed to the (UN) Irish pub for some lunch, first real thing in almost 24hrs. Fisrt empressions of chaing mai are good, this place is alot more chilled out than Bangkok, even the tuc tuc men are polite. Later went to internet to catch up on bebo, but found it to be blocked in most places.
Next day went on our trek in the mountains, bus full of german and englsh girls and one strange either mexican or french old guy with very little english. Bus took an hour to get to the mountains, we passed a moped accident on the way, which put the idea of renting one for the day out of our minds. The first 20 mins of the trek where tretty touch, we lost two people who turned back. We crossed an old bridge across a massive river which was pretty hairy, it was a hot day and climbing was tough. We made it to the first hill tribe after about an hour. It was pretty commercial and a little dissapointing to find what was pretty much a shop at the top of the hill. We bought something and headed back, nect was the elephant rides, our driver looked like the guy out of Oung Back the movie. UIT was cool but we felt sorry for the elephants as they seemed to be a little pissed off that we were up there so long and just seemed to wanna eat the forest. We passed a massive spider hanging just over our heads. scary! We stopped for food in a dodgey looking shack before heading to another hill tribe. This time there was a road all the way to the tribe village or "Shops" This tribe were all about money so we didnt buy anything this time. We then went to an amazing waterfall and on to the bamboo rafting. We got our life jackets and headed off down the river on what was basically 5 bamboo trunks tied together. I was steering fromt he back(badly at that). We got truley soaked but had great fun doing it. We headed back and booked or flights for cambodia and back to bangkok, then and a beer to celebrate and went to bed happy that we could chill out for the rest of our stay up here.
moved hostels the next day and discoved that washed ur hands and wafter coming out of the bottom of the sink at your feet was not the norm!!!
new guest house is good! nice and clean and even has a balcony( only an extra 2euro)!
chilling out here for next day or 2 and then back to bangkok! will put up some pictures whenever we find a good internet connection!
hope all is well at home! keep the emails and the comments coming! laters