April & Rob's Travel Blog

[April]

We instantly liked the vibe at Koh Tao. The locals were friendly and the travelers laid-back. The beaches were narrow but lovely and completely un-crouded. We settled right into the lifestyle and watched a pirated DVD in a cool bar from the floor which was covered with pillows. Then we moved on to a chilled out bar right on the beach with great lighting and loads of candles in the sand. While we were there, a couple of locals put on a fire show for us. They use parafin on the ends of 2 chains and or either end of a 4-foot stick and then they spin them around in time to music. Rob and I were 2 of only 4 people in the bar for most of the night which was lovely but we did wish it was a little bit busier. The following night was halloween so after a day chilling on the beach, we changed into our costumes. We had to improvise quite a lot as we couldn't buy anything too big or expensive. Rob found an excellent mask in Bangkok while we were looking for a new teddy to replace Henry who'd been stolen in Halong Bay. After a lot of searching I found some great hairclips-come cat ears which were perfect. I also had a little silver bell from my new teddy and used black tape for a collar. Rob and I had loads of fun drinking and getting ready to go out. Most of my costume was done with make up but I couldn't get the wiskers right so Rob had to take over and I couldn't stop laughing so the whole process took forever. When we finally got out we headed to a nearby bar and luckily a fair few people were also dressed up. The locals didn't seem to understand who Rob was - I guess The Mask came out before their booming pirated movies trade. They liked my cat costume and I got meowed at all night. It was a fun night but would have probably been better if there were more people around or we'd been in a group.

We started getting a little antzy because we hadn't done anything particularly stimulating for a while so we decided it was high time we got back into our scuba gear and back into the water. It had been just under 2 years since our last dive so we opted to do a refesher course. We were both nervous about getting back in but once we got into the pool, it all came flooding back. We practiced our skills in the morning and headed out on a boat for some dives in the afternoon. The conditions at the
first site weren't very good. Visibility was low and the current was quite strong. It was great to get in the water but we didn't see all that much besides the coral and anemone fish. We decided not to dive the second site and do one the next day to a different place instead, hoping that the conditions would improve overnight. But when we arrived at the second sight, the water was lovely and clear so we scrambled to get ready at the last second and jumped in. The underwater scenery was stunning - it was the first dive that didn't feel like work and where we weren't constantly trying to remember safety precautions. It was still a little scary looking up at the surface of the water from the bottom knowing that if something happened to our air or something attacked us we wouldn't be able to get to the surface without doing some damage. Other divers don't appear to have this fear so hopefully it will fade with time and experience.

We ran into Chloe and Vicky again and arranged to meet them for drinks at the Car Bar - a hippie camper van brightly decorated and converted into a cool bar on the beach. Chloe and Vicky introduced us to a couple of Canadian guys, Tommy and Mark, and a Finnish guy, Andreas who they'd met the previous night. The Car Bar played funky music while we sat on mats in the sand chatting and enjoying the fire show. After a slow bar crawl along the beach we stupidly tried to get 7 people on 2 quad bikes back to Tommy and Mark's nice bungalows. Vicky and I were on Tommy's bike and it was playing up - or rather someone wasn't driving it properly so after it stalled on a steep hill and we went rolling backwards down the hill, Vicky and I decided it would be best to walk. On the other hand Mark somehow managed to get himself, Chloe, Andreas and Rob up the hill with little problem. After a bottle of Jack Daniels and Pepsi on the boys beach, we headed back to the music and then made the group decision to strip to our underwear (Apart from Rob and Andreas who decided to go commando!) and go for a swim in the ocean.

After we got out we all had pancakes from a stall on the way home, and Andreas realised that he couldn't find his key. He spent the night on our concrete floor and then we all had to get up first thing in the morning to catch a boat to Koh Phangan. The whole group had separately booked the same boat and we were all headed to Koh Phangan for it's ledgendary full
moon party the following night. Rob who doesn't do well on boats at the best of times, was hungover and spent the whole journey silent, as white as a ghost and staring at the horizon. Somehow he lasted through and we were finally on land again.

Even in low season, it's essential to book accomidation in advance for the full moon parties especially if you want the cheaper rooms. We booked a place a little bit out of town and spent a bit more than normal for added security. The beach at our place was a bit shingly but the view was gorgeous and our room was great. On the night of the party, we jumped on a jumbo (truck with 2 rows of seats running along either side) with about 20 people! We had to stand up on the back and hold on for the half hour journey. Spirits were high and Rob was doing drive-by cheers' with the people overtaking us on motorbikes! When we got to the full moon party on Hat Rin beach at 11pm, it was completely packed. The streets, the beach and the bars were all full of people. We decided to hunt for our friends first and it probably took an hour or two to get from one side of the beach to the other. In that time we hadn't seen anyone we knew but didn't care because we'd been buying drinks on our way.

Rob also hod gotten himself a painted tatoo that glows under black lights. A few hours and several buckets (that consisted of a bottle of Thai whisky, a bottle of some other alcohol and a can of coke) later, we bumped into a very drunk Andreas and very shortly after that the whole group was together again. The atmosphere was great. I was impressed that we saw no fights and no-one being sick. Also everyone was so friendly, you got chatting to loads of people while waiting for the toilets or at the bars and even when men would come on to women with boyfriends, there wouldn't be any hard feelings, when the men saw the
boyfriends, they'd just apologise and all would be fine. The bars blared music onto the beach and everyone danced or sat on mats in the sand. They even had a couple of well lit sleeping areas where you could pay a small amount of money and have Thai people watch over you and your stuff while you have a nap!

Through the night we lost a couple of people and the rest went home around 6:30am. Rob and I stayed until about 7:30 when the sun was coming up and then got a taxi home and went for a swim in the sea before spending the rest of the morning and early afternoon in bed. Surprisingly not hungover, we chilled on the beach and booked a boat for the next island the following morning.

We arrived in Koh Samui and came up with an excellent plan that will no doubt stay with us for the rest of traveling. We had previously been arriving at a new place, and going to one of the guest houses in the lonely planet only to find that it's not in the same condition as when the book was written and as soon as these guest houses get written into the lonely planet, they double their prices. So then we head off to some other nearby places to ask the prices. But because we're clearly carrying all of our heavy bags, we've got no negotiating power. We'd almost always end up staying in a crappy place or spending too much for at least one night only to have to pack and move again in the morning. The new plan was to go to a restaurant, have a meal and then leave me with all our bags while Rob goes hunting for a room. We got a good room a minute from the beach and had a lovely 3 day beach holiday getting up late, laying in the sun during the day and going for romantic candlelit dinners on the beach at night. We knew we had about 3 weeks of extra time between our Thai visa running out and when we wanted to get to Australia so we talked about going to Bali and Java but ultimately decided against it because we didn't want to rush the rest of Thailand or Bali.

The next place on the list was Phuket. We went straight to the busy tourist beach, Patong. We were fairly sure we wouldn't love it there but I wanted to see a ladyboy show and then move on to the quieter beaches. We arrived late at night at the bus station and then managed to get a free lift with a lovely Thai tour guide and Rob found us a great room. The next day, we went to the beach. It was nice but way too crouded and everything was expensive. Finally we found a spot on the beach where
we weren't being bugged by touts and relaxed for the afternoon. On the way back to our hotel to get ready for the ladyboy show, we ran into Tommy who told us that Mark and Andreas were also in town and we arranged to meet later that night in the area. The show was a lot more fun than we'd expected and we weren't too close to the front so Rob could relax! Unfortunately we didn't find Tommy and the others after the show so we headed out of Patong the next morning and checked into a cheap guest house in Karon. The beach at Karon was almost the same as Patong but there were way less people which made it alot better. We
bought some snorkles and spent the days snorkling, admiring the huge variety of tropical fish in the clear blue waters and laying on the beach in the sun. The evenings almost always ended up at Boost Bar and Guest house run by a lovely friendly Kiwi called Jerry who'd just opened up shop 3 months previously. Jerry was great to talk to and there were a couple of other frequent visitors who we had a laugh with and got to know quite well. Jerry helped us out with lots of things while we were in Karon including helping us organise a day-long trip to the Burmese border to renew our visas.

Karon caters for couples and families mostly so we were excited to find they had a mini golf course really close to where we were staying. It had a dinosaur theme and we had loads of fun letting ourselves have an expensive treat! I accidently putted my ball over a 3 foot wall!! and had to share Rob's ball for the rest of the game. I really hope it didn't hit anyone or anything! I was winning almost the whole game but then I had a couple of bad holes and Rob beat me.

In Karon, I finally convinced Rob to go for a Thai massage and I got another one while he was there too. It's awesome how much a teeny Thai woman can do! Rob was convinced that his muscles hurt more afterwards than before! It can't have helped matters that he got really badly sunburned earlier that day, but he still said he felt good after his muscles had recovered.

On our last day in Karon, "we" (I) decided that it would be a great idea to check out the beach next to Karon on the other side of the rocks we'd been snorkelling at just incase there was anything we were missing out on. There wasn't. It took us ages to get there with all our stuff but Karon was so much better, we didn't want to stay at the other beach. "We" (again I) decided that it must be closer and faster to walk over the rocks around the headland to our normal spot on Karon rather than around on the road. Very bad move. An hour later we were worn out from climbing over the enormus rocks completely un-equipped in flipflops and with a bag of beach stuff. We realised at this point that we were only half way. "We" (yes, I) decided that it might be better to snorkel the rest of the way. We got in the water and Rob managed to hold the bag out of the water for all of 5 minutes before letting all the stuff get wet. (All of it was replaceable so we didn't care too much). Of course the current was much stronger than it had been before and we were barely moving towards the beach. We paused a couple of times to helpfully have a go at each other and one of these times I lost my snorkel, luckily it landed on the rocks only 10ft down so Rob was able to reach it for me. Another hour or so later, we collapsed on the beach and took stock of the damage. Both our
towels and books were completely saturated - you could actually squeeze buckets of water out of the books! It was all quite comical later when I was sitting in our room with my travel hairdryer blow drying a couple of chapeters so that I could read them that night!

From Karon, we headed to Koh Phi Phi. We went to long beach because it was supposed to be filled with budget accomodation. However the only room left there turned out to be the most expensive we'd paid for anywhere in Asia and also the worst. We managed to make the most of it and had a really good evening and stayed out of our room for as long as possible. First thing in the morning after being bitten by ants inside our mosquito net all night, we headed straight to the main area. The new room was loads better and actually a bit cheaper.

Sadly the beach wasn't all that nice, not just beacuse of the Tsunami but also because it was incredibly shallow. We spent the day there and booked a snorkelling and sightseeing trip for the next day. That night we ran into Sian and Sarah who we spent time with in Vietnam. We'd been in touch since then and tried to meet up several times but hadn't managed so it was great to see them and spend a couple of hours catching up. Typically they were leaving the next day but we will surely cross paths again. The snorkelling trip was much better than expected - the snorkelling itself was great - we saw loads of fish and took lots of photos with our new disposable underwater camera. The trip also included lunch on Bamboo Island with it's stunning water and pure white sandy beaches and also the famous Maya Beach on Koh Phi Phi Leh where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. The scenery was all fantastic and we had a great time. Phi Phi Don, (the main island where we stayed) was too touristy for us and Rob was keen to leave but somehow I convinced him to stay one more night and do a couple dives at a couple of tiny un-inhabbited islands nearby. We booked our trip at the very last minute (actually the dive shop was already closed but they were nice enough to book us in at 11pm) and first thing in the morning we were on a boat with all our gear. (minus Rob's £1 flipflops he'd bought in India that some presumably drunken idiot stole from outside our guest house the night before. That night, after he'd spent the day barefoot, I found him some flipflops in the bushes - a matching pair by colour and make but sadly one too small and one too big! He's still wearing them now because he refuses to buy more until he finds some he likes!) We had a small scuba group of only 4 people including our French-Canadian dive guide Serge. It was our
first dive with no training immediately beforehand so we were a bit nervous again. Once underwater we were fine. This was definitely our best dive yet. The water was very clear, we got to do a swim through, and saw loads of fish including a trumpet fish, sea snake, morray eel, sting ray and a leopard shark!! Serge looked back gave us the shark sign and Rob and I were really excited. He was just sitting on the bottom so we got to hover nearby watching him for a while. Typically we forgot to bring the camera with us on this dive. The second dive was great too - we didn't see any major big fish but we got to swim down a 20 meter drop off which was cool and took some photos of the scenery. That evening we watched "The Beach" at one of the bars and it was nice to see some of the places we'd been in Thailand.

The next morning we headed to Koh Lanta and checked into a gorgeous huge cheap room with a bath tub and hot water. We stayed for 3 days and didn't leave the resort once! We were trying to get some relaxation time away from the tourists before Australia. The days were sunny and the evenings had stunning sunsets followed by fantastic thunderstorms that we loved watching. With just under 2 weeks until our flight from Singapore, we booked a bus to Trang en route to Malaysia. On the bus
we made friends with Angela, a 30 something girl from England who was traveling to Kuala Lumpur. When the bus stopped in Trang, we realised there was no reason for us to be there so after only 10 minutes we were back on the bus with Angela and booked to go to Penang in Malaysia.


Sunset at our beautiful beach on Koh Tao:


The broken down old VW that served us drinks on the beach. Now thats a bar!:


This is by far the coolest fireswinger we saw in the whole of Thailand - he wasn't quite as technical as some of the others but his movements were so smooth it was really hypnotic to watch:


My halloween costume. Rob's was the green mask that was on here a few weeks back and if you missed it, tough - you should be checking more often!


Rob getting ready to dive Shark Island, Koh Tao:


Robs glow in the dark tattoo at the full moon party, Koh Phangan:
[img]http://www.roballan.co.uk/blog/photos/thailand
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Partygoers at sunrise on the beach:


Ooooh Matron! The ladyboys put on their best performance at the Simon Cabaret, Patong:


Yabba-dabba-dooo!! We couldn't resist climbing into this flinstones replica after dinner at the Dino Park, Karon:


Jerry struts his stuff on a makeshift pole made of bamboo at Boost Guesthouse, Karon:


Rob helps dock our longboat at Bamboo Island, Koh Phi Phi:


One of the gorgeous stormy sunsets we witnessed from our beachbar on Koh Lanta:

[LeeF]

Hello! April, you managed to putt a golf ball over a 3ft wall using a putter? I'm not sure whether to be impressed or embarrassed for you! Your photos and tales of diving with sharks and pretty fishies, all the beach talk, and all the fun you're clearly having, has inspired me to have a large jack and coke! It's that or spend the night crying, reminiscing about my own days with a massive backpack and cheap footwear....
Keep enjoying yourselves, be safe
Lee

[April]

Hey Lee!

Thanks for your message!! Glad I can help you reminiss just as long as you don't cry!

I think definitely impressed! I didn't see anyone else putt a ball over the wall and it was very funny to those of us who were waiting in the long line after the group of 8 people.

With a little bit of luck - the underwater camera will have some good shots - and we can show everyone some of the lovely fish we're talking about.

Speaking of cheap footwear - I was in agony yesterday because my Bangkok flipflops had worn down unevenly and I walked for hours in them and really hurt my one of my feet.

FORCED to buy new shoes - the world is so cruel!!!