THE BEARD
REPORT PT.II – ROUGH & HAIRY, TICKS & LEECHES
Alright, time for part two, I know you have all been
waiting with great anticipation for this one! ;p
First up HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone, hope it was a good one wherever you were.
So, have spent the last month basically in Southern Thailand, which had its ups
and downs, basically still a good time but several factors made it really not
the same experience that I've had down there before. Anyway, I'll give you the
brief rundown on my hard life.
From Bangkok we
headed down south to the west coast/adaman sea side and went to an island named
Ko Lanta. Here is the perfect example not to trust a guidebook, it turned out
to be much more developed than what we thought, but still beautiful none the
less. The upside was that the island had great roads (comparative to south Thailand) so it
was great for motor biking. If you have ever read Hunter S Thompsons book Hells
Angels, I know have a better understanding on the passion of motorcycles. To
risk sound cliché, the wind in your hair really is great. Dunno what shoots so
much adrenaline through you riding a bike, I guess its the very real risk of
fucking yourself up on every corner.....But luckily I am sensible and
restrained, as I had first hand experience on my first trip to Thailand when
two of my friends had a shocking accident so I know to be careful.
Ko Lanta had pretty good weather except every afternoon it would pour
down, like I’m talking monsoon, for about an hour. One day we were lucky to be
on a bike on the other side of the island. Decided to keep on biking. Maybe not
the safest decision but it turned out all good and damn it was fun. From here
we headed to Krabi up the coast, and took a day tour to four beautiful islands.
The highlight was snorkelling, something I've never really done much of, but it
was amazing, tropical fish and coral everywhere in warm clear water, something
special.
Getting a bit frustrated with the rain on this side, we decided to head to my
old haunt and favourite ko pha ngan on the other side of peninsular, in the Gulf of Thailand. We learnt another lesson in
never to trust travel agents here, bought a combo bus/ferry ticket from Krabi
to the island, got to the change point and the travel agent said the boat
wasn’t running, so the ticket wasn’t valid. After an hour arguing the dude said
he would take us down to the pier to get a new ticket, after 5 minutes walking
he sprinted away round a corner, jumped on a waiting motorcycle and took off!
Dodgy stuff. Next day we got a new ticket and took the boat, MY GOD, worst sea
crossing of my life, the waves were huge and I was crook the entire 4 hours,
not pleasant. Finally got there and the weather was a lot worse than Krabi,
dark grey clouds and huge waves. Id never seen the island like this, it had
always been paradise my previous two times so I was a bit depressed. Spent a
few days up in a remote northern bay, saw a sign for these monitor lizards,
went in, turned out to be just in the backyard of some family. The lizards are
huge, not quite as big as Komodo dragons, but the biggest was easily over a
meter long. They just live wild on the island, the lady said they're not
dangerous but I still wouldn’t like one turning up in my bungalow at night.
After that we moved over to the east coast, and found a great beach with a
wicked vibe. Went up to this hilltop bar called the Rasta Bar (hehe) one night,
which just played Reggae all night and had great food. of course went to the
huge party on new years, Id say about 30000 people on the beach, most of them
munters but we were all pretty twisted on Thai whisky buckets. I haven’t drunk
since my sayonara party in Japan
about two months ago, so I was ripped. Good times. Also went to the half moon
party a few days earlier, which was a bit different than two years ago, but
still great. Trish was wasted and had to carry her home, nice stuff.
After a few days recovery we left the island and went to a national park called
Khao Sok about 3 hours west. This place is amazing, full of tigers, elephants,
all kinds of mad monkeys and snakes and stuff I never even knew existed. We
were looking around for a tour to do and ran into two Germans, a guy and a
girl, Joe and Kris. Great people, but honestly, Joe is the German Steve Erwin.
He has a great outlook on life. That or he takes a bottle of happy pills every
morning (he is a doctor). Anyway, we decided to do a 3 day hike/tour into the
park, which was quite expensive but sounded great. The first day we jumped on a
long tail boat and took a spectacular two hour ride through limestone mountains
up the river/lake system where we arrived at our floating bungalows. They were
amazing, no people around, jungle sounds constant, beautiful water to swim in,
really great stuff. The second day we went on a hike thought the jungle, and
were unlucky not to see any big animals. But just like the Tool song, plenty of
Ticks & Leeches. The latter are definitely the most ugly, you don’t feel
them until you inspect your socks and they are fat and full of your bloods. The
former are definitely worse though, so tiny you cant see them but itch like
bloody hell. At night we did night safaris on the boat, but again, apart from
monkeys and some deer, nothing. The third day the others went caving, but I was
suffering a bit in the chest so didn’t go. The highlight for me though, despite
being surrounded by such beauty, was definitely Joe
"Ohhh, fried oon-ions!" and "Is that a lyiezard, is ooout!!!!!
Great stuff.
After the park we caught a ride back up to Bangkok, stocked up on a few
supplies then headed to Kachanaburi, a few hours north west, where we are now.
This place was made famous by the book and movie, The Bridge over the River
Kwai, which I have read, but didn’t realize was a load of bullshit until I went
to the museum today. I mean of course the POW stuff is true but the whole plot
of the book and movie is completely wrong (you’ll know if you read it).
Unfortunately the bridge is now a giant tourist trap, actually the whole town
is, but tomorrow we are heading up to hellfire pass, where the prisoners had to
build the railway - through solid rock. Its hard to believe this place was once
a place of such horror and despair, seeing it filled with travel agencies and
British pubs nowadays. We visited the other end, Thanbyuzyat when we were in Burma and it was nothing
like this at all, we were the only tourists - beauty of Burma
for sure.
Yeah, so tomorrow were on the bike for the four hour ride to the pass, then the
day after head up north somewhere. I’ve been hearing about some strange hill
tribe cult you have to trek into lately, sometimes they don’t let you visit
cause its too mad, but sounds good to me.
Oh yeah, after every single person we have met has asked about our myspace, I
have finally cracked and am now worshipping the devil that is myspace. I don’t
really know how it works, my page sucks cause I have no time, but if your on it
add me or whatever it is you do!
