sunday 30/8/09
And so the story begins of our 12 months of travelling, first stop Thailand.
arrive blurry eyed after a 12 hour flight with Quantas (best airplane food ever!) pretty uneventful flight apart from the aussie girl sitting next to claire, suddeenly sitting bolt upright in her sleep, ten probably thinking claire was her boyfriend, then proceded to cuddle into claire and put her hand on claire's leg!hilarious!
We passed through customs and thermal imaging fine...no swine flu!
However the taxi was a different story.... we made our first error by not asking for a metered taxi and settled a price first (about 200 baht more than we should have paid) The driver then proceded to drive like a nutter- with to almost crashes into a level crossing and then a tuk tuk. I have vowed never to hire a moped here!
We arrive at the notorious Koh San road...a mecca for backpackers, and pitch up for the night at the Rambuttri village inn (thanks Dom for the recommendation)
How would we describe Bangkok?...polluted, crazy traffic, amazing cheap street food, tuktuks and endless hassle from street traders.
The following day we sorted our visas for Laos, cambodia and Vietnam, entrusting our passports with the company while we are in Ko Samui (im still hoping that they are there!) and booking train/bus/boat to Ko Pan ngan...later finding out we were again charged too much commission!
after that was sorted we headed off to see some sights...having been scared by the taxi driver + trying to save some pennies, we decided to walk...mistake number 3! if you've been to Bangkok, you'll know that there are often con artists that will be dressed up in business suits and will appear to stop for a friendly chat with you...he informed us it was a buddist holiday and our temples we were going to were closed..he suggested some other ones on a map and then directed to where sum tuk tuks were and said we could get then cheap (which is often a lie too, they will rip you off) so we headed for the other temples, by passing the tuk tuks and endless 'hey lady, you want tuk tuk' being shouted at us! saw the 'lucky buddha' in a pretty small temple,via Ratchadamnoenklang then headed back, improving on our road crossing/car dodging skills. By which time claire had amassed about 15 bites to her legs!ouch..pictures to follow!...lucky the chemists are great here- you can get anything..eg . valium to morphine over the counter, so some antihistamines+ steroid tablets were obtained + soon sorted her out. a well earned Chang beer and Pad Thai was in order then off to bed.
1/9/09
A busy Bangkok day.... Decided to make our way to the temples we were scammed out of not seeing yesterday. This time we brushed off scammer and tuk tuks (i found just blanking them works quiet well!)
First stop was the Grand Palace, build in the 1700s a stunning set of gardens, temples and buildings. Inside we saw the Emerald Buddha within a beautiful Gold Leaf temple...remembering not to point our feet towards the buddha (very frowned upon in Thailand). Next up was Wat Pho- the reclining Buddha. You may have seen this on the Beach. a massive gold Buddha and then more temple areas.
We headed back to Bangkok to grab our bags and jump the night train to Surat Thani...via a metered taxi- no messing now!
The train station has to be the most unbelievably smoggy black place I've ever been, like stepping back into victorian times.
We booked our 2nd class fan sleeper carriage and set off on the 12 hour journey, got chatting to some travellers and had a Chang, from one of the many sellers jumping on and off the train.
Eventually we arrived at Ko Phan ngan- after another 3hours boat/bus + sunburn :-(
We jumped into a jeep and headed towards a beach hut resort touted to us....get there- they are full, suprise suprise. so end up walking along the beach to the next place...... and stuck gold,'charm beach resort' greeted by gordie, a fellow Mancunian-honest and genuine, gives us a reduced beach hut for 3 nights, totalling £12 each for the stay....very basic mind..no flushing toilet, fan, within earshot from aweful thai karyoke + a number of Cockroaches along for the stay too!But great happy vibe, honesty bar + great food, We chill with a Singha beer and more lush noodles :-)
Then head off to the 'ladybar' with some fellow travellers for some drinks (no ping pong shows!).
3/9/09
Today we had booked onto a boat trip recommended to us by Gordon, the resort manager. The two French travellers were coming with us also. Turns out a total of 12 of us on the boat and it was a great day! We set sail on a non too sunny morning, but the weather soon picked up by lunch time! We are in rainy season so it's not blue skies, but you can still catch a few rays amongst the clouds.
We set sail first of all and stopped at a beach called Haad Khom and Bottle Beach, where we swam to shore and had a beer on the sand and a swim. There were some posh hotels here costing 20,000 Baht a night, which is £400...how the other half live..and we are paying £8! We had fresh fruit on the boat and sailed again. We saw all of the island, we passed the famous full moon beach of Haad Rin, this looked very touristy.
The locals say not to go swimming in it as they call it the Pee Pee beach,as at full moon parties all the men pee in the sea! Not good. I guess we will find out tomorrow at full moon party! We had a lovely lunch of Masaman chicken curry and green veg on the boat, the captain's home cooking. We then finished off with snorkelling at Koh Ma. Sooz snorkelled, I didn't. Was feeling a bit too chicken and was tired.
The captain chucked in some water melon so the fish would come near and they were all over Sooz, was funny to see! Pretty fish. Really enjoyed the boat, and although we appiled sun cream all day we got burnt!! Not good when carrying the old rucksack, never mind. It had to happen at some point! The day was great and we ate dinner and chilled to get an early night ready for tomorrow and the full moon party!
4/9/09
Slept til noon and chilled out today, ready for party. Ate lovely spicy beef pizza to line the stomach and we got off to the party with a taxi load of travellers from hotel. Bought some neon paint and did a little artwork on the faces and we were ready to party. Beach was busy, music pumping and with Sangsom Whiskey Bucket(on small bottle of whiskey/one red bull) in hand we were raring to go. There was a bit of rain and it was cloudy so you could not see the moon too well.
A good atmosphere with lots of different bars pumping out different music. We ventured up and down to find some funky music, but a lot of it was trancy and indie. Cheesey bar seemed the busiest, so that will tell you tyhe type of clientelle there! We enjoyed a boogie at various bars on the beach, in the sand, and 2 whiskey buckets later we were ready go hit the sack at 2.00pm! We had found a parting in the sky at one point and saw the moon and sent a message out to Kel and Mand,
our lovelt friends, who are following the full moon while we are away. Same moon around the world guys :O) We got some corn on the cob and head back in a scary fast taxi drive....but we made it thank goodness!!! We phoned the folks when we got back as we knew they were all at Mo's chatting Oz. Good to hear them x
5/9/09
Checked out hotel after a big breakfast (stuffing my face b4 retreat) and got a very rocky and windy boat ride to Koh Sumai, ready for our detox/retreat. Sooz barfed after, it was pretty rough! Taxi here and checked in to The Spa Resort on Lamai Beach. We had considered going and getting some food and starting the fast the dfay after, but we realised we had to pre-cleanse first and we ought to get that started! So the afternoon/evening consisted of 2 Liver Flush drinks (yuk yuk yuk) and a soup and a salad.
We were going to pre-cleanse for 2 days, but we have decided we are going to start the fast tomorrow. Feeling apprehensive about it, but we got to do it! Skyped Paulie which was fab, saw him and Mr H on webcam!!!!
6/9/09
7am get up for the first detox drink and my gosh it was vile. NOt as bad as the Liver Flush drinks, but not great. It is like swallowing a load of clay like substance. These are to be drank every 3 hours, 5 in a day. There are 2 lots of supplement capsules to take every 3 hours, 30 in a day. Will keep info for the fast programme, but it is intense. Then the dreaded momment came to learn about the Colema Instruction. We were feeling pretty apprehensive about a tube in a place the sun don't shine.
Trust me when I say we have consdered what on earth are we doing many times!!!!!! Well the colema was scary, hilarious and made us feel better of the headache and heavy feeling we had. After much talk of food and how long can we keep this up, we have decided that we are going to fast for 5 days and not 7. This is so we can break the fast safely before we head off back to Bangkok and sample some of the nice food they have on this lovely vegetraian restaurant here in the hotel. Looking at menu is torture!
We have just booked the train ticket for Sunday 13th instead of Tuesday 15th, cutting the stay shorter and getting back so we can head straight for Chiang Mai. We will be bored by then anyway, as not much to do here when you feel so weak!!!! Finding it hard to do nothing. Claire is reading books like they are going out of fashion...3 so far! We have 6 full days left here before we go Sunday morning...got a feeling will be well hungry and imancipated by then! Ha ha ha xxx
sooz +clairexx
