On 10th December we arrived in Sydney, over a week ahead of schedule and with a flight booked from Sydney to Buenos Aiers for 24th November we had just over 2 weeks to see as much of Australia as possible. There´s no way that you can see all of Australia in 2 weeks but we were intent on giving it a good go and had a plan to hire a campervan and drive up the East coast to Cairns.
On arrival, we checked into our hostel, Maze Backpackers on Pitt Street which was pretty central. This was my first hostel experience of this trip and after being spolied with 4 star luxury digs for peanuts in South East Asia it was a bit of a culture chock to say the least. It was teaming with backpackers, most of them just out of school and the twin room we were allocated to was like a prison cell with a shabby bunk bed and just enough room to swing a cat. That said, there was an ok bathroom and two kitchens and it was only for sleeping so it wasn´t all that bad.
After checking in we had a mooch round the surrounding area and it´s fair to say that I was less than impresssed. Expecting to see and bit of cosmopolitan Sydney I was a bit surprised to see shit loads of neanderthals walking the streets and bars. Some of the bars were just pure shite, shitter than the shittest bars in Newcastle and others were totally geared up for travellers such as Scruffy Murphy´s! I really couldn´t be arsed with it so, after checking out Kings Cross, which was even worse, I turned in hoping to see Sydney with a fresh pair of eyes the next day.
Next day, we both slept into the afternoon which was unsurprising considering the journey we´d just had. We got up late afternoon and had a walk down to the harbour to check out the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. First of all, I was pretty surprised at how cold it was expecting it to be the height of summer, but it was like a luke warm evening in Newcastle. The Opera House is cool but unlike all of the photos you see, it´s not white, it´s like an off white cream and pretty unspectaculor in that sense. The Harbour Bridge isn´t too disimilar to The Tyne Bridge and if it wasn´t for the fact that there was loads of tourists and attractions such as ferry rides, you could have easily have been sat on the Quay Side in Newcastle. To sum up, I wasn´t that impressed and was keen to move on, Sydney´s a great place but, as we keep finding out, it´s a city just like any other and unless you´re working, there really isn´t that much to do beyond eat, sleep and drink!
The rest of our days in Sydney were focussed on booking our trip up the East Coast and it turned out to be a bit of a challenge. Our first approach was to try to book a Camper of the internet and we sent off loads of enquiry emails and sat back on our lorrels a bit thinking that we were going to get a Jucy camper. These were luminous green and cost something ridiculous like AU$15 per day. Unfortunately that fell through so we were back to square one... After a visit to Bondi beach, which was pretty dissappointing to be honest, we decided to book our trip through Wicked Travel which was located about 2 doors up from our hostel. The guy the the travel agents was awesome and within a couple of hours we were ready to set off that afternoon.
For about 350 GBP each, we had a camper van, a sky dive at Byron Bay, a 3 day 4x4 trip on Fraser Island and a 2 day sailing trip around Whitsundays. These are the key things to see on the East Coast so we were pretty pleased with getting all of this sorted for such a low price. So, an hour later we were in a taxi ready to pick up our camper and set off. The camper was booked through Traveller´s Auto Barn and they messed up royally and turned out to be the biggest bunch of cock knockers ever. On arrival, the tit on the reception desk was ready to give us the keys to a 10 year on stationwagon which was basically very similar to a Ford Mondeo estate car. Not the best for sleeping in!
Long story short, there was nothing they could do for us whatsoever and basically had a ´tough shit´attitude. We´re no pushovers so we managed to negoatiate some free accomodation and decided that we had no other option other than to take the wagon and get on the road. So, about 4 hours behind schedule we started our journey up the Pacific Highway to Byron Bay with the aim of doing the 900km trip over night without a sleep! That journey turned out to be very fruitful and easily one of the most scariest ever!
Monday, 8 December 2008
Singapore
We flew direct from Hanoi to Singapore on 23rd November and because we had a flight out the next morning we decided not to book a hotel. This was largely based on the fact that I have a BA silver card and we were intending to spend the night in the lounge on the internet and getting pissed on free booze. So we decided to have a look into Singapore and get the last train back to the airport at 11pm and stay in the lounge until our flight was due to leave at about 9am - it didn´t quite work out like that courtesy of BA!
What to say about Singapore? Not much really. We didn´t have long there so we obviously didn´t have time to see anything major, but at the end of the day it´s just another city. There was a starbucks which is nice after being in Hanoi drinking coffee that has passed through a weasel (that´s actually how they make it) and there were loads of modern shops and designer gear. It was pretty good to be visiting a city a bit more civilised but the city is so expensive it´s offensive. We paid a visit to The Raffles hotel and paid $50 for 2 cocktails, we tried to get into a bar to watch a footy game and were told there was a $30 minimum spend per customer and then we swiftly left another bar after we clocked the price of a litre of beer at $28! It wouldn´t be bad in normal circumstances but definitely not when you´re on a travellers budget. So we looked forward to that last train while sipping a beer, very slowly, on the terrace of Raffles Hotel listening to the worst sounds in history - Madonna!
Besides the cost, Singapore should be noted for it´s order. If you´ve ever read 1984 by George Orwell then you´ll understand the concept of Big Brother in the sense that you are being watched. Most cities have CCTV, but Singapore uses the latest face recognition technology to enforce its laws. Jaywalking is a crime and if you happen to break the rules, a couple of days later you´ll have a fine on your welcome mat as the CCTV recognises your face, how mad is that!! Also, loads of other things are strictly not allowed: eating or drinking on a train $500 fine, smoking on a train $1000 fine, smoking on the street $1000 fine. I guess in Singapore the laws are to be respected and not taken lightly!
After catching the last train back to the airport, we checked in and were excited at the prospect of 5 star treatment courtesy of BA and Qantas. That was until we got to the lounge and it was closed and doesn´t open until 6.30am, arggghhhhh! So we had to spend the whole night in the normal airport lounge with cattle class, drinking coffee, playing cards and using the free internet. It wasn´t too bad to be fair but a far contrast from spending the night in the BA lounge. We managed to get cleaned up in the lounge after it opened and boarded the 12 hour flight to Sydney.. I slept most of the way so the flight was a breeze and we landed in Sydney on time, got through customs easily and caught a shuttle bus to our hostel. Stage 1 completed!
What to say about Singapore? Not much really. We didn´t have long there so we obviously didn´t have time to see anything major, but at the end of the day it´s just another city. There was a starbucks which is nice after being in Hanoi drinking coffee that has passed through a weasel (that´s actually how they make it) and there were loads of modern shops and designer gear. It was pretty good to be visiting a city a bit more civilised but the city is so expensive it´s offensive. We paid a visit to The Raffles hotel and paid $50 for 2 cocktails, we tried to get into a bar to watch a footy game and were told there was a $30 minimum spend per customer and then we swiftly left another bar after we clocked the price of a litre of beer at $28! It wouldn´t be bad in normal circumstances but definitely not when you´re on a travellers budget. So we looked forward to that last train while sipping a beer, very slowly, on the terrace of Raffles Hotel listening to the worst sounds in history - Madonna!
Besides the cost, Singapore should be noted for it´s order. If you´ve ever read 1984 by George Orwell then you´ll understand the concept of Big Brother in the sense that you are being watched. Most cities have CCTV, but Singapore uses the latest face recognition technology to enforce its laws. Jaywalking is a crime and if you happen to break the rules, a couple of days later you´ll have a fine on your welcome mat as the CCTV recognises your face, how mad is that!! Also, loads of other things are strictly not allowed: eating or drinking on a train $500 fine, smoking on a train $1000 fine, smoking on the street $1000 fine. I guess in Singapore the laws are to be respected and not taken lightly!
After catching the last train back to the airport, we checked in and were excited at the prospect of 5 star treatment courtesy of BA and Qantas. That was until we got to the lounge and it was closed and doesn´t open until 6.30am, arggghhhhh! So we had to spend the whole night in the normal airport lounge with cattle class, drinking coffee, playing cards and using the free internet. It wasn´t too bad to be fair but a far contrast from spending the night in the BA lounge. We managed to get cleaned up in the lounge after it opened and boarded the 12 hour flight to Sydney.. I slept most of the way so the flight was a breeze and we landed in Sydney on time, got through customs easily and caught a shuttle bus to our hostel. Stage 1 completed!
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Vietnam
From Hanoi, after the Air Asia flight (I hate those Bastards!!) from Bangkok, I had a JetStar flight booked to Danang where after a transfer to Hoi An I would have been staying in a nice 4 star hotel. I think there was just over two hours between the connecting flights, easily enough time right? Erm, not if the Air Asia flight is 1 hour 40 mins late and the Vietnam immigration process suffers from inherent retardation disorder.
Air Asia have a policy that they will compensate you if your flight is delayed by over 1 hour 45 mins but as my flight was 5 minutes under that their policy didn´t have any room to offer help to stranded passengers. Even though there is an advertisement at check in at Hanoi stating something along the lines of ´if we´re late we´ll offer you 1500THB cash back´, that still translates to any delays over 3 hours´. Those bastards have cost me a fortune in the last few months. They don´t let you make any changes to flights after they´re booked unless it´s just a date change and their customer service is awful - it´s Easyjet in Thailand and if you know me well enough you´ll have no doubt heard me rant on about how much I hate Easjet too!
So there I am in, Hanoi airport, missed my JetStar connection, hotel booked and paid for in Hoi An, awful Air Asia service, shit loads of luggage, no phone and a shit load of Vietnamese people staring at me constantly. I was kind of expecting Vietnam to be similar to Thailand in that people are generally used to and friendly to travellers, I was a bit wrong on that score. Even worse, my Maestro card wouldn´t work in the 10 ATMs that I tried, fortunately mi tarjeta credito came in very handy. Again a decision had to be made similarly to the one in Bangkok. I was feeling less rough but still had the remnants of a Singh hangover bouncing around. This was was a bit more straightforward - either stay in Hanoi for the night or wait for the next JetStar flight the following morning.
The only remaining chance to get to Hoi An that night was Vietnam Airlines and their last flight was fully booked and they could only but me on standby. That meant I had to hang around the dullest airport in the world for about 4 hours while they see if any passengers didn´t turn up. At that time they conveniently only had business class seats left so I accepted their kind offer and boarded, rather speedily, the 1 hour flight to Hoi An. That flight was painless and the service wasn´t bad although I was a bit pissed off that I didn´t get any Champers for my 100 pounds, even worse NO alcohol was being served, I mean for goodness sakes!
On arrival in Hoi an, the area outside the airport was awash with taxis. There´s quite a bit of information in the guides about taxi scams in Vietnam, such as locals accosting tourists and robbing them or escorting them to an unwanted hotel, so I was pretty dubious about the whole affair. But, as in all of these situations a decision is required, so I chose the taxi driver who looked the most honest and professional, negotiated a price and took a risk. The weather was a sharp contrast from Thailand. I had received news ahead of my journey that there was extensive flooding in most parts of the country and that was realised during the landing into Hanoi, all you could see was water, I´ve never seen anything like it. That was part of the reason that I chose to take a risk and take a flight to Hoi An. But unfortunately, the weather in Hoi An was even worse.
It was torrential rain, rain that some how penetrated the car and soaked me through. The taxi driver couldn´t speak English at all and had to check the map about 7 times for my hotel. Most people would pull over to check the map but this guy just slowed down a little and took his eyes off the road, quite a worry. But one thing about Vietnam is that they drive a lot slower than most other countries, which is why their road regulations actually work, meaning their non existent road regulations! All I could do really was try to look out for signs to check that we were heading in the right direction and fortunately we seemed to be heading for Hoi An although I´m not sure he managed to reach a speed exceeding 60 kmph. About 40 minutes later we arrived in some sort of civilisation after miles and miles of run down looking areas. Originally picking the wrong hotel, we finally arrived at the hotel which turned out to be far less than 4 star.
The short trip from the taxi to reception got me soaked to the skin, I´ve never seen rain like it. Greeted by less than enthusiastic staff and a huge restaurant area with no guests in there whatsoever, I was sure that either the information on the internet was a little misleading or I´d picked the wrong time to visit Vietnam. After advising the receptionist that there was a fresh cat poo near her desk I was taken to the room which was pretty basic which would be fine under normal circumstances but not when you´re expecting 4 star. After check in, I wasn´t exactly sure what to do considering it was lashing down. That´s one thing I´ve learnt, no matter where you are, it´s difficult to make the best of things when it is raining like that, especially when you´re expecting to top up your tan.
The location I´d picked was on recommendation from a few people that had visited before and had defined it as paradise with it´s glorious beaches, ridiculously cheap prices and great weather! Some friends had even been there the week before and had raved about the weather - typical! It´s also really close to China beach which is part of the massive beach that runs for miles up the East coast of Vietnam, China beach is the one out of Apocalypse now! But let´s be fair, beaches are no fun when it´s raining although I managed to have a bit of fun on the beach before moving on to pastures new! So, on the first evening it was decided to have a bite to eat at the hotel which turned out to be pretty dire considering that there was no-one else in the restaurant and most of the staff just wanted to sleep in hammocks or just disappear the scene altogether.
The next day I had a look into Hoi An town to check things out and do some laundry. Laundry negotiations were a bit different than what I was used to in Thailand and quite a lot more expensive but to be fair I think a couple of switched on locals took the opportunity to rip off a ill informed travellers in dire straits. I had a coffee in a local bar after buying a poncho and headed a bit more central to check out some bars, bars which were completely non existent. One of the local cafe owners tried to persuade me to go on a trip with him a bit further inland as he could see I was pissed with the weather and was chasing the sun. I even considered going back to Thailand because the weather was that bad but the outlook for that week was dreadful all over South East Asia. Fortunately I decided to sit it out and had about 4 days of glorious weather and had one of the best weeks ever courtesy of a few things besides the weather!
I ended up staying in the hotel from hell for one more night before moving to another 4 star hotel close by, although this one truly lived up to its 4 star reputation. That day the weather picked up and 4 days of bliss followed and I ended up finding out why people rave about Hoi An and Vietnam so much. The new hotel was lush, I walked along the massive beach with the sun blaring down, spent time by the pool and found the real Hoi An old town with some really nice restaurants and bars. I met up with a friend from back home too and dutifully got very drunk and had a good time for a couple of days before she buggered off back home to the freezing cold and Orange.
There´s far too much to say about that week, loads happened and it ended up being the best so far during this trip. At first I had a major culture shock as things are so different in Vietnam than Thailand, that may sound a little short sighted, but it´s only a short flight from one capital to the other. The people are far less sure of tourists and being stared at was a common occurrence. Some of the people selling goods in shops were plain rude and other locals were very untrustworthy. That said, I met some great people, seen some great sights, topped up my tan and overall the positives far outweighed the negatives - not sure that was entirely to do with Vietnam but that´s another story.
After Hoi An I flew back up to Hanoi to meet Kev and ended up spending about 4 days there while we organised the next step of our trip. Beyond Kev´s holiday with Laura, we had nothing planned so it was back to the drawing board. After chatting for about 10 seconds we both agreed that the best plan would be to get to South America as soon as possible. That was quite a big change to the plan as were were intending to travel in for another 3 weeks in Vietnam before moving onto Cambodia. For Kev, it was pretty straight forward as he wanted to cut his trip short so he could get back to Laura sooner but he wanted to see South America first. For me, I would rather have seen the rest of South East Asia accompanied and I wanted to spend as little time in Australia as possible so I could save money and try to see out the ten months I had planned to stay travelling.
So after a a couple of days we had cut down our Australia trip from 6 weeks to just over 2 avoiding the expensive Christmas period and we had booked a flight to Buenos Aires for 24th November. To summarise Vietnam, to be honest I didn´t enjoy it as much as Thailand. The culture is completely different and at some times unfriendly and a bit unnerving. I had one of the best weeks ever in Hoi An and I would love to go back at high season when the weather better. Hanoi was a complete shit hole, let´s be honest. The traffic was mental, even worse than India, and the city was just dirty and quite unpleasant. There were a few nice bars and cafes to chill out in and a few good areas to visit but overall I think Hanoi should go down as a place to pass through. I haven´t written off Vietnam completely and I would really like to give it a second chance very soon.
Air Asia have a policy that they will compensate you if your flight is delayed by over 1 hour 45 mins but as my flight was 5 minutes under that their policy didn´t have any room to offer help to stranded passengers. Even though there is an advertisement at check in at Hanoi stating something along the lines of ´if we´re late we´ll offer you 1500THB cash back´, that still translates to any delays over 3 hours´. Those bastards have cost me a fortune in the last few months. They don´t let you make any changes to flights after they´re booked unless it´s just a date change and their customer service is awful - it´s Easyjet in Thailand and if you know me well enough you´ll have no doubt heard me rant on about how much I hate Easjet too!
So there I am in, Hanoi airport, missed my JetStar connection, hotel booked and paid for in Hoi An, awful Air Asia service, shit loads of luggage, no phone and a shit load of Vietnamese people staring at me constantly. I was kind of expecting Vietnam to be similar to Thailand in that people are generally used to and friendly to travellers, I was a bit wrong on that score. Even worse, my Maestro card wouldn´t work in the 10 ATMs that I tried, fortunately mi tarjeta credito came in very handy. Again a decision had to be made similarly to the one in Bangkok. I was feeling less rough but still had the remnants of a Singh hangover bouncing around. This was was a bit more straightforward - either stay in Hanoi for the night or wait for the next JetStar flight the following morning.
The only remaining chance to get to Hoi An that night was Vietnam Airlines and their last flight was fully booked and they could only but me on standby. That meant I had to hang around the dullest airport in the world for about 4 hours while they see if any passengers didn´t turn up. At that time they conveniently only had business class seats left so I accepted their kind offer and boarded, rather speedily, the 1 hour flight to Hoi An. That flight was painless and the service wasn´t bad although I was a bit pissed off that I didn´t get any Champers for my 100 pounds, even worse NO alcohol was being served, I mean for goodness sakes!
On arrival in Hoi an, the area outside the airport was awash with taxis. There´s quite a bit of information in the guides about taxi scams in Vietnam, such as locals accosting tourists and robbing them or escorting them to an unwanted hotel, so I was pretty dubious about the whole affair. But, as in all of these situations a decision is required, so I chose the taxi driver who looked the most honest and professional, negotiated a price and took a risk. The weather was a sharp contrast from Thailand. I had received news ahead of my journey that there was extensive flooding in most parts of the country and that was realised during the landing into Hanoi, all you could see was water, I´ve never seen anything like it. That was part of the reason that I chose to take a risk and take a flight to Hoi An. But unfortunately, the weather in Hoi An was even worse.
It was torrential rain, rain that some how penetrated the car and soaked me through. The taxi driver couldn´t speak English at all and had to check the map about 7 times for my hotel. Most people would pull over to check the map but this guy just slowed down a little and took his eyes off the road, quite a worry. But one thing about Vietnam is that they drive a lot slower than most other countries, which is why their road regulations actually work, meaning their non existent road regulations! All I could do really was try to look out for signs to check that we were heading in the right direction and fortunately we seemed to be heading for Hoi An although I´m not sure he managed to reach a speed exceeding 60 kmph. About 40 minutes later we arrived in some sort of civilisation after miles and miles of run down looking areas. Originally picking the wrong hotel, we finally arrived at the hotel which turned out to be far less than 4 star.
The short trip from the taxi to reception got me soaked to the skin, I´ve never seen rain like it. Greeted by less than enthusiastic staff and a huge restaurant area with no guests in there whatsoever, I was sure that either the information on the internet was a little misleading or I´d picked the wrong time to visit Vietnam. After advising the receptionist that there was a fresh cat poo near her desk I was taken to the room which was pretty basic which would be fine under normal circumstances but not when you´re expecting 4 star. After check in, I wasn´t exactly sure what to do considering it was lashing down. That´s one thing I´ve learnt, no matter where you are, it´s difficult to make the best of things when it is raining like that, especially when you´re expecting to top up your tan.
The location I´d picked was on recommendation from a few people that had visited before and had defined it as paradise with it´s glorious beaches, ridiculously cheap prices and great weather! Some friends had even been there the week before and had raved about the weather - typical! It´s also really close to China beach which is part of the massive beach that runs for miles up the East coast of Vietnam, China beach is the one out of Apocalypse now! But let´s be fair, beaches are no fun when it´s raining although I managed to have a bit of fun on the beach before moving on to pastures new! So, on the first evening it was decided to have a bite to eat at the hotel which turned out to be pretty dire considering that there was no-one else in the restaurant and most of the staff just wanted to sleep in hammocks or just disappear the scene altogether.
The next day I had a look into Hoi An town to check things out and do some laundry. Laundry negotiations were a bit different than what I was used to in Thailand and quite a lot more expensive but to be fair I think a couple of switched on locals took the opportunity to rip off a ill informed travellers in dire straits. I had a coffee in a local bar after buying a poncho and headed a bit more central to check out some bars, bars which were completely non existent. One of the local cafe owners tried to persuade me to go on a trip with him a bit further inland as he could see I was pissed with the weather and was chasing the sun. I even considered going back to Thailand because the weather was that bad but the outlook for that week was dreadful all over South East Asia. Fortunately I decided to sit it out and had about 4 days of glorious weather and had one of the best weeks ever courtesy of a few things besides the weather!
I ended up staying in the hotel from hell for one more night before moving to another 4 star hotel close by, although this one truly lived up to its 4 star reputation. That day the weather picked up and 4 days of bliss followed and I ended up finding out why people rave about Hoi An and Vietnam so much. The new hotel was lush, I walked along the massive beach with the sun blaring down, spent time by the pool and found the real Hoi An old town with some really nice restaurants and bars. I met up with a friend from back home too and dutifully got very drunk and had a good time for a couple of days before she buggered off back home to the freezing cold and Orange.
There´s far too much to say about that week, loads happened and it ended up being the best so far during this trip. At first I had a major culture shock as things are so different in Vietnam than Thailand, that may sound a little short sighted, but it´s only a short flight from one capital to the other. The people are far less sure of tourists and being stared at was a common occurrence. Some of the people selling goods in shops were plain rude and other locals were very untrustworthy. That said, I met some great people, seen some great sights, topped up my tan and overall the positives far outweighed the negatives - not sure that was entirely to do with Vietnam but that´s another story.
After Hoi An I flew back up to Hanoi to meet Kev and ended up spending about 4 days there while we organised the next step of our trip. Beyond Kev´s holiday with Laura, we had nothing planned so it was back to the drawing board. After chatting for about 10 seconds we both agreed that the best plan would be to get to South America as soon as possible. That was quite a big change to the plan as were were intending to travel in for another 3 weeks in Vietnam before moving onto Cambodia. For Kev, it was pretty straight forward as he wanted to cut his trip short so he could get back to Laura sooner but he wanted to see South America first. For me, I would rather have seen the rest of South East Asia accompanied and I wanted to spend as little time in Australia as possible so I could save money and try to see out the ten months I had planned to stay travelling.
So after a a couple of days we had cut down our Australia trip from 6 weeks to just over 2 avoiding the expensive Christmas period and we had booked a flight to Buenos Aires for 24th November. To summarise Vietnam, to be honest I didn´t enjoy it as much as Thailand. The culture is completely different and at some times unfriendly and a bit unnerving. I had one of the best weeks ever in Hoi An and I would love to go back at high season when the weather better. Hanoi was a complete shit hole, let´s be honest. The traffic was mental, even worse than India, and the city was just dirty and quite unpleasant. There were a few nice bars and cafes to chill out in and a few good areas to visit but overall I think Hanoi should go down as a place to pass through. I haven´t written off Vietnam completely and I would really like to give it a second chance very soon.
Bankgkok again
I flew into Bangkok from Phuket on 26th October with a view to heading over to Vietnam to meet Kev after his holiday with Laura. I only had one night in Bangkok so I booked into a lush 4 star hotel called the dream hotel which was only something stupid like US$60 per night. I had an early morning flight to Hanoi booked for the following day but that didn´t stop me going out to a few bars and getting a bit messed up.
I also re-discovered the night market which I tried to find when I was in Bangkok with Kev but got it confused with the weekend market. The night market has a massive courtyard area where locals meet up for drinks while watching premiership games on huge TV screen at each end. You can sample local beers and culenary delights for cheap as it´s more of a local meeting place than a tourist spot. The market is awash with copy gear from Tag watches, Mont Blac pens to Gucci bags and North Face rucks sacks. A lot of items are of low quality but there are some that you could tell from the real thing. I got a Tag copy for about 15 GBP which I have since spotted in a real shop and it´s almost impossible to tell them apart.
I also caught the end of the the Liverpool Chelsea game which Liverpool won 1-0. I have totally lost track of the premiership since being away and seeing a Liverpool game is a rarity so it was awesome even to catch even last 10 minutes, although the person I was with was a bit of a winghebagnonfootballlovergay. After the night market a rather bad club was frequented after an escort from the Tuk Tuk driver from hell. Seriously, this guy was nuts. He was driving like Lewis Hamilton through traffic, usgin his handbrake to do u-turns and even had the thing going sidewards at one point. He ended up being our escort for the night although he ended up dumping us at a shit hole club.
After a heavy night´s drinking, I slept through the alarm and woke up at just affter 9am - my flight was at 10.20am and it was an hour taxi ride to the airport! Shit! So, with a very very cloudy head, I had to make a logical decision. Either go back to bed and lose the flight or dash to the airport and hope it´s delayed. The latter seemed to be more logical so I was packed within 2 minutes, checked out within 5 and in a taxi within 6 asking him not to spare the horses and a healthy tip would be in it for him. I got to the airport about 10 mins late but fortufnately the flight was delayed and I even had time for a mooch around the airpoirt and a, yes very unlike me, big fat double wopper, fat coke and chips. I have to say, it was the best breakfast I´ve had in a long time.
What can I say about Bangkok? Same same I guess, it´s enterntaining and jaw droppingly engaging but only for a couple of nights.
I also re-discovered the night market which I tried to find when I was in Bangkok with Kev but got it confused with the weekend market. The night market has a massive courtyard area where locals meet up for drinks while watching premiership games on huge TV screen at each end. You can sample local beers and culenary delights for cheap as it´s more of a local meeting place than a tourist spot. The market is awash with copy gear from Tag watches, Mont Blac pens to Gucci bags and North Face rucks sacks. A lot of items are of low quality but there are some that you could tell from the real thing. I got a Tag copy for about 15 GBP which I have since spotted in a real shop and it´s almost impossible to tell them apart.
I also caught the end of the the Liverpool Chelsea game which Liverpool won 1-0. I have totally lost track of the premiership since being away and seeing a Liverpool game is a rarity so it was awesome even to catch even last 10 minutes, although the person I was with was a bit of a winghebagnonfootballlovergay. After the night market a rather bad club was frequented after an escort from the Tuk Tuk driver from hell. Seriously, this guy was nuts. He was driving like Lewis Hamilton through traffic, usgin his handbrake to do u-turns and even had the thing going sidewards at one point. He ended up being our escort for the night although he ended up dumping us at a shit hole club.
After a heavy night´s drinking, I slept through the alarm and woke up at just affter 9am - my flight was at 10.20am and it was an hour taxi ride to the airport! Shit! So, with a very very cloudy head, I had to make a logical decision. Either go back to bed and lose the flight or dash to the airport and hope it´s delayed. The latter seemed to be more logical so I was packed within 2 minutes, checked out within 5 and in a taxi within 6 asking him not to spare the horses and a healthy tip would be in it for him. I got to the airport about 10 mins late but fortufnately the flight was delayed and I even had time for a mooch around the airpoirt and a, yes very unlike me, big fat double wopper, fat coke and chips. I have to say, it was the best breakfast I´ve had in a long time.
What can I say about Bangkok? Same same I guess, it´s enterntaining and jaw droppingly engaging but only for a couple of nights.
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Where did the blog go? - Leaving Thailand
It's been a long time since I updated my blog but I'm about to start getting it back up to date. There are a couple of reasons why I haven't updated it for so long. First, the last week or so in Thailand was bit of a challenge (understatement of the century) so I didn't have any urge to update my blog. Second, in the last 4 weeks I have been so busy that I just haven't had the time.
I left Thailand on 26th October and since then I've been to Bangkok again, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia arriving in Buenos Aires on 24th November. I think the best way to get this blog back on track will be to take things in chronological order. Fortunately I've been logging in a journal so not a lot will be forgotten although, as always, some things will be left out seeing as my mother reads this blog ;0)
After Phi Phi island we headed to Phuket arriving on Tuesday 7th October with a view to staying a day or so before heading to a surfing beach nearby. Pretty much everyone we had spoken to about Phuket had described it as hell on earth but on first impression I thought it was one of the nicest placest I've been to in Thailand.
I now think of it as a combination of heaven and hell. I spent about 3 weeks on Phuket in total, most of which was absolutely awesome. I stayed in some great hotels for next to nothing, had a quality little moped, was right next to the beach and enrolled in a local gym. I met some new friends who I hope I'll stay in touch with for a long time and I had a few brilliant dives to add to my tally. So for the most part it was bliss and I had the chance to take it completely easy.
The last week was probably one of the hardest weeks I've been through and I was very close to throwing the towel in and coming home. Since Thailand, just over 4 weeks ago, I've been to so many different places and had so many different experiences that it seems like a bit of a blur. It will be really hard to catch up on this blog but I'll make sure that I get as much as possible done over the next couple of weeks so I can update on South America as we go.
To summarise Thailand, I would say that it has been my favourite country so far. It's got so much to offer such as beautiful, untouched national parks, gigantic limestone cliffs both in the ocean and inland, stunning islands and breath taking beaches. The culture is great and although there are many annoyances the people are generally very friendly and welcoming. There are places to party, places to chill out, awesome cuisine and chances to explore all over the country. The diving is also the best I've experienced so far, even better than the Great Barrier Reef.
In my mind, it wouldn't be a bad thing to go back to Thailand towards the end of my trip but I won't be taking that decision lightly and want to see a lot of South America first.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Phi Phi Island
We caught the ferry from Ao Nang to Koh Phi Phi Don early doors on 3rd October. Most people know about Phi Phi as it was where The Beach was filmed a few years ago with Leonardo Decaprio. It's made up of two small islands, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Ley of which only Don is inhabited. We arrived on Don pretty early and had to find somewhere to stay as we hadn't booked anything, so we were walking around for a bit with our rucksacks on in the blistering heat which isn't exactly fun. There's a couple of things that set Phi Phi apart from some of the other locations in Thailand, firstly both islands are absolutely stunning and second there are supposed to be no vehicles.
Apart from a couple of mopeds that rings true but it still doesn't stop loads of Thai's trying to run you over with their push bikes. There's shit loads of them, most of the bikes are a mess and it's not unusual to see a guy on the gayest, pinkest bike with a basket on the front. Anyhoo, we haven't done a lot on Phi Phi yet apart from loads of sunbathing, getting pissed, watching dodgy Thai boxing and a half day trip. I have to say, the night life is awful. There's a few nice beach bars but they are just pumping out the biggest pile of shite music I've ever heard so we're getting a bit pissed off with that.
One of the most entertaining bars is Reggae Bar, which incidentally has no Reggae influence whatsoever, as it hosts Thai Boxing every night. This is not the same level of Thai Boxing we watched in Bangkok, it's basically holidaymakers kicking the living shit out of each other. It's absolutely mental that it's allowed as most fights end up with a couple of guys throwing haymakers at each other with the end result being one of them getting sparked out. There was one Irish guy who fights every night, and to give him credit he wins most fights as he's clearly done it before. The guy is a total cock end though and he's strutting round the place like some kind of Kung Fu warrier.
Anyway, he had two fights that we saw on the first night, the second fight being with a handy professional Thai Boxer. T'was quite funny seeing the little Irish prick having the shit kicked out of him. The only downside is that there's inevitably a fight between two so called professionals but it's a proper fix like WWF so it's very disappointing. The Thai staff weren't too happy with the boos coming from the crowd, namely from me and Kev.
The highlight of Phi Phi had to be the half day trip that we embarked upon on the second day. There were three main activities: snorkeling with sharks, cliff jumping and a trip over to Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley where The Beach was filmed. After kitting us out with masks and fins Owen, our Thai guide, took us down to the pier and piled us into a long boat to head out for the shark snorkeling. It wasn't very far and we were soon in the water snorkeling in crystal clear waters looking for sharks. Almost immediately Owen popped up and said he caught sight of one. I was right behind him and to be honest I thought he was taking the piss as I couldn't see anything.
A few minutes later we started to see loads of them. They were black tip reef sharks I think between 3 and 4 feet long. I have to say I shit my pants the first time I clapped eyes on one as they were really close and they looked like mean little fuckers. Harmless apparently though - my arse! I would say we must have had around 20 sightings but of the same 6 or seven sharks and it was such an awesome experience to be so close to them. Both Kev and I had a few moments when they started circling us and in particular in the last 5 minutes we both decided it was time to retreat as one swam past with it's mouth open.
After that we headed to another small island to do some cliff jumping which, for the uneducated, is jumping off cliffs into the sea! There were 3 jumps that we were allowed to do, 8 metres, 10 metres and 12 metres. 8 metres doesn't seem that high but it kind of does when you're standing on the edge of a cliff but we both did that one no bother. Kev was unscathed but I thought I'd popped an eardrum or something so decided to take 5 minutes and jump from 8 metres again. In that time Kev had done the 10m and 12m jumps; I managed a couple of 10m jumps and decided that was about enough for me.
Maya Bay was absolutely stunning although it looked totally different than in The Beach but apparently it was digitally enhanced and it was damaged quite severely in the Tsunami. We hung around there for a bit and then tried to catch the sunset, which we missed, before heading back to our resort. The whole thing was filmed by Owen and we watched it back afterwards which was pretty cool but we aren't buying it coz were tight arses. That's about all we've done on Phi Phi as we've spent the last couple of days lying on the beach - I hate Mondays!!! Next we're off to Phuket for a night before we go to Hat Rai which is a surfing beach really close to Phuket town, can't wait for that...
Apart from a couple of mopeds that rings true but it still doesn't stop loads of Thai's trying to run you over with their push bikes. There's shit loads of them, most of the bikes are a mess and it's not unusual to see a guy on the gayest, pinkest bike with a basket on the front. Anyhoo, we haven't done a lot on Phi Phi yet apart from loads of sunbathing, getting pissed, watching dodgy Thai boxing and a half day trip. I have to say, the night life is awful. There's a few nice beach bars but they are just pumping out the biggest pile of shite music I've ever heard so we're getting a bit pissed off with that.
One of the most entertaining bars is Reggae Bar, which incidentally has no Reggae influence whatsoever, as it hosts Thai Boxing every night. This is not the same level of Thai Boxing we watched in Bangkok, it's basically holidaymakers kicking the living shit out of each other. It's absolutely mental that it's allowed as most fights end up with a couple of guys throwing haymakers at each other with the end result being one of them getting sparked out. There was one Irish guy who fights every night, and to give him credit he wins most fights as he's clearly done it before. The guy is a total cock end though and he's strutting round the place like some kind of Kung Fu warrier.
Anyway, he had two fights that we saw on the first night, the second fight being with a handy professional Thai Boxer. T'was quite funny seeing the little Irish prick having the shit kicked out of him. The only downside is that there's inevitably a fight between two so called professionals but it's a proper fix like WWF so it's very disappointing. The Thai staff weren't too happy with the boos coming from the crowd, namely from me and Kev.
The highlight of Phi Phi had to be the half day trip that we embarked upon on the second day. There were three main activities: snorkeling with sharks, cliff jumping and a trip over to Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley where The Beach was filmed. After kitting us out with masks and fins Owen, our Thai guide, took us down to the pier and piled us into a long boat to head out for the shark snorkeling. It wasn't very far and we were soon in the water snorkeling in crystal clear waters looking for sharks. Almost immediately Owen popped up and said he caught sight of one. I was right behind him and to be honest I thought he was taking the piss as I couldn't see anything.
A few minutes later we started to see loads of them. They were black tip reef sharks I think between 3 and 4 feet long. I have to say I shit my pants the first time I clapped eyes on one as they were really close and they looked like mean little fuckers. Harmless apparently though - my arse! I would say we must have had around 20 sightings but of the same 6 or seven sharks and it was such an awesome experience to be so close to them. Both Kev and I had a few moments when they started circling us and in particular in the last 5 minutes we both decided it was time to retreat as one swam past with it's mouth open.
After that we headed to another small island to do some cliff jumping which, for the uneducated, is jumping off cliffs into the sea! There were 3 jumps that we were allowed to do, 8 metres, 10 metres and 12 metres. 8 metres doesn't seem that high but it kind of does when you're standing on the edge of a cliff but we both did that one no bother. Kev was unscathed but I thought I'd popped an eardrum or something so decided to take 5 minutes and jump from 8 metres again. In that time Kev had done the 10m and 12m jumps; I managed a couple of 10m jumps and decided that was about enough for me.
Maya Bay was absolutely stunning although it looked totally different than in The Beach but apparently it was digitally enhanced and it was damaged quite severely in the Tsunami. We hung around there for a bit and then tried to catch the sunset, which we missed, before heading back to our resort. The whole thing was filmed by Owen and we watched it back afterwards which was pretty cool but we aren't buying it coz were tight arses. That's about all we've done on Phi Phi as we've spent the last couple of days lying on the beach - I hate Mondays!!! Next we're off to Phuket for a night before we go to Hat Rai which is a surfing beach really close to Phuket town, can't wait for that...
Friday, 3 October 2008
Khoa Sok National Park
We finally left Ko Toa on 30th September to head for Khao Sok National Park where we had booked a two day trek. The last couple of days in Ko Toa were pretty chilled; we sunbathed a bit, had another Muay Thai boxing session and got pissed. We also ate at 'Hippo' restaurant for about the 234th time running - chicken skewers were top notch and we kind of built up a bit of rapore with the lady boy waiter which kept drawing Kev back.
So we checked out and headed to Mae Head pier to catch a fast boat to Ko Samui, then the 6pm ferry to Surat Thani where we'd be staying the night before getting picked up the following morning for the trek. All of the travel agents were trying to get up to take a longer route but we'd worked out the quickest way ourselves and bough the ferry ticket separately. Everyone is on the take, even the bloody travel agents!
On arrival at Surat Thani, we jumped in a taxi and asked for the 100 Islands Resort with a few others heading for the centre. There was an old Thai guy sitting behind us and he just wouldn't stop coughing which was really starting to wind Kev up. Kev asked how far it was to our resort and the driver said 84k! We thought it would be about 5 mins so were a bit pissed that we'd have to endure 84k with the coughing cock end!
Anyway, we arrived at the National Park at about 10.30am and were greeted by a nice Dutch chap called William. The drive into the park was amazing, when we weren't asleep, with superb scenery pretty much all of the way. There were huge limestone hills similar to the ones found at Railey Beach and around a lot of Thailand. Apparently, according to William, about 25 million years ago they were all coral reefs, pushed up in later years by tectonic shifts (every day's a school day). Anyway, limestone cliffs are common throughout Thailand, Vietnam and China so we'll hopefully see some more sights before we leave South East Asia.
After we met up with another few people to join the trek, we were frog marched off down to the river which was about 5 minutes walk. The resort looked pretty basic with rustic bungalows but we'd have to wait a bit to check in. At the river we were greeted by our guide, a tiny Thai chap who was charged with paddling the canoe with Kev and I in the front. The river was pretty cool with loads of overhanging trees and fairly quick currents. We didn't see a lot of wildlife, except a frog and some fish, and we couldn't feel our legs after about 10 minutes with pins and needles, but all in all it was a good experience. Took loads of photos but looking back they all look exactly the same so I'll only post a couple on facebook.
After the canooing we stopped off for a bit of lunch close to the river and where the next trek would start, an elephant trek. After some nice Thai fodder, the elephants started to roll back into the resort after completing an earlier trek. There must have been about 20 elephants and everyone was in awe taking photos and feeding them. After a bit of spiel from William about the history of these particular elephants and the tribes people that look after them we were ready to get onto our elephant. To cut a long story short, the tribesmen have looked after elephants for generations, they used to be used for logging but as that's not allowed anymore in Thailand they cart rich westerners round the jungle for an hour or so, blah blah blah!
So we finally mounted our elephant with the little Thai man riding on the elephant's head with his legs behind his ears, and Kev and I got on a seat tied to the elephants back. The driver had a sort of stick with a hook to keep the elephant on course and to hit him with if he's being naughty. You might think that sounds a bit cruel, and I guess we did too, but surely it's no worse than strapping a massive seat onto his back and making him carry about 40 stone in weight around the jungle. So after a bit of a moral tangle, we were carted round the jungle by Nellie and his assistant. It really was an awesome experience, although we didn't see a lot of wildlife, just being so close to such beautiful animals.
After the elephant ride we were greeted by our guide for the rest of the trip, a young Thai girl called Kong, probably about 25 years old. That afternoon we were taken to a nice waterfall and to 'monkey temple' where, as you might guess, there were a lot of monkeys at a temple. They were wild monkeys, scores of them in fact, and we fed them bananas, the little twats were just taking them out of our hands, pretty cool I say. We have loads of photos of all of this so I'll post some on facebook to piss you all off, hahaha.
After the trek, I had to ask Kong if it would be possible for the chef not to feed us as the quantity of the food being served was ridiculous and all we were after was some fruit. She was ok about that but I think the chef was a little offended but we're trying to eat healthily and fried food every day is kind of off the menu. After a bite to eat we were taken to our next destination, Ao Nang which is very near to where we started at Railey Beach. We stayed in a pretty low key hotel with basic mod cons and after checking in we took a long boat to Tonsai Beach which is the exact same place that we visited straight after Bangkok.
We'd both forgotten how awesome the boat ride into Tonsai was with it's massive limestone cliffs covered in greenery, crystal clear green waters and white beaches. We only had a couple of hours to spend on Tonsai as the last long boat departs at 6pm but we wanted to go back and see some of the local guys that we met at The Kasbah. Even though we'd only been away from Tonsai for about 3 weeks we were both shocked at how much it has changed. New bars were being built everywhere and Kasbah had closed - unbelievable how things are developing so fast. We met up with a couple of the guys for a few hours then headed back to Ao Nang for the evening. We had a pretty quiet night and caught the ferry to Phi Phi the next day.
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