Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
PHUKET-PATONG BEACH
29.11.06 Today was heaven, our first proper day of doing nothing but laying on the beach! This is the beach where through our english charm we managed to blag a free boat ride and a go on the jet ski's, who says you cant get something for nothing!!! Back at our hotel after a full day of sun i decided that i hadnt taken full advantage off the swimming pool and so i spent the next hr in there!!! Showed and changed we headed back to the "English Sausage" place for some grub before kopping out nd going to bed as we were moving onto to Krabi tomorrow.
PHUKET-PATONG BEACH TO KRABI - HAT TON SOI BEACH
30.11.06 - Checked out of square one and quie sad to leave it behind, we were headed for Krabi today and Railay Beach. The day started at 7am (need i say more) where the bus picked us up for a half hour ride to catch the boat. 2 hours on the boat and we eventually arrived at Railay Beach. Having no accommodation booked we sort of just looked at each other until the couple next to us asked the driver if he would take them to Hat Ton Soi which is basically the beach the other side of Railay...apparently this beach was more chilled out, less touristy and much cheaper to stay on, you could also walk from one beach to the other when the tide was out...that will do for us!!! We stumble up packs on back and all the accommodation is huts, no brick buildings of any kind that we could see. We had to get 3 huts as each one only had a small double bed in, but for the price we payed we could have rented the whole island....it worked out at 2 pound a night each!! Dont get me wrong it wasnt the Ritz and was very basic but what do you want for 2 quid!!! Bags dumped we decided to take a walk over to Railay Beach, it was more of a rock climb than a walk but well worth the effort. Here we quite happily spent the rest of the day laying on the beach and catching a few more rays. We headed back to where we was staying and had dinner on the beach and a few drinks in the "No Name Bar". After this we were told about a new place opening (by new it just means it now one of 6 bars instead of 5!!) called the Surf Shack, here there was fire throwers and loud music but tiredness setting in we didnt stay and called it a night. (i actually failed to mention, and i dont know why this seems like a minor detail, but the huts didnt have electricity during the daylight hours).
KRABI HAT TON SOI-KO PHI PHI
01.12.06 We checked out of our little shack we called home for the night and had to go around the houses to get to Phi Phi. First off we had to get a Long Boat to Anang (which was the otherside of Ton Soi and another touristy area) this in itself was a mission, we had to wade throught the sea with our bags on to get to the boat. The fear of falling over with all our worldy good on our backs was enough to make the 5 minute walk take 20 minutes.....slow and steady wins the race and all that!! Safely on the boat we made it to Anang. Here we waited about half an hour for the bus that would take us to Krabi Town. On the bus we had to pick up a few more people who were also making their way over to Phi Phi. Its on this bus that we met 3 american lads, Toby, Justin and Ben. They already had a room booked on Phi Phi (unlike us). Eventually on Ko Phi Phi the guys had a porter from their hotel (very posh) waiting for them to take their bags to the hotel, out of pity they managed to persuade the porter to take our bags too...result!!! At their (posh) hotel we said our thank you's and got the bible out to try and find where we wanted to stay. Turns out we needed to be in a place called Long Beach (just because that was the cheapest) so we climbed into another Long Boat and made the 5 minute trip across the water. Hot and hungry we finally got there and walked into the first place we saw and asked how much the rooms were.......way out of our price range...NEXT!!! We had heard rumours that all the cheap places to stay on Phi Phi were booked so were slightly worried that only the expensive places would be left, we stayed with it though and eventually found the place we were looking for.....2 pound 40 a night....yep thats definately the place!!! 2 nights please! The rooms were again basic but this is becoming the norm and its hardly noticable that the shower/toilet is outside. Also there was only one bed, a double but we reckoned the 3 of us would fit in it no problem. We dumped our bags (in 100 degree heat you dont want to be spending any amount of time in a room with no air conditioning!!) and at last we were able to eat!!! A few rounds of cards later and we were ready for bed!!...and yes....all 3 of us did fit nicely in the bed!!!!
02.12.06 Im 10 mozzy bites better off this morning.....lovely!!! We had breakfast where drinking the last few mouthfuls of tea (breakfast aint breakfast without a brew...no matter how bad it tastes!!) up rocks the 3 american guys we met the day before, apparently they coudnt afford to spend another night in their posh hotel and had to slum it and found out that this was the place to do it!!! Another full day spent on the beach in the glorious sunshine and im loving the south islands!!! Back into the hut for a shower...however.....having paid extra for a shower in our room (without one it would have cost 1 pound 80 a night) it actually didnt work, the sweat you worked up from running around trying to get wet was not nice!! Eventually we opted to use the communal shower, where the water flowed fine, however there was no light (wich wasnt that bad, it just meant we couldnt see the brown water we were showering in......sometimes you have to weigh up the pros and cons :) We caught a boat over to the main beach, booked our tickets for the next day to go to Pha-ngan and got some well earned grub!!!
KO PHI PHI TO KO PHA-NGAN
03.12.06
Another early start, we left Long Beach at 8am and caught a boat over the the main beach where the pier to get our boat was. The boat took us to Krabi and here we waited for 2 hours for the bus to take us to Suratthani. At Suratthani we had another few hours to kill (which was spent playing cards....god send!!) before the bus arrived to take us to the ferry port. On this bus we started to have fun!!! We put our bags onto the bus, to then be told that there were no seats left, the driver told us to leave our bags on that bus and get on the one behine......erm i dont think so, we've seen the handy work you guys can do on a bag, we'll take our bags onto the bus we are actually getting on thanks!! So bags off and onto the one behind, no seats left on this one either!!! Bags off!!! And back onto the original bus where now from somewhere there were seats available?!?!? Finally at the ferry port we seemed to wait quite a while for the boat to come, here we found out that instead of arrive in Pha-ngan at 5.30pm (like we were told) it would now be more like 10.30pm....ok thanks for the info!!! We had no accommodation booked and as we would be arriving later than expected (and the fact that the Full Moon party was coming up) we thought it might be an idea to try and arrange a room. Bible out!! We shut our eyes and randomly picked a place, we knew it was on Hat Rin, Sunset beach where we wanted to stay, but that was about it!! We phoned and they had a triple room, she said they normally closed reception at 9.30pm but she would wait for us....felling a little better about having a bed for the night all did not seem so bad. We got chatting to a guy called David who was travelling alone (theres a reason for this!!) and we passed on our information about finding a room etc so he phones and also booked a room. The boat eventually turned up and 2 and a half hours later at 11pm we stepped foot on Ko Pha-ngan. In a taxi (with David) we told the driver where we wanted to go and arrived at Sandy Bungalows 20 mins later. In the dark it looked like we were in the middle of no where but a few steps in showed something different....an absolute find of a place!!! Set in green gardens were brand new built bungalows right on the beach, nice inside and out with a little balcony that literally had sand on it it was so close to the beach!!! At 270 bhat each a night you cant grumble :) We got a drink in the Seaside bar and we was just in time to watch the West Ham Game....Lifes good :)
04.12.06 A full day on the beach today and found out that the full moon party we wanted to go to was in fact on the 6th and not the 5th like we thought and so we agreed that it being so nice we'd stay for 5 nights (even the thought of being in one place for more than 2 nights was nice!!) It was today that we also found out why David (please note its David and not Dave!!) was travelling alone....its because he is Mr Boring...with a capital B!!!! I like to think that i could hold my own and talk to most people but my god this bloke was hard work. And so the sevret nickname of Mr B or Crazy Dave was founded and he was avoided at all costs, which was sometimes hard considering A) he was staying next door and B) it seemed we were his only friends (funny that!!!). We walked into town (which was Sunrise beach and the venue of the full moon) it was about a 15 min walk away (perfect) here we watched fire throwers and had a few drinks.
Thuesday (05.12.06) spent all day on the beach, food in Seaside (again) we are becoming quite the regular in there!! Not an exceptionally late night, saving ourselves for the Full Moon Party......!!! Paid for yet another load of washing to be done..needs must!!06.12.06 ready for another full day on the beach (but what ever goes to plan?!?) We woke up to rain...i mean rain!!! And it didnt stop!! The day was spent at Seaside (funnily enough) drinking tea, playing cards and eating as much as is humanly possible!! It eventually stopped raining at about 9pm and so we decided to take the short walk over and see what was happening at Sunrise beach and the Full Moon. We headed straight for the beach where we were confronted by 1,000's and 1,000's of people all drinking, chatting and dancing to the music that was coming out of all the beach bars.....we just looked at each other....laughed....then got involved!! After being in the swing of things we took a walk down the beach to see what else was going on, we stumbles across a sleep area where maned by volunteers people could sleep while being watched over. The (english) guy who was there said they were collecting donations so to "do my bit" i chucked in what coins i had on me...this happened to be a 10 bhat coin. To which the guy says "that amount of money is an insult".....(my jaw hit the floor) what happened to every penny counts?! He said it was rude to donate such a little amount, my reply to this was "give it back then".....he did....how rude!!! On our way we went and danced the night away. The hours seemed to fly by and feeling rather tired we decided it was home time!! Walking home we realised it was light and it was in fact 5.45am!!! We eventually made it into bed by 6am...not bad going i'd say!!!
07.12.06 After a very late night (or early morning...which ever way you want to look at it) we rose from our pits at about 2.30pm. Into Seaside for some grub and the regulation game of cards (and a quick conversation with crazy dave.....we made our excuses!!)We got back our clean washing (well me and lin did lich's smelt worse than what it did when it went in......she sent it back!!) The rest of the day (or what was left of it) was spent on the beach until it got too dark, then we realised that it was so dark because there was a power cut. We would have used Lindseys or Alicias Mag Lites had they not been stolen so early on in the trip!! As it turned out Seaside had a genarator (lucky for us!!) and so we spent the next few hours playing cards, drinking chocolate shakes and eating enough to last us all year!! Having been up a full 9 hours we decided to call it a night :)
KO PHA-NGAN TO KO SAMUI
08.12.06 Lich picked up her washing just before we left...again smelt like......i dont know what but not nice!! Not a good start to the day!! We caught the 11.40 ferry from Pha-Ngan to Ko Samui. Ive never felt more like a srdine in all my life! The boat people obviously felt they had to make as much money as possible thus cramming as many people that would fit (and then some) onto one boat. To add insult to injury it was the worst boat ride ever!! Even though i was below deck i still managed to get soaked from the water coming over the sides!! Lich felt sick, went to the bathroom, took one look at the dirty squatter and puked everywhere!! Glad to be off the boat and on Ko Samui we managed to get a taxi (or so we thought) to another randomly selected place in Mae Nam. However in tru "nothing ever goes to plan form" before setting off the driver told us to get out of his cab and into the one he was pointing at, so we got out (all the while he was loading other people in?!?!) It wasnt until he'd driven off that we realised there was no other waiting taxi...the other people must have offered him more money or something?!?! Without too much hassel we did get another taxi and showed him in the bible where we wanted to be (the cheapest place again....as it happens) which was Mae Nam Bungalows, not quite sure to this day if we were in the right place as it went under a different name but they offered us a room for 200 bhat each a night, after looking at the room we realised that we'd struck lucky again and this would do!!! (you just know that lucks going to run out sooner or later!!) All a stones throw away from the beach!!
Ko Samui was were we decided to stay until heading back to Bangkok on the 11th December before heading to Australia. The 3 days were mainly spent chilling on the beach in the day and eating at night. Met up with Jamie and his girlfriend Duan for a night out in Chewang, quite a busy town, we had dinner and drinks and even got our pictures taken with the cutest monkeys ever!! I must so that Ko Samui wasnt what i expected, i was expecting it to be one of the most stunning islands in Thailand but i much prefered some of the other islands.
- comments