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After the full moon party Laura and I travelled across Thailand to the West Coast to an island called Phuket, where her uncle owns an mtv cribs style villa, complete with maid, infinity pool, guards, the lot, so we eagerly stayed their for a few days to recover.
We invited a friend Laura had met whilst travelling in Vietnam, who is an ex u.s. ranger, and also proved to be a big hit in the kitchen as well as managing to do the manly jobs of working the tv and sound system, which we typically appeared to be hopeless at. Once we had managed to get my ipod (and sophisticated music) hooked up to the speakers throughout the villa and pool, we spent most of the first day messing about and bombing into the pool. Her uncle also kindly hired a car for us, so on the next day as nominated driver I ventured out onto thai roads. Originally we planned to go to a province called Krabi, but after a few hours driving and being stopped by the police for me not actually having a legal licence (even in Thailand playing dumb and a couple of eyelash flutters still works and gets you let off) we ended up only half way at Phang Nga. Here we hired a boat and did a tour and saw 'James Bond Island' ive never seen it in the film and hear it features for the grand sum of approx 20 seconds, but it is still pretty impressive with the bright green waters and high limestone cliffs. We also came across a floating muslim village, mangrove forest (where the trees grow out of the water, It felt like we were on the river Zambezi and I half expected a crocodile to jump out of the water any minute) and drove through some caves, every corner you go around here always seems to look better than the last. After our not quite as planned day out we retreated back to the villa to top up our tans and relax some more.
After Phuket we decided to drop by at Railay. Which involved the minibus drive from hell, if I was a cat I most definately would have used up all 9 of my lives by now. It got so bad I had to get off, Laura told the man he was a bad driver and we got a much comfyer and slower coach instead. After getting a boat to railay (its cut off from the mainland by cliffs) we arrived at pretty much the most beautiful place I have ever been or ever will go. It is a bit like the infamous phi phi, where the beach was filmed, except it is tourist free, the beaches are tranquill and secluded by the famous climbing cliffs and the sunset is postcard perfect. There was even a private wedding going on, on the beach when we got there, which sort of topped it off. We unfortunately met some girls on the boat to railay, kim and sarah, who stuck around like deprived flies and we couldn't shake them off (not really they are lovely) so we ended up having to hang around them mostley.
After a few days we travelled to Phi Phi which should have been a nice peaful 2 hour ferry trip away. It was not. I Know I keep banging on about the Thai transport but it never fails to amaze me. After finally getting on the ferry after ploughing out into the sea getting soaking wet and carrying my gigantic suitcase on my shoulders to meet the boat, I made a beeline for the front deck and found the perfect little sunbathing spot. After approximately 7 seconds after setting off, torrential rain set in and waves large enough to swallow a whale, flung me, kim and sarah up and left me sprawled across the captains window, looking in like a startled deer in headlights, to which he repeatedly beeped his horn until the next wave came and I fell back down again. We then scrambled around the boat and onto the lower deck inside resembling that of drenched hamsters. I stumbled to the front and found Laura who had sensibly stayed inside. After around 5 mins sick bags were brought round as people started throwing up and then waves larger than the ferry appeared, chucking the boat from 90 degrees to the side to being upright and being able to see the sky again and then 90 degrees to the side and back to being able to see the sky again. At this point I started to make noises similar to that of a 13 year old Aled Jones. Sat behind us were 3 british sailors who encouraginly told us they had never seen storms like this. After they took a safety register of everyone who was on board and then comfortingly proceeded to lock us in by tying the front doors together to stop them crashing open left us wondering how the hell we were going to get out if we sunk. After the captain kept repetedly stopping the engine when he saw a big wave so we didnt capsise. I am not exagerating. I decided it was the appropiate time to put my life jacket on. Boats sink reasonably frequently in Thailand and I wasn't ready to be on one of them. I had already encountered biting fish and that was at the shore, so what the hell did they have in the ocean?! After 2 long hours, the entire boat pukking up their previous weeks meals and all the same drinks from the full moon party, we finally made it to Phi Phi. Thank the Lord. Im not a religous person, but transportation has caused be to become a born again christian in Thailand.
Phi Phi, despite the hoards of tourists and resembling that of a Thai Marbella, is beautiful and has an amazing Night Life, despite the not quite so reassuring signs allover these islands with Tsunami evactuation routes. We invested in some tanning oil to make the most of our last beach time which on the back promised to 'make you look like an islander' and cosequently cooked in the sun, unfortunately kim had the ability of a 3 year old at rubbing in sun tan lotion and as Laura kindly pointed out looked like that of someone with vertiligo. After amusing ourselves with all the hairy arabian men running up and down the beach resembling that of an asian baywatch, which I successfully sang the themetune to every time they ran past (in the end they started walking behind us instead), we spent our last day on a snorkelling boat trip to the uninhabited Phi Phi Ley island and Maya bay. En route Laura was actually bitten by one of these teeth encrusted fish, and resulted in teeth marks and blood oozing out of her foot, after which I managed to impress everyone by managing to swim/frantically paddle quicker than an olymipic athelethe to the boat, pushing laura and the others out of the way on my way. Luckily we had decided against the trip that involved '100% guarantee see sharks', otherwise I would not have been getting in. Maya Bay was a bit of a dissapointment really as it was full of speedboats and hoards of tourists, which felt like a bit of a fraud as underneath it all you could tell it was a beautiful place and I really wish I had decided to plash out and do the over night camping trip there where you have the beach to yourself instead.
After the trip we got a nice big non life threatening ferry back to the mainland. You can tell it was safe as the crew encouraged us to sit on the railings off the side of the boat when there were no seats left. We stayed at the villa again for a couple of days before leaving the heat and the beache behing and flying to Chaing Mai in northern Thailand.
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