Sawadee Ka/Karp!!

This shall be the last blog from the land of all things Thai as we are now in the land of cliches, Aistralia!! Before we allude to any out back shananigans we must tell you about our time in Koh Phi Phi, Phuket and Chiang Mai!!

Koh Phi Phi was reached by another ferry journey, this time from Krabi. When we disembarked we were met with the usual torrent of taxi drivers (it turns out they weren't taxi drivers, as there are no cars in Phi Phi, instead only men with glorified wheelbarrows to carry your bags.) We managed to get a place for 16 pounds for our first night (this may seem like a good price but in Thailand this is extortion!) that was found on the edge of a pretty stinky, empty reservoir/water treatment area.....first impressions weren't great. However after walking the narrow, busy streets we found a restuarant that made the best food of our trip so far, of which the highlight was Kerri's bbq'd barracuda (she won't stop going on about it!).

On the second day in Phi Phi we took a taxi boat to a beach further along the coast called long beach. This was very much more enjoyable than the main town and also had a SCUBA diving school where we hoped to partake in an open water diving course. Unfortunately someone invented asthma which meant 50% of our contingent were unable to participate. Luckily Kez managed to come along on the boat and do some snorkelling while Tom learnt how achieve neutral buoyancy and make sure his lungs didn't over expand and rupture whilst 18 metres (15 for insurance purposes!) under water. Kerri's wetsuit also looked a lot better than Tom's did, so swings and roundabouts! After four dives including plenty of sea-dwellers such as sharks, sea snakes, sea horses, trumpet fish (bring on the trumpets) and some spectacular soft coral reefs Tom was a certified diver!! We must also mention that Phi Phi is the hottest place on the planet despite what many people think, ensuring that Tom's ''ginger safety gene'' kept him well within reach of shade, a rehydrating drip, and Ambre Solaire's emergency factor 50 sunblock delivery service! In Koh Phi Phi Kerri got very involved in observing Thai massages and decided to enroll on a course for when we got to Chiang Mai.

We managed to find a cheap flight from Phuket to Chiang Mai, which was a big relief as no one should be made to travel by train in Thailand. Only 2 days were spent in Phuket which was a shame as it was most enjoyable. However, we did stupidly try out a place called Jeffer's for food. It was perhaps the worst food we've had since we first began....never go there. A flight from Phuket to Chiang Mai takes 2 hours as opposed to the possible 28 hours it could have on the train, with this in mind we had very high spirits when arriving. Despite there being no beach, Chiang Mai is definitely our favourite place in Thailand, for a start Tom can actually walk around in daylight hours, it's also really cheap and there are plenty of places to stay entertained whilst Kerri was dd pummelling people with her fists of iron!

Kez's massage course was most enjoyable, a week of daily mantra, yoga, tai chi and being massaged worked wonders for her back...and don't feel sorry for Tom he didn't miss out, there was so much to learn that Kez had t practice every night! Tom's favourite was the "Cat Cow" slowly followed by the "Open Hara" which nearly made him sick! Its safw to say Thai massage isn't really relaxing, more of an hour + of pain but you feel amazing afterwards. Northern (Lana) style Thai massage however is slightly gentler than the Southern style. Kez was told to go and get professional massages to help improve her technique, and despite her less than exemplary track record regarding homework, this seemed like the perfect time to turn over a new leaf!! One night she had the most painful hour of her life, the weirdest thing was the guy doing it looked exactly like little Aston!! At the same time Tom was having parafin wax poured over his crusty feet, whilst listening to some obnoxious Americans (this is not a generalisation, these ones were just really annoying!) become more and more vexed....despite not knowing a single word of Thai, they shook their heads in a superior manner whilst telling him to "do it harder" as the Thai boy massaging their feet tried to ask them to explain differently in his broken English...Tom decided they should suffer a disappointed glare, and used his prominent bow to great 'underdog routing' effect!!

Before we left we had a great night out with some of Kez's massage friends, typically the one who organised it was Charles who made sure we started at a gay bar with a lady boy show...before you jump to conclusions this actually consisted of fully clothed he-shes dressed as glamorous women miming incredibly well to songs such as R-E-S-P-E-C-T! The hilarity would have been more of a laugh (for Kez) if the Lady Boy strutting towards us had kissed Tom instead of her!

Our last night in Thailand was spent at the famous Sunday Night Market, we tried tons of different food; watched 5 blind men play some amazing music whilst sitting in the middle of the busy street, like they were in a rowing boat; there were very young and very old women dancing to CDs or their husbands strange Thai pipes and a young boy (maybe 9) who was such a good salesman he made Kez (Queen of bartering) pay 3 whole pounds for a bracelet!! As we were walking back to our room Tom found Kez what she has been harping on about for the whole 5 weeks....a flat pack Thai cushion that she can make when we get back, she nearly had a panis attack!!

Thailand has bought us many laughs, some scares, paradise and many bouts of diarrhea!! We leave as a a diver and a masseuse for the land of hostels, crocodiles and tap water you can drink...good times!!!

Lots of Love

Toddney and Kerrols!!

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