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Lorry and Hickey's Excellent Adventure
Bangkok
The colour and noise of Bangkok pretty much smacks you in the face as soon as you step off the bus, and is a massive contrast to the chilled laziness of island living, but in a really good way.
We left Koh Tao at 10:15 and arrived in Bangkok at 8pm after an extremely painless journey, and said our goodbyes to Hannah and Mel at the side of the road under the watchful eyes of a cabby who was hanging around like a bad smell hoping to get a fare out of us.
As usual we hadn't booked anywhere to stay, so followed the lights and sounds to what we guessed (correctly) was the main backpacker area. Within 5 minutes of arriving we knew we would love Bangkok. It has an amazing atmosphere with a strip of bars playing all sorts of music, loads of street vendors selling food, market stalls selling bright clothes, street dancers and people approaching you selling all sorts of crazy stuff. In a word it's insane!! We found a cheap place to stay the night then headed out to the famous Khaosan Road.
Within the space of 10 minutes we watched a group of really young kids doing some amazing break dancing, saw an old woman wearing 4 hats, nearly got hit on the head by a glow in the dark helicopter, politely declined going to a ping pong show and having a fake ID made, and saw a bloke drive a motorbike into a food stall. It is really crowded, faced paced and a bit mental - so much fun!
The next morning we moved accommodation to a place that was recommended to us by Rebecca. It is called Riverline, which as the name suggests is by the river, and is only a 5 minute walk from Khaosan. It is in a mainly Thai area, where the local residents sit outside all day talking to each other eating gorgeous smelling food.
Right next to our guesthouse is a park, which completely comes alive at about 5pm. Big speakers are wheeled out at this time playing traditional music, and loads of people come to the park to play guitar, practise their juggling skills, play badminton, breakdance or just chill by the river. There is even a free aerobics class at 6pm everyday - it'd quite a sight seeing loads of old Thai women in their sports gear strutting their stuff to some awesome dance tunes! We are definitely gonna get involved when we come back to Bangkok!
We ate twice from food stalls that day which was really really tasty and meant we only spent about a fiver on food for the whole day! After dinner we had a really nice massage, as we missed out in Koh Tao.
Tuesday was shopping for a new camera day, so we headed to Siam Square - the city centre. We got talking to a Thai lady at the bus stop, and after waiting for ages for a bus that never arrived, she adopted to us and took us to another bus stop. This meant walking through loads of back streets where all the locals were selling food and lottery tickets, and there were no tourists in sight!! She showed us the bus we needed and told us where to go to buy a camera, but that wasn't the end of it. She got on our bus, got off at our stop and walked us through 2 shopping centres to Camera World, and got an assistant to help us. Now that's service!! Bless her she was so sweet and wouldn't even sit down on the empty seat on the bus, saying that we were her guests!
The centre of Bangkok is crazy. The shopping centres are quite futuristic looking, there are loads of them and they are absolutely massive! We got pretty confused by the sheer size of it and even went into a university at one point thinking it was a shopping centre!!
We are going back to Bangkok so still have loads to do. We can't wait to go back with a camera as some of the stuff just has to be seen to be believed!
Chiang Mai We left Bangkok at 5pm on Friday and arrived at 5am on Saturday morning after a sweaty sleepless overnight bus. It was so early in the morning that we saw the monks collecting alms (food and money) which is apparently one of the must-see sights in Thailand. Luckily we had booked our accommodation in advance and told the owner when we were arriving, as they got the room ready for us and we went straight to bed for a few hours. We got up and had a shower in our lush room, which is definitely the best room we have stayed in (it has a wardrobe and hot shower and everything!) then went down and met the owner Jeff and Fine, who are a lovely young couple in their 20's who are so friendly and really helpful. They gave us a map, pointed out all the markets, and explained how the centre is just 1.2km squared, with town walls all around the edge and gates and the north, south, east and west ends. So we headed off to explore, and found it to be such a cool little place. The people are amongst the friendliest we have met so far. It is smaller and less commercial than Bangkok, but is still a city, and has lots of little temples. When we got back to our guesthouse we booked our activities for the next few days, starting with Muay Thai boxing that night, which was really cool. We had ringside seats and it was certainly an experience - there were 7 fights to very strange music, and included a "special fight" which was our favourite fight. It was basically 8 lads all blindfolded, yes blindfolded, and made to fight. It was hilarious - people were beating up the corner posts and even the referee got a pasting! The highlight of the night was a fat fighter trying to make an entrance by jumping over the ropes, completely fluffing it and tumbling headfirst into the ring, then getting up as if nothing had happened! On Sunday we did a Thai cookery course which was great fun. We both made a curry paste and curry (Hickey made red and Lorry made green), then Hickey made a spicy beef salad and stir fried chicken with cashew nuts, and Lorry made spring rolls and fried chicken with holy basil. We were amazed at how brilliant everything looked and tasted, and are looking forward to putting our skills into practice when we get home. After our successful course we went to the Sunday market. We were told it was big, but our imagination was nowhere near the reality! It is the biggest market we have every seen, and pretty much took over the whole of the city centre. It was absolutely rammed and the stall seemed to go on forever. We walked around for nearly 3 hours and didn't even cover it all. We didn't really buy anything as we are saving ourselves for the Bangkok weekend market, which is even bigger apparently! Monday morning was worlds away from a standard Monday and England, and started off with a trek through the forest on the back of an elephant. We named ours Sir Terence of Trunkton. It was an experience but we would never do it again - the elephants looked sad and didn't seem very well treated. Luckily that was only a small portion of our day.
The rest of the day was brilliant. We had an hours trek to a waterfall which was beautiful - we got some pictures and chilled for a bit in the sunshine before heading back down. We then got in our pickup truck and went white water rafting which was great fun. That was until Hickey went overboard, got smacked around a bit by the rocks and swept downsteam! He really enjoyed that part but it was quite scary for Lorry watching it! After a while the water got a bit shallow, so we switched to the long bamboo raft, which was much more of a chilled experience. We went past an elephant just chilling in the water which was pretty cool. When we had dried off it was onto our next destination which was a small village full of little kids that were so excited that we were there, then started begging, shouting "Twenty baht" at us as we left. The next stop was our hostel, where Jeff and Fine were waiting for us and shouted "welcome home" when we got dropped off which was really sweet. On our last night we went out as there is a square of bars just by our hostel. It was a reallygood night, starting off listening to a Thai band playing mostly Ronan Keating covers and ended up hitting the dancfloor hard when the DJ came on, at one point we went to leave got half way down the road and heard Black Eyed Peas "Dirty Bit" come on so we raced back and danced for another hour!! Good times! Pai Cor Blimey - if we thought Chaing Mai was laidback then Pai is pretty much horizontal! Everyone is really happy, friendly and chilled and its full of hippies. The journey to Pai however was pretty nasty, there are over 300 bends on the uber windy steep road, and the fact that we were feeling pretty ropey from the night before didn't help. To make it worse one of the girls we met from Stoke was being sick out the window! When we arrived were offered accomodation for 150 baht (3 quid), we had a look and it turned out to be a really cute little bamboo hut which was on the other side of the Pai river accessible via a rickety old bridge. The Stoke girls, Swedish girl and the very chatty Portuguese bloke from our bus also stayed. We dumped or bags and went for a look around the town centre. Pai is very small but has one of the best vibes we have experienced since being away and looks really cool, with loads of really individual funky shops and bars and stalls. Unlike Bangkok no-one is shouting at you trying to get you to buy their stuff, but instead are all sitting down actually hand-making their merchandise. We headed out with the minibus crew that night to a food festival that was taking place. The food was lush and stupidly cheap, the entertainment was fab too, basically a singing competition where people all ages sang (most of them pretty awefully) traditional Thai songs. After the food we headed to a few bars and then to a bar offering free sambucas with every drink! After a while the buckets came out, Lorry heard her name being shouted from across the dancefloor and there were Robin and Kate (AGAIN!), we had a boogie and finally made it to bed at 6am. Next morning we moved to Darling Resort where Robin and Kate were staying as they had reserved us a room. The accomodation was a villa with a swimming pool, plus a great sound system that you could plug your ipod or phone too (unfortunately we had neither) and no one else was staying there so we had free reign of the place. In the afternoon Hickey headed out firstly to the hot springs (and my word they were hot), then off to an elephant sanctuary where the elephants are really well treated and you can interact with them (they have even been taught how to say thank you), and finally to a waterfall. Lorry was unable to come as had humungous blisters on both feet from the trek in Chaing Mai plus a gammy foot from stepping in glass in Ko Tao. That night we headed out again (after Lorry had some much needed first aid on her foot and became one of the millions of travellers in Thailand sporting a bandage) and, surprise surprise, drank more buckets! Our last day in Pai was spent chilling out in the baking hot sun by the pool until catching our minibus back to Chaing Mai in the afternoon. We are so glad we went to Pai - we had never heard of it before but it was recommended by loads of travellers, and we will certainly be recommending it to others. That night we stayed at our favourite place 'Junior House' where the owners greeted us by saying "welcome home". Next stop is Laos, we intend to make our own way there instead of paying a travel agent a small fortune. We are really looking forward to the next part of our adventure, Thailand has been amazing and we can certainly see ourselves returning one day.
Chiang Mai We left Bangkok at 5pm on Friday and arrived at 5am on Saturday morning after a sweaty sleepless overnight bus. It was so early in the morning that we saw the monks collecting alms (food and money) which is apparently one of the must-see sights in Thailand. Luckily we had booked our accommodation in advance and told the owner when we were arriving, as they got the room ready for us and we went straight to bed for a few hours. We got up and had a shower in our lush room, which is definitely the best room we have stayed in (it has a wardrobe and hot shower and everything!) then went down and met the owner Jeff and Fine, who are a lovely young couple in their 20's who are so friendly and really helpful. They gave us a map, pointed out all the markets, and explained how the centre is just 1.2km squared, with town walls all around the edge and gates and the north, south, east and west ends. So we headed off to explore, and found it to be such a cool little place. The people are amongst the friendliest we have met so far. It is smaller and less commercial than Bangkok, but is still a city, and has lots of little temples. When we got back to our guesthouse we booked our activities for the next few days, starting with Muay Thai boxing that night, which was really cool. We had ringside seats and it was certainly an experience - there were 7 fights to very strange music, and included a "special fight" which was our favourite fight. It was basically 8 lads all blindfolded, yes blindfolded, and made to fight. It was hilarious - people were beating up the corner posts and even the referee got a pasting! The highlight of the night was a fat fighter trying to make an entrance by jumping over the ropes, completely fluffing it and tumbling headfirst into the ring, then getting up as if nothing had happened! On Sunday we did a Thai cookery course which was great fun. We both made a curry paste and curry (Hickey made red and Lorry made green), then Hickey made a spicy beef salad and stir fried chicken with cashew nuts, and Lorry made spring rolls and fried chicken with holy basil. We were amazed at how brilliant everything looked and tasted, and are looking forward to putting our skills into practice when we get home. After our successful course we went to the Sunday market. We were told it was big, but our imagination was nowhere near the reality! It is the biggest market we have every seen, and pretty much took over the whole of the city centre. It was absolutely rammed and the stall seemed to go on forever. We walked around for nearly 3 hours and didn't even cover it all. We didn't really buy anything as we are saving ourselves for the Bangkok weekend market, which is even bigger apparently! Monday morning was worlds away from a standard Monday and England, and started off with a trek through the forest on the back of an elephant. We named ours Sir Terence of Trunkton. It was an experience but we would never do it again - the elephants looked sad and didn't seem very well treated. Luckily that was only a small portion of our day.
The rest of the day was brilliant. We had an hours trek to a waterfall which was beautiful - we got some pictures and chilled for a bit in the sunshine before heading back down. We then got in our pickup truck and went white water rafting which was great fun. That was until Hickey went overboard, got smacked around a bit by the rocks and swept downsteam! He really enjoyed that part but it was quite scary for Lorry watching it! After a while the water got a bit shallow, so we switched to the long bamboo raft, which was much more of a chilled experience. We went past an elephant just chilling in the water which was pretty cool. When we had dried off it was onto our next destination which was a small village full of little kids that were so excited that we were there, then started begging, shouting "Twenty baht" at us as we left. The next stop was our hostel, where Jeff and Fine were waiting for us and shouted "welcome home" when we got dropped off which was really sweet. On our last night we went out as there is a square of bars just by our hostel. It was a reallygood night, starting off listening to a Thai band playing mostly Ronan Keating covers and ended up hitting the dancfloor hard when the DJ came on, at one point we went to leave got half way down the road and heard Black Eyed Peas "Dirty Bit" come on so we raced back and danced for another hour!! Good times! Pai Cor Blimey - if we thought Chaing Mai was laidback then Pai is pretty much horizontal! Everyone is really happy, friendly and chilled and its full of hippies. The journey to Pai however was pretty nasty, there are over 300 bends on the uber windy steep road, and the fact that we were feeling pretty ropey from the night before didn't help. To make it worse one of the girls we met from Stoke was being sick out the window! When we arrived were offered accomodation for 150 baht (3 quid), we had a look and it turned out to be a really cute little bamboo hut which was on the other side of the Pai river accessible via a rickety old bridge. The Stoke girls, Swedish girl and the very chatty Portuguese bloke from our bus also stayed. We dumped or bags and went for a look around the town centre. Pai is very small but has one of the best vibes we have experienced since being away and looks really cool, with loads of really individual funky shops and bars and stalls. Unlike Bangkok no-one is shouting at you trying to get you to buy their stuff, but instead are all sitting down actually hand-making their merchandise. We headed out with the minibus crew that night to a food festival that was taking place. The food was lush and stupidly cheap, the entertainment was fab too, basically a singing competition where people all ages sang (most of them pretty awefully) traditional Thai songs. After the food we headed to a few bars and then to a bar offering free sambucas with every drink! After a while the buckets came out, Lorry heard her name being shouted from across the dancefloor and there were Robin and Kate (AGAIN!), we had a boogie and finally made it to bed at 6am. Next morning we moved to Darling Resort where Robin and Kate were staying as they had reserved us a room. The accomodation was a villa with a swimming pool, plus a great sound system that you could plug your ipod or phone too (unfortunately we had neither) and no one else was staying there so we had free reign of the place. In the afternoon Hickey headed out firstly to the hot springs (and my word they were hot), then off to an elephant sanctuary where the elephants are really well treated and you can interact with them (they have even been taught how to say thank you), and finally to a waterfall. Lorry was unable to come as had humungous blisters on both feet from the trek in Chaing Mai plus a gammy foot from stepping in glass in Ko Tao. That night we headed out again (after Lorry had some much needed first aid on her foot and became one of the millions of travellers in Thailand sporting a bandage) and, surprise surprise, drank more buckets! Our last day in Pai was spent chilling out in the baking hot sun by the pool until catching our minibus back to Chaing Mai in the afternoon. We are so glad we went to Pai - we had never heard of it before but it was recommended by loads of travellers, and we will certainly be recommending it to others. That night we stayed at our favourite place 'Junior House' where the owners greeted us by saying "welcome home". Next stop is Laos, we intend to make our own way there instead of paying a travel agent a small fortune. We are really looking forward to the next part of our adventure, Thailand has been amazing and we can certainly see ourselves returning one day.
- comments
Andy gill Great to hear from you both . Enjoy the warm sunny waether while you can.ooh!weather!my smelling is tellyball! I can't believe the things you're eating out there, considering laura only ate frazles and crispy pancakes. (and never ever drank) you both look happy and well tanned,like dale winton,love you both andy, teresa, stu xxx
Jan Hickey Thailand sounds amazing, the story of the little old woman amused me. bet you can't beleive its all goona come to a end pretty soon, its gone so quick. Looking forward to seeing you both though. xx Mum and Ian