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Most of the rest of the time we spent on Phi Phi island involved pina coladas on the beach, watching fire shows that always became weird Thai rap eventually; trekking to rubbish viewpoints; avoiding sewage in the street; attempting to find a bit of nice beach on the main strip; trying to force down the weirdest pasta meals ever; and laughing at the cart-pushing locals beeping their bicycle horns or saying 'beep beep toot toot' if they had no horn. Ann and I were particularly grumpy old ladies here, not feeling the European 18-30s holiday vibe or the smell of poo in the street and the sea, but we did do one really nice day trip which proved that the main tourist area of Phi Phi was clearly just ruined, the island itself having numerous stunning little spots. A low may have been getting home from a much needed 4 hour skype session to some much loved and much missed friends in Reading, to Ann saying 'I had a shower and when I got in, it wasn't yellow and didn't smell like egg for once, so I had a bit of a dance and then the egg came… I cried a bit.'
Our snorkeling day trip took us back to Monkey Beach; to Maya Bay (where they filmed 'The Beach')- this was really nice, the sand crazily soft and fine, but perhaps a little bit too crowded with tourists and day trip boats (Lindsay and I consoled ourselves with whole packs of Pringles and oreos); to Bamboo Island and a lovely little shallow spot in the sea for 'jumping, snorking and swimming'. We had a lovely day and saw some amazing places, giving me back a small bit of positivity for Phi Phi as a place in general. I did have a minor mishap with my bikini top at one point when attempting to make someone fall off the boat by rocking it from the water with the boys. Woops! That's karma for you! That evening found us drinking too much and playing games in the Irish bar before going for a beach boogie and pizza on the way home.
I guess it's fair to say I couldn't wait to get up north and when the day came to get the ferry to Phuket and a flight to Chiang Mai and being met at the airport by a lovely man with a typed out name sign, airport pick up, bags carried and a beautiful, big, clean room with non smelly shower was the icing on a very large cake for myself and Ann. Unfortunately, celebrating with midnight snack hunts to 7 Eleven for very very chili pot noodles and ending up burning our faces off and swelling our lips up may not have been our greatest move and caused us both to want to delay our hill tribe trek from the following day! Instead we had a lovely lazy day of napping in our amazing beds, in our amazing room and going for a (much better than the Bangkok equivalent) cooking class via the food market (thousand year old 'horse pee' eggs eh?) which was loads of fun and involved 'adventure' in the form of fire cooking! Lindsay got a little over excited on her turn and missed the pan with the chicken, throwing it straight onto the floor!
The following day continued in the same amazingly fun way, with a trip ziplining around the jungle- another of those things I wouldn't have wanted to do before traveling. It was amazing fun and once I was used to the heights, I found myself wishing it were a full day thing rather than a half day adventure. I spent the afternoon beating the icy cold water in the swimming pool for a refreshing swim. In the evening, the Welsh girls arrived with Dave, in time to join us for our deferred hill tribe trek. We'd been told by the previous group that the trekking itself was crazily hard, going back down on day 2 the worst-
I was having flashbacks to Mt Kinabalu! The uphill trek was pretty long and did, unsurprisingly, involve a whole lot of hill, the only respite being a few short stops for the guides to make a quick bong or 2 out of bamboo. It was well worth it, though, as we reached the top and played games with the local White Karen tribe children outside and amazed them with our cameras. In the evening, we sat around a campfire and I chatted (sort of) to a non-English speaking man who they referred to as 'Whisky Man', cheerfully explaining he was always drunk on whisky- they weren't wrong! He spilt many a shot on my legs by accident whilst trying to spike his friend's beer! Some of the girls decided they fancied chocolate and we were taken to the local 7 Eleven, which turned out to be a tiny little hut with a few bare essentials- the local shop. That night, we slept in a large hut with rows of mattresses and mosquito nets- not really how the locals do it and not really with them as such, but good anyway.
On the way down, we popped into the village school, which I genuinely got quite teary over- I've seen lots of 'tourist' schools in little deprived villages where they clearly teach the kids to count to 10 or say the alphabet in English, making them wait for a tourist to appear before being able to show off this pointless knowledge right on cue. This was not one of those- the walls had evidence of genuine learning, the kids seemed more interested in their work than in our being there and they were all doing really well! I was so impressed! I found a walking stick for the walk down, which helped a lot but it was nowhere near as tough as the trek up! We had been given fried noodle lunched packed for us in the morning in palm leaves and ate them by a waterfall with freshly made bamboo chopsticks which was really lovely. We headed to another little elephant trek place and Ann and I rode our elephant, which kept sneezing and blowing snotty water all over us- we rewarded it by feeding it yummy bamboo! It was nice, but sad as I spotted a man with one elephant who was carrying an elephant hook- I couldn't be sure I'd seen him use the sharp end, but some of the girls got really upset and more so after seeing more elephants chained up by the foot on their own in a field…
Spirits were lifted once again with the bamboo rafting shortly after- the mo9st fun I'd had in such a long time- it was basically sitting on long thin rafts made of bamboo, floating down the river and a few rapids, splashing each other and switching rafts, with the local 'guides' (who were essentially punting) attempting to do everything in their power to soak us and make us fall off. We passed a few fishermen who were obviously used to the whole thing and splashed us was we came by, so I retaliated by kick splashing one until he was saturated, which he responded to by grabbing my foot and trying to drag me in to the water- I stayed on the raft (just)- winner! At one point, another raft got stuck and our guide swam to help them, leaving our raft to float towards a bunch of rapids, which he couldn't make it back to us in time to help us get through safely. I attempted to take the stick and have a go at steering, but Tara was adamant that she'd do it, so she played guide for a while. All good fun J
The last few Chiang Mai days were a blur of relaxing, laptop buying, travel planning, saying goodbye lots of times until it was just Dave and I left, sunbathing and soaking up the incredible atmosphere in the best night market I've been to so far! On the Day Dave left and I ended up on my own, Nick (the bar man-waiter-tour operator-receptionist-general amazing man) set me up in the restaurant with the TV they'd wheeled in for me, a chair padded out with extra cushions and one for my feet, a good meal and a great film (I cried a bit during the film… lots of people walked passed looking at the crazy girl crying in the hotel restaurant, acting like she owned the place with the tv and most of the chairs' cushions!)- really nice gesture from him!
On the last night, we finally found a cheap enough restaurant that did genuinely good western meals and had a really lovely goodbye meal before another thaintro group split, during which a monsoon decided to hit. Sticking it out at the restaurant and getting pudding, then drinks… was not long enough for the rain and we ended up running over the road to a bar instead of getting our intended early night and packing done. Eventually, we decided it was time to just give in and run home, however, I had my aladin trousers on and did not want to have to pack them wet. Knowing I had bikini bottoms on still, I opted for running back trouserless, much to Ann's amusement (she claimed to feel like my pimp all the way back, as we tried to find a non sewage flooded route back to our luxury pad). In the end it as good as stopped raining for the exact amount of time it took for me to get home, leaving us giggling quite a lot about the irony of it. I like to think I stopped the rain with my brave public trouser removal! (I should point out that we were in a beach town, everyone walked around in almost nothing all day and I did see another girl running in the rain in just a bikini- great minds!)
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