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Hello All
Its been quite a while since we blogged so we've got a lot of catching up to do!
Right...... So Christmas day in Chiang Mai was fun. After we Skyped our parents we met Nick & Siobhan by the pool and started on the Chiang's :) Siobhan couldn't get hold of her parents and was getting quite upset by this so she decided to drown her sorrows ever so slightly resulting in her nearly passing out in her Christmas dinner later on! Siobhan had to be put to bed so Nick went with her at about 9pm. Sam & I decided to save a bit of money and buy some beer from the 7/11 instead of a bar, whilst doing this we met a couple called Alba & Mike, Alba is Spanish, Mike is English & they live in the Maldives, working for a company that builds chartered boats...some people get all the luck! The 4 of us stuck together and went out for a pretty mental night. Everyone had Santa hats and i coincidentally decided to wear a red dress with white trim (I swear this was a coincidence, Sam believes otherwise!) So i was like a celeb that night, everyone wanted a picture with "Santa" :) We met a Thai girl called Andi who took us in her monster truck to a nightclub which we decided was rubbish so went back to the original bar we were in. The night ended about 4am and my oh my did we pay for it the next day. Eugh! We hired a DVD player from the hotel for 100BHT / 3$ and hibernated in our room aka 'The crack den"
Feeling a lot better the next day we sat by the pool and topped up our tans. We went out again that night with Alba & Mike and invited Nick & Siobhan also. We had the best street food ever - Roast pork with Chinese broccoli & rice. Mmmmm! The night again turned messy and we realized why - The island Alba & Mike live on is a Muslim island with no alcohol so they were on holiday getting their full boozy two weeks' worth in before heading back to abstinence! And yet another killer hangover the day after!
We then had a few nice days sunbathing by the pool before New Year came around and Jerry & Eva arrived in Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai on NY was really cool, they closed the roads off & set up loads of stalls selling all different kinds of foods like curry, sushi, chips, black jelly shakes?! and lots of clothes etc. They also had a massive concert so there were thousands of people about, as well as a giant Christmas tree made out of CD's so it reflected in the light..it looked really nice!
Sam, I, Jerry & Eva all met up and went to a roof top bar which had amazing views of the streets below but jerry got a bit funny about the fire exits not being available and seeing as the skies were filled with Chinese lanterns, some making it to the sky and others getting trapped in electric cables, we made our exit.
We bought our own Chinese lanterns, wrote our messages on them and let them off into the sky. Jerry's, Eva's & mine all went off fine, Sam's on the other hand went up about 10ft then plummeted into the moat we were all surrounded on. Poor Sam L
Sam & I cleverly booked a flight to Bangkok for New Years day as it was about $70 on the 1st Jan or 200$ on the 2nd Jan. We had to get up at 6am, get to the airport, fly to Bangkok, wait for 6hrs and fly to Koh Samui…Not fun! Except for the fact that we flew with Bangkok Airways to Koh Samui so we got a VIP lounge with free food, WIFI & beds to lie down on…this was heaven as far as we were concerned!
Arrived in Koh Samui to pissing rain and what we later found out was a cyclone. Nice.
Got to our resort on a private beach & holed up there for 2 days in the rain. It was so secluded it didn't even have a shop so we had to eat every meal in the restaurant in the resort which was not great and there weren't many people staying. We managed to get on a boat to Ko Tao 2 days after we arrived in Koh Samui which was a relief that we would be going to some civilization.
The Boat to Ko Tao was a bumpy ride to say the least but we still had some motion sickness pills so we popped those and were relatively ok, unlike others who were throwing up over the side of the boat! The boat took about 3hrs and upon arrival in Ko Tao we tried to find some accommodation. It seemed no one wanted to take you unless you were diving and you needed 4 days to do the PADI diving course. Seeing as we had booked our place in Koh Phangan for the full moon party we only had 3 days in Ko Tao so finding somewhere to stay was tricky. After asking about 10 places if they had a room & being told no, along with signs outside saying "ROOMS FULL" we finally found somewhere. Phew! It was basic enough but was all we needed - hot shower, fan, Cable TV etc. All was well until about 7pm when the bar downstairs started pumping its bass out o the world, more specifically, into out room. The first night was a very sleepless night. To add insult to injury the fan could only point in one direction which was not at the bed so a hot, sweaty sleepless night was had by all. The following day I went o buy sleeping pills & was given Valium. Nice surprise!
By this point the cyclone had passed and we could go to the beach. Yey! We met Nick & Siobhan from Chiang Mai in Ko Tao and we all went for dinner, drinks & to a "cabaret show" aka "lady boy show" it was surreal to say the least but was good fun.
We once again hibernated in our room the following day & popped a valium to get a good nights sleep above the pumping bass.
The following day we got a boat to Koh Phangan for the full moon party a few days later. If you are booking for the full moon period you have to book a minimum of 4 nights' accommodation so we decided to book away from the party bit and just head to the party bit for the night. Where we had actually booked was a private beach called 'Bottle Beach'. It was an amazing setting, just a little too secluded for us, with no WIFI, no shop and it was quite expensive as there were only 4 restaurants available we didn't have a choice to eat cheap.
There was also no travel agent so we didn't know how to actually get off the island other than boat to the main land to then chance getting a ticket elsewhere. Eventually we asked in the guesthouse who after a lot of confused looks about why we wanted to KL and not just do a visa run to come back into Thailand they told us we could get a boat at 7am to Thuat Sani and then a bus down to KL.
So.. we were up at 5:30am ready to be picked up & taken to the port at 6am but our driver was nowhere to be seen, we waited until 6:30am and then a load of drunken, neon paint covered people came running up the beach which signaled our driver was back from the full moon party pick up. He packed us into his 4x4 and raced down a dirt track that we never knew existed to get us to the pier. We arrived at 7:10am promptly missing our boat. Nice. The ticket office at the pier said another boat was leaving another pier at 7:15am and if we ran we would make it. So we ran and thankfully we made it with no idea what to do once we arrived at Thurat Sani. We managed to mumble our way onto a bus which took us to another bus station where we bought a ticket to KL. We got a lift to another ticket office that changed our ticket then we were driven to another bus station and eventually got on a mini bus to Hat Yao. (With no idea where & what Hat Yao was) Once in Hat Yao no one had any idea where we were going or how to get there. We haven't felt that alone on the whole trip so far as at that time, no one really cared that we had a ticket and that we needed help. One man grabbed us, chucked us into his car and took us to yet another bus station. This was the first time we saw other westerners on our entire journey that day so we were more than relieved to think we were in the right place. Our bus to KL came at 7pm and it was as advertise a "VIP bus" (the first time in Asia we actually had a VIP Bus although promised one every time) It had big reclining chairs and blankets. Bliss! We took some valium and slept all the way, once we passed through border control until 5am when we arrived in KL. We got a taxi to the hotel we booked and were in bed and fast asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow! A very stressful 24hr Journey!
Woke up and decided to go exploring. We found a shopping Mall and Sam got a hair cut for 16Ringgit which is about 5$. They hoover'd his head after the haircut which was an interesting sight!
I decided to treat myself to a wash & blow dry and had an equally funny experience, I had shampoo put on my hair at the cutting station with the mirror & then water squeezed on & rubbed in, this went on for about 20 minutes and I was then taken to a wash basin to wash the shampoo out. My question is this…..if they had wash basins to begin with why was my hair not washed there instead of just rinsed out there?! It was the strangest thing; I had a head massage, then a neck massage, then a back massage all with soapy water! Anyway, hair freshly washed & dried I felt a slight sense of normality again which was a nice feeling.
Tonight we are off to 'Little India' to find a curry and tomorrow we are off to the Petronas Towers and other sightseeing things before booking our ticket to Langkawi J
Hope you all had lovely Christmas's and New Years!
Lots of Love
Sam & Vickey
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- comments
Party Boy Stu Popping valiums! Amazing and proper funny! hey guys...what a crazy journey you have been on recently but glad you are both still living the dream and safe. We had a great xmas...very quiet and chilled compared to your adventure...lots of drinks and lots of food. I was busy socially at work leading up to it which was perfect and had proper nights out and parties most of it all paid for! Now back to the grinstone and a manic year ahead...lots going on....oh and by the way guys I have signed up to do Nettle Warrior this year in July haha. Much love
Jenny Get on the "hop on - hop off" bus in KL for about 14 ringetts- well worth it as it takes in all the landmarks.
Bee & Ben Yo yo yo, Happy New Year you guys! Sounds like you're having lots of fun over there, glad you enjoyed your Xmas & New Year - you did well with the VIP buses, think we managed to land ourselves one of those on route to Singapore, nice recliner seats but still couldn't sleep, missed a trick with the old Valium clearly! Did you brave the full moon party or stay clear? Private beach sounds lovely. So glad you guys are enjoying yourselves & looking forward to the next update, wow Langkawi's gonna be amazing I bet! Lots of love to you both & yep still wishing we were there with you!! xxxxx
Sam Hi guys, In the end we decided against the Full Moon party. Which was the main reason we went to Phan Gan really. After a few weeks of hitting the buckets pretty hard we we're feeling the pain and thought another night might push us over the edge to insanity :). We both wholaeheartesly blame the Thai Red Bull... Geez, it's intense stuff. Gives you a proper come down feeling too! I must admit the valium was under expected when asking foe sleeping tablets! Haha... Glad to hear you all had good X mas'. What did you do for NYE? Stu - cool about the Nettle Warrior. By the sounds of it it's pretty intense stuff. I think we will both be back in training mode when we get back. The food out here is too good and too cheap. So I will have to get back on the jogging to get rid of the spare tire! Ha.... Love you all sam xx