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Good morning from Thailand.
Nick finished last time by saying that we were off to Ko Lanta the next morning and that's exactly what we did. Unfortunately it was my turn to feel unwell and I woke with terrible stomach cramps which continued for the next 3 days!! Oh well, these things happen I guess! It did mean that on our arrival in Ko Lanta I went straight to bed while Nick went to play in the pool and walk along the beach. Staying in the room wasn't such a hardship as it was so nice!! For about 7 pounds a night we had a beautiful little brick built hut with a nice en-suite bathroom, TV, balcony and a fan, and the resort had a swimming pool - brilliant!
I was feeling a bit better the next morning so after breakfast and a relaxing sit by the pool we hired a moped and set off to explore the island. First we headed South towards the Marine Park. On the way we followed a sign for a waterfall, this led us to a small restaurant where we decided to stop for lunch, before starting on the walk to the waterfall. As it's low season here I don't think that they were expecting any customers and so when we asked for a menu were told that we could either have chicken or shrimp with noodles!! The food was great anyway and after eating off we went to the waterfall stopping at Bat Cave on the way. You've probably seen the picture of me in the cave with a bat? Well we didn't actually know that was there until we looked at the picture afterwards!! Wierd! The owner of the restaurant now has a copy of that picture to use on his promotional posters! The waterfall was nice and refreshing to stand under then we headed back to the moped to continue our adventure.
Unfortunately, about 100metres down the road the silencer (bit of exhaust) fell of the bike meaning that we couldn't go any further! Nick managed to find some string and tie the silencer back on for the 20 minute journey back to the guest house but it was very noisy and we drew a lot of stares from the locals. Luckily for us the moped man didn't blame us for the damage. Instead he appologised profusely and offered us another moped for the next day!! I love the Thai people!!
And so to another afternoon with me in bed and Nick by the pool. That evening we met up with a Canadian couple and a UK/US couple for dinner before they headed off for some mushroom shakes (yes, really!) and we went to bed.
So, another day, another bike. This time we decided to head North but soon changed our minds after being stopped by the police for not wearing helmets (we hadn't been given any and no-one else wears them!) luckily they didn't fine us so we just turned around and headed back to the South!! After exploring Old Lanta Town on the East we headed to a big cave (Tham Mai Kaew) in the centre of the island that had been recommended by the Canadian couple. This was really impressive and absolutely huge. The humidity was unbelievable and when we got the furthest point from it was hard to breathe from lack of oxygen!! An amazing trip though.
After that we were both pretty knackered so it was back to the pool to relax. When the heat of the day had subsided a little we decided to head out for another jaunt and this time Reuban (the US part of the UK/US couple) decided to join us. Unfortunately the route we chose to do was along a very rough track and Reuban's scooter kept stalling eventually causing him to fall off, badly injuring his big toe and scratching the bike. His toe looked disgusting and my stomach did a complete flip, he insisted he was fine but we headed back so he could bandage it up. Note to everyone - don't wear flip flops on a moped!!! He also got charged for the damamage which we felt quite bad about as it was our idea to go that way - oops!
After all the excitement we had an early night and a very relaxing day lying by the pool the next day. A huge storm in the night had cleared away the clouds of the previous day and it was great for sunbathing. That afternoon we headed back to our trusty Guest House in Krabi and had another early night to prepare us for our trip to Ko Phi Phi the next day.
After a morning of travelling we arrived at Ko Phi Phi around lunch time on 10th July. After walking to the very busy main beach we decided to find somewhere else to spend the day. So, we walked up to the view point then down to Rantee Beach a really small, quiet beach with 5 farangs (white people) on it including us. Here we snorkelled and sunbathed before walking back up to the view point to watch the sunset. Unfortunately half of the Island had decided to watch the sunset from here so as the crowd got bigger and bigger we decided to take a couple of pre-sunset photos and head off. That evening we went for a lovely meal and booked ourselves onto a diving trip for Monday 13th (my birthday!) Unfortunately we couldn't do the trip we wanted to (to a wreck) as the tides were all wrong and with our limited diving experience we would have struggled to get to where we wanted to be, but we were assured that the sites they'd take us to instead were still great.
The next day we'd signed up for a round island snorkelling trip, so after an early breakfast off we went! The trip was great and we saw loads of fish (especially Nemo's) but the weather was starting to turn and we ended up not going to all of the locations and finishing an hour early because the sea was too rough. We did visit Maya Beach (where the film "The Beach" was filmed) and Monkey Bay (where Nick made friends with the monkeys briefly, before they realised he didn't have any food and chased him into the sea!!) but the weather ruined things a bit.
As we were walking back to our Guest House we were stopped by the sound of "Rambo!" being shouted down the street at us! Yes, it was two of the lads from Fraser Island. They were in Ko Phi Phi recovering from the Full Moon Party on another island a couple of nights before. As it was nearly my birthday, we had nothing planned for the next day and we had already booked a morning boat for the 14th, we decided to have a big night out with the lads and their mates as an early celebration. Loads of fun and our first big night out since Burleigh Heads in Australia!
That night there was an enormous storm which continued through most of the next day so we didn't feel bad at all about having a lazy morning in bed! When we finally got up I went for a Thai massage and foot scrub which left me with very relaxed legs and shiny feet (not good when combined with flip flops and torrential rain!) I did just about manage to stay on my feet until I got back to the room and put my trainers on but I think I looked a bit like Bambi on ice!! After a short walk we ate then retired for an early night in preparation for our morning dives.
The next day was 13h July, exactly 21 years ago on that day I turned 9. So off we went on my birthday dive trip! Predictably the bad weather the day before had spoiled things somewhat. First of all, the other dive shops didn't want to send their boats out in rough weather so instead of having a small group of 5 we had a boat with about 25 on it. The bad weather also meant that our first dive wasn't in the location we expected and the visibility was down to about 5m (it's usually nearer 25m!) The dives were good, but not great, we saw one rare fish and a lobster but no sharks (they're quite common here apparently) though to be honest a hundred sharks could have been swimming right next to us and we wouldn't have seen them!! It didn't actually rain though, which was good!
We were back on the island by two and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach. This time we walked around the coast to Long Beach (about 20mins away). On the way we met an Irish couple, Brendan and Ellie, who we got on well with and arranged to meet later that evening for dinner. That evening we went to a restaurant they recommended where we got lovely kingfish steaks and I had some birthday cocktails, then it all started to go wrong!! We'd planned to have a relatively quiet night but Irish people won't let you have a quiet night on your birthday, especially not your 30th, so instead we went to a couple of bars (ending at an Irish bar obviously) and didn't get to bed until 2am!!
At 7am we were up, packing our bags ready for the boat back to Krabi. I managed to sleep most of the way back but Nick was wide awake! On arrival we were picked up by our Guest House's friendly tuk tuk driver who proceeded to drive us to the hospital where a doctor ran out to great us and looked very confussed when we said that we weren't ill!! We think that when Nick had spoken to Urai (the guest house owner) and said that we wanted to come back to Krabi and stay at her hostel she thought he said hospital! We were then taken on to the hostel where Urai was suprised at how quickly we'd finished at the hospital! With that confusiion sorted out we dumped our bags and headed out on a moped to explore the area around Krabi.
I'd read about a place called Tiger Temple and really wanted to see it so that was our main goal. It was an interesting place. The monks lived there in little houses built into the cliff face and there was a deep narrow cave you could walk around in, but the main attraction was the Buddha at the top of the cliff. 1237 steps up the cliff to be precise. It took us about 30mins to reach the top and the humidity was unbelievable, by the time we got there we were soaking wet! But the view was amazing, atleats for the short time we got to see it before the clouds came over and the rain started! We sheltered at the top until it stopped before making the leg wobbling decent back down 1237 steps! It was worth the pain though. The rest of the afternoon we just rode round exporing the area and looking at the landscape. A good way to spend an afternoon!
The next morning we were on the move again. This time to Khao Sok National Park. We didn't arrive there until 3pm so thought we'd just go for a short walk in the park. Unfortunately it was closed due to flooding!! Instead A, the Guest House owner, arranged for us to visit the monkeys at a small temple, a viewpoint and a waterfall with some other members of his family. Brum, the 1year old boy, refused to sit anywhere except on my knee (hence my very confussed expression in the photo). That night we signed up for an overnight trip to the lake for the next day.
That morning we were up at 7.30 for breakfast, ready for the journey to the lake. There were 6 people in our group, 2 Sweeds, 2 Spanish and us and we all got on really well. The journey accross the lake was amazing, absolutely beautiful scenery and it didn't rain! We arrived at the bamboo huts at about 11 and so had some time playing in the lake, swimming and kayaking, before lunch. The lake was great, constantly at around 30degrees, like a bath! That afternoon we set of on a longtail boat to another part of the lake where we walked for about an hour before getting a bamboo raft to a cave. A (our guide) refered to the cave as the Coral Cave and you can see why. The stalagmites and stalagtites all look just like coral, amazing! It was then back to the bamboo huts for more swimming and dinner. We should have been going on a night safari that evening to see the nocturnal animals but unfortunately the rain started up again meaning that the animals and us would be hiding under shelter all evening.
A suggested that we could do an early morning safari the next day instead but again heavy rain meant this didn't happen. So the next day we were left to sleep until late, which was really good as Nick had been kept awake half the night my frogs "singing" under our hut! After our late breakfast we took the longtail boat accross the lake where we did a three hour walk up to a view point and back (mainly in the rain!) We then sailed to another shelter to eat lunch before heading back to dry land and the van. We got back to Khao Sok early evening, had dinner then headed to bed. A really good couple of days.
And so to today. It's been raining most of the day so we've read, emailed and blogged! In about an hour we'll be leaving Khao Sok for Kanchanaburi, about a 15hour journey!! What fun!!
Thank you for all my birthday messages.
Hope you're all well.
xx
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