Dear faithful blessed reader,

Neglecting you we have been, but thinking not of you we haven't. What on earth does that all mean??. Here's another blog for you!

After we crossed the border and waved a not so fond farewell to the bus from Hell from Siam Reap. We were swiftly (in Thai terms) moved to our cramped, but actually luxurious minibus. The trip was uneventful, all except for a quick stop at the services 2 hours into our journey, where we stopped at the ubiquitous 7-11. Having spent our first 5 days ever in Thailand in our beds being sick (see the earlier blog entry titled Jem n Jim loose 9 pounds in 72 hours!) the only other place we had frequented regularly was the local 7-11 to buy the occasional supply of white bread and kraft cheese slices. To hear the 'bing bong' of the 7-11 door actually made us stare at each other and say in unison;

"We're back in Bangkok!"

A little tentative as you can imagine, but it was the warm feeling that returning somewhere familiar brings.

4 hours later we were on the infamous Kho San Road. It was a strange feeling being in one of the most notorious traveler ghettos in the world and NOT being badgered by people trying to sign you up for tours or accommodation, in fact no one approached us at all. We were later to realize that the Kho San is so full of western revelers, the locals know they will turn up and so have given up the badgering, which to be honest was fantastic, there's nothing an Englishman likes more than anonymity!!

Well 4 days in Bangkok! Being centered around the Kho San was certainly a different experience, and not at all a bad one. Yes by 3pm everyone is pissed. Yes on buckets of (quoting a sign being held aloft a street bar) "Very f***ing Strong Buckets - We do Not I.D!", Yes everyone around you is a westerner, yes every westerner tends to do no favors to the Thai's image of the West as they stagger around wee wee spilling down their legs shouting obscenities at all and sundry, yes people are getting tattoos at 1 in the morning when only half conscious, yes the lady boys do parade around looking for 'work' (and get quite a bit from what we were witness to), yes it seems every sin is being committed on every corner as soon as the sun goes down....... Not the kind of place I thought I'd immediately warm to, and certainly not somewhere I'd want to try to live the quiet life, but by Jove it was fun for 3 days!!!! Jem even learnt the difference between a ping pong match, and a ping pong show! Oh the look of surprise was quite priceless!

But it wasn't all debauching I'll have you know. Whilst avoiding the heat - yes it was extremely hot, tipping 37 degrees every day without fail! We managed to visit temples, shop in markets, eat so much street food we scoffed at getting ill in a shopping centre the first time round (especially in the evenings when we really pulled out the stops with the street vendors - fish balls was a real winner!), and trying to catch a little bit of the real Thailand (it's not hard to find, it's about 4 streets down from the Kho San road, it's surreal to be amongst nothing but farang (foreigners) until you round a corner and - bang - you're back in Thailand!!).

Our time in Bangkok was short though, and before long we found ourselves on yet another over night bus, this time to the capital of the North; Chaing Mai. Thailand's cultural centre, and one of the biggies in terms of Buddhism and religion. Without realizing though, we had booked ourselves 3 nights in the cultural centre, slap bang in the middle of Songkran (Thai New Year). Tis a very bonkers kind of an affair. The deal is that you poor some scented water over the head and hands of your friends and family to wash away all the bad luck before entering the new year, very touching. What happens today is Thailand goes on a 3 day water fight, the aim to soak from head to toe every single person in range of their cup, water pistol, water canon, bucket, or truck full of people armed with all the above items!!! Oh and where is the place that has taken this water fight festival to the most ludicrous of conclusions.......? That'll be Chaing Mai then! Gosh. We didn't know what hit us, literally. We were informed that the festivities would start on the 2nd day we were there, so we took our first day to get a look at all the temples before everything got wet, however, when the kids finish school and they can't wait, especially if they see a couple of farang walking into town in their day finery. We lasted 35 minutes before we were soaked from head to toe! When unexpected, it really is a bit of a shock!

The next day though, we were ready, dressed in our swimming costumes and bright colours (the Songkran uniform we were informed by our hostel owner) we strolled into town bought a bucket and water pistol and got stuck in! The rest of the day is a blur of water, thousands of people, Thai and farang alike all soaking each other. Chaing Mai has an ancient moat surrounding it, which is cleaned all year just so at Songkran they can pump it out into buckets for the revelers to fill their buckets! Cars get snarlled in traffic with people in or on them armed with water weapons soaking and get soaked, business people sell tons of ice to make peoples water weapons more potent, scented rice powder is dabbed on cheeks, and everyone smiles, all under a 37 degree cloudless sky (some people have suggested that the water fights have become so popular due to it being the height of the HOT season in Thailand!), and it doesn't stop, sun up to sun down for 3 days straight. Amazing fun.

To be part of such an event was fantastic, the Thai's were masters of including everyone in their festival, they were having the time of their lives and wanted every single person in town to enjoy it too (we even saw lots of people managing to walk around with their big Digital cameras without getting wet, the Thais were sure to leave you alone if their actions would do you harm). We felt absolutely blessed to have fluked being in the middle of such a important time for our Thai hosts.

The journey to the train station the next day was a fun one, but you'll have to ask us about that some other time, I've blabbed on far too long already, while you're at it you can ask us about the surprise event that took place after the last bout of the Muai thai (Thai Boxing) match we saw when in Chaing Mai!!

From here we were to travel on to Bangkok to make a connection with our trip to The legendary Thai Islands.

For now though folks that's your lot.

More when there's more.

JnJ

KOH SAMUI - KOH TAO

Well readers you get 2 blog updates in one - you lucky lucky things you! Let me take you onto the 'Legendary Thai Islands'! :0)

We were both looking forward to a little seaside action after a few weeks of travelling on bikes, throwing water at people we didn't know, and just generally seeing lots of big cities and sites, a little beach time was in order. We landed in Ko Samui and what a place it was. The airport was amazing - not that I go in for rating airports, but this was just plain cute. It looked like a little beach hut (honestly!) and nothing like the monstrosities of the Heathrows and Gatwicks we all know.

We hadn't booked ahead for accommodation and so we spent a good hour or so walking up the beach looking for a place. As all the islands off Thailand are extremely popular the price has been upped over the years to match demand so a lot of places were out of our league and budget. Eventually we found one in the centre of town, a tiny beach hut, good restaurant and a stones throw from the sand and blue goodness. Our first impressions of Ko Samui were not of the impressive beaches or truly breathtaking scenery, it was instead aimed at the shear amount of men (from abroad and sadly England!) who had a local lovely lady attached to their arm. I think we have already commented on this from when we were in Bangkok, but here, as it was such a small place, it was so much easier to notice the sheer amount of seediness!

Anyway, aside from that, Ko Samui was great, not much to report apart from minor burns to us both from falling asleep in the sun and spending hours in the water (it truly was like sitting in a bath). On our last night we got chatting to another English girl called Emma who was on a 3 weeks break from Blighty. We ended going out with her and a girl she had met earlier that day called Michelle from New Zealand. It's amazing how in the space of a few hours we were all having a quiet drink on the beach to going to a drag queen show, drinking 2 bottles of whiskey, cocktails, and chatting away to aforementioned drag queens outside their bar in the wee small hours of the morning like we had known each other for years .... but it doesn't end there dear reader...... next thing you know I look round and James is swinging himself round a pole in the bar next door like a pro (or maybe like Britters in her recent video!) The guys who had gone into said bar had probably paid a good amount to watch some decent dancers (with not much on apart from beer mats) and instead they got 3 drunken girls and bloke, fully clothed wailing like banshees while spinning round the poles! Twas great fun.... so I totally take back what I said earlier about it all being seedy - it's GREAT! haha!!!

We had all drunkenly agreed to move onto Koh Tao the next day together, so as planned met up early the following morning. A bit pale and sickly we departed Samui and started a 4+ hour journey to our next destination. After one of the worst journeys of my life (being sick into a plastic bag the size of a an A5 sheet of paper isn't something I want to experience again too soon) At some time in the late afternoon we arrived at Ko Tao, where it must be said it was beautiful and not a seedy bar in sight!! Most people come here to dive and snorkel so come mid evening a lot of people have gone home as they are getting up early to go diving. Emma had done her PADI (diving certificate) a few years ago, so she planned on diving for a few days. We're far from diving experts so it was snorkeling for us. We got a cab (Toyota 4x4 - the roads only just fit enough to be called that) over to the other side of the island and spent a whole day paddling about looking for Nemo (okay, maybe that was just me). We're still not entirely sure what the best method of getting into the sea with flippers on is, but walking backwards seemed to work best, but you don't half feel a fool doing that when people are watching you on the beach.

With heavy hearts (happening more and more as we leave each beautiful place) we said our farewells to Ko Tao, Emma and Michelle, and made our way back to mainland Thailand. We took the ferry across and it was like being on a mobile transportation unit for the walking wounded who had gone to the full moon party on Ko Phang Yang the night before (some 80,000+ people on a beach partying the night away, we were going to go, but suffered a moment of 'maybe we're too old for all that shennanigans'!!) People were covered in cuts, bruises and even one girl looked like she had been shot in her leg.... umm..... maybe best we didn't go to that then!

We spent the rest of the day travelling to a town called Hat Yai. A completely un-noteworthy place, we just needed a rest before moving onto Malaysia the next day and to be honest I was glad to move on. To me a basic requirement of a hotel is to make the place clean - or at least give the appearance of it, but my god.... the place was a hovel, the sheets dirty and the bathroom just plain nasty.....Oh how we missed the little beach huts of Koh Tao that night!

Another day, another long day of travel on a bus, but that riveting story dear reader can wait until next time....!

More when there's more!

jnj