Back again with another blast of holidayness

Much to tell you since our last entry, all the sunbathing gets in the way of doing this here journal!

So it was our last night in Ko Samui when we last did this. We got the boat to the mainland and the bus to Krabi town from there. Another memorable journey- we got to the coach a bit behind schedule and it was already full when we got there. In typical Thai style they didnt wanna inconvienience us with waiting for the next bus so we were faced with the prospect of 4hours standing up in the isle! Comfy. Thankfully everyone had to get off (for reasons unknown) and we weasled our selfish selves onto some seats leaving the unfortunate others to prop themselves up on tiny little plastic seats in the gang way! We made it to Krabi coach station fine and did the usual standing around with bewilderment on our faces untill someone shoves us on a bus to.. wherever they like i spose! Krabi town itself was a bit of a let down (no seaside! whats wrong with these people!) so we ditched our plan for a one night stay over and got a bus to Ao Nang and more lovely beaches. The local buses are always fun here, the drivers seem to have an unrelenting need for the passengers to travel in the sweatyest situation possible! Drivers yelling 'taxi bus taxi bus' is a favourite sound of ours when 4 people are hanging off the back and someone is sweating directly on you for lack of room! Anywho.. we get to Ao Nang a while later and its much more to our liking. Another Phangan style trek with our bags on in the midday heat followed due to full bookings at every danm hotel/bungalow. We had to compromise that night and had our first menage-a-trois sleeping plan! It was okay though because he had this amazing blanket that felt like it was a huge teddy bear skin. We named it 'Teddy' and still miss it to this day. Thankfully we managed to book a better place for the next night and vacated sharpish the next morning. Our next room in 'J.Hotel' was much bigger with the a/c, TV, fridge stuff that we've grown to love. No roughing it for us lot thank you very much! Ao Nang itself is a beautiful place, its well known for its rock climbing which means the scenery is often staggering! The town is much quieter than Chaweng (in Samui) and they actually have bins here which is nice! Still with a healthy smattering of bars and restaurants. One club dominates the scene - LunaBar, its a rocking place right on the beach with good music and cool fire shows every night. We request Daft Punk 'One More Time' at every opportunity and everyone seems to love it when we rock out! Seriously, we must be in photo albums all over the world by now! A particular heavy night in there gave us a new friend in Ingo the Norweigan, and two girls from England called Donna and Liz. By the end of the week, Ingo he had taken Oula's place (see previous journals) as our stalker! He's EVERYWHERE! Another night int he great LunaBar we had the privilege of meting a local gay guy. Jon and I (Luke) stayed out late one night and he started chatting to us, after a while we couldn't get rid of him. We nicknamed him 'Fag'. After LunaBar had closed we went to get some food off a stall. Fag had followed us out and for some reason he thought he was coming back to our hotel. Big mistake, buddy. We always attract the freaks. I (Luke) realized he was wasted so took the opportunity to take advantage of the situation and mainly his gayness so got him to pose on the grass. Jon told him that the pictures were going to be in a gay travel magazine and he got well excited. Fag - 'I go to to your hotel? Luke & Jon - 'No. We aren't gay'. Fag - 'I don't mind!' Luke & Jon - 'We do!!' With that we escaped back to our hotel on a trusty tuk tuk. Fairwell Fag!!

Our second day in the area was spent with Ollie aunt and her fella Rob as they were holidaying near by. We were warned prior to arrival that we needed to dress our best "as least backpacker like as possible" so that they wouldn't throw us off the premises! So in our typical style we got dumped out of a classy tuk tuk right up to the reception of the 5star resort! Thankfully all the staff were very friendly and we're expecting us so no problems there. The place was a far cry from our meager room, in a word - luxury! A wonderful setting right on the beach and a beautiful pool meant we spent the first hour just grinning ear to ear! A spa and an 'English' tea room plus constant service from Jip and Tung our dedicated staff is just examples of the type of place it was. When the tide went out we wandered along the beach, there were thousands of baby crabs running around in the sand and as soon as you got anywhere near them they buried themselves into the sand. If you stood there still for 5 minutes they would slowly start to appear once again and run past your feet. Any slight movement and they would take shelter. There are a few photos of them in the album. Fi and Rob kindly took us out for dinner in the evening, we definitely took full advantage of the free food and booze and left hunched over with bloatedness! Really good seafood, our nicest meal away to date so thank you VERY much ollie's lovely aunty! Sadly we had to return to reality in the evening.
We decided to rent scooters the next day to see some of the area on our own. (don't worry mums and dads, nothing untoward happened!). We were of course joined by Ingo along with Donna and Liz who we'd met the previous evening. We were drunk that evening and kinda hoped that they wouldn't turn up..but they did. 3 quid for 24 hours rental and 20p a liter of petrol meant it was far cheaper than getting taxis, except that in a taxi you usually don't get lost riding down a huge freeway! We were trying to find a waterfall on the map but that never happened. Instead we blundered upon a deserted 'fossil' beach (sandy not fossily) and spent a couple of hours chillaxing there. After scooting around for a good 5 hours we randomly stopped outside a King Cobra show! It was starting in 2 mins so we thought we'd check it out. Turned out to be pretty awesome and as we were the last in we got front row seats, not a good idea when the first acts are jumping snakes in a pit only a foot deep! Some of us were seriously crapping ourselves at some points! The snake charmer guys would jump in and tease them so that they would attack the guy! One of them actually got bitten but he seemed proud and just displayed it to the crowd! Hopefully he had the anti venom or he'll long dead by now! The last snake was a baby King Cobra but it still measured 5 meters and was very intimidating as it stood a good 3 feet high when it reared up to attack!
When we weren't scooting we used the classic thai tuk tuk's to get around. For those that doen't know- they're cheap moped based vechicles with a bench on the back or on the side. Very unstable and prone to tipping over! The drivers themselves seem to want to prove that fact everytime we're on one! The tuk tuks in Ao Nang were a particularly shabby example and one night, on our way to LunaBar, our driver went all out to scare the crap out of us! Chasing other tuk tuks and bumping bumpers at around 40mph! The sadistic face of the driver in the photos about sums it up! We spent the next few days on the beach as the weather was much nicer than Samui, much too hot at midday though so a good time for us to have old man style naps. We became the kings of the food stall whilst we were there, eating almost nothing else. One particular stall owner took it upon herself to feed me (ollie) by hand as i wasn't quite getting enough in there! Bless her. Tourists were taking photos of the stuff we were eating at some points cus of how weird it all looks! All extremely tasty though and no poorly tummys either.
By this stage we decided we were spending too much beer money so rented a DVD player to keep us in the room. Not exactly the life of a typical traveler i guess but hey. Rock Balboa is rubbish in case you haven't seen it.
On a random look at our passports we saw that our Visas expire 2 days before we leave, which is handy, so we took a bus to Krabi towns immigration office to sort it out. Turned out to be a waste of time as such things are sorted at the airport before you leave. 500 baht (7quid) per day for overstay in case you're interested.
We rented scooters again as its real cool to just check out the scenery at our own pace and we saw much more than we ever would have without them.

We got a longtail boat to Railay beach on our penultimate day. Its only 15mins away from where were we staying but it can only be reached by boat. Well worth the ride as its the most beautiful beach we've come across by far! Framed by two massive rock faces and the white sand is perfection. Luke and Ollie rented kayaks and did a little exploring through sea caves and landing on a tiny beach on a off shore rock stack. We saw some jumping fish a few feet away from us and a couple of larger fish just swimming around. Very hot and VERY tiring! A few hours of sunbathing and such like and we boated it back, our novice (probably 15 year old) of a captain nearly capsizes us and runs aground several times but its all fun. Railay is a must for anyone who visits Krabi.

Valentines Day- how romantic! We spent the day in transit. Get up well early to get our bus to the dock but the bus doesn't show when we expect it so I (Jon) get the company on the phone and after another hour they collect us. Amazingly the boat waited for us so that helps. 2 hours on the boat to Phi Phi Don which is our next stop. We arrive and more lost backpackers along with money grabbing hotel touts means more fun follows. We pay a steep price for a room we haven't seen (silly billies) and take a walk (no cars on Phi Phi Don) to our digs. Its not what you would call nice thats for sure! No a/c ! Honestly! but it was seriously minging! A 'plumbing' problem should help explain some of it! Plus the baking heat meant we only sat there for about 10mins before throwing the toys out the pram and kicking up a fuss! We some how managed to get our money back and even find a new room within a few hours which was a huge relief for us all. For only a quid each extra per night we have our own bungalow with our beloved air conditioning, separate beds, a little porch area and even a pool! Well worth it. After spending every previous day on the beach we decide pool side is a welcome change.

For the first few days we just spent our time relaxing by the pool and enjoying the peace and quiet. The beach on Phi Phi wasn't that great anyway so it was a good job we had a decent pool. Our bungalow was situated right next to a beach bar called Hippies, a gym and a little food shack that sold fruit shakes, burgers, sandwiches etc. We ate there most nights as it was extremely cheap. I (Jon) and Ollie built up a very strong relationship with the staff behind the food shack, One lady in particular called Mel. At first she was a stonefaced b**** but me and ollie brought her around with our charm. All the staff were starting to joke with us thinking that we actually had a thing for Melaine. By the end of our time in Phi Phi we were getting extra chicken in our sandwiches.haha. We went out the first night we arrived in phi Phi and ended up in a bar called Dino's. There was a live band playing called Made In Thailand. They did bad cover versions of good songs. We got pretty drunk as we always do. The other nights were more tame and if we were not playing pool and having a few beers in bars then we would be drinking on our little porch, playing cards and listening to music on our trusty iPod speakers. One particular night we noticed a couple of cockroaches pratting around near us. Great. After we had gone inside to kip, I (Luke) moved my day bag and to my horror this ugly cockroach appeared from no where and ran over to Jon's bag. Like the big man I am, I screamed like a little girl again. The next 10 minutes were spent trying to get rid of this little pain in the ass. After we had trapped the little fellow and chucked him out (we could have killed him but we are nice guys), we were worried about having the horrible things crawling over our faces in the night and laying eggs inside our ears. Ollie wasn't bothered though. As far as we know, we don't have any eggs inside us from that night.

Our best day was when we decided to book a day long boat trip. We set off early in the morning and made our way to the port. We were all given flippers and snorkels and boarded our boat. The first stop was Maya Bay. This is where they filmed 'The Beach'. To get there, we had to snorkel our way over to a little cave and then walk 500 metres or so to 'The Beach'. Sadly, it was a bit of a disappointment when we got there. The whole place was packed with noisy speedboats and crowded with hundreds of tourists. It was a great beach though although we didn't hang around long. We recommend going there and it's great to be able to say we were on the famous beach but if you want to go there to relax, think again. Once we got back on the boat we headed off to Bamboo island. We had about an hour or so to snorkel around. It was very nice although the tide was very strong. So strong that one girl struggled to get back to the boat and had to be rescued by fellow tourists! On the way there were saw some wild dolphins swimming next to the boat. There were probably about 10 of them. From there we headed off to Monkey Beach. Along the way to all the islands were amazing cliff faces which looked fantastic. Once we arrived to Monkey Bay, Jon snorkeled his way to the beach and Luke and Ollie used a kayak. Once on the beach, we had a quick look around and even managed to touch a monkey to the delight of the other people on the beach! They probably thought we were mental. Then all of a sudden some of the monkeys started fighting! Then they turned towards to people on the beach and even chased one woman into the sea, it was hilarious hahaha! They were chasing people all over the place, girls were screaming and guys were laughing! Managed to get some funny photos. We then escaped unharmed back to the boat. That was a laugh. We took a long way back to Phi Phi port and saw even more amazing sights. We had the choice of staying on the boat to watch the sunset (in 3 hours time) or go back to the bunglow. We were tired and burnt so we headed back. What a great day that was, it only cost us 8 quid each. That night we had a few beers on the porch as usual and then headed out to the main bars. We went straight to Dino's and Made in Thailand were about to play. We were sat right at the front near the amplifiers so we moved a few feet back o this other table where a guy with a great beard was sitting. I (Luke) started talking to him about music, AC/DC, Black Sabbath and such like. Then all of a sudden he told us he was going to buy us shots. 'Cool' we thought, obviously we were going to pay back the favor, but for some reason he wouldn't let us buy him drinks. He ended up buying us another shot each of Sambuca (he didn't like it so I (Luke) necked his as well), a gin and tonic each, and 2 double whiskey and cokes each. We had already had a stupid amount of beers so we were pretty tanked up! Without saying a word, the guy disappeared off into the night. What a nice guy (although he did smell of BO). Anyway, we were drunk so we started shouting out songs for the band to play. We got them to play Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones, Killing In The Name by Rage Aginst the Machine, Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes and loads of others. Naturally, we got up and started moshing with some other guys. It was such a small space to mosh in and people probably thought we were nuts but we didn't care. Out of nowhere, they started playing Basket Case by Green Day! I (Luke) got up on stage and started singing Basket Case with the lead singer. It was out of this world. A dream come true! Still can't believe it. We were sweaty and worn out so Luke and Ollie headed back while Jon stayed to speak to some of the people we had met in the bar. I (Jon) had one more drink then strolled my way back home with the people we met, Rachel from Derby was determined for me to get a drunken Tattoo, I went in the shop to have a browse but don't worry Mum and Dad wasn't convinced tho she wasn't fazed by it at all, not sure what she thought of it in the morning. On the way back, randomly, Ollie and I (Luke) went to two other bars and requested Daft Punk each time, the people in the bars went crazy for the song and we were loving it. The next day we were all pretty messed up and hungover. We didn't even get out of bed till 4pm. What an awesome 24 hours it was. Just a shame none of us took our cameras out that night. :(

Jon and Ollie spend some of the day by the pool and having a look around while Luke stayed in bed all day because he was feeling ill still. All we could manage was a trip to get a massage, at a highly respectable establishment i might add! It was our first one so we were typically excited. Jon and I had back massages whilst Luke got his grimy feet taken care of! It wasn't exactly the professional relaxing experience we imagined, especially with a TV on full blast and their mobile phones ringing! It was all taken in good spirits, even when thy were bending us in all kinds of painful ways! We left feeling as though we'd just had a good session at the gym!
We packed for Bangkok that night and got up early in the morning and made our way to the port. A short trip on the boat and we were back in Krabi. I (Jon) got speaking to a guy called Stan from Holland on the boat trip that we were on and he happened to b on the same boat as us and was getting on the same flight to Bangkok. He was cool. We all grabbed some food in Krabi town and then made our way to the airport. The flight was quick and being daylight, we got to see some cool views from out the window. A short taxi journey into the center of Bangkok and we had made it to our hotel. We said bye to Stan and arranged to meet him that night on Khaosan Road. The hotel we are staying is really nice. Probably just as good, if not better, than the Vangtai Hotel we stayed in when we were last in Bangkok. We even have our own gowns! Brilliant. After taking a look around our hotel we made our way to Khaosan Road. We bumped into Stan and he joined us for the rest of the night. After a few beers in one bar we stumbled across a street seller cooking insects. We were all tipsy so thought 'what the hell?!'. We all ate locusts (you just snap off the legs and shove the poor fried fella into your mouth...mmmmm) they were pretty damn good! ollie got some Tape Worms and Luke got some Maggot looking things. Again, both quite nice! I (Jon) ventured out a little more and set my eyes on a cockroach. It wasn't that nice as the other things though, actually it was pretty disgusting but it is one of those things I can claim to when I'm grey and old! We then went to another bar and watched a crummy live band. We then went to meet Miah (the girl we met last time) but it turned out that her flight was late and she couldn't make it. The bars were closing so we thought we would head down to Patpong. This is where they have the notorious ping pong shows (we won't go into details!). It's meant to be a bit like the red light district of Amsterdam. We got a taxi there but he screwed us around a bit so we told him to forget it and he took us back to Khaosan. It was a cool night. Good to be back in Bangkok. Feels like we know it so well and no that we have pretty decent tans, we don't stand out so much!

We battled through the hangovers in the morning to check out some more of the city. Our first tuk tuk stop was the MBK shopping center in central Bangkok. Its a huge place with 7 floors of the usual fake t-shirts, little buddha statues and cheap mobile phones. The top floor actually has a multi screen cinema and a ten pin bowling alley (to give you a scale of the place). The Tokyo style arcade was pretty cool, especially watching a local kid roll up to the 'house of the dead 4' shooting game, put on his white (Micheal Jackson style) gloves and pull in a crowd of around 25 people as he nailed all the zombies in the whole game, pausing only to assume his guns-crossed-head-down focused stance between levels! Very amusing and Jon gave him a round of applause in apprecaition!

After a few hours of getting lost in there we headed over to the shopping mall over the road as we'd heard about a fancy pants cinema on the top floor. We weren't disappointed and paid the price of a standard UK ticket for the 'gold class' experience... we we treated to complimentary drinks in the lounge area before making our way into the picture room (i know im building this up but trust me it was VERY lavish!). The seats were big, fully electrically reclining, leather bad boys. The blanket and pillow went down a storm too. Before the picture rolls you have to stand for the Thai national anthem!! A very odd song indeed, with a weird film to go with it. Thankfully the cinema was almost empty to no one was offended by our sniggering! Sadly the only available film was this Thai thing about some king of something. It was truely rubbish and like 3 hours long so i (ollie) enjoyed a nice nap.
Our return journey gave us our scariest tuk tuk ride yet; the driver was goaded on by our girlie screams in the back as he slid it, full speed around every corner! We were literally shifting all our weight to conterbalance it as its wheels lifted off the ground on one side! The brakes squealed at every red traffic light and all we could see was his evil grin in the rear view mirror.
A few beers to calm our nerves and then an early night for more sights in the morning.

Our second full day in the city meant a walk around the grand palace in the center. The equivalent of Buckingham palace in London i guess. We had to don some lovely MC Hammer style baggy pants before they'd let us in (dress code). LOTS of gold and tackyness everywhere! Hundreds of tourists and lots of pictures. The central point in the palace is an emerald buddha in its own temple. The statue itself is very small but covered in bling. No photos of him im afraid as no cameras allowed.
Nice place to visit but probably dont bother if you only had a couple of days in Bangkok (especailly the drudge around the coin museum!)
After that we walked to a temple called Wot Pho containing the largest reclining buddha in Thailand. Covered in gold and kept withing a tight fitting room make it quite a spectacle. No where near comparing to the big buddha in Hong Kong though.
We decided to then take a boat up the river back to Khaosan Rd to take in some different views. Very cheap and regular pick ups so a good way to get around. All the walking has left us pretty tired as we're still adjusting from beach life (poor us!) so another early night for the team.
The next day we took a ride to China town. Its a huge area full of markets with all the food reminiscent of our days in Hong Kong. Massively busy and constant dodging in and out of people on the streets meant we didn't hang around too long.
In the PM we finally managed to go see some legendary Thai boxing. Another taxi driver trying to sell us 'bump bump with pretty girls' later and we're at the stadium. 1000 baht (14 quid) for 3tier entry is way steep but its our last chance to see some fighting before we leave. It turns out to be a tad disappointing; we saw 3 fights but no faces bust open or blood everywhere!! The place was packed and the locals do get well into it which creates a pretty cool atmosphere. Gotta been seen if you come to Thailand if only to say you saw it.

Jerry Springer style final thoughts...

We heard a lot of negative opinions of Bangkok before we left. Yes its busy everywhere with huge traffic jams and dirt and grime but we love it! There's so much to take in that if you get to spend a month in Thailand then 4/5 days in the city will be some of your most memorable.

For us most of our time is spent in and around Khaosan RD. The best, cheapest food is there along with the coolest markets and weirdest sights. The only bars we've seen are on the road so its pretty much the only place to just relax (other than the hotel) that we've come across. Definitly look for a hotel as close as possible to this street as its the centre point for all the backpackers and you're bound to bump into friendly faces from previous island stays. If Bangkok is you first stop then dont be fooled into thinking captial city prices are higher than the provinces, its not the case at all so stock up on gifts, clothes and other junk you need before you head beach wards. As far as beaches go we rate Krabi as the most beautiful. If you want a good night life on top then head to Phi Phi. If like it a little quieter then Ao Nang is perfect. In our opinion Samui and Phangan are already far too developed and sleazy and with all the construction going on its only gonna get worse. We didn't bother with the famous Phuket as we'd heard its the most commercial of the lot.

Overall we've all had an amazing time in Thailand and would recommend it to anyone and everyone, whatever you're into. The whole place is geared towards backpackers so traveling around couldn't be easier. All the locals are very friendly and helpful and 99% of the time without agenda. Expect heat (obviously), haggling for every purchase, pushy tailors, the James Blunt album (!), crazy driving and make the most of the weird yet tasty street food.

Thats about it i guess, sorry this has taken us so long to write but it is pretty long right?
We're off to fly to Melbourne in a few hours and are looking forward to meeting up with our buddy Chris so expect him to feature highly in our next addition.

Thanks again for all the attention everyone.
We love you with a passion.

The guys

xx