Thailand - Ko Lanta: Dave's entry

Sawadee Khrap!

Hope that all is well back in England and life is treating you kindly.

So since the last time i blogged we have been keeping ourselves plenty busy. The evening of our last blog we went to book our trek which we hoped to start the following day. We were able to find a brilliant deal, with a 3 day 2 night trek costing us a misely 1200 baht or in English 22 pounds. High on the success of our fruitful negotiations we decided to eat some dinner and shoot some pool for the rest of the evening. The pool was hilarious as once again we struggled to meet any reasonable standards. Luckily though this time we were the only 2 people in the bar, though this didn't prevent me being beaten by the barmaid, who I'm certain had played a bit before.

The next day and early in the morning we rose for our trek. Fuelled by my champion breakfast of Porridge with honey and sugar i was ready to move mountains or at least climb them. I did however fear my sanity upon learning that Sam and i were the only 2 male members of a 7 person group, we were joined with 3 Israeli ladies, 1 American lady and 1 Irish girl who all proved excellent company. Imagine my face though when after preparing myself for serious physical conditioning, we were told that the firt stop on the tour would be at the orchid farm. Hardly Bear Grylls. Nan would have loved it though and i'm certain the female members of my family will at this point be green with envy, don't worry i specifically took photos for you. I had to fill the 15 minutes there somehow! The next stop was the highly anticipated snake farm, which i must admit was quite disturbing. The snakes were suspisciously sedate and the main show was troubling as the staff were clearly just antagonizing snakes to entertain the efeminate (male) front row crowd. The snake farm was intresting though i must confess if not entirey fulfilling. Suggestions that the orchid farm and snake farm should merge were championed by myself. The next moment of note came at our lunchtime stop at a local market. This where i sampled the infamous fried cricket, in it's 4 life cycles. From baby through adolescent to beast i tried them all and unsuprisingly enjoyed none. Nevertheless it was a neccesary rite of passage, when in Rome and all that. So finally energised by my protein enriched snack we set about climbing the mountain to reach camp by nightfall. The trek was treacherous at times, with the terrain proving tough and the heat and humidity of the afternoon making it hard work. Morale was waning and our brilliant guide Wat had to resort to making us jungle hats to pep up the troops. Only when the trekking became thoroughly intense did we have to abandon our follies. The trek up the hillside took a good 3 hours, mainly due to multiple stops and i mean multiple due to the more observant (putting it nicely) members of the group. We timed it to perfection though and reached camp and our bamboo hut on top of he hill just in time for sunset. A well earned Chang beer and a beautiful seting was rich reward. For me it was perfect just to sit there soaking up the view, enjoying the moments that define a journey. That evening we spent around the campfire, with no electricity everyone stayed up to talk around the fire into the night before heading into the hut and onto the floor under the mosquito nets for bed, haven't slept so well in a long time.

The next morning we rose for yet more trekking. The days itinery included two stops at two different waterfalls which both provided brilliant photo and shower opportunities, the later being an absolute neccesity after the day before. I even managed to make a friend in the shape of Blackie, a dog that guided us for most of the mornings trekking before deciding that he would relax after lunch in the afternoon. Alas he was a great dog and certainly made me think of the big lad thats at home who i miss dearly, unfortunatly I'm not referring to Jon at this stage. That evening we arrived at camp, elephant camp to be precise and once again spent the evening without electricity around the campfire. prior to dinner in fading light Sam and I decided on a shower, which effectivly consisted of a concrete outhouse with a tin roof, the shower itself was a hose attatched to a cold water tap. It was simply hilarious. We ended up in verse singing the hymn "I was cold and i was naked you weren't there" which was strangely fitting. Wat attempted to get us to play his group game, and I'm sure it would have been more enjoyable save the huge communication breakdowns that persistently occurred. That evening 6 blankets and a mosquito net couldn't keep me warm or bite free and the raging river nearby ensured I had a poor sleep.

Waking earlier than the rest i decided to reignite the fire, whilst gathering firewood i got my first glimpse at the magnificent elephants who were crossing the river and stopping to wash in the process. They are incredibly graceful and beautiful for such large animals, they are gentle giants of the jungle. That morning, deprived of sleep was when my addiction to coffee began, what was a sampling became 3 cups and since then I haven't gone a day without a few cups of joe. After breakfast the elephant trek began and we roamed for 1 hour on the back and head of Dumbo who proved to be an absolute gentleman despite his large appetite. Dumbo was the elephant Sam and I were riding, the alpha male of the group with an unquenchable passion for mountain vegetation, bananas and i suspect most food. A real treat was getting to feed the animals the leftover fruit from breakfast, they were so gentle and the experience was a real pleasure, despite them swarming around me! The rest of the day was devoted to white water rafting, bamboo rafting and relaxing, skipping stones by the river in the afternoon sun. A really fun final day to what had proved to be an excellent trek. Something i would very much like to do again and fantastic value for money, it was a highlight of the journey so far.

The next 2 days were pretty much devoted to pure travel, save a day trip to Kanchanburi and the excellent death railway museum. The museum was presented incredibly well and was a real eye opener to me as i was previously unaware of the scale of tradgedy that occurred here during the second world war. Paticularly moving were the POW's letters home, which contained graphic references to the horror of the camps. This was followed by a trip to the cemetary opposite and finally a walk over the bridge over the river kwai. I'll be sure to tell you all about it when i get back home Grandad :) The day was a real pleasant suprise as I wasn't quite sure what to expect but I'm certainly glad we took the time out of the hectic schedule to do it. Talking of the hectic schedule, after leaving Chiang Mai at 6pm the night of the 2nd, we arrived in Bangkok at 5am on the 3rd. We then took a 2 hour bus to Kanchanburi at 9am and a 3 hour return bus at 2pm. We arrived back in Bangkok just in time to catch a night bus to Krabi at 6pm. I was 5 cups of coffee down at this point and pepped, smelly and tired all the same. We left Thanon Khao San at 6pm and unforunatly were victims of the infamous Khao San dodgy buses, we arrived at 6am on the 4th in a settlement 3 hours from Krabi. We then had to wait 4 hours for a bus transfer. Then a 3 hour journey to Krabi. Arriving in Krabi we got told the planned visit to Ao Nang was a poor choice as the weather was bad there so an hour after arriving we left on a 3 hour bus to Ko Lanta. At 4pm on the 4th we finally arrived at some sort of destination. We had spent 29 out of the last 36 hours of our lives on buses, and we certainly knew about it. A hygenicaly essential shower was a lovely relief. Dinner on the beach (which wasn't the 2 previous nights strawberry yoghurt and oreo dinner), under the stars and a proper bed for the first time in 2 days was luxury. Our beach bungalow is 10 seconds walk from the sand, we can view the sea from our porch so the day was spent relaxing to the maximum on the beach in searing temperatures which topped 35. We then chilled out in A bamboo hut beach bar with a couple of drinks and watched the sun set into the clear blue sea. Yes, life is fine at the moment. We even managed to book our trip to Ko Phi Phi for tommorrow morning.

You know i told a friend the other day that our World is a pretty inspiring place, and you just have to look around to see it. Everyday this journey is confirming my beliefs and reaffirming my faith.

Live the Dream. Love the Journey.

David.

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Sam's Entry.

I've always wanted to spend 40 hours on a bus.

Not really. But I've always wanted to ride an elephant, so the trade-off was worth it.
I was so, so glad to get off the bus. There were two Turkish people behind me who were making me want to get my penknife out with their smacking of lips, grinding of teeth, slurping and saliva squelching, amplified talking, farting and burping. This, above anything a human can do, I hate. They fell asleep though. Shame we didn't!

When we got to Chiang Mai it was sadly apparant that we needed more time to explore the place. We did our best in the dark evening went to a brilliant traditional Thai food place where I got Hors D'Euves of Thai snacks.. crackly pork, spicy lemongrass sausage, eggplant and chilli mash etc. we also went to play pool at a backstreet bar.. almost got 7-balled by Dave. This needs to stop but not sure how to assert myself on the pool table.

We secured a devilishly cheap Chiang Mai trek, and I was quite eager to meet the group we were going with - company is everything, I've found. The group turned out to be both small and likeable, which was lucky. We had three Israelis, a Swiss/English/American/South African (the effect of travelling!) and an Irish girl.. the latter two stuck with us and were great people.

The trek itself was at a nice pace... challenging enough to feel like we'd done a good day's work but by no means hard. We walked for two days, which was a nice change from the boring orchid farm and pretty sad 'snake farm' which was full of underfed, half-dead/dead cobras (can't fault the show at the end though, with a crazy nutter who had his index finger missing diving into a pool with a poisonous water snake and another guy putting a cobra head in his mouth). We did go to a market though, where we both tried hard to push the boundaries by munching on giant crickets. Another box ticked. Our evenings were great - staying with a hilltribe on the first night (memories of village kids singing to us, this little girl in the middle having no idea what was going on and clapping to her own beat until her skirt fell off.. eating yellow chicken curry cooked on a fire by our guide... trying to play the guitar and realising I needed to ask my Dad for a great deal more lessons when I'm home), and an elephant camp by a waterfall on the second night (playing cards and trying to play a Thai game using our guide's broken English.. having a really great moment with Dave when we made our first fire from scratch with metal sparks, old embers and wood we found lying around). Going to sleep a stone's throw away from a raging river was exciting but sent me straight to sleep. I'll get one installed at uni.

Our last day was excellent. Woke up, ate fruit and omelettes, jumped on an elephant and went roaming! our elephant was the biggest in the pack, a monster, a good 3 or 4 metres high. There was a little open cage to sit in but our guide jumped off and let us take turns riding on his head (we called him Dumbo) - at first the feeling of losing balance was terrifying! almost straight after we got off Dumbo we got thrown lifejackets and piled into two rafts with paddles - before we knew it we were racing down the river. I've never done white water rafting... nearly fell off into the rocks a good few times, and Dave assured me that compared to NZ, those waters were tame! So I've got an optimistic 4 months to live before I'm claimed by the Queenstown waters.
The turbulance ended and we hopped onto great bamboo rafts, which we took turns sailing downstream. It was like a wobbly gondala. I preferred actually swimming in the sea though, so when it all ended me and Dave played skipping stones like me and my brother used to do, and went for a dip. A truly fantastic day.

Unfortunately highs must be met with lows. Our Irish friend Roisin let us shower in her room, which meant we were only dirty for 3 days as opposed to 6. From Chiang Mai, we had a 12 hour bus to Bangkok.. then a 2 hour bus to Kanchanaburi... about 3 hours of respite to explore the town, followed by a 3 hour journey back, straight into an unbelievable 18 hour slog from Bangkok to Krabi, then a 3 hour minibus to Ko Lanta. So we wern't happy.

I can't rush over Kanchanaburi though, as it was the only thing I actually intended to do in Thailand back in the days when we sat in Dave's house planning. Kanchanaburi is a pretty average town now, but the river Kwai passes through it. I wouldn't have even known about it had I not seen bits of the old war film "Bridge over the River Kwai" when I was little, along with the Guns of Naverone and the Great Escape. But now we've been there, it's surprising how few people will know about it until we talk about what happened there! the Japanese invaded S.E. Asia in WWII, and used prisoners of war to build a massive railway from Thailand to Burma. The area is so hilly and the infrastructure so bad that they were forced to use little metal and stone tools instead of machinery. It was basically a nationwide death camp; 30,000 British POWs were used, about 6,000 of them died of things like cholera, malaria and undernourishment; 6,000 Australians, 6,000 Dutch, 800 Americans and about 150,000 Burmese died, but the local deaths are largely overlooked... the Japanese couldn't even be bothered to mark the graves or record the deaths for them. It's funny that so many people died, but that History curriculums decide that things like the Western front and Battle of Britain are among the only things taught in military history. Even the awful A Level unit "The History of Railways" doesn't include the Bridge over the River Kwai. So this is my history lesson for today! after the museum, we went to see the cemetary... I went hunting for interesting ones, and found a 23 year old Australian who died on Christmas Day, a few 18 year old Brits and a New Zealand pilot who was all on his own amongst the Dutch and British graves. The Bridge itself was pretty imposing too.

From there, we continued the aforementioned journey from hell, bumping and groaning all the way to South Thailand, and staying alive from our newfound love of strong coffee. Krabi didn't really have anything to offer us and nothing to see, so after a brief talk with a travel agent about the weather, we got on a bus to Ko Lanta on pure impulse.

The bus took a few hours, but was absolutely worth all of the lows of our journey when we were hit by the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. The beach we're on stretches as far as it's possible to see on both directions. Pure biege sand and clear, aquamarine warm waters, with little rippling waves and Bob Marley echoing from beachuts selling bottles of beer for a quid.

We spent all of today lying on the beach doing nothing. It's about time. I didn't even move to go in the water because my swimming shorts, along with every item of clothing except the stuff I'm wearing, was unbearably filthy from 2 weeks of acumulated sweat and dirt. Uni students, I'm in your boat! shame your boat isn't bobbing around on the Andamen Sea in 40 degree heat.

Ko Pha Ngan Moon Party in 3 days. Doesn't even occur to me it's December.

PS. I discovered today that my camera's memory card has corrupted, and all my photos are gone. Thank god I uploaded my favourites to the blog.