Thailand

While we were in Phuket, we done one of the organised tours. It was called the James Bond Tour. It was great fun and involved a long boat out around some of the smaller islands. There was a short stay on James Bond Island which features scenery from the film Dr. No. The island was really nice but even that had stalls set up on it selling all sorts of things trying to get more money from tourists. The women there were very annoying too and kept grabbing at us, and our wallets!!

After that we were taken to an inlet where we transferred to some Kayaks, which were manned so we didnt have to do any of the work. We were brought through some crazy rocks and some beautiful scenery. It was very relaxing and beautiful though.

Lunch was at a floating village which was pretty cool looking and the food was gorgeous there too. Then we were back on the boat and back to the mainland for some Elephant Trekking. The trip on the elephant was short enough and it was a good thing to because they were none too comfortable. The seat mounted on the elephants back moved awkwardly when he did. The Thai's were using some pretty cruel looking instruments to direct the elephants about so we kind of felt sorry for them too. There was an elephant show there too which was brilliant, they had the elephant doing everything from taking peoples money to buy his own bananas to basketball, and then even Thai massages.

This was on our second last day on the island and in Thailand too, and the next day was the Queens birthday so everything was going to be quiet and selling alcahol was prohibited. That was kind of a good thing for us, because our flight out of there to Singapore was in the middle of the night. We booked this with Tiger Airways before we left for very little money. Flight was great and we had no problems whatsoever again.

One of the features of Thailand was the taxi bikes. These were just mopeds with drivers that were willing to carry two passengers on them too. I made the mistake of getting on one, on a drunken night out because I was too lazy to walk back to the hotel. He took one of the corners too sharp and sent us both to the ground. I was only in a t-shirt and shorts and so I was very lucky to come away with only a minor injury on my leg. Of course, being drunk at the time, it didnt hurt so much, so I got back on another bike and finished the journey.

I managed to rent a bike in Phuket for two days too. It was a Honda CB400 much like my hornet at home and I had a great time cruising around the island on that. And the best part was two days only cost 30 euro.

In the daytime, Patong was just like Chaweng. Traders were everywhere, Tuk Tuk's plentiful, although they were a different sort than the other two places. Again, we found an Irish Bar. This was more of a themed pub though and didnt hold our interest for very long.

When it got dark, Patong was a completely different place. There were really only 3 types of places to go at night. First, the big resorts had entertainment on, mainly focused on couples or families and so didnt really suit us. Then there was a small selection of pubs like the ones we had been in, bar, pool tables etc. These places were fairly quiet here though. The third type of place was the Go Go bars and they were in plentiful supply here. There was one area in particular called Bangla Road which was full of them.

This place was so hard to believe initially. There was like 8 girls in every bar waiting on you to come in, people on the street were offering all sorts of sex shows, and of course lady boys looking for business on the side of the street. We had a good look around this place but it was a bit too much. Luckily enough, we found a nice normal bar right in the middle of all this called The Aussie Bar. Again, it was just a normal pub with pool tables. It was pretty big and had an upstairs where we spent our time. We had a great time in this place and met loads of cool people. The staff were a great laugh here too, and so we spent quite a few nights drinking in this bar. There was good music there too and the DJ played our requests too. The girls working there racked the balls for each game of pool and it was winner stays on and there was always someone to play against. We did manage to hold this table nearly all of the time that we were in there so it was great.

We had been in Samui 5 nights already so it was time to move on. Our next stop was going to be Phuket, but this time we really didnt fancy all that travelling, so we booked a cheap flight with Bangkok Air. The flight cost about 100 euro for both of us which was worth it I think..

The only flight time was very early in the morning so we had to check out in the middle of the night and head for Samui's open air airport. The airport was pretty small but efficient at the same time. We boarded on time and the flight went smoothly.

We had no accommodation booked in Phuket so we knew we had another door to door fiasco ahead of us. This time though we pretended we had booked so that the bus driver would not take us all over the place.

We chose to go to Patong Beach as it was supposed to be the most lively one in that area. It was pretty difficult for us to get accommodation this time, and we had to walk to about 8 different places before we found one. We think it might have been that they didnt like Backpackers in their resorts as some of them were pretty swanky. We finally got a room though in Baumanburi for 1000 Baht (20 euro) a night. This place was the dearest of all our accommodation, but was dirt cheap and was actually a 4 star hotel. The hotel had a pool, restaurant, pool bar, and the staff were very helpful.

We only went to the beach a couple of times in Chaweng. The weather wasn't that great there though so we got ourselves a Thai Massage instead. It was only 400 Baht (8 euro) for an hour long massage, that was pretty great, and completely relaxing. It really made us ready for bed, at 3in the afternoon. We had to remove our bum bags for this and that had us a little worried, we had everything in these. But the Thai people were all lovely and nobdy ever tried to steal from us.

One of the most annoying things in Samui was the Indian people who worked in the suit shops. They would grab a hold of you on the street, shaking your hand, playing nice, trying their best to get you to come into the shop. They didnt like taking no for an answer, and so we had to be pretty ignorant to a lot of them to get rid of them. There was one of these shops every 10 steps so you can imagine how annoying it got.

By night, Samui was completely transformed. There were lots of bars and restaurants and a buzzing go go district. We went through there a few times, but the serious amount of lady boys in there would scare most people away, and it did us :o)

So most of our nights in Chaweng, began in the Irish bar, as their food was excellent, and there was a few people we knew there, and then continued on in clubs which were big open air discos, nothing like at home.

As soon as it would get dark, a lot of young kids would appear on the street, kids as young as 8. They all had the game Connect 4 with them and they would try to play against you for money. I saw a few people play against them and lose, but if ou ever looked like winning, you would be conveniently distracted by something so that the kid could cheat...

The streets were full of Thai ladies on mopeds at night too. They would drive by looking for business, beeping their horn at you to try get your attention, and when they succeeded, they would cart the punter off on the back of the bike.

Our accommodation was right in the middle of Chaweng. It was a much more relaxed place than Bangkok though. It still had plenty of stalls and shops, lots of restaurants, even a Burger King and a Pizza Hut which of course we ate in both at some stage. There wasn't as many people hassling us on the street here, taxi men just beeped to get your attention, instead of grabbing a hold of you like they did in Bangkok.

Tropical Murphy's was the Irish bar of choice in Chaweng. This was a prety cool pub. The food was amazing in there and there was some form of entertainment every night. Pool competitions, live bands, and table quizzes. It was the pool tournaments we enjoyed the most though, and there was one on the first night so we stuck around for that. Didnt do too well that night though but had great craic and met a good few people. Again, drinking Chang beer meant we were getting pretty drunk too.

Going to bed again that night, we were shattered and needed to have a very lazy second day. The travel had knocked it out of us, and so had the Chang..

Well it was time to think about moving to another part of Thailand by then. We decided that Kho Samui would be our next port of call. To get there we had the option of taking a flight, or a train and boat. We were feeling adventurous so we took the train and boat option, it was cheaper too. The train journey was a nightmare. There were only second class seats left, which meant we were in semi-reclining seats, windows wide open, all our bags exposed, and mozzies coming in the windows and eating us alive.

When we got off the train, after 11 hours, and we had to get a bus to transfer us to the boat. We thought this boat trip was only an hour long but it took about 2 and a half hours before we got to Samui. Again, we were back on a bus to try find some accommodation on Chaweng Beach.

The bus driver tried to get us to stay in places where he would get better commission so we were driving around for hours looking at lots of different places. One of the rooms we were offered had a big tree growing up the centre of the room, and the ceiling was all open around the tree so mozzies and god knows what else would have had a field day. We were getting pretty pissed off on this bus then and it was almost 2 hours before we finally got a room, which was actually very decent, and cheap enough at 800 Baht a night (16 euro) for the room.

The resort was Samui Mandalay and was very clean with good facilities like Air con, TV, En Suite and a fridge (mini bar). We were even given towels here, a luxury that we hadn't got in Bangkok. The Tv wasnt bad as there was a movie channel running all day so when we were crashing in the room, we managed to take in some decent enough films.

Well, the next day, we decided we should go and see some sights, especially the Grand Palace. We decided to take a Tuk Tuk to do this. For anyone that doesnt know, thats a 3 wheeler with a carriage on the back used as a taxi. He offered us a trip around all of the temples and the palace for only 10 Baht (20 cent) each. We couldnt believe it. We soon realised though that we were gonna get more than we bargained for on this trip. In between stopping at various temples, we were brought to places where the driver could earn some commission. We were brought to suit shops, travel agents etc.

The temples were pretty impressive, all covered in gold, and seriously shiny. Shoes had to be removed before entering any of them and a lot of the time, most places inside them was out of bounds. The palace was absolutely huge and we spent a fair bit of time getting around that. A lot of it is just the same so you can get the picture by looking at some of the photos of it.

On the way home, we got a taxi instead, hoping to make a direct trip to our hotel. The taxi man tried to get us to make some extra stops but we convinced him we weren't interested, just about.

Again, that night, we headed for the Shamrock Bar, played lots of pool, darts, and drank plenty of Chang. We bumped into a few tourists that night, drank some very strange blue shots, and finally took on a Thai Whiskey bucket. That is Whiskey, Coke, and Red Bull in a large bucket that gets you seriously hammered. Needless to say, I dont remember much of the night after that.

There was nobody there when we got there except the 10 or so staff who were all Thai people. We got ourselves some local Chang beer (6.4%) which came in 650ml bottles so would prob be the equivalent of drinking 2 pints at home. Then it was time to try the food. The menu was in English as well as Thai thank god so I ordered my old favourite Chicken & Cashew, and Bamboo shoots. It only cost 2 euro for this and it was a pretty big portion.

After that we continued on the Chang beer, and played some darts and some pool. The staff kept hanging around us like flies, they poured our beer for us, picked up the darts when they fell to the floor, and racked the balls for us when we played pool. At one point, I was being massaged in between shots on the pool table. And all this for only a few Baht in tips which they were so grateful for, it was unbelievable. At first though, it was just them being over-helpful, but then it became a bit annoying and I began to feel a bit sorry for them. They were only ever polite and very grateful for anything we gave them but at one point I remember paying them to just leave us alone for a bit.
There was a Thai band on in the bar that night, playiong European music, and they were actually pretty good.

After a really long night in the Irish Bar, it was off to bed. After all that travelling and boozing, it was no surprise that we slept right through the whole next day. We only got up to get some food that night, and then literally went back to bed.