Koh Tao

Sometime about lunch we rose (check the last post for the hectic 3 day journey) and decided to look for food & Alan, in order of importance. ;)

Colm was finally truly happy for the first time in 5 months, he bought a football! We met Alan on the strip, then Petula a mental dutch girl we had met all the way back in Lampur Bang.Our group was once again complete. I signed up for my advanced diving course and a dive review in the morning. I managed to convince the guys to sign up for the Open Water Course at Scuba Junction and we all set off on the boat together the next morning.

I spent a total of 3 days diving, the first day was dive review to recap all the basics followed by a fun dive. The following two days I did my advanced diving course, which consisted of 5 dives including Peak Performance buoyancy, Navigation, Photography, Deep Dives and a Night dive. We did the 5 in less than 24 hours and my ears were pretty happy when it was all over! (I have big problems equalising on the way down, such that I usually have a mask of blood when I come back up!)

The diving was amazing, I was hooked again after the three days but money and time limited me from getting any more diving in Koh Tao.









Other than diving I'm trying to remember our adventures in Koh Tao. When diving our days consisted of going to bed early(ish) and getting up early(ish) so no drinking was really had. We did have a visit from home of sorts, 3 girls we knew from Cork landed in Koh Tao on our second day. I never thought it would be so amazing to hear the Cork accent again. The girls were fresh from home and full of it! I think within the first 10 minutes they had used more slang than we had in the last 2 months! Top Quality.





The two bars we frequented in Koh Tao were the fanstastic Office Bar, I had heard some stories about the Kon Tao mafia but in two trips there I have never encountered any trouble myself. Apparently just after we left the island a couple of hookers rocked up to the office bar and started hitting on the patrons. The owner, a really chilled out local guy told them to leave a few times and eventually threw them out. They screamed threats and said they'd be back, a few minutes later a bike pulled up and a guy jumped out & drew a gun on the owner! The owner stilll refused to let the girls in with the gun in his face and after a couple of minutes stand off the guy got back on his motorbike and yelled something to the extend of "this isn't finished" and drove off! Pretty mad!

Still, go there, the island is beautiful ;)

Chaing Mai & Bangkok

On the 4th day we left Pai and drove back to Chaing Mai, a snap decision resulted in us splitting the group. Dean & Andreas were going to head to Laos, the rest of us decided to jump straight on a night bus for Bangkok. Despite some antics with Dean chasing us on the back of local woman's moped to the bus station (he had left his ipod in my bag) we boarded the first of what would be of 3 night journeys in a row.

6am Bangkok. We arrived pretty sleepy and rented a room for the day. Once we had rested up we headed out for some adventuring around Bangkok. Colm, Alex & myself decided to head to the cinema in the MBK. We had totally forgotten that was were all the riots were centered around and the red shirts had their main base! The area seemed pretty safe so we had a little explore on but didn't enter the compound despite being invited by a very friendly red shirt.

We rode the skytrain 2 stops up to the other end of the compound and it was a strange sight to see the city as busy as ever. Everyone was still going about their daily business, but large numbers of police were on the side of the roads and the barricades were only 50 meters away. I think the media had really blown a lot of the safety concerns out of proportion. Once you left the MBK area it was almost impossible to know there was a problem in the city.




Of course that night the general was assassinated while being interviewed by a reporter from The New York Times. So maybe they weren't totally off.




Chooo Choo night train! We arrived at the train station to find the train delayed by an hour so Irish fashion we loaded up with a few beers, KFCs (Nods to Adriano) and other snacks for what I was hoping would be a recap of the adventure I had with Ad and Ben back in July. (We got the night train and hung out the doors at 50mph, drank and sang with the train staff and fell asleep on the floor) But alas, this train was having none of that, locked doors and a train full of sleeping people deterred most antics. Never the less we made the most of the night, a few scoops, "borrowed" some coke from a crate we found and stood looking at the stars from between the walkway connecting two carriages.

6am, arrival at Chumphon train station. I had been led to believe we would find a legitimate company to bring us on a visa run, the locals hassled us onto a tuk tuk which dropped us 100meters up the road at the office of the visa run company. We should have suspected something was up here, I do remember looking at the sign & thinking that isn't the port name (the visa run is from a port in Thailand across a bay to Burma) but I was too tired to do anything about it other than take the locals word. Mistake!

The bus dropped us at a private bus station in the port town when a guy (who I think was at the train station back in Chumphon) rode up and asked us if we wanted a visa run. To make a long story short a lot of arguing and haggling ensued, we eventually went with him and got the boat to Burma. In Burma the officals scammed us for not having a crisp new $10 bill and made us pay 500 baht instead ($15) but kindly informed us we can stay in Burma for 20 days if we wanted. Thanks. On the way back the boat broke down and drifted into the weeds,



The driver got it fixed after a half hour and dropped us back to our friend who was still waiting at the port. He offered to drive us back to Chumpion for a rip off price, more haggling, walking away etc ended in us paying him to drop us for the 2pm ferry to Koh Tao.

We missed that arriving back at 2:30pm. I think the boat had actually been at 1pm anyway. We drove around for an hour attempting to rent a private longtail but giving up and conceited to getting the 11pm night ferry. Unknown to us we had actually ended up getting the boat the locals get and paying half the price so our luck was changing here.

5am arrival at Koh Tao. We headed to the accommodation I stayed in back in July, woke up the woman and then decided it was too expensive so left her slightly aggrieved at 6am. Val & myself found a cheaper place up along the beach and booked us in there, we stayed for a total for 7 minutes before deciding the other place was nicer for a difference of 50baht and went back to wait for the woman to wake up again.



7:30am we finally had a room. We traveled a distance of about 1550km between two countries over 3 days by bike, bus, train, taxi, and boat! So we went to sleep.

Pai

After the heavy night that was Deans 21st I had a quiet day, featuring such exciting things as more cinema and a haircut! Yo and Andreas has stayed one more day at the camp and met us that evening to head out for a few drinks. Don't worry mum, I took the night off boozing and was in bed by 1am ;) The others stayed out however and more crazy stories happened including everyone ditching poor Andreas, this was to turn into a running gag for the next week!




The following morning we rented Motos for the drive to Pai, a town about 130km north of Chiang Mai. We mounted up on our "hogs" and set out, the road started climbing up about 50km out of Chiang Mai into beautiful winding forest roads.




We rented some bungalows by the river and headed out to the night market in the town. Pai itself is quite small but a pretty town. I think we spent a total of 3 nights there. One of the days we drove to a waterfall outside of town, as it was the weekend a lot of the locals kids were there. They are mad! it is dry season in Pai so the waterfall was pretty shallow, but the kids were jumping from a 10-12 meter height into 1 meter of water!






They also had made a slide out of the rock face down about 20meters into another pool of 1m.

That night we met some English guys who were promoting a night in one of the bars. The night was called Frazer night, they explained it was in honor of one a friend. Val worked out it was a guy she had spent a week with in Na Trang and then the guys told us it was in honor of him as he had been killed the night before in a motorbike accident. Understandably Valerie was pretty upset, we headed down with the intention of paying our respects to find a pub full of drunks with extremely loud trance music. It appeared that basically the pub had turned the night into a drinking opportunity, when we asked around most of the customers didn't even know who Frazer was or the fact it was meant to be a night for him. Pretty disgraceful on the pubs part.

On our last night Dean decided we should have a Mexican night, this was agreeded to be a great idea with dodgy accents, newly purchased hats and black marker mustaches we headed out. We wandered around town for an hour hassling gringos before we ended up back by the river bar. Dean & myself met a Thai guy who thought us how to fire twirl, after an hour or so of practicing with unlit sticks Dean announced we were ready to try with real fire. However he insisted I try first, I managed about 10-15 seconds before I had to drop the stick from the heat, all the hair on my right hand was singed off! Dean managed about 20 seconds with similar results. Our career in fire twirl thus ended we turned our attentions else where and built a small fort around a sleeping Valerie.





She ended up being tagged for losing a bet to Dean.


I'm pretty sure I'm mixing up a lot of the correct order of the events but I think on the last day we headed to the nearby canyon to watch the sunset. The canyon wasn't particularly deep but was vast and spectacular. The sides were sheer and cut of a red stone, leaving narrow paths winding high for 2 or 3 kms.





O ya I forgot that Andreas met Captain Sparrow!

Trekking & Elephants

Onto Elephant terking, we met our guide "Yo" and went to pick up what was going to turn out the group we would spent the next 2 weeks with.



I don't think I have ever had so much fun with a group who just met each other! But I digress, the stories will follow..

DAY 1

We left at 8am and picked up the 3 guys above and 2 other Canadians then headed to the Butterfly & Orchard farm. The farm had some beautiful flowers but was pretty poor on the butterfly front. It did have a cat who slept with a teddy Koala bear.







Next stop was the market, we loaded up on food, water and then jumped back in the van to head to the mountains. What followed was a 5 hour hike through the jungle/forest, it featured such songs as "The Thai song", "Don't stop believing" and Nirvana sang by Alex. The scenery was amazing but the only pictures I really have are of when we rested, it was bloody tiring! We eventually got back to the camp and it all seemed worth while. This was the view waiting for us.




We were on top of a hill looking down on the Elephant camp, and across the valley. We ditched our gear and headed down for a swim. Then it was Elephant ride time, we loaded up 2 to an elephant and headed up a steep hill into the forest next to the camp. I rode on our elephants neck, Colm in the chair and the Mahout walked next to us on the ground. Those first five minutes up the hill were pretty scary, I kept feeling like I was going to fall off her neck and the path was so narrow we had no idea how the elephant was getting up it! I got settled soon enough and we had a great time despite Valerie and Dean's Elephant stopping every 4 minutes to rip down a tree and eat it. That was one greedy elephant!

The pool we had been swimming in turned out to be the elephants drinking water and at about 5pm the mahouts brought the elephants over for a drink and a wash. We got to help wash the elephants, play with them and even ride them out of the pool.







We passed the evening with a few beers and some fun games.



DAY 2

Day 2 we were heading up a mountain to a local village at the top. Our two Canadians left us and we picked up 3 Americans instead. One of these Andreas was to become part our posse for the next week or so. We passed more elephants along the way and picked up a dog, scraps 1. Then proceeded to lose him halfway up the mountain, no worries as he was shortly replaced by scraps 2. The accommodation in the village was basic, no electricity and mats on the floor. The local women came selling nick knacks and massages, the dinner was great then the local kids came and sang us a song.





The evening started as before we a couple of drinks but at midnight Dean turned 21 and two bottles of whiskey appeared so remainder of the night was passed with a game of kings and singing.

Day 3

We passed the morning watching Andreas and Martin doing handstands and Colm & Alex trying to untie themselves from a string knot. Then it was onto the last downhill hike to the waterfall.



We finished the day back at the elephant camp when our two Americans went on a elephant ride and we played with the other elephants. I got food for my one from the terk but that other greedy elephant grabbed it out of my hands as I walked past it! Just as I was walking a trunk reached over to me and grabbed all the straw from my hand! I wasn't going to argue with a 10 ton elephant so I waited till she left before I got more food for my elephant.

Martin, Val and myself went to "baby" elephant. She was 8 years old but a lot smaller than the other ones. She was also the loudest and was always making noise, the two guys jumped up on her back and rode her down for a bath. I stayed and went back to my elephant (who is actually the oldest there, 47 years old). Kartoo who was one of the drivers was over with her and he taught me how to stand on her knee and have her raise me onto her back. Awesome!





The Americans came back after an hour and we had to say goodbye to the elephants and head back to Chang Mai. We all moved into Valerie's hostel and headed out for Deans birthday. I forgot to mention he turned 21 that day. Thus how the few drinks the night before turned into whiskey! A really good night was had which included Mexcian for dinner, buckets for dessert, live music and myself & Dean getting hit on by two gay Thai guys. Dean even arranged a date with one for the next night. It ended with myself falling asleep in an internet cafe at 5am and us getting in about 7am. Urg.

That is enough typing for now, next up the trip to Pai!

Chiang Mai

First stop back in Thailand was Ubon Ratchathani, here we found out how much food should cost in Thailand! We stayed one night while we waited on a night bus and paid 50 cent for dinner same same for lunch! Not that it isn't cheap in tourist Thailand, meals aren't much more than 2euro but when you eat out 3 times a day for 5 months that cost builds up! As I said we jumped on a night bus to Chiang Mai, described by Colm as the "Cork" of Thailand. It is the second city of the country, great vibe, cheaper and not as built up as Bangkok.

Out first night we caught a Man Utd match at a local bar run by a guy from Wales. Colm was his usual charming and myself & Alex got stuck talking to an American hippie who was trying and failing to save the world. Thankfully we left them and banter was had at a Reggie bar. The next day we rented Motos but didn't do much in the way of culture unless the shopping mall and cinema count. We did book our 3 day elephant trek and ticket for Muay Thai that night.



Muay Thai is Thai Kickboxing, it involving using your knees and elbows to kick the bejesus out of the other fella. This sounds pretty vicous but there is a large amount of tradition and ceremony before each fight. One of the most interesting things is the fighters appear to hold no animosity towards each other before or after the fights.

The little Thai guys are amazing, we saw 8 fights that night. It started with kids aged 8 and finished with two westerners, a guy from Ireland and another from England. The show fight was by far the best, two young good Thai fighters. Sometime in round 3 a flashing kicked and one of the fighters was stumbling and then collapsed. He didn't get back up for 10 minutes, out cold! We replayed it on the video, an extremely fast kick to the neck/head. Pretty insane!

The night also consisted of a joke fight between 4 guys who were blind folded. We have most of this on video, better than me trying to describe it! I'll upload when I can.