Travelling Twats

Bright and early on New Year's Day, after a few hours sleep coupled with a mild hangover, we boarded the minivan to take us to Chiang Mai. Luckily I slept through the drive, as the twists and turns surely would have made me vomit in my fragile state. We arrived in Chiang Mai after a few hours and boarded the next minivan to take us to the border crossing at Chiang Khong. The bus driver was a funny character and wouldn't stop for toilet breaks for often, but wanted us to spend an hour at the White Temple in Chiang Rai to which a French guy who was with us rudely protested, but we all agreed that no one was interested. We arrived at the border at around 5pm and got stamped out of Thailand. We caught the bus over the Mekong to the Laos border. Border control was very relaxed, and no one was searched - in fact I don't even think there was a place to conduct bag searches. We bought our visas an continued on to our sleeper bus to take us to Luang Prabang. We arrived in the town at a ridiculous time in the morning and so sat on the roadside under a street light reading our books until the guesthouses began to open. We found one fairly quickly, showered and headed out to find some breakfast and explore the town. We quickly realised that Luang Prabang was much more expensive than we had been used to, so many activities were out of the question. After much searching, we found the Ock Pop Tock shop, where we got a free tuk tuk to their crafts centre which offered free tours and taught us about the process of making silk and weaving it into cloth on a loom. 

We would have enjoyed to take a course and weave a bamboo basket or a small piece of cloth, but once again these activities were out of our price range. We relaxed in the lovely cafe drinking the free water and enjoying a beautiful view of the Mekong before taking a leisurely stroll back into town where we decided to climb Mount Phousi. The aim was to watch sunset from the viewpoint, so at 4pm we headed up. 

However it turned out to be more of a hill and took us about 20 minutes to reach the summit, where we found many Buddha statues. We also entered a cave which was absolutely tiny, containing yet more Buddhas, then set off to find "Buddhas footprint". When we found it we were very amused. Buddha is supposed to have been a great man, but a man all the same, not a giant with one and a half metre long feet. It was still only 5pm, and we couldn't be bothered to wait it out till sunset maybe an hour later, so instead we grabbed a few beerlaos and headed down to the Mekong to watch the sunset from there.

After sunset we walked back towards our hostel and decided to go to the Aussie bar for a lamb roast since we had missed Christmas dinner. The meal did by no means live up to our expectations, poorly cooked and with no mint sauce!! The best part about the meal was the mash - the only thing they had gotten right. 

Unsatisfied, we went back to our hostel to crash, it had been a long day for us.

In the morning we went to find a tuk tuk to take us the waterfalls, but the drivers all wanted a ridiculous price of just under £20 so we booked a tour bus instead for £4 each. While we waited for the bus to take us we went to sit on the banks of the Mekong, where I soon threw up the previous nights dinner - the beginning of a four day stomach bug.

Later we boarded the bus to the Kuang Si waterfalls. We paid our 20.000kip entry fee and went to see the bears in the sanctuary, who were sadly quite lethargic that day. 

The waterfalls were beautifully picturesque, though sadly I couldn't swim as my injuries weren't fully healed and I wasn't risking another bout of infection. There was tree to jump from and you could climb up onto the rocks to sit under the waterfall. The water was perfectly clear and reflected back a pale blue colour. Once Dave had finished swimming and getting photos, we headed further up the hill to see the main falls. We then decided to walk off the beaten path and found a huge spider which was larger than my palm. You could clearly see it's eyes and pincers, and we kept our distance whilst trying to get a good photo of the huge arachnid. 

Once back in town we showered and explored the night market for a little bit before getting a tuk tuk to La Pistoche, a bar and swimming pool, which we soon found out had closed half an hour earlier at 8pm. What kind of bar closes at 8pm? We went back into town and found redbul bar, where the cocktails were very cheap, had a few and went to bed, keen to be leaving this quiet, slow paced town for Vang Vieng the next day.

On Christmas Eve we got up early, packed our bags and had some breakfast before beginning our journey to Pai. We had heard the roads were in bad condition and the other drivers drive like nutters so scrapped our origional idea of riding motorbikes to Pai. Turns out we heard right. It's a long and windy road up the mountain to Pai, and our driver didn't slow down for a single bend. In fact, he overtook people on the bends, sometimes he was on the wrong side of the road for up to four completely blind turns, but it's ok because he beeped his horn all the way so people knew he was coming. Seems safe enough. Surprisingly, only one person threw up on the bus as our driver rocketed round 762 bends - it was enough to make even the sturdiest stomachs feel a bit queasy. We arrived in Pai after about four hours and set about finding a hostel. The cheapest we could find on our short wander was 400 baht a night for a private twin room, so we settled with that and decided we would try to find somewhere cheaper the next day, when we weren't lugging our bags around. Shortly after checking in the Main Street transformed into a night market. We soon found out this happens every night, and this market has the best street food I've had yet on this trip. We dropped into a 7/11, grabbed a few Changs and began to explore. Pai is absolutely full of hippies, which led us to develop the hippy drinking game, which runs on a few basic rules;

- if you see a man bun, drink.

- if someone had dreadlocks, drink.

- if someone has hippy trousers on, drink.

- if you overhear someone talking about how "they found themselves" or how "the man is keeping you down" finish your beverage.

This game works exceedingly well, and after one or two trips up walking street, you'll be well on your way. After a few Changs we met this Welsh guy who worked as a teacher in the outskirts of Bangkok, but had 3 weeks holiday. We got chatting and went to grab some more Changs in a 7/11, where we met a Moroccan guy who told us people were headed to some campfire gathering that night, so we decided to tag along. There was a very social atmosphere, so we had a good chat with a few people, but sadly there was no bar, so once our beers were finished we decided to move on. 

On our way back towards the town we met a French family who were setting off some Chinese lanterns by the river and invited us to join. This is the first time I have ever successfully set a lantern off, and in Pai I managed to perfect this skill, as it is quite a regular occurrence. 

After this we headed on into town to find a good party, and we found one, at Don't Cry Bar. Here I bumped into the guys we had met in Chiang Mai and met a number of other people I could barely remember having met the next day. I woke up on Christmas Day, possibly still drunk, and decided to head to the hot springs for a little Christmas relaxation. 

The hot springs were nice, though sadly didn't sell beer, and Christmas isn't Christmas without alcohol. We spent a few hours chilling before heading back to Pai for some traditional Christmas dinner - Pad Thai. After lunch we parted to shop for our secret Santas, then met up later at the hostel to begin the evening of drinking. 

It was me, Dave, the American girl and the welsh guy we met the previous night. We exchanged secret Santas - all terrible gifts (what do you expect for 100 baht?) which we had to wear for the night then set off down walking street to find the party. We met the guys from Chiang Mai and soon found that everyone in town seemed to be heading to this "spirit trance party" about 5km out of down. We found a taxi heading there and jumped in. After getting there I remember I got face painted, and that's about it. 

So it was probably a pretty good night. At 4.30 am we returned to our hostel, realising we had left our key with our friend, for god knows what reason, and had to wake up our hosts who weren't best pleased.

Boxing Day way hangover day - nuff said. Boxing night however, we were on it again. We trekked out to the sunset lounge, had a few beers on the way, one in the bar and a couple on the way back too. Back in Pai we went to the Yellow Sun bar, started drinking tequila and ended up at Don't Cry bar. Although I don't remember much from the night, the photos look like we had a great time.

The next day we decided to finally move hostels as Charlie's was a wee bit pricey and our hosts had stopped greeting us with smiles since we woke them up at 4.30am... We moved to Duang Guest house, this place was half the price of Charlie's at 200 baht per night for a private double room, and the manager was much friendlier and had a good sense of humour. 

We had seen flyers around town for a reggae party some way out of town that was on "all afternoon" and since it was our American friends last day before heading home, we decided to head out to that. We found a taxi that was willing to take us (with some difficulty as no one seemed to know where it was). It was about a 15 minute ride and when we arrived we could hear the music, so we paid the taxi driver and headed in. When we got in we found that music was all there was, apart from half a bottle of Sangsom behind the bar. 

It was about 1.30pm so we decided to wait a bit as we were probably early. After an hour we decided to head off, just as two Thai people arrived, who turned out to be the owners. They told us that "all afternoon" meant 8pm onwards... So we began our walk back to town in the boiling heat. It wasn't all bad though, on the way back we found the House of Pai and took our touristy photos. 

Back in Pai we grabbed a few Changs and some dinner before meeting up with the American girl and the Finnish guy to head back out to the reggae party. Sadly, at 10pm there were no taxis available, and I still don't understand why. So instead we headed off to Sabai garden as Don't Cry was pretty dead. At about 12pm Dave started to be violently sick so we headed home where I got a good nights kip and Dave spent half the night shitting and the other half hugging the toilet - rather him than me.

The next day we found the guys from Chiang Mai and the French girls  and headed off to try our hand at Piraña fishing. When getting on my friends bike, I managed to rip my shorts all the way up to the crotch, but there wasn't time to change, so we carried on. Then on the way I got my second injury of the trip - a giant burn on the inside of my calf - and also learnt a valuable lesson, always get off a motorbike to the left, because exhaust gets damn hot. 

The next morning all my illnesses and injuries an hangovers finally caught up with me, and I felt like utter shit. I headed to the hospital where the well-spoken doctor put me on a concoction of pills for my various ailments, and for a decent price too. That evening Dave and I headed up to Pai canyon to watch the sunset. 

The path of the canyon is very narrow in some places, and requires a few small steep climbs to get around the whole thing. Sadly my right leg was a bit painful, with an infected foot and fresh burn, so Dave and I split up, with me taking an easier, albeit less comprehensive route. 

On the night we had some street food on walking street and chilled by the the for a bit, but then decided we should go to bed, and not go out for once. The next day we got up relatively early, probably due to the lack of drinking and found ourselves with little to do. Dave and I decided to take a trip to see the elephants. We bought some bananas and fed the elephants, who were quite intimidating creatures to be so close to. 

They are huge, and maybe not best pleased at the fact they are kept chained up with little room to move. We had asked to see elephants and not ride them, but we still felt a little guilty for supporting the camp where the elephants were. I guess you can't see elephants unblighted by their mistreatment except for in the wild. After getting a few pictures we headed back into town and killed the evening on walking street before heading to bed, once again sober.

The next day however, was New Years Eve. So we started on the Sangsom at about 11.30am - no half measures on NYE. At about 5 or 6pm we headed to the street for some dinner. We met the French girls and ended up heading to their hostel where the boys were staying too, just out of town where there was a NYE party going on with decent music, a swimming pool and fire dancers. We saw out the New Years as we got steadily pissed and our friends dropped like flies around us. The view from the hostel over all of Pai was fantastic, and you see all the fireworks and Chinese lanterns in the area, and also all the guys who'd made a pact that night to jump into the pool bollock naked bang on midnight. 

As our friends were petering out  and we had an early bus, Dave and I said our goodbyes and headed off to our hostel to get some sleep before our 7am bus the next day.

At around midday we finally arrived in Chiang Mai. We caught a tuk-tuk to the walled city and checked into the Rose Guest house, near the Tha Pae Gate. There was only one other person in our 6-dorm room, an obnoxious French man who had nothing good to say about any of the places he had been, and hated all the food in every country as it was nothing compared to France. I couldn't understand why he was still travelling, and why he hadn't just pissed off back to France already. 

We said we were off out to do some shopping, to which he replied "nowhere will be open, it's a Sunday". As it turns out, he was 100% wrong, on a Sunday night in Chiang Mai almost an entire quarter of the walled city becomes a dazzling night market, so large you can become completely lost in it. We stocked up on a few pieces of clothing we required, filled up on delicious street food, and headed in for an early(ish) night.

The next day we rose early to visit Doi Suthep, a temple in the mountains next to Chiang Mai. At the North gate we found a queue of Songthaews cramming as many people as they could fit in the back of their converted trucks to take them up the mountain for 50 Baht each. Once at the base of the Naga-lined staircase, we bought a bottle of water and began our climb. It wasn't that exhausting a climb, and the view from the top was spectacular. 

The temple however, was the same as most temples, very shiny and filled to the brim with Buddha statues. This is likely to be one of the last temples I will see in Asia, they are all very similar, and the most spectacular parts are the roofs. Once we got down the  stairs we caught another Songthaew further up the mountain to the H'mong tribal village. We had heard this village was heavily commercialised, but it was no where near what we expected. The town was basically a market, with sleazy guys showing you "diamonds" they had to sell, which looked like dried glue gun dots. It was kind of upsetting to see what must have once been a beautiful wee village destroyed by commercialisation. This said, at the back of the village there is a lovely flower garden with a small waterfall and a few traditional huts.

We got back to our hotel to find Frenchie still lingering in this city he hated so much, asking us what we were up to and if he could join.

Reluctantly we remained polite and that night he came out with us to watch some Muay Thai boxing. This was quite an exhilarating experience. The boxers punched and kicked with such ferocity you could almost feel the pain as the blows rippled through an opponents body. They were also extremely agile, one guy knocked another out with a knee to the chin. How he didn't split his ass I don't know. 

We saw four knockouts in total, three were spectacular, one however was disappointing. This slight and speedy Thai man was up against a large and slow Western guy, who fought like any other western boxer. The Thai guy was quick and skilled, he dodged all the punches and landed many blows. Alas, these blows were not enough for the western guy to even notice, and one he landed one good punch to the face, the Thai guy was on the floor, out cold. After this we went to look for Chiang Mai's night life, Frenchie insisted there was none and wandered off without saying bye - his loss. We found a bar called Spiceys which stays open past the curfew, but you have to drink out of bottles in brown paper bags and leave quietly through the back door. We partied away with a bunch of other travellers and woke up the next morning in our beds to find we had a room mate - an American girl. We all went out for breakfast (including Frenchie, who hopelessly tried to chat up the lass) and started drinking the day away. We lost Frenchie fairly early on, much to everyone's relief, when once again he wandered off without saying bye. In the afternoon we booked a day of river tubing for all three of us before meeting a group of lads - two Estonian, one Dutch, and one Finnish - that the American girl knew from Bangkok. We bought a bottle of Sangsom (Thai rum) and hit the streets.

The next day we just about managed to get ourselves up and to our pickup point for the river tubing. It was me, Dave, the American girl and two guys and a girl from Nottingham. Being British we all hit it off fairly quickly, and the American girl, who had met a lot of Brits on her travels, had no trouble blending in either. Once at the river they set us off all strapped together in our inflated tubes along with one tube which carried a cooler full of beers. The river was shallow so we were never in any danger of drowning (like you hear of in Vang Vieng) and we had a great day floating along, getting steadily drunk. On the night we booked a bus to Pai for the next morning to spend Christmas in the little hippy town in the Mountains with our new group of friends - the American and the lads we'd met the previous night.

The pool at our lodge

Gibbons just chilling

Chinese Water Dragon

Trekking through the jungle

A woodpecker

A poisonous snake that people were getting far too close to

The tour guide took us trekking into the jungle where we saw Gibbons, Macaques, spiders, caterpillars, centipedes, lizards, a crocodile and a green snake that we were told was very poisonous - not that that stopped people getting up close for a photo as it coiled back ready to strike. At the visitors centre there were some deer who weren't afraid of humans, and would let you come quite close. In the afternoon we visited two waterfalls, one of which was used in the film "The Beach".

Waterfall from The Beach

Mmm... Refreshing

 On the way back we tried to spot elephants, but they weren't around for us. The next day was a much later start. First we went to a freshwater spring for a bit of swimming. We were told we could jump off the bridge (about a 2m drop) but the water below was only 1.5m deep so nobody did it. 

Live shrimps at the market

We jumped off the sides of the pool and, after a bit of trial and error, found out where the deep end was where you could jump without hitting the rocks, but not before we had gotten a few bruises. Health and Safety is just not the same in Thailand. Next the guide took us to a local market where flys swarmed around all the food, but it didn't seem to put anyone off. The guide got us a few different foods to try, some of which were nice, and some which were fried silkworm/locusts.... Fuck that for a laugh. Still, it was interesting to learn about the weird things Thai people will eat, like handfuls of live shrimp. After that we went to the bat cave. 

Inside the bat cave, this is Alfred

The floor was coated in bat shit, but it didn't smell bad. We saw a long legged centipede, a speedy bugger which the tour guide called an alien hybrid between a caterpillar and spider - not far off really. 

She also showed us a tarantulas next, where the tarantula sat guarding the entrance. 

A tarantula on guard

We didn't see many bats in the cave, maybe 5 or 10 at most, but when we exited the cave we watched as over a million bats flew out in a long line, which lasted for an hour. After this we went back to the lodge, and in the morning we got the 2.5hr train to Ayutthaya.

So many bats

After about 2 hours we finally mustered the willpower to reload ourselves with our luggage and begin the 15 minute walk to the city centre, but we got totally lost and ended up in the suburbs. We asked for directions toward the city centre and found that no one spoke any English out here, but the lady we asked found us someone who knew a few words. 

This guy then tried to get me and Dave and our bags onto his motorbike, and tried to persuade us to put our faith in him by saying "trust me, I'm a policeman". Aye sure you are pal. We walked off back towards the ruins to find a tuk tuk and went back to the centre, where we spent the next 5 or 6 hours in a bar getting steadily drunk with a Dutch family. At 23.30 we dragged ourselves over the road to the train station, boarded our train and promptly passed out. 

Sunrise from Chumphon

The bus to Koh Tao was a large double decker with excellent air con - almost cold enough to wear a hoody. The Lomprayah bus left Bangkok at 21.30 and arrived at Chumphon pier at 5am, so we then had to spend 2 hours waiting for the ferry, but there was a shop and a restaurant, so we weren't totally bored. I bought a pack of crisps and made a dog do tricks for them as entertainment. The ferry left at 7am and arrived at Koh Tao at about 09.30. In the pier the water was clear and you could see shoals of fish swimming in the shallows. We went over to a guy holding a Simple Life sign (the school we had booked with) and he gave us a lift over to the SL divers resort. We checked in, met our instructor, (a Londoner called Luke) paid for the course, then finally got a shower - we were feeling pretty grotty. We had just enough time to pop for lunch before the course started. 

The view from In Touch

There was a lovely bar on the beach called In Touch that ended up being one of our favourites on the island. We sat on the beach whilst local children played on the rope swing, with little care for their safety. One kid got his leg stuck I'm the swing, and was swinging around by his leg, upside down. His mother seemed uninterested and his friends made sure they had a good laugh before helping him down. That afternoon we started the academics side of our diving course. This was a gruelling 6 hours watching videos answering multiple choice questions. The questions weren't hard, but staying awake was. After the first day was finished, Dave and I crashed as we had an early start the next morning. By 9am we were in a freezing cold, but very refreshing swimming pool starting our first confined dive. We finished this about 13.00, grabbed some lunch, and then went back to the classroom for another 4 hours of videos. That night we decided to go out and see the fire shows on the beach as we weren't starting until 12.00 the next day. This probably wasn't the best idea, or maybe it's the buckets that were a bad idea...

Fire shows on the beach

Still, we managed to get up and out in time for our first open water dive.

Once the boat had moored up on the dive site, we were told the jump off the second storey of the boat and swim round the boat - just to make sure we could swim. On this swim we all kept feeling these little stings, and later found out we had swam through a swarm of small jellyfish. After this we got back on the boat, kitted up and got into the water. Seeing all of the tropical fish was awesome, and very distracting when Luke was still trying to teach us skills we needed to know. Our second dive was almost straight after this one, over a reef. We saw Groupers, eels, crabs and tonnes of really brightly coloured fish. If you turned over and swam on your back you could see the sun beating down, and hundreds of fishy shadows above you. The dives lasted 35 minutes each, and never seemed to be long enough. We were finished for the day by 5pm, but had to get an early night as the next days dives began at 7am. On this night Dave and I decided we needed another night on Koh Tao. After Bangkok it was so relaxing. On the last day we finished about 13.30, and were fully qualified open water divers. That means no more training, and taking out your regulator under water, just fun dives from now on. We decided to rent some mopeds and go to the post office to post a couple of postcards, and after we were to head up to a few viewpoints in the hills. Turning out from the post office however, I totally stacked it and took half the skin off my arm and gave my foot a good graze and bruise. 

My war wounds

After I was cleaned up, we headed for Mango Bay. This ride is not for the faint hearted. It is for experienced riders and idiots - Dave and I fall into the latter category. It was a steep ride up there, and took us almost an hour. About 40% of the road was tarmac, the rest was sand with huge ruts in it where it had rained. It was easy for your back tyre to skid out into the rut, and then you were in real trouble. This is where Dave had his crash, straight over the brow of a hill and into a bush. But luckily Dave was unscathed. 

Halfway up the hill

Eventually we got to the veiwpoint bar at Mango Bay just in time for sunset, which was simply spectacular, definitely the best one all week. 

Sunset from Mango Bay

Just before dark we began the ride down, which wasn't half as bad as the ride up, despite having to do half of it in the dark. We got back to the resort in one piece, showered and hit the beach. We met the Canadians from our course, had a few buckets an began the beach crawl. Everything's a bit of a blur, but I remember doing the limbo under fire, and failed to light my cigarette off the flaming bar. I then met some lovely Thai masseuses who were very chatty and friendly, sometimes a bit too friendly despite my protests (just kissing me on the cheek though). I lost them pretty speedily and found Dave who was barely managing to stay upright (not that I was any better) and we headed off to get rustlers style burgers for 50p from the 7/11. The next day, feeling pretty rough, we booked our tickets back to Bangkok on the night boat, sacked our plans of going over the sand bar (it was high tide anyway, we'll go when we come back around) and headed to the pier to find a taxi. On the way there was a small river running down the steer causing moss to grow. I slipped and fell flat on my ass and got moss all over the back. I emptied my pockets and washed off in the sea, then got into a taxi whilst soaking wet up the Natural High Bar. 

The view from Natural High Bar

This is a treehouse bar with free pool and wifi above the forest canopy on the side of the hill. The view from there was damn good. We met a guy from Dundee and chatted away for hours. We came up with an idea for a TV show where you get someone incredibly drunk, strap a go pro to them, and set them loose into a city's nightlife strip. This kept us entertained for quite a while. We headed back down after sunset to grab some dinner and head to the pier to catch our boat. The night boat had rows of bunk beds that were actually fairly comfy and I managed to get a decent nights sleep. The ferry reached Chumphon at 5am where our mini bus was waiting to take us on a hot and sweaty ride to Bangkok.