World Travels: Second Leg

After almost three weeks in Dubai, catching up with my busy brother and friends our next stop was to be our first taste of Asia. A continent full of small people with big hearts and big appetites, hee hee!

• Email 2: from Thai to Malay

Thailand

Email Date: 07 March 2005 11:19:48
Subject: Thailand

I'm back....

I hope you're ready for bed, it's time for another long read...

We left Bangkok last Wednesday @ 7.40pm and caught an overnight train to Surat Thami and hopped on a ferry @ 10.30a.m to Koh Samui. We've are still in Koh Samui and moved on from North Chaweng yesterday morning and onto the more secluded part of Mae Nam.

We were certainly ready to hit a beach destination after four nights in Bangkok. It did smell but glad we didn't take anyones advice to get out quickly. The days we had were four crazy, hedonistic nights! The hostel was in a perfect location, just off Th Sukumvidt (where all the expats hang out with their Thai girls. Also near the BTS (skyline train) but more importantly near plenty of bars, restaurants and fast food stalls on the streets. The fast food consisted of pork/chicken on a skew coated in thick sweet Thai sauce. Most roughly cost 5Baht (8p) so it was rude not to snack in between meals...all day long!!!

Most days were action packed, so was certainly different to our luxurious leisurely lifestyle in Dubai, but we were ready for it! The first night we hit the local bar just outside our hostel. It was outside so the mosquito's had a great feed on our fresh tasty white legs but despite this we got chatting to a German dude called Vienna and he introduced us to Rob, who had lived in Bangkok for four years but was only on a stop over back to New Zealand so Rob told us the do's and don'ts in Bangkok.

We had a late one but all decided to meet up at 8.30 prompt and catch a train to the largest outdoor market in...err..the world...I think. It had everything, including live animals, ranging from dogs and pigs to iguana's and snkaes...crazy stuff. The noise was immensely dense and a little distressing I bet half the animals were chopped and put sold on the fast food stalls.....joking!!Apparently there was cockfighting going on somewhere in the market. We heard the frantic betting going on but couldn't find the fight through the maze of stalls! I bought a token long sleeved t-shirt from a stall, which required me to show my pasty white chest off to the locals and admittedly did draw quite a crowd...in fact I was ready to break into my famous caterpillar move, but I denied them the honor....if I did they'd probably cage me up, dip me in sweet chili sauce and sell me on a fast food stall next to the dog meat!

Other trips around Bangkok included the mandatory trip to the grand Palace and lying Buddha . Had a few boat trips up and down the River Chayo (think it's called that)...realised this was the cheapest mode of transport...speaking of transport the train was a delight to travel on...nicely air-conditioned which is a saint in the blistering heat of Bangkok.

Caught a few crazy tuk-tuk's through town (three wheeled cars). In fact took one to China town by day and the driver said China Town was closed. The previous night we'd be conned by a taxi driver that China town was closed (which we stupidly believed) and took us to an empty restaurant, so we didn't fall for that again. I told the tuk-tuk driver he was a "wan#er" with a big smile on my face...luckily he didn't understand and laughed back, good lad, ha ha!

We saw some Thai boxing which was superb! Not as much blood as I thought there'd be but there were two complete knockouts with a little blood spraying out onto the ringside seats. Most of the ringside crowd were Westerner's, obviously like myself, purely because they sell the expensive tickets to us first and the locals get the cheaper seats behind. There were 10 fights in total and lasted 4 hours so we saw plenty of moves to take note but the main event (8th fight) was the best!! Most of the stadium was filled with locals betting frantically during the fight. They were also allowed to shout advice to the boxer during the intervals....superb! The fight consisted of plenty of fist elbow combinations and were pretty affective...another useful move for the dark streets back in London.

The last night we saw Norah Jones in concert which was expensive and must admit was worth it. It was filled with crazy, screaming Thai's shouting how much they loved Norah Jones....must admit she did look quite fetching, ha ha!

We hung around on our last day in Bangkok, eating more Pad Thai noodles and spicy soup and drinking Singha beer till our train set off in the evening down to Suran Thami. The journey was ok, got to sleep in second class on a bunk bed for 15GBP each, which is cheap! We hit the ferry port and boated across to Koh Samui at 10.30a.m. The sun was shining and we now hitting paradise...well sort of.

We headed straight for North Chaweng, the quieter end of the touristy part of Chaweng. The island's around 20km wide so didn't take long to travel on an open public bus from east to west. The beach was nice but quite crowded with tourists but more annoyingly a stream of locals selling coconuts and bangles...get out my face!!!! There was plenty of bars and restaurants to hit at night, which was good, but also you could hit the beach at night too, which was superb!

We were stranded in N.Chaweng after a torrential downpour for 24 hours so that killed a day, but yesterday we moved onto Mae Nam, where it's a little quieter and we're staying back in the hills so have a nice view from our balcony....well of coconut trees anyway...there everywhere!! Yesterday was another cloudy day so didn't do much other than play free pool against a Singaporean dude who normally played snooker and had a highest break of 80....I obviously beat him with my silky pool skills, in fact even lady V nearly beat him....he offered to make a Singapore sling (we were in his bar)...but I thought it was best not....

Anyway slipped in the tourist lifestyle by doing a half day trip around Koh Samui (started early so at least hot us out of bed) but we're planning to kayak to Ang Thong tomorrow (where they filmed "the beach") to do some snorkeling etc....

So signing off now. We plan to stay in Koh Samui for another two days and then fly onto Phuket...life is just so tough...

Bye for now.