World Travels: Second Leg
Some blurb...
Thailand
Email Date: Wed 23 March 2005 16:16:31
Subject: From Thai to Malay
Back again, but this time I write from Malaysia......
The days of white sands and ocean blue sea ale behind us whilst we adventure the city of Kuala Lumpur(KL), the jungle torrain of Cameron Highlands, the historic town of Malaka in Malaysia....although don’t worry we’ll be hitting the 10th most beautiful island in the world tomorrow so it’ll be hack to topping up the tan and lounging on the white sands) Thailand does seem a long time ago but we were there for nearly 3 weeks, so memories are a little distant but the stomach troubles aren’t! As I mentioned in my previous email we trained it from Bangkok to Koh Sarnui overnight. Koh Samui was a fantastic island, the locals are friendly except for the ones who have regular contact with us tourists (whom the locals call “Ferrangs”). These Thai’s can be devious little shts so be ready for battle!!!
Chaweng was the first stop in K.Samui. It’s the livelier part ot the island and stretches out over most of the east coast. We stayed in
the North part where it was a little more expensive and quieter but still a stones throw from the hustle and bustle of Central Chaweng.
The beach was o.k but had so many locals selling bracelets, pineapple, coconuts, ice-creams etc it was unbearable. They worked like a
pack of army ants, trained to the full in eye contact with a potential customer, carrying tourist kilo’s of local “toot” on their
shoulders. There came a point where my eye contact was not forthcoming but still the local “ant hoarded their cr*p over to us beanng
the cheesiest smile, blocking out those all important rays which were bronzing my chest...after the 10th shake of my head and two
fingers shown they politely left with a flick of sand onto our towels1!!! Grrr....
At night the place came alive, the best part were the bars on the beach. Sitting beneath the stars admiring Orion’s belt, some sort of saucepan and the great the north star, the closest star in the sky (don’t know any other constellations) downing Singha beer by the bucket load I We met a danish couple and a German dude called Helga one night. He’d lived in Phuket for over 20 years, so was quite old. He ranted on about the “deer hunter’ which was quite amusing.. .it’s a new term which associates the tattoos on girl’s backs at the base of their spines.. .but I’ll leave it there....he was quite funny but unsurprisingly dirty for a German! We had a superb boat trip to AngThong National Park via speed boat for one day. Consisted of many Islands and was where they filmed scenes from Alex Garland’s ‘The Beach”, but as we later found out on anther boat trip in Phuket, they also claimed to have islands where they had filmed “The Beach” too, anyway still a good marketing ploy. I experienced my first bit of snorkeling. The waters around the national park Islands were crystal clear but for some reason they took us to the dirtiestl the fish were only one type (tiger fish) and the little blighter’s attempted to nibble at your skin, so it was little uncomfortable, although not as painful as a shark bite, which some snorkeling dude in Perth recently had the experience of.. .Australia sea’s are sounding all too dangerous for my likings! The rest of the day we sped around the islands, hit a few paradise beaches, climbed up to view a lagoon but the best part was kayaking around an island. The Kayak seated two so me and V paired up. We’d met an Aussie dude called Neil, cr*p name (only joking m&d!). He was gloating a little about being good at kayaking and showed us and the rest of the group how to paddle... .so straight away we knew we had to beat him. The course consisted of paddling round the choppy seas of an island. He’d been paired up with a one eyed Dane (well alright he didn’t have one eye but he could only paddle one side, ha ha”)....anyway after a slow start and a grueling battle with lady V accusing me I was not paddlingt!.., we pipped thorn at the post ensuring the Bills had beaten the Aussie, supeeerb!! The great Dane was obviously a weakness but we didn’t care, we made sure we ripped it out of the Aussi on our choppy ride back to K.Samui, tiny kangaroo down sport, tiny kangaroo down!...l also managed to squeeze in a game of football on the beach with a few of the speed boat drivers.. again I showed them a few tricks but admittedly there were some Swede’s playing too but.. .err. ..they were far better than me. ..why are the Swede’s so good at football?fl
We experienced a torrential down fall in Chaweng, the day we wanted to leave. It poured down all day. In fact we were bound to our hostel for most of the day but we amused ourselves with a little scrabble, nice touch. I won but lady V was annoyed I didn’t allow Quell, which I said was wrong, which err, well it’s not but that’s not the point! After three nights in Chaweng we traveled onto Mae Nam, which was far quieter and lady V had picked out a fantastic bungalow set in the hills, 10 minutes walk to the beach. It was a small complex run by a French/German couple. We had a balcony (which came in handy, ha ha) at the back so had a great view of the coconut trees and a small village down the road. The beach was very quiet and the sea calm....welI the sea was calm until I got stung by the one and only jelly fish in K Samui. it was my first plunge into the sea and the blighter’s tentacles gave an almighty whip of it’s electric tentacle on my arm, ouch... I was told they hated Ferrangs!H
At night there wasn’t much to do. One of my vices in life is pool and lady V’s as I recently found out is banana pancakes - how many
did you eat lady V?!! anyway most of the bars had free pool tables in K.Samui so my days of playing pool every day at work finally
paid off... .two long afternoons in a row I thrashed a bar owner (from Singapore). He claimed to be a regular snooker player racking
up 70-80 breaks.. ..mmm hard to believe.. .but I demolorised his game so much, even lady V beat him! He offered to make a Singapore
sling as we hadn’t had one before hut seeing it was two days after beating him, on his own table, we gave it a miss and said we’d wait
till we got to Singapore and naturally experience it in Raffles!.. he wasn’t overly impressed..
After just over a week in K.Samui we decided to hit Phuket. We made the mistake of taking a bus, I suppose as most backpackers take this mode of transport but we expected to take 1 bus. It took over 8 hours, but it took four bus (well mini buses) changes to do it, crazy! The worst driver being the one who didn’t realise he could maintain a steady speed on the bus by keeping his foot on the accelerator rather than putting his foot down hard and releasing every minute!! Obviously the west coast of Phuket had been hit by the Tsunami and there were conflicting stories as to how badly it had been. So we thought wed go to these affected areas as the government has been pleading for tourists to return and spend money to get quashed businesses back on track. (aren’t we good!) First stop was Kata. Was a little expensive but very quiet. We spent the most on accommodation at I ,200Baht (16GBP) a night but had a fantastic view of the enclosed beach with a small Island that a strong swimmer could reach (well, obviously I could reach, but err, I didn’t try!). Seeing as wed experienced backpacker lifestyle for over 3 weeks we thought we’d splash out on a tasty meal at an exclusive beach restaurant called the boathouse. Boy it was nice to back to the high life, for one night at least! Being in Kata we could walk to three beaches. Karon was nearby but Kata was split into two but only on our last morning did we walk down to Kata Noi which was a very small exclusive beach with crystal clear waters and white sand. ..so a quick photo and walk on the sand was all we experienced before we traveled up the coast to Patong. Patong, as we were warned was tourist-tastic. Full of tacky bars filled with the local girls looking to play pool and obviously play a little more thereafter.. .Patong, as we were told had been hit by the Tsunami, but through mass help it had got itself back onto its feet and only a small noticeable areas on the beach could you see two or three bars demolished but reconstruction work was well under way. What was a little distressing was seeing debris in the sea. The further you swam out the more bits of wood etc you found. In fact we managed to find a t-shirt still on it’s hanger which obviously existed on a clothes stall which must have been swept away by the incoming waves....
Surprisingly though we had a great time in Patong. Staying at our cheapest accommodation called Paradiso. Ok, wasn’t quite paradise
but at 3GBP a night, including shower, air con, sky tv and laundry it was an absolute bargain! It was in the “gay villag& and at night
there were cabaret shows galore but after experiencing one in Chaweng (photo attached) we’d certainly seen it all before! Also opposite
was a 24 hour snooker hall - superb!! So one late afternoon, whilst lady V got ready to go out, it gave me well over 2 hours to thrash
a few locals.. .realising now my purpose on our travels was not only to take on the sights around Asia and Australasia but to take on
locals at any sport! So again my two years of fine tuning down the snooker hall in Tooting payed off I took on the local snooker whiz
kid called Gay”. think he was having me on there... .and as word got around a white Englishman (with a slight tan) was in town a crowd
commenced....J wept 2-0 down but once I settled the Guppster arm was in fine form and came through to win 4-3. So now my Asia quest
of sporting quests had conquered the Singaporeans and now the Thai’s... now I need to bag a Malay and the Asia sporting quest is
complete...well alnght I’ve forgotten about Indiab Pakistan etc etc....but that’s not on the Guppy (&Smith) trail!
Also In Patong we signed up for an obligatory day trip to the Phi-Phi islands. Again news back in the UK had told us of the Tsunami affects were worse here. Parts of this were true but Phi-Phi is fairly large so it was only the north part which we saw from a distance in our speed boat that was noticeably bad. We definitely found paradise (not paradiso) no this trip! (see attached photo). There were many islands we cruised around but the snorkeling was fantastic. The fish were a little more varied and not so aggressive. We had plenty of time to relax on enclosed, protected beaches and feasted on tasty local food for lunch. As I mentioned way back in this email they claimed parts of “The Beach” had been filmed here but this time they were true. We met some more interesting people on the trip which makes a difference but one of them being a girl from Aus, who was world champion in 13km front crawl in 2000...! must admit 5 years had taken it’s on the girl though, ha ha. She was not quite the dolphin through the clear waters more like a beached whale. .oops sorry!! Also in Phuket we were determined to find a nightclub to have a dance and see what the locals get up to in nightclubs! We found the banana club, not because of Lady V’s vice for bananas but it was recommended in our lonely planet guide. Adn’ittedly it was empty at 10pm but by 2am it was packed. With a line up of 7 dj’s in the box the music started off with hard techno but as they slipped into R&B, we paved the dance floor with some UK hipster moves which naturally enticed the local Thai’s onto the floor. good work. After 4 hours of dancing we finished off with a token hot dog with onions caped in ketchup and mayonnaise. Admittedly I like my sauce but who told them the Ferrang’s like a bottle of the stuff per hot dog!
After three nights in Patong we traveled up the north coast to Bang Tao. Reason being was that this was where the Siam international wind surfing
competition’s were held and I wanted to get some vital professional wind surfing coaching in before I hit the surf in Aus, obviously so I can out surf
the Aussie dudes’ disappointingly you had to stay at one of the Lagoon hotels to hire a wind surfing board.. .rubbish. Bang Tao was notably hit by the
Tsunami and the affects were still quite devastating. The beach was empty although accommodation plentiful. Bang Tao, by far, was the best beach we’d been too.
With the bungalow so close, the locals so friendly and the food so tasty it’s definitely a place to visit for pure relaxation and romance.. .but also the Thai
massage was definitely the best!! After experiencing the sun setting at night over the sea horizon and endless games of cards for two nights we treated
ourselves to a flight down to Kuala Lumpur (KL) in Malaysia.
The days of beaches were now behind us and onto KL, a city reminiscent of Bangkok but definitely not as smelly!! So it was “Lar-kornto carp” to Thailand and err hello to Malaysia (not sure what hello is Malaysia).. ..ah don’t worry have just asked. ..it’s “hi nice touch. We’ve been in Malaysia now for around a week and has definitely been the most memorable although that’s probably because it’s been the most recent! With so much cross over in culture with very little come and terrorism, Malaysia has a lot to offer. So far we’ve blitzed KL, ambushed the jungle in Cameron Highlands and currently in Malaka, a portal town steeped in history. We’re traveling to the Tiarnan Islands tomorrow at Barn (see we do get up early even if we’re not working!). It’s said to be one of the 10 most beautiful islands in the world and 3 Aussie’s lasses have recommended the area to stay. Must admit we’re quite missing the beach life so we shall be fulfilled but after three nights we bus down to Singapore to taste a Singapore sling in Raffles, eat breakfast with an Orang Utang, go on a night jungle safan, buy a laptop, MP3 player and flnaly a digital camera for the cheapest prices in the world (well except for Hong Kong) before we catch our connecting flight to Australia...
So will update again very soon but not before you’ve read this long, probably over informative email. Sorry it’s so long but typing to me is like diorreah, it’s just a continual flow and there’s nothing you can do about it!
Be in touch, Dougs.
P.S m&d could you forward this onto Haydn (plus other emails, don’t think hes on the list) and also onto Linda and Si, thanks!!