Bangkok

So, all the previous posts have been about specific things in Bangkok. This post is to try and cover some of the other bits n pieces in our 2 weeks in Bangkok.

We needed to get Indian Visas which take 5 working days to process, so our long stay was in part to get this sorted. We are now all ready to go to India for the closing stages of the trip. On with the little stories!

We wanted to see the Royal Barge Museum, so we followed the road signs - they led us down a narrower and narrower path, and we eventually found a viewing spot with the help of a local, who assured us that a) the museum was closed and b) what we were looking at were the barges anyway.



We are wary of scams involving redirection, but this guy didn't seem to have any agenda. The building looked empty, and these boats looked regal - I guess we were just expecting more of them!



They are not often used, only for extra special events. The last time was for the King's 80th Birthday.



The boats were well decorated, as you'd expect with regal transport.

On our second day in Bangkok and Princesses birthday, we went to the Chatuchak markets, also known as the JJ markets, and as the weekend markets. Not confusing...honest.

These markets are huge! With the heat and the cramped isles, its hard to think, let alone make any purchases. But these markets had everything - clothes, animals, household stuff, trinkets (lots!), food and so many other things I can't name right now. We walked around getting hot and grumpy trying to pick clothes suitable for work once we arrive in Amsterdam. The plan is to post a box to our pal Mark in London, so we don't have to lug work clothes around the rest of our trip.

Unfortunately, we didn't get much here, so we had to go looking around the shopping malls too. Princess didn't seem to mind that too much at all. Even Toolman didn't seem to hesitant to get into the malls!

During one of our wanders, we found a building with a Toyota 2000GT on the ground floor.

It turns out that it is a building, sponsored by Toyota, where the youth can come and hang out, read design books, and study. A neat place, although everything is branded Toyota of course.

The one thing that stood out was this segway-esqe design concept. Toolman had seen it on the internet, but this was a chance to get up close:



Basically is for personal transport - you sit in it and get around. Sort of like a electric wheelchair, only much cooler - I mean c'mon, its got colored lights!



Another of the delights in Bangkok is cruising up the river. There are boats all day, picking people up from the piers every 15 minutes or so. The travelling is comfortable, and you get a great look at the buildings and temples that are near the banks.



The boat we are on is slightly flasher then the one pictured, but not by much. it has better splash guards, and seats bolted to the floor. But in most regards, this is the kind of boat we are on.



Cruising the river shows the slum-type housing in some places - this isn't close to the worst we saw!



There are odd markets for the locals, selling dried buggered-if-i-can-recognise-it items of all description, in addition to live turtles, snakes, eels, bugs and fish - presumably for eating! The smell is horrendous!



The place we stayed at (near Ko San road - the farang hangout in Bangkok) had this cool impromptu pub. Thai people seem to love VWs - we saw lots of looked after Beetles too.



This is typical of a street market - so many good tee shirts, no space in pack to buy them!



This is also typical of street markets - selling anyhing that might have value to someone. Anyone need half a digital camera -Sony I think?



This is actually a vehicle! We saw it driving around. It is a motorbike back half, with a shack/front-trailer front half. The blind spot on this thing must really annoying! Still, if you need stickers, look no further.



This is typical to the low-cost approach to problems in Thailand. This is a string of street lights, held together with MacGyver's favorite fix-it tool, tape! Wiring is a scary business over here. It seems to be afterthoughts a lot of the time. Midway through construction, someone thought "Hey! we might need power to these lights!". Thankfully the other guy was like "No problems, we'll just string it between the poles and sticky tape it together..."



Bangkok (and Thailand in general) has Legions of stray animals - mainly Dogs and Cats. For the most part they seem happy, and not too many are overly-skinny. A bit of a flea problem for some of them though. Lonely Planet suggests there are something like 120,000 stray dogs, which I'd believe now. They are everywhere!

Bangkok is a really interesting city. On the one hand, its hot, dirty, smelly and above all, busy, but on the other it has some amazing sights to offer as you have hopefully read about by now.

Thailand 5: Visa run to Burma/Myanmar and Full Moon Party

Our Thailand visa only lasts 30 days, so every month we need to exit the country. Our first stay in Ko Phangan had started just after a previous Full Moon Party and so our visas ended up expiring the night of the (coming) FMP.

We could have payed the 500 baht/day overstay fee, but we needed new visas to see the rest of Thailand anyway, so we booked a visa run to the Thailand-Myanmar(aka Burma) border. The taxi would pick us up at 8pm at our accomodation, and take us to the Night Boat.

Which it did, speeding away as soon as we were at the pier, back over the treacherous road to Haad Rin at insane speeds. We walked up to the boat only to find that the night boat had been cancelled that evening. Arg... left in a different bay with no forward transport!

We called up the travel shop (Thailand is great, shops are open till 10pm at least) and after a bit of language juggling they finally understood and dispatched the same crazed driver to rally-drive us back to our accomodation. In a van.

Luckily we had left an extra day to go snorkelling afterwards (which got cancelled) and so we could go on the visa run the next night. Our rally/taxi driver dropped us off again the next night, and thankfully it was all go.

The night boat was a flat deck inside a long narrow boat - enough for a row of sleepers on each side sleeping across (i.e. port to starboard) and walking space along the middle. there were basic matresses and pillows, along with oscillating fans and open-able windows. It was actually surprisingly confortable with no sea sickness; we both got some sleep.

5am we are woken up and carted off in the back of a ute to the travelshop where the connecting minivan will pick us up. A dozen of us were all sitting around half asleep in the shop, sipping coffees and water, dreading the next part.

The minibus arrived, and we all clambered in. Its part luck, part skill to avoid the 2 front seats next to the driver. Aside from being uncomfortable, the Thai style of driving can be terrifying to witness, so we have learned that it is better to sit where you can't see the road ahead. Toolman is reminded of a pearl of wisdom from Princess, taught to her by her Kirsten:

Don't look, it makes you a witness...

We managed to get the back seats, so we settled in with our iPods and books for a 6 hour drive to the Thailand immagration office in Ranong, where we technically leave the country. We finally got to the office and went through the normal paper work - filling out departure forms etc.



After we had signed out, we hopped on a longtail boat and buzzed across to Myanmar. This isn't a great photo, but you get the idea. These boats are long wooden boats, with ex-car engines bolted on the back with a propellor at the end of a long shaft. They are very noisey, partly as they have little or no muffler!



We get to Myanmar, headache from the noise, and disembark. Our sole purpose here is to get a stamped passport that proves we were in Myanmar, even if only for 5 minutes. Myanmar charge a US$10 fee for the stamp. No problem, Toolman had a US$50 note.



Or so he thought. Apparently they weren't in to giving change, and on top of that he had an old issue (but still legal tender) note. Luckily the charge is for exiting Myanmar, so he headed in to the township to try and (quickly) rustle a US$10 note.

Princess was left at the border office, and as soon as Toolman left, Princess had a group of Myanmar men surrounding her! Thankfully they were really sweet and spoke good English, so they had a good chat.



As soon as Toolman stepped past those barriers, there was a group of boys keen to help in any way. "Mister, do you want cigarettes, booze or Viagra?" came from a 14 year old boy - quite surprising! They led Toolman to a place that sold postcards and did cash exchange on the side. It cost a bit to trade, but at least a US$10 was procured. Running back, Toolman made it back last, but with a good story at least.

We buzzed back across the water, and headed back to the same immigration office we had been in 2 hours earlier, re-entered, and got back in the minivan for another gruelling drive back to the ferry.

The lack of sleep and comfort was not great, but we managed OK. We got to the ferry for a conventional 4 hour boat ride back to Ko Phangan. We had done this before, and it is not bad at all. This time we got an awesome sunset followed by a massive lightning storm. The forks of lightning were amazing! Thankfully though it was in the distance, and we didn't even get rained on.

At last, a full 24 hours later, we were back in our modest bungalow, sleeping the discomfort away. Next stop - party city!



We met up with Justin (a friend of Toolmans) and his gang of travel buddies the day of the party, and had a big lunch together. After an afternoon siesta, we all met back up ready to make a go of the night.



One of the FMPs most noteable items is the bucket . It is, as you might expect, a bucket about the size of a (xmas) cookie time tub, and has 1 hip-flask of liquor, 1 can of soda, one bottle Red Bull syrup and ice in it. We headed down for a meal (yes, sensible drinkers we are) and started our night of drunkeness.



These are far too easy to drink, and by the time we had finished the first (shared) bucket we were well ready to party on the beach. Everyone finished their meals and drinks, and we headed on in to the festivities.



The party consists of one beach, cut up into about 6 zones, each playing a diffeent style of dance music. The beach is backed by a road boasting cafe/bar/restaraunts and on the night of the FMP, the whole areas is swamped with farangs - some estimates put it around 15,000 people.



We danced into the night, drinking responsibly, until fatiuge/hangovers started looming. Exact details on most of the tail end of the party are speculative, but everyone had a good time, although Tiara (middle of pic above) got thrown into the sea by some humanitarian, killing her digital camera in the process.

With the party over and done with, we took a rest day doing nothing at all, and then headed back to the ferry to head north to Bangkok. This was done on an overnight bus. The bus was VIP but the seats are never comfortable enough to get proper sleep, and so we got to Bangkok tired and scratchy. Not an ideal condition for haggling with taxi drivers over fares to accomodation that was an unknown distance from the bus stop. Thankfully Toolman bargained a reasonable deal, considering it was 6am and we'd had no sleep, and partied the night before...

Thailand part 4: Ko Samui

We decided that we wanted to go to the Full Moon Party on ko Phangan, but we just missed the previous full moon, and the next one wasn't till after our visa expired. We resigned ourselves to needing to a) do a visa run out to Myanmar/Burma; and b) having to wait in the islands for a couple of weeks.

No problem, we headed to Ko Phangans' bigger sibling, Ko Samui. This used to be a backpackers mecca, but now has an airport and is unfortunately changing into a garish "upmarket" destination. The main beaches, Chaweng and Lamai, are packed full of the usual farang market stalls and the international fast food joints. The island still has plenty to offer though...

We spent our first night at a guest house called Matlang, which the lonely planet recommended but we surely wouldn't!. The floor was sinking, the doors didn't fit, so wildlife could get in, and it was generally shabby. It was raining really heavily that night which didn't help matters at all either.

Not only that, we got dropped off in the complete wrong place, and after walking around in the heat fully laden, we ended up having to take taxi-motorbikes. So each bike/scooter had one little Thai rider, one (scared) kiwi, and a 15+kg backpack. Thankfully they drove like nanas,(unlike most Thai people) so we made it in one piece. Princess swore never to do it with a backpack again. She had nothing to hold on to, so was trying to balance herself on the bike plus her huge pack. Not much fun, especially going up and down hills!

For the second night I managed to haggle a really good deal with a new hotel slightly out of town (and slightly close to the airport...). We got an aircon room, cable TV, fridge and all high quality fittings as well as a scooter rented for our daily accommodation budget.

As you might expect, we explored the island on the scooter...



... Looking like dorks! Safety first, even though I couldn't find a helmet that fit very well. on our first day out, we got caught in some rain. Well, by some, I mean a deluge - Thailand knows how to piss down. It just starts out of the blue, dumps for a short while then stops. We had waited out the first downpour under cover, then tried to make a run when it looked like it was breaking. Unfortunately it was just a lull. We got completely drenched! The fact we didn't really know our way around didn't help, making the trip longer then it should have been. Thankfully nothing important got damaged (passports etc.) and stuff dries here quick anyway.

One of our first stops was to Ko Samui Monkey Theater. We waited for the show to start by wandering around the cages and feeding the monkeys bananas. We were both surprised at how gentle the monkeys were when handed food. They would gently take it after being offered - no snatching like we expected.

Then we found this gibbon (Our first gibbon experience), who loved back scratches even more then bananas! He would look at you and holler "whooo whooo", then turn round and thrust his back against the cage.



We quickly realized that he wanted a scratch, and so we humored him, as he was soo cute... He would put his hand out to hold your hand, and coax you into scratching with the other!



The live show consisted of monkeys doing cutesy things, such as playing guitars...



...juggling flaming sticks....



..and sitting on Toolmans head! The (unnamed) camerawoman had a little trouble holding the camera still sorry (and no, she hadn't been drinking!).

Another place we visited, Namuang waterfalls, happened to have a gibbon too. This little guy was so awesome to play with, and he was out in the open! He did have a leash, but we could play with him. If you have a reasonable (broadband) connection, click on the youtube videos below to see how cute he really is.

*YouTube*

Gibbon and Tim

Gibbon and Princess
*End YouTube*

For those who can't see the video, you'll have to make do with the following pics...



He liked to play fight, and play bite - never vicious, just cheeky!



We actually went back to this site 3 days in a row, as he was so awesome. Not every day you get to play with a gibbon.




The Waterfalls at Namuang were pretty incredible too. There was a lower pool which was filled with millions of swimming farangs, and an upper pool. We decided to be all adventurous and head on up to the top. The lovely man pictured above was our guide and helped us up all the tricky bits. We were pleased about that as it did get quite precarious in some parts! When we FINALLY made it up the top it was well and truly time for a swim. The huge mission up there had probably turned most people off, so there were only a few other people in the pool. The water was gorgeous, just what we needed after our climb. It was quite amazing too, there was a cave under the waterfall that you could go and explore. We spent quite awhile up there soaking up the sun before heading back down.



The above picture is of the lower pool, the one we chose not to swim in. Still incredibly beautiful though!






Poor old Toolman had the misfortune of becoming EVEN older whilst on Koh Samui. It was his 28th birthday on August 22nd. We wanted to do some a little special, so headed off to the Go-Karting track so he could have a blat around. And blat around he sure did! The go-kart could go to a speed of up to 100kms. There were not a lot of safety measures in place, it was very much anything goes in terms of age of drivers, clothing they wore etc. This, we have noticed, is quite typical in Thailand. You pretty much do things at your own risk and cross your fingers in the hope that nothing goes wrong!
Well as you can imagine he had an absolute blast! I mean, what guy wouldn't, blatting around in a really fast go-kart! One poor man had a bit of a nasty mishap though and ended up being carted off to hospital with a rather gruesome looking cut on his leg, but Tim survived safe and sound!


One afternoon we attempted a walk up to the famous Overlap Rock. It was a dirty hot day and the track was hard work! It took at least an hour to get up to where we thought the rock was going to be, but then signs indicated it was even further! We decided to give up at this point and stopped for a drink at a restaurant that was very conveniently placed up there. Princess is standing on it's balcony in the picture below.

We got chatting to a man named Rob who was originally from Liverpool but had been working in Australia for a number of years. He loves New Zealand and it was nice talking with him about the places he has visited there. He gave us heaps of helpful tips for surviving Bangkok which was great. Before we knew it it was getting dark and was time for the mission back down the hill. That definitely wasn't as painful as the journey up and didn't take very long at all.


Another interesting sight we visited was that of the Big Buddha. He certainly has a towering presence and it's quite neat being able to see him as you arrive in Koh Samui by boat. Being a tourist mecca there were many souvenier shops scattered around him. One sold amazing metal figurines as you can see above. We were tempted to send a couple back for our families to put in their gardens, but decided they might be a little too hard to transport back to NZ! OK and possibly a little scary too....

Here is the Big Buddha in all his glory. The stairs to reach him were quite slippery, so we had to be rather careful getting up to the top. All was good though, no accidents.


Hin Tai and Hin Yai (or Grandmother and Grandfather Rocks as they are known in English) were about a 20 minute scooter ride from where we were staying. They are interesting as they resemble the male and female genatalia with a remarkable likeness! As we are really immature we took full advantage of all the awesome photographic possibilities such a sight offered.




Here is Tim in all his 'glory'. Such a funny photo, and definitely one of my finer photographer moments!




Koh Samui also boasts and aquarium/tiger farm. Seeing as animals are on our list of awesome things to see while we are away we decided to check it out. We went through the aquarium first which had some interesting fish, but the tanks were rather dirty and it was hard not to feel sorry for the fish. There was also a massive stringray who was being kept in a small enclosure. It was sad as he couldn't really swim properly, stingrays usually 'fly' through the water and this one really didn't have the space to do it. There were lots of pools of turtles also. You could buy food for them for 20 baht and they were flapping around madly, incredibly eager to be fed.

After the aquarium it was time to check out the tigers, a personal favourite of both of ours. We could get up really close to them, but their cages were tiny which was upsetting. We later read a sign though that said they don't stay in those cages all of the time- just when it is time to do a show- and then they are released into a bigger enclosure. It's hard to know if that's the truth or not, but we had to believe that it was as the other option is just too depressing.

There was a bubby tiger who was absolutely gorgeous. His keeper bought him a bottle, and he was following him around the park drinking from it.

The park was also home to Otters, Monkeys, Birds and a variety of other animals. We saw a show involving these animals and the tigers while we were there. It was cute, but as they always are, very touristy.

Right next to the above attraction was a Butterfly Farm. We have seen some amazing butterflies since we have been here in all sorts of amazing colours, so we thought the Butterfly Farm had potential to be awesome. Unfortunately it wasn't. We saw a few Butterflies, but they weren't particularly interesting, so we didn't spend too long there.

One of my favourite memories from Koh Samui is the amazing Thai Massage we had. I had a sore back from carrying my pack (which I'm sure is the same size as me!) so we decided to try out a massage. The massages are very yoga-esque - you are bent every which way and rediscover muscles you had forgotten you possessed! The massuse uses lots of different parts of her body in the massage. Feet, hands, elbows and arms just to name a few! It is incredibly relaxing and we both came out feeling like new people. It was great.

The week at Koh Samui flew by, and before we knew it we had boarded a boat heading back to Koh Phangan. It was time to party!

Thailand part 3: Ko Phangan

From Ko Lanta we traveled to Ko Phangan: a minivan picked us up from our accommodation, took us to the bus stop, then a proper bus ride to the ferry (3 hours, one person too many, and guess who had to sit on the floor? Yup Toolman...) . Then, finally, a 3 hour ferry ride to Ko Phangan.



The ferry looked pretty safe and sound, but close inspection revealed a few corrosion problems solved with a lick of paint. Sometimes its best just not to look too much. There was an interesting collection of vehicles onboard the ship. One ute was filled with about 9 live pigs! They were riding on a percarious looking bamboo structure and were rather noisy for the entire trip. They entertained the ferangs though.

We got to the wharf on Ko Phangan, at a town known as Thong Sala. As we get off the ferry, there are a group of people all hustling you to get in their taxi. By taxi, I mean a ute with 2 bench seats and a canvas roof. They are all asking "Where you go?" and thrusting maps in your face...rather intense as you can imagine!

We had pre-booked accommodation at a place called Smile Bungalows in haad Salad. (haad = beach) I manged to negotiate a reasonable price, and we waited in the back for the driver to finish her hustle with the other farangs.

Unfortunately she didn't manage to find many others to fill the ute up with, so we found that the price had changed when she came back. We had to re-haggle, or face being stuck in the wrong bay!

We managed to get an acceptable price considering, and got dropped in haad Salad. The drive over was quiet scary, as there was little to hold on to, and, in true Thai style, the driver drove like it was a Rally with no oncoming traffic. Sometimes its just best to close your eyes in these kind of moments...

We get to Smile and head to the check-in. To our horror, Princess can't find her wallet anywhere! We check in, and then immediately go through all our luggage to see where it might have got to.

But to no avail: The wallet was lost somewhere en-route. We are both pretty sure that no-one else was ever around the bag it should have been in, and we resign ourselves to the fact that we must have left it somewhere; either on the minivan, or maybe at one of the food stops along the way. Very stressful! Thankfully not too much money was in the wallet - about NZ$80 - but Princess' Visa, EFTPOS and drivers license are all gone. Princess got straight on to the phone to cancel the cards.

The biggest issue is the Visa, which is Princess' man access to cash, and the helpful guy at BNZ explained that if we found a contact at a reputable bank in Thailand, they can courier it to that contact fo us to pick it up from. No problem... or so we thought! A later phone call revealed that infact Princess cannot get a new credit card sent to South East Asia at all, so she is transferring her money into Toolman's account instead.



Here is the bungalow we stayed in. It was all quite new, and had a hot shower, toilet and oscillation fan inside. Basic, but everything we need. The deck also had a nice hammock, which was great for reading in.

One night I was reading in the hammock, and had a little gecko fall on me from the decks roof. It made me jump, as he was quite heavy for what I assumed was a moth. Before I knew it he ran off me, leaving me to catch a glance as he skuttled into the grass. Geckos are everywhere, as are iguanas, monitor lizards, and all the other reptile type creatures. Very different to NZ, and as its hot, they are all very active. They are cute little critters though, and not really anything to be afraid of.



The establishment also has an open air restaurant which was very pleasant (and convenient). Smile Bungalows is a family business, and everyone does their bit: mum and dad on the finances and high level stuff, daughter running the restaurant, and son running the check in and icafe on site. As we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner there, we got to chat and meet the family, especially the Daughter, lots. the Thais love to joke (and have fun), and I was routinely picked on, while Princess and the Daughter shared a chuckle...



This is the beach early evening. The sand is pure white and the beach is completely clean. The whole bay is waist deep, so you can wade out for over 100m before getting to any deep water. This shallow water soaks up heat during the day, so if you go for an afternoon swim, the water is as hot as a bath - really!

In fact the water is so calm that only the upper layer of water gets hot (maybe the top 20cm), so you can swoosh cool water from the bottom up to the surface and make it just the right temperature. A really good trick when you have skin like mine - hot salt water tends to sting on irritated skin! I just had to wait till my skin went numb, weathering the 20 minutes of stinging. Is supposed to be good for my skin anyway.

Princess bought a pink lilo to relax in the sun of the bay. It was wonderful floating around, the only thing that could have made it better would have been a companion floating bar! I wanted to look at the coral and marine life out in the bay, so I rented a snorkel and mask from Smile. We swam out to the edge of the bay (where the interesting stuff really starts) only to find that we had dropped the snorkel somewhere on the way!

Reminded of the previous loss, we started hunting - surely it can't be very far away? Well after 3 hours of getting coral-cuts on our feet, wading around the waist-deep water, we declared it lost and went back in to recover from the sun, cuts and damaged pride. What would be next to loose? Thankfully, Smile was very good about it, and we ended up paying only for the replacement snorkel at the locals price - about NZ $4.

This place is so pretty and quiet - we loved it! Was great to be able to really relax and contemplate what we were doing. We spent about a week just swimming, eating, reading and sleeping - exactly what we needed.

We hired a scooter here also, as we wanted to explore the rest of the island. The same system here as in other places. Most places take your passport as security, which we found a little unnerving, but its what everyone does, and we haven't had any problems yet.

Loading up on a few whiskey bottles worth, we head out to the opposite corner of the island, haad Rin, which is famous for its monthly Full Moon Party. This is a busy town, full up with and targeted towards farangs. More about it soon.



The road to haad Rin has all sorts of signs offering everything from accommodation to food to, er, massages... We decided against going here for a massage!

Most of the islands roads are not too bad, although the island is very hilly. The road out to haad Rin, however, is very steep and windy in parts. This road has caused many Ko Phangan tattoos - grazes falling off scooters, or burns from the muffler while falling off!

The reality is that this only really happens to the really unlucky, and the hoons. Plenty of 21 year olds from the UK/US, where the currency converts very favorably, come here. So mix cheap drinks, lax road rules and dangerous roads and its easy to see how the legend began.

So we get to haad Rin, my shirt pulled on enough to ensure that I hardly ever hooned - thanks Princess! Haad Rin is full of restaurants playing movies or TV shows off DVD. Anything to bring the punters in, and it works. Most have timetables with the movies they are playing etc. The usual markets are also in operation here - tee shirts, sarongs and other trinkets. You could potentially spend abit of money if you arrived with an empty suitcase, but in our case with already full packs we have to be careful with our purchasing.

Koh Phangan truly is paradise. We talk about it almost daily and definitely plan to head back there at some point.

Thailand part 2: Ko Lanta

In case you didn't know, the prefix ko/koh means island in Thai. Our Minivan transport took us all the way from Phuket to Ko Lanta. Phuket (which is also an island, but doesn't seem to be called Ko Phuket, surprisingly) has a causeway bridge to the mainland, and Ko Lanta is serviced by car-barge/ferries that go back and forth all day.

We arrived in Ko Lanta, and couldn't find our accommodation. We were told that it was close to another place, so the minivan dropped us off there. After 1/2 an hour of wandering around the area ladened with our heavy packs in the heat, we found it - Ancient Realm had no sign at the road, and was down a muddy path. But the accommodation itself was good.



This is the bungalow from outside, and the photo was taken right at the edge of the beach - thats how close it was! Each bungalow had a fence and its own grassy area with sun loungers and a dining table.



The bathroom was open air, like a room with no roof, on one side. It was quite tastefully decorated with shells and even random bits of glass along the top of the walls! The room had Aircon, a mini fridge and a TV/DVD player. The owner boasted 300 (pirate) DVDs all free to watch.



This is the view out to the beach. While we liked where we were staying, the place was in low season, and lots of businesses were closed down. The water itself was similar to Phuket, but the beaches were quite dirty - covered in bottles, old lightbulbs and crisp packets - not very nice.

Maybe the place is better in the busy season, but without the farangs keeping the beach restaurants open, it was hard to find food options, and there wasn't much to do! We hired a scooter anyway, and spent a few days looking around the island.



This is a cafe that we stopped at at the southern tip of Ko Lanta. It was built into the side of a hill (Wellington style) and was made out of bamboo! It seemed stable enough to have a sprite at, and so we did. Thailand recycles glass bottles all over, so most shops/cafes serve you a drink in a bottle, and collect them up to do a swap-a-crate type thing. Soda, especially Coke, tastes much better from glass!

Aside from scootering, we really just relaxed here, though after the fun and excitement in Phuket, we were under-whelmed here, and didn't stay very long. Like we said before - maybe in busy season it would be a better place to visit. On to Ko Phangan!