Koh Samui

Koh Samui…Hmmm Koh Samui, by far the most developed of the three Gulf islands, this place was a mixture or rampant development, sex tourism and pleasant beaches. Through good luck we ended up staying at a beach called ‘Mae Nam’ on the island’s north coast. We actually scored a really nice bungalow on the beach, with a great on-site restaurant, Wi-Fi and all for an excellent 300 baht ($10 AUD) per night. The Lonely Planet had listed Maenam as having an ‘average’ beach compared to the rest of the island but from our experience this couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was with great pleasure that we emailed, skyped and caught up on the news from the ‘real world’ and drank beer from the comfort of our beach front accommodation. The guy that worked as the waiter and general dogs body in the restaurant turned out to be an avid guitarist and with one glimpse of my travel guitar we were instantly best buddies with him giving me all manner of ways to buy guitars cheaply in Thailand and hang onto them in order to sell them for a huge profit in years to come. I wasn’t quite sure why he had me pegged for a guitar investor on holiday but as I say he was an instant best friend and lent me his acoustic guitar to have a jam on whenever I pleased. Top bloke.

Our beach was pretty mint and in an effort to drag ourselves away from it we hired a bike from my new best mate as this was apparently his other source of income other than working in the restaurant and buying and selling in the lucrative Thai guitar trade. We headed for the main beach of Samui, which is supposed to be like the Patong of this island (see previous post). We thought we were going for a nice quiet cruise down to the beach and maybe a look around the shops-how wrong we were. Cue Sally…. Sally was an English girl who pulled up next to us on the side of the main street of Chaweng and asked us the usual questions ‘How’re Ya goin’, Where’re from etc etc. After the formalities were over Sally produced some scratch cards and asked us if we would like to give them a go assuring us there was no strings attached and all that guff. Well why not, we were in a good mood and whaddaya know?! I had apparently won a ‘star prize’ which was exceptionally lucky as there were only about 6 of these out of the thousands of scratchy tickets issued and I had just scratched one. My prize was either a new laptop, a video camera, a dream holiday, $1000 U.S dollars and a couple other things I can’t remember right now. All I had to do was go to a certain office, answer a few questions and the gift would be mine. Simple! Or was it…I know what you’re thinking, ‘how could he fall for this shit? Doesn’t he know if it sounds to good to be true then…’ Yeah I know!! But at the time it didn’t seem much of a big deal and both Kate and I said to each other if they try to sell us something we’ll say no and then be on our way, hopefully with $1000 U.S dollars in tow. Sally was just about peeing herself with excitement as she stood to make 3000 baht (about $100 AUD) if I arrived to cash in my prize and I couldn’t let her lose out on her commission now could I? So off we went.

The next two and a half hours were a disturbing insight into the cut-throat business of tourism and development in Thailand, specifically Koh Samui, that was supposed to last no more than ninety minutes. Well, we had everyone there from the managers to the tea lady putting the hard sell on us to join their ‘membership club’. We even got driven up to one of their hotels to show us the benefits of joining their ‘club’. The hotel was like five plus stars and after our little back packer bungalow huts of the last couple months we were like two starving people being shown an all you can eat buffet. The sales pitches kept coming, and a particularly smarmy pom named ‘James’ sat us down and pumped every manipulative sales mind game he could muster into us and still we refused to crack. The jist of what they were offering was this; you pay $4000 AUD and for the next three years you can stay in any of their 3000+ four and five star hotels worldwide for about $150 per week. Do I look like someone that is going to need luxury hotel accommodation for the next three years to you?? Didn’t seem to bother James and after all his best sales pitches were spent our answer was…. Hell no!! We told him this (in slightly subtler terms) and we were on our way.

But wait!! What about our gift? The reason we had even darkened their door in the first place, what did I win? Well, dear reader, guess what? I didn’t win the money!! Surprise surprise. What I did ‘win’ was….a dream holiday to…Koh Samui, Phuket, or Pattaya! One weeks accommodation in a hotel of theirs in one of these places not redeemable for forty five days. Why? So you have to come back to Thailand again of course and it will only cost you…..69 Euros!! And….you will have to sit through a teeny tiny ninety minute presentation about….guess what?? Sound familiar?! By the time they had finally come clean myself and Kate were practically kicking the door down to be allowed outside and our freedom again. Satanists! Deal doers! Development devils that irreversibly spoil the island and enslave the locals!! Ahh…I digress but believe me when I say that we were both pretty angry after this experience and we couldn’t wait to get the hell away from Chaweng and the tourism devils that dwelt there. It was at this stage that we came out of Satan’s office to find our motorbike had a flat tyre!! Cruel fate, what have I done to make you curse me so?! To say we were both a little ‘scratchy’ by this stage wouldn’t quite be telling the whole truth. Thank god we had a great place where we were staying to go back to and chill out.

Now after reading my little rant above you might think Koh Samui was all bad, on the contrary, it was actually pretty sweet. One amazingly unexpected thing that Koh Samui had was a skate park!! Believe it or not, dear reader, this ginga had actually done his homework via Google and was amazed to find pictures of a skate park on Koh Samui on the web. Who knew?! Well as luck would have it, it was located in Maenam near where we staying and I of course was there with bells on. I found the skate park but what I couldn’t find was any other skaters. The ‘park’ was actually someone’s front yard and whoever it was that had built this I could not find. We checked it out a couple of times but we couldn’t see anyone there at the house. On one afternoon though I happened to strike it when, I can only assume, the guy’s father was at home. He gave me what could be perhaps described as the world’s shittiest skateboard set-up and then gestured towards the tip box on the side of the park and retired back to couch where I had roused him from. So now I had a board and once I had cleaned the dog shit off the concrete it was skates on. It was about 33 degrees with about 80% humidity and I had arrived with no water and no money, a good way to lose weight I suppose. I kept the stoke going by myself for as long as I could and it felt pretty damn good to be rolling again I must say. The name of the place was ’Eternal’ skate park, but I don’t think the place has quite lived up to it’s name as it looked like it hadn’t been sessioned for a long time, but no matter. I skated until I thought I would pass out from dehydration (which was probably about 40 mins) and then I left my board outside the door and went back to our place to get some water and grab some money to take back for the tip box. I was gone all of ten minutes but in that time Dad had locked the house up and no doubt checked the tip box and cursed that bloody foreigner that was just here and skating his boy’s set up for free!! I’m sorry Dadoose!! I swear I put 100 baht in the box but you weren’t there! I hope they knew it was from me anyway because, let’s face it, I doubt it could have come from any other skaters that day.

After this epic day of skateboarding it was time to head off to Koh Phangang for the much hyped full moon party! We had bought tickets that would take us by mini van from our bungalow to the pier and then onto a super high powered speed boat that would jet us across to Koh Phangang for the party. The first people we met waiting for the speed boat were a bunch of pissed Aussies on a stags and hens night from Perth. They had flown over for the happy occasion and were hell bent on getting as messed up as possible before the wedding in a couple of days. The blokes were almost all exclusively covered in bandages from where, they happily informed me, they had been knocking each other off their scooters. One big bloke had been especially hard done by and had hit the kerb with his face just above the eye and now sported a huge bandage on his forehead that covered twenty five stitches and he was due to be in the wedding photos in a couple days-hilarious stuff! The boys thought this was a great joke but were aware that the ‘anal’ bride might ‘whinge a bit’. After one of the hens declared that she was ready to ‘jam out with her clam out!’ (who else but an Aussie could come out with a call like this) the boat docked and it was time to enter the madness that is a full moon party.

People everywhere were covered in fluorescent body paint and sculling buckets of spirits getting ready for the main party on the beach. The night from here takes on a surreal nature as we wandered up and down the beach to the various bars, dancing to this music or that whilst sipping buckets of red bull and vodka and taking in all the crazy sights and sounds of this colossal beach party. The entire beach was one long party with every bar blaring out their own brand of music and every second Thai bloke whispering ‘pills, pills’. Even I know better than to buy pills off a bloke on the beach in Thailand and no doubt I disappointed many a would be businessman that night but the buckets were more than enough. The vibe of the night was pretty good and most people seemed to be having an awesome time. We did witness one minor skirmish but it was nothing really and once one of the blokes copped a little tap on the cheek it was all over with-backpackers aren’t very tough.

One place had a slide set up that went from the top of their building down onto a pile of mattresses on the beach and watching messed up people fly down this and eat shit at the bottom was pretty damn amusing! The rest of the night was spent dancing around and meeting a few weird and interesting characters. There were gay guys and lady boys galore and towards the end of the night some stranger who I am adamant was a girl out of nowhere grabbed my fishing tackle as I was dancing away and I’m going to keep telling myself it was the female that ‘she’ resembled. It was a girl!! At least I think it was…After all the fun of the night it was time to get a speed boat back to Samui and try to sleep in spite of all the red bull we had just ingested.

After this we had a few more days chilling on Samui and after another couple exploratory trips around the island where we found beaches that weren’t as nice as the one where we were staying we decided to stay put for the short time we had left on the island. Before we knew it, it was time to pull up stumps yet again and head off to the ferry to Koh Phangang where I am sitting as I type this. Koh Samui was, on the whole, worth a visit, but it suffers from the same over development and sex industry tinged grimness that plagues Phuket. The number of places where girls sit outside and greet you with ‘Welcooome’ as you walk by is a little disconcerting and by the time we left we were glad to be on our way. Koh Phangang promises pristine beaches which are nearly deserted and chilled out days of relaxing on white sand beaches with precious little to do. Does it turn out that for your humble slitherants?? Find out next time. ‘Til then.

Below are a few photos of the Full Moon Party!! I don't think these need any explanations.












Tim working hard at his 'office'. You can see the beach and water just a few metres away from our bungalow. It was soo close to the beach and one of the cheapest bungalows the guesthouse had!!


Our beach at Mae Nam. Heaps of coconut trees.

Phuket Mon 22/03 - Sat 37/03

Phuket…Well after the boat ride from hell, we arrived at Phuket, one of Thailand’s most famous tourist destinations. Phuket is quite a large island in the south west part of the country, once again, on the Andaman Sea. We decided to stay in Phuket town, which is home to most of the island’s inhabitants and several km’s away from the nearest beach. Phuket town had little of interest touristly speaking but we knew that if we stayed on the famous beaches on the west side of the island we would be right in the heart of the chaos and it would be a lot more expensive.

The chaos I refer to mainly centres around the western beach of Patong, which is the tourist heart of the island. The chaos radiates from an unknowable number of girly bars where sleazy western guys who are old enough to know better harangue Thai girls, whose sole reason for being there is to ‘service’ the never ending stream of john’s trawling for sex. This was our first encounter with Thailand’s extremely prosperous sex industry and it surprises you by it’s sheer scale. Now I’m no prude and the moral high ground is somewhere I probably have less claim to occupy than most, but the greasy streets and alleys of Patong was somewhere I just didn’t need to see let alone reside. That said, the island itself was actually pretty cool, the beaches were surprisingly nice given the enormous amount of development and some of the southern beaches on the west coast have surf during the monsoon.

Our plan as we were staying in Phuket town was to hire a motorbike and then do day trips around the island to various beaches and places of interest, and this is exactly what we did. The hostel where we stayed was literally right in the centre of Phuket town and a stones throw from many extremely cheap and tasty restaurants and a fabulous street market that came alive in the evenings. The food around where we were staying was fantastic and so cheap sometimes I almost felt bad only paying them what was owed on the bill. For instance for breakfast we had an old Chinese bloke serving up roast pork, with mouth-watering crackling and an amazing sauce over rice for about $1.20 AUD each. We came back day after day to this guy once we found him. The market was awesome and we could wander around at night tasting a little from several of the stalls and get our fill for about $2 AUD each. One stall even sold large bugs that looked liked cockroaches for those with stomachs of iron, needless to say we gave those a miss but they did make for a great photo.

The temperature on Phuket was delirium inducing and there was little else to do during the day except take refuge from the heat at the beach. We found a really nice beach called ‘Had Kata Noi’ (little Kata beach) and we parked up here on the hired deck chairs, eating fresh fruit from the vendors who wander endlessly up and down the scorching sand plying their wares. To say it was a nice would be a bit of an understatement, all I can say is we were both pretty content. The island is also home to a ‘big Buddha’ as many places in Thailand seem to be and we just about stripped the engine on our rented scooter by forcing it to drag our not inconsiderable western backsides up the kind of hill that would give a mountain goat the trembles. Once up there we realised the big Buddha was covered with bamboo scaffolding and was in the throes of being renovated but the views from the top of the hill over the island were spectacular and well worth nearly killing our scooter for.

We spent a week on Phuket and each day was spent exploring the island, wringing the life out of our bike, swimming at the beach and eating fabulous food. One minor drawback came when we parked our bike on the side of the road in Patong and after doing some shopping in the manic street markets we came back to find our bike locked to the bike next to it and a ticket attached. Apparently we had parked in the wrong place but with no signs and in a nation where scooters fly along footpaths and seemingly park where they please this came as a real surprise. So it was off to the police station and here we encountered an affable police bloke who explained that contrary to appearances you can’t just park wherever you please and 300 baht ($10 AUD) would get our bike unlocked and see us safely on our way. I had assumed it would be a case where the supposedly cash-laden foreigner would have to pay a little kickback to the policeman for ensuring that things went our way. My doubts were completely and pleasantly unfounded and for only the measly parking ticket sum we were off and blazing on the scoots once again.

On one particular morning we decided to take up an offer that was on a flyer at our hostel whereby you could visit a local spa resort and use their sauna, swim, gym and spa facilities for as long as you like in exchange for 200 baht (about $7AUD). Anyone that knows me knows I love good sauna and spa place so on one unusually cooler morning around 27 degrees) we headed off to the fancy spa resort to relieve a little of our holiday tension-ha! The next few hours involved lurking about in the tiered swimming pool set amongst beautifully landscaped gardens and in the sauna, steam room and spa. Pretty much everywhere except the gym! Very relaxing stuff. Kate got bored of this before I did but we both went away feeling like a hundred dollars.

On our last day we decided to visit a Gibbon farm on the northern edge of the island about an hours ride from Phuket town. If you’ve never seen a Gibbon (as I hadn’t) then they are similar to monkeys except they have a ‘painted face’ which gives them a remarkably human appearance. By painted face I mean the fur around their nose, eyes and mouths is a different colour to their bodies and they look as though they are wearing a strange kind of furry make-up! The place we visited was a Gibbon rehabilitation centre and was home to all manner of abused and maltreated inmates. The idea was that the Gibbon’s at the centre would be rehabilitated, if possible, and returned to the wild. Some however were so traumatised and in some cases physically abused that this would never be possible. The Gibbon trade in Thailand is a pretty brutal one with some Gibbon’s being stolen from their mother’s by poachers once their mother has been shot and killed. Old Gibbons are no use to poachers and young ones can be trained to interact with humans either as pets or as ‘performers’ for people to use on the streets for the entertainment of the public and of course tourists.

The Gibbons we saw were all confined and we were only able to see the front row of cages as these housed the most abused and damaged Gibbons who would, unfortunately, never be released back into the wild. The reason for putting the ones beyond hope closest to the humans is that the staff are trying to break contact between the Gibbons and people so they can have a greater chance of being successfully released back into the wild. Hence only the no-hopers were allowed near the front closest to people. I wasn’t aware of this but Gibbon’s actually ‘sing’ to one another. By sing I mean make incredibly loud, eerie noises that send shivers down your spine. One particularly hard done by Gibbon, who was obviously a little mad, had a piercing cry that when you heard it, made your hair stand up on end. This Gibbon had lost a hand and a foot to an abusive owner that had dished out a near fatal beating when she had taken play with her owner’s small child a little to far and inadvertently bitten the toddler. To hear this cry was to be filled with anguish at what this undeserving primate had been put through and our visit to the centre was not only enlightening but also pretty sad.

With that our time on Phuket had come to a close and it was time to prepare for our all day journey to Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand. This meant catching a mini van to a place to Suratthani, then a coach to the pier where yet another ferry awaited to bring us over to the island. This would mean we had now crossed from the south west coast over to the south east coast and to the three main jewels in Thailand’s island crown-Koh Samui, Koh Phangang and Koh Tao. As we were travelling a few days ahead of Koh Phangang’s world famous full moon party the buses and ferry we caught were filled to the brim with excited backpackers all in the process of converging on Koh Phangang’s Had Rin beach. Some seemed to have already started drinking and were well on the way to being pissed in anticipation of the main event of the full moon party. We, via a short ride on a super speed boat were also in attendance at the full moon party on the night of the 30th of March but more about that next time. ‘Til then. TC.


We parked our motorbike inside the guesthouse overnight! Strange but true!


We found a local market near a shopping mall and sat down for a good meal. I was being adventurist and decided to eat some local food - fish paste-thing (not sure if it had fish as I couldn't taste it over the lime leaves flavour). It came packaged in a banana leaf.


Motorbike heaven!! After a long bike ride around phuket, we found a local shopping area which had millons and millions of motorbikes! More than I have ever seen in my entire life!


The cockroaches Tim was talking about. I wasn't that adventurist to try these - yuck!!


Me at the local food market. The best and cheapest food around.


The truck filled with market veges!!



A Gibbon.

The big Mingmongkol Buddha under construction. The image is 45 metres high and 24.5 metres across at the base and is made of reinforced concrete which is covered with white marble

Koh Phi Phi - Fri 19/03 - Mon 22/03

Koh Phi Phi…After the ‘meh’ factor of Koh Lanta we were both eager
to see somewhere that was a little special. Koh Phi Phi certainly has the reputation but could it back it up?? The first thing to know about Phi Phi is how small it is. The main town (there is only one) is a tiny neck of land between two bays full of claustrophobic laneways all jammed with surprisingly fashionable shops, restaurants and the obligatory party bars with their English/Irish pub theme.

The second striking factor is just how many people there are visiting this tiny island. It’s staggering to see how many (mainly) young people flock to this island and it is the definition of ‘backpacker destination’. The laneways and beaches are absolutely packed to bursting point with people all wanting to experience a little of what ’the beach’ is all about.

As we arrived we met a couple people who were on their way over from Koh Lanta as well and they served as our ‘posse’ for our time on the island. The main beach itself was surprisingly nothing to write home about, the water was a bit murky and there was rocks at low tide.

Our first day was spent lazing on this beach and I guess I may have been a little overexcited at finally having cheap beers as I went on to drink all afternoon in the sun while the girls sipped their vodka’s and next thing you know I had completely passed out, woke up just long enough to throw up on the sand and then pass out again before having to stagger home later and pass out again, all before eight pm!! Not the greatest form but like I say, I may have got a little carried away a bit but I swear drinking in this tropical heat makes you feel way more pissed than you otherwise would but there you go, lesson learned, or was it?? More about that later.

The real reason people come to Phi Phi is to go the ‘the beach’ of course, but that isn’t actually on Phi Phi at all. It’s on the island next to it called Phi Phi Leh (little phi phi). The next day we hired a long tail (the local version of a speed boat) and headed over to check it out to see what all the fuss is about. Phi Phi Leh is every bit as breathtaking as you would expect. The island rises out of the ocean so vertically it gives the impression that it’s floating. The sea has eaten away at the rock underneath and the entire edge of the island is overhanging the surface with stalactites (or is it stalagmites?) hanging precariously from the cliffs. The trees sprouting on these cliffs give the island a mossy look but the whole portrait combines to leave you saying ‘goddamn that’s one nice island!’. But it’s the coves that cut into the islands interior providing sheltered inlets where you can snorkel in the lukewarm water surrounded by towering cliffs that really make this island something special.

The snorkelling is fantastic and the setting is so mind-blowing you can see why hordes of tourists flock here every year. Needless to say we were in there like rats up a drainpipe and had an epic time jumping off the front of our boat and harassing the local marine life.

Baiting the water is fun - where you throw in a little bread and get all the fish to strike the surface while one of you swims in the middle of them all going crazy, magic stuff. Sometimes the fish think you’re a piece of food and try to nibble on you which is actually quite a funny feeling!

After a hard day’s snorkelling and exploring the coves of Phi Phi Leh (yes we went to ‘The Beach’, we had too right??) it was back to the main island for the evening’s festivities. Now Phi Phi had a brand of entertainment that is apparently popular in the backpacker spots around Thailand but was a new experience for me. I am referring to ‘drunken fire sports’. This involves certain hair-singing disciplines like ‘flaming jump rope’, ‘ring of fire’ and ‘fire limbo’. Just imagine all of these usual school yard games, like jumping a long rope or limbo, but with the equipment doused in kerosene and set alight. This may sound pretty ho-hum but add in extremely reckless Thai guys running the proceedings with absolutely no regard for another person’s safety and a bunch of pissed tourists with an ‘I’m only here for a good time so stuff it’ mentality and you have the recipe for a very dangerous good time full of fun and frivolity. For instance if you happen to be jumping the flaming skipping rope rather well then the Thai guys turning the rope will speed it up until it’s so fast that you have to trip out and the rope will inevitably burn you. Our companions all had burns on them from the previous night (where I was safely passed out in bed) and it was funny as throughout that day I had seen a lot of people limping around and wearing bandages. I had wondered what had happened to them and now I had found out-they were all burned! It didn’t matter how fast the Thai guys went with the rope, or how low the limbo rod was there was a never ending supply of pissed tourists willing to try their luck and therefore a non-stop laugh fest for the rest of us. This happens at the bars on the beach every night of the year and the local doctors clinics must have to order in tons of bandages from the mainland every year just to keep up with the demand.

My personal favourite was a Chinese (I think!) bloke who was by far the most pissed of his mates. In an effort to perhaps earn the respect of his peers this bloke proceeded to cock up all of the events and must have collected a healthy bunch of burns to keep him writhing in agony for the next few days. However his moment of genius came when, in his drunken state, he decided to try and take a running dive over the limbo bar, kooked it, and caught the bar with his groin area and landed on the sand with the flaming bar caught underneath his body and no doubt burning what little skin he had remaining over the said groin area. The man was a legend and I nearly fell out of my seat after that one! I hope his mates appreciated his performance and I can only imagine his agony as he woke up the next day with a splitting headache only to be like ‘dude, where’s my skin??’. Fantastic stuff.

After the fire show had run it’s course and enough people were injured the beach kind of turned into a Swedish underage disco where all the ‘cool backpackers’ could dance wildly to commercial radio hits, time for me to go….

The next day we stayed on the island and went to a beach called ‘Long Beach’ which was about a half hour walk around from the main pier. This was a really nice beach and we had a nice afternoon of just chilling, reading our books and going for a million swims before heading back to the main town area to have a few drinks and say good bye to friends we had made before we set off for Phuket in the morning. It’s funny how, in these tropical holiday destinations, where no-one has work the next day, how ‘a few drinks’ can end up being a bit more than that. We had met some really nice people on the island and we (read ‘I‘) proceeded to send off Phi Phi in suitably large style. Anyway we had a great time drinking with the rest of the island on the beach and all before too long it was time to say good bye and head home to pass out in time for the ferry in the morning. Now, through no fault of our own of our own, it turned out the ferry left about three hours after we (read ‘I’ once again) had passed out so it was with no small amount of difficulty that we rose and staggered down to the pier to get our ferry. That was a brutal couple of hours on the ferry I must say and I am still proud of myself because I didn’t spew and we arrived safe and sound in Thailand’s most commercial holiday destination-Phuket. This was a place I didn’t hold much expectations for but I’m pleased to say it was actually pretty cool, but more about that next time. ‘Til then.


The streets of Phi Phi - small alley ways lined with shops and packed with tourists. There were no motorbikes or trucks on the island so all the good were transported to each shop by a trailer pushed by a sweaty worker.


Having dinner with our new friends. I had a pretty tasty Tom Yum soup


The fire poi show. You can see the rows of seats behind the entertainer - we were on the first row where a few times I thought we were going to be hit by a flying fire poi or even worst a fire stick!


Drunken tourist doing the fire limbo. If you got under the limbo stick, you would be rewarded with a free shot of vodka!


The fire skipping rope. This photo has a talented Thai guy skipping - if it was a tourist, he would be burnt by now.


Long beach - the water was better at this beach that the main beach. The water was clear and there was some free shade - on the main beach there weren’t many trees so if you wanted some shade you had to pay for the use of an umbrella and chairs for the day.


On our last night in Phi Phi, we had a lovely dinner at a quirky restaurant called Papaya. The owners cats would have turns at sleeping in the drinks.


The snorkelling crew. Instead of joining a chartered snorkelling trip we decided to hire a long boat and get the Captain to take to a few good spots around the island - it ended up costing us a lot less, $AU11 for 4 hours.


Our long tail driver, Captain Bob. The engine to drive the propeller is like a car (or truck) engine.


The towering cliffs of Phi Phi Leh.


A close up of the cliffs. You can see that the sea has eaten into the base of the cliffs


Do I need to say much here? Look at the beautiful landscape and the crystal clear


The cliffs and the crystal clear water.


The first stop on our snorkelling trip - this was more of a swim than snorkelling as there wasn’t any coral but it is was a very good swimming spot.


Another stunning view of the cliffs.



‘The Beach’ beach.


This photo was taken from the boat -this should show you how clear the water is - you can see tropical fish and coral!!


The first snorkelling/swimming spot.

Koh Lanta - Sat 13/03 to Fri 19/03

Koh Lanta…well our first stop in Thailand was much anticipated and after a day spent on the ferry and in a coach and mini-van we were very eager to finally arrive on Koh Lanta. Malaysia had been such an awesome place to visit and our expectations were pretty high for our first stop in Thailand to be a good one.

Koh Lanta is an island (hence the word ‘Koh’) off the far south west coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. It is a only a couple hundred km’s over the border from Malaysia but the difference between the two countries is immediately obvious.

Firstly the Thai’s are way more tourist savvy and the development of the island’s is a lot greater than in Malaysia. The Malaysian people are not too forward when it comes to tourists and they can be relied upon to act honestly and be fair in almost all cases when dealing with tourists. As Thailand is a much greater tourist destination the locals are pretty ruthless when it comes to separating tourists from their dollars. This is borne from a couple of factors, the first being the fact that there is an enormous amount of tourists in Thailand so the locals are pretty much over it. Also the competition amongst tourist service providers is so fierce as it seems almost everyone is a guesthouse operator or travel agent. All this was a bit of a shock at first even though we had both been to Thailand before but after being in sweet innocent Malaysia for a while I guess we just weren’t prepared for it.

Back to Koh Lanta. The island itself was nice enough, not eye-poppingly spectacular but still pretty good. The first night we stayed in a really nice place on a beach called ’Khlong Khong’ (try saying that with a sausage in your mouth!) but the beach was quite rocky (dead coral etc.) at mid to low tide which sucks for swimming so we decided to move on the next day. We ended up at a really cheap place called ’Chillout house’ which was to set us back 200 baht per night (about $6 AUD) for our bungalow. Now we wanted a cheap place but we learnt a valuable lesson from this particular bungalow. There is cheap, and then there is cheap cheap. A cheap place is basic but still quite liveable. A shower, an adequate bed, a toilet (manual flushing of course) and if you’re lucky a couple chairs and even a hammock on your verendah. We learned that these places in Thailand will set you back about 300 baht ($10 AUD) a night and are perfectly fine. Cheap cheap places cost less than this (like our place for the first 3 nights!!) and they tend to have holes in the roof and flooring. They are a magnet for local wildlife, if there’s a dog that is overprotective of it’s territory for instance it will be at the cheap cheap place. If there’s a bar pumping music out all night it’ll be next to the cheap cheap place. If there’s any disenfranchised weirdo’s that have washed out of western society they will be staying at the cheap cheap place. And if there’s any rats wandering around searching for food then they will be looking in your room at the cheap cheap place!! That’s right, dear reader, if you are a dedicated follower of this particular blog then you may remember the fun we had with the rats in our room on Kapas Island in Malaysia (that was a cheap cheap place too). Well here we were again with all maner of wildlife using our room as a top feed and nookie spot, this just wouldn’t do!!

After bidding farewell to the strange owner and his brother we found a new place to stay for 300 baht a night that was run by a lovely lady and had nice, clean bungalows with no rats!! The only bummer was it was only slightly further down the lane than the first place we stayed so we had to keep walking past the other place whenever we wanted to go anywhere other than the beach which was a little weird but who cares right?? Get rid of the rats mate and we could’ve stayed quite happily!

As for the island itself, well, the beach was okay and even though we were there for a week I can’t say a lot of special interest happened. We spent our time in our hammock, at the beach or zipping around the island on a rented scooter. The food has been good but I still think the Malaysian food, with their Chinese and Indian influences trumps the food here. Thailand was a little more expensive than we had anticipated and not as cheap as Malaysia which was a surprise. Koh Lanta was still very busy with lots of Euro’s holidaying there but it had more of a ‘family’ feel than a backpacker one. As I say there was not much of special importance to report here other than chilling at the beach so by the end of the week we we ready to head off to the holy grail of backpacker islands-Koh Phi Phi. This is where ‘The Beach’ (remember Leonardo DiCaprio in this one??) was filmed and it has the kind of heavyweight tourist reputation other holiday spots around the globe can only dream about, so did it live up to it’s considerable hype?? You’ll have to read the next installment to find out. ‘Til then.



Tim chilling in the hammock. Such a hard life we have!



Our bungalow without the rats. It was built like traditional Thai house so the bungalow had a low door frame. We kept banging our heads on the door. We spent most of our days either at the bungalow in the hammock or at the beach.



The beach. Resturants and bars lined the shoreline. We didn't eat at these restarants very much as there were better and cheaper restuarants along the main road.



One of the many beautiful sunsets at Koh Lanta.

Langkawi - Wed 10/03 - Fri 12/03

Langkawi…Our final destination in Malaysia before slipping over into Thailand, Langkawi is a much hyped tax free island that seems to exist purely for the sake of luring local and foreign tourists. The island’s tax-free status came about in the mid-eighties and was designed to encourage development and deliver prosperity to the local inhabitants and, of course, the Malaysian government. Development has certainly been gifted upon the island and this has taken the form of enormous hotels and busy shopping precincts some complete with turrets and looking as though they’d be more suited to residing in Disneyland. The first thing you notice as the boat pulls into the pier is the giant statue of an eagle which is supposed to be a symbol of good fortune and prosperity. Langkawi has a formidable reputation amongst the Malaysian people with nearly everyone we spoke to saying how fabulous it is and how beautiful the beaches are. I have to say that the beaches pale in comparison to the ones we had encountered on the West coast and on the whole we both felt the island didn’t live up to the hype about it but there were still a few things that made Langkawi worth visiting.

Before I get to those things though I will just mention how we managed to sort our accommodation after our debacle that we brought upon ourselves by missing our ferry from Penang. As we had to catch a boat, then a bus, then a taxi and then another boat to get to Langkawi we had of course arrived a lot later than those who had actually caught the morning ferry over from Penang. We had heard there was not a lot of budget places to stay on Langkawi but the places that were cheap were all along a beach on the west side called “Cenang’. So this is where we arrived by taxi from the ferry terminal and not surprisingly almost everywhere was full. We had been used to paying around 20-30 ringgit per night (about $6-$10 AUD) so we were not very happy when the only budget room that was left in Cenang was going to cost 40 ringgit ($13 AUD). It may not sound like a huge difference but when you’re on the road for nine months these little increases have the potential to add up to a more significant amount in the long run. The room however was pretty nice and had a bathroom attached (a rare luxury) and a TV that couldn’t receive any channels, not that I would have been able to understand any of the local programmes anyway.

From here it was to the holy grail…the duty free shop. The island has many of these and they have a variety of goods that are a mixture of duty free and goods that you could find in any store on the main street. As we all know duty free only means two things, cigarettes and alcohol, and I don’t smoke! Neither does Kate so it was off to the beer fridge I ran, ahem, walked briskly. Due to Malaysia’s official Muslim status drinking for the locals is strictly prohibited. In fact on our last night we were chatting to a local bloke who worked at a jet ski operation on the main beach and he informed us that he loved drinking with foreigners in the bars. This is not because he’s crazy about us but because if the muslim police, that’s right they have their own police, catch them drinking or drunk in a bar then they fine the guilty party 3000 ringgit!! That’s about a grand Australian and more than most of the locals would earn in six months I’m betting. Therefore if a local bloke gets caught in the bar he simply pushes his drinks towards the foreigners and makes it look like it’s their drinks and hopefully saves himself the kind of financial hangover he may never recover from. None of this was my concern however as I strode up to the well stocked beer fridge that seemed to be emitting some kind of golden aura to my beer starved eyes. Malaysia has meant a bit of a dry spell for me as the beers have been so ridiculously expensive…until now. 50 cents. That’s right, dear reader, tax free cans are 50 cents AUD rather than the $3.50 they had been everywhere else with the exception of Tioman island at the beginning of our trip which is also tax free.

With my checkout bag bristling with golden goodness it was down to the beach to check out the scene. Pretty disappointing really. There was the obligatory reggae bar (complete with the local Malaysian guys donning their best Jamaican accents-rasta mon!) and a plethora of rather expensive water sports such as jet ski’s and para-sailing, but the beach itself was nothing to write home about. Cenang is touted as being one of the better beaches on the Island so this didn’t fill myself or Kate with a lot of confidence. After a very quick dip and a night spent wondering around the main street shops and markets, all which sold the exact same goods as virtually all the markets we had seen so far, it was time to plan our next day. When the beach is average and you’ve got all day in which to amuse yourself there’s only one thing to do-hire a scooter!

Scooters are extremely cheap and as long as you take it easy (which is guaranteed if you have Kate on the back pinching you if you go too fast!) then you should have a lot of fun. We had heard there was a cable car/gondola on the north western corner of the island not too far from where we were staying. We could see some very steep very high hills in the distance and it turned out this is where the cable car was located. This place was freaking awesome! It was by far the best thing we did on the island and pretty good value for around 28 ringgit ($9 AUD). Now this was no ordinary gondola and makes the smallish one in Christchurch look pretty feeble. It was a behemoth monster of a gondola that went up almost vertically to about 600 metres above sea level in a matter of moments. Looking down the cable at the ground below was certainly pretty nerve-racking. You then got off and had a look around the ’sky deck’ where you could buy food or drinks, take pictures and even get a Chinese massage if you had found the trip up particularly un-nerving! You then boarded the cable car again and went up to the top station which was somewhere around the 750 metre mark above sea level. The cool part was that between the first and second stations the cable car turned and crossed between two peaks and to the right there was a huge suspension bridge floating above another enormous chasm that you could walk across to from the second station. It was a real eagle nest and you certainly hoped whoever had built this thing had really paid attention during their math lessons as the whole thing was perched on the top of these enormous peaks and looked like it could tip or slide over at any minute. The views were insane and walking around the viewing platforms and across the suspension bridge was a vertigo inspiring thrill. After we had done the laps and taken all the obligatory holiday snaps it was down the sheer vertical cable to the bottom which I think was even scarier than the trip to the top!

While we still had the bike we decided to cross to the northeast coast of the island to a place that was supposed to have the best beach on the island. It turned out that if you weren’t staying at the resort there then you couldn’t even get a blade of grass to yourself under the trees in the shade so you were forced to turn into some kind raisin/lobster hybrid in the blistering sun on the sand. The beach was nice and was probably the best one we saw on Langkawi but it was still nothing worth selling the kids for and the idea of spending the next two weeks in a Malaysian burns unit courtesy of the midday sun didn’t really appeal much either.

After a dip and some pretty ordinary lunch it was off on the beast again to our next destination-a traditional Langkawi folk village that harboured some unusual birds and wildlife and the legend of a girl named ‘M’ something. Yes, the name escapes me, probably because her story was not particlulary interesting but to the people of Langkawi it holds some special mystical significance. The jist of the story is that a long time ago a young girl came from Thailand to Langkawi and the head chief/king guy was smitten with her. Echoing the sleeping beauty classic, the wicked step-mother hated her because now she was no longer the ‘fairest of them all’ on the island. So while the King guy was away slaughtering the neighbouring tribes or clans the step-mum framed the young girl for adultery and she was promptly put to death, the usual stuff. However the only interesting part really is when they tried killing her with their spears none of them would pierce her skin so they had to send back for a spear from her place of birth in Thailand and this apparently did the job. But here’s the kicker. When they carved her up she bled white! This was allegedly because she was innocent and, not one to go quietly, the girl put a curse on the island of Langkawi and it’s inhabitants for seven generations whereby their crops would die, people would become sick and the island would be a become a barren wasteland. She certainly wasn’t the forgiving kind. Top stuff and now everyone of course will tell you that the curse came to fruition, the island went to the dogs but now happily the seven generations have long since passed and the island is now free to prosper without the hindrance of a dead Thai girl‘s vengeance. Unfortunately the ’museum’ was deeply average and had a few relics of not much importance and some old shacks that the people used to live in, they must have been from the time during the curse. There were some caged birds with cantankerous attitudes that were pretty cool (and easy!) to rile up but on the whole the place was a scam.

That is a pretty apt description of the island in general come to think of it because for all the hype surrounding it Langkawi does not really deliver the goods. The cable car was cool but most everything else was average to deeply average and it was with no great sadness that after a couple more days of lounging around we boarded the ferry for Satun in Thailand with the idea of making our way up to an island by the name of Koh Lanta. This place, we had heard, was more of a family destination but with the promise of Thai food, nice beaches and reasonable prices we thought we’d give it a try. But more about that next time. ‘Til then.

Cows grazing on the grass. We were told by a Langkawi local that this year has been a very dry year. Her father usually plants rice around this time of year but this year it has been dry.


More of the country side. I didn't think that Langkawi was very beautiful however this might be because of the time of year - the dry season.


This is us going up the gondola. Looks like Tim is a bit anxious!


Here is me looking a bit nervous!


The view of the forest below and in the distance you can see the steep cliff we have to travel up to the first viewing platform. The first viewing area was about 650m above sea level.


The very steep incline to the first veiwing platform. You can see in the distance a (very) small gondola.


The view from the first platform - on one side you could see out to the ocean and the other side was very steep, pointed mountains.


The very steep mountains. In the distance you can see a bridge you can walk out onto from the second viewing platfrom. The first viewing platform is to the right with another gondola joining the two platforms together.


The bridge you could walk along to see more of these stunning views.


Me posing for the camera! Behind me are the gondolas that connect the first and second viewing platforms.


Tim and I striking a pose! You can see the mountains in the background.


A rubber tree - you can see they are collecting the rubber in the white cup at the bottom of the tree. I often saw rubber tree planations between cities - this tree however was near a touristy cafe and not part of a planation.


The scars on the tree from rubber tapping.


This is supposed to be the most beautiful beach on Langkawi! I hopped in but then I jumped out just as quickly because the water was yuck!!