Last entry of the blog today. Currently being driven to Colchester from Heathrow airport by Amber's dad. So nice not to have to faff around after collecting our bags.
Yesterday we arranged to keep our hotel room until 4:30pm at no extra cost, which was great as it meant we could spend the morning having a leisurely breakfast and hanging out by the pool.
We had pizza and salad for lunch at Pinocchio's and booked our airport transfer just outside the hotel for 1,100 baht (400 baht cheaper than the hotel).
With our transfer booked we finished off the packing, had one last shower and vacated our lovely room to go and check out, which left us an hour to kill. We sat in the hotel reading room and caught up on our diaries.
The weather has continued to be nice to us. We had sunshine this morning when we were by the pool, then it clouded over as we went to lunch. During lunch it rained really heavily right until we had settled our bill, then it miraculously stopped so we could walk back to the hotel and stay dry.
We left La Flora in our air-conditioned cab under a sky full of dark, brooding rain clouds.
As we got to Phuket, the air had cleared, so we had a very smooth take-off for the first leg of our journey home.
We had 3 hours to kill in Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport. We spent most of this trying to work out where we were supposed to be going. We must have walked the length of this huge airport twice thanks to incorrect signage.
We raided duty free to top up on sample moisturiser to keep our skin hydrated for the flight and I upset myself by looking in the Rolex shop. The genuine Rolex on which the fake I nearly bought was based was on sale for well over £6,000!!!
So gutted I didn't buy that watch now!
We ate a terrible plate of phad thai in a fast food place. Amber had an argument with a deeply unattractive ladyboy waiter(ess?) over the lack of egg and peanuts. I was more concerned about the lack of flavour...
Eventually we boarded our next plane and took off on the next leg of our journey, which was due to take 11 hours and 45 minutes.
The flight was pretty smooth, but the service was surprisingly poor. They played the same boring opera documentary twice in a row; they ignored my call light for ages (I had a killer headache and wanted some panadol); and Amber had to actually ask them to put the in-flight movie on!
The movie was great though: 'The Next Three Days'. Took the edge off the last couple of hours of the flight.
So, that's it. The end of an amazing holiday. I can't recommend Thailand and Cambodia enough as travelling destinations. As I read through the blog I can't believe the diversity of things we've seen and done this trip!
Can't wait to go back.
Friday, 29 April 2011
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Day trip to the Similan islands
Our minibus was right on time in the morning and after picking a few other people up from other hotels we arrived at the Seastar welcoming hall at the Tamlampu pier around 8:00am.
They had coffee, tea and cakes but we gave them a miss, having stuffed ourselves full of food at the hotel breakfast buffet.
What we did do was check in and find a suitable pair if slippers each (we're using our own snorkels and masks).
There were tons of people in the hall, all going on different trips as indicated by what colour wristband they were wearing. Ours were pink.
We seemed to be waiting a long time, which was somewhat disconcerting, but eventually all the other groups had left and only ours remained. At this point we were led to the pier and given a briefing about the days itinerary and the dos and don'ts of snorkelling in the Similans. Our guide, who was bursting with enthusiasm and wearing bright yellow sunglasses and a green cap with white wings, introduced herself as Wei. It was clear from the outset that she was going to keep us entertained!
We dumped our shoes into a big blue tub and boarded the speedboat. There were forty people in our group, which hopefully gives you an idea of the size of the boat. For some reason no-one wanted to sit at the front of the boat in the sunshine. We jumped at the chance, with the end result that we had loads of room.
After some initial hiccoughs starting one of the boat's three outboard motors, we eventually got underway about an hour layer than we were meant to. However all negative thoughts were soon list when the boat picked up speed and started bombing its way to the Similans. To day the boat was fast would be something of an understatement. We were flying.
Out hosts did a great job of keeping everyone topped up with sweets, water and Pepsi. Wei even came round with a funny mask for people to try on and take photos. An hour and fifteen minutes flew by and we were soon at our first snorkelling destination: Island 4 or Ko Miang.
This is supposedly the best island for snorkelling and we saw hundreds of amazing fish. Many more than we'd seen at Kho Phi Phi Leh and also many species we hadn't already seen, which was nice. Amber and I got a bit of a treat because we were the only two who responded when Wei asked if anyone wanted to see a clownfish. She led us a little way away from the boat to where there were just two very large sea anemones housing one pair of clownfish. Great to see them swimming in and around the stinging tentacles completely unharmed. It really made us wish we'd bought an underwater camera.
After snorkelling at Ko Miang we were dropped off on the beach to kill 50 minutes either swimming or exploring. The island houses a huge colony of flying foxes and also populations of Bengal monitor lizards and Nicobar pigeons. The bats were up in the trees just off the beach. Likewise the monitors were walking around bold as brass a little way from where most of the people were.
As usual Amber and I foolishly decided to go for the hardcore option and set off along a trail marked 'Viewpoint'. This turned out to be a somewhat challenging adventure trail involving using ropes to pull ourselves up big rocks, crawling under vegetation and walking over very make shift bridges over gaps between rocks. Not surprisingly we were both sweating buckets by the time we clambered onto the big rock that constituted the aforementioned viewpoint, but the view over the bay was worth it. White sand, blue sea and green jungle in a wide arc.
We had no idea how long we had taken getting up there, so the return journey was a lot speedier. As we neared the beach we passed a group of Germans taking turns to photograph a splendid land crab with bright red claws.
What tickled me was that they'd all walked straight past a far more interesting Nicobar pigeon rustling through the bamboo. I had been really keen to see one of these, so along with with the bats and the monitors I was a happy bunny.
Luckily our boat hadn't left the shore when we got back. In fact we were just in time to climb aboard and get driven to a bigger boat anchored in the bay where we were treated to a big buffet lunch of mostly Thai dishes. The weather was glorious, so the island made a very picturesque backdrop as we tucked in to this feast, floating on crystal clear waters.
After lunch we were taken to snorkel at island 7, where we struck gold - a turtle swimming around one of the other boats. Amber and I were the first two off our boat, so we swam straight over to see if we could catch a glimpse of it. We needn't have worried, the turtle was happily swimming around in full view behind the boat, occasionally grabbing a piece of the pineapple chunks the crew were tossing overboard to attract the fish. It was unbelievable to have such a beautiful animal swimming literally inches away.
Sadly the rest of our boat arrived on the scene, including a horde of brats, who proceeded to hound and grab at the poor thing until it swam away. All this despite being told very clearly not to touch any wildlife before boarding the boat. Parenting fail.
With the turtle gone we could get on with admiring all the other marine life. So many fish, but easily my favourites were all the brightly coloured parrotfish species. Can't get enough of watching them rasped away at the coral.
We got one last glimpse of the turtle before it was time to get back on the boat and go to island 8, the final destination of the day. The main attraction of this island, other than the shallow water by the beach, is 'Sail Rock', a huge boulder balanced precariously at the top of a hill covered in boulders. We walked up to it in a group led by Wei, who got busy taking "action photos" of anyone who would give her their camera!
After seeing the rock and taking some pics we hit the beach for a final swim. Then it was all aboard again for the Sprint home.
We couldn't believe our luck with the weather. It was so perfect, despite the fact that the islands looked to be surrounded by rain clouds this morning. Turns out we'd planned the trip perfectly because as we neared Tamlampu again it started to rain.
We rescued our shoes, shunned the pointless souvenir photograph plates for sale, and got in the minibus to go home.
The minibus dropped us off at La Flora at around 5:30pm.
After all that snorkelling I thought we could use some pampering, so I called down to the spa to see if they had any availability for two 1 hour treatments. As luck would have it, they were available immediately, so we went straight down to choose our treatments.
Amber went for the coffee body scrub and I decided to have the full body deep tissue massage. We were assigned a therapist each and led to one of the spa rooms to have our treatments side by side.
What a fantastic massage! Parts of it were agony, but I felt so relaxed afterwards. Despite having to strip naked for my massage the only embarrassing part was having to run and fetch a tip from the room afterwards because we had forgotten to bring any cash down with us!
After last night's dinner disaster we decided to try somewhere closer to the hotel. We opted for a restaurant called Mali because it had people inside and huge tiger prawns on display in ice out front.
I had fried prawns in pepper and garlic sauce. Delicious.
They had coffee, tea and cakes but we gave them a miss, having stuffed ourselves full of food at the hotel breakfast buffet.
What we did do was check in and find a suitable pair if slippers each (we're using our own snorkels and masks).
There were tons of people in the hall, all going on different trips as indicated by what colour wristband they were wearing. Ours were pink.
We seemed to be waiting a long time, which was somewhat disconcerting, but eventually all the other groups had left and only ours remained. At this point we were led to the pier and given a briefing about the days itinerary and the dos and don'ts of snorkelling in the Similans. Our guide, who was bursting with enthusiasm and wearing bright yellow sunglasses and a green cap with white wings, introduced herself as Wei. It was clear from the outset that she was going to keep us entertained!
We dumped our shoes into a big blue tub and boarded the speedboat. There were forty people in our group, which hopefully gives you an idea of the size of the boat. For some reason no-one wanted to sit at the front of the boat in the sunshine. We jumped at the chance, with the end result that we had loads of room.
After some initial hiccoughs starting one of the boat's three outboard motors, we eventually got underway about an hour layer than we were meant to. However all negative thoughts were soon list when the boat picked up speed and started bombing its way to the Similans. To day the boat was fast would be something of an understatement. We were flying.
Out hosts did a great job of keeping everyone topped up with sweets, water and Pepsi. Wei even came round with a funny mask for people to try on and take photos. An hour and fifteen minutes flew by and we were soon at our first snorkelling destination: Island 4 or Ko Miang.
This is supposedly the best island for snorkelling and we saw hundreds of amazing fish. Many more than we'd seen at Kho Phi Phi Leh and also many species we hadn't already seen, which was nice. Amber and I got a bit of a treat because we were the only two who responded when Wei asked if anyone wanted to see a clownfish. She led us a little way away from the boat to where there were just two very large sea anemones housing one pair of clownfish. Great to see them swimming in and around the stinging tentacles completely unharmed. It really made us wish we'd bought an underwater camera.
After snorkelling at Ko Miang we were dropped off on the beach to kill 50 minutes either swimming or exploring. The island houses a huge colony of flying foxes and also populations of Bengal monitor lizards and Nicobar pigeons. The bats were up in the trees just off the beach. Likewise the monitors were walking around bold as brass a little way from where most of the people were.
As usual Amber and I foolishly decided to go for the hardcore option and set off along a trail marked 'Viewpoint'. This turned out to be a somewhat challenging adventure trail involving using ropes to pull ourselves up big rocks, crawling under vegetation and walking over very make shift bridges over gaps between rocks. Not surprisingly we were both sweating buckets by the time we clambered onto the big rock that constituted the aforementioned viewpoint, but the view over the bay was worth it. White sand, blue sea and green jungle in a wide arc.
We had no idea how long we had taken getting up there, so the return journey was a lot speedier. As we neared the beach we passed a group of Germans taking turns to photograph a splendid land crab with bright red claws.
What tickled me was that they'd all walked straight past a far more interesting Nicobar pigeon rustling through the bamboo. I had been really keen to see one of these, so along with with the bats and the monitors I was a happy bunny.
Luckily our boat hadn't left the shore when we got back. In fact we were just in time to climb aboard and get driven to a bigger boat anchored in the bay where we were treated to a big buffet lunch of mostly Thai dishes. The weather was glorious, so the island made a very picturesque backdrop as we tucked in to this feast, floating on crystal clear waters.
After lunch we were taken to snorkel at island 7, where we struck gold - a turtle swimming around one of the other boats. Amber and I were the first two off our boat, so we swam straight over to see if we could catch a glimpse of it. We needn't have worried, the turtle was happily swimming around in full view behind the boat, occasionally grabbing a piece of the pineapple chunks the crew were tossing overboard to attract the fish. It was unbelievable to have such a beautiful animal swimming literally inches away.
Sadly the rest of our boat arrived on the scene, including a horde of brats, who proceeded to hound and grab at the poor thing until it swam away. All this despite being told very clearly not to touch any wildlife before boarding the boat. Parenting fail.
With the turtle gone we could get on with admiring all the other marine life. So many fish, but easily my favourites were all the brightly coloured parrotfish species. Can't get enough of watching them rasped away at the coral.
We got one last glimpse of the turtle before it was time to get back on the boat and go to island 8, the final destination of the day. The main attraction of this island, other than the shallow water by the beach, is 'Sail Rock', a huge boulder balanced precariously at the top of a hill covered in boulders. We walked up to it in a group led by Wei, who got busy taking "action photos" of anyone who would give her their camera!
After seeing the rock and taking some pics we hit the beach for a final swim. Then it was all aboard again for the Sprint home.
We couldn't believe our luck with the weather. It was so perfect, despite the fact that the islands looked to be surrounded by rain clouds this morning. Turns out we'd planned the trip perfectly because as we neared Tamlampu again it started to rain.
We rescued our shoes, shunned the pointless souvenir photograph plates for sale, and got in the minibus to go home.
The minibus dropped us off at La Flora at around 5:30pm.
After all that snorkelling I thought we could use some pampering, so I called down to the spa to see if they had any availability for two 1 hour treatments. As luck would have it, they were available immediately, so we went straight down to choose our treatments.
Amber went for the coffee body scrub and I decided to have the full body deep tissue massage. We were assigned a therapist each and led to one of the spa rooms to have our treatments side by side.
What a fantastic massage! Parts of it were agony, but I felt so relaxed afterwards. Despite having to strip naked for my massage the only embarrassing part was having to run and fetch a tip from the room afterwards because we had forgotten to bring any cash down with us!
After last night's dinner disaster we decided to try somewhere closer to the hotel. We opted for a restaurant called Mali because it had people inside and huge tiger prawns on display in ice out front.
I had fried prawns in pepper and garlic sauce. Delicious.
Scooters and suckers. Living it up in Khao Lak.
Day two in Khao Lak has definitely been one of the funniest days Amber and I have had this trip.
We had decided to devote the day to chilling out by the hotel's fabulous second pool, complete with elephant fountains, jacuzzi seats and bar. And we actually managed to do just that for a few hours after breakfast, but eventually the sun was so unbearably hot that even Amber had to give up (and that's saying something!).
Instead of melting in the sun, we headed out to try and find a Similan islands snorkelling trip for tomorrow. As we walked down the road outside the hotel we passed a scooter rental place that was offering 24 hours for just 200 baht...
Minutes later we were zooming our way into Hat Khao Lak on our newly rented bright orange Honda! I've never driven a scooter before, but I've been wanting to have a go ever since Nichar gave us those lifts in Chiang Mai. Luckily this was an automatic and dead easy to drive. So much fun!
The hotel's Similan islands day trip was 4,000 baht. We managed to find a day trip in town for just 1,800 baht, which included visiting all the main islands, food and drink, snorkelling gear and hotel collection and drop off. Looked like good value for money.
We tried another place to see if they could beat 1,800 (they couldn't) and then had lunch in Bella Italia (the thinnest pizza bases ever and excellent gelato).
After lunch we went back to the first tour operator to pay for our Seastar snorkelling trip and zoomed off again, back towards the hotel in search of Police Boat 813. One of the must-see sights in Khao Lak, this boat was stationed 1km off shore from La Flora hotel when the 2004 tsunami struck. Following the tsunami the boat was discovered in a field 1km inshore, where it rests to this day...or so the Lonely Planet would have us believe.
We couldn't find it for love nor money, so we decided to drive up the coast a bit and see if we could find an empty stretch of beach to admire. Taking a random road off the main road gave me a chance to improve my scooter skills along some roads leading to the beach. I had seen one or two dead Sunbeam snakes on the road, but as we got nearer the beach I actually saw a large black snake shoot across the road in front of us. Always exciting to see wild snakes. I think I've become a bit obsessed this trip!
Eventually we arrived at a long stretch of deserted beach. Sadly we couldn't stay long because we had booked our free 15 minute head and shoulder massaged at the hotel spa for 3:30pm.
On the way back we saw a sign for the tsunami memorial statue. We drove down a road to get to it on the hope it might be next to boat 813. Sadly not. Just a stone plaque and a metal sculpture commemorating those who died in the tsunami.
We got back to La Flora in time for our excellent massage taster session. We both felt so good afterwards I suggested to Amber that maybe we should book two one hour treatments and I would treat her as an early birthday present. In the end we put that idea on the backburner while we concentrated on a more serious issue...finding the flippin' police boat!
The head receptionist gave me a very funny look when I marched up and informed her we were looking for a boat in a field! It was only when we said it had something to do with the tsunami that she worked out what we wanted.
Even with her instructions we managed to drive past it for the second time today before spotting it on the return journey. Pretty bizarre. A big grey metal boat in a field.
We took a couple of snaps and then I suggested we check out a nearby waterfall, which was 7km away according to the road sign. Amber agreed and we zoomed off again.
The road to the waterfall was really nice to start with, gentle winding bends through plantations of rubber trees in neat rows and one or two villages. As we got nearer, the tarmac was replaced by a sandy dirt road covered in stones, which made the bike skip about a bit. The dirt road took us to the entrance gate.
I think usually you have to pay to get access to the waterfall, but the guard was too busy snoozing and just waved us through.
We found ourselves driving a short way up a very bumpy path, all the while very conscious that it would not be a good time to puncture a tyre. A little way up this path we saw another scooter. Someone else had obviously figured there was no way you could get a scooter all the way to the waterfall. We parked up and started walking.
Amber, in her skimpy surf shorts and pink flip-flops, was the first to remember about leeches. Somehow, despite this being our relaxation day, here we were again trekking uphill along a hot, damp forest trail in prime leech territory. Brilliant!
Given the flip-flops situation, I could empathise with Amber's reluctance to walk the trail, her reluctance wasn't improved when the first leech crawled onto her foot in the first few minutes of walking! Luckily I pulled it off in time, but Amber's enthusiasm for the waterfall was taking a beating.
As for me, I was determined to see the waterfall now that we had made the effort to get there, so I ended up giving Amber a piggy-back over all the excessively leafy sections of path to minimise the chances of her getting 'leeched'. We were both in hysterics over how ridiculous we would look if anyone saw us.
We met the owners of the other scooter coming the other way (Amber was walking at this point) and they told us we were about 10 minutes away, so we carried on, filled with expectation and not a small amount of hope that the waterfall would be worth seeing.
Thankfully, it really was. I would have loved to have swum in the pool below the waterfall, the water looked so inviting in the heat, and it was a cool looking place. In the end we just spent a while taking it all in before the mosquitos got too ferocious and we set off back down the trail.
Several piggy-backs later we had reached the end of the trail. That's when it finally happened. I looked down to find a leech merrily feasting on my right ankle.
It didn't put up too much of a struggle when I yanked it off my skin, but as expected, the bite looked pretty unpleasant thanks to the leech anticoagulent. Luckily my blood clots very rapidly (I learned this from leech bites in Sumatra), so although it didn't look too hot at least I wasn't about to bleed to death anytime soon.
We hopped back on the trusty Honda and wound our way back to the tarmac road. On the way we passed some local kids having a whale of a time pushing each other along the road on a wheelie bin. Just goes to show, kids don't need much to have fun.
Back at the hotel we got ready to go out for dinner and took the scooter off to find some petrol. Our day of fun excursions had used up three quarters of the tank.
So nice to be zipping along the road at night with the cooling breeze on your face.
The petrol did a sterling job of filling the tank up and even had a chance to practice his English on us.
Earlier in the day Amber had read in the guide book about a supposedly outstanding seafood restaurant called Mama, which was located opposite boat 813 on the other side of the road. We hadn't been able to find it earlier on, but as luck would have it I spotted it as we were heading into town. It was empty, but Amber was keen for me to get some fresh seafood, so we threw caution to the wind and grabbed a table.
That was our first mistake.
Our meal at Mama's was the perfect comedy ending to what had been a thoroughly entertaining day. First of all, the lady waiting on us clearly couldn't speak a word of English. Secondly, she didn't seem able to read Thai. What this meant was that we ordered Thai ice tea (made with condensed milk) and got warm sugar tea with ice (no milk of any kind). We then ordered a Thai green curry and barbecued prawns and got a totally different stir-fried curry and a plate of tempura prawns!!!
Basically, the only thing we ordered that they got right was the boiled rice! Amazing.
We found the whole experience highly entertaining, especially when another coupled turned up and had to bring in one of the taxi drivers to try and translate their order. We left before they got their food, but I have a suspicion they probably got a surprise like us.
It was very sad to return the scooter to the rental place. It had done us proud. We didn't mention where we'd driven it!
Early night tonight. Have to be up at 6:30am to be ready for a 7:30am pick up.
We had decided to devote the day to chilling out by the hotel's fabulous second pool, complete with elephant fountains, jacuzzi seats and bar. And we actually managed to do just that for a few hours after breakfast, but eventually the sun was so unbearably hot that even Amber had to give up (and that's saying something!).
Instead of melting in the sun, we headed out to try and find a Similan islands snorkelling trip for tomorrow. As we walked down the road outside the hotel we passed a scooter rental place that was offering 24 hours for just 200 baht...
Minutes later we were zooming our way into Hat Khao Lak on our newly rented bright orange Honda! I've never driven a scooter before, but I've been wanting to have a go ever since Nichar gave us those lifts in Chiang Mai. Luckily this was an automatic and dead easy to drive. So much fun!
The hotel's Similan islands day trip was 4,000 baht. We managed to find a day trip in town for just 1,800 baht, which included visiting all the main islands, food and drink, snorkelling gear and hotel collection and drop off. Looked like good value for money.
We tried another place to see if they could beat 1,800 (they couldn't) and then had lunch in Bella Italia (the thinnest pizza bases ever and excellent gelato).
After lunch we went back to the first tour operator to pay for our Seastar snorkelling trip and zoomed off again, back towards the hotel in search of Police Boat 813. One of the must-see sights in Khao Lak, this boat was stationed 1km off shore from La Flora hotel when the 2004 tsunami struck. Following the tsunami the boat was discovered in a field 1km inshore, where it rests to this day...or so the Lonely Planet would have us believe.
We couldn't find it for love nor money, so we decided to drive up the coast a bit and see if we could find an empty stretch of beach to admire. Taking a random road off the main road gave me a chance to improve my scooter skills along some roads leading to the beach. I had seen one or two dead Sunbeam snakes on the road, but as we got nearer the beach I actually saw a large black snake shoot across the road in front of us. Always exciting to see wild snakes. I think I've become a bit obsessed this trip!
Eventually we arrived at a long stretch of deserted beach. Sadly we couldn't stay long because we had booked our free 15 minute head and shoulder massaged at the hotel spa for 3:30pm.
On the way back we saw a sign for the tsunami memorial statue. We drove down a road to get to it on the hope it might be next to boat 813. Sadly not. Just a stone plaque and a metal sculpture commemorating those who died in the tsunami.
We got back to La Flora in time for our excellent massage taster session. We both felt so good afterwards I suggested to Amber that maybe we should book two one hour treatments and I would treat her as an early birthday present. In the end we put that idea on the backburner while we concentrated on a more serious issue...finding the flippin' police boat!
The head receptionist gave me a very funny look when I marched up and informed her we were looking for a boat in a field! It was only when we said it had something to do with the tsunami that she worked out what we wanted.
Even with her instructions we managed to drive past it for the second time today before spotting it on the return journey. Pretty bizarre. A big grey metal boat in a field.
We took a couple of snaps and then I suggested we check out a nearby waterfall, which was 7km away according to the road sign. Amber agreed and we zoomed off again.
The road to the waterfall was really nice to start with, gentle winding bends through plantations of rubber trees in neat rows and one or two villages. As we got nearer, the tarmac was replaced by a sandy dirt road covered in stones, which made the bike skip about a bit. The dirt road took us to the entrance gate.
I think usually you have to pay to get access to the waterfall, but the guard was too busy snoozing and just waved us through.
We found ourselves driving a short way up a very bumpy path, all the while very conscious that it would not be a good time to puncture a tyre. A little way up this path we saw another scooter. Someone else had obviously figured there was no way you could get a scooter all the way to the waterfall. We parked up and started walking.
Amber, in her skimpy surf shorts and pink flip-flops, was the first to remember about leeches. Somehow, despite this being our relaxation day, here we were again trekking uphill along a hot, damp forest trail in prime leech territory. Brilliant!
Given the flip-flops situation, I could empathise with Amber's reluctance to walk the trail, her reluctance wasn't improved when the first leech crawled onto her foot in the first few minutes of walking! Luckily I pulled it off in time, but Amber's enthusiasm for the waterfall was taking a beating.
As for me, I was determined to see the waterfall now that we had made the effort to get there, so I ended up giving Amber a piggy-back over all the excessively leafy sections of path to minimise the chances of her getting 'leeched'. We were both in hysterics over how ridiculous we would look if anyone saw us.
We met the owners of the other scooter coming the other way (Amber was walking at this point) and they told us we were about 10 minutes away, so we carried on, filled with expectation and not a small amount of hope that the waterfall would be worth seeing.
Thankfully, it really was. I would have loved to have swum in the pool below the waterfall, the water looked so inviting in the heat, and it was a cool looking place. In the end we just spent a while taking it all in before the mosquitos got too ferocious and we set off back down the trail.
Several piggy-backs later we had reached the end of the trail. That's when it finally happened. I looked down to find a leech merrily feasting on my right ankle.
It didn't put up too much of a struggle when I yanked it off my skin, but as expected, the bite looked pretty unpleasant thanks to the leech anticoagulent. Luckily my blood clots very rapidly (I learned this from leech bites in Sumatra), so although it didn't look too hot at least I wasn't about to bleed to death anytime soon.
We hopped back on the trusty Honda and wound our way back to the tarmac road. On the way we passed some local kids having a whale of a time pushing each other along the road on a wheelie bin. Just goes to show, kids don't need much to have fun.
Back at the hotel we got ready to go out for dinner and took the scooter off to find some petrol. Our day of fun excursions had used up three quarters of the tank.
So nice to be zipping along the road at night with the cooling breeze on your face.
The petrol did a sterling job of filling the tank up and even had a chance to practice his English on us.
Earlier in the day Amber had read in the guide book about a supposedly outstanding seafood restaurant called Mama, which was located opposite boat 813 on the other side of the road. We hadn't been able to find it earlier on, but as luck would have it I spotted it as we were heading into town. It was empty, but Amber was keen for me to get some fresh seafood, so we threw caution to the wind and grabbed a table.
That was our first mistake.
Our meal at Mama's was the perfect comedy ending to what had been a thoroughly entertaining day. First of all, the lady waiting on us clearly couldn't speak a word of English. Secondly, she didn't seem able to read Thai. What this meant was that we ordered Thai ice tea (made with condensed milk) and got warm sugar tea with ice (no milk of any kind). We then ordered a Thai green curry and barbecued prawns and got a totally different stir-fried curry and a plate of tempura prawns!!!
Basically, the only thing we ordered that they got right was the boiled rice! Amazing.
We found the whole experience highly entertaining, especially when another coupled turned up and had to bring in one of the taxi drivers to try and translate their order. We left before they got their food, but I have a suspicion they probably got a surprise like us.
It was very sad to return the scooter to the rental place. It had done us proud. We didn't mention where we'd driven it!
Early night tonight. Have to be up at 6:30am to be ready for a 7:30am pick up.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Leech-tastic fun in Khao Sok. Onward travel to Khao Lak.
This morning was pure horror comedy.
We were out and about at 7:00am and had a little wander in search of critters before breakfast. Amber was still a bit jumpy about the whole leech situation, so when we arrived at the start of the northern trail I made was I thought was a rather good deal. "We'll go down this trail until we see the first leech and then we'll turn back."
Thanks to last night's abundant rainfall, I only got to the second concrete step when Amber shouted "LEECH!".
So much for the northern trail. It was hard to tell but I swear the leech looked pretty smug at having ruined my early morning trek...
We had breakfast (again superb) and opted to go down the same trail as yesterday, but to go further.
Again we saw a host if weird and wonderful wildlife. The langurs were still around and we saw a fine example if camouflage when I almost walked straight into a male horned mountain dragon sitting proudly on a big leaf. He had changed his skin colour to a dark brown and looked for all the world like a big dead leaf. His safety measures involved being as still as possible, so I got some cracking photos! We also found an amazing grasshopper leaf-mimic, which looked just like a dead leaf, veins and all, with a bite taken out of it. Again its survival strategy was to remain motionless, so it didn't budge when I picked it up for a photo.
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, the trail was full of leeches today. I estimated that we had seen at least 20 over the course our 6km trek. Of these, two had managed to get onto our shoes before I pulled them off and a third had managed to get into Amber's ankle. Luckily I got to it before it had found a suitable sucking point.
Amber found the whole experience both horrifying and hilarious in equal measure, which helped a lot. Essentially leeches are harmless and you don't feel the bite when they do start feeding, so there is no pain either. The only reason people freak out is because it's plain creepy to have something drinking your blood.
The best part of the trek was arriving at a section of river full of huge boulders and surrounded by lush forest. The whole place was bathed in sunshine and we stopped to soak our feet and relax. So beautiful. You really do have to come to a place like this to understand why we need to protect the world's rainforests. I would challenge anyone to be in this place and not appreciate its beauty.
We stayed there for a while and then headed back down the trail. Along the way we heard the calls of gibbons, but sadly didn't get to see them.
Back at Tree Tops, we packed our bags and checked out at 12:00pm. The nice lady who cooked our dinner last night gave us a lift down the road to the bus stop. For some reason we just hadn't seen all the other guesthouses along this road on the trip up to the Visitor Centre. It was a shame not to have had the chance to look round them yesterday, but in the end we did really well with our choice of accommodation.
According to the timetable, the bus was supposed to turn up at 12:30pm, giving us just enough time to scoff a bag of crisps and a cup of instant tom yum noodles.
We needn't have rushed. The 12:30pm bus never showed.
Neither did the 1:30pm one!
The owner of the snack shop informed us that the bus would turn up at 2:00pm. Could have done with that information a bit earlier!
He was right though.
We got on the bus and settled down for the journey to Khao Lak (just 100 baht each). After a bit we stopped for a pee break and hit another stumbling block in our journey: There was a problem with the bus's engine, which meant the driver had to pootle along at a ridiculously slow speed.
Not ideal, but there was nothing we could do about it, so we just went with the flow and tried to get some shut eye.
We had hoped to be at our hotel in Khao Lak by 2:30pm. In the end we got dropped off in Khao Lak at around 4:00pm.
And then we had some more bad news...
Although we had asked to be dropped off at the La Flora resort, the bus had in fact turfed us out in the main town, 3km from our hotel!
We got hacked off with all the taxi drivers trying to sell us expensive rides to La Flora, so in true Amber and Martin style we donned our backpacks and decided to walk all the way.
It was heavy going in the intense heat, so by the time we got to reception we were sweating buckets. We felt rather out of place in the luxurious reception of La Flora, with it vases of orchids, uniformed staff and heaps of top hotel awards.
The awards appear to be well deserved, we were instantly made to feel very welcome and soon we were being shown one of the nicest hotel rooms I've ever seen: Balcony complete with table, chairs and deckchairs; large double bed; day bed; two wardrobes; bath and separate shower. Best of all is the sliding smoked glass partition separating the bed from the bathroom, so you can sit in the bath and chat to someone on the bed. And this is just a standard room!
After our sweaty hike we couldn't wait to get into the amazing infinity pool looking out over the beach. At 6:00pm, the hotel put on free cocktails and canapes to welcome the new arrivals. We were all greeted by Jowell, a super-camp Frenchman (with more than a passing resemblance to a skinny Jean Reno) who gave us a bunch of info about the resort and the activities available. Nothing too exciting, especially as we had already asked about the hotel's overpriced trips to the Similan islands and decided to find a cheaper tour elsewhere. The free booze went down a treat though. Amber had already made friends with the Happy Hour guy earlier on, so by the time we left to get dressed for dinner we were fairly sozzled.
At the drinks reception we met a nice couple from London called Chris and Alex. They just arrived today after two days in Bangkok and are here to celebrate their one year anniversary. Would have been nice to have dinner with them, but they were all dressed for dinner whilst we were still in our swimming gear.
As it was, Alex and Chris were still in the hotel restaurant (View 59) when we turned up, but we sat separately as they were done eating.
The evening entertainment consisted of a Thai bloke playing electric guitar and singing Western songs over computerized backing tracks that sounded like they had been produced for use as elevator music.
It wad a shame he didn't have a full band, as he looked pretty sad up on the stage by himself. This didn't stop one table getting up and singing a lairy rendition of 'Hey Jude' with him. Tragic to see that even the world's best hotels aren't free from the effects of Brits abroad. The hotel presented the singers with flowers. They know how to get repeat business.
We had selected some DVDs from the free selection at reception, so after dinner we went back to the room and stuck on 'The American', which was excellent for the first 10 minutes. Then the DVD stopped working as a result of being horribly scratched. Bloody typical!
We gave up on the film idea and opted for some much needed sleep instead.
We were out and about at 7:00am and had a little wander in search of critters before breakfast. Amber was still a bit jumpy about the whole leech situation, so when we arrived at the start of the northern trail I made was I thought was a rather good deal. "We'll go down this trail until we see the first leech and then we'll turn back."
Thanks to last night's abundant rainfall, I only got to the second concrete step when Amber shouted "LEECH!".
So much for the northern trail. It was hard to tell but I swear the leech looked pretty smug at having ruined my early morning trek...
We had breakfast (again superb) and opted to go down the same trail as yesterday, but to go further.
Again we saw a host if weird and wonderful wildlife. The langurs were still around and we saw a fine example if camouflage when I almost walked straight into a male horned mountain dragon sitting proudly on a big leaf. He had changed his skin colour to a dark brown and looked for all the world like a big dead leaf. His safety measures involved being as still as possible, so I got some cracking photos! We also found an amazing grasshopper leaf-mimic, which looked just like a dead leaf, veins and all, with a bite taken out of it. Again its survival strategy was to remain motionless, so it didn't budge when I picked it up for a photo.
As you may have guessed from the title of this post, the trail was full of leeches today. I estimated that we had seen at least 20 over the course our 6km trek. Of these, two had managed to get onto our shoes before I pulled them off and a third had managed to get into Amber's ankle. Luckily I got to it before it had found a suitable sucking point.
Amber found the whole experience both horrifying and hilarious in equal measure, which helped a lot. Essentially leeches are harmless and you don't feel the bite when they do start feeding, so there is no pain either. The only reason people freak out is because it's plain creepy to have something drinking your blood.
The best part of the trek was arriving at a section of river full of huge boulders and surrounded by lush forest. The whole place was bathed in sunshine and we stopped to soak our feet and relax. So beautiful. You really do have to come to a place like this to understand why we need to protect the world's rainforests. I would challenge anyone to be in this place and not appreciate its beauty.
We stayed there for a while and then headed back down the trail. Along the way we heard the calls of gibbons, but sadly didn't get to see them.
Back at Tree Tops, we packed our bags and checked out at 12:00pm. The nice lady who cooked our dinner last night gave us a lift down the road to the bus stop. For some reason we just hadn't seen all the other guesthouses along this road on the trip up to the Visitor Centre. It was a shame not to have had the chance to look round them yesterday, but in the end we did really well with our choice of accommodation.
According to the timetable, the bus was supposed to turn up at 12:30pm, giving us just enough time to scoff a bag of crisps and a cup of instant tom yum noodles.
We needn't have rushed. The 12:30pm bus never showed.
Neither did the 1:30pm one!
The owner of the snack shop informed us that the bus would turn up at 2:00pm. Could have done with that information a bit earlier!
He was right though.
We got on the bus and settled down for the journey to Khao Lak (just 100 baht each). After a bit we stopped for a pee break and hit another stumbling block in our journey: There was a problem with the bus's engine, which meant the driver had to pootle along at a ridiculously slow speed.
Not ideal, but there was nothing we could do about it, so we just went with the flow and tried to get some shut eye.
We had hoped to be at our hotel in Khao Lak by 2:30pm. In the end we got dropped off in Khao Lak at around 4:00pm.
And then we had some more bad news...
Although we had asked to be dropped off at the La Flora resort, the bus had in fact turfed us out in the main town, 3km from our hotel!
We got hacked off with all the taxi drivers trying to sell us expensive rides to La Flora, so in true Amber and Martin style we donned our backpacks and decided to walk all the way.
It was heavy going in the intense heat, so by the time we got to reception we were sweating buckets. We felt rather out of place in the luxurious reception of La Flora, with it vases of orchids, uniformed staff and heaps of top hotel awards.
The awards appear to be well deserved, we were instantly made to feel very welcome and soon we were being shown one of the nicest hotel rooms I've ever seen: Balcony complete with table, chairs and deckchairs; large double bed; day bed; two wardrobes; bath and separate shower. Best of all is the sliding smoked glass partition separating the bed from the bathroom, so you can sit in the bath and chat to someone on the bed. And this is just a standard room!
After our sweaty hike we couldn't wait to get into the amazing infinity pool looking out over the beach. At 6:00pm, the hotel put on free cocktails and canapes to welcome the new arrivals. We were all greeted by Jowell, a super-camp Frenchman (with more than a passing resemblance to a skinny Jean Reno) who gave us a bunch of info about the resort and the activities available. Nothing too exciting, especially as we had already asked about the hotel's overpriced trips to the Similan islands and decided to find a cheaper tour elsewhere. The free booze went down a treat though. Amber had already made friends with the Happy Hour guy earlier on, so by the time we left to get dressed for dinner we were fairly sozzled.
At the drinks reception we met a nice couple from London called Chris and Alex. They just arrived today after two days in Bangkok and are here to celebrate their one year anniversary. Would have been nice to have dinner with them, but they were all dressed for dinner whilst we were still in our swimming gear.
As it was, Alex and Chris were still in the hotel restaurant (View 59) when we turned up, but we sat separately as they were done eating.
The evening entertainment consisted of a Thai bloke playing electric guitar and singing Western songs over computerized backing tracks that sounded like they had been produced for use as elevator music.
It wad a shame he didn't have a full band, as he looked pretty sad up on the stage by himself. This didn't stop one table getting up and singing a lairy rendition of 'Hey Jude' with him. Tragic to see that even the world's best hotels aren't free from the effects of Brits abroad. The hotel presented the singers with flowers. They know how to get repeat business.
We had selected some DVDs from the free selection at reception, so after dinner we went back to the room and stuck on 'The American', which was excellent for the first 10 minutes. Then the DVD stopped working as a result of being horribly scratched. Bloody typical!
We gave up on the film idea and opted for some much needed sleep instead.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Khao Sok National Park. Not for the faint hearted?
We left Ko Phi Phi in the morning at 9:00am on the ferry.
For some stupid reason the boat operators had decided it made sense to put all the backpacks downstairs, right at the front of the boat. This meant that when we got to port in Krabi we had to wait ages for everyone to clamber down and find their bags and then haul their bags between the rows of seats and back up on deck. Not very clever.
We didn't have long to wait at the port before we were whisked away in a minibus to a transport hub, where we had time to grab an ice cream before getting into yet another minibus bound for the Khao Sok national park.
We met an interesting couple on the way, the woman was Swedish and her partner was Swiss, so they spoke to one another in English. Pretty impressive! They were half way through 6 months of travelling. We couldn't help but feel slightly jealous, although we've done so much this trip.
In typical tourist scam fashion, the minibus dropped us at their affiliated accommodation in a bid to convince us to stay there. The place looked okay, but we had no idea how far from the park entrance it was. Given we were only spending one night we wanted to be as close to the forest trails as possible. We held our ground and persuaded the guy to drive us to the Visitor Centre.
The place was more or less deserted, like some kind of ghost town. There was only one place to stay near the Visitor Centre, but the people in there didn't seem very inclined to ask for our business. The polar opposite of the feeding frenzy that met us on Ko Phi Phi.
It transpired that Tree Tops River Huts was in fact open for business. The couple we met were there too and we all checked in, although we went slightly upmarket by opting for a 1200 baht hut on stilts with aircon.
The Khao Sok park is awesome. I had read an animal log book in the Visitor Centre that wad full of sightings of snakes, including cobra, so I was desperate to hit the forest trails.
We met a couple who looked like they shopped in the same place as Bear Grylls. They were wearing hiking boots and hiking socks pulled up over their walking trousers and they looked pretty fed up and sweaty. Turns out they had walked along the northern trail and had spent the last 2 hours pulling leeches off one another. They hadn't even seen any wildlife! Their exact words were, "It's not worth it".
Having seen the forest I can tell you categorically that it definitely IS worth it.
We walked the trail leading west from the Visitor Centre (which is on the doorstep of Tree Tops) for about two hours and within 10 minutes we saw our first snake. This was followed by a long list of other animals including Dusky langurs, horned mountain dragons and an amazing butterfly whose wing tips have evolved to look like its head to confuse predators.
Not my photo below, but I wanted to share the beauty of Dusky langurs with you. We saw a fairly large group of at least four individuals as they moved silently through the canopy.
What we didn't see was any leeches. Just as well, given the number of daytrippers we passed walking down the trail in flip-flops!
We had heard thunder on the way out and it started chucking it down as we were on the way back. Another refreshing tropical rainstorm. We were fairly drenched by the time we got back.
Despite the modest accommodation the lady who seems to run the place is very smiley and helpful. Even better, she's a brilliant cook. Superb Thai curries for a quid each! It's very hard to fault this place right now.
After dinner I decided it would be fun to do a night walk to see if we could spot anything interesting. We stuck to the tarmac, for fear of leeches, but we still managed to see some good wildlife, particularly a horned mountain dragon asleep on a leaf (which to my annoyance a passing guide then caught by the tail to show to the two paying customers with him). We also saw a fabulous Tokay gecko.
We got an early night in the hope of getting up early and having time to do a decent hike along the same trail before leaving for Khao Lak.
For some stupid reason the boat operators had decided it made sense to put all the backpacks downstairs, right at the front of the boat. This meant that when we got to port in Krabi we had to wait ages for everyone to clamber down and find their bags and then haul their bags between the rows of seats and back up on deck. Not very clever.
We didn't have long to wait at the port before we were whisked away in a minibus to a transport hub, where we had time to grab an ice cream before getting into yet another minibus bound for the Khao Sok national park.
We met an interesting couple on the way, the woman was Swedish and her partner was Swiss, so they spoke to one another in English. Pretty impressive! They were half way through 6 months of travelling. We couldn't help but feel slightly jealous, although we've done so much this trip.
In typical tourist scam fashion, the minibus dropped us at their affiliated accommodation in a bid to convince us to stay there. The place looked okay, but we had no idea how far from the park entrance it was. Given we were only spending one night we wanted to be as close to the forest trails as possible. We held our ground and persuaded the guy to drive us to the Visitor Centre.
The place was more or less deserted, like some kind of ghost town. There was only one place to stay near the Visitor Centre, but the people in there didn't seem very inclined to ask for our business. The polar opposite of the feeding frenzy that met us on Ko Phi Phi.
It transpired that Tree Tops River Huts was in fact open for business. The couple we met were there too and we all checked in, although we went slightly upmarket by opting for a 1200 baht hut on stilts with aircon.
The Khao Sok park is awesome. I had read an animal log book in the Visitor Centre that wad full of sightings of snakes, including cobra, so I was desperate to hit the forest trails.
We met a couple who looked like they shopped in the same place as Bear Grylls. They were wearing hiking boots and hiking socks pulled up over their walking trousers and they looked pretty fed up and sweaty. Turns out they had walked along the northern trail and had spent the last 2 hours pulling leeches off one another. They hadn't even seen any wildlife! Their exact words were, "It's not worth it".
Having seen the forest I can tell you categorically that it definitely IS worth it.
We walked the trail leading west from the Visitor Centre (which is on the doorstep of Tree Tops) for about two hours and within 10 minutes we saw our first snake. This was followed by a long list of other animals including Dusky langurs, horned mountain dragons and an amazing butterfly whose wing tips have evolved to look like its head to confuse predators.
Not my photo below, but I wanted to share the beauty of Dusky langurs with you. We saw a fairly large group of at least four individuals as they moved silently through the canopy.
What we didn't see was any leeches. Just as well, given the number of daytrippers we passed walking down the trail in flip-flops!
We had heard thunder on the way out and it started chucking it down as we were on the way back. Another refreshing tropical rainstorm. We were fairly drenched by the time we got back.
Despite the modest accommodation the lady who seems to run the place is very smiley and helpful. Even better, she's a brilliant cook. Superb Thai curries for a quid each! It's very hard to fault this place right now.
After dinner I decided it would be fun to do a night walk to see if we could spot anything interesting. We stuck to the tarmac, for fear of leeches, but we still managed to see some good wildlife, particularly a horned mountain dragon asleep on a leaf (which to my annoyance a passing guide then caught by the tail to show to the two paying customers with him). We also saw a fabulous Tokay gecko.
We got an early night in the hope of getting up early and having time to do a decent hike along the same trail before leaving for Khao Lak.
No monkey, no stop!
We had a fairly relaxed morning, booking our tickets to get to Khao Sok tomorrow (550 baht each) and also booking onto a half day sunset tour with Emerald tours (250 baht each) for this afternoon.
We had a drink in D's Bookstore to catch up on our diaries and then spent some time by the hotel pool before heading out again.
We had to be at the tour 'office' for 1:30pm, so we decided to grab a quick lunch at Camaro Resto. Our plan backfired because it took them ages to cook our food. It didn't arrive until 1:25pm! We wolfed down as much food as we could in 5 minutes and then asked for the bill and a box to take the remainder of my lunch away with us.
After meeting at Emerald tours, we were all led down to the sea-front and onto long-tail boats. There were 20 people on ours, so nice and cosy.
Driving the boat looked like great fun. I would have loved to have a go. They look so bizarre, a cross between a traditional wooden boat and something out of the film Mad Max, with a great big oily engine stuck on the back powering the propeller, which sits at the end of a 4m pole (hence the name log-tail).
Our first stop was Monkey Beach. Sadly there were no monkeys to be seen. "No monkey, no stop" said the driver and we carried on to the next stop, a brief pause outside the Viking Cave, where locals collect bird nests to sell for soup.
After the cave we were taken to the beautiful Pilah lagoon surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs. The water was crystal clear and the most amazing turquoise colour. We spent a good amount of time here swimming and taking it all in. Bliss.
After the lagoon we headed to the southern side of the island for some snorkelling. There wasn't a reef as such, more like a collection of large rocks, but the water was teeming with colourful fish. We saw damselfish, parrotfish, triggerfish, boxfish, butterflyfish, wrasse and many more. The highlight was seeing Moorish Idols. Worth checking them out on Google Images, they are really striking fish.
Amber was hilarious because she gets a bit freaked out by being surrounded by too many fish and when the boat driver chucked all the fruit peelings overboard we were right in the middle of a feeding frenzy! The look on her face was priceless. I thought I was going to have to rescue her, but thankfully she was fine after a minute or two.
I find it always takes a little while to adjust to snorkelling when you haven't done it for a while. But the water was so clear and the fish so brilliant that I could have stayed there much longer than we did.
After snorkelling we ate some fruit and went on to Maya Bay, apparently one of the main locations for the film The Beach. Personally I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. The beach was absolutely packed with people on tours like ours, and half the bay was taken up with tour boats. Sure, the beach itself would have been lovely if we'd had it to ourselves, but to share it with that many other people just to say you'd been there was a pity.
We had a bit of a swim in the cove before heading back round the other side of Ko Phi Phi Leh to return home. For our onward journey we were given a bucket of whiskey, red bull and coke to share. Nice!
On the way back we stopped half way to watch the sun set from the boat. A few of the others jumped into the dark blue water and I couldn't resist going back in myself. It's hard to beat watching the sunset from the sea. We got some great pictures.
We couldn't believe that we got that tour for 250 baht. It was so cheap! Well worth the money just for the lagoon and the snorkelling. Would have been even better value if the monkeys had been on the beach.
Once back on Ko Phi Phi Don we headed back to the hotel before going out for the all you can eat buffet at Matt's Joint, which we'd been eyeing up yesterday. It was a proper meat fest. We left feeling very full indeed.
Next door to the restaurant there was a small Nepalese run store selling fake watches and designer bags. I was quite surprised by the quality of some of the watches. It was pretty interesting talking to the guy about the different levels of quality. I was really tempted to buy one, but frustratingly the two I wanted both had slight flaws that were deal breakers.
We had a drink in D's Bookstore to catch up on our diaries and then spent some time by the hotel pool before heading out again.
We had to be at the tour 'office' for 1:30pm, so we decided to grab a quick lunch at Camaro Resto. Our plan backfired because it took them ages to cook our food. It didn't arrive until 1:25pm! We wolfed down as much food as we could in 5 minutes and then asked for the bill and a box to take the remainder of my lunch away with us.
After meeting at Emerald tours, we were all led down to the sea-front and onto long-tail boats. There were 20 people on ours, so nice and cosy.
Driving the boat looked like great fun. I would have loved to have a go. They look so bizarre, a cross between a traditional wooden boat and something out of the film Mad Max, with a great big oily engine stuck on the back powering the propeller, which sits at the end of a 4m pole (hence the name log-tail).
Our first stop was Monkey Beach. Sadly there were no monkeys to be seen. "No monkey, no stop" said the driver and we carried on to the next stop, a brief pause outside the Viking Cave, where locals collect bird nests to sell for soup.
After the cave we were taken to the beautiful Pilah lagoon surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs. The water was crystal clear and the most amazing turquoise colour. We spent a good amount of time here swimming and taking it all in. Bliss.
After the lagoon we headed to the southern side of the island for some snorkelling. There wasn't a reef as such, more like a collection of large rocks, but the water was teeming with colourful fish. We saw damselfish, parrotfish, triggerfish, boxfish, butterflyfish, wrasse and many more. The highlight was seeing Moorish Idols. Worth checking them out on Google Images, they are really striking fish.
Amber was hilarious because she gets a bit freaked out by being surrounded by too many fish and when the boat driver chucked all the fruit peelings overboard we were right in the middle of a feeding frenzy! The look on her face was priceless. I thought I was going to have to rescue her, but thankfully she was fine after a minute or two.
I find it always takes a little while to adjust to snorkelling when you haven't done it for a while. But the water was so clear and the fish so brilliant that I could have stayed there much longer than we did.
After snorkelling we ate some fruit and went on to Maya Bay, apparently one of the main locations for the film The Beach. Personally I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. The beach was absolutely packed with people on tours like ours, and half the bay was taken up with tour boats. Sure, the beach itself would have been lovely if we'd had it to ourselves, but to share it with that many other people just to say you'd been there was a pity.
We had a bit of a swim in the cove before heading back round the other side of Ko Phi Phi Leh to return home. For our onward journey we were given a bucket of whiskey, red bull and coke to share. Nice!
On the way back we stopped half way to watch the sun set from the boat. A few of the others jumped into the dark blue water and I couldn't resist going back in myself. It's hard to beat watching the sunset from the sea. We got some great pictures.
We couldn't believe that we got that tour for 250 baht. It was so cheap! Well worth the money just for the lagoon and the snorkelling. Would have been even better value if the monkeys had been on the beach.
Once back on Ko Phi Phi Don we headed back to the hotel before going out for the all you can eat buffet at Matt's Joint, which we'd been eyeing up yesterday. It was a proper meat fest. We left feeling very full indeed.
Next door to the restaurant there was a small Nepalese run store selling fake watches and designer bags. I was quite surprised by the quality of some of the watches. It was pretty interesting talking to the guy about the different levels of quality. I was really tempted to buy one, but frustratingly the two I wanted both had slight flaws that were deal breakers.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Buckets and boxing in Ko Phi Phi
I am writing today's entry from our room 711 at the delightful P. P. Casita on the stunningly beautiful island of Ko Phi Phi.
We arrived in Krabi this morning at 6:30am and walked into the bus terminal to buy our tickets for the 9:00am boat to Ko Phi Phi. 400 baht each including minibus transport to the pier.
Once at the ferry port we grabbed an iced coffee and hung around until it was time to board the boat.
The good news is that despite warnings to the contrary, the weather is absolutely stunning here in Southern Thailand! We sat up on deck for the whole journey to the island, speeding across blue water under a blue sky, bathed in sunshine and enjoying the cooling breeze on our faces.
Compared to our night bus, on which we were the only 'farang' (foreigners), the boat to Phi Phi was packed to the rafters with other backpackers.
An hour and a half later the boat arrived in Ton Sai bay, which looks gorgeous, as it is surrounded by gnarled limestone cliffs covered in greenery and the water is brilliant turquoise. A moment of tranquility before you arrive in the port and get mobbed by packs of touts trying to promote hotels.
We got so fed up with them that we decided to just pick a hotel and start walking. Casita was recommended in the guide book thanks to it's pool and proximity to the beach. We had a look around and decided it was perfect for our requirements.
Once we had checked in we headed straight to the beach - another postcard perfect bay. Welcome to paradise!
We demolished a pizza and a plate of spaghetti carbonara for lunch and headed into the sea. We'd brought our snorkels along, but to be honest there was very little to see, just a few sand coloured gobies and a wrasse or two. We'll see a lot more tomorrow. We are planning to do a half day snorkelling trip to various parts of Ko Phi Phi Leh. Should be great.
When we we'd had enough of the sea we went back to the hotel to hang out by the pool for a bit. It's not a big pool but it does have a jacuzzi section. Nice to sit there and have my back pummeled for a bit.
After that we spent a bit of time unpacking and writing our diaries before heading out to explore the town. We almost chose to stay away from town on a quieter beach, but I am glad we didn't. Despite all the other travellers, the town had a nice buzz about it, and some great looking (and smelling) restaurants.
We opted to eat in a dinky little Thai restaurant called Pum. Apparently the woman behind these restaurants already has a couple of joints in Thailand and one in Paris. Her plan is to expand further across Europe, so who knows there might be a Pum near you soon! If you do get one, count yourself lucky - the food is fab.
After dinner we took a leisurely stroll along the sea front and then wound our way back towards the hotel. Bizarrely it was raining quite hard.
We eventually found ourselves in the fantastic Reggae Disco Bar, with a small bucket full of incredibly strong cocktail each, watching drunken tourists beating the crap out of each other in a Muay Thai boxing ring. Much hilarity, but nowhere near as funny as the guy we saw trying to beat the bar's burger challenge.
Basically if you can eat the burger, onion ring, coleslaw and fries in 30 minutes, you get it for free. If not, it's 500 baht.
The guy we watched got fairly close to finishing in time and had a huge group cheering him on. Unfortunately, with a few mouthfuls to go, his time ran out. And then, to make matters worse, he had to run off to throw up in the street...in front of everyone!
So funny. Probably not for him though.
The buckets were potent. We staggered back to the hotel!
We arrived in Krabi this morning at 6:30am and walked into the bus terminal to buy our tickets for the 9:00am boat to Ko Phi Phi. 400 baht each including minibus transport to the pier.
Once at the ferry port we grabbed an iced coffee and hung around until it was time to board the boat.
The good news is that despite warnings to the contrary, the weather is absolutely stunning here in Southern Thailand! We sat up on deck for the whole journey to the island, speeding across blue water under a blue sky, bathed in sunshine and enjoying the cooling breeze on our faces.
Compared to our night bus, on which we were the only 'farang' (foreigners), the boat to Phi Phi was packed to the rafters with other backpackers.
An hour and a half later the boat arrived in Ton Sai bay, which looks gorgeous, as it is surrounded by gnarled limestone cliffs covered in greenery and the water is brilliant turquoise. A moment of tranquility before you arrive in the port and get mobbed by packs of touts trying to promote hotels.
We got so fed up with them that we decided to just pick a hotel and start walking. Casita was recommended in the guide book thanks to it's pool and proximity to the beach. We had a look around and decided it was perfect for our requirements.
Once we had checked in we headed straight to the beach - another postcard perfect bay. Welcome to paradise!
We demolished a pizza and a plate of spaghetti carbonara for lunch and headed into the sea. We'd brought our snorkels along, but to be honest there was very little to see, just a few sand coloured gobies and a wrasse or two. We'll see a lot more tomorrow. We are planning to do a half day snorkelling trip to various parts of Ko Phi Phi Leh. Should be great.
When we we'd had enough of the sea we went back to the hotel to hang out by the pool for a bit. It's not a big pool but it does have a jacuzzi section. Nice to sit there and have my back pummeled for a bit.
After that we spent a bit of time unpacking and writing our diaries before heading out to explore the town. We almost chose to stay away from town on a quieter beach, but I am glad we didn't. Despite all the other travellers, the town had a nice buzz about it, and some great looking (and smelling) restaurants.
We opted to eat in a dinky little Thai restaurant called Pum. Apparently the woman behind these restaurants already has a couple of joints in Thailand and one in Paris. Her plan is to expand further across Europe, so who knows there might be a Pum near you soon! If you do get one, count yourself lucky - the food is fab.
After dinner we took a leisurely stroll along the sea front and then wound our way back towards the hotel. Bizarrely it was raining quite hard.
We eventually found ourselves in the fantastic Reggae Disco Bar, with a small bucket full of incredibly strong cocktail each, watching drunken tourists beating the crap out of each other in a Muay Thai boxing ring. Much hilarity, but nowhere near as funny as the guy we saw trying to beat the bar's burger challenge.
Basically if you can eat the burger, onion ring, coleslaw and fries in 30 minutes, you get it for free. If not, it's 500 baht.
The guy we watched got fairly close to finishing in time and had a huge group cheering him on. Unfortunately, with a few mouthfuls to go, his time ran out. And then, to make matters worse, he had to run off to throw up in the street...in front of everyone!
So funny. Probably not for him though.
The buckets were potent. We staggered back to the hotel!
Suits, sashimi and snakes! Bye bye Bangkok.
What a great day! We checked out of the Bangkok Loft Inn, leaving our bags at reception for collection later and set out to spend our final day in Bangkok with no clear plan of action.
After some deliberation we decided that the thing to do would be to visit the snake farm, where they produce most of the antivenom in Thailand.
The farm is in the Lumphini district. En route we stumbled upon the Jim Thompson silk shop, which sold a wide array of expensive silk products...but not to us.
On leaving the silk shop we were accosted by an old Thai gent who tipped us off that if we wanted to buy good value silk (which we did for Amber's mum), we should go to D & M Fashion, which was just up the road. We decided to take his advice.
Minutes later we had already bought the silk cloth we needed, but then we got onto the subject of tailored suits. I have been after a new suit for a while and the chance of having a tailored suit, with my measurements held on record for 5 years was too tempting to pass up (who wouldn't want cheap tailored suits on tap just an email away?).
After much haggling I agreed to buy two suits and have them delivered to Cambridge for the princely sum of...ah...I promised the owner I wouldn't tell. Let's just say it has cost me well under a third of the price of a tailored suit in England to buy two in Thailand.
While the shop was preparing the fitting garment we went for lunch at a Japanese fast food chain called Fuji. I have been hankering after sashimi since we arrived in Thailand and the Fuji sashimi bento set meal I ordered was just what I wanted.
We followed lunch with the main event of the day, our visit to the snake farm. I admit that initially I shared some of Amber's concerns that this could be a bit rubbish - a few generic snakes in tanks and a lousy snake show where they bring out a big snake for people to pose with. Certainly the Lonely Planet only felt it was worth a sentence or two.
We were so very, very wrong.
The first thing we did, after a quick peek at a few of the larger constrictors (they have an enormous reticulated python - easily 6m) was to sit down and watch the snake show at 2:30pm.
Incredible. The guy giving the talk was so articulate and entertaining that even without any live snakes the talk would have been fascinating.
Founded in 1923, this was the second snake farm in the world. It currently produces antivenom for all species of poisonous snake in Thailand, which they do via the typical method of injecting the venom into horses in non-lethal doses, which encourages the production of antibodies. Once harvested and cleaned up, these constitute the cure.
He was full of facts, e.g. How should you react when you find a snake? Move slowly if it isn't a pit viper. Pit vipers can 'see' heat, so in their case you need to move away considerably faster!
We were all hooked.
Then they brought out a live 8 foot King Cobra and dumped it on the floor, right in front of the front row of the audience. Wow.
Suddenly the wire mesh across the front of the seating area made much more sense!
Hands down this was the best, most educational live animal presentation I've EVER seen.
The snake handlers were extremely professional, with nerves of steel and obviously a great deal of respect for their wards as they brought them out one by one. All the wow factor of Steve Irwin at his best, with a heap of fascinating information thrown in.
The purpose of the farm was originally to produce antivenom, but they now have a collection of non-venomous species in order to educate Thais about which snakes are safe, and indeed which snakes are not. Some of the non-venomous species are legally protected due to overhunting for food, which is tragic, as these species are fundamental to keeping the rodent population in check.
In fact, one particular species has been farmed and released in large numbers to combat the devastating effect of rodents on the rice crop. But without educating the locals, who kill all snakes indiscriminately, numbers will continue to fall.
The stars of the show were without doubt the snakes, all of which varied a great deal in their attitude towards the handlers. The running order was as follows: King Cobra, Common Cobra, Mangrove Snake, Green Pit Viper, Keel-backed Snake, Copper-headed ratsnake, Sunbeam snake, Burmese python (yes, people did get to pose with the latter - the small kids couldn't get enough!).
The farm closes at 3:30pm, so we only had a short time to whizz round the rest of the exhibits, which included a fascinating education centre and both an outdoor and indoor selection of live snakes.
I'm amazed that the Lonely Planet only devotes a couple of sentences to this place when by rights it should be high on the list of things to see and do in Bangkok.
And such a bargain for 200 baht!
After the snake farm we went back to the tailor's for my fitting session, which was over in minutes. Fingers crossed I have a couple of fantastic suits winging their way to me once we're back home!
With the rest of the afternoon ahead of us, we decided to visit the Pak Klong flower market over on the other side of town. We almost gave up after two cabs failed to understand our Thai pronunciation, but we got lucky with our third attempt and pretty soon we were surrounded by stalls packed to the rafters with marigolds, orchids, chrysanthemums and roses. The price for a bunch of a dozen roses? 20 baht!!! Really puts UK Valentine's Day prices into perspective...
We walked back to Bangkok Loft Inn from the flower market over memorial bridge, stopping along the way so I could eye up a couple of tropical fish stalls. Nothing too special apart from a couple of show quality Flowerhorn hybrids and a few giant plakat fighting fish. Interestingly they were selling frogs on one stall.
Back at the hotel we grabbed our bags, did our best to get cleaned up in the toilets by reception and got a cab to the bus station.
We arrived with time to spare, so we grabbed a quick dinner in Noodle Garden, which failed to live up to its name by virtue of the fact that they had (I kid you not) run out of noodles.
The bus is great! Nice big reclining seats with foot rests, pillow and blanket; powerful aircon; free snacks and water; and even a movie (albeit in Thai with no subtitles).
Turns out dinner was also included in the ticket price. Amber didn't have any, but I couldn't say no to more congee!
After some deliberation we decided that the thing to do would be to visit the snake farm, where they produce most of the antivenom in Thailand.
The farm is in the Lumphini district. En route we stumbled upon the Jim Thompson silk shop, which sold a wide array of expensive silk products...but not to us.
On leaving the silk shop we were accosted by an old Thai gent who tipped us off that if we wanted to buy good value silk (which we did for Amber's mum), we should go to D & M Fashion, which was just up the road. We decided to take his advice.
Minutes later we had already bought the silk cloth we needed, but then we got onto the subject of tailored suits. I have been after a new suit for a while and the chance of having a tailored suit, with my measurements held on record for 5 years was too tempting to pass up (who wouldn't want cheap tailored suits on tap just an email away?).
After much haggling I agreed to buy two suits and have them delivered to Cambridge for the princely sum of...ah...I promised the owner I wouldn't tell. Let's just say it has cost me well under a third of the price of a tailored suit in England to buy two in Thailand.
While the shop was preparing the fitting garment we went for lunch at a Japanese fast food chain called Fuji. I have been hankering after sashimi since we arrived in Thailand and the Fuji sashimi bento set meal I ordered was just what I wanted.
We followed lunch with the main event of the day, our visit to the snake farm. I admit that initially I shared some of Amber's concerns that this could be a bit rubbish - a few generic snakes in tanks and a lousy snake show where they bring out a big snake for people to pose with. Certainly the Lonely Planet only felt it was worth a sentence or two.
We were so very, very wrong.
The first thing we did, after a quick peek at a few of the larger constrictors (they have an enormous reticulated python - easily 6m) was to sit down and watch the snake show at 2:30pm.
Incredible. The guy giving the talk was so articulate and entertaining that even without any live snakes the talk would have been fascinating.
Founded in 1923, this was the second snake farm in the world. It currently produces antivenom for all species of poisonous snake in Thailand, which they do via the typical method of injecting the venom into horses in non-lethal doses, which encourages the production of antibodies. Once harvested and cleaned up, these constitute the cure.
He was full of facts, e.g. How should you react when you find a snake? Move slowly if it isn't a pit viper. Pit vipers can 'see' heat, so in their case you need to move away considerably faster!
We were all hooked.
Then they brought out a live 8 foot King Cobra and dumped it on the floor, right in front of the front row of the audience. Wow.
Suddenly the wire mesh across the front of the seating area made much more sense!
Hands down this was the best, most educational live animal presentation I've EVER seen.
The snake handlers were extremely professional, with nerves of steel and obviously a great deal of respect for their wards as they brought them out one by one. All the wow factor of Steve Irwin at his best, with a heap of fascinating information thrown in.
The purpose of the farm was originally to produce antivenom, but they now have a collection of non-venomous species in order to educate Thais about which snakes are safe, and indeed which snakes are not. Some of the non-venomous species are legally protected due to overhunting for food, which is tragic, as these species are fundamental to keeping the rodent population in check.
In fact, one particular species has been farmed and released in large numbers to combat the devastating effect of rodents on the rice crop. But without educating the locals, who kill all snakes indiscriminately, numbers will continue to fall.
The stars of the show were without doubt the snakes, all of which varied a great deal in their attitude towards the handlers. The running order was as follows: King Cobra, Common Cobra, Mangrove Snake, Green Pit Viper, Keel-backed Snake, Copper-headed ratsnake, Sunbeam snake, Burmese python (yes, people did get to pose with the latter - the small kids couldn't get enough!).
The farm closes at 3:30pm, so we only had a short time to whizz round the rest of the exhibits, which included a fascinating education centre and both an outdoor and indoor selection of live snakes.
I'm amazed that the Lonely Planet only devotes a couple of sentences to this place when by rights it should be high on the list of things to see and do in Bangkok.
And such a bargain for 200 baht!
After the snake farm we went back to the tailor's for my fitting session, which was over in minutes. Fingers crossed I have a couple of fantastic suits winging their way to me once we're back home!
With the rest of the afternoon ahead of us, we decided to visit the Pak Klong flower market over on the other side of town. We almost gave up after two cabs failed to understand our Thai pronunciation, but we got lucky with our third attempt and pretty soon we were surrounded by stalls packed to the rafters with marigolds, orchids, chrysanthemums and roses. The price for a bunch of a dozen roses? 20 baht!!! Really puts UK Valentine's Day prices into perspective...
We walked back to Bangkok Loft Inn from the flower market over memorial bridge, stopping along the way so I could eye up a couple of tropical fish stalls. Nothing too special apart from a couple of show quality Flowerhorn hybrids and a few giant plakat fighting fish. Interestingly they were selling frogs on one stall.
Back at the hotel we grabbed our bags, did our best to get cleaned up in the toilets by reception and got a cab to the bus station.
We arrived with time to spare, so we grabbed a quick dinner in Noodle Garden, which failed to live up to its name by virtue of the fact that they had (I kid you not) run out of noodles.
The bus is great! Nice big reclining seats with foot rests, pillow and blanket; powerful aircon; free snacks and water; and even a movie (albeit in Thai with no subtitles).
Turns out dinner was also included in the ticket price. Amber didn't have any, but I couldn't say no to more congee!
A boat, two Buddhas, a bar and a band.
We set aside our first full day in Bangkok for doing a tour of all the main tourist attractions, so after a fantastic breakfast at the hotel (fabulous congee) we set off to buy a day ticket for the Chaopraya Tourist Boat.
For 150 baht you get to use the boat all day and it stops within walking distance of most if the main attractions.
The first task was to take a photo of Wat Arun from the river, as by all accounts it's not worth seeing it close up. Apparently it's best viewed at dawn, but with the string of late nights and early mornings we've had there was no way that was going to happen.
We got off the boat at the pier nearest to Wat Pho and walked to the temple. The main reason for visiting this temple is to see the world's largest reclining gold Buddha. He looked suitably comfortable laid down on his enormous plinth and was, as you might well expect, huge. The overall effect is as if a giant lay down for a nap and while he slept they built a temple around him, especially as your view of the Buddha is obstructed by structural columns as you walk around it.
Having ticked one Buddha off our list we walked to the Grand Palace. Unfortunately, we somehow ended up walking around the perimeter wall as we had missed the main entrance. As a result we decided to get a cab to the Southern Bus Terminal to buy our tickets on the VIP night bus to Krabi for tomorrow night and then get one back to the palace entrance. At the bus station we got two tickets for 691 baht each.
No idea what makes the VIP bus so special, but we figured we might well try it, as we'll be on the bus for 12 hours solid.
We arrived at the main entrance to the palace only to find out that it was closed for a special Buddhist ceremony until 2:30pm. Typical!
To kill the time we went in search of the backpacker haven that is Khao San road. This was a boat ride upstream and a short walk away. When we got there it was everything you'd expect from a backpacker hangout: cool restaurants; stalls selling body jewellery, funny t-shirts and souvenirs; tattoo and body-piercing parlours etc. A good vibe (I was sorely tempted to get another piercing) but nothing you can't find in similar places the world over. The only thing we bought was a tray of veggie springrolls. Then it was time to head back to the palace.
This time we actually got inside. The palace complex is very large, so it took us a while to get round it all. It's funny, everybody says that once you've seen the temples of Angkor all other temples look a bit pants, and they are absolutely right. For all its glistening golden spires, proud statues and colourful mosaic tiling, the grand palace fails to capture the imagination in the way that the temple of Angkor do. This is largely due to the fact that the former looks like it was built last week, a tribute to all things concrete and kitsch - all spectacle and no substance.
Having said this, I have to confess to quite liking at times the use of excessive amounts of gold leaf and gold paint in these temples. You can't help feeling a bit like you're walking around some mythical 'City of Gold' from a children's novel.
The most important sight at the palace is the so-called Emerald Buddha, who sits a mere 66cm high and is technically made of nephrite jade. The King of Thailand changes the Buddha's gold outfit four times a year to coincide with the changing seasons. The Buddha sits atop a seriously elaborate mountain of gold, looking for all the world like a green jelly baby with a size issue and a penchant for rather a lot of 'bling'.
In fact, this statue is a rather important war relic and when you're in the temple alongside the Thai people saying their prayers, you start to understand what all the fuss is about.
Now that we had both Buddhas under our belts, it was time to go back to the hotel for a much needed wash (it was crazy hot today).
Once we had freshened up we rode the Skytrain to the Silom area of Bangkok and walked to the Banyan Tree hotel. Sat in the rooftop Moon Bar on the 59th floor of the hotel, we drank a couple of cocktails as the sun set and watched the city put on its evening dress to a soundtrack of jazz. It doesn't get much more romantic than this.
The romance didn't last long. We decided to migrate from the Moon Bar to a live jazz pub we'd read about called Brown Sugar. It looked to be in walking distance, so we set off in what appeared to be the right direction, according to trusty Lonely Planet.
An hour and a half later, we were getting a little frustrated by the fact we'd been up and down the same street three times and still hadn't managed to find the flippin' place. It made no sense, we were standing right where it was meant to be, but it wasn't there! What a crappy end to what had been a lovely evening. We gave up our search and walked further up the street to find the Skytrain...
...and would you believe it? There was the pub.
And what a fantastic experience it turned out to be. We sat down in the attached restaurant at 9pm and promptly ordered a jug of margarita (we definitely needed it!).
We then had a fantastic meal. Amber had an authentic Thai yellow curry and I had easily the best tom yum koong I've ever tasted. Then the live jazz started downstairs and made our whole evening. What a brilliant find!
We headed home with big smiles on our faces.
For 150 baht you get to use the boat all day and it stops within walking distance of most if the main attractions.
The first task was to take a photo of Wat Arun from the river, as by all accounts it's not worth seeing it close up. Apparently it's best viewed at dawn, but with the string of late nights and early mornings we've had there was no way that was going to happen.
We got off the boat at the pier nearest to Wat Pho and walked to the temple. The main reason for visiting this temple is to see the world's largest reclining gold Buddha. He looked suitably comfortable laid down on his enormous plinth and was, as you might well expect, huge. The overall effect is as if a giant lay down for a nap and while he slept they built a temple around him, especially as your view of the Buddha is obstructed by structural columns as you walk around it.
Having ticked one Buddha off our list we walked to the Grand Palace. Unfortunately, we somehow ended up walking around the perimeter wall as we had missed the main entrance. As a result we decided to get a cab to the Southern Bus Terminal to buy our tickets on the VIP night bus to Krabi for tomorrow night and then get one back to the palace entrance. At the bus station we got two tickets for 691 baht each.
No idea what makes the VIP bus so special, but we figured we might well try it, as we'll be on the bus for 12 hours solid.
We arrived at the main entrance to the palace only to find out that it was closed for a special Buddhist ceremony until 2:30pm. Typical!
To kill the time we went in search of the backpacker haven that is Khao San road. This was a boat ride upstream and a short walk away. When we got there it was everything you'd expect from a backpacker hangout: cool restaurants; stalls selling body jewellery, funny t-shirts and souvenirs; tattoo and body-piercing parlours etc. A good vibe (I was sorely tempted to get another piercing) but nothing you can't find in similar places the world over. The only thing we bought was a tray of veggie springrolls. Then it was time to head back to the palace.
This time we actually got inside. The palace complex is very large, so it took us a while to get round it all. It's funny, everybody says that once you've seen the temples of Angkor all other temples look a bit pants, and they are absolutely right. For all its glistening golden spires, proud statues and colourful mosaic tiling, the grand palace fails to capture the imagination in the way that the temple of Angkor do. This is largely due to the fact that the former looks like it was built last week, a tribute to all things concrete and kitsch - all spectacle and no substance.
Having said this, I have to confess to quite liking at times the use of excessive amounts of gold leaf and gold paint in these temples. You can't help feeling a bit like you're walking around some mythical 'City of Gold' from a children's novel.
The most important sight at the palace is the so-called Emerald Buddha, who sits a mere 66cm high and is technically made of nephrite jade. The King of Thailand changes the Buddha's gold outfit four times a year to coincide with the changing seasons. The Buddha sits atop a seriously elaborate mountain of gold, looking for all the world like a green jelly baby with a size issue and a penchant for rather a lot of 'bling'.
In fact, this statue is a rather important war relic and when you're in the temple alongside the Thai people saying their prayers, you start to understand what all the fuss is about.
Now that we had both Buddhas under our belts, it was time to go back to the hotel for a much needed wash (it was crazy hot today).
Once we had freshened up we rode the Skytrain to the Silom area of Bangkok and walked to the Banyan Tree hotel. Sat in the rooftop Moon Bar on the 59th floor of the hotel, we drank a couple of cocktails as the sun set and watched the city put on its evening dress to a soundtrack of jazz. It doesn't get much more romantic than this.
The romance didn't last long. We decided to migrate from the Moon Bar to a live jazz pub we'd read about called Brown Sugar. It looked to be in walking distance, so we set off in what appeared to be the right direction, according to trusty Lonely Planet.
An hour and a half later, we were getting a little frustrated by the fact we'd been up and down the same street three times and still hadn't managed to find the flippin' place. It made no sense, we were standing right where it was meant to be, but it wasn't there! What a crappy end to what had been a lovely evening. We gave up our search and walked further up the street to find the Skytrain...
...and would you believe it? There was the pub.
And what a fantastic experience it turned out to be. We sat down in the attached restaurant at 9pm and promptly ordered a jug of margarita (we definitely needed it!).
We then had a fantastic meal. Amber had an authentic Thai yellow curry and I had easily the best tom yum koong I've ever tasted. Then the live jazz started downstairs and made our whole evening. What a brilliant find!
We headed home with big smiles on our faces.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Goodbye Cambodia...hello Bangkok!
The rain had stopped by the time our alarms went off at 6:30am.
We had settled our bill the night before, so all we had to do was get breakfast and hop in our nice air-conditioned minibus to the airport.
The airport in Siemreap is surprisingly nice, despite being on the small side. I took a photo of their goldfish pond because it looked like something out of a tropical interior design manual. All very peaceful.
We were at the airport well before our flight so we spent a bit of time perusing books in the bookshop. They had some really lovely coffee table books full of gorgeous photographs of the 'real' Cambodia. It's always a petty to find such books when you are backpacking because you know you won't buy them - they add too much weight and are too likely to get damaged in transit. There are a couple I will have to look up on Amazon when I get home.
Sadly our otherwise relaxed morning was somewhat tainted by both of us having rather upset stomachs. It was bound to happen eventually, but clearly it's less than ideal for it to happen when you are about to get on a plane and have limited toilet access for a while!
The flight to Bangkok was a little bumpy, thanks to a much smaller plane, but otherwise not too bad. We did bounce on landing, which was quite exhilarating (or terrifying in Amber's case). The flight was nice and quick, a mere 45 minutes.
Getting out of the airport was straightforward and (after yet another bathoom visit - just to be on the safe side!) we were soon hurtling towards the centre of the city at 140km/hr in our hotel's enormous airport pickup SUV. The driver was playing hip-hop on his stereo with some rather colourful lyrics. Not your typical tinny taxi radio.
As expected, everyone in Bangkok drives like a nutter: Very aggressively and as fast as possible. Reminded me of the M6 toll road!
We arrived at the Bangkok Loft Inn to a remarkably lackluster welcome at reception. Our choice of this hotel had largely been based on rave reviews on Tripadvisor largely focused on the friendliness of the staff, so we were quite surprised. The lady at reception recommended we devote the afternoon to visiting some shopping malls, which sounded like a good plan. We ditched our bags in our room (which turned out to be very nice) and headed out to catch the BTS Skytrain from nearby Wongwian Yai station to Siam Central.
We spent a while enjoying the culture shock of coming from the relative poverty of Siamreap to hang out in the Siam Paragon mall, with its masses of fashion outlets, technology stores and, strangely, several sports car showrooms on one of the upper floors.
Everyone in Bangkok appears to have an iPhone, even the monks, who get to travel everywhere for free, so all forms of public transport have 'monk seats' in the same way we have disability seats in the UK. It's not unusual to see a monk walking down the street in bright orange robes listening to his iPod...an iMonk?
We ate a tasty lunch in the enormous food court. I finally got myself some chicken rice. Man, that's a flavour I've missed for a long time! Takes me right back to spending the summer holidays in Asia as a kid. Proper nostalgia food.
We managed to top our Swensons icecream experience in Cambodia by getting a ridiculous mixed icecream sundae in a waffle bowl for pudding. Luckily we probably managed to walk it off afterwards.
We had decided to walk to China Town from Siam, to see a bit more of Bangkok. This was a fine idea in itself, but sadly we hadn't factored in that Amber's stomach wasn't quite settled yet. This made our walk somewhat more exciting, as every few blocks we had to stop and decide how urgently we needed to find the next toilet! Not fun for Amber, but in hindsight pretty funny, especially when she had to choose between using the hideous toilets at Hualamphong train station or hedging her bets and holding out a bit longer (she held out).
To make matters worse, we had managed to get lost a few streets away from Yaraowat, the main drag of China Town, when the next wave of urgency came along. Thankfully it passed without mishap and for the next hour we were able to explore the bedlam of Bangkok's China Town.
They have some crazy stuff for sale in the market, but my favourite find was a plastic packet with an entire crocodile hand in it. Mmm...tasty AND nutritious!
After exploring the sights and smells of China Town we got a bright pink cab back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with Andrew, a contact who had helpfully given us a lot of advice before we came out to Thailand.
We met by Thong Lo BTS station on Soi 38, for some excellent street food - you can just order what you want from the various stalls and then bring it ll back to the same table. We had a great selection: pad thai, spicy papaya salad, egg noodles soup, satay, pork stew, mango sticky rice and a selection of jellies and fruits in sweet coconut milk. Yum.
Afterwards we walked to a pub called the Witch's Tavern to have a drink and watch an army of rats running around the alley behind the pub. They were joined by an equally impressive army of cockroaches. We didn't order any food!
Andrea had to work the next day so we parted company around 11:30pm and made our way back.
We had settled our bill the night before, so all we had to do was get breakfast and hop in our nice air-conditioned minibus to the airport.
The airport in Siemreap is surprisingly nice, despite being on the small side. I took a photo of their goldfish pond because it looked like something out of a tropical interior design manual. All very peaceful.
We were at the airport well before our flight so we spent a bit of time perusing books in the bookshop. They had some really lovely coffee table books full of gorgeous photographs of the 'real' Cambodia. It's always a petty to find such books when you are backpacking because you know you won't buy them - they add too much weight and are too likely to get damaged in transit. There are a couple I will have to look up on Amazon when I get home.
Sadly our otherwise relaxed morning was somewhat tainted by both of us having rather upset stomachs. It was bound to happen eventually, but clearly it's less than ideal for it to happen when you are about to get on a plane and have limited toilet access for a while!
The flight to Bangkok was a little bumpy, thanks to a much smaller plane, but otherwise not too bad. We did bounce on landing, which was quite exhilarating (or terrifying in Amber's case). The flight was nice and quick, a mere 45 minutes.
Getting out of the airport was straightforward and (after yet another bathoom visit - just to be on the safe side!) we were soon hurtling towards the centre of the city at 140km/hr in our hotel's enormous airport pickup SUV. The driver was playing hip-hop on his stereo with some rather colourful lyrics. Not your typical tinny taxi radio.
As expected, everyone in Bangkok drives like a nutter: Very aggressively and as fast as possible. Reminded me of the M6 toll road!
We arrived at the Bangkok Loft Inn to a remarkably lackluster welcome at reception. Our choice of this hotel had largely been based on rave reviews on Tripadvisor largely focused on the friendliness of the staff, so we were quite surprised. The lady at reception recommended we devote the afternoon to visiting some shopping malls, which sounded like a good plan. We ditched our bags in our room (which turned out to be very nice) and headed out to catch the BTS Skytrain from nearby Wongwian Yai station to Siam Central.
We spent a while enjoying the culture shock of coming from the relative poverty of Siamreap to hang out in the Siam Paragon mall, with its masses of fashion outlets, technology stores and, strangely, several sports car showrooms on one of the upper floors.
Everyone in Bangkok appears to have an iPhone, even the monks, who get to travel everywhere for free, so all forms of public transport have 'monk seats' in the same way we have disability seats in the UK. It's not unusual to see a monk walking down the street in bright orange robes listening to his iPod...an iMonk?
We ate a tasty lunch in the enormous food court. I finally got myself some chicken rice. Man, that's a flavour I've missed for a long time! Takes me right back to spending the summer holidays in Asia as a kid. Proper nostalgia food.
We managed to top our Swensons icecream experience in Cambodia by getting a ridiculous mixed icecream sundae in a waffle bowl for pudding. Luckily we probably managed to walk it off afterwards.
We had decided to walk to China Town from Siam, to see a bit more of Bangkok. This was a fine idea in itself, but sadly we hadn't factored in that Amber's stomach wasn't quite settled yet. This made our walk somewhat more exciting, as every few blocks we had to stop and decide how urgently we needed to find the next toilet! Not fun for Amber, but in hindsight pretty funny, especially when she had to choose between using the hideous toilets at Hualamphong train station or hedging her bets and holding out a bit longer (she held out).
To make matters worse, we had managed to get lost a few streets away from Yaraowat, the main drag of China Town, when the next wave of urgency came along. Thankfully it passed without mishap and for the next hour we were able to explore the bedlam of Bangkok's China Town.
They have some crazy stuff for sale in the market, but my favourite find was a plastic packet with an entire crocodile hand in it. Mmm...tasty AND nutritious!
After exploring the sights and smells of China Town we got a bright pink cab back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with Andrew, a contact who had helpfully given us a lot of advice before we came out to Thailand.
We met by Thong Lo BTS station on Soi 38, for some excellent street food - you can just order what you want from the various stalls and then bring it ll back to the same table. We had a great selection: pad thai, spicy papaya salad, egg noodles soup, satay, pork stew, mango sticky rice and a selection of jellies and fruits in sweet coconut milk. Yum.
Afterwards we walked to a pub called the Witch's Tavern to have a drink and watch an army of rats running around the alley behind the pub. They were joined by an equally impressive army of cockroaches. We didn't order any food!
Andrea had to work the next day so we parted company around 11:30pm and made our way back.
Monday, 18 April 2011
Waterworld: The Amazing Floating Town on Tonle Sap lake
The sights and sounds keep getting better and better! This morning we took full advantage of our free 1 hour massage in our room (another perk of the hotel package). Cambodian massage is really good. Nice and strong (if you're brave enough!) and full of all sorts of body manipulations to get the bones crunching and the joints cracking. It's also rather 'involved'. There's this weird disparity between the need to cover up the body in public and the total lack of inhibition in the massage process. Felt amazing afterwards though.
After all the trekking around temples, we devoted the morning to a nice long stroll around Siem Reap, largely focused around two key destinations: the Old Market and Swenson's ice-cream shop (no prizes for guessing which of us picked which destination).
The market was chaotic to say the least. Inside the air was full of all kinds of smells, some considerably more pleasant than others. I felt particularly sorry for the women who seemed to be hand mixing some sort of fish paste by hand in a big plastic container, although the butcher woman didn't look to be having much fun either. Although I generally don't like to buy souvenirs (you usually regret them once you get home) I couldn't resist buying a shoulder bag made from recycled fish food bags. It's made in Cambodia and the workmanship is fab - it's even plastic covered to make it waterproof (i.e. UK proof). The look of thunder on the girl's face told me that I got a pretty good deal for $6 (she started the process at $15).
Whilst we were exploring we came across a lovely art gallery run by a local expat photographer called John McDermott. The gallery is lovely and modern inside and the photos are stunning, so it was a real joy to spend a few minutes walking around and reliving some of our favourite temples.
Lunch was a very basic affair. Just a can of soya bean milk (Yeo's, my favourite from my childhood) and a plate of boiled pork dumplings. Plenty of food for two and a snip at just $3 for the whole meal. The place was called Wooden House restaurant.
After lunch we got involved in some serious chill time, reading by the Central Boutique's lovely pool and taking the odd dip until it was time to leave with San for our afternoon excursions. San suggested we had a bit of time to kill before heading to the lake, so he recommended we check out a local artisan training centre, which we did. It was really interesting to watch the trainee artisans at work carving stone or wood, and painting on silk or painted wood panels. The shop had some lovely silk products and one fantastic painting of two peacocks. Sadly the latter was neither wallet nor backpack friendly.
Once we were done at the workshops, San drove us out to Tonle Sap, where we paid $20 for our own boat complete with a crew of two - a teenage driver and a younger kid, who was like some kind of water monkey the way he clambered around the boat.
The lake is something of a natural phenomenon, rising in size from 2,500 square kilometers in the dry season to 13,000 in the wet season. The lake is fed by 16 different rivers, but the primary source of water is the Mekong.
As I've said before, were coming to the end of the dry season now, so we had to travel down a very shallow channel to get onto the lake proper. At first we were a bit gutted because we thought we'd fallen prey to Scambodia yet again. Who would pay $20 for a trip in a boat up and down a dirty stretch of river water?
We were so wrong.
After motoring along past a ramshackled collection of makeshift houses on the bank and groups of kids playing on the riverbank the channel started to widen and we arrived at the edge of the great lake. The lake seemed to go on forever and after a short stint of open water we arrived at the floating village.
I had been expecting houses on stilts, assuming that the 'floating village' was simply bad translation, but in fact the houses are indeed all floating like something out of a big Hollywood sci-fi movie. I have never seen anything like it: house after house floating on the lake, presumably anchored in place. Each house had its own living quarters and kitchen and a good number of them were gaily painted in bright colours reminiscent of Central American buses. Everyone travelled around by boat and they had a floating market, a floating school and even a floating restaurant complete with aquarium display, crocodile pit and fish pond!!! To cap it all, there were a small number of very entrepreneurial girls who were doing a roaring trade persuading the Japanese tourists to pay them a few dollars to pose with their Burmese pythons. God knows how they feed these big snakes out on the lake, bit we did see a few floating duck and chicken coops...
We went upstairs to the viewing deck of the restaurant to try and capture the sun setting over the village. The houses in silhouette with the golden sunlight rippling on the water was beautiful, but nothing compared to the effect created by the last few minutes of sunlight as we left the village: Once the sun had dropped below the horizon, everything was bathed in incredible pink light - the surface of the water, the clouds in the sky, the boat, everything. I sat on the prow facing the direction we'd come from and soaked it all up. Truly magical. Probably a once in a lifetime feeling.
San was waiting for us when we got off the boat, ready to take us back home. Back at the hotel we freshened up and went out for a fabulous meal at the Sugar Palm. Amber finally got to try Cambodian amok curry. I had pork rib sweet and spicy soup. Nice food in a nice setting. No wonder it's a Lonely Planet recommendation.
We got back to our room in time for a full on tropical rain storm complete with thunder and lightning.
Tomorrow we leave Cambodia. I will be sad to go. We have already decided we will come back one day.
After all the trekking around temples, we devoted the morning to a nice long stroll around Siem Reap, largely focused around two key destinations: the Old Market and Swenson's ice-cream shop (no prizes for guessing which of us picked which destination).
The market was chaotic to say the least. Inside the air was full of all kinds of smells, some considerably more pleasant than others. I felt particularly sorry for the women who seemed to be hand mixing some sort of fish paste by hand in a big plastic container, although the butcher woman didn't look to be having much fun either. Although I generally don't like to buy souvenirs (you usually regret them once you get home) I couldn't resist buying a shoulder bag made from recycled fish food bags. It's made in Cambodia and the workmanship is fab - it's even plastic covered to make it waterproof (i.e. UK proof). The look of thunder on the girl's face told me that I got a pretty good deal for $6 (she started the process at $15).
Whilst we were exploring we came across a lovely art gallery run by a local expat photographer called John McDermott. The gallery is lovely and modern inside and the photos are stunning, so it was a real joy to spend a few minutes walking around and reliving some of our favourite temples.
Lunch was a very basic affair. Just a can of soya bean milk (Yeo's, my favourite from my childhood) and a plate of boiled pork dumplings. Plenty of food for two and a snip at just $3 for the whole meal. The place was called Wooden House restaurant.
After lunch we got involved in some serious chill time, reading by the Central Boutique's lovely pool and taking the odd dip until it was time to leave with San for our afternoon excursions. San suggested we had a bit of time to kill before heading to the lake, so he recommended we check out a local artisan training centre, which we did. It was really interesting to watch the trainee artisans at work carving stone or wood, and painting on silk or painted wood panels. The shop had some lovely silk products and one fantastic painting of two peacocks. Sadly the latter was neither wallet nor backpack friendly.
Once we were done at the workshops, San drove us out to Tonle Sap, where we paid $20 for our own boat complete with a crew of two - a teenage driver and a younger kid, who was like some kind of water monkey the way he clambered around the boat.
The lake is something of a natural phenomenon, rising in size from 2,500 square kilometers in the dry season to 13,000 in the wet season. The lake is fed by 16 different rivers, but the primary source of water is the Mekong.
As I've said before, were coming to the end of the dry season now, so we had to travel down a very shallow channel to get onto the lake proper. At first we were a bit gutted because we thought we'd fallen prey to Scambodia yet again. Who would pay $20 for a trip in a boat up and down a dirty stretch of river water?
We were so wrong.
After motoring along past a ramshackled collection of makeshift houses on the bank and groups of kids playing on the riverbank the channel started to widen and we arrived at the edge of the great lake. The lake seemed to go on forever and after a short stint of open water we arrived at the floating village.
I had been expecting houses on stilts, assuming that the 'floating village' was simply bad translation, but in fact the houses are indeed all floating like something out of a big Hollywood sci-fi movie. I have never seen anything like it: house after house floating on the lake, presumably anchored in place. Each house had its own living quarters and kitchen and a good number of them were gaily painted in bright colours reminiscent of Central American buses. Everyone travelled around by boat and they had a floating market, a floating school and even a floating restaurant complete with aquarium display, crocodile pit and fish pond!!! To cap it all, there were a small number of very entrepreneurial girls who were doing a roaring trade persuading the Japanese tourists to pay them a few dollars to pose with their Burmese pythons. God knows how they feed these big snakes out on the lake, bit we did see a few floating duck and chicken coops...
We went upstairs to the viewing deck of the restaurant to try and capture the sun setting over the village. The houses in silhouette with the golden sunlight rippling on the water was beautiful, but nothing compared to the effect created by the last few minutes of sunlight as we left the village: Once the sun had dropped below the horizon, everything was bathed in incredible pink light - the surface of the water, the clouds in the sky, the boat, everything. I sat on the prow facing the direction we'd come from and soaked it all up. Truly magical. Probably a once in a lifetime feeling.
San was waiting for us when we got off the boat, ready to take us back home. Back at the hotel we freshened up and went out for a fabulous meal at the Sugar Palm. Amber finally got to try Cambodian amok curry. I had pork rib sweet and spicy soup. Nice food in a nice setting. No wonder it's a Lonely Planet recommendation.
We got back to our room in time for a full on tropical rain storm complete with thunder and lightning.
Tomorrow we leave Cambodia. I will be sad to go. We have already decided we will come back one day.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
The Temples of Angkor - Day 2: Kbal Spean, Banteay Srei, Pre Rup and sunset at Bakheng Hill
I know you all want me to talk about temples today, but for me the 17th April 2011 is all about lizards and fish!
We set off at 9:00am for Kbal Spean and arrived at 10:30am in blazing heat. Kbal Spean is famous for carvings in the bed of a river, which is a good 40 minute trek from the car park up a well cleared path. Within about 10 minutes I had spotted my first lizard of the day perched elegantly on a vine. It was Calotes versicolor a.k.a. Oriental Garden Lizard or, more bizarrely, the Common Bloodsucker. Presumably the latter name comes from the fact that males have a bright red head and torso in the breeding season. Given the number of brightly coloured males we saw today, I would guess that the breeding season is around now!
Later on we came to clearing, where I saw another three lizards. Male and female Bloodsuckers and one as yet unidentified lizard, which I am fairly sure was a flying lizard (Draco maculatus), as these are found in Cambodia. Another fantastic find for me, and an unmissable photo opp.
Thanks to the leafy roof of the forest, the trek was actually really pleasant and we made it up to the river in no time. We'd been told by our friends Courtney and Dave that there would be a refreshing waterfall awaiting us at the top, but this is the end of the dry season and as such the river wasn't even flowing! This afforded us a great view of the carvings in the river bed, but the waterfall was distinctly lacking. Interestingly most of the carvings are of male fertility symbols, or linga, which essentially look like little domes (imagine the top sliced off a concrete bollard!). There were rows and rows of these carved into the rock and presumably most of them are usually submerged.
It was here that I got my next zoological treat. Given that the river wasn't flowing, all that remained were a number of fairly large, extremely shallow pools in which the water had been died a deep brown from all the tannins leeching out of the fallen leaves. In these pools were several species of fish, but the ones that got me all excited (sad I know!) were the dwarf snakeheads in the Channa genus. I've seen these in aquaria and actually kept a few briefly in my own tanks, so it was incredible to see them in the wild in their natural habitat. I would never in a million years have imagined that they would live quite happily in water so rich in tannins and so low in oxygen, but here they were.
From that point on I was pretty sure we couldn't do any better on the wildlife front, but then on the way back down we came across not one but two Blue Crested lizards (Calotes mystaceus), a male and a female. I would like to include my own photo, but at the moment I don't have the technological requirements, so you'll have to make do with one from Google images. Either way I think it's safe to say that these lizards (even to a non-lizard-enthusiast) are outstandingly beautiful.
THEY MADE MY DAY! I was grinning from ear to ear after that. You can keep your temples, this is what travelling to far flung reaches of the world is all about for me!
Anyway, with that huge success unfer our belts, we ventured onwards to 'the jewel in the crown' that is Banteay Srei - perhaps the most impressive temple in Cambodia for sheer intricacy of stone carving.
For the millionth time we were left speechless. You just have to see Banteay Srei to understand how mind-blowing the carvings are. It's insane that people were able to produce such beautiful carvings without any of the electronic machinery we use today. Just an amazing place - you'll have to wait for photos, as I didn't take any from my phone and those are the easiest to upload right now.
From Banteay Srei we headed back to the main Angkor complex to check out one more temple (Pre Rup) before walking up Bakheng Hill to catch sunset. At Pre Rup we bumped into Manuel again! He'd hired a moto (motorbike taxi) for the day and had been busy seeing as many temples as possible. We chatted briefly before he had to carry on and we climbed back down from the top to seek out the perfect angle for a photo.
Unfortunately it was soon after this that the clouds started rolling in, so as we got to the bottom of Bakheng Hill you couldn't even see the sun. What you could see were the lovely elephants they have there, who looked very well looked after indeed and had some very fancy wooden chairs set on their backs (you can pay $20 to ride an elephant up the hill for the sunset). Beautiful looking animals and different to the elephants we had seen in Thailand in that they seemed smaller and had much darker skin.
In the end there was no sunset to be had from the top. We took a few photos up there to capture the impressive view, but decided to maximise our pool time back at the hotel and call it a day.
We headed back to the hotel for a refreshing dip and then left the Central Boutique to check out another recommendation: drinks in the bar at the Raffles d'Angkor hotel. A quick stroll later and we were in the Elephant Bar in the hotel, which is a jolly fine place to be. We ordered two scrumptious cocktails and were presented with two enormous bowls of snacks. The first was bite-sized crispy rice cakes served with curry sauce, the second was full of cassava crisps. Eating both bowls would certainly have constituted a decent meal for two adults.
They have a free pool table in the bar, so I challenged Amber to a game. We're both terrible at pool, so it was only down to the fact that statistically if you take enough shots you will eventually pot the requisite number of balls that I just managed to win. I don't think the bar staff had ever seen such incompetence round a pool table. They were most amused.
Following on from our visit to Elephant Bar we headed in search of a restaurant called Curry Walla for dinner. The food there is Bangladeshi in origin and I have to say it was very tasty indeed, especially the tamarind chutney.
We set off at 9:00am for Kbal Spean and arrived at 10:30am in blazing heat. Kbal Spean is famous for carvings in the bed of a river, which is a good 40 minute trek from the car park up a well cleared path. Within about 10 minutes I had spotted my first lizard of the day perched elegantly on a vine. It was Calotes versicolor a.k.a. Oriental Garden Lizard or, more bizarrely, the Common Bloodsucker. Presumably the latter name comes from the fact that males have a bright red head and torso in the breeding season. Given the number of brightly coloured males we saw today, I would guess that the breeding season is around now!
Later on we came to clearing, where I saw another three lizards. Male and female Bloodsuckers and one as yet unidentified lizard, which I am fairly sure was a flying lizard (Draco maculatus), as these are found in Cambodia. Another fantastic find for me, and an unmissable photo opp.
Thanks to the leafy roof of the forest, the trek was actually really pleasant and we made it up to the river in no time. We'd been told by our friends Courtney and Dave that there would be a refreshing waterfall awaiting us at the top, but this is the end of the dry season and as such the river wasn't even flowing! This afforded us a great view of the carvings in the river bed, but the waterfall was distinctly lacking. Interestingly most of the carvings are of male fertility symbols, or linga, which essentially look like little domes (imagine the top sliced off a concrete bollard!). There were rows and rows of these carved into the rock and presumably most of them are usually submerged.
It was here that I got my next zoological treat. Given that the river wasn't flowing, all that remained were a number of fairly large, extremely shallow pools in which the water had been died a deep brown from all the tannins leeching out of the fallen leaves. In these pools were several species of fish, but the ones that got me all excited (sad I know!) were the dwarf snakeheads in the Channa genus. I've seen these in aquaria and actually kept a few briefly in my own tanks, so it was incredible to see them in the wild in their natural habitat. I would never in a million years have imagined that they would live quite happily in water so rich in tannins and so low in oxygen, but here they were.
From that point on I was pretty sure we couldn't do any better on the wildlife front, but then on the way back down we came across not one but two Blue Crested lizards (Calotes mystaceus), a male and a female. I would like to include my own photo, but at the moment I don't have the technological requirements, so you'll have to make do with one from Google images. Either way I think it's safe to say that these lizards (even to a non-lizard-enthusiast) are outstandingly beautiful.
THEY MADE MY DAY! I was grinning from ear to ear after that. You can keep your temples, this is what travelling to far flung reaches of the world is all about for me!
Anyway, with that huge success unfer our belts, we ventured onwards to 'the jewel in the crown' that is Banteay Srei - perhaps the most impressive temple in Cambodia for sheer intricacy of stone carving.
For the millionth time we were left speechless. You just have to see Banteay Srei to understand how mind-blowing the carvings are. It's insane that people were able to produce such beautiful carvings without any of the electronic machinery we use today. Just an amazing place - you'll have to wait for photos, as I didn't take any from my phone and those are the easiest to upload right now.
From Banteay Srei we headed back to the main Angkor complex to check out one more temple (Pre Rup) before walking up Bakheng Hill to catch sunset. At Pre Rup we bumped into Manuel again! He'd hired a moto (motorbike taxi) for the day and had been busy seeing as many temples as possible. We chatted briefly before he had to carry on and we climbed back down from the top to seek out the perfect angle for a photo.
Unfortunately it was soon after this that the clouds started rolling in, so as we got to the bottom of Bakheng Hill you couldn't even see the sun. What you could see were the lovely elephants they have there, who looked very well looked after indeed and had some very fancy wooden chairs set on their backs (you can pay $20 to ride an elephant up the hill for the sunset). Beautiful looking animals and different to the elephants we had seen in Thailand in that they seemed smaller and had much darker skin.
In the end there was no sunset to be had from the top. We took a few photos up there to capture the impressive view, but decided to maximise our pool time back at the hotel and call it a day.
We headed back to the hotel for a refreshing dip and then left the Central Boutique to check out another recommendation: drinks in the bar at the Raffles d'Angkor hotel. A quick stroll later and we were in the Elephant Bar in the hotel, which is a jolly fine place to be. We ordered two scrumptious cocktails and were presented with two enormous bowls of snacks. The first was bite-sized crispy rice cakes served with curry sauce, the second was full of cassava crisps. Eating both bowls would certainly have constituted a decent meal for two adults.
They have a free pool table in the bar, so I challenged Amber to a game. We're both terrible at pool, so it was only down to the fact that statistically if you take enough shots you will eventually pot the requisite number of balls that I just managed to win. I don't think the bar staff had ever seen such incompetence round a pool table. They were most amused.
Following on from our visit to Elephant Bar we headed in search of a restaurant called Curry Walla for dinner. The food there is Bangladeshi in origin and I have to say it was very tasty indeed, especially the tamarind chutney.
The Temples of Angkor - Day 1: Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, Ta Keo, Preah Khan, Angkor Thom
Thanks to getting to bed early last night, the 4:30am alarm clock wasn't too unpleasant, so both of us managed to get our act together in time to meet our tuk tuk driver, San, at 5:00am.
Cambodian tuk tuks are different to those in Thailand. The Thai ones are all enclosed, whereas the Cambodian ones are essentially a motorbike with a sheltered cart attached.
San drove us to the ticket office to buy our three-day pass and the onwards to Angkor Wat, where he dropped us at the bridge over the moat so we could walk inside the complex and find a good spot to catch the sunrise.
With it being so early, there weren't too may people around, so we had no trouble positioning ourselves on the edge of one of the ponds to get a decent shot of the sunrise. The only mild irritant was a group of giggling Japanese girls who insisted on taking each others photo directly in the way of my shot! While we waited for the sun we ate our packed breakfast (Amber had banana pancakes and honey, I had yellow noodles with chicken).
Sadly it was a little hazy, so when the sun eventually did rise, we were denied the spectacular scene of fiery orange I was hoping for and instead had to make do with a mostly grey-blue sky. Also, because we are in the dry season, the water level in the two ponds either side of the main walkway was relatively low. This meant that despite my best efforts with the camera, none of the photos came out postcard perfect. Nevertheless, just being there was great.
To be honest it would be far too time consuming to describe each of the temples we visited in much detail, so I'll post a few photos to do the talking for me. Suffice to say, I have wanted to visit these temples for a very long time and now that I have, I can honestly say they are every bit as awe-inspiring as I imagined they would be. Amber and I spent the whole day in a state of amazement. The temples are so beautiful, so intricate, so peaceful and so different from one another that I think a person searching for answers could get lost in them for days.
We started the day at Angkor Wat, which is the temple people refer to when they talk about the temples as a whole, despite the fact that it really isn't the most spectacular. Don't get me wrong, when you first see Angkor Wat it is very impressive, especially the amazing carvings in the walls - it's like the worlds most intricate wallpaper, as many of the patterns repeat over and over again - but compared to the likes of Ta Prohm (the temple which features in the Tomb Raider film) and the Bayon in Angkor Thom, it's somehow less interesting.
Our plan had always been to visit the temples recommended by friends who had visited the site before, so today we did sunrise at Angkor Wat, then went to Ta Prohm to see the ruins overgrown with the roots of enormous fig trees. A genuine case of the forest's triumph over man. The amazing thing about Ta Prohm is that the stones are all green with lichen compared to the grey colouration of Angkor Wat, so it feels very different. After Ta Prohm, we caught Ta Keo temple and then passed through Angkor Thom to visit Preah Khan. Preah Khan, like Ta Prohm, has huge trees growing out of the walls and is a very similar feeling temple, but in better condition. Again, pretty impressive. The thing that struck me most about Preah Khan alongside the detailed carvings of figures was the incredible noise of the cicadas. When they were perched within a courtyard or corridor the acoustic qualities of the stone greatly amplified the sound to produce a noise quite unlike anything I've ever heard before. It really added to the atmosphere of the temple.
We saved the biggest temple complex, Angkor Thom, for last. This area comprises several key sights, but the main ones are the Elephant Terrace, Preah Palilay, the Terrace of the Leper King, Phimeanakas, the Northern and Southern Kleang, Baphuon and Bayon. All of these were worth seeing, but the Bayon temple is easily the most impressive sight.
We had lunch within the temple complex, although it was slightly more expensive than normal, the portions were enormous. I had a delicious pork soup served with rice.
We ended our visit at Bayon, with its huge faces carved into the many towers. It's a hugely affecting place to walk around and there is a great feeling of being watched by an omnipresent king. What a fantastic way to end our first day.
After Bayon, San drove us back to the hotel to relax in the pool for a few hours. Then we headed out to get a couple of cocktails and some spring rolls, to tide us over until dinner time. Amber had sore feet from walking around the temples, so we decided to get a 15 minute massage each. Amber had what sounds like a fantastic foot massage, whereas I was attacked by a Thai lady who seemed intent on killing me (it was supposed to be a neack, shoulders and back massage, but I have my doubts). Somewhat battered an bruised I thanked her for the lovely massage, begrudgingly gave her a tip under Amber's stern gaze and then we both set off to find Angkor Palm to meet Manuel.
Unfortunately Angkor Palm wasn't open as a result of New Year, so when Manuel turned up we had to change our plans. We ate in 8th Street Bistro, where I had a fabulous beef lok lak (the other famous Cambodian dish). We managed to get a table on the first floor overlooking pub street, which was perfect, especially as they had draught Tiger beer. The conversation flowed and as expected, Manuel proved to be excellent company.
After dinner we went to find another bar with cheap drinks. Sadly all the places we looked at seemed to have horribly overpriced beer, so we wandered further afield and evetually stumbled upon a great rooftop bar called X Bar. This is a great little hangout and offers a great view of Siem Reap coupled with a skateboarding half-pipe on the roof! My kind of bar!
The bar was being temporarily run by three Aussie guys because the usual Cambodian staff were on holiday. This made for fairly slow service and some comedy moments. By far the best was when Amber ordered a beer and was presented with a glass of beer with a gecko literally frozen to the side! We have photo evidence. The great thing was that the guy hadn't even noticed the gecko was there until he put the glass down on the bar. I was a little concerned we'd discovered a local Cambodian custom, much like the cobras and scorpions in whiskey!
We stayed drinking in X Bar until gone midnight and then said our goodbyes to Manuel, having already exchanged email addresses and made firm promises to keep in touch and possibly go snowboarding with him sometime (our global network continues to grow!).
Friday, 15 April 2011
Getting to Siemreap. Welcome to SCAMbodia!
I have to admit, the night train to Bangkok exceeded all expectation. Amber and I both managed to get some decent sleep and we didn't feel too rough when we exited the train just outside Bangkok in Samsen.
This turned out to be a genius plan as we were then much nearer the Northern & North Eastern Bus terminal. We hopped in a cab (they are all air conditioned Toyota Corollas) and were at the terminal in minutes.
Finding the ticket booth was easy enough and two tickets to the boarder cost us 212 baht each. The bus was due to leave shortly after we got to the terminal at 7:30am, which gave us just enough time to buy snacks. I bought a bread roll filled with shredded pork which turned out a lot better than I was expecting it to.
On the bus we met a German dude about our age. His name is Manuel and within seconds of meeting we had agreed to share a taxi to Siemreap once we'd crossed the border.
The bus made excellent time and arrived at the stop near the border at around midday. From there the three of us crammed into a tuk tuk with all three rucksacks for the short drive to the actual border. This cost us 80 baht between us.
Once at the border, we successfully evaded the scam emigration office, where the tuk tuk driver had dumped our bags. Sadly there was already a lady there who had clearly paid them money for a form that you get for free at the main border office.
We got through passport control in the departures office and then walked to another office to obtain and fill in our entry visas. The guys there tried to scam us again by saying that we needed to pay an additional 100 baht on top of the actual visa cost of $20. When we refused to pay it they told us to sit down and wait 2 hours before they would process the visas!
We decided to call their bluff. Sure enough, they did process a few peoples' passports who had arrived after us but had paid the extra, but within 10 minutes we had all got our passports back and were on our way to the Cambodian immigration office, where we filled in yet another form in order to finally get across the border. High fives all round.
From here we got the free government shuttle bus to the main transport terminal, which took a few minutes. To our amazement there were no taxis within the terminal walls, so we took a little stroll outside and eventually were approached by someone who agreed to drive us to Siamreap for $40. This was cheaper than the guide book had prepared us for, so we were dead pleased with that result.
The drive to Siemreap was supposed to take an hour and a half. Our driver took about two and a half hours!!! This was incredible, given that most taxi drivers drive like lunatics and that the road from the transport terminal is essentially straight, with just one wide bend. We were gobsmacked.
To make matters worse, he had no idea where our hotel was in town, so in the end we made him stop the taxi by the river, so we could all get out and walk our separate ways to our respective accommodation.
We have agreed to have dinner with Manuel tomorrow night at Angkor Palm, which comes strongly recommended, to compare notes on our Angkor Wat experiences tomorrow.
The Central Boutique Angkor hotel proved relatively easy to find and we were welcomed with iced tea and big smiles. Our rooms is perfectly adequate and the swimming pool very tempting.
We were both desperate to get cleaned up after more than 24 hours in the same clothes!!!
That done, we moved our dinner to 6pm as we were starving.
Dinner was a set menu included as part of our hotel package deal. Spring rolls, glass noodle salad, pumpkin curry soup, fish amok and diced banana and mango in sweet milk. Not bad at all, although because Amber doesn't eat fish we played a game of 'pass the fish-wrapped-in-banana-leaf parcel' every time the waiter turned his back! I'm sure he didn't notice. Amber didn't want to be seen to have left her fish amok as this is considered the local delicacy in Cambodia. Personally I felt it had nothing on Chiang Mai's khow soi.
After dinner we headed into town to find the night market and a couple of cocktails. The night market was much like the night market in Chiang Mai i.e. stalls full of rubbish souvenirs. Deeply uninspiring.
We saw a funny thing. Like Chiang Mai, they have fish pedicure areas in the night market, but here in Siemreap they are using the wrong fish! We walked by shop after shop with people dunking their feet in tanks filled with either African Mbuna cichlids or Tilapia, neither of which are likely to do your feet much good, even if they are starving. We had a smug chuckle to ourselves at the hordes of backpackers trying out this amazing new experience. I'd get a better pedicure from sticking my feet in my 6'fishtank at home!
After a couple of 'Night Market' cocktails, we called it a night.
We have to be up at 4:30am tomorrow to get to Angkor Wat for sunrise. The hotel has kindly arranged us a tuk tuk driver for the day and we'll get a packed breakfast to take with us. How's that for customer service?
This turned out to be a genius plan as we were then much nearer the Northern & North Eastern Bus terminal. We hopped in a cab (they are all air conditioned Toyota Corollas) and were at the terminal in minutes.
Finding the ticket booth was easy enough and two tickets to the boarder cost us 212 baht each. The bus was due to leave shortly after we got to the terminal at 7:30am, which gave us just enough time to buy snacks. I bought a bread roll filled with shredded pork which turned out a lot better than I was expecting it to.
On the bus we met a German dude about our age. His name is Manuel and within seconds of meeting we had agreed to share a taxi to Siemreap once we'd crossed the border.
The bus made excellent time and arrived at the stop near the border at around midday. From there the three of us crammed into a tuk tuk with all three rucksacks for the short drive to the actual border. This cost us 80 baht between us.
Once at the border, we successfully evaded the scam emigration office, where the tuk tuk driver had dumped our bags. Sadly there was already a lady there who had clearly paid them money for a form that you get for free at the main border office.
We got through passport control in the departures office and then walked to another office to obtain and fill in our entry visas. The guys there tried to scam us again by saying that we needed to pay an additional 100 baht on top of the actual visa cost of $20. When we refused to pay it they told us to sit down and wait 2 hours before they would process the visas!
We decided to call their bluff. Sure enough, they did process a few peoples' passports who had arrived after us but had paid the extra, but within 10 minutes we had all got our passports back and were on our way to the Cambodian immigration office, where we filled in yet another form in order to finally get across the border. High fives all round.
From here we got the free government shuttle bus to the main transport terminal, which took a few minutes. To our amazement there were no taxis within the terminal walls, so we took a little stroll outside and eventually were approached by someone who agreed to drive us to Siamreap for $40. This was cheaper than the guide book had prepared us for, so we were dead pleased with that result.
The drive to Siemreap was supposed to take an hour and a half. Our driver took about two and a half hours!!! This was incredible, given that most taxi drivers drive like lunatics and that the road from the transport terminal is essentially straight, with just one wide bend. We were gobsmacked.
To make matters worse, he had no idea where our hotel was in town, so in the end we made him stop the taxi by the river, so we could all get out and walk our separate ways to our respective accommodation.
We have agreed to have dinner with Manuel tomorrow night at Angkor Palm, which comes strongly recommended, to compare notes on our Angkor Wat experiences tomorrow.
The Central Boutique Angkor hotel proved relatively easy to find and we were welcomed with iced tea and big smiles. Our rooms is perfectly adequate and the swimming pool very tempting.
We were both desperate to get cleaned up after more than 24 hours in the same clothes!!!
That done, we moved our dinner to 6pm as we were starving.
Dinner was a set menu included as part of our hotel package deal. Spring rolls, glass noodle salad, pumpkin curry soup, fish amok and diced banana and mango in sweet milk. Not bad at all, although because Amber doesn't eat fish we played a game of 'pass the fish-wrapped-in-banana-leaf parcel' every time the waiter turned his back! I'm sure he didn't notice. Amber didn't want to be seen to have left her fish amok as this is considered the local delicacy in Cambodia. Personally I felt it had nothing on Chiang Mai's khow soi.
After dinner we headed into town to find the night market and a couple of cocktails. The night market was much like the night market in Chiang Mai i.e. stalls full of rubbish souvenirs. Deeply uninspiring.
We saw a funny thing. Like Chiang Mai, they have fish pedicure areas in the night market, but here in Siemreap they are using the wrong fish! We walked by shop after shop with people dunking their feet in tanks filled with either African Mbuna cichlids or Tilapia, neither of which are likely to do your feet much good, even if they are starving. We had a smug chuckle to ourselves at the hordes of backpackers trying out this amazing new experience. I'd get a better pedicure from sticking my feet in my 6'fishtank at home!
After a couple of 'Night Market' cocktails, we called it a night.
We have to be up at 4:30am tomorrow to get to Angkor Wat for sunrise. The hotel has kindly arranged us a tuk tuk driver for the day and we'll get a packed breakfast to take with us. How's that for customer service?
Thursday, 14 April 2011
The world's biggest water fight...leaving Chiang Mai
So it's 9:30pm and I'm lying on the top bunk in our cabin on the night train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. The Express no less.
We've had the best day today. Got up at 7am and had breakfast whilst waiting for Nichar to show up. She had a 10km race this morning and came second. She even had a trophy to prove it.
Nichar gave us a lift on her scooter to the bottom of the road up to Wat Doi Suthep, where we jumped onto a song tao headed for the temple. The road had so many sharp bends in it, by the time we got up there both our stomachs were churning. Just glad I didn't have much at breakfast.
Doi Suthep was really cool. The entrance is lined with street vendors selling a wide variety of tasty treats. So tempting.
We headed inside and walked to a few steps to get to an open area at the bottom of the main stairway to to the temple. This staircase has two very elaborate naga (mythical sea serpents) as banisters all the way up, like all good staircases should have!
The weather was really overcast this morning and around Doi Suthep, there was thick mist, which only added to the atmosphere of the place.
As we are on day two of Songkran, there were hundreds of people at the temple saying prayers and giving thanks. You could buy lotus flowers and incense on the way in as offerings. We didn't but all the Thais did.
You take your shoes off to enter the main temple. It's very impressive. A sea of gold. Thanks to Songkran it was even more impressive today. The Thais processed around the central golden spire carrying their lotus flowers. Others were lighting candles or incense, or being blessed by one of the monks who was tying ceremonial string round their wrists. The air was full of the sound of bells. These bells are about two foot deep and arranged in rows. Usually you're not allowed to ring them, but today everyone was getting involved. It all added to the feeling of celebration.
We saw some spectacular moths. In one area there is a billboard lit at night by two enormous halogen flashlights. The two fig trees next to these lights contains some of the largest hawkmoths I have ever seen. They were giants. By far the most impressive find had to be a large pale green moon moth. I had these as pets when I was a kid in the basement of my parents' house, so to see one in the wild was really special. Even Amber had to agree it was beautiful.
Just outside the main temple we stopped to watch some young dancers dressed in traditional costume. The dancing was okay, but the thing that was really holding the crowd's attention was the way these girls were picking up money (donations to the temple) off the ground. I guess they were in their early teens and they were picking notes up off the floor by bending backwards into the crab position and then grabbing them with their mouths. Amber pointed that those skills might come in useful for then in later life if they were to pursue a somewhat less devout career path. Obviously I have no idea what she's talking about...
We left the temple at 10:15am and I bought myself a delicious snack, which consisted of pork, garlic and glutenous rice - mixed together and shaped like a sausage - on a stick. Incredible.
We texted Nichar to say we'd meet her outside Wat Prahsingh at midday and got on a song tao headed to Chiang Mai zoo. The windy road was so bad that two kids threw up during the trip down. Not ideal.
At Chiang Mai zoo we swapped song tao and headed to the Wat.
Wat Prahsingh was a hive of activity too. First there were the women selling birds in bamboo cages to be 'set free', then the people sprinkling a Buddha statue outside as a blessing. Yet more people were lighting candles and adding bright coloured streamers on sticks to what looked like a giant silver cake stand, each level filled with sand. So colourful.
We went inside two areas. In one of them sat an old monk, who seemed to be an important figure in the history of the Wat, as he featured in many of the old photos on the walls inside the temple and also appeared to be the inspiration for several gold statues. Being heathens, we failed to ascertain who he actually was, but he certainly came across as pretty enlightened. Either that or he was asleep with his eyes open!
Inside the main temple people were hanging up strips of bank notes on wires that ran the length of the hall. The 20 baht notes were arranged in plastic wallets horizontally, one above the other, as strips of five, with a golden triangle at the top and bottom. These rows of notes all ran to the far end of the hall where there was an enormous golden Buddha. It was truly spectacular.
The garden around the temple has a seating area full of proverbs in both Thai and English. Amber and I read a few of them before making our way to the temple entrance to meet up with Nichar. The plan was to get khow soi for lunch and then get properly stuck into the world's most famous water fight (Chiang Mai is reknowned as being THE place to celebrate Songkran).
We walked to the khow soi restaurant. Khow soi is a local delicacy of crispy fried noodles, a light yellow curry sauce, a chicken drumstick, some pickled veg and red onion, and a squeeze of lime. I am pleased to report that it lived up to the hype entirely. During lunch Sue and George showed up. Sue is a friend of Pete's (now doing a post-doc) and had been staying with Nichar prior to our arrival. George works for the WWF and in fact the two of them had just come back from Malaysia this morning. Lovely people with great stories. I could have chatted to both of them in the restaurant all day, but we had more important things to do. It was time to get wet.
Imagine an entire town surrounded by a moat in which every single man woman and child has decided to take to the streets with water guns, buckets and trucks carrying huge vats of ice water, all with the aim of drenching everyone else to celebrate the new year. Now take that image and make it tens times more crazy. That's what Songkran was like. I've never seen so many people having such a good time without the use of excessive amounts of alcohol or recreational drugs. And so many smiling faces!
George and Sue bought some buckets and pretty soon Nichar had blagged us onto one of the pickups carrying ice water, so we could wreak watery havoc on the crowds below. The sun had been hiding all morning, but now it was blazing. Perfect weather for a water fight. I didn't want to leave when it was time to head back to get ready in time to get a taxi to the train station. Sadly there wasn't a choice.
We walked back to Nichar's bike. The trip back was bedlam. The roads were packed with people, all soaked to the skin. Half of them were overspill from big street parties blaring out music. Some of these were being filmed for TV, presumably to show the rest of Thailand how it should be done.
Anyway, we eventually got back and packed up our bags. The taxi arrived and we said goodbye to lovely Nichar and crazy Chiang Mai.
We got to the train station nice and quick, so had a chance to grab a bite to eat before boarding the train.
Our cabin is amazing. We had been told we would only have reclining seats and no bed, but in fact we've got two beds and AIR CONDITIONING!!! Talk about luxury! So pleased with this result. Especially as neither of our fellow passengers is a) a weird, or b) a snorer. Woohoo!
We had dinner in the dining a while ago. Somehow they brought us a set meal that wasn't even on the menu, let alone being what we ordered. We also ordered a cashew nut spicy salad, which came as a plate of roasted peanuts! No points for attention to detail. We didn't pay for the peanuts.
We've had the best day today. Got up at 7am and had breakfast whilst waiting for Nichar to show up. She had a 10km race this morning and came second. She even had a trophy to prove it.
Nichar gave us a lift on her scooter to the bottom of the road up to Wat Doi Suthep, where we jumped onto a song tao headed for the temple. The road had so many sharp bends in it, by the time we got up there both our stomachs were churning. Just glad I didn't have much at breakfast.
Doi Suthep was really cool. The entrance is lined with street vendors selling a wide variety of tasty treats. So tempting.
We headed inside and walked to a few steps to get to an open area at the bottom of the main stairway to to the temple. This staircase has two very elaborate naga (mythical sea serpents) as banisters all the way up, like all good staircases should have!
The weather was really overcast this morning and around Doi Suthep, there was thick mist, which only added to the atmosphere of the place.
As we are on day two of Songkran, there were hundreds of people at the temple saying prayers and giving thanks. You could buy lotus flowers and incense on the way in as offerings. We didn't but all the Thais did.
You take your shoes off to enter the main temple. It's very impressive. A sea of gold. Thanks to Songkran it was even more impressive today. The Thais processed around the central golden spire carrying their lotus flowers. Others were lighting candles or incense, or being blessed by one of the monks who was tying ceremonial string round their wrists. The air was full of the sound of bells. These bells are about two foot deep and arranged in rows. Usually you're not allowed to ring them, but today everyone was getting involved. It all added to the feeling of celebration.
We saw some spectacular moths. In one area there is a billboard lit at night by two enormous halogen flashlights. The two fig trees next to these lights contains some of the largest hawkmoths I have ever seen. They were giants. By far the most impressive find had to be a large pale green moon moth. I had these as pets when I was a kid in the basement of my parents' house, so to see one in the wild was really special. Even Amber had to agree it was beautiful.
Just outside the main temple we stopped to watch some young dancers dressed in traditional costume. The dancing was okay, but the thing that was really holding the crowd's attention was the way these girls were picking up money (donations to the temple) off the ground. I guess they were in their early teens and they were picking notes up off the floor by bending backwards into the crab position and then grabbing them with their mouths. Amber pointed that those skills might come in useful for then in later life if they were to pursue a somewhat less devout career path. Obviously I have no idea what she's talking about...
We left the temple at 10:15am and I bought myself a delicious snack, which consisted of pork, garlic and glutenous rice - mixed together and shaped like a sausage - on a stick. Incredible.
We texted Nichar to say we'd meet her outside Wat Prahsingh at midday and got on a song tao headed to Chiang Mai zoo. The windy road was so bad that two kids threw up during the trip down. Not ideal.
At Chiang Mai zoo we swapped song tao and headed to the Wat.
Wat Prahsingh was a hive of activity too. First there were the women selling birds in bamboo cages to be 'set free', then the people sprinkling a Buddha statue outside as a blessing. Yet more people were lighting candles and adding bright coloured streamers on sticks to what looked like a giant silver cake stand, each level filled with sand. So colourful.
We went inside two areas. In one of them sat an old monk, who seemed to be an important figure in the history of the Wat, as he featured in many of the old photos on the walls inside the temple and also appeared to be the inspiration for several gold statues. Being heathens, we failed to ascertain who he actually was, but he certainly came across as pretty enlightened. Either that or he was asleep with his eyes open!
Inside the main temple people were hanging up strips of bank notes on wires that ran the length of the hall. The 20 baht notes were arranged in plastic wallets horizontally, one above the other, as strips of five, with a golden triangle at the top and bottom. These rows of notes all ran to the far end of the hall where there was an enormous golden Buddha. It was truly spectacular.
The garden around the temple has a seating area full of proverbs in both Thai and English. Amber and I read a few of them before making our way to the temple entrance to meet up with Nichar. The plan was to get khow soi for lunch and then get properly stuck into the world's most famous water fight (Chiang Mai is reknowned as being THE place to celebrate Songkran).
We walked to the khow soi restaurant. Khow soi is a local delicacy of crispy fried noodles, a light yellow curry sauce, a chicken drumstick, some pickled veg and red onion, and a squeeze of lime. I am pleased to report that it lived up to the hype entirely. During lunch Sue and George showed up. Sue is a friend of Pete's (now doing a post-doc) and had been staying with Nichar prior to our arrival. George works for the WWF and in fact the two of them had just come back from Malaysia this morning. Lovely people with great stories. I could have chatted to both of them in the restaurant all day, but we had more important things to do. It was time to get wet.
Imagine an entire town surrounded by a moat in which every single man woman and child has decided to take to the streets with water guns, buckets and trucks carrying huge vats of ice water, all with the aim of drenching everyone else to celebrate the new year. Now take that image and make it tens times more crazy. That's what Songkran was like. I've never seen so many people having such a good time without the use of excessive amounts of alcohol or recreational drugs. And so many smiling faces!
George and Sue bought some buckets and pretty soon Nichar had blagged us onto one of the pickups carrying ice water, so we could wreak watery havoc on the crowds below. The sun had been hiding all morning, but now it was blazing. Perfect weather for a water fight. I didn't want to leave when it was time to head back to get ready in time to get a taxi to the train station. Sadly there wasn't a choice.
We walked back to Nichar's bike. The trip back was bedlam. The roads were packed with people, all soaked to the skin. Half of them were overspill from big street parties blaring out music. Some of these were being filmed for TV, presumably to show the rest of Thailand how it should be done.
Anyway, we eventually got back and packed up our bags. The taxi arrived and we said goodbye to lovely Nichar and crazy Chiang Mai.
We got to the train station nice and quick, so had a chance to grab a bite to eat before boarding the train.
Our cabin is amazing. We had been told we would only have reclining seats and no bed, but in fact we've got two beds and AIR CONDITIONING!!! Talk about luxury! So pleased with this result. Especially as neither of our fellow passengers is a) a weird, or b) a snorer. Woohoo!
We had dinner in the dining a while ago. Somehow they brought us a set meal that wasn't even on the menu, let alone being what we ordered. We also ordered a cashew nut spicy salad, which came as a plate of roasted peanuts! No points for attention to detail. We didn't pay for the peanuts.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Chok Chai tour: Day 2...part II
A terrible night's sleep was followed by an equally terrible breakfast, save for the excellent boiled eggs courtesy of the prehistoric local chickens.
Breakfast was followed by a 40 minute walk to the elephant riding and bamboo rafting centre.
The elephant riding was mostly terrifying. I had imagined a gentle meander around a forest trail whilst keeping an eye out for interesting animals. Instead Amber and eye cling on for dear life as our rather grumpy elephant walked us along the side of a hill with a significant drop to one side. To be honest, if I was the size of an elephant you could not have paid me to walk along such a path with a bloody great chair on my back carrying a couple of tourists. Not surprised she was grumpy! Anyway, we both agreed that being a passenger on an elephant makes riding camels in the Sahara feel like a walk in the park.
Hard to describe how I felt about the elephants. On the one hand, the elephants were amazing and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to hang out with them. On the other hand, there was something a bit sinister about the way the elephants are treated in this place. Certainly some of the mahouts didn't seem very respectful of their wards and I saw a few elephants both young and old chained up and pacing back and forth in a deeply upsetting way. Personally I think there needs to be respect between humans and animals in order for the two to work together effectively. In this case the relationship seemed to be all about the humans.
The bamboo rafting down the river was good, but sadly we had to enjoy it in the pouring rain. As a result all we got was a rather damp view of the river bank, no wildlife. Also, our raft was perhaps 5cm underwater for the whole journey.
Having saved my trainers from getting wet on the raft by tying the laces together and hanging them round my neck, I was somewhat disappointed that we encountered a Songkran water station on our return to the elephant centre. The revellers threw a few bucketloads of water straight I'm the back of the truck where we were sitting. Let's just say the trainers weren't so dry after that.
We got stuck into a tasty buffet lunch before driving to a nearby waterfall to have a swim. The driver entertained us by backflipping into the deepest pool. I wasn't quite up to the backflips, but I did jump in a few times from the rocks surrounding the pool.
Hundreds of ephemeral insects had all emerged en masse following last night's rain, which gave the waterfall a magical quality. Really beautiful.
To get to our final activity (whitewater rafting) we had to drive a gauntlet of water stations. The girls who swam in the waterfall kept their bikinis on, which caused a real stir with the men on the water stations. For the most part they were too busy gawping to remember to throw the water! Even with thus cunning diversionary tactic we still got a good soaking...or should I say blessing?
The whitewater rafting was the perfect ending for the tour. We were split between two rafts of four plus a guide. Although the water wasn't all that white, the rapids were choppy enough to be really good fun. We were on a raft with Jo and Anna, who had never done it before. They had asked to join us after we'd received the shortest brief ever about whitewater rafting! Needless to say, they loved every second.
The stretches of calm water in between the rapids were nice and relaxing. The sun even came out. Perfect.
With the final activity complete, we set off back to Chiang Mai, which meant even more water stations. We had done some forward planning at the rafting station and bought bin liners to protect our bags, so pretty much everyone was cool with getting wet. The lovely inhabitants of outer Chiang Mai didn't let us down. We arrived back at Nichar's house looking like a pair of drowned rats.
We both felt much better after a quick shower. Nichar took us I'm the back of her Honda Wave scooter (awesome!) to have noodles at a place called 'Kin cen' and I tried two new things. The first was a dry version of tom yum noodles made with green peppercorns. Heaven. The second was a milkshake of milk and condensed milk with purple jelly. Very odd, but very tasty and perfect for combating the heat from the noodles.
Nichar left us after dinner to do some work, so we grabbed a song tao and headed to the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Most of the stalls were selling trinkets and fairly terrible souvenirs, so we didn't buy anything. However, I managed to persuade Amber to have a fish pedicure with me at a lovely little establishment called Fish Actually. Basically, your seated above a fish tank full of Garra rufa, which are a type of suckermouth loach, and you lower your feet into the tank so the fish can get to work rasping off all the old dead skin, leaving your feet nice and soft. It's one of the weirdest sensations I've ever experienced. Like really strong pins and needles, or dipping your feet in fizzy water. Amazing! Amber was in hysterics for most of our 15 minutes thanks to the tickling sensation. The fish loved her feet. At one point it looked like she had a fish sock on her right foot. The best bit was that you sit facing out of the shop, so people walking past can see your feet covered in fish through the glass along with the expression on your face!
After the pedicure we sampled some Chiang Mai Spicy Sausage and rotee with banana, condensed milk and chocolate. Then we made our way back.
By some miracle we managed to find a song tao driver willing to take us all the way to Nichar's complex for just 100 baht. Impressive given we barely knew how to say the address.
Breakfast was followed by a 40 minute walk to the elephant riding and bamboo rafting centre.
The elephant riding was mostly terrifying. I had imagined a gentle meander around a forest trail whilst keeping an eye out for interesting animals. Instead Amber and eye cling on for dear life as our rather grumpy elephant walked us along the side of a hill with a significant drop to one side. To be honest, if I was the size of an elephant you could not have paid me to walk along such a path with a bloody great chair on my back carrying a couple of tourists. Not surprised she was grumpy! Anyway, we both agreed that being a passenger on an elephant makes riding camels in the Sahara feel like a walk in the park.
Hard to describe how I felt about the elephants. On the one hand, the elephants were amazing and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to hang out with them. On the other hand, there was something a bit sinister about the way the elephants are treated in this place. Certainly some of the mahouts didn't seem very respectful of their wards and I saw a few elephants both young and old chained up and pacing back and forth in a deeply upsetting way. Personally I think there needs to be respect between humans and animals in order for the two to work together effectively. In this case the relationship seemed to be all about the humans.
The bamboo rafting down the river was good, but sadly we had to enjoy it in the pouring rain. As a result all we got was a rather damp view of the river bank, no wildlife. Also, our raft was perhaps 5cm underwater for the whole journey.
Having saved my trainers from getting wet on the raft by tying the laces together and hanging them round my neck, I was somewhat disappointed that we encountered a Songkran water station on our return to the elephant centre. The revellers threw a few bucketloads of water straight I'm the back of the truck where we were sitting. Let's just say the trainers weren't so dry after that.
We got stuck into a tasty buffet lunch before driving to a nearby waterfall to have a swim. The driver entertained us by backflipping into the deepest pool. I wasn't quite up to the backflips, but I did jump in a few times from the rocks surrounding the pool.
Hundreds of ephemeral insects had all emerged en masse following last night's rain, which gave the waterfall a magical quality. Really beautiful.
To get to our final activity (whitewater rafting) we had to drive a gauntlet of water stations. The girls who swam in the waterfall kept their bikinis on, which caused a real stir with the men on the water stations. For the most part they were too busy gawping to remember to throw the water! Even with thus cunning diversionary tactic we still got a good soaking...or should I say blessing?
The whitewater rafting was the perfect ending for the tour. We were split between two rafts of four plus a guide. Although the water wasn't all that white, the rapids were choppy enough to be really good fun. We were on a raft with Jo and Anna, who had never done it before. They had asked to join us after we'd received the shortest brief ever about whitewater rafting! Needless to say, they loved every second.
The stretches of calm water in between the rapids were nice and relaxing. The sun even came out. Perfect.
With the final activity complete, we set off back to Chiang Mai, which meant even more water stations. We had done some forward planning at the rafting station and bought bin liners to protect our bags, so pretty much everyone was cool with getting wet. The lovely inhabitants of outer Chiang Mai didn't let us down. We arrived back at Nichar's house looking like a pair of drowned rats.
We both felt much better after a quick shower. Nichar took us I'm the back of her Honda Wave scooter (awesome!) to have noodles at a place called 'Kin cen' and I tried two new things. The first was a dry version of tom yum noodles made with green peppercorns. Heaven. The second was a milkshake of milk and condensed milk with purple jelly. Very odd, but very tasty and perfect for combating the heat from the noodles.
Nichar left us after dinner to do some work, so we grabbed a song tao and headed to the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Most of the stalls were selling trinkets and fairly terrible souvenirs, so we didn't buy anything. However, I managed to persuade Amber to have a fish pedicure with me at a lovely little establishment called Fish Actually. Basically, your seated above a fish tank full of Garra rufa, which are a type of suckermouth loach, and you lower your feet into the tank so the fish can get to work rasping off all the old dead skin, leaving your feet nice and soft. It's one of the weirdest sensations I've ever experienced. Like really strong pins and needles, or dipping your feet in fizzy water. Amazing! Amber was in hysterics for most of our 15 minutes thanks to the tickling sensation. The fish loved her feet. At one point it looked like she had a fish sock on her right foot. The best bit was that you sit facing out of the shop, so people walking past can see your feet covered in fish through the glass along with the expression on your face!
After the pedicure we sampled some Chiang Mai Spicy Sausage and rotee with banana, condensed milk and chocolate. Then we made our way back.
By some miracle we managed to find a song tao driver willing to take us all the way to Nichar's complex for just 100 baht. Impressive given we barely knew how to say the address.
Chok Chai tour: Day 2...part I
Wow. Just had possibly the worst night's sleep ever.
Last night was hilarious! Shortly after drifting off into a peaceful slumber, having finished yesterday's blog entry, everything went a bit wrong. Firstly, the construction of the huts meant that the slightest movement by Amy of the pyre people on our side of the hut set the whole floor into motion, which meant constantly being woken up every few minutes. Secondly, it turns out that bamboo flooring isn't quite as forgiving to lie on as a mattress. This, coupled with the world's slimmest pillow ment that your neck was permanently uncomfortable. However, these two factors were the east of our worries.
It started to rain. A full blown tropical thunder storm. Not a huge problem if your safely ticked away in a house or hotel, bit it turns out our bamboo dorm hadn't really been constructed with potential rain in mind. So along with the incredible lightning and thunder, Amber and I were not only treated to rain zipping through the late gaps in the side wall next to where we were sleeping, but also to rain coming directly through the thatched roof! Just what we needed to help us get some rest. Thankfully the girls shifted around to share nets so that we could move to a drier spot.
The fun didn't stop there. Shortly after we'd migrated to the other side of the dorm, there was a rather amusing incident involving a very large cave centipede, that had positioned itself between the mosquito nets of two of the girls we were on the tour with (Jo and Anna). This led to much panic and screaming on Jo's part and a flat refusal to get back under her mosquito net. I tried to help, but only succeeded in sending the creature scurrying round the back of the nets. The situation wasn't helped by Abba turning up to find out what all the commotion was about, only to then point out that at least it hadn't been a big wolf spider, like the one he then managed to spot on the roof of the dorm! Not particularly dangerous to humans, but you can imagine how the girls felt after that.
After a few minutes everyone settled back down to sleep, helped by Jo and Anna who insisted on playing a reassuring game of 'fortunately/unfortunately' between the two of them.
Sadly, the peace didn't last. Turns out the centipede hadn't finished it's campaign of terror and decided to do a lap or two on the inside of Jen and Rema's mozzie net. Cue yet more screaming. From the relative safety of our net, it was all pretty hilarious!
And so, for the third time we all tried to get some sleep with the rain storm continuing around us.
Fortunately, the rain abated eventually. Unfortunately...just as my ears had filtered out the buzz of the cicadas, another insect would start up and occupy my brain. This, coupled with the movement of the bamboo floor made for some very fitful sleep.
And then the chicks started creeping at 3am, followed by the roosters at 5am (still pitch black).
At 7:30am we gave up and got out of bed.
I have to admit, I've felt better.
Last night was hilarious! Shortly after drifting off into a peaceful slumber, having finished yesterday's blog entry, everything went a bit wrong. Firstly, the construction of the huts meant that the slightest movement by Amy of the pyre people on our side of the hut set the whole floor into motion, which meant constantly being woken up every few minutes. Secondly, it turns out that bamboo flooring isn't quite as forgiving to lie on as a mattress. This, coupled with the world's slimmest pillow ment that your neck was permanently uncomfortable. However, these two factors were the east of our worries.
It started to rain. A full blown tropical thunder storm. Not a huge problem if your safely ticked away in a house or hotel, bit it turns out our bamboo dorm hadn't really been constructed with potential rain in mind. So along with the incredible lightning and thunder, Amber and I were not only treated to rain zipping through the late gaps in the side wall next to where we were sleeping, but also to rain coming directly through the thatched roof! Just what we needed to help us get some rest. Thankfully the girls shifted around to share nets so that we could move to a drier spot.
The fun didn't stop there. Shortly after we'd migrated to the other side of the dorm, there was a rather amusing incident involving a very large cave centipede, that had positioned itself between the mosquito nets of two of the girls we were on the tour with (Jo and Anna). This led to much panic and screaming on Jo's part and a flat refusal to get back under her mosquito net. I tried to help, but only succeeded in sending the creature scurrying round the back of the nets. The situation wasn't helped by Abba turning up to find out what all the commotion was about, only to then point out that at least it hadn't been a big wolf spider, like the one he then managed to spot on the roof of the dorm! Not particularly dangerous to humans, but you can imagine how the girls felt after that.
After a few minutes everyone settled back down to sleep, helped by Jo and Anna who insisted on playing a reassuring game of 'fortunately/unfortunately' between the two of them.
Sadly, the peace didn't last. Turns out the centipede hadn't finished it's campaign of terror and decided to do a lap or two on the inside of Jen and Rema's mozzie net. Cue yet more screaming. From the relative safety of our net, it was all pretty hilarious!
And so, for the third time we all tried to get some sleep with the rain storm continuing around us.
Fortunately, the rain abated eventually. Unfortunately...just as my ears had filtered out the buzz of the cicadas, another insect would start up and occupy my brain. This, coupled with the movement of the bamboo floor made for some very fitful sleep.
And then the chicks started creeping at 3am, followed by the roosters at 5am (still pitch black).
At 7:30am we gave up and got out of bed.
I have to admit, I've felt better.
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