travel.urbanwide.com: thai Archives

November 03, 2005

Fire Starter

Still a few sets behind with the photos, this is the last set from Thailand. We were sad to see Mr Wheeler go last week - we've had a wicked time wandering round Laos & Thailand with him & especially some top fun with the motorbikes. Tried to repeat the motorbike fun yesterday in what turned out to be Typhoon weather, but more on that another time!!

It was a long bus journey down to Chumphon and even though we arrived at about 2 in the morning, the lovely lady from the guesthouse Josie had phoned earlier (Anyone help me with the name?) was waiting there for us to pick us up. Early the next morning we caught a ferry over to Koh Tao where we spent the next few days...

[2 South Thailand galleries here and here]

We hired bikes again on Koh Tao, although this time the roads weren't up to much which made our ride around and eventually up to the lookout/resturant point a very tricky one. The view at the top was worth it, as was the food and now we can all now qualify for the TV program Kick Start and probably actually do quite well :)

Josie and I also had fantastic Thai massages (by two very nice ladies) which although pretty brutal (we didn't really know what brutal meant until the next one - see later) at times, worked wonders on my shoulders which have been much better since.

It was also Rob's birthday on Koh Tao; as you can imagine this was celebrated in true Rob Lee style. The chaps enjoyed the cigars, thank you Shaun & Sarah! Cards and pressies were also very much appreciated too!

With a "Rob Lee drunk" hangover of doom we headed over to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon party. We decided to stay on the other side of the island so we didn't have to worry about our stuff getting nicked while we were at the party. It turned out to be quite fun to get there.. a 30 minute ride in a truck across very unfinished rocky roads (with hangover not good) or a boat ride where you get quite wet. (more on this later).

So we decided to get to the Full Moon party by boat which we didn't realise would mean getting most of our bottom halves wet in order to get in the boat. Result: pockets full of toasted gadgets. My camera was fairly stuffed anyway but this finished it off along with Rob's phone (number 2) which is now being fixed by a nice man in Bangkok for hopefully not too much money. My compact flash card with all my photos on has somehow managed to revive itself now (yay!) and we bought a cheap camera in Bangkok which is similar to the old one and will do for now (will be treating myself to a nice new on in Hong Kong!).

The Full Moon party was actually pretty cool - lots of huge sound systems and lots of buckets of vodka/redbull drinks. Josie and I got glowing things painted on our shoulders, I am sure we must have looked cool :) hehe. We got a boat back at about 6 in the morning and had to leave for Koh Samui the next day in order to fly back to Bangkok. Josie and James had to fly all the way home too, it was a long day!!

Oh I almost forgot about the sand massage (actually Josie I never gave you money for that!). Josie and I thought we would get another massage on Koh Phangan as the last one had been good. What we failed to appreciate was that we had spent the morning sunbathing and had got particularly sunburnt and still had sand on our legs from being on the beach. This resulted in the most voluntarily painful hour ever. The ladies rubbed oil into the sand on our legs and then rubbed it very hard into our sun burn. Ouch, I do not recommend it one bit!

Rob says Hello to all the Nans out there!

Posted by deb at 08:20 AM | Comments (2)

October 23, 2005

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Josie and James have now returned home after an excellent 3 weeks in Thailand, it was really cool to see them and it was sad to see them go. We're a bit behind with the site at the moment, mainly to do with the increased amount of beer drinking with the Kids, so were now in Laos (which is lovely by the way), but next up for photos is Kanchanaburi.

We took a train from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi - it was a proper old style train with wooden seats and windows you can pull down and stick your head right out of which was quite cool. The next day was pretty much dedicated to having a nosy at the Kwai Bridge, the War Museum and main Memorial which was all quite an eye opener for someone like me who never really listened in history lessons but wished they had now. Oh and on that evening me and Josie took rickshaws back to the place we were staying (hurty feet after a long day) and the boys got motorbike-taxis. Looked like hard work for the poor rickshaw drivers though.

The next day was more light hearted, and I know Mum won't be very happy about it but I am going to tell you anyway. We hired motorbikes and rode out into the countryside, it was top fun though. Under the guidance of Mr Wheeler, we managed to find a fantastic unlisted temple with a huge glistening Budda and we met a friendly monk who chatted to us for a while and seemed to spend most of his time in a cave, I think blessing people.

A quick addition - videos of us all on bikes - here and here.

[2 Kanchanaburi galleries here and here]

Posted by deb at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2005

18/10/2005-02:49:11

happy birthday to me

Posted by robl at 02:49 AM | Comments (2)

October 13, 2005

13/10/2005-11:06:30

lights on the beach

Posted by robl at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

October 11, 2005

11/10/2005-03:06:18

easy riders

Posted by robl at 03:06 AM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2005

10/10/2005-06:20:48

bridge over the river kwai

Posted by robl at 06:21 AM | Comments (0)

October 09, 2005

Do do do the funky Gibbon

Today we are taking a break from blogging and have a special guest poster in the form of Miss Josie Smith...

Ok, here goes! We arrived in Bangkok after an 11 hour flight, just about made it. It's been great to see Deb and Rob again and when we met up at the hotel I couldn't keep the tears back. Bangkok is a great place. We've been to Khao San Road, full of bars and market stalls. Rob and Wheeler have even tried Scorpion, well we all tried a bit in the end. We have also been to see the Emerald Buddah with temple buildings full of colour and got some great photos. Shopping is very good here and we have all done really well bartering with the stall holders and getting good discounts, which was fun.

After a couple of days seeing the sights in Bangkok we travelled north to Khao Yai which is a national park. We stopped off for a night in Pak Chong a town near by and after a lovely dinner and a few beers, got brave and tried fried frogs! They, of course, tasted like chicken...We stayed quite close to the park in lodges fully equiped with air con, it's unbelivably hot here. We have completed 2 day treks and a night trek, unfortunatly not actually sleeping in the jungle, which would have been fun. Treks came fully equiped with leech socks, which worried me. Wheeler was the first to get one on his arm and instead of immediately helping we all got our cameras out! We have seen quite a few animals, deers, monkeys, weird looking spiders, gibbons, seen elephant tracks and also treked and swam in a waterfall after crossing a knee depth river on foot. What a fantastic couple of days.