First "while" in Thailand

To all those waiting for some info on how things are going (Dayne), sorry this first post of the blog has taken so long.. (more photo's to be added)

You see, there just has not been any time whatsoever. One of the greatest lessons learnt so far, is simply how busy one becomes. There is never a shortage of things to do, events to partake in, even if it entails lying on the beach doing nothing except catching some rays.. Or chilling in a hammock after a long, honest day's exploring.. You can't write a blog at those times.

There are designated times to do these things, time designated to eating for example.

Now when it comes to food, you understand just HOW important it is to both Romy and I. This is not something to be taken lightly, as the effects of going without can be catastrophic!! Brain stops working, tensions mount. Roughly 90% of all the arguments/little niggles and “fights” that Romy and I have had, which, I think, are not many, have occurred when one or the other or both of us have been ravenous.

Anyway, the Thai food is absolutely amazing!! The variety, aromas, sights, smells, tastes, burns, price, all of it.. WOW. I think I may have had Pad Thai (fried noodles with veg, usually sprouts, carrot, cabbage, with egg and crushed nuts to sprinkle) nearly every day, be it breakfast lunch or supper. The reason – everyone does it differently, and it’s just SO good. From the food markets you can get it for 30Baht, about R7.50.. LEKKA!

Night Market.. YUUMMMM!!

Lots of kebabs of chicken, prawns, pork, squid.. When you pass these your insides turn and twist and gyrate, screaming “give me give me!!” – Think of braai smell, only with a Thai spice twist..

Variety at market = awesomeness

SQUID KEBABS!!

Tucking in to goodness.. we were the only ones using our fingers - go figure!!

mmmm Soup!

Tucking in to these AMAZING pancake things in Trang - Trang has best food by far, just haven't got there with the blog yet!

There have been a few winners, and a few failures. Within the first week we had broken all the ‘rules’ about what not to eat and we have been fine.. hey, you have to try everything once!! Truth be told, we could still get a little bit more adventurous, will let you know how that goes…

The best meal so far must have been when we were staying in Patong, Phuket. We had had a huge party that night (more on that in a future post), and on the way home we passed a night market. Stomachs yelling “GIVE ME GIVE ME” we gunned straight for the kebab stand. Romy ordered livers on a stick (superb!), and  I ordered this delicious smelling/looking braaied pork – a whole bag of it!

Started drunkinly munching on the stuff, thought “hmm, first couple of pieces a bit fatty”, couple more pieces just as fatty.. What I’d ordered was a huge bag of pork fat, but not cooked enough to be called Crackling. Soft, squigy, fatty, pork fat. Mapped about 2/3’s of the bag. No short term damage done.

But that aside – honestly there is nothing we have eaten so far which has not been delicious. The dodgy looking soups, pancakes, sausage thingies, rice dishes, noodle dishes.. All great, which is also a good thing as you can’t expect to get what you ordered from a menu either. At least at a market you can point to that-which-you-have-no-idea-what-it-is, and get what you want.

Awesome stuff, but enough about food!! Now you know how important it was seeing as I discussed it first!

So far, in as brief as possible we have visited the following:

First up, flew into Phuket Island, and went through to Phuket Town. Thought this would be a great starting point for doing the islands around the Andaman Sea. Not really what we expected at all. Very built up, but with old buildings, not many high rises. In our opinion – kak place, why would anyone ever want to go there?!

Phuket does have some great beaches though (beaches not bietches), on the West coast – Patong, Kata and Karon. After 2 nights of acclimatising (i.e. – “Where the fuck are we?!”) we decided to head to Patong, which we were subsequently told by our helpful guesthouse host Mannit, was “Busy Busy”.

It was the first time we had properly packed our backpacks, as on the flights we had an extra bag etc to make things more convenient. Haha – there’s a picture with Romy with her backpack on laughing about it, it was all we could do. Man we were full to the brim (never mind the 7.5 litres of water I stashed into my bag). Walking with those bags, in that heat, not really knowing where you are going except “pink bus pink bus”.. It does test one’s confidence and staying power within themselves. But looking back even over this short period, it’s amazing to see how quickly you adapt and get used to it! And somehow the bags have either stretched or we’ve lost some stuff, because there’s more space, and the bags are definitely lighter…

Kief - All packed and ready to roll!

Pink bus stop - but the wrong pink bus stop!!

Back to Patong – Whoa. The only thing I could compare it to, is a coastal Camden Town, on horse steroids!! I think I heard someone compare it to the French Riviera, on horse steroids, but I cannot comment on that. One thing for certain – the place is crazy!!

What I’m sure was once a happy, quaint little coastal village, has been transformed into a sinful metropolis, a modern day Sodom & Gomorrah, swarming with tourists wanting drugs, booze, ping pong shows, or sexy time with local Thai girls or lady boys. Oh and a little bit of sun on the side. You won’t believe it until you experience the vibe of the place.

Packed Patong

Packed beaches either side

Romy dodging all manner of motorised vehicles and drunken holiday goers

The place was full of paradoxes. The amount of overweight, rather hideous looking Europeans, with a toight looking Thai on his arm was frightening – EVERYWHERE you looked. Yet at the same time, honest looking 60+ year old couples just wandering around with their cameras, just wanting to have a nice peaceful holiday??

Buses and taxis and motorbikes and scooters – everytime you cross the street *ZOOOM* “Oh hello life, almost lost you there..”. Yet, we had originally wanted to stay at a place called Cheap Charlie’s backpackers, but they had no room for us. The owner, Greg, said “no problem, phone me when you get to Patong, and I’ll take you to a place across  the street where you will get accommodation.” So we phoned him, outside a McDonalds. 40 min (should have been 10), this hippy looking ballie with oversize sunglasses, and one of those little pony tails to the side, made out of a bit of hair just at the base of his head, drives up in a klapped out Hilux, and kindly picks us up and sorts us out.

During the day – busy costal town, beach is packed with tourists, not much free sand, all taken up with beach loungers and umbrellas. Fools going parasailing for literally 2.5mins.

At night – Bangla Road, lights, sounds, Thai boxing, sex, beer, cocktails, buckets, ladyboys, ping pong shows, sex, music, mayhem, madness, mortified!!

Cocktails – Probably our favourite place was an old VW Kombi, painted bright pink, open top, kitted with some banging sound, with a few tables and chairs laid out in front, and serving the most awesome cocktails. A bit pricy, but what isn’t in Patong. Definitely worth the vintage points!

The PIENK VW.. Yeah!

Romy dodging more traffic...

Bangla Road Mayhem

Mortified – that seems to be the most apt word to describe Romy after the ping pong show we attended (only live once..) Shooting ping pongs, pulling out strings of razor blades, popping balloons 3m away with a well-directed dart, playing an instrument similar to a harmonica, LIVE BUDGIES, in the words of the Sound of Music, “These are a few of my favourite things..” Haha, no not really, but was a seriaas eye opener. Note – as with the Springfield Ballet, best attended once raucously drunk!

Love it, hate it.. The list goes on and on! An Aussie guy, let’s just call him Bruce, said that it was his absolute favourite place in Thailand. Then again, he was handing out Jagers, had a few chops, and had a bit of a mullet. For Romy and I – glad we experienced it, but been there, done that, never again. After 2 nights there, and a total of 4 nights in Phuket, we decided enough was enough, and hightailed it out of there by ferry to Koh Phi Phi, and some much sought after cheap, beautiful island existence.

Day 5 – morning ferry to Phi Phi. We were really excited as to what to expect – very keen to get away from commercial tourist mania. Well, I’m afraid to say, Phi Phi is also tourist central – although light years better than Patong in that regard. Romy summed Phi Phi up precisely, when she said that it was too beautiful for its own good. And it is. Wow. The postcards and the photos do not do it justice. No wonder tourists flock to it. Amazingly white sand beaches, breathtaking limestone cliffs, turquoise crystal clear water, supreme snorkeling. It is paradise (a word I’m sure I will be using regularly).

Koh Phi Phi amazingness - see facebook for more!

Most of this was wiped out by the tsunami - has pretty much all been rebuilt - perfect for the 2 week getaway, but not the best for a real chilled thai authentic experience

mean hike up many many stairs to this viewpoint!

Once we had dumped out kit in our bungalow, we headed straight for the beach. At the north end of the beach were a couple backpackerish/hippyish bars, we went to Stones, which in our opinion had the best vibe going, with chill out mats and palm leaf shade on the beachfront. Mango shakes were ordered. Apparently fire shows from 9-10pm – mental note made.

By this stage of our travels, Romy and I had already made a few rules. The first being that if you do 3 loskop or stupid acts, or one major act of folly, the other person can challenge the culprit to any ridiculous dare that the other chooses.

After a couple of Chang quarts from Cheap-O, aptly named as he had a little corner store selling the cheapest beer and cheapest water, Romes and I went to watch the fire show. We were sitting on the sand by another place called Hippies, and we had to get up for some reason. Either to go to the loo or to pay Cheap-O another visit. Anyway, when we got back down to the beach we parked off at another spot. About 45mins later, it was now dark, I suddenly realised that I didn’t have my camera on me! Panic stations, frenetic search in the sand after retracing of steps, found the thing half buried in the sand where we previously were sitting. Romy may have gripped my throat with her hand out of frustration with me – at this stage no photos had been backed up! So that counted as a major act of folly – dare coming up..

The fire show at Stones was mind blowing – guys and girls that do this every day of their lives, for a living. Chains, staff, short baton-type sticks, a hula-hoop with about 10 different places of fire, all backed up by some banging psyc trance and later some dubstep (interesting but effective combination). We’d seen a couple people smoking spliffs, and 
our eyes were scanning the periphery for the supplier.

Yeah - he was pretty insane!

What we organised was the biggest bat I’ve seen since the days of Powerbong. Was naturally very excited to be smoking some Thai pot. Upon lighting the bat however, I was most disappointed, and I exclaimed to Romy, with a look of utmost disgust on my face, “Tastes like JUT!!” Well – that guy sure showed me. Not being a pot smoker for a very long long time, I’d forgotten that you scoff at the outset of smoking any kind of spliff at your own peril! We didn’t even finish it! What followed was much pontificating, philosophising, laughing and other weird garbled noises, coming predominantly from Romy I imagine..

One moment of epiphany was the DJ box layout – it was actually really awesome. Where the fire show had been was on a platform made out of compacted sand on a wooden base. Just behind this platform, raised about 3-4m on palm tree stilts, was the DJ box, with him looking down over the transpiring events. In our enlightened state, we figured that the reason it was like this, was because if there was another tsunami, the DJ all the way up there, would be safe and unaffected, still able to bang his tunes, and the party, even though being swept away, would still carry on… great hey….

Now where the fire show had taken place, it turned into a dancefloor afterwards. Every now and then, one of the people who were doing the show would get up and go jam, doing all this weird and cool looking shit – everyone of a different nationality had their own style of dancing, was pretty kiff to watch. My dare was to go onto the dancefloor when no one was on it, a bit pissed and very goofed up, and jam. So I did – wasn’t long before I wasn’t mentally moving my appendages, they were jamming all by themselves.. I only wish that my mates were there to come jam too, tunes were too good!

At this stage, being 22 Feb 2011, no more dares have been given out, although I am on 1 for losing my headlight (DOH) – but due to a number of factors including price, importance, replaceability, it doesn’t count as a major act of folly!

The next couple days were spent on Phi Phi, just soaking up the sun, enjoying the beauty, and spending hours in the water – snorkeling, snorkeling and more snorkeling! The variety and amount of fish – amazing! On one of the days, we caught a long tail boat with a German/Polish couple we’d met, (the guy Ludwig had his arm in a sling from a fall in the deep outback of Aus – took 3 days to get him to a hospital to operate), and a few others, and did a tour of Phi Phi Don (where the accommodation is), Phi Phi Ley (where The Beach was shot), Monkey Island and Bamboo Island. Along the way we stopped off a few times in order to snorkel. The snorkeling off Long Beach was probably the best – quite a few Black Tip sharks.. very cool!

On the last day we were there (3 days, 4 nights), we decided to go for a walk, explore the island by foot. We walked to a few amazing viewpoints, and down to another lesser known part of the island called Rantee Bay. For me, the best part of Phi Phi. Not as beautiful as the main areas, no big bars/clubs/restaurants/markets/shops/divingshops, but really laid back, proper backpacker vibe Bay, few bungalow places, away from the maddening crowd, with their own rustic bars. But it’s all about what you are looking for I suppose!

Day ?? – Koh Lanta. Spent 4 or 5 nights on this island.

Koh Lanta was a fantastic place – quite a few tourists, but the island was large enough for everyone to be adequately dispersed. A large local community/population of very friendly people, meant that a degree of integration has been achieved, and interaction was really easy. Spent the first night at a resort called the Blue Andaman, and went for a swim/walk later that day, where we discovered a beautiful looking bay with a few rustic looking backpacker bars and bamboo bungalows. Went and spoke to the guys at Sea Culture, and they had a bungalow available for us the following day, cheaper than where we were staying and MUCH more suited to our style.

A lesson was thus learnt – one that  we have and will use many times in the future – book into a place for one night, doesn’t matter how it is, that day, do some exploring and find something for the following nights, more suited to what you want, and guaranteed you will find something, cheaper and nicer!

Sea Culture Was also the first place that kind of met our expectations of what Thai islands would be like – laid back, a few travellers, Thais with dreads smoking small palm leaf cigarettes and joints.. A place you could lose yourself and stay for a couple months at least!

Sea Culture - great spot to unwind.. so naaice!

Hired our first scooter – Eric, to do some exploring. Best way to get around if the island is big enough. Although the roads can be quite busy – might is right, other drivers are generally well aware, and if accidents happen, it seems it’s generally due to driver/rider incompetence (like the one girl who had driven into a bush around a bend).

Eric did give us a scare however. With Romy on the back, I started to do a U-Turn to get back to our resort. The proverbial “Stuck-Accelerator” occurred, which caused the turning circle to be much bigger. Jammed the front brake a couple times, all that induced was some slidage and nearly slipping out, as the back break didn’t work. Ended up smashing into a parked Isuzu bakkie, clipping the side mirror. But that straightened us out and I switched off the bike and we came to a halt. Was expecting the worst as the sound was quite loud, as it always is, and I was sure we’d smashed the mirror off. Luckily though, The mirror was able to clip back into the place, and no damage was done to the body of the bakkie or the body of Eric as I realised I’d put my leg inbetween the 2. The bruise and lump on my shin subsequently provided evidence of this. A near miss, but simply taking it easy on the road will keep you safe. Bad Eric.

How cool do I look on Eric!?!

Koh Lanta Old Town pier - Romy looking like an evil version of Knight Rider..

Umm... we must have been stationery??!

Went and visited the National Park in the south of the island. Really pretty, some beautiful large trees which we still need to find the names for. Visited the Old Town – like a sleepy fishing village. The night markets in Lanta were also awesome – loads of clothes, gadgets, general crap, and amazing food!

Lanta has a great balance of what anyone may be looking for. Ie Long Beach – heavily resorted and populated with tourists up north, through to Klong Khong we were in the middle, through to very isolated, serene and untouched bays such as Kantiang.Days were spent lying in hammocks, playing back gammon and checkers, swimming, a bit of snorkelling, walks, eating. Was really relaxed and just what we needed.

Our humble bamboo bungalow - perfect!

Beach outside Sea Culture

More beach - other side..

A typical night's activities...

On one of the nights ,9 Feb, we went to a reggae concert – main act was a famous Thai reggae group called Job 2 Do (do do do do da ya – is his most famous and most catchy tune, maybe try youtube it). See separate post for a more thorough description of this night.

After our last full day there, with Romy sporting a monumental hangover, we had one last mellow night, with slight reluctance and heavy hearts, yet excitement for the new destinations ahead, departed by minibus ferry for the lesser known southern town of Trang.

More detail of places visited and stories worth retelling coming up in future posts…

Laters,

In sunsets so sumptuous.. we say farewell.. 

Luke and Romy