Asian Diary... THAILAND, January/February 2003

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Koh Lipeh
Koh Lanta
Koh Phi Phi
Bangkok
Ayutthaya
Chiang Mai

Photo collection of the Southern Islands
Photo collection of Bangkok

Date: 29^th January
Text by: Carlos

Well, after the excitement of Thaipusaum in Malaysia, we decided to head somewhere a little quieter and relax on the beach for a few days. The perfect islans resort ofr a backpacker...
Nope, not Koh Tao, or the full moon party island of Koh Pang Ngang, but the tiny fishing village of Koh Lipeh, nestled away from the crowds in Koh Turatao National Marine Park

We have to admit, this place was recommended by the girls in Sydney, and as they recommended absolutely nowhere else in Asia, we thought we'd better check it out.
So a quick bus across to Hat Yai in Thailand (a problem with me losing my visa at the border and having no money to pay for them in the first place.. DOH!) and then straight to the tiny village of Pak Bara, where you catch the 4hr ferry to the Islands.
By pure luck, we got there with just 1 hour spare for the ferry, then met up with a couple we last met selling their van in Kings Cross! Small world...

The island itself is pretty small, and if it wasnt't for the small rocks and cliffs arounf the edges, you could probably walk around it ina n hour. Howvere there are, so you need to take the "longtail boats" around the bays, so off the ferry and onto the longtail and we got ripped off. Instead of dropping us at the beach we wanted, he took us to completely the opposite side and told us to get off, charging us 60Baht for his trouble.
So after a 15 minute walk directly across the island with our bags, we found ourselves at a beautiful resort called "The PORN Resort". NO jokes, please, but the place really did seem full of Swedish and Germans...

It's a gorgeous set of islands though. It's only just opened up to tourism, so very quiet and quite clean. The poeple aren;t Thais, but "Chao Ley", or "Sea Gypsies", who used to raom the Thai islands, never settling and just fishing each island for a few months. They have "animistic" beliefs (not hindu, buddhist, muslim) and their own style of cooking, which is really good!

... And the beaches are just stunning. Golden sand, fringed by coconut palms and reef-fiiled sea. You could walk out from our private bungalow (250 baht a night... 4 quid) and into the sea for a quick snorkel before breakfast. I was a happy man!

Unfortunately, Anna caught a cold and stayed in bed for most of the first 3-4days on the island, leaving me to go on trips around the islands (Koh Turatao, Koh Adang amongst them), snorkelling some of the most beautiful soft coral gardens on my own (or with the Euro-tourists!). I also had to go diving on my own as Anna couldn't equalise her ears from the snotty congestion, which was a real shame. Although the visibility was very low and the current in the sea so strong that most of the 2nd dive was spent swimming in 1 direction and not actually getting anywhere!

But, we had a great time there, eating and drinkng every night, met a a lot of cool people escaping the hordes, and basically got fat on coconut curries and Chang beer. Marvellous!

The people here are so friendly and none more so than at the palce we like dot eat, just a little way fdown the beach from us. "Fisherman's Village", a small, very chilled place (With the slogan... "No Sea, No Fish, No Fisherman! Welcome to Fisherman's Village!"), run by 2 friends from Bangkok, Ban and Gun, was very special. We went for drinks one night and the staff come over to chat for half an hour every now and again, as they get bored with work! And the food was excellent! Highly recommended!

Koh Phi Phi

Ko Phi Phi islands consists of Ko Phi Phi Don (the larger island with all your accomodation needs including a "Holiday Inn") and Ko Phi Phi Leh (an uninhabited smaller island and setting of "The Beach").

Warnings had been given to us over the previous couple of weeks which went along the lands of "beautiful but very overcrowded" so we took heed of these comments and decided that a day trip would suffice from Ko Lanta.
Perhaps 1987 would have been a good time to have seen the island, but now 15 years after the first tourists discovered it and the Hollywood film crew moved in with Leo Di Caprio in 1998 I suggest avoid it like the plague.

The island is more than just overcrowded, it swarms with tourists from everywhere in the world and offers not just simple bungalow accomodation but lavish and luxiourious hotel apartments. In fact the town on Phi Phi Don is a little smelly due to the rubbish piled everywhere (but cannot be seen in every picture perfect postcard!) and a sewage system that ran out of money when being developed! All in all, if you can see past all the tourists, the horrible accomodation blocks, the smell, the hundreds of noisy boats, and the thousands of deck chairs that line the beach then it is a beatiful island!

Its neighbour, Ko Phi Phi Leh, a national marine park and home to noone is of course stunning. You can all sit back and conjure up images from the film staring the wonderful Leo and that beautiful beach called Maya Bay, where most of the film was set (or so I am told since I haven't actually seen it!).

Now add to that 30 odd anchored boats around the bay and over 500 bodies floating face down (the Thai tourists can;t swim, so most are also in life jackets and are called "the Red Coats" by the Islanders!)in the sea staring at what is left of the coral and fish life. It ruins that picture of tranquility and makes you feel like one of those terrible tourists (which in fact we are in reality but try to deny!) adding to the damaged coral and making you feel like a sucker for paying for the trip. The boat trip we took showed us some more magnificent views of Ko Phi Phi Leh, but never actually took us to the mainland of the island.

We had another opportunity to snorkel on a slightly less ruined reef with not quite as many people, then a spot of lunch before taking us back to the smelly Phi Phi don. All I can say is that we were glad to get back to Ko Lanta!

Once back we had our last evening meal at Fisherman's Village and felt happy in to be in the welcoming arms of the friendly staff there. Always ready to discuss the benefits of really spicy Thai food and how it makes your bottom feel the following day!

Bangkok

We arrived in Bangkok, tired, grumpy and hungry. After traipsing around for a 10 minutes avoiding taxidrivers, we finally settled on a taxi to toake us to Chris's place on the other side of Bangkok, and were immediately ripped off by about 150Baht! Well, it is Bangkok, and we are tourists.

Chris was cool, even after we woke him up at 7am on a friday morning to get into his room and sleep, whilst he went to work. But what a place to live!
Bangkok, as some of you know, is rammed full of people and is constantly busy, even more so around where the backapackers stay at Kao San Road. And it's mostly filthy and smelly and can be dangerous. In contrastto this, Chris's apartment is pure luxury. It's got saunas, jacuzzis, swimming pools, gyms, running tracks, air-con, room service and a maid, as well as constant security. What more could we ask for??? Well, for us it's free too!! Cheers Chris!

After chilling by the pool for a day or two, we finally left the apartment block and watched Chris and the guys train for a soccer match. I don't know about them, but I was roasting by the end of it, sat on the benches, laughing and cheering the goals. But whatever we did whilst being sat there, we instilled them the will to win their first game of the season the next day! (it was definately our influence, no question about it!)

So after a hard days shopping, we hit Bangkok on a Saturday night with the rest of the school teachers and got wasted. And found out that Thais on a night out, are by far the Strangest, Weirdest, Freakiest and most fun-loving people on the planet! I don't think I've ever seen dancing quite like it!

Question: What happens when a Thai soapstar from TV is quoted as saying "Ankhor Wat" in Cambodia righfully belongs to Thailand?

Answer: The Cambodian government incite the people to riot, which they do, wrecking the Thai consulate and forcing Thai nationals out of the country, closing all the borders and stopping all the flights between the 2 countries.

Of course, this happened as we arrived in Bangkok, meaning we couldn't get our visa to Cambodia, or even get to CAmbodai from Thailand. Just to check we went to the Cambodian embassy, to find it surrounded by armed Thai soldiers, and closed.

Just as well we can get there from Vietnam. Oh, hang on, it takes 4 days to get a Vietnamese visa in Bangkok, and when we went to that embassy, it was closed too. For Chinese New Year. The embassy wants a holiday. Hmph.

So, quick change of plans... we're gonna go to Laos, where we can cross the border to both countires and even get a visa on the Thai/Laos border. They really do try and make it difficult don't they?!

Other than enjoying the luxury of the partment, we've also done a bit of sightseeing too. Anna, who was here for a few days about 8 months ago, took me by the hand and put me into taxis and led me around the cities sights. We've seen the grand palace (where I had to buy socks, so I could borrow some sandals and then had to borrow trousers too so I'd be allowed in the templkes and palace grounds), and we've been down the river on ferry boats to "Wat Po". This is a really famous temple, beautifully decorated witha huge golden buddha lying down in one temple. A real must see. BUt the reason we went there was to get a massage as this is THE place for traditional Thai massage. Excellent!

Now, I didn't realise that Thai massage is actually practised by sadists. Anna has had one before and opted for just half an hour in the "torture chamber", whilst being rather tense after 18 months holiday, I thought I needed a full hour. Besides, you can't complain about a hour's massage for 4 quid, right??!

Anna took me to Kao San Road, to "experience" the backpacker life. How I'm glad we;re at Chris's! It;s horrid down there. Full of westerners in "fisherman pants", either getting drunk, buying trinkets, fake ID or CD's. We left quickly.
We also took a trip to Chinatown, which is a crazy place to go. You can hardly move for people trying to sell you just about anything from nuts and bolts to thai silk. All very cheap too.

Speaking of Chinatown, we were lucky enough to catch "Chinese New Year" in Bangkok. The place was mental. Whole roads cut off and then filled with stalls selling, cheap clothes or food. But not food as we know it. I dont; know about you, but I get a little queasy when someone tries to offload a whole pig's head onto me for dinner. Skull removed of course! And ducks, quails and chickens. They cook the whole thing, leaving the brains and beaks intact as they're "delicacies"! My stomach was little delicate anyway.

But, what I hadn't realised about Thailand was the the amount of leprosy over here. Apparently it's reasonably common and this leads to the guys begging on the street, rotting flesh, limbs missing, the works. It's horrible to see and reminds you that in some respects this country is still stuck in the middle ages. Apparently the mafia run the beggars too. They drop them off (arranging the ones that can't move into more mpitiful poses) and then pick them up later. The benefit of this is that the beggars do actually get a bed for the night and some food.

Enough of that though. I've finally had my haircut, by the gay-est (non-ladyboy) Thai hairdresser you could possibly find. I had no real choice in what he did to my hair, but as he pointed out

"We not take too much off. You no have much left on top here, see?!"

Yeah, cheers. I see.

And...

"You too white! You need colour on hair! You stressed at work mister?"

Thanks again. BUt I think Anna's favourite moment came when he got out the blowdrier and carefully swept my hair back off my forehead, drying and straightening, giving me a fantastic quiff and "old man's haircut" style, which could not be removed for days.

Ayutthaya

This ancient city, once reported as the most illustrious city in the world, is around 80km north of Bangkok and it used to be the capital of Siam (old Thailand) until the Burmese sacked and burnt the place a couple of centuries ago. Now its a city of ruins, temples and buddah images spread over quite a few kms, and it is really beautiful. We caught the train (after missing all the ones the tourists normally take) up there and then spent a day wandering around. Then we managed to catch the slow train back, 3rd class, thats wooden seats to you guys (but for only 20 pence each!) and found oursleves out in a German brewery/Thai bar with Chris...

Date: 9th^th February
Text by: Anna

Bangkok nights...

Our last night in Bangkok................

This is perhaps a night which deserves some special attention since I have never (and judging by the lack of words from Carl's mouth!) seen anything like it.

Despite asking Chris a number of times, I still cannot remember the name of it and by the notable lack of westerners in the place, it is somewhere which remains safely overlooked by the "Lonely Planet". It is in essence a German brewery serving German "White or Dark" beers in the size of your choice - 300ml, 500ml, or 1ltr glasses (the latter smoothering your face when you put it to your mouth!). Alternatively you can order 2 or 4 litres of the stuff which they stand in tall tubes at the end of your tables. Thus you can pour your own from the little tap at the bottom or wait for a waitress to come running over just as you empty your glass and it will be filled again before you can even blink.

But this is just the start. The place is huge. No, it's massive. In fact it is gigantic with tables packed in so that you can barely move between them. And despite it being the middle of the week the place is packed with middle - upper class thais going crazy for the beer, the vast Thai menu (or german sausage with sour Kraut and mash should you choose!) and the entertainment.............

Upon arriving we were marched to our table by the sweet sounds of

"we all live in a yellow submarine."

The band, on the incredibly large stage, were not holding back with their rendition and nor was the singer who was certainly dressed for the part. But by the time we got to our table and sat down it was just in time to snap a picture of the singer as the stage crew got him into a make shift "yellow submarine" and then sent him soaring over the mass of dining thais who were really loving this incredible performance. As the night progresses we drink plenty of the german beer, eat some tastey thai dishes and some "brochwurst und currywurst", and watch the full band compliment on stage accompany the thai singers as they take it in turns to perform. Their choice of songs are obviously popular with the Thais but not ones that I can safely say I have ever heard or wish to hear again. Occasionally though they are interspursed with the odd Mariah Carey or Bon Jovi and of course at these points we go as wild as the Thais singing along to melodies that we know (and look as though we listen to on a regular basis!).

By midnight, far too much beer has been consumed and the Thais are dancing around the tables and in any little bit of available space. We however have struck up conversation with three Thai girls on the table next to us who are fascinated by the fact that Carl is presently on a 2 year holiday! Before long they have us all dancing Thai stylie and I try to teach a bit of western/Kylie Minogue style moves which the surrounding Thais all find very amusing. In between dancing the girls continuously tell Carl that he is "cute" (beer goggles or what!??!!) and cannot fathom out what we mean when we say that Carl is a Doctor.

It is all too entertaining and laughing to the extent that I nearly have a little accident in my pants I make a mad dash to the toilet.......

These are also worthy of a mention because they are gloriously clean and unlike anything you are ever likely to come across throughout the whole of Asia. But in these, before you enter the cubicle they go in and wipe the seat for you - incredible!!

We end the night with tequila sunrises ordered by Chris and continue to natter and dance with our new found friends who even offer us a place to stay whenever we return to Bangkok - I hope she realises that we may be taking her up on the offer!! And all a little worst for ware we hug and kiss goodbye staggering off to find a taxi at 2.30 in the morning. How Chris ever made it into work the following day will never cease to amaze!

Date: 14th^th February
Text by: Anna

Chiang Mai

Somewhere in deepest, darkest, Northern Thailand...

Day 1:-
Four Brits, two Danes, and three Canadians are united at 9am on a Monday morning - together they are to brave the rain forests of "Hueng Muang", two tribal villages, bamboo rafts, elephant rides and creepy caves. All in the safe and loving arms of Mr. Sung (that "hansome man") and Nai (who makes a cracking potato soup).

The first part of this trek involved a three hour journey in the back of a pick up truck with some sort of roof formation over the top. All keen and eager to impress our new found companions we chat and joke amicably in the back second guessing the adventures ahead.
After the first 90 minutes we stop at some markets and are sent away to buy gifts for the children of the hill tribe villages - our informant tells us sweets for the first village kids and pens and paper for the second village we are to visit. So, after our permitted 31minute shopping spree we return to the truck for the next part of our journey up into the hills. Now off the main highway we start the ascent winding our way up and down over some bumby roads. Faces begin to turn a greenish colour and the talking subsides to silence, but at last we make it to the start point of our trekking.

And once lunch is eaten we are off walking and following the strict instructions of Nai to follow that hansome man! We walk only 8km that afternoon through some stunning rain forest and finish the day by wading through a river before eventually arriving at the "Lahu" hilltribe village. Upon entering the village we are greeted by a small boy to whom we all practiced our

"a-bo-ya"

(the word we were instructed to use for everything - "hello, goodbye, thankyou" etc), however ,perhaps we should have taken more notice of the knife in his hand and request for candy!

We are shown to our 5 star bamboo hut with accompanying pigs, chickens, hens, dogs and rats, shown where the toilet and shower (bucket of stagnent water) are, and told to clean up before dinner is served at 6pm. This gave us almost two hours to wash, wander the village, take pictures and distribute our sweets.
Once clean and armed with Chang beers for dutch courage (believe it or not they really look after us "whities" by selling beer, coke and water to us) we venture around the village and watch the men having a game of "spin the top then hit it with another spinning top and send it as far away as you can" - or at least we think that this is the game!

We also decide to start handing out the sweets and believing the children to be cute do not anticipate the savage attack which follows. They may not be able to say much else in English but they certainly know the word "candy"! At the first glimmer of a sweet wrapper we are pounced upon and within seconds all the candy is taken and little hands are still desperately digging around in our pockets. Feeling a little threatened we return to the safety of the the table by our hut.

After more chang and a tastey meal we are all now relaxed and chatting away happily before Nai announces that it is "shopping time". What on earth can she mean by "shopping time" as we are in the middle of nowhere? But it doesn't take long before we find out what she means. Shadows descend upon us ("Children of the Corn" come sto mind!) and we are each pushed aside whilst the ladies of the village place their hand crafted goods on the table and start insisting that we "buy, buy, buy! " To be honest you have little choice in the matter because before you can even blink the kids have tied bracelets on your wrists and beads over your heads and without even realising ityou are handing over 100 baht because there is little else you can do about it! But they are persistent ladies and continue to sell you their goods for another 10 minutes. When they eventually realise that you really have no more legs and arms left for bracelets they do go away, but later send their kids back to offer you more bracelets at a discounted price! With cute faces and wide eyes you almost give in to them, but then remember the brutality they used to attack you with for candy!

We were priviliged enough to be spending the night with the Lahu tribe whilst they celebrated the last night of New Year festivities (their festivities had been going on for over a week!).

So with shopping over we went and joined the locals dancing around a shrine to their spirits. The dancing involved little more than holding hands in a big circle and taking three steps one way and two steps back the other. And the music was a repetitive steady banging of a bongo and clashing of a symbol done extremely rythmically
At first we all delighted in this and joined in the festivities but with no change of beat or dance move you may well understand that it was slowly becoming a little bit drab. At one point some sort of mouth organ came out but they soon returned to the beating of the bongo and bashing of the symbol (Carl tried to show them an alternative beat but they weren't too impressed!). Exhausted and "Changed" to the max, 6 of us headed to bed (2 canadians and 1 brit had disappeared with some locals to an annonymous location!) but sleep was not going to be easy. Unbelievably their celebrations continued with the same bashing until dawn and when they stopped the cockerals started.......................................

Text by: Carlos

Day 2:-

Day 2 started at around 4am when Eric returned from dancing round a candle with a drum and fell into A bed. He couldn;t quite remember which bed, so any bed was ok. Happily it was empty at the time.
Around 5am, the chicken came in for a quick look around. Pecked at the floor, and left. The pigs, not to be outdone, began their snorting and squeeling... directly underneath our bamboo shack and the sveral hundred roosters began crowing from 5.15am till we left.
Around 6am eric awoke and released most of is Chang beer into the nearst toilet, waking everyone up again and reminding us that we were all suffering the same "Changover". "Tea Coffee, Eggs!!"

as loud as possible and we slowly dragged ourselves out of bed.

The walk on the 2nd day was pretty easy again. Having lightened the load of most of our "candies", and being surrounded by the shady trees, we made pretty good time and stormed most of the uphill parts with ease. Well, that's what I'd like to think anyway! One of the villagers carried our food for us until we reached the bamboo rafting village (erm.. hut!), as apparently they are so hard up for money that they each take it in turn to earn extra cash (100 baht) by carrying My Sung's bag for him. We didn't realise how poor these people were at the time.

The bamboo rafting was run by a crazy old Thai guy. He met us at the river, took us across on the bamboo ferry, and then we left for the next village, on thse unstable, loosely held together bamboo rafts.

Split onto 2 rafts, we immediately saw the opportunity to race and OUR raft lept ahead with Mr sung at the front barking orders at us, trying to coordinate me and Anna into some sort of "raft steering machine"! Of course we were, erm, superb, and drifted down the slow moving river quite happily, until we hit the rapids.

At that point, Anna appeared to give up steering in order to laugh a lot and left me and Sung probing and pushing the 20 foot raft around the river, over the stones and under the trees. As soon as we finished the rapids, there was a maniacal laugh from behind a "THWACK" as the raft dude decided to smash his pole directly behind me, not only scaring the beejeezuz out of us both, but soaking us to the skin! Little Bugger!!

All out warfare ensued and the next few Kms were spent attempting to either crash into, sink, divert or simply soak the other raft. We finally took control by dropping the poles and using our hands to throw handfuls of water at the poor raft guide, who legged it to the back of the raft laughing, whilst the rest of his crew got drenched.

The best part of th rafting was to follow though. The other raft got stuck on a few shallow rapids, so we turned round to help out. When we set off again, Sung was now at the back of the raft instead of the front and hence our two main "steerers" were Eric and Laurie. Sung took complete control, sat down, lit a cigar and barked instructions at random, confusiong both of them for several minutes As we all cracked up behind. Poor things. What he forgot to mention was that they would now be navigating the WATERFALL!!

Disaster struck as we neared the waterfall; the other raft suddenly put on a spurt of unknown speed and flew past us and were first down the waterfall... only to get stuck again, near the bottom. Having now spotted the troublesome shallows, we took the waterfall at full pace and sailed down like true pro's, grinning like idiots and waving for the cameras. How cool are we??!

And then our raft guide showed us how to do it all properly. We now found out that the rafts we'd just sialed down on were to be broken up and sold for building housesd, or whatever the new owners wanted them for. We'd just spent the afternoon carting this guys livelihood down the river for him! Not that he couldn;t do it himself as he happily pushed off and floated effortlessly down the rest of the river. I still think we should have asked for a cut of the profits!!

The 2nd village was of the "Lisu tribe", and these guys had been round around a little longer than the other guys. They weren't quite so poverty-stricken and most seemed to have scooters. We were shown directly to our quarters on arival, in a small enclosed compound shared with the head of the tribe, an wisened old guy, who stood for no SH:t!

Again, we 'd arrived late in the afternoon, and after a quick wash in the river, we set about the village (pop. around 100), checking out the locals. Although more westernised in a lot of ways, they still prepared all their own clothes and cloths by hand, and we stood around watching them weave multi-coloured cloth and saying

"O-K-Bu-Mo"

(the Lisu version of "O-bo-ya"!) and attempting to get them to pose for photographs.

Night-time came and again after dinner the women and children entered our compound and showed us their wares. This time it was slightly easier to buy as they placed them not directly in front of you, but in a circle around the fire where we could pick and choose from anybody. And Nai's advice tonight...

"If you like, you buy! If you don't like... you STILL buy!!!

Cheers Nai.
And so we all ended up with more "Chang bags, necklaces, catapults, headbands and purses" than we'll ever need.

Although we got rather drunk and shared more than a few coca colas each, the night didnt match the first one in sheer madness and so we'll move to...

Day 3