Pai, Thailand, 17-22 August 2012

We were picked up from Chiang Mai by a taxi (not really a taxi, a pickup with bench seats down the outside) along with an American who had been travelling for over a year, 3 English lads at uni on holiday, and 2 English sisters who were proper slappers, having been out all night but ominously, neither having stayed at their guesthouse that night, so had got in the taxi still in tiny dresses but looking dog rough with makeup smeared everywhere. This little group plus a quiet French bloke made up our little minibus ride up and around the mountains to the chilled out little town of Pai. Having arrived and given a map of the town and realised that the places to stay were well spread out, so we picked a few in our price range, rented a motorbike, dumped our bags and went off exploring. A few miles later, we had a really nice place to stay. We left the bike, went for a walk and a couple of drinks, got some BRILLIANT pad thai from a night stall and went back to the room to eat it out of the sudden downpour.
At breakfast the next morning, we realised that it didn't justify the higher price for the room, so we checked out and moved our bags to another place, then set out exploring for the day with a pretty crude map as our only guidance.
We first rode toward a waterfall. We started on road, then dirt road, then track, until we were stopped in front of a bend in a stream. I looked around and walked up the stream a 100 yards, but could see no track or any evidence of a waterfall, so we turned around and rode off in search of natural hot springs. We passed a few elephants, and came to a private place that pumped the hot springs into pools in their garden, but they were pants and not what Jo was after, so we carried on and found the state run pools. There were about 7 of them in all that you could sit in, one flowing down into the next. We got in the third and it was really hot. I managed to get in, but Jo took about 10mins, so we moved to a slightly cooler one further down. There were also two pools where the water bubbled from the ground which was 80degrees, and you could buy eggs in little bamboo baskets to drop in and boil for a snack. After chilling out there for a while we got peckish, so we rode off back to town via the WW2 bridge... Which wasn't actually built in WW2, but in the 1920's and then dismantled from Chiang Mai and shipped to Pai to replace the WW2 built bridge under Japanese occupation after it had swept away in the 70's. Still a nice bridge though!
We spent the evening and night eating and drinking and being merry!
The following morning we got up to make the most of the bike for our last full day. We first rode out to another waterfall, where Jo made friends with a puppy that must have had a bit of mountain goat in its genes judging by the way it was jumping all over the rocks. We rode for miles around the stunning mountainous scenery, and eventually reached another waterfall, this one with a lagoon at its base. Jo wasn't in the mood to strip off, but I couldn't let the opportunity pass, so I got down to my boxers and went for a refreshing swim under the falls. We walked back to the bike, I tied my soaking boxers to the back to trail in the wind, and we headed towards town. En route we came across a cafe called 'Coffee in Love'. This was a charming little place with views all over the valley and the hills, and pretty good coffee too. We sat for quite a while until the bike was due back, dropped it off, and went back to our guesthouse, where we sat in the gardens by the river. Jen had given me some blank postcards and some paints, so armed with these and some felt-tips and crayons, we made up our own postcards to send home.
That evening was clear and dry, and a lot more market stalls were out than the previous nights, and for some reason every douchebag, hippy-wannabe, dreadlock-wearing westerner was also out in force. I find it strange that of all the out of the way places, where life is truly different to that of back home, that we've been, none of these people settle or even go, but in Thailand, where every convenience of home can be found, these people settle and play at being so different and ethnic despite doing the same sort of job as home with the same luxuries as home. It makes me wonder what they are running from.
Anyway, I had pad thai again (it was just that damn good) and we walked around all the little stalls, a couple of beers and played some cards, then headed back to our room as places closed up.
Next morning we were up pretty early, walked into the centre, had breakfast and hopped on the minibus to take us back to Chiang Mai and from there onto the nightbus to Bangkok.

Koh Tao, Thailand, 5-11 September 2012

We left Koh Phangan by boat, and a couple of very choppy hours later after quite a few people (not us luckily) had lost their lunches, we docked at Mae Haad in Koh Tao. Par for the course we had no idea where to go, so quickly picked up a map from a taxi man, wandered up the road to what looked like a busy convergence of streets, and had lunch while I studied the map for where to go. After we'd worn a bit more of our ever slimming flip-flops away, we had an air con room to chill out for the night and sort ourselves out. Jo was wiped, so we put the tv on and I researched on the phone who to do my diving with. When we went out to eat we realised that nothing really happens in Mae Haad, and decided to get up to Sairee Beach first thing in the morning. This we did, and after a taxi man wanting 200baht off us and not budging on the price, we told him where to go (bloody hate taxi drivers, all out to bloody con you) and walked instead. This was less strenuous than expected and took only 20 minutes dawdling. We ate brekkie at Bans, the biggest dive school in the world, and I wandered off to talk about diving to people. Finally I settled on Simple Life as they seemed friendliest, they weren't huge and impersonal, and they did all the specialist dives I wanted to do. The rest of the day was then spent exploring, relaxing in cafes, and eating.
Next morning, I was up early to meet at the dive shop at 7 for my first 2 of 5 dives for my Advanced Open Water. The previous day was wet and windy, and it had calmed a bit, but the sea was still bloody choppy which made the boat rides fun!
First up was a deep dive to 30m at a site called Chumpon. There were 4 of us on the course, and I was lucky to be buddied up to the only other decent diver who neither had no spacail awareness, nor dwelled on the seabed the whole dive. My buddy didn't however, pay enough attention to me, and because of this, only me and one guy doing his divemaster course saw the two bullsharks! Considering the dozen or so of us all over the dive site, I was very happy to have seen them! We saw lots of other wildlife including a shoal of chevron barracuda who engulfed us as soon as we descended.
Our second dive was a wreck dive on the Sattakut. As this ship was only sunk less than a year ago, it didn't have masses of life around it, but did have some cool swim throughs and some big guns to play around with. Somehow, one guy on the course burned through 180bar before we even got to the safety stop at 5m for 3mins, so had to use the octo of Ana, our Swedish instructor! God knows how, we were only down for 40mins!
We had tea and biscuits on the boat, then got back to the dive shop by 12, cleaned our kit, then Jo and I went off and rented a moped. Much against my better judgement I handed over my passport and signed an extortionate schedule of rates (think I was just tired), and we went off exploring and ended up playing crazy golf. By the 16th hole the clouds were gathering, so we rushed through the last two (I whipped Jos arse) and we got into the 19th hole bar for coffee just as the heavens opened. We waited for a gap in showers and headed back, and I dozed off. Jo was the kind and lovely girlfriend I've always wanted and took photos of me, though thankfully, didn't balance anything on me or write on me. We went out for dinner and had some drinks around the town as I wasn't diving til the afternoon the next day.
In the morning, we had a lie-in, breakfast, moved rooms to a cheaper one, and then I went off diving. It was now time for Peak Performance Buoyancy (ppb) and Navigation. First was ppb at a site called twins, where there was a kind of playground for us, with suspended hoops to swim through and other obstacles. Despite how it sounds, it was great fun, using our breathing to rise and fall over and under concrete octopus arms, and suspend ourselves upside-down in the water. We also had to do a somersault which I was the only one to complete successfully. We didn't see a lot, though there were a lot of curious groupers coming right up to us. After we were done, we had tea and biscuits as the boat swung around to the next dive site; Japanese Gardens. As some open water students were doing 2 dives, we had some time to kill, so my buddy and I went out snorkelling for an hour. A mass of curious little sergeant majors (little black and white striped fish) took a fancy to me and I was swarmed in them. We then followed a shoal of juvenile parrotfish for a bit, then swam back to the boat to kit up. We descended and swam up and down lines and into a shoal of yellow fin barracuda, in 20m squares and showed we could navigate properly. After this penultimate dive of the course, we motored back to shore. That night Jo and I had a few beers and found a place doing all you can eat pizza, so seemed rude not to.
The next day I wasn't diving, so we went looking for a bike to do some exploring. After a little walking around, it was apparent that bike rental on Koh Tao is a big con, with no insurance available, and ridiculous rates for damage (£11k for £5k scooter if stolen, £50 for headlight if damaged, £40 for small plastic panel if scratched) so we abandoned that plan and hit the beach instead. Jo was still a little burnt from the day before after using a local sun tan lotion (called Samui: avoid!) which I strongly suspect was actually mayonnaise, but we still got a bit of sun and showed off our blinding bat and ball skills to wowing admirers (well, one bloke sunbathing nearby who laughed at our longest rally of about 8). Before we knew it, the sun was starting to set, so we sat in the bar on the beach watching the sun go down then we met up with Nick at the Bans bar and went to the Cabaret. Although it had pretty pricey beer, the cabaret was free to watch. We sat and watched about 12 ladyboys of various stages dance and mime to all the big favourites like 'it's raining men', often with their boobs out. I found myself saying strange things like "for a bloke, she's got a cracking arse", and debating whether some of them actually were women. There was one person who looked like they were a boxer until a year ago, then suddenly decided on a change of career and had some really agressive and unnatural plastic surgery, but still had big muscles and was ripped. At the end, they asked for volunteers, and Jo doing her good girlfriend bit again, volunteered me. I was marched out back with 4 other guys, stripped to our boxers, given a big curly wig and a bikini top, then sent out on stage to ponce about with some ladyboys. Not exactly how I was expecting to spend my evening! We left at the end and went looking for another bar, but town was dead for some reason, so we went back to Nicks resort bar for a drink, then wandered home.
Following morning Jo was a bit hungover, and we were contemplating getting the stupidly priced cabs to take us to another beach. Instead, we just enjoyed the same beach again and this time wowed the crowds with our frisbee skills. I then buggered off to the dive shop to get kitted up ready for my last dive; the night dive. It had taken a couple of days to do it, but so worth it. We got the longtail from the beach to the dive boat as the sun was setting, and the wind was really picking up, making it a choppy ride. We got to the site and a few other big boats were already there from other dive shops. As I was the only Advance OW person who wanted to do the dive (madness of the other guys!) I was buddied up with my instructor Ana. She gave me a torch and said we'll just have a long dive until I hit 70bar. I was happy with this as I was getting pretty good on my air. We descended off the line as there was a queue, and then Ana took us around, somehow finding loads of places where there was no-one else which was great. We saw quite a few spotted rays, lots of big groupers trying to sleep, 2 kinds of pufferfish, and some great barracuda. One we saw just as he swam and caught a fish and killed and ate it. Very intimidating fish, and scarily quick swimmers. We headed around one point where there was no-one or any lights at all, and we turned off our torches for a minute and saw the effluorescent organisms in the water glow in clouds of dirty yellow/greenish hues all around us. Luckily I'd got pretty good at buoyancy as when we turned our torches back on I saw loads of huge sea urchins littering the seabed; just a touch overweighted and I wouldn't be sitting down for weeks! We swam around for about 40mins, then I hit 70bar, so we headed back towards the boat, en route seeing the a turtle someone pointed out to us that we didn't realise was a turtle until we got back on the boat. The sea had got worse, and thinking I had a foothold on the ladder turned sour and before I knew it the rear of the boat was leering 8ft about my head. I got clear before the ladder could smash into me and hauled myself up safely onto the rocky little vessel on second attempt.
We motored back to the harbour, all elated from a great dive, and my Advanced course complete. We got back to the dive shop, I said my farewells and thank-yous, then went back to the bar to meet Jo and Nick, and strangely Fern and Pauline, who we'd bumped into in Saigon and at Full Moon. We ate, chatted, drunk beer, then Jo and I retired to pack and get ready for our snorkelling trip early the next morning!
We were picked up at the bar whilst still waiting on our breakfast, then taken to a boat in the harbour. We hopped on and had tea and biscuits while we motored to the first dive site. We saw:
1st site (shark bay): sergeant majors, parrotfish, crocodile fish, angelfish, yellow butterfly fish.
2nd site: sgt majors, parrotfish, adolescent parrotfish, groupers, trumpetfish, crocodile fish, squid, jellyfish (with the flashing colourful lights).
3rd site (mango bay): sgt majors, parrotfish, groupers, wrasse, octopus.
We then had lunch on the boat and a load of fresh fruit before heading onto our 4th dive site which was more of the same, but nothing special like octopus or jellyfish, then onto our 5th site which is an island (strictly it's 3 islands joined by 2 big strips of sand (though seems to be mostly dead coral). One side of this was Japanese Gardens that I'd already snorkelled, so we sunbathed for most of the 2 hours, popping out by ourselves for a little snorkel. Neither of us saw much, though I did see a big colourful wrasse (I've got to learn more fish names) chomping away at the coral, trying to make a big hole for some reason. We wandered back to the boat, then were taken back to the harbour and to the bar, where we ate, played some cards, and waited for our taxi to take us to the nightboat onto Krabi!

Chiang Mai, Thailand, 12-17 August 2012

Night market when it peed with rain

Chang

We arrived in yet another bus station in the arse-end of nowhere in Chiang Mai at about 5.30am. They do have tuk-tuks up there, but mostly they have converted pickups with bench seating which are like shared taxis, so we got one of these to our guesthouse we booked from Bangkok online. As no-one was up when we arrived we spent half an hour just sat in the living room area of the guesthouse, then a lady got up and said our room wouldn't be ready until 9ish when the cleaner would be in, so we left our bags and went in search of food. We found some good grub (and some Olympic action) and a market, then got our bearings a little before heading back to get some sleep. We got up later and went out mooching, and before we knew it, it was evening and the Sunday market was out. We wandered up and down, and I tried some funky street foods, ending up eating far too much as Jo didn't like anything she bought so she palmed it off on me! By about 8 it started to rain, then suddenly hammered down. Jo had her tiny umbrella with a broken handle so it only half extends from China in her bag, so we got that out, and suddenly the national anthem (theirs, not ours) started playing and lots of the stall owners had whipped out candles from nowhere and were stood in vigil, so Jo and I stood and had a cuddle in a rainstorm under a tiny brolly in the middle of the road! When the music stopped, some fireworks went off in honour of the Queens birthday, and we watched before legging it to the nearest pub for some beers, Olympics and Bananagrams surrounded by British ex-pats. It felt just like when I visited Dad when he was out in Portugal, very home-from-home.
We headed back and slept like logs.
The next days plan was to rent a motorbike and have a proper explore, but it wasn't to be. By the time we'd got up, decided what we wanted to do, found prices, changed money, booked up and eaten lunch it was about 3pm. We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon then walked to the night bazarre which is a huge market every night selling clothes and nick-nacks. We walked and walked, lasted until 11ish and gave up, heading back by tuk-tuk.
Following morning we went out in search of another place to stay. We had spent our 2 booked nights in Jaidee guesthouse and we weren't impressed. You know those jokes about online dating profiles with 20 year old pictures of the person? That's what it was like. When we arrived, you could see that the picture online was lurking somewhere behind all of the overgrown grass, drooping tree branches and random crap littering the garden. It's a shame as it had potential to be nice, but was severely run down. We found a nice place called Baan Nud Cun, moved our bags, and then went to our days activity; cookery class. We did it with a family run place called Baan Thai, and we made the schoolboy error of eating breakfast before we went. We were sat on a big table with six others, were given some Thai snack foods and filled out forms of what we wanted to cook. Jo and I chose different dishes, but we didn't realise that there were 2 other tables of people and we were all mixed up together so those cooking the same dish cooked together, which meant Jo and I weren't going to cook together at all. We were all taken to a local market, talked through the ingredients and their foreign alternatives, and given time to cool down and get a fruit shake before returning. We got chatting with a Spanish couple opposite us called Oriol and Mariane. Oriol and I had chosen almost the same menu, so we would be together on most of the classes. This was good as we just swapped cameras and snapped away at each other. The dishes were really fast to cook too, so we only spent about 15 minutes cooking each dish before taking them back to your table to all eat together. I made:
•green thai curry paste

Wot we made at skool 2day

•green thai curry
•spring rolls
•hot and sour prawn soup
•stir fried chicken and cashew nuts
•deep fried banana and ice cream

The food was amazing, and we got given cookery books with all the recipes of the day and more in. By the end of the day we were absolutely stuffed, and headed back to our new room for a lie down! That night we went out for a drink and I was surprisingly hungry, so we found a cool bar called The Wall for cheap beer and good food. We were then going to head back but we found another bar we had been in called The Saloon showing the Olympic closing ceremony, so we sat for a happy couple of hours drinking Chang watching that!

Camp teacher talking us through ingredients at market

Still no lie-in the following morning as we had whitewater rafting booked. We got an early breakfast and then got picked up by our Thai guide who had a confusingly strong German accent. It was like he learnt English from watching "'Allo, 'Allo". In the minibus with us were Chanda and Kuley from Brum who were studying dentistry in London, and Dom from Northampton, a flamboyant gay lad who didn't stop talking, and told us stories of partying in a club with a very drunk Gok Wan who then went home with a burly Canadian who had no idea who he was!

View from our room

We got to the camp, were fed a big lunch of chicken, pork curry, rice and fresh fruit then 3 people who had stayed in the camp the night before joined us to make us 8 and 2 full boats. We had a load of pictures taken as a bamboo raft full of girls doing the macarena floated past, then got on the water. In our boat was Kuley, Chanda, Jo and I, plus our Thai guide who sat at the back steering and shouting orders. He was a funny little bloke, pretty ripped from doing this job every day, and really knew what he was doing, making sure we hit the rapids the right way around but still having a lot of fun. We spent a couple of hours on the water, having pictures taken as we hit the big rapids by our germanic-siam guide and jumping off the boat and having a float on some gentler stretches. On our last big rapid one side of our boat went up a rock like a ramp, throwing me backwards. I did have my feet wedged in to stop this, but 8 months without training have whittled away my core muscles and in the drink I plunged, landing hard on a rock a few inches below the surface on the small of my back. I managed to keep my grip on the boat though, and with some assistance from Chanda, was back in the boat. We then spent the last 500m or so to the pickup point getting rinsed off thoroughly by the heavens. It was then out, changed, some fresh fruit, oreos and drinks while we all chatted and looked at the photos taken of the day. Between 5 of us we agreed to buy one dvd of the pics and copy the disc. We got back to town, and Jo and I knew that if we didn't go straight back out we'd pass out, so we went for coffee, then some grub and topped off the night at the night bazarre.

Jo on the 'hog', though she obviously didn't ride it

The following morning we moved accommodation for the second time to our third place. We got up early as Jo was off on an elephant mahout day, where you learn to be a mahout (the elephant master/keeper/carer). After doing the chores of packing and moving all of our stuff I had a leisurely breakfast trying to figure out where I could find a shooting range. After a while I found that they were all far too expensive to make it worth it, so I went for a walk around a part of the old city we hadn't yet seen, then rented out a moped and went for a spin around town, looking for Doms hostel to drop off the pics. No luck, but a great couple of hours whizzing around exploring. I then headed back as I'd arranged to meet Jo in a coffee shop at 4. After two drawn out cups of coffee and two hours reading Harry Potter, she finally walked in! We went and got some dinner, then took the bike for a spin to a cinema, but everything showing was dubbed in Thai, so we resigned ourselves to head back and watch a film in our room.

Me on the 'hog'

In the morning I took the moped back and exchanged it for a 200cc Honda Phantom, a chopper with a clutch and everything! It was a lovely big beast, and Jo was well impressed when she saw it! We went for a spin and then headed for Doi Suthep Wat, the most holy temple in the area, up a mountain. Riding up the wide, winding roads was heaven! We had a look about, and despite being a bit templed out after all of our time in Asia, it was still impressive, with everything blazing in gold. As we walked back to the bike, a dog on the back of a pickup was having a blazing row with another dog on the ground. This was nothing new to see, but the one on the truck, a golden retriever, had had a pair of bright blue eyebrows drawn on! Unfortunately they didn't match his mood, and instead of 'angry' eyebrows, and more 'smiley' eyebrows. Was so funny, a shame we fumbled with the bag for too long to get the camera out to document it.

Jo at Doi Suthep

We went back to town, had lunch and then Jo went for a massage. I was given a time to meet her, and I went off happily motoring along the river and exploring another part of the city. I then got back to the massage parlour (that makes it sound a bit dirty, but it wasn't) and stood by the side of the road for 3/4 hour before giving up and going back to the room. Jo wandered in half an hour later, very apologetic that she'd stood me up for the second time in as many days! We then got back on the bike and went for a ride to a cafe to watch the sunset over the river. We finished our last day in Chiang Mai drinking beer in one of our favourite bars.
In the morning, we were up early for breakfast and minibus to Pai!