Waking up at half 3 in the morning, after a hot and restless sleep, was made totally bearable by wonderful Seetha, the guesthouse owner lady. She was just so motherly and sweet, woke up with us and hugged us when we left, the perfect place to have stayed on our first and last nights. Sri Lankan airlines really are nice. It was only a four hour flight but we had breakfast and snacks galore. Arriving in Bangkok was slightly stressful, lost a couple of very hot hours getting stuck in the airport unable to find the exit, then navigating ourselves to the city by public bus, which was a confusing affair but totally worth it as it's so much cheaper than a taxi alternative. Straight away realised that Thai people are also very willing to help two lost-looking sweaty english girls.
We spent one night in Bangkok, staying on a street just off Khao San road, the famously touristy crazy area of town. Met a couple of Beths friends from shropshire, and spent most of the night with them, eating good curry, drinking Chang and Singh by their rooftop pool, and sitting in the street on plastic chairs being slightly overwhelmed, but also loving, Bangkok. The little kids there were the cockiest I've ever encountered -forcing tourists into games of rock, paper, scissors and trying to sell them little roses. It was crazy, and crazily cheap. We had massages for less than £2, and let ourselves do a tiny bit of shopping..with tshirts for a pound its hard to resist.
So needless to say, we woke with a bit of a hangover, but sorted it with a quick swim and breakfast. We didn't have a solid plan, so decided over our mango juice that we'd put our faith in the 'Mr Thai' tour operator across the road and bought tickets to travel down to Koh Lanta in the south. Before the trip, we found our way to the Grand Palace, a beautiful collection of buildings, so colourful and interesting. Inside was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is actually made from solid jade, and is set in a room with walls covered in intricate, beautiful depictions of significant events and such. It's a shame you're not allowed to take photos, but there you go. Afterwards we looked around the museum of textiles, mostly to take advantage of the a/c, which turned out to be really interesting. The current Queen of Thailand (the royal family are adored and treated with utmost respect) set up this wonderful foundation called Support, to help poorer communities build sustainable businesses in making and trading fabrics. They seem to be pretty involved in things like that, what a nice lady.
3 buses (one broke down), 3 minibuses, 2 little ferries, and 20 HOURS later, we arrived on Khlong Nin beach on Koh Lanta. We stayed a night in a rather beautiful hotel, with a pool barely 30m from the sea, drank mojitos and watched the sun set over the sea. Then later, ate more spring rolls (we have decided to sample as many as we can from different locations, you know, just to check they're all up to standard) sat on the beach and watched the stars and a little kid doing brilliant fire staff, who was about 8 years old, I kid you not. We were knackered but very happy, it was so peaceful.
The next day we moved to beebeebungalows, on the next beach up, Khlong Khong. It's so lovely. We have our own beautiful wooden and bamboo hut on stilts, with an outdoors bathroom, a couple of hammocks (or hangman if you're german) and lush big princess bed (by that I mean a crappy pink mossie net that just makes it look pretty). The staff are lovely and it's just chilled out backpackers and a gorgeous array of little seating areas, some on stilts, some with roofs for shade, and a bar.. leading down to the beautiful sea. It's pretty rocky here, and when the tide is out during the day you have to carefully pick your way over them to get to a clear bit, where you can bob about in the warm rock pool shallows. But just before sunset until late morning, the tide comes in really far and its much easier to swim without injury. The food is lush and so cheap-can get a huge plate of noodles or a green curry for 100baht or less. We have also decided that our sunset drink is a mojito, sipped whilst reading our books and ahhing at the sky. Then when it gets darker out comes the bug spray and we go find dinner. For the past few nights there's been lightning and thunder but no rain. It's really quite impressive and beautiful. As far as wildlife goes, we've only really seen a hell of a lot of cats, beautiful ones too, and thousands of tiny crabs. We only noticed them walking on the beach one night, then I felt nervous walking because they were everywhere and probably very squishable. They make these really cool little balls of sand when they go in and out of their holes, and it leaves the beach beautifully patterned.
After 3 days of relaxing, we moved on. Was feeling pretty stressed about money as we're not having the best luck. Beth lost her credit card within a week of being away, and both Lloyds and the post office have royally pissed me off with top up limits and 'routine account blocking' (although I have told them 3 TIMES now that I am away), all as if they want to make it really difficult for me to get my money out. Oh well. We were picked up by a jeep/songthaew, already busy. By a stroke of luck we were chosen to ride up front in the airconditioned bit with the driver, and things got great when we picked up a couple of french backpackers who sneakily changed the music to bob marley, remixed in a fat freddies drop styley :) After a pretty short ferry ride, we arrived into the chaos of Koh Phi Phi, and were instantly hustled into booking a place to sleep by a very competent 13 year old businessman. It's really lovely, set on the hill a bit away from the busy part of the beach, and again we have our own little bungalow hut. It is however a bit of an uphill walk back from the town, and occasionally the shower will come out hot...in weather where you dry/sweat instantly and crave at least 6 showers a day, hot water is not even a funny joke. I just want to lie in a bathtub of cold water. But I do love it.
Last night we did whats expected of you on this party island - drink buckets and dance to shit music. We did have crazy amounts of fun, but mostly chatting to eachother, and playing our new game, bogies with 'yolo'. Its where you have to shout 'YOLO' (a phrase completely ruined by incredibly annoying young people, hence therefore embarrassing to say in public) louder than the other person. Highly amusing. We weren't a whole lot impressed with the beach bars, full of fresher and 'lads on tour' types, but we had a damn good giggle. Got a brilliant slice of pizza on the way home, and tried (and failed) twice to sneak into hotel outdoor pools. The security guards are completely on the ball on that front unfortunately! Today we are suffering ridiculously for it, and all we want when we're recovered is to escape to a nice quiet beach again. Plus, the sea here is rank..lots of floating 'misc' items.
Time for a nap under the fan.
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