During the short train journey between Ajmer (Pushkar) and Udaipur, I took a look at the little itinerary I'd scribbled for myself just before I came to India. To my surprise, we were only behind the plan by a day, despite the extended stay in Goa. This wasn't of any concern, because the plan was always flexible - I hardly expected anything to go smoothly in this most chaotic of countries. Good job then, because according to me from four weeks ago, I was only going to stay in Udaipur for half a day.
I'd booked a hostel over the phone before me and Eirik took off, and when we arrived at about 11pm, we asked an auto-rickshaw driver to take us there. 'Yes,' he said, 'I know where it is' and we hopped in to the vehicle. When we pulled up outside I took a look and a small boy came to greet us. 'Hello' I said, 'is this Lal Ghat?' The boy confirmed it was, and the sign on the wall seemed to agree, but something seemed fishy. 'Wait here Eirik' I said, leaving him with all the luggage, and I went to investigate. The boy led me up the stairs to the rooms. I looked in, and they seemed basic, although not the worst I'd seen. But it wasn't what I was expecting. I asked the boy where his boss was. I wanted to say 'parents' or 'mum', but I wasn't sure enough if I'd get who I was after. The kid was clearly working, not running domestic chores. Eventually I got the attention of a chubby man in a wife-beater, who'd been watching TV in his office while the child introduced the new guests. 'This is Lal Ghat Guest House?' I asked, not entirely politely. 'Yes' he said.
'Then you're expecting me'
'Yes. What is your name?'
'You tell me'
He stared blankly and tilted his head a little. I tried again.
'If you're expecting me, then you can tell me my name can't you?'
There was still no verbal response. It could be that he didn't understand my English, but I was already convinced. I told him I was in the wrong place, and went back down the stairs where Eirik had been patiently waiting with the rickshaw. 'Lal Ghat Guest House, please' I told the driver. 'The real one.'
45 seconds later I was having the same conversation again. This time though, the response was a smile and the two syllables of my first name. I saw it written in the log book, too. I smiled and apologised for seeming suspicious, but the receptionist didn't seem to mind and apparently it happens all the time. I was just relieved to find the right place, and a little smug that I'd sniffed out the bogus hotel, as you can tell by me writing the whole story down. In the morning, smugness turned to delight as it became clear exactly how nice the guest house was. The dorm was clean and had curtains around each bed for privacy, and a shelf to put belongings. The showers were hot. Outside was a long table for eating and mingling, and on the next level was another spot, with an alcove large enough for a few chairs to face out over the lake. One more level up and you were on the roof, with a prime view of the lake and the city that surrounds it. Food and drink was served all day. All in a very elegant old building, and all for just $1.50 a night. I could already see that half a day would be too short.
Apart from the cosmetic and practical capital of Lal Ghat, the place was also the most sociable we'd been to since leaving Mumbai. Poor Eirik had caught the obligatory Indian-visit stomach illness (as I'd done a week or so before), and was content to lay in bed for most of the first day, but this gave me some time to become acquainted with some of the other guests. A mixed bunch, of different ages and nationalities, and with different experiences of India. There was Angela, a woman in her 60s with quite a history of travel in the east, and David and Eleanor, two 18 year olds on their gap year adventures before uni. Throughout the day, people would come by the long table to see what was going on, or stay there to relax with a book or a cool drink. There would always be someone you liked at the table.
Udaipur itself is perhaps less calm than Pushkar, but bigger, more labyrinthine, with short, steep hills and winding roads that take you in wrong directions and to accidental treasures. The lake, as mentioned, is the central part of the city, but strangely hard to access, with only small roads leading to the bridges and ghats, and any pedestrian embankment cut short by buildings. With Eirik on the mend, him, myself, David and a new girl called Charlotte took a boat trip round the lake, stopping to check out one of the fancy buildings on one of the islands. We whizzed past the famous Palace on the Lake, as it's a bit too fancy for us to even step foot on. Later we all went to a restaurant to eat a meal and watch Octopussy, some of which was filmed in Udaipur. Another hightlight was hiring a car and driver with another group of people and visiting the temples and villages out in the country to the west. The rest of my time was spent just chilling out, soaking up the atmosphere of the city and occasionally reading a book. Before I knew it five days had passed..
So to keep with the plan, myself and Eirik continued to Jaisalmer, a city in the desert, famous for a fort that has in itself become a sort-of city. We arrived and took a look around and after a while we realised that coming had been a bit of a mistake. By and large, people visit Jaisalmer as a launching point for three or four day camel treks. But in four days we'd both be on aeroplanes, myself heading home, and we had more to squeeze in until then. The fort, in my opinion, is ruined by the abundance of shops, restaurants, internet cafes, souvenir stalls, guest houses and hotels. There is no sense of history. People still live there as residents, but there is no trace of them. It's become one of those places that has recognised its pulling power as a tourist attraction and consequently smothered whatever it was that attracted anybody in the first place. It does, however, look stunning from the outside at night time.
Logically, the next part of our tour should have taken us to Delhi, our final stop before flying out. But we were aware of two major things. Firstly, that the president of Pakistan was visiting Delhi for discussions with India around that time, and with the small town of Pune recently hit by a terrorist attack suspected to be of Pakistani conception, we felt it best to avoid the area in case anything kicked off. Secondly, the festival of Holi was to occur on the day before we left, and we'd heard that can get a bit hectic too. So we headed back to Jaipur, a city that's not quite as deranged as Delhi, but within close enough proximity to the capital that we'd be able to catch our flights. A nice touch too, was that we were able to meet up with some friends from Udaipur again, namely Charlotte and Bill, and Charlotte's Dutch friend Suzanne. We all went to Jaipur's Elephant Festival together, which took place in a large stadium, displaying elephants painted and decorated in traditional and inventive ways. There was also a brass band who performed for our entertainment who needed a tad more practice.
The next morning was the day of Holi. Although we couldn't quite gather what the real purpose was in regards to a celebration, we knew that the festival revolves mostly around people spraying and smothering each other with coloured dye, that it begins early in the day, and that the men can get carried away with drinking and drug taking. It's comparable to Christmas, in that all the shops shut and the roads, for once, are quite quiet. I was looking forward to it, but I was also nervous about it. Me and Eirik met up with the others early so we could face it together. Shortly after stepping out on to the street, we were met with a group of Indian men, each carrying a bag of coloured powder. Quite kindly, they'd grab a handful of the stuff, smear it on each of our faces, say 'happy Holi!' and then give us a hug. Then we'd come across another group and it would happen again. Face, hair, clothes, it all got covered in purples, reds, yellows and pinks. I think it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever taken part in, and I loved it. Sometimes though, the men we came across would be too heavy-handed, particularly with the girls. Eventually we found our way to a hotel that had set up an area for tourists to enjoy Holi, and this felt like something of a sanctuary, and there was also music and drink.
Holi was a great way to cap my time in India, a country that I feel I didn't quite get the most out of. Well, who could in just a month? The place is vast. But as my time there was spent at the end of my trip I feel I didn't approach it with the same gusto as in the previous five months. Mentally I'd begun preparing myself for returning home while simultaneously having to acclimatise to some of the absolute nonsense that gets thrown at you on a daily basis. So when I got to Delhi that night and got on the plane the next morning, I was ready to go home. Out there in the world there's a man who can travel for years and doesn't mind living out of a bag and waking up in a room full of strangers every morning, or having children claw at his clothes in the hope of getting some food. But I'm not that guy. I certainly wouldn't say I'm a natural traveller, and six months away from my mates and my family is quite enough for me. All the same, the journey's been wild, life-changing and beyond my expectations. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Friday, 19 February 2010
India Proper
This seemed to take rather more energy than we had anticipated. Language barriers prevented us from dealing satisfactorily with a booking agent. Nearly a whole day was spent at the actual train station trying to make some sense of their system, but none transpired. We did eventually get some kind of ticket, believing it to provide us with a bed on a sleeper coach. As it turned out, it was only a sort-of raffle ticket, one that entered us in to a draw against all the other people who wanted a bed. It did allow us on to the train, but for the ten hour ride we were not officially allocated anywhere to sleep or sit. We just found empty spots, moved when asked and found others. We were people who had been sold a ticket for a journey on a sleeper coach without anywhere to sleep. It's just one example of things that seem illogical in India. In fact India rarely makes sense. Their national anthem should be I Am The Walrus.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
A Hard Day's Night?
I haven't had time to do an update for a little while, so I'll skip the details of travelling from Cambodia back to Thailand and a couple of uneventful nights in Siem Reap. I will however mention that as I left Bangkok to go to the south of Thailand again, I found myself actually liking the place a bit. No longer did it seem busy and smelly and threatening...well perhaps quite smelly, but I'd certainly grown used to places like it, and now I could see that Bangkok is really quite vibrant and exciting. A bit of me wished I could've stayed another night. Instead I took a sleeper train to the south, and wondered why I'd been taking buses before. I sat down, had a beer delivered to me, and I put my feet up on the seat opposite as I watched Thailand roll by out the window. Uh-oh, here comes a guard, he'll probably tell me to put my feet down. Oh no, he's going to say hello, sit opposite, and put his feet up too. How relaxing. Dinner was served and was delicious, and then I got another beer and geeked it up reading some H.G. Wells. Bliss. Then I was interrupted by someone. She just sat herself down in the seat in front of me and began a conversation. Normally I'd probably find this a tad rude, but actually she seemed very interesting. The invasion of the Martians would have to wait. Her name was Sky, and with a name like that you might imagine that her parents were a pair of hippies. You'd be only half right I'm afraid, because it's just her dad that's the hippy. He grows organic vegetables and everything. This was nice, because we had something in common. I told her about my mum's jungle garden that's neighboured by very finely trimmed English lawns, and about my dad's musical exploits in the sixties. We spent the rest of the journey talking until it was time to sleep and we both agreed it was a really nice train ride.
After a rest in Trang, I eventually arrived in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and a huge, modern city. Things were different here. It was certainly cleaner, and the traffic more ordered: the cars stop at red lights. The time I spent here was very touristy. I went to see the Petronas towers, the world's largest twin towers, and beneath them is a shopping mall. Normally I feel guilty going to malls when I'm travelling. It's a bit like you're being drawn to what's familiar when really you should be finding something new. In this case though, I felt the mall was so impressive that it really was an attraction of the city. It's beautifully laid out, and a people-watcher's paradise - each level is a circular ring, meaning from the top level you can see below what everyone is up to. Largely though, Kuala Lumpur was a regular dull city and I was glad to spend only a few nights there.
Singapore, too, seemed like a city built for function, business and local inhabitants rather than for the amusement of visitors, but unlike Kuala Lumpur, it's mere appearance is enough to keep you interested. Again cleaner, and skyscrapers that would make New York jealous. I realised that in the build up to India, I'd traversed South East Asia in the wrong direction. The pristine, stylish exterior of Singapore was surely not the best place to prepare my mind for the bedlam of Bombay. I say exterior because under the surface, I found, lies something quite sinister about Singapore. People are fined excessively for doing petty things like eating on trains or riding bikes on sidewalks. Just using drugs can be punishable by death. The news is heavily censored - only success stories are reported, there is little interest of overseas and nobody speaks against the government. It begins to sound like a certain novel by George Orwell. It turns out I was lucky - jay walking can get you fined $500. I'd been leaping in to the road whenever I found a big enough gap.
All this aside I had a great time in Singapore. My hostel was bang in the middle of Chinatown, and it was Chinese new year that weekend, so there was a wonderful atmosphere. I met a couple of Aussie guys called Luke and Nick and we went for a couple of pints together, although nightlife doesn't seem to be Singapore's strong point. I think everybody has to be in bed by 11. The next day I strolled along Orchard Road, a sort-of caracature of Oxford Street or 5th Avenue, completely devoted to retail and major brands. In the evening I did a Night Safari, which is just a zoo that's open late really, and the next day I walked extensively, taking in the colonial remains of the city and Singapore's own version of the London Eye, which has overtaken it as the world's tallest ferris wheel.
Eventually it was time to take my flight to India, the last country on my itinerary before I head home. I won't lie, I'd been nervous about it. Everyone told me how overwhelming it would be. Conversations with people about it would usually contain the line 'you're going on your own? Good luck!' After a turbulent flight with no sleep, and after my hostel had kindly picked me up from the airport, I was in a bed by 4am and had no idea how things would plan out when I woke.
The hostel was a very relaxed place, a bit like someone's apartment that had been opened up to only very nice people. The host brought me a small cup of chai and some dosa for breakfast, both delicious, and my first taste of Indian cuisine in India. There was a variety of people staying in the hostel, and it turned out that a few people were heading to Goa the next evening, which matched my plans, so we decided to all go together. I also asked if I could tag along with them for the day as they were heading in to Mumbai - the hostel was quite a way out of the city.
However, the purpose of their excursion was not for regular tourism. An American called Simon was a musician, and with the help of a German with a video camera called Hans, they were going to gather some footage for a music video. There was also a Danish girl called Maria, who with the most striking blonde hair and blue eyes was to play the part of an angel. A Norwegian called Eric was going to be a drummer or something. When I decided that I was coming along for the ride, my own cherub features led me in to the role of a second angel. As it transpired, it didn't really work out like that - I wasn't really on the same level as Maria. I've never been at my most comfortable having a camera pointed at me anyway.
So we arranged for a van driver to take us around town, first buying a few bits, like instruments, and then to good locations for us to film. One scene saw us on a raised concrete platform on the top level of a car park, with the skyline of Mumbai behind. Simon would stroll about with his guitar, I'd be bashing away at a tamborene, and the police would be standing there looking cross and a bit bemused.
We finished the take then jumped in the van and made a run for it. At one point Simon just sat on a chair on the pavement and began playing, and this drew in a large audience. Later we went to the beach and within minutes we had a huge crowd of Indians following us. I should point out that Maria was the main attraction. Not just incredibly blonde and pale-skinned, but dressed in traditional Indian attire. The Indian men very much approved. Some of the women did too. Many, many camera phone photos were taken. When we tried to move on, we were followed. Sometimes the crowd would surround us and it was hard to escape. It was a tiny little bit like being in the Beatles. It was the craziest first day in any city ever.
Mumbai is a very, very busy city, but I can't say I was overwhelmed. Either I prepared myself mentally, or my experiences in south east Asia had given me some experience, but I instantly found myself loving the place - the colours, the traffic jams, the smells, the enormity of the amount of people - it was wonderful just to be India. The next evening though, we headed to Goa, which is much more relaxed, but in itself a very interesting place. It's been really nice so far - just myself, Maria, Hans and Eric, a mixture of people from different nations who've only known each other a few days, but it feels like a group of good mates on holiday. We've just been hanging out on the beach so far, but I'll let you know if we do anything more worthwhile.
Singapore, too, seemed like a city built for function, business and local inhabitants rather than for the amusement of visitors, but unlike Kuala Lumpur, it's mere appearance is enough to keep you interested. Again cleaner, and skyscrapers that would make New York jealous. I realised that in the build up to India, I'd traversed South East Asia in the wrong direction. The pristine, stylish exterior of Singapore was surely not the best place to prepare my mind for the bedlam of Bombay. I say exterior because under the surface, I found, lies something quite sinister about Singapore. People are fined excessively for doing petty things like eating on trains or riding bikes on sidewalks. Just using drugs can be punishable by death. The news is heavily censored - only success stories are reported, there is little interest of overseas and nobody speaks against the government. It begins to sound like a certain novel by George Orwell. It turns out I was lucky - jay walking can get you fined $500. I'd been leaping in to the road whenever I found a big enough gap.
Eventually it was time to take my flight to India, the last country on my itinerary before I head home. I won't lie, I'd been nervous about it. Everyone told me how overwhelming it would be. Conversations with people about it would usually contain the line 'you're going on your own? Good luck!' After a turbulent flight with no sleep, and after my hostel had kindly picked me up from the airport, I was in a bed by 4am and had no idea how things would plan out when I woke.
The hostel was a very relaxed place, a bit like someone's apartment that had been opened up to only very nice people. The host brought me a small cup of chai and some dosa for breakfast, both delicious, and my first taste of Indian cuisine in India. There was a variety of people staying in the hostel, and it turned out that a few people were heading to Goa the next evening, which matched my plans, so we decided to all go together. I also asked if I could tag along with them for the day as they were heading in to Mumbai - the hostel was quite a way out of the city.
So we arranged for a van driver to take us around town, first buying a few bits, like instruments, and then to good locations for us to film. One scene saw us on a raised concrete platform on the top level of a car park, with the skyline of Mumbai behind. Simon would stroll about with his guitar, I'd be bashing away at a tamborene, and the police would be standing there looking cross and a bit bemused.
Mumbai is a very, very busy city, but I can't say I was overwhelmed. Either I prepared myself mentally, or my experiences in south east Asia had given me some experience, but I instantly found myself loving the place - the colours, the traffic jams, the smells, the enormity of the amount of people - it was wonderful just to be India. The next evening though, we headed to Goa, which is much more relaxed, but in itself a very interesting place. It's been really nice so far - just myself, Maria, Hans and Eric, a mixture of people from different nations who've only known each other a few days, but it feels like a group of good mates on holiday. We've just been hanging out on the beach so far, but I'll let you know if we do anything more worthwhile.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Cambodia
Sod coming here in the rainy season without a pair of wellies. One afternoon of rain in the dry months and the roads have already flooded. And in a part of the world where footpaths are abused as extensions of shop displays, and where the gutters aren't clean at the best of times, it's definitely a bad day to be wearing my Dunlops with the holes in them.
The rain actually suits Phnom Penh very well. It was one of the central areas for Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia and is therefore home to mostly quite depressing things to do. The first stop, travelling with a fellow guest at my hostel, was The Killing Fields. I won't go in to too many details, but this is the site of nearly two hundred mass graves containing men, women and children from Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese and European backgrounds. Unexcavated bones can still be seen protruding from the earth. Simply being there is enough to send a shiver up the spine.
After The Killing Fields we visited S-21, a former secondary school turned torture-chamber and prison camp turned museum of genocide. Again, for your benefit, I'd rather not be too graphic in my descriptions. All I can say is that while the Nazis may have been coldly efficient in their methods of extermination, the Khmer Rouge were certainly more inventive and gruesome. I think the comparison is fair. Both regimes aspired to radically 'purify' the societies they led through mass murder, and were fuelled by hatred and paranoia. The biggest difference to me is that I've known about what Hitler did since I was about 11. I've known about what Pol Pot did since about this morning. Shocking too, is that many of those who worked for the regime have been accepted back in to the current Cambodian government, and worse still, none of the Cambodians seem to mind.
Not that Cambodia doesn't seem to be picking itself up off the ground. Before Phnom Penh I was in Siem Reap, a small city that acts as the gateway to the Angkor temples, and a vibrant, fun-loving place it is too. Obviously it's overrun with tourists, but who cares, it's brilliant and has it all. Markets, cheap food, bars, good accommodation and even a place for me to update my iPod. In my very easy-going and lovely hostel I first met Brad and Wayne, who I agreed to visit the temples with the next day, and then my room mates, who I went for dinner with that evening. Later they gave me the nickname of '50 Cent' for a reason I can't remember, but it definitely wasn't because we look alike.
Brad, Australian, and Wayne, Canadian, did an excellent job of forming some kind of plan for the temples, myself having no more knowledge about the place other than seeing a picture a while ago and thinking 'oh that looks nice'. We visited, I think, a total of five temples during the day, all generously spread out across a vast region of land. Most interesting I thought, were the face towers of Bayon, and Ta Prohm, where the roots of large trees have claimed much of the architecture for themselves. And then Angkor Wat itself, a work of genius given that it was built only in the 12th century. In the evening we were joined by a Dutch girl called Susan and we all went to a bar called Angkor What? for a few pints, four shots, and a bucket of gin and tonic.
Brad, a largely gentle and left-leaning man - politically I mean, not literally - had something of a strange and uncontrollable urge to go and shoot something. With a real gun. And so he had an idea that we all head off to a shooting range the next day to give it a go. This was a relief, as I was worried he wouldn't be able to wait til morning. The idea came in to fruition as all four of us piled in to a tuk tuk and travelled ten miles to a military area with our hangovers in tow. To be honest, the night before in the bar I'd been pretty up for the activity, but when we arrived I felt extremely uncomfortable. It was not a shooting range that you might imagine, with nice clean cubicles and small handguns, but quite a dirty affair. The guns hung up on a wall, and they were all very large and very powerful. And old. I assume, and I'm very sure I'm not wrong, that the guns had fulfilled the purpose for what they were engineered. Tell me I'm not a man if you like, but I was quite happy just to watch.
Wayne and Brad chose two guns to shoot with, sharing the rounds on each. An AK-47, a favourite, I hear, with the Taliban and Cypress Hill, and an M16. I don't know what that stands for, but it's a very big gun. Wayne went first, and was apparently very nervous. Next was Brad, whose aim was a bit wonky sometimes, but thankfully we all survived. You can certainly see how those things kill people, but I do wonder how they don't make the user deaf. Within a few minutes all the ammunition was used up, and with Brad happy, we headed back in to town to shop and to take a dip in the hostel's swimming pool. The next day was spent in a similarly chilled-out fashion, even fitting in some time to watch a bit of telly. In the evening we had more drinks. One bar we found was high up - about three storeys. Looking over the balcony to the street below we caught the eye of a taxi driver. We waved, he waved back and then did the hand signal for 'tuk tuk?' and laughed. We decided that guy was pretty cool, so called him up for a beer, and sat with him as we talked about Cambodia and our parts of the world.
I go back to Siem Reap tomorrow, on my way to resume my trip to Singapore. Cambodia was a great place to visit, particularly as it wasn't planned. I also flirted with the idea of crossing over to Vietnam, but as it is I will already have to eat in to some of my time in India, and I'd rather not eat any more. Next stop Bangkok, then Trang, then finally, behind schedule, Kuala Lumpur.
The rain actually suits Phnom Penh very well. It was one of the central areas for Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia and is therefore home to mostly quite depressing things to do. The first stop, travelling with a fellow guest at my hostel, was The Killing Fields. I won't go in to too many details, but this is the site of nearly two hundred mass graves containing men, women and children from Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese and European backgrounds. Unexcavated bones can still be seen protruding from the earth. Simply being there is enough to send a shiver up the spine.
After The Killing Fields we visited S-21, a former secondary school turned torture-chamber and prison camp turned museum of genocide. Again, for your benefit, I'd rather not be too graphic in my descriptions. All I can say is that while the Nazis may have been coldly efficient in their methods of extermination, the Khmer Rouge were certainly more inventive and gruesome. I think the comparison is fair. Both regimes aspired to radically 'purify' the societies they led through mass murder, and were fuelled by hatred and paranoia. The biggest difference to me is that I've known about what Hitler did since I was about 11. I've known about what Pol Pot did since about this morning. Shocking too, is that many of those who worked for the regime have been accepted back in to the current Cambodian government, and worse still, none of the Cambodians seem to mind.
Not that Cambodia doesn't seem to be picking itself up off the ground. Before Phnom Penh I was in Siem Reap, a small city that acts as the gateway to the Angkor temples, and a vibrant, fun-loving place it is too. Obviously it's overrun with tourists, but who cares, it's brilliant and has it all. Markets, cheap food, bars, good accommodation and even a place for me to update my iPod. In my very easy-going and lovely hostel I first met Brad and Wayne, who I agreed to visit the temples with the next day, and then my room mates, who I went for dinner with that evening. Later they gave me the nickname of '50 Cent' for a reason I can't remember, but it definitely wasn't because we look alike.
Brad, a largely gentle and left-leaning man - politically I mean, not literally - had something of a strange and uncontrollable urge to go and shoot something. With a real gun. And so he had an idea that we all head off to a shooting range the next day to give it a go. This was a relief, as I was worried he wouldn't be able to wait til morning. The idea came in to fruition as all four of us piled in to a tuk tuk and travelled ten miles to a military area with our hangovers in tow. To be honest, the night before in the bar I'd been pretty up for the activity, but when we arrived I felt extremely uncomfortable. It was not a shooting range that you might imagine, with nice clean cubicles and small handguns, but quite a dirty affair. The guns hung up on a wall, and they were all very large and very powerful. And old. I assume, and I'm very sure I'm not wrong, that the guns had fulfilled the purpose for what they were engineered. Tell me I'm not a man if you like, but I was quite happy just to watch.
Wayne and Brad chose two guns to shoot with, sharing the rounds on each. An AK-47, a favourite, I hear, with the Taliban and Cypress Hill, and an M16. I don't know what that stands for, but it's a very big gun. Wayne went first, and was apparently very nervous. Next was Brad, whose aim was a bit wonky sometimes, but thankfully we all survived. You can certainly see how those things kill people, but I do wonder how they don't make the user deaf. Within a few minutes all the ammunition was used up, and with Brad happy, we headed back in to town to shop and to take a dip in the hostel's swimming pool. The next day was spent in a similarly chilled-out fashion, even fitting in some time to watch a bit of telly. In the evening we had more drinks. One bar we found was high up - about three storeys. Looking over the balcony to the street below we caught the eye of a taxi driver. We waved, he waved back and then did the hand signal for 'tuk tuk?' and laughed. We decided that guy was pretty cool, so called him up for a beer, and sat with him as we talked about Cambodia and our parts of the world.
I go back to Siem Reap tomorrow, on my way to resume my trip to Singapore. Cambodia was a great place to visit, particularly as it wasn't planned. I also flirted with the idea of crossing over to Vietnam, but as it is I will already have to eat in to some of my time in India, and I'd rather not eat any more. Next stop Bangkok, then Trang, then finally, behind schedule, Kuala Lumpur.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Not sticking to the plan
I arrived in Phi Phi relatively early, and relatively hassle-free. The minibus to the ferry picked me up on time, and the ferry itself was very comfortable. I could see that a man boarding the minibus had a guitar on him, but his face was obscured by a window frame. Being a bit of a grump in the morning, the first thing I thought was "oh no, a twat with a guitar. I bet he's got dreadlocks". But as he entered the vehicle his face came in to view and it turned out he actually looked like Mr. Bean, which I found more acceptable. Later, the ferry was playing a number of episodes of Mr. Bean, and for a moment I thought that television was mingling with reality as the guitar-playing Mr. Bean strolled in front of the screen.
So anyway, I got to Phi Phi and checked in to my room at the 'Gypsy Village'. Trust me, I didn't book it based on the name. Nor did I book it based on the colour scheme. I say 'scheme', it was really just 'pink'. The outside walls were pink. So were the inside ones. As was the bedding, including a delightful satin sheet. I've got nothing against pink, but it's definitely one of those colours that requires moderation in it's use.
Happy that I'd got myself another high value place to stay, I stepped out in to Phi Phi to see what it was all about. Being one of Thailand's most beautiful spots, the place was very busy and lined with shops, bars and tourist agencies. However, it has a real laid back tropical feeling to it, and there are no real roads, just dusty walkways meandering around the various establishments. Soon though, the dust turned in to mud as the skies gave it their all, and the heaviest rain I'd seen for weeks hit the island.
Phi Phi has two main islands, Ko Phi Phi Don, where we were staying, and Ko Phi Phi Leh which is uninhabited and has nowhere to stay unless you do a special camping tour. Ko Phi Phi Leh, then, can really only be viewed through a day trip, so that's exactly what I went to do. I took a long tail boat tour, because I felt it was more 'Thailandy' and met some excellent people from Watford, Germany and Canada. First we chilled out on a very nice beach, then on to 'Monkey Bay', where you can see a bunch of monkeys sitting on the rocks on another very nice beach, and then in to a sort-of lagoon area where we did some snorkelling. I've no idea where these places were, as our guide wasn't much of a guide and usually we had to guess for ourselves. Eventually we reached an area that didn't need his services anyway - Maya Bay, or 'DiCaprio Beach' as some now call it - was instantly recognisable. A bit of me was a tad disappointed that we just sailed right up to it. I think I was expecting to have to climb through jungle and jump off a 10 metre waterfall to reach it. 'The perfect beach' is much smaller than you imagine, and not especially jaw dropping. You wonder at first why the producers of The Beach chose it to feature in the film. But then they probably saw it without it being smothered in tourists and without boats pushed up all along the shore. We rode back to Phi Phi Don as the sun was setting, and I caught up with Debbie who had done her own thing during the day.
It was raining heavily again the next day, and this nearly stopped us from making the most of our last day in Phi Phi. However, we ventured out, got some breakfast and formulated a plan, which was to walk inland and up to reach the viewpoints that give you good places to take photographs of the island. We felt lost for a while, and it was tiring, but once we were there it seemed worth it. From a position high up you can see how Ko Phi Phi Don got so badly effected by the 2004 tsunami - the most built up area sits at the thinnest part of the island, with the beaches on each side just minutes from each other. Instead of going back the way we came, we trekked through jungle on a sort-of a pathway until we came across a new beach, one less busy with tourists, but with a decent little bar and a chilled out atmosphere. We decided we'd made the most of what started out as a miserable looking day.
With Phi Phi done and dusted, it was time to take on a new mission - Debbie's visa was due to run out before her flight from Bangkok, and mine shortly after hers. Luckily, all you need to do to extend your Thai visa is to hop over a border and back again. Simple. So we got a bus down to Hat Yai, the deep south of Thailand, and stayed there for the night. There was something maybe a bit scary, but mostly quite nice, about being in a part of Thailand that has almost no interest to tourists at all, because likewise, they had no real interest in us. We got to see what Thai people really shop for, and how they really speak. The area has a higher number of muslims than the rest of Thailand too, so Debbie had to be careful how she dressed.
Early in the morning we got up and caught a bus down to the border with Malaysia. I felt a bit embarrassed going through the gates to leave, knowing that I'd be back again in a minute. To be honest, we got completely confused and wandered about aimlessly for probably about half an hour. I felt a bit sorry for Malaysia - it seemed impolite not to stick around at least for a cup of tea.We returned to Hat Yai just in time for lunch - the whole thing took about five hours, but went very smoothly. We would now base ourselves in Trang so we could finally go and see the Trang Islands the next day. This turned out to be a real highlight of Thailand. The snorkelling was excellent, even better than the Great Barrier Reef I would say, but the real gem (sorry) was the Emerald Cave. Led through a pitch-black cave in the sea, you eventually come to a small cove containing a beach buffed by stunning green water and surrounded by cliffs.
The tour was a great way to cap mine and Debbie's time together - that evening she caught a train to Bangkok so she could get her flight back to London. I went ahead with the plan and booked a ticket to Ko Lanta. I'm thinking though, perhaps I shouldn't have done. Perhaps Thailand should've stopped for me on that day in the Trang Islands. Not that there's anything wrong with Ko Lanta - it's all right. But it really only offers everything I've already seen. However, I have two whole weeks until my flight to India, and I'm pretty sure that would be too much time in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. So I'm going rogue. Tomorrow I head back to Bangkok, and then I'm going off the itinerary with a little trip to Cambodia.
So anyway, I got to Phi Phi and checked in to my room at the 'Gypsy Village'. Trust me, I didn't book it based on the name. Nor did I book it based on the colour scheme. I say 'scheme', it was really just 'pink'. The outside walls were pink. So were the inside ones. As was the bedding, including a delightful satin sheet. I've got nothing against pink, but it's definitely one of those colours that requires moderation in it's use.
Happy that I'd got myself another high value place to stay, I stepped out in to Phi Phi to see what it was all about. Being one of Thailand's most beautiful spots, the place was very busy and lined with shops, bars and tourist agencies. However, it has a real laid back tropical feeling to it, and there are no real roads, just dusty walkways meandering around the various establishments. Soon though, the dust turned in to mud as the skies gave it their all, and the heaviest rain I'd seen for weeks hit the island.
While all this had been happening, Debbie, who I'd left previously in Ko Samui, was due to leave for home in a few days and was feeling a bit 'over' all this Thailand stuff. She wanted to go somewhere a bit quieter and less touristy, so it probably sounds a bit mental when I say that she decided to come and join me in Phi Phi. A rough itinerary I'd mentioned, which involved Ko Lanta and the Trang Islands, seemed to take her fancy, so essentially she was joining me for that, but Phi Phi seemed as good a place as any to meet. Besides, she hadn't actually stayed on Phi Phi, she'd merely done a tour around it, so this was a good opportunity to see it properly. Really then, mental it was not, perfect sense it made, and I was very happy to have her with me for a few days. It stopped raining just in time for me to meet her off the boat from Krabi, and after she'd got settled we went for a meal and a few drinks. A highlight was a rooftop bar that served cocktails, and for some reason, probably to look cool, I ordered a classic vodka Martini. It was bloody horrible. Later we went to the beach where they were having what looked like a very rubbish full moon party.
It was raining heavily again the next day, and this nearly stopped us from making the most of our last day in Phi Phi. However, we ventured out, got some breakfast and formulated a plan, which was to walk inland and up to reach the viewpoints that give you good places to take photographs of the island. We felt lost for a while, and it was tiring, but once we were there it seemed worth it. From a position high up you can see how Ko Phi Phi Don got so badly effected by the 2004 tsunami - the most built up area sits at the thinnest part of the island, with the beaches on each side just minutes from each other. Instead of going back the way we came, we trekked through jungle on a sort-of a pathway until we came across a new beach, one less busy with tourists, but with a decent little bar and a chilled out atmosphere. We decided we'd made the most of what started out as a miserable looking day.
With Phi Phi done and dusted, it was time to take on a new mission - Debbie's visa was due to run out before her flight from Bangkok, and mine shortly after hers. Luckily, all you need to do to extend your Thai visa is to hop over a border and back again. Simple. So we got a bus down to Hat Yai, the deep south of Thailand, and stayed there for the night. There was something maybe a bit scary, but mostly quite nice, about being in a part of Thailand that has almost no interest to tourists at all, because likewise, they had no real interest in us. We got to see what Thai people really shop for, and how they really speak. The area has a higher number of muslims than the rest of Thailand too, so Debbie had to be careful how she dressed.
The tour was a great way to cap mine and Debbie's time together - that evening she caught a train to Bangkok so she could get her flight back to London. I went ahead with the plan and booked a ticket to Ko Lanta. I'm thinking though, perhaps I shouldn't have done. Perhaps Thailand should've stopped for me on that day in the Trang Islands. Not that there's anything wrong with Ko Lanta - it's all right. But it really only offers everything I've already seen. However, I have two whole weeks until my flight to India, and I'm pretty sure that would be too much time in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. So I'm going rogue. Tomorrow I head back to Bangkok, and then I'm going off the itinerary with a little trip to Cambodia.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Happy 2553!
When I was 17 I wanted nothing more than to be in a field full of people, all dancing away to very loud, repetitive music and not stopping until the sun came up, or the drugs had worn off. I wished it were 1988, or 1992, or some other time when things like that happened quite regularly.
These days such things are much lower on my list of priorities, much, much lower, but this didn't stop me enjoying what was probably the closest thing I've come to those hankerings on new years eve. For those who don't know, a Full Moon Party is celebrated at every full moon (obviously), involves a lot of fire and fluorescent body paint, and alcohol is served very literally by the bucket load. A variety of music is played, but most of it goes bang bang bang bang. Since the 90s they've been occurring all over the world, but the first one was thrown right where I was, on a beach in Ko Pha Ngan.
Before I could delve in though, there were things to attend to. I'd agreed to meet Debbie, who I'd met previously in Bangkok, and I'd agreed to meet Arnaud, the French guy who I'd met in my first week of travelling in New York. I arrived at Debbie's hostel, and as it turned out there'd been something of a cock-up with the booking. The manager of the place, probably one of the people who really did dance around to shit music in fields in 1988, books rooms from above an Israeli restaurant when it gets really busy. The trouble is, the Israeli men decided those rooms would better accommodate their friends, so when Debbie and the manager went to check it out, there was apparently some attack involving big sticks. So Debbie had no room. The place looked dodgy anyway, as you can imagine. I was staying in Ko Samui, a neighbouring island which is nice and quiet. I had a spare bed in my bungalow, so I offered to take her in, so long as we could blag her on to a ferry. Crisis over.
The next stop was to find Arnaud. We did, surprisingly easily. The night, apart from Debbie's hiccup, was turning out to be a breeze. Arnaud had brought with him a friend he'd met on his travels called Jean Christoph, another Frenchman with a beard and an excellent hat. Me and Arnaud caught up for a bit as we strolled by some of the things you might witness at a Full Moon Party: a beach lined with bars and stages, each with it's own DJ; men skipping double-dutch over blazing ropes until they catch their feet and bail; and people weeing in the sea - it seems there was a reason that I found the Gulf of Thailand so warm. We got more drinks in. Served in small plastic buckets, you mix and match spirits and mixers to your desire. Most of the cocktails contain Red Bull, which over here seems to have something of methamphetamine about it.
For something that officially calls itself 'The Countdown Party' there was very much a lack of countdown. We'd lost track of time, and we'd lost track of Arnaud, too. We stood waiting for him to catch us up, and then Debbie went to use a convenience (a proper one, not the sea). Suddenly there were fireworks and a couple of cheers. But more than cheers there were bemused faces that said 'is it midnight?' My watch made it three minutes to twelve, which I decided was close enough, so me and Jean Christoph shook hands, wished each other a happy new year, then sort of stood there awkwardly as we waited for the other two to return. Debbie was somewhat irritated that she'd been in a queue for the bathroom when the big moment came. Really though, it wasn't such a big moment. The party had been going on for days before, and would continue, no doubt, for days after. On a timescale like that, that moment was as small as all the others.
By 4am myself and Debbie decided we were tired and should head off. She'd done well. A whole day spent crossing Thailand from Krabi by bus, then finding her accommodation was cancelled. If I were her I'd have given up a lot sooner. All we had to do was get back to Ko Samui. This wasn't the easiest part of the day. The pier was badly organised, too many people for too few boats. A crowd of us gathered and crushed together as we all so urgently needed to get home. When the pushing started, we got out, and waited for the crowd to clear. It didn't, and instead we got an expensive long boat across the sea, but it was worth it just to get to bed. We arrived at 7am.
The next day was excellent. We slept in until about 4pm, then had some lovely food in Fisherman's Village overlooking the sea, then in the evening some chilled out cocktails and beers on the beach. I really enjoyed Debbie's company too, even if she is from Essex. The day after though I left her in Samui to go to Phuket. This was a relatively stressful road journey that involved a lot of waiting and transferring from bus to bus. At one point, a girl who'd had her money stolen was shouted at by the bus driver and nearly manhandled out of the vehicle. She spent the rest of the journey sobbing and the atmosphere was bleak. Upon arrival in Patong, the busiest area of Phuket, the driver dropped me in the wrong spot and I spent extra money getting to my guesthouse. It was all worth it though. I had the first hot shower I'd had in weeks, made myself a cup of tea, and joined the other guests for watching a couple of movies in the front room.
Patong is probably one of the most Westernised areas of Thailand I've seen. Among all the McDonalds and Starbucks there's also a huge shopping mall that seems quite extravagant. It sort of says 'we can build huge temples of capitalism, too'. One menu display for a restaurant I saw had written, in huge letters, 'yes we can' - surely appealing to those who've taken a liking to America's cool new president. The life of Patong revolves around an area called Bangla Road, which seems to have borrowed it's colour scheme from Memphis and upped the sleeze to 11. Very convincing ladyboys are out on patrol, promoting the various cabarets in the city, and strip clubs are alarmingly viewable to passersby on the street. Although I liked the look of some of the bars, I decided not to sample any of the nightlife and instead decided it was enough just to have seen it.
Phuket is a good spot for hopping to other, more attractive, islands and I took advantage of this by taking a snorkelling tour of the Similan archipelago. Getting there took about an hour and a half by speed boat, and I appeared to be the only person whose first language was English. I seem to remember my sister having a similar experience when touring some islands in Thailand. It didn't bother me too much on this occassion though. The water around the Similans was sublime. So clear, with just the right amount of surf and a variety of marine life to look at through the goggles. Later we took to shore to relax on the sand and climb the fascinating rock formations. You know when you're bored on Brighton beach and you try and see how many pebbles you can get to stand on top of each other? Well on Ko Similan, it looks like God's been bored on a really nice beach.
Today I left Phuket and made my way to Phi Phi, where I'll spend the next few days. I hear it has the nicest beach in the world, even better than Camber Sands. Might explain why it's so busy here and why my accommodation is rubbish. My time in Thailand is short now, and I'll be squeezing as much out of it as I can in the next week.
These days such things are much lower on my list of priorities, much, much lower, but this didn't stop me enjoying what was probably the closest thing I've come to those hankerings on new years eve. For those who don't know, a Full Moon Party is celebrated at every full moon (obviously), involves a lot of fire and fluorescent body paint, and alcohol is served very literally by the bucket load. A variety of music is played, but most of it goes bang bang bang bang. Since the 90s they've been occurring all over the world, but the first one was thrown right where I was, on a beach in Ko Pha Ngan.
Before I could delve in though, there were things to attend to. I'd agreed to meet Debbie, who I'd met previously in Bangkok, and I'd agreed to meet Arnaud, the French guy who I'd met in my first week of travelling in New York. I arrived at Debbie's hostel, and as it turned out there'd been something of a cock-up with the booking. The manager of the place, probably one of the people who really did dance around to shit music in fields in 1988, books rooms from above an Israeli restaurant when it gets really busy. The trouble is, the Israeli men decided those rooms would better accommodate their friends, so when Debbie and the manager went to check it out, there was apparently some attack involving big sticks. So Debbie had no room. The place looked dodgy anyway, as you can imagine. I was staying in Ko Samui, a neighbouring island which is nice and quiet. I had a spare bed in my bungalow, so I offered to take her in, so long as we could blag her on to a ferry. Crisis over.
The next stop was to find Arnaud. We did, surprisingly easily. The night, apart from Debbie's hiccup, was turning out to be a breeze. Arnaud had brought with him a friend he'd met on his travels called Jean Christoph, another Frenchman with a beard and an excellent hat. Me and Arnaud caught up for a bit as we strolled by some of the things you might witness at a Full Moon Party: a beach lined with bars and stages, each with it's own DJ; men skipping double-dutch over blazing ropes until they catch their feet and bail; and people weeing in the sea - it seems there was a reason that I found the Gulf of Thailand so warm. We got more drinks in. Served in small plastic buckets, you mix and match spirits and mixers to your desire. Most of the cocktails contain Red Bull, which over here seems to have something of methamphetamine about it.
For something that officially calls itself 'The Countdown Party' there was very much a lack of countdown. We'd lost track of time, and we'd lost track of Arnaud, too. We stood waiting for him to catch us up, and then Debbie went to use a convenience (a proper one, not the sea). Suddenly there were fireworks and a couple of cheers. But more than cheers there were bemused faces that said 'is it midnight?' My watch made it three minutes to twelve, which I decided was close enough, so me and Jean Christoph shook hands, wished each other a happy new year, then sort of stood there awkwardly as we waited for the other two to return. Debbie was somewhat irritated that she'd been in a queue for the bathroom when the big moment came. Really though, it wasn't such a big moment. The party had been going on for days before, and would continue, no doubt, for days after. On a timescale like that, that moment was as small as all the others.
By 4am myself and Debbie decided we were tired and should head off. She'd done well. A whole day spent crossing Thailand from Krabi by bus, then finding her accommodation was cancelled. If I were her I'd have given up a lot sooner. All we had to do was get back to Ko Samui. This wasn't the easiest part of the day. The pier was badly organised, too many people for too few boats. A crowd of us gathered and crushed together as we all so urgently needed to get home. When the pushing started, we got out, and waited for the crowd to clear. It didn't, and instead we got an expensive long boat across the sea, but it was worth it just to get to bed. We arrived at 7am.
The next day was excellent. We slept in until about 4pm, then had some lovely food in Fisherman's Village overlooking the sea, then in the evening some chilled out cocktails and beers on the beach. I really enjoyed Debbie's company too, even if she is from Essex. The day after though I left her in Samui to go to Phuket. This was a relatively stressful road journey that involved a lot of waiting and transferring from bus to bus. At one point, a girl who'd had her money stolen was shouted at by the bus driver and nearly manhandled out of the vehicle. She spent the rest of the journey sobbing and the atmosphere was bleak. Upon arrival in Patong, the busiest area of Phuket, the driver dropped me in the wrong spot and I spent extra money getting to my guesthouse. It was all worth it though. I had the first hot shower I'd had in weeks, made myself a cup of tea, and joined the other guests for watching a couple of movies in the front room.
Patong is probably one of the most Westernised areas of Thailand I've seen. Among all the McDonalds and Starbucks there's also a huge shopping mall that seems quite extravagant. It sort of says 'we can build huge temples of capitalism, too'. One menu display for a restaurant I saw had written, in huge letters, 'yes we can' - surely appealing to those who've taken a liking to America's cool new president. The life of Patong revolves around an area called Bangla Road, which seems to have borrowed it's colour scheme from Memphis and upped the sleeze to 11. Very convincing ladyboys are out on patrol, promoting the various cabarets in the city, and strip clubs are alarmingly viewable to passersby on the street. Although I liked the look of some of the bars, I decided not to sample any of the nightlife and instead decided it was enough just to have seen it.
Phuket is a good spot for hopping to other, more attractive, islands and I took advantage of this by taking a snorkelling tour of the Similan archipelago. Getting there took about an hour and a half by speed boat, and I appeared to be the only person whose first language was English. I seem to remember my sister having a similar experience when touring some islands in Thailand. It didn't bother me too much on this occassion though. The water around the Similans was sublime. So clear, with just the right amount of surf and a variety of marine life to look at through the goggles. Later we took to shore to relax on the sand and climb the fascinating rock formations. You know when you're bored on Brighton beach and you try and see how many pebbles you can get to stand on top of each other? Well on Ko Similan, it looks like God's been bored on a really nice beach.
Today I left Phuket and made my way to Phi Phi, where I'll spend the next few days. I hear it has the nicest beach in the world, even better than Camber Sands. Might explain why it's so busy here and why my accommodation is rubbish. My time in Thailand is short now, and I'll be squeezing as much out of it as I can in the next week.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
It doesn't rain, it bores
On Boxing Day I got up late and hung in my hammock for a bit, then I went for a short swim in the very warm sea. In the evening I went to an English pub called the Frog and Gecko to watch one of the Premier League football matches that they were broadcasting from home, Spurs v Fulham to be precise. It's a good job I had nothing better to do, because the game was rubbish and ended 0-0. I don't think I've ever seen Tottenham score a goal.
The next day I got up late again, hung about in a hammock, swam in the sea, etc. It just wouldn't do, and I wasn't even enjoying lazing about in the sun that much, if anything I found it quite tedious. Australia, for want of someone to blame, had made me a very sloppy traveller. Backpacking in that country is just so easy, I simply wasn't making an effort any more. I was probably waiting for a bus driver to arrange everything for me. So fun was Australia too, and so whirlwind had my days been before Ko Samui, that suddenly being on my own with nothing to do was like landing with a nasty bump, and frankly I just wasn't happy. I decided to put things in to perspective. Afterall, I was no more alone than I was during my time in New York, or San Francisco, or Auckland. And scanning my mind back four months, I recall that I expected to be alone on this trip far more often than I actuallly have been. So things weren't so bad, really. I then decided to do something about being so bored.
I found a tour agency, of which there are lots in Samui, and simply said "I'm bored, what can you do?" I was given a couple of leaflets on quad biking trips, and some more on boat tours of Angthong National Park, not far from Ko Samui. I signed up for both, as I'd enjoyed quad biking in Oz, and Angthong seemed like a must-do. The very act of booking these trips cheered me up immensely. I wondered why I hadn't done it sooner. I'd timed it thus: the rest of that day I would spend planning the rest of my time in Thailand, the next day I would go quad biking, the day after that I would check out Chaweng, where all the other backpackers are, and the day after that I would do Angthong. And, I was pretty sure I hadn't been ripped off. Agents for specific areas, I found, tend to have pretty similar prices to each other, for there is competition, and they know you're gonna shop around. Not like Bangkok, where Thailand newbies seem to be very much taken advantage of.
I arrived at the quad bike centre and met the other people who were going to do the trip. As it turned out, there were only two others taking part, an Australian couple on a three week holiday. They were very nice people indeed, and a good laugh to bomb around with. The ride was really a tour of the mountain areas of Ko Samui, and the track rarely departed from nice tarmac'd roads. Not that it wasn't fun. We reached the hightest point on the island and took in some fantastic views. Lunch was included, and this was at a very attractive restaurant high up among the trees. The food there I think was some of the best I've had in Thailand. After finishing with the quad bikes, I headed back to my beach. Not much going on there again. I got an early night.
Around midday the next day I caught a lift to Chaweng. Not in a taxi, but in a songthaew, a sort of pick-up truck bus thing that will just take you from the side of the road and bundle you in the back with other skint passengers. It's exciting. Chaweng is clearly where all the action is, and again I wondered why I hadn't come to these parts sooner. It's bustling with activity, shops, markets, bars, restaurants and heavy traffic. I felt more comfortable here, and it wasn't long before I stepped in to a bar. It was called Tropical Murphy's, which I thought was a great name for an Irish pub in Thailand. In here I got talking to some more Australians, and they invited me to come with them to the next place, which turned out to be Samui's most popular beach bar. Loud music, bright lights, crazy people. This was more like how I expected Thailand to be. By the end of the night though, I was grateful to go back to my little quiet spot in Bo Phut.
Waking with my worst hangover in weeks, I got ready for my tour of the Angthong national park and waited outside for the company's bus to collect me. I did this for about an hour before I decided it was a bit late, and after some phone calls was instructed to wait further down the road. The bus never turned up in the end. Instead, the boat came and picked me up from the beach directly. This should've felt like a privilege I suppose, but actually it was quite embarrassing, considering everyone else had made it without any troubles. After about an hour we rocked up to the first island in Angthong and did some snorkelling. Some very beautiful coral and marine life was to be seen, and the water was crystal clear. Too soon it seemed, we were whisked away to a beach spot, then out to sea for kayaking. Being on my own, I went out with the guide, which turned out to be the best ride, as we had to go and save people who had capsized and such, which gave us more purpose than just bopping about in a boat for a bit. Returning to the beach for lunch, I met some very cool people from England, Australia and America. The scenery, a collection of limestone islands jutting out of the sea, was breathtaking, it has to be said. Soon we were off to see the stunning Emerald Lake, a 'sinkhole lake' within a mountain. Then time to go home - they dropped me off at the beach by my accommodation again, which makes sense I guess, but I never had a chance to swap details with the friends I met, so actually I was a bit upset. Only a little bit though. Nonetheless, it was a thoroughly good day out.
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, when I head to Ko Pha Ngan for what I've heard is an utterly insane party. Not only that, but I'm in the sort-of unique position of seeing in not only the year 2010, but also 2553, as that is the year in Thailand. I hope you all have a wonderful New Years, too.
The next day I got up late again, hung about in a hammock, swam in the sea, etc. It just wouldn't do, and I wasn't even enjoying lazing about in the sun that much, if anything I found it quite tedious. Australia, for want of someone to blame, had made me a very sloppy traveller. Backpacking in that country is just so easy, I simply wasn't making an effort any more. I was probably waiting for a bus driver to arrange everything for me. So fun was Australia too, and so whirlwind had my days been before Ko Samui, that suddenly being on my own with nothing to do was like landing with a nasty bump, and frankly I just wasn't happy. I decided to put things in to perspective. Afterall, I was no more alone than I was during my time in New York, or San Francisco, or Auckland. And scanning my mind back four months, I recall that I expected to be alone on this trip far more often than I actuallly have been. So things weren't so bad, really. I then decided to do something about being so bored.
I found a tour agency, of which there are lots in Samui, and simply said "I'm bored, what can you do?" I was given a couple of leaflets on quad biking trips, and some more on boat tours of Angthong National Park, not far from Ko Samui. I signed up for both, as I'd enjoyed quad biking in Oz, and Angthong seemed like a must-do. The very act of booking these trips cheered me up immensely. I wondered why I hadn't done it sooner. I'd timed it thus: the rest of that day I would spend planning the rest of my time in Thailand, the next day I would go quad biking, the day after that I would check out Chaweng, where all the other backpackers are, and the day after that I would do Angthong. And, I was pretty sure I hadn't been ripped off. Agents for specific areas, I found, tend to have pretty similar prices to each other, for there is competition, and they know you're gonna shop around. Not like Bangkok, where Thailand newbies seem to be very much taken advantage of.
I arrived at the quad bike centre and met the other people who were going to do the trip. As it turned out, there were only two others taking part, an Australian couple on a three week holiday. They were very nice people indeed, and a good laugh to bomb around with. The ride was really a tour of the mountain areas of Ko Samui, and the track rarely departed from nice tarmac'd roads. Not that it wasn't fun. We reached the hightest point on the island and took in some fantastic views. Lunch was included, and this was at a very attractive restaurant high up among the trees. The food there I think was some of the best I've had in Thailand. After finishing with the quad bikes, I headed back to my beach. Not much going on there again. I got an early night.
Around midday the next day I caught a lift to Chaweng. Not in a taxi, but in a songthaew, a sort of pick-up truck bus thing that will just take you from the side of the road and bundle you in the back with other skint passengers. It's exciting. Chaweng is clearly where all the action is, and again I wondered why I hadn't come to these parts sooner. It's bustling with activity, shops, markets, bars, restaurants and heavy traffic. I felt more comfortable here, and it wasn't long before I stepped in to a bar. It was called Tropical Murphy's, which I thought was a great name for an Irish pub in Thailand. In here I got talking to some more Australians, and they invited me to come with them to the next place, which turned out to be Samui's most popular beach bar. Loud music, bright lights, crazy people. This was more like how I expected Thailand to be. By the end of the night though, I was grateful to go back to my little quiet spot in Bo Phut.
Waking with my worst hangover in weeks, I got ready for my tour of the Angthong national park and waited outside for the company's bus to collect me. I did this for about an hour before I decided it was a bit late, and after some phone calls was instructed to wait further down the road. The bus never turned up in the end. Instead, the boat came and picked me up from the beach directly. This should've felt like a privilege I suppose, but actually it was quite embarrassing, considering everyone else had made it without any troubles. After about an hour we rocked up to the first island in Angthong and did some snorkelling. Some very beautiful coral and marine life was to be seen, and the water was crystal clear. Too soon it seemed, we were whisked away to a beach spot, then out to sea for kayaking. Being on my own, I went out with the guide, which turned out to be the best ride, as we had to go and save people who had capsized and such, which gave us more purpose than just bopping about in a boat for a bit. Returning to the beach for lunch, I met some very cool people from England, Australia and America. The scenery, a collection of limestone islands jutting out of the sea, was breathtaking, it has to be said. Soon we were off to see the stunning Emerald Lake, a 'sinkhole lake' within a mountain. Then time to go home - they dropped me off at the beach by my accommodation again, which makes sense I guess, but I never had a chance to swap details with the friends I met, so actually I was a bit upset. Only a little bit though. Nonetheless, it was a thoroughly good day out.
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