Down South

Hello everybody!!

 

So we are now in Ko Phi-Phi. And what an adventure! We loved Bangkok, made friends with our TukTuk driver Bill. Cool guy. Ate some awesome & cheap food - wandered and wandered and wandered. Saw the festivities for the King's birthday, some fireworks etc. The driving here is crazy, but I feel safer because the roads are wider than in Europe. And everyone is friendly - no road rage.

 

So we booked our travels south. Pretty much the whole month, up to Jan 4th is now planned out. On the 7th we took a taxi to the train depot & sat there for 2 hours on the floor. Stood up at around 6:45pm when they played the National Anthem. Made pals with this Thai guy named Lo who couldn't speak any English but was determined to have a conversation & to get our phone number. Hilarious. And I helped another girl with her English homework haha. At 7:15 we got on the night train. Sat at our seats & ate our dinner. Then they come around & flip down the upper bunk & turn everything into beds. Crystal & I were in the top bunks. They have these straps so that you can't fall out. And it was pretty good. I woke up a lot because I'm such a light sleeper & everytime a curtain opened I wondered if it were mine or something. We arrived to Surat-Thani early morning, a little later than scheduled & were directed to a bus. That bus took us to this depot in the middle of the jungle. We waited there for 20 min and then a crazy pickup with seats in the box took us into some town & we talked to an Indian guy who charged us an extra 200 baht to take us straight to the hotel. So back onto another bus & got the last seats. Settled in for the next...7 hours!! Yikes. Got to Phuket, switched into a minibus & that took us straight to our hotel. All in all from train to hotel it was about a 19 hour trip. Totally dodgy being thrown from one vehicle into another & having no idea where you are or where you're going LOL. Spyros baby, you would LOVE Thailand!!! And at least you would have a language barrier here, so we would be even!

 

Phuket was ok, we stayed at Pa Tong beach. It's the ladyboy, prostitute, sex show type of capital here. Which we didn't know. But it was still cool. Spent the first evening wandering around & shopping. Went to a bar & had a couple beer. There were 3 very drunk aussie blokes that came through & took over the stage from the live band & started treating it like a kareoke bar. We laughed it up with them for a bit & took some photos. Then we went to another bar with them that they heard was awesome, but which was dead. Then they started getting pouty because one of them lost his wallet so we headed off. Ended up on the beach with a couple guys from Canada, a bit of a late night swim. And then hopped on the back of an old guy's motorbike taxi back to the hotel.

 

The next day was supposed to be our first beach day, but Crystal was SUPER hungover & my tummy was a little rough from the booze too. So we mellowed out & chatted & hung in the room until dinner. Went out, had some dinner & Crystal bought new flip flops because the night before she ended up coming home with one of hers & one of someone else's.

 

This morning we had breakfast, took a minibus to the ferry terminal, a 2 hour ferry ride here, to Ko Phi Phi. Very tropical, very lush. And hella hot. So I wanted to get out an update to everyone before we hit the beach. Ko Phi Phi is the sister island to the one where "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed. So we're gonna do a hike up to The Viewpoint where you can see the other island from!

 

4 days here, then 4 in Krabi, and then we go to Ko Samui & the Ko Phagn (full moon party!) and that will take us to January. At which time we'll be heading over to Cambodia!

 

More later, maybe I will have some colour by my next update!!!