Round the World Travel

We took the easy way out and took a flight to Krabi, just over an hour compared to around 12 overland.
We stayed one night in Krabi itself, long enough to organise a boat the next morning to Phi Phi.

We were picked up at 8 am and got the supposedly 9am boat (actually 9.30) over to the island. We then dropped off our bags at a dive company, recommended to us by some girls in Siem Reap, so we could walk around and find some accommodation. There are no cars/roads on Phi as it's quite small. Your options for getting around are boat or foot.
After a hot and sticky hour or two we finally found a place within our budget and availability, Gypsy Village, and went back to collect our bags.

The rest of our time on Phi Phi was spent in the water diving, chilling on a beach or looking for the best views for classic photos. Phi Phi is a beautiful Island, one of those badly affected by the Tsunami. Although a lot of work has been done to rebuild, you can see the effects in places.

The people here were not as friendly as the people we met further north. However, we met a couple of crazy girls who worked in a bar who made up for it. All in all it was an enjoyable relaxing time and a taste of Thai island life.

We took the first boat of the morning after our fourth night on the island, over to phuket island where we had made the decision not to go to the typical beach areas. Instead we have been staying in Phuket town, a place which really grows on you. We have really enjoyed it, the people are friendly and it gives more of a taste of real Thailand than beach areas. Our spell on Phi Phi was enough to keep us going a while.

Our Guesthouse is a gem, with lovely staff and very homely and cheap!
Tomorrow we leave to go to India, via Singapore. We are really sad to be leaving Thailand and the lovely people, it truely is the "Land of Smiles." We will definitely be back at some point!!!!!!

Well, when Mark first suggested this big diversion from our Thailand itinerary I was not too convinced. However, I'm so glad that he persuaded me. This is probably our favourite bit of the trip right from the start of the journey.

We had to get a 6am train in Bangkok to the Thai border, a 6 hour journey. This sounded like a nightmare. However, we met two lovely Thai ladies on the train who entertained us all the way. They couldn't speak English, and we can only say hello and thank you in Thai, but somehow we managed to communicate. They kept patting our knees, and offering us Thai sweets. It was lovely. They clearly didn't want to leave us, but had to get off two stations before us.

After leaving the train we avoided the rip off touts, and got a Tuk Tuk to the border, to be bombarded by more touts. They told us if we didn't accept their help we would never get back over. What a load of rubbish. We had thankfully been warned not to take any notice of them and just go over.

The guesthouse in Siem Reap had arranged a Taxi for us to take us there, with a guy to help us through the Visa process in Cambodia. At one point were neither in Thailand or Cambodia for about 150 meters. There is a bit of bureaucracy there. Then we got a taxi, along a road that we had been warned was really bad, and it was like a three hour ride at Alton Towers. Along the road they sell Gasoline in Pepsi bottles (with no shelter from the heat of the sun), for the cars to fill up on. Health and Safety doesn't mean anything here!

Along the road there are mopeds with chickens, pigs and various cargo. There was also a big delivery truck which had tipped up! No one seemed to react, as if it was a usual sight. We really felt like we were travelling at this point.

Thankfully we got there in one piece, and without me being travel sick, thanks to a great Aussie remedy I discovered on the Great Barrier Reef.

We settled into our guesthouse and arranged a Tuk Tuk to pick us up at 05:20 the next day to get the sunrise at Ankor Wat. We hadn't seen this time of day in a while.

It was well worth it though, it was stunning.

In fact all the temples were lovely, Bayon, Ankor Thom

and Ta Phrom (known from the Tomb raider film).

Our driver Chad wanted to take us to more but we were so hot and a bit fed up of the Korean groups (everyone taking photos with "the peace sign') that we retreated to the Air con at the guesthouse. We then went back out for the sunset, which wasn't as good as the sunrise.

The Cambodian people are just the nicest people that we came have come across. Squeezing as many people onto the back of a moped is an art. Parents taking the kids to school seemed like one of the latest white knuckle rides, but was probably quite fun for the kids. They have had such a hard time, and have so little. Yet they are always friendly, have a big smile for you and are really thankful for your tourism in their country. We wanted to do so much more for them. Maybe we can later on.

We had a day to look around the town, and returned to Bangkok the next day, reversing the journey we took to get there. We are now ready for almost anything!
However, for now the next stop are the beautiful islands in the South of Thailand. Ko Phi Phi here we come.

We arrived into Chiang Mai after a really good overnight train. We had a sleeper ticket which was so cheap, about 10 pounds each for 12 hours of journey. I'd really recommend this to people on a tight budget.

Our guesthouse was really nice, MD in the old town. A good location!
We headed off and had some food and looked around some of the temples and treated ourselves to some pampering. I had a Thai masssage (amazing how a 7 stone Thai woman can beat you to a pulp with relative ease) while Diane had some reflexology for 1 hour cost about 3 pounds. Bargain.
That evening we hit the Night Bazaar and got some real bargains. The goods were cheaper (with bartering) and better quality than we found in Bangkok.

On the second day we went to more of the temples. They were really stunning, but our favourite was Wat Pra Singh was our favourite as it was really old, and had an area called Monk chat.

Here you were encouraged and welcome to sit and talk to one of the monks and ask pretty much what you wanted. The monk we sat with was called Udone and was really funny, we learnt a lot about the life of a buddist monk from this. They are such friendly guys, and are not expected to be a monk for ever, they can leave at any time they want to. Really different to the religions we are used to. Its quite a tough day though. Up at 04:30 for chanting then and hours meditation. At around 06:30 they try to get food from the generosity of people. As monks don't do paid work and their robes are certainly not Levi's, money is not really top of the agenda. Eventually their day finishes around 21:00 to enjoy a much needed sleep.

On our second full day we went on a day trek, visited a Orchid farm, a model village settlement, went on an elephant ride and finished with a bamboo raft ride. It was a really fun day. The elephant ride was hillarious, when you weren't worried that you were going to tip off the seat. The Mahood's are really mischievous (sneakily fireing catapults at us when we wern't looking) and jumped off the head and let us off on our own (of course they only had to talk and they did exactly what they wanted). We treated our elephant to a bunch of banana's at the end as a thank you. It was a real laugh. As soon as the elephant caught sight and smell of bananas controlling them became quite a task.

We hit the market again for some last minute bargains that evening. Too much good stuff.

On our last day, before flying back to Bangkok, we did a Thai cookery course. This run by a family and was a really good day. The company is called "A lot of Thai" and we would recommend it to everyone.
We cooked about 5 dishes (Stir fry chicken with veg, Pad Thai, Thai green curry, Tom Yam hot & sour soup and Non greasy spring rolls) during the day and they tasted great. We ate our creations as we went along, and were so stuffed. The Green Curry with Chicken was divine.

Yui, the teacher was lovely and a genius, a real people person. She also took us all for a tour of her local food market where we came across the thai equivalent of KFC. Deep fried chicken heads!
We can't wait to get back to cook for you, you'll be impressed. Although the chicken heads will definately not be on the menu.

We really had to tear ourselves away from Chiang Mai. We really enjoyed our stay. However, our time in Thailand is short and we had to move on.

LopBuri was a slow 3 hour train ride from Bangkok, but it cost less than a pound for both of us to travel.
We were travelling with other backpackers, but also Thai people visiting and shopping in other places. There was also the odd Buddist Monk around aswell. We caught one chatting on a mobile phone, and then napping. It must have been a busy day at the Monastery.

LopBuri is not as common as other places for backpackers, so we have been of interest to some local people whilst here, being stared at with curiosity.

The main reason for coming was a recommendation from another traveller, as there are ancient temple ruins and wild monkeys (a type of Macaque). It is weird walking along the street and a monkey walking past you, or above your head on the telephone cables tightrope walking.

We spent quite a long time taking photos at a temple until a couple took a run at us and looked like they wanted a piece of us. So we made a hasty retreat. It was a surreal experience.

Next we have a overnight sleeper train to Chiang Mai. We get our own bunk beds so hopefully we will get a bit of sleep. Again for 10 pounds each for 11 hours journey (over 300 miles) this is a bargain.
We'll let you know what it was like.

We arrived into Bangkok a bit too late to really explore. So it was the next day we stepped into the heat of the day and the busy and polluted streets. We were amazed to see whole families riding on one moped. Toddler in front, on dads knee, 6 year old behind, with mum side saddle at the back. Of course, none had helmets! I wonder what the accident rate is. They drive like maniacs, and taxi drivers think nothing of zooming through the city at over 100km an hour, swerving to avoid the Tuk Tuk's and bikes.

We went to the Grand palace, despite tuk tuk drivers all over trying to tell us it was closed. Thankfully we had been warned by lots of people to take no notice of these stories and go anyway. The oppulence of these buildings was amazing. You'll love the photos (to follow).

We were zapped by the heat, and the colds we have both caught in Adelaide and had to retreat into a bar for a time on Khao San Road.

A bottle of Singha beer later we both felt ready to explore the road. It was fascinating with the stalls, hawker food stalls and european travellers all mixing together. The clothes are an absolute bargain.

Later that night we went to a hotel to get a skyline view of Bangkok at night. The Vertigo bar at the Banyon hotel was recommended. We snuck in to take some photos, but didn't stay for a drink as it was about 8 pounds for a beer! We wouldn't even pay that in London.

After this we walked to Patpong, an area with markets, bars and famous "shows". We'll leave the type to your imagination. Most of the lady boys are stunning, and glamorous in this area and scarily feminine. We had some drinks, and went back to Khao San to find a Thai rock band playing in a bar. Their rendition of Back in Black (ACDC) was really good. It was a bit strange only when the R's were replaced with L's in the lyrics, but the place was rocking.

On our second day we went to Jatujat market, and had a look around (10,000 stalls). This market is huge and you can literally buy anything. From tarantulas and puppies to furniture and counterfeit designer goods.
The furnishings were beautiful and we would have loved to buy a new set of furtniure for our house. It was so cheap.

After being distraught by Man Utd's performance in the football that evening, we returned to our room to pack for the next stage of our journey towards north Thailand.