Thailand

We've had more complaints about being slow updating the blog ... that's because we've been so busy learning to dive. More about that in a minute. Seeing as we have spent the week being 'buddies' to each other this blog entry is a joint effort.

We left Chiang Mai as planned on Sunday morning, flying with Bangkok Airlines to Koh Samui. At Chiang Mai airport there was a customer lounge offering free drinks, cakes and internet access so we made the most of that - our trip motto being 'Eat when you can, you don't know where the next meal is coming from'. The flight was uneventful although we had a slighty bumpy landing as it was a propeller plane rather than the Boeing 747s we've got used to over the last few weeks. Samui airport is very, very small - just a roof on stilts, the titchiest luggage belt EVER and a desk selling bus and ferry tickets. We hopped on a bus for Mae Nam, a little village a few miles up the coast. Mae Nam isn't really a tourist destination, I think most visitors are either avoiding the rest of Samui or using it as a base to get the ferry on to one of the other nearby islands, which is exactly what we planned to do.

All the accommodation in Mae Nam is on the beach, so with heavy rucksacks on our backs and under a red hot sun we trudged up and down the sand (and occasionally through the sea) looking for somewhere to stay. Along the way we found some extremely nasty huts and our first ladyboy, who had the longest, leanest legs in the shortest hotpants ever, but sadly couldn't hide his stubble and an extremely low voice. (During our stay in Mae Nam we heard that the ladyboys hang around ATMs at night trying to pick up Western men - I think it's the only time ever that Gareth has needed me to accompany him for protection).

Eventually we settled for a nice little mini-villa (Gareth thinks this is over-selling it) with a clean bathroom, bedcovers we could sleep under and a little verandah where we could sit and listen to the sea. Well we could have done if we didn't have to dodge all the mosquitoes. Our plan was to stay in Samui one night and then head off to Koh Tao but it was so nice to be back in a comfy bed after the concrete slab we had slept on (or not slept on)in Eagle House 2, that we decided to hang on another night and spend a lazy day on the beach instead. It's a hard life.

Tuesday morning we were up early to catch the 8am catamaran to Koh Tao. We don't normally suffer from seasickness but our 90 minute crossing was pretty choppy and they started handing out sick bags halfway through. Luckily neither of us needed one but we were really glad to get back on dry land.

Now the sole purpose for our visit to Koh Tao was Gareth's Big Diving Plan. This was the plan he'd been working on from the start of us planning this trip. Whereas Gareth is a proper water baby, I am most definitely not but Gareth's Big Diving Plan was for us both to get our Open Water Diving Certification.

I had already thought about the pros and cons of this crazy idea:

PROS
1) It might be fun (a bit like the train journey to Chiang Mai)
2) It would give me bonus points for being a good wife
3) Gareth would have a dive buddy
4) It would be a chance for me to feel the fear - and do it anyway

CONS
1) I hate water in my face, up my nose, in my mouth
2) I hate being out of my depth in water
3) I'm scared of what might be in the water e.g. sharks
4) I'm scared of being eaten by what is in the water e.g. sharks

I had put Gareth's Big Diving Plan to the back of my mind and decided I would cross that bridge when I got to it. Well now it seemed that it was time to cross that bridge, or rather that pier, as a smiling Thai chappie, wearing a bright yellow t-shirt saying 'Easy Divers' approached us as we stepped off the catamaran. Normally we do a Barry John style sidestep away from anyone trying to sign us up for anything but he had a nice smile and wasn't too pushy and as usual, we had nothing else organised. Easy Divers had all sorts of things to choose from, they did specialist courses, fun dives, night dives (...why anyone would consider getting in the water at night was nuts in our opinion but whatever floats your boat I suppose...). Minutes later we were signed up for the PADI Open Water course, starting that afternoon. So began five days of spending so much time on boats that we when we were back on land we never stopped swaying.

Our instructor Zigor was from the Basque region of Spain. (One night over a beer he confirmed something that I (Gareth) had long suspected. It's not just Welsh football supporters that think John Toshack is a useless manager, they think it in Spain as well!). By the end of of the four days he had persuaded us to go on and get our Advanced Certificate. This would only take two more days and five more dives, one of which was a dreaded night dive.....

Saturday morning we started the Advanced Course. One of the dives was a navigation dive where we had our first, totally silent, underwater domestic over the right direction to go in. (We were working from different information!- Gareth). We were then left by Zigor to explore the reef on our own for half an hour, then find our way back to the boat. Gareth - If I'm honest, I have to admit that this dive was the one I was most nervous about, which is probably a bit strange, because the following day we were supposed to be going diving with SHARKS. I have a greater fear of getting lost than of being eaten alive!

I never thought I would say this, but I was disappointed the following day when we didn't see any sharks. We were doing our deep water dive, down to 30m and were told that we were pretty much guaranteed to see sharks. Unfortunately the visibility at depth was very poor, which is a shame, because if you know you are surrounded by grey reef sharks, you might as well be able to see them. A few other divers saw a couple, but they were hiding from us. Maybe they were scared!

All that remained was for us to do a night dive. As we mentioned earlier nobody in their right mind would dive at night....would they!? Well here is the proof that we did!

There was a pretty scary moment for me when I couldn't keep up with the rest of the group (it's always the one at the back that gets taken isn't it). Gareth was ahead of me and his torchlight was getting weaker and weaker - eventually it completely disappeared and I was on my own, in the dark, 12 metres down. Or so I thought ... turned out I had been floating upwards and that was why I couldn't keep up with the lights. Luckily they found me and we carried on, with me and Gareth linking arms so I couldn't disappear again. We did the coolest thing at the bottom - we all switched off our torches and waved our hands around. It causes the plankton to phosphoresce and it looked like underwater fireworks. Magic!

Monday was our last day in Koh Tao and we decided to use it for a bit of exploring. We'd spent all our time in Mae Had but there were loads of other places around and the best way to do that is by moped. It's a bit scary how easy you can hire one - it costs less than three quid for a day's rental and they're not interested in seeing a driving licence - just your passport. Luckily 'Safe Hands Gareth' was in charge.

We'd had an idea to have a look at some of the viewpoints on the island but we quickly worked out that with two of us on board, the moped wasn't too good at hills. Instead we found ourselves at a beautiful beach called Shark Bay, with bright blue water and white sand. Tough day.

Tuesday it was time to head back to Bangkok - a 90 minute ferry to Chumporn and then an eight hour bus ride - so please don't think this trip is all sunbathing and beer! We headed back to Rambuttri Village Inn and got a last meal of Pad Thai and spring rolls on Khao San Road.

So our time in Thailand has come to an end and we've enjoyed it more than we expected. Koh Tao was definitely the best and we were both sorry to leave. The food is delicious, people are friendly and we avoided all the tuk-tuk scams.

Next stop Singapore!

I thought that after all these entries from Sarah, it was about time that I put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard. So here goes...

We decided some time ago that we would take the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, rather than fly up, which would take about an hour. There were several seemingly good reasons for this decision:

1) Sarah loves taking the local public transport
2) It would save us paying for a night's accommodation
3) It would be fun
4) We had obviously forgotten how much we hated our last overnight train journey. (London to Edinburgh - don't do it)

We pitched up at the station and boarded no problem, accepted our complimentary (or so we thought) orange juices and made ourselves comfortable in a cabin just large enough for an oompa loompa travelling alone.

Soon after leaving Bangkok, a very friendly steward (the same one that gave us our orange juices) appeared in the doorway brandishing a menu. A quick glance answered our unasked question; no, the food isn't included. We had already bought some snacks to keep us going, so we politely indicated that we wouldn't be partaking of his culinary delights. This had the effect of changing his attitude completely, it was almost as if we were no longer welcome on the train and should get off immediately.

Then he enquired, 'Do you want to pay for the orange juices now or later?'. These were the same orange juices that were handed out at the beginning of our journey in a fashion that implied they were complimentary. Apparently they were 80 baht and he wanted 10% 'commission'. Cheeky git! (No, he didn't get any commission). He must have passed the word around the train staff that we were tight, because from that moment onwards we were made to feel like a pair of vagrants that they would like to move on to somewhere else. Despite the fact that we were actually travelling in first class!

Anyway, we got very little sleep that night as the air conditioning seemed to have been switched to arctic. All we had were thin sleeping bag liners to sleep in because the blankets that were provided seemed to have been dragged along behind the train before they handed them out.

At least when we arrived in Chiang Mai the sun was shining and the driver from the hostel was waiting for us. We stayed at Eagle House 2, which according to the Lonely Planet is "the better of the Eagle twins", although when Sarah read this out to me I mistakenly thought that she had said that it was "the better of the evil twins". On reflection, I'm glad we weren't staying in the other one.

Our yardstick for accommodation standards has become the hellhole that we stayed at in Negombo. By this measurement, Eagle House was above average, but only marginally.

Desperate not to stay in our room a moment longer we launched ourselves into a one day Thai cookery course, taught by Mr Visutt, who spoke very good English. Sadly, he seemed to have learnt it from watching Dr Who in the Tom Baker era, because his presentation style was very similar to that of a Dalek. Although, I never managed to get him to say 'exterminate, exterminate!'

It was a very good course and hopefully one day Sarah will put it to good use by cooking dinner.

Chiang Mai is a very pleasant city, much calmer than Bangkok, apart from the night bazaar, which is a bit like going to a huge market where they only allow stalls of three different types; hippy beads stalls, fake Rolex stalls and the universally popular 'dead cockroaches in a lovely mahogany frame' stalls (Sarah's personal favourite). Repeated ad nauseam until my blood sugar dropped so low that we had to go and find something to eat (unusual).

There are certain things that all travellers seem to do in Chiang Mai and probably the greatest of these is to go trekking. You can do treks that last anywhere between one and seven days (even longer if you get lost). Sarah and I decided that a one day trek was the best bet for two reasons, firstly, we had very limited time in Chiang Mai and secondly, why would any sane person choose to sleep in a hut in the jungle, being bitten to death by mosquitoes when there is a perfectly good bed in a hostel available? Or are we just not getting into the spirit of things? It seemed that we were wrong, as the city was full of Ray Mears wannabes, just dying to disappear into the hills for a spot of light rambling and starvation....

Our 'trek' first pitched up at the Mae Ping elephant training centre and we walked down to meet the elephants (this was probably the most walking we did all day). It was at this point that I truly surpassed myself in the David Attenborough stakes. Presented with a large bunch of bananas I was informed that I was free to feed them to the elephant standing rather impatiently next to me. So I peeled a banana and gave it to her, she seemed pleased with this system, so I repeated it and again she looked very happy. It was after the third banana that our guide suggested that the elephant might also like to eat the skins! I have to be honest and admit that it took a few seconds for the significance of this statement to sink in. Elephants obviously don't bother peeling bananas in the wild. I don't think they have the manual dexterity.

The rest of the morning passed without major incident, we went for an hour long ride on a twenty five year old elephant with a name that neither of us can remember, but definitely sounded a lot like Taliesin. I don't know whether the training centre ran out of Thai names, but I was a little surprised that their immediate thought was to start using the names of Welsh princes.

The elephant centre was actually very good. After we visited the elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka I was a little concerned by the way the keepers treated the elephants, they didn't seem to have any kind of interest in the elephants beyond getting tips from visitors and were quite happy to give them a good few whacks with a stick for no real reason. Mae Ping was very different, the elephants seemed to be happy and very well looked after. The keepers seemed to have very good relationships with the elephants and our 'driver' was constantly talking to Taliesin throughout our ride.

This was followed by a leisurely bamboo raft trip down the Mae Ping river where we came across the world's most dedicated sales team. Three teenage girls stood chest deep in the river trying to sell hats to the raft passengers as they went past. Unfortunately for these budding entrepreneurs I already have a hat and they were selling the exact same court jester style hats that everybody had been trying to sell us on our elephant ride twenty minutes before.

We narrowly avoided a visit to a snake farm in the afternoon, ending up instead at a butterfly farm. There's an hour of my life that I will never get back.

That was it for Chiang Mai apart from an evening spent brushing up our pool playing and Chang Beer drinking skills, obviously we're still working on the latter.

We've moved on to Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand now and we're relaxing by by the beach. Stay tuned for the next installment.

We arrived in Bangkok tired and stinky after our overnight flight from Sri Lanka, and with no bed for the night. Lonely Planet's guidebook gave fantastic instructions on how to get away from Bangkok's Don Muang airport but unfortunately we landed in Suvarnabhumi airport, which opened only last month. Luckily there was an airport bus outside so we hopped on and I promptly fell asleep. After about 30 minutes I woke up, just as we got into Bangkok itself. Despite the air conditioning on the bus, sitting in traffic in the sun was making me feel like I was being baked alive.

We had a plan for getting a room - a hotel on Soi Rambuttri, a few minutes away from Khao San Road. I had high expectations from the write-up in our trusty guidebook and was so pleased when the girl on the reception desk said that they did have a room available, gave us a key and invited us to take a look.

Lonely Planet describes the Rambuttri Village Inn as the Holiday Inn of guesthouses - well it looked more like the Ritz to us when we walked in. Air-conditioned, with our own bathroom with hot water, a TV, bedcovers we could actually sleep under and best of all, a rooftop pool, all for a tenner a night. We checked in for three days.

That night we headed over to Khao San Road which is basically traveller heaven. The road is lit up by neon signs and more shops, stalls and street food sellers than you can count. Narrow alleyways with even more shops and places to eat branch off the main road. We wandered about and got ourselves some food - which included the nicest spring rolls I've ever tasted and it cost us 55 baht - less than a pound.

Khao San Road seemed to have a magnetic pull as no matter where we started, we ended up back there every night of our stay in Bangkok, trying more of the street food. Banana and chocolate rotis one night for 20 baht each - 14p - and they were divine!

Next day, we started with a lunch that had so many chillies in it I thought I was going to collapse and die face down in my dinner. After I had recovered from that, but still with a nasty ache in my stomach, we set off for a spot of sightseeing. Bangkok has more than 500 temples and although we had no plans to see them all we thought we should make an effort to see at least one. Resisting the urge to get a tuk-tuk, we walked over to Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and Grand Palace (Phra Borom Maharatchawong), a former royal residence. The place is true bling. I had seen pictures but seeing is believing. It was like walking around a fairy story.

Bright gold buildings with coloured glass and ornate decoration - and you can see temples like this everywhere in Bangkok. Rising up out a boring grey cityscape will be a gleaming golden chedi, or tower.

That evening we decided to find Chinatown - best seen at night apparently. In an attempt to burn off some of the extra calories we're taking in with all this delicious food, to save a bit of dosh and seeing as we had plenty of time, we decided to walk there. It was a long walk and we got lost a few times along the way. It didn't seem to matter how much further we went, there wasn't any sign of the hustle and bustle we were expecting. Then we noticed that there were lots of Chinese signs above the doors and shops, but they were all shut.

Have you ever come home after a terrible at work, exhausted and fed up and with no food in the fridge? You know exactly what you want, a Chinese takeaway - duck pancakes with hoi sin sauce and then crispy fried beef and rice. So you get in the car, drive down to the takeaway and your heart sinks when you realise it's Monday night and they're shut.

Yep, it was Monday and it seems the 'No opening on Mondays' rule applies in Bangkok's Chinatown too. I was very grumpy and then ... it started to rain. We ditched our no tuk-tuk policy, grabbed the next one and made our way back to Khao San Road as the heavens opened and the rain came down.

Tuesday was public transport day. Most people who know me will be aware of (and those unfortunate few that have been abroad with me will have experience of) my great love for testing out public transport in foreign countries. Bangkok has a wide choice of public transport, although it's not very joined up. We hadn't really got over our experiences on the buses in Sri Lanka (I still have a big black bruise on my calf from where I fell backwards and whacked the seat on one trip) and we weren't keen to sit in traffic anyway so we decided to go for the river taxi instead.

The Mae Nam Chao Phraya river separates the city east and west and various canals (khlongs) come off it. We got on the Chao Phraya River Express and travelled about 30 minutes down the river. I can't say I would like to have a swim in the Mae Nam Chao Phraya but it was a pleasant enough journey and a different way to see the city.

After getting off we found the main post office to send a few things home and lighten our rucksacks a bit. (When we checked in for our flight to Bangkok my bag only weighed 11.5 kilos and I'm determined to make it lighter ever time we fly.) Next stop was the Skytrain - a 'overground' line with airconditioned carriages and fantastic views over Bangkok. There are only two lines and the entire route is printed on the back of your ticket so its really easy to use. We got off at the end of the line, Mo Chit, for Chatuchak market. It's supposed to be the mother of all markets, with zillions of stalls selling all sorts of things, from handmade Thai silks to live snakes. I had a feeling we wouldn't be able to stomach it for long. We needn't have worried - when we arrived we realised it was a weekend market - and it was Tuesday. Great. Yet again I was grumpy but this time we were too far from home to get a tuk-tuk back. In fact we were miles away, off the Central Bangkok map we'd been using.

Rather than get back on the Skytrain we decided we'd use the afternoon to have a look around some of the malls near Siam Square and make our way back to Chinatown to make up for the night before. I wish I had come to Bangkok on a two week holiday with a credit card to max and not on a 6 month trip where every penny counts. There are so many fabulous shops here.

We spent most of the afternoon looking for a hat for Gareth. This has been an ongoing saga since we left the UK. Despite all our planning, the one thing we didn't get sorted was a hat for Gareth. In our excitement at Heathrow, we rushed through to Departures before checking out the shops for a hat and we forgot that all the shops after that are Chanel, Harrods etc. I think Gareth tried on 90% of the hats in Sri Lanka - they all have pea heads and every baseball cap made him look like Elmer Fudd. It was the same in Bangkok. I have offered him a loan of my bandana but he's not going for it..........

What seemed like a hundred miles of walking later, we found our way to Chinatown, all lit up and very busy. We wandered around for a bit and then decided it was tuk-tuk time again and got dropped off again in Khao San Road. At last we found Gareth a hat! After all that walking we stopped for a Thai foot massage on our way back to the hotel. It's the first one I've had in a disused Shell petrol station that doubles as a makeshift cocktail bar but it was wonderful.

Today we're having an easy day, Gareth is lounging by the pool as we speak, before we get the overnight train to Chiang Mai. We'll let you know how that goes soon!