Ok so, moving on from our last post we traveled down to the southern region of Thailand, notorious for its white sandy beaches with amazing coral scenery and the hallowed of all party lives. Without wetting your lips and making you jealous too much, I shall say we enjoyed all of that and more however as we spent nearly 2 months in doing so I have compiled a short overview of each stop of our journey in order for you all to see what else we did apart from laze around in paradise!!!!
Krabi (town) - A 16 hour bus journey there from Bangkok in total ended with us staying only 1 night @ A.Mansion guest house as the beach we so desired was in fact not existent. As we watched the film 'The Beach' and tucked into a Matsuman Curry (Jon) and Chicken & Pineapple Jacket Potato (Jo) the film only added to the anticipation of our upcoming adventure.
A0 Nang - Seen as only a stop over to nearby Railay (Rai Leh) originally because the sea was to rough to get across, it was decided to be our base for a little while longer. Staying at the amazing surroundings of Ben's house hotel with our very own infinity pool included we began to live our new found life of luxury. Although the beach was not great and the town not that lively, it was still a lovely place to stay. With nice people, nice food and some pretty scenery, even the snake we found crawling the beach did not deter us from extending of stay that little bit longer.
Railay - Deciding to only do a day trip excursion from Ao Nang we endured one of many near death experiences throughout the south islands with a short longboat ride on choppy seas to wash up on the shores of what on first glimpses looked a Tsunami wrecked beach. However after wondering the island's resort like status with not too much else to do, the once looking shit hole soon transformed into a place of natural beauty and white sanded haven. Shame it wasn't like that the whole time.
Phi Phi - Another bad ferry boat journey across choppy waters where I must say Jo wasn't the only person puking her guts up in the toilets for the whole duration and we arrived at what in my eyes can only be described as possibly one of the best islands in Thailand. A great beach, brilliant party life (Reggae bar, Tiger bar and Velvet Dojo), lots of free drinks & buckets, good food (GBPP pasta!! ;) and some good cinnamon roles), fake Mu Thai boxing, a trip up to the viewpoint and a 4 night stay @ Pirates guest house were all included. All this without mentioning a great boat trip round the islands including Maya Bay (from 'the beach'), some amazing snorkeling and the infamous Burger Challenge.
Phuket (Kata) - Not really our cup of tea. Overpriced, out of season and not that nice either. However we did stay in our 1st bungalow with a nice cute pool and had a rather shoddy dinner at the amazingly picturesque Dino Park restaurant. Needless to say, again we only stayed 1 night.
Surat Thai - Again another 1 night stopover. Don't ever go here unless you have to. An absolute dump. Avoid at all costs.
Samui - Awesome. Our favourite place. A great journey there via Seatran ferries where after much walking we found Anong guesthouse, the only reasonably priced place to stay in our eyes. Still hidden luxuries there were a nice pool, friendly staff, TV, air-con and a fridge yet you did have to put up one hell of a noise from over head planes landing and taking off and also the all night club situated next door. Whilst here we drank our wallets dry on more than one occasion, indulged in the lovely beach here both night and day, had some great food along the beach in fairy lit candle scenery and also treated ourselves to the odd burger king. Other highlights include, Tesco Lotus (sad i know), Ice Bar, being able to self-cater, Soi Green Mango & Mint nights out, the start of the footy season and Arsenal thrashing Everton 6-1, a local beer festival, lots of late night dancing and the drunken antics that went into creating Lucy Elliston's hush hush birthday video.
Ko Tao - All I can say is it didn't meet our expectations. Great BBQ meals, a trip to the best beach ever (Nang Yuan island), Fire shows, Choppers & Lotus bar, a good boat trip with underwater photographs aplenty and meeting Scott & Hannah from Wales were the cons to the much annoying negatives in the shape of having to settle for shit accommodation (shed), the lack of atmosphere on the island because of the time of year and fact we were not diving and also the fact that it just didn't compare to Samui. Oh and Jo says that her Spy wine cooler's were more expensive, enough said.
Ko Phangan (Haad Yao) - Got the Catamaran there, bumping into Chris and Leanne on the beach with new found followers Amy & Von we spent only 1 drunken night here @ Haad Yao Bungalows. With not much going on we enjoyed the beach, had some good food and wasted the night away, well getting wasted at the Eagle Pub (thanks JA for the tip) and playing drinking games at our bungalows. Oh and apparently it was here that our new holiday anthem was born. If you haven't heard it, it's a cracking little number from a man called Diz-ee Ras-cal called 'BONKERS'. Enjoy.
Ko Phangan (Haad Rin) - With me and Chris getting up with a much malingering hangover from the night before we rode down into Haad rin on his moped and hired out the Jeep for the day in order to move all our stuff and enjoy a full day of good times. Sharing the driving Chris and I endured 3 trips up and down to Haad Rin as we checked engine problems and took the 4 girls first to The Mason's arms pub for lunch and then onto our new home, Coral Bungalows. Ace of spades. It was here we would reside for the foreseeable future. Great times included hills galore, a waterfall trip (very average), THE DVD lounge with days on end watching the same films over and over again, decent food at good prices, cheap cheap cheap drinks and happy hours and also as much FREE vodka redbull as you can possibly drink. Having no decent weather at all we also managed to squeeze in a mental night at the pool party (jo was hammered), a messy night with the hottest curry challenge ever (where jon fell asleep trying to watch the arsenal game) and the best of nights yet at the Half Moon Festival. Awesome!!!!!!!! great photos, great times and also a rather presumptuous elephant thong, yeah you know who you are!!!!!
Samui (again) - Going back to try and fly to Malaysia we found it cheaper elsewhere. However we always wanted to come back and spent a day playing Football Golf (yeah i lost to Chris by 1 stroke on the final hole) just as Arsenal were robbed by Man Utd the day before! We also had one last night out with Chris and Leanne before they departed us until Xmas and then on the trip to Krabi came our low point here where we had our bags broken into. Good job they didn't take anything major, however I did lose a pair of combat shorts i spent ages looking for and jo had her bottle opener and 1 earplug stolen. STRANGE!!!!!!
Krabi (again) - Last night in Thailand, same as before, usual routine here although we did change up nearly all our books for the completing series of James Patterson 1-8, a highly recommendable series you should all read.
Well I /we hope you enjoyed our adventures and until next time.
Stay classy UK or whoever you are.
I'm Jon Ward??????
(God you can tell I have watched too much Anchorman recently)
Saturday, 5 September 2009
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