May 12, 2015

Seven teaching practicals, getting my whole body clicked in toilets and a very interesting journey from Samui to Bangkok

It’s been a while! I apologise (for those who care) that I haven’t blogged in a long time. Truth is, I’ve been incredibly busy. I remember reading a girl’s blog back in September last year when she was doing the Samui TEFL course. She did two blogs and then I never saw another one. I remember thinking how it was a bit weird to stop there but I now know why. You are so busy on the course preparing lesson plans, getting your resources, practising lessons, doing projects and revising for tests that you barely have any time to write down what you’ve done that week. I will now try and summarise the final three weeks I had on Samui before it leaves my already full brain.

The last blog ended with Josh and I preparing for our first lesson. It was on transport with adjectives taught and comparatives, such as faster, and superlatives, such as fastest. We thought there was way too much content to go through all of this in a two hour lessons (which with breaks in between actually comprises of 1hr45mins). We were wrong. The 11-15year old students had a great grasp of the transport vocabulary and the adjectives. They breezed through the listening activity worksheets we made for them and they understood the comparatives and superlatives really well. It was so rewarding being able to introduce a concept to them and know that they understood it and could use it in a sentence. The Samui TEFL course allows you to get practice in teaching a range of ages (the youngest I taught were 7 years old and oldest were either hotel staff or teaching assistants around 25 years old) and gives you a real classroom environment to be able to put into practice the teaching methods learned. Over the course of the final three weeks of the course I taught 7 teaching practicals (TP) and each one had to be planned to perfection (I did have a bad TP in the third week with the 7-11 year olds because I was unprepared due to a power cut and having an phone interview just before teaching… It helped show how you have to be prepared at least a few days before in case of unforeseen circumstances!). My favourite class had to be the 11-15 year olds and I taught them twice after that transport lesson (one lesson on sea creatures and one lesson on monsters). The TPs were a great experience in how to control the class, how to demonstrate the games and actually make the students speak in fluent English as much as possible!

The course lasted a whole month but it flew by! It was an intense course with a lot of effort, work and hours put into it but it was all worth it in the end. I met some incredible people of which I will be keeping in contact with whether they like it or not. We would spend pretty much every night together after class either eating, planning, revising or well, getting drunk. This is something we were quite good at on Koh Samui. We befriended Nong who worked at Lucky Shakers bar just down the road from our bungalow accommodation. Nong worked for his friend who owned the bar and was always happy to see us. We frequented there quite a lot (but also managed to revise there for our exams) and so much so that we were invited to celebrate Nong’s birthday with a delicious spread of food put on and also Lucky’s birthday (the owner’s little 3year old). If you’re ever in the Choeng Mon beach area of Koh Samui, make sure you check out this bar because they are helpful, friendly and accommodating… and their Chang beer is cheap. There was also a barbers near to it where I got my haircut one night. When I walked in he sat me down and said “what you want?” whilst pointing at a wall with about 12 pictures on. It was hard to choose between the short on sides, long on top or the short on sides, long on top or the short on sides, long on top styles that I had as my options.

We would also have class nights out where we’d visit the local night markets and fill ourselves silly with cheap street food and then haggle with Songthaew drivers to take us to the main strip of Chaweng to have a few drinks. This is how the majority of our weekends were spent, except for the one weekend where Devin, Jody, Emma and I rented scooters and travelled around the whole island. We saw Big Buddha, beautiful scenery and views, a waterfall and an elephant (of which Devin was ridiculously excited about). The island is easy to navigate around (just basically one main road around the outskirts of the island) and is a lot safer to drive on than Bangkok or the bigger, busier cities. The following day (Sunday) saw the four of us head out early on a boat trip to the Angthong National Park. We were up bright and early (7am) and waited for our transfer to the ferry port. On arrival at the ferry port, we were given some breakfast and told we’d be leaving at 8:30am. It was just the four of us there, waiting patiently and after a good twenty minutes of no one else arriving, we kept saying how good it would be if it were just the four of us on our own boat (I mean it was the day after the Full Moon party so we thought the majority of tourists would be hungover/still drunk and not in any state for a boat trip). Well, we spoke too soon. Suddenly two minibuses full of Japanese tourists arrive. Okay, this is fine, we’ll all fit on the boats and maybe we’ll just have a couple of extra people on our almost private boat. Nope. Another two minibuses arrived, and then another three and then two more and well yeah it got a bit ridiculous in the end. It felt like the whole of Japan had moved to Koh Samui for the weekend to come on this boat trip! We had a brilliant day however visiting the national park and snorkelling near some of the most picturesque mountain islands. One island we visited had a viewpoint of a lagoon to go and see. We began the ascent and honestly I have never walked up so many 90 degree steps! It was never ending and as we got higher and higher, the sweat just kept dripping and dripping. It was one of the hottest walks in my life. The view at the top though was definitely worth it.

The rest of the day was spent swimming, eating and admiring the beautiful views around. And getting ridiculously sunburnt. Like a lobster. When we returned back to Choeng Mon, Emma and I headed to Family Mart to get a few bits. This meant walking past Lucky Shakers and as soon as Nong saw us he gasped. He ran out back, sat Emma and I down and then smothered us in Aloe Vera gel! It certainly helped cool us down! This led us into the final week of the course where we all taught our last few TPs, handed in our individual assignments and had our final grammar test! We celebrated the final day of the course with our graduation. Kathryn and Rosanne (the trainers) gave us our certificates and references and then gave speeches on how we’d all come a long way from the first week. We had our group picture by the pool (of which none of us used!) and decided to meet up at Lucky Shakers for a drink before heading down to the beach to let off lanterns. This was a perfect way to end the four weeks we spent together and letting off the lanterns on the pitch black beach was beautiful. I haven’t laughed so much in ages and I hope this continues throughout my time in Thailand! After the lanterns, we headed to Chaweng to go to Lipsmackers and Ark bar one final time. It was a night full of alcohol, playing jenga against the bar men in Lipsmackers and rain (of course it rained on our final night!).

The following morning saw Emma, Josh, Anika, Anushca and I getting picked up at 6:30am for our journey to Bangkok. I… well, I hadn’t felt so horrendous in a while. Luckily I’d packed everything before going out the night before (can’t say the same for Josh who I had to help throw the last few things in his bag) but this still didn’t help how awful I was feeling. We got on the minibus and Anushca offered us anti-nauseous tablets. This is where the irony starts as a couple of us threw up into plastic bags. There was a distinct smell of sick in the minibus. Classy. Then was a stopped off to pick up what looked like a couple on their honeymoon, I’m sure they were thrilled to be getting a bus that stank! We got to the ferry port and clambered aboard our catamaran to take us to the mainland. This bit was fine. The next not, well not so much. We got off at Donsak ferry port and Emma and I somehow lost Josh. He was two people behind but when Emma and I grabbed our luggage, put it on the bus and got our seats, we got a message from Josh saying “not sure if you’re on this bus or if my luggage is but here we go.”. We then leave the ferry port as Emma and I turn around and just see Josh’s bag fading away into the distance. He didn’t get his bag and now Emma was telling him to stop his bus. Josh tried to but couldn’t get to the driver and when a Thai woman asked him if he was okay, he simply replied with a panicked “I need to stop the bus” which I can only imagine was the last thing the Thai woman thought he was going to say. She replied with a suitable “Oh shit…”. Luckily, Josh managed to ring the ferry company and get his bag driven to the airport. Phew. This journey wasn’t going too smoothly so far but fortunately there were no further mishaps and we arrived in a wet and rainy bangkok later that afternoon.

We checked into a hotel where Josh was having an interview that afternoon (I’ve no idea how he did it after a day of travelling on little sleep) and relaxed. After some dinner in the evening, Josh and I decided to trek across town to meet Lisa, Luke, Nigel and Cillian at their flat. They had done the Samui TEFL course the month before us and I had Nigel’s degree certificate because it got delivered after they left and he needs for his work visa. As we were in Bangkok, we thought it’d be easier to meet in person than to send it across Thailand again. I had only been in contact with Lisa because of Jess and Elle who met her in their hostel room when they were in Bagnkok back in February so it was crazy to finally meet her and even madder that Jess and Elle had met her before she did her TEFL course! We had a few beers and decided to head out to Khao San Road (which if you haven’t heard of it, it is an insane brightly lit up road full of bars, street food, ping pong shows and edible scorpions and tarantulas). We headed to a nightclub called Lava because we needed air con (Bangkok is ridiculously humid) and paid the extortionate prices they wanted for beer. Now, what I am about to say is something that also happened at a club on Koh Samui (The Green Mango) and when it happened there I somehow loved it. Basically, I went to the toilet and when washing my hands, the toilet guy (much like the no spray no lay guys from back home) grabbed my neck and turned it all the way right to click it, then left to click it. When this happened the first time I laughed but then as they continued to click my back I realised they were only doing this for money. So, as he grabbed my arm, bent it backwards and picked up my leg to try and click my back, I started shouting ‘no!’. This didn’t work and next minute I’m lifted up in the air on this random guy’s back all whilst this Canadian guy watches and says “I’ll tell you why they do this when we get out”. Brilliant I thought, the reasoning behind why this keeps happening to me, some sort of story as to how it all started, maybe even an anecdote of a time it happened to him? Nope. Instead when we’re out of the toilet he tells me “they do it for tips”. No shit Sherlock! Needless to say I didn’t go back to the bathroom again in fear of being clicked all over again.

I’m currently still in Bangkok for training for my new job with Fun Language. They specialise in teaching in and around Bangkok with their lessons comprising a lot of drilling procedures and playing games to reinforce the language being said. I’ve had two days of training now and part of today’s big training conference was a games rotation whereby, in a circuits style layout, we experienced 32 different games to play with the children. I’ve got another day of training tomorrow before moving to Ratchaburi (an hour and a half South West of Bangkok) where I’ll be living and teaching. It’s a scary transition time but I’m looking forward to the next part of this adventure. Yesterday was a sad day, however, as I was told I needed to shave off my beard. I told Emma and Josh (as they’re staying in a hotel near me) how I needed to be clean shaven and their reply was “Please can I watch you shave that’s going to be so amusing but so sad 😂”. Brilliant. So they came over, cracked open a beer and watched me shave. I now look about 12 years old again.

April 14, 2015

28 hours of travelling, bungalow life and celebrating at the World’s biggest waterfight

Hello one and all. I’ve decided to keep the same blog that I used when I was on my last adventure around the world. This one is set to be a bit different though. I left my home in Poole, England early on Thursday morning with my parents driving me to Gatwick to catch my first of three flights. I was to be travelling for over 28 hours door-to-door to get me to my first destination of Chaweng beach in Koh Samui. I had a tearful farewell with my parents (I blame my mum for setting me off, I mean she was already welling up when we were getting in the car at home!) and walked through security whilst they waved me off. I pretty much undressed; taking off my belt, watch, valuables but yet still managed to set the alarm off as I went through the security gate. I gathered my belongings and decided to grab a coffee whilst in departures. A nice cup of Starbucks coffee to start the day. Well, it would have been a nice Americano had I not knocked it all over the floor straight after getting it and spilling some on a blissfully unaware holidaymaker’s bag who didn’t speak much English but instead glared at me whilst I tried to say sorry and got him some napkins. Good start. Luckily they replaced it for me so I decided to get as far away from the couple I’d just shocked and sat downstairs.

You have to be at the airport three hours before a long haul flight and after a lot of waiting around, it was finally time to board. I drew the lucky straw and got an aisle seat on the exit row with copious amounts of leg room and a stones throw away from the toilets. My first flight to Dubai consisted of (and this is for future Matt’s benefit) me watching Fury, the latest Hobbit film and four episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine whilst eating a lot of food (they provided smoked trout on a Waldorf salad, chicken in mushroom sauce with sautéed vegetables and a berry compote with yoghurt followed my scones, jam and clotted cream for afternoon tea) as well as a lot of beer, screwdrivers and water. Six and a half hours later and I was in Dubai for my stopover where I then got on my next flight to Bangkok. This flight saw me sat next to two fairly inebriated British guys headed to Pattaya for two weeks of sun, sea, Chang and ladyboys (I can only assume…). On this flight I watched Horrible Bosses 2, The Maze Runner and some more episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine whilst eating some more chicken (this time in a herb sauce) and some other food I can’t quite remember now (it must’ve been good…). I managed to get a whole 45minutes sleep (considering it’s a long haul flight and with Emirates, the leg room isn’t that generous and so you’re pretty cramped when trying to sleep). I arrived in Bangkok bright and early and headed through their fairly strenuous arrivals procedure where you frantically fill out a visa form whilst in a cattle pen queue with some serious officials staring at you trying to get through. Oh and for those who have watched Bangkok airport on BBC Three I even got to see a couple of the tourist police who frequent that show (bet they felt like mini celebrities!). I then had to wait a good four hours until my flight to Koh Samui because I’d given myself way too much time to account for any possible delays. Still this meant that I got to relax in the departures area whilst parades of Thai woman, bands and floats went up and down the aisles kicking off the celebrations of their Songkran festival which is for their Thai new year.

I finally arrived at Koh Samui airport which was a lot smaller than expected. You got off the plane, were ushered onto a small tram which took you on a five minute journey to the arrivals ‘building’ (it’s basically just a few wooden huts with a baggage carousel in the middle, still it’s beautiful with a backdrop of the mountains gracing Central Samui). Whilst waiting for my huge backpack to show on the carousel, I witnessed the cutest pug pass through like something off the of The Generation Game, cue a chorus of ‘aawwww’. He was inside a cage and wearing a little white jumper eagerly looking out for his owner. I then found my bag (you don’t know how tempted I was to just grab the pug, run and replace the contents of my bag at a later date) and headed to the taxi rank where my name ‘Mr Matthew’ was carefully written on a board held by a driver from the hotel I was to stay at, Ark bar. I arrived at the hotel and was immediately asked ‘where’s the other person?’ which at first I thought was her mocking me, ‘err it’s only me’, ‘well you book double room’, ‘err well I put one person, two nights and it gave me this room’, ‘okay I put two bed together’… Sure. I was so tired by this point after having only 1hour and 15 minutes sleep that I was happy to rest my head on her reception desk if this ‘double’ booking were to be a problem. Luckily it was not and I was talked through the rules and my bag carried to my door. I walked in and immediately saw the collection of snacks and alcohol; lays crisps, peanuts, Chang beer, barcadi breezers. Brilliant, they provide you with some complimentary food. Then I looked in the fridge and saw it chock-a-block with more refreshments. This wasn’t complimentary food Matt, it was a mini bar. It’s lucky I didn’t crack open a beer before realising. I did however get two bottles of water free a day and some tea and coffee. Perfect. I then FaceTime’d my parents and napped for the rest of the afternoon only to wake up at 6:30pm dazed and confused as to where I was. It was definitely time to find some dinner and check out the local surroundings (I had a Banana Nutella roti for dinner which is like a pancake made on a street cart and smothered in condensed milk.. They’re delicious!).

Later that night I decided to head to the local beach bar Lipsmackers where we used to frequent when we last came to Samui back in October 2013. It is still one of my favourite bars because you go there for one quiet drink and next minute you’re on your fifth Chang discussing the cultural differences between you, a German guy and four Norwegian people all whilst on the beach with the sea getting increasingly closer.

The following day saw me relaxing by one of the three pools in the hotel resort. I chose the see through pool which had one end of the pool with a glass window for you to swim up to (three Spanish girls absolutely loved it and took about 3000 pictures between the three of them). I took a break for lunch on the beach (chicken egg friend rice) and then headed back out into the 35 degree heat where, even though I kept lathering on the sun lotion, I still managed to burn my shoulders. After some dinner, I found myself back at lipsmackers beach bar for a drink. Again this turned into more than one drink and this time I met a guy from Chelsea in London, a Hungarian man and the same two girls from Norway from the previous night. I was getting picked up early in the morning by Kathryn (my TEFL course teacher) and so decided to have an early-ish night.

I just mentioned Kathryn was picking me up 8am sharp on Sunday. This is the reason I’m in Thailand this time around. I’m here to do a TEFL course with 12 other students (from South Africa, America, Canada and Zimbabwe) and spend the first four weeks learning everything there is to know about teaching English to non-native speakers. I got dropped off at my accommodation for the month (Leelawadee bungalows) and met Michelle, the landlady. She showed me to my bungalow and let me settle in (the early morning had taken it out on me and so I needed another nap). My accommodation is directly opposite the course centre which is ideal and there are six or seven bungalows altogether with four of us from the course staying here. I then went and met up with Devin and his aunt Jody, they are both from Canada and will be doing the course as well. I had been speaking to Devin for a little while before the course so it was beneficial to coming here as I already knew a couple of people. We spent the day on Choeng Mon beach drinking Chang and eating chicken in ginger sauce.

The following day was a public holiday in Thailand. It was Songkran day, the traditional Thai New Year’s Day where the year is now 2558 (I… I don’t understand either but I bought a loaf of bread earlier and that had a use by date of ’18/4/58’…). The celebrations start as soon as you walk down the road. Devin, Emma (from Zimbabwe), Jody and I decided to head to Chaweng as it is the main area to celebrate in Koh Samui. We found a songthaew (a small pick up truck where you sit in the back under a small roof) and hopped on. As soon as we started moving, we were hit by buckets of water ranging from being ice cold to warm. It was like being on a river Rapids ride at a theme park as you’d see people standing on the side of the roads with waterguns and buckets and not know whether it was about to get you. Emma was mid sentence and got a hose pipe of water straight to the face. This water fight has a historical meaning behind it though, it is believed to symbolise the washing away of all of the sins and the bad whilst the chalk and soap they slap on your face whilst you’re walking past originated from monks which they use to mark blessings. As we entered Chaweng, the heaven’s opened (they probably saw this as a gift) and we were drenched head to toe. We decided to walk to Ark bar to drink away the rain.

Two hours later and we had a somewhat dry walk along the beach, but then the winds picked up and the skies opened once again. We decided to just submerge ourselves in the celebrations; grabbing bottles of water and chucking it over those spraying you in the face with a water pistol and slapping what smelled like tea tree oil on your arms. After a good half hour walk through the madness, we stopped off at another bar where a Thai local was passed out on the table with Chang in hand. After a few pictures and him vomiting on Devin’s leg, we decided to move on and headed to the main part of town where hoards of people lined either side of the road, the music was blaring out and nobody was at all dry. The best thing about this festival is how happy everyone is. I didn’t see one person without a smile on their face and the Thai locals absolutely loved soaking everyone with water. Pick up trucks would drive by with ten people on the back chucking ice water and firing from all angles and no one was phased by it! I am extremely glad I got to experience the World’s biggest water fight and would definitely recommend it to anyone!

We headed back to Choeng Mon to our bungalows and dried off. Me and Emma then met up with Josh from America and Adami from Italy who are also on the course and our bungalows and went for dinner. I opted for a pork noodle dish whilst the others got curried dishes and explicitly told the waitress (who doubled up as the chef) for their food to not be spicy. What did they get? Some of the spiciest food since being in Thailand. We can only guess that the chef had had quite a busy day celebrating and may not have been at her best when cooking for us. We had an early night as we had to be up in the morning for our first class!

It’s now night time here and I’m writing this after just completing some homework (reading, writing articles in my journal and practicing a warm up to demonstrate to the class tomorrow). The first day at the TEFL course consisted of using warm up exercises to get to know one another, doing some group work to learn all about the Thai culture in terms of what to do and not do and then having a phonology, phonetics and grammar lesson. It was pretty intense for our first day and I was lucky to have had a background in studying English language (at university I did two years of phonology and grammar) and so understood what Kathryn (the teacher) was talking about, it’s something that at first seems so confusing (you learn about the sounds of words as opposed to spelling and how this can be considered confusing for Thai people learning English, for example though, thought, tough, plough all contain ‘ough’ but it is pronounced differently for each). I remember being thoroughly confused at the first phonology lecture at university so I can understand how the rest of the class were feeling but it’s something that will make more sense as we continue. The course is lasting for four weeks and consists of a lot of teaching practicals (of which the first is on Monday) and so I am definitely feeling apprehensive about it all. It is an exciting new chapter though and I am looking forward to the challenge! I am not sure how much I will blog whilst teaching out here but will try to do as many as I possibly can!

November 3, 2013

Melaka this place

Yoooo. Well, KL has been awesome. It became the longest place we’ve stayed in so far and it was worth it! And our hostel (The Longhouse) was definitely one of our best finds so far; toast and jam whenever you wanted it (it’s a luxury in a hostel!) and very comfy slouching cushion type chairs with access to the television (although we often used it as an area to watch Celebrity Juice and Made in Chelsea.. its taken us this long to realise we can watch British tv on youtube on our phones).

Since the last blog, we’ve done a lot in KL. Last Monday we visited the Perdana Botanical Gardens which were quite a bit different to the Penang ones. It was a massive area in the city centre with museums, a planetarium and a mosque and then the Orchid and Hibiscus gardens. It was crazy to wander around through all this nature and then see dozens of skyscrapers in the background. We also checked out the KL tower in the afternoon (after a walk in the rain and through a very posh, expensive hotel of which we were very out of place) although we didn’t go up it as it was pretty expensive for non-Malaysians…

…which leads me on to a little bit of a rant. I’ve loved Malaysia so far and don’t get me wrong the majority of people and locals we’ve met here have been very friendly and helpful but there are the odd few (well, many) who just assume that they can push in front of you when you’re in the same queue they need to be in, just because we are foreign. It happens a lot in shops (and it did happen a fair bit in Thailand too) but it’s really rude and something we wouldn’t ever do in Britain (again this is based on a handful of people and fairly contradicts what Josh told us of the Malays loving a good queue). And one other gripe is the different pricing apparent for Malays and non-Malays. We looked at doing a hop-on, hop-off bus tour around KL. 50 ringgit for tourists, 19 ringgit for Malays (a difference of £6). This also affects the Petronas twin towers in KLCC (to go up to the 42nd floor it’d cost 80 ringgit for tourists but only 20 for Malays, a difference of £12!). And the KL tower had differences and they often don’t put the taxi on the metre for us so they can charge us extra (although it’s still ridiculously cheap compared to taxi fares in England). I understand that these are tourist attractions but if we ever did anything like this in Britian there’d be outrage. We’ve only really experienced this in KL though.

Right rant over 😀 … we went to the cinema on Tuesday! Woo. I’ve missed the cinema. We watched the new Hugh Jackman film Prisoners and it only cost £2.20 and a large popcorn combo was only £2.50. It was salted popcorn, although the others thought it tasted more like curry. If anything I thought the aftertaste was more like pepper. It was a whole lot better than the Seaweed popcorn we sampled in Bukit Bintang though!

The next day saw us head off to the National Science Museum Heidi had found online. We took a long taxi ride (he got lost) and ended up there an hour later. We paid the 6 ringgit entrance fee and found ourselves amongst about fifteen school trips. We were definitely the oldest ones there but that didn’t stop us from playing with all the cool gadgets and science related games (it was educational). And we were quite the celebrities (a group of Malaysian girls wanted a picture with us…). We spent a good three or four hours there and a definite favourite was the fun distorted mirrors and mirror walk through (before a load of five year olds came running in). En route back to the hostel saw the heavens open and a massive, massive storm occur. We were safe in the taxi and only got pretty much soaked on the 4 second walk from the cab into the hostel. We headed to the Pavillion shopping mall in Bukit Bintang in the evening to try out the food court that had been recommended to us. It was so cheap there (I paid just over £2 for curry, rice, a few sausages and a pepsi!). We decided to check out the mall afterwards and being the budget travellers that we are, Josie, Nathan and I bought stuff from Topman.. but then we found Daiso, the 5 ringgit store (yep they have poundland out here too!). I finally bought a much needed belt there!

On Thursday we went to a little cafe Heidi wanted to check out called Moontree. It was a coffeehouse where I can imagine book clubs meeting. Amongst the advertised coffee and cakes were feminism books (Josie was in heaven). We then ventured to Brickfields which housed KL’s very own Little India. Well, it was very different to the one we’d been to in Penang. The whole area seemed pretty run down. We did stumble upon an amazing Chinese temple though and we accidentally wandered into a school playground thinking it was going to lead to a Methodist church… oops. The KL city gallery was our next destination. It was free to enter and told us all about the history of Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur (which literally translates to ‘muddy estuary’). The gallery also housed a massive model of the city which played out day and night scenes, it was pretty awesome!

Halloween night. Me and Josie decided it was only right to get drunk, it was Halloween after all! We bought our Bison beer, pre drank and headed to Zouk (we knew the drill there now, free entry for tourists!). This was probably the first time in about 5years that I wasn’t covered in fake blood for Halloween. The club was packed and the DJs liked to get everyone to ‘put their f*****g hands up’ about every 5minutes… and of course we did. They also liked to play the same songs (one French girl we met had heard a song 5 times already). It was a good night.

The next day we packed our bags and checked out of the hostel we’d made home for the past week. It has become quite a familiar thing to pack up and leave now but it still feels weird leaving somewhere because you just get so comfortable being there… it is however really easy getting used to a new place. We headed out of town to catch a bus for £2 to Melaka, a town two hours south of KL. We got to our next hostel that evening where we’re currently staying. It’s called Tony’s Guesthouse and is our cheapest so far at £3 a night (we’re making the most of this cheap accommodation before Singapore and Australia!!). We checked out the local area and after searching for somewhere to eat for about an hour, we finally found a cafe called Geographers. It was reasonably priced but a fair bit more expensive in comparison to the food courts we’d found in KL. And it sheltered us from the massive storm outside.

It’s Deepavali festival at the moment which is celebrated heavily out here. Melaka is therefore a lot busier than we anticipated and the night markets we’ve been to have been really crowded! There’s been a lot of fireworks and fire crackers being let off and as our hostel is situated in Little India, we’ve been hearing the festivities a fair bit! We’ve also been seeing this massive queue form every night on the road near our hostel. It leads to a restaurant called ‘Capitol Satay’ who claim they are the original and that they put quality over quantity. We were really intrigued why there was always a queue for this place (especially because there are other restaurants next to and opposite it) and so we asked a guy at the front of the queue. He told us it is famous in Melaka for its food (…) and how most of the people had been queuing for over an hour. We decided this would be too long to wait in the evening for food…

…so me and Nathan decided to go and see what all the fuss was about at 1am (when there was still a queue, albeit it a fair bit shorter)… it still took us an hour to get a table though. Each table had its own gas cooker in the middle where they would put a pot of satay sauce for you to cook your own skewers. Yep, people wait in line for about two hours to cook their own food. But it is definitely worth it! At the back of the restaurant is a massive fridge with an array of skewers (I settled for the safe options of chicken, sausage and what looked a bit like Billy Bear). Each skewer costs about 16p and tastes amazing! The satay is incredible and full of peanuts and chilli powder. I can see why there’s a queue every time we walk past…heck, there’s even a queue for the place now!!

Today saw us explore Melaka a bit more. We headed to a Heritage house Josie wanted to see. It is a model restoration project of a shophouse which were synonymous to the area many years ago. They consisted of a shop at the front of the building and the living quarters at the back whereby the whole family would reside. The gentleman who worked on restoring this shophouse was very kind to tell us of the history of them and how they have become endangered now due to them becoming outdated. A walk along the coast was our next plan…until we discovered it was bordered up and loads of building work was occurring there. We even walked along what looked like a derelict, abandoner pier. Nice.

We’re heading to the waterpark just outside of the centre of Melaka town tomorrow and then heading to Johor Bahru on Tuesday to see our friend Josh again, this time in his hometown. I’ve loved Malaysia so far!

October 27, 2013

Feeling high on medication, admiring street art in Georgetown and drinking on a street corner in Kuala Lumpur

So it’s been a week since my butt injury. I’ve been on medication since then and slowly been taking less and less (I ran out of muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatories). The first few days after said incident were quite difficult. We took a 15 hour journey from Phangan in Thailand to Georgetown in Penang via a ferry, bus and two minibuses. A few stop offs and border control later, we were dropped in the middle of a busy Chinatown in Penang. Our hostel was a short walk away and was amazing. It had a strong oriental theme throughout and we checked into our 10 person dorm with our new recruit Russ from Chelmsford, Essex (about a half hour from Nathan). We met him on the minibus in Thailand and were temporarily travelling around as a 5-piece.

Our first full day in Malaysia consisted of visiting the nearby temples, food stalls and street art. Georgetown is fairly renowned for its street art (of which much of it is by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic). It was nice to be visiting cultural places again after coming from the more touristy sights of the eastern islands of Thailand. Being able to do something so different from one day to the next is one thing I have come to love from travelling. We sampled some of the Indian food from the street market in Little India. Chicken and vegetable samosas and onion bhajis are ridiculously cheap from these places ranging from about 9p to 18p!

We did struggle finding places to eat in the evenings (there were barely any restaurants near our hostel and the 7Elevens were more expensive here than in Thailand, plus they don’t even do the toasties!!). There was a plethora of roadside food stalls nearby but we didn’t fancy the potential bout of diarrhea it would more than likely give us the following day so we continued walking and eventually came to bright lights spelling out ‘Red Garden Food Court’. We wandered in and were faced with about twenty different food stalls from around the world. In the middle of the court was a vast array of dining tables and a stage with two singers entertaining the masses eating dishes from across the globe. After a while of checking out what was on offer (fried frog didn’t appeal to me) we settled for the safe bet of Indian food (a chicken ‘curma’ and naan bread for £2!). It was more like a soup but tasted amazing.

The next day we visited the Penang Botanical Gardens and after failing at finding the buses to them we settled for a taxi ride with a driver who charged 20 ringgit (£4) asking “what’s a pound to you?” when finding out we were from England. The gardens were beautiful (and humid, of course). Within two minutes of walking through the gates we saw macaque monkeys. We also saw monkeys who didn’t want us to get any closer to the other monkeys. One of them hissed at us and looked as though it was about to charge. We backed away and headed up the hill to the Japanese gardens complete with waterfall and an array of plants, archways and bridges. After visiting a water lily pond (without any lilies in it) we found the Curtis walk. A ‘steady inclined walk’ to the site of Richard Curtis’ old house (he basically discovered the gardens a century ago). This walk was not so steady and was in fact quite difficult, especially when being careful not to slip and injure your bum further.

We decided to head to Kuala Lumpur the next day so we could see Josh (our friend from Samui) before he headed back to his hometown Johor Bahru in south Malaysia. We got a 5 hour bus from Georgetown to KL for around £7 and checked into our £4 a night hostel (after about twenty minutes of walking around looking for it, being told numerous directions by many different people.. but we got there in the end!). We met Josh at ours (he too had some trouble finding it) and went out for some dinner at Central Market, a cafeteria style eatery with different food stalls to choose from. After some delicious Malay food, Josh took us to see the Petronas twin towers, or KLCC. It was beautiful and at night it looked amazing all lit up. The fountains in the park were a pinky/purple colour which we were informed the next day by Hannah (Josie’s friend who also studied at Reading University but lives here in KL) represented breast cancer awareness.

Alcohol is expensive in Malaysia because it is a Muslim country so Josh took us to a small convenience shop that sold beer cheaper than the main branded supermarkets. We each bought a beer for £1.40 and… drank it at the side of the road. It’s all part of the fun though ey?!

We then headed to the Reggae bar by our hostel and met up with some of Josh’s university friends who we’d bumped into earlier on in the evening. We were meant to be seeing Mateo (who we’d also met in Samui) but he couldn’t get to KL in time. The Reggae bar was awesome and so were all of our new friends. They were from Iran and insisted on one person dancing in the middle of the circle at all times. Oh and if you stopped dancing one of them would usually ask why you had stopped of which the best reply was to say “Oh, I haven’t… look” and then resume dancing.

The following day we met up with Josie’s course friend Hannah and she showed us a typical Malaysian eating spot, the bustling area of Bukit Bintang and took us to KLCC park (where we relaxed in the gardens next to a swimming pool area). We ate at Central Market and prepared for a night out in KL. We had planned to go to a club called Providence with Josh and his friends. He informed us to wear shirts and trousers/dresses as this club had a strict clothing policy. Unfortunately Josh et al couldn’t make it in the end but they said we should still be able to get in on the guestlist. So we pre-drank our cheap wine from an off licence and played our usual drinking games in our four bed dorm. It felt weird wearing a shirt, trousers and shoes again after a month of shorts and flip flops. We took a taxi to Providence club and arrived at what looked like a scene out of Made in Chelsea (posh cars, expensive high rise hotels and fancy restaurants). We walked as confidently as possible towards the copious amounts of bouncers (what club needs 15 of them?) and said the guestlist we were on. A few moments and glances between bouncers later and we were asked what company we were from. Eh? They proceeded to inform us of their dress code (Heidi’s ‘slippers’ (sandals) were not accepted) which basically meant you’re not coming in. We decided to head to another club whilst reassuring each other that we probably wouldn’t have had fun in there anyway as it looked very pretentious.

We then decided to jump in a taxi and get them to take us anywhere but this posh club, he informed us he would take us to Zouk, a superclub near KLCC. We got free entry and tequila shots and explored the many rooms available. This club was definitely for the richer society. Television screens advertised buying by the bottle in quantities of not just 1 but 3 or even 10! Nathan spotted one man’s bill of 21,000 ringgit (about £4000) at the bar, I was reluctant to spend 21 ringgit!!

We went to Hannah’s apartment just on the outskirts of central KL the following day. We relaxed on the sofa, watched Made in Chelsea and ate homemade cous cous. Hannah then took us to the swimming pool which is part of the apartment complex she lives in. It was nice to relax on a sofa for the day even if the last couple of hours were spent watching E!

Today we ventured out to the Batu Caves (‘Batu’ is Malay for rock), a 20 minute taxi drive away. The caves were 272 steps high and after what felt like a workout, we were at the top! There were two main caves there; the Temple Cave (free to enter) and the Dark Cave (£7 to enter). We looked around the Temple cave and after much deliberation we decided to pay the fee and get a guided tour of the Dark Cave complete with hard hat and torch. It was very interesting. Our guide told us about the ecosystem present in the caves, the importance of not disturbing the bats (their poo keeps the life cycle in the caves going) and how a lot of the caverns are only open to conservationists and researchers.

We’ve decided to spend a few more nights in KL to visit the botancial gardens here and see a lot more of the interesting architecture the capital has to offer. I’ve also become slightly addicted to a solitaire game on my phone since Penang (I even played it after our drunken night out!) so if I don’t blog for a while you’ll know why!

October 18, 2013

Crazy Samui, Tao and an unfortunate end to the Full Moon party

I loved Koh Samui. It’s definitely been my favourite place so far. It was the perfect balance of relaxation on the beach and awesome nightlife. We also stayed in a lovely four bed, ensuite hostel (which was our cheapest so far at £3.75 a night and okay the two bunk beds were like sleeping on a plank of wood but we alternated with the comfy beds like the good travelers we are!). The area we stayed in was called Chaweng beach and was a nice little beachside resort. It was always busy and wasn’t more expensive than mainland like we were expecting. The beach was amazing (except for the copious amounts of jellyfish in the sea) and always seemed to get busier around 5pm when all the locals would bring their picnics down and relax after work/school. There was also a amazing street (or maybe beach in this case?) food vendor who would set up camp around this time and cook an array of meats (the Chicken skewers for 20baht, or 40p, were amazing). She was also constantly making papaya salad and her stall was always busy! We decided to dine and drink on the beach one night in the sunset, perfect!

We had some good nights in Samui, for example our first night out. We pre drank in our private room listening to Thai music channels and playing card games. We ended up at Ark bar, a club on the beach where the beach front is their dancefloor. There was a crazy mix of people there including some Australian guys we befriended who were on a stag do. A lot of young Thai girls are forced to go around all the drunken people and try and sell them stuff like neon glasses or flower necklaces. However, one of them was very, very clever. She went in for a handshake with me, turned it into a thumb war and said if I won it, I’d get the glasses for free… if she won, I’d have to pay for them (bear in mind I didn’t actually want these glasses and more so went along with it to humour her). Two minutes later and I’d been outsmarted by her (she won in a matter of seconds), taunted and bullied (she took Heidi’s beer bottle and hit it on mine to make mine foam up). She kept her eye on me throughout the night, making sure that any neon glasses I found in the sand were destroyed immediately (well I did manage one sneaky picture…)

On Sunday evening, me and Nathan decided to check out a bar on the beach called Lipsmackers. When we got there it was dead. Only the bar staff were there but we thought we’d get a beer anyway and chat with them. They were really nice and we soon discovered they were all related and this bar was a family run business. We settled down with them the deck chairs on the beach when out of nowhere a loud, neon colourful stampede of English travellers interrupted the peace. We made a big circle and next minute we are amongst fellow English people, a Swiss man, two Brazilian guys, two Lithuanian girls, a Dutch girl, a couple of Malaysian men and the Thai barstaff. It’s safe to say me and Nathan lost track of time and spent the early hours of the morning wondering how this had all happened. We did meet some awesome people though and its always interesting to find out about people from around the world, especially when their English is so good (one of them said they learnt English just through hearing others speak it which I could never imagine doing with something like Portuguese!)

This place soon became our second home and the next night (after our dinner on the beach) we took Heidi and Josie to see how crazy the place became and sure enough within a few hours it was like the night before. We met a Malaysian guy called Josh who is a legend. His first language is English and he lives and studies Film production in Malaysia. He is a very intelligent guy with the night ending in a religious debate between Josh, Josie and I. It was really interesting hearing them argue their points (whilst I chipped in with the occasional atheist viewpoint, “I just can’t get my head around all of it…”). Josie also had a flower crown on her head (nicknaming herself Queen Josie) which she had acquired from some Israeli guys earlier on in the night. She informed us that she was sober to which Josh replied, “the definition of sober does not mean calling yourself Queen Josie”. That soon made her realise she was drunk!

We also hired mopeds for the day again (even though our last attempt on Samet was somewhat sketchy) but we took the risk and it was worth it. It is so much better to drive on tarmac and not worry about whether you’re gonna make it up a wet dirt track (although me and Josie did lose a lot of momentum when tackling a few hills). Our first destination was Limai beach further south of where we were staying. It was a nice place and we grabbed some lunch there before heading off to see a waterfall!!! Now, it was quite a challenge to get to. We declined offers of 4x4s to take us there (partly because we didn’t wanna have to pay but also because we didn’t want to be lazy). Josie defintely regretted this decision as we hiked up hills, sweating profusely. But it was worth it and soon enough we got to see Namueng waterfall and sit in little pools of water (which were freezing cold, just what I needed). After trekking back and passing elephants being fed, we biked it to the butterfly park and insect kingdom. After some bartering of the entry fee, we were in. It was pretty cool to see so many butterflies in one place (I kept holding my finger out hoping that one would land on it but alas it wasn’t successful). After seeing some scorpions, tarantulas, dung beetles and a bee hive we continued our exploring day to the Big Buddha. Now this was pretty amazing and we went at sunset so the view behind the Buddha was amazing. We ate at a restaurant called Boat bar on the way back to our hostel. As we went to sit down I could feel something in my eye. I looked up thinking it was a bit of a palm tree but wait, there’s not palm trees around me.. it was a massive grasshopper/locust. I flicked it out of my eye straight onto Josie’s boob where it seemed content for a while.

On Wednesday we island hopped to Koh Tao, the smallest island out of the cluster of three on the east coast. It’s reknowned as a diving island and on arrival it was pretty clear. Our hostel was interesting. You had to take off your flip flops before entering the building (we’re
used to this as many shops make you take your shoes off) but this hostel just had a concrete floor, everywhere.. it seemed pointless to take your shoes off. I’d understand if it was marble…

One bonus about this hostel was the access to the bar pool opposite (although we only went in their once). I did like Koh Tao but I feel I would like it a whole lot better if I were a diver/could afford to dive there. Instead we ate, relaxed on the beach, tried to hire mopeds with no luck and snorkled. Snorkeling around Tanote bay (on the east coast of the island) was awesome. We rented a mask and snorkle for £1 and headed out to see the coral and the most amount of fish I’ve ever seen. And it wasn’t just fish I saw. Nathan pointed to a shark. A shark was swimming around us, right by the shoreline! It may have been attracted to the blood seeping out of my foot (I caught it on coral) but that’s besides the point, we saw a shark!!

Our stay in Tao was short because the full moon party on Phangan was approaching. We embarked on our two hour boat journey with fellow backpackers all heading for the same place. We arrived at our hostel (and were very hesistant because we’d booked into the cheapest place left, an 18 bed dorm). But there was no need to worry, it was awesome. Clean, cheap, friendly staff and awesome roommates (it turned out that the dorm actually had 22 beds). We met a group of English guys in our dorm and arranged to pre drink with them for the full moon party. A chang and a vodka orange bucket later and we were ready for the craziest party of our lives. 11pm and it was packed (apparently in low season it gets around 15,000-20,000 people compared to 30,000 in peak season). There was so much going on, copious amounts of bucket bars, podiums, neon colourful crap sellers, food stalls and music. Loud loud music. This place was crazy!

We purchased another bucket, helped Josie find some food as she wasn’t feeling her best and then danced. Danced at a lot of different clubs/bars. It was also commom practice to wee in the sea here. We were having an awesome night and in the distance we saw a slide. A magical slide calling our names. People were constantly going down it and it looked a lot of fun. So we climbed up the vertical rope ladder and queued to slide down. This is where I wish I followed two American girls (no, not in a creept way) who chickened out because the next part was bad. Very bad. I slid down at what felt like 50mph, bounced off the catchment area and landed awkwardly straight onto my bum. On the hard, hard sand. I immediately felt winded but being the hero I am I managed to get up in time to catch Heidi and Josie as I didn’t want them to go through what I just went through. It was at this point we bumped into Josh and Alex who we’d met in Samui. I wish I wasn’t in so much pain as it meant going to the medical centre.

This is where it gets a bit fuzzy. We arrived and I was laid down on a bed where we explained what happened (I was obviously crying at this point because of the pain but also because it meant we left the party early around 2am). After Nathan, Heidi and Josie told them I’ve got insurance and Nathan paid my 7,700 baht bill (apparently I owe him that money?!), I got given a tremadol injection in my left buttcheek and passed out for what felt like 5hours (it was 45mins). When I woke up I felt amazing! The tremadol had worked and I wanted to go out and party some more but nope bed and rest it was. And medication, lots of medication. The doctors, Nathan, Heidi and Josie were awesome about everything.

So full moon party didn’t quite go as planned but it was still awesome and I’m glad we got to make it to one! Our next destination is Penang in Malaysia of which we’ve got to get a boat and bus totalling a 15hour journey. We’re used to this now. Thailand has been amazing and it is crazy to think how much we’ve done in just under a month. I would definitely come back here again!

October 11, 2013

The Devil’s moped, stormy weather and attempting to eat salty eggs.

Well Koh Samet was awesome. We experienced the insane nightlife on Saturday night (one barman did some amazing trick with two tennis balls attached to chains) and after heading back to our bungalows around 2am, Josie and I decided we wanted to party some more so found a club further down the beach which was full of Thai people here on a weekend away. They were going for it!

The next day was difficult. We decided to book another night in our current bungalows which was mainly because the thought of moving with our bags made us feel ~~a bit~~ very sick. A hungover lunch, a lot of rain and a few chapters of my book later, it started to brighten up again so we quickly headed to the beach for a bit of sun (it was like the episode of Friends when they go to Barbados and are stuck in the hotel because of the rain, except no one’s hair went Monica-style frizzy and we did get a nice bit of weather in the afternoon). We decided to head back to the puppy beach. They are definitely a hangover cure, although this time they were a lot more mischievous and wanted to play with our backpacks, mainly the straps, but still this caused us to have to react quite quickly which wasn’t what we needed today.

The next day we moved a few beaches down to some woodland style log cabins (although they still called them bungalows). They were also £6 a night each and a few seconds from the beach. The surrounding paths were incredibly slippery causing them to be quite dangerous! Speaking of dangerous, we decided to hire mopeds to further explore the island…

… I’d like to say it got off to a good start… I really would. Within seconds of getting on the moped I’d scratched my right leg which caused me to bleed a fair bit. It also meant we were watched very closely by those we’d hired the moped off of until we managed to ride away from them. It was fine though and we continued along the ‘main road’ to the south of the island. This main road was more like a dirt track. A muddy, wet and bumpy road. It took a little while to get used to driving on it but once I did we were fine! Roughly 15 minutes and a few hills later (of which Josie and Heidi had to walk alongside the mopeds because they weren’t powerful enough with two of us on each), it started to tip it down. A lot. We arrived at the most southernly point of the island, Ao Pakarang, where we were greeted by a beautiful beach which I can only imagine looks a whole lot better in the sun (the rain made it look like a storm had just hit… and we definitely looked fresh from a storm, it was still a lovely place though!). We had lunch there and abused the free wifi, it almost felt as if we were putting off getting back on the mopeds.

We then explored a few more of the beaches along the east coast and when Josie and I went to get back onto the moped (after visiting a cliff edge which looked as though we’d ended up in Wales), we noticed our numberplate. Yep, our numberplate was 666. The Devil’s moped. That explains the bruising…

We soldiered on and went back the way we came, past the beach we were staying at and onwards to the northern part of the island near the ferry port. The roads were better up here and there was a greater sense of community with the street food stalls nestled between inhabitants’ businesses. We stopped off at a German cross Thai restaurant (I had chicken schnitzel) and a reggae bar on the way back. We survived the first day of mopeds and as Daa would say, ‘nobody died’ (she said this on Saturday to her daughter Mui after accidentally dropping a beer bottle on Mui’s foot). It soon became a common phrase between us. The next morning saw us head out on the mopeds again (we had until 1pm to return them). We went to a small resort which resembled paradise and then ventured off to the safer roads for some breakfast on the beach.

The next day we headed back to Pattaya. We caught the boat using our return tickets and on arrival into Rayong about ten taxi drivers were trying to get us in their cabs. On explanation that we wanted the bus station to get back to Pattaya they ushered us back onto the baht bus we just got off of and told us we were going on a free journey. But it took Nathan to speak his best Thai (“where go?”) to get an answer… the bus stop. Except it was the wrong bus stop causing us to board a mini bus taking us to the correct one where we finally got on another mini bus for a two hour journey to Pattaya for only £4! We asked if we could get dropped off in Maprachan (where Mickey and Daa live) and they seemed happy to. It soon became apparent, however, that they didn’t actually know where Maprachan was and after hearing many conversations between the Thai people in the bus (a lot of ‘Maprachan’ was being thrown about) we realised no one knew how to get there. Crap. But all was to soon be resolved when Nathan and I recognised where we were. Had it not been for Mickey taking us to his golf range last week, we wouldn’t have been able to direct them from that point.

Daa and Mui cooked us lunch for our final time with them. Egg fried rice with vegetables and pork. It was amazing. We said our goodbyes and went to get our 13 hour coach journey to Koh Samui for 751 baht (only £15!). Our expectations were low based on the minibuses we’ve had and the buses we’ve seen around town. Our yellow bus pulled in and much to our surprise it was much better than imagined. Comfy seats, air con and a toilet (yes that’s right dad, the two things you were most concerned about!). We left Pattaya at 4pm and wouldn’t get to Koh Samui until the early hours of Friday morning so what brilliant timing for my iPod to be dead. The same iPod that said it was fully charged that morning. Luckily Josie offered to share her iPod and all was well until some brutal Thai movie was shown on the bus. Drake’s songs actually fit with the violent shooting scenes of the movie they’d chosen to play.

About 6 hours into our journey we were informed of a twenty minute stop off at what looked like a cash and carry come food hall. We exchanged our ‘food coupon’ we’d got with our bus tickets and sat down at a cafeteria style table and presented in front of us was the oddest mixture of food. We each had a bowl full of gloopy rice and then a choice of a few different dishes to dig in to; questionable chicken in a broth of its own watery juices, some salty eggs, some odd looking pink meat mixed with potatoes, tiny fried pieces of fish or cabbage. It was a bizarre experience and in between laughter, Josie would try what was on offer. Well, this was until she would practically spit it into her bowl of rice claiming that’s what she ‘wanted to do’… We got out of there soon after this and walked around the confusing warehouse shop/cafeteria and soon headed back to the bus where Josie exclaimed that “eating one of those salty eggs made those moudly eggs in Samet delicious in comparison”.

The rest of the journey was spent sleeping. We arrived at the ferry port at 5:45am meaning we’d spent 13hours and 30minutes on the coach. The ferry took another hour and a half so we finally got onto Koh Samui at 8am this morning. A 45minute taxi ride to our hostel and our long journey was complete and all for under £20! The hostel is £3.75 a night each and is actually really nice. The beds could be a bit comfier though.

We left Josie to get some sleep whilst me, Heidi and Nathan went off to the beach. The weather is far nicer here than in the north meaning we spent the rest of the morning sunbathing and swimming in the calmest sea I’ve ever seen. It was like paradise… the only sounds around were the small waves and the occasional jet ski. We’re now sat in a little cafe near the beach for the start of our time on Koh Samui.

October 6, 2013

Rice beer, strip clubs and ridiculously cute puppies

Okay this blog post starts with a GTA (Grand Theft Auto) analogy. It’s been on my mind since arriving in Thailand and it’s mainly because of the erratic driving out here. Take tonight for example, we finished our night in ‘Walking Street’ with a taxicab home costing us £2 each. We described our destination (Mickey’s house) which was 20minutes away from where we were. Within two seconds of our journey, the driver was acting as if we’d just got a cab on GTA and pressed the ‘drive quickly’ option whereby they drive like a mad man. Our cab swerved around baht buses and mopeds. He was very polite though and for 100baht (about £2) each we got home safe and sound.

Let’s rewind to the start of our night though. We all bought what we thought was cheap beer for 70p from 7Eleven (a supermarket chain out here). It was 8% so what could possibly go wrong? … well, we in fact bought cheap whiskey which Mui informed us of when we got home. After one sip we thought it was best not to drink it as we were warned not to consume spirits in Asia after a recent ‘poisoning scandal’. So we stuck to our beers (we were informed in the morning that the drink we bought was actually rice beer and would’ve been safe to drink.. still didn’t mean it tasted good tho). After starting drinking games it became apparent only me and Heidi were playing as Josie and Nathan couldn’t handle drinking beer that fast. It’s safe to say me and Heidi were pretty drunk by the time we left.

We started our night out in a bar called ‘Frogs’. More beers and a few games of Connect Four later (of which a drunk Josie and I were terrible at) we went to another bar where the toilet had a 5 baht fee (10p to use a hole in the ground, crazy!).

Our first Thailand club experience was at Insomnia where drinks were half price before midnight. We all exploited this except Josie who, when about to order, was told we’d reached our quota… oops, luckily Nathan shared one of his beers. The rest of the night was a tad crazy. We danced for a bit at Insomnia then decided to try somewhere else (Walking Street is a massive bright strip of bars, clubs, brothels, restaurants and supermarkets). We avoided the usual hassle of people trying to sell roses and the Ping Pong show offers and innocently wandered into a strip club. Yep, we were drawn in by the cheap price of drinks advertised… so all four of us had a casual beer watching some pole dancing (of which one girl received loads of praise off of Heidi and Josie, they kept informing her that she was the hottest girl up there and that her dancing was amazing).

The rest of the night is pretty much a blur. It did, however, include being kicked out of a club because we refused to buy a drink (they harass you on the dancefloor and none of us were willing to pay £4 for a small beer).

The next day was true hungover style, watching tv (when we finally got it to work) and eating a lot of greasy food. And then another beer. Our first ‘Chang’ beer and it was actually pretty good. We have been warned of ‘Changovers’ though.

We’ve had a fair few storms since being in Pattaya. One the other night managed to cause a power cut so we decided to go in the pool much to the amusement of Mickey, Daa and Mui. It was surprisingly freezing!! The power cut meant no Asian music channel hopping for Josie which she was devastated about. She’s been trying to find this music video that we saw earlier on in the week. It’s by a Thai girl who looks a little bit like Holly Vallance and she’s singing into a massive telephone.. anyway Josie loved it and hasn’t seen it again since (even though we’ve managed to see every other music video at least 3 times). So if anyone can help her out here she’d appreciate it a lot!

We start our days off here with eggs on toast, which is a step up from the jam on bread we were eating in our Bangkok hostel. I’ve also learnt that I often sleep with my eyes open. Apparently the other night Josie decided to tell me of her nightmare halfway through the night. I was informed of this in the morning and had no recollection of her telling me! So now I’ve been told I sleep talk, make strange noises and have my eyes open. I’m a great sleeper!!

We’re now in Samet. A tiny beautiful island off of the coast of Ban Phe about an hours drive from Pattaya. The boat only cost 120 baht each for an open return (£2.30 odd) and was pretty quick. Mickey and Daa kindly brought us over to show us where they usually like to go when they come here so we lugged our backpacks, paid our 200 baht fee (as its a National park) and found some accommodation in the form of bungalows on the beach, £6 each for the night. It’s pretty basic but it’ll do nicely.

We then spent the rest of today relaxing on the beach with a beer. Daa bought loads of beach food (spicy salads, weird boiled eggs and chicken. Lots of chicken). She’s so generous.

They left to get the boat home and it was pretty sad to be honest. After a week with them being amazing hosts we can’t thank them enough!! Oh and they also walked away along the beach to the sound of ‘Songbird’ making it feel like the end of a movie watching them walk off into the distance.

We then went for a little explore of the island, met some puppies and had a drink. Now we’re sitting in a lovely beachside restaurant eating some English food! It’s nice to have a bit of a change from their cuisine though!

I can see the next few days being very relaxed as we explore more of this beautiful island. Will keep you updated when I can so BFN!! Xx

September 30, 2013

Petrol station panic, Thai music channels and cabbages and condoms

“Get out the vehicle here. Go over that way.. that way”. That was an order from an employee of the petrol station about half way through our journey ushering us out of the minibus. This wasn’t in the travel guide description of the journey between Bangkok and Pattaya (‘a comfortable 2hour drive’). Okay for 130 baht (£2.40 odd) we couldn’t really complain about the minibus from Bangkok to Pattaya taking us four and 8 Thai’s to the coastal town. The air con wasn’t too bad either. And no Dad there wasn’t a toilet on the bus..

We arrived in Pattaya on the side of a busy Sukhumvit road (honestly I swear every road in Thailand is called this, each with a different number added onto the end). Within seconds we were being offered taxis or bus rides into town.. even mopeds wanted to lug us and our backpacks! But no we were smug in the fact that we already had transport in the form of Nathan’s old family friend Mickey, a retired advertisement worker from London (he lived in Parkstone when he was younger (near Poole) which was odd to discover).

He’s lived out here for ten years now and decided to build his own house on a plot of land he bought with his Thai girlfriend Daa. And it is a lovely house, very spacious and homely and Mickey, Daa and Daa’s daughter Meu were very welcoming from the start. This meant lots of beer was consumed within an hour of us arriving. In fact we were pretty much drunk from when we got there (3ish) til late into the night after heading out to a few bars and for a chicken noodle dish (which was by far the best meal I’ve had out here so far). It was a great first night in Pattaya, finding out about Mickey and Daa’s lives and having a laugh with them. Daa speaks really good English after being taught by Mickey and picking it up from hearing conversations. I found it all really fascinating to uncover how she learnt the language so well whilst also learning about the Thai culture and how they like to keep ‘face’ in terms of being proud.

It was a nice change to be in the quieter outskirts of Pattaya away from all the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. Although on Monday, Mickey did take us into the town centre for a wander and within 5 minutes of walking along beach road, about 7 baht buses had beeped at us to try and take us around town (you hop on and off wherever you want for a set price of 10baht) and I had a ladyboy tag along for a few minutes of our walk down Soi 6 (one of the red light districts). It’s safe to say I won’t be jumping at the chance to experience that again.

Daa cooked us a traditional thai curry with John Dory fish and it was amazing. Daa loves to cook but doesn’t eat her own creations because she gets bored of looking at it during the cooking process. We relaxed in the evening with some crazy Thai television including their music channels (which Josie loved). We’ve noticed how much they like playing Maroon 5 out here (live bands sing their songs and tv channels play them pretty much back to back). They also like Olly Murs!

This morning saw lots and lots of rain so me and Nathan played Worms 2 on his iPad (this has become quite a regular thing, he annoyingly often wins though). Mickey then took us for a drive through the countryside to Jomtien which is a smaller resort near Pattaya. Still quite toursity and busy though. He then took us to a hotel resort in Pattaya called Birds and Bees with a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. The place was beautiful. It had an idyllic walkway through the most greenery I’ve seen since being in Thailand. There was also lots of amusing signage throughout the place all with a very anti-government theme.

We stopped off for a beer in the Cabbages and Condoms restaurant overlooking the sea. The place really matched its name with condoms pretty much everywhere, in the tables and even a Condom Santa made out of just, you guessed it, condoms. It was not your normal restaurant yet it was brilliant at the same time and really cheap!

We have also got ourselves a new nickname from Kathryn who has called us the ‘Cultured Quartet’. We like it!

We’re currently sat in the Outback bar where Daa works having a beer for 50 baht (£1). We’re unsure of our plan for the next week at the moment but it’s going to involve some more relaxtion, a night out in Pattaya and maybe a visit to Koh Samet which is a beautiful island about 30 minutes off the coast.

BFN! 😀

September 27, 2013

A very sweaty welcome to Thailand, Hello Kitty and Temple Runs

The time had finally come to begin our travels! I met Heidi, Josie and Nathan at Heathrow. In 24 hours we’d be in Asia with Bangkok being our first destination (a stopover in Dubai on the way.. will be adding that to the list of countries I’ve been to!). This whole travelling thing was finally a reality!

So, after two long haul flights (including me and Heidi being asked by an air steward if we were on our honeymoon… of course we are), copious amounts of food, alcohol, movies and Josie managing to spill at least a bit of every drink she had on the plane, we landed bright and early in a humid Bangkok.

*insert classic airport stuff here* and voila, we were in the first place of our itinerary!! We grabbed our bags (our heavy, heavy bags) and got the train into Bangkok for about 40p. We had about 4hours to spare before we could check in to our hostel. Oh and having time to kill whilst carrying 13kg of baggage is sweaty work. Very, very sweaty work. We did however explore parts of Bangkok and their train system here is so easy to use and extremely cheap.. and the trains have air con (life savers). We also found the Thai people to be very friendly… any time we’d stop for a breather or to navigate the map, someone would want to talk to us (not too sure if they could smell our sweat through all the over-powering aromas of the food stalls nearby). They were all very helpful and would always finish their conversations with “where are you from?” … “England” … “welcome to Thailand”. Why thank you.

After finally getting to our hostel around 1pm, we collapsed in the foyer dripping in sweat (for once it wasn’t just me that was hot… okay, it may have just been me practically dripping but the others were also very sweaty!!). We paid a fee of £3.90 per night and finally dumped our bags, headed to the pool and relaxed (traveling can be hard work :P). We experienced our first Panang chicken curry and had a relaxing first night ready to visit the temples of Chinatown the following day.

We arrived in Chinatown around midday and once again the locals offered their help on where to go. After not accepting tuk tuk offers from other drivers (because we wanted to walk for a bit and were unsure of where we definitley wanted to go) we finally settled for one which was 10 baht more than one offered to us down the road and a driver who claimed he was half asleep.. good choice ey? And in fact it was. He took us to a really nice temple where we were taught how to meditate by a man who was very proud to be working for the King! He told us all about praying to Buddha’s and how today was a national Buddhist day and so it came at no cost to visit this temple.

We experienced a fair few heavy downpours (which often come as quite a relief) during our visit to Chinatown. Including one on a tuk tuk. Now these tuk tuk drivers are crazy. They’ll drive anywhere they can fit, including pavements. They are a lot of fun though and crazily cheap! One tuk tuk driver took us to two temples and it only cost is 20 baht each which is 40p!!

The temples are beautiful here. We visited the Golden Mount which gave amazing views of the city and was an amazing piece of architecture. Our final temple was the biggest we’d seen and again was an amazing experience. We prayed whilst burning incense sticks, a candle and holding a flower and also found out our fortune by shaking a pot of sticks each with a different number on them corresponding to a different day of the month (of course though Josie’s was the only one without an English translation so who knows what her fortune is?!).
We ended the day with a traditional McThai… which, to be fair, was not our first choice and because a lot of restaurants near our hostel shut at 9pm, we had no choice (okay it was probably the wine we drank at our hostel which made us late going out but it’s all part of the fun). I tried the Chicken teriyaki with rice so it was at least Thai McDonald’s food!!

We then discovered a bar hidden in an area full of food market stalls. They even had a live band playing! We grabbed four beers and within two minutes of sitting down Nathan was being hit on by the male saxophone player in the band who claimed that “he wasn’t gay but his boyfriend was” and Josie was being harassed by a Thai man selling nuts who was practically shoving them in her mouth (she is severely allergic to nuts). Maybe that was her fortune that she couldn’t decipher?!?

Thursday (26th) saw us having a lazy morning by the roof pool overlooking a bustling Bangkok. In the afternoon we ventured into the city via the BST trainline stopping off at a few places such as a Japanese mall called the Gateway. It was exactly as you’d imagine a Japanese mall to be. Waving cats, anime, a Hello Kitty dolls house and sushi restaturants everywhere. And it was masssive! We continued our journey to Chid Lom, Bangkok’s very own Times Square with skyscrapers, massive malls and advertisements. We stopped off for a Pad Thai noodle dish in Asok and decided to wander round to find a bar. In the distance Heidi and Nathan spotted a street full of lights. Brilliant, a club strip we could grab a drink at! Oh, wait.. no this is definitely a brothel street. We ended up at the other end shocked at what we had stumbled upon. We knew of this stuff happening in Thailand but didn’t expect to see it in such a bright, loud and weird setting (there was a one-legged guy dragging himself down the middle begging for money, quite a contrast to the half naked thai women (or men) waiting for men to come in to their club).

In the next few days we’ll be doing more exploring of Bangkok, visiting a floating market on the river and making our journey to Pattaya (a 2hour bus journey costing us about £4!). We’ve also decided to stay in this hostel for an extra few nights because it is a bargain (6 nights here has cost us about £23!), in a good location and close to the bus terminal needed for our next destination in Thailand.

BFN!! xxx

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