Tuesday, July 14, 2009
An Update from Colin
For those of you who didn't know, Colin is taking some time to do some traveling (lucky guy). We got an email from him with an update of his adventures. Here's the low down...
“So the first few days have been eventful to say the least. We arrived at Sarah's (Ruth' sis) apartment deep in the middle of Bangkok (very untouristy and no english speaking, made buying water a bit tricky) We went and had a swim while waiting for the others.
Dinner was amazing, place called cabbages and condoms (they had statues and flowers and even lamp shades made out of coloured condoms) and then we had to leg it to the train station. Sarah assured us that the trains never run on time so we weren't too worried about being 5 mins late... until we got to the platform and were told the train had left on time. She now owes us dinner! We had to negotiate with the tourist information people to get another train and spent the evening kickin around the station (which flooded... tropical thunderstorms are unreal!).
FINALLY made it onto a train, managed to sleep most of the way and luckily the bus we were booked on to the ferry had waited for our train to arrive so we caught that... only it broke down halfway to the docks so we spent about half an hour sat on a sweltering bus.
Because the bus was so late the ferry waited for us and we eventually made it onto a catamaran to sit in the sun and watch the islands coming into view.
So we were on Koh Tao for 9 full days, arrived about 10am on Sunday and went straight to the beach for a cocktail, then caught a lift on the back of a pick up truck to find somewhere to stay! We've ended up with two bungalows right on the beach.. they're pretty basic but all we need are some fans and beds to sleep in really... we even have a hot water shower (although havnt turned the heat above minimum yet!).
So far we have caught a taxi boat (really old school Thai fishermen boats) around the island to a small cove to go snorkeling, met a ladyboy bartender called Kitty and made friends with a lizard (called Stan) a cat (called Sawadee Kat) lots of lazy dogs and another lizard called Lizzie.
Damian and I went out to rent some quads and tooled around the island, made more difficult by my breaks going out and the state of the roads.
So we left Koh Tao after much fun and snorkeling and quad bike riding last week back to Bangkok. Once again we had transport issues - the train we wanted was fully booked so we had to get a bus, and once again it broke down! so we arrived 2 hours late (glad we didn't have a flight to catch) at 3 in the morning in the middle of Bangkok with no idea how to describe Sarah's hotel. Convinced a taxi to take us for considerably more than the fare, but he got lost. Finally made it about 4.30am.
Only spent the next day and evening there and stayed at Sarah's for free in the very posh hotel she lives in. Went swimming in their pool in the morning then had a random thunderstorm so hid indoors for a bit. Once the rain stopped we went into Bangkok for an eventful evening. We managed to stop a crazy tuk tuk driver doing us out of loads of money by taking us out to the middle of nowhere to some restaurant after we asked him to take us to Chinatown. He was demanding 200 baht or so and we argued and made him take us back to the center for only 70 baht. We wandered round kaoh san road and finally made it to chinatown and met some random crazy locals in a bar - ended up in a Chinese Karaoke bar singing and getting quite pissed with the locals, got to love the international language of drinking!!!
After Damo left Emily and I decided to be random and jumped on a train to Lop Buri which was the capital many many years ago and is famous for millions of wild monkeys that run around the city. Had a quiet night watching monkeys and then up early to have a look round the ruins of the royal palace and an old temple, then back on a train to Ayuthaya. This place was also the capital for around 400 years so there's loads to see. As we left the train station a tuk tuk driver offered to take us to a hotel, then waited for us to get rooms and have showers etc and then took us around the city for a tour. Visited our first active temple that was full of Thai school kids desperate to practice their English with us - Took pics with them and teased them into fits.
Then we randomly got taken to an Elephant sanctuary for a ride. I got to actually sit on the elephants neck while the Thai guy wandered in front of us leading us round some temple ruins. very very cool.
Then we got taken to see some more ruins, and the tuk tuk ended up with a flat tyre (us and transport don't seem to fit too well) so the guy borrowed a friends car to take us back to the hotel.
After dinner we found a tuk tuk lady and asked her to take us to a bar away from all the tourists (the area we are staying in is very very western) so she took us to Japantown. We met some crazy thai-japanese on a work night out and they took us to a thai nightclub (very dodgy music and worse dancing) Again, drinking with Thais who spoke no english but still had a absolute blast. Once we managed to describe where we needed to get back to (another tuk tuk...i love them) we went to a bar opposite our guesthouse and met a really nice russian couple who went with us to Kanchanaburi.”
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