Chiang Mai, hill tribes and a language of grunts!


Tropical diseases can strike at any moment, dengue fever can riddle you completely with illness and malaria can be devastating. But what does old bengy get?? A bloody runny nose and a cough!!! Bloody typical if you ask me, get to a hot country and suddely the British cold hits you.
So now let me take you on a journey through time and space, to see events amazing and strange. Welcome to the adventures of a lone traveller, the oddities which await may chill the blood and send shivers up your spine, so dear treader prepare yourself for the worst!
I left the hunity of Bnagkok aftre Ally had departed for Australia the next day. Sitting on a bus all the way through the night to Chiang Mai, the northern capital. Sods law sat me directly behind an old bearded Danish man waering nothing but flowing white robes and in his lap there was an Indian man curled up resting his head. I could see this reflected in the windows, scary stuff eh!!!!
Chiang mai turned out to be a jem of a little city, no hecklers greet you apart from the occasional 'tuk-tuk' shout. The tempeture was feirce by day but cool and almost Vritish by night, where a jumper comes out of my bag for the first time I left England.
Chiang Mai has been invaded a few times in the past by the Burmese so the inner city is moated and walled. It also contains some of the most beautiful and striking temples, stupas, Wats and moneteries I have seen so far in Thailand. Wat chedi leuang was a strikingly tall temple that was half crumbling but still majestic. I walked around and low and behold there was a sign saying 'monk chat'!! This monk chat bascially encourages you to help the monks with their English while learning about Buddhism and asking them about their orange lifestyle, they are really smily chaps. When yoiu pass a monk in the street you alwasy bow and make tyhe Buiddha symbol, but some western traveller forget and get frowned upon by the locals!!!
I take in the wats and temples like a rag soaks up water. To me they are fantastically spectacular and I cant get enough of them. I wonder in a daze and a little old lady got me to light a candle for the day I was born.
My first evening in Chiang mai I went to a hostel called Nice place and there I boked myself onto a hill tribes 3 day trekking tour, leaving in the morning. At the hostelk I met the others whom I would be trekking with. All were either British, Canadian or Austria. The latter we got to repeat lines from the terminator, like 'I want your clothes your boots and your motorcycle'.
We all decided to go for some food togheter and had a spot of dinner by the river, wacthing Chinese lanterns decend into the sky. Then we checked out the Chiang Mai famous night bazaar!! This place was huge although it did repeat itself. With the stalls selling the same things over and over again. But we did get there at closing times so it was like an episode of bargain hunt with all the prices dropping all the time. Then who should wealk along the isile in all white robes looking like gandalf with his man in tow, yes you have guessed it the bearded Dane!!!
The next day the fun began!!!!!!!!
The trek would leave early and we all loaded up this shittly little van and drove through the hills complete with their controlled fires, although to me they looked anything but controlled. The roads bent and curved in awkward ways and some of the ledges looked down on perilously deep drops that seemed to go on forever in some sort of blaze and smoke filled fantasy.
We arrived in a village way up and this is when I first discovered the eniptitude of our guiodes. I asked what the village name was and they juts say 'village' or give you some stupid story about muay thai boxing. As soon as we pulled up at the village and jumped off the roof from where we had sat the journey these little children appeared from nowhere at all and jumped on us. They started to put bands on your wrists and if you wewre not looking you would have about 8 on your arm before you could say stop!!!! Then they demanded money.
This is where we met our guides, the self styled Crazyman and indeed he was, he was the only non bald man I have ever sen with a Bobby Charltonesque combover, why? Then there was a guide who called himself Beckham, obviously I refused to call him that and he henceforth became known as 'Dave'. He was a shady charecter whom I instantly had a distrust for and was later proved right as he got drunk and burnt my playing cards in the fire!
Then there was the man with no name, a deaf guide whom having no sign language training or any comprehension of any known language or dialect spoke to us in grunts and wild gesticulation. He was too over bearing and would be jumping out at you and throwing food at you and always stopping to try and shoot birds with his catapult. After 3 days of loud grunts and wild eyed craziness I was ready to throttle the little smelly bugger!
The first day we set off up hills and through vast areas of scorched blackness, as the evening came we settled at a small villlage called Lehu or Laso, the guides when asked a question would never answer. Then out of no where Crazyman wold appear in his MC Hammer trousers and get the entire village to dance for us. He shouted 'do you want to see the village people dance'. What folowed was a spectacle of randomness, people dancing in this tiny shack that rumbled under the weight of 20 feet andthen it was our turn. ASfter that a strange game started where the locals wold chgarcoal their hands up and chase babies to muck up their faces!!!!!
Just when I thought it coldnt get any more surreal with the crazyman playing the guitar, same tune ater tune for hours. Then out of knowhere out came the Opium pipes and we were encouraged to have a wee dabble, of course needless to say there was little encouraging needed!!
These where the nomadic Thai hill tribes people whom originate from Tibet, so there appearance and attire is vastly different from that of city or town dwelling Thais. They wear these massive MC hammer trousers, billowing out at every step and for a man to piss in one he juts rolls up the floppy leg and dribbles it everywhere, this I saw many times and it never ceased to amuse me one iota!
The next mornign in the blazig sun we played a football match againts the locals on a hard earth and stony pitch using sticks and rocks for goalposts. I was through on goal and out of nowhere a load of bloody potbellied pigs came on the pitch and I trod on a wee little one, next thing the Mother was bloody chasing me. Children ran everywhere and the game had many pitch invasions by little naked kids running upo to us trying to tie wristbands on to us again. No one cold actually calculate the score by the end of the game, we were all bruised and battered and looked a complete mess, with no running water we trekked on smelling of Roses into the hills for a few hours.
We encountered many tiny hamlets with just a toothless old waoman as its only inhabitant, then we trekked through the opium fields and along up, up, up til our faces dripped with sweat in the unimaginable humity. Allthe while the sun penatrated the canopy above us and a massive arch of light would lite up glades and amaizing, almost grotto like wooded areas.
We came to an old bridge and slowly dashed accorss its wobbling bulk, how it didnt collapse I just dont kmow. This bridge led up to a small hamlet where an old woman sat smoking cheroots made from bamboo and an old man of unimaginable years carried wood on his head, this area is also renoun for ther long neck tribes where like in places in East Africa they stretch their necks by using steel rings. But alas we didnt see ay that day.
What we did see and sample though was the wonderfully cold waterfall. We clambered up over some rocks and there was a tiny waterfall and straight in we went. It was colder than a Eskimos todger I tell you now. You gingerly get in and then go for the plunge only to leap up making bizarre animal noises as its so bloody cold!!! But a wash is a wash none the less. By this point the Grunter whom we had no chrsitened 'Chewy' was up soem tree howling!!!!!!! We had also lost 'Dave' the guide whom was so lazy and such a drunk could never keep up.
We walked on more and soon encountered an agry elephant, ears puffed out trunk raised as we had cornered the little calf by mistake, but we just skirted around them and soo were at the elephant campo from which they had roamed off. Here we would elephant trek along the mosquito infested river on the back of the massive lumbering beast. All the while as we trudged through mud with the elephants taking a trunk full of filth and showering us with it. The little baby even came along for the ride and ran around the feet of Mum and Dad, when it got to a hill from which It could go up as its legs were too stumpy old Dad just pusked him scrambling up the hill with his trunk. At one point crazyman whom said that the epehant in front of me was his wife asked me to stand up on the elphants head, I did, but felt a bit out of order doing so, standing on the big lumps head like a circus performer!
Then came the second night up in the hills drinking chang and copius amounts of sangsom Thai whioskey in a shack. We managed to play with some of the locals 'whoosh, ping, zap' and for hours we played that and entralled them, if you got it wrong you had crazyman put charcoal on your face. I was the last one with a clean face, so the sods helad me down!!!!! The next day as we walked to the river with black faces as there was no water we must have looked a state!!
The followig morning we walked to the river and bamboo afted along, smacking into rocks and falling off all the time. The rafts literally fell apart along our journey where at every given opportunity we pummelled the Canadians with river weed!!
At one point our raft juts started to complete fall apart and I fell through , what a sight it must have been as I was on the raft one leg on top and the other wedged between two bamboo poles, with me franticallt trying to free myself before I get crushed!
By the time we reached our destination with our battered jolipy waiting for us all 3 rafts were in such a state that they were worthy of the knackers yard.
Finally back in Chiang mai and washed and spruced up (it took ages scrubbing all the charcoal off my face), our little group decided to go out on the lash. What followed was a drunken spectacle of madness.
I also almost got ejected from an American saports bar as I was shouting at the league cup final too drunkenly. The yanks looked at me like I was a mad man, 'whats soccer' the imbred fools kept saying!!!!!
Then we discovered a bar with air hockey and we managed to break a window while playing it!!!!!
Wwell thats all for now my little readers, tomorrow I am off into Laos. I have my last day in Chiang mai and I wil once again check out the temples and wat and then embarked on my journey into a coommunist country.
Wish me luck comrades!!!!!!!
Peace
Ben
xx

Cambodia, Nonces and the River Kwai!


A British passport is a powerful thing, but when you enter Thailand you get thirty days to stay before you have to go out, then you have to do a thing called a VISA run.
This my dear readers is what I had to do. I wason day thirty and had to get outand come back in again before Ally flew to Australia. So I spent the most delightful day on a bus crammed with Japnese tourists camera toting and screaming at anything all the way to a town called Poipet. Once at poipetI had to endure the rigours of the visa run. A sinple task if you think about it, one crosses the border and then comes back. But my goodness the Thai side is so ordered and fantastially sinple compared to Cambodia. First I get my VISA, a massive page sticker in my passport. Then I get my stamp for leaving Thailand. Then once through no mans land where the army was burning bushes sothat when you enter cambodia you are surrounded by an eerie mist, you suddenly have the cattle shed of Cambodian customs. I looked around the people who were queueing to go through to Cambodia, and I am so sure that many of the panama hatted men in linen suits were there for the children!!!!
Never have I been accosted so much by so many for such a time. There were beggers galore, poor little filthy children clinging to anything possible and then the customs officials. I ave never met any more corrupt people than those I met that day. I knew it would cost me nothong aapart from buying the VISA. But my goodness do they demand money. Luckily I stood my grounds and didnt move. My face put on an expression of hard, gritty determination and I didnt move. Finally I was stamped in and then out. My total time in Cambodia amounted to a mear 30 minutes, but my bus was leaving and so one photograph later I was begger dodgying and back stamped again into Thailand. So there is the tale of my Cambodian visit. Its a shame as I so really want to see that country, but at that time there was no other option but to visa ruj it from bangkok and then return to the capital for Ally's last days.
I write tghis on my own, Traveller Bengy is now a lone traveller as everyone has either buggered off to Australia or home. I am not going to Oz til March so one month and the world is my oyster. Lets rock!!!!
So let me fill you in with all that has been happening so far.
I last wrote about the fire on koh Phi phi,which to me feels like an eternity ago. But since then Ally and I went from phi phi after seeing the glorius phi phi leh to the remote and un touristy haven of Koh Lanta. Oh what a place, almost undiscovered by travellers, the beaches and sea were emaculate and the sun beamed down relentlessly causing my skin to tann like old leather. We spent 2 nights there in a beach cabin for absolute peanuts and hired a motorbike which I rode with Ally clutching on the back all over the island. Up mountains onto isolated beaches and along dirt tracks that I have no idea how I didnt crash.
The place was home to some very random people, such as ex pat Brits who had escaped for probably tax or criminal reasosn and permantly live on the beach. One such fellow who went to a lively bar withus told tales of the tsunami and how we in Britain knew more about it than those in Thailand at the time. Still the signs of devastation can be seenall over the west coast of Thailand.Finally after a few peaceful days in Ko Lanta we had the ardous journey from one lanta island to another and then bussed on to the small ity of Trang. Once at Trang where we would catch the train back up to Bangkok I am sure we were the only white peole in the entire city. We explored and basically it was us and thats it. So I feasted on chickens hearts sold on a skewer on the street, it remins me of my Gran!!
The night train back to Bangkok was uneventful, the party carriage actually kicked us out at 10 butthat didnt stop us devouring many large bottles of chang and randomly abusing Spanish peoplke who would not belive we were only 23 and 24 and thought I was 29, oh the cheek!!!!
Bangkok!!!!
The vibrant city that never sleeps where once the clubs close an illegal one is just round the corner where you have to access it througha garage. But once you are in you wish you wre out, as all you can see is letcherous old white men and young Thai ladies or boys even lapdancing them and then leaving with someone who is ol enough to be your father. When I am drunk I love shouting 'Nonce' out really loudly!!!!
The reason we came back to Bangkok was to see France and Mike before they left to go home emotionally with a tear in their eye. So we had arrived early after not sleeping at all on the train and found some grotty hostel off Khaosan road. That night the 4 muskateers werereunited and a drunken hedonistic night ensued where many buckets of sangsom whiskey, chang, singha, beer lao and otehr randomness were drunk in somethiong the very opposit of moderation. France was the first to leave and mike followed him the follwoijg morning.So after one drunken night and many stories told about their phuket trip and our fire fighting, muay thai fighting, island hopping adventures it was down to the two of us again. Ben and Ally's travels continue.
The nest day Ally and I buggered off to near the Myanmar (Burma) border to go on a very moving and emotional homage trip to the bridge over the river kwai and to tarvelalong the Burma Thailand death railway build by prisoners of war, 30,000 of which were British. The war cemeteries were a humbling experience, thinking of all those lost souls burioed under a tropical sun. I felt moved and humble to stand there reading the graves of those who had fallen, some graves are 'known unto God' with the unidenbtified body in the earth underneath, never to have his name known.
The bridge itself is unused by trains now and was covered in Japnese tourists which dumbfounded me a bit, so many cameras and they all seemed so happy to be there! That I will never understand! I walked the bridge accross the river where houses are towed by the most rudimentary boats and then after catching a bus tothe station caught the train back to Konchanaburi to get a bus to bangkok. The train was old and rickety and it made me smile to see a section with a sign saying 'reserved for Monks/disabled'. As though they were the same thing!!!!
Later that day Ally and I went to a water fall but after one look at dodgy white men playing with little Asian children while no visble wife or partner were present we scurried away with the word 'nonce' on the tip of our tongue.
Lunhc was a scary thying as we ate on a barge some gcrazy old German took a shine to me and started taking pictures of me with his mate 'Zippy'. Yes his mate was called Zippy!! Why do I attract weierd people, Ally thinks its the funniest thing ever to see the weird loner hone in on me and ask me about the Queen!!! I think its juts plain odd!!
That day I also sat in the sun with an orange clad buddhist monk and tried to have a conversation! But my lack of Thai (Although I have learnt the word for ladyboy and penis) and his lack of Englsih meant the whle thing was fruitless but he was a lovely fellow. The train also stopped in the middle of nowhere to pick up a monk who appeared out of a bush!As we were staying in Bangkok we might as well do the sights we thought. So we did the Grand palace and the temples there, Wat arun which looks more like a missile than a temple where you have to cross the river onthe worlds worst ferry and finally Wat Pho with the 40 meter reclining gold buddha. Once again there weirdos honed in on me!!!!!!!
Well thats all at the moment, many things are too naughty to tell because I know my family read this. But apart from that we met many great people whom we went o some dodgy illegal clubs wiht and even managed to pinch a hooka sheisha pipe in a restaurant and not pay one baht for it!!!
Tomorrow my travels and adventures start again. I am bussing my way up to Chang Mai and then after a few days of whatever I will go down the mekong river to Laos and then on to the capital of Laos Vietviene!
Another day, another country. But this time I am going solo!
Let the fun begin and the hedonism continue.
For now I am off to eat chicken hearst and drink ice cold beer in the blistering sun.
peace
Ben
xxx
Remember, we are all spiritual beings, having a human experience!!

Mauy Thai, the beach and the Koh Phi Phi fire!!!!!!!!


Should one attempt to be a hero? Shoyuld one step into a certain cituation where you know there will be bllod, sweat and tears? Should you fight Muay Thai style????
Bloody of course you should and guess what I sodding did!!!!!!!
Yes your intrepid narrator steped into the ring to face a feirce opponent and wage war. Oh what a war it was! First round, the bell rang as I stepped from my corner, punches flew and bodies colided. What a fight, there was blood and the smell of man sweat in the air. I lost the first round as my weak nose exploded with an expertly landed hook. But then the second round came and whammy, I landed a quality haymaker that sent him spinning and gave him a bloody eye which lasted all night. What a punch I landed, I was so proud the poor sod has such a bruiesd and blood bruied eye!
The trouble with muay thai is that you forget that you should be kicking also and therefore its a bloody mess when suddenly from punching some poor mug in the face you knee him in the guts instead!!! So let me give you the run down of the second round....I had the sod, oh yes.
But the third and final round was not to be my fightng masterpeice as I wished it was. We met in a clinch and a knee hit me in the ribs, so I went to puch him away and instead in my rage, well in my haste I may say I reverted from boxing to wrestling and body slammed him into the canvas! Yes you guessed it, I lost my disqualification, bugger! But oh what a fight, its just a shame I disclocated a few toes and got a bloody nose in the process, oh and I have some bizarre scratches on my inner bicep!!!!! It was a fantastic expereince as the corwd chanted my name and we met in the ring, both fighters got a massive bucket of sangsome whickey to drink each afterwards. I just think that if I did it all again I would not drink two buckets and lots of chang beer before hand!!!!!!!
Now lets get away from the boxing for a while. Today Sunday 11th February there was a massive fire on Koh Phi Phi don island. Ally and I were sitting eating some street food when suddenly this commotion occurred. Lots of Thais running with buckets ands any old fire extinguishers came running towards the harbour. So we followed and there was at least 4 shops a bar and lots of huts blazing. The fire was spreading fast through the ramshackle wooden buildings and with no fire brigade on this island everyone was forming bucket lines from the beach into the blaze. Ally and I didnt stand there like all the other sods on 'holiday'. We got involved and were in the thick of it, in the bucket lines and runing big containers of water to and from the blaze. Suddenly a palm tree went up and the leaves went into the air sending embers all over. One bar sudenly had its palm leaf roof go up in flame. No one at first spotted it then suddenly soemone shouted. Hlaf of the people got oin the roof to fight the fire while Ally and I sterted to remove the gas canisters from the kitchens. Soon it was full scale evacuation of any thing valuable and we had to gut in ten minutes flat 22 reatsurants, evertything apart from the fish tanks were moved as the beach became a waet ground of debris. Many have a go heros in boarding shorts tried to climb trees to disconnect cables and stop the fire hitting the elcteric boxes but it was too no avail. By this time trhere muist have been about 300 people helping with a futher 400 standing in the way watching! Soon the fire receinded and it was just smoke but it had destroyed many buildings and a path of devistation lay in its wake.
The fire had destroyed many builkding but left shells and hulks of metal and charred wood stillstanding, perilously closde to collap[se. So loads of us conducted by a Thai man with a megaphone and the token one local copper attacked ropes after they had half sawn the beams and pulled the buildings down. Too many people took it for good fun by my liking but it had to be done as they would have collapse at amny time and killed soemone. So we heaved and pulled the ropes out into the sea as the buildings collapsed!
Two hours after the blaze the helicopters arrived and the speedboats with rich tourist which had fled came back. 2 hours rapid helicopter response!!!!!!!!!
We all must hoipe that there are no further incidents of fire anytime soon as I am sure all the fire extinguishers on the entire island were used up! It just so happened that as the fire hit its most ferocious was when the ferry came in brin gn hoards of backpackers, the island is full to tne brim at the moment anyway and now with lots of bungalow shacks destroyed it will be back to sleeping on the beach for many people again!
So let me fill everyone in with my lastest adventure apart from fuighting and being disqalified pissed and fighting a fire!!
It is now just Ally and myslef travelling as we left Francis and Mike back in Krabi. We therefore got a ferry from Krabi to Koh Phi phi don. There are two phi phi island. Koh phi phi don which is where we are staying and Koh phi phi leh. Phi phi ley is where the beach was filmed and we are going there tonighyt to see the sunset. But that place is a natinal p[ark and therefore none or very few buildings are there and so you cant stay unless you sneak onto it.
But here we are tanned (well I am tanned Ally is still milky boy white) and loving the fun.
The first night was legendary, Ally and I went out on the razzle I ended up fighting in mauy thai, we met some Irish girls who Mike abused back on the ferry to Krabi ages ago and we spent the evening wiht them getting right jollily plastered til about 6 am. I even after losing my fight refereed some others, guess what I refereed a girl fight. Bloody hell did they really go for it!!!!!!!!
The last night on the main land with the others we found a rasta bar and once again took over the music and soon I had nirvana plb;asting out from the rooftops. But when we left they stung usd with the bill. Apparantly we drank 32 bg bottles of chang beer between us!! 32, 8 each blody hell, did we? Chang is leathal stuff too 6.4 % but actuyally becase it is so badly made can be anything from 6 to 13%, rock on the chang. Chang means elephant coniceidently!
What else have we been up to.
Well Ally and I hired a canoe and went on a mission, first we cxanoe in the amazing azure sea to Monkey beach where one token monkey sat looking at someones ice cream longingly. We then deceided to go through the sea caves, the crabs ran everywhere scattering at the sight of our arrival. The jagged rocks loomed over us and it was like we were on some ancient lunar sea.
We have also had quite a few mad nights out on the razzle, as you do. We ended up always getting into bed at soem silly hours like 5 or 7 am and then we are up and in the sun running around doing bits and bobs again. This is the life!
I also had my first Thai massage and I was destroyed. The lady actually crucified me, yes she actually put her knees in my bank and got me in the crucifiction pose and bent me in positions I didnt think my body could go or ever will again. While I was having it I glaced over at Francis who was having one too (he refused point blacnk for the lady boy to do him) the masseuse couldnt do what she was doing to me to him so just walked up and down on him!!!
THE BEACH
You may all remember the brillantly written book by Alex Garland, the beach. You may also remember the awful film which was ruined by that soppy sod Leonardo DiCuntio, sorry di Caprio. Well that actual beach is called Ao Maya. Yes you have guessed it we went there.
Ko Phi phi lay which is where it is is like a giant sea fortress when you approach in a longtail boat with the driver swigging from a can of chang. The rocks shoot up from the aters and it looks both magestic and scary but wondrous at the same time.
The actual beach is part of the nationbal park which the island falls into and therefore if you land on it ypou have to pay some high tourist fee. So we sailed through it and then went to a more secluded bay where we dived off the boat over ana dover again. Then the coincidence of travel hit us as popping out of the water in another boat were the irish girls. But I think our drunken behavious including getting into moored up speedboats and drinking far too much and then singning I love you baby at every nice lady and shouting 'for she's a jolly good fellow' at all the passing ladyboys may have scared them off us. No worries, caring anyway!!!!!
I am so glad we went to the beach and we did it by not going on the tourist trail tour. I lke the word traveller much better and the word tourist makes me want to spit.
Well the plan now is to head to Ko Lanta tomorrow then get the train from Trang to Bangkok and go to the bridge over the river kwai and then on to Ayuthaya where the temples and ancient ruins are. I have 7 days before I have to do my VISA run into another country so I can stay in Thailand for another month. But I have a hankering to go and travel in Laos a bit, also Cambodia and try to get in to Burma as I have always wanted to go to Rangoon, sorry Yangon as it is now known.
Ally will leave on the 20th. He will fly to Oz and I will become Ben the solo traveller once again, then I will join him in Australia in a months time.
I remember one of the greatest peices of advice I ever gopt about tarvelling, 'try it all and talk to everyon'. Its true you suddenly before you know it are in a group of ten.
Rock on my dear readers, have fun and be merry.
Peace
Ben
xxxxxxxxxx



p.s. Vil du knulla as Henrik taught me!!!

Full moon party and beyond!!!





Since I last wrote my intrepid readers, some amaizing things that would blow your mind to see them have happened. This is after my elephant adventures I hasten to add!!
I write this email with a shaven head, well I thinks its a number 4 all over so nto that short. I decided in my haste to get my flowing locks cut, but I didnt bargain on the bloody ladyboy hairdressers getting over frisky and then 'zoooom' I was bald down the middle, so now instead of a shorter cut, I have compleately shorter hair. I look like a thug!!
Somethings that would send you insane and make you claw at the air like a nutter in the home. I am talking about no less than the infamous full moon party, the biggets rave in the entire world. Guess what? Yes I went to it and, sod me did I have a good time.
People say, 'Oh I had a good one last night, I got in at 7am'. Ha ha, I say to that I got in at 4pm two days later, still dazed and confused, but it was worth it.
Let me get you lot up to speed with all my exploits so far. The last time I wrote I was on the island of Koh Samu. Well we all boarded the high speed catamaran and pummelled our way accross the sea bumping up and down and vomiting over the side. I even ventured otu on deck to see those poor sods who hadnt managed to procure a seat as they were too late. These miserable Americans tourists were huddled togheter and how funny they looked all soaking wet in their socks and sandels!
As we waited for the boat we were idly talking about how the Thais put some old transiot engine ont he back of a long tail boat, then out of nowhere there appeared rope man!!!!! Why did he have lads of rope? We shall never know but I believe he was an escaped nonce on his way to Cambodia, all that rope to tie up kids. There are lots of isolated rocks outhere, many of whioch could be mistaken for kiddy island! Imagine stumbling accorss one, and then boom! Your snared in his den!
Well enough of the hypethetical balls about a noce with rope, lets get back to the juicy details. We arrived on Koh Phan gan, which is the hedonistic capital of Thailand. As soon as we disembarked and were on terra firma you could smell the weed in the air. We ended up staying in a place so off the beaten track that we needed to hire scooters to get to the nearest shop. We stayed at a place called Haad Gruad, it was a collection of ramshackle huts on the beach and was run by a crazy gay Dutch man who had a marriage of convience and was seeing to the kitchin boy. This place was a little strange but then got stranger when they decided to do highway man kareko, where they ran at you wioth the microphone and made you sing love songs. All ther Aussie's loved t sing, but us Brits, well we just heckled.
We all stayed a week on the island, Ally and me sharing a room that shook when the waves crashed against the rocks, Mike up on the hill to get away from rance's snoring (its like a bloody train) and Francis in his little love den near the Dutch mans grotto. Eveything we drnak, ate or did while at this place the Dutchman put in the book. When we left we went through the book and there is no way we drank all that sang som whiskey, or did we???
The full moon party came and went in a blurr of drunken debauched craziness. I wish I could remember it all, I remember being on ther beach drinking alcohol in buckets and then the sun came up but the trance music continued. I climbed on rocks with firewroks and scared many people as I danced with everyone else like a mad man. Magic mushroom milkshakes were aplenty and I highly reccommend them! The fire throweres, fifeworks, massese of people and thousands of different types and genres of music made the party one to remember. You just had to look through the immense crowd and suddenly tyou would see a wrecked man struggling to stand up on his own two feet looking like he was doing backstroke through the melee of people. We bumped into so many faces who we had met on our travels, some lookign scared, some mashed, but all loved the party. I highly recommend the spectacle of the full moon party to any one who ventures this way in Thailand. The only bad thing is the sea becomes one assiove toilet, men and women alike and wilds mangy dogs pray on the week. Dogs!! Bloody mangy flea ridden aids hounds roam everywhere, they strike when you least expect. I am sure one will drag me off into the jungle later on!!!!
There is no real way to describe the madness and crazy antiocs of the full moon party, you will just have to sample it for yourself I am afraid!
It tooka few days to recover aftre that, a few days of loungin in the blistering heat getting tanned and sunswept in a hammock slowly swaing in the sea breeze, oh that was the life!!
Where we were on the island was so isolated that the only way t get round apart from the Dutchmans overpriced taxi was to hire mopeds. How I never died I dont know!! We hurtled all over the island near misses galore and one time I was doing silly speeds down a hill and I bloody ran out of petrol. So some kind Thai chap gave me a lift to the garage in the back of his truck. When I say garage I mean shed that sells molatov cocktails of red gasoline in sang som whiskey bottles. If it were not foir those whickey bottles of gasoline we would never have discovered the island of Koh Ma. Which is accessable at low tide accross a sandbank, once you get there and the tid comes in, your buggered!!!
I was also hurtling along a road and went 'oh look elephants' then crash and I flew through the air but stayed on my feet at the same time. Apparantly I came off the scooter skidded on the gravel and somehow flung myself away from the bike and ran into a bush. Everyone looked in shock. Then I gigled and drove off, I think I scared the elephant half to death.
To get back to the mainland from the island we first had to get the ferry, this ferry is moored up next to the near submerged hulk of an identical one. So it fills you with enthusiasm for Thai transportation!!! But we got this boat and soon we had made a wall of chang using all the cans we had consumed, by doing so we scared the life out of a few Irish girls who decided that the Enmglish were actually a nation of pissheads!!!
Once back on the mainland at Surathani we bussed along for ages to a place called Krabi. But Krabi was full, no room in the in so we had to stay in Fawlty towers in Krabi town.
Krabi itself is surrounded by massive looming amaizing jutting up rocks and mountians, this still didnt provide any protection from the 2004 Tsunami which desemated this area, but to look at it now all shiney and new you wopuld not belive ethat it happened. But tyhere are no monuments to the event!
The best part of Krabi is the longtail trip to Railay, Railey is a fantastically isolated and undeveloped streach of beach that you can only get to it by boat. We also had to traverse some jagged rocks to get to some of the most seculded parts. The boat trip over was truly eye watering beautiful, the rocks , the sea the sun shining down on your back. The place looked like Peter Pans island.
As the time of writing this I am in Ao Nang beach, which is far far far too touristy for my liking, thew plan now is to head tomorrow own to Koh Phi Phi (Don and Leh) and see the place where the beach was filmed, there is also James Bond Island where the man with the golden gun was filmed, but I want to rent a canoe to get there rather than be a tourist and go on a bleedin' tour. Then its up to Ayuthata and then the bridge over the river kwai, before descending into the hills in chang mai and chang rai, then a visa run into Laos is necessarry.
OhI almost forgot, we discovered a porn den! Wewere led through a reastaurnats kitchin into a cellar and there was porn heaven and all these gary glitter lookalikes there, I have never giggled so much!!!!!
As of now I have to get the slow boat to China, or Phi phi rather.
I hope all you lot are well and having fun.
peace
Ben
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