Mar 2007

I'm fighting against time to update this blog before we head off travelling next week (and maybe even this weekend) as I don't want to be hopelessly behind!!

Last weekend saw us pack a shared backpack and head off to tropical paradise.

We were heading for Koh Samui partly just to enjoy the sun, sea and cocktails and partly because a full moon party was scheduled for last Sunday. There are quite a few full moon parties (basically massive parties on the beach every full moon) in Thailand but we wanted to experience the original one on Koh Phangan (an island next to Koh Samui - Koh means island by the way).

Anyway, as we are saving for more adventures later this month we decided to get a cheap bus-boat combo. We spent a total of 4 days (3 nights) on Samui, and a total of 46 hours travelling!!!!! With retrospect we realised it was like us going home for a weekend (minus jetlag) but it was worth it!

We arrived tired and stiff after an overnight bus trip followed by a boat trip that took 5 hours instead of 2 and a half (due to a broken motor)! Koh Samui is very very beautiful especially if you find one of the less busy beaches (though busy here is relative, nothing like French or Spanish beaches). We found ourself a basic but adequate bungalow on the Southern part of Lamai beach. The beach was all white sand, palm trees and clear turquoise waters, just as you'd expect from a tropical island! We spent the rest of the day relaxing and making plans for the rest of the weekend. We also hired ourselves a harley davidson so that we could explore the island a little more independently. Ok, I lied, it was more of a scooter than harley but it did the job. After an evening ride on the bike to a neighbouring beach, as well as a lovely walk down a full-moon lit beach, we collapsed in our bed for some much needed sleep!

This may have confused you a little as I said we went to the full moon party. Well, many Buddhist festivals fall on full-moons and out of respect for them the full-moon party is sometimes a day early or late. Our full moon party was actually a full moon + 1.

We woke up the next day and wandered down to the beach for breakfast: banana pancake and mango juice for me, and rice porridge with chicken for Matt (it's a Thai thing!).

Plans for that day involved finding a waterfull during the day and then catching a speedboat to Koh Phangan for the party at night.
One of the advantages of having the bike was that we could explore on our own and get sidetracked when the fancy took us. While on our way to find the waterfall, we took an unexpected detour via the undecomposed remains of a monk - he died 35 years ago and apparently didn't decompose so his family stuck him in a large glass display case.. with sunglasses on!! On the way back we followed a series of signs to a butterfly farm; it ended up being a very serene enchanting little place with beautiful views.

Back to the waterfull adventure: we eventually found a promising turn-off and headed down it.. a kilometre or so down the dirt track we came to a skidding halt as an elephant emerged from the surrounding forest. It was a pretty breathtaking experience to suddenly be so close to the gentle giant (even though it wasn't wild and was part of a jungle trek). We eventually got to the not-so-quiet waterfall: we had reached the easily accessed lower falls and there were quite a few tourists around. Undeterred, we got back on the bike to find the path to the upper falls, after a quick lunch break consisting of the world's best bbq'd chicken ever!!

We eventually found the path and set out on the short trek up. At first it was pretty easy going but by the end we were sometimes scrambling on hands and knees!! Walking uphill along a waterfall/stream through a jungle in the heat was definitely worth the views.. And at the top we reached a lovely waterfall fed pool which we took a dip in to cool down!!

That night we jumped on (or rather waded to) an overcrowded speedboat - the scum of all water travel as far as I'm concerned but at least it was fast. We arrived at Hat Rin (on Koh Phangan) as it was beginning to fill with party-goers from all across the island and neighbouring islands too. Hat Rin is a funky little beach town and in retrospect we'd have liked to stay there but by the time we decided to go the party it was too late to book a room (accommodation books up days in advance!). The full moon party was as mental as we'd expected: up to 10,000 revellers partying on the beach with music blaring out from the beachside bars, people getting their bodies painted with flourescent paint and fire jugglers wowing everyone just to mention some of the highlights! Oh, and I nearly forgot one of the defining elements: the "buckets." These are small buckets which cost almost nothing (from 180 baht, or 3 quid) in which are emptied a bottle of local rum, a can of coke and a small bottle of red bull. For slightly more you can buy a bucket with foreign spirits (usually smirnoff, sometimes JD or gin).

The only trouble was getting back to Koh Samui: all the speed boat companies have boats scheduled for the same time and literally hundreds of people are crowded at a tiny harbour trying to get on them. Once you've located the right boat you have to push past everyone else trying to get on it or past it to the other boats! I think I personally elbowed at least 3 people and trampled on countless toes! But we made it on the boat and back safely.. and spent the next day taking it easy. The night we wrapped up our long-weekend with a delicious meal of barbequed fresh fish, including shark, which we got to pick out ourself from a selection of fresh local seafood. The restaurant was right on the beach (we were about 2m from the water!) and lit up by countless laterns and fairy lights. A low-key but magical affair which pretty much summed up our trip to Koh Samui!

All that was left was another night in the bungalow and a mammoth trip home!!!

Hello again everyone!

We've had a busy few days recently - a lot to write about and a lot of photos too

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself! Best to start at the beginning, or at least where we last left off. We haven't got up to anything too interesting since the Muay Thai night - just the usual BKK fun (eating out, cheap DVDs, chilling, markets etc). We did spend a hot but fascinating day at the mother of all markets: Chatuchak (or JJ to the locals). It's bigger than anything you can possibly imagine; you need a map to navigate around it and it is impossible to see it all in one day. Still, we attempted the impossible and wandered for hours in dark tiny alleyways and bigger brighter pedestrian roads around thousands and thousands of stalls. We saw everything from clothes (jeans, shoes, bags, funky one-offs, 2nd hand hippy stuff, mass produced fakes, jewellery, hats, sunglasses, you name it!) to furniture, from books to pets (fish, puppies, squirrels, rabbits, turtles, etc) and from food stalls to sticker stalls. In fact it was all so overwhelming that the only we bought weresome stickers to bribe our students with (for the record, they worked wonders!) No photos though as we forgot the camera!

Also, I took a day off from the brat pack (I loved them dearly, honest!) and went on a cooking course taught by the lovely (if slightly camp) Nusie from the Silom Thai Cooking School. I had a very laid-back morning which started with a trip to a food market to buy the ingredients and get a lesson in the differences between various kinds of ginger, limes and basil! Then Nusie, the two other people taking the class and myself headed down a Soi (small road/alley) to a house where we were to be drilled in the art of Thai cuisine. Well, not so much drilled as gently lead through the making of 5 delicious but simple dishes: Pad Thai (a typical Thai noodle dish), Tom Yam Goon (another typical Thai dish that goes under the name of Hot and Sour Shrimp soup I believe), Green curry paste and consequently Green Curry with Chicken, Laab Gai (a spicy North-Eastern Thai chicken salad - a favourite of Matt and I) and for dessert something called Rubies in Coconut milk. The dessert was the only thing I didn't paricularly like; it's made from dyed and parboiled turnip (covered in tapioca flour which goes see-through and slimy during the parboiling) and served in sweetened coconut milk!

We spent the morning washing, peeling, dicing, pounding, mixing and chatting while sitting on the floor in the prep room, and then going next door to the woks for cooking. Once each dish was ready we ate it and everything (bar the aforementioned dessert) was delicious! All in all I had a lovely relaxed time, ate freshly cooked amazing dishes which I can now make for myself and learnt all sorts of exciting things like how to make coconut milk or cream and tamarind paste, and the differences between the main kinds of Thai rice

Anyway, that was the Monday of my last week at school. The rest of it was fairly relaxed as I just had to supervise and mark and few exams and say my good byes to my kiddiewinkles (which was very sad indeed!). I won't bore you with all the photos I took of them but here's a photo of the rather primitive cafe us foreign teachers usually ate at, as well as a photo of part of the foreign teacher gang on one of the days we escaped to a nearby Au Bon Pain for a more Western (and hygienic) lunch!

I finished work on the Thursday, and by a collosal stroke of luck Laurent Garnier was to be DJing that night at Bed Supper Club which is where Bangkok's rich and trendy hang out. The club itself is like a giant pod decorated in all white with beds instead of seats and tables! LG played a typically eclectic but fantastic 3 hour set. It was an awesome night and a great way to celebrate my last day (as well as me and Matt a friend from work, Lou, was there too).

Matt on the other hand had to get up to work on Friday, though school's out and he has very little to do so it didn't matter that he arrived late. Also, it meant he could take Monday and Tuesday off so we could head to a tropical island for the weekend! But that's a whole story in itself so I think I will leave that for a new entry!