Oh my Buddha Chiang Mai!

Me and Fed left Kanchanaburi in two different mini buses and met up again in Bangkok before we finally left to go in opposite directions- her to Si Saket and Me to Chiang Mai.

I arrived in Chiang Mai at around 7 the following morning. I met two girls from Oxford and spent the next 24 hrs with them in Chiang Mai. They were only there for 48 hrs so they wanted to make the most of their time there so booked to go elephant trekking the day in an hours time and I thought as not to waste anytime I'd go along. However as the day involved we realised it wasn't just elephant trekkin we'd signed ourselves up for by rafting and a waterfall hike too.. so a very busy day after a night asleep on a night bus.

That evening they were exhausted but I decided to go check out the Sunday Market that takes place in the town- in a mission to go eat some weird things that came on sticks- but unfortunetly the rain had other plans and absolutely poured down so I found refuge in a little restaurant where I had some spring rolls instead.

The following day after changing hostels to a more lively one spent the day wandering around Chiang Mai looking around many many Wats.

There's something just so overwhelmingly calm about standing under a huge Chedi (buddist statue) while it towers above you.

I've never been one for religion- always suspicious of that 'one greater being' although for years now accepted that the teachings -whatever religion- are supplying guidence with good intentions to help anyone who chooses to listen.

Being the first day i'd truely spent alone so far, it seemed like a nice time to pause for reflection- and in what better way that by enjoying a cold Milo (a god in it's own right!)... all that thinking got me really hungry and I decided it was time for some Thai food so I head to a local cafe I've spotted and quite liked the look of.

Later that evening after booking to go trekking for two days I headed to the night bizzar to get a raincoat as I was sure as hell going to need one!

The next day (Tuesday) I got up at 7 and got picked up for trekking. In my group were two boys from near Oxbridge who I spent most of my time with, a spanish couple and a whole lot of french people... but I was pretty sure the extent of my french "Ou est la post?" wasn't going to come in very handy over the next few days.

The first day we trekked across through the jungle to a village where we stayed the night.. were my favorite quote of the trip so far happened- a drenched chinese man getting angry at his raincoat "this fucking shit, its made in China!!!" (A phase that would later reduce me and Raffi to tears of laughter several times over!)

That evening after dinner me, Malcolm and Raffi stayed up late in the village doing Chang runs in the rain until we decided it was probably pretty late and we should go to bed... tyhen we realised when we got back to our bamboo hut that it was only half 9!.. oh the shame! We spent the next few hours laughing at rediculious things such as my awful impression of the old women from Titantic "The women in the picture is me!".. which Raffi found hilarious , I think I may have damaged his stomach muscles!

Th next day, after a short trekk and me falling into a river, we got picked up and got taken to an elephant camp where we bathed with elephants and went on a walk- with no guide- we obviously looked like we knew how to drive n elephant! Afterwards, I went Zip-lining although as no-one in my group were I was with a bunch of crazy chinese tourist which just made it even more funny.

After some lunch we headed to go white water rafting- were we decided to make a crazy boat- aka the ones who just wanted to get drenched and go head on into the biggest waves... it was sooo much fun and we all got absolutely drenched as planned!We even got in a race with all the 9 chinese people who all were in one boat which I found hilarious.

We returned to our hostel worn out and laughed out!.. what a brilliant couple of days.

We decided as were all exhausted that the three of us would splash out and go to this place tht sold these amazing bugers which we accomplied with a Chang tower. Good times.

So a busy successful few days- and hopefully there will be many more to come!

Lazy times in Kanchanaburi

After settling in at the Jolly Frog we spent the evening at Sugars and met up with the guys from Koh Samet, who hang out there every day. I'd like to say I'd seen them working but apart from one Tattoo I saw Jolie do and Bum's occasional taxi drive, they pretty much spent there lives at the small bar playing what only can be described as a Thai board game half-way between chess and checkers.
Tuesday night was pretty tame as we'd had a long day travelling. I'd probably not like to admit but the following few days pretty much amounted to a lot of lazying around in hammocks, reading and having the all important job of looking after Bums extremely adorable puppy Kartoun.

I was speaking to an Irish guy called Robert on the Saturday and shamefully admitted that all in all the view from the hostel garden (which was stunning) of the river Kwai was about as much as i'd seen of this place... he did agree though- it was one hell of a beautiful view.

Some memories of my trip will be with me forever from that very garden however.

Bum- a Thai in his early thirties- in his broken English told me and Fed the story of his struggle through life and how he'd ended up in Kanchanburi. So matter of factly he told us of his fathers shooting by the Thai Mafia and how his mother had died weeks after his birth due early labour from the grief of his fathers death.
Moving around many places as a child, he spent most of his childhood in Bangkok, but ended up living in Puket working as a driver. (He learnt to drive at 12 in a lorry!.. I did try ask how he reached the peddles but he couldnt understand what i meant.)
Eventually however he started recieving threats from gangs and mobs in Puket, and beat him- scares which still remain to this day.. so from there he went back to Bangkok, until the same happened again and he finally lived a happy life in Kanchanaburi.

Having said all of that though- you will never meet a happier friendlier person.

It just makes you think about your own life and the problems in which you face- sometimes you really have to put them in perspective.

Over the course of the week me and Fed had three massages: a back massage, a Thai massage and an oil massage. During the Thai massage the women kept telling me to relax, but sometimes its hard to relax when you have a ten ton women leaning on your back with her elbows using all of her weight! Those massages were good though- I now know there are many parts of my shoulders I never knew existed until I heard them crunch for the first time!

On the Friday it was Jolie's birthday. Having decided to do something with our day, in the afternoon when the suns heat had relaxed, me and Fed took a walk to the Kwai bridge- built by US, British, Australian and Dutch POWs.

Later on, returning to our Hostel we decided to get our third massage of the week. We'd worked through the various kinds so this time we went for an oil massage- which was amazing. For dinner that evening we decided to venture further down the road to a place named 'one more bar' run by an Australian and british couple... and Oh. My. God... I had the best pumpkin curry of my life in there- well I think it's a strong contender for best Thai food i've had so far award tbh.

As it was Jolie's birthday- Sugar had decorated the bar with balloons and banners and after a knock at the door from Bum, there was to be cake. Now in England you wouldn't knock on someones door at 10pm and say "we have to go now.. we have to get cake!"... but this is Thailand.

The three of us go in Bum's taxi and by taxi I mean a motorbike with somekind of carriage attached and raced across town to the Bakery- although suprise suprise the Bakery was closed... Bum was so upset but demanded we needed cake- so after frantically asking any passerby he could we ran back to the taxi and sped across town to Tesco Lotus.

I kid you not, it was like supermarket sweep- 1 min on the clock and run! We ran around desperately seeking a cake- although there wasn't much choice so we ended up with a cake with a chicken on it, although Bum insisted we wrote on it 'Happy Birthday' so manically looking for a member of staff we found ourselves inside the bakery and left Fed writing on the cake in one of the bakery icing tubes (the women working could not write in English) will be and Bum ran around looking for candles.... Then back on the road flying across Kanchanburi, cake in hand we made it to the party in time to get the cake lit and sing happy birthday to Jolie before it hit 12...

...now I never expected i'd be doing that in Thailand!

A boat, a bus, a car and a tuk-tuk later.. we're in Kanchanaburi!

Me and Fed left the island (and Sarah) on Tuesday morning to head to Kanchanaburi- we knew we'd be travelling all day but we did't actually think it was going to be ALL DAY! After a very choppy sea journey back to the mainline that made my flash before my eyes with images of the sea creatures in the Gulf of Thailand sea, we got the minibus to Bangkok. From there we got a taxi to the Southern Bus terminal, which actually turned out to be the Eastern terminal on the oppoisite side of Bangkok! So after seeking advice from the tourist information and several locals we knew to look out for the bus 511 to get to the right terminal. When it came however it was behind another bus so I ended up running after it and then while trying to explain my friend was just coming it started driving off leaving Fed behind- so i'm shouting "wait wairt wait!" to this Thai man while Fed it trying to get on the middle door while falling out with her suitcase, making a scene on the bus and every person on the bus staring at us!

The bus ended up getting stuck in rush-hour traffic and it took us two hours to get to Sai Mai Tai terminal... we then got another minibus to Kanchanabi and just as we were getting there the tyre burst! Typical!

Finally we arrived at around 9:30pm, only 12 and a half hours later! Oh the joys of travelling!!!.. but Kanchanaburi is totally worth it :)

Memories of Koh Samet

Even though when i'd told one man that I was planning to visit Koh Samet he'd looked at me in disgust, I had an amazing time.

After meeting Fed and Sarah on the ferry (actually a small fishing-type boat) on the way, I tagged along with their plans to stay in Ano Hin Khok bay as that was my desired desination anyways and stayed with them at the Naga bunaglows.

We finally arrived at around 4 even though we were supposed to get there around 1.. but that's Thai times for you, about as effective as Indian time (in my experience).

The bungalows were lovely and were scattered up the hill side inbetween the trees of the jungle of the national park.

Naga itself had a bar where a few guys who lived at Naga work: Moto, Pancake (aka Pnang), Nam, and Pooki... which became great friends for those few days.

Later that evening after some fried rice with vegtables (which is fast becoming a daily addiction) we headed out to meet Sugar and her friends down the beach at White sands resort where there was music, fire dancing and of course drinking and by drinking I mean by the bucket!
The next day we nursed our hangover and soaked up some sun... although Moto warned us against the beach- using his very helpful scale of island weather "its either hot, really hot or fucking hot, and tomorrow its going to be fucking hot!" Being pale I decided I'd hide under an umbrella, but that was as useful as suede shoes in the rain and I still got stupidly burnt!

That evening after varying from Fried rice to Pad Thai we chilled out with the guys for a little bit before heading off to watch the beach (of course) on Fed's laptop.

Most of Sunday was chilling out on the beach of playing pool with the guys from the bar and Sarah.. and that evening we all had a few drinks. Me and Sarah ventured down the beach for a while and came back to Naga and went to a place called Silver Sands where we sat and had some food and a few drinks with the Naga boys.

By monday I was burnt and cowarded away from the sun preferring to go to nearby cafe 'Toks', updating my blog and playing pool with Sarah.. and somehow I came back from an embarassing loss like a pro and potted the whole table until getting stuck on the black for nearly 10 minutes! But thank god I regained my deginity and won!

For my last evening on Koh Samet, I played connect four with Moto, and it's offical i'm as blind as a bat and refuse to play connect four ever again! I vowed I wouldn't go to bed till I won it was half 12 and I was still trying to win.. thank god for Nam who came over and pointed out my nect move which made me win or I could have been there all night!

All in all Koh Samet is a beautiful island with lovely people, and I don't know what that man was talking about!

Sun, sea, sand and sunburn

So I spent the rest of the day with Lou and a tuk-tuk driver who took us around some of the surrounding wats (Buddist temples), getting stuck in conversation with locals telling us about their families and ending up at the grand place in Bangkok exploring the complex of temple and monastries.

We left our driver at the grand place and took a lesuirley stroll round the grounds looking at the beautiful and detailed designs of the buildings and the artwork that sprawled the surrounding wall showing the great battle from the time and King Ramen the first.

It had all began with the kidnap of his wife and ended up in an all out war- although i'm a bit sceptical of the involvement of all the flying mystical creatures.

Later that day I booked to go to the island of Koh Samet (an island on the eastern gulf, a few hours south of BK) the following morning and just spent the rest of the evening with Lou chilling out near Ko San Road with Lou until she left at 7.

It didnt go as smoothly as planned however, when we went to collect our rucksack we ended up in a huge argument with a lady boy. She claimed when we had paid for our room there had been a mix up and she given us 500bht when she hadn't- but she (she looked post-op) insisted on showing us the CCTV over and over again which just proved we were right.

In the end we decided it wasn't worth and just gave her 400bht to call it quits.

So thats something I can tick off my list... get in an arguement with a ladyboy.

The next day I set off for the sunny skies of Koh Samet and let my ladyboy troubles behind me.

On the ferry on the way to the island I met an Italian girl- Fed and a girl from Devon- Sarah... and i've spent the last few days with them on the island.. and yes stupidly enough i've got the world worse sunburn!.. Me and Fed are setting off for Kanchanburi tomorrow, which is just north west of Bangkok where we're gona go meet up with a thai women who goes by the name of Sugar and her friends which Fed and Sarah have met during their travels and who were on holiday in Koh Samet over the weekend.... I'm sooo not looking forward to putting my rucksack on my sunburnt shoulders!

Bangkok!

So after an almost 24hr journey I arrived in the brightlights of Bangkok!

I made my way from the airport with a girl I met at the luggage claim to Ko San Road, the backpacking centre of Bangkok... and it's every bit as tacky as all the hype...( within the first hour we'd shared a taxi and booked a double bed to share at a hotel so it was a very close friendship from the moment we met!)

This street could literally be in any western British holiday makers desination. Filled with tourists sporting the 'traveller' look and very loud bars making you feel like you've just fell asleep on a speaker in a club when actually you in your hotel room; if only the bars had showers then there would be no need for both.

Desperate to get away from this typical tourist area, I've booked myself a bus to get to the nearest island which is only 4hrs away so I'll be leaving the brightlights and thumping bass of Bangkok behind at least for a few days for some sun sea and sand and probably more thumping bass!

I plan to spend the rest of the day trying to see a bit more of the culture of Bangkok, in the form of the temples and local areas as i'm sure somewhere in this capital city some of the real heart of Thailand must still exist... although i'm pretty sure it'll still be next to the 24hr Burger King.

Almost ready for take off!

I'm sat in a hostel in london with less than 12 hours before I fly half way around the world into a life without any responisiblities, any structure or any plans at all really!

I'd be lying if I were to say i'm not a little apprehensive- the thought of spending the next 5 mths essentially on my own is a little daunting but I have no worries that i'll ever really be on my own at all.

In fact I spent last night and all day today with a texan girl I met travelling over two years ago and will later be meeting up with an auzzi lad I met about 9 months ago, son start as you mean to go on.

The excitment is starting to kick in and i'm sure i'll have an awesome time!

For any family and friends reading this... yes i'll be careful and yes i'll stay safe :D... I fly at 9 tonight and arrive in Bangkok at 7pm local time on wednesday so i'll be sure to write on Thursday to let yous know I arrived safely.

Over and out.