Willandclaire’s Travels

We arrived from Malaysia by bus at Hat Yai then on another to Krabi where we overnighted before a boat to the Tsunami battered but now prestine island of Koh Phi Phi don.

Koh Phi Phi:
We arrived to grey skies but warm weather and managed to find some brand new digs up one of the hills from the main beach.
I booked in for some diving over the next couple of days with Hippo divers. We planned to relax on the idyllic sand beach flanked by Limestone kast headlands but the first day it rained like hell.
Day 2 I went diving but it rained a lot. The dive was ok but there was a big swell and the sites available were not that great, we dived Ko phi phi’s sister smaller island (a national reserve due to the island beng a nesting and subsequant harvesting site of swallow bird nest soup). THe dive was ok but visibility was crap and the coral a bit scrappy. A crappy day diving is still better than a day doing other things. Claire avoided the rain.
The next day was great weather blue blue skies and hot hot sun, we managed to get out to the Bida islands for diving, Bida nok and nai and it was great, top coral and great fish, still it s overdived with boats all over the shop.
THe last day we just relaxed and dossed about, it rained on and off but we could tell the weather was tirning for the best. we looked at the markets and ate.

Phuket:
This is the largest island in Southern Thailand and sex tourism den, the main beach is nice but rammed with chairs and free sunbathing is limited as so many chairs fill the sand. We found a nice place to stay we got it cheaper as the tourist numbers have dropped off in thailand over the recent past so they want people in beds. We lounged on the beach for a few days and I went for a dive on a huge boat out to Racha Noy and Racha Yai – two islands about 2 hours off the cost, great fish life huge thousand strong shoal of Fusiler fish we were hoping for Manta Rays but this marine beast still allouds me, the visibity was a lot greater than on Phi phi at about 30m but still the dive wasn’t amazing. On the last dive the current was running so strongly that we shot past the interesting stuff before we knew wherer we were! never mind….. shite loads of grub ont eh boat – i enjoyed that and the awesome weather.

Koh Sok National Park:
About 2 hours from Phuket we arrived at the national park, this is a great place, huge forested area with a massive lake about 65km fromthe nearest access road.
We decided to go elephant trekking for the afternoon and were introduced to our huge elephant whih took us slowly but surely up the riverbed of a small stream and waterfall, it was great, we couldn’t belive the elephant would get traction but no misshaps (thankfully : )) then we fed her a whole basket of bananas hihc she grabbed with her trunk and shoves in skin and all, their inquisative trunk is so nimble when it wants to be.
We stayed a night got up pretty early and trekked into the park, we could hear an elephant pretty close as we wandered through the trails but we didn’t see it. The fact it was the arse end of the rainy season meant some trails were closed but we walked to a waterfall of sorts then up to a high point in the park over millions of steps and a Indiana Jones style bridge. It was dense forest with loads of trees and bugs and animal noises, pretty amazing but the only wildlife we saw was a bird eating a lizard and lots of lizards and creepy crawlies. It was a fantastic place to relax and we seldom saw anyone else on our 5 hour wander.

Kanchanaburi -
After a bus into and out of Bangkok (we will explore this mad capital just before we fly home in January) we arrived at this city famous for being on the Death railway that linked Thailand and Burma. The city contains the famous bridge over the river Kwai that thousands of British and other POW’s were forced to build by the occupying Japanese.
We visited the bridge, the war cemetery and the museum and it was a very interesting place. The museum told of the atrocities that POW’s suffered at the hands of the Japanese and the horrendous living conditions during their working days, whilst the thousands of graves in the war cemetery were a real reminder of the life lost, UK, Dutch, NZ, OZ and other nationalities are lined up side by side. A lot of tour buses come to the site and friends and families come to see the graves, as I wandered the graves it was moving to see the flowers and cards from loved ones. One was from a 99 year old widow to her dead husband saying how she was glad she had finally made the trip.
The bridge itslef is a single guage railway crossing and filled with tourists wndering over it, a train still runs but just for jolly foerigners.

Sukhothai:
This is one of Thailand’s ancient city, formerly the capital of the Sukhothai kingdom in the 13 and 14th century. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and is bloody large. It is located about 15km from the modern city of the same name and after a short lorry journey to it we explore this vast 70km square site on bike.
WE visited about 8 temple like structures marveling at the multitude of Buddha images, palaces and general different types of temples. There were temples with moats, temples with multiple stupa, temples with multiple Buddha, Buddha with huge hands in a very small room (this was at Wat Si chum and was my favorite temple to explore). It was reminiscent of Angkor Wat in cAmbodia but the ruins are less immense, we also liked the temple on the hill (Wat Tapahan Hin) that gave a truly great view.

Chiang Mai:
Situated in Northern Thailand, I remembered this place fondly from my previous trip. We arrived in the city a day before the Loi Kratong festival (known locally as Yi Peng: Held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai Lunar Calandar. Thousands of people assemble floating banana-leaf containers (krathong) decorated with flowers and candles onto the waterways of the city to worship the Goddess of Water. Hot-air lanterns (khom fai) are launched into the air. These are believed to help rid the locals of troubles and are also taken to decorate houses and streets.) . We had a great time. The city was packed all the time and there were street parades, markets, lanterns, fierworks, ballons and all sorts all over the place all of the time. The food was awesome and cheap as we have eaten anywhere.
We visited the cities temples and Claire went on a Batik painting class with a lovely lady called Ann, she created a elephant wall hanging and a Bob Marley Batik print. Very cool.
There was a parade of floats most nights to the Ping river and as we wandered down the streets we saw dancing, heard music took pics, dodged fireworks and ate like kings. Plus we took some time out and went to see Jimmy Bond film,

We also went on a 2 day overnight trek to see some of Northern Thailands ethnic Hilltribes. we first stopped in at a recreated (tourist) village where the ethnic minority hilltribes are housed for ease and convenience and where they can make more money and live ‘better’ than if they were in their native lands. We saw the distinctive gold neck clad Karen Longneck Tribe and yes the rings are bloody heavy (apparently the reason they wear rings about their necks is because there used to be Tigers in the places they lived that would attack and bite the women in the neck, thus metal neck bands means no Tiger food!) there were also Meo (Meow!) people, Hmong, Luha and Akaa tribes folks and they all seemed very happy in their touist bubble.
After this top we actually did some more elephant trekking and then finally began to walk. It was pretty tough going through forest, fields, hills, trees and finally up a bloody huge hill to overnight in a Lahu village. It was a great night, the local kids came and made friends and taught us magic tricks, it was great to see that up in the hills they can easily be amused by simple string and don’t need the artificial stimuli of telly and the like. Food was great also, sticky rice all the way and a great sunset and thai green curry.

Then onwards to Laos!