Walking the streets (Chiang Mai)

The Walking Street is biggest market in Chiang Mai and only takes place on Sunday evenings. When Jess hears the word market her ears, without fail, prick up, so I said bring on 5 hours of walking through packed streets! I love it! (sarcasm intended)

We found that the walking street is exactly that - walking the street where there are stalls as far as the eye can see in all directions. This particular market shuns the night bazaar into shame. You can purchase fresh food plus some strange additions like sweets made from soy beans (which weren't as tasty as they were colourful), Chiang Mai sausage and everyone's favourite - deep fried insects. Yummo!

The local temples even served as a food court of sorts. Of course food wasn't the only offering, there were plenty of funky t-shirts with my favourite being 'Travelling you get happiness' .. unfortunately the only size they had to sell would be likely to fit my nephew after a few washes.

Ceramics, wooden crafts, paintings, handmade scarfs, bags, and all manor of objects were being sold to the many locals and foreigners alike. Our luck soon ran out weather-wise and the markets were plagued with heavy rain causing many to pack up and leave early so we soldiered our way back to our guest house - that was after getting some more pop-corn chicken!

My Chiang Mai

After subjecting ourselves to four week's worth of sun, golden sandy beaches, crystal waters (and at times oil slick brown water, and yes I'm looking at you Samui!) and numerous islands of Southern Thailand we thought it was time to head north and check out Chiang Mai.

Our original plan to shoot up to Bangkok was blown apart as it was pretty cheap to skip that leg for now and head up to get our feet dirty in the second largest Thailand city. We've experienced a mix of ups and downs with charming markets, tours to the mountainous far northern Thailand, being scammed (to add a bit of angry spice to the recipe) and learning to cook amazing food.

We stepped off the plane along with the other 10 passengers of our flight and straight into a taxi for 120 baht to Awana Guesthouse where we laid our heads for the week. A very tidy, neat hotel close to the Thapae Gate at the eastern side of the old city (where all the backpacker digs are) surrounded by the moat once used to protect the city from Burmese invaders, where the city gets its actual name "New walled city".

Our guesthouse is a fantastic port of call in the sense that we're so close to everything that we need to be close to. Not only that but we had cheap accommodation with wonderful friendly hosts and an arctic temperature pool (very slippery - we both completely stacked it when playing silly buggers trying to push each other in - of course ended up in a heap on the floor).

Our first night consisted of gathering our bearings and went venturing to find the talked-about Night Bazaar. We didn't really have any idea where we were going, our maps were failing us! We followed Thapae, the main road out of the old city and then headed south trying to find the Night Bazaar. This took us through some pretty unlit dodgey areas. Funnily enough this was the way to Charlie's authentic English fish 'n' chip shop. Of course there was zero patron eating Charlie's grub so we continued our trek finally to find the Night Bazaar.

The Night Bazaar here is about 10 to 15 different shops repeated for kilometers on end. Fisherman's pants, i-pood tshirts and 'real' rolexes. There are plenty of artists shops who create some amazing copies of anything you present them but all the touts begin to get on your nerves very, very quickly so it was time to get a drink.

We found an arcade of girly/go-go bars in which many Thai ladies (boys) and 'farang' (tourists) were just playing pool, drinking through super-long happy hours and, well, tuning anything that was Thai and looked like a woman. We wanted something a little more different and new just the place - a bar we'd walked past on our earlier travels - the THC bar.

The Tribal Hemp Connection bar strangely enough does not (seriously!) condone the use of drugs in its bar. After walking through what seemed to be a dead bar, we climbed to the third floor roof bar to find a pretty happening little space of Chiang Mai.

We took off our shoes for the first time in Chiang Mai (but definitely not the last) and got cozy on the cushions laid out on the bamboo-laden floor and got ourselves a few drinks. This bar was really the only mentionable drinking hole due to it's unrivalled character - a DJ spinning minimal, funky house, cool Thai bar chicks and plenty of UV lights and cool lighting via christmas lights lining the walls. The prices were a bit steep but worth it considering the atmosphere. After getting a bit pissy and a few mojitos later it was time to hit the sheets and get ready for another day in my Chiang Mai.

Ko Phangan

On Rob's advice we hit the shores of Had Rin on Ko Phangan but jumped straight on a long tail boat and headed to Had Yuan. It is great! Had Yuan is a small beach with a few cheap bungalow operations (one deluxe resort smackbang in the middle but we didn't see a single person emerge or go into it) and it is surrounded by huge boulders, on which are built some more bungalows overlooking the sea, and a couple of bars and restaurants. It's all wood and bamboo which gives the place so much character! And the beach is lined with palm trees, on which are strung the occasional hammock :-)

Surprisingly there were more people on the beach of Had Yuan at about 3pm when we arrived than there were on Had Rin (the full moon party beach) but that was as busy as it got - it was very laid back all evening, and a lot of people didn't surface until the early afternoon. Big Blue bungalows were right on the beach and had lots to keep their guests entertained - pool table, table tennis, mini basketball court and nightly movies in the restaurant, where there were lots of cushions and come 7pm was full of people lounging around watching the movie while eating their dinner.

The bungalows were nice and cheap (almost 6 squids a night) so we stayed 3 nights enjoying the relaxation. There was a great restaurant up on the rocks called Bamboo hut which had a great view of the beach and out to sea so we spent a couple of late afternoons up there with a beer. Some of the bars sell 'special cocktails' although we haven't indulged... one big bummer is that I've had a 5 day migraine since being on ko phangan - not sure what it is, possibly the rocks they substituted for pillows at Big Blue! (although the beds were very comfy).

So we went to Had Rin on Thursday to arrange our travel up north, we were going to get the train to Bangkok but they were full until Sunday, so we decided to skip Bangkok and fly straight from Samui to Chiang Mai, since we have to go back to Bangkok to go to Laos anyway.

We spent 2 nights in some cute bungalows up on the hill above Had Rin, that had good views of the bays and the sunset. We spent half a day sorting out our flights which proved more difficult since HSBC decided to stop my credit card as well as my debit card (Grrrhhhhh!!) but managed to catch some last minute rays yesterday on Had Rin beach which is beautiful.

Today (Saturday) we arrived in Chiang Mai and have only been here a couple of hours but are just chilling for a bit and taking advantage of the free wireless internet before heading out to the Night Bazaar!! Can't wait! Photos will come over the next day or two.

Full photo album here...

Jess and Gav xox

xox

Ko Samui

Now we're on Ko Phangan, so I'll just briefly let you all know what happened on Ko Samui... We stayed in a nice cheap resort in a fan room (about 10 pounds a night) which was pretty good, the room was basic but the gardens were really nice and the staff were pretty friendly. It was across the road from the beach (althoug being on the north end of Chaweng beach it wasn't really swimmable so we had to walk up or down the beach to swim) and it was about 10 mins walk to the shops etc. We spent a few days at the beach, either down the south end or up the very north end which was actually beautiful, not much sand to lay on but the water was really shallow, clear blue and calm.

We went on a day tour safari very similar to the one I did last time I was at Ko Samui, which involved elephant trekking, an elephant show, monkey show, crocodile show, a waterfall, amazing views of the island, grandmother and grandfather rocks, magic buddha garden and the big buddha. It was fun to have a day seeing different parts of the island :-)

We ate a lot of pot noodles (2 min noodles from 7-11 - about 20p a meal) but did splash out one night on an exquisite dinner at Eat Sense! The most amazing food and... deep fried ice cream! Yum!

In all Samui was slightly disappointing after being at such beautiful places as Phi Phi and Railay, however we still had a nice time there. We extended our stay one night as I was sick with a 24hr bug of some kind and wasn't up to travelling.

So after 6 nights on Samui... time for Ko Phangan!

The album of Ko Samui photos is here!

Railay

Railay was wonderful - we didn't really do that much since we only had 2 days there, mainly just hanging at the beach. The sand sea resort had super-yummy food, I had a brilliant pad thai on our last night, and gav had fried rice served in a pineapple! I also *had* to try their deep-fried icecream to compare it to the icecream I had at Eat Sense last time I was at Ko Samui... it was pretty good but Eat Sense was better! :-)

Yesterday we made the journey from Railay to Ko Samui... it was a bit of a mission and took ALL day... we left at about 8.45 am and a long-tail boat, 2 interesting bus rides, a ferry and a taxi later we finally arrived at our guesthouse in Ko Samui by about 7.30pm.

Railay beach

Yesterday we got a boat over to Railay, about 1.5 hrs from Phi Phi, the boat is destined for Ao Nang, but stops near Railay on the way in the middle of the sea of Railay beach, where you are met by longtail boat, and you have to climb from the big boat to the longtail boat with about 8 other people and your backpacks! It was a fun little way to get here :-)

We were greeted with golden sands, emerald green water and looming limestone cliffs and a very relaxed vibe! People were chilling out on the beach, some were playing volleball on the sand and others were chilling out at the few resort restaurants lining the beach. There were also no speedboats, only a few long-tail boats! I really like Railay. It's the rock-climbing capital of Thailand and you can see why! The island is mainly large rock formations which are really cool. They enclose the beaches making them calm bays.

We have a cute little bungalow - no aircon this time! But it has been fine, reminds me of my childhood - we never had aircon in the Australian heat! We arrived, settled in and headed out for a little wander to see what the place is all about. We watched an AMAZING sunset from the restaurant on the beach and ate really yummy thai food! Prawn red curry and garlic pepper squid :-)

I had my first night drinking Sang Som (Thai rum! makes you loco hehe) and red bull before heading out to check out the nightlife on Railay... headed over to the east beach and wandered through the bars, they were all playing pretty crap music but we settled for the Last Bar as they had cheap vodka and fun staff and nice bamboo lounge thingies, so we had a drink and watched the fire twirlers (nervously as they weren't that good and kept dropping the fire sticks on people!)

Today we had yummy buffet breakky (with banana fritters!) and headed over to Phra Nang beach about 10 mins walk away, which was really busy but its the nicest beach on the island, it also has caves you can climb around, and hilariously they have shrines in them with lots of penises mades out of wood! We didn't get a photo but will take one tomorrow. Apparently its for good luck!

Pics for Railay so far are on my smugmug...

Stay tuned for more Railay adventures coming soon! Jess and Gav xox

Phi Phi is teh awesome!!

Edit: To see all the photo's of our trip so far, be sure to visit Jess' Smugmug page.

Sawasdee! Phi Phi has been fantastic! I've never been to a place with such amazing beaches, water and a really cool vibe in parts of the island.

We've done quite a bit of relaxing on the beach but have mixed it up as well. On our first day on Phi Phi we arrived wet, salty, hot and sunburnt from the boat trip - as Gav has written before, it was high tide so the pier was about a meter under water so we had to hold our bags high and wade through it up to our thighs to get to the shore. So we rocked up to the hotel, dumped our bags and headed straight for the beach! Beautiful crystal clear calm acqua water greeted us which we welcomed excitedly! So we spent half the day swimming and sunbaking (didn't realise till we got into the otel room that we were very burnt) and then spent the evening wandering about the tourist village. It's a really cool little town with a small island vibe - friendly, laid-back and with no neon lights and go-go bars like phuket has. The town consists mainly of clothing shops, beach gear shops, restaurants, bars, mini-marts, scuba diving schools and accomodation/tourist info agencies.

We've become very close with our friend Chang beer since we've been here, it's the cheapest at 50 baht for a tallie and on a few nights we've drunk a couple of tallies on the balcony while the clouds in the sky turn pink and purple-grey. Typically we have spent way too much money so far - mainly on accommodation as it is really expensive on Phi Phi! We luckily booked ahead for the first 4 nights on the internet, which turned out to be cheaper than if we turned up and booked on arrival - plus our hotel was fully booked! We spent the second day wondering how we could extend our stay since we've booked our accommodation for the next 2 islands, only to check over our bookings to find out that we stuffed up the dates and we weren't expected in Railay until Saturday! Yayyy.... very strange that this happened as it meant that we could stay on Phi Phi for an extra 3 nights! Then we weren't rushed trying to do everything.

Although we tried to extend our stay in the hotel only to be told no, they are fully booked, so we spent hours wandering the island trying to find other accommodation that was cheaper and not too grotty (which is difficult on Phi Phi). We ventured to one end of the island close to a Mosque that we found blasts loud and proud prayer through speakers spread out across the island. Another was the backpackers call 'The Rock' which had the nice price of 250 baht that got you in a less-than private room with another 16 people! In the end we went to an accommodation booking place who managed to pull a few strings and get Phi Phi hotel to let us extend our stay in our own room no less! But at a higher rate so we really have overspent! Railay will also be expensive but after that its dodgey fan bungalows all the way! Hello insect repellant...

A little more about awesome Phi Phi! --------------------------------------------

On Sunday we took a long boat out to Long Beach (Hat yao) which is less touristy than Lo Dalam, the main beach, and spent the day lazing about in the shade (since we were burnt we couldn't handle the sun!) and playing cards. There is great snorkelling off Long beach but we forgot the snorkelling gear! :-P

We found a great bar - Carpe Diem - which is right at the end of the beach and has chilled out tunes, cushions and little tables overlooking the beach, cute fairy lights, great staff and fire twirling later in the evening. It's a brilliant place to just chill with a drink as the sun goes down. We had one random night where we went to a funny little makeshift bar selling buckets, kebab sticks and blasting their music out in competition with one of the biggest bars on the island right next door, ordered some kebab sticks and were told to sit and wait while they were cooked. So we down at a table with an irish guy and a thai guy (who worked there but was completely hammered!) We ended up having random banter with them for about 2 hours and got a bit pissy! So was a little seedy when we had to wake up early to go on the snorkelling trip.

Our favourite restaurant (in fact pretty much the only restaurant we've eaten at apart from one night) is the Phi Phi Bakery - which does yummy thai meals for 60 baht - 1 pound! And has great cakes :-) Since we've been spending all our budget on accommodation and going way over budget with boat trips (and booze) we've kept eating to a minimum - 1 pound meals at Phi Phi bakery and we've been trying out the 2 minute pot noodles from 7-11! They're actually pretty tasty here! Mike you'd be proud, I've been eating Tom Yam noodles! Spicy!!!! And we bought a pot of vegemite in Singapore (by the way they have loads of Australian foods in the supermarkets in Singapore! Shapes, arnotts biscuits, uncle toby's meusli bars!! We thought it would be a couple more months till we saw any of that food!) so we've been buying bread and eating a lot of vegemite sandwiches like true Aussies. Unfortunatelyl I haven't seen any pork buns on Phi Phi which are a great snack. They have Thai pancakes here which are the snack food but they are cooked in a pool of oil and then drenched in chocolate sauce, so aren't the most healthiest snack.

Under the Sea -----------------

On Wednesday we went out on a day tour of the islands. We were on a big boat which meant that we couldn't go up to the beaches, we had to either swim/snorkel there or kayak. So we went to Maya bay (the beach were the movie "The Beach" was filmed) and it was full of tourists!! Speed boats lined the beaches and bigger boats filled the bay and the beach was covered in tourists taking photos.

So not quite what we expected although it wasn't really surprising. There's loads of Japanese tourists here although they only seem to come on day-trips from Phuket so they are all gone at night! So we didn't actually get to go to the beach as it was a little far to swim and we spent the time snorkelling around the boat. The boat (which I think was the slowest boat on the entire island) then took us all around the Phi Phi islands, stopping at various places allowing us to snorkel or kayak to the shore to check it out.

There is some great snorkelling spots around phi phi, we've seen some really cool fish! Although the coral isn't colourful here?? It's all brown. Anyway that was a fun trip and we both did the token jump off the top of the boat (I hated it) where as Gav absolutely loved it! Gav lost his snorkel due to the dodgey gear we were given but managed to persuade the tour operaters to replace the snorkel for 120 baht rather than pay their 300 baht price tag for lost gear, robbers!

We went to Monkey beach were apparently the monkeys steal your stuff and would rather your cigarettes than the banana you offer them hehe... but we had to swim to monkey beach so had nothing for them to steal, or offer them and no camera to take pictures of them and their fat bellys.

Step by step
---------------

Yesterday we took a walk up the view point. It nearly killed us!! So many steps! It was 186 meters above the town and parts were very deceiving!

Just when we thought that we had met the last of the steps and we were there, there were even more steps to climb!! Finally we got to the top and the view was pretty amazing. Gav noticed locals going through the rainforest and a sign so we thought we'd take a random trek through the jungle and ended up on the other side of Phi Phi at 'Relax beach' where there are a few bungalows and not much else. It was great! Although the construction noises weren't so relaxing. we didn't realise how far we'd gone, but as it was the other side of the island it cost us 300 baht to get a boat back! :-S But there was NO way I was walking back over the view point! Ha! I was so shattered I was asleep by 8.30pm.

So today is our last day and we're going to spend it.... relaxing on the beach! haha.. we want to make the most of the beauty of the beach so are just going to chill :-)

Until next time!! Now it's off to Railay for us... xooxx

Koh Phi Phi

We're now on Phi Phi and it truly is paradise!! But paradise has expensive internet, so we've uploaded our photos so far to Facebook and Smugmug - check them here.

Also check out my smugmug for the rest of the Phuket pictures. The stories will come later sorry!! Enjoy the piccies for now though....

We're in Phi Phi until Saturday then head to Railay for 3 nights, and onto Ko Samui for 5 nights from there.

Love to everyone!!

Jess xox

Bye bye Phuket!

We managed to get a good day of sun-tanning on Karon Beach on lovely banana lounges only to forget to bring along our camera to show you how awesome it was! Then we went for a swim in pool at the hotel (amongst the beginner scuba divers!). We went to the markets again (the ones selling bunnies in dresses) and got some amazing spring rolls and tempura prawns for our dinner on the way down to the beach to watch the sunset. It was pretty although not quite as spectacular as last time I was on Phuket as there was more clouds unfortunately. We got some cheap chang beers from the 7-11 and I taught Gav how to play 500.

The rest of our Phuket photos are on my smugmug.

Burn baby burn!

Hello Phi Phi! After 5 hours of sleep and a frantic, early appointment with another journey on a packed mini-bus we were on our way to the ferry terminal. We hopped on a boat filled with a world of nationalities (with the majority of this world being Japanese), we climbed up to the third story of the boat as it was the outdoor deck and to our luck it was completely empty, we were stoked! But as the boat left the pier we soon found out there was a method to this madness. It wasn't before long that we were receiving mouthfuls of the deep sea's finest and the poor suckers that chose to sit on the opposite side of the deck were getting absolutely soaked, not to mention their plastic chairs were now sliding all over the place like ice hockey pucks! This entertained Jess and I to no end as it went on for quite a while and we kindly complemented their acrobatic feats with a huge cheeky grin.

As the boat neared the island of Phi Phi we could feel our skin drying out faster than my boardies on Karon beach! Remnants of the water sprayed on to us had left enough salt on our bodies to sprinkle over 3 English breakfasts and it was then that we could feel our moon tanned skin starting to burn up. Stupidly, we left our sunscreen in our backpacks since we figured it was only a 1.5 hour trip and only early in the morning. So by the time we rendezvoused down to the lower deck it was already too late and the damage was done. Before our eyes our skin which was one of the lighter shades of white, was now as pink as the box Barbie comes in! It's only 10am!

Now the Ton Sai jetty is in view as our boat passes rocky, tree-topped cliffs and long boat after long boat, we arrive excited at our first of many Thailand destinations. It's high tide and we wondered what was taking everyone so freaking long to hit the sands of Ton Sai beach and get off the boat/make-shift pier. As we made our way closer to the front of the queue our bewildering question was answered - the 'pier' was submerged waist-deep in water! So as fast as we can we are ripping our shoes from the soles of our feet, rolling up our 3/4 shorts and I make sure my ciggies don't suffer the same fate as my last drowned packet in the pool of our hotel in Phuket. All things are in check (or so I thought!) and Jess and I take our first plunge in to the warm, crystal clear tropical waters of Phi Phi and make it to dry land. A little burnt, a little wet and when i got around to to rolling my shorts back down I'm struck with horror...my iPod! I forgot that I used it in the minibus on our way to the ferry and placed it in my pocket for 'safe-keeping'. Good one Gav!

I'm now too upset that my tunes are now swimming with the fishes and too annoyed to write, so it's time for some more sun, beach and Chang!

Edit: I know that we have been slack on the blog front but don't blame us, blame the sweet, sweet weather we've been having...oh and all the beer! We have a bulk of posts waiting to hit so get your reading glasses on and be ready for it!

Love Gav & Jess xoxo

Introduction to Phuket

Just a quick post here as there's not all that much to report to Phuket... except that I am sooo sooo excited that the weather is okay! After looking at a dreadful forecast of thunderstorms for the foreseeable future, I was almost reevaluating the first half of the trip, but on the plane as we got closer to Phuket the weather got better and better, to be greeted off the plane with warm sunshine!! Hooray.... I've waited for the moment for so long.

It took quite a while to reach Karon (after waiting in the longest passport control I've ever experienced at the airport and then being the lucky last stop on the minibus) but we finally arrived and got straight into it with some pad thai and chang beer at the cute hotel bar/restaurant! I love how cheap it is here - not even 2 quid for a meal and a nice one at that, and the 7-11 sells chang tallies for 38 baht - not even 80 pence each :-) Gav was also pretty stoked to buy a pack of ciggies for just over a pound!

We wandered down to the beach ( a small trek) and walked to Kata, the next beach and just wandered along the street markets and restaurants pretty much and got ourselves a pair of sunnies each since I was nearly blinded I've gotten too used to London grey skies.

Although my feet are killing me from wearing thongs (flip-flops for the English reading this) which I haven't worn for at least 8 months.

Tomorrow we're hitting the beach for some sun! Pray that the weather is good. Love to all.... xox

Singapore wanderings

Shops, shops and more shops! Singapore seems to be a city full of shopping malls! We wandered all the way along Orchard Road which I think is their shopping street, although we had no money for shopping so wasn't very productive. We went to go for a Singapore Sling at Raffles - where the drink itself was invented, although they cost $25 (singapore) each! So just had a little looksee around and quickly departed haha... We checked out Bugis street market - the largest in Singapore, where we found a cool little dodgey looking food court and got ourselves some pork mince fish ball noodle soup for about 1 pound each :-) It was absolutely bucketing down with rain so thought this would kill some time until the storm blew over. It was the first time in sooo long that I've experienced a summer storm - it was great! The humidity, the smells.... ahhhh.... memories of home....

We walked down to the river and had a little look at the cute restaurants along the river but it was pouring rain so got the metro back to the hostel for a nap and then a pork bun! (thats food)

Singapore was lovely although a day was really enough, we were ready to hit the beaches!!

Singapore Slung

If I knew how to say hello in Malay I would but we don't so a straight up Hawaiian Aloha will have to do! We arrived safe and sound and not as hungover as I would've liked but maybe that's a good thing since both Jess and I are totally buggered from the 11 hour flight not counting the hour delay at Heathrow. I think I'll keep this short and sweet as my typing is only getting worse and we need to eat and sleep! Loving the humidity though, it goes great with our shower that has a broken heating element! Anyway ya'll we'll let you know how we go once we've experienced a little more of Singapore than just Changi Airport and the subway!

Gav & Jess
xo