Oh My Buddha! Beautiful Thailand

3rd to the 19th of May

30C midday and 24C midnight min - generally scorching hot, frequent fantastic storms

50 Thai Baht to £1 – Singa beer around 30B and rooms or bungalows from 400B for 2


Well, I arrived in South East Asia four weeks ago today and it’s been the most incredible month. Of course I intended to write this as I went but the white sands, warm oceans, hot days and cold beers have somewhat distracted me so I’m doing this part of the trip from memory...

Firstly, Thailand is stinking hot. I landed at 3pm and walking out of that air con airport into the afternoon heat of Bangkok must be similar to climbing into an oven. Secondly, it’s intimidating. People constantly compete for your attention to take you anywhere you want to go (and a fair few you don’t) but fortunately, Claire had texted directions to a hostel on the infamous Khaosan Road so one cool bus ride then sweat drenched walk later and I was in a decent enough room in the heart of the action with a rooftop pool – but I was way too tired for checking out the city so my first night away was spent in my room with a movie and I was asleep within the hour.

8am the next morning though and it was Singa beers and pad Thai for breakfast as Claire, Joel, Jahna and Pris arrived back from Chaing Mai and we hit the in the bar across the road. That day was spent catching up before a night on board a sleeper train to the south (randomly, if you happen to be in a station at 6pm then you’re expected to stand for the national anthem!) so 2 taxis, 1 train, 1 boat and 16 hours later and we were checked into our guesthouse and on the white beach of Chewang, Koh Samui. I’ve spent a lot of time hearing and dreaming about this island and had visions of yoga sessions and elephant trekking and such like but Scotty and Nathan arrived a day later and the 8 of us were much happier partying, sleeping, lazing on the beach and bobbing around in the sea. It was a good 4 days! Scotty then headed on to Perth via Bangkok and the next stop for us was a boat across to Koh Phangan for the full moon party. We had pre-booked another decent place and spent a great afternoon drinking beer in the pool before painting ourselves with fluro paints and catching a tuk tuk down to the Hat Rin for the most famous monthly beach party. The attendance is between 8000-30000 people and there is everything you need for a perfect party - dozens of bars blasting out music, hundreds of stalls selling buckets, fire dancers, podiums and massive groups of people having an amazing time – I loved it and it should be on the list of everyone who travels Thailand! It is hippy paradise. Just a shame I don’t remember all that much about it... J Sadly the girls had to leave the next day to spend some luxury nights in the holiday inn resort and see the best of Phuket so Nathan, Joel, Claire and I took the day to recover and then caught a boat to our 3rd island - Koh Tao.

Ten minutes on this island and you’ll understand why our 1 night turned into 5. We had no more bookings and had decided to wing it in search of going a little cheaper and slightly more remote at each stop and this is definitely the way to travel. It was a shame we weren’t still the 8 of us as even without the busy bars and parties of the previous islands, Koh Tao has been my favourite stop so far. First 2 nights were in the seashell resort bungalows about 100m from the beach where got to see a bit of the town and even a ladyboy show (hilarious, must be done!) and then we moved from the touristy side to the east and stayed in the only accommodation available – 10 bungalows and 10 rooms set into a rocky mountainside about 3 miles from a decent road and with no power or hot water for the majority of the time we spent there. Nothing to complain about though, it was an experience, plus our bungalow looked right over the clearest ocean we’d seen so far with a hammock on the veranda and an awesome open air ensuite bathroom! The whole place was owned by a fantastic Thai woman who called herself Ping Pong and the staff consisted of her family, a few Thais, a Portuguese dive instructor called Fabio (whose 30th birthday we helped celebrate) and an English guy called Rob who had recently gone home to England, failed to find a job and promptly returned to Koh Tao and Ping Pong. We spent the days snorkelling with thousands of tropical fish and a fair few reef sharks, jumping off 5-10m rocks (ok I only did this once and it took me ages to build up the courage...) and racking up massive tabs on Singa beer, Thai food and whisky buckets. I honestly didn’t ever want to leave! But of course there were many more places to see and the hilarious tubing stories of Laos worked well with the fact we had to get out the country before the visas expired – so we caught a night boat (think fishing boat with a row of thin mattresses rather than luxury ferry with cabins) and a bus back to Bangkok. Two days back in the rooftop pool hostel and one rather scary experience later (all I can say is if the books all warn you about tourist traps then believe them!) and we were on another night train to the north borders.

Next stop: Vientiane, capital of Laos...