The next stop for
Mariaelena and I was the South West of Thailand via night boat and then bus. The
night boat left Koh Tao at 11pm and we were there early, tired and ready for a
good sleep after our outrageous last night out in Koh Tao. The boat had a huge
ramp that great big trucks drove over and onto the deck to be ferried to
Chumphon. We squeezed through the cars on the lower deck up some stairs and
found the sleeping cabin, a room full of bunk beds that looked inviting. I was
exhausted and very ready for a kip, and so squeezed my bags in between our two
beds (people warned us of thieves in the night but we had nothing like that) and
moved the rock hard pillow aside and was in la la land in an instant. Poor M
couldn’t sleep though and was awake until 20 minutes before 5am when we had to
get off the boat. She said at one point she went out on the deck to gaze at the
dark ocean and couldn’t believe we had been dropped into an equally dark sea to
dive just the night before.
The boat landed at 5am
and we were taken to a cafe in town to get the connection minibus to Krabi, and
had a chat to a middle aged man who was travelling for a year but seemed to
dislike everywhere he’d been up to that point, while breakfasting on Lipton tea
and warm bread rolls. We were the only ones to get the minibus to Krabi which
must be because the season was calming down. It was nice to view the
countryside in the day for once, lots of tropical greenery and palms. We
stopped off and bought some fresh mangos cut up and put in a plastic bag, they
are so fresh and juicy here they literally melt in your mouth. The ride was
long and hot and I was glad for it to be over when we reached Krabi town.
We came to Krabi so that
we could easily get to the South West islands like Koh Lanta and Phi Phi. I
really wanted to poke my nose into these places that everyone raves on about to
see what the fuss was. Krabi was a big dirty town and didn’t strike us as
somewhere we wanted to spend any time, so after being dropped off at a random
tourist office in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Krabi, we booked a boat
straight to Koh Lanta, the more chilled out of the islands. I didn’t know much
about it other than it had some great beaches and a good atmosphere, and wasn’t
too much of a crazy party place. We waited a couple of hours and then got the
bus/boat/bus combination to Koh Lanta. At this point we had been travelling for
around 18 hours with all the connections and just wanted to get there badly,
especially M as she hadn’t slept in days if felt like. Koh Lanta is practically
a stones throw away from the mainland but you still have to get a little ferry
boat with the bus to get there.
The ticket to Krabi from
Koh Tao cost Baht 750 which included the night sleeper boat to Chumphon and
then a bus to Krabi. We eventually got to Krabi at around 11.30am, so the
journey is around 12 hours. The trip from Krabi to Koh Lanta was Baht 350.
Once on Koh Lanta you’re
dropped off in the main town bit which doesn’t feel like an island at all. We
were approached by some guys offering accommodation, although not aggressively
pestering which you sometimes hear happening in Thailand but which I was yet to
experience anything of. We picked a place on Klong Kong beach which had a
bungalow that we could share for Baht 500 and gave us a free ride there. We
went down a bumpy gravel road off the main road and were driven into a resort
which was slightly beat up and knackered looking, but that had a restaurant and
pool area on the beach and had a good room for Baht 600 (the bungalows for 500
were a bit grim) with a huge double bed that we could share. It’s called
Blue
Andaman Resort and is an odd place in that it was on a strip of beach that cut
you off in a strange way to the rest of the island so that the only thing you
could see were the bungalows, the pool area with some massage therapies on
offer, a restaurant and the tiny strip of beach directly in front of it. It was
quiet just after the high season and had a mixture of families, couples and
pairs of girls (most of them Swedish) so pretty laid back and not much of a
raucous going on. Although there was a bar called The Sound Shack attached to
the restaurant which sold happy shakes and bang lassis so at times I’m sure it
got slightly fruitier around here. But hey, beach pool and food is all good
with me, especially after our long journey. The food at the restaurant was
quite expensive though, so if anyone is planning on staying here walk out the
resort at the back entrance towards the main road and find some cheaper
breakfast and stuff like water, it’s half the price just outside.
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| Sound Shack bar - Google image |
We spent two nights at
Blue Andaman and it’s a pretty boring place and a bit claustrophobic so
actually I wouldn’t really recommend it (after seeing what the rest of the
island had to offer). But we ended up actually having a really fun time after
meeting two new friends Gustav and Karl on the first night in varying states of
disarray at the Sound Shack bar. They were two nineteen year old Swedes on a Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas style bender in South East Asia, starting in Shanghai,
Philippines and now Thailand and were pretty much up for anything. How they
ended up in such a chilled out place as Koh Lanta I wasn’t sure, but I was glad
they did. We had some fun getting merry and wandering round the beach and pools
one night, star gazing and watching storms, riding on the back of their mopeds (which
are really cheap to hire here in Lanta, around Baht 200 a day) and one night
went to the town centre to watch Gustav get his tattoo at
Lanta Ink (who did a great job if
you’re thinking of a Thailand tattoo, Baht 3000 for an hour with machine not
bamboo). It is an ode to
Bill Hick’s
sketch ‘It’s just a ride’. I like!
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| Meeting Karl at the Sound Shack |
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| Gustav getting his tattoo at Lanta Ink |
After two nights at Blue
Andaman I was keen to stay somewhere else so we found
Lanta Paradise
Resort on Khlong Nin beach and I’m so glad we did because it was so much
nicer in every way. A crazy beautiful Swedish girl called Christina told us
about the beach. We managed to negotiate a really nice bungalow for M and I at
Baht 600 with two big beds, probably because it was low season. The pool, beach
and restaurant here was so much nicer and actually cheaper, and we had some
great food and drinks down at the Majestic bar on big rustic wooden tables on
the beach, who had a slightly less frisky array of shakes on offer than the
Sound Shack. If you’re ever thinking of staying in Koh Lanta, give Long Beach
(unless you want tourists and parties and same same restaurants) and Khlong
Khong Beach a miss and head to Klong Nin. The atmosphere is nicer and the beach
much prettier. That night we bought some beers and sat on the beach watching
the nightly lightning show by the ever present storms on the horizon, took a
walk down the beach and then found a groovy little beach shack bar where an old
weathered Swedish man was chatting to one lone punter and where we sat until
the wee hours, playing with the cute kittens bouncing around. It wouldn’t hurt
to learn Swedish in these parts, as most people are from there it seems.
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| Khlong Nin Beach |
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| Khlong Nin beach |
M and I hired mopeds from
just outside Lanta Paradise Resort (Baht 200 for 24 hours, just leave your
passport, no licence necessary) and we set off with the boys to explore South
of the island. It gets really hilly and the beaches more remote, with beautiful
views. We found a small beach which you had to climb down to get to, so we left
our bikes at the top and went on down to the really pretty and quiet beach. We
were straight in the water, which is so warm and inviting here, and watched the
sun go down around the limestone cliffs. There was a small shack bar on the
beach run by some local Thai guys and we went over for a beer, and ended up
staying until dark with these really friendly awesome people, although they
could hardly speak any English at all. A big storm rolled over and we had to
huddle in the leaky shack with candles listening to some Thai pop tunes out a
tiny radio and laughing and chatting until the heavy rain subsided, trying to
have conversations but mainly failing and laughing. Such a fun night!
Eventually after a few hours we climbed back up the rocky track to our mopeds
and had an energising ride back home through the wet pot holed streets watching
the lighting subside into the distance. Life!
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|
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| The Beach Shack |
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| Our awesome friend for the night |
Another night we had the
most delicious food at the
Greek
Taverna run by really cute Greek expats. After eating fried rice and Thai
curries for days it was so nice to get some different food and flavours, and
man it was delicious. Greek salad with genuine feta cheese (the biggest treat
out here, no cheese anywhere!) and some huge chicken wraps with tzitziki.
Everything was yum and served with love, I recommend for a treat on Lanta for
sure, it’s the best food I had on the island. Their little boy was first sat at
a table wrapping feta in buckets and then playing outside finding huge beetles
on the trees. Afterwards we made our way to Mong Bar, which is specifically and
generously set out for those indulging in Thailand’s array of psychedelic shakes.
It’s down a dark leafy street and projected on the trees and palms are some
really trippy lights, with a fire burning and sprinkles of lasers and various
otherwordly things hanging in trees. There were a few people sat around the
fire gazing wide eyed at all the dancing light when we arrived, wobbly, smiley and
bright eyed chatting nonsense. This scene of Thailand’s underground activities
is very funny to witness.
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| Greek Taverna, Mariaelena and Christina |
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| Mong Bar - Google pic |
After four nights on Koh
Lanta it was time to for all of us to move on. M and I to Phi Phi for one night
before she set off for a flight from Phuket to Indonesia and the boys also to
Phuket for some rainbow Thailand craziness. M and I were picked up in the
sweltering morning for a squashed ride to the Koh Lanta pier where we thought
we’d be on the same boat as them, but turned out we weren’t which was sad as we
didn’t even get to say goodbye properly. But we did get to wave at them from
the top deck as we saw their boat whizz by. The boat to Phi Phi was around an
hour and half and cost Baht 350. We sat on the top deck with the big yellow sun
beating down and watched islands appear and disappear into the sea, hanging our
feet over the deck getting splashed by the warmest water and getting very
sunburnt noses. We were really hot and bothered arriving in Phi Phi which is
chaotic, loud, busy and annoying to say the least. The pier leads you into a
claustrophobic warren of streets which block off any view or site of the island
itself, and is just a bunch of tourist shops and bars piled on top of each other.
I wanted to go over to the other side of the island away from the main pier but
there are no cars or bikes on Phi Phi so it would have been a long walk, and we
were so hot and fed up that we just found accommodation from someone on the
pier and let them ferry our bags in a cart around the cramped streets. It was
still around a 15 min walk around the madness down some dirty back streets and
up a hill which was thankfully set away from the main drag. The place had some palm
bungalows which were quite cute and very basic, with a small balcony, mosquito
net and bathroom for Baht 600 a night. There was also a good deck in the
reception and small bar overlooking the bay so you could see all the madness on
the beach from a perch. I think it was called Sunrise View Resort but I can’t
remember now. We dragged our bags into the tiny bungalow and were straight in
the cold shower and then down for a hot sleep. I was feeling a bit grumpy and
hot that day, really out of sorts and when I heard my darling friend Emma’s
brother had passed away it just sapped out any will to leave the bungalow and
do anything at all. We went down to get some food but it was just so cramped,
busy and claustrophobic everywhere that I just went back to the bungalow and
sat on the deck watching the sunset and then a mad storm, being munched by mosquitoes
and chatting to an Israeli guy who was telling me all about his break up which I
wasn’t in the mood for at all, but that I was too tired to oppose to.
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| Boat to Phi Phi, Farigo in the middle :) |
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| Deck at Sunrise View |
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| Phi Phi fire show - Google pic |
Very soon into the
evening the music started from the main beach and I could watch the action from
my viewpoint up the hill. They had some cool fire shows which I watched for a
bit, but because we were up the hill it was creating some kind of acoustic
trap, so every bar’s music was amplified and banging, all mixed together and
focussed on shaking the walls of our bungalow. Phi Phi is beautiful, and
somewhere I’d love to explore but if you’re not into annoying banging parties,
litter and millions of tourists in the main area then it is not for you either.
The natural beauty has been ravaged sadly, although I do know that away from
the main pier there are still some really beautiful parts. You can also take a
boat trip to Phi Phi Ley which is its smaller sister and where no tourists can
stay. Personally I couldn’t wait to get off the island, and so the next day
after I waved bye to my lovely travelling companion Mariaelena who went on to
Indonesia, happily packed my bags and got on the boat to Railay Beach. It was
around 2 hours away and cost Baht 400.
I had heard from a few
people that
Railay on the South West coast (near Krabi) is a great place, especially if
you liked limestone cliffs and rock climbing. It’s not an island, but has
beautiful beaches and is on a piece of land that juts out so it feels isolated
like an island. As the boat comes in you can see turquoise water, golden beach
and rocky green cliffs rising out the water in every direction, like the postcard
view of Thailand that I had seen. The ferry boat lands in the bay and then a
longtail comes to collect you and the luggage and takes you onto the shore
as it’s really shallow with extreme tides. I landed on West Beach, which is
where the more expensive resorts are and the prettier beach. This was so
different from Phi Phi and so exactly what I wanted so I had a big smile as I
made my way through the water onto the beach. I was headed for East Beach which
is supposed to be for the budget backpackers. I read about a really cheap
resort with bungalows for Baht 200 a night, so I hoisted my bags over my
shoulder and made my way through the jungly and haphazard path with electrical
wires and half finished building work, as is the way with Thailand’s building
techniques.
After some hot trudging
and getting sidetracked by watching climbers scale the vertical cliffs, I found
myself in
Railay
Cabana (which was supposed to be the cheapest place to stay with bungalows
for Baht 150 according to Travelfish but actually are more like Baht 400). It
was really quiet and relaxed with some bungalows dotted around in the jungly hills
and a bar playing reggae tunes. The only bungalow they had free though had two
beds and was Baht 600 which was way out of my budget on my own, so I decided to
wait for another lone traveller to come along to share with me. I had a beer at
the bar and had a broken conversation with the Thai Rasta guy running it, when
two friendly people appeared. Sophie, a cute bubbly girl from Essex in the UK,
and Yannis, a hippy from Greece with incredibly long dreadlocks living in one
of London’s posher house squats. And so another travelling friendship trio was
formed. Yannis was looking for a room so that worked out great, and off we went
to East Beach to have some dinner and see what it was all about.
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| Ice coffee on West beach |
East Beach definitely is
cheaper to stay in, but isn’t very nice. The beach is covered in mangroves so
there is no swimming, and the seafront is crawling with restaurants and bars
and crazy concrete paths and everything piled together un-aesthetically. But
there are some good places to eat that are quite cheap and few things going on. They had set up a stage
for Muay Tai fights just outside the Bamboo Bar so we watched a fight for free
in the open air which was cool. The MC came on first and gave a really funny
introduction to the fight and he had such funny phrases. ‘Oh my Buddha!’ By the
way, on East Beach there is no wifi other than in the resorts. The only place
is the Bamboo Bar which is the most unfriendly place, charging Baht 40 for some
soda water and not letting you plug your laptop in even for a few minutes. And
since they seem to run all the small places around the bar like the tattoo
place and burger place, they told them all not to let me plug my laptop in. Won’t
be going back there!
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| Sophie frolicking at Cabala |
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| Jungle man Yannis and Essex cutie Sophie |
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| Muay Tai fight outside Bamboo bar on East beach |
Yannis told Sophie and I
about another beach close by called Tonsai, and I had heard about it too. It’s
where all the climbers hang out because of the awesome rock faces there, and
you didn’t have to ask me twice to go there. We went to check it out by climbing
over some rocks from West Beach and we dropped into Tonsai beach on a beautiful
sunny day with the water inviting and blue and the cliffs looking cool and
green. All of us instantly felt at home, this is the real travellers beach and
what we had been looking for. They had some chill out bars on the seafront, but
only one or two. It was relaxed, quiet, no hassle and just seems like a place
where likeminded Thailand travellers could spend a few days in the beautiful
sea and cliffs. Yes please! We wandered into the jungle and found a little
resort called Paasook, with bungalows for Baht 200 and some really nice ones
for Baht 300. There was a lot of walking and climbing that day to get all our
bags over from East Beach. Lovely Yannis took my heavy backpack for me, and we
set off into the pitch black with our torches to find our way back along the
longer path to Tonsai, as the tide had cut off the way we had got there earlier
that day. We walked straight into a deserted resort in the jungle and couldn’t
find the path for ages, and eventually we did. It was uphill and craggy and my
flip flops broke a few times, but eventually after about an hour Tonsai
revealed itself through the trees.
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| Finding Tonsai beach for the first time and swimming |
Tonsai was the most
chilled out place I had been to in Thailand and I know that many people felt
the same. It was an effort to get there and once you were you didn’t want to
leave. There were no proper roads so no motorbikes or cars. There was a chill
out bar with a deck right on the beach with cushions and a shady tree and
instruments dotted around with the Thai guys working there picking one up every
now and again to give us a seventies rock rendition. The tide came right in and
out every day so sometimes the blue warm sea was lapping at your toes and other
times it was right out revealing a golden warm beach. There was cheap food,
amazing fruit shakes of every flavour like watermelon, dragon fruit, papaya,
mango, coconut, pineapple. There are lots of very fit and ripped climbers
everywhere but also loads of people just wanting the some Thai beach flavour.
When you looked at the beach from the sea, all you saw was a couple of boats,
the beach and thick jungle. You would never suspect the small community of
travellers inside hidden amongst the cliffs. There are interesting little
places inside the jungle village, one of them offering free barbecue with a
beer so you could even eat for free. This had to be the cheapest place South
Thailand, if you shared a bungalow it was only Baht 150 a night. I was only
planning on staying here for a couple of nights and then going North to Chang
Mai but like everyone in Tonsai I ended up staying much longer than expected,
eight days in total. You could climb over the rocks during low tide to West
Beach to use internet and get some civilisation if you needed it, but we hardly
even did that. There is only electricity in the bungalows from 6pm to 6am, so
at around 6.05am you woke up in a sweaty haze as the fan had gone off, and
there is no sleeping in that heat! A good
way to get you going early.
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| Dragon fruit from the shake stand |
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| Yannis playing with one of the many Tonsai kittens |
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| The beach and cliffs of Tonsai |
The day after settling in
Tonsai beach Gustav and Karl came from Phuket to spend some time there too,
needing somewhere cheap and relaxing before heading home via Bangkok to Sweden.
We had such fun meeting random characters and living the beach paradise life. They
included a guy from Detroit, Patrick who while we were there got ‘why f**king
not’ tattooed on his chest. ?? There was a Canadian guy Ryan who gave up his
job as a financial adviser to become a hippy traveller. Yannis, a Greek nomad
with the longest dreads I’ve ever seen looking for some property to buy in
Thailand and live the island paradise forever. Sophie, a girly bubbly Essex
girl who was a totally unlikely candidate to be sitting on this no frills
beach, who arrived at Bangkok airport in six inch stilettos and who was
travelling alone for eight months like me, and was such fun. My two cutie pie
Swedish buddies who were going back after the trip of a lifetime to decide what
to do with their lives in the ‘real’ world. Some Thai sea gypsies who worked in
the bar playing music and learning five languages each from talking to so many
foreigners. Such a diverse group from different countries and ages with
different backgrounds, connecting with them all in this strange way, knowing
you’ll probably never see them on their completely different path to your own again,
is one of the nicest things about travelling.
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| Gustav, Ryan, Patrick and Karl working hard |
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| My Baht 300 room at Paasook, there were kittens living on my porch |
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| Our beach home |
Sitting on the beach at
night you could see the most incredible skies. The limestone cliffs framed the
sky perfectly so it was almost set out as a stage for skygazing. Stars, clouds,
full moon, billowing layers of clouds with electrical storms giving us the most
insane light shows. You could spend weeks looking at that night sky and ever
changing elements of wind, light, with the landscape and the water. WOW. And
the weather and sea always warm and inviting.
We went kayaking around
the cliffs and islands to beautiful secluded white sand beaches with turquoise
water. One day Yannis, Sophie, Gustav, Karl and I went on a nine island tour
for Baht 1000. You got on a longtail boat with about fifteen other people and
they take you around to some of the beautiful small islands dotted around, some
with white sand beaches and some remote where they drop you in the ocean for
some snorkelling. The day started out sunny but soon became rainy and stormy so
we got wet through, but it was still really fun sitting at the head of the
longtail and being splashed and then soaked from above. We ended the day on a
strange island which seemed to be a picnic destination from Krabi, but was
totally empty with hardly any visitors just an old restaurant where someone was
waiting to charge us for going to the toilet. We stood on the beach and watched
thousands of bats flying silently and purposefully making their nightly journey
from the islands to the mainland to feed on fruit and small children who had
been naughty. We ate some shrimp noodle soup with rice for dinner and then got
back on the boat for the best part of the day, the night snorkel. This was made
special by the phosphorescent plankton in the water which light up when
disturbed. We went round to a dark island, switched all the lights on the boat
off and then jumped into the deep dark ocean and everywhere you looked were
sparkles, it was so amazing! If you looked under water with your snorkel you
didn’t see a person but an outline of electric sparkles, and we were doing deep
duck dives and splashing around like crazy to make the water light up.
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| Kayaking |
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| Longtail nine island boat tour, Yannis Sophie and I |
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| Longtail nine island boat tour |
The most interesting and
intense part of my stay in Thailand had to be when the earthquake struck
Indonesia and everyone believed there would be a catastrophic tsunami. Our gang
were sitting on the deck watching the beach and sea in the sun, and the day
could not have been more relaxed. There was a breeze blowing and I was lying on
my back watching the tree, a flag and windmill ornament spinning and flapping
about in the wind. Everyone was laughing and chatting when one of the Thai guys
came up to me and said, you need to run up the hill now because a tsunami is
coming. I was like, what? I thought he was joking at first. Then we looked
around and saw everyone gathering up their things and coming up from the beach
with looks of panic. He said again, that there would be a tsunami in the next
hour and everyone sat up now in real concern. A tsunami? There had been a 8.6
earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, exactly the same as when the 2004
tsunami hit. Everyone was heading up the path to the hills, but the Thai guys
working there stayed so we all wanted to stay too to watch the early stages.
Personally I’d much rather see and know what it is I have to fear than to be
waiting up a hill somewhere knowing nothing. The atmosphere changed instantly,
the beach and decks emptied. Soon there wasn’t a soul to be seen other than the
few kayakers who were making their way back and climbers or walkers who were
waved to hurry off the beach. Gustav started getting text messages from Sweden,
where apparently it was all over the news that a major disaster was about to
happen. We then heard there was a second earthquake also at 8.6. Things were
getting more intense and serious by the minute. But we stayed, knowing that
with a tsunami the water gets sucked out and then about 20 minutes later the
wave comes, so we got ready to run when that happened. We stayed on the beach
because we knew we had a hill path right next to us, and also the situation of
Railay beach allows you to see really far out of the horizon. During this time
the water was doing really weird things, looking all jagged as if a huge
speaker was blasting sound waves through it. The wind completely dropped off in
an instant, and it became really thick and hot with humidity. The cicadas
started up in the trees for the first time, and we saw all the monkey’s running
along in long lines along the cliffs away from the beach. My stomach was in a
knot, and everyone was wide eyed and silent watching the beach. Then all of a sudden
a huge black cloud came drifting overhead and cracks of lighting and thunder
boomed down. It was like Armageddon! The air and light and everything changed
so suddenly, but we still stood on the deck in the rain and waited and watched
the sea. People started heading off one by one until really only a small group
of us was left, but I was going to go when the Thai islanders started looking
worried, and they weren’t leaving yet. The storm blew over us and we could see
it disappear in the distance and then the most beautiful light washed over
everything, pink orange filling the clouds with the sunset. Still no wave, and
still we waited in eerie quietness. We waited until it was dark, and then the
electricity came on and we were able to see from the news that no wave came.
This was because of the way the tectonic plates moved in the earthquake.
Instead of up and down like before, they moved side to side which had never
happened before. So we really sidestepped a serious and deadly tsunami. What an
experience. That night people started slowly coming down from the hills and out
their cabins, and food stalls opened and everything went slightly back to normal.
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| Pre tsunami warning |
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| Storm blowing over deserted beach, waiting for the wave |
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| Amazing light post tsunami warning |
The next day I was
leaving for Bangkok with Karl and Gustav, them to go home to Sweden and me to
catch my flight to Vietnam. It was such an effort to get everything ready and
packed and to get the boat off Tonsai, you could almost feel it hugging you and
pulling you back with warm water and sun. I was worried about getting a bus to
Bangkok as it was their new year festival starting that day on the 13th
and thousands of people went there, also Phuket airport was closed due to
tsunami warnings. All the buses were booked so we thought we’d try our luck and
get a longtail taxi to Krabi and then a taxi to the bus station and stand
longingly at the station hoping for the best. But as is the Thailand way, the
taxi driver from Ao Nang beach took us to his friends tourist office where they
managed to find us a night bus to Bangkok for Baht 1200 (really expensive, but
our only option). We waited in Krabi for a bit trying to gather our thoughts
and brain cells after so much heavy relaxation, and after boat/taxi/minibus/bus
we finally made it at around 10.30pm to the crazy psychedelic light show that
was our sleeper bus to Bangkok. The bus was totally nuts, with neon lights
inside and bright pink and disco lights on the outside. At 5am it dropped us
off on a roundabout in the middle of Bangkok and it was so disorientating to be
in this huge city after our days of island life!
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| Crazy Bangkok night bus |
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| Good morning Bangkok on Apr 13th |
Everywhere were cars and
bustling and people, even at that time. And it was very hot already. We found a
hotel to have some kind of resemblance of sleep before trying to face the day
and me getting to the airport. The Thai new year water festival was on so after
we left the weird old hotel we took a tuk tuk where we got buckets of water
thrown over us every time it slowed down, which is actually quite nice in the
heat. After I took the train the boys went into town into the thick of the
crazy water party, where Gustav’s waterproof bag was slashed open and his phone
stolen, with three months of photographs from his epic trip. How horrible is
that? All memories gone, poor thing.
Getting the train into
Bangkok airport and being there I couldn’t believe I had been in Thailand for
twenty five days, it felt like I was right there less than a week ago. Such a
haze of colour and laughter and beautiful nature, I had an amazing time and I
will definitely go back again, this time to see the temples and culture of the
North.
My good friend Stu was
waiting for me at check in which was awesome, he flew in from India on a
connecting flight to Vietnam so we were on the same flight and we were going to
do some very different and very awesome travelling together in that amazing country...
