Phi Phi Paradise

So we finally left the tourist trap that was Phuket and caught a boat over to the Phi Phi islands. The islands consist of two islands, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. Phi Phi Don is the only inhabitable island. It's made up of two mountainous islands connected by a small causeway in the middle. Phi Phi Leh is all mountainous and unhabitable... although the famous Maya Bay beach is here (where the film The Beach was filmed).

People have told us in the past that Phi Phi is paradise and they are so right! Pulling into the port on the boat was amazing... the scenery was so beautiful, it was breathtaking.

We didn't have any accomodation so we have to trapse around for an hour and a half in the sweltering heat with our backpacks, until we finally got a room at a guesthouse. They were charging way over our budget but when you're that exhausted you have no choice!

We spent a lovely few days on Phi Phi. We took a boat tour around the surrounding islands, including Phi Phi Leh. We saw Maya Bay which was amazing and Jon went snorkelling in the sea (I couldn't because of my leg). We took loads of great pictures but unfortunately I dropped our camera in the sea and it seems to not work anymore so we can't upload any until this is fixed. How annoying!!

We also met some great people on Phi Phi and had some funny nights out. There are quite a few bars in the main village, including your typical English/Irish bars playing loud music. Whether or not this is a good thing I don't know. It brings in a lot of tourist money to the island, but you can't help thinking these Western ways will eventually ruin such a beautiful place.

Phi Phi Don was hit severely in the 2004 Tsunami. I knew this before I went but nothing prepares you for being in a place where you know so many people died so recently. There is still a lot of building work going on, you still walk past the odd pile of rubble where buildings were pulled down after being damaged by the sea. They have a memorial garden there too near the beach which was worst hit. It was so sad... the two year anniversary was only a few weeks ago and families of the deceased had obviously been on Phi Phi at that time and had brought photographs and flowers and lit candles. There are a lot of evacuation routes and tsunami warnings now in Thailand so hopefully if something so terrible does ever happen again people will have time to escape.

After three days on Phi Phi, we caught another boat to an island called Ko Lanta. We'd heard several good reports about this island so decided to give it a go. After our accommodation troubles on Phi Phi we called up in advance and booked a beach hut. Once we'd arrived, we caught a motorbike taxi to the beach hut, only to be told they'd given away our room!! Typical! Cue Bec and Jon once more trekking about with a heavy backpack in the sweltering heat! We walked past a bar called Groove Garden, a guy came running out and asked if we wanted a room... we said yes... it turns out he had one little room at the back of his bar. And when I say room... it was more of a shack! It had no front door, a mattress on the floor, rickety walls and a cold trickle of a shower. It did, however, have a great view out onto the beach. And it was only 3GBP a night. Of course we took it!!

Ko Lanta is a really nice island with a lot going on. It hasn't been hit by the big tourist boom yet so you still see some real Thailand, it hasn't been hidden behind O'Neills and Sid's Cafe's!!! On our first night the owners of the bar we were staying at invited us to a reggae party being held on the beach, we went along and had a brilliant time. There was a live band playing, a Thai reggae band called (Job to Do) who were were told were huge in Southern Thailand. Anyway this motley bunch of rastas entertained us all night. They were so funny, they looked totally stoned throughout the whole gig, but the crowd loved them! (Me and Jon have since bought their album haha).
We had a couple of days on the beach, then on our last day on Ko Lanta we hired out a moped each and done a bit of exploring of the island. We found these caves in the middle which you could take a tour through. Now I've seen some tourist caves before in the UK so I just thought it would be a case of walking through some nice caves taking pictures etc. OMG how wrong was I!! The hike up to the cave entrance was almost all uphill. We had to climb up rickety ladders perched onto the side of a hundred foot drop!!! Then the entrance to the cave turned out to be a tiny hole in the middle of a load of rocks, which you descend through. Once in the caves, there are no walkways, we had to hang onto ropes and lower ourselves into the next cave, some caves were as big as church halls, some were tiny! The final part of our "trip" meant we had to squeeze on our tummies through a small tunnel deep underground. In any normal circumstance I would have turned right around and gone all the way back, but we were in a group so I didn't want to look like a wimp (even though I was really scared!!) so I just gritted my teeth and done it. Phew! We made it out alive but I'm not sure if I'd do that again!

Anyway we are now in Krabi which is on the mainland. We are staying here for a few nights then checking into a health spa on the 4th for my belated birthday celebrations!! I haven't had a hot bath in about a month and a half so I can't wait to have a bit of luxury!

Leg Update

Our last visit to the hospital this morning!! The doctor says my burn is healing well, it's been cleaned and covered once more but he says I can take that off in three days and it should be fine to leave open.
The abscess wound is also healing... it's been a long old process but the scar tissue is finally starting to form. It was a pretty big wound so obviously the flesh would take a while to grow back. The doctor has finally said we can clean it ourselves, which means I don't have to go back to the hospital again YAY!!!! Finally! almost a month after our original visit we can finally start to get back on track. We've got some saline and dressings - I think I'll be doing the nurses job though rather than letting Jon loose on it lol. Hopefully another week and both legs will be totally healed up.

We leave for Phi Phi island today. I've heard this is one of the most beautiful places in Thailand so I'm really looking forward to it. Only downside is that I can't swim yet, but I'm hoping to be able to do things like kayaking, and maybe an island safari.

I'll post some more pics very soon!

Sleaze Central

We left Ko Phangan on 8th Jan and caught a boat to the neighbouring island of Ko Samui. My leg was still heavily bandaged up, but the doctors assured me that the hospitals on Ko Samui would be perfectly equipped to deal with it, so we headed off there!
We stayed in Chaweng beach which is the main party place on Samui. We hadn't really planned on going out because of my leg but we wanted to at least be in an area where there was a bit more going on. The weather was still rubbish, every day was overcast or raining. I spent most of my time trying to upload all of our new photos onto the website -which incidentally wont let me as it says I've used up all of my storage space, so we'll have to show you them all once we get home!

We met up again with the friends we'd been with on Ko Phangan, and had a few boring days of mooching around during the day (no sun) and having a few drinks at night.

Chaweng is like your typical Brit holiday resort. It has a Macdonald's, Pizza Hut etc. Lots of bars with lots of young people getting drunk and dancing stupidly! (not me though). It was also the first time we saw the sleazy aspect of Thailand. We'd been on Ko Phangan which is beautiful and almost untouched by the tourist industry. Chaweng has a strip of girly bars, in which young Thai girls dance almost naked out the front to try and entice tourists in to spend their money.
I also noticed for the first time the amount of Western guys (normally old and crusty) which young Thai girls. I'd heard it goes on but honestly 99% of the older Western men over there have a little Thai girl hanging on their arm. I didn't see anything dodgy as in underage girls, but there was a huge age gap with some of them. For example, a girl of my age, normally slim and pretty, would be with an old fogey of about 65 with grey hair and a pot belly. It doesn't take much to realise that these girls are after money money money! I guess if they are poor and the future looks bleak for them, to pull a rich Western guy is a way out of a future struggling to get by.
At first I was disgusted by this... but then I came around to thinking, it might make both parties happy. The guys obviously cant meet anyone back home, the girls just want to escape poverty, I guess it works for both of them. I just can't help but dislike the whole seediness about it all. The girls prance around in next to nothing just hoping to secure a Western man for the night, with the hope that he'll make her his wife. It's not nice to see these girls demean themselves so much.

We left Chaweng on 12th Jan and moved further down the coast to Lamai. We couldn't do much activity wise because of my leg, but we still wanted to make the most of our time on Samui and see as much of the island as possible. Lamai was a really nice resort, you still had bars and a Macdonalds, but everything was on a much smaller scale than Chaweng. Plus the sun came out for us so we spent a couple of days on the beach and ate in some nice restaurants.

I was still going to the hospital to get my leg cleaned every day so we couldn't leave Samui until the doctor said it was ok to. I can't express how annoying it was to be on such a beautiful island, with all these great boat trips, watersports, beautiful beaches etc... and we couldn't do any of it! I can't get my leg wet so any risk to that has to be avoided.

Anyway, we left Lamai after three days there and went to Nathon, which is the main port town of Samui. We really enjoyed it here. The place has a little market with fresh fruit stalls, and lots of Thai food being cooked out front. We bought a few items of clothing and found a great little restaurant where we watched the sunset.

Finally on 15th Jan the doctor said we could leave. I still have to have my leg cleaned every other day, but he said we could go in any hospital and have that done. Whooppeee! We made arrangements to catch the ferry and bus over to Phuket in the morning. THEN.... just our luck... we caught a motorbike taxi back from the hospital, as I got off, my right leg (my good leg) touched against the exhaust and I got a burn about as big as a tennis ball. The exhausts are boiling hot and it really hurt. I got some water and ran it over it, then I put some ice on it (which I now know was the wrong thing to do). I left it out in the open to let the sir get to it and didn't think anymore of it.

We left Samui on the 16th and caught the ferry over to the mainland. We then jumped on a bus and it took us about 6 hours to get to Phuket. After an absolute nightmare trying to find a cheap room, we finally gave up and checked into a 1300BHT a night one (double our budget but with aircon which was needed!!).
By this time the burn on my leg had started to hurt quite badly and some of the skin was peeling off - not good. We had to go to the hospital anyway to get my other leg cleaned so whilst we were there we asked them to take a look at the burn. "Oooohhhh very bad, could get infected" was the response. So they put another bandage on my right leg over the burn, and also change the bandage on my left leg!!!! I can't believe my luck... now I have both legs bandaged up and look like a right cripple!!! The doctor also put me on yet another course of antibiotics (my third course in two weeks).
I honestly felt like crying and Jon had a face like thunder. It seems like nothing will go our way at the moment. We left the hospital feeling very depressed and angry.

We stayed in Patong for two nights. If I thought Samui was sleazy, then this is double sleazy!!! It's a massive holiday resort, with tons of bars and seedy joints. Ive seen my first ladyboys and a few trannies too. It's not really our kind of place to be honest (surprisingly!) but we found a wicked Irish pub the other night with a brilliant live band and we just stayed in there all night and got drunk (I know I'm not supposed to on antibiotics but I just needed a good drink for once!).

We left Patong on the 18th. As we left our hotel, we realised with horror we didn't have my bank card. We honestly couldn't remember how we could have lost it. We got money out earlier on in the day, but we normally always just put the card back in Jon's wallet. We couldn't think of any time when it could have been stolen off us, the only feasible solution we can think of is the ATM never gave it back. We ran to the bank and asked there but they have this stupid rule where they cant give you back your card (even if you have a passport as ID!) they will only post lost cards back to your bank in England!!! What a nightmare... why do things keep going wrong for us!
We ran to an internet cafe and checked my bank balance. Luckily nothing has come out of it so we can only assume the card was taken by the ATM and wasn't stolen. I rang my bank and stopped the card but they can't send me a new one to Thailand, they can only send it to my home address.... arrrghhh! Luckily Jon has his bank card so we can still transfer the money into his account and take it out.

So now we are in Phuket Town, which is a great little authentic Thai area. We found a brilliant backpacker's hostel which is nice and clean, has free internet and you get free tea and toast in the morning too so we are really living it up lol.
I went to the hospital again today and the doctor says my abscess wound is healing well, and my burn looks "normal" so fingers crossed they will both continue to heal ok. I'm going back in two days so lets hope there's no more setbacks.

Since we arrived in Thailand we've had nothing but bad luck. What with my stupid leg injury's, we haven't been able to do half the things we wanted to do. We've been here almost a month now and I've had to go to the hospital every day or at least every other day. It's been such a nightmare!! It will probably cost us a few hundred quid too once it's all done and dusted. I am praying the insurance company will let us claim it all back - it would really affect our budget if we couldn't.
If all goes to plan I should be ok in about another week. I hope everyone has their fingers crossed for me!!! Once I am back to full fitness we are checking straight into a spa resort and having my belated birthday celebrations lol!! (a month late!).

All Thai'd up

I'm loving these post titles hahaha!

We arrived in Bangkok at 6am on 29th Dec. Our plan was to fly down to Ko Samui, and then catch the ferry over to Ko Phangan for our "holiday!" - I'd booked us a luxury beach bungalow right on the seafront. Our connecting flight wasn't until 12hrs later - and the thought of waiting in Bangkok airport for that amount of time was killing us - we hadn't even slept from the night before because of the time difference so we were feeling shattered. Luckily after being put on the stand-by list, we managed to get on an earlier flight to Samui at 10.30am - yes!!! The airport in Samui is hilarious - it's basically a collection of a few beach huts and nothing more. Very strange after arriving in Bangkok's new fancy airport!!
We found a beach hut in Chaweng beach and spent one night in Samui. We went out and tasted some of the nightlife... it's a good laugh but very like your typical English holiday resort. It's got a Macdonalds, Burger King etc etc. Lots of bars showing football etc etc. We were only here for one night before catching the ferry over to Ko Phangan on 30th Dec. Once we arrived in Ko Phangan you could tell the difference in islands. Ko Phangan is much more untouched. It was a main tourist area, Haad Rin, but apart from that the whole island is pretty much a traditional Thai place, with Thai restaurants, and beach huts lining the coast. It's beautiful!
Our bungalow was great, nestled amongst our own little garden and right on the beach. We chucked our bags in, had something to eat, then in the evening went back into Haad Rin to sample a few of the local drinks!
For New Years Eve we had bought tickets to go to a club on Ko Samui. We lazed around all day then at about 7pm we got ready and went to the pier to catch the ferry back to Samui. To our horror we realised nobody seemed to be waiting around for the boats. We asked a guy on the pier and he told us the last boat across left at 6pm!!!! NOOOOO!!! So we were all dressed up with somewhere to go, but were stranded on a tropical island with no way of getting there haha! God if it could only happen to anyone it would be us!!! After panicking for about half an hour we spotted a speedboat pulling in dropping off a few rich passengers to their hotel. We ran over and asked the driver if he was heading back to Samui - he was... and he would take us for a tenner each!! Result!! So not only did we make the party but we also travelled their in style heheheh!!
The club was really good, we met up with a couple of friends from home, Steve and Wayne, who are here on a three week holiday. It felt strange being so far away from home seeing in the New Year but it was a great experience and one I'd definately do again.

On 3rd Jan we experienced our first Full Moonparty!!! This is a monthly event held on Ko Phangan which normally attracts thousands of clubbers. Its one of the main reasons we wanted to come here and it was definately worth it! It's held on Haad Rin beach - the place is packed with people from all over the world having a good time. They have different stages playing every different type of music, fireworks, beach entertainment, body painting, fire-throwing etc. It's a great night and a great experience. We met up with some more people from back home and had a brilliant night... it just went too quickly! I would definately recommend anyone who gets down here to go to at least one!

Since then we've had a bit of bad luck health-wise and weather wise!!! Firstly, we're in the middle of a four day storm that's hit south Thailand. Basically it has rained constantly for two days now and I don't think it will be ending any time soon. How annoying to be stuck in one of the most beautiful places in the world and the weather is terrible!
Also, I have seemed to have picked up an infection in my leg from a mosquito bite - just my luck! I am prone to getting bitten and somehow one of them got infected. I started to notice it swelling up on New Years Eve, I went to the doctors and he said it was an abscess and I had to wait until it was ready to be drained. I had to hobble around for a few days in a lot of pain!! It was my birthday on 5th of Jan and I had to go in the the surgery and have the abscess drained. Oh my God the pain was unbelievable!!! He numbed it but I could still feel him digging about in my leg - ouch!! What a c.rap birthday!
The doctor put me on two courses of antibiotics and strong painkillers so I have been laid up in bed since then. I have to go back to the surgery every day to have the dressings changed and the wound cleaned so it will probably take at least another week to heal. What bad luck! So at the moment me and Jon are sitting in our fancy bungalow in the pouring rain watching films every day. Jon is being great and feeding me all my tablets as and when I need them, he's a good nurse ;o)

We check out tomorrow (8th Jan) and we're not sure of our plans yet. It depends if my leg is well enough to move on, if not we might have to stay here for a few more days. We'll just take each day as it comes and see what happens :o)

Leaving India...

We left South Goa on 17th Dec and headed to the state of Kanartaka, to visit a town called Hampi. This had been recommended to us by several people, and they'd said it was one of the most beautiful places they'd visited. As always the trains were delayed and very slow - I don't know what it is with the India railway system they cant seem to get anything done on time!!!
We arrived in Hampi in the early evening after a 10hr train ride. We hired a rickshaw and drove to the site of Hampi. This place is absolutely amazing, it's like something out of the Flintstones! It's basically a little town settled in the middle of huge piles of boulders, ancient ruins, and a river running through it. The ruins date back to the 16th century when the Mughal empire ruled the state. It had lain undiscovered until the 1970's when excavation began.
We stayed in a brilliant little guest house which had a Tibetan restaurant next door that showed films every evening at 8pm, and even served beer!!! (Beer is illegal in Hampi as it's a sacred site so Jon was well pleased when he found this out!).
We stayed in Hampi two nights, both times we visited the scared ruins. They're spread over the whole town on two sites. On the second day me and Jon hired a push bike and rode to the more further away ones which was great fun! I haven't rode a bike in years but it was lovely riding through the Indian countryside. The ruins were really amazing to see, but as with everything, if you've seen one, a lot are pretty much the same. It was just nice to have a stroll around outside and take some good pictures.
The ruins aren't safe to walk around on your own unfortunately, as there have been several cases of muggings recently where lone tourists are robbed of their cameras and money. I guess it's a pretty desperate area and the site of Western people taking pictures with their 300pound cameras are too much for some locals to resist. Me and Jon had a bit of trouble with a group of teenage lads who wanted us to let them take a picture of us with our camera (uhhh no way!) and they started following us when we refused, so we had to make a quick run for it! It's sad because it's such a beautiful place, yet it's marred by some nasty individuals!
After three interesting days in Hampi we caught another train (three hours late) back to Goa. This mammoth journey took us about fourteen hours in all because we had to get a coach up to North Goa once we'd arrived at the train station, which took another two hours!

Once in North Goa, we headed for a place called Vagator. This was Jon's choice of place (normally I organise everything) and I have to say it was a very good one! Vagator is a little village on the coast, it used to be a big place for the hippies to come when all the trance raves in the 90's were going on, we were hoping to find something similar!!
I don't know if the news ever reached the UK, but the Israeli embassy put out an urgent warning to all it's tourists in Goa, saying they had received a concrete threat from Al Qaeda saying they were going to bomb the resorts in the holiday period. We heard about this and although we were worried, as the UK embassy hadn't said anything, we didn't let it affect out plans. Unfortunately it did affect a lot of other people's though. The resorts were a lot quieter than normal we were told, and a lot of the clubs were closed, or had shorter opening hours. This was really annoying for us as we'd planned a big Christmas, hopefully finding a few parties on the way. Nevertheless, we did go to the biggest trance club in Goa, called Paradiso. We met a lot of people and had a really good night, but it was pretty empty, which was shocking considering we went on 23rd Dec, just before Christmas!
We spent three days on Vagator and had a great time. The beach was amazing and we ate some great meals in the restaurants there.

On 24th Dec we headed even further north, to a place called Aswem beach. This is where I had booked us an eco-hut right on the beach as our Christmas luxury! The eco-hut was great, absolutely massive! It wasn't your average beach hut, it had a front room, bedroom and attached bathroom, plus it's own garden and dining table outside. We had an organic breakfast every morning which was great, and it was right on the beach. The only downside was that it was made of straw, so while you were trying to sleep you could hear EVERY little thing outside, so every person who walked past, every bug creeping around!!! Plus the resort had a cockerel that insisted on waking us up every morning at 5.30am - nice!
On Christmas day, Jon and I had a yummy breakfast, then a massage on the beach (which was rubbish - Jon felt like he'd been abused!!). Then in the evening we met up with two guys we'd met in South Goa from Luxembourg, Tony and Vinnie. We all booked into a restaurant on the beach which had laid on fireworks, music, and a massive roast. It wasn't quite the same as an English dinner, but it was nice to have some roast potatoes at last! (Even though no gravy). We got merrily drunk and had a good time even though I did miss being at home!!
On Boxing Day me and Jon lounged by the beach all day, then round this fabulous French restaurant which served the best steak in Goa... mmmm I wish we'd found that sooner rather than on our last day!!!

We left Goa by train on 27th Dec and headed up to Mumbai. This journey took about 10hrs also - we are getting good at passing the time though, a 6hr train journey now is nothing to us!!!
We arrived in North Mumbai - Kurla which is near to the airport. Our flight wasn't until the next evening so we had a day to kill. Urgh this city is the WORST!! Totally polluted, rude people, slums, beggars, people trying to rip you off etc. It's a lot different to when we last stayed in Mumbai, int he Colaba area. We jumped in a rickshaw then had to endure an HOUR of the guy trying to take us to different hotels, throughout the smog and pollution that was choking our lungs!! Finally we just demanded he take us to the hotel of our choice. It was a lot over our budget but we just wanted a decent room with air con and a place to escape the madness.
Even though we had a day and a half before our flight, we didn't leave our hotel room the whole time. Even looking out of our window we could see slums all around us so we just felt safer inside!! We ordered Dominos in and watched films all day so we still had a good time.

We flew out of India on 28th at about midnight on Thai Airways to Bangkok. Initially I felt a bit of relief having left. To be totally honest, even though I thought India was an amazing country with some beautiful things to see, it is very hard to travel, especially as a girl. The constant attention you get from guys over there is just soul-destroying. It might sound extreme to you reading this but until you actually go there you won't realise how bad it is. The constant staring like you are a freak show, calling out and grabbing at you, laughing at you etc. It might not sound like much but you try having it for almost two months and you'll soon find out how hard it is. It's such a shame because some of the people who are doing it aren't even teenage boys, they're grown men with families and it's a pity that they haven't been educated enough about Western women to learn how to respect them. Having said that, we met a lot of great people over there too, most of whom were only too willing to help us out if we were ever stuck.
The only other thing I would comment about India, is that it needs a good clean!!! The amount of rubbish on the streets appalled me. Ok, you expect it in the big cities... but we would be in the most beautiful, tranquil place, on a beach in Goa, or a river in Hampi... and there would be massive piles of rubbish littering the ground. It makes me so angry because India is such a beautiful country, yet the Indian people seem to have no concept of keeping it clean. In a few years unless something is done the places we enjoyed so much could disappear under a pile of rubbish!
I am definately glad I went to India. When I think back to how much I have seen and done it astounds me. I honestly never EVER thought I would ever see these things!!! The Himalayas in Kashmir, the desert in Rajasthan, sacred ruins in Hampi, and the beautiful beaches of Goa. It sounds mad even when I write it to think I've been to all these places in just under two months!!! In our Lonely Planet book the introduction says India will astound and challenge you, and it certainly does both!!