Archive for May, 2008

Not wanting to stay in Bangkok for too long, I didn’t want to fall back into the ‘Khao San Road Thing’, I decided to move South, in the direction of Malaysia. Amanda still had Cambodia on her list of places to visit, so we parted company and she began to work her way over to see the delights of Angkor Wat; Actually, it’s a story of Tom’s and mine that you’ve all still yet to hear, and I promise that one day (When Tom finally gets round to putting the photos on Flickr– Hint Hint) that you’ll all hear our tales from that part of the world.

I didn’t want to take a trip straight to Malaysia, so I looked into breaking up the journey by stopping somewhere along the way. The travel agent I used pointed me in the direction of Koh Samui, an Island off the mid-south east of Thailand. I didn’t intend to visit any more islands so soon after the recent trip to the Philippines, but the cost worked in Samui’s favour so I agreed to go.

The journey from Bangkok to the port town of Chumphon was on a sleeper bus, which proved to be not as comfortable as the ones in China due to their more upright chairs; but it was a far cry from ‘The Bus Ride From Hell’ though, which I was thankful for.

While waiting at Chumphon I met up with two English guys, or as they’d say ‘Old boys’ (Maybe it’s a Northhampton thing). They were also a little clueless when it came to plans, so we decided to group up and venture forth– clueless together.

Koh Samui quickly revealed itself to be a tourist resort island, catering for the two week holiday makers and male tourists hunting for the more seedier side of Thailand. With that though, we were still determined to have some fun despite the lack of any great Thai culture to seek out. So we checked out a map of the island and looked for anywhere that might prove to be enjoyable to go and see.

We figured that it would be a good idea to have a wonder round the local area and try to get our bearings. There were many things you’d expect to see in such a holiday makers paradise, shops, bars, food stalls, nothing really stand out. That was until we turned down one particular road. We walked about halfway down before ‘they’ started to emerge, and we were too deep in to turn back, the only option was to press on and quickly get to the end of the road. We’d somehow stumbled down ladyboy bar road, and they sniffed us out like the weak little prey we were. We took the obvious precautions, not to look them in the eye, not to respond to the taunts and to just keep on walking. They smelt our fear though, playing with our emotions they called and beckoned us to go in for a drink. When we didn’t respond they even began running over and slapping our backsides as we hurriedly walked on. Eyes forward like a blinkered horse we pressed onward.

We eventually made it passed the bars and to the freedom beyond. But something wasn’t right, the road, it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. We found a local and asked him if there was a way out if we continued onwards, he didn’t give us the answer we looked for, only telling us that the way we came was the only way out. We had to walk back down that street.

After going through the ordeal again, we decided that we didn’t want to be caught out like that any more, and the best solution was to rent mopeds, which would enable us to both get around the island as we pleased, it’s only about an hour and half to travel around the perimeter, and to quickly drive past any undesirable places without further torment.

I’m afraid that I was a little lax in the photography department while staying here, mainly due to me wearing shorts with no pockets, thus having no where to put the camera. There are a few choice photos that I’ll share with you all though.

Our first local site to seek out was Grandfather Rock and Grandmother Rock, or Hin Ta and Hin Yai to the locals. These  two rocks as you might notice resemble male and female naughty bits, which has proved to be quite popular for the tourists to come along and take photos.

After gawping at the natural formations of rude parts we hopped back on to our bikes and went to seek out the jungle at the inner part of the island. We turned up a small dirt road, which quickly became a very very steep dirt road, proving a very tough task for the bikes to climb, but they made it (just). The path then continued to twist and turn, past many families homes and deep vegetation. Eventually we found our way to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, which offered amazing views of the island from it’s high placement. So we stopped, ate burgers before deciding to head back down to the coast and round to whatever next caught our fancy.

This however didn’t quite work out, we followed a road down to where we thought would lead back to the coast, only to find a military base and a Thai soldier standing at a sort of road block holding a rather offensive looking assault rifle. We tried to ask him which way it was back to the coast, but he didn’t understand, rather he just waved his gun and we quickly turned and drove off the way we came.

We were a little confused as to which way would take us back, so we decided to try and head in the right direction, hoping that the road would follow suit and lead us to freedom. It didn’t, we went round and round, turning on to more and more rockier and offroad style tracks, which our bikes really weren’t made to navigate over.

For three hours we drove round this jungle, watching the sun slowly begin to set, while listening to Ben’s moaning’s of how his petrol gauge was deep in the red. Eventually after an incredibly difficult drive we arrived at a sort of farm; well a building with a tractor and two kids playing with their little BMX bikes. We found the woman that owned the place and asked her how to get out of this jungle, in very broken English she directed us down this path, and gave us a route to follow. We thanked her and set off on our way. We followed the path, only to find that it lead us right back to near where we started; after three hours we gone in the craziest of circles around the jungle (Just a reminder that I said it only takes an hour and half to drive around the islands perimeter).

We continued back, asking another local which way we should go from there, he told us to follow the road, so we did, ending back at the military base, this time however lacking the soldier and his gun. So we drove past the road block, and low and behold we arrived back into civilization!

So as it turns out, we originally went the right way after all, just the lack of communication, and the scary looking weapon, made us go on an unexpected jungle safari.

There wasn’t much else that we did on Koh Samui apart from sun bathe and swim in the clear blue sea. So we decided to hop over to the next island to see what was going on there.

We travelled up to Big Buddha Jetty and took the short ferry ride to Koh Pha Ngan, home to the many beach parties and all night dance events.

By this time I was really feeling ‘island’d out’, crazy as it sounds, it’s actually possible to see too many white sand and clear blue sea places, many be it’s just me.

I had to stick around for a few days though as New Year was just about to happen and travel would have been hard to do at that time. So I bit my lip and forced myself to sun bathe and swim in those fine warm blue waters, life is bloody tough sometimes.

New Year was great fun, it’s celebrated as a water festival, which basically translates to one huge water fight (with talc thrown in for good measure). The streets were lined with people armed with buckets, water guns and any other device capable of launching H2O at passersby.

As the day turned to night the party moved over to the beach, where the music played till dawn.

Sadly I only have a few photos of Kph Pha Ngan as my new water proof camera decided that it no longer wanted to be water proof and took a mouth full of salt water as I went out for a swim.

Here’s the last photo it ever took.

So after New Year I stuck around for another day recovering from the festivities before getting a ferry back to the main land and working my way down to Malaysia.

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