Georgetown of Penang

We got the train from Surat Thani to Butterworth and this was our first journey crossing a border. We had sleepers and we pretty much slept all the way through until they woke us up at 7am to get through the customs. Me and Dan probably looked a bit retarded going through customs but it was pretty simple and quick, as they gave us a free visa for Malaysia. We got back on the train and all the top sleepers had been packed, which meant we had to sit but we both waited for everyone to be seated and then opened the bottom bunks up and fell asleep for the rest of the journey. We got the boat from Butterworth to Penang, which is an island of Malaysia, where the East India company settled so there is a lot of British influence around here. We had the option to go across the longest bridge in the world but the boat was pretty cheap. Nothing much happened on the day we arrived there, we changed some money and slept until we had to get up to eat and then went back to bed.

There really wasn't much to see here, it's just that a lot of people include this in the itinerary so we though we'd check it out to see what the fuss is about. We decided to leave that evening, as we have limited days in Malaysia and can't afford to waste any days. We got a public bus to the botanic gardens, which was a lot harder than we though, as we got dropped off somewhere, walked a little and then got a taxi to the gardens. The botanic gardens were ok to start off with al these different plants-I aint no expert, but it got more interesting when we followed a path that led us into the jungle. It led us to a pond, which had a turtle that had graffiti on it's shell lol. The path carried on deeper into the jungle and this was the first taster of what Malaysia has to offer. We saw a couple of monkeys and a few more different plants but when we got out, I was drenched with sweat and that's when I felt like i've just come of the jungle. A little joke "Why did the parrot get lost in the jungle?.......................................................cos the jungle is massive!"

We waited for the right bus to take us back and it felt like ages becasue Dan and Anton were quoting Pulp Fiction-oh how many of these quotes i've heard on this trip! We made our way to Fort Cornwallis, which is a British fort on the coast. It wasn't too impressive, especially when comparing them to all the forts we have seen on this trip, so had a walk around posing for pics to show people we've been here. Georgetown has a Little India and Chinatown, so there's a great mix of races here and at first this felt weirds because we were in Malaysia but soon as we had a Chinese and a curry-that went out of the window. Them two areas weren't that impressive so that left us with nothing else to see.

Georgetown photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5451241011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Robotic Full moon Part-ay

This was where the Thailand trip was ending before we hit Malaysia and it seemed this was the same for everyone who we've met on our travels in Thailand. Koh Phangan. This was where everyone was going to meet and congregrate for the eagerly anitcipated 'The Full Moon Party', which is partied once a month, surprisingly when it is the full moon. The first party was in 1985, when 20-30 travellers partied on the beach giving thanks and then the party got famous from word of mouth. Now there are 20-30 thousand people at each party and it seems that it is a must on everyone's itinerary who is travelling South East Asia. It is considered to be the 'ultimate' party experience and we didn't want to let the team down.

We stayed on Hadrin beach on the opposite side to where the party was happening and found a great location where it was chilled out (not a good beach though)! It was a 10 minute walk to the party beach and more importantly Chicken corner, which is where I consumed many Shnitzel sandwiches from all the competetive restaurants HA! I have to mention our little crew that was with us because they all want to be mentioned on our blog (yes it's getting famous around the world). There was me and Danny, obviously leaders of the pack, or some would call us the 'delegators' and the rest consisted of Kate 'gangster walking' Windle, Beth 'gangster talking' Wright, Kim 'Olive oil' Murphy, Clare 'five head' Greenough and Chris 'Eddie Gordo' Prince. This was the main crew but there were others that joined us because we're the crew that has rep around here.

We stayed a total of six days on the island and there wasn't much to do apart from the parties that were going on every night, mainly the pool party at Coral, which had too many different fluids in the pool by the end of the night. I went solo for one day and went to watch Chris play beach footy with the crazy israelians, while the rest of the crew went to the other side of the island to sit on a nicer beach i think and a waterfall that was a trickle, so they decided to play the overplayed 'Dutch Blitz'- I'm glad I didn't get involved with that one!

Fast forwarding to the night of the party as much didn't happen before hand. It seemed for the guys, it was about wearing bright shorts with the official Full Moon Party logo and posing for as many photos as we could. The Full Moon party isn't complete if you don't cover yourself with bright illuminous paints all over your exposed skin and this was on the agenda for a couple of hours before we left. Everyone had their input on each person, some better than others. Cesca painted a Mike Tyson styled tattoo around my left eye, which inspired everyone else to have a similar design and that kept cesca occupied for the next couple of hours. Sarah painted lines and squares on each leg because that's all she was capable after her weak attempt of a mushroom on my arm.

The night was absolutely crazy with thousands of people on the beach dancing away to the beat. There were different types of music playing but we just generally stayed at the main one. The main event of the night had to be when I had to the robot and Chris had to do the beyonce in front of everyone, because we lost on the card games and this was our forfeit. Obviously we gave it 110% and swapped after 30 seconds, which was the swiftest transformation to ever go down in history lol! We all made it to watch the sunrise and surprisingly we were all together-that shit never happens! Beth couldn't stop taking photos of every angle of the sunrise with different people in the photo's but to be fair she had quality pics, which is why it's a shame that she left her camera behind!

All in all, it's a party not to miss and one we will never forget and it does help to have a group like who we were with because it made it that bit extra special!!

Since we are returning to Thailand at the end of our trip we will conclude with a summary on the country then. It will be more competitive for the countries top 3 destinations also.

Koh Phangan Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5506229011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

East Thai Islands, Koh Tao

We got an overnight bus to the docks for Koh Tao and slept very little on the journey. Which was probably a good thing since there have been many reports of people getting robbed whilst sleeping on the buses moving south of Bangkok. Luckily, we were not the days targets. After another 2 hours on a boat ride over to the island we were moving through an electric storm in the middle of the sea. The lightning just surrounded us for at least 20-30 minutes, that was cool. We managed to get some half decent digs in Koh Tao for 300 Baht a night and we also regrouped with the 4 skanky mancs, Beth, Kate, Kim and Clair. Not only that, but we also got to see Tom again who we met back in Vang Vieng and his buddies from Phi Phi Island, Alex and Anton. On top of that still, Eddie Gordo (Black Chris) also managed to catch up with us, so we had a great ensemble once more.

Koh Tao is one of the biggest spots in the world for diving and snorkelling and is second only to Cairns in Australia (Great Barrier Reef) for dishing out diving qualifications. Me and Maj gave the diving a miss here, since we plan to get qualified in Malaysia, but I think we will try out some diving here when we return for Thailand Part 2. We spent a good week in Koh Tao, mainly relaxing and partying, but of course we have the significant memories to share with you.

The beach nearest to where we were staying wasnt too impressive. It was really shallow, full of dead coral and packed with taxi boats. We spent our first days sunbathing and cotchin here but needed to get exploring the beauty of this place. I cant forget to mention that Clair climbed a slanted palm tree with me and managed to get herself stuck up there. Funny, because she was giving other climbers grief when they were up there. There some really great rocks on either side of the beach that I couldnt resist to have a scamble about on. I took Kim with me on a mission and she hated me for it. Clair nearly had a search party scouting the beach for her. I thought it was great :)

On one of our days we wnated to head the south side of the island where the better beaches are located. The island isnt big at all, only 21sq km, so the journey was quick. Only problem was, that the bikes we hired were rubbish and completley unsuitable for the terrain of the island roads. I had a little slip with Kate on the back, luckily no damage to either us or the bike, but Clair and Kim also fell, and managed to break a wing mirror and scratch up the side of the bike, not to mention some horrible booty bruises to go with it. They ended up having to fork out about 80 pounds for repairs, but it could have been worse I guess. The beach we went to was beautiful though, definately worth the damage to their backsides. Clair brought some goggles and the water was unbelievably clear, this inspired us to do some snorkelling later in the week.

It turned out to be a very unlucky day for the ladies since pastey Beth was incinerated by the power of the sun. She got burnt up pretty bad, and had to be known as hell girl for a few days.

One of our highlights of Koh Tao was going to watch the ladyboy cabaret show. I didnt know what to expect from these weirdoes, but it turned out to be really fun. But boy, were there some strange looking characters. There was Jigsaw (the doll from the saw movies), monkey girl (who had incredible concentration), mega mouth (mouth bigger than head) and everyones personel favourite....the pisshead (a man/woman who was so out of sync with eveybody else, great entertainment). One of the acts was when a ladyboy came out dressed as a female (whilst frank Sinatra's 'I did it my way' was playing) and slowly re-arranged her hair, face, clothes until she was back to his original self. The best part of the night was when Maj was asked to join them on stage, before he could even decline, Chris had threw himself at her/him and was taken to be dragqueened up. He definately stole the show, and made a great a woman. He said he looked like his sister, although Im sure she would think otherwise.

On another one of our days I joined the ladies for a day of snorkelling. Maj didnt come along because he wanted to Thai box. We got a taxi boat to take us all the way around the island, stopping at the best snorkelling spots. The water was really clear and we saw so many kinds of different fish. The highlight was the spotting of a baby shark by yours truly, it had some fishing line dangling from it mouth and I was tempted to have a tug, but though against it. It may not have been Jaws but it could have nibbled my finger, or worse.

On our last day we took Chris for a Thai boxing session and the girls came to watch. They were not impressed at all, and said they would be able to take us on without any training. They were probably right on that day, since the Hong Thong (whiskey) from the previos night was still swirling around inside me. After training we went to have an all-you-can-eat BBQ. I think I ate more than I could eat. Chris took the winning trophy with 6 and half skewers of meat packed away. Fat bastard.

We had to steal our photo's from Beth for Koh Tao, since we are having camera trouble. Not to worry though, we got the important shots.

Koh Tao Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5505941011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Bangkok Dangerous

With the sitaution between the government and the protestors (red-shirts), we were unsure about wether we should visit the capital, especially when our travel insurance may be void by entering Thailand. We didn't have any choice in the end because Danny has to pick up his new passport from Bangkok and plus, we understand how the media works and know they portray ten times worse then it actually is.

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We arrived in the afternoon and got a taxi straight to Kao San Rd, which every backpacker talks about, and is just full of bars, restaurants and markets. More importantly, we saw a subway and that was one of our first ventures once we found a place to stay. To say that Bagkok is in 'a state of emergency', there's still loads of foreigners getting pissed up without a worry in the world, but that was not on our itinerary. We spent the evening at a cinema, which was a taxi ride away. Taxi's are so cheap here and because some areas are more dangerous than others, this is probably the safest way to get around. We drove passed the embassy area (which is now closed), where the roads were blocked off and patrolled by the cops and then made our way to the cinema. We ended up watching Iron Man 2, which was good and then made our way back, stopping off at one fo the street stalls for some cheap but filling Pad Thai (our local food for the next few days).

The next day was dedicated to a muay thai (thai boxing) session at jitti's gym, which is one of the gyms we will probably train at when we come back in July. Training lasted for 3 hours and the heat made it feel like days. After all the padwork, stretching, technical work, bagwork, he makes you go for a run-HARDCORE., so we're proper looking forward to that when we come back HA. Our evening was spent chilling with Kristian (a mate from university) and his friends, who are all teaching english in the local area. They loved Thailand that much that they were trying to find every way possible to stay as long as possible.

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Sunday was pretty much a right off as we came in late from a night with Kristian, so we just booked our bus/boat ticket to Koh Tao, the first island of the three. We did plan to go and visit Sukhumvit, the modern upbeat area of Bangkok but with the riots moving closer to this area and some taxi's refusing to even go there, we decided it was time to watch another movie at the cinemas. Robin Hood it was and it was great finally hearing some sort of yorkshire accent, it was refreshing i tell theee!

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Our bus left at 8pm on Monday evening, so we filled our day by walking around Bangkok. We visited the Grande Palace and the huge, well decorated temple inside it's walls. This was probably visibly the nicest temple I have seen, with decorations of rich gold and silver twinkling at every angle. It didn't really hold any history but it was a masterpiece in it's own right and obviously expensive if it's in the king's quarters. After strolling around the palace, we thought we should do our bit and eat from a street stall, to show gratitude for what we have got lol. We got the boat across the river to go and see another temple and then made our way back. It turned out to be a very sweaty day and we still had little time to kill so we decided to play an hours worth of snooker, which we both improved on since we first played a couple of days ago. However our main priority was to leave Bangkok the way we came in, so we went for another subway and made our way for the bus to Koh Tao, but as we left, we saw crowds surrounding the big screens in the streets to see that the rebels were starting to burn buildings down after they refused to evacuate. What a perfect time to leave!

Bangkok photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4774856011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Histories 2nd Capital, Ayutthaya

So as you can gather from the post title, Ayutthaya was Thailands 2nd capital city. Back in 1700 the city reached a population of 1,000,000. Making it one of the biggest cities in the world at that time. In 1767, the Burmese army invaded and destroyed the city, leaving behind ruins what is known today as Ayutthaya Historical park. The population today is a mere 55,000. Compared to the current capital of Bangkok with a population of 9,100,000. Bangkok became capital of Thailand in 1768 after the demise of Ayuthaya.

We preffered the setting of Ayuthaya to that of Sukhothai, so if you ever want to see some of historical Thailand, Ayuthaya is the preffered option.

We hired bicycles to make the sightseeing easier. We stopped at three different sets of ruins and then made 5km cycle over to Wat Chai Wattananaram, where it was recomended to watch a great sunset, it proved worthy, but weve seen better. Maj also broke an ancient statue of a buddha here, so if the Ayuthaya police question you about it, tell em nothing!

The greatest thing I witnessed on my travels so far was in Ayuthaya. A dog sat on the back of motorbike whilst a woman was cruising down the main road, and he looked so content. It was brilliant. The 2nd time a camera was not at a hand to record such a sight. (The first being the duck sacrifice back in Siem Reap, because of Abbie's shitty camera).

Ayuthaya Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4701658011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Sukhothai temples

We finally left Chiang mai, although we weren't ready to, and made our way to Sukhothai to carry on with our travels. Sukhothia is known as Thailand's first capital and holds the Khmer style temples that are one of the most visited ancient sites in thailand. The temple area (Sukhothai Historical park) is classed as the 'old town' and the new thriving area of the town, where we stayed is labelled as the 'new town'. We stayed at Banthai guesthouse and it seemed that all the guesthouses for foreigners are next to each other on this one strip by the river.



We got up early the next morning and hired a motorbike for the day. We rode to the old town, which was 12km from the new town. It didn't take long for us to look around, probably because we had a motorbike and the main temples are situated in the centre of the park. Like Angkor Wat, these temples were originally for Hindus and then later converted for Buddhists, so you can still see both styles. We've seen a lot of temples so we're starting to wizz by them and if they are nice to look at, then we will stay there a bit longer and take our pics, but if you're either Hindu or Buddhist and are interested in their history, then this place is worth visiting.






Danny hasn't slept for the past couple of days, so I dropped him off back at the guesthouse and I went and visited Si Satchanalai Historical park, which is 50km from the new town. It was nice ride up but there was nothing in between so if i got a puncture, i'd have been stuck in the heat! the Si Satchanalai park is based in the same style as the Sukhothai historical park but the LP book says that it is in a more peaceful surrounding and is almost untouched, so i thought I should check it out for myself. It was indeed very peaceful as I was the only foreigner there. the only other people i saw were a van full of thais doing theire sightseeing. I also preferred the temples here because there were a lot more bigger temples, instead of them being in the centre like Sukhothai Historical Park. I spent about an hour riding about and taking pics and found out that here is an excavation pit in the park, where they have found remains of bodies that date back from 2-4 BC, which is quite interesting and it seems that the royal family at the time were cremated and their ashes were scattered here.






I got back from my eventful afternoon and felt really cultured, until Isaw chris (Wakey), who we originally met in Vang Vieng, then again in Luang Prabang and Chiang mai, and he brought me back down with his dirty northern accent, and I felt common again lol. We spent the evening chilling, had dinner at Poo restaurant (it had to be done) and they served food on a plate with a smiley face-Love it!

Sukhothai photo link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4682186011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Trekking, Tigers and 7-11 in Chiang Mai

Getting to Thailand was really strange at first. With 7 months of travelling behind us, this point once seemed like a lifetime away, but it finally arrived. Let me tell you we were we glad for it. After all the talk of the protests in Bangkok and that they had moved northwards to Chiang Mai, we were pretty nervous about the exact situation. Especially with our travel insurance becoming invalid. After seeing the place with our own eyes, we can definately tell you that there is nothing to worry about up to this point, the city is more than stable.

With the worry of my passport becoming full before the trip had come to close, my first priority in Chiang Mai was to visit the U.K Consulate and send off for a new passport. I had to send the application to Hong Kong and it will be getting returned to the embassy in Bangkok. This way I dont have to wait for its return in Chiang Mai. Still got hit by -150 squids, ugghhhh!

Chiang Mai felt so good to be in, after spending the last few months in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the amount of shops (7-11's and McDonalds) and the cheapness of food (pad thai plus the red, green and yellow curries - very descriptive) and accomodation was amazing. We could finally go back to budgeting this trip.

We met back up with Kate and Beth (Skanky Mancs) and booked a three day, 2 night trek into the jungle with them. Oh and me and Maj got a hair cut from a gay dude called Eddie. We found this out because Maj got 'The Ricky Martin' cut. Eddie was all goose pimply, hahaaa.

Because some other people who were supposed to be trekking with us had to delay by one day, the hotel gave us an extra free night! To postpone for one day - fine with us. Instead we had such an action packed day. First off, we visited the tiger kingdom, where you are able to enter the tigers cage's and lay next to them for some amazing pictures. The tigers look more sedated than a crack addict, but we were told (after our visit) that a German girl had been bitten really badly back in January (sucks to be her) so I guess we caught them on a happy day. Next up, we went to watch the snake show. They had cobras, king cobras, Burmese pythons and some little jumping snakes doing all sorts of crazy Steve Irwin stuff. The highlight was when they had a boy of 4, max, taming the snakes and missing some of their strikes by millimeters.

Me and Maj wanted to check out one of the local Thai boxing gyms in Chiang Mai in case we do return in July. The gym was outdoors, so it didnt take long at all for both of us to be completely drained. It was a great session though, and Maj (pro Thai boxing champion) gave it the thumbs up. That night we actually did go to see the pro's in some Muay Thai action. The highlight being Sagat V.s. Tony Jaa V.s. Bruce Irvin in a threeway blindfolded match! Ok, that didnt really happen, but there really was a threeway blindfolded bout, dont believe us? Wait till we get home for the exclusive video. theres a great part where the referee takes a haymaker, but soon gets his revenge on the unlucky swinging fool. The fights were great entertainment, although the final fight was definately fixed, since an Aussie fighter kicked the shit out of a Thai for some title, but ended up losing from the judges decision. Bias.

So next up, the trek. The gang from Vietnam were the ones who recommended us to do the trek here in Chinag Mai, and it was great advice. We travelled north of Chiang Mai towards the jungles and started things off by going for an Elephant ride. With us having already travelled India and the other south-east asian countries you'll probably be surprised that this was our first elephant ride of the trip. We were saving it for Thailand, the elephants here are more magical and grant you a wish if they like you. They didnt like us. My elephant (since I drew the short straw, (literally) and I was with a French couple) sprayed me with water every chance he got, my trainers were soaked! Im glad in a way that I got to travel on the other elephant since I got to sit in the drivers seat, but elephants have a really spiky head, serious chafing. The girls and Maj went on the big poppa elephant. Before we even headed out on foot, we had a sleep at a small village waiting for the heat to cool down a little, it wasn't far to the next village so we were in no particular rush. During the village to village walk we passed loads of lychee trees, and since they were not fully ripe they were still sour, but tasted gorgeous. After reaching the village the lads headed out to have a footy match, which ended in a 7-6 win to the fricking tribes people. They were good players. The Frenchy on our team was weak though, should have fed him to the pigs on the sidelines (not you girls). After washing up, we ate some lovely green curry, and then waited for the nights entertainment, which consisted of the children from the village dancing and singing for us, to sound of the opium mans guitar. By the way, Mr Opium man needs a mention. Throughout the trek this guy constantly smoked opium and from we knew, never slept. He would smoke till the early hours then go hunting rabbits at night. A true legend from the trip, he was the most insane shot with a slingshot too. Even better than Zelda.

Day two involved a shitload more trekking, with a stop at a waterfall to cool down. We saw a green snake in tree too (hows that for descriptive). When we reached the nights destination we had a few drinks and played some games. The funniest being black pancake - a quick thinking game where if you messed up the sequence you got the black hand of Diddie wiped on your face. You can check the pics to see who the worst players were.

Our final day was a little more walking (for the record, this trek was the easiest walk of my life, me and Maj travelled further in 4 hours in Nepal, than we did in three days here). The last segment of the trek was to bamboo raft down a stream covered with bamboo reeds and low trees. With it being the hottest time of year, the dry season meant the stream was particularly low, and we had to get off the raft several times for it to move forwards. That was annoying. But at least it made up for our loss back in Guilin, China on the Li river.

Chiang Mai Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4647123011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Laos Summary

Days travelled- 19 days (2 weeks, 5 days)

Distance travelled- Approx. 2,300km (1,430 miles)

Hours on transport- 36 hours (1 day, 12 hours)

Destinations- 8

Top 3

3 - Luang Prabang- This trip started out bad visiting the Pak Ou Caves but the waterfall saved Luang Prabang and even made it to the 3rd spot. The tiered waterfall over limestone formations with turquiose pools at the bottom really loks magical.

2 - The Bolaven plateu - It really was waterfall hunting in the plateu. The best thing was that we didn't have a clue where we staying and made it an adventure through the secluded jungle. hiding in the shelter when the stormed was over us and spotting Katamtok had to be the highlight of the trip.

1 - Si Phan Don (4000 islands) - This was the first place we visitied in Laos and boy did it set the standard. We could have easily stayed here for days doing nothing but chilling-that's how much of a chilled out vibe it had. Couldn't have been possible with the Leeds boys snorting daizipans and drinking the lethal 'black panther' to start the trip!

Final Advice

We started Laos (4000 islands) in the best way ever and that set the standard for the rest of the country and it seemed that Laos was not gonna let us down. The whole country is really green with jungles and waterfalls dotted around the country. We had the best time at the Bolaven Plateau just because we did something off the beaten track, which enabled us to see the locals doing there normal everyday things. If you ever want to explore a country in South East Asia, I definately recommend this one. People here are so friendly and are always willing to help, even though many people do not speak fluent english. Vientiene, the capital city, has been one of the nicest we have visited, mainly because it didn't feel like a capital city in the area we stayed.

The only fault I found from Laos was that travel and sometimes accommodation is expensive, expecially in Vientiene. Many travellers have said that this was the most expensive country they have visited in South East Asia, but don't let that put you off from exploring a beautiful country.

A quick addition to that....The healthcare system here is really quite shocking to be honest and the lonely planet even recommends fleeing to Thailand if you need medical assistance. Luckily Maj only got herpes so it wasn't a big deal, he could wait till Chiang mai. Another point that has to be made is that if you only travel to Vang Vieng in Laos, you have NOT been to Laos, so dont cuss it. Pissheads. Standard ting blad.