Back Home

We arrived home on Christmas day, yesterday, at 1pm. Our flight from Bangkok left at around midnight and was pretty empty so we managed to get a whole row of seats to ourselves to try and get some sleep. It wasn't very comfortable but we both managed a few hours kip.

We got into Frankfurt at around 5.30am on Christmas morning and had a six and a half hour wait in the airport before our connecting flight to Edinburgh. We strolled around duty free, bought some breakfast and read for an hour or so. It was very boring!!

When we finally flew home the view across the borders and Edinburgh was spectacular. It was a clear day and we could see for miles. We picked up our luggage, unharmed, passed through customs without a hitch and went through into departures where our families were there to meet us.

It was great to see everyone together and I blubbed like a baby again. After some photo taking (oh dear we both looked rough!!!) we went to Karen Wong's Chinese restaurant for our Christmas lunch. It was a great way to catch up over an informal and much more social meal than Christmas dinner. We had 5 courses and lots of coffee then headed home.


It's really cold at home, about 2-3oC, and that's the coldest we've been for 2 years. I got lots of woollie garments for Xmas so hopefully won't perish. I am concerned that my Thai tan will be leached by the Scottish winter...

North to South and back to Bangkok

Day 13 Saturday 15th Dec

Today we didn't do much. It was very hot again, around the mid thirties so we tried to avoid the worst of the heat and inevitable dust and dirt. After lunchtime we walked to Central plaza, which is outside of the old town on the North West corner of the moat. It had just newly opened when Daf left here 15 years ago and didn't have many shops. Now its 5 floors of spend, spend, spend!!

We ate at the food court in the basement. I had crispy pork on rice and a papaya salad with peanut. It was a bit of an effort to actually get the food as you have to buy tokens from a teller and exchange the tokens for the food, which I figured out after patiently waiting and watching my food be prepared, then not getting it.

On Saturday night, with the alcohol ban still in place, we wandered round the very quiet town centre before quitting at about 8 o'clock as there was nothing at all happening. We took a tuk tuk to the train station and bought our tickets to Kho Pha Ngan and went back to figure out our journey. We have planned to get the overnight sleeper train on Monday night to Bangkok, leaving at 14.50 and arriving at 5.30, and then get the first train to Suri Thani at 8.05, which arrives at 16.30. Then we have to wait until 23.00 for the overnight slow boat, which arrives at 5.30 also. It'll be a mammoth 40 hour journey to get there but hopefully we can spend 3 days chilling on the beaches, do some snorkeling and take some pictures.

Day 14 Sunday 16th Dec

Another unbearably hot day. We walked to the Chiang Mai gate market, on the south side of the moat, after lunch at our local street cafe. It was just closing as we arrived so we didn't see much, but I did indulge in a 10B bag of curly crackling! On the way back from the market we passed another tourist market on the moat, where the yellow lanterns are, and I bought myself a bag. We did some Internet stuff, drank some iced tea and went back to cool off and read.

At around 6pm we went out to find some cheap pad thai and found a little street stall down a dark alley. It was packed with locals and it seemed to sell nothing but pad thai and salad. We ordered two and they were served on banana leaves, with banana flowers in the salad too. I didn't think Thai people ate pad thai as we were told that it was really just farang food as it wasn't anything too spicy or adventurous, but apparently that is not the case as this little family industry was going like a mill! We walked back into town, stopping off for a chocolate milkshake at Mike's and some mango and coconut sticky rice at Thai Thai kitchen, then onto the Chiang Mai saloon as Daf wanted to see the Liverpool game.

It was pretty quiet but we expected that because of the drinking ban. Then we noticed some jugs and towers of Chang were being served and we seemed to catch on at the same time as everyone else as pretty much every table then filled up. We watched the game, had 3 jugs of Chang then went to bed, anticipating the hangover this time, and drinking copious amounts of water.

Day 15 Monday 17th Dec

Today we left Chiang Mai on the 2nd class night sleeper train to Bangkok. We arrived at the train station by tuk tuk and loaded our ever accumulating bags into our train car. It was a 2nd class 'fan' sleeper car that we were in this time, which meant that we could open the windows to take photos or buy food etc from the passing vendors at each station. We passed through the mountainous jungle which we had missed on the way up, as it was too dark by that point, and by sunset were about 3 hours into the 40 hour journey to Kho Pha Ngan.

The sleeper cars are basically single seats at each side of the cabin, 2 facing each other. When it comes to bed-time the two seats slide together to form a bed and above them a shelf swings down to make the second bed. These are padded with sturdy mattresses and furnished with bedding etc. The only drawback really was that they are built for the diminutive Thai people's frames, not 6'4"farangs and Daf was pretty uncomfortable, I just fitted into the bed and no more.

Day 16 Tuesday 18th Dec

We arrived at Bangkok at 6am, just as the sun was rising. Gathered up all of our belongings and off-loaded. We waited in Bangkok station, Daf had a shower, we had some breakfast from the assembling stalls in the foyer, then loaded onto the next train to take us south to Surat Thani. This was an air-conditioned 2nd class car with meals. It was an 8 hour journey to Surat Thani and the air con didn't work. Again it was a cramped and rather uncomfortable experience.

Once we arrived in Surat Thani we were herded off the train by a Thai man who claimed he wanted to help us book our train back and onward bus and ferry trips to Kho Pha Ngan. He seemed to know where to go to avoid the queues and quite helpful. It wasn't until he insisted that we get in his friend's 'taxi' to take us to the bus station that we got a bit suspicious.

It was a 12 km drive to the ticket office where we were ripped off to the tune of 900B for ferry tickets to Kho Pha Ngan, via Kho Samui, that should have cost is 210B. By this point it was 26 hrs since we had left Chiang Mai and we were tired. We shouldn't have believed them when they told us the night ferry was cancelled and we should have haggled the price, but we didn't. We were taken by air-con mini bus 50 kms to the car ferry terminal just in time to board. We ran onto the ferry and dumped our bags.

It was an hours bumpy ride to Kho Samui, where we had been advised that we should get the next ferry from the same terminal to Kho Pha Ngan. When we arrived and asked the information desk about this they laughed and told us it would cost 700B to get a taxi to the other side of the island to get the last connecting boat to Kho Pha Ngan but that we would probably miss it. At this stage we were pissed off. Being heckled by Thais all round for taxis, ripped off for tickets to the wrong island, people trying to grab our bags and load them into cars and information staff laughing at us.

Yep we were pissed off.

We sat down and figured out what to do. It was 10pm, hot, sticky and we were tired. Once the swarm of taxi drivers had cleared we figured that we'd just stay on the island that night and get the next day's ferry to our destination. A small motorcycle taxi driver offered to take both of us, our 25kg rucksacks and our 6 additional pieces of hand luggage to a nearby hotel for only 40B. To be honest we thought, he's probably on commission, it's going to be a brothel or just a complete dump we'll see what it's like. We got on the back of 2 separate scooters with our belongings. It turned out to be a brand new hotel, down a back street, with lovely rooms, great facilities and for a reasonable price. We stayed the night. We had dinner in a little local place and watched Thai TV.

Day 17 Wednesday 19th Dec

We booked the 12 o'clock ferry to Kho Pha Ngan. An air con taxi took us across the island for free to the pier. Here we waited for an hour and a half in the blistering sun, with 300 other farang, before boarding the high speed catamaran. We loaded our luggage into the front of the boat and crammed into the moulded plastic seating. Half an hour later we finally arrived. Again we were greeted by a chorus of pesky taxi drivers all shouting '

Hello taxi Hello taxi'

We got into a Songthaew, agreed on 200B to take us to our bungalows and waited for it to fill up. The islands roads were far better than Kho Samui's, which were like a building site really. Not so much pot holes as just builder's rubble that had been compacted in areas, washed away in others and is generally covered in sleeping dogs, coconuts and sand traps.

Our resort was much better than Tonga. We'd worried that it would be as bad as the place we'd stayed there with no facilities, dirty everything and a rubbish beach to top it off. It was much better.

My Kho Pha Ngan was on the 'forgettable South coast' as Rough Guides unfairly described it. This was a completely unfair description. The beach was enormous and empty. The water was warm, clear and perfect for swimming, the sand was clean and it was void of other beach users!! Our bungalow was basic but perfect. It was not too far from the main road and shops etc but far enough to avoid the noise from the beat up old cars and hundreds of scooters and songthaews. We swam in the sea when a tropical thunder storm passed overhead and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the hammock drinking beer.

Day 18 Thursday 20th Dec

Today we hired a scooter and explored the island. We drove south to see what all the fuss was about with Had Rin, the tourist epicentre of the Thai gulf islands. On the way the scooter failed to cope with the staggeringly steep hills with two passengers. I ended up walking up most of them to meet Daf at the top. Had Rin was nasty. It was full of semi-naked louts drinking all day long, sleeping on the filthy beach and wandering around shouting at each other. It could have been any Mediterranean 18-30 resort. Nasty. We booked tickets for the boat back on Sat, a snorkeling boat trip for the next day and left. We drove up to the top if the island, stopping half way for a flat tyre. The scooter was replaced with brand new model which coped with all of the hills without hesitation. Once at the end of the road at the top of the island we turned around and had a look at the north western beaches. We passed an enormous goanna on the jungle road, then stopped for lunch.

After a very fiery green curry and 3 litres of water to tackle the heat, we headed inland and up to the northern tip of the island. It was about 1 o'clock when we both realised that we'd been riding around all day without any sun block on and were burned. We stopped off in a 7eleven and bought some factor 50, smothered it on all extremities and drank more water.

We had a look at the fishing pier then went to see a waterfall in the jungle. It was a bit disappointing, as waterfalls go, but the walk to see it was interesting. We drove back down through the forest and to our resort. We showered and then decided we really should make the most of the bike, plus it was fun, so we thought we'd risk the looming clouds and visit a nearby hillside Wat. We didn't get far before the rain started. It felt like hail on our skin and the roads quickly became flooded as sand and mud slide down hillsides and rivers burst. We carefully turned round and headed back again. By the time we got back we were completely soaked to the skin so we showered again and went for another swim in the warm sea in the rain!

We had an appalling and overpriced pizza for dinner (all food on the islands seems to be completely over priced and not very good quality) and walked home listening to the millions of frogs in the pools next to the road.

Day 19 Friday 21st Dec

We were booked on 'Munchies' boat trip, which we had been advised was the best snorkeling safari. It was quite apparent that the reason it was thus named was due to the permanently wrecked crew that manned the boat. Our 'host', if you can call him that, was more concerned with rolling himself enough enormous splifs to see him and his mates through the day, than he was with anything else, including letting us know where we were going, what we were doing, when we would get to eat, if there was any water to drink and if there would be any snorkeling at all!

After an hour and a half's sailing up the familiar west coast, our first stop was a waterfall. To get to the waterfall we had to walk through a building site, some people's gardens and a few hotel grounds, then we had to climb up the actual waterfall to get to the top. Since we thought this was a snorkeling safari we were not appropriately dressed for scaling waterfalls nor hiking through building sites. Most of the party were bare foot, wearing swimsuits and little else. The waterfall was not worth it and as soon as we arrived most of us turned around and headed back down for the beach where the boat was docked.

We had a basic lunch of fried rice and water then sat on the beach for an hour while our 'host' enjoyed a smoke. From the beach we climbed onto a longtail boat (very unstable and tend to sink low in the water if overloaded!!) then out to our original boat where we each had to climb over the side onto it. We chugged out a few hundred metres to a rocky outcrop where we were given snorkels, told we would be there for 20 mins and that we had to look at the coral.

I haven't snorkeled before and I kind of hoped for some guidance and maybe shallower water than 10ms, with the possibility of coral and fish. I found it hard to get my mask to stop clouding up whilst treading water with just my feet, once I got it on I couldnít breathe and couldnít see anything because the water was full of stingers and sea lice!! I think I got out after 2 mins, I should have stayed in and persevered but I got a bit freaked out and panicky. Daf stayed in and enjoyed it, apart from the lack of things to see and the 30+ stings he got all over his body. There were 5 of us in the boat, all watching everyone else snorkelling wishing the same as me.

Once everyone was aboard we sailed down the west coast again to a small island where we stopped to look at the beach. Then we were herded back on the boat and fed fruit and Thai whisky with, presumably, coke. We were back at the pier in Had Rin by about half 5 and most of us were sunburned and a little disappointed.

I wouldn't recommend 'Munchies' boat trips from Had Rin pier.

After disembarking we walked into town to catch a songthaew back to our resort. We found one and were told we could pay twice the going rate to leave now or we could wait for more people and pay 50B each. We said weíd wait as we were not in the mood for being ripped off any more. We got in the taxi at 6pm. We waited while all the other songthaew drivers laughed at us (we could understand more than they thought we could) sitting there waiting. Several of them told us we should pay them twice the price to go but we refused. At 7pm we got out of the songthaew and started walking the 3kms back to our resort. We hadn't got more than a few hundred metres when the same songthaew and driver pulled up beside us and said heíd take us for 50B. We got in, feeling quite smug at our little victory, and he took us back.

We had a BBQ buffet dinner at a little restaurant on the main road, which was excellent and good fun too. It was only 89B p/p but if you left any food they charged you another 50B so we made sure to clean our plates. We slept very soundly after showering and applying after sun liberally.

Day 20 Saturday 22nd Dec

Today we left the island. Our ferry was at 12.30pm. We were picked up by air-con bus and taken to the correct ferry terminal. We waited in the farang holding area again, bought some fruit and satay from street vendors and boarded the boat on time. We sat at the front and watched a dodgy WWF film with Vinnie Jones in Thai then The Shooter also in Thai.

It was a 4 hour journey. We arrived an hour early however which was a bit odd. We were all guided off the boat and onto a selection of buses. Everyone was very confused as one bus was going to the airport, one to the train station and a lot of luggage went on different buses to the ones people were riding in.

There was no space on the giant 'train station' bus for us so we sat in a cramped little mini bus with broken air con, the windows shut and some miserable moaning Aussies in the back. We all thought we were actually getting off the ferry in Surat Thani, it turned out we were more than an hourís drive away at Donsak, the pier weíd originally left the mainland from and the one we had hoped not to arrive at again!

An hour later and we stopped at some other pier to pick up one person to go to the airport, which made the Aussies even more pissed off and they started bitching and swearing. We finally got to the train station, miraculously on time and we were told to stand on the pavement for an hour to wait for our train. Daf and I declined and sat in a nearby local street cafe to have some crispy pork and pad thai.

Once fed, we collected our bags and walked to the train station. We waited a further hour for the right train then boarded and found our seats for the 12 hour sleeper journey back to Bangkok. We had not managed to get any seats together but were both in upper bunks opposite each other. There is virtually no space in an upper bunk so neither of us slept well.

Day 21 Sunday 23rd Dec

We arrived in Bangkok at 6am, caught a taxi to Asha guesthouse for 200B (probably a rip off but past caring) and dumped our stuff. We changed out of our filthy, sweaty clothes, showered, ate breakfast, did some laundry then caught the free bus to the Chatuchek weekend market.

We'd heard that it was huge and that a map was necessary. It was much bigger than the Chiang Mai night bizarre and had everything you could possibly want. There was, disturbingly, a huge section for pets. We saw dozens of birds crammed into tiny cages, also puppies, rabbits, gerbils and reptiles. We saw a baby Cayman of all things and lots of snakes and spiders. It was quite distressing to see so many animals in tiny cages, terrified while people poked them through the bars, but no-one else seemed bothered. We bought more souvenirs and presents for people and after 3 hours were so tired and dirty that we left to walk back to Asha. When we got back we swam in the pool and cooled off then ventured out to find some food.

At a street stall a lady was selling several curries, rice and, my favourite, bags of curly pork crackling. She didn't speak any English and our Thai isn't up to much more than 'how much' or 'thank you', so I pointed to what I wanted, it looked like some bits of chicken in a hot sauce with eggplant. She looked at me like I had made a bad choice then pointed to her knuckle and said

"ooh ooh ooh"

which I took to mean that it was hot but Daf thought she meant that it was monkey's knuckles?? I said that it was fine and we went back to eat it. Daf wouldn't eat any at as it was full of bones and gristle. It was chicken...I think, and VERY hot. It could have done with a beer to wash it down but it was still the election weekend so alcohol was banned again.

We stayed out of the remaining heat of the day by packing our bags for the flight home the following day and reading. Later that evening we found a restaurant that was open and had some dinner. When we arrived back at the guesthouse we found that our suits had been delivered. Mine was missing a skirt and Daf's, 2 ties. We phoned the tailors to complain but were told that I had never ordered a skirt and that they would deliver 2 ties that night, then he hung up on me. The ties arrived around 9pm. They are silk but they are revolting. I would not recommend 'Manhattan Tailors' 455 42-46 Rama 6 Rd in Bangkok. They are aggressive and intimidating and clearly are only after money from ignorant farang.

Day 22 Monday 24th Dec

That was our last night in Thailand and it left a sour taste in my mouth. Today we are leaving to go home, after 18 months of living, traveling and working in Australia, New Zealand and finally Thailand.

I am so-o-o-o OVER Thailand in general. Chiang Mai was different as I didnít find that there were so many unscrupulous Thais after our cash. The islands and Bangkok are on the whole riddled with con artists and rip off merchants looking for lost white people with luggage, to swindle. That may sound unfair but in the last 3 weeks I've haggled down so many ridiculous prices, rejected ludicrously overinflated offers and refused people trying to sell me things I donít want nor need. Iím sick of it and I just want to see a price tag on something, rather than brave the question 'how much?' knowing the answer depends on how confident/rich I look, how desperate they are to sell it and how many other customers they have had/will have that day.

We've packed our rucksacks, and have figured out what our warmest clothes will be for the 6 hour wait in Frankfurt and arrival in Edinburgh on Christmas day. We fly at midnight.