Our stay on Koh Phi Phi started out as a bit of uncertainty - we weren't sure if we liked the crowded vibe of endless shops, bars and restaurants, but this feeling soon changed once we made some new friends. Gemma had flagged early one night and headed back to our room, but Sarah and I decided to keep throwing some shapes! So there we were on the beach, the smell of gasoline everywhere from the fire poi shows, strobe lights and dodgey club tunes surrounding us, when all of a sudden a handsome young man approaches me to begin conversation! Sarah gives me the eye of approval, subtly moves away to give me some "space" and so the handsome guy and I begin chatting.....his first line was "Just so you know, I'm not coming onto you, I'm gay!" DAMN!!....in the strongest Leeds accent known to man, just what every single girl wants to hear!!!! you gotta love Jon! Soon he pulled over his best friend Hayley and the happy times rolled. Dancing the night away, helping Jon find a man, talking life stories with Hayley...in fact we loved them both so much we managed to persuade them to follow us to Koh Lanta! So a few days later after hardcore beach parties were well and truly out of our system, we met up with them on the island of Koh Lanta - extremely quiet and shut down this time of year but quite refreshing after the manic atmosphere of Koh Phi Phi! We all stayed in a luxury holiday resort on the beach with a great pool - all for 2 quid a night each - we couldn't believe how cheap it was - everyone should travel in low season!! the five of us hired mopeds to explore the island, seeing viewpoints, beaches and mountains along the way, stopping at 7 Eleven convenience stores for cheese toasties and mentoes! One night we also had dinner with some South African friends we'd met on Koh Phi Phi, who'd also come to Lanta. They worked for RBS in Canary Wharf so we went over to their side of town for dinner one night - very nice indeed, not quite budget eating but a pleasant evening all the same!! Most nights we ended up in Ting Tong bar which was on the beach by our resort - we later realised that Ting Tong is a Thai phrase for the state of mind when one gets high! So did we get ting tong? hehe...
So Koh Lanta was good - great company, lots of giggles, even had a slumber party one night and watched films (detoxing from alcohol that evening!). Soon the time came to wave a sad goodbye to Hayley and John as they went off to see more of Thailand, and the three of us made our way to Phuket. I really can't think of much good to report about Phuket as I couldn't wait to leave really - well perhaps the only thing would be that we stumbled across a massive market and managed to find some Mac, Chanel, Givenchy and Bobbi Brown fake make up - really good fakes actually for a fraction of the price. As we were in Phuket Airport I went to the duty free section to spy some genuine Chanel eye shadow and was suitably pleased that my rip off version was exactly the same! Girlie Win! Yeah so apart from the retail therapy there, Phuket, as a city, got the major thumbs down from us! Too busy, pretty dirty and just not much to do.
But all's been great since as we arrived in Singapore!!! We love it here! It is so clean, so spacious, so friendly, so amazing at every corner you turn! We are staying in a great little youth hostel in Little India, our first experience of dorm rooms so far as Singapore is the most expensive place in Asia and up until now we have had the luxury of private ensuite rooms for pennies! We have had some amazing Indian food at a vegetarian restaurant near us (much to Gemma's delight - she has really struggled to find satisfying vegetarian food these past two months) and we also spent about three hours in an Indian beauty salon yesterday getting henna tattoos on our hands and arms!! This is a life ambition fulfilled for me - the other two are glad I've finally found somewhere so that I can shut up about it!! I now have the most amazing henna designs on both hands and one forearm, I feel like waving my arms in everyone's face to show them off, they are so bloody cool!! The designs have turned really dark brown too - much better than the henna I've done at home in the past. I then decided to go purchase some new nose studs...when in Little India....
We were taken out to see some sights and to have dinner by some American lawyer guys we met on the plane from Phuket...they actually tried to blag us a hotel room through their company, at the amazing hotel they were staying at (30th floor views of the fireworks and sky scrapers - ooh err!) but we declined this offer, but didn't mind letting them take us out for dinner! We sat on the boat quay in the evening eating Indian food (again!) and drinking wine, very sophisticated! Food babies well and truly blooming, we headed back to our youth hostel budget region and felt rather amazed that we'd been shown around Singapore and wined and dined all for free! Pretty good budget travellers huh!
Then last night we managed it again! We'd spent the evening amusing ourselves in Chinatown and when we got back to the hostel the manager offered to take us out, well why not? We slung our stuff in our room, jumped in a taxi and soon we were at Movida - a massive nightclub amongst the skyscraper cityscape. Simon, the manager, showed his card to the bouncers and got us in for free (smooth) and sat us in the VIP areas to drink whiskey and coke and partake in some salsa dancing!! Not too sure I approved of the singer getting down from the stage to try swing me around the dancefloor but a few drinks later and "Areeeeeba! Let's go!" Salsa dancing in nightclubs, I think this could catch on - maybe a niche in the market in quiet little Richmond? After the show stopped in that room, we moved on to a different floor and another VIP space...it was the weirdest thing ever to be in a club where we were the only Western people - it was purely a case of Spot The Traveller - three tall girls walking through a sea of beautiful Singaporian women, us lot dressed in flip flops, thai trousers, bikini tops and messy hair, feeling not quite the part!! Still, we enjoyed dancing to the music before another live act came on - this time it was a Malaysian rock band - bloody hilarious!! So we rocked out for a while, Avril Lavigne style, the rock band were pretty cool though, sang in Malay most of the time but then they threw a Bryan Adams classic in there - yay! a sing-a-long! The night club was amazing though, even if it was a Sunday night....I love Singapore, someone find me a job and let me live here!!
Today we are leaving Singapore :( and leaving South East Asia :( We have had the best two months in this part of the world!! Tonight we are getting our long haul flight to Auckland in New Zealand, winter time for us! It will soon be Sarah's 25th birthday so there will be birthday treats in store for us!
Until next time x
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Well I guess an update has been long overdue...
We had an amazing time in Pai, meeting lots of people and being pretty lazy and chilled out. Once we managed to get out of a hammock, we hired some motorbikes one day and took a ride out of the town. We visited some natural hot springs (like taking a hot bath outdoors - so good), a waterfall or two and a canyon. Lovely sites and good fun to ride about! We stopped at an amazing coffee shop on the way called Coffee in Love with panoramic views overlooking Pai.
Towards the end of our stay in Pai we discovered the art of Muay Thai - thai boxing, and so two gingers and a curly girl took themselves across the rickety bridge to kick some ass....
The warm up was funny...we were told to start skipping to build up our heart rate etc but we soon got bored of the serious stuff and started revising old playground skipping, even managing to convince a set of Thai twin girls to join in the fun while their Big Mama was in the ring! So we mucked about for a bit before donning the gloves, then we each took it in turns one-on-one with the gym instructor in the ring. I'll have you know I was giving some good kicks - I never knew I had so much agression in me! Boxing was a pretty good work out (despite us not taking it step by step!) and by the end of the three hour session we'd collapsed in heaps of giggles trying to keep up with the pros and their "cool down" press ups!
The manager and the staff at the gym were so friendly and we often sat with them having drinks in the evening. On the Saturday evening after boxing we were invited to a barbeque hosted by them which was great...at one point someone told us to check out one of the empty bungalows on the way back home - where we discovered that a dog was giving birth to puppies!!! She had a litter of 6 by the time we got there and the puppies were all squeaking and just being adorable! But then we got angry as we wanted to know where the father was in the situation! tut tut.
On our final morning our Thai friend Jacky cooked us a lovely lunch meal to send us off on our way - we all tucked into rice, omelettes, thai soup and chilli noodles, so grateful for the gesture! Jacky was such a legend, we really miss her, thank goodness for facebook hey! We then set off on our mammoth bus journey from the north of Thailand down to the southern islands in search of the Full Moon Party. The journey involved two overnight buses and a 12 hour stop in Bangkok...bloody knackering but made all the more fun for picking up a new friend from Pai called Kamalee - a French Canadian who was also on her way to get down and funky on Haad Rin Beach! So we hunted down some luxury (but cheap) bungalows on a beach called Haad Yao on the main island of Koh Phag Nan. We were staying right on the beach and it was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! Masses of white sand and blue blue sea! So off we ran, flip flops a flapping and off for a good swim! We had some amazing food on the seafront too - barbequed red snapper was a particular highlight.
We went out the night before the proper Full Moon Party to warm up - beach was buzzing with loads of different bars all blaring out music and advertising the notorious buckets (of cocktails). We met a group of irish guys and had a brilliant night trying everything out, from inflatable hamster balls on the water to podium dancing and fire limbos! The Full Moon Party the following night was a lot busier but still good fun. We watched the sunrise and carried on dancing!
We also did a great boat trip around the various beaches on the island. We met an Australian and Israeli couple and went snorkelling together. I don't know why we bothered with suncream really as we all had the most hideous sunburn afterwards but seeing all the varieties of tropical fish made it completely worth it. At one point we had pieces of pineapple with us to feed them, and ended up with hundreds of beautiful fish swimming round us to grab the pineapple! Awesome.
We left Koh Phag Nan a few days ago and made our way to Koh Phi Phi, which we were meant to do all in one day but since the sea was somewhat "choppy", to put it mildly, we had to stay overnight in Krabi. The ferry the next day was still quite a rough ride, so much so that Gemma decided to share her toast with the rest of the boat...poor girl. Koh Phi Phi is the island that was mainly affected by the Tsunami Disaster. Sarah visited back in 2005 about 8 months after the event, and helped to make Memorial Gardens and clean the beaches. Coming to Koh Phi Phi four years later, she could not believe how much has sprung up where once lay open stretches of beach...in fact I kind of find the masses of shops and bars a bit claustrophobic...it seems that there's been a rush to build their lives back up and get tourism thriving again, but we think they've overdone it somewhat! Something we were impressed by is that there are no motor vehicles on the island - everybody walks, cycles or gets a boat to get around! Very refreshing.
We took another boat trip yesterday to see other parts of the island - including the spot where the film The Beach was filmed. A bit more snorkelling and sunbathing rounded off another good day. Oh but you can all have a laugh because I have a sunglasses mark and a burnt face from being in the water!
We are now trying to decide what to do for the next few weeks, and researching how to get to Malaysia...
We had an amazing time in Pai, meeting lots of people and being pretty lazy and chilled out. Once we managed to get out of a hammock, we hired some motorbikes one day and took a ride out of the town. We visited some natural hot springs (like taking a hot bath outdoors - so good), a waterfall or two and a canyon. Lovely sites and good fun to ride about! We stopped at an amazing coffee shop on the way called Coffee in Love with panoramic views overlooking Pai.
Towards the end of our stay in Pai we discovered the art of Muay Thai - thai boxing, and so two gingers and a curly girl took themselves across the rickety bridge to kick some ass....
The warm up was funny...we were told to start skipping to build up our heart rate etc but we soon got bored of the serious stuff and started revising old playground skipping, even managing to convince a set of Thai twin girls to join in the fun while their Big Mama was in the ring! So we mucked about for a bit before donning the gloves, then we each took it in turns one-on-one with the gym instructor in the ring. I'll have you know I was giving some good kicks - I never knew I had so much agression in me! Boxing was a pretty good work out (despite us not taking it step by step!) and by the end of the three hour session we'd collapsed in heaps of giggles trying to keep up with the pros and their "cool down" press ups!
The manager and the staff at the gym were so friendly and we often sat with them having drinks in the evening. On the Saturday evening after boxing we were invited to a barbeque hosted by them which was great...at one point someone told us to check out one of the empty bungalows on the way back home - where we discovered that a dog was giving birth to puppies!!! She had a litter of 6 by the time we got there and the puppies were all squeaking and just being adorable! But then we got angry as we wanted to know where the father was in the situation! tut tut.
On our final morning our Thai friend Jacky cooked us a lovely lunch meal to send us off on our way - we all tucked into rice, omelettes, thai soup and chilli noodles, so grateful for the gesture! Jacky was such a legend, we really miss her, thank goodness for facebook hey! We then set off on our mammoth bus journey from the north of Thailand down to the southern islands in search of the Full Moon Party. The journey involved two overnight buses and a 12 hour stop in Bangkok...bloody knackering but made all the more fun for picking up a new friend from Pai called Kamalee - a French Canadian who was also on her way to get down and funky on Haad Rin Beach! So we hunted down some luxury (but cheap) bungalows on a beach called Haad Yao on the main island of Koh Phag Nan. We were staying right on the beach and it was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! Masses of white sand and blue blue sea! So off we ran, flip flops a flapping and off for a good swim! We had some amazing food on the seafront too - barbequed red snapper was a particular highlight.
We went out the night before the proper Full Moon Party to warm up - beach was buzzing with loads of different bars all blaring out music and advertising the notorious buckets (of cocktails). We met a group of irish guys and had a brilliant night trying everything out, from inflatable hamster balls on the water to podium dancing and fire limbos! The Full Moon Party the following night was a lot busier but still good fun. We watched the sunrise and carried on dancing!
We also did a great boat trip around the various beaches on the island. We met an Australian and Israeli couple and went snorkelling together. I don't know why we bothered with suncream really as we all had the most hideous sunburn afterwards but seeing all the varieties of tropical fish made it completely worth it. At one point we had pieces of pineapple with us to feed them, and ended up with hundreds of beautiful fish swimming round us to grab the pineapple! Awesome.
We left Koh Phag Nan a few days ago and made our way to Koh Phi Phi, which we were meant to do all in one day but since the sea was somewhat "choppy", to put it mildly, we had to stay overnight in Krabi. The ferry the next day was still quite a rough ride, so much so that Gemma decided to share her toast with the rest of the boat...poor girl. Koh Phi Phi is the island that was mainly affected by the Tsunami Disaster. Sarah visited back in 2005 about 8 months after the event, and helped to make Memorial Gardens and clean the beaches. Coming to Koh Phi Phi four years later, she could not believe how much has sprung up where once lay open stretches of beach...in fact I kind of find the masses of shops and bars a bit claustrophobic...it seems that there's been a rush to build their lives back up and get tourism thriving again, but we think they've overdone it somewhat! Something we were impressed by is that there are no motor vehicles on the island - everybody walks, cycles or gets a boat to get around! Very refreshing.
We took another boat trip yesterday to see other parts of the island - including the spot where the film The Beach was filmed. A bit more snorkelling and sunbathing rounded off another good day. Oh but you can all have a laugh because I have a sunglasses mark and a burnt face from being in the water!
We are now trying to decide what to do for the next few weeks, and researching how to get to Malaysia...
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