February 2009 Archives

Hey guys!

It's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks as we are now in our third country after finally leaving Thailand to go to Cambodia and Vietnam. So here's where our travels have taken us...

Krabi:

We left Ko Phi Phi after after spending a week there and headed to Krabi which is only one and a half hours on a boat from Phi Phi.
We arrived and decided to stay in Krabi Town as it is a lot cheaper than Ao Nang which is the beach town. However, having spent about an hour in Krabi Town we soon realised that there really wasn't too much to do there (although it is a much nicer town than Phuket!) so you won't be too surprised to learn that we headed straight for the beach!
Although Ao Nang is very busy with tourists it's still a really beautiful place, with great bars and restaurants along the beach. The hotels looked stunning too but obviously we couldn't afford to stay in those ones unfortunately!
After having a little wander round we thought what better way to spend the day than an afternoon on pampering. So we opted for a foot scrub and coconut oil massage and a pedicure! The coconut oil massage was heaven. That was my second massage in Thailand. The first didn't go too well although it was all my fault! Despite people telling me I was best going for an oil based massage first If I wasn't used to having them I decided to go against their advice and opt for a traditional Thai massage...It was brutal! I felt really good afterwards but during the hour long of utter agony there were times I felt they would break my back - the Thai's definitely don't hold back!
So compared to that, the cocunut oil massage felt like heaven! We even went back for more the next day! After all, it can be hard work laying in the sun all day...

We only spent a couple of days in Krabi (although I could've quite happily stayed longer) as we felt we needed to get into Cambodia so we had plenty of time to travel Vietnam. Our plan to get a cheap flight into Cambodia failed miserably as they were so expensive so we had to book a ticket on the bus which took 30 hours to get into Siem Reap. It was definitely my most horrendous and uncomfortable journey so far. Our bus left at 5.30pm for Surat Thani, only the bus was over booked so me and Sarah had to sit in the front with the driver. People are crazy drivers over here and as there were no seat belts it was pretty scary! Three hours later we arrived in Surat Thani where we had to change coaches to get to Bangkok. Once again the driver must've taken an instant disliking to Sarah and I as we were made to sit downstairs on the coach on a tiny sofa with three French guys who were taking up all the room and weren't prepared to give us any. This was a night journey leaving Surat Thani at 9pm and arriving in Bangkok at 6am so as you can imagine it was quite horrific. I felt like like I had been crippled by the time we got to Bangkok.

We then had to find our bus from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. By this point I was on a mission to secure me and Sarah a good seat so I made sure I was the first on the bus. The four hour journey to the border of Cambodia wasn't too bad and once there we got our visas pretty easily, although it did take quite a while. Luckily, we managed to get a taxi with an English couple for £4 each, and bearing in mind Siem Reap is three hours away from the border in a taxi and six hours on a bus, we all felt we got a pretty good deal! Most of the roads leading into Siem Reap are half finished though so it was a very bumpy ride!

We arrived at our hotel, the Garden Village, at 7pm after 27 hours travelling.

Cambodia:

Our main reason for going to Cambodia was to see the Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, so that's exactly what we did after a good night's sleep. Our tuk tuk driver picked us up to take us there. It is absolutely spectacular but so different to what I'd ever imagined or any photo's I'd seen of it. I expected the Angkor Wat to be just one big temple, but there's dozens of other smaller temples around the main Angkor Wat.

Our tuk tuk driver took us to the main Angkor Wat first where we spent a good couple of hours looking round and taking pictures. You'll have some idea of what it is like from my pictures although i don't quite think they do it full justice.

We spent the whole day looking around most of the temples, and we still had more to see the next day. Cambodia is definitely worth going to if only for the Angkor Wat as I don't think there's anywhere else quite like it. The architecture around it is stunning and there are more than 100 stone temples around it. Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in this part of the world.

We were ready for a few drinks when we finally arrived back in Siem Reap, but I think we took it a step too far and rolled in at God knows what time in the morning as we didn't wake up till almost 1pm and our tuk tuk driver was picking us up at 2pm. Suffice to say we were both feeling a little worse for wear on our second visit to Angkor! Going later though we did get to see the sunset there which was pretty amazing. We arrived back and feeling pretty hungover and tired decided to spend the little extra and book a flight to Ho Chi Minh City for the following day as we really couldn't face 12 hours on a bus!

And, Ho Chi Minh City is where I'm writing this from. We've been here a couple of days and leave later tonight for a night train to Na Trang. I can't wait to get to the beach and do some diving! One thing I've realised from this trip is i'm definitely a beach bum rather than a city gal! Ho Chi Minh City is good fun but absolutely crazy and so manic. You literally have to didge the cars and scooters to even have a chance of crossing the road! We went to the Vietnam War memorial museum yesterday which although very interesting, was far too disturbing and distressing. But I guess that's what you've got to expect.
Other than that we've spent the last couple of days walking round the whole city seeing different sights and monuments. After visiting the war museum we decided to go for a couple of drinks, and despite both of us saying the day before we need to spend less on food and drinks, we ended up in the most expensive hotel in Ho Chi Minh City drinking cocktails and wine!

Anyway, I really must go and get some food before getting on the train. Hope all is well with everyone and will speak to you soon!

Hey guys,

We have finally left Koh Tao now after spending three weeks on the Island. It was hard but we had to leave at some point i guess! After we finished out advanced open water course we did a few fun dives with Crystal Dive Resort which were really good, so we now have a grand total of 19 dives each! I need at least 20 to be able to start my dive master training so i'm almost there.

We left Koh Tao on Monday February 2nd and had to endure a 15 hour trip to get to our next destination which was Phuket. Although the journey wasn't half as bad as i expected, we were both hugely disappointed when we arrived in Phuket and wanted to jump straight back on a boat back to Koh Tao.

We had only booked to spend two nights there and that was more than enough! We stayed in Phuket town, with the idea that we would be able to spend a couple of days sight-seeing...... we couldn't have been more wrong!

We purposely didn't choose to stay at Patong Beach as we knew it would be full of tourists and quite tacky.
We intended to be a little bit more cultural, which didn't work out for us at all as there was no culture to see! It's difficult to describe Phuket town without swearing, but basically it's an absolute hole!

It was so dirty and smelly, the roads were way too busy and we couldn't even find a decent place to have some food and a couple of drinks. Suffice to say, the couple nights we stayed there were very early nights!

As we had already paid for two nights we had to find something to do the following day so we jumped on a bus to Patong Beach! It was better than Phuket Town for the simple fact there was a beach, but there were times when i felt i could've been in Blackpool - it was so tacky with dozens of Mcdonalds and Burger Kings!

It didn't have the feel of Thailand at all. The only redeeming feature of Phuket is I found myself a couple of gorgeous new bikini's!

In Just a couple of days we had gone from being in our favourite place in Thailand so far (Koh Tao) to our absoute worst, so we we're pretty disappointed and missing Koh Tao even more.

As you can probably guess, we were delighted to jump on the boat and leave Phuket for Ko Phi Phi - anything had to be better than Phuket! We arrived and we couldn't keep the smiles from our faces - it was absolutely stunning and a breath of fresh air having come from Phuket!

The town is very small, there is no transport - everyone gets around by foot or on bicycles, but it is packed with tourists, a lot more so than Koh Tao. It was hit badly by the Tsunami and although much of it has been rebuilt up, there are parts which clearly haven't had much work done since the disaster.

There are Tsunami evacuation point signs everywhere you turn. On every corner there is a dive shop and there is a huge variety of restaurants and bars considering the size of the Island.

On Saturday (7th) morning we went diving with a dive shop called Barracuda. We did two dives in the morning and it was absolutely amazing. The visibility was fantastic and I swam with my first shark; a leopard shark. It was pretty big and just lying on the sand so we swam over it. I was gutted I didn't see any turtles though as i've been dying to see a turtle since i started diving!

Would love to do some more diving here before we leave but as it's 2,500baht (50quid) for two dives I have to be thinking of the pennies.

Today we went on a day tour to all the little islands around Ko Phi Phi, including Maya Bay where 'The Beach' was filmed. It was absolutely stunning, so beautiful. If only Leo was there it would've been perfect!

We also did a bit of snorkelling, which ended up being free diving for me and Sarah as the snorkels were getting in our way. Once you've done diving it sort of takes the edge away from snorkelling. Our last stop pf the tour was Monkey Bay, where, you guessed it, we saw lots of monkeys. They were so cute and adorable.

Although Ko Phi Phi is a really beautiful island, for me it doesn't compare to Koh Tao. It is by far the best place I have ever visited in my life and I can't wait to go back. justkohtao.com is a website set up by our dive instructor Justin and gives you everything you need to know about Koh Tao and the diving resources there.

I'm actually now thinking of not going home in August as planned and heading back to Koh Tao for couple of months. The funds probably won't allow me to do that, but i'm thinking of ways to get around that!

We are spending another couple of nights in Ko Phi Phi then getting the boat to Krabi for a couple of days before heading into Cambodia.