Koh Phi Phi island

After 2 days of Patong beach (more than enough) we took a ferry boat from Phuket town towards Koh Phi Phi island. A 2 hours journey which we spent chatting with french Canadian couple whilst the rest of the boat looked like human wreck soaking up the sun on the deck, sobering up from the night before. 

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Apres 2 jours à la plage de Patong (plus qu’assez) nous avons pris un ferry en direction de l’ile de Koh Phi Phi. 2 heures de transfert que nous avons passé à discuter avec un couple de québécois pendant que le reste du bateau faisait bronzette sur le pont tentant de décuver de la nuit dernière.

Claude and her husband Clement live in Singapore and were in vacations for 2 weeks, they had not yet book any accommodation for the night so we invited them to come to our hotel. When the ferry arrived at the pier, we realised that nothing could be done without a boat.... No streets, only jungle and beaches. Here we are on a long tail boat towards the hotel, 20 min ride and we discovered the place where we were going to spend the next few days. Got out of the boat on the beach, were given the keys of our bungalow and here we are, climbing stairs for 10 min to reach the highest 'sea view' bungalow set in the midst of the jungle! 

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Claude et son mari Clément sont en vacances pour 2 semaines et vivent à Singapore. Comme ils n’avaient pas encore réservé d’hôtel, on leur a proposé de venir au notre. Quand le ferry est arrivé à quai, nous avons vite compris que tout devait se faire par bateau sur l’ile. Pas de rues, juste la jungle et les plages. Nous voilà sur une chaloupe en direction de l’hôtel. 20 minutes plus tard nous arrivons à l’hôtel, récupérons les clés de notre bungalow et nous commençons a grimper les escaliers pentus au milieu de la jungle afin d’atteindre le bungalow le plus haut avec une vue imprenable sur la mer.

With excitement, we stepped in and analysed the place, being wowed by every bit apart from the 1cm black plopps we could find scattered around, the fact that the bathroom had an entire strip that meant that Anything from the jungle could come into our bungalow/ bed at anytime! 

Our first visitor was a Geko (salamandre), about 15 cm long which we named Polux as we de figured out he would be our third resident during our stay here! Our second visitor was perched on our balcony ceiling! A 'shitty' bat! Litteraly! This little fella was poopping all it can on our outside matteresses! Apparently as soon as they eat, it comes out the otherway and this one was fond of mangoes! Lol.

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Nous entrons dans le bungalow fait uniquement en bambou et commençons à scruter tous les recoins de la chambre. Quelques petites crottes de salamandres mais rien de très effrayant. La salle de bain quant à elle n’était pas complètement hermétique et avait tout un bandeau du plafond ouvert donnant directement sur la jungle. Autant dire que tout et n’importe quoi pouvait entrer dans notre maison d’un soir à leur guise.

Notre premier visiteur, une grande salamandre, 15 cm de long que nous avons appelé Polux. Notre deuxième visiteur était perche sous le toit de notre balcon… Une chauve-souris qui avait des problèmes gastriques. Apparemment, la digestion des chauve-souris est immédiate… dommage pour nos jolis matelas sur le balcon recouverts de déjections…

We put on our head lights in order to climb down to the main area and spent a great evening at the resort beach bar and restaurant chatting to the other guests! All French it seems! 

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Parées de nos lampes de tète afin de descendre dans le resort, nous avons passé une bonne soirée au restaurant et au bar avec les autres vacanciers… Beaucoup de français en raison des vacances de la Toussaint.

Heading back up to the room, Polux was on the ceiling! I guess the only good thing is that they eat mosquitoes! So he became our friend! Our only reassurance which was going to allow our brain to order our bodies to combat the idea that anything/ anyone could come in during the night was that we had a huge mosquito net.. So we were safe! Well sort of! 

The next day, we trekked to Tonsai Village on the other side of the island together with Claude and clement! It was an exciting little trek, stopped at a great viewpoint and ended up in this backpacker type as many bars/clubs/ restaurant crammed in he smallest area! 

We headed out for an afternoon of snorkelling which was amazing! 

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De retour dans notre bungalow, Polux notre nouvel ami était au plafond, et se chargeait de nous débarrasser des moustiques. Pétrifiées par tous les bruits environnants de la jungle, nous étions quelque peu plus rassurées cachées dans notre lit derrière notre moustiquaire géante.

Le jour suivant, nous avons marche au milieu de la jungle afin de rejoindre le seul et unique village de l’ile “Tonsai” avec Claude et Clément. Nous nous sommes arrêtés à un magnifique point de vue dominant toute l’ile. Le village de Tonsai rassemble bar, clubs et restaurants destines au jeunes voyageur qui souhaitent faire la fête.

De notre cote nous avons décidé de faire une excursion palme et tuba pour découvrir de magnifiques fonds marins

Phuket - Lead there by curiosity

Leaving Chiang Mai, we decided to fly south of Thailand to try and find some sun. Here we are in Phuket. We did know that some parts of the island were a little bit dodgy but we decided to see for ourselves... Landing in Phuket, shared a taxi* with 2 other frenchies we met in the plane and here we are in Patong Beach. How could we describe this place... Magalouf style main road, Tacky, full of tatooed covered overweight people mainly eastern European, sugar daddies with young thai girls or ladyboys, bars with neon lights everywhere even in the taxis ! Got proposed 100 times to go and watch a Ping Pong show, will avoid to explain you what it is... but definitely not for us ! In this town, tuk tuk are like "pimp my ride" minivans boosting out music as they take you to Bangla road. See for yourself : 

Top rated activity on Tripadvisor and the lonely planet was Simon Cabaret so we decided to go. An aray of different colours and costumes amazed the crowd. Still now at this point of time hard to believe that all those women on stage were actually lady boys !

*By saying "we shared a taxi" Sophie actually means she was very subtile in ensuring we would be sharing the same taxi! saying to the guys oh, well you've got someone picking you up and you are only 2? we can come with you then!... lol..

Chiang Mai - LIVE !!!!

VIDEO OF OUR ADVENTURES LIVE IN CHIANG MAI

Chiang Mai - Elephants - Trekking - Rafting - Ziplining

After 1 hour of travelling together with the onions, tomatoes and pineapple at the back of the van, we headed out of Chiang Mai and deeper into the Jungle to experience our weekend of Elephant caring and activities. Nat was feeling a little sensitive as she had befriended the toilet seat the night before (not a happy bunny!).

 

We met our Guide, Puza and jumped back in the back of the van to head to our drop off point for the start of our trek. We were with 2 German girls who worked for Trivago. Very friendly and a good laugh! Slopes, hills, rivers, slippery rocks, balancing planks of wood/ bamboo as a bridge and near collapsing terrain, you name it, our trek had it all, but the key thing was being confident in the Guide!

 

And he was good. Puza showed us all of the jungles secrets! Whilst Sophie was afraid of slipping and falling the 3 metre drop, Nat was huffing and puffing as she didn't have much energy (but she gaged an empty stomach was best!). We got to the waterfall, our aim, but given we are in Monsoon season, the amount of water gushing down was too intense for us to jump in! 

On our descent we then joined another group and headed for rafting.. 

 

 

At the end of the day, we returned to camp, were shown to our cabin and spent overnight there. A great opportunity to speak with the whiskey inebriated thai guides and exchange communicative glances and gestures with the Mahout, who are the people who take care of the elephants. One Mahout per elephant. 

7.30 am next morning I (Nat) got up and experienced my first 'tete a tete' with a cockroach! The little fella was on it s back, legs in the air, so I thought... obvious, .... he's dead! Well! Never assume! me being nosy, I just touched him with my flip flop, well the ninja performed a amazing self flip on his legs whilst releasing some kind of white defensive slime, or he maybe he just sneezed at he same time.. I'm not sure! But to my surprise he let out the same kind of 'hiss' as a cat does when it's annoyed! No need to say, I swiftly moved on :).

 

We had breakfast, changed into our Uniform and set off with 10kgs of mini bananas in our basket to distribute to and fed the elephants, which are vegetarian animals! Puza had explained that elephants are somehow like humans, in the way that some are chilled, some are funny and others cheeky! And somehow NOT like humans as an mother caries her baby in her womb for 22 months, an elephant drinks 80 litres a day and pees 40 litres a day! 

 

Next session, learning to mount an elephant on their bare back. Nat couldn't wait and was the first to volunteer...sounds like a deja vu with an ostrich no??... Soph still had a glance of fear in her eyes for a few seconds, but once she got the elephant to kneel, instructing him "nowloon, nowloon", got on top, she was loving it :). She was instructing him to 'Pail' (advance), 'kwe' (turn) and 'how'(stop)!

Lunch break was rice, chicken vegetables and of course pineapple! Of course pineapple! 

 

The afternoon session consisted of a trip with the elephants and the Mahout of course. I can still, now hear in my head 'Pail, Pail, Pail', the instruction that the Californian, 70 yrs old version of Ms Doubtfire, 'Terry' was repeating to her baby elephant for him to advance! She had chosen a little one, even though the Mahout had warned her that he was more fidgety and cheeky, but she was just stubborn and stayed with her choice! Well I said it defo was a good one as it provided us with a great deal of free entertainment! The elephant was eating all he could find on its way, slipping up and down muddy slopes, picking up food with his trunk and drinking from ditches and you would occasionally hear her tone of voice with 'Pail or Kwe' shoot up as a big hint to say to the Mahout 'Hey mate look at what's happening here! Do something!' Unlucky for her he seemed to be the most chilled Mahout in the world! When Sophie jumped off the elephant, she felt for a moment like she was a cowgirl as her inner thighs were aching so much! I must admit my legs were wrapped round the elephant s neck as I was the driver...sophie's legs were wrapped around the elephant's body as she was my passenger!

 

We then moved on to bathing our companions. Sum that up by walking in murky, muddy water full of elephant poo, pee and scrubbing the elephant. Guess what! I was happy like a pig in mud but it was not long before Soph realised the situation in which she was and quickly retreated to the ground, away from poo and pee! 

 

 

 

All in all, it was an amazing weekend spent in the jungle with the elephants. We returned to our 'Green Tulip' hostel in Chiang Mai and went to the Sunday Market, the longest market We had both ever been to! 

 

Last day in Chiang Mai we decided to go for some more adrenaline ! Ziplining over the rice terraces and across the jungle !! Great fun :-)

 

Chiang Mai - "New City" - North Thailand

Chiang Mai, our 2nd stop within Thailand meant that we already knew the approximate price of 120BHT to take us 'Down Town' as they called it was not totally the true value of the service, but we still went with it as there was no other way of getting to our Hostel: 'Green Tulip', a bright coloured hostel located within the 4 walls of Chiang Mai's old City. Got shown our room (see pic), whatched 2 episodes of Drop Dead Diva (very adictive Tv serie - check it out ladies) and headed out for another town discovery in the dark and under the pooooooooring rain this time! Can you guess. Yes, we got Lost again! i must say trying to locate oneself with a map where roads are written in Thai and where locals don't even know there own location did make it harder!

Chiang Mai is, as they say a much more 'tourist town' and we can see why! But it also has a sea side feel to it! 

Next morning, we planned our stay in Chiang Mai; 2 day trek, taking care of elephants, rafting, thai massage course etc.... That same afternoon, we headed to treat ourselves to a Thai massage and facial, 2 hrs of massage (or should I say semi suffering!). WELL you can thank Sophie for suggesting for us to try Thai massage before us taking the 1 day training course as, had we pursued that option, I would have been offering all of you a thai massage to show off my skills, well, I can say you are now safe! Having experienced 1hr of being trodden on, pulled to the extreme, making all bones crack, twisted to the point of hearing all your vertebre snap one after the other,but not to worry They Know What they are doing!  Following this first session of elephant thumping (my masseuse was probably all but a 45kg lady, but felt like an elephant!). We moved on to the Facial, same principle focussed on the face, plus an additional array of all sort of slimmy, scrubby, freezing liquids spread on our faces and rubbed into our cheaks. The  best part for Sophie was when the masseuse put layer after layer of freezing cold cucumber stripps on our faced (reading this, do bare in mind that Sophie nearly has a phobia of cucumber, seeing, smelling or tasting it is a real no go for her!).. So I could just lay there, eyes closed, my head momified in cucumber layer and imagining Soph in crisi mode! Hilarious! ....she was actually OK, so not to worry. My next experience was fish bath where loads of fish eat your dead skin on your feat or legs. (i am sure many of you have already tried this). I was just in fits of nervous laughter for 15 mins! Result, my feat are smoother :).

Bangkok day 2 & 3

Day 2 - Decided to get more organised... after getting breakfast we headed to some tourist attractions. Took a boat towards the Grand Palace, and Wat Pho... So warm and sunny we didn't have water which was obviously a bad idea. Once arrived in Grand Palace, we had to borrow clothes as they did not let us in with long shorts... Imagine us with a long sleeve top and a long skirt on top of our clothes in 35C. After all this culture filled morning, we decided to go shopping. An indoor market named MBK where you can buy fake items of all sorts. We bought a few pair of shorts and t-shirts and a most needed cap. We finally went for a manicure that cost us a third of London prices. On our way home, we stopped off at a European Bistrot and realised that this was where all non locals where hiding. Although went for some red wine, that tasted like water to Sophie...

Not only Sophie has big feet....

Day 3 - Thunderstorms and lightning all night. Nat turned herself into a maid, washing all our clothes but in the machine so the effort was not too extreme ! Morning was chillax and our afternoon was dedicated to Sophie's great idea which was to go for  cooking class. Our chef Ann was great, we were taken to the market to get shown and explained about all the ingredients we were about to use: sweet basil, normal basil, holy basil... you get the idea! We then set off towards our cooking palace together with the rest of our group, a sweedish couple and a chinese family (who knew how to speak very good english). Ann, our lady chef taught us how to recognise sweet tamarind from savoury tamarind and got Nat to dilute the sweet one in warm water which felt like one was diluting a dog s##t into warm water.. yuk yuk! 

Sophie's task was to squeeze the milk out of the coconut meat. The secret is if you want to make coconut cream, only add one cup of water, a lot of cocomut meat and squeeeeze. For coconunt milk, same principle but add three cups of water ! Tadaaaa

We soon realised why Thai cuisine is so yummy... the secret is sugar sugar and again...sugar! sweet or savoury dishes are made with lots of sugar. We then got to prepare and devour a pad thai, some vegetable spring rolls, chicken mussaman curry, papaya salad and fried banana in sesame batter with coconut ice cream. Imagine how full we were after this 5 course home prepared meal! This was our best experience in Bangkok.

Bang Bang ...Kok!

Wun Nueng ('Day 1' in Thai Language)

Smooth plane ride (lush)...get off.. Get in the yellow and green Taxi and let the sign language and mumbling begin! Trip advisor had warned us that the road our '£8 per person, so called 'Cozy Place Bangkok Hostel' was on was very hard to find! That proved correct! However, once arrived, the place was gorgeous! We were shown to our 'Air Con' ( vital plus!) room. lovely! 17:00, Bags down and it was time for us to go scavenging the streets of Bangkok, in a much more civilised way might I point out...the Metro! (Yep).. A ride to town was all but '86p' to get into town. We ended up in front of amazing brand new malls boasting big brands, entertainment and (what was the most important to us at this precise moment in time...FOOD! cheap food! So we picked a nice 'Le Pain Quotidien' style but with Japenese food place which served us great food which did not last long in the plate as it had at least been 6 hours since we hadn't eaten.. The service was v good, the only thing we noticed was that the synchronisation of 'bringing the dishes' was not so spot on lol! (Yes, sorry I work in hospitality lol).

We then headed to 'China Town' ....yes one should know that in every town in the world now there is A China Town! Well that was a bit of a failed mission as we tried walking, realised it was too far so negotiated a ride with a tuk tuk (wait up for the video!), the guy dropped us off in the middle of busy traffic and a few food stalls...we walked around, aimlessly for about 20 minutes, got frustrated, asked for a taxi home, jumped in started rolling and realised we de been done on the price.. 200 BHT (£4), which is much more than a meter taxi would have been, but lesson learnt: ALWAYS ask for a meter taxi!! Home, shower and bed. Boom! 

First stop Hong-Kong

Day 1 - When we landed after a 12 hour flight from London, we had a big culture  shock. Everything went OK from the airport to the hotel with the dedicated shuttle bus. Once at the hotel we paid for our 3 nights stay in advance before seeing the room: big error. The bedroom was really really basic and truly outdated with no blinds and a noisy ventilation system. Given the price we were paying per night we were really disappointed. We decided to go straight into town to have a first look. We spent 2 hours walking and didn't' meet any non-Asiatic person. Food on the street was extremely smelly and neon were everywhere. Street markets are at every corner where you can find lots of electronics , fake bags and wallets ect.

 

Day 2 - Decided to spend the day to visit as much as possible we took the big bus tour around and outside the city which was really enjoyable but under a scortching sun. We took a tram to Victoria Peak, got food at Bubba Gump restaurant (inspired by Forest Gump movie), a ferry to cross to HK island and ended by the night bus tour.
To finish our crazy touristic day we decided to go for some traditional hot pot (Chinese fondue) Once more we were the only European in the whole restaurant.... We were asked to chose 2 soups and a type of meat (all u can eat meat). We tried to immitate the locals around and started to dip our meat in the stock with vegetables and noodles. After a few attempts, Nat became seriously white and stopped eating ... She almost stopped speaking for the rest of the night Lol Fun experience but won't try again I think !!!

 

Day 3 - After a late sleep in, we went to Sophie's paradise: the golden computer market. Indoor shops and stalls with incredible amount of electronics, computers, mobiles, sound system ect Sophie couldn't' get out of it without buying anything. She found a classy white smartphone twice bigger than the iPhone that can run 3 sims at the same time: a new toy !! We left the market to go towards central, the most westernised part of the town. What a breath of fresh air back to civilisation at last .... All fashion designer shops one after the other, brand new shopping mall, nice hotels and great bars and restaurant but yet really pricey ! We met two friends of friends who really showed us another side of HK.

Day 4 - This morning we left HK for Bangkok. Happy to have experienced HK and discover a new culture but now can't wait to eat Thai food !!!!

 

" A bientot pour de nouvelles adventures"