Phi Phi

The first thing I'm going to say about Phi Phi is that I was a retard and took no pictures. This was mainly due to the fact that we spent most of the day on the beach and then the nighttime drinking and watching people get KO'd at the Thai boxing.

However, being the William Wordsworth that I am, I will set the scene for y'all. Phi Phi was one of the worst hit places by the Tsunami and so it's still getting back on track in some respects. It basically consists of loads of narrow little hut lined streets and then bigger hostel/restaurant buildings as you get closer to the centre. The beaches were pretty nice, with a bevvy of Scandinavian women being a particular plus point. Those of you familiar with The Beach would have recognised some of the areas around Phi Phi. For those of you who aren't think white sand, blue sea and big cliffs.





So like I said, during the day it was relax on the beach, listen to an American cage fighter talk about what 'Entrance music' he wanted and do a bit of beach footy. Looking back, we all feel a bit stupid not taking any pictures but they would have been pretty plain anyway. For our first night we all decided that we would get busy with some buckets and make a proper night of it. First off we went to Tiger Bar which was alright as we got a free drink when we went in there and it has a loose Norwich connection through the owner being related to Phil Brown of clothing shop fame. We shared a few buckets in Tiger, and I maintain the portions were not equal because I was feeling a bit lightheaded at this point, definitely not the hardened drinker you all know and love! We strolled about a bit and got in another bar, watched some UFC and drunk some more. Then things started to go downhill for me. After befriending a young Swedish lady and being convinced to buy another bucket I was all over the place. Apparently, we wandered down to the beach to watch the fire jumping/absolute madness taking place. One minute I was with my mates, the next minute I was sat in the middle of a crowd on a deckchair with my head in my hands. They came over, asked if I was alright, got a groan from me, I was told to stay put and they would come back for me.

I'm not one for listening to instructions so I took it upon myself to go for a wander, when I somehow managed to bump into them again, I'm told I had a face full of sand and well let's say that my reputation for having a strong stomach is absolutely shattered! The boys say they were a bit worried about me disappearing, but I just tell them that if you have the speed of Usain Bolt, the agility of Colin Jackson and the strength of Sly Stallone, you wont go far wrong in this world. Night 1 COMPLETE.

The rest of our stay in Phi Phi followed a similar line, with the exception of the being embarrasingly drunk part. One of the highlights for me was going to a place called Reggae Bar each of the three evenings we were there and watching two mates, boys or girls get in the ring with protective gear on and try and Thai box each other out. Sometimes the results were absolutely hilarious, with one bout being a particular highlight. In one corner was this very cocky looking meathead listening to headphones, shadow boxing and trying to psyche himself up. In the other corner was a pretty normal looking Swede. In his corner was a boy Rob described as having "the face of computer programmer on the body of a weightlifter." The bout was a whitewash with Swedish Sam's flying kicks absolutely useless against a flurry of solid punches. It was a shame because the meathead looked like a right idiot and I wanted him to lose. The funny thing was that when we saw Swedish Sam later in the night it looked like he was getting dumped by his girlfriend. That night literally must have been the worse of his life!

Another notable mention has to go to a meal we had in a place called The Hungry Buffalo. Me, Tom and Rob opted for pretty sizeable BBQ burgers with fries, onion rings and salad. Just to give us abreak from the curries, noodles and rice. However, some madheads actually opt to go for this instead.....



Basically if you eat it within half hour then you don't have to pay. There's photos of those that have managed to complete it but trust me most have failed miserably. Including some absolute wideboy we nicknamed Burger Stan who we enjoyed seeing getting pummelled at Thai boxing the next evening.

All in all, Phi Phi was a pretty heavy 3 nights. A warm up if you like for what would happen to us in Koh Phangan over the Christmas period.

Railay

Whilst in Ao Nang we had done a quick journey to Railay on a longtail boat to see what it was like. I'd read a bit about it in Lonely Planet and it looked the perfect place for a trio of geeeeezers.

Railay had a nice chilled out vibe, with three main beach areas and huge cliffs surrounding it. I'd done some reading about the number of climbers that head here because the climbs are said to be amongst the very best in the world.

After having a nose through Lonely Planet we found the cheapest accommodation in Railay and decided to set up base here for three days. Whilst we are never paying massive amounts to stay in places, this was the first time we had gone for the cheapest option available. The hut/bungalows we stayed in were very basic and we got bitten by mosquitos but the location within a massive valley was pretty special.







After literally hurling our bags inside the hut and having our valuables put in a carrier bag, wrapped in masking tape and then thrown in a padlocked room, we headed off to get our beach on. On the way we bumped into this absolute nutcases. Some of you may know that I consider myself the natural successor to David Attenborough so I got busy...















I also saw a snake on our first day as we walked through a bit of wasteground, it was green and not massive but I'm glad it got out of the way before I had to. The beaches at Railay were all pretty nice, the one that we landed on was quite commercial though so we decided on hitting the other one.



The most amusing thing about this beach was that contained within a cave was a shrine to some Indian sea princess who allegedly was in the area hundreds of years ago. The shrine was the idea of fisherman hoping for this princess to grant them more fish. The way they went about trying to get this to happen was by making lots, and I mean hundreds of penises out of wood, painting them all sorts of colours and popping them in there with some pictures of nobs. Bizarre.

Our couple of evenings in Railay were spent chilling out and just having a couple of beers round the fire and such like. One of the weird things about Thailand is the number of Thai blokes here that love reggae, with a hell of a lot of them rocking dreads and just generally trying to look like they are from the Caribbean. This meant that there's a lot of reggae on the stereos, particularly in Railay. This was alright as it added to the relaxed nature of the place. A favourite bar of mine had to be "Skunk" with its entire playlist dedicated to songs about marijuana.

















My highlight of our trip to Railay was definitely the snorkelling trip we took from 2-8 on the second day. The plan was to hit 7 islands with something unique happening at each one. This was slightly messed up when the 2 Swedish girls realised 20 minutes into the trip that they had forgotten the snorkels. The longtail was sent back and the whole thing postponed slightly. Me, Rob and Tom were the only English onboard the boat of 15 and so we did the naughty schoolboy thing of laughing at some of the German people onboard. Before you have a go at our immaturity, a couple were very funny looking and rude to the Swedish girls also so we were justified.

We had 2 snorkel stops to kick off and these were wicked apart from everyone cutting a part of their body on some rocks. Saw LOADS of fish, some of which looked friendlier than others and I didn't drown. At one of the stops we were all handed bananas and told to take them into the water. Within seconds we were absolutely surrounded by thousands of these little fish that love bananas. They proper tickled as they tried to eat the bananas from your fingers and this was not something I've experienced or will experience every day!

Also included in the trip was dinner on the beach, with a sunset and a couple of beers (this was mainly for the couples and left us three feeling a little bit out of place), swimming under a cave and a very weird final stop where we jumped into the water in the pitch black only to see loads of light energy coming out of our hands/legs etc. Apparently this was caused by phosphorous. It was weird all the same.
This day/evening was another that will last long into the memory. Next stop Phi Phi.

Ao Nang (Krabi Province)

Ao Nang marked the first time I felt like I was in the 'beachy' bit of Thailand that you see on postcards. It was absolutely boiling on the first day and I failed suncream wise as did Tom, so we were left looking a bit reddened. We did see a man who resembled Dolph Lundgren however and moved like a robot because he was so hench. This made up for the soreness.



The 2 days we had in Ao Nang were pretty chilled out really, plenty of laying on the beach listening to Ipods. However, the 2 nights will stay with me for a long time. Now, many of you will know that being the Alpha male he is Rob is quite a hairy man. Perhaps similar to Beppe DiMarco in that respect. He also felt a bit vain on our first night so decided to go for a wax. Obviously, there was absolutely no way we were missing out on witnessing our good friend in pain, being the gents we are. In addition, Rob promised to get the wax done in a place with the most frightening fat gay Thai I have ever seen. Cameras at the ready we set off up the street.

Nothing could prepare us for what we were about to see.

The wax started off quite funny, not much in the way of noise from Rob, but then he is a double hard bastard with biceps the size of treetrunks.At this stage, we had big fat gay thai, (who was trying to come onto us and talk about Liverpool) a small woman who didn't speak a word of English, and a Samoan rugby player looking woman who also didn't speak a word of the queens. Things went very wrong when they ran out of waxing strips. They decided it would be a good idea to get in an industrial size bowl for melting wax and then pour it slowly over Rob's entire back. In the meantime, whilst we waited what seemed like hours for it to dry, I found some maids outfits behind a curtain.



When it had sort of dried they began peeling it off WITH THEIR FINGERS very, very slowly. This was obviously hurting very bad and our smiles and laughter soon disappeared. A-These women and half woman, half man clearly had never done a wax before and B- They were clearly quite worried that they were pulling out as much skin as hair. Rob's back resembled some sort of creature in an alien film and he was getting very irritated by the fat gay Thai's constant "Don't worry sir, just wait one more minute sir". I'm no expert in waxing, but it was clear that all they needed to do was get some strips and quickly pull all the wax off. Not in this country, one woman rushed off to the shops to return with some Immac. She spread this all over Rob's back and it now resembled Dirk Kuyt's face. We'd been here a good hour now and barely any hair had been removed. The stuff in Immac is quite toxic I think and not meant to be left on for very long, so after half hour with it on Rob quite rightly snapped and we stormed out of the shop.

This was now going to be a job for the boys. I was about to add waxing to my VAST (ha) selection of talents. After Rob had spent what seemed like 2 hours in the shower washing what he could of the mess off, me and Tom set about peeling the rest off with our hands. This was a bit rank, as we saw a few bits of blood and hurting your mate isn't the best feeling, but we got the job done. By the time we were finished, it was quite late and so we decided to chill out and watch the Barcelona game, hoping that we would never have to do something so feminine/weird ever again.

Second night in Ao Nang was also incident filled. Basically, after getting a deal on some mopeds for about 2 pound each, we decided to ride the 25 odd kilometres to Krabi towncentre. After eventually persuading the women that we had ridden them before, we set off in the evening light.(Mum you may want to look away at this point)

With night falling, we managed to get fairly far into the journey without any problems, however, my absolute inability to spot trouble got involved again when I nearly slammed into the back of a van that was pulling into park. Seconds later a dog ran across the road and nearly got splattered into a million pieces. I was starting to wonder whether this was a good idea. Krabi town centre was pretty crap and we got stared at a lot. Either because we are so good looking or because westerners don't bother going to Krabi town. We had a meal in a very strange restaurant where I swear I saw the owner snort cocaine before she took our food order. I also walked full on into a door frame and hurt my head. After a quick visit to an internet cafe we were set to go back to Ao Nang in time for Arsenal Liverpool.

Being complete retards, we didn't take a map of how to get back or pay much attention to where we needed to turn off etc. This was a big mistake. The journey home in the pitch black was absolutely littered with wrong turns. My particular favourite moment was when Rob needed a wee and we pulled over on some waste ground. All of a sudden, about 3 angry looking dogs charged towards us, I noticed this happening and also Rob hurrying back to his bike. Knowing that I definitely didn't want rabies I did a manouevre on my moped that literally blew the other two away. Somehow hanging onto the bike and keeping it upright I pulled the throttle very quickly and spun the bike in a donut 360 degrees with me sat ontop looking awesome as. All kinds of dust blew up and the other 2 almost died with laughter when they noticed that the dogs weren't interested in us and I had nearly killed myself/smashed the bike into pieces for no reason.

The rest of the journey took absolutely ages and got pretty scary when we went the wrong way for about 8 miles and only saw stray dogs and shadows. Considering we asked about 5 people what way to go, we were a bit worried about not finding our way and having to camp out somewhere. Luckily though, we managed to spot the tiniest sign and celebrated by beeping the horns and standing up on the bikes, like absolute James Blunts.

What's more... Arsenal beat Liverpool (Andre Arshavin, King of Anfield), I celebrated in an Irish pub full of Cockney Liverpool fans and we ate some nachos.

Phuket (Patong)

We spent 1 night here before getting the boat to Ao Nang, it can be summed up as being a place for old fat Brits to try and pull young Thai's. We did a lap of the beach, ate in an Irish pub playing pro IRA songs and then watched Wesley Snipes parachute out of planes in one of the worst films I've ever seen. The one good thing about this waste of a day is the waitress smiled more than any human being I've ever met and I wanted to take her home and keep her in a box. All in all though we were happy to be daaaan sarf after our plane tickets disaster.

Capital of Thailand?

Fresh off the train from Chiang Mai,(I say fresh, we all felt like death and Tom was dangerously close to becoming transparent) we headed back to see our old pal Soi Dave- the most perverse human being currently walking the earth. Not much had changed since we left the hostel other than the people there.

Our original plan was to get back to Bangkok and hit a night out or 2 hard, during the 2 day gap before our flights to Phuket. However, due to Tom's weak immune system, Rob's illness and me feeling tired and a bit battered, our second stay in Bangkok was pretty toned down.

The ladyboys, prostitutes, smog, smells, traffic, malls were all still there though and we enjoyed wandering about to a few new places. We really did chill out a lot this time around. We were also graced with a bit of literary brilliance whilst watching A The Hangover with an American called Josh. Whilst at a film premiere for a film his mate directed for the Sci Fi channel, he was told this piece of advice by an actor from the film 300: "Josh it's been good talking to you, just promise me you wont be a salmon. Swim downstream" This led us to believe that Hollywood actors are ALL on crack.

We also all got haircuts whilst in Bangkok, unfortunately they aren't matching. They were dirt cheap to get though and included 2 hair washes and a neck massage.

On our second night we went to a street performance festival in a Bangkok park. It wasn't brilliant so I didn't get any photos. Aun and her friend came with us and halfway through it was decided that we would attempt to go out that night down the Khaosan road. To be fair, I soon perked up and attempted to hit it hard. After a bottle of whiskey was destroyed by us in Hippie De Bar, (a favourite from our first visit) we headed to The Club. Whilst here we met possibly the weirdest bastard I have and will ever meet. Wearing a hawaiian shirt and stupid shorts he kept coming over and chatting absolute nonsense about how dance music had lost its soul and where was everyone in the early 90's. I was about 6 so not quite ready for the dance revolution. His retardedness peaked when he showed me his mobile phonebook which was just dj name after dj name. At the soonest opportunity we scarpered and were greeted by 2 thai lesbians getting off. WELCOME TO BANGKOK.

The night got weirder still when I was used as a bit of meat by a girl, who seemed to be trying to get western boys near her gay thai friend. Needless to say I was having none of it, and we called it a day. One more visit to Bangkok left..