Its official. Thailand is my favorite. Mals beginning to agree.
Easy to see why. Here's an idea of what we've been upto, good and bad and indifferent, Thai style. Kopkoooonkahh
The things I love about Thailand.
1. The People
Ah lads, they are just so friendly. All you hear morning to night is 'sawaaadeekaaaa' (hello) and Velcom! Cuteness. Sure, half of them are trying to sell you a thai massage, get you into their bar or get into a tuk tuk for a fare that will cost 80p but they're so smiley, happy and friendly, you cant help but love em.
2. The Food
So Mal and I are foodies as Im sure ye all know. Well, we were in our element when we arrived in Bangkok sampling all the local delicacies for the next few days.....Pad Thai, Green chicken curry, Noodles and shrimp, each for a quid made by some 80 year old on the side of the street. Authentic or wha....until.......yes, both of us.... for 4 days. We reckon it was a green curry but OMG the 4 days were WORTH IT. The curry was out of this world. Twas a local place called Pangea on Phi phi Island made by a local (funnily enough). Tasty is not just the word. Spicy. YUM. A few Immodium later and when things got bad (!) an antibiotic, and sure half a stone less (every cloud, girls) we were right as rain and ready to leave Phi Phi. We're a little more careful these days. Can't wait for 4 weeks in India (sweet lantern)
3. The Scuba Diving
We've become these two narly annoying people who look like they know what they're doing on a boat as we attach all our diving gear together as everyone else look on (I copy Mal ha). Australia was amazing for the diving (Cairns) but holy moly you cant beat Phi Phi for the diving. For starters, and Mal will agree with me on this wont you Mal ! Our diving instructor was called Chris from Stockholm and lets just say, could beat any local thai boxer in a heartbeat. He worked out twice a day & had all these mad tattoos over the bod. Mal was impressed with his muscles in a envious way that guys get about other guys in shape.
I was just impressed!
Chris was a cool bloke, very enthusiastic about us getting our Advanced Open Water Course which meant us doing 5 dives in 2 days. We saw huge turtles, all kinds of fish and to top it all off swam with 5 x black tip reef sharks who swam around us -they were about 6 ft in length....amazing. We surfaced and Mal noticed he had a nose bleed and we couldnt stop laughing. Sure tis grand, theres only 5 sharks 3 metres below us and theres blood in the water! Never got into the boat so fast (clambered over Mal, sorry hubbie)
4. Thai Massages
U wan massage, Velcom! Ah how can you resist......200 baht (5 quid) for an hour. Just be careful which one you ask for though -they vary, vastly! Oil massage they like to massage everywhere apparently. So an american just told me at our cookery course today. Nearly spilt my coke as I took a sip.....Im gonna have one later this evening for research purposes. I'll let you know how I get on.
5. Thai Cookery courses
We did ours today and it was a laugh. Cost us 900 baht (a tenner). We were picked up by 'Boom' (hello my name Boom, only once yes not boom boom) and we were brought to a local market. Learnt all about the veggies, diff kind of eggs (there are 3 kinds, did you know that?!). We had a few Germans in our group who thought they were hilarious vit zer jokes. Ve say zom joke. No, youre not funny mate. Snore. Mal and I need to work on our tolerance, I am aware of this.
Anyway, as all this tom foolery was going on, I looked around the market and saw lsomething live jumping up and down in a bucket going mental. I soon realised they were live frogs as the market dear who was about 90 came over and grabbed a few from the bucket. Hey, steady you're hurting the frog dude! The frogs went mental as they were manhandled and put into a plastic bag. I know, a plastic bag - let them breathe for Christs sake! They were trying to get out of the bag in a last chance saloon kinda way. Yer wan showed no mercy and then completely out of the blue let out this mighty roar of a burp. Charming! I jumped it was that loud.And then I started to laugh. Had to muffle the laugh -the one teaching the course glared at me as she was teaching us about Bok Choi. The poor Frogs.
The cookery course was excellent. Learnt a good few more dishes that I'll sample at home. Homemade dipping sauce for spring rolls, Spicy papya salad and my fav chicken coconut soup. Its delish....There were a few yanks in our group aged from 40 to 60 and they all loved Mals accent, twas kinda funny actually. It was like he was Ricky Martin or something. Everytime he opened his mouth, they were drooling!! Oh my, you sound so gorgeous. Sure he loved it. Sure he was nearly singing them a ballad by the end of the day. I shouldnt take my handsome hubbies accent for granted I know.
6. The kids.
I love Thai kids. They're so so cute, so well behaved, so chilled out. I feel a 2011 calendar coming on.
7. The markets.
Cheap cheap, Happy howahh, goo plice. Thats literally all you hear. T-Shirts do amuse me. Cheapo tees but gas stuff on them. Starbucks 'may the froth be with you' , game over picture with a stick man and women getting married (mal thought this was hilarious, eh hello!) and so on. I am in my element with all the fake gucci, prada, hermes. Bliss. So mean though, Ive no room in my bag! Booooo. Dont have a drink and go shopping though. I did that one night and felt so sorry for the chick selling the stuff, she was from Burma and got smuggled into Thailand to make a living and I just wanted to take her home and make her a ham sandwich. I bought a fake prada wallet for 600 baht. I know. robbed. But I felt sorry for her! Lesson to be learnt. Dont drink and shop -just say no!
8. Phi Phi Island
Ah Phi Phi. People, you HAVE to go. Its lush. Tiny little island 2 hours boat journey from Phuket that is beautiful. We visited Maya beach which is the beach in 'The Beach' movie. Stunning but packed with jabroney tourists who packed the beach out. Us too, i know, i know. We also went snorkling as well as the old diving and it was equally as good. Phi Phi was flattened by the Tsunami in 2004 and lots of buildings are still left as they were which is very sad to see. But on a positive note, they've rebuilt a lot and tourism is flourishing. Go visit.
Like everything, you have to take the good with the bad dont you? Here's a few NOs for me.
Things I Dont like about Thailand.
1. Thai men with long nails.
Honestly, its not clever and its not flattering. It doesnt make their fingers look any longer. Only means they tend to get dirty quite easily. One word-Scissors.
2. Krusty backpackers in Thailand.
We are backpacking. WE are clean, we always wear clean clothes and we look CLEAN. So why oh why oh whyyyyy are there these 'type' of travellers (mostly from Israel as we've found out) who think its cool to wear droopy trousers that are basically skirts, arm pits that scream Gilette and dreads that look like they need a SHAMPOO not to mention 55 braclets up their arm (from every country Ive visitied....dude). It just cant be hygenic. Does anyone know the answer to this?!!
3. Loving the food but then wishing you didnt love it so much. Nuff said. We're fine again! And lost the few lbs we totally put on in Australia, hurray.
4. Airports in Bangkok.
Let me explain.
Mal and I spent a few days in Bangkok chilling out and then we flew to Phuket to get the boat out to Phi Phi. We arranged to get a minibus to the airport in Bangkok from our hotel on the Khao san road. Of course Mal comes out with the 'Ger' joke i.e our flight is at 11.45am. Sue are we getting the bus at 7am?! cheeky....we get the bus at 9am. It takes an hour. We're chatting to our fellow passengers on the bus about travels. Its all nice and chilled. I even sip a diet coke to refresh myself. Nice.
We get to the airport and load our bags onto the trolley and head indoors. We look at the flight screen. Where's our flight? Thats wierd, its not there. I ask someone and they look at me like Ive said howya whats the craic. They're thai and havent a rashers. We go to the flight desk. Yer one looks at our travel documents and comes out with the ultimate cracker.......'ohhhhhh zis is not aiport. you neeeee other airport. hurray you have ze no time' WTF we are in the WRONG airport!!!! We look at each other and then our watches. Its 10am. Our flight is at 11.45am and closes at 11am. How long does it take to the other airport - 1 OWAH......we crack up laughing and leg it out of the airport doing wheelies with our trolley as we leg it to the taxi rank shouting at the same time 'quick quick, go to airport please the other one' to some taxi dude whos looking at us.
In fairness to him, we jumped into the taxi and say 'step on it jackson' and he did. About 140 KPH. Legend. He kept shaking his head saying 'u crazy people, why wrong airport, I charge 900 baht yes!' ah jayssussssss. ok ok ok, just get us there for 11am and we pay 900 baht (so its only 22 quid but in relatively speaking in thailand, that is ridiculas, robbed! ). Gunter as I nicknamed him did us proud. I mean, we could hardly look with the beeping and swerving in and out of cars on Bangkoks version of the M50. Nice way to see the city! Every 10 mins or so, I'd ask Gunter 'so we get there on time yes?' and he's like 'oooooh, ze many traffic, I go fast but i dont know, I try, u krazy people'. Ah all we could do was fasten our seatbelts and laugh. You know what? We sped up to the other airport at 10.59am, I legged it in ran up to the desk and got us through. YESSS.
(footnote - Dont you think the minibus company should have ASKED everyone on board the name of the airport? Crazy. Our airport was the main one. Yeah, yeah, we should also have asked but we were going to Charles De Gaulle not the small teenchy Beavais. A classic thai moment - 'ah feck it we dont need to check anything really!')
5. Toilets on trekking.
We did a 2 night 3 day Trek in the jungle up in northern Thailand. Gillian McKeith I was not! It was an experience, ours was pretty average this time but having done one years ago (mals head is melted), it was brillo. Anyway Ill just make one point and say having one toilet is a man made hut for one village is not good. For anyone.
6. Germans and the locals.
Hairy Grandads in yellow budgie smugglers by the pool canoodling with skinny 16 year old local Thai girls is not cool. They are not your 'girlfriend' you have paid for that priviledge for a week. Its ming. Its horrible. Its pervy. Its gross. The budgie smugglers are bad enough but jaysis, the two together is just WRONG! Get your own girlfriend back in Frankfurt thats your own age and also free on the bus. Money, love does not buy, PAL. (I feel so bad for these gorgeous girls, dont do it, Run Forest Run!!)
So thats it for now peeps. We love it here. Its bliss. Very chilled out, easy peasy travelling the past few weeks and nice and relaxed.
Off to Cambodia for 5 days to catch up with Damien and Moira. Oh and see a few Temples...
Over and out for now. Kopkoonkah, Sawaadeykah Sue (and of course Mr. B) xx
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