Overlook on Chiang Mai

We are now sat in "The Coffee Bean", a cafe in Kuala Lumpur LCCT airport.
It has some free internet access that likes to cut off but it gives me an opportunity to finally update the blog.

We have now spent our 6 nights in Chiang Mai and are on our way to Perth in Australia.
Chiang Mai has been fantastic, we have had a great balance of relaxing in our hotel and also going out to explore Chiang Mai and the activities that we took part in.

The last blog post from Chiang mai was on our first full day, the first impression we received was great, and this impression stuck with us as it was definately the best place out of all the places we have stayed at.

There was so much to see, so much to do and it was so cheap in relation to the rest of thailand/Malaysia that we visited.
I got my hair shaved for 90 baht, which is around 1 pounds 70. Cheap as chips, well you can't get chips over here.. but if you could they would probably be the cheapest chips in the world. Also the worst, as they don't cook western food very well. I actually had chips here, and they were overcooked and not as good as the home made ones :)
Later on, Jamie got his hair shaved too, continuing the short hair cut which I am going to stick with, as its easy to manage and doesn't require as much shampoo which is too expensive over here.
Ok, I appear to be waffling on, as per usual :D
On our second full day in Chiang mai we did an activity which we had booked the previous day. The activity was called ATV (Not American Television which I first thought it was when looking at the brochure, but All Terrain Vehicle), which was a quadbiking trek. Basically, we got picked up from our hotel by a mini-bus which had other people on it who were also taking part in the trip. We were then taken to a quadbiking centre where we got lessons on how to work the quadbikes, got given the safety equipment and were then taken in convoy by the Thai Quadbike man, and headed for the mountains, which were 1100 metres high. Which gave us a fantastic view and we drove them through local villages which was great to see, as we saw alot of poverty. The trip was fun, it was a 42km (25 mile) quadbike journey taking around 3-4 hours, but was definately worth doing as it was a highlight of our whole trip and was an exciting day.
After taking part in this activity we couldn't wait to book another trek.
We then later that night booked a Thai cooking course for the next day.
The Thai cooking course was fantastic! We booked it for the evening so we could eat the Thai food we cooked for our tea. We were the only 3 people on the course. The people who were also booked to do it on that day obviously found out that we were going so they cancelled, which was a good choice.  The Thai Lady taking the course was called Meow, which was fun and when teaching us how to cook Thai food she spoke to us as if there was a huge group which was funny, even though there was only three of us there.
When cooking the main course, Chicken Curry with cashew nuts we even created a MasterChef style flame from the frying pan, making the experience even more enjoyable.
It was a five course dinner, which was great to cook and we were there for around 3 hours. We had aprons at the ready, Ben in Pink, Jamie in Blue and I was also in a beautiful Pink coloured apron.
That night we got back to our hotel around half 9 and went out to watch some Thai boxing in a square near some of the local bars. The boxing was fantastic, Thai boxing is kickboxing and there was quite a crowd. We got some good seats, I got a Chang Beer, Ben and Jamie got a cocktail and we sat and watched a few fights whilst really enjoying the experience.
The next day was a more relaxing day, we had a lie in which was nice and then went out to visit some of the traditional Thai temples in Chiang Mai. A man outside our hotel in a Thai “Tuk-tuk” offered to take us to the temples, and wait for us at each one. The price was 100 baht each (just short of two pounds) which was relatively cheap as we then had transport to take us to all the temples booked and meant that visiting the temples was possible in only a couple of hours rather than taking longer if we had to sort out transport to and from each temple.
The day after (yesterday) we booked another activity day. This one was the one we were most excited for. It was a one day adventure tour which consisted of the pickup and drop off to our hotel, Elephant trekking, a waterfall walk, white water rafting and bamboo rafting.
We were supposed to be picked up at 8:15am, so we got ourselves up at 7am, went down to breakfast got ready and waited outside to be picked up. The trip cost 700 baht (14 pounds each) and we had put down a deposit of 300 baht each. We had never had any trouble waiting for pick up for any previous activities as they all seem to be pretty much on time. We waited and waited, made a few calls (which were not answered) to the tour agency and the pickup was nowhere to be seen. After an hour, we realized that they weren’t coming so we decided to walk to see the lady who we booked it with to see what was going on. The lady had mistakenly booked us in for the previous day, however put the 20th onto our deposit receipt, she then apologized and organized for us transport to catch up to the group who luckily had only visited the “Orchard farm” (the part we weren’t too fussed about visiting) and we then headed to the elephant trekking place where we were going to go on the elephants.
We got to the elephant trekking place, had a water and then were told we were going to firstly do the waterfall walk instead and do the elephant trekking later. It worked out better, as the three best activities were left until last.
We had a half an hour walk to the waterfall, which was very similar to the Ingleton waterfall walk in North Yorkshire, the waterfall was really nice, and had a good plunge pool to have a quick dip. After our refreshing, waterfall bathe we then received our lunch, which was noodles in leaf wrapped packaging. It was tasty, I couldn’t eat using chop sticks but it was still yummy.

The next part of the activity was elephant trekking, which was incredible. It was great to see the Elephants up close, feed them bananas and ride them.
Due to the fact we weren’t officially booked for the trek on that day (thanks to the organized tour agency lady) there wasn’t enough Elephants for everyone. This meant that Jamie, Ben and I had to ride on other peoples Elephants, however they were still on them. Basically, there is a seat on the top of the Elephants back that other members on the group were sat on, however we didn’t sit on the seat, we sat on the Elephants neck! It was extremely scary but incredibly fun as the elephant could reach us with its trunk. I had a big bunch of Bananas which made me make friends with my “Dumbo” however, as often as I called him Dumbo, he didn’t fly! Shouting “Come on Dumbo” did amuse the others, and we made good friends with the rest of the bunch.
After we rode the elephant’s we then went White water rafting which was incredibly fun! Geared up and ready to ride the rapids, we went in a raft with an instructor and half of the adventure trekking group. We followed all kinds of commands to paddle forward, backward. Stop paddling, dive right in the raft, left in the raft, all get to the front/back which made it funny when you are with a group you have just met. It was really enjoyable, we got soaked but we were in our swimming stuff so it was all good, and very good fun. After the white water rafting we climbed onto a bamboo raft. The group had to sit down on the raft and the instructor who called me “One-man” picked me to be the raft stander-upper and powerer. (I had to poke the bamboo stick left/right to make the raft move). It was fun, and being called One-Man was also a funny experience.
When we got back we knew it was time for food, a trip to the night market and then bed for our flight to Australia the next day (Today). We got up this morning, went down to breakfast (where I had chicken tikka masala), packed and checked out on our voyage to Perth Australia.
We flew from Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumur are we currently waiting in Kuala Lumpur airport, waiting for our flight to Perth, Australia in 3 hours time. We are incredibly excited to see Perth, it will make a change from our travels around South-east asia, however it is going to be something different, and it will also be the first time (like many other places) we have been to Australia. We have already sorted out the Visa’s so we are hoping that everything is in place making our travels as smooth as possible.
When we get to the airport, Ben’s dad is going to pick us up and take us to his house where we are going to be staying for a few nights in Perth.

Again, a lengthy update but you should now be upto date with most of our trip so far. It has been fantastic, we are all loving it, and we still have over 2 weeks left to chill out and look forward to Perth and Bali

Picture Update: ATV Quad Biking Day

Day 3 in Ao nang...

A lazy start at Aqua Marine saw us first hit the pool after a good breakfast.
We had all made the decision to get a short hair cut, which we thought would be wise due to heat and extra hair resulting in extra sweating. So we headed out from the hotel to find a barbers/salon and came across one relatively easily on the main stretch of Ao nang. With a little wait the electric razor was ready with the number two clipper selected.
The hair dresser was rapid. She did not mess about getting rid of the hair. Before we knew it the hair was on the floor and we left into the afternoon sunshine with a smart short cut.
Next we hit the beach where initially we were approached by the obvious 'Massage?' question with prices at 150 baht, less than 3 quid for an alo vera massage it was hard for Joe to resist. After soaking up some of the sun and paying a visit to the fruit man for some sweet and juicy pineapple we headed back to the hotel which was a short tuk tuk ride away.
We shortly realised that we were a bit behind on a accomadation and needed a place to kip for Ko Phangen and Ko Samui in the next few days. A hungry visit to an internet cafe to book our next accomodation was followed by a pleasant evening meal.
We all chose pizza's as a refreshing change from all of the spicy thai food. Joe decided on a American Hot Pizza. When it arrived he knew he was in trouble with the pizza topping coated in different types of chilli's, big, small, hot, seedy. The consumption of the meal involved extensive sweating and hotness of lips, mouth and throat by Joe but he accomplished the dish well. Jamie and Ben sat in amazement as his lips hugged a bottle of iced water for the rest of the night. One thing is for sure, he was not looking forward to his bowel movements for the next few days.

3 nights in Bangkok, now in Chiang Mai

The last post was written by Jamie, in Ao Nang, Krabi (also updated today).
After Krabi, we moved to Koh Samui for 3 nights, then stayed in Bangkok for 3 nights and have now arrived in Chiang Mai.

The internet (and time) has been hard to find since Krabi, and with a 6 night relaxing stay in Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), I have a good hour spare to give the Blog an update and upload a few pictures aswell.

So, starting with Ko Samui. We spent the first of the three nights on the islands off the east coast at Koh Phangan. Koh Phangan is the host of the "Full moon party", a huge on beach party for young people like ourselves. 30000 people have been known to attend the party and we were all looking forward to seeing what it was like and experience a big beach party atmosphere.
When we were getting to Koh phangan, we first flew from Krabi airport to Koh Samui (we stayed on Koh Samui on the final two nights on the islands). We then got a ferry from Koh Samui to Koh Phangan. Jamie was looking a little ill on the travels, starting feeling slightly feverish on the flight to Koh Samui. By the time we were on the boat to Koh Phangan, Jamie was starting to feel quite ill. The best thing for us, was to get to our accommodation that night on Koh Phangan and stay in, so Jamie could rest which in the end helped him as the next day he was fresh and feeling a million times better. We put it down to "Eating foreign foods" as he felt ill and had a headache. In the end, we missed the full moon party and spent the night in, which allowed us all to recharge which is funny to look back on because out of any of us, Jamie was the one most looking forward to the party.
The next day, Jamies headache had disappeared and we headed for a ferry to Koh Samui.
Our hotel in Koh Samui was like a hut, there was a swimming pool and it reminded me of Centerparcs, the style of accommodation, however ours only cost 12 pounds a night which included breakfast which was a bargain considering the location. Koh samui was nice, our hotel was central to a beach called Lamai beach which was busy and had a few bars and restaurants which was a nice area to chill out for the couple of nights we had in Koh Samui before we flew to Bangkok.
From what we found on the two islands, transport was very expensive in relation to the other places we had visited. The islands were heavily populated with "Westerners" and I think this had a huge reflection on the price.
We had our flight booked for Bangkok when we were in Phuket. It was cheap enough and was a quick way of getting from Samui to Bangkok (well it should have been). The flight (as per usual with the low cost budget airlines) was delayed (3 hours!) which was a lovely wait, as it meant we were actually in the airport for 5 hours. We met two girls from Canada who had just graduated from university, who were talking to us which made the wait seem shorter. They were telling us about there travels and finds so far, and we shared some stories with them about what we have also come across within the last 3 weeks of our travels. We were scheduled to arrive in Bangkok at 20:40 however we actually arrived around 23:00. The pilot caught up some time as the flight seemed quicker than it should.
We got our baggage from the baggage reclaim and got a taxi to the hotel.
Our hotel was close to "Kao San Road" which was a main road in Bangkok which was great being close by.
We had three nights in Bangkok, so two full days which we designated to one day in the "New bit" and one day in the "old part" of Thailand's Capital city.
On our first day we visited MBK shopping centre. Which is a huge shopping centre in the city centre. It has many floors and each floor is huge, it is definitely the biggest shopping centre I have ever been in and it had floors of markets aswell as floors of shops. The top floor had an arcade with a ten-pin bowling alley and a cinema complex. We spent a little while on the floor as we had a good play with the arcade machines and went for a game of bowling.
The bowling scores were in:
Jamie first - 126
ben Second - 76
Joe last - 71.

I would rate my bowling performance as appalling and I would like to blame in on the heat (even though the sun in Bangkok was hidden throughout our stay).

On the first night we went to Khao san road, had a meal and spent a night watching live music with other people who are "traveling" like ourselves. The popular drink was the Bucket, which was tasty and refreshing, the drink was called Samson which was different but nice and basically lasted for the duration of our stay at that outside bar.
We got back that night, had a good sleep and woke up the following day ready to see the temple attractions of Bangkok. We first of all visited the Grand palace which was beautiful, inside of the Grand Palace is a Buddhists temple with the Emerald Buddha. We had to hire long trousers and take our shoes off for when we went inside the temple. We were also not allowed to point our feet towards the Buddha, which meant we had to sit on the floor (some people kneeling, some people relaxed facing forward with feet facing backwards). We weren't allowed to take photographs inside the grand palace however we took plenty of pictures outside and have got some amazing memories about the temple itself. After viewing many sights in the Grand palace we headed towards the Golden Buddha which was a fair distance from the Palace.
The golden buddha was a taxi ride away, a few kilometres and a very cheap price using the "Taxi-meter". We found that you have to use the meter, as if you don't the prices that the taxi drivers quote are extremely unreasonable. Using the meter is cheaper and a fairer way of getting a good price for using the many available taxi's and Tuk Tuk's available.
When we got to the Golden buddha, we found it was closed for refurbishment. We still got a good sight but we couldn't go into see it. This was unfortunate, however it was closed for 6 months. (No websites or people warned us previously), but when we got there it was obvious we couldn't go.
We then was advised by a security guard from a building in China-town to go on a boat trip that you can access at many piers along the Chao Phraya River. The boat trip was fantastic, it took us around the area in a circuit (going along a canal to get back upstream the river). We saw a lot of Bangkok that you wouldn't usually see and there was a boat to ourselves.
We even stopped off whilst on the boat to a shop. The shop was basically a lady on a smaller boat with many items available for purchase whilst mid-float. I wanted to experience this so I purchased a can of Fanta, Jamie also purchased Fanta which was a first as I have never traded with another shop on a boat on a canal before and (I suppose I never thought i would).

That night we went to Patpong Night market which was busy, and very "heated up" as there were many people tugging us to go and see different shows and visit their market. We were getting followed and pestered to buy things and see things which is what we have seen previously in Phuket, however this was on a much larger scale. It was certainly starting to become annoying and I suppose being our age and being male doesn't help as the "Hard Sale" techniques were very intense.
Bangkok, in our opinion was definitely worth a visit. It was completely different to anything I have ever seen and by the end of it I was looking forward to moving onto Chiang Mai. It was great, but very "In your face". With many people trying to make as much money out of the tourists as possible.
Yesterday, we packed our bags and headed for Chiang Mai (where we are right now). We got a flight which was only 30 minutes delayed, from Bangkok to Chaing Mai. We arrived in Chiang Mai yesterday and our first impression was fantastic. The taxi from the airport to our hotel worked out at around 120 Baht, which is just over 2 pounds. Split between the three of us, this is a lot cheaper than taxi's from other places (especially Koh Samui and Koh phangan).
Our hotel in Chiang Mai is called Centera and is fantastic. One of the nicest we have stayed at, and for short of 15 pounds a night each, including breakfast and being really central. It is exactly what we want, and it has many facilities, bars a big fitness suite and a swimming pool. Which means that for the 6 nights we are here for, we can really relax and enjoy Chiang Mai to its full potential.
Last night, we went to the Night Bazaar. The night bazaar is packed with Thai culture and tourist markets, also the markets are extremely laid back with very few hard selling stalls enabling us to freely browse the stalls without being pestered which we have found a lot more relaxing.
Being pestered isn't a problem, as we are now used to it and as long as we calmly say no to things we don't want and just walk away, it makes it easier to "escape".
Today, we are relaxing and are going to plan what to do tomorrow. We aim to do an activity day, and there are many activities on offer. We do plan to do elephant trekking, quad biking up the mountains and going on the explorations of the local "Thai Culture" available to see in Chiang Mai.

So, that's us pretty much updated, Jamie will be posting some pictures that we have taken throughout the past week or so.

We'll try our best to write an update soon!

Long Time No Blogging, here's an update:

So we last posted on Monday where we had arrived at the Aquamarine resort in Ao nang Krabi.

On the Monday night on the off chance we booked an excursion to the 4 islands around Krabi and Phuket. We didn't quite know what to expect for our 6 quid but it turned out to be one of the best days out of the trip.
An early start with a scrumptious hand delivered breakfast to our room we were picked up from the lobby at 9. Still quite wondering what the day would bring the pick up truck became full with other eager tourists.
After a little wait at the shore we were guided onto a Long Tail boat, like a herd of sheep. The long tail boat was basically powered by a huge motor turning propeller which was angled into the water by a "jolly" fisherman. All of the components were on show with the moving mechanism easily accessible by hands, lets put it this way: it would never pass British standards of Health and Safety. But we were not too fussed so longs we got there safely.
A quick decision made us move onto the roof of the boat which made it possible for us to soak up more of the views and sunshine, with some fantastic scenery which was picture perfect.
With the white sand between our toes and clear blue sea only a leap away it couldn't get much better until we went snorkelling surrounding by a wide range of colorful fish and coral.
The sea water was very salty with Ben Joe referring it too McDonald's chips which they had previously sampled in Phuket, it wasn't the nicest tastes in your mouth but we got used to it and the surrounding beauty certainly made up for it.
The snorkeling session was closely following by a Running Bomb of the top of the boat which was particularly amusing as Joe soaked many of the passengers on the lower deck of the boat.
Jamie's attempt at a dive simply ended in a painful belly flop which was sore for some time. But recoverer was needed for the next island for Beach Football.
As we arrived at the final island we knew we had caught the sun especially Joe (after his many top ups of the cream), therefore we slapped the sun cream on again like it was icing on a cake.
As we pondered around the island soaking up the scenery once again, Jamie asked one of the locals for the ball with a quick and snappy Yes! next thing we knew it Joe was involved and a match was set up after a heated, fun, sandy game with retired back to the Long tail boat.
After the boat journey home, we were thankful for a relaxing dip in the pool, followed by a pleasant meal in the local Ao nang town. Our beds were our savour at the end of the night with a good quality dosage of rest on order.

Our first visit to Ao nang (Krabi)

We arrived at our hotel at 14:00, checked in and went for a swim in he pool. The hotel is very Thai, nothing I have seen before, everything is open outside apart from each apartment. The lobby is under a thai style "Gazeebo", and we were greeted with some kind of juice that was really strong but beautful. (As with the other blog posts, you can click the pictures to enlarge).

This was us arriving at the resort, before our swim in the hotel pool.






As I said in my earlier post, the apartment cost us about 9 pounds each per night including breakfast which is really cheap for being near the main beach and near all the restaurants and bars.






We relaxed for a couple of hours, Jamie had a sun bathe whilst Ben had a swim, and I had a swim and also wrote the previous post. :)

The above picture shows the pool surrounded by the chalet style apartments.

We then used the hotels bicycles to ride into the town centre, giving us a look at what is going on in the area. It was about 4ish, and we were "a bit peckish" so we rode the bikes into the town, locked them up and went and had a pizza from an "Italian Restaurant".

Ben's first meal was a Lasagne, which was stone cold in the middle, Ben then realised that changing to a Pizza was a safer option as he knew that the chances were, that wouldn't be microwaved! The pizza's were delicious, we paid the bill (around 3.50 pounds each including a sprite) and went to explore more of the local area.






We unchained the bikes and walked them along the promenade, I then looked after the bikes whilst Ben and Jamie went into the shop for a drink. Whilst they were in the shop, a thai family (all generations), asked me where I was from and how long I was in Thailand etc, they were really nice, and very happy to see us being interested in their home country. When Jamie and Ben came out of the store they asked if we could be in a picture with them (sounds strange to people from the rest of the world, but in Asia, taking a picture with people you meet is actually a normal process).






It was funny for us, as we were sat on a bench, and then they all started to get set up for what appeared to be a "Family Photo". They were very happy people, nice to see and nice to be welcomed by a family who were enjoying their day out on the beach. Below is a photo they took with our camera.

After we said goodbye, they came up to us and said "Welcome gift from Thailand". They gave us some fruit which is very popular in this region of the world. We have been eating it since we landed in Singapore and for them to give us one of their branches from the fruit tree, as a welcome gift was extremely kind and we were very grateful. It shows how nice the local people can be and how different the actions of people in this region of the world are, when meeting and greeting knew people into their country.






When they first asked for a photo, it wasn't a big surprise, as many people we have met on our travels have said "Thai people love to take photos of you and their family, when they meet you" and it also appeared in our research books before we came on our trip.






I placed the branch with the fruit in my bike basket, thanked the family for being kind said "Koh kun Krab" which means "Thank you" in Thai and when we next stopped at the next shop, we took a photo.

We cycled back to our hotel and rested by the pool. Later on, around 9ish, when planning what to do tomorrow, we realised that the best day to have a "Trip out" would be tomorrow, we walked from our hotel to find a tourism agent, walked the opposite direction to what we normally do and found a laundry/Tourism agent/shop "All-in-one".We booked a day for tomorrow to visit 4 islands. This includes a hotel pickup, boat ride to each island, a picnic, snorkaling (which we are looking forward to the most) and the transport back to the hotel.






After a slight barter, we managed to get this for 350 baht which is just under 7 pounds. This is a full day trip, picking us up at 9 and dropping us off back to the hotel at 16:30. We felt that was incredibly cheap for a full day out including food to the local off shore islands.

Our bus ride to Krabi

Today we have arrived in Krabi, we are staying in a resort near the main 'Riley' beach in Ao nang, Krabi. We got here by bus, the only real option as it is low season so the ferry from Phuket to Krabi doesn't run. We booked a mini-bus that would pick us up from our hotel and take us from our hotel in Patong, Phuket to Krabi town. We have also now booked all our flights and transport which includes getting to Chang Mai, Australia and Bali. After researching alternate ways, the cost wasn't that much more to fly and in some cases, flying was the only option. We could have got a mini-bus from Krabi to Samui but that could take all day and there are many budget airline companies that serve asia, we are using AirAsia for most of our flights.

The Mini-bus came to pick us up at half 7, after the man taking us did many circles trying to pick up all the passengers we eventually had everyone on board and were ready for our 3 hour bus ride to Krabi. The bus was fun, we were all going to Krabi, and we got chatting to 3 people, one from Germany and the other two from Slovenia. They were really nice and spoke great English, we chatted the whole way, and played cards to make the Journey much shorter than it was.


We also got advice off the two girls from Slovenia as they had previously been to Bangkok, so they told us the best areas to book a place to stay, in a good location to access all the places that are key to visit. It was great to get chatting and talk about the funny things we have found from our trip so far, including our findings of both the male and female versions of Mr Bean which certainly raised some laughs. We had to stop and change bus, and the three people we were chatting too were going to the same region in Krabi as us (Ao Nang) so we waited for the next bus, had some food and played cards and I attempted some of my poor magic tricks which failed as per usual :).

The man driving the mini-bus then dropped everyone off, and as it happened we were the first on the bus, and the last off the bus as our hotel was the final destination for the passengers travelling to the Ao Nang region of Krabi.

The hotel is great, another great but cheap find from Hotel finder Ben. It costs around 9 pounds each, and that includes breakfast. We have a dining room, TV and 2 bedrooms and its my turn to have the big Double bed, which is certainly going to guarantee 3 nights of comfort.

We are about to go out hopefully using the free advertised bicycles available at our hotel, if there are bikes available, we will cycle down the beach towards Ao Nang beach and to get a bite to eat and go into a few shops.

I'l be updating shortly, (Internet seems to be getting harder to get a hold of) and I'l be attaching some pictures we have taken over the last couple of days.