Tailândia
Inglaterra TailândiaSalad Beach9°46’20” N 99°58’2” E 15 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ 🌙 29 °C
17:15
Feels like we have settled into an easy-going rhythm during our time in Koh Pha Ngan. My alarm wakes us this morning at 09:00. We mooch for a while, before heading out to our favourite café for a bit of breakfast. We head back to our room via the 7/11, to cool down and catch up on our correspondence. Around 12:00, we declare beer o’clock, and head down to the beach bar. After a couple of wines and/or beers, we feel a bit peckish, so have a light lunch. We head back to our room to luxuriate in the awesome coldness and typically have a delightful afternoon nap. We wake around 16:30/17:00, and consider our plans for this evening. Rinse/repeat etc.
Nothing particularly stands out about today so far, and I suspect tomorrow will look and feel much like it. This is a good thing.
23:55
Well that was awesome fun. We have a lovely dinner at Locco’s Pizza Bar. Vicki has a re-run of her sea-bass dish from Saturday, and I have a stellar Tagliata, sliced chargrilled sirloin steak, served over rocket and shaved Parmesan. Tremendous. We head back to our room to freshen up for our evening jaunt, and head out around 20:00 for Apple Bar, where Graham Gold is playing tonight. The club/bar is at the top of an incredibly steep hill - so steep in fact that the bar run a free shuttle service from the main road up to the bar. Several stretches are at a 45 degree angle. When we reach the ‘top’ there are a further 4-5 flights of stairs to navigate, followed by a further climb to get up to the bar. If all that sounds a bit of a hassle, I have to tell you the views are worth it. We’re maybe 100m elevated from the beach, and the views down over Haad Yao, even at night, are breathtaking.
The club itself is a bit of a rabbit warren, with lots of nooks and crannies in which to hide. We grab a drink, and people watch for a half hour. Graham joins us for a chat and a beer, and we spend a lovely time shooting the breeze. He’s been a professional DJ for over 40 years, and it’s fascinating to listen to his stories and experiences. He’s resident on Koh Pha Ngan, and gives us a great insight into what life is like on the island for a Brit. The music’s great, even if the mixing is a little agricultural at times. It’s not super busy. April is the very end of the high season in Thailand. Graham’s playing at 22:30, so we relocate from our crow’s nest at the top of the club down to the dance floor, and have great fun raving away.
We’ve a big night tomorrow night for the Half Moon Party, so we declare victory around 23:40, and leave to navigate the treacherous down slope back to our hotel. Slightly miffed the shuttle will bring you up, but not back down. We take it very slow and steady. There’s almost a minor incident when the handrail that has been our friend suddenly disappears, but we bravely make it back to the main road. It’s a 2-3 minute walk from here back to our hotel. Back in our room, we can still clearly hear the music playing at the bar. I’d noticed a few reviews for Apple Bar on Google yesterday, most of which were from tourists staying locally complaining about the noise. Honestly - you go to a party island like Koh Pha Ngan and get incensed by a bit of music playing late? Grow the fuck up.Leia mais
TailândiaAo Hat Yao9°46’29” N 99°57’57” E
16 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ 🌙 29 °C
16:30
Big change around in our hectic daily schedule today. We’re a little later getting up than yesterday, and head out for breakfast around 10:30. I accidentally (seriously) order more food than I’d planned to, and need a morning nap to see me through. I get up around 14:00, and join Vicki by the pool. She’s bravely tried a Sangsom - a local rum that we’ve been warned can be a touch risky. I join her. It’s - ‘interesting.’ Doesn’t taste like a spiced rum, but goes down easily enough.
Vicki’s peckish, and orders a pizza. I go for a light option of a papaya salad, asking for medium spicy. My first taste sets my mouth on fire. There are crushed red birds-eye chillies throughout, and the dressing has a bold, red tinge - evidence of further chillies. It is, by a country mile, the hottest thing I’ve eaten in this trip. It’s also one of the most delicious - by far the best example of papaya salad I’ve been served while in Thailand. I’m torn between leaving most of it, and devouring it at pace. Ultimately, I manage most of it, but leave as many of the shredded chillies as I can. My lips are burning, and my mouth is watering. I ignore my wine, knowing this will only make the pain worse. 20 minutes pass, and the discomfort starts to dissipate - thankfully.
It’s 15:30, and we both reckon there might be more snoozes in our near future. We’re not heading to the Half Moon party until 21:30 tonight, so we’ve plenty of time to play with. Vicki is off to sleep almost immediately. I try but fail. Apparently, there is a limit to how much napping I can do in a day.
18:00
A comprehensive change of plans. Throughout the afternoon, my stomach’s started to feel less than solid. I don’t think it’s the after-effect of my ultra spicy papaya salad - I suspect that’ll visit me in the morning. To be fair, I would always expect to have a couple of days out of a 3 week trip in this part of the world with a somewhat dicky tum. Without wanting to enter into too much detail, I shan’t be going anywhere tonight that’s more than sprinting distance to the nearest facilities. We’re gutted to miss the Half Moon party, but sometimes listening to what your body’s telling you is the right (if boring) thing to do…
23:30
As a result of my geographical constraints for the evening, we grab a seat down at TropiCoco’s beach bar for sunset. It’s staggeringly beautiful - a real treat. The colours are incredibly vivid, and the light playing off the water is hypnotic. It’s a wonderful place to spend some time.
We have some dinner - a fairly plain Gnocchi dish for me - and spend most of our time people watching. There’s a German guy sitting next to us who I think might be the most stoned man I’ve encountered. He spends quite a bit longer than is entirely necessary explaining to the bar manager about his Grandfather’s technique for opening coconuts with an electric screwdriver. The temperature at this time of evening is a delight - the edge of heat having dissolved from the day.
Not the plans we made, but 100% not the worst way to pass the evening…Leia mais
TailândiaAo Hat Yao9°46’26” N 99°57’55” E
17 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C
08:20
I sleep fitfully. My stomach has been griping and cramping through the night, and it’s woken me up on a few occasions. I give up at 07:00, and ready myself for a somewhat dull couple of hours until I can wake Vicki up. I spend a little longer than I really should wondering if I can engineer a wake up for her earlier than the agreed 09:00, but suspect this will come at a considerable cost.
22:45
We’re just back from the Sea Board beach party, which was great fun. Our day has been a very chilled affair. Well, apart from the drum and bass Vicki is playing when I wake up from my afternoon nap. But you know - other than that…
I’m taking it easy on the food and booze front today, mindful that my stomach still doesn’t feel like it’s operating at full whack. Breakfast is a fairly sedate affair, and we share a pizza for lunch. I’m parsimonious when it comes to beer/wine, until 18:00, when we head down to the beach bar for a light dinner and some wine. I’m overtaken by the urge for a Penang curry. It’s not super-spicy, but has a lovely warmth and fragrance. I demolish it. We end up down on the beach watching another beautiful sunset. Just 100m up the beach from us, we can hear the Sea Board party starting to get rolling. The music is very floaty and fairly ambient in the lead up to sunset, and then starts to kick-on once the sky darkens. We’d originally planned to head back to the room, get ourselves a bit ready for our departure tomorrow, and then head out. Instead, we’re sucked in earlier.
The set-up is great - there’s a covered dance floor with a bar to one side of it. To the other side is a little market/bazaar of local traders, selling jewellery, sunglasses, weed… The music is cranking up. It’s not quite to my taste, though Vicki loves it. A bit too glitzy house for my liking. We have a few vodkas and Manao, and I spend a delightful little while couched on a Flamingo, and people watching. The music gradually improves (for my tastes, at any rate). The temperature is dropping, which is welcome. It’s been pretty steamy today… Conscious that we’ve a *relatively* early start, and haven’t done a jot of packing yet, we head back along the beach to TropiCoco, stopping at the bar for just a couple of quick Café Patrons. They only have the ‘Incendio’ version at the beach bar, which has a little chocolate and some Arbol chilli in it. It’s not hot hot, but noticeably warm as you drink it. Very pleasant actually… We need to get ourselves sorted, so a tad grumpily head back to our bungalow.Leia mais
TailândiaHat Noppharat Thara8°2’35” N 98°48’38” E
18 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
09:50
Learning much from our experience of getting up too early, and having too much time to pack when leaving Koh Tao, we once again get up too early, and have too much time to pack when leaving Koh Pha Ngan. Not *quite* as much sitting around time today, so I guess that’s progress. We’ve checked out of TropiCoco, and are waiting for our taxi to the ferry jetty, for onward travel to Krabi. Today is our last really chunky bit of travel before we head home, and it’ll doubtless feel a bit of a slog.
We’ve both loved Koh Pha Ngan. It’s difficult to think of another place that so effectively combines blissed out relaxation with a hedonistic party life-style. We’d come back, for sure - but would want to explore more of the island, and perhaps stay on one (or more) of the other beaches around the island. And lovely though TropiCoco has been, there have been times when it’s felt it could have been a beach resort pretty much anywhere. It’s quite a family oriented place, and also has one of the few pools along the beach. The owners are more than happy to welcome customers not staying at the hotel to use the pool and beach bar facilities, which has left it feeling a little crowded at times. Our guesthouse in Ao Nang looks a decidedly more adulty affair…
15:00
Our taxi down to Thong Sala jetty transpires to be a Songthaew, the ubiquitous covered pick-up truck with benches that roam the Thai islands. It’s a far cry from the air-conditioned van that met us on arrival. The journey down to the pier is fairly bumpy, and requires the passenger to hold onto a roof rail for dear life to avoid being deposited out of the rear of the truck. I enjoy it perhaps just a tad more than Vicki.
There’s a small amount of confusion at the pier when a ferry arrives which we assume to be ours, but isn’t. We’re quickly boarded onto the correct ferry though, and grab some space in the shade on the outside deck. The crossing to Koh Samui is blissfully quick and smooth. Today is looking good. At Koh Samui though, far more passengers board than depart for the onward journey to Surat Thani, and the boat suddenly feels full to bursting. A family with small child ask to share our bench, which is kinda ok - I guess, but leaves us hemmed in a little. We end up moving, and skulking inside for the last 40 minutes of the journey, which has the upside of being air-conditioned.
Surat Thani is the boat’s last port of call - all change please, all change. Disembarking the boat is a bit of a clusterfuck. No one is really sure where to go, where to collect luggage etc etc. Vicki and I are briefly separated while I head off to grab my rucksack - her wheeled luggage will be waiting for her on the dockside. We make off to find our coach to take us down to Krabi. Buses are numbered 1 to 8. 1 is going to Surat Thani airport, 2 is going to Surat Thani train station, 3 is going… and so on. Buses 7 and 8 are going to Krabi, so we need to jump on one of these. Rather unhelpfully, the buses are also numbered with completely different numbers. Bus number 7 for example, also has large stickers on it declaring it is bus number 14. We find a helpful driver who is loading luggage onto what seems to be bus 7, and he agrees we’re in the right place.
The drive is around 2 1/2 hours. The bus has air-conditioning, but it’s a little lacklustre. Vicki decides to sleep through as much as possible, in some kind of snoozy protest. I envy her. No matter how much better I am at sleeping than I used to be, sleeping upright on a bumpy coach is, I think, always going to be beyond my powers of nap. I instead, read, watch some TV and watch the world go by. This is the first properly rural part of the Thailand mainland that we’ve travelled through, and it’s fascinating to see the changes in scenery, architecture and land use as we pass.
20:00
At Krabi, our cab is waiting to take us onwards to Ao Nang, a beach about 10km to the South. We arrive at our new accommodation, Blue Bayou around 16:30 - just coming up on 7 hours since we left our room at TropiCoco. Our longest journey from here on in should be less than half that.
Our room at Blue Bayou is lovely, but HOT. The ‘feels like’ temp down here is 42C, and the A/C has not been running in our room ahead of our arrival. It’s just starting to cool down as we leave to find beer, food and breeze. The seafront is a short, 3 minute walk away. There’s a warm but cooling breeze (no, I don’t know how that’s possible either) running along the wide boulevard that separates the beach from a row of bars and restaurants housed in shipping containers. We park ourselves at the first that has some jaunt - a pretty kitsch place called Pink Lady. We request, nay - we demand ice cold beer, and it is forthcoming. Sweet, sweet Jeebus it’s good. Our first beer lasts next to no time. We order another, and continue to devour it’s icy coldness. We’ve eaten nothing today beyond a handful of peanuts or cashews en-route, and are both suddenly hit by a famished hunger. Several containers down is a traditional Thai place called Cholmay. We bowl in that direction in urgent search of sustenance.
The food at Cholmay is top notch. A green shrimp curry for Vicki, and a southern yellow seabass curry for me. The green curry is excellent, but I’m really taken by the yellow curry. It’s unlike any other Thai curry I’ve had. There’s no richness of coconut milk (which I had assumed there would be), but rather the sourness of tamarind, the sweetness of pineapple, and the heat of chilli. The curry ‘sauce’ is more of a broth, but none the worse for it. It’s fabulous. One of my fave meals of our trip so far. We have some stir-fried morning glory (fnarr) to accompany it which is also excellent. Morning glory occupies a place somewhere between broccoli and spinach, and is the most common everyday green vegetable in Thailand. It’s simply stir-fried here with chilli, garlic, ginger, soy and fish sauces, and finished with a little oyster sauce. Brilliant.
We’re planning / hoping to meet Pete while we’re in town, who is the younger brother of our dear friend Debbie. Conscious we need to freshen up fairly markedly before we encounter other humans, we head back to Blue Bayou. A shower seems an utter waste of time, so I have a dip in the pool instead. It’s warm and luxuriant, and right outside our terrace doors…
23:30
We successfully find Pete, and end up back at the Pink Lady, where a half-decent band are covering the likes of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand. Pete’s a very easy drinks companion, and tells us many stories of his 12+ years living in Thailand. He’s here for the duration - he and his Thai wife have plans in play to build a retirement home in the North of Thailand, and holiday homes for rental in the South. We spend a delightful hour or so shooting the breeze, before Pete heads off to meet Ffa, his wife.
We’re not quite ready for our day to end, so head down to the daily night market. The nightly market? I don’t know. You get me, right? Here, there is a less than half decent band murdering the likes of U2, The Police, Bryan Adams. They are not good. Vicki has earplugs, which we both employ. We have a little wander around some of the market stalls, but will come back for a more complete look around tomorrow. Vicki has her mind slightly set on replacing one of her thumb rings, and this could be a good opportunity.
We stop in at Dragon’s Breath on the way back to Blue Bayou - one of the many weed dispensaries we’ve seen. Strictly speaking, these are intended for the sale of medically required cannabis, but from what we’ve seen, heard and read, no one is asking for a prescription. The range of weed on sale is both impressive, and daunting. Neither of us is a big smoker. I had my time when I was younger, but very rarely smoke these days. Mainly outside of the UK to be honest. Vicki has just never got on with smoke - doesn’t like the feeling of being stoned. We’ve agreed to try once more, with (hopefully) something not too strong, and we’ll carefully moderate our intake. The guy in the shop gives us a few different options for Sativa strains, and we plump for a strain called Black Cherry, on the basis that we like the fruit, and it smells nice. He makes us a ready rolled with the precision and speed of one who has done it countless times before, and we’re quickly on our way back to our room.
No bifta tonight though - it’s past 23:00, and Vicks is ready for more sleeps.Leia mais
TailândiaHat Noppharat Thara8°2’35” N 98°48’36” E
19 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
11:45
I have a slightly rough night’s sleep. Some bad news from back home pervades my dreams, and I wake in a bit of a tiz on more than one occasion. I generously allow Vicki to sleep till 09:24, before deciding enough is really enough. She’s banked another 10 hour plus sleep, and frankly, it’s getting a little ridiculous now.
While she’s slept, I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re not staying exactly where I thought we were. The main Ao Nang town is a couple of kilometres to the East of us, alongside Ao Nang beach. We, rather, are staying next to Nopharat Thara beach, which is just not the same thing at all. We decide to head over to Ao Nang proper for some breakfast, and find a very cool little café knocking out decent brunch type stuff. It’s a lot busier over here - tons of knock off shops selling fake branded goods. We decide Nopharat Thara, with its idiosyncratic night market, small Thai run bars and restaurants is more our speed.
We’re deciding what to do with our single full day in Ao Nang. The conclusion is (perhaps unsurprisingly) not very much. We’ve both really enjoyed taking some time out to properly rest on this trip, and it’s been a while since we’ve been able to do so together. We’d thought about getting a longboat over to Railay beach, a couple of headlands further East from us, and only accessible from the water. A combination of feckless layaboutery, and concerns over Vicki’s skin combine to dissuade us from this strategy. We’ve already decided we’re going to come back to Thailand, and have been building a healthy and growing list of stuff we want to do when we do…
19:30
We’ve become ‘not doing very much’ ninjas. I have an amazing nap around 12:30, and wake at 14:00 full of very few beans. We mooch for an hour or so, then decide there’s a day out there at which we should probably go and have another look. We mosey as far as Pink Lady, and get sucked in by our new friends. There follows a very intense few games of shut the box (which I appear to have misnomered 'shit the bed'), with Vicki the winner of a tight competition, 3-2. We move onto Connect 4, and this time, I’m the victor. All this accompanied by some ultra chilly beers. It’s past 16:00, and we’re feeling some hunger pangs, so we head back to Chomlay for a late lunch. More delicious food follows - a black pepper chicken stir-fry for me, and some simple soy fried noodles for Vicki.
We reason that it’s been close to 3 hours since someone had a nap. It’s Vicki’s turn, so back at our guesthouse, she’s quickly out for a 60 count, while I read contentedly next to her…
Not 100% sure what our evening plans will entail, except that we’re both in need of a shower, and some wine.
23:30
There’s something not quite right about Team Irvine today. I think we’re just both feeling a bit under-powered. Perhaps just a touch of fatigue after a couple of weeks on the road, maybe the hint of a little bug keeping us both a little deflated. Whatever it is, it pervades our evening plans. We pop out to an Italian restaurant for a quick bite to eat, neither of us quite fancying spice and heat tonight. Don’t think either of us are particularly hungry, but we’ve a boat trip tomorrow, and will avoid eating till we arrive at our next destination. We’re back in our room by 22:30, and Vicki turns in not long after that. I’m not quite sleep ready yet, so read for a while. I’m conscious that Vicki is not dropping off to sleep in her usual, almost instantaneous fashion. Crikey.Leia mais
TailândiaLaem Yung7°36’41” N 99°2’8” E 20 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
07:45
I’m awake at 06:00. For some reason, my brain just switched on this morning, and wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. This happens quite frequently. It’s rarely something big or scary with which my mind decides to concern itself. Ephemera, usually - and such as it is, it’s enough to keep me awake.
At 07:30, Vicki declares she’s awake. She’s not slept well, bless her. This is such a rare occurrence that it rather takes me aback. Again, no obvious rhyme or reason - just one of those things. Thankfully, our journey is a pretty straightforward one. Koh Lanta is around 40km to the South East of us, and will take around 2 hours by Ferry from Ao Nang. Our pick up is not until 09:30, so we’ve more than enough time to pack, and do some urgent sitting around waiting…
12:30
Massively different ferry experience. The ferry company has offered to pick us up for our onward boat to Koh Lanta. Confirming with them yesterday, they said it would be there between 09:30 and 09:45. As 09:50 rolls around with no sign of our lift, we book a Grab. I suspect the boat guys would have turned up at some point, but it’s not really worth the stress. The pier is a much calmer experience than the Lomprayah ferries we’ve been taking in the Gulf of Thailand. We’re very quickly boarded into a bright, airy cabin that’s deliciously cool. As our 10:30 departure time looms, the cabin is still only about 1/3 full. We depart on time, and cruise serenely along the coast towards Railay Beach, 10-15 minutes away.
On arrival at Railay, we mate with another ferry, and some passengers are transferred. This is a definite first for me. A few more passengers are dropped-off by longtail boat. Even with these extra passengers, the boat is only 1/2 full for the journey down to Sala Dan Pier.
Vicks snoozes. After a rotten night’s sleep, I’m barely surprised. When she wakes up, she has fairly impressive indents from where she’s been resting her face on her rucksack. I visit the little snack shop dude for supplies. I’m stunned/delighted when he asks if I want a beer. Er, yes please. An icy Chang is the piece de resistance. I adore this ferry.
17:00
We arrive into Sala Dan Pier at 13:15, a little later than planned, but not disastrously so. Our guesthouse have sent a driver to pick us up, but we can’t find him. I call them. The chap at the other end says the driver is there - he’ll call the driver to let him know where we are. 5 minutes pass, no driver. I call the guesthouse again. Apparently, the driver is now ‘on his way’ and should be with us in a few minutes. 5 minutes, no driver. I call back for a 3rd time, and a woman answers. She starts to ask who I am, and what I want, and whether we have in fact asked for a transfer from the boat pier. Eventually, we agree that the driver will be there in around 10 minutes. It’s 10 mins from the guesthouse to the pier, so the driver is clearly setting off now. 10 minutes pass, no driver. I’m just about to phone back again and lose my shit, when a driver from our resort turns up. He is NOT expecting us. He’s here to pick some folks up that are arriving on a 14:00 ferry, 10 minutes from now - and assuming the boat is on time… We are beginning to lose our cool - figuratively and literally. The driver sense this, and says we’ll head straight over.
Our room is great. The benefit of booking so many travels this year via one website (booking.com, I don’t receive payments etc etc) is that I get discounts and upgrades at some of the places I’m staying - and Lanta Sands is one. We’re in a family room, with two bedrooms. Crucially, our room has a plunge pool attached which is actually cool and refreshing. I spend a deliriously happy 10 minutes paddling up and down, and cooling off.
We head out, down the beach for some lunch, stopping at a very jaunty place called The Funky Fish. An ice cold beer is quickly followed by another ice cold beer. They bring us some great food. Some weird clay pot contraption contains prawns and glass noodles. They are fantastic. Another dish has some fried yellow (egg) noodles with prawns - also wonderful.
We’ve dumped and run at our room, and need to get ourselves just a little sorted/unpacked for our stay. Back at the hotel, I briefly consider a nap, then decide against it. We want to get out to watch the sunset, and it’s already 17:30. We pad down the beach to a bar appropriately called Sunset Bar. We graze the cocktail menu with mixed success. The views of sunset are (once again) spectacular. Around 19:00, we head up towards the main road where many of the local bars, restaurants and shops are located. It feels a little like a ghost town. Many are simply not open at all, whilst those that are open tend to have a maximum of a handful of customers. We’re at the very tail end of the season, and this is the first island where it’s felt like it. Dinner denied, we head back down to the beach, and walk this time to the North, and find a great little place called Second Home. They have some fresh wild sea-bass, which they grill whole for us with garlic and pepper. Sensational.
It’s getting late (21:00!?) so we wander back up the beach, where the incoming tide is rapidly encroaching, and head back to our room. We chill out with some wine, and a couple of TV episodes, before falling into the deep sleep of the deserving…Leia mais
TailândiaLaem Yung7°36’45” N 99°1’53” E
21 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
21:50
We both have brilliant sleeps, in part aided by my going to sleep in the spare room around 03:00, and by there being a thunderstorm around 04:30, which despite us being in separate rooms we join together to watch.
We head down the beach for some breakfast. It’s warming up, but there’s a beautiful breeze coming off the ocean. When I say it’s breakfast, what I mean is a meal we eat at 11:30, quickly followed by a beer - just so we’re all on the same page.
Somewhere in the early afternoon, I have a stunning nap. When I wake up, Vicks is nowhere to be seen. I join her at the beach bar, and we have a couple of sharpeners. We’re both in dire need of a shower, so head back to our room to freshen up. We’d thought about going over to Lanta Old Town this evening, which is a 40 minute ride to the East side of the island. We receive intelligence to suggest there’s a very cool sunset bar 20 minutes walk to the South of us, so decide that’s a better bet.
The walk down the beach is beautiful and knackering. Most of the sand is pretty soft, and we both feel like we’re climbing through quicksand on more than one occasion. The bar we’re heading to (Pangea) is great. A pretty prototypical beach bar, but with awesome house music as the sun sets to the West of us. We order some food, mainly conscious that we’ve not eaten much today, and it’s delicious. We grab another couple of drinks as the sunset dies, and the night sky begins to grow.
Walking the mile or so back up the beach is no easier, but much more fun. We spot a million crabs running up and down the sand. Near to our hotel, we stop for a vodka+manao. We accidentally end up at our hotel’s beach bar for a glass of wine, before deciding that enough is enough - we need to cool down. Our room is an ice-box. This is a good thing.Leia mais
TailândiaLaem Yung7°37’5” N 99°1’44” E
22 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C
18:00
We’re both feeling pretty low powered today. We had a moderately boozy day yesterday, but nothing out of the ordinary, and don’t deserve to feel quite like we do. We mooch in bed for an hour or so, before deciding breakfast might fix us. It doesn’t., so we settle in for a day of rest and recuperation.
When we head out to grab some lunch, the heat is stifling. We’re back in the 40s, and it feels every degree of it. We’re supposed to be heading to a beach party later, but I suspect we may play that one by ear, depending on how we’re feeling. We’ve moving on to Koh Phi Phi tomorrow, and a quiet night might be to our benefit.
21:30
We head back to Second Home for dinner. The whole grilled sea bass we had a couple of days ago was smashing. This time, I have a fillet of barracuda, prepared with a hot, sweet and sour type sauce. V tasty. Vicki has some simple BBQ prawns and some fried rice.
Sated, we walk all of 100m down the beach to Ozone, where tonight’s beach party is happening. Well, ‘happening’ is really not the word. As we approach, there are two customers in the bar. As we arrive, they get up to leave. We turn around and vamoose. We’ve no issues being the only people in a bar, but it’s a little sad to see what I’m sure is a busy night at the peak of the season reduced to just a handful of punters as the season comes to a close. We pitch up, instead, at our hotel’s beach bar.
After sitting in the uber comfy chairs for about 10 minutes, we both start to notice drops of rain falling. We’ve seen a couple of rain and thunderstorms from our room in recent days. This feels much lighter. Vicks takes cover, but I sit in the warm rain for a few minutes. Being rained on is one of my very favourite things. Suddenly, it’s a deluge. It is THROWING it down. I decide dryness might be for the best, and join the other patrons cowering under the scant cover. The wind is blowing the rain in sideways, so we creep and creep further to the back of the bar. A Korean couple sitting at the bar open their umbrellas, while they’re sat at the bar. It’s comical.
After another glass of wine, we decide it’s time to make a run for it. As we walk into the storm, we very quickly realise we have made a significant error. After 15 metres, we are beyond drenched. By the time we reach the reception area 75m away our clothes are entirely stuck to us, and we are dripping wet. We then have a 10m walk to the building our room is in. It’s like walking into a full on rain shower. I’ve never experienced rain this hard that I can remember. It’s crazy. As we open the door to our room, the icy blast of A/C is actually pretty uncomfortable. We quickly strip off the worst of our clothing, and dry down.Leia mais
TailândiaKhlongdao Beach7°38’10” N 99°1’48” E
23 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C
17:30
Phi Phi DENIED. Vicks has not had a good night’s sleep, and feels pretty sub-standard this morning. We’re not sure quite what’s causing her to feel like this - I feel fine (but with out any semblance of smugness), so suspect it’s not a bug. She’s been keeping really well hydrated throughout our trip, as she always does, but we can’t escape the feeling that it might somehow be heat related. She soldiers on, bless her. We get packed up in decent time, and wait in the reception area at Lanta Sands for our midday pick up.
Stunningly, our pick-up arrives on time. It’s a songthaew that already looks full to bursting. We’re a little sceptical as to whether we’ll fit into the flatbed of the truck, but happily the driver opens a secret door to a tiny compartment for two that we’d barely noticed was there. I can see Vicki is really struggling in the heat, so even 5 mins of A/C in the truck is a welcome gift. At the pier, the heat is oppressive. BBC reckons the heat index today is at 47C, which is just nuts.
We’ve 40 minutes until boarding for our speedboat to Phi Phi, so grab a cold drink for Vicks and a beer for me at a little café. Vicki is deteriorating rapidly. She can barely sit up without feeling like she’s going to pass out, and several times has to lie down on the bench to rest. I’ve already suggested we stay on Koh Lanta an extra couple of days, and head straight from here to Phuket, but she’s adamant we should continue. As our boat departure approaches, I think she’s getting worse. We again discuss changing our plans, and I’m pleased when she acquiesces. Definite hints of heat exhaustion - dizziness, nausea etc.
We spend another 30 minutes trying to cool her down, which is tricky in a sheltered, inland area. The girls working behind the counter in the café ask if she’s ok, and offer a bag of ice to help cool her, and this seems to do the trick - enough, at least, to enable us to complete a quick 5 minute tuk-tuk ride to the resort at which I’ve hastily booked us a couple of nights of accommodation. It really feels like this is for the best. It means missing out on Phi Phi, and the boat trip we’d planned tomorrow to the neighbouring islands, but health comes first.
We’re into our room, and Vicks is settled by 14:00. I leave her to rest/sleep, and head out to the resort’s beach bar for some food. OMG - they have Savanna Dry by the bottle. After what’s been a worrying and stressful morning, it’s an absolutely marvellous tonic. I’m conscious I’ve not eaten today, and suddenly am ravenous. I have an amazing dish of minced pork with fried aubergine, which is pretty high up on the chilli richter scale, but which I thoroughly enjoy. I tell myself the second and third bottles of Savanna are purely about chilli heat management.
Back at the room, Vicki’s dozing. I decide to join her. It’s been a tough old day…
23:30
Around 19:00, I head out in search of sustenance. Vicks has requested some water and a can of Sprite for dinner, which I’ll source and take back for her. I always go into this kind of hunter/gatherer mentality when she’s not feeling well.
I’m not feeling particularly energised or adventurous, so head back to our resort’s beach restaurant where I ate earlier. A couple of ice cold Savannas really hit the spot, and I have a chicken and cashew stir-fry which is tremendous.
At 20:30 and back at the bungalow, I receive the worst of news. My darling friend Mick has succumbed in his fight against cancer. Even though none of that circle of friends would have been local to me had I been in Brighton today, it somehow feels more of a gut-punch to hear this news from 6,000 miles away. I loved Micky in so many ways, but I think most of all for being the best example of a human that he could be - whether as a friend, a brother, a son, a dad or as a husband. I’m heart-broken, for myself - but so much moreso for his incredible wife, Em, and for his beautiful kids, Bertie and Elsie. The world is an unfair place, and is a much worse world tonight for no longer having him in it. Rest easy, lovely boy. x x xLeia mais
TailândiaKhlongdao Beach7°37’59” N 99°1’52” E 25 de abril de 2024, Tailândia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
13:30
I sleep terribly. My dreams are (unsurprisingly) littered with loss and chaos. I don’t think I slept till nearly 03:00, and then only fitfully. Vicks, happily, has had a much better sleep, and is feeling in finer fettle this morning, to the extent that she declares she *might* be hungry. I manage to doze off again around 10:00 for another hour, and we then head out for some food. It feels a little cooler today - perhaps psychosomatic, but I’ll take it, nonetheless. There’s also a vigorous and cooling breeze coming out of the South West. As we sit on the beachfront, contemplating the world, it’s a pleasant temperature. Vicki vehemently sticks to the very plainest of jasmine rice, and I have some stir-fried noodles. As we re-enter our room, I smash my shin against the hardwood bed frame. Usually, 10 seconds of swearing and shouting is enough to diminish the pain. Not this time. Suspect this one is a few days of ouch, followed by a lifelong scar. Tremendous.
18:30
Vicki has slept around 16 of the past 24 hours. I have been bored and lonely for around 16 of the past 24 hours. I’m conscious that correlation is not the same as causation, but I can’t help but feel there’s a link here. We pop out for a very late lunch/very early dinner. Vicki bravely eats a pizza - stage 3 of her ‘getting back to eating/drinking normally’ campaign. I have a stir-fried duck dish that is banging. Vicks seems a lot better for taking it easy and sleeping so much, and this hopefully stands us in good stead to head on to Phuket in the morning.
23:50
We need to grab a few supplies for our journey tomorrow, so head down the beach in search of a mini-mart, and frankly - just to get out of our room for a little while. We stumble upon a little bar called Majestic, whose playlist is basically out of early 90’s Seattle. We hear some Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, LIVE, all washed down with a couple of Mojitos (for me)… It makes a refreshing change from the music at *most* of the beach-bars we’ve visited, which tends to feature bouncy pop covers. Yesterday, I was treated to a shitty pop rework of California Dreaming by the Beach Boys. Best avoided.
Vicki’s been awake for a full 3 hours, so needs to get back to sleep pretty pronto. I don’t feel like sleep, despite desperately needing it.Leia mais
Viajante
Possibly a GMJ track.