Bangkok

Day 85

Last day!!!!!!!!!

I am not sure what happened but 5 days have gone amiss somewhere?  It was our last day of a long trip,  Boy how we have enjoyed it, time has literally flown by.  We are ready for going back though, we have seen everything we had wanted and met some amazing people on route.

Today however we just took it it easy and relaxed by the pool most of the day before heading out for some street food in the evening.  Bangkok really is amazing and is still my favourite city, its got everything!

View from our room at the fabulous Pathumwan Princess

A random interactive fish tank we found in Bangkok airport!

On the way back I took some cool shots of the mountains as we flew overhead, somewhere near Afghanistan.

We will be on our travels again soon, next time we will be cruising round the Mediterranean in July, Cannes, Rome, Gibraltar here we come!!!

Bangkok

Day 84

Claire had booked a cooking class with Baipai Cooking School, so we were up bright and early.  When I get back I am going to look forward to a nice lie in.


Before we started the class we were taken to a local market and where shown what type of products were needed for the class.

The cooking school was based in a really nice house,  I was expecting a more of a class room type place.

We were soon underway, there was a total of three dishes that needed to be made.

Here are the three dishes I cooked

Chicken and Cashew Nuts

Spicey (way way too hot, I did not finish it) Beef Salad

Pad Thai

All of the dishes took less than 10 minutes to cook.  However it was the preparation time and amount of ingredients that surprised me.  We both definitely learned a few thing though.

Not long left now.  Where has the time gone, it has literally flown by.

Bangkok

Day 83

After another hard days shopping, yes there are clothes left in bangkok.  This is despite claire's efforts to buy them all!  We decided to have a leg and shoulder massage.

It was £8 each for the hour massage.  Dont get me wrong it was relaxing however, the neck massage was quite rough at times.

Bangkok

Day 82

The day of shopping has arrived!!!! Claire has her purse primed and ready for the busy day ahead. We were heading to to Platinum Plaza, a 6 story fashion outlet.  First we had to negotiate with tuc tuc driver, after quickly agreeing a price we were off.

Claire was soon in her element!

After god knows how long we spent shopping, we headed back to the via motorbike taxi.  This is definitely the quickest way to get about and definitely the most thrilling!! It is not for the faint hearted.

I would also like to point out that Claire bought half of Bangkok today, the amount of bags we have in the room is crazy!!!!  This is only day 1 of Claire's shopping spree.

Bangkok

Day 81

Back to Bangkok, my favourite place.  However, this is the last stop on the trip, time has flown by.  We will soon be heading back home.   We were staying back in our favourite hotel The Pathumwan Princess, right next to the MBK centre.

Not much shopping was done today, that is being saved for tomorrow.  Claire loves her shopping to say the least.

Bought some cheap food at Sumo Restaurant.

Phuket

Day 80

For the most part of the day it was chilling out, yeah  I know again.  When the pool was a little bit empty  I could not resist and do a bomb!!!  That rock is too well placed, plus the pool is about 4 metres deep (the top end).

We then headed for a stroll around Chalong and had some cheap  Pad Thai.

View from the pier.

Phuket

Day 79

A lazy lazy day!  We literally chilled out by the pool all day.  Having looked back on our time travelling I think there have been very few days where we have bummed about.  There were a couple of days in Bali and the odd one in Koh Samui.  We are kind of using these next few days to recharge because when we hit Bangkok for the second time it is going to be really busy and then we fly home.

We did buy a bit of cat food at the shop as there are tons of strays, could not help but feed them.

Phi Phi

Day 78

We set off from Chalong Pier on another speedboat trip.  This time we were visiting the islands off Phuket.  First up was Maya Bay, which is part of Phi Phi Ley.  This particular area is famous because the majority of the film 'The Beach'  was set here.

As we were approaching the island I thought, it can not be that busy.  We had paid extra to come here at a quiet time.

Quiet, whatever!!!!!!!!!!!  This was the busiest beach I have ever been to.  It was absolutely rammed not fun at all.  The water was absolutely crystal clear though, which is very impressive seen as the amount of boats that come here. 

This is how it should look, well it did in the movie!

We were advised by our guides to go to a look out point round the corner.  The queue to get to this place was big.  When we got to the view point there was not much there.

We were pretty glad to be getting back on the boat and moving on to the next attraction. This was a ride through Pileh Cove.

After the cove we headed to Monkey Beach.  This turned out to be more of a rock face, but there were monkeys, a lot of them.   All of the boats including ours threw bananas to them, so much for not feeding the animals.

After here we went snorkeling at Ton Sai Bay. The amount of fish here was unbelievable, hey would swim right up to your hands (especially with bread in them).  You would be surrounded by a hundred or so all pecking at you hand.  However, what they did not tell us was the place was full of little jelly fish.  Nothing deadly, but I got stung about 8 times, each one felt like someone had just burnt your skin. Claire and many others did not last long.

We then sailed to the Viking Cave. Tourists are not allowed in anymore unfortunately.  In the caves the locals  (government ) collect swallows nests.  The japanese like to put them in soup.  1 kilo of nests cost £300,000 so it is a pretty lucrative business.

Next we moved on to Phi Phi Don.  This is small island that is popular with backpackers and honeymooners.  Now there is no surprise that this place was so so busy as well.  I could have easily been in Lamai or Chaweng.  Maybe in the night when all the day trippers have left it might be  a  fair quieter. 

Phi Phi Don beach

Next up was Bamboo Island.  This place was still busy, however we did find a quiet spot here. We just relaxed, and snorkelled.

 Thanks for the photo bomb! Would have been a good pic of  Bamboo Island.

Overall I can not help but feel disappointed with Phi Phi, I had much higher expectations.  I think we arrived 10 years too late, I imagine back then it was a tropical paradise. Sadly not anymore they have cashed in on the tourist dollar.  I mean I can hardly blame them, it is a poor country.

Phuket

Day 77

Just a day of relaxation.  We simply hung out by the pool all morning, it was scorching hot.  In the afternoon we took a stroll round Chalong.  Its a quiet place, we ended up buying some cheap street food, cost £2 between us.  We also had to nip to the pharmacy  for some eye drops , we think some suntan lotion had ran into Claires eyes.

Claire fast asleep after a tough day!

One of the main reasons coming to Phuket was to visit the  small islands nearby. Today we booked on a island hopping speedboat adventure around Phi Phi and some other places.  We are heading off tomorrow, so it should be good fun. I am expecting big things from Phi Phi I have heard a lot about it.

Phuket

Day 76

We arrived at the airport a good two hours early, we really only need to be a hour early.  However it worked in our favour as there were spare seats on a flight leaving in 20 minutes.  So we went straight to the gate and boarded the plane.  Much to Claires horror it was a prop plane, for some reason she thinks they are more unsafe than a jet plane. I have no idea why.

About 2 weeks ago I cancelled my original accommodation in Phuket and swapped it for somewhere with a pool.  What a great decision, this pace is amazing.  It cost £17 each a night.

The rest of the day was spent messing around in the pool.

Claire surfing one of the bean bags. 

Koh Samui

Day 75

A day spent relaxing in the sun.  It was the last day of us hiring the motorbikes, we had been using them for 5 days. To be honest we would have struggled without them, the cost of taxis have gone up astronomically.  We hired a motorbike each, which cost £9.00 each for the full 5 days, what a bargain. The fuel was only £3.00! We both had mopeds, mine was 150cc and Claires 110cc and it was good fun, we took our time and did not drive around like lunatics.

After a hard day in the sun it was back to the bungalow for a few beers on the balcony.

Koh Samui

Day 74

Today was another tourist attraction fest.  We thought that we would see some of the sights on Koh Samui.  The first up was Hin Ta and Hin Yai, this is essentially a rock formation that local legend says  represents a doomed relationship.  Now to get to this you had to go down a very narrow street that was packed with traffic. Nobody could move anywhere, not even people on foot.  Some rude russian nearly ran half the street over as he was so imatient.  Anyway after getting there, I was pretty deisappointed, it just looked a pile of rocks.  Definitely not worth the hassle.

Then we moved onto the 80 metre waterfalls.  There was a small trek through a jungle to get there.  Well lets just say it did not look 80 metres to me.

Jungle we had to walk through.

We then went to the cool bar and met up with the Irish couple.  At the bar the had put a fake snake just near the toilet, it scared the hell out of Claire.  It looked very realistic.

At the end of the day my computer broke again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The same problem as before, it just wont power up.  I will not be getting it fixed as there is not much time left in this trip.  The heap of crap will be getting returned as soon as I get back. It will be my number one priority.