Day 15

It was time to leave and see some more of Koh Tao. I learned there’s a dirt road which comes here so I could get a pickup truck taxi to Ban Mae Haad, the main town. Sat in the back and held on tight as we travelled the winding and very off-road track! Eventually it became concrete as as we got higher there were good views over the forested hills of the island. On arrival I found a wi-fi café, buying an expensive breakfast only to find their wi-fi wasn’t working. Doh. Found another place after a full English (not as good as home but still a nice change from rice and noodles) – and then the rains came, trapping me indoors for hours.

When it rains, it really rains! That water at the bottom was flowing like a river.

My arm was still swollen and itchy but had gone down a bit from yesterday so hopefully it would be alright in a few days. The internet revealed it can’t be too bad because I don’t have any of the symptoms you get from real nasties. It sounded like a centipede bite or just a bad reaction to a mossie. The internet weather forecast was for storms in the area for the next 3 days. Damn. Decided to hold off on the national park trip for a few days because of this, so I caught another pickup  taxi to Ao Leuk beach which I’d read was quiet and had great snorkelling. I figured if the weather was going to be crap I could snorkel or hide in the restaurants.  It seemed a better option than Hin Wong Bay which is just rocks and would be pummeled by waves.

At Ao Leuk there was a reasonably sized bay and a sandy beach with three resorts. Dive and snorkel boats sat moored in the bay and people were dotted around them in the water.It was chucking it down and I got my first real soaking. Glad I had dry bags for my electronic kit! The budget option for accommodation was pricey by mainland standards, even with a 2 night discount. But that’s the islands for you, sleeping’s expensive and food and drink is usually double or triple mainland prices. So I couldn’t afford to stay out in the Thai islands for long – the rest of SE Asia’s beaches will be way cheaper!

My basic wooden bungalow was just off the beach and caught the wind, but that’s good – less mosquitos. It also had a proper mosquito net suspended by ropes – so you have an oblong net which gives way better sealing than a crap cone one. But a hut wouldn’t be complete without a wild resident and this time it was one of the big geckos, the size of my forearm. There was no way out for him as I’d blocked the big window hole with a pillow, presumably how he got in. He wasn’t very happy when I used the broom to persuade him out the front door, he squarked loudly at me as he scurried inch by inch, always looking at me like he was going to jump at my head. Eventually I got him out. I didn’t want him damaging my net or living in my stuff.

Yet another visitor desperate to spend the night with me

I hired snorkel gear and strolled to the beach in the rain. Despite the weather the sea was calm, although water visibility was poor. But it didn’t matter, the place was absolutely teeming with life! As soon as I put my head under all I could see was fish all around me, of many shapes and sizes. And at only a meter deep! The following photos I took the next day but I have put here to paint the scene. Just imagine it being darker and greyer!

As soon as you look below, you realise there’s already fish all around you

I swam out along the rockline and there’s lots of nice coral out there, it’s not colourful but there’re many types;brains, jaggies, mountainous spires. Clams and anemones live in some of them. And so many fish! The previous beach seemed a joke in comparison to this, here I could get inches away from them in shallow water and they wouldn’t even flinch.

There were much bigger fish here too and some big shoals of little two-inchers which are great, they move together hypnotically billowing and darting in formation, shimmering silver. I saw little neon blue fish, angel fish and many more. Often I was completely surrounded and some shoals would swim with you for a while. I felt like the pied piper but for fish. Shame the fable didn’t happen in reverse, a load of tasty fish on land would have been good! I swam for a few hours all around the bay, going into deeper water where you can still see the sea bed and corals at 5-10 meters down. There’s even a bamboo raft moored out there for a resting point.I was glad I came as the rain doesn’t trouble the deeps.

The wind picked up to buffeting speed, coconut trees and bushes were swaying violently. Over the past few days I’ve heard coconuts falling a lot, and you see them on the ground everywhere, even though they get collected daily. Someone told me that deaths from falling coconuts are higher than from murders or something. When it’s windy it’s a good idea to avoid walking under the trees! I ate a high wooden restaurant overlooking the bay once it was dark. On the way I saw a big yellow frog hopping through the grass, and at the restaurant the sound of frogs croaking was overpowering. “Woooooowwwwooooaaaaaaw” in a monotone, but with different frogs at different pitches. This combined with Bon Jovi blasting out of the speakers, the breaking waves and cicadas made for a bizarre audio combination! I could see a few dive boats doing night dives in the bay.

The little white dots in the distance are the fishing boats.

The restaurant had wi-fi which was really handy as I could shelter here in the bad weather and plan my next moves. I needed to get my Nepal accommodation and flights sorted soon before it all got booked out for the festivals next month. Horrifyingly it turned out everywhere here closes at 9pm. It does seem quiet, I’d only seen three or four couples around. Just as well, I spent too much on booze at the last place!

Please note that most of the photos in this post are just from the internet as I don’t have access to my main bank of photos at the moment.

Hello everyone. As you may have noticed, the blog hasn’t been updated in a while. This is mainly because internet connections out here are slow and so uploading pictures to update the blog takes literally hours, which I usually don’t have. When you’re out in the islands and jungles it’s often hard to find wi-fi at all. I may start uploading images at internet cafes instead to keep the blog moving, certainly in my next destination, Nepal, I think it’ll be a challenge to keep the content up to date.

Following posts will cover Koh Tao, Koh Samui and the jungles of Khao Sok. I fly to Nepal tomorrow from Bangkok. I’ve had a laptop disaster: yesterday my hard disk died. It’s only a month old! I’ve replaced it and hope to be back up and running soon, though managing the photos will be harder now.

As I don’t have access to my photos just now, I thought I’d share some of the general little observations about Thailand which I don’t have space for in other posts.

The Ass Hose

This is your classic Thai toilet. In most places, especially accomodation, you’ll thankfully find a western style seat instead of the squatter shown here. How does it work? So, you do your business. If you have to use the squatter, good luck. Thankfully I haven’t yet, but you need strong leg muscles which we in the west don’t really use. You see Thai people waiting for buses and resting sitting in the proper squat position (feet flat on the floor). I read that as humans it’s a natural position from our primative days. Far from comfortable for us westerners though!

Usually now in the west you’d wipe yourself with toilet paper. But here, it’s time for the ass hose! You pull the lever and sometimes it’s a dribble, sometimes it’s a bowel-splitting jet depending on the loo. If you’re lucky you can control the pressure with the lever. So you jet-wash yourself with the hose, trying not to soak your entire lower half and clothes in the process. Practice makes perfect! To begin with it feels weird but liberating. You get used to it though and now I think it’s way better than the scummy western way. In the west you wipe feaces and urine around with paper, this way you wash off everything. It’s way more hygenic. You’re supposed to use the left hand to dislodge stubborn bits. In other parts of Asia where you don’t have a hose, just a water bowl, you have to rely on the hand and that’s why in these parts of the world the left hand is never used to handle food, shake hands and so on. Afterwards you can shake dry or use toilet paper to dry, which is folded and put in the bin provided, not down the drain as they aren’t designed to handle paper and get blocked easily. Some toilets have loo paper inside, others have some outside for you to take in, and others you need to take your own. Some travellers prefer to use baby wipes.

Then it’s time to flush. Sometimes it’ll be a western flush, if not then you do it the old fashioned way. A bucket or brick container is filled with water at the side, refill it with the tap if needed. Then you use the bowl provided to scoop water into the toilet bowl, as many times as you need to flush everything away, and clean the area. Often in accomodation the shower is included in the toilet area with a drain in the tiled floor – water gets everywhere with the hose and bowl in use anyway! Thankfully the realm of squatters seems quite low here, but in other countries they’ll be in full swing. I’d better get those leg muscles in training!

Geckos

Any accomodation or restaurant isn’t complete without a gecko or two camping out on the walls. Only about the size of a finger, the pale green, little cute lizards can run very fast and they like sitting next to lights, bathing in the heat. They make little chirpy noises occcasionally giving their position away. It’s quite common to be having a shower or reading a book, to turn your head and realise a gecko is a meter away hidden in a wall crack or on the ceiling staring you. They eat insects so having them around can be handy, hopefully they’re cutting down on your mosquito population. They have little suckered toes which look great when you see them stuck on the other side of a window! I’ve encountered a few big darker brothers of Geckos on my travels, living in my rooms.

Dogs and Cats

This is actually one of mine. Temple Dawgs

Everywhere. Roaming the streets, in restaurants, outside houses. Some cats have little stumpy tails which is an Asian breed. Most of the dogs have sticky-up tails which curl back on themselves. Dogs come in all shapes and sizes and there’s some weird hybrids out there where posh breeds have bred with the local riffraff. Like I’ve seen some dogs that are almost like sausage dogs but big and otherwise looking like a normal dog.

Cats act like cats anywhere, some are friendly, most don’t give a damn. They are far outnumbered by their canine enemies, who vary from friendly to ferocious. Some dogs are domesticated and just like we expect a dog to behave in the UK. The rest are strays, some friendly, some indifferent to you, some scared and some downright nasty. Twice I’ve had near run-ins with dogs when out and about, and at night you really have to be careful when alone as they go around in small packs. Most dogs will scare off if you reach for the ground, as they recognise you are reaching for a stone to throw at them. You also shouldn’t look directly at them if you’re unsure, as it can provoke them. I’ve read that street dogs are considered vermin by many Thais and can be horribly mistreated which explains the fear and aggression that some of them show to people.

You see a lot of the street dogs with mange and other skin problems. It’s common to see dogs with injuries like half a tail or limping along on three legs. I even saw one poor dog in Bangkok who had lost the use of both back legs and had to pull himself along on his front legs. Fortunately he looked well-fed so the locals must take pity on him. Because there are so many dogs and they’re so unpredictable, this combined with the crazy Thai driving means that a lot of animals are hit. It seems many are just left to their fate afterwards. There are some dog rescue centres in the bigger towns, often started by westerners distressed at the local dog’s situation. These take in strays, help injured animals and de-sex animals to try and keep the stray population down. However it seems a problem that won’t change for a long time. Dogs are just part of the daily scenery. It seems that the strays manage to feed themselves fairly well, I haven’t seen many skinny looking ones. Dogs also lie in the craziest of places, in the middle of roads, in patches of grass between roaring motorways and I even saw some chilling under a train before scarpering when it set off!

Monks

I haven’t caught many on camera, but it’s common to see the orange-clad monks around town. In the early morning they do rounds collecting food and other offerings from people. For the rest of the day, you can often see monks going about daily tasks outside of the temples. Sitting on a bus, in a computer shop, talking on a mobile phone, waiting for a train. Some Thais are only monks for a summer or a year, a rite of passage. When you first see a monk in Thailand around town, you’re grabbing desperately for your camera to snap him. After a few days it’s “same same” as the Thai’s say.

Shrines and Temples

Little shrines are all over the place, built by buildings and businesses to catch evil spirits. They vary in size, colour and ornateness. Offerings and prayers are made to the shrines daily and it’s common to see incense burning or food or drink left at them.

Temples are also far from a rare sight. On a train journey you’ll see plenty from the windows, varying in size and design but easy to spot as most are painted in bright colours. Most towns seem to have at least one decent sized temple. Usually temple complexes have a main building with a buddah statue inside. Many temples are dedicated to particularly holy monks and you’ll see statues of the monk and sometimes photos or paintings of them around the temple. I’ve seen a few where possessions of the monk are also on display. Around the temple hall/s are monks quarters, where you see monks writing or going about daily life and orange robes hanging out to dry, and other outbuildings. It’s often around these that you see the most interesting things and capture the daily goings on at the temple. You always have to take off your shoes before entering a temple building and there’s usually a row of flip flops and sandals outside each one. Many monks I’ve seen are pretty friendly, smiling or acknowledging you when you’re wandering around their temple.

It’s worth pointing out that some temples aren’t exactly stellar and poor paint jobs or ugly statues and disrepair can be seen at many of them. Repairs and construction of new buildings, or entire new temples being built can be found too, with shining golden statues covered in plastic wrap and racks of roof tiles stacked next to the scaffolding. Whereas most churches in the UK are quite old, here the temples seem to constantly evolve and new, more impressive ones spring up by the year.

The Streets

Wares spill out from the shops onto the streets and stalls are dotted around the pavements. Most shops shutter up at night but many places are open till mid evening. Food and drink stalls are on every street, and open food markets easy to find. Simple restautants and food stalls with plastic stools or basic tables are all over the place – you never have to go far to eat out in Thailand. Walking around you’re hit with an array of smells from food to drains to petrol.

Traffic in the cities is buses, Tuk tuks, pickup trucks and cars. Go into country towns and motorbikes are everywhere with trucks and pickups. Traffic moves very fast and erratically and it’s not unusual to see a car that’s crashed off a highway. Horns are beeped (though not as much as China or India) and overtaking madness is common. Crossing the road requires maximum attention as even on crossings and red lights random motorbikes can zoom inches past. Usually it’s a case of pick your time and then go at a regular pace so the racing traffic can time its speed so as not to hit you. I’ve seen a few near misses with pedestrians in my time here. The Thai road accident rate is the highest in the world.

Well that’s enough for now, I hope this paints a bit more of a picture of life in Thailand for you, and with any luck there will be more pictures and normal posts coming soon!

With all the winds and rain coconuts are being harvested daily. Here Ni-Ni’s colleague was chopping them with an axe and wrenching them open, presumably to be used for cooking or eating straight away.

Day 14

I didn’t get up until midday after a terrible night’s sleep. Heat, sunburn, shoulder pain and stomach ache! So at 8am when I’d finally found a comfy position I slept like a baby! I chilled out in the day at the bars and beaches. My arm had swollen up from a mossie bite, though the Sea Breeze guy suggested it could be a millipede as they’re poisonous.As scorpions can get inside my mossie net, who knows what else can! It hadn’t turned any weird colour so I thought it would probably be alright though it itched like hell.

This is how forearms are supposed to look like, right?

Last night the Brits had told me about the Ang Thong national marine park at Koh Samui, the next island down. Ang Thong is a collection of paradise islands. Their photos from the visit were amazing so I decided to head there after Koh Tao. From what they said, I wouldn’t be able to climb to the highest viewpoints because of the climbing involved but a boat tour would still be good. Tomorrow I decided to go to the other side of the island to check out Hin Wong Bay where the snorkelling is supposed to be excellent. The weather was very windy and cloudy and it rained for much of the afternoon.

I was having big problems with taking photos now as it was hurting my shoulder a lot. Probably overused it with all the snorkelling. I needed to cut down a lot or I was going to cause more damage. Annoying!

As dusk came, the winds and rain picked up. Big waves hit the beach and were crashing into the boulders sending spray everywhere.

So much for the paradise turquoise sea. Pfft. This is the downside of coming in low season!

Don’t stand here unless you want a coconut crown

I spent the evening at Sea Breeze playing draughts with the Germans and chatting to Ni-Ni again. Paper and pen is great for making conversations possible across languages, you just draw what they don’t understand!

My arm was still swollen and itchy so the Germans kindly gave me some cream for it. I had to leg it across the beach at high tide at midnight to get back to my side of the bay – timing my runs to avoid getting wet feet!

You have to cross the beach by the rocks over on the right… check out the waves smashing the rocks in the center. Not a night for drunken swimming!