Good Morning, Thailand.

This morning I was woken up at 5am by my drunken Thai neighbour's stereo...

Songlist; (all accompanied by drunken thai singing);

Shout - Tears for Fears.

Gold - Spandau Ballet

I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight - Cutting Crew.

I just needed to write that down somewhere.

A Piece of Pai.

So, I'm still in Pai. The original plan was to stay here for a few days and move on, but it's been three weeks so far and I still don't feel like leaving. There's live music everywhere you go, night markets, waterfalls, hot springs - and best of all - a bar made completely from bamboo open until 7am every day.

The surrounding area is full of hill tribes, all speaking their own version of Thai and are completely self sufficient for food, water... and moonshine. A group of us visited a local hot spring on my second day here and ended up having a nearby hill tribe join us around our camp fire, offering us to spend the night in their village. Baring in mind we were all completely slaughtered by this point it seemed like a pretty good idea, but in the morning it was quite clear that the whole town were alcoholics. I woke up at about 8 o'clock to find a couple of the locals already hitting the moonshine, and by the time we left (about an hour later), barely any of them could walk.

One mattress, five people? - Our hill tribe room.

A local fisherman.

Most of my time here has been pretty routine. Its a very small town so you get to know the majority local bar and restaurant owners - I'm getting fairly used to hearing people shouting 'Patwick' at me as I'm walking through town.

I won't be able to post any more pictures for a while as my bungalow was robbed a couple of days ago. They stole my camera, iPod... and beard trimmer. Fuckers. I really need a shave as well. The Thai version of CSI came to visit yesterday to check out what had happened - and after about 10 minutes of looking around at the trashed bungalow; wood chip everywhere from the broken door, clothes scatted all over the place, he turned to me and said - "Now, my friend, think carefully. Is it not possible that you may have taken your camera out with you for the night.. got drunk, and lost it?" .. "No Sir, I'm pretty sure I was robbed".

The plan is to head to Laos after New Years - if I ever actually manage to leave Pai that is.

Merry Christmas!

A brief history of everything.

As it would take way too long to write, and read, I’ll only brush over the first three weeks of the trip up until me and Danny went separate ways.

We started off in Bangkok, only spending around 4 nights before leaving the city for the islands - and even that was too long. As a first stop in Thailand it’s quite overwhelming. The heat, pollution, mass of people, constant scams and pressure selling made me a bit sick of the place after the first few days - we basically got drunk in the hostel most nights after our first ventures outside of its walls.

China Town, Bangkok

The next two weeks were shared between Ko Tao and Ko Phagnang. Ko Tao was beautiful, really underdeveloped compared to the neighboring islands, with only mud paths through the jungle connecting one side of the island to the other. If the taxi (a bench on the back of a 4x4) you caught across the island wasn’t full enough with people, then the driver would do various errands for the day while I was still in the back. On one occasion he stopped off at a restaurant, picked up a massive meat cleaver and chucked it into the back of the pickup - sliding up and down the floor for the 20 minute ride home.

Tanote Bay, Ko Tao.

Phagnang was a lot more touristy, but the beaches were the same as you’d find on a postcard. We spent most of the week lazing around in the various bars on our beach, waiting for the ‘Full Moon’ party on the 2nd November. It was bigger than I’d expected - a huge stretch of beach rammed full of backpackers - fire shows everywhere - loads of music tents - sort of like Creamfields on a beach (thankfully there were less scousers though Sam).

Visa’s dates getting closer we headed down to Penang in Malaysia to sort out a free 60 day re-entry for Thailand; which I still have until 8th January to use up! Although we only traveled around two hours from where we were in Thailand, you can immediately tell that you’re in another country. The people look notably different, and the majority of people can speak fluent English - one guy on a street stall said “lovely jubley” after I told him I was from England. From there Danny went further south to get a new camera (his was nicked at the Full Moon Party) and I headed back up to Thailand.

Cable car - Penang, Malaysia.

The first experience of being on my own wasn’t the best - I got stuck between the chaviest English guys you can imagine on a 6 hour mini bus ride back to Thailand. At one point one of the them shouted to the driver (who was Thai and barely spoke English), “Eeeeaar Bruv, when we stopping’… I’m fuckin’ gaggin’ for a piss”. And it only got worse. For some reason I thought Phuket might be a nice place to chill out for a week - I ended up leaving the next morning. I think I’ve seen enough fat westerners with young Thai girls to last me a lifetime.

Moaning over, I headed to Ko Phi Phi which was exactly what I was looking for. It’s full of backpackers, so for a week of getting drunk, meeting people and spending very little money it was perfect. I stayed in a 17 bed dorm at the ’Rock Backpacker’ and met new people pretty much everyday. I ended up getting persuaded to hire a 2 person kayak to visit Maya Bay where the beach is filmed… the speck of an island you can see in the distance when you stand on Phi Phi Don. It took us two hours to get there! We even had passing Thai boats clapping us as we made our way across - and another round of applause as we parked our kayak next to a line of speed boats and yachts in the bay. I'm planning to head back there for xmas to be sure that there will be a celebration (the majority of the country is Buddhist). It’ll take too long to describe the whole week there… but in summary - Swedish guys boxing for free alcohol, fire skipping and snorkelling with sharks.

Ko Phi Phi

On my way from Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta I met a couple of Australian girls, Jade and Holly. We ended up sharing a place, and spending the rest of the week on the beach with some English lads from the bungalows next door. As I’m writing this some Thai guy just floated down the river on a plank of wood and speared a fish right in front of me. Anyway, nothing much really happened in the week apart from relaxing and setting my hat on fire using the fire poi. On one of the days we persuaded a local to let us rent out his tuk-tuk (motorbike taxi) and cruised around the island, only for me to blow one of the tires trying to show off with a wheelie. After a week we all went separate ways, and I had the intention of traveling far north (24hour-ish of buses) to Chiang Mi, but a last minute message from the ozzy girls about how nice Ton Sai was made me detour. It’s by far the nicest place I’ve been to so far… beautiful beaches, lots of live music, fire shows, cheap booze - but there’s not much to tell as is was basically another week of getting drunk on a beach.

Jim'll fix it (his name was jim).

Eventually I made it to Chiang Mi, staying in a hostel with a group of Germans I’d met on the bus ride up - Mira, Manuel and Jenny. We ended up getting on really well and spent most of the week as a group. Visiting temples, taking a Thai cooking course (where I accidentally managed to snort a slice of red chilly, not fun), visiting waterfalls, and eating… a lot. A large part of the time spent involved trying to teach me various traditional German phrases, and I think I did quite well. I learnt “eichornchen” (squirrel), and "das nilpferd ist um die ecke" (the hippo is round the corner). We all parted ways yesterday and I am now in Pai, a quiet hippy town north of Chiang Mi.

So, that’s everything so far. Expect for one thing… I have a new nephew!

An update? Nearly.

It was my full intention to update my blog today, but naturally I overslept and have to catch a minibus to Pai in about 20 minutes. Together with spending half an hour trying to find the 'login' button in Thai for the blogger website I haven't got much time left.

Tomorrow, probably.

Leaving Day.