27^th December….  Cont…

So after a load of flying we arrive in Singapore.  We decide that, seeing as we are coming back to the airport tomorrow, to leave the big bags in the airport and just take the necessaries!  This is great as we can go straight out for something to eat in the Chinatown Hawkers district and not bother going to the hotel, just yet. 

This area is amazing, it’s just a load of street vendors selling….. well all sorts of culinary delights on a couple of streets, from curried crab to dumplings!  Once we have gorged ourselves, we wander through the night market to Clarke key  for a drink.  There is a bar, themed like a hospital!  From the operating theater lighting, wheelchairs for seating, all the way through to cocktails in a drip type bag, on a stand!...  (you do drink it….. it’s not given intravenously!!!...)  Very cool!

Once w e had had our medicine, its onto a very bright bicycle for a short ride to the hotel.  This guy was nuts!!  His bike had a bigger sound system than most of the chavs in southend!!


We Raved our way through some of the more salubrious areas of the harbor front until we arrived at our hotel.

At 30 stories, this hotel is by no means the largest building in Singapore, but it defiantly has a good view from our balcony!!

28^th December

Our very short visit to Singapore means we get up very early to see the most we can.  After wandering around the harbor and having a nice pastry from a bakery, we check out a couple of temples to get our sprinkling of culture, before jumping back on the train, back to the airport….  This is a short trip! 

So we are on another plane to another country!  This time, Thailand!

We arrive at about 6 ish and follow a well practiced routine of taxi, hotel, dumps stuff, dinner.  We are staying in a old fishing village called Bo Phut,(although it has about as much to do with fishing as…..  the suit tailors that line the streets)  having said that, all the restaurants have a large array of fab looking fish outside their front door to entice you in.  It works, and we get stuck into our lobster, sea bass, tiger prawn, Thai bbq bonanza! Mmmm……   (by the way Lozza is gutted as she THINKS she has put on loads of weight from all the fab food we are eating!....  well who cares anyway, it Christmas!!!..... (she hasn’t by the way!)).

Once that’s out the way, it’s time for a massage by the sea and watch the fireworks!...  It turns out that you can buy rockets….  Roughly the size of a wine bottle on the end of a broom handle for about £5.  These guys wander over to all the tourists in the bars and sell them……  from the beach!!  Given that most of the beach has a chill out bar every 100 yards, they are doing quite the trade as all the tourists keep buying a couple and setting them off…..  This has the net result of a pretty amazing firework display….  For about 3 hours!....  what a nice way to watch the world go by, whilst getting your back rubbed down by the Thai equivalent of a Russian shot-putter!....... and no, there was no “happy ending”!!....

29^th December

For £4, we hire a Moped for the day! (CHEAP!..) and proceed to buzz about the top of the island.  First off….  Big Buddha.  Big by name, big by nature.  Then to another temple of similarly large edifices.   Followed by a quick drive through the main town, beach, then back to the hotel before midday.  A swift tour was necessary, as we are catching a boat to Koh Phangan, the nearby party island!

The sun burnt tourists pour off the ferry at the other side and into a fleet of waiting minibuses, we on the other hand, skip past these guys and, for half the price, onto the nearest unofficial taxi……  moped!   It takes quite a feat of balance and skill to get the driver, Lorraine’s MASSIVE rucksack, Lorraine and her day bag onto a 50cc moped….  Luckily, its soo cheap, we take one each!

Our hotel is quite lovely and we check into our beachside cabin, don the swimmers and hit the beach for some hard core tanning/relaxing.  (this time I have a book to read so I can sit in one place for more than 46 seconds without getting bored!)….  That’s pretty much it, until sunset.  Beach, sunbathing, swim, beach, sunbathing, swim…. 

30^th December

Up early….  This time we are off diving, to sail rock, a tiny lump of rock 1hours boat ride from the “mainland”.  The visibility is quite amazing and we see loads of big schools of tropical fish and corals.  Its obviously not a patch on the Galapagos, but pretty special never the less.    We make friends with a guy on the boat, called Tomac and invite him along to our evenings activity, Thai Boxing.  Now neither of us are particularly big fans of boxing, but we have heard soo much about this, that we thought we have to take a look.

We arrive by taxi to the venue…. (amusingly next to a bar called “Moulin Rouge”….. I'm guessing you can imagine what they were selling on the bar!.... you can just see the red windmill in the back ground...)  Its little more than a outside boxing ring with a handful of plastic chairs round its base  and a Stadium type seating arrangement on 2 sides, 5 rows high, enough for 150/200 people I guess, all tourists!  So we get our beers and wait for the first of the 7 fights to begin……  They start off by bringing out 2 young mascots out…..  oh no…..  these weren’t mascots…..  this was the first match…….  That’s right, 5 - 1 minuet rounds of children scrapping?  Not quite what we were expecting!  But never the less the little tykes knock seven bells out of each other and the red corner is declared the winner, much to the delight of his jubilant father! 

The rest of the evening if much the same, but this time with consenting adult males, which although rather violent, leaves a slightly better taste in the mouth!  

We leave, happy that we have ticked that on off!...

On the way back home we find a British guy stumbling about, face all smashed up, looking perplexed at how he couple have fallen off his moped and into a ditch (destroying the bike) when he had only had 16 pints of premium larger!....  we jump out to see if he is ok, put him in the back of the pickup taxi (along with the remains of the bike) and drop him back at his hotel room, on route.

It’s now 00:30 in the mooring and we arrive back at the hotel to the Thundering sound of disco beats.  Turns out the hotel is having a pool/beach party.  Which is nice.  The massive sound system, the wall of speakers, of which stretch out for a solid 25ft x 6ft high and extend all the way over to the side of…… our bungalow, are pumping out so much sound that the lights are dimming with the beat of the music.   So, if you can’t beat them…..  Soooo,  we get stuck into our first Bucket…..   that’s right, bucket.  Everyone buys a bucket, similar to the ones we had as kids on the beach, complete with a small bottle of whiskey/vodka/gin etc and appropriate mixers……  4 hours later and we are both fully dressed…. In the pool!

31^st December

BEEP..BEEP….BEEP…….  Snooze…….  BEEP..BEEP….BEEP…….  Snooze……. BEEP..BEEP….BEEP…….  Snooze…….   “happy anniversary babe….”    BEEP..BEEP….BEEP…….  Snooze…….  At 1:30pm…  we roll out of bed….. somewhat bleary eyed…..

Given the stat of our heads, this isn’t quite the anniversary we had in mind but we head for the beach (10ft outside the room) and bask in the sunshine.

20mins later and I'm bored with that, so we rent a moped and head on out

round the island to the most impressive waterfall on the island.  Apparently?  It looks like it would impressive in the wet season, but were not in the wet season.  The only pool with any water in is a trickle at the top of the hill, so we head on up…..  only to find a couple skinny dipping at the top!  They didn’t look to bothered about our arrival so we jump in (with our shorts and binki on!)

After dinner we jump in our overcrowded taxi and head on out to Hadrin, the beech with the full moon party!  If you can imagine a stretch of beach, roughly 1/3 of a mile long with multiple bars along, all in competition as to who can have the loudest sound system.  Put into the mix roughly 50’000 party goers and a similar amount of locals selling more of those buckets of drink….. but not only little sand castle buckets, but proper big buckets!......  sounds absolutely hideous!

Our first impression is compounded when no sooner have we arrived we notice that within the huge crowd, the 50ft skipping rope, being swung around by 2 large Thai’s on 6ft towers that stand above the crowd, and fueled by
testosterone and booze the need to

show off, all the shirtless boys diving in to do some skipping!  Hardly sounds hedonistic?  THE ROPE IS ON FIRE!!!  Within second there are 5, 7, 9 fella's all jumping, when someone cocks it up and the rope looses it shape making every scatter to avoid the inevitably burns…..   the Naked guy was funny to watch….  I get the idea that health and safety in Thailand is some lax!

So after a couple of hours of dancing about the massive fire work display starts and true to form, the H&S is slightly different than the UK!  The 13km no entry border zone around the fireworks has been reduced to 6ft (the height of the platform they are being set off from) and the “don’t let them off over a crowd” rule has not yet been translated!   Given the size of the rockets you can buy from the cigarette kiosk, you can just imagine how big these things are!!! 

So we find ourselves, closer than expected, to the first fireworks of 2010!  BOOOM!....  directly over everyone’s heads! (H&S is working well!!)!

We are then witness to a fab firework display that had elements of total fear as some don’t fly very high before

exploding, shooting burning red, green and white gunpowder into the dodging crowd.   At least many of the crowd had been practicing there “bob and weave” technique with the skipping rope!

So we give all our surrounding raves a kiss and watch with eagle eye ready to dodge the firework bullets!

2009 to 2010 passes without any serious burns so we carry on dancing and drinking till the wee small hours!

1^st January     New years day!

Today we have to check out of the hotel, so we get up, pack and book our ferry back to Koh Samui, the next island were will catch our flight tomorrow morning.  For now at least we can relax on the deserted beach until 4pm…..  so we do.  

Back on koh samui, after dinner, we go back for a 1 hour massage before going to bed as we have an early start tomorrow morning. 

2^nd January

After our early flight and a brief stop in Bangkok (we bought Lorraine her THIRD camera!.....  she keeps breaking them!) we arrive in the somewhat chilly Hanoi, in Vietnam.

We are staying in the old quarter and waste no time in getting in the thick of it by wandering the brimming and bustling streets and markets.

The food in Vietnam is renowned for its diversity.  Being a French colony, we have snails and frogs among the myriad of fish, carp, and squid, as well as dog!  Animal welfare seems to not be a priority in these markets, were many animals are prepared for eating without the unnecessary and time consuming effort of actually killing them first!.... 

Having wandered the streets we stop for some street food outside one of the markets, safe in the knowledge that the fish couldn’t be fresher!

3^rd  January

Time for a Punch and Judy show!....  The famous (in Vietnam) water puppet show, is a must on the tourist route.  It’s a theater were Viet kids and tourist watch a performance of wooden dolls, operated by long sticks from behind a screen, the sticks submerged by water!  The overall effect is quite something as all the characters animate there way round the watery stage, even with fireworks!  Apparently its has historic routes with the rice paddy farmers, hence the water.

For lunch we hook up with James and Helen, a sound recordist mate from London.  It looks like we might be catching up with them a couple of times, as there route virtually follows ours, all the way down Vietnam!  Still, for now at least we catch up on the stuff back home over a couple of beers.

James pointed out that when we get home, we will have nothing to tell everyone….  as it has all been written in this blog……  “Then we went to….”   ….   “ye we know!....  you went here and did this and that happened??.....whatever??...”

So we are stopping the blog……  not really.

After lunch we visited a prison were the us pilots were held during the war (some interesting facts, even through the highly one sided propaganda…. “the imperialist American pilots..” etc etc )  Then onto a small pond, behind the memorial or “Hoh Chi Minn”,  were the remains of a shot down B52 bomber still protrude from the green murky waters.  (as we saw in Top Gear!) All in all, a busy day!

4^th January

Today we head of to Halong Bay, a 4 hour bus ride away, for our 2 night stay aboard a wooden junk.   We looked at several different boat companies.  There was the hugely expensive chartering your own boat option, or as almost everyone else does, a one night tour or a less popular 2 night tour.  We opt for the 2 night trip. 

We jump aboard our junk home (we manage to blag the suite room!) for the next 2 days, along with 10 other passengers, who will fill about half the cabins.  All but loz and I are on a shorter one night stay.  The deck hand pulls up the anchor and we leave harbor, making our way toward the mysterious cliffs on the horizon.   Apparently, halong bay is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world…. (A claim, we later learn, that is self proclaimed!) 

After a lazy lunch we drop anchor amongst the many (50+)  other half filled junks in tree top cove.  The landscape is quite amazing, thousands of limestone cliffs rise from the ocean for hundreds of feet, creating a maze of different islands, very James bond!  The only arse is the weather is quite grim and we can only see the surrounding islands, but it still looks impressive.

After wandering round a very large cave, named surprise cave, (can you spot the surprise in the picture??!!) we board our 2 man canoes and set off round the coast, exploring the watery caverns at the bottom of the cliffs.  It would have been very ethereal, had it not been for the 4 young Dutch lads, playing bumper canoes, and there shouts echoing round the cliff walls?! 

Back on board and we have a splendid dinner watching the sunset…..  (that’s what it said in the brochure, we watched the monochrome hazy sky get dark!...) , then a game of cards before bed.

 

5^th January

We wake to the sound of the engine starting up and make our way to our noodle breakfast.  Once all fed, the boat pauses for loz and I to jump off, into a day tripper boat.  It looks like our junk home travels back to the main port to drop off all the 1 night passengers and pick up the next lot???.....  oh well, no matter, we jump aboard our day boat and wave goodbye to the “one dayers”.  Our personal guide takes us on another canoeing trip to look at some more watery caverns.  After an hour or so, we stop on a beach and go for a swim and pick up small cockle type things for lunch! 

Back in the canoes and we paddle past a floating fishing village, much more genuine than the touristy one in Peru.  We can’t even get out of our canoes, as every “house” has a few guard dogs, barking like mad…..  only these dogs aren’t pets, nor are they here to guard the property……. They are being fattened up!??...

Each house has many nets hanging from its underside, all filled with fish (fishing is the main occupation of all the households) for either eating or selling, and everybody gets about on little rowing boats.

We rejoin the mother ship, back in treetop bay, only this time……. We are alone!  That’s right, we have effectively chartered our own boat!  Very cool.   Dinner, wine, cards then bed.

6^th January

Up we get to our private breakfast on our boat and slowly cruise round a few islands before heading back to the harbor.  The rest of the day is very boring really.  Originally we said we would plan the Asia bit of our tour on the way round the Whits.  This didn’t happen, so we spend the journey back to Hanoi and the rest of the evening booking tours and flights and researching hotels for the next 2 months.

After dinner, however, we pick up our bags and head for the station, we are catching the overnight train to Sapa.  We managed to book an entire cabin (well we wouldn’t want to share!) but the air con is stuck at full throttle and is approaching arctic conditions…. Not a problem, 5 mins with the Leatherman screwdriver and a spare blanket to wedge in the vents and we are warming up nicely!  So it’s off to bed (in separate beds L) as we arrive at 6am.

7^th January

That went quick…..  we are chased off the train by the conductor and into a waiting minibus to transfer us the last 20 miles to sapa.  Once at the hotel, we ditch the gear, (don’t even check in!) and straight out to do what the region is famed…  trekking.  We head on off down the hill, into the thick mist with what can be loosely described as a map.
Off we go, leaving all the day tripping tourists behind and into the hills, wandering round some local villages and rice paddies, soon the low cloud lifts and we can get a glimpse of what the valley looks like.  It soon becomes apparent that the map is about as much use as a chocolate fire guard so we soon enlist a couple of little girls for directions.  Their grasp of the English language is outstanding and they soon become our tour guides, showing us all the villages and taking us to a lunch spot.

This turns out to be where all the tourist go and surrounding every tourist is a group of girls/women trying to sell there “crafts”.  With some insistence we get through, but not before buying some overpriced tat from our guide as way of thanks. 

Lorraine drops her BRAND NEW CAMERA….  It now only takes purple pictures……  time for camera number 4.

We head off after lunch and make our way to the next village.  This route is very much on the tourist trail and every other household is trying to eack a living from the passing sheep.  So we try to go around and head off on another route.  This works out for a time, but without our guides, we start to flounder on the muddy paths, especially since the cloud has now dropped around us.  Errrr  ….  Which way…..  let’s ask a local.  A local woman (similar to the ones selling the stuff at lunch) is heading our way. 

“is this the way too Gaing Chai?”

“yes yes yes….  I take you”  so we now have a new tour guide….  And thank good ness…. The path snakes its way back up the mountains, through bamboo forests and rice paddies.  Once in the village, she takes great pride in showing us her house and family, little more than a cow shed, complete with big bowl full of pig swill in the corner!

We try to get the best directions we can and head off toward the road to catch a ride back into town.

Following a lovely meal and a bottle of wine, it’s off to bed. 

Sorry it was another long one!!!  Until next time see ye!

Will and Loz