Elephant Trekking!!

Elephant Trekking was the most bizarre experience yet! The camp had five elephants and for some reason they gave us the biggest and most grumpy one they had. If you look at the picture, you'll notice what looks like a wooden watch tower in the background. We had to climb that and step off it onto the seat strapped to the elephants back (the back of the seat was a metal bar and was unbelievably uncomfortable). When we set off, the elephant had to climb up a hill that was virtually verticle and he got to the top and decided he didn't want to do the last bit. The guy was shouting at the elphant and prodding it with a hook and on one side was sheer drop! That was only the start of what I am now calling the "Elephant Terror Ride" through the jungle. Well I say jungle but it was more like a wood. On several occasions I thought it was going to go on a rampage or just off a cliff, however I'm pleased to say it didn't. At one point we even went up a busy road! Not exactly Jungle Trekking as we expected but an experience nonetheless.

Catching up

I've been a bit lazy with the blogging recently so I'm going to bring it upto date, then do a few posts about the trips I've done.

Since the last post I have moved hotels twice, done a few trips and changed island! The move from Karon Beach to Patong was pretty easy, however the hotel we stayed in (Duangjitt Resort and Spa) was HUGE! It took half an hour just to get out of the hotel area (it was very spread out). Besides that, the room was okay apart from the water which was a yellowy colour. Patong is a bit of a hole and we didn't get upto much in the actual resort, just booked some trips, which you can read about in the next few posts.

I'm now in good old Samui, staying at the Chaweng Villa in Chaweng. It's not the same as it was when I was here two years ago and the hotel isn't as good as I remember it but it's still pretty much Chaweng. Except more expensive - The food is double what it was!!! Although in this case that means it's gone from 1 quid for a curry to 2!

Patong

This is a really quick one as I'm in a mall in Patong waiting to go and see Iron Man at the cinema. Due to too much time in the sun, I think it's got to me and I've been feeling a bit low on energy the last couple of days so I decided that today would have to be spent inside. I had a trip booked (sailing on a chinese junk to and around the island from'"The man with the golden gun") but I wouldn't have enjoyed it so I cancelled. I went on a trip to the island the filmed "The Beach" yesterday! It was a good trip but I'll tell you about it when I have time. I also encountered Monkeys in the wild. . .

Anyway, got to go. . .

Robin Hood Prince of Aviator Sunglasses

After we finished with shooting and we managed to persuade the locals to come back (warily), we moved onto archery. There were two types of bow on offer so I picked the one that felt best (and looked cooler). As you can see from the picture above I managed to beak all current records and score ten successive "Bullseyes". The guy who was helping us pronounced me Robin Hood on the spot and a messenger was sent to find Norris McWerter at the Guiness World Records Office.


Okay, so this picture was my real attempt but it's still not bad is it? The guy actually dd call me Robin Hood after I got my first arrow straight in the yellow.

Police Academy

We've been to Phuket shooting range! The first weapon I fired was a rifle, complete with proper rifle scope. As it turned out I was actually really good with it!! I got reall good groupings and the were or all in and around the centre. They've given me the target with the holes in but I don't think it'd make it through the new sensitive equipment at Dubai airport on the way back so I'll be leaving it here.

Next I fired a 9mm handgun which was okay but I guess I need more practise becasue the shots were all over the place! Still, at least most of them hit the target!

Still targets just weren't proving to be hard enough so we had a go at clay pigeon shooting! I hit one. Out of ten. I bet I could have got them with the rifle!

my last post

I just read my last post again entitled "two days wasted". Now I'm better I realise how pessimistic I was being by saying those days were wasted - I'm in Thailand! And two days with food poisoning is better than going to work anyway!!

Feel better now and full of energy. Well enough for. . . (See next post)

Two days wasted!

I woke up a couple of days ago feeling really sick, so I went to bed and slept til past 2! That was just the start of it as I later discovered that both Scott and I had got food poisoning from some crappy restaurant that wasn't even very nice anyway. I had a bad feeling about that place too! Fortunately I only had one bout of being sick but it really wore me out.

Two days spent in my hotel room! Fortunately there are a few english film channels and I have my books and a balcony so it wasn't that bad. I managed to eat: half a bowl of cereal, a few chips, an ice cream sundae and finally last night my first proper meal of a chicken breast with chips. And another ice cream. Still not completely better and I've skipped lunch today but I feel more like it now and at least well enough to come out and get on the internet to write this post.

Nothing more to report! Except that STA travel STILL haven't got back to me about the flight back and they promised to email me on Monday. They were pretty good last time but this time their customer service is sadly lacking.

Phuket

Got to Phuket yesterday and it finally feels like I'm on Holiday! The weather is good and it's alot less humid/busy than Bangkok. Our flight to Phuket was delayed by about 45 minutes but Air Asia are famous for their delays so I think we did alright with just that! The flight was pretty quick and I saw some cool little islands in the middle of nowhere.

We expected the hotel to be good but it's far better than even that! The rooms are really really nice with tile floors and bathrooms, a Balcony and a really high ceiling. This is the view from my room at the Karona Resort and Spa:

Most of our first day was spent chilling in and around the pool! In the evening we checked out the beach and had a walk around Karon and Kata. Not much else to report!

PS - The internet cafes here double up as international phone places which is where I have been ringing from. They close early in Phuket for some reason so with time difference I'd be ringing about 4 or 5. There are phone boxes here and all I need is a card which I should be able to sort out today.

A few Bangkok pictures. . .

I can finally upload pictures so here's some from Bangkok. Click to enlarge. . .

My hotel room at the Grand Inn Hotel Bangkok. After getting a horrible room I made them give me a better room! Had to pay 1650Baht more though. . .

Outside centralworld Mall, apparently the biggest in South East Asia

Shot of traffic on Sukhumvit road

Food vendor selling Satays on the side of the road.

Every McDonalds has a Ronald McDonald statue outside giving a wai!

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Bangkok Day 2

Just a quick one. . .

Woke up at past 2 again (but that's only 8am ish in England time), and went out for some lunch at a Thai place. We planned to go and see the palace but no-one seemed to know where it was! I stopped a taxi and asked him how much to the Palace and he looked at me blankly so I tried how much to the parace and that didn't work either!

We decided to walk in the baking heat and ended up spending most of the day just walking round Bangkok. Never did find the parace!! Bangkok has got terrible traffic congestion, but it used to be much worse so they built the Skytrain which hangs above Sukhumvit road and is basically a Metro system. We discovered a Skytrain Station and decided to have a go and we ended up at Siam Square, Bangkok's answer to Times Square apparently. It wasn't anything like Times Square! Dissapointed, we returned to our hotel to cool down after a quick tea at Sizzler and an even Quicker ice cream at Haagen Dasz. That's our second day over already! The days are a lot shorter when you sleep through most of them! I'm much more jetlagged this time but hopefully that'll sort itsself out.

Tomorrow we fly to Phuket with Air Asia. We fly at 10:50 so I'll have to actually get out of bed at a reasonable time! We should make it to Phuket for 12:15 and then hopefully we'll have a nice relaxing 8 days in Karon Beach until it's time to move on again.

I'll upload some pictures when I get chance.

Day one

I felt so much better today!! Woke up about 2:30pm and decided that we should take it easy today so we went to Central World Mall, which is apparently the largest in South East Asia. It was huge! No pictures just yet unfortunately but I'll post some when I can.

Really lazy day today though - We ended up having lunch at the food hall in the mall. You get a card and hand that over at the various food vendors and than pay for it all at the end. I had what was basically fried chicken and rice but I didn't trust it and left most of it! We decided to check out the cinema and noticed there was a new film called The Forbidden Kingdom which has both Jackie Chan and Jet Li in it! Needless to say we were straight in. The cinemas are much cheaper (about 2 quid) and much nicer in Bangkok than in England. The chairs recline quite a long way and they have proper ushers with flashlights and everything! You also have to stand and pay respects to the King before the film starts. The film wasn't bad, a bit like neverending story with Kung Fu instead of Dragons.

After Tea in a really posh restaurant (2 courses and a drink cost about 3 quid) in our shorts, we went to the cinema again . . . This time some film with Keanu Reeves in called Street Kings. When we came out the whole Mall was shut and the lights turned off! We followed some people out into the street and managed to get a taxi back and found the internet cafe I'm in now!

Forgot to say. . . A ladyboy grabbed me last night! I was walking past and he/she grabbed me and tried to plant a kiss on my cheek!!! I managed to get away from him/her and Scott found it very funny. You haven't been to Bangkok until you've been harrassed by a chickboy!

There

I'm finally in Bangkok! It seemed like a long trip in itself just getting to the point where we were boarding the plane, so by the time we got to Bangkok I was exhausted and not in the best of moods. . .

We're staying at the Grand Inn Hotel in Bangkok, Sukhumvit Soi 3, wich we pretty quickly realised is inwhat can only be described as the Arab quarter! We checked in and my room was horrible so I've upgraded to a much nicer one and it will do until we get to Phuket in a couple of days time.

We just about had enough energy to get some food and went to bed. . .

Not there yet

Sat around at manchester airport, bored! Cant find a wifi hotspot so im sending this from my phone. Seems like i've been going ages and i havent even started flying yet! Played top trumps on the train, i won.