To get to the trek we all got on the back of two pick up tucks and I quickly found out I was the only English person on the trip so it took a while for me to get to know people as all of them were either speaking in French or Dutch. After a while when I did get to know them, they all seemed nice enough. The first stop was the elephant riding but I didn't participate as I know I would have had a guilty conscience from Cambodia. When people got back they all said they didn't enjoy it as it was so depressing seeing the way they treat the elephants.
When we got to the the start of the trek another other truck pulled up and a load more people got off all of whom were Dutch. One guy with music already playing. It soon became annoying. We stopped for lunch at a river where we all had a swim and food and then carried on, this time a dog decided to join us along the way.
Eventually we got to our accommodation for the night which had a great view overlooking the rice fields. It was a bamboo hut with some thin mattresses all in a line along the back wall. We threw our things under the mosquito nets (mine being the only single one in the corner) and got the beers out. Music playing, food, beers and cards game on the go it was great. At about half 1 in the morning after the 'party' was over, the four French guys and one other Belgian were going to watch the football in the village so I decided to go with them. In a small shed in the village we watched as the French lost in the final. And to bed we went. I soon found out my bed was covered in ants! So I slept on a thin wooden bench. Sure enough I fell off a couple of times but wasn't too bad as we all got woke up 3 hours later anyway.
Tired, we had food and set off on the rest of the trek, this time in the rain. I no longer had any tread on my trainers so it felt as though I was walking on ice the rest of the day. We went for a swim in a waterfall and finally the rain stopped. At the end we also got to do some bamboo rafting which we all had a good laugh at standing up and trying to knock each other off, keeping ourselves entertained.
It was pretty late when I got back so we found a nearby restaurant and went to bed.
We were due to check out the next day so we decided to quickly squeeze in a walk around the 'old city' of Chiang Mai then we booked a bus up to Pai. We had heard so many people saying how good Pai was and everybody told us to go so we didn't really do much research before hand. Don't get me wrong it was a nice quiet(ish) town with lots of shops and restaurants all in walking distance and it did have a calm relaxed feel to it but apart from that there wasn't actually at much there to see and do. Luckily we booked accommodation that happened to be really nice, the only down side was it was about a 10 minute drive out of the centre but the owners actually offered to drive us back and forth for free which was great as the taxis were ridiculously priced! Most importantly the Internet was the best we've had in weeks so we made full use of catching up with family and booking the rest of the trip. The 2 nights surprisingly flew by and before we knew it it was time to head back down to Chiang Mai for our flight. It was such a nice feeling knowing that a journey which took us 13 hours on the train, was going to take just an hour flying.
We arrived back in Bangkok at around half 2 so we had the afternoon to wander around before the train down south.
The night train
It was half 4 in the morning when we pulled into the station at Chumphon. Half asleep, we made our way to the pick up area for the buses that we were then told weren't arriving till 6... At around 7 we got to the boat which then took about 3 hours to get to Koh Tao.
Zzzzz
FINALLY we arrived!! Stepping off the boat and seeing the crystal clear blue water and the sun shining down made it all worth it. Even though it's been still been hot it's actually been cloudy most of the time since Laos.
As we hopped on the back of a taxi to go to the hotel, we were looking around just hoping it was going to be somewhere nice and fingers crossed with a pool. Obviously we always look into where we're going to be staying but you end up looking at so many hotels you kind of lose track of what you actually picked and the hotel descriptions can be so vague a lot of the time. We were driving along and Sean happened to point out one hotel with a pool and bungalows surrounding it and said how nice it looked... Turned out it was ours :D
The view from the hotel restaurant.
It was about a 10 minute steep walk up the road, just as we got to the steps to walk down to the beach we realised we'd forgotten to bring our water shoes for around the coral but we said we'd just try it without anyway. The thought of walking all the way back when we were both dripping already was not tempting. That quickly changed when we got to the bottom of the steps and realised they went right into the rocks and you had to walk around them to get to the beach. I took one step into the water and scratched all my foot, at least that's all I thought it was. We were about to carry on but the salt water was starting to make it sting like crazy. I lifted my foot out and it was covered in blood. At that point we both realised it was a bit more than a scratch. Quickly we made our way back up the stairs and Sean stopped a guy who was driving past on his scooter to ask him if he could drive me back down the road as it was now killing me. Luckily it was an English guy and he couldn't have been nicer about it. I couldn't have felt worse. I was so gutted. Not only did it hurt so bad that I couldn't walk on it but now we couldn't do any thing we planned, on one of the nicest islands we were visiting :( needless to say there were a few tears... On my behalf not Seans. Although I think he was close when he realised he was going to have to run around after me for the next 2 days.
We were determined to at least spend one day at the beach and maybe do some snorkelling before we left so on our last day we walked back to the scene of the disaster and gave it another go. This time with water shoes. We managed to find a way climbing over the rocks which was better and made it to the beach. After a lot of slow dipping toes in and out to see how much it was going to sting we were finally in the water and even got to see some nice fish, although no sharks which Sean was quite glad about.
The next day we caught the boat to Koh Phangan. We only booked 2 nights here as we're trying to squeeze in quite a bit before we leave Thailand and with the full moon party happening we didn't see the point in hanging around with the amount of people that would be arriving. We were still quite gutted that we weren't going, but at this point in the trip we really can't afford and having to book a minimum of 4 days would mean not seeing one of the other islands. Again the hotel was so nice. It had a pool, steps down to its own little private beach, 5 minutes from a big beach, right next door to a great restaurant. It was perfect.
Finally, the last island we're visiting on the east coast of Thailand is Koh Samui. Currently we're on our last full day here and then tomorrow we are making the long journey to the west coast to go to Koh Phi Phi. Again it's been really nice, it's quite hard to put in words any differences between each island but they've all been good in different ways. The days are all pretty much the same, the first day we spent on the busy beach in front of our hotel playing with a bat and ball in the water, yesterday we walked 40 minutes to a quieter much prettier beach and again played with a bat and ball haha sounds silly but it kept us amused. Today we're going to explore the inland more and get tickets sorted for tomorrow.
We've got just less than 3 weeks before Australia now. It's crazy how quick it has gone and we're starting to reflect back on what we've done a lot more recently. We were saying how because we're constantly doing one thing after another and moving from one place to the next we never actually get chance to think about what we've done so you almost forget about a lot of things. It definitely makes doing this blog worthwhile.
This has been quite a long post so for now, over and out.
:)
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