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Just over a month on bus, cycle and foot around the temples, mountains and more importantly the markets of SE Asia has brought us to our “treat” destination… Phuket… Uh, not quite … But Phuket is a mini stopover on the way to our paradise.. the part we’d been waiting for, THE BEACH (u get it right?! The movie)!!… Well that’s how we decided to end this chapter of our trip.. Chillaxing in Ko Phi Phi!!

We arrived around 1am to our overpriced guesthouse in Patong, the heart and soul of Phuket, or at least that’s what it is for the “thrill-seekers”… Although, we were going to be taking the early morning ferry to Ko Phi Phi, Rishi and I couldn’t resist a wander round the infamous Bangla Road.. Luckily it was only a 2 minute walk away. (Hmm, what does that say about our guesthouse?)

The road and area was buzzing at 2am with go-go girls dancing on the poles in the open bars, Brits and other foreigners searching for… Um, a happy ending?!… And touts offering ping pong shows at very reasonable prices!! The atmosphere is pretty electric in this beach/ red light district area..

Despite the ping pong shows being recommended to us before we left (Thanks Tom!) we had to restrain ourselves from the appealling prospect of watching a granny prostitute fling ping pong balls out of her private parts… Talk about PPP!! ๐Ÿ˜‰

Anywho, the ferry the next afternoon (we didn’t make the morning one) is an experience of its own.. Backpackers and some other unsuspecting tourists are herded on.. No exaggeration.. With the promised land of Ko Phi Phi as a reward…

We were staying at Ko Phi Phi Village resort so after the fab ferry ride we had to take a longboat from Tonsai Bay, away from the crowds and backpacker’s accomodation… (So long suckers!!)

I had some stupidly high expectations of the resort so was initially sad on seeing other people on my beach… What do you mean I don’t get my own private beach?! How ridiculous!!

Nevertheless we tried the ‘it’s our aniversary’ play on our arrival to which the staff ever so kindly replied “Happy Anniversary” and then sent us packing to our standard bungalow all the way ay the back of the resort… Next to the staff quarters!! Greeeat.

But they should have known, “no-one puts Princess Sparkle” in the corner”.

That evening, we were fortunate to discover a cockroach in our room, followed by a few ants in our bed… Ah-ha an opportunity… We complained like the typical foreigners who have never stayed in ‘the wilderness’.. That coupled with the extremely excellent service at the resort meant we were upgraded to a deluxe bungalow and got complementary tickets for the Island Explorer tour!! … That’s more like it!

The next couple of days for us wew just fabulous. Cocktails, good food, speed boats, snorkelling and the best of all, visiting Maya Bay where ‘the Beach’ was filmed. .. It really is absolutely stunning… The clear blue sparkling water.. The softest powdery sand.. Luscious greenery and spectacular caves behind it… Utter paradise.. If only we could move there!!

One of the many photos in Ko Phi Phiโ€ฆ..to the extent that our camera may have stopped working from getting sand in itโ€ฆ We took a lot!! Doh!

Our last full day in Ko Phi Phi, having spent as much in 3 days as we’d done in the whole of Laos, we decided to sneak out to the secret village resort for some authentic Thai cuisine. It’s where all the really cool people hang out ofcourse! In the candlelit restaurant, where the two chefs cook everything in front of you, we had the best pad thai and a pretty good papaya salad. (Not as good as mine Rish said, but hey the chefs were trying, can’t expect them to match my superior culinary skills!)

Stuffed from another excessive meal, we got back to our bungalow just in time, before the heavens erupted and a full blown tropical thunderstorm was upon us. It was nuts! I sat there. Staring and filming the storm, mesmerized by the colour of the sky, while on the other side of the room, the rain was leaking through our lighting fixture!

It was hard to drag to ourselves away from the beach the next day to pack or check out… But thanks to our leaky roof we got an upgrade from our human farm ferry to the hotel’s catamaran.. (Didn’t even have to complain) which meant an extra 45 minutes on the beach.. Keerrr Chiing!! (Hey, we are backpacking, every penny and minute on paradise counts).

We did have to return to Phuket and the GFE* on Bangla Road… Might as well enjoy the delights of Thailand before we head off tomorrow morning on the next chapter of this trip… Japan!

Note to Sai: did see a Bikram Yoga in Phuket, but to be fair, there’s not much one class can do for me with the state I’m in now.. ๐Ÿ˜ฎ EEK!

*GFE – girlfriend experience where you pay for a lady friend to act as if she is your girlfriend while you wine and dine her and perhaps take her to a holiday destination. Warning: this may lead to a WE (wife experience) which in turn can easily flow into DE (divorce experience). Enjoy! ๐Ÿ™‚

Wanna see an elephant with diarrhoea?

You sick sick people! Come on! Can’t believe you guys! Still….don’t worry to satisfy your cravings we took a close up picture of it ๐Ÿ™‚ (ps Kish and Meera this elephant post is dedicated to you guys btw :))

Before we get to that, let me tell you where we are…we’re in Thailand, in Chang Mai, the land of the elephants!

So after arriving through our flashpacker methods (flights)- we decided the best way to start is to go and see ourselves a Muay Thai boxing night!

To give you an idea of the atmosphere at the boxing stadium, there’s a ring in the center of a massive warehouse kinda room with concrete flooring all around, foldable chairs on 4 sides of the ring, and a drinks bar and food stalls surrounding. Bookies are moving around shouting and trying to push people into betting against them, and there’s some crazy clarinet style instrument playing constantly in the background, even while the fights are on. Completely raw and pretty cool!

Me and Anj had reserved our seats and had center view to watch a total of 7 different fights!ย ย As we watched each battle in the run up to the main international fight, it was crazy to see how intensely each of the fighters went at one another…

A few fights stood out though. A junior match involving probably 12 year olds where one got seriously injured is one. People were taking photos, cheering and shouting abuse, but to us, it seemed pretty bad to be making money off two kids brawling in a ring! But that’s competition I guess!

Anyway another special fight was set up for fun, where it is like a royal rumble – 4 fighters in a ring with a referee, but here’s the kicker the 4 fighters were all blindfolded. They all went at each other like mad men, but the funny part, because they couldn’t see each other, the person who got beat on the most was the referee! Lol… Too funny, hmm maybe it’s one of those you had to be there moments!

Finally we arrived to the main event; an international fight with Spain vs Thailand. The Spanish fighter had his massive entourage supporting him in the corner as he entered the ring looking pretty confident.

Now, before each fight starts the fighters do a little warming up and some dance to the music. The Thai fighter did his bit pretty quickly and went into the corner…the bigger Spanish fighter though took literally 10 mins as his entourage cheered him on. He was so cocky, he decided to start showing off with his dance moves and trying to psyche his opponent out!

Finally he finished, the bell rang and the fight began….and yep within a minute the spanish guy was down on the floor, writhing in pain! So funny – A First round knockout! And that ended our night!

The next day was our elephant jungle trek! This involved us taking bamboo rafts down the river, seeing a beautiful waterfall, trekking and the piece de resistance; riding on elephants within the jungle up and down hills.

This part was amazing. We arrived to find 6 elephants waiting for us and one baby elephant. It was sooo cute and would follow you around.

So after our little play time, we got on these sort of thrones which sit on the elephants backs to be taken into the jungle. This is no normal elephant ride. Its hilly and the elephants are inclined to do their own thing, like suddenly stopping to eat random trees or sniff at poop on the floor. We were literally getting thrown all over the shop and holding on tight for dear life…

Then our ‘driver’ asked me if I would like to sit on the head of the elephant, where he was sitting…there was no way I was gonna turn down the opportunity (as none of the other people with us were given this chance), so on I got whilst the man went and sat at the back, on the throne, next to Anjali!

The next 40 mins were insane. I was holding onto the elephant’s head with every muscle in my body and honestly did think I would fall off. Anj I think was scared for me, which is really cute :), but I kept my cool and held on. However, a couple of times, Anj did nearly fall off herself and kicked me in the backside! Thanks Anj! ๐Ÿ™‚

Anyways whilst I was on the head, the elephant in front kept pooping big lumps of mushy poo and farting like a trooper (as Anj says) in my face. Serious case of diarrhoea. I would like to say I turned away and closed my nose, but noooo I took a massive whiff and Anj took a picture…NICE…yep we enjoyed every minute of it!

Afterwards Anjali got the chance to feed the elephants bananas…it was so much fun and we kinda bonded with the big guys…gonna misss them…Then again we have our own pair of Hathis at home ;)!

Finally the last day of our action packed Chang Mai experience involved a Thai cooking class at the Asian Scenic School (Mitan, or as Anj calls him Moogle our very own SE Asia Google guide, convinced us on this one). We went to the food market, learnt about what types of veggies to pick out and the main thing, how to make Thai food like spring rolls from scratch, papaya salad, pad Thai (even though the dish “raad na” sounded interesting), green curry, massaman curry and veggie tom yum soup.

A really enjoyable and tasty experience, though I was a bit slow! Anj on the other hand smashed it; her papaya salad and soup were incredible! Know who’s doing the cooking at home when we get back! ๐Ÿ™‚

Well…what a great end to Chang Mai…next is Phuket and our luxury part of the trip, the Kho Phi Phi islands! On and away with our flash packer trip – yep we taking a flight again! Bring it on!

The adventure begins… ooh forget that, I spy a market…

Woohooo we just finished the first 2 days of our 120 day (and more) adventure ALREADY…and still it hasn’t sunk in that we’re going to be away for so long!

We started out in Bangkok, which is somewhere me and Anj have been to before, so we decided to make this our chillaxing part of the trip to get over the jet lag…we stayed in siam square in a super modern and clean hostel (thanks to super anj’s incredibly detailed research)


The last time I’d been in Thailand I was like 13 or something small, so seeing it with new eyes, I couldn’t help compare it to India with the little tuk tuk rickshaws driving around, lots of market stalls everywhere you go and plenty of noise around the city (even though India probably wins on that front hands down!)

Now as sad as it seems, No we didn’t see the lying Buddha statue and nor the golden palace, as we both remember them pretty well…

Instead we pretty much spent the WHOLE time in the markets and the malls!

The malls, Siam paragon especially, are major high end malls (it even had a Lamborgini show room on the top floor)…this was slightly out of our price budget for this trip!…so we window shopped and then left.

That left the markets…we were told by our favourite guide, the old discussion forums on trip advisor, that china town is a must visit!

So we scootered down in our very metro sexual pink tuk tuk! To be honest, when we reached we were a little disapointed, but then again don’t know what we expected!


Loads of shops on the main road consisting of gold shops and small Chinese restaurants selling shark fin soup where to be honest none of us veggies would risk even entering.

However the tiny side streets with their market stalls was amazing just to see…loads of little stalls selling handbags, jewellery, food, t-shirts and other small trinkets etc…

This is where the WARNING sign comes in for the guys traveling with their other half…we then ended up at two further night markets in Siam and Patpong (very famous) selling similar stuff…

For the ladies though, Anj will testify that she preferred the markets in Siam for their fashion!.. Luckily for me, many of the clothes were too big for her! Phew!.. Me, I preferred the variety of home stuff, t-shirts etc at patpong, even though it is part of the red light district, where we had people trying to sell us on sex shows! Not good unless your into that sort of thing!


Well overall Bangkok, even if it has been mainly shopping, has been loads of fun with some great Thai food too! A good way to start the trip… Yum.

Now as we sit on the bus on our way to our next stop…Cambodia I wonder what’s in store for us there…can’t wait for us to reach! Another 5 hours to go…and that’s just to the border!

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