Hi - hope you enjoyed the photos.

Just spent four days at White Rock Resort and Spa. Air conditioning-tastic. And now we've moved somewhere more reasonably priced (600/night vs 2000/night) - a very cool little hammocky place, right on the beach, very nicely put together. They have good taste, to quote Nicky. It's called I Ya Lang Ka. Meaning "wowee zowee!" (or any other polysyllabic exclamation you might prefer ;)

Not long left now. We sorted out a boat and a flight back to Bangkok, and a room near the airport to stay before we catch the plane the next morning. More expensive than the coach, but hopefully a lot less hellishly random! And easier on the legs and bottom.

I'm verging on relaxed.

We'll do a waterfall next week. Market tomorrow.

Tags: thailand

Okay... we finally sorted out some photos for you!

Look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_and_nicky



I got sunburned today for the first time - I knew this had to happen sooner or later. It was all in a good cause though - we snorkelled the '4 islands' around Ko Lanta - I saw a shoal of multi-coloured fish on my second try. It's all a bit salty though. I am now totally convinced that the instructions that told me not to swim in contact lenses are utterly unfounded. I may even start swimming back home now.

Lots of other stuff to talk about - catch up later.

Tags: thailand
Current Location: white rock resort - ko lanta
Current Music: crickets

*note to self: change my picture to a less miserable-looking one*

Hi hi.. and wowee zowee, what an exhausting couple of days...

We went to another area of the island on new years eve. Unfortunately, the total ease with which we had been getting rooms up to that point suddenly evaporated and we found ourselves wandering the tourist offices being laughed at when we inquired about accomodation. "Everywhere full" was the oppressive theme of that early evening.

We got a tip from another tourist who overheard our conversation that took us to a resort of 4 bamboo huts - a bed, a mosquito net and an outside toilet/shower area with no roof that drained out under the stilt-raised room, and nothing but a rusty padlock to protect our belongings. 400 baht. We wearily accepted. I don't regret it one bit; it was a necessary part of our experience, and the people were very friendly - although since feeling a bit queasy last night, probably as a result of the facilities there, I don't think those young men with their reggae music were the best people in the world to have daily house-cleaning as a vocation. The hut gave us ready access to deserted areas of beach that we wouldn't otherwise have visited, and for that I am glad. Even though my attempts to remove ground-in sand with the trickle of a cold-shower seemed to last indefinitely - very frustrating! But yeah - it was exactly the sort of place you'd expect to see, so that was good. And the next morning I had a lovely spot of lying in their shaded hammock looking out over sea through rustic fencing, among the coconut and pineapple trees.

Total relaxation remains a problem as my uninterrupted thoughts lead me back and forth over events in my life over the last 10-15 years - I am frequently stalling on my regrets and fears and shedding a silent tear while my hat covers my face.

INTERLUDE 1
I wanted to start a (briefly) recurring section on this blog called The Few Memories I Have Of My Mother. Here are two:

1. Whenever I wash my hair in the bath (hardly ever) I remember the time my mother made us cardboard protectors that fit round our foreheads like the rim of a hat. I remember being frustrated that they didn't work very well - shampoo still got in my eyes, and I'd seen an advert for a proper
   one that probably had a bit of rubber to make the seal more effective. I don't remember her face in this memory, only the feelings and the soap. I must have been about 3 or 4 years old.
2. Number two is more disturbing. Around the same time (I suppose; at that age it's all a blur I guess) I remember a car journey at night. We were on a motorway - I don't know which. There were no street lamps. My mother turned out the headlights and we drove in total blackness. I was terrified, but she insisted that because we were on a perfectly straight Roman road that there was nothing to worry about. I suspect there was an element of 'trust in Jesus' involved in this very literal act of blind faith.

Back to Thailand.

We had a late night on NYE. We had a very good time, all in all - lots of fireworks and fire stick wielding shows put on for our pleasure. I'm slightly reluctant to admit that we were on Ko Lanta's equivalent of Yates' in the Miami resort (a couple of resorts down from our hut of primitivity); I tried to order champagne for the stroke of midnight and we made-do with white wine. Sawat-di-bee-mai!

I woke up at 6am the next morning to a cock's crow (well - a half-cocked-crow - it only said cock-a-dood). There had been a cricket indoors with us all night, making its cricket's noise at full volume all night (we only discovered it nestled in the mosquito netting the next day when it was pretty much dead). I decided I wanted to watch the sun rise over 2007. Nicky came with me. The sun came from behind the mountains, but it was still worth doing. Despite the shouting, still drunk, thai boys running naked in and out of the sea a couple of hundred metres away.

We spent the morning on New Year's Day looking, once again, for accomodation. By this time we were both very adamant about getting a room with a hot shower. We asked at several places and eventually got a room for one night at the Pink House. The room was in a brilliant location - right on the beach front. It was air conditioned and had a hot shower. But it was extremely strangely organised and shambolically put together. There was a thin white sheet with holes it  and replete with small red stains for a duvet (scarcely an improvement of the two woolen blankets we'd got in the hut the night before). The shower was behind the bathroom door and dubiously installed. The towel rail was on the wrong side of the wet floor. There was a feint stench coming from somewhere. 1700 Baht. Considering we'd paid 1800 for a very-plush-in-comparison semi-detached bungalow (with a fridge, TV, nice towels and toiletries) in Klong Dao I started to regret ever coming down to Klong Nin. But hey - you don't know unless you try, do you!

INTERLUDE 2
Ooh, ooh, I forgot to say. A couple of days ago I received a myspace message entitled "I WANT YOU ON MY LABEL" from a 'PAUL BURKE of "jim wants to get out of the car and walk home records"'. So I should have a track out on a compilation early next year ("PREFERABLY UNRELEASED OR NEW MATERIAL, BUT SINCE YOU ROCK I WILL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET"). Yes, this person is a serious CAPS-LOCK abuser... :-)

We relaxed in the afternoon. I thought we should. Then we check out Klong Kong, the 'hippie beach' in the evening. It was initially appealing with the colours and the relaxation and the low-rolling 'chillout' coming from the impressive sound system, but not the sort of place I'd have wanted to stay. Watching long-haired men with their eyes shut rolling their heads in a 'drug bliss' to insipidly formulaic meaningless music grates on my nerves rather quickly.

I wish people wouldn't pretend to understand things that they don't. Especially waiters in restaurants. The guy last night made a total pig's ear of our order involving his having to come back to us three times - "no small fish for one" okay, cancel mine and we'll share a big one; "sorry, no fish at all" okay, I'll have what I was having. can we see the menu again? My order never came. I shared Nicky's. The vegetable tempura was great though: onion tempura? they're called onion rings mate! They fried and battered the entire set of available vegetables, including tomatoes and green beans :-) And a decent hot sweet chilli dip! I'm very disappointed how difficult it is to get really spicy food out here!

We asked in a few more places about rooms after our meal. And as a result we now have a room for FIVE NIGHTS (Oh. My. God.) in a plush resort, with a good shower; a really nice room. Albeit separated from the beach by a road and a strip of wasteland... 2000 a night including breakfast. Ho hum. At least we can relax for a few days now!

I guess that brings everything up to date. Happy New Year, y'all.

Tags: memories of my mother, releases, thailand
Current Location: beach front resort - Ko Lanta
Current Mood: fizzy
Current Music: The sound of waves crashing on the shore. And motorbikes.

We found out today that it's Sunday, not Saturday as we'd thought... Nice to lose track of time like that though!

Had a lovely stay in Klong Dao - air conditioning, very relaxed. I swam in the sea (in my very-heavy-when-wet shorts). Have managed to avoid getting sunburned so far - although I have freckles again where they have not been seen for many years...

Attempted a massage yesterday but I didn't like the one-eyed-man's nuts resting on my back while he stroked my arms. Also, I discovered that when I did start to relax a bit, I had a lot of pent-up things that I didn't necessarily want to let out at that time and place - despite the fact I was looking out at the sun setting over the sea and there could scarcely be a more romantic place to cry out all the recent change. No, a couple of tears escaped down my cheek and then I was out of there - gave the bemused smiling man 500 baht, didn't look back, didn't say thank you, just fled, leaving Nicky to complete the rest of the hour's relaxation on her own. I will try again soon, and this time I will warn whoever's doing it: I am extremely tense, you will have your work cut out for you.

We failed to get our laundry done as it is so busy at this time of year.

We're heading down further south this afternoon. I can't wait to settle down in the next place - hopefully a lot closer to the shore. Air conditioning and hot showers are essential here, I should mention. I got the hang of the cold shower in Bangkok - you just have to push out your chest and grit your teeth (and possibly roar a little) and it's just fine... but I wouldn't recommend it.

Okay. That's it from me for another day.

Look at nicky_j's page if you haven't been.

Tags: thailand
Current Location: Ban Saladan, Ko Lanta,
Current Mood: cool, despite the heat
Current Music: just heard a pleasant country song coming from a stall

I never want to get into a vehicle of any kind ever again.

Wow - at 2:30pm yesterday we reached the end of a 20 hour journey from hell - from Bangkok to Ko Lanta. During the first stage of the journey I felt like a prisoner of war on a manky coach where the lights and air-conditioning were turned on and off at random moments, and a shouting man would occasionally order us all off the bus "twenty minute! get off the bus!" into nighttime roadside markets. We got on the coach about 7pm, and the only sleep I got was from about 10-11pm. After that it was hopeless. It didn't help that my previous night had gone insomniac, and my attempts to drug myself senseless on 12 year old Jack Daniels failed hopelessly. Anyway - it all went from bad to worse. We had to get off the bus at 6am and wait for another one. Nicky was constantly badgering the 'staff' about what was going on - and what worried me the most was that sometimes it appeared that if she hadn't, we'd have had no chance at getting anywhere... Anyway - the next bus was less grungy, but they subjected us to a god-awful film (the remake of Miami Vice maybe? po-faced gun shooting and drug talk '30 keys' etc...) - exactly what I didn't need at 7am. Next thing we knew we were outside a cafe - the signs back in English again at least - but with no idea what was going to happen next - it was entirely inexplicable that the bus didn't just take us all the way into Krabi town. Eventually they tried to get 12 of us into a 10 seater van - and thanks to some shouting Nicky got her bag back off its roof-rack and we were driven in a normal car by two shy thai teenagers (?) who ignored all Nicky's smiles and Kao Khun Kaa's. We upgraded our tickets from Krabi to Ko Lanta when we got to the next port (where 'port'='tourist information office') and a young man bundled us into a van and left us there for 20 minutes in the sun before starting the drive down the coast to the ferry. None of this was good for my upper thighs, I can tell you - by about 4 hours in I had a fierce itch under my legs, and it didn't let up for the whole journey... We got to the ferry and the driver got out, saying nothing (the only consistent theme in the entire journey - no information about what was about to happen or was currently happening was given at any time) and left us once again in the hot van, stationary. Eventually we took the initiative to get out and were mercifully allowed to walk onto the ferry. One more stint in the van and we were where we wanted to be. Too tired to appreciate anything particularly, but procuring a room to our exact requirements took efforts stretching to all of walking three metres and asking someone. This place... :-S

So here we are! We can see the sea from our air-conditioned, hot-shower-having bungalow. There's a shop and cafe selling everything we could possibly need about 20 metres from our doorstep. The beach is right there - we took a stroll along the white sand in the evening yesterday - very pleasant. I'm relatively rested this morning - my sleeping patterns still haven't quite settled down but coffee has seen to that. We will find ourselves a lovely beach hut in a more deserted part of the island today, and New Years' Eve will be spent in almost total isolation from the entire world.

Tags: thailand
Current Location: Hat Khlong Dao bungalows - Ko Lanta - Thailand
Current Mood: (if a little tired still)
Current Music: Some monks singing on a stereo in the distance

Nicky's sawat-di-kaa is presented as a gift - 'Hello, here is my attempt to learn something about your culture, please be nice to me'.

My sawat-di-klap is mumbled - 'I am reluctant to admit my total ignorance of your culture, and I am cautious and distrustful'.

Lots for me to learn, for sure.

So - we're still in Bangkok - having effortlessly secured room and board shortly after we got off the bus and walked slightly too far in the heat..  We're keeping the carrying to a minimum - it's too hot to backpack.

I'm not particularly excited by Bangkok - it's very dirty, and the area we're in, while being jet-lagged-tourist-friendly, is not much more than a watered-down Camden market. We passed a couple of large shanty towns (I think that's what you'd call them) on the bus here - no air between one corrugated iton roof and the next - extensions bolted on where needed - clearly no planning permission problems here.. just dump more accomodation when you need it and to hell with the daylight.

The internet has been very patchy since we've been here - gmail is reluctant to load and searches are quick to present with the operation timed out connecting to www.google.co.th.

Bring on the beaches, I say! I'm all citied-out. I have photos, but the internet-cafe woman told me off for adjusting the screen resolution yesterday so I dread to think what she'd make of me plugging stuff into the USB.

We're booked on an overnight bus to Krabi at 6pm this evening - I've made sure my DS is charged.. I'm pleased with Age Of Empires - it has a satisfying combination of elements from The Settlers and Mega Lo Mania - I'll while away a lot of time on that one! Pity we couldn't get any cheap games from Pantip Plaza yesterday. They have to 'mod' your DS so it supports a special memory card reader that allows you to play pirated games from a Mini SD card - was a bit more up-front cash than we were willing to spend - and I want the DS Browser which probably has to be the original version. So we're stuck with sharing games via 'download play'. Nicky seems to be liking the Brain Training, so that's fun..

Okay - that's enough from me for today. Oh - I didn't mention the meal-insanity of the plane journey - we had two days' meals condensed into about 13 hours - culminating in 'breakfast' at 2am Abu Dhabi time, 5am Bangkok time, god-knows-what uk-time... Very weird. But fun.

Pictures soon!

Tags: thailand
Current Location: Wild Orchid Guesthouse, Bangkok
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: some dodgy pop that I can't identify