Through this trip I have set myself the challenge of reading as many classic novels as I can via my Nintendo DS!
So far I have read:
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Alice in Wonderland
Little Women
Around the World in 80 Days
Jane Eyre
The Importance of being Earnest
Sherlock Holmes
Gullivers Travels
The Picture of Dorian Grey
Vanity Fair
Phantom of the Opera
Sons and Lovers
The Three Muskateers
Mansfield Park
Persuasion
Emma
What Katie Did
Got to keep going!
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Thursday, 8 July 2010
8th July, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
Left of last time just before the full moon party, we spent some time crusing around the island on a motorbike, which was ridiculous amounts of fun!! found very secluded beaches and it felt like we were scooting around the set of LOST all day long. Driving through the mountains which are lush and green, covered with trees and everyones cruising around tooting at each other! The sea is beautiful, shallow and warm as bathwater, really calm, perfect for swimming!
On the night of the full moon party we were due to catch a taxi at 11:30pm and a giant storm broke out at 9:30pm with raging winds, constant lightening and torrential rain! hmmm, the rain didn't stop and until 3am we were raving on the beach in the rain. This was all helped by the special 'shakes' that they sold at the party, oh and also the LETHAL buckets. Like a sandcastle bucket filled with neat vodka and a 'splash' of red bull. ouch. Full moon party itself was really fun but didn't live up to the hype of itself. Partying hard at a festival beats it hands down. There was some good tunes but there was a dark side. So many couples having sex in the sea, the same sea that most guys (and some girls who have no shame) use as the toilet. We actually saw one couple going at it and literally 6 feet away a guy was pissing in the water towards them. hilarious but also makes you want to vomit. gross. Full moon also had its dangerous aspects: one bar had erected a vertical slide coming down from the roof (very rickety) with two fire torches at either end of the bottom of the slide. We stood for a while watching the madness, long enough for me to see one girl slice her foot open so deep blood was spurting from it, she must have hit a vein; we also heard later that one girl had slid down and caught her whole head on fire from the torches, like her hair and her face, all in flames, and that she was running around for about 30 seconds before everyone stopped freaking out and forced her to the ground to roll her in the sand. People were in tears from just having witnessed it. Sam and i left at 5am as the party was petering out and only the people passed out on the floor and the people chewing their faces off were left, time to go home!!
Chilled out most of the next day, watched the atrocity that was the England-Germany game and had a great bbq at the hotel. Met a lovely couple the next day form Cape Town, Hardi and Micki -had a great time with them driving around on our motorbikes, we took them to our favourite beach and we swam and chatted for hours and in return they took us to this place thye said they had a great meal, turns out you could cook all your own meat and fish at the table and add rice, noodles and veg. so so tasty and felt great to do a bit of cooking again!
Time to say goodbye to Ko Phangan now - was a really great week. Headed to Samui which is only 25 mins by ferry and were SO disappointed. We got dropped on the main road and were quite upset to find pizza hut, mcdonalds, burger king etc. RANK! We booked a room for 500 baht for one night and within 2 hours of being there we had booked our onward travel to Ko Lanta. Samuis nicest, most secluded beaches all belong to resorts which were way out of our price range and the main town had zero atmosphere, such a step down form the lovely Ko Tao and Phangan.
We left the next day at 6am and took the 12 hour journey (3 buses / 3 boats) to Ko Lanta, we headed to Ancient Realm resort as recommended by our South African friends who had stayed there 2 weeks before. They were not wrong, for 600 baht we had a lovely bungalow with air con, tv, fridge, dvd player and movie library and TEA AND COFFEE MAKING FACILITIES! that was awesome, we stayed there 5 nights! They had two dogs who we played on the beach and in the sea with. and we spent 2 days on a motorbike discovering the island. Saw loads of monkeys and a GIANT monitor lizard which looked like a massive black alligator. Had a very chilled 5 days, not many trips or things to do on Lanta as it's one of the least popular islands to visit and it's low season at the moment and it was really dead, all the shops, bars and tour agencies closed. which was a shame but we don't really have money to do the trips anyway so therefore it was quite nice for us just biking around the deserted roads!!!
After 5 nights on Lanta we decide to make our way to the phi phi islands (pronounced pee pee!) Phi Phi Don is the main island with bars, resorts etc. (although there are no roads and the only way to get to the resorts is along the beach - difficult at high tide - you have to swim home from town!!) Phi Phi Leh is an island just next to Phi Phi Don. - it was made famous by the movie "The Beach" and Ao Maya bay is the beach which was classed as perfect paradise. We are actually going on a day trip to visit this bay (and 4 others) tomorrow morning! Very excited! Unlike the Full Moon Party Phi Phi really lives up to it's hype. Everyone and all the guide books say this is the prettiest island so as the ferry made it's way over i was a little sceptical, but as we pulled into the bay it took my breath away. Perfectly clear waters, lush sunshine and everyones smiling and happy and snorkelling round the bays. really amazing. We are staying on a resort quite a bit out of town, tough when you have to swim and hike over the rocks to get to bars etc. so after a couple of perfectly secluded days here on the beach and chilling with the thousands of kittens that seem to be around we are moving hotel tomorrow to a cheap little room we found in town today. means we can have a couple of days nearer the action before we head to Malaysia. (no i will not be swimming with my bag we have a longtail boat picking us up at 730am!)
Speaking of, time for some shut-eye before the trip tomorrow.
Onwards to Malaysia!
Ko Phangan - Ko Samui - 30mins
Ko Samui - Ko Lanta - 12 hours
Ko Lanta - Ko Phi Phi - 6 hours
On the night of the full moon party we were due to catch a taxi at 11:30pm and a giant storm broke out at 9:30pm with raging winds, constant lightening and torrential rain! hmmm, the rain didn't stop and until 3am we were raving on the beach in the rain. This was all helped by the special 'shakes' that they sold at the party, oh and also the LETHAL buckets. Like a sandcastle bucket filled with neat vodka and a 'splash' of red bull. ouch. Full moon party itself was really fun but didn't live up to the hype of itself. Partying hard at a festival beats it hands down. There was some good tunes but there was a dark side. So many couples having sex in the sea, the same sea that most guys (and some girls who have no shame) use as the toilet. We actually saw one couple going at it and literally 6 feet away a guy was pissing in the water towards them. hilarious but also makes you want to vomit. gross. Full moon also had its dangerous aspects: one bar had erected a vertical slide coming down from the roof (very rickety) with two fire torches at either end of the bottom of the slide. We stood for a while watching the madness, long enough for me to see one girl slice her foot open so deep blood was spurting from it, she must have hit a vein; we also heard later that one girl had slid down and caught her whole head on fire from the torches, like her hair and her face, all in flames, and that she was running around for about 30 seconds before everyone stopped freaking out and forced her to the ground to roll her in the sand. People were in tears from just having witnessed it. Sam and i left at 5am as the party was petering out and only the people passed out on the floor and the people chewing their faces off were left, time to go home!!
Chilled out most of the next day, watched the atrocity that was the England-Germany game and had a great bbq at the hotel. Met a lovely couple the next day form Cape Town, Hardi and Micki -had a great time with them driving around on our motorbikes, we took them to our favourite beach and we swam and chatted for hours and in return they took us to this place thye said they had a great meal, turns out you could cook all your own meat and fish at the table and add rice, noodles and veg. so so tasty and felt great to do a bit of cooking again!
Time to say goodbye to Ko Phangan now - was a really great week. Headed to Samui which is only 25 mins by ferry and were SO disappointed. We got dropped on the main road and were quite upset to find pizza hut, mcdonalds, burger king etc. RANK! We booked a room for 500 baht for one night and within 2 hours of being there we had booked our onward travel to Ko Lanta. Samuis nicest, most secluded beaches all belong to resorts which were way out of our price range and the main town had zero atmosphere, such a step down form the lovely Ko Tao and Phangan.
We left the next day at 6am and took the 12 hour journey (3 buses / 3 boats) to Ko Lanta, we headed to Ancient Realm resort as recommended by our South African friends who had stayed there 2 weeks before. They were not wrong, for 600 baht we had a lovely bungalow with air con, tv, fridge, dvd player and movie library and TEA AND COFFEE MAKING FACILITIES! that was awesome, we stayed there 5 nights! They had two dogs who we played on the beach and in the sea with. and we spent 2 days on a motorbike discovering the island. Saw loads of monkeys and a GIANT monitor lizard which looked like a massive black alligator. Had a very chilled 5 days, not many trips or things to do on Lanta as it's one of the least popular islands to visit and it's low season at the moment and it was really dead, all the shops, bars and tour agencies closed. which was a shame but we don't really have money to do the trips anyway so therefore it was quite nice for us just biking around the deserted roads!!!
After 5 nights on Lanta we decide to make our way to the phi phi islands (pronounced pee pee!) Phi Phi Don is the main island with bars, resorts etc. (although there are no roads and the only way to get to the resorts is along the beach - difficult at high tide - you have to swim home from town!!) Phi Phi Leh is an island just next to Phi Phi Don. - it was made famous by the movie "The Beach" and Ao Maya bay is the beach which was classed as perfect paradise. We are actually going on a day trip to visit this bay (and 4 others) tomorrow morning! Very excited! Unlike the Full Moon Party Phi Phi really lives up to it's hype. Everyone and all the guide books say this is the prettiest island so as the ferry made it's way over i was a little sceptical, but as we pulled into the bay it took my breath away. Perfectly clear waters, lush sunshine and everyones smiling and happy and snorkelling round the bays. really amazing. We are staying on a resort quite a bit out of town, tough when you have to swim and hike over the rocks to get to bars etc. so after a couple of perfectly secluded days here on the beach and chilling with the thousands of kittens that seem to be around we are moving hotel tomorrow to a cheap little room we found in town today. means we can have a couple of days nearer the action before we head to Malaysia. (no i will not be swimming with my bag we have a longtail boat picking us up at 730am!)
Speaking of, time for some shut-eye before the trip tomorrow.
Onwards to Malaysia!
Ko Phangan - Ko Samui - 30mins
Ko Samui - Ko Lanta - 12 hours
Ko Lanta - Ko Phi Phi - 6 hours
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
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