Tuesday 26 February 2008

washed out in samui

Ok folks like every good story there needs to be a twist. So with the illness's cured and some nice beaching under our belt, we have been loving the life in Bophut, north Koh Samui, which as with lea's comments i would totally back up and recommend this place to everybody, fisherman's village is a fantastic little spot with a really trendy feel to it.

So time to venture out, to the scooter hire place. Beautiful day, scooter filled up (1 pound 15 to fill up, sorry no pound sign on the keyboard) and we hit the open road for some 15 mile an hour wind through our hair (again i would like to remind you all of the dumb and dumber scene). Samui has one main road the is like the scooter version of the M25 the circles the whole island only the M25 is a walk in the park, this road is like they get their tarmac from slabs of the moon.

Anywho we start our lap and head out to see the "big budda" (literally a big budda) its like 25 meters high and painted gold, pretty mental really, and a little surreal. (Since going there we have realised you can actually see it from pretty much everywhere along the north coast) So tick on the sight seeing list and off we go.

Next up Chawang, Like a chunk of Phuket dumped on this island, i think we may have actually reached a soring 25mph as we put our heads down and powered through the main strip. Lil Mario (scooters name, printed on the front) pushed us through the vile smell of sewers and out the other side of
Chawang as we head further south again and hit Lamai (this is the place we were going to stay) and as we stoped on what appeared to be a nice beach for a little refreshment (15mph really works up a thirst) we realise its pretty dirty and the sand is mostly just shells. So we end up loving fisherman's village even more so.

Back on the road and to some of the islands infamous waterfalls, getting pretty excited as these should be some good photo op's. So we pull into the parking spot pay the woman 20 baht (not much) and off we trek down hill into what appears to be the jungle. Keeping our eyes peeled for insects, bugs actually pretty much anythig that bites (i still have lots of open weeeping bites on my feet that seem to just attract more insects to bite me, pretty clever really its like the bugs have tagged me as tasty and stuck a sign on me for all thier mates) so down and down we go to what we are thinking is going to be a huge water fall as we have properly treked down hill. Picture this if you will........................A rock the size of a football surrounded pebbles and other loose stones and such with a half turned on tap dripping out onto a hill about a mile away trickling through the gaps in the rocks. Awesome, us along with some angry german men practically run back up the hill as to show whoever was watching our utter disgrace with the so called waterfall. Nobody was there hence nobody really cared what we thought, it was a rubbish tourist attraction, (As i am writing this it suddenly dawns on me that it was obviously a rubbish tourist attraction as the was no gift shop/men trying to sell anything, no fee's, no donation pots, nobody around, nothing) Well back out we head to the next one. As we pull in a man flags us down and calls us over to a desk, (yeah a desk/reception more promising already) he says we can not get to the waterfall by road and have to pay him 1500 baht per person for elephant ride to the waterfall. Clearly seeing the road running right off ito the distance and combine that with the fact there was not a single bike around (rare thing for Thailand) plus the fact it was an absolutely extortionate price, we spotted the scam and told him where to go and we were off. He shortly came running on over and said its fie we can drive on up to the waterfall. (con-man defeated, we might actually be wising up) So as leanne decided against her will to put her fingers up to the man we zoom towards the fall, Pretty good one this time, lots pf people jumping off rocks into the fall (some whimping out), good old dirty looking water though (someone please let grandad know we didn't go near the water, not that i think it makes much difference as i have probably been given everything by the bugs anyway). Was actually pretty impressive though a good 30 meters high, in monsoon season i bet if chucks down off the rocks at the top. Leanne had a nice little climb on some vines, and i had a jump around, seeing how close i could get to breaking my ankles!

Good day out.

Planned a day by the pool as we are in a nice hotel and it had a clean pool, (alot of the one's we have seen look like river water, mossy, dead things floating on the water etc, you get the picture) Plus lea wanted some long deserved sunbathing. Cue clouds lots of clouds no sun = day wandering round various coffee and ice cream shops.
We decided though as it was cloudy anyway to hop on the scooter and head to the golf course where randomly they have zorbing (put in a 10ft inflatable ball and rolled down a hill, but this one rather than tie you in they just put you in and half fill it with water, random but lots of fun.

We had booked a trip over to Koh Panghan for the day to meet up with Ben (friend from bournemouth) after getting up at 6:30!!!!! (those of you who knows lea will know how challenging this was!!!! )to get the early ferry across we were not impressed, The clouds had turned into rain (= A VERY UNHAPPY US), lots of rain. Full moon party scrapped, Day in Koh Panghan scrapped. Sorry ben got so close but we had to come back, as forest gump would say "its that big old fat rain that feels like the sky is falling on you" So 11 am we head back to hide.

The we did the unthinkable, checked the weather forecast 5 days rain and thunderstorms.

The only thing we could possible do in a situation like this is rent a dvd player by some films and sit it out. We have changed some plans, we decided not to head back to Phi Phi for 5 days as the rain will destroy any chances of doing anything there, They dont even have power during the day. So we are in our nice hotel a couple more nights finding indoor things to do.

Yesterday (look at us almost up to date) we booked a thai cooking course, very excited as we had been getting pretty bored of hiding from the rain. So back on the scooter (down down to about 6 or 7mph as the rain is still hard, and the road system has become a canal system. Had to head back to the dreaded Chawang, but we could just about bear it for the afternoon. So cooking, a little thai lady took the class were we mostly learnt about chillies (awesome) but it was a really good course we made three dishes, Chicken Massaman curry, spicy King Prawn salad with dressing, and fish balls soup (fish meat rolled into balls, not the other thing). Was an experience and hopefully we can remember the technique for when we get back ( well i say we, but really we all know its gonna be lea as i have already forgotten it) But really good afternoon/evening and it even tasted amazing. And i only got laughed at once by the thai people, although lea was befriended by a middle aged german woman who felt the need to start cutting up her ingredients and generally helping her out by explaining what a peanut was?!. We actually had the dinner with some aussies and they found it good to tell us every possible way we could get stung, bitten, poisoned, trapped, eaten, dead'ed by everything in OZ. Even what to watch out for in Sydney, Although one of the guys was most scared of the road systems as he described you can be driving down a road one way one day then BAM the next day they have changed the direction of the road on you, (sounded like a contraflow to me, but i didn't wanna say so at the time).

So you are all invited to come over for a Massaman curry when we get back (oh yeah and have somewhere to live)

Next stop we are heading back to phi phi and try and run away from the rain.

Hope everything is well at home.

Lots of love US.

XXX

Stacey, good update today, loved the detail and thorough narrating! you have skills

Gem thanks for the update, and hope everything works out with work.

Mum say hello to nan, and hope she gets better hope she knows who its from.

mum and dadoflea hope your ok and keeping grandmas attacks on the fellow WI - ers to a minimum!!! tell grandma and grandpa we'l send some postcards this week! love you lots xxx

the pics in order.....
  • we await the chance of sun!!
  • dumb and dumber on the road again
  • leanne has a erm.... go!
  • leannes geeky arty pic
  • we cook thai style!
  • we explore the jungle..........and matt impersonates a flying squirrel
  • matt wanted to adopt this little boy so leanne calls him Angelina Jolie!
  • oh yeh we rolled down a big hill in giant bubbles......as you do!
  • pretty nice sunset (whilst on the ferry to samui)
  • leanne visiting a Buddha
  • a waterfall we visited in the middle of the island.


































































































































Thursday 21 February 2008

kodak moments

well as i sit in a little internet cafe in ko samui i thought i'd post some much awaited snaps of our epic time so far! im fully recovered now!!! the illness and drama is over. Phi Phi beaches, sun and anti biotics cured me so im not coming home now - there was an oscar peformance where on my death bed in our Phi Phi tree house, where i announced that it was all too much and i wanted my mum!! haha - stace maybe you arent the only peformer in the family! so our last couple of days were interesting on Phi Phi - as im all better now, obviously the way this trip works it was matts turn for the rough time :-( as you can see from the pics below mattanaldo played a game of football with some locals - but - the first aid kit came out for the first time - as matts feet got cut to pieces on the shells! ouch. being a "man" he had to play on - so they got worse. They have healed now after some TLC - matts ego hasnt healed after he was called, and i quote "ah you are baby feet" hehe. after Phi Phi we headed to Krabi for a night, and we did some proper back packing as we were dropped off on a beach and told to walk to the hostel, we found it and had a lovely night!, well anything would have been better than the tent we had stayed in 2 nights previous, i tried it are you proud?! but i dont think we will be staying in a tent on a beach again. The bugs and creepy crawlys have taken a liking to matt his feel are one big bite (ahhhh baby feet) - from krabi we got a coach across thailand to catch a ferry to ko samui. arrived last night in a resort on the north of the island called bophut beach!! the hotel is amazing and this resort is lovely and quiet with a stretch of really fancy bars and restaurants! its a fishermans village so we are quite chuffed to be staying here and calling this home for 5 nights. over the next few days we will explore samui then over to the nextdoor islands.

enjoy the pics! hope everyone is ok back home? any news? all sounds exciting about the wedding plans - and wow about the connection to posh and becks!!

stace hows life you little bumble bee? and more importantly did sam here back off hollyoakes??? me and matt want day passes!!!!

love to you all

lea and matt xxxxxxxxxxxxxx



these are all in a random order so read the captions....


sunset at the tip of phuket island
matt "baby feet" playing football (check out mr burns whimpering in the middle!)



matt in our tree house with the checkers board we made!! how creative of us.... (but someone stole it!!!:-( )




me in my tree house!! (stace NO jokes about my origins!!!)

this is the life! (phi phi island)

this photo was a mistake but we think its funny - check me out jamming to bob marley!!

phi phi island - they were building a new house and thats how they got the materials!





when i was ill :-(






bangkok - can you spot me? i was taking in some of the madness round me - you cant see it but infront of me was a park full of people (about 500) taking part in the biggest aerobic class!!









matt in a bangkok park






matt swinging on a ball (phuket)

me having ago (matt pushed me really hard and i was swinging for a while!)










matt chilling out on Phi Phi






Monday 18 February 2008

More scooter adventures!

Hello all,

The scooter story continues..............

So after the last update the getting around Phuket and learning that the scooter is the only way to travel (although pimp my tut tut is a rapidly growing fashion, neon lights, subs, big alloys, a million spotlights and even a windscreen skicker all regular fashion). We have finally plucked up some courage and went for a little adventure on our scooter. We had promised the hire lady (insert own comical Thai accent here...............) "you look after my motorbike" "you will be carefull with my
motorbike" "use unleaded 91 octane in my motorbike" (we actually believed it was her own personal "motorbike" she had given us) we headed south of Phuket in search of something nicer than Patong beach.............................

We found it! Yay we had actually found some nice beaches with out the neon strip of blackpool. It did take most of the afternoon though. Let me set the scene for you............beautiful rich green rolling coastline hills for as far as the eye can see no mix that with the scene from dumb and dumber when they are both sat on the little scooter.........You got it, at least we weren't cold. Another benfit is that it only managed about 20 miles an hour so when you got hit in the face with a bug (consenquence of all those
beautiful rich green rolling coastline hills) it wasn't going fast enough to hurt! So back to our lush paradise like beach...... Well it was acutally getting pretty close to sunset by the time we got to the very south of the island. So we pulled into a posh looking restaurant for a nice (valentines - brownie points) evening dinner adjacent to the bay to watch the sun go down for the day. However the posh looking restaurant didn't open till 7:30, way after the sunset (think they are missing a bit of a marketing dream there but there loss) so we went over to the other side of the bay and found a not so nice looking plastic table and chair set. The food was absolutly amazing and we both watched the sunset on the our first enjoyable day in Thailand.

5:30 the alarm goes off continually, sorry i mean the worlds most annoying rooster, loud as you like next door! Shocking. So we hope today is the day for the nice enjoyable Thailand to prevail and after yesterdays good fortune things were looking up. Up wakes a voiceless leanne. NOT GOOD! So with a bottle of water in hand and packet of strepcils we head down for the minibus transfer to the harbour. Lots of coughing, fleming, and croaking later we have arrived at what seems to be a harbour made up of boats tied together. We buy a ticket and get on the boat, easy! We have actually done some cross land travelling now, by boat and everything! All the boats untied and race off in thier different directions the "harbour" dissapears!

Koh Phi Phi here we come.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

Arrive at phi phi, much the same really, lots of offers for random stuff, The main difference is that all the men standing at the side of the pavement are now offering "taxiboat" not "tut tut" sadly there is no pimp my taxi boat going on here, if anything its like the opposite. A taxi boat consists of wood older than most of the trees on the island nailed to an engine older the most of the houses i have ever lived in, hit that with a tsunami and you can imagin the state of these taxi boats but hey they get you there........ (lea just read that bit for the first time and gasped - noted!! - bad matt)

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

There being a treehouse about 15-20 meters up, (not exactly the desired beach front bungalow we were sold on)

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

Still feeling the illness, leanne hit the bed hard, pulled the fly net (godsend) around her and was out. Only stirring for a cough, swig of water and a moan! (I am gonna get in trouble for that one) I picked up a random book called "invasion that was floating around in the reception book share thing, one of the only english ones! So i began to read. Leanne slept/ i read. Continually for about 6 or 7 hours. The bungalows are great everything you need to sleep and read. The only thing i would say is the generator that powers the bungalows only comes on when it gets dark/ a man turns it on, subsequently when it gets dark you don't have any power untill they turn it on, nice. So i had a little nap i was warn out from all the reading) untill they turned the power on. Much more illness...........

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and the biggest spider we have ever seen (lea here for a couple of words - matt screamed a high pitch top C note when he saw the trantula!! x) Yeah thats right the thing had more chest hair than me!! (lea here again - and thats furry!!)

We now call it, leanne needed some anti-biotics - So we travelled by taxiboat again ( there is nothing where we are staying but the bungalows and the restaurant, the rest of the civilisation is on the other side (much like Lost). Long and short of it anti-biotics IN - throat infection OUT (and parents relax), i tell you we almost have smiles again. Apart from the fact we are now staying in a TENT. Nothing more to say about that, we are not at that point where you can look back and laugh on it. So that will come soon. - we hope.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

Oh yeah the after nearly 400 pages i realised the book i picked up is actually abouth the TV show the 4400 , god bless my memory!

Plans are to head over to Krabi then Koh Samui. Gem/Trip advisor the last advice was actually spot on, any more info for Samui?

Hope everyone is well, any news?

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

Love you all lots

From an almost better matt and lea xxx

Tuesday 12 February 2008

Sawadee (Hello) Phuket!

Well we actually did some off the shoulder traveling and manage to get our way from bangkok to the south, Phuket! (well we booked a flight and got on it, then got in a taxi and we were here not quite hardcore traveling but its a start.) Little fright at the airport when they updated the flights board with a 4 hour delay for our flight and saying the gate had changed. Found out (with not long to spare) they were just random changes on the screen and the flight was on time as normal, nice organization! So into Phuket and our first hostel, it is actually pretty decent, got a TV and everything, (only 25 channels of Thai stuff though) The only thing that keeps upsetting Leanne is the reception consists of a school style desk with a box of biscuits on it and some printed taxi signs blue-tacked to the wall, small random worries in a world of madness!

What we have found so far in Phuket.........

1 - Its hot, i was sun stroked before (or heat exhaustion as the sun doesn't actually get through the smog in bangkok) so now i (we) have that plus sunburn, and i was sat in the shade all day!

2 - There are strangely more taxi's/tut tut's than people

3 - Likewise more jet skis than people

4 - Odd one but lots of hairdresser

5 - More dogs and street meat, but the street meat looks like actual animals here rather than the left overs of a heavy night out like in bangkok.

6 - Scooters are nearly as cheap as beer, and you safer on one than walking as they just dont care about whats road, pavement, grass, beach or water, also the people you can get on it the better.

So to summarize, get a taxi here, towing an empty one (cause its spare) get dropped off to get your hair cut, grab a beer and scooter (from the same place) pick up as many locals as you can fit on your scooter and then see if you can find petrol (a petrol station is a drum on the side of the road with a hose-pipe handing out of it) Try and make your way to you hostel with one way systems that don't really apply whilst trying to knock over as many walkers as possible!

Job done, day in Phuket!

What else we have done, booked all the internal flights around Thailand. (For the parents) leaving the south on the 01/03/08 flying to Chaing-Mai (north) then back to Bangkok (not leaving the airport) on the 06/03/08, connect to our OZ flight to Melbourne! Also booked our camper van for NZ (lots of love for queenie the camper. "lp", sounds abit too gay for my liking. "ml") check it out http://cheapmotorhomes.co.nz/queenie_%E2%80%93_2_berth_hi-top_manual_5845_new_zealand_motorhome_rental.html(Si, this is the site if you wanna forward it to your dad, insurance adds on a bit to the price at the end)

So back to Phuket, saying here in Patong for 3 more nights whilst we try and arrange some kind of boat crossing to phi phi, but we are go out and discover more secluded beaches tomorrow, Kata is supposed to be nice (Then i am sure Leanne will tell you all about how i was going to make her walk that far cause it said it was only 2ish miles on the map!)

StacEy Pike a special mention for the hollyoaks update, it was like really watching it, (although the dramatization was well out of the range of beth's acting capabilities) but i think you might be on to something there, i am thinking about posting them in a separate blog!!

Mum, (Loughran) i left a magazine subscription card in the bedroom on the bookcase could you post it for me please?

Lots of love to all
XXXXXXX


Monday 11 February 2008

sawat-dii kha (good-bye) Bangkok......

after an eventful 3 days we are leaving the random and wonderful land of koks. its been such a culture shock, we have seen beautiful parks and architecture along with dead dogs and melting face woman ( a homeless womans face was hanging down to the floor!!) i think 3 days here have been enough, i am so ready to see some lush beaches and open spaces! just sat in the airport now, poor matt is ill :-( he has sun stroke so i think we will find some shade over the next few days (obviously il find a sun patch right next to him). We are heading down south (sorry dad im becoming a southerner again!!) to phuket, and we are staying in a hostel in patong beach called "@nania" - authentic!! we are there for 4 nights then we plan to explore phi phi (thanks for that tip gemma) and stay in a beach bungalow!! just bought a big memory card for the camera so will post some pics next time we get to a comp (matts in cold turkey at the min from p.c's - so maybe its not sun stroke?!)

comment away its nice reading them :-) - keri (mum) how come you are called "matt loughran" on your comment?-look like ive been writing on my own blog :-(

love youuuuuu x

Friday 8 February 2008

newbies arriving!

friday feb 8th 2008 - day one!

we have arrived safely after an ok flight - we watched dvd's, played computer games and matt slept - so pretty much a normal night for us! we found our way to a shuttle bus taking us to the hotel - BUT it took us to gridlock bangkok traffic jam - so we befriended a german couple (random) who took us to the sky train (it flies above the city) - and they showed us where to go, although the man properly fell over on the way! ouch. so we found that the sky train equals a happy leanne and matt - the roads however have enough dead meat (street meat is leannes name!!!) to keep leanne in the sky forever!!!

we made it to the hotel! its amazing!! - what a way to back pack ey! hummm could get used to this, so we are going to make the most out of these 3 days . got a nice top floor room so plenty of kodak moments of bangkok skyline! - although what is more amazing is matts feet have swelled up to reseble hover crafts - what a light weight :-p (henders not enough walking prep)

we are both pretty shattered so going to relax in the pool on the top floor........

we love youuuu

matt and leanne xxx

Saturday 2 February 2008

first stop BANGKOK......

Not long to go now!!! eak...... we have booked the hotel for the first few nights - www.unicograndesukhumvit.com -a bit of luxury before we really experience the beach hut life! ( leannes idea!) yay so big plan is buy back packs and havaianas the jet off thursday night!! - we have got the 12 mega pixel camera so are all set for posting some amazing pics.................... anyone jelous yet :-)......... will post something more exciting when we get there! - or maybe our backpack trial walk in bournmouth 2moro might result in something amusing!!!
leanne a
nd matt xx