Railay

For the last few days in Thailand, we decided to head to Railay for a change of scenery and some more of what Thailand is most famous for: beautiful beaches.

With tall limestone cliffs and pillars towering out of the water, Railay is stunning and is the classic picture postcard image of Thailand, with wooden long tail boats floating in clear, turquoise water against a sunny backdrop of blue sky and vertical limestone cliffs.

Kev with all his bags

Railay beach

Railay is on the Thai mainland but is only reachable by boat due to the thick jungle interior. Because of its jungle location, there’s also quite a lot of wildlife in Railay: there are lots mosquitoes around, a constant roar of cicadas and we even saw a water monitor (a giant lizard with a forked tongue like a snake)

A water monitor dashes into the undergrowth

Electricity is only switched on at night and only a few of the higher-end resorts have generator power during the day. It’s funny how it feels more remote than Koh Lanta, despite being attached to the mainland.

We had a tip from the owner of one of our favourite beachfront restaurants in Koh Lanta to stay in the next beach along from Railay: a bay called Tonsai - which is as beautiful as the main beach in Railay but less touristy and much quieter. 
In fact, I think it might be a bit of a well-kept secret as there was nothing listed on Trip Advisor or Booking.com about Tonsai, so if you were searching in advance for accommodation, Tonsai wouldn’t even be listed, despite the extensive options currently available. A top tip if you are considering heading to the region!

Tonsai beach

Railay and the surrounding area are most well-known amongst climbers and the limestone cliffs offer world-class climbing – but Kev didn't fancy the heights and I (with limited climbing experience and having only recently recovered from shoulder surgery) thought it might be too much too soon. 
It was also really hot and climbing in the full heat of the sun seemed a little too energetic for us! Instead, we opted for a few quiet days on the beach, preparing for our imminent return to the UK.

Limestone cliffs at Railay

At low tide, it’s possible to walk around the rocky shoreline to the main beach in Railay West, where there’s a walking street with cafes and a small market. 

The footpath leads on round to Railay East, where I had to face my fear of macaques and pass through a group of mischievous monkeys who were trying to steal food from the street vendors – we saw an alpha male steal a barbequed corn on the cob and run up a tree to eat it. 
It’s a constant battle between street-vendor and monkey – fortunately, it meant the monkeys weren’t too interested in the tourists, but I still didn’t want to get close enough to test out that theory as I’d left behind my monkey stick! I’ll be sure to pack the toy snake on the next leg of the trip!

A long-tailed macaque

From Railay we wended our way back to Bangkok via Phuket, treating ourselves to some nicer accommodation along the way – I think there are only so many days you can comfortably put up with a basic hut with a cold shower! On the plus side, any room with air con and a hot shower is relative luxury so needn’t break the bank!

So, it’s London for the next few weeks before we head out on leg two. We’re not looking forward to the cold weather, but it will at least be nice to sleep in our own bed and catch up with people. See you on the other side!

Penang and Langkawi

Onward to Malaysia! We needed to do a quick visa run to extend our time in Thailand until we fly back to London, so we did a short round trip to Penang and Langkawi, which are surprisingly close to Koh Lanta. Unfortunately, we’d already booked flights the long way round before we realised that there's a quicker ferry/minivan option to get to Langkawi! Still, it meant we got to see a bit of Penang as well, which we wouldn’t otherwise have done.

Before flying out of Phuket we had time for a few hours on the beach. I enjoyed watching the planes come into to land low over the sea.

Plane coming into land at Phuket Airport

We arrived in Georgetown, Penang to torrential rain – this region of South East Asia really isn’t having the best weather at the moment, but then again it is in the tropics and we are fairly close to the equator. Fortunately, when it does rain – though it is torrential – it doesn’t rain for long so we were soon able to go out and explore.

Georgetown is an old British colonial outpost and still retains many of its original English street names – we stayed in a guest house on Love Lane! Now, much of the city centre is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site with many landmarks dating back to the settlement's establishment in 1786 and including later 19th-century buildings including Chinese shop houses, Hindu temples, Indian Muslim mosques and two of the city's oldest wet markets. (Thanks to Wikipedia, as always, for the historical information!)

Colourful Chinese shop fronts

The architecture, street art and reputation for being the foodie capital of Malaysia all make Georgetown one of Malaysia’s most popular tourist destinations. We had a great time wandering around Armenian street and the city centre, taking in the ‘famous’ murals of children on bicycles, old Chinese-style buildings and wrought iron cartoon strip artwork on the sides of buildings. 

Wrought-iron caricatures

Wall murals and bicycles

 By the seafront, the city extends on a boardwalk on stilts out over the water, in a market selling souvenirs and street food: big bowls of Chinese ramen and durian fruit pastries and ice creams.

The seafront market on stilts

With Chinese New Year celebrations coming up next weekend, much of the city is decorated in preparation, with red paper Chinese lanterns adorning the streets.

Chinese lanterns on Armenian Street

We enjoyed trying some of the local delicacies, including a regional ‘laksa’ (noodle soup) made with mackerel, lemongrass, tamarind, chilli, tomato and thick rice noodles. 
There is also some excellent seafood available, cooked in every country’s style at the Red Garden night market. We opted for Japanese teriyaki but could have chosen between Malaysian, Thai, Chinese or Indian flavours. Dishes cost around £2 - £4 so it’s possible to eat very well here for very little.

For a novelty experience and a bit of fun, we visited the Upside-Down Museum – which is exactly what it sounds like – basically, a house arranged upside down and a series of photo opportunities in each room! Very silly but a good way to pass an hour.

Upside-Down Museum

On the way back to our accommodation, we passed this guy – talk about putting all your eggs in one basket! 

Putting all his eggs in one basket!

After two nights in Georgetown, we took the ferry over to neighbouring island, Langkawi. Langkawi is actually an archipelago of 104 islands, of which Langkawi Island is the biggest. It also has duty-free status, so alcohol is very cheap - compared to the mainland, where its mostly Muslim population do not drink.

Kev is pleased about the price of his 'Royal Stout'!

We stayed in the main tourist hub at Cenang beach, with icing sugar fine sand and calm seas to swim in. 

Pantai Cenang

We had planned to do some diving whilst we’re here but apparently, Langkawi is not known for its good diving. For a start, visibility is never more than two to four metres at any time of the year! Once again, I think we’ll hold off until we’re in a slightly better dive spot and with better weather. Whilst the afternoon rain and thunderstorms won’t stop the dive trips, it’s always much better when the sun is shining as the colours are better under the water.

A storm brewing...

We hired a jet ski for a fun way to pass a morning – Kev took to it much like he took to quad biking, so he didn’t much like being the passenger, but enjoyed driving as fast as possible and doing small jumps over the waves!

Jet ski fun

Tomorrow we’re heading back to Thailand (the quick way, this time!) for our last week before we head back to London. Back to Koh Lanta first, then making our way back to Bangkok via Krabi, Railay and Phuket. I'll blog again before we fly home. 

Koh Lanta

We’ve had a really chilled out ten days on Koh Lanta and most of our days have been spent relaxing on the beach with a selection of books. I think I’ve probably read more in the past two weeks than I did all of last year! 

We decided to stay in the same bungalow I wrote about in the last blog post as the location is pretty idyllic and the best beach on the island is a ten-second walk from our front door. The beach is lined with a string of beach bars and restaurants, all offering cheap food and happy hours of varying duration every day, so we have been working our way through most of them and sharing around our custom.

Sunset on Khlong Nin Beach

Our day has pretty much followed the same itinerary most days: wake up, have breakfast on the beach, alternating between swim, read and snooze in a deckchair in the shade, lunch, more beach time, a spot of work or blogging as the sun goes down, followed by dinner on the beach. It’s a hard life! 
I did however, break the inactivity with morning runs, workouts and yoga sessions on the beach, so I don’t feel quite so guilty about taking it so easy!

One of the highlights of each lazy day is seeing a dog and a duck (an unlikely partnership, I know!) go for a walk down the beach and back again. They might stop for a sit on the beach, or a wallow in the waves on the shoreline, but always together! It makes everyone look twice, smile and invariably take out the camera – myself included.

An unlikely friendship

The dive boat that got washed in by last week’s storm has been gradually been thrown about the beach and smashed up more every high tide. It’s been quite a mission for the locals this week to clear the wreckage, which concluded with a digger on the beach dragging the remaining sections away from the shore before the next storm rolls in – apparently, that’s expected over the next couple of days. We are hoping that we will have made it safely back to Phuket and on to Malaysia by the time it hits as I don’t fancy that five-hour ferry ride in rough seas!

The shipwreck

We hired a bike for a few days in order to see a bit of the island, making trips to the beaches along the east coast (which are all pretty glorious), over to the old town, with its buildings built on stilts, out over the sea, and down to the national park at the tip of the island. 

Koh Lanta Old Town

I’m not sure if we’ve been fairly sheltered on the beach we’ve been staying on, but elsewhere on the island there are so many macaques. We saw them in the trees on one beach and as we arrived at another roadside beach, a couple of tourists warned us that some monkeys had just chased another couple on the beach. Remembering our experience in Borneo where we were chased by a particularly territorial alpha male macaque, I was very wary that they didn’t get too close. We must have seen twenty or thirty over the course of the day.

Monkey steals someone's picnic on the beach

Unfortunately, some of the tourists still find it hilarious to feed the monkeys, which is only going to encourage them to ‘attack’ more. Mind you, I once found them ‘cute’ and funny too – perhaps it’s not until you’ve been threatened by monkeys that you realise they are wild animals and not to be befriended. I will certainly be keeping my distance, that’s for sure!

A stick to ward off the monkeys!

In contrast to the hot fierce sun by day, the evenings have given way to a few tropical rainstorms, thunder and lightning – perhaps in a build up to the imminent storm. We were lucky yesterday when we managed to make it back to our accommodation and park up the scooter just seconds before a torrential rainstorm hit and lasted for several hours. It’s funny how quickly the weather can turn in the tropics.

A storm rolling in

As mentioned previously, we leave tomorrow for Malaysia on a visa run before coming back to Thailand for our final week – I can’t quite believe that leg one of our trip has almost come to an end! We’re planning on visiting Penang and Langkawi in Malaysia but will see if the storm is meant to hit there too and if so maybe visit a different part. It would be great to fit in some diving, but subject to calm seas, I think.

Vientiane and Koh Chang

Happy new year, everyone! Apologies for the lack of posts for a while – we have been relaxing on the beach and settling into the new year!

Last time I wrote were we were due to arrive into Vientiane, where we spent a couple of days. It's a small and pretty French colonial city and Laos' capital. 

At times - if you ignore the tuk-tuks - you could be mistaken for thinking you're in Paris: cafes with blackboards written in perfect French handwriting, run by French ex-pats, advertising duck a l'orange and 'jambon beurre' baguettes, tucked in amongst the Laotian cafes selling fried noodles.

Can you spot the French influence?

We also found a Tintin-themed Belgian beer cafe, which Kev just couldn't resist!

Drinking with Tintin in the Belgian beer cafe

We spent a morning at COPE (http://copelaos.org), a museum dedicated to telling the story of Laos' unexploded ordnance following the Vietnam war – and the resulting need for prosthetics caused by injuries from cluster bombs.

Laos is the most bombed country in the world per capita. The impact of the Vietnam war in Laos was equivalent to bombs being dropped every eight minutes, 24/7 for nine years, non-stop. Thirty percent of the cluster bombs dropped did not detonate and are therefore still active. 

Much of the land is used for farming so the unexplored 'bombies' (individual bombs, about the size of an orange, within the larger cluster bomb shell) still pose a very real threat today. However, with new bomb search and disposal techniques, they hope to clear all remaining ordnance by 2020.

As we travel south, the weather is starting to get warmer. We felt it first in the move from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, and then again through Bangkok into Koh Chang. Fortunately, also the roads are becoming less mountainous, though the minivan drivers remain as crazy as ever! 

We passed through a town called Trat – the jumping off point for Koh Chang and randomly met a man who lives in Truro – it’s a small world and the Cornish really do get everywhere! 

Koh Chang is Thailands third largest island and is just south of Bangkok. It has a mountainous, jungle interior and is fringed with pretty sandy beaches on the west coast – the perfect place for a spot of rest and relaxation.

White Sands Beach

Arriving in time for new year we were fortunate to stay on a fairly quiet part of the island, so we were able to avoid the worst of the (hideous) new year’s eve’s parties on the beaches - and found a secluded part of our local beach, Pearl Beach, to toast in the new year. Nearby White Sands Beach and (somewhat inappropriately named) Lonely Beach were 'party central', so well worth avoiding!

We hired a scooter to get around and made Kai Bae Beach our home for the week. Three times a day the elephants from a nearby elephant camp would be walked down the beach to bathe in the sea (which from experience, we know they love! 

Elephants on Kai Bae Beach

I just hope they were not forced to also do circus tricks for tourists in the camp). In any case, they seemed to love the ocean and were well used to human contact. You could walk right up to them in the sea and touch them if you wanted, but even the baby ones are pretty strong so I kept a safe distance!

Baby elephant, Kai Bae Beach

One afternoon we hired a kayak and paddled around on of the small off-islands off Kai Bae Beach. It took forty-five minutes and was a welcome break from the inactivity of sitting around on the beach. That said, I think some beach time was long overdue after a month in land-locked northern Thailand and Laos.

Kayaking

The sea is the perfect temperature (probably somewhere around twenty-nine degrees Celcius) and the weather around the mid-thirties. The afternoons have been overcast and slightly cooler and fortunately, too, there have not been many mosquitoes around - paradise!

White Sands Beach

Next, we head back to Bangkok in order to head to our next location: Phuket and then on to some of the other islands.

Luang Prabang

We had a really easy border crossing from Thailand into Laos, the officials were friendly and the border police even asked the bus driver to take a selfie with us after asking where we’re from! 

With some time to kill at the bus station, we stopped for some food on the Laos side of the border – we had a choice of noodle soup or noodle soup: presumably it’s the only dish on the menu that the staff know how to say in English (and our Laos language is limited to three words at present) – so two noodle soups it was, with a can of the local Beer Lao. The soup itself was a lot like Vietnamese pho: a thin broth with thin rice noodles, beansprouts, spring onions, meatballs, tripe (or at least I think that’s what it was – I didn’t eat that bit!) and a wedge of lime to squeeze over the top.

On the whole, Laos is a bit more expensive than Thailand, despite being poorer and less developed. The currency (Kip) is 10,000 to the Pound, so we are enjoying being millionaires every time we go to the cash point!

From the border, we took an overnight bus into Luang Prabang, which took fourteen hours. Believe it or not this was the quickest option, with most tourists opting for the two-day slow boat up the Mekong. With hindsight, we wish we had also taken this option as the entire fourteen hours was on winding, pot-holed, mountainous roads. We had bunks on the bus, so lying down it felt even more precarious! 

If I thought the journey to Pai in Thailand was bad, it turns out most of Laos’ roads are like an extreme version of this – with sections of unpaved road, lots of pot-holes for good measure and many trucks driving through the night.

Night buses in Asia are also famous for having freezing cold air conditioning blasting out all night – we had on all our clothes, including fleeces, scarves and woolly hats and we were still cold! Arriving into Luang Prabang at five am, we were certainly pleased to get off, but we then had to wait until we could check in at our guesthouse. The cafés didn’t even open until 6.30 so it was a long and tired wait, but it is at least the only night bus we have planned to take on this trip. 

Luang Prabang has a big French influence. There are bilingual schools and all the cafes serve baguettes and crepes. After our time in Thailand, it was lovely to have fresh baguettes again, instead of the usual sliced, white loaf.
It’s a beautiful, well-preserved city. All the shop fronts have the same style wooden signs with lettering and there are lots of golden temples, but the buildings also have a colonial French style to them.

The coffee here is also excellent, grown locally and served Vietnamese-style with condensed milk in the bottom of the cup. It’s very sweet but very strong and delicious. 

The local-style cafes light two fires in the morning and keep them burning all day. On one fire, there’s a big pot for brewing the coffee and on the other is the stock for the noodle soup. In contrast, there are also lots of more western-style restaurants and cafes – all charging western prices.

One day we took a minivan to Keung Si waterfall, twenty kilometres out of town and which apparently, cannot be missed. The main waterfall is spectacular and cascades from a great height.

The water then continues downstream into turquoise pools and further falls. We started with a walk to the top of the falls and ended the day with a swim in one of the pools at the bottom.

Another afternoon we did a boat trip on the Mekong – a local man took us out in his boat (something like a house boat, but adapted with additional seats to take out passengers and living quarters at the back).

We cruised upstream for thirty minutes, then he cut the engines and let the current take us back downstream, whilst he did some fishing. We were lucky enough to have the boat to ourselves – it does seem to be really quiet here at the moment, despite being peak season.

 

On our last day, we took a walk up the steps to Mount Phousi – a mountain viewpoint with a temple at the top and great views out over the city, the river and the mountains beyond. If I thought before that it was quiet on the river, then it must be because all the tourists were at the top of Mount Phousi – all there to see the sunset! It was so busy it was almost impossible to take a photo without someone’s selfie stick in the way, so we decided not to stay for the sunset and to head somewhere a little quieter…

Luang Prabang is a small, but picturesque city and after three days here we feel like we’ve got a good feel for it. Our next stop will be Vang Vieng, where we’ll be for Christmas. I’ll write again once there.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Pai

There are 762 curves on the 135km road from Chiang Mai to Pai – except ‘curves’ doesn’t really do the journey description justice. What this really means is three hours of sharp hairpin bends and steep mountain roads – a journey for the strongest stomachs only – made in a minivan by a driver who thinks he’s on a race track! (The minivan drivers here have a reputation for speeding and blindly overtaking on these mountain roads – perhaps because they want to get there quicker and squeeze in another journey, or perhaps they drive the route every day and know the roads well – but it’s not for the faint-hearted! For those who are familiar with the hairpin bends between Penberth and St Buryan in Cornwall, this is a fair description of the majority of the journey, without exaggeration!

Everyone in Pai hires a scooter when they arrive. All the main sights are a few kilometres outside of the centre – too far to walk, but easily accessible by moped – and at a cost of just £2 a day to hire one we decided to take advantage. Our accommodation was also up a steep mountain road and at night there were a lot of barking dogs – they probably meant no harm but it was hard to hold our nerve when the dogs ran up to (greet?) us – so the scooter also meant we didn’t have to run the gauntlet after dinner every night and we got back unscathed. 

We stayed in a hut/bungalow in the aptly-named Mountain View Guest House – and what a view it was! Every morning we woke up in the clouds and watched the mountains appear during breakfast as the sun burnedt though the morning mist. I could get used to waking up like that every morning! Some days we awoke to thick fog – and it was really cold – other days we were above the clouds, looking down on them like we were flying above the mountains in an aeroplane. By 10.30 everyday, however, the sun had won out and we had a week of perfect, sunny weather.

Our breakfast view

There is a downside, however, to living up a mountain in an area of dense jungle – that’s being closer to nature. Our bathroom at night kept on surprising us – one night we went in to find a scorpion (who on closer inspection put its sting up – eek!) We came back another night to find a large frog in the toilet (which we gladly flushed back down!) and pretty much every other night 2 large slugs came to visit – but always disappeared by morning. I’m not sure how they got in, or where they went but we always made sure we put flip flops on to go to the toilet in the night!

Our bungalow

So off on our scooter we went, visiting Mhor Pheng and Pembok waterfalls, Pai Canyon and the Land Split.

Pai Canyon

Mor Pheng waterfall

The Land Split is just that – where the land has split following earthquakes in 2008 and 2011. It’s not hugely impressive to look at in itself, but the enterprising farmer (who can no longer use the land for farming) turned it into a tourist attraction by giving all visitors a picnic of fruits grown on the land, including passion fruit, papaya, banana and roselle (which is in the hibiscus family) juice and jam – all for a small voluntary donation.

Roselle flowers drying in the sun

Pai is very beautiful and consequently, it’s almost impossible to do it justice on camera. The impressive mountain panoramas, ever changing as the sun and shade moves throughout the day, and picturesque natural wonders. There’s always the smell of wood smoke in the air (due to controlled burning in farming) and a humid, verdant smell which adds to its beauty.

The Land Split

The town itself is a small square, of which three streets are pedestrianised every night and as the sun goes down they turn into the night market – or walking streets, as they are known here. The stalls sell a combination of street food and drinks, clothes and souvenirs and are a great way to spend the evening, soaking up the atmosphere. 

Walking Street (market)

Pai is hugely popular with Chinese tourists and western backpackers and as the evening progresses the streets get busier as everyone heads into town for dinner. When we’d had our fill of beautiful scenery for the day, we enjoyed just hanging out in the town over a fruit shake and noodles in a street café, or a beer by the river.

If you’re ever in Northern Thailand I would highly recommend a visit to Pai – assuming you can stomach the minivan ride there, it’s definitely worth the effort.

Next up we’re continuing on to Chiang Rai (back via Chiang Mai for a couple of nights), then over the border into Laos. I’ll blog again next week.