Venturing outside the 'Shire'

We have finally found paradise! Perfection in its rawest form; turquoise seas and virginial, white-sand beaches. We were dropped off at the jetty of Ko Muk and took a long sweaty walk along the beach and through the jungle and huts to find our accommodation that we'd booked. We made our way through what felt like a family's back yard; this actually turned out to be the busiest part of the island. We are only a few of a handful of people staying here. Ghost-beach! On our walk we encountered roaming chickens, goats and ducks, a handful of mangey dogs. Locals lounged around in their beach huts, untangling fishing nets. Colourful boats bobbed, hugging the shoreline. Eventually we found our resort, after entering through one of only two options: the beach, or an overgrown patch of land full of felled palm trees. We clambered over these, hot and sweaty, to arrive in reception. Upon arrival we discovered we were the only guests here, but this meant VIP treatment! We tried to ask at reception if the receptionist knew of any bars, but she just looked at us like we had four heads. However, we found scrabble, one computer and a treasure trove of a drinks cabinet. We were saved! We have since finished off the resorts only bottle of Baileys. Needless of say, we've got through a fair amount of gin and malibubu. We resorted to boozy scrabble to liven up a very, very quiet evening. Wild times baby!

Luckily, we managed to book a tour for the next day. We had our own boat, with a guide and driver, and a fruit salad lunch. They picked us up early in the morn, and took us to Morakat (Emerald) Cave. We were instructed to jump overboard, clad in life jackets, with our guide. Head-on! We swam the choppy seas up to an opening in the cliff face which, without our guide, we wouldn't have dared venture into. We needed protection! Making our way into the cave's entrace, the sunlight gradually faded. The cave emmitted deep, gutteral moaning sounds. We were aroused, but ready for the oncoming challlenge! Venturing deeper into this dark unknown opening, we could only follow the single beam of our guide's head torch. About 10m into the cave, still swimming, the water deepened. Just as we reached an inpenetrable, climaxical darkness, we saw a light at the end of the offiface. Hurrah! Panting, soaked and salty, we emerged out onto a paradisical patch of white sand, licked by the pale green, gentle waves, carassing the shore with a steady rhythm. We lay down on the sand to take in our surroundings. Large limestone protruded upwards, cloacked in thick greenary, as if it had been violently jet washed with a leafy green liquid. Luscious! Moist! Wonderful! We let the sun beat down on our skin. We throbbed with excitement at the wonders around us, barely able to stiffle our excitement. We felt the sheer stimulation of the earth's power, deep inside our primoridal souls. Right in there!

We longed to feel the cave just once more, excited by the prospect of a re-entering the rock's whole. Once inside, the sounds grew louder. We throbed and trembled, gasped and screamed. We were almost there! Finally, we came out to see our driver waiting. Ahhh.

So....snorkelling. Lulled by our recent pleasant experience, we took to a spot of fish-finding, to calm our excited selves. This only aroused us more: the sea was full with an abundance of marine life. Colourful, captivating, boasting so many crazy shades: coral, shoals, clams opening and closing - the lips of the sea, coated in a flourescent fur. Beasty! Inviting! Large parrot fish suckled and nibbld the ocean bed, teasing the marine life below. Star fish teased the bottom with their spiky suckers!

We needed rest and recuperation after such activity! We got our guide to drop us on a stunner of a beach, allowing us to steal the chastity of the white sands that squeaked beneath our feet. We sat, legs splayed, over the motorbike that was to take us home later on that evening. Little did we know, all this excitement would carry on into the evening...

After we'd showered, oiled up and chilled out, Jackie embraced her glass of Baileys, sitting back to sip it slowly. Suddenly, the glass slipped from her hand. The full glass tipped over her head, body and the bed's pristine white sheets. Unfortunately, through the eye's of reception, this looked very much like an explosion of faeces on the bed clothes; we couldnt explain it as anything less. Jackie's accident; over and out. Rogaaaar.

So our night out in Phi Phi was definitely memorable. We intended to go for a night out and down as many buckets as we could so we were then oblivious to the chavvy sights and shitty smells of phi phi. However, ended up going to a fire show on the beach..our seas were pretty much in the sea as these were the only ones free but despite Grace getting soggy shoes we had some benifits of being back stage! Met one of the fire dancers who introduced himself as Jonny - he had the highest most feminine voice we have ever heard which didn't seem to match his on stage persona which was a crazy masked fire thrower!He wanted us to give him power through high fives!
So then on the hunt for more beer we ended up getting tempted into a 24 hour fish spa where we had our feet munched by little fish. Jackie was crying with hysteria as they nibbled inbetween her toes but she got through her fear of fish and enjoyed the softness of her newly buffed feet. After this refreshment we spent the rest of the evening in the company of three ridiculous irishmen who claimed they were mid 20's but looked about 30. They claimed they were experts in the nightlife of phiphi having been to the place five years ago but ended up leading us to some dead rasta beach bar with about 3 people passed out. They insisted on ordering us various buckets but then drank most of them themselves. Grace was challenged by the irish lad who looked like tweedle dee to a gymnastic duel so they proceeded to start kartwheeling and doing the splits on the beach. Oh dear. We decided we'd end the night there and ran home (literally!) before they could follow us. Also ignored their pleeds for us to go with them to the actual island where 'The Beach' was shot as we were that fed up with being in phiphi!
A day of many disasters followed. We woke early, packed and caught the 9am ferry over to krabbi. Just as this was setting off from the jetty Grace discovered her phone was not in her bag. Shit. Simultaneously, whilst sat on the front deck checking through the bags and emptying their contents, we were both absolutely drenched by an oncoming wave! Bad Times. With no sign of the phone we planned to ring the guest house from where we were to stay in Trang. When we went to go about this a second discovery was made but this time worse: Mustoe had left her passport at the second to previous guest house in Railay. Oh Balls. Thank the Looooord almighty that our new hotel worker spoke amazing English and rang round to locate it and get it all organised so it was sent back in the next couple of days. Phew!
Lovely day the next day to relieve our stress - swam in the waterfalls that we'd hired a guide to take us to. Ate some crazy food at the night markets in Trang - Grace munched into a whole bbq fish whilst sat in an internet cafe, schhhtinkin' the place out. Trang also had some lovely coffee shops which we sampled from and a fair few thai and chinese temples which we had a mooch round. Despite the hostel owner being a wonderfully kind smiley lady the place was kind of stange to sleep in! She seemed to be caring for her very eldery mother who she had lying in a cot in reception. Also many random dogs running around the place kept us awake at night. Caught a mini bus over to the jetty which was to take us to the beautiful Trang island, Ko Muk.

I think we have to say this is definitely one of the best places that we've been to so far. We endured quite a bumpy boat ride to reach Railay, which can only be accessed by boat (very nearly loosing backpacks to the waves!). This in itself made the small settlement much less of a tourist trap than Aonang. There were no burger bars and far less Westerners!

We stayed in some tree house like accommodation called "Ya Ya's!" where we were given, to begin with, a small windowless room on the bottom floor. It had a very good shower and being too preoccipied by this after our contortionist showering experience in Aonang we said we'd take it, not realising that in the next couple of days all our clothes would become saturated with damp, and Jackie (after inspecting closely the bite marks on her bottom cheeks) discovered a nest of bed bugs under the pillows. We changed rooms to one with a window balcony and no bugs. However, the rooms fan was alarmingly close to our heads when we were sleeping, squeaking throughout the night...very annoying!..until we wedged it with a tissue.

The next day we booked a half day of climbing. Railay is famous for its amazing limestone karsts which are perfect for this, and the experience was unforgettable!!If not very terrifying! When getting our rather sexy harnesses and other gear fitted, Jackie earned herself the name "Penguin," thanks to her large feet. The instructors couldn't get over the size of them, and couldnt stop laughing at these giant flappers. One of the instructors was so taken by these feet, that he insisted on being her boyfriend. After this morning, we were absolutely shattered so just collapsed on a beautiful beach.

The next day, we got snorkels and went to check out the marine life around the bay. This was pure paradise!...limestone cliffs jutting up above the turquoise water. ANd to top it off, we found a cave full of phallus'...delightful! Many of these colourful wooden figures were put there by fishermen in hope of encouraging the fertility in the surrounding seas. We enjoying fresh papaysa salad for tea (our new addiction!), and then went out to our new favourite cocktail bar that jutted out over the sea on bamboo stilts. Bar man turned out to be a bit of a stalker, and let Grace take over the DJing. Jackie discovered her new love... Honey Monkeys - banana liqeuir, baileys and cream. Bloody brilliant! The tastiest Mojitos with crazy limes, and Maitais. Yammy! We spoke to a lovely Canadian guy who advised us where to go in Phi Phi, then headed off to the one club on Railay. Prior to this we'd chilled at a reggae bar until Jackie found a pube in her drink. Not so delicious! At the club, crazy dancing ensued until a power cut occured and a fire dancing DJ has to take over the entertainment with his skills. Grace caught his watch whilst he was flinging his beasty biceps around with the flames, sohe got us some free tequila and a mixed gin and vodka bucket...straight! Met some mental Americans who were extremely annoying, but gave them most of the bucket in hope that they'd bugger off. Had a couple more chang beers and staggered home. Felt rough as f***. Sorry to anybody we prank-called...we regressed about 7 years to our stupid teenage habits that night.

Absoltely hanging, we packed and headed to beach for a sleep and swim. Hopped on a boat, detoured for the boat man to catch a dead fish he'd spotted. Bloody huge! If we thought we'd rid our systems of the alcohol by then, we were very wrong. Then Mustoe managed to flop, head first, heavy rucksack (which we'd now rename 'mucksack' due to dire stench!) strapped on, down a ditch. She flopped back up, now accustomed to these falls, to meet Grace's horrified face who thought she'd broekn her ankle. Bladder bursting laughing fits followed, and some stares from other travellers. Tuk tuked along with pervy Turkish men to the jetti, where we caught our Phi Phi boat. Caught some shut eye on the topdeck, sunburnt, and arrived on the island famous for The Beach. We'll update after tonight, where we will try to embrace the buckets and conform to stereotype of standardly rat arsed English travellers. Think 'EN\nglish square' in Benidorm, and you will understand. We might as well be in Malia, or somewhere of the sort. Oh well, BRING ON THE BUCKETS!

Here we stayed in the shittiest smelliest place on earth. Our worst accommodation yet..."Bernie's Place". The un-emptied bins were overflowwing with fish sauce..as was the shared toilet but with some other ghastly concoctions. We showered underneath a tap that was at hip level - extreme showering took place - many contortions.
So we had a few very eventful days here. Much silliness.
We booked a day tour on mountain bikes with a lovely little bloke called Woody. We cycled for 12.4 miles in the thai countryside and saw many beautiful things. Stopped off at the Emerald pool - a stunning bright turquoise fresh water pool. We swam for an hur, got out and then realised we were going to have to drip dry as had not brought towels. Wet shorts ensured much chaffage on the cycle home. We got a free lunch however! Delishious 'Tomyam" followed by an momentous amount of water melon. The only downside to this was a mangey overly friendly cat with an unusually large pair of dangling testicals which it insisted on rubbing up on Grace's leg as she tried to enjoy her food.
We got to also stop at sme amazing natural hot springs. 32 degree water - right from the earths very core! (Geography fanatics would be very excited!). Again, with no towel we dressed on top of wet bikinis and climbed back on our bikes. After this lovely day with woody we were in need of many cocktail and had eyed up the prices earlier - 90 baht a cocktail! (just under 2 pounds!). We bar hopped and sampled many of them - the clubbing scene however was quite surreal. We found a bar that claimed to be an airport lounge which, after a few, was rather disorientating! Found a dodgey thai band up the escalator but put in a few well received requests. The lead singer was a hip popping, permenantly smiling, rather funky little midget. He loved us! asked Jackie to dance but we needed a couple more drinks so headed of elsewhere. Failed to find anywhere livlier but in the adjacent bar we met two lads from London who seemed to have picked up a strange (quite camp!) Irish guy somewhere along their travels, they told us Heathrow. He was a bit mad and claimed to teach music to animals. He and Jackie had some very random conversations. He asked her for an ineresting fact about herself, so she showed him how she can fart with her throat and claimed she had a third nipple.
Staggered back to Bernie's with them where they dropped us off, leaving with the promise of meeting up the next day to walk up the mountain to the Tiger Cave Temple. (They thought Jackie would be a good guide...how very wrong they were!). The next morning was rough. Grace managed to wake in a sweat by an annoying ray of sunlight shining directly onto her head. She made use of the time though and took some attractive shots of Jackie asleep. A crazy day followed where the alchohol seemed to linger in our systems. IT ALL WENT DOWNHILL FROM HERE.
In hope of getting rid of the hangover Jackie purchased a yogurt. She ate this in a half daze whilst walking and day dreaming. Too enthusiatic about gulping it down she managed to perform an epic fall, staggering firstly onto her hip - determined to save the yogurt she them thought it wise not to put her hands down so instead (yogurt held high) she dropped some more and rolled onto her stomach. The attempted yogurt save failed and she looked up desperately from the ground, glasses askew and yogurt dribbling down her chin. After this Grace's bikini bottoms snapped (perhaps too much bottom activity for th bikini's liking). In this state we could not guide the boys up to the temple to persued alone. Why we thought it would be wise to climp 1237 steps (as we soon found out on arrival) and on a hangover - we just don't know! However we had a refreshing motorbike taxi there and the views right from the top with the giant golden (pretty fat) Buddha was staggering. On the sickeningly steep decent we made a friend who was also very scared of heights! A a few mind blowing conversations with this little buddhist man qwho was very friendly and found Jackie's face hilarious (don't blame him!). The most memorable convo was when Jackie asked him "Have you come from Phuket?" and he answered "NAWWW I am not your caaat!". Nevertheless he obviously took a shining to us and bought us some bracelets at the bottom. He decided to give Grace the blue and Jackie the yellow, explaining after how traditionally blue was for the woman and yellow for the man! Jackie had obviously confused him!
Wondered around Krabbi night markets on the way home (Grace saw two dogs mating back to back in the street and was very disturbed thinking it was at first simply a poor deformed creature ajoined at the bottom).
In a bit of a daze and tired after all that stepping we got back to Bernie's but then found ourselves opening the door to the wrong room and walking in on a Chinese couple in bed - whoops.
The next day we booked an elephant trek upon which we met a jamanji like man from Sydney (he was strangely a lone rider so we felt we should talk to him!). The trek was amazing taking us through densely packed jungle.
Got back and them made our way to the pier in hope of catching a long boat over to Railay. Ended up a bit stranded waiting for one but come six o'clock boarded a very bumpy wooded boat on seriuosly ruogh seas! Made it there alive however but with very wet pants and bags.
Railay blog to follow...

So after a long tiring journey, taking a taxi, a ferry, another two buses and then a ferry..oh yea and another taxi, we managed to locate the accommodation who our good friend Jim had recommended from Penang - 'Dadd's guesthouse'. However on arriving, this pace looked more like a building site, with more rubble than building. Basically a pile of breeze blocks blocking the entrance, and many a chicken running around. Luckily we found somewhere nicer instead, Palms Guesthouse and managed to survive with just a fan and no air con this time. The sweating situation had calmed since the city, especially with the island breeze to cool our armpits.

On Langkawi we spent our first full day getting over excited by the beach, and frying. We lounged around on deck chairs and drank carrot juice, and went out in the evening, when Grace tried the local Tomyam soup, which is a spicy coconut and lemongrass concoction. She bit into a small green chilli which silenced her for a good ten minutes, whilst her lips swelled up (Nice botox look there). Jackie had a nightmare. she ordered what she thought was Chinese chicken rice, but arrived with lots of small, whole fried fish throughout the rice, so she went for the buffet thinking it was the safer option... but what she thought was a standard plate of sticky ribs, turned out to be dried, salted, yellow barracuda. Yammy!

That night we had a crazy one. We went to a small bar on the beach, which was more of a couples retreat, candles and couples galore. Awful band doing some awful renditions of Dire Straits in a Malay accent. Met some very keen local boys, one a rugby player who claimed he was a masseuse, rugby player for Malaysia and Norway, a fashion stylist, cable car worker and lastly claimed he was 'like the ocean.' WEIRD! Nevertheless, we went on a night out with them to Sunbar, more cheesy bands but cheap drinks. Had one too many vodkas, tiger beer, and staggered in at 3am.

next day, we hired bicycles then realised this probably wasn't the best thing to do with a hangover, but persevered and cycled around the airport, got a bit lost but found some good food so all was fine. A swim in the evening resulted in some jellystings to the breasts, so we gave up and went for some Arabic potty tea, which set us back a good rm10. Bloody rip off!

A long and very strange day followed! We began with a trip to the island's cable car, which as an impressive 700m above sea level so privded excellent views. However, people seemed to be more interested in taking pictures of us, rather than concentrating on the views. We couldnt deny them now could we... so had a very snaps with overly keen bald, shiny headed Swedish gentlemen. The return journey of the cable car was eventful, in true Grace and Jackie style. We almost did a full circle and headed back up to the top! After this, we needed come chill time, so liked the sound of some relaxation on Kok beach! As you can imagine, us asking to be taken to Kok beach was quite amusing, especially when the taxi driver couldnt understand where we wanted to go. It went a little like this:
Jackie: "Can we go to Kok beacg please?"
Taxidriver: "You whaaaat?'
Jackie: "Kok? Please? You know, kok beach?" (Grace giggling in the background)
On this delightful beach, we paid rm28 for two coffees because we had no towels, and needed to use the sunbeds of a very expensive hotel. Nevertheless, the beach was gorgeous, surrounded by stunning jungle views and limestone cliffs. After this, we went for an Indian Ayurvedic massage... not quite knowing what we were letting ourselves in for. For half an hour we endured some painful head stimulation! We cam out thinking we'd gone bald; all we'd gained was hair loss. Strange oils had been used on our heads, which left us so greasy that we could've been friend up into a fat fried fat Malaysian sausaaage.

So now we find ourselves in Thailand. A new adventure begins: we've already booked ourselves onto a private jungle bike tour.... 12.4 miles is sure to bring out the sweat once more. Hopefully the leeches will stay away. We're also very excited by the extremely cheap cocktails at 1 pound 40. Tonight, we stay in Bernie's Place, which for some reason has 3 beds, when we asked for a double...hopefully no weird purple haired Chinese men will turn up to freak us in the night! Goodbyeee!