kez & hay travels 06

Now nicely settled in Koh Tao, a small island in southern Thailands gulf coast, we booked a 4 day course in scuba-diving.  After a couple of hours in the "classroom" learning about water and air density and nitorgen intake...we progressed into the swimming pool and before we could put any of the diving equipment on we had to proove we could swim by doing 20 (Yes TWENTY) laps of the pool - more than i've done in my lifetime!  Slowly but surely we passed the course 4 days later and saw lots of fantastic sea-life including a gorgeous little yellow box-fish (true to its name).

Now that the hard work was over it was time for some serious relaxing...and for that we popped over to Ko Pha Ngan.  We found a gorgeous secluded beach with only a few other tourists.  We packed a lot in to those days: from eating to sun-bathing to swimming to sun-bathing again.  It was quite tough really, not sure how we coped!!!

Next stop, the northern capital of Thailand, we spent a week here.  Known for its accessibility to the hill tribes, and also for great cooking courses, we did both.  We tried to learn how to cook Tom Yum, green curry and mango with sticky rice - Yum.  After eating the best part of the 7 dishes we cooked, we rolled out of the cooking school and straight to bed - its a hard life this travelling lark!

The next day we started off on a 3 day trek we naively signed up for.  Only after the hour long elephant ride and hour long uphill hike on foot, did we realise that we hadn't really thought this through when we signed up for 3 days!!! And it was absolutely knackering!!!! However by the evening we had arrived at the village of a "white Karen hill tribe".  The people at this village, like all those from "Karen" tribes, were descendants from Tibet, and had settled in Thailand, although they do not have any status and make their living by weaving clothes and such.  The children have to walk 2 hours morning and evening to school.  We all sat around a camp fire and the children sang us songs and we in turn did a rendition of "hokey-pokey", and "i'm a little teapot".  That night we slept in a wooden hut under mosquito nets and insects galore watching over us - however we were too tired to freak out about this!  Next day up early for another glorious day of uphill trekking (why oh why did we think this would be a good idea!)  Lunch at another "White Karen" hill tribe village and then thankfully it was downhill from then.  That night we stayed in a jungle campsite by a small waterfall.  It was the first bit of running water we had seen in 2 days so we all ran for it.  Our final day on the trek saw many heavy down pours, and turned our jungle terrain into a huge mudslide (and not the one you drink!)  Baked in mud we eventually found a village to get cleaned up, but were then whisked off for our last but by no means least, event - the bamboo rafting.  This entailed us sitting on a long bamboo make-shift raft which then dipped half a foot into the river which in turn was caked in mud from the recent downpour.  In this position we proceeded to float down the river and be laughed at by the onlookers.  Not an experience we would like to repeat!!!

One more day in Chiang Mai now and then off to Chiang Kong for the border crossing to Laos, and a 2 day trip on a slow boat down the river Mekong - lets hope this boat is not made of Bamboo.  

Arrived to hot and sticky Bangkok and wondered why on earth we decided to come to this part of the world at its hottest time of the year.  Met up with Helena (for those who know her) as she transited Bangkok on her way to Cambodia for a 3 week holiday.  With one day in Bangkok we didn't do much due to the heat, but organised ourselves for our next day's travel to Kanchanaburi.  The next day, sitting on the train at a Bangkok train station waiting to set off, and practically melting in the heat, we sat through the loudest thunder storm which appeared to be happening just above our heads.  Arriving at Kanchanaburi, the starting point of the death railway built by allied POWs during the Second World War, we booked into a tranquil room just by the river and met up with Helena, our Swedish friend we met in Mongolia.  During our stay here we went to Erawan national park and climbed up its 7 tier waterfall, visited the Bridge over the River Kwai, and travelled the length of whats left of the Death railway.  The railway line, that weaves in and out of huge rock faces and crosses many unstable-looking bridges, was ordered by the Japenese to be built by their prisoners of war, so that the Japenese could get war supplies over to Burma and beyond by land.  The construction of the railway cost the life of one prisoner per sleeper.