Farewell Peckham

Haha! – you’ll love this. We have 4 nights (3 now) in BKK before we fly to LA and we want comfort so we can “hole-up” and chill, watch some movies and do LOTS of web research on the USA, We went back to our old room at Rambuttri Village (near the Koh San Road) and had to live with cockroaches, mozzies and very noisy air con again, for 950 Baht - £18 (deluxe room with TV and fridge). This was fine when we were in transit but now we need quality time to do our research before we go to the hugely more expensive USA. We decide this morning that you must be able to get a much better room out of the tourist centre – bearing in mind you are paying for the privilege of being central – so we searched for hotels nearer the airport…..

… lots of crap hotels and resorts, and some swankier ones but they got bad reviews regarding service etc, and also wi-fi is essential for our research. We are determined not to go to the USA unprepared like everything else we have done as we have quickly learnt that you miss all the best deals and accommodation if you leave it too late or just grab rooms on arrival…

Then I found this… the Nasa Vegas, about half way between the centre and the airport. The reviews were all positive, just mentioning it’s a bit dated. A bit dated – it’s like stepping back in time but it’s superb!!! – We have gone from paying £18 for a tiny room with A/C and a telly, plus cockroaches and mosquitos, to a “Suite” with a separate upstairs and downstairs, unlimited 1Mb internet in the room, large screen TV, Jacuzzi bath, fridge, leather couch, table and chairs etc for £30 a night lol. On the ground floor they have a leisure centre with hot tubs, saunas etc..

It’s very dated but super value – where else can you get a suite like this for £30?

If you see us online try a Skype or MSN video call, we are permanently linked and my bandwidth tests to the UK are excellent.

Ahh – time for lots of relaxing and research now, before we go back to basic rooms and motels in America!

(Kirstin noting down all the movie channels - and the stairs to the bedroom)

(Our little office at the other end of the room)

(Bedroom with one hunk included)

("Jacuzzi bath" for one very small person)

Love it.

Oh - I've dumped a load more pictures on photobucket - make sure you select a country on the left when you follow the link - there is Cambodia and Thailand now. I've also added the Tsunami video that was shot at the place we stayed in Koh Lanta - it's in the Thailand folder///

http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l235/dodgey99/

Oh.. And Kirstin says.....

"Just to prove that my travel diary has not gone by the wayside here is just a short extract:

Phnom Penh

Rather than fly we opted for the 6 hour coach ride down to Phnom Penh, a trip we would avoid in future as their idea of air-conditioning is pretty basic and certainly not very cool, and whilst the road itself was fine the coach driver played recorded karaoke type programs for the duration of the trip. Rog spent the entire trip with ear plugs in and I sipped only enough water to keep my tongue moist in order not to have to use either the on-board loo or the squats at the stops along the way.

Phnom Pen itself is fairly grotty and full of beggars and drug-sellers – rog was offered everything from weed to opium on a regular basis. There are also many tiny children wandering the streets either selling fake tour books or simply looking for a free bit of something to eat and whilst their laughter and play can be heard everywhere it is still rather heart-breaking to see them wandering barefoot and asking for (yes asking rather than stealing) the left-over food from whatever inexpensive meal you have just gorged yourself on.

After a very sad afternoon spent at the genocide museum we decided to call it a day in Asia. We need a break as whilst we have both thoroughly enjoyed our time here so far and are keen to see more, it can be quite mentally exhausting, not to mention the heat which is rising each day as the hottest season approaches. We need a stretch of semi-normality before coming back to continue with a part of the world which will only become more poverty stricken the deeper we explore.

America here we come…..

(Kirstin)"

OK, That’s a total lie, but an irresistible title. We’ve been here for 3 or 4 nights so far. Much more fun on the return visit – last time we just wanted to get to the beaches and rid our minds of all city thoughts (Peckham does that to you). This time we were up for sight seeing.

Matt and Justin were with us for their last two days. We had a painless flight back from Koh Samui – though there were loads of mozzies in the plane which makes for a lot of swatting and general panic whilst the safety briefing is going on. There were too many lardy people and the types that spend 30 minutes messing around with the overhead lockers in between us and the exits to make any kind of escape possible anyhow so – safety schmafety. (I do actually take note of where the emergency exits are on each flight – I watched a documentary ages ago that concluded your chances of survival in an air crash are wholly down to how close you are to the exits and how fast you can get to them – Discovery channel wisdom for you).

We checked into a half decent hotel (with a bath!!) and then got stuck into Bangkok proper. We also checked out China Town and had a hectic meal, delicious mind you. I pretended to make off with a whole shark fin much to their amusement – it was about £800 for the whole fin! – they were most insistent we had shark fin soup but we are backpackers – a touch too pricey, even for the soup – around £25 a bowl.

(On the Koh San Road again)

We did a longtail boat tour 1st. This is essentially a Gondola with a truck engine on it zooming around the canals for an hour – taking in sights like the floating market and, far more interestingly, looking at all the houses and communities based on the edge of the waterways. Very enjoyable and enlightening – one thing you notice is that they have a LOT of temples.

(I certainly would NOT swim in the water)

With that in mind, the next day we set off to see the Grand Palace – they have a rule that you must cover your bare flesh to go inside – i.e. no shorts, no short skirts, and no sleeveless tops (Justin!) – Justin had to go and rent a shirt for the day and he ended up looking like a janitor in his blue collar. More fun than that was waiting for him and watching a Thai lady with a megaphone shouting at practically everyone, “you! No shorts”, “you, people, no sleeves, you get clothes”. It’s amazing how many people will ignore the guide books, or don’t have one at all – whole groups arrived dressed inappropriately. Some slipped though by being sneaky. So much for respecting the Monks.

We were very lucky to see the Grand Palace – a chap at the main gate, standing right by a soldier told us , “Grand Palace closed” – open again at 3.30 (We happened to know 3.30 is actually when it closes) – we ignored him and walked 1 min down the road and entered the “closed” palace. This is common place. It’s a tuk-tuk scam. If anybody sees you heading for a tourist attraction they come over, all helpful, and tell you the object of your desire is indeed closed for cleaning/Thai holiday/Monks praying blah blah blah – then they tell you you should get a Tuk Tuk to another temple (they mean their mates’ clothes shop). We got half stung like this when a Tuk Tuk took us to a boat pier that amazingly wanted to charge us 4x more than normal. We ran. So far, EVERY single Tuk Tuk driver in Bangkok we have dealt with has been dishonest, and EVERY single person who has offered help when you are looking at a map, has wandered off, then as if by magic, a Tuk Tuk appears offering to take you to the place the chap you just spoke to was talking about. They seriously need to ban these things It does the Thai people a huge disservice when the 1st thing you are presented with in Thailand is dishonesty. All the Thais we have met have been super. Apart from Tuk Tuk drivers.

Anyway – returning to the Grand Palace – it was certainly eye candy, with lots of emerald Buddhas and gold everywhere and some stunning wall paintings. The main super special Buddah was in a room you are not allowed to take pictures in – but I managed – long zoom and 1600 Iso :-) Being that there were three lads in the group a lot of silly Buddah poses ensued.

(I’m incensed! – groan)

(Matt and "Justin the Janitor" in a WestSide Freeze)

I also noticed a very odd sign on the ticket entrance to the site, “Free for Thai People” – think about it. The sign was in English. Don’t get that.

After that many more beers were sunk and Matt and Justin zoomed off to the airport. It was great fun having them over and very very odd seeing them leave in a taxi – knowing they are going all the way back to the UK and that we are effectively “home” as it stands.

The following day K & I went to the Ocean World, based in two basement floors of the Paragon Shopping Center. What a place! It has a glass walkway under the main shark aquarium and you can also (which we did) get on a glass bottom boat and go on the top of the water and look down, whith a guide who found it too funny, far too many times, to make jokes about feeding people to the sharks. By the 6th time it was getting embarrassing.

We watched as two guys in scuba gear fed the sharks – all a few feet from your face. Brilliant stuff. I would have lots of great pictures but our little Sony digital camera packed up when we got there! I got as few crapo ones with my phone. I got a picture of K touching a real snake but alas my phone cam is useless in low light – very brave of her (I did too!)

(yep, he’s looking at me)

Pretty much everything in there was fascinating and we thoroughly recommend it to anyone visiting Bangkok. As part of the package we got tickets to the “4D” Ocean cinema experience. I pretty much assumed the “4th” dimension would involve moving seats or the likes of. I was mostly right. We donned our 3D glasses and the movie started. The “3D-ness” was impressive and soon into the feature a massive sea snake swam at us – it was right in front of your nose, and Kirstin, bless her, wasn’t sure if it was just her seeing it like this. She hates snakes, and just as the snake was inches from our noses the seats luched forwards and compressed air was blown in our faces from hidden jets. She took off her glasses AND closed her eyes :-) As the movie continued they played various other tricks including thin air pipes on the floor that flow around your ankles making it feel like you were being touched by sea tentacles. A short but super experience.

After that we checked out the rest of the shopping centre. I wanted some cheap small speakers for the beach so we headed to the Hi-Fi floor. On route we noticed a Lambourghini in a showroom. I assumed this was the usual competition in a shopping centre thing, then quickly realised that this was really a dealership (on the 5th floor) and there were dealerships for BMW, Spyker and other luxury cars. This was no cheapo shopping center. We found a hi-fi shop but this was not place to be spending a tenner! – There were the kind of speakers and amps in there that you read about in a magazine with a pop out feature titled “If you had £100,000 to spend on speakers…” – it was mega rich land.

(At last I found speakers big enough to be buried in…)

We didn’t ask for prices, would have been too embarrassing, but I saw stuff in there only millionaires can buy to be one up on their other millionaire friends.

We went back to the ground floor where we belonged and had a KFC.

We’ve decided in a fit of impulsiveness to delay North Thailand by a week or two and go to Cambodia to see Angkor Watt. We have a choice of flying or going overland. Flying is £400 return for the both of us for a 45 minute flight. Bangkok air has a monopoly on flights to Siem Reap. So we are going overland. I’ve done a lot of research and it’s a bit of a minefield (no pun intended, honest) – the journey is littered with scams and cons. I’ve found a great website by someone who does the journey all the time and goes into great detail on how to do it with the least hassle. Basically it goes like this:

Get train from BKK to border – leaves 5.55 am – takes five and a half hours – cost -…….70pence each!!
Get off train and get £1 tuk tuk to border (don’t let any tour guides on tuk tuk with us)
Ignore anyone who approaches us and go straight to immigration.
Ignore pretend immigration officials
Pay $20 for visa, refuse to pay more in Baht
Get on free bus to transport depot, again ignoring touts and keeping all children at arms length
Get $45 taxi to Siem Reap - 5 hours ish. Make sure it’s a mafia taxi. If not mafia taxi they will stop your taxi and threaten driver. Make sure you don’t share taxi – too hot and cramped. Make sure taxi is really going to Siem Reap.

Whole thing should cost around £25 for the two of us, rather than £200 each way. Whether we come back by plane or overland depends on how the outgoing trip goes. Should be a hoot. We are going to book the hotel my Sister Clare stayed at – pool bar sealed the deal.

It goes on. If you want a laugh, read this:

http://www.talesofasia.com/cambodia-overland-bkksr-self.htm

We are catching the train tomorrow morning and leaving most of our stuff in a lockup in Bangkok so we can travel light (and run fast !). We are getting pretty handy at spotting conmen now so it should just be a case of ignoring people and giving them “that” look.

Lots of pictures of Angkor Watt will be incoming shortly!.....

p.s. mended the camera! – read on the net for a solution and the common theme was “bash the mo-fo in the floor” – not taking this seriously until I read lots of replies saying, “wow, yes! It really works”. So I threw it on our stone floor and bingo! It works!

Visitors!

Matt and Justin Arrived in typical Thai style. We worked out roughly how long it would take to get from Krabi airport to out place, and they arrived 3 hours later than our estimate. Their taxi/truck took them all over the place whilst the driver picked up his washing, dropped off some goods, etc etc. It was quite a shock when they did actually arrive. It was quite surreal. Within the hour we had them accustomed to the way of the hammock and all was sorted.

The next day, after they’d settled in and we’d knocked back a whole heap of Singha beers we spent most of the time “hammocking” and generally doing what we’ve become experts at – mostly nothing. Justin and I had a brief knock about with the badminton set we’ve managed to buy a few days earlier – that lasted about 10 minutes due to the heat and their jetlag. Not a bad thing considering one of the rackets popped strings almost immediately. Thai build quality is something we have become accustomed to. There is a very good reason you can buy two rackets and a shuttlecock for £4. When I unzipped the racket bag the zipper fell off immediately. That was a clear sign of things to come.

A day or so later we hired a scooter “taxi”. They are scooters with a third wheel attached and seating for up to 7 extra people (we’ve seen 7 but 4 or 5 seems to be the norm). Usually, you hail them like cabs and agree a fee and they scoot you round the island in relative comfort. We decided to hire our own for the day. Better to be able to talk to each other than be on individual scooters we thought. How wrong we were. Don’t get me wrong, it was bloody good fun, but this thing was almost uncontrollable. When I attempted to steer, the front wheel, having practically no weight on it, would just skip and bounce and we’d carry on in a straight line. If I accelerated in 1st or 2nd gear up any kind of incline we’d wheelie – consequently losing 100% control of the steering (and 50% of our brakes!). When I eased off the throttle we’d veer left, when I accelerated we’d veer right. It got to the point that going up hill required myself as the rider, and Justin as the most forward passenger to both lean over the front of the whole contraption just to keep some kind of control. It was slow going. We got to a café on a very steep hill and everyone but me got off to allow me to park safely.

We now have great admiration for the regular “taxi” drivers and can also confirm that a 100cc engine is not big enough for 4 people.

The next couple of days the weather took a decidedly nasty turn and we got grey skies and regular heavy downpours. Fortunately we always seemed to find ourselves at a bar during these challenging times so it all panned out OK.

On our last day in Koh Lanta we agreed that the Muay Thai (sp?) boxing was not to be missed. For the few that don’t know, that’s Thai kick boxing. It’s kind of odd. They spend pretty much as much time performing their pre-fight rituals as they do actually fighting. They walk around the ring, seemingly praying at each corner, then crouch in the middle, flapping their feet and rolling their fists over each other in they way people used to do in disco dancing. When they eventually face each other, accompanied by rhythmic drum and “wailing” music, they kind of gently bob about with the music, switching weight from foot to foot and wiggling their heads. Then, at last, they kick the crap out of each other.

They started off with the youngest and worked up through the age/weight classes through the evening. To be honest, the younger lads were the most impressive to watch. They were keener, more agile, and seemed to be able to end the fights with submissions more than the heavier chaps. My heart was in my mouth at one stage when one lad got a sharp kick to the head and collapsed, but he was OK in the end. The Thai spectators were very keen and clearly had money riding on the fights – waving slips of paper in the air, and tossing them away when their chaps lost.

Great fun, and looking forward to catching a “bigger” event in Bangkok.

The next day we set off to go back to Koh Phan Gnan to show the boys the paradise we’d been staying at at the start of our adventure. It was very sad leaving Kun, Lap, Tom and the others behind at Koh Lanta. We’d become close and Kun made a touching gesture that made it clear that he and I had become good friends over our 5 weeks of knowing each other. Things like that are going to be memorable on our travels.

(Why may facial expression is so dorky I will never know)

Our trip back to Koh Phan Gnan was supposed to be from 7am, arriving at 5pm. I won’t bore you with the details but we got their at 11pm. What was clear was that the company arranging our journey had 90% of the people going one way, and 10% (us) going another way, so they avoided laying on extra transport for us and consequently dumped us very late at a harbour and legged it before we noticed our boat was waaay later than planned. We’ve definitely learnt that over here it’s better to arrange all of your own transport than let someone else do it.

Koh Phan Gnan was as great as it had been before and the lads enjoyed a trip to the waterfalls and lots of beach time.

We popped over to the unused beach next door and inspiration overcame us. We decided to build a sand-formula-one-car-castle. We got the front wheels and bodywork done and then I realised that the tide was coming in so we decided to abandon the plan due to not wanting to see our hard work go to waste. Great fun and Justin managed to skin his knee in his excitement playing about in the sand.

Kirstin was out of the sand castle building action. She got her hand stung by a bee in Koh Lanta which then swelled up to the extent she couldn’t move her fingers and we hastily took off her wedding rings. It got worse before it got better. Fortunately we got some antihistamine tabs from the chemist. The only down side (well, I thought it was quite cool) was that the tabs also contained a tranquiliser lol. She was very quiet and quite spaced out for a day.

After three days it started going back to normal and all is well now.

On two of the nights one of the beach bars hosted a BBQ and put cushions on the sand with little tables and lit a fire – we had super times, chilling and knocking back Vodka Redbulls and PinaColadas – I don’t think Matt or Justin will be touching a PInacolada for some time to come.

(the effect of 7 Vodka Redbulls was not subtle)

After 5 days chilling in Koh Phan Gnan we headed back to Koh Samui on a ferry that picked us up directly from our beach. Talk about convenient. We had in mind staying somewhere a little more “swish” in Koh Samui and we’d seen a few likely candidates on the beach when we last stopped there for a day. Slight catch, when we checked the prices they ranged between £150 to £400 per night per room!!! – we rather hilariously ended up back at the flea pit we stayed at before.

We now have a day here, then we are off to Bangkok for 2 days before the lads fly home. We plan to do the sight seeing that me and K skipped when we were first there (we were too excited about the beaches at the time) – floating market, temples, and something about ping-pong girls too – no idea what they are on about.

After that K and I are going to catch the slow train through North Thailand, stopping at several places along the way for temples and animals etc, ending up at Chang Mai, and then after a rest, over to Laos. We’ve had our fill of beaches for now and are both very much looking forward to some “culture” action.

One more thing – a huge thanks from Larry and Eva for our pressies! – I now have a portable version of “shut the box” and K got lots of lovely lady stuff. I’ve managed to shut the box once so far!

Hello all! Been a while! - We've mainy been chilling out (what a suprise). It's good - we do very little and spend very little. Can't be a bad thing. We've explored a little more and found a free Wi-Fi cafe up the road. I fixed their wireless network for them so the lady owner is a major fan now. She brought me out her cell phone the other day to fix - she's got me sussed. It's been useful and gave us the chance to Skype Mum & Dad and Steve. It also gives me somewhere to play poker without constantly getting disconnected. I went up the other day and managed to win enough to cover our rent for four days :-)

I can't get access to any of my poker funds though. I accessed my online poker "bank account" and got immediately suspended for trying to access it in Thailand - a banned country. Marvelous - my poker winnings all locked up until we get to China. The support people were infuriating - I explained that we are travelling for several years and they kept saying "so, you've moved to Thailand then?" - nope! - "So you don't live in London any more?" - YES we do! etc etc. Futile. Ahh well - at least I'm winning :-)

We found a shortcut along the beach to the wi-fi cafe which ends with us walking through quite a poor suburban area. We spotted a communal outside toilet which is the exact polar opposite of private!

Bear in mind that's a "squat" loo too - you don't sit down on it. You get the picture!

Still loving our accomodation. We've got on top of the wildlife issues now. I'm still a little twitchy in bed at night but we seem to be OK and we don't run at the sight of bugs. Saying that, we have a resident woo-woo bird that lives in a coconut tree above us (K called them woo-woo birds as she knows them from HongKong and they constantly go "woo woo"). Their woo-woo's escalate in pitch and ferrocity until it seems like they should explode in a ball of feathers. But they don't , they just start again. The one that lives above us wakes up at about 5am. I'm getting some earplugs. I've been woken every single morning. There is also a bird that sounds exactly like our old alarm clock, and another one that sounds like a burglar alarm. Oh, and one that makes "computer" noises. No other way to describe it really.

We also have a sand crab in the bathroom, it's dug a hole in the floor round the shower. We've never seen it but we know the signs. Hole, large pile of sand. The pile of sand has progressively got bigger to the point we think we may actually have a sand lobster instead. There is so much sand I actaully checked the outside of the wall to see if he's managed to "get out". No signs of that yet.

It's so relaxed here, yet funny little things happen here and there you don't expect. I was lying in my hammock one afternoon, soaking up the sun. Our resort was basially empty. No one around. Then funky house music started coming from the bar area and we were sure it was being mixed on decks live. I wandered over to the bar and discovered a small DJ booth I'd never noticed before and Lap, one of the staff here, was donning his "cans" and mixing up some mildly cheesy music with a grin on his face. Didn't really expect that.

Kirstin spends a fair amount of time searching for waxing salons. They don't seem to keen on it here and we can't figure out why. Still, it keeps her entertained. I'm saving my next haircut until I absolutley have to.

We did what's called a "Visa Run" yesterday. Basically our visas run out a week after Matt and Justin arrive tomorrow so we payed £20 each and got an aircon minivan down to the Malaysian border. Our driver, a hobbling Thai, was drinking Red Bull and popping caffeine tablets at 7am when he picked us up. Not a good sign. We reckon he hadn't slept the previous night. So off we zoomed (it's a 12 hour round trip including ferry crossings and the actual visa part) with terrible DVD movies playing. When we approached the Malay border we drove through a 1/2 mile of street market that is there purely to feed off the visa tourist market. It's a surreal experience. You go to a booth, get stamped out of Thailand, then cross the border, stamp into Malaysia, then about turn 180 degrees and immediatly stamp out of Malaysia at a window right next to the one you stamp in. Then you walk back into Thailand and stamp back in again and get a new 30 day visa exemption. The whole process takes about 30 minutes. As always, one of the police stopped me and examined my passport and I got all the usual questions....

"You from London?", "yes", "you know David Beckham". "no", "you Roger?", "yes", "you Roger Moore!", "haha, yes, that's right, I'm Mr Bond". They all do this. But this time he added a twist when he looked at my passport photo...."you Mr Bean!" - haha - git.

This is the border - you can't see obviously, but the market is behind. I had a choice of border or market pics and well, a marked is just a market.

So with the visas renewed we jumped back in the minivan and headed off back to "home". We were supposed to stop at Tescos in a large town (Trang) so we could stock up on UK things like wine and also... a KFC!!! - when I mentioned it, one of the people in the van moaned "some of us have to work tomorrow" - it turned out 3 or 4 of our fellow passengers were working the season on the Island and could not bear to add 30 mins to a 12 hour day. For pete's sake. 12 bloody hours and they can't wait for 30 mins. This turned out to be the least of our worries. (p.s. they were happy to hold us up with fag breaks!)....

About an hour or two into the return journey one of the girls in the van told me with great alarm that the driver was falling asleep. Sure enough, looking at him in the mirror I saw him constantly blinking and then slowly closing his eyes, then nodding down, then waking with a startled look, then repeating this. We both agreed this needed to be dealt with BEFORE he crashed so I called forward to a German chap at the front who spoke Thai and asked if he could ask the driver if he was OK, and that I'd be happy to take over the driving. This German chap was the same chap who protested at the KFC stop, looking at me with great distain. He refused to help , telling me that interfering with a Thai chap's work was offensive to them. "I don't give a F**@! who is offended - our lives are at risk!" - he still refused to help and didn't even bother putting his seatbelt on. In fact, to our amazement, only three of us put our belts on - bear in mind he's doing up to a ton on bumpy roads. People can be incredibly thick in an attempt to be "cool".

At this stage I shouted at the driver, "STOP NOW! - you are not awake". He refused and said he was OK. We got him to pull into the next service station and bought him more Red Bull, and I moved to the passenger seat and spent the rest of the 4 hour drive looking him in the eye and occasionally taking to him and moving my arms about to catch his attention, all the while being prepared to grab the wheel and knock it into neutral should he drop off. Not the most relaxing journey.

We never stopped for shopping and KFC - we just wanted to get back alive! - bloody idiot passengers. I still can't believe how many people are prepared to "see what happens" rather than stand up and be vocal.

Anyhow (deep breath) - all sorted now! - next time we are hiring our own vehicle.

Did I mention we get island-wide power cuts? Sitting under candlelight right now. Hope it does not last - all the water stops without power so we can't flush the loos, and no showers - in this humidity.

..back - it's the next morning now. K went out with some girls staying here to a beach party last night. Got back at 4am tsk! :-) - I bailed out - I've got a cold (how the hell do you get a cold here!?!). She's just woken up with a mega hangover and my cold.

The Thais round here are really into their songbirds. As I mentioned before the owner, Kun, had lots of song birds in cages dotted around the "resort" and yesterday we found out why. They compete with all the other bird owners each monday. It's very bizarre. We went to see it hapenning - he came 2nd out of 100 last week so was hoping for his first win this time.

They hang all the bird cages on three rows of lines, and then a man with a whistle, a bucket of water, and a pot with a hole in it blows his whistle. The jusdges then watch the birds, one at a time, and mark on their score card how many times they sing. The whistle-man puts the pot with a hole in it in a bucket of water and when it sinks then that's his cue to blow the whistle again. Between each whistle blow your bird must sing 8 times or you are out. They have two heats. The 1st lasts about 40 mins and the second round for the finalists lasts anything up to 3 hours depending on how stiff the competition is. You see all the owners encouraging their birds to sing with a plethora of sounds, body signals, etc. It's quite fascinating. Kun didn't make the final this time, his best bird is growing new feathers so he had to use one of his "backups".

Kun and Lap on a not so successful Bird singing day.

It was a good experience doing something with the locals and it was kinda nice that a fair few Thais there recognised us from when they come here to play football so we felt very welcome. The "taxi" driver was also rather suprised we wanted to go to the song bird competition. They clearly don't get much tourist interest. Then again, it's not much of a spectator sport :-)

We found a movie on their computer here of the Tsunami hitting where we are staying. It's fascinating to watch. The sea rushes sideways along the beach in a manner much like the Severn Bulge - but carrying fishing boats and debris. Everyone is standing on the shore line watching, then it comes back, then all of a sudden it comes inwards, decimating three bungalows and any other things in it's path. The wave was only a metre high at the most but it's relentless nature gave it it's destructive power. I have a copy but I won't upload it until I've checked with Kun that he's hapy for me to do that. It even has a shot of him running like hell with the wave behind him.

Just been on the phone to Matt. He and Justin are at Bangkok Airport and will be with us early this afternoon. We've organised a BBQ and some fireworks for their arrival.

Wil sign off now. Here is a little pic of the spider I mentioned in the last post. Notice her lovely sack of eggs. Euchhh!

Oh yeah - also, below should be a travel map of our journey so far....

Well, life ambles past us with not too much excitement to report – though we’ve been having a fun battle with the bugs.

We moved rooms a week ago – our bungalow was prebooked by other people – we moved to a larger one but back in the woods a bit and away from the beach. The problems started the night we moved in. I awoke to the unmistakable feeling of being crawled over and found a cockroach in my hand! When we got up to get rid of it we found 3 or 4 more scuttling round the room. I nuked them. When we got up in the morning there were yet more, plus a million mozzies.

We thoroughly sprayed the room but it continued. We eventually got the owner to sort it out and the problem largely evaporated, but we missed our sea front views so we’ve moved forward again and are ensconced in our hammocks for most of the days.

All this bug action (not forgetting I got attacked by a centipede in bed) has left us both rather “twitchy” – if one of us so much as brushes against anything suspicious at night (no sniggers please) we are awake with a jolt. On top of this, Kirtsin spotted a huge spider in our room yesterday but didn’t tell me for fear of seeing me run for the hills screaming. She had a hard time sleeping as you can guess but he’d seemingly left the room in the morning so she didn’t say anything – that is until we found it in the bathroom. It’s the size of a hand ! with a large egg sack attached! – we go the staff to remove it.

So now we are tentatively eying up sealed aircon rooms nearby – with free wi-fi! – we like it too much here to leave, but we may move there for maybe a few days, just to get some decent sleep.

We hired a scooter last week and rode right round the island having a good old explore. We stumbled across the “fish farm” and an enthusiastic guy took 50baht from us each (80p) and walked us to the corner of a large pond and basically told us they grow prawns,( which he showed us a net with about 8 in), it takes a lot of food to feed them, and in 6 months they’d all be very wealthy. And that was it. I had to ask him to walk us round the pond. That was the highlight. Fun nonetheless : - )

We cruised round the rest of the island, finding odd little bars here and there, one with a spectacular vista over a bay and out to sea.

The staff here, plus a bunch of their friends from another operation all meet here and play football for 40 minutes every day at about 4pm. It’s fun to watch in the comfort of a hammock. I decided to take a few “sports” shots. I actually got a few good ones with people in the air, and heading the ball etc, but the one below is only there because it tells a tale…………

………That ball bounced up and hit the camera dead on in the middle! As I saw it getting larger in the viewfinder it instantly dawned on me it was getting far too big far too quickly so I put my hand out and partially deflected it. Camera survives – phew.

Other than that, we are just bumbling around, walking down the beach trying the different bars – had a BBQ in our table last night in a French restaurant on the beach. Devine fillet beef on the BBQ – and all for £5 plus booze.

This is the kinda place we have to slum it in – but we manage.

This lifestyle is suiting me : - )

Oh - I've added a few pictures and a movie to http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l235/dodgey99/Thailand%202008/