Our Big Explore: april 2015

Friday 27^th February

We flew with Malaysian Airlines from Denpassar on Bali to Kuala Lumpur and from there to Bangkok.

I’m getting more and more scared of flying, I think it’s after the missing flight from Malaysia Airlines, and then the recently crashed Air Asia flight from Indonesia (but i'm not more afraid of flying with Malaysian Airlines than any other flight companies). Due to these facts I was a nerve wreck on both of these flights.

In Bangkok we took the public transport, the Skytrain to Phaya Thai, and then the BTS to the Sukhumvit area, more precisely Nana station. It’s easy to take the trains (especially at evening time where it’s less crowded), but it’s a bit of a hassle when you need to buy new tickets on the changing stations. The lines can be long and time consuming, and it’s a good idea to always keep coins, as that’s the only thing most machines accept.

On Nana station Erik’s uncle Christian welcomed us... He recently moved from Beijing to Bangkok together with his girlfriend Tanya, so we were obviously in good hands when we arrived.

We went straight to Viva Restaurant on Soi 8, (their favourite place to eat, drink and hang out, and a sub-street to Sukhumvit). Here Tanya and her nephew Nai waited for us.

Tanya quickly arranged a beer when she saw us, and we sat down and relaxed for the first time that day. Christian had arranged a hotel for us, called Ruamchitt Travellodge. It’s located across the street from where Tanya and Christian lives on Soi 10. We knew Iben was there waiting for us already, as she arrived an hour before us. We contacted her via Viva´s wifi and she joined us shortly after.

We were really tired after a long day of travelling, and going out drinking the night before we left Bali didn’t exactly make the day easier to get by... Even though the beers tasted really good this night, and time flew away as we were catching up with Christian.

Candy World in KL's Airport

Saturday 28^th February

Todays highlight was to pick up Jette from the airport. She had taken a two week holiday to spend time with all of us. Iben and I should pick her up, and it became a bit of a hassle as it was busy on the train stations, we jumped in line to catch the right train in order to make it in time.

Sadly when we reached the airport we realized how dumb it’s built up... When you arrive with the skytrain on the lowest level, you CAN’T go to the arrival hall on the 2^nd floor. It’s impossible, unless you have a plane ticket of cause. The only way to get there is if you arrive with a shuttlebus or taxi, and then I’m not even sure you are allowed to walk in, without a ticket.

It was so frustrating to stand at a spot where we knew Jette wouldn’t come unless we could contact her in some kind of way. I tried to get on the airport’s free wifi and call her through skype, meanwhile Iben contacted her via her Danish number. Eventually Jette called Iben, and we could guide her towards us. Shortly after we saw her on the escalator, pushing some Chinese people out of the way and running down to hug me... I realized how much I missed her, when we hugged each other.

I cried of happiness and so did she. It was the best reunion ever. Seeing her made me realize how incredible fantastic it’s gonna be to surprise everyone at home with our early arrival.

Jette was exhausted after 22 hours of travelling, but she was still keen for going out for lunch with Christian, Tanya, Nai and us.

We used the afternoon on drinking reunion beers and spending time in the nice swimming pool attached to Christians and Tanya’s apartment. In the evening we all went out for dinner and drinks.

The Sukhumvit area is poor in traditional tourist attractions, but very rich in shopping, eating and nightlife. We wanted to show the girls the popular party vans in the sub-streets of Sukhumvit, but sadly we realized that they had become illegal and the police had closed down for the so-called party vans.

We were gutted!!

Anyway, then we showed them one of the most sinful places, the red-light district also called the World’s largest playground for adults, located on Soi 4. We ordered a beer tower and watched all the weird stuff happening around us. The most shocking fact is that the most beautiful girls here - often are men.

We did some serious people watching and was entertained enough from sitting outside the bars, and had no interest in seeing the action inside.

Iben was disgusted about this place; just as me the first time I saw it, but it’s a part of Bangkok’s nightlife that everybody has to see. We actually took it to the next level, as we were planning to watch a ping pong show. I was on the arrangement team and already found a good offer (600bath per person = 120kr), but Erik thought it would be better to do the following day, when we planned to see Khao San Road during the late night party hours.

So we postponed it, and instead we went for more beers with Jette. It became another late night for most of us, we landed in our nice and air-conditioned rooms about 4am. Iben went home a couple of hours before. Good night Bangkok!

Lunch selfie

Pool party

Sunday 1^st March

Chatuchak weekend market is one of the World’s largest markets, it contains more than 15,000 vendors selling goods from every part of Thailand, it has over 200,000 visitors each day...

Erik rejected to join us girls on the market; probably the best choice he ever made!! He wouldn’t have enjoyed the girly day with shopping and browsing around the thousands of stalls anyway.

It was completely windless out there and super hot, but we managed to enjoy it anyway. The heat was just a good excuse to buy some of the delicious and fresh made juices.

While we were sweating on the market Erik and Christian browsed around the significantly less crowded MBK Shopping mall, for some Thai pillows that we wanted to bring home.

We stayed on the market until the vendors started to shut down around 6pm, then we found a cosy little market bar and sat down for the first time that day, and that drink was much appreciated and needed after a long day of shopping.

Erik started to be impatient, but for a good reason, time was flying for me and the girls, and if we wanted to experience Khao San Road, see a ping pong show and get home early - the schedule started to look tight.

We rushed back to the hotel with all our new stuff and met up with Chr., Tanya and Erik near our beloved noddle lady on Soi 11. She honestly cooks Bangkok’s best noodle dish for just 55bath (11kr), and she's located next to 7/11, but unfortunately her stall is only open in the late afternoon/evening. After a unbelievable good dinner at hers, Christian and Tanya went home while we ventured out in Bangkok’s nightlife again. Jette was dying to try a ride in one of the famous tuk-tuks, so we arrived at Khao San Road with style and most important; still alive! We quickly found a street bar to hang out in, bought a booze bucket and enjoyed the best people watching ever. Iben decided to get braids. Erik decided to get custom-made bracelets for him and his mates.

At one point we were asked to move into the pedestrian street, as the staff had to move all table and chairs from the street, before the police came on their routine check. They check if anybody are serving drinks in the streets, which apparently are illegal and the police will close the place if they catch the servers in action. Obviously the police knows that the bars frequently move their chairs and tables, just to please them, but they like to show off and they turned up several times during the night and it was the same circus each time.

It just a part of the Khao San Road experience, I guess.

What we thought would be a quiet night, turned out to be the exact opposite. We got home 6.30am in the morning, and we missed out on the ping pong show, because we had too much fun on Khao San Rd... Looking back we should have watched the show instead of continuing drinking!

Chatuchak market

Toiletpaper holders

A protein boost!

Lamoon Cafe at Chatuchak

Partying on Khao San Road

This lady spend a good amount of her time making custom-made bracelets for Erik

Jette and one of the infamous frog ladies. Named because they all "play" on a wooden frog and it sounds awful.

The last official evidence from our night!!

!!!BANGKOK!!!

Monday 2^nd March

With a rumbling headache and four very tired bodies we checked out and dragged ourselves over to Christian and Tanya on the other side of the street. We filled their relatively small apartment with four large backpacks and four exhausted bodies.

In the afternoon we had pre-booked some tickets for a sleeping train going to Surat Thani, and from there we planned to catch a minibus to Krabi and then maybe stay there or sail to one of the islands and relax for a few days. But first we had to get through the day, and it seemed impossible with the hangovers we started the day with.

Christians idea of drinking beers to recover was bought immediately by Erik, Jette and myself, but Iben was still feeling too sick to follow us. Not really surprisingly the beers tasted good for us, and it’s no secret that we quickly got tipsy again. Drinking was a perfect way to kill time, and we enjoyed ourselves that afternoon.

Jette and I went to buy more beers, as Christians beer stock was sold out quickly... Sadly (but good enough for the city), there’s a time limit on alcohol sales in Bangkok, so everyday from 2pm-5pm, the shops can’t sell any alcohol, unless they break the law of cause..

We decided to get a beer on a restaurant and figure out what to do meanwhile. According to the waitress, it was all right to buy some take away beers from the restaurant.. So we brought home pizza and beers for everybody.

We were in a very good mood when we later left the apartment to go for hot pot dinner with Christian and Tanya. Hotpot is actually a Chinese dish, it refers to several east Asian varieties of stew and typical include thinly slices meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, egg dumplings and seafood. It consists of a simmering pot with hot water or fond, at the center of the dining table. It reminds a lot of fondue, but just healthier in general. Tanya and I love the food (we knew it from China), Christian and Erik were less enthusiastic about it, and I was sure that Iben and Jette would love it as well.. Jette really enjoyed it, but Iben didn’t even bother tasting it, even though she had been looking forward to it for days.

Afterwards C & T ensured that we got on the right train and we felt like movie stars when we waved goodbye to them out of the old school train window.

Later the train staff made our beds, every bed was provided with a curtain so we could sleep in privacy, it was luxury conditions for just 500bath (100kr) each. Erik had arranged 6 large beers for Jette, me and himself, as Iben never got on the alcohol that day... Finally and as expected the fatigue over-manned us at one stage, and we crawled to bed just before midnight.

A part of Christians apartment

Erik, Iben, Christian, Tanya, Jette and Me

One of Bangkok's huge malls

On the way to the islands

Monkey boy

Tuesday 3^rd March

The train ride took approximately 13 hours. We prepared ourselves for a bit of a hassle when we reached Surat Thani around 6am. Surat Thani is known for a lot of tourist scammings - and as far as we remembered it’s a hassle and a lottery to find the right bus companies that doesn’t scam you.

We remembered there was something bad about taking the big buses, but it seemed like it was the only choice we had know, a lot of things had changed since we were here a year ago. Last time we were here there was far more mini buses and they are more trustworthy.

We decided to play the lottery, as it was the only option we had.

We booked a bus to Krabi, and from there we would arrange the boat to Phi Phi Islands. Just as we thought, we got scammed. The first bus transferred us to a far out bus station, here we were told to leave the bus and wait for another, that would arrived 20 minutes later. When the open truck pulled up we knew that they had fooled us, but anyway we jumped into the open truck and was then transferred to another place.

This time we arrived at a restaurant when we were told to leave the bus. We were confused and annoyed. Just to get an idea I asked one of the guys which city or town we were in, he answered Surat Thani...! Brilliant I thought, so we had been changing buses and wasting over an hour and were still in Surat Thani.

I completely forgot how frustrating this country can be...

Well the third bus we got took us the whole way to Krabi. We were dropped off in the city center, at a restaurant/tourist information. From there we booked the trip to Phi Phi Islands - one of Thailand’s biggest party islands! We waited for 2 hours to get on the bus/boat.

We were all completely exhausted when we finally arrived at our destination. Almost 24 hours of travelling had left a mark on us, we were done!

On the harbour we arranged a nice and peaceful place to stay, Golden Hill Bungalows, 800bath (160kr) per room. I think Phi Phi is one of the only places we have been, where it actually pays off to arrange accommodation immediately when you arrive. The touts on the harbour doesn’t charge extra, as you would think, so you are much better of by letting them arrange it for you. It’s the same price whether you pay there or at the hotel, plus when you book it from the harbour they carry your luggage to the hotel... Just what we needed this day.

We took advantage of the swimming pool and cooled our overheated bodies down to normal temperature.

Later we talked to a Danish girl at Princess Divers and booked some dives for the next day. All dive shops on the island has fixed prices, which means they all charge the same for dives. So the only way they can compete is on the service level. We arranged that Jette could come on the boat and snorkel, while we dived. We dined out at Cosmic Restaurant, which is one of the restaurants that are always full of people and no wonder - cause they serve some seriously delicious food. Erik and I went for a stroll in the narrow streets, while Jette and Iben watched a fireshow.

Phi Phi Islands

Wednesday 4^th March

We got out of bed quite late, think we all needed a good sleep after the hectic days in Bangkok.

After lunch and smoothies on the beach we were ready to go diving. The harbour on Phi Phi is almost as busy and chaotic as Bangkok’s traffic. Definitely not a untouched or unique place to be anymore, but I’m still impressed about how the captain nailed to get the big diving boat out without hitting other boats.

The dives were average, nothing special, but sometimes it’s just about the diving itself.. Just the feeling about being underneath the water and exploring the marine life down there is sometimes enough.. Especially because we knew we were going home soon, so we actually just wanted to dive as much as possible.

God knows when we will dive the next time.

Between the dives we spend our surface interval near Maya beach, also known as the beach, from the movie with the same name. It’s far from being as beautiful as in the movie!

Most of the places we have seen in Thailand is ruined by tourists, and this place wasn’t an exception. It’s so hard to find an unique and untouched place here, and this is one of the main reasons why we dislike Thailand - but it’s also one of the places that Europeans have easiest access to, so it’s understandable why everybody goes here.

From our point of view it’s the worst country in South East Asia for many reasons. As a low budget traveller you get treated like shit, you’re at the bottom of the food chain, because there is so many tourists that are willing to pay the said price, they never bargain. As a normal holiday maker, you don’t take care of your money and don’t care about paying a little extra to the “poor” people, who actually earn a lot of money on, sorry to say, the naive tourists. And these are the people “ruining” it for budget travellers, because we bargain, as you should do.. No matter what, in this country, you always have to bargain. But because a lot of tourists just want to avoid the hassle, the touts have realized how easy it is to scam western people.

This makes it sooo hard for people like us to travel in Thailand, as everything is overpriced and you never know what you get... Even if you pay the full price!! It’s SO frustrating.

Thailand is undoubtedly the worst country for scams and rip off's. Then due to the big amount of tourists the prices is raised everywhere, restaurants in particular, but also accommodation, tours etc. and you honestly never know what you get. Frankly we expect to get more service for the extra money we pay here in Thailand, but again - you never know. It’s always a lottery, and most of the time we loose.

We only came back to Thailand to meet up with Jette, and of cause seeing Christian and Tanya, but if it wasn’t for them we would never have gone back to travel in Thailand.

At dinner time we were fed up with lying about our trip to India, as we never planned to go there. That ticket have all the time been home to Kastrup Airport. It became very awkward to talk about our future travels with Iben or Jette, as we were lying to them about India. So in the night we decided to tell them the truth, and it was like a big rock falling off our shoulders.

They were of cause excited for us, but not nearly as excited as we started to be. It was nice to finally relax and not have to think about revealing something we shouldn’t, now it was out there in the open and it was a big relief for both of us. We celebrated the news for a while, but went home early in order to be ready for rock climbing the following day.

Erik is showing off in his 'Princess Divers' wetsuit

Lunch are enjoyed in nice surroundings

Let's go SCUBA diving

Jette and Iben

It's illegal to fish in the sea around Phi Phi, so either this is caught by illegal fishing or it's old fish brought from the Phuket area. It's sad to see a sailfish like this, especially as a diver!

Diving Koh Phi Phi

Thursday 5^th February

It was a struggle to get out of bed in the morning - and at the same time we were excited about the rock climbing. A local climber named Kong met up with us and provided us with the climbing equipment before we were off to the Ton Sai Tower - the climbing area.

We had a good day of climbing, and sweated out most of the alcohol consumed the night before. Each time we climbed up, we were rewarded with a stunning view over Phi Phi bay, it felt so good to accomplish, and Erik and I loved being out there in the nature again.

Iben quickly picked up the climbing technique and it was awesome how she pushed her limits from the first climb to the second. Jette had a harder time, she wanted it so bad, but couldn’t get her head around the techniques. She really tried her hardest and struggled a lot. Damn she’s was fighter! Eventually she was rewarded and got up to the view. Afterwards she was completely out energy, as well as the rest of us.

Kong sat up the ropes for the most difficult climbs first. He should have thought about the beginner climbers, and sat up the ropes on the easy one to begin with instead of doing it in the end, but apart from that he was an amazing climber guide and he did everything in a good spirit.

Iben went home before we were done, as she wasn’t feeling well. After the last climb we felt the tiredness from the morning, kick back in again, and after half a day of climbing it’s was every part of our bodies yelling out for a rest. We were exhausted and sweaty when we were done.

Jette and I went for a refreshing dip in the turquoise water, it had looked so inviting from the top of our climb, but sadly when we got a little closer to it, there was plenty of garbage floating around in the water... A sad development from too many irresponsible tourists!!

It was our last night together in Thailand so it was time for a celebration. It was hard to get started after our afternoon nab, but we slowly worked our way to our party mood.

One of our climbing mates (Jan) had recommended us to visit a restaurant called Papaya. They served some brilliant food, and are especially known for their Thai papaya salad.

Afterwards we were meant to meet up with Jan at Banana Bar, and we made it there minutes before a severe tropical rainfall came over us. The raindrops were tremendous, so we were caught in Banana Bar with booze buckets until the rain had taken of. There was no sight of Jan, so we decided to do a bit of pub crawling.

A bar with Muay Thai Boxing caught our attention and to our luck Jan was sitting in there with his friends. Some guys were walking around with signs saying, that if you participate in a fight you would get a free booze bucket. What a fantastic and stupid way to entertain people. We loved the idea, and watched a few fights between random tourists, while chatting and drinking beers.

We ended the night on the party beach which was a true paradise for drunk people like us at that time. Erik and I left the party earlier than we wanted to, as we, to a surprise had to travel the following day... As always when we are having a good time!