SOUTH EAST ASIA

Exchausted we woke up for a large buffet breakfast and headed straight back to bed. hrmmm yet again rain! grrrr. when the rain finially stopped around 2.30pm we drove into town again to try find some books and possibly more fireworks. getting close to dinner time we finially stumbled across a mini mart which was loaded with enough expolsives to give scottie the shivers. they were massive sky fire quality. scottie finally settled on his choice - some rockets and other such goodies. we headed back to the hotel for the new yr eves party.

The dinner was nice - a large buffet with copious amounts of food. we had a time literally a foot away from the bsandy beach, and sipped our cocktails. Between meals we let off our fireworks display ohh ahhh eee...they were massive indeed and much fun Scottie ran around like a 2 yr old in a candy store a hiuge smile plastered on his face as he sent off rocket after rocket lol ;P

The staff were so cute and put on some performances of traditional dnace etc. there were games too lol, after getting started on good old unkle tom we both decided to join in - first musical chairs _ Hanneka Won The the lucky door price - guess who won lol :P free beer woot

Then the rain started to poor...ppl scattered and me and scottie retreated to balcony sipping mojotos and watching the ocean talking for hours until we suddenly though..hrmm maybe everyone else went to the restaurant. We wandered up there the rain had now stopped. and just as we suspected the games had continued up there. There were a few more performances a ran tranny lip signing and dirty dancing for one lol in true thai style ...amusing yet slightly terrifingy at the same time lol. We joined in on a dancing comp - and backed away slowly when this 10yr old pulled out some wicked dance moves. Then it was time for limbo - hanneka won after some back bracking bending and we won some champers dbl woot lol. By this time it was all most 12. We all counted down and then the staff let of some fireworks - even bigger then the ones we got. Then they all handed us a roman candle and this thing that too closely resembled a bomb (a fountain thing) for us to light our own. Was much fun..fireworks are so much more fun when everyone isn't so paranoid about safetly regulations hehehe

We finished the night off drinking our free beers on the beach and just chilling and talking until late into the morning. We had fun. was probably the most randomness new years eve but definably one of the more enjoyable. We were happy to get away form the "moose head" backpacker crowd and just relax on the beach. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

the next day we just slept alot- chilled out - and went for a bike ride around koh samui island. was fun just sitting on the bike all day. organized our travels to phi phi too - after a slight scare of sorry full...full. we eventually booked a boat-bus-boat ride. We ate dinner in fishermans village again and tried to make good use of the view of the beach - although still no swimming as it was still freezing cold we clung to the hope that phi phi would be warmer....

after a short plane ride arrived in Koh Samui...hrmmm but were was the sun?? the taxi ride cost 4times the amount it should but that is pretty standard from airports. our hotel is pretty cool. our bungalow thingy is literally right on the beach..ahhh.

had a swim first and got a motobike to check out town. Ahhhh!! it is soo seedy. freals who think -despite the lack of sun - thats its cool to walk around without a shirt or in a bikini (despite the flubba). Apart from that it seems a pretty cool place - really pretty ocean views etc.

Stopped at a little joint in town for brekky and then headed off to explore a little more. Decided to head off to the tesco on the island to stock up on stuff for new years and get some snacks because it's so freaking expensive here! Ended up getting some sandwiches and some stuff to make mojitos for the celebrations the next day. Only the finest quality white rum for us though - "Uncle Tom" thai white rum - which at 120 baht works out at about 5 aussie dollars! Hehe! And it wasn't actually that much of a let down apart from the pain the next morning!

Went back to the hotel to have a bit of a chillax to get over waking up so damn early to leave Bangkok - sat on the beach side and went for a little walk around the resort and then finally had a bath and some sweet sweet sleep mmm. By the time we got up we were starving, so it was back on the bike to get back in to town for dinner.

We were planning on heading down the main tourist area Chaewang beach to get food, but about 2 or 3 k's up the road the bike began to wobble all over the place and get all bumpy and crazy - yikes! We thought it might be a petrol situation because the guage was pretty low so we pulled into a little family petrol station to fill up - did that, then one of the young guys started yelling to Scottie - "motorbike! motorbike!" and looked really concerned - turns out the back tire was completely flat : ( Hmmm bugger - thought this was gonna be the biggest rip off in the world. The guy told us that there was a moto repair shop about 300m up the road so Scottie road the bike up there while Hun walked and we found a bunch of totally pissed guys sitting round eating dinner outside the repair shop hehe.

A guy came up to us with one of the biggest Thai smiles we've seen so far and introduced himself as "sunny" - a tour guide who was taking a break for NYE, and drinking an appropriate amount for the holidays! He asked one of the guys to repair our bike - and as he got to work Sunny started with his antics - gesticulating crazilly with his arms he described about how he could do anything for us and get anything sorted out for us - he gave us his business card and said "you have problem, you just call sunny! Then is no problem!" "You call me one morning and say, hey sunny, what you doing, and I say, I dancing round the coconut tree cos sunny crazy!" (with mimes included) - as we were waiting we asked him a decent place to go for breakfast, and told him we were off to Chaeweng. He said "Ohhh, naughty - you want boom boom chicka chicka me love you long time and a very expensive no good you go there! But if you want good and cheap, with candles, you know, you look so beautiful tonight, so lovely, special, and cheap, I show you the way to fisherman village - good and cheap"

Only cost 180 baht (about 9 bucks) to get a new tire put on the bike - sweet! Then sunny, pissed as a fart hops on his motorbike, tells us to follow him and tears down the road off into the dark - we manage to keep up with him - with him having to stop and wait for us several times, and he gives us a little tour around the village, stopping at interesting things and showing us what they are hehe was like a little private tour! We get to fisherman's village a few mins later, and sure enough the place is awesome - a world away from the feralness of Chaewang beach strip! Meals were about half the price, so we went and got some squid and prawns with an ocean view and chilled out walking around the village for a little while.

with scottie fasination with fireworks...we hunted around...after an hr or so we found some roaman candles and a lantern. we let off the lantern on the beach - ahhh pretty. and headed back home to have a few drinks on the beach and let off the small bunch of fireworks we managed to find.

so another day in Bangkok. slept in, woke up to a breakfast of pancakes mmmm... had to run a few errands...pick up scotties coat, book train tickets for return form islands etc. first we went to book a bus to the airport. looked up the schedule on Scotties phone, it said depart 29th 6am!!29th THAT'S TODAY! EXPECT ITS NOW 2PM!! ARghhhhh with our fingers crossed - having a faint feeling we had changed the flight - we hurried back to our guest house to check our gmails.

phewf....30th of Dec - check (tick). thank goodness, rang the airline to confirm and did an online check in to be dbl sure. With our hearts now reduced to a normal beat and the sweat wiped off form our brows, we headed back into town.

Train tickets bought and Scott's coat in hand (finally) we headed to the imax theatre - hot and tired we just wanted to chill. after some -some what crummy - dinner. we looked around the night markets while waiting for the movie to start. Ewww they were soo seedy - even more so then the place we went the night before. We clutched our belongings and headed straight out of there. while Hawkers tried to sell sex tapes to families with young children - much to the parents dismay!

The movie was ok - the setting cool. We saw the day the earth died, or something like that a boy movie Scottie was most excited about. It seemed very similar to the last 10yrs of sci fi apocalyptic movies - but had its entertainment value all the same.

Almost 12 we ran to the sky train - just made the last one literally a minute to spare! home time and maybe 3hrs sleep - if we are lucky! Tomorrow off the Koh Samui - the Islands - Finally!!

Well we woke up exhaustred after Christmas day to find that the weather had turned to crap! No more relaxing by the pool for us : ( So we decided to sleep in in the room instead. Mmmm - got packed and decided to start heading over to gap's house for some cheaper accomodation. Scott grabbed the bags on his back and hopped on the motorbike to start shipping the stuff over (hard to balance the bike properly!) - turns out as soon as he left gaps after the first successful run, it started pouring rain and he got lost in the bad weather and ended up going for a one and a half hour "scenic route" around Chiang Mai - hmmm. The gps saved his arse once more - although it was hard to ride and apply the brakes while holding it while riding! In the meantime - Hun was just as cold sitting in the hotel reception - poor thing - what a fun day hey? Well, after a few more rides over, Scott got well and truly sick of being wet and cold and Hanneka was about ready to die from boredom, so we popped Hun in a tuk tuk, and Scott headed to Heather's house, and Hun arrived in the Tuk Tuk, dropped off at the wrong spot, and had to lug the heavy baggage up Suthep road - she looked quite sad by the time she got to Heaths : (

After chilling at Heather's for a little, we headed off to get some dinner at the riverside restaurant - absolutely beautiful - looked over one of the main rivers in Chiang Mai and enjoyed some really really nice Thai food. After that, we walked down the river, and past the flower markets (these guys love their flowers) and headed to the markets to get some fruit and Thai toast (butter, condensed milk and choc topping - mmm fatalicious).

We decided we wanted to go and see Australia the movie at the local cinema, so we hopped in a tuk tuk again to go there - after speaking to the cinema staff - we realised that the movie about Australia was in Thai - dang it! One of the first dubbed movies we've actually come across! Surely they miss part of it by lack of the cliche accents! So, we headed back to Gap's near Tapae gate in the old quarter and stumbled across a local performance - which was awesome! Lots of strange costumes and overly skinny girls with feathers on their bums dancing round hehe. We did stumble across a 4 buck half hour foot massage though and enjoyed that while we waited for Heath to pick up her bike - sooo damn good - felt bad though because our feet are totally filthy from walking round so much! They're actually stained permanently from being in constant grub!

Met up with Heath after that and went down to Gap's to hang out in the room for a bit - soo tired. Said our goodbyes to Heath then popped off to bed for our early trip to the Bangers in the morn.

Arrived in Bangkok and managed to get a nice cheap bus this time to Sukhumvit on Nut (the road we're staying on) - which is right near a trainstation (thank god! no more super expensive tuk tuks!). Checked in and then headed out to check out the city and decided to go to the weekend markets..all i can say is HUGE! they just kept on going shop after shop after shop...selling everything u could possibly think of and more...i dunno who buys half this crap but ohh they do. scottie found some cool t-shirts (much needed) and hun found a cool dress. Exhausted, eyes starting to blur from the constant overload. we decided to chill and go see Australia - this time in English. Was really good - popped back home and slept after that - man, Bangkok seems so much nicer this time - We think it's because we're a bit more seasoned.

stopped off at the tailor to get Scott's coat fitted, and then went off to find a Shisha bar called the baghdad cafe - another bum steer by lonely planet - you certainly will end up lonely if you follow their shitty tips - there was noone round there at all! Ended up getting lost after that and walking for a blister inducing 2 to 3 hours before we found out where the hell the trainstation was. Grr. Was kind of interesting though - there were police on every street corner, and they started stopping the traffic all of a sudden and told us to stay where we were. Next minute, the King of Thailand comes racing down the road with about 20 cars on security detail! It was a bit of a spectacle! Then we were on our way again.

Finally arrived at MBK - the biggest bloody shopping centre/inside market we've both ever seen! This place was like a maze of rip-off goods, novelty t shirts, and pretty much everything you can think of - was amazing but a total sensory overload. Wow - spent about 2.5 hours there - hun got a hair treatment (and was very happy about it - she looks purdy : )) And then we headed back out into the city - Time for ping-pong! And not the one you play on the green tables in the bottom room in your coast house!

Caught the train to Asok station and walked out to "Soi Cowboy" which is the vegas style porn and go go bar street of Bangkok. Crazy crazy place - and kinda creepy - lots of old men and very young girls hanging off their arms - went to a place called Cowboy 2 - sat down and there was some scantily clad girls on stage with stars on their nipples kinda dancing around - very lame indeed - we wanted shocking! Ordered a beer - Hun saw the lady pass her hand over the top of the drink in a weird way so we decided to swap drinks - Scott ended up being absolutely wasted after two beers - carrying on like a crazy man and super excited - mmm don't you love Rohypnol? Luckilly he can take on that stuff pretty well, so it didn't affect him too much - just kind of made the drinks cheaper! But still a bit of weird experience - scary to think what could have happened if Hun drank that beer.

Went down the end of the street to check out if there was anywhere better by looking on the net on Scott's phone and we came across a very drunk american bloke who was an adamant Obama supporter - and very well educated - a really cool experience - the guy seemed seedy at first, but he was hilarious and we had a great time talking to him - nice to meet a refreshingly educated, liberal and open minded american guy! He made a comment that during the campaign they should have put a map up and asked both the candidates to point out which countries America was currently bombing to pick the best from the rest - hehe! He ended up telling us where the best bar was - called "Long Gun" - hmm.

Well, headed into Long Gun - things are looking better already - the girls are actually dancing properly - and are not freakishly skanky. We saw some strange strange things that night - first there was the "pulling the string of flowers out of the vag trick", then there was some smoking, blowing out candles on a fake birthday cake while happy birthday was playing in the background, and then shooting balloons with darts from tubes - all using the wrong lips... So so wrong - but definitely an experience.

Headed home absolutely exhausted and crashed out - time for another Bangkok city day tomorrow!

late the night before our flight to thailand we found out one of our flights have been resechdualed to 4 hrs after our connecting flight...grrrrr. So we spent a lot of phone credit eventually having to call the london office of air asia (cause it was the only office open). TO get our flight rechanged.

after 1 shitty flight - on air asia u even have to pay for water!! dbl grrr - we arrived in bangkok. Annnoyed we headed to the air asia desk and tried to calmly tell them of our situation - becasue we rechanged our flight and then we have to change it again to get an earlier flight. we had to wait in the airport for 7hrs to get our next flight _ I dont think so! so after some disscussion we eventually got our chaing mai flight to an earlier one.

After another shitty flight, we finally landed in chaing mai - phewf Arriving at our hotel we stood in the foyer some what stunned. It was beautiful. A massive chanderlier hung from the roof while beel boys took our luggage to our room. Our room was just as nice a the foyer. the size on an apartment. quite warm we decided to cool off by the pool drinking mango daqaries after a long hot shower ahhh water pressure! we met Heather for dinner. we waitied at the resurant for her and after an 80baht tuk tuk ride one way to get there, we decied -considering we were going to be here for a while - to hire a scooter. as it was only 200 baht for a day! much fun driving aroudnthe city and so much more practical!

The next day we woke up to a huge breakfast at the hotel. It was really over the top. They have a cooked section - every style of egg, bacon, waffles, pancakes etc. Then there was a heathly corner - fruit and cereal, and museli etc. Then there was a japanese section noodle soup etc. then there was a pastry section and a jucie section etc etc. We was amazing. Full to the brim we headed off up the mountain to Doi Suthep temple. It was fun on the bike. and the vie at the top was amazing. We met heather and checked out where she was living and had a cheap meal near her uni.

We did a bit of shopping for things for the christmas diner tommorrow, and headed back to hotel for our christmas eve dinner. It was more over the top then breakfast. There were carols and santa and ice sculptures. And the food was lovely - osters, prawns, crab, salmon, salad, sushi, roast lamb, beef, turkey, ham. Roast veges, Asian foods like roasted duck and stirfrys and currys and pasta salads. and a pasta section and a cheese section and a cold meat section and the desserts mmm the desserts were awesome! truffles and christmas pudding and pastrys and mooses and pretty much every dessert u could think off. We were so full it hurt! lol :P so we headed back up stairs to have a nap before we met up with heather to decorate the house for tommorrow.

Scottie and hun were up till 1.00am making bon bons for the dinner - exchausted we went to bed. We took our time getting up and had another buffet breakfast, trying not to eat too much as christamas lunch was at 2.30. Heaterh came over sfter breakfast andwent for a swim with us. the weather was soo nice and warm. We went for a drive our the market before heading off to christmas lunch. The food was soo ncie. we had turkey and cranberry sauce and gravy and roasted veges and little hot buns. mmmmm...

after lunch/dinner. we went and stolled around the night markets. it was really fun and nice just chilling out. we got a massage and bought some pressies. had a ball really trying to get some real bargains. Exhasted we crashed out in bed around 12.00. we have a really lovely day. much fun