Asia 2011

Trip round up!

2011-12-07T19:40:00.000Z

I realise that I left the blog in a bit of a loop since I last posted an entry on Sept 10th. This was deliberate on my behalf as I hated coming back to it since we had to cut our trip short by three months.

As most of ye know, I hurt my back while at the end of our three week stint in Australia and it got to the point where the trip was no longer a viable option for us. Long story short, I had a ruptured L5S1 disc which was causing all the problems and this showed up on the MRI scam which I got done in Phuket.

I tried to give it a few extra weeks to clear up while back in Thailand, but it just wasn't to be. Health is wealth as the saying goes, and looking after myself was my number one priority. So we ended up flying back home end of September, much to our dismay. But our insurance company insisted that I fly "first class" due to the nature of my injury. I initially declined as it meant Florence had to travel alone in economy, but the airline wouldn't let me board unless it was in first class. So first class it was ;)

I got an appointment with a Spinal Surgeon in the Galway clinic hospital and few weeks ago, and he looked at my MRI scan and said that an operation was not required, even though it was a pretty large rupture. The pain has reduced a lot in the past five or six weeks and this he said was due to the body forming scar tissue around the ruptured disc and basically eating it away. So the only thing he said I can do is to rest up for 6-8 more to give the body enough time to more or less get rid of the disc, while slowing building up my walks and also my core muscles to help strengthen my back for the future. Swimming is also on the list of activities, but only if it doesn't cause any undue pain.

So that's where I stand at the moment. Not able to do much, but certainly in a lot better condition than I was back in September.

Funnily enough, we were originally scheduled to return to Ireland today(Wednesday 7th Dec). But since we've been back home now for three months, it seems like we were never away.

Asia is just a magical place. And although we didn't get to Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia like we had planned to, the countries we did visit were just spectacular. After spending four months travelling around there I definitely got a good feel for the culture and people along with an even bigger hunger to someday return and finish what we initially set out to do. I'm not going to harper on about Asia, as I've already said enough about it many times.

In saying that, the wheels are in motion already for my next trip, which hopefully will be to South America in Jan 2013 for 6 months. I know it's a long way off, but I like to plan in advance and give myself enough time to both get back to full health and save.

Between now and then there's going to be a lot of online poker played and the occasional live event. :)

Thanks to everyone for all the kind emails, texts and get well wishes over the course of the trip. Keeping a travel blog, or even just a normal blog is great as not only do you get to show off a few exotic locations along the way, but in years to come it will be nice to have both a written and photographic account of some of my travels.

I plan on doing up a slideshow of the four months which I'll add here when I do so. For me a slideshow at the end of a trip ties everything up nicely and brings it to a close.

Ciao!

The trip continues!

2011-09-10T14:10:00.001+01:00

Its been a rollercoaster of a week since we left Australia to say the least. At this stage I’m very grateful to be still travelling.

To continue from where I ended the last blog entry, I managed(only just) to make my way from Brisbane to Bangkok without a wheelchair. The pain in my left leg was the worst kind of pain I’ve ever endured period, and only for Florence who was able to help me hobble along the terminals in the airports in Brisbane, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, I honestly don’t think I’d have made it.

It was obvious by the time we reached our hotel in Bangkok that I needed urgent medical help in order to keep the trip alive. We had two days of a wait in Bangkok before my cousin David Donnelly was flying out to meet us for a week in Phuket. So the plan was to rest up in bed for the two days and then get to a hospital in phuket.

We flew down to Phuket last Friday week after meeting David in Bangkok airport, and headed to Patong beach, where we already had spent a few days earlier in our trip.
After we got settled into a nice hotel just off the beach the first port of call was to get to a hospital, which ended up been in Phuket town (about 25 mins away) from Patong.
Before I go any further, I would like to say just how unbelievable the services were in that hospital. The standard was obviously to international requirements etc, but everything from the staff to decor was out of this world.

So I got seen by a G.P who then immediately referred me to the physiotherapy rehab section of the hospital where I got over the course of the week six physio sessions, drugs, x-rays, and a pair of crutches which totalled to 200 euro! I also got seen by a specialist who checked my x-rays and informed me that the pain I was suffering wasn’t from any spinal damage and that it was just a muscular/nerve impingement that more than likely came about from heavy lifting at the gym. Although I did slip coming off a train a week prior, and came down hard on my heels, but I didn't feel any pain at the time.

Anyways, to make a long story short I responded well to the treatment after two days that I didn’t need the crutches anymore and was able to hobble around without too much pain. The spinal traction and ultra sound treatment must have released a lot of the pain and that combined with the dry needling definitely took away a lot of the agony.

So as it stands now the trip is still on and even though I definitely can’t move around quick I’m still able to get along and the auld wooden leg is still up for continuing.
That’s enough about the leg. Back to the week we spent in Patong with David. The weather was the hottest we’d experienced since starting our journey back nearly four months ago and needless to say we loved it.

The first night we arrived we ended up getting wasted on buckets of shots in some 24 hour bar ran by an English guy and his Swedish wife. It’s supposedly the only 24 hour bar in Patong and we tried to see if it was by drinking there until 5am! Drunk wasn’t the word!

Binge!

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The second night was continued in similar fashion except Florence didn’t feel like coming out so myself and David proceeded to visit a Ping-Pong show which wasn’t as good as the one I went to last time we were here. In saying that we got smashed off our faces on local Singha beer coupled with the odd sprinkling of shots here and there to mask the taste of the beer

That was the last of the drinking for the week as the heat combined with potential hangovers didn’t make sense, especially when David was just out here for a week.
We rented out scooters for the week which allowed us to belt away whenever we wanted and not worry about walking around the place all the time. One of the days, the three of us took a spin up to the big Buddha statue on top of one of the mountains. This thing was massive and can be seen for literally miles in either direction. Its a place of worship and has a lot of stalls and markets there as well as a temple with monks handing out blessings as if they were going out of fashion.

Big Buddha!

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The following day myself and David took off again for a long spin up north from Patong. We just rode along the coastline stopping here and there for the odd coffee and photography. Along the way we passed a good few bustling villages which gave a nice glimpse of the non tourist parts of the area. Stunning scenery the whole way. We wanted to see a waterfall along the way and when we got to one we found it was a 2km trek to get to it, so we manned up and hopped back on our scooters and headed back to Patong ! Fecking leg isn’t that good like!
Koh Phi Phi was a tour that we had planned to do on this trip as its where a lot of people talk about when they visit Thailand. The film “the Beach” starring Mr.Dicaprio was partly filmed on a part of it called Maya beach.

This is not my photo by the way, as our tour boat didn’t bring us to land on the beach due to tide restrictions at this time of year. Very disappointed we were to say the least but we did get a look at the beach from a distance and it looked stunning.
Our boat brought us to a a few islands as well as Phi Phi, namely monkey island and Ki island.

It’s interesting to know that the island of phi phi was more or less completely devastated as a result of the 2004 tsunami. But since then its been more or less rebuilt. Hard to imagine what it must have been like on a tiny island like that when the tsunami hit.

Monkey island was a little cove where monkeys came down when the long tail boats dropped people off to feed them. Flor and David opted to take a swim and snorkel, while I went to get some monkey snaps.

Monkey Island!

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Florence tried her hand at one of these “leisure dives” that are taking the internet by storm.

……and David got eaten by some plant while out galavanting in the water….

The tour was only a one day tour as we didn’t fancy spending two days on phi phi with our time frame. But one day was plenty, if only we could have landed/seen maya beach up close, then it would have been perfect.

We got fairly toasted during the course of the day as we opted to sit out on top of the boat. The cool breeze was a killer as the wind burnt us just a tad!

Phi Phi is obviously a stunning island and if you ever get near it, then its definitely worth seeing. Its a real relaxed island with a chill out vibe that reminded me of the gili islands off the coast of Bali, Indonesia.

So after Phi Phi, it was time to fly back up to Bangkok as David was flying back home and we had to plan the second part of our journey.
So here we currently are in Chinatown, for a few days while we get our visa’s sorted for Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Its very smelly, sweaty and drizzling at the moment and a far cry from Patong but we love it. Hey, I’m just glad to be able to continue with my travels and for that I’m very thankful!

I’ll leave ye with my favourite photo I've taken in the past week….

Ciao!!

Australia Week 2: The Outback!

2011-08-23T15:03:00.000+01:00

It’s been quite the turn-a-round in the past week for the Australian part of the trip. The first week was a little of a disappointment for us in terms of expectations, but the past week has been the total opposite!

We decided after we reached Mackay along the east coast that we had enough, and sat down to see what our next move was going to be for the other two weeks here. I had a look at the map and figured that Alice Springs in the centre of Australia was a bit out of reach for one driver to get over and back to. The outback has long been a travel goal of ours so we decided that we should at least get as far west as we possible could in the time frame we had left.
So off we went from Mackay on the East coast last week and spent a night at Armstrong beach in a little costal town called Sarina before heading for the outback!

After a 400km journey west into the Queensland outback we arrived in a small gold mining town called Clermont. This place was amazing in that it was your typical out of the way ghost town, but it had a population of 1,500 or so. It had a fantastic atmosphere about it and we ended up staying two days there just wandering about a soaking up our first taste of the outback.

The drive into the outback from the coast was really amazing in that the scenery gradually changed from lush sugar cane fields to dry desert wilderness. The red soil that I always associated with the outback was present after a few hours inland. This make for some really spectacular views along the way.

CLERMONT

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As I said, Clermont was a huge gold mining town way back, and still gold fossicking has a big part in the towns economy. We arrived just in time for the 150th annual celebration of the gold mine rush in Clermont so we made an appearance at the festival which contained a few stalls and a 2 man band that would make an episode of Father Ted on Craggy Island look like a metropolis!

After Clermont we headed to another slightly bigger town called Emerald for a night. This was a modern town and had a lot more to offer the tourist in terms of amenities etc.
We ended up feeding a few wild birds while out for a drive while here and had a really nice time exploring the surrounding gold towns of Rubyvale and Sapphire!

EMERALD

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After we left Emerald we headed due west another 500km to a really cool town called Barcladine. This town has an immense history and is known as the “Garden city of the West” as its in the heart of the Artesian basin, which provides the land with water. We are told the basin contains more the 200,000 times the amount of water that Sydney bay holds, so they won’t run dry anytime soon!

A lot of the photo’s I’ve taken of the scenery here won’t do the place justice. It’s an extreme environment and although its still basically winter here the sun cracks the stones during the day and it gets very cold at night. Summer would be an altogether different story for travelling in a campervan in my opinion.
Having visited death valley in the Nevada desert on two occasions, both in the extreme heat of the summer I can appreciate how difficult it must be to live out here during the summer months.

While we were in Barcladine, we did a tour with a bushman who’s lived out here for most of his life. This guy was a real character who would give Bear Gryll’s a run for his money with his survival skills pertaining to the bush anyways.

The tour took us off the beaten track and into the remote parts of the outback. The tour took a full day and was an unbelievable experience to get an insight into the history of the Aborigines and how they lived. We visited some awesome old ruins of towns from the 1800’s. The stories and banter from our guide really made the tour something that we’ll never forget. While tourists come out this far into the outback, very few actually go off the beaten track due to the dangerous nature of doing so. With that in mind, it was a great experience to see as much as we did.

OUTBACK TOUR

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The few days we spent in Barcladine were fantastic and we met some really nice people. The history of the town is really interesting but I won’t bore ye with the details of it

So this morning(Tuesday 23rd August), we left Bracladine and drove 350km south to a complete and utter ghost town called Augathella. It’s just like a town from a movie, one that you see those tumbleweeds crawling across the main street from the light breeze. I’ve no photo’s yet of it as we’ve just arrived and since the camp ground has wifi, I said I better get updating it while I can. Photo’s will be in the update.

So we intend to spend another week exploring various towns here in the outback, before making our way back east to Brisbane in time for our flight back to Asia.

Visiting the Australian outback has long been a travel goal of mine, and one I thought I wouldn’t be able to tick off the bucket list for a long time. And since our initial plan was to just travel the coast and not head inland, its been a real treat for me to finally get the outback beast out of my travel pants !!

Ciao!

Australia: Week 1

2011-08-18T02:57:00.000+01:00

Its been a quick week since we arrived in Brisbane on August 9th. We were picked up at the airport by one of Florence’s good friends Deirdre Rynn, who kindly took really good care of us for the two days we stayed with her. She made us feel right at home and went to a lot of trouble to give us the perfect introduction to Oz. If your reading this Dee, then thanks a million to you and Paul for all you did for us. Your a star

The day after we arrived Dee had a day in dreamworld planned for us. Dreamworld is one of those adventure parks that also combines a waterpark. We spent a few hours here and had a great time. The park itself was very quiet and therefore we were able to wander around at ease with no trouble at all.

Dreamworld

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We got to feed Kangaroo’s which was pretty cool and also got to get a few photos taking with a Kuala bear…again very cool in my opinion.

Dee droped us into pick up our campervan/car from Jucy rentals in the city. We rented one of these to serve as both our accommodation and transport for the three weeks we planned on coasting up North towards Cairns. The campervan itself is self contained and despite its small appearances on the outside, its actually a perfect fit for two people.

Campervan

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I won’t go into detail about the contents of the camper, needless to say its perfect for what will need it for and its so cool to be able to just pull over and cook up something to eat and even go for a quick nap if needed.

Initial plans….

Since its just myself who’s doing the driving for the duration of the trip along the east coast, we planned on driving from Brisbane to Cairns and then coming back down to Brisbane to catch our flight back to Asia. This trip is a total of 3,400km! Now I don’t mind long stints driving but when the scenery is so God dame boring for hours on end, then it takes its toll.
After we left Brisbane we drove about 100km north to a little quaint town called Mooloolaba which in pulled up outside a backpackers hostel for the night and slept in our new mobile sleeper!

Mooloolaba

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First thing next morning was the 6 hour drive up to Hervey bay…all of 500km away. This was a really boring drive along the Bruce highway and apart from two pit stops there was nothing to comment about.

Hervey bay as most of ye know is the gateway to the Frazer islands and home to a lot of backpackers. We heard a lot about Frazer island. However, we discovered that although you can get the ferry and self drive on the island, you need a 4x4 vehicle to do so, and our campervan rental company does not allow their campers on the island. That coupled with the fact that it costs a ridiculous amount of money to get their, we felt it was not worth the extra cost. We would have to find a place to park the camper before heading off to Frazer island and it was just too much hassle in our books.
So we spent two days in a camp site in Hervey bay just wandering around the local beaches and chilling.

Hervey bay

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A lot of you that have travelled along the same route and visited Frazer Island might be thinking that we are absolutely crazy for not going. We just couldn’t justify the costs involved for a tour($200 per person per day). If we hadn’t the camper then we would have gone for sure.

Then what’s the point of going all that way along the coast if we aren’t going to do any island hopping etc I hear you ask? Well, the reason why we even came to Oz, was basically to get a feel for it and to just drive along the coast on a road trip. We never had any intention of doing the whole scenic party island tour as we are on a daily budget designed for 7 months in Asia. Its wild, and I mean wild expensive out here in Oz and we didn’t factor that much into our plans when we booked to travel here at the last minute. In saying that, we are fine just as long as we don’t go blowing everything on trips here that we can do back in Asia for next to nothing. Not the same thing I know, but we have another three months in Asia when we leave here so got to be realistic.
I’ll get back to the price of things later on….

Anyways, so after Hervey bay, we drove up to Rockhampton, which was another 400km drive and equally as boring as before. The only thing of interest along the route was the countless dead kangaroo’s that lay peppered to death after been smashed by vehicles. Not that I liked seeing dead kangaroo’s, its just I ended up counting as many as I could in order to keep me from going insane.

Rockhampton is the beef capital of Australia and has something like over two million cows within a 100 mile radius. The smell of beef in the town is meant to be pretty whiffy! We took one look at the place on arrival and ended up driving about 40km past it, ending up pulling into a rest area off the highway for the night. At this stage we were shattered and hadn’t eaten all day and we were looking forward to a meal of pasta and sausage cooked on our gas stove under the moon and stars. It wasn’t until the sausages were half cooked that our gas ran out! Yes….we forgot to get more gas and so we had to settle for a bowl of cornflakes as our meal! I had no intention of driving in the dark back into beefhampton just to get something to eat after a full days driving already done.
We won’t make that mistake again I may add!

After this overnight stopover it was another few hundred kilometres to a city large town/small city called Mackay. This is where we currently are and will spend a few days here.

Mackay

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Mackay is literally in the middle of nowhere in my opinion. Its home to endless sugarcane fields and I think its the largest sugarcane production location in the world…not sure about this but I think I read it somewhere.
So that’s where we are at on our journey here. I honestly don’t think I can stand another 900km to reach Cairns. It wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t to drive all the way back to Brisbane….but we do.
From here I don’t know what the plan is going to be. Neither of us are interested in going any further north. We might just head inland a little bit and do a kind of loop back down to Brisbane. There’s only so much of that Bruce highway that a man can take in a short period of time.

Impressions of Oz so far….

So as I mentioned early the price of things out here is literally horrific. I say that coming from land of the cheap cheap, aka Asia! It’s a big shock coming here from Asia. I had no idea how expensive it was going to be in relation to back home. With the Australian dollar coming in at $1.35 to the Euro its not a great deal for us. I’m convinced that the Euro is on the way out.

So like I said, everything is a lot more expensive than we’ve grown used to. The minimum wage over here must be around the $30-$40 per hour range. And then its easy to see how things aren’t that expensive. Fuel is $1.45 on average so its ok I guess. For a smoker its $16 a pack. Food is very expensive compared to back home. And drink is along the same lines also. Luckily we got the camper as to eat out all the time would be crazy.
Florence went into a convenient shop the other day and got a can of coke and loaf of bread. $10 please!

So far my impressions of this part of Australia haven’t been what I was hoping they would be. Don’t ask me to try and explain that, as I don’t even know myself what I was expecting. I keep comparing it to the west coast of America road trip we did back in 2008 for a month. Having been the the states numerous times, I love it there and so maybe its a bit unfair to use that as the yardstick for my comparisons to here in Australia. But I can’t help it . So far, it doesn’t even compare in my book. Ok, the weather is unreal when you consider its winter time here and we are out sun bathing like the big tourists we are. Anyways, I’m not going to rant and rave about it any more as I’m guessing most of you are thinking I must be gone crazy to be thinking like I am.

So before anyone starts screaming at me for thinking Oz isn’t heaven on earth I’ll sign off. I’ve a dinner to cook and a couple episodes of breaking bad to get though before I call it a night !

Ciao!

Australia on the horizon!

2011-08-07T14:57:00.000+01:00

We spent our last few days in Koh Samui spinning around the Island on a scooter taking photos of sunsets and whatnot! We managed to circumnavigate the island twice which was well worth the scenic views it produced.
The best sunsets were photographed from the south end of Samui and although not the nicest of beaches we’ve visited on this trip it certainly didn’t disappoint when it came to getting a few snaps in.

Since I’ve gotten into photography a few years ago, I’ve always been fascinated with sunsets, and so whenever the opportunity presents itself and I’ve a camera on queue, I’ll happily fire away.

SUNSET

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Having spent nearly two weeks on Koh Samui, its really been a nice chill out time with zero travelling so to speak. My favourite highlight was zipping around the place on the scooter which we rented for most of our stay there.

The hotel we stayed in was a real gem of a place in the middle of the Lamai beach area. Again like a lot of the places we’ve found by chance, they are not mentioned in our “up to date” lonely planet guide book. That’s one tip I would also point out…in that your better off finding places on your own and not to trust the guide book all the time, unless you don’t care or you don’t have time. Obviously the researcher cannot stay in every place there is to stay when he/she is getting the info for the guide book and as such not everywhere gets a mention.

This also means that if you look for a place on your own, your very likely to find cheaper accommodation which is also of a much higher standard than the recommendations in any guide book. This is my own personal opinion and is based on previous trips as well as this one.

CHILLING!

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So our next stop was back to Bangkok via a combination of bus, boat and overnight train. The journey was a total of around 25 hours when you factor in wait times in between train and bus. Again the journey was fine as we had our cabin beds sorted which allowed us to get some shut eye.

I was awoken at our 7am on the train by a dude wearing one of those surgical masks who was ranting in Thai and pointing at my bed. I was still half asleep and so I was convinced that this fella was trying to tell me get up and let him lie down! I ended up just looking at him as if he had two heads and just kept saying “your mental” to him. He eventually gave up and I then found out that he was just the guy who takes the bed sheets from your bed and gets the train ready for the next journey! Oooops!

JOURNEY TO BANGKOK!

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Arriving in Bangkok we were immediately hit with the steaming humidity combined with about 100 tuk tuk drivers all wanting to bring us to our destination of choice – Khao San road!

Now most of you know what Khao San road is like if you’ve been there so I won’t get into descriptive detail apart from saying its the Backpacking capital of Asia in my eyes. Backpackers in every nock and cranny. If you don’t have a backpack, then your out of place.

Its basically just one long street that’s filled with all sorts of bars, shops, market stands, food vendors and stalls where you can get a fake student card, driver’s licence, and also a certificate to say your a doctor if that takes your fancy.

Khao San road is like the honey where all backpacking bees conglomerate into one mega hive while in Bangkok.

Food and general items are cheap which I thought wouldn’t be the case since its such a tourist hot spot. In saying that, the tuk tuk drivers and taxi drivers will not under no circumstances turn on their meter for foreigners, so that they can squeeze a few extra baht out of you.

I saw something funny yesterday that I wished I’d taken a photo of. There was this 70+ year old man, tall, back with a freddie krugar type of face walking down one of the side streets of Khao San road. He would have been a tank of a chap when he was young I’d say.
Anyways, he was wearing skin tight shorts with an emerald green t-shirt. He was walking kind of like Vince McMahon walks in the WWE for anyone who knows who I’m on about. A real cocky arrogant walk basically! As he got near I saw his t-shirt say in big writing – HATERS GONA LOVE THIS.

I didn’t pass much heed on him until he walked right past me, when I noticed he had a set of breasts on him that would give Pamela Anderson a run for her money!! I couldn’t stop laughing for ages afterwards. He really didn’t give a hoot what anyone thought obviously! I must also point out that he had no other feminine features about him and he was also a westerner!! Haha……mad cunt!

We are flying out to Brisbane on the East coast of Australia tomorrow(Monday) for our three week campervan road trip. This is the reason for coming back to Bangkok this early, as we had to catch our flights.

Both of us are really looking forward to hitting Oz, as we’ve never been there. It will also be touchdown in the five continents for us which is another milestone on my personal bucket list!
We are going to be staying with a good friend of Florence’s – Deirdre Rynn, who’s kindly offered to make us her guests. So we’ll spend two days with her in Brisbane before picking up our campervan and heading North towards Cairns.
I’ve not done too much research on the Australian part of the trip as we weren’t sure if we were going to go or not up until we booked our flights a few weeks ago. But I’m sure we’ll figure it out as we go along.

One things a certainty, its going to be a hell of a lot more expensive than here in Asia!

So in other news, my corrupted cop of a cousin, David Donnelly has finally given into my propaganda and has booked a week in Thailand. He’s going to fly over just as we are back from Australia and we are going to fly down to Phuket for the week to participate in some social drinking coupled with seeing Koh Phi Phi(where the film the beach was filmed).

I’ve been sending him photos’ like this one for weeks on facebook and generally wrecking his narrow neck!

So he couldn’t take it any longer and has booked a trip!

The next update will be from Australia when we get sorted out. Looking forward to living in the back of a campervan for a few weeks and sleeping under the stars!

Ciao!

Scam alert!

2011-08-02T12:36:00.000+01:00

Since nothing much has happened here in Koh Samuiin the past few days to warrant a blog update, I thought I’d describe some of the local scams that I’ve read and heard about.

I know every country has its own scam artists, and I’m not trying to put Thailand in a bad light or anything because personally I love the country . In saying that thought, there are quite a few local scammers that are trying to rip westerners off which in turn leads tourists to return home with nothing but negative views on Thailand.
Thank god, we’ve not been scammed so far(well not to our knowledge anyways). Yeah we’ve paid a higher price for some items and that, but its not what I would called getting Scammed when compared to some of the stories below.

As I said, my aim is not to cause any negative feelings towards Thailand, only to make anyone who hasn’t been here before aware of a few potential pitfalls.
Most of these stories are available to read on the net and the stories all share a common theme – deceit.

Definition of a Scam:
1. A fraudulent business scheme
2.Deprive of by deceit.

The two price scam!

There are loads of different levels of scams here in Thailand. Some will trick you out of a few baht, while others will gently relieve you of thousands of baht. The amount of money doesn’t really matter, as its the fact that they are taking your money by deceitful means. In Thailand, a perfect example of this can be often seen when they write the real price with Thai numerals, and then another inflated price in Arabic numbers!

This was also the case when we were in Africa volunteering two years ago. The Mzungo(white man) price was always way different to the local price for more or less everything! Here in Thailand, the Farang(westerner) price is certainly not the same as it is for locals.
So obviously then the situations are the same, but there seems to be one thing that Thailand does, which is it tries to hide the deceit(by putting the thai and arabic prices). The feeling among the expats living over here is that they don’t mind the 100% increase in price for items, but that they should be clearly visible for all to see and make it their choice whether or not they want to buy it etc. Not having it cleverly disguised in the Thai language.

I heard of a national park here charging the locals 40 baht admission(1 euro),and foreigners including those living and working in Thailand 400 baht(10 euro). Again we saw this plenty of times while in Africa with the only difference being that in Africa they had the two price system on display for all to see and decide for themselves!

The Tuk-Tuk scam!

The tuk-tuk scam is one of the most common types of scam here. A tuk-tuk by the way is a form of transport, in the form of a small bus with the back able to accommodate anything from 6 to 6000 people!
For example, most tourists that want to go to see a museum or attraction are often told by the tuk tuk drivers that the museum or whatever attraction they want to visit is closed on that day! Instead the driver will ask you if you’d like him to bring to to see another nearby attraction for a “cheap-cheap price” Tuk-tuk actually means “cheap-cheap” as well ! For anybody that falls for this scam, they end up been brought to a tailor shop or gem shop where the driver will get a nice fat commission for getting you there. Its been known as well that the pressure the shop owners put on the tourists that get dropped off here to buy overinflated items can be borderline harassment. Also, if you don’t accept been driven to these shops before the driver brings you to the other attraction he promised you, then he has often just told the people to get out and they end up dropped on the side of the road, sometimes in not so friendly parts of where ever!

This funnily enough happened to us a few weeks ago while in Malaysia. We just got off a boat and had already rang the guest house we wanted to stay in that night. Thought when we got to the taxi stand, we were politely informed that that particular guest house was no longer in operation, and was closed for business!! And I was just after getting off the phone with the owner himself who said he had plenty of room for us!! All because the taxi man wanted to bring us somewhere else that would net him a few extra bob!!

The cigarette police scam!

This scam is prevalent in Bangkok. Basically there has been a bit of a crack down in Bangkok the past few years regarding littering on the streets, which is a good thing by all accounts. However, instead of targeting the locals for dumping rubbish on the street the local BMA officials who are known as the “thetsakij” are targeting a much softer, richer fruit, the foreign tourists!

What happens is typically three of these thetsakij police set up a table beside a popular tourist attraction. One of them sits at the table and the other two go and catch their victim who is in the form of a tourist throwing their cigarette butts on the ground. Why would they throw their butts on the ground, well first of all, there’s a sign saying “no smoking” at the area the police are catching them, and also there are zero bins to dump them in. So, when they unsuspecting tourists comes along the no smoking sign they quickly throw the cigarettes on the ground as there are no bins, and they then are quickly reprimanded by the waiting cigarette police!

The tourist is then taken to the table where the other “official” fines them a 2,000(50 euro) on the spot fine with no receipt!! If the tourist doesn’t cooperate they are threatened with been taken to an actual police station where they might have to pay more money! So you can see how profitable a scam like this can be for some of these artists.

Its also interesting to note that if a local Thai person is found dumping rubbish or littering then they are given a warning, or if they are teenage boys, they are made do on the spot push ups!

The Laundry Scam!

This scam isn’t that popular from what I’ve read and heard about. What happens is when you come back to collect your bundle of clothes at the laundry shop you are missing an item of clothing. The woman of the shop then informs you that she must have gotten them mixed up and gave it to another backpacker who’s now left the area. In turn she then suggests that she bring you to a “friend” who owns a clothes shop nearby by who coincidently will have a few similar items like the ones you lost. If you go there then you will be quoted the foreigner price for the item, but then the lady who lost your clothes will negotiate the Thai price with the owner so that you don’t get ripped off!! Very kind of her, considering she probably gave the owner your item of clothing and in return she gets the Thai price that you paid for the new item in the shop! Very clever scam as a lot of unsuspecting tourists could easily fall for that ploy!

The Jet Ski Scam!

This scam is one of the BIG money makers here and its the one that should scream “scam alert” in my opinion. This scam is seemingly rampant in the Pattaya area and also very common in Patong beach, down in Phuket.

What happens is as follows:

Tourist can rent a jet ski for 1,500 baht(30 euro) for 20 minutes at many spots along the beach. Before you go out on the jet ski a rental agreement is produced for you to look over and sign. This agreement states in perfect English that you, the renter is responsible for any damages that occur to the jet ski.

After you sign the agreement you are taken to your jet ski and offered to take a good look at it before you take off. Here is where the scam starts!

Since the jet ski is moored in the water you can only visibly inspect the part of the jet ski that is above water! The jet ski operators already know this and they also have a nasty secret, in that the jet ski hull is already damaged, but you can’t see it!

So you sign some document to say that your happy and off you go. You have you 20 mins of fun with no accidents or anything out of the ordinary and then its time to head back to the beach. Where you leave the jet ski where you got it, one of the operators sits on it and drives it up onto the beach so that no water hides anything.

As soon as the underside is exposed one of the operators points at it and exclaims “what did you hit”? Of course you hit nothing, but since you couldn’t see the hull part of the ski before you left you are now left in a very precarious position.

The damage was always there and a lot of tourists have already paid for that same damage on the jet ski.The damage is usually slight hull damage that has the fiberglass chipped.

By now a few other operators are all around the jet ski and it seems that it will cost between 40,000 – 50,000 baht(about 1000 euros) to fix it.

You start to protest and probably refuse to pay up. This in turn angers the operators and some threaten you with violence. The only thing you can think of is to ring the police!!! Wrong!

Of course they will agree to the police been called and along comes another player in the scam – Mr.Policeman! It may make you feel better that the law is now involved but its nothing but false hope. They always side with the scammers as they also get a cut of the action!

The cop will lead you away from the action and inform you that you signed the agreement and that there no other action apart from you paying the fine. BUT, he will try and negotiate a reduced price you have to pay to the operators for the damage!

Before you know it you are been lead away by the policeman to the nearest conveniently located ATM machine to get your hard earned cash to hand over.
Interesting to know as well that the reduced price the cop “kindly” negotiated on your behalf is still going to cost the foreigner about 300 euro minimum if he’s lucky.

The Farang bait!

I came across this story a few days ago in a local paper called the Samui Gazette! It recounts the story of one westerner(farang) living in a small ex-pat community near the airport here in Samui, when a business meeting he was having with a Thai colleague in his house, was rudely shattered by a Thai woman, who rushed in a claimed that her van had been touched by his car, whilst driving out of the narrow road in front of their house!

She ranted and raved, and demanded that the meeting be stopped, and everyone look at her van. After recovering from their initial disbelief and astonishment, all three went out to look at the van. There was indeed some light scrape marks, high up on the front wing, probably at least a year or so old.

She claimed that there was a minute amount of coloured paint, which could only belong to the Farang’s car.
She demanded 3,000 baht(75 euro) on the spot. How it was asked, could she possibly know what the price would be, and in any case, no recent damage or contact had been made!
She then flew into a rage, real or contrived, and insisted that she would call the police, and the insurance company and crate real problems for the farang!

He said that he would deal with the matter a 5pm, when he would be returning from some urgent business meetings.
She refused to accept that, and claimed that the van had to go into the body shop that same day, in order to be repaired. She could not use the van, with those marks on it. The matter was closed and the meeting resumed.

Five minutes later, the same woman began banging on the door again. She demanded the 3,000 baht and would not let up until it was paid.
The Thai man went outside, and without consulting the farang, paid her the 3,000 baht, not admitting liability, but just to stop the confrontation, which he claimed was against his Buddhist principles!
The farang was disappointed and amazed, and felt obliged to pay his colleague back the 3,000 baht.

Imagine their total surprise, when 2 months later, they both say the van standing there, without a single attempt to repair anything at all!
Moreover, the garage found evidence that a minute amount of the metallic paint from the farang’s car, had been scraped off with a penknife, and had clearly been impressed into the earlier scratches on the van!

Despite demands for the return of the 3,000 baht the woman hides away and refused to discuss the matter or come to any agreement or compromise.

The moral of the story??

Beware! Do not allow any friend, however well intentioned to pay an unjustified claim on their behalf!
This scam, repeated many times over, could generate quite a small income!!
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So you may be thinking that Thailand is full of scams and deceit but in fact its not. All I’m saying is there are a few pitfalls here that can suck the foreigner’s blood quicker that a vampire on crack!
We’ve had zero trouble here and found the locals to be nothing but genuinely nice people.

Its those few bad apples that give Thailand a slight stain but as long as you keep your wits about you, you’ve nothing to worry about

Ciao!

Goodbye Koh Phangan, Hello Koh Samui!

2011-07-27T05:59:00.000+01:00

We left the East coast of Koh Phangan and went to the West coast for our final three days on the Island. We wanted to sample another part of Koh Phangan before we left. So Thongsala on the West coast was our choice. Thongsala is where all the boats to and from the island arrive and depart from. Its a nice spot and has some nice night time markets along with a few nice beaches.

We found a nice hotel right on the beach complete with swimming pool so we nested down there for the three days and we were happy out. All we did was rent a scooter and fly around the town, lazy by the pool and nose around the local markets.

I did come across a funny incident. Just next to our room there was this pig who obviously lived in the one bedroom apartment in which a local man lived. When we’d walk by we could see right in as the door was always open. And you could see the mental pig just slouched on the floor beside the bed, and your man lying on the bed hands behind his head as if it was only a dog!
I managed to get a quick video clip of the pig, who was very interested in me as I approached the gate.

The night before we left Koh Phangan we took a stroll to the local market for a few hours. There was one stall that had a selection of insects/cockroaches and other nasty bugs that you could buy to eat. They were all fried in some sort of oil I think in order to mask the taste. I said before I left Ireland that I intend on sampling a few creatures while in Thailand, and Bangkok especially(since they have the biggest selection I’m told). So I went ahead and tried some weird disgusting looking insects.

It tasted very salty and crunchy, and kind of reminded me of a salted peanut with the skin on it. Me biting and chewing away on the insect brought some smiles from the local men who obviously eat these things as delicacies and see it as no big deal! I got through most of the crunchy legs and back but couldn’t bring myself to chomp down on the head which contained the black gooey brains. I’ll have to leave the really crazy delicacies until Bangkok!

We said adios to Koh Phangan after a wonderful nine days there and headed by boat to the northern island of Koh Samui.
Koh Samui was one of the original islands that kicked off the mainstream backpacker migration to Thailand. There are plenty of international standard hotels to be found on the island along with a bucket full of backpacking amenities. Samui is a strong favourite for honeymoon couples not only because of the hotels, but also because of the crisp hidden beaches.

We headed for Lamai beach, which is a less crowded but equally as touristy part of the island as the famous Chaweng beach is renowned for. Lamai, like Chaweng is on the east coast of the island and is fully fueled with bars, restaurants, shops and a nightclub as well as the obligatory selection of beaches!

We’ve already spent three days here and its a really nice chill out spot. We rented out a scooter for the few days so far and made use of it, spinning around the excellent roads and enjoying the sun. Yesterday morning, we decided to hop on the scooter and hunt out a view point of the island. We found one very easily and after a tough climb up on the scooter to the top we were treated to a fantastic view of the south part of the island all while enjoying our breakfast at a restaurant which was built on the side of the mountain it would seem!

VIEW POINT BREAKFAST

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Flying along on a scooter is definitely a thrill for me and brings me back to the days when I first learned to drive a car. That sense of freedom comes flying back to me every time I hop on a scooter. I suppose this is mainly due to the fact that I never piloted a two wheeled vehicle before this trip. The price of renting a scooter for a day is 200bath, so about 5 euro for a twenty four hour period. A full tank of petrol costs 2.50 and lasts forever, so its an ideal way to get from place to place when sightseeing. Taxis are both expensive and extortionate for westerners I may add over here on the islands.

With less than two weeks before we fly off to Australia it looks like we’ll just spend the next week here before making our way to Bangkok to catch our flight to Brisbane on August 8th! We will more than likely move to a different part of the island before leaving as we want to see as much of it as we can.

One observation about Koh Samui is that the atmosphere feels very English orientated. Obviously a lot of Brits come here and they make up the majority percentage of the tourist numbers on the island. The atmosphere also reminds me of that in Phuket, with a large number of he/she’s about the place. That may seem standard since its Thailand after all, but we didn’t see one he/she while in Koh Phangan. Well, just because we didn’t see any obvious ladyboy’s doesn’t mean there weren’t any, just that they weren’t in the same quantity as here in Koh Samui!

I also came across an interesting article which listed the main reason’s why people move off of Koh Samui;

1. Got lost too many times as the island has no street signs.

2. Blew their retirement money of flights on Bangkok airways and Samui taxis, along with endless shots of tequila at the endless amount of bars.

3. Met a girl, fell in love, broke up with the girl.

4. Your ex-wife says all is forgiven – come home!

5. Met a girl, bought a bar for her, lost the girl, lost the bar, lost your money.

6. Your dreams of a Koh Samui real estate empire crumpled by reality.

7. Bought a restaurant, lost your restaurant, lost your money.

8. Met sexy toothless bargirl at Lamai’s world famous happy bar and bringing her home to be your wife!

To sign off I’ve included another video montage of the few days in Thongsala and the first few days here in Samui.

Ciao!!

Have some; Dim sum yum yum!!

2011-07-25T15:00:00.001+01:00

This is the first of two posts in which I’ve been asked give some information about. The other one will be about what I’ve packed in my backpack to last me for the seven months on this trip.

Food! Well I’ve certainly eaten my fair share of it since arriving in Asia. At least 90% of the dishes I’ve sampled have been of the seafood variety. I love fish and you won’t get anything fresher or tastier than you can get in Asia.

Luckily enough, I made a conscious decision at the start of the trip to take a photograph of every dish I eat using my iphone so that somewhere down the blog road I’d be able to provide a photographic food experience of some of the meals I’ve tasted!
So what I’ll do is just include a selection of some of the foods that I’ve consumed so far(as in the last seven weeks). Unfortunately I don’t remember the names of all the dishes so for that reason I won’t provide a name

Only one dish has caused me a little anxiety while eating it, and that was the Fish Head soup in Singapore(see photos and video in Singapore blog update). Everything else has been absolutely fabulous and really mouth watering. I suppose my favourite dish so far is the Thai Green Curry, which I’ve eaten on many occasions while in Asia.

So for anyone hoping to get the names of the following dishes or the ingredients, then sadly you’ll be disappointed. I’m not the type of person who looks to see what’s in a dish or find out how’s it cooked. I just usually eat and then find out later if I liked it or not!!
Ok, so here’s a sample of what I’ve gulped down….

So as you can see, there’s a lot of rice and seafood combo dishes. And the above selection is by no means an extensive list of all I’ve eaten, just the few that made the cut so to speak. I eat a lot of the same dishes over and over again as I go through phases like that.
For those of you that like spices, then you won’t be disappointed with the array of “hot n spicy” menus available in every restaurant over here. Obviously the menus from place to place are very similar as the cuisine is standard, but you can also get restaurants that provide western food along with other varieties of international cuisine.

All in all the standard of food is superb and the price is unbelievably cheap compared to back home. The most expensive item of food we’ve eaten was a pizza and that cost around five euros. I figure the reason why pizza’s are so expensive compared to other food here is that the majority of westerners that come to Asia on holidays like the odd “slice of home”! I can’t see it been because the ingredients or method of cooking costs more.

Another example of the cheapness of food here is the other night when there were five of us out eating a meal and we had a total of six drinks, three starters and five main courses which all amounted to just under twenty euros for the lot!! That was a eating local food in a non local restaurant at a beach side resort in Koh Phangan. So the less touristy venues would work out even cheaper.

Ok, I’ve rambled on a bit about a subject that might not hit the taste buds(excuse the pun) of everyone reading this so I’ll rap things up.
Needless to say I appreciate the feedback and comments regarding the blog and if you have any other questions then feel free to email me either on facebook or on carlocretaro@hotmail.com!

The blog update “Asian backpack – what’s in my backpack” will be published in a few days when I’ve finished editing it.

P.S Dim sum(as in the title of this post) is a Cantonese term for a type of Chinese meal that involves small individual portions of food, usually food is pushed around on carts by servers and served in a small steamer baskets or on small plates. We had Dim Sum in Singapore and it was fantastic stuff, really was. Thanks to Mr.Sheng Oon aka Dr.Bitchboy for introducing us to Dim Sum

Ciao!!