A G&T in Thailand

New Trip, New Blog!

2009-09-09T22:52:00.001+07:00

For our next travels we have a new blog! You can find it easily by following this link: http://gemandtimnz.blogspot.com/.

This time you will also be able to sign up for emails so that you will get them sent right to you when we find the time to write one... You can do that from here, or the site.

We loved our time travelling in Asia and Bangkok in particular and so leave for New Zealand at the end of September before passing through Thailand again. Hopefully we will be adding more photos and stories to the blog soon!

Leaving On A Jet Plane

2009-07-31T08:39:00.000+07:00

That’s it, we are off! A sad day, we are going to miss Bangkok, I think we both feel at home here and I look forward to being back next year! This may not be the end, it is a consideration to come back next year if the right job comes up. I have really enjoyed my time out here, I think It has been good for the both of us, we needed to get away from England and luckily we are only back for a few months as I feel neither of us is ready to move back there permanently. We have a couple of days to hang out in Mumbai, a chance to check out India and see if we like it, before arriving back in London ready to meet up with Carys! Hopefully this blog will fulfil it’s original remit and serve as a permanent reminder of our time out here and the fun that we have had.

Now, on to the next adventure!

The Final Countdown

2009-07-21T19:41:00.000+07:00

Tim and I have a couple of weeks left in Bangkok before going to Mumbai and back to the UK. We have managed to get our Indian visas, they were double the cost of what was stated on the internet. That was rather annoying; this little jaunt has turned into a money pit. Anyway, now that has been sorted we are spending our time seeing the last few things that we would like to see and to buy a few souvenirs at the night market.

We nipped to the might market last night and managed to pick up most of the things on our ‘to buy’ list. It took a good 4 hours but it’s done now! Today we are going to visit a forensic museum, a little gory but should be fun, we saw another example of a Thai house this week, it used to be owned by a former Thai PM until his death. The house is less well known than Jim Thompson, but this house doesn’t have a silk brand behind it using it to promote their products! It was nice to see that the Thompson house wasn’t just a one off.

I think that we will go back to the palace one more time, we also have a couple of parks to visit and a lingam shrine. We have also discovered an all you can eat sandwich and ice cream buffet at a hotel on Sukhumvit, we were considering going to a buffet before we left and the mention of ice-cream clinched it for us!

We are off to a Thai friends birthday party on Friday which will by good fun, Tim was invited today while he was in work helping Mr Yim install some software on the school computers. We have a couple of other people to see before we go, Jackie and Christian Bishop, they are moving to Beijing and have invited us to stay or at least meet up with them in China when we are there, it will be nice to have friends out there! Also a guy called Douglas, I have only met him once but Tim knows him from school IT circles.

We have had a practice run at packing, things still need to be re-arranged and we will end up sending a box home unfortunately but the flat is bear now. We have boxed up all other the things that we are giving away to Carys and Cookie and will drop them round at their flats next week. We especially need to re-pack due to the huge amounts of things we bought at the night market!

Chilling In Chiang Mai

2009-07-18T14:57:00.015+07:00

Almost as soon as we arrived back from Krabi we were on a plane again on our way to Chiang Mai to visit Keith and Sara Wilson. They house sit for a few weeks each summer at a friends house. Their friends bought a traditional Thai home and renovated it, adding a modern extension and pool. Keith picked us up at the airport and drove us to the house where we were introduced to the family dogs, all four of them, and the two male buffalo! They lived at the bottom of the garden. The family bought them to eat the grass!

The property also has a massive lake with a little gazebo that sat out over it. It was Sara’s birthday they day before we arrived, Sarah Cook was staying also and our visit overlapped hers by a day so we all celebrated Sara’s birthday together by driving to Chiang Mai as the house was in the sticks, about a 20 minute drive, and taking tea at a nice Thai restaurant and furniture shop, one that Tim and I took Katie and George to on Sara’s recommendation.

After tea we nipped to a supermarket as it was decided that a BBQ would be a good way of ending Sara’s birthday celebrations. After shopping we all headed back and got in the pool, I was a little trepid, I hate getting wet, but one of the dogs, I nicked named stinky, she did smell, took a strong liking to me so I got in the pool eventually as I was covered in slobber and dog hair! Gross! The dogs didn’t get in the pool so I was safe.

Tim and Keith took charge of the BBQ and did a good job, we all picked a dish to prepare, I chose chicken and vegetable kebabs, Tim made beef burgers, Cookie grilled marshmallows for dessert and Sara made her amazing potato salad. All in all the BBQ went down well and we were all really stuffed! Everyone (except me) popped into the pool for a late night swim before bed, we were all knackered, I blame the country air!

Cook left the next morning, she is in Indonesia for a while before flying to the UK for a holiday, we will meet up with her backpacking in Australia next year.

We didn’t get up to much just the four of us, it was really nice just relaxing and hanging out. Tim and Keith managed to stay up most of the next night drinking beer and discussing music and making up quizzes while Sara and I barely managed to stay awake past 11! We went for a bike ride one of the days, a good four hours on the bike left me rather saddle sore, I am still bruised a week later!! We stopped off at a lake which had these little boat house things with dinning tables and chair on, we ordered some light snacks and drinks and were then paused out onto the lake while we ate. It was cool, there were these massive fish that we threw rice to.

When we rode back to the house Tim and Keith unpacked the guitar hero game and we all ‘rocked out’ for an evening, I discovered a new talent of mine, and managed to stay up quite late. Tim and Keith managed to rock all night and completed their ‘career’ and crept up to bed at 5am!

While we were staying in the house the buffalo escaped from their paddock, they usually managed to escape into the lake to wallow but occasionally while the were in the garden we would all grab a stick and try to herd them back, we were usually in swimwear while doing this so looked a little absurd, we attempted this a couple of times but at the last minute generally one of the dogs scuppered events.

While Tim was up playing guitar hero apparently the buffalo loitered by the pool and one watched them play their game through a patio window. He was obviously a fan of 80’s rock. Tim and Keith eventually managed to get them back in their paddock and re-fix the fence so they couldn’t get out so easily again!

On our last day we managed to hang out by the pool again and play some more guitar hero, I was proper rubbish in the day time mind! The spirit of rock was no longer with me. To pass a couple more hours Keith & Tim took it upon themselves to take the little plastic boat onto the pool for some "fun and games". This seemed to involve them using in-jokes about an extremely geeky video about how to fly a jumbo jet they had both seen and attempting various ways to cross the pool or sink the boat. I had as much fun as they seemed to taking pictures and videoing their antics!

Our flight home was delayed until midnight so we had plenty of time in the day. Keith and Sara packed up some Pimms and we drove out to a temple on a hill which was newly built, it had all of the animals of the Chinese calendars sculpted outside covered in shiny mirrored tiles, it was really pretty. After that we drove down to a lake with a dam and sat on the dam ledge to drink our Pimms and watch the sun set. It was rather beautiful.

We went back to the house to grab our bag and say goodbye to the dogs, then we all drove to Chiang Mai to have dinner on the river before being dropped off at the airport. We will see Sara and Keith when we are in Bangkok next year so it’s not all sad thankfully but it does make you wonder if we are making a mistake leaving so soon.

There are more photos and videos in our Flickr Set.

Railay Beach

2009-07-12T20:43:00.013+07:00

The Monday after Tim’s last day at school we flew to Krabi, courtesy of the £4.50 voucher flights from Air Asia! We were lucky, the flight was on time and when we arrived at Krabi there was a well organised bus service that took us to the Ao Nang pier. We planned to get a boat from the pier to Railay beach, only accessible by sea. 5 of us managed to get a boat, the boatmen only accepted 8 otherwise we would have to pay for the missing passengers so we had to pay for the missing 3 so we could get to the beach.

We were really pleased with the beach; it is beautiful, the Lonely Planet wasn’t wrong in stating that it is the best beach in Thailand. It was exactly what we wanted from a Thai beach.

We didn’t have any accommodation booked, the beach is split in 2 the West side with the beautiful beach and the east side which overlooks mangroves. Obviously the cheaper accommodation was on the east side, a 10 minute walk away from the beach. So off we trudged, we had a bungalow in mind but on our way discovered a set of different bungalows with a pool for only 300 baht a night, BARGAIN!

Straight away we packed our beach bag and made our way to the beach, it was overcast, great travelling weather, but not so good for the tanning. As it was low season the beach was practically empty which was fantastic for us. The sand had loads of swirl patterns in the sand, made by hundreds of little crabs, they all ran around as you walked along the beach.

We gave up with sunbathing on the beach after that day as I think we managed to bring back half of it with us that afternoon, the bungalow was full of it from then on. So we used the bungalow pool instead, it had a good set of sun loungers and was hardly used. We managed to fry ourselves and both achieved rather good tans by the end of the week (it is slowly leaving us now mind you, all thanks to the lack of sun at home in Bangkok!).

We were on a budget so sought out nice cheap Thai places to eat, on the West side the restaurants were rather expensive, cheap by UK standards and I am sure that is why the tourists pay the money, they think that they are getting a bargain, however on the east side we found a nice Thai restaurant that we could eat at for 120 baht a night. You couldn’t get a portion of fried rice on the west side for that!

As usual we took loads and loads of photos, hopefully we managed to capture a little of the real beauty of the beach, but also we managed to get some photos of…monkeys! On our walk between the West and East we came across this huge group of Makak monkeys, baby ones and rather large adult ones, they sat only half a metre away from me while I took photos, it was truly amazing to be so close to such an animal and for it to be in the wild. We saw them a few times over the week, swinging in the trees, sitting on walls or eating leaves for their dinner. For me they really made the week, but for Tim I think it was the beach.

On our last day we nipped to the beach for one last sunbathing jaunt but the weather was against us, we had had blazing hot sunshine for all of our stay but on our last day the heavens opened up. We managed to avoid any down our thankfully, every time we needed to be outside it miraculously stopped! As getting a boat was dependent upon getting the right number of people together we started looking around with all of our stuff after we checked out of the bungalow. We tried the first place we knew, they quoted 700 baht! So we walked off sharpish but another boatman spotted us and said he would take us to Krabi for 150 Baht each, brilliant! It was a lot earlier than we were hoping to get one but we and two others hopped on that boat sharpish!

So we arrived in Krabi town with 6 hours until our flight. Krabi town is very underwhelming. A typical Thai town, all concrete, huge ad signs and tuk tuk drivers! We hung out at the ice cream parlour and avoided yet another downpour and then mooched around the town, eventually finding a brand new shiny white Buddhist temple on a hill top where we sat and looked over the town for an hour before hunting for a reasonably priced taxi to take us to the airport.

We arrived very early to the airport but the plane was almost on time and we made it home in the early evening, enough time to put all the washing on and to sweep up all of the sand brought back with us!

All our photos from the week can be found in our Flickr Set.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow!

2009-07-05T22:22:00.006+07:00

In preparation for my week on the beach I decided to have a haircut. A big decision when you have as little to spare as me!

Details: now in an ideal world I would have gone for a number one, as up to this point I've been sporting a fetching number two cut. However I at some point lost that attachment and the barbers are closed. This meant I was left with two choices. Either A; don't cut it at all, or B; go even shorter - a zero!

So that is what I chose to do. Seeing as what hair I do have grows pretty quickly, and I know eventually very short will be my only sensible choice, I've been pretty curious about how my head looks without hair.

With the decision made I turned up the clippers to the longest version of zero and went to work.

At first I wasn't too sure what to make of it, I look a little strange, but I'm quickly getting used to that. Gemma however isn't so sure and thinks that maybe I could be fresh out of hospital... Or that I am on my way to a football fight; neither of which is pleasing!

Either way I'll get a good all over tan on the beach this week before heading up to Chiang Mai the following week in my last jaunt around Thailand before heading home, hopefully with a better tan than the Brits at home who have been enjoying their two weeks of sun!

Pool Days

2009-07-05T16:30:00.011+07:00

After our night out singing and dancing at the Dubliner pub on Friday, Tim and I hung out at the pool with Carys and Cookie on Saturday morning. The sun was out and it was lovely and warm, a great opportunity to top up the tan!

Carys' flight was later in the evening so she had time to play frizbee and sunbathe with the rest of us and with Kim her boyfriend. So we all mooched about, trying not to throw the frizbee at the swimming lesson at the other end of the pool, we were mostly successful! Tim got a little sun burned on his head (oops!) but it was nice to do one more time before we all parted ways, ahhhhh.
It sort of reminded us of being in Bali together back in February, only there was no pool bar and it was a little cooler! It will be a hard thing to leave, we don’t swim as much as we did when we first got here, but it is lovely to be able to just say ‘sod it’ lets not bother today and just sit in the sunshine with our feet in the water, knowing that there is always a friend nearby for company.

After a few hours Cookie had yet another leaving do to attend, it is the season after all, while the rest of us got dressed and went to get some street food for lunch before Carys had to leave. However, it turns out that it is a major public holiday this weekend and so no vendors were about! We all ended up at the Coffee Makers Thai coffee shop and restaurant in the end.

Turns out that this was the first restaurant that Carys and Tim visited together, so it only seemed fitting that it be their last for a while!

Carys made her flight later in the evening, we shall be meeting up with her again in London the day after we return and again a week later at her family home for her leaving barn party which is fantastic!

Tim and I went out to lunch with Cookie today (Sunday) as she hops on a train in the evening to go to Chiang Mai and visit Keith and Sara, our vist overlaps with her stay so we will see her in just over a week. We have now packed for our trip to Krabi and are just praying that we have enough sun tan lotion left for 6 days of frying!

We aren't being too sentimental about leaving the people behind as we are meeting up with Carys in England and seeing Cookie and the Wilsons one more time before we go. After the summer we shall see everyone again during our travels next year so it is by no means the end, which is making things a whole lot easier! It is always best to leave on a high and i think we are managing to achieve that.

More photos are on Flickr.

The final goodbye

2009-07-04T15:25:00.000+07:00

Last night was our final leaving party. Tim’s last day at school was a half day, so at one o’ clock I went into school to meet Tim and give out some leaving gifts with him to our friends. Unfortunately some of the parents didn’t pick up their kids so Tim was left watching them, I sat in his class as the kids ran around like mad ass flies as they were all excited.

Luckily for us, a very kind colleague took them away and called up all of their parents asking them to pick up their children as school had now finished! So that left Tim, his TA Miss Sue and I (well I watched) to pack up Tim’s classroom as the school is undergoing major renovations over the summer and reception is being moved, so we had to push all the furniture into the middle of the room and box everything up. Like I said, I watched, and gave awfully useful advice.

We caught the Wilson’s and gave them their leaving gifts, we shall see them in just over a week as Tim and I will visit them in Chang Mai for a few days. We found Cookie and gave her our gift, she will be in Chang Mai while we are there so no need for any tearful goodbyes just yet, and we found Carys to give her our leaving gift before she had to run home and begin packing for her trip back to the UK.

Then Tim, Sarah Wilson, Cookie and I went to the nice tea room next door to the school for a final cuppa and slice of cake before Tim went back to work to finish off paper work, Sara went home and Cookie and I carried all of hers and Tim’s stuff from their class rooms and their end of year gifts from the kids home. We should have gotten a taxi and our fingers nearly dropped off due to the weight of the bags! Getting all of our stuff back to the UK within our baggage allowance may be a challenge!

So the plan was to meet people at the Bulls Head pub in the early evening for a last leaving do for those still in town, quite a few ran off to catch flights straight after work. Brave I wouldn’t want that kind of rush, Tim didn’t even get out of school until 6 and that was on his last day!

So we had a few drinks with everyone at the Bulls Head. Carys joined us with Ying and Ann, so we also got to give them their leaving gifts. After a couple of hours and a prize draw for 23,000 baht that no one won, Carys went home as it was her last night in town before going home for 7 weeks so she wanted to hang out with her boyfriend Kim.

The rest of us moved on to an Irish pub called the Dubliner, this pub has an Irish singer who gives out musical instruments and encourages everyone to join in as he plays, we have seen him before and he is very funny. So we all walked to the pub, got handed our instruments and was given quite a few bottles of beer on the house by the landlord, as I think we actually livened things up a bit in the pub.

The singer dedicated songs to Pam (a fellow leaver) Tim and I which was sweet and we all danced around playing our instruments and singing along. It was actually very tiring but great fun, a nice way to end things.

The group went on to Nana Plaza, somewhere that I have never been before, but alas it was not to be this time, I was far too tired and Tim was too so we gave our hugs and goodbyes and saw everyone else off into their taxis.

Tim and I nipped into subway and then into a cab, home by midnight, not bad going, an early night in comparison to every other night this week!

Tis the season to get…Drunk!

2009-06-29T13:38:00.018+07:00

It is leaving Do’ season here in Bangkok, Tim is embarking on his final week at Bangkok Prep and we have already had one official leaving party and a night out with some friends playing pool, shuffleboard and darts (a pub game evening if you will) and a flat warming party. I have discovered that lock in’s are common place here, If only we had discovered this sooner, as in the space of one weekend we have been in 2. So it is a bit like Christmas at the moment, busy, busy, busy, but in a week it will all be over!

So on Saturday we all piled into a local farrang bar called Woodstock for an unofficial leaving do – the official one being next Thursday – true to form it began raining just as Tim and I put our shoes on to leave the flat so had to don waterproofs. Luckily a taxi was outside the flat so we practically leapt out in front of it, the taxi driver laughed at us the entire 400m drive to the bar, but hey, we got there dry!

Most people turned up or drinks and a buffet, all be it a little late in some cases due to the rain. It’s not like UK rain where you get a little damp and a newspaper over the head will protect your hair, oh no, from the taxi door to the bar door, 1 meter, I got soaked, this rain will drench you in 10 seconds. It is impossible to have a good hair do in those conditions let me tell you.

So, some pool was played, Tim is becoming a bit of a hustler, lots of beer towers were bought and drunk, a few of them by Tim, and a lot of catching up ensued and by midnight only a few of us were left.

We moved to the main bar, carting the last of the beer towers with us, the bar by that point should have closed, but the landlord just locked the main door and drew the blinds so we could all continue with the merriment.

We learned a new bar game, sort of like pool but on a pinball like table, I kicked ass at it, yay, and we all had a go, playing a couple of locals as we went. I think it was an unfair match in my case as I beat most people but I was sober, I am sure everyone else was seeing double!

By three it was time to go, Tim swaggered and swayed his way home while I made sure no taxis hit him in the road, we made it back where Tim passed out until lunchtime the next day, well what else are Sundays for?!

In general preparation to leaving we have already given away a lot of our clothes and things, we have more to leave at people’s flats but we can’t give some stuff away until we leave as we need to use it! (toaster, kettle, duvet and the like.)

On the Monday after term finishes, so a week today, Tim and I fly to Krabi for 6 days then after that we are off to Chang Mai for 4 days, Keith and Sara house sit out there and invited us to hang out for a few days. We had some flight vouchers from our delayed flight to Sandakan a few months back so we basically got return flights to Krabi and Chang Mai for two for £4.50 not bad!

It will be nice to roast in the sun for a few days before we have to go back to the UK, top up the tan and all that. It will also be nice to have a rest; this week is going to be hectic, and sad – saying goodbye to so many people.

Getting close to the end of term...

2009-06-25T17:06:00.007+07:00

It's getting busy at school as I get ready to enter the last week. Reports have been written, I'm now onto the portfolios and next week we have a trip and the KS2 production to look forward to.

We did however this weekend find some free time. Friday night was a whole load of fun. We went out to a "posh" bar which was not quite what I was expecting to be honest but the night took a turn for the better when we decided to move on and go to a blues bar called Brown Sugar, who had a three piece horn section in the house band who were ace!

Saturday was pretty quiet, some sunbathing and eating, before venturing back into school on Sunday...

There is a club at school which Carys runs called Helping Hands, which is few kids trying to do some local good. A cynic could say it is a cheap ploy for some Corporate Responsibility points, but I'm no cynic!

This term they had organised that they would get a football team together and host a game against an orphanage. The orphanage they chose had a football team that competed in a local league. The mission of the organisation is to put their children through education all the way up to and including University. This means that they have to be quite strict with how many they can take in one go, but they still had more than enough for the team!

When we hosted the match they also provided food. The week before the club had organised a fancy dress day - I had to turn up to school in my PJs - to gather together some funds to pay for the BBQ lunch.

At somepoint I had been volunteered to help on the day, so ended up, along with Gemma cooking the BBQ for them, pretty hot work when the BBQ has been set up in the blazing sun and it is still mid 30s!

There was plenty of food, I even got OK at cooking the burgers after a while and am pleased to report that over the whole day we only dropped half a burger on the floor (and that was my fault!)

We're totally in the mood for BBQs when we get back to the UK, at the moment we're trying to find out what they coat the meat on the street with out here... it just tastes so good!

Climbing

2009-06-19T11:26:00.000+07:00

Recently we have got into a cycle of not doing much with our time during the week. I'm sure that this is, in part, due to having been to most of the places close by that we want to and starting to have "favourites". Anyway I have been doing climbing club since Christmas now and thought it was about time that I started to climb more regularly, or at least get exercise seeing as I don't seem to make it down one flight of stairs to the gym as often as I should!

Combining these two problems into one solution saw us gather together a couple of friends (Cook & Carys) and go to the wall I take the kids to. The Largest & Tallest in Thailand apparently! This has been a whole load of fun, I had forgotten how much I like going climbing and I have already started looking up alternative wall to go to when I get back to the UK!

As always with any outing, especially one in Thailand we wander back home after a couple of hours via a pub to get some food and drink. The girls were made up the first time we called in at Woodstock a themed US bar serving some Thai and a load of Western dishes. Anyway it turns out that Tuesday night is Ladies Night so the girls get to drink for free all night - I have no idea what they are drinking but it is brightly coloured!
I think that the drinks at the end of the session are the reasons we keep going if some of us are being honest!

Durian fruit

2009-06-08T13:56:00.003+07:00

It is Durian season here in Thailand. The Durian fruit is a delicacy out here, it is a large green spiky fruit that grows on trees. When you crack one open you find a really stinky yellow flesh inside which is edable. When I say stinky, I mean stinky. It smells like something crawled into the fruit and died a terrible death.

When the local supermarket prepares durian I can't usually shop in there as the smell puts me off buying food!

Well, Tim, Carys and I were at our local mall grabing a bite to eat and we saw a Durian display. They were giving out free samples of the fruit, Carys has eaten Durian before and said it was really nice so we grabed some free samples, held our noses and took a bite!

It was nice, quite smooth, sweet and creamy, as long as you didn't breathe through your nose while eating it!! Tim throught it was alright until Carys said it reminded her of the taste of onion, after that all he could taste was onion!

So there we have it, we have tried Durian fruit. How brave.

Photo Credit: Perantau Sepi Lodge

Swimming Gala

2009-05-29T13:02:00.005+07:00

Yesterday (Thursday) was our lower school (Early Years and Key Stage 1) Swimming Gala. I've been looking forward to it for a while, not really sure why just the way people have spoken about past events made me think this was going to be a fun day/morning.

Sure enough it was. The morning was split so my class and Nursery got to swim before playtime and after play Years 1 & 2 swam. For the whole morning several teachers were in the water to increase safety and children's confidence.
I spent the whole 2+ hours in the "deep end". Luckily it is only about a metre and an half so I could stand up! Still that said it was pretty tiring swimming up and down alongside children all morning lifting them in and out of the pool!
Unfortunately the teacher race wasn't held as planned because the PE teacher who was supposed to be running the day has been off sick for a while and no-one else knew exactly what the "surprise" was that she had install for us!

To end a brilliant morning my house even won the overall event - Go Lions!
The morning's prize giving was ended by Simon, a Year 2 teacher and me giving Mark, the PE teacher running the morning the traditional chuck into the pool!

Oh also, this is the 90th post to the blog since we started...

Gecko!

2009-05-27T16:41:00.004+07:00

Lately we have had more and more geckos moving in to the flat.

It began in April with a tiny little baby gecko wandering around the bedroom. I was worried that he was trapped until it dawned on me that he could walk under doorways! Anyway, since then we have had a few coming and going, which is very fortunate as the ants have invaded again on a major scale.

The ants are everywhere, all over my bedside table again, every time I put a glass down they invade it, it is gross, they are all over the bedroom floor and in the living room. Tim reckons it is the time of year as when we moved in the place was full of them. We got rid of them by gluing up all of their entry holes, but it may have just been a coincidence with the beginning of the dry season, now the wet season is upon us they are back!

However, the geckos will hopefully do their bit by eating some of them, and the little spiders that keep making their homes in every nook and cranny! It is a real creature-fest at the moment! A couple of nights ago we were visited by our largest gecko yet, I took some photos of him, he kindly stood still long enough for me to take them.

Thinking of animal encounters, I also saw my first Thai snail today as I went out for a stroll. It was at least three times bigger than the average UK garden snail and the shell wasn't round like a UK snail, it was pointed. He sat on a drain cover, I didn't have a camera of phone with me so I couldn't take any photos for this unfortunately, but I will keep an eye out for another one!

Cachupin Monkeys

2009-05-20T15:55:00.005+07:00

While Kevin and Sarah were visiting we went to the night market for a mooch around. I was looking in one furniture stalls and noticed what I thought was a couple of small dogs, common here, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a couple of little monkeys! I think they were baby Cachupin Monkeys. The 'owner' was along with her friends was feeding them a very red fizzy drink which couldn't have been good for them at all! As we all walked on I spotted another two at different stalls, there must have been a recent shipment or something.

It's the first time I have seen something like that, I am unsure of their endangered status in the world but regardless I know that it isn't great to see. I have gotten used to seeing elephants, cats and dogs walking around which has been really difficult, but seeing little monkeys, one of which was in a little outfit, was pretty crap. Tim looked rather angry when he saw them and I don't blame him!

Photo Credit: ChrisGoldNY

A night on Khao San

2009-05-18T12:57:00.008+07:00

Kevin and Sarah left Bangkok on Saturday, so for their last night in Bangkok we all went to the Khao San road to see one of Tim’s colleagues gig nights, his band ‘The Standards’ were playing and afterwards they were DJ’ing.

We had a few drinks at the flat before heading out and ended up arriving too late to see the band play, which was a shame, but arrived in time for the DJ set.

In true tight belt nature we nipped into the Family Mart before entering the venue to grab a few bottles of beer or in my case Bacardi Breezers (times are hard) to avoid the elevated bar costs. Tim shoved as many bottles as he could in his jeans pockets and in we went.

Carys and Ying were already there as well as Gordon and Mark. The venue was full and the music was good, eventually breaking into a Futureheads track which seemed to please everyone.

Eventually we moved on along with Carys and Ying to another bar with a live band, apparently Tim has ended up in there a few times. The bad were really good and everyone seemed to have a laugh.

I don’t really know how long we stayed there, Carys and Ying moved on to a club, but apparently didn’t last long there, and we all went outside to grab some Pad Thai and spring rolls before hopping in a taxi and flaking out at home.

Not having much to eat before going out was a little bit of a mistake as I think we all ended up with a bit of a hangover. But it was a good laugh, Khao San is alright for a night out on occasion, if you arrived as a backpacker and it was all you saw I could understand why you would leave with a bad impression of the city but for a drunken night it is good fun.

We didn’t do much on Saturday, just went out for lunch and chilled out before Kevin and Sarah hopped in a taxi to the airport that evening. It really brought home (to Tim especially) how little time we have left here, it has left him feeling a little down. We still have a massive list of stuff we still want to do and we will be back here next year so I am still feeling positive!

Rainy Season

2009-05-13T16:33:00.001+07:00

The rainy season is finally upon us here. It traditionally begins at Sonkran but it has taken a while to really kick in. It is now pretty much overcast all the time, which has got Tim and I worried as our tans have faded away and our worst fear is coming back to the UK with no tan at all!! I am hoping that at some point the clouds will part and the sun will shine on us long enough to give us a honey glow.

The temperature was averaging 36-38 on a daily basis and at least 32 in the flat, but this week it has slowly begun to fall from that to only 29! I might have to start wearing a wooly jumper soon! At least it will help us acclimatize ready for our trip home, only 11 weeks away now if you can believe it.

We have decided for certain that we will not travel to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in July now. We run the risk of living in Thailand and not seeing any of it! Plus attempting to see three countries in just less than two weeks was pushing it a little! We have plenty of time next year to spend a few weeks mooching around that area now we know how cheap internal flights are.

So instead we plan on spending some time in Krabi and maybe spend some time up in the North East of the country. Plus it gives us enough time to get those last few things done in Bangkok that we haven’t been able to do so far. We only have a small list of things left that we would like to see but time is running out so fast here that those extra 4 weeks are a blessing.

I have two assignments to do by the end of June, my first actual graded work out here, I am rather nervous as there are way more distractions out here, but at least it will all be done in time for our July holiday.

Tim has a four day weekend coming up, no concrete plans yet on what to do, stay in Bangkok or leave, money is a little tight this month, for reasons that will be elaborated on another time, so we might have to hang out here and work on our little list of things to do.

Ayutthaya

2009-05-10T09:45:00.011+07:00

This is the first of two long weeks for me in May. This one I just got Friday off but in a couple of weeks time I have a Monday and a Tuesday off too!

Kevin & Sarah were back from Phi Phi Island on Thursday so I made plans for us to go and vist Ayutthaya over the weekend and also to the floating markets. After a little more planning and looking into the Floating Markets we decided against going to see them. I may go before I leave but didn't think it was worth dragging two visitors up to see them when we could spend two days doing other things in Bangkok.

So with that decided Friday was going to be the day trip to Ayutthaya. We got up early and had checked out the train times online so knew that we needed to get to the station for the 8:20 am train.
We arrived at 8:10 but the information desk told us we were too late for that train, and that anyway there was a new timetable so the next train didn't run at the time we thought anymore. This meant we wouldn't get to Ayutthaya until lunchtime! So we decided to switch our plans for the weekend - we had pencilled in a trip to The Grand Palace on Saturday so went to do that and left the day trip for the next day.

The Grand Palace was good. I had been before but it was mainly closed for Songkran so I got to see more this time round. I took loads of photos (a theme for the weekend) but haven't got through editing/deleting them yet!

On Saturday we decided to try again got up, well left the flat, a little earlier and got to the station in time to buy the ticket (2nd Class - we weren't even offered 3rd!) and get onto the train.
Ayutthaya is the ancient capital of Thailand and has seen its fair share of power struggles (some things never change!). At one point in the 1500s I think it had a layout of Chedis or monuments that represented the gods in the links to cosmology.

The journey there took about 2 hours, or thereabouts and it wasn't hard to get to where we needed to be. A short (4 Baht) ferry trip over the river/canal that forms a kind of moat around the old city, making it an island, and then a walk.
We chose to walk across to the far side of the island which is where all the Wat ruins are as opposed to getting a Tuk Tuk.
I'm pleased we did as I enjoyed the walk and probably saw more and got a better idea of the place than I would have in a Tuk Tuk. It did mean though we walked a long way and got hot!

The Burmese invaded and took to decapitating the statues of Buddha and destroying the monuments. Seeing perfectly in-tact statues without heads was very strange, a far more effective move by the Burmese that mearly knocking them all down.

As we walked among the monuments it was getting hotter and hotter. We managed to keep going with bottles of water until we had seen all of the major sites of interest. We then capitulated and caught a Tuk Tuk back to the train station looking forward to the swim awaiting us back at the flat!

At the station we got our tickets back, the guy here assumed we wanted 3rd Class and not 2nd! (And why wouldn't you when the difference is 900 Baht!) We did opt for the air-con carriage of second class, not that it was actually that effective though!

While waiting we got ourselves some barbecued street meat (Chicken) and yet more cold drinks from 7Eleven.

The day was pretty exhausting (I think we all slept on the train home) but really worth it - I think it is one of the most interesting things I've gone to see in Thailand.

My Actual Birthday & Battle of the Bands

2009-05-05T14:12:00.011+07:00

The focus of the evening was always going to be the cake!! Since I arrived and discovered the ice cream shop Swensens I've been eying up their cakes.
In the end I settled for a Chocolate and Vanilla one with load of chocolate covering it, it was really good.
Before that I had got some Thai food in from downstairs for everyone while we had a drink. After the weekend I seemed to be a little low on energy - luckily Sara had some party games to keep things moving along!

On the Friday I had most of the day out of school to take the (part time) band club to a battle of the bands competition.
I have to say that my expectations were pretty low before I got there, expecting the others to actually not have to be forced into going and actually turn up to practices.
We turned up with our gear and packed lunch (rock 'n' roll!) to sound check before the battle commenced. We were the 5th on out of 6 bands, one had already pulled out. So we sat in the auditorium of the host school and watched the first band come on.
These guys were good - they had props, organisation, planning and above all could play and looked like they wanted to be there and knew what they were doing. The sounded pretty good too! They were all of A-level ages, my guys are in Year 9 now so they were pretty impressed by what they saw and started to get nervous as they watched a few more bands perform, all to great receptions from the crowd.

After a quick back stage chat they had good themselves together and were ready to go on stage - my mentoring was done!
I went out to the front and took some photos and video of them for school, and they actually sounded good and looked like they were having fun. Up until now they had only really played to friends at school, they had concentration written all over their faces but came off having really enjoyed it.

We had to sit through one more band before the announcement of the winners, and no-one was more surprised than us to hear that they had been awarded by a margin of only 5 points victory, beating last years winners into second place!
The boys were super-happy and when they returned to school had the adulation of the head and owner while also having their photos taken for the school newsletter etc.

Tim's Birthday Party

2009-04-27T09:22:00.008+07:00

Well, it was a shared one with Carys (Who we went to Bali with). She had missed her birthday earlier in the month when we were all on holiday, she had gone all the way to Australia for a couple of weeks and Gemma & I went with her Mum & Aunt to see Orangutans.
As usual the invites went out via facebook - we held it at her flat and some of her Thai friends / School TAs offered to cook food for it.
Carys did all of the hard work in preparing for it, the downside of being host - although I did offer my "help"!

There was a slight hitch with some of the food as we couldn't light Carys' gas oven, it had never been used and didn't want to start working on the night for us. Despite that the food was awesome, Red Curry, Ribs, Chicken Drumsticks, Rice (obviously) Two types of Fried Chicken, a real feast of home cooked food.

The TAs had also made both Carys and I handmade birthday cards which was nice - they were kind of a matching pair:

After that the night just went on culminating in Sara (my partner teacher) making me some sort of drink that included egg!

More pictures can be found on Flickr - or Facebook.

Borneo, Singapore and beyond

2009-04-23T11:20:00.018+07:00

On the 7th April Tim, my aunt Elaine, my Mum and I all flew out (via KL) to Sandakan airport in Borneo and traveled to Sepilok where our hostel, the Sepilok Jungle Resort, and the Orangutan sanctuary was. Our flight from KL was delayed for 3 hours and a whole day spent in airports is never fun but we all got there in one piece and managed to get a good night sleep before our time orang spotting.

The hostel was alright, we stayed in a four person dorm. Basic is the word to describe the accommodation I guess, but it fit the purpose; it wasn’t like we were going to sit around in it all day.

We got up early and got dressed for our day in the jungle, covering up as much as we could, protecting ourselves for whatever might come our way and had breakfast. The first feeding in the jungle was at 10am so we wandered down at 9ish as our hostel was 100 meters from the sanctuary.

We got a good viewing spot, a few orangutans were already mooching about, a couple of younger ones playing with each other, there was also a mother carrying her tiny baby which was really cool to see. It was pretty much amazing and as usual I took hundreds of photos, but I always say, best that you snap away at the time and delete later rather than regret having only a couple of shit pictures because you didn’t want to take too many in the first place.

After about an hour of watching them eating and climbing we attempted a walk through the jungle. There were laid out trails for you to follow and apparently you may get to see the orangutans in the trees. We didn’t see any; we saw a snake that Tim and I are convinced was rubber. During our walk – we didn’t get too far – it started raining, not UK drizzle but rainforest rain. We ploughed on, undeterred by a ‘spot of rain’ then the inevitable happened…the leeches came out. One evil critter launched itself from the trunk of a nearby tree sensing our liquidy lunchy presence and landed on my mums hand, with a squeal she shook her hand and it flew off, I did my leech dance to ensure there weren’t any on me and announced that the walk was over.

We made it back to the lodge wet through, camera soaked and knackered (whoops) it is still drying out a couple of weeks later, checking for leeches, Elaine had one in her trainer, she flicked it onto the floor and we watched its zombified little squirmy body hunting for its next victim as it worked its way across the floor boards to us, nasty things. Leeches are to me as cockroaches are to Tim I think. People were emerging from the forest covered in them, it was grim.

So defeated for the time being we limped back to the hostel to dry out our clothes and get a noodle lunch ready for the next feeding at 3pm.

The orangs weren’t out in force the second time, just the two younger ones who enjoyed a good game of rough and tumble the first time. This time the feeding area was descended upon, stealthily I might add, by Makaks (monkeys) little ones and big ones, you could see the trees shaking and swaying in the distance under their weight as they moved towards the platforms. The orangs did a good job of defending their territory, bearing their teeth to any monkey who dared come near them and shaking the ropes that they swung on to get near the platform forcing the monkey’s retreat. It was amusing each time watching this little battle of wills take place.
Massive Makaks also emerged from the undergrowth from beneath our platform as the men with coconut milk and fruit filled buckets began feeding the orangutans, who just stuck their head in the buckets, nice. One monkey just sat in the distance, he was rather large and the crowed were willing him to come closer but he sat just like a human on a ladder, his legs dangling, his little feet swaying as he watched forlornly at the fruit while the smaller monkeys ran the gauntlet of the swaying rope.

It was far more dramatic the second time, hearing the screeching and watching the leaping monkeys attempting to nick some fruit, some were successful too. We didn’t bother with the jungle the second time, as true to form the rain began again so we ambled back to our hostel for more noodles and to arrange bus tickets to get us to Kota Kinabulu the next morning ready for our flight to Singapore the next day.

The bus trip involved being dropped off at a school bus stop nearby and watching all the kids being dropped off with their massive school bags, what the hell do they carry? Eventually our coach turned up and we hopped on. The trip took 6 hours but it was alright because we had lovely violent Thai movies to watch, badly dubbed Chinese movies to watch and the UK movie, The Water Horse. Odd. We traveled through mountain ranges and palm plantations and saw some spectacular views before being dropped off in a small town outside of KK.

We had no money so hunted out a bank and then hopped into a taxi to take us to KK. We picked a central park to be dropped off at, Tim and I expected some greenery at this park but oh no, true to Asian form this ‘park’ was in fact a car park, a concrete haven for all to enjoy. Beautiful.

We mooched around what turned out to be a bit of a pit stop town, had a pizza at Pizza Hut, mmmmmm, walked along the boardwalk at the sea front, took some photos of each other eating an ice cream and hopped into a taxi to get to the airport for our flight to Singapore.

Singapore was cool, Tim and I managed to do a load of things that we hadn’t managed to the last time. Tim got to see the worlds biggest disappointment in action (the worlds larges fountain was switched on) while mum, Elaine and I sat in the long bar throwing nut shells on the floor feeling like complete rebels.

We had tea at Raffles, stocking up on sandwiches and mini chicken pies, just as lovely as last time. And we hung out in China town. Mum was disappointed by Singapore, its newness and corporate blandness compared to her childhood there. But China town is more like what it used to look like. Tim and I walked around there last time but it was all closed, but this time we actually got to look inside the shops.

We had breakfast at the China Town McDonalds – Tim and I are now regulars there – and then went for a walk, we came across a tea shop full of cool tea pots, tea and cups and all sorts with a group of men at the back taking tea the Chinese way. It was really cool but they didn’t take cards so we hunted down a cash point while we took an extended walk around the area.

After about an hour of walking we went back to the tea shop with cash and proceeded to shop like mad! The shop lady recommended to us another tea shop where they demonstrate the Chinese tea ritual and teach you how to take tea their way so off we went. The Queen (Elizabeth II) had visited and taken tea at this shop. We choose to sit on the floor and try a green tea. So a man sat with us and ran through how to make and drink tea. It was fascinating. We chose a green tea which I swear smelled and tasted like a mix of a roast lamb dinner and green beans. It was cool, none of us had ever done anything like this before and we learned a lot. I now have the set to make tea the Chinese way and have bought some nice rose tea to make when I am back in the UK and missing Asia!

After a couple of days in Singapore we all flew back to Bangkok where mum and Elaine stayed with us for another week before going back to the UK. The demonstrations during Songkran dampened what we could do but hopefully we managed to fit everything in. We visited the Grand Palace and reclining Budda as well as Wat Arun. We took mum and Elaine to the tea shop by the flat, I had the apple crumble this time, lovely I might add, we got a good soaking on the last day of Songkran too, just as we were walking down the street back to the flat there were a bunch of people with buckets of water. There isn't anything you can do and they weren't rude about it, we held out our bags and cameras and they were careful not the get them wet as a bunch of them poured buckets of water down the back of your neck. We were all sodden and the security staff in our building all giggled as we walked in the foyer. We all walked home looking like we had full nappies but at least we were only a couple of hundred meters from the flat!

Yet Another State of Emergency!

2009-04-14T12:41:00.005+07:00

So I think this is the 4th since I got here, but I'm not really counting. All that really matters is that this is the first time it's affected me at all. For quite some time now I've been looking forward to this holiday. It's Easter back home but here it is Songkran. This is the Thai New Year, traditionally celebrated by pouring water over an image of Buddha and over the hands of elders and people who you respect or are in authority, which is what we did at school. The link has more information about the festival.

Anyway the upshot of the riots is that Bangkok has effectively cancelled Songkran and all of the city organised events that go with it... So we have been unable to do what we had intended and what I had been looking forward to.

Bangkok is empty at the moment. Most of the residents go back home to thier families for the holiday period which is three national days of Holiday, it also means that not everywhere is open. This is especially true of the streetfood vendors - there are very few of them about at all :(

We are both OK, Gemma's Mum and Aunty are out here at the moment too, they are fine and it looks like they have strengthend security at the airports in an attempt to avoid the seige that happened last time!

The BBC even when out here are our source of information. They say that the Thai PM is claiming that it's under control now...

They have a good section on the basics of the ongoing political struggle which explain it better than we could here ( friends blogs get blocked from time to time when they talk about it!):
BBC Q&A

Songkran At School

2009-04-01T11:48:00.004+07:00

This Friday is the last day of term for what would be the Easter Holidays if this wasn't Thailand. Instead it is referred to as the Songkran Break. Songkran is the Thai New Year and celebrated with traditionally Sprinkling water over Budda. This seems to have now become one big excuse for a water fight that lasts for 3 days.

At school we observed the major Thai holidays and traditions so on the Friday afternoon are having our Songkran festival. The following from an email today explains what we'll be getting up to:

Name of Activity: Songkran Festival (Friday 3 April, 09).

Place: Pavillion (New Building)

Schedule Activities:

Performing Songkran Show by primary students Pouring water over teachers’ hands and Buddha Image by the representative of each class.

Water Activities:

KS. 1 students will take turn to join all 5 water activities and 2 Thai culture activities. Students will do 12 minutes for each station.

Fishing word game
Fishing Thai Letters
Water Balloon
Bucket of Water
Throwing coin to the cup

2 Thai Culture Activities

The 2 Thai Culture activities aren't particularly clear to me at the moment but seem to involve collecting money for doing something and the winner is the group with the most (pretend) cash!

So I'm going to get water poured over my hands... we have all been told / reminded to bring a change of clothes as there will be water throwing not long after the ceremony!! I hear Mr. Yim the ICT Technician is one of the worse so I'll certainly be getting wet!

Credit: Fredalix

Gemma's 28th Birthday

2009-03-25T16:23:00.010+07:00

Yesterday was my 28th birthday. I cannot believe how old I am seen as I can clearly remember sitting in class aged 11 being told about GCSE’s and thinking “16! My god that I soooo old! It is ages till I get THAT old!”.

So to ‘celebrate’ my old age a few of us decided to go to a restaurant, bar and furniture shop called Tubar where they serve huge happy hour cocktails in a strange 1970’s lounge environment. We had some food while we drank our BOGOF cocktails before hopping in a cab to the BTS station eventually making our way to the MBK mall.

I don’t like this mall, it is busy, there are loads of escalators which does not help with my fear of heights and it all just seems a little messy and disorganized for my liking. However, there is a bowling alley on the top floor that is in the Wallpaper guide. It was designed by the same people who designed a funky nightclub here in Bangkok called Bed Supperclub. Seen as we aren’t all major clubbers nowadays I thought it would be interesting to hang out in this bowling alley and have a few games.

We met up with Sara at the alley and booked our lane for 2 games, we gave each other nicknames which were tapped into the computer and paid our money. We made our way to a shoe vending machine where you placed your token in the slot for your shoe size and out popped your bowling shoes, shoes specially designed for this bowling alley apparently.

We all made our way to lane 15 and commenced our game. I went first ‘the birthday girl’ then Tim ‘the hover’ Jackson, then Cays ‘Welshy’ Bolton, Sarah ‘Cookie’, Sarah ‘Farrell’ and Sara ‘Wilson’. Now after playing the Wii I had come to understand that I was a bit of a wiz kid at the bowling ally. Alas this was not to be true and I lost both games. Tim however, who I usually thrash on the Wii, wiped the floor with us! I tell you, there is no justice in the world.

It wasn’t a late night, it is parents evening tonight so no one needed a hangover, but it was good fun. It was a place that we wouldn’t have all gone to otherwise and we all had a laugh.

Birthdays aren’t that bad after all.

Chang Mai Part 2

2009-03-25T15:44:00.006+07:00

The next day we met up and went on a Lonely Planet walk where we took in the ‘old town’ and saw a few wats and monuments. We had some lunch and Katie and George when back to their hotel for a snooze while Tim and I began to check out the night market that was beginning to set up. Basically the whole of town inside the city walls becomes a night market on Sunday. It was a huge affair selling absolutely everything you could think of, good and bad!

George and Katie joined us and bought a few pieces of jewelry before we went for some dinner before Tim and my flight back to Bangkok that evening. Tim and I flagged down a songthaw after fighting our way out of the city walls to escape the market and got to the airport to discover that our flight was delayed! Only by 25 minutes this time mind.

We hopped in a taxi in Bangkok to take us home to find that we had the stig driving us. He drove at 150 km the whole way along the motor way, bearing in mind that you don’t get seatbelts in the back of taxis here, and this was no exception. Once the stig hit the main streets he slowed down marginally to 110km! It takes 40minutes to 1 hour to get home from the airport but this time, no joke, it took 22 minutes. INSANE.