Part Six: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

  The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels over a year ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part five click here. Part six concerns Phi Phi and Ko Lanta in Thailand.

26th of January 2019 -Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

   Despite lacking in local culture and the overbearing nature of tourism everywhere you look, Thailand’s natural wonder can never be denied. Me and Dan had some breakfast (you guessed it, egg on toast) then headed down to the beach to hire a kayak. I’d never done such activities before, and it was an instant win, despite being a tad hungover. Dan was of course a seasoned pro in these waters, and also a generally fit and healthy guy. I’ve failed as of yet to record that he’s training for a marathon currently, and often joins me for breakfast in the morning after heading out for ten mile runs in the blazing heat - how he managed that in Kuala Lumpar I’ve no idea. So anyway, I’m struggling to keep up with him as he directs us to a place called Monkey Beach, but I’m enjoying it all the while, arms pumping paddle into crystal blue sea and a cloudless sky overhead, while tourism of the beach reduced to specks and the full fathom of landscape revealed itself to me as I looked over at the various rock faces, millions of years of natural construction staring me and my 2 year old dingy straight in the face.
    We had the speaker with us playing some mellow acoustic until I needed motivation for my battered arms and Dan granted my request of Longshot by Catfish and The Bottlemen. This tune had followed me and Dan around, with it first being released in Singapore. From there I’d queued it at Cameron Highlands with Dan and it had been our staple song scootering around Thailand’s islands. It’s not even an incredible song, but songs have that knack of tying themselves to your emotions and that was simultaneously a slice of home for us and a sign of our bond in this new land for me. Still now, over a year and a half later I hear it on the radio and want to cry as I look up and around at dull and familiar skies and think of where this song and I met.
    Anyway, we got to Monkey Beach and lo and behold the extremely mischievous monkeys were there to greet us and have a nibble and pull of everything in sight. We took our stuff, got a well deserved, although warm beer from our bag and sat and chilled for a while. I was reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer now, which couldn’t be more contrasting thematically than Bukowski’s Ham on Rye. Twain’s descriptions of adventure couldn’t be more apt either as I looked around the enclosed beach and the monkeys that had literally commandeered our kayak by now. I guess all I was missing was my own Becky Thatcher to fall in love with and pull pigtails like one of the monkeys to try and impress.
    After a while we made the trip back which was much easier, I had gained a second wind by now. Unfortunately, me and Dan wouldn’t be seeing Phi Phi’s big touristy thing which was the beach as featured in - The Beach. It had to be protected from people like us and others, who were steadily degrading it. I read too when I got back that while making the film in the production of it they cleared land and planted trees to make the beach look more ‘naturally authentic’, in the process destroying natural biodiversity and the landscape. Oh the irony!
    So then we went out and aside from finding ANOTHER big cock statue to sit on, getting extremely pissed, and running into Dan’s boring girl mates from college, the night was a repetitive one and one I took my leave from at around half 1. Dan by now has begun to read my mind, saying before I even spoke: ‘leave the key under the mat’. Oh the vitality of youth! I wonder if his head hurts quite as much as mine this morning…

 27th of January 2019 - Ko Phi Phi > Ko Lanta, Thailand

Alas I bid you adieu with mixed feelings and a sore head Ko Phi Phi! Had it been as good as was promised by Dan? No, certainly not. But it was nonetheless a thousand times better than the rocky beaches of Stokes Bay in Gosport, so one must always remember perspective. Anyway, Dan enjoyed it as much as ever, alluded to in his hangover which definitely looked more than a tad worse than mine!
    We checked out of our hostel, ate some lunch, and got on a ferry to Ko Lanta at half 3. This place I was very excited for. Upon heading out, various people had said about the beaches and relaxation of Ko Lanta, and I had suggested it to Dan as a logical next step after all the partying. Dan had never been either, so for the first time since Malaysia, we were back exploring new places for the first time together again.
    The journey was a brief 40 minuteish one and we arrived to the familiar bombardment of tut tut drivers. On the ferry we’d shared which hostel we were staying at and had been given a card from ferry staff to show to the drivers. Luckily we spotted a couple of girls who were staying at the same hostel and so got it split four ways. As we journeyed I noticed the immediately different surroundings as I braved the bumpy ride. Ko Lanta had roads of pure dust with no tarmac, and local fish markets along with usual touristy areas whizzed by. Coming from Phi Phi the vastness of the surroundings became apparent, and nature seemed to breathe a nice long satisfied sigh in my mind’s eye.
    The two girls were Norwegian and old school friends, but neither of them seemed to want to talk much. We asked what they had planned and they said what everyone had said to me about going to Ko Lanta: they wanted to chill the fuck out. We arrived at our hostel, whose common room was littered with hammocks, checked in and shed our bags. The feeling of undoing those clips cannot go underappreciated. It’s like your whole body lets out a big sigh and your freedom returns to you.
    For Dan though, the heavy night before had beaten him. We went to a real nice seafood restaurant where I had shrimp with mixed vegetables, noodles and some kind of sorcerer conjured sauce, that drenched my taste buds in bliss. I had taken to eating small fish like this if I absolutely had to, trying to convince myself that out of everything they’d be the least likely to feel pain in their death. God help me when I get to Bangkok, Vietnam and Japan!
    After this exquisite meal, we went to watch the Tottenham vs Crystal Palace game at an Irish bar. Isn’t it amazing, premier league football well watched wherever you go, and a fucking annoying yid fan to boot! I thought I might’ve escaped them. He wasn’t so bad I guess. Aside from going on and on about how Tottenham were the best team in the league at the moment (how many trophies mate? - I consistently replied), he told us of where he was staying and said we should join him tomorrow to play football with the local school kids. He’d been trying to teach them a thing or two but much had been ignored for blind dribbling and wayward shots. Always the way with kid’s football I suppose. I said we’d try and join him and we left and headed to bed - with me stubbing my toe on the door and crying myself silently to sleep.

28th of January 2019 - Ko Lanta, Thailand 

Got up and had breakfast. What do you think it consisted of? Went down and… you guessed it, hired a moped!
    We drove around fairly aimlessly and I got out my neglected GoPro to film the scenery as we drove around. I find it amazing here that everywhere you go people have petrol. I ran out in the middle of nowhere and someone saw me and came running out of their house with an old coke bottle filled with the stuff.
    Eventually, we came to a place that was selling a cave tour for 300 baht. We bought a ticket sceptically for the next one in half hour, seeing no other tourists around. I downed a coke and then what were to be our only companions arrived - a russian couple and their son who looked around 6 or 7.
    If the health and safety brigade of the UK could have joined us on this cave tour they would have had a field day. I loved every minute of it, but I was in disbelief. My knackered trainers had to navigate wet rock, rickety ladders and aside from a head torch negotiate pitch black darkness. Bats flew overhead and the tour went on and on. We crawled through tight cracks and descended sheer drops in the rock edges on our bums and feet. I kept thinking how I’d wished I’d brought my GoPro in here rather than leaving it in the seat of the moped. If everything went wrong, the whole thing would literally have looked like one of those found footage style horror films - I might have posthumously won at Sundance or something.
    All the While I kept glancing back at the kid completely astounded. Not one cry or look of terror on his face. What must this machine of a boy have thought of the occasional panic on my face? His parents on the other hand embodied worry as you can imagine, and guided him up and down the endless dark natural corridors with low frantic voices. In the end though they had literally nothing to worry about, he was the calmest out of all of us. I gave him a high five at the end of it as we finally bathed in the sunshine again. I’d almost forgotten what the sun drenched landscape looked like. After mooching around with some beers along the beach next to our hostel, where the sun set directly down in front of us, we made our plans which would put an end to our companionship.
    Dan had no desire to head to Bangkok which was my next destination. He decided that for his final week he would go back to Ko Phi Phi. We booked our final excursion of Railay Beach together for the 30th as we ate a satisfactory curry at a place the hostel owner had recommended. I’d have to battle off the anxiety again and make new friends once more it seemed. Once more into the fray!
    Oh I almost forgot, after the cave trip I had my first Thai massage which was complete bliss. I layed facing the sea as the waves crashed around my ears and the adroit hands of the woman kneaded my back and chest like soft dough. The massage of my back was so good I genuinely feel no stress there for the first time in years.
    Time to retire from the hammock.

For part seven click here