Sexist Monkey

A man gave Alice a monkey tonight but I couldn't touch him cause he wanted to bite me. The man said the monkey's name was Lisa and she don't like men. Lady ok, but men no touchy touchy.  It was a nice way to finish off the night after walking around the night market.

When we got back to the hotel there was a cleaning frenzy to avoid catching any deadly monkey virus that could potentially wipe out NZ!

Police Man and Polo Girl buzz around Krabi

Yesturday we went fishing in a long tail boat but it was super rude with only a few fish all smaller than my hand.

Today being our last free day we took the scooter to Krabi town about 30mins drive on the scooter. Not that much to report really, just had a look around and headed back to the hotel. 

Police Man and Polo Girl

On our way back we stopped in on a free fish research aquarium and saw some big fish getting feed, pretty cool.

Aquamarine Hotel

Today we slept in to 8am. First decent sleep in Thailand. The place we are staying has quite air con and  a softer bed and its quite thankfully. The rest of the day was spent going at about the same pace. We pretty much went for a drive (on the scooter we have hired), watched a movie in our room (cause it was so hot outside) and went for a swim or two in the pool. Now its about dinner time and I am still quite full from eating the mini bar peanuts :(.

The destination of our random scooter drive

Our room. Camera lens fogs up whenever we step outside our cool room and so does our sun glasses lol

We have booked  a morning fishing trip tomorrow so I am hoping that will be interesting.

Tiger Spoony Spoony

More Tiger spoony from back in Chiang Mai. It was pretty hot and the Tigers where more concerned with having a sleep than doing anything interesting. Lucky for us they also seem to be very well feed!

Krabi

Caught the ferry back to Krabi this morning and it couldn't have come soon enough. Phi Phi was nice but the loud duff duff of every bar and restaurant made sleeping a somewhat difficult task. 

Sunset off Phi Phi island

We are staying at quite a modest place in Krabi and I really like it. The bed is the softest we have had so far and its quiet and relaxing, and great staff (so nice).

Alice eating Pineapple near Krabi 

AND! look what we got in our freebies at this hotel........A Laaaaasor!.....

Phi Phi Island

The View from our room

Arrived at Krabi airport two days ago and took the ferry to Phi Phi island. Unfortunately for us we are staying reasonably close to where all the partying happens so the paradise is kinda ruined by the duff duff at night. But there is no denying its a pretty nice spot.

We took a snorkeling trip yesterday which was a pretty long day. The only way to see the island is by boat... i just wish we had a faster one as most of the day was spent chugging to the various beach destinations.

The last beach stop was at the place where "The Beach" was filmed. A pretty idyllic spot, but overrun with tourists. It was fairly interesting getting to this beach as you had to swim from the boat and then navigate some rocks and a rope course to get to the stairs that take you to the path that leads there... I scratched my knee :(

We headed back to the boat a bit earlier than everyone else which was a blessing as there was a major traffic jam when everyone tried to come back. So we got to sit on the boat and watch the carnage unfold.

Tomorrow we take the ferry back to Krabi for the final leg of our trip before we fly to KL for a stopover and then the mammoth flight home (im not looking forward to it).

Ayutthuya day trip (from Bangkok)

We spent two nights in Bangkok. From there we took a mini bus tour to look at Thailand's old capital. It is cool...but so very hot.




Bangkok was a massive city that seemed to come to a crawl from 4-8pm with commuter traffic. Bangkok wasn't really for us, but worth a look for a short time. 

Fourth Day Of Chiang Mai

Not alot to report for todays activities. We decided on the remaining legs of our journey being Bangkok for a couple of days and then on to the Krabi area for some serious beach time.

We also did a bit of shopping (Alice brought 4 pairs of shoes.....sigh ), took a number of Tok Toks. We also met our first unhelpful Thai person, a Tok Tok driver, old, drove slow.... and over charged us even though he didnt have a clue where he was going (by about $3-$4 NZD so no biggy). The Video below was of a much better driver, he was nice.

Just had a Pizza from Mario's for dinner and it was pretty damn good. Alice paid for it in blood as she made a large offering to the Mosquito gods (that will teach here for leaving the hotel without repellent!)

So after this we are off to the night market again to do some last minute shopping before we fly out to Bangkok tomorrow morning.

Tiger, elephant, monkey, gun mania

First stop on the taxi tour was the elephants, we tried to tell the nice taxi man we wanted to go to a sanctuary that doesn't exploit the elephants, but he had no idea what the word exploit meant, so we had to go with the flow. The elephants didn't seem to be being treated badly but it was a bit weird watching do un-elephant type things, like kicking soccer balls at goals and painting.

Then we went to see the monkeys, that was just a bit sad, lots were chained up :-(

But the tigers! The tigers were awesome...and sleepy...cos it was insanely hot. When we got our tiger photos taken the trainer told us to give the tiger spoony spoony....but nick wasn't allowed to give them any upside down treatment...

GUNS! Nick went gangster styles with a .45 caliber pistol. I just about fell over when he fired it. real gangsters must have really bad hearing!

After all that you'd think we'd have had enough for one day but we decided to go to a Muay Thai match. The kids were awesome (not that i condone that). The main event was laaaaame. They had a really tough looking spanish guy against a thai guy who was.....less than fit (chuuubby). Chubs tripped over his own foot in the second round and hurt his knee...night over.

Chiang Mai

Arrived in Thailand yesturday morning at about 8.30am local time. We got to our hotel and decided that we backed ourselves enough to navigate the city by scooter. We hired one for the day for 200b ($10NZD approx) and we where on our way.

We set off to find the Silk factory East of the city, but about 10km out of town we got a flatty. I have to say the people in Thailand are about as nice as they come. We called into a shop and the young people manning the store made a call for us and then walked us down to the local repair place where we got it fixed. Being extremly greatful we tried to give them some money for their assistance but they wouldnt have it no matter how much I insisted.

We also got caught in a thunder storm on the ride home. We sheltered in a local shop where I watched as a lightining strike hit about 20-30m from us. It sounded more like an explosion.

Gota go, Teksi (Taxi) is here to pick us up for todays activities!

What didn't we do today!? Crammed so much in to so little time, saw a two headed turtle, got my hand covered in ants, gross, chased giant butterflies, climbed 200 and something steps, got blessed with some dirt to the forehead.

Our favorite venture of the day, we both agreed, was the Hindu Batu Caves. One of the most amazing natural sight we've ever seen. We walked from the giant statue at the bottom, up 200+ skinny wee steps, to this enormous cave. Once inside there are some Hindu prayer areas and the cave opens up to the sky. Trees grow up the inside of the caves and it's extremely damp.

Our room was upgraded as our room was uninhabitable for some reason. No complaints here! We can look to the left out of our window and see the massive Petronas Towers all lit up and then we look to the right and see the Sky Tower (can't remember what it's really called).

KL City Tour - Dollar fifty?

No such luck, KL is cheap in some things like taxis and not so in others like anything at our hotel.

The day started off in Penang where we checked out of our stinky hotel. We flew to KL and then agreed to let the taxi man take us on a tour of the city for 25rm per hour ($12.5) cause he seemed nice and spoke good English  Money well spent!

First stop was KL sky tower which is 400 and something meters tall, about 100m taller than Auck's tower. I didn't like it... so only spent a minimum of 10mins up there before I decided I had had enough and had to come down to earth.

Oh and at the bottom there was a little zoo of sorts... where I groped a friggen PYTHON!!! It was just like handling a big piece of alive meat, kinda cause thats just what it was.... but once you have had a go you will agree.

Alice, your turn to write something.

Big Temple Thingy

Apparently this is the largest Buddhist temple in South East Asia. Anyway it was kick arse. The Malay people continue to surprise with their no holds bar approach to building. They certainly are not afraid to take on massive engineering structures. I am also equally impressed with the shear quantity of new building thats going on... its like the whole country is in a continual state of refurbishment... subsequently as a result there is also allot of things that seem like they wont ever be truely completed i.e. metal reinforcing rodes sticking up out of concrete etc.

Oh and Alice insisted I post a picture of the "Fishy Fishies"... so here it is.

Penang Tang Tang

Got to Penang today and checked into our 3 star hotel. Not bad but it stinks of cigarettes.. yuk.

Its 30+ degrees and moist. Not to bad but direct sun is to be avoided... and I found out that the Malaysian sun is just as burney as the Kiwi rays.. lets just say I could be called Pink Belly Nick now (Ouch)

Had some local grub, toured the mall and watched and English movie lol.. so much for experiencing the culture today! ... that will all happen tomorrow I am sure.

Intercity train

About to catch the train from Kelly to penang. First class. Having a unique kfc experience to boot

Twin Towers of KL

Lots of shopping on offer. There must be plenty of people with lots of money though. It almost seemed common place for shops to sell things like watches where more than $10k each! All fancy labels....but still.

Arrived without any probs

Just spent the last hour drinking cocktails in the pool.

Goodbye shakes and cold, hello hot and moisty of SE Asia