We hauled our bikes off the boat and onto the pier at Phi Phi. The island immediately appeared to be one of those typical postcard images you see of Thailand. Beautiful, towering limestone cliffs climbed out of the sea which was, for the most part, clean. There are no roads on Koh Phi Phi so we walked the bikes through the 'Walking Streets' of the island past markets selling endless amounts of ultimately useless trinkets. Tourists all too often feel the need to buy souvenirs they have no use for. We didn't have any accomodation booked and so, by process of trial and error, found a place that fitted our slim budget. The island was set up for a party. From our room all you could hear was thumping subs, just warming up for the night ahead. It was only 4pm. Every 20m down the walking streets you could find a small vendor selling buckets. You could buy a bucket of anything you wanted - pina colada (which we frequented), thai vodka/rum/whisky and coke (or any mixer, and any other cocktail you could think of). All for 150 Thai Baht. It would have been rude not to sample the local offering so we ordered a bucket of pina colada each and went to see what the island had to offer. The hangover the next day was rough after a night on the beach watching fire shows, playing beer pong, partaking in skipping competitions and trying our hand at the limbo. All activities involved countless free shots, further sealing our fate.
Arriving at Koh Phi Phi
Koh Phi Phi - hotels, bars, shops, and street vendors serving tourists between two picturesque bays
Our time on Phi Phi was spent largely at the beach. We took a tour on a longboat to the various sights in the archipelago. Personally I detest tours. I hate being told where to go and when so it was a bit stressful for me but the places we went to were beautiful and we needed the boat to get there so our options were limited. The most notable stop was Maya Bay, the location where the movie 'The Beach' was filmed. Everywhere we went was awash with tourists. I wonder how the makers of 'The Beach' would feel after creating a film so critical of the parasitic nature of tourism in Asian countries. They would be quite horrified to see what Maya Bay has become. There were some measures in place to protect it, however. You cannot stay at Maya Bay and it is a designated national park area. Maybe there is some hope for SE Asia yet.
One of the bays near Maya
After a few more nights on Phi Phi, some resting, some drinking, we got on the boat to Phuket. This time there were no dramas with the boat and no extra fees attributed to the bikes. How good? We spend 3 hours sailing through the Andaman sea in the sun, quite the contrast to the boat ride from Krabi. Upon arrival in Phuket we cycled 4km to our accomodation, a small guesthouse with a pool which only cost us 350 Baht (around $15 NZD). We had made the decision not to stay in the tourist area on Phuket, Patong Beach, instead staying in Phuket town, a place largely devoid of tourists to our surprise. We hired scooters and spent the next day riding from Temple to Buddha statue to beach and back. I was expecting a concentration of high budget tourist attractions and package tourists but our time on Phuket was really enjoyable and showcased a cultural side to the island. We went to Patong Beach for dinner and quickly learnt why Phuket has the reputation it does. There were tourists everywhere and bars going off. Patong Walking Street was pretty disgusting. The sex industry was booming here and every bar we walked past had scantily clad women dancing in windows and on poles. Sales people on the sidewalk tried to entice us into bars with promises of ping pong shows and live sex shows. We did not partake.
The most hyperactive little boy. He was fed far too much sugar and kept us occupied while we tried to clean our bikes for the next leg
The Big Buddha in Phuket
Tourism
We rode out of Phuket in the morning. Arthur, after switching tyres around the day before to optimise the wear between the two and preserve his rear wheel got a puncture. We fixed it like a formula one team. Everyone pitching in, the tyre was fixed in five minutes and we were on our way again through dense traffic to the mainland. We made good time and so didn't stop for lunch. Sean, who had caught an illness, was having a real horror of a day. We stopped at a beautiful temple where we were offered sweets by a monk. The Thai people are so ready to share with us what little they have. It was so nice. Sean stoically pushed on and we arrived at Phang-Nga in the early afternoon.
Riding through a temple's grounds
The next day we cycled through back country off the main roads towards Surat Thanni. There were no real towns on the way so we knew we were going to have to get inventive with where we slept that night. We got caught in a huge downpour just before a small town. The town offered no accomodation so we stocked up on water, given to us very kindly by a petrol station attendant, and carried on, no real target in mind. I saw a temple in the middle of nowhere and decided to give it a go. The monks spoke no english at all. After a lengthy conversation on Google translate I managed to get it across that we were keen to stay at the temple. The junior monk consulted the senior monk and he let me know it was okay. Next we were lead to a room in the monks quarters! Not only could we stay there but we had a room with a bathroom outside and only a short walk away. We camped on the floor together very happy to have shelter from the piss poor weather conditions. We felt like real travellers, off the tourist trail staying with the monks. That was nice.
The monks quarters at the temple we stayed at
Arthur and I descend through the national park on our way to the east coast
Following the usual routine we loaded the bikes, had breakfast and headed off after a great sleep under the watch of Buddha. The k's flew by and we had 70 completed before 1pm with only 10 or so until we reached the town described as 'a complete shit hole' by our brother, Tom. We decided to have lunch there. The last kms dragged on and on and on as we all ran out of energy. We arrived absolutely spent and ordered two meals each and a coffee at a local Chinese/Thai place. The day still wasn't done and we carried on, riding 20km into the country where we met our lovely Warmshowers hosts.
The feast our Warmshowers hosts prepared for us. We were treated to breakfast too
Warmshowers is a website for cycle tourers. There are thousands of willing hosts and many thousands of cycle tourers like us in need of accomodation. Hosts offer cyclists a bed and a shower for the evening. We were slightly apprehensive, this being our first time. We were also in the middle of nowhere. Our hosts greeted us and offered us soda water and fruit. The boys tucked into smoked, dried pork which looked pretty good as well. We showered and were shown to a room which we were all going to camp out in. It was a lovely surprise as we were expecting to camp on the lawn. Upon asking the lovely lady if there were any places to eat nearby she said 'no there is nothing. But you eat with us!' We were served a real feast of genuine Thai food - Omlettes, chicken soup (I dug around the meat), rice, some kind of amazing sauce (I asked the name but was just told it was called 'sauce'), and fish. We were also brought a delicious sweet banana dessert. Our hosts must have known we were hungry. We spoke in depth with them. It turned out they had been to NZ 10 years ago which delighted us no end. Their sun is a Police Officer in Bangkok. Hopefully a contact we don't have to use but, with Arthur's newly found flaming limbo antics and Sean's generally mischievous attitude it may come in handy.
Our hosts
We cycled the 40kms to the port town of Don Sak the next day and got on the car ferry to Koh Phangan, the famous party island. We only had 10kms to cycle on the island and it started smoothly before ramping up. The road went up and up and undulated like a complete and utter bastard. The gradients on the road exceeded 25%. It was steeper than the spike in Labour's poll indicator. It was an absolute disaster. Think Bollock Track but significantly steeper. After almost an hour of battling we made it to Coral Bungalows, home of the Original Koh Phangan Pool Party. The party was scheduled for that night also. We had beers with dinner and then all collapsed into bed, absolutely past it. The subs had nothing on the depth of our sleeps.
Arthur at the Coral Beach Bungalow
The next night we had the Half Moon Party. It cost an astronomical amount. Two days of budgeting in Thailand all for the party. We decided that we had to make a really good go of it. The ever feared Siam Sato was going to make an appearance again. We met our first Kiwi, a girl named Carly, while pre drinking at the Coral Bar. They had turned a blind eye to the bottles of Siam Sato we had brought in, this time mixed with local Red Bull. Rocket fuel. The party was great with a number of stages in the forest, similar to the old Cellar Stage at RnV. We boogied to techno and house all night until deciding we'd had enough at 4am. We were sound asleep by 5:30am. Not bad for a bunch of cycle touring lads!
The last photo before carnage. The Siam Sato is famously cheap rice beer/wine. A real bastard
The remainder of our time on Koh Phangan was spent at the beach and trying to find prices similar to what we were used to. That wasn't easy. Everything was inflated significantly. We took to getting beers from the 7/11 and getting food from the local places instead of the tourist restaurants. On our last night we had a bucket each on the beach. Dirt cheap mojito. We watched the fire shows and Arthur tried his hand in Fire Limbo - as you can imagine it's just the limbo only the bar is on fire.
We got on the ferry to Koh Samui the next day. There was a small drama with being charged extra for the bikes. I was getting sick of it and tried to explain our situation. They didn't budge at all. Arriving in Koh Samui was were greeted with a complete reverse culture shock. Huge resorts and western style restaurants. It didn't feel like being in Thailand at all. Hooters a few doors down from a McDonalds beside a Burger King. It wasn't really my thing at all, particularly with being on a small budget.
More garbage being sold to irresponsible tourists. Too many wealthy middle aged families with no taste here and no desire to expose themselves to Thai culture
We managed to catch the All Blacks at a local bar, sneaking off individually to buy beers from the 7/11 to drink before returning and sitting on our one beer bought from the bar - the definition of budget. The bar beer only cost a few dollars. The next day we caught up on some washing (long overdue) and spent time at the very busy beach. Tourists everywhere and locals selling what they could for inflated prices. We saw one man pay $12 NZD for a bracelet we knew could have been haggled down to little more than $1 NZD. By the end of the day we were well and truly ready to begin our slog up the coast to Bangkok, a little bit frustrated by how slow we had been going. Progress feels good!
Moby Dick - the Irish Pub we stayed in. They let us play pool downstairs without buying a drink
