My Family of Koh Rong

After an average time in Sihanoukville we were now bound for Koh Rong. We took the speed boat for $18 ($2 discount from $20) which was pretty reasonable as it is an open return, in February the cost of this boat was $30. The sea was very rough so the journey was interesting to say the least. At least half a dozen people got really sea sick and some even threw up, but in just under an hour we were there. Upon arrival our first mission was finding a room, I had wanted to stay at Koh Lanta the pizza place I was before but it turns out he is no longer renting rooms. We ended staying for the first night in a dorm at 'Bunnas Place' which fine for $5 but it was way too loud as Bunnas is one of the main party bars on the island. We checked in the following day at the Elephant Guesthouse I got my own room shared bathroom for $10 an incredible price for the location. It was here that I would discover my Cambodian family, and little did I know at this point how much I would really get to love this island even more than I already did.

I spent just over 3 weeks on Koh Rong, the first 6 nights I paid, but from there on I paid for nothing at Elephant. The family recognised me from the last time I was on Koh Rong and I was initially asked if I would help them come up with a cocktail menu, something every other place had but they hadn't quite grasped. To give you a little bit of background to this family, as far as I could make out, 'Mr Elephant' the main elder and a couple of the others had lived on Koh Rong for just over 20 years (originally from Phnom Penh) and foreigners have only been coming to Koh Rong just over 4 years. I imagine they used to live in a small hut, with the sea being their source of food, they now have one of the biggest guesthouses on the island and one of the busiest, so a huge transformation has taken place and running a business, especially one taking in so much money is still very much a concept they haven't mastered. Overall, in the whole family of 20 or so only around 5 could speak English and only 2 or 3 of them to a good enough degree to communicate properly, it was actually the 16 year old girl (Nat) who spoke it best so it was kind of a curse for her in a way as she was expected to do almost all of the talking to the customers. My job description was very vague and I was given almost no real instruction other than to help make a cocktail menu, help fill the rooms, help sell their boat trip and help take out the furniture at night for the BBQ. In exchange for this I would get my room free, food free, and beer, well that was free too. I think what they mainly wanted was somebody who could speak English so they could learn from me just by me being there. In fact after a few days they actually told me I had to do less and I didn't have to help them until the evening which was of course fine by me. In the evenings I would also help 'Mod' with his homework, and any of the other family who wanted to sit in on it, Mod is a kid who stuck in my mind from last time, a very happy boy who always attended school and was very clever indeed, he spoke reasonable English and I dubbed him my little Cambodian bong (brother)

So, the whole cocktail menu thing, well this was going to be difficult for them, trust me on that. All they really needed was some spirit mixer drinks as not all girls like beer (this is all they had) I told them to just make up simple things like vodka & orange, Malibu & pineapple, gin & tonic etc. He got some gin in (they already had cans of tonic) and made up a strong mix for me to try, I told him it was good, just add a slice of lime and it would be perfect. It was then that he asked me if he should add beer to it, then it really kicked in that he had absolutely no idea! I gave him a list of things to order for the basic mixer drinks but after the 3 weeks this never transpired. What I was probably best at here was selling the boat trips and I went on three altogether, the price was $10 with possibility of a discount for bigger groups, we would first go snorkeling to the small island which had outstanding aquatic life and coral, we would then go fishing and whatever was caught would be cooked on the boat and we would eat it at 'Long Beach' the final stop on the trip, it was here we would stay until the sunset and then head back, part of the trip included swimming with the plankton but I would just tell people it can be seen anywhere in the water when it is dark and that they should head to the dark part of the beach when the power shut off (Koh Rong has no mains power and the generators normally shut off around 2AM) other trips would stop on the way back from Long Beach but would be charging more and its not really worth the extra money as it can be seen anywhere. The plankton I must say is pretty surreal, I had never encountered this before Koh Rong. My favourite thing of all was going on this trip, it would always be a fantastic day.

 

Apart from helping the Elephant family out, I also on occasion would help the 'Friends of Koh Rong' a group of people dedicated to helping the local community. This included the teachers at the school and some other people interested in giving back. At the school they are currently building a wall out of the old spirit bottles to show the Cambodian people that they can recycle things rather than just throw it on the floor or into the sea, if you have ever been to Cambodia you will know exactly what I'm talking about. They have no concept nor perhaps the means of properly disposing of rubbish so it is simply dumped anywhere and everywhere. One of the days I gave a few hours of my time to help mix the cement up for the wall, it was roasting hot and I very much enjoyed my beer after that. On another day I helped round up some kids to clean the beach, this is something they do every Saturday, afterwards we all went for a swim was was incredible fun, lots of chicken fights and back-flips off of my shoulders left me exhausted but it really was a great afternoon.

Apart from working at Elephant and helping the Friends of Koh Rong I of course did a whole lot of other things with my time here. One day, Dave, Chelsea and I took Kayaks to the small island and then continued to 4K beach where we had a nice chilled day at this near deserted spot, I also got to ride a water buffalo again (I managed to do this last time too simply by asking) another day we hiked to Long Beach, I did this in flip flops (the only time in 3 weeks that I actually needed to wear anything on my feet) shoes would have been more advisable though (mine were in Thailand), the last stint of it requires an abseil down some rocks which was actually pretty dam cool. Although it only took just over 45 mins to get there I must have sweated 2 litres, the cool refreshing clear water was pure bliss on arrival. One of the night there was a full moon party at 'Police Beach' which was nothing like Koh Pangan, this was a much more chilled environment with most people sitting around watching the fire shows. Most of our evenings we would go to Bunnas Place which was good but they did play the same music every single night, although I liked it. Other nights I would just spend with the family drinking whiskey, although I didn't understand much (in fact I didn't understand really anything) it was interesting, I tried some very odd food they offered which was very nice (some of it). The rest of my time I would spend relaxing on the balcony, in a hammock. I read a book (something I hadn't done in far too long) and done a whole lot of swimming in the sea which was just steps away from my room. I also helped try to fix one of the guitars at the school but unfortunately without success, I tried to salvage some old strings but it didn't work, when I return that will be something on my list to bring as well as some more pens, paper etc for the kids. I was on one day also mistaken for being a doctor as I rushed to aid an extremely intoxicated person who was being carried by two others on the beach, this was in the middle of the day and it appeared to be a mix of alcohol, Valium and sun stroke, his friends took him to bed and kept an eye on him and he was all ok in the end. The Elephant family from there on though now had a lot of questions about their health for me assuming I could help them. I felt the worst for Srue, the boat trip driver as he complained of having constant pain in his kidneys, he needs a real doctor who knows what he is doing and not so many of these exist in Cambodia, a visit to the doctors is also expensive for them. I hope this problem is not serious as he is one of my favourites in the family.

All in all it is safe to say Koh Rong is my favourite island of all those that I have been to, its not perhaps as beautiful as some of the Thai islands but it is simply down to the locals here that made my time complete, there is no hassle from anyone here. What was strange though about Koh Rong this time was the amount of Police carrying heavy machine guns, I had not seen police here before, I was told they were looking for western staff to extract 'fines' from them but I wasn't approached once by police, turns out the Elephant family had that covered and I needn't worry. I wondered why there were so many though and why the guns and I was told by the family that they couldn't tell me but everything was ok. They told me any problem I had was a problem of theirs and I was part of their family, that made me feel very warm indeed. When I finally had to leave I ended up getting all soppy and crying as I really did feel at home here. I would like to take this time to thank all of the Elephant family for showing me such kind heart, and wish you all the very best. I will see you again, that is certain!

Back To Cambodia

February 13th saw me head once again to the Kingdom of Cambodia, my main purpose was of course to head to my favourite island, Koh Rong. My journey started with a plane straight into Phnom Penh, there was a cheap enough flight for about 2000 baht and I worked out that it wouldn't he that much more for saving a huge amount of time and effort and more so that I could cut out the Poipet land crossing and quickly get my visa on arrival at the airport. There was no real scam here other than how I watched him short change many people, a lot came back complaining and were instantly reimbursed as he knew what he was doing. In any case after he tried it with me I abruptly asked for my $5 and I was off in a tuk tuk to the guesthouse I had once stayed in the city.

I had just one night in Phnom Penh before heading to Sihanoukville, at the guest house I met up with Dave and Chelsey who had arrived there from Siem Reap where they had visited Angkor Wat, something I had already done. We decided to head to the riverside for something to eat and drink and it turned out to be a good night. After eating we went for a walk along the main riverfront to have some beers sold by the vendors there, it was here we came across a local man clearly off of his head on meth, he was running around screaming and chasing people and to be honest it was a little worrying, some people around completely ignored him and they were fine but we kept our distance until he finally disappeared not before he tore a huge branch off a tree though, I mean guy was seriously high. Following that ordeal we stayed put at the river front and spent all night talking to the vendor selling us beer, he was a very friendly guy who told us he was from a local provenance and any money he made was all sent back to his family, at one point he ran out of beers having only soft drinks left so he trusted us to watch over his cooler while he popped back to his apartment to grab some more. What a guy.

The following morning we took a minivan to Sihanoukville Cambodia's seaside destination where we spent three nights. My opinion on Sihanoukville this time round was that it is, in a nut shell, pretty dire. The first time I visited perhaps I was a little naive about the kid vendors selling bracelets but they are nothing but rude and obnoxious so and so's, just minutes after sitting down we were inundated by them and when we declined their offer for a bracelet they then told us to 'f off' and one kid of about 10 then asked Dave if he wanted a fight. We had a fairly good time in some of the places at night but it was pretty dead everywhere, I guess this was due to it being the low season. We had an incident on one night at our guesthouse with a couple of Russians staying two doors down, one of them had knocked on the door of the room in between where a couple were staying, the girl had opened the door while her boyfriend was in the bathroom, he then tried pushing his way in to touch up his girlfriend, the boyfriend came out and pushed him out the door and locked it, afterwards he alerted security to what had happened, we know this because when we arrived back the guy gave us a heads up on what had happened, he was not happy! We also had a problem with the same Russian in that he owed a tuk tuk driver some money and pretended to be Daves friend (as Dave is 6ft 8in) we explicitly told the driver we had no idea who he was and he was lying to which the driver believed us, I hate to say it but I hope he got a beating. I have encountered a number of Russians whilst travelling and they are the worst of the worst, I know I cant judge all based on the few I have seen but you ask any other traveller their opinion and it is always the same. They are not 'Putin' in any effort to give their country a better name. (sorry I had to use that Pun, I actually partially stole it from Dave)

Loi Kratong, Chiang Mai

After the incident at the train station with Geng, I had a couple more days to kill before before Fai and I headed up on the sleeper train to meet up with Dave and Chelsea in Chiang Mai, our purpose here this time was to celebrate Halloween and more importantly the Loi Kratong/Festival of Lights. Unfortunately we left buying the tickets a little too late and could only get an upper berth fan carriage, it was steaming hot all the way as nobody on the lower berth (where the windows were) had them open. In any case I took a sleeping tablet which helped a bit and around 14 hours later we were there.

We arrived on the 30th and stayed until the 8th, in this time we did many a thing indeed. Our first big night out was Halloween where we headed to our favourite 'Yellow Bar' this I think is one of the best nights out in Chiang Mai as it is open fairly late and is in an area with many other surrounding bars that all kind of connect to each other. It was fairly early when we arrived so we played some pool in another nearby bar before heading to 7/11 for a couple more pre drinks on the street, we were quite lucky to be handed a bottle of fake blood by a random farang outside giving us instant costumes (before we had nothing but flashing devil horns) the night was very crazy and it is certain that I drank one too many buckets (sorry Fai)

I cant remember the order of things here exactly but between Halloween and the Loi Kratong festival we had a few days to go and explore, most of which were done on, you guessed it, motorbikes (its the only way for me) our first excursion was to a place I had not been before, we stopped by the tiger kingdom so Chelsea could see some tigers then headed off again, our destination was 'Mon Jam' a place at the top of a mountain where locals were growing huge organic strawberry farms, the view at the top was great although it was drizzling rain this did stop and it was an awesome trip. The following day we took to our bikes again, our first stop was the 'X-Center' so I could do their 50M bungee jump. I had done a bungee once before when I was 13/14 off the Auckland Harbour Bridge in New Zealand but this one here was slightly higher and an insane rush! it cost 1900 baht so wasn't bad I don't think. We got some GoPro footage of me doing it and man did I scream. Following the jump we set off for a much longer ride round the Samoeng Loop, I had done this same route before and it is a spectacular ride, if you ever come to Chiang Mai it is a must! That evening we went to a Muay Thai night although I wasn't so impressed with this as I once was before, there wasn't much of a good fight and we know for sure it is rigged as they basically told us. It is still a good laugh though as its not that expensive if you barter a discount on the tickets.

The Loi Kratong festival was upon us now, it was sods law though that the sweet whether we'd been having had suddenly decided to stop and it rained (what I would call British rain) for 3 days, in Thailand it normally buckets down for an hour or two then stops but this just drizzled for days, it really did suck as one of the main attractions of Loi Kratong in Chiang Mai is the Yi Peng (sky lanterns) which of course dont mix well with rain. On the first night of the festival we saw a carnival parade with some very beautiful costumes and floats, we were armed with ponchos so the rain didn't bother us too much. The following day was the actual Loi Kratong day, we bought some Kratongs from our guesthouse and headed to the river to float them away. I was also armed with some pretty big fireworks which we let off too. The final day of the celebration the rain had stopped by the evening and there were thousands of people out on the streets, it was the busiest day of the three, we bought another Kratong, one for the four of us, and another sky lantern which we set off together upon making a wish, I had also been to to fireworks market again and had a selection of small bangers, we went to the night bazaar where we had some fun letting them off with some of the kids. On our last day before getting the train we drove up Doi Suthep to see the most famous temple in Chiang Mai

Now as some of you may know I will be doing a TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) course in Chiang Mai in March and part of my other reasoning for coming up here was to pay for my course and go and visit the school I would be studying in, I was very impressed with the set up, I also looked at the hotel I would be staying in for that month and I am more than happy with that too. My third time in Chiang Mai had now come to and end, I had now set the wheels in motion for securing a life in Thailand.

How can people do this?

After a wicked first month in the Kingdom I had a few days to chill out in Ayutthaya before heading to Chiang Mai for the Loy Kratong festival where it is celebrated most. Dave and Chelsea were going up a couple of days before me because their visa was going to run out, they decided though to extend it so they could experience the celebrations before going to Cambodia. They had booked a sleeper train and Fai and I took them to the train station where we waited with them till the train arrived. It was at station where we came across a boy of 13 'Geng' who looked to be on his own, he came and sat near us so Fai asked him what he was doing and where he was going. He was very reluctant to say much and it took a bit of digging for him to tell us his horrific story. It turns out he had been sleeping there for three days now, he told us how he went their with his grandma and his two younger brothers and his grandma told Geng to wait at the station while she went with just his his two brothers to Lop Buri about 1.5 hours up the line. We couldn't believe it he had clearly been abandoned there and had no money, surviving only on some food that some people had offered him, we thought this was unacceptable and wern't going to leave him at the station any longer, our first thought was to take him to a temple to see if a monk would take him in, the monk however told Geng he should go home so that we did, he lived about half an hour away in quite a bad very poor area and as we knew nothing about this boy or his family for our safety we picked up some of Fais friends to come with us, when we arrived he knocked on the door of his house but no one was in, we really weren't sure what to do so after giving him some water, food and 300 baht we had no choice but to leave him here, we added him on Facebook so to follow up with him, it made us feel really sad. The following day we drove back to his house to try and find out a bit more about this and that if his parents really didn't want him any more we knew where we could take him. Nobody was in but his neighbours were, we asked them about it but they gave very few answers saying only his mum works nights in a factory and they were very poor, she told us last night when we dropped him off he knocked on there door and they took him in, they said that he was at the market at that time so we left hoping he would contact us on facebook at later stage to tell us he's ok, as of now he has said hello a couple of times but that's about it, he doesn't speak/read/write English so I have to get Fai to help with that, (Google translate with Thai language is absolutely useless) I will update on this if we get any update on his situation.

First Month of Adventures

Its taken me a while but I've finally, after a month got round to starting this thing. I was fairly pleased with my first ever attempt at blog writing that it would be silly not to continue documenting my adventures this time round. For those of you that read my "final thoughts" on my first blog you will know I have decided to come back to this part of the world but this time with a much longer duration in mind, the foreseeable plan is that it will be indefinitely. I will be travelling around much like before until March where I will be doing a TEFL course in Chiang Mai which will enable to me to get employed full time as a foreign English teacher, where exactly I will be employed I don't know for sure but I will be pushing for Ayutthaya, a place that I have grown so much to love.

I set off on the 29th September and arrived in Bangkok the following day, I was greeted by Fai who drove me to Ayutthaya where I stayed in my usual guesthouse (Ayutthaya Guesthouse) where I relaxed and caught up with my local friends for a couple days. On the 2nd of October Fai and I headed to Khao San road to surprise Dave and his girlfriend Chelsea who had just arrived from Australia where they had spent a year working, the night went pretty crazy as you'd expect, including one crazy ass tuk-tuk driver fitting 6 of us in the back while he was trying to pop wheelies at every available opportunity. On return from Khao San we all spent a day or two in Ayutthaya where we took Chelsey on a little tour to see the city via motorbike.

October the 6th saw us head to Koh Pangan for the full moon party. We had prebooked a very cool place to stay "Hua Laem Bungalows with a view of the sea and very close but far enough away from the main Had Rin beach, it was hilarious when we found out that to get to the beach we had to walk along the very sketchy bridge we had once encountered on our last visit to the island. We could go snorkelling right off the rocks from our bungalow which was pretty cool, although we didn't see much because it was a bit rough we did see a monitor lizard on the rocks, this lizard is known as a "here" in Thailand (a very offensive thing to call people in Thailand). October the 8th (full moon) came and us four spent a good couple of hours painting ourselves up in the obligatory UV paint and by the end we looked pretty dam awesome. It was then time to hit the party where thousands and thousands of people gathered, it was an insane night. The rest of our time on Koh Pangan we went exploring on motorbikes and came across some incredible sights including a spectacular sunset on the other side of the island. The roads of Koh Pangan are unbelievably steep so it wasn't always an easy ride but so worth it to get to see the whole island.

After an amazing time on Koh Pangan we took a boat to Koh Tao where Dave and Chelsea had booked a PADI course, I have a friend who will be going to work on Koh Tao later on and he can get me a discount so I was gonna hold fire on the diving for now and just spend some time with Fai and go snorkelling. We went to many different beaches on the island and saw some absolutely unbelievable aquatic life, I have never seen anything like it first hand it was truly incredible there were some fantastic corals and all sorts of colourful tropical fish and plant life. The best place for snorkelling was the small island (technically a connected group of three small islands) called Koh Nang Yuag just 10 a ten minute taxi boat away. There was a 100 baht entry fee (30 baht for Thai's) as it is a private island, I tried blagging the Thai price but it didn't work. Our evenings on Koh Tao we mostly spent at Fish Bowl Bar, where on a couple of the nights I got up and played guitar and sung with Dave also getting involved for a few playing the drums as my accompaniment, the bar also had fire shows down on the beach which is always good to watch. Now I'm sure a lot of you have heard about the recent brutal murders of two British people on Koh Tao so of course we were a little worried about this, they had an apparent confession from two Burmese migrant workers but I strongly believe these guys did not do it there are now stating they were tortured by police into the confession, and knowing Thai police this is highly likely and more probable because things like this severely hurt the Thai tourism industry, in any case life on the island seemed normal, they were a lot of farang still arriving everyday in waves, we just made sure we stayed away from AC bar which is where the two had been drinking on that fateful night. Our time on Koh Tao was coming to and end and stupidly we didn't think to book a boat until the day we were supposed to leave and catch a plane back to Bangkok (plane was cheaper than the train due to a promo) we ended up having to forfeit our plane tickets and take a boat and train because the only boats available would have made us miss our flight.

So here we were back in Ayutthaya I had no immediate plans Dave and Chelsey were due to head to Chiang Mai however I had contacted the company for which I had worked before to see if they had any English Camps coming up, turns out there was one in two days in the Sisaket province of Thailand and Dave and Chelsea were up for it so off we went a 7 hour car journey to Sisaket where we would be spending the next 6 days. We had to fit 6 people into a 5 seater pick up truck car but this is perfectly normal in Thailand and Chelsea opted to ride in the back. This camp was great fun but incredibly tiring, we were working two different 3 day camps running back to back, the first camp was for P1 to P3 (7 to 9 years old) I'd not worked with this age kids in Thailand so it was good to be able to experience that, they were all very cute but kept you on your toes constantly, the second camp was P4 to P6 10-12 years old) The day at the school were very long (8 till 4 then 6.30-8.30) so we didn't have much rest, it got to the point half way through where they tried to keep us on half an hour longer and I got so pissed off with it all (bearing in mind they were paying us just 500 baht for the whole day) I walked back to the hotel without telling them, I basically stormed off but when they returned back to the hotel I told them I'd had enough and they offered me a rise to 700 baht a day which made me feel a bit better. Unfortunately because of the way this camp was conducted (very long hours and terrible pay, even at 700 baht) I'm not sure I will do any more English Camps with this company. The many camps that I did with them were a great blast but this one was just too much.

So that was a very brief summary of my first month in Thailand, I will try to make sure I keep this blog updated in line with the way I did my other one and not leave it so long to do posts. Next up we are off to Chiang Mai for a halloween party and to celebrate 'Loy Kratong' a very big national festival here in Thailand.