Ao Nang, Muay Thai and some sun at last!

We made it to Krabi and jumped on a local bus to Ao nang which is on the coast as it sounded quieter in guide book. A good choice and even though the weather was still a bit cloudy for the first few days, the sun did come out and it was hot! Ao Nang is still a bit toursity but it had everything we needed so we decided to call it home for 12 days or so until it was time to move onto Phi Phi to meet up with Jodi for Christmas and New Year. We found a great place to stay, reasonable, clean, balcony and a huge fridge - what more could you want? We had a favourite, local restaurant 'Ao Nang boat noodle' which was cheap and delicious and we ended up here most nights much to the owners amusement.
While in Ao Nang, we passed the time exploring the area on our moped, sunbathing on the beach, generally relaxing with a couple of trips  and I Thai boxed every day for a couple of hours. John even gave me a moped lesson, which was harder than it looked!
We went on a kayaking trip through the mangroves of a national park. This was great for us as the scenery was very different to our usual kayaks at home and we were in a double which we are not used to! This prompted some discussion on how best to proceed!!! and ended with us mainly taking it in turns to paddle while the other relaxed and enjoyed the sights. This seemed to work the best through the very tight mangroves, until wwe ere heading back to the jetty through the sea again and managed to pull together as a team for a final spurt and passed everyone to the finish! Our driver on the jetty had to comment that we came back very fast and even overtook the instructor! You've always got to be first in my book, so a good day was had by all!




We did a half day cooking course and it turned out it was only John and I doing it so we got proper one to one training (much needed by me!). The woman recogised straight away who did the cooking and asked John if he cooked!! I don't know how she might have worked this out when we were only chopping vegetables!!! Food was lovely but far too much of it for us to eat while there. Look forward to some Thai themed cooking on our return!
  
On another day we chose to go out on a sunset cruise, which was a 6 hour snorkelling trip on a longtail. For once we chose a trip really well, there weren't too many people and the 3 snorkelling sights were fab too. We avoided a jelly fish and John even managed to see a black tip reef shark hunting close to the sea bed. We stopped off at a deserted island with a gorgeous beach for sunset and watched thousands of giant bats making their way out of their bat cave for a hunting trip. Then we headed back with one last snorkelling stop at night to see the phospherence under the water. This was amazing! It was completely black under the water and the more you flapped your arms and legs the more the flourescent plankton and bubbles lit up around you.

Me floating around at the surface

John sitting on the bottom

Th\e boat driver feeding the fish banana!

Sunset

Me drowning John again! while snorkelling at night.

I Thai boxed the whole time I was in Ao nang for 2 hours per day. Emerald gym was a pretty serious gym where the French owner and many of the other guys were training for actual fights. The head trainer told every one early on that I was like a boy with lots of power . He was very amused by this and took pleasure in pushing me and giving me a  light hit around the head if my guard dropped! It was definitely hard work in the heat; a whole new level of sweaty working out and I spent most of the time covered in bruises and blisters but I loved every minute.
We could have stayed in Ao Nang a lot longer but Phi Phi Island and Jodi were calling so eventually we packed our bags and moved on again.   

                  

Trang

So we moved up from Hat Yai onto the West coast of Thailand. It was the usual nightmare getting a bus from Hat Yai, waiting all day at a smelly, busy station, then a couple of hours on the bus only to arrive in Trang in the dark. Seems to be a formality for us now! However when we arrived in Trang, it was not in the town centre but just on the outskirts and getting into the centre for accommodation proved to be another nightmare to sum up our very long day. It was dark; no taxis or tuk tuks in sight and no idea how far we were but clearly too far to walk. There was a motorbike taxi stand and the guy tried to tell us he could take us - even with our big bags!! Apparently they could have balanced on the back with us! As desperate as we were we were not that desperate. We walked to a large shopping mall with bright lights that we could see and asked a security guard who got very animated and told us to follow him. On the way to the road he stopped a random guy with a couple of girls and spoke to them. It turned out they were extremely kind people and offered us a lift in their pick up, they dropped us right at the guesthouse and were extremely friendly, phew!
The guesthouse was great but the weather had still not improved from Hat Yai so we waited until the morning. Our idea had been to visit the Trang islands but absolutely no point with clouds and thunderstorms. It was the same in the morning so we moved out and continued our journey (to hopefully find some good weather) on to Krabi. We managed to get another free lift from a soldier to the bus station when he found us by the side of the road looking lost with no taxis or tuk tuks in sight yet again!
Our conclusion was that Trang was not a great place for public trtansport but had some very kind and generous locals.

Melaka, KL and arriving in Thailand...

So after the great trip into Sumatra we headed down to Melaka in Malaysia for the weekend before heading back to KL to get our Thai visas.
Mmmm Melaka....LP states its a quiet place which cant sustain tourism.
Wrong!!
It was a nice enough place but very touristy and full of weekender visitors, not really our type of place.
The highlight was the Saturday night market which had loads of food stalls and stall selling the usual tat which people seem to love!! The food was great (as ever) and there was a guy doing a show which consisted of him punching his finger through a coconut. He was a Kung fu master and basically does the show to sell his healing "oil"!!. He was a great showman and interacted with the crowd, building everything up before finally punching his finger into the coconut. No mean feat to be honest, I noticed his finger was bent at a weird angle and had some bony growths and callouses on it!! He seemed to do well selling his oil, the crowds were flat out buying it!! I didnt though ;-).

Kung Fu Charlie and his coconuts

Getting around Melaka was a pain as there was loads of building work going on, but we did get a tour in a trishaw...they were all over the place and very ahem "Bling". We also went to the Cinema and watched Bruce Lee, my brother one rainy afternoon which was cool. A good film if you are a Bruce fan.

How romantic!!

We bused up to KL to get our Thai visas sorted, a trip to the embassy and an over night wait to collect later and it was all sorted. Very easy, which ed surprised us as everyone else seemed to have reams of paper and had to pay!!. The joys of having a brit passport I think.
We also caught Harry Potter in the local Cinema in KL, we got the gold tickets in as we though it would be a mare with loads of kids etc in there...and we all know how much I enjoy the cinema at home don't we? ;-)
The gold tickets were teh right option, full reclining lazyboy armchairs with blankets and full bar service. There were only 8 of us in there, the film was great with no interruptions and a few beers! Here is Karen all comfy with the blankey on!!

Lazy Girl

A short flight into Thailand and we are in Hat Yai down South and have met Kris who is teaching us a bit of Wing Chun in the evenings. We are doing the mundane stuff here in the day, Laundry etc so not really exciting but a welcome chill times for us too.
Karen had a nice birthday and thanks for all the texts and mails etc, we went out for dinner at a local place with was stunning Thai food. Again the only Westerners but as Kris is local he gave us the inside info. We had loads to eat and a few beers all for 14 quid!! You can take the boy out of Jersey but not the Jersey out of the boy...great value!!

The Birthday girl in the Tuk Tuk on the way home

So, not loads to update but we are moving on Tuesday up the coast a bit to slowly make our way to meet Jodi.

Cheers

JK

Swinging in Sumatra!!!

The ape kind that is! We flew in to Sumatra from Penang for a very short trip in which our only aim was to come into contact with the wild orangutans, something I've always wanted to do. The capital city, Medan, is definitely only a gateway and you would not go there for any other reason. It felt like India again, dirty, polluted and not a place to walk around as pavements were totally inaccessible. We did manage to get out for a Chinese dim sum meal though during our stopover there which was hilarious. Once again, the only Western faces in the restaurant with a menu written only in Chinese and Indonesian, with very little English spoken by the waiters and waitresses. They brought trays of dim sum to the table but couldn't explain to us what they were so choosing was pot luck. Luckily we chose well (apart from John's chicken or duck intenstines stuffed with some kind of fish - he still ate it all!) and felt very full after a few plates of these ... delicious.
Bukit Lawang was our destination for viewing orangutans as they have a rehabilitation centre at the entrance to the jungle. Our driver, Bibit, arrived 1 and a quarter hours early to collect us so it was all a bit of a rush getting out of our hotel room. The journey through many small villages in the countryside took just under 3 hours. Bukit Lawang is a very small village which was virtually swept away by heavy flooding in November 2003, approximately 250 locals and tourists died. A very sad time for the locals but means that almost all the village has been rebuilt in the past few years. A path leads up to the jungle entrance and orangutan rehab centre and this is where the tourist accommodation was situated, next to the fast flowing river. Fortunately for us it was the low season as the monsoon had started so there were very few tourists although this did reduce the chance of seeing the Orangs as they stay in their nests sheltering when it rains. We stayed at a gorgeous place, Jungle Inn, that was the closest to the entrance of the jungle and had views of it across the river from your room. The rooms were stunning, only 9 of them, but ours was huge with a four poster bed, mosquito net, balcony with hammock and downstairs Jungle (outdoor) bathroom, which the monkeys sometimes visit! You had to keep your windows and doors locked at all times in case of these unwanted visitors! The staff were lovely and so friendly.

Our jungle bathroom

The view from the jungle bathroom, sometimes the monkeys visit here!

The view across the river from the balcony.

The first day we decided to go tubing on the river, a favourite pastime of the locals. Our guide, Rahman, said we had two choices, we could go tubing with him and one other on some tubes that they would tie together with him at the front paddling and the other guide at the back. Alternatively we could go it alone and rent individual tubes but we had to make sure we got out before the dam drop off. We saw some tourists on the first option and it looked a bit tame to us so guess which option we went for...yes, you've guessed it we decided to go it alone! We checked out the fast flowing river and our exit point, rented our tubes and launched. Being slightly lighter than John I took off at some speed down the river straight towards the rapids, at some points I couldn't even see him. We got swirled around, dunked and drenched in the rapids and standing waves and when it was make or break to get out I was moving quicker than I would have liked so has to throw myself out as elegantly as I could and make for the river bank! The locals seemed amazed to see us on our own and waved, shouted and took pictures of us. Local celebrities once again!!!

Some of the locals tubing..just before we did the same minutes later.

A calm moment!

We woke up to rain the following morning for our Orangutan feeding platform visit and subsequent 3 hour trek further into the jungle with our guide. We were convinced we would see nothing as the Orangs don't come out in the rain. Luckily it cleared by the time we got moving but the river was quite fast flowing and the only way to get across was by a death trap boat attached to a cable above so you didn't completely get swept downstream... not sure what would have happened if we had capsized though, which seemed very likely at the time!

This poor waoman looked as shocked as me when she boated over a few minutes after us!

Obviously we made it across in one piece and made it up to the feeding platform just inside the jungle where the two rangers position themselves with milk and bananas and bang their pots and sticks to let the Orangs know it's time for breakfast. As it was the low season there were only 8 tourists, another bonus, and we stood about 5 metres away. We waited for about 20 mins and nothing happened so we were convinced that they weren't coming. Then, much to our delight, we saw trees swaying in the distance and they came swinging through the trees. There were two mothers with their babies and one male that came in all that morning. An amazing sight!

This naughty baby had just tried to steal the ranger's cap!

A male enjoying his milk.

There are two types of Orangutan in the jungle, semi-wild like these ones that have been saved by the centre, brought up and released. These are the ones that still come back to the feeding platform soemtimes twice a day but hopefully more and more they will go and find their own food. The other type is the completely wild and not so friendly Orangutan that lives in the jungle and finds its own food. We started our 3 hour trek further into the jungle to see if we could spot any of these next. Our guide advised us to tuck our trousers into our long socks to prevent leeches and as I saw some of these during the trek I was glad I had, no matter how unfashionable I looked!

Rahman was very informative, pointing out wildlife and the various plants along the way. We saw armies of ants (some of the ants were the biggest I have everseen!), hanging termite nests, a long legged spider and then  we saw another mother and baby Orangutan in their nest. There are plenty of other monkeys in the jungle too, macaques and gibbons and we saw some macaques close up who came down to eat some of the bananas we had. John fed one of them who became very indignant that he would not let go of the banana, see the video below, very funny!

The time flew by and before we knew it we were on the edge of the jungle, emerging into the adjacent rubber plantation when our guide spotted a completely wild Orangutan above us. This one appeared none too happy as we watched her wing through the trees. They are solitary creatures and move nests on a daily basis so we were extremely lucky to have spooted this one, unusually so close to the edge of the jungle.. and there was us thinking we had used all our luck up on our tiger spotting.!
We then headed off to the local Friday market to browse their produce before heading back to the Jungle Inn whilst also getting soaked to the skin in another monsoon downpour and having to shelter in a local shop.

The local market

Bukit lawang was an amazing place that is extremely relaxing, with the sound of the jungle and flowing river constantly surrounding you. The locals are very laid back and some of the most freindly people we have come across so far. I would recommend it to anyone as you could definitely get lost here for a while. Unfortunately for us we had a flight to catch the nexy morning, back to Kuala Lumpur. We both absolutely loved the experience and it is one that will stay with us for a long time. This is what I said I wanted to do for my birthday so definintely the best present I could have had!

The rest of Langkawi

I will finish off on Langkawi as we're leaving tomorrow to get the boat back to Penang before flying out the following day to Medan in Sumatra, Indonesia for a few days.
It's still boiling hot here and we took an Island hopping boat trip this morning which travelled through the islands.

We stopped at an Island where you can get off and walk 10 minutes to a lake called the lake of the pregnant maiden -you are supposed to swim in it and drink it!!!  We did the swimming and I'm sure I ingested a little - will find this out tomorrow probably when I become ill!!!

I think I was drowning John in the lake at this point to stay afloat!

Next stop was an area where there were hundreds of eagles flying overhead. Beautiful birds soaring above us, quite an amazing sight.

last stop was an island with a beach to swim on. This would have been lovely apart from the other 50 boat loads of people there and the fact that the island seemed to be infested with hairy caterpillars!! We spent our hour in the water hiding from the sun and the caterpillars.

Hiding from the sun and those hairy caterpillars!

The trip was OK but definitely could have been much better. Langkawi has been a little disappointing to us both. We've been to lots of amazing places in the world and this was probably one of the worst in terms of what tourism seems to be doing. The scenery and surroundings they have are wonderful but not so great when there are so many other toursists all doing the same thing and dropping their rubbish in the clear blue waters! I actually saw someone drop litter from a boat straight into the sea...shocking! It would be much better if you could hire a sea kayak and explore the islands yourself in peace rather than only 3 trips being offered at every single tourist outlet and everyone being taken to the same toursity island at the same time! Apart from the rock sliding it hasn't lived up to our expectations or compared to many other places we've been. Sad but true...it could do better.

Langkawi - a taste of what's to come...

Langkawi is a holiday island off the North West coast of Malaysia, very close to Thailand.It's made up of 99 small islands and is very tropical with some beach resorts and jungle in the interior.
Arrived in Langkawi by boat from Penang yesterday and this is what we did today! Yes mum, we hired another moped and yes we both had helmets again! We managed to get round the whole island on our little moped and even made a few stops along the way. We stopped at the cable car but the queue was massive so gave it a miss and headed for the Seven wells falls instead. This is a huge waterfall with lots of rockpools on the way down - well seven! It was a steep hike up to them so we were glad to dive in when we arrived. the rock were so slippy between the pools that you can use them as natural slides. the last time we did this was in Oz ten years ago - remember Sarah!? It was fantastic fun and we spent quite a bit of time here. John even managed to video his ride as you can see.
We visited another waterfall later on but it asn't nearly as fun so just took a few pics and continued our ride round the Island, stopping off on the way to admire the view.


Tomorrow we're off on a boat trip island hopping so we'll update

you all on this later!



One of the smaller slides and pools

The big one...that the video shows!

This was a lovely photo until we both tried to get our camera back of the nice man...
and couldn't actually climb out, it was so slippery, he found this all very amusing!



Glad we didn't accidently slide over the waterfall!



The view from the black sand beach on the North coast

Penang

After hot footing it out of the hill we managed to jump on a train to Butterworth in Northern Malaysia. also the gateway to the islands of Penang and Langkawi. Imagine our disappointment when we got to the train station and asked for a ticket and he said, 'Sorry the train is full...you can only travel by first class!!!' Hooray!!!
We got to Butterworth late and took the ferry to Georgetown in Penang. Georgetown is one of the most colonial places in Malaysia. We walked through the town and admired the architecture again. It's also a place with very diverse races and cultures mixed in together. Muslim, Chinese and British expats all under one roof. The result of this is - lots of tasty and delicious food! Again imagine our disappointment!
We visited restaurants, hawker stalls and food courts and I think my stomach has grown to twice the size!

You can visit places like these as the only Western faces and...

eat delicious food like this!...Chicken foot broth anyone?? (John's lunch I hasten to add!)

 We hired a moped for two days to explore the island and yes mum, this time we both had helmets! On the first day we travelled further South, visited a temple with the hugest statue, the snake temple with its resident snake farm and the war museum.

The 4m angry cobra which the Chinese handler kept hitting!!! Aaaghh!

The war museum was based at the fortress that was built by the British in the 1930's and was taken over by the Japanese in 1941. They then used it as a POW camp and tortured and murdered many people there. It was really interesting and the bunker systems and gun emplacements were almost identical to those in Jersey.

John emerging from the escape shaft.

A pitch black tunnel within a tunnel complex in case of air attack.
John had to go round first to make sure there were no bats!

Gun emplacement similar to Jersey.

On the second day we headed North towards the beach, visited the Spice farm and then relaxed on the beach.