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