Team No Job - The Great Escape 2007

Hello Again,

Just thought we'd stop in to say hello and to keep you up to speed with our goings on. Today (Saturday) is our fifth day in Koh Tao at the Black Tip Diving resort http://www.blacktipdiving.com. Koh Tao is a small island to the east of the Thai mainland and is quite remote but very picturesque (look for it on Wiki or something).

We're doing an Open Water course which should see us qualified by the end of the weekend (all going well). So far we've watched videos, done reading, completed tests (and a multiple choice exam) and done some in their pool and over the past couple of days in the sea, going to depths of 13 metres.

To say its a new experience would be a big understatement, but once we got the hang of the basics (don't stop breathing pretty much!) - its about perfecting the skills and trying to get more advanced e.g. so we can swim as close to the bottom as possible without hitting anything.

Tomorrow (Sunday) we have our final dive which if we do successfully (we have a few skill tasks to do during the dive like taking our mask off whilst still breathing and then replace it and clear it of water) will see us PADI qualified Open Water divers, meaning we can dive without instructors anywhere in the world (but must be with a buddy).

Our instructor Kung (thats his nickname, his full name in Thai is very long). is extremely patient and very nice so we're confident we can pass before we head off on our travels again.

Once we've completed our course and got somewhere with a bit more infrastructure - we'll post a full blog about our diving and maybe some embarrassing wetsuit photos.

Speak soon!

From Woodie

This started off as a harmless list of differences that struck us during our time in Bangkok, but has gradually turned into a minor rant about the place, so sorry about that! Bangkok can actually be a beautiful city if you find the right places to go, but if it is the first place you visit, after having never been out of Europe before, it can be a bit of a shock!

1. If you ever look down whilst walking down the road, you will see the enormous cockroaches that wander the gutters.

2. Before we came we were told that the rush hour in Bangkok was between the hours of 4 - 7pm. This is actually a gross misconception. THIS CITY NEVER SLEEPS!! Wherever you go, you can pretty much guarantee to get caught in traffic.

3. There are thousands of street vendors EVERYWHERE! Its a bit strange to start with, but is actually rather nice to walk down the road and have all sorts of different smells wafting up your nose (some better than others!).

4. I don't think we will ever get used to the bathrooms, where you can literally have a shower whilst sitting on the toilet.

5. There is never any toilet roll in any of the toilets in Bangkok. It makes you wonder what they do wipe with......

6. In many places you must take your shoes off before entering a person's house/guest house. It is a rather strange sight to see all these shoes piled up all the time outside. But you do get used to it, and it is actually quite refreshing walking barefoot on the cold wooden or tiled flooring.

7. When entering Bankok city, probably the first thing you notice is all the motorbikes and scooters. They are everywhere and they all drive like maniacs! A little unnerving when you see a family of four, straddling the same bike, sandwiching the kids between the two adults. Or a guy driving with his girlfriend riding side-saddle on the back. Oh, and none of these people are wearing helmets.

8. We have noticed about the Thais that there are no problems with obesity here. In fact they are considerably smaller than the average westerner, as I found out when I decided to try on some shorts in a shop in Siam Square. I picked up what I thought would be my size (it had a 28" sticker on the pocket) only to find that my relatively average 28" waist/size 10, in England, was actually classed as an EXTRA LARGE on the label of these shorts! A little shocked, but unperturbed, I purchased them anyway (even though they were a little snug, I wasn't about to ask for the next size up!), so if no one believes me I have the proof in my rucksack.

9. A slight shock to the system occurred when we decided to do as the Thais do, and use the metro system to get about town, only to have our bags searched on our way in by army soldiers with maHUsive machine guns casually slung over their shoulders!

10. Other forms of transport to use include the infamous Tuk-Tuks. The drivers of these strange contraptions have no fear whatsoever whilst driving down the busy streets, which always makes for an interesting ride. They also have the idea that if you make any sort of eye-contact with them, then you must want a ride somewhere, and the following one-way conversation usually occurs "You wan tuk-tuk?" "Where you going?" "I take you...50 baht".

11. If you are really lucky you can also get cornered by a whole Tuk tuk gang! This is where one person will start talking to you and just generally being friendly. Then another will come along and they will proceed to tell you that the place you are planning to visit (in our case the Grand Palace) is closed today and that you should visit some other temples in the area. This is a blatent lie. Then they will suggest you get there by tuk-tuk, only 10 Baht per person, and as if by strange coincidence one pulls up right behind you, and they try to usher you in. Once inside we are assuming they actually take you in the complete opposite direction to some empty jewellery store and generally get you to part with as much money as possible. Luckily we wised up to this just in time, and never found out!

12. Getting in a taxi is almost as much fun, when in our case we had to tell the driver where he was on the map of his own city, and proceed to direct him to our destination! You don't realise how good English taxi drivers are until you have an experience like this!

And finally, one more culture shock that was recently added upon our arrival and first night out in Hua Hin:

13. We went out with the idea to find a realtively civilised looking bar, as during the day we thought we had seen quite a few. However we did not consider the fact that after about 7pm all of these decent looking bars become filled with young Thai girls, all dressed (or un-dressed) up, looking for their future rich European husbands. I think the motto is "the older the better" or maybe "the older the richer"! Either way, not wanting to feel too queasy after our lovely seafood meal, we sheltered in (and I'm quite ashamed of this) Crawford's Irish Bar, had a few pints and watched the Chelsea vs. Nottingham Forest game. There's no place like home!

More random lists to come, when I can think of any. We are actually still having a fantastic time despite the rants! It just makes everything a bit more interesting.

Hope you are all well and having fun in the cold - sorry, had to have a quick stab!

Lots of Love

Laura x x x

(my first blog - I hope you are all proud!)

Hi everyone. At the moment we're sat in an internet cafe in a Thai beach resort called Hua Hin, so we thought we'd stick an update on what we've been doing over the past couple of days and to add a few photos in too.

On Thursday we didn't really do that much. Our good deed for the day was to help a fellow english tourist who had been taken for a ride by one of the Tuk Tuk gangs and left miles from his hotel. We took the river ferry all the way round to the sky train and he followed us along as his hotel was one of the stops on the train. If only their public transport ran all over the city - it would be much easier to get about without the constant hassle!!

We spent most of the afternoon back in Lumpini park where we had been a couple of days previously. It is a great place just to sit and relax. Laura and I took a pedelo out round the lake which covered our days exercise! Afterwards we had a walk around the park and Woodie spotted a huge lizard down one of the drains. Unfortunately we were not quick enough for a picture. Again we stayed until 6pm to watch the entertainment of the national anthem and to watch the crowds do their aerobic exercises in unison.

On Saturday we decided to take an organised tour offered by our hostel. It did however mean getting up at 06:00 which was a bit of a struggle.

First stop was the floating market at Damnoen Saduak, this is one of the oldest floating markets in Thailand but unfortunately now it is a tourist trap. As you can see from the photo below it is a bit chaotic

It was good to see it though and we enjoyed walking around taking in the different sights and smells of the goods that were on offer. We even sampled a couple of foods we'd never had before. Something like a lychee but not....we still don't know what we were actually eating, and a Thai sweet pancake, again what was in it I really couldn't say. We also got a ride down the canal in a long speed boat as seen in James Bond - Man With The Golden Gun.

After the market it was another 1 1/2hr drive in the minibus to see the bridge over the river Kwai. We stopped near the bridge for lunch and had freshly cooked food on a pontoon on the side of the river. The views were spectacular and a lot more like we thought Thailand would be rather than the hustle and bustle of the city that we had expreinced so far.

After lunch we were taken to the bridge. First we walked around the Thais attempt at a World War Museum which unfortunately was in rather poorly executed and perhaps missed the point of the whole thing. Following the museum we got to walk over the bridge. The bridge is the only surving piece of the death railway and is still a working railway today, we actually got caught on the bridge as a train came across and had to all take cover in one of the small platforms to the side until it had passed.

The final stop of the day was to a Buddhist Pagoda in Nakhon Pathon. It is one of the oldest Buddhist structures in Thailand and holds a commanding presence over the town. It was an impressively large structure and although we didn't know too much about it before we went to it, it was a nice way to break up the journey back to Bangkok.

Well i'm going to leave it there. We've taken the train down to Hua Hin this morning (another 6am wake up call) and we're staying here until Tuesday enjoying some of the beach life. Unfortunately it's a little windy at the moment but still hot. We'll probably do another update when we get to the diving at Koh Tao.

Until then!!

Chris

P.S I'm winning the competition for biggest mosquito bite so far!!

Early Evening All (well it is for us anyway),

Decided to come back and write another blog before we head out into the city to get some dinner.

Our first full day (yesterday) in Bangkok started with a McDonalds - eventually. Having been harrassed by numerous legit, and decidedly unlegit, people who wanted to give us directions or taxis to who knows where we decided to hide and read the map. So into McDonalds - the safe haven of any westerner - allowed us to take stock and decide which landmark we were gonna see first.

We decided to head out to some massive shopping centres in Siam by Scooter Taxi (yeah we dared one of those - pretty funny experience mixed with some fear at times) and got there in time to explore a bit and then get some lunch.

These shopping centres are all really spanking new (see my note in the last blog about industrialisation) and so have big digital screens and are air-conditioned. We stopped for lunch in a 'Black Canyon Coffee' store which isn't as American as it sounds. All of us had some traditional food before more exploring of the more upper-class stores of Bangkok.

The big daddy store was the Siam Paragon which is just immense. Full of designer brands (Armani, D&G etc) and an amazing food hall this wouldn't have looked out of place in any city in the world - although what city can boast having a aquarium with shark swimming in the basement - Bangkok can!

We strolled over to Siam square afterwards which is a bit Leicester Square-ish and very much full of youth culture here. The quote at the top is from the window of their Hard Rock cafe which amused us.

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In the late afternoon we went to a temple to try and get some culture but unfortunately it was closed (as they all do at about 4) so we went to relax in the park before getting some dinner. The park was a bit of a culture shock - not for the way it looked but the activities going on. We must have been had thousands of people jog past us as we sat and around us people did exercise and Ti Chi. Then at 6pm a radio speaker came on a played the National Anthem, which everyone stopped for and stood up to observe (which we did too). Then after that about a thousand people took part in aerobics with the most energetic man in the world leading from a big stage at the front.

Having mixed up the forms of transport (up to now we have been on Sky Train, underground Metro and scooter taxi) - we got the skytrain out to the end of the line and got a normal taxi to take us to the biggest Chinese restaurant in the world at some 8 hectares or something (should have brought the book then I could stick in more facts). Anyway, it was massive and the food was very generously portioned. A good start to our first proper night.

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Today we've done the proper sight-seeing stuff - in the morning we took the riverboat down to the Wat Po Temple of the Reclining Buddha which was a massive golden Buddha on his side stretch out a full temple.

The Great Palace took up most of our afternoon - its a massive huge collection of temples and holy buildings (including the temple home to Green Emerald Buddha - again pretty spectacular and so important we couldn't photo it) displaying a huge amount of amazing architecture, jewels and gold.

After an ice cream we got the boat home, then relaxed and came here!

Just realised I've ranted on a bit - so I'm gonna stop now.

Hope this latest blog brings you up to date - cheers for the comments - keep them coming!

Next up for us - a few more days in Bangkok then down to Ko Tao for diving (stopping somewhere on the way - more when we know where!)

Love to all,

Woodie and Laura (Locky is making himself beautiful).

Evening All (well it is for us anyway),

We've been here in Bangkok for about five hours now, having successfully navigated our way through Heathrow security, and our ten hour flight.
Apparently its the cold season here (which runs from Nov-Feb) but we arrived to a temperature of 31 degrees celcius and lots of humidity!

After getting through the very efficient immigration and baggage gates, we paid ₤2 for an air-conditioned bus ride which took us all round Bangkok then eventually into the city and into the infamous rush hour (the bus ride taking an hour and a half in total). After that we were pretty much flying solo, and up stepped Locky to do a grand job of navigating to the hostel.

The hostel is nestled down some side streets and is fairly small and basic. However it has some really good facilities (including this internet cafe next doors). The hostel also provide laundry, lockers and cook authentic Thai food - which Locky and Laura have already sampled (British Airways have done their best to spoil my appetite). Most importantly its very cheap!

First impressions are that Bangkok is very much in the middle of industrial/economic transition with the spanking new airport, road links and soaring sky scrapers - but whilst still retaining some really amazing architecture and culture. (How's that for analysis!?). No doubt when we get some sunlight tomorrow, we'll be off exploring.

Take care all, and we will try to update soon!

Woodie
(on behalf of Locky and Laura)