New Years In Koh Samui!

After we had a bit of a rest and a good hunt through some bookshops after the last post we got on a night bus back to bangkok. I managed to get a great sleep on the bus and then we spent the better part of a day in the bustling bangkok. Compared to the quiet pieceful Chiang Mai, Bangkok is overwhelming, so it was great to get our night train down to surat thani, gateway to Koh Samui. The train was a really great expercience, we took second class, so we had seats until about 7:30pm and then some guys came around and magically converted everything into quite comefortable beds. From Surat Thani we jumped on a 'high speed catamaran' to the island.(along with countless Australians and English) The beach here at Chewang in Koh Samui is amazing, picture perfect and stretching for miles, and lined with resorts and restaurants, with milky white sand and water warmer than an indoor swimming pool. Koh Samui is not a huge island, only 5 miles across, but with a huge mountain in the middle the only way around is circumnavigation by road. There are various beach towns (about 3 or 4 main ones) around the island and the one we are in, Chewang, is the biggest of all of them, with the biggest beach and nicest sand.  We treated ourselves last night to a tasty dinner on the beach and relaxed until the sun went down. Tonight we are going to have dinner and then spend the rest of the evening on the beach to celebrate the New Year.

Sunset on the train

Bangkok train station

The walkway on between seat/bed on the train

My bed for the night

Chewang Beach in Koh Samui

More of the beach in the evening

The swanky restaurant where we ate

Breakfast in bangkok, all over asia I have found anchor NZ butter

Some crazy big catfish heads on the street in Bangkok

Me and Ash on the beach. (sorry photo taken by half drunk french lady)

Happy New Year Everyone! lots of love Matt and Ash

Flying Monkeys

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and didn't eat too much! Ashleigh and I met a couple of Kiwi's and we all ended up going out for a Christmas lunch. A pretty nice cafe was doing a not too expensive Christmas spread, so we went and had a baked ham, turkey, potatoes, vegetables, stuffing and loads of gravy, followed by a piece of pie with cream and a cup of tea. It was not quite like home but close enough that we didn't all feel too bad about not being back home. We took the customary Christmas afternoon nap and went out that night to a 'Magic Forest Christmas Party' an organised themed event sponsored by Bacardi and Heineken, with DJs and dancing and plenty of bright lights. We took a tuk-tuk home and had a well earned rest. The next day we just veged out for the morning beside the pool, then got up and wandered around the city. We went to a sunday night market which was really cool with a great atmosphere, unfortunately left my camera battery back at the guest house to couldn't get any pics. Yesterday we got up at quite an early hour (8 am!) and went to flight of the gibbon chiang mai. It was basically a series of platforms between 20 to 40 metres up in the trees, with various zip lines, sky bridges, spiral staircases and deth-defying rapells thrown in for good measure. It took the full day and was heaps of fun, even if Ash was a little scared!

On our way, as you can see, Ash is a little tentative

Once on the first zip line, there was not much she could do!

The first sky bridge, only about 20 metres up

Bit of view out across the surrounding jungle

Ahhhhh my hair!

Time for a water stop

Ash doing her best to be superwoman

The second bridge, this one about 30 metres up

 

The view from the top of the 40m high platform, where we plunged straight down to the finish

(there is an E behind my head)

Above is a video I took of myself on one of the highest, longest zip lines.

Ash in the Kitchen?!

Yesterday we did a cooking course at Thai Kitchen Cookery School in Chiang Mai. It was loads of fun and we even got quite a flash cookbook each at the end of it. We spent the better part of the day cooking 8 courses of our choice, and we even made our own curry paste for our chosen curry course. Here are the pics to prove Ash can cook when she wants to! haha and the whole thing was made better by the fact we didin't have to do any dishes or clean the cooking surfaces when we finished. Before we started we went to a local farmers type market to buy all the ingredients.

From live in a bucket to dead, scaled, gutted and put onto the grill (out of shot) in about  45 seconds

Veges, keepin it green

What you can't hear is the noise

Matt's Fried Rice with chicken....

....and Ashleigh's fried rice with chicken.

Look! I do know what I'm doing! honest. (Ashleigh's green curry was actually very nice)

Ramsey at work

The challenge begins

My chicken with basil (on the left) and Massaman Chicken curry

Ash's chicken with cashews, and thai green curry. (was really good!)

Chef Nigella and I were way to full to walk all the way back to the guest house!

Watch out Thailand Ash has arrived

Finally Ashleigh has decided to wander her way 8 thousand kilometres across land and sea to come hang out with me in Thailand. We took a taxi ride through the enormous busy city of Bangkok and spent our first night in a Hotel flasher than anything else I have had so far in south east asia! complete with door man, lift man and taxi booking man. The next day we headed down to the infamous Ko Sahn Road area to do a small bit of shopping, enjoy some great street food and book some cheaper accommodation for that night. We relaxed the rest of our day and tried, like everyone else, to get our head around the noise and atmosphere of old town bangkok. Next day bright and early we set about organizing the rest of our trip. We left that night on a bus and arrived here in the beautiful Chiang Mai where we will spend the next 5 nights before travelling down South to Koh Samui Island in the eastern gulf of Thailand where we'll spend new years before heading home.

Busy Intersection near Ko Sahn Rd

Ash looking like she just swallowed a mouse

Some of the excellent street food in Bangkok

My new favourite T-shirt

Proh Samen Fort in Bangkok

The huge lizard casually cruising one of Bangkok's many canals, the picture does not do it justice, was about 5 feet long

My new friend, the travel agents dog while we were waiting for the bus pickup

Chiang Mai is a very relaxed town compared to Bangkok, there is only so much of the noise, exhast fumes and smog one can take. Chiang Mai has quite modern parts to it, even a McDonalds I believe. Also quite a few small temples and old buildings.

Ash trying to be a Buddha

One of the fountains in the moat around the old city

Ashleigh's Temple again

I am a Monk, honest

Laos - Jewel of The Mekong

I landed in Vientiane on the 17th and spent my first night in Laos here. Vientiane is not what I expected at all, from what I had heard and read I was expecting a city a bit like Phnom Penh in Cambodia but this is far from it.Laos is very laid back and cruzy, no one rushes and everything goes on Laos time. Buses usually arrive approximately two hours after they say, tuk tuk drivers go about 3 kilometers an hour and most people you see are happy and smiling. Vientiane is a bit like a European city, loads of french architecture, french bakeries, french and italian restaurants. A comparitively huge population of French, American, Australian and Italian has seen the introduction of lots of flash restaurants and coffee shops that remind you of starbucks and robert harris. And also the standard of english the locals speak is much better than that of Cambodia and Vietnam. The great thing is that the european culture mixes easily with the Laos people, so there are tons of street vendors selling pancakes, chicken baguettes, Laos noodles and Soup with fish balls, all cooked right in front of you while you wait. Its great also because there is such a huge choice of restaurants of all different types and its all really cheap compared to back home. On my first night I decided to treat myself (well that and the fact I got confused about the value of Laos Kip so I thought it was a lot cheaper than it was) and I went to an Italian restaurant run by actual Italians and really clean and upmarket. The waiters and chef (he comes out to talk with patrons) were really friendly, there was an extensive pizza, pasta and salad menu and a wine list the length of the nile river. I had a pizza with imported italian ham, tomatoes, mozarella and local small mushrooms that was cooked in a stone woodfire oven, plus a big Beer Lao, and at the end it cost me approximately 8 NZDs. Oh and breads with hummis to start were thrown in free.

Beer Lao

Real italian pizza in the heart of Vientiane

A view from my window in Vientiane

Nam Phou Fountain central Vientiane

Yesterday I caught a packed bus to the small town of Vang Vieng, on the bank of a river. The main attraction there is the tubing, where you hire an inner tube and get taken in a tuk-tuk about 6 k's upstream of town, then tube back to town, stopping off along the way at how ever many of the bars which are along the banks as you like. It's sort of like a funky way to do a pub crawl. Along the way there are tons of swings and slides into the water at all the different bars. As you float along staff from the bars throw bottles of water attached to ropes so they can pull you into the bars. I stayed the night in the busy (for Laos anyway!) little town and had a great dinner of john dory and chips at the 'Aussie Bar'. I caught the bus back to Vientiane this morning and I will relax tonight and go check out some of the sights of Vientiane tomorrow. I got to see a bit of rural laos on the way to and from Vang Vieng, today I even saw two elephants being ridden along the roadside like its the most normal thing in the world.

Country Laos

Nice wee river there

Beer Lao's Competition

John Dory with lime, sweet chilli and chips

Some clown in the lounge bar

I really like Laos its a great place to enjoy good food and drink and really cool place to chill and be worry free.