29 November
Dad came to Bangkok for the day so I met him at the British Club as before. We swam in the cool pool, lunched and then took the skytrain to Siam Paragon – Bangkok’s most prestigious shopping mall.

I took him to see the book stores and then we window shopped exotic cars. We saw a Bentley Flying Spur. The price tag was 25,500,000 baht. I wonder if they would have knocked off the 500,000 baht if we’d offered them cash….

Dad left at 3.30pm. I returned to my apartment and prepared some lessons for tomorrow. Mina phoned to tell me that she didn’t want to see me again because I was jow chew and could I please send her money so that she could catch the train to come and see me? I told her that I had no money and that she should fly her helicopter to come and see me instead. We spent a pleasant half hour arguing over this and then wished each other goodnight.

Bangkok snapshots

Beethoven Fur Elise

“Twenty years ago, things were different!” he told the bedroom doorknob sternly. From Nowhere Children Inc. by Ben Taylor.

28 November
A lazy day. When I went to bed last night, it was hot. When I woke up in the early hours, it was freezing cold. That’s what you get when you live in a city of concrete. As a result, I felt slightly under the weather this morning. My company rang me to say that my class this evening was cancelled.

I met Mario the Italian at Pi Baby’s café.

“I am as sick as a dog!” he complained. “This weather is making me have a fever and I can not sleep. I don’t want to think about what nightmares I might have! I have taken two paracetamols but still I am aching all over my body. It is not good. Two paracetamols are ok - it's aspirin you have to be careful with. If you take aspirin with coffee then it becomes a very powerful drug - the same as the banned sports drugs. I remember when I was playing football once, I forgot that I'd taken one aspirin because I was not feeling well. At the break, I went with everyone else and had a cup of coffee. Well, when I went back on the field...whoosh! I didn't know what I was doing! I have never run like that before!"

He sipped his chicken soup for a while in silence, apparently deep in thought and then looked up.

“The electricity wiring in Thailand is terrible!” he pointed at the rickety fuse box above my head. “It’s crazy. I worked as electrician in England before. The English are so practical – not like in my country…”

“Do you appreciate that you are an outstanding and total success at being you, right where you are now?” Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret.

27 November
I spent the weekend in Chachoengsao with my parents and grandmother. The weather was very cold at night – relatively speaking, of course. Lots of my cousins have gone down with heavy colds. Thais are very susceptible to changes in the weather. They like air conditioning so much that they don’t turn it off when it’s not needed. Instead, they prefer to huddle in blankets – in the rather odd belief that it makes their skin white!

Why they think that air conditioning will make their skin whiter is a mystery. I suppose they think that the cold temperatures in “farang” countries make the farangs white – rather than the lack of sun.

This obsession with white skin is difficult for a westerner to really understand and is very unfortunate for the Thais. I see so many people who have ruined their beautiful golden skin by plastering on powder and “whitening” lotions, creams etc. which probably contain all sorts of dangerous chemicals. The result is an unhealthy sallow colour which looks even worse when accompanied by the brownish orange hair dye which so many Thais liked to ruin their hair with.

Today I met up with June and Dook at Pratunam. It is an amazing place…so many clothes, shoes, suitcases etc at very cheap prices. June wanted to go to Starbucks.

“I want an ice Mocha with lots of Whipping Cream,” she announced.

In England, we usually have mocha coffee with whipped cream. But this is Thailand. People tend to be more active here.

Loy Kratong at the Shangri-La Hotel

23 November
Today I had lunch with Dad at the British Club in Silom. It was lovely and quiet. We swam before we ate and the water was actually quite cold! The cool season has finally arrived. It feels like a warm summer’s day back in England.

After lunch, it was time to return to my apartment and start preparing to teach my new young student Amy. For some reason, I always seem to be late when working for this company. This time I was determined not to be. I set off 90 minutes early.

I had studied my (Nelles) map of Bangkok beforehand and decided to do the first main stint of the journey by bus and then take a taxi for the final short hop. I decided to take a different route from that recommended by my company – a dangerous game to play because if I was late, I would be in trouble.

I stood in the heat and fumes of the bus stop and waited. After a while, number 137 bus came along and I boarded. I then had to wait 15 minutes while it stood stationary in the heavy traffic. At last it moved off and then, one stop down the road, turned into a high rise car park and stopped. The driver switched the engine off and everyone got out. Great.

The clock was ticking (a metaphor of course as my phone clock doesn’t tick). Nearly 30 minutes and 7 baht had been wasted on that bus. Luckily, I was close to an MRT metro station. I descended into the cool underground and rode the metro for one stop then came out again and caught another number 137 bus. This time it ran straight and true and I arrived at my destination with 15 minutes to spare.

My lesson went very well. After I had been shown into a large sitting room dominated by a 60 inch HD flat screen TV, Amy’s mother rang me to say that she was very sorry but they were running 25 minutes late. I didn’t mind in the least as I was paid for my time there rather than the time I spent actually teaching. I switched on my laptop and checked my emails while the maid brought me fresh apple juice, a big plate of exotic fruit and a glass of water.

Amy arrived with her mum. Amy turned out to be a bright kid with a pretty much photographic memory. She was a pleasure to teach. After the lesson, her mum chatted to me about the difficulties of sending her three children to a good school.

At Harrow School in Thailand, there are very few English children attending as only the very rich Thais can afford the tuition fees. So the rich Thai kids don’t get to practice their English outside the classrooms. There are cheaper and better schools with lots of English kids – but there is a big waiting list. Amy’s mum wanted to send her children to Harrow in England – but again the waiting list is decades long. Also, it would mean that she would be parted from her children.

I asked her what she did for a living and she told me that she and her husband owned a company which imported exotic European cars such as Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley, Porsche etc. to order. She told me that it was crazy that anyone bought such cars in Thailand as there were no roads worth driving fast on and they had to pay 200 per cent import duty tax as well. As a result, Thai millionaires had to keep in the garage a car that they’d paid two or three times the going rate for. A Mercedes SL500, for example, costs 15 million baht….

After we had talked for a while, she drove me home. I went to eat at Pi Baby’s. I was staving. The café was empty except for Pi Baby herself and a cat which was prowling hungrily about under the tiny tables.

Suddenly, there was a flash of movement and a giant centipede came racing out from the wall and straight towards me with the cat in hot pursuit. It was a horribly repulsive creature, the sort of colour that makes you feel sick just to look at. It was about a foot long and armed with big fangs.

Hastily, I lifted up my legs out of harms way as the cat pounced under my table and tried to kill it. But this was no ordinary centipede. It was more snakelike than insect. It wriggled and tried to bite with its poison fangs, it jumped and rolled and ran while all about it, the cat was a raging fury of teeth and claws, of lightning fast strikes, pounces, swipes and bites. But still it did not die.

At last, the cat managed to pick it up behind its head. It was evident that the cat wanted to eat it. It did not in any way play with it as an English cat might play with a mouse. But just then, Pi Baby hearing the commotion came out from the kitchen with a pair of big tongs. She grabbed the frantically wriggling centipede from the cat’s jaws and threw it out into the gutter where upon it promptly made its escape down a drain. The cat let out a loud and reproachful yowl. It obviously didn’t appreciate its dinner being snatched away from him.

“I feel sorry for the centipede,” said Pi Baby, as she returned to the kitchen. “The cat mustn’t eat it. He can eat fish instead."

21 November
I lunched at Pi Baby’s Café and met Mario the Italian. He was dressed in shorts, tee shirt and trainers and was beaming.

“I just come back from my school,” he said. “Today is sports day so I only teach for 45 minutes but I get paid for whole day! You see, you should teach full time instead of part time – it is much better!”

He sat down, ordered kai dow puk puk (fried egg over vegetables) and continued. “Last month there was a virus going around the school. We have to close the school for two weeks. All the part timers did not get paid – but I did! The full time teachers got paid for doing nothing…

“Aargh! Ice!” he exclaimed suddenly as he looked at his glass of water. “I cannot have ice. I am very sensitive. I will have bad tummy if I have ice…”

Carefully, he emptied the ice out onto the street and poured in fresh water.

“I don’t know why, but last three days my stomach have problem…”

A young fashionably dressed Japanese man came into the shop. His face looked vaguely familiar. He glanced at me then took of his mp3 earplugs, smiled and held out his hand.

“Hey, how are you? Haven’t seen you for a while.”

I recognized him as Taki, a former gigolo from Tokyo who was on a permanent holiday from Japan. I had seen him at Pi Baby’s shop when I had worked in Bangkok last year but had never really spoken to him.

I shook his hand. “I’m fine. Just got back, actually. What have you been up to?”

Taki sat down. “Oh, not much. Just been partying a lot cos one of my friends from Japan is over and he likes to go to the disco a lot. It’s getting a bit much now though. I’ve been going out partying and drinking every single night for a month and never got to bed before 8am. I’m just exhausted.”

“I not like party every night!” called Mario eagerly from his table. “It’s no fun. Always you get tired and more tired and everyone is fresh but I am tired and no have energy. I go party once a month and then I am very fresh and it is great!”

“Well, my friend went to Chang Mai this morning – I am gonna sleep!” laughed Taki.

I looked at him. I thought his face looked remarkably fresh. He didn’t look like he’d been partying non stop for a month.

“How old are you?” I asked, guessing that he must be about 25.

“Thirty,” he said. “I’m starting work next month. I’ve been on holiday in Thailand for three years and now I’m totally broke!”

“What sort of work are you going to do?” I asked.

“Same as before. Gigolo. Down in Sukhumvit soi 22. There’s a new place just opened up. There’s not that many establishments in Thailand that caters for women but we’re trying to change that. In Japan it’s very big – especially in the last five years. Here in Bangkok, it’s mostly places for men.”

“What kind of clientele do you have?” I asked. “What kind of people are they?”

“Rich Thai women. You get a few Japanese but they’re mostly Thais. Usually the wives of powerful business men or mafia leaders. Thais are crazy about Japanese.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to go with wives of Mafia leaders?”

“No, well yes. Sometimes. When I was working in Tokyo, I got involved with the wife of the top Mafia boss but I was really lucky because he was caught and put in jail for a long time! Usually though, they don’t care if they don’t see it because they themselves have lots of other women and it keeps their wives quiet, I guess.

I found myself wondering if Taki’s three year long holiday was not just pleasure orientated. Perhaps he was keeping out of the way of angry and dangerous husbands for a while!

“So what exactly do you do in your work?” I asked curiously. “Do you have sex with your clients or just be an escort?”

“It depends,” said Taki as he sipped his Pepsi. “It’s up to you and the customer. Usually, you just have a drink with them first. You try and get them to spend because whatever they spend is split 40/60 between you and the establishment. There are lots of techniques to get them to spend. If you just have a drink with them, maybe go to a disco with them or whatever, then they’ll ask if they can have sex with you and offer you money. If you have sex with them too soon then they might lose interest and go elsewhere. But if you don’t have sex with them then they might get bored and go elsewhere as well! You have to know to judge the time.”

“How many days a week do you work?” I asked.

“30 days a month. We finish work late too. Maybe 5 in the morning because most people don’t come to us until after the discos shut at 1am, right? So that means we have to pay the police so that we can stay open late because you’re not allowed to open after 1am. So it’s expensive. Our place is under a hotel and they help protect us because our customers will use their hotel. If we weren’t under a hotel then it wouldn’t be possible - the bribe money would be too much.

“You can earn lots of money, though. If you work hard, then in one year you can buy a new Mercedes. In Japan the money is much better. I remember the first time, this woman came for me. Her husband was Director of the waterworks in Tokyo. Anyway, we went to a hotel and had sex. I was 25 and she was 50 and I was just thinking, you know, Taki you can’t do this! It’s just too much, having sex with old women. But the next morning at breakfast, I told her that I was very poor, that someone had stolen my motorbike etc and she just gave me, you know how much? The equivalent of 8,000 US dollars!

“It’s one of the techniques, you know. You have to say that I am very poor boy etc. etc. It’s the same as what the Thai girls use. That’s why, when the Thai girls try to get money from me, it doesn’t work. Because I know the tricks – I am a professional too, you see!”

Zakai

20 November
Today was a good day. I went to eat lunch at Pi Baby’s café opposite my apartment and met a young lawyer who asked if I could teach him English. It turned out that he lives in the same apartment as me – he is one floor above me. He is only 22 and has just started working in Silom.

We agreed a price of 350 baht per hour as it was so convenient. He booked 30 lessons and offered to pay for them in full upfront. If only all my students were like this! He also told me that his company wanted an English teacher to come in twice a week and check their letters and emails. I told him I would do it for 600 baht per hour.

I met up with my friend June in the evening. We went to Siam Paragon to buy a map of Bangkok. It’s amazing how useless most of the maps of Greater Bangkok are. They are almost all invariably confusing and never show the sois where your students live! The best map by far is made by Nelles.

We had coffee and muffins at Au bon pair at Siam Discovery Centre, took a table by the window and people watched.

“I never can understand why tourists go for tuk tuks,” I said as we watched a gesticulating tuk tuk driver trying to lure a bemused looking young couple into his motorized buggy. “They’re dangerous, dirty, you breathe in all the fumes, no air con and the drivers always try to cheat the farangs.”

I spoke from bitter experience.

“You’re much better off taking a metered taxi,” I added. “It’s more comfortable, you’ve got air con and you pay the same price as everyone else.”

“I prefer the bus if there is no skytrain or MRT,” said June. “Taxi drivers sometime deliberately go a longer route so that the meter runs up. When my mother was dying in Ramathibodi Hospital, I used to go there by taxi everyday from Nonthaburi. It used to cost 260 baht to 280 baht depending on the traffic. But never more than 280 baht.

“One day, I went and the driver went this way and that way, down this soi and whatever. When we arrived at the hospital, the meter read 300 baht. I gave the driver 260 baht and told him that if he wanted the extra 40 baht then he could go to the police!”

I laughed. “What did he do?” I asked.

“His face was very red. I don’t like people cheating me! I guess I’m jai rawn sometime,” she added.

Zakia's picture

19 November
Today I woke up late and then went to a meeting with my teaching agency. They have a new student for me. Her name is Amy. She is 8 years old and goes to Harrow International School. It costs her parents 1,000,000 baht (14,757 pounds) per year to send her there. Apparently, the school is not very good – unlike its famous English relation.

Amy has two older brothers, both of whom are also at Harrow. Presumably, her parents are either very rich or have taken a very big loan to pay for all this. Just think, they could have sent their children to the local temple school and then, with the money they’d saved, gone to England and bought a Porsche instead….

18 October
Today I am back in Bangkok. I went to MBK to buy some shirts for work. I met up with my cousin Gook and we browsed the shops together. The shops were very farang friendly with lots of signs up in English. One notice proclaimed:
No Refund
No Return
No Change
No Discount

I wanted to photograph the sign to put in on my blog but when I took my camera out, I was told “No photo!”

We ate dinner at Fifth Avenue in MBK. This is an excellent place to eat. The brochure advertises it a place to “Savour the Craving Satisfaction” but in reality, it’s a souped up food court cum International restaurant. There are uniformed waiter types and a man playing classical guitar. There’s a huge variety of food from all over the world to choose from. Each stall has sample dishes on display, you chose and then they cooked it up for you then and there.

While we ate, Gook told me about Kik in Chachoengsao. The reason why Kik tries so hard to look like a farang (dyed blonde hair, fake nose, whitening powder, green contacts etc.) is because she wants to attract Thai men – not farang men. Apparently, Thais like the farang look, so Thai girls must look like farangs in order to attract them. If a Thai girl wants a farang boyfriend, then she must have dark skin, small cute nose, slim figure etc.

It is, I reflected, a strange world that we live in….

15 November
I woke up this morning at my grandmother’s house near Chachoengsao – a medium sized, rapidly expanding town about 80 kilometres from Bangkok. Chachoengsao is a busy, noisy, dirty place and, perhaps for this reason, all the heavy industry from Bangkok is being gradually relocated there.

Fortunately, my grandmother’s place is still very much in the country. Her house is a peaceful, old-fashioned style wooden house on stilts by the Bang Pa Kong river. The garden is full of orchids, bougainvilleas, ladies’ finger nails. The air is clean and only the incessant sound of the television set disturbs the peaceful tranquility.

After breakfast, I went into town with my parents and met my friend Kik at Big C. I had not seen her for a while and was immediately struck by her appearance.

“What have you done to yourself?” I asked.

“No do anything! I more beautiful! You crazy!” she added. “And you fatter than before!”

I stared at her, trying to work it out. Was she taller? No, she was simply wearing high heels as usual. Was her face paler? No, that was the whitening cream. Her fake nose? But she’d got that done last time. Sure, her hair colour had changed but she dyed it a different colour every week. Then I got it.

“Your eyes!” I said. “You’re wearing green contacts, aren’t you!”

She nodded proudly. “Beautiful huh?”

“I didn’t realize that you needed glasses. Are you short sighted or long sighted?”

“My eyes very good. I wear contacts this colour so that I look farang…”

I went to have coffee while I waited for my parents to finish their shopping. I picked up an Off Road magazine and idly turned the pages. The prices of prestige cars in Thailand are staggeringly expensive. Especially when you consider how poor most people are.

A Porsche Cayenne turbo costs 16,750,000 baht. That’s over a quarter of a million pounds or half a million dollars, whatever way you like to look at it. A humble Volvo XC90 costs more than a Range Rover in Britain. A Range Rover in Thailand is the same price as a Bentley in the UK. In contrast, a plumber or electrician is lucky if he gets 7,000 baht per month. And yet, the Bangkok traffic jams are full of Range Rovers, Porsche Cayennes, Volvos etc.

Unlike its near neighbours, Thailand was never Communist.

Zakia's pictures...

14 November
My fears when I first started this diary proved to be unfounded. I met my family again and they showed no sign of any horrible disease. I spent a pleasant time in Bangkok.

I rented an apartment at VIP Place in Huay Kwang. It costs 5,000 baht a month, is close to the MRT, has hot water, bathtub, air con etc. It even has a sofa!! I have taken it for three months so that I will have time to work and hopefully save some money to go traveling again.

Today I received an email from Zakia, the girl from Montpellier who I met on the place.

Hello Ben, How are you? I was nice to meet you!!!!!I've got a good trip to Paris and after to Montpellier.Tomorrow I will send you the pictures.Take care dear Ben and enjoy your trip!!!! Bye Zakia

She attached lots of photos which I plan to use on this blog. She is a much better photographer than me!

10 November
My time is up. I must leave the clean air and tranquility of Krabi and return to Bangkok to start earning money. There is a silver cloud in this dark polluted sky though, I will be meeting my father after nearly two months and we can compare notes.

Nothing has changed and everything has changed. Nothing ever changes, just our perception changes. It comes down to the same thing though.

I had a pleasant flight. I sat next to a Moroccan girl called Zakia whose uncle runs a resort in Ao Nang. She told me how wonderful Krabi was and invited me to come and stay at her place in Montpellier.

Now I am back at White Lodge guesthouse.

9 November
Today is my last full day here. Mournfully, I packed my suitcase and checked out of my apartment. We drove into town and checked into Grand Tower for one night. Tomorrow morning, I need to leave at 8.30 for the airport.

Mina and I went for a wander in the town and discovered a really good café with amazing home made bread and fresh coffee. It is called May and Mark, after the couple who own it and is near the Thai Hotel.

In the afternoon, we went to Ao Nang and met up with Mina’s friend Sara. We went for a coffee and she brought Mina up to date with her life and told me all about herself.

Sara and her husband are both TEFL teachers from the north of England. Sara has two babies and it sounds pretty tough for a westerner to bring up children on a low income in Thailand. She cannot send her children to the local school because they would not receive an English education. International schools are expensive and there is no help from the state. If she were back in England then she would have all sorts of income support, grants etc. However, she seemed to think that the lifestyle here was better than at home.

She told me that her house was near the forest and that snakes were sometimes a problem. Once her daughter heard a loud hissing coming from the bathroom. Sara went to investigate and found a large cobra rearing out of the toilet bowl. It had found its way through the plumbing from the klong outside the house, apparently.

What amazed me was the way in which she “dealt” with it. After a while, she said, the snake “went” away but would sometimes reappear.

So rather than calling in the experts from the local snake farm or zoo, she was happy to sometimes share a bathroom with a deadly snake! Still, I guess nobody spent longer than was strictly necessary on the toilet – so queuing time for the bathroom must have shortened considerably.

I personally have a bad reputation at home for spending “hours” on the toilet of a morning. My mother would always shout through the door.

“Ben! If it won’t come out then don’t just sit there, dear! Get on!”

I should imagine that having a cobra swaying under your exposed bottom would “make it come out” pretty quick!


After we’d had coffee, Sara went off to a job interview and Mina went to see another friend and I went for a swim. The sun was setting and the beach was lovely. I went for a run and then cooled off in the not so cool sea.

It was nearly dark by the time I had dried myself and changed back into dry clothes. We ate at an Indian restaurant opposite the Irish Pub. Half the menu was vegetarian and all the staff were Indian. It was my first at a proper Indian restaurant and the food was really delicious. We ate and ate.

Afterwards we went for a stroll along the seafront to help digest our enormous meal. At night in the high season, the place was bustling with wholesome looking Scandinavians browsing the many stalls selling food, drink, clothes and pretty much everything.

I saw a maimed beggar sitting on the ground with the stump of his amputated leg stretched out beside his begging bowl. He seemed oddly out of place in this clean, up market resort. I noticed that his face was unusually bright for a beggar with large intelligent eyes. Mina laughed when she saw him.

“Look at that beggar! He is very rich, you know. He was here last time.”

A middle aged western woman stopped when she saw him, her eyes filled with concern when she saw his leg. She stooped down to put a 100 baht note into his bowl and say a few kind words to him. He replied in good English. Mina snorted.

“See, he speaks English! A beggar who has enough money to learn English. But he is very rich. Everyone knows him here. He has land worth 20 million baht. He was born with a silver spoon…”

We had coffee at a little Swedish Café and then headed home on the motorbike. After we’d left the lights of Ao Nang behind, the road through the mountains was very dark. Fog was creeping down from the forested peaks and the air was very cold.

“Drive fast!” said Mina as she hugged me from behind to keep off the chill. “Bandits may try to rob us on the mountain roads where there is no-one. They don’t just usually rob – they will rape the girl as well and maybe shoot the man. Drive fast and stick to the centre of the road.”

I drove fast.

8 November
This morning Mina wanted to go to Ao Nang again so I decided to visit Huay Toh waterfall instead. According to my tourist map, Huay Toh waterfall was in Panombenja National Park and only 12 kilometers from Krabi Town. It should only be a 20 minute bike ride. We would be back in time for lunch, I thought. And then we could go to swim at Ao Nang. How wrong I was!

We had breakfast and then set off. The weather was perfect, cool and dry. I pulled in at a petrol station and put 50 baht worth into the motorbike. We headed out of town. After a while, I saw a wooden signpost proclaiming Khao Phanombencha National Park 12 Km.

I nodded happily to myself. Everything was going to plan.

We drove on. As we left the town behind, the landscape grew more and more dramatic. The mountains grew taller so that their peaks were shrouded in mist, the jungle more lush and vibrant. Flowers and orchids grew wild by the roadside. We saw very little other traffic and the roads were excellent.

We drove on. It seemed a long 12 kilometers. Now there were rubber plantations on either side. Every now and then, I saw sheets of rubber hung up to dry. The mountains were in front and also to our right. I spotted another wooden signpost coming up. I slowed down to read it.

Khao Phanombencha National Park 12 Km.

Strange, I thought. We’d been driving for at least 30 minutes and yet, according to the Krabi Tourist Board, had gone nowhere. I drove a little faster….

After another 30 minutes or so, another wooden signpost loomed up by the roadside. I squinted at it eagerly. We must be nearly there now.

Khao Phanombencha National Park 12 Km.

I stopped the motorbike and took a swig from my water bottle. Was it me or was it them? I asked Mina. Them of course.

“The tourist board want to get people to visit the National Park so they pretend that it’s closer than it actually is,” she explained.

There was nothing to it but keep driving. I found myself wondering how many unsuspecting tourists had run out of petrol trying to get there….

The road became narrower and there were no markings. Soon it dwindled into a dirt track. In the distance, I saw a familiar looking wooden signpost.

Khao Phanombencha National Park 3 Km.

“Hooray!” I shouted and drained the last of the water from my bottle. “We’re here at last!”

We drove on. After 20 minutes, another wooden signpost….

Khao Phanombencha National Park 5 Km.

“Huh?” I said. “Now not only are we not going anywhere….now we’re actually going backwards!”

But there was no point in returning the way we’d come because the signs still pointed forwards. We must drive – or face the same terrible fate that befell the early pioneers in Death Valley…

After driving for an hour, I discovered that I'd got nowhere...

We drove on. After another 20 minutes we came to a signpost, bigger than before. I stared at it, not quite believing.

Khao Phanombencha National Park.

We had arrived! We paid our entrance fee, parked up and then explored. It had an English country park feel to it with well kept lawns and labeled mature shrubs and trees. There were graveled walkways through beautiful woods, little wooden bridges over streams. Mosquitoes were strangely absent. We could almost have been strolling through Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall.

But if one looked closely, the foliage was more lush and exotic. There were giant ferns growing amongst the trees. And the butterflies were definitely much bigger than any found in England. They were bigger than many of the tiny birds. They glided rather than flew.

The path climbed upwards. The stream running to our right grew bigger and faster until it was a small river. Finally we came to an amazing waterfall.

7 November
Mina spent the night scratching her body rash so, of course, this morning it was worse than before. I offered to take her to the hospital but she refused.

We breakfasted at Good Dream Café. They have free wifi there so I was able to check my email and update my blogsite. Usually I use my mobile to connect my laptop to the internet. GPRS coverage in Thailand is very good and in most towns they have EDGE so connection speeds are pretty acceptable. It costs 1 baht a minute with DTAC network.

We spent a fairy ordinary day with nothing of note to put down here. We had dinner at Sriboya Guest House. After we had finished eating, Mina spoke for an hour or so how she was bored with me, that I was no good, that I always believed everything that my friends said but never believed her, that I was jowchew etc. Finally she ended up by saying that she was going to work on Samui and never wanted to see me again.

I was glad for this outburst. We had not argued for nearly two days and it was clearly getting on her nerves. I welcomed the return to normality again.

Things were getting rough so I took the controls...

6 November
Today we went on the Baracudas four island tour. The four islands were Koh Tup, Koh Poda, Chicken Island and Koh Yawasam. It was an all day tour and included lunch, fruit and water. The price per person was 600 baht but we went free because Mina used to work for the tour company.

They picked us up from my apartment at 8 o’clock. The songtaw truck was already full of people, all westerners. The driver drove us to Ao Nang and we boarded a big long tail boat.

The islands were all very beautiful. You can see some pictures below.

We stopped to snorkel at Chicken Island. As soon as we moored the boat, thousands of brightly coloured tropical fish gathered around. They were evidently expecting food. We donned our snorkels and masks and jumped in. The fish were not put off. Everyone got nibbled. We were lucky that they had no teeth.

There seemed to be jellyfish in the water as well. Mina and I both got stung and were left with marks resembling mosquito bites on our bodies.

That evening, Mina developed an itchy rash all over her body. She has very sensitive skin. I don’t know whether it was caused by pollution in the sea water or the jellyfish. I advised her not to scratch. So of course that’s just what she did.

Today was a first for us in that for the whole day from start to finish, we did not argue once!

Some people at Koh Phi Phi

5 November
There was no sign of Guy Fawkes night in Krabi which, considering how readily the Thais embrace pretty much every much every other festival from England, is pretty surprising. Especially as they love loud bangs and flashes.

Not much happened today. In the evening, Noot invited us to join her and her friends at a coffee shop. It was a very Thai affair with music played too loud, lots of mosquitoes and serving instant coffee.

3 November
Today was a wonderful day. A wonderful day of solitude and adventure. After nearly 3 weeks of waiting for the weather etc., I finally got around to doing what I had planned to do when I first came here – explore the cliffs and beaches of Krabi by motorbike.

First, I headed for Shell Fossil Beach. This is a pretty beach with a curve of golden sand. The big boulders on this beach are made up of thousands of small fossils some 35 million year old. Rather disappointingly, they are all some kind of shell creatures. It would have been nice to have had a few dinosaurs thrown in….

The best part of the trip though was getting there. The roads are very good, of European standard, with clean air and little traffic. A motorbike is the best way to appreciate it. Some of the scenery I drove through was simply staggering, with towering walls of lush jungle, sheer limestone cliffs hundreds of metres high, sudden and stunning glimpses of the ocean. It was impossible to capture such big scenery on my camera.

After the Shell Fossil Beach, I drove to Ao Nang. Ao Nang is a very northern European orientated beach resort, full of clean-limbed, wholesome looking Scandinavian types walking purposely along the long promenade on their way from the beach to yoga.

I stopped for a coffee and sat on the sea wall under a tree. The wind started to blow and waves began to build. Leaves from the tree above fell on my head. To the east, a storm was brewing. I watched the dark rain clouds build on the not so distant mountains and knew that the torrential rain would reach me before I had a change to return to Krabi town.

Mina rang and told me that she’d got on the wrong boat this morning and had ended up in Phuket instead of Krabi. So now she was on a bus from Phuket and was going to come and see me instead. But, she said, I needn’t worry. She was only going to spend one night with me and then would go to Ton Sai or Samui and would leave me in peace etc.

It began to rain, heavy spots the size of marbles. I hurried to my motorbike, put my mobile into a plastic bag and stowed it safely under the seat. I knew I hadn’t a chance of outrunning the rain. I started the engine and headed home. Within five minutes, the skies opened up into a full on tropical downpour. I got soaked.

Here is a close up of the fossil boulders.

2 November
Today I have just come back from Koh Phi Phi. I went on Wednesday. I took the afternoon boat and Mina told me (not for the first or probably last time!) that she was going back to Pattani and was never going to see me again.

I arrived at Koh Phi Phi and had a lovely time swimming while admiring the beautiful scenery. I met lots of interesting people, socialized with my friends and generally had a good and relaxing time.

For some reason, Halloween is big in Thailand. There was lots of face painting etc. See pic below.

The next day, on Thursday, Mina came to Koh Phi Phi. She stayed at the Bookshop and I stayed at the Massage shop.

I returned to Krabi on the afternoon boat with Dook. The weather was wonderful on the island when we left but when we arrived at Krabi, it was bucketing down with rain.

I returned to Krabi on the afternoon boat with Dook. The weather was wonderful on the island when we left but when we arrived at Krabi, it was bucketing down with rain. Mina stayed behind. She is going to stay on Phi Phi until Sunday then she is going to Ton Sai for a few days.

One of the many travel agencies on the island.

Coffee shop on Koh Phi Phi.