Thailand 101 - Koh Phangan, part one

Koh Phangan. Home of the legendary full moon party. Once a month, Haad Rin beach on the island is invaded by 30,000 tourists looking for a good time. A week long party leading up to the main even. There is quite a lot to keep up busy during the while waiting for the nightlife to start, but not much to do before 11am as most people on the island are up all night, including the locals.

There are two options for getting to the island. Take the local ferry, which costs 200baht and takes about an hour or take the private carter speedboat, which costs 800baht but it only takes 15 minutes. Now our airplane arrived late, so we had to take the charter boat. It was my group of 6 and another group of 4 Canadians. We had to take a taxi to the charter jetti, but once we were dropped off, the taxi left and there was no boat. fifteen minutes passes, what now? an hour passes, um... what's going on. It was then that we decided to visit the local store and stock up on beers. We bought all the beer they had for sale in the shop, which was only about 40 beers. And proceeded to have an impromptu dock party, with someones ipod and speaker cranked. It was pretty awesome.

Eventually, the boat arrived two and a half hours late. And we got to the island, dropped of our bags at the accommodation and  went to the bar. This is where we were introduced to "The F***king Bucket" which is it's name on the menu. Basically it is a one litre (30 ounce) bucket, that is filled halfway with the spirit of your choice and topped up with the mixer of your choice. I got a jagermeister, redbull and coke mix. The reason the top up the redbull with coke is because the local redbull is six times stronger that the western redbull drinks. It was a great night.

This is a great island to explore by scooter, our group of six basically had the roads to ourselves, only every few miles, coming across another few tourists on bikes. We hire a four cliff side bungalows to house our group and it was the most spectacular view I had ever seen and at US$10 a night, it was a bargain. There was a 5 night minimum stay, which was fine. We got there 3 days before the party and had a day of rest after it.

In the next post I will give a bit more information about the activities available on the island and of course the Full Moon Party.

Thailand 101 - Koh Samui

Next stop are the islands Samui and Phangan. I took a flight on Bangkok airways from Phuket to Koh Samui on one of their prop planes. The flight took about twice as long as a 737 but was 5 times less expensive. I think I paid US$10 for the flight. 

The flight took around an hour and a half, we even got an in flight meal. Once we got to Koh Samui, I took a bus to the local mall, just to check out where the locals shopped. It was essentially like any western mall, except with different chain stores. Although, in saying that, they did have a FKC with an unusual offering, a corn sundae. I was intrigued. I purchased a corn sundae and well... it delivered. It was a sundae with creamed corn. I must say that this is probably not a good buy.

After wandering around the mall for a while, I headed out to see the local sites, of which there were few. Samui is more of a relaxing stop before you head over to Koh Phangan and the legendary full moon parties. In my next post I will tell you a story of an expensive speedboat ride into Koh Pahngan, that led to one crazy night.

Airbnb - Lap of Luxury in Phuket

Just because you are backpacking, doesn't mean you have to slum it. If you can gather a big enough group of people, either friends that come with you on your journey or other trustworthy backpackers. Then there are short term rental houses available in most parts of Thailand. I have linked an example of one that actually was down the road from where I stayed in Phuket. I was staying in a hotel with 7 others. If we had pooled our money, we could have stayed here for US$350, which would have worked out US$10 cheaper per night each.

A beautiful 4 bedroom villa, that sleeps eight, with your own pool! 

Protip - Scooter Hire

Just a quick note on scooter hire within Thailand. Scooting is the best way to explore the local area, it's cheap, easy and fun to do, especially if there are 2 or 3 of your in a group. We had a group of 6 scooters, the locals probably just laughed at us. Oh well. When you are hiring, you need to give your passport to the dealer to keep as collateral while you have their scooter. When you bring it back you get your passport back. Don't forget to carry a photocopy of your passport on you at all times. Below is a list of things your should remember:

1.  Do not hire a scooter in Phuket, as there are known links to the mafia and passport counterfeiting.
2. When you do get your scooter, ensure that you take photos of it, especially in areas that are damaged. Otherwise you will end up paying to repair the damage.
3. Wear your helmet, the last thing you want is to have an accident without one.
4. Barter, especially if you are in a group. Barter on price or even say you want the fuel included in the price. 

Thailand 101 - Phuket

Morning travelers,

As I mentioned earlier I will be trying to give some basic travel information about each of the countries in Asia, these tips are based on my experiences and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Thailand is a travelers dream country, they say, if you have the money, you can get it in Thailand. It's a chance for the average person to experience the extra ordinary. Thailand's currency is the Baht, at the time of writing the conversion rate is 1 USD to 30.38 Thai Baht. Let me put that into perspective, if you go to a local mall (not a touristy one), buy a Thai food combo, it will only cost you around 20 baht, 66 cents for a meal, I still can't get over that.

Thailand is known for it's markets, fake consumer goods and even well-priced real goods. I don't enjoy walking around the markets as I don't see the point of buying low quality fake products. Instead of buying 10 fake Billibong tshirts, I would rather buy 1 real one as it would probably last longer than all 10 of the fakes. I do however love looking at the fake merchandise, just to see how bad it is and what ends up being counterfeited.

Another thing that you need to realise is that the price of almost everything is negotiable, it took me a while to realise that the locals expect you to barter and if you don't you may as well throw your money away. For example, I ended up buying some new golf clubs while I was in Phuket and shipped them back home. I went to an outlet factory shopping mall about an hours tuk-tuk ride out of Patong beach. I was looking at the new Callawy X-24 irons. The shelf price was 22,500 Baht, I walked up to the counter said I want to buy these clubs, I will give you 12,000, the salesman responded in the middle at 17,000 and I agreed. It must be said that I am not the best negotiator, but I still got a great deal. In New Zealand I would have paid three times that price for the clubs and yes, I checked to see if they were fake.

In part two, I will talk a bit about the tourist attractions. Well, they aren't so much attractions as they are ways for the locals to extrude more money from you for watching monkeys ride a bicycle for 20 minutes or cobra's doing nothing.

Welcome

Welcome to my travel blog,

While backpackers tend to head of to the motherland, Europe. I found a cheaper, much more exciting alternative, where everyday brings you opportunities to experience things that just aren't available in other parts of the world. I am of course speaking of backpacking Asia.

I recently returned from a three month tour of South East Asia and thought I would give fellow backpackers some travel ideas, beautiful locations and great tips for make your money go that little bit further.

So, follow the blog. First we will be heading to exotic Thailand.