Sunday, August 12, 2012

Thai'islands'

So I still had unfinished business in the Khao Sok jungle. Was naughty and went on the two closed trails. My excuse was to be 'me no read no engrish'...

The call of jungle expedition was only hampered by lack of pith helmet. Notice action utility belt making up for it. Sexy.





Lots of elephant poo, tracks, scent and broken bamboo but none came out to play with me.






Jungle life involves leeches. The sooner the better you realise they pass on no disease and are actually full of protein if your hungry!


An amazing tree – there was many others but it makes me sad knowing they were once everywhere in Thailand.



Self waterfall shot. Facebook quality at best.


The prize waterfall after my Swedish friend and I reached the end of the trail.



Post trekking hydration and anti-malaria gin and tonics. You can see my hip flask in there - jungle standard equipment. 


My first internal friend. Maybe from the jungle, maybe from a dodgy local animal. A variety of roundworm he claimed. He left after I explained the rent. Seems he never learned to read a rental agreement.




If you are waiting for dinner and hungry, you take photos of each other. Clarissa seems to not like this.

Couple of cool kids checking the Rooney Special out.


Dominating the overlanding. That's what I think this one says.



Cats appreciate a good seat. Lucky I'm not superstitious. 


Leaving our friends at Green View resort in Khao Sok. Gorgeous place to stay, amazing bird and wildlife roaming around your bungalow.



Our friends told us it was certainly possible to get the ferry to Ko Phangan. Certainly advisable. So we certainly did it.



Met an english teacher lady who advised Clarissa that I had found the correct ferry and we weren't on the slow boat to the coal mines.



Luckily the seas were calm. The poor side stands copped a flogging under the weight of loaded bikes on the gentle sea, hate to see what rough seas would have done! We ended up setting our portable chairs up and researching our new island destination on the laptop.



Tron'ing it across the ocean the GPS was reassuring me.



Had to defeat this battle ship to gain entry. Too easy. Clarissa hops on the back of my bike when we travel around town, saves fuel and just easier to manage.





Doing it tough in the Amsterdam bar. Horrendous view. Absolutely Horrible!




Mr Moon delivers an excellent hammock for Clarissa to reflect/relax/revive upon. Notice his pants. Now make sure you sitting down now for this. As they are CUSTOM MADE for Mr. Moon. He's surrounded by colourful relaxation devices and refuses to wear bland pants! The man on the moon wears only the finest colours.



Mr Moon's adventure bike. Custom jerry can panniers are the main addition. 


Testing Mr. Moons 'most comfortable in the world' hammock. Its the goods. Not as compact as my Blissology hammock from Canada though!



The guard pig at the motorcycle parts/workshop. Like the pig at my local car wrecker back home I would imagine it lives off a diet of used engine oil and spark plug leads.



I always laugh at cats sleeping near/on/around our bikes. Cats like good stuff so it can't be bad.


Couple of guys who helped us out by letting us know the road further on was washed out and not worth pursuing. They may have been slightly drunk. Note boom box from man at the back - required item when drinking and swimming in waterfall.



Clarissa relaxing after a hot ride up to some fancy house for rent on the hill.



Our friends we were riding with for a part of our eastern island exploring day. They wowed us with the crazy dirt roads they were riding. Good work fellas!



Clarissa riding in local atire, a dress. People ask as though why we wearing the helmet still?


Excellent coffee. Amazing food. Carlo and his fantastic wife will help you regardless of your big bike being broken or  just being hungry!

Carlo in his workshop. Take note of fridge and copious booze around. Including Singha on tap, in frozen glasses. If your bike is really broken you can get really drunk while Carlo mends it. 

Red curry at Blue Top coffee shop. Shazbot this was a good feed.

Snorkelling here at Ko Ma was excellent. Blue ringed stingray, octopus, angel fish and many others I couldn't identify.

Walking to our part of Chaloklum bay, Ko Tao. After leaving the bikes with our friends to look after. A new island and much scuba diving to be done!

Chilling on the top deck on the steam towards the next dive site.

Little coloured trees that would quickly hide if you got too close.

Not a great place to sit down but magical to look at.

Neil doing a flip off the boat.

Clarissa doing a flip in the big blue thing.


The clams blow your mind with the ebbing of the colours.

Pretty fishy.


Serene and mystifying diving here on Ko Tao. Wunderbar.

Dr Sea slug thing. Doing the rounds.

Colourful nudibranch. Got to catch them all!

Epic schools of fish. 

Jelly blubber!

Neil watching the scuba divers enter the water. He was undertaking his level 1 freediving course instead of sucking air.

Popping up for some air. Due to some painful equalisation issues I didn't do too much free diving on the second day. Did pass the course though, down to 20m on a single breath and back up again is a magical experience. Helpful hint - bearded men should use Petroleum jelly to get a better mask seal.

Josh rescuing Bat (instructor) from 10m.

Mr Bat. Our master free-diving instructor. Seek him out on Ko Tao at Alvaro diving school for your freediving needs.

Our crazy freediving Spanish friends. Crazy straw hats encouraged.  Custom Carbon fibre super fins standard equipment. 

Hope you enjoyed this mostly picture post. I thought the way we have been travelling the last couple of weeks better suited the photo option rather than babbling on. With current plans keeping true we shall be in Cambodia in under a month! Crazy. Take care and lots of love!

6 comments:

  1. Yeh great Neil, when are you going to do something that constitutes an international incident, shake it up HIPPY!!!
    Absolutely no love BERT.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The closest I have got is a worm in my leg and a middle ear infection... I'm building up slowly to the big bang. Rest assured even without my intervention we will end up in a grand shit storm eventually, its bound to happen!

      Now you better be taking care and bloody surfing like a crazy man. Hope the clan are doing well and there's no goats shooting at you. Missed you at the farewell but we shall catch up when we get back mate. Take care brother!

      Delete
  2. Hi Neil and Clarissa,
    a wonderful post as always. Great reading and the pictures are just amazing. Lots of love from home as always.
    Take care and keep those helmets on!
    Love Mum & co.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. Head down to the wreckers near the shell at Lake Munmorah :)

      Tell them you need only the finest swine that will dine on an alternative to car parts. Maybe old motherboards?

      Delete
    2. I'm sad to say that a pig that eats broken computer parts would be the worlds fattest pig if it came to my house....

      Delete

Thanks for taking the time to reply :)

Cheers,

Clarneil