Christmas and New Year in Southern Thailand

We met up with my parents once again to spend Christmas on Koh Lanta, a southern island off the coast from Krabi. We arrived at the north of the island and stayed for four nights on Ao Pra (Long Beach), where we celebrated a low-key Christmas. The north is quite unspectacular, built up and very touristy and the unexpected grey weather didn’t do any favours for my first impressions. Luckily for us we stayed in a great bungalow as a Christmas treat from my mum and dad, and spent the rainy afternoons drinking Chang and playing cards on the veranda. Christmas dinner was Thai curry.

A hungover fry-up on the beach, Christmas Day.

After a few days we moved to the south of the island to Klong Jark Bay. The south is much less developed and a lot more like my idea of a Thai island: small coves with pristine white beaches, clear seas and cliffs covered in vegetation. The sun even made a long overdue appearance. It was the perfect place to relax for a few days.

Klong Jark Beach

Sunset, Klong Jark.

One day, whilst sunbathing on a rocky beach, we were surrounded by about 20 monkeys, jumping from tree to tree, combing the beach for left over food. They picked up discarded cans and drank from them, holding the cans with two hands as humans do. They spotted a young couple having a picnic on the beach and wouldn’t leave them alone. For a while there was a stand off between as the couple threw sticks to scare off the monkeys, but more and more monkeys kept arriving until the poor couple abandoned their picnic and left the beach.

The next stop in our family backpacking trip was Ao Nang. We took the ferry from Koh Lanta back to the mainland during a terrible storm. While most of the 200 passengers sat inside the boat, Ric and I stayed out on deck drinking beers with two German guys who were determined to smoke in the pouring rain. Day turned to night as the heavens opened and the boat pitched and rolled in the swell.

There wasn’t very much to see in Ao Nang other than the lovely beach and our hotel’s swim-up bar (!), so we took a short boat ride to near-by Railay, a dramatic bay framed by karsts and white cliffs. While mum and dad soaked up the scenery from the beach, Ric and I went to get a closer look in a sea kayak. Bobbing over the waves we paddled our way around the karsts, stopping at isolated island beaches and exploring caves. It was an amazing way to admire the landscape.

Railay.

Sea kayaking.

We saw in the New Year with a cheesy (and compulsory) gala dinner by the hotel pool. The following evening we wrote our new year’s wishes on a lantern and set it off in a fine ceremony on the beach.

NYE

New Years Day lantern.

Continuing our theme of tagging along on my parents’ holiday, Ric and I flew up to Bangkok to join them for a few days in Bangkok before we left to go to Burma. We excitedly showed them some of our favourite spots: the river, Chinatown, shopping for tat on Khao San Road and we explored some interesting new places together too…

Our first meal together in the capital was in a restaurant intriguingly named Cabbages and Condoms. The restaurant, decorated with condom lamp shades, a condom Father Christmas and a condom post box, is run by a local community development project whose motto is that condoms should be as accessible as vegetables throughout Thailand. The project aims to make contraception widely available throughout the country and provides education on sexual health. The food was excellent and we were served by students from one of the project’s schools.

Condom lamp shade at Cabbages and Condoms.

We progressed from the condom restaurant to a more evident demonstration of the country’s sex life – the red light district at Soi Cowboy! Not an obvious choice for a place to take the parents but it was close to their hotel and a notorious area of Bangkok we thought we ought to see on our fifth visit to the city. After barely twenty minutes of squinting into the dazzling neon lights, surrounded by tiny tiny hotpants and spangley bras, we’d all seen more than enough and we retreated to a less seedy part of town. Seeing the old European men pawing the young Thai girls was an uncomfortable reminder of the other kind of tourism that goes on in this part of the world.

After three weeks of cities, beaches, monkeys, posh hotels and spicy food it was time to say goodbye to my mum and dad and leave them to fend for themselves in Bangkok. It was hard saying goodbye not knowing when I’ll see them again but we had a fantastic time together and I dare say they enjoyed Thailand a tad more than they enjoyed visiting us in Korea!

New Year's Eve in Bangkok

For New Year's Eve we headed back to Bangkok. We took a boat from Vongduern beach to Ban Phe port  on the mainland. The boat looked like a 70 year old fishing trawler and was so slow that it was overtaken by pretty much every other boat on the ocean. Eventually, we got to the port only to find that Ric had left his flip flops on the island and we had to get him a new pair. Typical.

In Bangkok we got a taxi and headed over to our hotel. The taxi pulled into the side of the road and slowed down, as I was wondering why, my door was opened and somebody grabbed by backpack. I panicked, tried to grab it back. I'd heard so many stories about bags being stolen like that. It took a few moments for me to realised that the taxi had slowed to a stop because we had arrived at our hotel, and that the guy "stealing" my backpack was in fact the concierge trying to carry it for me.

Grande Ville Hotel lobby

After offending the concierge we checked into the Grande Ville Hotel. This was extremely exciting for me as it was a) a real hotel, and b) a nice hotel. The only hotels in Korea are "love hotels"; no matter how up-market the hotel, there is always a pack of condoms and a bottle of lube on the dressing table, I guess that's what Korean hotel guests want, but for me it just takes away the niceness. Other than that the only other places Ric and I have stayed together have been a shoddy pink tent and in South American hostels in various states of decay, so for me, Grande Ville was a very special treat. It was LUSH. There was a huge Christmas tree in the marbled lobby, carpets in the room and A SWIMMING POOL ON THE ROOF!!!!

The view from our room.

The roof pool, on the 24th floor, had stunning views of Bangkok. When we got up there on New Year's Eve, a nearby building had caught on fire and was covering the city in a thick black smoke. We never found out anything about the fire as it wasn't reported in any English press, it's a tragic way to end the year for somebody though.

From the roof.

Nice pool, nice view. Shame about the burning building.

After a nap, shower and an array for energy drinks that are illegal in England, we set out to celebrate on Khao San Road. The road is known for its backpacker and professional hippy crowd as well as its many bars, restaurants and shops. On the one hand it is perhaps a tacky choice (I'm sure there are much more refined things to do in Bangkok), but on the other hand we only had one night there, and we wanted to party.

Khao San Rd.

Khao San Rd.

Khao San Road did not disappoint. The entire area was buzzing with excitement and energy, there were hundreds of people there and so much going on. There was a countdown stage with singers and dancers, elaborately dressed ladyboys prancing around, people selling everything under the sun. We were even offer a ping pong show. Every establishment on the road, whether it be a chemist or a bank by day, had been turned into a roadside bar. We sat and had cocktails outside a travel agency. We ordered a mojito and strawberry daiquiri that both tasted suspiciously like Smirnoff Ice.

Smirnoff Ice cocktails.

Bucket of vodka.

We bought beers from a shop and just walked around in awe of the place. Paradoxically, across the road from all the drinking and rowdiness, we found a temple with a ceremony going on. People were chanting and praying and lighting incense sticks. We went to get a closer look and it was so strange that such a peaceful and calm ceremony was taking place so close to the road were thousands of tourists were celebrating the New Year.

Buddhist ceremony taking place opposite the madness.

We saw in the New Year in a relatively quiet spot, away from the crowds, wrapped up in our own world as usual, and then sat down to smoke a shisha pipe in a bar where I had fun popping some balloons that some people were playing keepy uppy with. I'm a terrible person.

Finally we soaked up the booze with some street food and headed back to our hotel to admire the city by night, from our 18th floor hotel room.

The end of our night.

Phat Thai.