New Life Tour

So after leaving Phuket in South Thailand we headed north to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a beautiful city and by far the best food since I arrived in Thailand. On the first day we did a bit of walking around the city and then decided to get a full thai massage in order to help relax. After viewing a number of Chiang Mai’s finest massage parlours we picked a modern one which was accessed by walking over steppingstones which were part of a water feature at the entrance. After sitting down in a chair two petite thai ladies greeted us and offered us some nice refreshing cold water…I was now starting to relax and was looking forward to the nice relaxing massage ahead. Sadly one of the petite thai ladies left and a slightly camp Thai chap took her place….great. I won’t go into the details of the next hour but I now know that both my knuckles and my toes can crack if I try hard enough and that thai massages aren’t relaxing. I did feel slightly rejuvenated afterwards though.
The first night in Chiang Mai we met Sarah’s brother’s best friends and his girlfriend; it was immediately obvious how much of a loss he was to everyone who knew him in Chiang Mai. As was expected the night involved a lot of drink, great food, mighty craic and some seriously dodgy dancing.

Thankfully I was on paparazzi duty so I wasn’t too drunk but still managed to drink until 4am in the morning. The next day, after having breakfast and then going back to bed for 4 hours, we went Nae Gat Damn which is a beautiful national heritage sight about 1.5 hours north of Chiang Mai. Thankfully I slept on the way there and by the time we got there I felt a lot better and even managed some more food. We took a boat tour on the lake and then stopped at one of the boat houses for some traditional North Thai food which again was unbelievably tasty. That night we went to Chris’s favourite restaurant and ordered all his favourite food and ordered the now mandatory Leo beers. The food at the restaurant surpassed all other meals to date…even the pork scratching were delicious.

The next morning we headed to one of the main temples in Chiang Mai which took ages to get to, due to the crazy traffic on the roads. This seems to be a growing issue throughout Thailand due to the ridiculous number of motorbikes on the roads and no apparent driving laws. The temple was pretty impressive but it was pretty rammed as apparently we went on an official day of worship.

That night we met up with more of Chris’s friends and enjoyed some more food and yes….it was good and we did have leo beer. That night we walked through the street markets and then retreated home early due to the early flight the next day. The next day we flew to Bangkok and then onto Hanoi in Vietnam.

After disembarking from our plane it took us 1 hour just to go through the Visa processing due to the antiquated processing system which basically involved handing over your passport and visa document and then walking to the other side of the visa office where everyone was crowding waiting for their passport to be held up in the air for collection. Once we sorted the visas we then had to try and retrieve our luggage from the fastest luggage carousel in the world. We then emerged into the main airport foyer where Sarah managed to see a taxi driver with a sign for Mrs Billingsely. The taxi driver helped us to the carpark then we packed the bags into the taxi and then sat back and went for a taxi ride like no other….I actually felt safer white water rafting. Car, bikes, mopeds, buses, lorries were coming from all directions, horns were tooting constantly and people were driving down the wrong side of the road. The same people who drove down the road the wrong then beeped their horn in disgust if other law abiding drivers got in their way. After about 30 minutes our taxi driver received a phone call from what sounded like a very irate manager (I don’t speak Vietnamese but I could tell by the tone of the voice). Then five minutes later he received another call I assume from the same person. Once the driver hung up the call he turned to me and asked me what hotel we were staying at? I had no idea as Gareth had booked it and arranged for the hotel to collect us from the airport…Why the hell was he asking me? After giving the driver the international signal for “my phone is in the boot” he pulled over on the inside lane of the dual carriage way (this is pretty dangerous but didn't seem to concern anyone but me) and I retrieved my phone which had the address for the hotel. The driver then handed me his phone and asked me to speak to his boss.

“Hello” I said
“What hotel you stay at?” she replied
“Century Hotel Hanoi” I responded
“You pay $30 for taxi now as the person we meant to collect is still at airport!”
“Haha! No chance. The guy had our name on his sign.”

Then it started clicking in my mind why was the taxi in Sarah’s name, why was it spelt incorrectly and why did the driver not know where the hotel was. Anyway it transpires the taxi we were in was for a Mrs Bellingsley, not Billingsley, and Mrs Bellingsley was still waiting at the airport. The actual taxi was booked under Finlay. After arguing that it was the driver fault as much as ours for not checking we were correct people we agreed to pay for the taxi but refused to pay for the other person’s taxi as they were demanding. Anyway we eventually made it to the hotel and met up with the rest of the gang. Our first night in Hanoi involved visiting a French restaurant which had rats running around our table and then me getting stranded on one side of a road which the others had already crossed…I nearly met an untimely death three times on the same crossing.

You have to see these roads to believe them.

The next day we did touristy things around the city but I can’t really remember many of them so they couldn't of been all that great. The next two days we spent in Han Long Bay, which is one the new natural wonders of the world, on a junk boat which was really nice.

Sadly the weather was pretty bad so it was hard to admire the scenery but it was still a great trip.

After returning to Hanoi we then caught an overnight train to Hoi An which is in central Vietnam.

When we arrived at our destination we were taken to a Bus which would take us to our hotel. This was one of the grimmest experiences to date. Not only were there no seats for us on the bus (the trip was meant to last 1 & 1/2 hours) but we were surrounded by stinking travellers with BO and athelete’s foot….an experience to forget. We eventually arrived in Hoi An, which is a beautiful little town that has quite a strong French influence with amazing patisseries and French style architecture. I also managed to find my favourite Vietnam dish here, the Banana Flower Salad, after deciding to pick the most random sounding thing on the menu with the least amount of description. We also dined at a fantastic restaurant which was a cooking school for disadvantaged kids, I went for the River Fish which was delish and even a bit spicey (food in Vietnam is not spicey at all strangely enough). The next stop was Nha Trang which meant getting another over night train.

Sunshine at last! After about 1 week of crap weather we arrived in Nha Trang a beach resort with a bit more night life. Within one hour we were on the beach and soaking up the rays. Right beside the beach was a really cool bar which served nice Western type food and cocktails.

The first night out we had a few drinks and there were some causalities the next day who failed to surface, a lucky few made it to the beach though…including myself. The next day weather was pretty overcast again so it was a pretty quiet night that ended relatively early in a BBQ restaurant which was a new experience. After that we went on a boat trip around islands in the area which included visiting an aquarium which was pretty small but still rammed full of fish, a water sport island and then finally some time on a small beach island. The highlight of the trip however was the karaoke on the boat after lunch. The Karaoke consisted of the "tour guide" singing songs, the "deck hand" playing electric guitar and another guy who appeared to be purely on the boat to play drums that were made out of upside down plastic oil drums… you would have to see this to appreciate it. The band belted out a few musical numbers which I assume were Vietnamese classics or maybe badly sung English songs…I’m still not sure. The best bit however was when the singer picked people out of the audience and asked them where they were from. The first person up was an aussie guy who had to sing Waltzing Matilda, next was a German guy who had to sing a German song that he didn't recognise until 3 choruses into the song and then a Chinese lady was chosen! I’ll give it to her she had heart but not a musical bone in her body…bless. Obviously when asked where we were from I responded Australia hoping they wouldn’t know another Aussie song…thankfully they didn’t. We escaped!!!

Leaving Nha Trang the next day we headed to Ho Chi Min City (Sia Gon). This is the main city in Viet Nam so we decided to stay in style in the beautiful Majestic hotel which was built in the 1920s, one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever been in. Once we checked in we headed to the War Museum which was pretty grim due to the graphic photographs on display. The photographs mainly consisted of victims of the war who had been tortured or subjected to chemical agents used by the Americans. The museum was pretty one sided in the image it portrayed of America and its role in the war i.e very aggressive and breaking all war laws….bit like Iraq. My knowledge of the Vietnam War is pretty useless but the US seemed to be portrayed in a similar light to the Nazis during the Second World War. In order to cheer ourselves up we headed to the Sheraton Hotel that night for a few Cocktails in the Sky Bar on the 23rd floor which overlooked the city. It was particularly impressive on this night as it was getting close to the Chinese New Year (Tet) which is celebrated for a number of days leading up to Tet on 23rd January.
Sadly this was the last night for two of our group. The lovely Sarah headed back to Belfast the next day as unlike the rest of our group she has a job, she will be missed dearly. Ross “Sloth Bear” Monteith also left but in the opposite direction to Melbourne in order to scope out the night spots pending our arrival. See you soon Slothy!

Next stop Cambodia!!!!

Not the best at keeping regular travel updates but I’ll put that down to two factors! One not much internet access and secondly a few big nights out have not helped matters. Having said that, at the time of writing this it is now been three days without a big night out.

On Xmas day we eventually arose and decided to spend the day by the pool as this was the first day since Ross and I had been there and it wasn’t overcast. After carefully applying sun lotion we got to work on the task in hand i.e. turning from pastey Irish donkeys to golden bears (Ross is more likely to become a red fox though). Little did I know but trying to apply sun lotion to your own back is quite difficult and I had missed a huge patch which was the equivalent to sunbathing with a A3 piece of paper set on my back and then cutting a handprint out of the middle. In order to cool off from the hard day’s work we had put in myself, Vancey and Ross decided to go for a nice cooling dip in the pool (note Cat was still in bed at the stage) and soon decided that the water was not doing the trick so we swam over to the poolside bar and consumed approximately 8 beers each. As you can imagine we were now suitably refreshed and the red block of ulster with white hand print on my back was providing most people by the pool bar something to laugh about except me. After making two new friends at the pool, Dave & Bex, we decided to have a traditional Xmas day evening playing drinking games, wearing BC (brothel creeper) shirts and having a Thai Curry.

The highlight of the meal was Vancey trying to impress his new friends by asking for a “Spicey Curry” the photo below shows the amount of sweat that poured from his forehead…needless to say we never saw Dave or Bex again.

Another highlight from Xmas day was the time old classic xmas day game of “Truth or Dare”. This was played to varying degrees of success, I picked a “truth” and had to smell everyone’s breathe and say who had the worse breath, Cat was chosen as the worthy winner. ST however had the best “Dare” he had to drink a drink while upside down. Ever happy to help vancey helped Ross into the handstand position and the kindly offered to pour straight vodka down his throat. You can imagine what happened next…. Ross falls to his feet after having vodka poured down his nose. Ross’s night ended at the point and he spent the next 3 hours in bed with a burning sinus. It was funny for everyone else though.

Boxing day….. I can’t really remember but I think we just chilled by the pool and then stumbled across a mile long beach which was 100 meters from the pool. This was despite being at the resort for 4 days and thinking it was crap that there was no beach nearby.

We then travelled to Ao Nang for New Year. Despite not having the best accommodation (we ended up moving to somewhere more central for the last three days) Rileay Beach and “hot Chick” beach (as coined by Ross) helped make it into a good experience. Highlight of our time in Ao nang had to be Ross doing a GAY tease strip show on a pole in a night club. If anyone is unsure whether to believe this story or not please ask Vancey for video evidence. After a few days we were joined by Maddog Billingsley, the first night was pretty messy, as is generally the case with Maddog. NYE was pretty quiet on a beach full of locals and a Thai band who were obviously trying to be the next Rage Against the Machine….FAIL! Our last day in Ao Nang we headed for a spot of White Water Rafting minus an ill Cat. This was great craic even though there was a few heart in the mouth moments.

After leaving Ao Nang we headed to Phi Phi island. This place is so beautiful but it was disheartening to see the amount of rubbish on the beaches and in the clear blue water….I blame the English. We managed to do a bit of sunbathing, visited a lovely long beach called “Long Beach” and Cat & Gareth got to do a spot of diving despite Gareth being sick and managing to chunder into his breathing apparatus. Maddog, ST and myself decided to go on a snorkelling boat trip which was actually just a boat trip with 5 minutes of snorkelling. The boat trip did however take us around Phi Phi Ley which is the smaller island where the film “The Beach” was filmed. The crystal water around the island was perfect however “the beach” was totally packed so it was difficult to appreciate. We also visited “Spider Monkey beach”… there was one monkey, I couldn’t even tell you if it was a spider monkey to be honest.

Well that’s me up to date. Tonight has been a pretty quiet one as Cat, Gareth and Ross all have caught some illness due to Cat Munro (Munro is an Irish name don’t you know) stroking every stray Pussy Cat she sees in the street and has obviously passed some feline disease onto the group. Next stop is Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand.

Not going to leave updating my blog for so long next…

Ok apologises about the delay but I have been very busy getting drunk and visiting many important socialising spots in Thailand since I got here. So to recap for anyone who hasn’t heard about my limited adventures so far…..

Well the trip got off to an excellent start as I was upgraded on my my 12 hour flight from London to Bangkok to Business Class (that’s just how I roll). This was pretty sweet as I got to lie down and sleep the whole way as well as having free booze and nice food…I pity anyone who flew cattle class from Dublin. Anyway after I arrived in Bangkok the balance was shortly restored as I was literally taken for a ride by the taxi driver and paid twice as much as I should of.

I eventually arrived at the lovely hotel in Bangkok which was sweet and thankfully despite my taxi drivers best attempts made it to happy hour in the hotel for 3 hours of free booze. This was a guiding factor of our time Bangkok for the next four days as nothing could be planned if it meant missing out on Happy hour at the hotel. Highlights of our time in Bangkok involved shouting out BC at anyone in the bar/hotel who had a floral printed shirt, dodgy moustache and slacks. BC stands for Brothel Creeper. The BC seemed to be restricted to Bangkok thankfully. Other highlights included going to the highest bar in Bangkok (the hotel where the hangover part 3 was filmed) and getting a bit drunk in the tourist part of Bankok (I can’t remember what it was called). Thankfully I kept the sensible head on and was sober the whole time……

After leaving Bangkok we travelled to Koh Lanta which is in the south of Thailand and involved a bit of travel on ferries, a plane and minibus. We arrived at the 5 star Spa resort called Crown Lanta on the 23rd…yes the 5 Star Spa resort. Needless to say it is amazing and we are having a great time so far. The only down side so far is that there is mainly families and honey mooners at the resort so I have had to explain that I am obviously way out of Ross’s league and that we are just friends and not in a civil partnership.

On Xmas eve Santa came early and allowed all the good children to open one xmas present early. Cat aka “barnie the Dinosaur” got what she always wanted a “slutty Miss Claus outfit”, Gareth aka “the grumpy elf” got what he always wanted too an authentic South pole Elf costume and stilts. Ross also had his xmas dream come true as he received a Gingerbread man outfit which was a perfect fit. Sadly ross got a wee bit grumpy about his present and this justified his position on Santa’s “I’m not sure if he is a good boy or a grumpy south pole elf” list. After sweating like beasts in the costumes we decided to get out of our work gear and return to our civilian clothing for the Xmas dinner. Strangely in Asia Xmas eve is the big day and Xmas day nothing happens…I suspect they don’t go to church either. We decided to make the most of the premature celebration of receiving gifts and had a successful night at the prize giving at Xmas eve party. Gareth cheated in the drinking competition and won two free Spa treatments while I came second on a technicality cause the dumb judge said I won even though I hadn’t finished so I obviously stopped (video footage will soon be uploaded). Cat won the girls drinking competition due to some dumbass competitors who didn’t start drinking until 10 seconds after they were meant to. And ross won the balloon blowing up competition…oh wait he came last!

Well that’s me pretty much up to date. Apologises for the delay but as I am sure a lot of you aware I have had to adjust to the time difference and drinking cultures of this strange land. Well I hope everyone has a Merry Xmas and a happy new year. I will upload more photos from our 4 star Spa Resort in the coming days...sorry I mean 5 star resort. i will be having a thai massga in a few hours and will be thinking of you all.

Peace out,

Dalers aka Santa Clause