wohooo, here are the pics!

A beach during the bike trip
idem, behind the hostel
Koh Tao, place where almost alone
Bouddha couché à Bangkok

Pleasant day and a little bit scary rip off

Yesterday I rented a bike to go arround in the small beaches of Koh Tao. I found really nice ones, even if I sometimes struggled a bit when the road became very uneven but then I could enjoy an incredibly hot walk to the beach, and enjoy even more a fresh drink. I had lunch in a very good (and cheap) restaurant. I founded really nice and relaxed places, and I really had a lot of fun driving the bike arround, getting some moving air along nice roads!



Then I had booked a "joint ticket", it's not for a smoke that makes you laughting, it's a ticket that's used for Taxi+boat+bus to take you where you have to go. It's suppose to be cheaper...
In order not to waste a day, I left with the night-boat at 21.00 yesterday night. The boat was OK, made out of wood and nicely rocking to get you asleep, I didn't see the super-sized cockroaches crowling on the roof so I slept all-right.

I arrived this morning in Surathani at 4.30, not 100% fresh mind.. Then thai travellers went on their own, and farangs like me were distributed among few tuk tuks. I was with two english guys going to a different destination. I was supposed to catch a bus at 5.30 in the monrning to carry on to Phuket but they first took us to a sort of bar and they said we had to wait till 7.30 for the bus. Well... 2h30 min waiting... nevermind. At 7 another tuk tuk came and took me to another bar without the two other english guys. Once I got there an Indian guy (that I found not nice right in the beggining) told me I had to pay again to go to Phuket, otherwise I would have to wait until 9.30. I didn't want to pay so after some negociations I said I'd wait, but I got a bit angry in the inside! Other people came and -thanks gos- an Australian couple ended up in the situation as me.

Then at 8.30 a minibus came, the driver talked with the Indian guy in thai and we finally get in, apparently to go to the bus. But after the 3 of us got in the car, the guy went back to the trunk and started doing stuff, till we understood he was probably taking a quick look in our bags! We started looking, he closed the trunk and we left. The guy drove arround the corner and actually got back to the place we were, talked again to the indian guy and we left again quickly. We -of course- started to worry and tryed to talk to the drive, but he seemed not to speak a word in english, and could only said, "10min, wait, 10min wait". After 5min wondering with the australian guy what was happening, we figured out the bus station was behind us and everything was going wrong. So I don't know where the driver was exactly taking us, but the australian asked in the very very very serious way to stop right where we were, and after few seconds trying ti argue, the driver did so.

Well, in the end we took a tuk tuk back to the city center and the bus station, bought another ticket, and arrived in Phuket at 4.30. I'm glad I wasn't alone! I only wasted some hours and 250B (7€), so it's not too bad. I think we've been very unlucky, and later on we actually heard that Surathani was famous for this sort of rip off. That's it!

Tonight I'm staying in a really nice place, nice staff, nice room, quiet, cheap internet, breakfast included, etc.. which i needed after 48h sweating without shower.

I'm trying to get some pics out of my phone.. but it doesn't work :-(

By the way:
-no need to worry mum and dad, I'm fine, it was just worth telling the rip off story!
-I said I had seen jingle on Kho Tao.. actually not, it was just tough forest :)

Koh Tao

To reply to this Swedish comment: the things I wouldn't eat are for exemple: huge amouts of pig nose, bugs (maybe this I'll try..), chily that you don't want to try ever again, all sort of small animals.. I forgot what others things I saw.


Well, here is a summary of my last 3 days:
I went from Hua Hin to Chumphon by bus early in the morning. I meet russian people again, but this time one of them spoke english a little bit. We shared the taxi and took the boat to Koh Tao. First my impression when we left the 'harbour', with no one on the beaches arround, was that I reached heaven. Then the boat was sort of empty. Then we arrived in Koh Tao, and there it was totally different. THe west cost, biggest one on the island from far, is almost only about buildings made out of conrete. People in the street are white people. The beach looks amazing but the water is actually very polluted. So I went further, again loosing at least 2L of water sweating. I finally found an old thai woman renting bungalows for a reasonable price. Well, it was OK.

Yesterday I decided to move out to the other side of island, but with my heavy bag I wanted to take a 'taxi'. After quite a search, I found two switz girls that accepted to share the taxi with me. Then 30min of incredible ride in the jingle, with quite a lot of moments where I thought the 4x4 would flip over on the roof. We finally ended up in a very nice place! We were alone with the owner of the place and her family, all thai. The water there was amazing so I snorkled (masque et tuba) for quite long, enjoying the colorful fishes and the corals. I even got attacked by a seagull that probably protected its nest, quite aggressive the beast! Moreover I felt very relaxed for my grant, it was good time.

I was planning to stay there for a couple of days. Unfortunatly the landlord tried to screw us quite a lot. She didn't say there wasn't water or electricity except between 23 and 5, when accpeted to run the engine cause the wires were broken up. Then she served a fish at night that was probably waiting in some petrol for a couple of weeks (humm hummm quite disgusting thing that was this fish ^^). So the two girls wanted to get back today and thus I did the same.

After some deep water jumping and snorcking, I headed back the main beach and I found back my nice bungalow with the old lady who quite smiled at me when she saw me back with my big backpack.

I think I'll spend tomorrow on the island, maybe walking to another isolated beach, but without my bag.

Sometimes it seems to be such a waste here that I feel guilty to be part of this tourism. This afternoon when I was looking for the internet coffee, I crossed a place where there was an open-air septic tank, awfully stinky. I could have puked there...
The worst is that some people don't even care or realise. And Thai people here, some are just bored and a bit hopeless (like my grandma bungalow owner a little bit), but some other seem to want to keep on going. I don't know if they are just blinded by money or what.

Well, that's not my state of mind 100% of the time, not at all, but it's scary sometimes.

I'll try to post some pics soon if I can.
Jérémie.

phd grant

I got my Phd grant! Just received a mail today! I'm super happy. I'm going in a place where I won't get the internet in the next day.
I'll write more afterwards!

Bye!

Southward

I'm in Hua Hin tonight. I missed the bus stop but I finally got back to the city by bike-taxi.
I'm staying in a Tek hostel, pretty nice one. Food is amazing, sea food specially here.
I'll go to Ko Tao tomorrow.
[I'm was expecting my phd grant today, so I hope tomorrow..]
Good night!

Getting alone tomorrow!

So Elsa and me spent the week end on Kho Samet. It's a small island, 3h30 by bus from Bangkok. It's a quite touristic place, cause all the people who spend only few days in Thailand in Bangkok can go there for the week end, like us. However, because of what happened with the red shirts, there is not much American or European tourists. I'm a bit lucky from this point of view. Hus it was mainly tourists from Asia, or the upper class of the Bangkok families who take a week end out of the city.
The island was nice and weather was obviously raelly hot. So I thought I shouldn't get in the sun and I wore a towel for the whole day, except when we went swiming twice.. well... it was enought to get sunburnt! (note to my sweet mother: it was the first and the last time here, I promise!).

Yesterday and today I travelled arround in Bangkok, after being annoyed by the irritated thai people in the touristic places, I got lost in few streets and markets, where thai always have their famous smile. I've been walking through food, flower, or whatever markets. There are damn big amount of evrything, including nice fruits but also some stuff I would never eat. I also visited some temples and museums.
Yesterday night we went to a restaurant with a thai couple that Elsa and another french girl knew from university, and I think tonight we'll go out with some french people that work here (sort of an expatriate ambience I guess).

Tomorrow I'll leave bangkok to go down to the south, towards the islands. I'm probably gonna go to Kho Tao. I'll try to dive and see by my own how it's going on on these island, between tourists attracted by heavenly beaches, amazing diving, 'end of the world' style, backpacker meetings, international/clubmed parties, etc etc..

I'm quite tired, I guess it's because of the climat and maybe still a little bit because of the jet-lag. I hope it'll get better when I'll be relaxing in the south, out of the stuffy but pretty amazing atmosphere of Bangkok.

I'll try to post some pics next time, but I don't take many anyway, I feel too weird about taking pictures of the people when they see me.

I'll keep you posted.

D+1

Here it is, sweat, sweat, air conditionned, sweat, sweat, sweat, air conditionned so that I'm almost cold, sweat, humm sweat again... ahh night is coming, maybe it'll get a little bit fresher, actually no so sweat, sweat and sweat.

It's pretty hot and wet and polluted here. The air is so thick that you feel like you can touch it.
After a long non-spleepy journey, I arrive in Bangkok on time, get my luguage, talk and laught with the taxi driver (that I thought he was speaking thai to me, but actually it was just his english which was with a strong accent!). I reach the university, find elsa after a couple of student kindly showing me the way, and my day starts.
From Chinatown where you hear "falang, falang" (which means "white stranger") all the time, to the most touristic place in Khaosan, to a nice restaurant, going through the heavy traffic, avoiding the cockroach (les cafards) in the toilets (bigger than my thumb these bastards!), meeting some exchange students who are living here for a year, gettings beers and heading back to Elsa's place in Taxi with a sudden and very heavy rain. That's it, only few hours here but I'm already quite into it.

Tomorrow we're going to a close beach for the week end (Kho Samuet), so I should eventually get some sleep in order to wake up early.

Good night!