Our Honeymoon

I haven’t done a blog post in ages because work got really busy and although it’s still fun here, I stopped doing exciting things – or at least I stopped taking my camera to all the exciting things I was doing. With our honeymoon coming up, I knew I couldn’t just rely on my phone to take photos so Hannah and I bought ourselves a go pro for Christmas. I got very excited about using it on holiday and I didn’t realise how much I loved the sound of my own voice until I started commentating on everything we were doing. Hannah had to have a quiet word to put an end to this as it was pretty annoying! For the honeymoon itself, we went to Krabi and spent a week in Ao Nang, followed by a couple of nights in Phi Phi then 4 nights in Koh Lanta and finally one night in Krabi town. As the camera was new, I decided to try and film most things on it and loved the fact it could go underwater. For this reason, I really overused it and came back with a lot of videos which are very dull and very boring. I tried uploading them so everyone could enjoy 12 minutes of me arsing about with a camera on my head, but only managed to upload one video before I got bored of it all. Hannah made a lovely video which is properly edited and is played along to music so give her an email if you want to see the “best bits” (which are still pretty dull). We got into Krabi in the evening and got a taxi to Ao Nang and our hotel – the Phra Nang Inn Hotel. It was lovely, had a couple of pools and was right by the beach. That evening, we went for a low key meal then got an early night ready for the next day. The first day we decided to explore around Ao Nang and the beach. This mainly involved me being annoying with the camera and Hannah trying to swim away from me. In hindsight I was a little over excited but we had an awesome time and I couldn’t believe how nice the beach was. We had some lovely food for dinner and got a massage from our hotel which was nice! This is a video of us having fun at the beach in Ao Nang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKxqp3Wgv6U&list=UU4DMHx3LITZrhZFiMc1KjUg Then we had an early night ready for… Our Hong Island trip! We got a speedboat over to a cool island and were told it might be too shallow to swim. We decided to give it a go, but it turned out that it really was too shallow and Hannah hurt her feet on the sharp rocks. Still it was a cool place to take some photos! Then we went to somewhere called Paradise Beach. It was beautiful and I had my first proper go at snorkelling. Being all excited about the go pro, I strapped it to my head to see underwater. Unfortunately, I didn’t really look down enough for it to stay underwater. At one point, a nice French sounding couple said they’d seen a big fish and called us over. As we went over to have a look, they said it was under a rock a bit further down. I looked into the water to see and just managed to see our go pro falling down off my head. I grabbed at it but it went too quickly to catch. Luckily it landed on a rock about 3m below the water. Feeling like I had to rectify my problem, I dived under to go and get it. On the way down my ear burst (I’ve got dodgy ears so this is really quite painful for me) but determined, I swam further down. I saw the camera on the ledge, narrowly avoiding a much deeper part of the sea. I swam over to get it and saw the fish the French couple had told us about. It wasn’t a fish though, I later found out it was a Moray Eel. I swam near it and saw it looked pretty grumpy and like one of those fishes you see on nature documentaries which is always bullying other fish. I decided to go on up to the surface, think it over and go back with a plan. When I went up, as I wasn’t used to snorkelling, I swallowed some sea water and felt really sick and my ear was really painful. I waddled back to shore, only just missing out on stepping on long spined sea urchins which I later found out have slightly poisonous spines which dissolve in your foot if you step on them. Here is a video of us snorkelling. I had to speed it up a lot and it's really dull. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjByc3XDvyc&list=UU4DMHx3LITZrhZFiMc1KjUg I later found out that Moray Eels are notoriously bad tempered, and I watched a video of a man getting his thumb bitten off by one! I didn’t get any man points for losing the camera, then failing to retrieve it, but thankfully the French guy was a lot better than me at going underwater and managed to get the camera back with a stick, so the day wasn’t ruined! We then went to another bay where we did some more relaxed snorkelling. I attached the go pro to my head a little better and stayed clear of any deep looking bits. We then went back to the hotel, had a nice meal out then went out for a drink. Hannah was all keen for getting a bucket of long island iced tea and going mental, but I really wanted to see some ladyboys so I dragged her along to a cabaret. Much to my surprise, there were children in the audience and then began the weirdest hour I have ever seen. I basically spent a tenner to watch men strap their bits up, dress like women then dance around to cabaret songs. They didn’t sing – they just mimed. The worst bit was though, some of them looked pretty decent (although some of them looked like blokes in drag). I kept the beer in my hand as affirmation of how hetro and manly I was then tried to make sense of what I had seen after the show. The next day however we went… Rock Climbing! So on Wednesday we went to Railay beach to go rock climbing. It’s meant to be great for rock climbing and we booked a full day of it. When we got there, we met our guide who was really friendly and he took us to some of the climbs. He taught us how to stay safe and to use our legs a bit more. We had the great idea of wearing the go pro as we climbed, but the videos are a bit crap – still it’s a nice view from the top! We both managed to climb the easy one, then a cool one called King Cobra. We got most of the way up a taller one too. Then our instructor decided to give us one with a massive overhang at the beginning. It was mental and we couldn’t even make it onto the rock let alone up it. At this point we stopped for lunch. At lunch we found that our arms were pretty much dead from all the climbing. In the future, I’d recommend only doing a half a day unless you are hardcore as the afternoon was a lot harder. We both managed a couple of climbs, but towards the end of the day, both of us were just unable to grip so had to come down from the climbs. Still, it was a great day and a beautiful place to go climbing. Oh I just need to add, there was a climb near the end where there was a small overhang. Hannah beasted it on her 3rd or 4th attempt. When I had a go I couldn’t get up it, which I took as proof that she was stronger than me. When we got back to the room that night I did some pressups to try and feel manly again but it didn’t work. On Thursday we had a relaxing day at Railay Beach. We got a longtail boat over and just relaxed. The beach was beautiful although there were a lot of signs up advertising a shooting range, where you could shoot a shotgun and a sniper rifle. If seemed pretty ridiculous so I had to persuade Hannah not to go – she was a little bit grumpy but overall was ok with it. That evening we went for a nice Indian meal out. It was delicious, but it mucked us both up pretty badly. We had no idea as we went to bed that tomorrow would be forever known as… The Purge. On Friday, Hannah was ill through the night then we were both ill all day. It was a brutal day and not one I’d ever like to repeat. On the plus side though, I did feel more confident when I went topless to go swimming, so every cloud… On Saturday, we booked a full day tour. We started off going to the tiger temple, which as far as I can see has nothing to do with tigers. We walked an impressive 1,237 steps (some were as high as my knee). We made it up and got some water at the bottom. A monkey tried to steal mine, but I punched it and it let go. (not really). My legs would shake uncontrollably when I stood still because of the massive climb, it was pretty embarrassing and again made me wish I’d been to the gym a bit more before we’d left. After the tiger temple we went to an elephant sanctuary and got to ride an elephant! I think it was ethically pretty suspect, but it was cool because we were on an elephant! I didn’t realise how bumpy the ride would be and Hannah didn’t feel too good. After riding it, we also got to feed the elephants and saw a baby elephant doing some tricks. I thought that the elephant must have been treated pretty poorly to get it to do the tricks, so was happy to see that when they gave it a basket (to walk around us tourists and collect tips), the elephant walked past everyone, dropped the basket and ran off into the forest! We made some new friends as well! There was a couple from Russia who were on the tour with us and on the elephant in front of us. As we couldn't get good photos of us on the elephant, they took some pictures for us and we took some pictures of them. We exchanged email addresses so we could email each other the photos and that was the end of that... Or so I thought! We ended up sat next to them at lunch and made awkward conversation. After this was the emerald pool, which was like a big, natural outdoor swimming pool. It didn’t look all that emeraldy, but the photos make it look pretty cool. The sides were really slippery so I filmed Hannah trying to get out. Then it started to rain but we were already wet so it was all good – it actually looked pretty cool! After this, we went to some hot springs. These were awesome, they were like natural baths carved out of the rock in the earth, and flowing through was some hot water (like hot bath type of warm). It was really weird but very relaxing. When we got back to Ao Nang, because of the food poisoning, we got a McDonalds and felt very ashamed of ourselves. On the way home we stopped and looked at the beautiful sea in the moonlight. Then saw a young boy do a poo in the sand then ran around naked for a little bit before washing his arse off in the sea. Lovely! On Sunday we got the ferry boat to Phi Phi. We were sat down, talking and then I feel a hand on my shoulder. It's the Russian couple, they just so happen to be getting the same ferry to Phi Phi as us. They asked what we were doing in Phi Phi and I told them that we'd probably just chill out and go kayaking. Then the guy starts talking about us both going around the different places that offer kayaking and try to find the best deal. I think he wanted to rent kayaks with us and all go kayaking together. They were on their honeymoon too, and I was a little surprised at his stinginess. It was only around £2 difference to rent out the kayaks from the cheap ones, and I had planned to rent it from our hotel. Anyway, being British, I didn't say any of this as we politely agreed to let them know the cheapest quote we found on a kayak. Another weird incident on the ferry was at one point there was a baby crying, then an American sounding guy sat in front of us stood up and left saying (quite loudly) “I can’t handle this shit”. I just felt sorry for his poor wife who was still sat there looking mildly embarrassed. When we got to our hotel, it was so cool! our hotel had a private beach and all of the rooms were spread out in the jungley trees. We had quite a nice room so mozzies weren’t an issue. We started off by sitting and enjoying the beach. A cat came over to greet us but then did a wet and very smelly poo right in front of us. It dug it down under the sand but I knew it was there… We had dinner at the hotel that night, but unfortunately it made Hannah ill again so she was bed-bound for most of our time there…. I on the other hand had a lovely time, I went into town (to get medicine in my defence) and came back along the rocks at the shoreline and saw a load of crabs. On my way to town though, I ran into our Russian counterparts and awkwardly explained that we hadn't gone kayaking in the end as Hannah was ill. They kindly showed me where the pharmacy was in town and talked about their negative experience of the island so far. I on the other hand was having a great time! On our last day in Phi Phi Hannah felt a little bit better so we went down to Long Beach and went swimming and sun bathing. It was very cool, then we got the ferry to: Koh Lanta. Koh Lanta was probably my favourite place of all the islands. When we got there, our hotel was pretty basic, but comfortable, but the lady who ran it (Mama Nong) was very friendly. As everything was pretty much along one big road, we hired a scooter and headed down to Old Town. This was a lovely place because it was a bit more relaxed. We had some cake and coffee in a nice café and played some Hello Kitty Uno. The next day we just scooted around the island and had a lovely dinner. Christmas day was a bit weird because it was my first one away from home. We opened some wonderful gifts from Hannah’s granny (Thank you!!) and then we went to meet our friends from KL who also happened to be on holiday there. It rained a lot on Koh Lanta but that didn’t stop us from going out and enjoying ourselves! We were caught out in heavy rain whilst out on the scooter and we both got soaked. When we got back to the hotel we decided to go for a swim though – it was good fun and nice being able to go swimming in the rain because it wasn’t too cold or anything! Before we left Koh Lanta we went to see the animal welfare centre and hung out with some cute kittens and some lovely dogs. They do some great work there, so we considered adopting one of the dogs and sending them to live with my mum. Unfortunately you need to fill in paper work so we settled for cuddling kittens. The next day we went on the ferry to Krabi town. Hannah was so tired she fell asleep and I couldn’t resist the urge to take a couple of selfies! In the guidebook, it said Krabi town was more authentic than other places, although I thought it was just a bit crap. It was quite nothingy and you still got heckled by people trying to sell you things “taxi taxi taxi taxi taxi” We saw a really cool temple which we weren’t allowed inside but it was really calm and peaceful around the grounds. We had a delicious Italian dinner then had an early night ready for our flight home. When we got back, due to all the days in bed due to food poisoning and the fact that Thailand is quite cheap, we had quite a bit of money left over, so we went on a shopping trip. I got some new clothes and some nice shampoo which I think is fair compensation for a horrible day spent in bed on my honeymoon.