Khao Sok National park

On our way to Khao Sok we met a fellow biker Kevin who was on a short trip round Asia on his Christmas break from University. We met him in Krabi and decided over dinner that we should ride together, so the following day we headed north only getting to ride a short distance together before parting ways. It was good to have someone else to ride with and we hope to get to do it again along the trip. After saying our good byes we had to make a quick detour to Phuket to pick up our passports which contained our visa for Pakistan. The main road north was nothing out of the ordinary, just your usual mad car drivers who care little for anyone else on the road. Once we pulled off of the main drag the following 40+ km's made for a great ride with less traffic and beautiful scenery. We pulled down into the main small village in Khao Sok to find a place to stay and came across a great little place by the river with really cheap bungalows and a good bbq dinner was to follow. The next day we went off hiking to see if we could find ourselves a wild elephant or maybe a Gibbon or two. All we manged to do was hike about 16km's and see nothing, well no animals anyway. The place is beautiful with not many people but the animals didn't want to play the game with us this day. So feeling exhausted after our first real exercise in quite a while we made our way back to camp for a cold beer and a wash. On finishing up in the bathroom we were given a massive surprise when our friends we were on our way to visit, rocked up on our doorstep. So we now had an escort to Ranong and then onto Koh Phayam.

 

Can anyone please explain?

Kevin and me before we parted ways

 Lookout over Khao Sok NP

Our humble bungalow, a bargain at 200 baht a night

It was a shame we didn't see any elephants nor any wildlife

Our good friends Joey, Enzo and Ricci

Koh Phi Phi

We went to Koh Phi Phi to see this spectacular island that is pictured on so many postcards and tourism posters of Thailand and was where the movie The Beach was filmed. Well, it is a beautiful place and it would have been nice to have seen it the way it looks in photos, instead we saw the bay lined with boats and the beach overflowing with tourists. There is obviously no regulation when it comes to the amount of people and tour operators who can go here and it kind of ruins it for everyone as no one is really getting to see the picture perfect beach they came to see. A bit of a shame but we had been warned by locals beforehand. 

We did do some snorkeling around the island which was actually pretty good. Although again the corals here were badly bleached, the water was crystal clear with lots of fish.

Maya Bay with all the tour boats lined up!

 Our boat

Crystal clear water

Bird's nest harvesting for bird's nest soup - a delicacy in China

Hungry monkey

Getting ready to go in for a snorkel

Emerald Cave

We decided to go on a trip of 4 islands while on Koh Lanta. We did some snorkelling on the badly bleached reefs but the best part was visiting Emerald Cave on Ko Mook. The cave entrance is a small passage on the island's western side that is accessible only during low tide. The cave itself winds for about 80 meters to the other exit, opening onto a clean white beach with an emerald color open pool which is surrounded by high cliffs. We followed our guide and swam through the cave, at one point in complete darkness, until we reached the lagoon which was stunning except it was full of tourists! That seems to be the way it is in Thailand though, very few places are undiscovered by mass tourism. Nevertheless it was beautiful and we spent some time inside before making our way back out of the cave trying to follow the guide's torchlight through the darkness.

Everywhere you look limestone cliffs shoot out of the ocean

Emerald Cave

Aboard the Longtail boat

In front of our guesthouse

Koh Lanta

Getting to Koh Lanta was super cheap - the barge cost us less than $1 each and we could bring the bikes. From Hua Hin we crossed to the island and spent the next 6 days there. We found a cheap place to stay on the beach in a very simple bungalow. We usually look for the most run down looking places as they usually suit our limited budget the best. Koh Lanta is a pretty little island full of lush forest and white sandy beaches. The second day we were there Mark came off his bike going around a bend. Luckily nothing serious happened but he did have a nice bloody leg to show for it as he was only wearing shorts. It's so easy to fall into that relaxed island way of life and forget about protecting yourself, and then something like that happens and you're reminded again why it's so important to cover up.
While we were there we did a couple of day trips out to Koh Phi Phi and some other islands and otherwise just spent the time chillin' on the beach which is not a bad way of life really :)
One day we went to check out the local non-profit organisation Lanta Animal Welfare. LAW’s objective is to relieve the suffering and pain of the animals on the island through sterilisation and care. We took a couple of dogs out for a walk while we we there.
While we here we got the good news from home that we had been granted our Pakistan visas after only 1 week! That was extremely quick, we had expected it to take at least 1 month. On top of that they gave us a three month visa which is more than we need but not complaining! So we celebrated with a cold Chang beer on the beach.
We really enjoyed our time here and was sad leaving the place, but I'm sure it won't be the last nice beach in Thailand.

On the barge going to Koh Lanta

  Koh Lanta

Our home at Koh Lanta - Charlee Barleys

Our very humble abode

 

That's what happens kids, when you ride a motorbike in shorts

Dog walking

 Rubber tree

 Celebrating getting our Pakistan visas

Entering Thailand

We rode to the Thai border crossing with our 2 month visa in our pocket but unsure of how long an import permit we would get for the bikes. From what we had heard no one gets more than 1 month which would mean that we would have to do a visa run after 1 month to get another month's permit for the bikes. Well, we needn't have worried; we got 6 months which is totally unheard of! The customs guys must have had a good day! 6 months was way more than we needed, we would have been happy with 2 months but we sure didn't complain. We needed the longer permit mainly because of this; in order to get our Pakistan visa we would have to send our passports back to Australia as no one can get Pakistan visas outside of their home country anymore (new rules). We didn't particularly like the idea of saying goodbye to our passports but if we didn't do this there was no way we would be able to enter Pakistan and this would be a barrier to our overland route. To send it via regular post was out of the question so we looked for a Fedex office, the closest one being in Phuket, approx. 600 km north of the border. Although there was plenty of places we would like to check out in between we thought it better to ride straight to Phuket and get the passports and visa applications Fedex'd ASAP. We did have a few stops on the way there, first one being Songkhla on the east coast where we spent a couple of days to fill out the visa forms and also to service the bikes. We found a bike mechanic who let us use his garage to do this.
After Songkhla we headed over to the west coast and spent a couple of days making our way up to Phuket. We rode into Phuket on the Monday and with relative ease found the Fedex office and said bye bye to our passports with fingers crossed that we would see them again! We then headed to the beach area of Ao Karon where we checked into a guesthouse and went out to see what Phuket had to offer. The answer to that would be Tourism Hell! It is basically one big resort with not much authentic Thai culture anywhere (unless you count the 'hostess bars' (of which there are hundreds) as authentic. There was a surprisingly huge number of Russians here, so much so that every other sign would be spelled in Thai and Russian. Maybe the Russian mafia runs brothels? Scandinavian bars were also plentiful with many restaurants claiming to serve homemade Swedish cuisine... It was all a bit tacky really and not a place we wanted to hang around for long. The beaches there were actually quite nice but the problem was you could barely see the sand for deckchairs and tourists. We stayed two nights and then started making our way down south again to the islands of the Krabi region.

Songkhla

Doing an oil change on the bike

 They call me Crazy Cat Lady

Sunset at Pekbara

Packing up the bikes in Krabi

 Phuket beaches

Heading back south again