Adventure Tour

Sunday February 17th

The breakfasts here cost more than the dinners. Well come to think of it, it was that way in Bangkok as well, but the gap is more noticeable here. In fact in Phuket everything costs more. Most things seem to be about twice as expensive as in Bangkok, and apparently its still high season so accomodation is slightly higher again. I think 3 days here would cost the same as a week in Khao San road.

Anyway the reason for the breakfast was because today I was going on an island tour. I figured a tour would be the best way to see a large part of the island in a single go. When I went to book it the previous night the only one available was an adventure tour, so I went on it. I'm not really sure what was so adventurous about most of what we did, but it was still enjoyable.

The format of the tours seems to be slightly different here, they pick you up from your hotel, so the start is a lot better organised. And they only have one mini van load of passengers so they have 9 in total on the trip. In this case there were 3 French couples, a couple from Singapore and myself. The couple from Singapore were just here for the weekend, its only just over an hour by plane so its a nice weekend destination for them, and I think the French weren't backpackers, I think they were on a Phuket only holiday. It was a bit hard because they wouldn't talk to anyone in English, but myself and the guy from Singapore had a good chat. His wife didn't speak English either.

The adventure began with some All Terrain Vehicle driving. An advantage of being a single person on this tour was I got my own vehicle to drive while all the others had to double up. It was OK, but the track we went on had been driven on by so many at this stage that it wasn't really off-road any more. And I guess I was possibly breaking the law by driving it on the public road for the bit that we had to do, but nobody ever seemed to ask did I have a licence, so maybe these don't actually need a licence.

After the ATV driving we had some Elephant Trekking, which wasn't really that long, and some animal displays, monkeys and elephants playing basketball, although not against each other. To be honest they weren't that great, but the zoo type facility in which we were getting these had only opened 15 days ago so I think they were still working on their routines.

There was no lunch provided on the tour, hence the big breakfast, but there was a stop at a coffee shop for a free soft drink. Proving the adage there is no such thing as a free lunch we had to get to our free drink by negotiating our way through a giant duty free gift shop. Needless to say I didn't actually buy anything.

The final bits of our tour included doing some sea kayaking around a mangrove swamp, and then a jungle trek up to see a waterfall. These were pretty OK, like everything else they lasted about half an hour only. Its a bit short, but you are doing 6 things in a 5 hour tour, so its obvious really that these things are not going to be that long.

Or is it? Apparently not to the French who spent a large portion of the time complaining that things weren't long enough, or that they weren't stopping for lunch, as advertised. They also refused to follow saftey instructions, taking off their helmets, going past the markers in the canoes and so on. I guess they were about 30 or so, but our tour guide kept referring to them as teenagers, and it was an apt description.

Which brings me to a point made in an email by a reader who asked why don't I blog more about the interesting people I meet. The answer is I do mention the interesting ones, the problem is that a large portion of the ones I meet aren't very interesting. Some of the backpackers are quite young, mostly from England and Australia, and are to put it mildly, quite ignorant of where they are. You know the sort of thing, how come it takes so long to get to Phuket, they look so close on the map. Or I wonder if there is any way of knowing how hot it is going to be there (yes look at a weather forecast on the internet). Or my favourite, because I've seen it on every trip so far, I wonder how far it is until we get to xxx. Look out the window, there are signs, in English, pretty much every kilometer.

The Irish that I have met do tend to be a bit older, and have a bit more cop on. Also we tend to be more likely to do the round the world trip, I find a lot of the British and Australians are only coming to Thailand. The other nationalities seem to be fine though, but there are so many British and Aussies around that they do tend to be the ones you meet.

Speaking of Irish I did meet with some that evening while out drinking. 2 brothers and the girlfriend of one of them. Almost neighbours from home, being from North Dublin as well. I actually can't remember their names though. They were doing a round the world, but in the other direction, and were nearly at the end of it. They had just come from Vietnam, and skipped Cambodia, so we filled each other in on what was missed. Apparently they had found out that the Vietnamese hate the Cambodians, and when they mentioned it I did recall that my tuk-tuk driver over there had mentioned how he hated the Vietnamese. I guess you always hate your neighbours (see my comments about the British above).

Even though it is a sleazy mess, you still end up drinking here on BangLa road where all the strip clubs are. Most other parts of the resort seem to close by midnight, so its the only place really to go at that time. Luckily there are some bars where you don't get pestered by the Thai women so it is possible to relax there.