Getting High in Bangkok

Upon arriving in Bangkok I was starting to feel a little under the weather... I checked into a hostel with Luke to just chill out and recover for a few days after a pretty full-on past month.

I went shopping; had my phone fixed finally after dropping it in Vietnam almost three months earlier. I went to the cinema. I watched Wimbledon.

Luke was meeting up with his girlfriend in a couple days and our time traveling together was coming to an end so we decided to go check out the tallest building in Thailand - the 84 storey Baiyoke Sky Tower.

The quickest way to get there was from a BTS skytrain stop and walking along the abandoned railway tracks, which are surrounded by small slum-like sheds that people lived in.

We got to the base of the building and it was packed out - all of a sudden there were near on 100 Asian tourists. We paid our 400 baht entry fee and ascended to the 75th floor observation area. We just missed sunset.

Our ticket to the top included a free cocktail in the 76th floor bar - not too shabby!

From here we went up to the revolving outdoor skydeck to take in a full 360 degree view of Bangkok in its entirety. It is impressive to say the least.

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After Luke had pissed off I had a few days left before my flight to Sabah, Malaysian-Borneo. I wasn't feeling all that motivated to travel to a new city for a few days so decided to check back in to one of the first hostels in Thailand I stayed in - Bodega Bangkok.

I rocked up and quickly recognised the bearded face of one of the brother-owners. "How's your travels?" he asked. Shocked, he remembered my stay there from way back in early March.

I spent the next three nights back at what would have to be one of my favourite hostels in Thailand. The social atmosphere made it easy to quickly make new friends with those staying there.

I managed to convince a few of the guys from the hostel - two London blokes, another pommie bird and an American dude from San Fran - to join me on the only thing left in Bangkok I wanted to see... the infamous Ghost Tower. 

The Sathorn Unique Tower is a skyscraper that began construction in 1990 ... and to this date was never finished. A financial crisis in 1997 halted construction at about the 80% mark and the building has not been sold, demolished or completed ever since. 

As it is still owned by someone, security are paid to watch the building around the clock. 500 baht however, will make them look the other way.

Entering off a dodgy little alley way, a Thai guard opens a cutout in the fence and lets us in. Speaking to the man in charge, we each hand over 500 baht and they show us to the staircase and tell us to be back in two hours.

We arrived just after dark - not ideal but still very cool; no one else was in the stairwell or on any of the floors.

The stairwell is lit by a hanging fluro every few floors, but most of the light is from flashlight. Previous adventurers had graffiti-ed eerie slogans on a few of the floors...

Others went for the more arty approach...

As you ascend, you can see the level of development on the floors diminish. Lower down the tower there are bathroom fittings and balcony's ... the higher up you get more sacks of concrete and raw building materials.

Eventually we reached the top of the building, 50 floors up. Walking out what looks like a crypt we emerge out into the open air roof of the building...

The walls on the roof are littered with more graffiti - people making their mark on this surreal structure.

I bought up a backpack with a couple beers, to sit and relax after the long sweaty hike to the top and take in the sights of Bangkok.

On the way down we explored more of the building. One room was filled with bathtubs that were never fitted...

Others simply more graffiti...

And others a little more disturbing...

From what I am told the building gets it nickname Ghost Tower from the fact that a tourist hung himself here a few years back.

All aside, it was an awesome adventure hiking to the top of a derelict building in Bangkok!

The Last of the North

I ended up spending four nights in Pai before heading back to Chiang Mai. Pai is known as being a relaxed hippy town with a good backpacker vibe; the reputation didnt disappoint.

I stayed at a hostel called Spicypai (one of a few hostels run by the some blokes), and the place was great. Situated a couple kilometres from the city centre, adorned by rice paddies and bungalow huts, it was a great place to relax - just what I needed after three days riding.

Most days were spent lazing about on the hammocks and nights having a few drinks with people we met along the way. Pai is interesting because most people from Chiang Mai head up there; I caught up with people I'd met on both Koh Tao and Chiang Mai earlier.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos but one of the days a group from the hostel headed out to a nearby natural hot spring. We bathed in naturally warmed water for a couple hours - a great change from the rainy weather we rode there with!

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We rode back to Chiang Mai via Wat Doi Suthep; a famous temple situated on a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai, a few kilometres out of the city.

I've seen a bunch of temples already so it wasn't all that interesting, but damn the ride up there was good. Smooth uphill roads with tight corners to get a bit of lean on the bike going - great fun!

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We spent one more night in Chiang Mai before catching a local bus the next morning to Chiang Rai - the closest town to the Laos border.

Chiang Rai is known for its White Temple, a privately owned art exhibit built in the style of a Buddhist temple. It had a strange vibe to it; very dark and disturbing, but given its Buddhist appearance it was a weird mix.

Inside the main temple was a huge art mural adorning the walls, featuring a lot of pop-culture characters as well as some interesting metaphors, as seen below...

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From Chiang Rai we caught a local bus to Chiang Khong, the border town to Laos on the Mekong river.

The bus dropped us out the front of a tuk tuk lineup where you pay $2aud each to get to the border control centre.

From here get checked out of Thailand through immigration. You then pay another $1aud to get across no-mans-land and the Thailand-Laos Friendship Bridge and arrive at the Laos immigration control. ~$50aud and you organise your on-arrival visa and you're through into Laos! It was by far the easiest border crossing I had done to date - no scams, all set prices and no hustling!

Luke, Will and I spent the night in the border town of Houay Xai, situated right on the Mekong river, from which you can look across and see Thailand. This was the gateway for the Gibbon Experience ... more on that to come!

(Big) Cats and Curry

After leaving Koh Tao I spent one more night in Bangkok - so that I could go see Jurassic World in 4D... totally worth it!

I also wandered around the shopping mall where the cinema was. They had a gourmet market supermarket which was very very fancy; check out what they sold!

Needless to say I bought a Pale.

The next day I boarded my night train for Chiang Mai. The night train takes around 14 hours, but has sleeper compartments and is actually quite nice. The ride was a little rough but I generally got a pretty decent sleep.

On the train, by total coincidence, Luke and Will whom I met diving in KT a few days earlier, where in the same carriage just a few compartments down. They decided to check into the same hostel.

The boys were keen to check out the Tiger Kingdom. I wasn't all that excited based on what I'd heard about poor treatment of the tigers but between doing nothing and going out I decided to tag along. We hired scooters and made our way out there.

We paid the 450 baht ($18aud) to get up close with the big tigers. Once we entered the zoo, we saw a keeper trying to get a few tigers to jump at a branch...

My initial thought was about how big they were - you could almost feel a thud as they hit the ground!

From here we entered the cage. We were invited to lay next to one of the female tigers for a photo - I obliged. 

At one point I was watching one of the tigers and turned around to see this right behind me, to my surprise!

To be completely honest, I'm unsure of how well the tigers in this place had been treated; it wasn't like the big pens back home that they were living in. Admittedly, it was good to see tigers up close and get an appreciation for how massively powerful they are!

From here we rode a little further up the road to check out the waterfall a little up the road. Unfortunately it was nothing all that special - I've seen way too many amazing waterfalls in Vietnam!

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The next day I locked in for a Thai cooking class! 

I was picked up at 9am and taken by songthaew to the cooking school. The group was sat down and explained how the day would be run. We got to chose around about five choices of each a soup, a curry, a stir fry, an appetiser and a dessert. 

We then jumped back on the songthaew and were taken to a local market to purchase the goods needed for our dishes and a chance to wander around and check out their wares.

We had explained to use the different varieties of Thai local produce that is commonly used in Thai dishes - different herbs, ginger, spices etc. 

After getting back to the school, we were taken back to the cooking area to prepare our first dish - the soup. I chose a tom yum seafood dish, a spicy soup with shrimp. 

It consisted of a mix of chilli, lemongrass, ginger, chilli paste and a few other ingredients - the end result, incredible! It was a great sense of achievement to eat a great tasting Thai dish that I had prepared, albeit with a lot of help!

Next up was the green curry and pad thai. We first began by making the curry paste by mashing the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle, with the end result looking like below.

After slicing the chillies, eggplant, shallots and lime leaves as instructed, we moved on to the cooking benches to prepare the dish.

The end result, once more, was fantastic!

After demolishing the green curry and pad thai it was time to make the spring rolls. Once more we started by preparing the ingredients, then frying them, and then wrapping and frying the rolls. 

Finally we finished with mango sticky rice. Unfortunately this one we didnt really make ourselves, just watched the chefs do it while they told us what they were doing. It tasted pretty good though!

After a chill day not doing a whole lot I organised my transport for the next week ... a Honda CRF250 motard, ready to begin the 650km trek around the Mae Hong Son loop! More on that to come...

Back to the Depths

Bangkok was just a one night stop over before beelining for Koh Tao for some more diving.

I hopped on a night bus and early morning ferry and was back in Koh Tao. The bus was the Thai style sleeper - reclining seats. Luckily the bus was very empty and I was able to stretch out across four seats...

I checked into a hostel I had been recommended on my last visit but never made it to - Taco Shack. This is a small hostel run by a couple American blokes and has a very good atmosphere. Upon walking in I was greeted by my new room-mates and ended up heading to the beach with them after a late breakfast together.

We went to Freedom beach on the south of the island, relaxed in the burning hot water (it was like bath water), and climbed to the view point.

We finished the night with a bit of a party in the dorm - drinking, music, card games - before heading out for a night I don't remember...

The next day a few of us headed to the beach, I booked in diving starting the next day before heading back for my last night at Taco Shack. It was much the same as the previous night, except this time we crashed the Koh Tao Pub Crawl.

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At 10am I was picked up by one of the guys from Mojo's and taken over to the dive shop. Sairee Beach and Mae Haad (where the pier is) are not exactly close - it's a good twenty minute walk. 

I checked back into the Lucky House - Mojo's provided accommodation where I had stayed a few nights on my last visit, and that afternoon I was off diving!

I decided to ease back into it with a couple of fun dives before starting the course, and thank fuck I did. My first dive was horrible - troubles equalising, breathing very heavily, just generally not relaxed.

What is crazy though is how the water temperature has changed. Back in March when I did the open water everyone was wearing a wetsuit. Now in June, the water temperature is around 32 degrees - no need for a suit!

The second dive was a little better; the decent was a lot easier and I was able to see more, including a sea snake!

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The next day I started the advanced open water course. I met Mahdi, my instructor from Palestine, and Mirrin, my Dutch dive buddy also completing the course. We began with basics on how to use an underwater compass and dive computer, had a quick break for lunch and we were off for the boat.

The first dive focussed on underwater navigation. After descending, we were told to stop and take note of a patch of coral, and the direction we had come from the boat. 

We swam along the coral beach and came to a more empty patch where we had to swim straight on the same bearing and same depth, turn around and come back. Not too difficult. Next we had to swim out and swim in a square, counting kicks for distance. This was a little harder but I roughly ended up back where I started!

The second dive was a lot more fun. We went to the Buoyancy World dive site - a set of man made obstacles used to teach new divers underwater control. 

One of these obstacles was a set of of steel boxes that we had to negotiate. Viewed from the side, it looked like the diagram below, with the blue line the path through it.

What I learnt is just how much your breath impacts your position in the water. Once neutrally buoyant using the BC vest, simply taking a big breath in is enough to float you up a metre or so, likewise to descend, a big exhale is enough to drop you down. This test was done entirely using your lungs ... crazy!

From here we swam through the Rocktopus to further test our buoyancy skills. 

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The following day we were set to do an early morning dive at 6am. Everyone walked down to beach and looked around - no boat. We waited, sent the longtail out to look, no luck. As it turned out the boat was parked on the other side of the island due to bad weather conditions overnight - where there isnt any cell reception... and the boat was out of action due to a rope being caught in the propeller!

To make up to us, the school took us out for coffee and breakfast, and gave us two free fun dives that afternoon - not exactly complaining there!

I went out once more with Paola, the Chilean dive master I had on my first two dives, and we dived two sites I hadn't done before. They were both very shallow - around 6m average depth - but as a result they were two very long dives; 50 and 56 minutes! My longest before that was about 35 minutes. I was also by this stage a lot more relaxed and could control my breathing infinitely better than before - breathing through a straw as the instructors told us to do!

The dives had a lot of coral, anemone, clams and smaller fish...

but I was also lucky enough to spot my first puffer fish! (just upper left of the middle)

That night we stayed on that side of the island and had dinner before going on the night dive. Wow. We got in the water at 7:30pm with our torches and descended into pitch black. The only thing you could see was where someone's torch was pointed. 

It was the most bizarre and scary dive of my life. Since you can't see any of the particles you usually see floating in the water, it really felt like we were flying through the night sky. Pitch black surroundings, with divers floating through nothing. Incredible. 

We saw a few more puffer fish, but the most amazing thing was a Jenkins' Stingray swimming through - an easy metre plus across. 

We found a sandy patch and were instructed to sit down and cover our lights, 12 metres down. Once everyone's light was out, waving your hands through the water would light up the bioluminescent plankton. I'd seen plankton on beaches in Thailand and Vietnam before, but never like this!

The dive lasted 47 minutes with an average depth of 8 metres. It was amazing.

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Another early wake up and we finally went on the 6am dive. We took at 45 minute boat ride out to Chunpon Pinnacle - the furthest site from Koh Tao. 

This site is absolutely amazing - incredible visibility. The water was so blue, so clear, and the fish so big!

Chunpon was where we did the deep dive. The descent from the boat was straight down to 30m, sitting on the ocean floor. The instructor told us on the surface he was going to ask us basic math questions to see if we were affected by nitrogen narcossis. He would hold up a few fingers and we had to respond with the number it would take to add them to 13. (i.e. if he had 8 we would answer with 5).

The first couple times he asked, everyone got it right. On my third attempt, after being down for a few minutes, I just stared blankly at him, completely unable to work out what the difference between 7 and 13 was. Nitrogen narcosis is said to be a similar state to being drunk. Crazy. 

From here we swam up further and around the pinnacle at the 20m mark. It was a brilliant dive!

Next up we moved the boat and it was time for my last dive, the shipwreck. The top deck of the HTMS Sattakut landing vessel sits at about 26m below. This was an old WWII US Navy vessel that was intentionally sunk for diving purposes in Koh Tao back in 2011. 

The visibility on this dive was horrendous. Even Mahdi said he'd never seen it so bad. Around the ship, if someone swam away more than three metres they completely vanished. We all had to stay very close to each other to ensure safety - no one wanted to get lost!

We spent twenty minutes or so swimming around the boat, checking out the front and rear guns and the top deck cabin. The cabin had some nice big fish in it...

We swam back to the nearby dive site where the boat was situated. For ten minutes swimming we couldn't see a thing, just trusting that Madhi had his compass bearings correct to get to where the boat was! 

We swam back to the surface and that was it; advanced course completed.

That night Mojo's had a free bbq to celebrate three new instructors completing their qualifications. It was good to have a few drinks with the crew I'd spent the past four days with and say my goodbyes - I might never be back in Koh Tao!

It was a crazy full on four days on Koh Tao. Nine dives in total, bringing my log up to fifteen. I am so much more confident in the water now with everything feeling infinitely more natural. I can't wait to get back down there!

I caught a night boat once more back to Bangkok after finishing my diving. Much to my pleasure it had bunk beds and power sockets .. much better than my last experience!