Training & Fighting in Thailand

Well today was yet again one of my favourite days in Thailand (every day seems to get better and better!!!). We had a few days where it was raining for 3/4 hours a day and it wasn’t really ‘going out’ weather, although it was still boiling hot!

So today when the sun finally came back with avengance (36 degrees… again!!!) we decided to head down to ‘Paradise Park’ and when we got there we certainly saw how it got its name… It was beautiful.

When we first got there we came across a ton of bird cages… I like birds anyway, but these were of colours I had never seen before… Orange, Blues, Greens and multicoloured ones. I think they were mainly parrots, but to be honest because the signs were in Thai, your guess is as good as mine!!!

After all the birds I fulfilled a life ambition… I got to hold a baby monkey!!! It was awesome, the monkey was so cute, and it was a bit confused by the wax in my hair, it sat on my shoulders and kept spiking my hair up and down and up again. I loved them, it is a shame they are in captivity, but it is good to see that they like human company, whenever someone walks near them, they run and jump on their shoulders and sit there calmly.

After seeing the baby monkey we saw another one who was runnign around in circles with it’s arms in the air making typical ‘ooh-ooh’ monkey noises and whistling to everyone and everything it saw. You were allowed to hold this one too, but in all honesty it creeped me out a bit, so I passed!!!

After the smaller parrots and monkeys there were bigger parrots such as McCaws, these were also in just about every colour under the sun and very, very pretty. I would quite like a pet parrot at home, but I think after seeing how big they get it’s probably better they live in the wild unless you could afford a HUGE cage for them to fly about in.

Oh and I took this picture too, I thought it was awesome, reminded me of those little easter chicks

After looking round the ‘park’ type area we moved on to the forrests, which were home to EMU’s, Goats, Horses and Dear. I touched all four of the animals and most were friendly and quite open to human interaction, however I got a little nervous when about 8 goat surrounded me and decided they’d see who could in the words of Bart Simpson ‘Eat my shorts’!!!

I also like this photo of me holdign a baby Iguana… I love lizards, I actually miss my pet gecko ‘7′, which is obviously at home and now in the care of someone else… So it was good to feel the scaly lizard texture again!!! Not sure who was the better poser though… make you own mind up =D

Finally we went to the ‘Infinity Pool’ and this was just simply AMAZING, how many places in the world could you get a view like this? Let alone a swimming pool with a view like this!!! After swimming I did some sun bathing and woke up for the first time a little browner, so next photos I upload I may actually look like I’ve been on holiday, lol.

At about 6 O’clock we headed back to Chewang and to  my supprise we bumped into a celebrity!!! As you all know, the main reason I came to Thailand was to train Muay Thai. So when we stopped off at Tesco and bumped into Dzjaver, a rather famous ‘Muay Thai’ world champion who has recently made it to the semi-finals in ‘The Asian Contender’ I couldn’t resist asking him for a picture!!! He was actually really nice and down to Earth and I found out he lives near by.

I saw something that made me laugh the other day on an Internet forum… Someone was coming to Thailand and they asked the question ‘I have been offered an all inclusive package, the meals work out rather expensive… but I guess I am going to have to pay it as I doubt there are many places to eat, are there?’ Now admittedly, I probably shouldn’t have laughed at the poster… they are not to know. But I’ll give you all the same answer that I gave Mr Misinformed!

Thailand has by far in my opinion, the best food in the world. Granted a lot of the food is fried here, which if you’re a calorie freak may put you off (don’t worry though, almost everything is also available boiled), but in terms of natural organic food Thailand is number one. The Thai food is very simple, nearly always balanced and more importantly for most… delicious!!!

The ‘main’ Thai food is ‘Rice’ and ‘Noodles’ as opposed to the UK’s ‘Potato’ and ‘Chips’. Most people will have their rice stir fried with a combination of meat (I like chicken), vegetables and maybe some sauce. That would be your carbs and protein sorted right there, but if you are not dieting or anything, then you can always throw on a curry or soup or anything like that, a favourite in Thailand is ‘Green Curry’, which is a spicy curry with chicken and vegetables. I would personally recommend the masiman curry if you don’t like spicy food, which is coconut milk, a VERY small amount of nuts, potato and chicken.

As for ‘I don’t think there will be anywhere to buy food’ that is probably having lived in Thailand almost a month now… one of the most incorrect sentences I have read about the country. Literally 1 in every 5 shops is a restaurant in town and considering you could have rice, noodles, curry and a drink for about £3.00 – you can’t complain can you? Better than that, if you are living here for a long time (we’ve been here 3 weeks and already found ¾ good ones) you’ll find the Thai take away. Unlike take away in the UK, these are not fatty chip shops. These are proper Thai cooks at the side of the road or in a small building that will cook the rice and noodles and everything for you fresh and have you take it away. NO ONE in Thailand has much food in the fridge because it is cheaper to eat in than out here… seriously. The only thing that is really cheap over here than you need to keep at home is water… drinking the Thai tap water is a sure fire ticket to sitting on the toilet for about a week. However there are tons of cheap drinks such as cocktails, etc to drink, esspecially if you like alchol.

For those of you who are scared you’ll get sick of Thai food… also no problem. The most common restuarant other than Thai is Indian, however there are Chinese, British, American, Spanish, Italian, and tons of other themed food places along the main strip of Chewang.  Also, for those of you who are used to fast food there is Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, Harggan Daz and tons of other fast food chains about… they are only slightly cheaper than home though, so I’d personally pay less for better food at a Thai! There are also big super markets such as Tesco here, where you can buy most of what you can back at home much, much cheaper, so those who want to cook can!

My personal favourite restaurants in Thailand are ‘Ninja Crepes’ and ‘Ali Baba’. I went to both and ordered the same thing ‘one bowl of plain noodles’ and ‘one bowl of chicken fried rice’ in total this cost me 120BHT (£1.88) and a diet coke 15BHT (about £0.19ish), so I gave them £3.00 and that was my lunch or tea sorted. I’ve been very, very lucky in Thailand in fact because Kath and Craig have taken me out probably 4 nights out of 7 and because they have already been here a few times, they know where to eat and every meal we’ve had I’ve enjoyed. In addition to that when we don’t eat out, I’m lucky enough to have Kath as the head cook at our house and she cooks just as well as anywhere we’ve been so I’m happy either way!

For Nathan’s birthday, we went to one of the most expensive restaurants in Thailand the other night (£12.00 a head), it was a Brazilian themed bar, which had dances / gymnasts doing tricks literally in front of you as you ate, it was amazing. They were front flipping, back flipping over each other, break dancing, it was a really, really good and unique source of entertainment in my opinion. The food was absolutely amazing too… the way it worked was simple. You got given about 10-15 minutes to get in and have a starter of soup, cold meats, couscous, there was a huge selection. Once you had had this you turn your card on the table to red or green. Red means you are full and green means you are hungry. When green the waiters will come up to you about one every 2/3 minutes and offer you a different type of meat, with 16 different types of meat, you were bombarded with choice… and the mash potato was probably the best I have ever had in my entire life too!!!

After that there was a hugeeeeeeeeeee dessert menu, I didn’t order anything… I don’t eat cake, cream, chocolate, ice cream, etc, etc and therefore can’t eat that kinda thing. However Kath and Craig ordered a crème brae lei and cheesecake, Luke ordered a ‘Mango Manic’ and Nathan ordered some Chocolate ice cream. They all looked lovely too, I was full from the food and I think they were all too, but they were by looks to delicious to turn down… I don’t blame them though!!! Once I finish fighting I think I’ll scoff a cake or two once a week =P

So yeah, please don’t pay a stupid amount for all-inclusive in Thailand ESSPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A THAI-BOXER. The food here is about £6.00 a day for 3 meals if you eat at the right places and that will keep you full up. Plus, all inclusive you get to eat at one place… your gym or hotel and that is just wrong because Thailand has so much variety and good food places to offer. I’ve had spring rolls at 5 different restaurants and all were totally different… the same goes with the masiman curry, some are sweeter, some are spicier, some are milder, some are thicker, etc. Get out there, be adventurous and eat at as many places you can!!!

Today I went for a two hour run, I got a bit lost and ended up being brought home in a pick up truck after being escorted out of probably the most expensive spa on the whole Island by security…

Yes indeed, another day, another adventure in Thailand. Today we met up with a group called ‘The Hash House Harriers’, which are a group of runners that once a week meet up and go for a 5KM run. About 30 people turned up and we got started about 4 O’clock in the afternoon. It was all uphill and it was all in the scorching 36 degree heat, so was far from an easy task to begin with.

Now you may ask what the route was… That is the thing… ‘The Hash House Harriers’ are serious about running, but at the same time they like to have a bit of fun and a bit of a drink. Therefore every week the trail is different and they mark it out in the morning using shredded paper, which when the guy announced ‘This is what you will be looking for’ had me laughing, because I thought he was joking… he was not. Also if you came to an ‘X’ it meant you could go left or right and if you didn’t see paper for 100 yards you had to come back and go the other way.

So, we got started running up this unbelievably steep hill in the boiling heat and after 5 minutes everyone was sweating as if they’d just come out of the shower! We went up more and more hills before after 15 minutes we were called ‘Off Paper’ and that meant we’d lost the paper… lets be honest… it is inevitable when you are in a forest following pieces of shredded paper. This happened about 10 times within the first hour, although throughout we kept on running up steep hills and long grass (this had me a little on edge as the crocodile farm guy said those king Cobras were found in the long forestry grass of Thailand!).

So that was after about an hour and then we got to a point where we were really lost and we hadn’t seen paper in about 15 minutes, so we all split up and eventually someone found paper and we were on our way running down to the beach “Last fucking time I let him do a trail, this happens every time” some Scottish guy told me. I just laughed, the whole Hash group were a real laugh, but it was weaved with politics on who should be leader, who should make trails, etc and when you add this to 36 degree heat and exhausted people tempers flair.

So now we were on the beach we ran until we got to about an hour and 15 minutes, then we got called ‘Off paper’. I was quite far ahead, because I had decided that this was probably the final stretch and I wanted to push myself as I’d missed training today for this run and trust me, I was really pushing myself! I ran back to help look and the Scottish guy said “Bugger it, just head along the beach, the finishing point is on the beach so we’ll get there eventually”. My first mistake was running on off paper, my second and for this I should have known better… was listening to a Scotsman! We were in pretty big trouble, we had run about 15 minute straight forwards and the ground was getting rockier and rockier up until now, when it was huge boulders.

I was feeling more like a mountaineer than a runner, when suddenly I looked back and saw everyone had stopped. I jogged back over to them and heard that everyone was pretty much fed up. ”Screw this” a rather large Canadian guy said “We’re gonna die in this heat”. Although that was a bit extreme, we were out of water, had been running about an hour and a half and were totally lost. We decided to go up through a bunch of houses, little did we know it was a very well known posh spar. We were in running rags and covered in sweat… a German, a Canadian, an Aussie, a Brit and a Scotsman. Not a single one of us knew Thai, and I think the three women working in the spar thought we were pirates… they did after all call security who looked very pissed off and would not let us leave without escorting us off the property.

Once we were out of the spar and back on the road we decided to jog, but it really was futile. We were lost, everyone kept saying “I recognise this” but it was crap, because we were miles away from where we should be. After being in the sun for an hour and 45 minutes everyone was done, me and the Scottish guy said we’d keep running but after being told that it was at least 30 minute to 45 minutes until we got back to the camp and neither of us knew which way we decided it was a lost cause and jumped in the back of a pick up truck.

”I’m fed up of this” said one of the guys “This happens all the time” said one of the women. They were plotting a real ass kicking of the guy who made the trail and I started to think the talk here must be similar to that of a military vehicle heading off to war. When we did get back to ‘base camp’ everyone seemed to have calmed down and that. We were missing one person though… Craig… the person I am staying with… The story went that Craig had decided not to head up through the spar but to continue along the rocky beach and follow the coast line.

Kath wasn’t too worried as Craig was a pretty physical guy, he had always done exercise and army training, etc, etc. However I think after 30 minutes and still no sign of him everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we saw him turn up also in a pick up. Craig got out and his legs were in pretty bad shape… covered in huge cuts and bruises. It turns out that he had gotten so far along the coast that the rocks had began to turn into cliffs and he had got stuck and had to climb up the hill / mountain like terrain, through a ton of thorns and eventually made it to a villa that was empty. He managed to get through the villa and back onto the road, but he was pretty torn up, bruised and totally lost…

Once Craig was back and everyone was re-united we had a ‘circle’, where basically the losers, disasters, cheats, etc had to down a bottle of alcohol. Craig of course ended up with the crash helmet!!! It was quite funny, because where as the running was quite serious, now they began to rip into each other and take the piss out of each other just like drinking buddies at the pub.

The Canadian guy asked me after if I ran for my school or a club, I laughed and told him I left school a long time ago (I’m 21 but still get charged under 18 rate on buses!!!). He said I should look into competitive running, which was a nice compliment, but I find it too hard to do as well as Muay Thai. I have never run longer than 40 minutes though so really surprised me. My fitness was a lot higher than I thought it was anyway.

After the run we had an amazing meal of noodles, chicken, rice, masiman curry and I also had a lemon shake to replace my sugar and salt levels from the run. Totally exhausted we all headed home about 7 O’clock and this morning I woke up with probably the most painful legs I have had since I’ve been in Thailand and I’ve had a few nasty bruises from Muay Thai I can tell you that much!

Today we went to a ‘Crocodile Farm’, which is basically a zoo. I love zoos in foreign countries because unlike the UK zoo’s the animals are not miles away from you and often the safety regulations are non-existent. For example a monkey scratched me, tried to punch Luke and another slapped Nathan… At a snake show a man from the audience went in with a cobra and had his hand waved about half a foot from the snake, which was hissing and lunging for him and the tamer passed not only a pot of venom around, but a poisonous snake, which if it bit you could kill you in about 10 minutes… it’s great!

Well we first arrived there at about 1:45, we spent 15 minutes looking at these black monkeys with white faces that moved at about half a mile an hour before heading off to ‘The famous snake show’. It was actually great fun to watch, this man spent about 5 minutes antagonising this snake, which was clearly pissed off and dying to bite him before he would put it back and get an even bigger snake! The King Cobra was eventually taken out and people from the audience went in with it and antagonised it a bit, going back to their seats feeling like Steve Irwin (RIP). He also let people hold a King Cobra and have their pictures taken with it… I didn’t hold it, mainly because however much I know that the guy was holding it well enough so it shouldn’t escape, I saw the scars on his hand from snake bites and didn’t want to be put in an ambulance with 10 minutes to live (especially after seeing some of the Thai hospitals!). His main trick really was amazing though, he kissed the King Cobra on the top of the head, a real show of bravery and trust in his nerve.

After this more monkeys… there was this adorable baby monkey that was a bit mischievous, but really love me, Luke, Kath and Nathan. It kept jumping up at us making some kind of squeaking noise and then jumping about. Someone had the genius idea of feeding it a banana… OK… me… and when I held it out for him he ripped it from my hand (scratching me) and began jumping around going nuts!!! Quite nervous as I haven’t had a tetanus, rabies or similar jab, but so far I haven’t been foaming at the mouth… So I seem to be OK!!! The little monkey had the last laugh anyway… it decided to jump into a huge barrel of water and then shoot out, soaking us all from head to toe before going nuts and jumping about its cage screeching.

Next we went and saw this big fat monkey, which was lazy as heck, all it did was sit down and take bananas off people. I think it was probably bored as it didn’t have any friends like the other monkeys… although if I was a monkey I’d probably just sit around in the sun all day eating bananas too. I’d not bother with that jumping around screaming nonsense.

At 4 O’clock we got called in for the crocodile show. This show was also very good, two guys who reminded me of ‘The Chuckle Brothers’ went into this cage with about 8 crocodiles and began poking them with sticks and generally pissing them off. Again, they both had numerous scars, so when they asked if anyone wanted to come in and touch one everybody said no chance. They did many observatory tricks with the crocodiles such as stroking them, dragging them around, sitting on them, etc, etc.

However the big trick, which lets be honest we all wanted to see, was when the guy put his head in the crocodiles mouth. The man had his head there for a good 10 seconds before slowly taking it out. Sadly the crocodile didn’t bite his head off… it would have been good to see I am sure! But it was a great trick non-the-less!

At the end of the show we had the chance to stroke or kiss the crocodile on the tail. I felt alright with this because although the crocodile was out of its cage and I had seen how quick these buggers could move… the guy was holding it and he’d pissed it off a lot more than me… so I reasoned ‘If I was the crocodile I’d eat him first’ and whilst he ate this guy I’d have time to leg it! So yeah, I touched one… it felt really smooth, kind of like plastic and as hard as marble.

After the crocodile show… more monkeys, there were tons of them jumping around screaming and all liked to be watched, so it was good fun just watching them.

After that we got to see some weird cat thing and then another weird cat thing… Seriously I have no idea what they are. One looks like a cat crossed with a zebra… so I’m gonna call it a cabra and the other looks like a ferret crossed with a cat, so I’m gonna call it a cerret (not to be mistaken with a carrot!) Anyway, here are pictures of each… if you recognise any of them… answers on a post card please! =D

Finally we saw this little Otter, who was content on us giving it leaves every two minutes. We’d give it a leave and it would make a squeaking noise, run to the ground, and put it in its nest and run back up for more. We did this for about 15 minutes before we decided the Otter probably had enough leaves to build a mansion and were then ready to go home.

This was probably my best day in Thailand so far, every single day has been a dream, this is probably the most beautiful country in the world… but today was really nice, taking a day off training to see the animals and walk around in the sun. It really was fantastic and I hope to come back to the crocodile farm again soon, but first I’ve got a ton of other zoos and marine parks to visit… not to mention the Tiger Temple… where you can actually stroke a Tiger… seriously!!!

“We’re gonna die Marc!” screamed Nathan as he struggled to keep afloat in the deep blue waters of Koh Samui. Just minutes ago we had seen a huge group of jelly fish swimming around and there were no doubt sharks not too far off. “Don’t worry Nathan, we’ll get back on and we’ll be OK, help will come”.

Yes… adventure! That is what today was filled with. Let me take you back about 10 minutes from the above and explain what actually happened. I have never been on a Jet Ski before… I have always wanted to, but always been a little scared of them because I’ve seen their power and the horrific injuries people have gotten from them. However, after Nathan and Luke telling me they wanted to go and Kath saying “Marc, I promise, you won’t fall off” I thought OK… I’ll give it a go.

At first I was a little nervous, I mean you hold the accelerator on these things and you feel a surge of power. However this soon passed because you realise that there is nothing in front or behind you and therefore you’re free to go as fast as you like. A few times however I went a bit too fast, hit a huge wave and ended up smashing into the water only just managing to grip on.

Once I felt comfortable I was burning around and loving the jet ski when Nathan said ‘I want a go’, now… on reflection letting a 9 year old drive a Jet Ski in shark and Jelly Fish invested waters was probably not the best idea I have ever had…. Nathan took control and soon got a bit over confident (almost hitting Luke at one point!).

Then, zooming along as we were, Nathan decided to do some kind of ‘hand-break turn’ manoeuvre at about 40 miles an hour and sent us both flying about 6-7 feet off the Jet Ski and into the water. “We’re going to die!!!’ Nathan kept shouting, “No we’re not Nathan” I kept saying, but he was having none of it. I didn’t panic; I’d always been a good swimmer and managed to grab him and drag him the 20 odd feet threw the water to the Jet Ski and help him on. I managed to get on to and we were now safe… kinda.

”Right Nathan” I said… start the Jet Ski. “Erm… how?” he asked. I looked at his wrist and realised what had happened “You’ve lost the key haven’t you?”. So we were stranded, floating further and further out to sea, Nathan still letting me know “we’re gonna die!!!” until a Thai came and eventually understood we’d lost our key and got us another one! We got back to shore, jumped off the Jet Ski and paid the rental company 1000BHT (about £15.00) for loosing their key.

So there you have it, breath a sigh of relief everyone, I’m still alive and I’m still breathing… I didn’t even get stung by a jellyfish! I must say though, even after coming off the Jet Ski as I did, Jet Skiing is probably one of the best things I have ever done. The freedom and tranquillity blended with raw power is something totally unique and I loved every minute of it. I can’t wait to go again… this time I’ll try and have the full 20 minutes we paid for ON the Jet Ski!!!

Well my search for somewhere to do Muay Thai wasn’t exactly difficult to say the least… I jumped off the plane and was told that our villa was only a 10 minute drive, in that time I saw two Muay Thai gyms, both looked very much Thai local orientated, but some people prefer this I am sure. I do intend to check these out during the course of my trip.

When I got to the villa I thought I’d check out the television before unpacking, the first channel I put on ‘Muay Thai kickboxing championships’ and this was at 1:00pm in the afternoon.

In the afternoon we went out for a meal 10bht (about 15p) bought you a fair sized bowl of noodles… where as 55bht (about 85p) bought you a good sized curry and if that isn’t enough for you buy two and a starter and you’ll go home bloated!!!

The next morning I thought I’d head to SuperProSumai and see what it was like, however I was a bit aprihensive after being told it was VERY, VERY busy and geared very much to tourists. On the way I saw WMC Muay Thai, which surprised me somewhat as I has been told WMC was in Lumai and I was in Chaweng… curious I approached the gym and instantly recognised the head coach. I was with Jess (the people I am staying with’s 18 month year old daughter) the first thing he did was pick her up and give her a hug before introducing himself.

Although I recognised him I wasn’t sure where from, I guess I had seen him fight somewhere. He was absolutely shredded, every muscle on him was bulging, not bad for a guy at least middle aged and about 5’7!!! He took us into his ‘office’ and told us the prices 300bht per lesson (no chance would you actually pay this, I’ll let you know as soon as I actually book them) he did say it would be ‘much less’ when you book multiple lessons and they realise you are not a tourist! Or 1200bht per hour private lesson ‘or you can work out a deal with the trainer’ so again, I’ll let you know as soon as I do.

The place was very nice; you could tell it hadn’t been their long. It was part of WMC’s expansion and was much, much quieter infact their were only 4 people there training, two small-ish Thai’s and two huge tourists (I would guess watching them hit the bags). Suddenly the head coach turned to me and said ‘one day you will know me from Asian contender’ and it clicked where I knew him from. I have followed the Asian contender since the first episode and finally realised where I recognised him from. He told me he was a trainer for the show and turned around proudly showing the ‘Contender’ logo on his well used MTG Thai shorts. He then took me over to the poster of the Asian contender and spoilt the whole show for me (inadvertently) by telling me who was in the final, but also who was fighting who.

He is going to be cornering one of the two (Yodsinclair) in the final located at Singapore, I am seriously considering going in a few weeks time to watch the show. Any way, I said I would come and train with him during the week (I was quite ill today) and although I want to train tomorrow, I think throwing up over him / one of my training partners on my first lesson wouldn’t be the best way to make a positive impression, ha. Lessons are 7:00am until 9:00am and then 5:00pm until 7:00pm which is good because it means you miss the unbearable heat between about 9am and 5pm barely, it is indoors in a air conditioned room anyways.

So, after being slightly star struck and realising how close WMC Chaweng was to me I thought I’d not even bother checking out SuperProSamui today and would wait for a few weeks, I liked the feel of this place and the instructor was probably the friendliest guy on the planet…

Will let you know how I get on in a few days….

Well yesterday I told you about moving house and teaching, so today I thought I would let you know a bit about where I live and the general things that surround it. The place I live in Koh Samui is called ‘Chewang’, it is known as being ‘The Beach’ in all of Thailand and therefore probably one of the best beaches in the world. I love the beach, the sand is white and the sea is crystal clear with tons of unbelievably cheap food / drink bars right on the beach, what more could you ask for!? Well I suppose a warm sea and sun? We have those still too… since I have been here the temperature hasn’t dipped below 36 degrees and rain doesn’t seem to exsist in Thailand for more than 10 minute spells a week!!!

That is the beach, which of course is always a tourists favourite piece of a ‘holiday’, but we are not ‘tourists’ and we are ‘not on ‘holiday’, we live here and are residents… how cool is that!? So as well as the beautiful beach, we can also take our time apprichiating things such as the town, people, animals, etc. I love the town here, the shops are in a long row on both sides of the road… Thailand doesn’t really have any road laws except ‘dont crash’ so you have to be careful, but if you were to walk along the whole strip of shops you would find that it’s take at least an hour and there is about 300-400 shops selling decent clothes, DVDs, ceramics, carvings, paintings and more!

Actually, my only gripe in Thailand is the dogs, most are cute… BUT… I do have two that live at the end of our road that chase me and bark at me from time to time. You see, unlike the UK, mutts don’t get taken to the pound if they are off their leads, no, infact they are free to walk around, bread, live, eat and generally live as residents of the Island (as cann be seen below - one is asleep outside a pub!). Anyway, these two at the bottom of the road seem to hate me… they chased me round a corner until two Thai’s came out saying ‘Hello my friend’ and pelted them with stones until they legged it… good to know I have protective neighbours… lol.

The island is surrounded by an array of hotels and they all compete to look the best and appear the best. Therefore taking a walk along the ‘hotel’ district you can see some amazing sights, I have put a few of the best below. One even had a peacock that was intent with showing off to us and I managed to get a few good pictures!

And that is just a snapshot of what there is here… I wish I had the time and bandwidth to upload the rest of my pictures, but my blog would have to be renamed a photo gallery and I don’t have time for that, haha. So you’ll just have to check out the ones I upload and come visit yourself some time in the near future!!! I havn’t even told you about the food yet… you should check back in a few days for that!

Well we have been in Thailand about a week now and already we have moved house… basically… Craig is a medical research Doctor and is in constant contact with people around the world and constantly sends files around to people containing data, etc, etc! Therefore when we couldn’t get the Internet at our old house (after being told we could!!!) we had to look at other places with the Internet, funnily enough… the palce we found was actually next door, haha… and in my opinion it is even better!!!

Don’t get me wrong, both houses were AMAZING, far, far more extravegant than I could hope to live in on my own, but with Craig, Kath, Nathan, Luke and Jessica with me (or me with them!) I could live in a dream house over here, which trust me… it really is a dream house! It is probably slightly smaller in terms of size, but it is much, much better decorated and is a lot more homely, I love it here. The front room is really inviting, where as the old house we all spent a lot of time outside as the ‘communal area’ was really small, the new house has tons of comfy seats in the living room and a couple of tables and even a desk. My bedroom is also just as big and the pool here is probably even nicer… Just look at the pictures below:

So as you can I’m being spoilt!!! But I know how lucky I am =) I’ve started teaching actually, as you can see with the picture below where I am doing some Mathematics with Nathan. It is going really well actually, I get on well with Nathan and Luke, they’re both good kids. Nathan esspecially is very keen to work, like all kids he has the ‘I want to play’ (on the PS3) thing inside him, but once he gets started he really works hard and is actually very good at Maths, English and Science… esspecially Maths. Luke is simular, typical teenager, he wants to sleep and relax all day, but once he gets started he flys along doing tons and tons of work that supprises me most of the time. Infact so much so a few times I have had to sit next to him and watch him do work because he gets 100% of the questions right, but doesn’t do hardly any workings and I don’t know how he does it… haha.

So yeah, I am lucky to have been in this beautiful country and already lived in two amazing houses!!! I am getting on really well with everyone here, Nathan and Luke although I’m teaching them I would say we get on well as friends, always talking about football and kickboxing… Craig and Kath are both awesome, Craig is really laid back and full of jokes and Kath is very simular and both have interesting stories where they have travelled, so I’ll never get bored. Hope the UK isn’t too cold or boring, I am loving it here!!!

We woke up nice and early Sunday morning (about 2:30am) and even then had to rush… not thinking far enough ahead when the clocks went forward we lost an hour (so it was actually 3:30am) and therefore overslept meaning we were running an hour late!!!

Me, Craig and Kath were all up and awake, but it was slightly harder to wake up Nathan and Luke (the two boys of 9 and 14). We all jumped in the taxi with our tons and tons of suitcases and headed off to the airport… We did eventually make it with time to spare and have a coffee… even with Nathan throwing up in the taxi Literally as soon as we finished though it was time to start boarding the plane… Infact it was only the second time I have boarded a plane in about ten years, so to be honest I was just as excited about the plane journey as my holiday, haha… Well almost!!!

The plane journey from Cardiff to Amsterdam only took about 45 minutes, so was nothing really. At Amsterdam we were ‘allowed’ *cough* into the business lounge with Kath and Craig and were treated to a huge selection of free food and drink. I don’t actually like alchol as most of you know… but if you wanted to get wrecked on your travels there was enough JD, Vodka, Wine, Champagne, etc, etc to allow you to do so! I had two bowls of crunchy muesli with greek yoghurt (man it was lushhhhhhhhh) and tons of coffee… I hadn’t slept for than two hours in two days, but I was about as twitchy as a squirrel both through an overload of caffine and excitment I think!!!

The plane journey from Amsterdam to Bangkok was only 10 hours… so that was not so bad *again cough*, ha… It was alright, but it is hard to sleep and we had some annoying drunk guy in front of us who spoke about 5% English, 25% Russian and 50% Random shit, so that was lame. He fell asleep after about 4 hours or so… Personally I think annoying passengers should be given a parrachute and kicked out of the plane. Unfortunetly airways have enough customer service issues these days, so probably wouldn’t agree with me… haha.

We landed in Bangkok and as soon as you exit the plane, the immense thickness of the heat hits you… I’ve been to Morrocco which was hot… but wow… this was different. The sun beams down on you, that I was prepared to, but the air is warm too… kinda like a steam room / sauna… The airport was huge, Craig told me it was in the top 5 biggest airports in the world and you could easily get lost there. I also noticed (as I had beem priorly warned) that the Thai women are overly friendly and in bangkok i saw a fair few LadyBoys, I was kind of distrubed when Kath told me we’d just been served by one and I was un-aware… argh!!!

From Bangkok we had some drinks and did a bit of shopping… and got ready to board the plane to Samui. This was the shortest ride and I had some cold fish, which made me quite ill for a few days after the flight… funny thing was ALL the food was lush, on ALL the flights, except this one… which Nathan warned me against eating… being greedy I didn’t listen and still wish that I had =(

Anyways, all that is fine now, my stomach is fine, whoooo and now I’m good and so excited to be here. As soon as we landed in Koh Samui I fell in love with this place and thought it was beautiful… the Airport was surrounded by little huts and tons of greenery. But the thing that supprised me the most was we were literally on an Island… a very small Island and that was wickid!!!

We got off the plane and we had a taxi waiting for us, which took us to our ‘home’ for the next 4/5 months all going well… The pictures I put up last month are NOTHING… this place is like a mini palace, marble floors, marble walls, the rooms are about the size of my whole downstairs at home and the pool was as warm as a bath.

Anyway, I am off now, will update you in a few days, I hope the UK is as hot as here (36 degrees)… well I very, very much doubt it, but to be honest I don’t really care, hahaha!!!

Well Kath sent me an e-mail today as promised with details of where we’ll be saying and my initial reactions are purely and simply ‘wow’!!! We’ll be staying right next to Chaweng Beach, which is where SuperPro Muay Thai is - about 10 minutes away from our villa!!!

Official Description:This 4 bedroom property is located only minutes awa from Tesco’s and the new Big C supermarket. The villa offers views of Chaweng without havig to climb up any steep hillsides to get to. The top floor of the villa has all four bedrooms and a small out door sundeck. The ground floor has the modern kitchen dinning area and living room with comfortable sofa’s. Outside on the patio is a large area to sit on the sunloungers and get a tan, or cool off the the beautiful swimming pool as you take in the view.

I was also given the photos which you can see above and below this paragraph, how amazing does this place look!?!?!?

Now I’m even more excited than I was yesterday and I didn’t even think that was possible!!! Not only am I very, very close to the Muay Thai gym, we are staying in an amazing villa about 10 minutes walk from the beach and the ocean… surrounded by things to do. Of course this is just where we are staying for the first month, I can’t wait to see where we end up on the second month!!!