Elephants and Monkeys

After a couple of days lazing around on a tropical beach we thought we'd get out and see what else Koh Samui had to offer. Turns out there's quite a lot, so we booked onto an 'eco' tour. This claimed to include 'monkey training' and Phil spent the night before it unable to sleep with worry that we'd signed up to support monkeys juggling with fire and other monkey cruelty...

The tour turned out to be really good though with apparently no animals hurt in the making of the tour.

First stop was elephant riding (actually we arrived early so were entertained by hundreds of catfish being fed by the next door monastry, but then there was elephant riding). Much fun:

Afterwards we got to feed the Elephant! This involved holding up a bananna which was taken out of our hands by his dexterous trunk and dropped off in his mouth to be gobbled up, skins and all!

Next stop was thai cookery. Unfortunately we didn't get a photo of that - we were too busy eating. Yum.

Then off to the coconut plantation and finding out how to make coconut milk (not the coconut water as we'd previously assumed), and then it was time of the MONKEY! He very cleverly (and seemingly without animal cruelty, and definately without a shiny suit such as the monkeys on the fliers for monkey circus which is well known as the home of monkey cruelty on Koh Samui...grrr says Phil) spun the coconuts with his hand a foot until they fell from the tree. Apparently each monkey can harvest up to 200 coconuts per day!

Then we took a trip to the Namuang waterfall and whilst it was too murkey to swim (because of the previous night's monsoon downpour) it was very pretty...

Arrival in Bangkok

We had the most hassle free flight I've ever had on a very nice Jet Airways plane, arrived in Bangkok, straight onto a bus which then dropped us off outside our hotel in Bangkok. Amazing! Quick plate of Pad Thai before a stroll around the legendary Khaosan Road, before hitting the hay. Nice.

This morning we woke up all bright and breezy (apart from Anna who was tired, but Phil managed to resist the temptation to bounce up and down on the bed like tigger - and not in a dirty way!) , got breakfast and ambled around for a while. We were going to head to Wat Po and see the reclining budah but that plan was thwarted by a combination of a Thai public holiday and Phils inappropriate attire (Anna did tell him not to bring the mankini but he just doesn't listen).

So we are now just relaxing in an internet cafe near the hotel waiting for 4 o'clock to tick round when we will head for the airport and the beaches of the southern Gulf of Thailand...

Getting ready to go...

So we're getting set to go - passport in my new name (I've been Anna Le Gouais on it since even before getting married! Not very hard to change your name these days), visas obtained (taking 15mins in Hull for 1 year multi-entry visas), flights booked, and even honeymoon booked! Just a little bit of packing to do, and a decision to be made on where to stay in Bangkok for our first night... Plenty of time though - we leave on Sunday.

The plan is for a week or so honeymoon in Koh Samui (it's monsoon season so hopefully it won't be very busy, and won't rain ALL the time), then a couple of days in Bangkok for induction before going to Mae Sot, the border town next to Burma/Myanmar where we'll be living during our time in Thailand. Exciting stuff!

We'll try to keep this blog updated on what we get up to, but previous experience of blog writing suggests we're likely to require some prompting. Feel free to prompt if we haven't written in a while :)