Having a beach of a Christmas and New Year!

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  Bangkok, Thailand
Thursday, December 22, 2005

Bangkok is definitely our home from home. Having been here a few times now we feel like we know the city really well, and that makes a huge difference when you arrive in a city on this huge a scale. We headed straight for the Khao San Road which is the main street in Bangkok that backpackers head for. After seeing very few Western faces over the last 4 weeks it feels slightly comforting to be here with a whole street full of what the Thai's call Farang (Foreigners). The Khao San Road is where you can buy all of the commercial rubbish that backpackers blow their daily budgets on. Fake T-Shirts, fake cd's & dvd's, in fact anything fake that you can think of (except maybe what Lisa bought last September), plus great Thai street food such as Pad Thai and the staple food of any discerning backpacker......the banana pancake.

Lisa's Brother Brian and his Girlfriend Kara arrived here on Christmas Eve which meant the planned extravagant Christmas really was a reality. For those of you that don't know Brian, lets just say he doesn't like to rough it! Unfortunately the Kings residence was full with the Royal Family so we went for the next option down, the Raffles Hilton Bangkok International hotel. This place was amazing and extremely comfortable after the places we had got used to staying in. In fact it was extremely comfortable regardless of the places we had been staying in!! The downside is that we blew nearly a weeks budget on the 2 nights accomodation so now the belt really has to pulled in tightly to get back on track. I reckon if we halve our weekly budget we should just about catch up by the time we fly home.

On Boxing Day an amazing thing happened. My Sister flew in from Heathrow. Nothing amazing in that you may say, but she had a serious phobia about flying and hadn't been on a plane for over 13 years. Until I saw her walk through Customs I still doubted whether she had actually boarded the plane. Her rucksack was bigger than her but it turned out it was full of chocolate and sweets and magazines that are just not available out here and it was a lovely Christmas present. Having them all here has really made a massive difference to how our Christmas went and it is certainly up there as one to remember for many different reasons.

On 27th December we decided to go and visit a Western prisoner in the infamous Bangkok prison known as Bang Kwang or the Bangkok Hilton! I had wanted to do this for years and to finally go there was exciting and also a bit scarey. We turned up and asked for a name and was told about a guy called Steve Willcox who was in Building 6. We quickly realised that any prisoner in this prison had been sentenced to a minimum 30 years inprisonment. We got to meet Steve and had about 20 minutes with him before he had to go back. He had initially been given the death sentence before having his sentence reduced to life, and then again reduced to 33 years. He has been there for just 2 years. He told us about the reason he was there, which incidentally was for possession of a large amount of drugs, and then gave us the details of his website which has his full story. We were able to buy him various items from the prison shop such as shampoo and soap etc., as well as some food and water. Just two days after Christmas it was the least we could do for him. Some of you may disagree with this based on your own ideas of right and wrong and no way would I even try to justify what he had done, however when you consider that the worst rapist or murderer in the UK would only be sentenced to 25 years and would probably serve much less, it makes you think again about the guys' plight. All in all it was a harrowing thing to see and reading about it afterwards just made everything seem even worse. As I said Steve has a website and if anyone would like the details of it to read his story before passing judgement let me know and I will email it to you. There's even a petition on there to request a Kings pardon once he has 1000 signatures.

We got back to the Khao San Road feeling like we had done a really good deed for someone and what was to happen next really did twist the knife a little. We all felt slightly low after seeing the prison and so we were in need of a little retail therapy, (especially Tracy who loves to shop)!! Just after she had bought something and left the shop she realised she had been pickpocketed. Her wallet containing 2 credit cards, her passport, her airline ticket home, details of her travel insurance and worst of all about 23,000 baht (approx 300 pounds) had been stolen in broad daylight. It meant a lot of rushing around cancelling cards and trying to get her passport replaced, and all this had to be done before 10am the following day when we were due to fly to Koh Samui and then catch a boat on to Koh Pha Ngan.

Fortunately, due to a very positive mental attitude on my part (or maybe I just react against authority), we managed to make the flight, even though the British Embassy said under no circumstances could we board the flight to Samui without Tracy's passport. We made our way over to Koh Pha Ngan without further incident and everything was fine for a few days. There was more drama to come though!

Some other friends were also on Koh Pha Ngan and it looked like New Years Eve was going to be a major celebration. It turned out that with us, plus Brian and Kara, and some other friends of Brian's there was about 15 of us in total amongst the crowd of about 30,000 on the beach. New Year went off in a huge way and by the end of the night we were all in quite a state. Much later, once everyone had sobered up, we started to make our way back to our various huts. Clearly some of us had sobered up more than others. Lisa and I had hired mopeds and in hindsight we should have steered clear of them for a full 24 hours. On the way home Lisa hit a patch of gravel and lost control of the bike, crashing into a ditch and a big rock. There was blood and definitely tears but the main thing that was hurt was her pride. She has a few grazes on her arm and leg and a small cut above her eye but nothing that won't heal up in a few more days.

We are just about to head to Koh Chang, Thailands second largest island after Phuket, and close to the border with Cambodia, and we will be there for approximately 10 days. Hopefully all we have to look forward to is lazing on the beach or a bit of snorkelling and no further drama's. The fact that I'm travelling with two women that are clearly jinxed means that I'm seriously doubting myself at the moment!!!

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