Esther Flatters Blog

Leaving Thailand...

2010-12-18T00:49:00.000-08:00

Nearly a month since my last entry, that is not good, sorry folks! Right so where am i in the world?
I am currently in Malaysia but i will up date you from where i left you last which was my hands resembling that of John Merrick aka Elephant Man...

"Anything, Anytime" Quote: Ben Dodds 21st November 2010

Whilst staying in Koh Tao, we shared a dorm with our new friend Ben Dodds from Loughborough. Ben has been traveled around the world a fair bit and is doing his own blog @ www.goneforawander.com
I found his story quite inspiring and said to him one day " I wish i could put myself out there and go trekking in Mongolia, or do the rickshaw racing across India, it's like you'll do anything, anytime.." famous last word, Flatters...
Catching the boat across to Koh Phangan, Full Moon Party we soon filled ourselves up with buckets of vodka & Red Bull (n.b. Red Bull made in Thailand has speed in it, i did not know this!)

I was feeling a little off due to the antibiotics I was on for my hands, and after eating at some dodgy food, my body did not feel right. Still, the speaker systems were pumping, the drinks flowing and the neon paint was EVERYWHERE:

People were playing with fire on a serious level. When i said i just wanted to watch people skipping with fire, Ben playfully taunted me with "Anything, Anywhere, Esther!" Damn! He'd got me by my imaginary balls. And so i skipped in fire:

Or rather, i took it down! The same with the water slide, the ring of fire i dived through and finally (my family should look away now) I scaled a burning structure which read:
Full Moon Party Koh Phangan 21st Nov 2010! i will upload a picture when i can pinch it off Ben!
At 8am, I was not in good way, i was being sick and on my return to Koh Tao, I picked up acute gastroenteritis! I have not felt this ill for such long time, so it was a saviour having Nurse Naomi to take care of, which she did so, i would of been lost without my beautiful sister.

Four days later, I recovered and Naomi and I decided to do our SCUBA diving Open Water Diving Certificate and fell in love with the fruits of the ocean. It was other worldly, and something everyone should do if they are able.

Our time in Thailand was ending after a month, and we big our home for the past two weeks good bye, along with our new found friends.
We caught an over night ferry and it was awful. The boat was tiny and there were 50 people stuffed on the top deck with scabby mattresses to sleep on. When we arrived at 5am, i got up to see ants and various other bugs pouring out from under my mattress. Nice.
We had a bus trip to get into Malaysia and as we left Thailand, we got a final Fuck You rip off by some woman saying we needed a certain amount of money to get into Malaysia and gave us an awful exchange rate, stealing some of our money. This left us with a bitter taste in our mouth and were eager to see what Malaysia was like.

Due South...The Beach

2010-11-20T01:52:00.000-08:00

Having not booked our train tickets far enough in advance (again), Naomi and I booked over night bus tickets to journey down to the Southern Islands on Thailand. Emotions were running high and we were debating where to go to next. Naomi was very keen on getting to the beach for some chill out time, i was sad to be leaving Chiang Mai, but all in all, we needed to move on after staying in one place for a week.

We endured a two day bus trip to get to our destination which was quite sucky.

We arrived into Bangkok at 8am where we had arranged to meet our chum , Gareth, who was between moving houses. His new pad was much bigger and had the wonderful feature of an outside pool which we dipped our weary bodies into.

For dinner, we met up with some more of the boys friends and i was lucky enough to discover they had a piano at the restaurant. I was so excited, i let my sister order food for me and set about doing a mini Sugar Daddies gig for my friends. As in everywhere in Thailand, other Thai musicians were arriving to play (the lady looked like Thai version of Dolly Parton!) and were setting up around me. Once I started singing, i must admit my cheeks went a little pink when the Thai lady said, "My, What a voice!". I even played my winter love song for my English pals to remind them of Christmas; A Snug Winter Hug.

After dinner we dashed across town to purchase another bus ticket and set off overnight to arrive in Chumpon at 5am.

On our arrival, we were a bit confused as to where our ferry was going from , and after asking a few different people who couldn't speak English, we wandered in a direction we though was correct.

A Thai man drove up to us saying we must get in his ranger immediately as it was his ferry and leaving soon, the only one of the day! We politely said thank you, but no thank you, but he continued to try to get us to go with him and was very insistent. We still declined and then found the train station where there were lots of other westerners waiting to get picked up to go to the ferry. We breathed a sigh of relief and breakfasted on some mini bananas i bought. It turns out the man that was following us was genuine, but followed our rule of 'if approached, it's generally best to not take that option'.

Once on the ferry, we were soon arriving on Koh Tao in rain. A man on the ferry had asked us where we were staying, and offered us a free taxi ride to go to The Big Blue Diving Resort, one Lorien had recommended us from her time living on the Island 10 years ago.

We were cajoled by a very obvious Sales lady, who wanted us to start our Open Water Diving course that afternoon. We were knackered, and just wanted to chill out. Another travelling couple in this group, Mel and Dave, said they were not sure if they wanted to do the course, this lady then said "Oh, can not afford it?" We all thought this extremely rude, and felt misled by her in regards to the current Monsoons affecting the diving, she assured us it would not. On departing, the lady said "There's nothing else to do on the Island!"

Wanting to make our own choice, a group of us set off to see what our options were. Another resort said the weather would affect the diving, and advised us to head to a cheap dorm where we could lay our heads.

The weather cleared up really quickly and we all headed to the white, sand beach. Swimming in the warm ocean felt good, and we quickly bonded with our new friends, Mel, Dave (from the UK), Alfred from Sweden, Jess from Sydney and Ben from Loughborough.

Koh Tao felt much more English-fied than anywhere else we had been and there were a lot of travellers here for diving and partying.

We had our first night out 2 days in where we met up with Richard Todd from Grantham who was just qualifying in his Dive Masters. His friends were up for a party and we were dancing on the tables before the night was too old, and Jess grinding and hitch her skirt up earning her the nickname, "Legs'!

We went to the beach side mini club, Fish Bowl and partied the night away with our new friends whilst local fire spinners twirling burning poi above our heads. We had a lot of fun and felt very relaxed here.

The following day was equally gorgeous and Dave and i noticed the fish beneath us and thought it a good idea to hire some snorkeling gear. We couldn't believe it but there were so many fish, angel fish, sea cucumber, electric blue and yellow fish, parrot fish... we were even lucky enough to stumble across a mixed shawl of rainbow fish feeding on the coral!

The day ended with a smashing Thai meal that Naomi and I shared by a family run restaurant where we ate Tom Yang Goong, Green Curry and prawn springs rolls, delicious, or as the Thai say, arhoy!

Naomi and I wanted to do some trekking and our 22year old dorm mate, Ben said he could show us a view point at the highest peak of Koh Tao. Me, Naomi, Ben and Mel set off in light rain on the pretty constant incline of the mountain, expecting about a 3 hours trip outside.

It was a pretty taxing climb but I felt really invigorated by it. Once we reached the top, we were greeted by a wonderful view of our current home.

Once down on the sea front, there was no sand, so Ben, Naomi and I dived in to swim a bit, then go across to Mango Bay.

On the rocks we saw lots of iridescent crabs which scuttled away on our approach. I cut my foot on a sharp rock and had a bit of blood present.

Our journey back was equally as long, and i discovered running up the really sharp inclines, much easier than walking them and was pleased my level of fitness was higher than I expected.

We journeyed out for over 5 hours, and I ate twice to replace any fat i might have lost. Unfortunately, I got bitten to death on the trek.

Today, my hands have swelled up so much, i look like John Merrick. My sister is concerned about me and I've started some antibiotics already as they are really puffed up and the other bites I have are getting worse. Oh, woe to me! Not feeling too great, but I'm going to treat myself to some cake and ice cream to cheer myself up and then tomorrow, Ben and I are heading over to the Full Moon Party, only to return at 8am the next day, a shadow of our form selves, I'm sure!

The Boho Heart of the north; Chiang Mai

2010-11-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

CHIANG MAI

Known for being the Bohemian centre of Thailand, people come from all around the world to discover they spiritual awakening, learning Thai massage, meditation and much more.
Chiang Mai is much more laid back than Bangkok and somewhere I felt at peace straight away.
My best friend, Lorien, was currently staying here learning Thai massage and various other forms of massage, so when we arrived early in the morning, she kindly invited my sister and I to stay with her. Lorien has a wonderfully laid back attitude to life, something that rubs off on me the longer i stay with her, her company was very positive for me, especially after the culture shock of Bangkok.
She encouraged me to do a Yoga class which i felt refreshing and is something I've been wanting to explore more so in my daily life.

There were also many activities to do here! My favourite day started with a brunch at at the Yoga place. The food was good, cheap, and we had loungey time, chilling out reading books.

Earlier in the morning we had booked to got to 'The Flight of The Gibbons' a rope canopy through the Thai forest where, you guessed it, the gibbons live. We had a small group, Cathy and Walter an Australian couple celebrating their 20 wedding anniversary and a younger couple from Israel who were very sweet. We all really clicked and had a nice dynamic. Our guides were funny Thai dudes, that kept us suitably entertained through our long afternoon. They pointed out a white gibbon in the tree tops with her baby. We found out at dinner later these were rehabilited by David, the New Zealand engineer of the project. He was very passionate about his project and excited to hear our feedback sine he's made lots of new changes to the project.. i was really thinking that would be a great job, sack off London for Jungle.. but there appears to be not in the slightest bit of glamour here!

I saw yellow tipped butterflies, pumpkins growing, cocoa beans, stunning waterfalls and a plethora of different rope slides(?) which kept it fresh and interesting. Dare i say, the best day so far?

The following afternoon, i organised the Mae Ping River Cruise on the Scorpion tailed boat which was chilled and peaceful. It was a beautiful day so I sat at the tip of the helm and enjoyed the cruise. We stopped off at a little farm, that had too many animals in cages, i didn't like this, especially two pot bellied pigs that only had a few metres to move, this made me sad.
During our last few days in Chiang Mai, Lorien took us to Wild Rose; a sauna/ steam room holistic place that was off the beaten track and word of mouth place to get to only. We felt very refreshed and spoilt our bodies with special scrubs and steam room, purging the body of impurities felt good.

Coming out at 11pm, we were ravenous, and wandered the streets in search of good food. We found a working girls restaurant (i only knew this due to asking what the 'Lady' drink on the menu was) that had some Thai rockers blasting out the hits of the 80s. Some old metaller from Baltimore grabbed the mic and made mince meat out of an Alice In Chains songs, hilarious if you know what the Baltimore accent sounds like!
We ordered some food and thought the place a little down market and were not expecting very good food. How pleasantly surprised we were! The food was delicious, or arhoy in Thai!
I thoroughly enjoyed the music and they musicians got a bit of a jam on the go. A portable food stall pulled up outside and started honking his horn to which the guitarist did a call and response to the honking which was really cute and very funny.Daily massages and facials. Chiang Mai was a lovely place to chill out.
We commandeered a tuk-tuk which took seemed to have lots of fun driving all over the place and making the tuk-tuk jump up and down, whilst cruising by paper lights of the Yeepeng festival (festival of light).

The Sunday market was immense. I spent about 600bht (about 20 English pounds) and bought niknaks, and presents for myself, friends and family. They had amazing sushi and wonderful little cakes. One thing the Thai's know how to do really well is eat good food, something I'm terrible fond of as you well know :)
I was sad to leave Chiang Mia behind, but the southern Islands of Thailand were calling us, "Come learn to Scuba Dive!" they were saying! So now, we are plotting our trip to get there

Lost In Translation..

2010-11-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

So 9 days into our trip and it' already been quite intense and we seem to have done alot.

Following from our first proper night out in Bangkok, Naomi and I really didnt like the city life and felt quite intimidated by the noise, the dirty smells and whole foreign concept; culture shock was sinking into us fast like a nasty quicksand and we both freaked. Gareth said it would be a good idea for us to come to hostel nearer his house as he had offered for us to go to Ko Chang (Elephant Island) for the weekend, so we moved hostels and had another awful taxi experience which was induced by lack of communication and us feeling like vunerable females. We asked the driver if he was 'sure' he knew where he was going. Sure, he repeats, sure again. And again. He then proceeds to get a piece of paper out and hands it to us, saying Sex Shows, we both had a feeling a dread and said, 'No! That's not what we mean!".

Once we arrived at the hostel, we decided to go for a little wander and Naomi found it all a bit too much, as did I really.

We met an American Old timer called Billy who told us he spent half the year in Thailand and the rest in the UK. We asked him where he was from, and he said "oh, some little place you won't of heard of, somewhere in the Midlands.." We said, " But we're from the midlands too..." Only turns out, ol' Billy is from Belton!! It really is a small, small world!

After this funny meeting, with promises of a big hug on arrival, Gareth convinced us to jump in a cab and invited us over to his pad for a game of poker and meeting some of his western friend. This cheered us up so much talking to other people that had gone through the same array of emotions as us, not feeling like we were the only ones experiencing it , made the world of difference.

The next evening was Steven's birthday. We dolled ourselves up and headed out into Bangkok for drinks and dinner. On our way to the first pub,Ba Ba Bar, we walked past a guy that was sat of the pavement, grinning at me, i smiled back, only to hear Gareth shout, "That guy's wanking! A reverse hander too!" I didn't see this, so ewwwwwww, grimy! Turns out, it's a bit of a regular occurrence, he stops when a dude walks by, starts when a girl sashays by!!

Moving swiftly on, we departed Ba Ba Bar, and headed to a slick and trendy bar/live music/outside entertainment place where we heartily ate Thai food till it came out our ears and crashed at Gareth's as we were leaving for Ko Chang (Elephant Island) at 6am...

Ko Chang is an interesting one... they discovered the Ele-phants on this island and no idea how they got there!

Whilst staying on the Island, we went on a little trek on the back of the elies, Steven's ele had her baby with her and he was a gorgeous 10month old, trumpeting along, generally causing a raucous, getting under Mum's feet; too cute for words. The last part of the trek ended with taking them for a dip in the pool with the baby especially enjoyed, i'll have found memories of this...

Heading back to Bangkok, we had a night bus to catch to northern Thailand, Chiang Mai.

Arrival in to the unknown! My trip over seas

2010-11-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to my first blog, starting in the metro city of Bangkok!
My sister and I made a bit of crazy plan to go travelling around the world, 3 months, 1 month, 7 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 day, and geeeee's, we've arrived. Couldn't quite believe it, asking my sister as the plane was taking off, "doesnt feel real yet, does it?" After touching down from a pretty okay flight (i normally abhor flying as i can't sleep and it smells bad), we arrived into Bangkok at 4pm local time, where we stood in a queue to get a taxi to our hostel. There went from none, to a line of 7 with one hot pink; i hoped to get this one purely on asthetics and we did, oh hurah!
We soon became sucombed to jet lag and after being in shed-loads of traffic for over an hour. We crawled into what looked like the centre of Bangkok (lots of road side stalls and food) and then were told we had arrived and that the hotel was "just down there". We got out, my sister tipped the man to my annoyance and then wandered off in the touristy direction. It soon became apparent this was not where we were ment to be. Taking it on the chim, we stopped off into a "Tourism Office", told them what had happened to us, and they started to laugh saying we were an hour away from our hotel. Laugh we did not. They, of, course offered to order us a taxi. After some time i thought a better idea would be to phone my old chum (Gareth Finch) from the G'town Massive who now resides in Bangkok to ask advice. He answered the phone in thai, then whispered "put your leotard back on!!" which made me gigle and feel at ease at hearing a friendly voice, ever the comdian our Gareth! He said we were not far from our hotel and it should cost us no more than 70bht at which point our new taxi driver had turned up and they said it was very cheap at 250bht to which point we said thanks but no thanks and i was particually annoyed at the thought of being ripped off again.
Once out on the busy road, we flagged down a total of 8 taxis, all quoting us over 250bht. We were hot, sweaty, cranky and need of our hotel. Not wanting to be scammed again, i refused to budge on the price. It didnt work and i eventually got in a taxi, gave the phone to the driver and Gareth spoke to him and got us sorted out.
We touched down in our hotel which catered nicely for european visitors, showed and ventured to the next street along to have our first meal after a stressful beginning. We opted for an Indian purely because it looked like the first okay place to eat and shared a lovely vegetarian meal. I had, however, not become accustom to the exhange and thought 400 bht would be enough (about 10 english pounds) thus it was not, and shamedly had to walk back to the hotel to collect more money under the lothesome glare of my sister!
We had plans for the following day of doing some research and looking locally what was going on. We both accidently slept till 4pm, oh wow me jet-lag! We had pre-arranged Gareth to come to our hotel at 5.45pm which he did and he took us to his favourite Massage place where we met his thai friend , 'Bluebell Cheese Cake', a very sweet friendly girl. He booked us in for a 2 hour Thai massage, which worked out every knot in my body, and i felt suitably tenderised!
We jumped in a cab and went to a very none- touristy part of town where we orderd so much thai food, it was simply divine; one of the main things i was looking forward to was the food and i was not disappointed.
There was live music (no piano for me to tinkle on unfortuatly), and they soon broke into 'Happy Birhtday' which i thought strange, but according to Gareth, happens at least once on a night out!
Once well fed and watered we wondered around the closing stalls where we saw some really cute fluffy dogs and twin thai girls that Naomi had her photo taken with!
Having our friend here after a not-so-nice beginning was a god-send and something we're both grateful for. I dont think Gareth have spent time together for about 8 years, our last in the fall of 2001 to The Amsterdam, no doubt, i'm sure you can imagine we bonded in full party mode, it was as if it was yesterday. He also seems to have an ageless quality about him, maybe it's the thai lifestyle serving him so well?
First impressions have turned sweeter after a sour start, but one thing is sure; we are both hungry for adventure and ready to take on comes our way since we've had a little help from our friend...
This weekend, we are heading to a much less commerical Island with Gareth, I can't wait to sink my toes into that silky white sand.
Love Esther xXx

Facebook | Esther Flatters and The Sugar Daddies at The Pheasantry, 16th Jun 2010

2010-06-13T03:12:00.000-07:00

Facebook | Esther Flatters and The Sugar Daddies at The Pheasantry, 16th Jun 2010: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

2010-04-12T02:46:00.000-07:00

What a WONDERFUL weekend!
Started the proceedings by doing my regular slot at The Plough in East Dulwich. There was some slight confusion to start when me and the Sax cat arrived and there was a band setting up! The appeared to be some confusion over who was suppose to be planning, rest assured, i was in the right place. So after some slight arkwardness, they had to pack up...
I was playing with a very stripped down band, just me on keys and vox, Sax and drums but it was a BIG sound. And i got some footage shot which i'll link in soon..
And while you wait, here's a cute pic we had taken after the show.... and Mikey is holding a very tiny present.. don't ask!! xXx

2010-04-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

These a a couple of snaps from the Bizarre shoot I did in September 09 with Kamil Janowski (TOG), Robert Masciave (HAIR) and Beatriz Lopez (MUA), hope you likey..

So tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and i am feeling the most Easter-y ever as I'm bunny sitting for my friend! He's a cute little black wabbit called Elmo and i'll endeavour to take a pic or two of him tearing up my living room!

Happy Easter!
Love Happy Esther!! xXx

My first blog

2010-04-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

Well hello all you lovely people. I have finally sorted myself out a blog where you can stay up to date with the latest news, activities Esther Flatters (and her Sugar Daddies) are doing!

Here's a lovely photo by Mister Daf.. www.dafyddowen.com
Toodles..

Love Esther xXx