Category: Thailand

Day 146, Tuesday 29 May 2012, Phuket

I had another average sleep and spent half the day feeling tired. I will really aim for a whole day of lying down when I get to the Perhentians tomorrow, I have a few days there. With only a week remaining in SE Asia I feel like I should be fully active every day – but then I get stuck between wanting to do things and being so completely de-motivated I cannot even log on to the computer and just lie there staring at the ceiling. Today was a mix of those days – I blame the weather.

There was a fair chunk of rain last night and again this morning when I headed out to find some breakfast. Unlike most other places I have been Nai Yang had no ‘street’ options for breakfast, I wandered the strip just after 8:00 AM and nothing was open, this left me no choice from the hotel and it was sooooooooooooooooooooooo expensive, even by NZ standards ! Luckily I had Thai baht I was ‘happy’ to get rid of.

Five minutes, is all it took – I have turned into Meliesha ! +

After breakfast and when the rain stopped I took a walk through town. Not a lot happening, me and the dog, but I loved the signs on the bars. Even in the evening it was fairly deserted.

And then up the north side of the beach for an hour or so. The beach at Nai Yang is supposedly 13kms long and apart from some young local guys net fishing I saw no-one on the beach, fantastic!

I also found this deserted and desolate old resort, I was walking up the driveway with the intent of getting some photos when the inevitable dog came out and started barking at me – I made a disappointed retreat, the place looked very cool.

The Bus Bar – maybe a good idea last year…

Not something that is strictly enforced I suspect, I mean this is still Thailand.

The resort has some tortoises in a fenced off area, normally I would mightily disapprove of this, but did enjoy a couple of photo ops they presented me. His/her back feet were a couple of inches off the ground and wiggling away…

Run for it, no one will find us !

After lunch I spent an hour round the pool, soaking up some of the brief sunshine in the day, plus of course a wee dip. Thats my room behind the steps – oh and the sun had come out by now…

I then went wandering around looking for some life and lunch. I ended up at a beach side pizza joint, the only place with customers and had a reasonable pizza and mango shake. Amusingly – a small group, I think they were French, but could have been Italian – they were speaking English, ordered a vegetarian pizza, and then asked the Thai waiter to bring a bottle of red he would recommend went with the pizza – not a decision I personally would make !

I didn’t do a lot after lunch, dozed, read, blog posted yesterday, a bit of email, dozed etc etc.

At 5:00 i went walking again, down to the south side of the beach, I wanted to get to the southern point of the beach but tide and a small river got in the way. I think the big hotel at the south end is also deserted and I was keen to go have a look but gave up in the end. I did get some good photos in the small national park on the way down.

The sky was looking amazing, brooding and heavy on the horizon – so I walked back towards the village and took a LOT of photos of the clouds and sea until the storm arrived and then I had to run for shelter – and just made it before the heavens opened again.

I stopped for dinner and a drink in the same place as last night and then headed back to my room for photo viewing, editing and blog posting over a scotch and coke and some good music (HDU).

Ah, “run fat boy run” has just come on TV, one of my favourite movies, and i can sympathise with Simon Pegg right now.

 

+ for those readers who do not know me, Meliesha is my daughter, she is A) living in Bristol, England and I am going to stay with her for a few days soon, which I am very excited about, and B) she is the messiest person I know – I am pretty sure not much has changed. Hurricane Mel 🙂

Day 142, Friday 25 May 2012 – Koh Tao

One noisy neighbour kept me awake for half the night, I think it was the people from the room below playing the Sex Pistols “great rock and roll swindle” over and over. Normally I would not disapprove of people playing the Sex Pistol, but come on – R n R swindle was an awful album and not to be played loudly – ever.

I had semi-planned on getting up early and getting out for a run this morning and as I was awake at 6.00 I did! I have been talking about going running for a while but have just been able to motivate myself, and to be honest – I was never going to run in Bangkok anyway.

Koh Tao is not that big and there are not too many roads to run, it is also “undulating” as my friend Vicki would say. I ran along the main road to the nth end of Sairee beach and back, probably about 5km at a slow 6 minute km pace. I passed a few stumbling young people walking back from the various all night parties that go on here – not a pretty sight and the stink of alcohol was overpowering in some places. Apart from a sore hip, I felt pretty good, I was sucking a lot of air on the ups, but once I got the hang of it I was running reasonably smoothly. I will plan on a new route tomorrow and try to get a run in each morning before diving.

Even at 6.00 it was still warm enough to make running a sweaty affair so everything was washed as soon as I got back to my room.

After a leisurely breakfast I headed down to the dive shop for the 10.00 Am boat and my first experience of Thailand diving. There was a small group diving today so we were on the boat and out on the water pretty quickly. The ride out to the first dive site Chumpon Pinnacle took about forty minutes in probably the biggest swell I have been in on the way to a site, getting the gear ready was challenging at times – not that it was a huge swell !

The dive was pretty good, shortish as we had a couple of fairly new divers in the group who used a lot quicker than the more experienced of us. The visibility was good and there was no current below the surface. Saw a couple of quite reasonable size groupers, but no whale sharks – they very occasionally frequent the area.

Dive two was at Twins Pinnacle, a slightly shallower (and therefore longer) dive. When we arrived at the site there was a small swell but the weather was pretty good.

The second dive was about fifty minutes, again- great vis. but didn’t see anything spectacular – lots of life, some nice schools of small fish though. As we were ascending I could see the weather had turned, the swell had increased and as I approached the surface I could see the rain drops hitting the sea. Though the current wasn’t strong staying near the boat was interesting.

I enjoyed the dives and have booked in for two more tomorrow – weather dependant !

I did bugger all for the rest of the day, mooched and watched TV in my room, dinner at the local cafe, with the most ‘relaxed’ service I have seen since I left Sepilok in Malaysian Borneo in Februrary.

I rang both Dom and Aiden this afternoon (my sons), but neither answered so will give em another go tomorrow !

Days, 140/141 Wednesday/Thursday, 23/24 May 2012, Bangkok

Happy Birthday Meliesha ! 🙂

Weird Japanese guy and the snorer really screwed up my sleep,  so tired yet again and with another overnight train ride tonight it will be another loooooong day coming. I hung around the hostel until I got tossed out at 11.30, half an hour after check out – OK not really tossed out, but I left then. I did watch the final episode in season two of Sherlock. Awesome – has it been fully shown in NZ – I almost gave away a spoiler !

Scott, is an Aussie guy, my age, staying in the hostel, he wanted to know how to get to the main station so we went together.

As my train wasn’t leaving till 7.30 PM we decided to hang out for the day and went and checked out Wat Traimit as it was near the station.

The Buddha figure is 3 metres high, weighs 5.5 tonnes and is solid gold ! Awesome.

Me wishing for world peace (well not really, but I am not going to say what I wished for : ) )

A coffin maker, doing a final polish on the footpath.

It was another stinking hot day, it had been raining on the way to the station was quite humid and in this is part of town the sewers were stinking. Scott and i decided to catch the train to the malls as he wanted to grab a few things I had time to kill and wanted to kill it in relative coolness.

I made it back to the station for 5.00 PM and hung around in the station until it was time to get onto the train. At 6.00 PM the national anthem was played and everyone in the station- westerners and all stood up for the minute, i haven’t experienced that since I was a kid in England. I also got a message from Danny, the girl who had boiling water burns in Pakse, saying she was recovering well and been allowed to go to Myanmar to continue her travels – great news indeed.

I was fortunate enough to not have to share my seat again and had a nice couple from Melbourne, Kay and Colin over the aisle from me, great to have people to chat to over a beer or two until the beds were pulled down around 9.30.

I didn’t sleep much until the train arrived in Chumphon over an hour late at 5.30 am (we were due at 4.15). this was actually a good thing as the bus from the station to the ferry to the islands doesn’t leave until 6.00, so time for a quick Nescafe before boarding the bus.

The ferry ride was just under two hours, the ferry was pretty full and most people dozed the trip away, I plugged myself into some music and closed my eyes, but didn’t really nod off.

I am staying at the Ananda Inn on Mae Haad beach, which is pretty much where the ferry docks, the beach isn’t stunning and the village reminds me a bit of El Nido in the Philippines, but not as quaint. After breakfast and a lie down I went for a walk around the town and over to the main tourist are of Sai ree beach. I am pretty glad I chose not to stay there as it is a busy spot with a lot of late night bucket bars+ and I would imagine noisy as heck.

I also booked my diving for tomorrow – 2 dives from 10.00 AM – will see how good it is. At this stage I am not overly enthused with Koh Tao, so hoping for some awesome diving or it could be a long four days.

+ Buckets are really common, especially in Thailand, they are a (I guess) a litre plastic bucket that serves as a glass for cheap cocktails or more commonly spirit mixes, like whisky and coke. The alcohol content is high, the quality low and they are cheap and aimed at getting the young uns drunk as skunks.

Day 90, Tuesday 03 April 2012, Bangkok

A bit jaded this morning after one or two vodkas too many last night. I had breakfast with John and have his contact details for when I eventually arrive in Sweden, which I am looking forward to. I lurked – pretty much entirely in bed, for the morning, in the guesthouse and finally left at chucking out time at 11.00

Tuk tuk to the mini-van depot – and discovered I was not ripped off the by tuk tuk on the day I arrived, the price is the price ! The mini-van driver was a loony, lane changing every 10 or 15 seconds, didn’t seem to make any progress through the traffic, but it didn’t bother him, we did make it unscathed back to downtown Bangkok though, so a bonus really.

I did very little after that, my nose had been streaming for the past 24 hours and I was dead tired so just spagged the afternoon in the good old HI-Sukhumvit hostel as tomorrow I am up at 4.30 to get to the airport to fly to Da Nang.

Day 89, Monday 02 April 2012, Ayutthaya

A quick post as I am going to get too far behind again, it is lateish in the evening and I have no wifi in my room in Da Nang and the next few days will get busy I suspect.

Last full day in Ayutthaya and I got the bike again and rode out to the eastern wats, definitely not as good as the ones in the centre of town, but here are a few photos from them.

 

I also rode to the remains of the Portugese settlement – a few bricks on the ground… and then to the floating market…. where I took a photo of a buffalo as the market was neither floating nor a proper market.

After a wee lie down I went on a late afternoon boat tour of the rivers around the island. The tour was Ok, no real guidance from the boat guy, but saw the town from the other side which was interesting anyway.

Saw these people feeding the river catfish – earning credits for the next incarnation.

Ayutthaya was hit badly in the floods last year and you can see on the house how high the water went.

 

And again the water line on this temple site is a good four metres above the normal tide mark.

On the boat trip there was two other people from my guest house, John and his daughter Jesse, I joined them for a couple of drinks and then dinner at one of the restaurants in town. we then went back to the hostel and had a couple more drinks, where the Swiss guest house owner joined us as well.

It was a pretty good day, nice to hang with some people for dinner.