garyandlinda – Page 5 – saskatoonie.com

January 29, 2022January 29, 2022

Are we crabby or just hot?

You have to love winter in Thailand

We got going a bit earlier today so we could talk with Linda’s mom over Skype. The time difference is a bit of a problem for us when it comes to staying in touch with people who are 13 hours behind us.

We walked farther on the beach this morning because we beat the heat. We watched a couple of hermit crabs which was real cool. We actually got a decent video of the one hermit crab which you will see below.

The last few days at breakfast we sat across from a young couple from Denmark. They had an interesting story. Covid. They came to Thailand through the Test and go entry, the same us us. That’s where you have a negative test within 72 hours of departure from your home country and have a test on arrival in Thailand. Once you are cleared you are free to travel around the country until your second test. If the second test on day six is clear you are good to go without the need to test again. Well, they came to Koh Lanta where we are, after their first test. On day 6 they had their second test and turned up positive. They got sent the next day to a quarantine facility by ambulance to Trang province which is East and South of here on the mainland. Their insurance was billed ฿200,000 about $7500 CAD for 10 days of quarantine. They had no symptoms at all. Lucky them.

After our time at the beach we came back to our room and showered. Gary looked at the video we took at the beach and did some quick editing.

We eventually went for a massage at the Anchan Massage right on the beach. It’s air conditioned. The massage was really good, the covid prevention was not.

After another shower back at our bungalow, we had a a beer on the deck with our neighbour. We eventually went for supper at the most authentic Thai place we could find on google. It’s called Chef Chalong Restaurant. It was really good. We both had chicken with cashew nut and we shared a steamed rice. We had one large beer and one regular beer between the 2 of us and it set us back ฿480 which is about $18.25 CAD. Once again the beer plays a hefty part of the cost of supper. We were surprised and pleased when the waitress brought us a pate of watermelon and pineapple for desert. Wow

We had the cook out talking to us too. We definitely know what our next meal at Chef Chalong will be. Probably a curry dish like Penag with Chicken or Massaman. The cook assured us he knows how to make European level spicy, basically that is bland for Farangs. FYI Farang is what we are, like gringo but in Thailand. Farang is not exactly something you say to someone’s face but that doesn’t change the facts. LOL

The walk back to the Oasis Bungalows wasn’t far but there are no street lights along part of the road. In fact the road turns to dirt for about 50 metres. It seems the big resort built a cement road but didn’t spend the extra money to connect the 2 roads together. We actually figured out this route in 2020 when we were exploring the area. Not a big deal we have these tiny wrist mounted LED flashlights for just this purpose. We can see and be seen.

So, back to the massage, we wore our masks, the gals didn’t. Too bad. If we carry on like this for 2 months, chances are we could be like everyone back home. The problem here, when we leave to come home April 1, we need a clear covid test or a minimum of 14 days post covid infection which is proven by a positive RT PCR test. The problem, if we get covid we might get sick, or maybe not, but if we test positive our insurance might might be the one getting sick. $7,500 for a 10 day quarantine? No Thanks! The quest is on for a better massage place. Oh, 10 days quarantine and no going outside. Think we are going to pass on that one.

January 28, 2022January 28, 2022

Jelly Anyone?

Klong Dao Beach

What can we say when we go to the beach every day? The water was great, the sun was hot, there were a few jellyfish on the beach. We didn’t see any in the water until we came out after a 45 minute dip. Ooops. Glad we missed the freaking things in the water. Or, better yet, glad they missed us!

Jelly fish are like mosquitos, you have to wonder what their purpose is on the planet. Apparently they can be eaten, by people and sea creatures. They also protect some fish from predators. It looks like the one in the video had fun with the crab, We just try to avoid them. We carry a little bottle of vinegar and rubbing alcohol 50/50 mix. Gary uses it when diving to clean and disinfect his ears. It’s the best prevention for swimmer’s ear. Vinegar is supposed to work for jelly fish stings too. Hope we don’t need it!

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022

Cooking Hot with Street Food

Thailand is HOT

Yesterday we we spent the day walking the beach, going for a swim and then spending the hottest part of the afternoon on our bungalow verandah in the shade until the heat finally drove us inside to the air conditioning.

For supper we went down the beach to the So Good Restaurant where we had eaten a few nights ago. Gary had a barbecued red snapper fish and Linda had a barbecued skewer of chicken and veggies. We shared a baked potato and cob of corn again. The restaurant also had a fire show. It was pretty cool to watch. The guy does an amazing job and you really have to wonder how often he burnt himself learning how to twirl the various items – some were like batons, others were on chains. Beach BBQ and 3 large beer totalled ฿810 or $31 CAD. It was the beer that added to the price of supper. The beer was about $15 CAD.

Today, Thursday we spent the day pretty much the same. It actually seemed hotter today – it was 34 C and 70% humidity. Nook, a local Thai, that works at the front desk even said tonight that it was a very hot day today and no breeze. We did do a long walk on the beach and spent a long time in the water after. Last night we saw a number of jellyfish that the out going tide had left on the beach. It was a little concerning what we’d find today and whether we’d be able to swim but thankfully we didn’t see any in the water today. The water felt warmer again today, yesterday it seemed slightly cooler! Hard to know without taking the dive computer down to check. After the sun went down and it cooled off slightly, and after we had a couple beer, we walked down to the little Pad Thai cart that we’d seen doing a brisk business a few nights ago. We ordered 2 chicken Pad Thai and 2 bottles of water. It cost us ฿120 or $4.58 CAD. If we eat there a couple more nights we’ll be totally back on budget, lol. It actually was one of the better Pad Thai we’ve had on the trip.

From our supper location we walked back to the 7-11 and stocked up on more soda water, beer and some bar soap and took it back to our room. Then we walked back down to the fruit stand and purchased another dragon fruit and some more passion fruit. This afternoon we’d enjoyed eating some while sitting on our verandah. A great way to help hydrate and enjoy some tasty fruit. Forgot to mention that yesterday we also went back to the “dusty” store and bought some melamine plates, a little broom, a plastic basket, a dish towel and sponge. Now we can easily cut up fruit, eat it on our deck and wash up after! It was all pretty cheap and we’ll just leave it when we finally go. The “dusty” store is a warehouse like building that has a dirt floor and is open along the street side. Everything inside if not packaged or wrapped is dusty and needs a good wash when you buy it!! But man, do they have stuff, everything you can think of from beach toys to dishes, batteries, electrical supplies, mats, chairs, beauty supplies, kitchen stuff and more stuff. It’s quite the place, you just have to be willing to look around for what you need and sweat while you are doing it. The place is stifling hot! Much like a solar powered oven. Imagine a tin shed, no insulation, no fans. The cashier sits in windowed booth with air-conditioning. It’s quite the place.

The breakfast here at Oasis is very nice and we do get lots of fruit but they don’t have dragon fruit or passion fruit available which we both love so we really enjoy buying some and eating for a snack.

We did do some searching today and found a hotel to book in Bangkok for when we head home. It is quite a bit cheaper if we book early. We also found a clinic not too far from the hotel and have booked our RT-PCR tests that we need to board the return flight. So at least that is all looked after. We just have to stay healthy until then. Considering we can go to the beach and only see a handful of people that are scattered along the several km long beach we should be ok. It is pretty quiet here which is fine. We may never have this opportunity again to experience Thailand this quiet. While the locals likely wish for more tourists to bring in much needed $$ we are thankful to experience the peacefulness and beauty of Thailand with few people! Oh, back to the hotel. We booked the Grand Suite for ฿2200 including breakfast. Yup, $84 CAD. According to their website the Grand Suite is 861 square feet to 1022 square feet.

Click Here to check out our hotel room at the Rembrandt Hotel in Bangkok.

One last video below, from the beach where we ate supper last night we got this view of the sunset. Was it ever nice!

January 23, 2022January 23, 2022

Relaxing

January 22nd and 23rd

We were up in decent time this morning, if you don’t count getting woke at dawn by the mosque call to prayer…even after we both had ear plugs in! We enjoyed a relaxed breakfast at the resort restaurant. There is a ton of variety, cereal, granola, lots of fruit, sliced and chopped, yogurt, home made bread, banana bread, salad greens, tomatoes, chopped peppers and lots of coffee. We even enjoyed some coconut milk in our coffee.

We made a few phone calls this morning, had a chat with Mo & Jim, Al & Bev and Rita. By then the heat was ratcheting up so we lathered up in sun screen and went for a walk on the beach for a few kilometres and then went for a long swim. Gary took his dive computer with him to check the water temperature and it was 30ºC and 31ºC right by the shore. There was a small beach bar that had chairs in the shade out front on the sand so after our swim we sat and had a cold beer. The later part of the afternoon was spent back at our cottage, swimming in the pool, sitting in the shade and finally inside with some a/c (set at 30ºC) until it was time to head out for supper. Last night we had walked into Saladan for supper at the Ocean Indian Restaurant. We had eaten there before and while it was still good their menu selection is hugely reduced and so our choices were severely limited. The view is great though!

On the walk into Saladan last night we had purchased some locally made candied peanuts. They are delicious and so tonight we decided we would head back and stock up. Well after hiking there we found the store was closed as it is Sunday! Guess we’ll have to make a trip back another day! From there we back tracked to go to the Saswadee Restaurant. The meal was good and reasonably priced. We did watch a small mobile vendor across the street selling Pad Thai for 50 – 70 baht and doing a good deal of business. Gary thinks we need to try it one night. We watched her cooking a Pad Thai, the shrimp are whole, heads, legs and all. There are a couple of plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk for dine in.

We do have a fridge in our room so have a bit of fruit and lots of soda water and beer stocked. Thankfully the 7-11 is just at the end of our street and we can easily pick up a few things there. There is a fruit stand within an easy walk too.

Life is pretty slow here. Some of the toughest decisions we have to make are which bathing suit to wear for the day and where we are going to eat supper! That’s just fine!

The video below is from our walk on the beach. Gary has to figure out how do do close up videos of the bubbler crabs. We also need to video them as the tide goes out, they are much more active as the water retreats.

January 21, 2022January 22, 2022

Welcome to Lanta

Koh Lanta Thailand

Koh Lanta is one of Thailand’s best kept secrets. Blame it on the Swedes because they seem to be the only tourists here! Also, welcome to the Oasis, we are staying at Oasis Yoga Bungalows.

Click Here to visit Oasis Yoga Bungalows

Today was a travel day and we still got to the beach, had Mexican food for supper and went for a nice long evening walk. The speedboat travelling from Phuket to Koh Lanta was the least enjoyable part of the day. No enjoyment whatsoever. Too many people, too rough, but we have had much worse trips in previous years. The boat has a row of bench seats on each side, similar to a school bus back in Canada. Hard and uncomfortable, made for 2 people but when crowded you can squish in 3 to a bench. We were not thinking when we booked the speedboat on a Friday, which in this case had more people due to the weekend crowd coming from Phuket.

We ate lunch while waiting for the room to be cleaned after the previous guest checked out. We did arrive before check in time. After the details of payment and check in were done, we went for a walk down the beach and then for a swim. When we got into the water there were no visible jellyfish and we were surprised how much warmer the water felt here in Koh Lanta. A check online shows the water temperature here is 28.8ºC. It felt warmer than Phuket but maybe it’s not.

Our place here is a poolside bungalow. It’s not huge, but it has a king sized bed and enough room to unpack. It’s also got a small fridge. There are lots of Swedish people staying here, many with children. We learned tonight that the Swedish school here in Koh Lanta is now open with about 300 students. There are some lucky Swedish kids. The other thing we noticed is much more lax covid prevention protocol, particularly masking. You still need to wear a mask in stores but many tourists walk around without masks on, almost every local we saw on the streets are wearing masks.

Below is a video of our day’s highlights.

January 20, 2022January 20, 2022

Jelly

January 19th Karon Beach

We got to Karon beach after lunch but were disappointed to find so many jelly fish in the water. It made cooling off in the ocean a bit risky. Linda has just barely recovered from some stings she got right after arriving in Phuket January 13th. Gary took his GoPro into the water to film these beautiful but nasty creatures.

Today, January 20th we did our good byes to all of our Rawai acquaintances. First at Herb Massage, second at Smile Restaurant. We have no plans to come back here on this trip. Our plan is to spend 5 weeks in Koh Lanta. That leaves a month unplanned.

Maybe we’ll go to Adang Resort near Koh Lipe for a week, we have not decided.

We turned in our rental car this evening (Thursday). Tomorrow Friday January 21st we are moving to Koh Lanta.

We get picked up by taxi at 7:15 am, our boat leaves at 8:30 am. The actual boat portion of the trip is about 90 minutes. The taxi and speedboat transfer cost was ฿3600 around $140 CAD for both of us. That’s about the same price we paid to fly from Bangkok to Phuket which is also about an hour and a half trip.

January 20, 2022January 20, 2022

Today was a 5 Star Day

Introducing Phang Nga Bay Thailand

That you for reading our blog.

We have had a few comments along the way about travelling during a pandemic. Linda talked to the Bank of Montreal fraud detection department in advance of our departure to advise them that she would be using her Mastercard in Thailand. The guy said “you realize there is a government issued travel advisory?”

The desk agent at Air Canada said “good on you for going to Thailand!”

When you get over the fear, the world is your oyster. Today our private tour of Phang Nga Bay with 5 Star Marine was the reward for any risk and inconvenience we may have taken. Granted, wearing a mask is an inconvenience. Now for the main attraction!

Phang Nga Bay is pronounced “pang naw bay”. Nothing Thai sounds like it is written in English. We are in Phuket which any normal English person would think is Fue Ket. Guess what? It’s pronounced pooh ket. We should have mentioned that 3 months go.

Today was like we died and went to heaven. Last we checked though, we are still here wearing the same freaking masks for covid. Back to that heavenly feeling again, today we toured Phang Nga Bay with 5 Star Marine. It was probably one of the most awesome things we have ever done. We have been lucky enough in the past to do some awesome things but today takes the cake! We arrived at 5 Star Marine about 8:30am. Their staff greeted us the moment we were walking up to the business. They made sure they had our passport info and vaccination info correct and Linda completed some other contact info. Ages 62 and 66, can you believe that? Shaun, the owner sat with us to discuss the various tours and which ones we might be interested in. We chose the Phang Nga Bay trip. It is like visiting Halong Bay, Vietnam, but right here in Thailand! There are 40 islands in the Phang Nga Bay. The bay contains the largest mangroves in Thailand! There are amazing limestone islands with caves and stalagmites hanging from the cave edges and protruding through the water. We were ducking our heads from the stalactites hanging down from the caves. We spent 2 days editing our video, a picture is worth a thousand words. There is no counting the the beauty we saw on this tour. Mother Nature can be pretty majestic! We hope you enjoy our tour as much as we did. Please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And please share this video with everyone you know! Thank you.

Enjoy the video below. Please watch it in full screen for the best view. That can be done by clicking on the box in the bottom right corner (little square) once the video has started. We hope you enjoy the tour!

January 19, 2022January 19, 2022

A swan on our bed

January 16th

Today was a pretty low key day! We had a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed a few coffee while we called home and had a visit with Gary’s Mom Rita and a quick visit with Al and Bev. Then we lathered up with sunscreen and headed to Karon Beach. When we were at Karon Beach on Friday Linda felt a couple of stingers on the back of her knees. Yesterday she noticed a few bumps on the front of her right knee and thigh. After some checking, it looks like the stingers got her on the back of both knees and the front of the one rather badly. Thankfully we brought antihistamines and lotion to help! Today in the water we saw multiple large jelly fish and some small translucent ones as well. You really have to keep your eyes open when you are in the water. Depending on currents, some days more jelly fish are present than others.

We parked our car on a side street beside a restaurant. Today we noticed the sign “Due to the covid situation we will be closed for the next 5 days until Monday.” I guess the restaurant staff got covid or were exposed.

We headed back to our villa around 4:30 and showered. Shaun from Five Star Marine texted us that it is a go for our boat tour tomorrow morning. He expects the winds will have dropped and the ocean should be great for a speedboat tour. We’ll have to get organized tonight, do some shopping for more fruit and water and get the car gassed up. We’ll have our fruit all cut up for breakfast before we go to bed. That means Linda will be busy! Please check out our blog tomorrow we promise to have some amazing video from our trip to Phang Nga Bay! (pronounced pang naw).

Lady Naya Villas has recently hired more staff, a young lady with towel figurine skills. Two days in a row with flower petals and animals on our bed. Nice!

January 16, 2022January 16, 2022

A Helping Hand

January 15th in Phuket

We are getting brave! Today we drove to 5 Star Marine at the Phuket Lagoon Marina. It’s about a 40 minute drive surrounded by crazy drivers! We helped package food into plastic bags to distribute to needy unemployed in Phuket and area. Each bag contains 2 bags of rice, 2 bags of noodles, 3 cans of sardines, one bottle of cooking oil and one package of laundry detergent. The team had already started by the time we got there so I am not sure how many got done while we were there, but over 200. It’s a hands on labour intensive time consuming process. We had an assembly line going. Linda opened the plastic bag, put in the rice, I put in the noodles and also helped Linda open the plastic bags. Opening the bags reminded us of trying to open the produce bag at the grocery store, some open easy and others it was a struggle! The next guy, Blair, put in another variety of packaged noodles, the next person put in the cooking oil, then sardines, then laundry soap and someone tied the bags shut. Then a Jenga building expert stacked the bags into a huge pile. When it was time to load them in the truck for delivery, we used the old bucket brigade system to hand them out of the building and into the truck. There really isn’t that much food in a bag but it is suppose to last a family up to a week. To qualify for a life bag you need to have been with out any food for about 3 days. This relief was only supposed to last for a few months to tide over the tourist dependant community through the covid crisis. It’s not really working that way because the crisis is once again getting worse than ever before! It has been 20 months of life bags, not what anyone expected!

Once done filling and loading the bags, we headed to the Phuket Central Market which is a huge mall. It’s really big! We had a few mistakes in our routing thanks to Waze, the navigation app that we usually use. We actually missed a turn due to an underpass that Waze didn’t have a clear reading on. We finally got to the mall and found parking. We went to the Big Camera store and bought 2 GoPro batteries for ฿980 each, that’s about $37 CAD. We found our way out of the mall and parking structure that was a huge multi level thing. Parking was free today which was nice. We are not sure why or if it’s free all the time. The coolest thing ever, they have valet parking at the mall. You drive to the door, get out and someone parks your car. That’s a really good idea! We had to hunt like crazy to find a spot, but we eventually did. 99% of people back their cars into the spot. This can’t be the same erratic drivers we see on the roads around here!

It was a long drive back to Rawai but we made it fine. The outside temperature was 33º. We actually missed a perfect beach day, but we had fun doing something else! We relaxed and enjoyed a couple of beer and placed a Grab order for supper. Tonight’s menu is from the Little Persian restaurant, a couple of chicken wraps and an Iranian salad. Plus, as our order was over ฿300 we get a free falafel wrap! We’ll pop that in the fridge and share it for lunch one day! We ate at the Little Persian a number of times when we were here last and really enjoyed their food. Grab is so convenient and it lets us enjoy our evening with a cool beverage and no worries of driving.

We have our accommodation booked in Koh Lanta, we are leaving on the speedboat ferry January 21. We will be staying at Oasis Yoga Bungalows for about 5 weeks.

January 15, 2022January 15, 2022

Hello Phuket Again!

January 13, 2022

Today we planned to fly to Phuket. This may be a record for us, no hotel and no flight booked on our day of departure. First things first, we ate a huge breakfast consisting of the usual fruit and coffee. We actually picked up a couple extra mangos yesterday walking back from supper. Linda noticed a fruit stand across the street as we were walking along. They had awesome mangos for ฿20 each.

Right after eating breakfast Gary went to the front desk to pick up our second NEGATIVE covid results. We needed to know the results but we also needed a printed copy. We are now clear to travel anywhere in Thailand.

We booked a flight from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport (pronounce soo · waan · aa ·poom) to Phuket on Air Asia a discount airline. There are actually 2 airports serving Bangkok. We picked Suvarnabhumi because the flights were slightly cheaper, the flight departure time was more convenient and we are familiar with this airport from our last trip home December 5, 2021. The total flight cost was ฿3,799.50 or about $71.50 CAD each. That includes (hot seats) front seating with legroom and 20 Kg of luggage each. We actually were slightly over at about 22 Kg each which was no problem. We look forward to lightening our load as we will leave 2 cans of maple syrup in Phuket. We will also use a bit of our 8 or 9 large bottles of sunscreen.

We also booked back at the Lady Naya Villas and also car rental for a week from the same place as last time. We paid 20% less for the car rental back in November 2021 ($7.50 CAD per day less). There goes another $50 CAD, part of the reason for only one week in Phuket.

After the week in Phuket we plan to leave for Koh Lanta. We are making arrangements to stay at Oasis Yoga Bungalows. We actually looked at the rooms when we were in Koh Lanta in February of 2020. They have a fridge, a swimming pool and are about a long city block from the beach. Perfect location because we can also walk into Saladan where the markets are to buy fruit for breakfast. Hopefully some of our favourite restaurants are open as covid has closed so many places, especially in Koh Lanta which was not included in the “Sandbox” scheme to allow foreigners back into Thailand.

We got to the airport in plenty of time. We had the option of a set fare cab or a metered cab. We ended up with the metered cab. The driver was curious. How long have we been in Thailand for? Gary said we have had 2 covid tests that were negative and the driver felt better immediately. He then wanted to know how much we wanted to pay to get to the airport. Gary agreed on the set fare price. In reality the metre was about half of that. Call it a tip, the poor guy is really looking for a break. Interesting fact, his cab was NGV, a natural gas vehicle. NG is about 60 cents CAD per litre, half the price of regular gasoline. Just to make it clear, the airport was a 35 minute ride for ฿500 or a whopping $19. It’s about 30 km away, but the traffic was very heavy and slow.

Check in with Air Asia was quick. We needed our vaccine certificates and passports. She never asked for our covid tests or anything else.

We ended up at gate A-7 about 2 hours before the scheduled departure time. We wore N95 masks and were pretty much the only ones with that grade of mask. Better safe than sorry!

The flight was quick, just a bit over an hour. The flight was 25%-30% full. The Airbus A320-200 has a capacity of 180. We were in the second row and had an empty seat between us.

A couple of domestic flights landed in Phuket at the same time. It was non covid busy at the luggage area for about 5 minutes. Our bags were the very first 2 bags on the carousel. This has only happened one other time in our travels when we landed in Kuala Lumpur. It is a great feeling!

We walked to the exit and saw a rate sign for taxis. It was ฿900 to Rawai. We’re not sure why airports do this, but, before you leave the airport the taxi booth personal ask where you are going. We said Rawai. They get you to prepay for the trip, and give you a receipt to hand to the taxi. Maybe to keep the taxi operator from ripping off tourists. The gal said it would cost ฿1000, the sign at the booth also said ฿1000. Gary said the rate board back there said ฿900. The gals said ok, ok, and said she would charge us ฿900. We actually paid ฿800 back in October for the exact same trip. Only difference now, there are more tourists.

Our taxi was a nice Toyota. The old guy driving needs a lesson on wearing a mask. It was below his lips the whole way. Wonder why we wore our N95 medical masks? We actually planned to change them out after the flight but this guy made us feel a bit uneasy.

We checked in to Lady Naya Villas again. A different room, but the inside is almost identical. However, when we walk out the front door it is confusing as we are in a different area of the villa complex.

We did get our rental car delivered, a brand new Toyota Yaris sedan. It has just over 1500 km on it. We are the second renters. The first guy got a few scrapes on it, now we are rubbing our lucky charms and praying for safe travels!

We drove to a restaurant for supper and pick up some soda water and 2 beer at a convenience store.

Tomorrow we are going to Karon Beach. The forecast is hot and sunny.