garyandlinda – Page 9 – saskatoonie.com

April 24, 2021April 24, 2021

March 15, 2020 Pandemic

We spend our last 2 days in Kuala Lumpur

By now the government of Canada has requested all citizens to return to Canada. Also, by now we have had several flight changes and cancellations. Our original flights home through Hong Kong were cancelled while we were in Coron Philippines. We were rerouted through Japan. We make new arrangements to fly home on March 17 instead of March 19 due to the growing concern over the pandemic. Our toll free number for Air Canada no longer works, we found a new number for Air Canada on social media. After finally contacting Air Canada we had to wait for a callback from them. They did call within one hour. Air Canada had to phone us back to confirm pricing on seats. It cost us $250 extra to get home. We then booked our seats with ANA (a Japanese Airline) via phone. ANA is wonderful to deal with. ANA could teach Air Canada a few things on customer service.

The Chinese returned after WW2 to find the tin mines flooded where they originally worked. Yap Ah Loy, an influential Chinese figure back then, had opened a tapioca mill on Petaling Street in an attempt to allow the Chinese to stay employed. To this day, Petaling Street is sometimes called ‘Chee Cheong Kai’, meaning ‘Starch Factory Street’ in Cantonese, referring to its history as the centre for the production of tapioca flour back then.

We left home January 7, and returned 2 days ahead of schedule on March 17. We were in 5 countries, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines and our return flight transferred through Japan. We flew on 12 flights and 2 ferries. This whole time covid-19 was spreading around the world. We were checked and double checked for fever or contact tracing. We arrived in Canada without even a question on our health status. Canada dropped the ball on covid-19 prevention right from the start. One year later we get our first vaccine shot March 20, 2021.

April 24, 2021April 24, 2021

March 2, 2020 Malaysia

We landed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport around noon. It was very strange retrieving our luggage from an empty carousel. The pandemic was off to a good start. Luckily there were lots of preventative measures like temperature recording and contact tracing. SE Asia was ahead of Canada in all respects to preventing the transmission of Covid-19. Two days after leaving the Philippines they completely shut down all travel both domestic and international. All ferries and air travel was cancelled. WOW, we dodged a bullet. We were happy to be in Malaysia again!

We enjoyed our Grab ride from KLIA to Malacca. Originally we planned to take a cheaper method of transportation but we were afraid of contracting Covid-19 on a public bus.

The red buildings in then historic tourist area of Melaka are iconic.

Our allotted time was up in historic Melaka. We stayed at the Ramada Plaza Melaka which was absolutely fantastic! The staff were great, the food was over the top! It was the beginning of our crave for Malaysian food.

March 15 we took a Grab car back to Kuala Lumpur. It was sad leaving Malacca (Melaka), but exciting to be back in KL. We stayed for the last time at the G Tower Hotel.

KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 — G City Club Hotel Sdn Bhd, which manages a 180-room hotel under the trade name of GTower Hotel, is shutting down its hotel operations, after a decade in the business, due to a drop in occupancy rates. Thanks Covid-19. They employed 79 people.

April 23, 2021April 23, 2021

February 29, 2020

Leaving Malaysia for the Philippines

February 29, 2020 we flew from Georgetown, Penang Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur. We stayed at Rumah Putih Bed and Breakfast (Click Here) which was close to the airport. The next morning, March 1, we flew to Cebu Philippines. We spent the evening at our favourite high end Cebu restaurant Scape Skydeck. While walking back to our hotel we enjoyed the smells of sidewalk local food stalls with bbq chicken, satay and all kinds of things we couldn’t identify. Great smells none the less. The next morning, March 2, 2020 we boarded a flight from Cebu to Busuanga Philippines which is the home to Coron town. We checked into Pirates Diving Resort, Coron. This was our second stay here in as many years. In fact we are officially the resorts first retuning guests, 2 years in a row.

April 23, 2021April 23, 2021

February 26 2020 more Penang

Georgetown Penang almost pandemic

We spent the first half of our time in Georgetown staying at Coffee Atelier. It was excellent. We spent the second half of our time in Georgetown at the Hotel Penaga. We enjoyed both places very much. The Panaga had a swimming pool. Also, it was located in a different neighbourhood, this allowed us to walk to different places and explore. Linda purchased some Batik material from a vendor in the Komtar building. The stores name was Sri Batik Sri Batik click here We sent it home by Malaysian Post to use in Linda’s quilting projects.

We left Georgetown Feb 29 to spend one night at Rumah Putih a beautiful bed and breakfast at Kota Warisan in the Seleangor area not far from the Kuala Lumpur airport.

February 25, 2020February 25, 2021

George Town, Penang Island, Malaysia.

February 24

How time flies. Our last post was Feb 11, now its Feb 24. We spent 2 weeks on Adang Resort. We’ll blame the missing blog posts on relaxation and island internet. Their internet is slower than rural Saskatchewan turtle net.

Feb 23 we checked out of Adang Resort. We took the long tail boat across to Koh Lipe managing to get only partly wet from the heavy waves. We landed on Sunset Beach and the boatmen from the resort carried our suitcases up the 200 metres of sidewalk to the road where the tuk tuk was waiting for us. We gave them a tip and we were on our way in a flash. We arrived at the ferry port at 9 am. We were passengers 112 and 113 to register. About half of the total. Our boat was to leave at 10:30 am, by the time we pissed around loading luggage onto long tail boats, and getting everyone moved out to the ferry by long tail boat it was well after 11 am. After we sat in the ferry for quite some time we started on our rough voyage. It was after 11:30 am. It was rough with 2 metre seas. Weren’t we the lucky ones to be sitting in the squishy seats up in the bow. The triangle shaped bow didn’t allow either of us to sit up straight. We both ended up with sore necks from the trip. It took 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to Telaga Harbour in Langkawi. Probably another half hour to get the luggage off and for all the passengers to disembark. Remember we were at the front of the boat. We were almost last to get off.

We walked up a gang plank and as we entered the building, having our forms and passports inspected we also had our temperature taken by the customs officer. We were hot, but not feverish. Gary had a fever about a week before after we were in Koh Lipe and ate something that gave him food poisoning. By the time we got to the exit of the tiny customs inspection building we were well over an hour on the shore.

Some guy was arranging taxis, and we were told 30 Ringit for 2 to get to the airport. It was a fairly long journey, at least longer than we were expecting. When we arrived we got unloaded and Gary paid with a 50 Ringit bill. The guy was going to keep the change. Gary had an OMG moment and a few words were spoken. Finally the driver (not Gary) agreed on 40 Ringit. Gary, the patient guy that he is just walked away and cursed under his breath. After we got into the airport, had lunch, got checked in and consumed a cafe mocha, we talked about the taxi rip-off. Gary phoned the taxi company and reported it. The guy took the information, including the taxi number which Gary had photographed inside the car. The taxi company a few minutes later called back and said the taxi driver operating that taxi was never at the Telaga Harbour. Gary said, really? I have a picture of his taxi number on the plaque from inside the car. The taxi official was speechless. Gary said, guess what, he could SMS message a picture to prove this event happened. That’s exactly what happened. Later, a few messages from the taxi company by SMS. They were going to look into the situation and take action . Thank you!

Our flight was likely one of the shortest flights we’ve ever taken. Basically we got up to cruising altitude, Gary was the only passenger to have time to run to the washroom and the seatbelt sign was back on for us to descend and land! We caught a Grab from the airport to our hotel where we were greeted with an ice cold beer! Best welcome drink of the trip so far!! By the time we got settled we ended up having a very late supper at a nearby Indian restaurant. The food was ok but no where near as good as our favourite Indian restaurant, The Bombay, in Koh Lipe.

We are staying at the Coffee Atelier hotel in historic George Town. The main floor used to be shops and the upstairs was residences. It has been restored with rooms on the main level and upstairs. Ours is upstairs – it is up a narrow steep flight of stairs and has skinny high double doors. The bed is amazing and the best bed on the entire trip. It’s a four poster bed with a mosquito net. The net is great as there are a few mosquitos around. We had the best sleep in ages as the a/c and bed were all good! Breakfast is included and is very nice. Fresh squeezed orange juice, americano coffee, cereal, yogurt, bacon and eggs if you wanted, a fruit bowl and basket of bread. A great start for the day.

We got ourselves organized and headed out to check out a fabric store that we saw last night. From there we walked to the post office to get rates to ship fabric home if we could find a good deal. A wonderful woman at the tailor shop across from the post office told us of a good fabric store for batiks that was at a nearby mall. We ended up catching a Grab and checking it out. Linda has yet to find some batik that is priced reasonably enough to warrant the additional shipping costs. We’ll keep our eyes open but don’t think we’ll find anything. From there we wandered around looking at all the street art in the area.

We had another fresh orange juice and a bowl of fruit at one of the street restaurants and then had a passion fruit soft ice cream. We also encountered another quick change artist, the guy short changed Gary with his change from the ice cream order. Its 33º, in the hot sun, Gary is counting his change looking confused, then “hey, hey, MONEY”. Gary holds up his short changed cash and says “more money”. Problem solved. We were so hot by then that we walked back to the hotel and cranked on the air. It was time to cool down. After a bit Gary walked down to the 7-11 not far from our hotel and picked up some beer. A few beer and a few hours later we headed out for supper at Holy Guacamole a little Mexican restaurant only a few blocks from the hotel. The food was good but quite a bit pricer then last nights meal. We shared nachos and guacamole and an order of chicken fajitas along with 2 beer each. Total bill was around $37 CDN.

On our stroll back to the hotel we stopped at a massage place. Linda had a 30 minute neck and shoulder massage as her neck is still so sore from the boat she could hardly turn her head all day. Gary had a 30 minute foot massage. Both were great. Then it was back to the hotel to shower and cool off before calling it a night.

February 11, 2020February 11, 2020

New Digs

February 11

Feb 9th we left Koh Lanta and headed to Koh Lipe by speedboat. To say we both have a mild dislike for the speedboat/ferry to Koh Lipe is an understatement but unfortunately it is the only way to get here!! The speedboat has 4 – 250 hp motors and they cram about 80 people on the boat – 4 to a bench seat, the seats are really only big enough for 3 comfortably. Then they bounce you across the ocean for approximately 2.75 hours. We arrived in one piece and thankfully this year, unlike last year, none of the passengers were seasick so that was a bonus! Once we arrived in Koh Lipe we caught a tuk-tuk over to the pick-up point for our resort, Koh Adang Resort, that is on an island by Koh Lipe. It is the only resort here so is very nice and quiet.

We got off the water taxi and got up to the main building to be greeted by the staff. As Gary walked in, Clarke, one of the staff members exclaimed, “Oh sir, you are back!” He recognized Gary from last year!

As returning guests they upgraded us to a room closer to the main facilities and right near the pool. It’s a nice room, slightly smaller than our room last year but very close to everything so that makes it nice. The mosquito net is mostly decorative at the moment as we have not seen much here for insects other than a few ants. The netting is covered with mood lights and it does serve the great purpose of cutting the air conditioner draft which blows towards the bed.

Feb 10, Monday, we laid around the gorgeous pool and enjoyed the sun and water. The pool actually overlooks the beach and ocean and has has a beautiful view of Koh Lipe. We caught the 4 pm shuttle boat over to Koh Lipe and wandered around the island. Enjoyed a few beer on the beach watching the sunset and then wandered down to the Bombay Indian restaurant for supper. The meal was awesome, reasonably priced compared to the other Indian restaurants so far this trip and the portions were actually more generous. We found this restaurant the first time we visited Koh Lipe and it was just getting established. It wasn’t much more than a hole in the wall back then but now has more than doubled in size and is a really nice place. Needless to say, we’ll be back.

After supper we headed back down to the beach to get the 8:30 shuttle back to the resort. It’s the last trip of the night. We waited and waited but no sight of the boat. However, we did see luminescent plankton, a first ever for us!! It was incredible and was so cool to watch the waves wash in and see what looked like blue embers along the surf line. The wind had come up and the shuttle boat had to come in way around another part of the beach so they walked down to find everyone and get us loaded on the boat. It was mandatory that we all wear a life jacket on the way back due to the rough water! This was the roughest trip we have ever taken across – the waves were pretty big, probably between one and two metre swells, and we all ended up wet from the splashing waves.

Today, Tuesday was a pretty laid back day. It actually rained overnight and was somewhat overcast for most of the day. We laid in the large shaded deck that they have overlooking the ocean and enjoyed the scenery and read for most of the day. Although overcast, it was still quite warm and humid which eventually required us to take a refreshing dip in the pool. We enjoyed a few beer and supper in the restaurant tonight. After the weather last night they didn’t have an evening shuttle boat run so the restaurant was very busy tonight. They actually have a large screen they roll down on the beach and show a movie starting at 7 pm.

Not sure what tomorrow will bring – likely more time around the pool and relaxing!

February 6, 2020February 7, 2020

Touring in Saladan

February 6

We have been busy the last few days. Well, not that busy. We have walked the length of the beach, both directions, most mornings, approximately 3.6 km. The last two nights we have gone into Sala Dan or Saladan, depends on who you ask. One way is 1.8 km. We have resisted the multiple offers for a tuk-tuk and opted for the exercise to walk there and back to our hotel. It IS a round trip of 3.6 km. While we were in Saladan last night we bought two sarongs that were hand made by a local artist. They are larger than our current sarongs which is nice. We paid 450 baht each, about $20. The guy in his little shop makes them right there so you can watch his talent at work. We could have made a custom order but we will be leaving in a few days so just picked from what was on hand. Not even sure what a person would put on for it if we had the option. There is a large room in the back where you can actually make your own design, with the owner’s occasional assistance. We watched a mom and her 5 or 6 year old daughter each making their own design.

The previous night we ate at the Indian restaurant in Saladan, it was very good. We were a bit short on cash because we needed to make an ATM run. The temporary cash shortage kept us from ordering too much food. We hit the ATM we are most familiar with on the way back home because it has a 20,000 baht cash button which is just right, there is a 220 baht service fee added to the total for using the machine. That is about $9.50 CAD which kinda hurts, but you can’t carry many thousands of dollars around for three months. The price of travelling.

We have been watching the Corona Virus fiasco in the news. We are both corona free so far. There are very few, if any, Chinese people here now. We are surrounded by Swedish tourists and a few other Europeans. We saw (more like heard) what we believed to be Canadians at the Indian Restaurant in Saladan when he slipped in an “eh” at the end of a few comments. Back to Corona Virus, hopefully we are over the worst of it in 42 days because that’s how long we have before we head home through Hong Kong. We only have a 2 hour and 45 minute layover there.

February 9th we take a high speed ferry to Koh Lipe and then a long tail boat to Koh Adang for our next 2 week stay at Adang Resort. From there on Feb 23, we take a ferry to Langkawi Malaysia in the morning and later in the afternoon we fly to the city of George Town on Penang Island in Malaysia. We will stay in George Town Feb 23 to Feb 29 when we fly to Kuala Lumpur for one night and then off to the Philippines on March 1.

We will be fairly isolated until we hit Penang. Hopefully by then we will have a better idea what the virus situation is, not just the hyped up news. Our only English TV station here is Aljazeera.

Tomorrow we are planning to look at different places to stay on future trips. We like this place but in the event we are unable to get a room we want to have options that we know are good.

On our walk to Saladan we came across this family of chickens seen below.

January 31, 2020January 31, 2020

Indian Food adds to the Heat of Koh Lanta

January 31, 2020

It was another short day in Koh Lanta. We spent a few hours on our veranda today in the shade until the sun chased us away. We ate our home made lunch, main course was an avocado, dessert was passion fruit. We polished of 9 of them! Then we spent the afternoon at the pool, in the shade.

Our highlight today, and yesterday for that matter, was a visit each day to “2 Scoops Ice Cream” shop. We met the owner of this excellent Gelato store. He speaks perfect english, probably because he is a foreigner. Raised for the first 6 years of his life in India and then went to a private school in Bangkok. He speaks English, French and Thai. We learned lots about owning a business and working here as a foreigner. He actually works here in Koh Lanta for 6 months of the year during the busy season and spends the off season in Australia. Today when we were having our second visit, he mentioned living in India. We asked if there were any Indian Restaurants and he told us of one that had just opened by the name of Heama. We decided to walk there for supper. The motto of the ice cream store is “Life is short, eat dessert first” We did just that.

Heama was just across the street from where we stayed last year, and right next door to a 7-11. The restaurant has only been open for 12 days. We had some interesting “people watching” while we sat waiting for our meal to arrive. The Lady with HUGE glasses (remember MaGoo ©) and the coin operated scale that sits outside the store. We saw several women weigh themselves. Lots of people buying beer, Chang Beer being the most popular. We personally love Leo beer more. It has a stronger hop, bitter taste. It is especially suited to pouring into a glass of ice because a slight dilution does not ruin it.

We ordered vegetable pakora, tika masala, garlic naan and basmati Rice and each had a mango lassi. It was a nice treat to have the basmati rice, different than the local Thai rice that everyone serves here. Supper was good, good and hot and very tasty. We walked back to our hotel in a sweat.

The sun was down but the heat was still on. It was another short day in Koh Lanta.

January 29, 2020January 29, 2020

Swimming Pool Day

January 29, 2020

Nothing new here. We don’t have Corona virus. Now that the Chinese have been sent home we may be out of the woods. Just as I say that, the hotel staff escorted a group of Chinese guests to a nearby bungalow. Most of the staff had on masks. That was a first we had seen them wearing masks. Unfortunately Thailand has the highest rate of infections outside China. The Chinese are big business here, at least until recently.

Our hotel pool was out of commission for couple of days. Seems it doesn’t have a good enough filter to remove body oils and sunscreen. The water was getting cloudy and the hotel’s pool guy just kept adding chemical. Finally they had a professional come in and set up a large pump with a big 40 gal sized tank (like an oval pressure vessel). The pump ran for at least 24 hours. After the pump / filter system had done its thing, the guy vacuumed the sediment out of the bottom of the pool, there was lots. Seems his filter had somehow precipitated the sunscreen. Not sure of the process but it seemed to settle the pollutants in the water to the bottom of the pool. The pool now looks great. The talk around the pool is, how long will it take to get cloudy again? One week?

Today we sat on the two lounge chairs on the right, in the shade under the 2 umbrellas. No sunscreen, except on our faces. We survived the morning outside, but could feel that we both got a bit of sun from the short time we were in the pool and in the shade on the pool deck.

About 5:30 we walked to the Festival Market in Saladan, a bit over 1 km. We waited until the sun was low so we didn’t need sunscreen or hats. Besides it starts cooling down slightly about 6 pm. At the Festival Market we found food stalls, most of which we had no idea what the stuff was. They also had clothing stalls, most of which would not fit our sized body. Linda got the loose screw on her glasses tightened as there was actually an optometrist / eye glasses booth. We bought 2 passionfruit smoothies. Each cup has the edible innards of 2 passion fruit, a bit of water, a bunch of ice a 1/4 plus teaspoon of salt and a huge scoop of sugar. We now know the recipe. They were excellent, in fact the best passion fruit smoothies so far. Only 40 baht each, $1.80 CAD.

We walked back to the hotel and ate supper across the street at the Cicada Restaurant. We shared one chicken cashew nut dish with 2 orders of rice. For desert we shared a coconut mango sticky rice. The sticky rice was ok, but the coconut milk mixture was way way too salty. The mango was the best part.

The end of our day finds us sitting in the room where we can hear Elvis playing across the street. It’s the perfect volume to enjoy it. We passed on attending the Elvis supper show as it didn’t start until 8 pm and we were almost ready for bed by then. The heat and humidity really wears you down here. We try to get in 3 or more km of walking a day, Its hard to keep moving when its so hot. Some of our neighbours sit and drink beer by the pool all day. They look like it too!

January 22, 2020January 22, 2020

Taking it Easy

January 22, 2020

Things were a little low keyed here today. We walked down the beach before it got unbearably hot. The hottest part of the day we spent on our deck, we went for an occasional swim in the pool to keep cool.

We got our 1/2 watermelon out of the fridge, and darned if it wasn’t frozen. Our mango and passionfruit also got froze a bit. We ate the remaining watermelon and it sure was cold, it still tasted refreshing in the heat. Late this afternoon we asked at the front desk about the local market. It is too far to walk and the manager said she would give us a ride for free in their tuk tuk because they needed a vegetable run. We grabbed our shopping bag and headed off in their tuk tuk. Wish we could have taken some pictures, but we were a little pressed for time. We bought a watermelon 72 baht, 4 kgs, $3.35 CAD. We bought a huge bag of passionfruit, a total of 23 passionfruit, also 2 kg, for 120 baht, $5.16 CAD. That’s 22 cents CAD each. Compare that to $1.25 to $1.50 each at home in Saskatoon. And, they are twice as big here than at home and much juicier. Finally we bought a kg of mandarin oranges. They were 60 baht, $2.60 CAD.

We got our stash in the fridge, which by the way is now having a hard time to keep up. The room gets hot during the day when we are out as the air conditioning is off. Maybe by morning it will have everything chilled to a non freezing cool. We keep our room at 28º – 30º during the day if we are inside and a cool 25º after we get under the duvet which is fairly thin by Canadian standards.

Once we had the fruit stashed we each ordered a mango smoothie and took it to the restaurant and ordered supper. Linda had red curry chicken and Gary had the same as last night, stir fried chicken with cashew nut. It cost us 228 baht, $9.79 CAD.

We walked to the corner store for some more beer. Before we bought the beer we continued down the street looking at different restaurants. We were tempted by the ice cream store but didn’t really have any appetite left. We did scope to find the busiest restaurants and took notice. It’s a good way to know which places are good. We walked by one restaurant that was empty, the waitress was outside sitting on her scooter smoking a cigarette. Gary said her job security looked bleak.

It’s barely 9 pm and we are ready for bed. The heat and humidity is very tiring, especially when you throw in a couple of beer. As we sit in our room, the outdoor bar across the street has live music, they are playing Sweet Caroline, very popular music over here.

You should find a couple of video links below. One is a fast motion (hyperlapse) walk down the beach, the other is a look at the surf, rocks and sand.