Thailand – Page 6 – saskatoonie.com

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.

January 21, 2020January 21, 2020

Old Town

January 21

Update on our room. We did get upgraded to a new room which is very nice. We are beside the swimming pool with a shady patio, 2 chairs and a small table. Our room has a good air conditioner, which is a must in the climate of heat and humidity here. We have a fridge, kitchen sink, microwave and a few dishes. We have used the kitchen to cut up watermelon and passion fruit. There’s no real way to cook anything significant with just a microwave but that suits us just fine.

We arrived here in Koh Lanta Saturday and it’s now Tuesday. Without a calendar we have lost all track of time. Memories of yesterday are fading fast as we do more nothing each day.

Some observations from yesterday. We ate breakfast about 7:15 am. The table behind us had a Chinese family sitting there. Keep in mind we don’t know if he is from Wuhan, but none the less we understand why diseases spread in China. The guy worked up a huge hunk of phlegm and spit it over the railing. FFS. The same guy uses his hands at the buffet line. More reason to be early to breakfast and carry hand sanitizer.

Yesterday we took our beach umbrella and 2 beach chairs purchased after the umbrella, to the beach. While the umbrella sounds good on paper, it is more like a parachute at the beach. It seems the wind blows in all directions but mostly toward the sun. We even tried tying the umbrella to the chair. The first wind gust brought Mary Poppins to mind. We may just ditch the umbrella unless we have a day with no ocean breeze which doesn’t seem likely. The chairs we bought are very cheap.They’re constructed of steel pipe with black paint. We had to unwrap plastic from every inch of pipe. The chairs were built with pipe that was pre-encased with plastic. Another Chinese invention. It took us 45 minutes of hard sweating to unwrap 2 chairs. Now when we touch the pipe our hands get small pieces of black paint on it. You can’t win with the Chinese. They sell you shit or cough on you, or spit over the railing at breakfast. We are enabling a whole new breed! Did I forget to mention the chairs are held together with rivets, except on 2 spots, there are bolts and nuts. No lock washers, just loose nuts. We also fixed that with my handy skills, nail polish and Lindas’ pliers style tweezers. The chairs work great now.

After a few hours on the beach yesterday we came back to the room about 1 pm and asked at the front desk how to get to Old Town Koh Lanta. Just our luck there were 2 girls from Lithuania by the name of Agla and Justina asking the same thing. We talked with them about sharing a taxi, which was a bit pricey otherwise. We made arrangements to leave at 3:30 pm and return around 8 pm, the round trip by taxi cost a total of 1500 Baht which is $65. CAD.

We arrived in Old Town and went for a beer with Justina and Agla, who we later learned were sisters. We took some pictures at our restaurant where we had a beer. There’s a swing at the end of a pier. After sitting a while we parted ways and went exploring.

We bough some t-shirts for Gary, a coverup / dress for Linda and the best smelling bar of mango soap.

We walked around town, out on the long jetty, took some pictures and finally went for supper around 6 pm. We ate at Pinto Restaurant. It was good, although salty. Gary had his first passion fruit smoothie and it was delicious. Linda had a mango smoothie which wasn’t quite as good as the ones we have been buying at our hotel.

We arrived back at the hotel around 8:30 pm. It was a good evening and we gained some insight on life in Vilnius, Lithuania.

January 18, 2020January 18, 2020

Travelling to Ko Lanta

January 18, 2020

Today we had our usual breakfast at the Maneetel and then we made phone calls to home. We checked out of our hotel at 11:15 am and waited in the open air cafe downstairs until to shuttle came to pick us up at noon.

Off to Ko Lanta in a Toyota 4 runner with 450,000 km on it and it looked like new. The temp outside was 34º, inside was 23.5º. It seemed cold for a while. Most of our trip was south on a 4 lane road until we turned west onto a 2 lane road for a short distance. Shortly after we arrived at the ferry. The ferry crossing took about 25 minutes including the wait. There are 5 ferries continually crossing to the Island.

We arrived at our hotel and things went downhill from there. We checked in, got into the room and the air conditioning didn’t work. We waited a few minutes, then we knew for sure. We went to the front desk and asked for help. No one speaks any English here. We did get a guy looking at the air conditioning, playing with the remote but the air was still hot. We were both looking green behind the gills because it was 34 outside and much warmer in the bungalow style sweat house. Gary used google translate to convey the message “we are staying here 22 nights and this is unacceptable”. Finally Gary phoned Agoda, the company we booked with. Things started happening soon after. Agoda lit the fire and we soon had a different room where the a/c works. Things were looking up.

We cooled off the room, did some unpacking but not too much. We read an email from Agoda in which they said they had tried calling and there was no answer. Gary’s phone was on mute, like it usually is on holidays. We were offered the chance to cancel because of the problem. Only thing is we needed a place to stay and everything else is booked in the area. We decided to stay put since our room was getting cool.

We walked to the Walmart of Ko Lanta (similar to a cattle shelter with a tin roof) and bought a beach umbrella for 390 baht about $17 CAD. We calculated $17 worked out to 81 cents a day. We then walked to the meat and produce market and bought a watermelon, a dozen passion fruit and a mango. We were so hot by then that we forgot how much we paid, but the fresh and juicy passion fruit were a few dollars which is a steal when considering the price at home.

Back to the room again to rest and cool off. We waited until just before sunset to head down to the beach and find a spot to eat. The reason we returned here this year is the amazing Khlong Dao beach. We ate at the Royal Lanta hotel restaurant on the beach. It was the first one and we liked their menu.

We had 3 Chang beer, 2 bbq cobs of corn and 2 chicken kabob skewers. Life was good. Keep in mind this is a more expensive restaurant, the cost was just under $30 including the tip. Even more important, it tasted great! The scenery was beautiful and we ate with our feet in the sand watching the sun set over the straight of Malacca. Did I mention the water temperature is 27.7º C. Gary ran out to walk in the surf while we waited for our meal to arrive.

After supper we went to the store and bought some Kleenex and beer. For some reason they expect you to use toilet paper here on both ends. We had a hard time finding Kleenex but beer was an easy find. We got 4 large cold beer, like a 6 pack at home for 224 baht, only $9.63 CAD. That price is slightly higher than Pilsner at Costco in Alberta. There is no Costco here. And it’s not Pilsner, it’s Leo beer which is very nice.

The day really turned around when Gary went to the front desk to ask for extra glasses and some hand towels. He talked to the manager and she has offered to upgrade us to a better room in the morning. Ok, that sounds fine, tomorrow we should be moving and the new room will be closer to the pool. Stay tuned for tomorrows update!

January 17, 2020January 17, 2020

Ao Nang boat trip

January 17, 2020

Today we took a boat tour to 5 places, Railay beach, Phranang Cave, Chicken Island, Tup Island and Poda Island. Our boat was a traditional long tail boat our drivers name was Ahmed, he was 24 years old. The total price for the trip including the 800 baht ($35 CAD) national park pass for 2 was $128 CAD.

Railay beach is just south of Ao Nang. It is only accessible by boat. There are a few resorts on this beach and the scenery is amazing. Gary went for a swim here too, the water was so calm and warm.

Our second stop was Phranang Cave, another beach on the mainland. Its claim to fame besides it’s beautiful beach are a few caves. The main caves have statues of penises. Apparently it’s the location of a princess spirit house that is respected and worshiped by the local people. Some tourist women were also respecting and worshipping.

Our third stop was at Tup Island. It’s essentially two islands connected by a strip of sand. It was very scenic but the sand was full of shells and coral and extremely hard on our while soft feet. There were strong currents around this island and we saw several beached jellyfish. Some people swam here disregarding the signs warning of the perils of strong current and jellyfish. Maybe they can’t read.

Our fourth stop was at Chicken Island, of course it looks like a chicken. We stopped and had some great snorkelling here. There were lots of tourists, mostly from larger groups, we all had our own space to swim around. We were quite grateful to be on a small boat, just the two of us.

We made our last stop at Poda Island. This island has a lovely white sandy beach, ideal for swimming and sun bathing. By now we were staring to fear for our skin, as we had been outside in the sun for almost 4 hours. While we did have gobs of sunscreen on every exposed piece of flesh, it just didn’t seem like enough. We did swim a couple of times and walked around the beach with our towels over our shoulders. The sand there is so white and the sun intensity is stronger than anything you would ever encounter at home.

We headed back to the boat and our boatman took us to the beach in front of our hotel. We walked barefoot across the road and to the hotel’s outdoor shower to wash off the sand.

We had a beer in our room, relaxed in the shade and went for supper around 5:30pm. We had our first mango smoothie since our arrival in Thailand. It was amazing, it also helped cool off the pakora and tikka chicken. The green dipping sauce was very tasty and hot as hell. We picked up our laundry next door to the restaurant. The whole bag full cost of laundry cost less than $7 CAD. It’s clean and we didn’t have to do it.

Tomorrow we leave for Ko Lanta. We have a car hired to take us. It will cost slightly less than our boat trip today. We leave at noon.

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Krabi, Thailand

January 14, 15 & 16

January 14 we travelled from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Krabi Thailand. We checked out and called for a Grab about 9:30 am. We arrived at the airport well 10:30 am. It’s a good 40 minute ride depending on traffic. We had relatively good traffic conditions and we were heading out of downtown which helped. Our driver held the speed at 120 km/h on the110 km/h posted highway. The amount of construction of new highways and sky scrapers is unbelievable. The picture at the top of this post shows some of the overpass construction we passed.

AirAsia has self check in counters like everyone else. Of course Linda’s boarding pass didn’t print. We had an AirAsia rep help us out. Our bags were tagged and we dropped them off at the belt.

We proceeded to our gate K14 which was nowhere nearby. We went through one set of security scanners which seemed a bit lax. We then went through passport control, which was quick. A long ways down the terminal we finally hit the final security check point. We had to drink our water and once again get ready to open up every thing. It usually helps if Gary takes his wallet and wrist watch and puts them in his carry on bag. They both set off scanners. We both walked through with no glitches. We got to our gate so early we could have gone to Manila which was just starting to board. We had a drink and sat and read for 2 hours. Better being early than late. As we found out later the couple sitting beside us missed their flight earlier. The inconvenience and cost of doing that far outweighs the the time we spent reading and waiting.

When we arrived at Krabi we had to pass through customs before picking up our luggage. The passport control there is thorough to say the least. Since we had applied and received Visas in advance we got the fast track line. Thailand not only takes your picture but they also scan all your finger and thumb prints. This is getting more widespread. Malaysia only does your pointer finger on each hand same as Hong Kong.

We had pre arranged a shuttle through Krabi Shuttle and we were upgraded to a Toyota 4 runner for our ride. That was considered the Luxury SUV, we had paid for a Camry style vehicle. We liked the ride and thought our chances would be better in a crash, considering the way they drive here.

We checked into our hotel and went for a walk. We hit a place nearby and had a beer and fries. We came back to the hotel for a quick rest and then went out to find a place for supper. We missed happy hour which increased the cost of beer by nearly double. A large Leo beer went from 65 to 120 baht, about $5.15 CAD. Keep in mind a large is 2 beer in one bottle that we share. We shared an order of stir fried chicken with cashew nuts and a steamed rice. It was good. We got back to the hotel and went to bed.

Jan 15 we were up early and down for breakfast by about 7:30 am. It is a huge spread of everything you could imagine. Gary ate watermelon until he sloshed. There was dragon fruit, pineapple, guava and salads, tomatoes, breads and hot foods as well as the omelette bar where you could order eggs any way you liked

Coffee, espresso, tea and 3 juice selections. Later in the morning we went to the pool for the day. They have lounge chairs with padded mattresses and pillows under umbrellas that kept us comfortable. We alternated from sweating and reading to swimming and repeat. That evening we made sure we got to happy hour on time. We tried an Indian place and it was excellent. Not only do they have Indian but also Thai and Western dishes so lots to choose from.

The next day we repeated breakfast and pool till about 3 pm. We showered off and went for a walk to look around town. We are staying on Aonang beach (pronounced ow-nahng). We are on the North side of the big rock or cliff that separates the two sides of town. You have to walk inland of the big rock/cliff to get to the south. Today we took the 15 minute walk south to see what was there. It appears the beach is way nicer on the south side. We will find out more tomorrow when we have a boat trip to Railay Beach, a cave and some other beaches. About 6 hours total costing us 2200 baht for the two of us on a private tour. Including the national park fees of 400 baht each, our cost for the day is $130 CAD.

We are very sorry to hear about all the terrible cold weather at home. Hope everyone is surviving ok. This is what we are so thankful to be missing at home in Saskatoon.

February 21, 2019February 21, 2019

Thursday February 21, 2019

Wake up in Thailand, bed in Malaysia

Today we left Adang Beach Resort. Our time was up, it was time to move on. It would be ok to stay longer or go back another time. We left the island at 9 am on the resort boat for Koh Lipe where we caught a motor scooter taxi with a side car. The taxi took us across Koh Lipe to the port where we would exit Thailand. We checked in to Bundhaya speedboat ferry about 9:30. They kept our passport, and informed us they would be returned on the boat. I guess that ensures you get off the island and out of Thailand. We were transferred by long tail boat to the pontoon platform in deeper water. Everyone queues there to load on the ferry. We were #68 and #69 to board. There was about 80 people on board. The boat was comfortable but quite warm. Gary actually snoozed part of the way. It was a bit too choppy to read.

When we arrived in Langkawi it was the usual gong show to get off the boat. “Excuse me, let me get in front of you to get my bag”. How about wait your frickin turn! Anyhow we got our bags and headed to the passport control for Malaysia to be fingerprinted. Once we were through the passport control, it was time to exchange Thai Baht for Malaysian Ringit, then get mobile phone SIM cards. It was 60 Ringit or $20 CAD for 2 phones with 1.5 Gb data and free Facebook and WhatsApp. We had a taxi before we even had our money changed, they are quite enterprising cabbies. The cabbie walked us to the mobile phone booth and showed us the money exchange location. It cost us 25 ring to get to our hotel, which is really not that far, but too far to walk especially dragging luggage. About 4 km. It was hot! No aircon in the car and the cabbie had on a jacket, not even breaking a sweat!

We checked in to the Dayang Bay serviced apartments. Our room has a living room with 2 couches, aircon and a TV, A bedroom with aircon and a tv and 2 bathrooms. We also have a large balcony with a fridge, sink, kettle ,toaster oven etc. There is even a ceiling fan out there but it’s too hot to sit outside, even at night. Its now 9:45 pm and 29°C with 71% humidity.

Tomorrow we have one full day in Kuah, Langkawi.

February 20, 2019February 20, 2019

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Last day Koh Adang Resort

Our last full day at Adang Island Resort. It was a pretty non eventful day. We had breakfast, confirmed arrangements for the resort shuttle boat over to Koh Lipe tomorrow to catch the ferry and then spent the day at the pool. Around 2 pm we headed back to the room to sort out our suitcases and reapply sun screen. Gary did a time lapse video of the tide going out. The last few days it has been out the furthest since we arrived. Pretty cool but makes it difficult for the resort boat to shuttle people back and forth and move supplies.

We are showering up and trying to cool down before we head down for supper.

We suddenly realizer our room air-condition wasn’t cooling. What to do? We went for supper and told the resort staff. The lady said they would send a technician. When we got back from supper our room was freezing cold. They obviously fixed it and left the Aircon set to 20°C.

While we were at supper we met some people from Canada. Okanagan to be exact. They told us one for their travelling companions was sick from Dengue Fever, a mosquito born illness that is quite serious. She was in the hospital and getting flown back to Canada soon. Apparently she was improving.

Tomorrow we have to leave the resort by 9 to go over to Koh Lipe, do the immigration stuff and catch the speed boat to Langkawi, Malaysia. We will stay for two nights and then head on to Kuala Lumpur. We are on the move again!!

Gary played around with his GoPro camera this afternoon and took a time lapse video of the tide going out. The tide seems to go out much more now than it did when we arrived. The video is below.

February 19, 2019February 19, 2019

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Second last day on Koh Adang

Today we spent most of the day at our secluded and shady spot on the beach. Its under an overhang of rocks and trees that gives shade to an area just big enough to keep us out of the sun. We swam in the ocean and laid in the shade reading books and listening to the surf on the sands and rocks. It was shady and cool enough to really enjoy another scorching hot day.

Category: Thailand