One Year Away

Penny

After having spent almost 2 weeks in
Kho Phangan, Phuket and Koh Phi Phi, we wanted to once again get away
frohm the tourist traps and spend some time in a more secluded island.
From our research, Koh Tarutao was what we were looking for.

As part of the Tarutao National Marine
Park, which consists of 51 islands of which Koh Tarutao is the
largest, the island is a true sanctuary for marine and land wildlife.
Accommodations on the island  are limited.  The park authority does
offer bungalows and campsites for overnight stays.  The
accommodations are basic but comfortable, only offer cold water and
electricity to power lights and fans is available only between 6 PM
and 10 PM.  The park authority has a restaurant that offers a limited
menu but with tasty options.

Unfortunately, indoor activities are
non-existent as we found out the first day we arrived and it was
raining.  If you plan to come to Tarutao make sure to have a deck of
playing cards, a few good books and a few Sudoku puzzles with you
just in case you run into some bad weather.

Thankfully, the weather cleared the
following day and we were able to enjoy some of what the island has
to offer.  First, we visited the Crocodile Cave.  The cave can be
reached by boat (about 15 minutes) and is a huge cave with stalactite
and stalagmite formations.  The cave does not have any crocodiles
anymore but does have thousands of bats.  As we took a small raft
into the cave, we passed and woke some of the bats that hung
upside-down above on the cave walls.  After docking the raft, our
non-English speaking boat driver led us by foot into the cave.  The
formations were beautiful but similar to any other formations that
you would see in such caves.  What was different was that we were
lead through some questionable passages.  The visit turned out to be
a real hike that often required us to be on all fours to climb some
of the muddy ascents.  We all came out unscathed but very muddy.

The following day we took a hike to
visit a few of the other ‘Ao’ (beaches) on the island.  A hike
of 8 km took us to Ao Jak, Ao Molae and Ao Son.  The beaches were
beautiful and completely empty.  Not a soul!  But we enjoyed the trek
getting there even more.  As we walked, we came within feet of
monkeys and even a two foot long lizard sun bathing on the path.  The
jungle we were walking in was full of life.  Even when we were unable
to see them, we could hear the different creatures all around us.

At Ao Son, a small jungle path led to
the Lu Du waterfall.  According to the park authority, the 3 km trek
from the beach to the waterfall takes 1 hour.  Having just finished
lunch, we were energized for the 6 km return journey.  It was getting
a bit late so we decided to arrange for a lift back to our bungalow
after we finished the waterfall hike.  We agreed to meet a park
ranger at 4.30 PM near Ao Son and he would drive us back. We left the
beach at about 2:30 PM and started off at a good pace.  I was sure
that we would make it to the falls well before one hour.  Was I ever
wrong!  As it turns out, the path to the falls is only a quarter
‘path’ and three quarters ‘rock climbing’.  Most of our ‘walk’ was
over wet rocks on the riverbed and we had a lot of difficulty finding
some of the markers along the way.  After an hour and 10 minutes we
were considering turning back or we would be late to meet up with the
park ranger.  Luckily we continued and after the next bend in the
river we saw the tiny waterfalls.  Sunset was about 2 hours away and
the jungle’s thick canopy was already making it quite dark.  We
quickly cooled ourselves in the waterfall and headed back.  We were
determined to make the trip back in less than an hour.
Unfortunately, our wet feet and sandals made walking even more
difficult than before.  Only 20 minutes into the return journey, we
lost sight of the trail markers.  We were lost!  We headed down the
river thinking that we would find a marker at some
point but as it
got darker we realized that we didn’t recognize the stretch of river
we were on.  The rocks on the river bed were larger, harder to climb
and fallen trees were blocking the way.  We decided that backtracking
to the last marker that we had seen was the smartest option.  That
was a wise choice.  We had missed one of the markers that led up from
the river to a path higher up on the bank.  At this point, it was
quickly getting dark and we started jogging!  We made it out at about
5 PM and luckily the park ranger was still waiting for us.
Exhausted, thirsty and grateful to be in the ranger’s truck, we
headed back.

Unless you love nature and solitude
this place is not for you.  After 9 PM when the restaurant shuts
down, there is not much to do other than sit on your bungalow’s
balcony and play cards or read a book.  Of course, any activities
after 10 PM also require candles or flashlights!

But for nature lovers the island offers
treks to see secluded beaches, waterfalls, various caves and a chance
to see different types of wild animals including monkeys, wild pigs,
tropical birds, reptiles, squirrels and many types of insects.  The
ocean and jungle are your playground here! 

 

Details:

Park Name:  Mu Ko Turatao Marine
National Park
Getting There: Ferry or speedboat from
Pak Bara on the mainland (250/300 Baht)
Admissions Fee:  400 Baht for
foreigners
Accommodations:  Camping (20 Baht), newly built bungalows (1600 Baht) and a few options in between

 

Joseph

After staying in Koh Phangan island for
almost a week we got a ferry/bus combo ticket to take us to Phuket
(pronounced poo-ket) on the west coast.  Phuket is a major tourist
destination in south Thailand on the Andaman coast.  It attracts mainly an older crowd on
package holidays. 

It being the busy holiday season we did
something we almost never do; try to make room reservations.  From
the bus we called all the budget hotels and guesthouses listed in our
guidebook. No luck, all were full.  The only place available was a
relatively expensive resort at the edge of town.  Resigned to another
budget busting day in Thailand we checked ourselves in at around 6
PM.

From there we walked to the center of
town where all the ‘soi’s‘ (lane or small street) near the
beach are packed with bars and restaurants catering to tourists. The
first two major bar streets have go go bars where up to a dozen women
are dancing on the specially designed bars at any one time.  There
was even one entire street of bars featuring extremely convincing
“ladyboys”. All the streets were crowded with tourists, many of
the men had their Thai “girlfriend” clinging to their arm.

We had an overpriced meal and started
to make plans to leave first thing the next morning.  The great thing about traveling like we do is that if we don’t like a place we can leave immediately.  And we did.

Koh Phi Phi Don is about 2 hours and a
world away from Phuket.  The ferry dropped us off at the
long
pier
and we trudged through the small town of Noi San with our heavy
packs.  The main strip of the town has loads of guesthouses one after
another.  Unfortunately they all seemed to have small handwritten
signs, “Full”.  Finally, the last place on the strip, Garden
House, had one room left and we jumped on it.   Behind us came a
steady stream of backpackers all looking for accommodations eying us
jealously as we took the keys. 

During peak periods finding a room on
the island can be tough, partly because many of the beachside
bungalows on the island were destroyed during the tsunami of two
years ago.  The island is now rebuilding and new places are going up.
In a blow to future budget backpackers most of the accommodations
that are being put up are more upscale pricier places.

The first thing I noticed about Koh Phi
Phi was the sound, or rather lack of it.  There are no cars on the
island, and the only motorcycle we saw had a huge sidecar and
appeared to be the local garbage truck.  The place is definitely a
tourist town but somehow has managed to maintain a quaint laid back
feeling.

There are 18 scuba diving shops of the
small island.  They are on every street and seem to outnumber the
restaurants.  Figuring that this was a good sign about the quality of
the diving nearby I signed up for a couple of local dives and Penny
signed on for snorkeling (she’s resisted all my attempts to convince
her to get scuba certified).  The next day we boarded the scuba boat
and headed to Koh Phi Phi Leh, which is the sister island to Koh Phi
Phi Don.  This island is part of a national park and has been spared
any sort of development.  It is famous for its scuba diving and as
being the location where they filmed the movie, The Beach.  Maya Bay,
is the exact location where the filming took place and we saw it from
the scuba boat as we approached our dive spot.  Or rather we saw 30
or more boats anchored in the water almost obscuring the crowded
beach.  It’s not the remote island paradise where the movie was set,
at least not anymore.  Since there are no accommodations on Phi Phi
Leh people make day trips out to visit the famous beach.

The scuba diving excellent.  We had
good visibility and saw beautiful corals, an enormous variety of
colourful tropical fish, sting rays and even a leopard shark.  Penny
saw most of the same things just by snorkeling near the shore
(although she carefully avoided the area where the sharks were). 

Other than scuba diving we spent some
time on Long Beach, a beautiful if crowded stretch of sand close to
the main town.  We also rented a sea kayak and made our way out to
Monkey Beach to feed the wild monkeys that come out of the jungle to
eat fruit offered by locals and tourists. 

Our time in Koh Phi Phi was up and we
caught a ferry to the mainland.  From there we traveled to the south of Thailand to visit a remote Marine National Park,
Mu Ko Tarutao.  We’ll write about this incredible park in our next post.

Penny

We have posted a new Southern Thailand album with pictures from Christmas in Bangkok and New Year’s in Koh Phangan.  Enjoy!

After spending 2 luxurious nights at the Davis Hotel, we were once again on an  overnight bus.  This time our 21 hour journey that included a bus ride, a ferry and lots of waiting took us to Thailand’s east coast and to the island of Koh Phangan.  The island is very popular for its full moon parties where thousands of people party the night away to music blasting from the beach bars.

When we arrived on the island, finding a place to stay for 6 nights was difficult.  Space was very limited and we had to settle for a a clean but rather plain and unwelcoming room.  From our guesthouse, we were able to book an organised day tour of the island.  The tour called the ‘Munchies’ tour was somewhat of a disappointment. On the other hand, the tour did give us the chance to meet a really nice Norwegian couple who we hang out with throughout our stay on the island. 

The island only has a population of about 10,300 residents but it sees a lot of party-goers during the monthly full moon parties and especially on New Year’s Eve.  As New Year’s Eve approached the island and the town of Haad Rin got more and more crowded.  Drunk teenage tourists on rented scooters filled the streets and finding a seat in a restaurant at dinner time was almost impossible. 

On the afternoon of December 31st, there was a real party vibe in the air.  Everyone was rushing around to prepare for the New Year’s Eve party on the beach.  In the afternoon, the boats and ferries coming form other islands and the mainland increased constantly dropping off more and more people at Sunset Beach to party the night away.  We spent the day hanging out with our Norwegian friends at their resort’s pool and sipping watermelon shakes.  Wanting to make sure that we were going to be in-shape for the party, Joe and I headed back to our hotel at about 5pm and had a rejuvenating nap.

For dinner, we headed to the Lazy House. Patience was needed as the staff tried to cope with the flood of orders on probably what is the busiest night of the year.  After our mediocre meal, we met up with our Norwegian friends and headed for the beach.  On our way, we purchased our first ‘bucket of joy’.  What is a ‘bucket of joy’?  It is literally a small plastic bucket that is filled with your choice of hard liquor, mixer, red bull and ice. Prices for a bucket usually range between $5 and $10 for a 200ml bottle of foreign liquor or a 400ml bottle of Thai whiskey.  Vendors sell them by the side of the street or on the beach and hand them to customers with about 5 straws for sharing.

Once on the beach, the sight was incredible.  The 700 meter long beach was packed with party-goers; mainly foreigners.  Every bar on the beach had its own music blasting from huge speakers and partyers had their choice of styles from pop to techno to trance.  We mostly hung out around the Cactus Bar where they had a great mix of different types of music. 

At midnight, the beach was lit up with a great fireworks display.  We wished each other a Happy New Year and the party continued.  During the night, we also met up with two guys from London who were staying a the same resort as our Norwegian friends.  We all had a great time welcoming 2007 in with 10,000 of our closest friends on Sunrise Beach.

As the night went on, the beach became more and more littered with beer bottles and buckets.  Walking without tripping was impossible and people did end up with some nasty cut feet due to the broken glass.  We also started loosing friends to inevitable exhaustion at about 3am.  One of our London friends, Joe and I tried to hold on.  We were determined to see the sunrise.  We tried to re-energize by having a Nutella/banana/Twix bar crepe at about 5:30am but at about 6am we lost our friend.  Alone, Joe and I sat on a plastic table and waited for the sunrise.  As the sky was brightening, we wished each other Happy New Year one last time and returned to our guesthouse for some much needed sleep.

To all our family, friends, colleagues and to our new Norwegian and English friends we met in Koh Phangan, Happy 2007 and we wish you all the best!

Joseph

After another overnight bus trip, this time from Chiang Mai, we arrived in Bangkok at 4.30 AM. It was still dark out when the bus dropped us off on perhaps the most famous backpacker street in the world, Khao San Road.  The street and surrounding area are packed with budget accommodations, cheap eats, bars, Internet shops and street vendors.  Basically it’s a budget traveler ghetto.  But it’s one so famous that a backpacking trip through Thailand isn’t complete without a stay here.

It being holiday season we made reservations before arriving to ensure we’d get a room.  Thai Cosy House is on a side street about two blocks away from Khao San Road.  From the name and website description it sounded like a small family run hotel that would be a sanctuary from the all night action of the surrounding area.  Wrong.  It’s actually a large soulless concrete hotel where the rooms have no windows and Penny found (and killed!) a cockroach.

But at 4.30 in the morning after getting off the bus we still didn’t know this.  As we walked towards the hotel the first thing we saw was a drunk male tourist stumbling by with two giggling Thai girls in tow.  Then as we rounded the corner we saw a 24 hour Internet cafe full of Thai girls sending emails.  We later learned that Thai prostitutes spend a lot of time corresponding with rich western "boyfriends" who send them gifts and cash.  Welcome to Bangkok.  The sex industry is everywhere in this city and it isn’t hiding in dark corners.  It’s a very common sight to see older male tourists with a Thai girl (or boy) young enough to be his child. 

During the day residents of Bangkok love to shop.  But this is a city that wakes up late and stays up late.  Unlike most of Asia, stores open at 10.30 or 11.00 AM and stay open for 12 hours.  The gleaming new shopping centerers are like oases from the heat and air pollution. So we did like the locals and started to wake up later and go shopping during the day.

Our first stop was an area on Sukhumvit Road that is crowded with tailors.  Bangkok has a huge number of tailor shops.  We found some good reviews of Crown Tailor on the Internet, so we went there are ordered 4 suits, 8 shirts and a dress.  We chose some of the best fabrics and went with a tailor who quoted us one of the highest prices and it still came out to about the price we’d pay for 2 two ready to wear suits back home.  We’ll be shipping those home tomorrow along with a bunch of other purchases we made at the ever present markets.

Some people try to get out of Bangkok as quickly as possible, but I feel it has a sort of roguish charm that makes this an interesting city to explore for a few days – especially if you enjoy shopping and keep clear of the sex tourists. 

Penny

I have added some pictures to the North Thailand album.  Enjoy!

Joe and I love Thai cuisine and decided that a Thai cooking class would be great way to spend a day.  We registered for a cooking class that promised to teach us how to make green curry paste, green
curry chicken, springrolls and other Thai specialties.

Before going to the cooking class, we made a stop at a local market and an organic farm where the Thai instructors showed  us typical ingredients used in Thai cooking.    We finally learned that the green vegetables in our green curries are two types of eggplant; Joe and I thought that it was some sort of pea and green tomato!

The most difficult part of the class was making the green curry paste.  We had dried spices and fresh ingredients such as garlic and green chillies that we had to grind into a paste using a mortar and pestle.  The sound of 10 people pounding their ingredients into a fine paste was almost deafening but lots of fun.  The paste was used in the green curry chicken that we made.  Using coconut milk as our base gave the curry a rich and creamy texture.

The next dish we made was fried chicken with basil leaves.  This stir fry requires lots of fresh herbs that give it its fresh taste. That was followed by a shrimp Tom Yam soup.  The soup is loaded with ginger
and lemon-grass.  The soup’s special ingredient is the Thai chilli that we added.  Thai chilli is an oily and very spicy chilli mixture.  The instructors came around to add the Thai chilli to our soups.  We were asked whether we wanted farang (foreigner) or Thai spicy.  Most of us went for the farang spicy…  Unfortunately, at lunch when we had the chance to eat our creations, we came to realize that farang spicy was still too much for us.  Most of the soups went untouched.

After lunch it was springroll and desert time.  As we rolled our springrolls, our instructor kept on repeating "I said springrolls not pillows"!  Trying to make pretty round and same sized springrolls proved to be tricky!  Finally, we finished off the class with some bananas in coconut milk.  Thailand is not famous for its deserts and in the Thai language there is no word for desert so the outcome was somewhat disappointing.

We promise to put all of our cooking skills to good use for friends and family when we are back home…  But be warned,the meal will be traditional.  This means eating with your hands or with a fork and spoon only –  think of it as if the spoon was your fork and the fork was your knife.

Course Details:

Provider: The Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School www.thaifarmcooking.com– we booked the class via our guesthouse

Cost : 900 Baht

Duration: 1 day – you are picked up at your hotel/guesthouse at 9am and you are dropped off at 5pm   

   

Joseph

We have posted a new photo album called Northern Thailand.  Enjoy!

In a Toronto magazine we had read about an elephant sanctuary in Thailand that takes in orphaned or abused elephants.   The Elephant Nature Camp is run by a woman called Lek, which means small in Thai.  It is  home to 28  elephants, many of which have horrible stories of abuse before they were rescued.

When the Thai government banned all logging 1989 a huge number of working elephants became “unemployed”.  As they could no longer generate any income for their owners many elephants were neglected or abandoned.  The camp gave some of those elephants a place to live in peace with ample food and no work.

Volunteers at the camp put up fences, plant elephant grass, repair huts, and do a variety of other unglamorous but essential jobs.  They also get to be closer to elephants than just about anywhere else in the world.  We wanted to sign up to volunteer at the camp for a week but since it is holiday season they had a full house and they could not take us.  So instead we went for a day trip out to the camp that turned out to be a really incredible experience.

In the morning we were picked up by a van that took our small group to a local market were we bought large amounts of bananas and pineapples that would be fed to the elephants.  We traveled about an hour and a half outside of Chiang Mai before we reached the camp. 

At feeding time we gathered on an elevated deck that wraps around the main building.  There each elephant had its own basket of pineapples and bananas that must have been about two feet high and the same in diameter.  There was a serious amount of fruit for each elephant and this was only a supplement to their main diet of grasses and corn stalks.    Apparently large working elephants can eat about 10% of their weight per day, so for a 10,000 pound adult this is 1,000 pounds per day!

We held bunches of bananas or whole pineapples out for the elephants and they grabbed them with their trunks before devouring them with only a couple of chews.  Surprisingly to me, most of the elephants preferred the bananas and would sometimes toss a ripe and delicious smelling pineapple to the ground before extending their trunk again and reaching for the bananas.

Our guide for the day was a  tattoo parlor owner from Michigan who had fallen in love with the elephants so much that she moved to the camp and now returns home only for a couple of months per year.  She knew the detailed history of each elephant and how they fit in with the different “family groups” that had formed at the park.  Her stories about the elephants kept us paying attention all day.

One of the early elephants to be rescued had been forced to work twice as long as normal by its owner.  To keep it going, the elephant was given amphetamines and arrived at the camp addicted to the drug.   Another was a landmine victim and had part of its foot destroyed so that now it cannot walk properly.  Both elephants are now as recovered as they can be and seemed happy. 

Not only are many of the elephants physically abused but many also arrive suffering mentally from the tortuous traditional training techniques that villagers use.  The pajan ceremony involves putting a 2 to 4 year old elephant into a tiny cage then beating it repeatedly with a pole that has a nail through the end.  The elephants are left in the cage and deprived of food, water and sleep for up to two weeks until their will is broken and they learn to fear and obey their masters.  Up to 40% of the elephants put through the training are said to die from it. 

Lek is raising her three baby elephants using only positive reinforcement to prove that the barbarous pajan is not needed in order to make elephants docile and obedient enough to work with.  I think it’s too early to tell if she will be successful but if she is that would be a major triumph for her and future Asian elephants. 

The highlight of the day for me was bathing the elephants.  Once after lunch and once at the end of the day the elephants are taken to the river where they are bathed and brushed.  We jumped right in and splashed or scrubbed the elephants to cool them off and clean them.  Getting to be up close and personal with the happy elephants was something I won’t soon forget. 

Elephant Nature Foundation runs the park.
If you want more information check out their website –  http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/