General goodness!!
In case you've been wondering what I've been up to over the last few weeks here it is...
After completing the dive course in Koh Tao we spent another week just chilling out on the island. It's a great little island with good beaches and snorkeling, nice restaurants and great walks across the island. We spent some time hanging out with some new friends in Raema, Laura and Ben and Kiri and Kit - and toasted in the New Chinese Year in style with some great fish at a restaurant on the beach and sending off some Thai lanterns. A beer or two was also involved... .
After Koh Tao we headed to Koh Phangan, home to the infamous Full Moon parties that we were more than happy to miss!! I preferred Koh Tao hands down - it's still nice but can feel a little remote at times and the quality of the beaches we found didn't seem to compare. Each to their own though, many people we have bumped into prefer Phangan to Tao. I did a dive on Sail Rock, one of the premier dive spots in the Gulf of Thailand, but managed to catch it on a bad day - the 'viz', as we divers like to call it ;-), was not good!!! Apparently there was a whale shark there but he might have been two meters away and I wouldn't have had a clue!!
Almost beached out we headed inland to Khao Sok - it's a pretty nice national park in Southern Thailand but the treks you can do yourself are pretty limited. The day trip we made to the lake though more than made up for it as it's a stunning man made lake with awesome limestone cliffs and over 100 islands.
To fully beach ourselves out we headed to Krabi - there's no beach there itself but it's a short trip over to Koh Phi Phi if you want to hang out with a horde of speedo wearing sun seekers. Not really our scene, it's a beautiful island but the day trip was enough. We also did some kayaking around Krabi which was really good and I headed out into the Andaman sea for a couple more dives. A lot more success this time, the variety of fish is incredible - I saw more than 20 new species (I am a new diver) on each dive including 5 different types of Morray Eel on one dive alone!! I will definitely be heading back to the Andaman coast one day for some more underwater adventures!!
To our surprise we only realised with a few days to go that our Thai visas were coming to an end - where does the time go??? So now we find ourselves in Malaysia. We spent a couple of nights in Penang, which is nice enough, staying in the red light district. Boy means Joy in this part of the world where they prefer their prostitutes with a moustache - no tash no cash!!
As I write we are now in Cameron Highlands. It might as well be England - the remnants of the Great British Empire remain with red phone boxes, post boxes and tea and scones!! It even seems the levels of service I grew accustomed to in London have made it across the miles!! There are some great treks to do here and as long as you manage to time it to miss the britishesque weather they are great fun!!
So that's what we've been up to - in the next day or two we will head down to Kuala Lumpur, then further into Southern peninsular Malaysia, possibly a short stint in Sumatra in Indonesia before we arrive in Singapore to end the South East Asian flavours of our round the world trip. Four months down and still loving it!!
After completing the dive course in Koh Tao we spent another week just chilling out on the island. It's a great little island with good beaches and snorkeling, nice restaurants and great walks across the island. We spent some time hanging out with some new friends in Raema, Laura and Ben and Kiri and Kit - and toasted in the New Chinese Year in style with some great fish at a restaurant on the beach and sending off some Thai lanterns. A beer or two was also involved... .
After Koh Tao we headed to Koh Phangan, home to the infamous Full Moon parties that we were more than happy to miss!! I preferred Koh Tao hands down - it's still nice but can feel a little remote at times and the quality of the beaches we found didn't seem to compare. Each to their own though, many people we have bumped into prefer Phangan to Tao. I did a dive on Sail Rock, one of the premier dive spots in the Gulf of Thailand, but managed to catch it on a bad day - the 'viz', as we divers like to call it ;-), was not good!!! Apparently there was a whale shark there but he might have been two meters away and I wouldn't have had a clue!!
Almost beached out we headed inland to Khao Sok - it's a pretty nice national park in Southern Thailand but the treks you can do yourself are pretty limited. The day trip we made to the lake though more than made up for it as it's a stunning man made lake with awesome limestone cliffs and over 100 islands.
To fully beach ourselves out we headed to Krabi - there's no beach there itself but it's a short trip over to Koh Phi Phi if you want to hang out with a horde of speedo wearing sun seekers. Not really our scene, it's a beautiful island but the day trip was enough. We also did some kayaking around Krabi which was really good and I headed out into the Andaman sea for a couple more dives. A lot more success this time, the variety of fish is incredible - I saw more than 20 new species (I am a new diver) on each dive including 5 different types of Morray Eel on one dive alone!! I will definitely be heading back to the Andaman coast one day for some more underwater adventures!!
To our surprise we only realised with a few days to go that our Thai visas were coming to an end - where does the time go??? So now we find ourselves in Malaysia. We spent a couple of nights in Penang, which is nice enough, staying in the red light district. Boy means Joy in this part of the world where they prefer their prostitutes with a moustache - no tash no cash!!
As I write we are now in Cameron Highlands. It might as well be England - the remnants of the Great British Empire remain with red phone boxes, post boxes and tea and scones!! It even seems the levels of service I grew accustomed to in London have made it across the miles!! There are some great treks to do here and as long as you manage to time it to miss the britishesque weather they are great fun!!
So that's what we've been up to - in the next day or two we will head down to Kuala Lumpur, then further into Southern peninsular Malaysia, possibly a short stint in Sumatra in Indonesia before we arrive in Singapore to end the South East Asian flavours of our round the world trip. Four months down and still loving it!!
Keep up the good work.
Posted by
Liona |
28 October 2008 19:54