Bangkok

Absolutely positive surprise. Amazing mix of old and new. City with so many different vibes: new and modern, old Thai, Chinese, Indian... We did the tourist thing (obviously) - seen the temples and palaces, walked the China town and Indian quarter. Taken a ride with the boat on the Mae Nam Chao Phraya realising why Bangkok is known as "Venice of the East"... All of it just amazing. And then the new quarter - glass, glass and once again glass. We just loved it. We stayed just north of Siam square. As Lonely planet describes it: smack dab in the middle of the city's shopping orgy and perfect for those who have been away from civilization for awhile. Need I say more? Only thing we missed is a ride with tuk-tuk - they are not interested in ride, but to take you shopping. Too much hassle, so we passed. More pictures on Bangkok here.

For the first time since the start of the Pelican we also spent an evening apart. Dejan opted for a visit to Lumpini stadium (guys beating the cr.. out of each other) while Nives went to the cinema for Mamma Mia! (romantic musical). As long as we are not stereotypical...

Next stop Ko Chang. Sailing time!!!

Ko Samui

Blue seas, white sand below the palms... And new Tesco shop with western food! How could we miss this? Plan was changed at the last minute and we boarded ferry once again and set off to the tropical paradise of Ko Samui.


After consulting not one, but two guide books we decided to stay on the Chaweng beech - arguably the nicest beach on the island. The beach is really beautiful although a bit overcrowded with resorts. Swimming is not too great - you need to take your time to get deep and snorkeling is practically non-existent. This was a bit let down after Ko Tao and snorkeling with black-tip reef sharks. So, we settled for few days of doing beech life. Well, with rented scooter to break the monothony... Cammon, you know us!





But we will always remember Samui. Dejan was celebrating his birthday on October 16th in a really special way. We prepared a real spread on the beach that we practically had for ourselves. Wine and cheese and good bread! If you are wondering what is in the bag - it is ice. We DO come prepared. Followed by midnight swim in the warm waters of the sea... It will be the one to remember!

After 3 days it was time to leave Samui. It is a beautiful place to come to relax on the beech and be pampered in posh resorts, but lacks a bit on the diving/snorkeling side. Now, you may know this already, but quality of snorkeling has a big impact on the Jugs beech-o-meter.

Next stop - Bangkok. Glass and concrete, asphalt and smog, here we come! And, actually we have missed you a lot...


Click here for some more pictures

Ko Tao

We where so tired after the 3rd class train experience that we needed 5 days of doing absolutely nothing to recover (2 of them spent sleeping!). Next time we will book in advance!

Well, if it is not obvious from the picture, we LOVE Ko Tao. It is much more tourism oriented than east coast of Malaysia. To our relief beer is also not a problem (again if not obvious from beer belly on the picture). Apart from this we also missed shops (read ice cream) and concrete accommodation without bugs and rodents.

We got a fantastic room on the beach, just 3m of sand separating us from the sea - all this for 10EUR per night. Well, it had no air con and toilet flush was done using a bucket, but compared to our last accommodation, it was an improvement.

Doing nothing provides time to do mundane things like arguing whole day where to go for diner. And there was plenty to discuss. We where spoiled for choice on the island - from local to European cuisine. Best thing is we got lots of help from local dive guides. We had the best Thai curry ever in the middle of nowhere - again thanks to local advice (Tukta if you are in the area). Things are not expensive here - curry is about 1-2EUR, beer 1EUR, pizza 5 EUR. The only expensive thing in Thailand is wine - even more expensive than in Ireland (we will definitely stop bitching about it when we get back home)!

And after this 5 days of bliss full nothingness we decided it was time for some casual Internet. And how shocked we where - we forgot to take care of our finances. To make a long and embarrassing story short, we only managed to scrape enough for our mortgage payment. Good side of the story is that we are obviously relaxing... It will be couple of dry days - thank god we took the credit cards with us.

Last week (I know it has been a while since our last post) we got back in the action mode. We did some scooter and quad driving on muddy roads (for the feminine part of the family we did quads 3 times already - first time, last time and never again time. Compares to the experience of horse back riding in Cuba.). Done some diving with sharks and other lethal sea creatures. In short, we are back!!!!

We were really not set whether to dive Ko Tao or not. Comments ranged from "Excellent" to "Don't even bother". In the end we decided to give it a go (know that most of our friends are probably shocked, considering how we really don't like to dive). In the end we were really happy we did it. Diving is nice - not too much coral or fish life, but good viz and VERY, VERY warm. Something we REALLY learned to appreciate in Ireland.

Plan was to go dinghy sailing as well, but the weather wasn't on our side. The days that we could go were completely calm - zero wind! Well, will have to wait for some other beach destination...

We have met some great people here and some of them we will meet again - going to a live-aboard to Similans in November together! Can't wait for this.

Some more pictures here...

The train

Yes, we are in Thailand!!!

In the queue to get into Thailand we argued about taking 1st or 2nd class sleeping department on the train. We didn't think that all the Muslims returning home after Hari Raya where thinking the same thing. Well, they where thinking about the same thing when they bought their return tickets to Malaysia couple of weeks ago.

Bottom line: out of two trains per day from Thai border north first one was fully booked and second one had only couple of seats in 3rd class. When I say 3rd class you should read cargo class - no windows, no fans with bench style seating designed to get as many Thai size people in as possible. No need to say that our XL bodies didn't fit well.

Good thing was that we only had 14 hours on the train, the bad news was that (since first train was full) we will get to our destination (Chumphon) at 2am and will need to wait for 5 hours until first ferry to Ko Tao island.

We needed beer and lots of it !!!

Click here if you don't mind couple more disturbing images from the train.

Hari Raya

We finally decided its time to move to our next destination - Thailand. On the way north we wanted to stay in nice town Kota Bharu, which is famous for its night market with one of the best food stalls in Malaysia.

Well, how wrong we where. The day we chose to travel was national holiday in Malaysia -Hari Raya. This means end of fasting (Ramadan) and is like xMas in Europe - everything was closed, including food stalls we where so eager to sample. To make things worse we where is Muslim dominant part of Malaysia,which also meant no beer. We finished eating toast and butter in our room.

With nothing else to do we just waited for bus north to Thai border. We are hoping to catch a night train in Thailand that will take us to Champon and then ferry Ko Tao island. We heard for other people that the train is really nice with sleeping section with beds. Looking forward to it ...