Ko Lanta

Sleeper seat on the night train really is the best way to travel. We arrived on west side of Thailand the next morning well rested and ready to hit the beach. Not even the 3 hour stop over on bus station and then another 2 hours on bus, ferry, bus, ferry and taxi could kill our spirit.

Ko Lanta is one of the bigger islands on the west coast - so we had hundreds of sleeping options. And as always when there is too much choice, we just couldn't decide which beach to go to. Finally we listened to our dive shop's advice and went to the long beach (seems that every island here has one).

What a good decision this was. We landed on the best beach we had so far on this trip. It had it all - nice sand, cocktail bar, fantastic BBQ. And to top it all, we had a fantastic room right on the beach at one of cheapest rates in Thailand (6,5 eur).

While we stayed here we celebrated two holidays. One Thai and one Slovenian. On 11.Nov we celebrated St. Martin - a day when grape juice becomes wine (just another excuse to buy some of the expensive vino). The next day, still a bit groggy we celebrated Loy Kraton. This is a Thai festival where People float little containers with a candle, joss sticks and a coin to thank the river goddess and get rid of their past year's sins. Our float kept coming back to the Beach, but committed to get rid of our sins we swam far our from the beach and pushed the flotilla into open sea and said bye, bye to our sins.

We even managed some diving between all this action. Our dive guide had an amazing eye to find obscure fish species. Add some Leopard sharks to the mix and we really didn't feel like laving. We loved it soooo much that we stayed for 11 days. Again (seems this is happening often in Thailand), it was hard to say good buy to Ko Lanta...

Some more pictures here.

Farewell Bangkok

We just had to stop for another couple of days in Bangkok on the way from Ko Chang (east) to Ko Lanta (west). With all the touristic bits and bobs already covered the last time the plan was to just relax and enjoy (and at Dejan's dismay even to do a bit of shopping).

And as luck would have it there was a big beer festival just outside our hotel. We tried to say no - we really, really did :). And that definitely didn't diminish our good feel about the city! Not even the next morning...

To top things off, after the beer (and dinner) we had some fresh water fish (from river running through Bangkok) at one of the street food stalls. Our expectations where very, very low, but it turned out to be one of the best fresh water fish dishes we have ever eaten (even Dejan agreed on this) - just covered with salt and then BBQ-ed.

After a night like this it was really hard to bid our farewell to Bangkok and head for the west coast. Never were we so sad on our way to the beach... Talking to other travelers we heard that Ko Lanta is the best place to visit (only divers are to follow our advice!) - and this time we even managed to book the overnight tickets on time (well almost too late).

Ko Chang

So, it happened... It is that time in life... We are sleeping in two separate rooms now... The thing is that cabins on the boat were not that big and we opted for luxury. Or not having heat stroke, guess depends how you look at it...

So, Ko Chang was sailing time. We hired a 32foot boat and headed towards the island archipelago on the north-east of Thailand. What we did not expect is that we will be so close to Cambodia. We could see it in the distance after the rain. And there was a lot of it (and we thought Ireland was bad!). We witnessed a proper tropical downpour - about 40 hours of straight rain!

But we had a lot of sunny and windy spells as well. The boat was really great. We sailed her along the white tropical beaches under the palm trees overlooking the blue seas. Really, really beautiful. Well, from the distance anyway. Beeches are usually full of sand-flies (checked with locals and the response was "...it is not too bad this time of the year"; yeah right!) and mosquitoes (we used about the bottle of anti-repellent on our on shore trip).

We did some great sailing (in the end we spend less that half fuel of wheat we were told to expect). If we were heading into the wind, we tacked and tacked and tacked (we left a good bit of our palms' skin on the the halyards and jib sheets). In the end, think we maybe overdid it a bit - were probably more in the racing that cruising mood, but it was a great fun!

In the week we mastered (well, sort of...) anchoring process as well. They do not have moorings, so you just pick a bay and it is your home for the night. Gentle waves (well, not so gentle all the time, we were almost kicked out of our beds as well) and stars on the sky, magic... Not to mention that the water had 30 degrees!

We spend all nights on the boat, sleeping on the deck for a few of them as well. Went on-shore only one day to do a bit diving (well, we just couldn't make it without it). Reefs of Ko Chang are not spectacular, but there is some nice coral. Not the place to plan your diving trip about, thou.

Click here for some more pictures.

Next stop, Bangkok again.

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.