Koh Lanta II, Khao Lak, and Similan Islands

50 Days in S.E. Asia from Joe Barnett on Vimeo.

Koh Lanta II and Khao Lak
...and if we wanted to roam further away we just rented a motorbike. Lanta Castaway Resort was our second place we stayed at in Koh Lanta for nine days. The beach was fabulous with great crystal blue swimming areas and stray horses at the resort next door that would roam out for the day and come back for sunset. Our best memories of this place were riding the motorbikes around the island all day, playing endless card games, eating at our favorite restaurant Red Snapper, and laying on sun beds all day ordering coconut shakes. We didn’t venture far when we were at the resort simply because there was no need. Everything was within close walking distance and if we wanted to roam further away we just rented a motorbike.

(playing round #356 of Gin for the trip)

Here is Joe learning to ride the motorbike. The man in charge was a great teacher and had him doing laps around the parking lot in no time. They even ventured out together on two separate bikes to get petro (gas) as they call it here. It was fun watching him learn, I never learned just because I didn’t really need to. I just sat on the back and watched for traffic as he adjusted to having weight on the back. It took a while, and turns were not the easiest thing with the shifting weight of having two people on a bike but by the time we left we decided we are definitely getting one someday.
We found time to run while we were here with the extended stay so we didn’t gain lots of weight which could easily be done with plentiful meals each day. It kind of became our home for a while, which we haven’t been able to say about any other place yet. It let us just relax and take in the beautiful weather and surroundings. Our bodies were crisping while our minds were wrapped around a good book with worries amounting to what we were going to do for dinner and hoping everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Internet access was also a key player in this stay which we currently are lacking and paying for at our resort in Khao Lak.

 

 

A HIGHLIGHT to Long Beach, Koh Lanta was our favorite restaurant, Red Snapper. We ate here about 5 times including twice in one night; it was recommended in Lonely Planet for obvious reasons. Like Time for Lime, it was a Tapas fusion restaurant, meaning that they serve a variety of smaller dishes with ingredients and culinary influences from all over the world. We loved these things called jalapeno cheese croquettes, which basically were jalapeno poppers but they were the best things that ever hit our mouths along with their feta cheese, egg plant, and roasted tomato salad, and Neil’s famous homemade tomato soup. On our last night there they gave us Red Snapper bumper sticker and knit coasters as a gift for being such loyal customers. We went to our other favorite place to eat on Long Beach for tasty Thai Cuisine which was called Papaya. We ordered many different dishes including Joe's favorite Muslim dish called Masaman, he also loves the curries especially the green curry with a side of steamed rice. I was a big fan of the spicy soups and salads. My favorite soup was one served at the resort which was a red curry with shrimp. Basically I was sweating by the time I was done eating it but it fulfilled my urge for an authentic spicy dish and it also had a great tangy lemon flavor to it which I was also a big fan of. I was a little terrified of curries and Thai food in general because we were introduced to it in Bangkok at a mall food court, a zoo food court, along with other various grease ball stands and creepy pizza places. We weren’t well adjusted or prepared for what we were suppose to order and what our taste buds could handle, but we definitely found our niche in Thai Cuisine once we headed south. I cannot wait to come home and try and make some of these dishes, they are absolutely to die for.

 

An interesting trend we followed during our travels has been the eclectic array of tourists who end up at these resorts. There are the full families, screaming crying babies and all, the older couples who stay to themselves, the extreme couples with tattoos covering their bodies, the loud and insensitive Europeans (not trying to judge all, just an observation which happened all too regularly), younger couples (us at pretty much every resort), topless tanning women, the older couples who still have ambition and drive to see the world, the heavy drinkers, the animal lovers, the complainers mainly the people who order insane requests during breakfast, lunch, or dinner, shy and quiet couples (us most of the time), penny pinchers and money flippers (I impress myself daily)… Basically all this free time gives a lot of perspective while people watching who you are traveling amongst. This trip also made us realize that kids should be very well disciplined before a trip such as ours or it could be a catastrophic nightmare for the parents.

 

 

It’s crazy but I am already thinking about the things I want to do when I come back. You would think this amount of time would allow for many things to happen, but really we have only touched the surface yet it’s felt as though we have dived way below and around. Simply put, Thailand is a place for many basic and flourishing needs to be met. You have hospitality which is the best I have experienced compared to the many cheap, expensive, and corporate chain hotels I have stayed at in the US, and this is including our hostel Soi 1 Guesthouse in Bangkok which was bare bones but tasteful service still accompanied our experience. Food which cannot be compared to, with restaurants that take pride in the meals they serve. Not too many chain or fast food restaurants around with the same expected meal each time. Transportation is tough, but once you have found a service you like, it’s good to stick with it because you can never be sure what may happen next. The people are always friendly, and from what I have seen hard working with a very interesting way of relaxing at the same time. People do not fret as much here, it’s like waiting for a bus to come; they know it is coming why freak out about what time and whether they’ll have a seat. This is by far the best place to come if you just want to escape for a while and relax. Once you arrive at your destination, hopefully beach side/pool side or close by, you have the whole day to just take it all in. The weather has never disappointed us, although the tsunami relief centers which we saw an abundance of in Koh Lanta were scary to think about but also reassuring. We figured those centers were not built until after the large tsunami hit in 2004. It’s amazing looking at the beaches we have stayed at which were once very badly hit by the tsunami to see the incredible businesses and everything else that has been built back up to perfection. The saddest things we will be leaving behind will be in a shortened version coconuts and fresh coconut juice/shakes, the waves in the ocean, and time to do the things we have always wanted to since we were kids. Okay I will stop being cheesy now.

Photos from Orchid Beach Resort in Khao Lak:

  (pool bar and look up at our room balcony)

 

(getting his lavish sun) 

 

 

 

 

(looking out from restaurant of resort)

 

(the best coconut juice in the world) 

 

 

(my third pair of sunglasses for the trip, broke the other two)

Similan Islands

(at the look out point at island number 8, quite the treacherous walk up)

 

About a four hour boat ride from Khao Lak brought us to our final destination, The Similan Islands. Here we decided on doing a quality reviewed live aboard snorkeling tour which lasts a total of three days stopping at various islands of the Similan which is considered to be in the top 20 wonders of the world, it was in the top 10 until the tsunami of 2004 hit the islands quite badly damaging the coral reefs and bumping it down. The Similan Islands are known for their great snorkeling and diving places and their wonderful powdery sand beaches. All nine islands are in a national park set up so you can stop at each one, snorkel or dive and then head to the beach.

(view from look out point)

(Lee our tour guide in the striped shorts showing his personality)

It was our first time snorkeling so we were a little nervous as to what to expect but our awesome tour guide Lee lined things up for us quite well and made it a very fun trip for us first timers. We saw the most I MEAN THE MOST beautiful underwater creatures, everything from huge sea turtles, sea snakes, tropical fish (the names I am not too familiar with), we looked for Nemo but he was hiding each time we looked for him, small sharks, small eels, a huge sea eel, gigantic rainbow colored fish, a dolphin jumping on the way home and on top of that AMAZING coral reefs, and at our last stop at island 5 and 6 huge statues put in the water by the divers for everyone to enjoy! Each time we went in the water it was like being in a different world, it was beautiful and the water was crystal clear turquoise so you could see everything. Our tour guide gave us a CD of all the photos he took underwater during our trip so I will be sharing those with people once I can upload them to a compatible computer.

(three Euros posing like Borat bewildering the children and 15 other people standing up there)

 

 (Joe covered in the flour sand)

The Similan Islands were well cared for with much respect being paid to the environment due to it being a national park and one of the Wonders of the World, I would recommend going here some day to anyone who wants to snorkel or dive in superb waters with gorgeous coral reefs and beaches.
Our three days on the boat was great, we got a little sea sick but took some sea sick pills available on the boat and felt much better. We really got to know our tour guide well, seeing as he was one of the other two people on board that spoke English along with us. Everyone else was from Sweden and spoke little English.
We are now back in Bangkok for two days heading home on Dec 16th! We look forward to seeing everyone of spending some time with family! Thanks (Krap Kun Ka) for following our blog during our travels, I hope I did an okay job of showing everyone what we have been up to and really enjoyed writing them!! We loved Thailand and Vietnam and hope to come back someday, we will miss it here.
Merry Christmas!

Koh Lanta, Thailand

1st line of business: To give you a little idea of where we are at:


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2nd line of business: To tell/show you what we have been up to!

This part of our trip is pretty much devoted to laying by the beach, swimming, reading, motorbiking around, and ordering fresh coconut shakes inside a fresh coconut. It doesn't seem like much, but if you saw this place you would be quite happy by just that. This is no Elm Creek Park Reserve Public Beach in Maple Grove, although I will always love it there too, it really is a great man made beach to sit at and get hot dogs and ice cream pops, but regardless this beach does not compare. And there is no chlorine pumps you have to worry about running into, just sharp rigid rocks and maybe the occasional fish.
It was a nice transition to Lanta Castaway Resort from Time for Lime which is where we stayed for 5 days. we basically just hopped on a tuk tuk and 2 kilometers later, we were there! I am thinking in milliliters, kilometers, and meters now. But I will by recapping our stay at Time for Lime on Klong Dao Beach.

The pet monkey had a very nice set up right out side our bungalow. He would climb, jump, and eat things with his hands like monkeys do, but I think he felt left out with all the cats and dogs who got to just roam freely, he was a little too wild for that freedom but he did get let out on a walk once while we were there and got pretty close to us. He actually ripped our seven eleven bag (yes they are everywhere) right in half just looking for snacks I suppose.. Monkey encounters are usually not a normal part of our day, we really enjoyed him.

Our quaint and comfortable bungalow, the best part was the hammock outside to lay on, read in, or just relax in, it was also a great place to watch the rain. This place has had the most rain we have had so far which has been the equivalent of about 3 days the whole trip. Some creepy bugs would pass occasionally and lizards of course which we are used to by now. Another thing that was new about this place were the Thai style toilets. The only unusual thing we have noticed prior to coming here was a sprayer for your behind after doing your business. But on top of that here, you had to use a big bowl of water to manually flush the water and keep filling up the large water basin next to he toilet each time...oddly enough it was kind of fun.

View from main sitting area/restaurant at Time for Lime. This is what we got to look out at every morning when we ate our breakfast :). It was a self serve breakfast which was interesting, and man you better get there early or the hot water is out and the bread is gone and no one is really around to replace it! Us budget travelers knew to get up early before the rush and get a big breakfast in our tummies, but we sure witnessed some angry people who got up to no hot water for their coffee, no bread, and their juice was out. Not a pretty sight.

 

Time for Lime had a few neat twists to it, no pun intended.  For one, it was a very popular and well renowned Thai Fusion Cooking school  run by a Norwegian lady named Junie who has been featured in cooking magazines and has published her own cook book. Thai Fusion we found out is a cooking practice that combines various foods and cooking techniques from all over the world which has Thai spices or techniques intertwined with it. It sounds confusing, but the end product is phenomenal. We ate two nights in a row at this place and have had some of the best food we have eaten this whole trip including mussels with a lemon dipping sauce and the classic Pad Thai which we have tried everywhere, but hands down is the best here.

The second twist is that it is also an animal rescue shelter, which explains all the beautiful animals running around. We made friends with a couple cats and dogs whom were very fun to wake up to and hang with on the beach each day. There were people bringing in mainly injured or wild dogs in all the time which needed to be domesticated or nursed back to health. Right when we left we saw a pup who looked like its hip was skinned quite badly, it was reassuring to see that there was a place for these animals to go. This place was definitely geared towards its cooking class crowd, which I considered doing but didn't quite fit the age group/genre which involved an after lesson wine session that I was not ready for. Some crowds are easier to mix with than others, so I just watched, it was just as fun. The kitchen set up was amazing with at least twenty different cooking stations.

This dog was definitely our favorite, he was the most mellow and would just follow you around and lay by your side all day. Some of the others were really rambunctious and would bark a lot.

I collected lots of shells to bring home and show everybody. I want to try and make necklaces out of some of them too!

The tiny crabs would climb in their holes and create a very cool patterned barricades on the outside of them. At night they would cover their little hole with dirt, they have busy lives these crabs along with the day to day hassle of avoiding getting stepped on by daily beach goers. We saw a few medium size crabs roaming around but all the big ones are out at sea.

Joe cruising through one of his 3 books he brought with him. Reading material has become a problem for him, he is now waiting for me to finish my book Middlesex so he can read it. The books they have at the resort are either in French, Thai, or German and the two books he found in English were very bazaar.

 

Hanging with our friend. I think we named him Benny.

 

A classic start to one of many sunsets.

We got a front row ticket to some very beautiful sunsets.

These two pictures coincide. (Also because my formatting skills for pictures on this blog site are not quite up-to-par yet.)

 

The last night out at a beach Restaurant before we left for Castaway Resort on Long Beach (looking quite handsome I might add).

Not enough time to write about Khao Lak, will do so when we retrieve more internet!

Vietnam Pictures (Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa)

This has been our favorite leg of the trip thus far. Everything that has not gone our way leading up to to these moments, which tends to happen on trips sometimes whether it's money, food, or transportation issues, it all stopped mattering once we went to Vietnam.

Our favorite part of our trip has been the 3 day, 2 night tour through Halong Bay. The first night we stayed on a junk boat and just relaxed while we sailed over night to Halong Bay to kayak and swim with our cool and very fun tour guide name Canh. While sailing there the first day we stopped at a really interesting floating fishing village with hundreds of people living and working on floating structures. 

A floating school right next to where we stopped and got to walk around on the floating village to look at some fish and mussel farming areas and learn about their culture.

Our junk boat that we slept on the first and second night from which we jumped off and swam from numerous times. We had fresh seafood meals the whole time!

 

Joe and one of the tour guides from Handspan jumping off our junk boat.

Jeff and Jeff, two guys we spent the whole Halong Bay trip with and bunked with on the train to Sapa. Two fun spirited guys, we all had a blast.

All five of us kayaking in a "secret" lagoon!

Canh, the best tour guide at Handspan!! He was a great guide and told us some really funny stories and took us kayaking through a 100+ meter, pitch black cave which we had to use flashlights to navigate through. It was the scariest and most adventurous thing Joe and I have ever done...we thought camping was pretty extreme before this trip.

Joe scavenging for our next meal on our break from kayaking on a private beach ;)

 

We spent the third night at a 5 star resort called Sunrise Resort on Cat Ba Island. It was very nice and we got a great deal with our package through Handspan because it was all inclusive!

On the beach at the resort, we weren't there for five minutes and were already playing in the waves and splashing around like little kids.

 

The waves the following day were a lot larger and dangerous, we attempted swimming in these and were scared away. 

Saying goodbye to the Jeffs as we went our separate ways in Sapa, they were heading for a two night home stay with a family in a tribal village, we were off to Topas Eco Lodge for some relaxation.

 

View of the mountains in the town of Sapa right before our voyage up to Topas Eco Lodge.

Some local village girls I met while walking around taking photos. They all have handmade goods that they tried to sell me and wore the same clothing representing their tribe.

Me clenching onto Joe for dear life on our scary drive on dirt roads up the mountains to Topas Eco Lodge. Picture this: A very bumpy and rocky one lane dirt road, a crazy driver, several mini streams flowing down mountain that we had to cross through, no guard rail, and a couple thousand meters of elevation looking down in to the river basin from the road. I was a tad scared that we were going to go rolling down and was very sweaty by the time we arrived.

Joe outside our bungalow at the Eco Lodge.

The bungalows were eco-friendly hence the name Eco Lodge run on solar operated heat and electricity.

Inside our bungalow, it was so comfy with little slippers for us to wear and a great view out at the mountains!

Joe hanging with the kitty in the lodge where we played many rounds of cards mainly gin and and go fish, and Banana Grams (if you don't know google it because it's the best game ever created) while sipping hot cocoa. It could get pretty chilly up there at times, it gave us a feel for being at home or at the cabin or something.

The cute little puppy who would just roam around and chew on dry leaves all day.

Good view of the rice terraces, it was hard to take a good picture of them with all the fog on the last day.

 

A roaming water buffalo sighting right on our patio of our bungalow. Pretty nice.

Joe getting chased by fruit basket lady in Hanoi. We had realized by this point that they were all involved in a large mafia scam against tourists, but when we first arrived we were basically robbed by them. What they do is come up to you and put the fruit basket holders on both of your shoulders and pin a pointed sun hat on your head (they obviously look for couples because hey, how funny would that be to the other partner!) SO THEN the partner who is not being bombarded by fruit baskets and a hat proceeds to laugh and giggle and whip the camera out like its nobody's business and snap a photo and the same thing is then done to them. Consequently after all the fun and games are over and the laughter subsides, they expect you to pay them for the photo you took on your camera...and they then shove bags of warm cut up fruit in your hands that you did not ask for and expect you to pay them. Then you start feeling resentment of all things and pay them what they want...against your will because they get extremely upset and throw fits if you tell them no. We never let it happen again, but it was a hard lesson to learn. Looking back you can recognize them so easily because they dress similar and all have big baskets of bananas and pineapple waiting to pin their next victims. There are worse crimes in the world I guess...

 

A photo hanging on the wall at Hoa Lo Prison which was run and built by the French and was also where John McCain was held prisoner during the Vietnam war.

Joe in front of a big bolted door at Hoa Lo Prison.

Statue reenactments of prisoners at Hoa Lo. 

A small water drain which prisoners escaped from regularly at Hoa Lo. 

The be-header at Hoa Lo

 

 A couple of cool statues in the park on our last walk around the lake in Hanoi.