Originally written on December 13, 2004

Point form for now… Heather puts her back out, while packing. Tiger balm saves the day. That and another incident described below. Kirk swears profusely while packing his backpack. The last time he did that it was because he got out of bed and almost stepped on a huge cockroach. This time he called me over to the backpack, and a giant toad jumped out of his backpack. My back was instantly better, and although I am a biologist, I ran promptly to the bathroom until Kirk removed it from our room. Taxi at 11 am from Khao Lak resort to Phuket Airport checkin and then satisfy western craving, hello burger king! gorgeous views (both sea and sky) as we fly over the ocean and back to bangkok airport shuttle bus to our hotel checkin to the “Regent Silom Serviced Apartments” Christmas shopping and browsing along Surawong Road, Central Department store (on Silom Road) and the Patpong night market. Somehow I did not read that the night market is amidst the the strip joint/sex show area. An eye opener. A good night’s sleep for a full day of shopping tomorrow.

Originally written on December 12, 2004

Spent the day on the beach. Walked north of our resort and found a shady spot on the beach. Crazy waves where they came back from the shore, and met with waves coming to shore. This occurred because the water was really shallow, then deep only 3 ft from the shore. The result, big waves that crash really fast, and happen in triples. You have to ride out the series of waves, as it the current was too strong to make it back to shore. Bathing suits were difficult to keep on. Evening. Celebrate our last night at the beach by bar/restaurant hopping. Kao Lak Seafood restaurant for Masamum curry and beer. Then bar, name escapes me for girly drinks. Then cheap mom and pop place, for french fries, beer, and chicken fingers. Yes, western food at your service, and cheap. Crawl to bed, and sleep well. Nite nite.

Originally written on December 11, 2004

We spent the day at the pool. I was awoken early, again at 7:00 am by the gardeners raking the dirt and chatting to each other. This time I went out and politely asked them to be quiet, in English with charades for shh and sleeping, but to no avail. Ten minutes later I awoke got dressed and ate breakfast (muesli and yoghurt) and read my book on the porch. By 8:30 am I headed down to the pool, where only 3 others were reading by the pool. I secured myself and Kirk a lounge chair and laid back and read enjoying the peace and quiet and the view. An hour later I headed back to the bungalow to see if Kirk was up, and he was, and we headed back to the pool where we sat and swam till the middle of the afternoon.

The internet was next, and then dinner, then bed.

Originally written on December 10, 2004

I awoke early, as I had on the boat, at 7am. I let Kirk sleep and took a book to read and some yoghurt and museli for breakfast out to the front porch. At 8:30 am I was off to the supermarket to purchase an international phone card, and called my parents and my grandparents. Impressed with how much I had accomplished by 9:30 am I went back to the bungalow and slept till 12pm. And so the sleeping begins.

We went to the closest restaurant for lunch, and were pleasantly surprised to find it reasonably priced, you can always tell by the price of drinks (pop/alchohol etc). Grilled ham and cheese sandwich was on the menu and was promptly chosen, along with a new thai food (muslim origin) favourite, masamum. This is a creamy spicy stew with potatoes and either chicken or beef. With a pineapple shake and a diet coke the meal cost 5 CAD.

After lunch we checked out the facilities at our hotel, our bungalow is in a separate section from the main complex. We went past the pool, the restaurant, and down to the beach. During high tide the beach completely disappears, as told by the large breaker wall separating the beach from the resort property. The sand beach is intermixed with rocky outcrops, which we explored for sea stars and other intertidal animals. We found a sea slug, and lots of small fish in the tidal pools. The air was hot and still, really muggy. After a short walk down the beach it was time for a swim in the pool.

The pool has water jets to massage your aching muscles and ceramic elephants that shoot water into the pool from their nostrils. The water went only to my neck which was the perfect height for me! After swimming we went back to the bungalow, where we read (Kirk listened to an audio book), and then I layed down for another nap (3 hours!). Crazy~

Kirk woke me up at 7pm for dinner, and we headed back to the restaurant where we ate lunch. For dinner I had spaghetti, as I was craving it. Never crave western food in an asian country, because you will be surely disappointed. A 3 out of 10. Kirk had his favourite, Tom Yam Goon (coconut curry chicken soup) by default. He wanted red curry, but the curry dishes were in Thai and we were unable to communicate with the waitress, so Kirk decided on an all time favourite. After dinner to the internet to catch up on stories and then to bed.

Originally written on December 7, 2004

Our day started with an early rise to meet the 7:30 transport to the boat. From there, we started towards the Similians aboard a 40 ft ‘liveaboard’ named “Choke Duang Ta”, a spacious vessel where we wore only swim suits and bare feet. We were briefed on the crew, how the snorkelling was to work, and then told to take sea sick pills if you need them. A four hour journey from the thai mainland to the islands (nine in total) ensued. We arrived shortly after noon at island number 9 and by that time had got aquanted with those on board. Of the 15 or so passengers, 10 spoke swedish. Most of the trip turned into listening to flip-ty-floo ty Ngugen gurgen shurgen’s etc, but that was ok as the sea life was awesome. From then on in we dove into the water, swam around for 45-1hour and then moved to a new place to see different things. We did this for three days until our return. You can catch pictures here.

Originally written on December 6, 2004

We slept in till 11am, and had a snack before lunch, as the only kitchen close by was at our bungalow complex and it was closed from 11am-12pm. We ate lunch, then rented a motorbike and headed into town. Poseidon did not have room for us after we returned from our snorkelling trip, so we needed to go into town and make a reservation at another location. The first stop in town was the bank, to get enough money to pay our snorkelling trip up front, and save the 4% charge for using a credit card. Next, we visited three recommended hotels/resorts. Pricier than Poseidon but 2 of them had pools and restaurants by the beach, quite nice. We settled on one, as it was the only one that had room for all 4 nights, and luckily it was a nice resort with a pool (even had a swim up bar, fancy!). Back at Poseidon in time for a sunset swim, then dinner and back to the room to pack for our trip.

Originally written on December 5, 2004

By 10:00 am we were packed up and waiting by the side of the road for the local bus to Phuket, from there we would catch the public bus to Kao Lak. The local bus soon arrived and we got into the large tuk tuk like bus. Luckily, we were one of the first stops, as within 5 minutes and several stops later the bus was full. Ten minutes later, outside of the resort area the local Thai people got on the bus, and hung on any which way they could, as the bench seats were already packed with tourists. It’s the local bus, but all of the tourists got the seats.

The bus made its final stop in Phuket town (our 1st destination) at the centre market. Part of the market was touristy with sandals, clothes etc for sale, and further down was a fresh fruit/vegetable and likely meat market (we didn’t venture in as we have seen our fill of smelly markets). We perused the shops and slowly made our way to the main bus terminal. Along the way Kirk purchased new sandals (his other’s were only a week old, but they are the prong kind that go between your toes and one foot did not enjoy its new surroundings. So, new Dr. Scholl’s sandals were bought at a good price (12 CAD), we had seen them in other stores for (19 CAD).

Happy with our purchase we proceeded to the bus terminal. There, the touts were out in full force, trying to scam/sell us seats on a mini bus or non-airconditioned crappy bus. All of the signs are in Thai, except one which has the bus schedule for every location serviced by the station. However, you do not know at which of these times this is a 1st, 2nd or 3rd class government bus. This is important as the 1st class buses make the fewest stops, and also have air conditioning snacks and a toilet on board. At the ticket window everything is in Thai, so you don’t know if the person behind the glass works for the government bus, or a tourist bus, and they do not speak English. With the lack of English signs, and the touts constantly harassing you and trying to push you to their bus (they are unfortunately the only ones who speak English), it is difficult to know which bus to take.

We settled on a bus, who knows how and hopped on. It was air conditioned, but no snacks or toilet. I think it was likely a 2nd class bus, as it made several stops. We were headed to Poseidon Bungalows in Kao Lak. On their website they wrote that it was easy to reach them by public bus, just tell the bus driver to drop you off at Lam Kaeng. After telling and showing him the name, the driver nodded that he knew where Lam Kaeng was, so we settled into our seats.

The movie was terrible, Frankenfish, a story of killer fish in the Louisiana swamps. (It still gave me nightmares that night though!). After the movie, what else but Thai Karaoke. I still have the chorus of one song stuck in my head, although I have no idea what it means. “Lao Lek Lao Lek Lao Lek”. After 2 hours we passed the town of Kao Lek and started to get worried that maybe we were going to be dropped off in the middle of no where. The town disappeared and 25 minutes the driver shouted Lam Kaeng and we hopped off the bus, which had a Thai police station, a small rural convenience store and an internet cafe. We looked around for signs that we were in the right place and found none. No Lam Kaeng or Poseidon bungalow signs. We asked around, but no one spoke English. We did not have a map of the area handy, and decided to go to the internet cafe to print it off the Poseidon website. The internet cafe was full of small kids playing online HALO games, and the owner told us that it was busy. Luckily we had a phone card and used it to calll the bungalow, they told us to head further north along the road. This was confusing as the bungalows were supposed to be close to Kao Lak, and we thought for sure we should head south. A man on a bicycle spoke English and knew the area well, but could not help us as we did not have a map. But he would drive us for 200 baht. Hmmm. Kirk spotted a bus going back towards Kao Lak and we decided to hop on and eat lunch in town and figure out what to do next.

After lunch we asked at the local dive shop where Poseidon bungalows were, and how much a taxi would cost. With this information in hand we got a taxi and were at our new home by 5 pm, in time for a sunset swim on the private beach. A great thai curry dinner at the bungalows restaurant and then to sleep.