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.

Originally written on December 4, 2004

The day was spent lounging in a beach chair (with umbrella a must) and going in and out of the water body surfing the great waves. People watching, was of course, a part of our day. Kirk rented a surf board in the late afternoon and tried it out. By the end of the hour he was able to surf on his knees. Not an easy feat. I tried it out a couple of times, lying on my stomach, and only nearly beached myself once. I soon learned when and where to bail off of the surf board. Dinner was good, Kirk had a meat pie with pastry and peas and chips and I shepherd’s pie. We left packing (as we were going to Kao Lak the next day) for the morning and had a good night’s sleep.

Hello, tomorrow we are off to Khao Lak. There we will be staying in some kind of bungalow type thing. We have no idea what the facilities are like (we are thinking, thatch room and jungle with beach, maybe a phone or two around who knows…) and will be there for 2 days before we board a ship to go snorkelling for 3 days. SO…. maybe no internet messages for awhile. Therefore, some messages if we can’t get them out from where we are:

* Happy Birthday Mom! (from Heather, Dec 08)
* Happy belated thai fathers day!
* Happy King’s Birthday (Dec 5)

Originally written on December 3, 2004

A brand new honda (not a crowded mini van, or a tuk tuk) picked us up early in the morning to take us to our thai cooking class in Phuket. The driver was a young woman, a first. Throughout southeast Asia we have had only male drivers. Our first stop the local market, where we were greeted by Noi (another young woman) who was going to show us what fresh produce to buy. She put English (and Thai) names to many of the fruits and vegetables we have seen throughout Asia in both the markets and in our food. She showed us how to choose the freshest of each item, and Kirk and I had to choose limes and 1 type of eggplant. There are three types of eggplants in Asia, purple ones (like back home), ones that look like decorative squash (small with white and green stripes- for Halloween), and really tiny ones on a stalk, the size and colour of peas. After the market we all hopped back into the car and to the cookery school. On the way Kirk and I learned that we would be the only two students that day.

We made 6 dishes in total, with the chef showing us first how to prepare each dish, and then Kirk and I individually preparing the dish again (from chopping to cooking). We both had our own cooking station. We made Pad Thai, spring rolls, chicken with cashews and chili, Tom Yam Goon (clear spicy/sour soup with prawns), green curry and sticky rice with mango. We each prepared our own dish, and there were no other students to eat… thus there was tonnes of food (6 dishes each) and just one stomach each. This is one time I wish I was a cow, because they have three stomachs!

The two young ladies drove us back to our guesthouse, and I napped along the way. Back in our home away from home we had a 3 hour nap, to help digest all of the food! And lazed around for the rest of the evening, reading, watching tv, and sleeping. Dinner was not on the agenda this evening.

Originally written on December 2, 2004

I surprised the women who runs the breakfast nook at our guesthouse, I arrived for breakfast as she was opening up shop! We usually stroll down to breakfast between 9am and 10am, but today we were going snorkeling and had to be ready for our minivan pickup at 8:20. I couldn’t resist, I had the french toast for the third time in a row. I had a look at the ingredients in “Honey flavoured syrup”, which I drizzle over my french toast, and realized it may be time to move on. As I recall sugar and glucose made up 70-80% of the ingredients.

After breakfast we stood at the bottom of the driveway, at the end of a short but steep hill, awaiting our minivan. Our transportation arrived, and shuttled us off to the pier, where we were “branded” with stickers (so they knew which group we belonged to) and herded to a table where we were told to sit. The guide then disappeared amongst the other guides and my fellow herd sat waiting. Five to ten minutes passed and the guide returned telling us that flippers were extra and if we wanted to rent some we had to do so now. With flippers in tow we boarded our speed boat for Raya Island.

A speedy, bumpy 30 minute journey (any longer or bumpier and gravol may have been required) we arrived at the island’s shore and took notice of the resort and many beach chairs and umbrella’s in the sand. Definately a well travelled place. From 10am to 11am we had free time, before boarding the boat and going for a snorkel. As Kirk and I were heading for a swim we noticed the floating dock/pier, the entrance way for those arriving for a stay at the swank resort. The floating dock moved up and down and side to side with the waves, and we soon found a new hobby. Nearly better than swimming in the crystal blue water with white sand (softest I’ve ever fest) beach, watching resort patrons disembark from their speedboat and make their way to the shore on the floating pier all snazzed up in slacks and long sleeved shirts, and touting their huge roll away bags. Add huge waves breaking in between the boat and the shore (i.e. along the highly pliable pier) and this makes for a day of great people watching.

Shortly after discovering our new “sport”, a group of resort patrons were making their way down the pier, as described above, and the hugest wave came, and the plastic pier rose moving with the action of the wave,and then fell as the wave crashed. Two people were on the “crest of the wave” and one took a header backwards when the wave crashed. Pure craziness, glad it wasn’t us, but great to see!!!

We went for a short swim, after no more big waves were coming to send resort patrons into the water, then we boarded the boat for a short trip to our snorkeling spot. Our speedboat stopped in a rocky bay and we all hopped out into the water. In the water we put on our gear and took our first look in the water. There were fish everywhere! All around us/beside us, lots of bright and beautiful colours! A big wow for the both of us. We enjoyed swimming with the fishes, trying to take in all of the different species and diving further down look for new ones. After awhile Kirk realized that we had swam a ways from our boat so we decided to make our way back towards it. We then realized that none of our group was in the water, and we headed back to the boat. Once there we realized we were the last to arrive, how long had they waited for us? An awesome first snorkeling experience!

Back to Raya island for lunch and a long break (2.5 hours) before we went to Coral island for the second snorkel. During our break we went for a snorkel along the rocky side of Raya Island (just off the main beach front). There were lots of fish, but we had to be careful in the rocky shallow water as the waves were powerful. After 20 minutes we started noticing, every once in awhile small translucent jellyfish. We put this fact together with our occasional sharp pinpricks (which we thought were just small cuts with sand going in them) and decided to head for the middle of the bay (where the jellyfish don’t get swept into). This area (the main swimming location is great and jellyfish free for the first couple of metres from shore, but afterwards the jellies still sneak up on you. We headed for shore and spent the rest of break time exploring another beach at the other side of the island (a 5 minute walk away) and short dips in the water.

At 2:30 pm we took the speedboat to coral island, for an hour’s snorkel near its sandy shore. The corals, at one time were likely fantastic, but sand/silt from speedboats, fishing boats, have silted the coral and mostly it is a coral cemetary with tonnes of tropical fish, sea urchins, and molluscs. There were parts of the hard corals that were alive, and I did find one soft coral colony flourishing (and filter feeding, a highlight!!!). We were surprised that the guide did not warn our group (especially as there were many young children, about the dangers of snorkeling. No sharks here, but sea urchins a plenty. Pruny hands and cold from being in the water so long we returned to shore to find out we were just in time. It was time to go. I think they were waiting for us to come back to shore, who knows how long we were swimming out there. We boarded the boat and it was a short trip to main pier and then a short minibus drive home.

We have forgiven pineapple for the unhappiness it had brought us in the past and try it out in full force tonight. For dinner the best pineapple shakes since Luang Prabang, awesome hawaiaan pizza (for kirk) and steak and mushroom pie for me. I love peas!!! Internet then off to bed early, tomorrow we learn to cook Thai!

Originally written on December 1, 2004

Well every day can’t be an exciting day for the readers of wanderers adventures. Today was one of those days. We awoke late and Heather had her signature french toast and honey flavoured syrup. Then we decided to walk right to Karon beach instead of Kata. Its much the same only not as shallow, and not as nice a view. Except there is more nudity here which Kirk mostly approves. In Thailand, nudity is prohibited and in Thai culture it would be *shocking* to be seen in the buff. But that doesn’t stop foreigners from going topless. Sadly, nor does it stop germans from wearing speedo’s. Whats up with that? » Read the rest of the entry..

Originally written on November 30th, 2004

Most of the day was spent phoning all over the place arranging cooking courses, and snorkelling trips. Today the heat was intense, 35C. And when you have spicy chicken curry for lunch in mid-day 35C heat, it is FRIGGIN hot. Thank goodness for cold showers. We spent the evening on the beach and took the photo below, among many others. For dinner we found a place that gave us free salad and bread, the fools! Perhaps they were thinking we would order lots of food. Nope, we did get some booze though. Heather wants everyone to know that she had good french toast with ‘honey flavoured’ syrup mixed with jam.

Today was a relaxing on the beach day. We enjoyed Kata beach, playing in the brief, but often big, waves. The water is crstal clear and a greeny blue. The rest of the day we lounged on loungers and tried not to burn. In the evening we checked out snorkelling options around and had some dinner (gnochi and pizza). The whole area here is very nice, but full of tourists — too much so. There is no ‘thailand’ here. Hopefully will find a way to make some phone calls soon.