Beaching out in Thailand Vrijdag, 8 maart, 2002 I realize it has been a while since the last posting. However, I was quite busy the last month: lying on the beach, walking on the beach, swimming in clear blue water (the seas in countries like this are the reason why I will never ever again enter the water in Scheveningen), sleeping on the beach etc. So you see why I was too busy to tell you how I'm doing. To cut it short: I'm doing allright. After Wendy arrived we stayed one more day in Bangkok to have her settled in, get rid off the jet lag and get accustomed to the heat (as far as possible). Our first trip was to Koh Samui by night train, bus and boat. We were staying in a nice bungalow on the north side of the island, the more quite part. Unfortunately the bungalow was not right on the beach; we had to walk on awful 25 meters to get to the white beach with coconut trees and the clearest blue water you have ever seen. This is one of those beaches you know from the Bounty and Fa commercials: absolutely stunning. I will not repeat this everytime, but these are the kind of places I've spent an entire month. Days on the beach (and touring around the island on a little motorbike) slide by easily and before we knew it one week was gone; time to move on. In order to see a little bit more than only beaches we stopped at Khao Sok National park on our way to Phuket. Here we spent 2 nights at a funky places called Khao Sok Jungle Huts where a team of wicked girls called Spider, Chicken and Monkey took care of us. The hike through the national park was beautiful: rainforest, river, waterfalls; the best scenery you can imagine. Unfortunately we did not obey rule number 1 for a jungle walk: take large amounts of water with you. We carried far too little so the bar at the end of our hike had a good day in revenues. Next stop: Phuket. Well, what can I say about Phuket: it's the Benidorm of Asia. Especially Patong beach is a place where you don't want to be: crowded, nousy, flown-in tourists straight from Frankfurt (just to name one place) and on top of it all signs advertising for "Bradwurst mit Brot" (To put it nicely: I dislike places that have menu's and advertisements in German). So we stayed at Karon beach, one of the more laid back beaches. More beaches, more sun bathing and some snorkelling. Bye, bye, cry, cry: after 2 weeks I had to bring Wendy to the airport for her flight to Bangkok to go back home. Our ride on the little motorbike was a genuine Thai ride: stuff as much as you can on a motorbike; 2 people, a big backpack and a small daypack is absolutely nothing to take with you. Yes, yes: scuba diving course! From Phuket I headed back to Koh Tao (another one day travel, for some reason I kept going back and forth between east and west Thailand) for my first scuba diving course. Reasons to do it on Koh Tao: it's cheap and via via I knew a Dutch instructor there so I could be taught in Dutch. Although my English is not too bad, I prefer to be told in Dutch what to do and what no to do when I go down under water for 10 meters. The course run smoothly, theoretical exam: 48 good out of 50 (1 question was not covered anywhere in the book and the other error came from an absolutely ridiculous question so in fact I feel I scored 100%). Time to dive!: stunning, amazing, not difficult and safe (as long as you obey a few simple rules). For the readers who dive: you know what I'm talking about. For the ones who don't: sorry, I cannot explain what it feels like, just do it. I'm proud to say that now I'm certified as a PADI Open Water diver, allowed to go 12 meters down. It was very hard to leave Koh Tao. The island is so laid back and affordable that it's just too easy to stay. However, I had to leave Thailand as my visum was about to run out (you get a visum for 30 days, at the end of it you make a 'border-run': go to the border, walk out of the country, turn around, walk in again and get a new stamp). My border run brought me to Georgetown on Penang island in Malaysia. In fact I wanted to go there because of one of the major highlights of my trip: driving a motorcycle on a racetrack. There is a racetrack on Penang where the grandprix for motorcycles is held and in countries like this it must be possible for individuals to drive around a bit for little money (if you can shoot at live cattle with a kalasnikov in Cambodia (which I of course did not do) it must be possible to race around a bit). At least, this is what my research upfront in Holland told me..... As it turns out the racetrack is not called Penang but Sepang which is located near Kuala Lumpur, about 600 kilometers south from where I was. What can I say, somewhere I did make a stupid mistake in the research, I can only say for my defence that on the internet the names Penang and Sepang are both used to indicate the same racetrack.... Anyway, if this is the worst experience in 3 months time, things are not really that bad. You might ask: why not go south and visit that Sepang racetrack? Well, I really did not want to go further south into Malaysia because I wanted to go back up: back to Thailand. I really, really enjoy Thailand: it's reasonably well developed so everything you need is there and it's still very affordable, the weather is great and the people are nice. For the remaining time in Thailand I was travelling with a friend from Bangkok. We went to Phuket and did stayed at Patong beach this time (you know, the busy beach). My advice: really do not stay there unless you want to relive you 16-year-old drinking holiday to Benidorm. Stay at Karon beach or Kata Noi, visit Patong beach one night and see why you do not want to stay there. So our next stop was Koh Samui where effectively my Asia period was about to end. As there was one more thing left to do in Thailand I pushed back my flight from Singapore to Sydney for about 5 days. This time I used to go scuba diving at Koh Phi Phi, another one of those islands. This is the island where they shot the movie The Beach (maybe this rings a bell for you, I do not know either the book or the movie). For me it was just another paradise island where I wanted to dive. On Koh Phi Phi I had another Dutch instructor who taught me the Advanced Open Water course during 5 dives. I'm proud to say that now I'm certified as a PADI Advanced Open Water diver, allowed to go 30 meters down. Next stop: Singapore to catch my flight to Sydney. In the few hours I had in Singapore I was able to do everything I wanted to do there. One: Singapore is known for its cheap electronics so I figured I could buy memory cards for my camera at a real bargain. Well: NOT. Maybe cameras itself and all are cheap, but the memory cards are more expensive than in Holland. Two: Eat at Snack World. About 4 years ago I worked in Singapore for 3 weeks and we used to eat a lot at this funky place. Back then I fell in love with their Lemon Chicken. Since that time I've been all over the world but have never been able to get a dish of lemon chicken that comes close to the one they're serving at Snack World. I was not really hungry so I had to stuff myself to get a good portion of lemon chicken in. So, that's it for my time in Asia, I'm actually pretty sad to leave. The last 3 months have been so good, interesting, funny, entertaining and easy-going that it was hard to say goodbye. Of course I realize Australia and New Zealand will bring new experiences and adventures but still: I love Asia.   ... back