THAILAND

Nov 28, 2022 - Monday First morning on Koh Adang and its a beautiful sunny morning. It's nice to be away from the crowds and on the quiet island. We headed out early for a snorkel along the beach of the National Park just west of the resort. We signed out a kayak, hopped in and started paddling. Not an easy journey, the two person kayaks weren't easy to manage in the head on wind and waves. We found taking turns to paddle and staying as close to shore as the shallow reef allowed us a slow but steady progress forward. The kayak did steer much at all, getting caught in the waves and kicked this way and that, our progress would look like a zigzagging line. Finally we landed on the beach and walked around the point and to the snorkel zone around the east side of the point. We planned to start at the far off spot and snorkel back to the kayak. There was a designated swimming zone where we went in and an amazing coral reef that we could easily cruise along. Lots of fish, eels and cor...

Nov 26, 2022 - Saturday Today we hopped on the scooters nice and early and headed north to a secret beach Graham was keen to find. The map took us up to Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park and the Khao Non-Nak Nature Trail. We stopped at a drinks cart close to our destination and had a Thai milk tea and a green soda for Graham. We started up the trail, but Graham wasn't keen on reaching the viewpoints. He was determined to find us a secret and quiet beach. Instead after about a kilometre hike up and back down we ducked into the jungle. We crossed a little creek and followed an old disused nature trail down for a ways before reaching a clear cut. We crossed the logging and got onto a road which paralleled the shore line. After a short walk we came across a little old but used trail which we figured would take us down to the beach. Sure enough we popped right down onto a sandy beach all to our selves. Too bad the tide was so high though, there wasn't much of a beach to hang out on. It wo...

Nov 27, 2022 - Sunday   Big mission today. We were leaving Krabi and heading south to Koh Adang Island. It's going to be a 265km road trip on the scooter and an hour long boat ride to Koh Lipe. The scootering went well, Graham was a good navigator and lead us through all the twists and turns we needed to reach the Pakbara Pier in time for our 1:30 ferry. There was plenty of sights along the way that would be cool to revisit but we were on a bit of a mission. We passed through a couple small towns tucked into the big limestone formations which would be cool to walk around in. There was signs for waterfalls and hot springs along the road, one of those seems more inviting than the other.  We made it to Pakbara Pier with an hour to spare. Found our ferry booking company and parked our scooters in their safe parking. We had a little a la carte lunch and headed out to the Pier waiting room. It was air conditioned in there, a nice reprieve from the heat of the day and our wind swept ...

 Nov 25, 2022 - Friday We had looked at the forecast and today looks to be a nice morning for an adventure. We had planned last night that we would take off to Railay Bay if the weather looked good in the morning. We took off soon after waking up only to be caught in a big rain storm on the way to the beach. Not to worry, we ducked into a little cafe and ended up having a good breakfast at the Coffee Club. I happily sipped on a latte and Graham on a smoothie while overlooking the beach and boats with the rain coming down in sheets. We had eggs Benedicts and a healthy start breakfast, (one guess on who got what!) just in time for the sun to come out. We paid 400 baht for a round trip ticket and were off on a boat in no time. It was a quick voyage to Railay Beach West and happily we were pretty early in the day still. We walked the island and its beaches and found a quiet mini beach tucked in some limestones at the far end of Phra Nang Cave Beach. I went for a huge swim out to the fo...

 Nov 24, 2022 - Thursday Another peaceful sleep in Thailand. We keep waking up with the sun and having quiet mornings. I mostly have a coffee in bed with my book while Graham starts to look up what we should do with the day. We already knew we wanted to get a little exercise so we headed to Monkey Trail. It's right close to us and is a little boardwalk made of planks and bamboo that allow you to scramble along the rock to reach Pai Plong Beach. It was relatively quiet on the beach, its a has a little resort tucked into the limestone with only boat access or along the Monkey Trail we came in on. Graham few his drone around the big rocks and into caves while I walked the little beach and took in the sights. We headed back along the trail and came across a big pack of monkeys right at the end of the trail. We hung out with them for a while, chatting and watching them move from tree top to tree top. A few of the outgoing ones came down to the ground or eye level in the trees and checke...

 Nov 23, 2022 - Wednesday We woke up early, got packed and set off for Krabi. Our route today is about 170km and we are hoping to be well on our way before the forecasted rain hits by 2pm. We travelled north off Phuket Island, across Sarasin Bridge and onto the main land. The crowds immediately thinned as soon as we were off the island and we could tell not many tourists head this way. We stopped briefly for a cool drink at a road side grocery and stretched the legs, we were about 40 km into our journey and up until now its been non stop traffic and people. It's still not bad at all to scooter around, there's so many all around you just copy what the locals do, make sure to only make obvious movements and keep moving with the flow of traffic. Its nice to be able to skip all the traffic and move up to the front of the heat at every stop light.  After crossing the Sarasin Bridge the road was an open highway, mostly with a large designated scooter lane that even two scooters can ...

  Nov 22, 2022 Woke up to rain, thick, heavy rain. I don't think it has let up all day. We get brief windows were we think maybe there will be a break, but it goes right back to a wall of water. It's more then just a thunder storm, its a big cell that's sitting over us and being relentless.  We had a chill morning sitting by the pool hoping it would clear up. Another Indian breakfast all around and a tiny coffee. They only fill the bottom third of the coffee cup, and no refills of the instant coffee yesterday so looks like I'll have to source out some more when the rain stops.  Finally just past noon there was a break in the downpour. Still raining, but at least it's a bit lighter. We've sourced out an Elephant Camp and we've decided to go check out some elephants. This spot is just up behind us in the mountains and with great reviews. Neither of us is sure if we want to ride the elephants, it would be cool but don't want to promote inhumane tourist attr...

  Nov 21, 2022 Oops, Graham was up at 2:00 am, tonight we are determined to stay up later! I forced myself back to sleep and finally woke up at 6:45, at least I was in bed until the sun was up. Resort breakfast again, I'm really enjoying the Indian food for breakfast. It so different to our typical Canadian breakfast.  Today we are heading to the southern part of Phuket Island, Rawai Beach. The hope is to find a long boat and head to Coral Island for some snorkelling. The roads and traffic are easy to navigate, we've come to the realization that scooters are an excellent way to travel around. You can often bypass stopped traffic, always find easy parking and you can look around a bit more. We are travelling with a bit of speed so sometimes when we come across a quiet road we slow down and spend time looking around as we go along. About halfway on our journey we stopped at Kata Beach and got some smoothies from a cart along the beach. I had a mango passionfruit smoothie and we ...

 Nov 20, 2022 Early wake up! I was ready to get up before the sun. I lounged in bed for an hour waiting for some light then got up and enjoyed the day break with a coffee on the deck. It's just instant coffee that comes in the hotel room but it's still nice to have in the morning. We had a chill morning, ate our complimentary breakfast. I had a good Indian breakfast with naan bread, a couple different fillings (one had chick peas, the other not sure, but it was good!) and with yogurt topper and a couple of samosas. Graham had an American fried breakfast which included a hotdog, fried egg and rice. Graham helped my with my breakfast and decided to order the Indian breakfast tomorrow. Both come with a tasty green guava juice and sliced watermelon and pineapple. We looked up some potential good snorkel beaches and headed west/north. We scootered along some amazingly fancy houses and resorts tucked into the hillside in the jungle, hanging onto the rocks and over looking the ocean. ...

 Nov 19, 2022 Nice wake up to the birds chirping and the sun coming up. I had a brief period in the night when I woke up around 1:30am and was wide awake. I took a gravel with Melatonin and fell back in to an easy sleep. We set off to our scooter rental shop around 8, but just the mechanic was there and he didn't speak much English. We speak even less (none!) Thai, but he was able to communicate to come back at 10 for the scooters. We set off back to the hotel after walking around for a little while to check out the immediate area. Graham settled back into the A/C while I sat pool side with an espresso. Two coffees later and we set off to find some good food. Not hard here in Thailand, there's tiny food shops everywhere. We stumbled into a little place with locals and had a shrimp papaya salad and garlic chicken. Such good intense flavours already! We were able to pick up our scooters around 10:30. Grahams had a new back wheel put on and mine showed up from a previous renter. A...

 It's been a long time since I've made a blog post! Over a decade since my Brazil trip but I know I will run out of gusto writing in my journal (I so rarely write much down these days) so here it goes online. It has been a long time coming getting back into travel mode, but earnestly desired. It's fun going somewhere completely new neither Graham or myself have ever been to. We chose Thailand because, well it was one of the very few places open to tourists back in March when we started looking at places to go. We knew it would be sometime around November, we wanted somewhere warm, and most importantly somewhere neither of us had been before. After looking at ticket prices and places that were allowing tourists to come we landed on Thailand. Specifically, the southern Island of Phuket and the area around it.  Nov 16, 2022 We left the house around noon. A couple last minute snuggles with the pups, we left them to be well looked after with Mark. I'm sure they will be spoil...