Pulau Langkawi

We had to back track a little as we changed our plans as we couldn't go to the Perhentian Islands.  If we had known earlier we would have gone from Koh Lanta to Koh Lippe and then onto Langkawi. As it turns out we went from Koh Lanta to Penang and then to Langkawi, and now we are back to Penang for a one night stop over before leaving for the Cameron Highlands tomorrow morning.

Langkawi was very chilled and we just couldn't be bothered doing much more than going to the beach. Our general pattern of the day was breakfast, change into togs, beach, too hot so retreat back to guest house with air con - getting lunch along the way, beach again late afternoon then watch the sunset at a beach bar. Repeat three times.  

On our last day it was raining so the beach was axed. A friend recommended a health & beauty spa so I looked them up and booked us in.  Nath wasn't so keen and apparently "I owe him" but at the end he decided "yeah it was good" so I'm thinking I don't owe him anymore. The spa was running a monthly special with a Malay massage, foot reflexology, coconut body scrub and yoghurt wrap taking two and a half hours for £30.  I thought that was pretty good value.

On the taxi ride back to our part of the Island we got dropped off at the night markets. Each night the market is set up in a different location around the Island.  Last night it was our towns turn to host it.  We went for our favourites first - chicken or beef sticks BBQ'd then apply ample amounts of satay sauce. Yummo!  We tried a host of other foods, including spring rolls with a sticky satay sauce and some fiery hot chicken and rice dish that resulted in us having to buy a drink and the guy cracking up at us! 

Today we had a 30min flight from Langkawi to Penang as the flight was cheaper than the ferry! Awesome. The fight itself was actually free, as in we didn't pay a seat price, but just had to pay fuel surcharge and airport taxes, resulting in both of us flying for £25.

We are very definitely coming to the end of our time travelling. After tonight we have two nights in the Cameron Highlands, one night in KL, one night in the sky, and then the rest of the time in Melbourne before landing in NZ very late on the 10th of November.

George Town, Penang - Malaysia

We have entered our sixth country on our world tour.  Not really that impressive when one day driving in Europe we went through three countries in about five hours of driving. However, we're not in Europe so to hit three countries in one day would involve a lot of flying.

Our 8:30am pick up in the mini bus was all good, but the arrival time of 5:00pm in Penang blew out to 8:40pm and resulted in us spending about ten hours in a mini bus, and two hours waiting in a grotty mini bus office in Hat Yai for the final connection to Penang.  Not my favourite day. Upon arrival in George Town (the capital of Penang) we went to get some dinner. Nathan really wanted to come to Penang for the street food so I had to oblige.  We found a neat set up at the end of our road and had Wan Ton Mee (wanton with pork and noodles).  We also tried some pieces of food from the lok lok stall.  They make kebab sticks and you can choose meat, or veges, or in my case spring rolls. Then if your stick is raw you cook it in the vat of boiling water until it's cooked, and then you get the most delicious satay sauce to pour over everything.  The kebab sticks are colour coded to match the price list. So simple. 

Old George Town is a UNESCO heritage town so we spent the day walking around the old town, checking out the buildings, the pier, and the street art.  It's was so hot - real feel 41 degrees! We visited an old Chinese house that even had its own temple.  Very flash.  

That night we went to the street food markets on the other side of town. By luck we walked past a restaurant on our way that happened to be playing the Kiwis league match so we had a beer while watching the league. 

The street food was so yum. We started with meat sticks and satay sauce, followed with a noodle dish (seemed a bit like pad thai) and an egg/omelet dish with prawns.  

The next morning we couldn't be bothered to get up to do too much.  We were a bit gutted as we had planned to go to the Perhentian Islands but had just found out that morning they have closed for the monsoon season (even though lonely planet said mid November). We cut our time in a Thailand short to get to the Perhentians and now it wasn't going to happen.  We spent some time that morning coming up with a new plan (which is why I am writing this from Langawi & why we have ended up back tracking a little on ourselves!).  We could have avoided the awful mini bus ride to Penang and gone to Langakwi from Koh Lanta had we known the Perhentian Islands had closed early. 

After replanning our trip we headed out to Penang Hill to take the funicular up to the top for a view of the Island. Many moons ago the British use to come up here to escape the heat. Very much a disappointment.  We went for the view but largely the view was obstructed by trees, buildings and smog/fog/haze. There were many tourist activities at the top - like having photos with poor animals, an Owl museum, restaurants and souvenir ships.  Not what I signed up for.  Nathan and I even refused to have our photo taken before getting on the funicular because we knew they would then try to sell it to us as a mug, plate or tacky fridge magnet.  Due to the bus ride taking an hour each way and the queues for tickets and then the que for the funicular this activity took up the whole day and upon return to our hostel it was dinner time and bed time. We had to be up early for our ferry the next morning to Langkawi. Again, not one of my favourite days on tour. 

Koh Lanta

We had a very short ferry boat ride to Koh Lanta. We arrived by mid morning and were in the swimming pool soon after arrival as it was so hot.  We had lunch at our resort and lounged by the pool area until late afternoon where we finally did some Island exploring and walked along the beach.  

Our resort was at the far end of the beach so we walked along the beach front into town.  We had a beer at a cool little beach shack before returning home to only just miss the monsoon rains! 

It was still raining when we woke up so I was not keen to hire a scooter as we had planned.  We spent some time booking accommodation for our next stop and having breakfast.  The rain eased and then completely stopped so we did stick to our plan of getting a scooter and seeing the Lanta Old Town on the other side of the Island.  Here the little houses were built over the sea.  We found an awesome hammock shop and ended up buying one even though there is no room in our packs!  

The day finished with a swim in our pool and beers on our little deck looking out to the bungalow in front (we couldn't afford a sea view bungalow!).

The next morning was an early start as we headed to Malaysia.

Koh Phi Phi

We had a two night stay on Koh Phi Phi.  We arrived at 1pm so we checked into our guest house and then went to the beach.  The tide was waaaaay out and we had to walk across a lot of sand to get to the water. Then we had to walk a long way out to reach deep water. It was really weird how shallow the water was.  Suited the Asians though who were wearing life jackets in water up to their knees!

On our last day we booked ourselves onto a boat trip encompassing snorkelling and visitng Islands and swimming with glow plankton in the evening.  

Our first stop was monkey island and a monkey literally grabbed the water bottle from the guy standing in front of me, ripped the cap off with its teeth and then began skulling back the water! I was aware that they are wild animals and carry diseases so I wasn't keen to get close, but some girls were picking up the babies, and some bigger monkeys were climbing up on people trying to run off with items like scarves and especially food and drink.

We then went snorkelling which was cool.  The boat driver threw some chicken in right where I was snorkelling and then next thing there is a fish frenzy right in front of me! Our next stop was Maya Bay (where the beach was filmed). Here we had time to swim and sun bathe.  The last stop was a slow cruise back to harbour as we watched the sunset and then waited for it to get dark enough to see the plankton.  Unfortunately it was impossible to get a good photo of the plankton. 

This morning we made the short journey across to Koh Lanta.  We will stay here two or three nights.  Currently we are finalising our itinerary as we might cut some Thai Islands in a bid to get to the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia.

Koh Tao

We finally arrived in Koh Tao after two trains and a ferry all the way from Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.  We had no accommodation booked but knew we wanted to scuba dive.  We had read a lot of diving schools include accommodation deals with a diving package.  We walked up and down the main road checking out lots of different diving schools.  We finally settled on Sairee Cottage and it was the best decision ever! We ended up staying much longer than we had intended, partly because my diving took longer than it should of, and partly because we loved our little bungalow and sairee village. 

Back to my diving - on the first day of actually diving in the sea I didnt like it - I didn't like the feeling of going deeper and deeper underwater.  Then my mouth piece broke off (I may have chewed it off!!) and I had to change regulators underwater and I just freaked out.  So because I didn't complete the first dive of the day I could not go on to complete dive two, or dives three and four scheduled for the following morning.  My dive school was really awesome and let me join in with another group that were coming through (at no extra cost) and luckily this time I managed to complete my dives. I was so proud of myself because after that first attempt I really didn't know if I would be able to complete the course.  I'm pleased I managed to complete it as now Nathan and I are both PADI qualified divers and we can go diving together in NZ.  

Most of our time in Koh Tao was taken up with the diving course - three days of theory and two days of diving.  We had a day where we just relaxed out our resort pool and another day where we went to a nearby Island resort to snorkel. Snorkelling is so tame now compared to diving! We also spent a day at the pub watching the rugby and just chilling with friends we had met on the diving course. 

While in Koh Tao we celebrated our 11 year anniversary!!  Scary how fast that time has flown by.  

We are now spending tonight in Krabi which is just a transport hub between the islands on the East and West coast. Tomorrow morning we take a ferry to Koh Phi Phi as we start to make our way down the West Coast towards Malaysia.

Chiang Mai - back in Thailand

We flew up to the Northern part of Thailand to Chiang Mai.  We had only planned to stay two or three days, but thought since we had gone out of our way to get there we might as well spend a bit longer there.  In the end we had four really fun full on days.

Day one - visiting temples and then the local Sunday night market

Day two - cooking course with Siam Rice.  So much fun.  We got to make seven dishes each!! What was really cool was that for each course there were a variety of dishes to choose from so Nath and I made sure we choose different options.  Essentially we know how to make 14 Thai dishes from scratch - enough to open our own restaurant!

Day three - a day tour to an orchid & butterfly farm (very lame), an elephant trek (very cool), a short trek in the forest (thank goodness - in the heat I wouldn't have wanted to walk much longer!), white water rafting (could have been a bit more wild) and finally a stop at poo poo paper (paper made from recycled elephant poo!).  It was a really cool day, lots of activities to give variety so there was no chance of getting bored.

Day four - a trip to Tiger Kingdom.  Here we got to touch and have photos with tigers of all different ages.  We elected to have photos with the smallest cubs (about two months old) and the biggest tigers (about 18-20 months).  While it was very cool to be so close to the tigers it was a mixed experience as really they should be out in their natural habitat and not being prodded and poked by tourists.

At the end of today we caught a night train at 5pm from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.  The train arrived at 7:20am and by 8:05am we were on another train to Chumphon.  The idea being that the train was to arrive at 3pm and we would then hang around to get a night ferry at 11pm to Koh Tao and arrive at 5am.  The longer we were on the train (all eight hours) the more that plan really sucked.  Upon arrival in Chumphon we decided to book into a cheap hotel and opt for an early morning ferry leaving at 7am and arriving in Koh Tao at 10am - a much better plan!! This way we could shower, have dinner and an almost full nights sleep.

Cat Ba

We spent five nights on the beautiful island of Cat Ba.  Cat Ba is at the opposite end of the bay to Halong City and as a result is cheaper, less busy, and less polluted.  

We spent an incredible day on the water kayaking on Lan Ha Bay.  The scenery was spectacular, the kayaking fairly easy with swim stops faily regularly to make for an enjoyable day.  Beers on the boat heading back to Cat Ba capped the day off nicely.

Day two we took to the road hiring our very own scooter to get us around the island.  We started with hospital cave which was used as a bomb proof secret hospital during the war and as a safe house for VC leaders.  The cave complex had operating theatres, a cinema to show training movies for the soldiers, and a swimming pool for keeping fit.  We then zoomed off to fort cannon which has amazing views of the bay.  The Japanese installed gun emplacements here in WWII.  After taking a break for lunch we headed to the beach and spent the rest of the day swimming in the near almost spa pool temperature.  You had to go out quite deep to find cooler water.

The following day we relaxed in the morning completing blogs, and booking hotels and planning destinations for our trip.  After lunch we walked to the beach. 

On our last day we returned to the road.  We got another scooter and this time we went right up to the top of the island.  There was literally nothing there! One or two boats offering to take us somewhere/anywhere we wanted to go.  We followed the coastal road back to Cat Ba Town.  Part of the road remains unsealed so it was a bumpy ride back.  We saw wild hogs crossing the road and also a snake! The snake was a bit creepy, it was moving so fast that it was almost jumping & slithering at once.  So gross.

The next day we caught the bus/ferry/bus/bus back to Hanoi.  In Hanoi we arrived at 2pm so we walked around to get some lunch and then after exploring our area we went to the hotel to cool down. We there on a Fridsy night so that is lucky as the night markets are on Friday - Sunday nights from 7pm.  That evening we walked around the night markets and had some street food for dinner.  It was an early night for us as we had a 5am alarm set as we were flying to Thailand!

Goodbye Vietnam - you have been awesome.  We love your food and beaches, but your heat is just a little too much!  I even begun to like your coffees.