Beachlife in Thailand and cooling down in the Cameron highlands

A floating market

Bangkok was a good place to settle down for a week and get (more) organized again. Sent stuff back home, got my photo's on CD-Rom and bought a new padlock. Had to break the old one open with a saw because I lost the key.

Budhas

After attending a real Thai wedding and a visit to the old city of Ayuthaya I left Bangkok and went south. Thailand is an easy country to travel around and people always help you. I saw floating markets, beautiful temples and lifely night markets.

Jean-Marc is a drummer in a band and says 'bonjour' to everybody, because he is afraid that people will not know that he is from France when he says 'gghello'.

Met him on the bus and together we discovered a small paradise in the middle of no-where. Unspoiled beaches, good seafood and a perfect lodge. The ideal place for a honeymoon unless your darling likes shopping (you might not want to tell in advance that there are no shops).

Ban Krut

How did we find this place?

A waitress in Hua Hin said she came from Ban Krut and that is was a beautiful place. Though the place was not on our map and we could not find any information on it, we believed her and went there. It turned out that the place only consists of very expensive beach resorts, with no guests.

Ron, Jean-Marc and the hotel dog Rataplan

Just as we decided to sleep on the beach (that would have been wet dreams as we didn't know then that the complete beach gets flooded during high tide), the owner of the last resort we checked admitted there was also a cheaper place 6 km further down.

That turned out to be this heaven on earth. There we had a dive into the blue sea every morning to start the day, good food and strolls around with our friend Rataplan, the hotel dog.

Chumpon and Ko Tao

The fate of the traveller is that he also has to leave perfect spots and after Ban Krut we went further south to Chumpon. There I took the boat to Ko Toa while J-M headed for Malaysia. So we had a couple of beers to say goodbye. Something I regretted deeply when it turned out that the boattrip was through a heavy storm...

Ko Tao

Laying on the palm tree beach of the island of Ko Tao, I saw 2 times a coconut fall and tried to do a risk calculation. Later I heard that death cause number one is indeed 'coconut hits skull' on Ko Tao.

I even increased my risk by doing a day of scuba diving. Great! If you want to know what these islands look like you can get a good impression from the film The Beach.

Ko Samui and Hat Yai

After Ko Tao I went via Ko Samui and Hat Yai to Georgetown in Malaysia. Arrival in Butterworth where the train stops to get to Georgetown was like everywhere. The first people you meet are taxi drivers that tell you that you have missed the last ferry to Georgetown (at 14:00 !) and that there are no buses to town. Of course neither is true and instead of paying 50 Ringit (US$ 13) for the taxi I paid 0.60 Ringit (US$ 0.16) for the ferry which brings you right into town.

Georgetown and the Cameron Highlands

Georgetown is a special city with many cultures living together. And although it was extremely hot I enjoyed it. To escape from the heat I had a short 5 day holiday to the Cameron Highlands. A good area to hike and to visit tea plantations. There I learned that it is good for you to drink at least 10 cups of tea per day.

Now I am back in Georgetown on Penang and tomorrow, Wednesday February 23rd, I'll fly to New Zealand. I'll return to Malaysia somewhere in April I guess, unless I decide to stay in New Zealand of course...

Take care,
Ron.