Author: kiseg

Evergreen jungles, tea plantation and strawberry madness – Cameron Highlands

From Georgetown to Tanah Rata (Cameron Highlands) we took a tourist minivan for 38 ringit. Probably we could save some money, if we would took a local transport (from Butterworth to Ipoh and from Ipoh to Tanah Rata), but unfortunately we overslept this opportunity (as far as we know the last bus from Ipoh depart at 11:30). We were «lucky» this week was a school holiday and Caneron Highlands are preferable destination for locals.

Cameron Highlands attract visitors cool temperature, tea plantations, jungle walks and strawberry farms. It seem that locals are really crazy about strawberry – fresh berries, ice creams, jams and all kinds of souvenirs — they buying it all in a huge amounts. Local vendors seems to be very happy.

Arrived in Tanah Rata we barely got the last room, all hotels and even cheap guest houses was full with locals and tourists. We got room in the attic in Twin Pines GH for a 20 ringit. Be honest what we got is hardly can be called a room — a mattress on the floor with four walls and small window.

After hot seaside on islands, the cool weather of Cameron Higlands is very pleasant, you want to put warm socks, shawl and sleep till the midday in the warm sleeping bag.

There are plenty numbers of jungle walks around Tanah Rata, from easy half hour trek a-la «forest walking» to the really hard jungle treks with dirt climbing. The real trekkers can stay in a camp site (half hour walk from Tanah Rata by the Path N4). The camp site is really good, with toilet/shower and even electric sockets, but during holidays it occupied by local families with music and BBQ.

Today and tomorrow we will check around for tea plantations and after that will go to Taman Negara national park

George Town – unique place, where you can come back any tme

We left our paradise island Ko Phangan early morning and were planning to reach Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. The plan was impossible and good for us, we realized it in Hat Yai, near Malaysian border.

Maybe we will go to Penang, for a couple of days? – the idea to have a dinner in indian restaurant and meet friendly chinese guy in 75 Lodge was very pleasant.
We arrived in George Town in the evening, after 9 pm, in summary we spent more then 14 hours for the road from Ko Phangan to Penang island. Our favorite guest house 75 Lodge had a room for us (22 ringit with shared bathroom) and 15 minutes after check-in we were enjoying tasty dinner – tanduri chicken, garlic naan, sweet lassi and masala tea — yes, we love indian cuisine.

George Town have not change for 1, 5 year (last time we visited Penang in 2008). But we had noticed that the number of people and development around the island had increased. In 2008 Georgetown got from UNESCO status of World Heritage site, so I think that is the reason for the future changes.

The couple of days past very quickly, besides standard tourist routes: from indian restaurant to the chinese one, from China town to Little India, we visited Penang`s beaches. So,what can I say — yes, there is the sea and yes, there are few beaches, but I do not liked it all — the atmosphere there is strange for me, and this place is definitely not for backpackers. It is about 1 hour ride from George Town to the beaches (the area called Batu Ferringhi), public bus N101, the ticket cost 2,7 ringit per person.

Two days kayak trip in Ko Phangan

Living in perfect paradise is great, peaceful and easy. But after two month without any extreme experience we get bored a bit. To full feel our willing of exciting and new experience we took a two days trip along seaside of Ko Phangan island.

The idea to make a kayak trip, was born about three month ago in Bangkok and originally was an idea to do a trip around Ko Phangan. After closer look on geography of the island, we decided to do a short two day kayak trip from Mae Haad beach (the better known as Ko Ma) to remote beaches, like Bottle beach (Haad Khuat) and Thong Nai Pan beaches.

Every local we talked about our plans was surprised the whole idea, one of the rental agencies even refuse the kayak rental. Whatever, finally we got a kayak for rent from some resort on Ko Ma for generous 500 baht ber day. It was simply beach kayak for three with two paddles.

After few rainy and cloudy days the 1 of June was a nice day with calm sea and clear sky. The first trip from Mae Haad (ko Ma) to Bottle beach (5,5 km) we have done for not more then a 1,5 hour. The rest of the day we spend on the beach and in the sea, doing nothing, it was a bit bored too, actually 🙂 On the Bottle beach we have got a nice beach bungalow for 200 baht for an overnight.

On the next day we paddle for about 2 hours and covered the distance for about 7,5 km with nice tailwind. Arrive to Thong Nai Pan Yai beach we took a rest and started thinking about way back. From the beginning we had two ways, by boat or by kayak.

At first we took a second option, but got a disappointed. Since we left the bay and start paddle to the sea, we can not move even for a bit. The head wind became even stronger and waves higher. The only one way we can move was the way back to the beach.

There are a lot of boat taxi on the beach, but the price for 1,5 hour ride back to Ko Ma was too expensive – boatmen asked for 1500 baht and did not bargain at all.

We was not ready to pay such a big money for such a short ride and continue searching for a boat. Smiling boatman from tourist boat (those who making day trip along Ko Phangan for tourist) agreed to give us a lift to Сhaloklum beach, from where it is a short trip to Ko Ma, for reasonable 600 baht. The price was included fruits and drinks on the boat and snorkeling on Malibu beach.

The last 1,5 km from the point where boatman left us, we paddle for less then an hour and finally arrived to Ko Ma, where locals who let us the kayak met us on the beach. They already known about our adventure – Ko Phangan it is small village and new are spreading very fast.

Short summary of the trip – it was fun, but I would not recommend anybody else do the same 🙂

News from the Jungles

Short message for friends how lost us – we are OK.
Living in paradise island is something incredible, please forgive us for being quite for a while.
Since last post nothing outstanding happened, actually it did, but we are too lazy to write about it.

A week ago we made a day trip to Ko Samui for visa extension. Last time we been on Ko Samui island four years ago. Huge development, large number of tourist had change the island, and for now I can say that I do not like Ko Samui – hot, noise, traffic jams, etc. Ko Phangan is very, very, very quite to compare with Ko Samui, so we are very, very, very happy that we are here.

Visa extension process took about 20 minutes and cost regular 1900 baht. Assuming that Red Shirt Protests and street strikes are still happening in Bangkok, the price for one month in Thailand looks too expensive. I hope the Thai government will cancel the visas fee again, like it did after airport blockade in winter 2008. We was happy to use free of charge visas and will be happy to do this again.

It is a rainy season, but rain is not often. Sometimes it is very hot and dry, but sometimes huge rain happens. When it happens we do not have Internet connection and even electricity sometimes 🙂

After all we are doing very well, making some plans and enjoying the life. Pretty and simple.

Living on Ko Phangan, summary of the first month

What we have done.

So, we had spent on Ko Phangan a month. As I wrote before, we came to the island not for a rest, we had an idea to do some things, here is a result:
Dima wrote two application for mobile devices on Android OS. They are ZX Droid – ZX Spectrum emulator for Android – now everyone can use ZX Spectrum games and application on mobile phones with Android and made the port of well known ‘Tux Racer’ 3D game for Android.

If you would like to have this application and games you can easily go to Android Market and download them for free, if you have Android device, of course.

As for me, I`m doing weird but nice things, like paper lamp, oil paintings and teddy bear dolls. All of this hand made items you can see on my new web-blog Inspiration of Today by Kiseg where you are very welcome.

How much is the life in Paradise

A lot of people had been asking me How much is the cost of living in Thailand? So now I can answer the question “How much is the cost of living in Ko Phangan”, here is the list:
the rent (one bedroom house with large veranda and beautiful garden, so not the cheapest one) – 10,000 THB or ~310 USD
utilities (water, electricity and Internet ) – 2,872 THB ~ 88 USD
food and every day necessaries (healthy vegetable and fresh meat) – 8650 THB ~ 268 USD
motorbike rent – 2750 THB ~ 85 USD plus 10 for fuel.
extra (like beer, entertainment, cheese and other things that extra, and probably would not be nessecary if we would like keep our budget in a minimum) – 7500 THB ~232 USD
All together we spent about 993 dollars for a month for two people.
For somebody this amount can looks very small, for another it can be expensive. I do not want to say that this is cheap, but this price is for good style living in Paradise.

So, we a doing great! Ko Phangan is good place to leave, and we are really happy that we are here. Next posts I will write some stories about Ko Phangan.

Weather on schedule

April is the hottest and driest month in a year in South East Asia. Hopefully this year we spending it in shady jungles instead of deadly hot Bangkok. But even here we were waiting for a rain. Since middle of the month, heavy and grey clouds started to appear. Every day we were hopping for a rain, but got only a few drops one time.

Yesterday, finally, was a real tropical rain with endless rain streams that can easily transform to rivers and wash down to the ocean everything on their way.

It was marvelous, full water rain for about couples of hours. The rain washed out all dust from palm leafs and trees. Evergreen forest got new water and freshness and became even more green.

Jungles are smell different after rain, sweet smell of tropical flowers combined with a bit of mold and mushrooms.

After sunsets frogs began concerts that for long for a whole night with billion of sound other jungles creatures, like it was wonderful after rain music.

Notable, that yesterday was a day of full moon. The day when due to lunar calendar rainy season has to began. Few days before yesterday all local families cleaned their land from leafs and yellow grass. Seems that weather came just on time. Next month will be the most rainy season in a year, will see how we will like this.

Travelongers from Argentina

Few days ago on Mae Haad beach we met a motorcycle travelers from Argentina. We met them a couple month ago in Bangkok.
Julian and Lorena with lovely dog Trico travel on motocycle (Africa Twin 750 cc) since 2002 non stop.

They travel around the world on very small budget and happy to get any support.

This is their web blog http://porsiemprelamoto.terapad.com/

Good luck guys!

Snorkeling on Ko Phangan

Today was a nice weather, not so hot and cloudy, and we decided to go snorkeling. The beach at Ao Mae Hat with beautiful view to Ko Ma is our favorite spot for snorkeling. This place very popular with divers and other snorkelers.
The visibility was ok, about 20-25 meter. Through the clear water you can see rich marine life in the corals just 10 meters from the beach!

clear water

Today we saw a lot of fishes, different size and color. This one are the favorites of the day:

tropical fish
Fishes are Chaetodon lunula and Chelmon rostratus.

In Jungles

Planning to stay on Ko Phangan island for about two month, we were aimed to rent a nice house.
There are a lot of houses for rent on Ko Phangan, but majority of them are full with tenants for now. Seems that season is still high in April.
But we got a luck too and found a pleasant place:

House on Ko Phangan

I love this place: very shady (the house surrounded by trees and palm trees), very quite (only birds sometimes disturb us) and very private.

Veranda with jungle view

The house has spacious living room and large bedroom, fully equipment kitchen and bathroom.
Living room

Bedroom Kitchen

House has everything necessary for comfortable living: Air Condition, bathtube with hot water, satellite TV and ADSL Internet.

That is our small paradise, where we gonna live and work for a next few month.
Dima for work

The price was very generous, we pay 10,000 baht (less than USD 300) per month, Thai owners asked us do not tell anyone, that we got it so cheap :). Every month we have to pay extra for utility, such as Internet, electricity and water, but still price will be fine for us.

So, the dreams can come true – now we live deep in Jungles!