First sun of the new year

Sunrise over Kathu. View from the road to Patong.

Songkran 2006 in Phuket (April 13th)

Yesterday was Songkran - the Thai new year. Well, actually they get loads of new years here. Thai's will happily celebrate the Western New Year, the Chinese New Year, the Buddhist New Year, and no doubt the sizeable Muslim population celebrate the Islamic New Year too.

Songkran is marked by the water based festivities, which traditionally were limited to sprinking some water on the head of your elders, or going to the temple for a blessing and sprinkle from a Monk. These days, water fights are the order of the day, though the temple is still important (see photos below). Just about anywhere you go, there are people lined up along the street ready with buckets of water and huge water pistols to drench anyone passing by. It can be great fun if you are in the mood. It can also be dangerous, as some folks get carried away with the occasion and fire water at passing motorbikes. People also tend to drink plenty of alcohol, and Songkran is well know for its high accident statistics, depsite police crackdowns, roadblocks etc..

Our family was not into the water fights really, though later I met a friend who has a pick up truck and next year (Songkran 2007) I think we will drive around with barrels of water in the back and get soaked (wet and drunk). This is a common sight, as the people in the pick ups battle those on the ground! This year we had some family water fights in the garden. My daughter used the garden hose, rather out matching me for fire power.

We went to a new temple near Chalong for prayers and to give offerings (food, flowers, incence) to the Monks. The prayer was short, led by 2 monks and a young novice nun. The amount of food there would have fed a small army. Poor people often eat at temples - but must wait for the Monks to eat first. There were some people waiting outside to eat. If you're a backpacker on a really tight budget, remember the free temple food! Nobody is turned away.

More photos below of the watery fun and the temple...come to Phuket for Songkran!

Come and celebrate Songkran in Phuket next year!

Family trip to Phi Phi - 16 months after the Tsunami

So we decided to take a day trip from Phuket to Phi Phi and be real tourists. The weather on Sunday looked a little grey, but the plan had been made and tickets already paid for. The ferry to Phi Phi departs from Rassada pier on the east side of Phuket Town, just before the bridge to Koh Sirey. Departure time is 08:30, and the place can be a bit crowded. I think there were 4 boats leaving, all run by different companies. We got the slowest one (Sea Angel). The Phi Phi Cruiser is much quicker. But won't grumble. We got the tickets half price through a friend of a friend.

As we had arrived just a few minutes before departure time, the boat was packed. No room upstairs, and the only places we could find to sit were cramped down in the front of the boat with a headroom of about 4 feet! Not real comfy. I was not expecting it to be so crowded. The trip over was calm, and I did get upstairs for the last 20 minutes to show mum and dad the islands and be their tour guide.

A bit of a scrum to get off and I could not get back inside to help my wife carry baby boy. If you have kids on these boats, keep them close.

Water looked clear, even off the jetty. A man was throwing bread into the water, and a melee of sergeant major damselfish raced for a mouthful.

The first 10 minutes on the island were spent trying to work out what our friends wanted to do. A friend with her 3 year old son and 4 month old baby, her sister and cousin had decided that morning to join us, but it was clear they were slowing us down! Getting from the boat to the main street in Tonsai you have to pass about 20 touts for tours, boat hire, etc..and the area is a bit crowded. We were already hot and thirsty, so I stopped at a little shop to buy drinks..

Realised that Phi Phi is expensive. In the little shop, canned drinks were 30 Baht - the normal price in Phuket is somewhere from 13-15 Baht. Once we were a hundred meters from the jetty, the touts were gone and we could walk unmolested. That part of the village is rather cramped, with buildings on both side of the narrow street. There are no cars on Phi Phi, but you do need to look out for locals on bicycles and the occasional motorbike (can't be more than a few on the island).

The main street opens out a bit after a hundred meters, and you have a clear view of the bay. I was vaguely aiming for the viewpoint, never having walked up there despite many visits to Phi Phi. Looked like a fair walk, and I knew the girls with the young kids were not up for it. Finally they decided to go find a place for a drink. We soldiered on, crossing over to Loh Dalam Bay, after letting my daughter find some shells on the beach. She always loves that.

Towards the end of Tonsai Bay is a path going over a small hill to Loh Dalam Bay (the "other side"). Up on that road you have some small guesthouses and some local houses. A path leads off to the right saying "small view point 400m", but this is not the main view point. When you get to the other side, first thing you see is a big mess where the water treatment plant is being rebuilt. Not pretty, but looks way better than when I was there last in June 2005, when everything was still covered in mud and sand.

The path to the viewpoint carries on to the right (a small sign points the way). We passed a few more rooms and cafes, then came to a steep stairway. Someone said it would be a 20 minute climb. I am supposed to be fit, but was feeling rather hot and was carrying my 13kg "little" boy. Dad's knee playing up, wife was carrying a much-too-big bag....in short, we chickened out and went to find a place for lunch near the beach.


Charlies was almost empty and close to the water. Its a simple structure, built since the tsunami with nice wooden furniture (always a bonus - I hate the plastic chairs and tables) and the staff seemed friendly too. Dad looked a bit knackered. Some ice cold coca cola revived him. The varied menu showed us again that Phi Phi is not so cheap - and remember this is coming from someone who lives in Phuket... But then I reminded myself that an average tourist would be saying "Wow this is cheap". I mean we all ate for 600 Baht - less than 10 pounds, at a restaurant with a view over the beach. I'm sure you can eat way cheaper in Phi Phi, but hell, we're on holiday!

Mum and I ordered some fried rice and a chicken with cashew nuts. Dad had some "real" food - cordon bleu with chips, and he was happy to see some carrot too. Food was tasty and plentiful, though not cheap. After eating we headed for the beach. It was low tide and many longtails were stranded on the sand. Time for little boy to run around. He always enjoys getting free and loved getting dirty. I had to put a stop to it when he started throwing handfuls of wet sand in the air, landing in his hair. I think he liked the view. Daughter looking for more shells. There were not so many people on the beach (see photo of dude playing keepy uppy). Quite pleasant and quiet. What I had to remind myself was that this area was once full of guesthouses. Now very empty (which I think is nice). Some places we walked, you could see tiles on the ground that had obviously once been the floor of a hotel room. I could not help but stare out to sea across Loh Dalam Bay and think how horrifying it must have been. With no warning, there is just about nowhere to run. There's a sign up just along from Charlies that says "Hazard Zone - in case of earthquake, head inland"...but along most of the beach, there is no "inland", you walk 2 minutes and you are on the other side of the island at Tonsai Bay...

As a day trip just staying in Tonsai village, it's a wee bit too tacky for me. Lots of day trippers (it was Sunday, so lots of Thai daytrippers too). We had wanted to hire a longtail boat, and I think we will go back sometime again. The weather was not great - see dark skies above dads head, and if you really want to see the beauty of Phi Phi Ley island, blue skies help a lot.

I have stayed overnight in Phi Phi many times on dive trips and in the evening all the day trippers are gone, the bars open and I always enjoyed the evenings. On the dive trips we normally stay at the nice Phi Phi Bayview Resort. Was there for Christmas one time and remember dancing half drunk in Apache Bar. Many times getting rather p*ssed on free tequilas in Tin Tin's bar (which I think has gone now). There's always a good crowd in the bars, and no bar girls molesting you. I do think Phi Phi has to be careful where it's going. Certainly heading more up market, nicer hotels, less for the backpackers who "made the place what it is today", for good or worse. There are still cheapish bungalows, but a lot more mid price resorts with pools, plus on the other side of Phi Phi, you have top quality resorts like Holiday Inn, Phi Phi Erawan Palms, Phi Phi Natural - all very nice places indeed. You also have the excellent Phi Phi Island Village. For more hotel info, you can click on the hotel links above.

The diving is also not as cheap as it used to be. Dive centers all charge the same prices now, and its quite a bit more than the average on Koh Tao, though the diving is better. Things change, and Phi Phi is starting to squeeze the backpackers wallets.... More day trippers coming from Phuket, and I have a feeling coming BECAUSE of the you-know-what, to see if there's any damage left to gawk at, or because they feel they should "do their bit" to support the island. For me a day trip from Phuket is a bit tacky, as you don't have time to do anything much. I would like to do the blacktip shark snorkeling, which is meant to be very good. Well, one of these days, we'll do another trip and stay overnight, hire a boat to see the more beautiful parts of Phi Phi. You cannot deny that a place like Maya Bay or Losamah Bay is spectacular, though in the middle of the day it can be crowded. Staying overnight and getting a boat nice and early is a good option so you get there before the boats from Phuket. Early morning is a great time for travel, great light, cool air and nobody around...

(update) In 2008 we took a seaplane from Phuket to Phi Phi (and back), a great experience, got some great photos too:

• Phi Phi by Seaplane

Going to Phi Phi? Some useful links...

• Ask Easy Day Thailand about Phi Phi tours
• Phi Phi Island Hotels - Check Rates and Availability

Photo of the Day

Photo from the BBC web site shows a fisherman in Aceh with today's catch.

Phuket Restaurant Tips: Dairy Hut

Another restaurant we like, away from the tourist area, is Dairy Hut. Sounds like an ice cream parlour, and with a big cow outside the door, you might think you could stroll in and order a Sundae, but in fact it's a normal restaurant. Located on a side street next to the Phuket Bangkok hospital in Phuket Town.

I first found it by accident. On the day my son was born, I went for a walk with my daughter to look for some food near the hospital. We found a small cheap Thai restaurant, but unfortunately they were just closing up. I asked where we could get some food, and they pointed down the road. We found Dairy Hut, and yes, I thought it was an ice cream place, but we went inside and were happy to find it air conditioned and smoke free. I checked the menu and realised we could get real food. Don't remember what we had, but it was tasty and filling and inexpensive and they could do take away, so we took some food for my mother in law.

 

Dairy Hut does Thai and some Western food (burgers, spaghetti, breakfasts), is nicely decorated with big wooden tables and comfortable wooden chairs. They have a big screen TV which sometimes plays Thai soaps, but last night was showing Survivor. The indoor area is air conditioned, but there is also an outdoor area. I guess the total capacity would be close to 100 people if full. Food always comes fast, service is friendly.

• Dairy Hut - Location on Google Earth

Took my parents there last night. I ordered the "Yam Dairy Hut". Yam is Thai for Salad. Thai salads can be killer hot, I made sure to order it with less chili. Bloody tasty! Parents ate fried rice with green curry, which mum said was a bit spicy. Daughter ate a huge plate of spaghetti. Dairy Hut has another bonus - Draught Beer Chang. A 1 liter jug is 99 Baht, and is very satisfying! The draught tastes much cleaner and lighter than the bottled beer. Oh, the bill for 4 adults, plus kids food, beer, other drinks, total 460 Baht (12 US$ or 7 pounds UK).

The Family

After a looong wait at Phuket Airport due to long lines at immigration, we picked up my parents this morning. My daughter kept asking "why are they so slow, daddy?". Baby boy started crying and I had to dash back across the car park to get his milk bottle. He then fell asleep in the car on the way home. Its only 25 minutes from our house to the airport. We all squeezed in for the drive, as we had forgotten to take out the baby seat :(

Will have to be a short days work today. Tonight I imagine we'll go out for dinner. I feel a beef salad (Yam Nuea) coming on. Washed down with a cold bottle of suds. Thai Beer is not great, but Chang is decent when served very cold. Compliments the spicy salads very well.

Sunday we plan a trip to Phi Phi. I hope to take lots of photos. I've not been since June last year when I went on a post tsunami assessment to check on hotels and dive centers.

Living through the Tsunami part II

(Continued from Part I)

It was hard for me to be close to so much death, and yet have suffered not one bit. Indeed, I knew nobody who suffered. Our house in Kathu is about as far as you can get from the sea. It would need a giant tsunami of biblical proportions to reach us. It might have been so different. On Christmas Day, one day before the tsunami, we were sitting, drinking, playing, talking on Kamala beach, worst hit of all beaches in Phuket. It was not until a good 8 months later that we went back to Kamala, to the spot where we were sitting on December 25th. All the bars and restaurants along the beach were gone. All I could do was pick up a few shells from the beach to take home. They are now in our garden. During 2005, there was a lot of "wanting to put it behind us". Our son was born, I changed job, and on new years eve 2005 we had a little party at a friends house. On new years eve the year before I stayed home with my wife, we lit candles in the garden and cried a little. I can say that a year later, we felt much better about life.

Tomorrow, my parents will meet my baby boy, and we'll have 3 generations all together for a while. Enjoy it while you can.

Some of the photos in the web site below are quite sad. Some of the sadness I never really saw:
www.bazuki.com/tsunami

Come on and visit Phuket. We're all OK now.

Continued in Part III...

The weather in Phuket

Actually, I'm not sure how hot it is outside today, as I am in an airconditioned room. But we can reasonably assume the temperature to be in the low 30's celsius. Nice and warm. The weather has been a little "odd" this year. Rains continued into November and December, which in 2004 were almost bone dry. Then we had a wet week in March, too with some really grey skies and English style drizzle. Of course the air was still warm, maybe around 29 degrees, so any comparison to a wet day in Bognor can be forgotten.

With my parents arriving tomorrow, the heat is on my mind. They have been here before in July, which is also warm, but lacks the oven like intensity of April. A couple of days ago we had aircon installed in the spare bedroom, so I can be sure they can sleep comfortably. They wrote in an email that they'd like to help us paint the garden wall....in this heat? Last April temperatures were over 35 degrees.

It's a very good time to have Songkran, the Thai new year. Traditionally, one would sprinkle a little water over people for good luck. This is still done in temples. On the streets, it's water fights and barrels of cold water, high power water guns, and ice water down your back. The only way to avoid it - stay at home. In Phuket, the madness is just for 1 day (13th April). In other places, notably Chiang Mai, the water throwing goes on for days.

I usually try to avoid the crazier aspects of Songkran. This year we will probably go to the local Kathu temple, and then I would like to drive to the North of Phuket to Mai Khao beach, where there should be a turtle release ceremony. Our dive center will be closed that day.

For an idea of the weather in this region the link below is useful:

• Satellite Picture of SE Asia

New! On May 25th I started a new blog:

• My Phuket Weather Blog

Phuket Restaurant Tips: Laem Hin Seafood

Phuket has many restaurants slightly off the beaten track and more or less unknown to tourists. Laem Hin Seafood is one of these. Popular with locals, it can get busy, especially at weekends. If you see a western face there, you can be pretty sure they live in Phuket.

Location: A little North of Phuket Town, at Laem Hin. There is a signposted road off the main airport road. I think the sign is only in Thai. It's not far south of the Boat Lagoon, well worth a visit if you like boats and home to the Boat Lagoon Resort where we go and use the pool sometimes. Laem Hin has a small fishing community, there are old wooden houses on stilts and some newer houses closer to the main road. From Laem Hin jetty you can get boats to Koh Maphrao and Koh Rang. There are always some boats buzzing around. At Koh Maphrao there are some floating restaurants, also popular with locals.

The restaurant at Laem Hin is built over the water with views across the southern end of Phang Nga bay. It's a seafood restaurant, with live fish, prawns, lobster, crabs in tanks ready to cook. When you order anything like this, the price is per 100g, and will often be more expensive than you think, even though this is not a tourist restaurant - more of a middle class Phuket local restaurant, and many Phuket people do have the cash to splash! The food always comes quickly - there is a big kitchen and lots of staff. The waitresses can be a bit grumpy, but that does not detract from the food, the views, the peace.

Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/) has a high resolution scan for the east side of Phuket. The picture above shows Laem Hin (on the left) where you find the restaurant and a boat jetty, and the east side of Koh Maphrao, with its beaches and the floating restaurants.

• See Laem Hin location on Google Earth (opens Google Earth)

 

More Google Earth Images of Phuket: We Love Phuket!

We went a few days ago. I had "yam gung seab" - dried shrimp salad, made with papaya, onions, tomato, chili, lime juice. Wife likes to eat spicy seafood soup. Big dish of rice, a few cokes. Get some fried rice and omelette for the kids. Add a side dish of "hor mok" (curried fish custard cooked in banana leaves). For us, a bit of an expensive meal out - total bill 400 Baht (10 US$).

 

Update 2010: I have written a new Laem Hin Seafood page - restaurant still as good as ever!

Look out for more Phuket Restaurant Tips...

Tomorrow

Wow, yesterday was a busy one. Our web sites are mostly available in Italian, and I had to prepare templates for about 50 pages to pass on to Diego for translation. What fun!



Tomorrow is a special day, as my mum and dad will arrive from England for a 3 week visit. It's the third time to Thailand for them. We have some trips planned to Phi Phi, Khao Sok, Krabi, Koh Yao, Chumphon and more. They will be meeting my 1 year old son for the first time, I'm sure they'll think he's gorgeous. I have to work up to the 14th, then we have 2 weeks all together. Great!

Started work early at 7am today. Was woken by a small voice..."daddy, can you get me some water?"..Once awake, there's little point lying down again. The first light of day was in the sky, and the early bird catches the worm...Well, it means I can go home early too.

Kids had some vaccinations yesterday at the hospital. Daughter took it bravely with barely a wince. 1 year old son fought the nurse and hit her in the face. They both have a bit of fever this morning, so hopefully will take it easy today. Last time my parents came, daughter was sick when they arrived. Hopefully not again!

MarianWorks

Cancion Mixteca

I first heard this song in the movie Paris, Texas. It meant more after I'd been in Mexico. I hardly have any chance to speak Spanish nowadays, but still have a lot of music gathered during my travels in Latin America. Something about the Spanish language speaks to the heart. It's the language of love and loss, of joy and pain. Quisiera morir de sentimiento.

¡Qué lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido!
Inmensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.

¡Oh tierra del sol, suspiro por verte!
Ahora que lejos yo vivo sin luz, sin amor
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.

eggbaconchipsandbeans

On the subject of blogs. This one got noticed too and he has published books. Makes me hungry. Such delicacies are hard to find in Thailand. Beans are OK. I have found some good tinned beans made in Malaysia. Eggs, no worries. Bacon, easy enough to find..but it's the chips, oh the chips, that maketh the man. I mean chips, not "fries". The eggbaconchipsandbeans blog below is worth salivating over, and I love his comments such as:

"the chips are pale, interesting and sprawling over the beans, the bacon has that irresistible combination of soggy and crisp, the egg offers a multitude of heavenly textures, the beans are breaking out of their compound like feisty stallions."

• eggbaconchipsandbeans

Want good egg, bacon, chips and beans? Better get to the UK...

The Blooker Prize for Blogs

Hope for us all. Blogs are amazing. Quite why I never started one before now is beyond me. I sit by a computer almost every day, though I try to spend that time working. Some people just have too much time on their hands...

BBC NEWS Technology US cook wins blogging book prize

Utila

I first went to Utila in 1996, one of the stops on my 20 month backpacking trip through the Americas. I started in Montreal, ended in Santiago. Got as far North as the arctic circle in Alaska, and as far South as Tierra del Fuego. I'd do it all again, but Utila was the place that drew me back to Central America in 1998. Stayed another 6 months (4 of them in Utila) and after a quick money earning dash back to the UK, I was back in Utila in November 1998. Stayed until September 1999. Since then I have been living and diving in Phuket, Thailand.

Utila is a magic place, and for me its the people that make it special. There is no place in the world like it. The people are a mix of white English, black carribean, maybe a bit of pirate blood, a splash of Spanish..The big families are white - the Bush family, the Cooper family, the Whiteheads, the Boddens, the Morgans, the Hills, the Jacksons, the Hinds...The English spoken there is very odd. Try the link below for excerpts from the Utila TV station (was not in existence when I was there). Especially listen to the interview with Hal Whitefield. You have to tune your ears.

* Update 2010 - I uploaded a set of photos onto Facebook from my time in Utila - have a look here : Jamie's Utila Photos

Looks like aboututila.com has not been updated for a while. There's some great info on here. I love the old photos. I'd love to go back one day. I have nightmares about Utila looking like a concrete jungle, with shopping malls and big resorts, but I think that's unlikely to happen. Nothing seems to have changed since 1999 except good things like 24 hour electricity.

I learned to dive with Utila Dive Centre, and loved it so much I stayed for 2 months and did my Divemaster course, logging nearly 100 dives in the process. I'm not a big fan of "zero to hero" courses really, but I think I turned out OK. The instructors were very good there. In early 1999 after my Instructor course I did some work at the Bay Islands College of Diving, then changed to Paradise Divers, where we got things rocking and were one of the busiest dive shops over the summer of 1999. We never had a web site, and when Brian offered us a web site in exchange for a dive course we said YES! You'll find a photo of me somewhere on that site below, it's not been updated at all since then...

Jungle Jim is still in Utila, now a Course Director - see his blog below.

Viva Utila!

• HQ TV - Utila, The Bay Islands, Honduras
• Utila Dive Centre
• Paradise Divers Utila
• Jungle Jim's Utila Blog
• Utila East Wind Newspaper

Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Travel Forum

I can sometimes be found on the Lonely Planet Thorntree under the moniker Batfish:

Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Travel Forum (Thailand Branch)
Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Travel Forum (Diving Branch)

Living through the tsunami

Ever since 26th December 2004, I have become somewhat obsessed by earthquakes. We live in Phuket. We lived through the tsunami and it's after effects. Our son was born here 2 weeks after the tsunami.

Truth be told, like 95% of Phuket's population, we did not see anything that day. I felt the quake at about 8:30am, and thought about where the epicenter might be. My wife felt it too. We thought nothing of it. I went out to Tesco Lotus at 9am. When I came out into the carpark, I saw many ambulances racing towards Patong. I thought maybe there had been a bad traffic accident. On reaching home, we saw something on the Thai TV news about a tsunami hitting Phuket. I called my office in Karon Beach. The boss was there and said, yes he'd heard about it too, but did not seem too concerned. Later we realised that Karon was probably the least affected area on the west coast of Phuket.

So, I decided it couldn't be too bad and headed off to work at the dive shop. Took me a loooong time to reach work. Police had blocked the road to Patong, but I was able to go around the long way via Chalong, and saw no damage, no evidence of any panic or anything to suggest a major disaster. I guess that people (like me) were not aware of the scale of things yet. So I reached Karon and immediately headed for the beach. We could see something had happened. Not huge damage, but water had come 50m up our road and knocked over a tshirt stall, and broken windows in some shops. The beach road was covered in sand and bricks, and in some places there were cars and bikes that hd been thrown around. A restaurant at the far south end was destroyed. But all in all, the damage was not bad, so we headed back to the office. By that time, my wife was calling and telling me she had heard on the TV that thousands had been killed. I said "rubbish, we're here and the damage is not bad". We did not know about Khao Lak.

It's all in the past now. But is in our minds. On Christmas day, we had been on Kamala beach with some friends. Our daughter just 3 years old playing in the sand, and my wife 9 months pregnant. The next day, the restaurant we were sitting in was wiped out. We spent a lot of time thinking "what if". When our son was born, for us he was a miracle, and still is.

It's not easily forgotten.

Continued in Part II....(click here)


If you're obsessed with earthquakes - the USGS website is a good place to start:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

A Phuket Tsunami Blog (not mine):
http://phukettsunami.blogspot.com/

Everything is hunky dory now, we hope to see you in Phuket soon.

The bypass road in Phuket

The bypass road in Phuket was officially opened yesterday. The road is now 4 lane from the Sam Kong junction next to Tesco Lotus, up to the airport road. The Sam Kong junction still needs a tidy up. The amount of road works in the last 2 years is amazing. So many 4 lane roads in Phuket now. There have been massive infrastructure improvements in the last few years, though one can still not rely 100% on electric and water supplies...

And the shopping opportunites! When I got here 6 years ago, Lotus was there (only the supermarket). This expanded to include the mall section with restaurants, shops and Home Pro. Then came Big-C, then Index, then the Central Festival Mall. Still, the local Kathu market is crowded every day. You get the best of both worlds here in Phuket.

It's the elections in Thailand tomorrow. I should just about have time to buy a beer from the local shop before 6pm. Officially no alcohol is allowed to be sold from 6pm today until midnight tomorrow. The election seems pointless as the main opposition parties are not taking part. Thaksin will win again. Politics plays no part in my daily life. I try to ignore it. Same when I was living in the UK, though I did vote a couple of times.

All we hope is that there is no trouble. Parents arrive from England on the 7th.

The latest situation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4864626.stm