Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 4th April, 2011

Today's weather;

At last Samui woke up under sunshine, this morning! Clean up work is going on and repair work started everywhere. New pictures pop up everywhere and I try to give you some idea how mad it was and how things are right now. Current temp at 7am is 26 C

Thanks to Wieslaw for your donation, much appreciated, it helps to keep the spirits up and keep the blog going!

Yesterday saw a tiny bit of rain in the morning on Samui but sunshine during a hot afternoon! Max temp reached 29C

Some excellent pictures can be found on the My Home Koh Samui blog.

Many people keep asking about the condition of the beaches around Samui, well, here's a picture of Free House Bungalow on Bophud beach by Oh, from 2nd April. Later today I hope to get some picture from the beach near Centara hotel in Chaweng.

An aerial picture of Phun Phin, where Surat Thani's railway station is located, 4 meters of water were reported here, picture from the Bangkok Post.

On a good note, apparently highway 44 between Krabi and Surat Thani is open again so my gateway to Samui is open, now I can get to Surat and just need to find a way to get to Donsak and take a ferry to Samui come the 9th April.

How it was, bridge in Chaweng near Ali Baba, picture by Joe Clasby.

Parking

Sunset yesterday on Koh Lanta

Koh Lanta also woke up under a blue sky with a current temp at 7am of 24C

Yesterday saw a nice and hot day on Koh Lanta, max temp reached 32,4C

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 30th March, 2011

Today's weather;

Samui is dry for the time being, this morning but the wind is still very strong. The rain is supposed to subside slowly and by tomorrow the wind should have subsided as well so hopefully the airport can open either today or tomorrow. Current temp at 7am is 23.5C

Last night saw rain again and over the last 24 hrs 'only' 197mm of rain came down on the already battered island! Plai Laem and Bang Rak are closing in on 26 hrs of no electricity! Strangely enough the phone landline to our house works! Max temp reached 25C

Thanks for all the support and special shouts go out to Aaron and Robin for the donations!! I will get it to good use! Also thanks to all who are hitting the beer buttons!

Another boulder that came down near 'The Cliff' on the road between Chaweng and Lamai

Travel advisory from today's Bangkok Post

Near Centara in downtown Chaweng

The Monkey Road in Bophud or whatever is left of it, photo by Thea Sonnekus

Koh Lanta is looking at some grey clouds this morning and there's also a fairly strong wind, nothing like the Gulf though! Current temp at 7am is 25.2C

Yesterday saw a very wet day on Lanta with rain almost all day but not very hard rain. Only 12mm over 24 hrs. Max temp reached 26.2C

Camille

Samui update, can things get much worse?

Samui update, can things get much worse?

A good question, the airport is still closed, a plane took off from Bangkok but aborted the landing on Samui and turned around to Bangkok again. The ferries did also not run today!

The results of a couple of days being battered by rain are being shown in the next pictures;

This big rock was the overhang rock on the road between Chaweng and Lamai near 'The Cliff' restaurant. A landslide took care of this. There were already plans to dynamite the rock overhang, well, nature took care of that, now the question is 'what's next'? Shove it int he ocean? Blow it to pieces?

Road damage in Nathon, as it looks lie, next to the pier in Nathon.

The lake road Chaweng, completely flooded (photo by James Lemon)

The monkey road in Bophud (photo by Thea Sonnekus)

Centara in Chaweng, beach road, where it always hits the jackpot, near Zico's! About 1 meter, all natural waterways are being blocked by Centara's walls!

It's sad to see what happened to Samui the last couple of days but unfortunately a lot of the problems could have been prevented if not all beach road property had been build block solid with walls, preventing the natural way from finding it's way to the ocean.

I do hope that the mayor is able and capable of dealing with this situation and can come up with some ideas to prevent unnecessary flooding.

The rain was out of season and extreme, so not all is controllable, but at least work on the well known problem areas!

The general consensus is that the current floods are worse than last November and even worse than 2005, when as a result of the bad floods, a good drainage system was installed.

To all my readers, during the the last November floods, my page views sky rocketed, if just all of you that ask for advice or visit my blog, book their hotel rooms through my Samui hotel recommendation or my Thailand hotel recommendation blogs, I will be a very happy camper!

I do appreciate the visits that get me some beer money, they are still few though in comparison to the amount of visitors that come and have a look at Samui in distress!

Keep posted, more updates are likely to come. Hopefully the predictions will come through and come the weekend, the sun will be out again!

I just wonder how long it will take to clean up all the mess that nature has created, a bit more than a week this time around I'm afraid!

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 29th March, 2011

Today's weather;

Samui is waking up under very dark clouds and is about to assess last nights torrential rain damage. Just over 400mm came down over the last 24 hours and 90mm between 1 and 4am. There will be damage to roads and buildings, I just hope it all will be within limits and reason.

Current temp at 7am is still 25C

The tendency is that all long term residents have never experienced anything like the current floods, even the November 2010 floodings were not as bad as the current situation.

The water levels in front of our house on the road between Plai Laem and Choengmon have never been as high as they are now. A lot of problems are caused because the water is 'boxed' in and can't follow it's natural flow to the ocean because of too much construction blocking the way to the ocean.

There are power cuts all over the island, so land phone lines won't work and the batteries on mobile phones will be getting very low soon or are dead already. The power cuts are either genuinely because of over load and are partly on purpose in order to avoid electrocutions. The spaghetti wire above the roads doesn't really look too re-assuring.

Max temp yesterday didn't get any higher than 26.5C

The current prediction is about another 80mm of rain for Samui and surrounding islands until 7pm today and than it's supposed to ease off with sun and no waves and wind starting from Friday onwards.

Good luck to everybody on Samui, hope it will be all good again very soon!

The situation on Koh Phangang and Koh Tao is not looking good, especially Koh Tao seems to have had some serious battering with plenty of structural damage and they must be running low on food and especially drinking water by now. I don't expect the airport to open today, due to wind and rain.

The overall situation in the South of Thailand is very bad, see the chart below. The current death toll is nine. The Nation resports; Flood waters are now wreaking havoc in the provinces of Chumphon, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, Trang, Krabi and Phatthalung.

To date, 13 districts of Surat Thani have been declared disaster zones, with the inundation having damaged four bridges, 11 roads and two temples.

Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat said the flooding had damaged 613 schools in Trang, Krabi, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, Songkhla and Phatthalung.

Bangkok Airways cancelled all 36 domestic and international flights in and out of Samui yesterday, due to the severe thunderstorms hitting the island and the surrounding area. It said affected passengers should contact its ticketing office to rebook their flights at no additional charge.

Meanwhile, just as the floods have been raging in the South, PM's Office Minister Satit Wongnongtaey said 47 other provinces were suffering from drought.

Chaweng ring road

Bophud

Koh Lanta's sky is also dark and grey but the amount of rainfall here is just a fraction of what came down in other parts of Thailand. Current temp at 7am is 25.5C an yesterday's max temp reached 27.6C.

Yesterday saw some heavy rain but nothing serious. 'Just' 45mm of rain in 24 hours. All dive boats were cancelled yesterday though and I'm not sure if the dive boats will run today. As far as I know the car ferries are still running.

A next updated is not expected before noon since I'm conducting and IDC on Lanta and won't have time to be online that much.

Keep hitting the right buttons though to upgrade my beer allowance and if you plan on booking hotels on Samui or around Thailand, please use the links provided, all bookings through these sites will help me make more beer money!

Camille

Orgasmic Beach Restaurant, Bophud

Orgasmic Beach Restaurant, Bophud

Yesterday evening we visited a restaurant that opened about a year ago and was since a while on my 'Samui bucket' list. Orgasmic in Bophud, located near the 'My Friends bungalows and Thai food restaurant' (where local Samui folk have many wedding receptions).

The name suggest some pretty above average food should be expected and rest assured, it was well above average! Wally, the chef at this lovely located restaurant, used to be the chef at Zazen restaurant also in Bophud but decided a bit over a year ago to start his own restaurant.

Red tuna tartar with Mediterranean herbs, rocket gaspacho and wasabi crack crack

The location is excellent, having located his new place in a small cove and they build a lovely terrace overlooking Bophud bay. There's a spacious parking lot and a red bridge leads you into their restaurant where you are immediately immersed in a lovely atmosphere.

They have orchids at various places around the premises including a waterfall with 50 different species of orchids around it!

The waterfall area

Wally and his cousin Christian (an professional international bartender) run the place together and if you haven't been there yet, it's about time to make your way over!

Now on to the food, we had a variety of starters between us, 4 adults and 2 children and my friend and me had the Red tuna tartar with Mediterranean herbs, rocket gaspacho and wasabi crack crack which was really good (see picture above)!

My wife went for the sesame & wasabi crusted king prawns on tomato tandoori bed, which were also delicious.

Grilled Seabass

For mains we had plenty of dishes on our table, 5 to be exactly, one of my friends had the 'Five spices Barracuda filet with oregano roesti & sesame cream' which he found a bit sweet tasting, the kids had ''White snapper filet with zucchini, pecan-celeriac mash, cumin-carrot pastilla & dragon sabayon' the latter was really buttery and since the kids had their food well before we had ours, we were a moment a bit weary but no reason to worry!

Mixed seafood 'on the plancha'

My wife's 'Grilled sea bass with mozzarella, beurre nantais, tobiko & broccoli-wakame mash' was excellent. See one of the pix above.

My Dutch friend had a 'Mixed seafood 'on the plancha' with king prawns, baby squid, Samui blue crab, barracuda, white snapper filet served with baked potato & home made sauces'. This went down very well and especially the Samui blue crab seemed to have walked straight out of the bay into the pan, that's how fresh it was.

Poppy seeds crusted lamb loin

I went for 'Poppy seeds crusted lamb loin (240 gr), zucchini gratin, pom reinette & old fashioned mustard sauce' which literally blew my mind. This was the most tender piece of lamb I ever had with a fantastic sauce. This dish surely was orgasmic!

Sabayon & tropical fruit gratin

We were drinking a French rose wine which went down well with the seafood and the meat and after all this onslaught, I was the only that managed to order and eat a dessert; 'Sabayon & tropical fruit gratin, scented with Grand Marnier liquor & jasmine ice cream' which was also very delicious.

Orgasmic is definitely one of the absolute top restaurants on Samui and I can highly recommend a visit. It ain't a cheap location but well worth it. It's also advisable to make a reservation, their phone # is 08 5708 4615 (Christian).

Can't wait to go back!

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 13th January, 2011

Today's weather;

Samui is experiencing a little bit of clouds this morning but I would be very surprised if those clouds won't break up and we get some sunshine later today. Current temp at 7am is 25.5C

Today we have a break in the current IDC and an update will be due later today on my dive blog.

The entrance to Orgasmic restaurant in Bophud

Yesterday started out with clouds but soon afterwards during the morning the sky broke open and we pretty much had sunshine for the rest of the day although some clouds were there within visible reach. Max temp reached 28.7C

Last night we had dinner at Orgasmic Beach Restaurant, a great time was had by all and the food was outstanding! A report will follow later today!

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 22nd October, 2010

Today's weather;

Samui has a few more clouds to show for this morning compared to the last week or so. Later during the day I do expect the sun to break through. Current temp at 7am is 26.5C

Yesterday's sunset at Bophud's bay.

A nice and sunny day was ours yesterday around the island. Max temp reached 33.3C

Voting is slowing down, with two more days to go 65 votes are registered. Check the top left location of the poll on this blog.

Camille

Food on Wheels; Time for Coffee

Food on Wheels; Time for Coffee

More time for coffee or time for coffee again? Before I started the Food on Wheels series, I didn't realise how much coffee is sold on wheels! My first post in this series was about a small and cute motorbike on wheels selling coffee and today we see the same subject return.

Last week when I reported about the Soup on wheels car, I wondered if I could top last weeks sample. Well, I think that I come close this week. Whilst driving around Bophud, I spotted this pretty cool coffee on wheels salesperson and I had to stop him and take some pictures of him.

What I like about his set up is the small miniature version of a Tuk Tuk next to the driver. Nice work! Behind the miniature Tuk Tuk is a big coffee cup, unfortunately not very viewable.

All around though, a good idea and showing some creative thinking again! There are plenty of plain looking food on wheels carts around and this one sticks out!

Another coffee on wheels shot, taken on Koh Tao, this is a manually pushed car, although it looks like permanently parked in front of the 'mother shop'. Just to proof my point that there's an abundance of coffee on wheels.

Hope you enjoyed this entry and the series as such.

Stay tuned for more updates in this series.

Camille

Protest demo against oil drilling in the Gulf of Thailand

Protest demo against oil drilling in the Gulf of Thailand

As already reported earlier this week with a text message and a photo post, today was the big day for the demonstration around Samui's ring road.

Due to various reasons I couldn't have a loom until shortly after 10am, the demo being scheduled to be held between 10am and noon. I only covered a short distance, between Tesco Lotus in Chaweng and the post office in Maenam.

Some places were really crowded, especially in front of hotels or resorts but in-between there were plenty of long and empty stretches. The kids in the picture above even had custom made t-shirts!

It was nice to see many people involved though and being rather enthusiastic, both Thai and Western. Above shows school kids from the Bophud government school.

It seemed to be well organised and cars with loud speakers were making the rounds, keeping everyone involved. There were also thousands of little flags distributed in two languages (Thai and English) asking to stop the drilling.

All in all it seemed to be a rather successful event with many participants, which is always good to see. Although my expectations of being able to stop the drill are not that positive, this was a well organised event.

Camille

School year is finishing

The school year is finishing

This week we went to register our daughter for her new school. Currently she's at a pre school, in Thai called Anubaan, she is in grade 3 out of 3 so she needs to go the 'real' school next school year.

We chose the Bophud school for her despite having one school around the corner at Wat Plai Laem. The Bophud school gets the thumbs up and here are the kids all lined up for the school day starts, looks like she will learn to be disciplined there.

Camille

Sakana, Japanese restaurant, Bophud

Sakana, Japanese restaurant, Bophud

Unfortunately the Sakana has closed it's doors

The first restaurant review of the year comes in early and is about a fantastic experience we had last night at the Sakana Japanese restaurant.

Sakana is located at the ring road in Bophud, in between Big C and Makro, at the other side of the road, on the hill leading up to Makro. There's only a sign on the road and in order to get to the restaurant you will need to go about 50 meters in between two rows of town houses, Sakana is on the left hand.

It was my first visit and we went only because I saw a sign advertising a new Japanese restaurant, that went up about two months ago and we didn't really have time to visit until now. First impressions count and the entrance to the restaurant is beautiful, the win open doors with the staff welcome you to enter into the compound.

You enter into a nicely designed garden with a small stream running through it and it's sparse but effective decoration includes this original idea of an ox cart with a spirit house on it.
There are plenty of small lovely details, like the white and black pebbles that are placed in the walk way leading up to the restaurant.
So far so good, the good first impression holds on!

This is a view of the actual restaurant from the garden. It's an old Chinese style house at has been re-decorated in a very imaginative and practical Japanese-Thai fusion style, dominated by the Japanese style.
Two floors make for plenty of space and downstairs there are futons to sit on and upstairs there are more futons and also Western style tables if that's more comfortable.

A view from the ground floor into the garden. The design is very nice and makes you immediately feel comfortable.

The upstairs area with the futon seating's. Up here you have a beautiful view over the garden.

Now it's time to start with the food and my thoughts were that if the food is as good as the place looks like, we're going to be in for a real treat. We did not get disappointed at all. First of all the service was outstanding and Sam, the person who seems to be in charge was very helpful and explained all dishes and made some very suggestions to help us with our choices. His Mother also frequently visited our table to make sure that everything was fine.

There is a menu, which is very Japanese orientated (what would one expect in a Japanese restaurant) but mainly catering to Japanese people and they may change this in the near future to cater slightly better to the prevalent Western crowd visiting the restaurant.

There's also a specials menu which I can highly recommend, we mainly had specials, partly recommended by Sam and he made some great recommendations.

One of the specials is this Japanese saury fish fillet-ed and rolled with spring vegetables or Sanma Roru. Normally a fish with too many small bones thus making it difficult to eat, so the fish was prepared in such a way that it was cooked enough for the bones to become brittle and everything could be eaten without a problem. A delicious meal and a specially imported fish.

A fairly traditional Agedashi Tofu dish, a warm tofu dish and very tasteful.

Now we're on to one of the specials again, a Nasu Kani-Miso Yaki which is eggplant stuffed with crab and miso and mushroom. As recommended by Sam and this dish was delicious!

Sashimi Ume, raw fish but the freshest sashimi I ever had on Samui.

Probably the piece de resistance, Amari ebi sushi, sweet shrimp with their heads deep fried so they could be eaten in total, which was very tasty and Hottate sushi, scallop.

We had loads more, garlic fried rice, a delicious and fresh Salmon terriyaki and Tempura mori (mixed tempura)tasting deliciously fresh.

It was time for desert, pictured above is a Gyuhi Lichigo, another special and it's 'delectable mochi (rice cracker) with a strawberry ice-cream filling served with home made strawberry sauce and fresh cream'. My fellow eaters had already started before I could get a picture but in complete style with the whole meal, this was another treat. A great sauce which made it taste like real strawberries!

Last but not least, I had this Shiratame Zenzai or mochi hatched in red bean sauce which our Thai fellow eaters recognised as a Thai like dish.

All in all a fantastic experience, from entering the compound, the actual restaurant and the food, it all fitted perfectly and tasted sensational. By far the best Japanese food on Samui. With the help of Sam's recommendations, we had a well balanced, light but delicious qaulity meal.

Sakana comes highly recommended by me and even though everything is being freshly imported, the prices aren't too expensive and it's well worth a visit to find out for yourself! I used a lot more pictures than I normally do but also this is worthwhile and I hope I could catch our experience.

Camille

Bangkok Restaurant, Bophud

Bangkok Restaurant, Bophud

Last night I visited the Bangkok Restaurant in Bophud with Thai friends of mine. Just in the nick of time before the current year is over.

The Bangkok restaurant is opposite Bandon Hospital, on the ring road, near Big C and is owned by Paul, a very smart entrepeneur on Samui who is also the owner of the Irish Times, an Irish pub catering to local expats, adjacent to the Bangkok restaurant and on top of that he also owns and runs Tropical Murphy's, an Irish pub in Chaweng, that together with the Islander pub must be about the most popular pubs in town since they're full on almost any day of the week. Two pubs I frequent every once in a while and still haven't made it on to my blog, since they both serve good pub grub.

Yesterday saw a very busy day in the restaurant, way above average due to the fact that the restaurant was used by various companies to celebrate their company new years party with their employees.
My Thai friends who choose the place for last nights dinner occasion like it because the food is good and they have a good live band, two things that seem to prerequisites for a night of sanuk.
(สนุก or "SANUK" means "to have fun". An important thing in everyday life is "SANUK".
Thai people love to have fun together. "SANUK" can represent many things : eat together, to be with friends and chat, to go out with friends. For Thai people "SANUK" happens with several persons. When coming back from business, Thai people often ask "was it funny ?" (สนุกไหม) before "was it successful ?", with thanks to Thaiworld view)

The band was steaming indeed and produced a couple of very popular songs, Instinct was one of the faves.

The food was also good, this dish here shows Pla Muek pad khai khem or squid with a salty egg sauce. A very nice and rich sauce indeed! Yummy.

This Pla Thot or deep fried fish also made it on to our table with a lovely sweet and sour sauce with cashew nuts.

A good night was had by all and definitely a place to go back to.

Camille