Diving in KoLanta

Diving to Koh Hat, 5 islands! Dive and scuba refresher for 3800B, quite expensive, with Narime Diving. But they were very professional and had good gears! Our dive master, Ravy, had lots of patience especially with me! I had never expected this but I actually had a kind of panic attack under water, thinking that I would not be able to breath!!! I had all kinds of bad thoughts which made breathing even mor difficult! Fortunately Ravy knew how to deal with this, however I was still scared whiche annoyed me a lot. To sum up I did not enjoy the dive as much as I would have without panicking. Apart from this the visibility was only ok, we saw mooreys, cuttlefishes, rainbow fishes, barracudas, snappers, sea eals and stars etc. Unfortuantely no manta ray or turtle;-( On our second dive we dived into a cave, which was really cool! Diving approximately 15 meter down and then up the cave again!I was doing OK, Regina was fine all the time. No signs of anxiouty at all!

Full of nitrogen narcosis ;-) we arrived at Emeralds around 5.30pm, exhausted and redy to take it easy. Instead we had a great night with a bunch of scottish people, fish and seafood barbecue, beer and some other stuff. Long night!

Bangkok to Railey

It does not feel like xmas at all. We are still in Railay waiting for our 10.30 am boat to Lanta, which is further south! The boat tickets seem to have standardized prices, 380B one way! Arriving on Lanta, Saladan Pier, after a 2 hours trip it feels like arring on an airport: so many people tuktuk drivers, resort and bungalow snappers, tourist agencies etc. etc. I think it is a good idea to make up your mind on where you want to stay beforehand. If you have a bungalow in mind already, even better. Because you get a free ride to the resort and back to the pier again, which saves you time and money! We were thinking of going either to Phra Ae (Long Beach), Klung Khong or Nin Beach.

While we were trying to make up our decision we were approache by Thai from Emerald Bungalow. Obviously he was exagerrating a bit, but still it was a good decision to stay there. So if you promisses you a hammock in your hut, do not believe it;-0 No worries though there are hammock in the chill out hut right next to the beach! Emerald Bungalow was right at the Klung Khong Beach, the Backpackers Beach. Klung Khong has nice long beach, with plenty of bungalows (luckily yet not excessive) and bars to choose from. Swimming is probably only ok. The big plus for the west side of Lanta is that you get to see beautiful sunsets! After checking out the beach, having lunch we rented a bike! Note: this was the first time for me to ride a bike myself and for Regina somehow too! I enjoyed it a lot, Regina got a bit scared as she had to squezze herself between 2 trucks. Same like in Bangkok:-) Poor girl!!

At night we subcripted for a scuba diving tour for the next day, so we stayed at our bar, having delicious dinner, chang beer and a smoke right next to the beach! Heaven!!!That s what I expected it to be! Unfortunatly later I got into a conversation about religion, rather about being a muslem with one of the guys who seems to be related to the owner of the bungalow. Very uncomfortable situation, me being theoretically muslem but not practising it! So a word of advice, do not touch this topic!

25.12.2005

We joined a boat trip to the 7 island, unfortunately I only remember 2 of the names: Chicken and Pudo Island! The place we booked the snorkel trip is called Railay Diving, but I am not sure. It is led by a South-African guy with rasters and a bert, very funny guy. We paid 750B including drinks and dinner and a free snorkeling lesson;-) Probably there are cheaper places but we enjoyed it a lot so it was worth the money. Hopefully I can upload the video I recorded.


23rd of December

3rd day in Ayutthaya

As you can see already, we have changed our plans!!! Due to bad weather conditions and bad weather forecast we were not sure where we should go after Ayutthaya? So we stayed one night in Ayutthaya and another day in BKK before we finally headed south via Surat Thani to Krabi!

More to come soon:-)
sorry

22nd of December 2005

After a 15 hours journey by bus and 3 hours waiting at nowhere we finally arrived in Railay Beach, Krabi. Blue sky, sunshine, sandbeach and clear blue water!!!! Let me give you one advice, instead of trying to save a couple hundred bahts go to an official agency i.e. TAT (i think it stands for tourist authority of thailand). We booked our trip through TIC (tourist information center), and paid 650B instead of 900B at TAT. Supposedly we booked our seat in a VIP bus, but hell it was not even close to a VIP bus. The seats were not meant for sleeping but rather regular seat which you can lean backwards. At the TIC we got told that we would stop only once for a break, which turned out to be true but obviously they had forgotten to tell us the little fact about having to get out somewhere in Surat Thani at 6am, and to wait for 3 hours for our bus to Krabi.
Being sleepless made us a bit foolish so we made the best out of the situation and were joking and chatting with those english lads! Who were trying to convince us to go to Koh Phangan...At 9am we were picked up by a bus heading to Krabi!!! Luckily:-)

During our stop in nowhere we arranged our first 2 nights in Krabi, at Yaya Resort paying 500B a night with fan and bathroom! Unfortunately it is not right at the beach, but still it is nice and the service people are really nice and friendly. Today is already our second day, since it is cloudy it is probably not a bad idea to discover this little peninsula. It seems as if it has been established only because of or for tourists! Like us! Seing thais, mostly mostlem (95 % of the habitants are apparently moslems and the rest chinese buddists who run a business).

Railay and Tonsai beach offer a variety of outdoor activities: climbing, diving, snorkeling, hiking, kayaking, good swimming and just relaxing;-) On our second night we met some Germans and Norwegians guys on a party at Cliff bar with dj ? and live music, the band is called job2do. Good fun, good music and jammy food! With Joerg I decided to meet up in the morning to do the hike, or rather climb to the view point on Railay east and to the lagoon! This was quite an adventure as the hill was very steep and slippery (pictures will follow) The view point although only one of the lower ones, was a reward for us: Beautiful!!! The lagoon ,however, was rather disappointing as it was muddy with lots of moskitos flying around. So if possible try to see at high tide!!!