Day 164 Jan 15 2015 Khoa Lak Thailand

really sour lime juice

walking down a rural road in Khao Lak Thailand

a quiet beach in Thailand

waiting for supper once again

Food tastes better outdoors 

Day 164  Jan 15 2015  Khoa Lak  Thailand

We left Phuket and took a taxi to Poseidon Bungalows in Khoa Lak where we paid for the snorkeling cruise and our hotel for the night we return from the cruise.  We were then given a ride to the Mountain View Bungalows, our hotel just down the road.  It is the first time on the trip that we booked two rooms or in this case two separate bungalows for the night as we could not get a room with two double beds or even a double and a twin.   After we were settled in to the hotel room we went for a walk to the beach approximately 800 meters away.  On the way we passed a couple of elephants that were tied up for the night in the bush along the road.  When we got to the beach it was mostly deserted with only a few people walking on it.   We walked a few hundred meters and discovered a restaurant where we decided to eat supper, the food was very good.  By the time we were done eating it was already dark.  On the way back to our hotel we walked by the Poseidon Bungalows and the kids wanted to jump into the pool so I said ok.  For some reason shone the flashlight into the pool and discovered the water was a disgusting gray color.  I immediately told the kids to get out and have a shower by the pool and that they had to have a proper shower with soap when we got back to our hotel.  I hope they do not get sick from swimming in the pool.  We then walked back to our hotel down a dark jungle road with absolutely no street lighting, where earlier in the day we had seen a large snake slither across the road.   The kids were not as scared as I thought they would be, so it turned out to be a nice walk under a star lit road.  

Day 163 Jan 14 2015 Phuket Thailand

David was thrilled that they had a menu for ice cream

Enjoying our ice cream in Phuket 

Day 163  Jan 14 2015  Phuket Thailand

We had a slow start to the day as we were researching Vietnam visas and cruises.  According to the Vietnam embassy website in Canada we needed to obtain a visa before leaving Canada.  There is even a warning listing many of the agents websites offering “visa on arrival” services. According to the embassy website they are not valid and you should notify the embassy if you have started to use one of the services.  We then read a guide on Trip Advisor that says that the warning on the embassy website is rubbish and there is no problem to obtain a visa on arrival.  We have tickets to Vietnam already as we had to purchased them so we could get on the plane in Kuala Lumpur when we were flying to Thailand.  The joys of being forced by the air lines to have an onward or return ticket to enter a country.  We have decided to take a chance on the VOD sent our application to one of the on-line agents.  If we are denied entry into Vietnam we will lose not only the cost of the plane tickets but the cost of the VOD applicaton.  The old adage “in for a penny, in for a pound” applies in this case.  In the afternoon we took a taxi and went looking for a place where we could get pictures for the visas and sunscreen for the Similan Islands cruise we are going on in two days.

Day 162 Jan 13 2015 Phuket Thailand

three monkeys

Trickeye Museum in Phuket

Thai street food

enjoying the thai street food

Day 162  Jan 13 2015  Phuket Thailand

I had to wash underwear in the sink last night as we were out of clean ones. We started the day by loading our backpack with dirty clothes and walking to the laundry. When we got there we think we arranged to have our laundry washed and ready to pick up tomorrow by 6 pm.  I am not so sure that the communication was that good so I am interested to see what will happen when we go to pick it tomorrow.  After we dropped the laundry off, David and I went for a haircut, the cost was very similar to what we would pay in Canada, I think we got the tourist rate.  In the afternoon we decided to go for a walk to the Thai Hua Museum, after walking for quite a while we realized that we had taken a wrong turn and were nowhere near the museum.   We were about to turn around and walk back to the hotel when we saw the first taxi of the day.  We ended up getting him to take us to a viewing platform overlooking the city where we got some nice pics.  That was followed by a trip to the Trick Eye Museum which was a museum with lots of painting that you could take pics with you posing in them, making it look like you were part of the painting.   The kids and Evy loved the museum and I thought it was ok but a little pricey for what it was.  The driver then asked us if he could take us to a souvenir shop as he would get stamps for gas if he did.  We agreed thinking that we would not buy anything and we would see a local shop.  We ended up buying Isabel a necklace and me a silk shirt as the prices were extremely cheap.  The driver then took us to a sea food restaurant, when we realized that the meal would be very expensive we finished the drinks we had ordered and left.  We then took the taxi to a shopping mall that was surrounded by Thai street food vendors.  We ended up eating the same food that we would have at the first restaurant for a fraction of the price.  I had 4 grilled tiger shrimp, David had bbq squid, Isabel 2 dishes of green mussels in basil sauce and Evy ordered tom yam soup with side orders of fried rice, steamed rice, vegetables, slushy fruit drinks.  The entire bill was less than $45 CAD and the ambience was great, in the street with cars going buy.  The Thai street food is as good if not better than a lot of travel guides say.  We never did make it to the Thai Hau Museum.

Day 161 Jan 12 2015 Phuket Thailand

David entertaining himself

view from the ferry terminal dock in Krabi Thailand

View from the hotel pool in Phuket Thailand

Day 161  Jan 12 2015  Phuket Thailand

We ate breakfast at the hotel then went swimming in the pool for a while.  After which we made the kids do home work for 2 hours while we waited for our transfer to the ferry terminal.  We took the ferry from Krabi to Phuket which took 2 hours and 15 min.  The cost of the ferry also included the transfer to our new hotel.  We went for a walk in the night to find a restaurant and ended up about 1.5 km from our hotel.  On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a road side stand and purchased some fruit.  The hotel we ended up in is the nicest one of the trip so far with 2 decent sized bedrooms, living room and a small kitchen all in a new building.  The swimming pool is just outside our door.

Day 160 Jan 11 2015 Krabi Thailand

enjoying a few drinks on the beach

Isabel wanted pictures with the owls

a very good restaurant in Krabi

Our first tuk tuk ride in Thailand

Day 160  Jan 11 2015  Krabi Thailand

I can now tell you where we will be going tomorrow.  When we woke up this morning we knew that we were leaving Krabi but did not have an Idea where we were going to go.  We decided to go to Phuket for 3 nights before heading up to Lam Kaen where we have a 3 day 2 night boat tour booked.  We went for a nice walk along the beach and into the town.  We stopped for supper at May and Zin restaurant, the food was amazing and both David and I ordered 2^nd plates.   After supper we continued our walk for a while then took a tuk tuk back to the hotel.  The kids and I went swimming and Evy stayed in the room reading.

Day 159 Jan 10 2015 Krabi Thailand

waiting to board the boats

one of the beautiful beaches of the Phi Phi Islands

suffering in paradise

showing Isabel who is the boss

Day 159  Jan 10 2015  Krabi Thailand

Evy ended up sleeping with the two kids in the queen bed while I got the twin, I slept ok.  We had to be at the hotel lobby for 8:30 am as we were being picked up for a speed boat tour to the Phi Phi Islands.  The boat stopped at 2 beautiful white sand beaches the second being Koh Phi Phi Ley at Maya Bay where the movie The Beach was filmed.  Both islands were so crowded with tourists and the boats that brought them that they were not places I wanted to stay.  We were taken to another island where we had a good lunch followed by snorkeling at 2 different places, again there was an overwhelming number of boats and tourists snorkeling.  The coral was pretty much dead but there were quite a few fish which everybody was feeding bread, the kids liked feeding the fish.  The boat ride to the islands was enjoyable and scenic.  When we got back to the port there were lots of search and rescue people in the area.  It turns out they were looking for 2 kids a 12 and a 14 year old that were playing in the ocean. The kids went a little to far from shore and got into a deep channel with strong currents,  they could not get back to shore.  It makes you aware of how careful you have to be with the ocean currents.

Day 158 Jan 9 2015 Krabi Thailand

in KL waiting for the plane to Krabi

Ao Nang Beach Krabi Thailand

The food here is fantastic

Day 158  Jan 9 2015    Krabi Thailand

We flew from Langkawi to Krabi today.  I am not really happy that we flew instead of taking a ferry and a bus from Langkawi as we had talked about many months ago.   Because we flew the airline company made us purchase a ticket to leave Thailand before we could board the plane.  We read the Canadian Government advice to avoid the border area where we would have had to cross from Malaysian into Thailand.  It turns out it is not as bad as we were led to believe.  It is a very straight forward transfer to Krabi and we would have saved several hundred dollars and seen more of the country side.  To fly to Krabi from Langkawi we had to fly 1 hour to Kuala Lumpur then 1 ½ hours to Krabi passing right over Langkawi.  We really have to research more in the future.   Because we flew, the airline company made us purchase a ticket to leave Thailand before we could board the plane. As a result we are now flying to Hanoi Vietnam on the 28^th of January where we will probably be forced to buy a ticket to leave Vietnam and so it goes.  Hopefully we will be smarter and purchase our next flight with a bit of planning instead of in the airport 1 hour before we have to board our flight and saying to each other how long do  we stay in the country and where do we go after it.  If we had taken the ferry and the bus it would not have taken us much more than 8 hour traveling.  When we got to Krabi we ended up booking a hotel room through an agent at the airport.  We did not book ahead as any search we did turned up two twin beds or a queen bed for 4 people.  We discovered the same problem at the airport and ended up with a queen bed which seems to be the norm for up to 3 adults and ended up paying for and extra bed which is a twin bed permanently set up in the room.  It is frustrating trying to book a room for 2 adults and 2 kids in Thailand.  I have done lots of searches where I put in 4 adults, foolishly thinking that will require more than one queen bed.  According to hotels.com, expedia, agoda and others in Thailand 4 adults only need 1 queen bed or 2 twin bed.  I guess you are supposed to sleep 2 deep here.