First few days-Singapore to Kuala Lampur

We arrived in Hong Kong after 13 and a half hours of an Air Canada flight, but had bulkhead seats and no one in the middle so as pleasant as economy class can be!  One hour layover and then on to Singapore on Singapore airlines, 20 per cent full so lots of space to stretch out.

Arrived Changi airport at midnight and our luggage arrived too.  Headed to Crowne Plaza Hotel and had a good sleep.  Lovely modern room, garden swimming pool outside our window, SBX just inside the airport. We left by cab at noon and were on board our ship "Legend of the Seas" by 2 pm.

No days at sea, we landed next day in Kuala Lampur and took our first shore excursion with our Cruise Critic host, Cedric.  Not an elderly British military major but a 35 year old Asian guy from Toronto!  Off to the countryside to visit a temple, then a tour of the city.

Departure Day minus 1

The usual tasks of packing the suitcase and loading the backpack, always made difficult by weight restrictions and Homeland Security banned items!  Trying to fit a 4 litre box of wine into my suitcase, but it is probably too heavy.
House is clean and tidy, but it is a shame to be missing the Spring blossoms.
We will take the 5:45 am bus to the 7 am ferry, and then on to YVR.  Dear Neil has given us some Air Canada lounge passes so waiting for the 1:30 pm departure to Singapore via Hong Kong should be quite pleasant.

Thailand, Final 2 Days

On Sunday we left from Chalong Harbour in a huge 75 person speedboat, 4engines, 225 HP each and raced to PhiPhi (pronounced Pee pee, I kid you not). We had an excellent snorkel, quite a few boats around but everyone was feeding the fish (bread) and there were plenty to see. Incredible visibility and of course exceptionally warm water. Not much colour in the coral, and you had to be aware of other boats around when you surfaced. Back on the boat and arrived at another beach on Phi Phi for our lunch. Happily the tables were under cover as the sun was very strong. Lunch was Thai food and some spaghetti and meat sauce as well, very good and plenty of it. Beer was available for a price so we availed ourselves of it! In the afternoon we sped to another, much smaller (5 minutes to circle it) island for an hour of swimming and snorkelling if you wished. We tried it but the visibility was much less and the water not especially clean. We were back at our hotel by 5:30 and enjoyed a hot shower before heading out for dinner.

Monday, our final full day in Phuket and Thailand, we spent at the beach in the morning. We got a front row umbrella this time as we went and staked our claim early. After lunch I had a Thai massage, very nice, for $8.50. Won't find prices like this back home. Tonight it is dinner and then a careful packing of our belongings, which have multiplied during the trip!

Thailand Day Six

We were picked up just before 8 a.m. this morning for our 4 island tour. It took over an hour to get all passengers in the van and to the dock. The ship held about 70 passengers and was full; quite a 'mixed bag' of families, retirees, young couples and from many different countries.
Our first stop was "James Bond Island", so called because part of the Man With the Golden Gun was filmed here. Not much to see beyond the famous perpendicular island just off the beach. Back on board we were served a nice buffet lunch with fish, chicken, kebabs, salads, crudites, and fresh fruit. Soda pop, water (not sure if it was bottled originally though), coffee and tea available all tour. Next stop was Hong Island where we were kayaked through an opening in the rocks into beautiful lagoons. Our paddler was Ruse and he spoke adequate English to be charming. He called me madam Ann but Felix became Sam?! Back to the boat for 25 minute trip to our third island where we kayaked into a 150m long cave with bats hanging from the ceiling. It narrowed and lowered to almost nothing and we had to lie back to get under the rocks. Glad the tide wasn't any higher. Our fourth island and stop was a beach for swimming. The water was so warm it didn't refresh much, but fun to swim in the A Sea. Back on board we were refreshed with a young coconut drink. Still in the green casing, the top is sliced off and an opening created similar to beginning to carve a pumpkin. Stick in a straw and you drink the milk inside. It is so immature that there is no brown husk visible and the actual coconut meat is very soft. I think it is an acquired taste and apparently has laxative qualities too! Not needed with all the fruit we have been eating. The paddlers performed a dance routine to make the sailing time back to port go faster and of course to garner bigger tips. We were very pleased with Ruse and he went home happy.

How hot is it in Phuket? Well, our first late afternoon in Phuket Town we sat on the front porch of a bar and had a cold beer. At street level were two large garden pots filled with water and containing water lilies in bloom. A mongrel dog walked over to one of the pots and put his head in. We thought he was just getting a cool drink. Instead, he stepped into the pot with all four legs and proceeded to sit down. It was nearly 5 minutes before he got out, shook himself off and walked away, much cooler.

Musings: Holey Soles, or Crocs, are available everywhere and worn everywhere--up steep temple steps, into the presence of the Buddha, and very often to the beach

The written Thai language and numerals seem to bear some similarity with Arabic.

Phuket is full of Scandinavians, especially Swedes.

People still think someone who doesn't speak their language will suddenly understand them if they shout.

Pictures of the king are everywhere; much like the Middle East.

Thailand Day Four and Five

Great flight on Bangkok Air to Phuket and even got to use the lounge beforehand, very nice. Upon arrival we trotted outside to find our hotelier holding a sign with our name on it--unfortunately he wasn't there. We phoned and he suggested we take a taxi, but as we understood that the pickup was included and the taxi fare was 400 Baht, we said we'd wait the 45 minutes it would take to get us. Well, after nearly an hour we phoned again and he said yes my friend is outside looking for you. However, she was holding a sign with someone else's name and it took a little longer to connect. Finally arriving at Summer Breeze In n,we discovered it to be 4 km from downtown Phuket Town, no buses or tuk-tuks, clean room but totally unsuitable for our purposes. We left our luggage and got him to drive us to the downtown core. We went to a travel agent and booked the next 4 nights on the beach in Karon. Beers and dinner, then we tried to get a taxi back to Summer Breeze. It is so out of the way that none of the drivers knew where it was. The hotel's card was written in English so that didn't help them, and when we called the cell number on the card it didn't work. Turns out he'd left off the first 2 numbers! Well we finally arrived back, and asked for breakfast at 7:30, then in our room discovered on a card that the charge for b'fast was 250 baht per person, or $8 each! Back to the owner and expressed our displeasure and that we would leave in the morning. Turns out no money had been paid so that would be okay. Huh! This morning , upon being presented with the bill, there was a 450 baht charge for the airport pickup! Well, he had already said that he would drive us to our new hotel, so in the end we paid up. However, we will be reporting his deceitful business practice to the Thai website where we found him. Anyway, by 9:30 a.m. we were settled into the Karon Beach Hotel and are very happy, and doesn't cost much more than Summer Breeze. We are 2 minutes from the beach and lots of restaurants, etc. Today we booked our tours for caving canoe trip around James Bond Island! and Sunday's snorkel. Then it was to the beach with our books and large umbrella.

Bangkok day Three

Today we spent touring surrounding areas. We began at the floating market where we were poled around by an older man up and down quiet and not so quiet canals. At times larger long boats, motorized, whipped by and semi swamped our small craft. Vendors in their own small boats sold a variety of items, from fruit and vegetables, to waffles, to tourist trinkets like hats. Prices were high and no one in our boat, us and a Vietnamese couple, bought anything.

After a very long and hot one and a half hour drive, we arrived at a riverside cafe for our lunch of rice, curry sparsely sprinkled with bits of chicken, and pineapple for dessert. As the river was the River Kwai, it seemed special regardless. After eating it was another half hour to a large military cemetary to honour those who had died here building the Thai to Burma railroad. Very moving to read the inscriptions of the poor men who were mainly in their 20s and buried so far from Britain, India. A beautifully kept cemetary and a good reminder that while we all think of the Alec Guiness and David Niven movie, parts of it were based on fact and these graves represent that.

The actual bridge on the River Kwai was destroyed by the Allies and a newer one has been rebuilt on the site. It is in actual use today; a train crossed it just after we got off it!

Our final stop, another 2 hours away, was the largest pagoda in Thailand. We could not climb to the very top due to renovations, but enjoyed a walk around to see many small buddhas set in alcoves in the walls, and another reclining buddha inside. Traffic back into Bangkok was not too bad in our direction, horrific going out of town at 6 pm. A cold beer was the first thing on our minds as we got out of the van.

Bangkok, Day One and Two

We flew on Bangkok Air ("the boutique airline") from Siem Reap to Bangkok, landing at the new airport which reportedly was full of mistakes and never-ending problems since opening last Fall. We found it to be fine, very modern and efficient. And B. Air was superb. A 55 minute flight and we were served a box lunch and beverage. Hello Air Canada!!!!!!
We shared a taxi with an Israeli into town and are very pleased with our hotel. It is within walking distance of the main temple and palace area, and also the backpackers area with cheap food and knock-off everythings. Our first afternoon we just walked around the area and tried to cross the 6 lanes in each direction, no discernable traffic rules, no pedestrian right-of-way mentality intersections. Wow! The most dangerous part of our trip so far. Good dinner and our first Pad Thai in Thailand. Beer is good, too.
Today we had our hotel breakfast and then headed out around 8 a.m. to begin touring. Sure enough, just as the tour book said, two different touts came up to us and told us the temples we were heading for were closed today, but they could recommend and show us another one. No thanks, we said and kept walking. Surprise, surprise everthing we wanted to see was open and available to tour. So we did. More later, gotta go.