Southern Thailand
While in
Bangkok for the second time, we stayed in the lively area of Banglampoo again close
to the river and explored the touristy market streets. We learned that the Full
Moon Party was to take place a couple of days later in Koh Phangan, an island
off the east coast half way down the southern Thailand peninsula. We left the following day so we would make it to this world renowned party - so we spent our time in Bangkok on a boat trip up the river and visiting China Town.
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| Riverside view in Bangkok |
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| Chinatown street view in Bangkok |
Koh Phangan
Island life
on Koh Phangan was a slower pace than in crazy Bangkok. The famous Full Moon Party
took place on the 1st September and the Hat Rin beach on the southern tip of
the island was transformed into a sprawling fluorescent paint festival. We partied on until well after sunrise the following day!
After a lot of recovery time, we explored more of the island by motorbike and found some
stunning beaches with excellent snorkeling. We also managed to get ridiculously lost on the bike one night (goodness knows how as there are only three main roads on the island) and got chased by some territorial dogs!
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| Feet up at the pool side at our resort accommodation in Koh Phangan |
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| Private beach at our resort |
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| Palm lined beach on Koh Phangan |
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| (almost) Full Moon on the beach the night before the party |
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| Haad Salad beach - where we had salad! |
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| Exploring by bike |
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A local fishing boat
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| Painted & bucketed! |
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| With some new Aussie mates |
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| Party in full flow! |
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| Boat trip round to Bottle Beach - only accessible by boat |
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| Ready for some snorkeling! |
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| Bottle Beach |
Koh Tao
Koh Tao,
not far to the north of Koh Phangan, is a much smaller island dedicated to
scuba diving. Most of the accommodation was attached to diving centres so
package deals of diving and accommodation were the most common arrangement. We
fancied trying some diving so we signed up for our Open Water diving
course at Big Blue diving resort. This meant learning the diving basics in
their swimming pool and then completing 4 open water dives and some studying for a mini
hard-to-fail exam.
Despite having experienced snorkelling previously, nothing prepared us for the adventure of going deep under water and discovering different marine life, including coming face-to-face with a wall of barracuda on our first ever dive and having hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at us!
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| Our dive school - the best photo of our diving course on Koh Tao since our camera doesn't like getting wet! |
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| One of the coolest palm trees on the island |
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| Some of the sandy paradise! |
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| Fresh pineapple anyone? Vendors stroll the beaches offering delicious fruit and local dishes |
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| One of the locals catching his lunch |
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| Yes please to the pineapple! The vendor makes light work of preparing it for us! |
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| A windy ride on the back of the wagon |
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Getting comfy for a night on the sleeper train across the border into Malaysia
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Malaysia
In order to make the most of our remaining time on our 15 day Thailand visa we took the 24 hour trip by sleeper train, taxi and boat from Koh Tao down to the Perhentian Islands belonging to Malaysia. We stayed for a few days
at Carol Bay on Palua Perhentian Kecil, the smaller and livelier of the two neighbouring
Perhentian Islands. There was some spectacular snorkelling around the two
islands where you could see abundant tropical fish, huge turtles and reef sharks.
The diving
was also good although the underwater visibility was deteriorating because of
the heavy rain during the nightly storms from the early on setting monsoon season. Steve did a
couple of fun dives to local sites including Temple of the Sea and T3 with Quiver Diving.
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| The sun setting behind the landing pier on Coral Beach, Perhentian Kecil |
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| More palm lined coast on the Perhentians |
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| A huge resident gecko climbs onto the roof of our restaurant and eyes up our dinner! |
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| Long boats parked up on the sand waiting to take tourists around the islands |
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| Some of the best beach anywhere |
We had originally intended to head from the Perhentians directly to Singapore for a few days before catching our flight to Bali but we decided we could squeeze in a short
visit to Kuala Lumpur on the way. We took an afternoon boat to the Malaysian port town of
Kuala Besut and then an overnight bus south to KL.
We arrived
in KL at about 6am, shattered and unprepared! After a little wait for
everything to open up, we managed to book our onward transport for later that
night to Singapore and got a little information for how to make the most of our day in KL.
The
monorail around the city made it easy to get from place to place and we went
first to take a look at the Petronas Twin Towers and then headed up the KL Tower where we had
a delicious buffet lunch in the rotating restaurant at the top and relaxed in style for
a couple of hours taking in the views! We then took a stroll through the Little India and China Town
areas before getting our evening bus across the border to Singapore. It was a
pretty long day but we checked into our hostel in Singapore at about 2am
and crashed.
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| The famous Petronas Towers |
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| KL monorail which can get you anywhere in the city super-speed |
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| The KL Tower - our chosen option to get high to see the city scape..... |
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| .....If only these blooming German women would gets their bums out of the way! |
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| Lunch in the rotating restaurant at the top of KL Tower was the perfect way to spend a couple of hours |
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| Top notch views of the city from KL Tower |
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| Back at street level and in the hustle bustle of Little India |
Singapore
We checked into a really cool hostel
when we arrived and chilled out until meeting up with some of
Caroline’s brother-in-law's (John) Singaporean relatives. They were super hospitable
and took us for local food, sight seeing and shopping around the city and invited us back to one of
their family homes.
The following day we explored more of Singapore including Little India and
Chinatown with John's Singaporean cousin and his girlfriend before finding a sunset city scape view at the top of the Marina Bay
Sands SkyLand terrace. After a couple of expensive drinks at the top we wandered
round to the Singapore Formula 1 racetrack which was being set up for the race the
following weekend.
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| Trying some local desserts with John's family (Caroline's brother-in-law's family) in Singapore |
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| They had great fun getting us to try all the local delicacies including durian; the fruit that smells like sulpur..... lovely! |
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| Rub his belly for good luck! |
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| With John's cousin Kenneth and his girlfriend Daphne who took us to all the cool places in Singapore! |
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| Decorations in China Town |
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| A festival starting up in Chinatown in the centre of Singapore |
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| At the top of the Marina Park tower |
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| Overlooking the F1 track and surrounding area |
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| The sun setting behind the Singapore skyline |
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| The two of us in the bar at the top of the towers |
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| Skyline parorama |
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| The strange piece of architecture that we're at the top of... a boat on three towers! |
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| The magic starts as the lights come on after dark |
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| The impressive architecture of the Marina Skypark from the bottom |
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| From across the marina |
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Some traditional Malaysian music and dance on the Marina front
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Bali & the Gili Islands
After our city fix in Singapore we flew to
Bali and back to relaxed island life, spending our first couple of nights
in Kuta, the main tourist surf town on the south of the Island. We took some
time to chill and organise our next 10 days in and around Bali - it soon became
obvious we had nowhere near enough time to take advantage of everything on offer and do everything we wanted to here!
Our first stop was Nusa Lembongan, a nearby Island to the west of Bali. We spent just one
day here, staying in a stunning room on the beach front, and explored this beautiful island by motorbike doing a little snorkelling on our way
round.
After the
Gili Islands we took a very bumpy ferry ride, making our way back to Bali and to a small central town called Ubud.
From here we arranged a sunrise hike up to Mount Batur, a peak within a large volcanic
crater in the central / northern area of Bali. We got up at 2am to complete the hike in the dark and make it to
the top for sunrise – well worth the effort for the stunning views across the
crater itself and over the other peaks on Bali and neighbouring Lombok island.
Ubud itself
was an interesting place full of touristy hustle and bustle. After our volcano hike we made it to the
monkey forest full of greedy and slightly aggressive monkeys followed by an evening
performance of some local traditional dancing. The dancing was accompanied by a circle of
half naked men singing and beat boxing and incorporated walking over hot coals!
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| Starting the volcano hike by torch light |
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| Our first views of the neighbouring peaks at sunrise |
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| Tucking into a well deserved breakfast at the top! |
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| Stunning views once the morning clouds lifted |
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| At the summit |
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| Panoramic views of the surrounding peaks |
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| Our group for the hike |
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| Steam rising from the crater |
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| Walking around the crater |
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| Mount Batur |
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| Tasting locally made teas and coffees at the tea farm |
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| Paddy fields on the outskirts of Ubud |
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| With one of the local women in the paddy fields |
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| The local ladies hut in the paddy fields |
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| Lush rainforest scenery |
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| Local craft stalls line the streets entering Ubud |
We made it
back to Kuta the day before our flight to Cairns and spent our last
remaining hours in Bali surfing, getting our hair chemically straightened, shopping and
eating local food!
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| Catching some waves on Kuta beach....successfully |
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| ....and unsuccessfully! |
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