...And Two More

The sunset image is one of my favorite and taken from the west side of Ko Kradon.  The other image is a repeat of the one of "Vivian of the Rocks in Rapture" looking up at a wonderful hanging rock chandelier stalactite.  This was taken off the coast west of Hat Yao ...our departure point to Ko Kradon.  

I have been able to successfully click on these two photos to see the full size shots.  Hope you enjoy them too.  

More Pix from this beautiful place

I want to post a few more pix that didn't fit into the Ko Kradon text.  You should be able to click on any of these small pix and see them in a larger format.  

Top left is a idyllic beach located on the west side of Ko Kradon... took this while waiting for the sunset shot. 

The second shot is of Ko Kradon itself from a distance.  Appropriately, we stayed just left of center.

Third down is a sunrise shot taken from our front porch in Ko Kradon.  We awakened each day before sunrise.  In fact, it was so hot that my bed was moved in front of the door (to prop it open) so I could look right out at this perspective while awakening.  

The next two shots are of a view into the hidden beach around the corner from Sinchai Chowmai "Resort".  The shot of the water between two cliff faces was taken from this same beach and is a bit of a trick photo in that I walked to one extreme end of the beach to find this exact juxtaposition... not a site one readily observes.  

Finally, a shot of the "chandelier" as I called this hanging stalactite... with a silhouette of Vivian below looking up agape... or is that in awe?  

Ko Kradon...unspoiled, for now

 This is a view of a beach around the corner on Ko Mook.  Below that photo  is a "spirit house" installed on Ko Kradon while we were there.

I left you last with Trey ( pron. "tree") who was trying to change our thinking from going to Ko Mook to Ko Komang... and he succeeded. We boarded the longtail boat and took off for the one hour ride to Ko Kradon.  To our surprise, along with us was a British couple who wanted to see Ko Kradon for a day visit... something we would later learn was a common way people visit Ko Kradon.  Our long tail from the mainland was 900Baht.  Very hot and clear weather around 10:30 a.m.  Arriving at Ko Kradon is impressive with the most turquoise ribbon of water outlining the  island, the "stuff" of poster art. We avoided this island because the Lonely Planet said "that while this might well be the jewel of these islands" it was said to be more expensive than others and was building an upscale Amari hotel... "-so go while you can".

We did not need to "check in" with one another... we just knew this was a place we wanted to spend some time so we moved into a rather "modest" room with fan for a greater sum than we had previously paid (43/night).   Outside, a vast easterly panorama of islands and karsts rising out of the sea in the distance.  One is only given "so much" time to spend... and I intend to spend all of mine!  We discover that there is decent snorkeling right off the shore and good food... what else is there?

The seashore photo above left with the karst rising from the sea was taken from our front porch.  Not bad eh?

For the next two days we truly live the "island life".  There are very few people here, comparatively speaking.  We are one of maybe three places occupied in a row of ten units.  It is low season.  And we learn later that if is often said (as did Trey) that the place is "full" to create a bit of angst, when in fact that is not the case at all in March.  Perhaps by May or June, but not March. We snorkeled... nice drop off, and explored up and down the beach.  There is an Amari built here though it appears unoccupied.   There is also an "eco-lodge" and a national park on this island.  

An hour before sunset we decide to hike across the island, following the Tsunami signs to higher ground, passing an American run "Paradise Lodge" near the summit (5 mins) and finally (10 mins) to the west side for a magnificent sunset.  Well worth the minimal climb up the hill. The sunset photo above is one of many great pix we took that night. 

  

We get up at our usual time... between 6 and 6:30 am, though I typically awaken between 5 and 5:30 am.  Great sunrise photo ops. We explored snorkeling down at the south end ...clear and more coral but probably not worth the walk.  In front of our "hut" is pretty good too.  Many large schools and fish with yellow and black stripes following me around, occasionally nibbling on my skin.  Beautiful clams (huge) of all colors, one blue with a neon interior and black sea urchins with an iridescent eye of yellow, red and blue!   Too much.  Lots of huge fan corral and brain coral.  Parrot fish and lots of the usual tropical varieties in an aquarium setting and the escarpment to boot.  The rest of the day is spent engaged in lots of reading and zoning out... just what the doctor ordered... happy.  

In the late afternoon, we walk down the beach to the Amari to check it out and possibly have a sunset drink.  We get there only to realize it is deserted... furniture covered, everything clean and maintained, but empty.  We learn that Amari is only used as a remote day trip location for another Amari elsewhere... a remote satellite Amari!  Lunch today :  big prawns in a spicy lime sauce salad.  Dinner was a Tom Gaw Kah split 3 ways. By sundown, it is looking a lot like a storm is coming in ...and it does.  Starting with a howling wind, it starts to pour a nearly lateral wind... I am slumping with about four others behind the bar with Kenny to avoid being drenched.  Finally a break and a run for the room ...and to bed. 

Weds, March 18th.  We are up at 6 am (9 hrs of sleep is too much for me) to watch the sunrise which can be pretty wonderful from our front door.  We pack for Ko Mook, read, have a coffee (Ovalteen, can you believe it? -another throw-back ...can you remember Bosco?)  and I meet Erwin from Belgium.  I've seen this guy over the past few days, but always in the background and walking in the other direction.  Wondered who he was and now have a chance to find out.   He came here 7 yrs ago to teach English to the "locals".  Erwin's story is interesting.  He attended a small specialized university in Colorado and finished a degree in Mechanical Engineering and yet another degree in Geology.  He came to Thailand on holidays and got hooked on these islands.  "I helped build a small resort on Ko Mook and I've been here ever since" he said. "I try to build 'quality' but they only want to do "cheap" and be done with it. The family who leases this place is headed by a doctor, Chinese Thai, and he is making all the same mistakes as the stupid guy who sold it to him".   "Amari has sold because of disagreements with the government over a river they blocked at the site" says Erwin who told the Amari that blocking that river would be a big problem with the government... "they wouldn't listen to me and now... they will lose it!"  He was fatalistic about the future of Ko Kradon "...they are building a huge, expensive and fancy resort down the beach, lot's of investors... a $1000/night kind of place" he reveals.  He says "Thais don't like to take any advice from "farangs" (foreigners) even when we have proven ourselves to them, so they go on making the same mistakes over and over".  Why didn't we meet him yesterday as we had many questions that would have been perfect to ask him.  He is certainly a resource.  As our boat pulls out, Erwin gives me some tips on where to stay at Ko Mook and mentions people he would like us to say "hello" to.  

Our longtail boat takes us across the channel (250 Baht) to the island of Ko Mook (where we thought we'd go in the first place).  On the western side of Ko Mook is an upscale place called Charlie's Resort, complete with dive shop, fancy swimming pools, conference room and typical resort amenities ...with the price tags to match.  We follow a road to Muangs, a small restaurant behind Charlies.  As per instructions from Erwin, we say hello to Muang, and order up a superb 11 am meal - some of the best yet -at low prices.  Muang also gets us a longtail boat (400B) that takes us around the island (30 mins), to the east facing side.  Along the way we pass Emerald Cave which is a tunnel you snorkel through in the pitch dark and come out the other side of this karst -said to be very crowded which was evidenced by the many tourist boats moored just on the edge of this huge karst. The lesser traveled part of the island is quite beautiful ...the eastern side where we will stay however, has no swimmable beaches as the shore is very shallow and the extremes between high and low tides are extreme... like Baja on the Sea of Cortez side.  We do find a very nice room with nice balcony.   More on this side to come. 

 

Catch up Photos

Haven't been near a fast enough internet connection to upload some misc. photos until now... so here are some odds and ends to ponder. 

The photo above left is a fish fry on the street ...one of the many street vendor options that present themselves in Thailand.  

The photo on the right is of one of the beautiful dishes served at a Restaurant in Bangkok called Hemlock which specializes in what they call old traditional dishes.  It was very tasty and the leaves that accompanied the meal were all edible and yummy.

The kids below right were along the railroad tracks when we stopped in one of the stations... they love to have their pix taken... and I love to comply.

   

 

Everywhere one looks, one sees these small spirit houses in front of homes, stores, gas stations... you name it.  Here is one, above left, occupied by one of the many felines that have the run of the country... keeping watch. 

And finally, we had finished one of those huge travel days crossing the border from Cambodia back into Thailand... a test of one's patience with plenty of not so nice people in the cast.  

We finally found housing for our one night of rest before continuing back to Bangkok the next day.  We bedded down for the night only to discover the funniest out-of-context top sheets/blankets ever on the trip.  In fact, one was lucky to even get a top sheet on most of the trip... which is why we bring our serongs that serve double duty.  Just when you expect nothing... look what we got. 

Bob is especially ecstatic over his Tom and Jerry blanky.  And Vivian... you never looked more ravishing!  Lights out.  

Hat Yao and Sinchai Chowmai

Well, after a week away from the computer, I have a chance to catch up.

We took the overnight train from Bangkok at 6:30 pm, only able to get a 2nd class ticket of an upper birth with fan... which will mean a probable night of heat. That's the breaks. The photo is of Bob and I, already weary from heat, trying to induce sleep by way of a large Chang beer. Happily, I slept quite well as the train cooled off during the night. I have a couple of stories from the roughly 15 hours on the train.

A young Norwegian family of parents and 3 kids, one a 8 mos old traveling and roughing it... talk about chutzpah! Then again, Norwegians are given 6 mos of paid maternity leave (either parent)!

We also met Walter, an ex-pat from San Diego, Ca. A Viet Nam vet, retired merchant marine, age 67 now living in Ko Samui, Thailand. Another middle to late aged Anglo male with a younger Thai girlfriend, a common combo we see all over Thailand. Is this a last hurrah with youth, a mutually workable "arrangement" ...or is this LOVE? Often, I have noticed, that there is minimal verbal communication... lot's of hand signals. Ed, you'll have to resist the urge to add humor here. She is the guide, he is the provider? ...and they both get a vacation out of the deal? I really don't pretend to know or understand. I do notice that after a dozen or more of these couplings are observed, there are some common threads. The male rarely gives eye contact to other male westerners when with "their" Thai females. One can guess this comes from some sense of being judged... but there are likely many other possibilities. One does see a gov't campaign posted in signs with regularity stating "sex with children is a crime!". In a conversation along these lines with Bob, he pointed out that often these particular Thai women were small and very slight of build... that perhaps there is some form of pedophilia being acted out in these couplings... obviously not in all cases. It is an interesting topic and probably runs the whole range of human emotional possibilities ...like any relationship. To be sure, one must keep in check the tendency to be judgemental on such a foreign topic.

Back to Walter more specifically. "I voted for Edwards" he says, "he's the real deal, after those corporate jerks...". He ranted on about how America was going all to hell and how he no longer has any direct attachments to it (though he still proudly votes in the elections) ...he was an anomaly in many ways. He expressed somewhat "liberal" views in some ways yet felt the mixing of the races was the real problem in America. "In the end, it just doesn't work... just look at Israel, a real racist (homogeneous?) country, and look at how well it works... they got it right!" he adds. And Walter is one of the more "functional" Viet Nam vets living abroad... in a mixed race relationship, I might add! "It all won't matter anyway" he says, "I think we'll all go down in a nuclear disaster within ten years anyway" he predicts while barely able to order a sweet from a passing vendor in the train... and this is after 15 years living in the area. The topics of ex-pats is another fascinating topic to me and one which would be a kick to explore... probably as many different "types" as the stories one would hear. Enough.

By 7 a.m., we had the entire train car to ourselves as everyone else had exited at previous destinations. For 3 hours we could observe the countryside at our leisure, farms, rubber plantations (Thailand is the world leader in rubber export), jungles and beautiful stone karsts rising majestically from the flat lands... only interrupted by the occasional train station.

By 10:30 am we arrive in Trang, find some breakfast and find our way by van to our destination of the day, Hat Yao on the coastline of Southwest Thailand, a small fishing village and our jumping off point to the islands beyond. This picture above is our room (nicer than it looks) just a few meters from the high tide water. Our beach is shaded by Casuarina Pines, a nice frame for the sea view. This is Sinchai "Resort" (a stretch in a name) but we are very satisfied with our spacious place and the quiet location.

For the next two days, we veg, swim out to a lovely deserted beach around the corner, read and wander into the small village nearby. This is a village that was quite damaged by the Tsunami. This is a Muslim fishing port with a small mosque. People are very friendly and though the damaged small houses (often "huts" by most standards) and ruined fishing boats are evidence of a tough time, it is apparent the Thai government has been trying to do its best. Large signs pay tribute to those lost, sign posts showing the high water mark and a system of signs showing the distance and evacuation paths all should follow in the event of an earthquake. There is a new cement pier and of course a warning system tower with microphones. Mr. Sinchai explains in broken English "water come in fast, but Sinchai get phone call and take all people out before... nobody die here". He has lived here all his life and never before had such an experience.
This is a view of the "chandelier" hanging from the huge stone karst on our secluded beach next door to Sinchai's Resort.

And of course I will close out with the obligatory sunset shot... a hopeful beginning to what we expect to be a week of island hopping and beach bumming. Though this is the mainland, it is very easy to imagine it as an island and we are hesitant to leave such a nice find. Never the less, by Monday morning March 16th (I think), we are ready to get a transfer of some kind to some of the many real islands off this coast.

We go back and forth on logistics and destinations before Tri (pron: tree) suggests we go to Ko Kradan rather than our intended Ko Mook... "more pretty and good snorkeling" he says. We bite. He facilitates the arrangements and by 10 am we are wading into the tide to board a longtail boat for parts unknown. This is how one of our best ever islands started (Gili Meno with Greg) back in '94 or so. I hope you are all enjoying your weather as much as we are here. All the best, Mark

Ko Kret Pottery Island

Today we managed to get to the island of Ko Kret in the middle of the Chao Priya River. This is a island of Mon (Mung?) people who have used the earth of the island, at least initially, to make large water storage pots. Today, the island is organized into three pottery villages with obviously a successful orientation towards exporting with weekend tourists a side business. We were here in the middle of the week, middle of the hot as hell and humid day, so we had it pretty much to ourselves. The kiln above right, was forty feet long and a slight climb to the chambers. Lots of firewood stacked out back.
Above left, a photo of the front of one of the many kilns on this island. These potteries do a lot of low fire pierced ware with lots of imprint stamps for surface decoration. At one point we bought home made coconut ice cream served up in a leaf folded into a cup and placed inside one of the low fire pots... all for 66 cents... and you keep the pot! We'll see if I can get it home in one piece.

These next two shots were taken by leaning inside the dark kiln, aiming in each direction both up and down the dark kiln chamber and seeing what the dark insides would reveal. I had no idea that there were pots inside awaiting unloading.
Another shot of 'lotsapots' awaiting firing. There were also massive brand new gas fired car kilns which had to cost a fortune... so I'm guessing the economy on this island is doing quite well... certainly a lot of shops selling wares and trinkets.

Thursday is our day to move out, stash our bags and do one of the yet undone museums here in Bangkok while we await our 6 pm departure on the overnight train down the Thai peninsula to Tran (the train to Tran) arriving at 10 am and then immediately either going out to an island or finding a nice beachside place on the mainland. Students are newly out of school for summer vacation so the trains were booked... hence we only could get upper births with fans (instead of the usual a.c.) so this could be a very hot overnight trip... hope not. Usually the Thai trains are very comfortable and nice.

These next couple of shots show the tradition going forward and some of the exquisite sculptural pieces being done on the island.





F, a Next, a close up of some of the piecing tradition here. These are largish casserole size pots. Finally, a tranquil pond sitting right behind one of the new kilns... if you turn around from loading... this is your view of the world around you. I also have some fine shots of the wheels and the belt driven drives for speed variation. I look forward to arranging these into a slide show for people to view upon my return. Our trip home was quite an adventure. We took the same #32 bus after the water taxi up the Chao Priya river only to find that sinking feeling that nothing on the return trip is familiar... yes, an hour of rush hour fumes later, we found we had taken the bus all the way back to our neighborhood. In retro... could have been a lot worse. I may be out of internet touch for a couple of days... so don't be alarmed. Until then... Mark

Catching up! March 12, 2008

Sunset from the front porch of our first night thatched hut on Bamboo Island. Not bad.

These are photos of the way the jungle and the ruins at Ta Phrom compete. Bob and Vivian in front give a sense of scale... the tree goes up another 100 or more feet. The sounds of the cicadas in unison and the moisture in the air... all lend to the majesty and mystique of this place. The movie Tomb Raiders was filmed here.

Another photo from the same area of yours truly. Red stands out well doesn't it? Ha!

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a business day here in Bangkok getting our train tix for Thursday nights overnight train down to Trangdown the southern Thai peninsula. We also met with Willie again at an upscale restaurant in our area near Rambutri called Hemlock... great name for a place to eat, no? Good food, some claiming to be "ancient" dishes, jazz playing in the background (first time I've experience that in Thailand), good conversation and a chance to meet Willie's very nice friend Pim(?).

This is a photo of a group of musicians seated outside of Ta Phrom who are all landmine survivors... note the prosthesis laying off to the side... nice touch! The sound was beautiful. I have a CD of music from these guys from my trip here four years ago. What spirit.

This next picture is of Bob on the front porch of our second thatched hut on Bamboo Island.

Our second place in which we stayed for two additional nights was also just 30 feet (if that) from the water's edge. Tranquil and some snorkeling possible on this side though the water was murky probably due to the rainstorms at night.
Today we will head toward the pottery island 20 minutes by water taxi from our base in Bangkok. This is a culture of Mon people who settled on this island in the middle of the Chao Priya river here in Bangkok and started making pottery. I was there in '04 and want to show it to B & V as well as to see how they are doing now.
At my end, it does appear these photos are posting so I think I will quit while I'm ahead. I hope you are all well. -Mark