One Life ...

Breakfast at the market today started with breakfast at the local market. We wandered around looking at all the goodies and settle on something not so healthy! Hot coffee and pa thong ko (little Thai donuts) . After this we had another wander but ended up back in the same spot for a Thai iced tea. We didn't intend on having any more donuts but the kind lady on the stall gave us some more... How could we refuse! Back at the hotel we did some more research for our trip to India before heading out for a walk. We didn't really have a plan so just headed out of the hotel in the opposite direction to which we usually go. We stopped and looked in a few shops along the way and then found ourselves on the street where the schools are... and school was finishing, which meant the street food sellers would be out. Today's treat was sticky rice with crispy chicken skin and sweet fried chicken. We so had a pancake with a mini hotdog and various sauces... Both delicious! We were

Today we went in separate directions first thing. Darryl went in search of water from the machine and Christine was in charge of the laundry. Still, the water machine was locked away, so Darryl gave up! The washing machine was also being used so Christine retreated to the market to waIt. We reconvened at the market as this was where breakfast was waiting. We decided on delicious coconut jelly snacks, coffee and hot soya milk. We also bought some oranges as the market closed. The washing machine was now free so we added our dirty clothes to be collected in an hour. We set a timer on the phone to coincide with the timer on the washing machine. Darryl went in search of water again and found exactly what we were looking for. A huge bottle that the locals use. He paid a 90 Baht deposit and 30 Baht for 20 litres! The shops tend to sell 500ml plastic bottles of water for 10 Baht! We will get the deposit back when we return the huge bottle to the shop. Washing done and hung all around the hote

A little lie in this morning to recover from the late night zoom talk at the CA. As we ate some much last night today a single banana sufficed. This morning's adventure led us along the river to the Mangrove Boardwalk. It was nice and shady amongst the trees which was just what we needed. When the sun is out, it is hot! Half way along the boardwalk there was a brand new concrete lookout tower. We climbed to the top to admire the view over the river and surrounding area. There was a nice cool breeze at the top so we stalled for a while before heading down again. The mangrove roots are an interesting tangle of support. When we reached the end of the boardwalk there stood a partially completed jetty. Eventually, it will take people across the river to the cave on the other side. We stopped and watched a variety of weird crabs going about their daily business. The strangest ones had only one in large yellow claw. Others had 2 claws but we're bright red! After watching the little cr

After breakfast we headed to the local market and bought some rice, curry and veg for lunch. We then caught the local 'bus' (a jeep with seats in the back) to Ao Nang Beach. Along the way we picked up a group of French backpackers. The driver threw all their backspacks up onto the roof and told everyone to get in. As much as we all squeezed up there really wasn't enough room for everyone. Two of the lads stood on the back step and held on. After a while they decided to join their backpacks on the roof! A little further along the road the jeep pulled over, the driver got out and asked them to get down, as he had received a phone call from the police! As we arrived, first at Norrarat beach and then Ao Nang, we could see all the limestone karsts which make a really pretty backdrop. We jumped out at Ao Nang and walked along the beach in search of some shade. We spotted a wooden walkway going up so decided to go. This was called Monkey Trail as there were lots of monkeys a

We finished off our last bananas. We didn't want to take them with us in our bags as they always end up squashed. After breakfast, we had a short wait for our minibus to arrive. Just after 11am the backpacker bus turned up. There was a single seat available in the front and a super uncomfortable sideways bench seat in the back. Christine opted for the front seat but what we didn't know was 3 other people were still to be collected! To make room, Darryl moved to the front to sit between Christine and the driver on the no backrest seat! 3 hours later, after a relatively uncomfortable journey, we arrived in Krabi town. We dropped everyone else heading to Phuket at a bus stop and the driver dropped us opposite our hotel. Check in complete we went for lunch across the street - Chicken rice. After lunch we headed out to explore Krabi town. First stop was Wat Kaew Korawaram a beautiful white temple with a blue roof, up on a hill. From here we just wandered.  We passed some school ch

We had a lazy morning with breakfast on the terrace. We're well settled into the banana and porridge routine but the coffee is getting low. We are spending a lot of time on the Internet researching our trip to India. Getting to the holi festival seems a little bit too difficult. We had lunch at a regular restaurant. We have worked our way through every 60 baht  dish, including with ginger, cashew nuts and sweet and sour sauce. We went for a walk along the beach and took a personal challenge to walk the blue floating pontoon. The whole thing was an absolute nightmare it was like taking part in 'It's a Knockout' back in the 80s! Luckily no one ended up in the water. Back at the hut we spoke to some German travelers. They had hired a motorbike to explore the island. When they were picking the motorbike up, they saw a 4m long snake! Dinner was served at a local restaurant and we enjoyed our final meal in Koh Lanta. We went for an evening walk along the beach and the reggae

A lazy start to the day. Breakfast on the porch of the little hut fit for the 3 bears. Porridge and bananas. There are plenty of monkeys in the are who would have liked to join us. They seem to enjoy jumping on our roof about 7am ... India planning followed in the hammock and lunchtime arrived quickly. Once again we frequented our cute little restaurant just down the road. Rice, chicken and vegetables with a variety of sauces to choose from. A short visit to Lotus's and a walk amongst the touristy shops and we came to a Muai Thai boxing gym. Usually the training are was quiet but today there was a training session in full swing. We sat for a while and watched ... Mainly, it appeared to be Europeans on holiday training with various Thai instructors. There were children and an older woman too. They were all getting stuck in and sweating buckets. Sunset on the beach didn't disappoint. And, as soon as it was dark on came the green 'ufo' lights of the fishing boats. Yesterd

This morning was spent with a mixture of excitement and indecision. Our next stop is India but the south of India. We have just discovered that the Holi festival is happening in India at the time we are there but it is in the north of india! We are not sure if we should change our plans to go to the north to witness the colour extravaganza. We checked flights, buses and trains to see how we could travel to the north but it is really, really, really far!!! 2 overnight train journeys totalling about 36 hours might get us there or a 4 hour flight most of the way... India is huge. Soon it was time to go for lunch. As the meals we had at the little restaurant yesterday were so good. We headed back for more. Luckily there is plenty to choose from, so maybe we'll make our way through the menu whilst we are here! After lunch we headed to the main beach. Klong Nin. This beach is where the seafront apartments and beach bars are. It is a nice long beach with a few rocks and unfortunate

Breakfast today was coffee provided by the hotel plus our last remaining banana and oats. We were at the beach for 8:30 am, queued for our boarding pass and climbed on to the big speed boat. It was completely packed with tourists , all European. Off we went at break neck speed. It was a little bumpy as we rounded the island and lost our shelter from the land. The rest of the journey went smoothly, well kind of. The speed boat and the ocean bumped us around a lot. We saw lots of the other Thai islands as we passed and a number of sailing boats enjoying the beautiful weather. We arrived in Koh Lanta and docked at the jetty. We waitied a while for our pick up and delivery to our hotel. Well, it wasn't really a hotel but a cute little hut amongst the trees. The bags were dropped off and we headed out to find some food. It didn't take long before we were sat in a small restaurant enjoying a tasty meal. Once we had finished eating we walked down to the beach and along the sand. We d

Morning coffee time followed by breakfast. Well, sort of. The hostel restaurant wasn't open because they had had no food delivery. Luckily, we had supplies to fall back on. There are other restaurants too, just twice the price! Today, we were determined to find a great snorkelling spot on Koh Lipe. We decided to follow a recommendation to go to Pattaya beach and head for the rocks on the left. We took it in turns to see what we could find. Christine managed to spot a huge moray eel swimming and a baby octopus chasing a shrimp! We realised we had left our water at the hostel and returned to collect it. We also had a short coffee break before trying another beach. Unfortunately, the visibility was poor but the beach restaurant had a book swap where Christine traded her girlie novel for a serious science book. Because we couldn't see anything under the water, we headed back to our earlier spot on Pattaya beach. Darryl discovered a nudibranch clinging to a huge rock plus 2 fishing

We had breakfast at our accommodation of rice and Thai omelet with plenty of chilli sauce. We then packed up our snorkelling gear and headed for Sunrise Beach (although not in time for sunrise!!). Just off the beach is a small island, Koh Usen. We had been told that between Koh Lipe and Koh Usen there was some coral, but to watch out for the long tail boats which sometimes pass between the islands. As Koh Lipe is only 2 miles long and 1 mile wide nowhere is far away, so after a short walk we arrived. We found a shadey spot, donned our snorkelling gear and we were off. There was some hard coral and we saw clown fish, parrot fish, banner fish and Christine spotted a stone fish. We then headed to the other end of the beach, where there is another small island, Koh Kra. Darryl headed out to scout the area as the water was rather choppy. He found some nice coral but the conditions for snorkelling were not good. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. We walked along the beach, past some

We left Langkawi quite early. We had to be at the ferry office 2 hours before the boat was due to leave to fill out immigration documents. The ferry will take us from Malaysia into Thailand. The ferry was quite quick. We slept most of the way as all there was to see for most of the journey was ocean. It was a little bumpy but not too bad. On arrival we were collected in long tail boats and our luggage was off loaded for us by the crew. Our job was to pass through immigration on the beach. We queued at a little hut, passed over our passports for stamping and that was it. We were in! Next we paid our 200 Baht park entry fee valid for 5 days. We walked along the sandy lanes to our hotel and dropped our bags. First stop, the beach! We had a map and headed straight for a snorkelling spot. The beach was really nice and the snorkelling was ok. The coral was shallow, in small patches and looked a little damaged. We returned to the hotel for some food and headed back to sunset beach to enjoy th

Hotel checkout was 12 o'clock, so we took advantage of our final breakfast and free hot drinks. Our bags were packed and we headed off along the main road to the bus stop. We discussed whether we should get the first bus to arrive or first grab lunch. We decided to wait at the bus stop to see if an earlier bus arrived. A bus arrived and took us to Kuala Kedah. It was an old bus with a friendly driver. He dropped as at the KK jetty. As we were now early for our 4pm ferry, we went to find lunch. A small cafe was selling nasi kandar so we sat and ate! Iced coffee with the usual sweet evaporated milk plus sugar helped us stay hydrated and took us one step closer to sugar overload. Inside the ferry building, our friend had come to wave us off after his earlier appointment. It was a nice surprise. The ferry left on time. We enjoyed the scenery for the first 2 minutes before sleeping the rest of the way. We even missed Godzilla King of the Monsters on TV. As usual the Aircon was freezing!

Breakfast of toast and tea was followed by a spot of research on the Indian PCR test requirement. It looks like it was damaging tourism for Thailand, so they have removed it again! We went for a walk to the stadium and a quick 'Bundle' shoe shop stop. That was pretty much the only place open! We were picked up from our hotel by our friend who wanted to take us to visit his old schools. The primary school was in new buildings now and the old ones left to decay. The secondary school was rather special - Kolej Sultan Abdul Hamid. We believe it was one, if not the oldest English medium schools in Malaysia. It was set up or managed by the British. We could see from the many displayed photos how the school had changed from colonial rule to the present day. The school had produced a lot of Malaysia's elite - prime ministers, top policemen, military commanders. Even the sultan went there! We explored the lobby and read the historical documents. It was quite fascinating. Next stop w

We have spent a long time debating our next move - the crossing into Thailand. We have learned a lot from our research of the border area and the deep routed problems that exist. Governments around the world advise not to use the area especially the popular train route from the border at Padang Basar to Hat Yai. In December 2022 there were 2 bombs that killed a number of people. We have decided that we will take the ocean route via Langkawi to Koh Lipe.  Flying was another option we considered but didn't take us exactly where we really wanted to be. Most of the day disappeared before we went out to eat. We made it across the road to our friend's restaurant to try chicken chop. 2 plates ordered with pepper sauce and a tomoto sauce, both delicious. We chatted to our friend, who was joined by his friend's throughout the night. He kindly left the restaurant to take us on a tour of the town and to see the sultan's palace. We couldn't see much beyond the massive gates but

A lazy start after another late night. Our friend collected us at 11.30am and we headed out for food. This time it was chapatis. We went to a little place, well hidden from the road but obviously very well known to the locals. The place was packed and people were queuing for chapatis. We managed to secure a seat and ate freshly made chapatis along with chicken, beef and mince all of which were delicious. Next stop was the fish man. This particular friend rescues street cats, he currently has 20. He buys fresh fish from a local fisherman every couple of days. He told us the cats have become so used to the fresh fish, they now turn their nose up at frozen fish! We then headed to Gunung Keriang. This area has a huge limestone rock where people go to find crystals and also to rock climb. First we stopped at the shop to look at the crystals, which were very beautiful. There were also lots of moneys around outside but they didn't seem interested in us at all. A short drive an

The toast routine continued this morning but each day the number of pieces eaten increases! A lazy morning followed by a long hot walk to find lunch. We went on e again to the little Nasi Lemak stall across town where we ate before. Once again great, tasty food with a friendly smile! We visited the huge Central mall to take advantage of the air conditioning and bought perfume followed by mango yoghurt drinks. Perfume sounds a little luxurious for backpackers but it was super cheap - £1 - and only a tiny spray card. Next we relaxed at the hotel and had a snooze, mainly to recover from the 2am chats with our local friends from across the road! Evening came and we were taken to the food fair by our friend. The food fair was backed as it is the weekend in the state we are in (Fri + Sat). We tested different foods and our friend explained that most of the people we talked to were a fully famous in Malaysia. There were actors and singers everywhere and he seemed to know a lot of them. We ask

The free breakfast is going well. 4 pieces of toast later and we're done.We did a spot of research on our next movement options before being collected by a friend at midday. He very kindly took us to a small restaurant the other side of town, where he ordered some delicious dishes with beef, lamb and chicken for us to try. They were so good! We chatted in the restaurant for a long time before making our next move. As we drove through Alor Star we had our own personal tour guide explaining about the area and it's history. We needed dessert so headed into the huge Central mall. We found a churros stall where they sold Spanish coffee. We saw a sign telling us about the Korean product. We were slightly confused as we thought churros was a Spanish thing. The coffee was Spanish but why was the churros Korean? We laughed about French Baguette in KL also being Korean. In Malaysia the youngsters are crazy for Korean bands known as K Pop! We toured the fancy shops and each bought a littl