beach bums

Phuket City!

Today is the day we leave the beach for the morning and explore the city life.  We decided that we should see the city considering we were here.  We jumped in a Tuk Tuk (which have I mentioned are the greatest inventions?!  We love them), and head towards the city.  We get there and jump on another Tuk Tuk to do the tourist thing and take it around the city exploring.  It’s great.  We go to a big budda, an amazing scenic top of the mountain place where we can see Chalong Bay and all of the city, and then jet off to a market to see what the locals are into.  The market is crazy, all the clothing is like .50cents!  It’s crazy.  Lots of bardering and lots of people saying lady, shopping, buy this pretty shirt, buy this pretty shoe.  After exploring for awhile (and surprisingly not buying anything) we decided that the market is a bit too full for us and we wanna head back to the beach, to cool down and relax with a well earned beer.  (cause ya know shopping is hard! Haha)  Our tuk tuk takes us back and we jump in the water, grab a chair and a beer and relax for the rest of the day.

As the sun is setting it’s time for us to head back to the hotel, and pick up some food along the way.  It’s been a busy few days, and we are feeling the sun, and heat.  Call it an early night before our last day in Phuket!

 

Phuket City-- again not my pic, it will come eventually!

Last day in Phuket

So today is the last beach bum day we have for a while, so we need to soak up as much sun as we can!  We were going to find a place to rent a long tail boat for the day but it was raining in the am, so we decide to just hit a new beach instead.  Again, jump in a tuk tuk, and we are off to Kata Beach.  What a gorgeous beach, it’s completely different from Patong, it’s relaxed, not too many people, not many vendors (which is GREAT!) and blue blue water.  We might have just found paradise?  Then again, this whole trip seems to be like paradise!  Again grab a couple chairs, throw our stuff down, and hit the water.  The sun has decided to come out and play so we spend hours in the water, only to get out to buy a beer and get back in!  What a great way to spend our last day of beach bum life for a while….next to Bangkok!

Kata Beach...again this is not my pic...mine will come eventually!

Life in the fast lane

So another day has come, to which I am thrilled is here, a full day of island hopping.  Taking off from one island to another in search of the best beaches in Thailand.  One of my dream days.  They pick us up at our hotel and we head to the Royal Marina to catch our three engine speed boat to the islands.

This is a big operation, it’s three boats, all have at least 30 people on them.  And as my Pa would have said “we’re away”. Start the first spot is a cave in which they filmed some air shots for Jurassic Park 2 in, and let’s just say it’s as remote as the movie.  To get in this inlet you have to go over a sandbar (and do to this we could only be in this area for 30mins before the tide was too low for us to get out!).  The water is amazing, so salty you are already floating, so blue it looks unreal, and warm as a bath (without feeling like someone peed in it).  To get in the water, we all jump off the front of the boat, going so deep down, though no one comes close to touching the bottom.  Paradise?  I think so.  Tony and I could float here all day, but sadly we need to leave to get out of the inlet so we can see a few more beaches.

Next spot- Maya Beach.  This is definitely one of the most famous beaches in Thailand, since it was used in Leonardo Dicaprio’s movie The Beach.  The water is nice, the views of the limestone rocks all around are beautiful, but best beach, not yet. 

Then we are off to Monkey Beach (for some reason tourists are all about the monkeys here- we don’t really understand this but are a little more intreagued when we find out that these monkeys can swim and enjoy their seafood.)  The beach is tiny, filled with trees and of course monkey’s!  The lime stone has lots of growth in this area so it seams much larger then the beach area is.  The sand is much harder then we thought, almost made of coral and shells.  Oh well I guess the monkeys don’t mind! 

After feeding this monkeys it’s lunch time for us!  We hop back on the boat and speed off to another island, Phi Phi Island.  Ok before I go farther I am going to say that I had very high hopes for this island as when we looked into staying in Thailand I wanted to stay on this island but the prices weren’t right- they were American standards at about 90$ a night (compared to our 18$ it felt like a rip off!).  So as we pull up I am thinking this beach is going to be worth tons but sure enough it just seems like another beach.  Definitely not the best of the day, but still worthy of the trip.  We hop off and follow our tour guide (who by the way is called Joker and has decided that wherever we go we are not the Joker team, and he needs to repeat everything 3 times before we do anything.  It’s very amusing for us and with his accent we actually appreciate it.)  Lunch is a giant buffet, definitely not the best food we have had in Thailand, but it’s a buffet and they are feeding like 200 people, so it’s decent.  We also don’t really mind too much because we are starving, we have been swimming all day and not had anything since our breakfast at the hotel at 7am.  We enjoy it.  After that we have lots of time to relax on the beach, we find some free chairs and sit and enjoy the area.  It’s absolutely stunning from the beach to look out over the water and see the lime stone islands, inlets and rock formations, boats scattered over the area, with the sun beaming down.  Just perfect. 

Joker Team, Joker Team, Joker Team- time to go!  We are off to snorkeling.  Tony has never done it and is a bit hesitant about it seeing as he is completely blind without his glasses and we are about to put him underwater without them.  Me I have done snorkeling before, but anyone who was with me in Mexico, knows I could possible be the worst snorkler out there.  Yep it’s possible to be bad at it.  Either way we decided to try it.  Turns out was definitely one of the highlights of our day.  Beautiful fish, swimming all around, coral in all colours and clear waters.  Fabulous.  Tony can even see!  We love it.  Turns out it’s something we would like to do again, and soon if possible! 

Now it’s time to relax on the beach, we have had a hard day you know, on and off the boat, swimming, eating, just soo hard.  We definitely need to relax, on the beach with a drink in a coconut, and each other.  What else do we need?  Oh yeah to run into the water when we heat up too much from the sun. Yep, it’s a great end to a perfect day on the water, hopping from beach to beach in search of the best one.  Have we found it?  Not sure we can say we have, but we can say we are keen to keep looking!

again this is not my picture and i dont take any credit for it, and mine will come eventually!
MAYA BEACH

007

Well today was day one of island hopping.  Again after living in the desert for 5 months all water looks amazing, but especially the crystal clear, teal waters here.  It’s really unreal looking, like something you would see in a movie---BUT wait—you did see it in a movie-  007 Man with the golden gun to be exact!  That is our destination today, and man what a fun one to get there!

The tour was a dusk tour so we had all morning to recover from the days of travel and catch up on some well needed sleep.  Then it was time to catch our bus back to the 70s…ok well we didn’t go back in time but seriously this bus did…it was sooo 1970!  Which was a bit ironic since the place we were going to see where it was filmed was done back then too.  So we get on the bus and the tour guide tells us what we will be doing for the day; monkey park with sleeping budda caves; long boat ride to James Bond Island, a fishing village and back to the hotels.  But the best part- as we are driving he starts playing 007 man with the golden gun…talk about awesome.  This is the part where we should say that we had already seen it and were focused on the outside and looking into the towns we were passing, but nope.  Tony and I had never seen the movie, so we were eyes focused on the tv.  Yepp, pay for a tour of Thailand, and you get a movie for free.  Hey it was great. 

So we pull up to the monkey park/ sleeping budda in a cave, and we get a little excited to see the monkeys and they have bananas for sale (I know cheesy tourist picture- but come on you would do the same!); BUT the tour guide then starts telling us about how they are mean monkeys and they bit, watch the children as if they get too close they will bit them and the monkeys have rabbis.  Rabbis was said like 10 times…yeah not so excited for our cheesy tourist picture anymore.  Either way we brave the elements and check out the monkeys and the budda.  The budda is amazing.  So pretty, there are real monks praying there and it’s peaceful. 

Back to the bus, time for more 007!  We arrive to the dock, literally a parking lot with one dock.  Interesting, much much smaller then we thought, but then again it’s Thailand and really anything can be done here.  So we line up to get on the boat, and me being a keener, get us up to the front and sure enough driver gives us the front seats.  Awesome.  Long Tail boats, are sooo old school, they look so amazing, colourful, vibrant and fast.  We are off!  We get to the island and it’s amazing, exactly like the movie (minus the girl in the bikini—no wait there are some there! Hahaha)  The greens seem greener and the blue water bluer it’s just amazing looking.  We climb up the side of the rock, twisting and turning with the lime stone before getting to an amazing look out.  What a view (pics to come I promise!) We spend a few hours checking it out, before it’s time to head back to the Long Tail and head to this fishing village on stilts in the middle of nowhere. 

Here we jump out and find some great photo ops.  They give us an hour here and leave us in a restaurant…what to do eh…better order some fish!  And we did.  We should mention that we are both a little fish hesitant these days…We had a bad experience with a fish market in Bali, and then in the desert no one should order fish- seriously it’s a desert it cant be fresh! So we were a little held back on ordering seafood on this trip, but this might have changed it.  It was great seafood.  Definitely fresh seeing as we could see the fisherman pulling in the catches, and tasted fresh (not too fishy!) Not sure it will be our first choice but we will definitely not completely avoid it like we have been!

Then we headed back to shore where we finished the 007 movie on the way back to Patong.  What a good adventure.  The islands are amazing, and anyone who hasn’t watched 007 man with the golden gun, really should, the last part is all Thailand (not china like they say!) 

the island...and this is sooo not my picture and take no credit for it!  thanks

Phuket!

Lesson 1- Poo-k-et.  Not phu-k-it.

Lesson 2- No thank you.  You will need to tell any vendors it, at all times.  They might be a little relentless, but you will get the feel of it.

Lesson 3- Beer tastes better when it’s $1.

Lesson 4- Beer tastes better on the beach.

Lesson 5- tuk-tuks are great inventions.

We made it to Phuket!  Felt like a finally moment after the whole fiascal yesterday with the flights.  We checked into our hotel rather early, and it’s a little piece of paradise in the crazy world known as Patong Beach.  It’s got a hot shower, a tv (that even gets the asian food channel), a fridge and a king size bed.  Life is good.

Patong Beach is a little crazy, and much of a party town, but I have pick here for a reason.  It’s busy, that means plenty of things to do, and plenty of things to choose from, cheap food, and cheap hotels.  After checking into our little haven we decided to explore and find the beach.  After 5 months in the desert, this is what I have been waiting for, waves, sand, water, chairs and umbrellas all with a beer in hand.  That is just what we found.  We decide that since we have no idea where anything is that we will take the free shuttle from the hotel to the beach.  It’s really more of a truck with benches in the back,yep,  its great, and it’s free.  We just strolled on the beach, taking in the beautiful views (some where of the women- for me that water!), while the sun beaten down on us. Before picking our chairs for the day we decide it will be best that we book our tours for tomorrow so then we can stay on the beach as long as we want.  Two tours  of island hopping- awesome.  Now time to test the water.  Picking that spot and heading straight for the water, gotta cool off!  Get out just in time for our beach man to bring us a beer. (it’s a great system they have- you pay like 3-6$ for two chairs and umbrella for the day- but not only that they watch your stuff!  It’s great you can swim all day and not worry about your bags on the beach!) 

The sun was starting to set so we knew it was time to head back to the hotel in order to get some good sleep in before our big tour tomorrow! 

"Give Me Just One Night"

One night was all we had in Singapore.  It didn’t start off very well, we were due to arrive around 4pm and have the whole night to explore and enjoy another country on our list. That is not what happened.  We had some trouble with the plane leaving Melbourne Airport; it just took forever!  Apparently when they were loading it they broke a something on the door so we had to wait for it to be fixed.  Now in all honesty we hate those people who freak out at the airport (especially at the attendants in the airport- come on they don’t want to be there anymore then you do- they now have to wait to go home til your plane takes off too!)  For those of you have ever been to the Melbourne International Airport know that there is absolutely NOTHING there.  That’s right there is a duty free, a sandwich bar and a souvenir shop- that’s it.  We waited 8 hrs in that.  Yep.  8hrs.  Brutal. Not very fun.  Oh well, it was an experience.  We eventually made it to Singapore.  It was interesting- got our bags and got to a Taxi to take us to our hotel.  At first the driver didn’t talk much but then as we were getting to the hotel he started chatting it up, and joking with Tony.  Then we figured out why, our hotel was in the Red Light District of Singapore.  Yep.  Interesting. Checked into our hotel , turns out not exactly what the pictures looked like….well maybe 20 years ago.  Oh well at this point it’s only a 4 hr nap if we are luck before we hit the road again.  So since we have been in the airport for the last 8 hrs, on the flight for another 8 hrs, we are craving real food- so we hit the town.  Find it super fascinating and completely unlike the Red Light District in Amsterdam (which I have been to- but not Tony <yet!>)  Everything is behind doors and pretection barriers so that you cant see it unless you want to see it.  Interesting.   So we start prering…ok…we didn’t go in..and we didn’t take away…but we did want to see what it was about.  So when other men went it, we looked.  Yup, looks like a place you can get anything you ask for…yep.  We will move on.  Finally find some food, and dig into the noodle dishes.  I am liking mine, Tony not soo much.  Wait…this is a first! Tony not liking Asian noodle bowls!  WHAT!  But wait…it was only because he found it too hot, and that’ s from a man that eats chills out of the gardens, and anywhere he can get his hands on!  That is HOT!  So we finish our noodles and head back to the hotel to crash.  Not exactly what we wanted to do in Singapore- but hey at least we have been there, and it only means we will have to go back again!!!  Now off to Phuket, for some beach bumming, island hopping good times!

Great adventures on the Great Ocean RD!

Day 2
Exploring more of Melbourne!  We started the day where we love starting any day- at the city Market!  Taking the tram there early enough to see all the vendors still setting up.  Some delicious looking fruit and veggies, decant cheeses and breads and mouth watering meats (ok it was Tony's mouth watering on the last one!) We made it back to the hotel only to go out again, taking the free tourist tram around town, learning all about the history of the city.  Getting off with lots of time to wonder around before a lunch reservation Tony had made for us. We ended up in the ritzy portion of the city-full of 5 star hotels and designer shopping!  Then right in the heart of that, down a tiny one lane alley was The Kitchen Cat restaurant.  Behind two glass doors, are cement stairs leading down into the basement of the building towards a window of food.  The window gives you a little hint of what you are about to get into; fresh pasta, cured meats, and housemade breads. We sit down and the waitress brings over some housemade flat bread and some aprocot chips.  Delicious. I had the pig's ears, and then the housemade ravioli (which was litterally from the window at the bottom of the stairs- I saw it as I passed by towards the bathroom!)  Tony had the bone marrow, and the pig's head.  AWESOME meal, yet again in such a foodie town. 
That afternoon we got to doing some tasks which we needed to do since we havent seen a city in a few months- banks, pharmacies, clothing for the trip etc...Before a dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant.  Korean BBQ is delicious by the way.  It's lots of fun grilling your own stuff and coming up with lots of concoctions (kinds reminds me of when we were kids and used to mix stuff together and think it tastes delicious~ but Korean BBQ is actually delicious!)

Day 3
We picked up the rental car and we were off!!!  Great Ocean Road here we come!  What an amazing scenic drive.  Getting out of the city didnt seem to be too much of a challenge (thank gosh!) since Melbourne is known for it's aweful traffic and too many cars on the road. But we were off!  Had a great day checking out all (ok not all cause it would take you FOREVER if you stopped at every lookout point!) the lookouts before pulling into Apollo Bay for a night at the Beach Front Motel.  We wondered down the beach and dipped our toes (believe me it's all we dipped it was FREEZING!) into the Ocean before calling it an early night.

Day 4
We continued on the Great Ocean Rd til the 12 apostles (the biggest scenic stop on the trip). It was breath taking.  It was also raining and very very cold out.  We did the tourist thing, took some pictures, santa (my travelling gnome friend from Uni) was cold so we picked up some hot drinks from the kiosk before hitting the road again. The road was so scenic ocean views around each corner, through the countryside that was filled with sheep and cows, just beautiful.  We pulled into the Royal Mail Hotel for the night.  We picked the Royal Mail Hotel because it's one that we noted while watching an episode of Anthony's Bourdain's No Reservations.  Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations is a show that a chef travels around the world looking for teh best food, and the best food experiences; adding a satiric atmosphere filled with atititude, alcohol and a smart mouth.  In this case The Royal Mail Hotel was featured because it's in the middle of nowhere, at the base of mountains that features 5 star fine dinning restaurant filled with all local products.  It was devine.  The hotel room was huge (tony even said he could live in it if it had a kitchen- I said it's bigger then the one we did live in in PEI with a kitchen!) We eat in the Pub that night (cause 2 months of travel doesnt come cheap) so we wanted to save some of our cash (it was like 100 each a plate!) and enjoy some local product at the Royal Mail Pub.  It was great, still all local product just a bar menu.  I had a delicious wagyu rump and Tony had a wagyu corned beef.  We enjoyed some drinks over talk of our upcoming wedding!  (WoooWooop!!!)

Day 5
Waking up to the Grampians was devine.  Breakfast was of course included in our stay so we headed across the lane for some grub before taking off.  It was great- everything was fresh and made there.  We know cause they keep going to the garden and coming back with arms and trays full of their food!  What a great way to start your day! We then jumped in the car again and we're away! We weaved our way around the countryside making it to another tiny town after another.  Stopping breafly for lunch at a place that Tony found Beer and Breakfast.  Delicious.  Again all local products paired with guy who loves beer, and the creation was amazing food.  We then made our way back to Melbourne for a night in a budget hotel close to the airport before taking off in the am for Singapore!


This is the 12 apostles-- not our picture but it gives you an idea of what we did this week!!!

day 1- full of pig in melbourne!

We officially arrived in Melbourne!  Everyone has been telling us for months that we will love it here.  Well, they are soooo true!  We have been having a blast (even if we have only been here for a few hours!), loving the city life again, seeing stores, banks, malls everything!
Tonight was date night- Tony has been planning a few places for us to eat on our first journey back to real food!  The spot tonight Josie Bones an amazing place, that incorporates tony's love for pig and my love of beer!  Some of you might be thinking that the next steps are, well a little out there, but, we LOVE it.  Tony's philosophy of food is to use it all; all parts of all animals if not it's not worth killing. 
Our menu for the night;
a tasting of pork crakling
squid ink braised baby octopus served with sourdough bread
an amazing chacutarie board- fennel seed and chilli cuired pork loin; airdired beef; prosciutto; chicken roulade with some delicious onion jam
Then we shared some more samplers-
rolled pigs head sauce garbiche and crackling
beer braised and hickory smoked ox tounge with herbs
and brussel sprouts with roasted chestnuts and panchetta
WHAT A MEAL!  Amazing!  An amazing first date of the vacation!
Check out the Josie Bones website for some amazing food porn; and if your mouth is watering then dont worry we bought the cookbook!!!!!!!
http://josiebones.wordpress.com/