More Thailand and a Taste of India

 Three weeks of Vacation in Thailand and India

 Sunset at Railay Bay Resort

As seen in my previous post I was in Thailand following the end of my contract in Malaysia.  I stayed in two resorts while in Krabi.  Both were very nice and had their own good and bad points.  The first place I stayed had a nice pool.

Pool at Alisea Resort

I did a lot of walking while staying here.  This area is very touristy but has some nice looking scenery. 

The food was pretty good at both resorts in Krabi and I enjoyed my time there.

  At Alisea resort the staff were great and tried to help me with any of my needs.  About the only bad thing I have to say about this resort is the TV.  There was only one english channel and it repeated the same shows all day.  I think I watched an episode of millionaire dating club around 4 times in 2 days.  

Railay bay resort was my next stop and the scenery was beautiful.

Railay Bay Resort Pool view

 The only real problem I had here was that almost all the staff couldn't speak english which surprised me a lot.  But they all tried to do what they could and if you were patient then you got what you wanted.

After Krabi I was in Bangkok for a couple of days to meet my friend so we could go off to India.  Most people seem to love India, so I figured it should be a nice vacation and I could say I've been to India, which a lot of people can't say.

We took a bus, a shuttle and a taxi to get to our first resort in Anjuna Beach.  As you can see from the picture below, they had a nice pool.  It was very refreshing after a long day of sweating in the Indian heat and humidity.  That's about all I have to say about this place.  

 We walked along the beach in Anjuna and got completely harassed by the locals trying to sell their trinkets.  It was so bad that we decided to find a road to walk back to the resort.  I think if it had been high tourist season it might not have been so bad, as we were the only white people around so they all came to us.

We also, tried to do a sunrise at the fort near Anjuna but it didn't open until 9am.  We did 3 nights in Anjuna and then moved on to Calangute beach.

The hotel here was way nicer except the pool had a film on the surface because they didn't have the filter running.  I couldn't bring myself to go in even though I was boiling hot.  At least the air-con worked well.  The staff were really nice and helpful here, so that was good.

We hired a taxi to take us to Old Goa town church.  I can't remember the name of this church but it was nice.

inside the old Goa town church

nice trees outside the church

After the church we could see a ruined tower in the distance, so we asked our driver to take us there.

 

This place was pretty cool.  I really like walking around ruins.  This was St. Augustine's Church and Monastery.  I think there was a convent here too or maybe just a church and convent.  Can't remember.

After the churches we moved on to a spice plantation where we had a guided tour of a small part of the plantation.  There were some interesting trees to see.  I was a little surprised by how many spices grow on trees and not on smaller plants.

Looked like worms growing out of the tree

This is a vanila plant that grows on trees.  Made me think of a bug of some sort.

You could get spit on by an Elephant if you wanted.  The girl in front didn't want to, but her dad made her

Road to Calangute Beach

The waves were to big for me to go in the water

We rented a scooter and drove to this fort.  I think it was called Aguada Fort.  Nice view.  Wish there had been a little more to see.

St Anthony's Church in the middle of the road

A neat house along the road

After a couple of days in Calangute we decided to spend our final night in a five star hotel at Bogmalo Beach.  This was the view from our sixth floor balcony, not bad.

The view was amazing and so was the sunset (below) but as nice as this resort looked, it wasn't much better than the one and two star places we had stayed in earlier.  While my friend was showering the water turned brown and dirty, then I think the neighbors flushed the toilet and all we could smell was sewer for the next hour.  Thankfully the smell went away

watching the sun set and relaxing at Bogmalo Beach Resort

All in all I think India was worth doing, but I won't be going back.  Due to the off season my friend couldn't find a yoga class to take, they were all closed until November.  As I'm sure you know, cow's are sacred in India and they get to roam everywhere.  Cow pie's galore make for a very countryside smell, even in the cities.  

Something I really liked about India is that they don't cut down all the trees to build a house.  The greenery is everywhere and it was probably my favorite part of India.

I think I was expecting something very different from India than what I got.  There is a small part of me that can understand why people like it, but at the end of the day it wasn't really for me.  

I don't want to discourage people from going because it is a beautiful country, if you can see past the poorness of it all.  I never felt crowded while there despite there being over a billion people living in the country and I didn't get sick like almost everyone else I have ever heard about going to India.  Just stay away from the tap water.

Now I will stay in Canada and visit my family for couple of months. 

Bye bye.

First Day at Railay Bay Resort and Spa

 Railay Bay and Hong Island

I made the transition from one resort to another and boy what a difference.  At the first resort the area was very touristy, with many shops to buy all the junk a tourist could ever want, lots of english speakers around to communicate with and lots of room for taking long walks.

Railay Bay?  Almost the complete opposite!  Not a lot of English to be had here, but the staff are still super nice and try really hard to understand what you are asking for.  Shops?  Not many and they are all on the east side of the peninsula.

Low tide.  Not the prettiest thing to look at.

One of the shops on the east side.

I really like the scenery around this area and its super quiet here so far.  Lots of younger European people here, but I'm not seeing any partying going on so far.  Not much for tourists here, just quiet, calm and relaxing atmosphere.  As an anti-social person maybe not the best location.  I don't think I've spoken socially to another person, excepting resort staff, for over a week now.

In order to try and break the silence I decided when I got to this resort that  I would book a day trip and do some snorkeling.  The islands around here are very picturesque.  

Longtail boat

Hong lagoon.  One way in, one way out.

Very nice looking water

The symbol of Hong Islands.  Not sure what it's trying to say. 

The next stop was small sand bar that we stopped at for a quick swim.  I had bought a cheap knock-off Gopro, so I decided to give it a try here.  Not much to see with it but I did get this fairly nice picture with my phone (in a waterproof pouch).  Indonesian smoke haze was fairly low today so that was good.

 The next stop was the snorkeling location and I used the fake Gopro properly.

There is a crab in the bottom right quarter of this picture.  Hope you can see it, it's orange.

 As you can see the water is a little cloudy.  I don't think it's the best time of year for snorkeling here.  It's definitely not as nice as Tioman in Malaysia was.  My cheap little camera did a decent job of it though.

I was told that there was a Barracuda in the area, but I didn't see it while I was swimming.  As I watched the video I realized that I got it, if only for a couple of seconds, but it's so cool that I got it.  Here's to having good luck.

All in all, this day was pretty good.  I got to talk to a few people, see some fishes and relax.

Just taking a little break in the water.

I will leave you with a couple more pictures of the area.

Sitting in the front of the speed boat looking back

Railay East

Railay West

One of the speed boats at the Hong lagoon

The rest of my time here will be spent writing.  I have managed 4300 words so far.  Hoping for 10,000 before I go to Bangkok.

2 Days at Krabi

I've now been at Krabi for two days. So far it's pretty decent day one was hot and sunny. I managed to get a small sunburn even though I lathered the sunblock on pretty thick.

I also took a couple of nice pictures with my phone. 

 Statue along the beach

Water is a little cloudy 

As you can see, the weather is pretty decent.  The sun was hot and the temp was much the same as Malaysia, but it wasn't as hard to handle.  I think the humidity is lower here.  I still sweat like crazy but its not as bad as it is was in Pontian.

Its been very hazy in Malaysia for the past few weeks and coming here I thought I had managed to escape it, but as you can see by the picture below, I haven't.

This is roughly the same view as the previous one and that is not rain or mist.  It's smoke from Indonesia.  Indonesia has been smoking out all of Southeast Asia this year.  They do it on a regular basis, but this year seems to be worse than last year.

Yesterday

Today

Yesterday

Today

Even with the hazy conditions I am having a nice time here.  I managed to get a few pages of my book written (check my other blog if you want to read it) and I will hopefully be able to continue that in the coming days.

I had a really good Calzone for dinner yesterday.  The Italian restaurant attached to this resort is pretty good.

Yummy!!!

Hopefully I will be able to hit some sights in the next few days.  I will keep you all updated since I am here until the 14th.  TTYL.