Island-Hopping Turned Food-Tasting

Island-Hopping Turned Food-Tasting..

Yes, am excited as always when it comes to holidays and traveling! Especially when I don’t (really) have to burn a hole in my travel-gear. Lemme qualify that.. no ridiculously-expensive airport tax, more-than-ten-dollar-just-for-a-visa charges. Just minimal charges for a long tailed boat ride, perhaps motorcycle ride and of course a place-for-my-40kg-body to rest, refresh & relax. Anyway, having spent the last holidays in Nepal highland -enjoying its snow-capped mountains-, the plan is to hop on the islands in Andaman Sea or at least take a stroll along the beaches. (Nope, snorkeling and diving are not part of the agenda. Well, not that I hate d-cute Nemo and gang.. just that I don’t even know how to float myself, let alone swim or dive). Did I just announce that to the whole-wide-world? Not that I care, anyway.
D place … I have not mentioned where exactly the place is, have I? Andaman Sea is such a wide area that covers roughly 1200 km long (north-south) and 650 km wide (east-west). And do you know that there are 576 islands in the Andaman Islands, 26 of which are inhabited? A good geography lesson, heh? Actually I just realized that too. Thanx to wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andaman_Sea). Anyway, the plan is to spend time at Ko Libung and Ko Mook (in some sites it is spelled as Ko Muk). Ko Libung is the biggest of the 2 islands (about 40 square kilometers), mainly inhabited by Muslims.
Paying the price for not planning… As the place is kinda small and not as popular as Phuket/ Phi Phi/ Tarutao, I was confident that there was no need to book the resorts/bungalows in advance. And was also confident there won’t be any problem getting a taxi ride from Satun (another small town in Southern Thai) to Trang (before you can get to the Hat Yao pier).
Well, I was proven wrong from the very beginning… firstly we (oh, yeah, there is the other-half, J) waited for almost 2 hours for a taxi, to get to Trang. We were contemplating if we should take the bus. But on second thought (perhaps forth), we decided not to. You see, it’ll take 2 hours to reach Trang by taxi. But double that if you take the bus. I tried to concentrate reading “King- Hearts in Atlantis” (the one that I carried since my Nepal trip) but was distracted by the Oh-is-that-our-taxi that passed by. We were told by a lady (who was sending off her daughter to Trang) that Monday is also a new year for the Thai people. That was the first signal that the weekend will be a hectic-crowded one. But our holiday-excited-contaminated-minds failed to recognize the signal.
The taxi finally arrived and we paid 350 Baht for the ride (pay first before you hop in). The lady helped to explain to the driver that we intend to go to Ko Libung. Oh, in case you are wondering why we had her spoke to the driver on our behalf …Majority of the Muslims in Satun don’t speak Bahasa Melayu (Malay language). And we don’t speak a single word of Thai (ok, does Tomyam Kung count?) to which they found ‘funny’ as we do look like them too (physical appearance). So, you can imagine how greatful we felt when the lady helped explained to the driver. We told her we can find our ways in Trang and there is no need for the driver to drop us at the pier.
The strings of laughs and questions… so, we finally left the taxi stand (too small to be called a station) with the lady’s daughter and another guy. Being crammped in a taxi ride, we guess it’ll be rude if we don’t start communicating with the other riders. So, we used the simplest form of communication – smiling. And the responses we got was strings of questions or something that sounded like questions in Thai. And we just replied with more smiles (to a point where I felt we were grinning more than smiling). And they kept talking, looking at us, questioning and laughing (lasted at least for 10 minutes). The laughing cum talking finally stopped when the taxi came to a halt at a taxi stand and the driver waived to a guy at sitting at the bench (obviously another taxi driver). Another strings of Thais were exchanged between both the drivers and the other 2 passengers. And both of us were.. you guessed right – confused!!
No more comm. breakdown, finally! (at least for that moment)… After being totally ignored from the conversation, we were finally spoken to. Oh, yeah the other driver spoked to us (let’s call him driver 2). Apparently he speaks Bahasa. Well here goes:

• Driver 2: Nak pi mana ni? (where are you guys going?)
• J: Nak pi Libong. Naik kut Hat Yao (going to Libong through Hat Yao pier)
• Driver1 to Driver2: in Thai … have no idea what he was saying
• Guy to Driver2: also in Thai …
• Driver2 to us: Dia boleh bawak pi Hat Yao kalu nak (he can bring you guys direct to Hat Yao, if you want)
• Me: berapa? (how much?)
• Driver2 to Driver1: in Thai …
• Driver2 to us: 600 Baht
• Me to J: Expensive, almost double than this taxi ride. It’ll cost just 60 Baht if we take public van
• Driver2 to Driver1 and vice-versa: in Thai.. (it was chaotic)
• Guy to Driver2: in Thai (gosh! what is happening?)
• Lady’s daughter to Guy: in Thai (grr.. am losing my patience here) (I bet he can guess what we were saying)
• Driver2 to us: Tak mahal. 6 ringgit saja. Bawak pi sampai Hat Yao. (not expensive, only 6 Ringgit and you will be sent direct to Hat Yao)
• J to me: If 6 Ringgit then ok ahh?
• J to Driver2: Ok.
• Driver2 to Driver1: Ok… more in Thai

Everyone laughed again!! And so did we. But I had no single clue what we were laughing about. Perhaps acknowledging the successful communication between the 2 parties, or was it 5 parties?

Post travel note:  To cut the long story short, the taxi driver dropped us at the agreed place. Unfortunately, we had to pay for 600 Baht (equivalent to almost Ringgit Malaysia 60). I was not sure if it was a case of day light robbery or a classic case of miscommunication. Another unfortunate thing.. our island hopping plans didn't materialize. We ended up hopping from one eating-place to another.. (and am ok with that too! Life is just too short to be grumpy)

Nepal, anyone?

Nepal, anyone?

Traveling to Nepal, a thought that has been occupying my mind for more than a year. For a person who never really plans for her holiday trips, 14 months are really long. I finally made it to Nepal last November. So, here I go.. my very first blog on a journey that I have dreamed on for months. Hopefully, I will finish this blog before I forget all the fun-adventurous-are we there yet-tiring memories in Nepal. For those of you who are yet to seek similar adventure in Nepal, well perhaps this sharing would help.

Nov 11, 06 (SAT) 0850 Bangkok local time
Suvarnabhumi Airport (mind you.. it is pronounced as Suwanapoom) : An airport that was finally opened last September after numerous delays. Obvious signs that the airport is yet to be fully completed but somehow is quite hectically ‘occupied’ by frantic-eager travelers. Another obvious thing – the wireless access points are everywhere, at least 10 meters apart from one another. Good news for those who suffer from the can’t-live-without-internet syndrome.
Sitting at the bench waiting for our flight to Kathmandu, we can sense Nepal in the air. Guys with same-same but different t-shirts (of course it doesn’t make sense to me then, not till i read a note in lonely planet-Nepal); ladies with fleece jackets; elderly men with dhaka topi. Nepal, here we come!
Nov 11, 06 (SAT) 1225 Nepal local time
We arrived in Tribhuvan International Airport Kathmandu, noon, local time only to find out that our luggage is LOST! This is definitely one of the nightmares that every traveler would want to avoid, at all cost. We waited for more than 45 minutes; talked to the airport guy, and finally had to swallow the hard fact “Sorry madam, but there was no more luggage from flight TG390. What we can do now is for you to file a report .. blah blah… perhaps tomorrow.. blah blah”. The good thing was, there were at least 4 other people/couples who shared similar fate. Not that I was clapping hands for them. At least we know it was not just our luggage that was lost. I was hoping that the chances of recovering the luggages are higher, when there was more than just one lost case.
The bad news was .. that luggage contained most of my clothings. Yikes!
My first instinct (ok, perhaps not my 1st) was to go out of the arrival hall and look for our guide, Binod Mahat. Wouldn’t want to ‘lose’ him too. Being tall, and having seen his photo from his website, he was easy to spot! Lucky for us, Binod has been standing there smiling from far, perhaps anxiously waiting for us.
So we left the airport with heavy heart, but with lighter luggage before we took off this morning.
Lesson learnt: (1) always split your clothings into 2 separate luggages (2) make sure your guide is tall enough for you to spot him (ok, kidding!)

Traffic Jam in Tikhadunga, Nepal

Nov 14, (TUE) Tikhadunga, Nepal I can’t begin to describe how it feel to have trekked for hourS today (mind you the bold-capital S). It was definitely a lonnggg 6-hour trek. Even the 8-hour walk in the shopping mall with my gal-friend doesn’t resemble any of the pain that I experienced.
I know, I know.. I should not compare trekking (rather walking up) the stainless steel escalators to trekking these man-made paves.
A few days earlier, we were stuck in a bad traffic jam from Kathmandu to Pokhara. There was a couple of road accidents along the highway.  And surprise, surprise we faced another heavy traffic that we had to stopped trekking. I guess god really has a great sense of humor. Back home, I had always gotten stuck in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam.  Who’d have thought we’d get stuck in a same-same-yet-different kind of bumper-to-bumper traffic. But this time, it was a pleasant experience (see photo attached, you know what I mean).