Sunday, April 06, 2008

Ko Lipe Day #4 & #5

Day#4 22nd March 2008
Today, our boatman, Ah Liek, brought us to a beach where we explored giant corals. There were many varieties, and we saw 2 huge Murray eels too. However, we failed to see any 'Crown of Thornes ', the coral eating starfish here. The one we saw yesterday was bright purplish in colour, and had 18 arms. We spent some two hours around this reef......... Then we adjourned to Ko Rawi.

Ko Rawi has always been my favourite island. Surprisingly, there were so many tourists this time, and mainly were locals. Perhaps because today was a Saturday. The snorkeling site brought nostalgic moments, we came here with Don, Dave and Xiao Li some 5 years ago.
Many were topless on the island, so was this one :)
First thing first. We had our lunch, made in Ko Rawi.

As we entered the water, there was originally a strong current . Thus, we snorkeled along the rope provided, but it calmed down after a while. I remembered the current was much stronger those days. After a few hours, we were all tired, satisfied, and started to come back.

You can easily imagine how was it looking at fishes through our goggles. But this was how the fishes saw us, though our goggles.

This couple found the right swing, as it had 2 ropes. The background was the snorkeling site.

Pei Yean's swing was design for singles, as there was only a single rope :) She was probably the first girl from Singapore to have landed in Ko Rawi :)

The beautiful thing in Rawi was the availability of fresh shower after soaking in salt water.
It's such a luxury!
Looking at Pei Sun's face, you can easily gather that the water must be very cold :)Everybody had fun..............

From here, our fishing appetite had grown bigger! We decided to trawl for "Pla Insi", which is the Thai equivalent of Mackerel. Choon Ping and Pit Fuh were the first guinea pigs.

They looked so motivated and enthusiastic, initially.

Once a wise man said,
" On one end of a fishing line may be a fish, but the other end is probably a fool".

This is how they looked after sitting in the hot sun for 1 hour without any bite!

Those of us in the shade felt no excitement too. Suddenly, the ladies in the shade did the best thing on earth, opened up a snack and started eating! Wow! That woke up everybody! Including the 2 fishermen :)

However, some people were luckier..............

After this, Pit Fuh was back in full action again!

Then, the ladies did what they did best....................... sleeping! ........................while we then set on auto mode to trawl. However, according to Liek, Mackerel will come in more in July or August. So our timing s not good this time!

After making a ew more rounds with no luck, we decided to go back and enjoy our dinner. One little excitement we had prior to going out after dinner was shown in the picture below:Sudenly, the girls grew taller than Pit Fuh. Why?

Well, that's because of a giant centipede, some 6 or 7 inches long, crawling outside our rooms. As it was groping towards our rooms, we had no choice but to stop it from coming in permanently!
We then walked through the village and had dinner at Jumping Monkey Bar on Pataya Beach.

The BBQ squid was the best we had ever taken :)~ Slightly crispy outside but so juicy internally.

Day #5 23rd March 2008
This was the day of departure. We woke up early, and had to change our plan as Bundhaya Speed Boat was fully booked today. We had to take the normal ferry back to Pakbara.

Bye, Cabana Resort................Bye, Ah Liek...............Good bye, Ko Lipe, Ko Adang. We will be back again..........

Friday, April 04, 2008

Ko Lipe Day #3

Day #3 21st March 2008
This day began early.
By 5:45am, we were already out waiting for the Sun to rise.

























Dawn is always cool............and full of hope!













The sea was calm, the boats anchored, while all fishermen were still in their sweet dreams.........













Then at 6:23am, the sun first show his face........













And within seconds, the whole beach came to life again.It's time to get ready for yet another exciting day. Today, we started with a place to witness some colourful soft corals. However, the current there was too strong for comfort. We had to clink on to a strong rope just to station at the right spot. However, the visibility was not too good after a while. Nevertheless, it was a good experience!

Next, we aimed to go for bigger groupers, but due to very strong waves, Pei Yean and Bee Gim were down within seconds. Hence, we resorted to some sheltered bay for smaller fish, which we pulled out quite a bit.

Bee Gim was lucky to hook up a small squid this time. It's pretty translucent, looked delicious too.













When it's lunch time, we headed towards a white sandy beach somewhere in Ko Adang, and you could see the corals in the crystal clear water behind PeiSun













This beach was incredibly beautiful, calm with crystal clear water.













We were the only group landed today.

























This hermit crab welcome us with a smile as we stepped on his private beach........Everybody asked, "What shall we have for lunch today?"
'What we fished is what we eat!' was the answer.
Lets look at our catch: and.....

Hmmmmmm! We voted for 2 ways of cooking:
First, we have our Japanese chef,preparing sashimi, fish and squid

And also, we hired a BBQ chef, doing some wild fire 'ikan bakar', Ko Lipe style.
with the help of 2 assistants
Almost cooked now..........OK Lunch is ready...........! Notice our wasabi and soya sauce :)

A very healthy lunch of only 20 fishes and squid!

However, we took so much time enjoying ourselves that the tide receded too much for our boat to depart when we were ready to go :( So we had to wait for some 1.5 hours, till the tide was high enough for the boat to glide out without damaging any coral. Meanwhile, we all had a good rest on the beach. As we left the beach, Pei Yean was back to normal- no more sea sick, as you can gather from her sweet smile.

Pit Fuh caught a last shot before leaving this unnamed beach..........
And we called it a day.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

More on Ko Lipe : Day #1 & day #2

This is my 6th trip to Ko Lipe, and there has been tremendous development since I last visited in Dec 2003 with Choon Ping and mummy. Nevertheless, Islands of Tarutao marine park are still very beautiful. This trip, we have 4 new faces, PeiSun, PeiYean, Pit Fuh, and Bee Gim.
Our group spent 4 nights in Ko Lipe, and chartered a long tail boat for our island excursion for 3 full days at 1500Baht per day.

We managed to contact our old boat man, Liek, who most impressed me with his new mobile phone , ( No: 0831836055). Below are some of the more exciting part of our adventure.

Day#1 19th/March 2008
When we arrived at Cabana Resort, after travelling for some 11 hours from home, the first thing we pampered ourselves was a good dinner, at the 'Porn Resort'. Here we had an excellent BBQ Mackerel, which was consumed within seconds.
So we added another BBQ yellow tail.

The bill was about RM100 for 6 persons, reasonably priced.







Day #2 20th March 2008

Life in Ko Adang/Lipe always starts with snorkeling, you can see the corals even from the boat.




After we are happy talking to the fishes, we visit Ko Hin Ngam, which is famous for it's beautiful glittering black stones













No visitors dare to bring any of these stones back, as there is a curse by the God of Tarutao.





In stead, using those stones, many build their own 'tower', and we design something different ;)




This is what we called" Ninja Turtle rock"















Some towers are taller than human, as you can see from our pictures. We made some interesting shots .
















This is our chief photographer in action.











A day in Ko Adang without fishing is incomplete. So let's start fishing! It's a tough job preparing everything for 4 beginners, yet we put a smile on every one's face ;(












Pit Fuh is the hero of the day, pulling in a huge 'Squid' as shown in the previous blog,










He also landed a couple of Ikan Mabong or Patut, and another big coral fish.

Look at his million dollar smile :)









We fished till sunset before we earned our dinner, 22 fishes cooked in various styles:)









And a big squid steamed with chili and lime, yum yum


However, all these come with a price.

Look at Choon's half baked back!

Now he learns the meaning of Sun Block cream :)

What is SPF 50!

Let's call it a day till now................

More to come soon...........

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Monday, March 10, 2008

"Change" happening in Malaysia!

The day we arrived in Penang is the day after Malaysia national election It's BIG news! The opposition party won big in Malaysia. Check it out! Tremendously amount of excitement fills the country. Penang is going to be ruled by the new opposition party. There is finally a sense of hope for this country. There is so much problem, finally democracy in Malaysia is maturing, this is the beginning of the 2-party democracy system. Didn't realize that when Obama is campaigning for change in the US, Malaysians are even more ready for change. The people of Malaysia have spoken, it is time for the new government to fulfill their promises.