Miri, Malaysia - down memory lane

On Wednesday 24th March, we left Turtle Island at 7am to head back to Sandakan, to catch our flight to Kotakinabalu, we only had a short stopover there (time for an excellent Italian meal) before catching another flight to Miri in Sarawak, still in Borneo.

We lived in Miri for a period when I was fifteen and my dad was working there for Shell, so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me. Miri has changed beyond all recognition, well, it has been 27 years, ha ha.

We stayed at a really lovely guesthouse (the first without an ensuite bathroom - wow we are really slumming it now!) called the Dillenia. But we did have a huge shower room just down the hall and we had the place pretty much to ourselves, only two other guests on another floor. We hired a car the following morning so that we could drive up to the Niah national park to visit the caves. On the way out of town, we took a detour passed where I used to live, I'm pretty sure we found the main road, but too much development had taken place to be sure of where our actual road was, let alone the house.

The national park is about a ninety minute drive away and the caves are reached by a quick river crossing, followed by 45 minute boardwalk through the jungle. The main cave is massive (about 1 km long by half a km wide) and is home to both bats and swiftlets and therefore full of their guana (droppings). The guana when collected provides an income to the local people. The swiftlets also make birds nest from their own spittle and these are are collected for the famous bird's nest soup.


When I visited before, twenty seven years ago, we only went this far. The cave is an important prehistorical site where human remains dating to 40,000 years have been found. This time however we ventured further to the Painted Cave that (surprise) has some cave paintings (at least a 1000 years old) and the remains of some wooden 'death boats'. The caves were used for burial purposes.

To get there we had to go through part of the cave which was pitch black. When the book said 'bring a torch and good walking shoes' they meant it. We walked for about 15 minutes in absolute darkness up and down some very slippery boards and steps with the BIG spiders and the bats for company. Out in the light there was another board walk to the Painted Cave. I can't honestly say that all this effort was worth it for the paintings themselves, as they were fairly faded and behind a fence. After a short break here, where we lamented our decision to only bring three bottles of water, which were now empty, we made our slow way back to the main cave. It was a hard slog in that heat but definitely worth the trip.

The following day, I dragged Cliff and Liam around all the old places in Miri that I remembered and that were still standing. We managed to find the old meat, veg and fish market and the place we used to pay the rent for our house, although the office is now a cafe. So we stopped for a drink.

On the morning of our departure, three nights later, we had a really good lunch at a cafe around the corner from our guest house and Cliff was trying to get us not to watch the tv, calling us zombies (well, it was showing the last ten minutes of Mrs Doubtfire!).

Turtle Island

'This is not an island paradise' said one of the guides as we came up onto the beach on Selingan island. Well, it actually does look like one. We'd come 40 miles north of Sandakan in the Sulu Sea, on a speed boat, so we were a little windswept, although Cliff can nap anywhere and managed a little snooze on the way.

We checked in and were directed to our room, one of six in a villa on the other side of the island - a whole three minutes walk away. We had a bit of a lie down until lunch and then headed for the beach because the real action doesn't take place until after dinner. The water was super clear and we did some snorkling, managing to see lots of colourful fish (one nipped my leg) and Liam and Cliff spotted a ray.

Later in the afternoon, just as I was about to head up for a shower, one of the rangers on the beach handed me his binoculars and said there was a turtle coming in. It turns out that she was right behind Cliff who was still snorkling and he hadn't realised. So I'm on the beach waving and saying 'it's behind you - turn around' and he thinks I'm saying 'get out'. After getting the okay from the rangers to get out a bit closer to her, we managed to swim out within about a metre. There were actually two and they were mating. They tolerated us for about ten minutes before they swam off. Incredible.

After dinner we played cheat, one of our favourite card games, with two lovely Australian girls Natalie and Kathy and learned that it's called BS where they come from. The deal is that after dinner everyone stays in the restaurant until we get the 'turtle time' call from the ranger. The call came about 10pm that a couple had made their way up the beach to lay their eggs. In the end there were fourteen Green Turtles laying that night. We were lucky as sometimes the call doesn't come until the early hours of the morning. When the time was right, we were led out onto the sand to witness the laying. Before that, the turtle is left alone to prepare her nest. 'Our' turtle ended up laying 119 eggs. These were then taken by the ranger and placed carefully in a hole he's prepared earlier, up in the conservation centre which is protected from predators; rats and lizards.

We were told that only about 10 percent of eggs hatch sucessfully in the wild without this intervention, whilst they improve the rate to about 60 percent here. Although I've since read that the success rate of 'natural' hatchings is much higher than 10 percent, so maybe we were told a bit of a fairy story to support the whole hatching programme. They can also influence the sex of the hatchling; shaded and therefore colder nests produce males and unshaded warmer nests produce females.

We then went down to the shoreline with the ranger to release about 50 hatchlings that had hatched that day. Even so, only 1 in a 1000 to 10,000 that do hatch and are released into the sea reach maturity, ie make it to 20 years old. It's tough being a turtle.

Sandakan and Sepilok

A really early start (4am) on 21st February, taxi to the KL Sentral bus station, a bus to the airport and flight to Sandakan on the island of Borneo. We were staying at the Mayfair Hotel which is run by the stern but lovely Mr Lum. It was pretty cheap (£10 a night), almost clinically clean, free wi-fi, right in the centre of town and Mr Lum has a collection of about 1000 dvds which he lets guests borrow five at a time to watch on the enormous tv provided in each room.

We went for lunch at the (very expensive) English Tea Rooms, which was at the top of a very steep hill. The cold towels on arrival were just what we needed though. And the cream tea.

After lunch, we took the bus out to Sepilok to visit the orang-utan centre. I was expecting to be enclosed on quite a small deck to observe the orang-utan's afternoon feeding, so was pleasantly surprised at the large size of it, although it was quite busy. Apparently the morning session is the busiest, so that must be a nightmare. We got to see two orang-utans but one woman turned to me and said loudly 'Only two monkeys? Huh!' - I should have answered that if people keep quiet, some more might feel like coming along. I wish people would heed the 'silence' signs and shut up.

We stayed behind after the crowd moved on, chatting to a British woman who volunteers out there every year for four months. It was worth the wait because we saw the smaller one building her nest up high in the trees.

The following day we headed out to the Sandakan memorial park which is sited on the original POW (Prisoners of War) camp, which was set up during the WWII Japanese Occupation in 1942-1945. By 1943, there were around 750 British and more than 1650 Australian soldiers and civilians. Many were transferred from Singapore to be used as labour to build the military airfield in Sandakan.

In 1945, the Japanese army realising that they were losing the war and the allies were closing in, marched the prisoners from the camp at Sandakan to Ranau, 250kms away. There were three separate Death Marches, the first one began in January 1945. The last Death March took the remaining 537 prisoners at camp in Sandakan. The sick who couldn't leave, were shot. There was no account of what happened at camp after the last march. There simply were no survivors to tell the tale. Those who were sent on the Death March trekked through thick jungle, treacherous routes, suffering from disease and some prisoners had no boots. Those who could walk no further were killed. The march took almost a year to complete. Of the 2700 prisoners, only 6 survived of which two had escaped during the second march and four escaped during their stint at Ranau. No British prisoners survived.

The war memorial has a pavilion dedicated to the prisoners of war and houses a very moving exhibition. We've been to a few memorials now and the message, quite rightly, is always the same; the sufferings of war and genocide should never be forgotten or allowed to happen again. But it seems to be on a repeating cycle. And on that depressing note...

Sandakan itself is a lively little place - during the day. It closes pretty early and adopts a bit of sense of danger after dark. It was pretty much bombed to extinction by the Allies during WWII (in order to liberate it from the Japanese you understand). Only the church and part of a barn were left standing.

We left it in rather better condition as we headed out to Turtle Island the next morning.

Kuala Lumpur

What's to say about Kuala Lumpur? It's another shiny city and has the impressive Petronas Towers, lots of malls, an efficient elevated metro system, a beautiful park (Cliff completed a 19 mile run there) and a Marks & Spencers. And it was nice to get some washing done at the hotel ( I still haven't ironed anything).

Liam had some fun in the kid's pool. We would have liked a paddle too, but there was a very stern woman with a whistle who would not allow such things.


We eventually found the Chinese embassy to try to sort out the visas, but it was Friday and we'd run out of time to get them processed, so we'll have to get them in Bangkok when we return for a few days next month.

Taman Negara - into the rainforest

Another early start on 15th February to catch our minibus to Taman Negara. There was only us and a mother and daughter, so plenty of room to stretch out this time. We stopped along the way at Gua Musang for excellent roti (I do enjoy curry for breakfast!). The driver spotted a couple of elephants along the road who were being transported out of the national park to a rehabilitation centre, due to deforestation of their habitat. He was clearly upset about the whole thing and was close to tears. I could see what he meant, it was really sad to see them and we heard that the place they were being taken to doesn't have the best reputation either. About 10 minutes down the road we stopped at a petrol station for a toilet break and to swap vans and drivers with another party who were heading in the opposite direction. Soon after, we went through Jerantut, which bizarrely reminded me of Guildford. Lots of roundabouts and flowerbeds. A little further and we arrived at the Kuala Tembeling jetty to catch our boat into Kuala Tahan, right in the middle of the Taman Negara national park. After paying our park entrance and camera fees and having some lunch, we made our way down to the boat for the three hour journey.

The journey upstream was really lovely and not at all boring as I feared it might be. It was a long boat and we sat really low in the water, with the wind blowing through our hair, hands trailing in the water and reading and listening to music. Bliss. We saw water buffalo, monitor lizards and monkeys on the riverbank. And to think that we'd considered avoiding the boat altogether and taking a bus all the way.

Finally at our destination, we were dropped at a floating restaurant/travel agency on the river and we made our way over to the Nusa Village floating cafe to get our boat connection to where we were staying. It was only about another 15 minutes upriver and looked pretty smart from afar. In truth, the whole place needs an upgrade and the chalets reminded us of the Other's camp in Lost (excellent US TV series) AFTER the island moved in time. Not a good look. The staff were pretty friendly though, we witnessed out first of many shuffling waitresses and we were never asked to pay the listed boat fare on any of our many trips up and down the river. This was the first place we felt the need to put up the mosquito nets. Mind you, we didn't plan to spend a vast amount of time in our room. There would be lots of trekking to do.

The next morning we got the boat to drop us at the beach for the canopy walk which was amazing, if over a little quickly after the massive climb up to the entrance. It's basically a ladder walk suspended 40 or 50 feet above the jungle floor. We then walked the 1.5km (not 15km as per the doctored sign) along to Kuala Tehan for lunch. I can't properly describe how insanely hot it is here, we've been in pretty much 34 degree heat since hitting Thailand and Malaysia. And we're not sitting around a pool (well, not everyday) but walking up very steep hills. We went along to a night safari and saw millipedes, leaf and stick insects, fireflies, gloworms and we managed to spot a scorpion on the way back.



The next day we went on the canopy walk again - so good we had to do it twice and then we walked up to Bukit Terisek, a gruelling hour uphill trek, but really worth it for the view.

In the afternoon we signed up for a white water rafting trip (combined with a trip to the local Orang-Asli village - I wasn't that keen on the prospect after our experience in the Cameron Highlands). We knew that the white water rafting would be SO far from white water rafting, mainly because we weren't in a raft and there is no white water on the river. We all had the best time though; they take two boats out to speed on the river and we took turns to use oars and hands to soak the other crew. Imagine a flat paddle spraying up 100 litres of water onto you. But quite the funniest thing was that there were two german ladies on our boat who thought they were on the trip to the Orang-Asli village ONLY. The look on their faces when we got literally drenched was priceless. Imagine getting in the bath with all your clothes on. The bizarre thing was that when we did get to the village, they refused to come in because they intended on getting a refund on the way back.

The trip to the Bataq tribe was completely different to our previous Orang-Asli experience. We got to meet the chief (who was smoking some leaves from the jungle) and the chief's son did a demonstration of making fire using a bit of cotton, a strip of tree trunk (almost like balsa wood) and a stick, as well as another demonstration of the blowpipe. The main difference was there was much more interaction (with the chief and another tribe member - the women and the children were pretty shy) and information about the life of the camp. They 'bury' their dead by wrapping the body and securing them high up in the tree canopy. So it's not just falling coconuts you have to be wary of around here. The tribe do some trading with Kuala Tahan but are pretty much self sufficient; hunting, fishing and using the forest for all medicinal needs.

One day we chatted with an elderly American guy (think a grown-up Dude from the Big Lebowski) about the environment, conspiracies and oil. I hope I've still got a yearning to travel at that age (and can use the word 'man' in every sentence).

After three nights in this beautiful place, we boarded the boat downriver (the journey was an hour quicker) to make our way to Kuala Lumpur.

Cameron Highlands

The day before Chinese New Year kicked off properly on the 14th February and we were in danger of getting stranded somewhere, we headed for Tana Rata in the Cameron Highlands, which is about a four hour journey by minibus. We were joined by an Australian girl who managed to mildly upset our fellow passenger, an Iraqi, by saying she thought he was from Pakistan 'as the accents are so similar'! I really wanted to 'mistake' her for a New Zealander but didn't get the chance ;) She was trying to get him to translate the Arabic tattoo she has on the back of her neck and she wasn't liking his translation much. There was a Chinese couple, an Indian lady travelling alone and a couple from London, but originally from India. We had a really good rest stop at a place where we got good coffee and loads of fruit stalls - not like Welcome Break at all!

We'd started to worry that we wouldn't find a room in the Highlands at all, after the first five places we tried were fully booked. Cliff finally managed to book a room at the Hillview Inn at a hefty price - all hotels double their prices for Chinese New Year, what a swiz. It was an old place, but servicable and clean but the owner was very grumpy all the time despite our constant smiles and bouncy demeanour! Perhaps she was just fed up with happy tourists?! The temperature in the Cameron Highlands really drops and although I was laughed at by Cliff and Liam for taking a cardie with me for dinner, I really did need it. We'd booked an all-day tour for the following morning so it was an early dinner (Indian) and an early night.

We were collected the next morning by Bala, our driver and guide, in a rough looking land rover with horns on the front. After about 20 minutes on the road we went off road completely and got to see what land rovers can really do (apart from the obvious school runs in the UK). Bala said that there were around 4000 land rovers in the Highlands. We climbed up what only can be described as a sea of mud, up into the rainforest. The pictures we took really do not do it justice, I honestly thought we would have to get out and push at some points and there were a couple of hairy moments when the edge of the 'road' was very close, with a huge drop.

Once we'd reached the top, we met another guide called Ali, who led us on our jungle walk, after making us all very fetching crowns of ferns. The climb was quite steep and rugged in places and there was a very Indiana Jones type bridge of bamboo to negotiate, which looked on the brink of collapse. We trekked up to see a Rafflesia flower that had begun flowering a few days before. These are flowers that take about 10 months to eventually flower and then die within a few days, so the guides are constantly on the look out for new ones about to bloom. We were lucky to see a couple of these.

On the way down we stopped at the waterfall and had a lovely swim in the pool. Cliff got a couple of really tiny baby leeches on his hand. Yuch. But the swim was great and just what we needed after all the trekking in the heat.

After another trip in the land rover, back down the hill, we made our way to the Orang-Asli village. The Orang-Asli are the aboriginal people of Malaysia. We had a short visit here to see the use of the blowpipe for hunting and Liam bought one. I found the experience there all a bit sad really, the villagers obviously get a cut from the tour company who bring people out there, but still it felt intrusive to be wandering about their village, even though there was practically no interaction between us. This was my least favourite part of the day.


Next stop was the Boh tea plantation - fantastic views were to be had here of the tea bushes and there was a short factory tour, after we'd enjoyed our second cream tea since we arrived in the Highlands. Bala, our driver then took us out amongst the tea bushes and revealed that because they now use machines to pick the leaves instead of by hand, the quality has deteriorated (mainly because the machines pick everything, poor leaves, spiders' webs, etc). That put me off the lovely cuppa I'd just had at the plantation.

It was then onto the Butterfly Farm. I don't know if we'd been spoiled by the one we'd visited in Penang, but this one was pretty poor. It seemed quite run-down and practically half of the butterflies appeared to be dead. There were also some tanks with reptiles and insects, again, it all looked in need of a refurb. There were however two pretty cool stag beetles, fighting for supremacy (in Liam's words).

We finished off the day with a trip to the strawberry farm, where we indulged in strawberry milkshakes and sundaes. Practically all the shops in the Highlands stock everything you can think of in the shape of strawberries and all sorts of clothing (hats, gloves, scarves, the lot). A bath mat in the shape of a strawberry even started to look good, until I remembered that I don't own a bathroom to put one in.

Georgetown, Penang

We ended up spending twice the amount of time in Georgetown than planned, eventually staying there for eight days. This partly was because we'd found some cheap accommodation (the Tune hotel - £12 a night with airconditioning and wi-fi, it's part of Air Asia - the region's budget airline), there's food at every turn and some interesting places to visit. We also needed some time to sort out our itinerary and book some flights and places to stay for the rest of our month in Malaysia.
One day we took the slow train up Penang Hill - the funicular railway, which took about half an hour. It was a few degrees cooler up on top which was really welcome after the 34 degree heat of downtown Georgetown. I don't how Cliff is managing to run in this heat. We had a wander around the top, had a look at the Hindu temple and then went for a cream tea (Liam had cucumber sandwiches as well, what what!). There were fantastic views of the city and the bridge over to the mainland and a lovely pool (not for swimming, unfortunately) with lily pads and some striking flowers. We'd decided to walk down the hill rather than taking the train back, as the route would take us to the botanical gardens and the guidebook said it was an hour walk. Well, the guide book (in this case, the Rough Guide) strikes again. We've discovered numerous inaccuracies in our travel books as we've been going, some small errors but some pretty major ones. It didn't take a hour, it was nearer two and you'd think that walking downhill would be easy, it's not. It's blooming hard. We did see a rather striking giant millipede as we started out, which Cliff allowed to walk all over his hand. We also encountered lots of monkeys on the route down and some of them were quite aggressive. As we got closer to the bottom, we started seeing runners and even a couple of mountain bikers making their (very slow) way up the hill.
The botanical gardens was a welcome sight and we bought cold drinks for us and peanuts for the resident monkeys. Liam witnessed a theft when a small monkey Liam had nicknamed Standley, because he was always standing up on his back legs, suddenly nabbed the trolley bus driver's meal. And we also witnessed a stand off between a very mature monkey and a dog over a peanut. Very odd. They are lovely gardens, Cliff had been there early (about 8am) on the previous Saturday during his 17 mile run (!) and had seen loads of people running and exercising - most of them were running away from the monkeys I expect. They can pretty much see a packet of peanuts from a mile away and and a whole load of them will run after you for them. Liam loved it. There was a very welcome bus waiting for us as we left the park. I don't think I could have walked another step.

Another afternoon we took a bus out to the Penang Butterfly Farm. They had literally thousands of butterflies just flying around, as well as scorpians (in an enclosure) and water dragons, iguanas, turtles, snakes and beetles. Definitely worth a visit.

We spent a couple of hours at (apparently) the world's largest toy museum in Batu Ferrengi on the north coast of the island. It was good fun, they had a wide selection of film and tv related toys and Cliff and Liam have already decided to re-start Liam's (?) collection of Simpsons figures when we get back. They also had a chamber of horrors featuring the more gory figures. I used to quite enjoy reading Clive Barker but some of the figures they had from his books here were very disturbing and actually made me feel a bit sick.

We lunched a few times at a Chinese veggie place on Jalan Dickens called EE Beng. Very cheap (about a £1 each) and excellent fake meats. This is where we saw a poster for Goat Nan - goat's milk which read 'just like human milk' - of course the standing joke is now 'Goat Nan - just like mama used to make!'

A less successful meal was had at White Coffee - I ordered eggs on toast and the eggs had been cooked for ooh about 20 seconds. It turns out this how Malaysians like their eggs cooked - i.e not at all. And they advertise them everywhere as 'half-cooked eggs'. That should have been a big clue.

Another culinary high point was Ecco, an Italian place on Jalan Chulia run by a Chinese self-taught chef who grows his own basil for the pesto. Really good food was to be had here. The night we went in, a western guy came in and ordered a salt lassi (a bit like a yoghurty milkshake - I have no desire to try one myself). A glass of lassi was brought to him on a tray and he promptly tasted it and complained that he'd ordered a salt lassi and this didn't have salt in it. The waiter pointed out that the salt is on the table to add yourself as customers have different tastes but the guy just walked out without paying. Cliff reckons that he does the same at every restaurant in town -and eventually gets to drink a whole lassi without paying :) We also went to a place called the New Woodlands, an Indian restaurant in Little India - we went to celebrate our wedding anniversary; fantastic food and again cheap - about £7 for everything. A low point was breakfast at the Blue Diamond, the strawberry jam wasn't 'top notch' as Liam described it and we were joined by a couple of rats, who thankfully kept their distance.
Georgetown has a poorly advertised free shuttle bus (Rough Guide doesn't mention it at all) that runs a route around the city's sights as well as a cheap, frequent bus service around the island with free wi-fi. Not bad.

Journey to Malaysia

The alarm on my phone didn't go off at 4.45am as planned because I'd turned off the ringer by mistake. Luckily Cliff's watch alarm did go off and woke us just after 5am. The taxi was meeting us at the end of the road at 6 so there was just time for showers and to get some food together for the long journey. Packing is thankfully always done the night before. Very organised huh? It was still dark when Sarah and Wilma walked down the hill with us, helping with the bags (Sarah, not Wilma). The taxi was there right on time and dropped us to Nathon town, only a few minutes away by car but a long hot walk (even at this time in the morning). The lady from the travel agency was there as promised with our travel tickets and red stickers for us to wear - not sure what the stickers actually say (kick me?) as they're in Thai. And even after a month here my skills in the Thai language run to hello and thank you. Quite shocking.

The tickets are a bit confusing, there are three that are clearly the ferry tickets taking us from Nathon port on Samui to Don Sak on the mainland. But the other one says we're going from Koh Samui to some other unknown destination. A magical mystery tour. The ferry left at 7am and arrived at Don Sak at 8.40, we were back on the coach (AC, loud Thai pop karaoke on the tv) by 8.50. The ferry was fine, the waters were very calm and I saw a big orange jelly fish in the clear blue water.

By 10.30 we'd reached Nakhon Si Thammarat. A fairly sizeable town. We had a 10 minute stop here, time to stretch legs and buy pringles and cashew nuts. We waited in line to buy some watermelon but the queue was slow and the fruitseller cut his finger with a big sharp knife and that put me off a bit so I got back on the coach. Whilst this is an express bus, it still stops in really small places, letting more passengers on and taking on boxed up goods too. We're due into Butterworth (Malaysia) at 7.30pm, so it's going to be a long day. And I wish they'd shut the loo door after they use it, it stinks!Well we made it as far as Hat Yai, a large city close to the the Thai Malaysia border. Here we were told those travelling to Penang were to change buses. This is despite me checking a least twice with the travel agent that it was a through bus with no changes ("yes same bus all the way"). We got off with two women who were also going to Butterworth to get the ferry to Georgetown. We were told to wait until 3pm for the bus, it was 2.20 so it gave us a good chance for a stretch and maybe some food. About a minute later a man came along insisting we get in his mini bus, a ploy we've seen lots of times at bus stations. the fact is we are wearing stickers that we realise say 'Penang' so we're kind of sitting targets for anyone coming up and saying they'll take us there. Cliff was ultra sceptical so he went and found the woman who had told us to wait until 3pm and she assured us this was our man. After spending another hour in Hat Yai rounding up other travellers to fill the bus. The travel company also insisted on taking our passports to complete the immigration cards for Malaysia, but we never let them out of our sight. This whole process took ages and they wrote all sorts of things down wrong. Our new vehicle had AC, no karaoke but with a fast driver who was pretty much was on his phone the entire 4 hour trip and we were on our way.

There was a bizarre process at the Thai border where we got off and back on the bus to get stamped out of Thailand and then five minutes later back off it to get stamped into Malaysia. The very young immigration officer asked me if I'd ever been to Malaysia before and I said yes, when I was 15. He thought this highly amusing and said that this was a very, very, very long time ago and that he wasn't even born then! Nice. I really must think about colouring my grey roots at some point.

We were stopped again by the police just after the border and the officer only looked at our three passports (ignoring the other 7 people on the bus) and then seemed pursuaded by our driver not to delve any further with a not very discreet handover of cash. What was that all about?

We were still under the impression that we were getting dropped at the Butterworth ferry terminal to take the trip over to the island but after taking a diversion and going through two tolls to pick up his girlfriend, our driver actually started drivng over the bridge to Georgetown. This was a result as it cut at least an hour off the journey and avoided a ferry trip in the dark, which are generally not very exciting.

Georgetown is much bigger than we imagined, apparently it's the second largest city after Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital. It was only a short 10 minute walk to our hotel which is clean, has a well designed but tiny room with no window. I'll go down to reception in the morning to see if we can swap to another with a window as we're here for four nights. Finally managed to get some cash out of an ATM (my bank card is refusing to work) and some noodles for dinner, celebrations are on for Chinese New Year, so dinner was accompanied by some very loud singing from an outside stage. Showers and an early night.

Koh Samui - island paradise

Cliff still wasn't feeling 100% but we were flying from Bangkok to Koh Samui on 22nd January so he took the route of eating nothing but drinking lots. Before our flight we went along to the Shangri-La hotel (beautiful place right on the river) to meet our friends Su and Pete, who had flown into Bangkok for a long weekend to celebrate Su's birthday. We enjoyed some tea and chat and then it was off to the airport. Here's a pic of the boys in the taxi on the way, catching up on some missed sleep.










Koh Samui airport. Wow. It reminded me a bit of that tv show Fantasy Island and must win the prize for most beautiful airport. Liam was very impressed by it, asking why didn't we come here at the beginning of the trip and just stay here.

We were staying in the top half of Sarah's place at Bang Makan near Nathon on the west (and quieter) side of the island. We had two massive separate bedrooms, both en suite which were divided by a big terrace with great views of the sea through the coconut trees.


It's fair to say that we spent a very tranquil two weeks here. It was great catching up with Sarah and because she was working hard during the day we amused ourselves by getting around to the rest of the island, swimming in the jungle pool and generally lazing around quite a bit, although Liam did get a bit of school work under his belt. Well, Liam and I lazed around, Cliff started his marathon training, completing 13 and 15 mile runs in 30 degree plus heat. Liam found a new friend in Max, Ian and Bonnie's boy, and was kindly invited to Max's birthday sleepover on our first night so that was pretty much the last we saw of him for a couple of days!
















We took a boat trip out to the Ang Thong National Marine Park, where we went kayakking, attempted some snorkling (but it was too murky) and swam in the pouring (hot) rain. Cliff climbed up to the viewpoint to see the forty islands of the marine park and we all climbed up to see the inland lagoon (again, in the pouring rain). We spent the return boat trip on the very top of the boat at the front (think of that bit in Titanic) and it was like being on a rollercoaster. A great and exhausting day out. And as you can see, it only rained for about 30 minutes.










On another day we took Liam and Max and climbed up (there seems to be lots of climbing to be done) one of the two waterfalls on the island, but didn't actually manage to get to the top as the path seemed to have got overgrown but we splashed about at the base for a while. And saw some massive spiders. Great.

Sarah told us about a little place called the Art Cafe in Nathon which did really good bread and home made houmous., which we'd bring 'home' in a little plastic bag. There are a few dogs living on the estate, some have owners and some just flit between different houses. One is called Andy Ecclesley and he deserves a special mention, he's standing behind Liam in this picture. He got his name from Fiona, who lives on the estate because he's ginger like a UK footballer called something Ecclesley (but not Andy). We haven't got to the bottom of this yet. Andy followed us down to dinner on our last night at one of the beach restaurants. At the end of the evening, Ian (Sarah's brother) had joined us for drinks and offered us a lift back up to the house. Andy followed on foot. Liam and I were concerned about leaving him behind but it turns out he's pretty fast and he actually beat us back, running in front of the car, so we couldn't get ahead. Smart dog. They don't really have devil eyes as shown in this picture though.

We had a jeep for a few days so we did a couple of round-island tours and visited Chaweng, Bhoput and Big Buddha beach. There's a pic below of Cliff, Liam and Sarah enjoying the easy-listening music at the beach. But don't ever mention chicken floss to Sarah (unless you want to see a woman vomit). It was described on the menu at an otherwise fairly good cafe in Big Buddha beach as shredded chicken, 'ooh that sounds a nice combination with rice' Sarah thought. Wrong. It was hideous in every way. I think the term 'chicken floss' says it all really.








All in all we had a wonderful island stay and it was good not to have to pack every couple of days. And we left Sarah with her newly adopted baby (puppy) - Wilma - on Liam's lap in the above pic.

The final verdict on the Pad Thai

I've made it my mission over the last month to find the best Pad Thai noodle dish in Thailand (well, in Bangkok and Kanchanaburi) - much to the amusement of whoever I was eating with - I'd like to add that contrary to popular belief I did NOT order it for every meal. The final verdict is in....and I think that Sarah agrees with me that Unithai in Hove have the best Pad Thai amongst other dishes. I almost don't want to mention where this place is because it's hard enough to get a seat at lunchtime as it is. But this is worth sharing. If you're ever in Hove, Sussex (UK) and are after really good, cheap Thai food, try Unithai, on Church Road, just after First Avenue. It looks like an Asian food shop from the front (which it is, stocking all kinds of goodies, including fresh veg and herbs) but they have seating for 16 in the back (the big table actually extends into the shop). You can't book and there's sometimes a bit of a queue but it's very good.