Somewhat frustratingly despite my best efforts I was unable to secure a dive while in Madeira. Many of the dive shops on the island weren’t starting operations until March or April because it’s “winter.” I thought I’d found one eventually but communicating with them was a constant pain and when I told them I was in for tuesday and asked for final details I didn’t hear from them again… hell of a way to run a business. In the end it seemed likely they were only shore diving in a pretty but not particularly exciting little cove… To be honest I’m guessing they didn’t have much interest and decided if they ignored me they wouldn’t have to work that day.
Punta Oliviera just west of our resort, path seems to be a relic of an earlier era
In the end I slept in a bit and we had a good walk around the shoreline and around the point. For whatever reason Madeira in general and this area (Canico de Baixa) in particular is very popular with Germans. While the area right by our hotel has a number of other hotels/small apartments even a 3 minute walk up the road in either direction takes you past a number of small rental homes ranging from a teeny walkup to larger multi bedroom homes with gorgeous gardens and balconies overlooking the sea cliffs. Unfortunately my german wasn’t really up to checking all the details but I may look them up once home out of curiousity.
After a couple hours of going up and down hills/steps/cobblestones we realized we hadn’t had lunch and decided to try the Taverna we’d seen on the way into the hotel zone. It was pleasant but kind of hilarious in that multiple times we were left alone for ages on the patio. It was pretty much the only place on the trip so far where we had much of a language barrier (the amount of English spoken by people in the service industry is astounding.) We ended up finishing the evening with a drink on the patio.
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Wanting to explore a bit of the north side we booked a tour out to the volcanic caves with a couple of side stops. The tour itself had a bit more content from the tour guide this time and we were in a small Renault minivan. Honestly one of the more interesting things he let us know was just how many of the tunnels we passed through were relatively recent. He kept pointing out crazy zigzaggy roads going up volcanic ridges and telling us that was the old road to go where we were going. I can only imagine how long the roughly 30 minute drive would have taken before the tunnels. There was a burst of construction that finished roughly 15 years ago where they built an absolute whackload of tunnels and the highway that follows the south coast up in the hills. It’s a seriously impressive round of engineering.
We took the main road over the mountains through one of the few passes and eventually reached the entrance to the caves. A series of lava tubes large and small (some enlarged to allow easier access) they made a loop a fair way into the mountain. There were a number of different lava formations left behind that were neat to see. Somewhat hilariously in some of the larger water pools local winemakers had set up an experiment to see how their wine aged in the more or less uniform temperature water. It was a neat tour but the 3d video afterwards in the educational center was hilariously bad.
Wine Testing
Moving on with our driver Antonio we visited the village of Sao Vincente. We were somewhat baffled when he drove up to the upper village then slightly back down the road and directed us to walk down the steep road then staircase. We followed the path down slowly and had a peek at the simple but pretty church and tiny graveyard, the newness of some of the stones made me think it was a graveyard of the “you get 20 years in the ground then we throw you in the mausoleum” variety.
Sao Vincente
Moving onwards Antonio pointed us on the walkway down to the sea along a gently flowing river that clearly gushes hard when the rain is falling. It was actually the first time we’d seen strong breakers coming onto shore and I was honestly surprised not to see anyone surfing. It was a pretty spot and we both would have really enjoyed sitting down at a cafe and enjoying it for a while… unfortunately with this whirlwind tour that wasn’t really an option.
Sao Vincente shoreline
The last stop on our tour was actually another spot from the Travel Man episode, a cable car down to an isolated beach on the west coast. We didn’t have the chance to go down, but the view from above was breathtaking. I believe it’s one of the highest sea cliffs in the world. Apparently somewhere nearby there’s a glass floor observation deck that must be truly terrifying.
On our way back into town our fellow passengers decided to get dropped in Funchal and we decided on the spur of the moment to do the same and got out on the waterfront for a quick lunch. Somewhat happily we then discovered that the carnaval stuff we’d seen being set up earlier was actually now active even if they parade obviously wasn’t going to be for a day or two. We ended up grabbing some chorizo buns to take back for dinner and tried a few treats. Ginja (a portuguese cherry/berry liqueur, more on that later) in a chocolate cup. Crispy crusted chestnut tarts. A new tangerine poncha we hadn’t tried before. All delicious!
Carnaval
Winding our way back into the old town I decided we should go up to an area we hadn’t been to since the first day of exploration and there was a fantastic guitarist playing in the church square. We’ve been kind of shocked at how many buskers here have pretty elaborate sound systems. This guy had one heck of a pedal board set up and was doing a variety of styles over the hour or so we listened to him play. The Poncha was delicious, the sun was shining and the music was good.
Old Town Cat
Together with the carnaval sneak peek was an excellent treat and a nice way to (almost) end our time in Madeira. We decided to take the public bus back to the resort for the first time. It turned out to be pretty painless. Not a ride for someone with vertigo though as all the twists and turns on a high cliffside road that were slightly wild in a minivan were even more in a tall bus with a driver gunning it around the turns. It stays off the highway and snakes along the cliffside towns and stopped within a 5 minute walk of the resort. Honestly if I ever visited again the Madeiran bus system seems pretty fantastic, I guess that’s required in a town with so much up and down.
The stress letdown of finally having our bags, our clothes, our toiletries meant we finally slept soundly that night. Saturday morning we even had a solid sleep in and fairly quickly decided to just have a relaxing day (the courtesy bus wasn’t running but we later discovered that the city buses worked pretty well for the area.) After some toast we headed down to sit by our pool (and overlooking the cliffs) and relaxed with our books for a couple hours. It was gorgeous and sunny (around 23c I believe) and we ended up trying the (outdoor) pool but it was completely unheated and was sitting a a temperature closer to the normal ‘winter’ temps for Madeira so it was pretty much West Hawk on May Long/Lake Superior type cold. Had a quick swim to stretch out my hip that’s been giving me problems again since my tailbone accident but didn’t linger in there super long.
We’d noticed on google and on our bus ride down that there was a german restaurant up the hill and we thought some schnitzel might be a good ‘different’ dinner. Unfortunately after huffing it up a few levels we found the place was closed (we saw activity later so it seems like they likely open March 1st like some other things here.) In the end we ended up at another Madeiran/Portuguese place close to the hotel. It was in the Garden of an older small hotel and seemed in fact to partially built into the oldest part of the hotel. The kitchen seemed to be in two converted rooms and the bar could easily have been a former lobby. Though we didn’t have anything that required it, many of the meat came on giant skewers where the waiter would come to your table and set up a stand then hang your meat from it. It was sort of halfway to the Brazillian steakhouse method. Our choices ended up being tasty and after a lovely meal (and mother indulging in her 2352nd fancy coffee of the trip) we retired for some cards. It was a nice recharge day after going hard since arriving.
Parade A-Frame
This period (it seems to vary by the individual town) is the start of Carnaval here on the island. We’d booked what was called a tour but ended up mostly being a mildly guided shuttle to one of the more traditional towns on the Northeast part of Madeira to see one of their events. Apparently their festival is sort of a local thing adapted into a carnaval thing once that became a ‘thing’ so it goes by a few names. The highlight was what we were told was a ‘children’s parade’ that was actually just an incredibly slow moving parade of bands, children’s dance groups, floats with local pastoral scenes (an active building of a teeny a-frame traditional house for one) and agricultural things.
Parade WeirdnessParade Bands
We enjoyed the wackyness for a bit then as the parade finished explored the town square which had some sort of entertainment going on (it seemed very talky but people were enjoying it.) Everywhere around the square there were booths with food and drink, almost exclusively Poncha, Bolo de Caco (portuguese flatbread wrapped around various meats/cheeses/garlic butter) and skewers of beef pork or chicken cooked over embers. As is the norm in europe you could carry your hooch around so we sampled a few things then made our way back up to the bus and town.
Traditional Madeiran A-Frame HouseTown Square
Going to and coming back from Santana we got our first good look at the far end of the airport from the ground and it’s absolutely incredible. Tons of concrete pillars holding up the entire runway extension most around 70m high according to wikipedia. Between the limited space and the winds here it’s easy to see why it’s in the top 10 most dangerous airports in the world.
Not my image but you get the idea…
Settling back in at happy hour we ran into the same couple that had commiserated with us on friday night and got a recommendation for a different tour company/made a booking. I also scouted out what looked like an interesting russian run cafe nearby while snagging some drinks/chips for the room.
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Monday was another day of gorgeous weather and we were thankful as we had booked a tour to go up to what’s called Curral das Freiras or the Nun’s valley. Though we actually started the day popping into Funchal and having breakfast back at our favourite bakery and stocking up on bread for back at the suite. We also explored the absolutely gorgeous Se Cathedral in Funchal which is simulaneously grand and impressive while still maintaining aspects of being a fisherman’s/working man’s place of worship.
Se Cathedral
I’ve been to plenty of hilly or mountainous places in my time but Madeira is definitely the most ridiculously and suddenly up and down. The relatively recent volcanic origin seems to be to blame for the incredibly sharp ridgelines that appear in certain areas. Nowhere we travelled was this more evident that the way up to Nun’s valley. Overlooking the town itself is a hotel and overlook high high up on a ridgeline and accessible by what used to be the main road into town before one of the major tunnel projects of recent years created a giant ramp tunnel. It’s absolutely amazing how sudden and severe the dropoff is and it was odd to climb up to the lookout then look down on birds soaring high above the town but still hundreds of feet below us.
Curral das Freiras from the overlook
The town itself is best known as a cultivator of chestnuts on the island and they produce chestnut cakes, chestnut liqueurs, roasted chestnuts etc. There is even a chestnut museum and a festival at the end of summer. It’s not a particularly exciting town other than it’s picturesque location so after a quick look around we grabbed a drink and a slice of cake (without checking the prices) and I had a bit of a heart attack after as I realized it had cost us the equivalent of $27.50cdn. Ah captive tourist pricing at it’s finest (though desert in general is quite pricey at restaurants here, part of the reason we’ve mostly stuck to bakery treats like our fave custard tarts.)
The valley road downward from the overlook
Arriving back in Funchal we managed to just make our transfer and got back to the hotel to realize that we’d never had lunch other than the cake… but also weren’t actually that hungry. I suggested we try one of the restaurants down the hill towards the water and we ended up wanting something light. We ended up at the place I’d bought drinks at the other night. Though presented as a “snack bar” and having aspects of a minimart/liquor store too, the cafe portion was fantastic. I spotted something called “russian ravioli” on the menu and asked the owner if they were Pelmeni. He seemed instantly enthusiastic that I knew what they were and told me they were handmade in house as was his sour cream (something I imagine would be difficult to find in madeira otherwise.) They were in a word… heavenly. Ultrathin dough, mix of beef and pork and spices, juicy and flavourful and served in a little clay pot. The place is owned by ex-pat Russians (mother and son) and it showed as they were the best pelmeni I’ve ever had in Portugal of all places. Alex (the son) insisted on giving me a free (very large) shot of vodka that I ‘HAD TO’ drink before eating the Pelmeni.
After our meal he also insisted we take some free dessert treats home and invited us to his friday violin concert which sadly we couldn’t make as we leave thursday. One of the local soccer teams was playing against Sporting Lisbon while we were there and a number of locals were enjoying the game which somehow lead to Alex and I talking about hockey. Turns out he’d seen Calgary touring in Russia as a younger lad and had loved my all time favourite player Theo Fleury, small world.
I can tell I was writing that last post very late at night as I left a few things out as I raced to finish and go to bed. We actually fit in a trip to the Museum of Sacred Art as well before heading out to our suite.
Words to live by…
It was an interesting place, the building itself has apparently been variously church administration/housing, a school, a training center and now a museum. The collection is quite impressive for a small museum though not particularly well lit/designed in my amateur opinion. The focus is quite narrow but Madeira’s status for many years as the home base of what was the largest catholic diocese in the world (basically all of Portugals overseas territories back when they had a serious empire ranging from Brazil to Angola to Macau) means that some of the Church art it contains is of a larger scale/higher quality than one might expect on this tiny island. There is more or less an even split of silver church implements from the pasts of the island’s many churches (processional crosses, candlesticks etc,) wooden carvings (some from no longer extant churches, some which have seen better days) and a large collection of large scale paintings, many of which are triptych panels. The paintings are predominantly flemish and reflect the fact that at the height of Madeira’s importance in the lucrative sugar trade there were strong trading links with the low countries.
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Friday morning dawned reasonably early as we’d booked the hotel’s courtesy bus for 9:45 (actually we’d tried for 10:30 but a german couple had hemmed and hawwed for 10 minutes the night before then taken the last two slots.) We ended up going down early and asking the front desk person to call the baggage company again, to hear that the bags would supposedly arrive later that day. Fingers crossed we hopped into town.
This hotel’s courtesy bus is kind of ludicrous. It doesn’t run on weekends, doesn’t run into town after I think 2pm? and only does 4 runs back for the 6 runs in it makes. There is definitely an odd current of “we couldn’t possible have a backup person for that job” at times in Portugal as we also ran into that at a restaurant the other night with ‘oh no, we can’t make you pizza tonight, the pizza making guy is off” even though that was like 1/3 of their menu. The most frustrating thing is that the last run back to the hotel is quite early so there’s no way to stay in town for dinner without paying a roughly $30cdn cab fare or taking the very slow city to city bus (though that barely runs saturday/sunday.)
Regardless, as it was a gorgeous day (we’d thought about running this itinerary an earlier day but the clouds were very low) we hopped the cable car up to the neighbourhood/suburb/town (it’s hard to tell) of Monte. The cabe car runs about 4 km up the hill to an altitude of about 1000ft. It’s far enough fast enough that the weather is noticeably cooler even without clouds hanging about but since we were having unseasonably warm weather it worked out well for us.
The view from the cable car itself was extraordinary, it follows one of the volcanic ridges for most of the path and is often right over people’s homes. It was an interesting new perspective on the areas we’d been around most at first but we quickly passed being able to peek at more domestic neighbourhoods. Somewhat odd was the frequency in certain areas for absolute ruins of houses, to the point where the tile roofs were gone, were right next to spotless homes that were either new or renovated so as to be indistinguishable, some with solar panels (solar water heaters appear to be making strong inroads here, understandably.)
Cable Car about to arrive in MonteMust be nice having people staring down at you constantly…
Arriving at the top we found narrow cobbled streets, steep hills in all directions and the apparently famous gardens of the local hotel. The cost was a bit pricey for a visit and we’re planning on a later visit to the supposedly much better municipal gardens so we settled for a view from the overlooks and made our way up to the ‘Our Lady of Monte’ church, home of the burial in exile of the last Austro-Hungarian emperor. His tomb is a pilgrimage site for Austrian/Hungarian royalists and we saw many flags pinned to the archway. It’s a fairly small church but quite pretty and commands a fantastic view. That combined with the slightly cooler weather in summer is apparently what originally drew the wealthy types from the city below.
Our Lady of Monte
Near the church is the town square. ‘Town’ is a bit much as the neighbourhood is quite spread out. While originally in the 1800s I’m sure it was mostly a cluster of houses there are now small streets and houses tucked in more or less anywhere the geography allows it. Many of the houses are quite impressive and even in the smaller spaces there are beautiful gardens. There was also previously a rack and pinion railway leading up (and slightly past) the square, but it closed in 1943 and now there is just a very staight street leading part of the way down, most of it on large arches through the gardens. Actually there’s also a boarded up train station on the square that is apparently planned to be a tea room when the upper section of the track is eventually reopened but that plan appears to be on hold based on the age of the sign, my guess would be a pre-recession plan cancelled by Portugal’s austerity measures.
Monte Square
We found a small cafe in the square and Mom indulged in some early boozy coffee action since it was a bargain (and looked delicious if you’re into that sort of thing) and perhaps to calm her nerves for the excitement that was to come. As we were by now already quite missing our dogs the couple of pups wandering around the square were nice to see, though there are certainly a large number of strays on the island these seemed to be actual pets. The old man running the cafe was quite an oddball and it was somewhat of a production to get the drinks and eventually pay but the square itself was lovely and relaxing there with a drink felt like a very ‘european’ experience.
Monte PupThe sleds themselves getting set to go
Next up was one of the things I’d been most looking foward to, the wicker sled ride! Something we’d seen on the Travel Man episode, sliding 2+ kilometers down the hill in greased wicker baskets has apparently been going on for more than a hundred years. They’re genuinely just more or less a wicker setee on a wicker sled greased up somehow and gliding on normal pavement. Part of me had memories of Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation. The origin of the baskets is apparently some of the original goods transport in the earlier days. Two pilots in uniform and straw boater turn and tease you but genuinely keep you under control however much they might want to tease you otherwise. Of particular note is the fact that this is a) a public road and b) has intersections with actual traffic which is disconcerting even if they clearly have someone watching. I did record some video, not yet sure how it turned out but here is the clip of Richard and Robert doing it on youtube ( https://youtu.be/ju-FpD6r57Y?t=127 ). The walled gardens/homes form pretty much the entire path and either side of the road is a narrow drainage channel that is often gushing with water as well and feels like something you don’t want to clip with the basket edge. You reach speeds of up to 40kph apparently and though it feels fast it’s also somehow very placid feeling. I was impressed with Mom not outright screaming but she did leave some claw marks in my leg on one turn. All in all it was a blast and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Mid-run on the wickerAnother basket arriving
We decided to walk down the rest of the way to Funchal. Regular readers will know I have a loathing of hopping a cab at any touristy place knowing they’ll try and soak you but I also actually wanted to see more of the real neighbourhood. It was incredibly steep by anyone’s standards, not just prairie folks, but was entertaining to see the odd mix of places that people live on this oddball island. In some places larger modern houses sit behind old walls and vibrant gardens or small ancient looking houses have spanking new wrought iron fences, in others you’ll find an older mansion turned into a guest house or hotel. The occasional small cafe appears on a tiny one way road and one wonders if they survive mostly on tourists walking downhill wanting a drink. That being said it has been rare here so far to see a business that is patronized by tourists only.
Average Street Width
The walk took a fair while altogether. Not only is it steep (my calves were complaining for a while) but the upper 3/4 are very narrow, most places only just wide enough for a car and a pedestrian. While some of the locals (mainly schoolchildren) who passed us may have nonchalantly walked by, in most places we pressed ourselves to the wall as a car came by (usually about 15kph too fast for what is probably safe.) Eventually we found ourselves reaching Funchal central and found the burger joint that we’d seen recommended previously (Lived up to its reputation, if you’re ever in Madeira seek it out.)
Lunch definitely continued the bizarro disconnect in prices here to me. Dinner (or full lunch) is not cheap. Some places have a dedicated lunch menu which seems to be smaller portions of the dinner menu) at a cheaper price but not universally. Most of the restaurants serve traditional Madeiran food primarily, this is usually seafood and some meats, usually 12-20 euro at most of the but it comes with full sides. These prices are pretty universal most of the places we’ve been with prices skewing somewhat higher out here in resortland and slightly lower in the oldtown. Yet ‘snack’ food (what I’d consider a more traditional lunch) seems ridiculously cheaper. Some places have burgers and sandwiches for sub 3euro, rarely ever more than 5. Grabbing an amazing gourmet burger (mozza di buffalo/pesto/tomato on a beef/lamb mix,) a delicious plate of panko chicken fingers, fries and two pricier but delicious scratch made lemonades clocked in at less than the price of a dinner entree. It seems to consistently be so too, there’s a lack of ‘in between’ options pretty much unless you want pasta. It just seems odd.
After burgertime we checked out the (surprisingly deep/large) mall below the fancypants hotel where Richard and Robert stayed but had zero luck finding anything we wanted clothes wise. The stress of the missing bags at this point was reaching a high point. We ambled slowly back through town and eventually each found ourselves some extra underwear at varying small shops, explored some nicer souvenir stores and did some peoplewatching (even at a well above normal 24C there were some people wearing ludicrously warm looking coats.) We both kept nervously making jokes about walking in to see our suitcases arrived and breaking down crying but there was an increasing worry our luck was never going to turn…
…and sure enough, the front desk man awkwardly met our hopeful gaze with an instant shoot down. Turns out the afternoon flight from Lisbon had been forced to turn back by high winds. He had no confirmation as to whether it had successfully landed the followup attempt or if our bags were even on board. Were we going to have ANY luck with flights this trip. Even the flights we WEREN’T on were having snags for us. I forget which one of us suggested it but the fact that happy hour had just started in the lounge for the central hotel was certainly serendipitous.
Sitting on the balcony of the bar overlooking the sea we couldn’t help but laugh. We ended up chatting with a couple from Ireland who thankfully put up with our bitching for a bit and shared some tours they’d taken that we might like. We tried but our thoughts obviously kept coming back around to the latest setback so after they went to dinner we stayed for our second drink (free for happy hour) moved inside the bar proper and watched the ‘Late Night Duo’ band play for a while. Hilariously there was a young (german I think?) girl who obviously did dance classes who ran into the bar not long after they started and began her own interpretive dance pretty much non-stop for 45 minutes while her parents finished up in the buffet next door. At first it was adorable but eventually she had moved right up next to the band and was pretty much amazing us with her inexhaustible stamina. Occasionally she’d run back to her parents but when the next song started she’d be back in the bar (liquor laws not so strict here.)
Our burgers had been so late (and augmented by a gelato) that hunger took a while to hit but eventually we went back and ate our leftover pizza as we listened to the waves crash in…
…until suddenly…
…the phone rang…
“Hello? Your baggage is seeming to be here”
I don’t think we’ll ever again navigate the maze of corridors and stairs to the main reception that fast again. I nearly fell on my knees and hugged my suitcase. Back at the room we quickly checked and found them untouched and both instantly changed into our actual bed clothes. I think we eventually watched another episode of something but the stress letdown was pretty instant and we dropped into a deep and finally peaceful sleep not long after.
Total distance travelled by us so far: ~7000km
Total distance travelled by our bags so far: ~10000km
edit note: While it was a bit overcast the days in question it wasn’t quite as grey as it seems. I can’t really white balance the photos easily while on the go so imagine some more warmth in them.
We actually managed to stay up reasonably late that night but I’m fairly sure as we hit our overly tiny pillows that night we were both out within seconds. Even the next morning we managed to sleep through a fair bit of noise before we were roused but honestly we really didn’t feel any jetlag. My only real complaint is that putting back on the socks I’d already worn for more or less two days was an experience I really didn’t need.
I will try not to turn this into the unending story of how not having your luggage sucks but it was definitely odd trying to find a few replacement items to tide us over. Finding socks was surprisingly difficult. Most of the small men’s stores in town didn’t sell socks and underwear at all, when we finally found some those that did either sold terrible thin touristy ones or teeny ankle socks. Shirts were almost as bad for a guy of my size as most portuguese shops don’t stock much for people over 5’8″. Still other than the quest for socks our first full day was pretty great.
There are a number with nautical themes
We started out more or less retracing our steps from the night before. We’d slept late enough that the fish market was more or less done for the day but many of the food vendors and flower vendors were in full swing, as was the small bakery nearby that we’d read about in our lonely planet pocket guide. Man was LP spot on with that recommendation. We got two giant ‘croissants’ (more of a croissant shaped semi sweet bun) toasted up with butter, cheese and ham and drinks for the equivalent of under $5. My mother only finished have of hers it was so large. We also decided to grab a couple of Pateis de Nata (Custard Tarts) to have later on.
Pau de Canela
Exploring the old town a bit more in daylight gave us a chance to see a bit more including some more of the painted doors previously hidden in the darker alleys and one of the older churches on a small square. The buildings are definitely still a mix of maintenance levels but you can definitely see the district throbbing with the life it must have been lacking before. It’s a hopefully sustainable mix of art and commerce that keeps things busy but isn’t a tourist only hangout. Private homes and apartments lie between and above the new businesses and you still see a mix of young and old locals hanging out at one of the microbars sipping a poncha or a local Corral beer.
Barking at the door
Poncha! Oh yes… Poncha. A traditional Madeiran drink that’s more or less a high octane rum punch (and also the more basic background of the Caprinha.) It’s made with a distilled sugarcane alcohol that packs a punch muddled with local honey and citrus juice. The traditional way would be with lemon, but many of the local ones have some fresh squeezed orange juice and Passionfruit versions are also tasty and delicious. We had one that first night and pretty much at least one a day since as they’re delicious and often quite cheap at the street cafes.
Heading towards the end of the old town the cliffs begin to climb again leading to another old church and some spectacular views along the coastline. For us prairie folk not so used to hills of any kind it was also the beginning of our calf muscle workouts that will continue into the later stages of the trip. At this end of the Funchal coastline there’s also a small fort that once help fend off pirates and the like during the era when Madeira was an important sugar (and later wine) producer.
Looking back across Funchal from just past the Fort
As we’d more or less reached the end of the old town we turned around and walked the length of the Funchal waterfront. For an island that relies on tourism so heavily it was really nice to see that the city’s waterfront isn’t just a mass of large hotels as it is in so many places. Some form of public walkway makes up most of the shoreline (sand beaches are not really a thing here since the island is so geologically young) with a strip of park or garden between it and the main oceanfront avenue. Most of the big modern hotels are in fact west of the city center in a ‘hotel zone.’ Many of the buildings closest to the water in the downtown area are still administration buildings, a historic fort and of course that necessity of necessities, a McDonalds :p
Funchal
A large portion of the locals are seriously well dressed. I suspected (and later confirmed on wikipedia) that the number of banks meant that Madeira was some form of tax haven, but even outside of downtown you often see large groups of people very elegantly attired for a random thursday afternoon. Most are also wearing quite snazzy footwear and we are both considering picking up some shoes at some point on this trip. Somewhat hilarious for people of our origin, many of these folks are also acting as if their winter was actually cold and wear wool jackets and scarves. Though the island has a number of climates and up on the peaks it can definitely be a bit colder… the Funchal ‘winter’ is in February an average temp of 18c. Part of the tourism draw of winter here is actually all the flowers that come out at this time of year. Birds of Paradise and other things exotic to us bloom freely here and liven up the landscape with colour, many of the gardens appear to be planted in such a way as to be a sequence of different blooming periods across the year.
We walked more or less the length of the center of Funchal, admiring the flowers, checking out the chestnut and gelato vendors and laughing at the newly arrived cruise ship with “Fahrtwind” stencilled on the side (which I believe means tradewind but I still laughed.) At this point there were two large ships and a smaller more vintage cruiser berthed with many shore parties roaming around. Nestled beneath them is the museum dedicated to (the ego of) Madeira’s most famous son: Christiano Ronaldo. The CR7 museum apparently houses a bunch of his personal trophies, jerseys etc. Outside is a pretty terrible bronze statue of him which was apparently controversial among some for being noticeably well endowed… presented without comment is a photo of said statue.
CR7 in front of his eponymous museum/hotel
Having vaguely decided that perhaps we needed socks that didn’t feel and smell as if they’d perhaps gain sentience we headed up from the shoreline into the more commercial part of downtown. We passed what appears to be a gorgeous old theatre sadly shut tight, but discovered the municipal gardens in the heart of downtown. It’s an elaborate garden (every time we’ve walked by since there have been at least 5 different groundspeople working) and also contains a small amphitheatre and cafe. Large old growth trees provide a canopy over varied flowers, fountains and waterfalls. It really has a feel of an oasis in the city.
We spent the rest of the day exploring the commercial district, eventually found some socks and then meandered back to our hotel before we grabbed another (more basic) dinner in the old town to wrap up day 2.
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We knew that our airline didn’t run a flight out of Toronto the day after we left so day 3 was potentially the earliest we’d get our luggage. Anticipation was high, but we also had to transfer to our ‘permanent’ digs in Madeira which are actually well outside of the city proper on the coast. We reloaded our carryons, bid farewell to our residencial and continued our exploration of the city for a few hours until check in time.
I’m a fan of a show called Travel Man that Richard Ayoade of IT Crowd fame does on uk tv. Basically he takes a celebrity guest and does a weekend away in various places one can reach from the uk for a quickie holiday. His episode on Madeira had mentioned some of the things he’d already done and we had a bit of an aha moment as we stumbled across the shopping mall that was the ground floor portion of the fancy 5 star hotel that he and Robert Webb (also a personal fave) had stayed at.
After a quickie bakery lunch once again we found ourselves near the Santa Catalina gardens up on a cliff overlooking the harbour. Another gorgeous greenspace in a very pretty city, it also contains the first chapel built in Funchal as well as a small monument of thanks from the government of Gibraltar in recognition of the sanctuary and care offered to the many Gibraltar civilians evacuated here during World War II.
Once it was time, we hopped a cab up and out the same winding road and back towards the airport but turning off at the town of Canico (which is more or less just an outer suburb of Funchal at this point.) Here the very rugged coastline does have a line of hotels and condos. Our cabbie was not the most conversant in english but we managed to converse in a broken mix of languages where we wanted to go. Unfortunately he also wouldn’t listen to me as I told him that yes we were on the right street and stopped twice to ask for directions or to read a sign over and over when we could see where we wanted to be. Thankfully the second time he asked for directions we knew we had arrived and were already on our way out of the car when the man confirmed it.
Any hopes of luggage were dashed when we arrived inside to find blank looks from the front desk staff. Morale wasn’t improved when I received an email not long after informing us that “Hooray, your bags are on flight XXXX to Punta Delgada (the azores) and will arrive in Porto (on the mainland) later tonight. We are (obviously) not in Porto, have no plans to go to Porto. Later on after we were settled we asked the front desk manager to call the luggage folks on our behalf as I hadn’t been able to get through and we thought someone batting for us in Portugues might be helpful. Sure enough the baggage company claimed that the email had been a mistake and our bags would be on their way to Funchal soon (hah! It was definitely not.)
Our new home
Thankfully the condo itself was gorgeous. Small kitchenette, large bathroom and two very comfortable beds flanking a living room with balcony that overlooked the pool, cliffs and ocean beyond. It was a very welcome bit of luxury to two canadians starting to feel extremely grubby. The complex is made up of a fairly old but well maintained central hotel that was probably a very chic place in the 60s when the airport here first opened but is now a bit basic. Another newer hotel is on the east side and our condo complex (the newest buildings) are on the west.
I’m genuinely curious how different this area is in summer. Only in August does it ever get what I’d call truly hot here (an average of 25 degrees with little rain) but the outdoor pool is unheated. The lido area here on the oceanfront looks very neat in design but is all roped off at the moment. It’s also rather battered looking and I genuinely can’t tell if the missing guardrails/ladders etc are pulled out because it’s winter and no one swims, if they’ve perhaps been battered by particularly bad winter storm months back or if they’ve just not been maintained in a couple years. The hotel website has recent (or at least recent-ish) looking photos of the area well painted with lifeguard chairs and equipment.) It’s disappointing as I had hoped to get in the ocean, but it wasn’t as if I had a swimsuit at the moment anyway.
Looking pretty abandoned (doesn’t look much better in a shot someone took on google maps a year and a half ago either)
After the gut punch of still being without clothes, toiletries, my scuba gear etc for at least another day we went for a long stroll along the top of the cliffs. Further down from our hotel we passed a Riu Palace resort (one variant of wish we’ve stayed in in Puerto Vallarta) another older but very large hotel overlooking a small bay with a large oceanfront lido area, also looking very abandoned. (Though a photo on google does seem to perhaps show some people using the tidal pool there.) If not for the relatively new Riu (and another new-ish resort in the other direction) I would just think this area was perhaps a bit of a relic but perhaps I’m missing something?
The rugged coastline, somewhere down there is the complex’s currently off season dive center.
We did run across a few obviously feral cats. We’ve actually met more than a few stray dogs on the island but these were the first cats. They all seem really well looked after. More than once we’ve stumbled across little feeding stations where people have put out food and water for these animals and of course weather wise there isn’t much for them to worry about. While walking along the coast that evening we even found a little house someone had made for some of the ferals that lived near the ‘beach.’
Feral Cat Shack
After we’d explored (and really worked up an appetite on the hills) we went to a small pizzeria I noticed on the google map for some comfort food and some Poncha. Thanks to now having a kitchenette we could even keep leftovers for a quickie lunch or dinner later. Still as we strolled back downhill to the condo it was hard not to think about what we’d do if our luggage didn’t arrive the next day.
So colour me shocked but again I’ve had a number of questions about whether I’m posting a travel blog for this trip. I honestly wasn’t sure as this is a bit more of a conventional holiday (I’ll be spending roughly half of it in resorts.) But as I always like to make notes about my travels and there seems to be demand I guess here we go again!
Our route (sort of?)
The morning we were leaving for Madeira my mother called me and asked, what time do you think we should leave for the airport? I couldn’t help but reply “it doesn’t matter what I think, Dad is going to get us there when he thinks it’s necessary regardless…” Sure enough, I was told 12:45 and in fact he was there closer to 12:30 as we set off on the 20m max trip to the airport for a 3:45 departure.
That was unfortunately the last bit of smooth sailing for the day. Does anyone remember when WestJet was about good service at a good price? At this point I can’t remember the last time I had a flawless experience with them and this time was definitely far at the other end. Unfortunately for us our flight had a fairly tight Toronto connection time of 1h30, but since we would be in the same terminal and the airport person confirmed our luggage would flow directly to our final destination we were feeling ok…
Toronto apparently had a minor amount of snow overnight so the plane taking us there was late arriving from TO. We were supposed to board at 3:45, ended up supposedly boarding at 4:10, only actually got away around 4:25. Our pilot tells us we should easily make up time in the air and sure enough he’s right, we arrive in Toronto only about 15-20 minutes behind our original time. In the meantime, our friends at WestJet have routed another plane into our gate. God forbid we just take the next one that’s open so we sit on the tarmac for another 45 minutes, by the time we sprint off the plane there’s 25m at most left til takeoff and they are usually closing the gates for good around 15 minutes beforehand. The supposed “gate agents to assist with connections” are nowhere to be found either.
I quickly scanned the board, found our gate (thankfully not the furthest end) and began powerwalking that way with mom trailing behind until I heard the robocall for final call, all passengers should be on board and basically began sprinting. I’m fairly sure I reached the gate just as they were about to offer our tickets to some standby folks and waited for mom to catch up as they told me our luggage was unlikely to make the flight (thanks WestJet!!!)
So hooray, we made it by the skin of our teeth but obviously had no time to buy a drink or any more food or, more importantly, use the restroom after ~30m of landing time and ~45m on the ground stuck in our seats. We were now on Azores Airlines which seems to have the lowest tolerance for turbulence of any airline I’ve ever taken so they seemed to take forever to turn the seatbelt signs off and unlock the restrooms. We both more or less sprinted the moment it dinged off. The flight was relatively uneventful otherwise despite some long “turbulence” times and more or less no service from the cabin crew after the meal (definitely wish I’d had a chance to buy some water.) Uneventful that is… until we arrived.
Madeira Island: A semi-autonomous region of Portugal (though actually closer to Morocco)
This second leg was Toronto to Puerto La Planchada in the Azores. We caught a healthy tailwind into/through the jetstream and arrived at the Azores around 5:30am local… at which point the airport was wait for it… NOT OPEN! So yes, we got to wait for around ~45 again, this time in the air, before we got landing clearance and landed at the teeny but modern airport. Deplaning directly onto the tarmac we got hit by a gale force wind coming off the open Atlantic and scurried inside for a brief passport check and a shortish wait for our flight to Madeira proper.
This time it was a Dash 8 (a smallish turboprop plane) and the two of us were surrounded by members of a soccer team. I don’t know about you but I have unwanted associations with travelling on a prop driven plane surrounded by a soccer team but we thankfully landed un-eaten at Christiano Ronaldo airport on Madeira just before noon. Shockingly enough, it was even a fairly gentle landing. (Do yourself a favour, don’t be like me and accidentally watch a youtube of “crazy landings at Madeira Airport” before you go.) It’s known to be windy and part of the landing path is out on pylons over the sea.
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Not surprisingly at all there was no luggage waiting for us at the carousel so we registered our hotels for eventual (as I write this hopefully today*) delivery. Our luck finally turned as we emerged into a bright sunny day with a nice sea breeze, as views from an airport go I think it’s pretty hard to beat. Some preliminary research had made it clear the aerobus into town was the best way to go so we hopped on board and proceeded to marvel at the driver maneuvering the giant bus through the narrow cliffside roads heading off the highway into the capital of Funchal.
*not so much
For those who may never have heard of it Madeira is a volcanic island off the coast of Morocco that is a semi-automonous region of Portugal. It’s known as the ‘Island of Eternal Spring’ and has pleasant if not particularly hot climate overall with heavy variation depending on where you are on the island. The south end of the island where Funchal is located has most of the population nestled in the varied valleys that form a sort of ampitheatre leading down to the coast.
Funchal from near the harbour. The city core is quite small but the residential neighbourhoods sprawl upwards where ever a flat enough space for a house can fit.
Our first impressions were quite pleasant. I had a vague idea of where our hotel was and we started heading in the general direction when we found what seemed to be downtown’s central boulevard. Doing so we stumbled across a band of musicians playing various jazzy numbers with a bunch of folks flanking a bizarre creation of tubes. It looked and sounded like something the blue man group would play but their percussionists took turns getting some pretty amazing driving baselines out of the thing with their wide flat mallets. We ended up watching them for quite a while as we heartily enjoyed a bench and some peoplewatching at the same time.
Impressive sounds out of that collection of tubes, all mounted to wheels too.
Eventually we stumbled wearily towards our guesthouse, eventually finding it up a side road that was seemingly taking 50% of the traffic exiting downtown despite being at first glance only wide enough for a vw bug. Our plan for Madeira is to spend a week at a resort we got an exchange for via my parents’ time share, but that wasn’t until thursday so we thought we’d get some simple digs in the city in the meantime. It was tiny, very basic but utterly spotless and as we had no plans to really spend any time in the room at this point more than good enough. Only complaint was facing that same busy road but thankfully it quieted down almost completely after about 8pm.
The drainage channels out of the mountains collect various water channels and often have lovely flowers
Awake time at this point was roughly 23 hours so after squeezing in turn into the postage stamp sized shower we succumbed to the urge for a short nap. Unsurprisingly this turned into a longer nap but eventually we rousted ourselves, put on our only fresh clothing and managed to walk down towards the waterfront (with a quick stop for toothbrushes.) A second medium sized cruise ship had nestled in during our nap and the streets were fairly lively. I’m pretty good at quickly getting the hang of navigation in a new town (something about being able to mentally translate a map well) and figured out we were heading toward the large market. It was about to close but we had a quick look around at some of the flower stalls (the sellers required by law to wear traditional dress) and made a note to come back later. Thankfully the market also serves as a gateway to the old town.
Church plaza in Old Town with one of the many flowering trees here
Funchal’s old town has apparently undergone somewhat of a transformation of late with an area that was formerly somewhat rundown with many abandoned buildings. Not long ago all commercial shipping left Funchal proper and with it many of the residents. Thankfully unlike you might expect it wasn’t all torn down for a few giant hotels but is now filled with small restaurants and bars, art galleries, hostels and guesthouses (I would stay here next time.) Also notably, an art project was started to convince people to make and preserve art in the area that involved people painting the derelict (and non-derelict) doors with vibrant colours and murals. Some are great, some are just hilarious but they all combine to give the district a distinct vibe.
How could I not take a photo of this one (Doors of the Old Town, Funchal)
We eventually chose a Madeiran restaurant that was also hosting a Fado performance for a show while we ate. Fado is Portuguese folk blues, traditional music with a history of being about longing and melancholy. In practice it’s usually very dramatic sounding songs sung with much seriousness and accompanied by Portuguese guitar and an acoustic base guitar looking thing. Our group was 4 singers trading off and they were really quite talented despite my Portugues being essentially limited to yes sir, no sir, thank you, hot dog. By the time we finished our meal and show however we were absolutely done and headed back to our guest house ready to crash.
Fado!
Edit note: More to come soon, it took me a few days to finish this post as morale lowered a bit/other concerns overtook writing over the next bit.
Hong Kong, talk about a culture shock after rural Thailand 24 hours before. Between the plane running a bit late, customs taking a while and having to take the train to Hong Kong island (thankfully a painless airport express) it was just after eleven before I found my hotel. I’d had some sort of brainfart while booking and spent a lot more than I’d planned but the hotel was certainly nice if VERY compact due to real estate prices. It was a 32 storey (minus the “4” floors Chinese folks find so terrifying so more like 27ish with some other mysterious missing floors) building with a footprint not much bigger than my parents’ back yard. In that small space there were 5 hotel rooms and 2 tiny elevator shafts per floor. Despite the compactness my room was really well laid out and didn’t feel suffocating and somewhat gloriously I’d ended up on the top floor facing the harbour.
Since I hadn’t eaten anything in forever I grabbed a quick shower and went in search of food but sadly the neighbourhood I’d ended up in didn’t have much to offer at almost midnight on a Wednesday night. The desk clerk admitted I might have to resort to McDonalds. In the end I got a coke from a 7-11 and found a Dim Sum place about to close up but with a couple steamed pork buns still hot.
The next morning I got up reasonably early wanting to make the most of my day but still spen a few minutes enjoying my the view out my window (after opening my power blind from bedside control!) seeing the ferries scurry about and watching a small group do tai chi on the public park 30 stories below. Somewhat hilariously my shower sprayed with such a powerful fine mist that there was a warning posted to only use it with the air fan on full and both the bathroom and shower door closed lest it set off the sensitive smoke alarm and force evacuation of the hotel. As I had no desire to walk down all those stairs in my undies I obeyed.
One of my cousins and his family live in Hong Kong so I’d asked them for advice on how to spend a quick stay sightseeing (though they’d fled before I arrived in terror so we didn’t get to meet for a meal.) I started off exploring the neighbourhood round my hotel as I slowly made my way to ‘Central’ but as it was apparently a holiday more than a few things were closed. Central however was a lot more lively and I really enjoyed finding the bits of colonial architecture still standing in the midst of the more modern towers.
Their suggestion (and pretty much everyone else’s too) was to check out Victoria peak so I braved the holiday crowds and hopped on the Victoria Peak tram which has been running since the 1880s. It’s an occasionally wildly steep ride and the views are fantastic. I have to admit that the crazy long queue was exceptionally well managed for most of its length. I started on the other side of the street in a long (b/c holiday I’m guessing) queue for tickets. After making my way through that lineup (probably 30m) there was a gap to the other side of the street where the expensive tour people got to mostly skip it. At that point some of the marshals handed out plastic cards with which you could rejoin the queue on the other side. Sure enough some tiny old woman pretending? to be yakking on her cell phone (and her adult daughter) tried to squeeze in with my group in the rush but as they didn’t have the card (and a bunch of us pointed her out) she got the boot.
On the other side things were much more poorly managed but I eventually got on a tram through an area lined with historical displays which would have been quite interesting had I been able to browse them and not just get to read whichever one I was penned in next to each time the crowd crush for each tram moved forward. It was like waiting to get into an exam in University Center in an exam with lots of international students, the same elbows first mentality. Once at the top I did a 3km-ish circuit of one of the walking paths and enjoyed the sights. Not only do you get a fantastic view of the harbour and nearby islands in all directions, you’re looking down on the skyscrapers of Hong Kong island as well and it gives you quite the perspective on just how much city is crammed into such a tiny area.
Looking across to Kowloon from the peak
Once I’d gotten down from the peak I took a walk through nearby Hong Kong park which was quite pretty and which features and free to tour aviary filled with various birds. There are also a number of busy public areas and a large pond filled with fish and turtles.
AviaryTurtle Friend
By this point my legs were aching a bit as Hong Kong is quite the hilly/stair-filled place and even all my thailand power walking hadn’t prepped me for much up and down. Frustratingly my timing wasn’t great and my planned lunch stop fell through as they had closed for the afternoon, walking away from that place I randomly stumbled into another shop from an article on the “best xiao long bao in Hong Kong” and gave in to my craving for dumplings.
Xiao Long Bao are soup dumplings. Thin shelled steamed pork dumplings that when cooked properly have a mouthful of soupyness ready to squirt out all over the unwary eater’s shirt. They are phenomenal when done well and these were definitely good along with a bowl of spicy noodles. Happy and recharged I walked the rest of the way to the dock for the famous Star Ferry to hop across the harbour and experience a bit of Kowloon (the peninsula across from HK island.) Along the way I ran into a bunch of groups of young women clustered on the walkways, at one point there was a giant swarm of them practicing what can only be describe as catwalk model/strip club prancing or music video dancing in tottering heels to loud stereos blasting Bruno Mars and Beyonce. It was rather bizarre as one a) tried to avoid them and b) tried to avoid laughing as the occasional young woman trying very hard to be sexy instead fell over and was ridiculed by the others as they all giggled.
Soup dumpings, amazing
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If nothing else the trip was worth it for the view. Though you can take the subway across the water these days the ferry gives a pretty great panorama of all the tall buildings crowding Victoria Harbour, the mountains in the distance and the seemingly unending parade of boat traffic all around.
Wandering around Kowloon itself was definitely another side of the Hong Kong seen in movies and tv. Kowloon’s population density is something around 40,000 people per square kilometer and it really shows. Lots of narrow alleys packed with with shops and restaurants and people. In various places street markets fill almost every inch of available space and shopping appears to be where it’s at almost everywhere. Honestly if I wasn’t already running a pretty damned full bag I’d have been taking part more myself, maybe next trip. In the end I only bought a couple teeny things including a new luggage tag for my bag as mine had disappeared in a bus cargo hold somewhere in Thailand.
Kowloon Streets
Night was starting to fall when I finally gave in to my aching feet and hopped the subway back to the harbour, though I sadly found out the subway station was not particularly close to said harbour. Still, the ferry ride was worth it again, this time with the view being a closeup of the sparkling light displays on the various buildings that I’d seen from a distance (and up high) the night before in my room.
I grabbed a leisurely and delicious dinner once back on the Hong Kong side, planning my cheque to leave me with more or less just enough to hop on the airport train/buy a bottle of water for my flight. I don’t know if it’s a Hong Kong thing but as I waited (a while) for my food to come the hostess stopped by my table with a small bowl full of seasoned peanuts and seaweed bits. I had a few but they honestly were a bit too salty and bitter for me to enjoy too much so I put them aside after a couple pinches. Imagine my surprise when the bill comes and they’re the equivalent of like $5CAD, there went my grand financial plan. I asked the hostess wtf and she said “but you ate them.” What’s worse is they were taken away while I was asking what was up with the extra charge on the bill so I couldn’t even finish them out of spite. The meal was otherwise fantastic, I was just really hoping to not have to take out any extra money before heading back as I knew I’d probably get double dinged on the exchange charges.
When I got back to the hotel it wasn’t super late but to be safe I wanted to leave for the airport around 6am (wise choice) and my (notoriously terrible) feet were aching. I wasn’t surprised when via some quick online calcs I figured out I’d walked about 15 hilly km that day. Sadly the trip was definitely at a close now, the only thing left was the annoying part and as I fell asleep watching the Champions League replays in Cantonese I tried not to worry about the long flight to come.
I definitely didn’t get to see as much of Hong Kong as I would have liked but I saw enough to whet my appetite to return and I suppose that’s all you can ask for with a one and a bit day visit.
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Getting back to the airport was just as painless as my arrival with a quick subway ride leading to the airport train. Unfortunately for me I’d booked to go through Toronto as any vancouver flight around this date had had a premium on it of at least $400 iirc.) The result being of course that the flight time I’d saved from the BKK->HK flight was now just being spent crossing a section of Canada I’d just to have to cover again in reverse. This time however I’d booked a window seat, something I’d never do on a domestic flight due to space issues but knowing it would be relatively painless on the wide body airbus and at least give me a wall to lean against and sleep if I got another captain elbows.
Thankfully that didn’t happen but instead ended up with a flight full of people connecting from India, seemingly half of whom had either checked in last minute or perhaps missed/been bumped from another flight and were thus desperately trying to swap seats with people once on board to sit together. I had to very apologetically tell a girl that no I wasn’t going to swap so she could sit with her sister as it would have led to me sitting in the middle of a three seat cluster and there was no way I was doing a 15.5 hour flight in that position. Perhaps as karmic balance (though I think I made the right choice for everyone’s comfort involved) my entertainment system audio broke 3 hours into the flight… but at least I managed to snatch a few hours of sleep.
The map was working eventually though, so I got to unhappily watch the plane pass over Flin Flon then down midway across lake Winnipeg as it dodged some weather and couldn’t help but wish for some minor issue that would require stopping at Winnipeg and unloading for the night. Instead we went on to the nightmare that is Pearson international and what I supposed would be a fairly leisurely 2 hour layover turned into a near sprint for the gate.
Now, let me start off by saying I understand that Toronto is my port of entry into Canada and I need to clear customs, but Pearson is absolutely the worst place I’ve found to do that in all of Canada if you’re then shipping onward to somewhere else. First up was immigration which has a long lineup in one of the cattle tunnels down to the main section and absolutely no one telling you that that’s only one smaller area for pre checks to relieve the main area. Another passenger actually told me we could bypass it. Once at the main area we got in a line that though it moved fairly smoothly had every other passenger in it (Canada being literally the only country I’ve been to on my wider international journeys that doesn’t always have a “Local Citizens Only” speed line.) They had odd new robo passport checkers that moved up and down to shoot the camera at your face. All in all that part wasn’t great but could have been worse, still ate up about 30m of my layover in speed walking/line up time.
Next up was baggage claim where I had to claim my big bag, theoretically have customs look at it but in reality walk right by, then give it back to Air Canada. The baggage claim hall appears to have been unrenovated since the 80s, is dank and smelly and full of often unintelligible baggage claim announcements. It is not an exaggeration to say that the english baggage announcements were better in Bangkok and HK. Literally every flight that arrived in the thirty minutes I waited there had its carousel changed, often multiple times. Our flight had one carousel announced, the notice showed up on the tv screen on another carousel, then the announcements said a third one, followed by swapping back to the first. The tv screen had not changed by the time I got my bag. The bags themselves came in one batch of five, then a full fifteen minute wait before we saw another bag during which everyone on a connection was progressively getting closer and closer to climbing in the back.
Bag finally retrieved I walked by my customs “inspection” and brought my bag into a tiny room where a helpful West Jet person asked me if I was on their airline. I said no (sadly) and she directed me to the conveyor belt on my left where I walked right past two people playing on their phones and chatting, briefly making eye contact. Said woman made no comment at all as I placed my bag on the conveyor until it reached the end when she hit a loud “STOP THE LINE” alarm and started yelling at me “ARE YOU ON AIR CANADA” to which I replied yes and proceeded to get a lecture about having to show my baggage claim tag blah blah blah. I bit my tongue as I needed to change terminals and get the hell out of there but man… you knew damned well I was. Once my bag disappeared she with zero grace agreed with me that the particular unmarked door I needed was the one behind me and went back to her candy crush. It’s also worth noting that on West Jet you often don’t even need to do this process, though they have other problems at Pearson usually being stuck at extreme far gates with no functional slipways.
The worst part of the pearson experience in this is that unlike many other airports they don’t have a way for you to stay behind security as you change terminals, nor a particularly expedited way for you to get back through when you’re on a connection. So it was on the train, over to the departures area, through to back area, arrive at a tiny security desk with only two lanes open (despite at least 5 large international flights arriving in the previous hour) and a huge lineup of people and ~25m until my flight began boarding for Winnipeg. In the end I made it thanks to a group of Regina HS students returning from Europe knowing their flight had been delayed and letting me jump ahead of the fifteen of them (thanks fellow prairie folks, I promise not to bash Regina for a whole month.)
The scary part of the this was? I got the good experience! The young woman named Jenna I was sitting next to on the flight (middle seat, thanks for respecting my “seat preference” when you wouldn’t let me check in from China Air Canada) had been on the same HK flight returning from Indonesia. Roughly 10 different airline employees had told her different things about whether her bag was checked through or not and then a “rude employee just after customs” (boy I wonder who that was) had refused to help her get back or even contact anyone for help when she informed her that she needed her bag. All she said was you’ll have to go talk to your airline for an escort (good luck finding someone from Cathay an hour after their last flight for the day has arrived.) In the end she was left with no idea where her bag was or if she’d ever see it again but absolutely needed to be on the flight back to Winnipeg and was sobbing as she got seated. That sort of crap isn’t fun at the best of times but she was on an even longer day than me having had a 5 hour flight from somewhere in indonesia followed by a 5 hour layover in HKIA. We chatted for a while until she finally accepted that there was nothing she could do now and tried to sleep while I caught the end of the movie I’d been watching on the first flight when my tv broke.
A few hours later the snowy familiar sights of home were outside the window and I came down the arrivals escalator to see my mother blankly staring past me and not recognizing me as I went over to the baggage claim (hoping my own bag had made it.) Eventually my Dad showed up as well and he at least recognized his son ;p just before my slightly filthy backpack emerged. Some hugs and a warm coat later we headed out to the car to meet up with a dog that seemed to have missed me given she climed out the back into my arms, went and grabbed a delicious pizza then came home for a chat followed by one heck of a long sleep.
Distance:
All together I travelled countless kilometers by foot and bicycle, ~2000km by bus/minibus, ~1500km by various forms of train and another 250km by ferry on this trip. Add on 12,722km between YWG and Bangkok each wayplus a detour to Toronto (and the noticeable and appreciated detour the intercontinental flights took around North Korean airspace) and that’s the better part of 30,000km. Something tells me the big red backpack still has a few more trips in her though… but will it be back to Thailand next?
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Some trip details for those who asked.
Finances:
I know there’s been a bit of a running theme in this blog about me cheaping out on things. Honestly there are a few parts of solo travel that are amazing and there are a few parts that suck. The cost of things is one of the latter. This was an exceptionally cheap trip overall but there are still instances where you really wish you had someone to share the cost.
Accommodations:
If you discard Hong Kong as an outlier my most expensive hotel of the whole trip was I believe $55ish Canadian the average was probably 30-35 and that was with me always having a private room and almost always springing for the extra baht for air con. Even my time share apartment generously obtained from my dad was I think only around 80 or 90 a night if booking privately, though you were then charged utilities. I generally stayed at guest houses or bungalows with good ratings on trip advisor or booking.com or that were recommended by people I met and other than the one place in Lanta was never really disappointed. Overall they ranged from fine but spartan to amazingly luxurious and with one exception had ensuite bathrooms.
I’d say were I travelling with a partner or a friend sharing twin beds I probably would have bumped this up by $10 a night in certain places but it definitely wasn’t necessary and I certainly never felt and urge or need to seek out one of the big us or euro chains for a luxury night (especially as in Thailand these hotels are often very remote from the fun stuff.) That said if you’re willing to do dorm stays (even if you want to stay to smaller four bed dorms) many places in Thailand have some very fun looking hostels. After having felt a bit old on the last trip five years ago and valuing sleep a bit more this time around (and given Thailand’s ridiculously low prices) I decided to stick to private rooms.
Eating/Drinking:
My most expensive splurgy meal including a beer was around $18, my average meal was definitely under $5. I often spent as much in a day on bottled water as I did on food. The downside of travelling solo here is that there are times you really want to try more things on a menu and you’d love to just do some family style dining. Occasionally I’d splurge on a bigger meal but as I only had a kitchenette the only place leftovers usually weren’t useful. If there was someplace I knew I wanted to try and eat a bunch I’d often skip lunch or just have something tiny and just chow down for dinner.
Booze wise local beer is cheap, terrible Thai whiskey/rotgut is cheapish, most other things are expensive by comparison. A lot of places you’d pay near the low end of Canada prices for a mixed drink/cocktail, again not terrible in the grand scheme of things but probably 2-3x what you spent on dinner. Given the heat I often just had a cold Thai beer or have a mango smoothie or the like.
Transport:
Here is often where I skimped even though relatively speaking it wasn’t expensive. Had I had a bit less time I likely would have flown around a bit more as you can hop domestic air for often under $100 between some destinations. Were I doing the same itinerary again I likely would have flown to Phuket from BKK and perhaps back from Samui after Koh Tao. As it was I definitely wanted the experience of the train journeys though I’d only really recommend the night train to Chiang Mai of the ones I took, the other is probably better done at least partially by day.
Buses:
Whenever possible I’d say do your research and always spend the extra money on the higher end buses and particularly on the good brands/government ones where applicable. Always buy your ticket at the bus station as the touts are generally more money.
Taxis,Tuk Tuks and Red Trucks:
These vary so incredibly widely by city that one can’t really give blanket advice. Tuktuks are cute but terrible in Bangkok as they charge you massive amounts that aren’t worth it unless you’re a group of 4 and the roofs are so short that anyone tall-ish can’t see out anyway. Add on the smog/scooter exhaust and it’s not super pleasant anyway, even before you factor in the fact that they’re usually trying to take you to some business from which they’ll get a commission. Taxis are cheap in Bangkok and should always be on meter, just use them, you’ll get a chance to tuk tuk elsewhere in Thailand for the experience. Taxis etc are also the one “tourism” industry in Thailand that often doesn’t have a lot of english spoken so if possible have the address of your hotel in Thai or at least know how to clearly pronounce it properly in Thai.
Taxi wise in general in thailand they’ll often try to bilk you for big money if you’re just getting off a bus/train, carrying a backpack and if you’re solo (also no doubt worse if you’re female.) It’s usually better to take a short walk away from the hotel/station/tourist attraction and flag down a cab on the move rather than take one of those just sitting there waiting for someone to scam as honest cabbies in Thailand make their living through volume and will be on the move.
Where possible in smaller towns it’s often worth trying to use the Rot-dam/Sorng-Taa-Ew local system (the pickup truck pseudo buses/charterable buses) as they’re often under a buck to go really long distances or get to less touristy areas (say if you want to go to a mall to stock up on sunscreen and other sundries at non tourist prices.) As chronicled in the blog there are a few places where you’re just at the mercy of what they feel like charging you.
Excursions:
Lots of excursions offer deals if you book more than one person, sadly not helpful when you’re solo. Shop around though, some places offer better deals online, some hotels have discounts (though some of the in hotel places also gouge you for a commission or in some northern towns even require you to book at least one tour through them to be able to stay the night) it’s definitely worth comparing yourself and knowing at least the ballpark of what the cost should be.
What to bring:
Don’t bring backups of anything really, it’s pretty rare to go too long without seeing some kind of shop that will sell backups of anything really critical. Clothing wise I’d definitely skew towards more shirts/less other things. The heat will often have you returning from a day’s activities and wanting to throw on a fresh shirt before going out to dinner. I had a couple items in my bag that never got worn though at least I learned my lesson from last time and didn’t have jeans weighing down my bag. Pretty much everywhere in Thailand has laundry services done by the Kilo so try to bring stuff that is friendly to wash together and you’ll be set. Touristy shirts are available pretty much everywhere if you get stuck for around $5-10 if you get really stuck.
Unless you’re really planning to go to a super high end place in Bangkok it’s probably not worth bringing anything super fancy clothes wise, I went with one collared shirt and my khakis for that. Really the only thing worth worrying about clothes wise is the occasional restriction at temples, particularly for women about covering skin. Usually they will have things you can rent but wearing pants at some temples may be required and midriff baring tops aren’t acceptable. I saw many women at the temples in bangkok just using one of the gorgeous silk scarves you can buy many places in town as a shoulder covering and that seemed to be acceptable though a lightweight rain jacket stowed in the purse/backpack was a frequent choice as well.
It’s worth having one sweater (ideally a light weight zip up imo) with you either for temples or for your time on the frequently meat locker set AC temps on public transport.
I travelled with my stupidly expensive sandles because of my frequently mentioned terrible feet but for those who can function in flip flops you can buy them pretty much everywhere there cheaply and can be ignored if space is tight. Absolutely bring a well broken in but still supportive pair of shoes, consider throwing in some gel insoles as you’ll be walking a bunch. According to people I talked to replacing a pair of sneakers if you have big western feet can be a difficult prospect outside Bangkok.
Other things to buy and bring with you:
-Sunscreen/bug spray are both necessities (I avoided Dengue hurray!) and are significantly more expensive in Thailand for western brands. I forgot my sunscreen and had to drop $20 on some coppertone then had to buy a further slightly cheaper bottle in week 3 thanks to the volume I was going through.
-first aid/advil other small things. Sometimes you’re at the mercy of small tourist pharmacies or 7-11 for these things, definitely worth having a small first aid kit with you. Mine’s about the size of a deck of cards and served me well having bandages/gauze, some antibiotic ointment and immodium/advil/decongestent. I also brought a tensor bandage given my explosion prone ankles but thankfully never needed it.
-If you’re going to snorkel or dive a lot and don’t have your own mask either resign yourself to renting or buy one at home. Masks of any quality had a significant mark up most places I looked. Was definitely worth the bag space to me, ymmv.
Cell Phone:
Bring an unlocked smartphone with you (all Canadian carriers are now required to unlock your phone) if your brand new smartphone is too pricey for you to want to risk it go pick up a cheap last gen pay as you go phone somewhere, you can usually find something on sale for under $150. Once you’re in thailand cheap tourist SIMs are everywhere and there are counters in the airport where you literally just give them the phone and they’ll set it up right in front of you and hand it back (keep your original sim safe if it’s your prime phone and you want to be able to slot it back in after.) LTE coverage is astonishingly good most places in Thailand (even mid ferry ride shockingly) and I got coverage for my full month for about $25cad. Being able to use GPS or look up a hotel booking while on a ferry was a lifesaver at times though I wish I’d brought a phone with a better battery.
I think that’s about it for off the top of my head, mostly just putting things in here I’ve talked to people thinking of travelling to Thailand about since returning.
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Thanks everyone who read along for the trip, I wasn’t originally going to do a travel blog this time but there was definitely enough people asking that I guess more people read it than I imagined last time. I know things were a bit more matter of fact this time but that was down to fewer hours on a greyhound and my laptop battery only lasting about 40m without power so not often being able to write in a bus or train station and instead just taking longhand notes. As for the trip itself feel free to reach out if you have questions either in general or because you’re planning to visit this gorgeous and delicious country.
I’d decided to finish off my Thailand trip with a visit to the Kanchanaburi area. The region is probably best known to westerners as where the death railway made famous (though not particularly accurately) in Bridge on the River Kwai.
Starting from Sukhothai it was a brutal bus ride, especially since I was trying to immediately hop from Bangkok out to Kanchanburi. What was supposedly a first class (though not “VIP”) bus was very much not. We zig zagged a bunch in the first two hours out of Sukhothai picking up all kinds of random folks until the bus was full. What was frustrating about it was that often these pickup points were within a 10 minute walk of the bus station we’d subsequently visit (or had just stopped at) but what with the u-turns and traffic it involved for the bus it was adding 15 minutes to our trip. It makes one wonder why they even have the stations. As a result by the time I’d been told we’d be at the Bangkok station we were already 2 hours behind and then were delayed a further hour by an absolute typhoon type rain and some sunday night traffic. When I finally did get into town it was to find there was a traffic jam around the Bangkok northern bus station so the final approach took forever then getting a cab to the other bus station took even longer. By the time I was on my way out of Bangkok again it was after dark on probably the rattiest bus of the trip.
Arriving into Kanchanburi fairly late I had a fairly good idea of where my guesthouse was and started making the walk. My guidebook and one of the websites I’d read had warned that feral dogs were a bit of a problem and sure enough there were more than a few as I made my way through the town and especially down the back lane that led to the place. In truth though the most aggressive dog I ran into was a noisy brat barking at me through a gate as I passed his house.
I checked in quickly then ran off to get some food as I hadn’t had time for a meal in Bangkok and was more or less running on a bag of lay’s I’d snagged on the bus trip. Kanchanaburi is very stretched out along the river and isn’t very convenient for walking. Even the more tourist centric area is a 4km stretch between the highway and the famous bridge.
I decided to head to the other big draw of the area a gorgeous waterfall/hiking area called Erawan National Park. It’s a series of tiered waterfalls/associated trails where you can swim at the various levels. Thank goodness too as it was a ridiculously hot day again with the humidex spiking it to something like “feels like 45C.” I followed some advice I’d seen to take the first bus out there and to climb higher early and make your way back down. The trail was reasonably well groomed and was a mix of steep stairways and gentler bits. The local parks service did a pretty great job keeping things clean as well with food/drink banned above the second level and with a deposit required to bring a water bottle with you (they drew a number on your bottle and to get your cash back you had to show it again.) It certainly worked as I saw basically zero garbage.
Each level was a different kind of gorgeous and I eventually found a pool at tier five that I couldn’t resist. I’d forgotten completely about being warned that these waters were also home to something else. I’m sure most of you have heard of the thai foot spas that involve you placing your feet into an aquarium filled with fish that nibble and exfoliate you as they nibble bits of dead skin off you. Well this is their natural habitat and I nearly fell over startled as the first one nibbled me.
This is before I got in and they were all over me at this density, so weird
I sat there for a while letting them nibble my feet but eventually the heat made the cool water too inviting and I hopped in to the deeper water. The water was crystal clear and you could clearly see the nibbly fried swarming on their pale Canadian fish buffet. There were some bigger fish swimming about as well, all clearly used to human intruders as they came very close. The falls themselves were not tall as they dropped down about 18 inches at each step in the tier I was in but still felt nice on my tired shoulders. I ended up hanging around in that pool almost an hour as I had it to myself. Occasionally the nibbles on my arms/legs would get to be a bit too much so I’d go for a more active swim, but they’d always eventually come back.
Level 5
As I started back down it was definitely much more busy. A chinese tour bus or two had obviously shown up and they were hilariously all wearing bright orange lifejackets as they climbed the trails (there were plenty of pools you could safely wade in if you were unable to swim, particularly at the bottom tiers.) I stopped at tier four where there was a natural waterslide down a rock and went down it a couple times. The water here was a particularly gorgeous shade of blue and there was more of a crowd hanging around. In the end it was thunder that made me start heading down for real. After the rainstorm I’d seen the day before I had zero desire to be stuck waiting for the last bus of the day with a large number of drowned rats hoping there was space.
The rock slide: This guy took so damned long to finally slide
Correct decision… about 45 minutes later mid bus ride back a rain so intense that it came in through closed windows hit the bus. We all tried to focus on being glad we were in the rain and less on the fact that the bus had no wipers and the driver was occasionally clearing off his view with a t-shirt. Oddly enough I ran into one of the couples from my Chiang Mai cooking class on that bus. Happily we got back without incident and there was a brief window in the storm where I got back for a shower and sat writing a blog post while the storm raged again for an hour and a half.
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The next morning I got up early and hopped a tuk tuk to the bridge on the railway. To be safe I wanted to be back in Bangkok that night and not at the mercy of a rural bus on whether I made my flight or not. The center two spans of the bridge are post-war (built by the japanese as war reparations apparently) the originals having been destroyed by an allied bombing raid towards the end of the war. The pylons and the end sections are original to the wartime bridge. At one point during the war there was a wooden bridge as well.
The Bridge (real one) on the River Kwai (the two squarer sections are post war replacements for the sections bombed out by the allies)
The railway was built to link Thailand and Japanese-controlled Burma to support the army’s planned invasion of India (which ended up not going very well.) In the process of building the line through ridiculously rough terrain, disease ridden conditions and terrible rations particularly as the japanese war effort lost more and more ground roughly 100,000 people lost their lives. Many were allied POWs brits/aussies/dutch captured during the fall of Hong Kong/Singapore and other colonial outposts and various Allied crew survivors of various ships/lost air crews. Less talked about are the tens of thousands of malays, burmese etc… etc… convinced to come work on the railway through misleading contracts or just flat out kidnapped/pressganged by the empire.
I took a long walk over the bridge and looked out over the fairly placid water that I imagine is much more quickly moving and rather intense come the rainy season when the monsoon rains are filling the mountains. There are other sites visited by some of the tours (such as hellfire pass) but unfortunately my time was running out. The nearby museum is notoriously terrible. It calls itself the world war 2 museum but is apparently a random and small collection of thai history, a tiny ww2 section and a large random collection of objects the owner finds interesting and a collection of paintings of Miss Thailand winners for some reason.
On the other hand there is a pretty great small museum overlooking the main cemetery that shows more about the entire story. Oddly for a British museum while it focuses on the allied troops there is significant discussion of the Asian losses as well. To be fair a part of the lack of info is just an actual lack of info. Most of the Asian grave sites are unknown, the Japanese kept few records of them at all etc… The allied experience is collected from a combination of official japanese records, records kept by the pows approved by the Japanese and records kept secretly by the POWs and hidden, often buried in the graves of prisoners who had succumbed to injuries, famine or disease. After the war the british fairly quickly ripped up a section of the track as they didn’t want various Burmese rebel groups to supply themselves using it. More of it was covered by the floodplain of a dam built later on but the section from Kanchanaburi to the next and last town on the line is still ride-able though sadly not at convenient times of day during my visit.
The cemetery next to the railway museum is immaculately kept by the commonwealth war graves commission staff. The Dutch/Australian/British (and several Canadians) are mostly here or another local cemetery, the smaller amount of American bodies were repatriated.
The main cemetary for the POW dead. Immaculately kept by the local staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
It was in a resulting somber mood that I rode back to Bangkok a couple hours later, checked into the old standby and started packing my bag a bit more thoroughly to head out for Hong Kong the next evening. Interestingly when I grabbed my last dinner later that night I went to the same very good restaurant near the hotel as I’d gone to at the start of the trip and after another good meal the owner said “You were here a month ago yes? At that table?” which I confirmed with a laugh. She asked me how I’d liked thailand, what I’d seen, would I be back…
After thinking about that I couldn’t help but think about some of the things I’m going to miss about Thailand.
-Amazing cheap food
-Incredibly friendly people
-The beautiful varied countryside
-Fresh pineapple and golden mango
-The weather
-Elephants
-Beaches
-Cheap smoothies everywhere
-New places and the freedom to choose where I was going next on the fly
Some things I won’t miss about the trip:
-Horribly aggressive touts
-Being yelled at in Thai loudly either by the above or by massage parlour ladies or various others
-Always being sweaty because I’m not built for +38
-Chinese tour groups (less because of their ubiquity and more because they appear to be filled with people who always talk with volume set at 10, screaming across places that should be dedicated to quiet contemplation)
-The rudeness of the large groups of Russian tourists
-The truly ridiculous number of thai people that clearly suffer from having broken legs badly set as children, it’s really distressing
-Firm guest house beds, things were definitely better overall than last big trip’s mostly hostel experience but still.
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Still lost in these thoughts the next morning I ran into yet another thing that confused me. For the umpteenth time this trip there were mothers with small children hanging out in the restaurant. I don’t really get bringing small children in general on a trip like that… I mean from here to mexico or whatever when you’re just chilling on a beach most of the time and want to get away why not, but a trip that takes multiple long flights from almost anywhere and is generally about moving around exploring? I mean to each their own but this pair of moms stuck out because of their particularly young kids, both at most 9 months old I would guess. I mean if nothing else if I was travelling with children that young I’d probably want to do so on a budget where I wasn’t having to stay at my guesthouse. I mean it’s fine for a few nights but not really for dealing with an infant.
As I was puzzling that out I got some breakfast theatre in the form of a British couple who appeared to be the model for the Queen of the Harpies couple from the couples retreat episode of the Simpsons. They got into a barely restrained screaming match at one point over something to do with their backyard and a neighbour and after she eventually him a “Useless festering pile of boring shit” the man took off for about half an hour while she sat there eating pancakes. They got back into it when he returned but it was time for me to begin my journey to the airport via the airport train this time (mostly because it worked out to be a bit cheaper as a solo traveller and I didn’t want to take out more money since it would have been a $6-8 transaction fee to take out the extra $20 for a cab.)
With that it was farewell to Thailand. I don’t think there’s any question in my mind that I’ll be back before too much time passes.
Sukhothai sounded like an interesting place to visit. It’s an ancient thai capital of which many ruins remain in a park you can cycle through. Add on the fact that it’s conveniently about halfway back from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and I was sold.
The bus trip was mostly eventful from Chiang Mai to Sukhothai, definitely less pretty than the train ride had been but pleasant enough by long distance bus travel standards. Arriving in (old)Sukhothai (New Sukhothai is about 15km and is a modern town) I was dropped off right at the historical park gate and of course I was immediately set on by a tout who tried to get me on a tuk tuk for the equivalent of $15CAD to my hotel all of 2km away. I said hell no of course, but I should probably have sought out another tuk tuk farther away as the next couple hours were just awful.
I’d booked the small resort recommended by the spanish couple from my elephant adventure. Unfortunately for me my travel phone has been acting up and not connecting properly (though it seems better now) so I wasn’t able to GPS my way there. Complicating matters as I walked with my heavily loaded bag was the current temp was somewhere around 38. The local tourism folks have placed maps on signs in various places showing the location of various ruins… however they’ve neglected to place “you are here” markers on them which makes them less than useful. Eventually I reached a corner with a number of signs pointing to hotels but sadly mine wasn’t among them so I kept walking, slowly getting worried that I was going to walk all the way to New Sukhothai. I eventually reached another corner with a hotel sign and knowing my hotel was on this side I decided walk down to see if I could see anything… zip, except for a very nice ruined spire off on its own. BUT, upon returning to the road I was able to find a different kind of sign showing hotels including the one I’d just passed which told me I’d gone way too far for mine.
I asked at a local hostel but unfortunately no one spoke English so I gave in and walked back to the original corner I’d thought seemed like a likely destination. There, on a sign completely invisible from the main road (and only facing the direction I was now coming, nothing towards the bus stop) was a sign with an arrow pointing to my hotel. Unfortunately it also said 750m. By the time I finally reached the check in desk I was an absolute puddle and the check in lady took one look at me and handed me some iced tea. I haaaate iced tea but happily downed this one and a subsequent glass instantly. I’m not going to lie, I was predisposed to hate the place with the mood I was in but it was gorgeous, especially for the price.
I quickly got settled in a sparkling clean bungalow with a porch w/ rocking chair. Showered off and threw on my swimsuit to dive into the gloriously large pool for a resort with only 13 rooms. Between the main pool and the partially seperate cold jacuzzi I think I was in there a solid hour and honestly it was only thunder rolling in that made me get out for a bit of a nap.
Finally feeling refreshed I followed the check in woman’s advice, rented a bike from the resort and rode down to the night market on the fringes of the historical site. Bit of an adventure of course as just like elsewhere in Thailand lane keeping is iffy at best, people see the sidewalk (on the rare occasion there is one) as an excellent place to plonk their car/motorbike/table/garbage etc. Thankfully the hotel’s bikes included a flashy taillight (quite good) and a generator headlamp (always aiming well off to my left but better than nothing.) Sukhothai in general was the least western visited place I think for the whole trip and the night market in particular only had a couple other non-thai tourist faces around. I enjoyed the boisterous stage show for a bit then grabbed some Sukhothai pork noodles (tasty but a bit too sweet for me for a ‘dinner’) as well as some chicken satay and a bowl of soup. All together (and with some fresh squeezed OJ) it cost me a whole $6.
The night food market w/ dancing
Old Sukhothai (and new from what I heard) is definitely not a party spot otherwise. After a quick spin around town to confirm not much was happening I headed back to the hotel to write a blog post and watch a movie. Since I wanted to be up reasonably early to bike around the ruins before the worst of the heat hit that seemed prudent anyway.
—
For the first time in thailand my hotel included breakfast. It wasn’t anything special (they weren’t big on keeping things that should be hot hot) but it was bizarrely satisfying to be able to make myself a piece of toast, grab a bowl of golden mango and have some little mini pancakes with syrup and just relax in the morning. Of course not for too long as the ruins beckoned…
hotel breakfast area
There’s a small extra charge for bringing a bike into the historical park but it’s definitely worth it as many of them are quite far apart. Somewhat bizarrely they charge seperately for the large central area and the smaller surrounding areas outside the main park. There were definitely more westerners around at this point, particularly the giant russian family that felt the need to constantly walk around stretched out across the entire path. After my third time encountering them I just stopped and made them go around me.
There were also a swarm of students from a Thai university in a business and communications course. I got stopped by them a number of times asking for “interviews” and after it became apparent it would be an ongoing thing I agreed but used a different name and accent every time. I hope they all watch the videos together in class one day and get very confused by my dopplegangers.
I did a full tour of the ruins during the day, then after another swim and some dinner returned again as I happened to be there on a day they lit up everything after dark with a combination of floodlights and flame bowls. Very few people were there for the nighttime visit and everything felt more ancient as a result.
With that it was time to get back to the environs of Bangkok for the flight home though I have one more side trip planned for my last couple days to get my WWII history on.
A cool grey mist hung over a jungle covered valley as I looked out the window for the first time after dawn broke. I couldn’t help but think “this is more like it” as I watched the scenery roll by. I’d purposely booked the later night train to Chiang Mai in Thailand’s north as it didn’t get in til just after noon and I was told I’d get some solid scenery time. That was certainly the truth.
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That morning had started lazily at the old home base with a leisurely wakeup, nothing to pack as I hadn’t bothered unpacking and a slow breakfast. Rather than leave the bag at the hotel this time I hopped a cab (after dodging another scammer trying to not use his meter and charge me 5x) to the train station and left my bag in their left luggage. Large signs and verbal warnings reminded you to not have any food in your bag as they made no guarantees a rat wouldn’t knaw its way in… good to know. I didn’t really have anything planned and just did some further bangkok exploration in a direction I hadn’t gone before… sat in a park and read for a while… and gave in to a serious craving I’d had for fries (and a desperate need for some A/C on a muggy +36 day) and went to McDonalds. One giant fries, a ‘samurai pork’ burger and a pinapple pie made for my shame meal and somewhat handily given the train plans they also gave me two random kellogs cereal bars as some sort of promo. I set off for 7/11 to finish stocking up for the train and equipped with a roll of oreos and some juice/water I hopped the metro back to the train station to make sure I wasn’t late.
The train itself was objectively worse that the last one. A site had lied to me and told me I’d be getting the fancy new second class a/c car but in fact it an even older one than last time with only squatty potties. On the plus side I’d booked well ahead and had a lower berth (bigger bed and the window) and the beds were set up when we got aboard due to the 10pm start time. I got comfy, pulled my curtain shut to cocoon myself and watched the city go by until I finally gave in to the heat of the day and let myself nod off, only waking when we stopped and took on the person in berth on top of me and again at one point in the middle of the night where the train staff felt the need to have a 3am shouting match. At that point I dozily remembered the sleep headphones I’d bought for this purpose and it wasn’t until the sky started lightening outside the window that I woke again.
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It was an interesting experience and definitely more what I was hoping for from my thai train travels. We rolled through a variety of narrow passes and tunnels, stopped at villages of various sizes and saw our car’s porter put on and take off his uniform so many times (he only wore it at stations where a supervisor might be I’m guessing?) In between lay many a jungle covered valley or rice laden cultivation area. There were definitely a lot of views that looked like establishing long shots in a vietnam war movie and I somehow kept expecting Fortunate Son to start blaring over my headphones.
My upstairs neighbour eventually woke but disappeared off to join her husband farther back where I guess someone had gotten off and left a spare pair of joined seats. Unfortunately she left her crap all over the bunk at the time so it was an hour before the porter tracked her down so he could swap my area back to chairs (much comfier for windowgazing.) One poor sod nearby on an upper bunk had rip van winkle of a frenchman below him who didn’t get out of bed until around 11. I myself kept meaning to go grab something at the restaurant car but never got around to it before we pulled into chiang mai just after 1.
I have a general rule about never hopping in the first cab or listening to the first people to talk to you after getting off a bus or train. In this case though, the travel info desk (clearly a taxi company) was offering free reasonable looking maps, and when I asked for one I was quoted a not terrible price to get to my guest house (though more than I should have paid.) In the end I’m fairly glad I got someone who at least knew where the place was though as the old city in Chiang Mai is definitely a warren of wildly diverging back lanes all of which have a guest house/hotel/hostel in pretty much every building.
The history of the city is an interesting one as it’s served as varying level of capital for Northern Thailand and empires based here, was an important stop on various Chinese trade routes back in the overland days and is also where most of the Teakwood came from before logging it was banned. The resulting mishmash of architecture is really neat. The old city itself is still surrounded by a moat and a few sections of wall as well as four gates. Temples are everywhere, even by Thai standards and are impressive even after seeing so many this trip.
Sri-Pat Guesthouse Lobby
My friend Kym reminded me that part of the benefit of doing this is remembering where you stayed/what you did if you like it (and also so your friends can benefit.) So in that spirit let me talk about the Sri Pat guesthouse in the old city which definitely had the feeling of a structure half converted from a onetime Teak baron’s home. For less than $50CAD I was given a spacious king sized bed room, ensuite bathroom and small balcony. Incredibly friendly staff who managed to get me a 15% discount off my cooking class. Decent location too as while it was in the old city it was also close to the street to walk down to the night markets and some of the restaurants I wanted to try. It also has a small pool in what can be a very very hot place. Heartily recommended if you’re in Chiang Mai, which you should be as it’s an amazing city.
My main concern about coming to Chiang Mai was the heat as well as warnings that the smoke can be awful in March from a combination of wind currents and the mountains/valleys funneling agriculture burning into the city. Thankfully while hazy it was never a thick blanket during my visit. Even better, while definitely hot (36 one day 37 another) it was a bit less humid than the worst I’d seen so felt a bit more bearable. After checking in, grabbing a post-train shower I headed out to explore the old city/find some food… which turned into a bit of a disaster at first. I’d read a couple places that the best place to get the local specialty of Khao Soi (curry over egg noodles and chicken topped with crunchy noodles/pickled radish) was the city’s “halal street.” Unfortunately I missed the part where all those places closed by 5pm and I arrived at 5:30. My backup plan was thankfully open and I devoured a big plate of burmese noodle stew and tomato salad. I ended up at a weird mexican (apparently super popular in Thailand atm?) bar to end the night listening to a pretty talented guitarist.
A friend of my mother’s had recommended the Zabb-e-lee cooking school she’d attended about a month ago and after looking into it I decided to book it as well and ended up in the morning class. Slightly bigger class this time but definitely manageable for the instructor Kis and her assistant. We had a few brits, an american, a german/spanish couple now living in south africa and a few south koreans. I was the last one picked up in my van which promptly did a big elaborate circle through some lanes then stopped at the food market one lane down from my guest house that I’d looked around the night before. As she introduced all the ingredients I tried and failed to not be a know it all but I can’t not answer a question I know the answer to when the instructor is looking at me. After giving folks a chance to look through things on their own for ten minutes we bundled back into the van and headed to the school.
4 curry pastes
The biggest appeal about this school was that you could choose your own menu to make (you should do this one too Kym.) When were at the market Kis made a note of who wanted to do what and bought the appropriate things. I ended up making Khao Soi before I’d actually had it in town and it was phenomenal (all the other dishes were too but that was the star.) Much like the first school everyone had their own wok station and prep board and she gave everyone individual attention. I apparently made the best Tom Kha Gai so yay me :p Because everyone had differing curry desires we actually ended up pounding 4 different pastes which was interesting seeing how similar they really are except for a couple key ingredients. If I was comparing the two schools I’d say the Bangkok one had slightly better instruction in terms of start to finish cooking but both were fantastic and being able to do the Chiang Mai specialty was fantastic.
Khao Soi, oh boy!
I gave in to the lure of the swimming pool, a beer and a book as I digested an awful lot of food for pre-1pm. The pool was nothing special but refreshing and I hopped in and out a couple times while reading. I knew it was time to do some exploring that afternoon though as I had a notion that after the next day’s activity there’d likely be a nap in the offing. So that’s what I did. I wandered the streets of the old city checking out the various temples and pseudo colonial architecture, scouting out some souvenirs and soaking up the vibe of Chiang Mai. I ended up at a shop that sold handmaid paper and local art and picked up a print that I really liked that I hope manages to get home reasonably whole but it’s always a crapshoot.
Via a long circuitous route I ended up down at the various giant night markets by the river. This one is definitely a more tourist focused one that the others I have described this trip with most of the space dedicated to stall after stall of the same souvenir-y stuff, but deep in the back is a giant food court full of great options at ridiculous prices and I ended up getting a giant thing of pad thai (since I hadn’t had it in ages at this point) and a drink for under $2.50. Circling around the stalls I managed to pick up a few things to bring home that I liked the look of and haggled as much as I could stomach. It was a reasonably early night though as I had a date with some pachyderms come morning.
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Ethical elephant encounters are thankfully a growing trend in Thailand though there are also a number that purport to be sanctuaries but really aren’t, or at least not in an entirely altruistic fashion. Sadly the one that is supposedly best of all was thoroughly booked even when I looked the week before so I chose another that both my book and the interwebs said was good. I was relieved when we were picked up in a van, though these ubiquitous tourist conveyances aren’t what I’d call super safe, it definitely beat a 1.5 hour trip in a pickup truck bench in traffic fumes. And that was before we did the snaky road up the mountain into the boonies north of the city. Talking with someone back at the hotel later I heard that a few people had been sick on their elephant trip as a result.
Ping
I had chosen to do the full day excursion and was joined by a German woman, a Spanish couple living in London and a young Swede. The day started with a discussion about the background of the elephants (some rescued from circuses, some former logging camp working ones,) the differences between african/asian elephants and a discussion of traditional herbal remedies they use to attempt to keep them healthy. Once we’d done the education session our guide “call me Woody” loaded us up with shoulder bags full of teeny bananas and took us off to meet our new friends.
We first met a mom and her three year old calf as they came back into the compound from a walk in the hills with their handler. The english wasn’t the best but I gathered the handler in this case was one of the traditional hill tribes that had made their livings from working with elephants and who have been very hard hit by the industrialization of the more remote areas. His particular elephant had died of old age but he wanted to keep working with them so he came here. Our new elephant friends knew damned well what was in our shoulder bags though and if we went too long without offering some those powerful trunks were snaking their way into the bags looking to help themselves. Academically you know from watching nature shows just how deft they are with their trunks but it’s still somewhat shocking to see them snaking around with them or getting in a tug of war with them.
Eventually we met the rest of the herd and spread some more bananas around. Their was one very large female, one smaller older female and the younger mom along with the two little ones. We fed them and patted them, made them up some balls of food to hide their medication (the vet was there that morning) and watched a few of them play in the watering hole before we went for our own lunch. Lunch was extra interesting getting to talk a bit more with my fellow visitors. I am always in awe of what amazing english swedes speak and Ariel was no exception, in fact everyone else there assumed she was a yank. We all talked about where we’d been and where we were going. She’d been gone four months but like me was winding down towards the end of her trip. The spanish couple were in their first week of three but weren’t sure where they were going next other than diving at some point so I tossed some recommendations their way and in return they recommended the lovely resort I’m currently writing this in at my next stop Sukhothai. Lunch itself was appropriately enough deep fried bananas along with fried rice and an odd apple salad. We were all a little confused why they’d asked if we were vegetarian given there was no meat.
Phase two of elephant party was the slightly more worrying part as we followed our guide down to the elephant mud bath. They gave us some other tops to throw on which was appreciated though I’m pretty sure basketball mesh sleeveless is a look in my top 3 should not wears. While ostensibly we were coating the elephants with mud the various handlers delighted in throwing mud at us as well. Here’s hoping there wasn’t anything too energetic bacteria wise in there as I ended up pretty covered. I should count myself lucky that I wasn’t our twenty year old cute swede (Emily) though as the handlers had obviously taken a shine to her and were absolutely plastering her with mud and at one point even energetically threw her into the deep end. Absolute favourite moment was the three year old struggling to pick up the hose pipe with her trunk, finally succeeding and looking absolutely joyful as she poured water into her mouth with it until mom took it away. Eventually everyone got tired and the elephants were climbing out to go rub themselves in the sand, then on to the watering hole to wash up (both people and elephants.)
We were all very thankful they had proper showers to at least get the first layer off though I knew my very first act upon getting back to the guest house was going to be harnessing that water pressure to scour everything off completely and finally feel like all the grit was out of my hair. Emily was apparently in a hostel with terrible showers and was resigned to staying in there for 2 hours once back. Once everyone was dressed we said our goodbyes to our new friends both human and pachyderm and hopped back in the minivan along with some extra guests that were finishing up their overnight stay program. Everyone in the back of the minivan was out by the time we’d gotten down the first hill and I only stirred when the last hard turn onto the highway banged my head against the window.
I’m thankful I went and it was an amazing experience to meet those wonderful animals. There is definitely a sense at this place that they are treated well though they could definitely use more space to expand. Talking with the overnight folks we got a decent picture that while they are penned in a smaller area at night (for their safety lest they get out of protected area) they stay in whatever family groups they are comfortable with. While it’s not perfect it’s a better life for these former work elephants (and their handlers) than begging on the streets or being forced to cart logs or tourists through the hills.
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The shower was glorious (and long) but I had one more souvenir I wanted to buy and another bowl of Khao Soi to acquire so I took one last trip out into the streets of Chiang Mai that evening. I’d taken a look online and though I’d again missed the daytime only places there was one reasonably close by curry shop that ranked in the top 3 of a few different “best khao soi in CM” lists. It was indeed a tasty place and popular with the locals, it wasn’t until I mentioned it later while having a beer with a brit that spent his winters here that I found out apparently Bourdain had visited it on one of his shows.
Sadly that marked the end of my time in Chiang Mai as I have a couple more things I want to fit in and I’m down to my last few days over here. I would definitely dedicate more time to the city next time as despite being a biggish city it felt very down to earth and friendly. That and there are so many other sights around town and day trips that I’d like to see.
Lanta-Ko Tau: In which our protagonist dives again…
koh tao – Chalok Baan Kao I believe, my resort somewhere up behind the hill in the middle.
In turning north after Lanta I still wanted to dive again before heading to Chang Mai and Koh Tau in the Gulf of Thailand has a rep as a very good diving area. Multiple friends had been there previously and pronounced the diving both good and cheap so after ferrying back to Krabi I snagged a combined bus/ferry trip over to the island. This was probably the most pleasant bus trip thus far with a cushy bus and a driver that drove quickly but not like an extra in Death Race. The ferry was quite busy but reasonably comfortable legroom wise though far from fast.
The three big gulf islands served by these boats are the large Ko Samui that has resorts from the mega-5star to humble hostels, Ko Phangan which is the center of ‘full moon party’ madness and Ko Tau which is one of the top dive cert centers in the world. On my trip we got to and left Samui without much issue but as we arrived at Phangan the pier was just a solid line of people waiting to get on the boat and onward to Tau or on to Chumphon on the east coast of the peninsula (all the boats seem to go back and forth between Chumphon and Surat Thani. I managed to keep an aisle seat for legroom but the boat was otherwise pretty packed.
Arriving in Ko Tau itself is a bit of a madhouse as there isn’t much of a proper pier area once you get off the boat. I’d only booked my guesthouse on the boat over so I didn’t have much hope of a pickup but after a long walk I managed to find it and sink into a chair. I wasn’t super impressed by the hotel though it was at least clean and air conditioned (registration was at another hotel up the road and there was zero mention of this on my reservation or even on a sign at the location, I was just lucky that a staff member saw me wandering around on their CCTV and took pity on me.) Still, after a glorious shower and a bottle of water I was ready to explore a little and headed out to see what I could see before sunset.
Sairee Beach looking north… Koh Tao is absolutely gorgeous
As with the other islands Koh Tau (Turtle Island) is a collection of beaches separated by lush rolling jungle hills. I was at the top of one of the southern hills and randomly chose to head down into the southern bay. Where most other places in Thailand you’re looking at a massage shop every 3rd business here it’s dive shops. Just on the ten minute walk down to the water I counted at least 12 different dive businesses. It turns out a few of these were smaller outposts of the main ones in the larger town called Sairee beach where most of them depart from but it was still a ludicrous number. In the end I sat down at a gorgeous beachfront restaurant/guesthouse and ordered a matsuman curry/beer and enjoyed the red rays of the sunset flickering over the bay. The curry was probably my fave matsuman of the trip so far, super tamarind-y with tons of flavour.
Sairee Cottage pool with a dive class in progress
I’d emailed a company with a good rep about catching their weekly trip out to a sea mount with a chance of whale sharks but as it was kind of late I ended up going to bed not tons later without getting a response (not that I really expected one given the hours.) The next morning when I woke and checked my email I was told to come down and sign up at their headquarters because there were still a few spots left. This unfortunately gave me yet another sign that I should have sprung for a hotel in Sairee Beach but I loaded up and hiked up and over the hill again, past the ferry town and into the long stretch of beach town that was Sairee.
Turns out one in three shops in my closer beach was child’s play… Sairee is more or less 90% dive shop or dive shop/resort catering to dive shop’s client, at least on the beach side. Up on the main road there’s a fairly impressive array of restaurants catering to a variety of crowds. Most common were the backpacker haunts more focused on beer and cheap pizza than anything but there was a surprisingly great japanese joint and a chinese duck noodle house that was apparently great but seemed to be closed any time I was in the neighbourhood and hungry. On this visit I registered for the (expensive) long trip out to Sail Rock and then went for a swim on one of the small sections of swimming protected shore (lots of the beach being used for the long tail’s the dive companies use to transfer out to their bigger boats.) Somewhat to my disgust I would have to be there for the trip at about 5:45 and they didn’t offer me an at hotel pickup so when I finally did go back I was timing the walk to see when I would have to leave if I couldn’t order a taxi for that time though the thought of walking that more or less zero sidewalk road in the dark was somewhat terrifying. In the end the ladies at my front desk told me they could get me a taxi for 5:15 to be safe and that it would be the equivalent of $8, that seemed steep but I wasn’t really in a position to argue and was mostly thankful to be getting there easily. That settled I decided to grab a shower before dinner and emerged to hear thunder rolling… looking outside there was one hell of a tropical downburst underway and I was thankful it hadn’t hit 30 minutes earlier with me climbing the pass and forced to dodge amateur motorcyclists. Unfortunately it meant I was very hungry without much recourse as I didn’t really want to break out my raincoat given I didn’t think it would last too long. In the end it didn’t, but it was a hungry Tristan who set out 2 hours later.
Courtyard rapidly flooding (note one of the other rooms gets a patio mosquito net that i didn’t 🙁 )
One side benefit of walking that road repeatedly is that I noticed that the pizza joint a literally 1m walk from my front door always seemed to be busy with both locals and tourist types of various ilks. Checking it out a bit later I noticed 3 pies for sale by the slice all of which looked delicious (decent crust, actual pizza topping looking toppings) and visible in behind were a couple legit looking pizza ovens and an italian dude (presumably the Lorenzo of “Pizza di Lorenzo) getting some dough ready. I put aside ‘never pizza in asia’ and tried a giant slice of the spicy salami pizza. Wonder of wonders… crispy crust, spicy salami, rich flavourful sauce and just the right amount of decent mozzarella. A pretty perfect dinner for the night before diving.
Next morning came pretty damned early and wasn’t helped by the taxi driver showing up 15 minutes early as I was trying to get my contacts into very tired eyes. He seemed to think I was checking out as he kept asking for my key. Not sure how he though I was leaving the island in a swimsuit and a small wetbag with my dive mask, sunscreen and a water bottle but no matter. He still got me there by 10 after 5 so it was another half hour of sitting by the water having the security guard shine his flashlight in my eyes every few minutes until the staff started rolling in. Once things started rolling we were geared up and ready to go pretty quick, though again they were surprised that I wasn’t going to use a wetsuit in 30C water.
Heading to sail rock, still fairly protected
Diving out of the beach was a different experience. Because their dive boat can’t get into shore safely (there are no piers on that section of the beach and due to a limited number in the port town I’m guessing docking fees are expensive) they use a long tail to run things out. That means to board we’re hiking out bags out into the water and hopping over the sides of the thing awkwardly. On this particular morning that included 4 people working on their dive master course, two people working on their advanced open water course, a bunch of fun divers, 6 or 7 staff or interns and the remaining boat crew. Add to that 60 odd aluminum tanks, gear for all of us and some other provisions and the freeboard for the boat was not… excessive. We somehow got everyone on without tipping though and then off again out at the aging dive boat.
My body may not have appreciated the early start but the diver in me did. The aim in the schedule was to be first out at the rock (any dive site around Koh Tao is a busy site) and get our first dive in before anyone else showed up. Unfortunately what had been a slow drizzle as we got on the boat turned into something a bit more as we rounded the point and went face on into the wind. This was not a fast boat to begin with and it was facing an intense headwind, I honestly wondered if we’d have to turn back… doubly so when the divemaster came up and said the captain had asked people to try to distribute themselves more evenly on the top deck. We’d all been noticing a fairly noticeable roll to port and people scurried to comply. Even once we were a bit more stable it was a pretty sizable swell and we had a long trip straight through it out to the rock making a few people a bit green around the gills. For those of us who don’t get sea sick there was a delicious breakfast including the ubiquitous giant vat of hardboiled eggs that seems to show up at every event provided meal.
The rock really is just a rock, a small sea mount out in the middle between Ko Tao and Ko Phangan on this particular morning it was more or less out of site of all land. Definitely a new experience for me, even when certifying out of site of land on the Great Barrier reef there’s just so much reef around that it feels more landlike. Here looking out into the blue really felt like looking out into a true void. My mask decided to be stupid (I think the guy washing it at the last shop buggered the straps) but eventually I got it fixed and we went down. I was diving with a guy named Cole from Monterrey in California and our guide was a woman named Kyri originally from Hull (the UK one) who’d been in Ko Tao off and on for a couple years. Cole was here with a couple of friends (I never did find out why they weren’t diving together, perhaps Cole was Adventure Diver as well and that’s why we were paired since we could go deeper, not that we ever went particularly low.) Younger than me by a few years, all three of them were boat captains having met at maritime college. It was strange given my mental image of any kind of boat captain definitely trends towards the Captain Haddock/McAllister age but kind of interesting talking to them and seething with jealously about how they rent a catamaran every Christmas in the virgin islands because they can legally captain anything with their certificates.
The first dive was fantastic despite some pretty low visibility. The Sail Rock dive area is a great pelagic site and was just swarming with trevally and barracuda with smaller numbers of angelfish and other things hovering around closer to the rock. Of course the grand hope was for a whale shark but unfortunately with vis so low it was unlikely we’d notice even if one was relatively close. It was still a very cool, very different dive but as we began to make our way up to the safety stop we began to hear (and occasionally see) other boats arriving. Still the timing worked out well as we began our surface interval (basically a safety time above water to let your body relax and be ready for more diving) just as they were all swimming in to do their first dive. That was the other positive of getting there first as due to it being an open water mount the mooring buoy was mounted to the rock not the (VERY DEEP) sea floor so later arrivals either had to hover around or moor to our boat which gave us the best placement/least distance to travel in the heavy swells.
I’ve mentioned it to anyone I’ve encouraged to try diving but jesus… you get what you pay for. Never go with the cheapest group. As a few of us rehydrated with some pineapple and gatorad-ish drink we watched one of the scariest things. A group in a small speedboat had arrived and just the boat was scary… our journey in the big boat had not been pleasant, this boat was of the size you’d see on a whiteshell lake and would have been bouncing around like crazy.
The true horror began when they dumped off two larger groups and two instructors/divemasters. I’m not sure whether the people in one of the groups were open water certification students or discover scuba people but neither should have been there. Even slightly sheltered by the rock the swells were large and occasionally coming from random directions and it was the same subsurface. In the end one of the staff people took extra people who were competently swimming and this one instructor was left with three people: one guy who was slowly getting the hang of it, and a totally helpless japanese couple. Before long the guide had the woman in more or less a rescue headlock and was swimming her towards the rock, her mask was off and she had her eyes tightly shut and looked terrified. While he was doing this he was screaming at the husband to swim towards him (because screaming always works for panicked people.) Said husband then started swimmming the wrong way, eventually got turned around but didn’t seem to have his bcd fully inflated and was making no headway as he was paralel with my spot on the bench for at least 10 minutes. He also had his reg in most of the time and even on the surface probably chewed through at least half his air. None of that should have mattered though because any dive leader worth his salt should have had those two back on the boat eons before that happened or, let’s be honest, should never have had them out there period unless they really really lied about their experience level. Yet he actually took them down. Yikes. Don’t get me wrong, I love diving, I think it’s very safe for what you get out of it… but it’s safest when you are calm, cool and relaxed.
The chimney on a day with much better visibility/sunlight (not my pic obviously)
Dive two was simultaneously very cool and super frustrating. We were paired with a third russian guy for this one who’d spent dive one getting his deep water AOW task done. Now Cole was a super experienced diver, definitely had better air management than me but I was at least somewhere in his ballpark. Cole was also swimming around with a goPro on an underwater selfie stick and was very good at using it. New guy also had a goPro and was the underwater equivalent of those people at a tourist site who blunder around, into and in front of everyone only looking at the camera screen. He also nearly got out guide to back out of our promised trip down the chimney (a 15 odd meter vertical cave that was fantastic to float down watching all the creatures peeking out at you.) I managed to get through that but for the entire rest of the dive he’d suddenly come swimming (using his hands constantly which is a diving no-no) up from below me and do his best to smack me in the face with his tank. Multiple times he snared my air and did his best to pull it out… or he’d turn from some random direction right in front of me without looking and I’d smack into him. He was definitely a nervous diver and obviously wanted to be touching distance from someone at all times but also spent all his time staring at his camera screen. Meanwhile Cole, Kyri and I had been doing a good loose supporting formation on the first dive. Staying close together when trying to see the same thing but loosening out far enough that were weren’t in each other’s way while still having sightlines and being a few hard kicks from grabbing someone’s fin if need be. The other factor which you’ve probably spotted if you’re a diver is that with russian guy bouncing all over the place and being awkward he was churning through air.
Now Kyri was already running a pretty conservative dive profile. She wanted us to turn around and start making our way back a bit earlier than normal, I wasn’t against that initially, with the swells the way they were having a bit of spare gas if need be wouldn’t hurt, but for that second dive I had double the usual tank pressure left and I’m sure Cole had gotten nowhere near halfway through. This didn’t get any better for the third dive even at a shallower depth and overall I got nearly an hour less time underwater over those three dives than I had in Lanta. I was happy we’d still managed to finish the dive by swimming into an absolutely enormous school of trevally (I am going to try and find an image online of this as we didn’t have a photographer with us this dive and it was amazing.) After dive two I shared a look with Cole and secretly hoped that our guide had noticed the russian’s struggles and would reassign him to another group but sadly I think the only appropriate pairing with space had explicitly paid for a private dive so we were stuck. Still, another dive boat curry lunch (could get used to that) helped cheer me up a bit as we cast off from Sail Rock and headed to another dive site for our third and final dive.
Final dive was at a shallower dive just off the coast of Koh Tao. Getting there was… hairy. We got a command from the captain to overload the starboard side as the roll to the port was starting to hang an awful long time when the swells came from two directions at once. Our boat captain passengers started talking about how high the boat’s center of gravity was and complied. Thankfully the worst of it was past by the time we got about halfway back and with the sun coming out people spread out a bit to enjoy it. The dive site itself was called shark rock due to it’s shape, not due to a particularly high shark siting level. Happily we did see one juvenile black tip a few times once we were down though. Overall the site was quite pretty with a variety of coral, nudibranches and a very pretty bluespotted ribbontail ray. While in sight of us one of the other divers managed to anger a territorial triggerfish who slammed into his mask repeatedly then went after someone else right in the back of the head. There were also tons of anenomes with accompanying fish but no proper nemo clownfish sadly.
Sadly our big blundering russian bear kept up his tricks and we were the first ones back on the boat again though I’d done my best to avoid him by immediately stopping and swimming to the other side of Kyri anytime he came close to me. At one point he managed to loop his air hose around my hand as I swam in a straight line and I finally gave him a “back the fuck off” gesture that kept him away from me for a solid 5 minutes. :p Don’t get me wrong, both dives were still great I would have just prefered this (likely my last dive of the trip) to be more carefree. Once we were back on the boat we very happily discovered that this group provides a post-dive beer for the trip back to the dock and we all had a cheers together to an excellent day. (Though I discovered later that the reason the staff were up enjoying the beer is that the boat doesn’t have freshwater tanks at all, I guess because it doesn’t dock. This sucked for not being able to rinse off after each dive and get the salt off, but it also meant that all the equipment got taken ashore for washing, which meant we the customers washed most of it with them not doing any of the logbook stuff until that was done. Let me be clear that I’m not against this in the abstract heh but the level of service between Lanta and here was just VERY different for a very similar price. Still, from watching them on the boat then later watching an instructor working in the pool while I did my log book entries I would unequivocally recommend them as a dive school. Eavesdropping on the divemaster students made it clear that getting a job with this particular company would be seen as a prize to all of them. Gear wash, log book and post game drink complete I started the long walk back to the hotel for a shower still kinda miffed at the lack of a shuttle but thinking “well maybe they don’t have a truck for that.” Then what do I see about halfway back? A taxi equipped truck with their logo heading back empty from the direction of my hotel… grumble grumble grumble.
After a hell of a long desalting shower I debated what to do for dinner. Energy levels were… not high and the next morning was going to be reasonably early to grab the Catamaran out and start the speed trip back to Bangkok to reposition up north. Turns out staying awake wasn’t a problem though as just as I got out of the shower a loud booming racket started somewhere nearby. Turns out saturday night in Koh Tao (or at least that particular saturday night) was some sort of combination night food market/talent competition. While this was great for finding some good quick grub, for some reason they’d set the volume to GWAR and as my hotel room was about 100m max away when I gave in to my fatigue and tried to sleep even noise cancelling headphones weren’t cutting it. It was 2 am before they stopped for the night followed by half an hour of people revving their moped/motorcycle engines to max as they peeled out. I was a bit of a grumpy bear getting ready to check out the next morning.
Night Market/Koh Tao Idol or whatnot
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So there are three main boats that serve the islands. One high speed catamaran, one slower boat with a decent rep, one boat with a rep for having their heads up their butts. I’d taken the latter on the way over and had no problems but they were definitely not kings o’ customer service. For the way off the island I’d chosen the catamaran really only due to the fact that the start time was early but not too early, the fact that it was faster across the water portion was really only a side benefit.
The day started with a quick wake up and pack, checking out and finding out there was a shuttle run to the pier was a bonus, finding out they soaked you 300BAHT not so much (my trip to the dive school with special charter at 5am was only 200 and that was easily twice as far.) Kinda skeevy. Checking in at the catamaran desk made you wonder why they had a rep for better CS with one woman checking in a lineup of hundreds of people. Getting on the damned boat was even worse.
First off, one wasn’t really filled with confidence that they’d made sure they had seats for everyone. Secondly, despite the fact that the catamaran’s passengers are probably 90% western the seating was clearly configured to be tight for locals. To make matters worse all the seats are permanently reclined. I could only fit in a seat by wedging my knees into the cracks and when the staff member tried to make me move to the middle of a row of six seats I had to say not a chance. Even managing to get one leg into the aisle I was in agony most of the trip. Some poor guy around my dad’s height had to beg someone to move out of a front row seat or he was just going to give up and sit on the floor. The best thing you could say about it was that it was at least fast compared to the other boat.
Unfortunately for me I’d changed my plans out of early morning grumpy/lazyness and decided to just pay the extra money and hop on the ferry company’s bus as well all the way to Bangkok, where I’d originally planned to hop a train once off the boat as they left relatively often. Mistake! The company (no doubt to encourage you to spend money at their businesses at the dock) makes everyone check in again then adds a 30m wait before they even start loading busses after the boat completely unloads. Legroom was again an issue with the counter person assigning the front row bar seat to me and another person of 6’ish height for no good reason. Once the bus finally left we were treated to some terrrrible three point turning and lanekeeping.
Two hours into the bus journey we pulled over at what was a super entertaining rest stop. It had a pseudo starbucks coffee shop, two sit down restaurants, a giant food court with at least 15 stalls and an enormous market selling everything from dried fruits to ice cream. We stayed there for about half an hour but I only bought some peanuts and a drink as I wasn’t really hungry. If I’d only known. Chumpon to Bangkok is a pretty long way, roughly 550km including the transfer distances. After that stop at about the two hour mark, we did not stop again over the following seven hours. Our driver was terrible, dangerous, overly fast at times and unnecessarily slow at others. Woe betide you if you stayed in the speed lane a moment longer than was necessary because by god he was going to take his 100 passenger bus and tailgate you… even if you were a double length fuel truck. Once we were closer to Bangkok he seemed to think he was some sort of driving hero by diving into the service road the moment the highway speed slowed down at all… which was super for the first length, then he’d inevitably get caught in on/off ramp tailbacks while the momentary slowdown on the highway cleared and we’d add 10 minutes of unnecessary time to our journey… then repeat the whole process fifteen minutes later. Then at one point we had to pull aside for what I’m guessing was a royal motorcade coming back from Hua Hin. The entire last hour and a half into the city was him jerking the bus around so much that we could smell baking clutch and the top half of the two level bus just swayed. I couldn’t help but think dreamily of even a third class train seat… stable… constant motion… multiple only sorta stinky bathrooms… a restaurant car.
In the end about the only positive was that the offload point was a corner I knew well about a 5 minute walk from my trusty cheap guest house. I’d originally planned to just grab something near the train station for ease of luggage storage but I couldn’t resist a cheap known quantity. Unfortunately that meant literally pushing our way through touts who were standing three deep right at the bus door. Assholes. A much needed shower and a plate of noodles to recharge later I went for a walk in the cooling bangkok night to work out the kinks in my back before turning in, really ready to get up north to the supposedly more laid back Chiang Mai.
