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    • Simon and Jackie AnnalsNo SADness in Thailand

      Day 26 - Arse Over Tit in Sunset City

      January 4, 2022 in Thailand ⋅ 🌧 27 °C
      1

      We didn’t wake up until gone 9am, then it was down to breakfast. No new entertainment was on offer, but we had some new/trainee staff that still had some way to go. I ordered an omelette, but got scrambled egg, we didn’t receive our fruit platter & it took a while to order a 2nd coffee. I’m struggling to cope with such hardship!

      The sun was out & so we set up camp on 2 deckchairs for a full day of sun. At lunchtime Jackie popped back to our room & smuggled 2 cans of Chang on to the beach. Once drunk, it was my turn to get a couple more.

      After collecting my illicit contraband, I walked along the beach back to Jackie & didn’t notice the anchor rope of a longboat had risen up. I didn’t just trip up in my flip flops, but I somehow managed to a actually face plant into the sand. My embarrassing shriek of pain woke up the crew on the longboat as I picked myself up & walked on as if nothing happened, despite having a cut on the top of my foot.

      During the afternoon, the sun & fluffy clouds were threatening to provide us with a proper sunset. We weren’t the only ones to think so because the beach started to fill up. At 5.05pm, Jackie decided we needed to have a sundowner drink & she returned to the room to collect a bottle of Hong Thong & a can of coke. We are not cheapskates, just frugal!

      Whilst Jackie was away, I splattered a full mosquito against my leg resulting in a big smudge of blood & mossie carcass. Seconds later I was being attacked by another 2 mosquitos & I quickly, but with style, walked to the sea to clean my leg. Unfortunately as I was waving away the chasing mosquitos, I didn’t notice the rock in the sand that I smashed my left foot into, which again left me in a pitiful mess on all fours in the sand with a bleeding middle toe. The bastard mossies continued to eat my legs, despite me splatting another three.

      The sunset was still disappointing, no red skies, but I took a couple of arty photos for the sheer hell of it. We then returned to our room & did a bit of packing. Our dirty clothes had been successfully returned from laundry.

      We were just about to head out for dinner, when I went back into our room to put my iPad on charge & somehow managed to smash my left foot on the step, ripping the skin off the bottom of my arthritic big toe. What an absolutely clumsy tw^t, I’ve become!!

      After some serious swearing, hopping up & down & 1st aid from Jackie, we popped out for dinner. It was at La Luna, an Italian restaurant where I had gnocchi al pesto & Jackie had a spicy penne dish. We treated ourselves to a litre of red wine & garlic bread. It was very good.

      We managed to make it home & to bed without further accident or incident.

      Song of the Day: Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty.
      Sunsetz by Cigarettes After Sex.
      Clumsy by Cotter.      Read more

    • Simon and Jackie AnnalsNo SADness in Thailand

      Day 25 - Breakfast with a Mermaid

      January 3, 2022 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

      Woke up suffering the effects of eating too much curry the previous evening. It didn’t stop us going to breakfast, but Jackie could only manage coffee & some omelette. I ate all of mine & most of what Jackie would let me have of hers.

      Today’s entertainment at breakfast was the appearance of a mermaid sitting on a rock in front of us. It was like being in Copenhagen…….I imagine!

      After breakfast we collected up all our dirty clothes & dropped them off in reception (not literally) for cleaning at typically the dearest place we have so far found on our trip, 80 Baht per kilo. Jackie gave it all to the nice, but dim, girl to deal with. We have visions of our clothes being worn by all the staff, because no one has a clue who they belong to.

      With the tide being high & consuming most of our beach, we decided to have another march around the island to burn off that bloody curry. We started in reverse & explored the resorts to the west of us, including their toilets!

      We ended up on a now clean Pattaya Beach & saw 3 separate pontoons loading queues of Thais into speedboats to get them home for work in the morning. Apparently today was a Thai Bank Holiday.

      After Pattaya Beach, we did Walking Street, then walked Sunrise Beach to the ‘pleasing on the eye’ Zodiac Bar for a couple of large Changs. Black clouds gathered as we supped our beer, so we headed back through the locals village & almost undiscovered jungle tracks before arriving at the opposite end of our Sunset Beach.

      Over lunch of a Chang & onion bhajis, whilst a quick shower passed over, we googled accommodation & travel routes & booked a 2 night stay in a hotel in the place where the pink dolphins live. We aren’t going mad just yet!!

      The afternoon was spent on deckchairs on our beach, which promised to provide us with a decent sunset. The beach was fairly full with tourists with the same opinion as us. We waited until gone 6pm, but yet again it was another unmitigated flop.

      After giving it up as another lost cause, we didn’t hang about & an hour later we were heading into town. We stopped at reception & spoke to nice, but dim lady again & this time Jackie put her in charge of organising our return trip to Hat Yai Bus Terminal on Wednesday. We have now relied on her slightly more than I feel comfortable with, but hey ho!

      Tonight, we had decided that we would sample some of the fare on the street stalls, followed by a quick drink & cards back on our balcony. It didn’t end up that way.

      We started off with a couple of sausages that were reheated on the grill. Jackie started eating hers first & stopped half way through saying it wasn’t what she expected, then said it was cold/undercooked in the middle. I ate mine despite her best efforts to make me gag.

      We went to a different stall & ordered a couple of chicken sticks. Mine was nice, but Jackie said hers was a bit grisly. And who is the fussy one?Jackie then declared she wanted to go to OMG Bar for a little something else to eat & a beer.

      We arrived at OMG Bar just after 8pm & ordered 2 Changs & a Pad Thai to share from the waiters. It was a quiet night, we would eat & drink up & go. At 8.30pm, everything changed when a crowd of 30 plus people descended on OMG in a huge cloud of cannabis smoke. They were a mixture of Thais & westerners, but they all thought they were super cool. It transpired that it was the birthday day of one amongst them, a very loud dramatic transsexual in a white dress.

      This made for good people watching, but what topped it off was the same band from previously started up. The very talented duo turned out to be our waiters from when we arrived. We stayed until their final song, a decent version of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

      Song of the Day: Mermaids by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
      When Mermaids Cry by Eagle-Eye Cherry.
      The “In” Crowd by The Mamas & The Papas.
      Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.      Read more

    • Simon and Jackie AnnalsNo SADness in Thailand

      Day 24 - Spider Mystery Solved

      January 2, 2022 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

      It was a Huntsman Spider!!

      Appearance
      If big spiders aren’t your cup of tea, we’re sorry to say that the Huntsman Spider is one of the largest in the world, growing as large as 30 cm!
      In Thailand they’re often as large as a grown man’s hand. With long, strong legs, and a fuzzy body, these spiders are a mottled brown and tan color, making them difficult to spot against a forest floor.

      Habitat
      The Huntsman Spider’s natural camouflage serves it well in the woodland and forest areas that it calls home. Unfortunately, they also are curious enough to venture into houses and dwellings in rural areas, most likely because they do not spin webs, but hunt for insects and small invertebrates.

      Bite
      Fortunately, these spiders are shy and often scared of humans. Huntsman aren’t known to aggressively bite humans, but if you do get bitten, you’re likely in for a little discomfort and swelling that will subside in a day or two.

      =======================================================================

      At 6.30am I stumbled out of bed to the bathroom & was confronted by the spider for a 2nd time. It was on the wall next to the mirror. I edged back out & grabbed Jackie’s phone. The spider had hidden itself behind all of Jackie’s clutter beside the wash basin. I couldn’t turn her flash on, probably because my hands were a bit sweaty, so I had to resort to taking a long shot in the dark with a disappointing result. The spider is definitely living in the big gap behind the cabinet in the bathroom.

      Back in bed I got back to googling & was able to identify this spider, which was probably the same as the 1st one, as a Huntsman Spider. In my defence, it would appear that Huntsman Spiders are regularly mistaken for Tarantulas. It didn’t make Jackie any happier when I read out the description above & I know I will have to conduct a thorough search from now on before Jackie enters the bathroom.

      We were treated to a ‘glamour’ shoot on the beach at breakfast. The girl had absolutely no shame or embarrassment as she stripped off down to her bikini & pranced & posed in front of us bemused hotel guests trying to eat our breakfast!

      We were also amused by the peculiar sight of a girl sat on her balcony wearing a mask & snorkel whilst reading.

      We sat in deckchairs on the beach all day with just a few beers & went out for dinner starving. We went to the Bombay Indian Restaurant and started ordering. When I got to the rice & asked if we could easily get a 2nd rice if we needed it, the waiter replied “I think you’ve ordered enough sir”. That is when you know you’ve ordered too much!!

      Our dinner consisted of popadoms with salad & mint sauce, 10 onion bhajis, a chicken tikka masala, a chicken jalfrezi, 2 naan beads & just the one steamed rice. We ate it all except 4 onion bhajis that were bagged up for us to take home for lunch. It was delicious, but we were too stuffed to do anything else after but waddle home.

      During the day & evening, I sneaked into the bathroom with my camera primed, but unfortunately there were no further sightings of our Huntsman.

      Song of the Day: Tiptoe Spider by Ray Bonneville.
      Jumpin’ Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones.      Read more

    • Simon and Jackie AnnalsNo SADness in Thailand

      Day 23 - 2022 Explorers of the Year

      January 1, 2022 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

      I had an absolutely rubbish night sleep. I could hear trance music in the distance, but I can’t blame it on my lack of sleep.

      At 9.30am we got up & still full, headed down to breakfast. We had the same again & were surprised to see Lucas helping out. It was very busy, but he told us most people were leaving later during the day.

      It was a bit of a grey day, so we decided this was the perfect opportunity to explore the island on foot. We initially headed for Sunrise Beach, which is a long white sandy beach on the easternmost side of the island. We passed a couple bars that still had drunk/hungover revellers who it appeared hadn’t yet been to bed this year.

      After walking the length of the beach we concluded that we much preferred our beach at Sunset Beach. Our research before booking paid off! It didn’t help Sunrise Beach that it was quite windy, which made the sea too choppy to swim in & difficult to lie on.

      We returned to the centre of the island via the locals village behind Sunrise Beach. Extremely loud techno music was blasting out of a hut for no apparent reason & inexplicably it had been going since New Years Eve night. We know because it’s the music we could hear from our hotel nearly a mile away. The village was quite frankly a bloody mess with a lot of rubbish littering the walkways. We did spot a water monitor that slid into a pond when we approached it.

      We then walked the length of Walking Street to Pattaya Beach & the scene of last night’s big firework display. There was still plenty of evidence of it on the beach with discarded sparklers & spent rockets. This was another place in need of a good clean up!

      Having walked along Pattaya Beach without finding anywhere suitable to quench our thirst, we followed a road up off the beach & within minutes we were back at our Bayview Sunset Resort. Instead of going home we walked back to Walking Street & sat ourselves down at Ja Yao Restaurant, which turned out to be staffed by slightly surly, but very camp transvestites. One waiter changed from t-shirt & jeans to a frilly blouse & pantaloons during the time we were there.

      We shared 4 well earned large Changs having walked 4.54 miles that morning according to my watch & just watched the world go by. We resisted the urge to eat, but made our mind’s up that we would just have a series of street food snacks that evening.

      We returned to our resort & booked our next accommodation for a few days time. We then decided to unadvisedly have a power nap & woke up at 6.30pm feeling groggy & not really in the mood to go out.

      We forced ourselves back out & stopped in OMG Bar for a quick drink before we ate. The bar was a sports bar with premiership football playing silently on TV screens & a decent drum & guitar duo playing cover versions live on stage. It was a great atmosphere & we stayed, slowly supping our beer, until 9.45pm, when hunger got the better of us.

      We walked back to where the street food stalls had been cooking to discover to our horror that they were all packing away without a morsel of meat left to buy. We had to make do with just a banana & chocolate roti each, whilst listening to the “Yoo Hoo” of Madam Yoo Hoo every time a westerner walked past her restaurant opposite.

      Jackie felt full after her banana roti & apparently so did I! We walked them off going back home.

      Song of the Day: Just the Two of Us by Grover Washington, Jr., Bill Withers.
      Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
      Creep by Radiohead (Album version only).
      (A selection of some of the songs played by the band OMG Bar).      Read more

    • Simon and Jackie AnnalsNo SADness in Thailand

      Day 22 - Saying Goodbye to 2021 in Style

      December 31, 2021 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

      Woke up at 5am to the sound of a small animal with claws (or a tarantula with clogs on) scuttling around on our ceiling. It was most unnerving.

      I got up at 9am, looked in the mirror & remembered that I had got myself a ‘Pompadour’. I started looking for Song of the Day for yesterday’s blog & found the perfect song to sum up my new hairdo.

      Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday except that we spread our Bovril on the toast and we had a splash of rain. The hotel manager, Lucas appeared & excitedly informed me that they had got some smoked ribs in especially for me from a new supplier & I’d be the first to try them. Great, I’m now going to be a guinea pig tonight!

      After a morning on the beach we popped back to our room for just one beer each on the balcony. During our lunch break, Jackie received a friends request on Facebook from Big Anne & within minutes they were conversing about the trials & tribulations (or lack of) of getting back home. I just hope that Big Anne doesn’t get wind of my blog!

      We returned to the beach for a somewhat cloudy afternoon, then called it a day at 4.30pm to prepare for our big night.

      At 6pm & all dressed up to the nines, we went back down to our Sunset Beach to join our fellow diners for pre-dinner drinks & to watch another non-existent sunset. Our fellow diners included a family of Canadians, who were teachers living in Bangkok, a German couple who accused us of being the spitting image of a couple of her friends & 3 Brits who we didn’t actually get to talk to.

      On the beach we had a couple of mojitos & chatted to the Canadians about our respective travels & life in Thailand during the last two years. Once darkness started to fall, we were ushered up to the The Hill Restaurant, which was a beautiful setting, an open air terrace overlooking the bay. The remainder of the diners were already sat in the restaurant.

      Each group, mainly couples, had individual tables. I was proud of the fact that I was the ‘special one’ until Lucas burst my bubble by telling me that there was another meat eater in our midst. It turned out to be the accusing German woman & it would seem I was more ‘special needs’ than the ‘special one’.

      Lucas did the rounds taking drinks orders. We, like many, ordered white wine & Lucas came back with two Spanish bottles for us to choose from. We made our choice without any mention of prices to influence us. I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap!

      The 5 courses came out as per the photos & the scheduled menu. Instead of the fish I had chicken satay, spicy marinated pork & smoked ribs. Jackie definitely benefited from my ‘fish intolerance’, because she had a whole lobster to herself while other couples had to share exactly the same sized lobster & she definitely had more sashimi. What was most impressive was the fact that Jackie ate every single bit of fish, it was only when & we got to the steak course that she suffered. I did help her out!

      Lucas was extremely passionate about the food & took great delight explaining to us what each course was & how it was prepared, which all added to the overall experience.

      Despite sipping the wine instead of our usual guzzling, we had to order a 2nd bottle of wine half way through the meal. Following dessert of chocolate brownie, mango & coconut ice cream, we had a small firework display on the beach in front of us, which was intimate and a nice conclusion to the meal. Jackie videoed the tail end of the fireworks on her phone & was so pleased with herself she started WhatsApping all & sundry her firework display & with a ‘Happy New Year’.

      Lucas then invited us to join him on a bar crawl to end at Pattaya Beach in time for the fireworks scheduled to take place at midnight. We were keen to go, but we were too stuffed to contemplate drinking for the next 2 hours. We have turned into a couple of middle aged lightweights!

      I apologised to Lucas that we were too knackered & then I signed for our meal. I had a minor heart-attack when I saw the cost of the wine, luckily we didn’t know what the cost was otherwise I would never have ordered the 2nd bottle, which would have put a minor downer on the evening.

      All in all it had been a fabulous evening & one that will live in the memory for a long time to come. Surely that is what life is all about!

      We ended our evening with a couple of cheeky Hong Thongs on our balcony & retired to bed at just before 11pm.

      The 20 minutes worth of fireworks on Pattaya Beach woke me up at midnight!

      Song of the Day: Special Needs by Placebo.      Read more

    • Simon and Jackie AnnalsNo SADness in Thailand

      Day 21 - I’ve got a New Year’s Pompadour

      December 30, 2021 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

      Jackie & I were both awake around 4am fighting over the one double sheet that we had on our bed. Basically the air-con that we had paid extra for was too cold. The disagreement was resolved by adjusting the temperature to 23 degrees & Jackie putting on a fleece.

      We got up at 9am & had the shock of my life to find a saucer sized dark hairy spider on the wall in the bathroom. I told Jackie not to enter & I backed out of the bathroom to fetch my camera. It was at least 10 seconds before I could return to the bathroom by which time the huge spider had vanished into thin air. This didn’t help Jackie!

      I am not exaggerating when after googling Thailand spiders I have identified it as a black tarantula. We still haven’t found or spotted it since. Sadly I have no photographic evidence, just my eye witness testimony. I now have to thoroughly search the bathroom every time before Jackie will enter.

      We went to breakfast for an ‘American’ of eggs, bacon, chicken sausage (they can keep) toast, as well as banana muesli, fruit & coffee. It was pretty decent.

      After breakfast we sought out Lucas the resort manager to tell him we would like to have the New Years Eve dinner for two. It was something Lucas had offered us when we checked in. It was not cheap at £43 each for a 5 course meal, but our research showed that our restaurant, The Hill, was No. 1 on TripAdvisor out of 81 restaurants on the island & previous diners had described it as the best meal of their lives. On the downside the first 3 courses were fish or seafood that I don’t eat. I explained this to the incredulous Lucas who said he would try & work out some meat alternatives & to come back after 4pm to check his alternative menu for me.

      We dilly dallied on our balcony & Jackie hijacked the cleaners for an extra pillow & an extra bed sheet. We hit the beach close to midday & realised it was a small but perfectly formed beach. I had a deckchair, whilst Jackie lay on the sand until lunch, beer & some dodgy crackers with pork floss on our balcony.

      The afternoon was cloudy but we were still catching it. At 4.30pm we returned to Lucas who told us that the restaurant kitchen was too small for the chefs to cook additional dishes, but he had arranged for us to go to an Italian restaurant where they had both a fish & meat set menu. I told him that Jackie had set her heart on his NYE feast & I was prepared to sit out the 1st 3 courses if he reduced the price. He (nor Jackie) was having this & he said they would rise to the challenge & create some ‘special’ dishes for me. I suspect the chef’s will be really happy with this decision after already telling him “No chance” or probably something stronger.

      Jackie & I then grabbed a bottle of Hong Thong & some cokes from our room & sat in a deckchair to watch the non-existent sunset on Sunset Beach. Once it was clear there would be no sunset (we still haven’t seen a good one yet on this trip) we showered & headed into town.

      The Box restaurant we had earmarked for that evening’s dinner was full, so feeling brave (the 4 Hong Thongs probably helped) I ended up in the barber’s chair. I selected the ‘Pompadour’, which I now know to be a hairstyle named after Madame de Pompadour, who was a mistress of King Louis XV of France. The barber’s incredible attention to detail, including the use of a cutthroat razor, meant my haircut lasted about 40 minutes, despite a queue of customers forming. I walked out looking & feeling a million dollars for just 300 baht.

      The Box was still busy so we went to the Banana Tree restaurant where I ordered a NorthEastern Thai dish of minced pork & Jackie had chicken & cashew nuts. It was nice but not special. We managed to stay awake long enough to walk home.

      Song of the Day: Pompadour by Tim O’Brien.
      (The lyrics are brilliant. Exactly how I felt when I looked in the mirror this morning!)”      Read more

    • Thaïlande
      Day 16

      Farniente et coco pastèque

      December 29, 2022 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
      1

      Journée à la cool parce qu'on l'a bien mérité avec les différents trajets des derniers jours qui nous ont bien fatigués. Une pause s'impose !
      Depuis hier on profite de l'ambiance très apaisée de cette petite île, pas très touristique et pleine de jolis coins. Il n'y a pas de vraie route, seulement des sentiers de terre pleins de trous sur lesquels rebondissent des tuk tuks. L'île n'est pas grande, on peut tout faire à pied. C'est le dépaysement total.

      Après avoir admiré le coucher de soleil sur Sunset Beach hier soir, on découvre aujourd'hui son pendant, Sunrise Beach. Une longue plage au nord est de Koh Lipe, face à la grosse île de Koh Adang.

      C'est curieux car les paysages paradisiaques voisinent avec le quotidien un peu crade de la vie locale. Des dépôts de plastique, des logements délabrés, des déchets partout, des chiens errants. Ça gâche un peu le tableau, mais on ne peut pas ne pas remarquer le contraste entre la vie locale et les hôtels de luxe à piscine à débordement.

      En tout cas le soleil est au rendez-vous pour une vraie journée farniente.
      C'est pas faute d'avoir été prévenue, j'ai quand même voulu faire ma maline et j'ai été un peu radine sur la crème solaire. Je me retrouve avec un dos bien rouge et une jolie marque sur les fesses, goût vanille-fraise ou plutôt coco-pastèque 🥥🍉

      Pas de photo à l'appui, vous me croirez sur parole 😂      Read more

      See translation
    • Weltreise
      Day 174

      Koh Lipe - Strandtag

      February 21, 2020 in Thailand ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

      Weil’s ein so gutes Angebot war und das Frühstück sehr gut schmeckte, gingen wir wieder zu dem Lokal, dass mit unserer Unterkunft zusammenarbeitet. Ilona und David kamen auch nach. Danach gingen wir zusammen zum Hauptstrand und kümmerten uns noch um unser Bootticket zur nächsten Station. Da es an den Strand aber keinen Schatten gab, gingen wir doch zum „Sunrise Beach“. Wir fanden einen schönen Platz unter einem Baum und blieben trotz des Windes bis nach Mittag. Dann holten wir uns einen „Thai Pancake“ und spazierten am „Sunrise Beach“ entlang.
      Um 5 Uhr trafen wir uns wieder mit den anderen beiden zu einem „Happy Hour Cocktail“ am Hauptstrand und zum gemeinsamen Abendessen bei „Papaya Mom“.      Read more

      See translation
    • TravelerMela auf Reisen
      Day 40

      Strand- und Schnorcheltag

      November 17, 2019 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
      2

      Wie cool ist es denn bitte vom Sunrise Beach zum Sunset Beach 🏝 zu laufen? Die Insel ist so gemütlich. Wir haben auch festgestellt, dass noch Nebensaison ist, somit hat's hier noch wenig Touristen.

      Wir erkundeten die Strände Über- und Unterwasser. Es gab viel zu sehen:

      Blaue Seegurken, blau gepunkteter Stachelrochen, viele bunte Fische, schöne blaue Muscheln uvm. 😊🐡🐠🐟

      Zum Sonnenuntergang suchten wir wieder die schöne Bar etwas abseits auf. Und starrten in das warme Licht und die immer rosa werdenden Wolken...😯🌅      Read more

      See translation
    • TravelerM&M Worldtour
      Day 52

      Tag 52 | Lernen 🤓

      October 22 in Thailand ⋅ 🌩️ 28 °C
      2

      Heute war den ganzen Tag büffeln angesagt...📚
      Insgesamt haben wir 8 Stunden an Hand eines Onlineprogramms die Theorie des Tauchens studiert.

      Zwischendurch gab es eine Abkühlung im glasklaren Meerwasser 🏝🙃

      Morgen haben wir zwei weitere Tauchgänge. 🥰      Read more

      See translation

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Ko Li Pe, Ko Lipe, Ile de Ko Lipe, เกาะหลีเป๊ะ

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