Pulau Aur
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
That took place during the easter weekend.
Got to the island with 50+ other people; lifesaving people (there to take their Bronze/Silver Cross tests), parents (plus the 3 triathlon babes there for a leisure trip), and the dive people.
Didn't snap pictures cos I was suffering from Phuket Withdrawal Symptons, nah just kidding. Just didn't feel like it. There were people all around to do it instead.
Anyhow, I got to share a room with the bf, bf's mum & June! Won't be going into details because you don't need a lot of details for such a trip, you'll just need to pay your dive operator some money and everything's going to fall into place.
That's my first leisure dive, and I had bf for my buddy. We were really lucky to see live turtles not once, but twice on our first day of diving (at Lang Island & Telok Jawa respectively). Baracudas, garfish, batfish(!), boxfish, soldierfish, idols, clownfish, angels, groupers (definitely a tasty treat!), christmas tree worms and so on. George, our dive master, brought us to a depth of 20 over metres on our first dive, & I was initially worried since it's been a long time since we touched the diving gear and it's just beyond our certification limits. No sweat though, our limit for this trip turned out to be 92feet! That took place at Pinnacle Point on the 2nd day; he said if we were lucky we could see whale sharks and manta rays, no such luck though!
In conclusion, my first leisure dive was fantastic! More time to look at the fishes instead of focusing on drills, I had such a great time down there, just observing. Both bf & me concluded that it's really amazing to be so deep down with sooooooooooooooooo much water all around you. I feel like I've stumbled into a whole new world underwater, there's so much activity going on around and I'm just some random observer that's happened to pass by. Being able to see an entire school of ikan kuning swim past right in front of you, can be a really magical experience. There's just a lot of respect that I have for the seas & oceans; for the myriad life forms that it supports, from the tiny cleaner shrimps to the gigantic whale sharks. I love the sea. I love diving!
Okay, enough of dive-talk. I should just go again sometime soon, once I start having an income.
For the times that we were not diving, we went fishing! I'm a total newbie at this; and I hope my dad would share more with me (but he wouldn't). Thankfully, fishing nowadays is somewhat idiot-proof. You don't even have to tie your own hooks and knots; there are ready-made ones that you can just clip onto the lines. We tried jetty-fishing but apart from the few tiny fishes we caught on the sabiki hooks, there was nothing else. & what really amazed me was that you don't need any bait for the sabiki hooks. Wtf? No bait and the fishes still get themselves hooked?! Anyhow, I enjoyed the session where we had a boat to bring us out to sea more instead; more fishes were caught. We caught many groupers (one of the boatmen said to me, bbq sedap, when i caught one). It's a damned cruel business, getting the hook out, & it's definitely something I am going to need more practice with, everyone was laughing at my inability to get it out luh.
We enjoyed our catch the next day steamed. Super yummy, the flesh is just so soft and tender can. I think fishing can be a new hobby, provided there are fishes to be caught. This little kid Daryl, taught me a new fishing lingo (钓石头鱼). & his dad is the one of the coolest around, damned generous and encouraging too. He was telling one of my friend's younger sis not to be sad because she didn't catch anything; it's just not her luck, and stuff like that. I sibei respect people like that one lor, uncle koon, way to go man.
And for times we weren't diving or fishing, I spent my time swinging (& sleeping) in a hammock under some coconut trees, overlooking the horizon. Damned the song. 2 angmohs brought the hammock and everyone else just had fun swinging in it; thank you angmohs! Anyway the 2 of them went diving with us, if they send the pictures to us, I'll post some up okay! Promise!
I thought the food was alright, not fantastic. Still swearing by the lambchops, chicken wings and satay (bbq night!) from Dayang Blues Resort, heard it's one of the best in that region. Anyone wants to go there someday?
All in all, I had a great time, & I hope everyone else did too. Couldn't ask for better room-mates, and I had fun helping Patrick 'babysit'. I heart you bf! I love you Aur/Dayang! Can't wait to go back again soon.........
1:49 AM
Got to the island with 50+ other people; lifesaving people (there to take their Bronze/Silver Cross tests), parents (plus the 3 triathlon babes there for a leisure trip), and the dive people.
Didn't snap pictures cos I was suffering from Phuket Withdrawal Symptons, nah just kidding. Just didn't feel like it. There were people all around to do it instead.
Anyhow, I got to share a room with the bf, bf's mum & June! Won't be going into details because you don't need a lot of details for such a trip, you'll just need to pay your dive operator some money and everything's going to fall into place.
That's my first leisure dive, and I had bf for my buddy. We were really lucky to see live turtles not once, but twice on our first day of diving (at Lang Island & Telok Jawa respectively). Baracudas, garfish, batfish(!), boxfish, soldierfish, idols, clownfish, angels, groupers (definitely a tasty treat!), christmas tree worms and so on. George, our dive master, brought us to a depth of 20 over metres on our first dive, & I was initially worried since it's been a long time since we touched the diving gear and it's just beyond our certification limits. No sweat though, our limit for this trip turned out to be 92feet! That took place at Pinnacle Point on the 2nd day; he said if we were lucky we could see whale sharks and manta rays, no such luck though!
In conclusion, my first leisure dive was fantastic! More time to look at the fishes instead of focusing on drills, I had such a great time down there, just observing. Both bf & me concluded that it's really amazing to be so deep down with sooooooooooooooooo much water all around you. I feel like I've stumbled into a whole new world underwater, there's so much activity going on around and I'm just some random observer that's happened to pass by. Being able to see an entire school of ikan kuning swim past right in front of you, can be a really magical experience. There's just a lot of respect that I have for the seas & oceans; for the myriad life forms that it supports, from the tiny cleaner shrimps to the gigantic whale sharks. I love the sea. I love diving!
Okay, enough of dive-talk. I should just go again sometime soon, once I start having an income.
For the times that we were not diving, we went fishing! I'm a total newbie at this; and I hope my dad would share more with me (but he wouldn't). Thankfully, fishing nowadays is somewhat idiot-proof. You don't even have to tie your own hooks and knots; there are ready-made ones that you can just clip onto the lines. We tried jetty-fishing but apart from the few tiny fishes we caught on the sabiki hooks, there was nothing else. & what really amazed me was that you don't need any bait for the sabiki hooks. Wtf? No bait and the fishes still get themselves hooked?! Anyhow, I enjoyed the session where we had a boat to bring us out to sea more instead; more fishes were caught. We caught many groupers (one of the boatmen said to me, bbq sedap, when i caught one). It's a damned cruel business, getting the hook out, & it's definitely something I am going to need more practice with, everyone was laughing at my inability to get it out luh.
We enjoyed our catch the next day steamed. Super yummy, the flesh is just so soft and tender can. I think fishing can be a new hobby, provided there are fishes to be caught. This little kid Daryl, taught me a new fishing lingo (钓石头鱼). & his dad is the one of the coolest around, damned generous and encouraging too. He was telling one of my friend's younger sis not to be sad because she didn't catch anything; it's just not her luck, and stuff like that. I sibei respect people like that one lor, uncle koon, way to go man.
And for times we weren't diving or fishing, I spent my time swinging (& sleeping) in a hammock under some coconut trees, overlooking the horizon. Damned the song. 2 angmohs brought the hammock and everyone else just had fun swinging in it; thank you angmohs! Anyway the 2 of them went diving with us, if they send the pictures to us, I'll post some up okay! Promise!
I thought the food was alright, not fantastic. Still swearing by the lambchops, chicken wings and satay (bbq night!) from Dayang Blues Resort, heard it's one of the best in that region. Anyone wants to go there someday?
All in all, I had a great time, & I hope everyone else did too. Couldn't ask for better room-mates, and I had fun helping Patrick 'babysit'. I heart you bf! I love you Aur/Dayang! Can't wait to go back again soon.........
Labels: bf, dive, friends, happiness, holiday, sea, travel
1:49 AM
phuket (iv)
Monday, March 17, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
DAY 4
Be prepared for a gazillion picturs ahead. Okay, so maybe it's just 80, I admit! Ready get set go! There's not supposed to be any punctuation marks. Anyway!
Set off from our hotel 'lobby' at 9; had a local boy pick us up on his bicycle, and btw, we paid 550Baht for the day tour. Picked a few others up while he constantly looked back to check if we were still on the trail. Headed to the pier at Ton Sai Bay where we witnessed some live coconut plucking. The trees were at least 20ft high; and it was all done very quickly. Plop.Plop.plop! Not very interesting, but I wouldn't want to be caught standing under those trees at that time.
Got onboard our boat "Blue Skies" and were handed a set of mask and snorkel each. We were going island hopping; to Maya Bay, Mosquito Island, and Bamboo Island for some snorkelling, swimming, sightseeing, and yeah, feed more monkeys.
so sunshine!
We shared the boat with a few other jap & korean couples (so there are actually other asians living on the island apart from the locals and ourselves), and another handful of angmohs, plus another weird hk uncle!
caught in the act
a fishing boat we passed by
Here's a little bit on Phi Phi, it's actually made up of 2 groups of islands, Koh Phi Phi Don (where we stayed on), and Koh Phi Phi Lei (nobody stays here, unless you're camping). The Beach by Leonardo D. was filmed here on Phi Phi Lei's Maya Bay, and it's probably what popularized that place so much for visitors, pristine beaches, crystal clearwaters and stunning postcard-worthy backdrops for your very own photographs.
phi phi lei...
we camwhored!
the whole of phi phi lei...
a rather spectacular cliff
i thought it'd be rather cool to abseil down from way up, maybe I should sign up for a climbing tour next time round?
Arrived at our first snorkelling destination, Maya Bay. There were already hordes of other boats and tourists when we arrived, splashing around in their fins. Didn't take us long to join in the fun!
Armed ourselves with our camera in its dicapak, masks & snorkel, and fins and plopped into the water in a minute.
there's this thing about caves...
Guide provided me with a banana so that I could feed the fish (and so that the fishes WILL come to me)
There were just so many fishes all around me luh, but mostly the same few types (can anyone enlighten me what species is that in the picture?) that came up to nibble at the banana. They were all just randomly biting at the banana I swear I was bitten at least twice, though it wasn't all that painful.
fish and lots of them.... the next few pictures are full of them!
finding nemo, no?
yeah, they got really close
the bf feeding fishies..i just realized how much it looks like they're all going for his down under. haha
garfish
so when we ran out of bananas, we went to look at the other fishes instead. if you're interested, among them were some very brightly coloured parrotfish (you'll remember i described them as underwater paddlepops), butterfly fish (the yellow-looking ones), purple-lipped clams, snappers, and your other usual tropical coral fishes. Bf was following behind the garfish (the long mouthed one above) so that he could take a good picture of it/them, there were 3.
unravelling into the beautiful lagoon...
and leaving it....
evidence of our camwhoring! we just had lunch (a cheese sub that suited my tastes just fine) and the hk uncle was chatting us up.
more cliffs
and up close
Stopped at our 2nd stop, Monkey Beach and the 2 of us decided to do some kayaking.
our flashy green kayak, just in case we got lost, you know!
Saw some pretty interesting looking rocks/formations.
kueh lapis!
and quotes bf, "who left the brownies here after eating?" hahaha
Decided to head back to the beach for a toilet break at the same time.
monkey beach: where majority of the people were
the monkeys here are so much more well-behaved than those at Monkey Cave.
I just can't get over the fact some monkey snatched away a packet of peanuts from my hands. gahhh. okay lah, they are prolly not snatching cos ratio of visitors to monkey is like 1:10. Judging from their chubby appearances, they are most likely being overfed lah.
bf feeding them nuts, something you can NEVER do at monkey cave. they will snatch the whole packet lah. and he was like so nice to the monkeys, even helped them peel off the roasted skin can.. haha.
baby on top
and another one
Continued on our ways to Bamboo Island.
this is Viking Cave, where they harvest bird's nests and The Beach was also filmed in here.
we didn't get to go into the cave, but I've read an article that Capt Blake wrote regarding all the paintings found on the cave walls inside. Would love to get in there if there's a chance though.
us jumping off our boat! only few seconds, so don't worry bout loading....
you can kayak under the island, literally...
long-tail boats here are as common as taxis on our roads.
picture taken on Bamboo Island, shadow hmm?
Decided to go swimming and it was one of my lousiest ideas to have gone without my fins (hey I thought if bf could do it, so could I). Urghhh. The current was kinda strong and getting back to the boat was a nightmare (sort of) I didn't see coming. Anyhow, we took some underwater pictures here that I'm loving for a long, long time to come. Enjoy!
we didn't mean to snorkel, but it just happened
i could be ballet dancer, underwater.
special thanks to the bf! for helping me to fulfill my mermaid obsession :)
Then decided to take a shot together.
miss
miss
whee shot #1
well, it's a miss and both of us ended up looking really funny lah.. hahahahaha!
my lovely boy
kiss you back! there're a couple more of 'miss' shots, but I guess you'd be pretty bored of them by now... yawns
i had no idea our kiss turned out looking so painful.. haha
Last stop for the day... this patch of waters just few hundred metres infront of Long Beach. The guide told us there're sharks (probably harmless nurse sharks) found in the waters here, so I popped in to try my luck. Bf didn't join me cause he was tired.
it doesn't look like it, but the waters here are best for snorkelling.
The depths' got to do with it; I mean, the water's much shallower here so the corals are much closer too. The current was so-so, not too strong.
it DOES get better in the water
that's me snorkelling.
i saw a greater variety of lifeform here; moorish idols (those angelic looking butterfly fish), parrotfish, sea urchins (plenty of them), the purple lipped clams, sea cucumbers, BOXFISH (so cute! and it's a first time!), bluestreak wrasse (oscar, your friendly cleaning fish), clownfish (nemo, there were a few clusters of anemone!), blennies, snappers, and so on.
my boxfish looked something like that, just that it's in white, not yellow. cute hor
define silly-looking
me at the rocks, trying to find some sharks...
And with that, we ended our day long journey on the sea. Headed back to our hotel room for a shower, and our prospective dinner.
chickens on the loose!
our hotel's very own pool. i really should have skinny-dipped in there lah! missed my chance...
Moving on... yes dinner. 290Bahts for Boys, 265Bahts for Girls, & 100-odd Bahts for kids and Rabbits for ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT Buffet. We should have taken a picture of that sign yah? haha.
chicken fillet was soso, kebabs were too dry, potato is huge but we got to stuff butter in there, beef patty still alright.
What was good and not shown in the picture's the fat and juicy sausages, pork chops (they are really good, with that herb marinate), corn cob (sweet & savoury), and salmon (think tender juicy).
the pasta family, and some mashed potatoes I thought wasn't too bad either.
the sauce family, from bottom right, clockwise: thousand island, unidentified garlic sauce, oops pasta, and ketchup. we had fun trying to re-enact the "ketchup effect" scene.
i'm a carnivore, totally!
rules...
Grabbed my lappy with us as we ended dinner. Landed ourselves at a bookstore called D Books where there was free wireless internet access. The other places all charge a 2Baht/minute fee. Ordered a mango shake and bf had a cappucino.
The mango shake was reallyyyyy good, sweet, a little milky and not too cloying. 4sgd's a reasonable price on this island too. Cappucino looks good too eh?
i thought they'd only do this at Gloria Jeans back in Sg.. no?
Having completed checking of my mailbox, feeding the local mozzies, and random surfing on the net, we got back to our hotel room. No loud angmohs tonight check, I'm grateful. We spent the night watching the Music & Lyrics pirate DVD we bought for 99Baht from one of the local shophouse before falling asleep.
We're heading back to Phuket the next day...!
5:22 PM
Be prepared for a gazillion picturs ahead. Okay, so maybe it's just 80, I admit! Ready get set go! There's not supposed to be any punctuation marks. Anyway!
Set off from our hotel 'lobby' at 9; had a local boy pick us up on his bicycle, and btw, we paid 550Baht for the day tour. Picked a few others up while he constantly looked back to check if we were still on the trail. Headed to the pier at Ton Sai Bay where we witnessed some live coconut plucking. The trees were at least 20ft high; and it was all done very quickly. Plop.Plop.plop! Not very interesting, but I wouldn't want to be caught standing under those trees at that time.
Got onboard our boat "Blue Skies" and were handed a set of mask and snorkel each. We were going island hopping; to Maya Bay, Mosquito Island, and Bamboo Island for some snorkelling, swimming, sightseeing, and yeah, feed more monkeys.
so sunshine!
We shared the boat with a few other jap & korean couples (so there are actually other asians living on the island apart from the locals and ourselves), and another handful of angmohs, plus another weird hk uncle!
caught in the act
a fishing boat we passed by
Here's a little bit on Phi Phi, it's actually made up of 2 groups of islands, Koh Phi Phi Don (where we stayed on), and Koh Phi Phi Lei (nobody stays here, unless you're camping). The Beach by Leonardo D. was filmed here on Phi Phi Lei's Maya Bay, and it's probably what popularized that place so much for visitors, pristine beaches, crystal clearwaters and stunning postcard-worthy backdrops for your very own photographs.
phi phi lei...
we camwhored!
the whole of phi phi lei...
a rather spectacular cliff
i thought it'd be rather cool to abseil down from way up, maybe I should sign up for a climbing tour next time round?
Arrived at our first snorkelling destination, Maya Bay. There were already hordes of other boats and tourists when we arrived, splashing around in their fins. Didn't take us long to join in the fun!
Armed ourselves with our camera in its dicapak, masks & snorkel, and fins and plopped into the water in a minute.
there's this thing about caves...
Guide provided me with a banana so that I could feed the fish (and so that the fishes WILL come to me)
There were just so many fishes all around me luh, but mostly the same few types (can anyone enlighten me what species is that in the picture?) that came up to nibble at the banana. They were all just randomly biting at the banana I swear I was bitten at least twice, though it wasn't all that painful.
fish and lots of them.... the next few pictures are full of them!
finding nemo, no?
yeah, they got really close
the bf feeding fishies..i just realized how much it looks like they're all going for his down under. haha
garfish
so when we ran out of bananas, we went to look at the other fishes instead. if you're interested, among them were some very brightly coloured parrotfish (you'll remember i described them as underwater paddlepops), butterfly fish (the yellow-looking ones), purple-lipped clams, snappers, and your other usual tropical coral fishes. Bf was following behind the garfish (the long mouthed one above) so that he could take a good picture of it/them, there were 3.
unravelling into the beautiful lagoon...
and leaving it....
evidence of our camwhoring! we just had lunch (a cheese sub that suited my tastes just fine) and the hk uncle was chatting us up.
more cliffs
and up close
Stopped at our 2nd stop, Monkey Beach and the 2 of us decided to do some kayaking.
our flashy green kayak, just in case we got lost, you know!
Saw some pretty interesting looking rocks/formations.
kueh lapis!
and quotes bf, "who left the brownies here after eating?" hahaha
Decided to head back to the beach for a toilet break at the same time.
monkey beach: where majority of the people were
the monkeys here are so much more well-behaved than those at Monkey Cave.
I just can't get over the fact some monkey snatched away a packet of peanuts from my hands. gahhh. okay lah, they are prolly not snatching cos ratio of visitors to monkey is like 1:10. Judging from their chubby appearances, they are most likely being overfed lah.
bf feeding them nuts, something you can NEVER do at monkey cave. they will snatch the whole packet lah. and he was like so nice to the monkeys, even helped them peel off the roasted skin can.. haha.
baby on top
and another one
Continued on our ways to Bamboo Island.
this is Viking Cave, where they harvest bird's nests and The Beach was also filmed in here.
we didn't get to go into the cave, but I've read an article that Capt Blake wrote regarding all the paintings found on the cave walls inside. Would love to get in there if there's a chance though.
us jumping off our boat! only few seconds, so don't worry bout loading....
you can kayak under the island, literally...
long-tail boats here are as common as taxis on our roads.
picture taken on Bamboo Island, shadow hmm?
Decided to go swimming and it was one of my lousiest ideas to have gone without my fins (hey I thought if bf could do it, so could I). Urghhh. The current was kinda strong and getting back to the boat was a nightmare (sort of) I didn't see coming. Anyhow, we took some underwater pictures here that I'm loving for a long, long time to come. Enjoy!
we didn't mean to snorkel, but it just happened
i could be ballet dancer, underwater.
special thanks to the bf! for helping me to fulfill my mermaid obsession :)
Then decided to take a shot together.
miss
miss
whee shot #1
well, it's a miss and both of us ended up looking really funny lah.. hahahahaha!
my lovely boy
kiss you back! there're a couple more of 'miss' shots, but I guess you'd be pretty bored of them by now... yawns
i had no idea our kiss turned out looking so painful.. haha
Last stop for the day... this patch of waters just few hundred metres infront of Long Beach. The guide told us there're sharks (probably harmless nurse sharks) found in the waters here, so I popped in to try my luck. Bf didn't join me cause he was tired.
it doesn't look like it, but the waters here are best for snorkelling.
The depths' got to do with it; I mean, the water's much shallower here so the corals are much closer too. The current was so-so, not too strong.
it DOES get better in the water
that's me snorkelling.
i saw a greater variety of lifeform here; moorish idols (those angelic looking butterfly fish), parrotfish, sea urchins (plenty of them), the purple lipped clams, sea cucumbers, BOXFISH (so cute! and it's a first time!), bluestreak wrasse (oscar, your friendly cleaning fish), clownfish (nemo, there were a few clusters of anemone!), blennies, snappers, and so on.
my boxfish looked something like that, just that it's in white, not yellow. cute hor
define silly-looking
me at the rocks, trying to find some sharks...
And with that, we ended our day long journey on the sea. Headed back to our hotel room for a shower, and our prospective dinner.
chickens on the loose!
our hotel's very own pool. i really should have skinny-dipped in there lah! missed my chance...
Moving on... yes dinner. 290Bahts for Boys, 265Bahts for Girls, & 100-odd Bahts for kids and Rabbits for ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT Buffet. We should have taken a picture of that sign yah? haha.
chicken fillet was soso, kebabs were too dry, potato is huge but we got to stuff butter in there, beef patty still alright.
What was good and not shown in the picture's the fat and juicy sausages, pork chops (they are really good, with that herb marinate), corn cob (sweet & savoury), and salmon (think tender juicy).
the pasta family, and some mashed potatoes I thought wasn't too bad either.
the sauce family, from bottom right, clockwise: thousand island, unidentified garlic sauce, oops pasta, and ketchup. we had fun trying to re-enact the "ketchup effect" scene.
i'm a carnivore, totally!
rules...
Grabbed my lappy with us as we ended dinner. Landed ourselves at a bookstore called D Books where there was free wireless internet access. The other places all charge a 2Baht/minute fee. Ordered a mango shake and bf had a cappucino.
The mango shake was reallyyyyy good, sweet, a little milky and not too cloying. 4sgd's a reasonable price on this island too. Cappucino looks good too eh?
i thought they'd only do this at Gloria Jeans back in Sg.. no?
Having completed checking of my mailbox, feeding the local mozzies, and random surfing on the net, we got back to our hotel room. No loud angmohs tonight check, I'm grateful. We spent the night watching the Music & Lyrics pirate DVD we bought for 99Baht from one of the local shophouse before falling asleep.
We're heading back to Phuket the next day...!
Labels: bf, food, happiness, sea, thailand, travel
5:22 PM
