Thailand, Similan islands

Last time we dove the postcard pretty Similan islands we were there in the wrong season (heard this so many times by now, we are wondering how is anyone supposed to guess that weekend a year when conditions are perfect!). A repeater, we made a decision last time. So much so, that in our eagerness we booked not one, but two dive trips. Just to make sure. The fact that your euros will take you further here than most other live aboard diving destinations has absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing at all!!

But as the luck is with the bold (or stupid?), in the end we had two very good diving trips. And a few challenges along the way…

On the first trip we were honored (yeah, right) to dive the area at the same time as Thai Princess (the real deal, not the boat). So, naturally the authorities closed off half of the marine park to cater for her royal needs and left the other half to 50 odd boats filled with people with once in a lifetime chance to experience the thrill of diving in legions of divers. Most observed specie under the water on that day was Homo sapiens in a various stages of distress. In retrospect, it actually was hilarious. But all rectified in the next day as the park reopened again. And in addition we saw manta rays (some happy tears in our… well, her eyes…).

We also somehow managed to forget that these boats have shared toilets. Add to that fact that you need to be very well hydrated when diving, so you just keep drinking water. Think Donald Trump would have been impressed with our self-inflicted water-boarding skills. So, we were climbing up and down the flight of stairs in the night, multiple times. Not funny. Especially if you take into account that another theme of both trips was side waves rolling the boat on all the overnight moorings. Thank god for seasickness pills! We kept moving around that narrow space called bed in the same direction the boat did all night long. Every night. On not one, but two trips. As diving doesn’t mix with alcohol, we couldn’t even drink ourselves to sleep. Yup, so proud of our decision making sometimes…

But in the end we managed to see all the best dive sites in their pride and glory and all the troubles were forgotten. We would still say that Thailand is more about travelling (drinking and eating mostly) than diving thou. But it is a great experience to merge the two, hence hordes of people that constantly flock to this tropical paradise. Be warned thou! The postcard pictures of quiet tourist free areas are all decades old. To experience it you either party until or get out of bed at sunrise..

But time to travel (again) to our favorite diving South-East Asia country: Philippines.

Blue water and sandy beaches found here.

Thailand, Koh Tao

If we thought Koh Tao was busy almost ten years ago, than it is bursting at the seams now. There is even more people flocking to this little island. You end up with a crazy mix of youngsters on their gap years (as always), young families on their holidays (parents are our generation trying to recapture their youth) and hippy geriatric crowd (usually visiting second or third generation now living on the island). And all of them on scooters. You can judge the age of a driver from afar just by checking if they have their helmets on (or not) and Koh Tao tattoo. Wondering what that is? Crashing the scooter and ending up with a pattern of scabs and scars for life. Helps that every fifth house is a clinic and every shop sells first aid kits. But in the end, it all works! It is still place with amazing feel to it, relaxed atmosphere and beautiful sunsets (fuelled by numerous beach bars). We were immediately captured by the spirit of the place. Again. No wonder we are back!

And then diving. Koh Tao is a dive mega-factory. All is about dive courses, you could call it dive nursery and hit the post. But they still have a few nice dive sites. One of them we missed the last time and had to come back for it: Sail Rock. And it was worth the trip. Probably one of the best in the whole of Thailand, if not the best. The rest are really overcrowded. All larger marine life is gone at this stage, replaced by eager new divers. But hey, everyone has to learn somehow. And as we said, this is the dive nursery.

With diving taking less time than we thought, we managed to immerse ourselves into religious side of Thailand. Not talking about elephant rides and touristy temples. We actually observed a Buddha day and abstained from drinking beer. Fine, it was mandatory for everybody, but nevertheless we have been caught out without a secret booze stash in the room. One more thing to check for future travels…

After of week of a little bit of diving and a lot of eating and partying – possibly not in that order – we took a taxi, ferry, bus and another taxi to the other side of Thailand. And all the way we were wondering why didn’t we stayed longer in Koh Tao. But, on the other side, time to dive the Similans!

As always some more pictures just a click away.

Thailand, Bangkok

After a long time we were back in Bangkok. And it changed a lot! Better public transport, more buzz and just feel that Thailand as a country is doing better. Well, taking into account that last time we were here during the big protests, it is hard not to feel that way. Tourists are still coming in hordes, but we noticed the change. Not so many Europeans any more, China is the main super-power in this part of the world and you can see it immediately. We can’t say that we appreciated this fact, as everything is more expensive than the last time (including the beer!), but Bangkok is still an amazing place and we enjoyed it big time.

And we even managed to land here just during their big motorcycle rally. Party, party, party! Or maybe not? First time ever in our lives we missed a party as the whole thing shut down before 10 pm! To say we were flabbergasted is an understatement. We urgently needed a Thai massage to recover our strength. By the way, that part of Bangkok life is still as good as ever and we enjoyed it. Repeatedly.

As the higher the better addicts, we noticed another Bangkok must do - Skybars. With drink prices that make Norwegians blush, out bank account thanked us for noticing this feature only on the last night in town. OCD kicked in and the glass around us was calling for a clean-up. Combine that with fear of heights (not naming names) and we wonder, why do we do this to ourselves?

And then it was time to dive again. Bring it on, baby!

Check out the pictures here.

Hong Kong

It started the wrong way… Lesley and Bob advised us to take a taxi to their place as they are not directly on the public transport. Instead we did the stupid thing and decided to use the public transport (Nives’ idea really…). All would be fine (sort of) if we didn’t (foolishly!) listen to the guy from the tourist info office at the airport. We are not going to go into details here, but all it matters is that it took us three hours to get there. On a positive side, we ARE still married (it was touch and go a few times). Don’t think that a totally spooked Uber driver who drove the last part of the journey shares this opinion thou. Apparently, Asians are not good with couples having an open conflict. Yaiks!

But our lovely hosts brought us back to life with wonderfully cooked home food and copious amounts of red wine. And it did not end there. We actually got to see the really nice side of Hong-Kong that not many tourists do.

First, sailing. It was just amazing to sail just outside of bustling city center. There is so much more to Hong-Kong than you would think. Small villages, lush green islands, absolutely beautiful scenery. Top that with great company and some excellent food and wine and you have a winner!
Then, Chinese New Year’s Eve fireworks in the harbour. If we thought Singapore was big, than this was enormous. Gigantic! The whole bay was lit up. We had the best spot in the town as well – Hong-Kong Royal marina. Again, courtesy of Bob and Lesley. Don’t think they normally take our riff-ruff sort of traveling guests (remember Venice?).

We also went for a ride on a local tram on the Hong-Kong Island. It passes through old and new parts of the city, not to mention that markets part to let the tram trough. Covering our eyes the first time we soon realized this is how things are done here. And started to enjoy the views and the city pulse. And you do get a feel that Hong-Kong has either just completed a mountain marathon or is in a constant state of pre cardiac arrest. It is an absolute chaos, but of the organized way. Everything works.

After four days of pure indulgence it was time to move on to warmer climates: Thailand.

Few more pictures here.

Taiwan

Illiterate. And lost. That's our first impression of Taiwan as we struggle (and fail) to read the signs. We keep relying on people to write down our destination and show it to the bus drivers. Think this is the tricky part? Nope. That one comes when you try to do what you are supposed to in Taipei: eat, but eat at various night food markets. Without people speaking English and not being able to read anything we resort to pointing our finger(s) to what we think we want to eat. Great thing is that locals are used to it – a lot of nodding and smiling really does the trick in the end. Food, on the other hand, is a mixed success. Some things we like, some we don’t. Some are not what we thought they were. And we are very general here: is it sweet or savoury, meat or vegetables… In general, is Taipei the foodie capital of Asia? Not really… not for the two of us anyway. Although we did like few dishes in the end, we still think that more fragrant, spicy and nutty cuisines of India, Malaysia or Thailand are more our cup of tea.

One more thing is becoming a theme as we move further east from Europe. To our disappointment, beer and wine are getting more and more expensive (and containers smaller) while petrol is getting cheaper. Beginning to appreciate government taxation policies back home…

Few things will always stay with us about Taiwan thou:

• Public transport. Didn’t even realize it can be that good. Trains go every few minutes and the whole city is totally covered. Absolutely amazing. We kept using and admiring it.
• Internet. Everywhere it maxed out our speed-o-meter. And, last but not least, no stupid passwords all over the place. Respect!
• Cleanliness. Who ever said Singapore was clean? Taipei beats it in a hart-beat. Not as clean as Austrian Alps thou, still stealing the premium spot in our opinion. 

After five days in Taipei, we were on the move again. Next stop – Hong Kong to visit our friends Lesley and Bob and spend Chinese New Year there.

If you fancy looking at more foody pictures or trying to read  Chinese click here.

Palau

For divers, this place is a remote paradise, the way God intended the sea to look like. For non-divers, this is hell on Earth in the middle of nowhere, do not attempt! In geographical terms about three hour flight south east of Philippines. Slightly remote…

This time we did 17 days diving. Consecutive. Clocking at least 200 mins under water every day. Yup, we are a bit crazy… But there is also nothing else to do here (seriously!).

Feelings were mixed in the end. Even Palau is not what it used to be. Problem is way too many tourists. It is becoming a big holidays spot for Chinese and you can see it. It is more crowded under the water than ever! We even joined the marine life playing the game of staying away from divers. Not an easy task, take our word for it. You may find more solitude in Dundrum shopping mall during X-mass. This tiny island now even boasts a rush hour traffic – bizarre!

All this is affecting the wild life. Sadly, manta rays are not as abundant as they used to be. So much so, that in the last week we did not see any (yes, Nives was in tears). We still did have some lovely dives with them, but not a place where you should go if your only agenda is to see these beautiful giants. Not all is bad thou. There are even more sharks and rest of wild-life than before. And they do come close – absolutely amazing (Dejan did have the time of his life). And to top that they now have resident eagle-rays on Blue Corner (at this stage, this dive spot cannot be better than it is, really). If you have one dive left in you, it should be this one – trust us.

Are we going to go back? Definitely! Palau is still amazing and unique place well worth the trouble of flying across the world to see.

Click here to see more of the good stuff (We have been good and even made an underwater movie about it...)

New Year’s Eve in Singapore

OK, to say hotels are expensive in Singa would be an understatement! So, we ended up in Airbnb. Kind of really… more like a giant hostel/hotel type of place. Not really sure about this concept. But who cares, we are here to party, party, party! Or so we thought… If hotels are expensive, alcohol is extortionate.  Costs more than in Kuala (unless you really hunt for bargains, which we did).  So, instead we walked a lot in unbearable heat and humidity. And had a lot of water. Seems all the local governments are really supporting our decision to drink less.

We were really wondering what this place was like when the first settlers came. That was answered quickly enough – after nine minutes and 11 mosquito bites (yes, Nives) in local park we retreated (read: ran for our lives) to a cool and safe harbour of Starbucks café to lick our wounds (read: scratch our legs). So much so for exploring nature. Back to food. And water.

One thing is for sure thou – Singaporeans know their business with fireworks. New Year’s one was absolutely amazing! Sky was on fire! It was a really great experience, we thought way better than one in Sidney. That three hour wait sitting on the ground in the marina, eating New Years’ dinner (if you are interested, we shared a char kway teow – fried noodles, so exotic) and toasting with water was totally worth it! Well, maybe more in eyes of some of us (yes, guessed right – Nives). But we did go for a beer afterwards. Not as quickly as we hoped thou. Singapore authorities have really weird notion of crowd management: streets were closed off (for pedestrians!!!) and big fences put in place. Gates would open only for a minute or so at the time to let people pass. We thought it was hilarious. For the first hour. Then at around 3am it became really annoying. All the same, locals were happy to wait. Maybe we are not cut out to live in Singapore?

We were not sad to leave Singapore, as the next stop was our favourite dive spot in the world: Palau.

Before we dive into the blue, click here for some city view pictures of Singapore.