Visiting Phraya Rasda's house

As some friends were going to do a photo shoot in Kantang I was asked to tag along to see the local spot. Little did I know that I was going to see a piece of history. After some driving we came to a seemingly dilapidated house in a huge estate.

Phraya Rasda's house

Huai Yod talent contest

While in Trang I was given opportunity to come and watch a talent contest at Huai Yod school. These kind of events are very common in Thailand and are often arranged by schools, monasteries & other entities in order to raise funds for various causes. The contestants are sponsored by various means as well and the event usually has also a wide variety of stalls selling food and other knick knacks. It always gives a feeling of being in a sort of mini Carnival and people are lining up from everywhere.

Ningnong Show

Road tripping to Bangkok, part II

2 weeks later the red shirts were wreaking havoc in Bangkok and I prepared to go north to pick up my newly arrived passport. This time I could not get a ticket in Phuket as it seemed government had cut bus rides up north in order to stem the flow of people to the ongoing demonstrations. Anyway, I got a ride in Krabi and was once again on my way. Same routine repeated itself with dinner in Chumphon. I bought for dessert a bag of "mak" from an old lady selling them outside the rest stop. It was so strong it made my head spin.

The Lion of Finland

Fossil beach Krabi

Having been driving to Trang a few times I have been seeing signs of the "fossil beach" when I've been passing through Krabi, so this time I decided to go and check it out.

At the "T" junction towards Krabi airport and town I went towards the town and after a couple of k's I came to a right turn which said "Fossil beach 8km". After following a meandering road with spectacular lime stone vistas I came to another junction after 9k's, no signs there.

Krabi road vistas

Road tripping to Bangkok part I

As my passport was running out of pages despite only 4 years in use I needed to get a new one before the bureaucrats started bitching about it. For those who do not know, one is required to have at least 2 blank pages and more than 6 months validity (as I recall) left in order to be admitted to any country.

Bangkok Southern Bus terminal

Captain's blog February 2010

February went fast as usual, Kalizma was looking to be under siege with all the maintenance works going on but she looks better now with the new awnings, new bridge deck teak and fresh varnish work. I also did plenty of carpentry inside as well, fixing here and there.

Wonder if this guy was out shopping during low water

Diving Ko A Yam & Hin Daeng

Next day (28th Feb) came sunny and calm, we heaved up anchor early morning and started towards Phuket again. At abt 10am we were passing Ko A Yam and Ko Bulon and decided to try out the waters there as well.

Ko A Yam

Diving Ko Rawi

Our time was up once again and Saini's visa expired so we had to leave Malaysia for Phuket. We left late on the 27th in the afternoon as Chan was tweaking our new CCTV and radar installation and we still had some stuff to pick up before departure. Once on our way we steamed towards the Butangs for night anchorage. We arrived just with the last rays of the sun and anchored just south of Ko Rawi.

Morning in Ko Rawi