Leaving day

Day 9
Today is the last day of the trip, everyone came for breakfast a bit late because last night we had a late night! Plus we were so tired from the day trip. Some of us have a flight back to Bangkok and then are off on anotherflight to Chaing mai which some of us are staying longer in Samui but in a different hotel and exploring a different beach

It's time to say good bye!  : (

National Marine Park day trip

Day 8

Today is another early morning as we are off  to the Marine Park.

The boat took us one hour to get to the first stop for snorkeling, This area is called the Aug Thong National Marine Park, on the way of our boat we had seen so many island in front of us that is a group of Aug Thong . There is an island call monkey island and lion island. When we got to the first stop there were so many green fish looking for food!

After our first snorkeling stop we have stop at Mae Kho which is view point island,and after walking 200 metres up an we can see the green lagoon and very beautiful view.

This lunch we had a very beautiful buffet lunch with traditonal thai curry, sweet and sour shrimp, fried chicken, mixed vegetable stir fried to finished off with some lovely fruit. After lovely lunch we moved to the next island, which is the main island, we stoped here for a while and long enough to swim and kayak through the other beach on the other side and got to see the lime stone so close.

We left the island in the evening to head back to Samui and headed out for dinner.This time we went to Chawang - the main beach and had some more lovely food by the beach. In Chawang beach there are so many shops and restaurants to walk around. We finished off out night with a  ladyboy show (!) and then we headed back with so many things for us to talking about!

Kho Tao-Kho Samui

Day 7

Today we are off to Kho Samui and arrive at almost lunch time to our accomodation on Lamai beach. Samui is a second biggest island and not as big as Phuket which is the biggest island. There are many beaches on the island and the most famous is Chawang. Lamai is where we are staying and it is one of the other famous beaches and quite long thankfully also not too as busy as Chawang. 

This afternoon after lunch at a nearby restaurant, we had a walk to grandfather and grandmother rock which is 15 minutes from the hotel. For the rest of the day we enjoyed the beach & relaxed...

In the evening we walked down to the beach and there were so many nice restaurants by the beach and many on the street where we walk passed. Actually Lamai is quite busy similar to Chawang but smaller, at night it sure looks more lively than day time.

After another lovely dinner, some of us spent the night to look around the shops and some went back to prepare for day trip tomorrow.

Snorkeling Tour!

Day 6:

Today we woke up early for a snorkeling tour around the island.. The boat today looks like a medium size fisherman boat with two stories!

After the boat leave the main pier, we start to see the scenery of Kho Tao in a different view. Only around 20 minutes the boat had stop for our first snorkel at "Shark Bay " where there is shark all around! As soon as the boat stops so many small green fish came around for the bread which the boat man is always feeding them....it like we were in the fish tank. Many hundreds of them surrounded us.

We spent about 40 minutes here, its seemed so quick as we were all enjoying it here. When we got back on the boat we all talked about what we have seen -  many people saw sharks, but I didn't see any!

Next we moved on for 3 more snorkeling places and one more island .There are so many different kinds of colourful fish in each spots. The last place of today we stopped at  Ngang Yuan Island which looks like three islands that are connected with the white sand beach, clear water and colorful fish around it. We were on this island about 1.30 hour, some of us keep worked on their tans (!), some of us walked around and took a well needed rest at the restaurant which is the only one on this island.

We came back on boat again and started the journey back  to Kho Tao which takes only 30 minutes. As soon as the boat arrived back at the pier, the rain was pouring,! The pier looks just like a waterfall, and only 5 minutes away from the pier it was sunny and dry.... We made it to our room soaking wet!

End of the day and we had a lovely BBQ at the restaurant in front of our place as a treat for 

our long and wet day...

Amazing!

Kho Tao

Day 5

Today its time to leave this beautiful beach to head to Kho Tao. We caught the boat at 1pm and the boat ride took about 2.15 hour to Kho Tao.

When we arrived at Kho Tao there was a truck pick us up, and the small Island of Kho Tao looked very busy compared with Phangan today!

This time we stayed at the busy beach call " Sairee Beach" which is the most busy beach around the island. When we arrived we headed off to explore the island before sunset. There are many restaurants, bars, shops nearby where we staying and there is a small street along the beach to find these things

Tonight we meet again at the restaurant at 7.00 pm, but I came to the restaurant half an hour before time, watched beautiful sunset today -  wow!

Tonight everyone had a delicious BBQ surround with nice and breeze environment. Most of us head back to their room straight after meal to relax as we are having a snorkeling tour tomorrow. 

Kho Pangan 2

Day 4

Today seems like everyone wakes up not too early and is have a chill day, with a late breakfast and walking on the beach. Everyone is enjoying their time just on the beach and dipping themselves in the water to cool down. Weather today is nice and sunny, a bit of wind all day which is hard to tell if it too hot in the sun, as the wind just blows heat air out of it!

Thong Nai Pan Beach is one of the famous and beautiful beach, most of tourist know Kho Phangan as a full moon party at Had Rin or Rin Beach. Actually this is a nice and quite place where we can spend many days that are nice and peaceful. 

In the evening we meet back about at 7.30 pm for dinner and tonight it will be basic Thai food such as curry, padthai and shrimp in coconut soup... all very good yet again. .

Khao Pangan

Day 3

Train has arrived very early in the morning! We have to wait for the bus come and pick us up and we head to Pangan ferry. We've stop at the local noodle shop, that the south of Thailand people like to have noodle with spicy curry and a lot of fresh vegetable as a side dish  - sometimes for breakfast too! There were many fresh vegetable and fresh meat for sale at the market. People are nice and smiling and they welcome us to come into their shop, to tasted their product and explained what things are.

There were so many kinds of fresh curry paste to be easily cooked at home. This custom still appeared in almost everywhere, also in the big city as Bangkok, there are easier and cheaper places to eat out almost for every meal. In the market we walked through to the end and we found coconut custard in the small round pieces, so we had this for our desesrt after breakfast! Yum!

In the afternoon we had arrive at Pen's Bungalow on Thong nai pan beach. After we put our bags and got refresh up we came to the front beach restaurant to have lunch. The beach this time was quite and hot, water was blue, there was a few small fisherman boat resting by the beach. After everyone spent their afternoon on the beach, swimming and relaxing for whole afternoon. In the evening we had seafood at Bungalow restaurant and it was just so nice and freshing. Tonight we sleep with pleasure from tasty food and beautiful beach  - its just like our own private beach!!

Temple of Dawn & the Train trip

Day 2

Today we started in lobby for our morning tour. We are going to Arun Temple, we arrived at the pier then we have to crossed Chaopraya River to the temple side which wasn't take long at all. We walked into the Prang or the main building, and as we came closer to the building  we could see more in the little details of it - wow it was amazing and beautiful. We went up and inside -  there is even as chool inside where the novices and the monks studied while they are here.

We finished and crossed back to the other side to got back to the hotel. Some of us wanted to explore "Pho Temple" which is the golden reclining Buddha so they went back later. Others headed back to prepare for our next train trip later in the day....

Meeting Day

Day 1

Today we have met at 6.00 pm at the lobby again.. This trip we going to south east coast 3 Island. It's a sunny day and 37 degrees... nothing better than time to head to the beach.  In the evening after everyone came, I let them know all about the trip and information about accommodation and activities we would be doing. Most of us arrived a few days before we had start our tour. During having dinner we planed to go to " Temple of Dawn "or Arun Temple which is part of our trip tomorrow morning as an appetizer before we leave Bangkok to head to the beach!
               

After dinner, some of us went for shopping or walking around Khaosan Road then headed back to sleep to get ready for tomorrow, on the way back to the hotel I grabbed some Thai desert: Mango & Sticky rice for a good night's sleep... yum!!!

Welcome!

Welcome to Tik’s trip blog. Tig will be leading Intrepid’s 9 day ‘Treasures of the South’ trip.

She’ll be giving us a local’s insight into this wonderful region of the world and documenting her group’s journey as they soak up the wonders of Thailand’s south.