The magnificent seascape and underwater creatures, well, they are just a huge bonus. While no picture can convey that sense of liberty, here are some underwater pictures I took from various dive sites at Similan Islands.

My gears were Olympus E-PL3 with the underwater housing coupled, Inon UWL 100 & Dome port, and a single Sea & Sea YS-01 external flash.

swim through, Deep Six

I logged 14 dives over 4 days of diving living aboard M/V Vilai Samut operated by Liquid Adventure. (previous year experience here). The boat departs from Khao Lak at night, so night one started before day one. The sites we went to were:

Day 1:

• Stone Henge
• Deep Six
• West of Eden
• West of Eden (night)

tiny black reef fish atop table coral at West of Eden

We were lucky to have excellent visibility of at least 30-40 meters in more than 70% of the dives, and had at least 20 meters in the rest of the dives too. Comparing with Pulau Sembilan/Lumut’s 5-10 m visibility…

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics, and say no to shark’s fins!

giant spiny lobster, night dive at West of Eden

sea snake, Koh Bon

the reef at Koh Bon

clown fish in anemone, night dive at Elephant Rock

an unnerving cuttle fish, night dive at Elephant Rock

lion fish, night dive at Elephant Rock

Dave convincing a lion fish to pose, Richelieu Rock

cleaner shrimps, Richelieu Rock

chevron barracudas, Richelieu Rock

star fish on coral, night dive at Koh Bon

boxer shrimp, night dive at Koh Bon

porcupine fish, Bon Soon wreck

Bon Soon wreck

ghost pipe fish, Bon Soon wreck

Most clips were shot with Olympus E-PL3 (except those not underwater, shot with Sony Xperia Arc), using Inon wide angle converter with dome port, no red filter (which I had and probably should have made good use of.. gah!)

Hope you enjoy!

Khao Lak is more of the same, the small resort town (approximately 100 km north of Phuket) where we spent the day after liveaboard to Similan islands for degassing purposes. For us, that was of course a perfect opportunity to eat everything Thai.

Fire in the hole!

motorbike is the best way to get around

While Khao Lak is relatively small and there are cabs available pretty much everywhere, the best mode of transportation is a scooter. You probably don’t even need a license to rent one, but do make sure you know what you’re doing.

Our scooter cost 200 baht per day, and you can refuel from plenty of places by buying bottled gasoline for 40 baht per liter. If you value your life, ask for helmets, they provide them without extra charge.

som tam by the roadside, I had it last year too

If you love sour & spicy stuff, som tam is a must try. Made of unripe papaya or green mango, bean sprout, peanut, chili, dried shrimps and more. Comes with a kick, we paid 40 bath, would be cheaper if this stall wasn’t parked right outside hot tourist spots.

breakfast was this rice/noodle with extremely spicy broths

On the day of departure, we decided to forgo hotel breakfast and try something a Thai would have. After riding around a bit we arrived at this kopitiam with a couple Thai ladies operating a stall that offers rice or noodle with a selection of dishes with broth.

Thai: spicy haa!
Me: we kon Malay, spicy no problem!

I was mistaken. These shit was tasty, and really, really hot. Lucky for us there were fresh cucumbers & a variety of vegetables on the table to cool things down. It was a good meal, what do you call them anyway?

noodle soup is the yums, choices of beef, chicken, or pork

A day prior to departure, just before dinner, we stopped by one of the road side stalls right on the main street at Khao Lak for some “snacks” that turned out to be really delicious noodle soup.

Here you get to choose any combination of 3 ingredients: pork, chicken, and beef. I had mine with chicken & beef while Haze opted for pork and beef. This reminded me of Vietnamese pho, and had the same basil/bean sprout on the side too, but as with anything Thai, the flavors were stronger. Yums.

50 baht for each, water was free. 100 baht well spent.

pad thai wasn’t bad, the fried oyster tho, disappointing

Our last meal there was at this little restaurant a couple kilometers away from Khao Lak (scooter brings you places!). We had pad thai with prawns & squid, and another plate of fried oyster to share.

The pad thai was rather average, and the fried oyster.. well, after the experience at Penang’s version, this was a complete disappointment. Each plate was 50 baht, with 15 baht each for coca-cola t hat comes in those classic glass bottle.

Yes, my stomach is still recovering from all those chili overload, but of course it was worth it.

dive buddy Dave in picture, at Koh Bon

Proper blog post on the trip, more photos, and perhaps a video is on the way soon as I get some time to work on them.

moray eel in full view, Koh Bon, Thailand

Back to the office tomorrow, been an awesome CNY holidays away from work, and the dive trip made it so much sweeter.

Hope your holiday was well spent too!

Rich, my colleague and fellow dive buddy then informed me about a spot available on the Similan Islands liveaboard dive trip, and less than a week later I found myself at LCCT with a bag full of diving equipment, and a ticket out of the country.

Similan Islands liveaboard itinerary

A tip for you would be travelers – always check your passport. I made one of the most stupid errors of all time by bringing Haze‘s passport to the airport instead of mine and was only able to board the plane thanks to some crazy driving from LCCT-PJ-LCCT + Horng helping out by saving me 2 km’s worth of driving + AirAsia flight delay.

Talk about an exciting start to the trip.

Khao Lak, the stopover town for Similan islands trip

Anyhow, we made it to Phuket airport by late night on Valentine’s day, and took a truck/van to to Khao Lak. The journey took about 1.5 hours although it is only some 80 km away. We should appreciate the Malaysian highway system, similar journey would have taken only half the time here.

We checked into Nangthong Beach resort for the night. We shared a bungalow style room, and the resort has a nice, tranquil pool with beautiful garden and walkways. The only downside is that it is also almost exclusively filled with European retirees.

No bikini babes here.

good eats at Khao Lak – burger, mango salad, noodle soup, grilled chicken

Like most small tourist towns in Thailand, the main street (there’s only one) of Khao Lak is littered with massage parlors, restaurants, and luckily, many portable hawker stalls too.

Over the course of the day, I had some awesome mango salad, sweet grilled chicken, noodle soup with coagulated pork blood, and a plate of forgettable pad thai (from an overly tourist friendly restaurant, no surprise there.)

MV Vilai Samut, operated by Liquid Adventure at Khao Lak

In the evening, we gathered at Liquid Adventure (our dive operator)
and were sent to the port to get on our liveaboard boat – M/V Vilai Samut.

According to Liquid’s boss, Joachim, the name of the boat translate to something like “young lady”. She had just entered her teens, and measuring a healthy 26 meters in length and 6 meters wide.

The liveaboard caters to 18 or 20 guests with some 10 crews (captain, helpers, dive masters, kitchen staffs). Living cabins aren’t exactly spacious, but they are air conditioned at night and pretty comfortable.

every meal is taken care of on board, mostly Thai cuisine

There were two kitchen crews on board and food is typically either Thai, Western, or a little bit of a mix in between. We had tomyam, French toast, fried rice, noodle, vegetable, fruits, grilled fish, soup, and more. Three meals a day and an afternoon snack in between lunch and dinner too.

Live on the liveaboard boat is fairly repetitive, and revolves around – Dive, Eat, Sleep. Throw in a bit of reading in between, since most of the time there’s no phone connection at all, let alone internet.

Leila from France, and Linus from Sweden are 2 of our 4 dive masters

Our dives are guided by 4 dive masters – Linus & Sandra from Sweden, and Kevin & Leila from France. They were very professional, friendly, and to many, good looking people too.

Each dive master usually leads a group of four or less divers. This ensures that everyone is taken care of and us not over crowding a single fish at the bottom of the sea, for example.

the sea is teeming with thousands of small fish

Most dives started out with Linus giving a briefing on the dive site with wacky but useful illustrations on the white board before we proceed to the stern of the boat and basically just jump off from there.

There were a couple dives where we used the dingy to get to the dive site, but that was only for evening/night dives usually, when the boat is basically parked and we needed to go fairly close to the rocks.

puffer fish hiding in a small cave

Over the course of 4 nights and 4 days, we did a total of 15 dives. Averaging 4 per day, and 3 on the last day.

The dive sites for day 1 were all at Similan Islands

1. dawn: Shark Fin Reef
2. morning: West of Eden
3. afternoon: Elephant Head Rock
4. evening: West of Eden

Day 2 – we spent the morning dives at Similan Islands, and went up north after lunch

1. dawn: Christmas Point
2. morning: Breakfast Bend
3. afternoon: Koh Bon
4. evening: Koh Tachai

all these photos are of the same octopus!

Day 3 – we headed up north to pretty close to border of Myanmar at Surin National Park, spent half a day there before making our way down south again.

1. dawn: Richelieu Rock
2. morning: Richelieu Rock
3. afternoon: Tachai Pinnacle
4. night: Koh Bon

Day 4 – the last day, we did two dives at Koh Bon and stopped by to check out a wreck before heading to shore

1. dawn: Koh Bon Pinnacle
2. morning: Koh Bon wall
3. afternoon: BoonSong Wreck, near shore

a pair of fancy harlequin shrimps

Despite the fact that we did not have the luck to spot one of the big fellas (leopard shark, whale shark, or manta ray), the dive trip still turned out to be rather awesome.

This was the first trip where I had an underwater strobe to go with the camera, it is a Sea & Sea YS-01 Haze bought for me during our Hong Kong trip. I think it helped the quality of photo quite a bit.

pipe fish, dog faced puffer, giant puffer, giant baraccuda

There were also some new stuff I saw during this trip that I haven’t seen before, among them are the pair of exquisite Harlequin shrimps at Richelieu Rock, a few octopuses at Koh Bon & West of Eden, honeycomb moray eel at Boonsong Wreck, and groups of tiny baby barracudas (about 2 inches long).

jewel grouper, plenty of them around pretty much all the reefs we visited

To me, one of the most awesome visual feast was the feeding frenzy between a group of few dozen rainbow runners and tens of thousands of anchovies (or some other fish fries). The coordinated movements of the anchovies was just unreal, and all of these happening right in front of our eyes (and around us too), amazing stuff!

this is probably the 10th lion fish I saw

Unfortunately, I also flooded the camera on the 6th dive. The trusted and well used S90 is now not responding, and I might have to fork out some $$ for a replacement (perhaps an S95 as it should fit my ikelite underwater housing).

Lesson learned here – always service the O-ring after opening/closing of the underwater housing.

camouflage exposed by strobe, a scorpion fish

Of the 15 dives, it is hard to pick favorites. Some dives are very atmospheric with lots of swim through under giant boulders, some had crazy amount of marine life, some beautiful corals, and some relaxing while others more challenging.

But if I had to pick one, it’ll be Richelieu Rock. Visibility isn’t that great at 15-20 meters, but there are ghost pipe fish, harlequin shrimps, sea horse, and generally very beautiful seascape. If you head over to this part of the world for diving, don’t miss out this dive site.

moray eel, honeycomb moray eel

With the first dive trip of the year filed away, I now wait for our local diving season to start. Perhaps a PADI rescue diver is something I should aim for this year.

noodle soup stall by the road side

On the last day of the trip while off-gassing from diving at Phuket, we went over to a pretty inconspicuous stall right across the street of the budget hotel we’ve been staying at (Baan Suan Place, cheapest room rate at 700 baht/night, next to Phuket International Hospital).

Though there were quite a few eateries of similar set up at the area, but I knew we got the right place soon as I saw those coagulated blood in the jar displayed at the front of the stall. *slurps*

noodle soup with all sorts of ingredients, take your pick!

A few finger pointing gestures and some 10 minutes later, here’s the bowl of goodness that arrived on my table. Big flat rice noodle in subtle yet flavorful clear broth topped with cuttle fish, coagulated blood, liver, pork, a bit of mushroom, vegetable, and even a bit of white fungus.

There’s also a plate of bean sprouts and some basil ala Vietnamese noodle style on the side, and of course plenty of potent chili powder as condiment for those who love it spicy.

when in Thailand, eat like a Thai

The noodle soup costs around 30-40 baht and this place also serves coffee and other drinks at around 10 baht. While this stall is situated at Thanon Bangyai road behind Phuket International Hospital, you can basically find similar stalls at just about anywhere in Southern Thailand (perhaps Central/Northern part too).

Now I wish someone would bring this to our local hawker stalls, Thai food here in Malaysia seems to be limited to tomyam, pineapple fried rice, and the occasional pad Thai only… pity.

Address:
Thanon Bangyai
Wichit, Mueang Phuket,
Phuket 83000, Thailand
GPS: 7.895477,98.365939

enjoying a piece of grilled chicken at Khao Lak

It was pretty much a last minute thing as I only decided to join when a spot came up for the liveaboard trip. I’ll be writing a lot more about the trip in the next couple days.

mantis shrimp, shot at Similan Islands

The trip was full of unplanned events, but that’s until next post! In the mean time here’s a photo of a mantis shrimp taken at one of the 15 dives we did over the course of the entire trip.

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In the mean time, hope over to MilkADeal.com and check out the lastest deal – RM 6 instead of RM 14 at sbread, the Gardens for a bowl of authentic Penang Asam Laksa and a drink, that’s a good 57% off!

Asam Laksa at SBread, Gardens

While the name sbread is a bit out of the ordinary, the place is run by Penang-born Madam Q S Tan, you can perhaps test her with Penang Hokkien. Redemption period of this deal runs from 25 February – 31 March 2011, 10am – 7pm daily. Don’t miss out

After getting back from Aonang beach the night before and having decided that there isn’t exactly anywhere to have authentic Thai food at the area, Mell and I decided to seek local food elsewhere.

Thai beef noodle, with beef balls and meat

Instead of having lunch provided by Heineken at Sheraton, we walked out of the hotel and chanced up upon this little beef noodle place just a block away to the south. With some finger pointing and my super limited Thai language, we managed to order a bowl of beef ball noodle for Mell, and another bowl of mixed beef and beef ball noodle for me.

The portion was quite small, reminding me of hawker food in Penang, but they do however, tastes rather good. The beef was tender and the beef ball had a good texture going on too. I particularly like the abundance of bean sprouts and vegetables served here. It was pretty good for brunch, and it was only 30 baht each.

happiness is when you have good breakfast to start the day

While horng and suanie were still on the island hopping trip arranged by Heineken (their accounts here, and here), Mell and I thought about heading to Krabi town. That idea was scrapped as soon as we saw that the hotel shuttle charges 400 baht per person for a round trip ride, which just doesn’t make economic sense.

And I had thought that hotel shuttles are free. Thanks Sheraton, for building your resort so far away from civilization and charge significant dollars for your shuttle services, hmph!

another nameless Tomyam place near Sheraton at Krabi, Thailand

After brunch, we spent some time walking around the hotel and chilling. We also discovered that there were computers with internet access at the business center for hotel guests, free of charge! That was when I took the opportunity to check my mails and go on twitter for a bit.

Since brunch was relatively light, we got hungry again by early evening. For the early dinner, we again went exploring at the small strips of shops outside the hotel and came to this little nameless restaurant with an old lady as the head chef.

two bowls of tomyam (prawn and chicken), and omelet

Again with my limited Thai language, I tried to order a tomyam prawn (tomyam kung) and a basil chicken dish to go with rice. After spending at least 5 minutes pointing and talking, I thought I had nailed it down.

When food came, it was two bowls of tomyam instead – tomyam prawn and tomyam chicken. Mission 50% passed. I then went to the kitchen and ordered an omelet dish so that we have some variety.

The tomyam soups were not as strong tasting as those we had at Pradiphat street in Bangkok, but they were pretty good in their own rights. We finished everything and only had to pay some 200 baht for a couple well fed and satisfied stomachs.

BBQ dinner with Heineken

At night, we gathered at the hotel for a Thai BBQ dinner that was actually pretty delicious. Highlights of Champions League games were played and we met quite a few hardcore fans in the ballroom. It was hilarious how some of the fans from Cameroon reacted when Eto’o failed to score as if it was a live game. VJ Utt from MTV Asia hosted the event with another pretty lady, but I didn’t pay much attention.

Mell and I decided to take some rest before the game and we ended up sleeping in the hotel room while Horng & Suanie danced away at the canopy with giant screen. It turned out to be a decent choice, Suan was too tired to watch the game by the time we got there, and Horng was so spent after the game he ended up not able to go to work the day after. Hahaha

Champions League Final – MU vs Barcalona

Heineken did put up a great show before and during half time of the game with their over energetic cheer leading squad flipping and jumping to the music. However, the game itself was a bit anticlimactic, MU basically went to sleep after 15 minutes. Two goals later, Mell, being an MU fan, couldn’t take it anymore and so we headed back to the room to watch it on TV instead.

We had an early breakfast at the hotel and headed to the hotel by 10 something in the morning to fly back to KL. It was a pretty enjoyable holiday in spite of the rain that fell quite heavily 60% of the time we were there.

That was 3 weeks ago, I wouldn’t mind another holiday now!

The prize was a 3 day/2 night trip to Krabi for the 3 of us together with some 280 winners and media guests from all over the world during the Champions League week. Mell decided to join us to the trip as well.

Heineken basically booked the whole of Sheraton

We took an Air Asia flight to Krabi last Wednesday and arrived at the destination at around 1pm, bright and sunny. Heineken had apparently booked pretty much the whole Sheraton for the event.

I had previously stayed at the very same hotel (probably the same block), the room was very nice with its lush bed tastefully done interior design overseeing the huge garden and beach. We were each given a hotel room as the winners of the competition.

KY, Mell, Horng, and Suan enjoying lunch

After checking in and got our programs all sorted out, we were treated to the buffet lunch at the hotel. I must say that the lunch was a bit lackluster and I had initially expected a lot more out of Sheraton, but well, at least the drinks was good.

It would have been a lot more awesome if we were able to go to the Duck Noodle place instead but the hotel proved to be too far (at least 45 minutes and probably 800 baht worth of taxi ride) from where the restaurant is located.

kayaking and swimming at Sheraton (pic from Suanie.net)

After dinner, we adjourned to the beach for some fun under the sun.  There were kayaking, wind surfing, beach football and a variety of other activities organized by Heineken. Mell decided that she was going to join us in kayaking while Suan was happy to be the photographer. As you can see, Mell did a great job “kayaking”, no?

We then spent some time at one of the two very nice infinity pools, it was both relaxing and tiring. A perfect start of the holiday.

Thai steamed fish, seafood tomyam, and green curry

Not wanting to risk another bad meal at the hotel, we decided to head to town for some Thai food. The taxi we managed to get was actually not exactly a proper taxi, but the lady who runs a massage place just opposite Sheraton. We negotiated with the lady to send us to Aonang town for 700 baht round trip, and we were there some 30 minutes later, it is that far.

Dinner at one of those touristy restaurants

Aonang is basically a very touristy town that is much like Batu Ferringhi in Penang. We walked for some 20 minutes and before concluded that there were no “authentic” dining place, so dinner was at a touristy restaurant by the name of Krabi Tour Thai Cusine.

We ordered seafood tomyam, green curry, vegetable, and a Thai style steamed barramundi to go with some steamed rice. The food was quite good (especially the fish), but not to the standard of those Mell and I had at Pradiphat street, Bangkok. It came to about 900 baht, a bit pricey for Krabi standard, but at least it tasted pretty good.

Thai massage is a must, look at Horng’s facial expression when he saw his masseuse

We walked along Aonang for a bit, the town is littered with shops selling a variety of art works, t-shirts, and souveniers. Suan and Horng bought an soft plastic camera underwater casing for 340 baht that turned out to be a very wise investment.

Before heading back to the hotel, we went for a Thai massage at one of the many massage parlors (for 200 baht an hour). I’ve always enjoyed Thai massage, a bit of stretching and human pretzel actions always make my body feel very relaxed and rejuvinated. Horng was a bit apprehensive of his big masseuse but she turned out to be very good at what she does. Suan, on the other hand, complained that her first massage experience did not go so well as the lady was not strong enough.

We then called our taxi and headed back to the hotel to crash, it was a pretty tiring but very enjoyable first day at Krabi.

this guy sells a few types of typical Thai dishes

Our first dinner at Bangkok was infact our second night there, after a long day at the city, we came back to our hotel at Reflections Rooms and decided to dine right by street next to the hotel lobby. I ordered two plates of Pad See Yew for dinner.

Pad See Yew, with plenty of chili padi if you need them

The pad see yew is basically fried flat rice noodle with vegetable, egg, pork (sometimes substitute with chicken or beef), and vegetable. Fish sauce, soy sauce, and pepper are also among the ingredients that made up this dish. I’ve had pad see yew quite a number of times, and this must be one of the best tasting I’ve tried yet.

The dinner was around 70 baht, water was free.

a stall offering variety of dishes with rice

After having a pretty tiring first day at Chatuchak, we decided to try the other stall right next to the first one we ordered pad see yew from. This is one of the many stalls that littered the streets offering a wide variety of dishes that goes with rice. They only have 2-3 tables set up by the pavement, I guess most of their business are the drive-through type.

long bean with chicken, and seafood tomyam

We ordered a bowl of seafood tomyam, and with some sign language mad skills, I managed to also ordered long bean with chicken to go with two rice.

The tomyam was so good! Very sour, spicy, and full of that authentic tomyam that is so tough to find outside Thailand. Though the ingredients were nothing luxurious (some small shrimps, a bit of squid, mushroom, ginger, green onion, shallots, chili padi), the overall taste was just superb.

yes, the tomyam were spicy!

The chicken with long bean too was a very tasty dish that goes really well with rice. Though not quite as hot as the tomyam, this vegetable dish too came with green pepper (jalopeno?) and some chili padi. The base had a strong taste of fish sauce that worked well with the chicken and provided good contrast to the tomyam.

Everything came to only 110 baht, again, ice water was free.

fried egg, squid with cabbage, and tomyam

We went to the same place again for the third consecutive night cos the food was just so good. This time we asked for (by pointing and sign language yet again) fried egg that looks and tasted much like our local telur dadar; a squid and cabbage dish that for once, isn’t really something spicy, but pretty tasty nonetheless; and of course, the very same tomyam again.

It costs a something like 140 baht this time, and oh so delicious!

another stall further to the west of our hotel

Tragically, when we went back to the same place on our last night at Bangkok, we discovered the hard way that the stalls are closed on Mondays. We then walked a few minutes to the west of our hotel (still on Pradipat Road) and chanced up upon this other hawker stall that offers similar type of foods. As usual, my super limited Thai and some hand gestures came to rescue.

tomyam, pork with brinjal, kangkung with chicken

We ordered tomyam with fish, a pork dish, and a kangkung with chicken to go with rice. The tomyam was different this time, a bit more sour than previous, less soupy, and a lot more spices. I feel that I prefer the previous version but some might like the intensity of this one.

Cooked with sweet sauce, peppercorn,  basil, and a type of brinjal, the fatty pork slices soaked in the flavor and made the pork dishes rather delicious. As for the kangkung, well, it wasn’t very different from what we get here, but did provide a contrast to all the meat dishes we had.

If I remember correctly, this meal was around 200 baht. A bit pricier probably due to the fact hat we had more meat dishes.

map of Reflections Rooms Hotel

Address:
Outside Reflections Rooms Hotel
224/2-18 Pradipat Rd.,
Samsennai,Phayathai,
Bangkok 10400 Thailand
GPS: 13.790110,100.545947