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Published: January 15th 2007
Well I guess it's about time I let you all know how we are doing since my first, somewhat terse, blog on New Years Day.
We stayed on in Bangkok an extra day and ended up catching a night train down to Chumpon on Jan 4. The train arrived at the tiny little station at 4 am. We hung there and then at the little bus/boat terminal and then at the dock and finally were on our way to Kho Tao, a little island in the Gulf of Thailand at 7 am. We got to Kho Tao at 10 am.
We checked out Kho Tao and determined it was not what we were looking for. For one thing it rained a lot. Secondly, after talking to some local divemasters we learned that underwater visibility was terrible, 6-10 feet. It was also a really busy party place, it had a spring break atmosphere. Most of the "backpacker " set we've fallen in with are vacationers, not travelers. They set a different tone, we are looking for nice quiet beaches and they are looking for a party. We left after two days for the Andaman Sea on other side of
the Malay peninsula.
Another long boat ride to Suri Thani, sometimes somewhat overloaded, and then a bus, we got to Krabi. We spent the night and caught another boat to Phi Phi Don. The weather is mostly sunny, it's warmer and we managed to find a really nice quiet beach resort on Long Beach to stay at. It is a 10 minute longtail boat ride from the little town of Son Tai. Paca Waca found!
We have been here a little over a week. We have done a good deal of diving, 4 days/9 dives. The diving is good but the visibility is not as good as expected. It is usually 100 feet here but for some reason it has been only 35-60 feet. The water is also 6-7 F colder than we expected so we have have to rent shorties to stay warm on the dives. Of course the cold water and the poor vis go together, upwellings bringing nutrient rich, colder water from the depths. It's good for the coral and marine life but bad for diving. No one knows why this is happening, but speculation always turns to global warming. Maybe it's just an El
Nino effect, who knows. The reefs are really great and the fish are abundant. It's always nice to see a healthy reef.
The December 2004 tsunami hit this area very hard. About 8,000 people lost their lives in Thailand. The worst hit area was Phuket, with Phi Phi Don suffering the second most fatalities in the country. Phi Phi really consists of two rugged islands connected by a beach. This beach is where the town is and the waves hit the southwest facing beach of the town. After the tsunami swept through there was only one building left standing. The beach we are on got off relatively unscathed.
Today, Jan 14 we catch a boat to Ao Nang back on the mainland near Grabi. We plan to spend a few days there kayaking and then head a few kilometers west to the beaches of Railey. Then it is on to Phuket for a day or two before we start our live-aboard dive trip to the Similan Islands, Richleau rock and up into the Burma banks in Myanmar.
Below are some random observations.
Spirit Houses
All of the buildings here have spirit houses. A spirit house
The King
This is in front of an office building. There may be more king stuff because he just celebrated his 60th year on the throne and his 80th birthday is coming upis a little house or temple situated on top of a pole outside the building. All of the buildings here have them from huge skyscrapers to peoples homes.
From what I gather they are of Brahmin or Animist origins. It may be both, some buildings have two an upper and a lower. I read somewhere that the lower one is Animist.
The purpose of the houses is to protect the buildings and the people inside from evil spirits. When a building is being built monks are consulted to determine the best location for the house and the most auspicious date for the building to be occupied.
Every day the spirit house is tended to. Offerings of fruit, vegetables and flowers are left and incense is lit.
Spirits
The traditional houses and temples are all built with high door thresholds. This is because spirits can only travel on the ground, they can not get over the threshold. I have also read that bridges are often built with a jog to keep the spirits from crossing, they can only travel in straight lines.
The people here also believe in ghosts and do not like living in
older homes because they believe they are possessed. I guess they are like Americans, they like to tear down and build new.
Long tailed boats
If you have never seen a long tailed boat, they are quite a sight. They are long, no surprise there, perhaps 30 40 feet long. The tail is the propeller shaft. A picture paints a thousand words, but I have not been able to download any so my poor descriptive abilities will have to do.
So check this out! The engine, a 3 cylinder diesel, sits on top of the prop shaft and the whole arrangement is mounted on a pivot. The engine/prop arrangement is part of the tiller. The boatman turns by changing the angle of the prop to the boat. He can also change the depth of the prop by moving the tiller up and down. Really hard to visualize I'm sure. I'll include pictures soon.
Traffic, mass transit and Beyonce
Traffic here in Bangkok is awful. One of the reasons is that there are very few through streets. Originally the city was built with canals, not roads. They called it the Venice of the east. Over time
they have built roads over the canals. The problem is that the canals/roads are on kind of a wide grid. In between the grid not many streets go through. In the old part of the city all of the streets are very narrow and traffic is even worse. Imagine Chicago with only the main arterials as through streets, everything else dead ends.
Consequently we have not been using many taxi's or tuk tuks (motorized 3 wheel taxis). We have been getting around using PT. The PT is pretty good. Mostly we have been using the Skytrain (their "El") because it is closest to where we are staying. It is new, built in the last 5-10 years and pretty efficient. The El looks like junk compared to it. Of course almost any new el/subway makes the older turn of the last century models look kind of shabby. We have ridden the subway too, it is older but just as clean and efficient. The trains have TVs in them they play ads and the occasional music video. The one we usually saw was Beyonce's song Irreplaceable. I like the song but never really knew what it was about. She cold!
We also get around by boat. There is a canal near us that has ferries running on it. These are very basic functional boats. They are about 40 feet long with a 10-12 foot beam. They really cook along this 40 foot wide canal. They are definitely no frills.
We have also been using the river ferries too. They are not too close to us, we take the skytrain to get to them. They are also no frills transport but are a great way to beat the gridlock.
Starbucks and 7/11s
I can't believe how many 7/11s there are here. I understand the Strabucks, they have some unique branding. I don't see that unique branding in 7/11 but they are everywhere. What's up with that?
The king - Thais love him and they wear the love
The people here revere their king. There are pictures of him everywhere, big pictures in front of major buildings, huge billboards, pictures of him adorn shop walls. In fact, it is illegal to speak ill of the king. The paper publishes glowing stories about him that read as if his press agent wrote them. Maybe they were, as
Long Beach Phi Phi
This is the beach our bungalow is on the press is tightly controlled here. At times the papers, at least the English language ones I have read, seem like an organ of the state.
On one of the first days we were touring around the city we noticed that many people were wearing yellow shirts. Many of the shirts were adorned with the royal emblem. At first we thought they were government workers of something. I swear at times 25% of the people were in yellow. I later read in the paper that the shirts were first popularized this summer at the time of the celebration of his 60Th year on the throne. According to the paper he is the longest serving monarch in the world (I should probably fact check that). Ever since then his loyal subjects just can't seem to take them off. Have I mentioned that this seems to be a very conformist society?
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Dan V
non-member comment
Spirit houses and Long Tailed Boats?
This blog is great! Just got it today. It's a lot of fun to keep up with your latest excursion. Though I have to say that whenever I go to the Spirit Houses in the US, I myself often have problems getting over thresholds ... but unlike them, I ALWAYS zig-zag around ... though I do also end up on poles at the top of bldgs at some point ... so I suppose there is some kinda weird cultural similarities there! Keep 'em coming and keep safe!