Author: admin (Page 27 of 31)

Thailand Day 7

17 December 2015 / admin

Tuesday 15 December 2016

After the busy day yesterday we take it easy by the pool again today.

Outside and opposite the hotel within easy walking distance are a number of restaurants. Last night we went to the Indian and had some particularly good prawns for starters. (If we are close to water you can always guarantee that Jackie will order prawns; indeed she has been known to eat prawns followed by prawns).

Today we also go across the road to a Thai restaurant in the evening and a young couple from Bournemouth who were on the boat trip came from the hotel and we have seen them on and off around the pool and so on.

After dinner we join them in the “Small Bar” which is simply that. We consume a few drinks and have a nice chat although we do not risk the toilets returning to the hotel for a final drink.

Thailand Day 6

16 December 2015 / admin

Monday 14 December 2015

Today we have booked a full day trip to Phi Phi. Whilst it is nice to have a day out (and do something different), it is obviously going to be a bit of a struggle for Jackie as it involves a lot of water.

Speedboats with about 30 passengers set off in number as we have about an hour at speed to reach our destination. First stop before departure is the toilet – make sure that it is sometime before another visit is needed.

Then down to the boats and they are moored on a floating pontoon which is moving around. Not ideal! Then across the wide blue yonder. It is about an hour at decent speed before we reach our first destination for some snorkelling. Having never used one I do not participate – we can see some of the fish near the surface. I suppose I ought to learn.

We then move on to a beach where I do have a swim having found some shade for Jackie to sit in. Leaving and regaining the boat requires stepping off the step at the back and into the sea. No other way to do it.

The surroundings are lovely – but the number of tourists is almost overwhelming.

Lunch is not overwhelming. Very much mass produced and far from ideal.

After lunch we go to another area to see the local monkeys – which we see good numbers of from the boat before backing out and going to a green cove. Snorkelling again for most with Jackie and I not moving this time.

Final call is the famous beach where they filmed “The Beach”. Again huge tourist numbers. Jackie stays aboard and I do go through the woods to a beautiful view the other side. No photos as I cannot work out how to take the camera as I am then planning to swim in the sea at “The Beach”.

Later Jackie says that in the film Leonardo Di Caprio hears voices (when high). She heard much the same – the area is almost entirely encircled by fairly high rocks and the visitor voices bounce off all sides and are reflected back. She says it felt very strange.

Time to head back to Phuket port and on the way in we take a little more notice this morning that it is in fact quite a busy place. It is a large working port and no doubt makes the area more of a real working place rather than simply a holiday location.

Thailand Day 5

15 December 2015 / admin

Sunday 13 December 2015

The damp patch by the bed has taken a distinct turn for the wet and we report it to reception. We pack as inevitably this will take some fixing to find out from where the water is coming. It takes a while before they take it seriously – and so we are on the move. First we are shown a similar room with a worse view. No good. Eventually we are shown to a much larger room along from our original room. Very nice. We unpack. An upgrade – good.

Another day taking it easy. The pools here are both very nice. The main pool is not particularly busy although most of the sun lounges are occupied along the sides. There is a second very quiet pool which is at a higher level adjacent to which are some four poster style beds which enjoy a breeze given their elevation and where I suspect the curtains provided help guard against a potential for getting burnt.

I think we have now adjusted to the temperature and the humidity and the day passes with some reading, some listening, a cooling swim, and repeat!

We have taken to the far end of the main pool as it is a little quieter and the sunbeds are in the shade which means we can last longer in the sunshine before retreating to our room.

In the evening we choose to eat at the hotel’s restaurant (as opposed to the buffet where we take breakfast and where most eat in the evening). The produce a very good quality meal and for drinks they have their own version of “happy hour” where we can order three glasses of wine for the price of two. Oddly this does not work to my advantage. I have two glasses of wine but somehow Jackie manages to have four glasses of wine.

We retreat to our new larger room and have to adjust to a new bed!

Thailand Day 4

14 December 2015 / admin

Saturday 12 December 2015

Another sunny day lazing around by the pool. A lovely way to pass the time.

In the late afternoon we have arranged to join a trip to the market in Phuket. Traffic is heavy so getting there takes a little while.

Like the other markets we have seen in south east Asia it well stocked – the main section is perhaps not as tightly packed as in Ho Chi Minh (and perhaps less varied) but there is still a lot to wander through.

At the back of the market there are food stalls either selling ingredients or a variety of cooked food. Jackie is not feeling well initially – it is hot and she is struggling. She chooses one of the small restaurants at the very back of the market and we are given a menu of pictures of the food and make some choices. I go for shellfish.

All freshly cooked and as she has some water Jackie starts to feel better. Slight dehydration – a case of getting adjusted to the temperatures and so on.

When it turns up the food is very simple and good and much enjoyed. During the meal Jackie asserts she now wants to go and find a bag she saw earlier as it might be the right one.

Settling up is not a lot of money.

Now we wander up and down the aisles looking for the bag shops again! We do find a couple but in general they do not seem particularly well made and decide not to invest.

We still have some time before being collected – so head for a bar just on the corner opposite the pick up point. We sit down and order some drinks and then I feel a couple of spots of rain. Shall we move?

Yes we do move inside.

And then it rains. and it pours and we see a real downpour. We are under an awning – and staying dry is proving difficult. Others from the minibus start appearing in the bar and in the one next door – and everyone is huddling away from the rain. And it is now really RAINING.

The street is turning into a river. And the minibus has not arrived.

We cross the street so that we are in the right place when it does arrive – which it then does – but even being in the rain for a couple of moments mean we are now wet.

All rounded up we head back to the hotel and have a shower (why when we are already so wet? The shower is warmer). And time for bed.

Boy did I tell you it rained and rained earlier?

More concerning is Jackie reporting that the floor on her side of the bed is damp and a towel is put down to absorb the wet.

Thailand Day 3

13 December 2015 / admin

Friday 11 December 2015

Having a reasonable night’s sleep is often rare in the first night in a strange bed but oddly this one goes well. Once awake we wander around the complex as we have to find the way back – and the stairs we came down in the dark are not obvious (or labelled) in daytime. On emerging from our room we are struck by the heat, the humidity and invisibility as the glasses mist over! Eventually we find the dining area and elect to sit outside which is probably a mistake as of course inside is air conditioned as well and jumping from hot to cold and back is probably not good.

With a reasonable breakfast inside us we descend to collect some pool towels and take a couple of loungers on the decking area adjacent to the main pool. The area fills up although I note that not all loungers have been put out and suspect the hotel is not completely full at present. It is high tide in the morning – later in the afternoon it is noticeable that swimming in the sea in the roped off area would not be possible.

Being our first day we have the usual rep visit and book a couple of excursions to be taken later during the first week of our stay and confirm transit times to our second hotel and back to the airport for our return home. We are given some guidance on the local behaviour and where we can go to see the sunset – a short walk along the road.

We retreat to the dining room and take a light lunch; the spring rolls seem exceptionally hot to me! A further hour in the sun before we decide not to over do it on our first day and retreat to our room. On the way there I am able to show Jackie a much quieter pool adjacent to our room with some comfortable looking day beds which also look as though they provide some excellent shade in the heat of the day.

At about 5:15 pm we leave the complex for the first time heading out to end of the road. The plan is to spot restaurants for later eating and also to see the sunset in the west which duly happens about 45 minutes later. Our excursion had given us the chance to note 4 – 5 possible restaurants as well as to see a local street market along this stretch of road.

One of the restaurants is on Jackie’s list from Trip Advisor and we decide to make things simple for ourselves by having a fixed menu for two. Some chicken satay to start was not completely enveloped in peanut butter; soup, hot for Jackie and not for me – her chilis were obviously added at the end of the process. Once these tasty delights had been consumed we then waited the fisherman’s main course – a huge basket of fish. I had the opportunity to demonstrate I could still remove the bones from a complete fish and we also shared vast quantities of squid, mussels, soft shell crab and five decent sized prawns. For the food the Baht1500 quoted on the menu covered the entire food for two (which is about £30 at current exchange rates).

I always love fish platters and this was no exception at Baan Ra; recommended. We walk back to the hotel and agree on a couple of the other restaurants which seem most likely candidates for a visit later in the week.

Thailand Day 2

11 December 2015 / admin

Thursday 10 December 2015

We leave the Etihad 777 and enter terminal 3. Prior to landing the plane on board information system had advised that our connecting flight would be leaving from Terminal 1 gate 6 and time was limited if they are as distant as Heathrow. We should not have worried as even a gentle stroll would have got us there with time to spare; the forced march merely made the wait longer still.

Once again priority boarding and slip into another business class flat bed seat on another 777, although no plans to sleep much on this leg. Once airborne something for breakfast and advance the watch by three hours. As we trundle to the runway I am pretty sure one of the planes in the queue behind us is an A380 – Dreamliner.

A couple of episodes of Borgen are also consumed whilst keeping an eye on the flight path. Initially we are shown taking a route over both Mumbai and Hyderabad, but the plane heads north towards Pakistsan before turning more south-easterly and we will now pass to the north of the two cities.

Time for dozing and listening to music programmes simply to block out the aircraft noise. Emerge from sleep for my “lunch” but now a little confused over what time it really as the clever displays show a local time which is 30 minutes out of step with other timezones. We are also crossing the Andaman Sea heading down towards Phuket – we will follow much the same path heading for Bangkok when we visit Australia next year.

From above the land at this end of Thailand looks stunning, green of course but rocks jutting out of the sea as well. We turn round on ourselves to land and the air part of the journey is complete.

Once back on land reality returns; a queue for immigration and our bags on reclaim 5, except when we get there it seems they have been moved to 4 and they are already off the belt and awaiting our attentions.

Exit the airport, find our local contact and then aboard a taxi for about an hour of typical (so it seems) foreign taxi driving as we taken through / round Phuket itself to the Radisson Blu hotel. All taxis abroad seem to be driven by those willing to take risks!

Check in is straightforward. Shown to our room. It is 8pm local time so we have been on the move for 21 hours. Unpack, order some room service, choose a couple of outings to book for later in the stay, eat room service, shower and retire to bed.

Thailand Day 1

11 December 2015 / admin

Wednesday 9 December 2015

Not our planned holiday but we are still travelling business class to Phuket rather than Chennai. Etihad provide a collection service so the taxi arrives and we get a text message confirming he is waiting outside. House secure we are on our way.

And the continuing advantages of business class at the airport are numerous. No waiting in line to deposit cases, fast track through security (why does the UK insist on laptops being extracted from carry on bags – this does not seem to happen elsewhere?) and into the shopping area. No need to stay there long, where is gate 10? The lounge is opposite but one floor down. And in the corner is a Six Senses spa; we book a back and neck massage for 20 minutes time; still allows a glass of champagne to be consumed.

Massage over and it is time to dine; spicy tomato soup, some white wine, a slightly spicy chicken, some more white wine, some fresh fruit, finish off the white wine plus a cup of coffee and we have had a leisurely couple of hours with about an hour to kill before we fly.

The plane is waiting at gate 10, so convenient! More champagne. Once airborne we order some fine cheeses and some red wine before seeking to get some sleep. Manage about 4 hours with some breaks. Listening matters is some recorded Mike Brown on CHBN from some months ago. His “More Me Time” hours are always relaxing.

Manage to get a cup of coffee before we descend into Abu Dhabi. Good lord we have also advanced four hours so it is 7 in the morning, so we move onto Day 2.

Heading to India (or perhaps not)

7 December 2015 / admin

Friday 4 December 2015

A long awaited holiday – a second visit to India, this time to visit the southern areas of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa; including a trip on the Ooty railway, a night’s cruise on a houseboat and a week on the beach (or close by) in Kerala – early morning call as we have to leave the house before 6 am.

Only we are in bed well beyond that time as a call yesterday from the travel company brought bad news. Chennai airport is closed, there is serious flooding in the area, there have been power cuts and it is still raining.

So on Thursday evening we sat down and hammered the tablets and looked at possibilities. Jackie got very close to booking a couple of weeks in Mexico; but we held off.

This morning we hear back from Trailfinders who have sorted flights via Abu Dhabi on Etihad to Thailand – two weeks in Phuket and Kao Lahk (one week each), leaving next Wednesday and on the final leg we come back on a Dreamliner; arriving back in the UK on December 25 (that date rings a bell).

So if any of you wondered when notes on India would start appearing you will have to wait until 2017 as we are taking our 2017 holiday now. Thailand updates will start appearing once we are on our way!

Sicily – Days 7 – 14

30 September 2015 / admin

Wednesday 23 – Wednesday 30 September 2015

This morning we transfer over to the Ashby Hotel in Taormina – close to the town centre (up a small sharp hill – Taormina is up and down a lot of hills) – which is then fairly flat through the town centre.

There is a lovely view from the pool at the back of the hotel from which we can see the hotel we were in last night and also over to the mainland. Once we are settled in we decamp to the pool area and a couple of sunbeds – hopefully we will be here getting browner for the next week. And at one point during the week I can see a train on the railway.

We had a good couple of days by the pool and were certainly getting browner but on the Saturday afternoon the rain set in and it was then pretty wet all the way through then to our departure. One day we chose not to even leave the hotel – it was the only way to stay dry. The rain a few weeks earlier had knocked out the cable car service and so we were not even able to go down to the sea level and we needed to take care not to get soaked when going out to eat!

The hotel itself has a posh restaurant as well as a casual one but, perhaps like Greece, Sicily does not do “posh” that well – leave it to the French! Out in the town we sampled a restaurant in the open air down one of the side streets – a great opener. Elsewhere in the town we had memorable meals at Restaurant Cinque Archi – the meat here comes from a local co-operative which they work with and it was the best meat of the fortnight – and Granduca which has good seafood and wonderful views over the sea. Also I must mention Tiramisu which served a good meal and we ended sharing the best tiramisu ever! There was also a good bar in the town square for a drink in the open air to do some people watching – at least one session cut short by yet more rain!

One evening was a night when there was a concert at the amphitheatre – and the local population obviously dress up for their evenings out as DJs and dresses were the order of the evening – quite unlike most of the visiting population in shorts and so on.

One drawback we suffered (and this is unusual). My wife is always well protected against insect bites and my protection is their inevitable preference for nibbling her. On this part of the holiday we both suffered, so Taormina bugs must be attracted to different smells than much of the rest of the world. Used up the various creams, new stocks needed for India. We both had bites and were applying anti-histamine cream to each other in hard to reach spots!

We had planned to take the train around the foot of Etna – but decided against for two reasons – we had seen a lot of the scenery anyway and having looked at the connections for the train services I could see that missing a connection would give us an hour wait – and that would not be much fun on holiday.

Overall verdict on Sicily – lovely; food can be very good and there are some wonderful sights to see as well as a complex history. Having seen the sights and sampled the food and wine we are not convinced there is any need to return – perhaps if we had got brown rather than rusty (well I managed to catch up on my reading as well) we might feel differently. And if the mafia are still around we were provided with no evidence of them.

Sicily Day 6

23 September 2015 / admin

Tuesday 22 September 2015

This is the last day of the touring part of the holiday – we are staying on a further week in Taormina in the hope of getting a suntan and maybe seeing some further sites depending on how we are feeling.

Today however we are visiting the huge volcano – Etna – which we have seen in the distance on earlier days. It is clear this morning and as we progress down the main road we can clearly see the top of the volcano. It is active and the height of the mountain is slowly growing.

The photographs are here. It is hard to convey the scale of the volcano and I hope they give some idea of the size of it.

We progress up to the station and then take the cable car to much greater height. Then like on Lanzarote it is a coach to higher still where we are shown around the slopes of the volcano and some of the vent holes at higher levels are indicated. I go for a walk which appears in the pictures and so we are (for once) almost the last back to the tour coach at the bottom.

Next is a real surprise. A wine tasting had been promised but the Nicosia wine tasting is a real step beyond anything I have experienced elsewhere. Not only do we get to sample some fine wines grown on the slopes of Etna with local grapes in some very well maintained surroundings but also the kitchen turns out a huge meal which had not been mentioned in the itinerary or the by the guide. Marvellous anti-pasti and arancini. This was superb and quite unexpected as I had been a touch worried over consuming alcohol with no significant food. We later discover that the wines do not seem to be imported greatly into the UK – which is a pity. And of course I should mention the chicken collection.

We return to Taormina itself and take a walk through the town and visit the amphitheatre – the photographs are here. The site is of Greek origin but much of what can be seen is actually Roman who reconstructed it. Still heavily used in the summer for concerts of all sorts – although nothing which appeals to us whilst we are here, so there is also more modern seating; none of it looks particularly comfortable.

In the evening our tour guide leads us out of the hotel (which I omitted to point out is really in Letojani) and along the front – luckily in the opposite direction to the one we took the previous evening to a very nice modern restaurant where we have another excellent meal. Very nice. This is the last time we shall be together so thank the guide and bid each other farewell as we walk back.

We return to the hotel for the final time to pack prior to our transfer to Taormina in the morning.