Well Mrs Columbus has bounced back from whatever was keeping her under the weather today, and so we have been able to venture out a little more and see some of the Bang Tao area.  This part of Phuket gets a little less traffic than the main beaches a little farther south (Patong, Karon, Kata) – I suspect part of that is because there is not really any sort of village or town here, mostly just hotels and resorts so I think that the people that come here probably are not as interested in any night life and/or just want to hang out on the property of where they are staying.  Certainly if you were staying at one of the big resorts like the Sheraton or Le Meridien they would have so much to offer in terms of amenities that you could just relax there and while the days away.

We like the slow pace here and the fact that there are not drunken partiers all about, but we also like to explore around a bit, so this afternoon we set off for a walk to Surin beach.  Surin is the next beach south of where we are, and is separated from Bang Tao by a headland that juts out into the sea, but a short 20 minute or so walk via the road and we are there.  The beach is a lot busier here than at Bang Tao, and there are a lot of little bars and restaurants all along the beach.  It is easy to see that while much smaller (Bang Tao is 8km long vs Surin at about 1km) this beach seems to attract more people.

It is a nice spot to people watch for a bit, and point out people who maybe should take a more honest friend along next time they are buying a bathing suit 😉  A little light lunch on the beach and then we decide to walk back to our hotel and soak in the pool a little.  We round the day out by stopping in at the River-side restaurant for a great meal – this is a place my parents recommended, and we had thought it was closed as we went by it yesterday and it looked like it was all rolled up for the season.  It turns out that they have indeed been closed for the last month, but tonight was their first night back, so we lucked out.  It was very good as advertised, so it was cool that we were able to try it out before we moved.

We are moving tomorrow morning to Kata Beach and back to the Kata Palm where we stayed last year.  We will likely stay there until it is time to come home, but we have a short list of things we want to do around there so I am sure the time will be gone before we know it.

We arrived in Phuket a couple of days ago, and decided to try out the beach at Bang Tao – this Beach is about 1/2 way up Phuket Island and just south of the airport. We have never stayed here before, but at the north end of the beach is where most of the high-end resorts are. Also, my parents put in a few weeks here on each of their last 2 trips, so we figure it must be worth checking out.

We are staying at The Kris Resort towards the south end of the beach, it is more of a boutique hotel than a ‘resort’ and Mrs Columbus is far too adventurous to go in for one of those frilly high-end resorts. The Kris is also where my parents stay when they are here, and they quite like the friendly staff and the location. This area is very quiet and peaceful and it sort of reminds us of our stay in Khao Lak last year. Certainly part of that is due to the low season we are traveling in, as I suspect it is quite a bit busier here in the high season, although even in high season I assume it is a lot more low-key than the more renowned tourist beaches towards the south of the island.

So far we have not done a whole lot – Mrs Columbus caught a bit of a fever the day we arrived and we have been trying to take it easy while she recovers, but she is not that great at being a sick person and keeps trying to get up and about. I suspect we will extend our stay here for a few extra days so we can get back ‘up to snuff’ and then do a little exploring, but such is the nature of traveling without a fixed agenda 🙂

Unfortunately our Internet connection here is a little spotty, so we may not be updating very often…..

We are leaving Chiang Mai today to head south to Phuket and try and take in some beach goodness.  I guess that means I would be remiss a little if I allowed myself to become such a slug that I did not get some comment on the blog about our last few days here!

After reconnecting with our friendly and super-helpful guide Riam from last year, and spending the afternoon with her looking at a few things close to the city we decided to book a couple of day trips with her to see some things we did not see on our previous trip, but that are far enough out of the city that you cannot really cover more than 1 in a day.

Our first day trip is to Doi Inthanon – this is the highest peak in Thailand, rising about 2500 meters above sea level and is the center of a national park bearing the same name.  The drive takes about 2.5 hours south-west from our hotel in Chiang Mai, and about the last 1/3 of the trip is a twisty road that climbs the mountain to the top.  At the top of the mountain is some sort of government research facility that is fenced off from the public, there are lots of signs around indicating that you should not take photos, and one sign says something about neutrinos, but I don’t read enough Thai to garner much more than that.

Even at this height the jungle is still very thick, but the temperature is a little more ‘moderate’ if you can say that about Thailand.  It feels like a nice warm summer day in Seattle, and Mrs Columbus comments that some of the plants and flowers we see here are the same as what she grows in her flower garden back home – I do however point out that we do not have any banana or palm trees in the yard at home…..  Just down from the summit there is another peak where the Thai people have built separate monuments to the King and Queen.  The monuments are quite impressive given their location and like everything else here they were built with manual labor.  Mrs Columbus suggests that we should have some like that for ourselves at home – I agree and tell her I will build hers right after she is done building mine 🙂  Further down the mountain we stop for a short hike up to see another waterfall – this hike is much easier than the one we did the day before!  Then it is back to Chiang Mai for what has become our evening routine – dinner, a massage, and a banana pancake before wrapping it up for the night.

The next day sees us up again and ready for 9am when Riam is picking us up for a trip to Chiang Dao Caves.  To the north of the city about 1.5 hours is a complex of natural caves that go deep into the mountain.  It is estimated that there are a total of about 12km of interconnecting caves (about 8 miles) but apparently some of them go so deep into the mountain and are so narrow that they have never been fully explored.  There is a big temple complex here as well, and in days gone past the monks used to live inside the caves, but they have clearly moved up a notch as the caves do not seem all that comfortable to me.  As we walk up to the cave entrance you are a little in awe about the opening/entry way, and the smell of ‘cave air’ hits you almost immediately.  From the main entrance there are 5 ‘caves’ or caverns that are open to the public, the rest are closed off either due to the lack of oxygen in the air in those areas, or because of the tight spaces.  Two of the three caverns are lit with fluorescent lights, but the other three are only accessible with a guide and a camping lantern.  We head off with our guide to explore the ‘lightless’ caves first – the guide reminds us several times to watch our heads (for rock outcroppings and low ceilings) and to watch our step as it can be slippery.  It is not until we are in into the caverns that we realize about the slippery bit – as one might expect if they were thinking it through, the caverns make quite a comfortable home to bats, and the floor can be slick in places where the bats have deposited their droppings….!  The caves themselves are completely amazing – we were in a cave before in Krabi and had some idea what we were expecting, but we were in for a big surprise – some of the caverns are big enough to put our house in!  As we wander through the maze of passageways and rooms the guide takes time to point out various rock formations that resemble different animals or trees, etc.  Then we come to a small opening that I think means we have reached the end – wrong, it is just a small ‘door’ to the next ‘cave’.  We have to crouch very low for the 2 meter channel, but then it is back into the giant caverns like the last cave.  All told we are inside for about an hour and only see about 15% of the estimated full cave size, but walk away very impressed with what mother nature has carved out of the limestone here over several hundred years.

Outside the cave entrance there is a pond with a bunch of fish swimming about, and legend has it that if you can find the fish with the 3 fins on it’s tail then you will receive ‘chok dee’ (good luck).  We mostly don’t have a clue what we are looking for, but spend a few minutes searching before wandering off to look at another part of the pond – this is when our guide rushes up and points out Mr Lucky Fish himself – so chok dee mahk for all of us 🙂  On the way back to the city we stop along the road to see a rice field that is in the process of being planted.  Each ‘paddy’ is about 1/4 of an acre in size and is completely worked by hand.  The rice needs a lot of water to get started, so unless you are near a river or some other water source, rice is planted 1 time per year.  The ground is flooded, and then worked with a relatively primitive ‘plow’ into a nice thick muck. Once it is nice and gooey, the planters come in and plant the individual rice seedlings by hand.  As the crop grows, it spreads out (sort of like grass in your lawn) and the field drains and you are left with plants growing in soil.  After about 6 months the rice is ready to harvest and then is processed similar to wheat, with the seeds/grains being extracted from the top of the dried plants – this of course is also done by hand.

Our last stop of the day is at the local market close to Riam’s home where she goes everyday for fresh ingredients for cooking.  Between the market and her large garden they don’t need (or buy) a lot of goods from the supermarket like we do back home, and everything is fresh!  Finally to round out the day it is back to the city and another round of our usual routine.

Our last full day in Chiang Mai is almost completely a slug day – Mrs Columbus and I sleep in a little, and spend some time laying around the hotel reading books and catching up on emails and such.  We venture out sometime after noon for a little walk around the city and then head off to the Spa where Mrs C gets her hair done and then massages all around!

I should give a bit of a shout out here to an electronic gadget that I did not have last year – this year I am traveling with an Amazon Kindle.  When mom and dad came down to take over stewardship of the kids while we were gone, my dad asked if I wanted to borrow The Precious (as we have come to refer to it back home).  I had though off and on about maybe borrowing it, but at first was just going to go with ‘dead tree’ type books as I usually do, but dad offered and I figured I would give it a shot.  I think I saw a single tear form in my dad’s eye as he gingerly handed it over, but after using it for a week, I am a total convert!  I had tried to do a little reading on Mrs C’s iPad that she got for her birthday, but found it a little heavy for my liking in terms of reading books on it (she seems to quite like it though), but reading on the Kindle I find to be a great experience – I can use it one-handed, and there are more books on it than I could read in a single vacation and it consumes less size and weight in my bag than one of those large size paperbacks.  And of course if you ever run out of things to read, it can access Amazon via 3G wireless in like 80+ countries to download new books in just minutes.  Definitely a thumbs-up on my travel gadget list!!

Lastly, returning readers may have noticed that my postings contain much less photos than last year.  This is partly due to the author being a bit lazy in getting his photos sorted 🙂 but also because the connectivity to upload things has been a little spotty so far.  I have finally been able to start uploading stuff this evening, and they can be seen in the gallery here.

And we are off to Phuket…….