Archive for November, 2011

Of course it’s hard work to get certified in anything!  Well, that’s what we told ourselves before embarking for a few days’ R&R on the other side of Koh Tao.  On the east coast there are several bays which have far less development than fancy Sairee Beach.  We chose one called Tanote Bay, renowned for its snorkeling and relatively low-key atmosphere.  We scored a bungalow on the beach (!) for only $12 per night.  Since we purchased our own masks and snorkels, this was all we needed to have a relaxing snorkeling rest.

Our Beach Bungalow

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Our awesome dive shop, Scuba Junction

We arrived on Koh Tao and were met right off the boat by someone from our dive shop, Scuba Junction.  We got the paperwork out of the way, settled in to our bungalow, and got started with our SSI Open Water course!  The bungalow was very convenient because it was a 30 second walk to the dive shop, and since it’s a small town on the island it was close to everything else as well.  We set it up through Scuba Junction and got a nice discount for when we were diving.

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Since southern Thailand’s islands are a must-see on any traveler’s list, we decided to go down south in search of some sun, beaches, and SCUBA diving.  After checking out the weather patterns for the time we’d be there (late September), there was pretty much only one place where the weather would be reasonable and the diving good – Koh Tao!

After checking out of our excellent hotel in Bangkok, Penpark Place, we scrambled onto a bus early in the morning.  This bus would end up being several hours and FREEZING COLD!  The people in Southeast Asia seem to like to show off their air conditioners, and turn them on full blast whenever there is one available.  This means that trains and buses in particular are freezing and nobody seems to mind one bit while the silly westerners are shivering and chattering their teeth.  For some reason (unrelated to bus safety records in Thailand) the bus was decorated like the inside of a coffin:

Coffin Bus

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While we were walking around town near our hotel, we came across a restaurant called May Kaidee’s Vegetarian which offered cooking classes at a pretty reasonable price.  We agreed to eat at the restaurant, and then to take the cooking class if we liked the food.  Needless to say, we loved the food!  We had super delicious Tom Kha, a coconut milk soup that is spicy, sweet and sour, and from that moment we knew we’d be learning how to cook there.

Cooking School

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City streets

Our first morning in Bangkok we set out exploring.  It was hot, humid, and felt like there could be a thunderstorm at any minute.  Our first order of business was finding something to eat.  We were stoked because we both LOVE Thai food and were so ready to try the real deal.  And what we found did not disappoint.  We ended up at a vegetarian restaurant (and cooking school, but more on that later!) and had our first (of many) wonderful Thai meals.  Absolutely delicious.

Bangkok is an interesting city.  It has it’s own particular smell to start with.  A kind of combination between tasty, tasty Thai cooking and open sewers.  It’s not the cleanest city and it is extremely hazardous trying to cross the street.  In fact we would walk several blocks out of our way in order to cross the street sometimes.  But, everyone is very friendly and we found it to have a really good feel to it.  And did I mention that the food is AMAZING?!

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In Hong Kong, there is lots to do outside, much to our surprise and delight.  The first thing that caught our attention was the really dramatic night-time skyline.  Each night at 7pm, there is a laser-light show with music that you can view from the shores of Kowloon.   It is really cool-looking:

Laser Show

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Buying fabric in Hong Kong turned out to be a bit of a different experience than anywhere else we’ve been so far.  We looked up where we might be able to buy some fabric and found a whole lot of shops all in one area of town.  Hong Kong has a great subway system, so we took a ride over there and this is what we found:

Hong Kong's typical fabric shop

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Since we had a full week in Hong Kong, we made sure to find the local swing scene and go to the dances.  There are two regular dances per week in Hong Kong, run by Hong Kong Swings, and we went to both.  The first was a Sunday dance at a BBQ restaurant and bar called “Blue Smoke” – interestingly, there is another version of Blue Smoke in NYC which I’ve eaten at while seeing a Maria Schneider concert.  This venue was quite small and only a handful of dancers showed up, but we managed to have a great time nevertheless.

Wednesday night was a much bigger venue, set at a bar called Grappa’s Cellar, which had a great vibe and a lot more space.  They essentially cleared the main dining portion of the restaurant to make room for the dance, and there were tables set aside for stuff and for people to sit at.  We really worked up a sweat at this venue.

Since we wanted to meet the HK Swings people off the dance floor as well, we went afterwards to an ice bar near Grappa’s.  There we had a number of hijinks including meeting American soldiers who worked at the US Embassy, having drinks with them, nearly getting into a fight with them as they got drunker.  Also interesting was the bartender’s ability to make 7-layer shots and play a game where 4 random bottles from the bar are selected and then the bartender makes a drink from them.

We had a lot of fun, and made it home safely despite being rather off our heads!

While we were in Hong Kong, I had a mission – eat as much delicious food as possible.  While in California I had developed a taste for Dim Sum and since this area is where it all started we mainly ate dim sum.

So the day after we arrived we decided to go to a Michelin Starred Dim Sum Restaurant: Tim Ho Wan.  While it all sounds very fancy, it is just a cheap dim sum shack in the middle of Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district.  The trick is, you have to go 2-3 hours early and get a number!  It is all very bizarre.  Anyway, we got there, got our number and were told that we had at least 2 hours so we left and decided to walk around for a while.

The Map

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We had arranged our flight so that we arrived in Hong Kong during the day – unfortunately the only such flight was a red-eye, arriving at 7:45 in the morning.  Since we knew we’d have to wait before the hotel that we’d booked would let us check in, we hung out at the airport for a while.  It turns out that HK airport is really useful!  There is fast internet there (we uploaded hundreds of photos), a post office (for sending our souvenirs and gifts home), food and air conditioning.  We ended up spending a few hours that morning just getting organized and relaxing.

View On The Bus

Afterwards, we took a city bus to downtown where we found our hotel with only a little trouble (imagine a small sign underneath construction scaffolding in an area with hundreds of small signs) and laid our bags down.  The hotel was just what we wanted – a room with air-con in a great location and relatively cheap.  What we hadn’t expected was the size!

Trying to fit in the bed

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