12/08/2010 by admin.

Yeah, arrived in Canada great flight with BA, nice food, good films, wine was good too.

Hotel in Calgary Basic - just a pool, exercise room, 2 Queen size beds, lovely buffet breakfast!  Definitely slumming it!!!!!!!

Off to Wateron - Canadian National Park Number 1

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24/11/2009 by admin.

Plans have changed, the ferry we were supposed to get (with confirmed ticket) tomorrow has been canceled, the afternoon one today is full and the one tomorrow afternoon won’t get us to Koh Samui in time to catch the plane!

Rather than stay here indefinitely, however we apparently have seats on the boat that is full, which could be interesting, we spend (hopefully) tonight on Koh Samui …. I’ll let you know later what happens.

Well, we got on the ferry, even though there were no free seats, and at the terminal it clearly stated that the ferry was full, now established on Koh Samui. after a very smooth crossing on the catamaran, absolutely fine and it only stopped at Koh Pangyang, rather than the middle of the sea as well, a real bonus.

One last day in Thailand and it’s back to the UK for us, and the real world

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23/11/2009 by admin.

Last day diving today, the weather definitely picked up, we only did Sai Ree beach once today which Sam and I actually did as an unescorted 40 minute dive.  The dive master reckons we have done it enough times in he last 2 days that we couldn’t get that lost, and we didn’t which was great.  Did White Rock first and then Sai Ree, Sam called it a day after that and went back to the room, I stayed on and did 2 more dives, one at Twins and another at White rock.  The twins dive was good, saw lots of fish and loads of trigger fish and barracuda, but the visibility was reduced for the second White rock dive, so it was pretty poor, did see some stingrays and some clown fish, and some pipe fish and some tiny cleaner shrimps.  The clown fish are generally different here to Egypt, but they have one pair of “proper” Nemo’s so we went and saw them.

Water was still 28 Centigrade so it might not be great, but it isn’t exactly bad!

So no more diving for a while now :(, we are going to see about reviewing our plans tomorrow as there is a big storm due in at the end of the week, I’d like to try and get to Koh Samui tomorrow, rather than Wednesday since the plane is more likely to fly than the catamaran is to sail if there is bad weather.  Need to talk to the site manager here about travel arrangements and changing our tickets, then we would need a place on Koh Samui near to the ferry terminal (which is a reasonably happening place) and since it is low season there will be loads of space in hotels.

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22/11/2009 by admin.

Went out to 2 dive sites today but did 4 dives, 3 of them at less than 10m on Sai Ree beach, which is due to a problem with the weather here at the moment.  It is still the end of the monsoon season and therefore the dives sites are more limited than in the proper season, however usually the winds blow in the opposite direction to what they are blowing at the moment so we would go on the west side of the Island, however because of the prevailing winds these dive sites are closed so we are stuck on the east side of the Island, which is a bit more limited.  Ah well at least we clocked 150 plus minutes under water and Sam is now a qualified Advanced diver (well he will be when he hands in the last knowledge review).
We had our first unescorted dive today as well, Sam did his lesson and we had gas to spare so the DM said to us go off on your own … bit scary but we got back to within about 50m of the boat on a 22 minute dive, so we reckoned we did pretty well.
The weather promises to be better tomorrow so we hope we might get to different dive sites .. time will tell

Still it’s nice to be in the water, and we’re not complaining, a good day

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21/11/2009 by admin.

Diving was better today than yesterday, we did coursework in the morning (another lazy start) and then Sam did his two compulsory Advanced dives (navigation and deep dive - although due to conditions it wasn’t that deep) and I hung around with him whilst he did them as I have to do two dives with enhanced air so that I can do more dives in a day than you would normally have.  Better visibility, loads of corals - especially staghorn, barrel and some huge fans, some lovely bannerfish and fusiliers.
Tomorrow it’s 4 dives in the day, provided the weather is OK, so we will be up early (taxi comes at 7.30 to get us to the dive boat for an 8.00 cast off, then 2 dives in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, we will have to see where we go.  Could be a pot noodle for lunch (yummy :() as that’s easy to sort out on the boat.

We pushed the boat out for dinner tonight at an open air bar-b-que (4 pounds/head it was), talk about expensive.  I had a tuna (a whole one) - but only a little one, and Sam had duck.

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20/11/2009 by admin.

Met up with a chap from the ferry who lives on Koh Tao, who we had talked to on Koh Samui, and that was the roughest crossing he had ever known, so maybe we aren’t such wusses after all

Weather here is great but winds are a bit high so the visibility is not that good. Did the diver refresher this morning and then went hotfoot to the dive boat for 2 dives this afternoon, we needn’t have bothered for the first one though, it was dreadful visibility, about 1m, just like diving off Brighton Pier, as one guy said! The second dive was much better, but still not great, saw lots of small reef fish and a school of something big, not sure what they were Load of coral, superb stag horn coral and brain corals, lets hope they continue to improve.

Weather is supposed to improve over the next few days, lets hope so!.

Sam starts his advanced OWD tomorrow and I’m doing an enriched air course so that on the last 2 days hopefully I can get 4 dives in both days, especially if the weather is good.

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19/11/2009 by admin.

we seem to have spent the last 2 days traveling, but in fact it’s not been that long.  The afternoon in Siem Reap was a blur of inactivity, with general mooching about and our last Amok fish for a bit, anyone know a good Cambodian restaurant in the UK? We then got to SR airport a bit early, found that is is generally managed by 3 men and a dog and decided that we had arrived MUCH too early However we spent a bit of time looking at the huge duty free prices, before catching the flight back to Bangkok, landed ahead of schedule and then got back into Bangkok.

Got ourselves a taxi at the very efficient taxi rank, only to find that the taxi driver didn’t know the hotel, so we then had a bit of a delay whilst he range round his mates to see who knew where it was!  Eventually got there, very nice hotel and quite adequate for 24 quid!  The cheeky taxi driver then asked for a tip! I told hi, that if he wants a tip he needs to find the hotel straight away

Up again at 5.00 for our flight to Koh Samui, all going really well and got to the airport at 9.30, then had to hang around for the 11.00 bus to the ferry … there was so much luggage that we had it stacked in all the isles, so we were all stuck in the bus, then the driver started to drive really fast over the rough roads and the coach was bouncing all over the place,I commented to Sam that this was to get us in the mood for the catamaran, little did I realize just how true this was … 2 hours of high speed catamaran on seas that were not rough, but were definitely not smooth, we were both very pleased to get off the boat, my ears were numb with the constant noise of the engines.

Then we got to Koh Tao properly and had a look round, the dive resort is fabulous, we are a 2 minute walk to the beach and 2 minutes further on is a great fish restaurant.  Quite a quiet bay but very pretty with lots of dive centers on it, all with little cottages in the grounds with different levels of facilities, we have hot water and A/C cos I’m a wimp in my old age

Diving starts tomorrow and apparently whale and other sharks have been seen regularly over the past few day, so we are all hopeful of some great dive.

There’s been comment about the lack of comments, I think you have to try and place one, then you get registered, once you are registered you can log in and (I understand) then leave comments. Maybe someone could try and let me know?

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18/11/2009 by admin.

By now I think the best description would be “Templed out”, seen loads of Temples with the most amazing statuary and carvings, the ciy is just huge, butthere is only so much that you can se at one time, and by now we have sen a lot, the photo’s wil show this …
Yesterday afternoon we had a different experience as we went off to a floating village on the lake near Siem Reap, not sure boutthe start of it, as it seemed a bit like “Poverty tourism”, it was very poor and we were encouraged to take photo’s, however there was also obviously a vibrant community going on, and lots of boat based shops going from river house to river house. Our boat got boarded by one girl trying to sell us drinks, when we didn’t buy she agilely lept off our boat onto hers and motored away! The sunset on the lake was not geat, but probably one of the best we have seen, but the rainstorm was by far the heaviest we have had out hee, it really was torrential, fortunately we were on a floating market/viewing platform so we were able to shelter from the rain until it stopped before making it back to the dry ground.
Diner at the Tower of Dead Fish was very good, the fish was excellent!

Today we have done the last of the temples including Banteay Srei which has the most amazing carvings, very deep and very intricate. We have the afternoon to kill before our flight back to Bangkok and the start of part 3 of the adventue…

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16/11/2009 by admin.

Well if 5.00 was too early then 4.15 is still the middle of the night, but we managed to get into the coach for 4.50 and off to see the sunrise over Ankor Wat.  Not a great sunrise, but a great experience as the vast temple complex comes slowly out of the night in front of your eyes.

Then 2 hours walking round the ruins and being amazed by the size and complexity of what the native Khmer people were able to build 900 years ago.  It is truly awe inspiring and more than you can really see in any photo the whole complex is about 1400 by 1300 m in size with a huge moat as the outer area, and then a wall and then the temple complex itself which is about 250 x 230m and now stands 65m tall.  All hewn from rock some 60 km away.  Much of it has faded and eroded with 500 years of neglect and attack from the jungle, but what you can see today shows how amazing it must have been when fully built.

After the Temple it was back to the hotel for some sleep, we go to AAnkor Thom this afternoon - site of the Temple of Doom film, followed by dinner and Cambodian folk dance display, set up by one of the guides.

Siem Reap is hot, humid and dusty (couldn’t think of a 3rd word), but hotel great and markets interesting, just not enough sleep

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15/11/2009 by admin.

Got up far too early today (5.00) to get to the airport for 6 and then fly to Siem Reap, the local centre for Ankor Wat, which is actually only one of many temple complexes in the area.  Arrived 1 hour later to an extremely efficient immigration system, which got us a visa in almost no time … then on to the hotel, but too early again for rooms, but this time we only had to wait for half an hour or so.  Of all the hotels on the trip this is the best so far (and probably the best overall) as it is classed as a holiday extension.  Very nice.

After a quick wash and brush up we went off to discover the delights of Siem Reap city (not many but a great old market) and have some Khmer curry for lunch which was fabulous.  Then strolled back to the hotel to find the Internet.  In an hour or so we are off to the first of several Temples (not Ankor Wat as we do that at Sunrise tomorrow), then back for dinner.

It looks like one of the party had a slight stroke at the end of the trip, and as far as we know she is still in Thailand as they would not allow her to fly, but no other news.

By the way if anyone is reading this leave me a comment…..

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