daniel – Page 8 – Dan & More

I Need to go Phi Phi: Part I

Back in 2003 a fresh-faced young photographer from FARANG magazine visited Koh Phi Phi, on Thailand’s Andaman coast for the first time. I was stunned by its natural beauty, gigantic krasts crowned by green jungle thrust from crystal waters and were accommodated by a cheerful backpacker village on the sandbar between said limestone mountains. We only stayed a night, it was all we could afford on our thousand-baht peridium.

The village got wiped out by the 2004 tsunami and by the time the tourists retuned I didn’t have the opportunity or couldn’t afford to go back, but the dream remained.

The 2020 pandemic provided an opportunity. Miss Sachie had her holidays already booked and was supposed to go to Hawaii but that was off. As we cast around for a Thai destination that could compare I recalled that wonderful trip 17 years ago.

November 2020 was the perfect time. Over the years, Phi Phi had evolved into a party-island. Hotel reviews spoke of loud music late into the night and eyewitness accounts spoke of drunken vomiting and public urination — probably not for me, these days, and not for the lady. Also, being a destination for the young and credulous, we couldn’t afford it in normal times, but now it was on its knees.

Getting There

Bangkok Airways is a good deal at the moment, unintuitively. Bt5,000 each return to Krabi then a race to the pier to get the ferry to the island. Both trips are fairly comfortable, but require an early start. Accommodation was a ‘pool villa’ (actually one of a number of luxury bungalows around what was a very nice pool). We got this for Bt2,000 a night, which is not bad when there is two of us. God knows what it costs in normal times, probably a lot and certainly out of our range — we would be in the dorm.

The Town

The backpacker colony of my youth had been rebuilt into a mixture of bucket-bars, banana-pancake joints and large, club-med type resorts. It’s the pier and the town that makes your first impression of the island so I’ll cover them here. The pier is good, look down at the pilings and you can see seaweed streamers, fish and where they bury themselves into the sand — the water is like glass. The town put me in the mind of chicken-corner in Haad-Rin on full-moon party night, or it would have if I’d been there at two in the morning and out of my head on diet pills. Now the town has been devastated. Have you ever seen a 7/11 just shut down due to lack of custom? Phi Phi has two. McDonalds, Burger King, The Pizza Company, banks, pharmacies and countless tiny bars and food-joints are shuttered. The place hasn’t been decimated (reduced by one tenth), it’s devastated. Miss Sachie commented that it looked like the set of a zombie film.

At least you’re not stuck behind one of Thailand’s dreaded slow-walkers.

I can’t say that it’s a very beautiful town. It scores points for being pedestrian-friendly, indeed there are no roads (there are roads, well, a road, on the island but you have to go looking for it) but it is commercially dense, dense, dense. It’s also very battered from years of party-town and, er, improvised construction. Think of a nightclub seen in daylight.

More like dead bar, apologies to the operator.

Doubt you’ll get a work permit working at this place.

Guess the bucket index crashed around March.

We stayed at Ibiza Resort, famous for its pool parties and and vomit-slick dorms (I’m guessing on that last one, but dorms on an island?) It was damn nice for us though, as we were the only ones there. It’s a 30-second walk to the beach, which we had to ourselves. Loh Dalum beach is the main swimming beach, while Ton Sai has the pier and boats.

Normally the former is full of sun-drenched bodies, tattooed muscle and cigarette buts. I’m making up the last one, well, making them all up but given the littler still washing up it’s not a stretch. The thing is, it’s one of the most beautiful beaches/bays in the world. This is the place I fell in love with in my first year of living in Thailand and Miss Sachie and I were the only ones on the beach, if you don’t count the sea-eagles fishing offshore or the waders seeing anchovies.

And that what it looks like when you have it to yourself.

Food, Booze & Bed

We stayed at Ibiza House, kind of. Ibiza is host to the pool party but they also have the more sedate Rawianda Villas. It’s pretty nice.

Regular readers will spot the sunbird nest hanging from the blind in the top-right of the photo.

Back when I travelled alone price and location was my primary concern and I have many tales of scummy flophouses, but when one travels with a lady it does to raise standards.

I really can’t recommend this place enough, it’s the nicest pool I have been in for some time. Speaking of pools, here’s the party pool.

I expect that prior visitors will find this view disarming. Didn’t swim in it but they kept the jets on all day. Now to drink.

I don’t have a good photo of the Cottage Bar, but it’s your pretty standard beach bar. It’s lovely, and quiet. It also happens to be the only bar open on the beach when we are there, although another opened before we left — fireshows. The path to the resort is just behind the bar, in this photo, and is the said 30-second walk from the room. Perfect. You may notice a cat in this photo, more on them later.

There is really nothing better in the world than a good beach bar, well parenthood is pretty good but if you have your kids bring you beers and empty the ashtray, like the staff do here, then child-services take them away from you. Each evening we would sit here, drinking discount larger and watching the tide come in on an empty beach. When it got dark, the lights came on.

Yep, massive sodium-vapour lamps transplanted from a freeway to this beach to keep drunken backpackers stepping on broken glass or something. Indeed, there is a security vibe on the island, lots of CCTV. I assume that it’s a reaction to the 2014 murder of two tourists on Koh Tao. Indeed, there was a CCTV camera pointed at our balcony/patio thing. Pretty sure most of them aren’t working by now. Koh Phi Phi also has what I concluded are panic boxes, a button and a camera that you can push to get help when in distress. The highway lamps were a bit of a shame as I wanted to have a good look at the stars while I was there but it was cloudy most nights anyway.

Now to food. Miss Sachie had done her research and we had a checklist of restaurants to visit and pindrops on Google Maps to assist in navigation. Sadly, this preparation and the anticipation was for naught as the majority were shut. Himalaya and Royal Tandoori look like they are gone forever but Clover House is open and has a DJ at night. We breakfasted most days at Patcharee Bakery, which was pretty good. The really winner is Efe, the Turkish place. In our visit, this was the finest chow-house on the island and also probably the best place we have eaten at in months. Anyway, here’s another photo from the beach bar.

That’s it for today, hope you enjoyed it. Remember that we were there in November 2020 and things can be expected to change pretty quick. Indeed, by the end of the week things were picking up around town so who knows what it’s like now. Stay tuned for part two.

Photospheres and Panoramas from France

As I couldn’t take my children with me on my first visit to the continent, I took a lot of immersive photospheres and panorama shots so that I could show them what it was like via the miracle of Google Cardboard. It starts at the palace of Versailles.

Here’s what the photospheres look like:

I apologise in advance. You’ll notice that the this photosphere contains many chops and changes and many people in bits. That’s because these images are made by stitching together many flat photos that are mapped onto a sphere. Neat hey? Unfortunately it takes many photos, camera movement causes poor stitching and it takes a while, which is why that tour guide looks pissed off with me.

Here’s the gift shop, I knew you’d like that. Here’s another view with the panorama plugin. Sadly, you need a mouse so you phone and touch users are out of luck.

Here’s a nice one, have a look at the roof

Speaking of ceilings, they’re all pretty good at Versailles. I was inspired to use the panorama function of my phone to take a photo of a few. Should look pretty good? You decide.

While we’re in the field of experimentation, let’s see how my terrible, terrible hosting handles video.

Had enough? Let’s try another.

That’s a nice seal, but what’s happening to the right?

Time for another panorama, a little one. Any good manse has a red room and in this palace it’s the king’s bedroom, and I’m not talking about Elvis.

It’s a bit crowded, but nothing like when the place was in use by its occupant. When this guy was in charge he had an audience and venal positions for folks to hand him a shirt and hold his bedpan for his morning movement.

Chances are, the room was changed since Lou 14 was farting up the place.

Now for the big one, the Hall of Mirrors.

The Hall of Mirrors is large, crowded and not that spectacular. We are used to mirrors now, in fact some of us are scared of them. In it’s day it was a marvel of precision engineering and used to impress ~~savages~~ honoured visitors. Let’s have a look at the roof.

Nice, now let’s have a look at my feet.

Here’s the full expereince.

What’s that? You want to see more bedrooms? OK, here’s one fit for a queen, I think. No en-suite but back then people just crapped in pots or wherever.

Time for a rest. When you visit the museum you’re on a one-way route through the structure, rather that being left to wander about opening doors and peeking under the beds. It’s crowded and tiring so it’s nice to have a seat in this gallery and view the enormous paintings.

These paintings depict battles and major military actions from France’s and are arranged chronologically.

Now let’s head outside, here’s a look at the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s weekend retreat from the splendour and scheming of Versailles.

Versailles is more than a palace, it contains extensive and elegant gardens, and wide spaces and fields. It’s nice.

Finally, here’s a look at the palace in all its glory on a sunny day in France.

Now, let’s move along. After Versailles we moved to Chessy, right next to Euro Disneyland. Sachie went to Disneyland, I went back to Paris. Here’s a look at the Seine.

And here’s an old lady singing on the bridge.

Here’s a look from outside the Louvre at the little Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, just outside the Louvre.

This it what it looks like outside the Louvre.

My goal that day was to visit the army museum, or the Musée de l’Armée, which is an old military hospital, nice one too.

The first room I walked into was full. Full! of miniatures and as an old wargaming hand I was in heaven.

Wait until you see the landscapes upstairs.

The museum is pretty great and probably deserves its own post. At the back there is a domed chapel.

Who’s down there? Let’s take a peek.

Here’s a look out the front of the museum. Nice on a hot day.

Here’s another look at the river. Now off to the Louvre.

Now off to Reims to see the other Notre Dame. This one is in better shape, having had its roof on fire more than 500 years ago. Of course it got a bashing during WWI and again in WWII, the revolution too, for that matter.

Here’s a look inside.

And that’s it for France. I really miss the place and want to go back soon.

A Weekend at the Hilton

We are all facing dark times but some clouds do indeed have a silver lining so the lady and I are doing our part to prop up local tourism by spending a night at one of Bangkok’s many luxury hotels on the cheap.

The deal is that one can spend a night in a very nice room, enjoy ‘executive lounge’ access, more on that later, and get a free breakfast for the plumb price of Bt1800 for two. They aren’t doing the early check-in and late check-out that some other hotels are offering but it was heavily implied that it would be an option when checking in. There’s also a pair of free cocktails at a fancy bar down the road at Em Quartier.

We were greeted by this chap, whose name now escapes me (should have taken notes), who appears all over the hotel in sculpture with his girlfriend. She’s French and came to Bangkok with her poodle and hooked up with a well dressed dude from Argentina or something.

After check-in and an inspection of the room we headed down to the lobby for afternoon tea. The executive lounge, with its lofty heights and magnificent views is closed so we’re in the cafe. Perhaps they don’t want us plebs stinking up the privileged spaces reserved for the jet-set but it’s more likely that it’s closed to save a bit of cash. The luggage above isn’t real, it’s the furniture and serves as a motif on the ground floor, at least. There was a wedding upstairs so we didn’t explore. No idea what deal they got but I expect it was a good one.

Here is afternoon tea. No buffet but I had two of these. The scone was a bit flat but the other snacks were excellent. After getting stuffed and having about five excellent coffees we headed for the pool.

It’s up top and doesn’t have a bad view. A lot of hotels have fences or structures around the pool that block the view but one can’t complain here. You can see our friends here again. I had planned to have a swim, as I never seem to have time to swim at the pool at my apartment. I thought it would be a languors weekend and even brought an extra book, but there was no time to spare. Five thirty PM was approaching and that was happy hour in the ~~lounge~~ cafe.

That’s right, it’s two hours of free-flow and hot snacks. As you can see, the snacks are nicely presented but aren’t that flash, but on to the booze!

Heineken beer, Australian shiraz and I didn’t try the white. There’s cocktails too and it’s all you can drink for the next two hours, so not a bad deal really. If you can drink a bottle of red (each, ha!) you’ve probably covered your costs for the accommodation.

Speaking of the accommodation, it’s as nice as you’d expect:

I’m not a big fan of the bathroom with a glass wall. For a long time I thought it was so you could have a shower and keep an eye on your new friend and make sure she doesn’t lift your wallet, but it turns out it’s so daylight can get in. It does have an electric blind, which puts me in the mind of a James Bond villain, as does the telephone next to the loo. The room scores points for having a separate toilet so your girlfriend doesn’t have to watch you pinching one off through the window.

Hotel breakfasts are either a horror or a joy. Many Thai three-star places specialise in boiled ham slices, chopped up cocktail-franks, barely-toasted bread and cold fried eggs. A five-star buffet abounds with delicate pastries, fried mushrooms and lashings of bacon. I’ll let you work out which is the horror and which the joy.

Now, to close up, I noticed a lot of cost-saving measures during my stay and it’s clear that a night at the Hilton that pulls more than three figures is different. But it’s damn good value for a weekend in town, pretending that you’re a fancy-pants for a night and you still get soft sheets, great aircon and a hot bath.

Check yo’ Privilege

Let’s go Shopping!

A couple of weeks ago the lady and I went to Macro to do a little shopping and pick up a few curiosities. If you don’t already know, Macro is like a supermarket for shops and restaurants. When you buy a packet of out of use-by chips from the corner store run by an old Chinese lady, she probably got them from Macro! We go to Macro because they have cheap produce that’s very fresh, but it’s always fun to look at some of the stranger items on offer.

Ever wondered where restaurants get their frogs’ legs from? Well now you know. Macro! God knows where Macro gets them from. Vietnam, probably.

Including crocodile is a little pedestrian. It sounds very exotic, but if you take this home and put it on the barbeque you’ll probably be disappointed.

Boar is… boy pigs right? The stuff that Obelisk eats. So this is technically pork, right? I guess the subtext is that this is wild boar? Maybe I’ll buy some one day and see how it compares.

Frozen cow… boobs? Not especially cheap. Don’t recall seeing this on the menu recently.

Beef gallbladder. In bile. Who eats this stuff? Whomever they may be they’re paying Bt260 a kilo which would get you a nice steak a few rows over.

There’s a lot of excitement among scientists when a giant squid washes ashore on the beaches of New Zealand or somewhere and everyone scrambles for a look before it rots away. They should just come to Macro.

The label says snapping but the tag says soft shelled but no matter how you cut it, you’re eating a turtle.

OK kids, it’s time for the main event. I’ve become accustomed to seeing street vendors pushing around a cart of fried bugs and have been known to purchase some as a snack, even when nobody is watching. I’d never reflected on where the vendors get their bugs from, I just assumed they found them under the mattress each morning or something. I actually doubt they’re buying them at Macro as they’re not even cheap by the kilo but if you would like to try your hand at poached silkworms or fried bamboo grubs, this is the place for you.

This one is pretty tempting. These little buggers don’t look very inviting but deep fried with salt and spice they’re delicious.

Crickets are kind of a staple in the bug-eating world. Crunchy and tasty but without the big legs that get stuck in your teeth like grasshoppers.

And that’s it for this shopping trip. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of Macro and worked up an appetite.