Paradise

Yes, I found paradise. But more on that soon. Let's have another look at the bathroom in that Sheraton hotel room.

Oh, also, let's have a look at some of the treats in the business lounge at the Sheraton. I was the only one in there for large swathes of time, so I left some gaps in these plates ...

The buffet at lunch was also nice. I tried a number of Malaysian desserts. When I caught up with Pat and Mat, they reminded me of something I'd once said when we went to a dim sum restaurant and paid a set price: "Well, we don't have to eat it." In other words, since you're paying anyway, you might as well get something and try it, and if you don't like it move on. I don't do that as a matter of course – too wasteful – but I will now and then.

The buffet at dinner was actually a mad scramble. The Sheraton was absolutely packed because the airport was closed, and I'm not sure they'd got enough food in. Really it was a blood bath. Well not quite, but there was a little pushing. I had gone early, so I was nicely full by the time it got nasty.

The next day I caught my Air Asia flight back to KL. At one point I had opened my water a little forcefully and spilled some. A little while later I got up to go to the toilet and as I was walking towards it, I felt something wet on my trousers. "Oh God," I thought. I was going to have to walk back to my seat facing all these people with a bloody great wet patch on my trousers. Luckily it didn't look too bad.

I caught the bus in to Sentral station and caught a taxi to my hotel. Only the driver couldn't work out where it was. I said, "Actually, it's okay, you can drop me off at Times Square." Then I realised it was raining and wanted to rescind it. But that was fine because he didn't understand anyway.

Luckily I knew the way (ish), so we got there in the end. My room was so small it was farcical. The last time I stayed there the room was great, but this one ... Forget that saying about not enough room to swing a cat, I was struggling to find somewhere to put my bag.

I only had a night in KL seeing as I'd been delayed a day in Kuching. I felt like some Indian food so went to a restaurant called A Passage Thru India. I had a grilled chicken dish, only the chicken was coated in a paste made of garlic and ginger, so the paste was grilled and the chicken stayed nicely moist inside. It was very good. I also ordered a brinjal dish. I'd momentarily gotten my brinjal (eggplant) and my bindi (okra) mixed up, but I love both so it didn't matter.

After dinner, I went to Sri Petaling in Chinatown. This is a famous night market, and I wanted to get some more DVDs. I had a good chat to the taxi driver on the way to Chinatown. He worked two jobs – an eight-to-five day job, and then he did five or six hours in the evening six days a week. He liked to take his family travelling, only he had to stick with poor countries like Laos and the Philippines.

I found a stall/shop pretty well straight away. They took me in to a room out back (no doubt afraid of police raids). They showed me the huge catalogues of DVDs they had, then disappeared for a while, so I photographed them.

We did some wheeling and dealing and I bought several. The two young sellers – possibly relatives – seemed to get in a spat over how much I'd been charged. One seemed to think the other had undercharged me. He appealed to me, "He doesn't understand how much they cost." I looked at him like he was nuts. I mean to say, if he has a sales problem, that's certainly something they need to work on. I felt like telling him, look at it from my perspective, I'm just trying to concentrate on not getting ripped off.

I think I did get a good deal. When I was in the little room, I said I'd bought a few in Penang, and he said, "Oh, Penang, very cheap." By the time we finished I'd paid what I would have in Penang. The problem was I kept naming films and TV series that they weren't sure were in stock (needless to say, I wasn't picking the obvious big budget stuff), so the price kept changing. Really it was a little like that game where you have something hidden under three cups, and the cups are moved quickly and you have to try and keep your eyes on where you think the thing is. Only I'd been buying a few recently and was getting pretty good at bargaining, and my basic arithmetic is pretty good (despite certain people joking about my maths skills), so I was able to keep track better than they were. Well better than the guy dealing with me anyway. I left them as one was yelling at the other.

The next day it was back out to the airport to fly to Phuket. There are actually two airports in KL: KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) and KLCC (Low Cost Carriage Terminal – strictly speaking there should be a hyphen between "low" and "cost" since it's a modifier, but they're foreign so we'll forgive them). In other words, KLCC is for all the budget airlines. I was excepting something a little rundown and slipshod. But it's clean and organised, and there are lots of good food places. It's a good airport.

On the plane I was getting myself sorted in my seat when an English lady sat down a couple of seats away. She seemed a little loud. Reminded me of Nora, on Jamie's school dinners show, but a little more abrasive. The steward asked her if she'd also need a wheelchair when we landed (I'd not noticed one here). "Yes, I've got cancer of the bones, so I need some help." Oh wow. I like it when the cosmos slaps me for thinking a wrong thought.

It's about an hour and fifteen minutes to Phuket. Having previously said I wouldn't be caught dead in Phuket, this destination may come as a surprise to some. But I wasn't going to Phuket. The airport is at the very top of the island, and all the tourists head south. I was heading directly north. My resort had arranged a taxi for me (buses were a hassle for this destination), and we drove an hour and a half to Khao Lak, a town on the coast. At one point the taxi driver pulled over and to a place on the side of the road and apologetically said, "Two minutes." I presumed she had to pick something up, and sure enough she came back with a package. She also came back with two drinks. "Iced tea with Raymond for you," she said. It took me a while to work out she'd said, "Iced tea with lemon". It was a nice gesture, but how many people like iced tea? And now I was holding a cup full of ice and my hand was going numb. I drank a little to be polite (it wasn't my cup of tea – haha), so I managed to wedge it in the door. I noticed she wasn't drinking her one either. I asked her how long it would take to get to Khao Lak, and she replied, "About one o'clock and half." "One and a half hours?" I asked. "About one o'clock and half," she repeated. It was already 1.30, so I was pretty sure I was translating correctly.

In Khao Lak I stayed at a place called Amsterdam Resort. Someone I'd met on a forum who had been to the island I was heading to had recommended the resort. And sure enough the Dutch owner, Kees, had been enormously helpful to me. He not only booked all my island accommodation up here for me, he had also booked my National Park stay down south. When we met, we got chatting and he said it's funny how when you correspond with someone, and you form a picture of them." Apparently he'd imagined me as a rugged outdoor type with a big beard. He seemed a little disappointed. Which of course made me a little disappointed in myself. I am on the inside, I wanted to say.

I hired a scooter from Kees and set off to explore the little township of Khao Lak. I had only gone about a hundred metres when I had the sudden thought I had no idea which side of the road they drove on in Thailand. I thought it was the left, so stuck with that. Then I thought it was the right, so I crossed over. I saw a bike pulling in to the road up ahead. I fell in behind them – it was the left. It's really kind of exhilarating that kind of experience. Totally in the moment.

The next day I got picked up by a minivan. First was an hour and a half drive to a place called Kuraburi, and then about and hour and twenty minutes on a boat to an island called Surin (actually a group of islands), or Paradise, as I think of it.

When the boat reached the island, we waited for the longtail to come out and take those of us staying on the island to shore (the rest were snorkel daytrippers). Everyone I spoke to had the same reaction when I answered how long I was staying. "Six days?!" It was clear just on arrival that this place was extraordinary. Beautiful turquoise water, white sands, few people, coral beds beneath the water, virgin bush on the hills. Everybody was snapping photos like mad as soon as we got there. 

Here's the view from a longtail heading towards shore.

On the longtail I met a Thai woman whose name I never quite grasped – I'll call her C. We caught up again on the island. She had left her husband behind in Phuket, where she taught at the university, and had come to do some marking. She updated her Facebook page using her Blackberry just so her colleagues could see where she was marking! She had such an incredibly gentle nature. Gentleness just melts me. It's not an attraction thing – I like it in men and women. I think I used to be a gentler person. Somewhere along the line I turned into a bit of an a---hole. I think I'll make it a New Year's resolution to be more gentle.

One thing C mentioned is that mangosteen (my favourite fruit) and durian are often eaten together. It's why they're know as the Queen and King of Fruit. It has something to do with the sulphur in durian – the mangosteen counteracts it. 

This was my bungalow. As a National Park island it was either bungalows or tents. Thank God the mattresses were way better than Koh Tarutao. (The food was better too.)

Outside my balcony was met with a wall of bamboo. A macaque used to wander over my roof and climb down the bamboo.

I was on a hillside, and the tents were down below on the beach.

They were surprisingly close together:

This is the main beach at the Park headquarters at low tide:

This was an Italian fellow who was staying in a tent right on the beach. He spent part of each day painting.

Every day there are two snorkel trips offered, one at 9 a.m. and one at 2 p.m. There are around ten destinations, and each trip involves at least a couple, so it's a couple of days before one is repeated. Even then going on the same trip is still very rewarding.

This is the roof of a longtail – beautiful thatching.

The best friend I made on the island was a seventy-eight-year-old from Virginia named Betty, who was staying for a month in one of the tents ("A month," I said). She'd been coming to Surin for ten to fifteen years.

Betty seemed to have enormous reserves of strength. She took at least one snorkel trip a day, sometimes two (I'm not sure I managed two in one day at all). One time I walked to the other Park camp. I got about halfway along the trail and had had enough. The track wasn't good – ducking and clambering over trees, rickety walkways with rotten-looking wood, slippery slopes ... I walked down to the water, put my snorkel gear on and swam the rest of the way. When I arrived, I encountered Betty on the beach. She'd walked the whole way. Here she is about to plop in the water on one of the snorkel trips.

I mentioned to Betty wanting to put some photos on my blog. "Why do you write a blog?" she asked. I yelled above the motor. "So my family and friends can see what I'm up to."
"So your family and friends can see what you're doing," she repeated.
"Yes."
She laughed. It was clearly the silliest thing she'd heard in quite some time.
"And," I said,"I want to write a travel article, and it's a good way of organising my notes."
"Oh," she said nodding. This seemed to make more sense.

I should mention that Betty lives in Kathmandu. She used to work for the State Department (in embassies) and retired there twenty-four years ago. She likes to trek twice a year – twelve-day treks, I think she said. Plays tennis often too. We had great chats, often about books and writers. She'd run out of things to read, so I was pleased to give her one I'd just finished. When I heard Laura Hillenbrand had written a new book (she wrote Seabiscuit), I ordered it straight away. Unbroken is a riveting and beautifully written book about one of America's fastest runners who was imprisoned by the Japanese in WWII. This is the kind of book why I like nonfiction. If it were fiction, you'd just say it's too improbable. I'm glad Betty was enjoying it as much as I did, and was going to donate it to the Park library when she was finished.

While I think of it, here's a little passage I copied. It's about a camp called Naoetsu.

In Naoetsu's little POW insurgency, perhaps the most insidious feat was pulled off by Louie's friend Ken Marvin, a marine who'd been captured at Wake Atoll. At his work site, Marvin was supervised by a one-eyed civilian guard called Bad Eye. When Bad Eye asked Marvin to teach him English, Marvin saw his chance. With secret delight, he began teaching Bad Eye catastrophically bad English. From that day forward, when asked, "How are you?," Bad Eye would similingly reply, "What the fuck do you care?"

The beaches round Surin are incredible. This is the kind of place I've been searching for. I think it stems from going for holidays to New Caledonia when I was a child (my parents taught summerschools in French there). It laid an imprint of tropical lagoons that I've been searching for ever since. I found it at Lipe that first time with Rohan, and I found the ultimate expression here at Surin.

This is taken on the way to the other camp.

These next few are taken at the main beach at the other camp – probably the best I've ever seen – where I'll stay next time.

Obviously the perfect place to relax:

It was around this area that I strung up my hammock:

I took one last one before I left:

Still, the area I was staying at was incredibly beautiful, and some people like Betty preferred it.

At some point I mentioned my blog again, and Betty chuckled. I asked her what she found funny, and she said it sounded like I only did things for the blog. Truth be told it's a perceptive comment. Sometimes you think, I have to go back there and photograph that. It just adds clarity to illustrate it. Sometimes it's also good motivation. You might be equivocating, and having fodder for the blog may tip the balance. Then there's fidelity to the blogging community – one reason I decided to keep one is because I had garnered a lot of useful practical travel information from blogs and I wanted to return the favour. But it's a little ironic I did my thesis on the idea of autonomous technology – and here I was occasionally a slave to some. Like the best Americans Betty's a straight shooter.

I also befriended a Frenchman named Christophe. He worked in the Economic Department of the French embassy in KL. He had a pleasingly sardonic attitude and wit to match, and he was a font of arcane inside information. Apparently Myanmar is one of the world's great producers of  Ecstasy – extra pocket money for the junta.

I spent my days reading and swimming. Next up on the book front was Dave Cullen's Columbine, a fascinating account of the school shooting tragedy. He wrote the book because everything he'd heard through the media was wrong. For instance, Eric and Dylan were not outcasts, they were quite popular. They were both extremely intelligent too (and not remotely Goths). One striking thing about the tragedy is the way the religious groups handled the aftermath. The Evangelicals used it as a recruiting drive, and their behaviour often offended the other groups. It's one of the main threads of the book watching these groups jostle. Also, the author had access to a great deal of material which only recently became public – like the killer's journals. Eric was a textbook psychopath who was a genius at deception. It's entirely possible if he hadn't been a spree killer he would have been a serial killer. Dylan was a depressive with an anger problem who got caught up in Eric's fantasies. It may seem like odd holiday reading, but it's very compelling and very well written. I think it's the third book in a row I've read that's on the current New York Times bestsellers list. Good to see quality works are popular.

I did an enormous amount of swimming. I may not be able to use a computer, and I still haven't gotten around to getting my car licence, but boy can I swim. I remember my mother mentioning how I'd do laps of our pool in the winter when I was a kid. I can and do swim for hours. The water at Surin was bathwater-warm and crystal clear. And there wasn't the rubbish there is down south. Perhaps this is because of its proximity to Myanmar, which doesn't have much in the way of industry. That's one of the reasons I came here actually. I've long wanted to go to the Andaman Islands (in India) and to the Mergui Archipelago (in Myanmar). Surin's not that far from either. My resort owner in Khao Lak, Kees, said he tries to persuade people to go to Surin, but so many want to go to the Similans because they're so well-known (they're a world-famous dive spot). He said there are so many dive boats there it's lit up from space. Two people told me that the Thai government has deliberately tried to keep Surin a secret, and judging by how few people there were, they'd done a good job. It's meant to be the best snorkel site in Thailand, and whilst it was good, sadly a natural process called coral bleaching has killed a lot off recently. There were pockets of colour, and when it was in full colour the place must have been unbelievably spectacular. Really, people could have fainted from the scale of such beauty, judging by how exquisite the few pristine pieces I saw were. Still, there was an incredible range of fish of all sizes and colours. Really the marine life was psychedelic. Puffer fish, coral snakes, giant sea bass, huge schools of parrot fish and hundreds more varieties. At one point I was surrounded by around five species of tiny fish that numbered in the thousands. My field of vision was like a pointillist painting.

One day an absolutely enormous Russian and his wife arrived. They stayed in the bungalow attached to mine and the whole thing rocked when he moved. I wondered if he might drag the whole building off the hillside. He was on one of the snorkel trips I took. How he must have loved those – being weightless. Could live out his dreams of being an astronaut.

At one point I set up my hammock in front of Betty's tent, and here's a photo she took of me:

I left my hammock up so Betty could enjoy a sway in the evening. She likes to watch the sunset that unfurls in front of her tent.

Sadly after six days it was time to leave. It's an amazing thing when you're having a nice time on holiday and it's coming to an end. It's kind of like an execution date looming.

It was the kind of holiday you dream about, and I knew it would seem like a dream as soon as I left.

My stuff all packed up:

It was low tide when I left, so we had to catch a longtail to get to the speedboat, and to get to the longtail we had to walk a ways.

On the speedboat back we saw a pod of dolphins, so the boat stopped a while. Everybody freaked out. They were ecstatic – all nationalities and ethnicities. It was beautiful thing.

When the boat got back to the coast, I caught the minivan to Khao Lak for the night. The next day I had the hour-and-a-half-long taxi ride to Phuket Airport (NZ$52 – rather cheaper than it would be back home). At one point the driver started channel surfing on his radio. He seemed to be trying to find the worst song possible. What's worse, I got the idea he was doing it for my benefit. I finally pulled out my book to read – that might make him turn it off. Sure enough. It reminded me of once when I was on a bus from New Plymouth to Auckland. I asked to driver to flick the master switch that allowed me to put my overhead light on. I wanted to read. "You want to what?!" the driver asked. It was as if I'd said I'd like to drive for a little while if that's okay.

At the airport, I overheard two Australian girls talking:
"... was going to the toilet and she dropped her boarding pass in it. It was Thai Airways, I don't know where she was going."
"Did it flush?" the other asked, and then they were gone.
It's fun the conversations you hear when you travel.

Back in KL I got to my hotel without any problems. Luckily this time they'd given me a better-size room.

I went to an organic cafe for dinner. Had a nice spaghetti and mushrooms dish – I'd been hanging out for both. Then a chocolate torte for dessert (Cush, I would've had the Maracaibo dark chocolate creme brulee if I'd seen it, but missed it on the first read).

In the morning I went and had a masala dosa. Yum!

I just don't understand Western breakfasts. I mean, rice bubbles. Indians rightly use puffed rice in their junk food. I just don't get having it as a staple breakfast food. Most cereals in fact are loaded with sugar (read the packet for the percentage). I like my sweets for dessert!

Then it was off to the wet market. It was enormous and had the usual bustle.

Black chickens – what's that about:

One of my three favourite foods (along with avocados and artichokes):

This was the coconut stall:

Today I went to a Chinese restaurant called Chynna at the Hilton. I wanted some dim sum. The dumplings were pretty good, but what I really came for was the yam croquettes. This one's for Rohan:

In New Zealand they fill these with pork, so we can't eat them. But these had minced chicken and were delicious.

Chynna is one of those restaurants with heaps of staff watching every move you make. They want to take your dish away the moment you've finished to show how good their service is. That might be okay when you're in a large group, but it puts you under a spotlight when you're on your own. At one point, I counted nine staff standing around.

I had ordered some chilli oil – it adds an extra piquancy to the dim sum – and at one point my nose started running. Oh no: no handkerchief, only a linen napkin, and I was being watched by at least half a dozen staff. I had to check to see if I had a drip on my nose. Timing was everything. It was a little akin to escaping from a POW camp and timing it so none of the guards were looking. I had to wait till a couple of waiting staff had disappeared, a couple were attending new customers, and the rest were involved in conversation. Frankly it was nerve wracking and didn't fit with the serenity of the place. Still, the food was superb, and I chalked it up as a success.

At the end of the meal, there's always the tipping issue. Do I? How much? As a general rule I tip ten per cent at both upmarket and downmarket restaurants. Unless I see other customers go to the counter. I tend to get the heck out as soon as I've left the tip. I'd rather not see the reaction – the potential look of disappointment (though on the odd occasion I've returned to a place, their enthusiasm indicates the tip was more than adequate). I affect a confident departing walk, which is easy now – I'm a more confident person these days. And four out of five times I get it right, but that fifth time I do something like try and exit through a closet.

Well it's a day to go until I leave (and then a day's travelling to get back). 

I can picture myself at check-in, pleading with them: Please don't send me back there [to Economy].

I'll write one more post. I'm not sure what I'll have for dinner. Perhaps frog porridge.

I'll leave you for now with a picture taken outside my hotel.