Boats in an inlet to the South China Sea in Na Trang

We came to Nah Trang just for one last dip in the ocean in scuba gear but wound up staying three days relaxing and motorbiking around. The diving itself was pretty nice, though lots of the underwater area was sandy and our dives were cut short both times. By far the highlight was the octopus we watched change colors and try to hide under a rock when we came close.

Nah Trang itself sprawls out into the distance past the beach area that is filled with tourists, overpriced restaurants and hotels. One day we walked around and checked out a wonderful exhibit of black and white photos of Vietnam at the Long Thanh Gallary before searching out the Long Son Pagoda. We avoided some scam artists at the bottom of the Pagoda before hiking up a hill to take in a massive sleeping Buddha statue halfway up and an even more massive sitting Buddha statue atop.

Praying in the East Tower of the Po Nagar Cham Towers in Nah Trang

The next day we rented a motorcycle and headed out of the city to visit the Po Nagar Cham Towers. Located on a hilltop overlooking the South China Sea and the entire town, the Towers are beautiful, red bricked and only semi-ruined. Inside each one is a shrine with some of the thickest incense smoke ever and a non-stop line of people coming in to pray. Our drive later continued along the coastline, stopping at the Hon Chong Promontory to view the ocean and the shrines on islands out in the middle of it.

Finally, our motorcycle day took us to the Thap Ba Hot Spring Center, which was completely unlike anything I have ever seen. The standard 100 dong ($5.50) entry fee covered a mud bath in a tub shared with numerous Vietnamese people, a mineral bath (also in a shared area), a walk through a hot mineral water alley that shoots thin streams of water, a sit under a waterfall and a swim in a pool filled with 50 of your closest friends.

There was no privacy: even for the people who spent 400 dong for a private mud and mineral bath tub. All the extra money buys is a tub free of other people in an area with at least 25 other tubs in a line next to yours. It was a completely strange experience from start to finish.

Check out the Thap Ba Hot Spring Center site for more info

• Getting to the full moon party
• The full moon party

The videos:

• Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand – Fire jump rope at 5am
• Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand – Blacklight body painting
• Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand – Firedancing with a double sided light saber stick
• Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand – Pool part at Coral Bungalows
• Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand – Scenes at 530am when we arrived at Ko Pha Ngan on the overnight boat
• Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand – Sunrise dance party at 530am
• Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand – The beach is full of people partyin
• Thailand Malaysia border motorcycle ride

]]> 0 http://www.adventuresofagoodman.com/finding-nemo-on-the-untouched-perhentian-islands/ http://www.adventuresofagoodman.com/finding-nemo-on-the-untouched-perhentian-islands/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:20:49 +0000 Greg Goodman http://www.adventuresofagoodman.com/?p=760 read more >>]]>

The reletively undiscovered Long Beach on the Perhentian Islands

What better reason to leave the cool weather of the Highlands than for some scuba diving and time on a tropical island. The Perhentians are a pair of relatively untouched islands, the smaller of which is Long Beach where we stayed. It reminded Carrie and I of the Corn Islands in Nicaragua. The beach was where all the action was. There were restaurants, bars, sundry shops, hotels and dive shops lining the shore. Behind the beach and the single line stretch of civilization there was nothing but dense forest and some walking paths.

As for the cast of characters on the Perhentians, Carrie and I had picked up a couple of new friends on the minivan ride from the Cameron Highlands. One gal was Karen from the UK who was staying at our hostel. Our other new friend was Claire from Scotland, who we had actually met atop Mt Batur on our sunrise hike in Bali. We hadn’t seen her since, but there she was in the same van. Random! Anyway, the four of us got a room together and thus a new crew was born.

Nemos (aka clown fish) in our dive in the Perhentian Islands (taken by reuben)

During the two days there, Carrie, Karen and I crammed in five dives while Claire worked on her tan. On one dive through a shipwreck we actually had a conversation in an artificial air pocket 12 meters underwater. Caused by divers’ bubbles rising, the pocket allowed us to actually take out our breather, have an echo-filled conversation and breath the underwater air. It smelled and tasted a bit funny, but was perfectly fine and an amazingly unique experience.

During another dive we went to a cleaning station where little shrimps with claws are all congregated by a large piece of coral. Fish come over and the shrimp pick the dirt off them. Well, instead of a fish they got our hands and we watched as dozens of the little guys crawled all over us and gave us a cleaning. It didn’t hurt, but I definitely felt a lot of little pinches.

Claire, Karen and Carrie in the Perhentian Islands

Then there are the Nemos. Every dive we go on, the clown fish are the most fun to play with. Think about the fish from the movie Finding Nemo. That’s a clown fish. They really do live in anemones and every time we come over to them they are the most curious fish in the sea. An outstretched hand is usually enough to get them to come out and say hi.

Oh, and on one dive we literally saw dozens of bamboo sharks hiding under rocks and tons of blue spotted sting rays swimming all over.

Other than diving we really didn’t have much time to explore the island. We ate a few meals, wandered around, checked out the nightlife scene and the chicas had a girl’s night out when I went to bed early one evening. We could have stayed longer, but the world’s biggest party was quickly approaching and we had to get to Thailand. But that’s a story for next time…

A video of what scuba diving in the Perhentian Islands was like, as taken by Reuben

A video of our approach to the Perhentian Islands

Fun at the Waterbom waterpark in Kuta

After Mt Batur we went back to Ubud for a few days during which Carrie got sick. While there we stayed at the same hote as Angie, our new Scottish friend who we met at Batur. She wound up coming with us when Carrie felt better and we headed south to Kuta, the resort town and party capital of Bali. Out transport this time: a rental car for $9 a day (too bad we didn’t come up with this money-saving idea earlier).

Imagine everything I wrote about Phuket last time but in a much smaller area. The streets are lined with shops and young people, many of which are Australian, walk around drinking beer at all hours of the day. It’s a party atmosphere 24/7, though we tried to go out one night and found that there was not much doing.

My favorite part, though it irritated me sometimes, was walking the gauntlet of shopkeepers on the side streets. Every single one would try and get me to come in and look at and buy their goods ranging from stickers to teeshirts, beer coozies, statues, hats, sunglasses, nick nacks and more. They all called me their friend and told me they had a very special price just for me. Frequently heard phrases were, “yes hello!, you come look, hello my friend, only look no buy, looking is free.” Also, every five feet were the people offering transport or massages. “Yes, hello transport? You want massage?”

When not walking or avoiding the gauntlet, our other big activity in Kuta was the Waterbom water park. For six hours the three of us slid and tubed our way through 16 different slides and down the lazy river. Typical us, we were amongst the final people to leave the park.

Verdict: Bali Hai

Walking down the shopping gauntlet in Kuta

Walking the gauntlet again and haggling down a teeny sticker from $7.50 to 50 cents…long but funny

Videos from Waterbom Waterpark:
Carrie and Greg race at the Waterbom water park in Bali

I go down the toilet bowl slide at the Waterbom park in Bali

The streets of Patong, Phuket

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the bad titlepun, though I now know it’s actually pronounced “poo-kit.” Anyway, for years I had heard that if I ever made it to Thailand, Phuket was the place to go to have fun. So, despite having done all that research on tours in Krabi, Carrie and I changed our plans and headed to the resort town of Patong on the island of Phuket. Our budget hotel options were limited, so we treated ourselves to a nice AC room with TV, DVD player (that we didn’t use once), fridge and free wi-fi: all for the sky-high price of $14 per night. Imagine that back home!

Bangla Road, the center of nightlife in Patong, Phuket

Patong is just like any other resort town in the world: completely devoid of local culture and existing solely to fulfill the fantasies of the visiting tourists. The streets are lined with people selling everything from fake Rolexes to bootleg movies, tee shirts, knick knacks, Thai massages, tours gourmet meals and meat on a stick…all at the lowest possible prices. Walking down these streets is like walking through a gauntlet, as every single person wants your money and gets in your face to ask if you want what they have.

Every five feet a 7-Eleven sells tourists of all ages snacks, water and beer, which they walk down the street consuming at all hours. There are bars and clubs everywhere, but nowhere is more prominent than Bangla Road, which is the main draw of nightlife in Patong. Some alleys literally have a bar every 10 feet, each with dancing girls on the tables…though many of the girls are actually men. Foreigners and locals alike move from place to place until the wee hours of the morning when the street shuts down until the next night.

Some videos from our experience in Patong, Phuket:

Thai Boxing Promo on a Pickup Truck in Patong, Phuket

Frying the greasiest fried egg ever in Patong

Carrie feeds a hundred plus year old sea turtle

One morning we took a walk down the beach until we came to the spot where hundred year old turtles lived. Knowing exactly what we were there for, a local grabbed some seaweed and lured one of them over so we could see, touch and feed it. At first it was just us and the local, but within minutes there was a crowd of rich resort patrons who joined in the fun. No surprise, we were the only ones who tipped the local.

Later that day we hopped onto a local bus to go an hour north to a turtle hatchery where we could see baby turtles and release one into the ocean. I told the money collector the name of the town, he nodded as if to indicate understanding and printed me up a receipt with a price and the name of our destination. Unfortunately, the ticket was written in Sinhalese, which is a completely different alphabet, so I had no idea if it was right. We just assumed it was and, like all other bus helpers, he would tell us when it was our stop.

Carrie had called the hatchery earlier in the day, so we knew that it was about an hour away. Turtles are released only at the end of the day, so we timed our trip to coincide with the closing of the hatchery, even leaving ourselves a little wiggle room. We watched every sign closely to make sure we got off at the right place until the rain started. Soft at first, by the time we hit the hour mark it was a torrential downpour: and of course we had no umbrellas or plastic to cover ourselves or my camera bag.

Hikkaduwa was the first time I ever saw surfing live

The rain also made reading signs much harder, but around the hour mark Carrie saw one that looked like the town before ours. We watched intently, looking for our town’s name, watching for a kilometer marker sign or anything else to let us know we were there. Finally, at around the 1.5 hour point I went up to the front and asked. Shocker, they had no idea what I was talking about and spoke no English. I continued to say the town name and was greeted with blank stares from all around until finally it clicked with someone who told me, in broken English, that we had gone too far.

The cushy inside of an AC minibus. These cost up to 5x the amount of a public bus

We jumped out of the bus into the downpour and found a dry spot across the road to wait for a bus back, still hoping to catch the hatchery on the flip side. Well, as it was raining and the bus was coming from Colombo, every one that passed was so full it had people hanging out of the door and would not stop. We finally had to take an air conditioned minivan bus for nearly 5x what we paid to get there.

Upon getting into the minivan we also saw a kilometer marker and realized that we had gone nearly 35km too far. By the time we were back in the town with the hatchery it was too late and they would have been closed. We rationalized it by saying that with the rain we probably wouldn’t have gotten to release the turtles anyway, but it was still SO frustrating. The worst part is that it all could have been avoided if the money collector had just said that he didn’t understand me. I could have taken out our book, showed him and had no problem. But that’s just the way it is.

One of the Andaman Islands from our plane (taken by Carrie)

The Andaman Islands are a series of un and barely-touched islands off the east coast of India that Carrie and I have been talking about since arriving. So, after our two weeks of manual labor in Sadhana Forest we packed our bags and headed to paradise. The plane from Chennai landed at Port Blair, but we quickly hopped on three hour ferry to our final destination: Havelock Island. While it is the most built up of all the Andamans, it still sees only a fraction of the traffic of anywhere in the region.

Havelock Island, or at least the part that is relevant to tourists, is essentially one five kilometer street. It starts at the boat jetty, passes through a downtown shopping and market area that is maybe the size of one city block and concludes with a stretch of guest houses, restaurants and little shops. Keep in mind, guesthouses are usually huts with dirt or cement floors and restaurants are a couple of plastic chairs and tables…nothing fancy at all.

Fun in the ocean

Despite being in paradise, we managed to keep ourselves busy. We went scuba diving twice and saw some of the most amazing corals either of us have ever laid eyes on and more fish than I have seen on any other dive in my life.

At one point we encountered a school of large fish that were just slowly swimming by and seemed unphased by my presence. I headed over to them and joined into their school, swimming in the same pattern as a few hundred of my new aquatic friends for nearly a minute before they changed directions away from the rest of the dive group.

One of the giant roots torn up by the 2004 tsunami (taken by Carrie)

During another dive I encountered a massive group of little fish just hanging out. While they did move out of my way as not to touch me when I approached, they didn’t go far and I just floated there surrounded by thousands of fish. All in all, two of the coolest scuba diving experiences of my life.

When not diving, Carrie and I explored a lot of the rest of the island. One day, along with some new friends, we rented terrible bicycles and rode around 10 kilometers to an elephant sanctuary (of course there were none there by the late hour we arrived). The seats were solid plastic and mine was high enough for a child to ride comfortably. Carrie’s front tire was barely attached and her bike wobbled with every pedal.

Still, it was a beautiful day and after finding no elephants we all relaxed on a nearby beach surrounded by the giant roots of trees torn up by the 2004 tsunami. I also entertained myself by watching and playing with some of the thousands of hermit crabs that covered a large percentage of the sand. When I squatted down and looked it seemed like the entire beach was moving.

Sunset over Beach 7

Another day we hiked through a jungle and a mangrove field to reach a secluded beach for some snorkeling. I didn’t see much, as too many gulps of sea water through my snorkel got me frustrated enough to head in early, but Carrie said the coral was beautiful. I did, however, have a great time staring out into the horizon and daydreaming.

In between all these activities, we did find some time to kick back and relax. A lot of time was spent eating or planning when to eat next, as meals tend to take at least an hour to prepare. We made some good new friends with other people at our guest house, took local buses or walked everywhere, enjoyed a sunset at Beach 7 (original name, I know), attended the most low-key St. Patrick’s Day party of all time and, most importantly, recharged the batteries for the next leg of our trip.

Your moment of zen: the waves crashing over a sunset on Beach Number 7

The view from our hotel room in Arambol

You read the blog. You can imagine how the stress level builds as in between all the amazing, rewarding and fun we are moving our home every two days.

So, after more than a month in India we came to the beach town of Arambol in the state of Goa and relaxed for six days. Originally we were just going to spend a couple of days, but after two nights we found a huge room with a terrace facing the crashing ocean and just a few minutes from swimming and hiking for a mere $10 per night and were instantly at home.

Activities were plentiful; one night we caught a show by a group of French hippies with belly dancing, acrobatics and glass ball balancing with a soundtrack of digaridoos, tablas and more. Check out a video here.

Another night we went to a Spiritual Healing Circle where we, along with 20 plus strangers, stood in a circle and made “om, ooh, eee, ahh” sounds in an effort to open up our chakras. Then we all laid in a circle with our heads facing inward as we were bathed in the sound vibrations of digaridoos, gongs, bowl edges and lord knows what else.

The entire thing was extremely calming and a fascinating experience. I can only imagine how it effects those actually in tune with their chakras and experts in meditation.

A view of Arambol, Goa (taken by Carrie)

Our neighbors were also a bunch of fun people. There was the Australian sisters next door who loved to talk and talk. Then there was the couple of Yoga instructors and next to them was Carrie’s new BFF, Petra, who was a massage therapist and an extremely open and alternative thinking woman whose brain Carrie had a blast picking.

They even took a day to go wander the hills by Arambol and the nearby Keri beach. All the while, I just sat on our balcony, looking out, typing and enjoying break time.