Category: Travel

Koh Samui – Dr Frogs @ Chaweng Noi

We were told that there is nothing nice to eat in Koh Samui. Hen, who stayed in Chaweng, didn’t find any place that was tasty enough worth mentioning. In fact, he went to couple of bad restaurants.

However, Dr. Frogs was one of the places we had dinner and it was quite good. It is located next to Lad Koh View Point and it faces the sea. They claimed that they serves Italian cuisine with a full Thai menu. They also boosted to have the best pizza in town.

The interior of Dr. Frogs is mainly wood and the atmosphere was indeed very nice. The draw back of this place is the price. A single meal could costs up to RM80.

Since they boosted that they were voted to have the best pizza, we ordered their seafood marinara pizza. I also ordered a plate of carbonara. The dishes took a while to come but the wait was well worth it.

The pizza was fking awesome! It came with a thin crust and also big and fresh scallops . I wish I could remember how it tasted like but at the time I wrote this entry, I forgot how it tasted like. FML!!


View of the bottom.

Nevertheless, if you are in Koh Samui and have some money to spare, try out Dr Frogs @ Chaweng Noi.

Address
193 Moo 3, Bophut
Koh Samui 84320
Thailand
Mobile: 081 956 7017
Tel: 077 413 797
Website: http://www.drfrogssamui.com

Koh Samui – Lad Koh Viewpoint

Lad Koh Viewpoint, also known as “Zenith viewpoint” is located right at the Koh Samui ring road leaving Chaweng southbound in the direction of Lamai.

This place offers a splendid view over the whole Chaweng bay area. It is just a few blocks away from my hotel. Parking space is ample.


Drove my Jeep there

The place is nicely built with path towards the rocky sea shore. But if possible, avoid the place as it is infested with mosquitoes and also sand flies.


aHen doing his “God of Gambler” pose


Can rock climb too!

There is actually nothing to do at this place other than taking a few nice photographs. But if you want to take some nice panoramic pictures, head to Lad Koh Viewpoint!

Koh Samui – Ang Thong National Marine Park – Koh Kua Talap

Ok, back to my Ang Thong National Marine Park, Koh Samui entries! This would also be my last entry on Ang Thong National Marine Park.

Koh Kua Talap was our last destination for the day. In Koh Kua Talap, we may choose to hang around the beach, explore a cave or hike up a hill which overlooks the entire island and its surroundings.

We opted for the hike up the hill. The hike up was fairly easy. Further, there were ropes to help us climb the hill. The hike is about half an hour upwards. It is highly recommended that shoes are worn during the hike. But I saw some guai lous going bare foot notwithstanding that there were red ants and spiky rocks everywhere.


At the entrance to the trails!


Up up!


View from first observation deck

After going through some steep mud trails, we ended up one a rocky surface which lead us to the observation deck.

The view from the observation deck is absolutely breath taking!


Cannot go further up..


Small yellow dots are actually kayaks!

After snapping some pictures, we made our way down to chill at the beach.


This is the place where everyone can store their bags


woah..bikini chicks..

After hanging out at the beach for an hour, we were ferried back to Koh Samui! Great place!

Koh Samui – Ang Thong National Marine Park – Part I

On our 2nd day, we made a trip to Ang Thong National Marine Park.

Ang Thong National Marine Park consists of 40 over islands featuring lime stone massifs, tropical rain forests and deserted beaches within the vicinity of Koh Samui. To get there, we had to take an hour boat ride from Koh Samui.

Our trip was arranged by a local tour by the name Samui Island Tour. It costs around 1850 Bath (before discount. We got a 20% discount as a friend knows the boss there)

The journey started around 7am when the tour guide picked us up from our hotel. We almost couldn’t wake up for it. Who said holiday is to relax.

After a short ride from our hotel, we were greeted by a red coloured boat.


We sat by the side of the boat.


Most of the passengers are Caucasians.

Breakfast was provided but it was just light food. Shouldn’t eat so much when sitting in a boat as one can get seasick easily.


Eat Bananas guai lous!


Top deck


Bottom deck – where the toilet is…which is just next to the kitchen..uuuhh..


/(*O*)\ our boatman driving with his feet while reading papers!!

While on the boat, this song suddenly played on my head.

Mindless lyrics but yet entertaining.

An hour later, we stopped beside a cliff of an island and immediately got off our boat via a kayak. Each of us were given a life jacket which stink big time.

However, after getting into the kayak, we were not allowed to kayak on our own but to follow the tour guide.

The tour guide lead us some interesting sights including some nice limestone hills.


I hate this stuff


Our boat ditched us


Nice jugs!! Made me feel like jumping off the kayak to climb them.

To be continued…

Koh Samui – Overview

My 3 days trip to Koh Samui was great. It was an exhausting but fun trip. I wish could spend more time there.

Koh Samui is an island located at the Gulf of Thailand. It neighbours Koh Pha Ngan, another island which is well known for its full moon party. Other than Koh Pha Ngan, there are various islands around Koh Samui including Ang Thong Marine Park which consists of 40 over islands.

Koh Samui wasn’t the place that I expected it to be. It was like a scattered town with a few spots for tourist. It is highly commercialised and highly popular with Western travellers. I heard that David Beckham and Robbie Williams even own a place in Koh Samui.

A and I took a flight from Subang airport via Firefly. The airport has changed tremendously since I last came here 2 years ago for my Langkawi trip. The interior is now nicer and there are loads of new shops.


Subang Airport

It took us 2 hours from Subang airport to reach Koh Samui airport.


It was pretty cold so I had A’s cardigan on…damn ghey


Ahoy!

I must say that Koh Samui airport was impressive. It had an open styled concept. It felt like a hotel!


Even the toilet has an aquarium. Reminds me of Bali’s airport.

Our hotel, Hotel Impiana, picked us from the airport. Our hotel is located along the famous Chaweng Beach but at the least commercialised area. There were hardly any shops along our road.

I must say that the hotel is quite nice. Great interior and surroundings.

We were initially given a room facing the road but we learn from comments from the Internet that rooms facing the main road are noisy. The other available room faces the pool but we had to wait 2 hours for the hotel to sort out the room. Since we had 2 hours to spare, we rented a Jeep from the hotel for 1000Bath/day (should be lower if I went to shop around for better prices). I heard that taxis are fairly expensive in Koh Samui and the other alternative is songthaews, which I heard slaughters tourist. A motorbike was not an option as the last time I rode a bike was more than 10 years ago.

Driving a Jeep was no easy task and I almost had an accident before I could step into the Jeep. What happened was that someone forgot free the Jeep’s gear and I started the Jeep when I was outside. The Jeep startled front and hit a bush. Thank god no major damage.


Backseat – damn small

We spent our 3 days doing various activities such kayaking, hiking, swimming and even a Muay Thai class.There were hardly anytime to rest and we came home with a bruised knee and sore calves.

Overall, Koh Samui trip was well spent. Many thanks to A for the air tickets and hotel. More details soon!

Featured on Sin Chew Newspaper!

w00t!


Mum said I look 40 years old here. Perhaps ill look like this when I’m 40.

You can read the article at Sin Chiew’s website or download the article here. It’s a 2 page article posted on the Cyberworld section. I didn’t write the article but I contributed the cases – which took me an hour to compile. I wasn’t expecting anything, probably a small acknowledgment. I didn’t expect my face to be there.

Frankly, I can’t read or write Chinese well. I have a general idea on what was mentioned in the article but not in detail. Aaahh whyyy wasn’t I sent to Chinese schoooolllll…knsss

p/s: got a new client through the article!

[Edit: A rough translation of the article in English can be seen here]

Kota Kinabalu 2009: Restauran Malaysia @ Beaufort

After our trip to Kuala Penyu, we stopped by Beaufort, a small town located outskirt of Kota Kinabalu.

We initially wanted to try Beaufort noodles at one popular Chinese coffee shop but it was closed.

We ended up at one Muslim restaurant by the name Malaysia Restaurant. Although a Muslim restaurant, it is run by a Chinese Muslim man.

The recommended dishes of this place are their Butter Pao and Kuih Bom.


Yam cake! So-so only though.


Pao is served on a plate. Take as many as you like. The rest you can leave it there.

The butter pao is filled with butter but ‘lai yau’, a yellowish sweet filling. The bread is green in colour. It tasted damn good. So good that I had 2 pieces of it!

Kuih Bom on the other hand is an egg shaped pastry (supposed to look like a bomb though). The outer layer is as hard as an egg shell. I had to use force to crack the layer. The filling of kuih bom is hollow with few strands of turnip inside. It was my first time seeing such item and the taste was rather unique. It wasn’t sweet but it was salty.

Map (rough estimation)

Address
Restoran Malaysia
Lot 14, Block B,
Beaufort Jaya,
89808 Beaufort,
Sabah

Tel: (00)(60) 087 223 548

Website: http://littleitaly.fortunecity.com/cremona/18/

Kota Kinabalu 2009: Menumbuk

Menumbuk is a small village located not far from Kuala Penyu.

It has a small port which allows people to take a boat to Labuan Island. We made a trip down to to the port to check out the scenery.


Rusty Ship…

The name ‘Menumbuk’ means punching in Malay. There are 2 legends which gave rise to the name ‘Menumbuk’. The first being through a fish by the name ‘menumbok’ fish according to local dialect which was extra ordinary huge. Second version is about a time when a river which flowed to the sea during high tide and caused a punching effect. Doesn’t make any sense to me though.

There were not many things to see in Menumbuk port.


There was a Chinese temple cum car park though.

The other end of the port has a small beach which one can see Labuan Island.


Hmm..where is Labuan..

Barely an hour in Menumbuk, we left for Beaufort for lunch.

Kota Kinabalu 2009: Kuala Penyu – Part II

KP town only has few rows of shop. There are couple of convenient stores and coffeeshops. There’s also a video arcade filled with kids. Got Daytona. Not bad.

We had drinks at one of the coffeeshops in the town. Nothing good to eat. Their yao char kuai tasted like bread as it had too much flour.

As we will be heading to Menumbuk (in Malay it means punching), we took a toilet break at the coffeeshop. The owner found an ingenious way to replace their broken lock I.e with a string and long nail.


tadaa~

Next stop: Menumbuk