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Similan Island

Written by Michael Zangerle on . Posted in Thailand

Similan Island is a dive paradise 70 km away of Khao Lak. We wanted to find out and booked a daytrip with Kate. We already knew the big price difference from Perhentian but with Kate we got a great discount (still it is 2.5 times more expensive than our little island).

Still we wanted to explore the underwater world of Similan Island and with the speedboat it took us about 1 hour to get to Kho Bon – our divesite. Here we swopped boats and jumped on the liveaboard and joined more divers.

We checked our tanks as we were diving nitrox – another oxygen mixture of gas – and started to get ready. Surely Kate was our divemaster and in our group were two more experienced divers. But one of the divers didn’t feel well and before we jumped in two other divers joined our group.

With 8 other liveaboards packed with divers we started our dive. In the beginning it was still fine and we enjoyed being back in the water. The divesite had so many different Triggerfishes and we were so happy finding the Picasso Triggerfish.

Seeing the Emperor Angelfish at Perhentian Island only one divesite, here they were everywhere. Therefore you couldn’t find the Blueringed Angelfish. Unfortunately at the end we only saw fins and one of the divemasters separated our group because he dived with his in between us.

After lunch – which was really great – we checked our gas mix again and got ready for the second dive. Same divesite, this time we jumped in on the other side. As we haven’t seen a Manta at our first dive we hoped for one on our second dive.

This time the same divemaster swam between Micha and me so we got separated for a short time. We just thought, what an idiot and Kate was already annoyed and said, this guy is doing it all the time.

Nadine searching for nudibranches found some – Chromodoris and Flabellina. Her dive was saved. Suddenly out of the blue came a white tip reefshark. This fellow was curious and slowly passed us, watching closely. Micha saw two tunas passing by.

During our safety stop on 5m everybody looked around for Manta’s but we didn’t see one. Other ones had been lucky and when the came up where cheering excited. OK, than next time.

After the dive we jumped back on the speedboat and back to the mainland. For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant and felt in heaven.

Still Micha wasn’t well yet and finally went to a doctor. He got two injections – one against bacteria infection and one with high dose antibiotics. He has to stay in bed and relax. Get well soon sweety!

Accommodation: private accommodation at a friends place


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Ciao Khao Lak

Written by Michael Zangerle on . Posted in Thailand

After receiving servaral shots of antibitics Michael was on its way up again.

We entertained ourselves with Kate and Tan and dinned at the most delicious restaurants around twon. We had real Italian PIZZA and red wine and as dessert we had Tiramisu. If it was this good because of an Italian cook or because we did not had this food in a long time, we don’t care.

Out last dinner we had a a beach restaurant with the best bbq fish ever. It was a very nice evening. We did say good bye to Kate as we did not know when to see her again. She is just a very cool kid. Maybe she is working fo rus later this season? That would be very cool.

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Bangkok to Khao Lak

Written by Michael Zangerle on . Posted in Thailand

After a stopover in Bangkok we headed to the south on January 15th. After searching for a cheap ticket down to Khao Lak we left in the evening at 6pm. Micha was able to go after two days in the room recovering. The bus was a so called half sleeper with seats to put back, but not really comfortable.

We arrived in Surrathani at 6.30 am waiting for the transit bus. The tourist got separated according to their destination. So we got transport with 5 other people to a agency where they tried to sell us the minivan leaving immediately with no stops to Khao Lak.

We decided to wait and safe money. We did pay actually for the ride, so why pay more? The funniest part was that our bus stooped at another agency to pick up 8 tourists for Phuket. These guys were pretty angry. They had to pay 200 Baht on top off what they paid in Bangkok to get on the bus to Phuket. Yeah, this is Thailand, watch out not to get ripped off. It will happen to you anyway…

Khao Lak is 5 hours with the bus. The bus was crowded so people had to stay some hours. We jumped on the bus early so we got a seat for the trip. Some minutes before arrival a tire exploded so we had to wait till this got fixed. After 20 hours we arrived in Khao Lak.

We missed Kate because they closed the office till 3 pm. So we went for breakfast/lunch till 3 pm, but they came to open the office at 4 pm, one hour late. We met Kate’s boyfriend and Kate came from her dives around 5 pm. We were quite happy to get to her apartment to take a shower.

Unfortunately I got what Micha had. So now it was me not leaving the apartment. The way to the beach appeared so long, but I had to get out into the sun. Next day we went to see the International Tsunami Museum to get background information about what and how this all happened in 2004. Very fascinating was police boat 813. The Tsunami pushed it 1.5 miles into shore. The captain headed full speed to the ocean, but got pushed back anyway. There are still more than 40.000 people missing.

P.S.: For having enough pills for the Island Nadine got birth control pill in Bangkok. It costs hear 4,6 Euro. The same product costs in Germany 6sixtimes as much. Unbelievable!

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