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26th August 2011
Today I caught a taxi to Chinatown to have a look around including a visit to Binh Tay Market (Chợ Bình Tây) which is larger than Ben Thanh Market in District 1 and less touristy.
I also went to Saigon Railway Station and booked my tickets to Nha Trang and back. I had asked the hotel to book them for me but they said they rang the station several times and no one answered. I wanted to get a lower level soft sleeper in both directions but could only get a hard upper sleeper going up and an upper soft sleeper coming back. The total cost was 953,000 Dong (which is about $48). I leave Saigon at 11pm tomorrow (arriving in Nha Trang around 5.30am) and return to Saigon at 5am on the 31st and go straight to the airport to fly back to Bangkok.
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25th August 2011
I am in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam for a few days. The original plan was to spend four days here doing nothing much other than walking around and having a few Saigon beers with the locals. I came across a local "bar" (it is not actually a bar but simply a few tables and chairs on the footpath) - that was just around the corner from my hotel - it is not a tourist bar but a place where the locals go for a beer (they only sell beer, no food - the address is 10 Truong Dinh and the owner's name is Hung Cam - not far from Ben Thanh market) the owners and customers are very friendly even if language is a bit of a problem. I spent a couple of hours there each day for three days and picked up quite a few insights into the local people.
Since I have been here I have decided to extend my trip by four days and go to Nha Trang - I will be going via the overnight train in both directions.
Whilst in Nha Trang I will be visiting the beach, local restaurants and also plan to have a BBQ lobster on the beach.
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17th August 2011
Back home in Jomtien and working hard - I have been updating the City Directory sites and have added mobile versions for them all. Also I have done the photo gallery of my Sri Lanka trip (not a lot of photos as it was just a beach hopping trip) and also the Photo Gallery of ermany (The Germany photos were taken during 2008 when I made several trips to Bremen).
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6th August 2011
Yesterday was a complete waste of time - I caught the train to Bentota and it was raining quite hard when I arrived and the beach was closed due to rough seas. Once the rain eased I went for a walk along the beach only to discover that the bulk of the beach is taken up by self contained resorts with no public access. Also there is no town of Bentota simply a rilway station and a group of resorts along the beach. I decided to have lunch in a restaurant behind the railway station and then catch the 3.30pm train to Colombo.
The 3.30pm train to Colombo arrived at 4pm and was full (all seats were taken and most of the standing room) so I passed two hours protecting my standing spot on the train. I spent the night in Colombo in a cheap hotel (I think it was a brothel as they seemed to rent rooms by the hour) near the station so that I could catch the early train to Negombo.
I am now in Negombo at a guest house on the beach - I caught the train fom Colombo (about 30 kilometres away but the train trip took two hours - no high speed trains in Sri Lanka) - I plan on a walk down the beach and then just relax.
Sri Lanka Photo Gallery
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4th August 2011
Have moved on to Narigama Beach which is terrible - the place is like a ghost town and all the hotels seem to be closed or empty (including Neela's Guest House where I am - I saw two other people here but the restaurant is closed) and the beach is totally deserted and pretty awful anyway.
I walked up the road to Hikkaduwa (about two kilometres) and there were a few people around but it also looks like it has never recovered from the 2004 Tsunami.
Tomorrow I am planning to catch the train to Bentota where I will probably stay for the night. The beach is supposed to be good but I will wait and see.
On the next day (6th) I will catch the train to the capital, Colombo, and straight on to Negombo for the night before flying out to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok the following day.
The highlight of the trip so far (and I think it will stay that way) has been Unawatuna Beach.
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Since I wrote the above I went for walk and had a couple of beers at a place called Hotel Blue Note. This hotel is on the beach at Narigama just up the road from where I am staying. I asked the waiter why it was so deserted and he told me it was because it was the "Off Season" - he said that during the "Peak Season" (November to April) the hole place would be full - for the following reasons:
The tourist season is mainly linked to the European winter as the Europeans come here to escape the cold.
The Ocean is calmer as the onshore winds are not present (as they are now)
To be honest I am a bit scepticle of his story but he could be right. I also noticed that there is a lot of "Stuff" in the sea that I think relates to coral spawning - it looks like soap scum but attaches itself to any available body hair and is hard to remove (think chewing gum).
At the moment the onshore winds are not that strong although the sea is very rough and dangerous.
If I visit Sri Lanka again I will do so in the tourist season to see the difference.
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3rd August 2011
Have moved on from Madiha Beach and am now at Unawatuna Beach which is just south of Galle. I was booked into a hotel called Ocean Hill but on arrival they tried to charge me more than the booking stated (plus I did not like the place) so I moved down the road to the Peacock Guest House that is right on the beach (and much, much, much better than Ocean Hill). I got room number 1 on the first floor with a balcony overlooking the beach. The Beach is better thn the beaches around Matara mainly because Unawatuna Beach is sheltered from the prevailing sea breeze. I have been here two hours as I type this and this beach is certainly within my personal top ten (and maybe withing my top five).
Tomorrow I will go into Galle to have a look around and then go on to Narigama Beach which is close to Hikkaduwa and only about twenty kilometres north of Galle.
This entire area was devastated by the 2004 Tsunami and even though a lot of rebuilding has taken place there are still many empty, destroyed homes.
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2nd August 2011
Have arrived in Madiha Beach which is close to Matara, Sri Lanka. Today involved a fair bit of travelling concluding with the four hour train trip from Colombo to Matara - this train trip was the roughest I have ever encountered and I was surprised the train stayed on the track. The train route is pretty much straight down the coast and at times the track comes within metres of the beach.
The hotel I am staying in, The Beach Inns Resort, is right on the beach and within two minutes of arrival I saw a large turtle swimming around only a few metres from the hotels beach garden area - there were also fishemen on poles fishing in the surf.
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30th July 2011
Tomorrow I leave on my "Beach Hopping" tour of Sri Lanka. I catch the bus to Bangkok airport where I will stay overnight as my flight to Kuala Lumpur leaves early. I will also be staying overnight in Kuala Lumpur before flying on to Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Once in Sri Lanka my plan is to catch the train down the west coast to Matara in the south of Sri Lanka (the end of the train line) - I am staying at Madiha Beach. On the second day I will head North as far as Galle and will be staying at Unawatuna Beach. The following day I will go further north to Narigama Beach which is close to Hikkaduwa. I have no fixed plans for the next day but will probably keep heading north towards Colombo. I plan to spend my final night at Negombo Beach which is about 40 kilometres north of the capital Colombo and close to the airport.
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16th July 2011
Kota Kinabalu was not quite as good as I had expected and is very much like Penang (which I also did not really like). I think the tourist organisations for these places grossly exagerate the number and quality of the things to do and see.
I went on a afternoon/evening cruise to see the Proboscis monkey in the wild - the trip was OK and we did see Proboscis monkeys, Macaque monkeys and another variety of monkey whose name I cannot remember. Most of the monkeys were in tree tops a fair way from the bank of the river so it was quite hard to see them clearly without binoculars and to get any decent photos would require a camera/lens combination costing many thousands of dollars.
I also visited Sapi Island one of the three popular islands just off the coast of Kota Kinabalu. I did a trek over and around the island which included startling a couple of very large monitor lizards. The beach on the island is quite good and was not crowded or overdeveloped. Once lunchtime came and some people started to BBQ and a group of around ten monitor lizards appeared looking for scraps.
Overall the trip was "OK" but nothing more - I doubt that I will ever return.
If I ever decide to visit Borneo again I will probably go to Kuching.
I leave for Sri Lanka on 1st August and plan to travel by train down the South West coast from Colombo and check out the beaches.
Kota Kinabalu Photo Gallery
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