Saturday, 31 October 2015

31st October 2015



Many Happy Returns Fiona!
We hope you have a special birthday.
Remember, don't drink and fly!!

;-D

We shall be thinking of you.

Love and hugs,
Jenny & Simone
XXX

30th October 2015

Welcome into the world our Great Neice

Emily Rose Chaplin
  
Born today at 07.10hrs 
&
Weighing 6lbs 4oz




Elaine and Sean, 

A huge congratulations to you both.
You must be so very proud!! 

X  X  X

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

28th October 2015

So, since we have been back, I have been working almost constantly on moving a website to a different host.

Needless to say, an easy task became a very difficult task... For the geeks, it was all about MySQL and the database I was using for Wordpress. For the non geeks... it was a hard job.!

Jenny has been Eco Queen every day conducting dive site clean ups, Drupella snail collections, and Clam Nursery work.



We found a new restaurant called Babaloo... Its slightly out of the way, but they have a Vegetarian menu, with Thai dishes made with fake veggie meat. It is so tasty... Jen loves it too... The first attempt to go up the hill to restaurant, didn't work to well, and ended up with Jen bailing out and me accidentally touching the exhaust with my leg.



A few days later, and the burn is scabbing nicely... I don't expect any scar from it, which is good.

The monsoon seems to have arrived... with some heavy rain in the last 2 days, however today is lovely and sunny... we shall see how long that lasts...


x


SD



Saturday, 24 October 2015

24 October 2015



Wishing you a very Happy Birthday Joel!!
Have a brilliant day.
Sending lots of love
Jenny & Simon
X



Thursday, 22 October 2015

Tubing Snaps

Got a couple of snaps through from the Tubing...




Tuesday, 20 October 2015

19th / 20th October 2015

So, continuing from the last post.

We caught a taxi to ChinaTown, where we walked through the flea market. I found some sunglasses (I lost mine a couple of weeks ago). So I haggled hard and came away with 2 for the price of 1. That put a bee in Jen's bonnet, and she set of on a mission to find some flip flops at a bargain... It took 30 minutes but eventually she found some at a good price.

We moved away from ChinaTown and walked a few streets to find the dingy little restaurant that we always visit when we come to KL.

Walking in we sat at the same chairs as we always do and perused the menu (all vegetarian!).



As always, we order a ton of stuff... but Jenny seemed to think it was all hers...



I managed to convince Jen to let me have some. It was a selection of Fried Rice and Barbecue Ribs (fake meat), and Black Pepper steak (fake meat). As always,we stuffed ourselves while the owner (mad as a hatter) put on some old 50's american music and shuffled around in his slippers.

Time to pay, and a bargain as always... we left and picked up a cab to return to the hotel. Stopping at the hotel, we thought we would grab a beer opposite... which turned out to be a rather large beer... but we got to keep the glasses!!



Next stop was bed... waking early the next morning to go Tubing in the Genting highlands about an hour North of KL. 

We met Chen (the owner) at 7am outside our hotel and drove North to a small town where we had a Malay breakfast of Roti and Curry...Jen of course, slept on the way...



 Then we went to the tubing.  I didn't take a camera but Chen took photos along the way so hopefully I should receive them soon, and will upload to Facebook.

The river was cold, rough at times, and I ended up more out of the tube than in... I really need to work on my balance.!!

Reaching the bottom of the white water river a couple of hours later, a bit bruised and battered, we had a cup of coffee and returned to the small town where we had some lunch. Lunch was another local dish called Curry Laksa (spicy noodle soup), and Jen and I thought it was really tasty.!

Then it was time to return to the hotel. We had a great time with Chen... what a great tour guide... I put a nice review on Tripadvisor for his company.. well worth it.

While Jen snoozed for an hour, I looked up cinema times, and then we went out for a quick bite and then to the cinema to watch "The Martian" what a great movie!!

Leaving the movie at 11:45pm... it was time for bed, as we need to leave for the airport the next morning..

x

SD



Monday, 19 October 2015

18/19th October 2015

It was time for our visa run.

Usually we would head off to border bounce through Myanmar (Burma). Perfectly legal, but a horrible journey. However with our return flight in January I calculated that we needed to be out of Thailand for 3 days, or we would have to visa run just before our flight back to the UK in Jan. So, after a bit of researching, I found us some bargain flights to Kuala Lumpur for less than 40 quid return.!

On the 18th, I woke at 3:30am and began preparing. Jen woke at 4:50am with a cup of tea ready. We left Koh Tao just before 6am on the ferry to Surat Thani.

Once we had arrived at the mainland a few hours later, we jumped on a coach to the airport. Another hour later and we were at the airport. Checked in and time to research some activities in KL.


The flight was only an hour and a half. Then it was time to get a taxi to the City Centre (1 hour) and to our room at Fraser Place while Jen watched some Eastenders.


Arriving at our room, pleasantly surprised by its look and location... we took some snaps and went to get some supplies of food and water. 





Retiring pretty early, we got up the next day, ready for breakfast and a sweep of the malls for some bits I needed.

Breakfast was pretty dire... Jens poached eggs...  well I don't really need to say anything about those..


Then we hit the road, walking from mall to mall, and being fascinated by the poor air quality. The "haze" has been caused by massive forest fires in Indonesia (further South) and has affected a fair section of South East Asia...



We went into several malls, including one with a roller coaster on the 5th floor!! 




After we had seen the roller coaster... it was time for The Escape Rooms. We had done an Escape Room in Bangkok... and we signed up for 2 games (big discount)...



 Boy did we regret it later... we both got really annoyed and angry at the randomness of the solutions that we were mean't to try and come up with. Some of the locks were not working, leading us to believe we were not solving puzzles correctly.... and on the 2nd game. we buzzed for help after 15 minutes... the guy came in and was confused about how we had entered into another room without finding the right clues... When I explained how we got the 4 digit number to enter the room... he dismissed it as lucky and told us what we had done wrong...  Needless to say, Jen and I left there vowing never to go back.!

Thats it for now... We are back at the apartment, getting ready for an evening in ChinaTown, visiting the real old school restaurant (kinda) that we visited on our honeymoon...







Sunday, 11 October 2015

12th October 2015

Morning!!!

So... not much to tell....

We are heading into the low season which means its time to start concentrating on other things.

Crystal is having a refurbishment (hooray!!), and is starting with a new equipment room which will be double the size of the old one...


After the equipment room, the plan is to knock down the old reception and build new offices... we shall see...!

A couple of days ago there was a fund raiser at the Trapeze company for the Koh Tao Rescue crew. These guys are medics that will come to any accident (basically its our 999). They run purely on donations and the evening raised over £3000 for them.




Strangely enough, Jenny had to call them that morning, while she was cycling. She witnessed a bike crash and 1 of the guys broke a bone in their shoulder. The Rescue guys were there in a flash..

I have been working solidly on a new website for Eco. Jenny has been working with a eco student who was only here for a few days. Today, she went to the Save Koh Tao office to help out a Dutch couple she met, who are building a structure to put down at BioRock next week.

She had a go at welding... and even though sometimes was frustrated with it, she enjoyed it a lot.


Thats it... In a few days we are heading to Kuala Lumpur for a visa run, and staying for 3 days... I have booked a day of River Tubing, so it should be fun!

x

SD

Wednesday, 7 October 2015

8th October 2015

Cor Blimey!!


Where does the time go....!

So, everyday has been long days conducting videography courses and then straight on to Self Reliant Courses. Adrienn and Istvan (Both from Hungary), had a great time, and are planning their future career change. They were certainly not pleased to be heading home...



I managed to get one day off, and I spent that with my 3rd attempt at baking bread. This time I managed to figure out what I had got wrong on the first 2 attempts. It seems I have been using too much flour and because of this, the bread has been very dense.  Anyway... it worked out very well, with me topping it off with some Pita Bread and some Naan Bread to go with the Curry Pie I also made.



Beside all the culinary delights I have been knocking up... and the 14 hour days I have been working... well Jenny is still going Eco crazy, doing stuff most days, beach cleans, clam measurements, etc.

I was going to write this blog yesterday, but as soon as I woke up I was sick, and for the rest of the day I could barely move from the bed. Today, I am feeling much better, just very weak... must have been a bug...


x


SD