Koh Talu

My husband is big on diving with over 500 dives under his belt. Since his equipment was stolen many years ago, the only chance he has had to go diving was when he was doing underwater lighting for film. Originally, we had several friends that were going to join us on Koh Phi Phi who all have their dive licences and they were all going to go diving together. I'm the only one that doesn't have a dive licence but I was happy to snorkel around them or hang at the beach while they enjoyed themselves. I just didn't have time to get it before I left. Unfortunately, at the last minute they all had to cancel so we changed our plans, booked in a different area altogether and had to scrap the diving.

I did insist to Byrd that I didn't mind if he went diving on his own but he said he was just as happy snorkelling with me and he never managed to find his dive licence before he left anyways. The water around the resort is pretty murky, you can't see anything at all, so we took a day trip out to Koh Talu which is about 2 hours south of Hua Hin. It's still not as clear as Koh Phi Phi but it was still much better then where we were staying and sounded like a fun way to spend a day. We got up at 5:15 am so we could make it out to Hau Hin via motorbike for 7am. We were a little frustrated that the tour company could not pick us up at our hotel, especially because we were on the way, but we just couldn't convince the operator, although I suspect language difficulties were to blame. As it was we had to bike 40 minutes to Hau Hin before the sun even came up, then backtrack on the bus to where we just were and go farther south. And of course, at the end of the day we would have to bike all the way back again. We probably should have booked it through the hotel or tried to get someone thai to speak to the operater but whats done is done...

We picked up a "Breakfast box" from reception that consisted of blt sandwiches and orange juice and headed into town in the wee hours of the morning. This time I got my GPS out and followed it the whole way - we didn't have time to get lost! We hopped on an air-conditioned minibus, picked up several other passengers and then made the 2 hour trek to Koh Talu. We ended up at a dock and hopped onto a speedboat that took us to the island. Its named "talu" which means "hole" (I believe) because of a large limestone hole at one end of the island. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it, I thought we would be coming back to it so didn't bother. But the island is much larger then I expected it to be.

I thought we would have time to get changed so we didn't put on our bathing suits. The boat ended up taking us straight to a diving platform so we did a little bit of towel-changing-magic instead. Our day started off a little bit rough thanks to a nasty Dutch woman who snapped at my husband after he kindly asked her if he'd accidentally taken her towel. He just realized all the towels looked the same and wanted to make sure he had the right one. But she immediately started screaming at him, saying "don't touch my stuff!" In the end he did have the right towel and we tried our best to ignore her, but really she was the only unkind person we encountered in all of Thailand. We grabbed a snorkel and mask and dove in!

We spent quite a bit of time snorkelling around this one area and then we moved to another, deeper spot where we swam around for another 30 minutes. It was nice not having to use a lifejacket. Both myself and my husband are very strong swimmers and we both like to dive down deeper into the water, having a personal floatation device around you makes that really difficult! After we had swam up an appetite we stopped for a nice buffet lunch and had the rest of the afternoon to wander around the island, be beach bunnies or generally do whatever we felt like. We read for awhile, I tried to get a tan but it was too damn hot and the sunscreen was burning my face worse then the sun was so I gave that up pretty quick... I don't know how all these leather looking tanned people do it! I can't stay in the sun very long before I overheat and get uncomfortable. It's just not in me. I did however want to get SOME colour on me before I came back to Canada just as pale as when I left!

We sat by shore, swam for a bit, managed to find a couple of masks and snorkels and then it was time to head back. We were both exhausted, sun beat and ready for bed. Unfortunately we also had to wait for everybody else to be dropped off at their hotels, one which was literally down the street from ours.... (that one really hurt) and then get dropped off last in Hua Hin where we had to make our way back to where we just were... an hour ago. The sun was already gone so we stayed and had dinner before getting our sore asses back on the bike and heading home. 

Road trip!

We decided to get our own wheels and tour around Hua Hin and Pranburi for a couple of days. I had wanted to see the teakwood palace that was about an hour away and we figured we would get our own moped, save the price of an excursion and enjoy the sights along the way. The teakwood palace was the home of King Rama the 6th I believe, who only lived there for a year before he sadly died. But he obviously started a trend because King Rama the 7th built a home here as well and it is the regular residence of the current King, King Rama the 9th, who lives in Hua Hin most of the time.

We got lost almost right away, of course, and ended up having to take several detours and at one point turn back. But eventually we made it to the general area of the teakwood palace. You would think it would be easy to find right? Of course not! I saw one tiny sign pointing us in the right direction otherwise there wasn't a clue around. We did happen to find a parking lot full of packs and machine guns though! Apparently the palace is also inside a military base, and here we were just wandering around on our own. We were soooo close but still couldn't find the place, even though we kept asking anyone we saw.

I did find this random tiger sculpture though! Finally we narrowed it down and figured out where it was, but we still couldn't figure out how to get in. Nobody seemed to be around. We managed to talk to a security guard who told us that the palace was "closed today, come back tomorrow." Of course! It seems that is the rule of our trip - nothing will go as planned! No way were we coming back tomorrow after several hours wasted already on the bike. I managed to convince someone to let us in to the grounds but we were only able to see the palace from the outside and see the gardens, no matter how much I asked and begged to be let in!

THIS is as close to the palace as I got... you just have to shake your head and laugh!

I was tempted to sneak in, but then remembered the machine guns... 

Thankfully there was a bit to see outside of the main grounds so we wandered around for quite a bit. There was a wooden walkway through a mangrove forest that was pretty neat, I even got to see a real life Mudskipper! Anyone remember "Muddy the Mudskipper"??? They DO exist! There was one house outside that we could at least look at, but couldn't go into. Very pretty and so was the beach. As we were heading back to see the sculpture of King Rama VI a big group of soldiers started walking our way, machine guns in hand. For a moment we wondered if we weren't really supposed to be there but realized they were doing a drill, complete with Thai, I don't even know what to call it... military chanting? You know, the old "I don't know and I don't care" type of shouting? It was kind of neat to see! Still not as cool as seeing the actual teakwood palace but close enough....

Mangrove forest/swamp.

Walkway through the mangrove forest.

Thought these pencil-like roots sticking out looked cool.

Can you spot the mudskipper??

Muddy!

Looking for more mudskippers. 

Mangrove roots. 

Mangrove roots and the river.

Interesting... 

The one house we could look at, from the outside that is... 

It certainly is impressive though! Imagine how nice the real residence is.. 

Beach outside the palace.

Military troops inside the grounds. 

I didn't want to get too close, but this was really cool to witness!

King Rama VI monument. 

Apparently he liked Rottweilers too, these reminded me of our old dog Cassie. 

Who climbed up there to place those flowers I wonder... 

Flower offerings for King Rama VI. 

Flower arrangement at the entrance to the palace. 

This helped stop me from sneaking in! I was tempted... we came all this way.

Once we saw all there was to see we headed back to Hua Hin city to have lunch and find a travel agent so we could book a snorkelling day trip for the next day. We managed to do both and went back to the resort to call it a night. Our butts were sore and we had to be up really, really early the next day to swim with the fishes.

Cooling down in our private pool. 

My husband getting "arty" on me... 

A great place to unwind at the end of the day. 

Valentine's Day in Thailand.

Once I realized that we would be in Thailand for Valentine's Day I knew we had to do something special. We were already staying at a beautiful place that just screamed romance but we managed to make the day even better, believe it or not. To start I actually woke up as the sun was rising, naturally! To anyone that knows me, you know I'm no morning person, but this was so beautiful, it could wake even me... Miss "5 more minutes". Once I got outside I realized that our breakfast table had already been set with glasses, linens and cutlery. Now THIS is how to wake me up!!! Take notice world!

We lounged around for an hour or two until breakfast arrived right out front of our room. It was delish! Afterwards we were off to the spa for a two hour "Earth Herbal Detox" couples treatment that consisted of a coffee body scrub, herbal body wrap and hot herbal ball massage.

Our treatments were lovely and took place on the 3rd floor above the restaurant, overlooking the sea. To start off we were scrubbed head to toe in coffee grinds which felt soooo good on my itchy bug bites. We looked like we had just bathed in a coffee pot when we went to the shower, it took quite a bit of work to get it all off! Then we were covered in an herbal cream and wrapped up for 30 minutes while we enjoyed a nice scalp massage off and on. Just about as powerful as the first herbal body wrap I had, Byrd really enjoyed it too. So relaxing. We washed that off as well and after our third change of disposable underwear (which was see-through mesh, why bother?) we went back to the table to have steamed herbal ball massages. I was really looking forward to experiencing this since it was one of the few Thai treatments I hadn't yet experienced professionally. Since I do this treatment at home and had learned in Chiang Mai how to make them, I wanted to see first hand how it was done. I loved it. The therapist was very skilled and used the steam and herbs to warm up my muscles before pressing in deeper and really working out all the tension. One nice touch I may add to my treatments was as she was waiting for the ball to cool a bit to be able to work on my skin, she would place her palm on the ball to absorb the heat and then quickly replace her warm hand on my skin. She did this in a fast pattern as a nice opening sequence. She also worked very deeply with the balls which felt great and combined it with palming over the sheets and deep elbow presses. Even my husband who isn't a big fan of Thai massages loved it!

After our treatments we headed back to our room to chill out for a bit and then enjoyed a nice lunch in the restaurant looking out over the resort and ocean. We had some fancy cocktails and I tried out their version of a club sandwich that also included pineapple and an egg. It was actually really tasty and a nice change! We went back to our villa and they were already getting set up on the beach for our fancy dinner. I collected a bunch of jasmine flowers that had fallen from the jasmine tree next to our place and arranged them in our initials and then in a heart. I had watched the couple next to us doing the same thing the day before and thought it was really adorable. I didn't realize until later that jasmine flowers symbolize fertility! Uh oh! I rearranged the heart on the beach where we were all set up for our romantic beach dinner and we waited until it was time to dine, relaxing on our lounge chairs, talking about life and enjoying the day.

The wind was really picking up and the staff had a hard time keeping the candles lit but they kept trying anyways. No matter, as long as we could see what we were eating we were good. We had picked our dishes the night before, with ingredients being the only clue. A menu designed for love, served on the beach, how special is that? (the rosewater jelly was to die for btw...)

As the sun went down, it was time for dinner. And we weren't the only ones romancing at the resort, just before we headed to the beach Ryan Gosseling and Eva Mendez were walking up heading to their room. Apparently they were staying at the same place for a couple of days while he was filming a new movie in Bangkok. Geez - they let anyone in here! ;) A huge bouquet of flowers was taken to our table which was a nice surprise, until I realized a few days later that I had actually paid for them! They had sent us an email a week before we arrived asking us if there was anything they could set up for us before our arrival and I had mentioned that "flowers would be a nice touch". I didn't realize they would come out at dinner and cost me $40 though! Ah well... they were beautiful. I even pulled out a bunch and made a new smaller bouquet for the nice lady who served us who we lovingly nicknamed "Buffalo" after her reaction to our conversation about buffalo meat. She was adorable and worked so hard all night, I thought she deserved some flowers of her own. Dinner was excellent, we savoured every bite and talked long into the night about our future, our dreams and our relationship. Then after one dance on the sand, headed back to our porch to relax on the loungers, looking up at the stars. It was a Valentines we won't soon forget.