Tips and tricks for Bangkok, Thailand

Thailand is a beautiful country and so does Bangkok. The city welcomes you with all its cosmopolitan texture and modern look along with the tradition old character in core. However, behind all the beauty of Bangkok, there still lies some evil big city spirit from which you need to protect yourself.

As usual everything starts at the airport upon your arrival! If you arrive to the new Bangkok Airport ( Suvamabhumi - BKK), you face with a stunningly modern and majestic terminal. Normally, everything goes smoothly at BKK up until you try to get a taxi. There are some stewards directing you to the taxis going to downtown, like in JFK. They normally ask you the destination. In this position, I highly recommend you to ask the ballpark taxi fare INCLUDING the highway tolls. Because you don't notice how much they charge, in the dark toll collection plazas in a language you don't know at all, for the highway (around 70 THB normally). The drivers might charge as much as the meter count (between 200-400 THB) for the highway which is not the actual cost obviously. So just for precoution, double check the taxi fare and make the driver accept that price before get on the cab. The other fact about the taxis at BKK is that they are extremely old cars. So don't be surprised if you get in a car which makes you fell it will stop in 20 meters. 

Among all others, the next taxi trick you need to be careful about is the meter trick in downtown cabs. When you get on a cab, be sure the driver starts the meter before moving the car. This mostly happens in the night. In order to avoid that you should specifically ask him to start it. Otherwise you may find yourself in an unnecessary and tiring discussion and finally you most probably pay much more. I can give you my experience as an example. I was going to a very close location during the night and get one of the cabs in front of the hotel. He directly asked me 200 THB and I asked to start the meter otherwise I will get off. After a very long discussion back and forward, he finally did and the total fare was 70 THB. So you do the math. As usual, you need to be careful with the cabs during the day as well! For instance, you may want to go a historical place like Royal Palace. They have a tendency to drop you at the entrance/exit where the conners are populated. So double check where they leave you and don't believe anyone comes and talks to you fast. You actually feel it because an average Thai, even in tourism sector, can't really speak that decent and fast english unless he tries to con you! The best way to avoid is to check the opening and closing hours of the monuments for that specific day and only talk to the people behind a ticket desk or something similar. The last but not the least tip about the taxi/tuk-tuk transportation is the "gem fraud". Most of the people know that the gem prices are extremely low as most of the them are mined and traded in Thailand. However, the fakes are also in sold. I can say there are much more fake gems than the real ones on the market. In Bangkok, the drivers are like the middle men. They usually mislead the tourists who ask for a reliable seller. Anyway, I don't understand why people ask for something to the drivers who is the most anonymous person. So they usually take you to a temple where you meet a "monk like" guy who sells the fake gems. You might be put such a good and trustworthy setup and eventually you may spend quite a lot of money, like order of hundreds of euros. So you'd better not to talk or ask anything to a driver and don't disclose any personal information if possible, like where you stay, who you are etc. 

After this short pause, coming back to the airport transfer issue, of course there are other options to get out of Bangkok airport. A frequent train line commutes between the airport and Bangkok.  You can select either the express line or the city line depending on the location of the final destination and speed. The express line goes Makkasan station non-stop. Whereas, the city line have several stations on the way toward its final destination Phaya Thai but it also passes by Makasan station. The final stop prices of the express and the city lines are 150 THB and 45 THB (varying between 10-45 THB), respectively. Makkasan station is very well connected to various locations downtown by metro lines. So my recommendation would be taking the fast line and metro combination to reach the final destination safe and quick as the price difference is minor. For the metro, the wisest thing would be enjoying 24h daily passes if you will travel in the city. The multi level - air conditioned "sky train" metro line is very well operated and saves substantial time as compared to walking.

Taxis and tuktuks can be another option to get around the city, especially the old town located by the river. But one needs to be smart while getting a cab as I have explained above. Taxis may cost between 50-500 THB which is around 1.5 to 13 EUR or 2 to 17 USD. So if you want to get somewhere quick they are good options unless you stuck in to a traffic jam like above. Besides there is a bus service available in Bangkok but I don't recommend it due to obvious reasons like pickpocketing, traffic jam, jam packed busses and hot/humid weather!

You solved your transportation! Now, it is time to wonder around... I won't mention about the historical places and must see location that you can find in any tourist guide or on any blog about Bangkok. What I will tell you is that this city is a shopping paradise! You can find anything and everything in the city for a wide price range. But there is one rule of thumb for Bangkok: Always bargain and don't buy anything for the tag price! 

The "central" part of the city (around Nana, Phloen Chit, Chit Lom and Siam MRT stations) contains numerous shopping malls. Among all, Gaysom and Central World Plaza (between Chit Lom and Siam MRT stations) offers the most luxurious and relatively high-middle class shopping experience, respectively. Ploenchit and Big C shopping centers are more focused of middle range goods. In this places don't hesitate to bargain at all, especially for the souvenirs. Finally, Platinum and Palladium shopping centers on the river bank offers very cheap and wholesale type stuff. I highly recommend you not to miss all the vendors and hawkers just outside of those shopping malls. You might find the very same goods on the stands for half price! You can also find open markets, where you can find mostly clothing and food, at some fixed locations in the city. I recommend you to check them out to mixed with the real population of Bangkok.

During all that rush, don't forget to hydrate and eating. There are basically three main options to eat in Bangkok: eat on the streets, check out the food courts of the shopping malls and go to a fine restaurant. Frankly speaking, I didn't do the last one and don't recommend it because it is pricy for such a cheap city experience. Moreover, they offer foreign food which is not really special. The first option is actually very tempting but you need to have an insensitive stomach. if you have one that is the most tasty and cheapest option. You can have each course for less than 2-3 EUR. The intermediate option serves the best for the ones who don't want to spend so much on food and also don't want to risk the holiday much. Each and every shopping mall have a huge food court where you can find all types of asian food and also some global chains. The variety of the food is actually makes you have very hard time to select your meal. In this places, you can fix your lunch or dinner for maximum 10 EUR including drinks, dessert and a very large meal. 

Overall, Bangkok is a great metropolitan city which offers you all types of entertainment! So you should just do two thinks on your side to enjoy the city: get your plane ticket and spend money. Have a great travel and enjoy your stay in Bangkok. Don't for get to STAY SAFE!!!!!

Diving at the Shark Point, Phuket, Thailand

The las dive of the dive was at the famous Shark Point diving site. The place is know for the local leopard shark population who gives great pictures for the photo hunters of the deep sea. I came here to see them too. But it is just by luck to catch something underwater. I learnt that long before. Anyway, I worn my shorty to taste the water for the last time in Thailand till the next visit. So that made me even more excited and sad at the same time not only because the place was like a paradise but also I had to wake up from this tropical dream soon. 

The shark point is actually composed of a massive reef and a group of smaller ones located very close to the larger reef. The dive normally starts at the large pinnacle whose peak is just 2 meters deep. Then you may choose to take a turn around this one till 25 meters and then move to the second pinnacle and an see that one around 25 meters and ascend to 16 meters where the most of the beautiful things are located. If you are lucky you may see the leopard sharks during this part of the dive around the small reef. 

Nevertheless, the site embraces so many different species that you might not look for a shark meanwhile. That was my case at least! First of all the place includes many murray eels. You can almost see them every hole in the reef and they give great shots. The anemones, besides, host many clowns fishes. If you are a nemo like me then you will love the picture you take. There is also a beautiful sea horse on the west side of the 1st pinnacle and it is not shy at all. 

Apart from this particular beauties of the site, you constantly see the passing crowds of small fishes around you as well. This makes an extra flavor to the ambiance of the dive route. You may also see, like me, some interesting scenes. There were a dead murray being eaten by the other fishes slowly on one side of the 2nd pinnacle. Nature was calling and I was there. That might be the most interesting shot of mine up to now.

There were also several tritons wondering around with their funny and curious eyes looking both sides at the same time. I ended my dive again at the large reef but this time with a small sting ray slightly levitated from the sea bottom. It was moving so slowly that I thought this guy was really want some pictures to be taken.

Overall, I think the Shark Point was the best of all dive point I dived for the day.  The visibility was great. There variety of the fishes was amazing. And most importantly, we haven't seen any bamboo or leopard shark whose supposed to be seen at this point. As a final word, I can say that every diver must see the depths of Andaman sea one day. One should be very careful about the dive school and the dive boat in Phuket. I can definitely recommend the guys at Rumblefish Adventure but I have some doubts about Jolly Roger. 

Enjoy you dives and stay safe!

Diving at King Cruiser, Phuket, Thailand

I'm not gonna lie! After the terrible visibility at Kho Doc Mai, I needed a pallet cleanser to fresh up the taste of Andaman underwater. We have reached our destination for the second dive of the day. The king cruiser is located between Kho Doc Mai and the famous Phi Phi Island of the beach movie. You can actually see it if the visibility is good. Anyway, we started to suit up in our lovely boat Jolly Roger with ultimate interference of the mothers and wives at the divers area. I guess there is no need to talk about the super respectful customers of Jolly Rogers anymore after the previous article. 

I wish to say that the visibility was great in King Cruiser but I was not. However, it was not supposed to be great anyways. So this time the disappointment is less than previous time. Nonetheless, King Cruiser was hiding much more for us! The place is great for the lion fish chasers. Lion fishes are thriving around the wreck. I have seen at least 8 as individual and in groups. So the wreck was not really a deep one. The rock bottom is around 30 meters and most of the must-see parts of the wreck is around  16-18 meters. So she lets see her for an almost hour long dive.

Apart from the all the crowds of fishes and the sneaking hunter lion fishes, there are a couple of places you should check when you dive King cruiser. First of all don't forget to take a pee! Well yeah! On the back of the boat you can see the toilets of the cruiser. The ceiling was opened and the toilets are visible. So fun time! 

The other hot spot of the site is the chimneys of the boat where a shrimp colony was thriving. They are not shy at all and you can have great picture over there too. The color of them were so crisp and the scenery was amazing!

The gate of the vehicle deck is almost completely destroyed. Thus you can go in and have a nice trip inside the parking site of the cruiser. If you have a good flash light, I believe you can see many beautiful things inside.

All and all, King Cruiser dive was a great experience and it is a location for all levels of divers. She gives beautiful shots and you can see many different rate sea creatures down there... or up above. We have accompanied by a giant jelly fish during our ascent. The combination of sharp sunlight and the jelly fish gave great pictures to make this beautiful place unforgettable. 

Diving at Koh Doc Mai, Phuket, Thailand

In the boat Jolly Roger, which I have mentioned in detail in the previous entry, that was the first dive of the day at Koh Doc Mai. This little island has a very nice reef underskirts of her! You can think of it as a very large reef that you can wonder around. The dive can last a reasonable amount of time without turning around of the island more than once. The depth of the reef is around 30-40 meters if you keep yourself close to the vertical cliffs. Therefore the site is quite suitable for a range of divers from beginners to the experts.

Normally, the site supposed to have a good visibility especially in the early morning and for calm surface as you can see above. However I was not that lucky I guess. The visibility was quite poor and it was not possible to have a good shot unless you go for a macro shot. Nevertheless, the fauna down there was really great. Especially the nudibrach population was quite stunning. Other than that you may check out the groupers, box fishes, and random gang of fish crowds!

However the impressive part of the dive was, for me, to see the bamboo shark hiding underneath a big rock. I assume it is a regular inhabitant of the neighborhood because I encounter similar sceneries on other websites before.

Overall the spot is a nice dive point with variety of the fishes. I totally recommend you to check out if you pass by Phuket to dive. I hope you will be luckier than me and have great visibility so that 100% or your shots are clear.

Diving in Phuket Island, Thailand

Phuket, as I have mentioned before, is a great island to have a laid back holiday. She contains all necessary ingredients: tropical weather, golden beaches, turquoise sea, gorgeous people, good food... On top of all, there is another great feature of the island. That is the beauty of Andaman Sea's underwater life and uncountable number of diving points which are accessible from the island.

When I get to Phuket, I am not gonna lie, I didn't think to dive. I had good time under the Balinese sea and I hadn't had the time to make a search about the dive centers there. However, I hadn't also know that there was no way to hide from my destiny. As soon as I settled down in my "temporary hotel room", I realized the dive center across the street. Despite I spent such a long time to recover from long Bali-Phuket flight and the shuttle ride, the dive center was still open. ...and I knocked the door of Rumblefish Adventure. There I met great people. They were quite friendly and helpful. They explained me how diving business runs more or less and it actually has nothing to do with any other place I have dived before. 

In Phuket, the dive boats and the dive centers are almost completely separated. When you go to a dive center, as an experienced diver, they will show you the schedule of the available boats with their route of dive points. Every combination has its own price roughly changing between 1000-1500 THB/dive. According to your preferences and experiences, the guys at the dive school help you to choose the appropriate dive boat. Here the things start to bifurcate. You may be accompanied by the dive buddy/leader from the dive center or you may stuck with the guys of the boat or the buddy might be a freelance instructor, like in my case. So this separation of power has its own benefits and disadvantages, which I will explain later. Anyway, the complete gear is supplied by the school for 500 THB/day. You can also rent dive computer for around 300-500 THB/day. In my case, they were quite cool to me and let me use their good old Aladin UWATEC computer.

In the morning, a shuttle bus picks you and your gear up from your hotel and takes you to the harbor where the boat is. From this point on, you are with the dive boat crew and thus I will try to summarize my experience about the dive boat called Jolly Roger and her crew. I will tell about the three dive points of the day, Koh Dok Mai, King Cruiser and Shark Point,  in separate entries.

She is quite long, pretty new and well maintained dive boat. The main deck is composed of a preparation space for the divers and the dining room. There you can have a fresh and substantial breakfast in with lots of varieties. They also serve the lunch in the afternoon and it is also equally good. Highly recommended! There is also an espresso machine, cold and hot water and several munchies at your disposal at anytime on-board. There is also on-board WiFi which is very convenient. There are two shower/toilets right next to the preparation area. The upper deck is very roomy to socialize with the other divers, as well. Beer is also serve on-board but subjected to charges. From all the facilities provided, she is a great dive boat. But nothing can be perfect right. Here are the beasts inside the beauty!

First of all, the service crew was acting kinda weird! They were shouting to the customers here and there when people were trying to board. The people who guides you talks mostly in Russian because they and most of the customers were Russian but sometimes they forget there are people of other nationalities. I have to say that the order in the boat was a bit chaotic. Of course that was my experience with the customers of that day but it seemed to me that the profile is more or less the same in every trip after I shared my experiences with the other divers in Kata Beach. The space you prepare for the dive, although it was quite large, was stuffed by non-divers. Especially, the moms and the wives were everywhere and messing up with your gear. Coming back to the lunch room, people were leaving their leftovers on the tables and nobody were collecting them. Of course you are supposed to return your stuff but as you can imagine not everyone was taking care of. In the dives, there were no regular order to get in to the sea. I think for that may of diver (more than 30) the dive masters  need to do some planing before the dives. However, it seems to me the ones of the boat were coordinating themselves without letting know the other dive leaders. And finally on the way back, the shuttles were totally messed up. The chances are you may be left in the harbor if you don't understand Russian because they stop doing regular announcement in any other language. Thus you  need to go an ask if your bus is actually arranged.

To sum up, I think Phuket is a great place to dive. The underwater was flourishing. And that was a great boat in terms of all of the amenities inside. If you are a guy of luxury and can arrange the whole dive for his group, you may want to go for this boat. Otherwise, I recommend you to think twice and go for a second best option.  

Nusa Penida dives, Bali, Indonesia

In the second day of the dives, I went to the island called Nusa Penida located on the south east of Bali. The island is actually the biggest of the three islands at close coordinates. They are 45 min away from the Sanur beach by a relatively slow dive boat. Sanur beach is quite shallow and there is no pear to have a dry boarding. Hence, the BIDP guys arranged the transfer from the beach to the dive boat by small joker boats. From that point on you are on the dive boat till the afternoon. During that 45 min journey to the famous Manta point, the landscape was pretty nice with several water rocks facing to the island. The partly cloudy morning helped to enjoy the nice way with mild sun bathing...

We had a short briefing after reaching the Manta point and started our dive with the hope of seeing an elegant manta ray. The dive team was pretty crowded this time. We were eight divers and 4 dive masters leading the dive. From this point of view it was a safer dive then the ones I had in Tulamben with much more opportunity to see the hidden beauties of the nice reefs down there because two of the guys constant checking the cracks and bottom for the creature harder to notice while one is leading and the other was keeping the rear.

The crystal clear water of the Manta point started to freeze us since the beginning of dive with an average temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. That was not only another difference between the dives of today and USS Liberty but also a good indicator of different characteristics of all dive points scattered around the Bali Island. It is better to avoid the shorties at Manta point to keep body temperature reasonable. The bottom is composed of many small reefs an big pieces of rock which is covered with the colorful coral. Underneath the rocks and in the slits of the reefs, small predators look for their pray like the big lobster or weevers. The deepest point in the close vicinity is around 15 meter and thus you can enjoy long and colorful dives in the quest for manta rays. Unfortunately, at the end of the dry season for Bali, end of October, we were not that lucky to experience this unique encounter. Nevertheless, the underwater is still worthwhile to see with its relatively smaller creatures and rainbow of colors on the reefs.

The anemones blooming all around in different colors give beautiful shots for the underwater photo lover. However, I was not able to see anemone fish for almost all 40 minute dive. Instead, little gobies and lizard fishes staying still for their prays on top of small rocks or corals were reluctant to move while we were swimming around them.

All and all, I can say that Manta Point is a beautiful site with its rich marine life even if the mantas are not visible for you. It provides you a long and delightful five with its tranquil bottom.

The next destination of the day was Crystal Bay (C in the map above) located half an hour away on the north of Manta Point (A in the map). This is a small and calm isolated bay located on the west of the biggest island, Nusa Penida. When you first enter the bay, the astonishing view of small huts underneath palms trees gives you a delighting scenery. There were several dive boats around when we arrived. Then disappeared after we had lunch, giving us a wast underwater space to enjoy and better possibility to see the ocean sun fishes widely known as mola mola who thrives in this bay.

We started the dive half an hour after the arrival, a nice stop to enjoy the view and peace of mind. Following the jump in the water, we commenced to search for the mola molas possible surface for feeding or having their skins cleaned. The bottom of the sea shows different characteristics. While the part close to the shores are mostly dominated by the sand and pebbles, deeper parts are covered with corals. The maximum depth of our dive zone was around 23 meters and the average was 15 meters. We continued our search mostly at this average. Therefore, I was able to enjoy the bright colors by the help of sunlight penetrating down to this level.

The small fishes like the angel fishes, moorish idols or surgeon fishes were dominating the deep sea scenery of the bay. You can forget everything while chasing a moorish idol and suddenly find many of them hiding in a large crack.

The relatively flat bottom of the bay was rarely populated with big and isolated rocks covered by coral like the one below. Swimming around them to check the cracks and holes was a very good way of spending time while looking for mola molas. On top of it, around those boulders there were hundreds of small fishes wondering and giving marvelous shots like below.

Overall, the checking in the Crystal Bay was good and long dive although we were not able to encounter with the mola molas. The dive masters were claiming that the end of dry season is also the start of migration of those fishes from the region. Hence it might be more logical to come to Bali around August or September might be a better idea if you really want to see oceanic sun fishes. However, the other compromise is to stay here or on the southern hemisphere for all the time and to be unable to go other nice dive spots like Thailand, Malaysia or Philippines as there will be the mun-son season. It was an option to plan my trip but I didn't do that and I am happy to have the dives in Phuket.

In short, diving around Nusa Penida and Bali was a great experience for me and highly recommended although it is a must to find good accommodation and a hotel to near by the major towns. The BIDP guys were very helpful and also recomemended but I also recommend you to check out prices in other dive schools. Enjoy your time in Bali and sountheast Asia...

Diving in Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia

Bali has long been famous with its diving points. Following the fame, I also went to dive in Balinese coasts. As I have mentioned in the previous posts, I have arranged my dives beforehand with the dive center called Bali International Diving Professionals. The dive site is located at a fairly distant location from the main touristic locations where most of the hotels are. To give you a perspective about the distance, I can say that it takes two and a half hours of driving from the dive canter which is at Sanur. The major reason for the distance to take so long is that Bali has no decent highways although the island is pretty big (almost 10 times larger than Singapore). And also, two volcanoes located at the center of the island makes such an infrastructure hard to be constructed. So be prepared to wake up early and sleep in the van in order to dive in Tulamben.

When you get to the dive site, you park the car in a parking spot which is encircled by a restaurant where you have the lunch or munchies, café (Kopi house), change rooms and toilets. Well, apparently those are almost everything you have in the close neighborhood. After you change, you have a short walk to the beach which is 50-100 meters away. This is a rocky beach where you have several wooden benches under the trees to put your diving gear and bags. Normally all group of divers or dive schools settles around those benches and plan their dives. There is one kiosk where you can have refreshments but you may not need them if your dive center supplies drinking water line BIDP. There are also several kids wondering around to sell you t-shirts and stuff like that. Well, if you can have a good bargain, you may buy the stuff. Me, I have reduced the rice of a Tulamben t-shirt, which was nice actually, to 50000IDR. So I recommend you not to pay more that. There was another thing interesting for me that all of the diving gear and equipments were carried by local young girls and women. There is a constant flux of air bottles carried by those people from the parking to the beach. Normally, I am kinda used to see that your gear are carried by the guys of the dive center but I have seen that is done by the women first time. I guess that does not include the fare trade concept.

I dived to two points in Tulamben: USS Liberty shipwreck and Drop-off. The former is an American Army/Navy transport ship which has beached in 1942 after she was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. She was moved away from the beach by a volcanic eruption in 1963 and then become a dive point. Her 120 body lies from 6 to 30 meters depth roughly parallel to the shore. I made two dives around the shipwreck. First one was from port side to the back and the second was other way around. We followed the pieces of the wreck which is mostly aligned on a straight line of the frame when we approached from either direction. I can say that the coral coverage was rare and scattered around the wreck especially as compared to surface of the ship. Volcanic sand and small rocks dominate the sea bottom. You can see anemones and the anemone fishes frequently. Around the larger pieces of rocks at the bottom covered with corals, you may encounter angel fishes, snappers and rarely groupers. When swimming around her, the scenery is mostly dominated with many types of colorful corals, anemones and snappers. The low visibility of the day I dived made it harder to see the fishes mastering camouflage. However, I was lucky enough to see a scorpion fish and a barracuda. On top of that, we, by chance, started the decent with a giant colony of tuna fishes and that was unbelievably nice moment that I wish you experience as well.

The visibility became much better when we dived to drop-off which is relatively  shallower dive point. The corals dominate much larger area and get pretty colorful here. That was much more tranquil and longer dive thanks to the depth, I highly recommend to check this out before leaving Tulamben. Moreover, the nice daylight penetrating well on this depths giving the diver to picture much nicer sceneries. The bottom is much rockier, thus the seeing fishes hiding around is much more possible then on the terrain a bit away from Liberty.

Finally, the dives I had in Tulamben beach was pretty nice in terms of experiencing a relatively shallow shipwreck and nice coral reefs of Indonesian water as starter dives in south east Asia. Therefore, it paid back the long way we had 2 times a day. Highly recommended to be experienced for all of you!....