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!....

Diving with Bali International Diving Professionals

I went to Bali with the sole aim of diving in its crystal clear waters and seeing the amazing underwater creators of Indonesia. I ain't professional divers with uncountable stars or master of open water realm. I dive for real fun but I need to cooperate with some people like many of you. On the other hand, I know well enough that diving is not a joke and you should go for trusted dive centers. I normally do research about the dive centers before I go to a place for that. But this time I was luckier than other times because a Dutch friend of mine, who have spent many years as a dive master at Gulf of Thailand, recommended me a dive center named Bali International Diving Professionals. I contacted them by email beforehand. I wanted to see not only their offers but also the options because my major aim was to dive for manta rays and mola molas. I must say that they were quite fast with the communication. I have my answer in the next day and it included both Manta Point and Crystal Bay which is known for mola mola encounters. There was also another bonus track: USS Liberty wreck! I am going to write on my experiences about those dive points locate at Tulamben and Nusa Penida. However, I would like to talk about the dive school now.

First the prices! Finally after exchange of some email for the arrangements, I decided to have 3 dives at Tulamben where the shipwreck is and 2 dives around Nusa Penida which is the island on southeast of Bali. They first gave me the price of 103 USD and 100 USD respectively. These prices excludes the equipment rent which is 20 USD/day but includes transfer for/to your hotel if it is located at Sanur, Kuta, Nusa Dua, Jimbaran areas. I was not that lucky to find a decent hotel at that region for a good price and unfortunately had to stay at Hotel Ecosfera in Echo beach, Canggu. That was not only a bad accommodation experience but also almost an hour away from the dive school where we have to pass by before the dives in very early in the morning. And on top of it I had to pay extra money. Before I got to the island, I am not gonna lie, I was a bit suspicious about this charge. But after you get to the place and understand the scales of the distances in Bali. I actually understand why they were asking extra. The distances are huge in Bali. Another good example would be the way to Tulamben dive point. It takes two and a half hour to get there from the dive center at Sanur. You can really sleep in the van before the dives and actually I think you should! The only good think about those trips is that the transfer, lunch, which was extremely good both at Tulamben and on the boat, and drinking water are all included in the price. Coming back to the price, after a bit of iteration to convince the lady I contacted for a lower price, I finally ended up 275 USD for 5 dives including the equipment and hotel transfer. Well it was not that much of a bargain to be frank but it was worth to have good dives. There was only one thing annoying about the monetary part that they have never warn me about the bank charges they reflect on the payment although I have explicitly said I will be paying with the credit card. They might have skipped this detail but finally I had to pay ~4.5% for the payment by AMEX. The fee is a little bit lower for MasterCard and VISA, like 3%. So I recommend you to be aware of it. 


For the technical part of the dives, they were quite ok. The ratio of diver to dive master is less than 4 which is pretty good. They group people according to the experiences so that you don't surface unnecessarily early. For the dives with large groups, like the ones I had in Nusa Penida, they had a couple of extra dives to check around. So overall they helped a lot to spot the creatures around like lobsters or scorpion fishes in the cracks or disguised. The only thing disappointed me for the dives, and I want to share with you guys, was end of one dive I had in Tulamben. I have not been diving for a while, and naturally I was consuming air badly. Thus I depleted my air quite fast for the first day. In the second dive, we were diving 3 people: me, dive master and another customer. As my bottle was at 50 bars, the other guy was a bit above 100. In this situation, the dive master took me 5 meters for 3 minutes of safety stop. And signed me to follow the bottom then surface and swim to the beach. So this was, honestly, not nice. I am not very familiar to the dive centers way of doing the business but I have mostly dived with university societies where no such thing can happen especially when you are diving in a completely now point. Other than that everything was cool with those guys. They were extremely cool and kind. The briefs before the dives were satisfactory. The equipment they offered were pretty new. So they can be used with no worries.

Overall, I recommend you to dive with those guy but I also recommend check out other dive school beforehand just to be sure that you don't have a price lower than 60 USD per dive including everything. Frankly speaking, this seemed to be a bit extreme after diving for 30 USD at Kata Beach Phuket.

How to get in and out Bali, Indonesia

Bali, without any doubt, is one of the most famous island of Indonesia for western tourists. It is located between Jawa and Lombok islands. Although there are way to reach to the island by the sea transport, the most convenient way to get to the island is through Denpasar (Ngurah Rai - DPS) Airport if you are coming from far like me. The airport is located at the narrowest part of the island on the south. The runway is east to west oriented. Therefore, I can recommend you to sit on the window side if you wish to enjoy a unique touchdown. Denpasar Airport is a relatively small airport, as expected. When you first get you out of the plane to the terminal, you are first welcomed by the money exchangers in numbers. They yell at you with the money at their hands. That was, I'm not gonna lie, a unique moment as tens of people were yelling at me with a language hard to understand right after I entered a country for the first time. Anyway, I recommend you not to exchange any money over there because they are pretty pricey. Instead, you can exchange some money worth 1,000,000 IDR, which will be well enough for you to make the day, at the place of departure, if you have a chance, and then you can exchange the rest at Kuta, Denpasar or Seminyak. The exchange offices in the towns are giving really good prices than the ones at the airport, like everything!

So as you pass the currency scavengers, you will be approaching the immigration hall. There are a couple of things you should do about it. Firstly, you must fill in the immigration form in the plane. That is to be handed to the officer. Secondly, you must "buy" your visa on arrival. That is a piece of sticker worth for 25 USD. They put it on page of your passport and give you another piece as a proof of payment. Citizens of many countries are eligible to claim this visa valid for 30 days but you can check if you are eligible from the list as well. The ones who loved Indonesia and wants to stay for 30 more days need to pay more 25 USD and get a newer visa. After you get your visa, you approach to the immigration counters to hand in the form and the passport and voila! You are in.

Right after the clearance you get your luggages and then they will be monitored in an X-ray scanner. Normally, they look for alcohol and illegal stuff to be a
passed the border. The legal limit is a liter of liquor and a carton of cigarettes. But I am more on the side of not taking any as they are relatively cheap in the island. So it is better to keep yourself away from the security people for your own security and not to mess up the things. Right after the X-rays you have the exit of the terminal.

Now you are out and transport is kinda messy at the airport. I highly recommend you not to let anyone to carry your luggage and not to listen anyone for the taxi. There are so many scams and you cannot imagine how you can be conned. In my opinion, the best is to queue for the official taxi just outside of the terminal and wait until one is assigned for you. You pay at the place, get your pay slip and the driver takes you to the car. The taxi park is more or less 5 minutes away from the terminal.

Bali is a volcanic island as many of other islands of Indonesia. There are four volcanoes on the island: Agung, Batur, Bratan and Merbuk, two of which are still active. This, actually, makes the distances quite longer than I was expecting and the taxi fares, of course, increases. You pay average 100,000-300,000 IDR for the closer places on the southern half of the island. Hence, it is better, cheaper and safer if you can arrange your transport with the accommodation otherwise some bills waits for you. Other recommendation for the roads is "get away". Especially during the day time, the narrow roads of the island are jam packed by the thousands of motorbikes and small trucks. So it is much better to travel during early morning or in the evening instead.

A couple of extra tips for Bali could be that you should be aware of the fact all of the prices are 21% tax and service charge excluded, including the foods in the menus or good at the supermarket. So don't be surprised when the price is increased by one-fifth at the counter. For the small stuff you need I recommend small Circle K (like 7/11). More importantly, you'd better find an accommodation on walking distance to the small commercial centers so that you can have many options to wine and dine and also shopping. If you do as I did and lock yourself at a place like Echo Beach and a good rated bad run hotel like Ecosfera, you might have a very calm holiday but eat in small varieties and shop at extremely overrated prices at the airport. In particular, the souvenir shopping is very expensive at the airport. Strangely, the prices inside of the terminal is double of outside. Of course you see how it happens after you enter the terminal because you pass the security clearance right at the gate of the terminal. So it makes the huge difference between inside and outside. So it is highly recommended to buy the stuff, if you really need to, before you get into the terminal. Of course, the best is to but at the towns.

After you check in, you should be quite attentive for your departure because written and verbal announcements are really bad. Therefore the best is to get to the gate at a logical time for your original departure time. As you approach to the gates you will have an extra stop of payment. Spending certain period of time in Indonesia makes you realize that you have to pay for anything and everything. This time it is to get out of the country. Yes, you heard right. You have to pay a departure fee of 150,000 IDR. So it is better to save this money for the departure because that could be problematic to pay with other currencies. After the last payment, you are free to go out of the country. The next thing you may check could be a few small duty free shops. As expected they are very expensive and there is not much of a thing fascinating. So at that point the best thing to do is get on the plane and say bye bye to Indonesia. Enjoy the view from the plane...

Omni Tower Hotel, Bangkok

I have been in Bangkok during the float alarm on November 2012. I made my travel plans much before and there must have been some disaster happening for real that I deviate my tip to tail flight and travel plans. Hence I didn't cancel anything but I had to arrange some hotel high enough! Omni Tower seemed to me very convenient in this sense and also had a relatively fair price for a 4 star apartment complex, thus, I made a studio reservation for 1600 baht per day. A week later, 2 days before my arrival to Bangkok, I realized by luck that the prices of the executive suites reduced to the same level. Therefore, I wanted to change my reservation like all of wise people would do. For that I just canceled the old reservation and finally made a newer reservation for the suite and I was ready to go.

The hotel, which is composed of a 33 story tower and its neighboring service building, is located very close and nicely connected to the modern center of Bangkok through Sukhumvit Avenue, Phloen Chit, Chit Lom and Nana station. If you really want to be around this area, it is a great option. You can reach everywhere with public transport or very low paid taxi fares. Don't forget to make the drivers start the meters before driving. This a common scam in Bangkok and the taxis waiting in front of the hotel usually have the tendancy to do the opposite. Besides the location advantage, there are also many drawbacks associated with the hotel itself as well and they welcome you since the very first moment you arrive to the hotel.

Although the hotel looks pretty luxurious and chic, you have to carry your luggage to the reception. There are bellboys but not smart enough to help you up. It is a very warm welcome especially if you arrive in the night. "-1". There was another great surprise waiting for me. After I checked in, I was given the key of the apartment and an RFID card to access the elevator hall. The bellboy then realizes that he needs to help you and takes you up to the room and also carries your luggage. So far so good. But the problem was actually the room itself. They gave me, accidentally or on purpose, the studio room. This I haven't figure out and thus I don't want to say something accusing. And you can't easily distinguish between the studio and the one-bedroom suit if you haven't stayed in this hotel before because they have similar surface areas and big enough for one person. Anyway, I doubted and wanted to clarify if they mixed something. They have claimed that the reservations were mixed but they have never reached my latest reservation and they were not willing to give me the room I reserved until I showed them my reservation on the phone. So it was not that innocent. "-2"! Anyway, I had what I wanted with some struggle but I was nervous at the end. 

Coming to the rooms, I can say the rooms were pretty large for both studio and suite. The furniture and appliances are quite old if you are willing to use them. The view is very nice if you want to stay on the 27th floor. However the room service is terrible. The first morning I put the "clean my room" sign on the door and went out. When I come back nothing was cleaned or changed and it was quite late. I called the reception and asked for it. In return they tried very hard not to do that and finally even asked for extra money for the towels they changed. How cute isn't it? "-3". That was cream on the pie to hate the place to be frank. So even this is quite enough not to recommend the place alone. But the stories never end. When you enter the rooms you see that they offer free sightseeing tours. This was not true, either. When you ask they say all of them are cancelled due to float but when you go to the palace or the temples by yourself you see that there is no float and no cancellation of any tour. "-4". I continue. In the reservation, it says in the reservation that breakfast is included in the price. Don't expect anything better than an hostel breakfast. I guess that was the most terrible breakfast I have ever had after the one I had in a hostel in Paris many years ago. But the difference is that one was a student hostel for 21€ in Paris the other was a 4 star business suit for 1800 bath in Bangkok. I leave the evaluation to you but "-5". I guess the only things good about the hotel were the location and the view that you can see below. Other than that I cannot recommend you the hotel at all. It is much better to find other options in Bangkok.

Kata Beach Center Hotel, Phuket

In my experience, accommodation is something that you need to pay attention the most in Southeast Asia especially after I experienced the four star, false paradise: Ecosfera Hotel in Bali. But this time in Phuket, I was quite lucky on lodging because I booked Kata Beach Center Hotel. This is a cozy three star hotel which is run by a lovely Dutch family. The hotel is in a small center, Kata Beach center, for hotels and restaurants located in the northern part of Kata settlement. Kata Beach Center Hotel is composed of three buildings with the facilities on the ground floors and the rooms on the upper floors. The main building is with the reception and lobby. Another one, on the opposite side, has the restaurant, swimming pool and bar. The last one is roughly 50 meter away, at the end of the street towards Patak Rd. This building has the jacuzzi, sauna and spa. Among all, I only had a chance to check out the massage although that was the only paid service. It was very good and the price was not expensive. You can get a reduction, actually two times if you have two massage, with a discount voucher given by the hotel upon your arrival. I recommend you to have the aloe vera massage at least once especially at the end of your stay to release all stress on your skin. Other than that, they also have a motorbike rental service through which you can rent a bike for 250 baht per day! Which is quite a deal in Kata where you have to pay 400 baht for a 7 km ride to Phatong beach by taxi or tuck-tuck.

The rooms were not better or worse that it is promised but exactly the same as you see on-line. No disappointment! Though they have everything in the rooms: almost 100 channel international satellite TV with LCD screens, digital locked safe box, A/C, fridge with cold water (they didn't charged me the water I had during my stay!), electric kettle with tea bags and instant coffee etc. I had a chance to experience the double and twin rooms in two buildings due to my mistake on reservation on booking.com. I forgot to ask for the double room hence they put me in the available room which had two single beds. I booked for 4 nights. That would be quite sad to be squeezed in a small bed for all the time. I asked them to change and they changed my room in the next day with a big smile. I really appreciated their attitude towards this problem and this way of approaching customers and their problems was the same throughout the stay. Moreover, the room service was great. They were cleaning my room and changing the towels, upon my request tag on the door, everyday and making it like it was at the beginning. What I liked most in this hotel was the way they value the customer satisfaction through good service and a sincere smile.

Overall,  I had a great time in Kata Beach and a significant part of this satisfaction was thanks to the gorgeous people of Kata Beach Center Hotel. I highly recommend you to check out their web site for their availability before planning a trip to Phuket Island. I think in this hotel satisfaction truly warrantied!

Kata Beach, Phuket, Thailand: Get around, eat and chill

I think Thailand is a must see place at least once in your life time. Among all of the nice holiday destination in the country, Phuket Island is one of the best locations. This relatively big island facing Andaman Sea is located on the south west of the country. It is very easy and relatively cheap to transfer to the island from not only Asian countries but also all around the world thanks to Phuket International Airport (HKT). I personally had a very pleasant flight from Bali, Indonesia by AirAsia Thailand. It takes more or less 3h30 above millions of  islands and Malay peninsula. If you are lucky and have journey with clear sky, you will thoroughly enjoy your flight.

After that nice journey, landing in Phuket Airport was even nicer with the runway right after and perpendicular to a golden beach as you can see above. It was also a nice experience to see, if you are an aviation fan, the approach lighting system sunken in the sea.

Phuket Airport is quite convenient one for a small island's airport. It looks quite modern with its kind staff (including the border police), nice ground transport options and restaurants (especially for departure).  The route from the apron to the exit of the airport is quite short. On the way, you have clear immigration. The border police is quite nice. Here I would like to remind you that you have to fill an immigration form before hand. So don't forget to get it from the fight attendants and fill on the plane. After the immigration you will immediately see the luggage belts. When I arrived, there were GSM card salesmen. That was a free GSM card with 3G network and you can buy the top up card in 7elevens.I recommend you to buy it because the ones that I was trying to find and finally had to buy were much more expensive than this one. In order to get to your destination in the island, there are some options to enjoy. You have the taxi option for yourself, which was around 800 baht to get to Kata Beach, more or less the farthest point you may go in the island. There were a limo option and luxury van as well. I didn't check the price of them but they were definitely more expensive than the taxi. However, what I checked was, thanks to the screaming people trying to sell the bus tickets, the mini bus service which takes you directly to your hotel for a price of 180 baht. That was the cheapest and the most convenient option for me and it will most probably for you as well. There was only one crazy thing on the way. After they got out of the airport region, they stopped the bus, made all passenger go out and asked for the hotel names. First you might thing that it is a fraud, which I though to be honest. But then I realized that they agency explains the detailed routes to the drives who was not able to speak a word of English. The guy dropped every passenger to their hotels one by one and of course I was the last one. Finally, I arrived to my lovely hotel: Kata Beach Center Hotel about which you can find the detailed review on my blog post.

Kata beach is a very calm neighborhood of Phuket Island, especially as compared to its crazy neighbor Pathong Beach. Yet there are many things to do around. For example, you have to check out the golden beach with a great sun set you cannot miss. There are many restaurant where you can taste nice Thai food as well. On top of it, the street food along with fresh tropical fruits is also nice option you can check out. There are two market places you can make grocery shopping. One is located on the Patak Road between Taina Road and Patak Soi. That one is open everyday but as pricy as the hawkers on the Kata Road in the center, not recommended! The other one is the local vendor's open  market which opens every Sunday and Thursday. It is open all say long and you can find anything and everything for very good prices. I highly recommend you check thr place out. It is established on the isle in front of the Kata beach center. On top of those, I highly advise you to have the breakfast at Kata @ Sports Bar at Taina Road. You can have delicious 5 items out of the international breakfast menu for 150 baht. For the dinner, I strongly recommend you all you can eat Thai BBQ. It is served in a restaurant located at a short dead-end on Taina Road. Thai BBQ is basically do-it-yourself type of food. The waitress just places a clay pot full of burning coal and close it with an aluminum dome shaped lid. It has a saddle shape around so that you can pour water to boil your veggies and noodles. The dome has many small hole to let heat penetrate to your meat and fish you grill on top. The place I checked out was 180 baht/person and must try stuff. You may a bit of discomfort due to the hygiene of the place but get over it! I guess I had food for at least two people and nothing really happened.

When you come to Kata beach, the first to check out is the golden beach. You can get to the beach on foot. The pedestrian is by a small creek, not stinky but dirty for sure. Don't forget to tip the local beggar!

Then forget about everything because you are in paradise.This is roughly a kilometer beach whose shore is mostly shallow till more or less 100 meter away. Then it gets deeper. You can rent a lounge chair and an umbrella for around 100 bath per day. There are some restaurants on the south end of the beach. I highly recommend you to try the Thai restaurant. They have very nice Thai dishes around 100 bath. Among all of those thing, you must drink the official beverage of the beach: cold coconut juice. Another tip which I mentioned in more detailed on Diving in Kata Beach post is don't go to the diving centers close to the beach they are considerably pricy compared to the ones in the center, beware!

I hope the video of preparation of fresh coconut juice below increases your appetite for Kata beach and its tropical attraction. Have fun!