Koh Samui storm early November, some pictures

Koh Samui storm early November, some pictures

Although I'm enjoying a sunny afternoon in Koh Lanta, I'm in regular contact with my family and friends back on Samui and the stories are interesting.

Since yesterday evening Samui is having a lot of rain and somewhere during the night the power went off, not to come back as of right now, a good 18 hours later! Apparently the power may be off for another 2 or 3 days due to a problem at the main power distribution station.

A view on the ring road near Bangkok-Samui hospital

Here on Koh Lanta we had very strong and heavy wind very early in the morning but around 8am that subsided and we have sunshine now during the afternoon.

Samui on the other hand is in for less wind and almost no rain tomorrow but than another 3 to 4 days of rain are on the horizon before there may be any sign of sunshine again.

Chaweng downtown

As expected and as shown in the picture above, there is flash flooding around the island, this picture showing downtown Chaweng. With the new drainage system, I expect the water to subside a few hours after the rain stops.

More flooding in Chaweng

My wife reported about flash flooding near our house in the Plai Laem area. Let's hope they can get the power back on again quickly!

All the best to my family and friends on Samui.

Camille

Baan Country Lao, Klong Dao, Koh Lanta

Baan Country Lao, Klong Dao, Koh Lanta

This is a great restaurant on Koh Lanta's Klong Phra Ae or Long Beach. As the name kind of gives away, they serve plenty of Isaarn and Lao style food.

The location is near the Southern end of Klong Dao, almost opposite a bar named Opium and the picture above shows how it looks like from the road.

I've visited this place now twice within a week and it's excellent food! Just make sure to get there early or be patient when it comes down receiving your food after you ordered it.

They have a great variety of Isaarn style food items on the menu, ranging from Laab, Naam Tok, Som Tam and plenty of other classic Isaarn style food to standard Thai fair and plenty of fish dishes as well. All around plenty of good food is to be had. I ordered a Khai Kem ไข่เค็ม with squid, very lovely indeed.

The kitchen where all the magic happens, it looks like your average Thai style restaurant kitchen just that this one serves fantastic well above average dishes.

One of their specialties is deep fried Som Tam (ส้มตำ)! Only the papaya is deep fried and it comes with a sauce and Kuung aka shrimps. Very nice and relatively rare to find. Well worth trying out.

Another special is their Muu Yang หมูย่าง BBQ'ed pork or try the chicken variation which come with a lovely tamarind sauce!

Good food and good times are to be had her and if on Lanta and you're in for some local food, well, Isaarn style food, this is a very good place to check out.

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 2nd November, 2010

Today's weather;

Both Samui and Koh Lanta where I currently am, are suffering from the impact of a heavy storm. At 5.30am I woke up from the heavy wind gusts blasting over, which lasted for about half an hour and both islands had power cuts for extended times.

Current temp at 7am on both islands is around 25C.

The whole South of Thailand has been battered and flooded but Songkla and Hat Yai are the cities that really have been hit the worst.

The forecast for Samui shows rain pretty much all day long until Sunday and for Koh Lanta things should start to quiet down as of tomorrow.

Dark skies and waves at Klong Nin on Koh Lanta

Yesterday saw all day long rain on Lanta and on Samui the rain started in the afternoon. Max temp reached 28C on both islands with 83mm of rain on Samui and 65mm on Lanta but almost 300mm in Pattalang and 200mm in Hat Yai!

Camille

Welcome to November 2010

Welcome to November 2010

The rainy season or monsoon is starting up it's engines. Last years November hardly saw any rain at all but a typical Samui November has plenty of rain and the signs are all gearing towards a very wet first November week. Big storms with heavy wind gusts and big waves are about to reach Samui's shore.

It looks like this year we need to batter down the hatches and just hope that we can quickly move into December and better weather patterns with more sunshine. Having said that, the rain brings much needed water which will fill up the wells, needed come April when it's hot and dry!

I just hope we don't get any flooding on our island as in the North and North East of Thailand like last month.

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 1st November, 2010

Today's weather;

The weather forecasts got it all mixed up! Koh Lanta is having rain pretty much all night long and this morning as well. The current temp at 7am is 23.3C

Koh Samui on the other hand, where all the rain should be is almost sunny! Very strong wind and big waves but dry! Current temp is 27.2C at 7am

Yesterday saw a similar story, Lanta had actually a few sunbeams before noon but more cloud cover and around noon the rain started, more or less not to stop until late in the evening for a while. Max temp reached 29.5C

Samui was pretty much dry all day, again lots of wind and big waves though. Max temp reached 27.9C

The next two days should be stormy all over South Thailand, very strong wind gusts and big waves, all small crafts are not allowed to sail out.

Camille

Goodbye to October 2010

Goodbye to October 2010

It's that time of the month again! October 2010 is almost done and over with and it's a good moment to have a look back at this month.

The weather was interesting, there was some decent rain but there was also plenty of sunshine, what I would call 'a mixed bag'. This in itself is not so strange as during late October it's not unlikely for the monsoon to start. This year we thought we had a very early start since during early October we had some very wet days and it's wet again towards the end.

It looks like this was the wettest month out of the last 3 that I recorded, except maybe for 2007, 2008 and 2009 were very mild months and had nice weather to show for.

This month I participated in a 5km run, organised by Ibis Samui. There was some very strange parking techniques on display early this month. My 'Food on Wheels' series had a few more additions and this one about ice cream in a bun is remarkable.

I also posted a few things about my current stay in Koh Lanta where I'm teaching an IDC. My newly launched diving website was an exciting moment for me this month, have a look and check it out!

On a sad note, my grandmother in law passed away towards the end of this month. She turned 90 years old!

Before I sign off this month, let's a have a quick look at some other bloggers around Thailand;

Rick at Behind the Noodle curtain just moved to Bangkok and is discovering a lot of new things in his new surroundings, amongst others an intriguing post about money trees, to be found all over the country.

Martyn at Beyond the Mango Juice has a great post about the local fire water or Lao Khao.

Mr. Boonsong aka Boonie keeps producing some great posts and pictures on his blog, have a look at his blog and learn some interesting facts about Thai life style and possibly some Thai words as well.

Changwat, Amphoe, Tambon may possibly be one of the strangest blogs about Thailand but a very interesting one with information that you probably wouldn't be bale to find anywhere else. Andy does a great job in keeping us updates about administrative subdivisions of Thailand - history, current news, facts hardly found in English and he's doing this now since 3 years! Congrats Andy and keep up the good work.

He also runs the My unseen Thailand blog and he posted about a great museum; the Nonthaburi Local Museum.

My fellow weather reporter in crime can be found on Phuket and Jamie's Phuket weather blog is a must, after you read mine of course.

The Jungle Life on Koh Phangan writes about the rain that's goes hand in hand during this monsoon heavy month.

Paul Garrigan always has plenty of interesting posts to choose from but this month he wrote about his fear of the Thai educational system and how it will affect his son. Something that hits home to me as well! Excellent post!

Malcolm in Wangpo Tetsaban is still enjoying his retirement and keeps us updated from his neck of the woods. He has a good posts about how the local villagers helped and pitched in for the water flood victims in Thailand.

Talen who just moved to Pattaya goes a little bit outside of the city and writes amongst others about Wat Yansangwararam.

Lawrence in Phana is actually in the UK right now but still manages to blog about Thai related topics and he has a great post about Kathin celebrations in a Devon/UK Temple.

Mike in Prachuap Kirikhan has daily updates and one is about Mao Berry wine and juice, made in Thailand.

Steve is musing over the full name of Bangkok, check it out and be surprised!

Our local Thai pirate talks about palm tree grubs, food I dug out of our garden as well!

Last but not least, Cat at the learning center for the Thai language has amongst others a list of 39 Thai words you must know.

Well if you made it till here and you read just a few of the above mentioned posts, let alone got lost in I don't how many other posts on these blogs, you learned a lot of interesting facts about Thailand and had some great stories to read!

Looking forward to November and your visits next month!

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 31st October, 2010

Today's weather;

Koh Lanta is still enjoying a dry spell, which should finish by tomorrow when all of Southern Thailand is going to be hit by a massive storm with strong wind and big waves. The Western side will have to endure this for one day but the Gulf is in for a couple of days of heavy rain. Right now there's a thin cloud layer that may well be burnt away by the sun once it heats up. Current temp at 7am is 25.5C

Samui is also still dry but is experiencing some strong and heavy wind which caused a power cut for around 3 hours during the night. It's very cloudy right now but dry and with a current temp of 25.3C at 7am.

Yesterday saw a mixed bag on Koh Lanta with sunshine, overcast and occasional bits of rain with a max temp of 30.2C.

Samui was dry but had very strong wind gusts and a max temp of 29.5C

Camille

Food on Wheels; The original pancake

Food on Wheels; The original pancake

Back to the roots and basics. This is about pancakes but the mother of all pancakes so to speak, the original.

Two months I wrote about pancakes on Koh Tao, the classic variation in my series on 'Food on Wheels'.

The pancake today is the real Muslim pancake, the guy in the picture above is everyday at the main road near 'Old Town', as reported on in the recent post about the Koh Lanta Museum, and sells his pancakes. However, there's nothing fancy about this, you can get options, with and without egg for either 10 or 15 Baht. No Nutella, no banana, no frills and thrills. The only additions he still has are the condensed milk and sugar, but I don't count them as add ons, they're part of the furniture so to speak!

The reason I went to Koh Lanta's 'Old Town' was because I needed the 4th injection in a series of 5 for rabies, after I got bitten a while ago by a dog whilst running. A picture of the hospital is coming soon.

Every day around 5pm he comes out of the woodworks and the locals gather around him and go sit in the small sala behind him to enjoy his pancake ad I assume to shoot the shit.

His hot plate is fired by wood, which is in the big white bag next to his push cart.

This is the end result of the pancake, a nice square of egg and dough (?) with all of his ingredients in front of him. Back to the basics or what? The taste was also good!

Hope you enjoyed this entry, I was pleased to be able to buy a pancake here and find the 'mother' of all pancakes carts around Thailand!

Camille

Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 30th October, 2010

Today's weather;

Koh Lanta is having a seemingly thin layer of overcast which could be easily evaporated once the sun gets heating up later this morning. Current temp at 7am is around 27C

Samui has a mixed bag, some blue sky with some clouds in it, this could go anyway during the day! Current temp here is 27.2C

Yesterday saw a day of overcast on Koh Lanta but it stayed dry. Max temp reached around 28C

Samui on the other hand had plenty of rain all through the day and it wasn't until the evening that it stopped raining. Max temp reached 29.5C

Camille

Koh Lanta Museum, Old Town

Koh Lanta Museum, Old Town

On a trip to the Old Town, in the very deep Southern part of Koh Lanta, in search of the local hospital, I drove past the Old Town and decided to have a look inside and I was struck by the charm of this small village. Just for the record, one of the road sign spelled Old Town as 'Oil Town', a classic TIT!

One of the very first things that struck me and caught my attention was a house built in a style of mansions and houses in the deep South of the USA. Have a look at the picture above, to me that house yells 'The South will rise'.

To my big surprise however, it turns out to be the local museum! As described on the plaque above. Unfortunately it looked very much closed and not to be opened in the near future.

One of the few or rather only things on display is this boat, whatever it represents. This is actually what caught my eye and made me decide to stop and have a look, since it looked so scenic!

The whole house has been recently renovated and painted but it also looks that the day after it's official opening and the brass left Koh Lanta, it was closed immediately. Don't these stairs look like stairs coming straight out of a Stephen King novel or movie?

I would love to have the opportunity to visit the actual museum and will ask around a little bit if and when it may be open or maybe get somebody to open it just for me.

Stay tuned!

Camille