PAH NGAN ISLAND

Pha Ngan Island, about half hour’s boat ride north of Samui Island, has become the island of choise for those who find Samui Island too crowded or too expensive. It started out as a sort of ‘back-door escape’ from Samui Island but is well established now, with a regular boat service and over 156 places to stay around the 190 sq km island. It’s definitely worth a visit for its remaining deserted beaches (they haven’t all been developed) and, if you like snorkeling, for its live-coral formations.

Although hordes of backpackers have discovered Pha Ngan Island, the lack of an airport and relative lack of paved roads has so far spared it from tourist – hotel and package-tour development. Compared with Samui Island, Pha Ngan Island has a lower concentration of bungalows, less crowded beaches and coves, and an overall less ‘modern’ atmosphere. Pha Ngan Island aficionados say the sea food is fresher and cheaper than on Samui’s beaches, but it really varies form place to place. As Samui Island becomes more expensive for both travelers and investors, more and more people will be drawn to Pha Ngan Island. But for the time being, overall living costs remain about half what you’d pay on Samui Island.

Except at the island’s party capital, Hat Rin beach, the island hasn’t yet been infested with blaring videos and stereos.

Brunei Football

When I attended the ceremony for BAFA, I was quite surprised to learn about the history of BAFA. BAFA as you know is the Football Association of Brunei Darussalam. BAFA did not start off as BAFA.BAFA was originally known as the Brunei State Amateur Football Association. It was founded in 1952 with His Highness The Sultan as the Royal Patron. BSAFA was founded in 1952 in Seria. A few employees of

PATTAYA BEACH

Pattaya beach, 147km south-east of Bangkok, is Thailand’s busiest beach resort with over 12,000 rooms available in hotels, bungalows and guesthouses spread along Hat Pattaya beach and adjoining Hat Naklua beach and Hat Jomtien beach. Pattaya is the most active of the three, a crowded crescent of sand where jet skis and powerboats slice the surf and parasail’s billow over the palms all day long. Sunburned visitors jam the beachfront road in rented jeeps and motorbikes.

According to recent Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT) statistics, an average one-third of foreign tourists in Thailand visit Pattaya; in a typical November to March season Pattaya receives around a million visitors. Most of them are package tourists form Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Depending on their tastes, some visitors may find Pattaya lacking in culture, since much of the place seems designed to attract tourists interested in a prefabricated, western-style beach vacation with almost no ‘Thai’ ingredients. Hat Pattaya beach is also not that great (although it must have been at one time) and the town’s biggest businesses – water sports – have driven prices for food and accommodation beyond Bangkok levels, compared with many other Thai resort areas.

Still, it continues to attract a loyal following of Bangkok oil company expats, conventionalist and package tourists. Local authorities and travel suppliers have been trying to upgrade Pattaya’s image and clean the place up. Consequently the South Pattaya sex scene has diminished and families are returning.

Pattaya is acclaimed for its seafood, though it’s generally overpriced by national (but not international) standards. Pattaya’s lingering notoriety for sex tourism revolves around a collection of discos, outdoor bars and transvestite cabarets comprising its red-light district at the south end of the beach. That part of South Pattaya beach known as ‘the village’ attracts a large number of ka-toeys (Thai trnsvestities), who pose as hookers and ply their trade among the droves of sex tourists, as well as a prominent gay scene.

The one thing the Pattaya beach area has going for it is diving centers. There are over a dozen nice islands off Pattaya’s shore, although they can be expensive (compared with the rest of Thailand) to reach. If you’re a snorkeling or scuba enthusiast, equipment can be booked at any of the several diving shops/schools at Hat Pattaya beach. Laan Island, the most popular of the offshore islands, even has places to stay.

Brunei's New Stamps of 2008

This post is slightly late (5 days) but so is the commemorative issue (2 years late). On Thursday, 24th April 2008, the Post Office issued the first of this year's commemorative stamps. This issue is to celebrate 100 years of moving Brunei's capital to dryland. Prior to 1906, Brunei's capital or administrative centre was always on the water. Though reading some of the older books, it may have

PHI PHI ISLAND

Phi Phi Island consists of two islands situated about 40km from Krabi, Phi Phi Leh Island and Phi Phi Don Island. Both are part of Hat Noppharat Thara beach/Phi Phi Island National Marine Park, though this means little in the face of the blatant land encroachment now taking place on Phi Phi Don .

Only parts of Phi Phi Don Island are actually under the administration of the Mational Parks Division of the Forestry Department. Phi Phi Leh Island and the western cliffs of Phi Phi Don Island are left to the nest collectors, and the parts of Phi Phi Don Island where the chaonaam live are also not included in the park.

After Phuket Island this is probably the most popular tourist destination along the Andaman Coast, especially during the peak months from December to March, when hordes descend on the island and snatch up every room and bungalow on Phi Phi Don. Even so, the island still retains some of its original beauty, though to truly appreciate it usually means a fair hike to escape the crowds.

Rubber Industry in Brunei

At the beginning of the 20th century, many Bruneians have forgotten that it was not oil that sustained us. It was coal, rubber and cutch. I wrote about cutch in my Brunei Times' Golden Legacy column last week. Yesterday I wrote about rubber. But I couldn't get the photograph I wanted to place in the newspaper. Instead it was an old photograph about Labu Estate in Temburong.The photographs I

THE DEEP SOUTH OF THAILAND

The frontier between Thailand and Malaysia carves across the peninsula six degrees north of the equator, but the cultures of the two countries shade into each other much further north. According to official divisions, the southern Thais – the thai pak tai - begin around Chumphon, and as you move further down the peninsula you see ever more sarongs, yashmaks and towering mosques, and hear with increasing frequency a staccato dialect that baffles many Thais. In Trang, Phatthalung and Songkhla provinces, the Muslim population is generally accepted as being Thai, but the inhabitants of the four southernmost provinces _ Satun, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat – are ethnically more akin to the Malays: most of the 1,500,00 followers of Islam here speak Yawi, an old Malay dialect. To add to the ethnic confusion, the deep south has a large urban population of Chinese, whose comparative wealth makes them stand out sharply form the Muslim farmers and fishermen.

On a journey south, the first thing you might be tempted by is an atmospheric boat trip through the Thale Noi Waterbird Park near Phatthalung. The easiest route after that is to hop across to the great natural beauty of the west coast, with its sheer limestone outcrops, pristine sands and fish-laden coral stretching down to the Malaysian border. The spread of tourism outwards form Phuket is slowly inching its way south to the idyllic islands around Trang, but for the time being at least these remain more or less unscathed, and further south in the spectacular Tarutao Island National Park, you’ll usually still have the beaches all to yourself.

On the less attractive east side of the peninsula, you’ll probably pass through the ugly, modern city of Hat Yai at some stage, as it’s the transport capital for the south and for connections to Malaysia, but a far more sympathetic place to stay is the old town of Songkla, half an hour away on the seashore. The region southeast of here is where you’ll experience Malay Muslim culture at its purest, through with the exception of Narathiwat, a pleasant stopover on the journey south to the border, it has little to offer the visitor.

As well as the usual bus services and the rail line, which forks at Hat Yai to Butterworth and Kuala Lumpur on the Malasian west coast and Sungai Kolok on the eastern border, the deep south is the territory of share-taxis – some times grand old 1950s Mercs, which connect all the major towns for about twice the fare of ordinary buses. The cars leave when they’re full, which usually means six passengers, with, quite possibly, babes – in arms and livestock. They are a quick way of getting around and you should get dropped off at the door of your journey’s end. A more recent phenomenon, run on almost exactly the same principles at similar prices, is air-conditioned minibuses; on these you’ll be more comfortable, with a seat to yourself, and most of the various ranks publish a rough timetable – though the minibuses also tend to leave as soon as they’re full.

Highlights

Mook Island – best of the Trang islands, with laid-back beach resorts and the stunning Emerald Cave...
Tarutao Island National Marine Park – a largely undisturbed haven of beautiful land – and seascapes...