Album launch, will post properly soon.
Hmm.
Archive | 2007
Seiko Resistance IS Futile – SNFK11K Automatic Watch
My watch has been at the service center for quite some time…much to my annoyance, and my backup watch completely packed up in Krabi leaving me watchless…which for some reason I find rather uncomfortable.
I’ve been looking around for something in my budget, then out popped some new released by Seiko! The SNFK series.
Something like the Seiko 5 series (7s26 Caliber), but quite a different look – it’s also an automatic watch.
A big face not much different from the rugged outlook of a divers watch (43mm without crown 53mm lug to lug).
It has a beautifully crafted knurled fixed bezel which brings the details of the watch out along with the crown which is also knurled – it’s not screw down though.
Krabi Thailand Trip Day 4 – Elephant Jungle Trekking & Lunch in a Canyon!
And the last day came as quick as that, it really was fast.
We were up early again for a quick breakfast, then out to the Jungle with the owner of an outfit that does Elephant Jungle Trekking – beat that!
First up we fed the elephants with some small bananas, hmmm…nice!
Meet the Team
Each one of these buggers eats more than 200 tonnes of Pineapple leaves A DAY – amazing eh. Basically…they are either sleeping or eating, because eating so much makes them sleepy.
After that we climbed up a platform which put our feet level with the elephants backs, so we could get on easily. So we mounted up, 2-3 per elephant.
Krabi Thailand Trip Day 3 – Kayaking Through Crocodile Canyon, Emerald Pool (Sra Morakot) & Hot Springs Waterfall (Bang Kram)
On the third day it was up early again, a quick breakfast in the hotel and out for some kayaking in the Crocodile Canyon, sounds fun eh? It certainly was.
Although very hot, make sure you’ve packed a hat and some sun screen or sun block if you are liable to get burnt (as I am being a pale whitey).
The sea kayaks used are the surf-ski models, as opposed to the whitewater craft which are watertight/covered (making them more dangerous for beginners). This makes them more stable – although you are likely to get wet, so dress appropriately.
They do provide you with watertight bags to keep your valuables/camera so they won’t get wet in case you do fall in or just get splashed.
The price per canoe was around 900baht including a guide, each kayak can sit two people comfortably, there are some 3-seater models but they aren’t so common. The tour would generally last about an hour or 1.5 hours.
The weather was stunning as we set out.
Matthew Ong from the Breakfast Show
The scenery was quite breathtaking there, especially inside the Canyon almost gorge like reminsicent of Gulin, China – it was splendidly hot though…
After a reasonable paddling session we reached the Canyon (known as Crocodile Canyon if I heard correctly)
Krabi Thailand Trip Day 2 – Rock Climbing at Railay (Rai la/Ton Sai) Beach
After visting Thale Waek in the morning we hopped back on the boat for a short trip to Railay Beach for rock climbing. Krabi is a WORLD famous rock climbing destination with people coming from all over to climb there, with a lot of varied routes and breathtaking scenery when you get up there – I can see why they like it!
This beach is generally divided into two sections, east and west. West Railay provides visitors with peace and quiet as it is a broad sandy beach with fewer facilities than Ao Nang. East Railay which lies across the peninsula from West Railay is different from other beaches in the area as it could actually be classified as a mud flat, especially during low tide. In addition to remarkable views and mangrove forests to the north of the beach, the main attraction for visitors to Hat Railay is the adrenaline pumping activity of cliff climbing. The limestone cliffs on the huge headland between Hat Rai La East and Tham Phra Nang, as well as other nearby islands provide world-class rock climbing facilities against a stunning backdrop of the sea with approximately 700 sport routes of mid to high difficulty ratings.
There are supposed to be over 300 routes ranging from beginner 5a’s to classic multipitch 6a’s right up to the extremes of 8c (according to the French grading system).
There were people from all over the World climbing there, USA, UK, Italy, Germany and goodness knows where else!
We were supervised by the lovely guys and gals from Nomad Adventure – they are the folks behind Summit Climbing Gym led by Yuen Li (do read her bio).
Yuen Li is extremely passionate about what she does and very experienced, she’s quite in demand as a public speaker for motivational seminars and other topics.
Krabi Thailand Trip Day 2 – Island Hopping (Thale Waek, Poda, Chicken and Tup Island), Snorkeling & A Thai Massage!
Day two was up early in the morning at 8.30am, breakfast at the hotel and off out to the boat for some island hopping! We were going to go rock climbing first, but due to the tide we decided to go and see Thale Waek (Separated Sea) which is joined at low tide and see the rest of the islands after rock climbing.
The weather was pretty grey, but we still had fun on the way across.
It was pretty dramatic – you can see how clear the water is!
The weather got a little better as we reached Thale Waek, the beach was covered in driftwood though.
Krabi Thailand Trip Day 1 – Flight, Tiger Cave (Wat Tham Sua), The Fruit Market, Fish Farm & Krabi La Playa
As you’ve probably noticed, last week I went to Krabi in Thailand for 4 days. Lucky for me it was sponsored by Air Asia and arranged by Nuffnang.
Krabi is pretty close to Phuket if you are familiar with that place, the difference is it’s a lot less commercialised – which in my opinion makes it a MUCH better place to go to. It’s still pretty quiet, in Krabi center the shops close at 9.30pm and even in the ‘tourist’ area Ao Nang everything is pretty much closed by midnight.
It’s a fairly small city with about 20,000 people and it’s the provincial capital of Krabi Province, the province itself has a population of around 340,000 people.
We left from KLIA LCCT at 10am on Tuesday morning. Air Asia has a new facility at LCCT where if you are traveling light you can check in via the bright red Kiosk Check-In and avoid all the queues which is very useful. It’s only for those with hand luggage though, but you can save some time if you don’t have bags to check in. The Kiosk will scan the barcode from your online ticket print-out and check you in.
This was the inaugural flight for KL-Krabi! Flights to Krabi start from RM49.90.
It was full too, it looks like it’s going to be a popular destination.
The plane landed about 6 minutes ahead of schedule! The weather was a bit grey when we arrived, was hoping for blue skies!
Tmnut again
Ah so many posts to write, Tmnut is playing silly buggers the last few days.
Most of the time I can’t access Flickr, can’t access any sites hosted on blogspot, sometimes can’t connect to any Google services, can’t connect to MSN..
And when it’s all working it’s so terribly slow, even surfing is a pain.
This is what we get when we pay for broadband eh?
I wish they would stop selling and marketing and start investing back in the infrastructure, let’s upgrade the international links PLEASE.
Let’s get regular trans-atlantic pings of less than 300ms please!
I’ve noticed recently they are super efficient when it comes to cutting your line too, if you don’t pay by the day stated on the bill they really cut you off within a few hours and you have to pay the RM10 reconnection charge.
They are really rather organised when it comes to collecting the money for their half-arsed service.
If only they paid so much attention to the actual service they are supposed to be providing, customer service orientation is not something that is prevalent in Malaysia anyway.
I guess things might change if Streamyx is not the monopoly, if they eventually unbundle the local loop things might change…
Might I say, with great trepidation.
At least it with allow for some smaller guys to come in and run service based companies rather than just sell sell sell, typical of any monopoly.
It was the same in UK when British Telecom held the ADSL power-card, until they unbundled the local loop, the service and pricing was much the same as Streamyx.
Legislation forced them to surrender the monopoly though and now UK is a country with extremely affordable, very high quality ADSL. Most of my friends are using 8mb ADSL, which really gives 8MB internationally…economically they pay around RM120 per month for the service.
And here we are paying RM88 for a 1MB line which only gives 1MB into the Tmnet network, perhaps on a good day getting 300-500kbps internationally.
When is the last time I downloaded something on my Streamyx at over 100k/s? I don’t even remember.
1MB should give downloads of around 115k/s ideally.
I doub’t I’ll get the TMnet CEO coming to my house, but still…
Back from Krabi
I’m back and still alive…and not intruded upon by too many any lady boys.
Krabi is nice, a rock climbing haven if you are into that kind of thing. Plenty of other things to do and see too, I’ll write about the trip properly soon.
Busy, busy busy!
Movie Review – Ratatouille – Fantastic Animation!
Remy is a young rat in the French countryside who arrives in Paris, only to find out that his cooking idol is dead. When he makes an unusual alliance with a restaurant’s new garbage boy, the culinary and personal adventures begin despite Remy’s family’s skepticism and the rat-hating world of humans.
I’ve been hearing quite a lot about this movie, especially from the Nuffnangers who’d seen it early. I’m definitely a fan of Pixar movies, although they haven’t really wowed me since The Incredibles and Monster Inc.
Straight into the top 250 on IMDB at #73! Quite a few top 250 movies this year, after a poor start to the year the great movies have come rolling in!
Ratatouille is a superb movie! From start to end, the animation is fantastic (sometimes it’s that good they lose the style and it just looks plain ‘real), the story line is good, the voice acting is that good you don’t even think they are voice actors, it’s definitely better to use lesser stars…or they voices start to take over (Hello Shrek). The only really recognisable name is Peter O’Toole as Anton Ego, and he has a fairly small part.
The characters are almost real. It’s full of great moments, moving, funny, touching and really truly engaging.
Remy is just great!
Definitely one of the best animated movies to date.
I think this movie will shake up the animation world, like Toy Story when it first came out. It really got people talking, it’s destined to be a classic. It’s not flashy nor action packed, but it has a real story and real characters.
It’s not much of a kids movie, but I think the kids will love it too, especially the funny moments.
Oh yah, thanks to Melissa from Priority Communications and Intel for the invite and tickets 🙂
I give it a must watch 9/10.
