Mid-career break in Singapore and Southern Thailand

Last month in Singapore

I had a plan to have a short break after I quit Oddle at the beginning of 2020 and then look for a new job in another country later. However, I stuck around with Argile Partners to try out a new career path.

And then COVID-19 happened.

It had been little more than half a year since the Singapore Circuit Breaker began, almost a year since I last visited my family, and almost a year since I started my new job. I had always thought that this new job was not really for me and the COVID-19 situation in Thailand seemed to be stabilizing, so I decided to quit my job, take a short break and visit my family.

But then the COVID-19 situation in Thailand started to get worse.

So I decided to change my plan and looked for another job in Singapore. The short-term visit visa I got after quitting my job allowed me to stay in Singapore for another month. But I gave myself 3 weeks to do it since staying in Singapore was quite expensive and I wanted to give some buffer time in case something unexpected happened. The time was quite short so I knew that the chance to succeed was very slim and it did not help when it was during Chinese New Year as well. I sent out 10 applications, got into 3 interviews, but they were all canceled later on since it was getting too close to my deadline and it would not make much sense if I had to fly back to Singapore after a few days or weeks after I arrived Thailand.

Although, what I wanted to achieve during my last month in Singapore was not successful but it was not all in vain. This website was built during that time (you can read more about the buidling of this website on this page), and I had a chance visit a few places where it would always too crowded to visit. Also, I got to try out what it would feel like if I were to work as a digital nomad in Singapore. I stayed at Cantonment Hmlet, a co-living space, during that time and planned to work in their co-working area and occasionally work at a cafe to change the pace.

The co-working area at Hmlet was generally good. There were an indoor area and an outdoor area. Both spaces were clean and in a reasonable size. However, due to COVID-19 related regulation, there were limited seats to keep social distancing. There were 12 individual seats indoor but could probably fit nearly 20 seats during normal time. The outdoor area had almost 30 seats but mostly in a group seating arrangement so it could fit around 7 groups. In the worst case, they could fit around 20 people who came here separately to work. It was big enough throughout the day. The indoor area was more popular so you would not get a seat if you come during peak time which was around 9:00 - 17:00. However, do keep in mind that, this was during a strange period since Singapore still closed the border so I guess there was less crowd than normal which I am not quite sure if it counterbalanced the fewer seats from the social distancing regulation or not.

From my observation, the crowd was quite mixed. There were a couple of day-traders, foreign professionals, foreign students, families, and couples. While I were not too sure why they stayed there, but I could guess families and couples were there either because of their house renovation or staycation because they looked local.

Since there were quite a lot of westerners and there were quite a few groups of friends at the place, so I thought it would be more lively during the night time. It turned out that the place was very quiet after 19:00. I found out about this in the latter part of my stay which was quite unfortunate since I could be more productive during that period.

I went to a few cafes to work, get some coffee and take a break during the period. I thought that it should be quite peaceful during the working hours since the majority of the people should either be at the office or at school. It was not what I thought it would be. Most of the more popular cafes were at almost full capacity all the time. In hindsight, one might expect that since there would be a long queue on a good weekend.

So after a few tries, I ended up just getting 20 minutes coffee break at my favorite coffee place, Nylon, and went back to work at Hmlet to be more productive and more relaxed.

Quarantine in Bangkok

After 3 weeks of job hunting and digital nomading in Singapore, I had to fly back to Bangkok since it was approaching the expiration of the short-term visit visa. I had two choices for how the quarantine in Bangkok would be - self funded, or government-funded which was only available if you were a Thai citizen.

If you opted for the government's, all you needed to do was booking a flight ticket and a fit-to-fly certificate which was basically just a letter from any doctor to guarantee that you are COVID-free and healthy. The government would then rearrange your flight and arrange accommodation for you. The total amount you had to pay was significantly cheaper than the other option but you would not know where you would be quarantined.

I decided to pay for the quarantine myself for that reason. The extra cost you had to pay was a COVID-19 RT-PCR lab test result and an Alternate State Quarantine accommodation which was a choice of government-approved hotels for this purpose. The hotel cost varied, ranging from 25,000 THB to 100,000+ THB depending on the size of the room, the location, and the extra add-ons like a treadmill or other fitness equipments you would want to have accompanying you during those 15 days.

I chose Arte Hotel Bangkok which cost me around 50,000 THB total for 15 days. The room looked well maintained, with decent food options, good room size, reasonable price, and had a bathtub. I love using a bathtub. I even bought a bath bomb from Lust to try for the first time.

The flight back was SQ 712 by Singapore Airlines on 24 February 2021. The Changi airport was empty, there were not many people at Jewel, and the flight was around 30% seated.

My destination, Don Muang airport, on the other hand, was very crowded. There was a very long queue at the immigration which took me more than 2 hours to get out of the area. I hope the flights' arrival time could be better spread out or maybe it was inevitable as there were too many flights, I will never know.

The hotel was quite decent, as good as I expected. The downside was the view was bad since the building was not high enough for you to see the Bangkok skyline.

The hotel provided 3 meals a day, a yoga mat, 3 COVID-19 swab tests, and allowed you to go out of your room to the common area after the first scheduled swab tests by booking. The common area was bad since there was very limited space and it was outdoor in the middle of Bangkok which was known for being very hot and polluted. So I went there once and came back down in 3 minutes.

In those 15 days, it was not as boring as I thought it would be. I guess being an introvert helped me a lot to be self-sufficient enough to stay at a small space for a long period. I entertained myself by exploring YouTube channels, listening to Clubhouse, catching up with current Tech online, exercising, playing Legends of Runeterra and Fantasy Premier Leauge, looking for places to go after quarantine and upgrading this website. I managed to add this list page which lists out some of the things that I am interested in. It was integrated with external services like IMDB, Spotify, Whiskybase, and Goodreads as planned since I do not want to host my own storage for this.

Anyway, 15 days had passed. No weight-loss. I was very ready to feel my freedom again.

Two-week escape to Southern Thailand

When I was younger, my travel plan was very detailed, to the point where I had every action planned by hour of the day is done in a spreadsheet. I think my reason back then was I wanted to maximize the "value" of my time being there, going as many places or trying out as many things as possible. It was not wrong but it was somewhat very tired. Theoretically, it should be exhausting during the planning phase and then you can just follow the plan without thinking much. However, in reality, things do not always go as planned, so anxiety goes up every time something goes slightly off the track. Then, you might end up in a dilemma deciding on how much you want improvise.

In the later trips, my plan has become increasingly simplistic. On my Europe trip, I only planned the start date, and end date, and then I decided on the way where next I want to go and how many days I want to spend there. It makes everything a lot more flexible and less stressful. I enjoyed those time a lot. The downside is that you will not always get a good accommodation or transportation deal so you are very likely to pay extra or end up staying in a rather bad hotel.

This time, I figured that there would be significantly tourists so booking last minute flight ticket or hotel would not be a problem, which is true. I tried to book hotels and tickets on the next day while I was in quarantine and see if the price is higher than if I book in advance. It turned out that, there is not much difference. In some case, I got a better deal doing it last minute. So this trip was even more simplistic. I only had a start date, and the first thing I want to do, everything else would be decided later.

Scuba diving is something I always wanted to do so it was the first and only item in my todo list.

Samui

After the quarantine, I spent a few nights in Bangkok to meet up with some friends and then I flew to Samui on 14 March since I had to take a ferry ride from there to Koh Tao where the scuba course is held.

I stayed at Hansar Hotel for a Sea View room which cost around 2,500. The hotel locates at Bophut beach and is very near to CoCo Tam's which is one of the most famous bars in Samui.

The hotel was nice and well worth the price. I believe it was a discounted price since it seemed to be cheaper than the over all quality of the place. The whole area was very quiet. I walked around the walking street and I saw no tourists nor anybody else roaming on the street apart of occasionally local motorbikes driven by. A lot of places were closing down, I only saw spa and restaurants were still mostly opened. CoCo Tam's were supposed to be crowded during the "normal" time but it was awfully quiet. I planned to go there but they only offered western food and I was in no mood to have those so I went back and ate at the hotel instead.

The beach was nice and quiet. The sea was quite clear and calm. So I got to do some SUP which is offered by the hotel free-of-charge.

Overall, I feel I could stay much longer since I really like the peacefulness of the time there but I also really want to do the diving course and it should be better idea to go see other places first and decide what to do later, so I stick with the initial plan and maybe come back here again later if I have a chance.

Koh Tao

I know that in order to do scuba diving you will need a license that can be obtained by taking a open water course and scuba diving is something that I always want to try. That was the main reason why I went to Koh Tao since it is well-known as one most the most famous diving schools with very affordable price.

An open water course was around 10,000 THB and it took you 3 days to finish. After that, you would get a diving license which allows you to dive not deeper than 18 meters. If you want to go deeper, you would need to take other courses on top of that. Apparently, there is whole course tree you can take in order to specialize in diving, recuse course, dive master course, technical diving course and so on. I do not want to go that deep in the diving world yet so I decided to take the open water course and advanced open water course which would allow me to go as deep as 30 meters.

I took the diving courses with Ban's Diving Resort which took me 5 days, and 8 dives in total. There were 4 people in my class which I think it is a good number but normally it could go up 10 people per class.

I learnt how to use the equipments, how to ascend and descend, how to clear your ear and your mask, how to help yourself and your buddy in different situations, how to send various signals, how to night dive, how to navigate around under water and a lot other stuff.

Diving is not scary, especially, if you can swim and feel comfortable in the water. It is usually done in group with one or more very experienced local divers and the amount of safety measurement makes me feel safe for the entire trip.

Night dive may sound scary since it reduces your visibility by a lot but it is not like you cannot see anything. After your eyes adjusted, you could see things around even without a flashlight. Although, turning off your flashlight was not recommended.

One takeaway I took from this was that if anything went wrong, just keep calm and do not panic. There was one time I almost got lost since I was to absorbed with taking a photo of a fish. I could not find anyone around me after I looked around so I could get panic here. But I kept calm and looked again. It turned out that they were just right under me.

The overall experience was good. The instructor was friendly and the class was mostly casual. There were quite a few good spots around Koh Tao but unfortunately, it was not the best time to dive when I took the course. The water in most of those spots was not very clear but it was not too bad in my opinion. You could see as far as 10 - 20 meters ahead which I think it was good enough.

I had a chance to go around Koh Tao by motorbike. The town was quiet but not empty, I saw a lot of westerners around which I supposed they lived here since Thailand had not opened its border for tourists yet.

I also took a boat to Koh Nang Yuan which is a sister island of Koh Tao. There is a resort there with very nice beach and also a very good viewpoint. I like the place if it can stay peaceful during the normal time.

Phangan

Phangan was not a place I considered to go since I viewed it as a party place as it is known for Full Moon Party. I am not interested in that but it was very near and somewhat on the way back to the main land so I decided to spend a night there and maybe I could also visit Mu Koh Angthong which is also nearby. But it turned out that there was not a boat to Mu Koh Angthong from Phangan during that time, only from Samui, so I missed the opportunity there.

Phangan was also quiet but not as empty as Samui. You can still see people around and a lot more motorbikes in the main area. But I chose a hotel at the opposite side of the island.

I stayed at Buri Rasa situated at Thong Nai Pan Beach for a night. I booked an Ocean View Deluxe room for 2,300 THB per night. The staff was very kind and upgraded my room to Ocean Front Deluxe for free since it was free on that night.

The beach here was very nice. The sand were soft, white, and very clean and it was empty most of the time. I would say it was one of the better ones in the Gulf of Thailand.

Sadly, most of stores were either temporarily closed or out of business already so there was nothing much to explore. Fortunately, the one street food shop that opened was quite good and the hotel also had special local menu during that time so it was not too bad.

There is another beach nearby called Thong Nai Pan Yai Beach. It is slightly bigger and does not seems to be in walkable distance since you have to go up to a steep hill and go down again. Luckily, the hotel had a kayak boat for their guest to use for free. It took around 15 minutes to get there. The beach is slightly longer and there were more locals there. It was also quite nice but I would prefer Thong Nai Pan Beach over this one.

Khao Sok

Came across this place while I was looking to for a way to get to Phuket from Phangan since it is kind of along the way to Phuket with a bit of detour. Khao Sok is a national park in Surat Thani and this is a nice dam called Ratchaprapha Dam where my actual destination is.

There was a bit of hicup from Phangan to Surat Thani. I booked a ferry from Phangan with 12go.asia but it seemed that the timetable there was not updated with the ferry company so I had to wait for a few hours delay. Fortunately, my destination was not the airport so the delay was okay.

I spent a night at Surat Thani city center, walked around the area, and the night market. Had a chance to try some local dishes, Loang Thoang, which is basically a white noodle dish with red sauce. It looked spicy but it was not and it actually tasted quite nice.

I took a van to the dam on the next day. It took around 2 and a half hours to get to the pier and another 40 minutes scenic boat ride to get to the raft that I was going to stay. There were quite a few rafts that you could stay overnight in the dam but a lot of them were quite pricey which could cost you around 6,000 THB per night. Otherwise, you can take a boat ride here and go back on the same day which would save you quite a lot of money. I decided to stay and spent around 3,500 in total including the boat ride, food, and one night stay on the raft.

Again, it was quite and peaceful. I was the only guest on that raft so I basically had everything for myself. There was a kayak for you to use and go around the area.

One downside is that the stay was not very comfortable but it was expected. Electricity is only available from 18.00 - 22.00 and there was no electric fan nor air conditioner and there were a lot of mosquitoes at night.

I would say this is a nice place but I might not want to come back here when it was crowded since it was not as comfortable as staying on a resort by the beach. However, it was still such a nice experience which I would recommend others to do.

Phuket

Usually, you can get to Phuket from Surat Thani by plane but during this COVID-19 period, there is no flight available. So I had to take a bus there which took me around 5 hours.

The bus was around half seated and you could book a seat on the day itself since there was not many people traveling during this time.

I did not know that this bus actually passed one of a good beach destination in Thailand called Khao Lak Beach located in Phang Nga. It is not quite well-known among foreign tourists since it is quite troublesome to get to. I could have stopped by here before get to Phuket. Miss opportunity.

The bus terminated in Phuket city center but my stay was at Patong Beach so I had to take a taxi there. There was a guy trying to quote me 500 THB which was obviously over-priced, even Grab Taxi was cheaper so I rejected it. I do not understand why people still trying to this when there was next to no tourists around. Anyway, I ended when with another guy for 350 THB which was still a bit more expensive than I expected but it was not as ridiculous as the other one.

My plan (?) for Phuket was to just relax here for a week without any particular plan so decide on the day-by-day basis to see what I feel like doing. I wanted to try surfing but it seemed that I was there a bit too early for that since there was no wave here just yet. I was told from May onwards would be a better time for that.

I was staying in two hotels there, The Bliss South Beach Patong and Burasari Phuket. Both were located around south-end of Patong Beach and offered me quite a good experience there. The Bliss' building and room looked quite older but offered sea view from your room while Burasari room was bigger, newer and generally nicer. Both hotels do not have direct beach access, you will have to walk across a road there, which is the same as other hotels on this beach I believe. I stayed at The Bliss for the first two nights and the rest at Burasari. Personally, I prefer Burasari for their nicer room and it also has bathtub inside. It was also cheaper, I paid only 700 THB per night while The Bliss was at 1,000 THB which was very cheap for what I got. I seriously considered spent a month here. I was later told that the normal price for a room at Burasari was actually around 4,000 THB but they needed cut down the price to stay open. I forgot to mention that Burasari was next to a very big Swisshotel Resort but it was already closed down due to no business.

There was nothing much going on during my days in Phuket. I rent a motorbike and rode it around, visited a few beaches and viewpoints, looked for some food and coffee places, and spent some days for day-trips to islands and snorkeling spots around Phuket.

There were 3 main beaches on the west side of Phuket, namely, Patong, Karon, and Kata. The busiest one was Patong, Karon was the longest but the quietest and Kata was the smallest and somewhat busy. I like Karon the most for its quietness but the weather was too hot to sit there and chill so I went Kata Noi, the sister beach of Kata, instead since there was a small bar I can sit and chill under some shade. Patong was more crowded and it had night market opened along the beach so you could find some local food there to eat while watching the sunset, although, there were not much options so I had to find other places for dinner after a few days.

There are also lesser-known beaches apart from those three which are less pretty but are worth the visit. There is this coffee bar near Kamala Beach called Sync Coffee Bar & Roastery that offers very good coffee which I think is the best one I had tried during this trip.

It was surprisingly hard to find food in Phuket during the time I was there. Most of the restaurants near the beach were closed so I had to bike out quite far to find some food or else I would need to settle with the hotel's food which was not bad but there were not so many Thai food options.

Another activity that I did while I was in Phuket was taking day trips to different islands near Phuket. There are a lot of well-known small islands that are accessible from Phuket. Phi Phi, Surin, and Similan are perhaps the most well-known ones. The easiest way to get there is to join a trip from a travel agency. The most popular ones are Seastar and We Love Adaman. I have tried using both of them and I think they are quite close in terms of their service quality.

Mu Koh Similan

I bought a package with We Love Adaman for this day trip. I wanted to stay a night at one of the islands but unfortunately they were not opened for staying overnight yet so I had to settle with just a day trip.

What surprised me the most about this was the number of people on the trip. I was able to book the trip only one day in advance so I assumed that there would be nearly no people there. It turned out that the agency's pier was packed. I believed there were roughly around 500 people there. I could not imagine how many people there would be during peak season in a normal time. I asked the tour guide and it seemed there was a number of visitors limit and they were not even 25% booked.

Anyway, the trip started from being picked up from my hotel in Patong by a van and it took around 2 hours to the pier as it was actually outside Phuket. Then, took a fully seated speedboat for another one and a half hour to reach the main islands. Similan is actually a group of 9 islands, 4 of which are not allowed to visit for restoration purposes. Donald Duck Beach on island 8 was small but very nice with probably the clearest seawater I have ever seen. The snorkeling spots, though, were very disappointing. The coral reefs were not as colorful and there were as many sea creatures as I was expected.

Mu Koh Surin

Just to try out other options, I booked an overnight trip to Mu Koh Surin with Seastar this time, although, I had quite a positive experience with the other agency.

Mu Koh Surin is probably less well-known than Similan for an I-do-not-know reason. Maybe because it was further away than Similan as it might start from the same pier but it took around two and a half hour to get there. For this reason, there were less people going but they were still much more than I was expected.

Mu Koh Surin is also a group of islands consist of 2 main islands and a few small ones. There is no photogenic beach but it made up for a lot nicer snorkeling spots with wider range of sea creatures and more amazing coral reefs.

You could also stay overnight here in either a small bungalow, a normal camping tent, or a special glamping tent with air-conditioner. I opted for a normal tent since it was cheaper and I just wanted to try what it feel like to stay in a tent on the beach. It was not bad but also not as good. I have no complaints about the sleeping equipment since I know what to expect. However, there was no wind so it got quite warm during the night so it was not comfortable to sleep.

However, the beach in front of the tent was very interesting. On the low tide, it can go very low to the point that you can walk to the beach to see live coral reef, Nemo fish, and rays.

Overall, I prefer these islands over Similan and I would recommend staying overnight here. You could stay here more than one night to explore more spots which I wish I could have done.

Phi Phi

Phi Phi is probably the most popular island among all islands that I visited during this trip, except Phuket. However, there was less crowd than the other ones as there was only one speedboat departing from the pier.

Phi Phi is easier to access from Phuket as you can depart directly from a pier a Phuket and it took less than an hour to get to the first spot.

The most famous spot here is probably Maya Bay which The Beach was filmed here. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to be on the bay since it was still closed for restoration.

There is also Pileh Lagoon which is very beautiful and seems like a nice spot to just chill on a private boat sip some Whisky and enjoy dipping yourself in the water. But I was with a group tour speedboat so I could not really do that, and also there were quite a lot of other boats here as well.

You could also do some snorkeling here but I have to say that this is the worst spot among here, Surin and Similan.

Short time in Bangkok

After around a week in Phuket, I flew back to Bangkok to meet some friends before going to my hometown to visit my family.

I had a few free days to roam around Bangkok. I had not really been spending time here for a few years on the outside there is not many changes, air was still as polluted, it was still so hot outside almost unbearable to walk, and the footpath was still harder than ever to walk.

There is a new shopping mall opened just opposite my place and seems like it is bringing out a lot of business from the shopping mall connected to my condo. The food court is closed down and I could see a lot more unoccupied spaces there. I think it is a matter of time that this place will run down if they do not do something about it. Anyway, the new shopping mall was great. There were more food options than my place ever had and it also had a cinema as well. So I do not need to take bus to Siam to watch a movie anymore.

Most of the famous food around this area are still all in business, thankfully. So I got to try all nostalgic food. Som Tum Jae Daeng, Joke Samyan, and Suki Samyan are still great, although, food portion served at Som Tum Pa Daeng are a lot less than it used to be. Leng Ki is the one shop that I really like but already closed down. I actually think I see this coming since their service are usually very slow so I suppose they cannot serve as many dishes to keep them in business.

I got to try this beef noodle at Rod Dee Ded which was cooked with marijuana which was just recently legalised in Thailand. It tasted really good but, to be honest, I do not know how much marijuana helps with the taste. I actually also ordered the normal beef noodle to compare but I cannot feel much difference.

I also got to tried quite a few new places, like Schwedakong Land, a home cook with exotic ingredients. I tried rice with bull testicles there which is actually very juicy and delicious. I have also tried Thong Smith which is very upscale boat noodle. There was no fancy ingredients but the quality of cooking is up there so it turned out very good. However, the price was around 5 times more than normal boat noodles.

Another thing, I had been trying in Bangkok is coffee. I was not a coffee person when I lived in Bangkok but I became to appreciate it more after I lived in Singapore. So I made it my mission to find a nice coffee place in Bangkok.

Sadly, although I had tried coffee in a lot of places there were not many good one here. There were 3 - 4 places which maybe not excellent but I would still go back there to get coffee - Brave Roasters, Factory Coffee, and NANA Coffee Roasters.

A few things that I noticed while I was exploring was that coffee with citrus, especially, orange and yuzu is an on-the-trend thing here. I saw most of the places I went offer it. I did try it but I still prefer just plain long black. Another thing I noticed wat that, people here was so obsessed with taking a photo. In Singapore or in Thailand back in the days, you would just take out the phone camera and took a few photos of the food before you ate it. But nowadays, people are bringing fully equipped professional-looking camera to not only taking photos of the food but also themselves with the place decoration which I also noticed that a lot of places prepared a photo-taking spot just for them. Interesting.

Back to Mae Sot

After a few days in Bangkok, it was time to fly back to my hometown. Funny thing was that the flight I took from Bangkok to my hometown, Mae Sot, costed 2,500 THB while the flight from Phuket to Bangkok was only 800 THB. The distance was almost the same but there was only one airline that operated between Mae Sot and Bangkok so that made them be able to price this high. I do not really like the implication of monopoly like this.

I have spent more time in Mae Sot than in Bangkok in recent years. There is not anything much going on here, nothing much to do, and nothing much to talk about. It is a lot quieter than Bangkok but sometimes the air can be as polluted if not more. It is the result of agriculture I heard. People grow their plants, sugar cane, for example, and once the harvest is done, they would burn it instead of properly bury them. It is cheaper and less time-consuming so people are doing it even if the government does not allow it.

Seems like this issue is getting better this time. I guess they are getting more serious about enforcing the rule and it is clear that the air quality is getting better.

Another sad thing, I found out is that my favorite northern Thai-style hotpot place has already closed down. It is probably one of the best hotpots I have ever tried, although, it has been clear that the owner really wants to stop as he put up a sign to sell the places a few times already. Its herbal and spicy soup pair with very soft and juicy meat will be missed.

Nonetheless, I adore homecooked food from my mom. These exotic recipes, and ingredients with these nostalgic recipes cannot really be found elsewhere.

What's next

I wanted to go back to Phuket one more time to try surfing but since the COVID-19 is getting worse so I guess this plan is out of the window for the time being.

For now, I will be focusing on job hunting and working on improving this website and maybe jump on one of the open-source projects.