== Thailand's South-Eastern Islands ==

After the camera catastrophe in Bangkok we decided to change plans, skip the trip to northern Thailand, and head straight to the islands. We ended up visiting all major islands in South-Eastern Thailand: Koh Samui, Koh Pha-Ngan and Koh Tao

Koh Samui

This is the most popular tourist island on the eastern side. We wanted a quite secluded beach, so we went to the northern part of the island and found a beautiful beach named Mae-Nam. We stayed at a lovely resort (Mae-Nam Resort) in a wooden Bungalow on the beach front. Tali was very excited from the white sandy beach, but would not enter the sea due to the horrible blue jelly-fish which swarmed the waters (see photo).

Koh Pha-Ngan

This island is mostly known for the huge Full-Moon Parties it hosts. Basically all we did is have fun: Sleep, Food, Movies, Eat, Movies, Eat, Massage, Sea, Eat, Pool, Rest, Cards, Movie, etc.... you get the point. Oh, and we drank and danced at the full moon, of course. We met a lovely Danish couple named Anne and Kristian. The four of us rented a jeep and went on a trip to the far ends of the island, which really required a jeep due to the very bad and steep dirt roads (click for video clip - speekers requiered).

Typical poses we had on Koh Pha-Ngan

Koh Tao

This island is the most known diving site in the far east. There are many diving clubs run and staffed by Europeans that offer diving courses, diving trips etc... Unfortunately, Tali decided not to take the diving course, so Yoni ended up joining a couple of dives organized by one of the major diving clubs.
Next to Koh Tao is the Nang Yuan island which is actually 3 little islands connected by narrow sandy stretches. We chose to get there by a kayak, which turned out to be a real challenge for us non-athlete, not-in-shape couple. We rowed for 40 minutes through waves and wind, seeing ourselves drift away from the shore into the open sea on a very unstable and tiny kayak (click for video clip - speekers requiered). But seeing the view from the mountain top of one of the islands was well worth it.

The curious incident of the Camera in the Night Time

This is the sad tale of Yoni's cameras in our trip to the far east.

"You always think it won't happen to you, but no matter how paranoid you are, how fanatically you guard your equipment, it can happen! Believe me, it CAN happen!!"
(Jonathan Livni Nov-2006)

Konica-Minolta A2
This was my first digital camera ever. I bought it 2.5 years ago and I loved it. I thought I'll use it during the trip and then sell it. I planed to buy a new one only before the next big trip (2-3 years from now).
Alas, it was stolen while we were in northern Vietnam. I placed it between my feet on an inter-city mini-bus ride, but at some point on the way the driver dropped some Vietnamese people in their village, and one of them took it from beneath me when they unloaded luggage from the mini-bus' back door.
We were shocked. For an entire day we ran from place to place, trying to figure out what to do. We hung flyers in Vietnamese language on every wall stating that we were willing to give a reward to whoever will bring it forth. We traced the mini-bus driver, tried to talk to him and offer him money for the camera, but he didn't agree to talk to us. We went from one police station to the next trying to get someone to investigate and to write a report for us. Nothing worked.
When we contacted the insurance we found out that the camera was covered only partially. Only half of the money would be returned, and that only if we could produce a genuine police report. We continued on with the trip, forcing ourselves to carry on. A few days later I had to handover 40$ to bribe some police man in Hanoi to finally give us a signed report, which turned out to be a very clumsy written one (as westerners, you simply can't imagine how clumsy it was).

Nikon D80
The trip from northern Vietnam to southern Vietnam was nice, but not many pictures where taken. We had to suffice ourselves with Tali's Nikon CoolPix 5600, which is small and cute, but after having so much fun with the A2, we had a tough time settling for the point-and-shoot camera.
I started reading articles about cameras on http://www.dpreview.com/ and fantasized about the Nikon D80. I couldn't believe it when I saw it on the shelf in a camera shop in Saigon. Frantically I started to bargain, and within 2 hours I was in the hotel room gasping at the awesome, brand new, shining D80. It was love at first site, and for days we enjoyed it and learnt its intricacies. The peak of our enjoyment was while touring the Unbelievable Angkor temples (see last post). We took more than 400 pictures a day and were exhilarated by the beautiful results.
Alas, on our second night in Bangkok - this happened: Movie Link (See left bottom quadrant, most of the action happens on the last 30 seconds of the clip).
We woke up surprised the alarm clock we set on Tali's cellular phone didn't wake us up. Tali noticed the cellular phone was missing and immediately I said "The Camera !!!"
We got vibrations, and thus began our 3 day journey in Bangkok, trying get out of shock, and try to do something. We went from one police station to another, met the hotel manager, the hotel owner, the Israeli embasador, asked taki drivers, hotel residents anything! anybody!
Nothing worked.
On our last day we discovered a lock problem that exists in all of the hotel's doors: Movie Link (you need speekers + to see it to the end to understand what I'm talking about)
The hotel owner offered us 150$ as compensation, but when we found out about the lock problem, we refused and demanded 1) full compensation 2) that he'll fix the lock problem. He refused.

We're currently in contact with a lawer which specializes in such cases, and she's about to talk with the Thai embasador in Israel. I'll update this post once we'll know how this develops.

If we won't come to an agreement about our two demands, we see it as our responsibility to publish the hotel's name and the story on every tourist internet site that exists.

That's it for now.