Blogs from North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 466

After an overnight train ride we arrived in Chiang Mai feeling tired and dusty. Thankfully our room had a hot shower and was just up the road from a cheap Khao Soi place (a delicious Northern Speciality - a kind of curried rice noodle soup). We spent the day checking out the rather bohemian walled city which almost has as many temples as Bangkok! In the late afternoon we chartered a car up to Wat Doi Sutep - a stunning gld temple which overlooks the city of Chiang Mai - fantastic views!!! in the evening we visited the famous Night Market - lord knows why it's famous, there's little decent food and is very touristy (though I am sure great for some cheap tshirts or souvenirs). Our 2nd day in Chiang Mai was spent relaxing and ... read more

Hello again all Just want to start this blog with a quick message of congratulations to two of our bestest friends in the world, Lucy and Mark Wilkinson, who had their first child on Saturday morning. Yound Joseph "Little Wilko" Wilkinson was a healthy 7 lb 14oz and we are so very happy for the three of them. We've just worked out we have been gone for over 7 weeks ..... cant believe its been so long already. Some things seem like a long time, for example it seems ages since we had to make our own bed or either of us said "oh no, it's monday morning". On the other hand it seems like yesterday that we were at Heathrow saying our goodbyes. We walked around a Thai supermarket yesterday and its normal things like ... read more

From Phitsanulok we went on a day trip to Sukothai. Last night we had dinner at the markets with Leoni from the NEtherlands. The wontons were awesome. Corb said that the spicy squid salad was very spicy but kel accidentally ate a brutally fiery chilli and couldn't taste anything for a while - oops! :( At Sukothai we enjoyed our wander through the ancient city. The temples were particularly impressive and on a rather grand scale. The place was huge - we were there for several hours and only saw the central area!! The giant buddhas amongst the trees and lotus ponds were very beautiful. However the real experience lay in the truck ride back to the bus station. 28 people in the back of the truck with no respect for any road rules whatsoever makes ... read more

At times I have been feeling my age, as the following may prove. Our stay at the sanctuary was very nice indeed, the house we were staying in was, if you all can picture it, like the decking at Underhill with an ‘L’ shaped pitched roof structure placed along the outer straight edges, leaving a smaller quadrant of decking exposed in the centre. It felt very open and airy if a little challenging when we had the heavy wind and rain. We coped. For the first few days there seemed to be a small clique there who had colonised the place, this may have been down to the fact that the owner had been away for four weeks. As her arrival back became more imminent the vibe around the place changed markedly (for the better). Where ... read more

Thai Funeral 3 day party We have been privileged to witness, unexpectedly, the way Thai people say goodbye to their loved ones. 3 days ago, we were on a stroll through the neighborhood when suddenly there appeared to be a great celebration beginning around us. There were 3 bearers of large, flowery banner-type things, which looked something like a Vegas headdress only were carried on long poles by hand. They were covered in photos, flowers, candles and decorations I can’t describe. There were people playing flutes and pipes, people with tom-tom type drums, cymbals, singing, dancing and just plain jumping up and down. This procession danced their way down the road and into a wat (temple) . Upon asking around, we were told that this was the 1st day of traditional 3 day funeral pageantry, wherein ... read more