Advertisement
Published: March 4th 2008
Can't add pics at the moment so hope text will do
Hi There
Apologies for the delay in updating the blog - we have been really busy!!?? I am sitting here overlooking the beach and Andaman Sea and it is 84.2 degrees we have had breakfast and had a walk along the beach.
Difficult to know where to start - quick run down of where we have been
Bangkok - a really fun city - really modern with huge sophisticated shopping malls selling everything - like Harrods on steroids and big! However life is lived on a human scale with sweet corn, banana fritters, rice, chicken and all sorts of other food being sold from street vendors and it’s all good. Every evening lots of little stalls and you can even had your fortune told sitting on the pavement which I did. And it is all so clean - next morning the streets are pristine. Easy to get around on public transport as well though we walked a lot.
Then got the train to Sukothai; a massive temple complex in the middle of Thailand -where we rented bicycles to travel around them. Very peaceful except walking back to our wooden hut on the last evening when a python was laid across the road - it was about 5 feet long. Exercising my management skills I ran to get a passing Thai to move it. He got a brick and threw it at the python after being hit a couple of times it then slithered into the paddy field at a rate of knots.
We then got a bus up to Chiang Mai - where Carol did a Thai cooking course - Hot and Sour Tom Yam soup stir fried chicken with cashew nut ; green curry with chicken; pad thai with omelette (fried noodles) ; papaya salad; spring rolls with plum dipping in sauce; sweet sticky rice with fresh mango
I made lots of new friends; some friendly girls wanted me to come and have a drink in their bar! Dinner - do it yourself - at a place called Stuffed Piggies - chicken noodles cabbage and savoy cabbage stuff- electronic woks and put the stuff in to make Thai soup - then whole fish fried with garlic and rice delic and 220 bahts less than 4 quid with water and a large beer included - student girl called Daer helped us out who is doing engineering at the University.
Then we rented a HiLux pickup truck (manly!!) and drove further north (INTERMISSION - a speedboat has just drawn up on the deserted beach in front of me called Maytee Numchok asking for directions to the super lux hotel along the beach - 2 bed villa just over £1000 a night)
Back to driving north from Chiang Mai to Fang and Tha Ton on the Thai/Burmese border we went via Doi Inthanon national park south of Chiang Mai with nice waterfalls to meander to highest point in Thailand…v cool and had to put our coats on. Then stopped at little town walked through the market stuffed with great produce including baskets of fried cockroaches and other bugs big and small. Had fried noodles with chicken, pad thai and two fantas for less than a £!!! Definitely no little critters!
Next morning drove up into the high hills between Burma and Thailand having had banana pancake for breakfast towards the Golden Triangle. We hadn’t realised that until the last few years most of this was a no-go area.
We headed up for the town where a drug lord had his hide out for many years and successfully evaded capture from his western pursuers.
Views were spectacular and the area is now tame with lots of agriculture. Picked up a group of hitchers who were also heading for Ban Thoet Thai…………….. Turned out to be a pastor and 2 missionaries who were heading for a school that educated and housed the children of some people who worked in the mountains. They were from Malaysia.
What happened this afternoon headed for Mai Salong where a settlement left over from the free china army has been established. Very moving museum and war memorial charting the efforts of the group to stand up against the communists. Lunch - soup with glass noodles and sausage pork balls.
Headed for Mai Sai - loads of strawberry stalls. Bought a bottle of Mulberry wine and a kilo of strawberries which were subsequently eaten by a monkey..
Found the guest house right on banks of the river dividing Thailand from Burma. We could speak to people in Burma from our balcony and listen to the children chattering as they play on the banks.
Burmese side is much poorer than the Thai side. As we crossed over there was the sound of Andy Williams singing songs from West Side Story broadcasting from a Tannoy system on the Burmese side. Strange but True. Saw a large temple complex under restoration and Carol bought some new knickers in the market. A lorry load of hill villagers/tribes people complete with silver trumpets in their ear lobes and pointed winged headgear were also strolling around the market.
Set off for Chiang Kong stopping off for a look at the Opium Hall complex in the golden triangle. Very impressive exhibition set up with the help of the late Princess Mother state of the art sections telling the history of the way opium has been used and abused over the centuries. An excellent exhibition co sponsored by the Chinese stressed how China fared very badly with some 11 million people becoming addicted to opium shipped from India and traded for tea and silk etc.
.
Drove through Chiang Saen pleasant riverside town with boats going up and down the Mekong River. Stopped for the night at Chiang Kong on the Mekong River which has a crossing point to Laos and we sussed out the crossing before heading for the guest house a teak mansion right on the river. Beds like rocks and rooms are all wood. Went out to see things and had a cup of tea in a café playing early70's American Country and Western music. It was positively upsetting thinking about what was happening at that time where we were.
Dinner at a Mex Thai combo in eccentric homestay restaurant with Thai guitar enthusiast playing host, daughter waiting and wife cooking. As it was Saturday night we thought we would push the boat out - our choice - Natchos,salsa and cream cheese, stir fried mixed veg, chicken and cashews, burritos with refried beans and salsa and rice, plain steamed rice 2 bottles of beer and a sprite for 10 quid! Next day regretted our choice!!
Next morning to Laos -
The prices for boat and but trips in this depressed place were astronomical. Took ages to get in people looked depressed and we were glad to be back in Thailand where everyone is smiling. This may be an unjustified view of Laos but unfortunately that’s the way we saw it.
Having spent some time in the north of Thailand which we both thought was lovely - at times you could have been in France or Lincolnshire we then drove back south to Chiang Mai and decided to fly to the south. Flights sorted out in about 10 minutes for travelling the next day. Travel is really easy in Thailand.
Evening went back to Smiling ( Ed note - Carol has the place down as Smiling Pigs and I put it in my note as Stuffed Pigs… but really does it matter?) Dinner chicken and vegetable soup with glass noodles, morning glory, basil and cabbage. Whole Steamed fish and gingered vegetables followed…. Stopped at the roti stand for pudding where the Muslim girl makes the best ones and had banana and raisin stuffed roti slathered in evaporated milk… The whole meal has to count as the best value yet at less than £3 - please note Carl and Martin.
Next morning dropped the pickup truck off at the airport and flew down to Phucket. Couldn’t land until a lull in the electric storm over Phuket…nightmare! Eventually arrived at Kamala Beach where we had booked a room at a little guest house - the most bolshie taxi driver in Thailand dropped us off. He was cross because the guest house refused to pay a bribe for him taking us there. It was raining hard and he pretended not to know where it was - the guest house owners came to collect us in the end after we called them on the phone. Next morning bright and hot - very nice resort area and over the next 4 days had fun. Lots of friendly bar girls and some good Thai food at restaurants on the beach. Had a local bus ride into Phuket one morning and spent less than an hour there before coming back. Enough said.
We wanted to go to a quieter place on the islands and Carol spotted Ko Yao Noi - which is where we are now. Taxi to the pier head - local water taxi waiting straight on and off we went. An hour later landed on the island and little taxi took us to the place we had booked the day before.
If we had been impressed with Thailand before we now have run out of superlatives. Look at some of the photos. The beach is better than Varkala in Kerala and Bentota in Sri Lanka (that sounds very posy doesn’t it) the food is better the Thais are amazingly friendly and charming. We have been here 4 or 5 days and quite honestly don’t feel like moving on for a while. We went snorkelling yesterday on deserted islands and saw bright fish in clear water - pink, green, yellow, stripy and spotted - it was so good we are going to do the same trip again.
The view from our wooden hut on the beach has 14 different islands set in the sea. There is a concrete road 12 feet wide which goes round the island. We rented a moped and set off to go round the island and after 30 minutes arrived back at our starting point - it’s that big. It rains some nights and so it’s a really green island One ATM and bank, one 7/11 store and loads of Thai food...
Finally - we were swimming in the sea and walking back to our hut there was a coconut on the beach - finally got it open and fresh coconut milk inside and sweet flesh!!!!! A long way from getting one at the fair when I was little.
So that’s where we are now - and having a happy happy time. Got to go now for some lunch - Love to everyone
Ian and Carol.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0232s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Carl Haigney
non-member comment
Fortune Teller
So are you going to let us know what the fortune teller predicts for you? Did he/she see travel to Belfast again? Or working again? How about the lottery numbers for Saturday? Interesting to hear how you see similarities between the north of Thailand, France and Lincolnshire....only one of these had an earthquake last week, though! Carl and Mary