Thailand - The Roundup

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Oops…just realised that we had forgotten to do this so quickly rectifying.

The Blue View

Having seen only a fraction of the country in real term, and the bits we have seen being so varied, it is hard to sum up in one place, so I am splitting it up into it’s component parts:

Bangkok : huge! Busy, but surprisingly clean, apart from the filthy air pollution. There is some great food on offer if you delve into the street food arena, and I liked Koh Sahn Road, it has an energy all of it’s own. It is however a very “Western” city, which is both a good and bad thing - coming straight here you would probably think it very eastern, but coming from Vietnamm and Cambodia it felt very Western, with big name brands everywhere. Don’t use the tuk-tuk’s taxi’s are cheaper, but insist on using the meter. The river is a good mode of transport depending on where you are located, and if you like malls you’ll love Siam Square.

Chaing Mai: A great place. I really enjoyed it here and it really has a nice feel to it. The place is both relaxed and chilled out but with enough going on that you can find stuff to do, although the “big attractions” are quite pricey. The local food was great here too.

Phuket: A dive! Certainly not for us, but if you are after Thailand’s answer to Ibiza, as one blogger referred to it the other day, then this may be for you, but it will be twice the price of anywhere else for, in my view, less than half the quality.

The other islands: Ko Phi Phi, and Ko Lanta, both beautiful but like chalk and cheese, one busy one quiet. I guess in this part of Thailand there is something for everyone, you just have to look until you find it.

Overall I have enjoyed Thailand, but it doesn’t beat Cambodia for me, and my memories of Vietnam are starting to become fonder too, so I’m not sure about this place on my list. I doubt I’d return again as a backpacker (although maybe to the North) but the ease of connections and the user friendliness of the place means I could imagine a “family” style holiday here in the future, maybe.

The Pink View

I do not think that we did Thailand much justice in terms of the number of places visited or the length of our stay. We had intended to need to do at least one border run before we and it parted company for good, but that was not to be. The main reason for the brevity of our stay was that Thailand is no longer the cheap back packer paradise that dreams are made of. We had also found what we were looking for (in a loony spiritual sense, I am sure you will think) in Chiang Mai with the Yoga and were disappointed to be unable to find somewhere that we could combine that with beach life, without having to break the bank. In Chiang Mai, a Yoga class a day, for two, took up 1/6 of our daily budget. Everywhere else that we looked, it would have been 1/3 and, let’s face it, whilst neither of us is exactly malnourished, we do need to eat. Add to this our growing fascination with Malaysia the more we read about it and the discovery that we could get cheap flights to Bali, and the move on was a no-brainer.

The absolute highlight of Thailand for me was Chiang Mai and its yoga schools. I arrived in Chiang Mai with a sore back and a heart still heavy from the events of the previous year and I left physically pain free and having started to find some of the peace that will enable me to finally put our annus horribilis behind me.

I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed Bangkok. In part, it was inevitable because of how developed it is compared to both Vietnam and Cambodia. If you have been to Bangkok and think it is dirty, you haven’t seen anything until you have been to Cambodia and Vietnam - to me, after 2 months travel to the East of Bangkok, it was spotless. Khao San Road has to be done but, for the slightly more mature backpacker, my vote is to day trip it and to find somewhere else to base yourself. The public transport network in Bangkok is relatively expansive and economic and, provided your driver uses the meter, the taxis are cheap - cheaper than tuk tuks in fact - meaning that it isn’t all about location when it comes to accommodation.

So far as Phuket, Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta are concerned, I went expecting to find scenes reminiscent of Alex Garland’s “The Beach” and left none the richer. That book was written over 10 years ago and Thailand has moved on quickly in that time. Each island had its own beauty but the first two certainly had their fair share of ugly too. I feel slightly awkward saying that because both were battered by the boxing day 2004 tsunami but it isn’t that which detracts from them as destinations in my eyes. Put simply, Phuket was like Ibiza for the over club18-30 market and that isn’t my bag. Koh Phi Phi was classically beautiful and, as the evenings turned into night, it became noticeable that we were towards the higher end of the transient population’s age demographic. Chilling on the beach whilst fire throwers did their thing and kids braver than me played strip musical chairs was, nevertheless, an evening that I will remember for quite some time.

And finally…whilst accommodation and activities may not be cheap in Thailand, transport is. We did not try the buses having been frightened by stories of the contents of bags going missing whilst in transit, but I would recommend the First Class night trains - which are cheap in western terms. Air Asia flights are so cheap and quick that, quite often, it just doesn’t make sense not to fly - refreshing for the pocket, admittedly, disastrous for the carbon footprint.

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Photos

The Beach
well, actually, A Beach