Thailand is Tremendous!

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Off we went into the ‘winter’ season of Thailand, which is also peak tourism season. This will be our first place to visit at peak tourism season, we are expecting inflated prices, lots of tourists, an increase in touristy activities, and hot…lots of hot. Winter here does mean cooler temperatures…but cooler temperatures are still 30 degrees!

We have to endure another marathon flight from Athens to Bahrain for a 12 hour layover before flying into Bangkok. We flew Gulf Air, and they put us up in a hotel for the evening because of the long layover. However, we lose another 1.5 days traveling…it’s a big world!

Upon our arrival into Bangkok airport, we were picked up by a driving service and headed 3 hours South to a town called Hua Hin. I initially thought that Hua Hin was 60 km from Bangkok, but as it turns out it is 300 km away! Fortunately, we have a reliable driver service that was waiting at the airport for us when we arrived…complete with our name on a sign…(I always wondered who those people were!) For driving the five of us 3 hours, with all of our luggage, and in a very comfortable van…it cost us $80 cdn. So far, so great!

We spend a week in Hua Hin, then head 800 km north of Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand’s 2nd largest city. Our research (accommodation search and things to do) of Thailand as well as some information passed onto us by an elderly couple we chatted with in Luxor, Egypt led us to this plan. Neither Nadine nor I were particularly drawn to Bangkok, so we did not mind missing the big city in favour of Hua Hin and Chiang Mai.

First thing we notice is (besides the very large and impressive Bangkok airport) is the way the Thais greet and thank people…no hand shakes here…they put their palms together (praying like) and give a little bow. It comes across as very gentle, respectful, and genuine.

We are whisked away to begin our 3 hour drive. Unfortunately, we arrive at 6:00 pm and do not hit the road until 7 so we are in the darkness all the way. The place we secured in Hua Hin is just outside of the town and is called Hin Nam Sai Suay…I know that now because for the first six days of our stay, I could not remember it and could not tell the taxi drivers where to take us…I finally learned it on the last day and will probably never forget it! It is a hotel/resort property and one part of it is owned condos. We were renting one of the condos from Nathalie. Nathalie is a Canadian from Quebec who is living in Switzerland and owns a place in Thailand (identity crisis??). Nathalie was very generous with us…when she found out we were traveling the world with our children, on a tight budget, she reduced her price as her contribution to our tour, which we greatly appreciated.

Accommodations in Thailand can either be very cost effective or somewhat expensive. We were fortunate to have found the former, which we are grateful for after seeing how expensive Greece was. In Thailand, we obtained our accommodations for the week for $300 Cdn in Hua Hin and $250 (US) for eight days in Chiang Mai. The condo in Hua Hin was fairly new, and although it was on the small side for the five of us it proved more than suitable. It had a great pool that we used practically daily.

We were concerned that being a bit outside of town would be inconvenient, but they have the ‘10 baht taxis’ always running the main streets and we used those most of the time. The 10 baht taxis are small pick-up trucks with a canopy over the box and benches on both sides of the bed. You stand on the side of the road and flag it down and hop in. When you are where you want to be you push the buzzer, hop out, and pay the driver 10 baht per person (about $0.31 cdn.). It is a communal drive and the driver picks up people as he goes down the road. Comfortably, you can fit 12 people in the back of that little truck…uncomfortably, you can fit 30! There were a couple of times when we were close to that 30 number and hanging off the back of the truck with one hand. This is an easy, economical, efficient, and fun way to get around. Too bad we have too many laws in North America to have this type of transportation!

Hua Hin is a small resort town that is growing in its appeal as a tourist location. It does not have near the vacation draw that Phuket or other Thai islands have. Hua Hin is the place where the well-off Thais from Bangkok have a weekend home. There are more and more resorts and condos planned and being built in this area that, from our perspective, seems to have A LOT of hotel and resort accommodations already. They are very organized in the tourism sector with many restaurants and vendors catering to the tourists.

We were still a bit gun shy as tourists after our experiences in Egypt, and wary of anyone that proposes to be helpful. Our first day we were still learning how to catch one of these 10 baht taxis, and wandering down the side of the highway looking like lost tourists. A Tourist Police car stops and tries to ask if we want a lift and that he was willing to take us (I gathered that is what he said as he did not speak English and my Thai was not yet up to speed…I felt fairly certain he wasn’t saying get in and I will take you somewhere to rob and beat you…his uniform and car looked way too official for that!). Being suckers for punishment, I relented and the five of us entered the small car, even though there was a serious look of apprehension in Nadine’s eyes. I was expecting that this was going to cost us…and I did not have anything smaller than a 1000 baht (~$31 cdn), which is 10 times more expensive than what a real cab would have cost. When he dropped us off on a busy touristy corner in the middle of town, I motioned to pay him and…he refused! He was actually just doing his job, of ensuring that tourists were taken care of! This is day and Egypt was night…as even the tourist police in Egypt wanted you to pay them for something as simple as smiling.

We walked down the busy tourist street and directly to the popular beach. For the first time since our trip began, we are seeing a different body of salt water other than the Mediterranean. I had to ask what body of water it is and then I introduced the boys to the Gulf of Thailand. Not as salty as the Mediterranean, but not as clear and blue either. The beach was very nice, if you like sandy beaches, and was garbage free! We saw that it won awards for beach cleanliness. One of the favorite local activities on the beach is horseback riding along the beach. One would think you would find horse crap everywhere but they do an excellent job of cleaning this up as well.

We saw tiny little crabs everywhere underfoot. They have little holes in the sand they crawl into as you walk. There were also warning signs to avoid possible jellyfish in the area…unfortunately, I don’t think you would see them in this water. This apparently doesn’t matter because these jellyfish hide in the sand and cause problems when you step on them…who knew!?

As we have taken an interest in acquiring information about the different religions we have found ourselves in the midst of such as muslim, animists, and Greek Orthodox, we also wanted to find out more about Buddism. It is not like buddism can slip you by unnoticed, as there are temples (wats in Thai) everywhere! In addition to the large temples, there are little shrines in even more places than everywhere! The two times I asked about these little shrines, the person did not know how to explain in English…so I never did get an answer, and still do not know the significance of these. But there are lots of businesses that manufacture and sell these shrines (picture a very large bird house on a long stick).

The large temples are equally as mystifying to understand. Most of the large temples are dedicated to a specific monk of significance. All have images of the Buddha, at least we think so, as there are many images of which some must be Buddha. There is a main worship area in some cases…in others there are several main worshipping areas. Many temples have numerous worshipping areas inside and outside. Worshippers bring little tokens (small plastic elephants, food, flowers, costume jewelry, small children, and assorted other items) to place at points inside and outside the temple as part of the offerings. At a couple of these grand temples, there are so many people bringing things at so many points around the temple, that it is starting to look like a garbage dump!

If you find a large number of stairs going up…you can be pretty well guaranteed there is a temple at the top. We found a worshipping shrine inside a huge cave we crawled inside of…they are literally everywhere. To try to find out more about Buddhism…we bought what we thought was something like a “Buddhism for Dummies” type of book…well it wasn’t, but we did learn some things. Buddhism believes that everything around us and in our everyday life is impermanent, and that the rebirth is everything. It is a very interesting religion and people here are very devout.

On of the temples we went to was in an area where monkeys live. It is a very popular temple for tourists to visit. It is at the top of a long flight of steep stairs…and we saw our first glimpse of wild monkeys. They were everywhere! A lady who was on the way down when we were heading up warned us about the monkeys getting aggressive if they see you with a bag. We saw one guy get literally attacked when he brought out a bag of nuts to feed the hundreds of monkeys that gather at the bottom of the stairs. They lurk…and watch you…and you never know what they are thinking! There are some local lads hired to protect tourists and keep the monkeys in line and they do this with slingshots and whatever they fire. The monkeys know the slingshots and scatter when they see one of the boys coming.

I love fruit trees and plants and am particularly interested in the types of fruits and nuts that a country grows. They grow a lot in Thailand. For the first time we are seeing coconut trees. I was really looking forward to trying some fresh coconut. Nicolas was also. We saw what we thought were coconuts in Burkina Faso, but they turned out to be something else. We saw street vendors in Greece selling coconut chunks but I was able to hold Nicolas off by stating that we will have the freshest coconut in Thailand. Thailand has coconuts…lots of coconuts! The only problem is that Thais don’t eat coconut! They drink the milk and use it for cooking…but don’t eat it! The brown fuzzy coconut that we are familiar with is the inside of the green coconut that grows on the tree. The brown coconut is an old coconut where the white meat has gotten thick and hard, and the Thais do not eat it! There are vendors in the markets and on the streets that sell the young green coconuts to drink…but the brown shell and the white meat inside have not yet developed. So we could not find the brown coconut pieces anywhere in which to eat. We found a pile of it in the market, but they use it to make shredded coconut and coconut milk for cooking. So we never did get coconut to eat in the place they grow coconuts. There are also fields of pineapples growing here and I now know what a pineapple plant looks like and it is not a palm tree, as I previously thought!

Alex and Gabriel have shown an interest in cooking during the trip, so Nadine convinced me to take a Thai cooking lesson with them. We spent the day learning how to cook Thai food and it was fantastic. We had a blast and enjoyed the experience and I think all fell in love with Thai food. It is spicy, thanks to the little chillis they use, but it is a very good spice. We started the day at the market shopping for ingredients, which is always an experience. In the market you need a guide to figure out what most things are as there are so many unrecognizable and odd fruits, veggies, insects, and fish. We then spent the day cooking several Thai dishes…of which all were great!

We made our way back to Bangkok to catch an overnight train to Chiang Mai. We had tickets to a sleeper car. We had no idea how a sleeper car worked! When you get on the train there are generous sized seats on either side of the train. At about 9 PM an attendant comes by to turn all of the chairs into beds and you go to bed. In the morning, the attendant turns the beds back into chairs. There are upper and lower bunks and 40 people all sleeping in the same car, with only a little curtain for privacy. Someone recommended the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, and I am not sure why! You leave at 6 PM so it is getting dark and supposedly arrive at 7:15 AM, when you awake. So you really do not see anything…unless the train runs five hours late, then you see a great deal…and the mountains and jungle are very pretty!

Thai Trains apparently always run late! We were supposed to arrive at 7:15 AM and did not get in until 12:30 PM. I do not know why we were so late. We left only a few minutes late. I cannot imagine they added stops to the route. It is just hard to imagine how they can be over 5 hours late! The worst thing is that everyone expects it to be this late! They say it is a ‘Thai train’…meaning it runs late all the time.

Once again we had a driving service waiting for our arrival…even if we were five hours late getting to Chiang Mai. Both driving services we had were recommended by the owners of the properties. We are very grateful for those recommendations and very happy with the services provided. In Chiang Mai we had a house, a large 3 bedroom house that was new and very nice…definitely the nicest accommodations we have had since Northern Spain. It was even further out of Chiang Mai than the condo was out of Hua Hin. It was inside a security resort complex. There was a large security gate upon arrival with several guards checking everyone in and out. The uniforms they wore made them look very official and like army or police. After getting through those gates there were about seven neighborhoods within the resort complex, each with its own security gate. So it was a very safe area. The house came with four bikes, badminton rackets, and tennis rackets. The resort had a clubhouse that had a beautiful pool, tennis courts, badminton courts, a gym…and absolutely nobody using it! Over the course of the week we were there we played tennis, badminton a couple of times and swam a couple of times…so we made good use. The clubhouse was at the entrance to the resort and it was a fifteen minute bike ride to it, so it would have been a very long walk to get a ‘10 baht taxi’ on the main road, so we were very grateful for the driving service.

Alex, Gabriel and I went whitewater rafting. It was a fantastic experience through the jungle! All of us explored a cave. First, like many other things in Thailand, you have to climb a lot of stairs. Then you have to squeeze yourself down an incredibly steep (ladder like) set of stairs with a very narrow passage. Once you get past the narrow passage a huge cavern exists! It is immense and the walls seem like the inside of a skull. Inside the cave there is…a Buddhist temple! The visitors to the cave all seem to be there to visit the temple…except us of course. Really neat cave.

We visited an elephant training facility for a day where we watched some of the amazing things these huge animals can do…including painting a picture! We rode on the elephants through the jungle, fed the elephants, visited the elephant vet area, was groped by an elephant, and after all the elephant stuff was done…we took a leisurely bamboo rafting trip through the jungle. It was quite an amazing day!

Each region of Thailand is famous for one craft or another. In the Chiang Mai area they are famous for their parasols, silk, silver craftsmanship, and teak carving. We visited shops where they make each of these crafts (except for the silver making…one of us didn’t pass the honesty test 😊. It really is interesting how they make the parasols out of the bark of a tree. The teak carvings that can take 6 months to hand carve and are really fantastic pieces of art. We saw the silk making and the worms that provide the silk (a few of these beauties and we can start our own silk making!)

You can find these articles and much, much more at the Chiang Mai night market. It is a night market in the centre of Chiang Mai where the streets are closed and you walk through an incredible assortment of food and beverage, crafts, knick-knacks, and activities. One in particular the kids liked was the air beebee guns and the targets they can shoot at. They never get to see a gun so this was very interesting to them. I bought 2 100% silk ties for $6 cdn (even if it isn’t real silk, they look nice). They had entertainment, along the way and there were thousands of people strolling along. We met a family from Quebec, and there were lots of visitors.

Thailand was tremendous. The geography is truly special with beaches, mountains, jungle, islands, rivers, and farmland. I will take this winter weather any day! The food was fantastic. Because the prices in the non-touristy areas were so reasonable we ate out more here than we normally would. We also found a place where a bottle of beer was the same price as a bottle of pop. So in a word…perfect!

The people were very friendly and helpful…maybe because we were traveling as a family. We chatted with a couple of young Australian girls who were less than impressed with the hospitality displayed by the Thais towards them. She figured it might be because they were Auzzies, as this is a frequent haunt for them as a destination to party.

I am very happy to have included Thailand in our itinerary. I saw jungle for the first time! We visited several beautiful waterfalls and walked on some very nice jungle paths. Throw in great food and cheap beer and it is almost perfect (surprisingly…the wine here was very expensive). It is difficult to leave this perfect weather. However, we hear it is around 35 degrees down under and there is lots of water to help us cool off…so that takes the sting off a bit.

What puts the sting right back on again is the flight we are about to endure. We have a three hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, where we have a 12 hour layover, before a 9 hour flight and a three hour time change into Australia. We have also found an airline that does not provide for its passengers during a long layover. It is Malyasia Airlines. So we will have to try to find a comfortable place to sleep in the airport. Oh well…we expect Australia to be worth it!

Take care of yourself,

Dana, Nadine, Alex, Gabriel, and Nicolas

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Photos

PYTHON!
we visited a cheesy snake show!

Largest mammal!
No not me...the elephant!

Fishing boats
There were hundreds, many with large booms of light bulbs that are used for fishing squid!

Fishing Boats
Many of the fishing boats are manned by vietnamese, who must stay on the boat or they would be illegally in Thailand.

Sleeping birth
This sucks...why do I have to go to bed????

Mud crab
found in the mangrove forests of the estuary

God of all things cute!
This is what we dubbed Nicolas in Egypt.

Comments

[Sandi]

Elephants that paint???
That elephant didn't really pain that picture, did he? How the heck do they train them to do that? I really enjoy reading about your adventures. Looking forward to hearing about them when you get to Ottawa.