Blogs from Eastern Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 4

Koh chang has been all about the relax and what a beautiful island to have picked. Its very laid back with lots of cute little towns to explore, we defo needed a motorbike to do this as the taxi service is very expensive and seen no sign of a local bus service? Most of the island is jungle and remains untouched and the waters are a marine national park, the scenery is stunning! Remember the cute little stray dog i mentioned?.....well, this has turned into a 3 strong pack of 2 females and 1 male. We have given them very "original" names and they are blacky the male, sandy and blondie the females. When you see the pics you will see how they got their names! Not entirely sure if they are completely stray though as ... read more

Super early start (for a change!) and we got in a taxi to take us to the airport where we were catching an express mini bus which would take us directly to our hotel right on the beach at Koh Chang (direct translation - elephant island) We got in the taxi and the driver said 400baht to the airport. I instantly told him to stop the car and said we wanted to get out unless he turned on the meter. He looked a little deflated but having had many people try their best to rip us off over the past few weeks we knew what was what. At the airport the meter read 200 baht and when we handed over the money he asked for a 200 baht tip as he had "looked after us with ... read more

Day 3 (or 4? I've lost track) of spending 8 straight hours floating in the sea. In the shallows the water is hot and you have to swim a ways out before it cools down a bit. Little (and not-so-little) brightly colored fish swim past my toes. There's little difference in temperature between the water and the air - depending on where you are either the water is a cool break from the air, or vice versa. The ocean is teal, stays shallow a long way out, and the waves are small and gentle. One of these days I'll get around to posting a picture. Yesterday I dragged myself out of the water long enough to have curried shrimp with rice and an ice cold beer at a cafe on the beach. I think it was ... read more

Pataya is another dump but nowhere near as extreme as BKK . It has a nice( ish) beach but is rather dirty . I got there about 3 or 4 hours with the mega cheap taxi , driver wearing sunglasses black tie and leather gloves Im sure he had been watching the Blues Brothers the night before but was a great laugh , never got a tip though as he spent most of the journey driving at mach2 whilst texting or talking on his mobile which sort of unnerved me a little , I dont have much faith in Thai taxi drivers after the last one from BKK airport did a U turn on the motorway after a truck caught on fire some way in front of us , pretty hairy doing that I thnk they ... read more

We left Mukdahan and the Mekong river and decided to make our way south towards the sea. Surin was our destination, a town that comes alive once a year for about 10 days when they celebrate a big Elephant festival there but for the rest of the year it’s a sleepy town. Unfortunately we arrived on the wrong road and after a long drive Terry did not want to drive a further 50 kilometers out on another road to the Elephant Park and as it happened we would not have arrived in time to see any of the shows anyway. The town is full of elephant statues, mock tusks, street lights with elephants and of course real elephants – well there was one we came across being ridden around town. There was an old man who ... read more