Blogs from Nakhon Ratchasima, North-East Thailand, Thailand, Asia

The brilliant Homtel gang and I were settled on our next episode, we'd head down to settle in Khao Yai national park from the farm. A big goodbye and thank you to the family, such a special place. It felt strange to leave our home of the past two weeks. Swinging into Pak Chong early morning, on one of the few village buses out, we soon found stalls for our jointly craved potion of Iced Thai Tea, '4 coming right up.' We passed elephants that were walked through the streets by the market's only aggressive sellers (no thanks, we didn't want anything), and soon grabbed a hearty breakfast - various dishes, which were assured of our desired spiciness 'real spicy, honestly', including the delicious morning glory (wonderfully seasoned and spiced water spinach). From here we were ... read more

We paid for the most expensive bus of the trip so far which was all well and good until he forgot our stop at Pak Chong and dropped us on the side of the motorway about 10km away. Very luckily we bumped into an ex pat who gave us a lift back into town. We ended up staying to the south of the town en route to the National Park. We were up early the next day to get the local bus at 7am to the park gates. The bus never showed so we ended up hitchhiking to the gate and then again to get to the visitors centre 14km inside the park. Here we managed to get a guide (Lam) with only one other person to take us on an 8km walk to Haew Suwat ... read more

I've been lost, lost in Thailand. Not literally of course, that would be near impossible in a country like this. No it is more that I have been at a loss here. In fact I have been dreading coming to Thailand for a long time, because Thailand for me is a hard country to visit. Strange though this might sound, because it probably is the easiest country to visit from a backpackers point of view. Hence the amount of first time travellers that come to the country of smiles. The reason for my dread, has nothing to do with a supposed difficulty on travelling around this country. No it is far worse than that! The reason is that I feared that I wouldn't find anything to do here. 'But there are loads of things to do ... read more

Greetings from Thailand! Am in Thailand to visit some sites I missed four years ago and to wait for the fighting to ease off in Myanmar. First off, I forgot how utterly charming Thailand and the people are! I spent the day in a little town called Phimai about an hour and a half outside the city I'm in. It has this incredible ruin site that resembles the temples of Angkor in Cambodia. Building began in the late 10th century by King Jayavarman and considering that, it is still in decent shape. It was built a century before Angkor Wat and it took me back to the time I saw the temples in Cambodia. I didn't have a blog back then and be thankful, I would have likely posted many, many pictures of the temples. It ... read more

Een gewone dag hier in deze eerste week dat ik hier ben... opstaan om 6 wassen, ontbijt (rijst met wat erbij) vertrek rond 7 richting school tussen aankomen op school en 8 uur hang ik wat rond bij de geimproviseerde band, ze hebben wat blazers, een paar snares (liontone) en een paar bassen. Het zijn wel oude maar toch goede snares, het model zoals we bij de schutterij hebben. Om 8 is het ochtendceremonie, het volkslied wordt gezongen en er wordt gebeden. Er is dan ook een speech vd directeur, maar niemand lijkt ooit te luisteren. Ik heb me op het podium natuurlijk ook moeten voorstellen. Daarna is het zowat les; soms worden er wat oefeningen gemaakt, maar geleerd wordt er niet echt. En natuurlijk kan de leerkracht op elk moment binnenkomen, kheb geen idee wanneer ... read more