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Published: January 25th 2007
Royal Palace - Bangkok
Guarding the Royal Palace doorsSawadee Kha!!
Hello everyone. I am having the most incredible time; in Northern Thailand right now. I've been too busy having fun to get myself to a terminal to tell you all about it, so I have a lot to tell you now.
I am currently sitting in an open-air internet cafe with the sounds of motorcycles and Thai music and smells of fresh Thai food street vendors wafting in. You gotta love that. My flight journey was +++long but okay. A helpful suggestion from a co-worker to take some dimetapp syrup before flying worked - I didn't have any earaches (as I had plenty of last week with that darn cold); thanks Anita!! I met some nice ppl on each flight; the last leg, an American girl the same age as me and with another American fellow, the 3 of us shared a cab from the Airport (nice and new -airport!!) to the KaoSan area for a drink and some eats even though it was late (1:am) then we all helped each other find our hotels. Mine was great!! The Swana hotel. Kinda' swanky for a backpacker but I wanted to treat myself my first couple days.
Emersed myself the first day and had an Asian breakfast; its easy to see why we tend to be on the bigger/heavier side in North America when what we eat is mirrored with what they eat (the Swana included breakfast with my room and offered both Asian And Western fare). Its hard to wrap my head around eating a savoury soup-like dish for breakfast when I am so used to dairy and sweet stuff. I am definately going to lose weight on this trip!!
Had to activate my registration with the Canadian Embassy and as it was on the other side of town, I decided to experiment with various modes of transportation. It was raining so I took a cab first to the train station and then hopped on the subway (super slick) and walked to the embassy from there. Then visited a TAT (Travel Association of Thailand - government run offices) to get set up with some info; they are very helpful. Then took a risk and rode a tuktuk (popping and banging and backfiring all the while...) to the river and toured the Praya Chau river for a ways - nice. Took in the gaudy but beautiful
In Kanchanaburi
Dogs! dogs! dogs! everywhere! Grand Palace and went toatally snap happy (you know how I love sparkly and shiny things) - gold everywhere!! Took the 'long' way back to my hotel (aka - got lost) but got to see many cool things; also got 'touted' (attempts, but I strongly resisted) several times. Had a yummy Thai vegetarian meal and then turned in for an early evening.
Note to self: LEARN TO SPEAK THAI BEFORE GOING TO THAILAND. I knew there would be a language barrier, but you don't really get what it means until you are experiencing it. Almost NO taxi or tuktuk drivers speak English so unless it is a popular tourist sight or you know the name of it in Thai or you can point it out on a map written in Thai, you are kinda screwed. Then there is the bargaining for a fair price. Everyone wants your money and want to sell you something. I think for my first day, I did pretty well; I learned a few pointers ahead of time, which helped a great deal. You have to know when to walk away from a bad deal (and they ALWAYS call you back). You also have to
Kanchanaburi
Bridge over the River Kwai know when to trust what they are telling you; whether it is genuine or when you are being touted (happens about 80%) of the time. I almost fell for it several times. I am learning quicky. I don't want to NOT trust these ppl; they can be so kind-sounding and convincing. By the way, 'touting' - for those who don't know what this is, is when you even stop on the sidewalk for a second (to look around, to get your camera or to figure out where you are) and someone runs up to you seeming very friendly and wanting to be helpful and direct you if you need info or directions then they work a spiel into what they say to you (and honest to goodness, you don't realize what is really happening at the time) then before you know it, a tuktuk is right there ready to take you somewhere completely different than where you were planning to go. It gets kinda frustrating after awhile, you learn to get over it and be very assertive and keep moving. Because of this, I lost several opportunities to take some great photos while I was in Bangkok. It is a
Spirit House
These are everywhere...the Thai's place them outside their homes, businesses, etc. to ward off spirits and place offerings of food, drink and flowers on them daily to appease the spirits. very CHAOTIC city. Also very unique and interesting. I opted to get out of there ASAP and make my way North. I made this decision after knowing of the bombings in Bangkok on New Years.
I went on an organized tour to see the sights of Kanchanaburi yesterday. Now I don't know why I was so hellbent against 'tours'. I guess I just wanted to be as independant as possible and not flock to all the touristy things and look like a bunch of mingling farangs (Thai for foreignor/tourist). I made some wonderful friends and got to see more than I would have in a short time than I would had I gone alone without all of their connections. There were 6 of us and we drove 3 hours Northwest of Bangkok to the town of Kanchanaburi where we saw the Bridge over the river Kwai and the death railway; this is where they used the POW's in the camps for labour to build a bridge connecting Thailand to Burma and the in the time they were building it, it collapsed - killing 100's of 1000's of men. We visited the graveyard and there was one Canadian. Very sad.
Death Railway
Riding the rickety wood train on the Death Railway over Hellfire Pass We got to ride on a real clunker of a (wood) train along hellfire pass and even got to drink beer (they sell you anything everywhere anytime). Lunch was included (very yummy), more beer, too much beer and had a great time with my new friends (two Aussies, one Portugese, one Scot and one Brit). It was a long hot day. Rode an elephant; I didn't like this. I hadn't signed up for it because I had decided that if I was going to ride and elephant or pet any tigers, I wanted to see how they treated the animals first. They brought us to the elephants leading us to believe it was 'free' but then charged us for a 'tip' after (scam). And of course want to sell you a picture of yourself too. The elephants didn't have a watering hole and you could tell they had sores (under purple spraypaint) and the drivers carried sticks with sharp metal ends to 'direct' the elephant. I felt sorry for them. Then on to see a waterfall but got short changed on time there d/t the time we spent riding the elephants. Oh well, you win some you lose some. I'll
know to be more assertive with my guide next time I take a tour.
So, took the night bus to Chiang Mai in the north (9:00pm till 5:00am) and because of the long day I was able to sleep a great part of the trip. But wait, I gotta tell you about this kick-ass bus!!!! I have never been on such a bus with ammenities. Double decker bus painted bright pink and shiny with a whole bunch of colorful air-brushed pictures and designs (you'd never lose this bus in a crowd...). Each seat has a doily on the headrest, a big warm blanket (smelled nice too), and a neck roll pillow. Bright pink satin scalloped curtains with pompom trim and matching blinds, neon track lighting on the ceiling. Young women in navy suits show you to your seat, offer you a free drink and a lunch (!!!) after the bus gets moving and then we watched a movie (in Thai - no subtitles) that seemed almost like porn. Kinda like an Asian version of Charlie's Angels but with a darker twist. Then a young handsome muscular guy comes and collects the garbage, mops the isle (the bus was super
Squatty Potty
You place your feet on the grid parts, squat and go - and hope you don't get any on your pants!! You don't drop any toilet paper into the hole and when you are done, you scoop water out of the trough and pour in in the hole to flush everything away. clean) and tips your chair back all of the way so you can sleep. Honestly, I was waiting for him to tuck us all in and read us a bed-time story; what a hoot. Actually, was quite nice after the long day and the fact that you could comfortably sleep and save a night's accomo, made it even more worthwhile. The ride was cheap too (under 10$ - for an 8 hour trip). The TAT fellow I booked this trip with arranged for me to be picked up and delivered to my guesthouse. My guesthouse is the "Family Guesthouse" on a quiet little soi (backstreet) in the old city centre (not in the busier backpacker's mecca). It is not fancy but it is clean and quiet and has a normal toilet and hot shower.
So far, I love this city. Not the noisy, bustling, "in your face" pace as in Bangkok. Everyone works hard and keeps to themselves but are still very friendly. The weather here in the North is a little cooler but still quite warm and nice by Canadian standards. There is a lot to do here and as luck would have it, the Flower Festival (biggest
festival of the year in Chiang Mai) is in town and I will be here for the finale. Also lots of exciting classes and day trips (trekking) one can take from here. It's going to be difficult narrowing it down in the time I have with so many great choices.
Well, I am off to go find some eats and them maybe go for a Thai massage. Ahhhhhh, you gotta love being on holidays....
I am having the time of my life experiencing some great culture and loving the weather. I embrace humidty!! Just wish I had someone here to share it all with. Hopefully I'll have some pics to share with you in my next blog after I figure out how to upload photos from the camera (thanks Dad!! its working great!!). Until then....
Take care, miss you lots and love you all,
Pamela xoxo
P.S. FYI: Many of you have been clicking on the 'contact Prairie Gypsy' which sends me a message rather than adding a comment to the blog entries to share with everyone. Not sure if this is what you intended; I still get everything you send, but for the messages, I
Chiang Mai
The view down the Soi (sidestreet) from my guesthouse read them but don't have the option to publish them. Just so you are aware.
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Ray
non-member comment
Sounds awesome!
Just finished reading your first Thai blog. Sounds like fun. You mentioned you have been using Dad's camera to snap pics. I don't know what kind of cables you have to connect to a computer but if you know what I'm talking about be sure to upload some at your next internet stop. This travelblog site is great, it provides maps so we can pretty much track your every move. I also go to National Geographic and get a satelite view of where you are at and going....very cool. Anyways, it is still cold here and there is nothing to report so we will look forward to your next report. PS: Not sure if I agree with the whole "too much beer" comment but just out of curiousity, was it Singha? Talk to you soon!