Northern Thailand - Bangkok past Chang Mai

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May 14th 2007

Published: May 14th 2007

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Tiger Temple

Was it worth this amazing photo?

So the trekked out Hobbits caught a plane from Kathmandu to Bangkok to start their action packed northern Thailand tour. I was secretly glad that we were all separated on the plane - I hadn’t slept a wink the previous night in Kathmandu, or Dog-man-du, more appropriate I think. The dogs are incredible - during the day they lie idly, not battering an eyelid even if you were to spit at them - but when it’s bed time, human bed time, that is, it’s like Jekkle & Hyde - doggie style, haha, they chase each other, fight and God knows what else, screaming, panting, woofs and barks of all pitches, tones and strength. In the whole time I was in Nepal, I never got used to the dogs and I am ashamed to say there were moments during the night I could have shot those wretched animals!

We arrived late, and got ripped off on the taxi to the hotel. Advice: go downstairs towards the metered taxis and don’t fall for the pretty suited and booted Thai ladies at the arrivals area by the money exchange, clip board in hand: ‘9 hanaad baaaaaat’. Unfortunately, we missed our tour briefing

Tiger Temple

Fab four, soaked through, it's not sweat btw

where the guide talks about the next 10 days and the group gets acquainted with one another - which was, for me anyway, a reason to feel a little excluded from the group. Maybe because we had come as three friends, they felt less of a need to make an effort to integrate us and we could have been more responsive to ‘group things’ - if we weren’t so busy pissing ourselves over ‘Luby’, ‘histoly’, ‘Gland Palace’ and ‘spilit’, to name but a few (the Thais have difficulty pronouncing the ‘r’). It was great to see the preened and fresh from London Joley, whose participation in all things ‘gloup’ made up for the three of us. Just add here that by the end of the tour, our group became much closer and many many laughs were had.

Kanchanaburi

That first day we caught two buses to Kanchanaburi, north of Bangkok. In our free time, we all visited the Tiger Temple. I was expecting a Buddhist temple, with resident tigers, roaming freely - what I saw was numerous cages with beautiful healthy looking tigers pacing up and down their cells, like prisoners. It was sad to see the effect

Kanchanaburi

Hellfire Pass

of human land encroachment, to see such majestic animals caged and tied to trees, feeding tourist fascination and wow-factor photography. The photos look great, the reality of it sucks.

Kanchanaburi was nice - weird because it feels like you’re by the beach and it reminded me of my time travelling up the Sunshine Coast in Eastern Australia. The Apple Guest House was by far the best accommodation on the tour.

A lot of time was scheduled for us to see an Australian WWII funded initiative remembering the allied prisoners of war work on the construction of a railway from Thailand to Burma, under the Japanese. I’m all for education and information and some of the sources were horrific but I found it repetitive and biased. However the forested area where we visited the Hellfire Pass is beautiful.

Even more beautiful is the Erawan National Park, the 7-tired waterfalls, but not on the level of the landscape I saw in Nepal, which is wild, too remote and difficult to be meddled with by humans. Some parts of this forest actually looked man-made, the paths so neat. Jumping in the fresh water pools and sitting under the powerful cool

Erawan National Park

Waterfalls - so relaxing getting nibbled by the fish, as can be seen by our smiles

waterfalls provided much needed respite from the sweaty heat. I even quite enjoyed the tiny fish nibbling at my feet - natural foot exfoliation and it works!

Ayuthaya

From Kanchanaburi we travelled up to Ayuthaya, the old capital of Siam. Bikes were hired for us - being on a tour is too easy: all you have to do is wake up and pack - we visited many beautiful temples. But boy was it hot - talk about extremes: from the freezing oxygen-starved Gosaikund a few days earlier, to sweltering 35 degree humid heat - walking around a 1000 year old Buddhist temple should have been more enjoyable, but most of us couldn’t wait to get on our bikes just to get some wind air in our red sweaty faces.

Chang Mai

We got an overnight train to Chang Mai - and what an experience! 40 beds in one carriage sounds crazy, but the leather (are they?) fold out into really comfi beds - pity if you’re over 6 ft! As soon as the conductor folds out the beds, that’s where the fun begins - it was like being on a school trip again. The bar room

Erawan National Park

7th waterfall - J's slightly raised leg due to the attack of the killer mosis

is quite surreal, and a must-see experience, even if you’re not going to drink. Really small, really loud and really crazy.

Hill Tribe Trek

The three of us imagined sprinting the four hour trek through the hills north of Chang Mai, to Palong, our designated village stop - we were after all pros, having climbed 2000m in one day - yeah right, we were still puffing and panting up the hill, the last ones in the group. It must have been the heat and the humidity.

The climb was only about 300 m, and after that a very pleasant, but slippery walk through the tropical rainforest. It teemed it down, but I loved every minute of it - the noises of the crickets, the splatter of rain on the tall tall trees, the massive bamboo shoots growing left right and centre - this was wild, untouched (well, not as much) and it was by far the highlight for me. We hiked through mango forests, small villages, until we reached our hut in Palong.

It was far more luxurious than I had expected - a spacious room in a raised bamboo hut. That evening we saw dances

Ayathaya

1000 year old temple - too hot!

by the local children. It was weird - the huts are still very much basic, but again, it all looked a little too catered for the tourist palate for me. Huge satellite dishes by the side of most huts. Also the locals, including the kids did not seem so phased by our visit - not surprising since in high season they could be accommodating a different group every day. Reminded me of a human fish bowl.

That next day, we rode on elephants, my favourite animal. Smelly and very wet but fun. After that it was straight onto bamboo rafting. I expected something similar to white water rafting - what we got was a drunk driver who didn’t know what day it was and seemed content on allowing the ripples to move our little raft, sailing at 2 miles an hour. We eventually got there, having to put the elbow work ourselves, nearly falling into the river in the process. Beautiful ride though, and something I imagine a tributary of the great Amazon River to look like.

Shopping

Nothing beats market shopping in Chang Mai, the Sunday Market, to be precise- Leila and I went dizzy with

Ayathaya

the bike ride

all the stalls - 5 hours wasn’t enough to cover such breadth. And the food! After the lack of variety and daal/bhaat in Nepal, to all this choice - was enough to make you feel dizzy and excited at the same time. I have never tasted such tasty fresh food in my life, and boy did I stuff myself.

We also got massages, pedicures and facials. I never want to take a massage in England again. Overpriced and underdone.

And if Chang Mai wasn’t enough to make us go mad for shopping, Bangkok hit the nail on the head - and Joley’s head was right hit! We made time for touristy things like the Grand Palace, but entering NbK shopping after walking round the temple grounds in the humidity, was heaven. It wasn’t long before I got a headache on seeing the stalls - again, overwhelming - you need a good three days to do it justice, and then another day or two to give Siam Square (the expensive, ‘real’ stuff) a chance.

Beach

We felt bad that we were coming to Thailand and not visiting a beach - so we hired a car to take

over-night train to Chang Mai

Mad journey

us to Pathaya, or so we thought, but it ended up being a good hour’s drive away from Pathaya. The drive was 2 hours from Bangkok. Was it worth it? Yes - the beach was a little smelly, and not what we imagine a typical Thai beach to be like, but it was local and not very touristy so we appreciated chilling in the sun loungers, under the huge umbrellas, taking it all in and reminiscing about days just gone - much needed rest after a jam packed ten days.

The last night we visited the much celebrated Ko San Road - Faliraki eat your heart out. It was more of a company thing as it was the last night with our group and we got to see a very talented indie band that sang Chilli Peppers and Shakira exquisitely. A bit sickening to see crusty old men with young, barely out of school Thai girls. Also never seen so many he-shes in all of my life! Poor Elic even mistook one for a real girl. Aw.

Oh and we thought it would be an insightful idea to see the much hyped P(POP)ing Pong. So the 6 of

What's your favoulite fish???!!!

'LUBY FISH!!!!!!!'

us went - how hard could it be to find a place from Ko San Road? The tuk tuk drivers were practically fighting each other to take us, it was a short drive away....apparently. We ended up being driven to dodgy quiet side streets, taken to places that were either closed or had 'customers' emerging saying 'Don't go in, it's sh!te!'. We were not pleased - evidently the drivers were taking us to places their friends had interest in or where they were to receive commission. We weren't pleased and no amount of racing or wheelies (our heads practically touched the ground on one particularly daring one) were going to make up for it. We all demanded to be taken to our hotel. 'Tip for Willy, Tip for Willy' shouted the poor tuk tuk driver as we arrived at out hotel. We had to laugh, it wasn't meant to be and actually maybe it's a good thing we didn't get to go.

My verdict? I am definitely coming back, just to explore the south and of course shop. Thailand was much more developed than I had expected, very green, like Assam, and the people delightful.

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