Blogs from Southern Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 2

Our hotel was a city style, clean and comfortable, the breakfast was adequate. In the morning we travelled in the van to the west to the railway station at Phunphin , we cycled through a busy town and across the chulachomkaou railway bridge and on through into rural southern Thailand along the banks of the beautiful river. To the temple at Wat Tham Sing Khom , an ancient cave was uncovered during construction work, it has examples of wall paintings and Chinese pottery embedded in the ceiling. The cave has become a place of worship and contains many buddahs! A quick snack and we headed on through a rubber plantation where we met local people harvesting the rubber, counting, weighing and transporting it to the factory for processing. I’m this area there were also many mango ... read more

It was a cooler morning and we had a lovely breakfast in the barn porpla resort Prachuap Khiri Khan. The cycle team arrived promptly at 8am and we set off through the town and over to the Air Force base. Pi Golf explained about the Japanese invasion where many Thai policeman were killed during the Second World War so Japan could access Burma across this thin peninsula. We cycled On to visit the Waghor aquarium and further through beautiful jungle with verdant palm trees with occasional glimpses of the shore line. We wound on through an area mainly populated by Scandinavians within the Wat Hanakon national park and had a rest stop at a local police station, where we ate snacks and chatted with a policeman. We continued through similar landscape winding through small roads often ... read more

When travelling to countries where you don’t speak the local language, silly events often happen that can put a smile on your face. Take for example this experience. Bev decided this year to take some Thai language classes. She found out that in the Thai language, questions and responses as kept as short as possible. No need to speak in sentences when one word will suffice. Well that doesn’t sit well with Bev, as she has a tendency to talk; to elaborate upon things. For breakfast we usually have eggs, plain pancakes, muesli and yogurt, along with a fruit plate of bananas, pineapple and watermelon. One morning, Bev decided she wanted banana crepe pancakes, instead of the plain pancakes. In great detail she explained in English, to our Thai waiter, what she wanted for breakfast. Satisfied ... read more

We began to slowly head up North to Bangkok. i tried to divide my return trip in smaller chunks to appreciate it a bit more. Watching Thailand's map, to go from Khao Sok or Khao Lak to Bangkok, would require 3 steps to make the trip not too hard. It would then be; Khao Sok - Chumphon - Pranburi, (i liked that place) - Bangkok. Chumphon. This is a region that is never mentioned anywhere, but usually is a pit stop along the road. Using hotel booking website, found a very nice hotel in that region according to reviews, and price was really good. It was Villa Varich. Without a GPS you wouldn't find that place!!! You leave the main road, and very rapidly, the road signs don't have english anymore!!! But that place, is really ... read more

It was a forty hour journey to get from our home in Regina, central Canada, to our first overseas destination in Bangkok, Thailand. The first fifteen hours involved a two hour flight to Vancouver airport on New Year’s Day, followed by a dozen hours waiting for our after midnight flight to Bangkok, via Taipei. All connections went well, but the additional twelve hours of waiting around the airport was a gruelling time extension to an already long flight plan. However, when we finally arrived Bangkok mid-afternoon two days later it was only a matter of minutes before we fell asleep and remained in that state for the next eighteen hours, ready to commence a new day in a new country relatively fresh and revived. Jet lag was not noticeable. It is always a delight to start ... read more