Thailand

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We landed in Bangkok around mid-day at the new airport which had only been open for 4 weeks, we were told it is now the biggest airport in the world.

Yet again we hadn’t prearranged accommodation, so we booked a room in the city through the tourist info desk at the airport. We caught a taxi to the hotel and were totally ripped off by the driver, even though he was running the meter. Unfortunately we didn’t discover the rip-off until later in our travels when we did the same taxi journey again and saw the difference in cost. Basically he drove twice the distance and took us through two toll gates instead of one, it ended up almost double the cost!

We spent 4 nights in Bangkok at the PJ Watergate Hotel which was clean and comfortable and did excellent Thai food, Phil was particularly taken with the Duck Red Curry and Laura the Pad Thai.

Bangkok is a continuous mad rush with cars, taxis, buses, bikes & tuk-tuks haring off in all directions. The driving is crazy and the only rule seems to be that you must indicate before attempting a manoeuvre, no matter how suicidal it may be. Sometimes they indicate if they're considering a manoeuvre, reconsider the move but leave the indicator on, so you end up with the scenario where everyone's indicating and anything could happen at any moment!

The pavements are awash with market stalls selling everything from suspect Ralph Lauren polo shirts and Ray Ban sunglasses to fresh coconuts, roasted geckos, locusts, frogs legs - you name it. We were staying in a shopping district called Pratunum which has massive shopping centres with all the big name brand shops. When cruising the markets and malls, we were quite shocked to see how many 50+ year-old European men were wandering hand-in-hand with 18+ year-old Thai girls, not sure who's taking advantage of who!

We were given a free City and Temples tour by the agent we booked our hotel through, which we took advantage of on our first whole day in the city. The temples were much more elaborate and better tended than the ones we saw in Sri Lanka. The tour covered the three main temples: Wat Po (the 2nd biggest reclining Buddha in Thailand), Marble temple, and the Golden Buddha temple. There was also the obligatory stop at the tourist shops where you can get almost anything made to order and delivered to your hotel in 24 hours: suits, jewellery etc.

We spent a morning with a travel agent arranging the rest of our travel within Thailand. She was very organized and had all our arrangements confirmed and tickets issued by the end of the day.

The remainder of our stay was spent sightseeing around Bangkok, where we took in the Grand Palace and Jim Thompson’s House getting around using various forms of transport including a Tuk-tuk and a water taxi.

We also did a ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ day trip, which was excellent. The trip included a visit to the Death Railway Museum, the cemetery, the bridge over the River Kwai, a trip on the train and a long tail boat trip on the river. The museum was well worth the visit and reading a 6 year old’s letter to her father brought a tear to the eye. The suffering of the men who were forced to build the railway was well documented and beggared belief. The one criticism we would make is that both the cemetery and the museum tended to focus on the loss of 7000 European lives and almost brush over the loss of nearly 100 000 Asian lives.

The train ride took us along a section of the original track, including a section along the side of a mountain built on wooden scaffolding - rickety and a little unnerving, but the views were great. Our guide for the day was certifiably crazy and kept us amused throughout the day. She referred to the toilet as “the happy room”, her explanation being that people looked a little ugly before they went in, and happy when they came out!

Our next stop was Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand which we reached by train. It was a 12 hour journey which was surprisingly comfortable. We were even served lunch and snacks which were included in the ticket price. It was a day trip, so we were able to take in the scenery along the way. There was widespread flooding with the water up to the roofs of houses and people gathered on what little dry land they could find.

The stations that we stopped at along the way were quaint and beautifully kept with wonderful examples of topiary dotted along the platforms. There are a lot of very talented gardeners in Thailand.

The train was packed with Hash Harriers (social drinking clubs under the guise of running clubs) from around the world heading to Chiang Mai for the Inter-hash gathering held every two years. They were all a bunch of nutters, rarely without a beer in hand and at one stage of the weekend all wearing red dresses. It was all in good humour, but who knows what the locals thought of 6000 beer-swilling cross-dressers wandering the streets of the normally laid back and easy going Chiang Mai!

We spent 3 nights in Chiang Mai, staying at the Orchid hotel, again clean and comfortable but Phil did get a 24 hour bug after ordering room service. Chiang Mai is laid back by comparison to Bangkok and life goes by at a much slower pace, though still frenetic by Western standards. It is also a lot cleaner than Bangkok and in our opinion more tourist-friendly. We loved Bangkok and all it's craziness, but we felt much more comfortable and less harassed in Chiang Mai.

The old city is surrounded by a moat which now has fountains in it which are floodlit at night, it is very beautiful. We did the usual wander around town adding to our tally of temples, visiting Wat Phra Sing & Wat Jed Yod. The temples in Chiang Mai seem a lot more peaceful and tranquil than the ones in Bangkok, mainly because there were a lot fewer tourists. They don't charge foreigners an entry fee either which was a pleasant change.

Chiang Mai is built along the Ping river, so in typical tourist fashion we took a boat tour up the river taking in the sights and visiting a herb & fruit farm, which was very interesting. Along the river banks there was still a lot of damage visible from recent flooding. The city holds a three month flower festival starting in November and the preparations were well under way, unfortunately we would miss it by a few days.

The night market was very impressive and a souvenir hunters dream. It seemed to go on and on, we were there twice and we're pretty sure we didn't get to see it all. We were particularly impressed with the soap carvings - intricate flowers carved from a single bar of soap and then hand painted. Next to the night market was a food hall where you purchase vouchers and then choose your dishes from a variety of vendors, we both ate well for less than a pound each!

One of our most important discoveries was not one, but two, Starbucks coffee shops! What a relief to be able to sit down and enjoy a familiar tasting cuppa - bliss.

We decided a trip to Thailand wouldn't be complete without a trip to the beach and flew to Phuket via Bangkok, headed for Koh Phi Phi for 5 nights. We spent a night in Phuket at the Sunset Beach Resort which looks nothing like the brochure! Phil even asked the taxi driver whether he was sure it was the right place, the entire front of the hotel was boarded up! We arrived in the middle of a torrential storm which did nothing to improve first impressions. Fortunately once inside things got a little bit better, though we were glad we were only staying the one night. We had been upgraded to a 'suite' which smelt damp but was clean.

The next day we had a 90 minute ferry ride to Koh Phi Phi Don Island, it was a stinking hot day and we weren't able to check in until 14:00 so we wandered around for 4 hours. It is a very beautiful island, but it is definitely a tourist hotspot. There is construction going on everywhere, which is both post-tsunami repairs as well as new multi-storey hotel development. Hundreds of day trippers arrive by ferry in the mornings, so the beaches soon get busy. There are several dive & tour operators, far more than is necessary, especially as there doesn't seem to be any competition, so haggling for a deal gets you nowhere.

We had a nice relaxing 5 days staying at the Phi Phi Hotel, but if we had travelled half way around the world just to come to Koh Phi Phi for a holiday, we would have been very disappointed, it was far too busy and commercial for our taste. The beach is lovely, but the water in the bay is very shallow for several hundred yards and so the sun warms the water to uncomfortable temperatures making the task of cooling down impossible.

We took a day boat trip around Koh Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Lae taking in a Viking cave, Bamboo Island, Maya Bay and Monkey Beach stopping to snorkel and kayak a few times. The damage done to the coral by the tsunami is massive and it will take years to recover, if ever. The islands in the area are amazing, sheer cliffs rising up out of the water and lush green jungle on top. Beaches are few and far between, so the ones that are there are understandably busy with tens of boats moored in the bays - very much a rich man's playground. We arrived back in the middle of the heaviest rain we have ever seen and once moored we had to clamber over several other boats to get to the quay, it was quite precarious and we were soaked to the bone by the time we got to the hotel 100 yards away.

The weather was good to us, hot during the day with rain in the evening to cool things down, however there was a constant mist which particularly annoyed Phil who was hoping to get a white beach and blue sky photo but lucked out. This was the case throughout asia, we seldom saw a blue sky, there was always a gray/brown/whitish murk.

We spent most days on the beach, reading and being serenaded by the doughnut seller with her home made ditty: Yoo-hoo, Don-nut, 10 baht 10 baht 10 baht, chocrit, vanirah, broobury. She was very funny and did a roaring trade. Phil did a bit of kayaking and saw a sting ray jump clear of the water, visions of Steve Irwin kept him from paddling after it to get a closer look.

There is still a lot of evidence of the tsunami on the islands, both above and below the water. The coral is all but destroyed and there is still a lot of rubble and damaged buildings. We visited the little memorial garden on Koh Phi Phi and were shocked to see that more than 100 people lost their lives here. The garden is nicely designed and well tended, though it's below the level of the tsunami high water mark.

Tans topped up and feeling relaxed, we headed back to Bangkok, the taxi ride from the airport leading us to discover how badly we'd been duped the last time. We only had a day in Bangkok, but we managed to fit quite a bit in. We negotiated a price with a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the Khao San road, not realising this would involve a stop at a suit shop where he insisted we spend 15 minutes so he could get a stamp on a petrol voucher! When we refused, he left us there, even further away from our destination! Eventually we got were we wanted to be after taking a taxi and insisting he turn his meter on. We took a boat ride on the river and then treated ourselves to the afternoon tea buffet at the Four Seasons Hotel - Wow! Cakes and all things yummy, we spent 2 hours there and left feeling like kids on Easter Sunday afternoon!

Our last evening was spent having dinner at a Chinese restuarant on the 79th floor of the tallest building in Bangkok. The food was mediocre but the views were fantastic. The next morning we headed for the airport which involved yet another run-in with the taxi driver. He wanted to charge us 400 baht for the trip but we insisted he put the meter on, lucky we did because it came to 185 baht! What is it about taxi drivers? Maybe they're better in Vietnam...

Our trouble didn't end there, our flight to Vietnam was with a low cost airline which has a checked in luggage allowance of 15kg, we had 20kg each, not unreasonable, we thought, for a 7 month trip. We weren't winning the argument with the check-in attendant and the queue was getting restless. We were told that we could take the excess on as hand luggage without a charge. Understandably we questioned the logic in this but were met with a blank stare, so we dutifully unpacked 10kg from our luggage and took it on as hand luggage - bizarre!

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Comments

[Sandy]

WOW
Hey I'm really impressed. Your Dad just gave me your blog ad and tonight for a change our line speed was reasonable. Spent a wonderful hour travelling with you. Well done! Have fun in OZ