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We both had high hopes for Thailand having heard mostly good things....
We took a flight from Luang Probang to Chiang Mai. It was pretty clear as soon as we landed that Thailand was alot wealthier than the last few countries we visited. For the first time since Singapore cars out-numbered bikes and mopeds on the road. Traffic law is in place and is adhered to, and there is no beeping of horns. It seems this was only acceptable in Cambodia and Vietnam. We spent a few days in Chiang Mai wandering around the walled part of the city and losing count of the number of temples- they all begin to look the same after a while. We also did a one day cookery course which was good fun, but by the time I feel like eating Thai food again I will probably have forgotten all I learned. The night market in Chiang Mai was massive and sold absolutely everything. Browsing around this market we quickly realised that the Thai's quoted blatantly inflated prices to us which was a bit frustrating. Bargaining is all well and good and is actually part of the fun but when they start with a
price 10 times what they are eventually willing to sell for its annoying. They just seem to pick the figures out of thin air. It was amazing how quickly the price dropped once we started to walk away from a stall- within 30 seconds the price could be 1/10 of what it was originally. Up till now negotiating a discount at the markets was all part of the fun but here I just felt they were trying to rip us off.
We also paid a visit to a monkey centre while we were in Chiang Mai. I'd say there are animal rights activists out there that wouldn't be a big fan of this place. The monkeys didn't seem to get the best of treatment and a few of the older more sedate ones put on a bit of a performance for us. The tricks they did were quite funny- seems you can basically teach these animals to do anything. But I don't think I would hand over the money to fund this kind of place again.
From Chiang Mai we took a flight to Phuket. We were hoping to explore a few of the other islands and do
a bit of diving in the south of Thailand but unfortunately the weather wasn't the best. The weather system that caused the cyclone in Burma was causing bad weather all over south east Asia so there was no escaping it. We ended up spending 4 days in Phuket dodging the wind and rain.....
Our trip down south didn't get off to the best start - we had to circle Phuket airport for over an hour because conditions were too bad to land. When we did eventually land we bought tickets for a mini-van transfer to a guest house in Patong. Our dodgy bus driver then proceeded to kick us out of the van a few km's from where we needed to be. We knew we were in the wrong place but there was no reasoning with this guy- he just threw our luggage off the bus into the puddles and lashing rain. Anyway we eventually made it to our guest house which was really nice and once we checked in and got food we decided to make the best of our stay.
Patong is a really tacky seaside resort with lots and lots of European tourists and enough bars, restaurants
and neon lights to keep all of these in beer, food and whatever other extra-ciricular activities they are looking for. The constant barrage of "taxi?", "tuk-tuk?", "massage?", "where you go?", "suit for you mister?", "dress for you lady?" "come into my shop" was much worse here than anywhere else we have visited in SE Asia and if we thought the overcharging of foreign tourists was bad in Chiang Mai it got even worse here. Combining all this with the resident hookers and lady boys wasn't exactly what I had hoped for when we were flying down here. It's fairly safe to say we'll never return to Phuket and probably won't be in any rush back to Thailand. We were really disappointed to have missed out on the diving as it is supposed to be great here.
After Phuket we flew to Bangkok and on the advice of a good few people we spent only one night there. However I was pleasantly surprised- the city is nothing spectacular and parts are quite dirty, but the CBD is fairly modern and clean. We also met some genuinely helpful people here. I'd heard crazy stories about trying to cross the road in
Bangkok but it was relatively easy compared to Vietnam. I'd say Hanoi is one of the most difficult places in the world to cross the street without getting run over. In Bangkok we stayed in our first proper hostel since Australia- one with a common room and kitchen. The type of place has not been easy to find in Asia and we've definitely missed them. After our brief stay in Bangkok we caught another flight- this time to Hong Kong.....
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