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Published: March 19th 2007
On boat to Thailand
Between Luang Prabang and Pak BengHello everyone, well I have been EXTREMELY lazy with the travel blog lately, in fact it has not been updated for over a month since I left Luang Prabang in Laos to come to Thailand (which is where I am now).
Leaving Laos and Luang Prabang, I and my English friend Jonny (who has now returned home to UK) took a slow boat along the Mekong river, which flows into Laos from north western Thailand. It was an enjoyable 2-day trip and the boat stops mid-way overnight at a place called Pak Beng. The first day was immense fun - we bought a large bottle of gin and some tonic to drink, and we drank the lot with the other people on the boat. There were some very entertaining people with us - a middle-aged French guy called Bruno who was a retired air steward and told us many amusing tales about his various illicit affairs around the world, a couple of Swedish blond lesbians (well, we thought they were anyway), a
very boring Italian guy with Thai wife/girlfriend in tow, and a rather nice American girl called Jessica. The first night at Pak Beng was rather uneventful as there
On boat to Thailand
We polished off the gin in a few hours! was absoluely nothing to do - Jonny went to bed by 9 but I was determined to find a lively bar somewhere but to no avail alas, and eventually conceded and went to bed too.
Next day we left early on the second leg of the trip to the Huay Xia / Chiang Kong border crossing which was a very scenic and lovely stretch of the river, with limestone karst and cliffs rising steeply on all sides in some places. When we reached Huay Xia we found a cheap guesthouse and popped out for a few drinks, though the boring Italian guy clocked us and we spent the next 2 hours listening to him drone on about how he'd met some spies during the war in Germany. We made our excuses and headed out to find a bar, where we stumbled upon Jessica and went to the only place open in town which was a karaoke bar. We were pretty proud to have had a great night out in an empty bar and scolded the other boat-travellers for not making the effort to come out and get drunk with us!!
Next day we went to the immigraton checkpoint on
On boat to Thailand
Some crazy people on the boat the Loas side, and took a small boat across the river to arrive in Chiang Kong in Thailand, and the Thai immigration checkpoint. At this time I'd completely spent my Laos Kip (which are useless outside Laos, which is why I had take just enough as I thought for the 2 day trip) and US dollars, through a minor miscalculation about how much I would spend in the last day or two, and had to rely on Jonny for the hotel, food etc. At the Laos side before crossing into Thailand, I had to pay a $20 for 2 days overspent on the (30 day) visa. Thailand is now my 31st country (I think) and the 5th on this trip!
Upon reaching Chiang Kong we found the nearest ATM (of which in Thailand there are dozens in each town, unlike Laos which has only 1 ATM that works with visa in the capital city!). so it was a relief to have some hard cash once again (Thai baht). We took a mini-van to Chaing Mai in the north west (about 3 hours away) and booked into the Top North hotel (with swimming pool, though rather too cold to use),
where we also met up with Niko (the crazy French guy from earlier in the blog entries) and his Thai girlfriend Ya. In fact from that point we ended up travelling together for a couple of weeks to Pai, and down to Bangkok (more later).
In Chaing Mai we actually did very little except see a couple of the main temples, but also visited Doi Suttayep (I don't know the correct spelling!) which is a fantastic temple about 20 km away from Chiang Mai up a mountain. It's certainly far more impressive than any of the others I'd seen in Laos, though they tend to look all a bit samey these days unless it's a really impressive one. We also visited the night market and the city park, and spent a day or two by the pool and relaxing, as well as the now traditional night out with rather large bottles of 100 pipers Thai whisky and red bull - hence many days were spent waking up too late to do anything! Red Bull in Thailand is much more strong than in UK (which contains only caffeine) - here it contains various other chemicals which sound rather dubious and
On boat to Thailand
What a lovely pic. The girl in the background is Jessica. Hmm you're only supposed to drink no more than 2 bottles per day!!
After about 5 days in Chiang Mai we all headed north west to Pai (pronounced bye) which is a wonderful small town nestling in a lovely valley - it's certainly the most relaxing and chilled out place I've been to in Thailand. We stayed in fantastic bamboo raised huts at the edge of some rice paddies (The Countryside guesthouse) run by a Dutchman, and we all hired motorbikes to get around. Each day we drove around the valley and visited a some waterfalls, a hot spring (see the crazy photos later), and each night went to the BeBop bar (the only place in town that's busy) where a live band plays blues, funk and jazz each night to a packed audience, and afterwards the tiny bamboo bar until 3 or 4 am!! I'd recommend Pai as a place to spend 4 or 5 days at least - in fact we stayed several days longer than initially planned simply because it was so nice, similar in a way to Vang Vieng in Laos but rather less touristy. There isn't really that much to do there but it has
On boat to Thailand
The second day (Pak Beng to Huay Xia) plenty of characeter and is also a good place to go further west to Mae Song Hon province.
The initial plan was to head from Pai to Bangkok, then spend a few days at Koh Chang island in the south coast (the Gulf of Thailand side, east towards Cambodia) and Jonny's last few days in Bankok, but as we stayed longer than expected in Pai, we decided in the end to spend his last few days in Bangkok and not visit the beach (which I would do later anyway). So, we caught another bus back to Chiang Mai, then the overnight train to Bangkok arriving about 10 am. We booked into a great (but a little bit expensive at 750 baht a night - about 19 dollars / 10 pounds) guesthouse called Mango Place (recommended by Niko) on Rattanburi street, just around the corner from the backpacker haven of Khao San Road, but much nicer, quieter and not
quite so heaving with Falang (western) backpackers. Khao San Road has a certain buzzing atmosphere though and there are some great shoppnig bargains to be had (I sent home a load of DVDs, and bought some new T-shirts) as well as
Chiang Mai, Park
This is Jonny looking happy! very cheap guesthouses, tattoo parlours, restaurants, bars, clubs etc..
On the cultural side, we made a visit to the stunning Royal Palace, home to the very impressive home of the king, various wats and temples, and the sacred Emerald Buddha (a small buddha sculpture, the most revered in Thailand, something like 400 years old) actually made out of jade. We also went to Siam square for some more shopping (a very nice air-conditioned shopping mall), but didn't do much else in the day-time as it was so bloody hot!!! 5 minutes walking around and we were soaking wet with sweat!
On the Friday (over 2 weeks ago now) Jonny returned to UK and I stayed on another night or two. I wanted to extend my 30-day stay so had to visit the immigration office, where I managed to get another 7 days for 1900 baht (reduced from 10 days previously), which is about 50 dollars, rather extornionate I feel. I also want to stay even longer (another week or two) after that expires so I'm going to either pay the 500 baht/day fine (though I heard mixed reports whether this is possible or not, someone told me you
can be arrested instead, but the immigration people didn't seem to think so), but my idea now is to travel down the coast to Ranong near the Burmese border, and do a quick visa run (i.e. pop across by boat to Burma, then come straight abck and obtain another 30 days at the Thai border).
Anyway, after Bangkok last week I went south to the nearby island of Koh Samet - it's a small and popular island with some lovely beaches and several 'resorts' dotted along the east coast mainly. Unfortunately I didn't realise it was a 4-day holiday for most Thais (something to do with Buddha or the king), and turned up to spend 5 hours trying to find a room!! eventually I met someone who had a single room available due to a cancellation at the last minute, and had to pay the princely sum of 200 baht (50 dollars! the most expensive room on this trip since I left UK and probably one of the worst!). Next day I moved to another guesthouse which was only 400 baht and rather better, and in fact close to one of the great beaches. I basically spent a few
days just chilling on the beach, but did meet a couple of entertaining brits and some Israeli guys.
Next it was back to Bangkok and then on westwards to Kanchanaburi where the famous death railway and bridge of the river kwai are the main attractions, as well as the nearby national parks. The first day here (I'm still here now) I just hired a motorbike and explored the town, visited the allied war cemetary (there are thousands of UK, Australian and Dutch servicemen buried here, killed building the Tha-Burmese railway in the second world war), a wat and cave (they have those everywhere in Asia!), and the war museum, in addition to the famous bridge itself. For those who don't know (I didn't!) the bridge and railway were constructed by allied POWs under Japanese and Korean forces in the war and it's called the 'Death Railway' as so many died in it's construction. It was built so that the Japanese could have a more reliable route across South East Asia than by sea, and was constructed using only the most basic tools.
I booked onto a 1-day tour to see the Hellfire pass, and the Erawan falls but
it was cancelled (on Monday) so I have been there today instead. The Erawan falls are a very impressive series of waterfalls (with 7 levels) in the Erawan national park some 100 km or so away from Kanchanaburi, where we swam and also hiked to the top-most fall. In the afternoon we headed over to the Hellfire pass and museum - part of the Thai-Burmese railway, it's a series of deep cuttings in the mountain-side, over which the railway crossed. After that we caught a train on a small section of the remaining railway (as most of it is now dis-used) back towards Kanchanaburi.
Since then I returned to Bangkok and caught a train on Saturday to Hua Hin (5 hours away) on the Gulf coast side, and plan to head further south to some islands. The train journey was fun but rather slow - as there was a bar and restaurant so I met some other travellers and we drank a few beers together, talking with the staff and sharing our beers. I came here to Hua Hin on Friday and intended to stay only one night, but I met people travellers (including an English guy called Tony,
here to give a kite-surfing lessons) and other fun people and have not left yet; additionally I missed the bus yesterday to Koh Phi Phi, which has messed up my travel plans somewhat as I am trying to meet a friend (the crazy Dutch girl Linda - see the Laos blogs) on Koh Phi Phi island, which hopefully I can still do before she leaves.
In Hua Hin yesterday I went to the cinema and saw a Thai horror-comedy movie (I had met a lovely Thai nurse called Da who asked me to go so I thought why not!!), and it was actually very funny (thankfully there were English subtitles, with a few bad examples of Thai to English translation for good measure). An interesting thing happened just after the adverts but before the movie started - a short 1-minute movie played celebrating the king and the whole cinema stood up in silence with hands together in a praying posture (the 'wai' apparently). Da told me it's shown before every film to pay respect to the king and it struck me the difference between Thailand and the UK in that respect. Can you imagine English people standing up in
Niko and Jonny share an intimate moment
I think they enjoyed it when their tongues touched! ha ha the cinema to pay respect to the queen?
Well, that's about it for now. I have not uploaded any photos as I cannot connect my memory card to this PC, but check again in a few days as there are loads of great photos I need to upload...
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Bibiana
non-member comment
hello
Hi Roland, I hope you are well. Thanks for the update, very enjoyable, i am going to read it again. I got your postcard from Laos and was very happy about that!! Thousands thanks. It sits on my cupboard at home near the TV and I check it from time to time.I hope you are well. We are quite busy here and jelaous of you having a splendid time!!! The weather is cold again...some kind of freeze wave has come back this weekend so we are back to where we were!! Anyway, back to work and have fun and keep safe. Yours Bibi xxxx