Thai Trips

We took an overnight flight from Tokyo to Bangkok via Kuala Lumpur again, and landed around 9.30am so we headed straight to our usual haunt of Khao San Road. We never book ahead and just turn up, this meant we were able to check into a room straight away allowing us to take a short nap before we headed out. We planned two nights here and planned to do a couple of walks around Chinatown and the local area.

One of the places we visited was Wat Traimit Withayaram Worawihan, also known as the Temple of the Golden Buddha and is the world’s largest solid gold Buddha. It was once covered in plaster and no one knew it was solid gold until they went to move it and some of the plaster broke off. It was certainly a very impressive sight.

We had another two days booked in another hotel in Bangkok, this hotel had a jacuzzi bath on the balcony and was where we spent my birthday. We moved here by public bus and whilst we were waiting for the bus there was an almighty thunderstorm and an incredibly large clap of thunder and a flash of lightning happened right in front of us! It was pretty scary.

Following our treat we flew down to Phuket, we were on the descend when the pilot announced over the tannoy that there was ‘some weather’ in Phuket so we needed to hold over Krabi. I’m not a great flyer at the best of times (I hate take offs and turbulence in particular) and those words struck fear into me. I know ‘some weather’ is never good. It felt like we circled for ages and then when we did come into land we could see lightning out of the window and it got REALLY bumpy. I normally start to really freak out during moments like this, and I could feel Joey next to me flinch when there was more lightning, but this time I just went really really quiet and braced myself for a potential go around. Amazingly we landed first time and the guy the other side of me just said ‘finally’ when the wheels touched down. You could sense the relief in the whole plane and I was ready for a drink!

When we arrived at our hotel we dumped our bags and headed straight out. We were staying in the notorious Patong area, famous for its nightlife and girly bars. We wanted to get food at the night market but when we wandered through it, it was like being in a nightmare with all the vendors surrounding you and saying things like ‘I know you’re hungry’ ‘come and eat here’ and it stressed us out! We quickly escaped and I really likened it to a ghost train where everyone jumps out at you! We eventually found a quiet side street for some dinner and afterwards decided we definitely needed a drink so headed to the bar area. There were lots of girls dancing on bars wearing not a lot and lots of drink offers – it felt like Khao San Road on speed. Surprisingly we didn’t find it too seedy, no one seemed to be taking it too seriously and there were families with young children in the area. We spent the next day chilling on the beach before doing it all again.

We took a ferry the following day to Koh Phi Phi. There are two Phi Phis, big and small, you can only stay on big Phi Phi but little Phi Phi is famous for Maya Bay from the film The Beach. I don’t know if we had paid extra for a bouji boat but our ferry included a few brief photo stops around little Phi Phi including Maya Bay so we got to view it for free! I wasn’t terribly interested in visiting it separately as I knew it would be full of influencer types trying to get their IG shots so this was a bonus!

Our free sightseeing tour of little Phi Phi

Phi Phi is a party island but we were savvy enough to book accommodation far away from the parties! We had a good few days on a beautiful beach where you could snorkel off shore. Our accommodation wasn’t amazing and we shared our bathroom with two cockroaches, but in a sign of massive personal growth I didn’t freak out about them at all.

After Phi Phi we headed to Koh Lanta, a more laid back island close to Krabi. We had a pool here and it was right on the beach so perfect for relaxation. Unfortunately night one saw Joey spend most of it with his head in the toilet. I felt awful for him as it’s probably the sickest I have seen him. So whilst I was relaxing enjoying dinner and cocktails on the beach at sunset Joey was sleeping and restricted to the BRAT diet.

We had a mammoth travel day planned, our longest one yet, so Joey needed to recover. We were planning on travelling over 1300km overland without any overnight stops. We had to first get a bus to Krabi, which also involved a short car ferry, before waiting for another bus to Surat Thani. Surat Thani is the main jumping off point for the Gulf islands but this time we were continuing to head north. We’d booked an overnight sleeper train which is one of the ways to travel in Thailand. We were both on top bunks as we booked at short notice but we could at least poke our heads round to the other. We both slept really well thanks to the flat bed and the gentle slow rocking of the train. By a miracle our train arrived into Bang Sue station (I can’t help but have a giggle at some of the Thai names) on time- quite unusual for Thai trains! We caught a local bus to the bus station and went in hunt of our next transport. We were heading to the town of Sukothai, the ancient capital and a place full of ancient ruins. Now if you’re sat there thinking ‘didn’t you already go to the an ancient Thai capital full of ruins?’ Then you’d be correct – that was Ayutthaya!

We were lucky and there was a bus an hour after we arrived so we bought the tickets and headed to 7/11 for breakfast. We then headed off to get our bus, I could see the bus, it wasn’t far, I was excited, our mammoth travel day had one final leg left. The next thing I know I have caught my foot on some uneven ground and right now everything is happening in slow motion – I’m trying to save myself but the weight of my backpack is pulling me down. I can see my left knee twisting under me and I know when I hit the ground I’m going to hurt myself. I’m trying to untwist my knee but I can’t and as I hit the ground I am thinking to myself ‘oh god, that’s it, this is the end of travels now’. Joey has tried to save me but the weight of me, my backpack and his backpack pull him down as well. I sit on the ground for a few seconds and a woman rushes over to help me. I have to take my backpack off to try and get up and I really don’t know how I’m going to feel when I get up. I stand up and my legs hurt but I seem to be able to walk, I’m in shock and our bus is due to leave in about 10 minutes and my illogical thinking is to catch the bus at all costs! So I put my stiff upper lip on and hobble to the bus. As I approach the bus though I start to realise that perhaps I’m only hobbling because I think I should be rather than because I’m injured. I make it onto the bus and into our seat before bursting into tears. I’m still not sure if I’m injured and I’m definitely not sure 7 hours of sitting still is going to do me any good but by some miracle as the journey goes on I realise that I’m ok. Joey puts that down to the yoga we’ve been doing since the start of the year!

The next day I did wake up extremely stiff with some bruised ribs but all in all I considered myself very lucky. We caught a local bus to the ruins and took it very gently, just walking around the central zone. Sukothai is made up of five zones and you can cycle round them but we decided to walk the central zone as a gentle start as it’s the most compact zone. Wat Mahathat is the most famous sight in this zone and it’s the largest and most important temple in Sukothai. There are other temples in the zone which also demonstrate typical Sukothai style with lotus bud chedis. It was definitely worth the few hours we spent here wandering around.

The next day we headed back to the park this time hiring bikes with the intention of exploring the North Zone. The North zone is more spread out and there’s only two temples really worth seeing. The first is Wat Si Chum, this is another incredibly famous temple, as it holds a huge seated Buddha, the whole of which is hard to photograph. The Buddha has very large fingers which are very frequently photographed.

The next temple is Wat Phra Phai Luang. This is Khmer style and so resembles Angkor Wat, although there’s not a lot left! However these ruins were actually my favourite. They are so ruined that some of the plaster has crumbled away to reveal the bricks inside and you can clearly see how the Buddha is shaped from these bricks – I found it fascinating to see the process! There were a few other ruins on our way back to the main park, including this really funky one with lots of elephants around it.

I really enjoyed Sukothai, but was glad that we’d had a couple of months between here and Ayutthaya – it’s common to do them back to back and we definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed them as much.

The next day was a travel day and I was extremely relieved to wake up and my ribs not be hurting! I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to carry my backpack if they were!

We were heading to Chiang Rai and had booked a long but direct bus. Only we were told that our bus had broken down so we now had to get two buses! Still at least we made it.

Chiang Rai was a chance to slow things down a little. We visited the White Temple one day and the Black House the other, both utterly bizarre in their own ways. The White Temple was constructed around 1997 so isn’t as historical as some other Wats we’ve visited and from a distance it is quite stunning. Get a little closer though and things become a little strange. You must walk over a bridge to enter and as you approach the bridge you are met with lots of hands reaching up from the ground towards you apparently representing temptation. There’s also a section with paintings from the matrix and the twin towers from 9/11 but this was closed when we were there. It was very busy but worth a stop. We then visited the cave of art which was also a little bizarre but turned out to be our favourite thing.

The Black House is the work of Thai artist Thawan Duchanee and is housed in several buildings including one that very much resembles a black temple. The art pieces are utterly bizarre and range from cow horns to crocodile skins on tables to lots and lots of phallus! The main building housed several of his paintings and there was an option to use a QR code to view them through a filter which brought them alive. We really enjoyed this stop!

We headed onto Chiang Mai where Joey’s brother lives and where we were due to meet him and Joey’s parents who were flying over from the UK. We have spent a bit of time in Chiang Mai before so we allowed ourselves just one day to revisit some temples before relaxing with the family. It was a big birthday celebration for Dan, Joey’s brother, so lots of good food was consumed!

We always love going back to Thailand and it’s been amazing having these opportunities to explore more of the country and to allow for a bit of culture and a bit of relaxing time on the gorgeous beaches!

December 21, 2023 0

Thailand part 1 – rest and culture!

Much like the last blog, the border crossing / flight to Thailand wasn’t as smooth as it could have been! We had an early flight and an early start but I was awake about 3 hours before I needed to be with a bad stomach. This was not good for flying. So I reverted to the Imodium which I hate doing, I’m a fan of letting nature take its course, and while taking those tablets sorted one problem they left me feeling really queasy. We’d just taken off and hit some turbulence which added to the queasiness and I spent the whole of the first flight (3 hours) with my head in the sick bag dry heaving. Maybe it would have been better if I’d actually managed to be sick, instead of just threatening to. We had a very tight connection at Delhi airport made worse by our plane holding for 15 minutes and we thought it would be ok when our plane pulled in next to our Thai Airways plane, but no! We were sent through security again which was over the other side of the airport! We were picked up by a buggy driver who dropped us there but the security screening was the slowest we have ever experienced. It wasn’t a long queue just slow. When we eventually made it through we started sprinting through the airport as we had about 5 minutes until the gate was due to close and thankfully got picked up by an another buggy driver. That little sprint did not help me feel better and I was certain I really would be sick! Thankfully while we just about made it, we were not convinced that our luggage would! We’d experienced delayed luggage when we were in Thailand on holiday last year so we were more prepared for it this time. We didn’t know when it would arrive if it didn’t make the plane so we decided not book any accommodation for that night before we left Kazakhstan. We sailed through immigration in Bangkok airport with the immigration officer commenting on my place of birth (Yeovil) as he recognised the football team! We went to the luggage carousel more to play the game of waiting, when upon arrival I spotted my rucksack shortly followed by Joey’s! We couldn’t believe it. That meant that we had just had time to catch the last bus of the day to Cha-am, our favourite beach in Thailand, where we had 3 nights booked to stay from the following day! We turned up at our hotel around 10.15pm and asked to extend our booking, it was very straightforward.

As I say we had planned a few nights to rest after The Stans, and we had a great time doing so. It’s rainy season in Thailand at present but we didn’t experience too much rain, just a bit of cloud cover. We had a day doing chores, a day on the beach and then we caught a bus to Hua Hin, a bigger town down the coast with a shopping centre and a cinema so we could finally watch Barbie!

Fully recharged it was time to move on and get some Thai Culture. Cha-am has direct buses to Kanchanaburi in the west, famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai, so that seemed an easy option. We turned up at the bus stop but after the ticket seller made a quick phone call it turned out that the mini van was full! He wasn’t phased though, he bundled us into another mini van, told us to change somewhere but not to worry as the driver would take care of us. And he absolutely did take care of us! We have no idea what town it was we changed in but the driver told us to get out, pointed us to the next van and off we went! It was so easy. We stayed a little bit away from the main sights of Kanchanaburi but that meant we got to do lots of walking! We made the famous bridge our first port of call. It is very touristy around the site of the bridge with many souvenir stalls, drink sellers and even hawkers selling eels on the bridge. You can walk on the railway line across the bridge stopping for your Instagram pictures as you wish, there are a few trains a day so you need to watch out for those but there are places of safety you can wait on if one was to come whilst you were there. We walked the whole way across and were definitely in the minority for doing so! Over the other side is a lovely Buddhist temple which makes a good viewing platform. After seeing the bridge we visited the Death Railway museum, this was definitely worth a stop and it’s very sobering. It puts into perspective the numbers of men killed in the building of the bridge as well as the conditions in which they had to live and work.

In Kanchanaburi there is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery which holds the graves of many of the men who perished during the construction of the railway. Very close to this is also a Buddhist cemetery; something which we have never come across before so was very interesting to see,

We spent the next day at Erawan falls, a seven tiered waterfall about a 90 minute bus ride away. The falls are in the middle of the jungle and you spend time hiking up steep paths to get to each of the tiers. You can stop and swim in the different tiers, we only went in the second tier and the seventh tier. In order to swim you have to rent a life jacket which I actually appreciated. The waters are full of flesh eating fish so you get your own free pedicure! The fish tickle your feet which takes a little getting used to, we didn’t really enjoy swimming in the pools though when the fish were eating our knees or arms! The seventh tier has a little cave behind the fall which you can swim in and around and back out which I really enjoyed but I wouldn’t recommend if you are claustrophobic

Kanchanaburi has a lively night market which we ate at every evening. It was fun to just go to different stalls and pick something different to try each night. I started off quite safe (pasta!) but got a little more adventurous as time went on.

After Kanchanaburi we went to Ayutthaya, which is 80km north of Bangkok and was the capital of Siam between 1350 and 1767, when it was razed by the Burmese. There are many, many ruined temples there to see so we borrowed a couple of bikes from our guesthouse and set off. Most temples are 50 baht (around £1.10) or you can buy a ticket for the 6 main sights for 220baht (about £4.90). We wanted the 6 temple ticket but upon reaching the first temple I realised that I hadn’t topped up our cash and we didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket! So off we cycled back to our guesthouse to get some from our stash!

One of the things that helps our relationship on the road and to keep us organised is for us to have ‘jobs’ in each country. So one of us will be in charge of the country, by which we mean planning and researching roughly where to go and the other one will be the ‘treasurer’ so dealing with our cash on a day to day basis. I’d been in charge throughout the Stans of planning the countries but for Thailand we didn’t really have anyone in charge! I definitely drove the ‘we should do some Thai culture and not just lie on a beach’ bit though!

Once we’d got our finances sorted we cycled back to our first temple, Wat Phra Sin Sanphet, famous for its three pagodas. This ended up being one of our favourite sights and hopefully the pictures will show you why. Next door to this is the Buddhist temple of Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bophit which has been heavily restored. Pictures inside show the before and after of the renovations and are worth a look, but what really wows is the huge Buddha inside. After this we cycled to Wat Phra Ram and then to Wat Phra Mahathat which is famous for the sandstone Buddha head in the tree roots. It’s impressive and you’ll easily find it by the massive groups of people gathered to take their pictures!

We decided enough was enough for that day and headed back to the guesthouse. Our guesthouse ran a free shuttle bus to the night market each evening so we caught that for a bit more market food. We didn’t think that the Ayutthaya night market was as good as the one in Kanchanaburi but we still found plenty to eat.

The next day we hopped back on the bikes early to visit Wat Chai Wattanaram, this is one of the busiest sites and we just managed to visit it before the first coach load arrived! We then went to Wat Tha Ka Rong which is really hard to describe, it’s a Buddhist temple but also like a seaside pier – there are weird animated skeletons around the place greeting you with a wai, as well as stalls and bizarrely, very large crows! We didn’t know what to make of it, but again it was definitely worth a visit.

We also saw the reclining Buddha, it’s almost as large as the one in Bangkok, but is no longer covered in gold, it’s probably more impressive it’s fully outside so you can really see the scale and detail.

Our final stop was Wat Ratchaburana where you can actually climb the prang, I popped my head inside but the smell of bat poo was pretty overwhelming so we quickly retreated!

We checked out of the guesthouse and headed to the train station, trains to Bangkok are pretty frequent, if somewhat late, but very, very cheap! We were heading to the Khao San Road area, an area famous for backpackers. It’s a street lined with stalls selling elephant pants, t shirts, cocktail buckets and scorpions on a stick! You either love it or hate it and we love it! We have noticed the change though from when I first visited 8 years ago. Then you had stalls selling old copies of lonely planets and fake driving licenses and dodgy dvds. Those stalls have gone, partly as part of a clean up by the government and partly I guess as time has moved on and the digital world has diminished the need for knock off copies of The Beach.

We had a fun but chilled evening, I went for a foot massage and Joey took some time to just sit and people watch. Obviously I had a couple of large cocktails and Joey some beers. The next day we had booked an overnight bus to the Gulf islands and so we had a day to kill, we headed to a strip of shopping centres on a local bus. In the past we would have taken a taxi there but now it’s easy to find information online about which local bus to catch so catch the bus we did. It was a nice way to spend the day – one of the shopping centres has showrooms for cars such as Bentley, Porsche and Land Rovers – imagine going to the Oracle shopping centre in Reading to pick out your car!

I’m glad that we had some time to explore some of the places in Thailand that I’d wanted to explore and to see some culture rather than just beaches although the beaches will follow!

August 29, 2023 0