Beach Time

Thinking hard what to report from some relaxing days at the beach just sleeping, eating, swimming and sunbathing on the island of Koh Samui. Well, some big news: I ended my book ban and started reading a book again besides reading into Malaysia, where we will go tomorrow. We are staying at the so called virgin coast of Koh Samui, where there still is lots of silence and loneliness on this very touristic island with all the amenities westerners like on vacation. From our beachfront bungalow we not only overlook the quiet bay of Ao Santi with its great beach, we also see the awesome sunsets with the Angthong Marine National Park and its green islands in the background. While people come here from all parts of the islands for the sunsets and the great view we enjoy living here for a couple of days.

It is great to walk this wide bay for hours, well, until we found out, that the dogs down here are even crazier than in other places. After a crazy puppy accompanied us back from a beach walk we thought it would be a good idea to instead walk on the road to the near village, which has some nice little restaurant spots, even a small pizzeria. But we couldn't know about JAWS!!! Jaws is the mean village dog who chases people on motorbikes and people walking by, so on the second night going out to the village we took one of our umbrellas, to be prepared for a fight. We ended up in that little pizzeria and were happy not to have encountered Jaws when he suddenly was lying there a couple of tables next to us on the floor. We figured out that Jaws is okay, when you are eating at the restaurant and even sat next to us at our table, so our umbrella came home unused. The dogs are both on the beach and on the street, switching sides whenever and wherever something is going on. Thailand really changes a dog lovers perspective...

Because lying at the beach and thinking only about Jaws can be too much after a while we decided to rent a motorbike to explore the south and west coast of the island. It was a beautiful trip around pretty original spots on Koh Samui without any resorts around and beautiful views. We saw some Wats with mumified monks, village life and hiked or better climbed up a waterfall to have a wonderful view over the island. It will be hard to leave this paradise for Malaysia tomorrow, but life and the trip has to go on...

Beautiful Chiang Mai

On our last day in Bangkok Ellen and I of course had to visit the grand palace and the Wat Pho. It is a very crowded place and reading the restrictions before visiting we thought we would be dressed properly, but then sent back by the fashion police to the long line in front of the fashion mall to get a skirt for Ellen. It was a very hot day and all the noise of the mass of tourists made it an exhausting couple of hours, but it was all worth it. We never saw such nice ornate buildings before, it was amazing! After a break at the cafe of the Navy Wives Association we headed off for Bangkok Airport to arrive in Chiang Mai late afternoon.

I've been to a couple of Thai towns in the last couple of weeks, but Chiang Mai is definitely the nicest spot yet. We are staying in a beautiful old traditional Thai teak house called Baan Hanibah right in the middle of old Chiang Mai. Besides all the temples and Wats the city is just full of friendliness and hospitality, lots of great craft and food shops, very clean and it is just nice wandering the cute small streets. Which is what we actually did here all the time and cancelled our plan to go to one of the elephant camps. Anyways we found out, that in most camps elephants are not treated well and we don't want to support the bad treatment. If you want to visit a nice one you have to write them some in advance. So we enjoyed our time in the Chiang Mai streets, having some nice food, chatting with monks at the temple (they also offer official "Monk Chats" here), getting Thai massage and wandering the night markets. There are lots of westerners here, which is the reason for a very nice cuisine selection, so we had some very good smoothies and Italian food here.

After deciding against elephant camp and a cooking course we used the next day to drive into Doi Pui Suthep National Park, where we visited Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. We shared the taxi with a nice Australian and a Japanese guy, having some nice chats about Thailand and travel experiences. The trip up to the 1600 meter high wat through the rain forest of the national park was great and after we went up the 309 steps to the Wat and dressed up properly we were greeted by a very nice temple and a great view over the city. They also had a nice little market around the Wat, so we had a little lunch snack with grilled corn, coconut cookies and banana waffels. Our driver, who waited for us the whole time, took us back to the city, where we will have a nice dinner at the Ping river before flying to Koh Samui tomorrow for some beachtime.

Krung Thep: City of Angels

This time arriving Bangkok and its crazy traffic was better than the first time three weeks ago. At least you know the country and how things go. Shared a cab to the city district of Bangalampoo around the traveller scene of KaoSarn Road with two german travellers that just arrived from Germany from the airport. Here I'm staying with Ellen at the Navaja River Side Resort which is our retreat from this crazy busy city. But once I put a step onto KaoSarn Road where most of the Thailand travellers start their journey I figured out I have been in a different world the last three weeks. Lots of party, cheap guest houses, people selling something everywhere and lots of noise. So after checking in I just got some Pad Thai and a Thai massage and watched the scene from a safe place with a beer before heading back to the hotel, spending a quiet evening at the river. The Thai massage was actually the best so far. I figured out that Head, Shoulder and back, sitting in that relaxing chair is the best. After it you walk the streets as if you are in a trance, its so good! The good thing is also, that they shut down the bars and the music at about one at night, so the noise outside dims at least for a couple of hours.

Because Ellen was arriving late on Friday I had the whole day to figure things out and relax. Forget about using public transportation on the streets here during the day! And because there isn't any subway or high train station around the best option is using the Expressboats that leave right at the backside of our hotel at the river. For 15 Baht you can go almost everywhere and its great to figure out this city in a relaxing way. Well, not really relaxing, because riding them is quite an adventure. I figured out that the most dangerous job in Thailand is the one of the guy who is responsible for the hop on hop off management. He has a whistle to signal the captain what to do and jumps on and off the pier with a rope to secure the boat that is then almost crashing into the pier when tied to it. Everything has to go really fast, even if you hit other boats...but its really nice, I saw lots of the city in a couple of hours and then walked back trough the main attraction district to the hotel. Spend the rest of the day relaxing at the rooftop pool and checking the typhoon Kai Tak warning signals for Hongkong, where Ellen had to change for a flight to Bangkok. Gladly figured out that Kai Tak decided to go westwards leaving Hongkong out, so Ellen arrived safely at about midnight in Bangkok. Because there is no public transportation at that time we had to take a cab to our hotel at two in morning after we figured out, that her bag got lost...



Stranding without your bag isn't that nice, but Thai Airlines Baggage Services took over the handling and did a good job finding the baggage within 48 hours. So we spent the first day doing some basic clothes shopping (actually I think the baggage loss was just made up to do clothes shopping the first day :-)) at this crazy huge weekend market called chatuchak market, 35 acres with about 8000 market stalls and 200.000 visitors a day. We inhaled the city atmosphere, using the express boat and the high train for travel and trying to keep relaxed as much as we could in this crazy busy city. Seeing all the food at the market made us hungry, so we went to Siam Paragon, a shopping mall right downtown with an awesome food court. Got some energy there to visit the Jim Thompson house afterwards. Jim Thompson was an American who went to Thailand as an agent for the forerunner of the CIA during second world war and after it became involved in reorganizing the Oriental Hotel and entered the silk business in Bangkok. He also built up a really nice teak house as his residence which is today one of the last really original Thai houses you can see in Bangkok. It was really, really nice and through the tour we learned lots about Thai lifestyle and housing. Did you know the Thai people sleep on the wooden floor? Its better for your back, so thats what I'm going to do tonight...We had a nice atmosphere there because it was raining outside and the dark inside with the green outside really came to its great appearance together.

Today we went up to Ayutthaya with the bus. It was Sunday, so traffic wasn't that messed up and we really made it in a good time.  Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 by King U Thong, who went there to escape a smallpox outbreak in Lop Buri and proclaimed it the capital of his kingdom, often referred to as the Ayutthaya kingdom or Siam. Ayutthaya became the second Siamese capital after Sukhothai. The Ayutthaya historical park is the ruins of the former capital of the Kingdom of Siam and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you want to dig into Thai history, you definitely have to go there. So we did and arrived at the bus terminal of this very widespread city at about noontime. The question was, how would we get to all the sites? And as always, the answer was popping up by itself. The nicest TukTuk driver ever offered us a 4 hour rental, taking us to all the major places and waiting for us outside. He had this little personal tripadvisor book with lots of comments of all different kinds of people in several languages. The german and the american entries said he was amazing and so we did it. We definitiely had an amazing day with him, he even caring for our food and drinks, telling us things, showing us all the great places even far away of the touristic centre and so at the end we wrote something nice in his book too to let other travellers enjoy his service.

We were also really lucky to experience something very special. While we were visiting the Viharn Noi with the giant buddha statue and were already wondering about all the police around we heard, that a member of the royal family would visit the place in a couple of minutes. So we sat there at the side with students and lots of other people, witnessing the ceremony and seeing the delegation riding in with elephants. All in all we had a really amazing day, thanks to our TukTuk driver. Back at the hotel we were greeted by Ellen's luggage, being delivered during the day. So while I write this Ellen is jumping around in our hotel room full of happiness. And after the daily heavy rain shower is over we might hit the KaoSarn area again to get some Thai food, before we do the grand palace and Wat here in Bangkok tomorrow morning and then head off for Chiang Mai via Air Asia tomorrow afternoon.

Along the Mekong

In Nong Khai the long Friendship Highway that was built with assistance of and used by the United States for logistics during the Vietnam War ends. If you go further north you have to cross the Mekong on the Thai-Lao friendship bridge. After hours on Thai busses, watching and listening to the Karaoke programs on board this is the best place to reload batteries and get some relaxiation. I checked into the Pantawee Hotel, a great place to stay with lots of amenities for affordable prices. Every room is even equipped with a flatscreen TV, DVD player and internet computer. And it is the perfect place to do some laundry and eat a BBQ cheeseburger with french fries, which I did :-). I can tell you it was the best burger ever (in fact it wasn't, but just that I haven't had fast food for such a long time made it the best...). There are lots of westerners here, most of them expanding their visa by travelling over to Laos for a couple of days. So I enjoyed my time having a Thai massage and checking out lots of great restaurants and some Mekong fish. And as most of the people here just adapted the "river flow" wandering the river boardwalk and dozing while looking over to Laos. The Mekong is very dangerous for travellers getting stuck here because of the great atmosphere and the enjoyable gastronomy and nice people around. So at the last night I sat there eating my fish right at the river listening to old songs from the seventies playing at the restaurant and being one of those victimc of the Mekong vibe discussing a stay for another day with myself.

But I conquered my weaker self and made it. After two lazy days my batteries were reloaded for my awesome trip with a local bus westwards along the Mekong. It was an exhausting, but amazing trip and the views, experiences and the people I met were more than worth it. The local busses don't have air condition, so their windows and doors are open all the time which is really nice to get a feeling for the dusty atmosphere on the street...My guide said the coast trip along the Mekong hitting the towns of Si Chiangmai and Pak Chom is one of the nicest in Thailand. And it definitely is amazing! Rice fields, mountains and green tropical forests on both sides of the Mekong, the Laos side seeming more wilder still. It took me about 4 hours to the town of Pak Chom, actually in the middle of nowhere, when the bus driver told me the bus ended here. So the buddhist monk and I, that were the last ones on the bus, left it. No taxis, no tuktuks, no Songthaews, what now?

Again something happened on this trip that for me as a believing Christian isn't only a coincidence. A nice elderly man sat there on a bench, walked up to me and greeted me in best english. He learned it by studying the bible he said and helped me with my further travel arrangements. We both felt kind of guided and brought together by god and had the greatest chat about religion and faith there in that little Thai town comparing buddhism to christianity until my so called bus, something like a military truck transformed into an open air minibus arrived. He even offered me to stay at his house for the night, but I had to continue my journey to make my itinerary for the next day. We hugged each other and divided again after such a deep experience. After a three hour trip to the town of Ban Tad. where I had to change again. I finally made it to Chiang Khan just on time for the sunset, the destination of my day's journey. I ended up in a plain guesthouse right at the Mekong using my sleeping bag and shared bathrooms, but the day and the location right at the river were worth it. I had another great Mekong fish with chilly spicy and sweet souce for dinner, unfortunately I forgot to take the camera to show you the whole fish I ate. They serve it with head, tail and everything, its so tasty!

The next day I went down to Loei and changed to an AIR CONDITIONED!!!! bus to Udon Thani, where I am staying for one night. Flying to Bangkok with Air Asia tomorrow to meet my girlfriend Ellen who is flying in on Friday. So I'm going to spend tomorrow and Friday in our nice Bangkok hotel to pre-checkout the rooftop pool before we explore the city together the next days. Can't believe three weeks are over already and the day has come I was looking forward to so much when Ellen is flying in...Getting back to city life in Udon Thani tonight with its big mall and all the American food around. It's interesting to see the McDonalds menu here that has lots of Thai food and Thai burgers and Ronald McDonald greeting in Thai. I'll probably hit KFC or a Pizza place again :-). Maybe even going for a movie at the theatres tonight, although there isn't anything interesting playing and not much in english, but maybe a nice change after zapping through Fox News and Law and Order as only shows on the channels for the last days in my rooms...

Angkor of Thailand

Why go to Cambodia's Angkor Wat when you have an Angkor in Thailand? The little town of Phimai is famous for its Khmer temples and ought to be the historical model for the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Prasat Phimai was originally built in the l l th century after a large part of the Buddhist Kingdom of Dhvaravadi was conquered and became the domain of the Khmer Empire. So I took the local bus from Korat or Nakhon Ratchasima as it is called originally to check it out on my way north from the national park. Phimai is a cute little Thai town where not many western tourists have been seen so far as it seems. I somehow became an attraction myself with lots of chats and pictures with me in front of the temple ruins. Again I figured out that as farther you get away from the tourist routes the friendlier the people and greater the experience gets. I start to really like the northeast and think it was the best decision to come up here.
 
I was stunned by the temple ruins and besides the many nice chats with the visiting Thai tourists I just sat there a couple of times staring at the spectacular sight in front of me. I spent a good amount of quality time there before I spread out to explore the little town to find something to eat. I discovered it wasn't that easy. I searched the local market and saw many interesting things I have never seen before. They offered almost everything from duck heads, frogs, snakes and all sorts of fish. Let me tell you after seeing how meat is sold here you will always have that image on your mind when you order fish or meat at a restaurant...I friendly refused a couple of offers to buy things with a smile and finally found a stand with Pad Thai. Nothing can go wrong with noodles, veggies and chicken cooked alltogether spicy, with nuts and a touch of sweetness. And here we go: For 10 Baht I had the best Pad Thai dish so far, enjoying it on a park bench in the middle of the town. I was still kind of hungry after being on busses all day long. So where is the place that saves you always as a westerner when you are feeling lonely and disoriented longing for something you can hold on to? 

Right, 7 Eleven! Every little town here has one, they even had one next to my lodge at the national park. They have everything you can dream of, from Coke to Hot Dogs, Chips (actually in weird flavors like lobster, shrimp and seagrass) and all the other stuff for all life situations you miss when you are here :-). So I bought some cheese crackers and chips which turned out to be my afternoon snack and dinner in my hotel room. I also by my batteries there and I don't know if it is my old camera that I took on this trip that is giving up on me, or it is the batteries for 50 Baht, that don't have the power to operate my camera but I need lots of them...

Anyways my biggest concern was getting out of Phimai again the next morning with nobody speaking engflish around here. I finally ended up with talking to someone a hotel employee knew on the phone and he told the guys that I wanted to go north. So they wrote me a little note in Thai, that rescued me from staying in Phimai the rest of my life. A Songthaew took me to the highway where I could get a bus to Khon Kaen, from there to Udon Thani and after changing again I finally made it to the Mekong and the little border town of Nong Khai, where I want to relax for two days, before I head west along the Mekong...

Jungle

After a bus break down and some intense travel hours up to the northeastern plateau around Korat from Kanchanaburi via Bangkok I was finally here: The Khao Yai National Park, a Thai national and UNESCO world heritage site. I enjoyed every minute of my three days stay. And it was the most amazing nature experience ever. I stayed at Khao Yai Garden Lodge, where I didn't only had a wonderful time with lots of interesting people I met, but also the most friendly and hearty welcome and service. I can only recommend the place with their experienced tour guides, who made the tours an extraordinary experience.

On the first day we (two french couples and me) took of with our tour guide and our pickup truck right into the park. We deboarded the car to trek a couple of hours on jungle pathes our guide knew. Our guide grew up in the region and had plenty of experience when it came to wildlife. It was amazing how he saw and heard animals in the jungle and we just followed their tracks until we saw them, mostly wild monkeys, but also snakes, wild cats and lots of birds and incredible insects. Unfortunately we didn't see one of the 400 wild elephants still living here, but saw plenty of their leftovers :-). I was impressed by the beauty, freshness and liveliness of the forest with all those different kinds of plants. We learned lots about their different natural effects on healing people and ate fresh jungle pepper. It really is hard to describe the feeling of being right in the middle of such an untouched nature where you can feel, this could be the place where everything started on this planet. After visiting the rain forest I must say that mankind has to intensivate the effort to preserve the global rainforests. We have to save these paradises and springs of life for future generations and the future of our planet!

I was happy to be here during the rain season, to see all the plants green and fresh and the rivers full of fresh spring water. There were some side effects during this time though besides the rain. We all had to wear special socks because of the leeches. They were everywhere! Jumping from the grass and the leaves on to my juicy body and crawling on our clothes to find a way to get in. And of course monster mosquitos I have never seen before. But I wore my special impregnated trekking clothes, so they had no chance and I didn't take one souvenir out of the jungle! Our first day ended at some of the many wonderful waterfalls in the park. I wonder if you can recognize this one on the picture from a famous movie about backpacking Asia? Leonardo di Caprio had a nice stunt there...

After seeing all this fresh water we wanted to swim in it of course and on the second day we finally had the chance to do it. We visited a fresh water spring and swam in crystal clear water. It was the appetizer for a far more amazing nature experience to come...In the late afternoon we went to a bat cave near a Wat, where monks come to to meditate. You can also see the Bats hanging there side by side. At almost the time every night millions of them swarm out together for hunting. It is an event you just have to witness yourself. It takes about an hour for the millions of bats to come out and we witnessed it all! The sky gets dark because of all the bats and the line of them coming out of that cave just doesn't end. They do this to be safe from predators like eagles, that are in the sky above trying to hunt bats that get separated from the swarm. And after swarming out every bat goes on on its own, coming back one by one to the cave after the night and to the same spot to sleep...

All in all these were my most amazing three days of the trip so far. I could have stayed some longer, but it was time to move on north. I'm writing this from Phimai, a small town northeast of Korat. They say it is the Angkor of Thailand and the model for the Cambodian Angkor. I will visit the historical site today and stay over night before I head further north to the Laotian border and the Mekong...