This post is huge, written between February and now. Woops. Many adventures were had in my final weeks in south east asia (I only visited Singapore for 3 days before heading back to Perth after this).
Ubon Ratchitani
From Pakse in Laos we (Raf and I) crossed into Thailand by bus with Kate and Fred. While they flew back to Bangkok to catch their flight home, Raf and I stayed in Ubon Ratchitani for a few days, then took a sleeper train to Bangkok. We didn’t do much, Raf was sick again and I made use of the free wifi by doing some work. We did enjoy eating at the night markets again, the food is definitely more varied in Thailand than in Laos!
On our last day, after checking out of our cheap hotel, we took a taxi to a more expensive one towards the train station and payed a small amount (about $2) to use their swimming pool and again had free wifi, so believe it or not, but I got some work done while lying next to the pool!
Bangkok
We arrived in Bangkok the following morning at around 7am and made our way to MBK to pick up my fixed camera. Unfortunately it doesn’t open till 10am so we had to kill some time.
Then we made our way to Stefan and Poi’s place again, were we were able to stay for a few days until Raf flew home and I took a bus back to the North.
With Stefan and Poi we ate smoked reindeer and drank swedish schnapps, had massages, went out for Peking Duck (my first time ever) and went to the Chatuchuk Markets.
Raf and I visited the nearby Fashion Island Mall and did some shopping. From the outside (and mostly the inside), it looks like we were back in Australia. We did however get our hair washed(+head massage and hair blow dried) for $2. :o
Back to Chiang Mai
So on 17 January I left Raf to fly home after 7 weeks of travelling together, and I took a bus to Chiang Mai, alone again. But not for long. While in Bangkok I messages some couchsurfers I’d met last time I was in Chiang Mai (through another couchsurfer I knew from Perth), and there happened to be a chinese dumpling making party that evening at someone’s house. I could also couchsurf with one of them. So I went straight there from the bus station, on the back of a motorcycle taxi! The bus had taken 11hours, so I was a bit late, but the party was in full swing.
Kow soy, a northern thailand/burmese noodle soup:
I ended up couchsurfing in Chiang Mai for 4 days, while waiting for my friend Nic to arrive from Perth.
I hired a bike, and my host Scott and his other couchsurfing friends took me out to local restaurants and bars. A highlight was the Thai hotpot restaurant. A huge undercover area, with two huge buffets set up in the middle, and a stage with live music/comedy (in thai) at one end.
Each table gets a ‘hot pot’, a type of small bqq/steam dish. You can bbq meat etc on top, and around it in the water you throw vegetables etc to make a broth. On the buffets there were also other things to eat like sushi, fruit, salads, steamed buns and dumplings made fresh and cakes, pastries and other ingredients to make dessert! All you can eat for around $5.00!
On night at ‘Bangkok Bar’, a bar with a thai cover band playing rock music, Ross bought some crickets/grasshoppers and a couple of meely worms off a passing seller. I’d had a drink (but was definitely not drunk), and was convinced to try them. The meely worm was the easiest and tasted the best (like twisties), the cricket had eyes so was harder, and didn’t taste like anything in particular but was bigger and while still chewing I tried to wash it away with Thai whiskey, which didn’t work to well.
Oh well, try anything once! I lie, I doubt I’ll ever try a cockroach or spider, but never say never!
We also went to the North Gate Jazz Coop, a bar that’s mostly frequented by thai bands and audience. First one and later two more elephants came wandering past, led by one guy with someone else offering people sugar cane for sale to feed the elephant. A few days later while nowhere near the ‘old city’ and tourists it happened again at a bar, proving it’s definitely not just a thing for the tourists.
I really enjoyed staying longer in a place and ‘pretending’ to live there amongst the locals, learning from the expats. Though Chiang Mai is a very modern/western city in many ways, a lot is different from home. Tap water is not drinkable (as it hasn’t been for all of my trip, I’ve been buying water in bottles). I discovered that in Chiang Mai, there are drinking water ‘dispensers’ on some streets, where you can fill up a container for 1 baht for 2 litres, wayyyy cheaper than bottled water (at least 5 baht for 1 litre for the cheapest).
There are also many places with washing machines along the road.
Most people do not have a washing machine at home, many don’t even have a kitchen or kitchenette, especially in apartments.
And for something different: street drinking is not illegal, and that’s reason enough to do it!
I loved the Thai ice teas with milk – Chai (Nom) Yen. This is a regular street vendor, off the tourist trail, that I passed while biking around Chiang Mai. So proud I could order my drink in Thai and they could now understand me.
Back to Pai
Then Nic arrived, and we took a minivan to Pai, where we caught up with my friends Marissa (met in Perth, southern Thailand and Laos!) and Phoebe, who I’d met travelling in Northern Thailand a few months ago. While having a drink while watching the sunset over the river we also got talking to a israeli/russian girl who I then invited to dinner with us. It was funny, later it felt like I was ‘giving back’ after all the times I was asked to dinner when I was travelling alone. That’s how it goes on the backpacker trail.
We ended up in Releaf where a duo who I saw last time in Pai was playing, a thai girl with a beautiful voice and a farang (foreigner of european descent) guy on an acoustic guitar. I have mixed feelings about Pai, but one of the things I love is all the live music everywhere.
After a breakfast at Good Life Pai (I generally don’t like eating at the same place all the time, but this place is really good value), Nic, Marissa and I set off on scooters to Cave Lodge, near Soppong on the road to Mae Hong Son.
Good Life Pai:
Ok, the above was written only a few weeks after all that happened, but now I’m writing the rest of this at the end of March, so it’s going to be more of a summary :P
Back to Cave Lodge
It was an awesome scooter ride up and down the mountain range. So beautiful and not much traffic so just so much fun. At the top of the highest points are some markets so we stopped for a while.
Late lunch in Soppong, then the last 9km through forest to the town of Ban Tham and Cave Lodge, which is about 500m from Tham Lod, the cave. I love it, this is the second time I came here and generally I don’t go back to places. It’s a wooden lodge, set on the side of a hill looking over the river and the mountains. Big verandah/open restaurant area with a fireplace, cushions and a table tennis table. There’s dorm accommodation and separate huts. All made of natural material and all very open, but everyone gets a mosquito net.
That evening we asked where a nice place to do a small hike and see the sunset was, and were told the ‘Big Knob’. We drove our scooters through the main town, but then walked through a small group of houses to the base of the knob. We kind of made it halfway, the last bit we didn’t see a path, and it was getting dark and I was on thongs (flip flops).
The next day after a morning bath in the river (quite cold water and a bit shallow for a proper bath!) we wandered around a bit and then at 4pm did the Tham Lod cave tour, and watched the swifts flying back in at sunset. And another evening of good food, reading and table tennis.
Cow, Nic, Marissa:
Very old coffins in the cave:
Mae Hong Song, Ban Rak Thai, Burmese border roadtrip
The following day we decided to do a 2 or 3 day trip to a town further to the north east, again on the Burmese border, but this was a Chinese town, founded by ex KMT fighters in 1950. Bit of a tourist town now for thai people. We only saw 2 other western tourists. Was awesome, something different. And the ride there was beautiful, and we got chased by rain and thunderstorms! First at the top of the big mountain pass beyond Soppong we had to stop to shelter from a thunderstorm.
And then just before arriving in Ban Rak Thai we were being chased by clouds (sweeping over the road behind us!!) and it started raining soon after.
On the way we had lunch in a small town and through not being able to communicate much, we just ate pad thai. We also stopped to view a waterfall, but there wasn’t much water.
In Ban Rak Thai the power was out due to the thunderstorms. There was one restaurant open and we shared a table with some thai tourists from Chiang Mai and/or Bangkok. We didn’t order much before it was all chinese type food (so not much choice for Marissa and I, vegetarians) and very expensive compared to what we were used to paying. Confusing that a place that pretty much only caters for Thai tourists is more expensive than western tourist places.
Guesthouse with chinese decorations, and Nic and Marissa:
After a night sharing a big bed (we only got one room as accommodation was expensive too!), we scootered back south and to Mae Hong Song, the capital.
After a look around, and lunch at which a crazy US ex-army guy joined us and told us stories about the Free Burma Rangers, corrupt police and drugs, we scootered back to Cave Lodge. Long rides that day, but very nice. Right in the very north of Thailand.
Temples in Mae Hong Song City:
Pai again
Back to Pai the next day (28 January) and we visited the hot springs at night, and then went to a party at the Pittalew Art Gallery, where there was music, art, food and an awesome fire show, probably the best I’ve seen!
The annual Pai Reggae Festival ‘We Be Jammin’ was on for the next two days just outside of Pai and we went the first night and had a great time! Nic, Marissa, Eve, Phoebe and Marissa’s friends. I may have also driven a scooter with two passengers for the first time ever… No, not after drinking alcohol, but still, shhhhh.
The reason Phoebe was back in Pai/Thailand was that she’d been invited to play saxophone with a band at this festival. I played photographer for the night using her DSLR, but am proud to say that my point and shoot camera (with Nic and I using it), got some shots that were just as awesome:
And then it was farewell to Phoebe who was staying in Pai, to Marissa who was staying one more day and then back to Aus. Back to Chiang Mai for a night, said goodbye to my new friends there, and said goodbye to Nic who had another two weeks.
And now I continue writing this in the middle of June, so it’s going to be even more summarized.
Homeward bound
I spent a night in Phuket, one of the hells on earth for me (ok, slight exaggeration…). I got to the airport at around 3pm, spent about 3hrs getting to Patong, the place with the cheapest accommodation, and I had to leave there around 5am again in a shared taxi to get back to the airport to fly to Singapore. It was so much more built up that other areas of Thailand (ok, except Bangkok of course). So many hotels!
Everything was double the price of Northern Thailand, and I hadn’t seen that many Australians since Kuta in Bali (and so not my kind of travellers) and there were also heaps of american soldiers on leave, and plenty of lady boys and prostitutes. Or girls that dressed as prostitues… It was strange seeing Tsunami Hazard Zone and Evacuation Route signs everywhere in Patong.
My only luck was that my room had free wifi from a restaurant downstairs. I skyped my parents, pretending to still be in Chiang Mai. Part of my carefully planned trick of showing up on their doortstep 4 days before they even thought I was in the country again.
Phew!
Only a few days of left of my six month south east asia trip.
