Thailand - Part I

Bangkok

Took a flight from Phnom Phen to Bangkok as I was sick of buses and, besides, travelling by land you only receive a 15 day visa. Travelling by air you receive 30 days. When I got to Bangkok I was pretty tired and had some downtime. I did go to Phat Phong with a friend (Ron) which was quite a horrible experience. Basically the epi-centre for sex tourism in Bangkok. It was like a slap in the face! “You want see ping pong show, sir” was constantly whispered to us. Pretty much all the bars we wanted to go into were go go bars with girls dancing on tables.

We honestly only wanted to go out for a drink! We swiftly ended up back at the guesthouse. We originally went out as we believed it was far too expensive at the guesthouse and, besides, we wanted to see what it was like out in the Bangkok nightlife. The prices were quite steep as well considering where I had spent the past two months of travel.

We did go visit the reclining Buddha, the palace (without entering) and some temples. Took a nice cruise up the Chao Phraya river to get there which was refreshing and away from the hustle and bustle of the mostly narrow streets. Avoided the notorious Khao San road mostly but did wander there to see what all the fuss was about. The Phad Thai on the street was great for 25 BHT. To be honest I was more interested in getting to Ayutthuya, the old capital. My stay in Bangkok was a short one, only stayed four nights but I'm sure I'll be back in the future.

Ayutthuya

It was cheap to get there from Bangkok on the local train. Amazing to take a train for 1.5 hours that only costs 15 BHT! Ayutthuya lies north of Bangkok and the journey was an easy one. We did get third class tickets I suppose. Still, not bad at all. We got a Tuk Tuk for 40 BHT to the hostel, after the usual haggling over the price.

The ruins were great to see, much prefer old ruins to modern day temples. I do like history though so that's only natural on my part. The ruins looked even more impressive at night, with the lights poignantly directed on the sites. Ayutthuya is relatively small so only spent a day and a half there, getting a night train the following day.

The night market was wonderful for food and as always is the case in Asia is the cheapest available. Always so much on offer and cheap. A spicy curry with rice 35 BHT and chicken skewers were 5 BHT each - wonderful dinner!

We biked around this small city and took pictures of the ruins. The biking itself was glorious, splendidly sunny and thoroughly enjoyable. We biked til about 18h00, stopping to take pictures and to go for a walk around ruins in places. We stopped at a peaceful Buddhist temple and grounds in the beginning and relaxed there for a time. Saw some Elephants as well but I was quite unhappy at seeing them being chained up and looking rather miserable. All in all I think we covered between 8-12 km on a 'culture vulture' day. Not bad and great exercise. Unfortunately things turned a little sour when we got back to the hostel. The rain began again and this time it started mildly enough but gathered momentum. Thunder and lightening swiftly followed.

The rain continued and was really heavy prior to leaving Ayutthuya so our last few hours were spent watching Japanese pranks dubbed in Thai! Japanese humour is eccentrically funny! The train to Chiang Mai wasn’t great and was delayed, arriving after midnight into Ayutthuya. The carriages kept on crashing into each other when the train was coming to a stop so wasn’t easy to stay asleep.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai itself – the capital of the North – was relatively relaxed compared to the craziness of Bangkok, which of course was a relief. The moat, where most of the backpacker hostels are situated, was a little confusing and caused me to get lost a few times. You think you are at the right side to get back to your guesthouse but clearly are not! There is plenty of ruins to see in Chaing Mai but when the weather is so hot and you have just came from the ancient capital motivation may be wayward. We stayed at Same Same guesthouse, Julies guesthouse was full - a very popular hangout spot in Chaing Mai. Same Same had free wi-fi and the beer was strong and cheap so not bad! Red horse was about 8% and only 40 THB! The weather was incredibly warm during the day.

My time in Chiang Mai was relaxed, apart from visiting a few temple ruins I didn't do much sightseeing but then I knew I would be returning to Chiang Mai at some stage. I was eager to get to Pai, a place I heard so much about..

Pai

Pai is a small hippy town three hours North West of Chiang Mai. The roads are extremely steep and full of twists. Being hungover is not advisable. I wasn’t so didn’t bother me so much but others on the bus were feeling the strain from their stomachs and had turned a grayish colour. I had intended on staying two days in Pai prior to arrival. By the time I had made it to the bamboo bridge a guy told us about on the stop off half way the plan changed to a four day stay. In the end I stayed eighteen days I loved the place so much. I only really left because my visa was running out and I’d have to do a visa run or pay a fine of 500 baht a day!

After spending so much time in big cities or even simply cities it was wonderful to be at a location where after midnight the streets are literally deserted. No one around. The population of Pai is circa 5,000. I did have a scooter crash which was a pain but the wounds were relatively superficial. The annoyance was more that they that the major cuts were on my hands so I was bandaged up for about 9 days to protect against infection. Also, I was on anti-biotics, again for infection, and couldn’t drink during this period. In hindsight this was actually an excellent turn of events. I had been drinking far too much, as everybody tends to do on holidays. However, I had been travelling two and a half months and with drinks before I left Ireland I would estimate I had drank 75/80 days, which is a tad excessive I believe. I got a tattoo in Pai which I am very happy with and it always makes me smile when I look at it.

The tattoo is in Japanese and means “peace, love”. These are two characters I will never get bored of, no matter how old (or young) I get. Days melted away in Pai, mostly playing chess and smoking joints in the evenings with Filip (Belgian) and a few others. We had a few parties but not that much, the guys were more interested in getting stoned by the bungalows which of course was fine with me! When the day finally arrived where I had to go and do a visa run to Burma I really didn’t want to do it but had to. Then Rafa (Rafael, Belgian) wanted to do a boat adventure in Lao after we had heard the idea from Rob, a young English guy who had done this already. We decided to go for it and I got my Chiang Mai ticket changed to one going to Luang Prabang by slow boat the following day with Filip, Rafa and Eithan.

Until next time, ciao everyone..

Peace,

Liam O'Connor, travelling hobbit