stephengardener.com » Thailand 2006

Thailand photos

stega — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:47:00 +0000

Photos from our wee trip around Thailand are now up in the photos section.

Last day in Thailand

stega — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:46:00 +0000

We have suddenly arrived at our last day. We thought we weren’t flying out for another 3 days, and we had left our tickets with our luggage which had been safely stored in a hotel in Bangkok so couldnt check. Emailed the travel agent when we were in Sangklaburi just to confirm that it was the 1st August that we were flying, then we were on our way up north again, but were so knackered after a long days travelling from Thong Pha Phum, that we decided to stop a night in Bangkok – checked our email when we got here and had a mail from the travel agent saying that we are flying tomorrow…
So our last stop turned out to be at a place called Thong Pha Phum, which was a nice wee town on the other side of the lake to Sangklaburi. Took a walk up to a Wat perched on top of one of those typical Thailand hills, which are mostly cliff with some jungle on top, rather like the Arazonian desert ones, but with hair. This one also had a load of steps that conveniently led to the top, and a wire that was used to pass things quickly up and down to the monks there (or alternatively provide another, much quicker way down if you want to avoid the mosquitos – we opted for the mosquitos). The view from the top was absolutely stunning – took my breath away. It was also slightly scarey, as it was rather narrow (around 5m), and had very tall and rather painfull looking cliffs in every direction. Ollie pretended to fall off the cliff for a photo – scared the willies out of me!!!! By the way, our Thailand photos will be appearing with the others (see photos page on this site) when we get home.
So now we are in Bangkok with 234678 tonnes of luggage (my suits added another 4-5 kilos) and a sore neck from carrying it all from the taxi to our lovely room just off the Khao San Road (around 100m). Really not looking forward to checking in at the airport tomorrow.
You might have noticed a suit reference in that previous paragraph. I am now the proud owner of 2 bloody lovely suits, one for our wedding and the other just cos it looked cool. Not entirely sure why i have ended up with 2 suits as i never wear the things, but am particularly pleased with them, and they do make my bottom look good (according to Ollie ).
Right, will sign off from Thailand now. Next stop – Wales! See ya there

Planes, trains and boats

stega — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:08:00 +0000

We have taken several really nice train journeys since we have been in Thailand. The trip from Phitsanolok to Bangkok was gorgeous, as was the trip from Bangkok to Kanchanuburi. Today was the buses turn. Our bus went from Kanchanuburi to Sankhlaburi, near the Myanmar border. We passed through steep sided mountains, misty jungle and alongside a lake to get here, and it was all stunning! Got to Sangkhlaburi around 15.00, and checked ourselves into the first hotel we could find, which turned out to be a few minutes walk from the bus station (Sangkhla is not a big place). Spent a quite 15 minutes at the giant reclining buddah before deciding to check out the lake a few kms out of town. The lake was gorgeous, with some really nice guesthouses sat overlooking the water. Originally only came here for the bus journey, and to check out the Three Pagodas pass into Myanmar, but we have booked a room in a really pretty guesthouse by the water now, so will stay here for a few days extra to enjoy the scenery (as well as hiring some canoes to have an explore of the lake).

Wasps

stega — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 14:06:00 +0000

Ive never been stung by a wasp before, let alone a nasty looking big black thing whos sting is almost a completely seperate part of its body, and has wee white markings on it just to make sure you are really scared, so today was a first for me. And i was pleasantly suprised. It didnt hurt half as much as i thought it would. Sitting in the shadow of the bridge over the River Kwai where lots and lots of people died probably helped put things into perspective as well. Maybe I do have a future in beekeeping after all

Massaman Curry (as a cure for cracked skulls)

stega — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:47:00 +0000

Walked into the jungle today. Literally The girl at first aid flagged down a truck to take us to the doctors, but as that wouldve meant we had no way to get home after, we insisted on taking the bus. We had been in Erawan National Park – a gorgeous seven tiered waterfall thing in a nice bit of Thai rainforest. Feet and legs had been eaten by fish in one of the pools.. actually several of the pools, and we had got soaking wet in the monsoon rains that decided to give it their best when were right at the top of the falls. It was at this point that we realised that the last bus of the day was leaving in an hour, and so started to rush back down. The disagrement with the tree (at least the overhanging branch part of the tree) happened thankfully not far from the bus. Had 5 minutes before the bus left, so Ollie suggested that we go and see first aid. The first girl was very helpfull, and screemed and ran off when i took my hat off to show her my injury. Another girl with a slightly stronger stomach came and covered me with betadine. We then took the bus back to Kanchanuburi, our current town of residence. Journey was only an hour, and the bleeding had stopped way before, and as Ollie had pointed out that the cut was only small and clean, and as Stephen had pointed out that he would rather eat seafood than go and get stitches, we went home to clean it up and soak it in more betadine. Its fine now (we have just had dinner, and it behaved very well – didnt ooze once!) but we have a backup of painkillers waiting in the hut for us to get me through the night.
So we are in Kanchanuburi – that of the Bridge over the River Kwai fame. After leaving Chiang Mai, we took the bus down to Phitsanolok from where we were going to travel east. We changed our minds, as we had had enough of staying in big noisy cities, and east would take us to another, so we took the train down to Bangkok instead The train journey was excellent (3rd class is actually more comfortable than 2nd if not travelling overnight) once Ollie had finished throwing up everywhere (her stomach didnt like either the raw egg or ice made from tap water – not sure which one did it, but she wasnt happy for an hour or so at the train station). A very brief night was spent in Bangkok, before getting the train over to Kanchanuburi the following morning. Have just relaxed and had a nice time since being here (todays head incident excluded) – rented some pushbikes yesterday and had some interesting times on the road as we cycled to the Jeath Museum. This was a war museum dedicated to all the prisoners of war that died building the Death Railway during the second world war. Really interesting, but also really depressing (obviously).
Not sure what the plans are for the next few days – my head has got to have a wee bit of recovery time, and we havent had a Thai massage for a few days now. Ollie is still keen on doing a cookery course, but i think we will put our second trek off for a day or two.

Trekking

stega — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:34:00 +0000

Just got back from our 3 day trek – went north to an area just south of Chiang Rai. Day one was a 2 hour walk to a freezing cold waterfall, followed by another 2 and a half hours to our camp site (that was about 1 hour walking, and the other hour and a half waiting for Ollie to finish taking photos). Beautiful walk, but very hot, especially as we were going up hill for most of the time. Was feeling a bit crappy (neck ache and headache) when we arrived at our camp, so relaxed watching Map (our guide) cook green curry (without the wee snapping turtle found at the camp – this he assured us was being saved for dessert). When it came to eating the food, i tried a spoonful or two and the world started spinning so i went to bed. Shame, cos it was a really nice curry! Woke up 13 hours later feeling much better
Day two, and i was determined not to overheat this time. Hat was soaked in water before we set off, but it turned out that this was not nessissary – we were at around 1800 meters and staying there, so the air was much cooler. This also meant that me and Ollie could spent more time beating each other up – Thailand has been too hot so far for practicing our Kung Fu. We had started the day praticing Crane form (7am on top of a rainforest covered mountain doing Crane form is a great way to start the day), and it just got more violent from there on in. We trekked for around 3 hours or so before we reached a wee village where we were to have lunch. Sat enjoying our noodle soup and watching the rain fall for an hour or so before meeting our elephants. Wasn’t massively excited by the prospect of riding through the jungle on an elephant i have to admit, but it was excellent!! Ollie and me shared an elephant – she got to sit on its head, me on its back. We were on it around an hour and a half, most of the time being taking off into the bush in search of bamboo. Eventually, with very sore bottoms, we got to the village where we were to spend the night. Really picturesque wee village, with friendly people that actually liked being photographed – which meant of course that we saw very little of Ollie for the next 12 hours. Thankfully, we were doing the trek with some excellent people – a group of 4 Austrians and a German couple. An excellent evening was had drinking beer and being shown how to turn the elephant on a bottle of Chang beer upside down (thanks Stephan!).
The final day started just as early for me as the second (7am), but with much less sleep beforehand (Ollie had already been up an hour wandering the village taking photos). After our American breakfast (which meant we had pineapple with our toast), we trekked for a few hours, stopping at several villages on the way. We ended up on the obligatory bamboo raft for a gentle trip down the river to end. The first raft we got on fell apart as soon as we sat down, so we swapped to another. We neednt have bothered. This one started falling apart 5 minutes into the trip. The 4 Austrians were on one raft (also falling apart), and we shared ours with the German couple, Stephan and Lisa. Nice wee green fruit things that were floating in the river around us turned out to make excellent ammunition, and so the battle started. It ended with Ollie swimming up to their raft and forcefully pulling away a big chunk of bamboo – she manged to swim off with it while the Thai ‘captain’ looked on helplessly. This of course encouraged the German couple to go and steal their oars (i was left gaurding our raft from any retaliation). The trip ended with our raft being held together with Ollies sarong (the other raft had completely fallen apart by this stage, although Julian did a great job of stopping the bits from drifting off).
An excellent trip with some cool people! So we are back in Chiang Mai now, planning what to do next. Think we might head south east…

Curried Elephant

stega — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:19:00 +0000

First post from our short travels around Thailand. We are in Chiang Mai at the mo, having an early night before our trek tomorrow. Not a great deal has happened since arriving in Thailand – we lost our passports, been fitted for a suit, we found our passports again, spent a years wages on king prawns in a nice restaurant to celebrate, seen lots of temples, photographed friendly monks being eaten by dragons, and eaten lots and lots of curry (which is always a good thing).
The posh hotel booked for us by Godda, Shaun and Rhys was bloody excellent. Our room (on the ’superior’ floor – ive always suspected as much) was excellent, and included rose petals formed into a giant heart shape on our bed in a not-as-tacky-as-it-sounds sort of way. Plus they are looking after our ten tons of luggage for free while we bugger about Thailand with only a small bag each to carry (the hotel, rather than the petals are looking after our stuff – never did trust petals with expensive musical equipment). Always wanted to travel light.
So its the predictable but fun 3 day trek for us starting tomorrow, then we will begin our journey back down south, taking a couple of weeks to do so.
More about the trek on our return…