Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: photography, thailand, travel writing, beach, Andaman Sea, ocean
Toes in the breeze
One of the advantages of working for a Catholic school in Thailand is that you get both the Thai holidays and the Catholic ones: Christmas, various saint’s days, etc. Thailand is already generous with its government holidays, so the combination is great. Days off at Daruna number around 80, not including the three weeks of summer school which are optional for the foreign teachers that have been here for a year. Christmas break was about 10 days, enough time for a decent trip. We’ve both been itching to have a beach holiday, something that so many people come to Thailand for but after 3 months we still haven’t done. Since Jennifer was offered the job before I was, our funds were limited to her first paycheck and some Christmas money from our thoughtful parents 
. This didn’t stop us…we really wanted to go to the beach. A 12 hour bus trip from Bangkok took us to the southern peninsula of Thailand along the Andaman Sea on the west coast. Here in Krabi, a bustling little city on the coast, we caught a ferry to the nearby island of Koh Lanta.
Koh Lanta, with a few thousand residents, is a quieter island according to Thai standards. Some islands here are absolutely crazy with bars, clubs, discos, and beach parties around every corner. That didn’t really fit the profile for our lazy and relaxing vacation, which is why we picked this island. The residual stress of work and travel followed us all the way from Kanchanaburi to Bangkok and all the way down to Krabi, but as soon as we stepped onto the little ferry boat we left our worries back on the dock. The seas here are impossibly blue, as if they are illuminated from above and below. We certainly weren’t the only tourists here, in fact we chose the busiest time of year to travel, but it never really felt too crowded. Koh Lanta is fairly large; it would take a full day to explore its roads on a motorbike, with plenty of little backwaters and secluded coves you could never reach by motorbike. We stayed 5 nights at a small beach resort in a little thatch bungalow with the simplest of amenities within. A long strip of beach with about a dozen of these little resorts stretched out and served as little highway for foot traffic. Each resort had its own unique style and restaurant, each as good as the next.
View from our bungalows on Koh Lanta
The next four days was a hazy blur of blissful laziness. The water was warm and inviting for swimming, which we did several times every day. The beaches were peppered with interesting and beautiful shells, which I spent countless hours collecting into a bag. Sleeping in…every day. Reading the books that we had been too busy to read back home. Swinging in the hammock, watching the waves roll gently onto the shore. Drinking buckets…a Thai creation that involves a small plastic pale, a flask of rum, a bottle of Redbull and a bottle of coke: mixed together it becomes a delicious and deadly beverage.
Occasionally we did actually get out of the resort, and one such day trip was to some caves in the interior of the island. The caves are protected by caretakers and to see them you’re required to go with a guide, and a good idea too because the network of caves is massive and confusing. A small group of us climbed up a steep trail for about 30 minutes, entering thick rainforest and encountering a giant flying fox and some monkeys
One of the many cave spiders
high up in the trees. The entrance to the cave was inconspicuous, but after climbing through the small opening the caverns opened up into huge diagonal rooms and slanted hallways. Flashlights were our only source of light and mine turned out to be nearly out of batteries, so I found myself nearly falling into deep pits and bumping into walls frequently. Incredibly hot and humid, the caves also offered some other uncomfortable surprises: huge black spiders with legspans of about 10 inches, disconcertingly large bats hanging and screeching from the ceiling, and some kind of cave reptile that I snapped a close-up picture of. At one point we all had to crawl on our bellies to squeeze through a narrow passage near the exit. We all emerged from the other end of the cave’s exit completely covered in dirt and filth and sweat, but with huge grins on our faces.
Climbing into the caves on Koh Lanta
After 5 days we moved on to quieter neighboring island to the north called Koh Jum, although not without a little hitch. We were told there were 2 ferries per day that left to this island, so we packed our bags, checked out, and took a taxi to the north ferry docks. Upon arriving we’re informed that no, there’s just one ferry and it left this morning. We ended up having to hire a long-tail boat to take us there, just the two of us, for 2,000 baht (about $60). With our limited budget this came as an unfortunate surprise, but we took it in stride and ended up getting a lovely private boat trip. On Koh Jum we stayed at the Golden Pearl bungalows on a quiet stretch of beach on the west coast.
The pace of life here was even slower than Koh Lanta. The island, while quite large and close to the mainland, is not very developed save for a small village to the south and about a dozen little bungalow resorts. A tiny dirt road circumnavigates most of the island, however much of the interior is too heavily forested to explore. On Koh Jum our days consisted mostly of swimming the still blue waters on our doorstep and putzing aimlessly along the beach. I found a pink Frisbee on the beach and thus added an athletic component to our lazy days. Each night the bar down the beach hosted a fire show, where we spent most of our nights drinking and staring in awe at the twirling ropes of flames.
On our last day we hired a long-tail boat with a bunch of Thai tourists and spent the entire morning and afternoon motoring around the various islands of the Andaman Sea. Koh Phi Phi, a cluster of impossibly vertical islands with the bluest water I’ve ever seen, was about an hour’s ride from Koh Jum. Here we stopped for some absolutely incredible snorkeling, then moved on to another island for more snorkeling, and then another. Our last stop was Bamboo Island, a tiny little island park with white sand beaches and still more snorkeling. Our fellow Thai passengers were a group of co-workers from a city not so far from Kanchanaburi; we never found out what they did exactly, but they were certainly the gayest group of Thai men I’ve encountered yet. Perhaps the staff of a fashion magazine or interior decorators? Barely able to speak a word to each other in a common language, we still managed to gesture and smile and had a great time. They shared all their food with us, the only two farang on the boat, and kept filling our plates with fruit and the best seafood fried rice I’ve ever had.
Panorama of Koh Jam, Golden Pearl Beach
These encounters with genuine Thai people, not after our custom or money, are always so friendly and jovial. This country’s largest industry is tourism and so much of its economy revolves around taking money from tourists. Because of this, many people leave feeling a little betrayed by the locals, like the smiles they saw weren’t genuine because the motive was always money. If you never leave the beaten path, if you don’t try to mix with the locals and never explore beyond the tourist centers, than you haven’t seen Thailand. Imagine if all you knew of your own country was from the tourist traps that cater to bus after bus of paying sightseers, such as Times Square, Alcatraz, the strip in Las Vegas, or Disney Land. Thai’s genuinely do like to smile, and the description of Thailand as the “Land of Smiles” is as accurate now as it ever was. Walking down the street in my hometown here in Thailand, when I take my eyes off my feet and look up I see an ocean of smiling faces and smiling eyes. Thai people like to have fun, “sanuk”, and you can see it in their twinkling eyes when you look into them.
Eventually our money ran out and work called. A ferry ride back to Krabi, another 12 hour bus ride north to Bangkok, and then government bus to Kanchanaburi put us in town Sunday afternoon. Jennifer’s work week started back up on Monday and of course it was harder than ever to transition into work mode after all the beach bumming. Over the holiday’s one of the teachers, an American named Raymond, pulled a runner and took everything and left, even the TV in his apartment which wasn’t his. By Friday I had a job, his job, teaching science and social studies to 1’st, 2’nd, and 3’rd graders…in English of course. Now both Jennifer and I are happily employed teaching elementary school kids and slowly gaining a semblance of financial security (in Thailand).
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- Fire show!
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- Koh Phi Phi and our long-tail boat
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- Smiles on Koh Phi Phi
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- Our Thai compadres on the snorkel trip
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- Riding on the sidecar
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- Our friendly taxi driver
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- Sail away sail away sail away
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- Cave lizard
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- Time lapse of headlamps
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- One of the many cave spiders
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- Climbing into the caves on Koh Lanta
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- Klong Kong, Koh Lanta
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- Looking out over the Andaman Sea
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- Happy hour at the bungalows
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- View from our bungalows on Koh Lanta
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- Toes in the breeze
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- On the ferry boat from Krabi to Koh Lanta
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- Panorama of Koh Jam, Golden Pearl Beach
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- Sunset from Koh Jum
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: thailand, travel writing, Kanchanaburi, karaoke, school
Our school’s Christmas party turned out to be a fascinating glimpse into Thai culture. I didn’t have high expectations to be honest…the idea of eating dinner on our assembly grounds with all the administration and faculty sounded a little dry. How wrong I was. First I found myself recruited into a dance routine featuring some of the foreign teachers in the school. This included wearing a massive flower necklace and wearing Hawaiian themed clothing, all of which enhanced (I hope) our poorly choreographed dance number in front of everyone. I barely knew anyone at the school at this point and embarrassing myself seemed like a great way to break the ice. Following our act were a number of dances involving cross-dressing, pelvic-thrusting teachers. The theme of sexuality and general silliness was constant through the night. Eventually it was karaoke…one Thai-pop song after another and dancing was unavoidable. By the end of the night I had danced with my boss, her assistant, and a number of other people I didn’t even know.
After the dancing came the raffle. Thai parties always seem to involve giving away prizes, and big ones at that. They were giving away TV’s, rocking chairs, microwaves, pillows, even cans of corn. I ended up winning a pillow and a crock pot, a pretty good haul I think. The party was a blast, not dry or boring or like anything I could have predicted. Bizarre might be a good word to describe it. Bizarre to see the father/priest of the school transformed into a game show host throwing prizes into the crowd. Bizarre to see the normally very quiet Thai teachers dressed as the opposite sex, shimmying around the stage like an over-sexed pop band. Life at school is as you would expect: you work, teach students, keep your head above the bureaucracy, and respect the hierarchy within the school. Off the clock it’s an entirely different world…
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: thailand, travel writing, Kanchanaburi, birthday
Not exactly a current event, but a memorable day nonetheless….and worth documenting:
Jennifer’s birthday, on December 16, sadly fell on a workday. However since I didn’t have an official job yet I pulled some things together and we ended up having a good time that evening. While Jennifer was at school dealing with disruptive Thai students and rapidly going insane, I ran around town trying to arrange a little surprise. First stop the liquor store, where I wrangled up a bottle of red wine. Next stop the supermarket, where imported dark chocolate was to be had. After that, a quick flyby of the fruit market for some fresh strawberries just in season and a bouquet of flowers. A phone call to my landlord, who is also the owner of our favorite restaurant in Kanchanaburi, and I reserved us a table and a cake. Finally a stop at tour outfit by the river where I reserved a tandem kayak.
A platter of strawberries...mmmm
Surprisingly everything came together perfectly. I picked Jennifer up at work on my motorbike and zipped back home at full speed for a quick stop to change out of work clothes. Everything already packed, I threw our bags on the motorbike and tore through town for our 4:30 date with the kayak shop. There we were driven up river about 10 kilometers with the kayak and dropped off to paddle our own way back. The trip was beautiful, a mellow paddle downstream with a bottle of Austrailian wine, 2 camp cups, and a bag of strawberries and chocolate. We watched the sun set over the river and had river boats and floating discos waving to us as they passed. Soon it was dark and we floated on only by the light of the moon and houseboat lights. Bats swooped over the water in front of our kayak and fish jumped in little splashes all around. Soon we pulled into town and had a lovely meal of Italian pizza, lasagna, birthday cake, beer (or wine…can’t remember). All things considered, it turned out a very lovely night.
Wine on the River Kwai
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: elephants, history, Kanchanaburi, photography, photojournalism, thailand, Train, travel, travel writing, Waterfalls
Jolly Frog Guest House, base of operations for our Kanchanaburi explorations, turned out to be a lovely place. The rooms were simple little cubes with bucket toilets and cold showers, but the grounds were nice. The rooms all faced out to a cool green garden with hammocks, loungers, and a beautiful view onto the river. Every night a gorgeous sunset reflected off the river and clouds and made the whole place glow a shade of pink and purple. A set of stairs lead down from the garden onto a pontoon floating in the river with tables, chairs, and more loungers; a perfect place to bring a beer and watch the long-tail boats and floating discos go by. The food was good as well, with a kitchen that served everything from hamburgers to Tom Kha Gai (Chicken Coconut Soup), and thankfully at backpacker prices.
Sai Yok Waterfall without tourists
For about 12 days we stayed here exploring the area. Mostly we ventured out on our own, renting a motorbike in town and stumbling through new and interesting parts of town. I don’t really fancy the package tours that so many tourists opt to join, however we broke down eventually and joined a daytrip that explored half a dozen of the major tourist spots in the area. About 8 of us jumped into a minivan in the morning and drove off to Sai Yok waterfall, a very beautiful (and popular) cascade with swimming about 30km out of town. Next we drove to the “Death Railway” memorial, set near one of the old prison camps along the railroad. The spot was called Hellfire Pass, one of the more notorious camps with a grizzly history. Summarizing briefly:
During WW2 Japan, occupying much of SE Asia at the time, needed to build a railway from Thailand to Burma to resupply it’s forces in India and other areas. They used prisoners of war as laborers, mostly Dutch, Australian, and British, as well as a million or more conscripted laborers from occupied SE Asian countries. Much of the route that wasn’t already built was very remote and inaccessible to heavy equipment, so these prisoners had to work with incredibly primitive tools to build the rails. In addition to the difficulties of the terrain and lack of equipment, the Japanese army treated the prisoners as if they were already sentenced to death…a relic of the Samurai code that still dictated much of the Japanese army’s behavior. A lot of prisoners died to build the railway, to say the least. Hellfire pass was a particularly difficult section of blasting and digging, and the memorial there is especially poignant.
Overlooking the valley along the Death Railway
After walking along the old rail bed for a few kilometers and visiting a particularly depressing museum, we got back in the van and headed farther into the country. We stopped at a hill-tribe village, although really not a tribe at all but rather a minority nomadic people that live between Thailand and Burma. Here we went riding on elephants through the woods along some old trails and jeep roads, eventually looping back to where we started. Riding on the back of an elephant is bizarre, although I’ve very little experience riding on the back of anything. There is a platform strapped to the back of the elephant with hand rails for riders, but Jennifer convinced me to ride on the neck of the elephant. Apparently elephants are hairy…hair like little bristles of a comb. I sat on this elephant’s neck, with my legs hanging down behind its giant ears (which flap like wings), and held on for dear life. The fall from the top of an elephant is akin to falling off the roof of a building…a building that could then step on you as it walks by. The ride was fun though, and if you’re sitting on the platform it’s actually quite comfortable. The big loping steps of an elephant are more bearable than a horse’s crotch-numbing trot.
Next the tour dropped us off at a cave-temple with some impressive gold-leafed Buddhas inside. The cave itself was decent, but the location was more impressive. Set into the side of a cliff right along the River Kwai, the cave is accessible only by walking along the railway trestles that hang precariously over the river 50 meters below. Here we caught the train, still operating on this stretch of the death railway, all the way back to Kanchanaburi to finish the day…a beautiful ride along the river and cliffs and through the countryside.
Trestle over the River Kwai
Funds were getting to a critical point at this time, so employment quickly became priority one. During all this sightseeing of Kanchanaburi, we were also chasing down a few prospects for teaching positions at local schools. In fact Stuart, the shady proprietor, connected us with one of his English teacher friends, who in turn connected us with a school that might be hiring. After one interview we were called back for another the next day, this time with the big boss in charge of 6 different schools. The second interview was bizarre, and a bit intimidating, but we came away from it with a job. Jennifer was offered a full time position immediately, even though there were no official openings. Young, female, native-speakers are a hot commodity in Thailand since most of the farang (Thai for foreigners) are 50-something retired alcoholic geezers. The school offered me a full-time position at the start of the next term, although it turned out to be a lot sooner after one of the teachers pulled a runner over Christmas holiday.
A motorbike and a house seemed like the next logical step in the equation, so again we asked around the backpacker’s ghetto and we weren’t let down. A Swiss guy that runs an Italian pizzeria apparently also owns some property south of town with some bungalows, so we got a ride on his 3-wheeled motorcycle (basically a motorbike with a side-car holding 2 little benches to sit on) to check them out. The property, maybe 7-8 acres, is large and open with a pond in the middle and 3 bungalows around it. A large house, built in the style of a Thai temple, sits towards the front of the compound and is used as a house for guests and relatives of the Swiss guy, Kinet, and his Thai wife, Thong. The bungalow we looked at, and soon moved into, was built only 6 months ago and had a great vibe. The outside is painted a fresh green color and the inside sky blue. It’s one very large room, a large bathroom, and a very large front porch, all freshly tiled. We moved in the next day. Living next to us in the adjacent bungalows are a young tattooed Frenchman and his lovely, albeit quiet Thai wife, and a retired Australian ship’s captain.
The last item, the motorbike, was a breeze to get a hold of. Kinet and Thong went out of their way to help us get a good deal, and for 15,000 baht (about $450) I bought a second-hand 125cc Honda motorbike. We’ve been riding her for the last month and she hasn’t let us down yet. Now with the big 3 accomplished…a job, a home, a ride…the pace of life has settled down a bit. We’ve slowly been decorating the house, buying this and that to fill the empty space. Driving is always an adventure here; navigating the chaos of Thai traffic is no easy feat, and a “close call” happens on a regular basis. Unlike most of the Thais, we do wear our helmets, and with the straps actually connected.
Coming up: A trip to the Andaman Sea for Christmas holiday, the adventures of teaching English in Thailand, and border hopping for visas in Laos.
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- Sai Yok Waterfall with Thai Tourists
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- Sai Yok Waterfall without tourists
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- The Death Railway along the River Kwai
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- Trestle over the River Kwai
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- Entrance to Hellfire Pass
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- Overlooking the valley along the Death Railway
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- Cave Buddha
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- Elephant bareback…ouch
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- Close encounter
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- Old Feet
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- Elephant trekking
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- From the back of an elephant
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- mmm…ice cream.
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- Hanging from a moving train
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- The train ride home
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: Hiking, Kanchanaburi, photography, photojournalism, thailand, travel, travel writing, Waterfalls
As our train bound for Kanchanaburi rattled through the Bangkok suburbs and emerged at last into the Thai countryside, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the scenery. We passed little villages built on stilts and wooden plank walkways to keep above the monsoon floods. We passed lotus ponds and rice paddies where huge flocks of Asian cranes would erupt and soar alongside the train. Beautiful white egrets gathered en masse in the small trees surrounding the ponds and lakes, like odd feathery fruit trees. I turned to Jennifer, sitting across from me also enthralled with the scenery, and said “I’ve got a pretty good feeling about this, like, I think we could live here.”
We pulled into Kanchanaburi through the back door, as trains often seem to do, avoiding the congestion and bustle of the main roads. We had arranged to stay at a small B&B style place outside of town, a quiet base of operations for exploring the area by motorbike and bicycle. Stuart, a Canadian burn-out from the 60’s generation, was the proprietor. Not exactly the savviest host, he was nonetheless a colorful and entertaining character. We bunked up at his place in an open air bamboo loft and relaxed into a much slower, quieter pace of life since we arrived in Thailand. Stuart had a couple bicycles and a motorbike on hand so we explored our surroundings dutifully. An afternoon of peddling took us winding through a couple small villages, through farmland and along the beautiful River Kwai. At one point we lost ourselves in a university campus, passing dormitories, athletic fields, classrooms and college kids chatting in little groups: A familiar scene yet still strange to see in Thailand.
The following day we opted for motorized transport and extended our exploration much farther up the river valley towards Burma. We heard of a national park with beautiful waterfalls about 50km up the valley, so we packed our swim suits, towels, and camera and zipped along the highway shoulder at a blistering pace. Avoiding massive trucks overladen with sugarcane and trying to keep the little put-put engine from overheating, we climbed higher into the hills and into lush jungle and canopy. The river, on our left for the duration of the drive, was stunningly beautiful. We watched it as it wound and braided its way through the hills, slicing into banks and then widening again into an immense green plane. The trees started to lean into the river from the banks as they grew larger, the river now offered only brief snatches of its deep green mystery. The road became windier and steeper, the temperature cooler, and the clouds more substantial as we climbed into this hill country. Too soon we arrived at the gate to the park and found the trails to take us to the waterfalls.
Erawan National Park is a popular attraction for both Thai and foreign tourists alike. Despite the popularity it’s easy to find your own quiet spot by a waterfall here, as there are seven of them. Rather, there are seven major waterfalls and dozens of smaller ones between them. The trail climbs high into the hills, passing one series of cascades after another until you come to the seventh and final cascade. The majority of visitors stay down at the first couple cascades, so the farther you climb the more seclusion you’re rewarded with. As I made my way towards the first set of falls I tried to clear my mind of all the waterfalls I’ve seen over the years and the doubts that these wouldn’t compare. As it turns out I wouldn’t have been disappointed either way. The falls here are in fact the most beautiful I’ve seen in my life. As I climbed the trail higher I felt my jaw dropping lower. Unlike waterfalls I’ve seen before, these ones are created from limestone deposits. Like stalactites in a cave, the dissolved limestone in the water slowly accumulated in massive cascading formations of solid rock. The rocks appear as waterfalls in their own way, and combined with the turquoise water flowing over them the picture is surreal.
Determined to obtain a little seclusion, Jennifer and I set our course for the top. At the bottom we passed a Thai movie set and crew in the midst of filming in the falls. We stopped and gawked at the scene: A bunch of African’s dressed in loincloths holding spears and bows, faces painted and dancing (or fighting). As if this place wasn’t surreal enough, we just shook our heads in confusion as we continued up towards the top. On our way up we passed every imaginable form of waterfall: Fat ones, tall ones, big ones, little ones, round ones, sharp ones, ones stacked on top of each other, and ones hidden under dense canopy. At the top we were hassled by “fierce monkeys”, as the sign declared. Unaware that food is forbidden after the second set of falls (for obvious reasons now), we had a group of macaques snarl and lunge after our little packet of crackers. At one point I even had a monkey jump on my back to get at the cracker I was hiding. Still I hold a prejudice against macaques because of this, and I’m seriously planning on bringing a sling-shot or a pellet-gun next time I enter “fierce monkey” territory.
Fierce monkey showing his stuff
On our way back down, determined to shake that strange sense of humiliation by monkey, I found a lovely waterfall and went swimming. Apparently the fish at Erawan like to nibble on your feet (harmless I’m told, they like the dead skin), however I wasn’t aware of this so as I waded into the water and felt little nips and pinches I freaked out and screamed like a girl. After watching my escapades, it took a good 15 minutes of convincing before Jennifer followed me in. It was a lovely swim, a big, deep blue pool to paddle in and a huge waterfall to climb behind. Standing under the waterfall, letting it pound into my head and shoulders with tremendous force, I felt exhilarated and completely aware of how alive I am. By this time the sun was starting to get low and we still had a good hike and drive ahead of us. Shivering the whole way back on the motorbike in wet clothes, I still felt alive but not quite as exhilarated any more.
The longer we stayed at Stuart’s place, and the more we talked to him, the shadier he appeared to be. Besides being the only people staying at his place, which could easily house 20, many other little things started to pile up. Conversations seemed to steer in the direction of why he can’t enter the US, his connections with Thai mafia, and other topics you don’t want your host to be talking about. When we mentioned his name to people around town, there seemed to be a unanimous response of an awkward nod and shifty eyes, and something like “yeah he’s interesting…oh yeah I know Stuart, haha…” etc. The final straw was a night out drinking with him, where he insisted taking us to a girly bar. After about 30 minutes he disappeared. Waiting for him awkwardly, surrounded by older guys trying to hit on young Thai women, we decided to mosey on down the road to a bar that doesn’t revolve around sex tourism. We had a good night, met a couple backpackers from Australia and the States, and eventually had to get home. Stuart’s place was about 15km outside of town, and although he said he would give us a ride home, he was nowhere to be seen. After trying his phone for a while with no luck, we took a taxi. Alas, the gate was locked and he never gave us a key, so we had to climb the fence to get in. Finally settled in and ready for sleep, we hear Stuart pull up in his car, plastered, and with a prostitute in tow. In the middle of the night we hear some shouting, confusion, a car with a Thai guy pulls up and walks inside Stuart’s, more commotion, and the guy and girl both leave. The next day, as we’re trying to decide what to do, his caretaker/maid quits without warning. At this point our unanimous decision is to move to a guest house in town.
After such an awkward ordeal we were relieved to finally be amongst other backpackers in a central location in Kanchanaburi. It was here at the Jolly Frog guest house we would spend the next 12 days setting our roots in the city. Soon enough we would have a job offer, a house of our own, and our own means of transportation.
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- Tree with offerings at Erawan
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- Fierce monkey showing his stuff
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- Fierce human showing his stuff
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- Sunset over the River Kwai at the Jolly Frog guest house
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: Chiang Mai, photography, photojournalism, thailand, Train, travel, travel writing
First, I’d like to apologize for letting my journals go so long without an update. Building a nest and settling into a foreign culture is more stressful and difficult that I had imagined, so I’ve had little down-time besides when I’m down on my bed asleep. I’ll try to get the journals back to present day without leaving out any attention to detail or Thai oddities that happen on a daily basis. Eventually you might understand through this site what it is like to live here.
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How to Survive a Sleeper Train in Thailand: Leo
We departed Ayutthaya heading north to the hilly regions of Chiang Mai province, part of the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia where the borders of Burma, Thailand, and Laos converge (also the largest opium cultivating region after Afghanistan). Our train was a second-class sleeper, some cars with air conditioning, some without. The ride took about 12 hours, most of it spent inebriated or sleeping. However, I somehow woke up at sunrise and watched the lush countryside and jungle start to illuminate with the hazy red light of morning. The veil of mist that hung low over the fields and trees, combined with the mist that veiled my morning eyes, created a surreal approach to Chiang Mai. In a couple more hours we arrived at the station and found our way to a guest house, home for the next 9 days.
The city of Chiang Mai is one of the largest in the country, the metropolitan area including about a million people. The city proper is much smaller, around 150,000, with very few tall buildings, but it definitely still feels like a large city. Our guest house was nestled into the winding narrow alleys of old-town, an area surrounded by a small moat and holding most of the oldest wats and chedis. As this area seemed to be the main cultural and tourist hub of the area, we focused our explorations of the city within the moat. A day’s walk is really all we needed to see what we wanted of the old-town, and because we focused our last 3 days exploring temple after temple after temple in Ayutthaya, we had no problem exploring other things here. Avoiding being run over by the traffic was our first priority, after that watching out for massive potholes and holes in the sidewalk, then finally dodging the other tourists who all looked and acted like they were being filmed on the Amazing Race. It only took a day for us to realize that we would be better off exploring the countryside than the city. The city has a lot to offer: there is in incredible diversity of international foods from burritos to kebab to burgers, bookstores on every block, and bars and venues playing good music. However our impression after the first day didn’t change after our last: It’s a big, dirty city.
Gold amidst the gray
The next day we rented a motorbike, the first time we dared take to the roads in Thailand on motorized wheels. That I’m writing this to you means we survived, but I’m not sure how we managed. Chaos… like riding a bicycle here but much more sobering. As it turns out I’ve been riding a motorbike for over a month in Thailand as I write this, and I’m loving it. However that first day was akin to the feeling you get in your stomach when you walk into a theme park and you see the rollercoasters towering over you. I managed to wriggle my way through city traffic without incident until we were on a narrow, two-lane road winding its way up to a mountain temple outside of town. Tree’s rushing by, the wind blowing through our hair, I’m gunning the throttle and Jennifer’s whooping a yeehaw from the back, we conquered the road from the gravelly shoulder at 15km/h with cars passing, annoyed at the stupid tourists holding up traffic…something like that. The last steep push to the temple was a hair raiser, but soon we were parked at the door, or rather the bottom of a staircase with at least a thousand more steps to go before the top.
This temple was built with an interesting story: In the late 14’th century, a holy Buddhist relic that was to be enshrined in a temple being built in the area mysteriously duplicated itself. After seeing this, the monks decided they must find a place for this new relic and build a temple to enshrine it. They built a portable shrine on the back of an elephant to put the relic, and let the elephant decide. The elephant wandered around for a long time and eventually climbed to the top of the mountain, circled 3 times, trumpeted 3 times, and died. This was interpreted as an auspicious sign to build the temple, 3 being a holy Buddhist number. The view from the top was spectacular, a bird’s-eye perspective of the city and the rivers snaking through the countryside. Ornate golden statues and a large golden chedi in the middle decorated the temple grounds, fruit trees casting their shade on the tiles and orchids adding even more color to the scene. We stayed here a while soaking up the view and atmosphere, but the hordes of tourists eventually chased us back down the mountain.
My Wheels in Chiang Mai
The next day we took our motorbike further out into the countryside to the Mae Rim valley, a beautifully lush area with national parks, gardens, elephant camps, coffee plantations and farms. It took us a satisfyingly long time to get there, where we spent the entire day exploring Queen Sirikit botanical gardens. Set on and amongst the hills surrounding the valley, the gardens are a combination of meticulously manicured landscapes and wild, untamed jungle. It feels like a garden and a national park mixed into one. Here we wandered aimlessly along trails, through waterfalls, into deep dark forest and bright, open flower beds. I stopped and took far too many photos of interesting flowers and plants, exotic orchids and climbing vines, water lilies and lotus. Towards the top of the hillside the park operates a compound of glass-houses, each specializing in a particular ecosystem or variety of plant: Glass-houses for orchids, vines, cacti, carnivorous plants, and everything else under the sun.
Posing in one of the glass-houses
It was up here that I met the two cutest dogs in the world (besides Lain), we (Jennifer) named them Denali and Delilah. Fuzzy and stubby like a corgi, and scrappy like Benji, they tugged at my heart strings from the start. Delilah was sniffing out a cat in one of the glass-houses when I snatched a few pets, and after that she was following us all over the gardens. Her mate (I think) Denali, equally as scrappy/stubby, followed her obediently. Eventually it was time for us to go and I started formulating a way to take the dogs with me. Reason took hold and I decided against it, but still to this day I wonder about going back and smuggling them home with me. The dogs did in fact follow us almost all the way back down to the parking lot, and imagining them chasing our motorbike down the road after us, we decided to ditch them. They eluded our attempts several times until they caught the scent of a squirrel or some other rodent, at which point we sprinted down the hill before they lost interest. I still feel like a left a little piece of my heart back there on that hill with them. Nevertheless, they have a paradise they call home in that garden, and they seemed well fed and taken care of.
Denali & Delilah
The next few days were an unfortunate series food-poisoning related events leading up to our departure. Jennifer was the first to succumb after eating at a surprisingly nice restaurant. Whatever it was, it put her down for the next two days during which I was feeding her Thai Gatorade and plain food until she recovered. After she improved, we hatched a plan to join a 3 day, 2 night trek into the jungle near the Burmese border that the guest house arranged. Bamboo rafting, mountain biking, elephant riding, sleeping in hammocks, it sounded like a great adventure. We put down a deposit, packed our bags, went to a logistics meeting for the trip, and were ready to walk out into the heart of darkness. That night I was smacked down by an immensely unfortunate bout of food-poisoning. Like Jennifer’s episode, I purged everything in my body and resorted to getting what I needed from Gatorade. I tried to muster the strength to join the trip up until the last minute, then saw my situation for what it was: lucky to be sick in civilization. A couple days of cramps, sleeping a lot, and drinking most of my meals, and slowly I recovered, however it took almost a week before I could eat any Thai food.
Corn Flakes & Gin Tonic: Comfort food for dysentery.
So ended our time in the north, defeated by bacteria or a parasite or a virus or whatever it was. In total we spent 9 days in the North, and decided it was time to continue our explorations further south. Next stop (and as it happens, last stop) Kanchanaburi, the small river valley city of WW2 infamy and supreme natural beauty. A sleeper train whisked us away, departing only 6 hours late, back down to Bangkok. A connecting commuter train clanked its way west of Bangkok towards Burma, into the countryside and a saner pace of life.
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- Tuk-Tuk Madness
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- Corn Flakes & Gin Tonic: Comfort food for dysentery.
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- Denali & Delilah
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- An Australian Bottle Tree at the gardens
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- Delilah taking a drink
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- Water lillies
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- Posing in one of the glass-houses
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- Neato flower
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- Climbing waterfalls at the gardens
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- More garden madness
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- Motorbike: Looking behind us at a stop light
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- My Wheels in Chiang Mai
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- Gold amidst the gray
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- Jennifer sleeping on a sleeper
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- How to Survive a Sleeper Train in Thailand: Leo
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: Ayutthaya, photography, photojournalism, thailand, travel
Some more photo candy from our trip through the old city, enjoy.
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- Brick and mortar construction of the old temples
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- A friendly guard, bashful when I asked for his photo
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- Oooh abs of stone!
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- Temple turned geyser….sort of.
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- Biggie and smalls
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- Mama watching over her territory
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- Temples at dusk
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- Temple lawn mowers taking a break
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- Massive gold buddha inside a wat
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- Temple bells and a pair of monks
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- Graveyard at dusk
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- The cuttest puppies nibbling on my arm
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- Incense burning in a temple
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: Ayutthaya, Backpacking, photography, photojournalism, Ruins, thailand, travel, travel writing
Just 2 hours north of Bangkok by train, the ancient capital city of Ayutthaya sits in a hot, dusty valley with two major rivers flowing through it. In fact the city proper is actually an island between these two rivers with only a handful of bridges and ferries crossing over them. There’s almost 700 years of history in this city, Thailand’s old capital fortress, and the ruins and restored temples share this story with anyone curious enough to venture inside. It was sacked and looted so many times by Burma and Laos that by the 18th century the king was fed up and moved shop down to Bangkok. Thankfully there is still plenty left to look at and photograph, including some absolutely stunning wats and chedi’s (stupas).
We stayed here only 2 nights and 3 days, although as a tourist it isn’t really practical to spend much longer. Temples and ruins, like I mentioned, are the prime attractions here and after looking at 20 or 30 it’s time to move on. The city itself, however, is vibrant and bustling and has much to offer the traveler who’s interested in more than the history of the area. Our first day we explored most of the city proper on foot, covering a dozen kilometers and a dozen temples in an afternoon. Most of the temples here were built of brick and a mortar covering. As we explored their ruins, the structures ranged from massive piles of brick to perfectly preserved steeples and arches and domes. We wandered in and out of different crumbling landscapes, stumbling upon herds of grazing cattle, couples sleeping in the shade of the chedis, street dogs patrolling their territories, and other hidden treasures of the unknown. Towards the end of the day we found ourselves walking into an elephant camp, where around two dozen elephants and their riders hung out, waiting to give rides to tourists through the city ruins. Instead of riding them, we contented ourselves to loitering with them and taking photos.
The following day we rented bikes to take us to the outer reaches of the city and its most impressive temples. Navigating the chaos of Thailand’s streets is daunting on a bicycle. There is a distinct hierarchy in place on the road, with the most fragile and destructible at the bottom of the totem pole. Essentially, the more vulnerable you are, the more attentive you must be (if you value your life). Bikes are just pedestrians moving precariously closer to traffic in a seated position. Nevertheless, we survived and had a blast. One temple we visited on the outskirts of town was pretty in its own right, but what fascinated me the most by it was a tree out back. It was a Bodhi tree, with a massive, twisting, tentacle-like trunk completely encompassing a small chedi and a statue on it. All you can see of the statue is its face barely emerging from the roots. Another temple even further from town was equally rewarding to visit. The temple was a massive stone chedi about 60 meters tall with a small complex of ruins surrounding it. Cows and horses were tied strategically to trees around the temple such that they could graze sections of the lawn, creating a living lawn mowing and fertilizing system. Because of the strict value of all life in the Buddhist tradition, temples are often safe havens and refuges for all kinds of neglected animals, from horses to dogs to chickens and everything in between. Whenever we visit a temple, there is inevitably some adorable puppy or kitten that claws at my heart strings when I see them. This time there were 3 puppies, barely 6 weeks old, that decided my arm was interesting and all started licking it in unison.
One of the last temples we saw in Ayutthaya was unique in that it belonged to a sect of Buddhist nuns. The order of monks in the Theravada Buddhist tradition is male oriented, and while women were explicitly included in the teachings of Buddha, they face many challenges as nuns such as funding for their temples. This temple is specifically renowned for its hundreds of Buddha statues that are wrapped in saffron scarves, creating a mystical and colorful atmosphere throughout the complex. We ditched our bike at the gate and spent the last slivers of daylight exploring the crumbling relics before making the trip back home to our guest house. It was around this time that Jennifer got hit with her first dose of Delhi Belly, aka Montezuma’s Revenge, aka food poisoning, so we peddled home fast. At one point we managed to get ourselves onto an expressway with barely any shoulder to bike on, then again we found ourselves on another major thoroughfare on the wrong side of the road. It was a miracle we made it back alive through the dark, but all I had to do was keep up with Jennifer as she tore through the city like a bat out of hell. Later that night her stomach was feeling better…
The last day in Ayutthaya was pleasantly lazy and spent mostly in the shade for a change. We arranged an overnight sleeper train to the north of Thailand that night and loitered in one of the few backpacker cafes along a quiet side street in town. Tony’s Place as it was called, was run by a flamboyantly gay Thai who was everywhere when you didn’t need anything and nowhere in sight when you did. The slow service allowed us to take in some good people watching however. Later in the afternoon, as our departure to Chiang Mai in the North was approaching, we moved all our gear to the train station and had some dinner. After sitting down and ordering some food, we noticed a gentleman sitting next to us munching contentedly on a bag of indiscernible contents. He noticed us watching him with inquisitive eyes, so he turned around and pulled out a monstrous barbequed grasshopper and offered one to each of us. The taste was mild, like a dusty stale cracker, and the crunchy texture was like biting into a huge sunflower seed with the shell and all. I’m sure I made a horrible face as I choked it down, yet he still offered me more. After Jennifer nearly gagged eating hers, he understood. It was worth trying, but never to be repeated.
The train pulled in about 30 minutes late, which is a miracle by Thai train standards. We purchased a couple liters of cheap beer and a bag full of snacks for the 13 hour trip, hopped on, found our beds, and began the next leg of our journey through Thailand.
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- Keeping cool in the heat: Pepsi time!
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- Ditto
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- Cows grazing near some ruins
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- Buddha & a Bodhi Tree
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- Elephants & a tower
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- A line of elephants and their pooper scooper in the back
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- Safron robes out to launder at a temple
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- Bodhi Tree
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- Just some cocks standing guard near a temple
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- A Cow & His Temple
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- Watching the setting sun
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- The nun temple at sunset
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- All the iced tea it takes to keep cool, even at night
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- And iced tea while on a ride
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: Bangkok, photography, photojournalism, thailand, travel, travel writing
We arrived in Bangkok around the second of November, but not without some serious difficulties. To keep a long and dreadfully complicated story short, we had troubles getting tickets together to Thailand from Seoul, and even after we had our tickets we had more trouble. I was temporarily detained by customs officials in China as I made my connection to Thailand, putting my passport (and my background) through the wringer. When I landed there in Gwangzhou, I thought we were descending into a dense bank of fog. Alas, it was pollution, some of the worst I’ve seen in my life. I was glad they didn’t detain me too long and sent me on my way to the gate (with an escort). Jennifer’s flight the next day was delayed and eventually cancelled due to a blizzard in Beijing, so she had the pleasure of spending the night at the airport with 150 other stranded travelers while the airline officials kept them in the dark. But eventually we made it to Thailand.
Bangkok Skyling from Lumphini Park
We spent about a week in Bangkok, or Bangers, or BKK …whatever you want to call it. The city is really nothing like any place I’ve been before. The air is buzzing with energy and commotion (or maybe that’s the sound of the tuk-tuk’s blasting through the streets); you can feel the chaos and commerce of its people settling on your skin as you walk through the humid, sticky air (or maybe that’s the pollution). It’s hard to love it or hate it, or maybe it’s easy to do both. The city stretches over a large area of land mostly on the east side of the Chao Phraya River, with no definitive center or end. There are old historical districts and even older ones, districts with sky scrapers, a massive and sprawling Chinatown, temple districts, canal districts, trendy ones, sketchy ones, and everything in between. A subway, a sky train, a network of buses, taxis, motorcycle taxis, and tuk-tuks connect the endless neighborhoods of this schizophrenic city. We preferred the subway and taxis for most of our stay; the tuk-tuk drivers love to rip off tourists that haven’t hardened their haggling skills yet, and the motorcycle taxis are fun but also require a heavy handed method of bargaining.
The heat and humidity took a while to get used to here. It seems that the value of a room in a hotel or guest house is determined by its cooling capacity. Rooms without a fan are practically given away, but most rooms have at least a fan to push around that evil, hot air. Those with air-conditioning are quite a bit more expensive. The shock of leaving one of those air-conditioned rooms into the hot Thai air wasn’t worth it, so we’ve saved a few baht by staying in the fan rooms. We started our tour of Bangkok exploring the temples and palaces in the old town. A dense cluster of incredibly ornate Buddhist “wats”, royal imperial buildings and structures, and statues of Buddha’s, kings, Bodhisatvas, demons, and Thai figures sits in the older part of Bangkok near the Chao Phraya. Wat Pho, one of the biggest Buddhist temples in Bangkok, also holds one of the largest Buddha figures. A massive brick-mason Buddha painted gold lays in a reclined position over 20 meters long, the pose being Buddha’s last before entering Nirvana. On the bottom of his feet are intricate mother-of-pearl inlayed patterns depicting various holy figures and symbols.
Next to Wat Pho is the sprawling Royal Palace, 100 acres of more ornate temples and buildings built so dense they’re practically on top of each other. Another important Buddha figure sits in a temple here, the jade Buddha. It has an incredible history, being moved around Thailand and Southeast Asia for the last 700 years or more, but a quick search on Wikipedia will explain more of its impressive story.
The Reclining Buddha of Wat Pho
Temples of the Royal Palace
Day after day we cruised around the city exploring temples and sites, getting to them by tuk-tuk, taxi, foot, and river boat. Eventually though, we were templed out. To mix things up, we spent a night in one of the many red-light districts of Bangkok, Nana Plaza on Sukhumvit Road. Instead of watching monks and admiring Thai Buddhist architecture, we sat at a bar watching the human Discovery Channel unfold in front of us. We staked out a perfect spot at an alley side bar, ordered some Leo beer, and entertained ourselves by staring shamelessly at the sex trade foreplay: sixty year old European men buying and charming twenty year old Thai girls, boy-girls sashaying around the street showing off their estrogen-charged bodies, and everything in between. We met a couple Finish guys equally as intrigued by the meat market and spent the night into the wee hours drinking Thai whisky with them. One of the highlights of the night was a kebab from a neighboring street at about 1am, the best kebab I’ve ever had in my life. While we only spent one night on Sukhumvit Road, it was an incredibly interesting and eclectic place. The sex trade and ping-pong shows centered around Nana Plaza, but the street covered much more territory. There was a North-African/Middle-Eastern quarter where we got the kebab, where street cafes spilled onto the street serving sweet mint tea and hookahs but no alcohol. Other neighboring alleys catered to other desires, the boy-girls and their admirers. It seemed that Sukhumvit was a little microcosm of greater Bangkok with all its diversity and weirdness compressed into a 2 kilometer stretch of road.
The sights and smells and sounds and overwhelming intensity of Bangkok eventually drove us to leave. Our plans were as fluid as the bottled water we guzzled by the gallon every day; we formed and changed them continuously without ever rushing or pressing ourselves to move too fast. However, we were ready to escape the pace of the big city so we bought ourselves train tickets to the former capital city of Ayutthaya, about 2 hours north of Bangkok. Here, the crumbling ruins of 700 years of Thai royalty and temples were interspersed among the still vibrant and active city. It was an incredible few days we spent here, and many more paragraphs of blogging…
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- Ferrying across the river with monks
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- A cute Wat kitten
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- Climbing Wat Arun
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- Wat Arun from the Chao Phraya river
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- I was tempted to rip it out of the ground
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- Phone call…
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- A minature replica of Angkor Wat at the Royal Palace
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- Monks passing in the street
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- Mother-of-pearl inlays on reclining Buddha’s feet
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- Statue covered in gold leaf
Filed under: Travel Abroad | Tags: Bangkok, Chinatown, photography, photojournalism, thailand, travel
Some highlights from a recent trek into the urban jungle of Bangkok’s Chinatown. An incredibly dense, vibrant, and confusing part of central Bangkok not far from the guest house we were staying at during our stay in the city. By far the largest Chinatown I’ve come across, ever. The streets were narrow and winding, with markets and vendors spilling out from dark alleyways into the roads. Took-Took’s and motorbikes still managed to squeeze through these narrow passages, parting the crowds of pedestrians at the last second.
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- A Buddhist temple hidden amongst the maze of streets
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- A crumbling building becoming overtaken with plants
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- Alley market
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- Another temple sanctuary in the chaos
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- Fried crispies of the intestinal variety…I think.
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- Chinatown bling vendors
