It's been a while since we've posted, here's what happened in from mid-March until mid-April in Thailand.
We started off our adventure in Bangkok. It was admittedly a little
emotional for the both of us to be back in Bangkok; the same city where John
spent two weeks in a hospital and where our dream year off in South East Asia
came to a crashing halt. It was just weird being back, we didn’t know how to
feel. Luckily for us it was March 17th, St-Patrick’s day! We knew
just what to do to clear our heads. After checking in at our guesthouse (which
John had reserved for April 17th and not March 17th – but
we were still able to get one night) we headed to the first Irish bar we could
find and celebrated. It was a good night! And sure enough, one good night in
Bangkok and everything found its place in the world and we got back to
travelling and enjoying ourselves in amazing Thailand.
Since we didn’t have anywhere to stay in Bangkok for our second
night we decided to spend the day in town checking out some sights and then
hopping a sleeper train and ferry to Koh Tao Island. It was over 40 degrees
while tried to check out temples so we ended up only seeing one: Wat Pho, home of the 45m reclining Buddha.
By the next morning we were in Koh Tao trying to find a guesthouse. Unfortunately
for us, everything (food, taxis, motorbikes, hotels, etc.) was much more
expensive than everywhere else we had travelled to so far and the people were
much less friendly. We ended up finding a nice place at a dive school. We
stayed here for three nights, luckily for us the hotel had some nice beach
volleyball that started in the late afternoon and was home to one of the best
bars in the north of the island, so the three days were lots of fun, despite it
being very expensive for Thailand.
After a couple of days we decided to move to the other side of the
island where there is a lot more nightlife and we were able to score ourselves
a very nice room. During one of our nights out AJ dragged John to a drag queen
show, she loves drag queen shows.
One of our highlights from our time in Thailand was meeting John’s
Irish cousin. She was also travelling through Thailand so she came over to Koh
Tao to visit us. It was the first time Jill and AJ got to meet, and it was the
first time John had seen Jill in many years. Lots of fun for us!
Next for us was Koh Phangan, the home of the full moon party. This
was the only reason we were coming to this island, and despite more rude people
and expensive accommodations it was still worth it. There are parties every
night as the full moon approaches. We went to two parties, the Jungle
Experience, which is on the day before the full moon, and the full moon party
itself. Both were great, but we enjoyed the Jungle Experience a lot more. It was far
smaller (only a couple of thousand people), only one DJ and black lights
everywhere which made all the fluorescent paint really glow. What was really
nice was that we met up with four girls from Quebec, it was nice to meet some
people from back home and talk French with our normal Quebec accent.
The following night
we went to the Full Moon party.
Basically it is an entire town that decides to
hold a party on the same night. Imagine about 20,000 people, stages and DJs
everywhere, everyone in florescent paint and buckets of alcohol being sold on
every street corner.
Once again, lots of fun, and once again we met up with
more Quebecers, at one point there were around 10 of us all together (all
escaping from the rough winter back home). We had drank a lot the night before
at the Jungle Experience, so we were a lot quieter during the Full Moon Party,
never the less, it was still a lot of fun. Interesting people and some very fun
people watching!
The next day we rented a motorbike and went around the island. We
found four of what are meant to be the nicest beaches, but unfortunately for
us, they weren’t really as nice as we’d hope (the sand was nice, but the water was muddy). It was just after the rainy
season so we think it may have had something to do with that. We also enjoyed a nice sunset with our Quebec friends.
After Koh Phangan we made our way to Surat Tani, where we would be
catching 24 hours worth of train the next morning. This busy, non-touristy town
was great to us, and really got our hopes up for the rest of Thailand. People
were really friendly, prices were cheap and the street food and night market
were great!
The next morning we caught a 12-hour train to Bangkok, followed by a
13-hour train to Lampang, in northern Thailand. The train was pretty smooth
despite a couple of cockroaches on the first train and only having a fan, no
A/C, on our second 13-hour 30 degree sleeper train.
The main reason anyone goes to Lampang is to go to the elephant
conservation centre and hospital on the outside of the city. Inside the city there
really isn’t much going on. We only met two other tourists during our two
days in Lampang. The locals were really friendly to us, we even got a free lunch at
a furniture store that was having a big sale and was offering lunch to
everyone.
The elephant sanctuary was great. We saw the hospital were they
treat injured elephants from all across Thailand, we saw the nursery for baby
elephants, watched a show where they paint, play music and perform a couple of
tricks, AJ even got to participate, and finally we took a quick ride around the
park on an elephant. All in all, a pretty successful day!
Then we moved again, this time further north near the border with
Myanmar to a town called Pai. Pai is a small hippy town with a great mix of with
local Thai artists and expats. It was great. We were meant to spend four days,
but we ended up hanging around for 10. The bus ride to get to Pai is the
hardest thing you do in Pai, there are 762 curves in the road and the bus
driver is usually a moron who drives as fast as he can. This was the case when
we went. Some poor guy almost made it all the way to Pai, and 10 minutes before
arriving he threw-up all over himself. The roads are rough and it happens all the
time.
There isn’t much going on in Pai, but its really fun and laid back.
There is a nice pool where everyone hangs out in the afternoon, a basketball
court where John played with the locals in the evening, some waterfalls near
by, a great night market with lots of tasty cheap food and a good bar scene
with lots of live music.
While we were there we took in a Thai cooking class and spend a day
at the circus school.
We both learnt to juggle (not that well) and fire dance
(what a useful skill to bring back to Canada). AJ was really good at the fire
dancing. It was tons of fun.
Once again we ran into many more Quebecers, which made for some more
fun and late nights! Unfortunately for John he needed to take anti-biotics for
a couple of days to deal with a pain in his tooth (turns out he needs to have a wisdom tooth pulled when he gets to Canada). This really cut into his
partying time, but not AJ’s!
While in Pai, since it was just before the Thai New Year, lots of young children were about to become monks. There were parties and parades, the kids were dressed up and paraded around town for days. It was quite a sight to be seen.
We also spent lots of time going to all the banks in Pai trying to
find new crisp US money. The people in Myanmar will only accept US bills if
they are new (later than 2006) and if they have no folds, bends or stains on
them. We had to go to at least 8 different banks trying to change our Thai
money for new US money, only getting a couple of bills at a time as most bills
in circulation are old. In the end we got what we needed.
Finally, after a week and half in Pai, we made our way to Chiang
Mai; it was time for the Thai New Years celebration – Songkran. We checked into
our guesthouse, only to find out it was owned by a retired man from Montreal.
Small world!
We would stay in Chiang Mai for six days, four of which we would
spend completely soaked. The Songkran festival is the worlds biggest water
fight, lasting days on end, from around 11am until 8pm, every day.
The first day it was mostly tourists attacking each other, more or
less as violently as they could, in the face with high powered water guns at
very close distances, it left a little to be desired. The second day we met up
with our friends from Quebec, there were six of us in all, and we had a blast.
There were more locals and it was a lot more playful. The third day we moved to
the other side of the moat where it was almost only locals, here it was really
fun.
At this point were down to four Quebecers, two had to leave the day
before. By the fourth day, almost all the tourists were gone. We thought the
festival would be over so we made our way to the Tiger Kingdom for the
afternoon, but even in a tuk-tuk on the highway, people were waiting at
intersections, stop lights and anywhere else you would slow down so they could
throw a bucket of water on you. We came back to the city, hoping for a quiet
night, but ended up meeting a bunch of locals and having a late night with lots
of drinking and partying in a small bar we would have never found without their
help!
By the fifth day it was pretty much done, hardly any water anymore,
but lots of parades and ceremonies in the streets.
The Tiger Kingdom we did on the fourth day was super cool. We paid
to play with the baby (3-6 months) and adult (22 month) tigers.
We heard they are
so calm because they are drugged, but it really didn’t seem that way to us. The
guides say it’s because they are nocturnal animals and it’s so hot in the
afternoon, the cats don’t want to do anything except sleep.
They were pretty active too. Just before we got in the cage they were
playing in the water and fighting with each other really aggressively, we saw
two big cats running after each other in the cage and they took out some girls
legs when they ran right by her, but they cats couldn’t care less, they just
wanted to play with each other.
I don’t know if we’ll ever really know why they
are so calm, but it was really cool to be so close to these giant animals.
The guides were great, they told us where to stand, how to touch the
animal, AJ mentioned she was scared, the guide told her he was too. Very funny,
not so reassuring, especially when you have to sign a waver before going in the
cage.
All in all Chiang Mai and the north of Thailand was great. The night markets were really fun
with great shopping and tasty street food. The water festival ruled. And
hanging out with tons of Quebecers was really fun.
Next destination, Myanmar!
Lots more photos here:
