Yes, I will travel more.

Travel Diary: September 17, 2012

At around 11am we checked out of our amazing beachfront room and took a taxi from White Sand Beach to Bangbao pier on Koh Chang.

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We were supposed to be heading out to our next island, Koh Mak, via a ferry at the pier.  Turns out, we were 1.5 months too soon - the ferry only runs during high season (Nov -> Feb). In low season there are only 2 ways to reach Koh Mak:

1. Contract a private motorboat from Bangbao for 3500 Baht ($120 USD).

2. Catch the ferry from the mainland. For us, that would involve waiting 1 night, taking an 8am bus to the north of the island, first ferry off Koh Chang, ferry to Koh Mak.

Technically, that’s a pier.

So, giant backpacks in hand (or on back), we headed to the nearest Internet cafe and planned our next few days. We were originally going to spend 3 nights on Koh Mak, a delightful small, non-touristy island within a Marine National Park. I didn’t want to do either of the above proposed plans, so I came up with a new one! Time to learn how to be spontaneous eh?

Koh Chang has several beach areas, each with its own differences. We’d spent a week on White Sand Beach, so I opted to check out Bailan Bay and the infamous backpacker party area, Lonely Beach. I quickly used the Internet to book a hotel on Bailan Bay and we caught the next taxi outta Bangbao!

Bailan Bay

There are only a few resorts on the beach at Bailan Bay. Fortunately, White House, where I’d booked, was one of them! The beach itself wasn’t much to see - it was small and covered in sharp dead coral pieces. Considering that it was downpouring for the entire time we were there, I’ll just say the swimming wasn’t great!

White House resort was alright. The most interesting part was that we were the ONLY PEOPLE THERE! Infact, it looked like we were the only tourists on the entire bay. We saw no one else except for hotel staff! Private resort AND pool AND restaurant AND beach? We even got a free upgrade to the beach front bungalows. We were living the life! 

However, I missed people watching so we checked out after just 1 day. 

Lonely Beach

As many other travel bloggers will tell you, Lonely Beach is not lonely at all. It’s probably the busiest area for backpackers on the entire island. We didn’t even book accommodation in advance before hitchhiking from Bailan to Lonely. I knew we’d have our pick of hostels!

The lovely Thai family who picked us up in their pickup dropped us off on the main street in Lonely Beach and we walked to Lonely Beach Resort (creative name, eh?) and scored the last available bamboo bungalow for 2 nights!

Sadly, I can’t recommend Lonely Beach since … there’s not actually much of a beach!! From the main backpacker’s area of bars, accommodation, and shops, it takes a good 10 minutes to walk to the beach. No beachfront bamboo bungalows here! The beach was white and very wavy, but it jsut took so darn long to get to it! Rocksand Resort on White Sand Beach definitely had this place beat!

The things that Lonely Beach still has going for it are the partying and the opportunities to meet other world travellers. Other than those, I’d skip it entirely!

We spent a good 2 days beaching it and people watching. Not as relaxing as Rocksand, but still a decent time.

Yes, I will travel more.

Travel Diary: September 14, 2012 - September 17, 2012

Day 1

The weather was excellent as we headed down the beach early in the morning to check out the small town on White Sandy Beach. There are mainly restaurants/bars, hotels, massage studios, souvenir stores, and tour operator booths. The town is really lacking in diversity here! We wandered as far South as the town extended and it took over an hour to do just 1 side of the street. We weren’t shopping for anything in particular, just browsing and seeing what was available. 

We spent the rest of the day beaching, swimming, and sunning! I may have gotten a bit too much sun!

Unfortunately, it started raining mid-afternoon so I sat on beanbags and used the Internet for awhile. The biting ants definitely enjoyed pestering me! 

Day 2

At 9:30am, we were picked up for a taxi and headed to an elephant reserve for a 2-hour trekking journey! Now I know I said I wasn’t a fan of jungle trekking, but this is different. We didn’t have to walk. All we had to do was sit on the back of a giant elephant!

We named ours Rufus and had a wonderful 1.2 hour jaunt up hills into a jungle with pomelo trees and a rubber orchard.

After the trek, Rufus walked far back into a river and we were able to go swimming with him for about 15 minutes. This was definitely one of the highlights of our entire trip! We were swimming with an elephant!

We’d climb onto his back and then he’d knock us off when his mahout (trainer) told him to. Barrels of fun and there weren’t even monkeys around!

We were driven back to the 7-11 beach accessway after the swim and headed off down the beach in search of lunch. We found a nice spot with tables on the beach and settled down to noodles and curry.

We met a hilariously old (maybe 50yo?) Aussie named Julius. Turns out he’s a highly-profitable drug dealer back in Australia and travels for a large portion of the year. When he’s home, he stays in a room in the hotel he owns on a mountain. Hilarious? Yes, you meet the most interesting people while travelling!

Since he was travelling alone, Julius was lonely and really wanted someone to talk to. We probably could have stayed all night and day and he would have kept talking! After lunch was done, we made up some excuse and quickly hurried off along the beach. Who knows where the conversation would have gone. We heard about his sexcapades, travels in Cambodia, money-grubbing children, why he hates the USA, drug dealing in Australia and MUCH more. 

So we scurried a few huts down the beach and had (relaxing?) Thai massages right on the beach! The sound of the waves crashing on the sandy dunes made the whole experience infinitely more relaxing … well, it was supposed to be relaxing. Funnily enough, Thai massages really hurt. At one point, the small Thai women are actually standing on your back and legs, stamping down on you. I’d say it was definitely more enjoyable afterwards than during!

We spent the evening swimming (ok, Barbara swam) and doing laundry.

Day 3

The day that rain happened at Rock Sand. It literally poured ALL DAY! We woke up to thunderstorms and they just kept on going. There were definitely some great positives to the rain though:

1. The hotel turned into a giant waterfall. The stairways and kitchen all flooded since there was so much rain.

2. Everyone in the hotel came down to the restaurant for the day.

3. People from the nearby accomodations without a restaurant came over for food. So everyone was gathered around eating delicious food and watching the rain. It was a fabulous time and the whole thing felt very communal. 

Around mid-afternoon, I grew tired of lazing around in the restaurant with everyone else. So we put on our rain jackets and went out exploring the beach. The whole strip of land was deserted since everyone was indoors hiding from the torrential rain. We just trudged along and had the entire beach to ourselves! When we reached the Northernmost tip, we clambered over rocks to watch crabs hiding in the surf. I’m definitely glad we decided to get out and explore, despite the rain.

When darkness fell, we headed out onto the beach and into the storm in search of dinner. We’d eaten many meals at Rock Sand and wanted to try something new. A few of the bars down the beach advertised bands and live music but these were mostly all cancelled due to the rain. Surprisingly, the largest resort on the beach had a 20% discount on food AND a live band. We were soaked from visiting bars further South on the beach, but the BBQ chicken was good and the Thai band covering Western songs was hilariously good!

Day 4

Sadly, this was to be our last day at Rock Sand. We’d both grown to love this resort.

The location was perfect and our beachfront room with porch was amazing. The food was always delicious, no matter what we ordered. The staff were great to chat and joke with. The owners were friendly Westerners. I could have easily stayed another week there, but it was time to leave.

We very slowly packed up, said goodbye, and wandered down the beach to the 7-11.

Yes, I will travel more.

Travel Diary: September 13, 2012

I had originally planned a crazy route to get from Khao Yai National Park to Koh Chang. It involved another train ride and several bus hops before reaching the ferry to the island. Over dinner the previous evening, I chatted with our tour guide about the route. He just said “No” and gave us a better route.

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Why not backtrack to Bangkok and catch a single bus to the Koh Chang ferry? In theory, it should take about the same amount of time as my crazy plan. I hated the idea of backtracking and visiting an area we’d already been to, but he was right. My plan involved way too many hops!

So at 7:00am, he drove us to Pak Chong’s bus station to catch a ride back to Bangkok’s Northern bus station, Mo Chit. The bus arrived at 10:30am and we bought tickets for the 11:30am bus to Trat (the city nearest the ferry),  - easy peasy. Since we’d been travelling for about 4 hours, I grabbed some “lunch” - waffles, Dunkin Donuts, and several 7-11 snack cakes. Lunch of champions! In my defence, they were all delicious.

The bus ride to Trat was supposed to take 5 hours. As we neared the city, we got off at a tour operator stop on the highway. The receptionist sold us way overpriced ferry tickets and said a truck would come to drive us to the ferry at 4:00pm. Then she left.

It was us and two other tourists just waiting at a small stall on the side of the highway with no tickets or proof of purchase. As the clock edged past 4:45pm, I figured we’d been scammed and started watching for tuktuks. 

But then! A pickup truck stopped and the receptionist got out. Turns out, she’d left to find a truck for us and it had taken her over an hour. She locked up her stand and we loaded in for the 30min drive to the ferry. 

The ferry ride was very enjoyable - we could see Koh Chang in the near distance and some tiny islands farther off. Yes, the ferry was quite slow but it’s about the journey, right? It was amazing to have the cool, salty air blowing over us.

Once on land, we stuffed into a taxi with loads of other tourists and headed up a steep mountain pass for White Sandy Beach! The taxi dropped us off at the 7-11 and we walked down to the beach. We didn’t have any accomodation booked, so it was time to find somewhere to stay. At the Northern end of White Sandy Beach, there are quite a few places to stay that don’t accept reservations and you can only access them from the beachfront! We wandered down, checked out the options, and settled on Rock Sand Resort.

Five steps from our front porch, the waves crashed onto the beach. The resort’s restaurant sat overtop the Gulf of Thailand. There really wasn’t a more perfect place to stay! We ate some delicious food and then wandered South along the beach. Near town, the beachfront is home to countless restaurants with lounges and tables right on the beach. We gazed at menus and selected a bunch of places to eat at in the coming days. The beach was alive with tourists and locals alike. We even sat and watched a fire show! It was the perfect way to end a day of transportation.

Yes, I will travel.

Travel Diary: September 12, 2012

Our tour to Khao Yai National Park left at 7:00am. Good thing our room didn’t have hot water - that cold water shower was a great wake up! This morning there were two full pickups instead of just the one from the previous evening. Some of our friends were back for another day though! We piled in and headed into Khao Yai National Park! 

After about an hour of driving through a jungly park road, we arrived at the top of a very high mountain overlook. 

 Our guides handed out stylish leech socks and began looking for wildlife.

One guide spotted a green pit viper while looking for a spot to pee in the jungle! They also spotted some hornbills far off in the distance and some monkeys up the road.

While driving deeper into the jungle, they also found a lizard, giant squirrel, green scorpion, more monkeys, and some deer. What a morning for wildlife spotting, eh?

Just South of the park’s visitor’s center, our truck stopped by the side of the road. Time for the trekking to begin! Our guide simply picked a spot and walked into the foliage. The path was muddy and covered in leaves.

The jungle wasn’t terribly thick since I expect loads of tourists head through these paths. We filed along and took in the nature.

There were giant trees, many green plants, and a TON of bugs. The trek wasn’t strenuous or hard, it was just buggy. Turns out I’m not really a jungle-trekking type of person, sadly. 

We must’ve trekked for a few hours before sitting down for a snack of sticky rice and custard. The food was edible, but I was ready for a full meal! We still had several more kilometers of trekking before stopping for lunch, our guide said. Maybe this is the reason why I’m not usually an outdoorsy person?

Anyways, we trudged forwards and found some gibbons, so that was a nice break. With about a half kilometer to lunch, we left the jungle and started walking through fields.

It felt very Lion King to me! We squinted into the distance trying to spot elephants, but no luck. Our guide hadn’t seen any in 10 days, so he didn’t think it was likely to see them today.

Lunch of steamed rice and tomatos & tofu was served atop a jungle outpost in the fields. It gave us great views of the fields and jungles, but we didn’t see more wildlife. Being completely trekked out from several hours of walking, I was hoping our walk would end soon. Luckily, it only took an hour to reach the trucks. 

We drove an hour deeper into the jungle and stopped to view a small waterfall and then Haew Narok, the tallest waterfall in Khao Yai. It was a nice stop and the waterfall was definitely beautiful; however, once you’ve been to Niagara Falls, all others seem tiny in comparison, eh? We headed back up a few hundred steep stairs and then drove on in hopes of finding some elephants. They must’ve been hiding because we didn’t see a single one!

Our guides gave up when the sun started to set and we drove back to the guesthouse for the night. We enjoyed some tasty noodles while watching traffic pass on the highway and then it was an early bedtime. We had to be up to catch an 7:00am bus back to Bangkok!

Yes, I will travel more.

Travel Diary: September 11, 2012

After our early morning ridiculous train ride, Meredith and I were ready for even more adventure. Our guesthouse whisked us from the Pak Chong train station to checkin before embarking on our first jungle trek adventure! Located on the highway just South of Khao Yai National Park, Greenleaf Guesthouse is a great option for those wishing to explore a jungle. They offer really affordable accomodation (ie. $5/night) and a 2-day tour package.

This afternoon, we had a half-day tour. Pickup trucks drove us to a Buddhist temple on a hill overlooking jungle. We learned a bit about Thai culture and then descended into a hole in the ground - literally, it was a giant hole in the ground.

Good thing we brought headlamps because this cave was dark! It opened up into several caverns and we explored each one with our guide. Buddhist monks meditate and pray inside the dark cave, so there were a few altars inside it. Otherwise, it was full of bats and creepy crawlies.

Our guide found all sorts of bugs in the cave to pick up and scare us. He quite enjoyed placing them onto tourists’ shoulders and watching us squirm! We saw a poisonous centipede, milipede, fungus, spiders, a spider scorpion, and many many bats. 

After exploring the depths of the cave and squeezing through a narrow exit path, we drove into some rice fields to watch millions of bats embark on their nightly hunting trip. 

It was pure magic to watch the bats leave their caves at dusk. They flew in winding spirals in the evening air for a few km before splitting up to catch bugs individually. If you swivelled your ears just right, you could even hear their wings flapping! While watching the bats, we ate juicy  pineapple and were introduced to some interesting plants - popping seeds are great fun!

To end the tour, we were driven to a freshwater spring for some night swimming with locals. There were quite a few young boys swimming and jumping off rocks near the spring. They were yelling and having great fun. It’s nice to know that tourism hasn’t spoiled this spot (yet)!

Unfortunately, our guide wasn’t done with the creepy crawlies. He found yet another millipede and a snake!

And with that, the first jungle trek was finished. Yes, I realize we didn’t actually enter the jungle. We skirted around it to avoid paying the entrance fees. Luckily for us, we had an entire day’s worth of trekking in store for us tomorrow!

Yes, I will travel more.

Travel Diary: September 11, 2012

Funny story about how we had to break out of our guesthouse in the morning! Our train from Ayutthaya to Pak Chong left at 8:25am and the guesthouse opened at 8:00am. At 7:40am, we unlocked the outer doors and had to jump the fence since it was deadbolted shut. What a way to start the day, eh?

A quick tuktuk ride over the bridge and we were at the train station! Fortunately, we paid a bit extra for 2nd class and a helpful train police man showed us to our seats. There was very little room for 2 people and 2 large backpacks in our two small seats. Next time, I’d book 4 seats and use 2 for bags. Anyways, I sat in an empty seat with a couple and their toddler. She was, by far, the cutest toddler I’ve ever seen - quiet and enjoyed the trip by eating guava dipped in spicy salt. 

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The Northeast train ride from Ayutthaya to Pak Chong lasts around 3 hours, so we settled in and enjoyed the views of tropical jungles and mountains as the train swerved through narrow passes. Up and up we climbed! However, the scenery was not our entertainment for the ride.

The seats beside us held some of the most intoxicated people I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch - 3 men with bags and bags of rubbish it looked it. Their faces were bright red and the stench of sweat and alcohol wafted throughout the seats around them. Thankfully, one man slept for the entire ride. The other two, however, were our entertainment.

Let’s name these two men to keep things simple: Fred and Barney. Fred was a very small man in a grey shirt and tiny green short shorts. He was the drunker of the two. Fred was a larger Thai man in a green jacket and he seemed to be the one who had the money between the two.

Now Barney literally spent the entire trip yelling about who-knows-what in Thai. Train police would wander past and he yelled at them. He yelled at vendors selling food in the aisles. He yelled at people sitting around him. He yelled at Fred to give him more whiskey. And he yelled to himself when no one was around the bother - random blatherings of a drunk man. 

When he was tired of yelling, he’d wander to the train division (where 1 train meets the next) and smoke. When he wanted to sit, he sat on the floor … or my foot. Unfortunately, Barney didn’t actually have a seat on the train - just his bags did. 

Fred spent the majority of the trip silently listening to Barney. When he was hungry, he’d buy chicken’s feet and flick bits out the window. When he was thirsty, he’d buy more whiskey and quickly down an entire bottle.

The thing that surprised me most was that train police did nothing to calm them or stop them from being belligerent  Neither did they prevent the men from buying more alcohol and continuing to get more drunk. Apparently everything is allowed here!

I quite enjoyed the whole experience since it’s nothing like we’d get at home. But I was happy to see the Pak Chong sign and get off. It was good to leave Fred and Barney behind and start our adventure into Khao Yai National Park!

Yes, I will travel.

Travel Diary Day 4: September 8th, 2012

Just a few BTS stops South of the Chatuchak Weekend Market is the Siam Square shopping mall area. We entered Siam Paragon and started looking at the many options in the food court. Indian. Japanese. Mexican. Italian. American. Thai. Vietnamese.

Every food option possible is available here! But since it was Meredith shopping, she went for a tried and true option: Burger King.

Ok ok. I’ll be fair - despite eating a ton at the market, food is cheap here and I’m always hungry. The line at the Indian stall was long so I had KFC. A good Thai lunch if I do say so myself!

We hadn’t planned much for the afternoon and used the food court as a place to rest, people watch, cool down, and strategize. We could go to the aquarium but it’s overpriced. We could visit Dusit Zoo for 10B (30 cents) but it’s in the middle of nowhere and hard to reach. We could go back to Khao San but “been there twice, done that”. I hadn’t seen The Dark Knight Rises before leaving, so we headed to the top floor of the mall to check out the cinema. Prices for a movie in the MBK shopping center were really cheap - somewhere around 150B ($5) for a ticket. We were hoping the Paragon’s cinema would be priced similarly. 

Unfortunately, an Imax showing would be well over $10 USD so we scrapped that idea. A much better option was to wander the busy, hot streets of downtown Bangkok in search of a non-tourist marketplace, Pratunam. While overseas, I am aiming to try as many non-tourists experiences as possible so we can get a good feeling of whats it’s like to live in each country. I want to learn about the differences and similarities between SEA and Canada/North America.

We braved the heat to trudge along, passing outdoor concerts and soccer matches on this sunny Saturday afternoon. Weaving through sidewalks completely covered by street stalls and unrelenting traffic, we didn’t even realize we’d reached the market when we did.

The market was housed in and around a giant warehouse. The space was divided into shops overflowing with clothes and the aisles were just as packed as the Chinatown market! It was very difficult to manoeuvre in the space. We browsed the shops until someone yelled at us to stop looking. We were not locals and were told that we aren’t allowed to shop here by a store keeper. Well, that certainly burst our bubble and we immediately left the entire market. Combine the incessant stares with unfriendly store owners and we definitely felt uncomfortable here.

We left and slowly made our way through more non-touristy streets to the closest BTS stop. It was just early evening so we went in search of our next adventure for the day: a fish foot spa! Unfortunately, our hotel didn’t know of any in our area (closest being on Khao San Rd - far away), so they recommended a regular foot massage. As the night was beginning to fall and the street’s storekeepers were just finishing setting up their table for the night, we headed out.

After a 15min walk (and getting lost), we found the towering building, the Healthland spa.

The inside of the building was very posh and high-class, but a 1hour foot massage with oil only cost 250B ($8-9) That’s a steal at just over $6! We changed into pants made for a 1 tonne giant and had a very relaxing night of foot rubs. Ahhhh, relaxation …..