Bangkok pictures

Uploaded our Bangkok pictures to the Bangkok albums in
http://picasaweb.google.com/patstephens99

after 5 days in Bophut, Ko Samui

It's now Sunday and we have been at Bo Phut Beach aka Fisherman's village on the north side of Ko Samui since Wednesday.

Until today we've done nothing at all except hang out on the beach. The Lodge where we are staying is very nice, we are on the top floor with a perfect view of the beach, and we literally walk out of the rear door and onto the beach. There are a couple of large trees which give all-day shade, so we get our sun loungers early in the morning and park there all day, eating breakfast there, running out to get some lunch when the street foodsellers (fresh fruit, meat on skewers, sweet rice) come along, and taking a break from the heat in the air-conditioned bedroom for a couple of hours in the afternoon, before a late afternoon swim and then out for dinner.

Yesterday an old friend of ours from Munich days, Ian, arrived here for 2 nights. He's travelling with his partner; they came from the island Ko Phangan where we go next. We haven't seen him for 6.5 years except once I met him briefly in Budapest a few years ago, so it's nice to catch up.

Today we went for a snorkelling trip on a longboat to two small islands off the south coast of Ko Samui. We were considering going to the Angthong national marine park but that's a longer trip. The snorkelling was quite good, with coral and a fair selection of fishes including some rays. The nicest part was feeding bread to the fishes out of your hands - they literally surround you in the water. Briana got in for a short time in morning and afternoon, and Fiona surprised us by spending a lot of time in the water and even trying a mask and snorkel for a while - considering she never likes to put her head under the water this was quite an achievement by her.
Most of the time she liked to put her hands around my neck and hold on with her head out of the water while I snorkelled around. She wasn't at all afraid of the deep waters.

We've been thinking of hiring a car for a day trip around the island but today we went along the entire east side of the island and it wasn't very attractive, so we might save our money and just stay on the beach until we move to Ko Phangan on Wednesday. We know the main Chaweng and Lamai beaches on the island only by reputation, which isn't good, so we won't miss much I think.

Going scuba diving from here is too expensive because of distance from the main dive sites so we will postpone that until we reach Ko Phangan where it will be cheaper (and it would be cheaper still if we would change our travel plan and stay some nights in Ko Tao where most of the dive sites are).

We've avoided most of the relatively expensive restaurants by eating each night in on of the very few ordinary Thai restaurants in town. The difference is mains ranging from 50 to 80 Baht (1 to 2 Euros) there, versus mains ranging from 180 to 450 Baht (4 to 10 Euro) at most of the eateries. We wouldn't care if it was just a 2 week holiday but over 3 months expensive eating out would add up. And anyway the Thai food is very tasty! However we can't resist the temptation to hang out after dinner for a while in a nice cocktail bar, usually spending a good bit more than we paid for dinner. Tough life.

We aren't following the news from home much but I note that Ireland won the triple crown and grand slam, Gyurcsany might be on the way out as Hungarian PM, and Man Utd are under pressure.

One other thing - Ko Samui has the nicest airport we've ever seen. This picture doesn't show much but sums it up. First of all, the bus from the plane is open-sided like the sort you find at a theme park. Then the baggage carousel is in an area that has a roof to keep the sun off, but no walls. The toilets have large aquariums. In fact it doesn't look like an airport at all, except for the runway.

(We flew here on a Bangkok Air Boeing 717 which was about 2/3 full, mostly westerners. The resort here is very quiet and we heard that the airlines are reducing flights.)

Bophut, Ko Samui

Styarted to upload a few pics to http://picasaweb.google.com/patstephens99 but the connection is too slow so will quit it.
Very hot here in Ko Samui. Guest House is fine and location right on the on beach is great; water incredibly warm.
We are in a very quiet area in the north of the island; just one short street. It's called Bophut beach.
But expensive here, everything twice to price of north Thailand so we are trying to be careful about spending money.

Sunday in and around Chiang Mai

Yesterday we visited an Elephant camp which was rather touristy but Fiona and I had an interesting Elephant ride. We went up and down hills and into the river but even on the flat the ride is fairly uneven. Although the camp claims it is dedicated to conservation of the Elephants (whose numbers are very much lower than a 100 years ago due to changes in forestation), it was an uncomfortable feeling to see the elephants not in use with a chain round their legs that allowed them movement of only a meter or two.

After that we visited Tiger Kingdom which I expected would be very touristy, but actually turned out to be a quite special experience. For a not-very-cheap fee you can spend 15 minutes "private time" with tigers of different sizes (or lion cubs). I got in with three 8-month old tigers (and 3 handlers!). Now, an 8-month old tiger is not far off fully-grown so these are not at all small. I could stroke them and sit beside them for photos. The girls got in with 2 baby lion cubs (and 1 handler) and could stroke and play with them - I could video them through an open window. Naturally we made dozens of photos too! It was worth the money.

In the evening we went back into Chiang Mai for the Sunday "walking street" market. As I wrote before, the quality of what is on sale in CM is much better than Bangkok, relatively little tacky crap, so even if we weren't buying it was interesting to "window shop". And the food stalls were excellent - not only different kinds of Thai food, but also lots of other like Sushi, fried fish, etc.

On the way we saw a Wat (temple) in the grounds of which, among other bizarre ornaments, stood a large statue of Donald Duck eating noodles.

Transportation in Thailand

As anyone who has already been here knows, public transport consists mainly of
* Tuktuks: have to negotiate - typical cost 50-70 Baht = about 1 Euro to 1 Euro 50
* Songthaews: shared taxi, fixed cost for any trip per adult 15 Baht = about 33 Euro cents
* Metered taxis: typical cost for a short trip is about 50-100 Baht = about 1-2 Euro.

Private transport consists mainly of motorbikes and pickup trucks. Pushbikes are fairly rare. Cars are much less plentiful than pickup trucks, and more often than not driven by women. What you don't see here at all are clapped-out 20 year old cars (like Hungary's Trabants)!

Petrol currently costs 28 Baht (about 60 Euro cents) per litre for 91 Octane and oddly it is cheaper (24 Baht, about 50 Euro cents) for 95 Octane. UPDATE: It turns out the so-called 95 Octane is really a poor quality Ethanol mix; real 95 Octane if available is much more expensive.

The Secret Garden

Since Friday we are staying at the Secret Garden 12km outside Chiang Mai. It's fairly much in the countryside and we hear lots of weird animal noises like from Geckos. In fact there are small lizards all around including on the bedroom walls and surprisingly the kids haven't freaked out.

This place is run by a German man Peter and his Thai wife Pai, and consists of about 10 bungalows around a nice garden with small lake and swimming pool. They have a big open air kitchen and eating area which is very relaxing, lots of books and CDs we can use, etc. All of their business comes via TripAdvisor reviews; the other guests are American, Spanish, US, Australian. Pai cooks Thai food for dinner each evening and the guests are welcome to join in. There's a trust system for drinks - we take what we want from the fridge and write it down. The kids love the pool so yesterday I stayed here with them while Gyorgyi went off to look at silk production factories and naturally she came back with another few metres of silk!

I went for a longish run yesterday along the main road and got stared at a lot by the locals. Almost got lost on the way back when I took a wrong turn.

Today we are off to see some elephants and tigers.

We have 3 more nights here before going south.

I got all our photos written onto a DVD, unfortunately the PC at his resort doesn't have a DVD drive so I can't upload them.

Chiang Mai 2

Yesterday we strolled around Chiang Mai. There is a 'Wat' (Buddhist Temple) on every corner. Perhaps it would be the same for a Thai person visiting Ireland, to see a Church on every corner. But these temples are very ornate, decorated with gold and dragons, and totally photogenic. Lunch was at a local Northern Thai cuisine restaurant, where most of the food was spicy, perhaps reflecting the Indian influence. Luckily they had fried chicken and spare ribs for the kids. We were given chopsticks as well as spoons and forks, which the girls could use fairly easily (if not correctly) with the sticky rice that practically has to be torn apart. Fiona's technique was to roll the rice into a little ball with her left hand and stick one chopstick into it with her right.

After lunch we visited the most ornate Wat in Chiang Mai - the Wat Chedi Luang - the buildings feature really life-like waxworks of past monks. The main template was being repainted so we could watch them repainting the intricate designs and applying golf leaf.

In the evening we went to a "Traditional" entertainment evening - obviously packaged for the tourists with food, dance show, hill tribe music etc. Very touristy but at least not tacky, lots of food, and didn't cost the earth.

Today after another big breakfast (sticky sweet rice, poached eggs with satay sauce, banana pancakes, fresh mango and watermelon, smoothies) at the hotel, we went to the excellent Chiang Mai zoo and went around it twice with the hop-on-hop-off bus. The distances were too far and the weather too hot to walk. Kids were getting a bit worn out.

One more night at this hotel and then we move a few km outside the town for 5 nights. We'd be very happy to remain at the current hotel which is lovely, but the idea was to "do" the town and then see the outskirts. And the next hotel has a POOL!