Christmas and New Year in Southern Thailand

We met up with my parents once again to spend Christmas on Koh Lanta, a southern island off the coast from Krabi. We arrived at the north of the island and stayed for four nights on Ao Pra (Long Beach), where we celebrated a low-key Christmas. The north is quite unspectacular, built up and very touristy and the unexpected grey weather didn’t do any favours for my first impressions. Luckily for us we stayed in a great bungalow as a Christmas treat from my mum and dad, and spent the rainy afternoons drinking Chang and playing cards on the veranda. Christmas dinner was Thai curry.

A hungover fry-up on the beach, Christmas Day.

After a few days we moved to the south of the island to Klong Jark Bay. The south is much less developed and a lot more like my idea of a Thai island: small coves with pristine white beaches, clear seas and cliffs covered in vegetation. The sun even made a long overdue appearance. It was the perfect place to relax for a few days.

Klong Jark Beach

Sunset, Klong Jark.

One day, whilst sunbathing on a rocky beach, we were surrounded by about 20 monkeys, jumping from tree to tree, combing the beach for left over food. They picked up discarded cans and drank from them, holding the cans with two hands as humans do. They spotted a young couple having a picnic on the beach and wouldn’t leave them alone. For a while there was a stand off between as the couple threw sticks to scare off the monkeys, but more and more monkeys kept arriving until the poor couple abandoned their picnic and left the beach.

The next stop in our family backpacking trip was Ao Nang. We took the ferry from Koh Lanta back to the mainland during a terrible storm. While most of the 200 passengers sat inside the boat, Ric and I stayed out on deck drinking beers with two German guys who were determined to smoke in the pouring rain. Day turned to night as the heavens opened and the boat pitched and rolled in the swell.

There wasn’t very much to see in Ao Nang other than the lovely beach and our hotel’s swim-up bar (!), so we took a short boat ride to near-by Railay, a dramatic bay framed by karsts and white cliffs. While mum and dad soaked up the scenery from the beach, Ric and I went to get a closer look in a sea kayak. Bobbing over the waves we paddled our way around the karsts, stopping at isolated island beaches and exploring caves. It was an amazing way to admire the landscape.

Railay.

Sea kayaking.

We saw in the New Year with a cheesy (and compulsory) gala dinner by the hotel pool. The following evening we wrote our new year’s wishes on a lantern and set it off in a fine ceremony on the beach.

NYE

New Years Day lantern.

Continuing our theme of tagging along on my parents’ holiday, Ric and I flew up to Bangkok to join them for a few days in Bangkok before we left to go to Burma. We excitedly showed them some of our favourite spots: the river, Chinatown, shopping for tat on Khao San Road and we explored some interesting new places together too…

Our first meal together in the capital was in a restaurant intriguingly named Cabbages and Condoms. The restaurant, decorated with condom lamp shades, a condom Father Christmas and a condom post box, is run by a local community development project whose motto is that condoms should be as accessible as vegetables throughout Thailand. The project aims to make contraception widely available throughout the country and provides education on sexual health. The food was excellent and we were served by students from one of the project’s schools.

Condom lamp shade at Cabbages and Condoms.

We progressed from the condom restaurant to a more evident demonstration of the country’s sex life – the red light district at Soi Cowboy! Not an obvious choice for a place to take the parents but it was close to their hotel and a notorious area of Bangkok we thought we ought to see on our fifth visit to the city. After barely twenty minutes of squinting into the dazzling neon lights, surrounded by tiny tiny hotpants and spangley bras, we’d all seen more than enough and we retreated to a less seedy part of town. Seeing the old European men pawing the young Thai girls was an uncomfortable reminder of the other kind of tourism that goes on in this part of the world.

After three weeks of cities, beaches, monkeys, posh hotels and spicy food it was time to say goodbye to my mum and dad and leave them to fend for themselves in Bangkok. It was hard saying goodbye not knowing when I’ll see them again but we had a fantastic time together and I dare say they enjoyed Thailand a tad more than they enjoyed visiting us in Korea!

Bangkok Revisited

It was our fourth time in Bangkok and we decided to spend our time getting to know some of the areas we’ve previously neglected. We checked into a hotel in China Town, right next door to the hotel we stayed in on our very first visit.

We had three objectives for our two night stopover in the capital: visit the embassy for additional pages to be added to my full passport; visit the Grand Palace; and explore China Town.

As it turns out, British citizens aren’t entitled to extra pages and I’ll have to apply for a new passport instead. So that was crossed off the list easily.

Next was the Grand Palace, Bangkok’s biggest tourist attraction. For an extortionate ticket price of 500Baht (£10!) you get access to the Palace grounds (you unfortunately can’t go inside), the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the textiles museum and an exhibition of old coins. We passed on the latter two subsidiary attractions; I feel they’re added on to the ticket to justify the high price. To put that price into context, Bangkok’s Palace is more expensive than the Taj Mahal (£8), the Great Wall of China (£4) and pretty much any other attraction in Thailand. It was even more than our hotel room.

We went to the Palace on our first trip to Thailand but were put off by the huge crowds and didn’t go inside. This time round the crowds were equally intimidating but we decided to bite the bullet and see what all the fuss is about. To cut a long story short, it was overcrowded, over priced and boring.

First of all, it wasn’t enough that I was wearing long trousers and had a shawl wrapped around my upper body. Ric wasn’t allowed to cover his exposed legs with a sarong because ‘they’re for ladies only’. In a country famous for its gender ambiguity, Ric was forbidden to wear a sarong. We queued to hire the Palace-issued appropriate clothing but didn’t have enough money for the deposit (it was 200Baht/£4 per item). The end result was that I had to wear the sarong, Ric had to wear my trousers and I had to cover my top half with a hideous polyester shirt that made me look like a dinner lady from the 70’s. We entered the Grand Palace looking and feeling ridiculous.

Unstylish, even by our standards.

We entered the complex, arriving first at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and the heavens opened. Every available sheltered space was suddenly packed with Asian tourists wearing matching tour group caps and badges, the occasional guide waving a flag and shouting to be heard above the crowd. It was hectic, cramped and annoying. I was grateful to be a head and shoulders taller than most of the other visitors as I at least had some breathing space. As in independent traveller I can’t think of anything worse than following 40 other people around all day, piling in and out of a tour bus and following a strict itinerary. I often wonder if the opposite is true; do these Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese busloads look at us and mock us with a our oversized backpacks, guide books and sweaty brows? We pushed our way through the coloured hats to peek inside at the sacred statue of the Emerald Buddha. The statue was discovered in 1434 and was originally covered in plaster. It was mistakenly named the Emerald Buddha by an abbot who noticed the plaster was flaking off to reveal a green stone. It is in fact made of jade.

Around the jade/Emerald Buddha there are many ornately decorated chedis (stupas), gold gilded paintings, carvings, and sculptures of elephants and mythical creatures. This was the most interesting part of the Palace.

Crowd outside the Emerald Buddha Temple.

The actual Royal Residence and throne halls are not spectacular, however; we did see the king in a totally random unrelated incident…

The morning we arrived in Bangkok we were wandering the streets in the early morning heat, tired from the overnight train, waiting to check into our hotel at midday. As we walked around the neighbourhood, half in a daze, we were stopped on a street corner by a soldier. He told us only to stop, we no explanation, and shouted at us when we attempted to continue our stroll. More people arrived and they too had to stop, as did all traffic. As the crowd grew the bystanders motioned for us to stand with our arms by our sides and the soldiers insisted we remove our sunglasses. Then somebody whispered “his highness, his highness”.  A few moments later we glimpsed a balding King Bhumibol Adulyadej speed past in a shiny cream BMW, surrounded by an impressive police convoy.

Last on our concise to-do list was China Town, an endlessly interesting and delicious area of Bangkok. Back in June we visited the gold Buddha at Wat Traimit and popped into China Town for some cheap eats at the night market; after sampling just a tiny portion of the food on offer we knew we had to go back and do some serious eating.  

By day China Town is a bustling market place where you can buy just about anything; from spectacles to sex toys, sunglasses to illegal weapons, iphone speakers to traditional Chinese medicine. The Thieves Market was once the place to go to buy back your possessions that had been stolen on the streets on Bangkok. Today, the sale of stolen goods is frowned upon and the Thieves Market is more what Ric and I call a Shit You (Don't) Need Shop. We love SYDN shops and have enjoyed browsing them around the world. All you need is a sheet of material or a piece of cardboard. You go to that drawer in the house where the whole family dumps the things that have no proper place. Every home has this drawer: batteries, celotape, odd stamps, a screwdriver, a packet of tissues, an old lipstick... random items. Then you arrange them in no particular order, on a sheet, on the floor. Voila, you have a SYDN shop. They're great places to browse and we usually end up buying something that we really don't need but might need, some day.

Monk browsing the SYDN shops; perhaps he'll impulse buy a second-hand saw along with that antique book of Buddhist chants?

In the evening China Town's streets are jammed with steaming food stalls: dim sum, noodle dishes, home-made ice cream, fruit, sea food, fried vegetables, and some more questionable dishes such as shark fin and birds nest soup.

Um, no thanks.

This lady has a huge bowl of our new favourite Thai dish, Khao Kha Moo, ham shank stew. Locals and tourists alike sit at a few plastic tables and stools to eat the melt-in-your-mouth pork, served in a rich soy gravy, with rice and chickpeas. 

Khao Kha Moo

Any other China Town specialty is peking duck and hoi sin gravy. We discovered a corner cafe right near our hotel that served this dish with rice for just 60Baht (£1.20) and we ate there at everyday. The sweetness of the sauce, the saltiness of the skin and the subtle flavors of the meat... I'm drooling just thinking about it. 

Peking duck, China Town.

I love China Town, it has so much character, so many hidden gems, so much food! We enjoyed many an afternoon wandering its narrow markets, its bright shiny shops and its endless food stalls. This was the highlight of our stay in Bangkok. China Town is much less touristy than the Khao San Road area and I'd definitely stay there again. 

Temple squeezed into a row of shops.

How To Get To...
The Grand Palace: The easiest way to get there is on one the river taxis; they're cheap fast and the views along the river are endlessly interesting. Just don't join one of the annoying tour groups!
We Stayed At...
S.K Boutique Hotel: $20/£12 for the cheapest room. Nicely decorated and great location but overpriced really. 

Amazing Bangkok, Amazing House!

We finally made it to Thailand, home of the bum gun, gender ambiguity and my favourite kind of food. It may have taken us six months longer to get here than originally planned, but we're here, I'm excited to get back into some writing. 

Our Egypt Air flight was comparable to Ryanair. It sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half at Manchester Airport, leaving us with only 30 minutes to dash for our connection in Cairo. We flew to Bangkok where we stayed three nights in the ironically named 'Amazing House Guest House'. The only thing amazing about it was the price, at £5 per night.

I love Bangkok, in spite of its stifling humidity, for its distinct neighbourhoods that are so different to one another that you can feel like you're in a different city just by hopping across town in a taxi.

Bangkok, from the Chao Phraya River.

To get around we mainly used the river taxis that run up and down the Chao Phraya, at only 15Baht (30p) a time they're far cheaper than any tuk-tuk or meter taxi and it's a great way to see some of the sights along the river, such as Wat Arun, the Grand Palace and numerous other temples. There are four different lines that operate on the river, each with a different colour flag, we used only the orange boats as they seem to be the most frequent. 

River taxi.

We took a river taxi to China Town (Yaowarat), one of the city's oldest districts. Be warned that the boats don't hang around; you have to fight your way off during busy periods, else be stuck at the back and miss your stop - like we did! From the boat pier narrow winding streets lead past mechanic's work shops and heaps of engines to Wat Traimit. On the top level of the four tiered temple is a 5.5 tonne solid gold Buddha, the largest seated, solid gold Buddah in the world! (Entrance fee: 40baht, no short sleeves/short pants)

Solid gold Buddah at Wat Traimit

6% beer and duck noodles, mmmmm!

From the gold Buddah we crossed the road through China Gate to one of the cities most vibrant night markets. Both sides of the street were lined with food stalls, the pavements packed with groups of friends and families packed around plastic tables and chairs. It was so bustling that passers-by had to walk on the road. The market was a dizzying mix of bright lights, delicious smells and mystery foods. We settled on a bowl of hoi sin duck noodle soup from a stall conveniently set up outside a 7-Eleven shop, where we could get cold beers from inside and enjoy a blast of aircon every time the door opened! After that we had pork noodle soup - some of the nicest pork I've tasted, and finally finished with a scoop of home made tamarind ice cream. Most of the dished are priced between 30-50baht (60p-£1).

China Town food market.

Another famous Buddah of Bangkok is the 32m high gold-leafed statue at Wat Indraviharn, about 20 minutes walk north of backpacker central Khao San Road. We managed to get in for free as it's low season and the ticket office was closed! Outside the temple there are women selling tiny cages stuffed with birds, "Give freedom to the birds for good luck", and nearby there are similar women with plastic bags containing terrapins "Give freedom to the turtles for good luck". It's hard to know which is worse, paying the £2 to set the animals free and financing the cruel trade, or not buying them and allowing them suffer on.

Signs indicated that we should leave offerings of "eggs, flowers and fish of the mackerel kind" at the feet of the giant Buddah.

Big Budddah at Wat Indraviharn.

The clouds cleared on the day we visited Wat Arun, and the temperature reached a scorching 40 degrees. We used the river taxi again to get to the temple and paid the 50baht entrance fee. I'd come prepared with my sarong to cover my exposed legs but that wasn't enough for the prudey guard who insisted I cover my shoulders too. Unprepared to hire a scarf, I not-so-discretely whipped off my skirt from under my sarong and used it as a shawl. I don't know if the guard was amused, impressed or offended at my resourceful technique but he let me in with a sly smirk. The temple is really beautiful, decorated with a porcelain mosaic and depictions of the Buddah. We climbed the very steep stairs up to the top and enjoyed the beautiful view.

Wat Arun.

Looking north from Wat Arun.

Once the sun had started to sink behind the sky scrapers we venture out again to the Siam district where my parents will be staying in the New Year. Siam is the modern, expensive area of town where we cooled off in air conditioned shopping malls and felt drastically under dressed compared to the city's upper classes. On the streets surrounding Central World shopping centre we found a Korean market!  We felt strangely at home surrounded by Korean food stalls, clothing and make up.

Siam district from outside Central World.

New Year's Day in Bangkok

We awoke early on New Year's Day to wish each other a happy new year GMT, which was 7am in Thailand and then made it down for breakfast an hour or so later. When we walked into the hotel restaurant all of Ric's dreams came true; it was an international all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast! He managed about four plates whilst I feebly sipped my coffee and nibbled a piece of pineapple.

Our game plan was to get up early and have a busy day sight seeing and shopping, then hopefully we would be so tired by 10 o'clock that we would be able to sleep on our night flight back to Korea.

We wandered through the streets in the vague direction of the river and stumbled upon Bangkok's famous flower market. It was amazing, the flower arrangements were so intricate and detailed, and they had every colour rose you could imagine, it was beautiful.

A temple we came across on our walk, just before the start of the flower market.

It wasn't on our map so I don't know the name of it!

The flower market

Beautiful roses

From there we went to a traditional farmer's market selling all sorts of strange looking fruits and veg, and in the centre of the market there were people chanting and banging drums. We'd managed to stumble upon a monk's tea party! Hundreds of Buddhist monks were sitting at tables having a rather elaborate meal, music was playing and there was a general party atmosphere. Somebody even gave us some ice cream.

We eventually found the river and Ric took some pictures of the ornate barges.

A Stopher family favourite

We then went on a rather frivolous shopping spree and made the most of the cheap prices, the hippy style clothing, the bartering and the real people-sized clothes on offer. At the first stall we visited we displayed our in-expertise in bartering with a funny exchange with the Indian stall owner:

me: how much?
owner: 500 Baht
me: discount?
owner: ok, for you, 490 Baht
me: too expensive. 100 Baht?
owner: no, no, ok, very special new year price, 480 Baht
me: no, too expensive, bye bye (walks away)
owner: wait wait, no! What are you doing? We do it high-low high-low!!

The guy was outraged that I'd refused to play the bartering game. I just don't have the patience for it.
In the end I paid 150 Baht.

Having spent up, eaten a kebab and drank a fruit shake we jumped into a tuk-tuk and went to the main palace. We had no intention of going inside, we weren't dressed appropriately and there were far too many people there, but it was nice to see it from outside the walls, be surrounded in the crowds and look at the other temples and parks that surround the palace.

Opposite the palace

A temple across from the palace

Finally it was time to go to the airport, where we boarded our plane an hour late, at 11pm. Luckily there was an empty row of seats across from me on the plane, so I managed to stretch out my humongous legs and get some sleep. Ric wasn't as fortunate. We landed in Korea at 6am, took a bus back to Cheonan which took an absurd amount of time because of the snow, the Seoul rush hour traffic and an elderly passenger who couldn't hold her bladder. We arrived back in Cheonan at 9.10, with only 10 minutes to spare before we were due to start teaching. Of course, every traffic light on the taxi ride to school was red, and we were eventually 10 minutes late, but all the same we arrived to a hero's welcome. With our backpacks still slung in the teacher's room, and with almost no sleep, we managed to teach a full 10-hour day, before collapsing into bed with a McDonalds at 8.30. It was a very long day.

Favourite People:
As I mentioned before, I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the Thai people. I'm certain we did pay tourist rates for a lot of things, but we didn't care, it didn't feel like we were being ripped off.

One tuk-tuk driver, an old man with an ancient tuk-tuk falling to pieces, quotes us 50 Baht (£1) to take us back to our hotel (cheaper than any other tuk-tuk). When we got stuck in terrible traffic he explained to us the best way for us to walk home and said we didn't need to pay, even though he'd taken us half way. It was so sweet that he didn't want any money from us that we paid him anyway.

Another lady and her two children helped us order food in a local cafe where nobody spoke English. She was so kind and friendly and wore matching clothes with her children. Her name was Nok.

Nok and her delightfully coordinated children

We loved Bangkok so much that we're already planning our next trip.

New Year's Eve in Bangkok

For New Year's Eve we headed back to Bangkok. We took a boat from Vongduern beach to Ban Phe port  on the mainland. The boat looked like a 70 year old fishing trawler and was so slow that it was overtaken by pretty much every other boat on the ocean. Eventually, we got to the port only to find that Ric had left his flip flops on the island and we had to get him a new pair. Typical.

In Bangkok we got a taxi and headed over to our hotel. The taxi pulled into the side of the road and slowed down, as I was wondering why, my door was opened and somebody grabbed by backpack. I panicked, tried to grab it back. I'd heard so many stories about bags being stolen like that. It took a few moments for me to realised that the taxi had slowed to a stop because we had arrived at our hotel, and that the guy "stealing" my backpack was in fact the concierge trying to carry it for me.

Grande Ville Hotel lobby

After offending the concierge we checked into the Grande Ville Hotel. This was extremely exciting for me as it was a) a real hotel, and b) a nice hotel. The only hotels in Korea are "love hotels"; no matter how up-market the hotel, there is always a pack of condoms and a bottle of lube on the dressing table, I guess that's what Korean hotel guests want, but for me it just takes away the niceness. Other than that the only other places Ric and I have stayed together have been a shoddy pink tent and in South American hostels in various states of decay, so for me, Grande Ville was a very special treat. It was LUSH. There was a huge Christmas tree in the marbled lobby, carpets in the room and A SWIMMING POOL ON THE ROOF!!!!

The view from our room.

The roof pool, on the 24th floor, had stunning views of Bangkok. When we got up there on New Year's Eve, a nearby building had caught on fire and was covering the city in a thick black smoke. We never found out anything about the fire as it wasn't reported in any English press, it's a tragic way to end the year for somebody though.

From the roof.

Nice pool, nice view. Shame about the burning building.

After a nap, shower and an array for energy drinks that are illegal in England, we set out to celebrate on Khao San Road. The road is known for its backpacker and professional hippy crowd as well as its many bars, restaurants and shops. On the one hand it is perhaps a tacky choice (I'm sure there are much more refined things to do in Bangkok), but on the other hand we only had one night there, and we wanted to party.

Khao San Rd.

Khao San Rd.

Khao San Road did not disappoint. The entire area was buzzing with excitement and energy, there were hundreds of people there and so much going on. There was a countdown stage with singers and dancers, elaborately dressed ladyboys prancing around, people selling everything under the sun. We were even offer a ping pong show. Every establishment on the road, whether it be a chemist or a bank by day, had been turned into a roadside bar. We sat and had cocktails outside a travel agency. We ordered a mojito and strawberry daiquiri that both tasted suspiciously like Smirnoff Ice.

Smirnoff Ice cocktails.

Bucket of vodka.

We bought beers from a shop and just walked around in awe of the place. Paradoxically, across the road from all the drinking and rowdiness, we found a temple with a ceremony going on. People were chanting and praying and lighting incense sticks. We went to get a closer look and it was so strange that such a peaceful and calm ceremony was taking place so close to the road were thousands of tourists were celebrating the New Year.

Buddhist ceremony taking place opposite the madness.

We saw in the New Year in a relatively quiet spot, away from the crowds, wrapped up in our own world as usual, and then sat down to smoke a shisha pipe in a bar where I had fun popping some balloons that some people were playing keepy uppy with. I'm a terrible person.

Finally we soaked up the booze with some street food and headed back to our hotel to admire the city by night, from our 18th floor hotel room.

The end of our night.

Phat Thai.