Northern Thailand

6^th – 11^th February 2016

I arrived in Chiang Mai not long after the sunrise. I was looking forward to getting away from the heat of Bangkok and I certainly got my wish. I was bloody freezing in the tuk tuk from the station to my hostel. It was 20 degrees but I was actually shivering. I had a hoody on up over my head but I was still in shorts and flip flops. I realise its ridiculous for me to be cold at 20 degrees but this was the coldest temperature I’d experienced since before May of last year.

Arrived in Chiang Mai

I was allowed to check in early which is a rare treat. I had another couple of hours sleep and then went out to explore. The centre of Chiang Mai is a big square with a wall running alongside a moat around the city. The city has since spilled out to the surrounding areas but most of the interesting things to see were in the middle.

On of the gates in the wall

Nice bike decoration

I walked along the wall to one of the main gates where I found a man with an interestingly decorated bike.

Temple

Buddha

Another temple

Japanese Garden

I spent the afternoon wandering around the temples of Chiang Mai. There was a nice wooden one that had a beautiful Japanese Garden behind it.

Big Temple

The temple I wanted to see was the biggest one in the centre of the city. Its an impressive size but I couldn’t see it from a distance. It was tucked away behind a couple of other temples.

Year of the Snake

The place was overrun with Chinese tourists and they are just the worst. They don’t care if you’re trying to take a picture of something. They’ll just barge in with their selfie sticks. They were on holiday as the Chinese New Year was coming up. There was a line of small statues, one for each of the Chinese Zodiac. The idea is that you donate at the symbol for the year that you were born so I went looking for the snake.

Another Buddha

Yet another temple

Fat buddha

The big temple was surrounded by smaller temples and much newer looking buddhas. There was a fat Buddha which is the first I'd seen in Asia. The fat Buddha is actually Chinese with most of South East Asia worshipping skinny buddhas. The story is that a monk gained so much enlightment that he became fat. I think he just ate a lot.

Elephant temple

The other side of the temple had elephants coming out of the wall which I thought looked pretty cool.

Market Day

Flower Festival

Pretty floats

I continued to wander and came across a massive street parade. Well they weren’t exactly parading. There were large floats all the way down the street for a flower festival. It was really busy here. I grabbed a pizza at one of the many street stalls and looked at some of the floats. There were a lot of flowers on them.

Three Kings

The last stop on my self-made walking tour was the Three Kings Statue. It wasn’t too exciting but another sight seen.

Waterfalls

The next morning I hired a scooter for a casual ride to the highest point in Thailand. These bikes are not really designed to be taking on mountain roads so it was a bit slow going on the steep bits. It was an hour and half drive on a highway which was pretty boring but once I got to the mountain road it became a pretty fun drive. I stopped off at a waterfall which was roaring.

Don't go chasing....

....waterfalls

The countryside

I stopped a few times to brake up the journey. In hindsight doing this trip on a scooter might have been a bit ambitious but I loved it. The scenery was amazing and there were very few people around. Only the occasional minivan full of tourists.

Thai lady hard at work

My bike

Cold at the top!

I made my way very slowly to the top and my fingers began to go numb. It was a lot colder at the top of the hill. I had prepared for this but didn’t think about gloves. It was a relief when I finally got to Doi Inthanon.

Pretty at the top

The gardens

This was a stunning temple complex with a fantastic view down the mountains. It looked so clean, bright and new. The gardens around were beautiful too.

Inside one of the pagodas

The view

It was built in 1993 to celebrate the Queens 60^th birthday. There was a statue in each of the two pagaodas that meant something but I cant remember what that was.

Tourist photo

I spent some time here walking around and taking in the view. I had lunch at the little café. Then it was time to jump back on the bike because I still wasn’t at the top of this hill.

The top

I'm not sure which number is metres

A short but slow drive took me to a carpark. From there it was on foot through the jungle to the highest point in Thailand. It was marked by a small shrine and a sign. It was a bit of an anti-climax but the temple was always going to be the highlight of this trip.

I can see all of Thailand, not

HUGE camera

The size of that camera is a bit excessive. Imagine carrying that around on your travels!

The journey back down was much quicker and much more fun. As my hands slowly started to warm up I really started to enjoy myself. I had intended to go to another temple on another big hill that’s closer to Chiang Mai but it had taken me a bit longer than I thought. I was pretty sure the other temple would be closed if I went there so I just went back to town.

Chiang Rai clock tower

The next day I made the journey from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai which is ‘same same but different’. The journey was really uneventful or maybe something major happened and I just can’t remember. I don’t even remember getting the bus but I’m pretty sure I did.

Night Bazaar

I got chatting to some people in the hostel and we went to the night bazaar. Our group seem to triple as various people who knew someone I was with came to join us until there were about 10 of us. We had some drinks before people started to leave. Some people were leaving town early the next morning and didn’t want to hang around too long.

Wat Rong Khun

Wat Rong with that

The next day I caught a local bus to Wat Rong Khun. This mental temple was designed and built by a local artist who has some interesting ideas.

Faces

zombies under ground

The temple is certainly a strange one. To reach the temple you must walk over sea of outstretched hands meant to symbolize unrestrained desire. There’s also a few faces on either side. There quite dark and spooky looking.

Buddha image

Inside the temple

The temple is a visual marvel with the white and silver making it unique. Once you go inside, things get even weirder. You are not supposed to take pictures but I found one on the internet that gives an example of the artwork inside. It’s a combination of Buddhist images mixed with modern influences. I was quite shocked to see his interpretation of the 911 terrorist attack. This seemed to have meaning but a lot of it was just plain odd. There were lots of comic book heroes, star wars characters, cartoon characters and Michael Jackson! The more you look, the more you see.

The toilets

Back outside even the toilets were very grand. Definitely the fanciest looking toilet block I’ve ever seen.

Hanging things

So many hangy things

For a small donation you can get a small medallion thing that you can hang on another thing. It seems that many thousands of people have done this. I didn’t see the point of it so I didn’t bother.

There was an art gallery which was also free to have look round. There were more interesting art works in here too. Again, no photos were allowed. The best one I found was the one about destroying the planet. It showed Earth surrounded be rubbish. There were a few of these sorts of paintings about greed, politics and global destruction. It was very interesting and I’m no art lover.

Chiang Rai "Beach"

Back in the city I found Jess who I had met the night previous and we went to find Chiang Rai “Beach” with a couple of other people from her hostel. Obviously we were a long way from the sea so I wasn’t expecting an actual beach but when we got to the place marked on my map we were a little disappointed. It was just a patch of sand next to the river and a bridge. Not at all what I expected.

The actual Chiang Rai beach

Turns out there two Chiang Rai Beaches. We walked across the bridge to ask some people there if we could get a ride in one of their boats that were moored but they kept wanting to take us further to some cave. We eventually decided to take a tuk tuk to the actually Chiang Rai beach and it was much better.

Small farm on the river

Some friends

It still wasn’t amazing but like I said, we didn’t expect much. We hung out there for a bit as the sun set. Jess got some chicken which was just cartilage. Must be a local thing. It was a great place to sit. It was very relaxing. There were a few groups of locals that kept staring at us. I don’t think many westerners come by here. One group offered us to drink with them but we were already heading back.

Clock did fancy things

Changing colour

That night we went to a restaurant where I was told you could get the best Pad Thai in Thailand by a guy who had been before. There was a group of about 8 of us but I can’t remember anyone's names. I'm going to have to start writing these down. On the way back we walked past the clock tower as it hit 8 o'clock and we were treated to a small light show.

The next morning I took an early bus to the border for my next adventure through Laos.

A Different Bangkok

2^nd – 5^th February 2016

I wanted to get away from Khao San Road. It’s fun but so touristy. And now all my friends had left, it wouldn’t be that fun either. I found a hostel across the city that had a rooftop pool so I booked myself in there. Stephen and Breanne would be back in Bangkok in a few days so I decided to wait around to see them.

Not to shabby

The pool was pretty awesome despite the large number of flies swimming around in it. This was the perfect place to relax for a little while after the hectic couple of weeks exploring southern Thailand.

The Skyrail

The reason the hostel was relatively cheap was because it was away from everything. To get into the city I had to catch the Skyrail. This was cheap enough and, providing you miss rush hour, comfortable enough too.

Modern Bangkok

I had only explored one small area of the city the first time I was here so I was keen to see some other things. It was quite strange to be in the middle of a very modern Bangkok. I had got used to the Khao San Rd area where everything is a bit run down and held together with tape but this was very different. This was really modern. With the skyrail, huge malls and tall modern skyscrapers, it was a very different Bangkok.

The King

I went over to a large park where there was a big statue of the king. They absolutely love the king here. There’s pictures of him everywhere. He’s the longest reigning monarch alive today and this year he will celebrate his Platinum Jubilee. That's 70 years! I really hope I’m not in Thailand when he dies. The grief the Thais will have for losing him will be enormous.

Nice park

No idea what this is about

I wandered around the park for a little while before heading back into the centre where all the big malls are. I saw these big animal type things which I thought were a little weird. No idea what they are for.

Site of a tragedy

Just outside this mall was this small Buddha shrine. This was the target of the terrorist attack that happened in August last year. I remember watching it on the news and I recognised the place. It was quite strange to stand here where many people had lost their lives so recently. There were a larger amount of guards here than you might expect but there’s not much they could really do if they wanted to target it again.

A sad place

They have scanners at every entrance to all the shopping centres and train stations like the ones you’ll see at airports. I don’t know if they were here before or after the bomb. The guards seemed quite relaxed though. I would beep every time I went through with my backpack on but they only looked in it a few times.

Big shopping centre

I spent some time in the MBK shopping centre getting a few things sorted. I needed to get a bunch of passport photos for the upcoming visa I would need. I went to the Burmese Embassy to get my visa sorted for Myanmar. I wasn’t going just yet but the next time I would be in Bangkok would be for as short amount of time as possible. The place I went to get my photos was at a proper photography place. It was a little weird, it was like being in a mini photoshoot.

Friends!

A few days passed before Stephen and Breanne arrived back in Bangkok. We had originally intended to meet in Koh Tao but they had messed up their travel itinerary and didn’t want to go back on themselves.

There was a slight disaster when we tried to meet in the city the night they arrived back. We didn’t really pick a rendezvous point and they had left the Wi-Fi so I couldn’t get in contact with them. I left a message telling them to meet me at one of the stations of the skyrail. I hadn’t anticipated that it would be extremely busy or that there would be 8 different exits! My battery lasted just long enough to tell them to meet be by one of the exits but I had no way of knowing if they had got any of my messages. I had waited around for about 2 hours before giving up. I thought they would do the same. I went and got some food nearby. I went back to the station to get the train back to my hostel and I saw them waiting for me. Oops!

Off on a train

All was well though and we arranged to meet the next day for a day trip to Ayutthaya. It’s the ancient capital of Thailand and is about an hour north of Bangkok. Well in theory. It actually took over 2 hours to get there by train. Once we arrived we hired some scooters and explored the temples.

Temple, Buddha, Pagoda

Very old

Got stuck

The first place we went to was Wat Mahathat. There was a Buddha head in one of trees. The story goes that a couple hundred years ago the head fell of a statue and rolled its way into some trees roots. It just so happened to land perfectly upright and facing outwards. I’m a bit sceptical about this story.

Groupie

Elephants!

We saw a few elephants giving people rides. Well I should say I saw elephants that were forced to give people rides. It’s becoming more well-known that the Thai mistreat elephants in some places for the enjoyment of tourists and making money. Still it was the first time I’d seen these kind of elephants.

Bigger Temple

Soaking in the history

Ayutthaya was once the biggest city in the world before it was destroyed by the Burmese in the 18^th century. They destroyed almost all the Buddha statues but the temples are still standing. They are impressive to see. You can see how much Stephen and I were appreciating the history of the place in that picture.

Wat's that?

Big Buddha

Driving around on the scooters was pretty easy. The last time I had one is in Bali and after driving there I feel like I could probably deal with anything. Stephen and Breanne shared one. They had a bit of an accident when trying to turn around. The back wheel slipped on the gravel and sent them both to the floor. It wasn’t serious though. Stephen had a scraped knee and Breanne was completely fine.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

The big temple

Impressive

We saved the best temples until last. Wat Chaiwatthanaram was the biggest one of the lot and quite a mouthful to say. It was a little bit more of a drive and we lost each other along the way. It would have been quite bad had we not been able to find each other again.

Huge Buddha

Many people praying

We drove back across town to have a quick look at a huge Buddha statue where we found a large number people praying. We didn’t look around too much as we decided to get the earlier train back to the city so that we could go out for a drink.

Drinking!

It took more than 2 hours for the train to get back into Bangkok so we were suitably staving by the time we arrived on Khao San Rd. I thought it would be a good place to eat as then we could go out after. I took them to Golf Bar as it was definitely my favourite place to go. One of the staff recognised me and said hello.

They were a bit rude this time though. The boss woman who was sat in the corner with all the money told us we couldn’t sit on a particular table because they could squeeze 5 people on so we had to squeeze ourselves onto what I consider a two person table despite the place being pretty much empty. It was made worse when one of the staff got a bit funny with Breanne because she didn’t want to order anything. I think he realised I was getting annoyed and let it pass.

The rest of the night was enjoyable though. We didn’t stay too late as we wanted to catch the last train back into the city and back to our respective hostels. It was sad to say goodbye to Stephen again and it had been nice to meet Breanne. I don’t think it will be as long as five years before I see him again though.

The next day I mostly chilled in the pool before catching the overnight train north to my next destination, Chiang Mai.

Ultimate Thailand Extension

28^th Jan – 1^st Feb 2016

Epic rain

The day after the Ultimate Tour officially ended we woke up to some horrendous rain. I would say biblical. Extremely heavy for a long time. We had a river running along in front of our rooms. I assume this is a fairly common occurrence as the dorm room doors have a little lip on them to stop the water coming in and nothing seemed to get flooded other than the road.

Mini flood

The Koh Tao Crew

Half of the Ultimate Thailand group left to go to Koh Samui but Daimi, Scott, Lee, Mirko, Jack and I stayed behind for another night in Koh Phangan. As Lee had gone to hospital the night before with an allergic reaction to some nuts, he wasn’t supposed to leave the island for 24 hours in case something happened. There was no hospital on Koh Tao. The rest of us decided to stay an extra night too so that we could wait for him and go to Koh Tao together. Hannah left for the Vietnam border to do a visa run and would meet us there.

Miserable day

So we had an unexpected extra day in Koh Phangan and there wasn’t much to do. The weather hadn’t improved that much from the morning. I went down to the beach but the tide was in and, with the wind pushing the water in too, there wasn’t any beach at all. Not that there was even any sun to enjoy. I ended up just lazing about the hostel.

Power cut

We met a few of Scott and Jacks friends who they had met in Vietnam, Beth and Brandon. They would also be coming to Koh Tao with us. We had dinner in the bar that night which was made slightly more interesting when the power went off for a little while.

Waiting for the ferry

The next morning the weather had cleared so we had a smooth crossing over to Koh Tao. We were a little lost at the pier without our tour guide to help us anymore. We weren’t convinced we were in the right place but all was well. We just had to wait.

You like ice cream?

Wait and eat ice cream. This lady wanted to be in a picture with Beth who was buying an ice cream from her.

Koh Tao

An hour later we were in Koh Tao which looked just as stunning as the tiny bit of Koh Phangan that I had seen. We were a little late but it was no big deal. We still had a few hours before the pub crawl we were planning to do started. Hannah used to work for them before she started doing Ultimate Thailand and had persuaded us to join one.

You call this a taxi?

We organised transport to our hostel which was basically a pick up truck with a couple of benches to sit on. This isn’t that unusual but there would normally be a big frame on the back too. Not just the seats.

Village streets

The beach

There was a bit of a mix up with our booking so I ended up in a more expensive dorm by myself for the first night. Once that was sorted I went for a little wander down to the beach. By the time we came back Hannah had arrived after doing her visa run and we went for an Indian. Eating as much as we did just before going on a pub crawl was a mistake. Especially as we arrived a little late.

Party time

I was still at the bar waiting for my free bucket when we were told we were moving on to the next bar. This meant I only had the 5 minute walk between bars to finish my bucket of extremely strong vodka and coke. It was hard to drink as I was so full but this was made even harder as every mouthful was like a shot, it was that strong.

Fireshow

Drinkies

We were at the second bar for much longer so I was able to drink a bit slower whilst watching the fire show. These guys were pretty good but I think they were better on Koh Phi Phi.

Ladyboy show

The pub crawl had sold out so there were 200 people to herd between bars. This number was a good amount when it came to the ladyboy show. I thought it would be good and a bit of a laugh but it was so much better than that. With everyone screaming at everything they did made for an incredible atmosphere and I’m not ashamed to admit I really enjoyed it. All of us did!

Live music going off

For some reason we went all the back to the first bar where we started and some live music had started. I’ve never seen it go off as much as it did for one guy and a guitar! He did a rap over the Game of Thrones theme tune which is possibly the best thing ever.

Party bar

Need a lighter?

We walked back down the beach to the last bar of the night which was absolutely rammed with people. It had been a good night but I had eaten too much at the start so I wasn’t getting drunk and it was hard to drink because I still felt so bloated. I watched a bit of the fire show and chatted to some people for a while before heading back to the hostel. It had still been a goof night.

Going for a walk

The next morning Lee, Daimi and I went for a walk along the path next to the beach. They wanted to buy things and I just wanted to have a look. There was some statue thing marked on a map but we couldn’t find it so we went back to meet the others before going to the beach.

Beach day

Having a swim

We spent a good few hours in and out the water all afternoon doing stupid stuff like stamping our feet on the sand in the sea to make big holes. Hannah noticed something funny while Scott was on Jacks shoulders wrestling with Brandon and Mirko. He kind of sticks his chest out like a chicken. Once she pointed it out we couldn’t stop laughing at it and before long Beth was in tears laughing so hard.

Interesting luggage handling

The next day was a long day of travelling. We said goodbye to Beth and Brandon and started our journey back to Bangkok. Taxi, boat then a bus. I watched in awe of them unloading the luggage from the boat at Krabi pier. It was a throw and catch technique that had me on edge when they picked my bag up. Its quite heavy and it would not have been happy if they had dropped it.

Take me back!

We arrived in Bangkok around midnight and my first immediate thought was ‘take me back to the beach’! I couldn’t even get off the bus because there was a man there saying “tuk tuk”, no get out of the dam way. I had enjoyed Bangkok the first time around but coming back made me hate it. All the irritations came flooding back to me and I just wanted to go back to the islands.

We checked into our hostel on the same street we were on before then went to the bar downstairs. It was nearly 2am so people were already heading home from the bars but they were still open. There was a bit of drama. We guessed that one Thai lady didn’t want to pay her bill as she was arguing with one of the waitresses. There was a waitress at our table taking a drink order but she got distracted by the arguement. Then, without warning, she grabbed a big empty bottle of Chang from our table and launched it at this woman! She missed. She started yelling at the woman and the woman yelled back. We grabbed all the bottles on the table just in case. We couldn’t believe what just happened!

The next day we mostly chilled around the hostel after a busy few days. I didn’t take any pictures of these few days for some reason. I guess its because it was just the same as before. This would be the last day of our splinter Ultimate Thailand group so we tried to make the most of it. We did the same thing we had done a fortnight before but there was a new group. We gatecrashed their party at the rooftop bar and became part of their group for the night.

It was quite funny to watch them all sit there nervously making small talk with each other. Its hard to think that our group only knew each other for such a short space of time but that first night apprehension seemed so long ago. I was almost jealous of this new group as they had all the fun to look forward to. But we had had our fun and made some great memories. We even managed to extend the fun for a few more days after the tour was done but now this really was the end.

Scott and Jack left halfway through the night to catch their flight. The rest of us parted ways the next morning. Lee and Mirko were going home, Daimi was heading for Chiang Mai and I was staying in Bangkok for a few more days. I still had a few things I wanted to do.