Thailand
See Thailand pictures here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.coshffbd&Uy=-nhr5ur&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0
12-18
After running the gauntlet of beggars on the Cambodian side of the border we made it to Thailand. There was an ATM right across the border, which was a releif because I had spent almost all of our cash. There are no ATM's in Cambodia. We hopped on a bus and went to Trat. There we got a room for the night and walked to the night market and had dinner. We can already tell Thailand is going to be tourist friendly as far as mini-marts and other western conveniences are concerned.
12-19
We woke up kind of late and then got a taxi to the pier where we got a boat to the the island of Ko Chang. There we made our way to the other end of the island to Lonely beach. We found most of the rooms were full. This is the high season for Thailand and we had to look a bit for a room. We eventually found a place that had a bamboo bungalo (not as pleasant as it sounds). It was right next to the beach. We went swimming a bit a relaxed a bit and had a great barbecue dinner that they cooked over a huge pit barbecue right next to the ocean. We retired for the evening and left our bathroom light on to scare away the bugs and rats that could be lurking around.
12-20
We wanted to rent a motorbike today, but they were all rented out. Another casualty of the high season. So we decided to walk to the next town, which is much bigger than the few hotels strung together where we are. We had to walk up some huge hills but we needed the exercise. Once in town Linh did some shopping. We bought some fruit and then saw a place selling rides on elephants. We signed up for that and rode an elephant for an hour. It was pretty cool until our elephant decided to get itself infested with red ants. The ants didn't seem to bug the elephant much, but they stung the crap out of us. Luckily the pain only lasted for a few seconds and we didn't even get the bumps you get from fire ants. The bonus to the elephant ride was that they drove us back to our hut, so we didn't have walk the hills again. For dinner we had Thai noodles and then splurged on these huge shrimp cooked on the barbecue. These shrip were approaching lobster sizes and were delicious!
12-21
We decided to leave our island paradise today and go back to Trat. We kind of like this sleepy little town where no one hassles you. We caught the speed boat ferry back to the mainland and caught a taxi to Trat. The budget taxi's here are basically a pickup truck with benches running along either side of the bed and roof over the bed of the truck. In fact the transportation of choice in Thailand appears to be the compact pick up truck. Not as many motorbikes as VN or Cambodia, a few cars, a few SUVs, loads of pick up trucks.
The last time in this city we stayed in kind of a dumpy room and had to share a bathroom (it only cost $3.75 for the night). We decided to try and upgrade a bit. We found another really nice place that is new, has its own bath and is fairly quiet. We like it a lot. It is called Pops guest house. We went walking around looking for dinner and decided to get a taste of home and eat at KFC. We haven't eaten any chicken in months due to the bird flu scare around here. Well, we feasted and, man, it was good. Hate to say it, but fried chicken is delicious. Later we went to the grocery store and bought some snacks.
One thing that I noticed that they have here and in Cambodia is a 24 hour channel on TV devoted to wrasslin (yes I spelled that correctly, I am from Georgia). Quality television at its best.
12-22
We are just taking it easy today and shopping in the markets. We are kind of biding our time until Christmas. We want to spend it in a small town near here and are going to take the bus there tommorow. We decided to stay out of the big cities until Christmas is over. It is kind of weird because we sometimes forget that Christmas is imminent. There are a few signs here and there and the occasional Christmas carol blasting out of a store front, but all in all not too much hoopla. A very different experience from the U.S.
I got my mohawk cut off tonight, I am not much of one for hair care. It was probably the quickest haircut that lady did all day!
(Note from Linh: everytime people see his mohawk, they call "Beckham". I consider that a compliment, but Brian hates being stared at)
12-23
We took the bus to Chanthaburi. This town has the biggest cathedral in Thailand and a lot of Christians so we decided it would be a good place to spend Christmas. There are also a lot of VN immigrants here, but we haven't met any yet. Another thing about this town is that almost no tourists go here. It is known as the gem capital of Thailand and there are hundreds of stores where gem deals are going down. Mostly rubies and sapphires. I have seen more rubies here than I will probably see for the rest of my life. We also found our way to a huge department store/mall. It is just like a department store back home. It even has Auntie Anne's pretzels, KFC, Pizza Hut and a movie theater in it. We wanted to see King Kong, but it is all in Thai. Maybe in Bangkok we can see some English movies. We really want to see Narnia. Anyway we did a little bit of Christmas shopping for each other and had dinner at a street market next door. The crazy thing about Thailand is that there are 7 Eleven stores everywhere. Even in the small towns. There was even a Swensen's Ice Cream parlor. Anyway there is a Christmas tree in our hotel lobbly which is nice. It's kind of weird and nice to be in a town with so few tourists.
12-24
We are just kind of relaxing today. I loosed Linh in the shopping center while I got caught up on some internet stuff. We are looking forward to a nice low-key Christmas, but miss our families a bit. We are eating entirely too much junk food in this country, but, hey, we have to do some sort of unhealthy eating for the holidays! Have A Merry Christmas Everyone!
We feasted on KFC for dinner, we even had mashed potatoes and gravy. We decided to open our presents to each other tonight as we are going to do some travelling tommorow. I hung up one of my socks full of candy and little gifts for Linh. She got me some Western comfort food, including oreos, cereal and milk, hersheys kisses, and some other things. She also bought me a new messenger bag which I desparately needed and a new shirt! I am going to buy her something at the next beach we go to. That seems to be the only place her style of clothing is sold. We has as merry a Christmas as possible but we miss our families a bit.
12-25
Christmas Day! I would like to give a shout out to Jesus for being born today giving rise to the Christmas holiday and to my Mom who was also born on Christmas day!
We woke up and walked to mass. We seemed to have taken the long way but still got there on time. We didn´t understand the Thai language but it was nice all the same. After mass we found the short way home and had some breakfast. After breakfast we packed up our stuff and got on the bus to Bangkok. That took about four hours, putting us in Bangkok about 4 pm. We got off the bus, hopped on the skytrain and rode that to the end of the line. There we got off with our packs and set out in search for another bus station so we could hop the bus to the Laos border.
We got to see a little bit of BKK on the skytrain and have plans to return later for a longer stay.
We had to walk around for about an hour with our packs on before we found the bus station. We hadn´t had to do that in a long time. It brought back memories of the beginning of our trip when we had no guide book and often found ourselves walking for hours at time with our packs.
Anyway, we eventually found the bus station and bought tickets and had to wait 2 hours for the bus to leave.
When it came time to board the bus, we found we had booked a V.I.P. bus. Up till now we had regarded Turkeys buses as the best we had been on. Well, move over Turkey and step up Thailand! This bus only had three seats per row. (ordinary bus xx_xx x=seat _ = aisle, VIP bus X_XX) as you can see with only 3 seats they can be much bigger. They looked like first class airline seats. AND they weren´t crammed right up against the seat in front of them. Lots of legroom and buttroom. Plus they brought snacks and water, kind of like airline service. Plus you get a blanket. So the 10 hour overnight trip was as nice as could be on a bus.
12-26
We arrived in Nong Khai around 5 am. We hired a tuk tuk to take us to the border. His motor was wheezing and popping and cut off once, but we eventually made it there. Unfortunately the border didn´t open until 6 am. Once it opened we checked out of Thailand with no problems and got on a bus to cross the Friendship Bridge to Loas. On to the Laos blog........
I uploaded a couple more pictures to the thailand album
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.coshffbd&Uy=-nhr5ur&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0
12-18
After running the gauntlet of beggars on the Cambodian side of the border we made it to Thailand. There was an ATM right across the border, which was a releif because I had spent almost all of our cash. There are no ATM's in Cambodia. We hopped on a bus and went to Trat. There we got a room for the night and walked to the night market and had dinner. We can already tell Thailand is going to be tourist friendly as far as mini-marts and other western conveniences are concerned.
12-19
We woke up kind of late and then got a taxi to the pier where we got a boat to the the island of Ko Chang. There we made our way to the other end of the island to Lonely beach. We found most of the rooms were full. This is the high season for Thailand and we had to look a bit for a room. We eventually found a place that had a bamboo bungalo (not as pleasant as it sounds). It was right next to the beach. We went swimming a bit a relaxed a bit and had a great barbecue dinner that they cooked over a huge pit barbecue right next to the ocean. We retired for the evening and left our bathroom light on to scare away the bugs and rats that could be lurking around.
12-20
We wanted to rent a motorbike today, but they were all rented out. Another casualty of the high season. So we decided to walk to the next town, which is much bigger than the few hotels strung together where we are. We had to walk up some huge hills but we needed the exercise. Once in town Linh did some shopping. We bought some fruit and then saw a place selling rides on elephants. We signed up for that and rode an elephant for an hour. It was pretty cool until our elephant decided to get itself infested with red ants. The ants didn't seem to bug the elephant much, but they stung the crap out of us. Luckily the pain only lasted for a few seconds and we didn't even get the bumps you get from fire ants. The bonus to the elephant ride was that they drove us back to our hut, so we didn't have walk the hills again. For dinner we had Thai noodles and then splurged on these huge shrimp cooked on the barbecue. These shrip were approaching lobster sizes and were delicious!
12-21
We decided to leave our island paradise today and go back to Trat. We kind of like this sleepy little town where no one hassles you. We caught the speed boat ferry back to the mainland and caught a taxi to Trat. The budget taxi's here are basically a pickup truck with benches running along either side of the bed and roof over the bed of the truck. In fact the transportation of choice in Thailand appears to be the compact pick up truck. Not as many motorbikes as VN or Cambodia, a few cars, a few SUVs, loads of pick up trucks.
The last time in this city we stayed in kind of a dumpy room and had to share a bathroom (it only cost $3.75 for the night). We decided to try and upgrade a bit. We found another really nice place that is new, has its own bath and is fairly quiet. We like it a lot. It is called Pops guest house. We went walking around looking for dinner and decided to get a taste of home and eat at KFC. We haven't eaten any chicken in months due to the bird flu scare around here. Well, we feasted and, man, it was good. Hate to say it, but fried chicken is delicious. Later we went to the grocery store and bought some snacks.
One thing that I noticed that they have here and in Cambodia is a 24 hour channel on TV devoted to wrasslin (yes I spelled that correctly, I am from Georgia). Quality television at its best.
12-22
We are just taking it easy today and shopping in the markets. We are kind of biding our time until Christmas. We want to spend it in a small town near here and are going to take the bus there tommorow. We decided to stay out of the big cities until Christmas is over. It is kind of weird because we sometimes forget that Christmas is imminent. There are a few signs here and there and the occasional Christmas carol blasting out of a store front, but all in all not too much hoopla. A very different experience from the U.S.
I got my mohawk cut off tonight, I am not much of one for hair care. It was probably the quickest haircut that lady did all day!
(Note from Linh: everytime people see his mohawk, they call "Beckham". I consider that a compliment, but Brian hates being stared at)
12-23
We took the bus to Chanthaburi. This town has the biggest cathedral in Thailand and a lot of Christians so we decided it would be a good place to spend Christmas. There are also a lot of VN immigrants here, but we haven't met any yet. Another thing about this town is that almost no tourists go here. It is known as the gem capital of Thailand and there are hundreds of stores where gem deals are going down. Mostly rubies and sapphires. I have seen more rubies here than I will probably see for the rest of my life. We also found our way to a huge department store/mall. It is just like a department store back home. It even has Auntie Anne's pretzels, KFC, Pizza Hut and a movie theater in it. We wanted to see King Kong, but it is all in Thai. Maybe in Bangkok we can see some English movies. We really want to see Narnia. Anyway we did a little bit of Christmas shopping for each other and had dinner at a street market next door. The crazy thing about Thailand is that there are 7 Eleven stores everywhere. Even in the small towns. There was even a Swensen's Ice Cream parlor. Anyway there is a Christmas tree in our hotel lobbly which is nice. It's kind of weird and nice to be in a town with so few tourists.
12-24
We are just kind of relaxing today. I loosed Linh in the shopping center while I got caught up on some internet stuff. We are looking forward to a nice low-key Christmas, but miss our families a bit. We are eating entirely too much junk food in this country, but, hey, we have to do some sort of unhealthy eating for the holidays! Have A Merry Christmas Everyone!
We feasted on KFC for dinner, we even had mashed potatoes and gravy. We decided to open our presents to each other tonight as we are going to do some travelling tommorow. I hung up one of my socks full of candy and little gifts for Linh. She got me some Western comfort food, including oreos, cereal and milk, hersheys kisses, and some other things. She also bought me a new messenger bag which I desparately needed and a new shirt! I am going to buy her something at the next beach we go to. That seems to be the only place her style of clothing is sold. We has as merry a Christmas as possible but we miss our families a bit.
12-25
Christmas Day! I would like to give a shout out to Jesus for being born today giving rise to the Christmas holiday and to my Mom who was also born on Christmas day!
We woke up and walked to mass. We seemed to have taken the long way but still got there on time. We didn´t understand the Thai language but it was nice all the same. After mass we found the short way home and had some breakfast. After breakfast we packed up our stuff and got on the bus to Bangkok. That took about four hours, putting us in Bangkok about 4 pm. We got off the bus, hopped on the skytrain and rode that to the end of the line. There we got off with our packs and set out in search for another bus station so we could hop the bus to the Laos border.
We got to see a little bit of BKK on the skytrain and have plans to return later for a longer stay.
We had to walk around for about an hour with our packs on before we found the bus station. We hadn´t had to do that in a long time. It brought back memories of the beginning of our trip when we had no guide book and often found ourselves walking for hours at time with our packs.
Anyway, we eventually found the bus station and bought tickets and had to wait 2 hours for the bus to leave.
When it came time to board the bus, we found we had booked a V.I.P. bus. Up till now we had regarded Turkeys buses as the best we had been on. Well, move over Turkey and step up Thailand! This bus only had three seats per row. (ordinary bus xx_xx x=seat _ = aisle, VIP bus X_XX) as you can see with only 3 seats they can be much bigger. They looked like first class airline seats. AND they weren´t crammed right up against the seat in front of them. Lots of legroom and buttroom. Plus they brought snacks and water, kind of like airline service. Plus you get a blanket. So the 10 hour overnight trip was as nice as could be on a bus.
12-26
We arrived in Nong Khai around 5 am. We hired a tuk tuk to take us to the border. His motor was wheezing and popping and cut off once, but we eventually made it there. Unfortunately the border didn´t open until 6 am. Once it opened we checked out of Thailand with no problems and got on a bus to cross the Friendship Bridge to Loas. On to the Laos blog........
I uploaded a couple more pictures to the thailand album
posted by BananaCreamPie | 4:57 AM
4 Comments:
God forgive us for exporting wrasslin to these poor unsuspecting souls
So, they have elephants over there that can drive??? That's what i call advanced animal training!
proper grammar be for nerds
-Brian
MERRY XMAS!!!!!!!
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