Posts From Thailand

In yesterdays post I forgot to explain the Shompoo in the title. Not surprisingly it is the name of the Tour Company that runs the cruise. The boats resident guide made a point of telling us that is was not "Shampoo", and that it was the word for "pink" which was the color of the soft furnishings on the boat.

This is our only day in Chiang Rai and we were scheduled to see "some temples" and an "old house". But as it turned out this was a very inadequate description. But before starting on our tourism activities for the day the first 2 photos are of a plant at our hotel called a Cannon Ball Tree

There is not much to say today. We were able to relax at the hotel this morning awaiting our 13:00 pickup for a drive of about 3.5 hours to the city of Chiang Mai. The quality of the roads were a positive surprise and as much of the drive is through mountains also scenic and interesting. As it turned out our hotel in Chiang Mai is downtown, just outside the large square area of the old royal city. It is Banthai Village

Today was billed as one of the highlights of this trip and so it turned out. We visited one of the 100s of Elephant Sanctuaries in the Chiang Mai area and really did not know what to expect. At a roadside cafe overlooking a vibrant fruit and veg garden we met our host Dom and after a short wait and coffee we got started with a ride of 10-15 minutes on a bamboo raft which took us to the Elephant Sanctuary. Later in the day we would discover that these rafts are a popular afternoon entertainment with the local young set, and by the time we finished our elephant visit, many groups of locals were riding rafts and stopping for beer and food at one of the many riverside impromptu cafes.

Today was a sort-of city tour and started at two inner city markets. The first was the wholesale food market and the second a large drygoods market. As is typical with such market visits we got to see all the obvious foods as well as some not so obvious.

Arriving in Bangkok was a bit of a culture shock, it is a big city (almost 11 million) and with traffic that is widely known for being terrible. Even at mid day it lived up to that reputation and our drive from the airport was full of waiting and then darting.

I have to admit to being a bit slack today as I declined the days tourist activity and sent Nina along with our guide Saruda out on their own to partake of the "city tour by walking and public transport".

Today was programmed as a rest day for us older people. We spent it mostly lazing around the hotel with a few short excursions when we got bored. These included near by Santi Chai Prakan Park and Fort

Today could have been called a "day of waiting", a not unusual situation when travelling. The task today was to fly from Paro, Bhutan to an airport hotel in Bangkok to be in a position to catch a late afternoon flight to Sydney tomorrow. Because the flight was international we had to be at the airport at least 3 hours before flight time. Thus we left the hotel at 9:00am, arrived at the airport 9:20am (Paro is a small town and traffic is/was light). The airport is small with few flights and small planes, so by 9:45 we were checked in, through immigration and security and just waiting. Of course the flight was delayed to 12:15.

Another fast start today. Out of the hotel at 9:00 for a 10:00 train to Pandang Besar, a border town between Malaysia and Thailand, where we do border processing and pickup a night train to Bangkok. That all sounds pretty straight forward and certainly the first train was. A modern Euro-style electric train that went as fast as 150km/h. There were a lot of stops along the way and a significant number of locals getting on and off. There was not much to see during the ride because of heavy jungle close to the track that obscured ones vision. Where a view became available one noticed that palm oil forests were still plentiful but compared to yesterday there were now more rice fields. Late in this leg we saw a number of large limestone outcroppings, each attended by its own cement factory.

Despite the antique nature of the sleeping carriage Nina and I got a good nights sleep. By about 7:30 activity in the carriage picked up with passengers going through their morning rituals and merchants walking through selling various foods (almost non of which I could recognize) and drinks. About 1 hour before the schedued arrival in Bangkok the cabin staff started the process of returning the carriage to its day-time seated configuration which in addition required the rolling up and collection of all the bedding. Quite a process to witness.

As you can see time has got away from me and it is already day 4 of the trip and this is my first post. So let me give you a quick catch up.

Today we had our first excursioin ashore. The location was an Island called Ko Samui and our excursion was a tour was over the islands main mountain and return along the coast. Our transport was sitting in the back of a Toyota HiLux 4x4. Fortunately the cargo area of these vehicles was fitted out with seats and canvas roof.

Today was our first full day at sea and it should have been a relaxing day, but it was not. We discovered last night that we had failed to bring along the full supply of one of the drugs that I take every day. So I spent much of the day trying to arrange a doctors appointment in Singapore which is where we will stop on the 24th and 25th.

Again today we arrived in port at dawn, this time the port of Phuket in Thailand. The similarity to yesterday continued after docking as todays excursion was also to an area named Phang Nga Bay, which is also renowned for its limestone pinnacles standing in the ocean and often surrounded by mangrove forests. This bay is also the home of James Bond Island which was featured in the movie The Man With The Golden Gun. The local name of the island in question is Khao Phing Kan