Thursday, May 12, 2011

Thailand, Part 1

Ever since coming to Japan for JET, Thailand has been on the top of my list for travel destinations. Up until this point, the only intra-Asia travel I had done was to Korea to visit Wallin, and let’s face it, I may very well have never made it to Korea had it not been for the added bonus of visiting my favorite emo-masochist. So shortly after arriving back from my Christmas visit to the states, I suggested a joint trip to Thailand to my friend Sarah. Unlike most of my travel ideas, this one actually came to fruition, and we spent just over a week in Thailand during late March/early April. We had grand plans of studying the language a bit before we went, but life/laziness got in the way, and we landed in the country with the phrases “hello” and “thank you” comprising our entire lexical arsenal. Thankfully gestures go a long way. Thailand is (I think) Southeast Asia’s largest tourist destination, and they certainly do a lot to put out that image, but there are certain aspects that make things more…difficult. The first, and rather unexpected, hiccup was the lack of immigration forms available at the immigration checkpoint. So this is how it’s going to be, Thailand? We ended up asking someone and they pointed us down to a far table where we managed to secure 2 of the last 3 forms on that table. And there were no other tables. Not sure how a tourist is supposed to get through immigration without forms available, but oh well. After that things went smoothly, thanks to the new Airport Link railway they had completed just last year. We simply needed to transfer to the subway at one of the stations and we would be at our hostel. Nicely done, Thailand. Hiccup #2, lack of signage at the transfer. There was a significant walk between the railway station and subway station, and while there was initial signage, it all of a sudden stops when you reach this giant busy street. We looked around confused, picked a direction that looked promising, and thankfully we were right. I was definitely impressed with the actual train and subway cars, which were both super modern, complete with LCD screens pumping obnoxious advertising the entire ride. I daresay ads in Thailand rival those in Japan for their nonsensical nature. We arrived at our hostel, collected ourselves, and then went for a random stroll in hopes of finding some tasty eats. We stumbled upon an open-air restaurant, where Sarah had an epic Pad Thai dish (which ended up being the best I’ve ever had) and I had a coconut milk-based spicy chicken curry/soup with rice. We both ordered fresh fruit shakes as well (smoothies, essentially), which became a recurring theme throughout the trip. With fruit being exorbitantly expensive in Japan, it was a welcome break to have cheap, fresh fruit in abundance.

It's in a boat!




The next day we had intended to go to the old capital city, Ayuttaya, but after riding the subway a half hour to where the bus stop was supposed to be, we found ourselves wandering around a giant park searching in vain for our phantom bus stop.



It was a nice park, so it was a decent place to get lost, and we even had a nice older couple stop and ask if we needed help. We tried to explain where we were trying to go, but apparently our pronunciation of the city name (and later, I found out, which syllable we put emphasis on) was completely off, so they had no clue what we were talking about. It was still early in the day, so we decided to bail on the old capital city for now and just do a day of sightseeing in Bangkok. We hit up the two big sights in Bangkok, Wat Pho (home of the reclining Buddha) and the Royal Palace. One thing I forgot to mention is that anytime we walked out of a train station, or even just when we were walking down the street, we would repeatedly be solicited by tuk-tuk (think moped taxi with room for two in the back) drivers with the phrase “Where you go?” Since Thailand is a society where you barter prices, this can often lead to an oppressive back and forth about the price, with it almost always ending in you getting ripped off. I don’t quite have the killer instinct to barter them down as low as possible, especially just for an extra $1 off the price. Still, neither Sarah nor I am a fan of bartering, so we often opted to walk to our destinations, much to the chagrin of the tuk-tuk drivers. Such was the case in heading to Wat Pho, which was maybe a good 40 min. walk from our hotel. And this way we got a better feel for the city of Bangkok, and its somewhat grimy streets and storefronts. Both Wat Pho and the Royal palace were absolutely breathtaking. The architecture is very unique, and they manage to do bright and overly ornate without being gaudy. It’s a fine line to walk, but they do it with style. The reclining Buddha as well was simply amazing. I’ll let the pictures do the talking since words just do not suffice.












A bit from the Royal Palace Grounds









That evening we grabbed dinner at the Hua Lamphong train station before we hopped on an overnight sleeper train to Chiang Mai. And one of the great things about Thailand is the price of food, as that dinner cost us maybe $3-4. I also discovered the oh so sugary, yet oh so yummy, Thai iced tea. I had it once before at a Thai restaurant in the states, and this was as tasty as I had remember (and about 1/5 of the price).



The night train ended up being rather eventful, thanks to a few random encounters. We ended up striking up a conversation with the lady across the aisle from us, who had apparently been working down in Antarctica not too long ago. We learned this after inquiring about how she had injured her shoulder (she was wearing a sling). It turns out she was a tour guide of sorts for these adventure trips to Antarctica, and part of her job was to drive some special land/water vehicle. When docking these things at the main ship, drivers have to release the safety strap that keeps them tethered to the vehicle. One of her crewmates accidentally put their vehicle in motion during docking and was sent flying into the cold-arse ocean. Our friend from across the isle also used to due Olympic weightlifting, so she just lifted this 200lb sopping wet dude out of the ocean with one arm. Yeah, badass. But apparently even Olympic weightlifters have limits, as that heroic act seriously screwed up her shoulder. She had six weeks with the sling and decided to do some traveling rather than waste the valuable time off work, so she came to Thailand. She also showed us her photo album from her time there. I’d like to see penguins in the wild, but Antarctica is a long way to go just for that.

We also happened to notice that in the set of seat behind us there was a group of Thai nationals along with one foreigner, who was spitting out what sounded like some impressively fluent Thai. After our Antarctic slideshow, a conversation with this mysterious foreigner coalesced organically and we found out that he was originally from California, but has been living in Bangkok for the past six years. While just stopping over in Thailand for a bit on his way home, he was offered a job teaching yoga in Bangkok, which he accepted on a whim. He apparently also does a domestic, homestay-based travel show for the Thai branch of The Travel Channel. All of his Thai buddies were the cameramen and crew. Meeting such random interesting people is one of the things I love most about traveling. It had been awhile since I’d had such an experience and it was quite refreshing.

After a surprisingly decent night’s sleep on the train, we were overwhelmed by taxi drivers upon stepping off the train in Chiang Mai. We took a taxi truck to our hostel and then walked around a bit, before hiring a taxi truck to take us up to Doi Suthep, a mountaintop temple a decent ways out of town. It took about 40 minutes to get there, with most of the trip being an uphill climb on extremely twisty mountain roads. Seeing as the back of the truck taxi is open air, it wasn’t too long before I started getting motion sickness, but I managed to hold it together thankfully. This temple had some nice views and neat murals to go along with the super ornate decoration. Outside the main temple area there were groups of younger girls performing traditional dances, so we sat and watched for a while.





Coming up next: Night market, elephant riding, and more!