Blogging this entry from a Travel Agents office on Chaweng Beach, Ko Samui :)
Yesterday morning, we got up nice and early and went to Wiang Kum Kam, bout 6 km outta Chiang Mai Inner City . This place is a bunch of ruins dating back quite some time....700 years ago..Not exactly Macchu Picchu though.. We were the only foreigners in the place..We went around a few of the ruins and were chased out of one by Soi dogs.. We walked to the Highway after getting hopelessly lost among the deserted Wats.. We finally managed to snare a Tuk tuk back into town after a long trudge in the heat... We went to the same Arabic Restaurant for lunch and we had a long chat with the Pakistani owner, who was born in Amritsar bout the travails of life in the Sub continent. Afternoon, we rode on a Songthaew to Doi Suthep and did the usual touristy stuff on the peak..After a zillion pictures of Buddha in sundry poses, we went back to the room to get some shut eye.
The hotel we were staying had a decent pool,so to do full paisa vasool, I slipped into it after a small siesta... After bout an hour in the pool, went down to the place where on Sunday we loafed aound in that amazing market and found a bunch of stray dogs and some locals loitering around in the street... The market apparently is not a perennial feature...Just a Sunday thingy...kicking myself in the butt for not having bought some of the stuff on display, thinking I could I have done it today :(
Anyways, we retired for the night after a visit to the Night Market,not exactly the same thing as the one on Ratchadamnoen Rd on Sunday...
Decided we had enough of Chiang Mai and went to the Airport early morning today on One-Two-Go Airlines from Cnx to Don Muang airport in Bkk.From there we took a shuttle into Suvarna Bhoomi and we took off for Ko Samui on Bangkok Airways flight. Had originally planned to take the chaper option of going into Surat Thani and then take a Ferry into Ko Samui. We landed in Ko Samui at about 1PM .... Kinda cute airport(if you can call an airport cute that is..)... Its completely open air and apparently run by Bangkok airways..who have the monopoly on this route.
Took a Taxi into Chaweng and checked into Silver Sands Resort... The room is a fan cooled deal..and is horribly hot, but it is made more habitable by the fact that the AC Rooms cost 3 times higher... Anyways the plan is not to spend much time in the room.
Went to an Indian Restaurant for Lunch...and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach.
Returned for a afternnon siesta and slept unti 1900... Went out and booked a boat into Angthong Marine National Park..The setting for the movie "The Beach ". Just coming off a dinner in a real cool joint, with a very hip laidback Goan ambience. 4 Margaritas and a Pizza.
Retiring for the night.
Ciao
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Thailand Diaries -Day 1
A post from Northern Thailand this one :)
Yesterday i.e 21st Apr,Sat we(Arjun and myself) left Higashimatsuyama for Narita by the 10:45 express to Ikebukuro. After a lunch in the before mentioned Nepali restaurant, we went on to Narita by the 1304 NEX to the airport. We flew outta Narita at 1825 and reached Suvarnabhoomi Airport at 12 midnight courtesy North West airlines. Since we had not bothered to update the airline with our meal preferences, we had to choose between Fish noodles and chicken..Not a difficult choice to make for a veggie :).. However, I managed to wrangle some extra slices of bread outta their pantry. Watched a British movie, Notes of a Scandal, starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett followed by The Holiday, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet et al...Decent stuff both... The turbulence for the first couple of hours was beginning to tell on my bowels..and was more than pretty relieved when we finally managed to skirt the storm.
We went out of the airport to book a hotel room for the night. But the humid hot night air hit us like a wall and we traced our footsteps back into the cooler confines of the airport.
We decided to change our initial plan of taking a night train from Bangkok's weirdly named Railway station on Sunday night and decide to take a flight into Chiang Mai early today morning. I half slept the night on a very uncomfortable bench. Early morning we bought a ticket outta Bkk to Cnx on a Air Asia flight cost us 1620 baht each . A couple of hours later at 0800 AM today, we plonked into a hotel, randomly pulled outta my trusty Lonely Planet. Don't ask me whats Top North Hotel supposed to mean. We checked in after a horrendous breakfast in a "Indian Vegetarian Restaurant" (Yup..That was the name) ...We ordered a Full Thali costing bout 90 baht,obviously famished after the North West meal debacle. My Lonely Planet(not so trusty sometimes) promised "adequate portions", which there were, but the food tasted like it had come straight outta my cookbook.. We left the place in a hurry to take a short nap, which extended pretty much into late afternoon. Finally acclimatised to the heat of Thailand(remember, I am just comin outta a Japanese winter) we ventured into the Inner City, visiting a bunch of Wats including Chiang Man Wat and Wat Phra Singh, the most popular ones, we even managed to find a Hindu Devi Temple on the outskirts of the Inner City.
As the sun set behind the hills of Chiang Mai, we went down Th Ratchadamnoen , where a superb Market sprung up outta nowhere... Today morning, there wasn't a soul in sight on these streets.. This city springs to life after sundown. So we went checking out the wares and bought some trinkets here and there. We returned to the rooms to dump the stuff and set out again at 2100 into the other side of the city walking along Th Loi Kroh. I finally bought the Che Guevara T Shirt which I have been looking for, for ages now. Dinner was an uneventful event in an Arabic Restaurant unimaginatively called Arabia. A couple of Allo Paranthas later, we came to a pub with some live moojik had a cocktail and after this blog entry, am headed straight for bed.
Btw there were these cool Paper balloons which they were playing around with around our hotel. They use a small fire to fill out the balloon and the paper lantern lifts up into the sky, looks darn pretty in the night sky....friend caught it on video.Will post later.
If not anything,the night market makes this place totally worth a visit..
its 1 AM on Monday now.Have a long day tomorrow...
Ciao
Yesterday i.e 21st Apr,Sat we(Arjun and myself) left Higashimatsuyama for Narita by the 10:45 express to Ikebukuro. After a lunch in the before mentioned Nepali restaurant, we went on to Narita by the 1304 NEX to the airport. We flew outta Narita at 1825 and reached Suvarnabhoomi Airport at 12 midnight courtesy North West airlines. Since we had not bothered to update the airline with our meal preferences, we had to choose between Fish noodles and chicken..Not a difficult choice to make for a veggie :).. However, I managed to wrangle some extra slices of bread outta their pantry. Watched a British movie, Notes of a Scandal, starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett followed by The Holiday, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet et al...Decent stuff both... The turbulence for the first couple of hours was beginning to tell on my bowels..and was more than pretty relieved when we finally managed to skirt the storm.
We went out of the airport to book a hotel room for the night. But the humid hot night air hit us like a wall and we traced our footsteps back into the cooler confines of the airport.
We decided to change our initial plan of taking a night train from Bangkok's weirdly named Railway station on Sunday night and decide to take a flight into Chiang Mai early today morning. I half slept the night on a very uncomfortable bench. Early morning we bought a ticket outta Bkk to Cnx on a Air Asia flight cost us 1620 baht each . A couple of hours later at 0800 AM today, we plonked into a hotel, randomly pulled outta my trusty Lonely Planet. Don't ask me whats Top North Hotel supposed to mean. We checked in after a horrendous breakfast in a "Indian Vegetarian Restaurant" (Yup..That was the name) ...We ordered a Full Thali costing bout 90 baht,obviously famished after the North West meal debacle. My Lonely Planet(not so trusty sometimes) promised "adequate portions", which there were, but the food tasted like it had come straight outta my cookbook.. We left the place in a hurry to take a short nap, which extended pretty much into late afternoon. Finally acclimatised to the heat of Thailand(remember, I am just comin outta a Japanese winter) we ventured into the Inner City, visiting a bunch of Wats including Chiang Man Wat and Wat Phra Singh, the most popular ones, we even managed to find a Hindu Devi Temple on the outskirts of the Inner City.
As the sun set behind the hills of Chiang Mai, we went down Th Ratchadamnoen , where a superb Market sprung up outta nowhere... Today morning, there wasn't a soul in sight on these streets.. This city springs to life after sundown. So we went checking out the wares and bought some trinkets here and there. We returned to the rooms to dump the stuff and set out again at 2100 into the other side of the city walking along Th Loi Kroh. I finally bought the Che Guevara T Shirt which I have been looking for, for ages now. Dinner was an uneventful event in an Arabic Restaurant unimaginatively called Arabia. A couple of Allo Paranthas later, we came to a pub with some live moojik had a cocktail and after this blog entry, am headed straight for bed.
Btw there were these cool Paper balloons which they were playing around with around our hotel. They use a small fire to fill out the balloon and the paper lantern lifts up into the sky, looks darn pretty in the night sky....friend caught it on video.Will post later.
If not anything,the night market makes this place totally worth a visit..
its 1 AM on Monday now.Have a long day tomorrow...
Ciao
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Wanderlust
Someday..Eventually..I hope to be a traveller and stop being a tourist.....Eventually ..Someday.
I know I will be one....I just know..
I know I will be one....I just know..
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