Cycles in Sukhothai, Thailand

There are a lot of temples in Thailand.  After temple number 3 you can get weirdly used to achingly beautiful craftsmanship, huge Buddha statues and minutely detailed gleaming spires of gold.

Therefore, it might seem strange that on our way north to traveller magnet Chiang Mai we put aside a few days to see a whole city full of temples. But that's because these are some dilapidated temple ruins from a bygone kingdom which nature is taking over and we thought that sounded cool.

And it was. The ruined city of Old Sukhothai is half an hour on a bus away from New Sukhothai where we stayed. Back in the good old 13th century it was the affluent capital of a large kingdom encompassing much of what is now Thailand. So we hired out a couple of bygone era bicycles and got going on some map aided exploration. This turned out to be a refreshingly free way to get about in our own time. Also, everything was exceptionally photogenic.

We so enjoyed our ride around the Old City that we decided to book a mountain bike countryside tour for the following day. Our guide was Mam, who along with her Belgian husband has been running tours with Cycling Sukhothai for more than 10 years. She had amazing knowledge of the rural industry and landscape. I always assumed that stuff was added to sticky and jasmine rice to make it sticky or jasmine-y - but no, these are apparently just a couple of the hundred-or-so varieties of rice grown in Thailand.

Mam took us along tiny back roads and farm tracks which we wouldn't have dared venture on for fear of trespassing/getting hopelessly lost. As a result we saw a completely new bit of Thailand in which there were no tuk-tuks and no other tourists. She knows every single person and so we got smiles and waves from many children and peoples. Between reapplications of sunscreen we were shown the ins and outs of fishing, fish drying, fish smoking, rice drying, rice whiskey production, rice paddy field preparation, cock fight training and Buddhist temple life!

Top: Jon struggling on a "Japanese Buffalo"

Bottom: Me catching a fish all by myself

Top: Taken before the coconut was spilt on a monk.

Bottom: The cocks' diet includes a red bull substitute. 

Apparently if you already have wings then red bull makes you a badass fighting machine.

As we'd by chance arrived in town during a Buddhist festival, there were also long boat races between rival villages. Some of this we were invited to watch from on top of a kind lady's pickup truck. Some we were invited to watch from the VIP area where we were photographed like awkward celebs. Some we saw while Mam made us dance with the cheerleaders!

Later in the day we got to jam grooves out with a monks' procession band before they headed out alms gathering. Some elderly gentlemen at the temple then invited us to eat with them. It felt rude to decline even though we had just had lunch - and snacks - so we soldiered on like true hobbits. The food is donated for the monks, and after they have eaten anyone else is free to have some.

Top left: An offering to the God of music involving whisky and cigarettes!

The festivities spilled into the evening so after the tour we went back to New Sukhothai which had been turned into a fairground. There were Thai families from miles around enjoying games and snacks, so we wandered around soaking in the good vibes.

All the fun of the fair

All in all it was a very successful little stop off - although we're not in a rush to see more temples anytime soon.

- Kath

Chilling out in Koh Chang, Thailand

Koh Chang, or "Elephant Island" in English, is thus called because it looks like an elephant from above (only if you squint, though). It's 170 miles South-East of busy Bangkok and is lined with sleepy tropical beaches and filled with dense rainforest. We went for a couple of days on the beach but ended up staying for a week and a half.

Getting there was a mite stressful as our minibus, which we believed was taking us all the way to Koh Chang, dropped us off in a nearby town called Trat just an hour before the last ferry was departing. A taxi was waiting for us and wanted a good chunk of our money to take us to the pier. As time was running out we allowed ourselves to be ripped off and then the heavens opened and slabs of water fell from the sky. This made for an ominous introduction to the island as, once thankfully on the ferry, we approached the fog coated monolithic land mass in a scene which felt unnervingly like the introduction to the movie Shutter Island.

Sitting at Cafe del Sunshine in Lonely Beach

The omens were false. We arrived at Lonely Beach with our rain macs and no reservations and were approached quickly with an offer for a cheap little private bungalow treehouse at "Easy House" where, if you like, you can stay one month or two; it doesn't matter. It's Easy. This quickly felt like home and when we weren't watching lizards catch insects from our hammock, we were relaxing with other travelers or semi-permanent residents who had still not got around to leaving. This led to a few guitar playing sessions and even some birthday barbeque action.

Wooden walkways to the bungalow at Easy House

After the day of rain there was over a week of glorious sunshine. The island looked completely lush from the rain and we explored it on a cheap as chips (literally) rented moped. There are many waterfalls and jungle walks on the island. Some we visited by ourselves and to one waterfall we went with Sergei, May and Faa from the guesthouse for a little swim (and a fall down some rocks).

Out on mopeds!

Although we stopped at Lonely Beach, which is peaceful if a bit trendy, there are various other beaches which are slightly more towered over by concrete resorts. Klong Koi in the South of the island, however, turns out to be ridiculously lovely. All views were postcard perfect making us feel weirdly guilty as if we weren't supposed to be there. A splash about in the warm sea and a mango shake made us feel better though. Until we got sunburn from inadequate use of sunscreen. That was silly.

Klong Koi - Ridiculous

Evenings at Lonely Beach involve seriously good food and some pretty decent entertainment. Loud dance beats go on until the early hours, but the bars Stone Free and Ting Tongs have live acoustic music and reggae bands respectively. Ting Tongs also has the worst pool table in the world which is more tape than table. The food is all incredibly fresh, especially the seafood; and it would be hard to recommend just one place to eat. I found that I particularly enjoy the Thai dish "Pad Ka Pao" (minced spicy pork with holy basil) and Kath got to liking lots of "Tom Kha" (spicy coconut milk soup with galangal).

Lonely Beach. It is nice.

We were getting lazy so, for thrills, we went to the Treetop Adventure Park; a series of high wire obstacles over a vertigo inducing drop with a view of the distant islands at sea. It was pretty hard work and for a heights wimp like me, the giant zip lines, terrifyingly unstable platforms and requirement to jump into the void trusting only your harness was definitely shocking. Some of the more fun obstacles included riding a high wires skateboard, bicycle and hammock. Great fun.

We left the island without tans (thanks to sunburn) and no wiser about Thai culture. It was a great holiday, though, and hopefully we'll get to go back before it's all concreted over.

- Jon

Thai style ice cream van!!

Khao Yai National Park, Thailand

Khao Yai is a huge area of tropical rainforest to the North East of Bangkok. The forest is pretty much untouched because it covers a high plateau (Khao Yai means big mountain). There are lots of different species living there so we planned to go on a guided trek to see what we could see! (Faye recommended this - thanks Faye).

View across the forest

Getting there was pretty intense - 6 hours on 3 buses with truly torrential rain just in time for us to get completely soaked (definitely the rainy season) waiting for the final pick up to Greenleaf guesthouse.

The trek day was amazing. We were in a super-friendly group with 4 French and 2 Chinese people, the weather was mostly great and our guide was a veritable Thai Steve Irwin who could snatch an invisible chameleon from amongst leaf litter and send a scorpion to sleep with his bare hands. Thanks to him we saw snakes, gibbons(!), lizards and insects which we would have otherwise blithley walked straight past. There were also whole families of macaques, deer and large monitor lizards which we saw from the sorngtaaou (pick-up truck with 2 benches in the back). We were out for 11 hours and it was marvelous.

In the jungle

The accommodation was simple and it was the first try of the mosquito net to keep out the forest nasties. There was also no hot water which meant dancing furiously in the cold shower. However we toughed it out and Greenleaf's cafe made up for it by providing good food and space for impromptu card games with our fellow trekkers.

Hornbill (top left), steep stairs, deer and a snake in the sorngtaaou

The day after our trek we didn't much feel like heading straight back to Bangkok, so instead we stopped in the nearby town Pak Chong which, to be honest, is a bit like Doncaster during the day. However, we found a market down a back alley which was quite exciting. It was closely packed with fruit, clothing, flowers and sweet stalls but still used for 2 way scooter traffic.  There were no other foreigners about and we had a couple of awkward transactions to get bananas and noodles so decided we will need to read up on our Thai!

Spider with a Mexican Day of the Dead style skull pattern

In the evening Pak Chong was transformed into a full on bustling festive market which was much easier to navigate. There were still no other tourists but we got some tasty street food and some fresh waffles within the friendly evening glow by using a combination of very basic Thai and hand gestures. As we never expected this we never brought the camera which was a shame as it looked lovely.

The following day we got a minibus back to Bangkok which is definitely the best way to travel quickly and in comfort.

- Kath

Baby macaque descent technique

Scorpion!!

Baby macaque dodges truck

Flying Start in Bangkok, Thailand

I suddenly became violently ill on the morning of the journey, so it all started with Kath dragging my vomiting carcass along for three train rides and three flights over a 24 hour period en route to Bangkok. Which was kind of her. The first couple of days were far from joyous but thankfully I recovered in time to appreciate South East Asia's 'Big Mango'.

We stayed for a few nights at Lamphu House which is a little slice of relaxing paradise just down an alley from the never ending bustle of Khao San road. You can sip Thai iced tea under a coconut tree in their courtyard. And that is rather nice.

Lamphu House

Khao San road itself is backpacker central, filled with travelers from all over the world and even more people trying to sell them everything from meat on a stick to elephant-motif trousers. There's a great buzz to the place and it's a lot of easy going fun for a couple of days. We saw a brilliant trainwreck of a band down on sister street Rambuttri where a self proclaimed rock god drowned out his band in a series of blown out classic rock covers. Most music here is for the easy party-ers with competing "4 on the floor" bass drums quaking the very foundation of the streets, but there is good music to be found.

We saw a couple of great alt rock bands ("Shoot the dog" and "Basement Tapes") which were a Sky Train and Metro ride away. The Sky Train is an elevated track above central Bangkok while the Metro goes underground. The train system really puts the English rail system to shame with it's ease of use. The bands played at Cosmic Cafe which is in the clubby bit of Bangkok. They came on a fashionable 2 hours late which was fine as we were a fashionable hour and a half late.

Shoot the Dog melting some faces

To get some culture into the balance we visited Wat Pho, a temple complex housing a ridiculously huge reclining Buddha statue; and also the post-war home of Jim Thompson, an American who promoted Thai silk to the west and built his house from salvaged examples of traditional architecture. Both were pretty fascinating, as was finding our way around the city to them on foot.

Wat Pho - Temple Stuffs

The food. First off the street food here is amazing. Some meals have cost the equivalent of just one tiny sterling pound and are super fresh and tasty. The restaurants are good too with the standout being Cabbages and Condoms, visited due to many a recommendation. Its food is guaranteed not to make you pregnant and proceeds support family planning and population control. Its food is also eye wateringly lovely and you eat it under a lit canopy of tropical trees.

Cabbages & Condoms

You do have to be careful of scams in Bangkok. We unknowingly got charged thrice over the going rate for a tuk tuk ride on one day. For this we had an extra special ride though with overtaking on the opposite side of the road and ad hoc races against scores of rush hour motorbikes. Our driver seemed to instantly fall asleep whenever we stopped for a mere moment which was both amusing and alarming.  For a calmer, cheaper journey; just use a meter taxi.

As a proper scam we were approached by a very friendly chap in a park who told us he knew of a pier where we could get a discounted boat ride should we asked for a Thai ticket, as foreigners usually have to pay full whack. Handily a tuk tuk nearby conveniently knew of the pier and took us there on the cheap. At the unmarked pier we were greeted with wide smiles and cheer and immediately asked if we wanted a Thai ticket. Nothing suspicious so far; so we asked for the price and found it was about the cost of 4 nights accommodation. At this point our stupid goggles fell off and we felt really silly. Thankfully we escaped before we bought a ticket.

Lastly, because this post is getting epic I'll quickly mention Escape Hunt which is a super fun, albeit expensive, couple of hours. It's an interesting game where you're put in a room and have to find objects and decipher clues - some involving maths and translation - all against the clock to solve a crime. It's surprisingly difficult and requires a lot of lateral as well as literal thinking. We weren't very good at it needed a lot of help from one of the Sherlock Holmes styled Thai guides. It is actually quite a lot like the computer game Fez which we also weren't very good at.

Dopey detectives

Bangkok really is a city that sleeps very little if at all. Sorry for the long post; hope it was interesting!

- Jon

Little Intro Post

This blog is here because Kath and Jon, as we refer to ourselves, have quit our jobs and gone traveling around South East Asia. That seemed to be worth writing a blog about so that's what this is.

To give a little background; we're both English and love tea. Jon has spent a great deal of adult life neck deep in spreadsheets and appreciates a finely tuned routine. Kath has lived for a year in Japan previously with Uni and has been keen to travel ever since. But Kath isn't dragging Jon around the world unwillingly - he wants to get out of the rat race for a bit and see more of things.

So around 12 months ago we decided to save up as much as possible and then quit our jobs, move out of our flat and go traveling. And now we're in Thailand with just a backpack of belongings each, no return ticket and not much of a plan! So we'll let you know how that goes...

Us