At long last, I've put together the tale of our adventures in Southeast Asia. We visited four countries (Kazakhstan, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia), in two weeks - definitely one of our most ambitious journeys so far. I've broken down the trip into 4 parts to make it easier to digest. You can find links to all of the other parts at the bottom of each page as well as the link to all the pictures.
You may remeber that our trip got off to a rocky start. The first snowfall of the season hit Dushanbe the day we were supposed to leave so we spent the first day of vacation at home drinking hot chocolate and playing board games - not really a bad deal. They next day all was well and our flight took off right on time. We got in our Fokker 50 (I kid you not) and off we went.
One benefit of the snow delay was that it afforded some beautiful snowy views on our flight from Dushanbe to Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan.
Many people rave about Almaty and what a wonderful place it is - but Stephanie and I didn't really feel the love. Perhaps it was the location of our hotel or the fact that it was absolutely frigid, but we weren't impressed. We spent the early evening wandering around and saw a guy in a rabbit suit smoking a cigarette (doubtless part of the new year's celebration - it's the year of the rabbit in Central Asia as well as in China).
We made our way to an impressive looking group of buildings, which turned out to be a single glass-clad monstrosity with nothing interesting in them.
Nonetheless, we managed to have some laughs.
We had a hard time even finding a restaurant, but lucked out just as we were getting back to our hotel. We found a very modern looking restaurant/microbrewery where we had some good bar food and a horse steak. I mean, we had to try something local and horse is about as local as it gets in Kazakhstan. Thus warmed and refreshed, we went back to the hotel for a brief sleep before heading back to the airport for the rest of our trip.
We spent a brief, but very uncomfortable period of time waiting on the tarmac in sub-zero temperatures before we got on the plane, but once aboard we had a very comfortable trip. One of my favorite aspects of the flight was that we flew over the Himalayas, which is probably one of the best ways to see them.
Our arrival in Bangkok was surprisingly disappointing. We spent over an hour in line for passport control - the longest I can remember in any of the countries we visited. Considering that it's such a big tourist destination, we would have expected more efficiency - even Dushanbe isn't nearly that slow. Our troubles weren't finished when we got through customs. Our bags had been pulled off the carousel because it took us so long to get through, but then our guide wasn't there to meet us as expected.
It took several calls to our travel agency and about another 20 minutes before a suspicious looking man showed up and led us to a van. Then it took us about another hour to find the hotel because the driver didn't know where it was. We kept asking him to call the travel agent, but he just kept calling information, which didn't know where the hotel was either. Finally I insisted that he call the travel agent and he was able to find the hotel in about five minutes. Not the portents of a great vacation.
After arriving at our hotel, we took a deep breath and set about improving on our experiences so far. The hotel was nice and in a good area.
We found a fruit stand and stocked up on exotic choices like rose apples, dragon fruit, and mangosteens. Ah, the long-awaited mangosteen. I read an article a few years ago about mangosteens and how delicious they are and had been pining for them ever since. I've encountered them a couple of times, but the price was always prohibitive - over $10 for one in China! Here, in Thailand, I was able to get three for a dollar even though they were out of season. We also found a little street-side restaurant where we had our first taste of authentic pad thai, accompanied by duck curry, Singha beer, and fresh coconut juice. Things were looking up.
We spent the rest of the night exploring and eventually found the night market. There was a lot of cheap souvenirs, but also a number of items that we were very interested in and we had to use a great deal of discipline to not start buying everything in sight. We were also frequently approached with offers to see various sex shows. Lady shows, boy shows, lady-boy shows, and ping-pong shows were all on the menu. We politely declined and returned to our hotel with a couple of souvenirs.
The next morning we were slated to join a group tour to the floating market, but they showed up almost a half hour late. We were beginning to wonder if this was some sort of theme. We quickly forgot our annoyance however, once the tour got underway. Not least because of the funny stickers in the van. No smoking seems pretty easy to enforce, but I don't know how they would handle the other one...
On our way, we stopped at a place where they demonstrated the process of making sugar from coconut flowers-
- and a small orchid farm.
Then we got into our long boat and headed for the floating market.
It was neat riding through the narrow canals and seeing peoples houses on stilts in the water.
The floating market itself was mostly a tourist trap, but still interesting.
While most of our group paid extra to be hand-paddled around the market, we sampled a variety of culinary options available to us. Little ladies were serving delicacies like coconut pancakes and noodle soups out of their boats and one lady had the best hard-boiled eggs either of us had ever had.
We also sampled more fruits like pomelo and, of course, more mangosteen.
After the floating market, some of our group went to see a monkey show. It wasn't included in our package so we entertained ourselves by watching a baby elephant that was across the street.
After that, we separated from our group for a private tour of the grand palace. I had to rent a pair of very fashionable pants to put over my shorts to see the palace-
- but it was well worth it once we got inside.
Incredible is really the only word to describe it. It was like something out of a fairy tale with temples covered in gold and colored glass, statues of demons and gods-
- and colorful murals depicting the founding myth of Thailand, which is adapted from Hindu lore that traveled to the region from India.
Although Thailand is primarily Buddhist, there is a rich intermingling of Hindu beliefs as well, as both religions arrived in the region around the same time. The palace is really mind-blowing because everywhere you turn, there is some incredible monument or building.
We got to see the emerald buddha - believed to be over 2,500 years old and carved from a single piece of jade that's almost 3 feet tall.
It was with a great deal of reluctance that we left the palace as the sun began to set and returned to our hotel for another evening in Bangkok.
We availed ourselves of 30-minute head, neck, and shoulder massages and had a nice dinner. As we explored, we did some shopping and found these horrifyingly excited mannequins.
On our way home from the night market, we passed a tailor shop that advertised suits made in 12 hours. I've heard from many people about the great benefits of getting custom-made clothes in Thailand and decided to check it out, more from curiosity than anything else. By the time we left the store, I had ordered a suit and four dress shirts and the man asked us to come back in three hours to try them on. I really agonized over whether I had done the right thing - we were leaving Bangkok the next morning, what if the clothes didn't fit or were poorly made?
I was somewhat relieved when we went back and the pants and shirt fit perfectly. The tailor promised to have the suit delivered during the night and gave me his card in case I was unhappy. When I woke up, the suit was at the reception desk. I tried it on and was not disappointed. Pretty amazing.
After a nice breakfast, our guide picked us up for a trip north to the ancient former capital of Ayuthaya. On the way we stopped at the summer palace, which is an odd amalgam of buildings in different styles from around the world. We saw a large monitor lizard and a topiary in the shape of elephants-
- before visiting the China building -
- and the Portuguese lighthouse.
We paused for a picture by an artificial pond stocked with turtles and snakehead fish (the same kind that invaded the Potomac river a few years ago.
On our way to lunch we stopped at a still-active temple, where Stephanie got to ring the gong for good luck.
We also got some great views by climbing the steep temple stairs.
For lunch, we went to a good-quality buffet, where we ate snakehead fish soup and sampled colorful jelly deserts.
Well stuffed, we spent the afternoon visiting incredible temple ruins, dating back hundreds of years.
Ayuthaya was the capital of Thailand until about 400 years ago, when the Khmer empire (now Cambodia) sacked the city. Behind one of the temples, there was a little market selling local snacks that we could try, like pork jerky, crispy fried fish skins-
- and some stuff made from sugar that looked like hair and that we ate wrapped in a little pancake-
- then went to see some more ruins.
The fact that the remains are so incredible makes you wonder how amazing this place must have been when it was new.
As the day was waning, we saw a local Christian church and stopped by to check it out - it's always neat to see how religions get interpreted slightly different in different places.
We finished up the day by visiting the remains of the Portugese settlement. Apparently, the King at one point gave different countries small plots of land to set up 'colonies' on the outskirts of the capital. At the Portuguese colony, we visited a cemetery that's been excavated and saw the remains there.
We also discovered a jack-fruit tree, but the fruits weren't ripe yet.
Our guide then took us to the train station where we would later take an overnight train to northern Thailand.
We had some time to kill so we found a place for a massage. It was one of the strangest massages we've ever had - it took us many times to explain that we just wanted our backs and shoulders done and the people doing the massages climbed all over us. When it was finished, the guy tried to double the price and threatened to call the police if we didn't pay. We called his bluff and paid the original price we agreed to, but by then we were almost out of time. We found a quick dinner and rushed back to the train station. Of course, the train was late so we ended up sitting around at the station anyway.
Getting on the train was an interesting process. There were guards at the station who looked at our tickets and then positioned us along the track in the exact spot where our car would be. We were pleased to find we had a room to ourselves and surprised when someone came in to make the beds. Even without the snoring companions we had in China, sleep doesn't come easily in a moving train, but we did OK and by morning we were in Chiang Mai.
Our day in Chiang Mai was mainly spent at an elephant camp. Elephants are no longer used to harvest teak wood, so now most of the domestic elephants are engaged in tourism. Ours was very playful and kept reaching is trunk back so that we could pet it.
We crossed rivers and trekked through jungles, which were dotted with stands where women tried to sell us bananas to feed the elephant. We didn't want to go for the trick, but felt kind of bad for the elephant. However, as often as not, the elephant just reached up and took the bananas anyway, so we figured it was ok.
After the elephant dropped us off, we took a ride in an ox cart to lunch-
- and then hopped on a raft down the river to meet up again with our guide.
Stephanie and I even got to take turns steering the raft.
After meeting up with our guide, we visited an amazing orchid farm with over 60 varieties. We spent a good while examining all of the different blossoms.
After that, our guide obligingly took us to some various handicraft shops but we didn't find anything we were particularly interested in.
That evening we took a short walk from our hotel to the night market and had a wonderful time. The night market in Chiang Mai put the one in Bangkok to shame. It was huge and full of lights.
We had a delicious dinner on the edge of the square and then perused the variety of crafts on display. We also made a big mistake. There were so many things we were interested in buying, but we told ourselves that we could probably find them in Cambodia and Laos as well and that we should spread the buying around. As it turned out, we were wrong.
Nonetheless, we found a hand-made Christmas ornament and had some mango-sticky rice for dessert. We also put on our adventure caps and tried the flesh-eating fish pedicure. It was a very strange feeling between ticklish and slight pain as the fish nipped at our feet.
We both thought our feet were a little softer than before but couldn't really be sure.
Our next day was another group tour. We were supposed to see some temples on our way to the Golden Triangle and then spend the afternoon visiting some hill tribes. The day was good, but not exactly what we expected. On our way, we stopped at a hot spring that shoots up in a continuous geyser in the middle of a parking lot.
Nearby, women cook eggs in the boiling water.
From there we visited a new temple that's still under construction. It's already beautiful, built in blinding white and covered with mirrors.
The strangest part was the interior, which is covered with murals that seem to depict the end of the world. There are nuclear missiles and syringes, but also guest appearances by superman, batman, the transformers, and even Keanu Reeves in character from The Matrix. Oh, there were also models of mutilated heads hanging from the trees.
On the way from there to the Golden Triangle, our guide informed us that some of the group was signed up to take a boat trip for an hour and a half, but that the rest of us would be on our own (we were not signed up for the boat). The Golden Triangle is the place where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet on the Mekong river. In our itinerary it sounded like an interesting place of natural beauty, but in reality it's a big tourist trap. Needless to say we were nonplussed when we asked our guide what we were supposed to do for an hour and a half and she said she didn't know.
We wandered around a bit, taking in some of the strange features of the area, like a giant boat structure with a large golden Buddha riding it-
- and walked along the edge of Thailand, but had exhausted that in about 30 minutes. Luckily, Stephanie noticed a huge stone stair case across the street-
- and we followed our curiosity to discover a 14th century Buddhist temple at the top of the hill with some great views of the meeting of three countries. Myanmar is the peninsula on the left and Laos is on the right-hand side of the river, with Thailand under our feet.
The temple even featured a tiny stone room filled with little Buddhas that was only big enough for me to get my camera in.
When the group from the boat said that the boat trip had been rather boring, we were pretty tickled with ourselves for turning a bad situation into a great one.
By the time we had lunch, it was already about 3pm and from there we went to the Thailand/Myanmar border crossing, where we looked at Myanmar.
I'm not sure what the purpose was, but it didn't leave us much time to see the hill tribes.
In reality, there wasn't much to see. Rather than getting to visit people in their natural setting, the hill tribe visit was a sort of camp where different groups lived together in poverty, selling textiles to visitors. While it was interesting to see the different styles of dress, and particularly the long-neck women, it was a little sad too.
Stephanie bought a scarf she really liked, which made us feel a little better about gawking.
The best part of the day was when we arrived at our hotel in Chiang Rai. Our van pulled up to this gorgeous-looking resort around sunset. To our surprise and to the envy of the others in our group, it was our hotel.
The only downside was that it was already getting dark and we were scheduled to leave early the next morning. That didn't stop us from making the most of it as we explored the grounds, took a very chilly dip in the pool, and at a delicious dinner by the river before turning in.
Or here to see all of the pictures (this link is available on every page):
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| SoutheastAsia 2011 JPGS |
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