Traveling in Thailand - Bangkok and East Gulf Coast

Travel Diary

Bangkok and Eastern Gulf Coast - Thailand March 2002

Day 1

All I know is you can't trust the airlines to get you anywhere on time! What was supposed to take 22 hours took more than 36. But, Dana and I arrived in Bangkok to begin our 12-day adventure (not counting the two days in the plane) at 2:00 AM. That really means 2 PM for us and so we checked into our hotel in the Old City district of Bangkok (near Grand Palace, Wat Po, etc). The Royal Hotel is quite infamous, so our guidebook told us. A peaceful rally ended in bloodshed in the lobby some years back. But no bother. We went to the room, twenty dollars American by the way, and were quite disappointed. It was moldy, smelly and had two twin beds (we are on our first anniversary). Since we couldn't sleep (jet lag and asthma) we went outside and found a 7-eleven store and bought a few Singha beers to take back to our room. After a few beers and still no sleep, we decided to venture out and check out the outdoor market (looked like a yard sale that no one ever went to) and scope out our new area. We met a couple of Thais who worked in a local Karaoke bar and tried to chat with them, then decided when the sun was coming up that we might as well check out of the hotel and find another home. We aren't always really picky about rooms, but, heck it's our anniversary and were all the way around the world! So why not enjoy if you can! So we called the Shangri-La Hotel on the Chao Phraya River. Took a taxi and got there by 9am! One comment about the Royal Hotel. You can't trust the maids; they were in our room while we went out walking around in the middle of the night! Lucky us, we got a room with a balcony that overlooks the river! It was an incredible sight! (this room was much pricier, $210 American per night, thank goodness for plastic). That night, I swear my husband ordered fireworks over the river to celebrate our anniversary! And what a view! I can't say enough.

Dana wanted to have some suits tailor-made and I wanted a dress of thai silk, so the concierge contacted a local shop, British Embassy tailor. They did a great job of measuring and came to our hotel for several fittings that day and the next! Then, we took a boat tour on the River for about an hour and a half. The hotel provided a tour-guide (which isn't really our thing) and took us out on a long-boat. They are long and slender (kind of like a gondola stretched out with a roof and a propeller motor. We went down canals, and saw tons of Buddhist temples (Wats, as they're called) and since, the river was the mainstay for the city for hundreds of years, a little history. It was a nice little detour to the day since our jet lag was catching up with us. That evening, one of the taxi or tuk-tuk drivers told us about Patpong market. It is a night market that sells everything from watches and shoes to clothes and games. They are also famous for their "red-light district". As we were walking through the different tables, I almost ran into an elephant! My Thai tutor, Tip, told me that some poor Thai people take advantage of tourists because they feel sorry for the elephant and give them money to care for it, which only encourages the abuse of the animal. So, though I almost walked right into him (and what a fright that was!) we kept on going and ignored the peddler.

Day 2

Grand Palace and Khao San Road Bangkok is hot and humid. Grand Palace is all cement, so be prepared to sweat a lot! Also, there is a dress requirement to get in, you must have pants or long skirts, and your sandals, or shoes must have a back to them. And you cannot wear a sleeveless shirt. But they provide clothes you can "borrow"! It is 200 Baht (about $5) each to get in and it houses the famous jade green Buddha. It is quite an elaborate place and pictures cannot do it justice! But expect crowds. Dana and I aren't much for staying for long periods of time, so after about two hours of looking at gloriously gaudy statue and building after statue and building, we decided to go to Khao San Road Market and shop and eat. What else do you do on vacation?

After a few tuk-tuk drivers lying to us about it not opening till late afternoon, we found a taxi to take us there. Your best bet is to use meter taxi rather than barter. Khao San road is the place to go if you are an avid backpacker from any country. Everyone there was from another country and looked like they had been traveling for at least six months! There are tons of guest houses, hotels and hostels along the road and is an obvious place to hook-up with other like-minded travelers.

Bangkok's street markets are literally that, spilling into the streets. That doesn't deter the cars, mopeds or tuk-tuk (three wheeled motorcycle cabs) drivers though. Also, Khao San road is where we found the famous street vendors selling pad Thai and eggrolls for less than fifty cents. We ate from the street vendors several times, very cheaply and came out unscathed! Quite delicious too. Then, my hubby, all excited about the prospect of finding another tailor and getting another suit or so, spotted another shop on the street. Novo fashions is where we ultimately bought four more suits (one for me!) and two more pair of pants. Dana is quite the fashion plate now, I must say. They did an excellent job and cheaper than the other place, but we had to travel to their store for fittings. It is amazing that you can get a suit in 24 hours to fit you exactly and for under $100. We also had a Thai foot massage while we were there. All I can say is OUCH! And I don't want to do that again! Dana also got a Thai back massage that ended up looking like freakish stunt derived from a Chinese Acrobat Circus. At one point, Dana (6'-3") was balanced awkwardly above the tiny Thai woman who had put her knees in the middle of his back and then fell backwards onto her own back. What a spectacle! She grunted and squirmed trying to remove his now crushing weight off of her! She needed Dana to get up, as she was firmly pinned under him. Little did we realize that traditional Thai massage could be so interesting and painful! Next, we headed back to our hotel and crashed, finally allowing ourselves to adjust to the time difference.

Day 3

Dana and I went back to Khao San Road to the tailor for fittings, did a little souvenir shopping and then went back to the hotel to check out and head for our next adventure. We took the bus to Chantaburi, about four hours south east of Bangkok. It is not really a touristy town, but our guidebook mentioned a nice National Park with waterfalls and birds and animals that the Thais like to visit. Just a note, Thai people do not really speak much English if you are in a non-touristy area. Our limited Thai didn't help us much and we had quite an adventure trying to get to our bungalow that I had reserved in the park for the night. The main problem was that no one had heard of the park and didn't know where it was. Later we discovered that the guide book mis-titled the name of the park and so it caused a lot more chaos than necessary. We had been trying to go to Khao Sabap National Park, when it was really called Nam Tok Plieu National Park (Nam=Water, Tok+fall, Plieu = the name of the waterfall) So no wonder we couldn't find Khao Sabap! We got to the park at about 10 PM (obviously the park was closed and so we missed our reservation for the bungalow). So here we are in a taxi (me in the front of the cab, Dana in the back of the pick-up) no place to sleep and not much language we can share with the taxi driver to figure out what to do next. He decided to take us to a hotel in downtown Chantaburi. The first one was full, but the second had vacancies. By this time it is 11:30 PM and we are exhausted. We checked in ($40 American) and as usual, we discover, twin beds again. But this place National Hotel) was clean and not smelly! After breakfast (we still don't know at this time the actual name of the park) we began looking for a taxi to take us to Khao Sabap National Park. After several struggles with the hotel clerk and four taxi drivers, we got a taxi to the park. Dummy me, wanting to go to the park when it is 95 degrees and humid out. But it was beautiful. 200 Baht to get into the park, we walk to the waterfall, full of local people taking a swim and feeding the fish. We were quite the attraction and several groups of people took our picture! I guess they don't get too many American tourists around there. This took all of about an hour (to walk to the waterfall and back) but we stopped at the hut near the entrance. We discovered a very odd sight; National Park Rangers in full camouflage gear were (trying to) playing folk music and some form of rock and roll. We had several beers, ate more pad Thai and got more pictures taken of us! It was a lovely place to hang for a few hours, but really all the time we needed. The taxi guy waited for us at the entrance and took us promptly back to the hotel. At breakfast, we learned from an American gem dealer (one of the few Americans we saw in Thailand) that Chantaburi is a world axis for gem mining and trading (sapphires and rubies). So we thought we'd peruse the gem market. Everywhere you looked, were piles of red or blue gems and people bartering and bagging up the sparkles. We didn't buy a thing, because we are clueless when it comes to gems!

By this time it is only about 2:30 in the afternoon, and since there really isn't anything else to do in Chantaburi, we decided to head out and take a bus to the next town over (Trat) for the ferry to Ko Chang (an island southeast of Bangkok and about an hour from Cambodia).

Days 4-10

Just a quick comment to say that we spent a week lounging and sunning, snorkeling and diving on the island of Ko Chang. Ko Chang is the second largest Thai island. It is also a National Park and so the entire center are made up of huge volcanic mountains covered in lush jungle. There is only one very curvy road around its perimeter with resorts and bungalows about every mile or so along the edge. We stayed at the Ko Chang Resort. The Resort has bungalows (with 2 twin beds), which is what we rented, and also hotel style rooms. It was clean and had hot showers and AC. Breakfast can be included, but make sure it is agreed upon when you make your reservations. The resort can set up anything for you that you'd like to do: sea kayaking, snorkeling (they take you out on an ancient fishing boat to a small island for a few hours, supply lunch and let you swim, sunbathe and snorkel, then bring you back to Ko Chang Resort) and diving (see our review on the diving). They also have a very nice dining area that is open for breakfast lunch and dinner. They also offer massages on the beach, though the only people doing that were big fat old men. The sun sets just over a stretch of land jutting out into the bay, and the island looks as if it is shrouded in mystery with clouds sitting on the tops of the mountains all the time. You can walk to the one of the waterfalls in a nearby park and swim in the pool below to cool off after walking in 95-degree temperature and humidity. It is very refreshing and quite peaceful. About a 2-3 miles or so up the road from us is White Sands Beach, the island's hot spot with all the night life and probably more hostels and cheaper places to stay. By some standards, our resort was expensive at $50 a night. We thought it was a decent bargain since we had our own bungalow with air conditioning. Our rate also included breakfast for two. White Sands has a great restaurant for when you tire of Thai food. They have great pizza and spaghetti and Dana even tried their kabobs. Everything we sampled there was great. In fact we visited them three times! I mentioned there is more nightlife there, but don't think I mean there is a bustling town. It is a tiny island, but this seems to be where, if you want to be young, single and cool, to hang out and meet others of the same mind. Everybody on the island is a tourist, but there aren't too many who visit. It is an incredibly peaceful island to visit and it is unbelievably primitive and wooded.

Day 11-12

We headed back to Bangkok so Dana and I could buy more suits, Dana is quite a snazzy dresser. We had used the public bus in our travels to Trat from Bangkok. On the return, we were, shall I say, somewhat herded into a commercial mini bus for the return trip. It was a little more expensive, but quicker. The driver was very creative and actually gave us a scare or two. He did however; deliver us to the heart of Bangkok in about an hour less than what we estimate it would have taken the bus. Since we didn't have hotel reservations for this night, and the mini bus stopped off at Khao San Road, we decided to hang out there and live it up with all the other backpackers and crash in a hotel along there. We stayed at the Hotel Siam Oriental. It was only $18 American and included breakfast for two as well. It had a hot shower and a (plastic covered) double bed and AC. So all in all, it wasn't bad. It was the least fancy of all the places, but I easily could have stayed there as long as we were in Bangkok. It was clean and they even gave you towels! Which is rare in this class of accommodations.

After going to the tailors, we went to a bar on the corner called Gulliver's Travelers Tavern. I don't think there were too many people there from Thailand. Dana and I met one guy from Scotland and two from England that we chatted with that evening. Their food is a little pricier, but it is a great place to meet fellow travelers and play pool and listen to a great jukebox! It was a blast!

The next day we checked into our last hotel, the Crown Plaza Hotel, just a mile or so from the night market, in the heart of Bangkok. So off to the night market we went. I teach American Sign Language. We noticed that there were a lot of deaf Thais working in the markets; it was exciting to have a chance to try and talk with them. Their sign language has some similarities and so we could gesture what they couldn't get from our signs. Very exciting for me!

All in all, we shopped too much and drank too much and ate a lot of Thai food and saw some incredibly beautiful countryside. I think that if you like adventure, don't mind long flights, and want to learn a little about another culture on the other side of the planet, Thailand is a fantastic place to go. One suggestion, learn a little of the language and it will help you a lot. Most people we met in the touristy areas spoke some English, but were thrilled whenever you tried to speak Thai. And learning their numbers came in handy when wanting to barter!

Area Traveled: Bangkok, Ko Chang and Chantaburi

Lodging:

Bangkok:

Royal Hotel: $25 a night for not much. Hotel was run down, whenever we left our room the maids would go in and snoop. Pictures on-line look NOTHING like actual musty and dirty crap hole this place is. There are many places that cost less that are in better areas and are much nicer.

Shangri-La Hotel: One of the top ten hotels in the world. $130 - $200 a night for incredibly luxurious accomodations. Our package included a room with balcony and river view, personal Mercedes transportation to wherever we wanted to go after check-out, our own personal liason and much more. A hotel of this caliber would be $400 a night in any major city in the United States. We went here for a couple of nights to pamper ourselves.

Siam Oriental Room and Restaurant: A budget travels delight! Rooms are modest and clean for around $18 a night including a full breakfast, in the heart of Khao San Road (the liveliest street market in Bangkok). If you are more into where you are than where you sleep, this hotel is for you.

Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza: A very nice bargain in a popular area of downtown Bangkok. $60 a night bought us a very nice room that was showing its age only a little. High ceiling and a giant window with a great view of Bangkok made this hotel a good option for budget travels that don't like "roughing it" in hostels or really inexpensive accomodations.

Island of Koh Chang

Rooks Koh Chang Resort: For $50 a night we received our own little air conditioned private cabin on the beach with a full breakfast for two included - if you ask for it when you book the room. Although very affordable, Rooks is considered one of the more luxurious resorts on Koh Chang. If $50 a night fits your budget, you can't go wrong here.

Outdoortravels.com Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Suitcases

Thumbs Up:

- Extremely friendly people. That actually like American tourists!

- Tons of history, ruins and temples.

- US Dollar goes along way, especially if you are a budget traveler. Clean decent hotels can start at $10 a night!

- Thai people speak a great deal of English (in urban areas).

- Good food and drink can be had from cart vendors for very little money.

- Beautiful beaches.

- Low number of American tourists.

- Thailand's beer - Singhah is tasty and plentiful.

- Inexpensive tailors are everywhere in Bangkok for the fashion minded. Go with one that will give you several fittings.

Thumbs Down:

- Heat and humidity in Bangkok can be stifling.

- Hard to judge quality of lodging based on price.

- Tuk Tuk drivers often try to rip you off with inflated fares.

- Guys at the side of busy streets who attempt to force you into cabs and tuk tuks of their choice.

Lessons Learned:

- Pay no attention to anyone who attempts to direct you into a cab or tuk tuk in Bangkok. Choose a metered cab yourself. That guy gets a commission from inflated bartered fares.

- In Bangkok, use taxis that have a "Meter" sign on their roofs and make sure the driver uses the meter. - Despite our best efforts in bargaining, we never got a fare that was as low as a metered fare.

- Tuk Tuk drivers are notorious for attempting to charge more than a cab. We also experienced drivers who lied to us about when certain things opened, in an effort to drive us around longer. If you can resist the temptation, stay away from them and stick to metered taxis.

- Lodging quality is not always indicative of its price. We stayed in rooms that ranged from $18 a night to $210. A $20 hotel sucked, a $210 hotel was opulent, a $60 hotel was incredible, $20 per night hotel made us leave - it was so filthy and a $18 hotel was very adequate and well located. Get a recommendation if you can.

- Getting places can often start out hectic, but end okay. If we took the city bus or a commercial mini bus or even occasionally a cab, we often encountered mass confusion. At Bangkok's City Bus Station, we had three people trying to help us at the same time, but telling us three different things. Stay calm, we always got where we were going, with a little effort and confusion at the start.

- Get used to riding in the back of pick-ups. If you travel outside of major urban areas, taxis generally mean sharing the back of a pick-up. It can be a fun experience!

Links:

General Thailand Map

Navigable Thailand Map

Koh Chang Scuba Map

Useful Links

Travel Diary: Thailand

By Kelli Farnsworth