Thailand: Koh Samui

Little island in front of the Chaweng beach 

I arrive at Koh Samui after a long train ride and a boat trip which together sum up to 14h of travelling. My first impression of the island where quite mixed, the water around the dock seemed quite dirty and the little town at the dock side looked way to crowded. luckily, the dock town wasn't my final destination on the island. So I get in the cab and head towards the other side of the island: Chaweng, it's said to be one of the nicest beaches of the island, with coral reefs at the northern and the southern sides of the beach, and 6km of beautifully white sand in between.

So obviously the first thing that I do when I arrive at Chaweng is have a look at the beach. And I got hit by a slight feeling of disappointment, the beach was amazingly long and looked beautiful, but it wasn't kept clean. As I walked along direction north I encountered so many rash in the sand, from old flip flops with plants growing on it up to empty oil cans.

I continue my walk up north, and at one point you have these lovely islands in front of the beach in search of the coral that I heard of I walked for about an hour and decided to get something to eat before continuing.
Sadly enough, even after walking all the way up to the northern part of the beach and even higher, I found no coral reefs to snorkel around. I did find out that there are plenty of trips going to the national park for a day, but there was no possibility of snorkelling around the area.

Grandad's rock

This changed up my plans a little bit and the next morning instead of going on a snorkelling adventure I decided to rent a scooter together with a guy I met at the hostel to explore the island. I knew that going around the island would take a maximum of 45 minutes by car. So I decided to have a look at the two waterfalls at the southern part, and on my way there pay a little visit to the well known Grandparent rocks.
The Grandparent rocks are not more than a bunch of rocks, under which you can find two special ones: Granddad rock and Grandmother, and they have this name due to their shape, which, as you can imagine, look like their respective sexual organ.

Waterfall nr1 

The waterfalls where very nice to see, unlike those of Pai, they where full of water and and had quite powerful currents. The first one we visited was the waterfall 2, which required a little 15 minute walk to reach. But the walk was kind of the nicest part of the waterfall, which, at the bottom had a little natural pool where you could jump in (It was very crowded up there though). While the second one was very easy to acces, the waterfall itself was bigger and there was another natural pool here which was three times the size of the first one.

After the waterfalls we decided to have a look at the Big Buddha, at the northern side of the island, but before heading there I had to get some passport pictures for my Cambodia visum, so we decided to meet back at the hostel once I had everything. I went to get the pictures, and on my way back, Google maps decided to tell me that there was a short-cut from where I was to the hostel, of course, without thinking twice I take this short-cut and here is where the fun begins. The road i got on was a dirt road, and with recent rains it had transformed in a mud road at some parts, of course, I was already half way there so I wasn't going to turn back around. I gather all my courage and accelerate through the mud... Aaand I got stuck, I had to push the bike out and of course I made sure that everything around me was now covered in mud. On my way back I passed by a local house and asked if I could clean my feet a bit, the Thai laughed and the helped me with cleaning the bike. Of course, these things only happen when you are alone.

After the short mud adventure we head towards the Big Buddha in the north, and we notice that we will probably make it just in time to get tome nice pictures of the sunset. The Buddha was not really all that special but the sunset pictures I got over the sea where amazing.

For dinner we had a look at the night market, which in this place was more of a food market than a night market, you had one or two stands where you could buy souvenirs and similarities while all the rest of the stands where just food stands. Not that I'm complaining though, I loved the massive amount of options that I had for my dinner.

And I had to get a good dinner, because the following day would be a loong looong travel day. Leaving from Koh Samui at 12 in the morning and arriving at Bangkok at 6 in the morning the following day, just to get a bus there towards Siem Reap.
Lots of hours of sitting await me.

Thailand: Ayutthaya & Hua Hai

We get dropped of the bus at 5 a.m. on the main road. A hour away from the Ayutthaya centre. As soon as we get off the obvious tuk tuk driver approaches us and tells us that he will take us to the centre for just as little as: the same price that the bus to get from Chian Mai to Ayutthaya costs us. We decide to pass on the amazing offer and wait for a more local and cheaper way  to get into town.

The local bus driver drops us off at a seemingly cheap BnB, so we sit around the lobby for an hour until it opens and proceed to drop of the bags.

Ayutthaya used to be the countries capital in the XIV century until it got destroyed by the Burmese army in the XVIII century. And in 1991 it was declared part of the UNESCO world heritage.
We got lucky and reached the old ruins on time to catch a little glimpse of the sunrise.
But the ruins where still closed, so we had to sneak in through the back to be able to make pictures of the morning with the ruins, the old ruins make for an incredible view and some amazing pictures.

Buddhas lined up at Wat Yai Chaimongkhon

We finished visiting the central old city relatively quickly so we took advantage of the spare time to take a little power nap. After which we rented a bike to head over to the outer part of the city. We visited the floating market, but sadly enough it was just closing it's doors and afterwards we headed towards Wat Yai Chaimongkhon which is an impressive old temple that still stands and is still in use up to this day.

The next day would be our last day of travelling together, we took the train towards Bangkok just to separate once we where there I booked a train towards Hua Hai whilst he was staying one night in Bangkok in order to leave to Cambodia the following day

Hua Hai's little train station 

I arrived with an hour delay in Hua Hai, but still on time to go and explore the city, I knew that I couldn't make it to the beach any more but I walked through the city and paid a visit at the night market of the town. I especially noticed how touristy the town was, I thought maybe it was because of the Hilton and the Marriot hotels, but apparently it's such a popular holiday destination (even for Thai's, that regularly spend the weekends here) because of how safe the area is, it's a town that has ben favoured by the king throughout various generations as a place to spend the holidays, so there is constant surveillance in the town and there are big army ships patrolling the coast.

The next morning I didn't really do much other than go for a walk on the beach, something that I hadn't done in a long time, I met a few kite boarders but the wind was a bit low today so it wasn't the best day to head in the waves, they day went by without to much activity and I started planning my next stop, I had decided to visit Koh Samui, but when Paul told me a few great things about Cambodia I started thinking about heading there myself as well, so I would go to Koh Samui for a couple of days and from there on head to Cambodia.
So now I am here, in the train, I just got to see the nice Hua Hai station which is still conserved since it was built, and it gives a nice antique touch to the otherwise booming city.
And on my way to Surath Thani! where I will get on a bus towards the port and eventually head to the islands.

Thailand: Chiang Mai

In the bus I met a Dutch traveller called Paul who had been travelling for over a year already, we got to talk and when we got to Chiang Mai at 6 a.m. we figured out that we could as well visit the town together, we dropped off our backpacks at my hostel (because the one where he was staying didn't feel like opening his doors) and wandered in the city.

The Temple where we joined the monks

At the time though, everything was closed, so instead of having something regular as breakfast we had a Thai noodle soup together with a cold drink, not what you would call continental breakfast, but it had to do. Luckily we found a little car-bar that served coffee, we had a few cups to get some energy (because you know… sleeping on a bus is not really easy) and got the chance to join some monks in their prayers to Buddha, it was a very relaxed experience, honestly, nothing like going to church in Europe, where you feel pushed to donate money, feel uncomfortable with the accusations of the priest, etc. Okay, it might be because we didn't understand a thing of what the monks where saying, but still, I found it very chill. 

We continued the walk and found so many amazing temples, I even think that I saw more good looking temples than in Bangkok, and for sure if you compare the m² that I walked in Bangkok with the m² that I walked in Chiang Mai.

One of the waterfalls at Doi Inthanon

By lunch time we headed to our hostels to check in and met a big group of people that were studying in China but decided to go on holidays in Thailand for the end of their semester. They said that they were going to visit a mountain at the Doi Inthanon National Park, where apparently at the top (that seems to be the highest point in Thailand) you can find a very impressive temple.

So we rented a little scooter and joined them on the adventure, on our way there we stopped for a quick lunch and to get some water, snacks… It was something of a 2 hour drive to get to the park’s entrance, and it would be another 2 to get to the top. But before heading to the top we went to visit one of the waterfalls that you can see there, one of the rivers pass by, and a little town that we found there. Then the sun went down and with it the temperatures started falling very quickly, of course I wasn't prepared for this, being the fool that I am I thought that we would be back before sunset and didn't think about bringing a jersey or anything to cover me from the cold. So I had to stop at little store in the town we found to buy a sweater before continuing to the top. And even with the sweater it felt extremely cold. As we approached the top everyone was freezing, even with sweaters, and the worst part was, we went through all of it in vain, because the temple was closed, they close at 6 p.m. well, that was a little waste, but anyway, it was a cool journey and I had a good time.

Once we got back in town we just crashed, because of the lack of sleep it took me no time to fall asleep.

The next morning I would be changing to the hostel where Paul was staying, but before moving I wanted to return the scooter, but of course, the scooter wasn't starting, I think that it’s because of inactivity but I’m not much of a mechanic so I couldn't tell, after a little while of trying I got it to start twice, just to have if fall out again as soon as I stopped. But the third time I got it going and I managed to get to the place where I rented it, before returning it I tried to start it again and it went fine, that’s why I think that the reason of its malfunction was because of inactivity. Anyway, once everything was settled I grabbed my luggage and continued to the next hostel, checked in and went to have some lunch. In my search of a place to eat I found a little place that did cooking lessons, so I signed up to do that the following day. After lunch and after getting back to the hostel I regroup with Paul to go and visit the Tiger Kingdom of Chiang Mai.

The tigers there are trained and raised to get used to people, it’s not the same as in South Africa and they are kept in little cages when there are no tourists to visit them, but it was still a worthy experience, it was my first time seeing a tiger and I got to ouch it as well, we posed for some pictures together and eventually had to say goodbye. It was a sad to see how they proceeded to lock away the animal after we left, but well, the people here do everything for money.

Back in town we headed towards the Chiang Mai Night Market, we got told that it was something spectacular to see but when we got here I didn't find it too different from any other market that I had visited up to now, lots of souvenirs, fake t-shirts, sunglasses and little statues made out of tin cans, so a bit disappointed we headed back to the hostel.

There in the centre of the hostel you have a little centre where you can sit to relax a bit, and we gathered there, there were some other people and we ended up talking all together, there were some girls from South Africa, a girl from Switzerland and the group we met yesterday and joined up to the mountain.

My red curry and spring roll 

Wat Chedi Luang 

The next morning I decided it would be my last full day in Chiang Mai, I headed towards the cooking school and had an amazing time, made Pad Thai, red curry paste, the red curry itself a spring roll and sticky rice with mango. And the best part of all is that I got to eat all of it. It was awesome.

After the cooking school I started searching for the biggest temple of the town. When I found it I was amazed, and even more because I had already seen part of the temple when we were walking through the town for the first time, but somehow managed to miss the spire which amazing and massive part, the temple was called Wat Chedi Luang and dates all the way back to the mid-15^th century. Back in the hostel I booked the bus to Pai, a little city west of Chiang Mai where you can do loads of outdoor activities and where the river Pai passes. During the evening I just did the same as the night before and hanged out at the centre of the hostel, met some different people this time but enjoyed it as well, because everyone has a different story to tell and different experiences.

And now I’m here, in the mini bus, heading to Chiang Mai, they told me that it’s going to be a bumpy ride uphill and it might take up to 4 hours to get there. But everyone adds that it’s completely worth it. 

Madrid + Thailand: day 1

There we go, leaving for my two months of travelling on my own.

Plaza Mayor

I get dropped off at the trainstation in Alicante by my grandparents, because they had to go to Alicante anyway. There I find the people who would be taking me to Madrid, a couple from San Vicente which where going to Madrid and made a BlaBlaCar advert for it, the funny thing is, as we start to talk I find out that they are going to Bangkok as well, and decided, just like me, to spend a night in Madrid to have less of a hassle during they day of the flight.

Anyway, I get to Madrid and start looking for the hostel, which I found pretty quickly. I check everything in and decide to go and have a look around the city.

The weather was awful, it was raining slightly and cold, I wandered without a real objective in Madrid and found a few famous places, the Plaza mayor, the Basilica de san Miguel and a few more places.

Morning arrives and I get the underground to the airport, check in and go through to the gate, and look at that, another A-380, awesome, and even more when I find out that this one has wifi on board! you should have seen it, the whole upper floor was ment for first class and business, and it looked incredible, the first class had it's personal bathrooms with showers and everything, a masseuse, a bar, heck, everything you can imagine.

After travelling for 22 hours (with the time changes included) I finally land in Bangkok, I get myself a sim card to have internet during my stay (and use Google maps,, I'm not gona lie) and leave to my Hostal, I take the first underground from the airport to Phaya Thai, the centre, here I change to the SkyTrain and head towards my hostel. After dropping everything off and taking a much needed shower I head towards the city to explore, my plan was to go towards the weekend market, but I got distracted on my way, and heck, I would have time tomorrow to visit it. What I found especially amazing is how during the day you see tons and tons of souvenir and amulets shops. But as soon as the sun sets this changes drastically, every store that you see takes out a portable kitchen, some tables and starts serving food like any regular restaurant. After having a nice pad thai I head towards the hostel to get some well deserved rest.