Bangkok – Last days of summer

Indeed it was last warm days before coldness…

I arrived to Bangkok conveniently on 14ht of February, Valentine’s day, and it was indeed nice to meet some Finnish friends after couple of months travelling. In general the weekend in Bangkok was really for relaxation. My bus from Koh Chang left me on Khao San Road and after small adventure with local taxis I found myself surrounded by familiar people. I was staying at Henna&Sampo’s place in Chatuchak near the elephant tower. They have such an awesome place there I must say!

The Thursday evening went by just having dinner with other Finnish students in Bangkok and the evening continued in Khao San Road where I also met one of my friends from Kotka. We made a deal to go to eat ice cream and go to movie to see the new Die Hard on following evening. And that was basically everything that happened on Friday; lying on the pool until afternoon, having a look on the shopping mall next to H&S’s place and then in the evening going to movie. The shopping mall’s food court surprised we with Arla Apetina Feta snacks (Finnish stuff). And also I now realised how hard it is here to find good bread (not white wheat) and cheese. Let’s see what is the situation in China… 

The movie didn’t convince me, I am still quite out on the plot and what actually happened there, but there were lots of nice action scenes, cars blowing everywhere and Bruce Willis saved the world again. So everything you can ask for a good hangover movie. And we went to see the movie in IMAX-movie theatre so the first half an hour my eyes were just adjusting for the HUGE screen (when watching straight ahead I almost couldn’t see the both ends of the canvas).

Saturday was the market day, Chatuchak weekend market. And those were large! We spent the whole day walking around there and we still didn’t see even the half of the area. The pet area with all those small puppies was so cute (and sad to see). But here you can definitely buy everything you might need from parrot to washing machine. Reminds me a bit on Brussels’ Sunday market on Midi. 

                                   Which rice to take today?

                Choose your own shrimps!

                         Hello handsome

After wondering around the whole day in the market it was time for a sushi overflow! And the overflow is exactly the right term to use here. In the Union Mall’s sushi restaurant we first of all got our lining number. This already told us the place is popular. We had to wait around half an hour before it was our turn. The dinner cost 330 BHT (~8,5€)  per person and you can eat as much as you like for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Since there were five of us we got to choose two constantly boiling soup stocks which they landed in front of us. The actual sushis we needed to get from the buffet table but then there was a conveyor belt going next to our table and we could take there as much as stuff as we wanted. 

 

All the food on conveyor belt was raw so we needed to cook these in our soups. And oh boy was there food! For more than half of the food I have no idea what I was eating. I recognized the shrimps and some veggies and mushrooms and some of the meet but that didn’t stop me trying new things. Some things were really good and some weren’t… But like always, California rolls maintain the first place on my favorite sushi list. 

We also met these cuties on the line. I cooked these, tasted a bit. Fish cookies. Didn’t convince me with their flavour!

 

Sunday was MBK time. A huge huge department store full of fake items. And seriously, you can find anything from here. To be honest I didn’t like it here so much. I somehow have the feeling that if I buy some fake products, especially with highly visible sign I am a bit embarrassed even to wear these, let alone having these kind of items at all. I just had the feeling that it was such a shame that they wanted to have the labels everywhere since most, for example the bags, were actually really well done and looked nice. But that’s only me, everyone does as they wish of course. 

Sunday evening went then by mostly packing my stuff and throwing away some of my old travel clothes. Some of the Finnish people who I had met during this weekend came by for a final beer. This was it now! Travel time over, time to orientate back to civilization! Monday morning wake up at 5 AM and then time to head to the airport. 

Arrivederci backpack life, hello Shanghai!

Koh Chang – Piece of relaxation for the end

As I decided to end my travel in Souteast-Asia with some beach and sun, I headed for my last week to Koh Chang from Siem Riep. The trip itself was quite okay, only 10 hours in total (bus to the Thailand boarder, boarder controls, mini-van to Trat and then ferry to Koh Chang and finally taxi to Lonely beach).

 

                   My Bungalow

I had a lovely bungalow in Koh Chang and for the next 6 days I honestly just lied on the beach and did two fun dives. The diving sites weren’t that nice as in Koh Tao so I decided to have only that one diving trip and stick to the beach.   

  

 

And what happened on the second last day? I burned totally. I had been swimming and planned to let the water on my body to dry a bit before putting some sunscreen on but instead of sunscreen I fall asleep for almost 2,5 hours and woke up totally red. In this point I already knew everything was lost so there was nothing more to do for me than taking my last swim in the ocean (since I knew it would be so painfull on next day if I would like to do it) and heading back to my bungalow for a shower. And what a night it was. Extremely painful and my whole skin felt like in flames. The last full day I had to stick inside and only times outside of bungalow were my food trips to restaurant but since even sitting was too painful these food trips were mainly to supermarket to buy some soy milk drinks which I could drink with a straw in a lying position (not to stretch my horribly burned belly at all and keeping it under the air con breeze).

                                          Serendipity on my morning walk

                                              My last sunset in paradise

So that kind of relaxation. Next and final stop before China: Bangkok with Henna and Sampo.

Angor Wat – The home of ancient Angor kings

So after taking the quick decision about going straight from Vang Vieng to Siem Riep, Campodia, it was quite an adventure to find good connections through out two whole countries. Leaving from Vang Vieng, my route was as follow; Vientiane, Pakse, (Campodian border), Phnom Penh and finally Siem Riep. 

In Vientiane I spent one day from morning to evening 7pm. There wasn’t that much to see. The city itself was well developed compared to the other parts of the country but at least I couldn’t find anything eye catching when wandering around. In the evening it was time for a night bus from Vientiane to Pakse. The night bus was definitely the most comfortable transportation mean for me so far. There were actual sleeping bunches for everyone in the bus, although these were measured in the Asian style and my 1,7m was already on the far end to sleeping comfortably there. But anyway, for me this worked out extremely nicely. The bus was in Pakse the following morning. From there I took a mini-van to the Campodian border. Visa was 30 US dollars when bought from the boarder (if I have bought it from the embassy in Vientiane it would have been only 20 US but since I didn’t have time in Vientiane to find an embassy I decided to buy mine from the boarder). Strangely, there was no need for bribes in the boarder unlike almost every single traveler I have met has told me when they have crossed the boarder. Maybe they have done it in some other check-point… 

After crossing the boarder it was time to find my bus to take me to Siem Riep via Phnom Penh. This driving took again around 10 hours. To be honest, I don’t even want to count how much time I have spent transportation systems during this trip.

So after lovely 32 h of travelling in total I arrived finally to Siem Riep at 1 AM. Since I also hadn’t book a hotel advance, I just asked the taxi driver to take me some place where there is space for sure. He drove me to a nice-ish 8 US dollars per night hotel about 2 km from centrum. I was just happy what I got and probably still payed over-price. The hotel was nice and cool to sleep and had warm water for shower so it was enough for me for the first night. 

The first full day I found another place to stay in the city. Price: 2 US Dollars per night. Okay, not the most cleanest place, but I got my own room and since I planned to stay only 2 nights it was okay for me. During that day I wandered around the Siem Riep but to be honest there’s not that much to see. It was clear that the Angor Wat is the main thing in whole town and the actual town has just developed around the Angor Wat tourist business. But during this day I found my Tuk-tuk driver for the next day. I think I did a good deal with him by paying him 12 US dollars for driving me around the Angor Wat on the following morning. The price was similar what I had heard from other travelers.

So the next morning my alarm clock woke me up at 4:15 AM. The Tuk-tuk driver e to pick me up at 4:45 AM from my hotel and so did our journey to Angor Wat began to see the sunrise.

The travel from Siem Riep to Angor Wat is only 7 km so there were also lots of tourists cycling there. One day ticket to the ruins cost 20 US dollars and 3-day pass would have been 40 US. Since I was visiting there only that one day I took the 20 US dollars pass. For the pass they took my pictue and I had to show the ticket there basically every single place I wanted to walk around.

                                   My personalised ticket to Angor Wat

But this was it; one of the places to visit I had expected the most. When we arrived to the temple area it was still totally dark. The tuk-tuk driver let me out in front of the entrance to the main temple and told me where he would be waiting for me to go to the next temple. I didn’t want to go inside the temple yet but waited in front of the bridge to see the sunrise. The feeling when the light started to increase and the light shades of temple reveal was quite magical moment. Here are some pics how it went.

                                     Above: Main temple on sunrise

                                        Bridge to the main templa

                                          Lions and Naga-snakes quarding the temple

                                              Inside the main temple

                                                 Second temple I went

In total the temple area is HUGE, perimeter of around 7 km. Yesterday I talked with my tuk-tuk driver about what do I want to see. I decided I was happy with the Main temple and the Tree temple but tuk-tuk driver told me that my deal includes 5 temples so I let him to take to the three other temples. The three temple was on my to-do –list since I have seen quite some movies which have been filmed there (such as part of Indiana Jones). Here are more pics from the rest of the day.

The round tour in the area took the whole day and when I got back to hotel at 3 PM I was totally exhausted. Taking power nap and then wandering a bit in the night market I made the decision for the rest of my travel. Instead of going to Phnom Penh and Sibanoukhville for longer time I decided to skip the rest of the Campodie and head to Koh Chang (=Elephant island) beaches in Thailand. More about that on my next post.

Tubing in Vang Vieng - 31st of January - 5th of February

Mini-van from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng takes 7 hours, although it says only 4 h in every travel agency’s advertisement. And normally I wouldn’t mind about the couple of hours since I am always sleeping the travel time but this time it was quite impossible. The roads in Laos are highly undeveloped and you can find an actual asphalt-road only from big cities, like Vientiane, Pakse and Luang Prabang. So the road was really bumpy and even thought I couldn’t sleep I felt much more comfortable to keep my eyes closed as long as possible instead of watching our driver aiming for the next rally tour in a really narrow and curvy mountain roads.

So the travel to Vang Vien itself was already interesting. Also the arrivals in Laos in any town are quite a show. Seems like the bus stations are built outside of the city to provide jobs for tuk-tuk drivers who then harass all the arriving travelers offering their services. Since the actual town was 5 km from the station of course we also needed to take the Tuk-tuk and paid 10 000 Kip (=1€) per person which is actually really high price.

After arriving to town it was time to look for a place to stay. Since the main street is full of guest houses and hostels it was mainly just walking along these places and asking if they got free places. My second choice was central Backpackers hostel from which I had heard good reviews from other travelers and luckily they had a free dorm beds for only 30 000 Kip per night. I book a bed for me for three nights straight away (and of course I booked two more extra nights later after realizing how nice town Vang Vieng is and how much there are things to do).

In the dorm I met two great girls; Danny and Katie, who immediately took me to drink some buckets to the hostel restaurant while dining. The hostel was full of travelers and the evening end up with quite a party, first in the Irish bar with free drinks and afterwards in the local night club Moon Bar. Next morning was obviously quite slow and my biggest achievement for the day was to take care of my laundry, walking a bit around the town and watching 12 episodes of Friends. And the evening was again quite similar for the previous night. 

 

On my second day I went trekking outside of the city since the weather really wasn’t that optimal for tubing yet. Plan was to go and see some caves by walking. Well, the plan was good until I was walking alone in the grassy field to reach my first cave and I met a snake. That was it for me. I took 180 degrees to opposite direction and headed back to main road where there was quite unusual traffic jam which I, as an old cowgirl, found absolutely delightful way to calm my nerves after the encountering.

                French colonial heritage - Almost everywhere in Laos all the signs are both in french and Lao

                                            Traffic Jam

                   The scenery (and caves I was heading) just before the encountering with a deadly predator

 I headed back to hostel before dawn and went to have dinner with Danny and Katie again and afterwards headed again to the Irish bar where I met lots of other people who were going to tubing also on following day. We made a date for the meeting point at 12 o’clock so we could go as a large group. The more the merrier. 

                                                 Free drinks and happy hour in Irish bar

           One of best meals I have had in my whole trip - Pork vegetable soup with LOTS of herbs

The third was finally THE day, TUBING!!! Like promised, we had the meeting at 12 o’clock in front of the place where we could rent the tubes. On tube was 55 000 Kip + each of us needed to leave a deposit of 60 000 Kip which we would get back after returning the tube. Tuk-Tuk driver took us around 3,5 km upstream and then it was time to put all our stuff into dry-pack and climb into the tube. Let the tubing begin!

Then we flooded along the river for the next 4,5 hours. We had heard that the Laos government had closed all the bars along the river so we had a safety stock of beers with us. The day was so relaxing and fun!

After the tubing all of us looked like crabs with our lovely pink tans and felt quite exhausted after full day in the sun. So after having quick lunch we all headed back to our hostels to get a shower and relaxing a bit before heading out for the night again, of course, Irish bar.

 

Me and Janine ready to tube!

 

 

                                          Our tubing community

                                          Me and my best purchase in my whole trip from Koh Tao: Dry Pack!

                                                        Me and Danny and happy hour

My last full day was dedicated for caving. And to my great surprise all the others who went tubing with us had the same idea of going first some caving and then swimming into blue lagoon. So again we made a date for 11 AM in front of the bicycle rent, got our cycling equipments and it was again time to head off the town. The cave where we were heading was located around 7 km outside of the town and since the road was REALLY bad it took around one hour for us to get there (with two quick water breaks).

The entrance fee for the cave + blue lagoon was 10 000 Kip which we found quite okay. It is just so funny that when there are this kind of nature’s forming places why in every single place in Asia they take money from people for looking into those especially since there is not maintenance for the area at all. 

                                              Our caving and cycling and tubing community

                                                   Blue lagoon - Swimming!

                                                      From the cave

The actual cave was in quite high place. It took around 20 min serious climbing to reach the entrance and all of us were wet like pigs. The actual cave was large. The entrance hall there was still natural light but when going deeper we all had to use our torches to see where to step. And since the cave was full of rocky stones, deep gaps and different places where to hurt yourself, we really needed to stick together. The caving took in total about 1,5 hours and the humidity inside the cave was great even though the air was nicely cool.

After the caving it was time for long swimming and jumping in the blue lagoon. We spent the rest of the day just lying in the sun and relaxing. Around 4.30 PM it was time to head back to the town before the night fall (around 6 PM) since neither of us enjoyed the rocky road, especially in the dark. The evening ended up again like previous ones, in the Irish pub having the last drinks together before it was my time to continue my trip on the following day.

All in all- a great laid back town where I could have stayed another full wee if my schedule would have permitted this. Now I have only two weeks left anymore to  travel before Shanghai so next stop: Campodia! Via Vientiane and Pakse.