Thailand: The Land of Smiles. A 26 days retrospective.

Such as the title of my previous post suggest I have been procrastinating for way to long. To make up for it I have written this long detailed resume of my journey to date.

On december 27 the eve of my departure my friend Olivier hosted a little shindig in his humble abode on Christophe Colomb to celebrate my 35th birthday and to see me off on my 4 month adventure in South east Asia and Costa Rica. He and his beloved girlfriend Nancy made 2 humongous tartiflette. It’s the last time I recall eating cheese since I left Montreal. Cheese is nowhere to be found here in Thailand. After eating and drinking ourself to death we played guitar hero to burn some of the calories we had ingested. Oh and yeah Eric and I had yet an other long philosophical discussion about free market capitalism and the best way to counter some of it’s negative influence. As usual we could not reach a consensus. It was a memorable evening surrounded by all the people I love. Thanks guys and galls! I had an hour and thirty minutes nap before heading to the airport where Claudia was waiting for me at the Northwest counter with a big eager smile on her face. 28 hours and 3 sleeping piles later we landed in Bangkok. There is a reason why Northwest is cheaper then other airlines…it’s crap!

We stayed in Bangkok 4 days. As a whole BK can be described as a big-crowded-unsympathetic-smoggy-urban-city. Although I had visited the city before I still wanted to go, so I could have Claudia experience what make’s Bangkok worth seeing in spite of it’s unappealing characteristics. First we slept for 14 hours strait… oh man were we tired. The next day we went for a stroll in colorful Chinatown. Still as fun and chaotic as last time i went. I saw most of it through the view finder of my new Canon HV30. I’m still unable to show you all of the wonderful footage I’ve taking during that day but it’s a question of time before I can. More detail on my Firewire 800 debacle here.

Next on the itinerary was Damnoen Saduak’s floating market, 110 km south–west of Bangkok. These Tupsy-turvy small ‘khlongs’ or canals are filled with flat boats stacked with fresh produce, each jockeying for position and paddled by old Thai ladies ready to stop and bargain at a moment’s notice. The uncomfortable mini-van drive to the Damnoen Saduak takes about 1h30 min, then we embark on a 15min long tail boat ride along a small river bordered with traditional teak houses and local people going about their lives. By the time we get there it’s almost 11am and we have less then 60 minutes to enjoy all of what the market as to offer before we have to get back on the mini-van to go to the orchid farm. Not that Claudia and I do not like orchids but we wanted to spend more time at the market, so we ask our guide to skip that part of the tour. She granted our request and we went on shopping. We had so much fun that we lost track of time and missed our lift back to the hotel. Fortunately they came back for us 20 min later.

After 4 days of crowded ‘soi‘, relentless noise and constantly breading carbon dioxide we move on to a more quiet and peaceful place called Koh Phangan. Home of the world famous full moon party some people wouldn’t say Phangan is a quiet place. But not all of the people on the island is out to party. Those that do stay in Had Rin at the southern tip. We opted for Chaloklum and Had Thian 2 little villages north-west of the island. The latter can barely be called a village as it resemble more a small secluded beach then anything else. We spent 4 days in a modest but likable resort run by a german farang and his Thai wife. No need to carry money when you stay at the Haad Gruad Resort & Spa, just write down the number of beers you’ve taken or the time you spend on the computer on a little piece of paper. They will compile all of your consumption for you and bill you at the end of your stay. After 2 days of doing nada we decided to go on a exploratory day trip around Phangan on our scooters. No helmet, no shirt driving on the left lane at 60km/h listening to my perfectly prepared playlist. That was one of the highlights of my trip so far aside from the fact that I dropped my iPhone on the ground and broke the glass. We stop for more then an hour at sundown at this unknown beach that seems to stretch far into the ocean because of the shallow water. We took of our sandals left our bags on the side of the road and ran far into the ocean then started dancing on ‘Gobbledigook‘.

During our expedition we unexpectedly discovered a beautiful resort way too expensive for our budget but we decided to treat ourself. We moved there the next day. Chaloklum the neighboring village is just a 10 minutes walk from our luxury hut. When the tide is low you can get there faster by walking along the beach where Children adopt adorable poses that beg to be photographed. We fell in love with a little italian restaurant run by a proud Italian expat that greeted us with a ‘nice buena sera’ each night we went. Caffe de la Moca was one of the only place we encountered during our trip that served wine and good Sangiovese wine I must add. We ate there three nights out of five. Sunday was fresh pizza night and the place was full. The owner’s kids watched their favorite Thai cartoon on TV in the middle of the dinning area will mom served the customers and dad was cooking the most delicious pizza ever. One local Italian expat even brought his own Parma ham and ask his friend to make him a costume pizza. I will miss you Caffe de la Moca!

In Chaloklum we did not do much else then eat, read and sleep, but we did go diving on our second day. Claudia had never tried it before and needed a bit of convincing. She did 2 introductory dives at 12 meters. I did 2 deep dive but did not see much because of the poor visibility. On the boat I must have scratch my thumb on a rusted bench or something of the sort because 2 days later my right thumb was swollen and throbbing with pain. Stubborn as I am, I waited 3 days will Claudia was persistently hassling me to go to the local clinic before I actually went. What an experience! The clinic is an open-air space adjacent to the dirt road where 2 kids no more then 9 years old were running around and occasionally stopping to observe the attending doctor slice my thumb in order to dig out the abscess. She fixed my hitchhiking finger for a mere 10 bucks.

No trip to Koh Phangan is complete until you experience the full moon party. Imagine 15000 young and not so young backpackers from all over the world scattered along a 500 meters stretch of sand fervently dancing on the influence of alcohol and other illicit substance. When you get to Had Rin you have to walk thought the city before getting to the beach. Streets are filed with locals that have set up tiny stands that sell all kinds of hard liquor that come with your choice of pop or energy drink nicely placed in a plastic sand bucket top up with ice. They also give you straws to drink your sweet concoction strait from the bucket. We took the cheapest combo ‘Sang Som’ or Thai rum with Coke and Red Bull. We stayed up until 3h30 am…not bad for 2 sensible thirty something.

Party over, we packed our bags and headed north to Chiang Mai. At first Claudia was reluctant to go to Chiang Mai because at this time of year the temperature can go as low as 10 degrees Celsius at night and averages 25 degrees during the day. It didn’t take more then a day for her to fall in love with this charming city. On our second night my friend PY, Simon and his girlfriend Tass took us to an authentic Thai restaurant in the heart of the old city. We ate like there was no tomorrow and between the five of us drank 9 big bottles of Leo (Thai beer). All that for a bit less then 200 baht or 7$ CAD. We finished the evening at an intimate jazz bar where we drank way to much ‘Sang Som’ and watch a local band play great classical jazz covers.

Aside from being the cheapest place in Thailand Ching Mai offers a wide range of recreational activities. Among them we took a Thai cooking class. It was my second time so I tried different dishes. Learning to cook traditional Thai dishes is great but pales in comparison to cooking with the hill tribes up the mountains of Doi Inthanon National Park. Our two day one night trek amidst magnificent waterfalls and wild orchids was surely the most memorable part of my trip so far. When you spend the night sleeping on the floor of a feeble bamboo shelter deprive of drinkable water (for us weak foreign) and electricity you realize that you don’t need much to live and be happy…yes happy! Us westerners often define ourselves by the amount of stuff we own. These people might not have an electric stove, a washer and dryer or god forbid a television set but they have some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever had the chance to see in there own backyard and a night sky filed with millions of stars all visible to the naked eye. After our three and a half hour trek and a cold shower Claudia and I help our tour guide prepare supper for the entire group. The evening meal was served on the floor of our shelter lit by no more no less then 4 candles.  After a few drink of Moonshine our tour guide happily named Jake the ripper aka Mr. Whiskey started to play acoustic guitar for us until we fell asleep around 9 pm. The next day the crowing roosters woke us up around 5 am but we got up at 7 am ready for the second part of our expedition: elephant trek, white water rafting and bamboo rafting.

On the night of January 20th we left Chiang Mai and went back to Bangkok. Claudia’s plane back to Montreal was leaving at 6 am on the 22nd. I decided to accompany her because I thought it would be easier for me to find my Firewire 800 cable in BK. Not so much! Anyhow i’ve been in BK since then making up for my lake of discipline by working on my blog and other stuff I had set out to do during my trip.

I have to admit that there is some sort of void since Claudia left. She was a great travel partner. It’s rare that you can spend close to a month with someone day in day out without any argument whatsoever. I will miss her ‘joie de vivre’ and her constant willingness to experience different things. I guess the up side of her departure is that i’ve been more productive. I encourage you to go read her accounts of the trip. Her writing is far superior then mine.

That pretty much raps-up the highlights of my trip so far. I plan on staying in BK for an other 2/3 days, long enough to finish a few design project I’m working on. Then I think I will go to Krabi a few days before leaving Thailand and moving on to Lao and Vietnam. Next post will probably be on my surprising experience at the BNH Hostpital in Bangkok which I forgot to mention in this post.