Tag Archives: tuk-tuk

SE Asia

Wonderful Chiang Mai

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We’ve been in Chiang Mai for 1,5 days and we love it! It’s much more quieter and calmer compared to where we were. It’s located roughly 700km north of Bangkok and it’s surrounded by hills up to 2km. Our flight to here took about 1h10m but there’s also an option to travel by bus or a train (roughly 10-12 hours). Bangkok is a great place to visit for up to 5-6 days but we wouldn’t have wanted to stay longer.

Our Hostel here is great! It’s located in a quiet alley and the breakfast is just 25m of walking in a cozy cafe plus there are several dishes to choose from. As in Bangkok the hostel is located very near to the main city attractions. We have a huge bed 2×1,8m (or even wider), a TV, refrigerator, a fan + all the other conveniences. Only weird thing is that for some reason we have besides the bedroom and a toilet/shower a separate room with just a small sink. Don’t know why but we don’t complain – we got a 3 room accommodation :)! In addition there are 3 really cute hamsters in the lobby (in cages:) ) who we greet every time entering the hostel :).

Yesterday we just looked around in the neighborhood, visited the local Warorot market, had an exquisite cup of iced latte for 35 baht (most likely we will visit that place every day we’re here, we already did today:) ) and also a huge portion of Tom Kha Kai chicken coconut soup for 70 baht. It was delicious!

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Today in the morning we stumbled upon a small adventure. Our original idea was to have a small walk in the old town when we were approached by one of the tuk-tuk riders. He said we would take us on a trip around the old city for 1 hour. In the beginning it was 150 baht, then 100 and in the end 50. The usual stuff :). At the end we agreed with 50 but of course we knew that there was some sort of a catch. First he drove us around on different streets, made some stops for pictures and we also visited a very beautiful temple.

At some point though he took us to one of the Thai silk shops where there was also a small handicraft factory (as said in the beginning something like this was expected). For a moment we looked around but after that there was another stop in yet another handicrafts place. It turns out that for every time a tuk-tuk driver takes tourists or just passengers to the shop they will get a stamp. If they get together 10 stamps then they are provided with free fuel. At first it was a bit uncomfortable going through these totally overpaid shops (all in all we visited 5 different places) but since they weren’t too pushy in the shops and the driver still was a nice guy plus we got a 2 hour tuk-tuk ride around the town we were actually quite amused with all of it going on :). Wouldn’t do it again but for one time it was fun:)!

In the evening we went for our first massage in Thailand. Although there are many places in Chiang Mai top-rated by tripadvisor and similar sites today we just walked around and went for a place what seemed cozy and offered a good price. And it was worth it! For 340baht in total (8,7€) we both got an hour long massage for feet, back, neck, head and shoulders and it was extremely good! In a matter of fact I actually loved it and we will definitely go back! At some point it was actually a bit painful but you just feel so much better afterwards! I don’t understand why massages cost so much back home!

Anyways there are still so many things to do here in Chiang Mai and I already cant wait for another day to start! Tomorrow we plan to visit the local zoo and we need to get an early start.

I’m also making a video or two of Chiang Mai so you could get a better overview of our adventures.

Until next time :)!

SE Asia

Bangkok is truly city of life

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There’s just so much going on in here. Doesn’t matter where you are or what time it is there are people around talking to each other, selling their goods, just having good time or trying to get your attention with magical words of “tuk-tuk” :). You can see an overview of our first days in Bangkok from the video above.

But yesterday in the first half of the day we visited 2 different temples called Wat Pho and Wat Arun. It’s just unbelievable how much work and handicraft has gone into creating such pieces of art. Every detail is handmade with great precision. Currently a lot of temples are being renovated, I presume it has something to do with the oncoming funeral of the King. Because of that the biggest temple in Bangkok, The Grand Palace, is also closed but luckily there’s a lot of other beautiful places to see. During the temple visits we also crossed Chao Phraya river which was an adventure by itself although it lasted for only few minutes. But let’s just say that the traffic on the river here is the same as on the roads.

We also caught our first rain. So far it has sometimes been raining during the night but yesterday for about an half an hour around 11 it was just pouring down. Rains around here are something different then back home but during hot days the’re actually quite refreshing.

Besides that we have now got our first tries of local foods from places where basically the only way of communication is body language. But is has been fun:) And foods have been great. Tom Kha soup that Anna tried at dinner was eye wateringly spicy but otherwise it has been ok:).

In the evening we visited Lumpini park which was actually very nice but it seemed that there was a marathon going on although it was just an usual Wednesday. I guess it’s normal when there are so many people living it the city and not much places where to run. After that we went to one of the many sky bars here in Bangkok. The cocktails were rather good (and of course expensive – 800 baht/20 € for 2 drinks) but what we and I especially enjoyed was the view. It’s just something special to have such a great look at Bangkok night skyline.

The last stop was infamous Soi Cowboy red light district. Yes there were a lot of beautiful women (probably) and also a lot of not so beautiful ones. And in some cases you could definitely tell that it’s not a woman that you’re looking at. But all in all it was just one street where all that happened. On the surrounding streets there were just a huge number of massage salons where (I think) you could probably get whatever kind of massage you like. I know that there are also 2 other regions in Bangkok with similar things going on but it seems that generally these areas have been reducing compared to years back since legally it’s still not allowed. Although it definitely brings in a lot of money. But the main thing is that now we’ve seen it. All the services provided will be for next time.. or next life. Who knows 🙂

Lastly one sad thing is that during evening or near nighttime there are a lot of people sleeping on the streets with just their bags and other belongings next to them. Unfortunate that there are so many of them but at least it doesn’t get cold at night. Generally there’s a very big gap between so to say rich Bangkok and poor Bangkok. I hope that they manage to close that gap somehow in the future without damaging the cultural richness that Bangkok has to offer.

Sending a lot of sunshine back home:)!