temple

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Thailand

~ Julie M. ~ Leave a comment

I have been looking forward to visiting Thailand ever since I last left it, eight years ago. The country is so rich in culture, ancient ruins, beautiful beaches and delicious food. We began our trip on the sandy shores of White Sand Beach on the island of Koh Chang. I had been here on vacation when I was teaching overseas and was anxious to show Jasper the beautiful shores, turquoise waters and eclectic collection of colourful ramshackle beach huts. On first impression, I noticed that many of these huts had given way to modern, up-scale resorts. I was worried that my special little paradise was lost to gentrification, but, after a day or so of exploring, we found that many of the old beach huts did still remain on the north end of the beach, including the very one in which I had stayed with friends on my last visit. We were certainly there on the tail end of the tourist season, so there was not much partying or nightlife, but for the two of us on our world trip, it was the perfect laid-back, low key stop to spend four days resting, swimming, snorkeling, eating on the beach and getting massages.

We were glad to have the downtime before moving on to fast-paced Bangkok, where we spent three days, which was plenty. We hit up the major attractions: the presidential palace (which, though overpriced, was a spectacular blur of sparkling tiles and gold tipped roofs), the giant reclining Buddha – among many others- at Wat Pho, some of the smaller temples, the chaos of restaurants, bars, shops and debauchery that is Khao San Road and we caught a performance of the tradition theatre called Khon, which is somewhat like an opera, but more ‘musically spoken’ than outright sung. It was a good experience and the costumes were beautiful, but it was a bit slow moving and likely only something you need to do once. We went out one night on Khao San for some obligatory bucket drinks and dancing and then we were more or less ready to move on.

We took a long bus up north to the city of Sukhothai, which was the capital empire of the Mekong region immediately after Angkor Wat. It was a mighty hot day (38 degrees, sunny and humid), but we rented bikes and drove the 45 or so kilometres to and around the old ruins, temples and Buddhas and it was one of the most beautiful bike rides you could do (or so I, as an inexperienced biker, would imagine). We nearly dropped from the heat at the end so we stopped in an air conditioned café for iced coffees and to wait for the room to stop spinning before heading back to our hotels. We also visited a night market for dinner, where there was live music and a lively atmosphere and, graciously, virtually no other tourists. We were very happy to make a stop that felt a little less on the beaten path and experience authentic Thai culture a little better.

We arrived in the northern city of Chiang Mai just in time for Songkran (Thai New Year). Basically, during this week, and especially on the 13th of April, the whole city shuts down and becomes a massive water-gun fight. Kids and adults alike line up along the old town river and fish up bucket after bucket of water to throw on passersby. Trucks drive around all day with people in the back tossing out water at others on the sidewalks and it is virtually impossible not to be completely saturated after about ten minutes. We bought guns and buckets and spent the day playing along and dancing in the streets to live music. It was a definitely highlight to be able to participate in such a fun and energetic holiday. We need to bring this back home to Canada!

Other than Songkran activities, Chiang Mai has a beautiful old town that is chock-filled with temples on virtually every street. We spent the better part of a day exploring them and probably didn’t even make it to half. New and old, wood, stone and synthetic, there is a temple for everyone in this city. We had also planned on spending a day tubing down a river outside of town, but, sadly, the company that had been offering this had closed down two months prior to our arrival. Instead, we went to the ‘Grand Canyon,’ which is a former mining dredge that has been filled with water and made into a bit of a fun park for cliff-jumping, swimming and lounging around. In this extreme heat, it was a bit of a godsend. We booked a room with a fan rather than AC and all I can say is – NEVER AGAIN. I probably lost five pounds in sweat alone.  🙂

Luckily, the temperature dropped to a merciful 30 degrees when we went to Chiang Rai, which is further north still and in the golden triangle (bordering Laos and Myanmar, a former gateway for the opium trade). We arrived on a cloudy afternoon and went to the one restaurant that was open as most things were still closed for Songkran during the day. The family of the restaurant owners were out front throwing water buckets at passing cars (who were also armed) and invited us to join along. They were incredibly friendly, offering us snacks and drinks, and we spent some time playing and trying to communicate with them.

The next day, we rented a motorbike and took off to explore all of the attractions lying around the city including the modern and elaborately designed White Temple, with mirrors lining all of the curves making it really sparkle. It was a bit morbid as well, with grotesque porcelain heads hanging from trees and gnarled hands reaching out of a pond. Though from a distance, it shines like a diamond. We visited, next, it’s macabre counterpart, the Black House, which is multi-building project by a local artist and every building brings its own brand of dark and sinister décor, including animal hides, bones and skulls. We shivered our way out of there and stopped at two more beautiful temple complexes. One was entirely blue, and one had small temples with blue, deep red and gold embellishments. Both had massive Buddhas inside and, for the new year, large piles of sand out front decorated in tree branches and streamers. Our final stop was the giant, 7-foot-tall, Goddess statue and adjacent temple and pagoda. I joined others in pouring water into the hands of monks to wish them a new year before riding back to back. We visited the Saturday night walking street for a final Thai dinner of pad thai (what else) and then walked back in the rain for our final sleep before heading to Laos.

Almost everything I have eaten here has been delicious and I only regret that I could not eat more things (or more of the same things). My favourites were the curries – green, yellow, red, padang, pad thai, cashew nut chicken, mango sticky rice (mango anything, really!), fresh fruit smoothies, basil pork, tom yum soup, spicy pork noodle soup with wontons and Kao Soi, a local Chiang Mai dish, made with noodles in a thick curry gravy, crunchy noodles, chicken and pickled veggies. I will miss each and every one of these things and am grateful that Toronto has so much Thai food to ease my return. ❤

Chapter Thirty-Six: Vietnam pt. 3 – Hoi An, Hanoi & the Mekong Delta

~ Julie M. ~ 2 Comments

I want to start out by saying thank you to the many friends who have offered us suggestions and tips on places to see and things to do during this part of the trip. And also, to follow that up with an apology that we were not able to do all of them. There is so much to do here that we would need far more than our three months in Southeast Asia to see it all, but we did try to hit all of the highlights.

Speaking of highlights, our time in Hoi An was definitely one of them. Despite being an anagram for Hanoi, it could hardly be more different. Hoi An is a small town catering to tourists from all over, with an old city centre lining the Song Thu Bon river and a very laid-back vibe. It is bright and cheery and delicate, in contrast to the chaos of Hanoi. Yes, it is largely a tourist trap, but a very historic, scenic and inexpensive one. Here, the idea is that you buy a multi-visit pass to see your pick of the downtown relics. We visited some pagodas, assembly houses, an ancient house of a wealthy family and saw a traditional song and dance performance. We also hired locals to take us out of the city on motorbikes and show us the countryside. They mostly took us to other tourist spots, but it was far better than doing so on a crowded bus full of white people. We tried our hand at pottery in the nearby pottery village and we rode wicker basket boats through a maze of water coconut islands. We ended with lunch at a “highly recommended” spot, that belonged to the brother of one of our drivers. But lunch was great – this is where we first tried cau lau, and we had some nice conversation with them in broken English.

My favourite thing about Hoi An, however, is that every evening, when it gets dark, all of the thousands of paper lanterns and animal lanterns lining the river light up and it feels truly magical. You are supposed to let out a paper lantern with a small candle in the river, and make a wish upon it. We did this, of course, but, sadly, our ‘wish’ tipped over after just a few seconds on the water. I guess it will be a while before we travel again… We had a wonderful massage and riverside dinner on our last night and were lucky enough to see our German friends again for one last cau lau lunch the next day before heading on.

We boarded our second overnight bus in Vietnam, with a 24 hour trip ahead to Ho Chi Minh City (which everyone here still affectionately calls Saigon). The trip was long, but they were bed-style seats and, thankfully, no one had food poisoning this time.

From the get-go Saigon was not our favourite city. We arrived at our hotel in the evening and were just off the main strip, which was jam packed with bars, pizza places, burger joints, nighclubs with bored-looking escorts outside meant to lure men inside. There was even a burger king (way to go, communism). The prices were double what they were in the rest of the country, and that is only if we were lucky enough to find any Vietnamese food.  It was clearly meant for young travelers that wanted to party with all the comforts of home. We, however, were looking for more culture. We spent the next day visiting the monuments and presidential palace (which we could only see from the outside as it was closed), as well as the war museum. Laden with VC propaganda, it was still very impressive and sad, at times even very unsettling, and I would certainly recommend it as a stop, especially to those, like myself, who are used to seeing the war as a heroic liberation effort by the Americans and would like to experience the other side. We walked around the city and down the central promenade a bit before returning for a low-key night by our hotel.

The next two days, we visited the Mekong Delta. We had planned to do this on our own, but the prospect of an organized tour appealed to our lazier side so we booked through an agency instead. I would recommend doing it on your own as we felt a bit hoarded along the attractions with throngs of other tourists and it seemed a tad voyeuristic. There were certainly worthwhile attractions – boating through the canals, visiting the floating markets, seeing a rice noodle factory, but it all seemed a bit rushed. It became worthwhile, however, for us as we opted to do a homestay for our overnight, rather than a hotel, which everyone save two others chose. For this, we met our host on the roadside, and he boated us along a canal to his rural house, where his wife had prepared a beautiful dinner of fresh fish and do-it-yourself rice paper rolls. Our host, Tchan, spent the evening with us, sharing rice liquor and playing cards. When there are cards involved, we discovered, language is not so important. We slept in a bamboo hut that night and felt very grateful that we did not chose the hotel.

We also stopped at a really impressive temple complex with massive Buddha statues, en route.

We arrived back in Saigon the second evening and booked our bus out Vietnam to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the next morning. Sad to leave, but exciting to ramble on. ❤

(And, just because, here is some more food)