After three weeks of Burmese cuisine one reason we were looking forward to returning to Thailand was to be able to gorge on Thai food again. With that in mind we made a beeline from the airport to Hualumphong train station in Bangkok as we had been recommended a small cafe opposite that cooked the best Tom Yam soup in the city. And it was good.
Fully sated we hopped on the next train out to Ayuthaya, the ancient home of the Kingdom of Ayuthaya. The city is on an island at the confluence of three rivers, which probably contributed a lot to protecting the Kingdom during the glory days. The train station is on the “mainland” but a small ferry chugs across the river to the ‘island’ for 4B (roughly 8p). After visiting Sukhothai and Bagan recently we needed to satisfy our growing habit for ancient ruins so hired bicycles to explore the various ruined temples and sights. We were expecting the heat to be slightly less stifling than in Myanmar but if anything it was even hotter and sultrier, necessitating regular breaks for cold drinks or ice creams. The city, and the temples, were badly damaged in last year’s floods and so in an effort to preserve what remains many of the sites have closed off certain areas or even the whole site as at Wat Chai Wattanaram off of the island to the west. The famous Buddha head hidden in the roots around Wat Mahathat was still very much accessible and this is probably my favourite of the main sights of Ayuthaya, even if you do need to fight through the crowds of noisy Spanish tour groups to catch a glimpse. The head is smaller than it looks in photos and to see everyone trying to get a view is akin to watching the groups at the Mannekin Pis or around the Mona Lisa in the Louvre! Possibly the most famous temple – Wat Si Sanpet was totally covered in scaffolding and tarpaulin so, although it did not deter the legions of coach tours stopping by, we preferred to cycle off to some less well known and also less damaged ruins. Just west of the main sights we found a small temple with a sitting Buddha statue outside under a tree showering it with an orange blossom and just around the corner a similar situation at a reclining Buddha. These were our highlights of the visit.
We kept up our eagerness for Thai food in Ayuthaya also. By day touring the ruins, by night devouring plates of tangy red and spicy green curry, aromatic basil stir-fries and creamy Massaman curry. We also partook in another Thai culinary institution... breakfast at 7-11. This normally consists of 3-in-1 coffee mix in a paper cup, a loaf of raisin bread or other dubious looking bakery snack and a pot of yoghurt – there are natural, mixed fruit and aloe vera flavours but I prefer the yoghurt with chick peas, kidney beans and sweetcorn. Apparently there are around 4000 branches of 7-11 in Thailand, which is roughly half the number of outlets in the US. Some streets in Bangkok have half-a-dozen 7-11’s over a short stretch and often pick-up arrangements with minibuses and other transports are arranged around a certain 7-11, it just better be the right one!
We took the train from Ayuthaya to Pak Chong, where a pick-up was collecting passengers from outside the 7-11 to ferry them down to Khao Yai national park, a favourite weekend getaway for those escaping the fumes of Bangkok. We paid the ridiculous 400B entry and hitched a lift up to the head-quarters. The reason we visited was to do a 8km trek that we had been recommended, at the visitors centre we were told we can only start the trek between 7-8am. Typical. I am going to give up trying to go trekking in South East Asia, at least on this trip, it has obviously been decided that all attempts I make will end in disappointment – first at Taman Negara, then in Myanmar and now here! Instead we hitched another ride (no public transport within the park) to Haew Suwat waterfall, which was the one used in the film The Beach. Just next to the waterfall we stopped for a delicious bowl of gooay-deow, traditional Thai noodle soup with dry and pickled chilli, fish sauce and sugar to flavour it. It was one of the best gooay-deow we have had in Thailand and a nice surprise, although it shouldn’t have been such a surprise as Thai holidays revolve around meal stops, whether it’s a day trip to a national park or a weekend away at the beach you can always find Thai families tucking in to whatever treats they have found.
Making up for the trekking disappointment we managed to hitch out of the park and then all the way to the Cambodian border at Aranya Prathet. This was a surprisingly nice place – we found a good value hotel with a roof terrace overlooking the colourful night market. We bought take-away from the market (giant bowls of deep-fried prawns) and sat eating them whilst watching over the town from the terrace.
We crossed the border to make our brief side-trip to Angkor Wat. The border post is infamous for scams and petty thievery but we managed to get through OK, walk into Cambodia and find a couple of seats in a shared taxi heading to Siem Reap. Not part of the plan this trip it was nice to get a taste of the French Indochina style – guesthouses with spacious rooms, high Parisian ceilings, bathtubs and sweeping veranda’s and much better value for money than in Thailand, Malaysia or Myanmar. There is also a noticeable change of dress style when heading from Thailand into the former French Indochina. The guys all wear immaculate fitted trousers with collared shirts and all look like extras from the bar scenes in Good Morning Vietnam. The French influence on the cuisine is immediately evident with baguette vendors everywhere. Here it all becomes inter-twined with a touch of US style introduced later on – the baguettes stuffed with BLT, southern fried pork and potato salad and so on. It is not all French though, there are some traditional Khmer meals that have stood the test of time – the Khmer Amok curry is a dry curry made with a lot of grated vegetables and best served with fish. As it is dry it is perfect to enjoy with a couple of glasses of draft Angkor beer.
Of course the main reason we made this side trip was to visit the ruins of Angkor Wat, close to Siem Reap. Although showing signs of buckling under the strain of visitors with scaffolding on many sites it is still an incredible image. It is hard not to compare the experience of visiting Angkor Wat with that of visiting Bagan. Where Bagan is impressive for the sheer number of temples and the views over the whole area, Angkor Wat is hidden in the jungle so the overall views are not as easy to find, close inspection of the intricate Hindu carvings, statues and murals is much more rewarding however.
We undertook a typical circuit – a thorough sunset tour of Angkor Wat on the first evening (although we had no time to get up to the viewpoint on Bakheng hill) and then the next day cycling around the other ‘greatest hits’ of Angkor, starting with Angkor Thom - the carved faces of the Bayon, the Terrace of the Elephants and the hidden wall of the Terrace of the Leper King and the gates of the wall of Angkor Thom – and then north to the less visited Preah Khan, which I think is under-rated and was always one of my favourites – it is like a lesser visited Ta Prohm. An easy comparison to make as we headed back from Preah Khan and east to Ta Prohm. This is certainly a highlight and is the temple covered in tree roots used in the film Tomb Raider. Nowadays showing more signs of disrepair than many of the other sites, probably due to its popularity. It would be a great place to spend an hour relaxing in the shade during the heat of the day and admiring the various nooks and crannies and hidden alleyways. I say ‘would’ rather than ‘was’ because any time spent at Ta Prohm will be in the company of coach loads of Spanish, Japanese and Russian tour groups which makes it hard to relax and not quite as enticing a place to stop. Close by the ruins of Banteay Kdei are in a similar style to those of Ta Prohm and Preah Khan and makes a good final stop on the circuit back round to Angkor Wat. It was exhausting cycling round in such heat and humidity that each day upon returning to Siem Reap we headed straight for a 50c glass of draft Angkor beer!
Returning to Thailand our last stop on our circuit of Eastern Thailand was the Koh Chang islands in the northern gulf. The islands are close to the Cambodian border and the main island is only a few kilometres offshore, it looks close enough to swim! On the bus from Siem Reap we had bumped into Michaela and Martin, a British/French couple we had last seen on the journey from Koh Lipe to Hat Yai a couple of months ago. They joined us for a few days and together we stayed on White Sand beach on Koh Chang. This is the most developed beach, full of massive resorts but just a few minutes walk north along the beach are a bunch of ramshackle huts clinging to side of the hill. It was a quiet spot, a perfect place to unwind after seven months of travelling and much more suitable than the backpacker enclave at Lonely beach further south, which has become a bit of a party centre. Fine if you want to wear glow sticks and watch a fireshow soundtracked by repetitive (and shite) trance music but if you want to relax on the beach it is less attractive. Up at White Sand beach our days were punctuated only by meals, swimming in the water (a bit too warm to be honest) and the occasional fruit shake.
After a few days on Koh Chang we said goodbye to Michaela and Martin and took a snorkelling trip around the nearby islands. There were around 60 people on our boat and the split was about 50% Thai, 40% Russian and the odd 10% from elsewhere. The large numbers of Russians arrive on charter flights direct from Russia into a small airport close to Trat on the mainland, meaning they don’t have to go through Bangkok and can just head straight to the beach. The snorkelling was OK but nothing spectacular, although I suspect it is hard to find spectacular snorkelling (or even diving) in Thailand these days. After the 3rd stop I was fed up with being kicked in the head by Thai snorkelers who, not being able to swim, were being ferried around on a flotilla of life jackets whilst kicking their legs furiously. A funny sight from the boat, not so fun when you are in the firing line! I was glad when we arrived on Koh Wai, a very small island just south of Koh Chang, where we left the tour and set off to find the beach paradise that we are always searching for.
What would be our beach paradise? There must be bamboo huts right on the beach with a view of the sea and little or no concrete visible around. It would be preferable if there was no electricity during the day, as this means no loud music or other noise and deters people wanting these amenities from coming. These points are especially important in countries like the Philippines or Indonesia where every single nice beach in the whole of those island nations has an ugly concrete Karaoke bar built right in the middle of it, just in case visitors feel the need for a quick rendition of My Heart Will Go On blasting out with the volume turned to 11. Believe me; they feel that need, all the time. Although Thailand is not so susceptible to this kind of noise pollution it is still good practise to find somewhere with no electricity, just to be on the safe side. In addition there should be no loud bars or parties going on for the same reasons. A cheap, tasty supply of local food is desirable but if not then a restaurant in the resort with reasonable prices will suffice. On the subject of the water itself we are not so fussy – as long as it is clean and good for swimming that is the main thing. I prefer when there is a massive tide so that the low tide exposes rocks and gives a completely different perspective, Monika prefers if she can just dive in and swim at any time.
Koh Wai almost satisfied all of the above but a couple of aspects let it down. Firstly, the resort we stayed on, aptly named Paradise, only had shared bathroom huts. This is not really a problem but in paradise you don’t want to be groping around for you head torch in the middle of the night and having to clamber over rocks to go for a pee. There were also aggressive swarms of sandflies and mosquitoes on Koh Wai, again not really a massive problem but paradise doesn’t have little critters satisfying their bloodlust on unsuspecting people enjoy a relaxing sunbathe! The sea is nice off of Koh Wai but there are a lot of rocks and coral around which make swimming less easy but that are not nice enough to warrant snorkelling around them. Finally, every day Koh Wai is inundated with day trippers from Koh Chang, arriving on boats similar to the one that dropped us off. Again they are almost exclusively Thai and Russian groups. It is very easy to tell the Russians and Thais apart. The Thais will be the ones walking around on the beach in their lifejackets wearing their mask and snorkel and carrying bags of bread to feed the fish. These bags are sold at the piers on Koh Chang, I thought they were for our lunch but no, they are for the fish. It seems as if the mostly non-swimming Thai’s need some extra-curricular activity to keep they amused through the day. The Russians meanwhile will be the ones dressed exclusively in white linen clothes. That is until the women strip off to reveal deep and evenly tanned bodies barely covered by skimpy bikinis. The restaurants on the island lend the Russians tropical fruits such as pineapple and coconut so that they can pose under palm trees in their bikinis holding tropical fruits. Brilliant. Although more an amusement than an annoyance, Paradise does have three beaches and the day trippers are only allowed on the first one so if they do become tiresome it is easy to find quiet respite out of sight around the corner at the next beach. Not so easy to avoid was the one ‘booze cruise’ style boat full of typical British and Aussie tourists, probably with a smattering of Swedes and Spanish as they are all over South East Asia these day, getting pissed, playing loud music, shouting and screaming, jumping off the top of the boat and generally acting like a bunch of arseholes whilst swanning around as if they are the coolest dudes around. Tossers.
I should say that we were quite scared before we returned to South East Asia that our fond memories would be ruined after we heard reports of everywhere being overrun with a new generation of hedonistic backpackers that show scant regard for local customs. To our relief we did not really see any of this, the incident with the booze boat at Koh Wai being a very isolated example of this sort of behaviour. Of course we did not go looking for it either which helps. A lot of places have changed but still retain their same core identity – the tape peddlers on the Khao Sanh road are now selling MP3’s and DVD’s but the Sikh fortune tellers and Kashmiri tailors still lurk around the corners. The same guys are sat in the same guesthouses along Soi Rambutri and Thanan Ratchadamoen telling their tales of hitching to Tibet in 1986 or whatever whilst tucking in to their banana pancakes. The demographic of the backpackers has shifted slightly though. A few years ago most people were trying to avoid the loud groups of Israelis, fresh out of the army and showing no respect for fellow tourists and being downright rude and offensive to locals. This resulted in a number of ‘No Israeli’ signs in guesthouses and travel agents, with no anti-Semitic reasoning behind it at all. Nowadays the Israeli community has grown up, has crossed over to providing most of the services and the youngsters fade into the background, their position of scorn being taken up by groups of Spanish with no concept of volume control or noise pollution and legions of young, pale, blonde Scandinavians who look as though they are on their school holidays and don’t quite know how they should act in such foreign climbs. Of course there are always a bunch of Aussies in board shorts and vests ready to show them the best way to stomp all over local culture! Thankfully the number of Brits travelling these days seems to have declined significantly; either that or they are managing to keep a low profile for the most part!
Something else that has changed in recent years is Lonely Planet. Previously touted as the ‘backpackers bible’ and the first reference point for anyone heading off on a journey through Asia their target demographic has changed significantly since BBC Worldwide bought a 75% share from the Wheelers in 2007. Since then the recent editions concentrate more on ‘mid-range’ and ‘top end’ accommodation, often ignoring the budget sector completely and devote more print space to reviews of where to get the best Latte in Bali rather than how to cross the border from Kalimantan to Sabah for instance. In a book that crams so much into a relatively small space such as the South East Asia shoestring guide this shift makes it unusable. Even in the Thailand country guide it makes most of the information superfluous to the requirements of their previous core target market. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame them – these days it is very much a corporate business and they need to maximise profit, if it is at the expense of us in order to crack the affluent career breakers and retirees then fair enough. What I do find a shame is that the actual method of using the books has changed also. We are used to dipping in for a tip on where to stay when stuck in a tight spot or to consult a map when standing lost on the corner of two streets in Old Delhi and in the old editions there even used to be a little section explaining that this was how they were designed. These days though it seems that people really treat them as a bible – they don’t stay anywhere not listed, don’t even eat anywhere not listed (I mean come on; surely it is not hard to find a place for lunch by yourself!) and if the LP doesn’t list a bus from A to B then obviously it doesn’t exist. Apart from making it hard for new businesses to get any custom it also creates problems for travellers such as this spring in Yangon where “all” hotels were full. This shocking emergency even made the pages of the Huffington Post. In actual fact not all hotels were full, just those in the latest edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Myanmar! Not just the content but the writing style has gone through many changes as well. There was a time around 2007 when they seemed to rely solely on cheap American researchers who polluted the latest editions with slang phrases that many non-native English speakers would find indecipherable and irreverent discussions of the best burgers in Phnom Penh or whatever. Thankfully they seem to have got through this phase and I must say the latest editions in the new and improved layout are far more readable, even if the actual content is not so useful. It is a shame that some of the old school researchers – including Joe Cummings, who I think was Tony Wheelers first employed researcher – no longer find it possible to work for Lonely Planet. Here are a couple of interview that help explain why:
On the other hand some of the old experts like John Noble are still willing and able to help the best new researchers such as Luke Waterson. I have tried other guide books but can never get used to the different styles, the method of using codes for hostel prices etc. The new layout of Lonely Planet guides seems to take the best of the rest and combine it with their old style that has been successful for years. Without Lonely Planet guides to grumble about, as if we could do any better, backpacker cafes around the world would be devoid of one of their main topics of conversation! What is that quote from The Beach?
“Theres no way you can keep it out of Lonely Planet, and once that happens it countdown to doomsday”.
And:
"You know, Richard, one of these days I'm going to find one of those Lonely Planet writers and I'm going to ask him, what's so fucking lonely about the Khao San Road?"
Not so sure about the first one anymore – if there is no party and no posh cafe then it might not get in, but the second quote is spot on!
And so we returned from Koh Wai to Bangkok. We had planned to take a trip to the famous floating markets but in the end decided to watch the May Day celebrations in the centre of Bangkok instead. Finally, having seen so much over the past seven months we ended our trip wandering around the BackpackerLand of Khao Sanh before heading to the amazingly crap new Bangkok airport at Suvarnabhumi. It seems as if the planners took all their inspiration from the even worse new Manila airport when building. Their main question seems to have been – how can we make this airport as difficult to move around in as possible? At the other end we will be arriving in Heathrow, which seems to have its own problems these days with snaking queues at immigration! In the middle will be a flight with British Airways, I just hope they don’t try to fob us off with just one meal and a snack like the flight from London to Los Angeles. At least I had a bag of Kettle Chips in my hand luggage for that flight, maybe I need to hit the 7-11 at the airport before leaving?!?
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