Frank was lucky enough to celebrate his 8th birthday here @ Salad Hut. The staff all sang him happy birthday and brought him a huge pancake with ice cream and treats all over it! I'm writing this on our 6th day @ Salad Hut. Today the forecast predicts clear skies and sunshine and it's raining, heavily! The previous 5 days have been glorious unending sunshine while the forecast predicted clouds! TOP TIP - ignore the Thai weather predictions! I'd love to tell you about all of the high octane events we've been up to this past few days but to be honest it's been blissfully uneventful!
We've splashed in the gorgeous shallow sea, splashed in the wonderful quiet pool, lay in the delightful hot sun and eaten at the amazing Salad Hut restaurant. MMMMMM yummy porridge with fruit for breakfast, delightful curries for lunch or dinner and if you crave something western, pasta or pizza, burger or even fish and chips. One great activity Sid and I have experienced is the amazing snorkelling beyond the reef that encloses the bay. The fish out there are amazing and the swimming has been very easy despite the distances from the shore. I really do need an underwater camera to catch the colourful array of fish we've swam with. I will post some pictures of the few things we did do later today! Decided to hop aboard a taxi boat to the bay next door after reading it was lovely and relaxed with fewer big resorts dominating the beach. The taxi was 300 baht each way (£6) for the 4 of us. After rounding the headland between the bays it was immediately clear that the resorts / hotels are smaller scale. The bay looked less spoiled and there were lots of fishing boats moored out in the bay. We located ourselves towards the south end of the bay where the water was sheltered by a coral outcropping. The water was like a bath, lovely and warm and ideal for young children as it was waist deep at most for quite a way out. We ate lunch at the nearby Havana Resort / Bar / Restaurant. They had a lovely pool and better still an indian menu! Chicken Tikka in a roti for me! The shakes were lovely and there was a 'mocktail' section with some interesting combinations for the boys to try. It's been a great day doing nothing but splashing, frisbee and relaxing. Check out the video of our trip on a boat taxi. Well we've well and truly switched off, opted out, relaxed for the past three days. Thong Nai Pan Noi is a quiet village/bay on the east coast of Koh Phangan, with a small village full of shops and restaurant bars behind the bay there's enough here to fill you days. Diving, boat trips and relaxing are the order of the day for most people. We've just lounged by the pool and on the beach. Well Sam and I have, the boys have become parkour champions on the rocks to the north end of the bay, spending hours climbing, jumping and generally being lads. While we love the bay it is a little over run with 'resorts', which are starting to dominate, the bay to the south Thong Nai Pan Yai is supposedly less developed with smaller hotels along the sand. We plan to visit tomorrow and see. We are enjoying most things here, the place is a lovely, relaxing village. However our choice of accomodation means we have a lung bursting climb back home each day and night if we venture out. Suan Sawan is manned by great helpful staff, our bamboo house is rustic but nice enough (though not the villa Booking.com showed in the pictures), there is however a bit of an issue with the jungle life - INSECTS! More appropriately, mosquitoes! We are being eaten alive, no amount of bug spray seems to keep them away. Things seem better in the village, perhaps the breeze in the bay helps. The other wildlife, snails (huge), lizards and even snakes are quite engaging and the kids love them. But for Sam, Sid and myself it's not pleasant being lumpy, itchy, spotty and bitten to pieces. Frank is yet to be bitten however! It's been about family time and relaxing here so I'll post a few pictures, not the most interesting but they are special to us and those we love at home I'm sure. Struggled to take many photos today on our trip to Cheow Larn lake as the rain was so torrential! It began last night and was hammering down all night, through breakfast and all the way through our journey to the lake, while we waited to leave across the lake and became especially heavy as we crossed the lake! Despite all wearing ponchos and hiding under life vests we were all thoroughly soaked when we arrived at the floating bungalows, still the sun began to shine as lunchtime approached and we managed a quick dip in the lake before our hike through the jungle to visit some caves. The lake was really warm to swim in but a little scary as it was over 50 metres deep. As we walked through the jungle we were kept company by a family of gibbons (not Julie Gibbon much hairier and up a tree!). After looking at some interesting rock formations we set off for a 30 minute hike back to the boat through the rain forest. Guess what? Rain forest = rain, torrential, unending, hard, wet bloody rain! It lasted all the way to the boat, the hour ride back across the lake and the 50 minute minibus journey home!
Boy we were glad to get back to the hotel, hot, wet, soggy and just a bit stinky! A lovely shower and off to Jasmine House for our final meal. Guess what Frank had? His 4th consecutive green curry! Spiderwoman had even refused to serve one customer a green curry as she only had one paste left and knew Frank wanted it! Super food, super service, fresh home grown vegetables this restaurant is a must if you ever visit. Our last night was almost done, just home to pack and up early for our transport day to Koh Phangan tomorrow. This morning we relaxed around the pool at Las Orquiedas after our breakfasts of banana and chocolate pancakes. The boys had a great time exploring the resort of Las Orquiedas and jumping in the pool. At lunch time we set of back to Pawns for some yummy thai food, the heavens opened and we are due to go kayaking down the river later on. At Pawns we had garlic pepper chicken, panang curry, green curry and chicken and chilli sauce with drinks for 650 baht. Lovely again! We even had the added entertainment of an army of red ants catching a big lizard and carrying it up the side of the restaurant. All of the kids were transfixed. At 3pm we were picked up for kayaking, the rain was torrential so the hotel sent the driver to buy us all a poncho. We piled into the truck and drove the 500m to the river. By the time we were unloaded and in the water the rain began to ease and ten minutes later we were kayaking through jungle in bright sunshine, it was so relaxing. Our guides/paddlers were nice and pointed out some interesting wildlife. After about 90 minutes we stopped for a swim in the river, it was lovely to get out of the heat. A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, the boys loved every minute of it, especially the fast bits. We left Bangkok early for our Nok Air flight to Surat Thani from Don Meung airport. Our taxi was only 200 baht plus 50 for the highway, on the meter!!! After a short delay giving us time to grab a Starbucks (£15 for Statty to get a fix of western coffee). We flew to Surat Thani in just over an hour. We were met at the airport and issued our transfer stickers for our mini van. After a 90 minute high speed dash in an overcrowded mini bus, peppered with stops to disperse locals at various points in the countryside, ourselves and the 2 german girls left on the bus arrived at the junction with the highway and the road to Khao Sok village. We boarded the 'taxi', well I say boarded, Sam and Frank squeezed into the back seat with the ants while Sid and I were thrown in the back of the flat bed with the bags. 50 baht each for the very short trip into the village! Our accommodation is lovely however so we chillaxed in the room while the boys scrambled around the jungle resort. The rain was very heavy when we arrived so we wandered into the village to try some lunch at Pawns one of only 2 restaurants that the accomodation recommended. The boys had sandwiches and chips, ever the adventurous gourmets! Sam had green curry and I had Pad Thai. Delicious and the same price as our earlier Starbucks!
After an afternoon nap we headed along to Jasmine House, the other highly recommended restaurant. It's run by Spiderwoman who is a cookery teacher, the food was amazing! Even more amazing was the boys food choices, after a little pep talk earlier they went for Chicken in sweet chilli (Sid) and Green Curry (Frank) both with boiled rice. I had a Red curry and Sam a Mussuman Curry. We rounded off the meal with free banana cup cakes, so soft and fluffy. We all slept really well last night after an early start and busy day travelling. Well a day late heading to Chatuchak market! Up bright and early to try and dodge some of the crowds and straight onto the BTS for our 49 baht trip to Mo Chit Station and into the market. Found a coffee/pancake stall I'd read about quite easily as the market was still setting up at 8am when we arrived (so much for the 6am start!). The pancakes were light and fluffy so Sid was eventually happy. After a quiet start to life in the market it soon began to fill up. Everything you want, need and don't ever wish to own can be bought somewhere in the maze of stalls. Roughly organised into sections where stalls sell similar items, jewellery, women's fashion, swords, art, skunks, you get the idea..... Chatuchak market is claimed to be the biggest market in the world, it certainly felt like it by mid afternoon. Be warned, some of the animals aren't kept in ways we'd be happy about in the west, some of the food looks dodgy and the people are at times pushy and indifferent. But this is Thailand and developing the skills to make purchases is a life skill we all need to build. We were soon exhausted so headed home to relax for a few hours, grab some pool time (in belting rain) and prepare for a trip to Soi 38, the famous street food stall venue. A torrential downpour while we were in the pool continued into the evening and nearly put paid to our planned trip for street food. My determined efforts to persuade the family and offer to carry the umbrella won at the end of the day and we set off on a 25 baht BTS journey from Nana station to Thong Lo, about 3 stops.
A pep talk before leaving and the promise of some dessert persuaded to lads to have a go and try some food. We had a huge salted BBQ fish, with sauces and a massive bowl of salad, some duck and noodles and fried chicken rice. Some of the sauces were fiery but the food was delicious. At about 700 baht spend all night including some beers it was a cheap and fun way to eat. The boys got some fried dough then star of the show rotis with chocolate and syrup. Everything was great, I was even told it was the best food we'd had so far. Glad I stuck to my guns and made them all try it. Hope you are all well. Off to the jungle tomorrow! With our planned visit to Chatuchak market lying in the sleeping embers of the family lie in, I eventually roused the family and we decided to scout out the malls and use the sky train. First off, the sky train. An amazingly simple public transport system operating on 2 lines in Central Bangkok. Have no fears about using the trains it couldn't be easier: 1. At your nearest BTS station climb the stairs/escalator. 2. Find a map of the route. 3. Locate your destination. 4. The price you pay is the number shown on the map at your destination, ranging from 13 baht to 65 baht (26p to £1.30) 5. At the ticket machine enter the correct amount of money for your ticket and take it from the machine. There are handy change/ticket offices who can help with change for the machines and even sometimes sell you a ticket. It was literally childs play! Well with the BTS cracked we headed off to MBK mall and Paragon Mall to see the 2 extremes of life shopping in Bangkok malls. MBK looks very modern from the outside and is pretty nice inside, all air con and massive. However there is literally everything in the world for sale and bargain prices to be haggled. Each floor is organised into sections, with different floors being different types of goods. The electrical floor must have had 400 different stalls/shops selling mobile phone accesories, everything you might have wanted for your phone and loads more you never realised you needed. Obviously there were the staples to any household diet to be bought as well. What shopping centre would be complete without some dried crocodile for sale at every stall? To offer a contrast we walked the 150m across the busiest roads using the overpasses that seem to spring from every angle in Bangkok's central shopping area and visited the Paragon Mall. Sid was really excited to see the shops on the 3rd floor of Paragon. I never realised cars were available in shopping malls! Of course we bought one of each.......... Rolls Royce weren't allowing photos and some of the others were a little bit arsey! Before we were asked to 'move along' we headed into the department store to check out the Walking Dead bobble heads and various Star Wars collectibles to keep Andrew informed for his planned visit. After a quick Burger King lunch we went to the Ocean World. A great way to spend the afternoon in an aquarium under a shopping mall, BUT at nearly £90 for a family ticket it was very pricey. We did do the behind the scenes tour (rubbish), ride the feed boat over the main aquarium (ok) and watch a 4D movie about Dinosaurs (relevant?) as well as getting free popcorn and drink movie pack! Which we weren't allowed in the cinema!!!!
Bangkok is full of strange and wonderful contradictions, rules that make no sense and systems that are so inefficient they can only be that way to provide a job for 3 people instead of 1. Never the less we've had some exciting times so far on this visit. Happy holidays! We returned to Siam City Park today. Half theme park, half water park. We were joined by Andy and Eve to share some cheesiness Thai style. Nothing much worth sharing apart from Franks leg slicing / tile injury (see below), when he was taken to First Aid the guy screamed in horror at the blood then began taking photos of Frank rather than administering first aid. Sid found it hilarious, Frank not so much, especailly the iodine rub! Still 4 plasters later to stop the blood all was well. Well the lovely day ended with a trip to Terminal 21 to get Frank some birthday Yu-Gi-Oh cards from the specialist geek shop there. Then a 49 baht taxi (the tuk tuk wanted 250 baht) to Soi 11 for New Zealands finest fish and chips, there were amazing. Snappers is a great place for some lovely grub.
It's amazing to return to Bangkok! This time I think we are mentally prepared and not over awed in the slightest. The taxi journey into the City reminds us of the mental traffic, noise and sheer size of the place. We've settled quickly into Citadines 8 on Soi 8, Sukhumvit once again, though we are on a lower floor and the room isn't quite of the size we had last year. We had a quick tea at Via Vai (http://viavaibkk.com/) of pizza for the lads and chicken in pepper sauce for us. Day 2 - Ayutthaya and the Winter Palace We were collected by Guide Nui at 8am for our days visit to Ayutthaya and the Winter Palace, we collected Eve and Andy from their hotel 5 minutes later. (http://www.adlibbangkok.com/?gclid=CJCx2sDthscCFVQljgodQCgO7Q) The Ad Lib Hotel looked fabulous, tucked away on a side street off Soi 1, certainly a nice boutique place for the honeymooners. Our 1 hour journey took nearer 2 hours with the traffic being heavier than usual due to the Buddhist holidays, no alcohol for these 2 days apparently. Nui informs us this is the "Raining Season Holiday" where young Thai men become monks, if they start today them must stay until the raining season ends (3-4 months) or suffer great misfortune. Like being stuck in Bangkok traffic every day! Here's a few shots of the Winter Palace, King Rama 4 built it to show the Western Kings and Queens that he could have a Palace he never really used as well. It's very western in style for the most part, though there's a strange Chinese Temple built by the Thai Chinese as a way of thanking him. To Sid and Sam's horror we also had to traverse the river in a wooden box, dangling precariously from a rope and controlled by a teenage monk too busy updating his Facebook profile to watch what he was doing! Great start to the day though. From here we headed for lunch in a riverside restaurant, courtesy of Nui (though we paid for drinks). The fried chicken, boiled rice, sweet and sour, cashew nuts in sauce were all lovely. The chicken and tofu soup was interesting and the plate of fresh fruit refreshing. We spent the rest of the day touring the various sites that make up Ayutthaya, the now abandoned former capital city. Take a look below to see some of the amazing things we got to see. |
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April 2023
AuthorHi, I'm Ian Lockey. As a family we have loved travelling and just wanted to share our experiences online with friends, family and anyone else who drops in. |