Vacation in Thailand

On November 1st, my wife successfully defended her PhD. To celebrate, we took a 2.5-week vacation in Thailand. Last night we uploaded the pictures from the trip here.

Here's a quick sketch of our itenerary. Red is car, light-blue is airplane, dark-blue is boat, and purple is train.

We started by flying into Bangkok, where we stayed for 3 nights. The plane ride from Newark, NJ to Hong Kong took almost 16 hours nonstop.

My first impression of Bangkok was one of shock at the way multi-million-dollar skyscrapers seemed to be scattered randomly among middle-class apartment buildings, and poor shacks with tin roofs and chickens in the yard. Eventually I realized that since Thailand is so warm year-round, a corrugated tin roof is really all you need.

We spent one of our Bangkok days taking a 3-hour train ride up to Ayuthaya (pronounced "ah YOO tah YAA") to see the ruins from when it was the capital. They say that before Ayuthaya was destroyed by the Burmese in 1767, it was more splendid than London or Paris. These days all that's left is ruins.

We spent another day in Bangkok touring Wat Arun and Wat Pho. Wat Pho is best known for its huge reclining Buddah, but I found the huge chedis more impressive.

Our last day in Bangkok we spent touring Wat Phra Kaew and the nearby Grand Palace. Wat Phra Kaew has several spectacularly ornate buildings, but equally impressive are the murals that suround the entire compound, depicting mythical events from the life of the Buddah. The green men in the picture below are actually non-human. Unfortunately most of the pictures of the really exotic murals (like giant demons eating whole cities) didn't come out very well.

As we were leaving Bangkok, we walked through Chinatown towards the train station. In the process of traversing Chinatown, we accidentally stumbled upon a long dark alley crowded with stalls selling all kinds of exotic foods. I wish I remembered its name; it was the highlight of Chinatown, for me.

While waiting at the train station, we and 400 other travelers watched WWF wrestling, dubbed into Thai, on a huge screen in the main terminal. I wondered whether the Thai viewers understood the cultural significance of a wrestler driving up in a limousine with cattle horns on the hood, and getting out dressed in a white suite with matching cowboy hat and bolo tie.

Our train was an overnighter to Chiang Mai. It took about 13 hours, and except for the fact that it got very cold from the air conditioning, the trip was surprisingly comfortable, and we slept reasonably well. At Chiang Mai we rented a car to drive past Chiang Rai and up to Chiang Saen. It was nice to have our own car, because we could take little side trips whenever we wanted.

We stayed at a hotel where we had a view of both Mayanmar and Laos. We spent our time there exploring the little town of Chiang Saen, wandering along the banks of the Mekong river, and climbing and the jungle-covered hills.

Then we had a full-day of travel south. We flew to Bangkok, then on to Phuket, then took a five-hour bus ride to Trang. Our planes were both about four hours late, so we got in late. The next morning we took a speedboat from Trang to the little island of Koh Ngai. Koh Ngai is small enough to walk across in less than an hour. It has a handful of hotels along its beaches, but compared to places like Phi Phi and Lanta, it's very uncrowded.

We took a daytrip from Koh Ngai to go snorkeling at Koh Rokh, which was amazing. I never knew that coral reefs were noisy -- they sound like the bubbles popping in a sprite can. No pictures unfortunately, because we didn't have an underwater camera.

On our last day at Koh Ngai, we woke up early in order to take a picture of the sunrise. You can see a few longtail boats in the foreground. On the islands in the south, these boats basically take the place of taxis.

Then we took a ferry to Lanta, and then another ferry to Phi Phi. We only stayed on Phi Phi long enough to go snorkeling for a few hours. Phi Phi was extremely crowded with tourists, so I'm glad we didn't stay overnight. Here's a picture from our snorkeling expedition:

After Phi Phi we went on to Phuket, where we stayed for a few nights on one of the more remote beaches. The beach we were on was shared by a few extremely expensive hotels (one was around US$650/night), so we took the opportunity to wander in and enjoy their posh facilities. By this time we had pretty much grown tired of taking pictures, so you'll have to just imagine the poshness.

We also took a daytrip from Phi Phi to go snorkeling in the Similans. Snorkeling in the Similans was better than at Koh Rokh and Phi Phi, mostly because there were fewer stingers in the water (jellyfish? stray anemone tentacles?), and because the visibility was better.

Finally, we took a plane ride from Phuket to Bangkok (four hours late again), and the next morning from Bangkok to Tokyo (5 hours), Tokyo to Newark NJ (13 hours), and Newark to Boston (2 hours).

Upon return to the US, my first impression was how parochial Americans seemed. For example, on the Tokyo-Newark flight, none of the American stewards spoke any Japanese. Only the Japanese stewards were bi- or tri-lingual. Similarly, I was somewhat embarrassed at how our television political talk shows talked about other countries (like China) in insulting terms, as if they weren't listening.

There are several more pictures that I haven't included here.

Followups to Vacation in Thailand:

• Tidal Waves in Thailand

Posted on December 16, 2004 07:54 PM
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