Thailand Ho! My Travels in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam

So, it’s been a while since I wrote the Burma visa run entry. Wow, a long while. Sorry about that.

After Burma Bob and I had a lot on our plate. We’re starting a “travel consultancy” business here in Thailand, actually we started two businesses. If I was a little more ambitious with this site I might spend a good article or two talking about how to start a business in Thailand, but alas I’m feeling a little lazy. We visited the lawyer though, three times, set up two companies - each one owning 50% of the other with each of us controling 24.5% of the rest them. Nicely setup. Costed about 55,000 baht. Not a bad deal, however we didn’t need to do the whole working visa since I’ll be back at home and Bob’s already got another 9 months on his type O (for “other") visa. We each setup a personal bank account at the Siam Commercial in Chaweng here and, once we get the final papers from the lawyers, we setup a corporate bank account (or two rather) and we’re off to the races. Exciting!

With that mission accomplished we headed out to…

4:30am - Cell phone alarm clock goes off. Jump out of bed and hit the shower while guzzling Red Bull

4:49am - A lady calls to say the bus has been waiting for a while. I tell her I still have 10 min before the bus is supposed to arrive. She says no, I’m late, again, just like two days before. I run downstairs and the bus driver bitches me out too.

5:20am - Bus has collected all of it’s passengers and heads for Nathan ferry station.

6:05am - Bus drops us off and we’re hurried to the ferry. Bob is waiting and kinda pissed that we almost missed the ferry.

6:25am - Sun comes up over Koh Samui, it’s very pretty. Everyone takes photos. We pay the lady 1300 baht (supposed to be only 1200 but I don’t complain) and fill out a lunch request slip consisting of a selection various “fried something and rice”, replace “something” with every meat in existence.

7:05am - Reflect on lack of dolphins in Thailand. Start feeling sicker with watery eyes and runny nose. Bust out toilet paper and start a long day…

This morning I got up at 4:30am. I showered and packed and drank a Red Bull.

At 5am the streets were surprisingly busy. Plenty of cabs came crawling by to ask where I was going. Lots of scooters with drunken partiers zipped by, heading home from the 13 November Escape House Party on the lake.

At 6am I went upstairs to check the laptop for any messages from Bob as he’d theoretically be picked up first. If there was a problem I know he’d have emailed me. No emails.

I went back downstairs and continued waiting. Finally at 6:30am I gave up. Pissed off but faced with a pleasant Samui sunrise I hauled my bag and myself back upstairs, dropped everything off, changed into my trunks, grabbed my iPod and went for a run along the beach.

The sunrise was indeed beautiful. Super red at first with an icy green sea at low tide. Lots of beach to run on, at least on the main part of Chaweng. The thing is that once you get to the north side of Chaweng Beach the conditions deteriorate rapidly. Garbage, mostly plastic bottles and cups…

Heads up, we got lots of new media available on my flickr site. Go check out:

Angkor Wat I & Angkor Wat II

Then head over to Two Days on Koh Samui which is from the last couple days when Bob and I hoped on the scooters and whipped around the south half of the island, near Lamai and stuff. Cool pics with monkeys, waterfalls, tire-swings, spiders and more!

Don’t forget that you can post your comments on there as well.

Tomorrow morning at 5am I hop on a bus, then a ferry, then another bus, then another ferry after which I arrive in Kawthuang, Burma (Myanmar). The Thai town from which we leave is called Ranong on the Thai side of the border. I believe we have to cross from Ranong to Kawthuang on that last ferry, at least according to the travel agent.

Both Bob and I are going, which is good. Anything happens and I believe I can trust him to help me sort it out in the best way possible. I don’t think anything will happen of course, Burma is slowly opening up to tourism and even recently there’s been some real progress. From what I can tell, this specific visa run to Burma is one of the newest ones and is by far the most convenient one to take from Koh Samui here. The ferries are all high speed (as I’ve heard) and from departure on the bus at 5am it’s a 13 hour round trip, putting me back on Koh Samui at Nathon by 6pm. Cost of the whole trip should come in around 1200 baht plus the $10 USD for the visa…

So last night I was out for a beer (or two) with Bob, the American also known as SCUBAROB, and he mentioned having to do a visa run soon. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about my visa’… I exclaimed.

I checked my passport this morning and it looks like I’m valid until the 17th of November having gotten my last renewal on 19 October when I came back from Cambodia (has it been three weeks already?). I had thought that with the new visa rules that came into effect in September that there would be a way to renew my visa from within the country, although preferably without having to go all the way back to Bangkok (anything to avoid Bangkok). Apparently there IS a way to get an extension, but it’s only good for another 14 days. That would put me at an expiry of 1 December, and I need to make it till the 12th. I’ve considered just leaving the visa issue alone since I wasn’t going to be coming back to Thailand for a while (therefore avoiding having to pay the overstay fees of 500 baht/day), but it looks like that’s not an option I want…

Alrighty boys and girls, I’m off to the full moon party on Koh Phangan of 5 November 2006!

Actually I need to shower and eat first, but this is me saying over and out. 

Leaving Big Buddha Beach on Koh Samui, here’s the ferry. Destination? Not the right town.

Correction from my last entry. I stated that Thongsala is the location of the famous Full Moon Party (indeed trying to make you all feel a bit jealous by the use of “famous”, and feeling rather special myself), but I was wrong. Thongsala is the main harbour of the island of Koh Phangan, but the full moon parties all take place down at Haan Rin… at least the main parties.

Me on the ferry to Haan Rin, Koh Phangan. Note the trimmed beard (finally). The ferry ride was kinda cool and I almost let myself get psyched up for the party upon seeing all the backpackers around me drinking beer and laying around on the roof of the ferry. The seas were, as Bob would say, “choppy”. No rain surprisingly.

This afternoon I made it to the ferry stop at Big Buddha Beach on Koh Samui by 1:03pm, the ferry’s departure time being 1pm. Thank god for Thai laziness and disorganisation because I made it…

Today I’m leaving Koh Samui for Koh Phangan. Right now it’s just after 11am, so I figure after packing and checking out I can make it to the ferry port by about 12:30pm or 1pm.  I’ll check with Tim, the owner of Akwa Guesthouse, what’s the best way to get over there exactly.

I’ve booked three nights and will be staying for four nights at this other guesthouse (Buakao Inn) on Koh Phangan, right in the heart of Thongsala, the capital of Koh Phangan and location of the infamous Full Moon Parties. Indeed, on 5 November the next official Full Moon Party is held on Koh Phangan. I say official because you can find “full moon parties” all over the islands of Thailand, but Koh Phangan is the originator and host of the only OFFICIAL full moon party in Thailand.

So yeah, time to go check out of Akwa here and hit the road. It’s been a wonderful two weeks on Samui here so I’ve decided to come back after Koh Phangan. There’s Internet here and I’ve been getting all my work done, which is the most important thing. I’ve been…

I’ve been a motorcyclist for 5 days now. It’s changed my life.

Check out my video taken from the back of a motorbike ride through the main strip, Chaweng Beach, Koh Samui. Supa Fight!

Now, with the gross exaggeration out of the way, let me tell you the reality.

No, it’s true. Sad but true. I love my motorbike out here. Before I rented the motorbike I was confined to a few hundred meters of territory in either direction from my hotel and when I needed to go somewhere I’d hop on a taxi. If you take the taxi however, you kinda need to know where you’re going.

With the motorbike I’m set. I’ve explored down on the south side of the island, Lamai Beach, and I’ve been up to the northern tip at Buddha Beach. I can go scout out hotels, beaches, restaurants and guesthouses and hit the shopping mall to pick up, for example, hair clippers (which I didn’t buy in the end cuz they were 990 baht!).  I can go out to wherever the…

I’ll try to be brief. I’ve been putting off writing this article for a week now because it’s a long story. I do however, want to publish the story so that anyone else searching for info about taking the bus from Koh Chang to Siem Reap, Cambodia or from Siem Reap to Bangkok knows a bit more about the situation.

Okay, maybe “nightmare” is a little strong. In the end it was just a big adventure and hey, if you’re going to Siem Reap from Thailand then you’re up for adventure anyway aren’t ya?!

Video from our bus journey from Koh Chang to Aranyapathet. Note the psycho driver in the truck ahead of us as he narrowly misses two head-on collissions at 80km/h. Our bus driver was no better, if not worse because he had a ball-less minibus with 6 passengers and luggage.

I booked my bus trip at a little tourist agency on Koh Chang like everyone else does. Just go in and ask them about it. You…

This is my third whole day on the island and things are going well, but not without a few fits at the start.

Leaving the ferry port, heading to Koh Chang.

Arriving on the island from the Bangkok involved a 9 hour bus from Bangkok (VIP bus albiet, where leg room is plentiful and the seats hit almost 40 degrees), and a 1.5 hour ferry, putting me on dry Koh Samui territory at about 8am on Monday. Given the costs compared to flying I’m not sure I would do it exactly like that again, I mean, 900 baht for the bus ticket, 100 baht for the ferry ticket, about 400 baht together in taxi rides… it adds up! Top that off with the less than ideal night’s sleep and the 2200 baht plane ticket starts looking like a very attractive option. But meh, I digress, I need to start saving my cash more effectively and sleeping on the bus saved me a night’s hotel room, right? That’s how I’m trying to see it.

An awesome Bay of Thailand…

Now that I’m back on some good wireless broadband I’ve gone and uploaded my shots from Siem Reap. I’m saving my pics of Angkor Wat until after I’ve sifted through and sorted them. I took over 400 shots, so give me a day or two to work on that.

Check out Siem Reap, Cambodia now.

WOW. What a crazy place! Last night I met up with Ed the Canadian with the handle bar mustache (which he cut off yesterday to the chagrin of the multitudes of handle-bar-mustache-loving Canadians) at Shamrock, one of the big bars on Khao San Road.

Now I feel like I’ve been mislead. Whoever said Khao San Road wasn’t worth seeing? You’re WRONG, sorry. It’s quite the spectacle, but best reserved for the traveler who has been in Bangkok for a bit first I’d say. If I’d seen it upon first arrival my entire perspective on Bangkok might’ve been different, not that it was that great for a while, but meh.

My first moments on the road made infamous by The Beach. Khao San Road is a totally intense experience. I remember having to focus on not looking too overwhelmed for fear of being targeted.

Anyway, Khao San Road offers the backpacker, or partier in general, a nightlife like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The neon signs, the drunken Americans and Brits westerners stumbling around everywhere without a Thai girl on his arm (unlike Soi Cowboy or…

Yessir! The moment you’ve been waiting for. All that time on Koh Chang without many updates, few and crappy pictures… what’s up with that eh? Well, here you go, check out the pics for Tyland in Koh Chang on flickr!

And now I’m off to meet up with another Canadian named Ed on Khao San Road. My first time on the infamous “mochilero” hellhole.

Ciao!

Catching up on some media here.

This is that barge I mentioned where it pulls itself along using the crane’s arm and bucket instead of having a motor attached to the barge. Oh yeah, and this is from Bang Bao

Cambodia is awesome.

So far so good at least. One day and one night into my brief stint in Cambodia and things are really good. Better than Thailand, at least compared to the time spent in Thailand up to this point. I’m currently sitting in a chair in the lounge of the Angkor Star Hotel where they have free wifi Internet access and things are pretty good.

That’s not to say it’s been easy. In fact last night was one of the most harrowing of my time in Asia thus far (although Saturday night was pretty rough too just for totally different reasons).

At least today’s been great though. We went to Angkor Wat, or, well, rather the Bayon actually. Bayon is the largest of the grounds of temples in the Angkor Wat area. I’m not too sure what people called each little area, but Angkor Wat is a bunch of archeological sites of old temples. I wish I had more background info on the whole thing, but I don’t. I bought a DVD from a street vendor today however, so perhaps by tomorrow, and given a little luck that the battery holds out…

Hmmm, long story short (and saved for the privilaged few...), I checked out Lonely Beach to the south of Klong Prao Beach where my hotel is. I went down to meet up with Daniel who I met in Bang Bao a few days ago.

I found Daniel and met a couple friends he’d just met from Norway, Ru and KJ (both just huge masses of Scandinavian bulk). Having decided to stick around the beach and party it up with them, I got my own bungalow for the night for 300 baht (like $8) and we headed out in search of “Happy Shakes”.

Here’s Daniel at the Magic Garden getting a little Ganesh lovin’.

We went to a couple of amazing places, first the Treehouse and then the Magic Garden. I had no idea there was a mini Amsterdam on the island down here. We found our Happy Shakes and chilled out till…

Today I find myself feeling almost content. I got the proposal done and am just waiting on an email response before getting sent out. That’s great news and may change my plans here somewhat. I mean, if I have a 10k web project to do (which should take about a month of hard work to finish), then perhaps what I should be doing is hunkering down in some idylic resort in the southern archipaelago with some good wifi, snorkeling in the morning and working in my air conditioned bungalow all afternoon and doing drinks with expats in the evening. Sounds kinda good no? We’ll see very soon.

For the moment however, here’s the situation. I’m supposed to go to Cambodia on Monday. That’s two days from now. The Fins, Perttu and Kathry, and the Canadians, Damien and Kelsey, all left the island this morning… at 5:30am! I guess this is because one has to catch the early bus and then ferry in order to get to the mainland in time to get anywhere before evening. I know I’m quite close to the Cambodian border, but for me this may mean either getting up THAT early on Monday morning,…

I took a jungle walk the other day. It started out when I left my laptop back at the hotel to charge up as I’d killed the battery once for the day already. Leaving the hotel I walked back to the main road and followed it east towards the Grand Lagoona Resort (where people pay $300/night!). Bang Bao Beach looking back towards Bang Bao and the first hours of sunlight in days.There was a nice little beach next to where a large creek ran into the ocean. Unfortunately the month’s rain and flooding has made the beaches full of crap that flows into the sea then washes up on the shores. So the beach wasn’t the prettiest at the moment, but it had a lot of potential.

Continuing on I found a…

Check out this cool crab! He walked side ways and didn’t pinch me when I poked him. Nice little (big really) guy.I’m spending the night in a lodge type hotel place owned by a couple named Gai and Gae (pronounced “Guy” and “Gay") who are old friends of Marc’s. They’ve just built and are now finishing their new condo/lodge-type residence located about 50 meters north of the 7-11, where the pier meets the land. The room is pretty sparse at the moment, it’s big but without furniture beyond a fan, a stool and the bed (right, no TV, no AC), and the bathroom is…

The last three days have been pretty good for fun, poor for work! I have all these responsibilities to take care of (proposals to write, blogs to check, my other site to keep up) and have been rather stuck doing things like watching sunsets, going to full moon parties, playing pool with ugly Cambodian girls and lying by the pool. I’m so stressed.

Seriously though, Koh Chang is pretty cool. Cooler than the place though has been the people, and this is the biggest reason why I’ve been so incomunicado lately. On the bus from Bangkok I met a Canadian couple, Damien and Kelsey, both from Winnipeg, and Pertu and Kathi (no idea on the spelling) from Finland. Damien and Kelsey from Canada! Not the best picture, but here they are in their 200 baht/night room where they spent the first night. They moved into the hotel I was staying in the night following, and are currently there,…

Now, remember that it’s the rainy season here (it was early October when I took the bus) and Thailand has had a shit-load of rain. I experienced my first REAL flooding on this bus ride actually. Check out some of the pictures I’ve uploaded of the flooding between Bangkok and Ko Chang on my flickr site. It was pretty intense seeing so many homes and shops flooded out. Cars were submerged up to mid-way on the windshield…

The bus arrives at 8:40am tomorrow to pick me up from the hotel here. At least that’s what TAT said, but I’m finding it difficult to believe. I mean, it’s not like there’s going to be more than me to pick up, right? Okay sure, they came through for me with the visas, kind of. The other thing is that Lonely Planet said to be wary of special tour buses. They warn that some have this gig where they pick you up, stop along the way, gas you to sleep and steal your stuff. Or the other thing is that they rifle through your things by the time you arrive, grabbing anything valuable… Gotta say I haven’t stopped thinking about this all day.

Oh well, so they get me! It’ll make for an interesting entry on Thailand Ho here at least.

But yeah, theoretically I should arrive Trat by about 1pm, then I hop on the ferry which takes me over to the island of Ko Chang. Having read about it in said Lonely Planet guide, it sounds most excellent. Marc arrived there today and says it’s one of his favourite places in Thailand. He’ll be…

I made it. Slowly (18 hours or so) but surely (no problems with immigration or anything!).

Me in the Royal Park Lodge hotel… exciting ain’t it? Yeah, right. I feel a bubble of culture shock looming up from the depths of my stomach… Or perhaps that’s just the hotel coffee.I’m currently in the hotel lobby where they DO NOT in fact have wireless, although there are plenty of wifi signals in the area that I’m picking up from my window they’re all encrypted or, perhaps worse, my computer is just not successfully connecting to them (same problem I was having in San Francisco sometimes). Bangkok seems like it has taken to wifi quite well, the only problem being that whoever owns those connections is smart enough to encrypt them. Damn.

The hotel, the Royal Asia Lodge, is okay at best. The bathroom looks like it could use a serious makeover and the ceiling is kinda claustrophobic. The window is tiny but adequate. Air conditioning works however, which may be my saviour. I’ve aclimated to North American weather and temperatures already I suppose, cuz it’s DAMN HUMID here.…

Getting up at 6:45am was partly to blame; today being the day of departure from San Francisco was another good chunk of the blame… but today seemed to go on forever. Perhaps I was overly prepared?

Emily left for school this morning, both of us semi-frazzled from the realization of both of the aforementioned reasons. I stuck to the tea I’ve been drinking nearly the entire time spent in San Francisco instead of coffee, figuring a caffeine peak so early in what’s sure to be a long day wouldn’t be so smart. Then there’s the dehydration that compounds jetlag… I’m trying to play safe, not just because of my recent illness’ consequential sense of physical vulnerability.

I called my dad, then my mom returned my voicemail and I caught my brother off guard (takin’ a number two) in Carlton’s ivy-league, porcelain throne-rooms.

I sent out all the necessary emails and checked my Google earnings. Even posted on here this morning re: the hotel situation and Andy’s feedback.

I packed up my backpack which turned out much heavier and less voluminous than I’d thought. My suitcase with…

Hotel booked! Despite Andy’s advice, I thought I’d try the Royal Asia Lodge near Sukhumvit Rd, the skytrain and, well, perhaps the smutty areas? Not that that’s what I’m looking for, but I’d imagine it’ll be entertaining in some respect.  Other reasons for booking my hotel there is that the reviews were really quite good, and on their website they said they offered wireless Internet access. Awesome.

The only thing is that I’ll have to wait 24 hours for the confirmation… does that make you worried for me? I’m a bit worried, but you know I just talked to my buddy Tom back in Barcelona and he mentioned how the “true backpacker” arrives without reservations and sorts themselves out on arrival. I hear that, but I’ll be arriving at like 10:30pm, so it’s not quite so simple I’d say. We’ll see.

Oh yeah, did I mention it’s only 1100 baht/night? (that’s like $29CAD or $25USD). Sweet.

Considering I’m sick, now might be a good time to review my travel insurance and talk a little about my experience getting it.

About three weeks ago I mentioned to my father about getting travel insurance for my trip. He was glad, to say the least, that I was looking at getting insurance for this trip ahead of time. During my two and a half years in Spain I spent just over half of that time without any kind of travel or medical insurance coverage for several reasons. The first reason was that any Canadian insurance company I looked at required that I take out the policy before leaving the country. My initial coverage on departure in 2004 was for only three months. After the three months I was screwed because no insurance company would offer a policy to someone who was already out of the country. I did, in the end, find a few companies that offer “expat health insurance”, like Sanitas or GoodHealth, but instead chose to take up public health coverage as offered by the Spanish government. This got a little convoluted as is usual with the Spanish bureaucracy, and I ended up…

Last night we went to a really cool little Palestinian/Lebanese restaurant in the Haight.  The Haight has quite the scene. People describe it as being the hippy district, but it’s more than that. It’s kinda the crazy district. Ecclectic stores, ecclectic people… t’is tres cool.

I AM a Bold Hatmaker!Today I’m going to try to get a few more items done on my to-do list for Thailand and the website. I think I’ll take another look at hotels in Bangkok (kinda getting important!), check out the currency situation to see how the baht is doing after the coup, and get some of the features of this site sorted out…