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

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…

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…

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…

So as I’ve explained earlier, I’m having a lot of problems with the laptop and now it’s gotten to the point where I’m indeed canceling my plans for Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and hopping on a bus from Siem Reap (in Cambodia) back to Bangkok… in about 10 minutes actually.

Siem Reap and Angkor Wat have been totally amazing and like I said I’ll post the pics (300 or so) very soon to the ol’ flickr account.

For now just know that Cambodia is awesome and that I’m having a very love-hate relationship with the laptop at the moment because it’s pulling me away from Cambodia and back to Bangkok (ugh). I’ll be staying at the D’MA Pavilion Hotel, which is supposedly quite nice. For the price I’m not sure why I’m staying there instead of the Baiyoke but whatever. I can change that later I suppose.

Oh yeah, I went out with some Catalans from Barcelona and Vilafranca last night. It was great! We smoked Nobel cigarettes and played pool and talked about Barcelona. Oh man, how I miss “home”. They also mentioned that during their…

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 think I’ve finally had a bit of luck, not without it’s karmatic cost though let me tell ya. Emily mentioned her idea of Bangkok from the Beach which is kinda right on actually. I guess things have changed a bit, and honestly I’m pretty sure Leo found himself on the Khao San Road which is supposedly a tourist hole/trap. I haven’t been over there but people I’ve talked to keep saying to avoid it. I’m not so full of ganas for seeing the rest of Bangkok anymore however, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

So, why no ganas for Bangkok? Well yesterday I found myself in a tourist trap big time. Upon arrival at the hotel yesterday, my room wasn’t quite “ready” for me so they had me wait about an hour. I had a smoke and a coffee in the lounge (free somehow...) but got bored waiting and thought I’d head over to the Siam shopping complex which I figured wouldn’t be too far away given the proximity on the map. I still don’t think it’s too far away, but I still don’t know because I never made it there yesterday.

Walking…

In response to my further questioning, Andy said he had “heard of the hotel (Royal Asia Lodge), but didn’t know much about it”. His concern however, was whether or not I’d be staying/traveling with a partner ("partner" is the politically correct term these days I guess). I thought I’d made it ambiguously clear on Thailand Ho! here that I’d be flyin’ solo, but I’ll point it out now. No, there’s no partner with me on this trip. I’ll be on my tod as a Scot I know used to say.

So he’s concerned about whether or not I’d be there with someone because the hotel, as it turns out, is in the middle of “Smutland”. I did indeed want to be in the midst of the action, yes, but Smutland? That gives a certain western-based image of a sleezy part of town with hookers and drug dealers on the streets. From my Amsterdam experience I’d imagine that it’s not quite so bad. Andy also mentioned how some hotels charge extra for guests to stay the night whereas others don’t. I might point out at this point that my hotel reservation reads as…

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.

I’m feeling a bit better today. I’ve been up since 6am though, so I’ve gotten some work done looking for my hotel room for my arrival.

Here’s what I’m looking for: A hotel in Bangkok Hotel is in a super central location or is close to the skytrain (I’ve heard it’s really good) A mid-range hotel with budget hotel prices (I KNOW it’s possible). Ie. less than $50 (1800 baht)/night, preferably less than $30 (1100 baht)/night. An outdoor swimming pool (because I want to work on my tan) And most importantly, a hotel with Internet access! I’ve seen lots of hotels with “business centres”, but I’d prefer to have Internet in the room, even more preferably if it had a wireless Internet connection.

I’ve found a few websites that have been helpful, but so far none have been as good as this online Bangkok hotel reservation system with R24.

I’ve also had the fortune of talking to Andy at pattaya-new about this:

I always used my friends place www.presidentpark.com - its fantastic place but not all that cheap. Well it IS cheap…

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…

Things remain calm in Thailand according to both major news reports and the blogging community. In fact things seem to be more than calm, Thai people seem to be elated that their democratic government was overthrown by the military. As I understand it, the previous government was so despised that the Thais don’t mind the fact that the military is running their country, temporarily or not.

The military junta has, indeed, released their plans for a return to democracy in the Thailand. Western journalists continue to point out that most military coups don’t give up their power so easily, thus many are suspicious of the future of the proposed plans. According to the junta the government will have a new pro-democratic Prime Minister of civilian origin within the next two weeks. In one year there are supposed to be elections. Only time will tell whether or not this happens, but in the mean time most television stations have reportedly returned to the air including the BBC and CNN, which is a positive step. Reports that any mention of Thailand on the BBC and CNN are being censored continue however.

At this point and as far as…

I called Eva Air just now and here is their response which was a quote from the Canadian government’s website, more or less:

The situation will remain uncertain in Bangkok. Due to the potential for violence, Canadians should stay away from the areas of Bangkok (I couldn’t understand the name) with government offices. It’s recommended to monitor the situation.

Eva Air’s official policy hasn’t yet been released, but the airport is still open so they’re flying anyway. Refunds are to be handled on a case by case basis.

The nice lady (who answered the phone in chinese!), Linda, said that she would send me an email with links to further information from the government and that I could ask her questions personally at her email address. That’s awesome.

Update: 2:37pm According to the CBC’s website:

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs is advising tourists in Thailand to avoid areas of Bangkok where government buildings are located, but stopped short of telling travellers to avoid the country entirely.

The CBC also posted the number for Foreign Affairs Canada (but neglected to post their website address): 1-800-267-6788

So I called them. They…

I’m checking on my airline, Eva Air for news about the coup and whether or not they’ll be suspending flights to Bangkok as such.

First news headline piqued my interest for other reasons however: ”EVA Air moves flights to new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport”.

Cool! So I’ll be arriving on the day after Eva starts flying to the new airport. Oh wait, that might mean growing pains with all kinds of organizational issues arising and no one knowing what’s going on. I’ll have to find out more about this. According to their website:

Customers will experience wider, more convenient check-in, smoother transition through the airport and a new stylish executive lounge.

The slick new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport or ‘golden land’, named by His Majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej of Thailand, will replace Don Muang as Bangkok’s major international hub.

Alright, so nothing about the coup on their website. I’ll give them a call.

Wow. I take a couple days off to visit my brother and my whole Thailand experience now looks in jeopardy.

My father called about an hour ago with the news. He was first.

My mother called about twenty minutes ago with the news, of course she’d heard it from someone else because she doesn’t read the news.

Then my phone started ringing with text messages from friends with the news. And the question in everyone’s voice: “are you still going to go?”

I don’t know yet! I’ve barely known about it an hour, I can’t make a decision about it yet. I suppose I might cancel if the situation gets violent or, worse, my airline, Eva, cancels the flight. In the last ten minutes here’s what I’ve learned:

I’ve spent the last couple weeks building the site and getting it ready.

Last Friday while my mother went to the football game, I spent four hours hammering out the (relatively) final design for the site here.

At the top left we have a picture of a Thai beach, perhaps Phuket, but it was an older photo found on the net. It’s not ideal, but I still like it. The right-hand photo is an evening shot of the Bangkok skyline, toned and cropped - I love that one. The middle one is a temple. I don’t know where it’s from specifically, but I believe Laos.

Today I’ve fixed up some of the About text and sorted out the social bookmarking features for the site.

Any feedback on the design? Let me know.

So, you know you have to get vaccinations when you travel right? Back in 2004 when I took off for Spain I took myself to the local travel clinic to get myself and my vaccinations sorted out. As I packed my bags and boxes to leave Spain a few weeks ago I remember finding my vaccination receipts and notes stuffed into a folder that included my initial Calgary to Barcelona flight print-outs. I chucked them in the trash.

Last week I took myself to my doctor’s office where I’d booked an appointment with the “travel nurse” to get my vaccinations for Thailand. Honestly, and I know this is bad, I just don’t remember things like which diseases and viruses I’m inoculated for. In fact I remember being pulled out of my school’s vaccination days as a kid – something to do with my sheer panic disdain for needles. My mom would then book me in with a doctor, one on one, who would hold me down for administer whatever needles were required. I remember receiving a new Transformers after a particularly less arduous well behaved vaccinations appointment. I totally blank on the names of the vaccinations I received.…

As mentioned, I’ll be gone for ten weeks or so. My flight to Bangkok, Thailand has me arriving on the 29th of September and leaving on the 12th of December back for home. That’s not without some dilly dallying on either side of the noted dates between home (Calgary) and Thailand, but more on that later.

I started looking for flights back in June and July thinking that I might find some crazy cheap flights by booking early. I didn’t have a lot of luck. I used the usual sources like orbitz.com, expedia.com and Travelocity.ca which give you various routes based on most of the leading carriers. I checked out mainly flights going to Bangkok (BKK) however, and when I told my Aussie friend Jojo that the cheapest I could find was $1600 CAD she wisely suggested checking out flights to other hubs in the region and catching a cheap flight to Bangkok thereafter.

So back to the Internet I went, searching for anything cheaper from Calgary or Vancouver (cuz you can get there pretty cheap from Calgary and it might have opened up other route options) to Singapore, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, even Ho Chi…

As mentioned in my last entry, my geography of southeast Asia isn’t the best. I don’t feel bad about it though, it’s not like some of those Americans you hear about that think Morocco is a musical instrument and Toronto is the capital of Canada (personally I’ve been fortunate not to have met any of them). In any case, my knowledge of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam was nowhere near where I wanted it to be, so what is an ignorant traveler to do before leaving…? What is a backpacker’s greatest asset?

A friend who knows, that’s what. Fortunately my friend Lani knew the answer to the above two questions better than me and picked me up a copy of Lonely Planet’s guide to Thailand. I’ve heard the Moon Guide to Thailand is right up there too, actually I’ve heard that Moon Guides are bigger than Lonely Planet out in Asia (soon to be hitting the scene in Europe big time, watch out Lonely Planet). I don’t care which one is better though, as either is bound to bring me from zero to travel-writer-publisher-hero all the same. As long as this traveling dude reads the book…

…

I’ve been planning to go to south-east Asia for quite some time now. In fact, I had always thought I’d end up in Japan/Asia before Europe, let alone Spain. As it happened, I spent the last two and a half years as an expat living in Barcelona, Spain. I met some amazing people in Barcelona; people I’ll never forget, people I genuinely hope to never lose contact with. Then again if you’ve done this thing before - traveled extensively, then you’ll know that however much you might want to believe that the friendships you make when you’re 4000 miles from home are the most special ones (and they certainly do feel like it at the time), inevitably there are going to be a few of these overseas friends that just don’t make it to your wedding for one reason or another, and it’s not going to hurt as much as you thought it would.

So I left Barcelona knowing that I’d be heading off on my grand tour of southeast Asia within a couple months, sure that my decision to leave my new home for a yellow adventure would offer everything I was looking for and more. Nearly…