Mardi 18 mars 2008

Heading South: Hua Hin

This is the first nice beach close by Bangkok, just 200 Km South. It’s not the best place we’ve been…In total we stayed for a little week here. The first day’s we didn’t do a lot; Chris was ill; didn’t want to eat Thai food anymore. We had to rest after the tour and still get used to the climate. Further we tried to put pictures on the web site for few hours, but we have problems here and somehow it’s not working well…
The last day Chris was better and we decided to spend the day nicely together…
We started with a full hour off happiness on the back of two Arabians horses! Chris was pretty good for the fact he doesn’t ride and we even did few gallops!
After the last cold shower for this day, we rented a little motorbike and explore around Hua Hin : mostly beach. We found out that a motor is necessary to get out of the tourist ghetto, where prices are way higher than normal. And it’s frustrating to travel so far and to be with only old fat white peoples!!!
The evening, after a Thai meal in a nice outside restaurant, we went to a market. Totally different market compares what we saw before. First difference: almost no with peoples, second: price 5 times cheaper and third: different size for clothes (2 or 3 times smaller).
At 23h30 was our first night train, with comfortable bed to sleep, direction Suratani, where we took a boat for the first Island: Ko Samui!!!
We’re actually still on is nice island and move the 20/03 to Ko Phangan !!!

Good luck in your cold freezing countries, we think sometimes at you...hehe...
Big kisses to everyone
Joske & Kris
par Kris and Joske publié dans : Thailand
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Lundi 10 mars 2008

First Adventures

Halloooo everybody, or sa-wat-dii khrap!!!
 
So, we did our first tourist tour, and probably the last!! This is not how we like to travel!!!
The first day started at 6h30, we got picked up with a minibus, in which we had to sit the next 2,5h. The first stop was in Kanchanaburi: the cemetery for the Dutch and the British people, who fight against Japanese, during WWII. Not very exciting…
The second stop was a museum, with the famous Kwai-river-bridge. Again, not very exciting, but a nice market just close by.
The weird part of this trip is that they never told us before what was going to happen! So when they drop us suddenly at the train station without luggage, we didn’t know what to think… But, it was just to have the train experience in the jungle…. After 1 hour they took us again in the little buses –where the luggage was untouched- to a primitive floating house restaurant, where we finally got lunch served. The afternoon programme was the most interesting part of the whole tour: “Wat Luang Ta Bua Yanna Sampanno” or in English the “tiger temple”, the famous monastery-refuge that cares for orphaned tigers. That was such a great experience!!!! When it was Joske’s turn for a picture with the biggest male (300kg), he suddenly woke up!! The adrenaline was rushing big time!!! But the volunteers did their job good, and in 2 seconds she was surrounded by 4 guys and safe, thank Buddha!!! –This whole thing is possible because the tigers play first a lot, eat than a very big meal, and after that sleep for two hours: the only time the public is here aloud-.
After this freaky but very cool experience, we could play for a while with two baby-tigers of 2,5 months old: a dream comes true!!!
We passed the night again in this weird kind of floating house on a river, a bit more upstream than the restaurant, which was really cosy, and rocked us to sleep.
The second day started by the Erawan national park which contains 7 waterfalls, sread out over a mountain of 1550m high. We had a good refreshing swim in the clear water on the way down, despite the huge fishes who suck on you if you don’t move enough. “Lucky” us we met also a Royal Cobra on the way down!!
In the afternoon we visited a cave, meditation place for Buddhists, and house for bats.
On the way back to the place we slept, we stopped at the elephant camp for a quarter, to play with a baby elephant. Mum was not impressed, but she was chained, little one had fun, and pushed very hard!! The third and final day we had just a morning program: a local river motorboat tour, and after that a more quiet raft on a misery bamboo boat. But raft in Thailand means go with the stream and enjoy the moment. To close the tour, we finished by three quarter elephant riding. You don’t sit on the animal, but in a little chair on it’s back: weird sensation and not really stable. Very impressive to see how the animal listen to the voice of the Thai, sitting on his neck.
 
So, that was the tour!! In the afternoon we traveled to Hua Hin (south), 2 hours in the little bus, 4 hours in the train, and that’s where we write this (long?) article from…
The excellent pictures made by our new camera EOS 400 D can be found in the Kanchannaburi folder.
Cheers, big kiss, us.
 
O yes, some funny facts from Thailand: - The electricity wires are hanging just 2 meter from the ground, not protected, and sometimes lightning can be seen!!!
- Still hot, but beside ocean it’s better..
- The airco make us sick so for the future we'll choose just van room...
 
 
par Kris and Joske publié dans : Thailand
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Mardi 4 mars 2008

The first Impression...

Hello all of you!!!!

 

So, we arrived well in this wonderful and hot country!! The first day was a little bit fussy, we where very tired from the travel, and because we didn’t sleep so much the last night! We arrived local time 10 o’clock, which is 4 a.m in the morning European time!!! We met Romain and Elodie (= Noumea brother Kris) and stayed with them the first hours on the airport. They where just going to leave the country, and we cached up with them for 4 hours. And, had the first Thai meal!! Not to hot… hehehe.

They give us a nice address to stay, not in backpacker part, so Thai people don’t rip us off all the time!! They also gave a sim-card, now we have a phone number! This is; 0066 849 071 520. Only for emergency case; we don’t have it on all day!! Sms are cool, although not sure if we sent back…

 

We are still in Bangkok, it’s not to bad here. We need to get used to the heat, it’s amazing, always around 30 degrees!! A lot of sweating…

Kris thought Bankok would be worse... Everybody warned for "the big dirty bad city"! But; the streets are clean, the poor don't bag to much, the selling people (ventor's?!) are bad, but we can get around them, and the food is SO GOOD!!!! And very cheap... hehe! Fresh orange juice everyday for 20 cents (eu).
We bought already a lot; mainly fake clothes, a phone, and we booked the first trip. 


Tomorrow we go for three days on a little track, towards Kanchanaburi. This is not to far from Bangkok. We need to do this in a group, otherwise you can’t visit the place where the monks keep tigers in a temple…They are walking free around there, and you can come close and touch them.

The trip include more; elephant riding in the jungle, rafting with bambooboat, waterfall visit and a …. Museum. Sounds good?!?!

After this we go towards the south, first stop Hua Hin. There we planned to stay for a few day’s; horse riding on the beach and visit a national park; Kaeng Krachan!!

But probably we catch up with you when we’re here!!

Afterwards the plan is straight to Ko Samui, and than the boat to Ko Pha Ngan. Because it’s going to be full moon on 21th of March: FULL MOON PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Think of us if you see that same moon…

par Kris and Joske publié dans : Thailand
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