Mercredi 16 juillet 2008

We quite Cambodia the 23 Mai, so we get a visa for Thailand until the 25th of June.

We arrive late in the night in Bangkok, after a day of buses to get there from Cambodia. The day after we took a night train -12 hours- to end up in ChiangMai, the second biggest city in Thailand, which is really charming. The centre is surrounded by a canal and pieces of wall (probably a protection from the early day's).

The city is surrounded by mountains, and the air is more breathable compared to Bangkok! There are a lot of nice places to shop, like the huge night bazaar and the massive Sunday walking street/market (the number one until now!). On the last there are a lot of temples open in the night, andthey are impressive to see with a fabulous game of light.

We found a really good place to stay, "Bordeaux cafe". Here we rented a big studio with fridge, tv, huge couch, and a big bed, for 350 bath per night (=4eu)! We stayed in this town for around a week.

The next stop was Pai, north west of Chiang mai, a little village at 500 m high in a valley, surrounded by mountains. It is a hippy place, a mecca for artists, musicians and travelers!! This explains the laid back atmosphere, and makes it a place where you got stuck... And that's exactly what happenedto us, with 4 unforgettable weeks in Pai!!

Like on the island we rented a mopped to move around. The more longer we stayed, the more people we met; the more interesting it got, we became part of the village life...

For the 29th birthday of Kris, the 9 June, we rent a luxeus bungalow in a beautifulplace "Aqua" with swimming pool in the middle of a tropical garden (thanks Aleide!!).

We saw the game France(1) vs Holland(4) in a pub at 1h30 in the night, together with other foreigners. French are the big losers, and Kris andnew French friend had to drink their sadness away, and later puge it away... A good night, hehe...

We did a few tracks in this beautifull area.

There was a canyon, where we walked by our self.

We did a 2 day track with a tour, and stayed overnight in a hill tribe village in the mountains. We passed a lot of rice fields, learned about the nature, saw no animals at all, and crossed the river a million times...

We made a good (french)friend Thomas, and also his monkey Piak. With him and the monkey we did 2 tracks. The first was on a peak of 1723m high. There was no path and we just went straight up; behaving like Piak, who was walking free with us. It was a steep and heavy walk, and Joske had it hard sometimes... But as 2ndgirl ever on top, it was worth the trouble. The view we had on top was breath taking...

The 2nd track was 3 hours walking along a river, and crossing it again a million times, to reach a huge, beautiful waterfall.

The 25th June our visa was expired, so we went in Myanmar for a "run visa". That means we crossed the border, and we had exactly 1 hour to spend in Myanmar, before crossing the border back to Thailand. In Myanmar everything is 10 times cheaper than Thailand and all is a copy, imported from China. It's amazing!

At one and a half hour north from Chiang Mai (where we had to be for the border crossing) we visited The Elephant Nature Park. Here -as the only place in Thailand almost- the elephants are totally free without a chain... We feed and bath them here, and watched how they are if they can walk... It was a nice experience!

After this we returned in Paifor a week, made a few walks, did yoga, played with the monkey, and had relax time.

After this we went to Bangkok -again-, for a day shopping in probably the biggest market in Asia, something awesome, and all very cheap...

And now, for the last week we spent our time in KoChang Island, towards the Cambodian border. It's a little paradise (big actually, the 2nd biggest island of Thailand) where we finish our holiday before the flight back on 20th of July.

So see most of you very soon!!! Greets from Thailand...

par Kris and Joske publié dans : Thailand
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Samedi 24 mai 2008
Before leaving Ayutthaya, we went in a tourist office to get the last information for the park and the border crossing. Surprise we got, was when we showed our passport to the girl, she confirmed us we had tree months visa for Thailand , instead of two! So we had more time before we had to cross the border. Cool!
We took a train to PakChong; the last town before the park. The day after we thought to reach the campsite by our self, but a sudden big storm changed the plans… Stock in PakChong with all our stuff and a heavy rain, we meet a guide. He convince us to take a room in his Garden lodge, close by the park, and to do a tour with him the day after. It saved a lot of problems to do it this way… The rain didn’t stop, and a few streets where getting a rivers!!
We arrived in the Garden lodge, and stay in our room to wait the better weather. Finally, 2 hours later, the rain stopped and we walked around to explore a bit.
The day after at 8 am, we jumped in the pick up to start our tour. And nice surprise, our group is just two guides, 2 English girls and us. Perfect condition! We pay 400bt/pers (8eu) to enter the park.
The park covers 2168 sq km, and incorporates one of the biggest intact monsoon forests remaining in mainland Asia . This is why it's named a UNESCO World Heritage site. Around 250 wild elephants are living in the park. Other mammals include deers, 2 kind of bears, tigers, leopards, otters, gibbons/macaques. The park also has one of Thailands biggest populations of Horn bill birds.

We drove 15km in a steep road in the mountains to see our first viewpoint on the way. Here we got leeches (bloodsucker) socks cause it's the beginning of the wet season, and this little creeps are with a lot out there... 
While putting this on, the first Horn bill got spotted. The guides walked around with a telescope and we got  him good in vision. They are really big! Wing wide up to 1.5m! The next stop on the middle of the road was to see gibbons -even a light colored one!- at around 300m away. We saw them jumping from tree to tree for about 5 minutes.
The headquarter/visitors centre/museum was the following stop. Here we walked around for a while, and got the necessary information for the campsite that night.
Next point on the program was a jungle walk where we learnt a little about the area from the guide, and saw the biggest squirrel (eekhoorn) ever, with a tail of a meter long!! We walked more to end in an open field with a watching tower over the water. We got a free lunch in a little restaurant in the middle of the jungle, where we saw a macaque(aap) around the rubbish bin, hehe! From here we walked with a full belly to the waterfall a bit lower.
This is one of the famous waterfalls in Thailand, because it's the one from the movie "the Beach"! We had a great cool down in the basin at the bottom. In the rainy season the water is violent and there was a strong current. It was nice! We finished the day by driving around to try to find elephants. Sadly, we didn't even see a shadow of a tromp, only  big pale of shit on the road...
On the way to the campsite mother nature gave us a little present; a huge beautiful blue/green Scorpio.
From a slowly coming up migraine. Joske trow up her whole lunch , and wasn't able to do anything anymore. Her night started at 18h00. Poor Chris had to built the camp alone , and for him the night started at 19h30.

6h00 the next morning we where waking up, to meet at 7h00 our personal guide. We did a walking track for 6 hours with him. He was really nice (we recommend him!), and took us off road, through the jungle, cross the rivers (jump stones, and use a tree trunk as bridge).... During this trip he stopped several times and show us different birds by telescope. We got 1000 leeches on our shoes and the special socks and saw macaque and deers! We stopped around 14h00, and eat a quick fried rice (where they live on in this country). From the restaurant in the jungle we had arranged a private driver, who didn't speak a word of English. Our guide functioned as a translator in the beginning before he was gone. Later, the whole tour, we didn't speak... Was weird!
The weather was the whole morning perfect; until we left. The guy drop us off in Prachinburi, probably the only town without white people! It was the last night in Thailand, and probably the worst room we ever had in this very dirty hotel (which was probably for sex, we found Thai porn in the draw, hehe...)
The day after we took a train to reach the border city Arahna Prathet, and we thought we could make it before closing time of the border at 8pm. But it's hard to plan something deep in Asia !We arrived at almost 19h00, so a bit late to cross... We had to stay one more night in Thailand!

3 May, D-day!
We managed the visa the night before at the guesthouse, and with them we took a bus at 11am for 4 hours, 500 bath p.p. (=11eu) to Siem Reap, with a bus changement at the border. But, like often here, there was something wrong... We let you know in the following article...! Greets from Asia!!!
 
par Kris and Joske publié dans : Thailand
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Dimanche 27 avril 2008

So, after 5 weeks on the island, we made it back to the civilised world!
For the history we went to Ayutthaya; the old capital of Thailand. The hart of the city is surrounded by a river, so we have an "island" here. This means to reach the "island", we always need to take a little ferry (3bath is 0.06 euro).
We stayed 4 days in this city, in which we bicycle, swim ( found swimming pool, and cities are hot compared to island life!), walk around, use finally the internet (islands are very expensive for that), and always chilled a bit... One day we hired a tuk tuk for a day, to visit 7 temples. The temples here are mostly ruins actually. Offcourse we got ripped of by the driver (keeps on happening here in this country) (he was not a guide as we thought, he just dropped us off at the entrance of the temples, and wait for us. At the end he said we spent more time than arranged, so we had to pay more).
We returned for 3 day's in Bangkok to pick up the bankpas of Joske (since the little bag of joske got dissapeard in Ko Pangan). So we used the opportunity to shop again in crazy city...
After a lot of spending money, we returned for the second time in Ayutthaya, which is not recommendable; getting boring this city. We met the first nice and trust-able Thai person, Took. She owns a tourism office, and she gave us a lot of information for the visa, train, etc. And for the next part of our trip; Kao Yai national park!! There is still real wildlife there, like tigers, elephant, hornbill and monkeys... So fingers crossed for us please the next days!!  We're going to camp a few days in this park.
After the new direction will be Cambodia!!!!!!!!(for around two weeks). From here the story will be continue.... Speak to you than!!! Big kiss for all!!
par Kris and Joske publié dans : Thailand
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Jeudi 17 avril 2008
Salut everybody!!
 
So, since the 13th march we where in the Thailand Gulf!! Great place!
 
We stayed the first week on the island Ko Samui, the biggest island in the gulf. Little bungalows on the beach, just perfect... We did a yoga retreat for this week; each morning 90 minutes long! Really intense and hard work, but very satisfying!
We rented a moped the whole week, and each day we discovered more! The temperature is so high; it's even heavy to walk, so this little motor is essential to look around without suffering and we are sweating; it's like a natural outside sauna... So swimming was a daily activity here, and more than necessary to cool down.
 
20 March; one day before the famous full moon party on Ko Phangan!!! We arrived on this island without booking, luckily we found a nice big bungalow, pretty cheap (6,5Eur p.n. for 2), surrounded by a beautiful garden. At 21h00 of the 21 march we took a long-tail boat direction sunset beach for the party. It was great, a lot of people, beautiful fire shows, and a lot of different sound systems along the beach, so you could choose what you like...
 
On Ko Phangan we did a round trip over the island. We walked to surrounding beaches if we stayed somewhere, or took a moped to cross around... We stayed in 5 different places, each a little bit further, and like this we saw the whole island. We bought a snorkel-set, we kayaked a bit, walked, and hang a lot in the hammock. Mostly you get a hammock on the balcony of your bungalow, but since we used it so much we decided to buy a second one...
The last place was one of the better, so we stayed there a bit more than a week. We never planned to stay so long on this island (totally 3 weeks!) but we just couldn't leave...
And literally we couldn't in the end, because it was between 12-14 April Thai new year, and all the trains where a week before booked already! Yes, they have a totally different time here, we are actually in the year 2551 now, since a few days!!! Hihi...
We managed to get a night train back to Bangkok on the 14Th of april. Night trains are cool here! The place where you sit in, is bigger than normally. If it is time (around 20h00) they make the beds. The sits come together, and they put a sheet pillow and blanked. Above the seat they open something, and suddenly it's a bed, above the other one. It's nice; you can actually lay stretched, which is comfortable for us long people... And 12 hours later you arrive in Bangkok! If you don't feel like sleeping yet, you can go to "the bar", which we did, to eat. It was very loud music, and it looked like a old movie; tables to sit on, disco-light above the table, a stroboscopeflashing in the corner, and police getting drunk beside you... We met here an American -who lived in Thailand for the last 8 years-, who insisted to have rum with us "because New Year!!!" We did, it was a weird night...
From Bangkok we took the train to the old capital of Thailand; Ayutthaya. This is where we are now. It's good to be back in the city for a while, because island are "remote". No shops, and if shops very expansive. But the bad part about being away from the Island and beaches, is that is so unbelievable hot!!! It feels like since we've arrived in Thailand, the temperature went more and more up; it's always 30 to 35 degrees at least. This makes it sometimes a bit hard to just life, let alone to walk and explore the city...

We are in Thailand since one and a half month. So we must move out of the country before the 29th april (because visa only two months). The plan is to visit one of the biggest national parks in the country  not to far away from here. In this park there are still wild elephants and tigers alive!
After this we want to cross the border to Cambodia and visit the famous Angkor wat ( ruin temple).
So see you for more adventures soon !!!!
Big kisses to everybody!!
par Kris and Joske publié dans : Thailand
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Mardi 18 mars 2008
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
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

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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