Thailand – Kanchanaburi and Sai Yok

Train to Kanchanaburi

Train to Kanchanaburi

Next after Bangkok, we headed out to the countryside (well, it’s all relative) to Kanchanaburi, the home of the Bridge over the River Kwai. We decided that to do it properly, we should take the train, and so we hopped onto the slow 3rd class passenger train (no aircon) at Bangkok Thonburi station (otherwise known as Bangkok Noi – small).

The station took R aback somewhat, as he was getting used to Bangkok’s flashiness, and Noi was certainly not that. The train was even less flashy, with hard seats and the occasional fan and open window providing the “aircon”.

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Thailand – Bangkok

After the quiet of Laos, Bangkok was a bit of a shock!

We arrived in the middle of rush hour (well, hours) so it took us over an hour to get from the airport to the hotel, The Matria, a newish place off Sukhumvit. After checking in, we went for a wander of the streets to get acclimatised to Bangkok: traffic, traffic and traffic!

Our street, Soi 18, has about 6 massage places, at least two laundries, three or four other hotels and restaurants, and at least three 7/11s. Plus a goodly number of street vendors selling juices, meat-onna-stick, soup etc up near the Sukhumvit intersection, depending on the day. This makes for a great gauntlet to run when wandering out on excursions — everything from “Massage?” to “Tuk tuk?”

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Laos – Luang Prabang

Sunset over the Mekong

Sunset over the Mekong

Summer holidays means travelling to Europe to take advantage of the extended break, right? Not this time! We’d started planning an Eastern Europe trip, but I threw in the towel and decided that closer to home would be better, and it wouldn’t be nearly as cold as further north.

Laos was the fourth country in the Indochina circle for me to visit – I’d been to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam before, so I was expecting something similar. Laos is similar to its neighbours, yes, but it’s also got a charm all of its own.

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Singapore jaunt, Days 1, 2 & 3

This school holidays I’ve headed up to Singapore with my friend K and her 7-year-old, M.

We hit the ground running in Singapore. After the midnight flight, we were pretty tired, but couldn’t check into the hotel straight away.

Little India

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Phuket

L and I flew with Bangkok Air down to Phuket to spend a couple of days relaxing before heading back home to go back to work.

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Chiang Mai and homestay

The train station at Chiang Mai isn’t too hard to navigate (and has platforms long enough for the train!) so we found it easy to find our transfers to the hotel. We were staying at the People Place Building 2, which is near the night markets, but quite a walk to the old town and the main drag.

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Leaving the Chiang Mai train station

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Ayutthaya

Leaving Kuchanaburi, we headed to Ayutthaya to spend the day before catching the night train to Chiang Mai. We stopped into a grocery store for obligatory Thai coffee (espresso and sweetened condensed milk poured over a few cups of ice, then sipped over the next few hours) and snacks for the train.

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Kanchanaburi

Leaving Bangkok, we concentrated on the outskirts for a while, visiting a couple of different markets before heading up to Kanchanaburi, where we stayed for a couple of days.

Our first stop was the Railway Markets, where we fortified ourselves with Thai coffee before heading into the markets.

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Thailand – Bangkok

After way too long without international travel, my itchy feet prompted me to book another food tour with Intrepid, this time to Thailand on the Real Food Adventure.

I flew out of Perth far too early on the first day of school holidays, not terribly well assisted by attending a wine tasting event the night before. Thankfully, all went smoothly, and even though Perth Airport is undergoing renovations and the Customs and Passport Control people are now called Border Force (replete with new uniforms), I managed to bumble my way through. The flight was a bit bumpy, but we landed in BKK without incident, the only danger being the length of time we were unable to use the bathrooms because of turbulence!

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The long queue at the BKK taxi rank.

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Los Angeles

We alighted from the train in Los Angeles just in time to see the last of the Day of the Dead celebrations in the area around Union Station. A very different vibe to the Halloween and World Series celebrations in SF!

We were staying at the Checkers Hilton, which was pretty central and easy to find public transport. This was great, because our first stop in LA was to go to the Californian Science Center to see the space shuttle, at Exposition Park.

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The Jeffersonian… uhh, Exposition Park

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