January 29, 2023 – February 27, 2023
After a long journey that took us through Seattle and Korea, we finally arrived in Bangkok, Thailand. Our flights went smoothly, though I was hoping I’d sleep a bit more than I did. Mona may have gotten a bit more sleep, but we were both pretty spent by the time we reached our small hotel in downtown Bangkok. We got checked in, and tried to get some rest. The significant time zone change always seems to make this rough!
The following day we made it to the Wat Pho temple, which was quite impressive. The buildings and statues are extremely ornate, and very interesting to visit. Mona was given some additional garb to wear in order to meet the dress guidelines required to enter most temples. Not surprisingly, we squeezed in a Thai massage, and also started to sample some Thai food (which was spicy, but good). The city is a sprawling and bustling place, with people everywhere. Unfortunately, they also have the pollution that goes along with such a big metropolis.
After just one day in Bangkok, we headed out to Koh Samui (one hour flight) and stayed in a quiet part of the island at the Humble Villas. We had a great room to stay in with our own tiny pool to cool off in, and were only 50 yards from the beach. We did some exploring in the area (by foot), and found some places to get good fruit smoothies and snacks for the hot days. We didn’t encounter too many Americans – there were definitely people from Europe (Germany in particular), but Americans seemed to be few and far between.
We also got to know the staff (Tea and O’o, not sure on spelling) at the tiny seaside restaurant where we stayed. The were very kind and actually fixed us a number of special Thai dishes that were remarkably good. The staff, at least where we stayed, worked long hours, with very few days off – often working every day of the week. To maintain their level of kindness and friendliness is pretty remarkable. We felt very lucky to be in a foreign place were people still treated us very well.
After a bit of recuperation, we spent a full day going out to a nearby national park (Mu Ko Ang Thong National Marine Park) and did a bit of hiking. The scenery was quite spectacular – good enough to be the location for movies of the past including The Blue Lagoon. The weather was very cooperative, and most of the rain we experienced was brief (and of course warm).
We also hired a driver for a day and toured a big portion of the island. We visited a number of temples and some beach fronts that were interesting to see. Through all of it, we managed to get over our jet lag from the trek over, and to find time to relax and continue to get Thai massages! We found that getting a 60-minute massage every other day suited us well. 😊 The prices here have been a welcome relief from the USA. A 60 minute massage can be had for well under $20 (with tip). Food is also cheaper, as are places to stay. We have stayed in nice places, all for less than half of what you would pay for the equivalent place in the USA.
It was a sad to leave the great location and what felt almost like friends at the resort, but it was time to move on and head to Chiang Mai, which we expected to be a very different experience.
We took a short (~1 hour) flight up to Chiang Mai, and made our way into the old city square. Traveling has been fairly easy despite the language barrier – we can typically make our way around the airports without too much difficulty, and finding a taxi (or equivalent via “Grab”) has been a pretty smooth experience. For our first week in Chiang Mai, we stayed at another boutique (i.e., small) hotel located right in the city square. It had a pool area for hanging out, and we had a comfortable, air-conditioned room that was very pleasant. We have also had pretty good internet connectivity, which helps us out a lot as we make plans, look at maps, etc.
One of our first experiences in Chiang Mai consisted of walking to a flower festival which was just wrapping up. The flower displays were amazing, and covered the majority of a large city park. We enjoyed walking around seeing the wide variety of flowers, and also did a bit of exploring around the old city square walls (about 1 mile on each side).
The city is a bustling place – there are tons of scooters on narrow roads, with thousands of small vendors all competing to make a living selling many of the same things. There were also lots of restaurants to choose from, and open-air markets to enjoy as well. The language barrier is very real here, with very few people speaking more then just a smattering of English. A lot of young people do have a chance to learn some in school, but as with anything, if you aren’t practicing it, you quickly lose it.
We found a massage place near our new hotel that we thoroughly enjoyed. With low prices and great service, we continued with our tradition of getting a Thai massage every other day. This particular shop was a place we went to a number of times, where they served a cool drink to start, and a light snack after the massage. Time spent getting massages was very therapeutic, and the women doing the work earned their pay and then some!
Our first week in Chang Mai, we were still on our own while we waited for Karen, Adam, and Drew to arrive. We enjoyed our location, and went out to experience a number of both day markets and night markets. They are very busy places, with hundreds (or more) of shops all selling about the same thing. Lots of food and flower shops, and lots of clothing as well. There were also specialized areas selling meat, etc. You can see why these markets could (and likely are) breeding grounds for all sorts of things. Lots of tight quarters, and lot of ‘intermixing’ of all sorts of things!
We did take one day and adventured to the suburbs of town, where we did some running. The suburbs were definitely more laid back and less crowded, but it was still hot! We did our run, but were left somewhat exhausted from the heat of the late morning day. Getting a taxi to and from turned out to be fairly easy, though it’s easy to worry about that a bit when you realize you’d be faced with quite an arduous trek if you could not get ahold of a taxi.
We had a lot of fun exploring the city, getting massages, and also had some down time at the hotel where I worked on my computer by the small pool, and Ramona did more planning for our upcoming trips.
After our first week, Drew managed to make it into town after a long journey from Salt Lake City. He didn’t seem too exhausted, and managed to make it out to the night market and a few other day markets before Karen and Adam were to arrive. There’s a lot to take in, and I think Drew found the city quite the fascinating place, much like we did. We had moved over into a house before he made it into town, and had a lot of room to spread out and take advantage of a full house. The manager of the house would occasionally bring us various food items, and kept the fountain filled with water out front. Thankfully, the house had AC in pretty much all the rooms, as the afternoons continued to be fairly hot.
One thing worth mentioning about Chiang Mai this time of the year was the air quality. Sadly, it was not very good on several of the days we were there. It was particularly bad a couple of days – to the point where it would have been hard to do anything very physical even if it wasn’t so hot. There is a lot of burning (field/forrest) outside of town this time of the year, which really adds to the pollution problem. This is likely not an easy problem to solve, but most definitely something to be aware of if deciding to go to the city again! The city is well aware of the issue, and seems to be making an attempt to educate people and see if they can’t do some things to alleviate the problems.
A day after Drew arrived, Karen also made it into town without any problems. Like Drew, she didn’t seem too horribly tired from the journey, so we went to what was left of the flower festival, and enjoyed walking around a bit. Karen also got her first taste of night market food, which was an experience! There are dozens of small vendors trying to sell lots of various food items. You pretty much had to view what you wanted, and point to it when ordering, as most of the signs were definitely not decipherable.
Mona and Karen took a cooking class where they learned more about Thai cooking. It took most of the day, and while they were busy doing that, Adam also made it into town. We started to go to a few of the more major sight seeing highlights in the town square, which mainly consisted of temples and just seeing how the local people live. People were always friendly, and we could visit most places either for free, or for a very small entry fee. Things could be a bit crowded, but we could always get into the places we wanted to go.
After everyone had arrived in town, Ramona had arranged for us to have a few free days, and to also have a few “planned” things to do. On one day, we took a mountain biking tour into the jungle and had a chance to see some sights that were once again out of town. It was a nice chance to get out of town and see the local country, but it made for some warm bike riding. The air quality was a bit poor as well, but we all had a good time, and no one experienced a bike crash! Even out in the jungle, there were shrines and other places where small numbers of people would leave offerings, etc.
On another day, we went on a tour to see….. Elephants! This was a lot of fun, as you could get up close and very personal with the elephants that were in the group this particular family cared for. We fed them bananas (hundreds of them actually), and even had a chance to go swimming with them. They were very pleasant to be around, and while I’m sure they could hurt you if you did something to provoke them, they were very friendly with us, and clearly a very intelligent animal! The pictures (found below), will likely say more than my words will here! We also had a chance to celebrate Adam’s birthday, and the outfit we had booked through even came through with a birthday cake at lunch time! Once again, we all had a good time, and it was truly a unique experience. Covid was not an easy time for the elephant herds… It takes a lot of food to maintain an elephant, and with tourism being non-existent, some elephants ended up getting into toxic farm fertilizers, etc. and did not survive.
After about a week in Chang Mai, it was time to head to Railay Beach! We flew down to our destination, and Mona had arranged for us to get to a pier were we boarded a small “long tail” boat to take us out to Railay Beach. As we made the short journey in the boat, it was clear that this would be quite a magical area – again, pictures will do a better job than my words here. The water was warm, and the surrounding landscape was beautiful.
When we arrived at the beach, we went right up to a house that most of us thought was just a check-in area – but it turned out to be our own house right on the beach! It was an amazing place with a lot of ornate wood work, and many decorations that made it feel very “authentic”. We had dinner made for us one night (it had a nice, working kitchen), which was very good. We also had breakfast delivered which consisted of fresh fruit, eggs, cereal, etc. We lived like kings in that house, with immediate access to the beach, and very nice, roomy accommodations. The yard and surrounding grounds were manicured and very nice as well, with monkeys to be found right in the back yard. It was a great place to just unwind a bit from the city and enjoy Thailand.
While at Railay beach, we found time to do some paddle boarding, and also went on a night paddle boarding tour to see bio luminescence. We had a good time doing that, and fortunately saw both ocean life and the bio luminescence we were curious to observe. As you put your hand in the water, the stuff would really light up, and it was quite interesting.
With the towering walls surrounding the beach, there is some climbing to be done, and we booked a half day trip to the nearby walls with a guide to get some climbing in. We had a good time climbing. Karen just took some pics and decided to skip, but the rest of us all had a good time, even if it did seem a bit hard! That night, we had Indian food in one of the local restaurants, and I think this is where Adam may have started to get hit with some food poisoning. Adam started to get beat down with everything that goes along with food poisoning, but still tried to make the best of the time!
In what felt like a very short time, our time ran out at Railay, and we got on another boat for a trip back to the pier near the airport.
We had 2 nights booked in Ao Nang, which was more of a small mountain town. We had a great place to stay – complete with our own pool. The “house” was laid out with a kitchen and living room, and then the rooms surrounded the pool. The pool was a salt-water based pool, so it was easy on the eyes and fun to swim around in during the hot afternoons. The scenery couldn’t match Railay beach, but we had great accommodations and also found a little store and restaurant to buy things at. Adam was definitely feeling under the weather and started to take some meds to get ahead of things prior to flying home, and the rest of us largely lounged and just took it easy.
Alas, our time at Ao Nang also came to a close, and we flew back to Bangkok for our final bit of time. Drew only had enough time to see a few things in Bangkok, but at least he was able to make it into the city before taking a taxi back to the airport. It was sad to see our time coming to a close…. Karen left the following morning very early, and then Adam left in the afternoon. Thankfully, Adam was starting to feel a bit better before starting to make his way back to the US.
We had a great time in Thailand, and it’s hard to cover everything we did in just a few short pages. If I had to summarize, I’d say that the people were very friendly, and the places we visited were very interesting! The prices were very reasonable, which was a nice break from US inflation. The air quality is something to be mindful of, but is offset by the very cheap (but good) massages that you can find!
The food was great, though you have to be prepared to eat a lot of Thai food – options outside of Thai food were a bit limited. With lots of planning, there’s some amazing beaches to see, activities to do, and things to experience. The elephants were definitely an experience highlight. There are lots (!) of temples to visit, with an incredible amount of ornate and intricate work having been put into architectural details and the furnishings.
Are we glad we visited Thailand? Absolutely. We would come back and spend more time here to enjoy the scenery, the food, the people, and those Thai massages!
