Hello again family and friends! This is the site for my new travel blog that will follow my travels through Thailand. This time I will be accompanied by my good friend, Brent Whitley. We will be traveling for 15 days. I will try to update this site as much as I can throughout the trip. Happy New Year everybody and see you when I return!
-Alec
January 24, 2010
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Departing Bangkok
January 25, 2010
Day 15
Today we are having our last meal and attempting to stuff everything back into our packs without breaking any souvenirs that we’ve bought along the way.
Thailand has been a lot of fun. It’s a safe and friendly country. You shouldn’t be too frightened to visit a country like this. It has so much to offer. I feel like we saw a lot in the past 15 days traveling through Thailand. But there is still so much more to see!
I’m sure the other countries in Asia have just as much or even more to offer.
Well, we’re off now, ready to check out and be on our way to the airport. Taking another grueling flight across the Pacific.
I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures and posts. You’ll have to come over someday to see the rest of the pictures and here the other stories not mentioned on the blog!
Take care.
-Alec Bernal
January 23, 2010
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Temple Ruins of the Siam Kingdom
January 23, 2010
Day 12
We arrived in Sukhothai by bus on the evening of Jan 22. We were in the central plains of Thailand. The landscapes were vast with crops, hills, and small homes. Sukhothai is split into the New Town and the Old Town. The New Town has the bus terminals, bigger restaurants, more hotels, etc. The Old Town has all of the ancient ruins spread through it and some small hostels for travelers passing through the city to see it’s historical sites. We stayed at the Mountain View Guesthouse about 10 min away from the Old and New town. It was very isolated and set at the base of the foothills. It’s owned by an englishman and his Thai wife who run the guesthouse independently, cook their own meals for everyone, and take the guests out to the main entrance of the ruins for no cost. That evening we arrived too late to see anything because they close the historic park down at nightfall so we had a meal at the guesthouse restaurant and got some rest.
The next day, Malcolm (the owner), dropped us off at the main entrance of the park. The park is split up into 5 zones with temple ruins to be seen everywhere. We tried to see as much as we could in one day and what helped us were the bikes we rented to use to get around the park faster. It was less than a $1 to rent the bikes for the day. So we hit 3 zones that day and saw some amazing things. We spent the whole day seeing one zone then riding back to the Old Town to get a bite to eat or a drink, then back into the park to see another zone. The temple ruins were incredible. I’m not familiar enough with ancient asian architecture so the sight of these gigantic structures with pillars and pointed tips and giant buddha’s around every corner was overwhelming.
After several hours of sightseeing, we returned our bikes and took a tuk-tuk back to the guesthouse, packed our things, and Malcolm dropped us off at the New Town bus station where we caught the next bus departing to Bangkok.
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January 21, 2010
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The Jungle Trek
January 21, 2010
Day 10
We are out of the jungle and back in civilization. Most of what we saw and did during the trek was indescribable. It was definitely the highlight of the trip so far.
The trek lasted 3 days/2 nights. Our trek guide was Ping Phong. He picked us up from our hostel early that morning and took us into Huai Nam Dang national park where we began the trek.
Our first stop was the Maw Paeng waterfall. It was only the three of us in the group. Me, Brent, and Ping Phong. After the waterfall we threw our packs on and began a rigorous incline up the hills. The first hilltribe that we would stay at was over the first major ridge. Ping Phong was a really nice guy. He made good coversation with us throughout the hiking. At one point he asked about some news he heard about an earthquake. I happened to have a special report issue of Time magazine on me that I picked up at the train station back in Bangkok. I showed it to him and explained where Haiti was in the world. He was surprisingly very interested. He asked if I would read the article to him slowly and I did. He couldn’t wait to reach the village so that he could have me share the Time magazine with them.
We reached the first hilltribe village. In front of it was large dried out rice fields. By summer they will be green and filled with water again, ready to have rice seeds planted in them. The villagers were very nice people. They made us the best tea and food. All of their vegetable and fruits were grown in the village, they made their own curry, and tea leaves. We had great meals while staying with the hilltribes.
The next day we hiked a lot. Ping Phong’s wife, Tana, came along with us on this day. We stopped at two different villages. The first one was for a lunch and rest break. The second was where we would sleep.
Early in the morning of our last day, Ping Phong took us into the hills where it was still wet and cold from the morning fog. After waiting a while we saw a couple of guys guiding an enormous elephant from the trees. It was huge. They strapped the bench ontop of it and we climbed up. We rode the elephant through the jungle on it’s back. It was a shaky ride and when going downhill you really had to hold on or else you’d roll off it’s back. We got back to the village Ping Phong and Tana led us to the river where the bamboo raft was waiting. They took all of our bags and shoes and tied them together near the head of the raft. Each of us had a bamboo stick in our hands and we all had to help steer the raft down the river pass. It took close to four hours to get through it. The sights we saw were incredible. We were like ants coasting in between the large, lush hills of the jungle on a bamboo raft.
After we reached our stop off the river, Ping Phong and Tana took us back to Chiang Mai. We were dirty. I had run out of clean clothes the day before and hadn’t showered since before the trek. When we got to our hostel we sent our clothes to the laundry and met up with Ping Phong and Tana for dinner later that night. We were pretty exhausted by the end of the night and crashed when we hit the bed.
Today we got our clean clothes back and were able to take showers. Later tonight we are going to see a Muay Thai match. Tomorrow morning we leave for Sukhothai, the ancient capital of Thailand.
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January 16, 2010
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Sangkraburi
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The Bridge on the River Kwai
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Tiger Temple
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Change of Plans
January 16, 2010
Day 5
Two things didn’t go as planned this morning. Three Pagodas Pass is a short drive from here and we heard that you could cross over to the border of Burma and back. It turns out that if you cross over into Burma you would have to fly back into Thailand. We heard this from some of the other distant travelers who were staying at the Burmese Inn with us. It sounded farfetched but we simply did not have the time to make the risk.
Then we found out that in order to get to Mae Sot from Sangkraburi, we would have to go all the way back to Bangkok just to get on the major freeway that goes to Mae Sot. At this point we were pretty much at a dead end here being so close the Burmese border. No bus routes, rail routes, or major roads pass north through this mountain range so we were pretty much forced to go back to Bangkok.
So we sucked it up and got onto the next bus headed towards Bangkok. It took 6 hours to get there. When we arrived the city was busier than it was before. It’s the weekend so everybody was out. We took a motorbike taxi to the Skytrain, then the Skytrain took us end of the line where our hotel is, and walked from there.
Now we are back at the Imm Fusion again. I guess now is a good opportunity to shower and change. Tomorrow morning we are going to take the Eastern Oriental Express across the central plains to Chiang Mai.
