Thailand In My Mouth

The Curries

White curry. Like your typical Thai curry but with absolutely
no chilli - what's the point?! It was a bowl of coconut milk.

Right: Green curry.  This is usually quite mild, but for some 
reason this particular green curry was fiery hot. 
Dead good though.

Yellow curry. Next step up on the heat scale. Flavours were 
still the same and since we got each one from a different place
the chilli situation wasn't really comparable. Quite hot though.

Red curry. Supposedly the hottest, but in all honesty I 
started to lose track. They were all lovely and fragrant but 
it was hard to really notice a big difference between them 
(apart from the white, which was rubbish).

Here's another red curry that Dave had, with squid instead of
the usual chicken. Apparently it worked well and I am a big
fan of the tiny pea aubergines that were used in this one.

Massaman curry - my favourite. Deep flavours and a rich
sauce, which was great with the potatoes and chicken/beef.

Penang curry, which was mild and sweet, with a thin sauce
and was served with a dead cute bear shaped pile of rice.

Three curries that I can't remember the names of, from a
restaurant we stumbled across in Chiangmai that claimed to 
serve "The Best Curries in Town" - not bad, but apparently
not so memorable. Dave thought they were excellently delish!

The Rest

Thai green papaya salad, which wasn't bad but nothing like
I expected - it was tangy but not at all spicy.

Pad Thai: the traditional, Thai street food dish of noodles,
chicken/prawns and veg. Simple, and delicious.

A fancy platter of meats and veg, with a spicy, fishy dip.
This was from a highly rated restaurant, but sadly the food 
was overpriced and disappointing.

FRIED INSECTS! 
We didn't try them - we've eaten enough 
weird stuff this year, don't you think?

Lovely spicy salad with tofu and star fruit.
Tangy and sweet with a kick - yum!

Khao Soy - a lovely curryish noodle and chicken soup.

Sweet and sour chicken with loads of veggies. Really tasty.

Street food in Pai. Pizza & lasagna that looked and tasted fab.

The only time I've ever known Dave to order a meat-free meal!
Marinated tofu steak with a mushroom sauce. He loved it!

An unexpected free feast on the night-train to Chiangmai:
Curry, rice, pork dumpling, cake and green tea jelly!

More food than we could manage. Chiangmai sausage salad,
Thai fish cakes and sweet & sour chicken. Delicious!

Spicy Chiangmai sausage on stick.

Yellow watermelon shake (not as nice as red).

 If I'd eaten this on the first day, I wouldn't have had anything
else the whole time! Sweet, coconutty rice with mango. WOW!

A banana, rolled in cake and covered in chocolate and nuts.
Eat your heart out George Michael Bluth!

Chiang Mai - The Beginning of The End

Chiang Mai is officially the end of our trip and with a trip to Pai sandwiched in the middle, we used the short amount of time wisely – for shopping. After the mayhem of Bangkok’s weekend market, Chiang Mai’s night bazaar and night market were easier to navigate and had a lot of high quality goods on offer. We stocked up on massages as well, and visited our last temple. The temple was very fascinating, containing giant Buddhas, a reclining Buddha, ruins, a lifelike monk statue, mosaics, chanting monks and more.

Katie's first experience of praying monks!

The variety in the temple complex was outstanding and was a fitting end to our Asian templeventure, as it had elements of many temples we had seen in the last year and a half. Unfortunately I didn’t catch the name… Thank god for google – it was called Wat Chedi Luang. 

This fat red man is not Buddha...

Great story!

Last time I was in Chiang Mai, I went to Tiger Kingdom and had a good time – this time Katie decided not to go. Fel did however, and had a super time. But while Fel was having a fantastic time, we were doing our final bit of shopping.

We were at the end (bar a layover in KL, which we will discuss in a later post) and were feeling a little melancholy. It had been an amazing 17 months exploring the East and South East of Asia and it was coming to an end. We did the only sensible thing and got drunk on cheap beers while reminiscing about the highlights.

These guys were on Segways

Costs (per person)

Minibus from Chiang Mai to Pai = 250 Baht (£5, $8)

Chiang Mai Triple AC per room = 500 Baht (£10, $15)

Chiang Mai to KL Flight = £92 ($137)

Pai In the Sky With Diamonds

It’s official, we’re in our last new place of this trip – Pai. We went from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, staying there for a few days, then moved on to Pai, returning to Chiang Mai once we were done. The 130km journey is incredible, incorporating around 600 turns through the mountains, but it's not great for anyone who gets travel sick. It takes over three hours by minibus but the stunning views provide ample entertainment. 
Pai is a tourist town where there are more white faces than Asian ones, and it is about as touristy as a place can be. This can often cause a place to become a bit too much and the locals a bit pushy (Hanoi, Hoi An, Khao San Road, Bali, etc) but when it is done just right, it is delightful. And just like Luang Prabang, the atmosphere in Pai is just right. I’d go as far as to say that Luang Prabang and Pai are my fave places in the final four countries (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand). I would be inclined to agree...although out of principle I don't like to agree with David too often.

Now armed with a bit more spending power, in the form of Felipe and the joy of triple rooms, we stayed in the new Sylvana Pai Hotel. Run by a young couple, this hotel was a friendly and fantastic place to stay, and arguably the best place of our entire trip, and not just because of the massive all you can eat buffet breakfast! The room was really big, clean and well decorated.

The towels were arranged as elephants...

...and turtles

Another bonus of the hotel were the free tubes. After experiencing, as bystanders, the manic Vang Vieng, we were delighted to try tubing in the calm, shallow waters around Pai. The water was so low at times that we did hit our bottoms!

Notice the sunglasses

Notice the lack of sunglasses

Katie floated off and I needed to rescue her

The first night we bumped into Portia, a lovely English lass who has also taught English in Korea. We first met Portia on a ferry to Japan 5 months ago, and had spent the evening getting drunk with her and her boyfriend. Since that faithful night, we have accidently bumped into her (unless she is secretly stalking the famous blogging duo) in Kyoto (Japan), Manila (Philippines), and when we were roadside after our jeepney had broken down in Palawan. After four chance encounters, we decided to add each other on facebook and discovered she was two days behind us on Borneo - we feared that we would never see her again… But there she was in Pai.

The four of us (SobCoe, Felipe and Portia) had two full days on two motorbikes, exploring Pai’s surroundings, with the first day spent seeing underwhelming waterfalls.

Panoramic. Pai is stunning!!

As you leave one of the waterfalls, a local farmer provides a
superb feast of passion fruit, potatoes, tamarind, bananas, 
nuts, lychees, and roselle juice! All free + donation

Our bike gang - we picked up a lone Australian girl as well!

The second day involved another extraordinary journey on bikes, up and down a mountain, encompassing around 400 twists and turns, and eventually arriving at Lod Cave. Well that was the plan, but mine and Katie’s bike was a little older and struggled to climb the mountain. Worried we wouldn’t be able to both continue, we stopped and Katie offered to stay at the mountain-top viewpoint. When we did arrive at the cave, I realised that I couldn’t experience this without Katie by my side and so took Fel’s better bike back to get Katie – adding an extra hour and half of riding around these lush hills – what a shame!

The place with an awesome view where Katie stayed

When we finally arrived at Lod Cave, we paid for the bamboo raft return trip around all four sections. The cave was huge and very interesting - you can trust our judgement as we became caveoisseurs in Mulu, Borneo. I would argue that this cave tour was more interesting than Sabang (one of the new seven wonders) because of the lack of people and the run downness – it was more of an adventure.

Can you see the crocodile / rockodile?

One section was covered in bat poo (guano) and we all ended up feeling quite grimy but also adventury.

There was guano everywhere!

There were coffins, hundreds of years old

After three wonderful days and nights in Pai, we begrudgingly left for Chiang Mai to do some last minute shopping before returning home. We left firm in the knowledge that we would return – Pai is a place where I could spend a month, perhaps learning Muay Thai while Katie yoga’d.
Goodbye for now Pai.

Costs (per person)

Minibus from Chiang Mai to Pai = 250 Baht (£5, $8)

Pai Hotel Triple AC per room = 833 Baht (£17, $25)
Bike rental + insurance = 140 Baht (£2.80, $4.20)

Ping Pong...Please Not In My Mouth!

What can be written about Bangkok that hasn’t already been written? Well hopefully this story will keep you entertained. We arrived in the evening, 12 hours after leaving Siem Reap, and met Fel – a good friend from Uni that we haven’t seen for two years. Fel had just arrived in Asia for the first time and so added some much needed enthusiasm to our withered travelling souls. Besides a 12 hour layover in Malaysia, Thailand represents the last country on our 17 month adventure. We met this realisation in a state of general excitement about seeing friends and family, but with an undercurrent of anxiety towards the future and our prospects. Whenever one is excited, anxious, or feeling whatever really, lots of large Chang beers make it all better…Until the next morning.

Crazy long dreads!

With stinking Changovers we tried to survive by getting the essentials – food, water, and a massage of course. We started getting massages in Laos and since then, we’ve had one every few days. They are sublime and silly cheap ($4-$7).

That night we went to the infamous Ping Pong show. It was the second time I had been and I am now very concerned that my mind is significantly more desensitised than 3 years ago. No person should be unphased by what you see but that was the situation for me. Katie, on the other hand was extremely impressed by what she saw, and cheered the girls on if their “tricks” weren’t going to plan.

Five in a tuk-tuk

I would go into specifics about the content of the show, but our parents are loyal readers and I don’t want to creep them out too much. Besides, the excitement of a Ping Pong show is the mystery of the unknown. I will just say that Fel ended up holding 10 meters of damp ribbon at one point. As a side-note, there are two Ping Pong shows in Bangkok, and I’ve been to the same one twice, which is a great shame because otherwise I could have made a SobCoe table to compare them.

Besides that, we also went to Chatuchak Weekend market, which was so large and overwhelming that the experience wasn’t too pleasant - and you know how much we love markets! The size of this market is utterly ridiculous – we walked for hours and saw less than half. No wonder 200,000 people visit each weekend.

Excessive street food

Market!!

Fel and Katie left that night to Chiang Mai because they were Bangkok’d out and wanted to move on. As my life is governed by sporting events, I stayed to watch the Wimbledon Final – great match and I adore the Fed so it was a joy to watch. Being in a bar full of ladyboys on Khao San Road did make the experience a little stranger and certainly more memorable than other Wimbledon finals. The game finished just after midnight and I wandered about using the remainder of the evening to fully review the other Ping Pong show. Stay tuned…

Khao San Road

I didn’t really go but now I wish I had, for journalistic purposes only. I promise.

Costs (per person)

Siem Reap to Bangkok Bus = $9 (£6)

Bangkok Hotel (Lucky Guesthouse) Double AC per room = 450 Baht (£9, $13.50)

Ping Pong show = 400 Baht (£8, $12)

Fel’s ribbon story = Priceless

Bangkok to Chiang Mai Train Seat AC = 700 Baht (£14, $21)