Sat 7 Mar 2009

A Trip Too Pai From Chiang Mai And Back

Posted by Paul Freeman under Uncategorized
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A couple of days back I took a trip out to the town of Pai, in the far north of Thailand situated in a deep valley along the river Pai, about 155 kilometres from Chiang Mai where I’ve been mooching around at Spicythai Backpackers hostel that serves as my home away from home these days.

Getting to Pai was as easy as turning up at the bus station with my travel companion – a friend from Spicythai – and making a choice between the bus for 22 baht (50 pence) for a four hour journey or minibus for 150 baht (£3) for a 3 hour journey. We opted to take the minibus, which was still well with in the price I was hoping to pay and had a better chance of decent air-conditioning,  something that is always a bit of a gamble when choosing cheaper travel options.
This turned out to be the right choice once we got off the main highways outside Chiang Mai and started down the roads that wind across the mountain ranges of North Thailand about half an hour after setting off. I enjoyed the journey immensely and the steep turns and climb passes by a number of small villages and relatively isolated temples that dot the mountainside and offers constantly amazing views of dense green jungle with the occasional flash of colour from blossoming trees. From the peaks you get glimpses of the huge reach of the mountains as they vanish into misty clouds miles away, like my trips down the valleys of Laos you get a true feeling of been deep in the jungle out here.
We arrived in Pai about 15 minutes earlier then expected,  the first time I’ve ever arrived somewhere early in Thailand I think, and on route we passed a couple of what appear to be the cheaper option buses, and while technically we were paying 8 times what we could, I’m not convinved of their suitibility for such a hard route, the minibus struggled with the incline frequently, and so I’m happy to pay for a more relaxing journey where I can actually enjoy the ride.
Finding accommodation in Pai was just as easy, we simply took a walk down the road and asked in a few places, settling on The Blue Lagoon which was a little more then we hoped to pay at 600 baht per night, but the room was reasonable, there is a pool and power points in the room.
Location isn’t really an issue in Pai as there are only really 4 roads, two main, two a bit smaller and then a network of smaller streets and Sois (Side roads) that make getting around easy, and you can do a circuit of the town in half an hour if you wanted to. There isn’t much here, hotels and guest houses, small shops offering the more hippie side of Thai toursit merchendie, and bars and cafes that again play  on the hippie vibe and plug reggae and rock music and such from early evening.
It was a nice distraction away from the constant flow of people in Spicythai, and of course it’s great to see some more of Thailand though mostly I just caught up on some reading and enjoyed some walks in the cooler afternoons, while in the evenings there is a fantastic selection of live music and chilled out bars to relax in.
Pai it’s self seems to be strugling with it’s identity a little bit, most people I talked to about the place previously described the lively music scene and hippie vibe catering to backpackers who wonder a little of the beaten track to here, and while that atmosphere is certainly present, but there is a larger then expected tourist population here as well, and among all the bars, cafes and restaurants I get the impression that the town has grown to meet previous demand, but the down turn in tourism in general has meant less travellers coming this far, and the ones that do arrive find them selves spread thinly around the place.
But then I wasn’t really been looking to party, so perhaps I just missed the places that are the main hotspots, and even the quiet bars here each has it’s own little bubble of activity each night, but with such small gatherings I feel I’d be intruding on what are clearly groups travelling together, where as with a bigger gathering it’s always easier to introduce yourself and mingle but that seems to be missing here.
So among all the shops selling tie-dyed shirts and raster hats, reggae and rock music that plays from nearly every venue, and the flyers promising free buckets and the usual promotions I think I’d be happy to go back here with a group of friends looking to party, and as a change of pace I have not been disappointed, but at the same time I get the impression that the ture character of the place may have been lost and the sleepy little hippie town that existed of the map has been discovered and is now trying too hard to cater to everyone who finds their way here.

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Mon 16 Feb 2009

Valentines Day Trip Back To Thailand

Posted by Paul Freeman under Blog, Route, Transport, Travel, Vehicle
Current Location: Spicythai, Chiang Mai, Thailand
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It’s the day after Valentines Day, Sunday the 15th of February, about 8am in the morning and I am woken with a start by the voice of the girl who was sleeping next to me who’s name I never did find out asking, “Are we there?”

I had no idea, but after 15 hours on the over night bus from Luang Prabang in Laos down to Huay Xai the border town where I first entered the country I really hoped so, and I looked still shaking sleep from my eyes to the seats in front of me where my travel companions sat, unlike most of the westerners on the bus we had an advantage, Pong speaks Thai, and joining him on his trip between Spicylaos and Spicythai in Chiang Mai made this the easiest trip I’ve made. (more…)

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Thu 5 Feb 2009

Another Day, Another Country: Now in Laos

Posted by Paul Freeman under Blog
Current Location: Spicylaos Backpackers, Luang Prabang, Laos
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Well I haven’t updated for a couple of weeks, Chiang Mai was good to me and I met up with a whole bunch of different groups of  people from else where in my travels, and now I’m in Laos after spending two days on the slow boat down the Mekong River (Which I’ll write about soon) going straight from Spicythai Backpackers to their sister hostel Spicylaos Backpackers I at once bumped into another group I’d been hanging out with back in Chiang Mai, and while it was tempting to head of to Vang Vieng to go tubing I decided the hit on my budget would be too big, and so I’m going to chill out here in Luang Prabang for a few days and see how I take to Laos, I don’t know all that much about the country so a bit of research is  needed! I do know th at I have over one million kip (The Laos currency) so I’m going to look forward to spending my million over the next week.

Right now I’m staying at Spicylaos Backpackers which is actually a UNESCO world heritage building, which I’ll write about down the road.

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Sun 25 Jan 2009

Website Updates

Posted by Paul Freeman under Blog
Current Location: Spicythai Backpackers, Chiang Mai, Thailand
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I’m currenty upgrading the website to WordPress 2.7 and making a few changes to hopefully make the site look a lot better and run a bit smoother, so as I’m working on this please do drop me a comment if you see any problems or have any suggestions.

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Thu 22 Jan 2009

My Thailand Buget – A Typical Day’s Spending While Travelling

Posted by Paul Freeman under Inspiration, Planning, Resources
Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand
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It will be fairly obvious from my various updates that I am doing a lot of partying while I’m out here backpacking around Thailand and there is always interest as one traveller to another what budgets people are trying to stick to successful or not.

So here’s a typical days spending for me, taken from the 20th January 2009, while I was staying in Bangkok

  • 300 Baht for Accommodation, a secure and clean hostel in central Bangkok which includes tea and toast for breakfast.
  • 9 Baht for a small half litre bottle of water.
  • 20 Baht for a 330ml bottle of Green Tea with Lemon.
  • 6 Baht for some cheap instant noodles.
  • 109 Baht for over baked rice with pork and olive and a pineapple iced smoothie in a Japanese style chain restaurant.
  • 96 Baht for a four pack of Leo beer from Seven-Eleven.
  • 20 Baht for the Sky Train to the Underground Interchange.
  • 27 Baht for the Underground to the Railway Station.
  • 10 Baht for a short Tuk Tuk ride to Sky Train stop.
  • 20 Baht for the Sky Train Home

Total for the day: 617 Thai Baht which at today’s exchange rates is around £12.50.

I also paid an additional 611 for my train ticket to Chiang Mai, but since it’s over night it means on the day of travel I don’t have to pay for a room, which keeps the travel costs down, and I normally wouldn’t have quiet so much to drink, but it was the inauguration of President Barack Obama that night and so I stayed up later then I had otherwise planned. Of course, “I wouldn’t normally, but…” happens fairly frequently when travelling! There was also a one off fee of 100 Thai Baht for my wi-fi internet connection, which I can keep using if I stay here again.

When I did my inital budget I was looking at the same amount of stering getting me about 750 Thai Baht, which would have been a much more comfortable budget, but such is life and the upshot of the failing pound basically means that I can realistically stay out travelling for five months, rather then six.

So there you have it, life out here really is cheap! With a little bit of creativity such as getting instant noodles for cheap-cheap, hanging out and having a couple of beers with banter can work easily into even a small budget.

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Wed 21 Jan 2009

Too Many Mushrooms!!! A Koh Phangan Tale and Thailand Magic Mushrooms Facts

Posted by Paul Freeman under Activities, Events
Current Location: Bangkok, Thailand
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I mention in my last post that at the Koh Phangan Full Moon Party I took too many mushrooms, and in the interest of not freaking out parents and enlightening party goes who might follow in my foot steps I shall shed a little more light on the story.

The exact legal status of Mushrooms in Thailand is a bit of a mystery,  the information I have to had is:

  • Mushroom Shakes are sold openly in at least one bar on Haad Rin Beach during the Full Moon Party
  • Mushrooms are actually Illegal to Posses or Sell in Thailand, according to Erowid, a normally reliable source of information on such things.
  • But a Google Search for “Mushroom Arrest In Thailand” returns only one, unrelated result.
  • So, Most sources cite the legal status as “Questionable”.
  • More then one person has mentioned the bar selling the Mushrooms has a special license. Though this is purely word of mouth.

So there clearly isn’t any problem with consuming them, and it would make sense that any legal grey area could be cleared up with a “license fee” to the police either officially or otherwise. Additionally, not all magic mushrooms contain the same active ingredients, so the legal status could be worked around by selecting the right mushrooms just as it can be back home in the UK.

With that cleared up (Or not) back to the story, the plan was simple: Get to the beach, dance, drink, dance, meet people, dance with people,  drink a small amount of mushroom shake, dance, watch the sun rise, dance, go home. Roughly in that order.

Now I have to admit I’m not sure at what point small amount of mushroom shake turned a heroic dose, but I have it on good authority that the friend I was travelling with had many of these magic drinks, so it’s fair to say I had plenty as well, this was news to us both the next day!

The hazy memory is a novelty, and down to the drink, rather then the mushrooms I’m sure, I suspect since the bar selling the shakes is at the far end of the beach, and up a staircase cut into the rocks – Which makes it one of the most dangerous places on the beach, clearly an ideal spot to sell party goes hallucinogenic drugs! – the hike up there, plus red bull kicked the booze into my bloodstream quicker then I expected.

Next thing I know I’m dancing away on the beach all well and good, but I’ve lost the gang I was with, and so I just danced around on my own though with my visuals boosted with a hazy glow of colours and sound merging in my brain a little beyond what you would call normal, and the confusion that accompanies hallucinogens was clear if I tried to think about anything too tricky so most conversations were too much effort to consider for a while, though the ones I did have were particularly funny!

So when I say too many mushrooms I mean to say, sufficient magic mushrooms that I had to change my plan of action for the night, not that I had a bad experience maintaining my 100% success rate to that effect.

To put this in perspective, not everyone was so lucky that night, “Mushroom Girl” as she will now forever be known to me called the friend I was travelling with early in the night, and from over hearing his side of the conversation the problem was obvious: She’d take Mushrooms for the first time, and been abandoned by her friend.

When people (Including myself) say you shouldn’t take magic mushrooms for the first time in loud, busy, over crowded places you should listen to them, Full Moon Parties are not friendly places for a messed up mind, and confusion and abandonment is always a recipe for disaster when it comes to the shrooms.

We found her and set her right mind you, so that story ended well enough, but Koh Phangan is not a good place to experiment particularly for the first time, there are a lot of people on the lookout for messed up tourists who they can take advantage of one way or another.In my case I simply ended up at a hill top bar which cost me a hefty bike ride back to the hotel, but I blame our travel agent for claiming the 30 minute ride was a 10 minute walk from the peir.

So there you have it, magic mushrooms are Awesome things, but not to be played with lightly, and I wouldn’t take so many at a huge event like the Haad Rin Beach Full Moon Party again so that I can enjoy the night in a different, more social way – Detachment from reality also detaches you from people a bit, but it’s all an experience and it all adds flavor to my travels!

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Wed 21 Jan 2009

President Barack Obama’s Inauguration and Other Tales From Bangkok

Posted by Paul Freeman under Accommodation, Activities, Blog
Current Location:
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Here I am six weeks into my travels, and just in case you haven’t picked up the subtle hints from my Twitter updates, life out here is Pure Awesome.

I’ve been in Bangkok for a few days now, after leaving the comfort of my Phuket haunts behind to venture towards the as yet uncharted North, where I check into Spicythai Backpackers tomorrow morning after a 12 hour train journey over night. – Seated sadly as all the beds were booked up. My fault for leaving it too long before booking the seat.

So since my escape from the Wat Suan Mohhk Meditation Retreat, I’ve been to the Full Moon party on Koh Phangan, where too many Mushrooms was the common theme among the group I was with, of course in my case I enjoyed it! It was a fun weekend which was an cloud of music, lights, dancing barefoot in the sand, buckets of drink and random conversations with strangers. To be honest, it was too busy to be my normal scene, and many of the people were exactly the people who go to all the clubs I avoid back home, but I was with Awesome people (Well, before I got lost in my Mushroom trance, and after I found them the next day!) and it’s another Thailand activity ticked off the list.

Here in Bangkok I’m staying at the Hostel International Sukhumvit (HI Sukhumvit) which is a wonderful place, less then 5 minutes walk from the Sky Train station which has allowed easy access to tons of sights, considering in the past I’ve not really ventured far beyond Khaosan Road I now feel like I have visited Bangkok properly.  I’ve been to several of the big shopping centers such as the MBK Center, Siam Center, Siam Discovery Center, MBK been the most interesting, much more of an indoor market type feel in parts, more traditional shops and fast food (Thai style) in other parts, the other malls been much more western in look and feel, with known brands and prices that pretty much match what you can find back home with little effort on the Internet.

My more random adventures involved meeting Chris – A fellow traveller from Phuket Backpacker – within seconds of getting to the hostel, so I checked in, and walked right out the door to take a trip to the big weekend market, which was huge though much of the stall contents is identical shop to shop, there were some unique items here and there, and I found it very worth visiting.

Yesterday on the way back from getting tickets I found myself and Ruth – Who I’d just met at the Hostel, also needing tickets to Chiang Mai, so we headed off together – faced with a Tuk Tuk ride to the Sky Train stop we wanted as our plan of walking rather then getting the Underground didn’t really work! We were offered a cheap fare of 10 bhat each, but would need to visit a Tailor on the way and spend 10 minutes there, so, it’s basically a scam, but I was impressed the guy was up front about it, and hell, we had noting better to do, so we agreed, and bounced around busy main roads, down back streets and wound up at the tailor where the guy seemed to focus on getting Ruth to buy a suit set rather then me,  I suspect my look suggests I am not really one to be buying suits, but who knows. He was asking about £50 per item, so jacket, trousers and skirt for £150 which you could easily get down to £120 if not less was actually a really good price, to be honest I really wish I had enough money to get a suit made up before I headed home as it would be very handy for interviews! Anyway, we played along and then decided we’d done enough to head out, and on the way the Tuk Tuk driver did try and take us to one more stop, we firmly declined, and insisted we go to our requested destination of the MBK center, and to his credit he smiled and agreed without hassling us any more.

Last night was also the inauguration of President Barack Obama in America, and I was pleased to find that as we arrived back at the hostel the small TV in the corner of the lobby had CNN’s live coverage of the event, so we added into our plan of drinking a few beers on the roof time to watch the event unfold later in the evening – Washington D.C been 12 hours behind we had a few hours to drink and banter with the girls we discovered already up on the roof, and at about half 11 when much of our group decided to turn in, I picked  up my laptop and settled down to watch history unfold.

There was an eclectic mix of people watching from the lobby of this Bangkok hostel, a few Americans – Included a woman who was a proud Republican – Which stood out as most Americans you meet travelling are committed Democrats, or at least that’s been the way things have seemed to me so far – Australians, and various Europeans.  Some people clearly cared deeply about what was happening, others were just having a beer and watching the ceremony just because it happened to be on. Personally, I was fairly moved to see so many people taking an interest in the event and was impressed with President Obama’s inauguration speech, and now if anyone asks “Where you the day Barack Obama was made President of the United States?” I’ll know exactly what I was doing: Drinking beers on a roof top garden in Bangkok.

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Wed 14 Jan 2009

My Experience Of Wat Suan Mokkh’s 10 Day Meditation Retreat in Thailand

Posted by Paul Freeman under Activities, South Thailand, Thailand
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At the start of each month the monks at Suan Mokkh Darmahh International Enter run a 10 day meditation retreat for anyone wishing to learn more about the Theravada Buddhist practice of Ānāpānasati, Mindfulness with Breathing. While I’m travelling around Thailand this seemed to be the perfect way to start the New Year, so I headed South from my cosy now second home at Phuket Backpacker Hostel, and on the 31st of December arrived just before dark at Wat Suan Mokkh to register for the program.

Each mediator agrees on sign up to follow the eight precepts set out, which all seemed easy enough:

  • Keep complete silence throughout the 10 days.
  • Refrain from destroying all forms of life.
  • Refrain from taking things without permission.
  • Any sexual activity, mentally, verbally, or bodily.
  • Smoking or intoxicating oneself with any intoxicant.
  • Having dinner (last meal is lunch).
  • Beautifying or entertaining oneself.
  • Sleeping or sitting on luxurious beds or seats.

Of all of these the not talking is obviously the one that gets most attention, but that wasn’t even a challenge for me, and only eating two vegetarian meals a day was fine, the breakfast was a bit bland perhaps but lunch was really tasty and probably the healthiest I’ve eaten for a while.

The rest didn’t even seem worth thinking about, the final point about not sleeping on “luxurious” beds I didn’t even remember as one of the points until actually there. So when I was in the retreat signing up I didn’t give a second thought about the wooden pillow that gets mentioned, until I got to my room to discover that the simple accommodation was pretty much a cell with a wooden table with a straw mat on it, and that a wooden pillow is nothing but a lump of wood with a small arch cut into it to shape into the neck.

This was a surprise to say the least, sure it is described perfectly but I expected simple accomodation, not something that was frankly, oppressive. I found it pretty much impossible to sleep on it, it didn’t much help that going to bed  at 9:30pm on the 31st with fireworks blowing up in the sky all around by midnight the sound was immense, the Thai’s really like their fireworks and so it was not exactly a sound nights sleep, when the bell sounded at 4:30am for the first meditation talk, it was hard to get up, but the first day went really well, starting with a morning talk, an hour of yoga, and then meditation instruction before breakfast and chores, then a talk about Buddhism, some walking meditation and sitting meditation before lunch and chores, more meditation in the afternoon, along with some chanting, a soya drink for tea (no food) and in the evening two more meditation sessions and a group walking meditation before lights out at 9:30pm.

This pattern filled each day, but each day the lack of sleep hit me more, and of all the things to do when sleepy meditation isn’t one of them, I found myself dozing a little to easily, and after the first few days I was really suffering and after an imensly informative and rewarding first few days the latter days were a struggle physically, rather then mentally, so on day seven I decided to skip out early rather then punish myself for the last couple of days, any benifit was lost to the unnatural sleeping conditions. I really didn’t feel the need to put myself through it any more.

All in all, I did get a lot from the retreat, but it’s no tourist attraction and if anyone was thinking about doing it themselves I’d really think about doing a shorter retreat first to get a feel for how it feels. And for me as it happens when I made it back to Phuket I ended up bumping into some old friends from my last stint at Phuket Backpacker and making a spur of the moment desision to head off the the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan.

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Sun 28 Dec 2008

Christmas in Thailand at the Phuket Backpacker

Posted by Paul Freeman under Events, Phuket, South Thailand, Thailand, Uncategorized
Current Location:
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My decision to make the move from Koh Lanta to Phuket Town to spend Christmas at the Phuket Backpacker hostel couldn’t have gone better, while the mood here isn’t traditionally festive lacking the near opressive sounds of Christmas music flooding your senses in every shop and tv advert, but everyone has been in the mood to go out and party, every night I’ve been here I’ve had no trouble finding a group to eat and drink with, and now I feel like I’ve settled here, I know names and faces and there is a regular crowd of people hanging out together along with a daily flow of new faces as travellers come and go on their journies.

Christmas Eve was spent at Patong Beach a short Tuk Tuk ride away and perhaps the most random night out of the whole festive season, as a very touristy location you get a real glimpse into the seedier side of night life and we ate well, drank in various places of varying quality, and ended up at the Club Hollywood where we got Santa hats with flashing stars on them, very festive.

Christmas Day started slow most of the hostel was hung over but by midday a few of us managed to gear up to hunt down some brunch in Patong, relocate to a lake where they did cable sking, and then just down the road had our Thailand Christmas Dinner at a British run pub who did turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings and then back to Phuket Town for a couple of drinks at the current bar of choice, Roxy.

Boxing Day was just as random, heading to eat at a place on the edge of town with my dorm mates where we ate wild boar and frog, both of which we tasty. Then as we drank at Roxy we bumped into a few more people from the Hostel and ended up heading to one of Phuket Town’s biggest clubs, had a drink in the VIP area and watched the live band who apparently are pretty huge in Thailand, though no idea who they actually are.   We got out of there fairly quickly and went back to Roxy via a round about route and stop at another bar due to a wrong turn and finished the night with a couple of cheaper drinks.

So as Christmas goes this was all Same-Same but different, drinks and food all around and everyone in a good mood, but the sun and heat distracts from the fact it’s Christmas back home and that makes it easier not to dwell on what I’m missing.

All in all I made exactly the right choice hitting this hostel and the people I’ve meet here are Awesome, lots of people are leaving today, and I’ll be moving on myself soon but I’ll be back here when I pass through the region again as it makes a handy base, and I have great feel for the place now.

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Tue 23 Dec 2008

Chilling Out At The Phuket Backpacker Hostel

Posted by Paul Freeman under Accommodation, Phuket, Thailand
Current Location:
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A couple of days ago as I took a walk down Klong Khong beach as I had every evening for the last week I decided that it seemed a bit quieter then the past few days, a few of the people I had been talking to regularly had moved on and it didn’t seem like anyone had come to take their place. So pretty much there and then I decided to book rooms in Phuket and a boat trip over from Koh Lanta that left 7:30 the next morning.

Getting to Phuket was a very enjoyable boat trip, appraching Koh Phi Phi on the first boat we transfered to the second boat still out on the sea, so I didn’t really step foot on the island, but got some good views of it from not to far away, and then on to Phuket, the whole trip was as always a step by step mission of swapping tickets and getting stickets (I ended up with three stickers in total this time) interestingly the boat company involved used different coloued stickers for different destinations so they should easily herd people around, pretty clever I thought.

I stayed one night in a hotel, which was okay but I was pretty keen to get to my ultimate destination, the Phuket Backpacker Hostel in the heart of Phuket town. The place got Awesome reviews on both websites I checked, and was in my price range of 300 bhat per night (With a slight increase over christmas to 400 bhat) but now I’m here it’s definatly the kind of hostel I was hoping for, the common room has plenty of people comming in and out all day, there is free wi-fi and computers with internet which saves a small fortune on it’s own, and there is a massive and diverse DVD collection which means people ar constantly throwing something on, and I can just pick up a couple of cheap beers and snacks from the 7/11 next door and have a cheap night in, banter with people.

Just around the corner Phuket’s food market provides and interesting place to mooch into and if feeling adventerous sample the various meat on a stick type products, some of which are clearly identifiable things like chicken wings for around 30 bhat, others are sausages and meatball type things which are cheaper and I find, best left unidentified as to what they actually are.

There are beaches just a bus or Tuk Tuk away too, last night myself and six Australian chaps I meet in the common room headed over to Patong beach for a couple of beers – It was a frankly incredibly seedy place, like Amsterdam with sand and fake rolexes for sale, but with out that European cleanliness that made the Dutch capital seem much safer. Even so, it was full of tourists of all kinds, from families with small children, to older white gentlemen with disturbingly young Thai girls on their arms. We left the place after a couple of beers and came back via the 7/11 where we picked up more beer and nibbles and watched the movie back at the Phuket Backpacker

So this is where I plan to spend Christmas, the flow of people, cheap food options all around and comfortable rooms (Not to mention hot showers!) makes this an ideal place for me to settle for the next week, on the 29th I’m schedualled to move on, so will see how things pan out and either head further south to Had Yai with the intention of starting the new year at a Meditation Retreat, else I’ll stick around here and party, and then move on to Khao Lak to do some volunteer work building kids play parks and other projects.

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