Scenes from Lampang

Based on the recommendation of Akila and Patrick from The Road Forks, we decided to make a stop in Lampang. Lampang is a city with Lanna and teak architecture, where locals far outnumber tourists, a rarity in Thailand, especially since Lonely Planet marks it as a highlight. Sadly, we missed the weekend market, which I hear is the real highlight, but we enjoyed our little stopover en route from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai.

Little Moments in Sukhothai

Stopping in Sukhothai to break up the trip between Bangkok to Chiang Mai turned out to be an excellent decision. Had we not stopped, we never would have gotten to…

…watch a Thai toddler with a full-blown mullet rock it out to Michael Jackson concert footage in a biker bar called Choppers…

…see that Thai school kids are just like their Western counterparts… (We watched them dilly-dallying before getting on the “school bus” they shared with tourists returning from Old Sukhothai – i.e. a truck with a roof and benches in its bed. While the driver honked impatiently, they took their time stuffing themselves full of sugary Thai soft drinks and french fries and making sure they got in the truck with the cool kids.)

…finally, after months of saying let’s rent a bike!, feeling the sun on my face and wind in my hair as we pedaled around the ruins left behind by the ruling class in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Little moments like these are what make travel memories that make you smile.

Bangkok Bonus: Pak Khlong Talat

As I mentioned earlier today, my absolute favorite thing about Bangkok was the Pak Khlong Talat nightly market and its kaleidescope of colors.  So, because I couldn’t choose just one to show you what it is like to be surrounded by flowers, here’s a bonus post for your Monday:

12 reasons to love Bangkok and counting…

I love Bangkok. I know some people hate it. They say it is crowded, noisy, and smoggy. Maybe this is so, but coming off a month in India, Bangkok seemed positively calm, orderly and clean. Bangkok reminded me of an Asian New York City – no matter how many times you go, you can always find somewhere new to explore and something new to do. It being our first time in Bangkok, we barely scratched the surface in our week in the city, but coming up with reasons to love Bangkok was not hard. Bangkok, we’ll be back.

1. Bangkok is where you can get things DONE. We had a big to-do list in Bangkok and accomplished everything with ease. As compared to say, India, where it took us four days just to buy a train ticket out of Delhi. In a matter of days, we finished Christmas shopping for our families; shipped said presents home; bought Christmas cards featuring a monk with sunglasses and who-knows-what sort of message in Thai; bought new shorts for Sean and a new dress for me; got Sean’s hairs cut; replenished our toiletries; bought guidebooks (at a discount, of course) for our southeast Asian travels; and got my camera cleaned at an official Canon center in the MBK mall for a fraction of what it would cost at home.

2. Bangkok is modern. Although other cities in southeast Asia can fool you into thinking they are modernized and sleek, eventually something crazy happens to make you remember that you are in the middle of an area that operates with inefficiencies, corruptions, crazy rigged vehicles and squat toilets. Not that this description couldn’t be applied to Thailand, but for the most part, Bangkok can hold its own better than its regional neighbors against other world-class international metropolises. There’s something comforting about knowing that no matter where you are in southeast Asia, as long as you get back to Bangkok you can accomplish tasks (see number one), experience modern conveniences you can’t find elsewhere, and obtain healthcare if needed on par with what you would receive at home.

3. Bangkok has movies galore. Nothing erases homesickness quite like watching a Hollywood film in the theater. Although we’ve tried to catch good movies on the road before, our timing was never quite right. In Bangkok, however, we had our choice of films from a plethora of theaters, prompting us to go twice in one week. (We saw Eat, Pray, Love and the Pittsburgh-based Next Three Days, if you are wondering. We also caught the Social Network for $2 the following week in Chiang Mai). Just like home, movies in Thailand come complete with giant popcorns and Cokes. Quite unlike home, movies are cheap (about $4), seats are assigned, and everyone gives a standing ovation to the King before the movie starts.

4. Bangkok has cheap, tasty street food… From our favorite pad thai in Thailand for under a dollar, to stir-fries galore, to fresh fruit stands, to fried pancakes with bananas and Skippy peanut butter, to mango and sticky rice, Bangkok is yummy.

5. …and Bangkok has street laundry. We paid way too much at our guesthouse for our first load of laundry before we discovered the coin washing machines randomly stuck outside shops and homes. Awesome.

6. Bangkok has fabulous, cheap massages. $4 neck-and-shoulder massages. Need I say more?

7. Bangkok is shiny and pretty. Whether illuminated by sunshine or street lamps, the wats in Bangkok positively shimmer.

8. Bangkok has a BIG Buddha. I’ve decided that I like my Buddhas big. The bigger, the better, and Bangkok has one of the biggest in Thailand. The reclining Buddha at Wat Pho is HUGE. I was memorized by his giant marble-inlay feet, relaxed posture, and melodic pings of coins hitting metal as Buddhist devotees circled the room.

9. Bangkok has nooks and crannies. While dodging the zany traffic on Bangkok’s main streets and street vendors on the sidewalks can drive you bonkers, the sois (side streets) are quiet and peaceful. You’ll find families living in their shops, children playing in the streets, budding guitarists, tropical flowers, tailless kitties, and you-never-know-what-else in the sois.

10. Bangkok has shopping. From everything under the sun at the enormous Saturday market, to cheap knock-offs on the street, to fancy stores at the malls on Silom Road, to up and coming designers in Little Siam, you can shop until you drop in Bangkok.

11. Bangkok has waterways. I loved discovering random canals lined with tropical greenery tucked between streets, and loved even more that Thais put their rivers to good use by running water taxis up and down to avoid the congested streets.

12. Bangkok has flowers. If there is one thing that makes me happy, it’s colorful flowers, and Bangkok’s nightly market, Pak Khlong Talat, has them in abundance. Strolling through the market, surrounded by tropical flowers on all sides, made me feel like I was in a kaleidescope. The market was hands down my favorite part of Bangkok.  I loved Pak Khlong Talat so much, I’m saving my photos from the market for its own post.

Silom Road at night

A Bangkok canal

Shiny wat

The fancy mall, Siam Paragon

Little Siam

A random soi in our 'hood

Now that's a big Buddha.

Medium sized Buddhas, but bonus points for having a bunch of them.

Street food!

View from Roof View Place during the King's Birthday celebrations

Thailand is Awesome: Day One

To say we were eager to get to Thailand would be an understatement.  Finally, a country where our champagne tastes matches our beer budget.  It is, without question, the mecca for budget travelers.  I have never seen a round-the-world itinerary that didn’t include Thailand.  When I’d read about Thailand in other people’s travel blogs, I was sure it had to be too good to be true.  There had to be embellishment to the stories of cheap prices.  The rooms really couldn’t be that nice.  The street food had to be sketchy.  The people couldn’t be that friendly.  The sun couldn’t shine that much.  It didn’t take long for us to realize that everything we had heard was true.  There’s a reason Thailand is on everyone’s list and it is because it is awesome.

I knew it was going to be awesome right from the start. Our day started with watching the most amazing sunrise over Thailand on our overnight flight. Although I couldn’t accurately capture the colors of the sunrise in a picture, I will always remember the way the sun created bands of light in order of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. I stared at the colors until they were out of sight.

When we landed in Bangkok, the sun was shining and everything looked clean, bright, and modern. Our taxi driver took us straight to our chosen hotel (Roof View Place) without any detours or trouble. We spent some time just marveling at how clean and bright our room was. While this particular room at $26 was the most expensive we’d have in Thailand (not counting Santa’s upgrade on Christmas), it had anything we could want – free wifi, a big, filling free breakfast, free water, and free information about travelling around. As we’d come to learn, you get a lot for your money in Thailand. Nice rooms can be had even for less than $10, and spending just another $5 or $10 can really up the ante.

By the end of our first day in Thailand, we’d discovered our favorite hole in the wall pad thai place serving the tastiest pad thai we’ve had to date for under a dollar (yes, it is true – dinner for under a dollar!), ate fresh tropical fruit, also under a dollar (cut right before you under sanitary conditions!), and had a neck and shoulder massage for $4 each. Yep, Thailand had us at day one, and still has us. We exhausted our 30 day visa and plan to return later in our trip – we suspect as good as it was so far, the best may be to come.  There’s still beaches to sit on, after all. The only knock on Thailand is that it can lull you into a routine* and you have to share the country with all those other tourists and ex-pats who love it too.

*(I know, I know.  Isn’t that what we wanted after India?  During our travels, it seems when things are uncomfortable, they are usually more exciting.  When things are comfortable, boredom can creep up – albeit a different type of boredom from the work/eat/sleep/lather/rinse/repeat routine at home.  Just goes to show – no place is perfect, whether you are home or away, and you have to enjoy and appreciate the good parts no matter where you are.  Luckily, in Thailand, there are a lot of good parts.)

Relaxing in our room at Roof View Place, basking in the clean sheets and sunshine

Despite eating it multiple times, I didn't get a great photo of our favorite pad thai. Don't worry, if our travels route us through Bangkok again as I suspect they will, we'll be back. This is a similar glass noodle version by the same lady.

Not us, but you get the point: cheap massages are everywhere. We preferred to not get ours right in public though.