THAILAND

23 NOV – 7 DEC 2018

Bangkok

Bangkok was more a stop over than anything else, as it is the case for most people. However, I was quite excited about experiencing its famous street food markets, a first for me.

So we decided to do one of the biggest temples first: Wat Pho, famous for its giant reclining Buddha. This being done, we could skip the rest of the temples, which basically all look the same.

Slightly impressed look.

Chinatown looked a cool way to discover the street food scene here. And well it was really like on tv: colourful, vibrant, overpacked… Exactly what we were expecting.

We could even try eating fried insects. If you were wondering, it just tastes like regular snacks.

We stopped again in Bangkok after our trip to Nepal, where we could buy another camera, cause we noticed we were not taking enough pictures (around 250 per day), and Gretchen was hungry for more editing.

We tried to go to the famous Jai Fai restaurant, a Michelin starred street food shop, but got turned away by the 3 to 4 hours waiting line…

Chiang Mai

Chaing Mai, the capital of northern Thailand, was super cute. Way more relaxing and laid back than Bangkok. Also, it felt like the proportion of dickhead tourists reduced considerably.

Chiang Mai was very clean and neat, and walking around was very enjoyable.

Mae Hong Son loop (6 days)

We had read everywhere that the Mae Hong Son loop was one the best thing to do to discover northern Thailand. This is a loop of around 600km that is usually done with a motorbike. We almost rented a 150cc scoot, but then we are not young and foolish anymore, so we backed out thinking that not having a motorcycle license we would not be covered in case of an accident… We rented a car instead, so overall it was less fun than expected, but at least mom and dad wouldn’t be worried 😉.

The first day on the road was nothing good in particular… Landscapes were so-so and the road was a 2 way highway for the most part. Our first stop in Mae Sariang set the vibe for the rest of the loop though: relaxing and not touristy.

It got much better the second day, as the road became much more windy and fun to drive on. By the way the quality of the roads in northern Thailand was surprisingly good, almost Swiss grade.

We stopped a few times on the way, to enjoy the view and the waterfalls. That’s also when we realised the worst side of going to Nepal: so hard to be amazed at anything after that trip… Every waterfall looks so tiny now, every mountain looks like a hill, even the rice fields don’t look so interesting anymore.

Did I mention there's an entrance fee to see this? 

We spent our second night in Mae Hong Son, a lovely laid back town close to the Myanmar border.

Best selling crepes in town

We decided to explore a bit more and went to Ban Rak Thai, a tiny village surrounded by tea plantations.

Bamboo Bridge: sidetrip before Pai.

On day 4 we headed to Pai, where we had planned to spend 3 nights, following the advice of most backpacking blogs. Looks like we are getting old, cause the only thing we liked there was the waffles in the night market… Besides that, it felt like being the young dickhead hub of northern Thailand, a spring break destination for white people. It was overpacked with backpackers coming here for the party scene, and to show their muscles or boobs. Maybe we are just getting old, but we didn’t enjoy it and felt it was a waste of time.

We went hiking to the Maeyen waterfall, which proved to be super tiny, and not worth the 3h walking on the river (we counted 39 river crossings).

Luckily we had one more day with the car, so we decided to get out of the loop and to head to the Chiang Dao national park. It felt so much better… With proper landscapes and lush vegetation, and a real laid back atmosphere. We really wished we hadn’t read all those blogs praising the Mae Hong Son loop…

All in all, we were quite disappointed in that loop, but we feel that maybe doing it on a motorbike would be cool, as the road was very fun.

Chiang Rai

We found a lovely little guesthouse in the heart of the red light district in Chiang Rai (it was not that bad, just a bit exaggerated). Besides that our stay there was very good, and even more relaxed than in Chiang Mai.

Mae Salong

A sidetrip from Chiang Rai on a scoot.

18 DEC – 21 DEC

Phuket

Soooo… Phuket was kind of a mistake at first, cause being french I kind of messed up the plane tickets. My bad… Instead of having 6 days, with the possibility to explore the southern islands, we ended up with 3 days so not really enough time to move around. “Stuck” in Phuket then, we decided to base ourselves in Kata, a few kilometers away from patong, famous for its night scene and every cliche you can have about Thailand.

We were not excited at all about spending some time in Phuket, but nonetheless we decided to get a scoot and explore the island… And got stopped at the first police barrage for driving without license (like about everyone). Thai police are very serious about driving without license, so we paid our 10 usd and could go on without worries fr the rest of the day with our receipt in hand (what a joke). While queuing to pay our fine, a dumb f*ck, the complete cliché of the backpacker travelled in Thailand, apparently tried to force the barrage and hit the barrier about 10m after. Well done… I guess the 10$ were worth the risk… He ended up in handcuffs in the police car.

Contrary to our expectations, we found a few beaches completely deserted by the tourists, which made the day very enjoyable.

However, the mandatory “cultural stop” here in Phuket is the infamous Bangla road. It’s an experience in itself, hard to describe, but even if it’s mostly about human slavery (except of course if I’m wrong and the ping pong shows are a real sport), I think you have to see it once. The scale back of it is quite incredible, prostitutes everywhere, neon lights, chaotic music and so on… Exactly what you can see on TV about that side of Thailand. (We wandered a bit further than the main street though, and it was really disgusting, with prostitutes doing their thing with big sewer rats eatimg 2m away). Only thing we can’t explain, is why there were so many families walking that street…

Our last day in Thailand was spent on a very nice beach close to the airport.

-Guillaume