Traveling the spicy route
India, Malaysia and Singapore were just brief stopovers on this vacation. Family, friends, catch up on sleep that kind of thing. Two weeks of this and I was in Thailand, where from Bangkok we made a trip to Pattaya and avoided all the crowds and sleaze and the quiet daytime beaches by staying in a resort outside town where there was nothing to do except sleep, swim and get some Thai massages.
The real trip started when I headed from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I took the day train which leaves around 8:30AM and reaches Chiang Mai about 8:30 in the night. It cost about 600+ which is 20$, and included a couple of meals on the train. The train stops only a few mins each station not enough time to get food so anybody planning on using this train should pack some along as the train rations are just nibbles.
Chiang Mai has a lot of day trips on offer. I did the Doi Suthep mountain temple, some village visits, a whitewater rafting trip, some waterfall bathing on the way back etc. It's all good. And also spend a few days just exploring this old town with it's moat all around the city and the ruin's of it's 11'th century walls all around town. The town is built in the shape of a square enclosed by this moat and wall. Evenings I'd visit the night market a charged bazaar with all kinds of stuff on offer. I avoided the night clubs as I'd learned in Thai here it's basically a dive for the sex tourists. I almost went for a Thai boxing show but then decided to catch it on the local tv when I found out it was free. Can't say it was all that great.
I had to move from my first hotel and then I found this place just close to the edge of town at the end of Chang Klang road (which is where the night bazaar is held) and they charged me 50 baht per night including towel for a two bed room with en-suite shower. Quite the deal ... the joint is called Trekker Camp and Nikki the manager turned out to be a part time singer in a local Thai bar. I went there with him the first night and listened to him croon Thai versions of Beatles, Neil Sedaka numbers and on request he played me "Holiday" by Scorpions all in Thai of course :)
My room-mate was a french guy from East Africa called Phil. HE didn't seem to sleep much and I was given to understand that he used to work for the CIA and he told me that he was on call but when I tried to get more specific about all of this he mumbled off into mystery. However he and me bought each other a few beers and exchanged smokes and all in all it made for an entertaining time. It looked like he was planning on staying there for a long time to come.
From Chiang Mai I made my way by slow boat to Laos. It's a two day trip and we stopped over at a place called Pak Beng en-route. Immigration cost $42 (the Canadian visas were the most expensive) and the trip itself was 1750 Baht (which is about 60$)
Luang Prabang was quite a surprise. Very small town, but very clean and sedate with French colonial architecture in spots. No mall, no cinema theatre even and zero hustling. The people were all calm, cool and spoke almost no English but their friendliness and willingness to meet you halfway made it easy to deal with them. Food was a mixture of vietnamese type noodle soups and thai style fried rice dishes etc. Not much to do in this town, but they have a few day trips ... I didn't bother doing any of them instead spending the days just exploring the town on foot in all four directions.
From there I flew to Cambodia, to Siem Reap by Laos Air. Costs about 220$. I could have gone by boat there too but didn't feel like doing one more of those boat rides.
Siem Reap is a real hustler's town, with Tuk Tuk drivers, doormen everybody hustling you. Their standard line was "You want young girl? Real cheap" ... and everywhere around you there were posters by the Cambodian government warning you that child prostitution was a crime and that there were serious penalties for anybody involved.
Angkor Wat ... the ruins were indeed spectacularly interesting and definitely worth seeing. I visited about seven different temples in and around the Angkor Wat location and only thing I regretted was not making the trip earlier in the morning before the tourist hordes showed up ... plus the strong afternoon light didn't make for good pictures.
Beer Lao was the pick of the lot and while it's the only thing mostly available in Luang Prabang, it was also easily available in Cambodia. However except in Chiang Mai its not very easy to find in places like Bangkok.
I also liked Luang Prabang the best of all the towns I'd visited but that being said Chiang Mai has a lot more to offer to the tourist and I enjoyed my stay at Chiang Mai the best. I visited the Blind institute there and had a massage by a blind masseur which was simply outstanding and dirt cheap. 100 baht for an hour, which is about 3.5$
There's a lot more trip notes obviously, but the main thing about SE Asia is a little money goes a long way if you know what you are doing. You can pretty much live on 10 to 20$ a day including your accomodation but if you are willing to go up 30 to 40$ then a lot more options become available.
