Back in Bangkok, Thailand 

Flashpacking, Thailand, Travel, ,

7/15 – After a month at the beach, we are back in busy Bangkok.  While we are here, we need to purchase some things we couldn’t get on Koh Chang – Jim’s medicine, dental floss, rechargeable batteries for my camera and a new battery for my watch.  We found a pharmacy right down the street, then asked our hotel lady where batteries could be purchased.  Her answer, of course – the mall!  A taxi ride got us over to the modern part of town.  We walked among familiar shops, including a Dunkin Donuts and a KFC.   Did I take pictures?  No – you know what a mall looks like!

The lower level had a fresh food court, and there we saw a lady selling durians.  Now, you will remember that durian is either the king of fruits, or the smelliest fruit ever, depending on who you ask.  A notice on our hotel wall reminded me that I promised to try some. 

 

Now, we have been keeping our eyes open for a chance to score some durian, but unlike other fruits, which the street vendors are happy to cut up and sell, we’ve only seen durians for sale whole and unopened.  We don’t want to bring a whole one home and take a chance of stinking up our room.  All I want is a little bite!  So here at the mall, imagine my surprise to see durians opened and sold by the piece!  What’s more, the lady has a plate of durian pieces, and is offering samples.  This is the moment I’ve been waiting for!

 

I bent down and sniffed the durian skin – nothing.  I took a sample and sniffed it in my hand – nothing.  I placed it in my mouth and… yum!  It tastes very faintly like a pineapple, only creamy instead of fiberous.  Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t know what the “stink” is all about.  Maybe it gets smelly if you leave it out?  Let it get overripe?  If anybody knows, please share.  As far as I can tell, durian = nice fruit.

We walked all around the mall, surrounded by “stuff”, but after getting our batteries, couldn’t think of a single thing we wanted to buy, so hopped in a taxi and went back to the non-tourist side of town.

We walked down the street outside our hotel, looking for things to buy for supper.  So much variety! 

    
    
    
 

I’m partial to the Chinese steamed dumplings. 

 
We bought a bunch of stuff and had a smorgasbord feast, until I found a whole chicken foot in my ginger chicken and rice.  Gave Jim the foot – there are some things I just don’t need to try!
7/16 – The other thing we decided to do in Bangkok was to get Jim a new set of hearing aids.  We understand that we will save several thousand dollars here, rather than waiting til we get home.  I located an audiologist who was recommended and spoke English, and made an appointment.  The office is more than a taxi ride away, so we got directions for the Sky Train to take us there.

The Bangkok Sky Train is an elevated railway, fast and modern.  Like other metros we’ve seen in Asia, there are plexiglass walls that prevent the crush of people from pushing folks over the edge onto the tracks.  Like others we have ridden, the process was easy, from purchasing tickets, to changing trains, and getting off at the right stop.  Stops were announced in both Thai and English.  Easy peasy.  Happy to say that people queue up politely here, like in Japan, and don’t push and shove, like in China.

 
Jim got a thorough hearing test, and an extensive tutorial on how to use his new state-of-the-art hearing aids.  A productive morning!  

 

Koh Chang to Bangkok, Thailand

Backpacking, Flashpacking, Hiking, Thailand, Travel, ,

7/13 – As we wind down our last days on Koh Chang, here are some more pics of our adventures:

On one of our walks, we stumbled on a posh resort with a helipad and other things for the very rich.  We opted not to pay the entrance fee to tour the resort (see rich tourists in their natural habitat!), but did take some pics of the elephant statues just inside the gate.  

 
We stopped to have lunch at a roadside stand on the road to the resort- barbecued chicken wings, sticky rice and spicy shredded papaya salad.  The road doesn’t get any traffic except from the workers on their way to and from the resort. The proprietor had no English, but we let her know the food was delicious! 

 

This is called “hairy fruit”, or rambutan.  You slice open the hairy skin and discard it to find the sweet, grape-like fruit inside.  The fruit is just a thin layer over a very large pit, so bite down carefully!

   

7/14 – We woke early to get on the minibus to go back to Bangkok.  One ferry ride and nine hours later, we walked, exhausted, into our hotel.  Bangkok is one huge traffic jam, and the ride that was supposed to take four hours took more than double.  Our driver asked us to direct him to the hotel (!), then could not follow the directions on our GPS.  After the third try, we got out and walked.  Only a few days here, then we catch the train for the 24 hour ride to Malaysia.  Back on the road again!

Koh Chang, Thailand – When Monkeys Attack!

Flashpacking, Hiking, Thailand, Travel, , ,

7/6 – So, here we are for a lazy month on a tropical island.  The days blend together, with walks in the mornings, swimming in the afternoons, and sea gazing in the evenings.  We read for hours every day, thanks to Overdrive and Kindle.  We are taking advantage of the great wifi to catch up on Netflix – we’re halfway through the third season of House of Cards.  We talk to tourists as they come and go – most are from Germany and Scandinavia.  We eat at little open-air restaurants – our resort has the best one, the Bamboo Hut.  Nothing happens here, and that is okay with us.  

 One morning, we hiked over to the Bang Bao fishing village to get some supplies. We bought some groceries, including a bunch of the little, sweet bananas we like so much. As we walked back toward our beach with our plastic grocery bags, we spied some monkeys by the side of the road. Please excuse the fuzzy shot, but how often do you see a monkey on a motorbike?  This monkey will become significant in a minute…

   

I joked to Jim that the monkeys were waiting for him to offer them a banana. All of a sudden, Jim yelled and swung the plastic grocery bag, which now had a big monkey attached, holding on to the bananas with all four feet and screeching! OMG! He was trying to steal our bananas!  I wish I could say I provided some assistance in fighting off the attacker, but truth to tell, I dropped my bag and ran backwards, leaving poor Jim to deal with the monkey.  He was not cute, and looked a lot bigger up close.  Jim kicked at it once as he dropped the bag, then kicked it again before the monkey let go of the bag, and scurried back to the other side of the road to join his mates. I was still yelling OMG! while checking to see if Jim had been scratched or bitten – who knows what diseases monkeys carry?  Jim was okay.  The big monkey hunched on the other side of the road with his buddies, hissing at us. He was mad!  I was afraid he would run at us again, so I raised my arms up over my head (making myself appear larger – I think I read this in an article about what to do if attacked by a bear) and hissed right back at him.  He and his monkey gang stayed on the other side of the road, and we power-walked home, pumped with adrenaline, Jim looking forward, and me looking back.

Sorry to say, there is no photographic evidence of this incident.   After the blurry pic, I totally forgot to preserve any part of this story for posterity, so here is an Internet pic of hissing monkeys: 

 

Here is the sign at our village that someone must not have heeded: 

 

See?  Didn’t I tell you this post would be exciting?

Koh Chang, Thailand – Bang Bao Fishing Village

Flashpacking, Thailand, Travel,

7/2 – Every few days, we put on our shoes and walk the three kilometers to the nearest little town, Bang Bao, just for something to do.

 

Here there is a single street with several ATMs, a 7Eleven, and a pier crammed with tourist shops and restaurants.   

    

There are signs here in Russian, a testament to the Russian tourists who used to visit here. Since the decline of the ruble, the Russians aren’t traveling here anymore, and local businesses lament this loss. 

 
There’s a Rastafarian influence here, with several shops and restaurants.  

    
There’s a Turkish restaurant here – go figure! 

 

There is a wat here, but nobody was home except this guy: 

 
The pier is lined with big boats to take tourists fishing, snorkeling or scuba diving. 

    
 

The pier ends in a lighthouse, beautiful against the clouds.

   
From the end of the pier, we can look across the gulf, back to our bungalow.   Can you see it?


The water is turquoise and so clear! 

 

 I promise, there will be some action in my next post – stay tuned!

 

Koh Chang, Thailand

Flashpacking, Thailand, Travel,

6/26 – We’re settled in at our waterfront bungalow on the southern island of Koh Chang.  We swim in the Gulf of Thailand (our beach is called Tranquility Bay), we read, we gaze out at the boats and the changing tides.  The crew rakes the beach every morning to keep it pristine, and tends to the tropical flowers throughout the day. 

    
    
  

 Our home-sweet-home.  The geckos scurry up and down the walls at night, chirping and keeping us bug- free.

 

The trees provide plenty of shade, right up to the water’s edge:   

There are three dogs that live here and keep the guests company. 

      

In the morning, the tide recedes, and exposes the barnacle encrusted dark rocks below.   Jim cut his foot on his first swim, before we realized the rocks were there.  Now we swim very carefully in the clear channel that is rock-free.

   

We are technically in the “wet” season, but we haven’t seen much rain.  Sometimes the clouds turn gray and we get a cloudburst, then the sun returns.  The temperature is in the 80s every day – the blistering heat is no more. 

 Our consciousness has slowed down, and we are relishing this opportunity to just be. 

  
I’ll check back when we have some news!

Koh Kong, Cambodia to Koh Chang, Thailand 

Backpacking, Cambodia, Flashpacking, Thailand, Travel, , , , ,

6/22 – We arranged transport over the Thai border with our Koh Kong hotel. A posh air conditioned van picked us up and delivered us to the border, where people pushed handcarts of goods and produce across the border.

Our van driver put stickers on our shirts and escorted us to the border, where the stickers identified us to the van driver on the Thai side.  We are back in Thailand for another 30 days.  When we were here in April, we explored the northern part of the country.  Now we will spend a month on the vacation island of Koh Chang, home of white sandy beaches and azure seas.  Koh Chang means Elephant Island, as it is shaped like an elephant ear.

Another posh van, and a two hour drive got us to the ferry terminal.  We watched as the ferry pulled away from the dock, so we will have to wait a half hour for the next one.   

We shared the van ride with Kennedy Smith, a Scot who spends half his time here.  He loves the climate and the food, and has a Thai girlfriend.  (Newsflash:  if you’re an old white guy looking for a pretty young girlfriend, Southeast Asia is the place for you.  I stopped counting all the old men with sweet young Asians clinging adoringly to their arms.). Kennedy told us about the different beaches, and to stay away from the ‘walking street’ where the prostitutes were located.  The ferry ride took about a half hour. 

Koh Chang, here we come!

Our van ride was supposed to include a drop off at our hotel, but when we told our driver where we were staying, he added $15 to the fare.  We chose the most isolated beach at the end of the island, far from the other towns.  A half hour after dropping Kennedy off at his place, on a single lane road with exciting hairpin turns, we reached Klong Koi village.  

Where was our place?  We shouldered our packs and walked down the beach, as there is no road (and no sign!) for the Bangbao Beach Resort. 

    

So now we are settled in our cozy cabin for the next three and a half weeks.  We have air con, a good hot shower, and amazing wifi, considering where we are.  The best restaurant in the village is 20 steps away, and the clear waters of the Gulf of Thailand are right outside our door.  I think we’re going to like it here!

  

Kep to Koh Kong, Cambodia 

Backpacking, Cambodia, Flashpacking, Thailand, ,

6/20 – Time to press on:  our 30 day Cambodian visa is about to expire, and we have set our sights on a Thai island that several travelers have recommended to us.  Our first step is to get from Kep to Koh Kong, the nearest town to the Thai border.  We purchased minibus tickets from the travel agent at the beach in Kep, and showed up at 7:15am the next morning for our minibus, which arrived a half hour later (no worries – bus times are merely suggestions here).  We made a stop in Kampot to pick up more passengers, then another stop after all the seats were full, then another!  We ended up with 13 people in a van with 8 seats – the two youngest backpackers were invited to sit with the luggage (our driver called these the VIP seats), and everybody else just squeezed together for the four hour ride without air conditioning. I had time to reflect that this was how I envisioned all our travel in Asia would be, and how amazingly modern most of our transport has been.

Koh Kang is a harbor town, right on the border of Thailand.  It is not a tourist town. 

 

We walked down to the water to watch the fishermen at work. 

   

This is definitely not a beach for swimming! 

 

There are wide promenades and statues that hint that this town once positioned itself as a place for visitors, but the sidewalks are being reclaimed by the local flora, and the area has not been maintained.

    

A schoolyard with statues: 

    

On to Thailand!

  

Kep, Cambodia – the Crab Market

Cambodia, Flashpacking, Travel, ,

6/18 – About two km walk along the beach from our hotel is the famous Kep Crab Market. The walk was breathtakingly beautiful. 

    Here’s the crab market – a conglomerate of shacks right at the water’s edge.. 

  There were lots of squid, flatfish and shrimp for sale, in addition to crabs cooked any way you like. 

  

Look at the lady on the right – it looks like she is dressed for a blizzard, although it is 100 degrees.  And she is standing in front of a hot grill!

    

We watched the crab pots being hauled in, and the sellers haggling for the best crabs. 

     

We had lunch at one of the little restaurants, looking right out on the water.  This time I remembered to take a picture of our crab with Kampot pepper sauce – before and after! 

   

On our walk home, we had a special treat.  A whole troop of monkeys met us on the road! 

         

A perfect end to our day! 

Kep, Cambodia – the Pepper Farm and the Park

Cambodia, Flashpacking, Travel, , , ,

6/15 – Kampot pepper is this area’s claim to fame, so today we did the tourist thing and hired a tuk-tuk to take us to visit Sothy’s Pepper Farm. 

 

  

We met Norbert Klein, a German expatriate who purchased this farm four years ago.  He grows fruit trees in addition to Kampot pepper, which is grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

 

It is just after the harvest season for the pepper, but there were still some green pepper grapes on the vines.

  

The pepper plants are shaded with a roof of palm fronds as pepper doesn’t grow well in direct sun.

   

The plants are tied up on poles, and grow to about eight feet high. 

 

After harvest, the green peppercorns are set out in the sun to dry.  Most turn black, others white.  Some of the white ones are boiled and peeled to reveal red peppercorns, the rarest and most expensive.  The colors are sorted by hand. 

   

There is a small shop with fruit and pepper for sale.  An interesting trip; we learned a lot! and it made me appreciate Kampot pepper sauce even more!

6/17 – Today we hiked again in Kep National Park, this time entering from the beach side.  We had to pay a dollar to enter.  There is a sign assuring us that this park has been cleared of land mines, and is safe for hiking.  This is good to know – thanks USA for the gift that keeps on giving, 50 years after the Vietnam War ended.  (We met a European tourist who looked puzzled when we mentioned the Vietnam War, then he said, “Oh, we call it the American War!”)

 

  
The climb up the hill gave us some nice views of the beach below. 

    We reached a waterfall, but it was dry, as there has not been enough rain for the water to flow. Here is a pic of what it should look like.

   

We saw a sign asking us not to feed the monkeys, and kept looking up, hoping to see one in the trees. 

As we sat quietly on a bench, we heard a great crashing above, and saw a monkey swinging among the trees!  I was not fast enough to catch a shot of him between trees, but this is a pic of the tree with the monkey in it, I swear! 

 

Further up the road was a side trail promising cold drinks and baby monkeys.  The side trail was very steep, very narrow, very full of mosquitoes, but no more monkeys (or cold drinks) did we see!

 

It was awfully hot, even in the shade, but it was a nice morning’s walk.  Here is some beauty from the trail. 

        

Kep, Cambodia – the Beach

Cambodia, Flashpacking, Hiking, Travel, ,

6/12 – This morning we bade farewell to the lovely but isolated Botanica Guesthouse and tuk-tukked down the road to beautiful downtown Kep.  Here we found a street with shops, restaurants and even an ATM!   

 

A Hindu statue at the roundabout:

  

We will stay at the Saravoan Hotel, just steps from the beach, for the next week or so.

Kep is all about the beach.   Out on the pier is a statue of a lady – the locals have draped her in scarves to cover her immodesty. 

     Even monks need a vacation: 

Here is the view from our balcony.  Sorry if there’s not much to blog this week – I intend to spend most of my time swimming!

   6/14 – We woke up on Sunday morning to the sounds of people and traffic.  What’s going on in our sleepy little town?  We walked out of our hotel into a flurry of activity – restaurants had set up extra tables on the sidewalk, carts lined the street hawking food, fruit, ice cream, cold drinks, crabs and squid.   Music filled the air.


Sunday is the day when locals pile their families into cars and rent a parking space near the water, and buses of tourists come from nearby Vietnam for a day in the sun. 

Little cabanas are for rent, where families picnicked and swung in hammocks in the shade. 


The afternoon turned cloudy, but the weather didn’t deter the revelers.  You’ll notice that folks stay mostly clothed, even when they go into the water.   

After a swim, we sat on our balcony and gazed out at the water.  Around dusk, two monkeys strolled down the street, stopping to inspect the trash on the roadside, lick out food containers and help themselves to anything that looked tasty.  There’s a sign in our hotel warning guests not to leave anything out on the balcony where it can be stolen by monkeys.  We brought our shoes indoors, just in case.  We watched them for a long time, and listened to the sound of the gentle waves. What a treat!