Thailand photos - November 2009
Was overdue for another overseas adventure as have been languishing in Australia since I returned from Canada in October 2005, so it was great to shake off the cobwebs with some serious sightseeing. This is the first of two entries about Joanne and I’s two week holiday, as we first flew from Melbourne to Bangkok via Singapore, then a few days later from Bangkok to Hong Kong, stayed there for 5 days then flew back to Thailand for the remainder of our trip. The next entry will focus on our time in Hong Kong, but for now it’s on to the photos, almost all taken with my new Cannon 1000D camera, so hopefully the results will worth what I paid for it.
This is the hotel where we stayed at when we arrived in Bangkok, the well appointed but eminatly affordable Immfusion Sukhumvit, right next to the On Nut skytrain station and a lot of luxury for what you’d pay for a shitty motel room here in Aus. As you can see this is the swimming pool in the main atrium, see website for more pics.
The Bangkok skytrain and the infamous Bangkok traffic near Siam station.
Siam Ocean World, the largest aquarium in South East Asia, located in the basement of Siam Paragon shopping centre, they even have a waterfall. This was on our first full day in Bangkok and it was ridiculously fucking hot - “Oh, the humidity!” - so we retreated to an air-conditioned world of comfort rather than endure any more swamparse than we had to.
“Under the sea! Under the sea! *eats three fish* there'll be no accusations, just friendly crustaceans, under the sea!”
This was odd, there were school groups touring the aquarium with us as it was a weekday, and half way through the exhibits there was this stage area where all the kiddies sat down while the mermaid girl in the foreground, a turtle and two beavers did a song and dance routine. It was all in Thai so we had no idea what it was about, maybe it was a song about living under the sea
*Jaws theme*
It’s a bit difficult to see with all the fish, but there are two divers in there feeding the sharks, the food was in the light coloured basket. Anyway the sharks smelled the food, knocked the divers out of the way, opened the basket and started trying to get at it. You can see one of the divers is trying to drag one of the sharks out with little success. Braver or more foolish men than I.
Siam Paragon is the most upmarket shopping centre in Thailand. Can you name another mall that has a Maserati dealership inside? Next door was BMW and Porsche, yet the food court was surprisingly cheap, go figure.
That night we met up with Joanne’s sister Alice who lives in Bangkok and her husband Sanook who is Thai so has all the local know-how. We went out to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar and it was still retardedly hot, but thankfully Sanook knew a nice restaurant and there we ordered up some tasty food (fried rice, green curry, tom yum soup etc) and Thailand’s specialty, the beer tower. In this case 3 litres of delicious Singha, but what makes the tower special is that it the tube the beer is held in has a core of ice, so unlike ordinary jugs or pitchers, the beer stays frosty cold even as it sits on an outside table. Fanfuckingtastic. Unfortunately for Sanook he had to keep up with me in the beer drinking stakes in order not to lose face, and while not saying I’m the greatest drinker in the world, years of boozing up with my good mate Robert Prain (who’s alcohol intake is nothing short of legendary) has given me a respectable stamina. However Sanook (who doesn’t have such erstwhile drinking buddies and who is 8 inches shorter and at least 10 kilos lighter than I), suffered a bit as he had to get up at 6 the next morning for work. After dinner we had a look around the market proper but it was still over 30 degrees with 80% humidity after midnight, so we gave up on looking at stalls and had another couple more beers while the sisters continue shopping. We then cabbed it back to the hotel while Alice and Sanook carried on to their place, the latter unconscious by this point.
Bin Bin! Alice and Sanook’s hamster, cramming food into his cheek pouches. If you’re interested in pointless trivia, it's true that hamsters can hold 1/3 of their body weight in food in these pouches..... no wait, you're not.
Joanne, Sanook and her sister, Alice. The next night we went out to Bangkok’s Chinatown and on a place called Yaowarat Rd at night they set up stalls and restaurants on the footpath which spill out into the gutter and onto the road, so that traffic is restricted to two lanes in the middle. We grabbed a table on the road and chowed down on delicious crispy duck noodles at an incredible 30 baht/A$1 a bowl.
Sign above a seat on the BTS (skytrain).
View out the side of the skytrain. It must be said that Bangkok is not the most beautiful of cities, in fact a lot of it is hideously ugly and decrepit, but it does have many redeeming features.
More views from the BTS.
This is on the freeway, a giant photo of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej (no, I can’t pronounce it either). The Thai people love their king, and given their recent history it’s little surprise considering the chaos the country has been through since the current king ascended the throne in 1946 - he is the longest reigning current monarch in the world. And you don’t want to be seen disrespecting the king, real or even perceived insult to his person or the royal family are treated very seriously as the concept of Lèse majesté is upheld with an iron fist, just ask Harry Nicolaides. One amusing feature of all this though is the patriotic film they play before every movie when you attend a cinema (as we did to see 2012 in gold class). During the Royal Anthem everyone is required to stand and there are stories of cinema goers who refuse to stand being physically beaten by their fellow citizens over this slight to the King. There are many versions, but this is the anthem we saw before 2012 (please excuse poor quality), we were especially amused by the wounded soldiers drawing strength from a picture of the King. Also, as I stood there solemnly, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Chris Morris’ pisstake on these patriotic films in his devastating satire The Day Today, titled Britain in crisis.
A building with an interesting history. Thailand was one of the countries hardest hit by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and the most visible reminder of this is the dozens of skyscrapers dotting the Bangkok skyline where work stopped when the money ran out in the late 90s and has never restarted. This is the Sathorn Unique tower, which was supposed to contain high end apartments and stores, now it is home only to squatters and a pack of feral dogs. I highly recommend this article on Bangkok's ghost towers as well as this video on the same subject.
After the first few days we moved to Alice and Sanook’s apartment at the brand new Parkland Srinakarin complex in a quieter part of Bangkok called Bang Na.
Pollution makes for the best sunsets. From their apartment again, looking outward rather than inward this time.
The pool downstairs at night, we went to Hong Kong the next morning.
Back from Hong Kong and off to the tourist island of Ko Samet, about 3 hours South East of Bangkok. This is looking back towards the mainland from the leaky tub that took us out there.
At night when the tide was out the resorts all laid down mats and tables and served dinner right on the sand.
Me, Joanne and Alice chilling after an exhausting day travelling and being smacked around by the sea. Sanook lost a tooth when a wave hit him in the head, it was a false tooth, but still, after fruitless search for it in the ocean he resigned himself to the fact it was gone.
Stray animals are everywhere in Thailand, because as a mostly Buddhist country they will never put down an animal and nor do they even shoo them away. You go into a restaurant and if there is a cat sleeping on the floor you step over it, it’s common to see packs of dogs running down main roads and so on. Anyway while we saw some really mangy dogs on Ko Samet, there were lots of sleek looking kittens getting around the beach, so we fed them some of the seafood from our Pad Thai that we couldn’t finish and they were most appreciative.
It’s me, on holiday. Probably the only Weltmacht shirt you’d ever see on a tropical beach too.
Nothing like a refreshing soft dring after you’ve been in the sun.
Joanne had a fresh coconut rather than a soft dring.
And I had a beer. After this we decided to rent some motorbikes to see more of the island. Now in Australia you would not be able to ride a motorbike straight after drinking with no licence, no experience and no helmet, but in Thailand they take a more relaxed attitude to such things and after a 30 second demonstration of the finer points of the bike (in Thai), we were sent on our way. Things went well until the road ran out and was replaced by a streambed with steep hills, but I only crashed once and Joanne (who was on the back of my bike) was fine. After our 2 hour ride we returned the bikes, paid the 150 baht hire fee and ran off before the guy noticed any new scratches and dints.
Once back in Bangkok we did the clichéd thing and visited the Royal Palace, yeah I know, touristy.
Monks always brighten up pictures.
The outside of the temple featuring the famous Wat Phra Kaew (or Temple of the Emerald Buddha), you can’t take pictures of it inside, but it was a massive building full of people praying to the 45 cm tall Emerald Budda, so you could barely see it even when you were inside anyway. Anyway, lots of bling, that’s for sure.
More of the Grand Palace.
A tiny section of a mural, these went all around a massive courtyard, and that is real gold inlayed in them. Also Joanne’s hair looks fantastic in this shot, although the white skirt is her sisters as the Palace has a strict dress code and none of Joanne’s skirts are considered demure enough for the Palace. The dress code is advertised yet tourists still turned up in shorts and tank tops, so were given clothes by the staff, and seeing blokey tourists trying to look inconspicuous with a brightly coloured sarong over their western clothes was very amusing.
Me obeying the dress code in front of some spectacular opulence. My boots were unlaced as for many areas you also had to take your shoes off.
The next day we travelled by rail to the town of Kanchanaburi, the starting point of the terrible Burma-Thai death railway, this is the Khwae Noi, more commonly known as the River Kwai.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (not the original, that was bombed during the war), taken from a floating restaurant. The Japanese artillery, watchtowers on the bridge and the gunboat behind Joanne are fake props for the River Kwai festival that was happening the day after we left (we had intended to be there for the festival but they changed the date on us, bastards).
Standing on the bridge itself, the top of a giant Budda is visible on the right, and the tower in the centre was to have speakers mounted on it for the sound and light show during the festival.
A friendly cat we found on the other side of the bridge near the resort where we were staying.
On the way back to the resort, most likely a Japanese gun turret to defend the bridge, now a strange piece of art.
Testing for the sound and light show on the bridge. They used the speakers mounted around the bridge to simulate an aircraft attack and the destruction of the bridge, the rehearsals were good, but we can only imagine how the final show must have been.
The next morning we visited the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, where 6982 of the victims of Japanese brutality are buried, including many Australians. Immaculately maintained by the locals as a tribute to the dead.
We then took a train up the railway as far as you can go which is to a place called Nam Tok, sadly short of the famous Hellfire Pass but as far as you can go by railway. This gives you an idea of the sort of terrain the prisoners of war along with conscripted Asian slave labourers had push the railway through.
The incredibly primitive Thailand State railways, that’s right, wooden seats, in 2009, the train was so old we wondered if it had been used by the Japanese during the war. Also on the way back the train was 3 hours late so we got very well acquainted with it’s total lack of creature comforts.
Joanne getting up close and personal with the passing jungle.
Rice paddies outside Kanchanaburi even though you’d swear this was China.
Leaving Thailand the next day. Our aircraft awaiting boarding at Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Some general impressions of Thailand:
Likes:
* Everything is incredibly cheap
* The exchange rate allows people like me to feel very rich indeed.
* Public transport is clean, efficient and punctual
* Taxis are dirt-cheap and ever present
* Most places are air-conditioned
* You can buy a 640ml beer at 7 11 for 50 baht (A$1.80)
Dislikes:
* Rubbish everywhere in the streets
* Air quality is very poor, mostly thanks to transport such as Tuk Tuks
* No planning controls in evidence leaving seriously ugly streetscapes
* No street signs and few maps meaning is very hard to navigate
* Sex tourists everywhere sleazing up the joint
All in all I greatly enjoyed my time in Thailand, it was not a place I ever thought to go, but as Joanne’s sister lived over there, cheap travel was too hard to pass up. It’s a strange country where they can be very chilled about most things but violently protective of the king and the royal family, a place where no one obeys the road rules but no one seems to mind, where you can get shitty food at expensive places and some of the best meals of your life on the side of the road. The political situation is fucked but the people are wonderful, so don’t worry about the headlines, I can strongly recommend a visit. Stay tuned for details of our Hong Kong adventures.
This is the hotel where we stayed at when we arrived in Bangkok, the well appointed but eminatly affordable Immfusion Sukhumvit, right next to the On Nut skytrain station and a lot of luxury for what you’d pay for a shitty motel room here in Aus. As you can see this is the swimming pool in the main atrium, see website for more pics.
The Bangkok skytrain and the infamous Bangkok traffic near Siam station.
Siam Ocean World, the largest aquarium in South East Asia, located in the basement of Siam Paragon shopping centre, they even have a waterfall. This was on our first full day in Bangkok and it was ridiculously fucking hot - “Oh, the humidity!” - so we retreated to an air-conditioned world of comfort rather than endure any more swamparse than we had to.
“Under the sea! Under the sea! *eats three fish* there'll be no accusations, just friendly crustaceans, under the sea!”
This was odd, there were school groups touring the aquarium with us as it was a weekday, and half way through the exhibits there was this stage area where all the kiddies sat down while the mermaid girl in the foreground, a turtle and two beavers did a song and dance routine. It was all in Thai so we had no idea what it was about, maybe it was a song about living under the sea
*Jaws theme*
It’s a bit difficult to see with all the fish, but there are two divers in there feeding the sharks, the food was in the light coloured basket. Anyway the sharks smelled the food, knocked the divers out of the way, opened the basket and started trying to get at it. You can see one of the divers is trying to drag one of the sharks out with little success. Braver or more foolish men than I.
Siam Paragon is the most upmarket shopping centre in Thailand. Can you name another mall that has a Maserati dealership inside? Next door was BMW and Porsche, yet the food court was surprisingly cheap, go figure.
That night we met up with Joanne’s sister Alice who lives in Bangkok and her husband Sanook who is Thai so has all the local know-how. We went out to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar and it was still retardedly hot, but thankfully Sanook knew a nice restaurant and there we ordered up some tasty food (fried rice, green curry, tom yum soup etc) and Thailand’s specialty, the beer tower. In this case 3 litres of delicious Singha, but what makes the tower special is that it the tube the beer is held in has a core of ice, so unlike ordinary jugs or pitchers, the beer stays frosty cold even as it sits on an outside table. Fanfuckingtastic. Unfortunately for Sanook he had to keep up with me in the beer drinking stakes in order not to lose face, and while not saying I’m the greatest drinker in the world, years of boozing up with my good mate Robert Prain (who’s alcohol intake is nothing short of legendary) has given me a respectable stamina. However Sanook (who doesn’t have such erstwhile drinking buddies and who is 8 inches shorter and at least 10 kilos lighter than I), suffered a bit as he had to get up at 6 the next morning for work. After dinner we had a look around the market proper but it was still over 30 degrees with 80% humidity after midnight, so we gave up on looking at stalls and had another couple more beers while the sisters continue shopping. We then cabbed it back to the hotel while Alice and Sanook carried on to their place, the latter unconscious by this point.
Bin Bin! Alice and Sanook’s hamster, cramming food into his cheek pouches. If you’re interested in pointless trivia, it's true that hamsters can hold 1/3 of their body weight in food in these pouches..... no wait, you're not.
Joanne, Sanook and her sister, Alice. The next night we went out to Bangkok’s Chinatown and on a place called Yaowarat Rd at night they set up stalls and restaurants on the footpath which spill out into the gutter and onto the road, so that traffic is restricted to two lanes in the middle. We grabbed a table on the road and chowed down on delicious crispy duck noodles at an incredible 30 baht/A$1 a bowl.
Sign above a seat on the BTS (skytrain).
View out the side of the skytrain. It must be said that Bangkok is not the most beautiful of cities, in fact a lot of it is hideously ugly and decrepit, but it does have many redeeming features.
More views from the BTS.
This is on the freeway, a giant photo of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej (no, I can’t pronounce it either). The Thai people love their king, and given their recent history it’s little surprise considering the chaos the country has been through since the current king ascended the throne in 1946 - he is the longest reigning current monarch in the world. And you don’t want to be seen disrespecting the king, real or even perceived insult to his person or the royal family are treated very seriously as the concept of Lèse majesté is upheld with an iron fist, just ask Harry Nicolaides. One amusing feature of all this though is the patriotic film they play before every movie when you attend a cinema (as we did to see 2012 in gold class). During the Royal Anthem everyone is required to stand and there are stories of cinema goers who refuse to stand being physically beaten by their fellow citizens over this slight to the King. There are many versions, but this is the anthem we saw before 2012 (please excuse poor quality), we were especially amused by the wounded soldiers drawing strength from a picture of the King. Also, as I stood there solemnly, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Chris Morris’ pisstake on these patriotic films in his devastating satire The Day Today, titled Britain in crisis.
A building with an interesting history. Thailand was one of the countries hardest hit by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and the most visible reminder of this is the dozens of skyscrapers dotting the Bangkok skyline where work stopped when the money ran out in the late 90s and has never restarted. This is the Sathorn Unique tower, which was supposed to contain high end apartments and stores, now it is home only to squatters and a pack of feral dogs. I highly recommend this article on Bangkok's ghost towers as well as this video on the same subject.
After the first few days we moved to Alice and Sanook’s apartment at the brand new Parkland Srinakarin complex in a quieter part of Bangkok called Bang Na.
Pollution makes for the best sunsets. From their apartment again, looking outward rather than inward this time.
The pool downstairs at night, we went to Hong Kong the next morning.
Back from Hong Kong and off to the tourist island of Ko Samet, about 3 hours South East of Bangkok. This is looking back towards the mainland from the leaky tub that took us out there.
At night when the tide was out the resorts all laid down mats and tables and served dinner right on the sand.
Me, Joanne and Alice chilling after an exhausting day travelling and being smacked around by the sea. Sanook lost a tooth when a wave hit him in the head, it was a false tooth, but still, after fruitless search for it in the ocean he resigned himself to the fact it was gone.
Stray animals are everywhere in Thailand, because as a mostly Buddhist country they will never put down an animal and nor do they even shoo them away. You go into a restaurant and if there is a cat sleeping on the floor you step over it, it’s common to see packs of dogs running down main roads and so on. Anyway while we saw some really mangy dogs on Ko Samet, there were lots of sleek looking kittens getting around the beach, so we fed them some of the seafood from our Pad Thai that we couldn’t finish and they were most appreciative.
It’s me, on holiday. Probably the only Weltmacht shirt you’d ever see on a tropical beach too.
Nothing like a refreshing soft dring after you’ve been in the sun.
Joanne had a fresh coconut rather than a soft dring.
And I had a beer. After this we decided to rent some motorbikes to see more of the island. Now in Australia you would not be able to ride a motorbike straight after drinking with no licence, no experience and no helmet, but in Thailand they take a more relaxed attitude to such things and after a 30 second demonstration of the finer points of the bike (in Thai), we were sent on our way. Things went well until the road ran out and was replaced by a streambed with steep hills, but I only crashed once and Joanne (who was on the back of my bike) was fine. After our 2 hour ride we returned the bikes, paid the 150 baht hire fee and ran off before the guy noticed any new scratches and dints.
Once back in Bangkok we did the clichéd thing and visited the Royal Palace, yeah I know, touristy.
Monks always brighten up pictures.
The outside of the temple featuring the famous Wat Phra Kaew (or Temple of the Emerald Buddha), you can’t take pictures of it inside, but it was a massive building full of people praying to the 45 cm tall Emerald Budda, so you could barely see it even when you were inside anyway. Anyway, lots of bling, that’s for sure.
More of the Grand Palace.
A tiny section of a mural, these went all around a massive courtyard, and that is real gold inlayed in them. Also Joanne’s hair looks fantastic in this shot, although the white skirt is her sisters as the Palace has a strict dress code and none of Joanne’s skirts are considered demure enough for the Palace. The dress code is advertised yet tourists still turned up in shorts and tank tops, so were given clothes by the staff, and seeing blokey tourists trying to look inconspicuous with a brightly coloured sarong over their western clothes was very amusing.
Me obeying the dress code in front of some spectacular opulence. My boots were unlaced as for many areas you also had to take your shoes off.
The next day we travelled by rail to the town of Kanchanaburi, the starting point of the terrible Burma-Thai death railway, this is the Khwae Noi, more commonly known as the River Kwai.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (not the original, that was bombed during the war), taken from a floating restaurant. The Japanese artillery, watchtowers on the bridge and the gunboat behind Joanne are fake props for the River Kwai festival that was happening the day after we left (we had intended to be there for the festival but they changed the date on us, bastards).
Standing on the bridge itself, the top of a giant Budda is visible on the right, and the tower in the centre was to have speakers mounted on it for the sound and light show during the festival.
A friendly cat we found on the other side of the bridge near the resort where we were staying.
On the way back to the resort, most likely a Japanese gun turret to defend the bridge, now a strange piece of art.
Testing for the sound and light show on the bridge. They used the speakers mounted around the bridge to simulate an aircraft attack and the destruction of the bridge, the rehearsals were good, but we can only imagine how the final show must have been.
The next morning we visited the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, where 6982 of the victims of Japanese brutality are buried, including many Australians. Immaculately maintained by the locals as a tribute to the dead.
We then took a train up the railway as far as you can go which is to a place called Nam Tok, sadly short of the famous Hellfire Pass but as far as you can go by railway. This gives you an idea of the sort of terrain the prisoners of war along with conscripted Asian slave labourers had push the railway through.
The incredibly primitive Thailand State railways, that’s right, wooden seats, in 2009, the train was so old we wondered if it had been used by the Japanese during the war. Also on the way back the train was 3 hours late so we got very well acquainted with it’s total lack of creature comforts.
Joanne getting up close and personal with the passing jungle.
Rice paddies outside Kanchanaburi even though you’d swear this was China.
Leaving Thailand the next day. Our aircraft awaiting boarding at Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Some general impressions of Thailand:
Likes:
* Everything is incredibly cheap
* The exchange rate allows people like me to feel very rich indeed.
* Public transport is clean, efficient and punctual
* Taxis are dirt-cheap and ever present
* Most places are air-conditioned
* You can buy a 640ml beer at 7 11 for 50 baht (A$1.80)
Dislikes:
* Rubbish everywhere in the streets
* Air quality is very poor, mostly thanks to transport such as Tuk Tuks
* No planning controls in evidence leaving seriously ugly streetscapes
* No street signs and few maps meaning is very hard to navigate
* Sex tourists everywhere sleazing up the joint
All in all I greatly enjoyed my time in Thailand, it was not a place I ever thought to go, but as Joanne’s sister lived over there, cheap travel was too hard to pass up. It’s a strange country where they can be very chilled about most things but violently protective of the king and the royal family, a place where no one obeys the road rules but no one seems to mind, where you can get shitty food at expensive places and some of the best meals of your life on the side of the road. The political situation is fucked but the people are wonderful, so don’t worry about the headlines, I can strongly recommend a visit. Stay tuned for details of our Hong Kong adventures.