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Tales From the Isthmus of Kra
Entry 31 of 37 | show all | print this entry |
I've just finished a big rail part of my trip -- from Singapore to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. From Melaka, Malaysia, I took a train to Kuala Lumpur, the country's glittering modern capitol city. I was only in KL for a day and a half, but managed to visit the Petronas Towers (world's tallest buildings, 1996-2003) and some of the city's other main sights, as well as get my Chinese visa.
From there I took a terrific overnight train to Hat Yai, in the far south of Thailand. At the border, there was a sign informing travellers that "hippies" would be turned away at the border, and would be deported if discovered in the country. It went on to give a ridiculous definition of hippies as people wearing certain specific items of clothing, unkempt, etc!
I expected to have to wait several hours for the onward train from Hat Yai, but luckily there was one leaving just as I arrived. It was a local, 3rd-class-only train not published on the web timetables. It was a fun day on the rails, with plenty of fresh air (and sometimes rain) coming in the windows and lots of countryside to see at a leisurely pace.
In the evening the train reached Surat Thani, the nearest city to the beach-resort islands off Thailand's peninsular east coast. There were no more boats going that night, so I spent the night in town, with a dinner of local snacks from 7-11 (ubiquitous in SE Asia). One item was soymilk: such a specialty item in the US, but here as common as fruit juice or pop.
In the morning I made the four-hour journey to Ko Pha Ngan, with a stop at Ko Samui along the way. These islands are some of the more famous tourist destinations in Thailand, with (formerly, anyway) idyllic white beaches and mountains covered in tropical forest. Nowadays they're a bit overdeveloped, as depicted in the movie The Beach. But at Ko Pha Ngan, anyway, the beach itself is still incredibly beautiful. I stayed in an area called Hat Rin, which is a little bit of land that extends southward from the southeast tip of the isle. On the east side is a picture-perfect arc of beach dubbed "Sunrise", and on the west, another beach called "Sunset" -- only a few minutes' walk away. Every full moon, this place sees up to 10,000 people dancing on the beach until morning. Even though I wasn't there at a special time like that, there were still all-night beach bashes going on, complete with fire-twirlers and fireworks.
After a couple nights on the island I took another overnight train up to Bangkok. There I stayed on Thanon Khao San, the undisputed backpacker capitol of the world. The entire street, a few blocks in length, plus quite a bit of the surrounding area, is jammed with hotels, restaurants, shops, and street stalls selling everything from sticky rice to CDs, all to serve the thousands of mostly-young travellers who are here at any given moment. While in Bangkok, I visited the Royal Palace and adjoining Buddhist temple, but mostly rode around on city buses running errands related to getting train tickets and my Vietnamese visa. But I should be set for visas now -- any that I don't already have should be available at the border crossings.
The northbound night trains were booked solid for the next 4 days, so I wound up taking a 12-hour day train up to Chiang Mai yesterday. This train actually had meals included in the ticket, which was a nice surprise except that as soon as my tray of food and hot cup of coffee had been laid in front of me, the passenger just ahead lifted a lever causing his seat to rapidly return to its factory preset position. My consciousness momentarily descended into a realm inhabited by crashing trays, tumbling food, and a fragrant cloud of piping hot coffee. Actually it wasn't a big deal in the end, but it sure was exciting!
In Chiang Mai, I hadn't reserved a room, and didn't realize what a problem that could be when arriving at night in the high season. I actually had to wander around for awhile looking for a room, until finally finding a place that had one left. I'll try to be more careful in the future, since this is the first time on my trip that I've been to a high-tourist-volume area during its high season.
The big thing to do in Chiang Mai is to go on treks to villages in the mountains, but by now I'm pretty worn out from seeing sights and just might relax in town for a couple of days instead. The day after tomorrow I plan to head to Laos, where the first thing to do is a two-day trip on a slow boat down the Mekong River!
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