Thailand
COST: £515 (£18.39 a day)
CURRENCY: Thai Baht ฿
DATE: 17th Feb 2020 — 16th March 2020
DURATION: 28 days
AGE: 18
TOP APPS: Hostelworld/CurrencyConverter/Grab
After putting my dignity aside and embracing that that I am every stereotype in this Adventure, I can therefore say with complete honesty, that Thailand is famous for certain things because it does them bloody well.
Namely; street food, yoga, friendly hitchhiking and the few precious cultural gems that haven’t been instragrammed to death. So join me for this whistle-stop tour in the Land of Smiles!
Contents:
🟣 Bangkok
🟣 Chaing Mai
🟣 Pai
🟣 Kanchanaburi
Bangkok
With Boxpackers as a calm hostel base, I explored Bangkok for three days. I discovered the city’s temples, rivers, museums, food and more. Here are the highlights 🌸 :
Visiting the Grand Palace : This gorgeous main tourist attraction houses the Temple of the ‘Emerald Buddha’, a 1434 statue which is a national icon. Within, I sat meditating when a security guard caught my eye and gestured that I come forward to the front section reserved usually just for meditators (essentially therefore just Thai nationals). I was so moved I started crying! Very very special moment ♡
Visiting Wat Arun (pic at top of page) : Picture one of those crockery smashes you might see at a fair. Now picture the remnants forming a beautiful collage, ornamenting a temple created to resemble the rising sun. Adorned with wind chimes, this temple is a calming and ethereal experience.
Aside from these famous temples, just walking through the city you might just end up stumbling upon stunning (and much quieter) temples, which are great places to meditate, explore and generally be calm in a hectic city like Bangkok.
The Fine Art Gallery Bangkok is a well-curated and diverse museum. The photo on the right shows one of the interactive installations. The artists essentially created a canvas for visitors to add any objects they wish, ultimately creating our own piece of art! It was fascinating looking at all the trinkets built up over the years.
The ICONSIAM shopping mall was more of a cultural museum with arts, culture, tradition, food and way of life from 77 provinces across the country.
Catching a riverboat along the Chao Phraya River was one of my favourite morning activities. As the wind blows in your face you set off across the city to start the next day of adventure. The route of these boats also provides a perfect travel guide as you hop off and explore each stop. I often got lost in the maze of backstreets, stumbling upon amazing (and spicy) street food, relaxing street cats and fab people-watching spots.
Meditating and chatting with locals in Lumphini park
Visiting Chinatown and seeing what food I could get with leftover change. The lights, music, crowds and energy creates a sensual feast not just for your taste buds
Khao San Road wasn’t quite for me. This world-renowned party street caters to every white tourist’s dream. Prepare yourself to be treated like a dollar sign and to drink too much
A restaurant which is an absolute MUST is The Family. Small, cosy and welcoming and just 5 mins from the city centre. Within 15 mins I had been served the best veggie massaman curry and spring rolls. Words cannot describe how good it was - I wanted to the hug the chef. Beyond amazing ⭐ + the rice is blue!
Chaing Mai
After the capital, I took an overnight bus to Chaing Mai. I spent 2 weeks here with a yoga retreat and trip to Pai (a town further North) as well. Top experiences below!
Riding back from the waterpark as the third person squished on the end of the motorbike
Getting my nose pierced
Thai massages
Having a chat with a monk at a temple
Yoga in the park
Night Markets and chatting with my local friend Prakit :)
Renting a bike, gathering a picnic from a local market (cashew nuts with Thai basil are heavenly) and taking myself out to a park for sunset 🌞
A trek in the local National Park with waterfalls and coffee plantations
Cooking Course where I learnt how to make Pad Thai, curry, soup and more 🍲
Yoga Retreat - Suan Sati
Words cannot properly describe the experience you will have if you ever get the chance to go to this retreat. It’s just beautiful 💙
There were tears of happiness and tears of sadness, wonderful hugs, beautiful food, amazing teachers, dancing, singing, lots of yoga and lots of love.
Experiences like this last a lifetime.
Pai
A true westernized tourist town, Pai does have some breathtaking sights, but if you are looking for a more genuine experience, you may want to get more of this beaten path. Here are a few top moments though . . .
A motorbiking road trip through Thai countryside - so empowering to ride solo, feeling the wind in my face and the sunshine all around me
Pai Caves; bats, boats, oil lamps, stalagmites and stalactites!
Pai Canyon at sunset 🌟
Seeing a man walk his toy crocodile down the road
Teaching a friend yoga at our hostel
Walking around the evening street market
Taking a brief trip to the peaceful monastery Wat Pa Tam Wua (see below) before being told by the head monk we had to leave because of something called ‘coronavirus’…
Hitchhiking
700km, 12 hours, 2 bikes, 3 cars, 1 bus and a truck
It was tiring, it was long, but I never waited more than an hour. It was exhilarating and humbling. I met so many lovely people who offered me food, money and places to stay.
On reflection, however, I do want to highlight some ethical issues with this:
- Hitchhiking pushes you outside your comfort zone providing a completely enriched travelling experience outside the cosy tourist lifestyle. It means however you’re not paying your fair-share towards bus companies and locals. - It blows my mind that just because I was a white tourist I was able to travel off the backs of other people. If I were to do this again I would not hitchhike the whole way and if I did - pay the driver generously for their kindness. With that said - some of the photos below show a few of the people who helped me along the way. It was a crazy adventure and just goes to show how generous and welcoming the people are in this country!
Kanchanaburi
The whole point of hitchiking all the way to this town for me was because I started reading a book in my hostel in Chaing Mai called ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan.
Did you know that during WW2 over 300,000 people died constructing a railway between Thailand and Myanmar? Neither did I.
It is atrocities like this, that I’d never heard of, that shocked me so much during my travels.
In this town, I visited the museum and cemetery and journeyed on the actual railway (still partly in operation). It was a saddening but important experience to commemorate those who had suffered and understand past atrocities.
Other amazing moments . . .
The Thai Guy in the photo above was a stranger on the train. We started communicating through him offering some monkey nuts (the Thai version of peanuts). Despite him not speaking an ounce of English, he insisted on taking me for lunch!
Reading and finishing the amazing book by Richard Flanningan and leaving it in the hostel.
Making friends with a Belgian volunteer at my hostel who had been living there a while and so was more of ‘a local’. We took a day trip together, exploring a 1000-year-old Banyan-type tree, temples, a calm beach and an abandoned factory!
Trying my luck at the beach by asking the Thai owner if I could ride his jet ski and him, being the lovely Thai guy he was, letting me go for a spin!! All for a fiver!
Late-night wandering to the Bridge over the River Kwai, stopping off at a restaurant and having a nice long call w my mum + writing in my journal
There you have it !
My journey through Thailand✨
It’s amazing what you can fit into a month :)
