Читать книгу Thailand Tuttle Travel Pack - Jim Algie - Страница 11
ОглавлениеCHAPTER 1
THAILAND’S ‘Must See’ Sights
Without obtaining God-like powers of omniscience, it would be impossible to nail down a best-of-the-best list in an exact running order that would be valid 24/7, 365 days a year. These are recommendations, signposts if you will, to point you in the right direction. The real thrill of discovery is turning off your GPS system, taking a left when the guidebook says right and venturing out on your own. Just outside the comfort zones of these recommendations, the real adventure begins.
1 The Grand Palace, Bangkok
2 Phuket’s Mai Khao Bay
3 Ayutthaya’s Golden Heydays
4 Massage at Wat Pho Temple
5 Chatuchak Weekend Market
6 High Tea at the Oriental Hotel
7 Phang-nga Bay, Phuket
8 The Elephant Conservation Center
9 Wat Phrathai Doi Suthep
10 A Muay Thai Boxing Match
11 A Long-tail Boat Ride in Bangkok
12 Bangkok’s Red Sky Rooftop Bar
13 Khao Yai National Park
14 Diving at Ko Tao Island
15 Chiang Mai’s Wat Chiang Man
16 Bangkok’s Infamous Patpong Street
17 Lopburi Monkey Temples
18 A Thai Village Homestay
19 Ko Samui’s Wellness Retreats
20 Dining at Soi 38, Sukhumvit
21 Sunset at Promthep Cape
Making the Most of Your Visit
On the road, few things are more exasperating than racing around trying to fill a pie-in-the-sky itinerary only to be gridlocked at every stop. This woe can be exacerbated in Bangkok’s traffic, in Chiang Mai with its notorious lack of public transport, and on Phuket where the so-called “tuk-tuk mafia” charge extortionate rates for short hops.
First of all, you’ll need to decide on your mode of transport. Budget carriers now link most of the major destinations. Trains are cheap and buses plentiful, but both are slow.
Once you’ve arrived, cars and motorcycles are reasonably cheap to rent. The latter are considerably more dangerous and out of bounds in Bangkok, where the skytrain and subway have given a double bypass to some of the most traffic-clogged arteries. In the ancient cities of Ayutthaya and Sukhothai, renting a bicycle is the way to go, whereas in smaller hamlets like Lopburi, your feet are the perfect means of transport.
It’s also best to balance out a sightseeing day with a variety of attractions so that you’re not trudging through temple after temple or museum after museum.
Of elementary importance when drafting any itinerary is considering the seasons. During the sweltering season, for instance, from February through April, when the mercury can soar to the upper 30s on the Celsius scale, try to factor in some “air-con time” in malls and restaurants. The rainy season is often quite sunny, except for September (the wettest month of the year), but trekking or bird watching in national parks at this time of year can suck because of all the leeches. Conversely, the cool season from November through January is a great time for hiking and mountain biking, though be warned it can get down to zero Celsius at night in the mountain-studded north country. During the monsoon season, from May through October, there is no ferry service to the Similans National Marine Park, and it may be sporadic to some of the more remote islands like Ko Lipe.
Also remember to factor in some cultural peculiarities like opening hours. Because of some arcane law, the majority of national museums, and other such government repositories, are closed on Monday and Tuesday. Buddhist holidays can also put a spanner in the works of any journey, and the country’s major festivals, such as the Thai New Near in mid-April, need to be taken into account. During the spectacularly grisly Vegetarian Festival on Phuket, for example, expect that rooms in the city of Phuket will be booked solid for months in advance.
The easiest way to come up with an itinerary is by breaking the country down into its four regions. After exploring Bangkok, discover the central region, with stopovers in Ayutthaya, Lopburi (both easily accessed by frequent and inexpensive trains) and Khao Yai National Park. If heading north, look at the big destinations, like Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Pai and Chiang Rai, linked by low-cost flights. In the Gulf of Thailand, draft a travel plan that encompasses the major gateways and destinations, like Ko Samui, the Angthong National Marine Park, the scuba diving capital of Ko Tao and the hedonist’s haven of Ko Phangan, home to the Full Moon Party. Once you’ve got the gateways sorted for transport, and a sketch of the bigger sights, it’s much easier to connect the dots and home in on the smaller places and the roads less traveled.
1 The Grand Palace, Bangkok
Regal grandeur from the 18th century
The Grand Palace, with its majestic pagodas, giant-sized guardians, colorful murals and exquisitely wrought sculptures, was a bold attempt to equal the glories of the palace in the former royal capital of Ayutthaya. Extending over almost a million square meters and fortified by walls built in 1783, the palace, which adjoins the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, is Thailand’s number one tourist attraction. The presence of tourists, however, has done little to diminish its grandeur, and many Thais still come to pay their respects and seek blessings, giving a dose of reality to this regally Buddhist fantasia, even if there are no monks quartered here.
After you buy your ticket and enter the complex, you see a seated hermit-cum-physician made out of bronze. King Rama III had this statue cast when he was restoring his residence and adding touches like flowerpots, stone seats and Chinese sculptures. Much of this restoration work was carried out in 1831 for Bangkok’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 1832.
Walk past the two yaksha (gigantic demons with the tusks of wild boars) installed during the reign of King Rama II, and go up the stairs to the great gilt chedi, which is the tallest structure in the whole complex. This reliquary houses a piece of the Buddha’s breastbone. The complex is renowned for containing the country’s holiest of holies, the Emerald Buddha, a surprisingly small image.
The 178 refurbished murals that summarize the plot of The Ramayana are equally famous. (The Indian saga that is the wellspring for traditional Khmer dances, Thai masked dramas and Indonesian shadow plays is to Southeast Asian art and literature what Homer’s The Iliad is to Western letters.)
At the entrance to the actual palace, two guardian demons stand sentry beside it. Like the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, this group of lavish buildings was constructed in 1782, and served as the official residence of the king until 1946. However, King Rama V was the last monarch to actually live here in the early 20th century.
Opening Times Daily 8.30 am–3.30 pm
Address Na Phra Lan Road, near Sanam Luang
Getting There Take the Chao Phraya River Express taxi to the Tha Chang Pier
Contact +66 (0)2 222 0094, +66 (0)2 222 6889
Admission Fee 400 baht
2 Phuket’s Mai Khao Bay
Tropical splendor on Thailand’s biggest island
Soaking up the sun and drinking in the tropical scenery of Mai Khao Bay on the northwest coast of Phuket is about as sublime as castaway dreams get. The island’s longest stretch of sand (11 kilometers) makes for the archetypal getaway. All by yourself, save for the birds and hermit crabs, induces a Robinson Crusoe sense of solitude that is meditative. Suddenly, office politics seem trivial and personal woes go on vacation.
The lack of people also appeals to the Giant Ridley sea turtle. From November to February every year, these giants (some weigh up to 850 kilos) use the beach to lay their eggs. Though turtle spotters like to watch them nesting at night, it’s best to steer clear and let nature run its course.
In recent years, the number of turtles has dipped. Local authorities have responded by monitoring the nesting procedures closely and moving the eggs to special hatcheries, where the young can be released later.
The two most northern beaches on Phuket, Mai Khao and Nai Yang, form the blessedly undeveloped Sirinath National Park. Beware that the tides here, especially during the monsoon season, can be treacherous and riptides run rife.
In the vicinity are a few other distractions like the Turtle Village shopping complex. Here, the accent is mostly on smaller shops for arts and curios, upscale beachwear and a Jim Thompson outlet for Thai silk products.
A few five-star resorts, namely the Anantara and the JW Marriott, have also laid claim to some prime real estate. On the grounds of the West Sands Resort, the Splash Jungle Water Park provides a dash of Disney with an aquatic atmosphere and enough pools, rides and water slides to keep the most hyperactive of kids satisfied.
Even these intrusions are minimal. In the vast expanse of Mai Khao, affording from-there-to-infinity views of the sea and horizon, life is reduced to its most primordial elements: sea, sky, earth and shy sea creatures.
Opening Times 24/7. During the monsoon season from May to November, swimming can be perilous
Address Northwest part of island
Getting There Take the main road Highway 402, then look for the signs for Turtle Village
3 Ayutthaya
Golden heydays shine on
Once touted as the most glorious city in the world, Ayutthaya was both the nucleus and the soul of ancient Siam. Only 90 minutes north of Bangkok, the city straddles the crossroads of Southeast Asian history.
In AD 1350, the capital of a soon-to-be-formidable empire was founded by King Ramathibodi I. His ashes are interred in one of the three massive chedi at Wat Pra Sri San Phet, where the royal palace once stood. Constructed at the behest of Ramathibodi II to house the mortal dust of his father and brother, the chedi stand as monuments to filial devotion.
It’s difficult to imagine how life was lived way back when cowrie shells were used as currency and people slept with machetes beside their beds, unless you see these slices of ancient Siamese life at the Ayutthaya Historical Study Center and the Chao Phraya Sam Museum. The latter also contains models of the city in its heyday, a Chinese junk, ceremonial swords and jewel-studded elephant trinkets.
The gold artifacts give off a few glimmers of Ayutthaya’s legend among foreign traders and missionaries as an El Dorado or City of Gold. Discovered in the prang (a stubby Khmer-style tower) of Wat Ratchaburana, the treasures were untouched by the Burmese soldiers who razed, pillaged and left the city a smoldering cremation ground in 1767. They made off with so much gold, in fact, that Thai history books claim the streets were littered with glittering fragments of the metal.
Rent a bicycle to explore the historical park or see the ruins on the back of a lumbering elephant helmed by a mahout in a costume of glimmering red and gold silk. Charter a long-tail boat over at the pier by the Chandra Kasem Palace (another museum with gold treasures) and explore the three rivers that form a natural moat around the city. En route there are stops at major temples like Wat Phutthaisawan, which has a large reclining Buddha image meant to symbolize his passage into nirvana.
From the river, you can also see a monument to Queen Suriyothai, the tragic 16th-century heroine who disguised herself as a man to ride out on the battlefield where her husband was facing off against the Burmese king in an elephant-back duel. She rode between them, sacrificing her life for her husband’s, while creating a larger-than-death legend and the heroine of Suriyothai, the period piece from 2000 that remains Thailand’s biggest blockbuster.
The rivers are particularly picturesque around dusk. Then, as the boat speeds towards them, the temples slowly rise out of the smoke-blue distance like little has changed in the past five centuries.
Opening Times Daily 6.00 am–6.00 pm
Address Ayutthaya Historical Park
Getting There Ayutthaya is 76 km north of Bangkok. Trains depart every hour from 4.20 am to 10 pm for 15 baht in third-class non-air con from Hua Lamphong Station, Bangkok
Contact Office of Ayutthaya Historical Park Tel: +66 (0)3 524 2501, +66 (0)3 524 4570
Admission Fee 30 baht
4 Massage at Wat Pho Temple
Get rubbed the right way at the country’s first university
Famously described by some travelers as a “lazy person’s yoga”, Thai massage, like acupuncture using hands, elbows and feet instead of needles, helps to un-block the power lines of the body’s natural grid of nerves and muscles to boost energy levels and keep people limber.
As attested to by some of the sculptures in Bangkok’s Wat Pho, home to the most famous massage center and a nearby school, this healing art requires some circus-like contortions.
Dating back some 2,500 years to the time of the Buddha, Thai massage has more than a few similarities to yoga. Admittedly, the masseuse might touch on some sore spots. So it’s best to tell them in advance about any physical problems you have or areas to avoid. At the same time, you should also tell them what kind of pressure to apply.
At the bottom end, there are little massage parlors all over the bigger tourist areas. They usually offer a full menu of treatments such as reflexology, oil massage and different strains such as Swedish and Balinese (both a lot more gentle than the Thai variety). In the upper range, the top hotels and resorts usually have their own spas offering different massages for about four to five times as much as the smaller places.
At the end of a long day of sightseeing, a good massage is just what the doctor ordered. Though a little painful at times, the end result is worth it for feeling rejuvenated and about five kilos lighter.
Some converts even sign up to take classes. Of these learning centers, the most renowned is the Wat Pho School of Traditional Medicine and Massage, where a beginner’s class lasts 30 hours, six hours a day for five days straight, including plenty of hands-on practice.
Opening Times Daily 8 am–5 pm
Address 248 Thanon Thai Wang, entrance on Chetupon Road
Getting There Take river taxi to Tha Chang Pier
Contact +66 (0)2 281 2831
Admission Fee 50 baht
5 Chatuchak Weekend Market
Behemoth of a bazaar for serial shoppers
The Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok is a world unto itself. Covering the area of a village, but with the transient population of a small city, “JJ” (as Thais call it as it is pronounced “Jatujak”) offers everything from secondhand clothes to first-class artworks, and old-fashioned hilltribe regalia to new school furniture, besides a laundry list of other items, like exotic pets for the politically suspect, PVC handbags decorated with dried flowers, household decorations and Vietnam War-era memorabilia.
Navigating this sweltering maze of 15,000 vendors can overload and short-circuit both your senses and patience. For a personal compass, the handiest tool is the Nancy Chandler Map of Bangkok with a large section on the world’s most gigantic weekend market. At the head offices near the back of the market, free maps are available. They are okay to get your bearings but don’t provide a lot of information about which goods are where.
Better still are the billboards located around the market, mapping out the many lanes and sign posting the sections. Using the huge clock tower in the middle of Chatuchak as a signpost also helps to stave off disorientation.
The majority of the market is dedicated to clothes and footwear. The stalls for new clothes are found in Section 10 and in the even-numbered sections that follow it all the way up to 20. Whether it’s knock-off designer jeans or the latest trainers, affordable T-shirts or tropical-hued beach-wear, this area is well suited to all your clothing needs.
Chatuchak is renowned for its motley collection of arts and handicrafts, ranging from the ridiculous (baseball caps made out of beer cans) to the sublime (Thai silk). In particular, Sections 24 and 26 are laden with the full spectrum of wood carvings, bronzeware, lacquerware, purses woven from vines, and the local ceramics known as benjarong for the combination of five colors that enrich these miniature tea sets, bowls and vases.
Perhaps the penultimate rule in this jungle of consumerism is to make your purchase then and there, because you might not find your way back to that little shop again.
Opening Times Weekends 8 am–6 pm
Address Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road
Getting There Take skytrain to Mor Chit Station or subway to Kamphaengphet Station
Admission Fee Free
6 High Tea at the Oriental Hotel
It’s every moneyed traveler’s cup of tea
To fully revel in Bangkok’s old world charm, the Mandarin Oriental serves high tea in the Author’s Lounge, full of period furniture and gingerbread fretwork, with all the delectable trimmings like fresh strawberries and scones.
The long list of celebrity guests, such as Nicholas Cage, Mick Jagger and Sir Peter Ustinov, are proof of its ascendancy into the stratosphere of hotels which, given its humble origins, makes it seem all the more remarkable.
Back in the 19th century, the hotel provided lodgings and a bar for seamen at a time when Bangkok had no other such facilities and only one decent thoroughfare (the nearby New Road), where gas street lamps were finally installed in 1866. Less than two decades later, Joseph Conrad, still a sailor and not yet the author of famous works like Heart of Darkness, hung out at the bar.
In subsequent decades, the hotel’s poetic décor and riverside setting shanghaied the imaginations and livers of other celebrity writers of the likes of Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward, who have suites named after them in the Author’s Wing—the oldest part of the hotel—where high tea is served with crisp linen amidst white rattan furniture and a library of classics.
Before the end of the 19th century, the Oriental had become the first luxury hotel in the country. Opulence still reigns at the hotel, and many visitors stop by for a glimpse, a cup of tea or a meal at one of the seven superb restaurants, such as the seafood specialist Lord Jim’s (named after Conrad’s novel).
Across the river at the hotel’s Sala Rim Naam, guests can savor classical Thai dances and performances, while gorging themselves on a set menu of local staples, or get a spa treatment at the Oriental Ayurvedic Penthouse. For a double shot of jazz with a chaser of blues, the hotel’s legendary Bamboo Bar is just the place for thirsty ears.
Opening Times Daily noon–6 pm
Address 48 Oriental Avenue
Getting There Catch skytrain to Saphan Taksin Station and five-minute taxi ride from there
Contact +66 (0)2 659 9000; mobkk-enquiry@mohg.com
7 Phang-nga Bay, Phuket
The ninth wonder of the water world
Take a survey of any 10 wayfarers cruising around the coasts of Krabi and Phuket on what their favorite day-trip is and the smart money is on sea canoeing in Phang-nga Bay. One of the world’s most incredibly natural marvels, the bay is studded with some 40 sheer limestone karsts that rise vertically out of the sea for hundreds of meters. It’s like a tropical seascape envisioned by Salvador Dali.
Nature’s exclamation marks, the limestone cliffs are pocked with sea caves, collapsed cave systems open to the sky and surrounded by limestone walls, that are only accessible during daylight’s low tide. The local “paddle guides” have to navigate their rubber canoes through chinks in the cliffs so narrow that both navigator and daytripper have to lie flat on their backs.
Miraculously, the caves open into lagoons with water that looks like melted-down emeralds surrounded by ramparts of limestone. Equally as photogenic are the looks of awe on the faces of the other visitors as they catch their first glimpses of these Jurassic flashbacks.
Monitor lizards, monkeys, sea eagles and black kingfishers are known to make cameos. Some lagoons are fringed with mangrove forests. The roots of these trees grow right out of the water.
Another passageway through the rocks is known as the “Bat Cave”. When the guide shines a pocket torch on the ceiling of the cave, where thousands and thousands of bats hang as if in suspended animation, the name is a dead giveaway.
Many daytrips include a stopover at the overrated and underwhelming James Bond Island (Ko Ta-pu or “Nail Island”)—a tourist trap full of tacky souvenirs—lunch on board the boat, as well as some sessions of swimming and sun-basking on uninhabited islands.
Opening Times 24/7 but daylight visits and guides recommended
Address East coast of the island
Getting There Take a full-day tour from Phuket for US$40–100, including lunch, water, snacks, etc. For a pricier alternative, try John Gray’s Sea Canoe. The veteran tour operator offers the “Hong by Starlight” package—‘hong is sea cave'—priced at around US$130 per person
8 The Elephant Conservation Center
On the shoulders of giants
As the former mascot of Siam’s flag, and revered by many Thais as the most regal of beasts, the elephant still occupies a prominent place in local history and folklore, even as the herds thin and the mythology wanes. On most of the major islands, like Ko Samui, Phuket and Ko Chang, and especially in the northern part of the country, riding an elephant is a rite of passage for first-time visitors to the kingdom.
For festivals, the Elephant Roundup, where they reenact famous battles fought from the backs of pachyderms, lumbers into action every November in Surin (the province that is home to the most creatures and mahouts).
For those animal lovers who really want to experience the life of an elephant handler and learn how to “drive” the world’s largest land animal, the Elephant Conservation Center in the province of Lampang is a good choice. Many visitors opt for the three-day course. Expect to go “rustic” and live, eat and hang out with the real mahouts. Also expect to have your own elephant assigned to you for the duration of the course. Come sundown, when the elephants are taken to bathe in the river, it turns into a free-for-all water fight as the tuskers use their trunks like fire hoses.
Most guests at the center wax rhapsodic about the authentic Thai fare served at the homestay, though they also grumble about the roosters crowing all night and the necessity of bringing a good pair of earplugs.
Originally set up as a hospital for wounded pachyderms back in 1992—when a young female had her leg blown off by a landmine along the Thai–Burma border where she was illegally employed to haul logs—the Elephant Conservation Center is helping to bestow some dignity upon a vanishing breed rapidly being reduced to a clown show and circus act.
Opening Times Daily 8 am–6 pm
Address 28-29 Lampang-Chiang Mai Highway
Getting There From Bangkok catch the train at Hualamphong Station bound for Chiang Mai and get off in Lampang. The trip takes 10–12 hours. Bangkok Airways has one flight per day from Suvannabhumi International Airport to Lampang.
Contact +66 (0)5 424 7875, www.changthai.com
Admission Fee Various programmes from oneday visits to 10-day-long mahout training programmes. See website for prices.
9 Wat Phrathai Doi Suthep
Holy mountain stands tall
Wat Phrathai Doi Suthep is the pinnacle of northern spirituality: a mountaintop temple outside Chiang Mai with a cornerstone erected on fantastical tales about a monk and a Buddha relic and a white elephant who died up here. Whatever one believes, the golden chedi gilded with sunlight, the shrine to the sacred tusker, and the balustrades made from the snake-like body and crested head of Phaya Nak (“The Serpent King”) certainly do look otherworldly.
The view of the city from on high, some 1,066 meters above sea level, is also fit for a deity. From the road, the not so fleet of foot can skip the 300 steps by riding the cable car up to the temple.
The complex is a fanciful confection of Buddhist and Hindu elements, with the fairytale whimsy and those brightly hued colors that appeal to Thai aesthetics. With a history dating back more than six centuries, the temple is hugely popular with both locals and tourists. For all that, Doi Suthep (it’s often referred to by the name of the mountain it crowns) is a real temple with genuine supplicants and monks. There is also a model of the “Emerald Buddha” on hand that inspires veneration.
Standing almost 1,830 meters high, the mountain and its sister peak are part of the Doi Suthep-Doi Pui National Park. It’s also one of the kingdom’s best bird watching areas. Near the temple are Hmong hilltribe villages.
As the Thai saying goes, “If you haven’t eaten khao soy (a spicy northern-style curry with crispy noodles) or seen the view from atop Doi Suthep, then you haven’t been to Chiang Mai.”
Opening Times Daily 6 am–8 pm
Address Km 14, Srivichai Road
Getting There By car or tuk-tuk the temple complex is 30 minutes from the center of Chiang Mai
Contact +66 (0)5 324 8604
Admission Fee Climb the 300 steps for free or take the tram for 30 baht.
10 A Muay Thai Boxing Match
Punchy entertainment for the whole family
Muay Thai is the most artistic and mystical way for two men to beat the snot out of each other. As the two fighters step into the ring of Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok—the sport’s Mount Olympus for regular clashes of the Thai titans—they are both wearing garlands of marigolds around their necks and colorful headbands. After removing their silky robes, the two barefooted boxers walk around the ring, stopping to pray in each corner to the guardian spirit of the ring.
Then live classical music composed of two drummers hand-pummelling their instruments, another man clinking finger cymbals together, and a Thai-style oboist playing melodies serpentine enough to charm a cobra, kicks in. The two boxers begin dancing around the ring. Their slow fluid movements ape the graceful movements of Thai classical dance. Occasionally, they both kneel down, touching their foreheads to the mat in obeisance to their coaches. After the two fighters and their coaches pray together for a minute in both corners of the ring, their mentors then remove the boxers’ garlands and headbands.
In a martial art that flagrantly mixes the sacred with the profane, the men in the crowd make gestures and wagers on the outcome of the match before each fight begins.
Make no bones about it, Muay Thai is brutal. Each of the 10 matches on a fight card, which begins in the early evening and lasts until 10.30 pm, is filled with punches to the head, elbows to the jaw, knees to the rib cage and vicious kicks to the throat, chest and calves.
For the historical record, the origins of Thai-style kickboxing date back more than a 1,000 years, when a manual on warfare called the Chupasart instructed Tai warriors how to do battle with various weapons. When applying these techniques to hand-to-hand combat, the fists became the spear tips, the elbows and knees the battle axes, and the shin bones turned into the staff of the pike to both block and strike.
A word to the wimpy: avoid the ringside seats unless you want to get splashed with blood and sweat.
Opening Times 6.30 pm–10.30 pm Tuesday, Friday and Saturday at Lumpinee Boxing Stadium on Rama IV, near the park of the same name in Bangkok. 6.30 pm–10.30 pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Ratchadamnoen Stadium at 1 Ratchadamnoen Nok
Address Lumpinee Boxing Stadium on Rama IV, Ratchadamnoen Stadium at 1 Ratchadamnoen Nok
Admission Fee 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 baht
11 A Long-tail Boat Ride in Bangkok
Cultural immersion on an epically affordable scale
The canals of Bangkok Yai and Bangkok Noi (“big” and “little” respectively) are capillaries that branch off from the main jugular vein of the Chao Phraya River. Twisting through the Thonburi side of the capital they are timelines flowing back through the centuries when Bangkok was called the “Venice of the East.”
Chartering a long-tail boat to explore them could almost be classified as a “thrill sport”. The prow, laden with garlands to appease the Water Goddess, spears through the waves while the boatman at the back of the vessel steers it with a rudder connected to a big, noisy, diesel-spewing engine, which moves fast enough to have spawned a chase scene in the 1974 James Bond vehicle The Man with the Golden Gun.
The canals are awash with traditional sights. Children use them as ad hoc swimming pools. Women use them to wash clothes. Vendors ferry fruits and vegetables to fresh markets. Families gather under the wooden pavilions in front of their houses that hover just above the waterline. And teenage boys play takraw—a kind of Southeast Asian volleyball played with a rattan ball manipulated by the feet, elbows and shoulders—on the grounds of Buddhist temples bordering the river.
Most of these long-tail tours, departing from the bigger piers such as Ta Chang, near the Grand Palace, will include stopovers at the more impressive sights, such as the Royal Barges Museum and the Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun).
The saltier and more intrepid souls will, however, want to catch the river taxi to the end of the northern line in Nonthaburi, about an hour away. There, you can charter another long-tail boat to the tiny island of Ko Kret. Home to some 4,000, mostly ethnic Mon inhabitants, this enclave of artisans and spinners of pottery has no main roads or hotels. In an hour or so you can circumnavigate it by foot. Nearby is Khlong Om, another flashback of Bangkok’s Venetian past with a Siamese slant, reflected in its riverside temples and Thai-style houses.
Opening Times Khlong tours run from around 9 am–5 pm from many of the major piers in Bangkok. Bargaining is necessary but expect to pay around 2,000 baht for a long-tail boat or around 500 baht per person.
Fee Around 500 baht per person
12 Bangkok’s Red Sky Rooftop Bar
Rising above the mayhem of the metropolis
Even taking into account the high standards set by Bangkok’s rooftop restaurants, Red Sky rises above much of the competition. At first glance, the roof of the Centara Grand hotel looks like it’s sprouted a gigantic lotus blossom that slowly changes hues and has an illuminated stem running down the side of the building.
Inside, there are indoor areas with live jazz, an outdoor bar and area to chill out with the evening breeze, and another watering hole up above with 360-degree views of the “Big Mango” from 55 stories above the swarming streets. The wine list is so extensive that they have a special “glass elevator” to traverse the wine loft for that elusive bottle, while the Martini Bar whips up some of the city’s most originally inebriating concoctions (passion fruit is the house specialty).
Meanwhile, the pan-European menu, with Asia Pacific accents, will take your taste buds on a journey of gastronomy through Italy, France, Tasmania, New Zealand and the US. Their signature dish, the two-story “Red Sky Surf & Turf Tower”, starring Alaskan king crab, giant Andaman shrimps, wagyu rib eye and grilled Maine lobster, is a work of sculptural art where style marries savory substance (a motif carried off with aplomb throughout the different bars and restaurants).
To be fair, Bangkok’s glitzy hotels and high-rises have sprouted a number of crowning achievements in recent years, such as Sirocco on the State Tower as well as the Vertigo Grill and Moon Bar top hatting the Banyan Tree. All are sublime choices for a rendezvous with friends, rekindling old flames or sparking new romances, though visitors should be aware that the prices are as stratospheric as the views.
Opening Times Daily 6 pm–1 am
Address 999/99 Rama I Road, 55th floor of the Centara Grand
Getting There Short walk from Siam Square Skytrain Station
Contact +66 (0)2 100 1234
Admission Fee Drinks and dishes are as steeply priced as the view
13 Khao Yai National Park
Go wild and glut yourself on greenery
Khao Yai, the country’s oldest and biggest national park, is an Asian safari park that stretches across four provinces and 2,000 kilometers. Sometimes sambar deer graze in the parking lot. Bull elephants lock tusks on salt licks and, in one fell swoop of an outing, trekkers can spot rhinoceros hornbills, whooping gibbons and Asiatic jackals.
Some 70 percent of these environs are made up of moist evergreen forest. Named after the park’s centerpiece, Khao Yai (“Big Mountain”), the roads twist and wind around photogenic foothills. Though around one million people visit the park every year—most are weekend picnickers from Bangkok, less than three hours away—it still shelters and succors some 350 different species of bird, like the Siamese fireback pheasant, and around 80 different mammals, from Asiatic black bears to Malayan porcupines.
The lords of these jungles are the elephants. At least a hundred wild ones live within the confines of the park. Oftentimes they’ll be spotted on the roads or heard trumpeting in the distance.
The park is also rich in orchid species. For its phenomenal bounty of flora and fauna, Khao Yai was granted UNESCO World Heritage Site Status in 2005.
One of the best things about the park is that it can be done on so many different levels, from five-star opulence to guest-house grittiness. You can go on one of the guided tours led by the resorts lining the main road near the town of Pak Chong or wander around on your own. Any jaunt can be combined with an array of other options, like wine tasting tours of the local vineries or making a pit stop at the area and shopping plaza called “Little Tuscany”.
Opening Times Daily 6 am–9 pm
Address The park is spread over Nakhon Ratchasima, Saraburi, Prachinburi and Nakhon Nayok provinces
Getting There Those in need of accommodation stay in the town of Pak Chong in Nakhon Ratchasima province, while those coming on daytrips use the park’s south entrance, which is about 13 km north of Prachinburi. Head north on the roundabout on Road 3077.
Contact The Visitor’s Center is at (025) 620 760 and it’s open from 8.30–4.30 pm. Make sure to hire a guide here if you plan to do any serious hiking. In case you get lost, the local tourist police office is at (044) 341 7778. Also note that because of all the mountains, mobile phone service can be sketchy.
Admission Fee 400 baht for foreigners
14 Diving at Ko Tao Island
Into the deep blue yonder for a psychedelic adventure
Perhaps Arthur C Clarke, the fabled author of 2001: A Space Odyssey described scuba diving in the most memorable terms, as the closest you’ll ever get to feeling as weightless as an astronaut floating in outer space.
Thailand is overflowing with reefs, pinnacles and wrecks for divers to chart and explore. If you’re yet to get your fins wet, then Ko Tao (“Turtle Island”), located near the western shore of the Gulf of Thailand, is the place to get your license. In fact, more divers get certified on this island (only 21 square kilometers) than anywhere else in Southeast Asia.
Because of the glut of dive shops on the island, the prices are competitive. Most shops offer the world’s number one course for aspiring aquanauts, the PADI Open Water Dive Course. You will need to set aside three or four days to earn this globally recognized certificate. Each course combines classroom learning with lessons in a swimming pool or in shallow water off the beach, a final written exam and a proper plunge to around 15 meters.
Thanks to Ko Tao’s abundance of shallow reefs and mostly gentle currents, newbies will not be out of their depth. Admittedly, learning to breath through the scuba device—and especially hearing your own breath rattling like the raspy voice of Darth Vader—takes some getting used to, but the rewards are well worth the risk.
Imagine if Alice fell through the looking glass and ended up in the world’s biggest aquarium, swimming with exotic creatures like angelfish, moray eels, black tip reef sharks, and even the world’s biggest fish, the humongous whale shark, while surrounded by brain coral, purple sea anemones and psychedelic reefs (the so-called “rainforests of the sea”), it’s easy to see why diving is the best and most potent legal high on the market.
The island also offers some hiking, rock climbing and bouldering on granite boulder strewn beaches. Ko Tao is also a mecca for game fishermen on a budget.
Getting There Take a ferry from Surat Thani (4 hours), Chumpon (2–3 hours), Ko Samui (2.5 hours or Ko Ph Ngan (1 hour) to Ban Mae Haad. Prices depend on type of boat.
15 Chiang Mai’s Wat Chiang Man
Get to the spiritual heart of Lanna culture
For a sampler of the northern capital’s archaic and contemporary sides, the Old City is the nucleus. To set the historic scene, it’s surrounded by red ramparts with four gates, a moat and fountains all lit up at night.
Within these hallowed walls is the city’s oldest temple, Wat Chiang Man. Its history stretches back to AD 1297 when King Mengrai founded this bastion of Lanna culture. The oldest part of the temple, a golden chedi propped up by a base of 15 brick and stucco elephants, is fit to be framed.
Another bulwark of the city’s Buddhist-leaning spirituality is Wat Phra Singh. It may date back to AD 1345, but with all the monks and supplicants around, the temple still plays a pivotal part in the present.
Those who mock “temple huggers” as an effete breed of politically correct travelers will find plenty of other distractions in the Old City, from pubs and cafes to specialist bars and restaurants galore.
Prominent among the temple alternatives is the Chiang Mai City Arts and Cultural Center. Set within the confines of a beautiful old building, the center has rooms for permanent and temporary exhibitions, exhibitions on the city’s prehistoric past, audiovisual displays on the hilltribes and, from time to time, cultural jamborees of the old-school variety.
Out in front is the Three Kings Monument composed of a holy trinity of god-like monarchs: Mengrai and Ramkhamhaeng of Sukhothai and Ngam Muang of Phayao.
As a city that has reinvented itself many times over, Chiang Mai’s latest reincarnation is as a hub of art and design. On and off the bigger streets and little lanes of the Old City, that word-of-mouth hype is made manifest in all the little shops and stalls specializing in cool curios and funky fashions.
The best time to sample the area is on Sundays when the main byway of Rachadamnoen Road is turned into a serene street party for shoppers, foodies and families replete with musicians, dancers and plenty of bonhomie.
Opening Times Daily 8 am–5 pm
Address Ratchaphakhinai Road near intersection with Si Phum Road
Getting There Situated in the old walled part of town, the temple is within walking distance of the Chang Phuak Gate
Contact +66 (0)5 321 3170
Admission Fee Free
16 Bangkok’s Infamous Patpong Street
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Yes, it’s noisy, gaudy, saucy, silly and a bit sleazy at times, but when in Asia’s neon Rome do as the neo-Romans would and head for a stroll down the lanes of Patpong 1 and 2. By day it’s as if the street is sleeping off a hangover, but at night it’s back on another bender, doing a roaring trade in the world’s oldest profession, which revolves around the chrome poles of go-go bars, while the stalls in the night market sell knock-off jeans, DVDs and Buddhist bric-a-brac. There are no bargains here; everything is overpriced.
At ground level, on each side of Patpong 1, are very similar go-go bars, with a razzle-dazzle of neon and a cacophony of processed-cheese techno. Upstairs on Patpong 1 are bars with much racier shows. Some of them have been known to slip customers with a huge bill for only a drink or two, necessitating a visit to the Tourist Police, who keep a van positioned at the end of Patpong 1. Be very wary of the upstairs bars and the touts on the street promoting their wares.
Patpong 2 is not such a hard sell; it’s got more beer bars, restaurants and cocktail lounges with hostesses.
Both of the roads are named after the Hainanese immigrants with the surname of Patpongpanich, who bought the thoroughfare in 1946 and still own it. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it first became notorious when go-go bars opened up to service the American troops on R&R during the Vietnam War. But it was not until the late 1980s that the night market got up and vending.
For years now, Patpong’s reputation as the city’s tenderloin for tourists is slowly being outstripped and upstaged by Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy, although neither of those red-light areas have a night bazaar or the diversity of entertainment.
Opening Times Daily 7 pm–1 am
Address Patpong Road 1 and 2 stretch between Silom and Surawong
Getting There Take the skytrain to Sala Daeng Station and it’s a five-minute walk south of there
Admission Fee Free
17 Lopburi Monkey Temples
Mayhem and mythology in the legendary town of Lopburi
It sounds too weird to be true. No, but really, there is a small city in central Thailand, about 150 kilometers northeast of Bangkok, where thousands of monkeys live on rooftops and inside a couple of Angkor-era shrines. The creatures swing from power poles, try to pickpocket tourists and scamper down the street.
Wait. It gets weirder. Locals see them as incarnations of Hanuman, the monkey god of Hinduism, so they generally treat them with respect.
If that still isn’t odd enough for you, these macaques are as territorial as gang-bangers from New York. The monkeys are separated into three different packs, depending on whether they live at the Khmer-style temple of Phra Phrang Samyod Temple or the Sam Phra Karn Shrine, or whether they dwell on top of the apartment buildings surrounding the downtown. The marauding members of the gangs do get in scrapes, and the losers are taken to the Monkey Hospital, the world’s first and only such facility, which is on the grounds of the zoo and open to the public.
Believed to number at least a thousand, the monkeys belong to three closely related species, namely, the crab-eating macaque, the pigtail macaque and the rhesus macaque. They have been living in the city since around the turn of the 17th century when Lopburi was considered the second capital of Siam. Dating from this time, King Narai the Great’s Palace is the city’s biggest time capsule and within walking distance of the Angkor-era shrines.
Each year, the weirdness factor spikes in late November when locals put out a gigantic smorgasbord for the monkeys to thank them for bringing so much good fortune, and so many tourist dollars, to the city. The event quickly turns into a feeding frenzy and food fight to rival the most drunken frat party.
Opening Times The Phra Phrang Sam Yot Temple is open from daily from 8 am–6 pm
Address Wichayen Road
Getting There Catch the frequent trains to Lopburi from Bangkok’s Hualamphong Station, which take three hours or the buses from Bangkok’s Mor Chit Station (two hours) or Ayutthaya (one hour)
Admission Fee 30 baht
18 A Thai Village Homestay
Live, sleep and eat like a local
As the realm of “experiential travel” grows and melds with voluntourism and community-based tourism, visitors crave more and more experiences that blur the boundary lines between cultures and the distinctions between tourists and locals.
To really see the country and the cultures through local eyes, homestays are the best bet. These involve staying with a host family in their home, eating at least two meals a day with them and even visiting the local market or taking a stab at planting rice or going out on a hunt for red ant eggs, sometimes served with omelets and considered a delicacy in the northeast.
Homestays are available all over the country, from the coffee-growing hill-tribes of the mountainous north to the rice-farming lowlanders of the central plains. In this immense field, one small-scale tour operator, stands out. Andaman Discoveries has bagged a series of big awards from companies like Virgin for its dedication to sustainable, ecologically correct and culturally sensitive travel. In 2010, they won the Best Tour Operator, in the category of Responsible Tourism Award, from Wild Asia.
One of their pilot projects took off in Bahn Talae Nok (“Village by the Sea”) not long after the tsunami killed off a quarter of the 200 villagers. To help the survivors get their heads above water, Andaman Discoveries’ founder Bodhi Garrett introduced tourism and home-stays to the village. Visitors can go out fishing with the men, take lessons in batik making, soap making, nipa palm weaving and spicy southern cuisine from the women, or volunteer to teach children in the local school. A mangrove boat trip, kayaking and a visit to a jellyfish farm are other options. The village houses are simple and comfortable and offer a private sleeping area with mattress, pillow, mosquito net and fan. A rotational system managed by the village ensures everyone gets their turn at being a host.
Far from the mainstream media’s stereotypes of hostile, Islamic warriors, the Thai Muslims in this area are a peaceable and welcoming people. No alcohol or bikinis are permitted in the village, and this is the whole point of a homestay: to live like a local not a tourist.
Contact Andaman Discoveries, 120/2 Sukapiban 3 Road, Moo 1, Kura, Kuraburi District, Phang Nga Province; +66 (0) 87 917 7165
19 Ko Samui’s Wellness Retreats
Healing holidays from yoga to colonics detox
