Jon the Traveller

My mother asked me this question when the family were over for Songkran (Thai New Year) and she actually found me lacking…

Seriously what do we do all day?

Personally I think we do a lot, but I suppose it is very subjective when you consider that a lot for some folks is getting up and deciding where to have breakfast! Look at an average day travelling for me:

Get up – more often than not pretty hungover;
Hand in laundry;
Chill in a restaurant or the hostel common area;
Check emails and harass the UK late night folks on Facebook;
Go eat – sometimes street, sometimes restaurant;
Find a place to visit, be it a temple, shopping centre, local market, whore house;
or
Head to the beach and burn in the sun, or dive, or snorkel or kayak;
Nap time;
Sort onward travel to next destination;
Collect laundry;
Meet people and go for food and beer. Night usually becomes blurry at this point.

For some their day seems to be – this is pretty much island life – much shorter:

Get up;
Eat;
Hit beach;
Drink;
Eat;
More beach;
Drink;
Sleep;

Still my examples do leave much to be answered, once laundry, food, relaxation, internet time, visiting things and beer are out of the way, just what do we do all day? As not every day for me is like my first example and for the beach bound not every day is just lazing under the sun is it?

Comments on the back of a postcard please.

Tags: Do?, Travellers, Trip

Brilliant place. Very cheap considering its location on one of Thailand’s up and coming island destinations.

The place comes fully loaded with “free” wifi (pay them for the password once and then never pay again (they dont seem to notice)); excellent restaurant – which still works even during storms when the islands’ power dies; cheap motorbike rental; a POOL; and a rocking bar with the friendliest Muslim barman anywhere, Kazim. Just don’t let him play cards for money with you.

Lanta Full Moon has a range of bungalows to suit all budgets, from aircon concrete jobbies to fan and cold water bamboo huts, which are great – even if the last one is close to the Ban Klong Khong Mosque and you get woken up by the call to prayer at 7ish every morning.

Excepting the rocks that pepper the beach at low tide, I cannot really come up any other downsides to Lanta Full Moon, so guys go to Lanta and STAY THERE!!!

Tags: Beach, Lanta, Review

Despite being on the most developed beach on Ko Chang, White Sands beach, this place is very much a backpacker haunt. Its pretty easy to find, either walk down its track from the main road above the beach, or walk north on White Sands until you get to the rocky headland and it sits right over it.

As far as its facilities go, it has the usual restaurant (pretty decent), common area and tour desk/reception. The rooms/huts are in good condition and the bathrooms are great. The staff really proved themselves helpful when I had my little event, calling the police, getting me a free shake and so on. Totally unexpected.

I cannot really say more as I only spent a night here due to getting robbed.

Tags: Ko Chang, Review, Rocksands

One of the best budget places I have stayed in. Period.

The best rooms here are those floating on the River Kwai itself, these range from 300 – 450 baht, the remaining bungalows on the riverside by its restaurant – that does great Thai food at street prices – range from 150 to 250 baht per night and from a look are just as nice as those on the river, but for me it was staying right on the river that was the big sell here. They also have a good tour desk attached to the operation that offers very good local tours and onward national travel at stunning prices.

Location wise it is in the heart of Thanon Maenamkwai, the main guest-house strip in town, so is very handy for everywhere.

All in all stay here if you come to Kanchanaburi.

Tags: Bungalow, Review, Sugarcane, Trip

Before I left, in fact while still mulling this trip over last summer, I decided to invite my family out to meet in Thailand over Easter – or during the Thai New Year Festival of Songkran. They took the offer up and so it was decided that the trip would happen and I’d meet them in Thailand when they arrived.

After Ko Lanta I had to head to Bangkok to meet the family when they arrived, so I got there a day or two early, meeting up with Daniel & Danielle, both from the South-East Asia 2010 Facebook group I keep harping on about (JOIN NOW!).

We had a good couple of days – went shopping, watched the Red’s before things turned ugly a few weeks later, and drank (3 Brits meeting up for the first time it goes without saying really!) in various bars around the Khao San.

Then my family arrived.

I met them out at Suvarnabhumi Airport and got them to their amazingly good hotel – they stayed at the Imperial Tara just off Sukhumvit Road – and dragged them to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar for good food and some shopping. I really hate to shop now. However, they enjoyed it – their food was good and they got to bargain with the vendor’s, which is one of the fun things to do in Thailand.

We had agreed that their time in Bangkok and it’s surrounds would be the usual array of sightseeing, followed by a day trip to Kanchanaburi. Without rushing them at all, I got them round the main Bangkok sights on their first proper day as well as ensuring they knew their way around the sky train themselves and then arranged to meet them down the Khao San Road that evening for dinner, so they could see how the other half live.

They, like so many others before them (mostly backpackers at that) loved the KSR. Had a little of everything they expected in Thailand, yet with the familiarity of the atypical holiday town, just a tad noisier than they are used too. I was quite pleased they enjoyed themselves on that most infamous of streets, as Ao Nang where were headed in a day or two is very similar, just more up market.

I really cannot say much about their visit to Kanchanaburi – I went with them – as I had been up drinking with Kelsey & Marcus amongst others till 7a.m. and only grabbed 2 hours sleep before meeting them. I do know doing anything like that still drunk and on little sleep was a bad idea. Not that bad as I did the same thing that night.

We flew down to Krabi – closest airport to Ao Nang – following that second all-night bender of mine.

Edit: Pictures to be added once uploaded.

Tags: Beer, Parents, Thailand, Trip

500 Baht from Bangkok to Ko Lanta. Even I a regular user of public transport on my trips couldn’t beat that, so I nearly tore the agents arm off accepting the ticket. It was another hideously long journey, punctuated by waiting around for connections, although the boat from Krabi to Lanta more than made up for it passing by some of the amazing scenery for which the Andaman coast is famous for.

Ko Lanta Yai is one of Thailand’s larger islands and has quite a tourism scene developing on it, however it still seems to be a little known place out in the wider world, which is exactly what wanted when I felt the urge to really relax after a hectic few months and then the awful experience I had on Ko Chang.

I found a place to stay – well an agent suggested it to me at one price, and I rang them myself and got a better price – quite easily. The Lanta Full Moon Resort on Khlong Khong the 3^rd major beach on the island.

I then spent the following 2 weeks doing nothing but biking round the island, chilling in the pool or on the beach and meeting new people in the bar at night. And playing killer pool.

Life really is grand you know that.

Except when it rains.

Tags: Lanta, sand, sea, sun, Trip

Those who have been to University (at least in the UK) will be aware of Freshers Week, that period at the start of your first year when you go through orientation, meet people in bars or halls and inevitably get asked 3 simple questions by everyone you meet.

Those questions, in a slightly altered form are amongst the first things travellers say to those they meet around the way. However it’s along the Khao San Road they are asked the most – see a future post on the Khao San Road for why that may be.

There is a school of thought that says it is more like 10 questions, but most of those are embelishments on the basic 3. Hell, name is usually the 7th or 8th question asked – never seems that important when you may never see that person again.

So tell me “Where are you from?”, “Where are you going?”, and “How long are you travelling for?”

Tags: how long, questions, where, why

…cars, boats, songthaew, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, trucks, minivans and buses. I have used them all in the past, but never so many varying types in one trip as I have so far on this little jaunt.

This was the first of my standalone pieces.  It will eventually become a seperate page on this blog, however for now it stays as a post.  This will have more images added  I get them of all the forms of transportation I have used on this trip.

Tags: South East Asia, Transport, Trip

As mentioned, I headed off to Ko Chang – a great beach island 5 hours east of Bangkok – for some tanning time and general R&R by the sea. However, this dream was destroyed with 2 hours of getting there.

I got robbed.

Yes, robbed. Luckily I only lost actual money and nothing else, unlike other people I have spoken to since, who also experienced theft on Ko Chang in recent weeks. What makes my loss really sting is it was by a fellow backpacker. Admittedly I had only just met him, however I have shared rooms so often on so many trips that it did not even occur to me that this sort of thing could happen to me, despite knowing of times it had been done to others.

So thanks to this I no longer felt able to enjoy Ko Chang, I was looking over my shoulder too often to notice the beauty of where I was. Ko Lanta beckoned me from the other side of the country.

Tags: Ko Chang, Robbed, Thailand

Great place on Soi Rambuttri, a few minutes from the Khao San Road. The Sawasdee caters for many budgets within the budget range, from windowless rooms for 300 baht to mid-range quality aircon doubles for 800 baht.

The staff are pretty friendly, although those in the restaurant can be a little flaky at times, but that is mainly because the restaurant gets very very busy – indeed its open 24 hours and is busy for most of the time. It does a nice mix of both Thai and Western food, all cooked to a good standard.

For a good option in Banglamphu you cannot go wrong here.

Tags: Bangkok, Review, Sawasdee