Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Beijing Thai-Thai

(Warning: Big post, which may contain adult concepts :-)

Well it was the last straw for this little Beijing housewife (“Tai Tai” in Chinese) and his….errr…. wife. The pollution was starting to bite into my usually positive outlook and we decided that some blue sky and relaxing was in order. After various scheduling and visa restriction issues left us cold on being able to lock in Tibet or Inner Mongolia as destinations, we took the very kind and well timed invitation of friends and did some last minute scrambling to book in for 9 nights in southern Thailand, and a night in Bangkok on the way back. So with sunburn cream and swimmers packed it was off to the airport for a date with the pachyderms (having got Maddy all excited about going on an elephant ride).

The Long March
The new Beijing airport is huge (2nd biggest in the world according to Wikipedia), but on most days that we have been there you could set yourself on fire and toast all the marshmallows in the place before someone would see you or even notice you. It’s like they have built it for room to expand, for the next 1000 years. The Olympics has gone, but the plans of Beijing being an air transport hub the likes of Singapore and KL have not come to fruition.

The new Bangkok airport, on the other hand, is bigger than Ben Hur. When we flew in to Bangkok at 10pm on the way through to the resort it was like the front steps of David Jones 5min before the opening of the post-Xmas sales. It was packed, and it was full of people buying stuff they didn’t really need - “Duty Free- the more you spend, the more you save.”

We had heard about a short term hotel located in the airport building, which although expensive (as we found) was very convenient. Off we trotted with our hand luggage in tow, thinking it couldn’t be that far from the departure gate. We walked, and walked, and walked, and…well, you get the point. One very long march, past coffee shops and food places that had my tastebuds loosening up, all the while our currency was depreciating if not in value then physically through paper deterioration. So after 40min we found the place, and booked in for 6hrs starting at midnight giving us 2hrs to track down some grub and walk the floors looking for one particular book for Amy (I was hoping it was the 1950’s publication of “Tips for Good House Keepers”, but it was something far less empowering). In the end we ate crap food, tried attempt after attempt to unsuccessfully locate an unlocked free wireless service and found the book sold out in every shop in the place. We decided it would have been better to crash earlier and enjoy an extra 2hrs of shuteye (the first few moments disturbed by public flight announcements) so we will keep this in mind next time.

5-star on a shoestring
While it was an early morning rise in Bangkok to catch the domestic flight down to Krabi, there was some solace found in both the short flight time (only an hour and 20), and more importantly the end point. In this case the old adage that it’s the journey not the destination really was proven to be a load of crap. It was DESTINATION ALL THE WAY, BABY. We’d read all the reviews, the price was very right, a friend had done all the research – would the real thing be as good as the pictures? We’ll, here’s the one from the reception when we were checking in.


The view from reception was VERY promising.

Actually, to say we were checking-in kind of indicates we were standing/sitting at a reception desk tapping our fingers as the staff trawl through check-in administrivia. What we were doing though was enjoying a seat overlooking the pools and the ocean view while one of the staff served us a great cool lemon grass drink and a refresher towel while someone else came and took the credit card and came back with the check-in process complete. After this it was off to check out the room, which (like all the other rooms) backed onto the central landscaped spine of the resort that descends from the reception at the top and down to the bottom pool and beachside restaurant through a series of other pools, stairs, a Thai restaurant and the all important cocktail bar. This place was built for relaxation, but just how much of the mellow marrow could we suck from this chill bone? Well, how big’s your cocktail menu? We spend most of our first few days enjoying the pool, the sea, the service and of course the Pina Coladas and Mohitos. It was relaxation to the max and we really loved it.


It really was El-Rancho Relaxo.
The Man with the Golden Con
One of the really big tourist drawcards around the Krabi and Phuket area is the island that was used in the 70’s James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun (Roger Moore in the title role). At the resort and in the local magazines the local tour companies touted it as a place to go, and many of the mixed grill tours (the ones that included the obligatory longboat ride, elephant ride and monkey show action) had it included in their list of daytrip destinations. When friends arrived a few days later we thought we would take a break from the relaxation to visit the famous island. We booked a tour that included pickup from the resort and we headed out front at 8am for what we thought would be a 1/2hr ride.

Over 2hrs and two stops later we finally pulled up 100km away at a small boat ramp where we were very quickly shuffled onto a longboat with little chance to use the facilities or to even buy any water (much needed, after 2hrs in transit). ‘John’, our local tour guide, was full of fast talk and keen to get us underway (and really painting a beaut picture of Jim B island). What a disappointment it ended up being though. Covering what would otherwise be a great scenic spot was a whole collection of shitty souvenir shops, on top of a man made jetty where tourist boat after tourist boat lined up to dump their paying cargo and head out to wet dock until called back in.

To make it even more unpleasant experience-wise, the wind suddenly picked up and the rain dumped a huge spill just as we landed. It did though give us the opportunity to explore some of the caves along the edge, but with little to sweeten it except views over the shanty shopping plaza it didn’t do a lot to improve the experience. The highlight of this section of the trip really was the boat trip off the island, primarily because we were over it before we landed but also thanks to one young lad on our boat who lost his hat to the wind as the boat departed, only to shock all on board by randomly launching himself into the water after it. All up though it was a real let down, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you love Surfer’s Paradise beach in high-season.

The view of "James Bond" Island as we approached. It was promising.


The real "James Bond" Island. How NOT to manage a piece of living cinematic memorabilia.

The middle section of the day did look on the up and up, with the boat taking us a short trip to a floating canoe tour company where we all three of the Guihot’s were handed over to the capable hands of a local canoe helmsmen and taken for a paddle around the limestone rocks that popped out of the water. This included some great glides through low limestone overhangs (requiring us to recline into a lying position). With an afternoon of good and not-so-good memories we headed off to a nearby floating Muslim village which had a wide variety of restaurants. While it meant no beer and wine over lunch this time, the food was very nice and probably some of the best I’ve ever had on an organised tour since moving to Asia. And if the good food didn’t sit well, you could always use what was awarded the Public Toilet of the Year 2008 ‘Happy Toilet’, no less.



Not just ANY toilet.

After lunch it was back to land, and back to what we soon found out to be a very ordinary part of Southern Thailand (any section dry-side of the breakers, actually). It appears that the tour guide for the day also worked at a local Elephant farm and Monkey zoo, where the activities banned from Australian circus’ 20 years ago are still considered ‘must-see’ viewing by some tourist operators with no idea about humane treatment of animals. It really was like The Late Show’s “Pissweak World”, with the group having to grin and bear a short 10min elephant ride, a very wrong elephant and monkey show, and an Ox ride which had me feeling like I was back on the Canadian Prairies (but this time 150 years in the past). We almost looked forward to the 2hr bus ride back, knowing that it was 2hrs longer into the future of a hopefully repressed memory on the whole animal affair.

Kicking Ar$e for the Lord
We had to try and wipe the memory of the 007 affair from our minds, and the cocktail happy hours (as good as they were) just weren’t doing it. So we decided that a trip out to the less popular islands was in order. The longboats were in harbour because of a monsoon wind, so we all chipped in and had booked a private speedboat for a day of island hopping, lunchtime picnics on deserted beaches, snorkelling and a sunset dinner on Railay beach (sounds glamorous hey?). Unfortunately the speedboat was also grounded on the morning because of continuing monsoon winds so we decided to hire a van and a driver to take us to some of the more known sites around the area as well as a better elephant ride experience. The elephant ride this time was the real deal, with a 1hr trek through the forest with handlers at the front that didn’t resort to the stick once to move them along. Our guy even had the Elephant Whisperer thing about him, jumping off and seemingly able to control the beast while it picked its way down rocky descents with John and I hanging on for dear life, and me trying to hold the finger on the camera button while laughing my arse off.



The 2nd elephant ride attempt was ALOT better than the first.

30min after this we were at the Tiger Cave, to find that this offered great views if only you could be bothered walking up the 1400 stairs. But it wasn’t the stairs that were the real issue. It was the plague of monkeys that resided around the stairs, including one that gave us the evil eye and snarl as we approached (while another flogged someone’s camera and headed for the trees). We walked up a few flights while the others waited below, and on our way back found out that the real trick to warding off the (often rabid) critters was a little help from God. Oh yeah, and a broomstick or slingshot. It seemed that one German family we talked too on their way back to the car had procured the protection services of a nun wielding a shanghai and an MP3 player to discourage any monkey shines from the residents.

Not the view from the Tiger Cave. This view from the lookout just north of the resort.
The last site before we decided to bail back for the happy hour was the Emerald Pool, which is a great spring fed pool with an average temp of 35-50 deg. It was a great place to have swim, even though it wasn’t particularly refreshing or awakening (the latter was taken care of for our friends when a big blue scorpion crossed their path on the way back to the car).

It was a good day out, although we tended to think that Krabi had more to offer off-shore than on-shore. We were hungry though after the driving tour, so it was timely that the resort restaurant were putting on a smorgasboard of Thai and Italian down by the beach where we dug into multiple courses of roast Aussie Lamb, BBQ Aussie Rib Eye fillet with prawns, crocodile curry and a lot of other dishes and desserts well into the night (even thought a sudden shower did call a halt to proceedings for 20min).

View of the resort from the other side of the bay.

Limos, Lady Boys and Navigational Palsy at the Bangkok Hilton
Bangkok. The only city in the world where you can go out to see a show of genital ping-pong and (according to urban myth) wake up in a bathtub of ice missing an internal organ. Where men are men, and men can also be ladies. It was Amy’s 2nd visit to the Thai capital, but my first, and while we were only going to be there for an afternoon we had plans to make the most of it and head out for a spot of sightseeing.

After a very cosy limo ride into the city from the airport we settled into the rather flash hotel room at the Millennium and then headed down stairs to chat with the concierge desk about the places to go in the city of 13 million. Big nods were given for a river boat ride up to the Royal Palace, but when the people behind the desk quoted a rate of 700 baht an hour for taxiing down to the boat terminal we decided to hoof it instead and headed for the subway, detouring past a very nice British Pub on the way for a spot of lunch. It wasn’t an easy path to a full stomach though, as we wandered down a small lane around the corner from the hotel which had all the hallmarks of a suburban Patpong Road – lost of bars, pool tables, women (and ‘women’) outside trying to lure us in for a drink and outside bar stools holding up slurring ex-pats from all around the world.

After a short train ride down to the river we boarded the first boat we saw and got into a spot of landmark photography (including some not-so-glamourous riverside dwellings). It was a great way to see a good part of the city along the waterfront, but also a good way to see how smoggy the city was and the effect that the use of the old diesel tuk-tuks had on the air quality. After a few bends of the river we jumped off near the Royal Palace and headed to check out the statue of the largest Reclining Buddha in the world, avoiding the offer of tours and other useless tourist crap from the roadside vendors.

Feeling the Thai groove at the Bangkok Pagoda's next to the Reclining Buddha.

View from the river - Bangkok.


View from the river - Bangkok.


Not all riverside property in Bangkok is A-grade.


After a quick walk around the outside of Royal Palace (we couldn’t get in as we had shorts and thongs) Amy then thought we should walk a bit further up the river and check out a Tourist Information Centre she visited on her previous trip which came with an all-singing, all-dancing demo for the out-of-towner. I was tired at this stage, but let my good senses slip and handed the decision making and the navigational reigns over to Amy who managed to lead us through a University (and back in time) for a great hike, all the time taking in the sites of a city where the streets are narrow and the concept of traffic control is even more foreign than Beijing. The University certainly brought back some memories. It might be tens of thousands of kilometres away from my old stomping ground of UC but it was just like the days of old. Faculty buildings and a refectory that was dotted with students eating their lunch between lessons from one of the many food options around the central area. Just like our random one-day visit to Gibraltar in 2003 on National Gibraltar Day, we had managed to gatecrash this uni on their graduation day. Sure the buildings weren’t all that exciting, but the rest of the view was.

The Bangkok Uni refectory we came across on our walk - Just like the old days.

The uni graduates were already looking serious.

10 minutes after this all the good will I had left dissipated, and internal voices screaming blue murder abounded as we approached the door of the Visitor’s Centre, only for Amy to proclaim in a pleading manner that it was actually the Kuala Lumpur Visitor’s Centre she was thinking of. WHAT THE HELL? I can understand some not-so-navigationally aware women getting directions wrong within a city, but to get THE ENTIRE COUNTRY WRONG begs belief. It also begs the question – If Women are from Venus, how the hell did they ever find their way to Earth?

One of the few smiling moments at the Bangkok Visitor's Centre (oh how we laugh about it now)

After a calming 5 minutes we decided we were all a bit too tired and hot, and the idea of grabbing a tuk-tuk to the nearest subway station won over. Warning – if you ever ride in an open tuk-tuk in Bangkok, take a gas mask. By the time we returned to the hotel I had a headache from the fumes , although three Pina Colada’s, a few panadol and a great Red Curry Duck pizza solved that crisis quick smart. It was a great way to finish off what was a great holiday. Sure the James Bond Island was a big letdown and the monkey experience just wrong, but we went to kick back and relax. And relax we did. Any more in fact, and we would have slipped into a coma. Now I just need to figure out why I keep sweating coconut milk and pineapple juice.

Maddy and I in the tuk-tuk, heading back from Ao-nang to the resort (around 20min in the diesel two-stroke).


Operation Relaxation: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

And if you are interested in checking out all the photos from our Thailand trip you can find them in our picasaweb album here.

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