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offseasonedtravelers-blog · 6 years ago

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Thailand and Cambodian Adventures

Thailand and Cambodia had always been on our bucket list of places “to go someday”. The trip felt like more of an adventure than our average vacation due to our unfamiliarity with the language, food, and culture. The most daunting part of the trip was preparing ourselves mentally for its almost 24 hour plane flight. We loved the two countries and choosing to go in June/July was hot and muggy, but the temple crowds were minimal. We were able to makes some last minute changes with no issues due to the decreased number of tourist.

Off season time we traveled: end of June (2015)

Weather: hot and muggy! but mornings and evenings cooled off

What to pack: lightweight clothes, clothes that cover your knees and shoulders for temples, lightweight scarf to cover your head, lots of sunscreen

Our favorite part about traveling there in off season: we got to see the temples with less crowds and almost no lines

One regrettable thing about traveling in off season here: its hot! Everything is open and available

Favorite run: it’s too hot. I did all treadmill running

Guides we used to plan our trip: Nytimes 36 hours in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Battambang, and Siem Reap

Itinerary

Bangkok

Tuk Tuk life

I can summarize most of our time in Bangkok into two words TukTuks and temples. We stayed in Bangkok for three nights and felt like this was more than enough time to cover everything. We stayed the the Marvin Suites which was centrally located, easy to access the skytrain, and reasonably priced.

Wat Arun

On the first day we explored the “wats” (temples) of Bangkok. Our day started out with some mishaps. First we made the mistake of taking a random TukTuk. This TukTuk took us to his friends tourist boat and not to the wat. After getting a new TukTuk we made it to Wat Arun. This temple was remarkably tourist free and beautiful. We were directly across the river from the Grand Palace and could see many smaller wats around.

Next we headed back across the river to the Grand Palace. This was also beautiful and lavish. You can spend hours here if you want to cover everything in detail. We spent an hour or two and were ready for some food and reprieve from the sun.

We headed indoors for massages and were incredibly impressed. The massages are extremely cheap and a great afternoon activity to avoid the muggiest hours.

Lumphini Park

The next morning we strolled around Lumphini Park. It is a beautiful urban park conveniently located near the most massive malls we’ve ever seen. Even if you don’t plan on doing any shopping I recommend checking out the malls just for the experience. We went to Siam Center and Siam Paragon. The malls are large and have everything you could possibly want, but unfortunately are still normal American prices.

View from the Sky Bar

If you want great views of the city, the Sky Bar is the place to go. Its 820 feet high and has 360 degree views. A couple things to know before heading up there: they have a dress code (check the website before going), its windy (bring a sweater or light jacket), and its drinks are not cheap. Its very westernized and touristy and wasn’t our favorite activity.

Bangkok street food

Our favorite part of Bangkok was the food! It was always amazing and extremely fresh. We ate at the street market and small hole-in-the-wall places. All the food was extremely fresh and yummy!

Chiang Mai

Next up on our adventure was Chiang Mai. We enjoyed the city of Chiang Mai a lot more than Bangkok and would definitely suggest spending more of your time here if you are debating between the two cities. Chiang Mai is tucked into beautiful heavily forested hills and is much less congested compared to Bangkok. We stayed at an airbnb that was near the Chiang Mai University and loved this area. It had a lot of great restaurants and felt very safe walking around at night.

Wat Chedi Luang

Our first stop was Wat Chedi Luang which was a smaller temple compared to the ones in Bangkok, but this one was definitely my favorite. Chedi, which is a buddhist supta, dates back to the 15th century and has large elephant statues on its sides. It is located within in the walls of the Old City.

Nights in Old City

Besides visiting Way Chedi Luang, the Old City, has lots to offer. It has a vibrant nightlife with great restaurants and lots of markets for shopping.

Wat Phra Lat

The next morning we got up early and hiked to Wat Phra That Dei Suthep. This hike was beautiful and includes two temples. The hike starts on Suthep Road by the Chiang Mai Zoo. You can find the hike by taking Suthep Road toward the zoo, then walking up the hill past the signs for the zoo until you see a TC tower on the right. The trail is called Monk’s trail and you can see the trail head starting there. The hike to Wat Phra Lat takes only 45 minutes and was my favorite of the two temples. Wat Phra Lat is tucked away in the jungle and had almost no other people with the exception of the monks living there.

Hiking to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

The next part of the hike was much more challenging. It was straight up clay like steps and takes between 1 and 1.5 hours. We definitely recommend taking water and wearing sneakers to make it up this part of the hike.

Final steps up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

There are buses that will take you straight to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, but we thought the hike up the mountain was most of the fun. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is impressive temple with great views of Chiang Mai, but it was definitely more crowded. We only walked around it for a short bit. Due to our hiking attire we could not enter some of the areas.

Patara Elephant Farm

For our next Chiang Mai adventure we were “Elephant Owners for a Day” at Patara Elephant Farm. There are many elephant farms in the area, but we choose this one due to its conservation efforts, ethical practices, and effort to educate everyone about the elephants. The day started with being assigned to one elephant (sometimes you got a bonus of a mother and baby!) and learning the daily routine for caring for the elephant.

Learning to care for the elephants

We learned how to feed and bath the elephants along with check the elephant poop to make sure they were healthy!

Baby elephants playing with water is possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

Overall I couldn’t speak more highly about our experience at Patara Farm. Everything from picking us up at our Airbnb, a beautiful lunch, to the interaction with the elephants was perfect.

Food market in Chiang Mai

No trip to Thailand is complete (or any trip, anywhere in my mind) without a cooking class to learn the culinary secrets of the country from a native. We took a cooking class at Thai Farm Cooking with Benny. (Benny has now left and opened her own cooking school). The Thai Farm cooking class started with us being picked up from our Airbnb and first going to a local market.

Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School

At the market we explored and saw many fruits which we have never heard of before and learned vital information like don’t keep your fish sauce more than a month or two. Next we headed to the farm where we picked some of the ingredients in their garden to prepare our meal.

Our delicious meal that was actually quite easy to replicate once we got home

The entire process was hands on and we had a couple options to choose from. At the end of the meal they gave us a cookbook so we can replicate the curry we made at home. The TripAdvisor reviews for this cooking school were near perfect and after taking the class we all agreed that this should be on everyones to-do list for Thailand!

Battambang

Sunset over Battambang

The next stop on our trip was Battambang, Cambodia. We flew from Chiang Mai directly to Siem Reap. From Siem Reap we were able to take take a couple hour cab to Battambang. Battambang was my favorite town on our trip. I was first intrigued about it when I read an article in the NYTime “A Pocket of the Past, Battambang, Cambodia.” Unlike the rest of the places we visited, it was not built up with tourist.

The town of Battambang

The town is built along the river and had been ruled in the past by France, Thailand, and most recently the Khmer Rouge. The French Colonial rule is apparent in the architecture of the city.

The countryside tour of Battambang

We stayed one night at the Classy Hotel and Spa which was a great central location, had a nice pool, and clean rooms with very ornate wooden furniture and carvings. We rented a tuk tuk driver for the day who took us to several locations around the city. First we stopped to watch rice paper making in the countryside.

Our next stop was a ride on the Bamboo Train. It was small train cars that are powered by a tiny little engine. It was about an hour ride through the countryside however at the end where they dropped us off we were swarmed by children trying to sell us things. Overall this was my least favorite part of the tour.

Wat Ek Phnom

Wat Ek Phnom was a couple miles out of the city and very similar to some of the temples at Angkor Wat, but with almost no other people. We enjoyed climbing around these 11th century ruins. It was peaceful and just as interesting as Angkor Wat however it was a much smaller scale.

Siem Reap

A Day at Angkor Wat

Our final stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. We stayed at the Empress Angkor Hotel for two nights. It was nice accommodations that included a full buffet breakfast and had a pretty pool to sit around after a long day of temple going. The hotel set up a driver to take us to and from the temples. We had a nice early 4:30am wake up to see the sunrise over the main temple.

(Cloudy) Sunrise over the main temple at Angkor Wat

It is a bit of a production of waiting in line for a pass and then again waiting with a bunch of tourist, all camera ready, for the perfect sunrise. Unfortunately our sunrise was less impressive due to the cloud coverage. Angkor Wat however didn’t disappoint us. We spent several hours roaming a couple of the over 100 temples. Due to the size of the property the driver would drive in between the various temples. Each temple was unique and impressive.

One of my favorite temples at Angkor Wat

Beng Mealea

After spending all morning at Angkor Wat we drove an hour away to Beng Mealea. Beng Mealea was built around the same time period as Angkor Wat with similar architecture however less is known overall about the temple. We enjoyed this even more than Angkor Wat. It is relatively untouched within an overgrown jungle. With almost no other tourist it made us feel like explorers first discovering the temples.

Detail of rubble in Beng Mealea

Beng Mealea exploring

Kanchanaburi

Good Times Resort

For the final two days of our trip we headed back to Thailand. Originally we had planned to spend another couple days in Bangkok, but all of us were over Bangkok. We decided to go to Kanchanaburi a small town towards the Myanmar border that is known for the Death Railway which was built during WWII. It was about a 3 hour bus ride to Kanchanaburi from the Bangkok airport.

Erawan National Park

We stayed at a charming little resort called, Good Times Resort. It was on the river and had cute updated rooms that all had big porches with swings. The staff set up a tour for Erawan National Park and the Death Railroad.

Swimming at Erawan

The tour picked us up at our hotel and drove us about an hour away to the Erawan State Park. Once we arrived we had lunch and then hiked up a lush, forested mountain with cascading waterfalls. We were able to stop and swim along the way in the clear water and slide down the smooth rocks of the waterfalls.

Death Railway

The second half of the day we rode on a small segment of the Death Railway, which was constructed during WWII by civilian laborers and POA. One hundred thousand people died during the construction of this railway that was made to connect Burma to Thailand.