Christmas lunch was amazing. We ate in a grass hut perched above the beach on Siam Bay. The food was good; the atmosphere couldn’t have been any better.

We then walked over to the east side of the island for our final (and best) snorkeling experience in Ter Bay (Ao Ter).

After a fresh water shower on the boat, we were on our way back to Phuket.

We realized the next day that Linda didn’t have her sunglasses anymore. We asked Raya Oceanic Diver if they happened to find them. Not only did they locate them (in the “restaurant” at Siam Bay), but they had them delivered to our hotel (a half hour boat ride and half hour car ride away) at no charge. They are a great company to use if you are looking for a snorkeling or diving tour from Phuket.

Posted on January 10th, 2010 under Thailand. Tags: beach, ellie, food, koh racha yai, phuket, ryan. Comments Off on Lunch at Siam Bay, snorkeling on the east shore of Racha Yai

Night time came to our first full day in Thailand. After a refreshing (a bit too cold if you ask me) swim at the hotel we headed out for dinner…

…though not at McDonald’s. Notice that Ronald is doing the wai, a Thai form of greeting, thanking, etc. by putting your hands together near your neck and bowing a bit.

We ate at Sphinx, located at the end of Soi 4 off Silom Road. The food looked really good, and the free wonton appetizers were great, but this was my most disappointing meal in Thailand (and the most expensive).

We took a tuk tuk back to our hotel for only 20 baht (under $1). This was our first, and last, tuk tuk experience in Thailand, not that the experience was horrible. Tuk tuks in our next location (Phuket) were ridiculously priced so we never used them.

Posted on January 8th, 2010 under Thailand. Tags: bangkok, food, night photography. Comments: 2

Street food, like the above, was available all over the place. Ellie had a coconut, but we avoided meat that wasn’t cooked right in front of us. Amazingly enough, none of us got even a little bit sick during the nine days we were in Thailand. We didn’t drink the water, but we had plenty of ice.

The boat ride back down the Chao Phraya River had better views than the way up as the clouds and sun did a little dance behind Wat Arun.

Right on the river, near our pier, was the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The place is incredible. The above photo doesn’t do it justice. It probably didn’t hurt that we were hot, Bangkok was humid, and the inside was nicely air conditioned.

Further up the street we saw a street vendor making a killing thanks to the nearby school which had just let out.

Posted on January 7th, 2010 under Thailand. Tags: bangkok, clouds, food, people, skywatch. Comments Off on Road back to the Holiday Inn Silom Bangkok

From Bangkok we went to Phuket for five nights. Our taxi driver from the airport was another scammer. His meter was already running when we got in and he wouldn’t reset it. Then he pretended to not know where Patong Beach (the largest tourist destination on the island) was and took us to his office to find out. While we were stuck in his hot cab with the meter continuing to run he went in for more than five minutes. A fellow employee, who could speak English, came out and tried to sell us tours. Finally he returned and took us to our hotel. He wanted us to pay him the full meter amount, including the amount that was on the meter when we got in the cab and the amount that accrued while he feigned getting directions so that we could be given a sales pitch. The bellhop at our hotel was no help. He sided with the taxi driver. I think we ended up giving him 450 baht, the amount we were quoted by the lady at the taxi stand at the airport. He drove off mad, unlike our driver earlier in the day.

The location of our hotel in Phuket was a major let down. I’ll touch on that more in a future post. Anyway, after crossing a street without sidewalks, traffic lights, or cross walks in which probably five times out of a hundred you will be killed (luckily we only had to cross it 94 times during our time in Phuket) we made it to our first meal on the island.

This food looked fantastic, but it was our second most disappointing meal in Phuket. It wasn’t horrible, but we had some absolutely excellent food in Phuket. More on those great meals later…

Here is Ellie doing the wai on the Andakira Hotel steps. I’m not sure if the poinsettias were for Christmas or not. It was Christmas Eve when I took the above picture. Christmas music was playing constantly while we were in Thailand. We heard it on the airplanes, in our hotel, and all over town. The music didn’t stop after Christmas either. We heard it on our flight back to Tokyo on the 29th. There is something a little strange about hearing “White Christmas” while you are eating breakfast in an outdoor restaurant in Thailand in 85 degree weather.

Getting to the beach from the Andakira Hotel is no easy task. Although the website says the hotel “is located at the heart of Patong Beach,” it is at the heart of the beach the same way the Eiffel Tower is at the heart of Notre Dame Cathedral (i.e., across town). Their website also mentions a free shuttle, but the shuttle only runs four times a day and can’t be relied on (as we found out when we waited an hour for it at one of its four scheduled times only to have it never arrive). The other options are to take an extremely over-priced tuk tuk for 200 baht or cross the aforementioned street of death and walk a while.

(Note that some internet sites say tuk tuks can be had in Patong for as little as 20 baht, but that is no longer the case. They all charge 200 baht, even to just take you across the street. This is very different than Bangkok where you can find drivers to take you short distances for under 50 baht. We paid just 20 baht for our tuk tuk in Bangkok.)

Despite the hassles caused by the location of the hotel and the needs of some of the natives to rip off the tourists, we were determined to have a good time. The beach is very nice, especially if you get there before the crowds as we did (and you can see in the above photo). The ocean water is practically warm this close to the equator and the sand is of the fine, soft variety.

Posted on January 1st, 2010 under Thailand. Tags: andakira, beach, ellie, food, phuket, ryan. Comments Off on Phuket

Chao Phraya is the river that runs through Bangkok. There is a public boat-bus system set up called the Chao Phraya River Express. I was picturing something like the Grand Canal in Venice where there are basically three kinds of boats–gondolas, bus boats, and others making deliveries. I was also imagining a formal ticketing system (like Venice) where you purchase a ticket before riding the River Express. Finally, I figured the boats would be clearly marked as part of the River Express (maybe they are marked in Thai–but there are no Roman letters to be seen).

Not so on all counts. First of all, the boat “bus” stops are nearly impossible to recognize. They are dilapidated, mini piers with no signs getting you there and only one sign once you are there (visible only from the river). The people working on the piers are trying to sell you a ride on one of their boats, not the River Express. The River Express is 9 baht. Their boats are 1,000+ baht.

To make matters worse, there are dozens of different kinds of boats landing at these piers. No announcement is made when the River Express lands. There is no time schedule posted, etc. The River Express employees make no announcements when they arrive or depart. You merely have to know that you are getting on the correct boat. The boat pictured above is the correct one.

The boats arrive and depart without warning. If you don’t immediately get on, you will not be getting on. It’s that simple (or frustrating depending on whether you get on the correct boat or not).

We took the River Express (there is nothing “express” about it by the way) from Pier 1 (Oriental Pier) to Pier 9 (Tha Chang Pier). Even though the water is seriously polluted, and we had to stand the entire way, the ride was somehow refreshing–much cooler anyway than standing or walking around Bangkok in the middle of the day.

A few temples (wat) can be seen from the river. One is Wat Kalayanmit, pictured above. The boat pictured in front of this temple is a long tail boat, which you can rent to cruise the Bangkok waterways or to get to one of Thailand’s many islands.

Another of the temples that can be partially viewed from the Chao Phraya River is Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn).

Once we arrived at Pier 9 we found ourselves in the middle of a shopping/eating center of sorts. We had brunch at the place above. There are few other places in the world where a family of four can all be happy with their meal and the bill come to less than $10 total.

Posted on January 1st, 2010 under Thailand. Tags: bangkok, food, people. Comments: 2