Monday 22 September 2008

Bangkok in a "State of Emergency"

As has been well advertised on the news, Thailand has been experiencing rather a lot of political unrest recently. It's not actually that long since the last time this happened, with the government being overthrown in September 2006.

Now I'm probably the worst person in the world for keeping up to date with local affairs, but apperently what was being shown on CNN and BBC was pretty dramatic. People brandashing poles, bottles, slingshots and even machettes and swords, protesters being battered down to the ground 6 to 1 by police. Many of the protesters were old women and while the aim was to remain peaceful one person was eventually killed by the government supporters. Strangly enough, whenever there was violence it was blamed on everyone put the police, not what it looked like in the pictures.



It seemed quite strange to us to hear about all this from the news and worried friends and family, but where we are, although it's quite central, we were not affected by it at all. However, when a state of emergency was finally declared early Tuesday morning, the school was instantly full of worried parents pulling their kids out of classes. By 1pm the school directors had decided to close the school. Suppose that happens when the place is full of rich kids, probably many with relations working in the government.

Civil unrest anywhere should be no cause for celebration, but when you are only just managing to keep your head straight at the end of the school semester and you find out you have an impromptu 5 day weekend, you find it kind of hard to contain your excitement. Never ones to miss a holiday opportunity, and regardless of the fact that we had only been back from the beach a day, we decided to head of to our local island, Samed.

Koh Samed is popular with most expats in Bangkok as it is only about 2 hours drive in a car and then a short boat ride. With white sand beaches and turquoise water it is unlike the rest of the coastal area that is close to Bangkok, which tends to have dirty brown beaches and slightly muddy waters. The island is always nice (apart from bank holiday weekends where it's overrun with loads of vain Thais who do nothing other than have pictures taken of themselves in all sorts of daft poses), but it's quite amazing how much more you can enjoy the beach when you're getting paid for it. We kept stopping during our busy schedule of sunbathing and reading saying 'we should be shouting at kids right now'.














By the time we returned to Bangkok life had pretty much returned to normal. The protesters had been appeased by the Prime Minister stepping down (to do a cooking show apparently...just one more of those things it's best not to try and understand). Peace should last until next month when it's been said that it is being 'arranged' for him to be re-elected. Here's hoping they can hold off until mid November and we have returned from school holidays in case we get another bonus break.


No doubt I could get in trouble for it, but the pictures from Bangkok are off the net.

Sunday 21 September 2008

Cha-am

For a treat to ourselves as we neared the end of the long first semester, we thought we would splash out a little more than usual on a weekend away. Since we've been back in Thailand our budget for accommodation seems to have gone up and up. It's so easy to find ways to justify to yourself why it's worth spending 200, 400, or even 1000 baht more (£3-£15). on a good night's sleep. Long gone are the days of staying in the grotty dorms or leaky roofed huts of Valerie's or Rock Garden.

For our trip away we never actually intended on going to Cha-am, I had been taken there by some students a few years ago and found the resorts all super sized with a bad beach and hundreds of screaming kids. We had planned on going to Koh Samed where you're always guaranteed a beautiful beach if not relative peace. Finding that the nicer affordable accommodation on Samed was full, Nick looked around and found a special offer on a new resort in Cha-am. Usually way out of our price range, it was on a special offer, tempting us to stay somewhere we would never normally go.

Sadly, it is very rare that we go to a place and have not got at least one thought on how it could have been better. I'm sure that anyone who travels a lot is the same way. When you pay bottom dollar you never expect that much, so you can't grumble or be disappointed, but when you start paying a little bit more for slightly nicer places, you start to come to expect the basics to be there...a fan that doesn't sound like a jet propeller, a shower that water actually comes out of and if you've really spent your money, a light you can turn off from the bed (bedside lamps are an absolute novelty out here).














The Alila in Cha-am, was possibly the first place I've ever stayed where I couldn't really criticise anything. The room was amazing, ultra modern and stark but with every gizmo you could want to make your stay special, from an Apple TV and music system to a rain-shower in the middle of the bathroom. The resort had 3 samll restaurants, 2 pools, and seperate private villas. There were private cabanas on the beach and poolside seating areas in there own hedged alcoves. You just have to pick where you want to be and some one will come and spread towels on the beds, give you fresh fruit, iced water and a chilled water body spray. With so much space and privacy, you always felt like you had the place to yourself, and not a child in sight. In the mornings there were free yoga sessions by the pool and they even provided yoga mats in every room. Not that we were that energetic.















The only time we actually attempted to leave the resort and see some of Cha-am (more through guilt of laziness rather than a desire to explore), we found that the tide had come in and the beach had completely disappeared. Perfect excuse for an even earlier than usual evening cocktail!


What with great food, service and setting, the only negative experience of the whole weekend was being stopped by the police in the taxi on the way there. Having been pulled over at a random checkpoint, the policeman there in typical Thai police style, saw it was a pair of white 'falangs' and demanded we pay him 100 baht. After refusing to give any kind of explanation he took the 100 baht note and put it straight in his back pocket. They train police well in this country.

Monday 1 September 2008

Khao Yai National Park

Now that the first semester is about to finish, I'm finding that I have lost all interest in lesson plans and making worksheets, and have just decided to let all the paperwork do what it does best (pile up) and catch up with my blog. Have been really lazy at keeping it up to date, even though we've managed to fit some cool stuff in on the weekends.

Thailand's largest national park, Khao Yai, is a place we've been talking about visiting for years. But when it's a toss up between turquoise waters, white sand and a good book or hiking through leach infested jungle, strangely the jungle always lost out. This time though, when we were invited to join our friends in their chauffeur driven car (admittedly a rather large selling point), for an overnight trip up to Khao Yai, we thought we should make the effort.

We arrived around lunch time and had lunch at our guesthouse. I had kind of hoped that it would be slightly cooler where we were staying, but it was hotter than ever and when we ate our lunch sitting outside under a tin roof, it was like sitting in a tan cabin without the perks of getting brown. It took us all about half an hour before we crashed out on our beds (or wooden board might be a better name for it) trying to escape the heat.

Our first tour that evening was out to the bat caves. We went down into the caves where around 2000 insect eating bats were sleeping. Thankfully and surprisingly there was no smell, but there were creepy crawlies everywhere. Our tour turned into something out of fear factor as the guide tried to initiate us all into the wonderful world of underground bugs. Now I'm reasonably good with wildlife, but not when it comes to anything with over 4 legs. I have absolutely no desire in the world to have things crawl on me, for picture purposes or otherwise, call me a wimp, but many legged things just freak me out.













From the first cave we went on to watch the daily swarm of bats flying out from another cave. This cave had around 2 million bats inside and it takes around an hour for them all to fly out. Once outdoors and away from the bugs (or so I thought), it was cool to watch the endless stream of bats undulating across the sky on their way to find food. It wasn't long though, before our guide found something else freaky to harass, and everybody ended up taking turns wearing a rather large millipede (alright, I'll admit it, I wasn't game for this one either). We ended the evening tour with a dip in the dark in some cool, crystal clear, fresh water pools on the way back to the guesthouse.










Bright and early the next day, after a rather back breaking sleep, we piled in the back of a pick-up truck and headed out to the park. Pretty much as soon as you enter the park gates, you start climbing up the winding road into the hills. It's amazing how a little bit of height can make all the difference when it comes to air temperature. There are few places I visit in Thailand that I can call refreshing, but Khao Yai is one of them. That is at least until you decide to hike through the dense undergrowth of the jungle floor, then it's just wet.

Within about five minutes of getting into the park we spotted wild gibbons. These daredevil creatures were playing about 60 feet up in the tree tops, launching themselves from one thin bendy branch to another. Over the course of the day we were to see various feats of athleticism (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it), including tree hopping with babies and accidental base jumping out of trees. The most memorable thing about the gibbons though, was the constant noise from there howls and cries. Typical perhaps for the nation they reside in, they seem to sit next to each other and all shout at the same time without actually listening to what anybody has to say.

I'm sorry to say that while the gibbons were possibly the most impressive things we saw, they didn't hold my attention quite so much as something smaller and a lot less unique. Apparently the muddy forest floor of Khoa Yai is home to thousands of leaches. I'm not sure exactly how many I saw, but the moment we stopped and everybody else looked up into the trees to catch sight of the baby gibbon or some rare bird, I started looking down at the floor at the instant attraction my feet hold for leaches. It is quite shocking how fast they can move and find peoples feet to climb on to. I can now officially add leaches to the list creepies I don't like.

We ended up hiking through the jungle for about 3 hours (that's our group whose guide didn't get us lost). It was kind of cool as we were more off the beaten track than I expected us to be (hence some people got lost). We didn't see a huge amount; frogs, lizards, some cool birds, but it was still good to do something different. We had lunch at a tall viewing hut overlooking the salt lick where the wild elephants come and stand (sadly minus the elephants), before heading over to the waterfall and seeing some rather cheeky (and rude) macaques on route.













When we had entered the park that morning, about 4 ambulances shot past us with sirens blazing. Our guide told us there had been an accident at the waterfall the night before. It was while we were making jokes about the fact that it had taken them over 12 hours to respond with ambulances, that he told us a foreign man who was working as a teacher in Bangkok. The man had gone for a swim and got swept under by the force of the waterfall, then resurfaced before disappearing again. They were still looking for him 24 hours later when we arrived. Obviously we weren't given the option to swim (not that I think any of us fancied it). In fact the closest we could get to the waterfall was the viewpoint above. There were boats and divers still on site, and you could see the excessive amount of water coming down the falls due to the rain.

After the waterfall, when we were heading back towards the guesthouse, our eagle-eyed guide spotted a scorpion crossing the road and grabbed it before jumping in the back of the truck with up. He then proceeded to drop it on the floor of the truck. Thankfully he got it again quickly and it seemed to put up with the picture taking quite patiently. Needless to say that was one creepy crawly we were all rather happy to see removed from the truck.