The girls came over to Bangkok for a week so we took off to explore Kanchanaburi province for 3 days. This was my third visit to the province but I’d never washed as elephant, bamboo rafted or Long-Tail-Boated it along the River Kwai. This is really a great province to visit and I highly recommend Good Times Travel for organised tours – friendly, English-speaking guides, excellent service.
A video of our trip highlights does a much better job of explaining/showing you it all!
It’s only taken 2 years of living about 20 minutes away from the pier that you can catch a barge from, to finally make a trip to Ko Kret. This little island is in the Chao Phraya River not far from our province, Pakkret. A canal was constructed as a shortcut to bypass a bend in the Om Kret branch of the Chao Phraya river. As the canal was widened several times, the section cut off eventually became a separate island. The island continues to serve as a refuge to the Mon tribes who dominated central Thailand between the 6th and 10th centuries and have retained a distinct identity in their flavor of Buddhism and, particularly at Ko Kret, their pottery.
It took a good couple of hours to walk all the way around the island – stopping often to browse at the local wares. We took this video of one the potters making a garden pot. If only my pots turned out like that when I took a pottery night class a couple of years ago!
One of the really great things about having visitors to stay is taking them to your favourite places in your own backyard.
Ben and I are back in NZ for the Christmas Break and it was a real treat to have three lots of visitors (Kim & Alex, Diane & Jack (with Diane’s sister Linda and her husband Al) and the lovely Robin B) from ISB Bangkok spend some time with us over Christmas. From a visit to my favourite winery, to a jaunt up Bluff Hill, a walk along Marine Parade, to a trip over to Te Mata Peak – I couldn’t resist adding to my pile of Hawkes Bay’s photos.
What’s in your backyard? What would you show visitors?
October Break 2009, perfect one week break from the classroom to explore Siem Reap, Cambodia and of course Angkor Wat.
We took the train from from Bangkok’s main Hualamphong station to Aranyaprathet, which is a few kilometres from the Cambodian frontier. These trains are 3rd class only. The train & bus travel website said they were clean (yes), spacious (no – we were so squished it wasn’t even funny – not even standing room!! The vendors that threw their baskets and boxes in the windows before the train even came to a stand-still for boarding at Hualamphong Station took up 6 spaces in the car we were in. Had it not been so squished, it would have been a pleasant and enjoyable ride, clickety clacking along with a breeze blowing through the open window. The fare, however, was only 207 baht (NZ$9 each) so we can’t really complain!!
At Aranyaprathet, we took a tuk-tuk (100 baht / NZ$4 ) from the station to the Cambodian border at Poiphet (15km). The border is open 07:00-20:00. We were well aware of the scam of tourists being sidetracked into a travel agency and we had bought our Cambodian visas as e-visas before hand. We tried to tell the tuk tuk driver to take us straight to the official border post but that fell on deaf ears. A gas fill-up and change of driver later, we were taken to the “scam office”. We remained adamant that we would not get out of the tuk-tuk at the “supposed official Cambodia border office” despite many attempts by the “officials” to get us out. Keeping our cool and repeating ourselves worked eventually and we were off to the proper border. It took 2 hours to pass through both borders – we didn’t realise that you passed through the Thai border control first, then you walk about 300m to the Cambodia border control, showed our e-visas, filled out health forms and then pass through the many touts trying to get you to hop on a bus to Siem Reap.
We opted for a share taxi from Poiphet to Siem Reap. The journey usually takes around 2-3 hours now that the highway has been improved, and it cost about 1300 baht for the whole car. Your bargaining skills need to be quite firm otherwise you will be ripped off quite easily! I’m so glad we’d done our research before heading off to Cambodia – forewarned is definitely forearmed!
When I say the car ride from Poipet to Siem Reap was hair-raising – I REALLY mean it! Even though the road is now paved (no longer dirt with huge pot holes!) it’s still a “take your life in your own hands” kind of trip! The cars drive on the RIGHT hand side of the road, which is weird! The water buffalos on the side of the road had minds of their own and several times our lives flashed before our eyes as trucks came onto our side of the road to avoid them!! Never mind that traffic (namely us) was coming the other way!! All the guide books said driving in Cambodia is crazy – and they are right!! Motorbikes carrying cages of piglets, baskets, gates, you name it – it can be strapped onto a motorcycle and carted around the countryside.
Arrival at Siem Reap was fraught with more scam opportunities. This time they’re after your services for getting around Siem Reap while you’re in town. We didn’t have a booking at a hotel, so this left us a little vulnerable to getting taken for a ride. We did end up at a very basic looking place to stay Home Sweet Home Guest House – it was clean and tidy – facilities were minimal – but it had all we needed, a clean place to sleep! Right next door and across the road were various places to eat so we were happy. We organised the moto-romauk (motorcycle trailer) driver to pick us up each day to visit as many temples/ruins as possible in 3 days.
I was certain that I’d already written several posts on this blog for this trip – but today I’ve discovered that I haven’t – not sure if they’ve been accidently deleted or my mind is playing tricks on me!! Maybe I just got confused and thought I’d done it. I used PhotoPeach to make a slideshow of our travel day to the Cambodia border and our first full day sightseeing in Siem Reap.
Always happy to have a 3-day weekend, even if it means lugging your laptop along so that you can finish your mid-year reports!! This time we hired a car – a nifty little Honda Jazz – and drove ourselves down to Hua Hin. Finding our way using google maps was fairly painless, and the signposting on the highways in Thailand usually include English too.
Last time we visited Hua Hin, we stayed in the Springfield area and bunked down with friends who have a condo there. This time we stayed right in the heart of Hua Hin – in a little motel on Damnoenkasem Rd, paying 1200 baht (one of the more expensive (yes, yes, I know – ridiculous NZ$50) rates for an air-conditioned double-room, with access to a pool). It was very close to the Night Baazar (which reminded us of the Suan Luam Night Bazaar back in Bangkok). We enjoyed fresh seafood (although the tiger prawns were not the best we’ve ever had) on the pier and a leisurely walk to the very end of the pier.
The 3-day weekend was of course in celebration of the King of Thailand’s birthday. At night the lights came on in a dazzling display of lanterns and flags. Continuing the leisurely walking style, we found a Euro-Thai restaurant and ate pasta for tea, connected to the wi-fi that was free if you bought Chang Beer! The beer was a welcome break from a solid 3 hours of report writing in the motel room.
Before heading back to Bangkok, we drove up the hill to Khao Takiap, 4 kms south of Hua Hin – also known as Monkey Hill. The view point from the temple right at the top is amazing (even with haze!).
Before ascending the steps, the locals purchase flowers and incense as offerings, climb their way to top, offer thanks at the feet of the buddha statue inside, then dong the bells that surround the temple with thick sticks of wood. The monkeys are a hoot – one took a liking to Ben’s empty pepsi bottle and he lost it!
Apparently there’s still much to explore around Hua Hin and it’s neighbour, Cha-am. Roll on another long weekend.
More photos of Hua Hin can be found on my photoblog under the Thailand category.
One of the benefits of being an International Educator is that you seem to travel to more countries for PD than you do when you’re in your own country (traveling outside of NZ is often so expensive that PD in another country is unrealistic).
So back in September, the opportunity to watch fellow educators who have been teaching the Writer’s Workshop model for literacy was too good to pass up – and of course the fact that it was in Hong Kong doubled the “too-good-to-pass-up” opportunity!! Whilst observing how Writer’s Workshop flows when you’ve been doing it for a while was exceptional – so too was the opportunity to sight-see around Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a beautiful city, contrasting between ancient and new. It hasn’t lost any of it’s ancient charm but has also appeared to have embraced modernism seemlessly into it’s surroundings.
A particular highlight was the light show that occurs every night down at the harbour amidst it’s own background music. With the flip camera in hand I was able to capture a 2-minute memory of what it looked and sounded like.
I loved the time I spent in Hong Kong and could quite easily go back. In fact, I wouldn’t mind living there at all. The haze was a bit disappointing, but for the most part, pollution wasn’t that noticeable. It’s quite expensive to live in Hong Kong I hear too.
You can find more photos of Hong Kong on my Photoblog.
Oh my goodness! My last post was July!! What can I say? I was expecting my second year overseas to be a little less frantic – but I was wrong! This year seems so much busier than last year and I’ve been trying to work out why? I have a funny feeling that when you are new to a position you have allow yourself the leeway to say “I’m new, what ever I manage to get done, I get done. What ever I don’t get done, I’ll do better next year.” And suddenly, you’ve doubled your workload right there and then! But I digress………
A few weekends ago, we had were fortunate enough to have a long weekend in Thailand. It wasn’t a Thai holiday – it was an ISB holiday. The students had a 4-day weekend. The teachers had a 3-day weekend. We decided to take advantage of being able to leave on a Thursday afternoon at 3pm and hire a van (3500 baht each way) to drive us (three families) to Koh Samet. It was a rather pleasant 3 hour drive (thankfully getting away at 3pm meant we missed the late afternoon traffic downtown). The van was very comfortable and seated the 9 of us well. Whilst the kids were kept amused by the DVD player (that came with the van), the adults took the time to chat, imbibe, and/or sleep (although, not necessarily in that order).
Once arriving at Ban Phae Pier, we were able to secure a speedboat for the 45 minute ride over to Koh Samet. Thanks to some serious bargaining powers from one of our group members, we weren’t charged like a wounded bull for the service. It still cost us more than it would have, if we’d arrived whilst the ferry service was operating. But that’s ok.
The island itself, is relatively small, but separated into various coves and inlets. Some being more busier than others. Our little inlet was busier than usual (since many from our school had decided to take advantage of the long weekend too!). We settled in at the Ao Cho Grandview Resort, paying a little more than usual (since accomodation seemed to be in demand this particular weekend). The scenery was idyllic. A few minutes walk meant that we could easily cross over to another beach, with more places to eat and more things to do.
We chose to take the kids snorkeling in the afternoon for a mere 350 baht for the adults and half price for the kids. The visibility on our side of the island was not great, but around the other side (and thanks to some watermelon to feed the fish) the water and the fish life was spectacular. It was also a great opportunity to see the whole island and we even stopped at the Koh Samet Fisheries Depot and walked around the planks peering into various holding pens where different species of fish, turtles, sharks etc were being bred. I’m not quite sure if this was just a tourist attraction or whether there was actual breeding and conservation of fish stocks taking place.
My overall impression – for a beach that’s only a 3 hour drive from Bangkok – it’s a good place to get away. I wouldn’t hurry back there, because I’d rather explore more places around Thailand, but it’s nice to know that the option is there.
I’ve used PhotoPeach to share our stunning first ever trip to the South Island, New Zealand. I was born and raised in the North Island, and have seen the majority of it all but was an absolute thrill to be able to take my family “down South”. Our hostess, the fabulous AllanahK, did an fabulous job of showing us around “her town“. Enjoy the scenery – it’s just amazing!
