My travels through Asia and beyond

Chiang Mai has some beautiful old buildings, that you just don’t see in Bangkok and other areas. Here some pictures I took this morning while walking to breakfast.

Wat Chedi Luang, a beautiful teak temple.

This building is part of the AUA (American University Alumni) where foreigners can study Thai Language. At some time in the future I would like to study Thai and this place is one of the more places to go. The name of the school is a little off-putting for me, but the buildings and grounds look beautiful.

This looks to be a private residence.

This is another nice Thai style building which is being used as some kind of architecture exhibition center. There was no-one around when I went in, except for two mangy looking, snarling dogs. Eventually a woman surfaced and said there was an exhibition on upstairs. For some reason she also told me not to touch the dogs.

I have made use of the free wifi where I am currently staying in Chiang Mai and added a travel forum to this site to handle the hundreds of queries I receive each day on traveling in Asia (not really but I thought it sounded good).

Starting a forum takes a bit of time, but since I like participating in forums, I thought I might as well be doing it on my own site. I still have change the default template (look) of the site to make it a little more pleasing on the eye, but it is a good start for now.

And who says I am not working hard!

My office for the day.

I like reading travel blogs, especially those written by people traveling in Asia. I can’t remember which blog I saw it on, but I remember seeing a picture of a sign which reads “Second best pizza in Chiang Mai”. I came across the restaurant yesterday and thought I should get a picture too.

I can’t imagine a restaurant in Australia making such a slogan. A lot of people see the sign and stop to take a picture, so as a marketing tool, I suppose it works.

The restaurant is part of a guesthouse called the Rose Guest House which according to their website has rooms from 80 baht to 180 baht a person, which is pretty cheap!

This list is for Aussies currently working or traveling in Asia as to where they can see the Melbourne Cup. If you are showing the event in public in Asia let us know and we can add it to the list.

Beijing

AustCham & ANZA will be hosting an event to be held at the Hilton hotel. Further details can be found here.

Shanghai

Big Bamboo

Tokyo

Possibly shown at Hobgoblin or Tokyo Sports Cafe.

Bangkok

Australian-New Zealand Women’s Group is holding a luncheon at the Amari Watergate Hotel.

The Sports Corner (Sukhumvit Soi 20) and Big John’s Backpacker Hostel & Restaurant are two Aussie run places which might be showing the Cup.

Jakarta

The ANZA group in Jakarta have canceled their luncheon over security concerns with the upcoming execution of the Bali bombers.

I arrived in Chiang Mai early yesterday morning. It was a long bus ride (for me) but I got a little sleep. Some passengers on the bus were already booked in for a day’s trekking that day. All I wanted to do was eat and sleep. Chiang Mai is a little cooler than Bangkok and quite pleasant weather for south-east Asia.

Traffic is much lighter which is also good for a change. Central Chang Mai is surrounded by a square moat and apparently has as many temples as Bangkok. It is not surprising that is seems to have quite a large expat community. Today (Sunday) they had a market along the main streets, with people selling food, crafts and souvenirs.

I am out of touch with the news, but they have CNN on where I am writing this and it is just two days until the U.S. election.

I am taking a bus tonight to Chiang Mai. I have spent quite a bit of time in Thailand now, but never made it up to Chiang Mai. The bus ride is at least 10 hours from Bangkok and it is far from any beach, which probably has something to do with it.

I am staying in Khao-san road area now and there seems to be less places offering free wifi than I could find on previous visits. Some places are charging 40baht an hour, which is still pretty cheap, but I still like to find places where it is free (at least with food/drinks).

Truewifi.net seem to be offering some kind of free service which I need to look into.

Ethos a vegetarian restaurant still offer free wifi and their food is pretty tasty.

This happened a couple of months ago, but I thought I would still write about it. A British tourist was electrocuted in Thailand when he stepped in a puddle that contained a live power cable.

It is believed he had come into contact with exposed power cables and those who were nearby could do nothing to help for fear of electrocuting themselves.

Walking home last night, I saw these guys trying to make some repairs to a power line. Not a job I would like to have in Thailand.

I thought I would make a bit of stop to Koh Samet Island on my way back to Bangkok from Koh Chang. I visited Koh Samet a few years ago. Of course it has developed quite a bit since then as you can expect, but it is a fairly nice place to visit and only 2-3 hours from Bangkok. I know it is popular on the weekends with Thais and expats living in Bangkok, so I thought it would be nice and quiet visiting mid-week, unfortunately I didn’t realize it was a public holiday – Chulalongkorn Day to be exact. The day is the aniversary of King Chulalongkorn, or King Rama V’s death in 1910.

It seems like many people have even come just for the day. I still managed to find a bungalow for 500 baht a night, even though many places were full.

The main beach Hat Sai Kaew, is busy and probably the worst place to stay – too many jet skis and speed boats runnning around. Any of the beaches south of Hat Sai Kaew are much quieter and it is still fairly easy to walk back to Hat Sai Kaew.

Couldn’t find any places though that had free wi-fi, otherwise it would be nice to stay longer.

I have seen at least two people now post messages on Thailand travel forums about this scam, so I thought that I would repost it here. You can read the whole thread here from the Thai visa forum.

Basically bike or car rental shops in Thailand are using people’s passports as security. The person who posted to the forum rented a bike on Koh Tao and used his passport as security. When he returned the bike, the rental shop owner said he damaged the bike and demanded 24,000 baht to cover the damage. He claims no damage was done and refused to pay, although he did make a counter offer of 10,000 baht.

The guy told the shop owner he would just get a new passport, which the shop owner countered that she would sell his passport on the black market. Reporting the problem to the police, didn’t get far.

The morale of the story is never use your passport as security, better to pay a cash deposit. If there is trouble, at least you can just walk away. Not getting your passport back can lead to other serious problems.

I found it was fairly common in Vietnam for hotel owners to hold your passport. It is good for them, as there is no way you can leave without paying. If they really need it for identification purposes, you can just give them a photocopy.