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Public Zone 公開區 => Travelogues 遊記相薄 => Topic started by: chin on 27 May 2009, 06:17:17
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In the summer of 2008, my family went to Thailand for the summer holiday.
We first spent a few days in Bangkok visiting the typical tourist traps, then went to Krabi for the sun and beach.
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I have been to Thailand many times, and at one point in my early working life, I went to Bangkok every other week for a few months working on an M&A project. However this was my first time touring Bangkok as a tourist.
Our hotel the Peninsula Bangkok is right on the river with its own pier to ferry customers across the river. My kids had lots of fun riding the ferry.
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During the few days in Bangkok, we hired a local guide with a van. It was arranged via the Internet and it worked really well.
The first day was packed with visit to the water market, tiger temple, etc...
I saw these nice orchids during a toilet stop.
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I did not know orchids grow in the "air"!
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The toilet stop was in a ceremic factory. Our tour guide dutifully spent a few minutes showed us the factory.
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The first touist trap of the day was the floating market.
I strongly suspect that this "market" is just for tourist only. But it was kind of fun to see anyway.
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One of the hundreds of vendors.
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The biggest shop in this floating market was actually on dry land. At the corner was a brewing sugar cane juice.
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Take a closer look. The flying thingy were just bees, not flies.
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The market was getting really crowded. Time to head out.
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The next "toilet break" happened in a large handicraft complex. These pictures show the wood craftmen working the woods. Just about each one of them asked if we would like to buy their set of tools.
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Not all the "work stations" were occupied. In an empty one I saw this working plan and a photo of another wood elephant.
Sometimes I suspect this kind of setups were staged to creat an authentic feel. In our visit to New Zealand, we passed one town with many jewelry shops. Each one of them had a "workshop" with benches, plans, tools. But none of them had any craftman. The workshop was probably just part of the show.
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This guy was working on a very large piece, and at this particular moment, was using his fist as a hammer.
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The next stop was the tiger temple. At first we can see the tigers from perhaps 20-30 meters away.
Majestic animals! Poor them.
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We were divided into a few groups then joined the "walk the tiger". We were actually more like following the tiger, walking behind a big one, taking turns walk up next to the tiger and touch it. The touists would passed their camera to the staff so they can take pictures of the touist touching the still working tiger.
At the end of the walk, we arrived at this area where many tigers was getting ready to take a nap.
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While waiting, other "walk the tiger" group are joining us.
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Playing dead?!
The tigers were taking naps right in front of our eyes. And this particular one sleep so deep that nobody can wake him up. I asked if the tigers were sedated with substance. The answer was No.
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The monk was checking the "play dead" tiger, then tourists like us happily molest the sleeping tigers. ;)
This trip took place almost 1 year ago and I do not remember many of the details now. I think we were told that the tigers were fed cooked meat so they are not used to eat raw meat and reduce the chance of attacking human or other animals.
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Whilte the main group was staying with the adult tigers, we ventured around and found this small young tiger taking a nap.
More photo ops.
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We were told that the tiger temple started as a regular temple. One time someone rescued a tiger cub and the temple took in the tiger and provided care. To "tame" the tigers, the temple fed them only cooked meat.
Since then the temple acquired a reputation, and people start sending young unwanted animal to them. By now they have bears, horses, buffalos, deer, and other animals.
Before we visited the temple, our guide prepared cucumbers and other vegetable so we can feed the animals.
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I took this picture in a short stop to feed monkeys.
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Last major stop for the day was the Bridge over River Kwai 桂河橋.
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Another view of the bridge.
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On the Thai end of the bridge was a shopping complex, with many shops operated and targeting mainland Chinese customers. I checked out their real ivory, and of course they were not real ivory. Just some cheap imitation without even bother to imitate the unique ivory pattern.
On the other side of the shopping complex was this big tree. Big and old trees are thought to have spirit, I guess.
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On the other side of the Kwai River Bridge (The Burma side, I assume) was a monument commorating the Chinese solders who fought the Japanese in WW2. It was still well maintained with proper offerings, etc...
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The next day we visited the weekend market in Bangkok. There were probably over 1000 stalls selling all kinds of stuff. This particular section was for pet shops, and I saw this baby parrot.
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My kids had lots of fun playing with the puppies. The price was very low comparing to HK.
This one was begging to be taken home???
It was a very hot day, and after 2 hours or so it was too much for us. That evening we had dinner in a place called Blue Elephant.
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Today we visited the royal palace. Gold was the theme colour. Some random images from the visit to the palace.
First the buildings.
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More building closers & decorations.
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Then the gods, devils and other statues.
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:)
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On the shoulder of a giant.
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An army.
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Maybe this was at the royal temple?
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After the royal palace, we took a boat tour of the rivers near the palace. A few houses were nice looking, but mostly not. Lots of kids were having fun in their backyard waterway, and many waved to us.
In one section of the river, we stopped to feed a very large group of 鯉魚. We fed the fishes with old bread and they just jump out of water on top of each other in the feeding frenze.
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In this particular, it's a custom for people to put coins in each of the little buckets.
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I forgot where was this picture taken. (Forgetting is what happened when you do not write the travel journals right away...)
Perhaps in the temple with a massage training school? I had a little foot massage there. It was not quite comparable to a real spa, but it was very cheap.
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We spent the next few days of our holiday in Krabi. The town is very near Phuket and in fact many of the outer island destinations are the same as those day tours from Phuket, but cheaper.
We stayed in the Sheraton Krabi Beach Resort. Comparing to the luxury of the Peninsula in Bangkok, the rooms at Sheraton was very utilitarian. Not that they were bad, just simple and practical. The hotel was built on a swamp, and preserved many mangroves and little animals. Walking around on the raised walking path in the hotel, we could see many skipper fishes, small crabs with one giant arm, big monitor lizards.
The beach was very nice, and exceeded my expectation. The sand was truely fine soft powder sand. In the morning, we saw many sea urchin on the beach got washed up. I took these pictures with my phone. On the second pic, the sea urchin was watching me???
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Another picture taken with my phone camera.
During the few days we stayed in Sheraton Krabi, there was an Indian marketing company hold a conference in the hotel. Each night they would setup tents on the beach or next to the pool to have their dinner party.
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One of the day tour we took was kayak in the river.
I had seriously under-estimatd the effort required to paddle the boat with my own weight on. >:(
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One of the caves visited in the kayak trip.
The most memorable part of the kayak trip has to be my dad fell into the water. He was trying to leave the kayak when the guide was distracted. In my opinion the fall wasn't life threatening as the water was very shallow and many helps were closeby. But it was a big shock to him. By now it is a funny family tale and my kids made a song out of it.
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Inside one of the caves, we saw lots of skipper fish, and our guide caught a small crab with bright blue color.
Why the crab evolved to have such bright colour?
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Picture of a bright coloured rooster in a catfish farm.
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Another hotel picture taken with my phone camera. In the far background is the baby elephant kept at the hotel. The baby elephant is popular with kids and adults.
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More random pictures of the hotel and vicinity.
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:)
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Beach fun. This kid was from Hong Kong. She seem to spend lots of the time with the maid. Where were the parents?
The patch of the beach in our hotel was very nice and soft. But we walked about 1 km to the side and the sands were very rough with lots of broken shells. Perhaps the hotel was built on the best patch of beach in Krabi.
One day we hired a boat to go to the Hong Island, and the boat just "land" on the hotel beach to pick us up and drop us off. Much nicer than taking a tour bus to the designated pier. Charter the private power boat for one day cost about 8000 baht and can fit about 8 people. And we have ants for suppliment in our lunch boxes.
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The last breakfast in the hotel for this trip.
Thailand is so close and accessible to us that no wonder some people say Bangkok/Phuket is Hong Kong people's backyard. (OK, some say the same about places in the mainland China.)
And since it's very easy for us to travel to Thailand, I never have much of the urge to find out more about the Thai history, cultures or other stories. Almost all my holidays in Thailand were sort of like in a bubble.
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On the shoulder of a giant.
Hey, maybe the bird is not scared of the 'giant'! :D :] :)