Short & Sweet Thailand TR

[zanzibar138]

You two so deserved those VIP tickets. You did score and you are the luckiest people in the world that night. That was a sensational experience.

Looks like the way to go is straight to the festival and eat the street food there.

Thanks PIO

Yes, street food at the festival is definitely the way to go

 

[Aussie Wendy]

I agree - very lucky and very deserving, and shows what serendipity happens if you are brave enough to get off the beaten track! I do love this wonderful world of ours! (most of the time)

 

[zanzibar138]

I agree - very lucky and very deserving, and shows what serendipity happens if you are brave enough to get off the beaten track! I do love this wonderful world of ours! (most of the time)

Me too Wendy

 

[zanzibar138]

Day 2 in Phimai began super early for me with another pre-dawn run at 6am. DH decided not to join me this morning. I ran to the South Gate and allowed myself a bit of photography time there before running back to the hotel.



By the time I got back and had a shower etc, DH was ready to join me for breakfast. It was a delicious breakfast of eggs and toast with home made jam, which we enjoyed on the terrace overlooking the river. Very pleasant start to the day.

After breakfast we made our way into town, where I was planning on visiting the main temple again in the daylight. It was another hot and sticky day, but the temple was in lovely parklike surrounds with nice big trees (unlike Angkor Wat). Because of the festival, entry was free. However, access was a little limited, and the great photographic opportunity in front of the temple was spoiled by the huge black stage. I'd love to see it in its usual state.



This temple had heaps of elaborate carvings and details around the doors etc. It was just like Angkor, but on a much smaller scale. We spent quite a while exploring the various chambers and passage ways within the main temple, and a lot of the gates and side temples too.













We sat down at one of the gates and just took in the ambience for quite a while, hardly seeing another person.

When we'd had enough of temples, we moved on to our next activity for the day – the 3D Museum. This is a fairly new attraction in Phimai, and has heaps of cool artwork that people can interact with. It is designed so that your photos look like you're part of the artwork. Of course, we took heaps of photos (that being the whole idea of the place), but I won't bore you with all of them. Here's a select few.









By the time we were finished at the museum, we were getting peckish. We wandered along until we found a local restaurant. It was busy inside, so we figured it must be alright. We gestured at one of the ladies there for a table for 2. She gestured for us to sit down at a table which she proceeded to clear and wipe down for us.

She didn't even bother to bring us a menu, just gestured for 2 lunches. We gestured yes lol! And for 1 Coke to share. She began cooking up a storm at a little counter just out of the way, and brought out the most delicious gourmet fried rice I've ever eaten! Such a yummy flavour, and plenty of prawns on top.

When we were finished, DH went to pay at the front, and the lady there showed him the amount on a calculator. At 60 Baht for the both of us, including the drink, it was the cheapest meal of our trip, and the yummiest! It was great fun!

With full tummies, we wandered back to the hotel for an afternoon rest.

To be continued

 

[PrincessInOz]

What a great temple. And those 3D trompe l'oeil are fantastic! It looks like a LOT of fun.

 

[zanzibar138]

Our visit to Thailand coincided with Loy Krathong – the lantern festival. In Phimai, the emphasis is on floating lanterns, and we were advised to attend the festivities down at the waterfront that evening. On our way, we stopped in at a pub type place for dinner. It was average, but better than our previous dinner.

We pretty much just followed our noses to the waterfront. We headed towards where we thought the few flying lanterns seemed to be coming from. Once we were in the vicinity, the festival was hard to miss! The festival was surrounded by a massive market, with many vendors selling lanterns and street food.

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I went and purchased a pretty lantern for us to release. Back down at the waterfront, I tried to gesture to a few people for a light. To my surprise, one of them spoke good English, and seemed to know me. It turned out that it was the nice diplomat that I'd sat next to at the temple festival the night before! She helped me light it, then told me that the lantern I'd chosen was one representing love, and took a photo of DH and I with it. DH documented the lantern's release.

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The lantern floated out to the middle of the river, staying in the upright position the whole time. Success!

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We hung out at the waterfront for a while admiring the pretty floating lanterns and the few flying ones that people were releasing.

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Eventually we moved on to check out the rest of the festivities. There appeared to be some sort of beauty pageant happening on the stage.

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And fireworks were being set off seemingly randomly.

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There was another small pool where people had been releasing floating lanterns. I was glad we'd chosen to do ours in the river.

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There were heaps of lighting effects and sculptures etc. Unfortunately all the lights were attracting a lot of bugs!

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There was a floating lantern design competition.

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And a few carnival games set up.

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After a while, the chaos and the bugs started to get to us, so we grabbed a couple of ice-creams and headed bac to the hotel. On the way we passed a soccer match, and DH stayed to watch for a while. It was quite popular.

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The soccer pitch was right in front of the temple.

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I considered staying out to try to get a good fireworks photo with one of the gate temples in the foreground, but figured the chances of me getting a decent photo were low enough that it wasn't really worth just hanging around in the street for half an hour lol!

Back at the hotel, the staff were releasing lanterns of their own, and there was a celebratory atmosphere all round. The grounds were lit up beautifully.

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We had a pretty early start the next day, so we decided to call it a night. Unfortunately sleeping was not so easy with all the celebrations just across the river lol! Between the fireworks, the loud music, and ridiculously loud announcements, it took us a long time to get to sleep!

 

[PrincessInOz]

What a cool festival! Looks like you had a great time. The images you captured are fantastic! Pity it took you a while to get to sleep.

 

[jevs]

The 3D museum looks like something we would enjoy very much.
Thanks for the report and keep it coming

 

[zanzibar138]

What a great temple. And those 3D trompe l'oeil are fantastic! It looks like a LOT of fun.

The nicest thing about the temple was that it was nice and quiet

What a cool festival! Looks like you had a great time. The images you captured are fantastic! Pity it took you a while to get to sleep.

I was a little bit concerned about the festival being too much chaos for me, but this one was great! Just the right amount of atmosphere.

The 3D museum looks like something we would enjoy very much.
Thanks for the report and keep it coming

Glad you're enjoying it

 

[zanzibar138]

We were making our Chiang Mai today. We had thought long and hard about the best way to get there (we weren't real close to any airports in Phimai), and had decided to fly out of Khon Kaen and through Bangkok. We had to take a bus to Khon Kaen, and had gotten some great advice from the guys at the hotel.

It was a relatively early start, and we enjoyed our breakfast on the terrace again with the resident dogs for company.

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We set off for the bus stop, but had lousy timing and the bus was taking off just as we were approaching the bus stop. DH tried to flag him down and we were both surprised and delighted that he actually stopped for us! The bus was busy and there was only one seat left, which the conducter directed me to. Although we were only taking the bus to the highway, DH just paid for the whole trip to Korat because it was cheap anyway and so much easier than trying to get the conductor to understand where we were getting off lol!

It only took 10 minutes to reach the highway, where we got off at the first stop with a few other people. When the conductor saw DH and I get off the bus, he insisted on giving us money back!

The bus stop on the highway was a fairly major one, and there was even a guy there selling bus tickets. We bought ours and sat down to wait. The guy gestured to us when our bus was arriving. We managed to find 2 seats together on this bus, and settled in for the next couple of hours. We didn't quite know where we were getting off, but we managed to work it out based on the timetable and knowing that it would be a fairly major city and bus station. It was a comfortable enough journey.

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When we arrived at Khon Kaen, we got a tuk-tuk from the bus station to the airport. We briefly considered finding some lunch around the bus station area, but since we had no idea where we were and how long it would take to get to the airport, we decided it would be best to just go straight there.

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Khon Kaen airport was surprisingly large and busy for a small regional airport. We checked in and then grabbed some lunch and some iced coffees. It was a fairly pleasant place to hang around. We were slightly delayed leaving, and didn't make up any time during the flight. When we arrived at Bangkok we had to be ferried to the terminal in buses, which took a long time! Since we had business class flights, we were pretty keen to get to the terminal so we could take full advantage of our lounge time!

As it turned out, while we were waiting in the lounge, the skies opened up and there was a pretty big thunderstorm. The flight before ours wasn't able to land, so our flight was delayed and we got plenty of time in the lounge. I felt pretty sorry for all the people waiting in the boring and over-crowded gate lounge though.

Our flight to Chiang Mai was uneventful. We were staying with DH's friend, who came to pick us up at the airport. Traffic was a nightmare due to the lantern festival, and it took us a while to get home, in a flash new estate kind of on the outskirts of the city.

We didn't have long to settle in before we were whisked off to dinner. It was a full house with DH's friend, his wife, their two kids, his mother, and both his wife's parents. Luckily they have a big car! After dinner we dropped everyone else off at home and headed into the city with just DH's friend.

Chiang Mai is widely known as *the* place to experience the lantern festival. They definitely focus more on the flying lanterns, and the sky was full of them! They had also had a pageant on the canals, and we saw some of the floats while we were walking.

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It was busy and chaotic – way out of my comfort zone! But I enjoyed the decorations and taking photos around the city.

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The closer we got to the river, the busier and more chaotic it became. Fireworks were randomly being set off, and DH's friend thought it would be a great idea to tell me all about the pranksters who aimed fireworks at girls just to laugh at their reaction. I was on edge the whole night.

DH's friend bought us a lantern, and helped us release it on the bridge. Another successful release!

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We wandered a bit further up the road to a very packed bar. Along the way we were watching out for people, lanterns and fireworks.

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At the bar, there was a nice quiet area on a little barge thing on the river. Although I was slightly concerned about it sinking, I was finally able to relax a little and enjoy the views.

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We stayed out until about 1am. I am not a night person, it had been a big day, and I was exhausted from stress! I was not being very good company lol! And I very nearly lost it when I realised we had to walk back through all the chaos to get back to the car. We made it of course, and I slept very well that night!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Fabulous! I am having a little chuckle at your description of local travel on the buses.
LOVE the pictures at Chiang Mai. Absolutely gorgeous. I need to pick your brain next time.

 

[Carrie_Cat]

Some great pictures - We were in Chiang Mai for 3 weeks as part of a year out and took part in the Loi Kratong festival Nov 2013. Will be back again this year fingers crossed.

 

[zanzibar138]

Fabulous! I am having a little chuckle at your description of local travel on the buses.
LOVE the pictures at Chiang Mai. Absolutely gorgeous. I need to pick your brain next time.

It certainly was an experience! Feel free to pick my brain any time

Some great pictures - We were in Chiang Mai for 3 weeks as part of a year out and took part in the Loi Kratong festival Nov 2013. Will be back again this year fingers crossed.

Carrie! Long time no speak! Wow 3 weeks is a long time in Chiang Mai! We didn't even have 3 nights I hope you manage to get back to Thailand for the festival this year.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

The Lantern Festival looks beautiful though the crowds would get to me too, I think. Our experience nearly "going under" (ie trampled) in a festival in Kuala Lumpur once stays with me! Nice to have a local to show you around Chang Mai.

 

[zanzibar138]

The Lantern Festival looks beautiful though the crowds would get to me too, I think. Our experience nearly "going under" (ie trampled) in a festival in Kuala Lumpur once stays with me! Nice to have a local to show you around Chang Mai.

Oh wow that would be so scary! I was definitely out of my comfort zone with the crowds, but my main concern was the stray fireworks, or even being deliberately targeted!

 

[zanzibar138]

Today was our only full day in Chiang Mai. However, after last night's efforts, no one was in any hurry to get going in the morning. We started off with some massages. DH's friend took us to a local place where they didn't speak any English, but he was able to translate for us. We had booked in for an hour, but as soon as they started, the girls there exclaimed how bad we were and that we needed more time lol! We agreed to make it an hour and a half, but they ended up taking closer to 2 hours. Best massage ever.

By the time we were finished, it was around lunch time, and DH and I suggested we grab some lunch on the way back. DH's friend thought that the rest of the group had probably waited for us, so we went straight back. However, they'd already had lunch.

The next activity on the schedule for today was visiting a waterfall which was quite a long way out of town. The oldies in the group weren't sure whether they wanted to go and, honestly, I was looking forward to spending some time with DH's friend and his wife without all the hangers on lol! However, in the end they decided to join us. By the time everyone got organised and we all piled in the car, it was getting late, but the three of us still needed to eat.

We stopped at a noodle bar on the way through, where the three of us went inside to eat while the rest of the group stayed in the car. It was a bit weird and made me uncomfortable lol! I suggested the in-laws could go and get some petrol (which we also needed to do) while we were eating, which went down like a ton of bricks. We just ate as quickly as we could and got going again.

After we got petrol, DH's friend decided he needed a coffee, so we stopped at one of the many coffee shops around Chiang Mai. I have never had so many iced frappe type beverages as I did on this trip lol!



After driving for what seemed like forever, and DH's friend wondering if we were lost, we finally made it to the waterfall. We all got changed and hurried over! This was not your average waterfall. It was covered in a calcium deposit which was so grippy we could easily climb up! Even for this overly cautious individual who is too scared to climb a ladder lol!



The waterfall was so much fun, and the water was clear and refreshing. It was the most time I've spent in water since I was a kid - we were there for hours!



Eventually it was time to go, so we hauled ourselves out to get dried and changed, and got back in the car for the long drive home.

DH's friend took us out for dinner that night at a nice restaurant along the river, but we were all so tired from our big day that we didn't stay out long. DH and I still needed to get organised and pack, as the next day would be the last of our trip.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Looks nice and refreshing!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Another great day.
Except for lunch....the oldies stayed in the car whilst you all ate? WOW! I'm with you. That would have been uncomfortable.

 

[zanzibar138]

Another great day.
Except for lunch....the oldies stayed in the car whilst you all ate? WOW! I'm with you. That would have been uncomfortable.

I'll admit that I usually prefer to do my own thing when travelling. Because we were only in Chiang Mai for 2 nights, I agreed to stay with DH's friend. However, if I'd have known how many hangers on there would be, I probably would have insisted we stay at a hotel close by. For this introvert, it was completely exhausting having so many people around, especially when I really didn't know most of them, one of them insisted on preaching to me at every opportunity, and two of them didn't speak any English at all lol!

 

[PrincessInOz]

I'll admit that I usually prefer to do my own thing when travelling. Because we were only in Chiang Mai for 2 nights, I agreed to stay with DH's friend. However, if I'd have known how many hangers on there would be, I probably would have insisted we stay at a hotel close by. For this introvert, it was completely exhausting having so many people around, especially when I really didn't know most of them, one of them insisted on preaching to me at every opportunity, and two of them didn't speak any English at all lol!

Just imagine....if everyone of them spoke English!