Overland from Chiang Rai, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos

Getting a ride from Chiang Rai to the border is very easy. The are many local buses that depart from the bus terminal in the centre of town. The bus ride takes about 2hrs. At the border town Chiang Khong tuk tuks are waiting to take people to the border crossing for a fixed price of about 60 baht.

At the border it takes no time at all to get stamped out of Thailand so long as you have the proper documents and didn't overstay your visa. For about 30 baht per person you take a small motorised boat across the Mekong river to Laos. The ride only takes about 10 minutes. If you go to the Lao immigration on a weekend or after 4pm you'll be charged an additional fee of 1usd. At this borderyou can get a visa on arrival after filling out the immigration forms and paying the visa fee (30usd for most nationalities).

The Laos border town doesn't have much to offer other than the very highly rated Flight of the Gibbon eco-zipline experience. The weather wasn't good when we were there so we skipped on it. Most people take the slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, we took the overnight bus. It left from the bus park at about 5pm and took about 15hrs to get to Luang Prabang. The roads in Laos are in pretty bad shape and wind up and over mountain passes. It's almost impossible to driver faster than 50kph due to all the twists and hairpin turns.

There's a common scam at the the border where people say the boat isn't running and you end up spending night after night at the border. Don't be fooled!

Koh Tao, Thailand

If you've ever thought about getting your scuba diving certification Koh Tao is one of the best if not the best place in the world to do it. There are dive shops galore offering just about every course available. The PADI open water course costs about US$300 and takes 4 days to complete. The cost usually includes accommodation. Koh Tao is the cheapest place in the world to do the open water course and offers really good dive spots to practice your skills. I did my course with Davey Jones' Locker (DJL). The staff there was really friendly, knowledgeable, and did a great job teaching me the course and keeping me away from the coral underwater.

There are loads of restaurants, dive shops, hotels, bungalows, and bars in the main town in Koh Tao. Just like in the other islands there are nightly fire shows at some of the restaurant / bars on the beach.

I spent my entire time in Koh Tao doing the dive course so I didn't the rest of the island. The easiest way to get to Koh Tao from Bangkok is to book a train + bus + ferry combo at the rail station. There are friendly English-speaking staff there to help you. You can also take a ferry from Koh Samui or Koh Phangan. 

Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

For such a small island, Koh Phi Phi offers quite a bit. For starters, it's easily one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It's one of three places on the planet that have amazing rock formations that rise up out of the water as if they were fingers. The accommodation options on the island range from basic guesthouses that run for about US$20 per night to luxury resorts which can cost in the hundreds. There are no publicly available motorized vehicles on the island, the only ones I saw belong to the guys who haul out the rubbish each evening. 

You can snorkel, dive, wakeboard, banana boat, hike, or just laze on the beach. Oh and you can party like a rockstar every night. There are nightly fireshows on the beach and as the fireshows come to a close the party gets started with free buckets and hordes of bucket-loving party goers. Being able to party on the beach nightly is awesome! There are loads of tattoo parlors where you can get traditional bamboo needle tattoos lining the road to the beach so it's very easy to wake up with a tattoo in the morning. 

We were lucky enough to have enough people to hire our own boat for a tour of the Phi Phi Islands at a cost of about US$20 per person and there were about 15 of us. We went to all the usual stops like Mosquito Island but on our own schedule which was really nice. Although we did have some mechanical issues at one point which led to the boat almost drifting into a limestone karst and me almost drowning cause the boat kept slowing drifting away from me but thankfully my mates helped me get back onto the boat. All in all, it was an amazing day capped off with a spectacular sunset; easily one of the most memorable days I've had while traveling. 

To get to Koh Phi Phi, you can take a ferry from Phuket, Krabi, or Koh Lanta. The ferry is about 1 to 1.5 hours from any of those places. There's an airport in Phuket and in Krabi; in both cases the ferry terminal is not too far away. Oh, and if you've ever seen the movie "The Beach", this is where it was shot.

Sunset over Phuket, Thailand - Nov 2010

Hampi, India to Bangkok, Thailand - Sep 2010

This was probably the longest journey of my travels. Originally I was hoping to travel from India to Thailand overland, but unfortunately the military junta in Myanmar (Burma) doesn't allow for that. The only other possible overland route would require me to backtrack through Tibet and then cross the dodgy China - Laos border. I don't like to backtrack so I had to rule out that route as well. I sucked it up and bought a flight from Chennai (Madras) to Bangkok via Colombo on Sri Lankan Airways for about 170USD. Chennai is located on the east coast of India and Hampi is quite far away.

To get to Chennai I started walking from my guesthouse in Hampi to the bus park at around 6pm. Luckily a bus was already loading up and about to leave. That walk took about 10 minutes. The ride from Hampi to Hospet was another 40 minutes and luckily for me the bus attendant didn't bother to collect my fare even though I was ready to pay him. After arriving in Hospet, the walk to the rail station took about 30 min down the main road, a distance of about 2km. My overnight train to Bangalore (Bengaluru) was delayed a bit but thankfully wasn't too late. I had another train to catch from Bangalore to Chennai in the morning.

When the train arrived I didn't have a reserved bed so I ended up sharing a bed (class AC3) with a very large Indian guy. Other than it being uncomfortable since the beds aren't made for 2 people (let alone 2 very big men) I really didn't mind since I can pretty much fall asleep anywhere. He had a great idea and went to go sleep on the floor but in exchange for his sacrifice he took all the bedding and pillow. I improvised with what I had in my daypack and used my waterproof as a pillow. Luckily the train attendant came by later on and got me a fresh bedding set. I met some interesting people on the train such as some Chinese businessmen and their Indian counterpart in the granite trade. It also turns out they also were making the same connection to Chennai.

In Bangalore I had about 1 hour to kill before boarding the train to Chennai. I splurged and got a reserved seat in the aircon carriage. The only other option was to ride in the human cattle car which I would've done if I were carrying a smaller pack but after the already long journey I didn't want to squeeze into an overstuffed rail car. I promptly fell asleep once the train got started on the 6 hour journey to Chennai. Luckily I did wake up in time to eat and got my last taste of the surprisingly delicious and very cheap food for sale on the train. The India Rail company also has a massive catering arm which serves up fresh hot meals at the stations and on the train.

From Chennai Central Station I walked over to the backpacker area called Egmore with the help of my compass and map which I saved onto my mobile. I should also note that I haven't showered since yesterday morning and I've already done quite a bit of walking while carrying over 20kg. Oh and it's summertime...in southern India. It took me some time but I finally found the post and sent out some postcards which I had been too lazy to send out in the past couple of weeks. Once I got that sorted I enjoyed my last 2 Kingfishers and then took the local train to the airport. I think the fare was like 10 rupees (appx 0.20 USD). I had a lovely chat with a local guy on the train who worked for the military. The friendliest people I've met in India have been on the trains and interestingly enough, many of them have been military personnel.

The Chennai airport is definitely on the disorganized side. Not quite chaotic, but definitely not very organized. First off, I had an e-ticket but to get into the airport they wanted to see a printout of the ticket. Seriously, what's the point of an e-ticket if I have to print it out? After a bit of discussion, I had the security guy check the passenger manifest and showed him my passport, then he let me in. Next up was trying to check-in. The staff had no idea when the check-in opened nor where I should check in. They kept pointing me to the wrong queue. I got fed up with their stupidity and found the correct check-in area on my own. This confusion could've been avoided had there been proper signs posted...but it's India.

After getting through that mess I finally got to the immigration desk. The officer looked at my passport for a while and said he couldn't find my entry stamp. I found it for him and pointed it out to him. He then asked me where the port of entry is even though it's clearly stated on the entry stamp. I said "Sonauli" and he asked me where that is. After explaining to him how I entered the country via the India - Nepal border and pointing out all the details on the stamp including the handwritten entry date he finally stamped me out. I'm still not sure to this day whether he was an idiot or he was looking for a bribe.

The rest of the journey went smoothly. I arrived in Sri Lanka for my layover and made use of the free internet kiosks till I boarded my flight for Bangkok. The airport in Colombo is one of the nicest I've ever been in. Really really nice. I, on the hand, was really really filthy after having traveled for so long on the Indian public transport network without a shower. It doesn't happen often that I can actually smell myself, but today was one of those days. The plane landed in Bangkok on time and then after weaving through the heavy Bangkok traffic I finally arrived at my hostel in Silom around 10 or 11am. It was a long 2 days and rarely has a shower felt so good!

Sunset over the Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

Overland from Koh Tao to Phuket

The ferry portion of the journey went smoothly. We paid 820THB at Lotus Travel for the entire journey. Songserm was the ferry provider and the boat left pretty much on time for Koh Phangan. At Phangan we switched boats for one heading to Koh Samui and the Don Sak Ferry Terminal. At Don Sak, there were buses waiting to take us onward. All going smoothly so far...till we got to Surat Thani. We were taken to a transfer station outside of town with almost no stores or restaurants around and told we'd have to wait an hour there. The staff at this place was incredibly rude and unhelpful despite their fake nice demeanor. I asked a guy if I could see a map of Phuket which they had shown us earlier and he tried to ignore me even though I asked 4 times after which I just picked it up off the table that he was sitting at and he flipped out. Wanker! The one hour wait turned into a 1.5 hour wait and when I asked what the holdup was they produced some more bullshit about there not being a bus available yet and that we'd have to wait another hour. Others ended up paying an additional 300THB to hire a minibus to their destinations because they got tired of waiting. I reported this news back to everyone and sensing the mood changing the staff rounded us up into a songthaew and took us to a random petrol station where a government bus eventually showed up to refuel and we got on. While we were waiting for this bus they were "joking" that we'd have to spend the night in Surat Thani. Not funny. We finally reached Phuket Town at about 11pm and walked down to the main road to get a tuktuk since the ones at the bus park were trying to rip us off. 14 hours total travel time. Unpleasant.

Koh Phangan, Thailand

All I've been doing on Koh Phangan is partying, playing beach volleyball, jumping into the sea and seeing incredible sunsets. Tonight is the Full Moon Party, hopefully will be partying till the sun comes up!

Sunset on Leela Beach

Overland from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Bangkok, Thailand

This journey was much worse just 2 years ago when the road on the Cambodian side wasn't paved. Nowadays, there's a paved and sealed road on both sides of the border which allows for quick land transport to and from. Now here's the hitch: Thai buses aren't allowed in Cambodia and Cambodian buses aren't allowed in Thailand. Despite all the promises of there being a toilet, no people sitting in the aisle, etc etc there isn't going to be a toilet and there will be people sitting in plastic chairs in the aisle on the bus from Siem Reap to the border at Poipet.

Now back to the hitch...Since the Cambodian bus isn't allowed to cross into Thailand you would think it would be as simple as having a bus waiting to pick you up on the Thai side. But as with all things in this part of the world, it's not so simple. We stopped at the bus company's office about 2km from the border to exchange our tickets for red stickers. Every bus company has their own color to distinguish themselves. The fact that there's no overlap in color leads me to believe that they're all working together in some sort of price fixing scheme. Now back to the stickers...we were stopped at their office for nearly an hour waiting for the guy to come up with the stickers. A better way of doing this would have been to give out the stickers when we boarded the bus instead of wasting an hour handing out stickers. Idiots! 

Like all border towns, Poipet is really seedy and not a nice place to stay for longer than you have to. The only thing you can do here is gamble at one of the many casinos that have popped up in recent years. Crossing through Cambodian immigration took a while because they're not equipped to handle large amounts of people but immigration on the Thai side went very smoothly. After crossing over we then waited for over an hour while the idiot bus staff arranged minibuses to take us to either Bangkok or Koh Chang. Why it took so long to get people into minibuses is beyond me. It's not difficult to put 12-13 people and their luggage into a bus. It certainly doesn't require an hour to get it sorted. And in the end after all the fuss the bus company staff put us through to fill up the vehicle there was an empty seat on our minibus. It never ceases to surprise me how dumb people can be. Thankfully the rest of the ride went smoothly despite our driver thinking he was on a formula 1 racetrack.

For those of you planning on taking this trip, the current going rate is 8USD for the full ride from Siem Reap to Bangkok. There are 2 toilet breaks along the way but no food stops so be sure to bring food and water with you before departing Siem Reap. We stopped for petrol around 16:00 and luckily there was a noodle stand there but before this point the only thing available was a semi-ripe mango for 20THB at the Thai border. Departure time is around 08:00 and arrival time is around 18:00 near Khao San Road.

Fish Massage in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Look at the little fishies go! It tickles at first but my feet have never felt so clean!

Indian Hygiene

There's been quite in stir in India lately due to an Indian official's comments regarding standards of hygiene (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/world/asia/25india.html?scp=1&sq=&st=nyt). Yes, the buildup to the Commonwealth Games has been a disaster but apparently this guy went too far by implying that Indian hygienic standards are lower than those of people from other nations. To be fair, I didn't live in India or visit many people's homes so I can't comment on private hygiene. In public however, India is just plain filthy. There's rubbish, cow dung, and flies nearly everywhere. It was the first thing I noticed when I crossed the Nepal - India border. In my opinion, this is strongly associated with the typical Indian citizen's views on hygiene and cleanliness. Sure, you may keep your home clean, but why do you pee and throw your rubbish out onto the street? Doesn't the smell and the ever present piles of rubbish bother you? For me, the issue of hygiene and cleanliness became more than clear when I left India for Thailand. Thailand is an immaculately clean place mostly because it's a part of the culture to keep things clean. I'm staying in a jungle hut which is cleaner than many of the brick-and-mortar places I stayed in India. Call it post-India syndrome or whatever, but I'm still astonished at how clean things are in Thailand compared to the filth I routinely witnessed in India.

Mosquito Island, Thailand - Jan 2010

Stopped on Mosquito Island for lunch while I was touring the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand...