Author: Sara

“Is this the Thailand you’ve been searching for?” (Lovely Prachuap Khiri Khan)

After the sober sights of the last few days, it was time to continue on our path southwards and visit the catchily-named town of Prachuap Khiri Khan. This small town came highly recommended by Lonely Planet as being off the beaten track, our previous guesthouse owner had described it as unspoilt, and it received a glowing write-up from the same blogger couple who had loved Nong Khai, so we were pretty confident that we were onto a winner.

We boarded the open-windowed train bound for Bangkok, but hopped off after about two hours to change onto a southbound train. This required some planning and speed, since the train really didn’t stop for long at each station and they weren’t announced in advance. Thankfully, all our practice at Public Transit Roulette meant that we were ready! The train conductor seemed very surprised to see that we were on the move and wanted to know where we were going. Repeating “Prachuap Khiri Khan” three times because our pronunciation was so poor took quite a while, but eventually he understood and took great pride in telling us that there was a train heading in that direction in 40 minutes – well, we knew that, that’s why we were here! We thanked him anyway, and we were really amused to see him hanging off the train as it pulled out of the station, beaming at us and calling, “Remember, 40 minutes!”.

Our next train was scheduled to take five hours and we’d treated ourselves to second class in the hope of some air conditioning, but no such luck. It was another window-cooled train, and we were soon to learn that these are even more of an assault on the senses by night since this is when the bugs turn up!

When we eventually arrived in Prachuap Khiri Khan around 10pm, we were pretty tired and absolutely filthy from the open train windows, but we had just one more mode of transport to tackle before we could shower and sleep: a tuk tuk meets motorbike side car. I can confidently say it is one of the least comfortable forms of transport I’ve ever taken, but it got us safely to our destination with only moderate jarring of our backs and necks, so I won’t complain!

The next morning, we borrowed bikes from our hotel to get around town. Amazingly, these were free of charge and roadworthy (but the lock did jam shut later in the day, leaving passers by to assume we were attempting to steal them – you can’t have everything)! Our first destination was the local air base, because we’d read that we could show our passports to get access to the best beach in the area, which sat within the base. In reality, the guard seemed supremely relaxed about letting us pass and simply gestured us towards a neighbouring building where there was a book to sign in. There were no headers at the top of the page and no one to ask, so just as everyone previous had presumably done, we copied the person above and the errors continued down the page – I’m sure we wrote ‘beach’ in at least four of the columns! We hopped back on our bikes and cycled through the beautifully tended grounds – and then right across the runway!

As we pulled up at the beach, Oli turned to me and asked, “So is this the Thailand you’ve been searching for?” It really was!

After a day spent at the beach, we headed into town for a cycle along the promenade, which was an equally chilled affair.

The next day was the first of a multi-day journey that would take us nearly to the Malaysian border, but we couldn’t leave before picking up our laundry. Bizarrely, they had scrawled ‘Oli’ onto the label of every single item we gave them, and where the garment didn’t have a label, just straight onto the fabric with a permanent marker. We’ve had a few weird laundry experiences, but this has to be the strangest!

With that, it was time to bid farewell to Prachuap Khiri Khan to continue our journey south. It occurs to me now that we never did sign out of the air base, I do hope they’re not still looking for us…

A street food tour of Northern Thailand

Every year from late February, some farmers in Southeast Asia use the ‘slash and burn’ method of farming to clear their land and get it ready for planting. The smoke that this creates does terrible things for the air quality in some areas, particularly the valleys of Northern Thailand, and we’d read that the whole region was best avoided until the first rains around June. We needed to pass through on our way south, so planned to do so as quickly as possible with only two things on the agenda: go to the White Temple in Chiang Rai and try Khao Soi, one of Northern Thailand’s most iconic dishes.

Chiang Rai

We crossed from Laos into Thailand bright and early as the border opened, then took a minibus to Chiang Rai, making a beeline for Wat Rong Khun, better known as the White Temple. On the face of it, this is a normal (well, very beautiful) whitewashed temple, covered in shards of mirror that glitter in the light.

But the closer we looked, the stranger things became. For starters, to enter the temple, we had to cross a bridge over a pool of hands reaching up from the depths, which represent unrestrained desire. This is surrounded by a wall of interlinked skeletons, skulls, and more hands, which was really quite creepy.

When we got inside, things got really quite strange. As well as the usual Buddha image and spaces for prayer and reflection, the interior walls were adorned with murals ranging from Hello Kitty and Elvis, to Star Wars, the Matrix and the Twin Towers. No photos are allowed inside, but I managed to sneak one – this is just one very small part of a highly confusing whole.

The project is the brainchild of Chalermchai Kositpipat, a local artist, who is building his creation on the site of an existing temple which had been in a poor state of repair. Apparently he plans for the building work to continue until 2070 and believes that his involvement will grant him immortal life!

⏰ Khao Soi o’Clock

After an early start, we were more than ready for our late lunch, and what a lunch it was! Khao Soi is normally described as yellow noodles in a coconut curry broth, and if I’m honest, I thought it sounded a bit generic and unlikely to be a stand out dish. We headed to Khao Soi Phor Jai and I got totally schooled on my preconceptions – it was utterly delicious. We resolved to try as many versions as we could while we were in the region (and created our very own scoring system while we were at it).

Broth: Combining the perfect spice level (i.e. pretty spicy) with intense coconut, lime and curry flavours, and yet not overpoweringly rich. How did they do it?! A masterpiece. 5/5
Noodles: Yellow as advertised. 4/5
Chicken: Chunks of chicken breast, no complaints. 4/5
Topping: The deep-fried noodles were perched up out of reach of the broth, meaning they remained crunchy for longer. Ingenious. 5/5
Price: 40 baht for a smallish bowl (approximately £1)

Chiang Mai

We woke up to unseasonal pouring rain, which was a bit of a surprise, but it did mean that the haze cleared gradually during our three-hour bus to Chiang Mai. We couldn’t believe our luck – as far as we understand, blue skies and being able to spend time comfortably outside is pretty much unheard of this time of year.

⏰ Khao Soi o’Clock (again)

Our first stop was of course lunch – in fact, we were so keen that we bailed off early from the Songthaew that was taking us from the bus station to the city centre because we realised we were passing close to a reknowned Khao Soi joint on Halal Street in the Islamic quarter.

Broth: The earthiest of the three we tried, with definite leanings towards an Indian curry flavour. 4/5
Noodles: 4/5
Chicken: An absolute stand out – anyone who can make chicken breast this succulent and melt-in-the-mouth has my utmost respect! It had its own delicious flavour distinct from the broth, too. 5/5
Topping: Tasty but soggy 😞 3/5
Price: 60 baht for a smallish bowl (approximately £1.50)

DIY food tour

We spent the afternoon exploring some of Chiang Mai’s old town before tackling the important issue of dinner. For this, we wrote a list of foods we wanted to try and got going on a DIY night market food tour. And by this, I don’t mean that we toured multiple stalls in one night market to find our dinner, but actually that we toured multiple night markets! We are nothing if not dedicated…

Our first stop was to try Sai ua, often known as Chiang Mai sausage. Much like the utterly delicious Lao version of the previous week, this was a highly seasoned sausage of pork, galangal, chilli, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. It packed a punch and was the perfect starter!

Our second stop was for Kôw kăh mŏo at the famous stall of ‘Cowboy Hat Lady’ – we’d read that you couldn’t miss her, and it was true! Once we’d navigated the baffling ordering process, she was serving up slow cooked pork leg over rice, with a boiled egg and pickled greens. It might not look like much, but it was really tasty – and we always enjoy discovering dishes that subvert our ideas about a country’s cuisine.

Our final stop was for pudding, and we just had to go for the Thai street food classic of mango sticky rice – glutinous rice mixed with coconut milk and palm sugar, topped with freshly sliced mango, yellow mung beans and more coconut milk. Neither of us had ever tried this before, mostly because we’d only seen it for sale in quite touristy spots and that had been enough to put us off on the authenticity front. But we didn’t want to leave Thailand without giving it a go, and once we’d tried it we both decided that we didn’t really care whether it was a traditional dish (it is), because it was SO delicious!

That concluded our DIY food tour for the evening as we were both stuffed, so we rolled on home to bed.

⏰ Khao Soi o’Clock (yet again)

We had just enough room for one final Khao Soi the following lunchtime, so we cycled out of the city to Khao Soi Samerjai, another highly rated local joint.

Broth: The spiciest of the three we tried, but still super coconutty. 4/5
Noodles: I think these ones were home made, so bonus points here. 5/5
Chicken: I’ll just say that eating chicken on the bone using chopsticks over a big bowl of broth didn’t end that well for either of our t-shirts. 3/5
Topping: Mostly crispy. 4/5
Price: 70 baht for a large bowl (approximately £1.75)

🏆 So the winner is… Khao Soi Phor Jai (in Chiang Rai). Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that we preferred the first one we tried – it was a bit of a revelation. But more importantly, we met our goal of eating so much Khao Soi that we’re now thoroughly sick of it and will happily wait until we next go to Northern Thailand to eat it again – result!

After this culinary extravaganza, it was time to hop onto a sleeper train to take us south to Bangkok (again).

Messing about on the Mekong

We’ve met up with the mighty Mekong River quite a few times over the last few weeks – first in the huge Mekong Delta region of Southern Vietnam, then again in Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Nong Khai (Thailand), Vientiane (Laos), and finally in Luang Prabang. Now, it was time to get properly acquainted as we were to spend two days sailing upriver on the ‘slow boat’ to Thailand.

I should probably confess that our journey wasn’t to be on the original slow boat, the public ferry that makes its way up and down river daily, stopping at local settlements on the way. We’d read that this can be a great experience but quite cramped, which is fine for a few hours but maybe less so for 10 or more hours a day. We decided that if we were going to spend two days on the water, where the journey was the destination, we should make the most of it. All this to say that we talked ourselves into a private slow boat, complete with lovely lunches, day beds (my favourite!) and a couple of interesting stops en route. We already felt a bit guilty about our uncharacteristically extravagent decision but even more so when we boarded and found that we were two of only five guests on board (the boat had capacity for 30) – not particularly good for our carbon credentials!

We set sail from lovely Luang Prabang just before dawn, and before long the sun peeked over the hills next to the riverbank.

We spent the next few hours gazing out of the window at the landscape and eating our second breakfast (in true Vicar of Dibley style, we didn’t like to tell the lovely family who were looking after us that we’d already eaten), before making a brief stop at the Pak Ou Caves. These caves are full of Buddha images small and large, and are a favourite annual pilgrimage site for Laotians, who bring their Buddha images from home to pray with them.

  • View from the entrance to the caves

In exchange for a donation, I picked up a Lao version of the omijuki we’d selected in Sapporo to tell us our fortunes at New Year, and once we were back on the boat, I asked our guide to help us translate it (Google Translate having been even less help than in Japan). He said that a lot of it was quite abstract so I imagine he had to exercise some artistic licence in interpreting it, but that, “If you have a sales business, it is good for your future,” [well I don’t, but noted] and that, “Your love will love you much more in the future” [so maybe the tide will turn and Thomas 🐈 will prefer me to Oli one day!]. It all sounded very promising, although I do wonder what he wasn’t telling me, as there was a bit more written than that…

Because of the meanders in the Mekong’s route through Laos, we passed twice under bridges that carry the Lao-China Railway up towards China. As far as we know, there aren’t any trains running along this route at the moment (we’ll have to come back one day) but it was still incredible to see the sheer amount of concrete supporting this huge infrastructure project.

It looked so out of place on the banks of the Mekong, where we had drifted past little more than small settlements, herds of buffalo and cows, bamboo fishing rods, and local people out panning for gold. In fact, the very largest settlement we saw was the town of Pak Beng, where we arrived around sunset of our first day to spend the night. This was the biggest town for some distance, but that’s not saying much – below is the quiet main street.

Pak Beng

After a night spent in our simple (but perfectly adequate) £10 guesthouse (our attempt to balance the books after splashing out on the private boat!) we headed back down to the jetty for another pre-dawn start. Soon after, we made a stop at a riverside village for a quick wander.

We weren’t quite sure how we felt about this, to be honest. Although I love to see how other people live (one of the great joys of travel), I do think there’s a fine line between this and flat-out voyeurism. And this was no slick, rehearsed, inauthentic tour-group stop, but a tiny, remote and obviously quite deprived village. We understood from our guide that there is a financial agreement with the Village Chief so that the local people benefitted from our visit and that the village is changed regularly so that these benefits are distributed in the region, but I’m still not totally convinced that our presence was really welcome or helpful. So, whilst another member of our small group was photographing the children (which didn’t feel quite right), we focused on making friends with the piglets who were roaming around freely.

After an absolutely spectacular buffet lunch (the family on whose boat we were travelling looked after us SO well), the remainder of our second day was spent much as the first. We gazed out of the window at life on the banks of the Mekong, napped on daybeds, listened to podcasts (my current picks are Table Manners, Desert Island Discs and More or Less, in case you’re wondering – please send more recommendations my way!), caught up on this blog, and made some onward travel plans. It was an incredibly peaceful way to travel.

Around 4pm, we passed under the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge IV, which marks the western border crossing between the two countries, and docked on the Lao side of the river in the small town of Huay Xai. Here, we watched the sun set over the Mekong one last time, before crossing the border to begin our journey south through Thailand the following day.