We arrived home on Sunday afternoon from our 5 day 4 night trip to Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai with a short stop in Laos thrown in. Had some pretty hectic travelling on one day where we only had dinner at midnight! The other few days were relaxing by comparison. But I think the tour guide, Xiao Zhen (a Thai Chinese), did a good job and worked hard trying to keep everyone in the group happy. Overall, it was a good trip. Air Asia was quite acceptable, the seats were surprisingly quite comfortable in leather! I knew there was no food provided but there was no bagage provided either?! So, we ended up paying extra for baggage check in. Well, next time I will be smarter. Only carry 7 kg with you on the plane and no check-in baggage.
From my short trip (the last trip to Thailand was to Bangkok/Pattaya many moons ago), I can see many similarities and also many differences between Thailand and Malaysia. The weather is pretty similar, very hot and rains often. However it just drizzles and doesn't pour, at least on the the few days that we were there. The buildings are similar, the kampong houses looks like what we can find in our kampongs. The roads are also the same except all the signboards are in the thai language, you hardly can find anything in English! The people and the shopping malls are the same, the Thais look mostly like typically Malaysian chinese, maybe more so in northern Thailand.
There are things that I noticed that are different. Shrines and satelite dishes are everywhere! Temples are aplenty too. Another thing is they really love and respect their Monarchy, big pictures of their King and Queen are displayed everywhere too.
Strangely, there are hardly any fat people in Thailand. Could it their diet of sour, spicy and sweet in everything? I also noticed many Ah Kuas (transexuals) working in normal jobs, I was even molested (or massaged) by one! But my sis assured me that he (or more like she) was not the least bit interested in me, of which I am convinced.
From my short trip (the last trip to Thailand was to Bangkok/Pattaya many moons ago), I can see many similarities and also many differences between Thailand and Malaysia. The weather is pretty similar, very hot and rains often. However it just drizzles and doesn't pour, at least on the the few days that we were there. The buildings are similar, the kampong houses looks like what we can find in our kampongs. The roads are also the same except all the signboards are in the thai language, you hardly can find anything in English! The people and the shopping malls are the same, the Thais look mostly like typically Malaysian chinese, maybe more so in northern Thailand.
There are things that I noticed that are different. Shrines and satelite dishes are everywhere! Temples are aplenty too. Another thing is they really love and respect their Monarchy, big pictures of their King and Queen are displayed everywhere too.
Strangely, there are hardly any fat people in Thailand. Could it their diet of sour, spicy and sweet in everything? I also noticed many Ah Kuas (transexuals) working in normal jobs, I was even molested (or massaged) by one! But my sis assured me that he (or more like she) was not the least bit interested in me, of which I am convinced.
Elephants ('Chang' in Thai) are very respected there, there are many elephant decos decorating buildings and hotels. Elephant ornaments are sold to tourist eveyrwhere. There are also many beautiful dogs (mostly pure breeds), I can see that the Thais love their dogs. One more major difference is that the Thai McDonalds serve pork burgers, delicous! Definitely one of the highlights of my trip, having pork burgers from McD, twice.
We went up to the border and crossed over the Mekong river to Laos for a short stop. We also visited the border town of Maesai which is bordering Myanmar. There is a village camp which we visited where some Myanmar refugees lives there and make a living from tourists, these include the long neck and big ear Karen hill tribe.
Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai
A child on the back of her mother, begging on street of Measai border town.
A big ear lady from a Myanmar refugee camp near Chiang Rai.It was a great trip for photo taking, I have more pictures posted on my facebook which you can see from this link. It will not be soon when I can go on such type of trip again, already I feel guilty that I left my kids behind. So I guess we will plan our next trip to include the kids and the hubby, hopefully soon.
Kob Kun Kaa (thank you) for reading my blog....
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