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Hang on, I'm taking notes...
I haven't been to any of the places you mentioned - maybe on my next trip! My favourite place in Thailand is a non-descript little village near Buriram. It is where my wife's family lives, and it is my second home.
But I would like to make a very broad recommendation: Isaan. The vast majority of tourists have traditionally kept to a north-south corridor from Phuket and the islands in the south, through Bangkok and north to Chiang Mai and the hills. They typically ignore the entire northeast part of the country. Isaan might not have the same "coffee table book" appeal of some of those places, but it is the heartland of the country, and possibly the best place to get to know the real people of Thailand.
Posted 91 months ago.
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I've never been to the islands of Thailand because I've been living on a S.E. Chinese island - but I get a big yearining for clean air and undeveloped landscape. So I am thrilled with N. E. Thailand. Mountains, hills, air the way they're supposed to be! Day trips out of Chiang Rai... etc. A completely laid back place I enjoy for the practice of doing nothing but watching the river go by is Chaing Kong - the Mekong border crossing into Laos. About an hour and a half to the east of Chiang Rai.
Posted 91 months ago.
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I've heard a lot about Pai from various people and fully intend to go. All this talk makes me want to go back to Thailand but having been there twice in 2 years I feel the need to explore elsewhere. Japan/Korea are next on my list.
Dogsbody, I understand what you're saying about the northeast of the country. I recall looking at my map of Thailand and wondering what about this huge bit of the country but I like so many others stuck to the main track. Well when next I visit Cambodia/Laos, I'll stop along the way and have a look around that part of Thailand.
Posted 91 months ago.
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I am in love with Isaan as well, because of its people.
Isaan is poor and dry and not as "pretty" as much of the rest of the country, but the pace of life there is even slower than anywhere else in Thailand.
The people are Lao and speak Lao. In the villages they dress like Laotians. They eat Lao food - a lot of "nam prik" which is a class of food that consists basically of scores of different recipes for chili paste. The nam prik is eaten with fresh or steamed "pak" (vegetables) and sticky rice. Sometimes there will be fish or some dried or fried meat as well.
I love the music in Isaan. Mor Lam and Mor Lam Sing are the local staple varieties. They remind me of reggae a bit.
The sense of community within an Isaan village is wonderful. Everybody is distantly (or not so distantly) related somehow. Everybody's lives spill over into their neighbors' lives. Kids are safe - everybody watches out for everybody else's kids.
I feel safer and more at ease in Isaan than anywhere else in Thailand (not that I really feel unsafe anywhere else...). Isaan isn't glamorous or sexy or action-packed, but it is real
Posted 91 months ago.
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Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about! Thanks astanhope!
Posted 91 months ago.
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It's goddamn cold here in Massachusetts right now! I wish I was in Isaan!
Posted 91 months ago.
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Astanhope, I just had a look at your Photostream, and almost froze to death, but was saved by the Pink Mansion in Chaiyphum. Those Thais do have a sense of, er, style.....
Posted 91 months ago.
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Dogsbody: I am eager to hear about your Isaan story.
I fell in love with Isaan 16 years ago.
Like you, my story involved a woman, my wife, who I met in Bangkok in 1988. She had just finished university. I was just about to start.
Our first summer together in 1988 took place in Bangkok only, and that is when I fell in love with that city. I still love Bangkok in spite of all its faults. What a crazy, noisy, smelly, wonderful place! I'm sure that I don't have to explain to anyone here why Bangkok is paradoxically wonderful.
I returned to Thailand in 1989 after my first year in college to see my love. I was a student at UC Berkeley and I was able to get a "courier" fare to Bangkok for $400 rt from San Franciso - carry-on luggage only.
We traveled to Isaan. Back then it was two local busses in Bangkok to the northern bus station then a bus to Chaiyaphum then a long walk to a wooden bench made from a single, giant split log in front of a rice field on the dge of town. A very local bus there picked us up for the ride out of Chaiyaphum city (9 whole square blocks of it!) out to the village.
The road was a washed out mess and the bus turned off onto a road through the Amphur. I remember seeing a flatbed truck with a group of young men painted in black. They were a band playing Mor Lam Sing and when the lead singer saw me he shrieked like the devil and leapt into the air.
We got to the village and in a scene that everybody here has probably been through, I walked through the village with a crowd of children trailing behind me - I was their first caucasian.
The family home was one hand-hewn wooden room on stilts, and everybody slept under mosquito nets together in the same room - kids through grandparents.
My wife's family are farmers - tapioca, rice and sugarcane, mostly. Sweet, sweet people who worked so hard so that my wife and her brother could go to college - the first in their family (and perhaps in the village!) to have done so.
That year the road from Chaiyaphum to the village was dirt. There was no electricity in the village. There were no vehicles other than a few motorcycles and that strange, blue Isaan tractor-truck you see sometimes.
Over the following years we have tried to return once a year and have done pretty well, missing only a few years. I have seen my youngest brother-in-law grow into a man. I have seen nieces and nephews born. Marriages. Deaths.
The road from Chaiyaphum to the village is paved now. In the village, a few people bought motorcycles. A few years later most of the families in the village pooled funds and bought a pickup truck to share amongst them.
Electricity has been everywhere for years. In my in-laws' home it started with a few shitty 40 watt fluorescent tubes, then a red fridge sitting on a palette. In time they had a fan and a radio.
A payphone went in along the main highway at some point - a godsend for my wife and I to keep in touch with her parents. Now, of course, everybody has cell phones!
We drank rain water collected from the roof until very recently. Now the village has a water tower with chlorination! Running water with decent pressure! We have western toilets and HEATED showers in the house we built in 2003 for the family.
Posted 91 months ago.
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Frisko:
I am responsible for the blue ceramic tiles on the roof - think Stuckey's.
The pink, however, was the result of some sort of communication mishap.
My wife and I picked out the house design with my brother-in-law in Thailand and he became sort of the "general contractor" while we returned home to the US.
The soil in my wife's village is RED and it is very dusty. Everything gets covered in thin red dust.
At some point my brother-in-law asked us to pick colors for the house. I had picked the roof already... I went to Home Depot and picked up some paint chits and some software that let me scan a picture of the house (concrete colored) and try out different colors on it.
My wife and I settled on a dark sandstone that went well with the blue. We chose the appropriate chit and mailed it on to our brother in Thailand. (Is "chit" the right word?)
Anyway, to make a long story short, I don't know exactly what happened, but for some reason my brother-in-law saw sandstone and thought pink.
I'm overjoyed with it. Not too many people can say that they have a pink house.
Posted 91 months ago.
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Here is a pic of my father-in-law, the Isaan rapscallion:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/astanhope/2438419/in/set-61358/
Posted 91 months ago.
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Please post the photo of the "Pink Mansion" here, so we can see the outlandish house to go with your humorous commentary. I'm pretty ruthless when it comes to editing the images here, but pink mansions with background are always welcome.
And thanks for the fasting Buddha image from Chiang Mai...... He did that long fasting thing way, way before Christ, as you know.
Posted 91 months ago.
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The Pink Mansion is in the group pool!
Posted 91 months ago.
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And Wat U-Mong, where the fasting Buddha pic was taken, is one of the country's few "must see" wats, imo. It is in Chiang Mai, west of the city, west of the University.
Posted 91 months ago.
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Yay to the Pink Mansion!
And here is my father-in-law. He's a lovely old character.
astanhope, thanks for sharing your story! Mine is certainly similar:
Janthra and I met in Toronto in the late '80s. We married in '94 and I went to Thailand for the first time in January of '95 (not '96 as I mistakenly have said all over my photostream...)
It was my first time in Asia, and naturally I was blown away. Thailand itself impressed me with the warmth of its people, particularly in Isaan.
Janthra has an older sister who has lived in Toronto for many years and has brought plenty of her friends to the village. I wasn't the first paleface they'd seen by a long shot, though I did have something close to that experience when we went a little further afield.
I was brought up to respect people, and for me as a traveller that means watching and learning how things are done wherever I'm visiting. I try to "not be a tourist" but to blend in to as much as possible. I imagine everyone in this group is more or less like that, but it's surprising how many people aren't. My Thai family was delighted that I tried to speak to them in Thai, that I ate what they ate, that I was eager to learn about their traditions and way of life. They accepted me without hesitation and made me feel completely welcome.
I'm proud to know all of them, proud to be a part of the family, and very proud to have a son who is half Thai (and who speaks Thai fluently!)
Posted 91 months ago.
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...and apologies to FriskoDude for usurping this thread for our Isaan stories! :-)
Posted 91 months ago.
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I think our father-in-laws could be brothers.
Does he play the tamarind seed dice game?
It is great that your son speaks Thai. My daughter understands Thai very well, but isn't a great Thai speaker. She gets by, though. I am very proud of her.
Posted 91 months ago.
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I'm glad to have both of you guys chatting away, since these Flickr groups are also supposed to be places to meet other photographers and share common interests -- pretty obvious from both of you.
That's why I started this thread, and happy it veered off in a different direction...
Carl
Posted 91 months ago.
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Thanks, Carl!
What is your Thailand story?
Posted 91 months ago.
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Have a look at my Profile:
Friskodude Profile
Posted 91 months ago.
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Hello Carl:
Fascinating.
I am very familiar with The Moon Guide to Thailand. I used to own and operate Bangkok.com and we licensed the book's content from Moon at some point perhaps 6 years or so ago(?) for a project that ended up being aborted (I'm sorry).
It sounds like you keep busy. What projects do you have in store for next year?
Posted 91 months ago.
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astanhope: I did notice a physical similarity between our dads-in-law! I haven't seen Pa Jon play the tamarind seed game, but he's full of surprises, so who knows? He's crazy for kick-boxing. He used to do it when he was young, and he's glued to the TV whenever it's on.
He probably hasn't left the province of Buriram (and maybe Surin) in 30 years but he still seems to know every tiny village and backroad in Isaan.
And yes, Frisko is living the dream - travelling in SE Asia and getting paid for it!!
Posted 91 months ago.
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I seem to remember trying to license some of my content from Thailand Handbook to a website in Bangkok, but never saw any results, so thanks for the reminder. We did license the book to about.com, but it was a mess and nobody seems to know what was going on, so the content just expired and was later deleted.
Posted 91 months ago.
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mui [deleted] says:
ko pha ngan!
Posted 90 months ago.
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his_photos [deleted] says:
Koh tao. Cliched? I don't care, it's so quite and peaceful. Especially in the day time because it's known for the diving, and I dont dive!
Posted 88 months ago.
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i'm still in Nong Khai, 10 years on.
Too bad that its popularity has undone the town. Places like That Phanom, Kalasin and Mukdahan are still serene, beautiful and not full of western bars
Posted 78 months ago.
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The North
Posted 78 months ago.
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Best places to visit:
Koh Similans: Best scuba diving: take a 5-day liveaboard dive trip from Patong Beach, Phuket in Feb-Mar.
Koh Tao: Tiny island near Koh Samui but way less touristy . Good snorkeling and diving starting Feb. Pha Ngan is also near Tao but is noisier due to the "Full Moon" beach parties it hosts. Find a quiet guesthouse like Heaven Huts.
Kanchanaburi: Jungle Rafts (romantic floating hotel on the River Kwai in the middle of the jungle) & WW2 history
Bangkok: for great food, shopping and luxury movie watching!
While in Thailand, spend 4 days and go to Angkor in Cambodia -- this is highly recommended! Take the local bus (Bangkok-Aranyaprathep) to the border, get a visa there, and bus/taxi to Siem Riep to save $300 on peak season airfare. ***Avoid the "Scam" bus from Kao Saan Rd., and trust in your Lonely Planet guide book!!***
Originally posted 78 months ago.
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Narisa edited this topic 78 months ago.
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I'd also recommend anyone find a local Thai or expat to help show you the behind-the-tourist-scenes sights. Many are friendly and willing to do so, making for a unique experience.
Posted 78 months ago.
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I'd also like to nominate some of the smaller places in the far north, such as Nan and lovely Phayao on lovely Phayao lake. Very beautiful place. Pai, unfortunately, has been in the news recently after a drunk Thai cop killed a Canadian traveler, but it's still a fabulous place according to recent reports I've received from several business owners in that town, and a certain musician who lives in CM by gigs regular up there.
Any more ideas?
Posted 51 months ago.
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Lots of Issan does have great "sights" but just get overlooked, Phimai, ruins near Si Saket, etc
I like khorat, its big but nearby is alot to do, Khao Yai, Phimai, and all that jazz.
Posted 51 months ago.
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We drove through Pai in September and I also thought it was a place to revisit in the future. Did you stop at the Pie and Coffee shop in Pai? ;-) As good as any Bangkok coffee shop, I think it's run by a Cham Muslem family.
Posted 51 months ago.
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I love Koh Bulon in Satun, Koh Ngai and Koh Rok in Trang, and Mu Koh Similan. They are absolutely beautiful!!!
Posted 50 months ago.
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I don't have a big experience of thailand since I've been there only 15 days, but I thought I had found paradise when I arrived on Rantee beach in Phi Phi island.
Well, it looked like heaven and was perfect for the rest I was looking for. But I've also heard about Pai, and it will be on my next roadmap.
Posted 50 months ago.
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Islands: Koh Mak, near Trat is still a chilled out and unspoilt place. Koh Phayam, near Ranong has a laid back charm. In terms of marine life, Mu Koh Similan and Mu Koh Surin.
Highlands: Chiang Rai province (especially Pu Chi Fa near Chiang Kham), Phayao province (drive or ride route 1148) , Nan province (Pua, Chompu Phuka N.P, routes 1080 & 1081), Loei province (Na Haeo).
Posted 50 months ago.
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Moved to flickr.com/people/kanir9 [deleted] says:
Best place? Depends on what you like. All four regions are different as well as each province is.
Ps. I am originally from Bangkok.
Posted 50 months ago.
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Kalasin is great and do not forget Mukdahan it has the best night food market in DA World
Posted 49 months ago.
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Oh... would someone represent the South?
I loved the south. I lived in Khao Lak for a year after the tsunami. One of my most memorable moments in my entire life was driving my little motorbike down to Malaysia.
I had never before witnessed such a beautiful, peaceful mind/body/culture/landscape moment in my life. Some days I would only get about 60 kilometers it was so amazing and so much life to suck in.
Once I got south of Trang I was in heaven, totally lost on the road, yet with the knowledge that I was totally safe from any form of harm.
I think it's one of those rare moments you get if you're lucky in life.
Here are a few pictures from down there:
www.flickr.com/photos/williambayphotography/tags/southern...
Posted 49 months ago.
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It is great to see so many people are aware of the charms of Issan. The dinosaur park about 60 ks out of Kalasin is amazing! A world class interpretive centre with dinosaur fossils and footprints in situ. The temple at Roi Et has to be seen to be believed. It isn't ancient but at 101 meters tall and 101 meters wide (an auspicious measurement, I'm told) is very impressive. The museum at Kohn Kaen is very interesting too as is the pagoda temple there.
In the south the massive wetlands and lakes at Phattalung were a highlight for me. Take a longtail boat at sunrise and see the birds and acres upon acres of lotus blossom...pink and blue and white. People fishing as they have done for thousands of years make this place unforgettable.
Pai is fun! And that is where I met my beautiful Jampa. The 'Pui Pai' bar is laid back cool and a great place to hang out and have a few Beer Chiang and listen to a bit of the local music. The 'Cinema Paradiso"..with four rooms.. each with a TV and surround sound is is a hoot...they have an eclectic collection of DVDs to be hired and watched in the comfort of bean bags and old lounge chairs...bring your own drinks and nibbles! The 'Eco Pool'...a swimming pool set in the rice paddies is a 'must visit' on a hot day...its a bit green as they don't use chlorine..but we usually had it to ourselves and the view is stunning. The Shan village up the hill from Pai with an interpretive centre run by the locals is interesting and when I got there (soaked with sweat...38 C and humid!) I was give tea and dried local fruits...they wouldn't accept payment. There is much more....don't miss a two day rafting trip through the jungle....
I'm on my way back in four weeks and can't wait! Larry
Posted 49 months ago.
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FriskoDude
I have been to Kho Leape down by Satun out there at Kho Taratou...have you been to a place more beautiful then that?
Dear Dogsbody
What you say about Issan is so true and I think I show more video in my blog about Issan then anyone on the internet...its on my website goodthaigirl.com
Anyway there are some awesome pictures here on flickr absolutely amazing Thailand!
Posted 49 months ago.
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Hey you guys with all the great experiences in Thailand I think you will get more traffic if you join my website, its beautiful and free and you can upload your photo and video..My Vlog is very extensive and it sure is lonely over there right now having the only Vlog of its kind shuts everyone down. They don't even try to post... Somoene post some pics and stories its worthy!! Its worth a looksy I guarantee it!
Posted 49 months ago.
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Railey hands down. One word. Climbing. Very nice place!
Posted 42 months ago.
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No best place in Thailand, and also in a rest of the world because the best is depends on characteristic from each person.
Someone like an adventure.
Someone like a piece place.
...
Posted 41 months ago.
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Appreciate you guys:)
Yes, welcome to visit amazing country, so variety you can choose to touch:)
Have a nice next trip.
Sunny
Posted 40 months ago.
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For accessability from Bangkok and laid back charm I love Koh Samet. there is no hidden aganda to it; just relax on the beach, eat dinner on the beach and sleep. Delightful
Posted 40 months ago.
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