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chrischarly

700 Blog Entries
6 Trips
5148 Photos

Trips:

Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
Chris and Charly Down Under
Chris and Charly's African Adventure
Chris and Charly's Pacific Island Pit-Stop
Chris and Charly's mini trip to The States
Chris and Charly's Indian Odyssey

Shorthand link:

http://blogabond.com/chrischarly



Buddy List

Jason Kester
Jason Kester
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chris_j_knight78
chris_j_knight78



Chiang Mai invaded by tourists

Chiang Mai, Thailand


One of the many temples

A temple

A temple

A huge wall

A temple

Nice gold temple

Another day of walking about Chiang Mai, possibly seeing more tourists than locals…
Also, another thing we’ve noticed is how many temples there are here for one city?!
Chris guesses about 50.
I gave up counting and taking photos of them.
Good day though; just uneventful to write about…



permalink written by  chrischarly on July 16, 2011 from Chiang Mai, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Exhausted us

Lampang, Thailand


A tuk-tuk driver fast asleep
After a 16 hours train journey, we arrived in Chang Mai only 2 ½ hours late, but as it was still morning it didn’t matter. We had already booked somewhere to stay, C.M Blue House so we had made our lives pretty easy, so it was just a tuk tuk ride away.

The pretty river
It’s actually a really nice room for the price, so after a quick shower we happily went for a walk around Chang Mai.

Chris excited about his dinner
We were actually surprised, but more disappointed just how touristy this city is.

Tasty food
We were hoping to escape this by travelling up North, but we have found that the whole of Thailand is very much this way.

6 mouths in jail ???
But saying that, it was quite nice walking about for a while before the temperature got too much and every single part of our bodies were caked in sweat, it was quite disgusting, so back to our guestHouse for shower number 2 before some dinner, closely followed by shower number 3 and then an exhausted sleep…

permalink written by  chrischarly on July 15, 2011 from Lampang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Day 366 of our travels

Phichit, Thailand


Chris and Graham playing chess
We had to check out at 12pm today and as our train wasn’t due to depart until 6:10pm we had a lot of hanging about to do with our bags until then. So we decided to make a brief stop-off at an internet café to search for some accommodation in Chang Mai, but a heavy downpour of rain, so heavy you could hardly see through it meant we stayed there for 3 hours as we were unwilling to get ourselves and all of our belongings drenched.

Kyra and Chris' legs
Eventually the rain did ease off so we missioned it to the underground and then onto the station where we brought some cheap market food before boarding the train… Again, on the train we had top bunks, and yes that also meant that the lights were left on throughout the night. We did however make 3 new friends so time passed quite quickly whilst we played games with them until gone midnight (well until a moody British lady told me to ‘shut up’) whilst the rest of the train was sleeping…


Everyone tucked up in bed
On another note, it is exactly 1 year ago today that we left Essex and got on a plane headed for South Africa! We can’t believe it’s been a year already, it seems to have gone so quickly yet I suppose we have seen so many amazing things since then including visiting 14 countries in that time (not including going back to the U.K. for 3 weeks). Fingers crossed our money is able to stretch for another amazing year!


permalink written by  chrischarly on July 14, 2011 from Phichit, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Another day sweating in Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand



Another temple we think

Nice smoked duck

And again we walked around Bangkok soon becoming exhausted by walking for so long in this heat and humidity and we realised that we have in fact covered a lot of ground in the past few days, ticking off many of the main tourist sights and things to do.


Memorial bridge monument

Indian food stall

(Even if it meant just peeking over the wall into palaces as we weren’t dressed appropriately).


Nice old houses

Making our tasty spring rolls

We decided to go and see Th Khao San (road) which is the main backpacker’s street, which reassured us that where we are staying in Lumphini was the perfect choice away from the scams and hassle in a local area.


Temple

A sneaky photo of monks from behind

One of the many busy streets

A temple

Inside one of many temples

The train station waiting area

To get there we took the underground, which is our favourite mode of transport for efficiency in Bangkok, the sky train and then a Ferry and in between all this, a lot of walking.


The skytrain

Inside the skytrain

Just set off

Chris and I on the very cheap ferry

Another boat

A river boat

A house on the water

Wat Arun (Dawn Temple)

Outside the entrance to Th Khao San

A bridge

It was a nice day and although we have yet to see some Thai Boxing and a Ping-Pong show, we’ve decided to leave that for our next visit here and went to the train station and luckily managed to book the last 2 train tickets to Chang Mai for tomorrow evening.


The train station

Just managed to cross the road in time

permalink written by  chrischarly on July 13, 2011 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Crazy Asia

Bangkok, Thailand


Chinatown
As there is just so much to see in Bangkok so we again went for a walk around, first catching the underground into China Town where we walked around and around in circles, well so it felt anyway.

Locals drying chillis which are the pigeon's dinner
Then we walked to the India quarter and it was amazing just how much it did resemble India.

Room for a small one
In China Town there were just markets everywhere down tiny alleyways and we were just totally overwhelmed by it all.

Market alley
You just had sections that seemed to last forever with the market-stall holders selling exactly the same things, or more accurately, junk.

Market alley
One section would be handbags, and for about a 20 shops in a row this was pretty much all they sold, well with a couple of food stands in amongst them, then a HUGE sections selling girly things, like bracelets and hair accessories.

Woman who kept abusing Chris with Peacock feathers
Then a huge section of florists, jewellery, chillies, you name it; it was probably there in the masses.

Crazy market alley
However, saying that, you could probably walk around for miles and miles but most of the items sold were so random and the shops so compact you wouldn’t know where to start!

Pretty flowers
We just had no idea at all why they couldn’t spread themselves out so they weren’t selling the same as their neighbours?

Outside one of the many florists
It was just crazy!

Chillis
We have also learnt a lot about Asia, and I know this is pretty much the same in the whole continent when it comes to markets and cities especially…



It all got a bit much for this guy too!

It all got a bit too much

1. As mentioned above with every shop in a mile radius selling the same stuff
2. You can never walk in a straight line, whether its avoiding pedestrians, pedestrians carrying what you believe to be ridiculously impossible as the item is so huge, or anything with wheels, and this includes motorbikes, driving down a tiny alleyway you think only 1 person walking can fit down.
3. Every one of your senses is either abused or fulfilled every second of the day.
4. People are continuously shopping, shopping shopping! Every shop seems to be full of customers and you have no idea where they came from!
5. Nobody ever stops eating.
6. You sum up whether it is more dangerous to either walk on the road with all the traffic or on the pavement, which is so uneven, wobbly, and with tons of holes you can fall down.


permalink written by  chrischarly on July 12, 2011 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Cheap transport

Bangkok, Thailand


A water-monitor lizard in the middle of Bangkok???
Today we woke and went for a walk around a huge park near where we are staying. For a massive city such as Bangkok, it was a nice find.

Walking along avoiding the main streets
We then tried to find our way to the sky train but it wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be and ended up bumping into a local who gave us some friendly advice on the cheapest way to Siam Square.

The nice park
He advised we take a tuk tuk for half the price, so optimistically we went to haggle one, the driver having none of our suggested price so the local bargained for us, stopping off briefly to pick up a free map on the way.

The nice park
We then walked around Siam Square for ages until the heat became too much.

Manic Bangkok
We then tried to negotiate a tuk tuk back home and worked out that if you agreed to let the driver take you to a shop and you walk around inside of it for a minimum of 7 minutes he gets a great commission and only charges you 30p for a 40 minute drive home! Bargain!

Chris really blending in with the locals
So that’s what we did!

Stationary in the middle of Bangkok traffic
Well it was all great until he broke down in the outside lane of a 4 laned highway and Chris had to push us for a while.

Chris pushing the tuk tuk
So we ended up walking the rest of the way and didn’t pay anything! So we think we have got travelling finally sussed in Bangkok!

permalink written by  chrischarly on July 11, 2011 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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An exhausting first day in the bustling Bangkok

Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand


Waiting for the underground
After an ok’ish night’s sleep we arrived in Bangkok. Chris was adamant not to stay in the backpackers area of Khao San Road so we ended up getting the metro to Lumpini, where we searched out a guestHouse and found a nice one with AC for 400 Baht (£8).

The super-fast and scary escalators
We got ourselves showered then headed off to see the weekend market at Chatuchack. At the hotel they told us a taxi should be 120Bahtr, but when we got in we soon found out it was going to be more like 190Baht, by the time the driver

Chris enjoying an authentic kebab
realised we didn’t want to go for that much he kindly said sorry and let us out, just short of the metro station, result!

Tasty prawns
We took the nice AC metro for 40Baht each all the way to the market. It was huge with over 10’000 stalls and probably 10x as many people.

Karaoke in the market
We strolled around for a few hours savouring some nice food and soaking up the atmosphere, whilst also soaking in sweat.

The underground
It soon became too much and feeling tired from the night on the train we decided to head home. We made it back to the guest House and ended up having some yummy Thai noodle soup before crashing out for the night.

Long queue for the tickets
Charly was very annoying and kept 1) demanding that the AC was turned down and 2) stealing the duvet. Chris did not have a good night…….

permalink written by  chrischarly on July 10, 2011 from Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Over-night train journey...

Surat Thani, Thailand


Kung-fu panda eyes Chris

Cramped in a seat for 1 to watch a film

We woke up, checked out, had some nice lunch, wasted a few hours in a coffee bar with free Wi-Fi and then headed to the train station at 5pm for our overnight train to Bangkok. At the station the night market was just starting to get going so we got lots of tasty treats to eat on the train. The train journey was in fact really comfortable but we both had top bunks to sleep on, which normally would be fine as you get more privacy that way. However, for security reasons they kept the lights on all night so it was really REALLY bright, so pretty irritating, but apart from that, great journey!

The train

The strange cafe on the train

permalink written by  chrischarly on July 9, 2011 from Surat Thani, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Bye Koh Lanta and Hello Trang!

Trang, Thailand


One of the chalets

The restaurant

Long Beach Chalets' reception
Today we left Long Beach Chalets in Koh Lanta, which was a shame as we loved this place, the staff and pretty much everything about the place! But time to get backpacking again and back to being on a budget!

Trang clock tower
So we made our way to Trang to optimistically get straight on a train to Bangkok.

Boy happily sitting in the back of a pick-up
The trains were completely full so we decided to just spend the night in Trang and catch the train tomorrow evening. So we looked around and found somewhere really cheap to stay for about £2.50 a night!


Our budget room

Our very small double bed

But it was a shock to the system having staying in luxury for the past 3 nights! We were really glad we did though as we found an amazing night market with some delicious street food that was remarkably cheap and very local compared to the touristy food we have been munching on recently, so we were delighted!


Awesome meat stand

Tasty sausages!

Chris enjoying his soup

A market stall brought on a moped
Chris was quite in his element trying weird and wonderful treats and we spent ages walking up and down, up and down!

But we came back to find another lodger in our room, who wasn't very welcome...


Our new lodger

permalink written by  chrischarly on July 8, 2011 from Trang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Exploring Koh Lanta and Chris' painful massage from a tiny Thai lady!!

Ko Lanta, Thailand


Us on our nice pink bike

A beach we had a break at

Today we got up and hired a scooter for the day to drive around Koh Lanta. It was a lovely hot day so perfect to be on the bike!


Matching helmets!!

Hot and thankful to stop for a quick coke


Terminal Point

Terminal Point (the most southern point in Koh Lanta)

Chris really did looked funny though in his pink helmet that was too small for his head, driving on a cute pink bike! But he was still happy and loved riding around!


Taking a photo of us riding along

In Asia you can do anything with a moped!

When we came back, Chris quickly showered and headed of for his Thai massage. About 1½ hours later he returned, feeling so sorry for himself, having never had one before and didn’t realise it was more like GBH than a massage he has had before! I actually felt quite sorry for him as he said he had to stop himself from screaming pretty much throughout it all! I’m glad I gave it a miss!

permalink written by  chrischarly on July 7, 2011 from Ko Lanta, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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