Khaosan

For those of you who have seen The Hangover II, it pretty much entirely takes place here. I even saw the hostel where I stayed in the video. Khaosan is simply a fantastic place for foreigners.It is a complete road of a mess. There is everything everywhere. Every single place you look.

This is a street that is renowned as a famous foreigner district. It has a knock off of everything and the people will sell you anything. This street has your t-shirts and Thai pants, the summer dresses and 'official Adidas brand clothing', bars, restaurants, less than clothing places, inns and hostels, street vendors a plenty. Here is where you might just get the best deals on travel tours as well as a place to sleep. And a quick recommendation: eat the street food. Beware of it, but eat it. It will be one of the cheapest and most delicious choices you may make.

I can personally attest to staying several nights here and 5 stories above all the hubub, I actually slept quite soundly. Below me were all the night clubs and ping pong shows and ladies boys, but more on that later.
The street itself stays up way into the wee hours of the morning, and as I left at 4:30am for the airport one early morning I can tell you there were still hundreds of people flooding the street, but most of the vendors seeing that drunk people would rather spend their coin on another drink and not their wares, closed up shop at that point. One of the most flourishing businesses though were masseuses. Likely not licensed, though there are plenty of those places as well, just not open as late. These lovely ladies set up their canvas pool chairs right on the road where only hours earlier was a man trying to sell me the ugliest hat I might ever have seen. And people would wind down and do relax and get a foot rub while drinking a last few beers of a night.
Another morning I had a tour that left at 7am. I can safely say that the street was nearly deserted save from other tour goers and the few passed out gaijins. There was even a guy, a gaijin, with a beer in his hand and a cig in his mouth looking off without a thought on his mind, as if remembering was just too complicated for that early in the morning.. Thus I conclude that everyone must be efficiently exhausted sometime between 4:30 and 7am.
In addition to any know off clothing or make up products, there are also artists there. Sure, many of them are tattoo artists; and judging by the booming business, either people get really drunk here or they have extremely low prices. There are also a few t-shirt artists, fashioning their wares with spray paint in graffiti reminiscent images, and a few - a very few - painters.
But I think the more interesting people of the street are the little old ladies walking around selling bracelets and necklaces and crazy hats and wooden frogs that sound alike one when stroked with a wooden stick. These women must be over 40, winkled, and clearly reflective of the education and the economic situation overall in Thailand. They walk up and down the streets wearing absurd get-ups of black overalls embroidered with bright colors and wearing one of their really eccentric looking hats of similar colors and holding an eclectics assortment of accessories and knick-knacks all over their arms. And of course if you so much as make eye contact, you might as well buy something because they might just not let you alone until you do!

there are three of them here

From Nagano with Monkeys

I think I have been asked about this the most in regards to all my pictures of Japan.

These are the snow monkeys of Nagano. They are not really monkeys of snow or anything, they are a breed known as the Japanese macaque that is indigenous to many regions in Japan. I have seen them in Osaka, Nagano, Toyama, and please to not exclude any smaller town from this list. They are not city dwellers, but you can find them with a little difficulty in the lesser populated regions. But do note, it does not necessarily mean the inaka. After all the ones I found in Nagano practically live at the onsen.
Speaking of the Nagano monkeys. They are a popular tourist attraction to the area that are found outside of Nagano city ( still in Nagano prefecture) in a place called Yudanaka. There are frequent buses and trains between the two cities and after a small hike (just a bit over a kilometer) to the onsen, the view and the monkeys are all yours to behold. The conditions of the trail will vary. They are called snow monkeys, so I would highly recommend seeing them in the snow scamping about, but the trail there is slippery and moist. Meaning there will be ice or mud puddles so wear so sturdy shoes. I know one lass who had to turn back not 300 meters into the trail due to her less than adequate footwear. Upon arrival, there is a small fee to entrance fee of like 500 or something yen. Though you do not have to pay this if all you want to see are monkeys. You can see those scurrying about and hanging all over the ancient nearby ryokan house. What you pay is to see the monkeys bumming around and chilling out in an outdoor hot spring bath like it is natural behavior. Indeed it is natural behavior for them. They were not trained to do this. They simply started this behavior to beat the cold. Needless to say the threat of humans was not great enough for them to bother with removing themselves from this warmth and continued undeterred until it turned into a tourist attraction, from which point they continued undeterred at a price. There are no fences barring the guest from this site there are no trenches preventing anyone from walking right up to the monkeys. Nothing at all. You can walk right up to the hot spring as close as you please and photograph the monkeys. Though you are not allowed to touch them as you will be strictly admonished by a guard and possibly removed from the park, they are allowed to touch you...not that you might want them too. Honestly the water has poop floating in it. Don't even think about what is on their hands!
Other than the hot spring pool, you can also check out the monkeys on the muddied beach leading to the hot spring river. They congregate on the rocks when they are either tired of human interaction or banished by more alpha monkeys.

Floating through the Market

This is by far the most interesting thing that I did during my sojourn in Thailand.

This market was made famous by a Bond movie, or so I am told. And it is a market that is mostly based on boats. These long wooden boats adorn the canals of with their fruits, food, spices, and other wares. Since the boost in tourism, this place has become extremely touristy in nature and sells many of the tourist knick-knacks that you find almost everywhere else in Thailand; the bags with elephants stitched upon them, the baggy pants, the woven hats and statue elephants. As well as a variety of other items. But originally, this market was a place for the locals along the canals to sell their wares and food. Here there are many banana and mango and coconut farms along the canals which are harvested and sold for profit. In addition to the raw fruits of the area, there is also cookery that is sold. No I don't mean the cooking utensils. I mean people actually cooking aboard their little boats. With hotplates and fires and spices. Sounds dangerous? Definitely. But perhaps the most interesting.
You can rent a boat and a driver for about 100Bhat to take you on a tour of their canals where the locals have developed these interesting hooks with which they will hook onto your boat and pull you over to them to try and vend their wares. For the most part all of the people who have actual stores along the canal front will sell the same type of stuff. It is the people in boats who are far more interesting. It is a definite recommendation that you grab yourself a snack and a coconut and sit back as you tour the canals.
If you are looking for a more extensive tour, then there is another boat that will take you along the local canals, through their village. They will show you the coffee house, the locals homes, restaurants, and the hospital, as well as the groves and orchards from which they farm. You might even see some people going about their daily lives at their homes, hanging laundry, making house calls, cooking and such.

The aspect that makes this village famous however, is the photography. There are several bridges over the canals that pose as excellent vantage points from which you can snap a photo or few of the amazing array of colors below. Between the Thai peoples colorful clothing, the water, the boats and the fruits and wares, there will be no such thing as a bad photo from this vantage.

In addition to the waterworld, there are also many stalls on land in the surrounding area to explore as well. Which will again sell you more of the same stuff. But for those who want a stable place to sit with their land legs firmly on the ground while sharing a cup of coffee and admiring the view, then this is the place.

Elephant Trekking through Thailand

One of the big things I wanted to do when I went to Thailand was go elephant trekking.

After seeing several of my friends pictures of it, particularly the pictures of them laughing as the elephants made their way through a river, I would stop at nothing to do it as well. I finally got my chance to do just that in Phuket.
What I experienced was great and at the same time disappointing. I booked a tour, like you do with everything else in Thailand, and was picked up for my elephant ride. They consider the tours as half-day tours, as you are picked up at 2pm, but you really only get to ride an elephant for 45 minutes (or 30 or 60 depending on how much you paid and what you booked). The rest of the tour is a show or two and a walk through a garden and the dining upon seasonal fresh fruits (which if you think about it, everything is always in season, so they just give you what is cheapest for them...bananas - since they feed them to almost all their animals). Again all this depends on what tour you booked. Since elephant riding was my highlight, I didn't care so much for the shows and booked a minimal tour, whose highlight was elephant riding.
The ride itself was a balancing act as my partner and I orchestrated ourselves along the two seater bench trying to not tip the elephant too far in any direction. The bench upon which we sat was a metal contraption strapped with much padding to the elephant and with a bar across our laps securing us in. Our conductor was a Burmese man who sat atop the elephants head without any seat or support. He had with him a small wooden rod with which he would tap the elephant to give it signals. Riding the elephant was not exactly exhilarating, but it was definitely fun and interesting. The trail itself was what was displeasing. You walked along a well worn path through the park. At one point we could even see the car park. There was not jungle atmosphere in the slightest, no river, and it was all very controlled and bland. Pathetic. We wandered down and up and into a little forested area with a stream ( but you can still see the park from where we stood at all times). At the stream the elephant drank up water and sprayed its underside, wetting our feet. It seems that this is a common action between all elephant that seems more discouraged by the guides than anything. The elephants will also take up snacking while on their little tour and will uproot plants and begin munching.
One thing that you are not allowed at this particular park is to take pictures on the elephant. Yes it seems ridiculous. Yes they should mention this before. It is all part of their money making scheme to sell you things after the ride. If you have a nice guide then maybe he and the guide behind him will allow you to sway cameras with the people aboard that elephant and you can take pictures. Of course it would be less than generous of you if you were not to tip him after your ride. Again money making.
After the ride, we got in an extremely congested line to drop us off. 45 minutes never went by so quickly. We walked perhaps half a kilometer to a kilometer max in the entire time. And throughout the ride it really seemed like a State Fair act where you get on a pony that is tied to a wheel with a bunch of other kids and walk in a circle for 5 minutes. It was that kind of feeling. You could always view the other circus goers at all times walking in their little circle.

I still think that riding an elephant in Thailand must be worth it. I still look at that picture of my friends swear I will return with a different outcome. My advice is to just not do it in Phuket. Or well with a particular company called Island Safari. That just wasn't what I wanted. For me, the place was too controlled. It was too safe. It is great for kids and less adventuresome tourists. Just not me. Though I would still say that the overall experience was fun and worthwhile. However, next time I am going to try my luck up in Chang Mai. For whatever reason I believe that elephant trekking up there, in a less touristed area will be exactly what I am looking for.