My guide, Tam, sitting behind me in the kayak, has already pointed out the aptly named Ko Kai, Chicken Island, so named because its skinny, skewed peak resembles a scrawny hen’s neck. Later we’ll see Ko Hong which Tam assures me is “an island with a room inside it” – …
The huge vessel drifts past our bank then disappears downstream like a fiery ghost. Another boat, of equal intricacy and size follows, then another and another. In Thai these are known as rua fai, although English approximations like “illuminated boats” or “fire boats” hardly do justice to these spectacular, artistic …
Then the Janus-faced joker of tourism wandered into town. Starting with a trickle of savvy Bangkokians in search of something more authentically Thai than mega-malls and franchised life, the word spread that here was a piece of heritage that hadn’t yet been slam-dunked with T-shirt stalls and market kitsch. “Yes, …
Rip-roaring Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok’s great boulevard of dreams and schemes, is the city’s longest thoroughfare. Stretching 490 kilometres to the Cambodian border, it is also one of the longest roads in the world. For most visitors, Sukhumvit’s first, hyperactive mile-and-a-bit might be more than enough — a glorious overload of …
“Two million people have left town,” says my driver, Chum as we negotiate the central Bangkok traffic. “That only leaves about six million for the water fight,” I answer. Our head counts may not be too accurate, but many of Bangkok’s approximately seven million residents leave town at this time …
2 Blue smoke curls languidly above the huts as though from an opium pipe (until a generation ago, the preferred nightcap around here). Pigs squeal uneasily, catching a whiff on the wind not of poppy but fried pork. A four man band — oboe, drum, gong and cymbal — dins …
‘This is the only place in world that you’ll find hoi lord.” says our guide Panada. She leads us along a row of restaurants almost as unique as the straw shellfish itself. The twenty or so spidery structures in bamboo, perched high on pylons above the waterfront mangroves, are thronged …
“I walked out the door, a bit dazed. I had ten dollars and two not-quite diamonds and it was summer in Siam.” John Borthwick‘s first day in Thailand seemed far from auspicious — but it has been uphill from thenon. Dropping him in the middle of everything from three-day tribal …
