Thailand

Chang Mai is the largest city in the north of Thailand and well worth a trip. In many ways, Chang Mai is similar to Bangkok, but without the mass of people.

Chang Mai

Chang Mai is perhaps the most serene big city I have ever had the privilege of visiting. Located at the foot of a large mountain, the city nicely meshes older areas with modern conveniences. Serene Buddhist temples stand only a few blocks from bustling universities. Much of the city can be walked, but moped rentals are cheap and plentiful. Street markets are common, but the hustle and bustle of Bangkok is not.

The night market is perhaps the most noted thing about Chang Mai. Located in the eastern side of the city, the night market runs about a mile down the length of street dwarfed by malls, restaurants, stores selling art and spas. The stalls on the side of the road tend to sell cheap touristy products, but you should check them out anyway to sample some of the food items. Thais seem to take great humor from cooking anything they can get their hands on so long as they can gross out the tourist. Yep, you can munch on fried roaches, spiders, crickets and so on. For a good laugh, one can hang out around the stalls and watch tourist try the delicacies. It’s like the show Fear Factor without the washboard stomachs and breast implants.

To find the “good stuff” at the night market, you should head off the street and up into the open air malls. As you move towards the back of the malls, the quality of the products goes up dramatically. You’ll find artist not only hocking their wares, but also creating them before your eyes. There is some serious talent in the back of those malls.

If silk is your material of choice, Chang Mai is a good place to purchase it in bulk. Do not buy it at the night market. Instead, ask your hotel for a recommendation to a shop. Prices are low, but quality is high.

Traveler’s Tip

Guidebooks will tell you the best way to get to Chang Mai is to take an overnight train from Bangkok. Liars! Flying domestically in Thailand is very cheap. A one-way flight from Bangkok to Chang Mai will run you about $40US. There is no need to book ahead. Just walk into the airport in Bangkok and buy a ticket on the spot.

If you prefer to spend the night in a bunk on a train, knock yourself out. Just keep in mind Thais tend to have smaller body masses than Westerners. Much smaller.

Of all the cities in Thailand, Chang Mai is my favorite. Yes, even more so than Bangkok.

Rick Chapo is with NomadJournals.com - makers of travel journals. Visit NomadJournalTrips.com to read more articles about Thailand travel and Adventure Travel.

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The artificial island of KoKred lies cuddled between two bends of the Chao Phyra River at a point where the river wends to its narrowest. It is a counterfeit stricture, as this straight and narrow channel was cut to speed the journey of river traffic as it plied between Ayutthaya and the Gulf of Thailand.

This 10 kilometer square island is a delight. There are no cars, and the roads are narrow concrete strips splayed out around the island. The only traffic is an occasional motorbike or bicycle. What bliss, a stone’s thrown from Bangkok, a city that is being strangled by the motor vehicle!

and the roads are narrow concrete strips splayed out around the island. The only traffic is an occasional motorbike or bicycle. What bliss, a stone’s thrown from Bangkok, a city that is being strangled by the motor vehicle.

As you step off the ferry that has brought you across the river from Pakkred in a brief minute or two, you step back into a Thailand of 50 years ago. This island is home to a community of Mon people who came here from their homeland in the river Kwai valley north of Kanchanaburi . The temples and Buddha shrines scattered around the island are visible evidence of this neo-Burmese heritage.

The island is the site of a pottery industry. The rich clay soil provides an ideal medium for the red terracotta earthenware pots and water containers that were the mainstay of this economy. Sadly, others elsewhere, produce alternatives at a cheaper price and brick kilns have outlived their usefulness. Now the potters have turned their attention to the tourists who visit the island, usually on a Sunday in one of the large tour boats that sail up river from Taksin Bridge. However, the rich soil also supports a verdant landscape of palms, and fruit trees giving the place a wonderfully tranquil and rural feel. As a visitor you can walk around the island, hire a bicycle or zip quickly by on one of several motor cycle taxis. It’s quite a long walk, just over 5 kilometers, but a wonderful one at that! The path takes you under plantain tress with bunches of bananas overhanging the walk way and down below limes, papayas, pomeloes and all sorts of fruit I cannot identify grow in profusion.

For the really discerning travellers, there are rooms available to rent a very reasonable Bt 200 per night. The KoKred Restaurant has a verandah that juts out over the river. It is an ideal venue to eat or just sit, sip a drink and watch the sand barges and other water traffic as they glide by.

You don’t need to take the big cruise boats, chock full of tourists. Instead make you way to Victory Monument on the BTS. This missile like structure, which commemorates the Indo-Chinese War of 1940-41, serves as transport hub for Bangkok. Walk along the arterial skyway, and below you will see a sea of bus stands. Go as far as you can, descend and then wait for a 166 Bus. This will take you to Pakkred by motorway, thus avoiding the worst of the traffic jams. On reaching Pakkred, which is the terminus. You alight obliquely opposite the TMB bank, walk straight ahead until you encounter the motorcycle taxi-rank situated at the rear entrance of Jusco. Mumble something about KoKred and the driver will take you to the ferry stage at Wat Sana Nua. Enjoy the trip!

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The King Rama VII Museum on Ratchadamnoen Nok Avenue
is dedicated to King Prajadhipok, the last absolute monarch in
Thailand. King Rama VII (1893 - 1941) or King Prajadhipok
succeeded to the throne in 1925 and reigned through a
tumultuous period in Thai history till his abdication on 2
March 1935.

The old building housing the museum was designed by French-
Swiss architect Charles Beguelin during the reign of King
Rama V and completed in the reign of King Rama VI. A
fashionable Western tailor first occupied the building. The
subsequent tenants were drastically different, a construction
material company and later the Department of Public Works.

King Rama VII Museum was opened in 7 December 2002 and
gives an insight into the life and times of King Prajadhipok. To
start your tour, proceed upstairs and follow the directions for a
chronological display of the biography of King Rama VII.

Start your tour with the video clip on the genealogy of the
Chakri kings. Born in 1893, the year of the French blockade of
the Chao Phraya, King Rama VII succeeded to the throne in
1925 after the death of his brother King Rama VI or King
Vajiravudh.

Continue your tour of the King Rama VII Museum and view
the displays on the young prince’s early education in Thailand.
He went on to study at Eton and attended military training at
the Woolwich Military Academy and later the French staff
college.

Displayed in the King Rama VII Museum are personal effects
of King Rama VII. These include his pencil box from London
when he was a student and an account book kept by the Thai
embassy in London on the young prince’s study expenses.

His early exposure to the West made him a firm believer in
education, science, public administration and foreign
languages. He saw the trend in political development and even
tried to prepare for it. But he knew the kingdom was not ready.

A reluctant monarch, King Rama VII needed to restore
confidence in the monarchy. He realized the need for political
reform as the days of absolute monarchy were numbered. With
a well-intended desire for reform, he was contemplating
democracy. A copy of the draft constitution prepared under his
the direction is on display at the King Rama VII Museum.

But time was not on his side. There was a growing force of
nationalism in the early 1920s with the new liberalism from the
intellectuals and Western educated Thais. This political
awakening was fired by the crisis of economic depression of
1930 that culminated in the coup on 24 July 1932.

King Rama VII Museum depicts the life of King Prajadhipok,
the last absolute monarch or the first constitutional monarch
depending on one’s point of view. It captures the life of a much-
enlightened king pressured by the political events of his time
and caught in the powerful forces of history over which he had
no control.

For a map to the King Rama VII Museum.

The King Rama VII Museum
is one of the historical treasures covered in Tour Bangkok Legacies a
historical travel site on people, places and events that left their
mark in the landscape of Bangkok. The author Eric Lim, a
free-lance writer, lives in Bangkok Thailand.

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