Many of you have asked, What stands out about the first couple weeks in Thailand?
The answer’s simple: THE FOOD!
Seriously – we haven’t had one bad meal here so far. Fingers crossed that continues to be the case! And sorry in advance – we rarely stop to take pics before stuffing our faces, so we don’t have a ton of “foodie” pictures to share with you (guess you’ll have to come try the food for yourself...)!
Over the past couple weeks, we’ve jumped around quite a bit (see the handy map Elizabeth put together). Every five days or so, we’ve been gradually making our way from central to northern Thailand.
This was intentional. Mike’s parents are visiting right after Thanksgiving for about 10 days (!) and we wanted to get a decent feel for the country and the culture in advance of their arrival.
In just a couple weeks, we think we’ve got a pretty good handle on Thailand. Good enough to show the Heintzlemans around, at least!
Here’s what we’ve been up to so far:
Bangkok
Before diving into this wild and wonderful city, you should know that it’s massive. Not just in population (yes, that too), but what we really mean here is that it’s an expansive area. The urban sprawl just keeps going and going… and... going.
Our 5-day experience in Bangkok was hyper-focused on the neighborhoods of Chinatown and Old Town. We had an amazing Airbnb stay above a trendy bar/restaurant in Chinatown. Our hosts, Note and Bua, turned out to be as cool as described in the Airbnb Magazine article that put us onto their place! #famous (more on that later…)
Half-Day Bike/Canal Tour
We found a great bike tour on Airbnb Experiences that included a canal ride through an unexpected part of the city. We think we rode about 15 miles and the ride took us down some smaller streets, through a coconut farm, and finally to the boat for our ride back. There is an entire portion of Bangkok where canals are the main thoroughfares. You’ll see homes along the canals where even the mail and trash have to be dropped off and picked up by boat!
At the end of the ride, we loaded the bikes up for the canal tour in the longboat!
Ba Hao Residence (our Airbnb)
We lucked up and heard about this place on Airbnb’s digital ‘Magazine’ (link) months in advance of our trip to Bangkok. To our surprise – our hosts, Bua and Note, found it hysterical when we said that’s how we had found them. They seemed to have almost forgotten about it!
These guys were great – and staying in their place truly made it an A+ experience in Bangkok. Positioned on a busy Chinatown street, popular for its handful of trendy bars, it was perfect for our quick 5-day visit.
Amphawa Floating Market + Maeklong Railway Market
This is the ultimate cultural day-trip combo from Bangkok. Located 1.5 hours driving southwest from the city, these places famously host local commerce in authentic Thai style.
And they’re exactly what they sound like:
A market that literally floats on a river (i.e. shops = boats)
A market where people shop on top of an active train railway
It’s necessary we provide a better description of Maeklong. So, again, this market really does sit directly on top of an active train rail, which has trains passing every few hours. This means the food-stall operators and shop owners have to break down their place of business, like clockwork, multiple times a day. We got lucky and arrived just before a train came through town, so take a peek at the photos below to see what we’re talking about. Madness!
One note on the floating markets: there are a handful of others located much closer to Bangkok (or even in the city). However, we were told that these have been created in more recent years, mostly to accommodate the tourism boom Thailand has experienced. While we can’t speak to the other, we believe that for the real, authentic Thai floating market experience, you need to drive out to Amphawa!
We actually visited both Amphawa and Maeklong on our drive down from Bangkok to Pranburi because it was perfectly along our route. The two markets are only 10 minutes apart, and you’ll only need 1-2 hours at each place to get the full experience, so a half-day tour from Bangkok works great. We highly recommend!
Favorite food spots in Bangkok:
Lhong Tou Cafe at Yaowarat. Funky cafe with elevated booths
Floral Cafe at Napasorn. Delicious iced coffee and pastries
Nai Mong Hoi Thod. Quintessential Chinatown street food. Try the crab omelette!
Thipsamai. We waited 1hr+ in line to try their famous king prawn pad thai. Worth it! (pro tip: there’s a takeout window if you’re ok eating on the go. Also – this spot is next door to the TV star / Michelin star chef who wears the ski goggles!)
Ba Hao! Upscale cocktail bar w/ Chinese inspired bar food (on the ground floor of our Airbnb)
Pranburi
This quaint little beach town is home to many of Asia’s top kiteboarders, and we happened to stay with the folks that design and manufacture THE boards all the pros use. Yet another clutch Airbnb score!
Pranburi is a quiet, but quickly up-and-coming vacation destination for foreigners and local Thai people alike. Located only ~3.5 hrs south of Bangkok (driving), it’s a great, affordable escape from the city.
Here, we had our first scooter-renting experience of SE Asia. Our place was right on the beach, and there were only a couple walkable restaurants/stores nearby, so having a vehicle came highly recommended. The way it worked was turnkey, and worth describing:
Within 15 minutes of arrival to Pranburi, our host, Siri, arranged to have a scooter delivered. Two guys showed up on two scooters; they dropped ours off at the door and left on the other. Excellent! Once we took a minute or two to re-learn how to operate the thing, we proceeded to put it to good use all week! Right as we had finished packing up our taxi to leave, the guys from the scooter company showed up and we tossed them back the keys and (a modest amount of) cash to cover our rental. Turnkey service!
Aside from the scooter experience being a blast (mostly for Mike, but still), we’ve got a few more highlights of note!
Phraya Nakhon Cave
You can pick a number of outdoorsy mini-adventures within Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, but the main attraction is catching the morning sunlight shining on the temple deep inside the Phraya Nakhon Cave.
Yes – there’s a long, difficult hike into a cave, within a Thai national park, that ends at a beautiful, well-preserved Buddhist temple!
Pranburi Forest Park
The perfect way to spend a morning, we definitely recommend driving 20 minutes north of town to check out the mangroves of the Pranburi Forest Park. For an hour or two, we left our scooter behind and stretched our legs for a lengthy walk in nature.
There were two unexpected surprises along the way that made our Park visit particularly memorable:
1.) The old broken bridge.
2.) The rickety river cruise.
Favorite food spots in Pranburi:
Very Good Restaurant. Our go-to spot in the area. Pretty sure we ate here four times in our six days in Pranburi. Located right by the beach, with good wifi and excellent service, we couldn’t recommend more!
Krua Nong Lek Jao Gao. Our other go-to. Cheaper than ‘Very Good’ but you pay the price by having to deal with more gnats and mosquitoes. Delicious nonetheless!
Yammy Cafe. Perfect breakfast spot. We loved their coffee and ordered fluffy peanut butter toast every single day.
Purimuntra Restaurant. We had a traditional Thai dinner here on our last night staying with our hosts, Siri and Craig. The restaurant is a 5-minute, barefoot walk down the beachfront from their place. They introduced us to their favorite dishes along with a couple mojitos!
Pranberry. Randomly, this was really tasty Italian food just down the street from our place. Elizabeth loved the pasta, Mike had a massive pork chop, and we washed it all down with one of the best chocolate lava cakes we’ve ever had!
Chiang Mai
Perhaps the most popular tourist destination in all of Thailand, aside from the beautiful beach islands in the south, we had to go see what all the hype was about for ourselves. Plus, Chiang Mai is the first stop we’re making with Mike’s parents once they get in – so we invested a few days scouting things out.
We’re going to save the major highlights for our next post so we can give a more complete Chiang Mai synopsis. For now, we’ll just say that we love this place – the hype is real!
Pai
A scenic three-hour drive to the north of Chiang Mai, the village of Pai is truly one-of-a-kind!
It’s unmistakably a hippy town – dreadlocks and bare feet galore. The people are nice as can be, though, and come from all over the world to participate in the unique culture that comes with the Pai community.
Surrounded by mountains, the town sits in a valley that proves nightly panoramic sunset views. Perfect scooter country!
We actually stayed about 3km (10 minutes drive) outside of the main town on a rice farm. So having our own transportation, again, was a must. This time, we went ahead and rented, not one, but two, scooters for our 5-day stay in Pai. His and hers!
Favorite food spots in Pai:
JUST EAT. Fresh, cold coconuts and the best chicken khao soi (asian noodles w/ hard noodles on top) we’ve had in Thailand.
Return to Simple. Leather goods shop with a cafe upstairs.
Pai Siam Bar & Bistro. Corner bar in the main part of town w/ nightly live music. Didn’t try the food; great for after dinner drinks!
Two Sisters Restaurant. Inexpensive and all-around solid Thai food, just a bit outside town. One of only a few places that had pad see ew (noodles) on the menu, or maybe we didn’t look hard enough…
…And that’s a wrap for our first couple weeks in Thailand. Thanks for reading – hit us with questions if you plan to go soon!