Sue in Jakarta: Thailand with Glen and Cathy

We left for Bangkok on the first day of my October break and arrived mid afternoon. The traffic was heavy, similar to Jakarta and the taxi driver joked that Jakarta is famous for the worst traffic jam ever at 47 kilometers long and that Bangkok came second. "That's not good enough," he said, "Bangkok must be first!" Actually, Bangkok is much better than Jakarta as they have about the same population but two rapid transit systems and a third being built, whereas Jakarta has nothing.
We arrived at our hotel which was right on the river. There was constant traffic going up and down the river, tugs with freighters, longtail boats with passengers commuting from one area to another and bigger tour boats. The river was high because of all the flooding in the North and there was lots of debris in the water.
We got settled in the hotel then went for a walk on a path along the river. We decided to take a longtail boat ride to see some of the city without all the traffic. It was very hot and along the way a very smiley women floated up in her boat trying to sell us trinkets. We didn't bite on those but couldn't resist the cold beer that she pulled out of a cooler! We later found out that we had paid about twice as much as we should have - no wonder she was so smiley!

The next day we left early by bus for Ayutia, the ancient capital of Thailand. We stopped first at the summer palace of the King. It was a large acreage, beautifully landscaped and with buildings reflecting the King's interest in Asian and European architecture.

After the summer palace we went to several temples, before boarding a large boat for the two hour cruise back to Bangkok with a delicious buffet lunch as part of the package. After the hot morning tour, it was nice to relax in the air conditioning of the boat and watch the sights along the river.

We left Bangkok early the next morning and flew to Phuket, where a driver met us and took us North for 2 1/2 hours to where the longtail boat picked us up for the 1/2 hour ride to our ecostay on Koh Ra. It is an isolated, mountainous island in the Andamen Sea. We were given two very basic cabins on the beach with only a bed and a mosquito net in the front room and a cement floored bathroom with a toilet that had to be flushed by scooping water out of a barrel. We were the only guests, so had the beach to ourselves. It was very quiet but we amused ourselves with beachcombing, sea kayaking, walks through the jungle, bird watching and reading. We had hoped for good snorkeling but apparently we were about a week too early and the water was still murky from the rainy season. I did manage to get stung by a large, pink jellyfish! Because of the poor snorkeling, we decided to leave two days early. Lory helped us book accommodation in Phuket for our last two nights and a snorkeling tour to Phi Phi Island.