Travel 017 : Isaan Region, Thailand : 13 Dec 2012 : Phimai

My initial idea was to go on a week long trip to complete Mae Hong Son loop and touch Chiang rai (to visit the white temple).  But, due to other reasons, my trip needs to be shortened to only four days.  so, dropped the original idea and wanted to drive some part of Isaan from Bangkok airport.  When I was reading the internet,  there are many forums where self-driving in Thailand (especially Bangkok) was discouraged.  As I have no plans to go into Bangkok, decided to book my car anyway.  It turned out to be a right decision.

The day started at early morning when my flight to Bangkok left at 7am from Changi and landed at Bangkok at 8.30am.  Getting to the counter to get my visa on arrival is a mess.  Though the immigration queues are well maintained, they really didn't bother to regulate the crowd at the visa on arrival counter.  Interestingly, they had an fast track as well.  It was mentioned that the fast track is for elderly, children etc.  But anybody can queue up at the fast track and it is less crowded (may be others thought that it is for the reason for which it is supposed to be).  But fast track is really fast and they can chop the visa within minutes.  Coming out of the airport, I collected my car (Toyota altis 1.6), stocked snacks from a 7-11 and started my first drive into Thailand.

I had initial difficulty getting out of the airport and on the the right highway (Route 2).  I had to go one round back to the airport again but eventually got onto the right highway.  Within first 15 to 20 minutes, I went past all Bangkok city exits and felt fully comfortable driving.  My first stop is 320 km from Bangkok airport which I guess will take 5 hours.  As I have a long way to cover in today's itinerary, I didn't stop much on the highway.  The food that I stocked at the Bangkok airport came handy along my drive.  Some 2 hours into the drive, I saw a line of fruit shops at the road side and they are waving any car that goes at the left most line.  I stopped at one of these shops.  only then I realized that the are selling fruits whole-sale and it is not really a setup to cut a fruit and eat there.  The only familiar fruit I could see is Jackfruit and i had a very difficult time trying ask the lady whether they can cut the fruit for me.  I guess managing with English is going to be tougher going into the Isaan region.  Took this stop to stretch myself a bit though I didn't buy (rather couldn't) any fruits.  Google maps in my phone is very accurate until I parked my car at Phimai national park.  Google maps proved to be a must-have companion throughout the trip into Isaan.

After about 5 hours drive, I parked my car in front of Phimai historic park.  It is a small

car park that can take about 30 cars and in the middle of the Phimai town.  Luckily I got a parking lot.  My today's and tomorrow's trip covers some of the ruins that is part of the Cambodia's Angkor Wat regime.  As I visited Angkor last year and spent 5 days around the Angkor complex, it sounded good for me to wrap that up with the temples in Thailand that were built by the same kingdom.  Looking at the Phimai temple, I can connect the structure and scriptures to the ones in Cambodia.  The Phimai temple's restoration is not as good as most of the temples in Cambodia and except for the main sanctum, others are "restored" only by piling many stones in right structural form.  So the number of clear Bas reliefs are less.

With the experience of visiting may Angkor Wat temples, I could still able to click some of the Bas relief.  Here is one with Brahma
















It is already about 5pm and I have to drive my way to Nang Rong which is where I had my

accommodation booked.  It is a 100 km drive and I prefer not to drive at nights.  But, while driving, at about 6pm, it started becoming dark.  As it is more of open fields, there are many small flies that were flying towards the car and suicide themselves all over in front of my car.  I drove into the small street of Nang Rong at about 7.30pm and with little difficulty, parked my car at P.California hotel for staying the night.

Travel 016 : Sandakan, Sabah : 19 Jun 2012 : Kinabantan River

We had another river boat trip in the morning (about 6.30).  Had breakfast and it is time to check out.  We checked out in the late morning, took the one minute boat to cross the river and started in our car drive to Sandakan.  Tonight is our flight back to KL en-route to Singapore.  There is no specific place to visit today in our agenda.  However, we took a detour to visit Batu Tulug by going the opposite direction towards Lahad Datu.  When we reach Batu Tulug,  there is nobody other than us.  Bought tickets and climbed over a hundred steps to reach the first cave.  This cave is full of bats hanging at the ceiling.







From here we drive back all the way to Sandakan but had a good break at the Sepilok oranguton rehab centre (we didn't go inside).  It was about 3pm when we reached Sandakan and went to curry house (for one last time on the trip) to have our Indian (late) lunch.  At about 4.30pm, drove to the airport after filling fuel along the way.  At 6pm, returned the car and started our long wait for the flight.  We waited for 3 hours and took our flight to KL.  Then it was a overnight wait to catch our early morning flight back to Singapore.

Travel 015 : Sandakan, Sabah : 18 Jun 2012 : Kinabantan River

Today we will be checking out and heading towards the Kinabantan river.  Our plan is to self-drive all the way to the Kinabantan village, meet the bus (guide) and follow him to reach the resort in Bilit that we booked for one night stay.  It is about 80 km drive to the Kinabantan village.  We started at about 10am, visited the Sandakan curry house, had breakfast and packed some food in case we cannot get anything of our like as we are heading into the remote villages.  With food assured for the rest of the day, we drove all the way to the Kinabantan village by passing through Sepilok and stoping for a gas fill.  Reached at the designated meeting point at about 12.30pm and waited for our guide bus that comes at 1pm.  While driving behind the bus toward the Bilit village, we had to take a detour from the main road (as heavy road works took place) and had to drive through unpaved path for about 5km to finally reach the Bilit village.  Our resort is across the river and we cannot drive our car directly there.  So, we parked our car at this side with a house in the village.  A 20MYR will do for an overnight parking.  From here we took one-minute boat ride to cross the river to our resort.

The resort itself gives a bit of a jungle feel and more so when we see a small snake on the roof of our room near the entrance.  But unlike the other places we stayed, this resort is more targeting the wallet of tourists.  So much so that anything you want to use costs money.  At their "reception" where they had a briefing, one can see everywhere price tag handing (internet access cost, PC time cost, telephone call costs etc).  There is no mobile phone reception and I doubt if they purposefully put jammers.  Within an hour, we were off for our first wildlife watching on a boat.  This is only the best part of the stay at this "resort". 

On this day evening, we could able to spot elephants, lot of monkeys and some horn-bills.  There supposed to be a jungle night walk after this.  But, I had a very difficult time getting information like whether is it safe for my young children and the time was short.  So, we skipped the jungle walk.  Surprisingly, the dinner (and next day breakfast) had some vegetarian options. with our dinner, we retired back to our rooms for the day.

Travel 014 : Sandakan, Sabah : 17 Jun 2012 : Sandakan

Sandakan has a street market that gathers every Sunday and is very next to the hotel we stayed.  I was looking forward to that market as it will be a time for us to buy many things and souvenirs.  During my last visit to Kota-Kinabalu, I bought a lot of pearl necklaces and ear-rings and so thought my wife will be freaking out in this market.  So in the morning, we stepped out of the hotel and looked at the market.  It was a big disappointment for me.  Nothing compared to the Chiang-Mai's street market and not even comparing to the Kota-Kinabalu's street market.  It is so small and we buy nothing from the market. 

Later we took the car and visited the Agnes Keith house.  This time we visited the house and not the tea house.  The house is well maintained and very informative. 









 
It is our elder daughter's birthday today and we came to know from internet that there is an Hindu temple in Sandakan.  As we don't have much to see in the city for the rest of the day, we drove to see the temple (though the plan is to go inside only in the evening) and drive back and visited the water-village.  From there, we went to a long drive along the coastal road and return back to the hotel. The rest of the afternoon went in walking along the coastal road and buying some small things.

In the evening, we visited the Vinayaga temple.  It is interesting to visit this temple at a remote part of Borneo.  There is no crowd except for a couple of families.  Speaking to one of the elder couple, we get to know about Sandakan curry house which is supposed to have Indian vegetarian food in Indian style.  So far in Sandakan, we manage to get only prata and dal that come close to Indian vegetarian.  So, we drove to the Sandakan curry house and glad to find thosai amoung other Indian dishes.  I had a nice chat with the owner and had nice Indian food for the first time after we started from our home.  We pinned this place to visit later for tomorrow and day-after.

Travel 013 : Sandakan, Sabah : 16 Jun 2012 : Sandakan

Today our plan is to check-out from Sepilok and check-into Sandakan city.  But before we drive to Sandakan, we planned to visit the only other attraction around Sepilok which is the probacis monkey sanctuary.  It is well over a 25 km ride.  From Sepilok, we have to come to the main Sandakan-KK road, go towards KK for 10+ km and turn right into another road, drive for 15 KM to reach the sanctuary.  The entire road is well paved and no problem driving.  Once we enter the sanctuary, buy our tickets and know which platform to go to, there is a further 3 KM ride which is not a good paved road.  Even then by driving slowly, a simple 2WD can reach unto the platform.  This entire path is surrounded by palm plantation. Unlike the rehab center, one can see many monkeys once we enter the platform (not necessarily at the feeding time) and we could see many of them at closer distance.  During the feeding, there were more monkeys emerging from the forest.  Though we see enough monkeys which is the purpose of this visit, the surprising guest was a few black-and-white horn-bills that were sitting on the tall trees.  Seeing the interest, the men working there tried to bring them closer to the platform by offering some fruits.  But somehow the birds didn't move any closer to the platforms.

We were sitting at the platform sipping some cold drinks while almost all the visitors left the platform.  Then it happened.  A horn-bill reached the platform and eat the bananas.  This is the closest we saw a horn-bill in our visit.  Satisfied with this, we went back to the car, started our drive to Sandakan city which is over 40KM.  The roads are straight forward and only to enter into the city, we have to navigate a few roundabouts and then a straight road took us all the way to the water-front area where we booked our hotel (NAK hotel).  I have already checked upfront that a car park is available.  We checked into the hotel and to our surprise, the room had a queen and two single beds and accommodated our entire family and still had huge space.  After refreshing, we started walking along the Jalan Pryer road which has full of shops.

In the evening we walked to Agnes guest house by climbing the stairs with 100 steps.  It is an English tea house where we got a nice sea view and good scones and juices.  We then walked back by the road to our guest house.  We had dinner at the roof-top restaurant in the hotel (a widely talked-about) with Italian pizzas and pastas.

Travel 012 : Sandakan, Sabah : 15 Jun 2012 : Sepilok

Sepilok has two attractions namely RDC (Rainforest discovery centre) and the orang-kutan rehab center.  We planned to cover both of them today as we will be moving to Sandakan tomorrow.  The rehab centre attracts crowd only two times a day when they feed the orang-kutan (at 10am and 3pm).  so we decide to go to the RDC first when the sun was not punishing much (relatively speaking) and try to catch the 3pm feeding at the rehab center.  Both are just five minutes drive away and our lodge is just in-between.

RDC is a huge rain forest reserve with trails of different length and difficulty.  It also has a canopy walk which is only partly open and also a plant discovery garden.  When we visited in June 2012, they were constructing a huge car park and so we end up parking our car at the road side.  But with traffic almost nonexistent only with a few tourist buses and few cars, this is not a problem.  We started with the plant garden.  It was well sign-boarded and categorized that my daughter able to locate and pin-point many species.  It was raining last night and we still had some wetness on the ground.  I guess because of the rain, there were many mosquito like flies that bothered my younger one.  As it was just the beginning of our walk into the RDC, we have to keep the kids encouraged to proceed further.  As we came out of the garden by walking over a hanging bridge, we started into a trail.  Walked about half-a-kilometer and across a ginger garden, we spotted the first set of monkeys in the wild.  That was also the place where the canopy walk started and so we climbed many steps to enter into the bridge. 

Each pillar connecting the walk also act as a watching tower. Walking along this elevated path, we spotted a couple of birds and we walk back to take some rest at the only restaurant in the RDC.  Though we carried water with us, after long walk, anything cool that we drink is a heaven and so gulped a Fanta.  With the clock only showing about 10.30 am, we want to walk along the "Pita path" and see the Sepilok giant.  It is a tree believed to be the biggest and oldest in Sepilok.  As we walked along the pita path, it was proving to be more and more tougher (especially with young kids).  But at the end, we got to see the giant tree.  Walked back along another path that loops back to the restaurant.  By this time, everybody could make a call to go back to the lodge.  We walked back to the main entrance and drive back to the lodge.  It was already about 1.30 pm and we took our lunch at the lodge and ready to visit the rehab center.  At about 2.45, we entered into the center and joined many tourist groups that were arriving for the 3.30pm feeding time. 

Along with the crowd and under the hot sun, we were waiting and hoping to see some orang-kutans.  The rehab center is targeting these monkeys to live their own life (it is a rehab center after all) and so this feeding is not the main source of food.  Also, the forest is being too wide that some orang-kutans have to travel few kilometers if they want to make it to the feeding place.  With all these, there is no guarantee that we get to see any orang-kutans, but yet, we waited patiently.  Nearing 3.30pm, there was a man carrying food and sat on the platform.  Along came one orang-kutan.  We were watching at far distance into the jungle to see for any tree movements.  At the end all we got to see are wild squirrels, flying lizard and some birds.  As a consolation there was only one monkey on the platform for the entire period.  At one side, it is nice to observe that the orang-kutans are more self -reliant that they didn't turn up for the feeding.  On the other side, for the money we paid (60 MYR per person), we saw no monkeys.

With this, we return to our lodge, had coffee and snacks and rested for the rest of the day and enjoyed the serene surroundings of the lodge.

Travel 011 : Sandakan, Sabah : 14 Jun 2012 : Sepilok

Subsequent to my last trip to Cambodia which is more of a lonely trip, this time our trip was to Sandakan, Sabah.  As it was school holidays and my daughters wanted a kind of adventure trip (also with budget and duration constraints), we choose to visit a part of Sabah.  I have already explored a 100 KM surroundings of Kota Kinablu, so this time visited around the second big city of Sabah.  There is nothing much to see in the Sandakan city itself but its neighboring villages provide  many natural attractions.  with 5 nights at hand, we split it among Sepilok, Sandakan and Kinabantan.  Reaching Sandakan is also not an easy one (well for family with young children).  It doesn't have an international connection and we have to transfer either at Kuala Lumpur or Kota Kinabalu.  We booked the entire trip (SG - KL - SDN and back) with AirAsia and the waiting time at KL was patient-testing. 

This is also my first trip (family and alone) where we have rented a car from landing until departing.  With Hertz giving a heavy discounted price, happy to drive a 1.6 cc sedan.  We started at Singapore by 9 in the morning to KL LCCT.  There was a three hours wait for us to board our next flight to Sandakan.  The LCCT in KL is a very busy airport with so many domestic and international departures dominated by AirAsia.  We had all the time to fill ourselves with McD, juices and for me to get a SIM card and a data plan.  It just took 5 MYR for a SIM, 5 MYR voice top-up and 20 MYR data plan (4 GB / 7 days) which is enough to cover our entire trip for voice and data.  At about 1pm, we started to Sandakan and reached there by about 4pm.  being a small airport with only domestic flights, Sandakan airport is quiet.  Took over my car from Hertz and headed straight to Sepilok.  We organized in such a way that we stay in Sandakan on Saturday and Sunday.  So, our first stop was Sepilok where we booked a big chalet for our family in a forest lodge very near to the orang-kutan rehab centre.  Sepilok is at about 20 KM away from Sandakan on the way to Kota kinabalu.  The highway from Sandakan to Kota kinabalu itself is just a two way (one lane each direction), but as I have experienced such roads in Kota kinabalu, came no surprise.  Once we entered the lodge (Sepilok forest edge lodge) in the middle of the forest setting, the family instantly liked its surroundings.  Our allotted chalet was even more serene with a huge room and a balcony overlooking a mini-forest.  As it was already over 6pm, we quietly had our dinner and rested.  It was a long day just flying and transiting and we have a big day ahead trying to venture into some of the forest walks.

A view from our chalet