30/7 - Trat

Hi All,

For too many travelers, all they see of Trat is the shiny new bus station before they are shunted to the islands. We decided to stay for a longer time and explore this city.
Definitely - a wise choice!



We have heard about the exotic night market here and the reality was better than our imagination. The variety of food stalls amazed us, everything was delicious, all was colorful, and the prices were ridiculously cheap.



The town itself is a nice place to relax and explore together, before heading to the island, we shopped for a bit, since the prices here are much cheaper than the Capital - Bangkok.

Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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29/7 - Nang Rong

Hi All,

The reason we came to Nang Rung was to see Phanom Rung temple, this complex is the largest and best restored of all Khmer monuments in Thailand, and as our travel guide book defines it "it has a knock me dead location", which you can see Cambodia's land from there.

Phanom Rung:
Phanom Rung is a Khmer temple complex set on the rim of an extinct volcano at about 430 meters above sea level. It was built in sandstone and late rite in the 10th to 13th centuries. It was a Hindu shrine dedicated to Shiva.



There are another more temples in the area, such as Meuang Tam which has also been built by the Khmer people.



It is a funny story how we met Ning and Poom - 2 local young nurses from the area, they were helping us to lift our motorcycle on a truck after we got a flat tyre.
We were lucky to find someone who brought us with our motorcycle to a near by garage to fix the tyre.



We spent 2 nights in a row with those 2 girls while having dinner (one in a restaurant the second at their home), trying to communicate with our Thai and their lack of English ...





Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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25/7 - Chinag Khan

Hi all,

Traditional timber houses line the streets, old ladies sit nattering in their shadow and the Mekong river drift slowly by, Chiang Khan has an image of a northern riverside town, pretty and peaceful with photogenic views of the river, rice fields and the mountains of Laos beyond.



No doubt, this was one of our best places to visit and not only because of what has already been written but because of the people we met as well.
Some of the experiences we had been through include:
- Interacting with a monk in his residency in an isolated place.



- Getting lost with our motorcycle and getting unexpected help from a Kiwi man (Clynt), he was surprised to see us as much as we were to see him. His family came to visit his Thai wife family in this remote village. They were kind to us and we got an invitation to their family dinner.



- It was the first time for Efrat to work in the rice field among the locals.



- Communicating in Hebrew with a local farmer which worked in Israel for a 4-5 month, he was so funny and spoke Hebrew pretty well.

- Meeting Unchalee (a teacher) and her family, she invited us couple of times to have dinner with her while sharing nice and interesting conversations.



Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

---

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20/7 - Back to Bangkok

Hi all,

Before going further more and exploring North East of Thailand, we stopped for a while in the capital, Once again we met Yair (whom we first met in Lijiang, China) and his friend - Nava who came from Israel.
With them we went to the Weekend Market and spend wonderful time over there, did some shopping and shared few laughs.





Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

---

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19/7 - Sangkhlaburi

Hi All,

Sangkhlaburi, a sleepy town of 15,000, is located 340 km northwest of Bangkok in Kanchanaburi Province.
Most of Sangkhlaburi's population includes many ethnic groups such as the Mon, Karen, Burmans, Lao and even Burmese Muslims from Arakan state in western Burma. The ethnic conflicts of earlier decades have largely been sorted out. Sangkhlaburi now guarantees a peaceful multi-ethnic environment.



Sanghkhlaburi is set towards the end of one of Thailand's western border, nestled on the low hills edging Vajiralongkorn Lake, and is surrounded to the north and east by higher forest-covered limestone ranges. The outlying area hosts Karen and Mon villages, caves, waterfalls and jungle.



To explore these sights we rented a motorcycle for 2 days, riding among the peacful villages, trying to contact with the locals (the language barrier was very hard), stopping in secluded places, admiring the temples and of course visiting Tree Pagodas Pass, which remark the official border with Burma. Unfortunately these days the border is closed for forigners and local at once, altough we found it breached and many people from either side went through each direction without any problem.



Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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14/7 - Back to Bangkok

Hi All,


It is nice to feel back home, to soak up the atmosphere of freedom, doing anything you want whatever you want whenever you want it, just name it: Thai massages, drinking wonderful fruit shakes, excellent food from the street, huge shopping malls, 7 Eleven of course, you can find here big variety from everything.



We arrived here on Efrat's birthday after a long long night - the flight from Kunming was delayed, KhaoSan Road (backpacker's heaven) welcomed us at 3 A.M.It took us an hour to find a vacancy (all guest houses here are full), tired and exhausting we went to sleep. After getting up, it was a good time to celebrate Efrat's birthday in a cinema ("Hanckok"). The next day we treated ourselves with facial treatment and Thai massage.



Now after spoiling ourselves we were ready to go and explore the unfamiliar Thailand, starting at Sangkhlaburi and the border with Burma (Myanmar).

Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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13/7 - Bye Bye China

Hi All,

Well, it is the end of it, today at 23:30 we have a flight from here in Kunming to Bangkok (2 hours with Eastern China Airlines).
We sure going to miss China, here we have seen things we haven't seen in any other country we stayed at. We think China is growing up too fast for foreigners and the local people.

It is a combination between old and new, still you can find a traditional country while the modern style already got into the most remote villages.

It has great long history, the culture is very different from what we know, which make it interesting and unique place to explore and experience.

The food is spicy delicious, the women are beautiful and the people are friendly and helpful even though most of them spit and smoke like chimneys.

You can easily find here everything you look for in a place to visit: traditional ethnic minorities, vast desert, tropical forests, high snow mountains, enormous rivers, small simple villages, big urban cities, wonderful food and friendly people.

We didn't have enough from China, it has a lot to offer, like we already mentioned, we are going to miss this place.

See you in Thailand for our final month before coming back home.


Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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12/7 - Jinghong

Hi all,

Jinghong is the capital of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in China and the historic capital of the former Tai kingdom of Sipsongpanna.
Traveling around this beautiful city (palm trees all around) brought us to some nice experiances, there are 13 minorities (mostly Dai minority) living around here, it was specially unique to see the burmese minority which looks like Indians wearing dresses like the traditional Fijian people.



Mostly you can find them in their jewllery shops, we guess they are good in buisness like the Indians.
It is worth to mention Jinghong is located near the borders with Laos, Thailand and Burma (Myanmar).

Madian waterfalls:
We were undecided what to do at that day, we thought about renting bicycles and tour around the villages, but we got an interesting offer from 2 German brothers - Mattias and Florian, to go with them to Madian falls.



These falls located 27 kilometers southwest of the Jinghong, it has been said it has more than 10 cascades, with a fall of nearly 20 meters and a width of 10 meters, but while we arrived it was probably not in the best time, the water level was very low, the waterfall itself was not impressive as we hoped. Nevertheless, the Mandian Waterfall lies in a virgin forest full of various species of plants.



Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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9/7 - Yaka Trek

Hi All,

In the middle of xishuangbanna area, on the of China-Laos border, we trekked for 2 days in the mountains of the Dai ethnic minority (origin from Thailand).
Xishuangbanna is an area of China that few travellers afford themselves the time to see. Yet it is a mysterious place. As the only tropical rainforest nature reserve in China, Xishuangbanna is ideal for nurturing wonderful plants and flora and is home to unusual wildlife.



Dai Minority people have lived on this land for generations. The distinctive natural environment here has created unusual customs and traditions.
You can easily spot the Dai villages style along the trek. These bamboo structures raised on stilts deter floods and dangerous animals, allowing many people to inhabit one house safely, often along with all their animals too.
Temples and pagodas with a Southeast Asian flavour are dotted about the countryside and towns, and monks, especially young male trainee boys, are a common sight, clothed in traditional orange costume, often riding motorbikes to the temple.
Hunting is still the main source of income, in conjunction with farming (rice and tea) this can be seen while trekking.



In terms of culture, the Dai people dress in spectacular colours and furs, and dance and song are popular ways to pass the time.

We started our day really early in the morning, had to change 2 buses on our way to one of the remote villages in the area - Guangming Village. From there we started to hike at around 14:00,
entering the wild jungle in unmarked paths, Efrat got worried that we are lost.

We were sleeping in a village called: Yaka, a local family invited us to sleep in their house, that was quite experience. Dinner and breakfast were actually the same - rice with vegtables and spices, we liked to observe and soak up their traditional lifestyle.



At the second day, we left the jungle and hiked along the tea and rice fields from one village to the other.
At the second village, we got lucky enough to meet a salesman who arrived there to buy some tea leafs, he was on his way back to Jinghong (the main city of this area) and offered us a ride. That was actually a 5 hours 4 WD jeep trek back to the civilization and at the end of it, he was nice enough to invite us to dinner at a fancy thai restaurant.



It was interesting to feel the changes in one day, in the morning we were at a minority remote traditional village in the far mountains and at evening time we arrived to a big city with all of its modernization.

Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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6/7 - Kunming

Hi All,

We arrived from Dali back to Kunming, back to our same Hotel.
We decided to break the journey to Xishuangbanna area (our next place to visit) and stop here for a 1 resting day.

Again, we arrived in the weekend, lucky us there was no rain during our wondering around in the streets of the capital province, as always we were amazed by the lovely city with its people which crowded up the streets and shopped themselves in every corner.

Efrat with top models:


Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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4/7 - Dali

Hi all,

Dali Located 300 kilo-meters northwest of Kunming, Dali City is the economic and cultural center of the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture. The area is surrounded by mountains on the east, west, and south, and has the Erhai Lake in its center.



The old city of Dali is resemble to the one in Lijiang and Zhongdian. it's more touristic than Zhongdian and less beautiful and attractive than in Lijiang, but it still nice place to stroll around.
Present day Dali is a city that combines history with modern convenience.
Here hotels, public squares, and shopping centers add modernity to the otherwise historical city.

beside traveling the old town, we went to the famous national park here called: Mt. Cangshan. a cable car took us up to the Cloudy road which is located a few hundreds meters above Dali and the surrounding. as usual, we visited waterfalls, admired panoramic views, temples and more.
The clouds here changes often - sometimes the clouds are thin as silk, sometimes they are as dark as ink.
The springs here are also famous. Besides the eighteen streams, there are still many lakes over the altitude of over 3,800 meters. The lakefronts are densely covered with forests, which include rare species of trees and many kinds of flowers.



Erhai Lake looks similar as our Kinneret lake, it had no big impression on us, but still the 1 hour walk to the villages nearby was something worth doing.

There is also a kong Fu temple in the area (called: Wo Wei Shi) which we hiked for a long time to get there, only to discover that this is the resting day (the only one during the week) for the Tai Chi masters. Some tourists stay there for a week, trying to learn the Chinese art and "get to the gold".



Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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1/7 - Lijiang again

Hi All,

We had a long drive from Deqin back to here, it all started at 7:30 in the morning while the Jeep driver refused to show up as we set the previous night, we went to the bus station and bought tickets to Zhongdian, on the way we had a little car accident (broken mirror and bended bump) which delayed us in an hour or so, we arrived to Zhingdian at 15:03, only 3 minutes after the bus to Lijiang had left. we had to take the next one.

The driver of that bus was super slow, it seems to us he did everything he could to arrive late, and that includes so many stops on the way for actually nothing.
We arrived to Lijiang at 20:00 after a real long and exhausting day.

But the fun starts here in the old city, at Mama Naxi Guest House which we love. We didn't excpect to stay here that long, for us it was suppose to be just a stop on the way to Dali, but needless to say, we fell in love in this place.



We took it easy after the hard trek in Deqin, wondering around the small allyes of the old town, soaking up the layed back atmosphere all over again. it's so fun.

Here we met 2 Israeli guys, Gilad and Yair which we spent a really nice day while walking to Elephant hill for overlooking the town scenery from a bird's eye.



Have fun,
Efrat and Yoni.

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