Thailand - final thoughts

Temple of the Dawn

We ended our trip last night with a dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya river. All the temples, palaces, and churches along the river were illuminated, providing a proper ending to our trip.

So what's my summary of this trip? OAT provided us with two great guides. Chantha was one of the original 26 guides in Cambodia and it showed both with his knowledge and personnal experience. Anil was also a top guide for his country. He was knowledgable about everything we him, but he also had a great sense of humor, kidding almost everyone after he learned a little about out habits. It made the trip much more personal.

I was surprised by the well-developed infrastructure in Thailand: well built 2 and 4 lane highways and cell phone coverage. OAT emphasises not just touring the sites, but interacting with the people and learning the culture. It was particularly good to visit people's home from poverty level to middle class and rich.

We learned a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism and I was shocked to see how much the Thai's revered their king and queen - every home had their pictures among the family photos. And yet, the politicians were considered corrupt. Anil gave us many examples where a politician lined his pockets from legislation that had good goals.

The handicrafts in Chiang Mai were impressive, both their quality and price. What was surprising was how often parents worked in Bangkok, while their home was elsewhere in the country. Usually with the grandparents raising the children. This concentration of jobs in not healthy for the country, I wonder what the long term effects will be?

We had extremely good luck on both the weather and health. While Mary struggled with her knee on occaision (after her May knee surgery), she managed to do almost everything. Dwayne injured his knee and Janet had a scare with an eye problem, but there really were few health problems on this trip. We went during the rainy season, but rain really didn't affect the trip at all. The heavy rains and floods avoided us - 2 days before Siem Reap, flooding in Chiang Mai when we were in Bangkok and visa versa.

Dwayne, Ardath, Janet, Martin, Sharon, Ralph, Laural, Milton, Bill, Flo, Mary & John

The group we toured with was among the best - no complainers, everyone was on time or early. We got along great! By the end of the trip we were tired of Thai food, yet the food was great -

a good variety, always plenty of it, and we got to try a lot of different things - rat (I declined), bamboo sticky rice, dancing shrimp (live shrimp in hot sauce) and lots of different fruits: dragonfruit, pomelo, and the best of them, mangosteen.

Mangosteen fruit in front

While not one of our top 5 trips, I would recommend this trip to anyone, if you want to learn about the culture and people of Cambodia and Thailand.