The best of 2012


For me personally the best (most memorable travel-wise) of 2012 was

Hotel : actually 2 .... "Seven Zea Chic Pattaya" and "Palm Lodge Resort, Sikio"
Both of great location and great service ... although the first hotel failed a bit the last time.

Restaurant : "Savan Dao French Restaurant, Savanakhet"
Because very good & tasty food, sweet service and a very affordable price

Motorbike trip : Riding in the area of "Nan"
Just because it has the most beautiful roads in the most beautiful scenery

Place to be : On top of "Phu Thap Beak"
Just because I love mountains and the view is magnificent

And of course always very happy to be ..... back home. Because a house is not a home without someone to come home for. And the worst things of 2012?  I tend to forget that kind of happenings.

Popular posts from this blog

Pattaya beach

Image
The beach of Pattaya is not really the fine white sand beach of a tropical beach and the sea is not really crystal clear but it is a a beach where it is nice to sit (yes there are plastic beach chairs) and watch people. And for me personally it brings back memories of starting to living in Pattaya more as 16 years ago. Following are a few more photos of the Pattaya beach.



Keep reading

Train stations in Thailand, next station Huai Saw Phat

Image
I love traveling by train, especially in Thailand where it is like traveling in time. It is like an open-air museum. Not only the trains itself but also the train stations. They look like they have not changed since they build the first railroad lines in Thailand in 1889. I will try to make a serie of train stations under the tag TRAIN STATIONS, before modernisation will make this all history. This little train station is Huai Sa Phat along the north-east line Bangkok - Nong Kai. Many railway stations have lovely small gardens and very well taken care. At the station you will see 2 rail-tracks (see following photos) .... but about 500m south of this station is a old one-track steel bridge crossing a small river. I was able to go inside the control room and make some photos of how this was 100 years ago (and still is now).

Keep reading

Searching for sea-shells in Pattaya

Image
A little bit north of Pattaya is soi 6 (of Sukhumvit road) and in the old days there used to be an great local seafood restaurant right on the beach. That is long gone and I thought some condo would have been build there. But nothing was build there. Actually the few small soi's there are now connected along the beach to create a kind of walking & sitting boulevard. And its was busy as there was a very low tide and it is a popular place to go looking for small sea-shells that are then BBQ'ed. Following are a few more photos of this really local Thai beach.



Keep reading

Old photos of the people of Nan

Image
I love history and a while ago I did meet via the world wide web of internet thingies the wonderful photographer Jonathan Stiles who in the 1980's lived and worked in Northern Thailand. And luckily also in Nan province. He made a lot of photos and scanned some of them (unfortunately in small size). And he is willing to share them us, with the remark of "Attribution, Non-Commercial and Share Alike". So please do not use his photos for commercial purpose or without attribution. Following is a serie of photos from Jonathan Stiles of hill-tribe people of Nan. A next serie will be about a hill-tribe mountain village. And a last serie will about textile from the hill-tribe people of Nan. For more photos from Jonathan Stiles have a look at his FlickR Thailand Photo Album or FlickR The Htin People photo album.













Keep reading

Safe travels my friend

Image
It was about 16 years ago that I did meet my friend and now at the age of 82 after a few years battling with his health we accompanied him to his last journey. A small group of friends and Thai family gathered to wish him well in whatever happens to our soul. He enjoyed his years in Pattaya, under the care of his beloved wife, at the beach with a beer & cigarette. And driving his beloved old Jeep. Luckily he saw his end coming and prepared well so at least his family can rest asure that all goes fine.
Keep reading