Yao villagers waiting in line at King Chulalongkorn Day in Nan

Yao hill-tribes in Nan - Thailand

At a Royal Memorial day the local Yao villagers were all dressed up in their traditional cloths. For more information about the beautiful Nan province see Traveling 2 Nan - Thailand.

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Travel Tips : Suggested Motorbike Routes in North Thailand

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Latest update : 24 June 2019 (more routes will follow in the coming weeks)
Motorbike riding in Thailand, especially in North Thailand (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Nan) and North-East Thailand is becoming popular. Not only for Big Motorbikes but also for scooters and even some people do the same routes by bicycle! So in a serie Suggested Motorbike Routes I will show you some great routes to ride. Some people will ride routes like this in 1 day but you could also do it slow and take 2 or 3 days (you will see much more). I am now I think motorbike riding for more as 10 years in Thailand, to read my reports of motorbike riding click on Motorbike Trip Reports.

You will find already many information about the famous Pai & Mae Hong Son Loop, so I will skip that. I will just add some routes that I have been riding in North Thailand. And for routes in Nan provinces you will have to look at Suggested Motorbike Routes in Nan province. So this will mostly cover the provinces of Phrae, Uttaradit, …
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Bicycling between the rice fields of Pua

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A few days ago I made a little bicycle ride between the rice fields of Pua. Although the raining season has started it has not yet been raining enough for the rice fields to be all beautiful green. Actually most farmers are just starting with planting small rice on dry parts of land. Later they will move them to bigger plots of land that are full with water. A group of farmers from one village will work all together to do each others rice fields. And while bicycling I passed a sala between the rice fields where a big group of farmers were just have a rest and drink (see following photo).


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Planting rice in Pua

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All around us the local farmers are working in the rice paddies and I am very happy I am not a farmer. First they plant rice on dry soil and they grow that for about 1 month. Then they pull the small rice plants out the soil and make small bundles of it. In the meanwhile another rice paddy has been prepared and flooded with water. They then trow the bundles of rice plants into the water in a way that they are spread all over the rice paddy. Then they walk into the rice paddy and start planting the rice again in the new rice paddy. Wow so much work for such a low price of rice per kg! And I just realised that 99% of the people who do the planting are women.

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Visiting the Wat Si Mongkol in Nan

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Yesterday we did visit the Wat Si Mongkol (or Wat Khong) along route 1170 between Tha Wang Pha and Sila Phet in Nan province (North Thailand). Although I have been already many times at this temple we did visit it again with friends from the Netherlands. This temple has become a bit of a commercial tourist destination for Thai tourists because of the great view over the rice fields and mountains. But more there is also a small museum at the temple grounds and the temple has some nice new murals inside. Following are a few more photos.





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Gold Shops in Thailand

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One of those Things Typically Thai are gold shops. OK it is not typically for only Thailand because you will see Chinese run gold shops all over South-East Asia. But when you have been on holiday in Thailand I am sure you will have noticed the always red coloured gold shops. They are everywhere, even in small towns. And in shopping malls. Yaowarat road in Bangkok is famous for its gold shops. In Thailand gold shops are not really jewellery shops but more a kind of bank as you can not only buy gold but also sell gold. So gold becomes a kind of investment and a way of showing how wealthy you are. On the windows of gold shops you see the daily price of buying & selling gold. Mind you that is the price of just gold, not the price of gold jewellery. For the work that is done is added a certain % of the weight price. Gold is sold in weight. And there is an Thai weight system used as 1 baht of gold = 15.2 gram. An half bath of gold is also called 50 satang. In gold shops they jewellery …
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At That Phanom, people from all over the area come together for the annual long boat race at the Mekong River. About 45 people in a 80 cm wide and 12 m long boat at high speed over the Mekong River. In the meanwhile there is a market with food, music and morlam girls going on on the riverside boulevard. And in the evening the many restaurants along the banks of the Mekong are filling up with Lao & Thai. This kind of boat races are normally held at the end of the Buddhist Lent and is mostly in October or November.
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Travel Tips : Traveling to Vietnam

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Thailand is a wonderful and beautiful country to travel but neighbouring Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam are each for their own culture and way of life also great countries to travel. Traveling from Thailand to Vietnam can be done in 2 ways :
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Travel Tips : Getting a visa for Vietnam

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June 2019 : For traveling to Vietnam most people need a visa, although some countries are exempted from a visa. Like people from most asian countries, Thailand included, will get a 30 days visa free entry to Vietnam. There are a few ways to get a visa for Vietnam :
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Train stations in Thailand, next station Khlong Pai

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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. This little train station Khlong Pai (near Sikhio in Nakhon Ratchasima province) looks on the outside unchanged, but unfortunately the inside has been changed. This photos have been made in 2015 or 2016 and I am not sure if this little train station is still unchanged as there is a lot of modernisation going on at railways in Thailand. So if you like old train stations hurry up and see them all in Thailand!


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A lovely rainy day in Pua

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Yesterday was a lovely cool day with a hour of rain and this photo is the last photo my Sony HX90V camera made as I dropped it out of the window 4 meters lower into the garden. And the camera landed on its lens. After the rain we had a beautiful misty sunset with some bright beams coming from the sky reaching out to all people in Pua and Thung Chang. Safe travels Mike, see you somewhere over the rainbow.
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