Thailand Tuttle Travel Pack. Jim Algie
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Название: Thailand Tuttle Travel Pack
Автор: Jim Algie
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Книги о Путешествиях
Серия: Tuttle Travel Guide & Map
isbn: 9781462910465
isbn:
Contact The Visitor’s Center is at (025) 620 760 and it’s open from 8.30–4.30 pm. Make sure to hire a guide here if you plan to do any serious hiking. In case you get lost, the local tourist police office is at (044) 341 7778. Also note that because of all the mountains, mobile phone service can be sketchy.
Admission Fee 400 baht for foreigners
14 Diving at Ko Tao Island
Into the deep blue yonder for a psychedelic adventure
Perhaps Arthur C Clarke, the fabled author of 2001: A Space Odyssey described scuba diving in the most memorable terms, as the closest you’ll ever get to feeling as weightless as an astronaut floating in outer space.
Thailand is overflowing with reefs, pinnacles and wrecks for divers to chart and explore. If you’re yet to get your fins wet, then Ko Tao (“Turtle Island”), located near the western shore of the Gulf of Thailand, is the place to get your license. In fact, more divers get certified on this island (only 21 square kilometers) than anywhere else in Southeast Asia.
Because of the glut of dive shops on the island, the prices are competitive. Most shops offer the world’s number one course for aspiring aquanauts, the PADI Open Water Dive Course. You will need to set aside three or four days to earn this globally recognized certificate. Each course combines classroom learning with lessons in a swimming pool or in shallow water off the beach, a final written exam and a proper plunge to around 15 meters.
Thanks to Ko Tao’s abundance of shallow reefs and mostly gentle currents, newbies will not be out of their depth. Admittedly, learning to breath through the scuba device—and especially hearing your own breath rattling like the raspy voice of Darth Vader—takes some getting used to, but the rewards are well worth the risk.
Imagine if Alice fell through the looking glass and ended up in the world’s biggest aquarium, swimming with exotic creatures like angelfish, moray eels, black tip reef sharks, and even the world’s biggest fish, the humongous whale shark, while surrounded by brain coral, purple sea anemones and psychedelic reefs (the so-called “rainforests of the sea”), it’s easy to see why diving is the best and most potent legal high on the market.
The island also offers some hiking, rock climbing and bouldering on granite boulder strewn beaches. Ko Tao is also a mecca for game fishermen on a budget.
Getting There Take a ferry from Surat Thani (4 hours), Chumpon (2–3 hours), Ko Samui (2.5 hours or Ko Ph Ngan (1 hour) to Ban Mae Haad. Prices depend on type of boat.
15 Chiang Mai’s Wat Chiang Man
Get to the spiritual heart of Lanna culture
For a sampler of the northern capital’s archaic and contemporary sides, the Old City is the nucleus. To set the historic scene, it’s surrounded by red ramparts with four gates, a moat and fountains all lit up at night.
Within these hallowed walls is the city’s oldest temple, Wat Chiang Man. Its history stretches back to AD 1297 when King Mengrai founded this bastion of Lanna culture. The oldest part of the temple, a golden chedi propped up by a base of 15 brick and stucco elephants, is fit to be framed.
Another bulwark of the city’s Buddhist-leaning spirituality is Wat Phra Singh. It may date back to AD 1345, but with all the monks and supplicants around, the temple still plays a pivotal part in the present.
Those who mock “temple huggers” as an effete breed of politically correct travelers will find plenty of other distractions in the Old City, from pubs and cafes to specialist bars and restaurants galore.
Prominent among the temple alternatives is the Chiang Mai City Arts and Cultural Center. Set within the confines of a beautiful old building, the center has rooms for permanent and temporary exhibitions, exhibitions on the city’s prehistoric past, audiovisual displays on the hilltribes and, from time to time, cultural jamborees of the old-school variety.
Out in front is the Three Kings Monument composed of a holy trinity of god-like monarchs: Mengrai and Ramkhamhaeng of Sukhothai and Ngam Muang of Phayao.
As a city that has reinvented itself many times over, Chiang Mai’s latest reincarnation is as a hub of art and design. On and off the bigger streets and little lanes of the Old City, that word-of-mouth hype is made manifest in all the little shops and stalls specializing in cool curios and funky fashions.
The best time to sample the area is on Sundays when the main byway of Rachadamnoen Road is turned into a serene street party for shoppers, foodies and families replete with musicians, dancers and plenty of bonhomie.
Opening Times Daily 8 am–5 pm
Address Ratchaphakhinai Road near intersection with Si Phum Road
Getting There Situated in the old walled part of town, the temple is within walking distance of the Chang Phuak Gate
Contact +66 (0)5 321 3170
Admission Fee Free
16 Bangkok’s Infamous Patpong Street
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Yes, it’s noisy, gaudy, saucy, silly and a bit sleazy at times, but when in Asia’s neon Rome do as the neo-Romans would and head for a stroll down the lanes of Patpong 1 and 2. By day it’s as if the street is sleeping off a hangover, but at night it’s back on another bender, doing a roaring trade in the world’s oldest profession, which revolves around the chrome poles of go-go bars, while the stalls in the night market sell knock-off jeans, DVDs and Buddhist bric-a-brac. There are no bargains here; everything is overpriced.
At ground level, on each side of Patpong 1, are very similar go-go bars, with a razzle-dazzle of neon and a cacophony of processed-cheese techno. Upstairs on Patpong 1 are bars with much racier shows. Some of them have been known to slip customers with a huge bill for only a drink or two, necessitating a visit to the Tourist Police, who keep a van positioned at the end of Patpong 1. Be very wary of the upstairs bars and the touts on the street promoting their wares.
Patpong 2 is not such a hard sell; it’s got more beer bars, restaurants and cocktail lounges with hostesses.
Both of the roads are named after the Hainanese immigrants with the surname of Patpongpanich, who bought the thoroughfare in 1946 and still own it. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it first became notorious when go-go bars opened up to service the American troops on R&R during the Vietnam War. But it was not until the late 1980s that the night market got up and vending.
For years now, Patpong’s reputation as the city’s tenderloin for tourists is slowly being outstripped and upstaged by Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy, although neither of those red-light areas have a night bazaar or the diversity of entertainment.
Opening Times Daily 7 pm–1 am
Address СКАЧАТЬ