cjon

We just returned from our first trip to Asia. Thank you to all of the Fodorites who gave me suggestions for our trip that made it the successful and wonderful adventure that it was.

We left on 12/12/12 from San Francisco. My husband, our 17 year old daughter, and myself flew Cathay Pacific to HK & then on to Bangkok, while my son & his fiancé flew United to Tokyo & then onto BKK. We were scheduled to leave at the same time & arrive within minutes of each other. At the last minute their flight was changed & they ended up arriving several hours after we did, necessitating a separate airport pick up.

I prearranged our airport pick-ups with the company Oriental Escapes, highly recommended by a friend who lives in Bangkok. They were great to deal with and I prearranged all of our pick-ups on their website, listing each flight, the destinations, hotel names & the number of people to be picked up. We had a total of 5 airport pick-ups/deliveries. Each time they were on time, efficient, competent and very nice to deal with. I paid for all of the rides after the first one, which was nice as there was no need to deal with payment more than once. Their service was not nearly as cheap as a taxi but I knew my older kids were not great travelers & it ensured that they would be picked up without having to manage on their own. At times we were picked up in a van to accommodate all 5 of us.

We were in Bangkok for three nights before flying to Chiang Mai. While in Bangkok we stayed at the Royal Orchid Sheraton in river view rooms. We purchased vouchers from Expat Holidays Thailand for our stay at a very reasonable rate (which I can't remember now). This was one of those specials someone mentioned on the Forum before the moderators quickly removed it. It turned out to be legitimate despite my worries & we really enjoyed staying at the ROS, particularly the river view & the convenience to the water taxis & ferries.

We spent quite some time every day at the breakfast buffet, a highlight for my kids as they liked seeing the Thai, Chinese, Japanese & western options. Once that was finished we went next door to the Riverside Mall to change money & headed out to catch our first ferry to the National Palace, which we all loved.

We must have done other things that day & had dinner somewhere but it must not have been memorable as I don't remember where or what we did. At some point we took a long walk through Chinatown, which the ROS borders. It was close to rush hour & somehow we hit the car repair section of Chinatown which went on for many, many blocks. Not the most scenic area of Chinatown in which to walk. Given the time of day, the streets were even more clogged than usual with hundreds (thousands?) or motorbikes,taxis & trucks. I was more than happy to return to our hotel! I definitely don't recommend the auto repair section unless you have a real love of auto parts, grease & grime.

The next day we spent the morning at Wat Po & Wat Arun. The afternoon was spent with our friend who lives in Bangkok. He took us to the modern part of the city & taught us to ride the Skytrain. We were impressed as it was so much cleaner, quieter, & nicer than BART at home. No one talks on their cell phones & is much more respectful of each other. Bay Area residents could take some lessons from the Thai.

We ended up at the Central Plaza Mall, the goal being the rooftop bar on the 57th floor to watch the Bangkok sunset. It was a spectacular setting, and, even though I have a tendency to be acrophobic, I really enjoyed it. The 2 for one drinks helped. We proceeded to see the Erawan Buddha and the associated scene, followed by dinner of Peking duck at a nearby Chinese restaurant.

We left Bangkok the next morning for our Discovery Pass flight to Chiang Mai.

Marija

Waiting for more!

yestravel

I remember your trip planning. Looking forward to reading more.

cjon

We stayed at 3Sis hotel, which was just perfect for us. The location was very central, the staff more than helpful, & the rate reasonable. Because we were traveling over the holidays, there were many families traveling with small children. The hotel was full of families from all over the world and we all enjoyed the children. Thank you, Crellston, for this great suggestion. My kids made friends with the staff and found it very interesting to get to know some Thai's their own age.

We stayed in CM for 5 nights. This was too long for me, 3 nights & I would have moved on. I had reserved at Chiang Dao Nest for two nights but realized that getting my crew moving to another location would have been a major undertaking. I decided to forego Chiang Dao & instead take many day trips from CM. When all 5 of us travel together, I've learned to just go with the flow & not feel responsible for everyone's good time. I also have a better time if I don't have too big of an agenda. As it was, everyone loved CM and did not want to move around. They were also rather bug phobic and I knew there were more mosquitoes in Chiang Dao. They wouldn't have been happy there.

We arrived in time for the spectacular night market. It was packed to the gills and the kids ended up buying all kinds of things, including some rather large paintings. I was glad I wasn't carrying those home. If I'd bought them my husband would have flipped his lid. My kids ended up doing a lot of shopping. My future daughter-in-law had a suit made, my son two pairs of glasses & two shirts (actually made at Paul's at the Riverside Mall in BKK). I'm not big on shopping so I was happy with a few scarves.

We spent one day at the Elephant Nature Park, a highlight for the girls. My husband and future d-I-l took a cooking class at the Chiang Mai Thai Cooking School (thank you again, Crellston) while the rest of us saw the Hobbit at the south airport mall. We really enjoyed seeing the movie. The ticket seller made a great pretense of selecting seats for us so I thought the movie must be very full. It turned out that the theatre was nearly completely empty. We had been coached to stand for the King at the beginning, so we did. We also had been told that Thai's love to go to he movies so hey can wear their winter clothes (which were being sold win all of he malls we visited, despite it being 90 degrees outside) & it was absolutely freezing in the theatre. The food court had decent food so we figured out to pare buy a card & ordered.

We all liked being across from Wat Chedi Luang. The kids went to monk chat several times and it was nice to see so many monks walking on the streets, taking taxis, and worshipping at the temples. We visited many, many temples in CM. Doi Suthep was a highlight. We tried to go at sunset but the red taxi drivers did not want to go up that late. We did find one driver willing to take us & leave us there for three hours. We declined his offer and later found out that the road closed in the evening. That was the only time I felt we were not treated with complete honesty while we were in SE Asia. Pretty minor compared with many other places in he world!

We spent one day at Queen Sirikit's Botanical Garden. It was a lovely garden. We did, however, underestimate the size. Our taxi driver suggested driving in with us but as we all hike a lot we told her we'd just walk. The main part of the garden was two miles up a vey steep road & we were the only ones dumb enough to walk it in the stifling heat. Eventually someone took pity on us and offered us a ride in the back of their pick up truck to the top. If you go, have your driver go in with you.

We also spent several hours at the Chiang Mai Museum where one of the staff gave us a private tour, answering all of our questions about Lanna culture, the history of Chiang Mai

cjon

Hit submit by mistake before I had an opportunity to edit my mistakes on that last entry...so sorry.

One of the best parts of being in CM for so long was that my kids got to know it well and were comfortable being out & about. They developed a routine there of visiting temples, eating at their favorite spots, going to monk chat and shopping at some favorite stores. Our 5 days in CM sped by and we felt like we had a good introduction to N. Thailand. I would have preferred more countryside & less city, but we did get some countryside in after all. We had planned to do a bike trip in he country but the tour company advised against the one we wanted as there was too much traffic on the road to be enjoyable. I appreciated their honesty. We were sorry to leave 3sis as it was such a perfect place for us.

My husband, daughter & I proceeded on to fly to Luang Prabang, Laos while the older kids flew back to Bangkok for one night before leaving for home and back to work. I reserved the Loft in Bangkok for their last night. It was convenient for them to ride the Skytrain & metro so they were happy. It sounds like it wasn't anything to a write home about and the staff was unhelpful.

The flight to LP went smoothly but when we landed, my daughter & husband looked at me like "where the heck have you dragged us to now?" Though the airport was nothing to speak of, We all really enjoyed LP, especially the slow pace, the beautiful river, good food, and interesting surroundings. It was literally packed with other travelers, particularly Europeans escaping the winter cold. We stayed at the Apsara Hotel, which we really enjoyed. It had a lovely old ambience and a very kind staff.

We spent one day visiting the falls, enjoying a coffee & chocolate croissant by the pools. Another day was a cruise up the Mekong to the Buddhist cave shrine. We loved being on the river but concluded that we were very happy not to have taken a boat from N Thailand as we would have gone nuts sitting in the boat for two days. One afternoon gave us a taste of it and was enjoyable. Without even a bird to look at, we would have been bored. We were used to boat cruises on the Amazon where every minute was packed with wildlife viewing.

I did find LP to be very over priced. Restaurants were packed and very expensive next to CM, Bangkok, and Siem Reap. The Apsara was advertising a fixed price Christmas dinner at $50 per plate. Water taxis were pricey. I'm sure a lot of people cut costs by eating at the market stalls. The food there looked very good but i have a tendency to get sick so we don't eat market or street food.

We left Luang Prabang Christmas Eve after 3 nights to again use our Discovery Pass to fly to Siem Reap for Christmas.

rhkkmk

the auto part section of bkk is huge.. i don't consider it china town really. i just don't want others to be confused. i know kathie walks to china town from ROS but i think in a slightly different direction..

holiday dinners are often very expensive in thailand. odd that you consider CM food to be expensive... do you have examples?

enjoying your report

cjon

We arrived at Siem Reap airport at about 2:30 pm. We were staying at the Golden Temple Hotel, another great Fodorite recommendation. We waited & waited for our airport pick up. Many other passengers had already been picked up when an elderly gentleman in a battered silver helmet hurries to the departure door. I realized with dismay that he is looking for me. "Why would our taxi driver need a helmet," I think to myself, avoiding the obvious that they had sent a tuk tuk for us. It was hotter than heck and I didn't know how the three of us were going to squeeze into a tuk tuk with our back packs, luggage & bodies! Normally I don't mind tuk tuks and we were traveling light but there was only so much room. We all squeezed in & made the best of my husband sitting on one of the suitcases. On every corner, the tuk tuk would teeter and shake. We all held on & made it in one piece.

When we arrived, the tuk tuk driver was as unhappy as me. The hotel was very apologetic and promised that we would have a real car on our return to the airport. We had hired a guide from Seven Candles who arrived at 4:30 to take us for our first visit to one of the temples for sunset. Our guide, Rethy Ly, was with us for the next three days. His english was good, he was charming to be with and helped us plan a wonderful itinerary for each day. We saw many temples, went to Artisans of Angkor workshop and saw other things in Siem Reap which escape me at moment.

In between temple touring we spent a day going to Tonle Sap Lake on a bird watching tour with Osmose Tours. They picked us up at 6 am., drove to some location to catch a boat out to the lake. We chose Osmose because of their reputation for community development in the Tonle Sap area. The guide spoke English well, knew his birds and was very competent. It was rather a long day, though. We changed boats and took a smaller flat bottomed boat thru the canals to a bird blind perched very high up a tree. It was grueling getting to the blind with branches snapping and smacking back into the boat. We all became very adept at missing these flying snapping branches because if one got hit, it hurt like the dickens. We all agreed that nobody wrote about this part of the trip on Tripadvisor.

Finally arriving at the blind, we transferred to a kind of canoe & were ferried to the base of the tree. There were other tour groups at the blind so we waited our turn to go up. As I mentioned previously, I have a fear of heights & this blind was high. We climbed a bamboo ladder which was tied to the tree in sections. The top was as high as a three story building. At various points there were tiny platforms where you had to turn to climb the next section. When you reached the top, there was a large bamboo platform in the treetop, with a semblance of a railing. There was a spotting scope trained on the top of nearby trees where birds were nesting. I actually made it up & did manage to look through the scope, however, I must confess, by this point in the trip, I really could have cared less if I ever saw a bird again. Before our rather rotund tour mates came up to the skimpy platform, my husband & I decided we'd seen enough & headed back down the ladder. As we went down we crossed paths with the other tour members & had to switch places on the ladder. No mean feat there! Back in the boat, I gave a giant sigh of relief and vowed not to watch my 17 year old who was still not only at the top but was dancing around on it.

After we were all gratefully back in the boat, our boatman began repairing the boat, which none of us realized was broken! Apparently the steering column wiring was malfunctioning, necessitating many jumps in the water with swims under the boat. I know he had cell service as Tonle Sap lake had a very large cell tower, so I wasn't too worried about being stranded. After about 30 minutes, we were finally on our way. This was all before lunch! Eventually we made it back to Tonle Sap village where we had a nice hot lunch at the restaurant started by Osmose tours. I thought (hoped) we were done & could head back to the van, but no, another type of of boat ride was on the agenda.

This time we piled two by two into canoes paddled by local women and went to a crocodile farm. One of our tour mates stepped into his boat & the whole thing started shaking back & forth like mad and the Cambodian paddler screaming at him with gusto. It was very close to a soaking for all concerned.

In any event, this boat trip was very enjoyable. We were handed umbrellas to keep the sun out & we went by many houses in the floating village. Children were playing in boats & in the water, waving at us with big grins as we floated by. Crocodiles are not my thing but my daughter loved standing on top of the cage while I held my breath. Eventually we again transferred into our original boat, headed back to the van, and drove to Siem Reap. When we returned, my husband said he had just been waiting all afternoon for a snake to drop into the boat as we went through all of the branches & swamp area. Thank heavens he didn't mention it at the time!

We were so happy to return to the hotel, jump in the shower & have a rest before dinner. My never-say -die daughter wanted to go to the Beat O Cello concert that evening so off she went with her dad for the evening.

There & elsewhere, we learned about the social and economic conditions in Cambodia which are tragic with an abysmal health care system, poor education, and a corrupt government. The temples are in ruin & will only continue to deteriorate. Obviously, the money everyone is paying for entrance to the ruins is not going for restoration as that is being done primarily by foreign governments.

The Golden Temple was really great. We ended up eating there a lot as we were so tired at the end of each touring day. The food was delicious & reasonably priced, the staff more than helpful and we had a lovely time spending 5 days there. It made the craziness of Siem Reap sane. They took us to the airport in a large van and the entire staff came out to say goodbye to us when we left.

We arrived back in Bangkok, picked up by our driver from Oriental Escapes. We were staying at Adelphi Suites, booked on Agoda. We were upgraded to an executive suite, which was delightful after sharing small rooms for several weeks. My daughter was thrilled to have a room of her own.

We found the Adelphi Suites to be a mixed bag. While the facility was very nice, the breakfast very good, and the staff helpful, it was not a family friendly environment. A large number of guests appeared to be sexual tourists there to exploit the economic needs of Thai women. Though we saw this through out Thailand, it was not common at the other hotels in which we stayed. At the other hotels, there were many children, at the Adelphi, I can't say I saw any. We wouldn't stay there again or recommend it.

We spent our remaining time in Bangkok visiting the Jim Thompson House, riding the Skytrain, and visiting Terminal 21mall. Our favorite floor was, of course, San Francisco, with the model of the Golden Gate Bridge, Pier 39 seals, a Haight Ashbury cafe and a cable car. We had a delightful last afternoon in an air conditioned environment while waiting to meet our driver for our last ride to the airport.

We loved our trip, learned a lot, and had a great time as a family. Thank you, Fodorites, for all of your help in planning our trip and paving the way for us.

cjon

Rhkkmk
I didn't find the food in Chiang Mai to be expensive. On the contrary, it was very reasonable. The food in Luang Prabang was expensive.

Vientianeboy

"The food in Luang Prabang was expensive."
Depends where you eat. I don't find LP as expensive as say, "Phuket", by a long way. Also the quality of the food is far better.

yestravel

Enjoyed reading your TR. Thanks for sharing.
Agree with you on the old world ambiance of the Apsara. Such a lovely hotel.

Interesting observation re the Adelphi Suites, " A large number of guests appeared to be sexual tourists there to exploit the economic needs of Thai women." We stayed there for a week last January and did not observe that at all. Most of the places we stayed during our 9 week trip in SEAsia were not filled with families and Adelphi Suites was no different. However can't say that we observed "sexual tourists" @ Adelphi Suites. Sorry that was your experience.
Glad to hear that you loved your trip overall.

rhkkmk

next time try a riverside place, like chatrium suites riverside...

cjon

We did stay at a riverside hotel, ROS, & did not have a negative experience. It was great. I wanted to stay in a different area for the end of our trip so chose Adelphi. Incidentally, Adelphi is listed as the first hotel on a "bar girl friendly" hotels website. Hotels are listed alphabetically so Adelphi comes up first due to the name, but people often book with the first hotel mentioned. I would say when we were at breakfast, 80% of the other patrons were with escorts. Next time we are in Thailand, I will check that website & rule out hotels that are listed on it. I didn't know enough to do that this time.

cjon

Btw, because we were traveling during the holidays, there were children from all over the world at all of the hotels we stayed at except Adelphi Suites.

crellston

Fantastic report cjon. So glad you enjoyed Chiang Mai and the 3 Sis. Given the price and location I do think it is one of the best places to stay in CM. As you say, 5 days is a good amount of time to spend there as it is enough to really get to know the place.

yestravel

Didn't know about that website and certainly is worth checking out for future trips. Thanks for mentioning it. Since we were there right after the New Year perhaps tourism was down and thus we didn't have the same experience you had. Glad it didn't mar your trip.

rhkkmk

i don't like bar girls hanging out in my hotel, but i don't see that that website is bad.... it lists almost all major hotels..

Hanuman

cjon,

Sorry you experienced that and I hope the next time you seek out and/or heed to better recommendations for family oriented hotels and apartments.

cjon

Thank you for your responses. I really enjoyed writing my trip report. Previously, I'd given up after a couple of paragraphs. I was so enthused about this trip and all of the information I'd gleaned from this forum, I had to persevere.
Crellston, I do feel like I'm following in your foot steps after Peru. You always give me great suggestions.
My older kids are Facebook friends with the staff at 3sis as they became great buddies. Chiang Mai & the location of 3sis was perfect for them as it was a doable size city & they were able to come & go as they pleased, taking off for monk chat or lunch somewhere. I felt comfortable with them, even my 17 year old daughter, roaming around on their own. There is something really special about being able to navigate a foreign city, even a small one, to give one a sense of empowerment and an idea of one's place in the world. It's part of the reason I like taking them all with me on trips, despite the fact that it sure adds to the cost & complexity of everything. I had much more planning to do to make sure everything went smoothly for my son & his fiancé coming after & leaving before we did. Since they only had 10 days, I had to make sure that our choices would give them the most bang for my buck.

Despite my reservations about the Adelphi, it was still a very nice facility. All of the other hotels were so perfect and everything else on the trip worked so perfectly that it I feel very fortunate that that was a very minor glitch in an absolutely wonderful trip.

deptrai

"I would say when we were at breakfast, 80% of the other patrons were with escorts."
Don't assume they are all escorts. I'm American and my wife is Korean. We get at lot of nasty looks from people that assume...especially when in LOS.

Agree that some of them are painfully obvious.

Vientianeboy

I wouldn't worry about it deptrai. The same thing happens to me with my Lao wife. Those that give nasty looks are probably nasty people themselves.