tom oldham

I am going to thailand for a week in July and thought that I would spend about 3 days in bangkok and then about 3-4 days somewhere else. Any recommendations, other than beaches?

Ching

<BR>U can consider Chiangmai and Chiangrai. They are in northern Thailand, where it is cooler and mountainous. U can see visit hilltribes, and do elephant trekking and canoeing. U can also make an overnight trip to Mae Hong Son, a beautiful valley where u can visit the long-necked women.

pat

Tom, <BR>Chieng mai, chieng rai and MaeHongSon sound a good idea, if you are up to the mountains and nature. If you are interested in historical sites, you can go to Ayuthaya, 1hr by bus/train from bkk, the previous capital.Kanchana Buri is on the west, 3hr from bkk, for the bridge of river Kwai, and the death railway. Sukhothai historical park is also worth visiting, it is the first capital of this Kingdom. <BR>Welcome to the land of smiles.

Brad

Just returned from Thailand (Bangkok and Chiang Mai)on 25 March. Both places offer excellent entertainment, but for me I prefer Chiang Mai. Try: www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com and search to your hearts content. Its an excellent web site. Glad to answer any specific question if I can. Just email me at above address.

Peter C.

I would agree that Mae Hong Son is a great place to get away from the tourist crowds and see some spectacular scenery, as well as some hilltribe culture. We stayed in a small village called Soppong. Great place and good hosts. They have a website that will provide some information on the area at : http:www.soppong.com

Rhoda

I would also suggest North of THailand - Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son. Some of the Hill tribe excursions are very touristy and take away from the remoteness of it all. The elephant trek was the best! <BR> <BR>I would up north!! It is so cheap and saves a lot of time. I think it only takes an hour from BKK to Chiang Mai and a further 30 minutes to fly on up to Chiang Rai. If you have the money - its the way to go. We stayed at Imperial Golden Triangle Resort Hotel, lovely hotel and hired a jeep to do the golden triagle. It was worth every penny. The shopping in Chaing Mai at the night market is fantastic! <BR>Enjoy!

lynn

Tom - <BR> <BR>3-4 days is perfect for an intro to Chiang Mai. Skip Chiang Rai. <BR> <BR>If you do go to CM, try Piccola Roma restaurant. The most amazing porcini mushrooms we ever had. The owner is Italian and he flies in certain ingredients including fresh, Italian porcinis. He'll make whatever you want if he has the ingredients. Excellent beef carpaccio, wine selection and tiramisu. We went for lunch and were the only people there. The entire staff waited on us hand and foot. From what I understand, it's much busier for dinner so I don't know about the service for that time. <BR> <BR>Le Coq D'or is also excellent. It's in a historic building to Chiang Mai. I think it was a former ministers house or something like that. They are a bit off the beaten path so when we asked them if they could arrange transport back to our hotel, we were shocked when a black, shiny Austin Princess pulled up. Two guys drove back with us (about a 10 min. drive) and when we got to our hotel, they both hopped out simultaneously to open each of our doors at the same time! Well worth the $100 meal! What a memory.... <BR> <BR>Have fun. <BR> <BR>Lynn <BR> <BR

lisa

hi tod! <BR>let me just tell you, you are soooo lucky to be going to thailand! my husband and i just got back from bkk and phuket. we only went on one guided tour in bkk. it was with world travel svcs (they offices in many of the big hotels, including the oriental). they took us to the Ayuthaya ruins. there are a bunch of different tours to these ruins and i really liked the balance in ours. we took a bus out there, the guide did a great job of explaining everything (it'd be really difficult to figure out the structures by yourself), then we went on a short elephant ride (30 mins--not too long, not too short), then we took a long-tail taxi tour on the canals around the ruins. oh, and a decent buffet lunch was included somewhere in there. the rest of our time in bkk, we didn't do very touristy things. just looked for recommended restaurants (finding street addresses was almost impossible for us, but this made it an adventure!), wandered around the night markets (patpong is not as bad as everyone says. it is sad, knowing what goes on, but i say it's not any worse than redlight districts in every city, just kinda has a hollywood/las vegas glare about it). <BR> <BR>happy happy travels! <BR>