With daily return flights starting at just £48 (2400 baht, low season, booked well in advance) from Air Asia, Yangon now counts as a viable excursion/visa run from Bangkok. This fact hasn’t gone unnoticed by locals either; I met dozens of Thais, Malays and Chinese taking a long weekend in the city. Arriving in...
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Darkest Isan (where decent thais fear to tread), Part Five Leaving Buriram and southern Isan it was time to head north towards the centre of the region and Dinosaur country. Kalasin is famous for having not only the most Dinosaurs in Thailand after the Bangkok British Club but the world’s smallest dinosaur, Siamosaurus. Siamosaurus...
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It’s a Nun’s Life. Thailand and Myanmar, a comparison “Buddhism’s not really for Women…………. they can’t make merit.” As Lo Win my Burmese Buddhism sceptical motorcycle taxi driver I hired for the day in Mandalay put it, while I snapped the passing nuns. In South East Asia’s most Buddhist country where they practice the...
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pathongko with nam tao hoo Recently I gave myself the challenge of only eating Thai street food for a period of 30 days. This might seem like heaven and such an easy task to do, but in reality it was difficult and at times I wished I hadn’t started. Right from the beginning I...
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Darkest Isan (where decent thais fear to tread), Part Four. Once upon a time people came to Thailand because it was off the beaten track, later people came because it was on the beaten track, nowadays it’s so easy to travel Thailand makes the beaten track look in dire need of remodernisation just to...
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Bombay recently changed its name to Mumbai, so did Bangalore to Bengaluru, and cricket commentators fell over themselves to use the new names as quickly as possible. On the news these days they say Beijing not Peking, Canton is vanishing as a name for Guangzhou though admittedly drunken Dutch still call New York ‘New...
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