One of our last stops on our trip back to Bangkok was the Royal Summer Palace, Bang Pa-In Royal Palace. This palace has beautiful lawns, gardens and a very interesting mix of building styles ranging from Chinese to Swiss and Eastern European. Our tour manger Ranee lead us through most of the property explaining any of…
Author: Mark And Chuck's Adventures
We are a 60+ gay couple who love adventure. We're foodies and love off-the-beaten-path places, especially street food. And while we love visiting historical and cultural sites, we always hang with the locals.
Ayutthaya to Bangkok
After our morning visit to the elementary we continued our journey back to Bangkok. Along the road we stopped at a local grocery stand in the rice fields; the roads are dotted with small locally run stands were people sell produce from their fields or locally prepared items for people to take home to heat…
Kids Are Kids
One of the highlights of our trip was a stop at a local elementary school. Gate 1 Travel has a foundation which supports the school and when the tour schedules allow they stop to meet the kids. On the day we were to arrive the older kids were going into Bangkok on a field trip;…
Krungsri River Hotel
Tonight we checked into the third hotel of our trip; I guess I’m slightly jaded after the polish and hospitality of our first hotel and beautiful rustic and remote hotel in Kanchanaburi. This hotel is perfectly nice, it’s a little bit dates and honestly we had very little interaction with the staff so I can’t…
Traveling to Ayutthaya
The next day of our trip we left Kanchanaburi for Ayutthaya, the second Siamese capital after Sukhothai for over 400 years, once glorified as the largest city in Southeast Asia. In the center of the city is the Ayutthaya Historical Park, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our first stop was Wat Chaiwatthanaram The remains of…
Lunch in Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi
Before boarding the commuter train in Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi we had lunch at a small family-run restaurant across from the station.Before boarding the commuter train in Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi we had lunch at a small family-run restaurant across from the station. Lunch was served family-style for each table of four. We started out…
A Piece of History
Hellfire Pass is the name of a railway cutting on the former Burma Railway (“Death Railway”) which was built with forced labor during World War II. . Hellfire Pass because the sight of emaciated prisoners working through the night by torchlight was said to resemble a scene from Hell. Most of the laborers were Chinese,…
River Kwai Resotel
After a day of touring the floating market and Bridge on the River Kwai; we made a turn off the main roads and really got into the countryside. Rough unpaved roads with locals farming sugar cane, lots of interesting vegetable varieties and bananas. After heading down a very steep hill we came to a parking…
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British-American epic war film directed by David Lean and starring William Holden and Alec Guinness. Based on the novel Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai (1952) by Pierre Boulle, the film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43…
From Bangkok to Kanchanaburi
On our fourth day in Thailand, we left Bangkok and headed out to Kanchanaburi province to the Sai Yok National Park. This was a three-hour drive northwest almost to the Myanmar border, about 214 km (about 133 miles) We had a great, very comfortable motorcoach and while we didn’t interact much with the driver; our…