Hotel Thapwarin Resort *** Krabi, Thailand

Hotel Thapwarin Resort *** Krabi, Thailand

Welcome to Thawarin ResortA truly Natural resort feeling at Thapwarin,we truly believe in eco-tourism and the philosophy of living in harmony with nature and is committed to preserving the natural beauty of the island for tourist like you to enjoy and appreciate,Hence the use of mostly natural materials like wood, bamboo,rattan and attap to construct the resort Contact us:140/2 Rongrien Rd.,Muang,Trang,Thailand 92000Office:075-218 153,075-218 261 Office fax:075-218 153 Resort:083-105 8273,081-894 3585,075-203 169 Resort fax:075-203 169 e-mail:sale@thapwarin.com website: http://www.thapwarin.com/
Rooms Rates 01 November 2006 - 31 October 2007
Rooms Type
High Season01Nov-31 May
Peak Season20 Dec-15 May
Low Season01 Jun-31 Oct
Beach Villa(A/C+Hot Shower+Mini Bar)
4,500 Baht
4,900 Baht
3,000 Baht
Beach Front Cottage(A/C+Hot Shower)
3,900 Baht
4,300 Baht
2,600 Baht
Sea View Cottage(FAN+Hot Shower)
2,200 Baht
2,500 Baht
1,500 Baht
Garden Cottage(Fan+Hot Shower)
1,800 Baht
2,100 Baht
1,200 Baht
Extra Bed(with Breakfast)
600 Baht
600 Baht
500 Baht
All rates quoted are in Thai Bath. Applicable to Single & Double Occupancy and inclusive of breakfast (Good for two persons only), 10% service charge & VAT.No charge for children under 12 years old and staying with parents without an addtional bed. Child under 3 year of age tree charge for breakfast but child 4 to 12 years of age will be charge 150 Bath.
Transfer: The resort can provide van and boat from and to the resort. For transfer rates please see lieted below.
From Trang airport/ Trang town to Pakmeng pier to resort 600 Bath per person/ one way/ Van and Speed boat (èjoin).

Bangkok Wonderous and Woeful

Bangkok Wonderous and Woeful

By John HoskinBangkok is not a beautiful city. But it is unquestionably a captivating one, exerting an irresistible charm as the epitome of all things Thai.Alec Waugh got it right in his 1970 book on the Thai capital: "Bangkok has been loved," he wrote, "because it is an expression of the Thais themselves, of their lightheartedness, their love of beauty, their reverence for tradition, their sense of freedom, their extravagance, their devotion to their creed -- to characteristics that are constant and continuing in themselves."

The characteristics seem contradictory, but Bangkok is a huge paradox, at once wondrous and woeful. For this it is one of the world's most distinctive cities, a place that fascinates by making innumerable contradictions seem consistent. It is at once chaotic and serene, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, pandering to nouveau riche greed and proudly caring of traditional values... the oddities are as endless as they are real.
Real Time Booking on Bangkok Hotels
All prices include breakfast.
Menam Riverside

Landmark Hotel
91 $
Baiyoke Sky
51 $
Asia Hotel
42 $
Novotel Lotus
60 $
Swiss Park
33 $
Rembrandt
62 $
Royal Park View
35 $
Hilton (Nai Lert)
97 $
Montien Riverside
69 $
Arnoma
61 $
Century Park
61 $
The Grand Hotel (old Nikko)
42 $
Royal Orchid Sheraton
137 $
Zenith
44 $
Hyatt Erawan
171 $
Intercontinental
192 $
JW Marriott
152 $
Sheraton Sukhumvit
154 $
Peninsula
185 $

The key to understanding Bangkok is to realize that beneath its modern facade it remains unmistakably Thai, traditional and essentially unchanging. Ultimately, the city is simply itself and you have to accept it as such if you are ever going to come to terms with it. The horrendous traffic congestion is perhaps everyone's biggest complaint, but even for those who complain, cars in Thailand are not firstly a means of transport, they are social cachets which once obtained are not to be relinquished lightly.
Traffic congestion is part and parcel of the Bangkok experience, and it is easier to accept when you realize it is not going to change. Nor is it new. There never were any halcyon days before the canals were filled in to make way for paved roads. Here's Queen Victoria's envoy Sir John Bowring on the hazards of Bangkok's then waterborne traffic: "Boats often run against one another, and those within them are submerged in the water...The constant occurrence of petty disasters seems to reconcile everybody to their consequences." That was in the 1850s but the idea of being reconciled to the inevitable hassles of city traffic remains true today.More

The Thai Temples

The Thai Temples

You can't please all of the people all of the time; some people never. Thai temples are magnificent buildings, testaments to both an enduring faith and to centuries of cultural endeavour.But they are highly distinctive and you need to meet them halfway for a full appreciation.
Some people fail to take the correct approach and hence miss the true attraction. English writer Geoffrey Gorer is a case in point.

His otherwise forgettable 1936 travel book Bali and Angkor is remarkable for his displeasure with Thailand. "It is very difficult to take Bangkok quite seriously; it is the most hokum place I have ever seen, never having been to California," Gorer wrote. Prompting his sneers was Thai traditional temple architecture, which he thought "the same as Cambodian, but with knobs on -- lots of knobs."
It seemed to Gorer that "wherever a bit of decoration or twirly-whirly can be fixed with some possibility of its staying put it is stuck on." The elaborate adornment of Bangkok's Wat Arun finally proved too much. Gorer repeats a guidebook suggestion that the temple is best seen for a distance and adds, "Yes, indeed. You can't be too far away from these buildings to get the best effect."

On this showing Gorer would clearly have a thing or two to tell St Peter about Heaven's Gate. His criticisms are misplaced, however, and he uses a mundane yardstick for assessing what is the truly fabulous. Ironically it was a writer of more famous acerbity, Somerset Maugham, who perceived and accepted the real wonder of the Thai temple.
"They are unlike anything in the world, so that you are taken aback, and you cannot fit them into a scheme of the things you know," he wrote in 1930. "It makes you laugh with delight to think that anything so fantastic could exist on this sombre earth. They are gorgeous; they glitter with gold and whitewash, yet are not garish; against that vivid sky, in that dazzling sunlight, they hold their own, defying the brilliancy of nature and supplementing it with the ingenuity and playful boldness of man."
Maugham captures the delight that nearly all visitors to Bangkok find in the city's temples. They are rightly at the top of anyone's sightseeing list. The immediate attraction lies, as Maugham so vividly portrays, in their fabulous appearance, their exotic architecture, their wealth of decorative detail.
Yet there is more than just the initial visual impact, and a closer look at Buddhist temples opens up a whole world of understanding about Thai society and its art and culture.
Buddhism, along with the tradition of monarchy, underpins the nation's entire cultural and social fabric. It is the religion under which the people (originally animists) were first united, and it has remained a vital and visible force in daily life throughout the more than 700 years of Thai history. Today it is as strong as ever, practised and professed by more than nine-tenths of the population.
Quintessential to the religion is the monkhood. Central to Buddhist practice is the concept of making merit and the supreme form of merit, for men at least, is to become, if only temporarily, a monk. Even in modern Thailand most young men will still comply with this custom, becoming ordained and entering a monastery for a period of perhaps one, two or three months.
Women and the population at large make important merit by giving daily food offerings to monks. At any one time, present-day Thailand supports a religious community of some 250,000 monks who reside at an estimated 27,000 temples throughout the country.
The concept of merit-making and the various ways in which it may be achieved, as well as the deeper meaning and practice of Buddhism and its attendant monkhood, need not concern us here. What is important to grasp for an appreciation of the Thai temple is the integral role of the religious community and hence the material structure which supports it.The word "temple" is largely unsatisfactory as a translation of the Thai word wat. It implies a single structure, as is the case with a Christian church, but this is not so with a Buddhist wat. Besides monks' residential quarters which are commonly, though not always, found at a wat, a Thai temple complex comprises several distinct religious buildings.
The principal structure is the bot, the most sacred part of the temple and the place where ordination ceremonies are conducted. The building is identified by eight boundary stones, called sima, placed outside at the four corners and the four cardinal points. More.

Exploring Thai Towns on Mekong

Exploring Thai Towns on Mekong

By John HoskinChiang Rai hides its age well. It is, in fact, thirty-five years older than Chiang Mai, northern Thailand's largest and best known city. Founded in 1262, it was briefly the capital of King Mengrai's budding Lanna kingdom, but history passed it by when, in 1297, Chiang Mai was created as the North's permanent capital.

The world's 12th longest, 10th largest river, the Mekong rises in the Tanghla mountains of northwest China and flows through the heart of peninsula Southeast Asia before reaching the sea at the southernmost tip of Vietnam


Nowhere along its 4,200-kilometre course does it enter Thailand, although much of its middle passages skirts the Kingdom, forming the national boundary with Laos. The river touches Thailand briefly in the far north, but it is much more extensively viewed in the northeast where its passage provides the focal point for a fascinating tour of the region's riverine towns.
For the people of I-san, as northeast Thailand is known, as well as for their ethnic cousins, the Laotians, the Mekong plays a traditional and integral role in their lives, dependent as they are on wet rice cultivation and fishing for their food staples. The river also figures large in legends, popular beliefs and folk culture, all of which adds colour and interest as the traveller passes through stunning scenery in a landscape mostly untouched by modern development.

The most convenient gateways to the Mekong in I-san are the provincial centres of Loei, Nongkhai or Ubon Ratchathani. Road from Bangkok provides the easiest access, although Ubon is served by domestic THAI flights, while both Ubon and Nongkhai can be reached by rail from Bangkok. Once in the region, travel by car is easiest; alternatively public buses link the main towns.
For touring purposes, a journey starting in Loei and finishing in Ubon, or vice versa, covers the Mekong's entire passage in the northeast, with a road bordering the river for most of the distance. A shortened excursion takes Nongkhai as the starting point.
The Mekong first joins the Thai border in I-san a short distance to the east of the small town of Chiang Khan, lying about 50 km due north of Loei. Set in a large valley surrounded by wooded hills, Chiang Khan is a typical riverine settlement in these parts; lost in its own tranquility and remarkable purely for its pretty setting and fine views of the river.
From Chiang Khan a road parallels the river on its eastward passage towards Nongkhai. A short distance downstream of the town are the Kaeng Khut Khu rapids, where the Mekong makes a sharp curve to pass a rocky outcrop. Apart from scenic spots such as this, the route along the riverbanks remains consistently picturesque, the forested hills of Loei reflected across the valley in the even more verdant mountains of Laos.
Dotting the surface of the water are small islands and sandbanks many of which, like other natural features along the Mekong, are associated with local legends. Two islands near Pak Chom, for example, represent, so one tale has it, a Thai man and a Laotian woman who were deeply in love, but their union was thwarted by insurmountable obstacles that eventually led to their deaths.
True tales, too, exemplify the mythical status attributed to the river by popular belief. On both sides of the Mekong people talk of how the river can become "hungry" for a human soul, and how, if not appeased, the rains will not come and so the rice crop will fail. Such beliefs are not idly held.More