This was shot at Ubon Ratchathani Train Station, which is mainly used to ferry locals to and from Bangkok. It’s one of the most cost effective transport options, and also one of the longest – around 12 hours to Bangkok, as opposed to a 50 minute flight or a 8 hour bus drive.

Today I drove up to Chong Mek, one of the few Thai/Laos boarder crossings in North East Thailand. While the in-laws crossed the boarder to do a bit of shopping in the duty free zone, I stayed to wonder around the market on the Thai side, due to currently renewing my passport (pages are full!).

The guy on the right is selling Coconut Ice-cream, which is normally served either in a hot-dog bread bun or in a plastic cup with yellow beans and sweet sticky rice. This is one of my all time favourite Thai deserts, especially in this scorching heat we’ve been experiencing here recently.

Today I ventured out into Ubon’s countryside to check on the wine rack we are getting built for Baan Wine. It wasn’t long before I was surrounded by kids in the village who loved having their photo’s taken… or should I say viewing the pictures on the back of the camera after I took them. Good fun!

The girl in the foreground name is khao suey, which translates to “beautiful white rice”, which is also the name for white steamed rice in Thai.

Today is day 3 of walking around Ubon’s old town at 6am and I’m continually getting rewarded by the different sights, friendly locals, textures and of course the smell of breakfast and coffee brewing away from the shop houses.

This morning I stumbled upon a new coffee shop in Ubon’s old town while out taking some snaps and got chatting with this really friendly guy. Got to love he’s funky teeth :)

Met this guy after visiting the local temple at 6am this morning. He’s a sam-lor driver and was waiting for a customer. He loved having he’s picture taken.

For those who don’t know, a sam-lor is the Thai version of a 3 wheeled Rickshaw which are very popular in India, and the name “sam lor” translates to “3 wheels” in Thai.

Over the weekend I drove up to Yasothon to check out Bun Bang Fai, Thailand’s unique and often very dangerous Rocket Festival. It’s a 3 day event, with the all-night party falling on the Friday, the parade on the Saturday and the launch of the rockets on Sunday.

The night party on Friday, as one would expect in Isaan, was insane. Huge stages were set up all along the main road in Yasothon with sound systems bigger than the house I grew up in. All the locals were extremely friendly and food, snacks, beer and whiskey were plentiful.

On Saturday the mayhem from the night before was forgotten and a huge parade consisting of music and dancers drove through the city on beautifully decked out floats. However everyone was waiting for Sunday to arrive, the day the locals launch home-made rockets as far up into the sky as they can. The team who’s rocket flies the highest wins a few thousand dollars. I was told that even if there was no prize money involved, the locals would still brave the dangerous event due to the love of the “sport?” and because it’s a part of their culture and history.

Talking of danger, it’s very common for locals to seriously injure themselves and plenty have died over the years due to the rockets exploding before take-off.

So what’s the background story? As this is primarily a farming region, the rockets are sent up to the sky to tell the angles to release rain. Many locals still believe the legand, and guess what? On Saturday it did rain!!

I’m looking forward to returning next year. It was a great festival and comes highly recommended.

While in Yasothon for the Rocket Festival, I drove 100km up to Roi Et to check out the semi-impressive Wat Pha Nam Yoi temple. It was a great day out, but as far as temples in Isaan go, it’s not as impressive as the Wat That Phanom temple.

This is my favourite shot of the day.

Outside the temple these two cheeky ladies were selling sticky rice that’s grilled inside bambo shoots - extremely delicious, and very more-ish!

Kirstie asks;

I was just wondering if you did much planning for your trip or did you just move on and book flights when ya felt like it.

For me there’s nothing more exciting than waking up one day and thinking fuck it, let’s go on an adventure! And that’s pretty much how I’ve traveled all my life.

A perfect example is the time I went over to Japan. I was chatting to a buddy on IM and he sent me a link covering the Sapporo Snow Festival. The festival was to happen less than a week away. Within an hour we had booked our flights.

While sitting on the plane headed for Tokyo, we talked to each other about where we were going to stay… yeap, we didn’t even have a hotel booked up, and both knew nothing about Tokyo or Japan. Luckily for us, there was someone in our row who lived in Japan, and we picked he’s brains on the best places to stay. Upon touch down, we hopped on a train, found a hotel, and as almost always, it worked our perfectly. That trip to Japan is one of the best trips I’ve ever taken.

This might be too much for some, but this is how I love to travel. One of my fondest memories of being on the road was arriving at Saigon airport in Vietnam, just 2 hours after the doctor gave me the all clear of Dengue Fever. I had no idea where I was going to go, but after a week of feeling like shit, I didn’t care. I stood there in the airport staring up at departing flights screen. That’s an amazing feeling. I ended up choosing Bali. Within 12 hours of leaving the hospital, I checked into a 2 bedroom villa, was enjoying great Indonesian food and spent the next few days chilling out in the pool.

There are some negatives to traveling this way. For starters, it’s generally more expensive (especially turning up at the airport to book a flight) and with the lack of planning, you sometimes miss out on events and festivals worth visiting around the time you plan to travel. But the plus sides of spontaneous travel are great, especially the flexibility and freedom.

Are you spontaneous with your travel trips or do you like to plan ahead?