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Published: February 11th 2008
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Feb 9th:
Ah.
I'm back on the road. This time it's a
rot mai, and it's taking me around Bangkok.
I'm currently staying in a pretty nice apartment in Saphan Kwai, thanks to Spud's dad's family. I get up at 6.30am, take a bus at 7am, arriving at Wat Phou at around 8 or 8.30 depending on traffic. Maybe I have time for a coffee (Nestle 3 in 1, anyone?), or a fruitshake. I could say I'm singlehandedly supporting the fruitshake industry in Thailand, only that would be a lie. Then I poke and contort my study partner for a few hours, in return being stretched and prodded until lunchtime, which if we're early enough is a Thai-stye buffet, and if we're late is whatever street food I can find when almost everyone's on holidays for Chinese New Year.
Then more contortion until it's time to scramble onto a big blue bus and hope it takes me where I want to go. It's not bad, and in another 3 days if all goes well I'll have a certificate with gold writing and my photo on it.
Travelling in Thailand seems to be a mixture of rush and wait, rush
and wait. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed when you remember the tuktuk drivers' loud insistence or the touts' noisy persistence. There's nothing quite like the air in Bangkok, except maybe the air in Chengdu. I think Bangok smells more like canals though. There are markets, which are full of noisy tacky tourist crap, and the fantastic gumbo of kitsch, designer ripoff and genuinely original stuff. There are wild
soi dogs, with their teats hanging low and a bad case of mange. There are pampered pooches with matching accessories. There are millions of motorbikes. There are tall flash apartment buildings, and shacks built out of corrugated iron. There are bright pink taxis. There is
som tam and
tom yum mae sai goong, and the sweetest pineapples I've ever tasted. There are loads of foreigners.
We arrived a few hours late thanks to an unexplained delay from Thai Airways. We walked out of customs at Suvarnabhumi and though "oh god I hope Phu can find us" and there she was, a minute later, hustling us outside to her flash new Honda Civic with leather interior and cranking sound system, and her boyfriend Tuk. They hustled us through the evening traffic
and then took us out, via some extremely spicy Isan food (welcome back to Thailand - don't forget your tastebuds) for a fantastic cultural experience at the Bangkok Drags. Not only did it take 2 or 3 hours to actually get there, when we arrived there was nothing to see but souped up cars burning rubber and driving really fast for about 12 seconds. Oh wait - that's what you're supposed to see... after a while Jia, Pipe, Spud and I went off for a nap in the Civic while Phu and Tuk admired the really really fast cars...
Sunday was sleep-in day, with a guest appearance at Phu's work colleague's wedding. We drove at about 160km/h for more than 2 hours to somewhere north east of Bangkok where we watched the final part of some strangers' wedding, and listened to speeches about them made in Thai, and ate some fairly average Chinese food. I tried my best but we disappointed our hosts by falling asleep again on the way back to Bangkok... not even Black Canyon Mocha Glacier could save me.
We hung around in Bangkok doing chores, getting massages at Wat Phou and catching up with
kt and Spud at Doi Tung
a big bamboo hanging basket pond construction with a disco ball at the top... in the King's Mother's gardens at Doi Tung Spud's friend Ellie and then headed to Ayutthaya on the train. 15B for a 2 hour train ride? We arrived in Ayutthaya with not much of a plan and no reservation, but were lucky to find a great room in an old teak house. We scrambled through the night markets eating fish cakes, rice sausages, quail's eggs, more fruit shakes... looking at a surprising collection of tshirts screenprinted with famous street art... yeah Banksy hits Ayutthaya Night Markets! And retired to the local jazz bar for some uninspiring and badly-mixed "smooth jazz" - disappointing after seeing that the tables were named after famous musicians including Oscar Peterson and Count Basie.
We opted to head for the museum and leave the countless ruins for a night tour. The museum told the history of Ayutthaya, Siam's ancient glorious capital, sacked by the Burmese in 1767 leaving only smoking wreckage of Thai libraries, temples and artefacts. It's pretty amazing, but after a few amazing looking ruins the novelty kind of wears off. Our night tour was pretty good - combining a speedy tour with special lighting and cool weather. We also got to see a 10-day old elephant at a
kraal where
all the adults were chained by the foot or neck. Not somewhere I'd choose to visit, but part of the package... Narrowly avoiding elsome fairly chunky snot from the animals begging for sugarcane we hung back and got pestered by some chihuahas and pekinese instead...
We cut our tour experience short and leapt off to the train station hoping to score a ticket on the sleeper train to Chiang Mai... thankfully successful we jumped on the train and were immediately pissed off thinking we'd been ripped off because it was seats not beds. Or rather, Spud was immediately pissed off, less so as we discovered we could turn the seats into beds pretty easily. Not a bad way to travel, though the Chinese definitely know how to fill a train more efficiently than the Thais...
Chiang Mai is renowned as a backpackers' mecca, and it certainly seems to be one. Because we only had one day there we didn't venture out of the city, but spent our time wandering between massage, night markets and meals. I did run into one Swedish traveller last encountered in Chengdu, looking decidedly worse for wear, but still proudly repeating the mantra "it's
all good..." nice one Marcus.
The bus to Chiang Rai was a bit more of an experience than we'd counted on. In a hurry to get there to catch up with Spud's Dad Keith and his wife Pom, we just jumped on a public bus and spent a hip-squished and knee-crunching 4 hours bouncing our way to Chiang Rai.
Chiang Rai... The King's mother's gardens at Doi Tung, a delicious Tiramisu, house inspections, an ex-Nasa scientists breeding prime beef and selling it to expats in a restaurant in the middle of a pond, a visit to a palm-reader/astrologist in Myanmar, a couple of orphanages, some rain, a tour of markets looking for Fishermen's pants (thanks Spud...), an amazing theme-park-like White Temple built painstakingly by a strange charismatic artist with a fleet of workers who paints star wars characters and petrol pumps alongside buddhist religious art, a strange adventure trying to find some hot springs that wound up navigating by luck and finding Nam Tok Pang Pra Bat, a nice little waterfall, lots and lots of ex-pats with Thai wives, lunch at a colonially beautiful golf course.
Feb 11th:
Back in Bangkok
I'm now accustomed to rising
with the sun (or thereabouts) and hopping on a local bus at about 7am to arrive early to Wat Phou for my course in Traditional Thai Massage. I'm 4 days in, one day and an exam to go. It's pretty good, feeling like I'm part of a community here - short-lived as it may be. I get to practise my Japanese with my study-partner as well as learning some more Thai language like "ow what are you doing!" or the less exciting but useful "line one/two"... It's pretty cool taking the bus every morning past ancient and spectacular temples and statues, and having student buffet lunch on the 5th floor overlooking the temples along the river.
I've been to Sizzler, a cultural experience I'll never need to repeat. Last night Pipe took me to Siam Paragon - one of the largest malls in the world, to go to see "American Gangster" - gotta remember a blanket next time I go to the movies in Thailand! I do like the photo montage and the whole audience standing in the dedication to the King before each film, though...
Peng - the fella whose restaurant is downstairs - makes a lovely
fried rice with veggies. I like Thai tea. I do not like Thai coffee. I'm thinking about getting a yellow "Long Live the King" tshirt. I can say "I'll have a Pad Thai but hold the prawns". I can reasonably reliably navigate the public transport system. I'm looking forward to another night out on the town with Phu (hopefully not the drags this time).
I like Bangkok.
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