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Published: July 21st 2006
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As normal we should excuse ourselves for not having blogged for ages. Sorry!
We are now in Bangkok, Thailand suffering in a muggy heat that is comparable to what is going on in the UK at the moment.
We finally managed to drag ourselves away from Mongolia, and headed down through the Gobi desert, through Inner Mongolia (China) and into Shanxi and indeed Shaanxi Provinces.
We stopped in the fairly industrial city of Datong, which though nothing special itself has 2 of China's most impressive tourist site within easy distance. First we went to visit the Hanging Monastery - this monastery was built on the side of a sheer cliff hanging precariously 100m up above a river. The reason for the building it in such an unlikely place was that previously the river regularly flooded, however modern-day China has done what they do best and dammed the river!! After this we visited the Yungan Caves. A string of caves had been dug into the mountain side, carving out huge statues of Buddhas and Bodhisatvas. These ornately carved and decorated shrines have survived amazingly well. There are thousands of individually carved buddhas, one cavern alone comprising 10,000!! It is
thought that it took 40,000 workers 64 years to build!
We moved south through the province and spent a couple of nights in the delightful walled city of Pingyao. The small town boasts the most complete set of city walls in China and streets that have changed very little in hundreds of years. We took a fantastic tour with a local guide that turned out to be an 8 hour marathon walk around the town, taking in schools, factories, carpentry workshops, visits to former teachers, family and friends and even climbing over the rooves of interconnecting houses (all for 50 kuai). The guide showed us remnants of the actions taken by Mao's Red Guards and people told us of their stories of the Cultural Revolution. The day was certainly a highlight of the trip, the only down side came when our increasingly temperamental camera decided to lose all our recent photos including all those of Mongolia, which is why this blog will not have any photos from the first part.
From here we travelled down to Xian, the city synonymous with the Terracotta Warriors - " The Eighth Wonder of the World" claims the China Tourist Board. This
collection of 1000's of life sized sculptures of soldiers in full battle dress built to protect the emperor after death, were discovered in a farmer's field when he was digging a well. You would struggle to imagine the farmer's field now as the site has been covered in a mass of concrete. The statues are still in place, protected by huge aircraft hanger-like buildings. The feat of the project is undeniable however I am not sure it lives up to the marketing claims.
From here we took a night train back to Beijing in time for our flight to Bangkok, and the next leg of our trip.
Thailand, is the ideal tonic to the bureaucracy and difficulties of China, everything easy and predictable. Avoiding the horrors of the Khao San road (Backpacker Heaven to some) we found a cheap, basic hotel run by THE smiliest woman in Thailand. After a not so brief visit to the British Embassy, we had to wait to get Carrie a new passport behind lines of British men getting passports for their newly acquired Thai brides. Carrie and I still cannot believe how openly this trade goes on here.
With some administration
Khao Sok, Thailand
Very rainy rainforest time to kill we decided to follow the masses down to the islands. We took a boat over to Ko Tao, a lovely island in the Gulf of Thailand. We found ourselves a quiet little hotel with its own beach, complete with palms, white sands and tropical blue seas, and from then it was a battle to do anything more than swim, snooze and read. Periodically we would undertake some diving or snorkeling and even once managed to rent a scooter and circum-navigate the island. Getting back under the water was fantastic and hugely rewarding, we saw lots of different marine-life and easily the most beautiful corals we have seen.
After a week on the island we took a boat back to the mainland to Suratthani and then on to Khao Sok (K.S.) in the south of Thailand. We noticed a weather change as we approached the mainland and quickly realized that in the time we had been on the island the rainy season had arrived. It rained solidly the whole time we were in K.S., and sometimes in biblical proportions. In many ways this didn’t matter as firstly Thailand is lovely and hot and secondly the reason for
Erawan National Park
Gorgeous - and the waterfall isn't bad! coming to K.S. was to visit the rain forest! The rainforest was great, thick jungle apparently teaming with tigers, monkeys and birds, a river raging though, and paths which had turned into streams. We had a great walk however the only animals we saw were the voracious leeches. After pulling off by hand 20 or so of the little blood suckers we gave up and headed for the safety and relative dryness of our hotel.
We shipped out of the KS with the rain showing no sign of letting up and headed up the east coast to Prachuap Khiri Khan, a small seaside town with a big fishing community. We walked up the coast, watching fishermen bringing in their catch, and for the first time felt like we were experience the real Thailand not the glossy tourist trail. We had two snake experiences, one that entered our restaurant as we were tucking into our Pad Thai and was beaten with a flipflop and deposited in a wheely bin, and a second that was thankfully dead apparently not able to digest the dog or small child that it has eaten - this one was massive!!
From Prachuap we got
Bridge over the River Kwai
As all good monuments should be - covered in mist and rain!! on a charming Thai train to Kanchanburi, making the most of the fantastic array of food being hawked up and down the aisle. Kanchanaburi in the west, only an hour or so from the Burmese border has a much calmer cooler climate but still had the rain. We visited the Erawan National Park with its enchanting 7-tiered waterfalls, took an elephant trek through the jungle and rafted down the river. A fun and relaxing day culminating a visit to the bridge over the river Kwai. This was a bit of a let down as the bridge hardly resembles the original one as the British blew it up during the war (and the film), however the history and information surrounding the railway and in particular the bridge make disturbing reading.
Thailand is growing on us with every meal, the food here is fantastically varied and the Thai people are warm and friendly. We will shortly head east to Cambodia after completing some more VISA work.
We are both well and enjoying ourselves. We hope you are all good and thanks for all your emails, we love hearing your news. xx
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