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Published: January 9th 2008
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After a great break in Chiang Mai, I finally get off my butt and leave. Heading for Taton, even further north. Fortunately, this time the bus trip was a respectable 3 hours, just as well, as my good old British cold was actually fast turning into tonsilitis; oh lucky me. Taton was a lovely little town, with few tourists, except the luxury bus loads of Thais coming to visit the temple of course! The temple, Wat Taton, is built over 7 steps, as they call it, going up the mountain side. So, the next day, which was very hot and sweaty I might add, I embarked on climbing the 7 steps. Little did I expect it to take me a good hour and half of steep up hill slogging. Having politely refused numerous lifts up the mountain; from the bus loads of Thai tourists, I felt it my duty to then walk all the way back down. That evening, pleasant weary from my efforts, I felt very proud of myself for enforcing the Thai belief that all Farang; white travellers, are barking mad!
With the one and only sight of Taton well and truly seen, the next day I set
out on a boat trip along the Nam Mae Kok river to Chiang Rai. An excellent way to slowly travel through the Thai country side and watch life on the river. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we saw more of the river banks than usual. My body had decided tonsillitis was not enough and that I needed a good kidney infection to top it off!
On reaching Chiang Rai and having expertly diagnosed myself! Off I dashed to a pharmacy and after 24hrs of popping antibiotics was finally feeling normal again. Chiang Rai was a great town, the night market food stalls were, to say the least, interesting. My thai vocabulary expanded to include the words for chicken and prawn, a necessity as, as was often the case, it was impossible to tell what you were pointing at on the stalls. I will admit it, I have eaten pork by accident on more than one occasion on this trip. For me Chiang Rai was largely chill out time. Recovering by the pool! and strolling around the numerous temples.
As happens, the time came for me to start heading South. Firstly back to Chiang Mai for a night and then
off to Mae Sot on the Thai/Myanmar border. This time in Chiang Mai I enjoyed my first attempted Thai scam. I say enjoyed, because I caught on pretty quickly and decided to go along for the ride. It was actually such an entertaining afternoon, I considered it well worth the 50p it cost me. My new friend, Sing, started by showing me a picture of him and his aussie wife! A 20 year old photo of him and a white woman on a beach. He then asks my help in picking her a ring in the local gem store/factory, or as it turned out, not so local store. Of course, he does not buy anything, but rather proficiently trys to sell me everything from a jade sculpture to a monstrous diamond ring. Having quite enjoyed my tour of the gem factory, I think he was less than impressed with me when I did nt delve into my pockets. Still, not one to give up, he next tries to get me to to go to the local carpet market. After much debate I convinced him I need to get to the bus station, which was my original destination, and off we
head, via a tailors! Just as we get to the bus station, I finally get a full blown proposition. I pointed out that he had told me he was married, to which he replied that he did not eat the same food every day, so why should he have the same woman! Having laughed mightly at this, out I came with my imaginary boyfriend, who was a full buffet of delights and hence I was quite happy sampling the one, thank you very much! Needless to say, once we reached the bus station my new friend was not to be seen for dust!
The next day I was up bright and early and Mae Sot bound. On the bus (yet again) I meet Shirley, an aussie lady teaching in one of the refugee camps on the border. Shirley, with out really trying I must admit, sells me on a night out in a local bar selling imported wine. Imagine our faces when we got there and were told that there was a 2 day ban on serving alcohol because of the elections! I think the howls may have been heard in our respective countries of origin. Obviously, once the
ban was over, we made up for lost drinking days and polished off a couple of bottles of excellent red; Shirley then fell off her scooter whilst trying to get on it and I took at least twice as long as normal to stumble home.
My main reason for visiting Mae Sot was as a stop off point on the way Umpang, a small town to the south. Umpang in its self was also a stop off point for getting to the largest waterfall in Thailand; Tee Ler So (which literally means waterfall in thai). The onward journey to Umpang and Tee Ler So was an epic. Starting with a 4 hour trip in the back of a pickup, up winding mountainous roads. These were so bad, my latest travel companion, Rick was, quiet calmly I will say, sick out the back for most of the way. Once at Umpang we had another 2 hours in a pickup through the jungle and then a trek. But, it was well worth the effort in getting there, they were absolutely stunning. I can only imagine what the falls look like during the rainy season. Being 5 football pitches wide and 100s
of meters high they must be truly something.
With time quickly running out, the 20 Dec saw me back in Bangkok and ready to head to Koh Chang. The island where I had decided to spend my Christmas in a bamboo hut on the beach. I think the photos tell the story. What more can I say than, beautiful white sand, chilled evenings, diving to my hearts content and a hangover from hell for the New Year! After 2 suitably lazy days to get over my excesses, I headed off to my final destination in Thailand, Kanchanaburi. Famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai and, in Thailand at least, the Tiger Temple. As you would expect, my visits to the bridge and the POW cemetaries were quiet moments for reflection. The Tiger Temple, was a place to meet orphan tigers raised by buddhist monks and boy were some of the beasts big! The Temple didn't really live up to it's potential, being a bit to much of a tourist trap for me, but it was great to see these magnificient beast up close.
So, here ends this trip to Thailand. Tomorrow I go back to Bangkok, on
route to Cambodia and the great Angkor Wat.
I will leave this entry with 2 of the most perplexing things about my trip to Thailand. First, why do I always get more rice out of a salt shaker than salt! Second, why do the Thais always give me chop sticks when I order soup!! Hard life hey! I need these small things to keep my brain ticking over!
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Mazzy
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How Jealous!
How jealous am I that you got to see the temple tigers?!! As always loved reading your blog and looking at the stunning photo's. Mazzy