Advertisement
Published: December 6th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Well my travels have finally begun again.
I will admit I left the UK with a little trepidation. Thinking, here I go again, potentially heading off for a year on my own. God knows why, but your mind suddenly comes up with the most negative of thoughts; can I do this, will I make any friends..... I really shouldn't have worried. Within half an hour of checking into my hostel in Bangkok, I was out on the piss with an Irish girl, Paula, who quite fortunately had a drinking capacity to rival my own!
So day 1 arrives and I have the hangover from hell. I really had forgotten how bad Chang beer made me feel! Paula and I were roused from our beds by a fellow traveler. Who, in an alcoholic haze, we had agreed to meet at 7.30 the following morning to head off sight seeing. Umm, not the brightest of ideas. As it turned out, this was to be pretty much par for the course for my time in Bangkok: days of sightseeing followed by nights of drunkenness. I have some particularly special memories of the last night. Entering a drinking establishment, solely with the aim
of using the loo and mistakenly been shown to a seat so I could view the girls on offer! After explaining to the hostess, I was then shown to the required room, only to be surrounded by girls walking around in thongs and not much else, boy did I feel over dressed.
A little surprisingly, I really enjoyed my time in Bangkok, I saw some amazing places: The Grand Palace, Wat Pho and the reclining Buddha (all 48m of him!), the Golden Mount, the weekend market, river trips to name but a few. But, after 4 days I decided it was time to move on to my next destination. After careful planning, well talking to a few other travelers, I elected Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand as my next destination. So, one morning I boarded a train for the hour and half trip to Ayutthaya. What an excellent journey it was, I ended up sitting with an old Thai guy who's only word of English was London, and considering I had only mastered hello and thank you in Thai, we had a surprisingly long conversation! I also manged to get hit by a bird, not as one might
assume a real one. This one was attached to the top of a bouquet that one of the passengers carried onto the train. He lifted it to high and it got caught in the fan. The end result being a plastic canary flying across the train and hitting me on the head. Needless to say this caused much hilarity amongst my fellow passengers.
So I arrive in Ayutthaya, had my first Tuk Tuk ride, a sort of motorized rickshaw and checked into a lovely guest house that cost me the princely sum of 2 quid a night. Ayutthaya is an island city and is a real mix of old and new. It has some stunning ancient ruins, as well as shiny and bright new temples. So, I hired a bike and went and toured the sights. My first night in town I went for a wander with a guy I met in the guest house, he took me to a bar which he believed had karaoke. It turned out to be a Thai singer, Mr Lek Clapton. I can safely say that I haven't laughed quiet so hard in a long time. He was excellent, but with the usual
Asian impediment of not being able to pronounce R s and saying L instead, songs from Clapton, Pink Floyd, The Cranberries etc all took on a whole new dimension.
As happens, the time came to leave Ayutthaya. I decided to continue my journey north and go to Sukhothai, the ancient capital of the Thai Kingdom. I arrived in Sukhothai in time for the first day of their Loi Krahtong Festival (a sort of celebration of the end of the rainy season). I spent 2 amazing days in Sukhothai, each day traveling out to the old city (more stunning temple ruins) where the main celebrations were taking place. It is impossible to explain quite how spectacular the candle lit ruins were. I just hope the photos do them some justice. And when they released hundreds of Lanterns to float off into the night sky it was just beautiful. In my time in Sukhothai, I met Sammy, a guy from Belguim who I accused of being French and he never let me forget it! and Carolien a dutch girl. Over the ensuing week or so we where to spend quiet a bit of time together.
Sammy and I head off
to our next destination, Chang Mai, together. We endured a 6 hr journey on a particularly erratic bus, but not nearly up to African standards! And arrived in the 2nd city of Thailand. Little was I to know that I would be so taken with Chang Mai, I'd end up spending the next 10 days there. But that is what happened, a bustling city with all the delights, but not the hassle of Bangkok. Carolien arrived a day or so after Sammy and I, and the 3 of thus then promptly went off to watch Muay Thai, or Thai boxing.
The intermission providing us with our first real close up experience of Lady Boys, well for Sammy at least. My time in Chang Mai has been great, with white water rafting, mountain biking, a 2 day Thai cookery course I have been quite busy, plus all the usual socializing. But, what has to be the highlight of my time was a 3 day stay on an elephant sanctuary.
The story behind the Asian elephants in captivity in Thailand is really quite heart breaking. There are now more elephants in captivity than in the wild and their recognized status is
that of livestock. They are treated quite brutally to tame them when they are young and can expect a life of hard work. To see and interact with the elephants in the sanctuary, many of whom are getting respite at the end of a long working life, is a treat beyond compare. Fortunately, there are a few young elephants there, who hopefully, will never have to experience what their parents went through. The sanctuary really got to me and I will be going back to do voluntary work when I pass back through Thailand in April.
So this really brings my travels so far to an end. Both Carolien and Sammy have headed off, which is proving quite good for my liver!! I'm now ready to move out tomorrow, still heading North, to a little town called Thaton where I plan to catch a boat and sail down the river for a day to Chang Rai. I'll then start heading south ready to spend Christmas on an island.
I will be back......
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 71; dbt: 0.072s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mike Hill
non-member comment
First Read
Hi Sam, great entry and I must say some stunning pics, but none of yourself! Here is manic as always for Dec so will add more after this 'bloody' period is over. Mike