Ta ta Trivandrum and Bangkok Ahoy

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February 13th 2008

Published: February 13th 2008

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Batboy Batgirl

Democracy Momument, Bangkok

Monolithic roundabout in Bangkok. Huge!!

Sorry for taking so long to get something up here. We will put a few entries up for Thailand. At times it's very hard to find Internet facilities & sometimes you just can't be bothered as you feel very mellow indeed. So here we go, our first couple of weeks or so ...

After four months in India and Sri Lanka we land in big, brash Bangkok. It's like being catapulted fifty years into the future!

Yes, pop- pickers - a brief recap.... We flew to Sri Lanka over the festive period to see what it was like three years after the tsunami. What can I say - we're just not lucky with this country. It rained almost constantly and the accommodation was less than cheery. (Ironically, this was the accommodation we would have been moving on to, had it not been for the terrible events on Boxing Day 2004.) I (Wee G) was woken by a dripping on my forehead from a leaky roof. We were moved to another room which had a leak as well! Most of the places we wanted to try to see this time round (impossible last time because of the tsunami) are now

Temple roof in Bangkok

Temples have this style of roof at both ends.

"no-go areas" because the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) have occupied them. Colombo was full of soldiers and there were sandbags and roadblocks everywhere. It was so depressing that we flew back to India after five days! Our last couple of weeks in India were good, fortunately. We stayed at Varkala on the coast and did yoga on a rooftop every morning AND attended a headstand workshop! We even saw a pod of dolphin swimming past one morning as we were eating our breakfat. How lucky is that, eh?

Anyway, back to Bangkok, where straight away there are huge differences. Taxis are no longer quaint, they are serious pieces of engineering & come in various colours such as yellow & green, even shocking pink! Big G says they remind him of the cars you get in Grand Turismo. The roads are smooth and there are clear markings, There are rules! There is no horn use but tonnes of traffic. There are really tall buildings. We eventually pull up in front of Baan Sabai Guesthouse in Soi Rongmai. This is in the Banglamphu area of Bangkok. Most foreigners seem to come here as it is cheap. The famous Khao San Road is

Flags at the Golden Mount in Bangkok

Bangkok's highest point except for all the tower blocks cum skyscrapers.

just five minutes round the corner. It's actually a place of convenience and reminds you of places like Kos or Benidorm. There are bars, restaurants & bags of other Westerners walking around, bottle of beer in hand, dreadlocked & tattooed to the hilt. Every other person seems to be tattoed to some degree or other. Tattooing also seems to be a very popular activity with Thais too. The first night we take a walk up Khao San Road. There are stalls selling bootleg whatever you want, tattoos, dreadlocks, hairweaving, cheap beer & places to stay. It's REALLY noisy. There is even a branch of Boots (the chemist!) On the way back to our abode a chappie asks Big G if he wants to see "ping pong". He is not talking about table tennis either. Big G kindly declines his invitation. Instead we have a beer in the forecourt of a disused petrol station, which is now a bar! You can have a foot massage or your eyebrows tattooed at where I imagine the air pumps used to be. It is mindblowing considering where we have just come from. We have arrived in Sodom & Gomorrah & the girly bars &

Stupa against Sky.

Stupa on the rooftop of temple at the top of the Golden Mount.

ping pong courts are not even in this area. We are ever so glad that or hotel is round the quiet corner, old biddies that we are.

The next day we go to see the Golden Mount & on the way this chappy stops to help us. He tells us not to buy anything from the Khao San Road area, " low quality-high plice." He then tells he does not want any money for his advice & further tells where to buy a bus ticket for Chiang Mai from. We tell him thank you but that we don't need to buy a ticket today. He then gets angry, storms away & shouts, " You stupid." Wee G gets the last word in though. She points at him & tells him, "You are a very rude man."

We are very close to the river that bisects Bangkok and there is an amazing bridge. A single span suspension bridge. It's the longest in the world. It looks like a huge harp upside down although you may disagree with me. I love it. Bridges are great things and many of them do not get the respect they deserve. It also looks

Prayer bell or wish bell.

I assume these are prayer bells or wishing bells.

great at night, all lit up but subtly so. River travel is one of many forms of public transport here. You can hop on & off boats that traverse the river from pier to pier. You can get long-tailed boats. These have a humungous outboard motor with a very long propeller shaft & go very bloody fast. Other forms of are the usual taxis, tuk-tuks & buses. The tuk-tuks here are also Formula 1 style. They definitely have power. In a race between a Thai tuk-tuk & an Indian tuk-tuk, the Thai tuk-tuk would leave the Indian one at the starting line.

We find some really cheap roadside restaurants where one evening we are joined by a Siamese cat! Imagine that, a Siamese cat in Siam? The food is very very good. We fancy a drinky-poo but not in the public pissoir that is near where our hotel is situated. Besides,Wee G says she'll scream if she sees another white backpacker with dreadlocks. We pass a bar called Bank Bar. It's tiny but you can hear the melodious strummings of Jumbo, a Thai twosome playing a combination of folk & easy listening covers, both Thai and foreign. In for

Saphan Phra Rama VIII Bridge

World's longest single span suspension bridge.

a penny, in for a pound. We are the only "Farang" in there. It's quite busy but will get busier. Most tables are full of groups of young groovy Thais drinking whisky, which they buy by the bottle to share with friends. Jumbo go down well and the next band set up. This threesome is called Frank's Band. The place is filling up now. Other foreigners pop in and leave. We stay. Frank's Band open with a cover of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". I actually despise this song as I think it's sanctimonious nonsense but hang on a mo'. Frank's Band change this stance. We are singing along and we have only had one drink so far. What is even more surprising is their next number, a cover of Travis' "Sing". This is another song on my hit list of do not own or play as it's drivel. But again Frank's Band changes everything. This is meltdown. We don't recognise anymore of their songs as they are all covers of Thai songs, presumably. However the crowd get increasingly drunk & increasingly appreciative. In fact it gets quite riotous with one girl dancing on a shelf. She goes to remove her

Khao San Road

Busy, busy, busy! full of dreadlocks, knock-off gear & Boots the Chemist. Actually horrible!

top but thankfully, she is denied this opportunity by a tubby Thai lad who is shaking everything to the beat. He looks great, like a big smiling Buddha who is inebriated. Other people get up & take over singing duties as they please. People keep turning to us to chink glasses. It's all great fun & very welcoming.

The next day we decide to take the Skytrain. This is Bangkok's elevated monorail, which runs through the downtown section of Bangkok. Good Golly, Miss Molly! Welcome to the future yet again. This train silently snakes its way between some of the most expensive real estate in Bangkok. It's a little like "Bladerunner." We get off at Siam Square & enter Paragon Tower - a monument to filthy lucre. This is expensive shopping central. All your really high end shops are here. It's quite scary. I certainly know a few people who'd like this place, especially you, Jo Richardson.

Later on. amazingly, we bump into Brent & Shelley, a couple from Seattle we met in Diu (that dreaded place in Gujerat) over two months ago. They are on their way to Cambodia but later after our drink with them and

Hats at Chatuchak

Chatuchack market. Huge market in Bangkok. She obviously feels the need for a new hat.

a follow-up e-mail, we learn that they end up in hospital in Bangkok. Dengue fever was a possible diagnosis but was not the case. They had contracted some other filthy virus before leaving India. By god we have been lucky regarding our health.

Next stop Kanchanaburi & the Bridge over the River Kwai. We stay in a raft room which actually juts out over the River Kwai. There is a fair bit of movement when people walk down the gangplank to their rooms which I cannot recommend. It's also a bit noisy with the Thai karaoke boats at twilight but the scenery is stunning and the river is so clean and litter-free after the rivers in India. I book us kayaks from a local place and Big G and I kayak under bridges (including the famous one), past temples and houseboats. It's so tranquil. Big G even sees a river snake, (in the river obviously.) The sun is fierce and when we finish our three-hour trip even the factor 30 didn't save my nose from blistering!

We also visit The Death Railway, including Hellfire Pass and The Allied War Cemetery. We were both surprisingly moved at the cemetery

Long-tail boats.

These plough their way up & down Mae Nam Chao Phraya, Bangkok's river.

and met a lot of other Austalian and Dutch who had come to pay their respects. The Thai people really should be commended on the way they have organised the cemetery and memorial with such sensitivity and respect. The museum there really informs you about the building of the railway & the conditions & suffering that people went through to build this. We seem to forget that it wasn't just allied troops who built it. Around 90,000 Asians also died during its construction. Many of them pressed into serviced - basically pressganged.

From Kanchanaburi and its groups of tourists we head north-west to Sankhlaburi. We travel with a load of Thais in a minibus (air-conditioned, not school-type) and arrive in this dusty little outpost not far from the Burmese border. We are taken to our little guest house, the 'P' Guest House by motorcycle taxi!! Yes folks, taxi drivers there wear a bib with a number on it , which reminds me of playing netball at secondary school, and you ride pillion with your backpack! It was fun but a bit precarious given that we have huge packs plus yoga mats. We have arrived in a beautiful, tranquil place.

Chinese cemetery

Chinese cemetery in Kanchanaburi. The town for the bridge on the River Kwai.

Our motorcycle taxis drop us outside an old teak Thai hotel with pebble and stone walls. I immediately christen it "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness". Big G agrees. Our room overlooks a huge lake and the confluence of three rivers.

Sankhlaburi is home to the oldest wooden bridge in Thailand, which crosses a wide river to the Mon village on the opposite bank. We cross the bridge in daylight and have dinner in the Mon village and are very grateful for bright moonlight on our return journey as parts of it are in need of repair. It's a definite case of "MIND THE GAP". There is also a golden Buddhist temple which we visit with some other travellers as part of the run up to an elderly Buddhist monk's funeral. We go over in the dark one evening to join in the "festivities". There are three of us on one scooter and two on the other zipping through the dark to visit the fairground-type stalls and food stands that seem the norm before a buddhist monk's funeral. Seth, a lad from Alaska, plays a kind of hoopla where you have to throw washing up bowls over litre bottles

War Graves.

One of two cemeteries for the remains of allied soldiers (British, Dutch & Australian) who died building the "Death Railway" from Thailand to Burma in the WWII.

of fizzy drinks. Amazingly, he wins and gives the fizzy drink to some local Thai kids who probably wish that a monk would die every day! The high point of the evening is when we climb the 50 ft paper pagoda which has been erected and is to be burnt on the day of the funeral. Strictly speaking the "paper" pagoda is made of cardboard. It is beautifully painted in almost dayglo colours and the wooden steps inside allow you to go up and view pictures connected with the monk's life. (At least that's what we thought the pics meant.) We seemed to be the only five non-Thais there and there was nobody to explain anything in English.

The guest house has a wooden jetty and boat house with locally-made North American style canoes. We are eager to fulfil our "Last of the Mohicans" fantasies and set off on a scalping trip early one morning. We paddle up the river and marvel at the silence. We return parched, starving, sunburnt AND without a single scalp.... We collapse with Chang beers and Burmese curry to console ourselves. Big G can't get over my recent enthusiasm for canoeing and I must

Goin' fishin

Man fishing outside our room in Kanchanaburi.

admit that I'm at a loss to explain it myself.

We also do a bit of "trekking". They're very big on this word in Asia, which really just means walking. The two of us walk with a member of one of the Karen hill tribe through some fairly rough jungle terrain. There's a lot of scrambling and one bit near a river where we have to swing on a creeper- all very Tarzan. The ants were a nightmare and we were quite glad of the last part of the walk where we had to wade waist deep through the river. That got rid of the ants and soothed the places where we'd been bitten.

We also try our hand at bamboo rafting with a group of people from our guest house. It's good fun and we manage to stay upright all the way down the river even though we got stuck on a rock. Actually, the river was low at that time so we didn't have to contend with any really challenging rapids. We think we'll probably have another crack at it somewhere else where it's a bit more exciting. Our last couple of days in Sankhlaburi were

Erawan Waterfalls

One of the seven waterfalls that make up Erawan Falls near Kanchanaburi.

spent exploring on a motorbike. Big G and I rode up to Three Pagodas Pass which is one of the frontier points with Burma (Myanmar). Yes folks, Burma's closed at the moment (at least here) and the three pagodas are actually quite small. There is a market there, where you can buy all sorts of tat; plants, jade, trinkets, bootleg whisky & cigarettes with names such as Pollax, Golden Elephant & Golden Triangle. There used to be lot of smuggling of illegal teak in this area and the mountainous scenery all around is probably full of old smuggling routes.

From here we need to backtrack to Kanchanaburi as we are heading off for Ayutthaya & then north to the frontier as we will soon need to renew our visas. Until next time folks, which won't be as long.

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