The Beaches to Bangkok

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OK, so things didn’t quite go as planned. We left Koh Phi Phi and arrived in Phuket Town and went straight to the bus station which Chris had sussed out on our last visit.

The problem with Thailand (or any Asian country really) is that you have two choices if you want a bus ticket, you can buy one from a travel agent in which case it is highly likely that you will get ripped off or at the very minimum not get the service you thought you paid for. A ‘guaranteed’ VIP bus ticket will turn out to be 15 people cramped onto a 12 seater minibus, plus backpacks, or you’ll have been charged a 1500% mark-up on the face value of the train ticket. This isn’t always the case but 50% of the time wouldn’t be an over exaggeration. The only way around this is to go to the bus (or train) station and buy the ticket yourself directly from the bus company.

So, back to Phuket Town bus station and the ticket purchase. As we had decided to try an overnight bus to Bangkok we wanted a decent bus, unfortunately so did everyone else and as it was the end of the New Year holiday the next available seats were 3 days away!!! Oh well, Phuket Town isn’t a bad place to hang about. At least it gave us the time to explore the town & island better. So off we went into ‘Town’.

Phuket Town is actually a huge place, as you’d expect from the main town of an island that caters to so many visitors. There’s massive Tesco & Big C supermarkets and even an outlet mall on the outskirts of town but it’s the centre of the ‘Old Town’ that’s worth just wandering around. The little old streets and shop houses were mainly deserted when we were there (it was the New Year holiday after all) but all the better for wandering down the little alleys, looking at the original buildings and the houses that have been tastefully restored; a definite fusion of Asian and European influences. The rows of houses show a definite hint of Lisbon. Every now and again a surprise pops up like wandering down a small alley to happen upon a beautiful temple, the Shrine of Serene Light, which has the most magnificent roof, decorated with ceramic dragons & fish in bright blues, greens and reds. A real treat.

To explore the island we hired a Moto and headed north, we had noticed a place on the map called the Gibbon Project that, given our various sightings this trip, sounded intriguing. When we eventually found it, it turns out that it is a Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. It started because of the illegal trafficking of Gibbons that are sold as pets or abused on the beaches of Phuket, often drugged to stop them acting, well like Gibbons. There is a beautiful area in the centre of Phuket Island, rarely visited by holidaying Westerners, that is the Phra Taew National Park, complete with rainforest, waterfalls and hundreds of species of wild animals. Until about 30 years ago Gibbons roamed wild here but as the tourists arrived on the beaches and the locals realised there was money to be made, poaching wiped them out. Now the wonderful GRP has been started, they take rescued Gibbons, mainly White-Handed Gibbons, and over a period of a few years build them into family groups, then as they develop together so they reintroduce them into the National Park, slowly but surely repopulating the region with wild Gibbons. It’s wonderful to see them and to watch the amazing work these dedicated volunteers are doing. Although it is a sad sight to see those who can never be rehabilitated, due to either mental or physical injuries which are so severe, they will spend the rest of their days looking at the jungle from inside a cage.

After a walk further into the rainforest to check out another waterfall we headed off on our trusty steed to take a look at a few more of Phuket’s beautiful beaches. This trip also had to involve regular stops as the Ashes was getting to a crucial stage and even Chris couldn’t follow the action on the mobile and steer at the same time (or wasn’t allowed to). We rode over to the west of the Island and Surin & Kamala beaches, both the stunning white sand & beautiful azure ocean was a delight to behold although we were less impressed with the 1.7 trillion holiday makers camped out, under sunshades or parading in Speedos. Onward to the south and we came upon Ao Patong, the famous Patong beach, for the first time and when viewed from the large hill to the north of the city you can see what all the fuss is about. It’s a stunning stretch of sand, but having seen the main attraction we skirted the main part of the town avoiding the rather seedier elements that have appeared all over Thailand but especially here.

Back in Phuket Town we popped in to Tesco for a few memories of home and we also found a massive multiplex cinema so decided that, as we had an afternoon to kill the following day before our bus trip, watching Tron3D was on the cards, we just hoped we brought tickets for the English version. Well, it was definitely the English version and maybe for that reason, or because it was a matinee, there were only about 6 others in the cinema at the same time. Considering all were Western it was a bit surreal having to stand to attention to worship the Thai King before the main picture, can’t see it catching on at Cineworld!

So now for our overnight bus journey to Bangkok, we turned up at the bus station and definitely had a great bus, only 3 seats across and leg room equivalent to premium economy airline seating, it was definitely worth the hassle. The journey would have been better if the Thai Government had spent any money on its road system but I guess none of them own a road building company so why would they ;-) We arrived in Bangkok at stupid o’clock in the morning again, found our way to the Khao San Road and some cheap accommodation and planned the next few days. We were actually supposed to be in Burma now, but having secured ultra cheap Air Asia tickets we then set about planning a 2 week trip and realised how ridiculously hard it was going to be. We had heard Burma is wonderful, but as it’s home to one of the most corrupt regimes in the world, we decided to wait until it wants tourists rather than making visiting a nightmare. Hopefully the temples will still be there in a few years.

1st night in Bangkok and Chris discovered that Arsenal’s match was going to be shown live in one of the only pubs that was serving Guinness and when he got there he thought he’d arrived in paradise early because the beautiful black stuff was half price. A great night, from what he can remember. The next day we headed off to tick off one of the must do’s on any journey to Bangkok. A trip to see the Bridge over the River Kwai, anyone who had not seen the old black and white movie might not appreciate it as much. We’d read in the guidebook that a minibus from the travel agents on the Khao San was the way to go, shame the travel agents hadn’t read that. The peddlars of travel misery wanted the whole carcass not just a pound of flesh. A little bit more research pointed us in the direction of how the locals get there so for few pence we hopped in a minivan full of Thais and arrived in Kanchanaburi in no time. It seemed like a nice little town with lots of guest houses but most people were there to see the Bridge and ride what is still referred to as the “Death Railway”. When you first see the bridge we have to admit to being a bit disappointed because a) it’s just a bridge and b) it’s not the one in David Lean’s famous film of the same name. Undaunted we followed the guidebook’s advice and purchased a ticket to ride the death railway, as the guide book promised the train was very late, and very basic but as the 2 hour journey cost about 15p we didn’t expect the Orient Express. The book claimed that the journey up to Nam Tok is Thailand’s most scenic and most popular train journey, we hereby declare that that is complete tosh. The journey consists of a very boring, uncomfortable 1.5 hours through flat featureless scenery, followed by a short but very emotional crossing of the Wang Po viaduct where every POW who worked on this stretch of the railway died, followed by a quick stop where the few hundred people on tour groups got off the train. The 6 or so people who remained on the train for the last 15 minutes were finally rewarded with some lovely views of the Kwai River and the surrounding hills. All we can say about the return journey was it was slightly more comfortable as we bagged a couple of seats with cushions and Lisa managed to catch up on some sleep. Because of the late arrival and the very late return of the train we didn’t get a chance to visit the very moving museums in Kanchanaburi, this is a shame because apparently they frame the whole emotional pull of this otherwise fairly nondescript place. About 16,000 allied POW’s and over 100,000 conscripted Asian workers died building this railway and that, alone, makes the visit worthwhile. Interestingly there were a lot of Japanese tourists, whose soldiers’ Samurai code led to the brutality and appalling conditions for the POW’s. I would have loved to chat about codes, ethics and consequences but it didn’t seem appropriate.

We decided to catch a public bus back to Bangkok as we hoped this would give us the chance to visit the bus station to organise our onward journey from Bangkok in a few days. As with most Thai towns the bus station is 62,000 miles outside the city (well it seems like it in the awful Bangkok traffic), but we managed to purchase a couple of tickets Northwards for a few days time. We then decided that it was about time we tried to suss out Bangkok’s bus routes and how successful we were depends on your point of view. Yes, we got on a bus that took us to where we wanted to go. Yes we only spent about 10p making the journey BUT we did age 7 years making the journey and it’s now 2018!!!!! Bangkok traffic is awful, bad in a Taxi but a nightmare in a bus. And now they are digging up every major road in the city to extend the Skytrain network, a great idea but how many people and businesses will choose to leave the city in the next 3 (or more likely 6) years remains to be seen. Suitably chastened, we caught a taxi the next morning to the main railway station for our day trip to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand.

On our last visit we were very impressed with the temples and chedis at Sukhothai, the original capital of Thailand and from there the kings, their courts, concubines and all manner of tyrants and toady’s moved south to a site 60Km north of what is now Bangkok. We had travelled 3rd class and had been lucky to get a seat, 3rd class is like most UK trains where a ticket is no guarantee of comfort or a seat but at least you only pay $1 for the discomfort. After fighting our way through the Tuk Tuk mafia promising a tour of a lifetime we found the bicycle hire shop and set off temple hunting. The heart of Ayutthaya is a 4Km wide island surrounded by 3 rivers including the Chao Praya River that flows through Bangkok ,and which used to be encircled by a 12Km wall which can still be seen in a few places. We planned a course through the recommended temples and wats. Ayutthaya was, obviously, a more modern capital than its predecessors. By the mid 15th century it was home to over a million people, double the size of London at the time and because of its enormous wealth over 40 different nationalities had communities in or around the city, a huge number for the time. It is written that at the time the city was so well endowed with temples that the sunlight reflecting off of their gilt decoration dazzled from 3 miles away. As you walk around now it’s difficult to envisage either the splendour of the temples or the enormity of the city because in 1767, after a 400 year golden age, the Burmese, captured and ravaged the city, taking tens of thousands prisoner and abandoning the city to the jungle.

The two major Wats, Mahathat & Ratburana hint at the splendour of their past. There is enough to stimulate as you wander slowly around but sadly not enough to inspire us to wax lyrical. We cycled on round the ancient city, visitng Wat Na Phra Mane which was full of tour groups in mini vans because it is the only major temple to survive the ravages of the Thai nations evil neighbours, and then the site of the old ancient palace, which was empty of either people or architecture still standing but quite serene. After a few more Wats and Chedi’s we realised that we needed to return to Wat Mahathat as the most famous (or at least photographed) sight in the city had eluded us, the guidebook challenged us to locate the head of a Buddha nestled in the roots of a bodhi tree, we succeeded quite quickly mainly by following the hordes of people shouting “Oy there’s a Buddha head here in the roots of a tree”. All too soon it was time to head back to the station, narrowly avoiding dying by cycling across a busy road the wrong way, welcome to the land of road signs written in squiggles. We were also chuffed to get away with not paying at any of the temples, a feat of subterfuge were we quietly proud of until we overheard a conversation along the lines of “Isn’t it great they aren’t charging today” - oh well. But the result of the day, well the week really, was after purchasing 3rd class tickets and probably having to stand for 2 hours, we viewed how many people also had said tickets and decided to go back to the ticket office and upgrade to 2nd class, seat and aircon tickets. Hopefully you are still following because it totally confused the ticket clerk who not only upgraded our tickets but gave us more back in change than we had given him, so the tickets were better than free. Now we both realise that we should have handed the money over and rectified the poor unfortunate’s mistake but to actually get one over on an Asian transport provider was too good an opportunity to miss. What a great (and comfortable) journey back to Bangkok that was.

The following day our short trip to Bangkok was over, we had sussed the shopping for Lisa’s visit nearer our return to the UK, checked out some alternative accommodation to the Khao San and managed to navigate the Bangkok bus system, Asia is getting easier by the day. Chiang Mai here we come.

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Photos

Pretty Phuket Town
showing off it's colonial roots

Hidden Treasure
and glorious colours too

Not in danger any more
just a nice home with food, friends and hopefully family

Jungle Ashes update
some things are too important to miss

Pretty Patong Beach
we won't mention the dark underbelly

Another Waterfall
to add to the collection

River Kwai bridge
and no commandos didn't knock it down

All who built this
never made it home. Tragic.

Wrapping up for the winter
or simply the Sunday best?

Hey Boys
Buddha's here

Pretty as a picture
and a nice frame too

Finally we found
the hiding head

Homeward bound
on the freebie express

Just resting
it's been a long day (snoozing)

Last one standing
after the nasty neighbours popped round for a fight

Ashes to Ashes
a right royal tomb

The leaning towers of
Ayutthaya

These two would have
scared the Japs off

Yep
it's a westerner taking a photograph of Asians, now there's a turn round

Comments

[Jo]

some tips?
Hey guys. You're having an amazing trip. If you're off to Chiang Mai, three tips for you, but expect you already know about them. Try a elephant mahout training course - a friend and I did a 3 day course and it was fab. http://www.changthai.com/mahout/three-day-mahout-training-course-most-popular/ Do a 1 or 2 day thai cookery course. Plenty to choose from and we did ours with Pad Thai Cookery School - it was brilliant. Mmmm, brings back memories of really good sticky mango rice and amazing pad thai. Also Pai north of Chiang Mai was lovely and laid back village for a bit of a chillax, and you can get amazing villas next to the river.... and do a trip to the hills and visit the local schools etc. Keep having fun! Jo x

[Chris and Lisa]

Thanks
Cheers Jo. We visited the Elephant conservation centre for 2 days last time. And as you'll see in the latest installment cooking and Pai featured heavily. Take Care. xx