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Published: March 2nd 2008
(N) We'd had a great time in Chiang Mai, enjoying the hot weather, colourful temples, varied markets, the cooking, the massage and the food! But it was time to leave, and the contrast in bus between Thailand and Laos was huge: everything inside was spick and span, and we even had a uniformed hostess! The journey took 6 hours, a winding route through the hills to
Mae Sot, an unremarkable town in itself, but just 7km from Myanmar. Our curiosity had been piqued when we were planning our trip, reading about the town just over the border called
Myawaddy - superficially the same as a Thai village, with temples and Buddhas, but with people in totally different national costume and few vehicles. We decided to visit, although you can only get a 'day pass', and need to be back at the bridge separating the two countries by late afternoon.
We arrived in Mae Sot in the early evening, having relished the views across the hills covered in sunshine. We had had to pass and passed through 2 police checkpoints, normal in such a sensitive area; Burma, along with Afghanistan, is a prolific opium producer. That evening, we had a great
pasta dinner in a
ristorante recommended by Italian NGOs in the area.
According to our book, Mae Sot is a centre of trading between people from Thailand, Burma, China and the
Karen hilltribe minority people. Black-market trade is alleged to be the main source of local income, but superficially it's just a small town with a couple of non-descript main streets, albeit with an interesting ethnic mix. As you might expect, there are a lot of Burmese people in Mae Sot, and they have some characteristics that easily mark them out - the men often wear sarongs, and the women (plus some men and children) wear a sand-coloured pancake-type base foundation on their faces, made from the bark of the
thanaka tree, which is supposed to protect them from the sun and beautify complexion. There is also a sizeable Muslim population, wearing skull caps.
There is an unsavoury part of Mae Sot too; not to far from our hostel was a police station, one of whose outer rooms was made up of bars on 3 sides, in which there were about 20 people. These were people from over the border who had been rounded up by Thai police
and were awaiting deportation back. It is an odd situation: as we would see later, people can swim across the river from Myanmar into Thailand and flagrantly bypass the border post on the bridge, as the border officials turn a blind eye. Why arrest them later? The only reason we could get, by asking our hostel owner, was that they are allowed to work in Thailand but will get deported if they don't behave, but there seemed too many people locked up for that to be the full story. Anyway, inside their pen, they didn’t seem especially unhappy, and there was a TV to keep them occupied.
The following morning, in a Canadian cafe, we had the best coffee of our trip so far, grown in the Thai hills not far from here. We then wandered around the long, narrow street market, selling everything from clothes and mooncakes (a Chinese new year snack that Paula especially likes), to meat including sheep heads, fish, eels, crabs, small turtles, bags of toads and grilled bugs.
We were having a good debate as to whether to go to Myanmar at all - we knew that the $10 fee we had to
pay to go there for the day would go to the pockets either of the military regime that is oppressing its people, or of the border guards who would collect our money. At the same time, we knew that we would spend more than $10 on food, drinks and temple donations. We decided to at least take a
sawngthaew (pron. "songtail", a local transport service which is a cross between a truck and a bus) to the Friendship Bridge, and play it by ear.
One newspaper writer whose article we'd read suggested that the Friendship Bridge between Thailand and Burma is rather overbuilt, considering the Moei River is a fairly thin ribbon of water, and that it was more to cross
political rather than geographical divides.
As it happened, we met a man from Myanmar at the bridge and got talking. We asked him if people inside the country thought that overseas visitors should come, or if they should stay away under the present 'government'. He said we should definitely go, so we did.
Over the day, we learned some interesting facts about Myanmar, such as that "Burma" refers to just one of Myanmar's 135 national groups,
The coolest monk?
Wat Myi Kyaungon, Myawaddy, Myanmar.a bit like "Holland" is just one part of The Netherlands (but I use the adjective "Burmese" below because it sounds better than "Myanmarian"). The country's population is 58m, of which 22m are Burmese (and 1.7m are
Karen).
Myanmar has 3 differences to Thailand that have an immediate influence on the visitor: firstly, and most obviously, it has a different currency. I checked the exchange rate online before we went. Officially, there are 5 Thai baht to 1 Myanmar
Kyat (pronounced "chess"), but actually there are 25 kyat to just 1 Thai baht - a lot of a difference! Secondly, Myanmar is
half an hour behind Thailand, relevant in order to not miss the closing of the Thai border post at 5pm sharp. Thirdly, the traffic drives on the right, unlike Thailand which, in common with all civilised countries, drives on the left.
First stop was
Shwe Muay Wan Temple, the most important temple in Myawaddy. It has a
chedi (bell shaped monument) that is covered in gold leaf and topped with gems. It would have been nice to see it, but it was covered for restoration! "We are a poor country but rich in resources" said a
Impressive chedi
Wat Taggk Htam Aung, Myawaddy, Myanmar. local. There were several halls in the temple complex, with Buddhas aplenty, one of which was supported by gold columns, and we found out that one gold column had cost 500,000 kyat (around GBP350).
In another worship hall, we saw the beads that Buddhists can hold while meditating, which looked like Catholic rosary beads. At another we saw a large oval Lucky Stone, which probably weighted about 5kg had been sprayed silver, that you can bow down to and then lift up a couple of times for good luck on travels. In the garden, there was a large Banyan tree, with traditional bright-coloured material tied around it, and 7 small shrines at its base, one for each day of the week - you're supposed to focus your efforts on the one that represents the day that you were born.
The second temple was
Myi Kyaungon, most noteworthy for its 65m-long sanctuary - in the shape of a crocodile! This was, I understood, in tribute to the large numbers of crocs (and other jungle animals such as elephants and tigers) that used to be found in abundance in this area, but which are now only to be found 36km
108 Buddha statues
Toung Tang Missionary Temple, Myawaddy, Myanmar.
away in a national park. Ladies are not allowed inside this temple, much to Paula's chagrin, but we did see perhaps the coolest monk of our travels so far here, in a red robe (the colour of Myanmar monks), and shades.
We also went to
Taggkk Hatm Aung temple, with gave a good view over Myawaddy, and one which fitted in with the description in the guidebook of "few vehicles and life not much changed"; bamboo huts and small dusty, rocky roads made up this part of town, unlike the area by the bridge, which was paved and busy with scooters. Before we went back to Mae Sot, we also went to
Toun Tang Missionary temple, where we saw the large classroom where monks teach 6 subjects including English and Maths. We gave a small donation which was accepted rather grumpily by a monk - we later found out that they are used to receiving large donations from NGOs! In the grounds of this missionary temple, they have 108 (an auspicious number in Buddhism) lifesize seated Buddhas on pedestals. We communicated with a point-and show book kindly given to us by Paula's friend Sonia!
Before we left, I
really wanted to have Burmese curry and Burmese lager, which are of course as cultural as Buddhas and temples. Very tasty on both counts.
That evening, back in Mae Sot, we went for a herbal sauna at a temple called
Wat Mani. It was a very basic set-up, with one room for men and one for women, each measuring about 4m x 3m, tiled with wooden benches, much like a council football changing room in England, but without the shirt hooks and smells of deep heat rub. A large oven behind the sauna (actually a steam room) fed pipes via half an oil drum into the steamrooms, underneath the benches. A barrel of cold water and a vat of herbal tea outside kept the clientele hydrated. We left refreshed around 7pm, when young monks came and used the area to do weight training.
It was Valentines Day and, ever the romantic (ahem), I decided that we'd go to an outdoor restaurant just north of town, designed by a Thai botanist to make it feel as if you are dining in the forest. It was truly impressive, with manicured grass leading to tables between carefully cropped trees and around
Footy mag at the sauna.
Wat Mani, and the mag is in Burmese - who are equally mad about English footy as the Thais. a large lily pond. The food was great but the service was rubbish!
A testament to the honesty of the Thais: I left my jumper on the local bus going to the border, and the following morning the driver had wedged it by a lamppost next to the bus-stop. That morning we also learned that a key figure in the
Karen minority's National Union, a man respected by the Burmese authorities for wanting genuine dialogue between the two sides who have engaged in repeated military skirmishes against each other, was shot dead at his home in Mae Sot, which happened while we were over the border. There was no indication that anything out of the ordinary had happened in the town though.
We took a 3-hour bus to
Sukhothai, meaning "Rising of Happiness", which was Thailand's first capital, established in the 13th century. The kingdom lasted for 200 years and is considered to be a Golden Age of Thai civilisation, in terms of art and architecture. The first Thai script was also created around this time. The modern town of Sukhothai has nothing of interest, but it's located 15km from "Old Sukhothai", now known as
Sukhothai Historical Park,
which is the area of interest to the visitor, and which became a UNESCO heritage site in 1991. I have compiled a small glossary which may be useful at this juncture:
* Chedi - a bell-shaped Buddhist monument (a.k.a. Chedi)
* Prang - a tall, corn-cob shaped tower
* Wat - a temple
* Wihaan - a Sanctuary Hall
* Er...
* That's it.
We went to the museum first, seeing a 14th-century statue of walking Buddha, a highlight of Sukhothai art apparently, plus replicas of graceful 13th-century Buddha stucco carvings, original 12-14th century bronze artefacts behind glass, weapons, and of course the obligatory pots (large and small) that you get in every museum. There were also several examples of the Sukhothai Sangkhalok Lanterns, whose design was like that of a sugar bowl we have.
As at Angkor Wat, there were a large number of abandoned temples to visit in a 5km radius, so we just picked a few to get a flavour:
Wat Trapang Thong, reached by a footbridge across a (usually) lotus-filled pond, which was serene on the river bank.
Wat Saphan Hin - we cycled west around 5km to this wat, along
a country-style road, passing few other cyclists and the odd car. It was very peaceful, the warmth of the sunshine and the waving of the crops in the breeze making it all very enjoyable. We passed several of the park's 70 sites on the way, in greater or lesser states of repair, till we got to Saphin Hin itself. It was a steep rocky stone staircase up to the top, where we got great views over the park and came face-to-face with a 12.5m standing Buddha.
Wat Si Chum - here is a 15m seated Buddha, with an especially elegant (and oft-photographed) large hand that reaches the ground. The pose of this Buddha is known as
Phra Achana - "one who is not frightened".
Wat Phra Phai Luang was just around the corner, the most striking aspects were (i) the well-watered bright green grass contrasting against the terracotta-red bricks, and (ii) a pyramid-shaped
prang that looked like one of Angkor Wat's main towers.
Wat Sorasak was a small but almost-perfectly-formed bell-shaped chedi, with large elephants decorating its base.
And we still had time for 3 more 12th & 13th century temples!
Wat Si Sawai -
Paula and the Buddha hand
Wat Si Chum, Old Sukhothai. with 3 towers that also looked like they were from Angkor;
Wat Mahatat - actually one of the principle temples, on a large site (200m x 200m), and surrounded by brick walls with some very old, graceful standing and seated Buddhas. Its gardens and red-flowered hedges were well-looked after and relaxing to wander around.
Wat Sa Si - a wat situated picturesquely on an island.
We had a big dinner that night in Sukhothai's nightmarket, joined by an amiable Spaniard called Alberto.
On our previous night in Sukhothai, for some exercise, Paula joined in the local open-air aerobics session in a park overlooking the river, which I thought was very courageous as all the others were Thai, and the instructor was of course doing his routine in the Thai language too. It's comment-worthy to mention her snack beforehand: an ultra-healthy sliced raw green mango, followed by a fried pancake of banana and egg...! That night, we ate in a restaurant called "Poo Restaurant" ('poo' meaning "crab" in Thai). They did a great dessert of
Dame Blanche - ice cream covered in melted Belgian chocolate.
It was a 6-hr bus ride from Sukhothai to
Ayuthaya, with a lunch
Jazz Bar
Ayuthaya. stop at a small Thai service station, where we both had a lunch whose chillies blew our mouths away. In Ayuthaya, we didn't get dropped off at the bus station in the centre of town, but at a motorway intersection. "You take a taxi from here” said the conductor as the bus was driving away. Sure enough, there was one taxi there, whose driver offered us a ride into town for a suitably large fee. Fortunately, as we were surveying our options, I saw a public bus and flagged it down, which ended up stopping at the terminus 5 minutes from our hostel, for literally one-twentieth of the price!
Founded in 1351, Ayuthaya takes its name from the Indian city of "Ayodhya", meaning invincible". It prospered rapidly by exploiting the expanding trade routes between India and China, and its empire covered most of what is now Thailand by the middle of the 15th century, and by 1685 there were 1 million inhabitants, double the population of contemporary London. Its 400-year-old reign came to an end when it was sacked by the Burmese, whereupon the city was left in ruins and abandoned to the jungle. However, much of its layout
was replicated in the new capital, Bangkok.
We had dinner on an open-air cafe-restaurant on a riverfront promenade, and food cooked in a large, gas-cannister-fuelled wok, large flames shooting up into the air from time to time, also very tasty. We tried to buy a pen from the nearby night market, but there was nobody manning the stall to which the pen belonged. We could have put a case of them into a bag and nobody would have noticed. We went 2 stalls down and asked around, and it turned out that the stallholder we sought was there too, on a stool and having a good natter with the other girls.
We rounded the evening off in a small bar, where 5 young jazz-mad musicians (The "Chaikawiphan Jazz Band") played drums, guitar, double bass and various percussion instruments (and sung) on the pavement outside the bar they had bought between them. The menu gave a little about their history: having trawled around Bangkok trying to make enough to get by, and not managing, they eventually bought this joint in Ayuthaya and they were really good.
The following morning, we hired bikes to explore what the Burmese had
left of the temples and once again we had to be selective:
Wat Ratchaburana - built by a 15th century king on the cremation site of his 2 elder brothers who had died fighting to take control of the city - doh! Its tall
prang is especially well-preserved.
Wat Mahatat - in my opinion, it contains the most enigmatic image in Ayuthaya, a sandstone Buddha head firmly embraced by roots near the base of a Bodhi tree - the statue's body has disappeared. I was asked politely by a temple official to keep my head as low as that of Buddha, and to make a contribution to the collection plate in front. Whether this cash went towards the temple or his retirement fund remains unclear.
Wihaan Mongkon Bophit - a sanctuary containing one of Thailand's largest Buddha images, a 15th century bronze cast with a total height of 17m, whose lap measures 9.5m across. Inside was really interesting, as well as Burmese monks with a camcorder, many people were attempting to divine their fortune by shaking a pot of thin, 6-inch numbered sticks, which they then took to a counter and received the corresponding piece of paper
Wat Phra Si Sanphet
Ayuthaya. ("These stupas epitomise the quintessential Ayuthaya style" - now you know!)
which contained the necessary information. (When several people shake their pots at the same time, it sounds like a rattlesnake is around). I watched one man do this, and then politely asked if I could see what was written, as there is also an English translation on the paper. "No no!" he laughed, but I caught sight of the first line anyway, which went as follows: "You will have moderate luck..."- talk about sitting on the fence!!
Wat Phra Si Sanphet - dating from the 14th century, this temple was used for important royal ceremonies, and once had a 16m-high standing Buddha that was covered in 250kg of gold. However, during the sacking of Ayuthaya, the Burmese melted it down, the rotters. Today there remain 3 large elegant bell-shaped stupas, growing around which are frangipani trees, providing a colourful and fragrant contrast to the old stonework.
Wat Na Phra Meru - The Burmese king fired a defective cannon from this temple towards Ayuthaya's royal temple in the 18th century, which fatally injured him and precipitated his country's withdrawal from Thailand. In the temple’s main hall, there is a large golden-coloured Buddha, 6m tall, dressed as a king and
Large emerald Buddha
Wat Na Phra Meru, Ayuthaya. with particularly human features.
Wat Chai Wattanaram - was the last temple we saw, with a large central
prang and a number of smaller ones around it.
According to our map, St Joseph's Cathedral was not far away, but a combination of map inaccuracy and bad directions from a temple employee (whom I shall call, for the purpose of illustration, "Erroneous Monk") meant that we rode around for an hour before finding it; closed, of course! It was a nice ochre colour though, and it had been interesting to cycle through the surrounding countryside (as opposed to the busy city, among which the ruins are spread), along small canals, seeing goatherds and the Muslim area). The visit to St Joseph's rounded off the day's sightseeing, as we had to get the bikes back before it got dark, and as a result of the cathedral palaver we didn't manage to see
Wat Phanan Choeng with its gallery of 84,000(!) Buddha images in its crevices, so we'll all just have to imagine.
The next day we went to the town of
Bang Pa-In - 25km away from Ayuthaya. It's the site of a royal palace built in the late
19th century. First we had to take a small boat across a river to the train station (5p each) and the 10-min train ride was also 5p! On arrival, the
sawngthaew (local transport service) driver tried to charge us double the Thai price (not an unusual occurrence). He had even written the higher price down in pencil on a bit of paper, to make it look all official. However, I had already asked the ticket office at the station how much it should cost, and anyway one of the middle-aged women on the truck also told us the price when we asked the driver, before he'd had the chance to pull out his tourist tariff. He shot her a wicked glance as we paid the local fare, but the women couldn't stop giggling to herself for the next 10 minutes, as if she'd never heard such an audacious plan to make a few extra baht in her life.
Once inside the palace grounds, there was - a little late - a noticeboard with photographs highlighting what type of clothing was inappropriate. They were mostly of women wearing either tiny shorts, low-neck tops and other skimpy clothes. It was quite
In the blooming garden
Royal Palace, Bang Pa-in a gallery. Our friend Andrew Swan, a self-proclaimed expert on the subject, would have no doubt referred to most of the apparel as "tawdry".
On the subject of clothing, there was one royal building where women must wear a sarong, and men must wear trousers. We had neither, but they lent them outside. Paula looked good in her sarong but the trousers for me were Thai-length, and purple in colour, so instead of sporting my dapper shorts, I looked like a clown.
In large, quiet and landscaped grounds - with shade provided by mango, jackfruit, coconut and tamarind trees - bougainvillea bushes and bright flowers all over the manicured green grass combine to produce a very peaceful setting (apart from when large groups of Japanese appear, sometimes nearly running us over with the golf buggies they had hired to speed themselves around).
The king who built the palace had previously made a royal tour of Europe and returned home to build pavilions in similar fashion, which are still there, along with one very large one in Chinese style. They look odd juxtaposed together: a Victorian theatre-style building next to an Oriental palace, and a look-out tower (whose
name translates as "The Sages' Lookout") to survey the surrounding countryside which looks more like a helter-skelter tower. However, the place was a great places to spend a few hours away from the none-too-clean city.
The following morning, at 07h00, we retraced our steps to the train station, took the 5p ferry and stopped at a guesthouse called
Baan Are Gong for breakfast. We'd had a very tasty lunch there yesterday of
Raad Naa, thick ribbons of rice noodles covered in Thai gravy with pork. After breakfast, it was our aim to get them to show us how it's made; we've done similar elsewhere and thus learned to make sweet and sour beef (Paula), omelette in the shape of a zeppelin (Nick), and chilled apple shake (Nick, thinking it will go great with vodka in the summer). They agreed, and soon Paula came back with 2 steaming portions decanted into plastic boxes. On the way to the train station we bought some hot small coconut dumplings that we'd had before in Vang Vieng, and took our place in 3rd class (just less than a quid for 2.5 hours), which were actually very comfy, and put us right on the
European-style building
Royal Palace, Bang Pa-in middle of Thai life. We were going to Pak Chong, the town to use as a base for visits to the
Khao Yai National Park.
People snoozed on the benches, the young guy opposite us cuddling a large 3' teddy bear like a pillow. Hawkers continually walked up and down the passageways, selling everything from pungent dried fish to fresh bbq'd chicken on a stick, cold drinks, fruit in a large wicker basket to hammocks (one of which we bought from a woman, broad of shoulders and merry of face, for the sum of 30p). Her daughter, she informed us, was very good with her hands, whereas she herself was good with her loud mouth. To demonstrate the efficacy of her offspring's handiwork - which was largely unnecessary because we had already handed over the cash - she made me hook my index finger inside one of the hammock loops, whereupon she yanked hard on the material and jerked me out of my seat. "Very strong!” she cackled. The last fifth of the carriage was reserved for monks, seniors and the disabled.
A burly man in uniform began talking to us during the journey, wearing chunky Dior shades
Train police
On the way to Pak Chong. and, not least because of the uniform and that he was big, did I put down the Peter Ustinov autobiography that I was enjoying (a man from whom Paula & I had the honour of having our degrees conferred, and a book which I had picked up the previous week in Chiang Mai, published in 1977, containing a J. Sainsbury receipt from 1986, now employed as a bookmark), and we had a chat about the universal subject of football. He was actually very friendly and told me that whereas he used to support Liverpool, his favoured team was now Manchester City, on account of its recently being taken over by ex-Thai prime minister, and man with fingers in several pies, Thaksin Shinawatra. The young guy with the teddy woke up at this point and contributed that he supported Man U because they were the best, a point that was hard to argue based on recent cup form at least. My search for a Tranmere-supporting Thai person (defined as someone who has at least heard of them) goes on.
I caught sight of the badge on the burly man's uniform: "Train Police", so not quite the military bad guy I
thought he might have been. More like Kryten from
Red Dwarf, who is thrilled to learn in a parallel universe that he is a law enforcer in "Cybernautics", only later to find out that cybernautics is traffic police.
*****
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