Three Wise Monkeys

---

Hi there,

Having a "wanna be in air conditioning" day, so will spend most of the day emailing. Arrived in the nothern capital of Chiang Mai after 7 hours on a public bus, sans le air conditioning. However, it did only cost 2 pounds a piece so you can't really complain. Managed to make our way into town and find a room, and then headed for the Irish pub for a POTATO!! Have been hankering after this carb lovers favourite for some time now and couldn't pass up the opportunity.

First stop after Bangkok, was a place called Ayuthaya, one of the many ancient capitals of the country. Stayed at great hostel called Tony's Place, where the staff are really friendly. Decided to go on a night tour of all the local Wats, run by the hostel, as many of them were located out of town and were difficult to get to without transport. Fancied some ice cream before we departed, so I (Rach B) went to order said frozen delight while the others got ready. After discussion with the very friendly staff I discovered that not all the flavours listed were available, which was quite dissappointing. Reported back to the others the news and decided against ice cream. Unfortunately with the language barrier and very eager friendliness of staff, I inadvertantly ordered a bucket of ice cream, which arrived 2 minutes before the tour left. So had to inhale an interesting mixture of flavours: green tea, rum and raisin, strawberry and orange sherbert. Lovely.

Anyhoo, the Wats were lovely and we returned to the hostel after having a look round the night market. The following day we took the train to Lop Buri, famous for its resident monkeys. Monkeys that live at a Wat close to the train line running through the centre of town and along every available power line. Jen and Rach F were particularly keen to have a photo taken with the monkeys. Jen had no problem with this. Every time Rach tried to get close enough to get a photo, the monkeys either jumped on her back or behaved as if under attack, moving fast towards her, basically saying bugger off. Eventually managed to get a pic of Rachael with a monkey.

Travelled over night by train to Khon Kaen, a fairly non descript place, but our next stop in order to get our Laos and Vietnam visas. Non-descript in most ways apart from when the elephants walked down the street, that's elephants, without a parade band and a man in a top hat. We were the only ones in the restaurant even mindly interested and we were over excited!!

Travelled overnight once again, this time by bu, getting us to our next destination of Sukothai at 3am. Despite being half asleep, we were not going to pay the 100 baht for 30 baht journey, the only offer from the songthawe (taxi) driver. After stubbornly sitting for a couple of hours, he eventually relented, saying "come on, 30 baht" gesturing for us to go with him. Unfortunately for him, we'd decided to wait for the 15 baht bus option, leaving at 6am. So that was an interesting 3 hours of our lives.

Sukothai was a little under water, with it being monsoon season an' all. Picked our way along into town and had some ice cream. Saw some women doing a keep fit class outside in a park alongside the river. Interesting. Visited Old Sukothai, which was also once the capital of Thailand. The collection of former royal temples is now a national park, and we hired some bicycles to explore.

Hopped onto another bus and made our way to the little town of Nan, in the north west of Thailand. Highlighted by the Rough Guide as their Number 1 place to visit here, we thought we'd give it a shot. Will update you of further exploits in Northern Thailand another day!

Lots of love, Jen, Rach and Rach xxxx

---