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Published: February 14th 2013
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It's only been 4 days since the last post, so fingers crossed I can keep this brief and not wonder off topic.
I'm currently sat in an internet cafe in Chiang Mai, on a computer which is yet to discover Windows XP so uploading my pictures on to my fancy Flickr Pro account (such a gap year bellend) is going to take bloody ages...so to be fair, this may end up quite the story,.
Since leaving the crowded and dirty Bangkok we have travelled north, first stopping at a town called Sukhothai and then moving on to Chiang Mai.
Despite what I'd heard the coaches were actually very comfortable, even fully fitted with A/C. The drive to Sukhothai took about 7 hours and went surprisingly quickly, mainly as I got to just sit there looking out the window being a geography neeb. One thing I quickly discovered is just how flat Thailand is, the landscape must have no contours, in the whole journey we didn't go up or down a single hill. The only form of hills were absolutely huge rock formations jutting out of the landscape, almost barren of fauna. Definitely got a bit of a geographers
semi.
Sukhothai itself was decent enough, the new town where we stayed was pretty terrible, with very little going on and only a few places we could really eat. The old city however was stunning. It was another ancient capital of Thailand and overflowing with temples. We decided to repeat the plan for Ayutthaya, hiring bikes and just cycling around doing everything at our own pace which was very rewarding. Some of the highlights was; a temple 'Chedi' being upheld by a series of elephants, an absolutely ginormous sitting Buddha statue still with traces of gold paint which made for some awesome photos, and the series of main temples in the ancient city proper. Within the closed section of the city, requiring money for entry, was dotted with artificial lakes, so we actually ended up having a lie down in a small hut on stilts over one of the lakes. Unbelievable Jeff. By far the highlight though was just cycling around, doing what we wanted and just generally acting like British obnoxious tourists.
The hostel we stayed at was a bit strange. We ended up being put in a small wooden cabin in the garden, with a sink
hanging off the wall and the walls being made of wicker. If I was going to get murdered and feature on a BBC documentary about murders abroad, it 100% would have been in that wicker basket.
One whole day in Sukhothat was certainly enough for most people. The morning after we caught the bus, heading up to Chiang Mai, another glorious 6 hour coach journey with A/C and plenty of leg room. We were also treated to 2 or 3 (they all seem exactly the same) of the classic Rambo movies, dubbed over in Thai. Chiang Mai is supposedly a bit of a bohemian paradise. It's definitely a nice place, with lots of stuff to do but I'm definitely not feeling any of those vibes. Instead it's just full of very kind Thai's, gogo bars, lady boys and tourist bars. Continuing the trend of throwing myself in at the deep end we decided to go out for a few bevvies and a meal almost as soon as we were in the hostel...and as usual 'a few' turned in to multiple beers, a very strong whisky bucket and some serious shapes being thrown in some clubs. Having eaten the night
before a Thai Green Curry which absolutely blew my head off, we went British and all ate burgers whilst playing some pool with a friendly American called Chris. On the way to being suitably drunk and finding where all the other travelers were drinking we accidentally stumbled in to a gogo bar. We had no idea what one was until we had Thai women clambering all over us, being way too friendly, and what did we do in this situation? Discuss Miles Davis and tell them we were all gay. The night ended with us going to a few clubs with people from our hostel we stumbled across and thinking I was about to be knifed as some idiotic Scottish guy decided to hurl abuse at some Thai's. 99% of people we have met travelling have been a good laugh and friendly, but sadly you're always bound to stumble across a bellend.
Today has been relatively quiet (we stayed up until 4.30am watching the Real Madrid vs. Man United game), we strolled around the town when the hangovers had died away, visiting a large temple.
I think that will do for now, tonight we are going for a
Mexican (it's allowed, it still counts as foreign cuisine) and a jazz bar to jizz some jazz. It will be fantastic.
TC
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