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Published: February 26th 2008
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Seem like I slowly slowly got used to cold shower, since came into Thailand, yes...budget room only provided cold water, on the first few night...a bit difficult, first put my hands under the pouring water in the bathroom, then a little bit more of the forearm, enough! Better tried with my feet, toes first, more worse because of the bouncing back water from the floor and wall actually more freezing, like needle on skin. To hell...put my whole feet in together with a wailing cry, dip my head into the waterfall of the shower, yes...it feel ok now, "heaven water" I suddenly remember the man said when I asked why they didn't installed solar heater in Laos, he described the Lao people just like washing in the river, especially when raining, they like the water from the sky-the heaven water! actually the water wasn't that cold, compared with the water in YY, anyways...the next problem was the will to stop the water to put on soap!! Haha!! But now since I was in Lampang, I could jumped into the shower pretty quick, or perhaps the water here even more warmer as the altitude is only 200m here.
Lampang is another land
belong to the Lanna kingdom, only it is under the Chiangmai region nowadays. It was about 2 hours away from Phayao, this will be my last stop before Bangkok. They got a train station here. Lampang was bigger than Phayao in any scale, they has more markets and bigger, more temples, more developed and more tourists(at least I saw some). If I had to point out a center for Lampang, I would choose the clock-tower, it was kind of the land mark, must be more than 100 years old, as I saw it in a picture took in the year of 1905. And the tourist info center is right by the tower. You can walk from the bus station or the train station in 20 mins, the town was built around the Wang river, and a part along the river still exist many old buildings, it was used to be a Chinese market, where many Chinese merchants came to settled and do business in the good old day. A white rooster is the symbol of Lampang, as you could see they used the white rooster sign for logo in many occasion. Legend said the king worried he couldn't woke up
in time to here the preaching from The Lord, and a white rooster solved his problem, so... You definitely know the ending! And yes...you sure know what you could see in Lampang! Right! Temples!!! But here they offered couple of Burmese style temple, one said to be the most beautiful Burmese style temple in Thailand, and another claimed to be the biggest in Thailand. Never been to Burma before, no idea what was Burmese style, but the multi-tiered roof was very pretty, and the decoration inside was beautiful, my first impression was tibetan, heavy in red and gold color, the engraving and inlaid, all walls and columns were covered! Lampang also lived a small community of muslim people, and the was mosques in town too.
Another activity was visit the Elephant Institute about 30km away, is the only place in the world for elephant training. Since the banning of logging in Thailand in 1989, suddenly there was no use for elephant in that industry, elephant one again became the prey, and of course, those trainer here they call mahout will out of work, and traditionally this is a special kind of profession ,a lot of rituals to performed started from
chooseing the baby elephant to teach and train until they can directed by human to work. So. ..to keep and protect this tradition, and of course, the main reason to have this institut was to protect the elephant from being disappear in Thailand, now they had a hospital, a rescue team, and could breed elephant in the center, and set them free in the forest some year later when they thought the time was right. Now, for 70 baht you could see a performance show from those lovely giant animal, they are so cute! Especially when the do greeting with their knee curve up! Beside those pushing and carrying wood log, they play music and even made painting! For as less as 500 baht,you could owned an elephant hand-draft . You could got elephant ride around the center after the show too for a small fee. Another activity tourist could join was the elephant training course, then you could be with those lovely animal in zero distant, also you would be in the performance show with the elephant you learn to train.
Horse-drawn carriages was another so call attraction here, claimed to be the only town in Thailand that still
use this for public transport, but I didn't kown what big the deal was? And I didn't see any local public used this service, only for tourist, anyway...you can pay 150 for a small round, 200 for a big round they said, or part with 300 baht for an hour joy ride!
After Phayao, foods in Lampang seem colorless, perhaps because this place got more spread out, food stands not concentrated, but even in the night market, not many choice and most of them are the same as in Phayao. But they did have more cafes and bars in town. there even a Japanese canteen and a Chinese seafood restaurant, and general price vwas a little higher than in Phayao.
Note:
Bus from Phayao to Lampang is 65 baht.
Train from Lampang to Bangkok is 494 Baht. 2nd class, fan and upper bunk.
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