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Published: July 20th 2010
Making merit...
not my most flattering pose I know!Our day with Tong started bright and early…. And another amazing day of Tong’s hospitality did not disappoint… Tong picked us up at 6.30sm sharp and had a driver with her since she had been up all night watching the World Cup Final! How she still had the energy to amuse us all day is beyond me! Lol We had the best VIP van with a massive tv/dvd player, esky in the back with beers and cold drinks, rotating/reclinable seats and ice cold air conditioning.
Making Merit For My Next Life
First stop was to make merit with the monks nearby. Thai’s believe that by feeding the monks each morning, it gives you ‘merit’ for your next life. Making merit involves buying food sets from the local vendor and giving to the Monks as they wander the streets. Each food set costs 30 baht and you give 3 sets for good luck.
Each food set consists of a meat dish, plain rice, something sweet and water for drinking. Monks do not earn income in Thailand and rely solely on the community to eat. They wander the streets in the morning with a large ‘bowl’ (called surprisingly
a Monks Bowl!!). You start by taking your shoes off and approaching the monk barefoot, kneeling before the Monk as he starts to pray for you, you then stand and put the food in his bowl (each item is wrapped individually) in a particular order… First the meat, then the rice, then the sweet then the water. It is important as a female that you do not touch the bowl at all while placing items in. You then kneel back down in front of the monk and he will start blessing you with a chant. You stay there until he finishes. Some Monks are really quick but the older more experienced Monks will chant longer.
Run Forrest Run!!
After making merit with the Monks and making my wish, we set off for the train market. Having already been here, I wanted the girls to see it as well.. Most people reading this blog would know what the train market is but for those who don’t, it’s a small local market set up along a railway track (on top of it actually). 8 times a day the train comes through, and each time the vendors scramble to
move their goods in so that the train can go through… if you haven’t seen it, I suggest you google ‘train market bangkok’ for a look at videos!
We wandered along sampling some of the local foods then all of a sudden out of nowhere, Tong gets this panicked look on her face, grabs my hand and says “run run train coming”. She starts bolting up the railway track yelling ‘run run’. All three of us have looked at each other in panic and started bolting… not sure how far away the train is, but unable to move off the tracks.. we finally got to a point where we could move off the track, breathless and feeling the rush of running… only to find Tong giggling away (as the train was still a few minutes away and she just wanted to scare us!) Cheeky bugger! I was breathless and laughing so much, it was a very funny sight watching me running, bent over to duck under all the shop vendor awnings!! Jakki was okay since she is somewhat shorter! Lol
Foodie Heaven
After the train passed through, we left and headed for the floating market…
despite having been there 3 times previously I wanted to head back… Tong does such a great job of her tour, getting you there before the majority of the tour buses, taking you through all the little residential canals as well as stopping at all the best food vendors along the way to feast on everything and anything… We ate marinated chicken pieces, marinated pork, deep fried bananas, sweet mini pancakes, coconut pancakes, pork noodle soup, somtam and iced coffees in plastic bags (yum). I am pretty sure I have left out some of the foods we tried too! We completely pigged out. I was stoked to see that my favourite marinated chicken lady was back at the markets. She was there on my first trip back in December 2006 (it was Trents favourite food here) but I hadn’t seen her on my subsequent visits. The somtam lady was also back (I missed her on previous trips too).
Swimming with the Elephants
We left the markets, did a quick stop at the local wood carving factory for a clean ‘hong nam’ stop (hong nam = toilet) then drove 3 hours to Kanchanaburi for the ‘elephant bath’.
The elephant bath is a great cheap option to the Patara Elephant Farm in Chiang Mai…. For 500 baht you get to ride the elephant bare back to the river, then swim and play with the elephant in the river… When we first arrived, I had just woken up and wasn’t feeling well.. as we approached the elephants I saw some were wearing the baskets.. for those who have followed my blogs you will know I don’t support any exploitation of animals in my travels. Seeing the baskets on the elephants, I made the decision then and there not to participate.
The girls jumped on their elephants with the mahout and walked down to the river, I followed with Tong and became the official photographer! While we walked down to the river, I tried to explain how I felt to Tong. She was great and assured me that the camp treated their elephants really well and that the reason she recommended the elephant bath as opposed to an elephant ride was because in the elephant bath you get to ride bareback and because the elephants loved to play in the water. By the time we got to the river
I had regretted my hasty decision but wasn’t too fussed since I had done similar activities on previous trips.
The girls spent the next half hour playing in the water with their elephants. Jakki’s elephant was pretty tame but Narelle’s elephant was a cheeky bugger spraying water at everyone! At one point, with Narelle on its back it walked over to Jakki’s elephant and proceeded to give Jakki and the elephant a shower. I could see Jakki was well over it by the 10th shower but I couldn’t stop laughing.
Jakki’s shopping heaven…. Or hell….
After the bath, we jumped back in the van and headed back to Bangkok, exhausted but happy. After saying goodbye to Tong we headed inside to freshen up before heading to Siam Paragon for dinner/shopping. How we still had the energy I will never know! While I was there the night before I had walked through a heap of street stalls between Siam Paragon and MBK. A lot of the stalls were little designer clothes stalls… obviously too small for me to wear but as soon as I had seen it I knew Jakki would LOVE it… its basically quirky
one off designs by local fashion designers at dirt cheap prices. I told Jakki about it so after dinner in Paragon we headed outside to check out the stalls.
What transpired next was hilarious. Jakki turned into this mad demonic one woman shopping machine. She was going from stall to stall buying everything that crossed her path. Luckily everything was so cheap. It got really funny halfway through when her buyers remorse set in and one minute she was angry at herself for spending all the money, then the next buying more. At one point she was begging me to go back to a stall.. I was like “no” and she was like “please” and in the end I was like “ok, but don’t come crying to me when you regret it” !! We (or should I say Jakki) shopped up a storm then caught a taxi back to the hotel exhausted… again!
Once back at the hotel, Narelle decided to model one of her new tops for us.... what transpired next was hilarious... it looked to me as though there was a massive hole on her shoulder which I pointed out... Jakki and Narelle looked at the
side of the shirt and actually found a hole that I wasnt speaking about and Narelle goes 'oh yeah so there is' .. she then proceeded to rip it open... I was shocked as I thought she was just ripping the top for the hell of it... we all cracked up and fell about laughing... and then Jakki and I decided to just rip Narelles top off altogether... very funny moment where we almost wet ourselves wrestling Narelle to rip her top off.. bit of a location joke though I think! haha!
Those Damn Paintings!
The next morning turned into an epic adventure. We had a small sleep-in, ate some brekkie (finally got the girls to try New Siams famous banana pancakes) before checking out. We made the decision over the past few days that we should try post some shopping home as we were all full to the brim! We also wanted to offload the paintings we were carrying around (especially mine which is ridiculously big). We loaded up with stuff and went to the local post office. Once there, they told us they had no ‘tubes’ to post the paintings in… we left and
walked to the next post office. Again they told us that posting tubes didn’t exist. We decided to try post them in boxes with the rest of our stuff but after seeing the prices we culled what to send and in the end spent a fortune on postage but still had the damn paintings on us.
We decided to find the stationary shop that was nearby (meant to be the biggest in Bangkok) and at least get some kind of proper tube to put them in for ease of carrying. They had been packed in tubes made out ofpalm tree leaves for us, which is no good for getting through customs in Australia. After much sign language at the stationary shop, we found some big black plastic tubes which we took outside and swapped the paintings into…. Problem still not solved since we had to carry them. Jakki was fuming by this stage which was hilarious. Not only did she have buyers remorse from the night before but now she had just dished out money on postage… Hot, flustered and over it, we headed back to the hotel. On the way Narelle had suggested maybe leaving the paintings at
the hotel until the end of the trip. This gave me a great idea! I rang Tong and then we headed to her husbands shop near our hotel where we were able to dump the paintings until the end of the trip. I ended up dropping off a huge bag of food that I have purchased along the way too!
Hungry we found a little local duck soup shop Tong had recommended. It was up a tiny alley and if you blinked you would miss it, but for about 50 baht we had the BEST duck noodle soup I have EVER had. OMG! I wish I had discovered it earlier!! In the afternoon, I blogged while Narelle went to the Amulet Markets and Jakki went off for some beauty therapy.
At 5pm we headed to the train station, stocked up on food and drinks for the train then boarded the overnight train bound for the Southern Islands. When we purchased the tickets last week, we requested beds in the middle of the carriage to avoid any bad ‘hong nam’ smells! It worked a treat with a very uneventful night passing by. We were all pretty well rested by
the time the train pulled into Surat Thani at 7.30am.
A few dramas getting on the bus at the train station but we eventually made it to the ferry and arrived in Ko Phangan 3 hours later… sunburnt but happy to finally be on the Islands for some rest and relaxation… the last couple of weeks had been flat out and packed to the hilt, a few days of nothing was just what we needed… or at least we thought we needed…. Little did we know what was laying ahead!!!
But that is a whole other story…….
Love Reet xxxx
(And Jakki n Naz)
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Marilyn Walker
non-member comment
REEEEETY!!!!
I am sorry I have not commented before, on this trip, but goooooo girl!! You are doing such a great job, and having a good time as well,, as usual I have loved reading your blog!!! How do you give us such a rewarding account of your time while you are so busy!!!! XXXXXXXXX