A Bit Of Culture - Bangkok - Sukhothai (29th August - 4th September)

Our last day in Bangkok was marred slightly by a need for a bit of messing around with some admin. I hadn't sorted out our Vietnam visa before we left the UK and the easiest place for us to get one would be in Bangkok. So we had to go back across town to the embassy who would take 24 hours to process our applications, so we'd have to come back to Bangkok soon to pick up our passports and visa's. After this it was back to TOBI to pick up our bags, say our goodbye's and make our way to the bus station for our journey to Damnoen Saduak (about 100kms South West of Bangkok. Remember the James Bond film, The Man With The Golden Gun? Remember the boat chase through the canals and the little boy trying to sell the wooden elephant to the American policeman, well this was Damnoen Saduak (or at least I'm pretty sure it was). Basically it's a market on the canals so it's full of canoes loaded up with all the different coloured fruits, vegetables and of course the tourist tat like wooden elephants. You can make it out here on a day trip from Bangkok, but the idea was that by staying overnight we'd get to the market early before the tour busses and before the elephant sellers. We checked into a hotel that was right next to the canal so it would be easy in the morning. After spoling ourselves in Bangkok this was the first hotel with the semi-Asian bathroom. We still had the Western toilet (one of K's no.1 priorities when it comes to accomodation selection) but instead of a seperate shower cubicle you just get a shower head. So it's kind of like a shower room, except that you have the toilet, sink, bin and everything else in there with you. Works out fine as long as you remember to take off your socks when you walk back in to use the toilet later on. That's the tough bit - the remembering.

Over the last few days Kamay had got fed up of long hair and felt it was time to shave it off, so the first thing that we did in Damnoen Saduak was to find a barbers. So despite desperate appeals from our landlady Kamay went for a pretty dramatic change of hairstyle, as can be seen above. The barber was a bit surprised when Kamay sat in the chair and had to check a couple of times that his translation of the word "skinhead" was correct. Since the haircut we've had more than a few "WTF" looks, but a lot less of the "Look at the pervert with his paid for Thai girlfriend" looks.

Market day was good, we were on our boat by 7.00 and hitting the market within 10 minutes. Our first purchase of the morning was from Coconut Pancake Lady. We'd had these for breakfast at TOBI and they are so good. No idea what they are made with, probably best because they're definitely not good for you. Before the end of our trip aound the market we came back to this lady to get a second helping. Then it was (just looking mind, no need for any more nutrition now that we'd had coconuts) lots of lush fruits, all of the favourites; banana, pineapple, rambutan, custard apple, coconut, dragonfruit, guava, mandarin, watermelon and then all of the vegetables and any other Thai staples (rice, fish sauce, soy sauce, oil, noodles - basically like Tesco's but on the canal). By about 8.00 the T-shirts, postcards, wooden animals etc had started to appear in the canoes and in the shops that line the canals. Luckily we were pretty much done for the morning so we turned around and headed for home. On the way though we had to stop off at a coconut factory (they make some kind of sugar as well as lots of other crap like animals made out of coconut shells and hats made out of coconut shells) and a place to feed some fish.... All a bit weird, but I guess there must be some kind of commission in it for the boat guy. Best bit of the journey back was that there was a film crew out on the canal. No idea what it was they were filming, but it even made our boat guy stop and take photo's.

Next up was a bus to Kanchanaburi, which meant an air-con bus as far as Ban Phaew and then a change to ordinary bus. The ordinary buses are usually more crowded and stop more frequently but with the open windows they can often be cooler than the ones with a/c. They also have the added bonus of not having TV's fitted so there are no soppy Thai pop videos being played. Kanchanaburi is famous for it's bridge across the river Kwai. This was built, along with the rest of the "Death Railway" by POW's during WWII. We arrived fairly early so we had time to walk from our guest house out to the bridge. The bridge itself doesnt look like anything too great, but you have to see it and a lot of the cemetary's and museums around the area give you a better idea of how much suffering was caused by the building of this train line. Just before you get to the bridge there is an odd (mainly) WWII museum. It's got a load of rubbish in it like an entire room dedicated to Thai bank notes, a section showing a ton of Miss Thailand dresses and and a really odd room with prehistoric man which just seemed like an excuse for the curator to put pictures of boobs on the wall. Then there was some WWII bits including life size figures of the major players in the war and a brief biography. Kamay was quick to point out that Hitler, Mussolini and Einstein (who of course helped develop the atom bomb) were all vegetarian. One bit that was funny, well in a sick kind of way, was the explanation that they gave for Hiroshima. "Almost the entire city was destroyed in a jiffy". Not sure who translated it for them but I'm sure it's different in Thai.

After dinner we rented a scooter from an especially miserable couple opposite our guest house. They looked at us as if we were asking for their first born child when we had the audacity to ask for a helmet EACH. And when the bike wouldn't start because they'd siphoned too much petrol out after the previous renters had brought it back they looked at us as if it was our fault.

The following morning Kamay was still not fully convinced that she'd done enough by getting her hair cut with clippers so thought that she should really go all the way and shave her head with a razor. I obviously agreed to do the same so that if she looked stupid we'd both look stupid together. As you can see from the photo's on Flickr, I looked stupid, so Kamay decided not to bother. So as soon as I'd found a cap it was off to the Erawan National Park about 60km from town. This was where we'd get our own back on that rude couple by raking their bike for 120km!! Sadly it wouldn't do much more than 60kmh, so we'd just have to settle with trying to take it back as empty as possible, even if it meant pushing the bike for the last few km's. In the park is an impressive set of 7 waterfalls, so we had a hike of about 2 hours to get to the top. At the first level were some very entertaining and a little bit scary (& a bit too frisky) macaque monkeys. Then it was up through the trees past all of the other waterfalls with some deep pools for swimming and then finally to the top. The pool here wasn't really deep enough to swim in but we had it for ourselves for about 30 minutes so we got some paddling in to cool off (not for the full 30 minutes though, only until we both got a bit scared by the little fish that were swimming aroung our toes giving us the occasional inquisitive nip.)

For dinner we treated ourselves to a 3 course feast at the the excellent Apple Guest House (sadly not where we were staying). There was vegetable curry, Thai salad, Spicy Sour soup, deep fried pork on toast (apparently almost as good as Kamay's mum makes) and pancakes. Mmmmm. After dinner it was out to the night market for some more nutrious fried goodness for 2nd dessert. No luck though. There was however lots of things for the local Thai's; clothes, earrings, phones and fried insects!!! These are a bit of a delicacy in the North East but not in Devon, so I ain't trying them. Very disappointed that Kamay wasn't going to give it a go.

Other highlights of Kanchanaburi were seeing 4 real people on a scooter (none of this 1 couple and 2 children that is way more common than it should be). I think Kamay got a photo. There was also 1 lady and 2 dogs, that was another good one we saw here. And to think how worried we were trying to get the 2 of us and our groceries on the scooter in Bermuda.

Friday was a long, tiring day, we got up to catch the 7.15 train to Bangkok but were told that the train wasn't going this morning because of an accident on the line. At first we thought that this was just a scam to get us in his taxi to go to the bus station. But after 4 more people backed up his story and after it had gone 7.15 with no sign of a train and no sign of anybody else waiting on the platform we started to believe him. Rather than the cab though we decided on the more environmentally friendly option of a samlor (a pedal trike with seats for 2 people behind the rider) for the 3km trip to the bus station. Within seconds of being crammed into the back of this thing with our rucksacks hanging on a hook behind us we realised that we would be burning in hell for a long time. We had this wafer thin octaganarian pedalling through the dirty, busy city streets with about 170kgs of weight in the back, when after yesterdays feast we were more than capable of walking, and all for the princely sum of 50p (and I reckon we could have haggled him down even lower if we'd really tried). Got the bus back to Bangkok and then a taxi to Mo Chit (where the Chatuchack market was). Shame really, we wanted to go to Ploen Chit, the cabby misheard us. Anyway, we were glad to get the skytrain from here instead to Ploen Chit (I'm sure that he thought we were talent scouts from one of the F1 teams the way he was trying to impress us with his overtaking). In Ploen Chit we had to pick up or passports and visa's from the Vietnamese embassy and then get to the train station, via their swanky new underground system. Nothing like the London tube; clean, uncrowded, cheap - it was ace!! From here we were on the commuter train to Ayuthaya about 1 1/2 hours north, some great countryside and some really uncomfortable seats. Total journey time was actually more like 3 hours but felt like days after we seemed to stop for hours at every flippin' village along the way. From the station it was a short boat ride across the river and a bit of a walk to the guest house. After a shower and a change of clothes we explored another night market looking for food. The market was a bit sparse though after a downpour 30 minutes before we left (this was the first of our many experiences of the rainy season!!)

Ayuthaya was the Siamese capital between 1350 and 1767 and so it's choc full of old temples and stuff. We planned to head out early to see as much as possible before it got too hot. On the way out we picked up a couple of bicycles from a friendly couple who also organised a massage for Kamay's back that was suffering from yesterdays seats. There were about 18 sites of interest in and around the town, but we were only planning on seeing the top 5 that were do-able in a day. So we saw Wat Phra Si Sanpet, Wat Mongkhon Bophit (where they have one of Thailand's biggest Buddha images), Wat Phra Mahathat (with a really cool Buddha head embedded in twisted tree roots), Wat Ratburana and Wat Thammikarat. There's loads of history on them but I don't remember much of it, there are pictures on Flickr though. In the evenings they illuminate most of these so we went back to check them out before our trip back to the night market (where Kamay had a great omellette with mussels thing - I had vegetable noodles...... again).

Our next stop was north to Phitsanulok, so we said our goodbyes to the friendly people at Chantana Guest House and made our way to the train station for an early morning train ride, picking up a breakfast of fruit and coconut pancakes mmmmm. 6 hours later we were in Phitsanulok checked in and relaxing in the hotel. In the afternoon we took a bit of a wander and found a great cafe doing lots of wierd and wonderful things with green tea. In the evening it was supposed to be another night market where we were planning on seeing the signature dish of the region which was basically stir fried vegetables, but witha bit of added theatricals in that they toss the finished product into the air and the waiter (who stands several metres away) catches it on the plate. A bit naff, but at least I'd get some easy veg food. We couldn't even find any vegetarian food let alone this, so I had to settle for a dinner of Chinese donuts.

Monday 4th September was not only the 2 year anniversary of Kamay agreeing to marry me, it was also the day that we went to Sukhothai. It's only an hour and a half away and we were told that Pi'lok was a good place to use as a base to explore it. In hindsight we should have stayed in Sukhothai. Sukhothai is another place to go for a Thai history lesson as this was the first proper capital of Thailand (Siam) and the art and architecture is considered to be the most classic of the Thai styles. There is new Sukhothai and old Sukhothai which is about 7km away and obviously it's the old one that interested us. It has been declared an official heritage site by Unesco. this means that there is no development around the temples and you get to explore them in much more serene surroundings than Ayuthaya where the new city has grown up around the old one. Again, like Ayuthaya we just picked the top few temples and tried to get around them before we died in the heat. Biggest and best of all was Wat Matahat which was surrounded by a brick wall and a moat about 200m wide and 200m long - it's a whopper and includes 198 stupas (solid cone shaped monuments that pay tribute to "the stability of Buddhism". So loads of photos and quiet wandering. The others that we saw were Wat Si Chum (with a 15m high Buddha image)Wat Si Sawai, Wat Sa Si and Wat Phra Phai Luang (this is actually more of a Khmer style so may have been the centre of Sukhothai when it was ruled by the Khmers of Angkor prior to the 13th Century - or rather that's what the experts think). We messed up a little bit on our timing for the last couple that although very impressive were a bit too far to walk out to in the time that we had. Obviously we still saw them, mother nature was not going to get in the way of our sightseeing, we were very dehydrated and gasping for water by the time that we finished though. And obviously not a cab driver for miles when you actually want them!!

Back on the bus tomorrow and heading further North.