just a quick note to say hi

It's been awhile since the last post so I just wanted to put up a note to say hi and let you know everything's going well here for us. We've been busy the past couple of weeks (and in the middle of nowhere, sort of) so we haven't had constant email access. We're heading off to Ko Tao in the south-east tomorrow morning, where we're staying for several days. Will put up some posts while we're there. In spite of the excitement in the news, Thailand is very mellow and things are much as they ever are.

Day 11 - Thurs Nov 13 - Si-Satchanalai-Chaliang Historical Park, or "It's hard to know who to trust"

Having learned our lesson in Sukothai re: booking ahead, I book us a night in the next stop on our trip at a place called the Wang Yom Resort. The map/guide places it squarely in the center of where we want to be.

We arrive by bus around 10AM and are immediately greeted by a woman in her late 30s who's the town greeter/entrepreneur (bike and scooter rental, room rentals, transportation via motorcycle to your hotel, etc.) All very informal, as is the bus stop, which is a small triangular hut next to the highway. Small village. (The woman's name, by the way, is Oon, which sounds like "own" if you said an especially long "o" at the beginning.)

As we try to orient ourselves with the guidebook, Oon finishes her pitch with a group of day-tripping Germans who exited the bus ahead of us, and comes over to us, with our huge backpacks: clearly overnighters. She begins her pitch which is both insistent and confusing.
We tell her that we've already booked a room at the Wong Yom Resort and she offers to drive us on her motorcycle (one at a time) for about 8 dollars each. She says the resort is about 7 km away, even though the Lonely Planet map says it's only 3 or 3.5 km away. When I call the resort, they confirm that yes, they're 7 km away, but I don't understand much else that the woman is saying (they have only slightly more English than we have Thai).

Oon has decent English, but it's jumbled up with details about how she has a friend who has a cheaper guesthouse, she can drive us, Wang Yom doesn't exist, etc. It starts to sound a bit like the Bangkok Shuffle, so we are dubious and decide to head out on foot (after soundly cursing the Lonely Planet map for it's faulty scale-guides again.) We estimate it won't take longer than 1 hour and we're fine with walking.

We set out and discover that Oon is following us on her motorcycle. She's nice enough, but persistent and confusing so we continue walking. And walking. It's a nice little town and we enjoy the view.

We pass some chilis drying by the roadside:

We notice that the line-to-road proportions between map-to-reality are pretty good (Ie. it shouldn't be 7 km to the resort, only 3.5km) and we revise our opinion of Lonely Planet maps (slightly). Friendly, persistent Oon continues to dive up every few minutes and talk about Wong Yom gone, she has a friend with a room, she can rent us a room...

She gets off her bike to show us her map again which is getting anoying so I say thank you politely and continue walking (<- the only solution that ever works in Bangkok) at which point she stamps her foot in frustation. There's something about her foot stamp that is the most genuine thing I've seen from her so far. It makes me stop and walk back (Pierre's already there - such a polite boy). Oon points to a deserted, decrepit set of buildings back in the grass next to the road and says, in a nutshell, THAT'S Wong Yam resort, it closed down all of its buildings in town and has moved to an area 7 km up the highway. Finally, things make a bit more sense. Oon's much happier now that she's been understood, and we genuinely thank her. As she leaves, she repeats that she can give us a room later if we don't catch the bus back to Sukhothai, then waves and drives away. We continue on to the historical park on foot, a few kilometers ahead, in the hopes of finding bikes for rent, but there are none worth bothering with. So we have a bite to eat and drink of water, and Pierre writes up a short letter, in English and in French, that explains that the Wang Yom resort has moved. We plan to give the letter to Oon next time we see her, to help her explain the Wang Yom situation more clearly to anyone else who might show up at the bus stop expecting to stay there. The rest of the day is uneventful, and we find a beautiful little homestay on our walk, and then we ride around the historical area. It's a sleepy little rural town (maybe a few hundred people?) with only a few busloads of tourists on short day trips, and lovely ruins ranging from the 11th to the 15th Century.
One building is surrounded by old elephant statues - apparently these are rare because they have 4 legs and a full body - apparently most temples only sculpt the front half:


Some hilltop ruins (Wat Khao Phanom Phaeng):


A few more architectural details still remain here at this historical park, moreso than in Sukhothai or Ayutthaya :



(detail of wall)


(light from behind the wall):




Moody ruins:


Ruins wrapped in cloth:




Crossing the footbridge from the street near our guesthouse to the bus station/hut area:


At the bus station/hut the next day, we run into Oon again as she waits for more tourists. She claps her hands and starts laughing.

"Hello. You again. Haha. You walk and walk. No. Wang Yom Resort no. You walk. So hot. Tired. Haha. You stay where?"

We have a nice visit while waiting for the bus. She has two sons, 12 and 15, who have taught her some English - the rest she picks up from working with tourists at the bus stop. She's the 4th of 8 kids, and didn't go to school herself, though she still managed to learn to read and write Thai (no mean feat with 44 consonants and 48 vowel/dipthong possibilities). We give her the letter explaining Wang Yom Resort's relocation, and then have a quick language swap. (She teaches us "bus" and "train" and we teach her "show" vs "look", "how are you" and "I'm good thanks".

Our bus drives by without any intention of stopping so she runs out into the road to flag it down for us with some crazy jazz hands. It comes to a dusty sop about 100 m down the road and we grab our bags, and say thanks and goodbye as we run down the road to get on the bus.

(On day 21, Nov 23, we pass by the bus stop again on our way down to Phisanulok from Chiang Rai and we keep an eye out for her so we can wave out the window, but have no luck.)

photo credits: P, P, P, P, P, D, D, P, D, P, D, D, D

Day 9 & 10 - Tue/Wed Nov 11/12 - Sukhothai

The next stop on our trip up north is Sukhothai (SOOK-uh-TIE), a small little place about 5 hours up the road from Ayutthaya.

Just before the bus pulls into town, we notice in our guidebook that there's a 4 day festival usually held in Sukhothai in the first few weeks of November, depending on when the full moon appears. The fully booked guesthouses in town confirm that, yes, it's true, and we've arrived in time for the final two days of the festival without a prior reservation. We eventually find a place to stay at the rundown but safe and clean Traveller's House (now owned by the Green House guesthouse just up the road but hasn't yet been renamed) which has rooms for about 8.50 CAN$ a night with a private bathroom. Not super swanky, but it grows on us by the next night.

The first night is uneventful - dinner, a visit to a small local night market (mostly t-shirts, plastic sandals, food and knicknacks for sale) and then we go to sleep.

The second day we get up late and then catch a bus to the Sukhothai Historical site, about 7km outside of New Sukhothai (as the city center is known) where we find the final day of the festival is gearing up. The bus that takes us there is a truck with a roofed but open air sitting area in the back, with two benches funning along the sides and one down the middle. On the way there, they cram in 29 people, which includes the 4 standing passengers off the back (not us).

At the Historical Park, we walk around the buildings and the moats:

...the huge buddhas...



...and there are lots of people are making offerings to the Buddhas, leis of flowers and gifts of food, and so on:

A huge parade starts at around 2:30 and goes on for several hours and includes performances from dancing troupes:

...floats of beautiful women...

...and floats imitating ancient royalty:



We rent bikes to escape the crowds for a few hours before nightfall (which is always at 6:00 pm here). By the time we drop off the bikes and finish our dinner, it's dark and people are releasing floating candles into the pool near the East entrance. We buy a few and send them off - you can the pool full of candles behind me in this picture:

There is a fireworks show scheduled for that evening around 10:00 pm, but we decide to head off a bit early to beat the crowds home. (Canada Day fireworks in Ottawa are so good that they've ruined me for fireworks displays forever...)

Back in Sukhothai, we end the night with the most amazing dessert (at this point we haven't had dessert in about a week and a half): pan fried pancakes and carnation condensed milk rolled up in a tube and wrapped in paper. We buy one each, and then manage to hold off only a short while before buying two more before the kiosk lady closes up for hte night. After the second one, Pierre realizes what they taste like: Beavertails (a big Ottawa winter treat) but with carnation milk instead of cinnamon and sugar, and these ones cost only 8 cent CAn each (way cheaper than Beavertails, except for the plane ticket here...)

Day 7 & 8 - Sun/Mon Nov 9/10 - Ayutthaya

We catch a northbound bus from Bangkok to work our way up to Chiang Mai. The Bangkok to Chiang Mai route is about 12 or more hours if you do it in one shot, so we've decided to work our way up slowly. Our first stop is Ayutthaya (a-YOOT-tie-UH). The city used to be the royal capital until about 250 years ago and then it was sacked and looted by the Burmese army and all sorts of treasures were carted off. There are lots of ruined and headless Buddhas around the place:

The historic bits are quite extensive and well tended - well enough to get a UNESCO World Heritage site designation. There is a Fine Arts Department in Thailand that seems to have had a hand in restoring all of hte temple ruins that we see in Ayutthaya (and later in Sukhothai to the north).

The temples and buildings are now exposed red brick, sometimes held together with cement. The grounds are neat and tidy and (something which really impresses Western Me) there is no grafitti anywhere on them, even through many of the ruins are not guarded at night (though the ones we took picture of are).

It is in Ayutthaya that we (re-)realize that Lonely Planet scale guides, though accurate in central areas of town, are sometimes less accurate outside of the center of interest, and are occasionally very lacking in additional reference details (ie. alternate streets you might wander down). Lots and lots and lots of walking on Day 8 while we work our way to one of the sites, Wattanaram.

In Wat Ratburana, in the center of town, there was a lovely painted tomb that we weren't expecting to find:





And here's the outside:


At Wat Phra Mahathat there is a Buddha head that has grown into one of the Bodhi trees - one theory is that a thief found it too heavy to cart away and dumped it off, maybe buried it, and the tree lifted it up and grew around it:


People make offerings to Buddha at the tree:

And again at Wat Chai Wattanaram there were lots of ruins:

And then we finished off the evening with Wat Phra Si Sanphet:


Our lodgings were at the lovely Baan Lotus guesthouse (here's the view from our room):

photo credits: D, D, P, P, P, P, P, D, P, P, D, P, P

Day 4 - Thurs, Nov 6 - Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace(Bangkok)

Today is the day that we decide we need to regulate the number of wats we see in a row. I figure that 1 every few days is sufficient. The fact that it's sunny and humid and approximate 40 degrees C today (my estimate) may play a part in this decision. We'll have to see if the ones outside Bangkok are as sprawling as the ones we've seen in the first few days.

I spend a lot of Day 4 acclimatizing and enjoying the view of the grounds from the shade of the halls that line the temple walls and watch Pierre photograph everything. Several times. (By day 6 or 7, I'm doing the same.)

There are two key attractions here - the emerald Buddha (which you can't photograph) and the Grand Palace (which you can't go into, at least not today) so we don't have any pictures of those things. One temple right near the entrance of this particular wat (Wat Phra Kaew, sounds like "watt pra cow") is a really striking gold colour:




Most of our pictures of the wat tend to have no people in them because Pierre patiently waits for them to clear out or works around them. But, really, the place is crawling with tourists and looks like this:

Again, this wat is filled with crazy details on the gables...


...statues and mosaics...

...and the occasional mellow corner with a plant in a pot:

From my view in the shade on the sidelines, I'm enjoying what the guidebook tells me are the "murals of Ramakian" ("they were painted in the late 1700s and are continually restored.") The background and minor details of the paintings are in muted matte colours, and the main action is highlighted in gold, so it's easy for your eye to folow the story line along the wall.

Even if it weren't a million degrees in the sun, I'd probably spend most of my time here because the paintings are gorgeous:

A shot of one of the little paintings (this guy's about 7 inches tall), which is outlined with meticulous care:

On our way out, we pass the Grand Palace, mostly used for cermonial occasions:

photo credits: P, P, P, P, P, P, P, D, P

"Everything is closed at the moment, but the big Buddha is awesome!" (Bangkok)

That's the general idea, it seems. Everywhere you go, there's a "helpful" stranger or TukTuk driver trying to steer you towards a scam involving the next step in a convoluted ploy involving jewellery sales through a chance encounter with a well-connected stranger at the "Big Buddha." It always starts with someone asking where you're going, then saying "Oh, that's closed right now (for some random reason), but you should go see the "Big Buddha"." I must say that all of the "closed" attractions that we saw were pretty cool. I wonder what they would have been like had they been open?

Though guidebooks and warning signs posted at hotels and attractions offer plenty of information on these types of scams, the scammers still try, so it must be pretty lucrative and they must get a few takers. I'm just surprised they haven't moved on to something new, since what they're doing seems to be common knowledge. Still, I sure hope I get to see the Big Buddha!

Day 6 - Sat, Nov 8, 2008 - Taling Chan Floating Market (Bangkok)

Floating markets were common in Thailand a few decades ago, but they're more and more rare now and the few that do exist are mostly for the benefit of the tourists selling kitch or simply floating food stands. We picked the Taling Chan floating market because it sounded not too touristy and was relatively quick and easy to get to* (see optional sidenote below) - it's within Bangkok city limits, accessible by city bus, and fairly close to the center, rather than a few hours away like the larger Damnoen Saduak market.

Taling Chan starts out as a typical roadside market. Stalls line each side of the road, selling knicknacks, fruit and fresh Thai food:


However, at this market, there's an added twist when you get to the end of the market because it opens out onto a pier where there are a number of longboats tied up preparing food:






The food looked amazing so we decided to sit down and enjoy some fresh - we settled on a salt and herb crusted BBQ fish with rice (total price approx 7.50CAN$). We weren't sure at first how to order, and figured we'd do the old "point and smile" technique, but in the end a Thai-English
showed up and so we didn't have to fumble around too much.


* The trip to Taling Chan is a good example of why, when we're getting around on our own steam in a new place, it's best not to be in a too much of a hurry and to just shrug off the detours. So far, we're pretty good at this.

We're walkers, and we can walk for hourse, so though by this point we'd been exploring Bangkok for a few days by this point, the city bus system was new to us. Our trusty guide book says the following on how to get to the Taling Chan Market:

"Taling Chan is in Thonburia dn can be reached from Bangkok's Th Ratchadamnoen Klang or Th Ratchaprasong via air-con bus 79 (16 baht, 25 minutes)."

This isn't as convoluted as it sounds at first: Thonburi is just a section of Bangkok; "Th Ratchadamnoen Klang" and Th Ratchaprasong" are names of streets, ones that were just a short walk from our hotel. The catch, for us, was "Bus 79" because it didn't say which side of the street to catch it on. It seems like that would be obvious enough, but from the map it looked like either direction would work.

The trip then turned into a Family Circus "Billy gets side-tracked" map. We started on the norh side, couldn't find a stand with bus 79, crossed over to the south side (8 lanes of traffic, 1 median, 2 lights), found a bus 79 stand, got on the next 79 bus, discovered from the ticket seller that we were going in the wrong direction, still had to pay the fare, got off, crossed over to the north side via a busy street with no crosswalk, foudn a stand for bus 79, watched the bus drier for the next 79 wave as he drove past us (full?), caught the following 79, paid for hte ticket, and told the ticket seller in our terrible accent where we wanted to go along with some signals to ask if she'd let us know when we got there, then crossed our fingers that she'd remember (she did).

As always, we learned useful stuff from our 1hr 45 minutes in Thai bus heaven: A bus number runs in both directions on the same street (doesn't always work that way everywhere you go); and, when you buy a bus ticket, the price is sometimes adjusted for how long you'll be on, so they're pretty diligent about telling you where your stop is (very handy; we picked up on this on the way back from Taling Chan).

So, learning those things made the lost time not a total waste of time.

(on the right side of the street) :