On the way back to our lodging, we stopped at the post
office to get some stamps and an aerogramme (yes,
Jerry...another will be coming your way). Near the
post office all the vendors on the street are selling
what look like packs of lottery tickets -- many, many
packs of lottery tickets. Last night, we had dinner
at a pub that was showing movies on their big screen
TV. We saw "Snatch" and "Catch Me If You Can". They
were both probably illegal copies. The latter was
obviously created by videotaping the movie in a
theater (the camera shifted once, the color was bad,
and there were no credits).
Wat Phrae Kaeo Area |
Phra Vihern Vod next to the model of Ankgor Wat |
Red demon giant guarding the temple |
Another building in the Wat |
Aphorn Phimok Prasat, the king uses this to get on his elephants. |
Kirk and the palace gaurd |
Today, Feb 4, we headed to the Grand Palace
and Wat Phra Kaeo
. On the way, we were unfortunately visited by two
different touts, which was quite disheartening. They
both seemed like very nice people at first, trying out
their english and were helpful, but they told us that
the palace was closed today due to a public holiday,
and wouldn't open to non-thais until 1:30 PM. And
they had this "Great Idea" of what we could do until
then. They wanted to take us on a tuk-tuk ride to see
some other sites. We declined both, and continued on
to the palace. They had lied to us. The second guy
even called us names for not falling for his trickery.
The palace was NOT closed at all; they are open
everyday, to everyone.
We decided to purchase an audio tour to go along with
our admission, and with that learned all about each of
the interesting items in the Wat. This Wat is unique
in that it does not have accomodation for the Monks
that work here. This Wat is the one that was used by
the king when he entered the monastery for a brief
time. And this wat is the one that contains the
Emerald Buddha. It is really made out of Jasper. The
buildings and architecture and intricate design and
workmanship in these places is marvelous. After the
wat, we toured the palace grounds. Not all of it is
open to the public, of course, but it was impressive
none-the-less.
This afternoon, we came back to our lodging and rested
for a while, then Donna went out to get a massage (for
140B) while I napped. Tonight, we will probably watch
another movie at a pub and have dinner. Tomorrow, we
are planning to take a bus to Chiang Mai.
2/15/03 Chiang Mai -- relaxing and fun!
Well, last time we wrote we were about to leave for
Chiang Mai.
We are still there!! On February 5th, we woke up
early and headed off to look for our bus. We actually
got on the wrong one (it seemed like ours would never
come and when one came by with the right numbers on
it, we got on, thinking we were getting on the right
one...oops!). But no worries...it went along the
right route for quite a while, and through hand
signals and a very nice lady, we managed to figure out
where to get off to catch ours at a strategic
location. We were now, however, worried that we might
miss our bus to Chiang Mai, which we thought left at
8:30; the connecting bus showed up to pick us up at
8:25. But, as always, God was watching out for us!
We arrived at the bus terminal (market?!) at 9:00 and
one of the windows said there was a bus leaving at
9:15!! We quickly bought a ticket! The bus was
"second class" and the tickets were 487 baht
(US$11.50) each. We quickly bought snacks and went to
find our bus (which apparently didn't REALLY leave
until 9:45. Once it was time to board, we discovered
that we had assigned seats -- ours were assigned at
the very front. The bus was in essence a double
decker, except only the top of the bus was for
passengers. We had the seats right above the drivers
compartment, on the left, with a perfect view out the
front and lefthand windows! Not bad for a couple of
tourists! Apparently, the price of our ticket also
included food...snacks that were handed out on the bus
as well as a lunch stop around two o'clock at a cafe,
where we picked from a sort of buffet line. Kirk and
I spent most of the ride talking, reading or relaxing.
It was about a 10 hour ride to Chiang Mai, which is
over 700 kilometers north of Bangkok. About an hour
before the bus pulled into Chiang Mai, I noticed that
the girl behind us had some sort of pet in her lap. On
closer inspection, we realized it was a squirrel...a
flying squirrel. In fact, she had two and they were
babies! Around 7:30 or 8, we finally pulled into
Chiang Mai. Kirk and I had decided to try and stay at
the Banana Guest House, which was recommended by the
Lonely Planet. The minute we got off the bus, we were
surrounded by tuk tuk and pickups drivers trying to
convince us that they would provide the best service
and price. We finally just got onto one pickup and
went straight there, hoping they would have a room for
us. We got lucky...for that night, anyway. They had
a room with a cold shower. But they didn't know if
they'd have room the next day. We checked into our
ENORMOUS room (well, enormous compared to what we had
had in Bangkok...there, we had barely been able to fit
our packs in the room if we were in there, too), at
which point, I noticed my watch was missing. I had
had it on the bus. We looked everywhere and couldn't
find it. Either the band had given way somewhere
along the way or it had been nicked off my arm.
Either way, I was now watchless. We were thankful it
had only cost us US$15. We headed out for a walk
around town. We walked over to the Tha Phae Gate
area, sat and had a cold drink in a cafe (they have
wonderful fruit drinks here) and then walked back to
our guesthouse.
On February 6, we woke up and found that we DID have
to move after all! And even though Banana Guest House
advertised that they had hot showers (we didn't get
one in our room, so would have had to use the public
shower downstairs), I never did get to use it. We
went out looking for a new home in Chiang Mai. We
found one...although we didn't particularly like the
name of the place: Mr. Whisky Guest House. We had
another room for 150 baht, again with a cold shower.
But after we checked in, we discovered that the toilet
was plugged up and wouldn't flush. We notified the
Guesthouse management...when they discovered that the
toilets on the entire first floor wouldn't flush, we
moved to the upper floor into a room with a hot shower
(yay).
Chedi Luang |
Chedi Luang Elephants |
A building in the back of Wat Phra Sing |
Unusual statues inside Wat Phra Sing |
After finding breakfast (from a yummy street vendor),
we went on a Wat tour. First, we went to
Wat Chedi Luang,
which is also known as the monastery of the Great
Stupa. Although the height of the stupa was reduced
by an earthquake in 1545, it is still a magnificent
structure! It was constructed by King Saeng Muang Ma
in 1401 and enlarged in 1454 to a height of 86 meters.
Next, we headed to
Wat Chiang Man,
the oldest temple in Chaing Mai. King Mengrai
allegedly lived here while the new city of Chiang Mai
was constructed. Wat Chiang Man houses a tiny crystal
buddha called Phra Seh-Taang Kamanee that is thought
to have the power to bring rain and another called
Phra Sila Khao that was made by Indian craftsmen
thousands of years ago. We made a quick stop at Wat
LamCheng, and then headed on to the famous Wat Phra
Singh, which was built in 1345 by King Pha Yu to house
the remains of his father, King Kam Fu. The Lai Kam
chapel houses the revered Phra Singh buddha image,
whose head was stolen in 1992.
We walked back to our guesthouse and rested for a bit
and then went in search of dinner. We headed down to
Chiang Mai gate, where we head heard there were a lot
of vendors set up... and oh, my!! We were in heaven!
The food was varied and fantastic! We decided to get
a little bit of a lot of different things, so we could
try out many different items! We had fried chicken
from "KFG" (no, not KFC! KFG...and GEEEE it was
GGGGOOOOODDDDDD!!!!!) and a stirfry dish from a guy
that ended up being one of our repeat favorites! And
that didn't include any of the desserts we discovered!
We practically rolled home (waddled at the least)!
On February 7th, we decided to rent a motorbike for
about US$3 for 24 hours and check out what was going
on around town, and maybe even drive up to Doi Suthep.
As it turns out, today was the first day of the
Festival of Flowers,
quite a big event here in Chiang Mai. It would run
for three days, with the parade and selection of
Blossom Queen on Saturday. We had breakfast at a
little place west of Chiang Mai Gate (the entire city
was once surrounded by a wall and moat with several
gates in the wall...therefore, the gates are now
notorious landmarks), walked around a couple of
markets hoping to find me a replacement watch (but to
no avail) and then headed back to our guesthouse,
where we picked up our motorbike for the day.
We ran a few errands and then drove over to city
center, which was outside the old city (outside the
moat and near the river) to see what it was like. It
was very similar to Bangkok, actually. There were
American fast food restaurants (yuck!) and a lot more
tuk tuks. We walked around a bit, still looking for a
new watch, and finally decided to head out of town.
We drove northwest of town up toward Doi Suthep, a Wat
on top on one of the high peaks outside of Chiang Mai.
The drive up the mountain was beautiful, but we were
a bit taken aback when we tried to take a turn-off for
one of the waterfalls. There was a guard at the
turn-off who pointed at a sign. Foreigners had to pay
a fee of 200 baht per day to take the turn off. If
you were Thai, however, you could pay as little as 20
baht. We were a bit put off by that and decided not
to go see the waterfall and continued up the road to
the Wat.
The stairway leading up to Doi Suthet |
Worshippers at Doi Suthet |
Dragon at Doi Suthet |
We arrived at the base of the Wat and parked the
motorbike. The
Wat Doi Suthep
was at the top of a long flight a steps, lined on both
sides by a flowing dragon. We made our way up the
stairs, where we were forced to pay another fee
because we were foreigners (despite the fact that the
Wat brochure said "Entrance fee 30 baht (except the
member of all religions)"). Oh well. We walked
around the Chedi and temple grounds, which were
beautiful. However, the most spectacular thing about
Doi Suthep, we thought, was its location on the
mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. The site of Doi
Suthep was selected by an elephant, incidentally -- it
was sent to roam the mountainside; when it reached the
spot it trumpeted, circled three times, and kneeled.
While at Doi Suthep, I took the opportunity to have a
little "Monk Chat"...ask a monk a question that was
bugging me. I wanted to know whether it was the soles
of the feet or the toes that one need to avoid
pointing at others and buddha (in Thai culture). It
took a bit of time to get my answer, but the short
answer is...the soles.
We wandered a bit more and then headed back down to
the base of the Wat steps and then to the market
below, where we had some lunch (tourist-priced, of
course). We then headed further up the mountain to
see Phu Ping Palace, the winter residence of the royal
family. We arrived at 3:30, closing time. We were
disappointed but checked to see when they opened the
next morning, figuring that we'd just come back then.
It turns out they would be closed...for 2 months!! The
King and Queen are in residence! THAT explained all
the armed guards I kept seeing on the roadside on the
way up the mountain!
Kirk in Ban Doi Pui |
Ban Doi Pui village boy |
From there we decided we might as well go the rest of
the way...there was a Hmong village, Ban Doi Pui, down
the road a little further. Apparently, opium is a big
industry there and they have an opium museum. The
road to the village was incredibly narrow in places --
clearly the motorbike was the best mode of
transportation on which to reach it. When we arrived,
the village turned out to be one huge tourist trap!
The village was essentially a market -- each little
street was nothing but stall after stall of goods,
some cheap, some beautiful, most very inexpensive. At
the back of the village was a waterfall...with an
entrance fee, of course (7 baht). There was also a
museum, but we declined to go in.
A static display for the Flower Festival |
The crowd at the flower fest.
Can you find Donna? |
We headed back to town. We stopped on the way at a
Thai shopping mall where we finally found a
replacement watch for about US$11. Then we headed
down to the Flower Festival to see what was going on.
We had heard that the Symphony would be playing that
night (but pop music or something). When we arrived,
it was an Asian Elvis impersonator (he wasn't
particularly good and we were hungry). We walked
around the stalls looking for food, but all we could
find was premade food (which we won't eat...it's gotta
be fresh) or very exotic stuff. So, we headed back to
our favorite, Chiang Mai Gate market! Yum!
We even managed to find ourselves a favorite internet
cafe in Chiang Mai...it's the Star Cafe and it's on
the North East corner of the moat. It's run by an
American guy named Jason and we've had a great time
chatting with him and using his high speed internet
from time to time! His seems to be the only high
speed internet in town! (Don't let the sign on his
shop confuse you...it says "Coffee Shop & Internet
Cafe").
The beginning of the Chiang Mai Flower Parade |
Flower Parade Girl |
Flower Parade Girl |
Flower Parade Girls |
They had great floats |
Another nice Float |
Detail of the Float |
On February 8, we woke up relatively early. We didn't
want to miss the parade!! What parade?! The Festival
of Flowers Parade, of course! We had been told it
would begin around 8 AM, so we got up early to get a
spot. We had the scooter until noon, so we took it
with us and got breakfast and then scoped out the best
possible location (we thought) to see the parade as it
turned from Tha Phae Road onto the moat road. We got
settled and waited...and waited...and waited. The
parade didn't actually come by until about 10AM! But
it was fantastic and VERY VERY colorful! There were
tons of floats and all covered with flowers of all
sorts, many different bands and other musicians,
dancers. It was an interesting and colorful spectacle
to watch! Plus, we got to watch the crowd around us.
I was thoroughly embarassed by some of the Americans
we saw around us, however; one was taking photos of
Thais in the crowd around us (which is completely
against the custom here -- you don't take photos of
people without first asking their
permission...obviously the people in the parade were a
different matter), and another continually stepped in
the way of the participants and the floats, obviously
expecting them to move around him. The parade ended
just in time for us to return the motorbike by noon!
We spent the afternoon relaxing. We went over to Star
Cafe for a little while and chatted with Jason for a
bit. Interestingly, although tourists can't work in
Thailand, they can own a business!! We had an
interesting time hearing about the ins and outs of
having to run to the border every 30 days to renew
your tourist visa (it's about 5 hours away) and the
other things to look out for.
That evening, we decided to try and hunt down the
church we would attend the next day (Sunday)...it's
good to know where it is and what time the English
services are in advance. We rented another motorbike
and went looking, armed with a list of three
possibilities. What a goosechase! We were looking
for the Hope of Chiang Mai we had heard about an
affiliated church from some folks we had met in
Sydney. However, we were, after 2 1/2 hours of
looking in the "right area" and asking just about
everyone we met who seemed like they might speak even
a LITTLE English, completely unable to find it!
We now found ourselves in an area that had probably
not seen a tourist in 2 years, it was about 10PM and
we were STARVING! We pulled into the closest cafe we
could find. There was no English menu, no one onsite
really spoke any English and we seemed to be the
attraction of the night -- everyone who came by
pointed at us and seemed shocked to see white people
there! But we had a fantastic time! It was, perhaps,
one of the best dinners we have had in Chiang Mai, and
certainly, one of the most enjoyable (possibly more
so, because we had forgotten our Thai phrase book)!
A rice paddy we saw on our motorbike ride |
I taught Donna to ride while we were out. |
A chedi we saw by the side of the road |
Big Buddha we saw by the side of the road |
Dragon we saw at the Wat opposite the Buddha |
Many many people ride small 100cc Motorbikes here. |
On February 9, Sunday, we decided we would attend the
Chiang Mai Community Church service, which was not
until 5PM, which gave us all day to relax and do other
things. We had breakfast at the Sompet Market
area. We stopped and chatted with Jason for a while
and then took the motorbike out for a ride. We headed
east of Chiang Mai, and just kept driving. We went
through several villages outside of Chiang Mai, passed
a Wat that was presided over by a huge buddha on a
hill, passed through rice paddies and eventually ended
up at the base of some mountains, where the road
turned to dirt and we decided to turn around (the
motorbike wasn't really the off-road sort).
We turned the bike around but not before a truck full
of Thai came down to check out the tourists! There
were a bunch of young boys in the back who called out
"Hello!" to us. I answered, "Sawat-di-kaa" and Kirk
said, "Sawat-di-klap!", which elicited big grins!
Then Kirk decided to try and teach me to drive the
motorbike! It turned out not to be terribly hard,
since it had no clutch, just the gears. And it was
kind of fun. It did make me a little more nervous
when he climbed on the back, and it certainly changed
the balance of the bike. I drove it for a while, but
when the traffic started to get heavier, I make Kirk
drive again.
On the way back to town, we stopped to take a look at
the Chedi that was up on the hill next to the giant
buddha. We also stopped to walk around the grounds of
the Wat. We had some really funny looks from the
monks, who probably NEVER had tourists come there. It
was a beautiful Wat there and we enjoyed walking
around the grounds. We realized it was getting late.
We needed to get back so we wouldn't be late for
church. We drove back into Chiang Mai and had a quick
snack at the Night Bazzar by Nawarat Bridge, which was
right by where the church was, then we headed over to
Chiang Mai Community Church.
The worship team was rehearsing when we arrived but
quit soon after to pray (we got there early again),
which seems to be a good habit we have formed on this
trip. We were glad to notice we knew some of the
songs they were rehearsing. We hadn't been to a
church where they played contemporary songs that we
knew (like ones from home) in a very long time! At
the beginning of the service, the pastor had all the
visitors stand up, so we did (it's always embarrassing
to do that, but we are slowing getting used to it).
The sermon was good - it was a healing message (we
seem to be hearing a lot of those lately, which has
been appropro). At the end of the service, I stood up
to be prayed for since my back is still giving me
problems. Kirk told me later that when I did, he
became very emotional.
After the service, one lady came up and said hello to
us, mentioning that she noticed we had stood up when
they asked who was visiting. However, once she found
out that we were tourists and had not moved to Chiang
Mai, she quickly made an exit. No one talked to us at
all after that. Kirk and I have talked about this
extensively on our trip. It has been on our hearts
and minds before, but especially now that we are
ALWAYS the new people in church...every single week.
It is so incredibly important to welcome people...new,
old, clean, dirty, itinerant, long-term. It doesn't
matter their plans, their goals. They all have needs,
desires and reasons for being there. As a church, it
is our duty to welcome each and every one of them with
open arms as if they are the most important person in
the entire building...they ARE! God has each and
every person there for a reason. Don't hang out in
comfort groups. Invite someone you don't know to
lunch. Invite them home. Invite them to stay the
night! It doesn't matter if they have been at church
for a week, a month or today is their first day! You
are their impression of the church! Welcome them with
God's love! We left Chiang Mai Community Church
without really feeling welcome, even though it was a
church that clearly had a lot to offer.
On February 10, we woke up with a goal in mind. We
had decided to go on a trek and we needed to decide
which one. Chiang Mai abounds with trekking
companies. The TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand)
lists over
250 companies that have
licenses to provide treks in Chiang Mai. We talked
with several companies, including Banana Guesthouse
(where we had stayed the first night). Frankly, I had
thought I would like Banana's the best, since much of
the funds from their trekking is put back into the
hilltribe villages you visit. They are building a
school in one of the villages (you even visit it).
Practically every place you go claims that they take
you into previously unvisited areas (yeah, right!) and
places that no other treks go. But, we stopped by a
place called Panda Tours and saw something that really
helped us to make a decision. They had a chart that
showed where most all of the treks went. Most of
them, including Banana, went into one of the same two
areas southwest of Chiang Mai visiting the Karen
hilltribes, the most populous hilltribe in Northern
Thailand. Panda, on the other hand, went to the
Northwest of Chiang Mai, where no other groups went,
and you visited three different
hilltribes,
the Meo, the Lahu and the Akha. It also included an
elephant ride and white water rafting. After looking
around all day, we decided to go with Panda.
When we got back to our guesthouse, the proprietor was
quite angry that we hadn't booked a trek through him.
A lot of the guesthouses have their own treks and many
of them make their money by encouraging their guests
to take treks from them. But his treks were more than
twice the cost of ANY of the others we looked at AND
he wasn't even licensed, so we didn't even consider
them!
We had dinner at our favorite vendors at Chiang Mai
Gate. We did try a new dessert -- roti! I had mine
with chocolate sauce and Kirk had his with strawberry!
Delicious! Then, we spent the rest of the evening
packing for our trek.
First day of our Trek we stopped at the Meo tribe. Donna stopped to pet the puppies. |
The group on the trail |
A bamboo hut they were building at the Lahu tribe site we stopped at for the night. |
This is the hut we stayed in. |
We had a lovely sunset |
We had a lovely dinner in our hut.
(Click for full size) |
The night we were there was the last night of their New Year's celebration. They danced and sang all night through to dawn. We got very little sleep. :-( |
We went down and watched and joined the dancing for a while. |
On February 11, we woke up early to finish the last
minute packing. We were taking two small packs on the
three day trek and storing the rest of our baggage at
Panda's facility. They came by the guesthouse to pick
us up at 8:30 and take us to their "office" (really
and outdoor cafe type place with a bamboo and
thatch-covered roof). We took care of some
preliminary things and then loaded into the truck for
the drive to the start of the trek. We stopped
briefly in a small village, where our guide bought
some food for the trip and then we were on our way.
It was about a two hour trip, but along the way, we
passed some folks riding elephants, and others who
were being pulled in carts led by bullocks. When the
truck stopped climbing (it wound its way up a long,
steep, very rutted dirt track for a while), we were
beside a trail and ready to hike.
But it was not yet time, apparently. There was a
covered shelter, where lunch was laid out for us and
we sat and ate a lunch of stirfried rice and
pineapple.
Our trek consisted of 8 people -- Cookie and Fi (from
New Zealand), Martin and Paul (from the Netherlands),
Lawson and Jenny Rae (from the US) and me and Kirk.
Our guide was Eang and we also had two
guides-in-training, Kuan and Min. It turned out to be
a great group of people and a very fun trip!
The first day was hot, dusty, and a relatively steep
walk. We covered about 7 km and went up about 1000
metres. Somewhere along the line we had missed the
fact that going on a "hilltribe trek" meant HILLS!!
OOPS! The guide had given each of us a bamboo walking
stick at the beginning, which should have forewarned
us of what was to come. The climbing was literally
straight up in some spots, it seemed. But then again,
we had just spent 2 months driving around in a car
without a lot of opportunity to hike around, and in a
very dry climate. The terraine and humidity here
ensured a bit of culture shock the first day. That
combined with my tendency to turn bright red during
exercise gave our guides quite a fright, I'm afraid.
I think they thought I would drop dead at any moment!
(Clearly, I didn't).
We stopped midway through the afternoon at a
Meo village, where
we refilled our water. It was perfect timing, really,
as we were just about to run out. Then, we headed off
again. Another hour or so, and we arrived at our
destination for the night, a
Lahu hilltribe
village. By the time we arrived, we had been climbing
for about 3 1/2 to 4 hours and everyone was pretty
happy to be there. The view was gorgeous. We were on
a hillside overlooking a deep valley. We could hear a
drumbeat somewhere in the village. We followed Eang
to our hut, which was near the edge of the village and
quite beautiful. It was of bamboo construction, with
a thatched roof. There was a nice deck overlooking
the valley and village below. We had a squat toilet
and cold water shower (wow! I never expected
that...we didn't even bring SOAP!) in a little hut
nearby.
We sat around on the deck and relaxed and chatted
while the guides prepared our hut and our sleeping
area. They pulled out mats and set up the mosquito
nets around each mat. Meanwhile, in another section of
the same hut, they lit a fire and started cooking
dinner. It was kind of neat, but also meant that
there was a lot of smoke from the fire in our hut. We
all rested in the hut or out on the deck. It was
pretty hot outside in the sun, so I stayed in for as
long as I could stand the smoke.
We had a great time getting to know the various people
on our trek...starting with the truck ride, then
walking up the hill and that evening. Jenny Rae (from
Pennsylvania) and Lawson (from New Jersey), are close
friends who have been traveling together for about
five months. They are both Christians and have been
combining travel with volunteer work. They have spent
much of their time in South America and then South
Africa. They just arrived in Asia a couple of days
before beginning the trek. Lawson will return home in
March and will then begin planning her wedding. Jenny
Rae is going to continue traveling beyond that date
and is contemplating returning to Capetown, which she
loved. Martin and Paul have been best friends along
with two other guys (who didn't make this trip) since
they were about 6 or 7. They are on about a 2 week
trip from work. This was actually Martin's second
trek with Panda Tours -- he had been on one 5 years
before and enjoyed it enough to come back again. He
was trilingual (German, Dutch and English). Paul,
although we though his English was fine, was a bit shy
about it and tended to be rather quiet. He was a very
nice guy, though. Cookie and Fi were a hoot! They
were spending about 5 weeks or so in Asia before
heading off to Scotland to find work. Fi is a nurse,
but has been working for the last 10 years as a
professional rugby player. Cookie has worked for the
last few years as an English teacher in Japan. Put
the eight of us together and it was non-stop fun and
non-stop interesting conversations (in my humble
opinion, at least). At one point, Fi and Cookie and
Jenny Rae and I were sitting in the smokey hut talking
to Lawson about why she should have a wedding dress
made here in Thailand. As it turns out, she and Jenny
Rae are going to go looking for one in Bangkok!
Dinner was a total feast! Green curry with chicken,
vegetarian stirfry with mushrooms, pumpkins with eggs.
After dinner, we watched the sunset over the valley
from our deck and then we all went down to the village
to see what was going on. They were having some sort
of celebration, apparently. There was dancing and
they were playing music and beating a drum, clanging
cymbal, dancing around a pole. The musicmakers took
turns, to a certain degree. There were definitely
generational differences. There was an older man with
a sort of pan flute who played wonderful tunes and had
intricate but slower dances that older folk could
easily keep up with. The younger musicmakers had
drums and cymbals and made a lot of loud noise, played
fast, and made up complicated dances that involved a
lot of jumping and seemed designed to try and trip one
another up.
We all joined in at one time or another with the
dancing and watched more of the time. After a while
those, it was really repetitive. The one thing that
seemed really remarkable to most, was that despite the
large number of children running around the village,
not a single one was fighting. They were all just
playing.
At last, we walked back up to our hut, sat out on the
deck for quite a while and chatted, watching the moon
rise over the valley. When we went to bed, it was
pretty late - close to midnight - and the party in the
village was still going strong.
...It never stopped. We found out later that they
were celebrating the
Lahu New Year.
They were still going strong at 7AM. As if the
banging drums and clanging cymbals weren't bad
enough!! On top of all of that, they had a loud
speaker, so they were singing over the loud speaker
and playing music all night long. Not a one of us
slept (except perhaps Lawson and Jenny Rae, and we
still haven't figured out how they managed to do it).
We finally crawled out of bed in exasperation.
Breakfast was 4 slices of toast and a hard-boiled egg,
plus tea or coffee, which practically everyone needed
to stay awake, anyway.
This is the Lahu vilage we had lunch at the on the 12th. |
A funnel spider web I saw on the trail |
We had a good time in the falls on the 12th |
Our group at the falls.
|
That evening we all had a great time playing cards |
It was a pretty motley group that crawled out of the
huts and packed up for the trail on February 12th. We
looked across the valley to the top of the next
mountain/hillside, where we saw another village. Eang
told us that was where we would be having lunch and it
was about and hour and a half hike to get there. It
wasn't a bad hike, really, despite the fact that
everyone was exceptionally tired and a few people were
feeling a little sick. Perhaps that is WHY it wasn't
so bad...we were all moving a bit slower. At lunch,
we arrived at the hut and all collapsed indoors, out
of the sun, which was very hot. Lunch was a hot,
noodle soup (using three types of noodles). They were
delicious. We were all joking at lunch about wanting
pancakes and roti for dessert, but alas, we didn't get
any. We had a nice long rest though, which was good,
since I managed to cool off quite a bit.
Finally, it was time to go. We had another hour and
15 minutes to go, all downhill to get to our next stop
-- a waterfall. Downhill turned out to be quite
strenuous, though, since it was very steep and quite
treacherous in spots. We all finally reached the
waterfall and everyone but Cookie and Fi and the
guides donned their swimmers and climbed in! It felt
great! I ducked my head under the falls and was
thrilled to be cool!! Kirk came over and did the same
thing. We all posed for photos until we were
waterlogged. After we had dried off, we took a group
photo in front of the waterfall and then headed off
for our last hour of walking. It was to be the last
hour "along the river side". Sound like a little
path? It did to me! NOT!
We scrambled the whole way -- over rocks, crossing
many rivers on precarious bamboo bridges. At one
point, I thought I was a goner...the log I was
crossing started to roll and I didn't have the balance
to stay on. I turned and tried to make it back to the
bank behind me (the closer one). Cookie, who was
closest to me, managed to grab my arm, and helped
swing me to shore. The only casualty...I dipped my
right foot into the water, getting the outside of the
boot slightly damp. Not a problem!
We made it to the elephant camp without further mishap
and quickly got settled into our hut, which was beside
the river. The hut was three-sided, the open side
faced the river, giving us the beautiful sound of
rushing water to listen to through the night. As we
relaxed, waiting for dinner, Kirk took a shower in the
river, rather than waiting in the line that had queued
up at the shower hut.
At dinner, Fi announced (for the first time that day)
that it was Cookie's birthday! We all sang happy
birthday and did our best to make a big deal of it!
We had yellow curry with chicken, a veggie dish with
chicken and cabbage with chicken for dinner. They
were all good, but not as flavorful as dinner had been
the night before, we all agreed.
After dinner, we had a marathon game of cards! We
played one game of "I Doubt it" but then switched to a
game called "President" that was quite fun! We ended
up moving about half way through the game from the
dinner hut to our sleeping hut because the wind kept
blowing the candles out and it was almost impossible
to play...we couldn't see! It's a fun game, because
whoever wins the round before is president for the
current round and gets to make up the rules. We had
all sorts of rules...including that whoever got
skipped had to compliment Cookie (it was, after all,
her birthday...and we didn't even have a cake...the
funny part was when Paul had to compliment her 8 times
in a row and then she had to compliment herself)!
On the 13th as we waited to go ride elephants, some people played hopscotch. |
We had a great time riding the elephants! |
Our elephant was a bit unruly. It needed its own driver! |
We forded the river several times. Donna is surprised at what is coming down the river behind us. |
At the end of the ride, you can feed the elephants. |
We all had a great time on the trek! |
On February 13, we got up blissfully late! EVERYONE
slept well, happy to have gotten a good night's sleep
and had no new year's celebration going on to
interrupt it! Breakfast was toast, scrambled eggs and
pineapple! Yummy! After packing, we headed off to
have our elephant ride! Whooo hooo!
The
elephants had
seats on top of them and we mounted them from a little
loading platform of sorts. Kirk and I got onto one
elephant, and two people each got onto the others. At
first, we started up a road, which was no big deal,
although it was cool to realize we were on an
elephant! But then, the elephants turned down an
impossibly narrow path down a STEEP hill toward the
river! There was even a log across the path part way
down at a turn in the path. WHERE are the seatbelts
on these things?! YIKES! It was really cool, though!
I kept looking down and seeing those huge elephant
feet lifting up and setting down on the path,
impossibly sure of themselves. When we got to the
spot with the log and the turn, our elephant actually
had her head up almost against a tree in front of her
and had to back up to make the turn. But, she did
make it. We went all the way down the path and then
had to cross the river. The others crossed ahead of
us. As we headed out across, there was a raft coming
down towards us. Our elephant actually had to
run/walk/swim downriver a little while she crossed the
river in order to avoid a collision with the raft. We
ended up about 8 yards or so downstream from where the
other elephants crossed.
At one point, Cookie and Fi's elephant decided to take
a path of its own and went off among some trees,
practically knocking them off into the river.
Instead, Fi's brand-new Bolle sunglasses became part
of the river! She was gutted over it!
After another river crossing, we were climbing back UP
that steep hill. I thought it was steep climbing
DOWN! Good grief! I could hear Cookie squealing all
the way up!
After we made it back to the elephant camp, Kirk paid
10 baht and bought a bunch of bananas and I got to
feed our elephant! It was fun to see her trunk snake
up to grab a banana and then slip it into her mouth!
She sure did like 'em!
We then had a few minutes to get ready before we
headed down the river for our white water rafting
trip. The rafting was fun. We divided up into two
boats of 4 people each. Kirk and I shared a raft with
Martin and Paul. Of course, there were some good
splash fights. The white water was good in spots, but
no more than Level II or III, I would say. At the
bottom, we pulled the boats in and had some lunch.
Phat Thai and papaya and watermelon. It was a good
lunch. Unfortunately, Kirk's stomach was a bit upset,
so he didn't eat much then. We had started on our
anti-malarial medication last week and it's wreaked a
bit of havock with our digestive systems, I'm afraid.
After lunch and some chatting, we headed to the
Akha village.
To me, it was just another tourist trap. They had
set up the area as a market and the tribespeople we
met were all hard-sell. One lady in particular kept
following us around and every stall we went near she
kept calling out and saying "What you want? You want
this?" and pointing to something. She had on the
traditional headdress of an Akha tribeswoman, but she
also had a pipe hanging out of her mouth. I don't
know if she was smoking opium, but since the
hilltribes are so entrenched in the cultivation of
opium and I didn't recognize the scent of the smoke, I
somehow assumed that it was. It started to rain while
we were there, so we happily darted back to the pickup
and headed back to town, which took about one and a
half to two hours. We all agreed to meet for dessert
that night at Chiang Mai Gate at 9, to celebrate
Cookie's belated birthday (and our failure to have a
cake on her birthday) and just to have an excuse to
get together.
Kirk got us a room at the Smile House, a
guesthouse right around the corner that we had seen
before and looked nice (and quiet). It turned out to
be a bit more expensive (250 baht), but they provided
sheets and towels and toilet paper, which meant we
could wash our sheet and towels, which we desperately
needed to do, especially after this trip!
We went and checked in and took very long hot showers.
The water at the Smile House was REALLY hot. Not
luke warm, like it had been at Mr. Whisky, where they
only CLAIMED to have hot water! Hooray!! We relaxed
and then caught up on emails a bit and then headed
over to meet our friends at Chiang Mai Gate. It turns
out that some of them had gone to Tha Phae Gate first.
(There are actually about 7 gates in Chiang Mai, but
Tha Phae and Chiang Mai are the most popular areas).
Between us, we got all sorts of different desserts and
then passed them around the table and everyone tried
them all. Jenny Rae and Lawson got some really
atrocious desserts some of which, I have to say, were
pretty disgusting (I actually didn't try many of them,
because by then, MY stomach wasn't feeling great, but
I could see by their faces that it was a good thing I
was missing out). We all hung out for a while, and
then walked back to our respective guesthouses where
we all parted with fond farewells!
On February 14, Kirk and I got up early and signed my
up for a Thai Cooking school, the
Sompet Cookery School, which is
one of two that comes highly recommended in Chiang
Mai. Interestingly, Chiang Mai schools are actually
more highly recommended than those in Bangkok. We had
a quick breakfast (I actually ended up getting mine
takeaway) and then I was off on my own for most of the
day. The class was very interesting. They spent the
first hour taking you through their private garden,
identifying Thai ingredients and then helping to
identify what western ingredients can be substituted
and what can't. Then, we learned how to make a curry
paste from scratch. Apparently, a lot of the cooking
schools don't teach you to make the paste; they make
it for you. Then, we made five different dishes. The
hard part was that then we had to eat all of our food!
It wasn't so hard in that it tasted all that bad...it
was just too much food! Luckily, we were able to
bring home doggie bags, so I brought a ton back for
Kirk to try!
While I was at class, Kirk checked into transportion
to Pai, where we are heading next. He also relaxed a
little, picked up photos (which are online!!), and did
some web maintenance.
After the class was over (I even got to bring home a
cookbook), I met Kirk at the internet cafe, where he
was waiting for me. I walked in and he handed me a
red rose for Valentines Day! AWWWWW! And I handed
him a bag of food! :) Unfortunately, his stomach
still wasn't feeling all that great, so he wasn't
terribly hungry, but he did try everything.
We stayed at the internet shop, trying to get the
website updated until they closed.
And that's plenty for now...
I hope we haven't bored you too much this time around!
We miss you all! Don't forget! We love to hear how
YOU are doing too!
God bless you all!
2/19/03 Can you say Pai...?
On February 15, we basically kicked around Chiang Mai,
relaxed and worked on our post all day (you think
updating this website is EASY?) and then went to the
Night Bazaar
that night. We walked around and looked at all the
crafts and items, most of which were incredibly cheap.
The only thing we purchased was a pair of clear
sunglasses for Kirk, so he could safely drive the
motorbike at night, without bugs flying in his eyes!
On February 16, we got up and had breakfast and then
took the motorbike up to the northwest side of town.
We were going to try a new church. This time we went
to the Chiang Mai Christian Fellowship, which was held
at the Phucome Hotel. As we walked in, we ran into
Lori, one of the girls I had taken the cooking class
with! I shouldn't have been surprised, since I had
been talking to her and another lady about churches,
and it didn't sound like they would be attending the
5PM service church, but somehow, I had forgotten,
anyway. Lori was with Sarah, a missionary from the
organization Partners,
which works with a refugee camp on the Burma/Thailand
border. We chatted for a bit, and then headed into
the service.
The music was great! We recognized almost every song.
Then, the sermon was given by one of the elders, an
American. Afterwards, he encouraged the members to
invite one of the visitors out to lunch.
Unfortunately, this one time, we couldn't stay! We
had booked a minibus to Pai and had to go home to pack
and catch our bus! We said our goodbyes and then took
our motorbike back to the rental place.
At the Smile House, we packed fairly quickly and then
just had time to finish lunch, when the minibus showed
up (10 minutes early). Interestingly, the "second
chef" was on duty that day, and he didn't know how to
cook a hamburger, which is what Kirk ordered.
Instead, Kirk had to choose something else to eat.
Normally, we order Thai food, but since our stomachs
had been acting up due to the choloquine and he had an
opportunity to order unspicy "American" food, he
thought he'd take the opportunity.
The minibus ride to Pai was about 5 hours, although
the distance wasn't all that great. We met a Canadian
couple onboard who also keeps a website
and a hilarious
English couple. There was a French couple in the back
who spoke little English and a couple of the guys in
the front who spoke to no one. We passed the time
alternating between chatting, reading our books and
looking at the phenomenal scenery...we were driving
through some gorgeous mountains!
Our Bungalow at the Eden Guest House. |
When we arrived in Pai, we all looked around. It was
tiny! We had been in Chiang Mai for almost two weeks
and Pai was going to be a big change for us (but not
unwelcome). We caught a ride on the minibus to the
Sun Hut, which had been recommended as a good place to
stay. Unfortunately, they were full for the night.
So, we walked right next door to the Eden House and
got ourselves a beautiful little bamboo bungalow with
hot (outdoor, but private) shower and bathroom for 200
baht a night. It's a quaint little place and we are
happy there. It's a bit out of town, but we don't
mind. It's probably a bit quieter that way.
Kirk then caught a ride into town and rented a
motorbike so we'd have some transportation. After
picking me up, we rode back into town and got some
dinner at a little outdoor market (reminescent of
Chiang Mai Gate, I must say, although much smaller).
We even found a place with roti -- the guy who served
us is a Burmese political refugee.
A lovely view of Pai. |
Another lovely view of Pai. |
This is the watefall with a built in slide. |
On February 17, we woke up to some VERY cold weather!
We are way up in the mountains and the temperature
certainly drops. We may even have to dig into our
cold weather gear! We've pulled out our light fleece,
but at this rate, we may have to pull out the rest!
After a nice hot shower (but since it was outdoors and
the water pressure wasn't great, only the part of your
body that was DIRECTLY under water was warm...the rest
was FREEZING), we dressed and headed into town for
breakfast.
Then, we decided it was time to go and find ourselves
a waterfall! The drive there was quite interesting
and took us through beautiful "typical" Thai
countryside...rice paddies, tiny villages with
sleeping dogs, crazy (colorful) roosters, amazing
bamboo structures. We also drove past an Army base,
which looked as much like a university campus as
anything else. Eventually, the road petered out and
we were on dirt track, so we had to slow down. Even
that got particularly bad, since they were in the
processing of paving it; we were dodging piles of
gravel and other construction materials. When we
reached the portion they were actively paving, we had
to detour onto a REALLY bumpy section. Kirk, of
course, was loving it -- he's ridden dirt bikes since
he was 8. I, on the other hand...
Anyway, the waterfall, once we got there, was GREAT!
It had a natural waterslide built in and it was in
full use! There were also natural pools at the top
and bottom. There were local kids all over the place
and a few other farang (white people) like us there as
well. We actually hadn't thought ahead enough to
bring our suits, so we were relegated to watching, but
it sure looked like fun!
After watching for a while, we hiked back up to the
motorbike and then rode around a bit more to see a bit
more of the Pai area. Pai is nestled in a valley that
is completely surrounded on all sides by mountains --
it's gorgeous! At one point, we went up to the Temple
on the Hill, which is quite near our guesthouse. It's
quite high on the hillside and you can either take a
very long flight of rickety old stairs or you can take
a windy old road on the motorbike. We took the
motorbike up (we rented it after all, didn't we)? At
the top, an optical illusion made the eyes of the
dragon guarding the temple look alive -- it was late
afternoon, and the sun glinting off the red reflective
glass made the eyes glint red! It was pretty cool.
We shed our shoes (which we must do at every temple)
and then walked around. It wasn't particularly
spectacular or shiny or new, but it was beautifully
situated and unique. There were a lot of wind chimes
about and the place certainly had an air of serenity.
We did notice that the Chedi at the top had a sign
indicating that women were not allowed to step up to
look at it closely (although men could). I thought
this was curious, since we had never noticed this
before at other chedis. We tried asking the monk
whether it was unique to this chedi and, if he
understood us correctly, it was. However, we have no
idea why...perhaps it had something to do with the way
it was situated with respect to the main chapel.
We headed back down and then into town where we found
a little cafe which showed movies all day. Some of
them are pirated and some aren't. Today, they showed
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in the
afternoon. Tonight, they are showing American History
X, which neither of us have
seen. We decided to give it a go.
We stopped at the guesthouse for sweaters and stuff
and then headed into town. We also picked up the book
I had just finished,
Letters from Thailand, by Botan
and translated by Susan Fulop.
This is a fantastic book about a Chinese immigrant to
Thailand who writes letters back to his mother in
China, describing his life (over a period of over 20
years). Interestingly, the letters were intercepted
by a Chinese censor (they never reached his mother),
who later, as a result of the Thailand depicted in his
letters, defected with the letters. The Police
General got his hands on them and after agonizing long
and hard, finally decided to have them translated into
Thai and published. He agonized about it because the
letters do, in many respects, criticize the Thais.
They are not inaccurate, necessarily. Just critical.
It's a fascinating book. Particularly since Bangkok
is about 50% Chinese. But, I had finished the book
and it was time to trade it in on something else, if
we could find an open bookstore.
We did, but nothing worth trading for in that one.
So, on we went to the movie. I don't know if any of
you have ever seen American History X, but it's
terribly disturbing...it's about skinheads in America.
We were about half-way through the movie and it
finally started to turn around...the lead character,
played by Edward Norton, had had enough and wanted out
of the lifestyle of hatred he had so long espoused.
Unfortunately, about that time, a combination of
hunger, smoke inhalation and who knows what else gave
Kirk a splitting headache, so we left without seeing
the outcome.
We grabbed some light fare from some vendors around
the corner, and headed back to our bungalow for the
night.
On February 18th, we had our (outdoor) showers, left
our laundry with the guesthouse staff to wash (it's
cheaper here -- only 20 baht per kilo) and then headed
back into town for breakfast again. A quick internet
check (NO EMAILS?! Oh yeah...it's President's Day
back in the States...I guess that's why). We ran into
Todd and Courtney
again -- they were renting a motorbike from our email
shop (lots of places here are into multiple
businesses). We chatted with them for a bit and then
we went our separate ways. Then, we decided to go
find the hot springs. Pai is surrounded, apparently,
by several, the closest is just up the road from our
guesthouse, so that's the one we headed for. As we
drove up the road, we passed several elephant camps!
I didn't even know they were there! It was quite fun
seeing them, even though we weren't planning to do any
elephant riding while we were here in town! The drive
to the hotsprings turned out to be not quite as
eventful as the one to the waterfall yesterday
(although no less beautiful) -- it was paved.
Nice warm hot springs. |
Some Dragonflies at the Hot Springs. |
The hotsprings were...HOT. I actually decided not to
get in. I was actually feeling a bit dehydrated and
hot already. The springs were more like a stream with
several pools. The higher up you were, the hotter
they were. Kirk tried several locations and really
seemed to enjoy them. I think I would have enjoyed
them in the evening when the air was a lot cooler, but
not in the heat of the day. Also, I wasn't feeling
all that great -- we had started on our Chloroquine a
couple of weeks before, and I was experiencing some
side effects.
The Lower Falls. |
The Upper Falls. |
After the hotsprings, we went for a ride. At first,
we were looking for the "canyon", but then detoured
for gas and then to exchange my book for another.
Then, as we were driving up to the turnoff we had seen
for the Canyon, Kirk spotted a sign for ANOTHER
waterfall -- one that wasn't on any of our maps! He
took it, of course, and we ended up on yet another
long, dirt road. We even crossed two bamboo bridges
on the motorbike (they were quite a bit sturdier than
others that we've seen...these were even built for
cars). Finally, we arrived at the waterfall. It was
much different than the other one. There was a lower
waterfall and a sign that said "upper waterfall 150
meters". So, of course, we started climbing to get to
it. We had to cross over the river to get to a
vantage point, but it was certainly worth it. And,
unlike the other waterfall, this place was completely
deserted! What a gem!
As we left, we retraced our steps so that we could
find the elusive canyon. And we did. I decided,
having discovered that Kirk's headache from the night
before was contagious, to rest in the shade of a hut
nearby while he hiked the half-mile to the canyon.
While he was gone, two other farang came by and I
asked them how it was. The girl's reply was "It's NOT
the Grand Canyon." and she laughed. A few minutes
later, Kirk was back and I asked him the same
question. Surprisingly, his answer was identical! I
asked if he had spoken to the other two people on the
trail and he hadn't even seen them!
We headed back into town to relax a bit...a fruit
shake and watch the end of Lord of the Rings: Two
Towers (the pirated version, of course) at the little
cafe. I have to say, we've seen this version before
in Bangkok, and most of you don't realize that it's
really not the drama that you suppose. Somewhere
along the line, someone had subtitled it
into...English. Odd, since it's already in English,
you'd think. But particularly odd, when you watch it
and realize what a horrendously BAD job they did!
It's actually funny though, when you're watching a
really serious scene and the subtitling is so bad that
the entire room breaks out into hysteric laughter! Of
course, we got there about 2/3 of the way through the
movie (that we must have seen now, at least 4 or 5
times - once live and legitimately in the theatre).
The sunset at Cafe Del Doi. |
After it was over, around 5:30, we looked out the
door, and decided to head to
Cafe Del Doi, a rather
famous place on the edge of town, which looks west and
is known as a great place to watch the sunset! So, we
jumped on the motorbike, and off we went. When we
arrived, we saw Todd and Courtney occupying a table,
so we joined them for a bit. The sun was actually
close to dipping below the mountain at that point. We
all chatted for a bit and took a few photos. Then
they headed off to grab a dip in the hot springs
before it got too late and we ordered some dinner.
Kirk got something quite unusual -- we had never seen
it before, but it was tasty. It was called "deep
fried toast with minced meat"...it sounds awful, but
it was wonderful!
Afterwards, we headed back to town and to the movie
place where we got one of the prime seats (they are in
the front and it's basically a couch where you can lay
down in front of the TV...like you're at home)!! They
were showing the movie "Casino". I'd seen it
before and didn't much care for it the first time, but
Kirk had never seen it. I think the reason I didn't
like it was that all the characters were so negative.
After the movie, we headed back to the bungalow. Our
laundry was finished and hanging on hangers (wow!!) on
our door or folded in a basket on our deck.
Today, (February 19 - which means we've been married
one year and one month!), we haven't decided what
we'll do yet, but it's probably our last day in Pai.
If we can get a bus direct to Tha Ton, we will.
Otherwise, we may be forced to head to Chiang Mai
first.
2/22/03 Oh my! Pai to Chiang Mai!
On February 19,2003, we were looking for a way to get
to Tha Ton from Pai, and discovered you can't get
there from here. It figures! Basically if you want to
go anywhere you have to go back to Chiang Mai first.
Of course, we'd already spent almost two weeks in
Chiang Mai... it should be no surprise we'd end up
back there again! We were able to get a mini-bus to
Chiang Mai for only 150B (the ride to Pai was 190B).
In the afternoon, we went back to the movie place and
watched a weird (which is typical for) George Clooney
movie, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind".
After that, we had a relaxing evening back at the
bungalow reading our books.
On February 20, we packed up in the morning, since we
were going to have to meet the minibus at 3pm to head
back to Chiang Mai. After a nice breakfast and
checking our emails, we went looking for some shoes
for me. It seems everywhere I go, I have to take my
shoes off to get in. Since I am usually driving the
motorbike, I don't want to wear sandles, so I keep
having to take my boots on and off all day long, which
is a big pain. So we were looking for some cheap
slip-on shoes for me. It turns out that in Thailand, I
have BIG feet!! (And my feet aren't THAT big!) The
largest size most places have is a 42 (in European
sizes, which is a US 8.5). I take a 44 (US 10). We
searched for a while in Pai, but didn't find any
there.
Next, we started heading for the minibus pickup place.
Since we were staying outside of town, I had planned
to shuttle our gear out on the motorbike. I dropped
Donna off at the pickup point, and then went back to
get the first backpack. The proprietress figured out
what I was doing and showed up with her motorbike and
a rope as I brought the first pack out. I understood
what she meant, and gave her that pack, and then I
brought my pack on my bike. She saved me a trip. Donna
thought it was great when I pulled in with the pack
and she saw the proprietress following behind with her
pack, too. We loved staying at the Eden Guesthouse and
can't recommend it highly enough...they took amazing
care of us the entire time we were there!
The ride back to Chiang Mai was not the joy that
riding up was. We had a much smaller passenger list,
granted, and the ride was faster (only 3 hours), but I
thought Donna was going to jump over me and kill the
man sitting next to me! It's one thing to have a bad
attitude. But when he sits there belittling someone
else around her...well, it's not an easy thing for her
to deal with. The man was farang (white...you know,
European descent) and the woman looked like she was of
Asian or Thai descent. She seemed very nice. She was
certainly quiet. And very submissive. He spent the
entire three hour ride alternating between criticizing
her and then telling her nice things. It was a horrid
spectacle that at first I didn't notice, since I was
happily engrossed in my book and he was speaking
rather softly throughout. Donna made sure that my
obliviousness didn't last. We did take a quick stop
for gas and we chatted briefly with an English couple
sitting in front of us. They were quite nice.
Finally, the torturous ride ended and we were, at
last, back in Chiang Mai.
Once we had unloaded our gear, we looked around for a
guest house, trying to find something a bit cheaper
this time. We found Julie Guest House for only 130B
($3/day) It has a double bed and hot water shower and
a fan. Then I went out and rented a motorbike for
100B/day and we now have both lodging and transport
for less than we stayed here earlier at the Smile
House. We had dinner at Chiang Mai Gate area and then
headed to the Night Bazaar.
We were still searching for cheap slip-on shoes for
me, and a new journal for Donna. As we walked past
the stalls and stalls and stalls of vendors, it looked
pretty hopeless. All the people that sell journals
seem to get them from the same supplier. They were
all the rough-textured paper and fairly small. The
shoes also seemed to be the same selection at each
vendor -- all much more expensive than I wanted to
pay. Finally, near the end of our walking we came
across a real shoe store that had some cheap deck type
shoes... AND they happened to have a pair of size 44.
They are white, but, oh well. They were only 139B!
They are very comfy and I can slip them on and off
easily. We didn't find a journal for Donna. We would
look elsewhere for that. It seems the Night Bazaar
mostly has stuff oriented to tourists to bring home or
clothes.
Here is a butterfly at the farm. |
Tiger Striped Butterfly. |
Donna and the Orchids |
The next day (February 21), we had breakfast at the
guesthouse. (American Breakfast for Me, and Hard
Boiled eggs that turned out to be very runny for
Donna). Then, we decided to go for a motorbike ride
that morning and headed North. We drove out to a
Butterfly & Orchid Farm that Donna had seen on our way
into town the day before. We paid the 20B admission,
and our ticket showing we had paid was an Orchid
corsage! The butterfly farm was really neat! It is a
mesh enclosed building with lots of flowering plants
and tons of butterflys! I think I spotted about 6
different varieties. I thought there would be more.
Several orange ones and a few Tiger Striped orange and
black ones.
Next we went to the Orchid farm and walked around
looking at the different varieties and shooting a few
pictures, we then found ourselves in the store. We
walked slowly through, vaguely interested to see what
tourists (rather than travellers) spent their money
on.
Before we left we decided to head back to the
butterfly farm again. Donna spotted three of the
tiger-striped butteflies on one bush and was trying to
photograph them when she kept noticing that the bush
behind it was jumping and moving as if something was
in it, but whenever she looked she saw nothing.
Finally she leaned closer and saw a butterfly trapped
in what looked like part of a spider's web. She got a
pen from me and used it to pull the web loose with the
entangled butterfly. Then she pulled the butterfly
loose from the the web. At first he just dropped to
th ground, but then he flew away straight to one of
the open pineapples laying about and then started
drinking like crazy. It looked like part of his wings
had been eaten away, but luckily he was still able to
fly.
After a while we got back on the motorbike and
continued North. We passed lots more interesting
buildings and farms, etc. Eventually we decided to
pull over and get a bite to eat. We got some chicken
satay sticks from a vendor on the street and some soda
from the convenience store and had a little lunch. We
made this our turnaround point. On the way back into
town, we stopped at a couple of Wats and took a few
pictures of the unusual statues . The first one was
doing a lot of construction and looked like they were
getting ready for a new school year. They were
repairing all the playground equipment.
Wat Piyaram |
The next one was Wat Piyaram, it too was under
construction, but they had a very large FAT Buddha
statue next to the main temple, guarded by a pair of
unusual dragons. Very different than the other
buddhas we have seen at other Wats (most of the Thai
buddhas are really skinny). We took a few photos and
the continued on.
Dilapidated Shack and Tree. |
A few miles down the road, Donna had me stop and take
a picture of a scene she had seen on the way out of a
dilapidated shack with a flowering tree behind it in
the middle of a rice paddy.
When we arrived back in Chiang Mai, we went to the
Lotus mall and found a journal and some new pens for
Donna. This store reminded us very much of a Walmart
in the US. Even some of the advertising campaigns
were similar.
That evening after dropping off our film, which you
now see on the website, we did a little internet and
then decided to go see a movie in an actual movie
theater! A first for us in Thailand! We headed to
the Major Cineplex at
the Airport Center south of town, and saw Shanghai
Knights.
Very funny! It is sequel to Shanghai Noon with
Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. The best scene is a
fight scene with Jackie Chan using umbrellas.
Excellent! The theater was wonderful. They have
assigned seating, just like for a live theatre back
home. The screens were huge, the aisles had plenty of
legroom, and comfy recliner seats with cupholders, the
ushers show you to your seats with a flashlight.
There are no slideshow ads before the film. And to
top it all off the tickets were 100B/person, the two
tickets plus a coke and popcorn came to a total of
270B ($6.43!) It beats Pacific 16 at home anyday!
After a few ads and the previews, a message comes on
that asks you to stand and pay your respects to His
Majesty the King. We stood with everyone else and saw
a nice vignette about the king and royal family with I
think the national anthem playing. It's nice to see
how patriotic the Thais are -- you'd certainly never
see the English standing up before every movie to pay
their respects to their royal family!
The movie was very funny, and we had a good time.
After that we went back to our guesthouse where Donna
caught up on her journalling and I continued reading
the Lord of the Rings. I am about halfway through
(the entire chronicle of three books, that is).
By the way, we've now decided we don't WANT to go to
Tha Ton... well, we DO eventually. But it is right
by the border crossing into Laos that we will be
taking next month, so we figure we'll save it until
then! Our next destination...? We'll let you know
when WE figure it out. We have to be in Bangkok by
the 28th to catch our plane to Vietnam. Other than
that...somewhere between here and there would be good.
2/28/03 Farewell Thailand, but only for now!
A day of internet. A day on the motorbike. February
22nd, we spent most of the day indoors updating
websites, sorting out photo issues (the photo shop
that was supposed to add our latest set of photos to
our existing photo CD somehow managed to replace our
photo CD...we had only one set of photos on it when we
got it back! We took it back along with all the old
negatives so they could completely recreate the old
one!). In the evening, we headed back down to Chiang
Mai Gate for some dinner. While there, Kirk and I
were discussing just where in Thailand we were going
to head next. We had ruled Tha Ton out. We hadn't
ruled anything else out. We were discussing Lampang,
Sukhothai and Ayuthaya among other places. But we
didn't have our Lonely Planet and we were a little
unsure of distances. I asked the farang couple
sitting next to us if we could take a quick peek at
their LP so I could look up how long it would take to
get to Sukhothai. It turned out they had just ARRIVED
from Sukhothai!! So, we started chatting with them.
They were from the Netherlands and were very helpful.
They even suggested a guesthouse in which to stay
(knowing a good guesthouse is always a good thing).
So, I asked them if they were going to Pai. They
hadn't heard of it. We ended up moving over to their
table. It was easier than shouting across 4 meters of
space. We told them about Pai and Chiang Mai (they
had just arrived). They were quite interesting and it
was fun to have a conversation with other travelers
for a change. They were traveling for only 4 weeks,
but planned to see as much of Thailand and Cambodia as
possible. We even had the pleasure of pointing out
some of the best dessert vendors in the Chiang Mai
Gate area for them. They tried the coconut custards!
Yum!
We said our goodbyes and they headed off to the Night
Bazaar. hmmmmmm..... Night Bazaar. I had seen a
blue shirt there the other day that I still was
regretting not picking up. Kirk...? Off we went. It
took a couple of u-turns, but we found the same
vendor. She started at 220 Baht. I started at 120B.
I got the shirt for 150B, which is exactly what I
wanted to pay for it. Then, we headed back to the
room for an early night. We had church to attend in
the morning!
On February 23rd, we went back to Chiang Mai Christian
Fellowship. We met a very nice couple that was
visiting from Bangkok, Joe and Chris -- their son was
playing in a basketball tournament in Chiang Mai. We
hope to visit their church one of the times we are
back in Bangkok. The service was actually quite fun.
It was conducted by the B21 group - the high school
students - start to finish. The message was given by
the youth pastor. After church, I saw Lori (from the
cooking class) and we chatted with her for a bit.
Then she left to have lunch with some friends, so we
left too.
We had decided to take the motorbike to Lamphun for
the day. Lamphun is the oldest existing city in
Thailand and is about 25 kilometers south of Chiang
Mai. It was an incredibly beautiful drive down to
Lamphun and we saw some interesting sites along the
way. At one point, we saw what appeared to be some
sort of ceremony. There was a truck driving along the
street with a floral arrangement in it and announcing
something on a loudspeaker. There was another truck
following it, carrying some monks. Behind that, a
large number of ladies in dresses and bright orange
hats followed on foot, carrying silver bowls. We had
no idea what was going on. (More on this later).
 
Wat Mahawan in Lamphun |
We arrived in Lamphun and drove around the city to get
oriented. We had no map. The city is surrounded by a
circular moat. We figured we'd just drive until we
found a wat that looked interesting enough to explore.
I spotted a sign for one that looked good and we went
just outside the moat to Wat Mahawan, which is perhaps
one of the most famous in Lamphun. It was built by
Queen Chamdevi over 1300 years ago and is particularly
famous for her "Pharot Lamphun" amulets. People used
to dig all over the temple compound looking for them!
The wat had an interesting triple-headed dragon
guarding the temple. After looking around the wat for
a while, Kirk and I sat in the shade of a tree and
decided to learn to count in Thai. It was actually
easier than we expected, once we figured out the tones
(that's assuming, of course, that we have the tones
right)!
The next temple we found was a bit more touristic.
They had a cappucino shop outside!! And, a 20 baht
admission price! But, it looked good, so we paid and
went in to see Wat Phra That Hariphunchai, which was
really quite large. We actually ran into a German
tour group at one point and tagged along, trying to
eavesdrop on the tourguide, but he was speaking German
with a Thai accent -- and I barely remember enough to
understand German with a perfect German accent!
Needless to say, I didn't catch much!
Wat Phra That Hariphunchai, by the way, boasts the
largest bronze gong in the world. It hangs in a
pavillion on the grounds. (No, we did NOT ring it!)
Well, Kirk was getting tired of wats for the day, so
we went over to the market for some food. We had seen
it earlier when we were circling the moat. We found
some vendors selling satay - pork and chicken and one
even selling fried chicken satays with Thai chili
sauce! Yum!!
On the way back to Chiang Mai, I had my eyes open for
a temple we had seen on the way to Lamphun. It had
looked quite interesting and I wanted to stop and
check it out. I spotted it and we pulled over. There
were two monks inside sweeping the grounds as we
parked the motorbikes and removed our helmets (yes, we
are two of the few in Thailand that actually use
helmets!). As we started to round the corner, we
realized that there were a lot of people there and
there was something going on...a ceremony -- wedding,
funeral, party or something. We immediately retreated
and slipped back on the motorbike and out the front
gate as quietly as possible. I don't think we made
too much commotion. I had noticed pink flowers - the
same color we had seen on the truck earlier. Kirk
thought he saw a portrait on an easel. Curious.
We drove down the road a short way and saw a huge
market we had noticed on the way out. It didn't look
like a tourist/farang market, so we decided to stop!
What fun!! There wasn't a tourist vendor in sight!
We got to see what the Thais buy when they are at the
market! The vendors hardly gave us a look (except,
perhaps, out of curiosity); there was none of the
grabbing, hard-sell tactics that we get from the
vendors in the other markets we had seen! We walked
through the whole market.
As we were leaving, the truck with the flowers and
ladies with silver bowls was back. This time, though,
they had on white or straw hats. I was close enough
to see in the bowls... they had flowers and incense
and money. They were walking through the crowd,
collecting donations. Of course, we still didn't know
for WHAT. We resolved to ask our friends in Chiang
Mai if they knew.
Kirk, Donna, Jason and Nok. Jason owns the Star Cafe. |
When we arrived in Chiang Mai, we headed straight for
the Star Cafe, where we asked Nok, Jason's girlfriend
if she knew what we had seen. Of course, our
description probably wasn't the most complete, but as
best as we can tell, we probably saw a funeral
ceremony. Interesting.
By the way, have we told you that here, practically
EVERYONE travels on a motorbike (I won't say
motorcycle, because many of them are much SMALLER than
that and really too small to be called motorCYCLES
like we think of them at home)... sometimes, we see
three and four ADULTS on them at once!! OFTEN, you'll
see whole families (two adults and two kids) on them.
It's funny...I've NEVER thought of a motorcycle as a
family car before!
We were about to leave Chiang Mai. We figured we'd go
and see one more movie (if we could find one we wanted
to see). We thought we'd try the OTHER cinema in
town. When we got there, we decided to see Ong-Bak, a
Thai film that had English subtitles. All you action
film/kung-fu lovers out there...this movie was GREAT!!
(However, it's not for the faint-of-heart). The star
of the film, Phanom Yeeram,
is like a combination of Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and
Jet Li. He is fast and flexible like no one you have
seen before! The movie features interesting aspects
of Thai culture, such as the tendency of male Thais to
spend time as monks, tuk tuks (3-wheeled motorcycle
taxis), Muay Thai boxing (Thai-style martial arts),
the theft of buddha relics for profit, etc. The main
character is a monk-to-be who leaves his failing
village to recover a buddha head that is stolen. He
is forced to use muay thai, although previously he had
never fought before. The downside of the movie is
that, although it promotes non-violence, it shows MUCH
violence to promote that theme.
On February 24th, we showered and packed up some stuff
we had decided we wouldn't need for the next month or
so. Jason had agreed to let us store some things at
his place. So, we left our tent, sleeping bags (it's
WAY too hot for them), camp stove and cooking gear,
and some other heavy items at his apartment. WOW is
my pack light now!! Yeee haaa!! Then, after a quick
breakfast and a chat with some other North Americans
(Peter and Sarah), we caught a tuk tuk to the bus
terminal and booked a second class bus to Sukhothai.
We bought snacks and got on board. It sure didn't
LOOK like a second class bus to us. We had been on
second class before and it was MUCH nicer and WAY
cooler than this!! They did turn on the A/C shortly
after we got on, but frankly, it wasn't much help.
For the next five hours, we sweated and bounced all
the way to Sukhothai.
The one good thing about the ride down was that they
had a DVD player on the bus and they showed movies
that were in English and subtitled in Thai! So, we
could actually understand them! First, they showed
"Air Force One". Then, "Then We Were Soldiers". It
certainly helped to pass the time a little. Plus,
unlike our bus to Chiang Mai, there were heaps of
farang. We chatted with a few, off and on.
Sukhothai Sunset on 2/24 |
When we arrived in Sukhothai, Kirk and I caught a ride
to the guesthouse with a Songthaew. We ended up
paying 30 baht (less than $1). We went to a place
another couple had recommended, Friend Guest House.
When we pulled up, it looked much fancier than I had
imagined. It actually looked more like a hotel. But
we got a room with fan and cold water shower for 250
baht. We immediately changed clothes and went out
for a walk around town. We checked the prices of
motorbikes and decided to wait until tomorrow AM to
rent one (so to save money). We headed over to the
night market.
As we headed across the river, we saw at the huge
square (which is grass-covered) that a stage had been
set up and a guy was leading about 200 girls/women in
an aerobics class!! First of all, we NEVER see Thais
exercising! And CERTAINLY not doing aerobics...in a
PUBLIC SQUARE!! We were shocked!! We stopped and
watched for a while (plus it was fun to hear the
really old music they were playing)!
We found a great little vendor where we ordered
dinner. We later ended up there again! We had the
basil chicken and split it. It's normally a very
spicy dish, but she was pretty tame on us! She also
had an exceptionally friendly cat. I had leaned over
and petted it for a few seconds on the head. It
promptly put its paws in my lap, put out its claws and
then tried to climb up (without jumping)! OW!*&# I
picked it up!! After that things were better and it
did NOT want to leave. Of course, I'm a sucker for a
cat that wants to be petted. I let it stay in my lap
until dinner came and then it went onto the
floor...until dinner was gone and then I picked it up
again. We also were sitting right next to a fruit
shake vendor, which we made good use of. Yum!
Pineapple for me and watermelon for Kirk (we reversed
roles for the night)! While we were sitting there, we
chatted with a guy from the Netherlands (John) and one
from England (Aidan). It turned out they had both
been in Pai. In fact, Aidan had been in Pai at the
same time we had, and we had even SEEN him at the
waterfall (we had seen him slip on the slide and fall
in)!! What a small world! We all finally realized we
had been there a while and taking up the poor vendor's
table! We said our goodbyes and left!
When we were walking back to our room, we noticed all
the bugs all over the place. They were clustered
around every light. They were every where! And there
were tens of geckos on the walls around our
room...going after bugs (go get 'em, boys!). But, we
seem to have startled the geckos a bit. They ran away
from us as we approached. One of them ran a bit too
fast along the ceiling and lost his grip, falling on
my head. I was, shall we say, a bit surprised. Kirk,
who was walking behind me, saw the whole thing
unfolding and laughed his head off!
On February 25, we got up LATE!! It was REALLY hard
to get up! Especially for Kirk, who didn't sleep very
well at the Julie GuestHouse (which was very loud, by
the way). It is wonderfully quiet here! Surprisingly
so, actually. We finally crawled out of bed around
9:30 or so and went and rented a motorbike. There
were two places in town, both claiming the same rates
(200 baht for 24 hours, or 150 per day). We actually
rented the bike at the shop that had the newer bikes
for 150 baht per 24 hours.
After a trip to the post office, we found a little
place to have breakfast in town. It was actually an
interesting experience. As we sat there, we noticed
there weren't ANY farangs around (other than us, that
is), just Thais. From about 9AM to 5PM (or so),
farangs seem to abandon the new city en masse and
converge on the old city. Then, at 5PM, the new city
is once again deluged with foreigners demanding food
and searching for a bargain among street vendors and
guesthouses. Rising late allowed us to see the city
as it is "normally" during the day...without the
intruders. We also took time to admire the many
contraptions that drove by. Thais are particularly
ingenious, it seems to us (although we haven't yet
been to other Asian countries). Everywhere we look,
there are variations on the motorbike -- tuk tuks,
samlor tuks, gourmet cookeries set up on the front end
of a motorbike, traditional transport and even for
hauling goods, all sorts of things!
Then, we headed to the old city...and it was farang
(and Japanese tourists) everywhere! We decided to go
through the Ramkhamhaeng National Museum
first. When we arrived, they were in the process of
shining EVERYTHING. Apparently, the King was hosting
the Swedish Monarchy and on the 27th (the day we
planned to leave Sukhothai), the Prince was bringing
them to visit the city. We were glad that we were
planning to be gone by then, since the entire city was
going to be closed down that day to everyone except
the Royal family and their guests!! We enjoyed our
trip through the museum (except for the odor of the
polish everywhere!). Afterwards, we stopped in the
museum shop for a cold drink and sat by the window in
the shade. We got a good laugh when Kirk was talking
and waved his hand over the water (there was a pond
outside the window) and all the fish ran over,
expecting food! The fish have apparently learned to
beg!!
On we headed into the Sukhothai Historical Park, which
was inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in
1991 (along with several surrounding areas). If
you don't know, there are over 730 sites worldwide
that have received the UNESCO inscription (and hence,
much focus is placed on them, increasing the
protection they are afforded). I didn't realize how
many there were (or how many I had actually been to)!
Wat Mahathat |
Our first stop was at what is probably the showpiece
of Sukhothai, Wat Mahathat. Wat Mahathat
has the most central location in the city and is the
largest. It once contained 198 chedis, several
chapels and sanctuaries. It still has buddha images
at the ruins, unlike some of the other sites we
visited. The lotus bud shape of the main chedi is
typical of the Sukhothai style of art. There is a 9
meter high buddha between the north and south
principle chedis, which is believed to be one
mentioned in a famous Stone Inscription.
Snake we saw at Wat Si Sawai |
We stopped briefly at
Wat Trapang Ngoen
and then headed on to Wat Si Sawai.
Wat Si Sawai has three beautiful prangs. Prangs
are quite different from chedis. As we were walking
around the prangs, we actually saw a snake crawling
into the niche in the wall! We stopped and took a
photo of it (we were really surprised to see it, but
probably not as surprised as it was to see us!), and
then gave it a really wide berth.
 
Walking Buddhas at Wat Sa Si |
We then headed on to see Wat Sa Si. The
Sukhothai period was particularly famous for its
walking buddha art.
We saw quite a number of walking buddhas in
Sukhothai, including at Wat Sa Si; up until now, we
hadn't seen them at all!
The King's Monument |
Next to Wat Sa Si is Wat Chanasungkham, which seemed
to be fairly minor. But, it was right across from the
King's monument (King Ramkhamhaeng). We walked over
to take a look. There were flowers all over it! At
first, I thought it had something to do with the visit
by the Swedes, but then I realized that the flowers
would all wilt long before Thursday (it's VERY hot
here!!). We saw many people taking up flowers to
leave as an offering to the king. While we were at
the monument, we took a photo for a large group of
people (Thais) -- it was a sports team of some sort,
complete with coaches and chaperones. There is some
sort of games going on in Sukhothai. We had seen
people wandering around town in the morning, wearing
warm-ups, and plastic ID badges. We asked them what
they were doing in Sukhothai and they said they were
here for the Physical Education Games. We ended up
chatting with several groups of kids from the Games
throughout the day -- they were happy to talk to us,
it seems (and many of them spoke English well). In
fact, as we walked back to the motorbike, a group said
hello to us (in English), so we said hello back (in
Thai). They asked us where we were from and we said
the USA. Suddenly, one of the girls looked at me and
said something (REALLY FAST) in Thai. I looked at
her, started to open my mouth to say something and
realized that I didn't know WHAT to say. I had NO
idea what she had said. My face was completely blank!
I could FEEL it GO blank! The entire group of kids
burst out laughing, as did Kirk and I! It was
hilarious! She told me she had said "How are you?"
and what to say back. We learned some more Thai that
day!!
Nice chedi with surrounding elephants at Wat Sorasaki |
Armed with a bit more Thai, we headed over to Wat
Trakuan and then out to Wat Sorasaki. I particularly
liked Sorasaki. It had interesting elephant
sculptures encircling the base of the stupa. Wat Son
Klao wasn't very spectacular, so we headed on to Ta
Pha Deng Shrine,
which was built in the Khmer style during the Angkor
Wat period (1107 to 1157 AD). Several god and goddess
images carved in stone were found in the situ. We
climbed up the stairs to the center of the shring, but
quickly turned back due to the stench.
Wat Par Pai Luang |
Sukhothai Historic Park, which is huge, is divided
into five zones. We decided it was time to head
outside the city walls. The town is rectangular in
shape and actually had three city walls and three
moats surrounding and protecting it. There was a gate
and defensive tower on the middle of each of the
walls. We drove through the gate and headed east,
toward Wat Pha Pai Luang. It took us a bit of time to
locate a road to get there, as it is completely
surrounded by a series of moats and a challenge to
reach. One of the things I noted about this
particular wat was the number of buddhas that we saw
laying around in pieces. I don't know whether it was
from deterioration or so-called "tomb-raiders" or
what, but there must have been over 100 buddhas that
had been damaged and left behind. It did make me
wonder what the place had looked like when it was in
use! The temple clearly had at least three prasat
style buildings. We also, while we were there, saw
some men from Japan who had been commissioned by the
"Administration Office" to map the wat. They were
using some sort of high tech camera that transferred
the data direct to a computer mapping program. It was
pretty cool to watch.
Wat Sri Chum |
Kirk went in the hole in the wall! |
We next found
Wat Si Chum,
which was pretty cool. Aw we walked down the pathway
toward the temple, I could see a HUGE buddha image
in/on the building looking out at us (and I mean,
H-U-G-E)!! As we got closer, we could see it was
defintiely in the building, seen through a slit in the
wall. The buddha was in the building, sitting in the
position called "subduing mara". Close up, you almost
had to crane your neck to see him!! We took a couple
of photos (of ourselves and for others -- we met a guy
from Madagascar who is on a 7 month RTW) and then
headed back to the motorbike. We were enticed by the
ice cream man...it was seriously hot outside and that
ice cream looked really good (and it WAS). I can't
believe that's the first ice cream I've had in almost
a month (my first in Thailand)!
Wat Saphan Hin |
We headed for another zone, toward the dam. We
stopped at
Wat Saphan Hin. You
remember that great ice cream? Me being hot? It
being nice and cold? Well, I just ruined all those
benefits of a nice, cold ice cream! Wat Saphan Hin,
it turns out, is at the top of a really steep hill.
But, we were determined to see it anyway! In fact, it
was on our list of wats we "must-see"! The "road" to
get up there was actually a "bridge" of slate rock,
climbing the mountainside. So, up we went. And up.
Up. Up. Up. About half way up, we passed a chedi, but
I figured I'd see it on the way down. I didn't want
to stop now. I was on a roll. As we neared the top,
I noticed a Thai couple sitting on the wall, watching
us climbing. Now, you have to understand...I have a
bit of Norwegian blood. And English. And probably a
few other things, German maybe and who knows what
else. I have ALWAYS turned a bit red at the drop of a
hat. Embarrass me and I go red. If it's a bit hot
out, I turn red. If I exercise (it doesn't matter if
it's 10 degrees, 60 degrees or 100 degrees), I turn
red...not a little pink, mind you...BEET RED. I think
the Thai couple was staring, wondering how long it
would be until I passed out! (If they were taking
bets, they both lost...I should have collected!)
After Kirk and I had walked around the ruins a bit, we
went and sat down near the couple, looking out over
the valley below. It really was a nice view. We
ended up trying to have a conversation with them. Of
course, we speak no Thai. They spoke no English.
But, we have a handy-dandy phrase book (that seems to
have very little practical stuff in it...how is it
that nothing I want to say is actually IN there?!).
They were in town for the Physical Education Games.
The boy was competing in Judo. They were both 20
years old and students. We must have talked (or
attempted to, anyway) to them for an hour before they
had to go! It was taxing, but a lot of fun!! We took
some photos for a Japanese couple that came up the
hill and then headed down ourselves.
Wat Manghorn |
We took a last minute run by the ruins of Wats Chang
Rob, Khaw Phra Bat Noi, Manghorn, Manakaset Piman Hall
& Shrine, and Pa Mamuang. The ruins in this area just
don't seem to have survived as well as those we saw
earlier in the day. We decided it was too hot to
continue on, so we headed back toward the new city.
We stopped at a little market where we picked up
snacks (satay and chicken strips) and very cold drinks
(yay!!) and then walked around the market for a bit.
We were pleased to see it was another "local" market
rather than a tourist market.
We spent the evening relaxing, doing internet, etc.
We had a late supper at the night market area.
On February 26th, we got up late again. We had stayed
up late the night before. How is it that once you
start going to bed late, it's hard to force yourself
to go to sleep early? We forced ourselves out of bed
at 9AM and had breakfast at the guesthouse. On the
way to the old city, we stopped at the bus station and
bought tickets to Bangkok - 256 baht each for the 10AM
bus. It was first class this time, but the photo
looked like the second class bus we were on from
Bangkok to Chiang Mai. We would see.
Thu Riang Kilns where they made pottery. |
Kirk, our motorbike and Wat Mae Chon |
Once in the old city, we headed back to an area near
where we had been the day before! We went to the Tao
Thu Riang Kiln! We had somehow totally missed the
kilns the first time we had been there...we had seen
the sign, but not the actual kilns. On the way back
to the south side of the city, we also stopped by Wat
Mae Chon, which we had seen yesterday. As many wats
as there are in Sukhothai, the guides that you can
purchase for the city only provide a small piece of
the picture. Everywhere that we turned, there were
wats and ruins, some marked and some not, that were
NOT on any of the maps or guides that we had! Wat Mae
Chon was one such ruin.
Wat Chetuphon |
This was actually a day of surprises for me. Some of
the ruins we found in outlying areas turned out to be
really nice finds.
Wat Chetuphon was
one. This temple is well know for four (huge) buddha
images in sitting, standing, walking and reclining
postures on each side of the wihan. Interestingly,
the also supported the roof of the wihan where they
were enshrined. We also found some
unusual type of
rock used in the structures.
It looked like slate or something.
Wat Si Pichit Kiti Kalyeram |
Right across the road was
Wat Chedi Si Hong,
which had an interesting chedi with elephants and
people on it. We didn't stay long though...we kept
moving, desperate for shade. We didn't find any at
Wat Si Phichit Kiti Kalyaram, but we found an ENORMOUS
chedi. My camera didn't have a wide angle enough lens
to take a photo of it...I had to use Kirk's camera!
We took quick peeks at Wats Asokaram and Mum Lanka
(which had trees but we now needed cold drinks) and
then found ourselves a little vendor with shade and
very cold drinks for sale. Despite ordering in Thai,
we didn't get quite what we ordered, but frankly, we
were so hot and thirsty, we didn't care. We were just
happy to be sitting, in the shade with a cup with ice
and liquid in it! Who cares about the details! We
did take that opportunity to learn how to say "How
much?"
We were off again. Wat Tha Phang Thong Lang was next
on the list. Supposedly the stucco reliefs on the 3
sides of the mondop depict certain stories from the
life of buddha, but Kirk and I have NO idea how they
can tell WHAT the reliefs were depicting! For the
most part, they were completely decayed! The next
wat, Wat Chedi Sung, which was on the map, was perhaps
the biggest surprise. Not because it was particularly
spectacular, but because there is no road to get
there!! It sure is a good thing we have a motorbike
and Kirk knows how to drive wherever he wants on it!!
The main attraction of this wat is the unusual chedi,
which is in a much different sytle than all the others
we have seen so far (and believe me, we have seen
LOTS!!).
Wat Chang Lom Elephant |
We then went on to see Wat Chang Lom. I honestly
wasn't expecting much, but I was now VERY pleasantly
surprised!
Wat Chang Lom's chedi is surrounded by 36
elephants,
some of which are still in one piece. We then decided
to drive into the main part of the city to the three
places we had missed the day before. I had saved
these for last, thinking they would be the most
interesting. I was wrong. Sigh. Wat Mai and Noen
Prasat were right by the East Gate. We had actually
seen them yesterday, but just not really paid
attention. Noen Prasat, which was on the map as the
"King's Palace", had actually been practically
definitely disproved as the site of the King's Palace
in recent years. We went off to the last site, Wat
Traphang Thong. It had a beautiful setting, on an
island, completely surrounded by a moat, but the wat
itself was fairly unremarkable. We decided to have
another cold drink to console ourselves.
We were pretty much wat-ted out, so we decided to go
find the waterfall. We had seen signs for one. Off
we went. I was a bit nervous. The signs going our
direction were clear. I was glancing back everytime
we made a turn. The signs going the other way were
all in Thai. It was going to be tricky getting back.
And of course, the road turned to dirt. We drove
several kilometers on the dirt road and came to a
house. We weren't sure if we had taken a wrong turn
and hesitated. A bunch of kids sitting outside waved
us on (they looked like kids in town for the Phys Ed
Games), so we drove up the road on the motorbike. A
man came running up the hill after us, trying to stop
us. Yes, it was the right way, but we had to park the
bike and go the rest of the way on foot, about 2km.
We took our gear and started hiking, passing a few
people coming the other way. It was a nice hike and
we came to a stream rather quickly. We hiked upstream
for well over half an hour (and certainly more than 2
km) and never found the waterfall. We eventually
stopped when we hit an area that was impassable.
Instead, we stripped to our swimsuits (we had planned
ahead this time) and climbed into that wonderfully
cool water! Oh, what a joy to get into cold water on
a really hot day in Thailand!! I didn't even mind the
fish that kept swimming into me (not too much,
anyway). We hiked back down, climbed on the bike, and
easily found our way back to the main road...stopped
for ANOTHER cool drink (of COURSE) and headed back to
town.
Remember that great little place with the cat? You
know, the outdoor vendor lady? We went back and had
another great dinner. Phat Thai for me and Chicken
Noodle Soup for Kirk. We met a German guy and a
French guy this time. The French didn't speak much
English though. A walk around town (and roti for
dessert) before heading back to the guesthouse.
The samlor tuk we rode to the bus station |
On February 27th, yesterday, we got up, packed, had
breakfast, caught a samlor tuk to the bus station and
then boarded our first class bus to Bangkok. It was
really more like the Second Class bus we took from
Bangkok to Chiang Mai...well, frankly, not even THAT
nice, if we are TRULY honest, but whatever. It was
cheap (US$6 each). We were on the bus for 7 hours and
then we took a city bus from the north bus terminal to
Kho San road. Now, get this. When we got to the bus
terminal, we had tuk tuk and taxi drivers trying to
get us to ride with them to Kho San. We asked how
much. They quoted us prices anywhere from 250 to 400
baht. No, no, we said. Too much. No one would go
below 250. We knew we could take a bus for less, but
weren't sure of the exact cost. It depended on which
bus we caught. We got bus number three. The cost? 3
1/2 baht each. Yes, that's right...a TOTAL of 7 baht.
I'd say we got the better deal. And it only took us
about 30 minutes longer to get there than if we had
taken a taxi.
We decided to go back to the place we had stayed last
time we were in Bangkok, Central Guest House. We
tried a few other places, but they were either full or
wanted too much. We got a room for 160 baht a night.
Nice and cheap. Last night, we just had some dinner,
relaxed, checked on bus prices to the airport on
Saturday, dropped off some film. Nothing too
strenuous. We even did some reading about Vietnam.
Today (February 28), we woke up tired. I had
forgotten how loud Bangkok is! We have been very
spoiled up north, that's for sure! We drug our tired
bodies out of bed and went looking for breakfast. We
went back to our favorite little shake lady. This is
the woman, who, a month ago, got me (and Kirk, I
think) hooked on fruit shakes. She was still there,
in the same place, and even remembered us. She had
some competition around her this time, though. We
stopped at the post office to see if a package we are
expecting had arrived (Kirk was hoping it would arrive
today...otherwise, we will have to wait until we
return from Vietnam). It wasn't there yet. We had
breakfast at the vending area next to the government
lottery office. We had eaten there before and liked
it. This time, the vendor we went to was actually a
bit rude to us since we ate only one dish and shared
it (we've been doing this quite a bit lately, as we
usually end up wasting food otherwise). It was
annoying. Boy do I miss North Thailand.
Kirk and the griffin outside the National Museum |
We decided to head over to the
National Museum.
We hadn't managed to get there before when we were in
Bangkok. There were a couple of wonderful advantages
of this. First of all, it was AIR CONDITIONED. This
makes us very very happy. We LOVE air conditioning.
The main part of the museum has a lot of history of
the kingdom of Thailand and the various kings that
have ruled over it. We found all of the information
quite intriguing. For example, did you know that we
are actually in the city of Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon
Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop
Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet
Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya
Witsanukam Prasit? That is the full name of Bangkok.
Bangkok is really just a nickname. In Thailand, names are
very very long. Phonebooks list people by their first
name. Most people are known by nicknames. It's all
very interesting. Bangkok's real name, by the way, is
in the Guiness Book of World Records as being the
longest name of a place. There was a place in New
Zealand (that we didn't go to) that was the longest
word/name of a place.
We also learned a lot about the monarchy in Thailand,
which I found interesting. One thing that was curious
was that Rama VIII "died suddenly", but it never said
how. We looked around and finally, on a computer
database, we discovered that he had been assassinated
in his residence. It was strange to us that this
information was so hidden. Note: As I was looking
for an online reference to show you about Rama VIII, I
found conflicting stories. Once seems to indicate he
accidentally shot himself while cleaning his gun and the
other that
he was assasinated by Royal Guards.
Incidentally, the guards were later tried, acquitted,
re-tried, found guilty and executed in 1954.
There were also references to tragic occurrences on
October 14, 1973 and May 19, 1992, dates
which we had not heard of! We knew of nothing which
occurred on these dates that they might be referring
to. However, upon researching it here, on the
internet, we discovered that numerous citizens were
shot and killed during demonstrations on democracy in
two separate events on those dates, supposedly under
orders from a corrupt military dictatorship.
It's an
odd, confusing story that does not seem to have been
told yet.
If anyone knows of a good account of it, please pass
it on to me.
We finished up at the museum, bought tickets on a
minibus to the airport tomorrow (70 baht each), and
checked back at post restante. No luck. We'll have
to wait until we're back from Vietnam.
I bought a couple of books on Vietnam to read while we
are traveling through that country:
Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow
and
Romancing Vietnam: Inside the Boat Country by Justin Wintle.
Hopefully, these will last the three weeks we are
there! Kirk is almost done with the Lord of the
Rings, too, so I imagine he'll pick at least one of
them up when he is finished.
We are just catching up on the internet and uploading
some photos tonight and doing last minute stuff before
we head off to another country...Vietnam. So,
farewell for now from Thailand. We will see you again
in Vietnam!!
To continue reading chronologically go to our
Vietnam section.
