Bridges, temples and silk: Thailand

In an attempt to catch up with our travel blog, this post will cover our final 3 destinations in Thailand: Kanchanaburi, Ayutthaya and Surin. All 3 were quite different from each other, and in a way, ticked most of the boxes we had for our visit in Thailand. In all honesty, we had expected more from this country. After reading so many rave reviews, we felt a little deflated as we toured around. So, apologies for those that love Thailand, but personally, we didn’t feel the magic that we expected. Maybe that was the problem; we ‘expected’ a little too much. We also appreciate that it is a huge country and we only dipped our feet in for what felt like a matter of seconds in comparison with India and Nepal.

I think our biggest issue here was money. Much like every other traveller, money and budget play a huge part and truly dictate how you travel, where you stay and for what duration. Keeping a close eye on your wallet is always good advice, despite how mundane it can be.

Compared to India and Nepal, Thailand proved to be very expensive. Certainly travel costs seemed to be far more costly, but accomodation and food were also slightly more inflated. This wouldn’t usually be a problem, but our budget was already set, and if we wanted to ‘last’ out here, then we needed to find cheap and cheerful options: everywhere. Without further ado, I present to you Thailand’s greatest asset: 7/11! Every time we entered one of these convenience stores, we felt like we were cheating. We came all the way across the world, to this beautiful country and appear to spending rather a lot of time in the heavily air conditioned 7/11 shops: crazy! But for those on a shoe-string, these shops were a real money saver. Beer (yes, I’ve started a list with ‘beer’), water, bread, noodles, toilet paper; everything is cheaper in these shops and we really roped back in some of the lost savings that we spent on buses, trains etc. Of course there are street vendors serving up delicious, often an indistinguishable array of delights, but for day to day supplies (water is the obvious big one) then look no further: and trust me, you don’t need to look for them…7/11’s everywhere. In fact, 99% of the time, you can be stood on the doorstep of one 7/11 and if you look down the street, you’ll surely spot another.

Back to Kanchanaburi, our first stop outside of the wonderful Bangkok capital. Lying 4 hours north west on the banks of the river Kwai, and stooped in history, we chose this place for rather obvious reasons. The river itself is beautiful, with water lilies dotted all over and the fantastic back drop of the nearby mountains, every photo taken was like an instant postcard. Our first of 2 guesthouses was on the water itself. Suspended on floating barrels, we felt the slow, gentle rocking motion of the water as we lay in bed that evening. The town itself has been described as a mini, relaxed version of Bangkok – relaxed, yes…but we couldn’t see any other resemblance to the big city. Like a small fishing town, with a few bars and huge flowering bushes lining the streets, Kanchanaburi felt far more rural: a perfect place to rest up for a while. Our second guesthouse was also situated on the river, slightly further away from the centre (which dramatically dropped the price) and offered great views over the river: sunsets here were dreamy, with powerful orange and red tints of light reflecting over the calm water, another postcard view that we felt lucky to part of.

The main attraction here is of course the bridge over the river Kwai. Made famous by the 1957 David Lean film, the bridge itself is a mass of black steel, with the train tracks running across it. The museum is well worth a visit and quickly paints a horrific picture of the slavery and grueling conditions the POW’s faced when constructing the bridge. The heat of the midday sun was well into the 30’s, which made it easier to imagine the suffering that they must have felt. We took the train across the bridge itself, which is a memory that will stick we me for a long time. By closing my eyes, I could feel the dead, stuffy breeze pass through my clothes. I could hear the rhythmic clunking of the track below, which painted a picture of tired men, labouring their heavy sledge hammers and constantly under attack from the brutal Japanese army. It was a difficult concept to try and understand, a lesson of modern slavery and we both felt a wave of gratitude and compassion for all of those involved.

Our second stop proved to be quite different to both Bangkok and Kanchanaburi. Ayutthaya is home to some very famous and fascinating temples. The historical park itself is spread across many acres, with hundreds of temples and Buddhist monuments, you could easily spend a couple of days getting lost and exploring. Lush green grass and shady trees adorn the park and as we cycled from one area to the next, it was fun to imagine the life and energy that once was. One of the most memorable images here was at Wat Mahathat and the stone head of Buddha entangled in the roots of an old fig tree. The huge 37 meter long (8 meter high!) reclining Buddha at Wat Lokayasutharam was also incredibly impressive and a true tribute to the past artists and sculptures.

On a slightly different note, Ayutthaya also has some of the strangest, coolest tuk tuk’s we have seen so far. Looking like something from the future, all brightly colourful and even a Batman one: fully equipped with a batman figure glued to the roof, brilliant! We stayed at a tiny little internet cafe which only had a handful of rooms, but had two things that Malene and I have been looking for all over Thailand. Firstly, it was cheap as chips, secondly, and a huge bonus, it had A/C…oh what a delight! We even had to break out the sleeping bags which were starting to collect dust. It was certainly nice not to sleep in a pool of our own sweat for once: 200 baht (£4 a night) for those interested. It was next to this place that I had my first ever Thai full-body massage. As lovely as the girl was who gave me the massage, I sort of felt like she broke me. I have absolutely nothing against larger women, but my spine has a different opinion! It will be a while before I get another massage, and probably even longer until I walk with a straight back again.

Our final stop in Thailand and possibly our quietest stop, was in Surin. North east of Bangkok and close to the Cambodian border, this sleepy town would be our port to Cambodia and our chance to see hand woven silk, a famous Thai skill and one we didn’t want to miss before leaving. Staying at a remote homestay, we started to feel a little bit more of what Thailand had to offer. Away from the buzz of big cities, tour agencies and inflated prices, it was great to finally enjoy Thailand. The silk village that we visited was equally quiet and secluded and a lovely setting to experience hand woven silk garments up close. The patience and skill the women have in weaving was breathtaking to watch. A small team of ladies, each with individual roles would effortlessly weave intricate and detailed patterns using the ultra-fine threads of silk. It was so wonderful to see the traditional methods still being used and reminded Malene and I of the simple beauties of life. Patience, hard work and dedication can all be admired and learned from an afternoon here at the silk village.

It was a brief encounter with Thailand, much like this post. Short and sweet sums our travels around this country and we wish, in some ways, that we had more time and definitely more money to explore it further. We’ve heard so many great things about the north of Thailand, but with our ‘home-dates’ firmly set in our minds and 2 highly anticipated countries to go, it was time to close this chapter and begin another. We were also lucky enough to meet two fellow travelers: Ellen and Anton who would bravely join us to cross the Thailand/Cambodian border. That journey, however, will be for the next post as I feel I have already bitten off more than I can chew for one entry!

Onto country number 4: Cambodia, will it prove to be better than Thailand?

Entering Thailand: Bangkok

Apart from sitting at either end of the plane from each other, the flight over from Kathmandu to Bangkok (via good old Delhi) was pretty harmless. Shabby food, mediocre film, but the most incredible views over the Himalayas and the mighty Mt. Everest.

I will admit straight away that I was pretty worried about our arrival into Bangkok. Hearing stories about the hussle, the dirt, the traffic and Kao San road led me to think that we wouldn’t enjoy our stay…maybe we could just stop over in the city for one night then move on. It would turn out that I couldn’t have been further wrong about the place. This is a common problem I have with travelling and pre-reading about our future stops. It’s so easy to skip all the positive reviews and weight too much influence on the negative comments. When booking a hotel, we would often flick past the ‘good’ reviews and read the negative ones, thinking for some reason that they carry more truth. It’s a crazy idea. Follow these rules and we’d end up sleeping on the streets, which obviously we don’t! I suppose its a way to try and get the best value for our money…but those negative reviews, be it for a hotel, restaurant, a tour, a temple: you name it, negativity isn’t hard to find, you just to take those comments with a rather large pinch of salt.

We arrived into the airport, struggled with our visas for a little while then grabbed our bags and headed for the taxi rank. There were no tuk tuks, no bicycle rickshaws and no vehicles that appeared to have more than 50k on their clocks: where were we? All the taxi’s, with gleaming yellow and green paint jobs, had full leather upholsteries, A/C as standard and most ran on chrome alloys; we were confused, but on the inside, a little happy! Our ticket was punched in and our taxi driver met us at the ticket counter to ‘guide’ us to his car. This car in fact turned out to be the only pink painted car in the entire underground parking lot…it was getting better and better!

The ride into the city was taken in silence, just like our first experience of Delhi 6 months previous, but for completely different reasons. We were starring at pure wealth. Cars worth more than the average house in the UK and skyscrapers draped with huge digital screens offering the latest in technology. A mere 3 hour flight from Delhi had delivered us into yet another world.

By the time we hit town, it was already in full flow. Bright lights lined the streets, blinding tourists from bar to bar. Each bar that we passed blared out various genres of music, from jazz to hip hop, classical to death metal, it was all such a mash up, like a menagerie without a theme. But it was fun, and in the nights to come, Malene and I would fully dive into the craziness that is Bangkok.

On our first day in Bangkok, we visited a lovely little art gallery and met the 2 artists whose material was on show. It was all quite surreal as we watched their art being fixed to the gallery’s walls and chatted to them about their ideas. Outside the gallery, there was an interesting array of food on offer, but we had just eaten breakfast and politely turned down the offer to try it out…

As insignificant as it may sound, one of the beauties of Bangkok, and certainly a way in which it differs from India and Nepal, is it’s use of pavements. Of course they exist in the aforementioned countries, but the difference here is that you can actually walk on them: shock horror! In Nepal, the pavement area is used as an extension to shops, or for parking, which makes walking on them impossible. In India there weren’t any, but thats India. Well done Bangkok, another thumbs up from us.

The Grand Palace is kind of a ‘must do’ for those visiting Bangkok. After the initial shock of the price and Malene had hired a pink shirt to cover her arms and chest, we waded through the hundreds of people as we gazed at the impressive temples. True, by this point of our trip, we had already seen what felt like a million temples and were running risk of what’s known as ‘temple burn-out’, but it was still an interesting area. The various monuments all surround the huge Temple of Emerald Buddha which houses a beautiful green sitting Buddha. It was particularly wonderful to listen to the chanting monks and locals which can easily entrance you as you walk around the tightly packed grounds.

Malene and I were trying to get used to the heat, which was different to Nepal and reminded us of what it was like when we first entered India in mid-September. As the midday sun roared down on us, we dived between covered markets and occasionally into air conditioned shopping centers. The only problem with the later, is your body quickly gets used to the cool temperature, and returning back into the sun feels like stepping back into an uncontrollable oven.

Moving around the city is a breeze, especially by tuk tuk, most of which come fully equipped with huge, big-bore exhausts and sub-woofers to match. One lesson we learnt quickly was the various prices for using these tuk tuks. If you didn’t mind a stop off in one or two suit shops, then the price of the journey would be minimal, sometimes free as the driver would get a token for free fuel out of it. If you didn’t want a stop off then the price goes up…a lot! We tried a couple of suit shops, pretended we were interested, maybe mentioned that we would come back another day, but it’s no fun, plus you’re wasting the sellers time, and your own as well.

On the final night, Malene and I travelled across the city to one of its biggest theatres: the Siam Niramit Here we saw an incredible show of dance, music and theatrical play. In the most amazing theatre I have ever been in, we were treated to a show that we’ll never forget. The show included the history and culture of Thailand and even had a river flowing through it. With fireworks, floating candles, elephants, rain and, well, a river: it’s a night we’ll never forget.

On this last evening, we ended up miles from our hotel and found a parked taxi. Thinking it would be wildly expensive, we in fact got a good shock. I was barely more expensive than a tuk tuk and that’s without any stops…perfect, another thumbs up for Bangkok.

We of course tried Sao Kan road for an evening out. It was definitely as wild as everyone makes it out to be. With a huge mixture of people, young and old, tourists and locals all were crammed down the street. ‘Lively’ doesn’t do it justice. With live music in every other bar, we sat down, ordered a bucket and let the street entertain us. They was even a trio of break dancers whose backflips, head spins and turtle walking had everyone in awe.

‘In awe’, kind of sums up Bangkok. The biker groups that perform wheelies down the streets at night, the local police riding around on pink scooters, the beautiful floating houses, the impressive 18 meter tall gold standing Buddha, all add intrigue and great reasons to visit this amazing city. My worries beforehand came from too much reading and too many other peoples negative responses to the city. Personally, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. True, it is catered for tourists and the prices are double compared to India and Nepal, but for a trip back into ‘normal’ life, Bangkok ticked far more boxes than we ever imagined possible.

P.S. What do you think of the new layout? Photos within the text; fancy I know. Did you prefer the old style, making it easy to skip all the waffle and straight to the pics?