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Hi Every one,
So we finished Bangkok with a day trip to a floating Market, the River Kwai and a Tiger temple.
The floating market was crazy, basically a massive traffic jam on a canal, a very narrow canal with a massive amount of boats. The boats were all long boats but some were motored and some were row boats and all of them just went for any spare pach of water, even if it meant nearly running on top of another boat, let alone the tourists!! The floating bit was the shoppers, the market was actually on the banks of the canal in little huts. Theyt were mostly selling the same stuff as in the markets in Bangkok, hats, fans and fan hats.
Our next stop was the River Kwai, well the bridge over the river Kwai. You could walk over it as long as you jumped out of the way of the tourist train that uses the tracks. Health and Safety is a whole different thing over here.
Then for the really exciting stop. TIGERS :-) The tiger temple is where Monks rescue and raise tigers. To get an income they let tourists come and touch the tigers and get their photos taken. Although they are pretty lethargic from the heat and they are tethered up it is still pretty terrifying, you can see how powerfull they are. We jumped everytime they moved! You get to have standard photos taken with your entry fee but as Maz was so excited we payed a bit extra to get a group photo and have the tigers head resting in her lap. One of the pictures you get to hold the tail, which Ryan enjoyed as he likes pulling cats tails, well until he pulled a little too hard and the tiger turned round, gulp!! Once we had the photos taken we went to visit a couple of cubs that the Munks were playing with, they were much braver then us, we certainly would not put our fingers in a tigers mouth, no mater how old it was.
There some other animal roaming around the site too, some cows, horses, boar and deer. They generally kept their distantce until their food was put out then suddenly we were caught in the middle of a stampeed, we think that was scarier then the tigers.
Then on to the beach.
To get here we got the train. That was adventure on its own. To go about 250km it cost about 5 pound each but also 6 hours instead of the squeduled 4, we're not really sure what the delay was, apart from extra time at empty stations so people could walk through the train selling even more, hats, fans and fan hats!! There some food sellers in there too but we weren't brave enough to try it as we had no idea what it was and no one spoke good enough english to tell us, well they could all say beer, they deffinately knew how to get Ryans money!
We are staying in a small fishing village, well strip of huts, retaurants and luxury hotels on the sea front, called Pak Nam Pran. It is nice to be here as it is so quite, very few tourists and no hassle walking down the street. This is where Thai's come for their holidays so it got a bit busier over the weekend. We have come here for KITEBOARDING. Basically Ryan has learnt how to fly a kite on the land, then standing in the water then tried to stand on a board and fly the kite but generally got dragged all over the place and has got a lovely sunburnt face! It was great fun but frustrating, especially when you lose the board behind you and the kite wants to take you forward. Ryan will deffinately be doing some more, maybe in Vietnam.
Staying here this week has made us weather experts, we can now predict how long it will take for a set of clouds to come and kill the wind. Frustrating for Ryan as the wind does not get strong enough until about 11 and the clouds have been arriving between 1 - 2, but good for Maz as she hasn't been Kiteboarding so gets company for the afternoon.
Food again has been amazing, especially some fish we had a few nights ago. We went to a restaurant that has seating on a kind of wooden platform. You have to go up about 10 really steep steps, almost on top of each other, to a platform that wobbles when anyone walks over it. But it did have a great view over the sea, though slightly resticted at night. The menu was interested some translation has gone a bit wrong somewhere, for example we could have had Chicken with cysts, yuk! We had Red snapper fried in herbs (not sure what herbs) and also Pink Peach (some type of white fish, translations again) in sweet chilli sauce. Both delicious, we could have kept ordering it, it was so good. We also had a guest with us for this meal. Steve the gecko. He was kind enough to entertain us by braving a run on to the table to eat the flys that had collided with the lamp. It was fascinating to see it so close up.
Yesterday we decided to go for a walk on a nature trail, it was up the side of a rocky mountain but there were steps and it looked pretty. Well.....when we got going we reallised it was not the gentle hike we were expecting. There were maybe 5 steps then scrabbling over rocks followig spray painted arrows. We were greatful to whoever had tide some rope to a few trees to help heave yourself up the sheer rock face! In one place we had to crawl through a rock arch, past a massive golden web spider, luckily not poisonous but scary enough to make us wary about where placed our hands! we also walked through a cave filled with bats, hoping they didn't decide to poo or swarm at us, admitedly taking a photo with flash may not have been the best idea. When we made it to the top there were amazing views, one way over the beach and sea and the other way the town and mountains. We had a well deserved lunch stop and ran away from the giant ants. We decided to go down a different way, heading towards the beach. Maybe not a great idea! This route seemed to be even steeper, or was that just because we were climbing down? The path ended at a rock about 7 foot above the beach, we had to jump and roll, much to amusement of fellow beach dwellers! We did all of this in flip flops.
Parents, we do have a confession to make. We rented a scooter for a few days to get around as not much is in walking distance. No lessons, no helmets, but slow empty roads and careful drivers. Its okay though, if a 12 year old can do it so can we!!
We are heading back to Bangkok for 1 day then on to Ayutthaya, the old capital for a couple of days then on to Chiang Mai.
Wow we've written alot. See Ya.
- comments
Marli I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the blog entries from your holiday in Thailand. I have never travelled there, however after reading of your experiences I would love to visit the location. Your use of descriptive language in regards to the highly congested canals and your trip to the tiger temple was thoroughly interesting. Everything I desire for an enjoyable holiday, you have discussed. I look forward to experiencing the dining arrangements you mentioned as well going for a walk along the nature trails. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
Ryan and Maz Hi Marli, We're glad our adventure is inspiring your holiday plans. Keep reading as we're sure there will be more adventures to come, especially when we discover other contries in SE Asia.
steve t hiya , sounds really good, glad you are both having a fab time.
Prachit sir, i am a student of 9th.save our tiegrs. they are our national weaith.yesterday my teacher taught about tiegrs in india .i kindly request our PETA,other organisations to protect our tiegrs.