Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So we have left the beach and the relaxed atmosphere. Altough we were sad to leave the beach behind we are very happy to have a room and bed that do not have sand in them!!
Because the train was so delayed on the way to Pran Buri we decided to give the bus a go on the way back to Bangkok. We were lucky and only had a 20 minute wait for the next bus. We opted for a coach like bus rather then a mini bus as we are considerebly taller then most thai people and were hoping for more leg room. Ryan had very high hopes for this journey as he had heard about stewadess services on VIP buses........we didn't have that. We have to say the coach journey was pretty good, it was very nearly on time and we had comfortable, reclining seats. Ryan was asleep nearly as soon as we left off. We were a bit anxious about knowing which stop was ours, but we soon found out when our bags were dumped by the side of the road!!
As we were only in Bangkok for 2 nights we decided to stay a short walk away from Khao San Road. This was deffinately a god idea. We stayed in a great hostel, Sam Sen Sam Boutique House. We highly recomemd it to anyone staying in Bangkok. The staff were really friendly and very informative. The room was nice, clean and quiet with all important air-con. Plus the beer was cheap which made Ryan very happy. Ryan very quickly made friends with the owners dogs!! One in particular had taken a liking to him and trotted over for a cuddle anytime we walked through the lobby.
Whilst in Bangkok we visited Jim Thompsons House. An American who moved to Thailand after being posted there during the 2nd World War. He was responsible for the revitalised Thai silk industry by founding the Thai Silk Company. This really took off after their silk was used in The King and I. He was an architect by trade and had a facination with the Thai culture. So much so that he built his house using traditional Thai techniques. In fact he used 4 Thai houses and joined them together to make 1 big Thai style house but with a western style layout. To make his guests more comfortable he included a western style dinning room, with table and chairs, Thais nomally sit on the floor, hence why you take your shoes off before walking into any home. The four houses were originally from Ayutthaya, Jim Thompson dismantled them and bought them by boat to bangkok and rebuilt them, this only took six months. This was due to his using of traditional building techniques, just using wooden pins to join the planks together. This is why the door frame are all set off the floor, to give the walls extra support. The high doorways also stop evil spirits entering the room as they only able to move in straight lines.
Jim Thompson had a massive collecton of SE Asian artifacts, so many that he opened his home for the public to view them. Many of the artifacts are damaged by treasure hunters, especially the statues of Buddha. It was believed that there was gold inside the Buddhas head so many of them had been removed. He collected many of the artifcats to stop them from being exported out of Asia.
A monk took is horoscope and told him to be careful in his 61st year. 5 days after his birthday, Jim Thompson went for a walk in the jungle and never returned. To this day no one knows what happened to him.
In case you didn't realise we learnt quite a lot from a mornings outing!!!
We took a bus to Ayutthaya, this was good, and was amazingly on real time not Thai time.
Ayutthaya is HOT. Glad we were only theree for 2 days. As normal we were pounced on by at uk tuk driver as soon as we got out of the bus. As we shared with 3 other people there was not enough room for our backpacks so all luggage was put on the roof. Errrrrr really??? There were no straps or ties to keep anything on so all we could do was clip the bags round the metal polls at the edge of the roof and hope for the best. Luckily the traffic in Ayutthaya is much less hectic than Bangkok and our bags managed to stay in place.
On our first afternoon we decided it would be nice to take a boat trip around "the island". However in traditional travelling style we weren't able to do this without an adventure first!! We managed to pick up a tuk tuk along the road and told him we wanted to get a boat. First we stopped at a market because he thought we said a bite (as in bite to eat). Then when we pointed on the map where the boats pick you up (he turned it upside down, then around again) and after some interesting boat mimes we set off again. We then stoipped at a shop where he got someone to come out and translate for us. He then said, "Ohhhhhh you want boat". Of we went again this time we did get to a boat dock. Although this clearly was not meant for the tourists. The jetty was roughly 20ft in the air, not he normal floating kind, so we had to walk down a very old and broken gang plank to the boat, we were suprised to make it, but if a 3 legged dog could do it so could we!
The boat trip was nice, and we got to see some of the temples that were near the waters edge, but fairly uneventful when compared to the journey there...........and back.
The same tuk tuk driver picked us up from the dock, we asked to go back to our hostel, Bam Bua house. He didn't know it so we pointed on the map and after alot of map turning we set off again. This time we pulled into another hotel for translation and directions. after a chat with our translator the tuk tuk driver came back to us saying "Ohhhhhh Bam Bua how". Eventually we arrived back, after many appologies, we handed over 40 baht, he laughed and said 400 baht. We laughed, Maz said he could have 200, handed it over and we walked off.
Maz decided the best way to see the sites was by bicycle, we had debates about whether this was a good idea, Maz read it in the guide book and others had also mentioed it to her. Ryan thinks she made it up! We hired a couple of bikes from our hostel lady. Ryans brakes.........well he didn't have brakes and Maz bike's pedals didn't always pedal the bike and both claimed to have six gears but could only use one! We didn't mind too much about this until it came to riding up a particularly steep bridge. Ryan got up it fine but then couldn't stop at the bottom, where as Maz's pedals didn't get her to the top so she had to push the bike up!
Whilst on our biking adventure we visited 3 sites. The first was a restored temple rhat held the largest seated Buddha in Thailand. The second was ruins of the old palace grounds. This is in the process of having some restoration done but most is still rubble. This site is famous for its Chedi's............what look like giant fhand bells. Although it is mostly destroyed you can see that this site would have been impressive in its day. The final place we visited was also ruins but has the iconic image of Buddha's head that has been engulffed by a tree. Although it was hot it was well worth visiting these sites to see a bit of the history.
Whilst cycling around we decided to do a bit of exploring and found the boat dock we had wanted to go to the day before, and had pointed to on the map, was no where near the dock we ended up going to.
The next day was our train journey to to Chiang Mai. The trainstation was different to waht we are used to. There were four sets of train tracks but only one platform. If you wanted to be on a train at the other side of the station you had to walk across the tracks then climb into the train. The tracks also seemed to be used as a way to get across the city as motorbikes and people were wandering across them all the time, we even saw one person who wanted to cross climb into the train and back out the otherside!!! As usual the trains were running on Thai time so ours was about 20 minutes late. Ryan was very imnpressed when we got on as we had a stewardess handing out drinks and snacks.
Photos will follow soon, once we have found faster internet.
- comments