Diary entry
Thailand update
1st May 2007 @ 10:21pm
Okay, so here's the long awaited run down on the second week of my trip in Thailand. It's being written from a tiny internet cafe in Sapa, which is in the Northern highlands of Vietnam... I'm also trying to upload the last of my Thailand photos, but they're going pretty slowly...!!! (excuse the spelling mistakes and typos... word's not on this machine so I'm typing straight into the web page)
22nd April
Up at a reasonable hour, and into the songtaew for the trip to Mae Sai, the northern-most town in Thailand. Had a wander round there, including climbing up to a temple on a hill in the middle of town for a view around. This town also has the border crossing to Burma, so 'because I could' I took the wander across the bridge and went for a wander round the market there... Everything is on sale there... the first thing that I was offered were cigurettes, the second viagara...!!
Back over the bridge to Thailand, and we carried on to the true Golden triangle, the point at which Burma, Thailand and Laos all essentially meet... interestingly China is also only about 150km away up the Mekong... had lunch there, a look at the view, the opium museum, and then we took a trip out onto the Mekong and crossed over the river to Laos, my third country for the day...!
Spent an hour or so there, then back across the river, and back to town. Dinner at the night market again, then off to bed...
23rd April
Today's pretty much a travel day... on the bus back to Chiang Rai...pity the air-con on the bus wasn't working...!! Had a couple of spare hours there to collect the things that we'd left behind, then back to the railway station and the overnight train south...
24th April
Today's sort-of another travel day...our train was almost an hour late into Ayuthaya, which was in many ways a good thing, as it meant we arrived at 7:30 not 6:30 in the morning. Took a wander round the market, then had some breakfast. After breakfast we went to explore several of the temples in the World Heritage area of the city... very interesting... many of them reminded me strongly of Mae Son in Vietnam, which it turned out was hardly surprising given that they'd effectively been built by the same people at about the same time...
Also discovered that I was born on a Saturday, which means that my Buddah is that of protection, and my colour is purple... hmmm... the colour thing wasn't much of a surprise...
Took another wander round town, but it was just too hot to do very much, so went back to the guest house we were based at for the day, and had a nice lunch and refreshing beer before we were back on the road, this time to Kanchanaburi...
Took a wander round our part of the town, includiung down to the River Kwai, before a yummy dinner and an early night as Darren, Stan and I are going to the ANZAC dawn service in the morning...
25th April - ANZAC day
Up at 3:00 am so that we were ready for out pick up at 3:15, which was a little late arriving, however we were on the road to Hellfire pass by 4:00, and there by 5:00. Wandered down into the pass with the way lit by actual torches made from bamboo lighting the way...
The service started at 5:30, with the ambasadors of New Zealand and Australia both present, along with a contingent of Australian naval personell. The service was very well done, and with in the vacinity of 400 people present quite special, especially when 2 min of silence was observed just on dawn with the birds in the bush around us waking up...
Took a look around the pass, and the museum which has been built at the site, a very sobering experience... 1 in 3 of the Asian people (approx 100,000) who were forced to work on the railway died, 1 in 4 PoWs (16,000, mostly from Australia, UK, Holand and the US) died, and surprisingly 1 in 13 of the Japanese and Korean guards and engineers were also killed.
Back into the van and we were back in Kanchanaburi in time for breakfast and to hop onto our raft house for a trip down the river... The raft house was nothing like what I'd expected, for one thing it was huge...! it had three sections to it, each about the size of my house in Wellington...!! the first section was done out as a 'nightclub' complete with mirror ball and disco lights, the second was pretty much open, with mattereses, kitchen, bathroom etc... the third section had a bamboo deck to it and was ideal for relaxing on and swimming from... very flash...!!
Set off down the river doing a whole lot of nothing... had the most amazing lunch cooked for us, then stopped in at a couple of temples along the way... it was so hot that Khilna and I spent most of the time actually in the river, floating along behind the raft in old tractor tyres... very refreshing ;)
We were suppposed to be anchored in the middle of the river for the night, but a just as we were finishing dinner a storm blew in which meant that we ended up tied to the pier we'd been at earlier in the day to visit one of the temples...
26th April
Up reasonably early, breakfast on the raft, another amazing feast, and by 8:30 we were back in Kanchanaburi.
First stop the war museum, then out to the nearest national park to visit a multi-level water fall... all very relaxing... from there back to the Tiger temple, where we got to pat the tigers and look at the other animals that they have there, including a 4 week old tiger cub, plus a leopard...!!
Back into town, dinner, pool, a couple of drinks and it was time for bed...
27th April
By popular demand today got off to a slow start... rikshaw's to the bus depot at 9:30 am before boarding the bus back to Bangkok...
The afternoon was spent with domestic chores like getting the washing done, posting things I don't need to the UK and the like.
A last dinner together as a group, and a final tunderstorm before bed...
28th April
Up early to catch the airport shuttle eady for my midday flight to Hanoi. Ended up being a pretty boring day sitting round waiting for things to happen... finally got in to the hotel around 3 pm.
Went for a wander round Hanoi... not much seems to have changed in the two years since I was here last... a few things have come and gone, a few got flasher, a few got cheaper, many got more expensive...
Had our group meeting for the next tour... total of 10 people, 6 Aussies, 3 Brits and myself, with a Canadian leader... out for a beer, dinner, and a couple of rounds of pool before a rather we wander through a tropical sdtyle thinderstorm back to the hotel... and the other thing about Hanoi is that it's much cooler than Bangkok... it's amazing how pleasent 30 something when you've come from somewhere where the temperature has been 40 something most days...!!