Thailand, September 14-17^th

I’ve been in Sri Lanka about 4 months now and it seemed like it was time to get off the island – 18 million people in a place little bigger than Tasmania can get quite crowded – so I planned a trip to Thailand for a 4 day weekend.  Now when I say planned I am being a little generous with the word – what I in fact did was book flights to Thailand and buy a copy of lonely planet.   The extent of my lack of planning is demonstrated by the fact that I woke up last Wednesday morning thinking how good it would be tomorrow when I was on my way to Bangkok.  I got to about 11am that morning when I realize my flight was leaving at 1.25am Thursday and I actually had to be at the airport that night.  Still I managed to get there in the end despite leaving packing until after work and turning up the airport with little more than a plane ticket and an overpriced guidebook.

My lack of foresight again shone through when I arrived at Bangkok International and it occurred to me that maybe I should have looked into this visa thingy that lots of countries get hung up about.  Luckily though (or so I thought), there was a big sign which said “Visa on arrival” so I filled out a form and lined up.  An HOUR AND A HALF later I was nearing the front of the queue (this was the queue to be let into the waiting area where you took a number and waited to have your visa processed) when another Australian got to the front, showed his documents and was promptly told “oh your Australian – you don’t have to line up just go straight through the immigration counter”.  Five minutes later I was in a taxi on my way into town.

On a different topic I can’t say I think very much of economy class on international flights.  Until now the only other times I’ve flown overseas has been business class thanks to some good luck on my part and company policy regarding flights longer than 3 hours.  You don’t get your own TV, the in flight movie is shit and there’s no-one to bring you a Johnnie Walker Black whenever you want it.  I’m spoilt I know but when you’re used to something it’s hard to adjust.

Back to Thailand, for some reason I was expecting it to be pretty much the same as Sri Lanka, I was very wrong.  People in cars are civilized, bus drivers aren’t trying to kill you, even tuk tuk drivers are reasonable, if you don’t agree on a price they leave you alone to bargin with someone else – not tell you their life story and the history of the petroleum ministry.  The infrastructure there is also fantastic, trains run every few minutes, they’re all clean and never crowded, all the streets are wide, clean and well maintained.  It’s also possible to get real ham (not fake chicken ham) and orange juice for less than the price of a bottle of grange.  All this might seem pretty normal to people back home but after living here they are definitely luxuries.  Someone in Thai Government got a few things right a while back.

My first day, I did very little apart from find a hotel (hadn’t organized one of those before I left either) which I did in Koh Sarn Rd, the backpacker hangout in Bangkok.  I have never seen so many people who exactly fit the “traveler” stereotype in one place.  If I had one baht for every person with fishermans pants, dreadlocks and braided hair I would be very rich – exchange rate and all.  I also did a bit of shopping, mainly for my trip to Nepal in November so got some decent shoes and a warm jacket (this may not seem relevant now but will make slightly more sense later on).

Friday I did a tour to Kanchanburi province which is about and hour and a half west of Bangkok and is where the bridge on the river kwai is located.  The tour took us to an allied war cemetery and the bridge itself.  This is not the original bridge of course but a slightly newer one built in the same place.  I actually went whit water rafting on the river where the movie was filmed the weekend before (it was filmed in Sri Lanka) so have been very involved with both cinematic and wartime history recently.  We also took a ride along the railway that allied prisoners of war and local labourers built for the Japanese during world war 2.  This is known locally as the “Death Railway” as something like 120,000 people died during its construction, 80,000 of which were locals.  Until now things had been going pretty well but after these attractions however the tour fell into disarray.  When we were all picked up that morning, we were loaded into 4 or 5 minibusses and all given different stickers which we had to put on our shirts to indicate what tour we were on (I had a pink triangle).  I suspect this was ruse however as the tour people seemed to be making it up as they went along.  There were some people who though we were going to see some temple where Buddhist monks keep tigers as pets and you can feed them (literally perhaps you feed them) and some going to the war memorial at Hellfire Pass.  Both of which I had hoped to see.  What I got however was a crappy elephant ride which went about 400 metres in a circle and took half an hour and put on a “traditional” raft with no engine and one paddle and pushed down stream in the rain.  I think traditional might be another work for shit in Thailand – there was a token shelter on the raft but it did absolutely nothing to keep 6 of us dry for the 30 minute trip.  After that we were taken to some waterfall which was pretty good but waterfalls are always good so nothing particularly special there. 

That night I went to a night market in Pattaya in Central Bangkok which gets a good write up although as with any market it’s basically the same 5 stalls repeated over and over.  The interesting/weird thing about this market was that it was located down a street which has “go-go” bars lining each side.  In Thailand a “go-go” bar is pretty much a table top dancing club, the doors to which are all wide open so you can see exactly whats going on inside from the street.  As you walked along guys would come running out and try to convince you come and see one of the “shows” on offer – as this is a family blog I will not go into any further detail about what these shows purportedly entailed. 

The next day I took the train up to Ayuthaya, which was the country’s capital for 400 years or so about 90km north of Bangkok.  Here there are ruins of many of the old Khmer temples which are quite spectacular and the city itself is an island surrounded by a river so you have to take a ferry across from the train station.  There were bridges but they were a fair way away.  I saw about 6 temples in Ayuthaya and ended up getting motorcycle taxis around most of the day – you just jump on the back of a motorbike or scooter with a guy in a green vest and they take you wherever you want to go for about a $1.  All this was pretty good but once you’ve seen 3 or 4 temples they all kind of look the same.

On Sunday, my final day in Thailand I raced around Bangkok trying to see all the big tourist things before I had to head to the airport that night and my feet gave out.  First thing in the morning I went to the Grand Palace and the temple of the emerald Buddha.  If a Thai person ever describes something as “grand” to me in the future I will certainly take notice, this place was amazing.  All the buildings were covered in gold and glass mosaic and ornately decorated and the gardens were immaculately kept.  The Thai’s have a fair eye for landscape gardening too it seems.  As for the interiors, where Sri Lankan Buddhist temples are a bit garish and over done, Thai temples are amazingly extravagant yet tasteful and understated.  The intricate patterns in the ceiling and columns and painting on the walls were impressive enough but the emerald Buddha itself (actually it’s made of jade but someone thought it was emerald a long time ago) is fantastic despite its diminutive size.  Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take photographs inside the temple so I have nothing to show for all this talking up of interior design.

IT was then on to Jim Thompson’s’ house who was an American who moved to Thailand after the second world war.  He is almost single handedly responsible for the revival of the Thai silk trade and had a vast textile and fabric empire until he mysteriously disappeared while on holiday in Malaysia, back in the 60’s I think.  In addition to being a silk merchant he was also a trained architect and he build his house from traditional Thai homes which he took from around the country and rebuilt and joined together in Bangkok.  The house is now a museum and has some great artifacts of Thai culture that this guy was able to acquire. 

Finally I went to Chatuchang weekend market which in the largest in Thailand, again basically the same 5 stall repeated, just about 500 times over.  I would estimate (conservatively) that this place was at least 4 times the size of the Queen Vic market (and had a lot of the same stuff).  By this stage my feet were more sore than they had ever been.  The first day I was in Bangkok I wore thongs around all day and did a lot of walking, by the time I got back to my hotel that night I could barely walk because my ankle was so bad.  Hence I decided o wear my new walking shoes I had just bought (I told you that was relevant) for the rest of the weekend which of course were not worn in.  So in addition to having a badly swollen ankle it felt like the entire soles of my feet were turning into one huge blister and here I was in the biggest market I have ever seen.  Luckily there were no women with me and I was able to do a quick lap and get out of there.  I cannot imagine the pain if I had been dragged around to every clothing store in the place by some girl on a bargain hunting spree.

From there I had a few hours to kill (which I did sitting down) before heading to the airport for the flight back to Sri Lanka.  I would definitely like to head back to Thailand and actually get around the country a bit more as there is so much to see.  I didn’t even get near any of the beaches or to Chiang Mai in the north.

The other thing I should mention is that a day after I leave the place the military comes in and takes over the country.  Although from what I can tell it is the softest coup of all time – not shots fired and everyone loves the army now.  The Thaksin guy who was PM must be feeling a little unpopular right now.  Despite the travel warnings now is probably a really great time to go to Thailand if anyone is considering it, the crowds will be down and you can probably pick up a good deal on flights and a hotel.  One thing I’ve learnt from living here is the Australian Government (through DFAT) always overstates the danger and are pretty much just covering their arses when the say not to travel somewhere.

Anyway that’s all for now hopefully I can get the photo’s uploaded and there is something a bit more interesting than me saying everything is amazing or spectacular all the time.

Cheers, Sam.