Chiang mai part one

Shopping..We had to carry those stupid baskets...
Eating the thai welcome snack.

After a 6 hour bus ride from Phitsanulok we ended up in the far northern Thai City of Chiang Mai. There was now four of us in the city for the next week maybe and we planned to go trekking together and on a cooking course. We were staying in a nice hostel, which had its own pool and was only a 15 minute walk to the night bazaar (Supposedly the main attraction in Chiang Mai?) We spent our time over the next few days relaxing round the pool and going out in the evenings to the bars and clubs near the night market. We met up with four other people that were staying at the hostel and we all would go out together in the evenings. It was a good laugh. I am so rubbish at pool though.

We booked to go on a one day trek up in the hills. That is written up in the next post.

After getting back from the one day trek we did a cooking course. It is quite a popular thing to do in Thailand as the food is Delicious (and cheap). We booked an evening cooking course that would provide an introduction to Thai cooking. We met up in the cooking school and we all decided what we wanted to cook. We all agreed on a range of curries, and other assorted goodies. We had a visit to a market where the various raw ingredients for our choices were purchased. We even got to watch as our teacher picked a live fish from a tank, she passed it to the stall owner and then proceeded to kill it and cut it up. It wasn't a pretty sight, especially as there were other fish on the stall that already had their heads cut off, but were to still move!!!

We cooked and ate our food and it was particularly Delicious. I have to say that it was the tastiest food i had eaten up until that point. It was something about the curry paste....

Sukhothai

We arrived in Phitsanulok. Which is the stop for a side trip to the historical park of Sukhothai. The Sukhothai park is a world heritage site and Lonely planet says that they are Thailand's most impressive. Phitsanulok was a four hour train journey from Lopburi and we arrived late in the day. We bumped into the others from Ayyuthaya and arranged to go to Sukhothai on the bus together the next day. After an hour on the bus we arrived at the beautiful historical park of Sukhothai. We rented bicycles and went riding through the park exploring the wats and buddhas. Although it was stinking hot, that didn't stop me enjoying the day!! The park is green and had lush areas of planting and ornamental ponds. The weather was perfect and we had blue skies for most of the day.

Sukhothai was the first capital of thailand and was at its height in the 13th century. The sukhothai age is considered to be the golden age of thai civilisation and has its own distinctive style.

Lopburi

Ruins
Monkey
Monkey from inside the temple
Monkeys from inside the temple
Monkeys from inside the temple
Monkeys from inside the temple

Monkeys from inside the temple
Landscape from the train
Landscape from the train

Me sweating on the train
Train
Train
Sunset from the train

Next stop on the way to Chiang Mai was Lopburi which is famed for its monkeys. It is about an hour on from Ayyuthaya and we caught the train there for the afternoon, leaving our bags in the stations cloak room. We arrived at Lopburi just before lunchtime and wasted no time in going to find the monkey temple.

On our way there we could hear singing and chatting and so we followed the noise and found an open air performance of what looked like a thai soap opera with the actors in traditional dress. We sat down and tried to understand what was going on. In the end we decided that it was some form of street rap battle, as the actors seemed to trade insults and take it turns to call the other actors names (judging on the reactions of the receiving actors). Whilst sitting there we noticed our first monkeys. They were hanging about in the tree above us.

We found monkey temple with its carving of monkeys but didn't see any live ones. We walked about and came across a ruined wat with some monkeys sat inside the gates. We paid admission and got a few bags of nuts and a stick each. We asked what the stick was for and found out that as it was to be used on naughty monkeys. The member of staff actually said the word naughty even though she didn't speak hardly any English?

I had control of the nuts and as we approached the wat a stream of monkeys came running at us. I threw a few nuts and more kept on coming. One even jumped up and tried to grab the nuts out of my hand. This was definitely the place to see monkeys.

One of the little buggers jumped on my leg and tried to climb up me. I tried to wiggle him off, but he was too far up my thigh. Mark had to waive his stick at him and eventually and some mini screams from me, he jumped off. Thank goodness. Although I've had a rabies jab, i didn't fancy a monkey biting into my leg!!!

We walked around the wat and saw hundreds of the little critters, they were all resting at the sides of the wat with the babies in the adults arms sleeping. We ventured inside the wat where no moneys are allowed inside. The windows have bars and so we could feed the monkeys close up and managed to get really close to the babies. The only downside of being inside the wat was the bats. There were hundreds of them roosting on the ceiling and some even started to fly around the chambers, causing us to practically walk on our hands and knees to avoid them.

After leaving the wat we headed back into town and saw more monkeys climbing on the cables that run through the city. We had lunch and caught the train to our next destination which was a four hour train ride away.

Bangkok nights and Ayutthaya

Temple complex
Wat
inside the Chinese temple
Guard

Chinese temple
Some folk feeding the fish (and flying rats)
Some sort of shrine to the Cockrel
Buddha

decoration on a wat
Not sure what these were?
Wat
buddha

Boat we travelled down the river on
Church on the river banks
on the river
Ruins

Wat
Ruins
Buddha
Ruins Stairs i climbed to get to the top of the wat

Don't look down

View from top of the Wat Sunset on the river

Firstly, I'll have to apologise for the tags on these photos not being very accurate. We weren't told what anything about the Wats or other structures, and there was little information about anything in the park.

Bangkok

I arrived into Bangkok just before lunchtime after setting out at 10pm the earlier night from Brisbane. The flight was by Singapore airlines who insisted on waking up the whole plane when it was snack time, even if that mean at 2am in the morning. Nice.

The first thing to hit me about Bangkok was the humidity and how ugly the brand new airport was. A real monstrosity. I found my way to the shuttle bus and got on board. So far so good. The shuttle was really cheap and even had a tv. It dropped me off right outside my Hostel. I was staying in Sukhumvit which is about a 30 minute journey from the centre of Bangkok. There weren't many other hostels nearby and i didn't see many other tourists lurking about. The hostel was really nice and I had my own room. I have found out that in Thailand there isnt such a thing as a dorm room in the hostels. Only twins or double rooms, all with ensuite and varying other facilities. They are though really cheap and you can stay in a fan room for just over 2 pound a night!!! The hostel had a lovely feel to it as it was covered in carvings, pictures and ornaments. They even had a few water features splattered around the place.

The hostel was off the main Sukhumvit road. It was quite a dark and busy road (four lanes in either direction). The skytrain (elevated train) ran above the road and so almost enclosed the road from the top. It was really smoggy.

I met up with a few other lads that were staying at the hostel and we went out for a drink at Kao San Road, which is the main backpacker area, just minutes from the city centre attractions. We got there by a mixture of the Skytrain and Tuk-tuk (which are a cross between a motor bike and a peddle cab). They are fairly fast and dodge all the traffic. Haggling with tuk tuk drivers can take a while but they always say 300 or 400 baht for a 20 minute ride!!! You have to haggle them down to something reasonable like 60 baht. Kao San was pretty quite when we arrived (at around 11ish) and we had a few drinks in a few bars before having to move inside as bars are supposed to close at 1am in Thailand. After what felt like a few hours of playing pool with some locals we were being kicked out as it was actually 6am???? I blame the 'buckets of joy', or 'buckets' as everyone calls them. They are made from thai whisky (60 percent proof), red ball (which comes in a medicine bottle??), ice and coca-cola. They are really strong.

After sleeping the day away we all met up and went to one of the many huge shopping centres in Bangkok. It was huge and had floors dedicated to a particular theme. For instance, they had a whole floor dedicated to mobile phones, lots of small stalls selling every phone you could ever want.

We went out that night in search of the Thai Elvis. He played at a bar in pat-pong, which is one of the sleazier areas of Bangkok (if that means anything). We eventually found our way to the main street and as soon as we stepped foot into it, lots of people jumped out in our way and tried to get us to go into their girlie bar. A lot of them were prostitutes and they got quiet physical, trying to pull us in. One of our group even had salt thrown at him? We didn't find Thai Elvis but found a nice quiet, non girlie bar, and had some quiet buckets. We were chatting with some locals and the evening went without a hitch. I was planning to leave the day after and so all in all I didn't see much of Bangkok at all.

Ayyuthaya

One of the group, Mark was travelling up to Chiang Mai like me and so we travelled together to the next stop, a small historical town called Ayutthaya. Ayyuthaya was the former royal capital of the Siamese empire for over 400 years. Lonely planet says that Ayutthaya is not to be missed, and who am i to argue? We caught the train there and it took about an hour and a half. There was only third class seats on the train and so we travelled with our backpacks with the locals in the soring heat. The train was hot but comfortable and the locals were friendly, telling us where we needed to get off and offering us their food. The train stations have good facilities but the platforms aren't raised and so everyone walks across the tracks. Some even wait in between tracks as trains cross? On board the train, there are people selling food stuffs. They chant, rhythmically, as they walk up and down the train. Each would sell one particular item and these ranges from barbecued sausages to fruit. One of these sellers passed every few minutes!!

We arrived at our accommodation after haggling with a tuk tuk driver that tried to persuade us to charter his tuk tuk for the day to go sight seeing, after declining countless times we got away.

We booked an afternoon sightseeing around the historical complex. We would be travelling by long boat and being dropped off at various wats to explore. The historical complex is on an island formed where three rivers meet. Along the river and around the island people live in every form of accommodation, from shacks to villas and we had lots of people smiling at us along the way.

The temples were really amazing and we saw the Chinese temple, with its red and gold ornamentation, an older Ayutthaya style wat that had a huge golden buddha at its centre, and a ruined wat that had many stone Buddhas within the walls. At the centre of the ruins was a huge structure that had near vertical steps to access the temple at the top. The view from the top was amazing but climbing back down wasn't fun at all!!!

We went for a drink in evening and met up with some more people, who ended up travelling to Chiang Mai with us.

Red Centre to Adelaide

Dinky the singing Dingo
Outback Border between Northern Territory and southern Australia
Border between Northern Territory and southern Australia

The breakaways
The breakaways
Different coloured sands that were spread throughout the region
Close up to one of the feature areas near the breakaways
Breakaways

White mounds near the breakaways

Our underground dorm room in Coober pedy

My room, i was all on my lonesome
Dog fence
Dog fence - the largest fence in the world. It prevents Dingos getting into the farms in Southern Australia
Another room next door to ours that was really creepy
Dorm Underground house
Underground house
Mine entrance
Mine
Mine


Night out at the underground bar
One of our guides and a weirdo miner

One of the perched salt lakes that litter central Australia

To get back from the outback, by flying would have cost something like 800 dollars??? It only cost 200 hundred and something to get there!!!! Qantas have a monopoly on the route from Brisbane to Alice springs and try to rip you off something rotten.

I decided to do a two day tour called the boomerang from Alice Springs to adelaide, and then fly back a day later to Brisbane for my next flight to Bangkok. The arrangements were a bit tight and so if anything was delayed or went wrong, then i would miss my flight to bangkok.

The tour was basically just a fast road trip that got us from Alice to Adelaide which was a hell of a long way. We were driving for about 12 hours a day through endless outback. There was about 15 of us in a really comfortable bus with reclining seats. We would stop every few hours for a refuel or for a stretch of the legs. We had two tour guides as one of them was in training.

Not soon after leaving Alice we had a stop for breakfast at a road house. The road house was the home to Dinky the singing dingo. He howled the way a dingo does whilst playing some notes on the piano!!! It was a really funny sight and had us all in stiches. He is actually quite famous and there is a question in trivial pursuit about him!!

Our next stop on the first day was a really lovely spot called the breakaways. They had been formed the same way that Uluru had been. They were beautiful, much more so than Uluru. We took the bus off road for a while and really raced around the dirt tracks to get a bit closer to the mountains. The off roading was good fun and the bus really good take a good hiding. It wasn't long then before we reached our overnight spot at Coober pedy. Coober pedy is the worlds centre for opal mining and some 95% of opals are mined from the vicinity of Coober. Due to the climate, most houses are made underground. They are usually formed by using dynamite and blowing huge rooms into the soft, yet strong rock. There are no supports anywhere.

The Town draws a lot of people from around the world and (I think) up to 30 nationalities are represented in the town. We were staying in a dorm room underground. The room had a comfortable temperature and felt a bit like a hospital. After settling in we went for a tour of one of the mines. The tour was really informative. We even got to go into a real home to see what an underground house looked like.

In the evening we all went out for a meal at an authentic pizza house and then onto one of the towns bars. This one was underground and full of sleazy miners. You could tell that the town is made up of mostly men!!! Me, two girls and the two guides ended up drinking far too much. We were up till the wee hours even though we had a early start!!

I overslept the next day and no one had bothered to wake me. I therefore ran around like a headless chicken whilst everyone waited for me. Nice. I had a horrific hangover for pretty much all that day. We stopped a few times on the second day. We saw the worlds longest fence which keeps dingos out of southern austalian farms, a perched salt lake - one of many that litters central Australia, and Australias longest pier (which wasnt that interesting at all). Needless to say I had an early night when we reached Adelaide.

Adelaide was a nice city. It had some really lovely old buildings around the university. There wasn't much else to see and so i thanked my lucky stars that I only had one day there. It also rained for most of the day which meant that I dont have any pictures!!!

I caught my flight to Brisbane and got there pretty late.