Thailand Travel Journal: Central Plains
| This travel journal is part of a series of journals, which are all written during a long trip between november 2007 and may 2009. |
> to Kanchanaburi by Train
05-12-2007 The past couple of days we hear the alarm clock earlier each time and today we have to get up at six, as the train to Kanchanaburi leaves just before eight. As tickets can be bought an hour in advance we'd like to be there at seven. Contrary to our expectations it's not extremely busy today (the King celebrates his 80th birthday and the entire country has a day off), so we rather quickly secure two tickets. The train will leave at 7.45 A.M. from Platform 1, so we're told.
At 7.40 the previous train, which was supposed to leave at ten past seven
, finally leaves and we get this funny feeling the train we're waiting for will be late as well. At eight a line of wagons arrives and everybody gets on board, but untill eight thirty there is no further movement. There are enough salesmen walking by though, selling sateh, chicken, noodles and drinks. That's a complete new kind of menu compared to the one sold by the Dutch Railways.At eight fortyfive a locomotive is passing by, and apparently this one is ours, as a moment later the entire train is pounding a meter backwards. At nine we slowly and shaking leave Bangkok. The many railway stations get scarcer as we get further afield and in the end we see the Karst mountains appear.
Big chaos when the train stops in Kanchanaburi; many people try to get aboard, but there also need to get some people out.The cycle-rikshaw men happily take advantage of the circumstance and try to get us in their bikes in a very compulsory way. However, we don't really feel like folding our long, white legs, 2 big backpacks ánd 2 daypacks in one cycle-cart meant to transport 1 or 2 tiny Asians. So we just walk the 500 meters to our hostel where we are directed to the Rafthouses on the water. Uhm.. yes, but we have a reservation for A "garden-room".
After a long discussion and walking back and forth several times, we finally get a room where no discoboats pass by during the night, while you try to get some sleep in your rocking room.
> The Bridge over the River Kwai
We don't really like the athmosphere of this town and the attitude of the rikshaw-men ánd guesthouse owner. However, we do want to see a bit more before we draw a conclusion and we rent two bicycles. Soon we end up at the bridge where all the fuss is about here: the one over the River Kwai. What a crazy funfair we find, completed by a train taking tourists back and forth over the bridge. Not very much our thing, so we ride to one of the three cemeteries where the thousands of victims from the time of the Japanese occupation are buried. A great bike-ride to the place where a hospital was situated at the time the Burma railway was built. Around 1750 English, Australian and Dutch who died in this hospital were buried here. In the JEATH-museum we take a look at the pictures made in the work camps and we read about the experiences of the victims. Impressive, but again we get irritated by the funfair athmosphere caused by the constant noise of the disco-boats passing by.
At night we return to the bridge, where a light and sound show is taking place this week. At the entrance all guests receive a candle and we wonder what we need a candle for.Our Thai neighbour explains we will first honor King Bhumibol, because of his birthday today. Extraordinary, how these people all deeply respect their King and their country. Everyone stands quietly with their candles, listening to the speech and both old and young (even very young!) sing along with all (!) the verses of the National anthem. Fireworks around the enlightened poster with Bhumibols portrait on it and another speech end the ceremony. Everybody sits down expectantly for what's coming next. Unfortunately the accompanying text is only in Thai, so we have to guess what it is all about. We're lucky our Thai neighbour is willing to translate some of it. The end of the show, however, leaves no doubt: the platforms almost collapse when they immitate the allied bombings at the bridge.When we return to our room pretty tired, Yvonne gets scared by a huge beetle, which strongly resembles the image we have of a cockroach and falls on the bed with a loud plopping sound. Well...uhm, is it one or not? When Peter caught it in plastic we don't see any more of them, but to be sure we put the bed a little off the wall before we lay down to sleep.
06-12-2007 
When we wake up in the morning another giant beetle is floundering at the toilet and since we don't really like it here we decide to move on tomorrow. As we do so we miss the ride over the "Death Railway" to the Hellfire-pass and the adjacent museum which we were very keen to see, but we've had enough Kanchanaburi.
We relax all morning and in the afternoon we visit the Death Railway Museum, a good museum with lots of information. From the coffee-shop at the end you have a view over the thousands of graves of the Don Rak cemetery.
We don't do much more today, but we do make reservations for a room in a guesthouse of which we hope it's beetle-(or cockrioach-)free ánd two seats in a minivan to Ayutthaya.
> Moving on to Ayutthaya
07-12-2007 When we're on our way for breakfast to the restaurant where we had such great food yesterday we see several giant beetles on the street, obviously brothers and sisters of the ones in our room yesterday. Well, us city people need to
get used to the life in the countryside. Just after noon we leave for Ayutthaya in an aircon-minivan. The driver actually prefered to become a pilot in his younger days, we fly over the road, but we do reach Ayutthaya Guesthouse safely. The room is clean, big and beetle-free.The adorable little man of the bicycle rent, Mr. Pieak from next door, makes us even more happy. He is determinded to rent us the best bikes in his stall and he truely does his utmost. The tires get pumped extra hard and the brakes get tightened. By bike we explore a bit of what used to be the former capital of Thailand and we take a closer look at Wat Phra Mahathat.
08-12-2007 We cycle around the Unesco World Heritage to take a look at several of the ancient temples and we visit a museum with treasures from those temples.
09-12-2007 
We get on our bikes again and visit some of the temples we haven't seen yet. The rest of the day we relax a bit, as we will see another "light and sound" tonight. In Ayutthaya also is, right during our stay here, a festival going on. This time everything is much more understandable, thanks to limited info in English. Quality of it all is several times better than in Kanchanaburi a couple of days ago. A great show with lots of costumed actors and even elephants and a horse.
> Kao Yai National Park
10-12-2007 Just like last time we travel 3rd class in the train. When you do so you're the only white person among the Thai and today our seats are next to a family with a baby and a toddler, right next to the monk area. The women are too shy, but the man tries to make contact in his best English.
When we show pictures from back home and we hand over a postcard from our city the shyness disappears quickly and a moment later Yvonne is even singing songs with a toddler on her lap.When we're picked up by the owner of 'Green Leaf guesthouse and tours' we head into nature and take part in a diversified program, including a visit to a batcave, a scorpion spider (on your hand!), several funny experiments with geckos (in various sizes), interesting info on plants and their fruits and the highlight of the tour: 2 million bats flying out of a cave in twilight.
11-12-2007 
Today we go out early and now we really get into the jungle. We see many macaques, some gibbons, various kinds of hornbills (look much like toucans), kingfishers, snakes, a giant centipede and when it's already dark even an elephant. The last one wasn't appreciating our presence much and suddenly he came running to us with an angry face. So full speed ahead with the jeep.
We know we've said we have no idea why anyone would eat anything else but Thai over here, however... today we have this feeling to have had enough noodles and rice for a lifetime. Luckily there is a 7-Eleven supermarket down the road where they sell hamburgers and pizza. Man, what a treat!
> Monkeys in Lopburi
12-12-2007 And to continue the luxurious Western trend we move into a 4 by 4 paradise in Lopburi today, a large room with aircon, fridge, tv and most important: hot water. The price of all this is just 8 Euros, what a joke.
Lopburi town is much more lively than we expected and the large market area right in front of our door definately contributes to that feel. People hardly speak any English here, but by using our hands and feet we get the tastiest things. We see all kind of new food and try everything that looks tasty.
13-12-2007 
Yesterday we checked out the ruins of Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahathat, so only 2 temples are left for today, one of those being the monkey temple San Phra Karn. Already at the beginning of the street we see large numbers of monkeys on the houses, in the power wires and on the road. The Phra Prang Sam Yod is also populated by entire monkey families. Rude as they are, they try to steal our water bottle and they are also much interested in our backpack. Armed with a stick (thanks for the advice Petra 
) we check out the Land of Plenty, created for them by the Thai at San Phra Karn.
A little later in the market we see the same kind of beetles we had in our room in Kanchanaburi, ready to be eaten. So we could have just eaten them and our problem would have been solved. How silly we were, but we remember this for next time.
After we visited Narai National Museum we relax a bit in our room, when first a gecko is passing by on one of the walls and next a monkey comes in through the open window to pay us a visit. From up there on our clothesline he smiles at us to smuggle off after he did so. A second later we 
hear a lot of noise, giving us the impression he and his friends are having a real party out there.
> Further North to Sukhotai
14-12-2007 In a super fast airconditioned train with even a shop on board serving us a free meal we travel to Phitsanulok. Here we change to a little less luxurious transport: a tuktuk takes us to the non-aircon bus at the busstation, from where we travel in a little over 2 hours (incl. the traffic jam) to Sukhotai. We encounter the Asian full-is-never-full-enough-principle for the firt time and, even though we had a terrific start, we are tired when we finally arrive.
The accommodation that we find luckily makes up for it all. We stay at Ban Thai Guesthouse in a cute bungalow. The hut is situated in an athmospheric garden with banana trees, ponds and tropical flowers. The average European resort would be jealous of this spot. We decide to stay a bit longer, so we can look around in the countryside here. After a day or 4 we will move on to Lampang to spend a day in the Elephant Conservation Centre near the city.
15-12-2007 On two mountainbikes we go out. From New Sukhothai we cycle about 12 kilometers to the old town, through Khlong Maerampan, a canal bordered by wooden houses and huts of quite a lot of Thai families. Everywhere we come people of all ages spontaneously wave from afar and call: "hello, hello".
In a side street where 3 or 4 generations of a family sit outside together we stop. A surprised granny touches Yvonnes white skin, while she smiles, showing her teeth reddened by tobacco.
Enthusiastically they check out the pictures we carry along from at home. The smallest child of all is a bit scared by the white people and almost starts crying when we give her a finger puppet as a present. We say goodbye and continue our tour through rice paddies, untill we reach the first ruined temple.
In a circle we cycle right around the open air museum, to some remote temples out of town. One of them requires a tough descend over a steep path, but once up there we have the giant Buddha all for ourselves and the view over the hilly surroundings is splendid. 
When we start descending we meet a couple of Thai ladies who dare to speak with us after a first, slight hesitation. Peter has to take off his sunglasses, as they love his blue eyes.
Back at the guesthouse we're pretty tired of the 40 kilometers in the hot sunshine and our skin is very red.
16-12-2007 Today we take it easy and the sun also grants us some peace, as we don't get to see it all day long. By Songthaew (a public city bus, only really cheap) we get to the old center to stroll through the park-like surroundings dotted by some...well...temples.
As soon as we've seen the antiquities saved from the temples and displayed in the Ramkhamhaeng Museum, we get back to our hut to lounge a bit.
17-12-2007 
Today we really need our rented mountainbikes, as the path we follow to Wat Thawet is no longer paved from halfway. Along the Yom river, which wefollow, are traditional wooden houses and some of the Thai who see us passing by greet us enthusiastically. When we arrive the temple is still closed, but a monk immediately opens all the doors and windows, so we can take a look.
The return journey is at least as dusty and much warmer than the outward journey, so after we had a quick stop at the market we don't do much more today.
> On our way to Lampang
18-12-2007 It's still early when we're having our fruitsalad with muesli and yogurt at Ban Thai, the guesthouse where we stayed the last couple of days. We'd like to catch the 9.15 bus to Lampang, but on our way to the busstation we meet the 8.20 bus, late as usual. Our tuktuk-driver stops the bus and only seconds later we're in a bus WITH aircon, but without suspension, driven by a driver WITH gooks, but without a brain (or with a giant death wish). Halfway green, forested hills suddenly appear; we hadn't seen those here yet.
Lampang is a typical Thai city and there are no tourists around here. Many people turn around to stare at us when we walk by
and playing schoolkids come running to us. Many of the shops we see here would never survive back home. Like that couple repairing shoes with needle and thread and like that man repairing cycle parts by hand next to the framer and the furniture uphosterer. Everything is done in such an old-fashioned way... everything is done by hand, real crafts work. Totally unexpected we find the fasted internet connection of Thailand so far in this town.Our Western stomachs are now pretty much used to the Asian food, even risky things like the crushed icecubes in our fruitshakes and the recognizable and unrecognizable things we eat from the sticks at the nightmarket don't cause any trouble.
Bridge on the river Kwai and Ayutthaya Thailand videoThe Bridge on the river Kwai and Ayutthaya Thailand video will show here |
Kao Yai national park wildlife Thailand videoThe Kao Yai national park wildlife Thailand video will show here |
Click on the films up here to look around in Kao Yai National Park and Kanchanaburi / Ayutthaya, almost live.
> More Info
Also check our Thailand info page, where you can find a lot of information about Thailand and come see our Central plains photos.