T&A

We arrived by train in Ban Krut, which while very slow and boring, was a very interesting way to travel. The train stopped at what felt like every little town or intersection to pick/drop people off. After finally arriving, and getting a guest house, we were greeted by a deserted beach, and rain. Everything seemed to be expensive here, and since there’s nothing to do in an expensive beach resort area when it’s raining, we only stayed one night and then jumped on a bus to Petchburi.

Phetchburi turned out to be a gem in the Southern Thailand leg of our trip. We were dropped off on the side of a dusty highway, and had to walk through the city streets to our guesthouse. The first thing we noticed about this place was the atmosphere. Despite being relatively close to Bangkok, Phetburi doesn’t receive as many visitors as other nearby cities. Instead of ignoring the tourists, the children were yelling at us using whatever english they knew, and even the older people would say hello. The children especially liked talking with Adam, asking him where he’s from, etc., and they were really suprised when he would say hello to them in thai.

Phetburi is known for their Batu caves, which is essentially five huge cave-rooms connected together, known to be King Rama IV’s favourite caves. To bring luck to the Thai people, the King put in over 200 Buddha’s in these cave systems. The unique part of these caves is the “skylight” created by a huge hole in the ceiling of the second cave. This hole allows for beams of light to come down and shine on the Buddhas. We were only allowed into three of the five caves, since there was a ‘Bollywood’ movie being filmed when we were there.

We were also able to see the Band-it cave systems, which are smaller more intricate caves in the same area with just as many Buddha’s in it, as well as the King’s summer home on top of the highest hill overlooking the city. We continued our tour of the city to find numerous beautiful Wats (Temples), some crumbling to the ground, while others were decorated with beautiful murals and paintings. The final Wat of the day housed a bunch of young monks, probably 10-15 years old, who just kept talking to Adam, since they aren’t allowed to interact with women.

While we were sad to leave Phetchburi, we were very anxious and excited about the big bad Bangkok. We had been warned by many travelers that we would either love or hate this place.

When we arrived by bus, we encountered our first scam. The local taxi drivers were trying to convince us that there was no local bus from the bus station to the centre of the city. However, after 30 days in Thailand, we knew better than to listen to them. We jumped on a city bus, and found ourselves dropped off near Khao San Road, the “backpacker’s mecca” of Southeast Asia. After hearing stories of and reading about this infamous road, we were expecting a busy, congested street full of seedy vendors selling everything you could imagine. Unfortunately, now it’s more of a tourist icon. However, you can still buy cheap clothes and food here. A t-shirt was $2-5, and a styrofoam dish of Pad Thai was just less than $1. The chinatown market in Singapore had a better atmosphere.

We spent our first day getting aquainted with the city, and watching a movie at one of the English movie theatres. Some unique things about the movie experience were that the national anthem was played before every movie, and seating was assigned. You arrange beforehand where you will be seated with the ticket seller when you purchase the ticket. This is nice, because then you’re not in a rush to get good seats when they open the theatre.

We arrived in Bangkok on Saturday, so we decided on Sunday to go to the Chatuchak weekend market, the largest market in Bangkok with over 15 000 stalls. This market sold anything you can think of – clothes, food, antiques, jewelry, books, toys, puppies, etc. Basically, anything you need, or don’t need, you can buy here. It took us a few hours just to walk through the market, and we didn’t even see every stall.

Next on our list was some sightseeing. Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is home to the royal family, as well as the royal palace. We decided to jump on a taxi boat to the royal palace and royal wat. The royal family now live in the northern part of Bangkok, but they still use these grounds for ceremonies, etc. The Wat in the royal palace was breathtaking – the buildings were either painted gold, or adorned with coloured glass that sparkled like gems in beautiful patterns. Murals line the outer walls and are said to be the best in Thailand. Inside the Wat itself sits the Emerald Buddha, a Buddha carved out of a single piece of jade stone, which has it’s own shady history.

We ended up doing a city walk, and saw Bangkok’s largest reclining Buddha, Chinatown’s crazy market street, and a genuine fish and spice market (also part of Chinatown). We ended up getting lost, and then taking a bus to the Jim Thompson house. Jim (not Adam’s uncle) was an architect by trade, but came to Thailand during WWII, but never saw any action. He loved the area so much, he decided to move to Bangkok where he started Bangkok’s world renowned silk trade. His house, which is now a museum, consists of six antique thai-style houses relocated from neighbouring villages.

The last day, we did some shopping and ended up buying a painting from a deaf vendor and his wife. Tara was excited to meet a deaf person in another country, and practiced her sign with them. A lot of words are similar, so they were able to somewhat understand each other. We also prepared for our overland border crossing into Cambodia, which we read could be a huge hassle.

Now we’re in Cambodia, but we’ll save the border crossing story for the next post.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 6:56 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.