Random pictures of Ayutthaya and some others thrown in… these are from Jen’s camera.
A couple pictures from the night market… only showing 1 of the many courts. Taken from a really neat place for drinks
Reclining Buddha in Ayutthaya
A few pictures from the trek… again from Jen
Well it’s our last real day in Chiang Mai. We had a fairly hefty list of things to do before leaving. Firstly, having slept in a different spot every night, I wanted to keep that alive, so I wandered off in the morning to see if I could get into the guest house next to a hotel with a pool which we enjoyed before. We had been trying here for a long time and finally we were able to get a room. Roughly 10-12 bucks for all three of us in a nice room, access to a pool, en suite washroom, free water bottles in the room… crazy good deal.
After we moved over we got some breakfast and then it was off to get a scrape on Jen’s leg checked out (she got it on the trek.) A short tuk-tuk ride to the hospital and I think we had probably the best experience you can have in a foreign hospital. The waiting room had 4 seats, and that was all it needed. Jen was in getting checked out in a flash and after a shot and some antibiotics, all done right there, the total bill was only about 30 bucks. I don’t know how they do it over here.
We got our stuff figured out for Laos. We will be taking a bus ride to the border. Sleep for a night there, cross in the morning, take a river boat down (2 days) while spending the night at a village along the river. At that point we will be enjoying all Laos has to offer until Amy’s visa kicks in for Vietnam. There is some fun stuff to do along the river, and apparently some trekking like adventures to be had as well. My understanding is the road system is horrible in Laos, so train and water will be the way to move around when possible.
We got set up with books, and some US currency (apparently that is the smartest one to get for Laos) and now I am just making sure the ol’ blogeroo is in order before I enter the land of the unknown. Internet might not be so easy to come by. I might need to buy myself a note book to keep track of what happens and do another one of these blog assaults when I get back to civilization. After a dip in the pool it will probably be bed time… maybe a late night snack could get squeezed in there too 
Well so far every night in Thailand (outside of Bangkok) we have stayed in a different place every night… tonight is no different. It is a really nice place, but our two rooms are separate buildings and we are without AC, and the mosquito nets, while very pretty, seem like an ominous threat alluding to some potential night time visitors.
Today was more like a recovery day from the trek. We all slept in till about 10, which really isn’t common for all of us (maybe some of us, but not all of us.) We had a nice big meal, I took a chance to eat a pizza while it was sill available… it was good, but it was not an “American pizza.” We hit the internet cafe, and did some research on how we were going to get to Laos at some travel agent places around our hostel.
Every sunday there is a massive street market in Chiang Mai. We walked around for hours on end, and we had barely made a dent by the time exhaustion set in and we had to head back to bed. I don’t think it would have been possible to simply walk around the whole thing which spread through court upon court, and block upon block, never mind actually looking at the stands.
On the way back we got a quick massage for 2 dollars and then hit the sack.
Final day of the trek was a fun one. It was a short, hour or so, walk to the rafting camp. Amy, Jen, Tej, Agnes, Juliet and myself were in one boat, and the Danes and the Australians in another. Our boat definitely kicked butt. The river was quite low, but the big rocks in the rapids added some fun when it could have been a little less exciting without them. We got stuck once or twice but nothing close to what happened with the other boat. After a bit of “shakey shakey shakey” we eventually got to where we switched over to the bamboo rafting. The river guide picked me to “captain sparrow” the boat at the front, and after a few screams, a somewhat sinking raft, and the advice “if it not sink it not fun!” we continued down the rest of the river. It was pretty relaxing and very “Thailand.”
After one last meal we got back into the truck and had a really not fun at all 1 and a half hour ride back to Chiang Mai. We had a nice little chat with Oaf before getting dropped off at our old hostel. We couldn’t get a room, but eventually found another after a bit of walking around.
A nice meal and a dip in a really cold pool, a bit of law and order on TV, and then off to sleep we go.
We woke up had eggs with toast and fruit. We had some time so we walked around the village. Granted there was a solar panel powering the store, and some hefty radio antennas by some of the huts, you felt that you were at an authentic (if slightly modernized) hill tribe village. There wasn’t anyone trying to sell you gaudy souvenirs, the water and pop didn’t really cost much more than it would from the 7-11 down in Chiang Mai. There was a school with about 12 kids in it, cattle roaming around, chickens everywhere (the roosters started at about 1:00am eugh!) pig pens, pigs not in pens, really neat stuff.
We got back and it was a much easier hike to the next village, much smaller, and essentially it was just to get out of the sun, buy some water, and maybe a bag of chips. We walked along a stream, through the jungle, and eventually to the first waterfall. It wasn’t huge and the water was freezing, but it was an opportunity to swim and become less sweaty. We had lunch and played with a cat for a while and then went on to the next waterfall. It was beautiful, sandy bottom, but not deep enough to swim. The water seemed warmer and it was great for the legs and feet to cool off. After this we walked off to the camp for the night. No roosters this time! It was right on the side of the creek, and we had a big bonfire. There were some huge chunks of wood and Tej and I had a mission to burn through them before going to sleep.
We woke up around 8:00 to give copies of our passport to the guide to take to the tourist police (so they knew who was where) then later around 9:00 were picked up to bring our bags to storage. We left around 10 so the guide could pick up the ingredients for our dinner at a market. Our tour consisted of 4 Danish girls: Louise, Lada, Sophie, Melaina; 2 Austrian girls: Agnes, Juliet; 2 Australians: Sam, Lisa; 1 U.K. guy: Tej and us 3 Canadians.
The first stop was the elephant park. We had some food first and then got up on the elephants. We were short one elephant sort, so myself and Tej ended up riding on the neck of the elephant where the guide usually goes. Amy and Jen were in the seat behind me… at least at the beginning. The seat started tilted to one side, Amy’s side, and it just kept going more and more. Eventually it was me jumping off the elephant to try and hold up the seat while Amy and Jen hung on up top. Eventually we got them back up onto the neck of the elephant and were able to reattach the the seat to the elephant and continue the tour. The rest of the trip on the elephant consisted of him sucking up saliva and spraying it on us as we walked through the jungle.
We then got to the first day of hiking. It was pretty hard the first day. Really steep, really hot, and really dry. For the most part the group stayed pretty close together, but for the end, the steepest part Tej and I decided to go off ahead a bit instead of waiting for everyone as we had been and as happens when two guys are off showing that neither of us are all that tired, we ended up hiking up a lot fast than either of us really wanted to.
Eventually we met up with the guides brother who took us to the village. By the way, the guide’s nickname is Oaf — pronounced “Off.” Anyways, we get up there, a really neat bamboo building with nice mosquito nets. Amy and I got a massage from the tribe, it was really nice after the day of hiking. I had 3 people working on me at once… fan-tastic!
Dinner was curry by candle light, followed by fruit. We played cards with Tej and Louise and Lada for a while and had a pretty early night (even after trying to stay up “late” aka like 9:00)
Jen and I hurried off in the morning to find a place to switch to while Amy was getting ready in the prison erm… “guest house” shower. We tried a place we had asked yesterday (900 baht.. no thanks) but today they had a room for 560. That’s 10 more than what we were paying Sarah for 2 rooms, but it fit all of us, two HUGE beds, two bathrooms, and A POOL! I ran back to get Amy before checkout time and when we got back it turned out that while one person said the room was 560, the one taking the money from Jen said 500… right on!
We had some breakfast at the restaurant downstairs and met an Irish girl… she had a bit of insight on what to look for in treks, but not much more than we already knew ourselves. She invited me to go horse back riding with her while Amy and Jen were cooking, but again around 1000 baht, massages wins over bumpy rides in the hot sun.
We set off from there with plans to meet up at 7:00 to eat up Amy and Jens 9 dishes of hard work. The three of us decided we needed to book a trek as time was just passing by and so after what seemed like ages we finally found an actual tour company instead of a reseller and went with them as we got a really good feeling (which was not what we expected after hearing all the horror stories of failed, not fun, not enough food, over touristic treks.)
Amy and Jen went off for their class, I read a book and picked up the laundry etc while I waited for them. We met up with Christina (the Irish girl) and her friend Leigh-Anne who had a bit of bad luck and was back in Chiang Mai after losing her bike off of a bus. The food was amazing. Probably my favorite spring rolls and pad thai yet, and the sticky rice with mango and deep fried ice cream were a great dessert.
We headed to get a drink and while we had THOUGHT the ladyboy bar-girl keeping all the old guys excited was going to be entertainment enough, we were just blown away when a dancing elephant showed up at the front of the bar. It was a young looking thing and while our logical side said “what a horrible life, cruising the streets with it’s owner, dancing for food” it was really hard not to enjoy the surrealistic experience. The elephant looked well taken care of as well which made it easier.
We went back to the new room and packed for tomorrows trek.
Not a lot happened our first day here. Just getting settled in, and slightly disappointed with our guest house choice. Sarah Guesthouse felt a little more like Sarah Prison Cell Block C, it was a concrete bunker with little light and a pathetic (yet clean) bathroom. Sarah also seemed disinterested in everything going on around her, so we chose to look for a new place for the next day. We didn’t have any real luck but thought we would try again in the next day.
Amy and Jen signed up for some Thai cooking classes, I decline, 1000 baht could be 10 massages and I know what my priorities are.
I’m writing this several days late, and I don’t remember much more, which probably means it was likely just food, laundry and other fun things.
We woke up in Ayutthaya and headed for the train station. We got our stuff packed and went for the train station. We looked into what it would cost to take a sleeper train from Lop Buri (about 20 bucks for second class) and we got tickets for the train to Lop Buri as well. We skirted around the offer of the “Express train” (what we could only assume was the “tourist train” as it cost over 10 times as much as the “ordinary” train and only got us there maybe 20 minutes faster.
On arrival in Lop Buri we realized we were even further from tourist safe Bangkok. Under full assault from bike powered (single gear) tuk-tuk drivers, we finally gave in to paying a little more than what we wanted as long as they took us to the monkeys. First stop was a temple which looked just like every other temple we have seen, and it cost a butt-load to get in, so we skipped it. Then we were taken to some Buddha shrine-like thing which was one of maybe thousands we have seen. At this point we realized that the price we already wern’t happy with might be an hourly rate, so we just kept saying monkeys to them until they got the point to cut the tour short and bring us to the area with all the monkeys.
Now, granted, we had seen the odd monkey on the side of the road, on a sign, a fence, a pay phone, what have you… we had the impression that there would be a lot more around. Finally we were brought to an old wat just CRAWLING with monkeys. We left our tour guides at the street and went in. There were bags of sunflower seeds for sale for 10 baht (30 cents) so we thought it must be safe, plus everyone else was doing it. Not knowing exactly what to do (do we throw it like feeding ducks?) some guy made sign-like language motions showing me to put it in my hand and have the monkeys take it.
Amy was pretty nervous, but after seeing this one monkey politely take the seeds from my hand with his little monkey fingers one by one, she asked for the bag to try herself. This is when it happened. We were lucky enough Jen had started a video and sort of caught the act on camera, but it doesn’t truly do the situation justice.
We found that inside you could more safely feed the monkeys as you were essentially in a cage, and they were on the outside looking in. Their only option was to nicely take the seeds one by one through the bars. It was quite odd being on the inside of the cage with the monkeys on the outside.
After we got rid of the tuk-tuks and set off to waste some time until the night train. We discovered that the monkeys were maybe a 5 minute walk from the train station, keep that in mind for future trips to Lop Buri… Then as we spend a lot of our time, we had some food, indulged in some ice cream, hit an internet cafe to get some accommodation for Chiang Mai, and then spend the rest of the time at a really cool little side walk bar until heading back to the train station.
The train was a lot nicer than the Chinese one. Softer beds, not as jam-packed with people, AC… not a bad deal.
Also, for a bit of fun, here is some elephant dancing from Ayutthaya…
Ayutthaya is hot! Even with a bit of a base tan it was not enough to contend with the sun while riding old bikes around old Ayutthaya. We got a tourist cartoon map and bravely headed off! Our previous night was interesting, the first thai restaurant with no english, nor pictures. We we hailed into a roadside restaurant like thing and ordered a safe pad thai. The lady kept brining out other dishes saying their name and “free” which we gladly gobbled down. We saw a lot of old ruins which eventually started to meld together as the heat kept pounding down on us. At lunch time we realized it was time to bike back.
The rest of the day involved a lot of rest and a little food at a night market. Tomorrow is a big travel day, Lop Buri and then on to Chiang Mai.
With the fact that Lop Buri (the monkey city) and Ayutthaya (old capital of siam) are a lot smaller cities and a lot less western, we spent the first part of our day getting together some extra cash and toiletries etc. We then wandered down to the river (a minute or so walk from the guest house) to check out a longboat river tour. Previously billed as 500 baht per person the lady was selling seats for 300 baht per person to other tourists, and we convinced her to go down to 200 baht per person (She reluctantly said “OK” with a message of “no tell others”) I was quite glad we got to see it. The main goal was to go see a floating market, but the areas that the boat toured around were maybe even more fascinating.
Along the way we found a huge lizard-like creature swimming in the water… pictures will have to follow, I hope at least one turned out.
We had a nice lunch and headed to the train. A travel agent guy insisted that we needed him to pre-book the train and accommodations for our trip earlier, but that doesn’t fit with how we want to schedule things (ie. we don’t schedule) Anyways turns out that the trip to Ayutthaya cost us 15 baht. That’s like 50 cents. Not the hundreds he was trying to sell us.
We got in late and after some horrible confusing phone calls we got to the guest house.
