Living Without Cheese

Aaaah it’s a tough life, this travelling lark.

No seriously, it is. Every day I wake up earlier than I ever did when I had to work, drag myself for a coffee while the mosquitos attack, plough through the relevant chapters in the bible (the lonely planet), and psych myself up for the day. Temple after temple after temple. I swear if I never see another temple in my life I’ll be a happy lass.

After bangkok, we headed west to Kanchanaburi, a small town famous for the atrocities carried out by the Japanese army during the building of a railway line linking Thailand to Burma (and beyond that, to India) during WWII. Thousands of British and Australian POWs died while working 18 hour shifts without food, little sleep and using basic tools to build this bloody railway line to keep the Japs happy. Anyway, a film was made about it – The Bridge Over the River Kwai. Never seen it, but y’know, history, culture etc. The bridge itself is, well, a bridge. The area is really pretty though, lush fields, thickly forested mountains, snaking rivers. I liked it.

The best part was our guesthouse though. We stayed in a bungalow built on a raft on the river overlooking some savage scenery. It was while I sat on the veranda looking at this scenery and counting fish that I got attacked by 398 mosquitos, who left my feet in swollen tatters. But I decided the best thing to combat this would be to go hiking in a forest for miles and miles and miles (and miles and miles), then to swim in turquoise pools while fish tried to nibble my thighs (plenty to nibble), cycle miles and miles (and miles and miles) to visit a cave/temple/torture camp for the Japanese during the war/site of the murder of a British tourist by a drug addicted monk, get caught in a thunderstorm and take shelter under a homeless family’s piece of wood, and stand beside Caro while she jumped into a drain full of sewage, soaking both of us with unmentionable crap. Next day, every bite had turned into a fully fledged blister. Luckily, the pain was soothed each night by the karaoke barges that passed my bungalow every 10 minutes for 4 hours each night, packed with microphone happy Thais. Serenity eh? Can’t beat it.

And thus we arrived in Ayuthaya in a blaze of public bus glory  in the middle of the night, to find no taxis available, all guesthouses miles away from the station and packs of wild dogs roaming the streets and eyeing up my thighs hungrily. My feet hurt. The dogs started following us. Things were not looking up. Caro waved down every single vehicle that passed us. This included a range rover driven by a man who told us Bangkok was *points* that way, and a tuk tuk driver who dumped all our stuff into the back and dropped us off at a “guesthouse”. I’m fairly sure it was just somebody’s spare room that they stuck the number “6” onto. We were outta there first thing next morning. Nice things in Ayuthaya? Well, ruined temples of course. Goes without saying. The city is lovely, much nicer than Kanchanaburi, very clean and well kept. The people are great and the atmosphere really relaxed. The packs of wild dogs? Not so cool. After myself and Ken scared all the children by stripping off and exposing our white selves at the pool in the guesthouse, we felt suitably refreshed to continue or journey North.

To Sukothai. Which is where I am now. All of today was spending cycling for miles (and miles and miles and miles) checking out – yes! you guessed it! ruined temples! I got sunburned despite lashing on the factor 50 three times an hour. The heat was something else. Old Sukothai is something out of a movie, it’s really incredible and well worth a visit. But now that we’ve done that, we are northward bound in the morning. Next stop – Chiang Mai.

In conclusion, I like the following things about Thailand:

1. Public transport – anywhere you want to go, anytime, for any price

2. Thai people – once you get over the fact that there’s a good chance they’re trying to get some money out of you, they’re sweet as hell and the best of craic.

3. Air Conditioning. Oh it rocks.

I do not like:

1. Blood thirsty mosquitos. I am not a piece of meat. It’s like being in CPs every day.

2. Slugs the size of a rat.

3. Bedrooms that smell of sewer.

4. Streets that smell of sewer.

5. Sewers.

But Thailand is fantastic, and I’m enjoying every minute.

Tags: Thailand, Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Thailand, 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.