Wednesday, Nov 28
The Loi Krathong festival was really quite spectacular. We were fortunate to get a ride with a local family and didn’t need to wait for the bus. Of course, they wouldn’t accept any money, just a friendly act to guests in their country. The park was very crowded, as these things are sometimes and of course everything was off schedule. We did see hundreds of paper lanterns in the sky with the full moon shining, watched some traditional Thai dancers and the sound and light show. We kept waiting for the official Loi Krathongs to go into the water, unfortunately we missed them being launched since we needed to get back to the guest house at a somewhat reasonable hour for our early morning departure and we weren’t sure exactly where the bus back to town was located or how often it would be running. We left at the start of the first of three firework shows. Back at the guest house, around 12:30 AM while we were playing cards (yet again) a German couple showed up and told us the Krathongs weren’t put into the water until close to midnight. I hope you aren’t bored by all the temple shots of the park. It really is quite a spectacular place and I’m so glad we had an opportunity to see it at such a special time.
Tuesday, Nov 27
Day didn’t start our very well. Staff at the guest house can’t reach the bus company so we had to go to the station ourselves. It was hot and although they gave us a map and said it was about 3 km, the map was wrong! We ended up finding a tuk-tuk who took us to the terminal, where we purchased tickets for early Thursday morning and on the way back he ran out of gas and Mike and the driver ended up pushing the tuk-tuk to the gas station. Mike gave him a nice tip and he’ll be back this afternoon to take us to the Old City and drive us around the temples for a couple hours.
Hoping the afternoon goes better than the morning.
Monday, Nov. 26
Today was probably the most frustrating of our journey thus far. First off the train we were booked on to get to Sukothai for the light festival didn’t even have a third train car and our ticket was for car # 3 --- therefore, once on the train, even after being directed to seats 13/14 the conductor came along and had us move. First trying to separate us in the car and then after some struggle with the language (and my refusal to be separated), they finally put us in seats together and we were on our way. It was a long trip, neither of us could sleep and the scenery got a little boring. We got to one stop and all the falangs (foreigners) were getting off. We noticed it was one stop people use to go to Sukothai, but we stayed on the train to our destination. Once we arrived at the train station we found there were NO taxis or tuk-tuks to Sukothai (which we were assured by the incompetent Bangkok travel agent there would be transportation) at all. After inquiring with the train station staff, one of them changed his shirt and told us he would drive us the 31 KMs for 1000 bts. What could we do? Either pay the outrageous amount or be stuck in a city we didn’t want to be in and miss our reservations at Sabaidee Guest House. Off we went, after of course, stopping at a 7-11 for a couple beers for the ride. Mike says he’s going to publicly make her lose face. An absolutely unforgivable action in Thailand.
We arrived at the Guest House, they were expecting us and we have a lovely room and the staff is very friendly and accommodating. We had dinner after getting settled in our room and mid-meal the owner called everyone to the front of the house and he lit some paper lanterns and after a few minutes, they filled with hot air, we let them go and up up up in the air they went. It was really pretty. I can imagine hundreds in flight at one time. Hopefully we’ll see something like that while we’re here. After dinner we had a very interesting conversation with an older gentleman from named Christian from Belgium. He gave us some good tips on the area and what to do in the Old section of town. I’m always amazed with how much Europeans and others know about US politics. As usual they are more aware than most US citizens concerning this. We decided to “eat” the cost of the train tickets back to Bangkok and take a bus back, that way we won’t arrive at 4:00 AM. So tomorrow the staff here will try to make us reservations.
Beat Mike badly in rummy again tonight! He really sucks at gin rummy. However he has offered to play backgammon for money and relieve me of my savings account.
