Our flight to Bangkok from Singapore took around 2 hours. We were directed through customs and took the sky train into the city. Up until this point on our trip, everything had been very civilized so I wasn’t mentally prepared yet for the craziness that is Asia.
It started when we caught the local train to the bus station and we were asked if we had bombs or guns as we had to walk through a metal detector and had our bags checked! Then we boarded our train to Ayutthaya. We had been on fantastic clean & comfortable transport up until this point – this train had basic bench seats, no air con and wide open windows with the local’s heads peering out. As our ticket was written in thai, we couldn’t read it to see if we had allocated seating or not. The train was near full and all of the locals stared at us as we tried to find a seat. It felt like being back at school where no one wanted to let the new kid sit next to them. They looked at our ticket and uttered a stream of un-comprehendible words and waved us away. As we moved down 3 cars and still no seat, I started to get flustered, and to make things worse, my little backpack on my back got caught and exploded sending my things flying everywhere. A very lovely old man helped me pick everything up again. I must have looked one hell of a sight – bright red face from the heat and my long hair plastered to the sweat all over my face, back and neck. “Bloody tourist” I’m sure they were thinking as my big backpack, too big for the narrow aisle, kept knocking into everyone’s knees. Oh dear. Great start! We ended up finding 2 Americans and sat with them. Hurrah!! Once they had departed, a lovely local lady showed us when we needed to get off the train. You’ve got to be quick, they only give you a minute! Like buses on South America, every few minutes someone will wonder through the carriage trying to sell you various food & drink – most of which didn’t look familiar at all!
The journey took roughly 2 hours and when we arrived we were determined to find our own way to a cheap but tidy hostel I had seen online. To be honest, to avoid the hassle, we should have paid the measely $2 for a tuk tuk! Ayutthaya used to be the capital of Thailand from 1350 – 1767 until the Burmese sacked and looted the city so the Thai people moved the capital to Bangkok. It is now known as the fallen city with its many once very impressive temples surrounded by a river. I was expecting it to be a small quaint city as it is considered a UNESCO heritage site, but it’s still very much a big bustling dirty city. A tangle of power lines & aerials, muddy pot holed streets, an abundance of rubbish, stray dogs and basic bamboo, wooden or concrete buildings. The humidity & heat was just as intense as Singapore, if not more. We caught a little boat over the river and dragged our bags a good 1-2kms to find the hostel. It started to get dark and then began to rain and we had to somehow run across a very busy 6 lane highway. Just when I was about to give up and rent a tuk tuk and go find another hostel, hurrah, we found it! On the map it didn’t look as far!
It only cost $1 a day to hire a bicycle or $20 to rent a tuktuk for 3 hours. Given how crazy busy and messy the roads were and how hot it was, I wasn’t comfortable with the bike option, however cheap, so managed to convince Andrew that the tuktuk was the way to go. Our enthusiastic driver took us on a tour of the city and showed us the main temples and ruins. It was very neat to see them all and imagine what life had once been like for the empire. Religion (mainly Buddhism) is still extremely important to the Thai people. There are large white or gold Buddha statues everywhere. My favourite temple is the most preserved and it’s right next to the river and would be beautiful at sunset – Wat Chai Wattanaram - very picturesque.
That night we had booked ourselves on an overnight train to Chiang Mai. It was slightly cheaper to go by bus but after the amount of hours we clocked on buses in South America, I was desperate for a little more comfort this time! We waited at the train station for a few hours rather uncomfortable in the extreme humidity with our clothes sticking to us and insect repellant & sunscreen from the day making our sweat slimey. In amongst reading, I amused myself by watching the 20 or so lizards run back and forth across the wall. We were also awarded the entertainment of a powerful torrential down pour and lighting display.
As the train arrived, I was preparing myself for the worst. I’ve booked sleeper cabins before that have turned out to be basic chairs that only slightly recline. But I was pleasantly surprised – this train was fantastic! We had our own comfortably padded bench chairs facing each other with a pop up table in which dinner was quickly served (additional cost of course) and then the chairs folded down into a bed and a second bed pulled down from the roof – voila, bunk beds with curtains! And I can’t forget to mention the air conditioning – divine! The 13 hour journey was rather comfortable and flew past. This train was full of tourists – we could hear Canadian, American, British and Australian accents all around us as well as loads of Spanish & French.
Once in Chiang Mai we were bombarded with taxi drivers eager for business. We negotiated a price in a shared taxi and heading to a very affordable hostel I had seen online. Many trendy looking hostels had been recommended to us from friends and were very tempting, but when there is a simple but perfectly acceptable private room with private ensuite, air con, wifi and close to the city and night markets for half the price – why splurge?! Definitely sticking to private rooms too - after 3 months of dorm rooms in South America, I would rather the pleasure of privacy!
Chiang Mai is another busy city but seems so much more laid back and tidy. The main city is surrounded by a moat and parts of a broken down wall that was erected to protect them from the Burmese. Inside the city there are many trendy cafes, bars and shops and beautiful gold patterned temples on almost every street with barefoot monks in attendance. We enjoyed wondering around and soaking in the relaxed atmosphere. Despite the pouring rain at night, we enjoyed a bit of shopping at the night markets – the place was full of colorful clothing, art, sculptures & jewellery. Aladdin gypsy type pants are the norm here – how cool to be in a place where being out in public in what could be deemed as pajamas is totally acceptable!
We contemplated doing an overnight trek in the jungle but decided the heat would be too uncomfortable and we’d rather have more time at our next destination so we opted for a day trip. For a mere $48 each we had an action packed day! We were collected early morning and set off to lame butterfly & orchid place and then to a little village in the jungle (albeit a village only for tourist attractions) and enjoyed the novelty of cruising down the river on a bamboo raft. Afterwards we went for a ride on an elephant surrounded by thousands of dragonfly's.
This is where I started questioning the morals of the world…. If it’s ok to keep horses as pets and ride & work them – is it ok to do the same with an elephant? It made me sad seeing the elephants all herded along in a line through the deep mud taking one set of tourists after another on a walk. A local sat on the elephants head as we sat on a seat roped onto the elephants back. The seats were incredibly uncomfortable and the poor elephant would get hit on the head with a sharp metal edged stick if they weren’t going fast enough. I felt like smacking the person on the head! Elephants are quite thick skinned, would it be the equivalent of us using a crop or our ankles on a horse? The elephants don’t seem to have any wounds and do get to go into the river to bath and drink with each ride, plus each set of tourists get to feed the elephants sugarcane & bananas – which we did and was quite neat. But does that mean they are well looked after? Some of them are chained up at night, surely that’s not ok? So if it’s not ok to use elephants as slaves, then is it ok to have a pet bird in a cage when it belongs in the sky? Should we even have pet dogs or cats? Or are they the only animals in the world that would have a better life as pets then in the wild? Where do we draw the line?
Anyways, we had a buffet lunch where I encountered the first squat toilet for this trip. I don’t actually mind them, as long as they are clean! Not being able to flush toilet paper or drink tap water, even when brushing your teeth, has become second nature again very quickly.
We then went for an hour’s hike through the jungle (not too far from the road though) and checked out a water fall. We weren’t aware that this was part of our tour but we ended up white water rafting which was a lot of fun (but relatively tame). Nice bonus! We had 4 Chinese people, 2 Spanish and 2 Israeli’s with us.
We also got a glimpse at how people live in a simple village. We saw many villages like this in South America as well. It is very humbling. Human nature means that we generally always want more, instead of appreciating what we already have. Such as, if you have no home, all you want is shelter. When you have shelter, you dream of running water and somewhere soft to sleep. When you have those simple luxury’s you want furnishings and modern comforts such as air con or central heating, nice bathrooms and kitchens etc After that of course comes things that we WANT not NEED – TV’s, Stereos, Radios, Playstations, Internet, Phones… even washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves etc When that becomes the norm, you dream of mansions, fast cars, swimming pools, all the latest technology…. Seeing the way these people live with a tin roof, bamboo walls and wooden floors, the odd table and rug - and if they’re lucky they have electricity and running water – it really makes me feel blessed that I was born in a place where all of these simple pleasures and much much more were a given and that I have the opportunity to do whatever I want with my life and not be trapped in poverty and have limited options.
The wealth divide here is quite prominent. A nice western looking 3 bedroom home will be surrounded by huge piles of rubbish next to a basic bamboo house on poles over a swamp. It’s so unhygienic and unsafe. However, I am also surprised to notice that most of the cars on the road look very new!
Next stop – Pai.
