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(Nick and Jodie are off on an epic tour of the Far East. They will be gone for nearly a year, and are sending back reports via email. You can follow their journey here).
Episode one : arrival in Thailand
Tue, 3 Dec 2002
The plane touched down in Bangkok and I was itching to get any glimpse of Thailand through the windows. It had been a long flight but I managed to get a good 5 hours sleep. As we queued to get our passports stamped I gazed out of the huge shiny windows. Bangkok airport was very modern and very plush. I had always imagined it to be a large corrogated building with goats running across hand-painted runways.We managed to get our 30 day stay visa. Sorted. That meant that in 30 days we would have to cross into one of the many bordering countries and come back into Thailand, thus entitling us to another 30 day stay. No problem. Our friends Adelle and Matt met us outside the airport. Adelle had been in Thailand for three weeks now and was pretty clued up on everything. As I walked through the sliding doors I was blasted with an intense stifling heat. It was overwhelming! From inside the air-conditioned airport it looked really overcast and cloudy and so I did not expect it to be so hot. It was fantastic to see Adelle and Matt. Not only was it good to see familiar faces amongst the chaos and confusion but it was also good to have Adelle's knowledge of the city. She hailed down a taxi and ordered him to put it on the meter. In Bangkok the yellow and green taxis have a meter but if you do not insist they switch it on they just give you their own price and they stiff you every time. My first glimpses of Bangkok were excessive amounts of traffic, wild driving tuk tuks (part taxi, part motorbike, part lawn mower), advertising billboards fixed to every type of structure, stalls selling every type of food and meat you could imagine (and some you couldn't) and a non stop procession of backpackers and tourists (every nationality that has a stronger currency than Thailand) and of course the Thai people themselves. Call me perverse but I loved it!
On our first night Adelle took us to Koah San road, the backpackers' hangout of Thailand. We met up with her friend Nick (not me!) in the Gullivers travels bar. This bar is bizzare. Outside you have have all the hustle and bustle of the streets of Bangkok but walk in and its like you've been transported to Leicester square. It plays British and American music and is full of British, American and Australian backpackers, which was quite comforting for our first night in a strange land. Adelle's friend Nick was staying at the D and D's Inn on the Koah Saan road and we decided that this would be as good a place as any to spend a couple of days recovering from jet lag. That night we had a real gem of a first night drinking in all the different bars along the road. The Koah Saan road consists of rows upon rows of stalls selling everything imaginable and at Knocked down prices (which can be knocked down even more with a bit of bartering). As you walk down the road every one of your senses is literally assaulted! Overpowering smells, deafening soundsystems, a dusty taste in the mouth and the feeling of grime clinging to you for a free ride to the other end of the road. Every alley leads to another and another selling anything from diesel clothing to botique sarongs to fake driving licences and journalist passes. Then there are the vulture like Tuk Tuk drivers homing in on you if you don't look like you know where you are going. "Hello my friend,where you go?" "Tuk Tuk" "Where you go? you want Tuk Tuk?" But it's the people-watching that I enjoy the most, every type and stereotype of person you can possibly imagine are there, walking, running, jumping and staggering around. I have to admit though that after three days and with a slight hangover I just wanted to tell the whole street to just back off and give me some space. Thankfully that day was the same day we left for Ayhutya.
Ayhutya is a small town surrounded by a river about an hour and a half north of Bangkok. We stayed at a guest house reccomended by Adelle which was run by a 4ft Thai women called Noi. The house was beautiful with a huge wooden veranda going out onto the river. On the first day we met up with a Swiss couple called Mark and Anuk and we all went to the day market. It was huge but we didn't explore for too long because of the overpowering smells of cheap incense and stinky fish meat! The second day Jodie and I took a walk out of town to see some old temples (called Wats over here) and more golden Buddah statues than you could poke a stick at. In the afternoon we went on an amazing 4 hr trip around the town's rivers on a motor powered longboat. We stopped off at various sites along the way, the most impressive being Elephant Kraal. This was where one of Thailand's previous kings used to have all the Elephants rounded up to work. It is now an Elephant sanctuary and we watched them eating and playing. When we tried to go back to the longboat our driver insisted that we go back to the sanctuary. She didn't speak any English but through hand gestures and suchlike we realised that if we waited for 10 minutes we would see the rest of the Elephants being ridden from town into the sanctuary. We went back and right on schedule along they came. What a Kodak moment (we got loads of photos). 12 elephants marching down the road no more than 12 metres away from us. Fantastic!
The next day we took a train north to Phitsanulok as it would break up the long journey to the City of Chiang Mai - our next port of call. Even with this halfway stopping point it was still a 7 hour train journey. The trains in Thailand are quite efficient (well anything's an improvement on British Snail) and there are large windows down both sides of the train so it is quite cool and refreshing while the train is moving. One thing that I was particularly impressed with was the clean and well kept train stations. There are beautiful flowers and shrubs in ornate flower pots at every station and not a single piece of litter. We passed through the town of Lopburi a town which the guidebook describes as being besieged with monkeys. I looked out of the window hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the cheeky chappies. The train pulled away and just as I was about to give up we passed some temple ruins with no less than 50 monkeys running and swinging around like they owned the place.
We arrived in Phitanulok at 5.30 pm after a bit of haggling with a tuk tuk driver agreed on a price of 30 bhaat (aprox 40p) to take us into town to the Phitsanulok youth hostel. We stayed here for three days and didn't really venture into town very much because the hostel was so amazing! It is a jungle style oasis! We walked in off the busy street and into this peaceful greenery setting with a timber frame covered cafe surrounded by greenery and rockery. There are loads of Gekkos and Lizards dashing across the walls and surfaces WOW! There are hammocks and a wooden bench with stone slab tables and stools. The cafe part is a carved Teak bar table with teas, coffees and a fridge full of pepsi and Chang (which means elephant in Thai) beer! It is self service and works on the pretence that you write down in a book whatever you take. This is very trusting and no-one that stayed there abused this trust. Our room had Amazing carved Teak panelling and a double bed with a very very hard mattress, but it does the job. We had our own outdoor shower (with complimentary Gekkos). The showers are cold but this is very refreshing in the hot climate. At the back of our room was a beautiful garden with Jasmine vines hanging down and along the rockery path is an amazing open air restaurant converted from an old house. All this luxury only set us back 2 pounds 50 a night each. Marvelous!
Must go now, gotta catch a bus to Chiang Mai. Everyone who receives these newsletters please write back. It only costs 40 pence an hour for internet and all news is good news from home. Hope to hear from you all,
Love Nick and Jodie.
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