In Pursuit of Mysteries

Chiangmai

R and I are up north in Chiangmai right now. The area has flooded because of typhoon rains in the hills. Since much of the forest of Thailand has been cut down, the water doesn’t stay up in the hills but, instead, goes down into the river, which flows through town. Out of three or four bridges across the river, only one is still in service. The train station is currently under about a meter of water, as is the night market area.

Much of the rest of the town is relatively dry but it is taking longer to get places because traffic is being rerouted and congested. We came in on a truck yesterday from the family villa that we had been staying at with some locals who run “Siam Adventures”, another tour company. Because of the flooding, three people from our party decided not to stay the last day in Chiangmai and took the $34 (!) flight to Bangkok last night. The rest of us are taking an overnight, sleeping, train back to Bangkok tonight. We should be there at the China Princess tomorrow morning. For the last week, R and I are staying in a four star hotel (which still cost less than $50 a night) since we wanted the last part of the trip to be low-key and we’ve been staying in clean but basic cabins and such by rice paddies with only a fan for A/C.

The weather here has actually not been bad at all. We’ve only gotten rained on once even though it is the end of the rainy season here. As we’ve moved North, the temperature has gone down. Half the time it is only in the high 70’s or lower 80’s (with something like 100% hunmidity). We sweat a lot but it is tolerable as long as you aren’t walking in the sun.

Yesterday, our group rode bicycles around the town that we were staying in and visited a primary school. We got to meet a bunch of the local children and visit another wat. Last night, R and I splurged and went to a nice dinner out where they had a show of traditional Thai dancing. It also turns out that Chiangmai, as a tourist destination, is a used book mecca and I picked up an out of print short story collection by Michael Marshall Smith for about $3 that you can’t buy for less than $100 normally.

It is morning (11:00 am) and R is off at Thai cooking school for a half day class. I’m just wandering about and taking it easy. This has been our first unplanned day all week.

Sukhothai

I had this long entry that I had written up and the whole system just lost it. I’m pretty annoyed.

We’re in Sukhothai in Northern Thailand right now. Today, we went to the Sukhothai Historical Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhothai_historical_park) with the group. We got up this morning, had food, and went out to the site in the back of a truck. We were then put on bicycles and we rode around the ruins as a group for about four or so hours. We stopped at the various ruined wats (temples) and statues, while things were explained, and took many photos.

Sukhothai is the original Thai kingdom. It is considered the “First Kingdom” by Thai people (we are in the fourth now). The Thai system of writing was invented there by the king and it was a heavily Khmer influenced region.

We are on tour with a group of twelve people plus our guide. The breakdown, so far, is me and R, two Quebecquois Canadians, two English Canadians, a family of three Australians, an American Journalist, a young Swiss women, and a fellow from the UK who used to be an IT headhunter. So far, the group is getting along pretty well. We’ve been hanging out together (I’m with the English fellow right now) and cracking jokes, drinking, etc.

It is Tuesday afternoon here. Yesterday morning, we got up early, weaved in taxis through Bangkok traffic and went to the train station. There we took a five hour train to a town and then piled into the back of a truck for an hour ride to Sukhothai. We’re staying at “Guest House #4″, which is a series of bungalow cabins around a central building with a dining room upstairs and a kitchen downstairs. It is warm here (in the 80s) and humidity is high. The dining area has no walls (that whole building doesn’t) and our cabins are pretty open to the air. We’re using mosquito nets here on the beds in order to keep the bugs out.

Tomorrow, we take a bus (I believe) to another city further north. Following that, we’ll be staying with the Hill People on Thursday and Friday. We’ll end in Chiang Mai on Saturday/Friday evening and then come back to Bangkok on Sunday.

R and I have another five days in Bangkok once we get back at the China Princess Hotel.

I’m going to go look for a Singha Beer now…

Bangkok is Here

We survived the 16 hours of plane travel in a plane full of Taiwanese. ;-)

We were picked up at the airport by a driver from the hotel. We aren’t as badly off as we could be given that our flight left at 4:00 AM and we had no sleep before that. By sleeping a bit on the plane, our bodies are completely confused but not as jet lagged as when we’ve gone to Europe.

Bangkok is pretty cool so far. The standard of living here actually seems higher than when we were in Greece. Go figure. Everything is relatively cheap except drinks cost more than food. A good coffee costs about 40 baht and a decent meal costs about 40 baht…which is about a dollar so…

We are in an Internet Cafe down the street from our hotel. We have to stay awake in order to completely get on local time. I’ll probably post something more tomorrow. I mainly wanted to check my e-mail.

The day after tomorrow, in the morning, our tour leaves for the north for a week.