Back to Bangkok - Round 2

After a long and very cold journey on the overnight train from Chiang Mai (The air conditioning was blasting all night) we got back to Bangkok and it was the end of the second tour. After a farewell breakfast I randomly bumped into Tegan from the first tour and we had a wander around the streets of Bangkok.



We walked from Khao San Road in Banglamphu to Siam Square in downtown Bangkok where all the shops seem to be, it took us a couple of hours and there were plenty of random monuments and temples along the way, which made it pretty interesting. After getting to Siam Square, we'd had enough of walking and so got the Skytrain to the river and then a river boat back to Banglamphu, where we walked into a parade for the Songkram festival for the Thai new year, which was happening in a week.



The next day before getting on another overnight train, I headed to the Grand Palace which was spectacularly ornate and packed out with tourists and Thai's paying their respects to the Queen Mother who had recently passed.

Chiang Mai

It was back to normality in Chiang Mai, with a hotel with beds, TV, normal toilets and even a shower curtain (which seems to be a luxury in Asia). Chiang Mai is Thailand's second largest city and much calmer and more laid back than Bangkok.



I visited the Doi Suthep temple in the morning, it's on the top of a mountain next to Chiang Mai and has spectacular views over the city. As with all these slightly remote temples, there are lots of steps up but the Doi Suthep conveniently has a lift as well.



In the afternoon we went bamboo rafting down a river near Chiang Mai, although we seemed to spend more time in the water than on the raft and it turned into a massive waterfight. Luckily it seems the water here is far cleaner than in Bangkok.



In the evening we headed to the Chiang Mai stadium to watch the Thai boxing. There were nine fights and the competitors seemed to start rather young, but the last two fights were pretty interesting.

Homestay near Lampang

Before we headed off to the middle of nowhere for the homestay in a small village, we stopped off at the Lampang Hot Springs. The water blasts out of the ground at boiling point and you can buy eggs to put in the pool in the picture above and they come out hard boiled. They also have the water running through channels round the park to let it cool of so you can paddle in it.



The homestay was a bit more basic than the one on the previous trip, the accommodation consisted of a big room with mattresses on the floor and a mosquito net. Some local people from the village played their weird instruments for us over dinner which was nice, even if it was the same tune repeated endlessly for about and hour. After dinner the local children did some of the traditional Northern Thai dances.



After a long and hot night without air conditioning, we offered alms to the monk at the village temple. Ladies aren't allowed to have direct contact with monks so they had to drop the food into the bowl.


After that we had a bike ride around the village, visiting the big temple, mushroom farm, local school and textile shop. I seem to have managed to do more bike riding in the last few days than the last few years.

Elephantastic

Next stop was the Elephant sanctuary near Lampang where elephants rescued from the logging industry were kept. First we saw them take a bath (above) then they put on a show showing off the skills they'd learned including how to stack logs and bow when their name is announced.



One of them can even put a hat on it's keeper.



We also got to watch two of the elephants paint pictures, they were no picaso but priced like they were.



We had a nice but relaxing ride on the back of the an elephant, we got tossed about especially when they went downhill.



After that we went to the Elephant hospital and saw the elephants that had been rescued from the Burmese border where they'd been used for illegal logging until they'd stood on a landmine and had their foot blown off, bit they were making it through and were so sweet.

Sukhothai - The old capital

Our first stop on the second leg of the tour was at Sukhothai, in the North of Thailand. This was the old capital before Bangkok, but was destroyed after Thailand lost one of the many wars they fought against Burma.


Luckily the ruins are on flat land as we had to cycle to get round them. The new town of Sukhothai is down the road and rather small, but we didn't stay long.

Bangkok - Round 1

After the overnight train, we arrived at Bangkok very early in the morning, although got woken up on the train around 5am by women patrolling the carriages selling stuff - very annoying. After dumping all our things at the hotel we had a narrowboat ride around Bangkok's canals. The boats were very narrow as the name implies and we heard that someone had gotten very ill after water from the canals splashed in their mouth, which made us all paranoid the whole journey.


We saw lots of sights from the narrowboat, including the grand place (above), which I'm going to go visit when I get back to Bangkok the second time. After the boat trip we went to Wat Pho, the temple of the reclining Buddha, which was extremely ornate.


The rest of the day and most of the next day was spent perusing the many markets. We went to the weekend market, which is meant to have over 1,500 stalls and was insanely busy. We were also lucky enough to be staying very close to Khao San Road in Chinatown, which is a pretty lively area, especially at night.

Ko Samui

Next stop was the island of Ko Samui, which took 4 hours by coach and 2 hours by ferry to reach, but was definately worth it. We stayed at the Sandy Resort, which was just off the beach and had a pool and loungers on the beach.


On the first day we were there we had a boat trip round some of the 40 islands that make up the atol. We did a bit of snorkling, although there weren't may big fish that was probably for the best. We even had lunch on a remote beach that could only be reached by boat.



On the evening of the second night, we went to see a ladyboy show, I don't think I could listen to a Tina Turner song in quite the same way, not that I'd want to anyway. Poor Damien from our tour group got dragged up on stage and humiliated a little bit, but it was all very funny. After spending the remaining time swapping between the beach and the pool, we headed to Bangkok on the overnight train. We had proper sleeper beds, although I didn't get much sleep with all the rocking and strange noises.