Thailand - Part 1
We arrived in Bangkok and got dropped off at Khao San Road, which is the main street for backpackers. I have never seen as many travellers in one place, most were sitting in a bar sipping Chang or Singha beer. The streets were lined with hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of fake designer t-shirts, jeans etc and of course there was plenty of customary Thai tat on offer.
It was quite a culture shock arriving in Thailand after spending time in Sri Lanka and India, as it was so much easier for backpackers and there were certainly a lot more westerners than we'd been used to. Bangkok was not our favourite place so far but as always, there were some highlights.
The bright lights of Khao San Road
We went to a Thai boxing match, which was excellent! We weren't sure what seats to get, so I was allowed to go in and have a look. I very quickly decided on ringside seats which were a little pricey but the best choice. The boxing was very entertaining, if not a little brutal, with the stretcher being brought on more than once. We were lucky enough to be there when there was a big championship fight on, as the atmosphere was absolutely amazing.
The Championship fight
Laura - along with her camera - manged to ensconce herself by the judges' bench at ringside, to get some close ups of the action. However, the best photo has to be when Laura had the honour of having her picture taken with the champion.
I'm sure she could take him!
The Grand Palace is the top visitor attraction in Bangkok and was definitely worth a visit. It appeared that every building was made of gold and it was almost too much to take in in one visit. The roofs shone in the sunshine and the bling of the gold was blinding! We spent a morning there and followed it with a bit of lunch a the food festival that had set up just outside.
Grand Palace
We treated ourselves to a face massage and also get our eyebrows waxed. I enjoyed the experience very much but unfortunately, Laura had a trainee and not only did she nearly pull her face off with the massage but manage to remove half of her face during the waxing process. As you can imagine Laura was not best pleased and was ready to complain and demand a refund but considering it only cost, about 80 pence it wasn't really worth it. I guess you do get what you pay for!
Scar face
We have had some great food on our trip and the "what do you fancy to eat?" question, forms an important part of everyday. In Bangkok, we found the street food to be very tasty and you can buy a wide variety of meat on sticks, which I liked very much. The only problem is, you never know exactly what meat it is and I have spotted a few three legged dogs limping around (only joking!). I have also tried a fried grasshopper which I can only describe as crunchy.
Mmmmmmmmm tasty! Laura sampling some fish head soup
We stayed in Bangkok for 5 days and as well as the sites, we shopped (and shopped a bit more!). We had some suits made, which despite the worries of paying for ill fitting rags, they actually turned out pretty good. We also sent a box of stuff to New Zealand, to help us get through the winter, on the final leg of our trip!
We finally left Bangkok and went a few hours west to Kanchanaburi, which is famous for its bridge over the river Kwai. We went on a day trip, which included a trip to the Erawen Waterfalls, which were beautiful and provided the opportunity for a refreshing swim in the top pool. The trip also included a visit to see some of the famous Thailand- Burma railway which the prisoners of war built during the WWII. We walked part of the Hellfire pass which cut through the rock face and where hundreds of POWs and local labourers lost their lives - it was really interesting and quite eerie at the same time. We had a ride on part of the railway named 'Death Valley', which provided some good views but there were a number of scarey moments, as below!
Laura made me hang out for the sake of the photo!
After Kanchanaburi it was off to Chaing Mai and I must say that it one of the best forms of transport we have taken so far. The seats were really comfortable and the "bed man" as we called him, came around and told us that he would be making up our beds at 10pm and sure enough, he came around and it was bedtime - I don't think it was his job to tuck us in though!
Tucked up and ready for bed!
Chiang Mai is Thailand's secnd city, although a lot smaller and less hectic than Bangkok. We decided to do a white water rafting trip whilst we were there, which we both really enjoyed. Unforunately, the water is very low at this time of year so we kept getting stuck between the rocks. I was at the front and had to keep moving to each side of the raft to try and get us unstuck by the end I was a master at it but exhausted. There were a few scarey bits despite the low water and we did nearly loose laura on the way down. Her paddle got stuck in a whirl pool and she fell overboard and had to be dragged back in the boat by the instructor - she looked very elegant being thrown headfirst with her legs in the air!
We couldn't get an action shot of us riding the rapids so this is us on dry land after we had survived our adventure!
Chiang Mai was a really pretty and relaxing place, so we just chilled out for a few days, had a wander around the city, the markets and of course the beautiful temples that were on offer. We managed to bump into Myra and Graham - who we met in Sri Lanka - and had dinner with them, which was really nice. We also stumbled upon a monk drumming competition, which was quite amusing. The only aim appeared to be bang your drum as loud as possible within the given time limit!
At the local markets, it was very popular with tourists and locals alike to get your feet massaged on the street, so we indulged in a couple of massages that were devine and cost 1 pound for 30 minutes - a bargain!
After Chaing Mai we got the bus to Chiang Khong and hopped over the river into Laos for the next leg of our journey.
Sri Lanka
Our original plan was to spend just a week in Sri Lanka but having been there just a couple of days, we loved it, so extended our flights to say a further two weeks. We flew into Colombo but spent no time there before boarding a bus to Kandy, the capital of the Hill Country.
After spending the day exploring Kandy, we went to 'Pub Royale' to treat ourselves to a couple of bottles of the local favourite, 'Lion Beer' (a couple of hours walking deserves a few beers and it was cheap!). We ended up talking to a couple of Sri Lankan men and it turned out that one of them coached a girls school in a fairly poor village. After a couple of beers, we agreed to meet him the next day and 'assist' him! We were a little dubious about going but we did, and he took us up into the hills to the school. The coach had told us that he bought the school balls and equipment, so when we turned up to see 35 euthusiatic girls, a dirt pitch with a few tufts of grass and two balls, it was a bit of a surprise!
What a natural coach I am!
We thought that we'd be helping out, so when he announced to the girls that they had new coaches for the 3 hour session in the baking heat, with 2 balls, it was shock (and a bit of a challenge!) but we got stuck in!
Catherine and the girls
The girls spoke little English but demonstation is a very powerful tool! There was plently of pointing and confused faces but we got by! We were exhausted at the end but the girls were so lovely.
From Kandy, we also visited an Elephant Orphanage, which was great. We saw the elelphants, feeding - the babdies fed milk from bottles - and then bathing in the river for a few hours. They were not wild and it was hard to know if they were well treated but it did not seem bad and the elephants were addictive viewing.
Bath time at the Elephant Orphanage
We visited the orphanage on Independence Day, which was a national holiday and a mistake for us. It seemed that every Sri Lankan travels on public holidays, so the buses were a little crowded! we were literally hanging out of the door for the journey but unlike the locals, we could not be cool and make it look easy, we were thrown all over the place and only calmed our nerves with hysterical laughter! Travelling on the buses was the the closest I have come to a near death experience and hanging on the outside of the bus, holding on for dear life, is not something I want to repeat very often - although I'm sure it was safe so I was probably worrying for nothing! A local told us that a lot of the bus drivers are wannabe pilots, which explains why they drive at break neck speeds - Catherine held on for her life and most of the time could not even open her eyes!
On another day, we hired a driver and went on a day trip north to visit the ancient city of Sigiriya, which is a palace built in 471 a.c., on the top of a 200m high rock. We climbed to the top to the see the foundations that remain and enjoyed the beautiful views.
Catherine posing (resting!) at the top of Sigiriya
We also visited the some Buddist caves in a place called Dambulla. There were about 500 statues of budda in different poses, some were up to 30 m in length and most were still in excellent condition. The feet below were about 2m long.
The lotus painted feet of a 30m long, dying Budda
After Kandy, we got the train south to Adam's Peak and it was one of the most beautiful journeys I have ever been on. The train was slow as it climbed higher and higher but all you could see for miles and miles were rolling hills of tea plantaions. We climbed the peak through the night to get to the top for the sunset. It is a pilgrimage that most Sri Lankan's do at least once a year, most were buddists but it's also a hindu pilgrimage. We set off at 3.30am and on our way up we passed loads of people coming down. There were steps all the way to the top (about 6,000 of them) and most people walked in flip flops, some in heeled sandals! The best sight was a woman who was about 70 who was coming down wearing a pink dressing gown, a beach towel and flip flops! We got to the top at 6am and it was freezing but the sunrise and the scenery made the hike worthwhile.
The happy climbers (on our way back down!)
There was also this really crazy triangular shadow that appeared on the valley below. We'd read about it in the guide book but it was so much more impressive than we'd imagined.
Straight from the mountain and on a high and before our stiffness set in, we boarded the train to Ella. Ella was in a beautiful location surrounded by tea plantations. On one of the days, we spent a few hours wandering through the tea plantations and a couple of the pickers ran off through the tea and beckoned us to follow them, which we did. We spoke only a few words of each other's language but they showed us how to pick tea and then started waving at the sky to which we reponsed, "yes, it's beautiful". About 10 minutes after we left them , it started lashing down with rain and we realised that they were warning us about the weather, not showing us the scenery !
One of the tea pickers in Ella
The weather was pretty wet most of the time and it was proper rain - not of that light rain that soaks you through - and Catherine was unfortunate enough to get attacked by leaches. After watching the film Stand By Me on a number of ocassions, I felt sufficiently trained to expertly flick off the little blighters and avert the crisis! Still, I could not convince her to do anymore walking for a while!
We met a group of people in Ella and headed down together to Kataragama to go on a Safari in one of Sri Lanka's national parks. We saw loads of Elephants, crocodiles, buffalo etc but missed out on the elusive leopard! Although, our excellent driver and tracker did manage to locate a 'jungle chicken' (just a common hen) although with their years of experience still managed to miss a baby elephant, as we shouted for him to stop!
The first wild elephant we saw on the safari!
From there we headed to the coast to a place called Tangalle. Catherine and I, along with Myra and Graham - our safari friends - stayed in a guest house with a view of the sea and it was absolutely gorgeous, not many tourists and almost deserted. The damage caused by the Tsunami was everywhere. In the prime tourist spots most has been rebuilt but all around, there was destruction with loads of people trying to rebuild or living in tents. From there, we went turtle watching on the night of the full moon, which was meant to be the best time to see them. There was a beach near by where hundreds of turtles come to lay their eggs and we were lucky to see a green turtle that was apparently a small one - it was 1m long and looked huge - walk up the beach and then dig for about 2 hours. The sand was not right so she did not end up laying but had dug 2 huge holes before slowly making her way back. As she plodded back to sea, we were allowed to get a bit closer and the 2 hour wait was so worth it, they are such beautiful creatures.
The (small!) Green Turtle on her way back to the sea
We spent our last week on the beach, first in Mirissa, which was beautiful but there was not much to see about from the beach - although I did spot a sea snake whilst snorkelling, which scared me a bit as they are meant to be very poisonous - so we moved up the coast to Unawatuna, which was close to the town of Galle. We searched for a long time for a good guest house to stay for 5 days and eventually stumbled upon The Black Beauty. The rooms were too expensive but Catherine haggled with the owner - who looked like he was a mafia leader and there was a long dramatic silence before he made a decision - and he gave us a huge discount for an air conditioned room (a huge luxury on our budget!) and then invited us to join him and his friends for dinner, which turned out to be one of best meals we had.
Mirissa Beach - it's a hard life!
It was good to spend longer than a couple of nights in a place and Unawatuna was a really relaxing . We just spent time on the beach, went snorkelling and ate some great seafood. I was swimming in the sea on morning and saw a turtle, which swam next to be for a while, which was absolutely amazing - it made me glad that I always look like a geek swimming in the sea in my goggles!
Sri Lanka was an amazingly diverse and beautiful country. I loved it and already I want to go back for more! The staple diet in Sri Lanka is rice and curry and Catherine and I ate it at least once - quite often twice - a day and loved it. The locals eat it with their hands, which we really got into and although I have no photographic evidence, I swear that by the end, we mastered the technique and looked like locals!
