Thaila-beck: On breaking habits and getting involved…
Current mood: good

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Well obviously I haven't broken the habit of writing very long blogs but I will Endeavour to…

So the day after I last blogged we left phetchaburi I believe by train to go north to hit kanchaburi.

A bit of history: kanchaburi is the place where the death railway was built and in part still remains today. The death railway was previously called the ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Thailand- Burma railway. It was constructed during the 2nd world war by JEATH (Japanese, English, Australian, American, Thai and Dutch (Holland)) with all except the Japanese and some Thai working as POWs. There was a famous classic war film called the 'bridge over the river kwai'. This bridge is located on the edge of the town and despite its fame is not very majestic. The main focus of interest being the stories around it. The river kwai also runs through the town.

So we ended up changing from the train to the bus then being dropped at kanchaburi coach station a bit out of town. Out comes the guide book. Looked up an interesting yet cheap place to stay. Got a taxi. Got there. For 1 pound 50 each per night a twin room with a fan in a great little guest house on the river. The rooms were set in a 3 sides of a square shape around a great garden area with palms and hammocks and the like and the garden ran up to a little terrace overlooking the river with a little pier great for jumping off and swimming in the river. On the first day we did the museums and the war cemetery very moving and interesting. An often overlooked chapter of wwII.

That evening we met some other backpackers and so it happened that we spent a couple of days with a group of about 10 of us all together hanging out and swimming we also did a bit more fishing with makeshift bamboo rods (to no avail again!) but it was nice to have a few days chilling with some other people. Did some bars etc.

We stayed in kanchaburi about 5 days in total and then hit the road. The plan being to go to Nakhom Pathom in a day and then on to Bangkok. Well we got on the wrong bus and landed ourselves out of the way in ratchaburi had lunch and made for Bangkok stayed on the backpackers strip again called kohl san road. Crap room but cheap. Very cheap.

The next day we made tracks for Ayutthaya. We stayed there for 3 nights and rented bikes on one of the days to see the ruined temples. Ayutthaya is the old capital of Thailand and is something of a cultural centre. A few very nice museums and an art gallery as well as some great ruins, very Thailand. Pictures will do better for this and we got quite a few.

After Ayutthaya we headed again north for another previous capital sukhothai. This place was capital from 1238-1376. We stayed in a great guest house with a really friendly proprietor called Naa. The main sites (ruins of the old city) were based apart from the new part of town so we caught a bus then rented bikes to go around the ruins. Great day. Beautiful scenery lakes and ruins and the like really hot though. Did the museum here too which had some things excavated from the ruins (that which wasn't in the Bangkok museum). That night we caught a bus to changmai.

After a few hours we arrived in changmai. It was surprising how captivating the scenery was on the bus ride especially at sunset. We got to chaingmai in the evening and got a room with a TV to watch the football. The next day we checked out and went to another budget place. Nice but nothing special.

The following day we set about booking trekking, a highly recommended cooking course and the necessary evil of a border hop to renew our visas. We booked the cooking course for the following day with a place called Thailand's best cooking school (sounded promising).

The next day we were picked up from our accommodation and taken with all the other students to the local market where our teacher called perm would show us around the ingredients we were going too used. Perms English was great and he could crack pretty funny jokes so it was an interesting day (for example on me burning my curry he declared that it was ok because I had cooked 2 curries, Red curry and Black curry). The other people on the course were cool too and everyone had a laugh. We learned to cook some great dishes and got a recipe book at the end which was a nice touch. Good day at a fair price. The next day we went to chaingmai Sunday market reputedly the best in south-east Asia and watched the grand prix (god awful) and football (same). And went back to our accom and packed.

The following day we were picked up bright and early for our trekking.

First stop was at the long necks village. So 5 of us in total jumped out the van and had a wonder. Our guide showed us round explaining the various aspects of the village and the tribe's traditions. There are several explanations for the tradition of lengthening the neck. One is that the founder of the Burmese tribe in which the tradition originated was a beautiful female dragon and the lengthening is an imitation of her neck, others include protection from tiger attack and that the deformation stopped other tribes capturing the women for concubines. At any rate it was pretty tourist orientated and quite posed but interesting when you know the background. In actual fact the rings do not stretch the neck as this would cause vertebrae to be separated they instead compress the shoulders downwards giving the appearance of an elongated neck. Removal of the rings would result in the eventual death of the woman and so the rings are for life from age 6ish upwards. Removal of the rings was at one time a punishment for adultery which causes the woman to suffocate under the weight of her head pressing on her neck and lungs.

After that visit we were going elephant riding, 3 trekkers plus the guy steering per elephant. What an experience. You just don't understand how much power they have until the one you're sitting on pulls up a tree or tries to plod off down a 70 degree gradient much to the protest of the guy steering the thing.

We all went for a lunch nearby where the elephants are trained. Jack and I were then persuaded to let an elephant walk over us. Now the guides seemed pretty confident and just stood there smirking at me as I lay there trying to think of anything but the way a very similar elephant I had been riding not an hour previously had ripped a tree from the ground

We then headed for the start of our trek. We left the van having collected another 4 people and set off towards our first stop one of the hill tribe villages.

I assumed that as these treks were geared at tourists it should be a walk in the park for me having done more hiking than most before now. Wrong. Far from a park it was a mega steep mountain and where would the village be other than the top. It was a pretty difficult climb in the heat with all your kit and very steep. But rewarding the views from the top were great and there was a good meal waiting we also had a fire and someone produced a guitar too so pretty cool. I also sampled some of the local moonshine made of rice. Damn strong. I want to make some.

The next day we had another trek downhill this time and we went to a couple of great waterfalls and had a swim etc. then to the jungle camp which was a great night. Food more moonshine some beers more guitar another fire. Great stuff and the guide was a great guy who spoke English very well. I know more than just numbers now. I can say lots in Thai. Weird language though. All about respect, they're really big on it.

For example the guide was telling me about how if you meet your girlfriends parents for the first time even if you walk past them whilst they sit you have to lower your head to their sitting height and say 'coutaad kha-ap' which is kind of like saying 'very sorry sir/ ma'am' imagine if we had that in the uk? Crazy!

But for all the differences it makes for interesting learning and you grow to understand the culture a little better. Really big on respect.

The next day we finished off with a short walk then some white water rafting and bamboo rafting which was great apart from when I fell out on to a rock. Totally lame.

I would just like to say at this point that what you were reading up until now was written 15 minutes ago. The intervening 15 minutes were spent trying to auto recover this document from word. This was made difficult because somehow word managed to completely b***** itself on the other computer. Obviously I managed it but it is only due to my own technical genius that you have read so much so far. Anyway I will now rewrite the last few lines auto recover neglected to catch.

So the trekking was great and thoroughly knackering. Great scenery, food activities accommodation. And we made our way back to chang mai and booked into a room with a TV. Tonight we are going to go out to the bars for a couple of hours and tomorrow is the stinky stupid and utterly annoying border hop. But I won't bore you with that, 'cause it's not about b****in' is it? HA it's gonna be a boring hop! Ha I'm so funny.

Any who check in again soon and I'll tell you about songkram the Thai new year festival over the next few days where I gather people throw water at each other constantly. Sounds strange and fun..!

Love to all, take it easy

xxxxx