Photos: Thailand

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Day 90: December 3rd: Motorcycle Diaries

After what's happened the past couple of days, today we subconsciously took the approach of expecting the unexpected while at the same time not expecting a super incredible outing. We are bummed that Chiang Mai didn't work out but we're hopeful that the guidebook was right in saying that Kanchanaburi came in second in terms of beauty and activities if you couldn't make it to Chiang Mai.

We awoke with Katie and walked to the bus station as she walked to school. We were hoping to maybe see some more of the beautiful landscape of Kanchanaburi while aboard an elephant or at least a bamboo raft. We arrived around noon and tuk-tuked it to a reliable tour operator. We showed up, realized that we were hungry, asked if there were any places to eat, disappeared for a bit, and then returned to finally figure out what we wanted to accomplish that day. They did have day trips to see a national park and a waterfall, to ride an elephant, and kayak down the River Kwai. Unfortunately it was too late for that and a two hour kayak trip would be our only option. After long thought, we decided that it was a no go on the kayaks, but did they happen to know how to get to a cave temple outside of town?

Before we knew it we were seated in the side car bolted securely onto a motorcycle (which provided the most freeing visual experience on a mode of transportation thus far on our trip; by far Alicia's favorite mode of transportation). The driver was unexpectedly wonderful. He took us everywhere we wanted to go and happily waited for us and even came along at some parts to point us in the right direction. All in all we had a wonderful day trip.

We started by visiting a temple cave called Wat Tham Khao Pun; it was used during WWII to house the Japanese military. The caves also held POWs and were sometimes used as places of torture. It is also where a British tourist was killed in 1995 by a drug-addicted monk, or so our faithful guidebook tells us. All in all the cave had a lot of eerie history behind it, but was a wonderful and fun experience. It was so different from other caves that we have seen on our travels. This one was quite extensive and looked very worn and like many people had lived there at some point.

The scenery on the way to the Chung Kai Allied War Cemetery had gorgeous views of the river (sooooo much cleaner than any in India or Egypt). We didn't see too much of the cemetery, but admired the river instead.

After we swept through town to visit another temple (called Wat Tham Mangkon Thong) nestled amongst the hills. The hills here in Asia have this look that is just so distinct. We both find them (even the small ones) just so lovely and pleasing to the eye with their sharp curves and jagged edges. The temple itself wasn't all that interesting, but to get inside we had to shimmy up a rocky cave, which made it fun to get there!

After this we went back into town to see the Allied War Cemetery. The grounds were spotless, beautiful, and well kept.

Our last stop was the JEATH War Museum. It was described at heart warming in the guidebook but heart wrenching might have been a better description. Reading about the POW's stories was fascinating but at the same time really sad. We could have gone on reading all afternoon if we had the time.

After the museum, we headed back to the bus station. We asked 3 or 4 times what time the bus was and kept getting different answers. Finally, we got the same answer a couple of times in a row, and realized that we had a half hour to kill, so we wandered through the adjacent market, finding snacks for the bus (including our favorite of all time: mango sticky rice!).

By the time we got back to the bus station (with 10 minutes to spare) the bus had already gone! We asked people where it was, until finally a bicycle rickshaw driver sped us over to the bus' first stop as fast as his legs could carry us. Luckily we made it. But it was infuriating that not only did we ask for the correct information, but we asked several times and got the same answer over and over. How does this keep happening?

We settled in to our bus ride and squished ourselves into a seat on a packed bus with a boy who appeared to be sniffing glue. But once the bus cleared out a little, we were able to move seats and enjoy some scrumptious mango and sticky rice.

Back in Suphanburi, we found Katie out at dinner with Brittany, and sat down to join them. We stopped at 7-Eleven on the way home for dessert and to see the adorable puppies (like you do). Then we relaxed at home, monitoring the airport situation and watching the news.

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Day 89: December 2nd: Monkey Business

We got off to an early start today, waking with Katie to see her off to school. We were efficient in getting out the door too, heading to the bus station. Once there, we clearly stated our destination of 'Lopburi', and got escorted to a bus, where we said to the attendant 'Lopburi', and it was repeated to us. We questioned the driver too, just for good measure.

The bus ride was supposed to take 3 hours, and we arrived at the terminal station about 5 minutes early, so we thought we were off to a good start. Although as a not-so-quick side note, the busses here are interesting...the drivers insist on BLASTING music, oftentimes accompanied by a video. Since the sound is so damn loud, all you can do is watch it. Today, however, a sort of variety show was on, so Karla slept through it, and I was relieved to not be subjected to bad dancing again. But by the time we got to the station, I really wished it had been Thai pop...the variety show was one of the most offensive programs I've seen in a long while. One of the scenes (by far the most extended...it was still going on when we got off the bus about 20 min after it started!) was one of a teacher welcoming a few of his new students, who were black. But as I watched more closely, saw the 'antics' of these characters, and listened to my fellow passengers in stitches, I was horrified to realize that these actors were in black-face! And actively making fun of black people. And it was so ok that no one on the bus (except myself...Karla was still snoozing) even thought something could potentially be wrong here. Needless to say, I was relieved to get off that bus.

We walked up to a taxi stand to ask how to get where we were going. After more than 5 minutes of repeating the name of the destination over and over again and talking to one of their friends on the phone who claimed to speak English, we gave up. Then it occurred to me that we may not in fact be where we thought we were. That is to say, if the taxi drivers and their English-speaking friend did not recognize the map that we showed them and did not recognized our butchered version of the Thai name, maybe we weren't in Lopburi at all.

So we walked back into the station, seeing on a sign that confirmed my hunch was correct. We were in a place called Saraburi. Luckily we were able to locate it on our Thailand map and realized that we were less than an hour from Lopburi, so we grabbed some snacks and hopped back on the bus.

45 minutes later, I woke Karla up upon seeing a sign for Lopburi and recognizing the traffic circle from the map. So we got up, asked the attendant if we were in Lopburi, and got off the bus when we received her affirmation. But I totally jumped the gun in my haste to get there - who would've thought there are 2 giant traffic circles in Lopburi!? - and we ended up walking about a kilometer to get to the bus station. Oh well. At least we saw some giant statues of monkeys! And some smaller ones drinking out of bottles and peeling bananas.

We verified that there was in fact a bus back to Suphanburi tonight, then took a public taxi/shuttle to the first temple, called Prang Sam Yot. It was a cool remnant of first a Hindu, then a Buddhist temple, and the ruins were literally crawling with monkeys (why Lopburi is the monkey city)! These small creatures (gibbons to be precise) clung to every brick, tumbled on every inch of the grass, slept in all the shade that these great ruins provided, and tried to jump on anyone who looked like they had a tasty snack on them. It was incredible.

But they were aggressive. On jumped on Karla as we were walking in and I thought perhaps it was because she was carrying a shiny object (the camera). But then inside the temple grounds, one leaped onto my back while I was watching her take pictures! They're creepy little devils.

We later saw people feeding them, which explains why they're so aggressive. The temple had seeds that the grounds keeper trys to sell to tourists for the monkeys. Someone didn't really think that all the way through...

We went inside the temple (mercifully monkey-free!) and felt a bit like zoo animals because the gibbons were hanging onto the bars on all sides of us, staring. They're eerie-looking up close.

We wanted to go to a palace museum next, but it was closed, so we walked through the closing market (which smelled like the end of the day...not good when we're talking about meat and fish), and tried to go into a temple. Well luck still wasn't on our side. We walked in and were greeted by a very big dog in a sweater. We didn't approach him of course, but he seemed friendly, so we kept walking. But as we walked closer, a street dog at the entrance to the building started to bark and growl. All of a sudden 10 more doggy-voices chimed in, and a pack of large rough-looking dogs appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Karla and I backed away slowly and escaped without harm.

We realized that must have been the back entrance when we saw a giant sign for the temple a little further down the street. We looked at the exterior of the Wat Sao Thong Thong (I kid you not), but it was closed so we couldn't go in.

We stumbled across more ruins on the other side of the street, and spent the remainder of our time there ruin-hopping and eating. But it seemed like the animals were out to get me! At one of the ruins, I nearly stepped on the decaying carcass of a dead cat (with the fur still on!). It was appalling. I then bought a couple of roasted bananas and was carrying the remaining half of one in my hand. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I felt a hand in mine and then the plastic bag which contained the banana was gone. I shrieked - I know, I know...I'm not proud of my reaction- and looked down. In front of me, a medium-sized gibbon stared me down before deftly taking the stick out of the bag, ripping open the plastic and popping what was left of MY snack into his mouth. The little jerk. Karla said he literally flew at me from behind (and was secretly very impressed). At least he was agile.

My last animal encounter occurred when crossing the railroad tracks to get to some more ruins...I looked down and saw a large rat about the size of my foot, dead on its back with its little teeth sticking out. Needless to say, I'll be dreaming of rats tonight.

Rodents and other pests aside, we ended on a good note, taking a bicycle rickshaw back to the station in time for our bus. We had to switch busses in Ang Thong, but our attendant was super nice and made sure that we got on the correct bus to take us back to Suphanburi. If there was a gold medal in carrying on conversations using only pantomime and proper nouns, we'd be sure to receive it. Cum laude.

We got back to Katie's and found her flopped on her bed watching 'Harry Potter' on TV. It was a delightful treat to end our day in what now feels like home with dinner and a movie!
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Day 88: December 1st: Hurry up and wait.

Today was interesting, although we did a lot of nothing.

We started off the day by saying goodbye to Katie before she left for work, anticipating leaving by the time she got home. We got moving, Karla hanging out in Katie's apartment while Alicia ran out to the internet cafe (Katie's internet is down) to check on the current situation in Bangkok, as well as to try to get us train tickets up to Chiang Mai tonight. She got a bunch of info (but not tickets), and hurried back to pack up.

We said goodbye to Katie's apartment, and grabbed lunch on our way to the bus station. We received a phone call from Alicia's dad, who had not realized that we were heading up north. He brought up a lot of good points about the current political climate in Thailand, and convinced us that it would be most prudent to stay put at Katie's until the situation in the airport stabilized.

Deciding we needed to do some research, we camped out in the internet cafe, researching all of our exit plans, so to speak. We also e-mailed Katie to tell her we'll be bumming around her place for a while. Being a gracious hostess, she not only assured us that she was happy we stayed, but she also cut out of work for about a half hour to let us back into her apartment.

We went for a little walk once we'd re-settled, and picked up Katie from work. We decided that we needed some supplies (mostly Katie), and went to the mall to do some shopping. But the Thai mall is nothing like the American mall: this mall had 1 floor of grocery store, a floor of electronics, a mish-mash floor and a sports wares/department store floor. It was interesting. And successful! Katie got a new phone, a hot-pot, and a tupperware bin to keep her food from the ants. We were all quite excited about these purchases.

We had dinner at the Pizza Company (again, not your typical experience, but lovely nonetheless), then walked back to Katie's apartment and turned in early after watching the news a bit. Still no progress at the airport. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
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Day 87: Nov. 30th: Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

We saw some white and orange tigers in Delhi last weekend, but it just did not compare to this experience. Today, we went to the Tiger Temple, a kind of relaxed zoo run by buddhist monks. To get there we had to take a local bus to Kanchanaburi (where the light show was last night) and then take a cross between a tuk-tuk and a pick up truck for 40km. It took forever to get there (a total of three and a half hours) and when we did we were very hungry. Although the ticket was about $16 (not including $ for transportation), they were serving free hot soup. Of course there was a donation box though..

The Tiger Temple is quite a unique place. First of all, the monks don't have just tigers there. Once you walk in the gates you come across boars, cows, buffalo, deer, horses, and peacocks. They are all just left to wander in this park that's just a large hilly space with trees and dirt and some temples. We wondered what all the grazing animals grazed on. They must be fed somewhere.

The main "road" led first to the bigger tigers. We walked into a small canyon with a waterfall in the background. In front of the fall were over a dozen tigers of all sizes. They were all laying down, napping or lazily flicking their tails as people one by one were led around to pet them. And be photographed with the help of the workers. They were chained in case of emergency, but they didn't seem to be going anywhere. They looked as if they could be sedated, but apparently, they have been well trained and are always well fed before they are taken to greet visitors. It helps that they're in a Buddhist temple...this automatically means that they don't believe in killing, which makes them calmer. Phew.

When we walked up, we joined the line and waited our turn to be led around. You weren't allowed to touch their heads and the worker wouldn't let you spend more than a few seconds at each tiger. The funny thing was that you could go through the circuit of tigers as many times as you wanted. And so we did, three times. We were slightly disheartened by their show-pony lifestyle until we were told by an Australian volunteer what they do the rest of the day.

In the morning they are fed, and then excersized by swimming around and frolicking with their friends. Then of the 34 tigers there, some of them are taken to the waterfall to lay for three hours and be pet by tourists like us. Then in the afternoon they are taken back to their homes and fed and allowed to play some more. The cubs are taken to a different photo shoot as a way to slowly introduce them to being around people.

So that's were we headed next. To see the three to four month old cubs. They were sizable for their age, but what do we know about tiger development. They were just the greatest and cutest things! And they were even awake and walking around. Occasionally the workers would play with them and pull their tails or whatever else they could to get them a little riled up and used to people. Then as a reward they would bottle feed them milk. We took many pictures with the babies. We even got to lay down next to them for some close ups. Some came out better than others but we took a billion so we hope that there's one good one. It's not fair that the tigers look good no matter what they do.

Soon it was time to go, which was sad. But we'd spent pretty much as long as we could with the tigers so we were happy. If we wanted to, we could have paid another fifty bucks each to bottle feed and spend time with the infant cubs. Or we could come in the morning to have breakfast with the monks and swim with the tigers. All for a small fee. Katie and Brittany might go back, but we can't unfortunately. Brittany is even thinking about volunteering there for a month after she finishes the year of teaching. How awesome would that be?

It really doesn't seem like there could be another place like this in the world.

We grabbed some Thai snacks of tofu on a stick, spring rolls, roasted bananas, and best of all: sticky rice with mangos and coconut sauce. Mmmmm. It was a scrumptious bus ride home.

When we got back we watched a movie called "Freedom Writers." It was about gang violence in high school and was a really good movie.

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