Friday, May 04, 2007

Watting in Northern Thailand

Well cycling in Auytthaya was as experience were life flashed before your eyes as we tried to navigate our way through the streets of the city, with motorbikes driving on the wrong side of the road towards us, tuk-tuks, buses, stray dogs, trucks - basically anything goes on the streets of Thailand. In amongst the din of the traffic all I heard was Greg shouting "Oh, my Jesus!", (well I 'spose the Jews do stick together), as we weaved our way through the 6 lane roads on our way to the temples situated in the middle of the road. Greg insisted that he drove in front, even though I was the one who knew which way we were going (?), but apparently his nerves couldn't take my super speedy skillful traffic negotiations. If you don't assert yourself you will get run over! And considering we were riding bikes from the 60's with no gears, helmets etc (I would have liked a bell to go with my basket) we didn't do to badly.

The temples were amazing and are all set in parkland which we could cycle through with relative ease and little chance of being killed - huge ornate chedis, buddahs, lots of relief work and only a few farang which was great. Next we headed off to Sukhothai a 6 hour journey to the North, on the VIP bus for only R60, lunch included were we stayed in the best guest house in Thailand so far, Baan Thai. The next day we headed out to Sukhothai Historical park foe more cycling - this time my bright pink Fairy bike did have a bell and a basket! It was just missing the streamers and it would have been used in My Girl. The temples here were also incredible but more spread out and out of the city center. After cycling over 20km in the heat we headed back to town only to get caught in a torrential downpour but managed to swim through the streets which had become rivers back to our bungalow.

We arrived in Chaing Mai yesterday, were we have splashed out and gotten a room with aircon and a TV (Greg has to watch some of the rugby this weekend....) and spent the afternoon exploring the old city and the night market last night. This morning was rather lazy as we wandered around and when the rain started what were we to do but duck into a temple for an hour massage before the most delicious lunch. We went to a workers cafe were they only serve 4 dishes, chicken with rice, dipping sauces and soup, fried chicken or pork and rice, or pork stay with cucumber salad and rice. Outstanding and all for R24 with drinks. We might have to go back again... We are doing a thai cookery course tomorrow on a farm outside of Chiang Mai, tales of which I'm sure will definitely make it on to the blog.

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