I’d been to Thailand once before 5 years ago and my memories of Bangkok back then were of a grubby, busy place. But jetting in from crummy Chennai, I found the streets spotless and I relished the convenience of being back in a modern city.
Within 24 hours of
landing, I had completed the Holy Trinity of McDonalds, Burger King and KFC and
watched The Hobbit for a second time.
Sometimes when I’m deliriously
hungry and not wearing my contact lenses, I suffer from Nandos mirages. Bata is
a clothes shop chain in Asia. If you squint optimistically, you can find
yourself confusing it with a restaurant serving delicious, piping-hot,
Peri-Peri chicken. Sadly, it is not.
Alongside my new buddy,
Sebastien the German, I spent a few days absorbing Bangkok’s tourist sights: the
impressive Wat Arun, plus the Palace, Big Buddha and the obligatory table
tennis tutorial. We dropped into a Buddhist monastery to grab a photo and weren’t
allowed to leave until we’d been fed 5 plates of food each!
I love Thai food.
Since Thai and Indian are my two first choices for a takeaway at home, I really
have been spoiled in terms of the food so far on this trip.
On the day I found
myself alone in Bangkok, I went to some weird museums. First to the autopsy museum
at the Siriraj hospital, home to several grisly exhibits including a
fascinating display on the science involved in identifying victims of the 2006 Tsunami.
Next was the corrections museum housed in a former prison. Each cell contained equipment
used for tortures and executions (some of them were proper grim, ask if you
wanna know). Thankfully they’ve all been outlawed since 1900, but once the
guide had locked me alone in the prison, he didn’t need to watch over me to
make sure I obeyed his no photos rule.
All in all, the day
was so freaky that I had to watch a Disney movie (Tangled) before bed.
From Bangkok I went
to Nang Rong to check out Thailand’s Khmer
ruins. After the fun I had riding around ancient ruins in India, I put in a few
hundred kilometers on motorbike exploring historical parks and the surrounding
countryside. I’ve definitely gotta get a motorbike when I get home. The most
impressive ruin is the Phanom Rung temple complex atop an extinct volcano.
Next I visited Khao
Yai, Thailand’s largest national park. On a jeep and trek safari I saw a good
haul of wildlife including gibbons, lizards and a scorpion. The highlight was
seeing roaming wild elephants. Strike that. My highlight was the genuine fear
on the face of our guide who’d left the jeep to pee only to be chased out of
the bushes by a massive bull elephant. Jurassic Park!
I continued East to Kanchanaburi,
where in World War 2 the Japanese army employed allied POWs to build a railway
into Burma. Tens of thousands of young men died there. I went to pay my
respects at the impeccably-maintained war cemeteries. Of the thousands of
soldiers buried there, most are younger than me and a large percentage of the
graves were unnamed. I don’t mind admitting it was a lip quiverer.
I stayed in a rustic
bamboo hut on the River Kwai. One evening I watched the classic Alec Guinness movie
with the bridge itself behind my laptop. This was made slightly less poetic by
the fact that I had to pause the film several times as karaoke cruise ships passed,
plus the fact the movie was actually shot in Sri Lanka.
I took a motorbike
day trip out to the Prasat Muang Singh historical park, it was a particularly hot day and I was the only one there. I
had a picnic of banana fritters, since I’d accidentally bought 2 kilograms
instead of 2 pieces for breakfast.
I went back to
Bangkok to reunite with Dave before we headed South to Ko Tao for a couple of
bank-breaking but brilliant weeks of scuba diving.
There, I completed my
advanced course which means descending to 30 metres. As part of this, you dive
with torches at night-time which is a great experience, uniquely exhilarating
and relaxing at the same time.
With one eye on
diving with the sunken Japanese Navy fleet in The Phillipines, I completed the wreck
penetration qualification. Swimming through a sunken ship is a quite incredible
feeling, if a little claustrophobic. Since space is at a premium inside navy
vessels and wearing a scuba tank, you’re a little larger than the average
sailor, I clattered around a little inside the corridors and up staircases
(you’re not meant to do this). Exiting the ship brings a feeling of relief to
be back outside in the fresh air, which is funny considering you are still 30
metres below sea level.
During the fortnight,
we were unlucky to miss out on spotting a whale shark by minutes a couple of
times, but I was pleased to add a turtle and a sting ray to my log book.
Then
we undertook a mammoth taxi-ferry-bus-taxi-train journey North to Laos, with a
brief stop off in Bangkok for a hands-on demo at the snake farm.
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