Ayutthaya: On Matters Malnutrition

The busy street just around the corner of my guesthouse is crawling with dozens of street vendors, selling all sorts of delectable Thai cuisine. Amongst them are, as I affectionately call them, "stickmeat stalls."

If there’s anything I’ve learned about myself over the last couple of days, it’s this: Given the choice between a well rounded meal and meat on a stick, I will without question go for the meat. Every time. Hands down.

Among the stickmeat sold outside:

• Mini cocktail weenies, as well as their full sized counterparts
• Various meatballs (pork, chicken, fish, shrimp, mystery meat)
• BBQ pork/chicken
• Chicken wings
• A weird meatball thing that looks like a cat head. Not a real cat head, mind you. That’s just wrong. Think of those seasonal Pillsbury cookie dough kits where they have a design like a pumpkin or Santa in the middle…but made of meat.

I’m at risk of scurvy (or any one of a number of deficiency diseases related to lack of a proper diet) if this goes on for much longer.

Ayutthaya: Temple Ruins

The year is 2549 and Ayutthaya, the ancient Thai capital lies in ruin.

I didn’t make any of that up.

I’ll explain. The Thais use two different calendar systems. The first is the standard solar based Western calendar, year zero being set at Christ’s birth. The second is the lunar based Buddhist calendar set at Buddha’s (Siddhartha Gautama’s) enlightenment. English newspapers use the former system as not to throw off the farangs (foreigners) and food expiry dates are based on the latter.

Ayutthaya was once the capital of Thailand (Siam at the time) until it was invaded and destroyed by the Burmese. The ruined remnants of the ancient city are under the protection of UNESCO. A sleepy but pleasant city has been built around them.

The sheer number of ruins makes Ayutthaya a very difficult city to conquer over a couple of days. A friend of my brother’s (while he lived and taught here) showed me a few of the less convenient temples and I filled in a few of the nearby ones by rented bicycle… With Hobbes in tow:

I’m keeping the photos in order otherwise I’ll forget the temple names:

Wat Chai Wattanaram

Wat Kasatthirat

Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon

Wat Phra Si Sanpet

Wat Phra Mahatat (finally found a good excuse to try out a new Photoshop technique with this one)

Plenty of tail

Wat Ratburana

Kanchanaburi: Waterfalls and Railways

Hardcore members of the backpacking community laugh at the mere mention of package tours, deeming them too expensive and restrictive. I don’t disagree. That said, package tours are convenient for those under heavy time constraints, especially when many of the sights are well out of town. My visa expires on the 27th and there is plenty to do in Thailand before I cross into Laos.

We started off with a visit to the 7 tiered Erawan waterfall, where I strayed from the group and hiked to the top at my own leisure.

A tree shrine along the path:

To paraphrase the old adage, if a dumbass plunges to his death while swinging on a vine, and there’s nobody around to witness it, will they find his body? I pondered it for a moment and put the vine down.

So close yet so far:

A quick swim in the second tier. The resident catfish nibbling at my toes made the experience rather uncomfortable but memorable nonetheless:

Stop number two was a half hour stop at the Death Railway, a site where many allied soldiers succumbed to harsh conditions during its construction. A small shrine was set up in a nearby cave.

Train Ride:

The last stop was a quick 20 minute photo session on the bridge over the river Kwai.

Kanchanaburi: Tiger Temple

One of the more popular day trips available in Kanchanaburi is to the Tiger Temple, about 70 clicks from town. It’s not listed in the lonely planet guide, unfortunately - the story going around is that some guy got mauled a few years back. My travel buddy convinced me to go despite the risk.

I think his motives are pretty clear:

She took a friendly swipe at my face right after the picture was taken. Luckily, the old Buddhist monk/head honcho pulled me aside before any real damage was dealt.



Rumour has it the tigers here are mellow (as far as tigers go) because they are heavily doped up. I noticed them feeding this stuff to one of the misbehaving tigers.

Our group had the benefit of walking the tigers back to their enclosures because it was almost closing time. As soon as the tigers were locked up, all the other animals came out from hiding.

…And they started misbehaving:

But the old monk set things straight:

What did the five fingers say to the face?

"SLAP"

Travel Day: Kanchanaburi

Based on today’s ride out to Kanchanaburi, my guess is that the Thai inter-city bus system is trying its best to emulate the in-flight experience.

The bus is staffed with a Captain (the driver), a co-pilot (a guy who sits next to the driver and opens the door when necessary), and a flight attendant (a girl who comes along with a tray of drinks at the beginning of the “flight”). They all wear pretty authentic looking uniforms corresponding to their respective jobs. Near the end of the bus ride, the “flight attendant” comes round with a garbage bag to gather garbage generated during the trip (and to possibly to check that our seats and fold out tables are in the upright position for landing). I looked under my seat for a life jacket but sadly only found a half empty water bottle.

Bangkok

My thought processes have effectively shut down during the past five days in Bangkok as the hustle and bustle of the city, combined with the heat, humidity and pollution (I think I have the black lung), have affected me somewhat.

Please pay no attention to that preceding statement. I’m just making lame excuses for not updating.

So it looks like the job I had lined up here has fallen through - my prospective employer was looking for somebody in the software development field and I was expecting something more in the systems end of things. It’s no big deal because I have plenty of savings to tide me over for the next few months (I still can’t get over how cheap things are here) and moreover, this gives me some extra time to travel. There are also volunteer opportunities that I may explore some time down the road.

Much like Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok is a great place to hang out, that is, on condition that you enjoy shopping. A lot. The main stretch on Sukhumvit Road, from what I gather, is the playground of the rich, harbouring upscale malls like The Emporium and Paragon. These places really don’t hold much interest for me because I don’t really care much for Prada handbags, Gucci (whatever they make), Rolex watches (the legit ones) or Ferraris. The air conditioning, however, is glorious and watching the spending habits of the filthy rich intrigues me so.

Photos:

“Sawatdee Khrap”:

I imagine them using broken bottles to cut people’s hair here:

mmm. Lobster chips:

Chatuchak weekend market. Quite possibly the biggest outdoor market in the world.

A ride in a tuk tuk:


My initial worry about traveling in Thailand is the language barrier. English isn’t as widely spoken as Malaysia and the Thai script makes it much more difficult place to navigate (though most signs in Bangkok use Roman characters as well). I figure I should be fine so long as I stick along the main backpacker circuit. I’ll find out how manageable things are when I get to Kanchanaburi tomorrow.

Updates to come when and where possible.