Re-Visit to Thailand
‘If we get to the airport by 2pm we’ll have plenty of time as the gate doesn’t close until 3.25pm’ – little did we know as we said those fateful words that the beginning of our visit to Thailand was going to be fraught with difficulties and that I would be flying some 8,000 miles by myself to Bangkok leaving my partner Roger behind at Blagnac airport. We had only been able to participate in the trip due to a late cancellation but whilst my name had been added to the list, the name of the person who had cancelled had not been removed and consequently there was no ticket for Roger. Despite some rapid negotiations with the airline and the time moving ever closer to the deadline of 3.25pm, it appeared to be impossible to change the name on the tickets at this late stage and with the gates closing imminently and an urgent ‘allez-y’ from the travel agent, I was pushed through to departures to join the flight to Paris and then onwards to Bangkok. Fortunately, although unknown to me at the time, Roger managed to get a flight to Bangkok flying via Amsterdam, arriving a little later on the same day as me, just after midday….but without his luggage!!!
We all met up with our local guide, a really helpful, friendly and interesting woman called Paradis, who had been chosen because of her fluency in French and as her knowledge of English was minimal – it became somewhat challenging for our debutant French skills! Nevertheless, undeterred by these minor difficulties and with true British fortitude we began our very enjoyable visit to the ‘Land of the Free’…..Thailand being the only country in the region never to have been taken over by the imperial/colonial forces of Britain, France, Holland or Portugal.
After being given welcoming necklaces of orchids by attractive Thai girls dressed in traditional costume and despite the considerable heat and humidity, (most days reaching 39degC + in the afternoon) and the long air journey, we were then whisked off to enjoy a river trip on the ‘river of kings’ – Chao Phraya, which, with the various ‘Klongs’ (canals) that cross the city, dominates the life of many people in Bangkok…who live, travel and work in and along the many waterways We travelled in long narrow motorised boats – ‘Hang Yao’ which manoeuvre by means of engines with extremely (almost dangerously) long outboard propellers; the journey being made more exciting by the competitive nature of the boat handlers!!
Over the next two days we went on a whirl of visits to many of the major points of interest in the capital, seeing the splendours of the Grand Palace which originally used as the royal residence is now reserved for official receptions, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, a venerated building encrusted in mother of pearl with coloured frescos illustrating the life of Buddha, Wat Po, one of the oldest temples in Bangkok which houses a 45m long and 15m high gold encrusted statue of Buddha lying down as well as many examples of Buddhist art and architecture in the Thai style. However, amongst all this ‘culture’, we did also find time to visit one of the main outlets for precious stones (rubies, sapphires, emeralds….) – as it said in our guide book – c’est le moment de faire vos petits cadeaux’ ….and I’m glad to say – ‘we did !’.
We sampled the delights of one evening meal by moonlight on the river and another evening meal at a traditional Thai restaurant where the seating was on cushions at tables with very short legs (luckily for those amongst us who were less flexible and needed somewhere to put our legs there were cut-outs in the floor under the tables), both of which were accompanied by different Thai dances and music,
Our tour of Thailand was to take 12 days and cover many hundreds of kilometres, moving from the bustling, traffic-jam ridden capital city Bangkok in the centre, to the east of the country visiting Kanchanaburi, near the Burmese border (now called Myanmar), with its spectacular jungle scenery, driving across the width of the country to the far eastern borders with Laos and Cambodia and then finally flying from the regional airport of Ubon Ratchathani to spend our final couple of days in the luxury of a spa hotel on the beach at Cha-am overlooking the white sands lapped by the warm seas of the Gulf of Thailand.
One of the important places for me, personally, to visit was the allied war grave at the River Kwai and the tragic memories of the thousands of allied prisoners killed in the construction of the infamous Death Railway – it is said that there was a dead person for every sleeper laid – curiously the current bridge is merely a copy of that made famous in the film. We were pleased that the level of souvenir shops and stalls was very minimal in this area showing a respect to those terrible events during the Second World War.
The next two nights were spent in this region, firstly actually on the river – in the Floating Raft Hotel where the rooms were on floating pontoons, made of bamboo and thatched with palm leaves – we had mosquito nets but no electricity! The second night was deep in the jungle next to the river, in thatched huts situated around a central building housing the restaurant. We enjoyed our first massage on a lovely shady balcony overlooking a welcoming swimming pool – bliss! All the transport for those two days was via the river, either in motorised floating rafts or the faster narrow ‘pirogues’. I did brave the waters and went for a swim – or rather attempted a swim, the current was tremendous and the wearing of life jackets was essential!
Then back to the coach, which had been customised to Thai standards, with highly coloured interiors, in our case bright pinks and purples, with fresh orchid garlands daily (good luck offerings). Thank goodness for air-conditioning with the temperature and humidity so high!
The next few days saw our journey move eastwards to Ayuthaya (ancient capital of Thailand) then to Korat (known locally as the Switzerland of Thailand) and finally to Surin. We visited a number of different Kymer temples which pre dated the Buddhist temples we had seen earlier in the visit.
These showed the historic influence of the Hindu religion, many of them are in a poor state of repair but following the upsurge in tourist interest, many are now being excavated and restored. It was extremely interesting to follow the changes in architectural styles as the differences in religious influences firstly gained in importance and then waned.
One of the most interesting temples was ‘Prasat Pra Viharn’. Originally in Thailand, an international agreement has led to the temple now being in Cambodia but with guaranteed access to the temple from Thailand. This meant a very early start and then once we reached the Thai border, we had to walk across a 800m No Man’s Land area. This was through an area that had been previously riddled with land mines – many of which still remain – before we reached the Cambodian customs post.
The Temple itself is over 2Km long and was flanked on either side with military helicopters and armaments. The views were absolutely fantastic – it is said that on a clear day you seen over 150Km – but it was very hazy the day we visited. The differences between the relative wealth of Thailand and the poverty of Cambodia were evident even in that very short visit.
One of the highlights for both Roger and myself was when we visited the elephant village at Ta Klong.
The village retains its traditional link with this sacred animal. The inhabitants are traditionally
‘Cornac’ descending from the ‘Kymers’ and their whole life revolves around the elephant even the garages are for the elephant not the car! We participated in a ‘ballade a dos d’éléphant’ – riding on the back of elephants and then I joined in the bareback riding into the river for the elephants’ bath at
the end of the day – a bit scary but well worth the effort!
By this time in the tour we were all a bit ‘templed out!’ so we welcomed the prospect of our last two days in Thailand at a very luxurious spa veranda hotel south of Bangkok, near the seaside resort of Cha-am.
We took the quick route back flying into Bangkok. We hadn’t realised how calm and peaceful it had been on our tour through centralThailand, surrounded by rice paddies, salt marshes, an enormous variety of fruit and arable crops, silk farms, potteries, together with the low levels of traditional, open sided houses built on stilts, until we were again thrust into the chaos of the capital city.
The buzz of the outdoor street life with the night markets and pushcarts food sellers on every corner, the cacophony of the constant traffic jams, the cheek by jowl living with houses crammed into every vacant space and many people sharing living space as well as new roads being built on high pillars above the teaming rivers and canals.
A wonderful hectic city but for us, the true experience of Thailand had been found amongst the incredibly helpful country people with their welcoming and happy faces.