So, Pai. So many fellow travellers told me 'you have to go to Pai, it amaaaazing!'. This is all one needs to know about Pai:
Yes, the hippies have taken over with their dreds and baggy pants and macrame lessons. Though you can get a breakfast that rivals anything in Fitzroy for $5 and there is a night market with lots of street food. It didn't help that my first night was spent at a guesthouse that comes highly recommended both word of mouth and on the interwebs but in reality its an overpriced dump. Literally - there were piles of leftover building materials and junk all over the place. It was also a little bit out of the main centre so the next day I moved to something nicer. But I didn't feel to much happier so I moved on back to Chiang Mai to get a connecting bus to Sukhothai. This I was able to do in one day and included a bus trip that came complete with on board snacks and a stop for a proper meal in the price of the ticket. I really enjoyed my time in Sukhothai. Its a relatively small place with a few decent guest houses and of course the famous ruins. My visit to them started well. Catch to local bus to the old town, hire a bike and pay the entry fee. The central section was smaller than I expected and very pleasant though the ruins were't oh my god (or should that be Buddha?) amazing.
The day took a slighly bad turn when I tried to ride to some of the outlying temples and found myself on a major road which was bad enough being as I was on a single speed (pink!) bike with no helmet. And after getting stung on the nose by a bee (or possibly wasp - hard to tell as I didn't see it coming) and running over a dead snake while riding I wasn't in the best of moods. But after getting back to civilisation and having something to eat I felt better. Speaking of eating, the other highlight of Sukhothai was the week long night market celebrating food that was taking place a short walk from my guesthouse. I tried all sort of things including durian and fried crickets which were on my 'food challenge' list. I'd also knowingly eaten soup with congealed blood, century egg and offal soup earlier in the trip. On the 'just plain delicious' list were a parcel of steamed rice noodle and greens in soup with pork, things on sticks and ... coconut icecream served in the shell with shavings of coconut flesh and peanuts.
But Sukhothai only needs a couple of days so I headed to Ayuthaya to have a bit of a chill out before diving back into the craziness of Bangkok. I was fortunate to find a lovely guest house (Baan Lotus) run by a lovely old lady who was so nice and accommodating to all her guests that many people including me stayed for longer than intended. I was feeling pretty low and suffering from so many mosqito bites it was ridiculous but I turned it around and got out and saw the temples for which Ayuthaya is rightly famous. More complete than those at Sukhothai and more of them too. I had a lovely time riding about (on a red one speed bike this time) and taking a tour orgainsed by the guest house that involved 8 farang crushed into a tuk tuk for three hours but it was quite fun!
But I was ready to come home. I still had a few days in Bangkok so the right hotel was crucial to my equilibrium. I went back to Silom, the area I'd stayed the first time a got a palatial (to me anyway) room in a hostel. So I got the best of both worlds, somewhere to retreat yet still be social. And best of all was the TV and DVD player in my room so there was at least an option if one had perhaps bought some dodgy DVDs from MKB... But mostly Bangkok was a series of malls and markets including a large amount of time spent in Kinokuniya, my favourite bookseller in the world (sorry Readings!) browsing and buying. But I did enjoy my trip, I loved returning to Laos and going to places I'd not seen on the previous visit and exploring Thailand about which I am undecided which is all part of the fun of travel.
And for the record - books read:
Night and Day - Virginia Woolf
The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obrect
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
The Lotus Eaters - Tatjana Soli
Dune - Frank Herbert
Divided Kingdom - Rupert Thompson
And for the plane home? Shada - the novelisation of the partially filmed but never shown Doctor Who script by Douglas Adams. This shall be lent interested Whovians once I've finished it :-)
Until the next odyssey.
H
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