Khoa San Road Bangkok 16 November 1990
Our very first night sitting on a comfortable double bed in a small room overlooking a little square just off Khoa San Road, the mecca of backpackers. It is 3:30 pm and Joan is asleep on the bed. The fan above rotates slowly and quietly making a pleasant breeze. The room is in the shade but the outside the sun is beating down, according to our pilot the temperature would be 29C. The windows are covered with mosquito netting. The scrupulously clean shared toilet and refreshing cold shower are located downstairs. We are very satisfied with this small guest house run in a family home which also operates as a Chinese laundry. It is costing just 150 Baht/night (around £4) and was the best of several we looked at in the area.
The day had begun badly though Geoff had come to stay for the night and took us to catch the National Express bus at 7:30am as planned. The bus however developed two flat tires and limped vibrating to Bridgend 40 minutes late where we waited for a replacement bus from Swansea. We eventually reached Heathrow with 50 minutes rather than three hours before the flight. I had felt nervous and sick throughout the bus journey, as I had done somewhat for several days previously. In the event the plane was delayed for an hour but the pilot obviously made up sufficient time for us to catch the connecting flight at Frankfurt with time to spare, allowing me finally to relax and enjoy the long flight.
In the evening we strolled along Khoa San Rd which was brim with activity the pavement full with temporary stalls selling a wide variety of goods and services. We decided to sign up for a trip to Surin in the east of the country to see their Elephant Round-up starting early the following morning, it included accommodation for an overnight stop. I changed £100 for 4869 Baht an exchange rate of 48.7B/£. We had our first taste of Thai food my meal being Spicy Prawn with mushroom soup for 30B (61p, 10p less than for a small beer), Joan's was noodles with bean sprouts and chicken for half that price. By 9pm we were in bed for a well earned rest.
SURIN ELEPHANT ROUND-UP
We were suddenly woken at 3am when the light was switched on next door exposing a problem with our room the connecting wall was only gauze only at ceiling level to allow acceptable air flow. Followed by an excited young English girl inviting a recent Thai boyfriend to her room, followed by "that was the best of my life". Joan could hardly believe her ears, but I mused "was it ever thus?"
Joan's record of the same event
"What are we here for?"
"What is your name?"
"I don't know, you don't know - better that way"
At 5am we got our own back by switching on the light to get dressed for our trip to Surin.
Joan's description of busy Khoa San road at 5:30am that morning. Today they are preparing for a festival, near where we are waiting there is a Thai lady with her small son and a folding table full of plastic bags each filled with rice, spinach, cabbage, coriander, fish.
Small groups of Buddhist monks in brown robes carrying small covered pots walked up to the table and opened the lids of their bowl. The mother and her son together holding the bag placed in the begging bowl, a bag of each type of food was given. We learned that every male Buddhist (even the king) has to spend a short period of his life as a monk, to beg for food so as to understand how it felt to be poor.
We were on time for the start at 6am, Dave an American was already there soon joined by a Canadian couple Craig and Frances. By 9am nothing had happened so I went back to our room for the malaria tablets I had forgotten. I inquired at a nearby Travel Agent where two English girls were complaining on the same issue, he sorted it out and in 15 mins and we were soon off in a minibus thinking it would rendez-vous with a coach but in fact we joined with other minibuses full of tourists who were staying in the Miami Hotel.
At Korat we took a side road to Phimai to see the ruins of a temple with beautifully carved white sandstone doorways and inside a 4 metre meditating Buddha with a seven headed cobra supporting him. A pleasant site to wander around with shrines either side of a covered way but much of the roof was missing but still giving a good impression of the complete 12 century building by King Jayavarnian 7th, the Khmer shrine of the Mahayana Buddhists
We returned to Korat to spend the night in the tourist Thai Hotel, in a huge bedroom with its own facilities but had to endure the sound of passing lorries for the whole night. Joan did not sleep. We had an excellent meal recommended by Frances of Shanghai Noodles, with beer plus free tea.
Sunday 18 Nov Up at 4am and a good breakfast and on to complete the journey to Surin. The show itself was fantastic with about 150 elephants who had been brought from Chaing Mai province especially for the event.
Only last night (17/05/2017) I was reminded on a BBC program that the use of elephants for logging had been banned by the Thai government the previous year (1989). Surin province had been cleared by elephants and was under arable cultivation. Elephants no longer had work their only future was as tourist attractions. The Surin event was a traditional event which we were to learn had recently finished with an elephant stampede in the town after the event's finish.
A Grand Parade ended displays of pageantry, acrobatics and even a game of football ending in a 0-9 draw. Some elephants kicked with good timing but others missed the ball altogether and some ended up unintentionally heeling the ball backwards.
The finale was a battle by two armies on foot with swords with the generals mounted on elephants.
The trip back was a disaster as three of the five buses had left empty their passengers having already paid for the return journey. The girl acting as our guide managed to hire one AC bus to take people straight back to Bangkok.
The two drivers were said to be in town hoping to find fares. Together the rest of us walked into town in search of the last two minibuses but first found the elephants were ahead of us being fed by the stallholders and offering free rides to the local children. Our guide now penniless was distraught and Joan put her arm around her shoulders to console her and was thus the first to learn the problem was that the last two drivers were demanding 3500B to include the major detour to the famous temple as had been promised as part of the trip. Together we agreed to pay 120B each making 2000B in total and set off far later than intended on the return journey. We arrived at the temple in the Kanupuchu highlands at 6pm just as it became dusk. Nevertheless we were impressed by this almost magical effect of this ancient monument, not that far from Ankor Wat in Cambodia, finally reaching Bangkok at 3am already well rested by sleeping on the bus.
19 Nov In the morning we breakfasted on peanuts muesli with yogurt, fresh banana, watermelon and pineapple - a good experience. Next to the travel agent to request return of our cash, which Craig and Frances were to collect for us later whilst we delivered a couple of packages to Bangkok residents from friends in the UK. A Thai with two young girls stopped us soliciting to get free lessons in English for his daughters from passing tourists like us, we stopped and talked pleasantly together for 15 minutes. We found and caught a bus to the British Embassy but had a deal of trouble getting in, the parcel we had for Mrs P Squire helped but I supposed it could have been thought of as a bomb. We got talking to a helpful English ex-pat from Hong Kong who needed to see her friend Mrs Helen Squires to get her passport ready so as to catch her 2pm flight. They were not related but eventually we learned that Phallee was at a seminar and a friend from her office came down to collect the parcel - my notes do not record who had given us the parcel in the UK in the first place though we both recall the incident.
The second parcel proved much more difficult, this was a Welsh doll from David and Isla Naylor for Bow a girl who had stayed with them earlier. The street was easy enough to find but as we were to learn again in Amritsa there is no such equivalence to orderly numbering in Asia. At 1 Soi Ruamrudee, Ploenchit Road one we got friendly help from the lady Yor-Ying Sittavibula who ran the Tourist Business. She explained that we needed Soi 1 (lane 1) off Soi Ruam Road and phoned advance warning but the Thai girl answering did not speak English, did not know Bow, and put the phone down. Eventually we found what we believed to be the right house, got the phone number from the houseboy, the only one in, and went back to the Yor-Ying's house, left the doll drank cold water and exchanged addresses. She was hoping to move to a bigger house so next time we visited Bangkok would like us to stay with her. Next task was to find the Lufthanza office to reconfirm our return flight to London.It turned out to be next door to the British Embassy in the Bank of America building, a long tortuous walk back only to be told we needn't have bothered.
On return to the Guest House we found a new notice on the stairway "Thai girls were allowed in your room provided they paid 50B for the privilege", no doubt the man who has taken up residence in the room next door was culprit. It was free for English girls to invite Thai men. The owners were Chinese, when asked he about the different standards he said
"Chinese girls work hard - Thai girls earn money the easy way" NB Only Thai girls were allowed in for sex!
Had we chosen a brothel for our very first night as backpackers? Not quite just a scrupulously clean (Joan's Description) venue for young sex!!
On Craig's advice we had dinner in almost entirely Thai floating restaurant on the river near the Express boat pier. Prawns in garlic, mixed fried vegetables, rice a large beer and soda water for 188B expensive we thought at the time, were we slowly moving up market.
The GH owner had not produced the rail tickets for tomorrow night's sleeper to Chang Mai for which we had already paid 960B, and found that Craig had got tickets for 350B less, though possibly on a slower train. We tried to contact Bow by phone but failed and must phone again - did we?
I almost forgot to record our visit to Wat Pho which was open until 5pm. It featured a 46 metre long reclining Buddha in gold, not to mention all the other images and the fantastic statues. Impressive sky lines with roofs of bright red, green and orange tiles with the ornamental parts covered in mirrors, or gold leaf or mother of pearl. All but the details were too big to photograph
Tuesday 20 November
The early part of the night was ruined by our new neighbour who refused to switch off his light even on request from either side, Joan eventually went beserk and nearly kicked in the plywood panel separating the rooms (not that we wanted to share rooms!), but that had the desired effect and we were able to sleep well though slightly too late for our rendez-vous for breakfast with Craig and Frances.
In the morning we visited the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keo the sun shone and the whole experience was quite amazing quite the most ornate yet architecturally satisfying set of buildings I have ever seen. Simply incredible the majesty, glitter, roof lines a mixture of shapes such a contrast with the chaotic nonentity full of traffic that is Bangkok. The feature was the emerald Buddha a small jade figure in a magnificent sitting above many far larger Buddhas all with their hands raised in the symbol of 'peace'.
In the afternoon we went to the house of Jim Thompson, a legendary American who built the silk trade before disappearing in Malaya in 1967. Much smaller with far less to see for the house totally in hardwood was on a human scale, tasteful and totally in harmony with the surroundings. The house was full of artifacts collected in Thailand, Burma and China. In fact it was an amalgamation of two houses the second from Burma, set in a small garden of jungle backing onto a canal. On the other side of the canal he had built lots of houses for silk workers who still plied their trade.
We left a 500B deposit, with 1000B to pay on collection at the end of our trip for a lovely stylized painting on cotton by a local artist exhibiting at the house. It still adorns our bedroom. Finally a pricing the clothes on sale in Koa San Road t-shirts and shorts 80B each, earlier we had noticed similar for 100B though in neither case did we bargain or attempt to buy. For dinner we went to the night market and had a delicious totally different tasting soup made of bean sprouts, pork mince and various fish for 15B. When we got back to the GH our train tickets had arrived so we caught probably our very first tuk-tuk for 50B to the station, my lack of experience caused some mirth from onlookers as I tried to get in with my large rucksack still on my back.
At the station there was a clear departure board in English and the platforms had clear English signs giving the destination of their trains.
Our sleeper was in the very last carriage and by 22:30 the attendant had converted the seats into the lower bunk and swung the upper bunk from the ceiling. With mattress, sheet, a blanket and pillow and a curtain/ It appeared very civilised.
I observed from a Thai opposite that the technique was to unhook the centre part of the curtain so that it fell away to let the carriage fan do its work, without which the upper bunk was unbearably hot.
Our very first night sitting on a comfortable double bed in a small room overlooking a little square just off Khoa San Road, the mecca of backpackers. It is 3:30 pm and Joan is asleep on the bed. The fan above rotates slowly and quietly making a pleasant breeze. The room is in the shade but the outside the sun is beating down, according to our pilot the temperature would be 29C. The windows are covered with mosquito netting. The scrupulously clean shared toilet and refreshing cold shower are located downstairs. We are very satisfied with this small guest house run in a family home which also operates as a Chinese laundry. It is costing just 150 Baht/night (around £4) and was the best of several we looked at in the area.
In the evening we strolled along Khoa San Rd which was brim with activity the pavement full with temporary stalls selling a wide variety of goods and services. We decided to sign up for a trip to Surin in the east of the country to see their Elephant Round-up starting early the following morning, it included accommodation for an overnight stop. I changed £100 for 4869 Baht an exchange rate of 48.7B/£. We had our first taste of Thai food my meal being Spicy Prawn with mushroom soup for 30B (61p, 10p less than for a small beer), Joan's was noodles with bean sprouts and chicken for half that price. By 9pm we were in bed for a well earned rest.
SURIN ELEPHANT ROUND-UP
We were suddenly woken at 3am when the light was switched on next door exposing a problem with our room the connecting wall was only gauze only at ceiling level to allow acceptable air flow. Followed by an excited young English girl inviting a recent Thai boyfriend to her room, followed by "that was the best of my life". Joan could hardly believe her ears, but I mused "was it ever thus?"
Joan's record of the same event
"What are we here for?"
"What is your name?"
"I don't know, you don't know - better that way"
At 5am we got our own back by switching on the light to get dressed for our trip to Surin.
Joan's description of busy Khoa San road at 5:30am that morning. Today they are preparing for a festival, near where we are waiting there is a Thai lady with her small son and a folding table full of plastic bags each filled with rice, spinach, cabbage, coriander, fish.
Small groups of Buddhist monks in brown robes carrying small covered pots walked up to the table and opened the lids of their bowl. The mother and her son together holding the bag placed in the begging bowl, a bag of each type of food was given. We learned that every male Buddhist (even the king) has to spend a short period of his life as a monk, to beg for food so as to understand how it felt to be poor.
We were on time for the start at 6am, Dave an American was already there soon joined by a Canadian couple Craig and Frances. By 9am nothing had happened so I went back to our room for the malaria tablets I had forgotten. I inquired at a nearby Travel Agent where two English girls were complaining on the same issue, he sorted it out and in 15 mins and we were soon off in a minibus thinking it would rendez-vous with a coach but in fact we joined with other minibuses full of tourists who were staying in the Miami Hotel.
At Korat we took a side road to Phimai to see the ruins of a temple with beautifully carved white sandstone doorways and inside a 4 metre meditating Buddha with a seven headed cobra supporting him. A pleasant site to wander around with shrines either side of a covered way but much of the roof was missing but still giving a good impression of the complete 12 century building by King Jayavarnian 7th, the Khmer shrine of the Mahayana Buddhists
We returned to Korat to spend the night in the tourist Thai Hotel, in a huge bedroom with its own facilities but had to endure the sound of passing lorries for the whole night. Joan did not sleep. We had an excellent meal recommended by Frances of Shanghai Noodles, with beer plus free tea.
Sunday 18 Nov Up at 4am and a good breakfast and on to complete the journey to Surin. The show itself was fantastic with about 150 elephants who had been brought from Chaing Mai province especially for the event.
Only last night (17/05/2017) I was reminded on a BBC program that the use of elephants for logging had been banned by the Thai government the previous year (1989). Surin province had been cleared by elephants and was under arable cultivation. Elephants no longer had work their only future was as tourist attractions. The Surin event was a traditional event which we were to learn had recently finished with an elephant stampede in the town after the event's finish.
A Grand Parade ended displays of pageantry, acrobatics and even a game of football ending in a 0-9 draw. Some elephants kicked with good timing but others missed the ball altogether and some ended up unintentionally heeling the ball backwards.
The finale was a battle by two armies on foot with swords with the generals mounted on elephants.
The trip back was a disaster as three of the five buses had left empty their passengers having already paid for the return journey. The girl acting as our guide managed to hire one AC bus to take people straight back to Bangkok.
The two drivers were said to be in town hoping to find fares. Together the rest of us walked into town in search of the last two minibuses but first found the elephants were ahead of us being fed by the stallholders and offering free rides to the local children. Our guide now penniless was distraught and Joan put her arm around her shoulders to console her and was thus the first to learn the problem was that the last two drivers were demanding 3500B to include the major detour to the famous temple as had been promised as part of the trip. Together we agreed to pay 120B each making 2000B in total and set off far later than intended on the return journey. We arrived at the temple in the Kanupuchu highlands at 6pm just as it became dusk. Nevertheless we were impressed by this almost magical effect of this ancient monument, not that far from Ankor Wat in Cambodia, finally reaching Bangkok at 3am already well rested by sleeping on the bus.
19 Nov In the morning we breakfasted on peanuts muesli with yogurt, fresh banana, watermelon and pineapple - a good experience. Next to the travel agent to request return of our cash, which Craig and Frances were to collect for us later whilst we delivered a couple of packages to Bangkok residents from friends in the UK. A Thai with two young girls stopped us soliciting to get free lessons in English for his daughters from passing tourists like us, we stopped and talked pleasantly together for 15 minutes. We found and caught a bus to the British Embassy but had a deal of trouble getting in, the parcel we had for Mrs P Squire helped but I supposed it could have been thought of as a bomb. We got talking to a helpful English ex-pat from Hong Kong who needed to see her friend Mrs Helen Squires to get her passport ready so as to catch her 2pm flight. They were not related but eventually we learned that Phallee was at a seminar and a friend from her office came down to collect the parcel - my notes do not record who had given us the parcel in the UK in the first place though we both recall the incident.
The second parcel proved much more difficult, this was a Welsh doll from David and Isla Naylor for Bow a girl who had stayed with them earlier. The street was easy enough to find but as we were to learn again in Amritsa there is no such equivalence to orderly numbering in Asia. At 1 Soi Ruamrudee, Ploenchit Road one we got friendly help from the lady Yor-Ying Sittavibula who ran the Tourist Business. She explained that we needed Soi 1 (lane 1) off Soi Ruam Road and phoned advance warning but the Thai girl answering did not speak English, did not know Bow, and put the phone down. Eventually we found what we believed to be the right house, got the phone number from the houseboy, the only one in, and went back to the Yor-Ying's house, left the doll drank cold water and exchanged addresses. She was hoping to move to a bigger house so next time we visited Bangkok would like us to stay with her. Next task was to find the Lufthanza office to reconfirm our return flight to London.It turned out to be next door to the British Embassy in the Bank of America building, a long tortuous walk back only to be told we needn't have bothered.
On return to the Guest House we found a new notice on the stairway "Thai girls were allowed in your room provided they paid 50B for the privilege", no doubt the man who has taken up residence in the room next door was culprit. It was free for English girls to invite Thai men. The owners were Chinese, when asked he about the different standards he said
"Chinese girls work hard - Thai girls earn money the easy way" NB Only Thai girls were allowed in for sex!
Had we chosen a brothel for our very first night as backpackers? Not quite just a scrupulously clean (Joan's Description) venue for young sex!!
On Craig's advice we had dinner in almost entirely Thai floating restaurant on the river near the Express boat pier. Prawns in garlic, mixed fried vegetables, rice a large beer and soda water for 188B expensive we thought at the time, were we slowly moving up market.
The GH owner had not produced the rail tickets for tomorrow night's sleeper to Chang Mai for which we had already paid 960B, and found that Craig had got tickets for 350B less, though possibly on a slower train. We tried to contact Bow by phone but failed and must phone again - did we?
I almost forgot to record our visit to Wat Pho which was open until 5pm. It featured a 46 metre long reclining Buddha in gold, not to mention all the other images and the fantastic statues. Impressive sky lines with roofs of bright red, green and orange tiles with the ornamental parts covered in mirrors, or gold leaf or mother of pearl. All but the details were too big to photograph
Tuesday 20 November
The early part of the night was ruined by our new neighbour who refused to switch off his light even on request from either side, Joan eventually went beserk and nearly kicked in the plywood panel separating the rooms (not that we wanted to share rooms!), but that had the desired effect and we were able to sleep well though slightly too late for our rendez-vous for breakfast with Craig and Frances.
 |
| HEAD OF THE HUGE RECLINING BUDDHA |
In the morning we visited the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keo the sun shone and the whole experience was quite amazing quite the most ornate yet architecturally satisfying set of buildings I have ever seen. Simply incredible the majesty, glitter, roof lines a mixture of shapes such a contrast with the chaotic nonentity full of traffic that is Bangkok. The feature was the emerald Buddha a small jade figure in a magnificent sitting above many far larger Buddhas all with their hands raised in the symbol of 'peace'.
In the afternoon we went to the house of Jim Thompson, a legendary American who built the silk trade before disappearing in Malaya in 1967. Much smaller with far less to see for the house totally in hardwood was on a human scale, tasteful and totally in harmony with the surroundings. The house was full of artifacts collected in Thailand, Burma and China. In fact it was an amalgamation of two houses the second from Burma, set in a small garden of jungle backing onto a canal. On the other side of the canal he had built lots of houses for silk workers who still plied their trade.
 |
| JIM THOMPSON'S HOUSE |
We left a 500B deposit, with 1000B to pay on collection at the end of our trip for a lovely stylized painting on cotton by a local artist exhibiting at the house. It still adorns our bedroom. Finally a pricing the clothes on sale in Koa San Road t-shirts and shorts 80B each, earlier we had noticed similar for 100B though in neither case did we bargain or attempt to buy. For dinner we went to the night market and had a delicious totally different tasting soup made of bean sprouts, pork mince and various fish for 15B. When we got back to the GH our train tickets had arrived so we caught probably our very first tuk-tuk for 50B to the station, my lack of experience caused some mirth from onlookers as I tried to get in with my large rucksack still on my back.
At the station there was a clear departure board in English and the platforms had clear English signs giving the destination of their trains.
 |
| SLEEPER TO CHAING MAI |
I observed from a Thai opposite that the technique was to unhook the centre part of the curtain so that it fell away to let the carriage fan do its work, without which the upper bunk was unbearably hot.
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