Thailand #3
Jan. 3rd, 2017 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_squiddyDay 5 - Sukothai
On 1st December I woke up at Sukothai Heritage Resort, stepped outside into the sunshine and enjoyed looking at the beautiful pools full of lotus flowers, hanging orchids and dragonflies. What a wonderful way to start December! We boarded our bus and set off for Sukothai Historical Park, a set of absolutely stunning ruins framed by pools full of bright pink lotus blossoms. We had the option of travelling around the site by bicycle or motor transport but as it was so hot we chose motorised and got chauffeured around on some sort of reverse rickshaw - motorbike at the back for the driver and seats on the front for us! At the park instead of lots of towering stupa, we saw giant Buddha statues set amongst columns and highly decorated stonework covered in carvings of dancers and devotees. A couple of really rather grand standing Buddhas were so gigantic they had walls built around them which I assumed were to hold them up. It sort of gave the impression that they were standing in cupboards though! This was the first capital of the kingdom of Siam, so an important place and a completely different style. It was also the only place we were able to go inside a stupa - and although a little small and dungeony, still interesting to finally look up and see the wooden structures supporting the tower interior.
Our next stop was the Ramkhmhaeng National Museum. It was quite small and not terribly interesting - but it was home to "The mystic tunnel-like stairway corridor", so automatically one of the best places I visited! (The MTLSC did not go anywhere - just up - and was hung with framed pictures of things you would see if you went inside a temple we were to visit later on (but could not climb inside). There was also a display of pottery gone wrong from ancient times (piles of pots which had fallen over in the kiln) - brilliant!
Now on to the temple which was the real home of the MTLSC: Wat Sri Chum. It did not sound like much: a big box with a giant Buddha sitting inside it and a tall triangular doorway - but it was actually a triumph of architectural design! The doorway perfectly framed the face of the Buddha during approach - but did not give any impression of scale until you were inside. Then, sealed off from the rest of the world, all that there was was silence - and the statue. Very well designed! Our visit was a short one, but we did stop at the stalls outside to pick up some handmade bits and bobs from the local ladies...
We travelled back past the hotel and into the land owned by the airport to visit the Organic Agriculture Project: an initiative to teach local people to grow better and more healthy crops - which are then served to passengers using the airline. We had to dress up in farming clothes (which are designed for Thai people who are generally a lot smaller and less curvaceous than me - I had to wear a gigantic top to actually fit my boobs in, my crop trousers were more like knee length and the less said about the flip-flops the better! I did however get a most excellent farmer's hat!
First, we visited the ducks to collect duck eggs (which is probably quite exciting for city folk, but quite normal if half of your family are farmers), but the little Easter baskets they gave us were very cute and twee. Then we drove around the farm on the back of a truck to visit the water buffalo (and the baby water buffalo). They were just chilling by the edge of a pond and quite curious to see us, but they did have big horns and ropes through their noses... Next, we visited a place where the picked and dried tiny bananas and then covered them in honey to make delicious sweet treats that were sold in the city (I tried one and it was quite chewy) and saw the gardens where they grew ginger and other herbs.
Our next stop was the rice sorting place where we saw an ancient German machine which husked the rice and met the ladies who sat all day and checked the rice grain by grain to remove the duff ones. We had a go and it was actually quite easy - but it does seem totally mad that people would sit and do this and haven't found some better way... Finally, we went to the paddy field to help to grow some rice. They grow the rice in small beds then uproot, separate and re-plant the plants with more space around them, let them grow some more and then do the same again. The beds are really VERY muddy and the ladies were expert in getting the plants exactly the right distance apart - ours were all a bit more haphazard. I suspect with a little cushion to sit on and more comfortable clothing I could have stayed there all afternoon helping with the planting! We were treated after this to some pandan juice (a vile bright green drink made from leaves) and had some time back at the hotel which gave me a chance to go swimming and relax for the evening with a beer!
Day 6 - Sukothai to Chiang Rai
Our plan for this morning was to get up early and go and 'feed the monks'. Chaiyan explained that monks can only eat the food people give them, so it is an important part of culture to go and present them with rice, water and other useful stuff. Unfortunately, the monks had a funeral to plan so we weren't able to do this in the usual way. We left at a far more sensible time and went to their monastery, which was a small and completely unassuming un-touristy place which had a little open-sided hall for prayers and devotions decorated with things including an ID chart of all the monks and a photo of the princess with a whole load of slap on and looking a bit tarty and not at all religious! A handful of local people had come to pay their respects so we sat at the back behind them and when the time came approached the monks and unloaded our carrier bags full of goodies. You have to lay them out and then push them toward the monk, all the time bending down and putting your hands together, which is quite complicated and gave me a little fit of the giggles!
Work all done, we jumped onto our bus and made the first part of our journey towards Chiang Rai. About halfway we stopped at a pineapple farm, which I thought would be a bit blah because I have seen pineapples growing in botanic gardens
. It is a little different when there are hundreds of them all over the hillside - especially when the farmer has wrapped the leaves of the plan over the fruit to stop them getting sunburn! The farmer was a nice man and actually lived on site in a little wooden hut elevated off the ground and covered with a thin straw roof. After we had wandered around the farm and tried on more hats, the farmer showed us how to cut a pineapple ready for eating. When it has a big stalk coming out the bottom that you can hold on to, life is a little easier. Basically, you slice off all the scaly outsides until you have a yellow, spotty fruit left - and then (this is the clever bit) - you cut around the fruit in a spiral shape to cut out all the spots. Then you are only left with nice fruit flesh, which you can quarter up and eat on a stick. I am not a big pineapple fan, but it is much nicer when it is properly fresh - and I also discovered that there are two types of pineapple: crunchy (which we have here and is all fibrous) and sweet (which is much smaller and more pulpy and tastes a bit like strawberries)...
The farmer also played a joke on me, which was rather sweet. He put some seeds in my hand and then poured water on them. I had no idea if I was meant to eat them or what - but then they began popping! The water makes them explode and fire their seeds everywhere, which is apparently a children's toy!
We travelled on further to Phayao where we had lunch in a small place next to an enormous lake (I think possibly the biggest lake in Thailand?). Here we got to choose our own dishes so had a look at the menu - it served garlic frog! I didn't choose that but was pleased to be able to try some new things and ended up eating quite a lot of freshly caught prawns because nobody else fancied them. When we had eaten, we went to have a look at the lake and saw a pier with lots of barrels and floating walkways attached to it - a place where local people could keep their own fish! We walked on and had a look and then visited a little coffee shop which had the most amazing teracotta spirit house so we could use the loos and pick up some provisions!
Our next stop was the home of the Yao Hill Tribe. It was half traditional village and half developed, which was quite a weird combo. People still live in the same type of huts as our pineapple farmer, but they also have pickup trucks! We were the only people visiting at that time so we did get pestered a little by local ladies trying to sell us little bracelets that they had made - but it was still interesting to see! We had to enter the village through the spirit gate, which is essentially three pieces of wood forming a square with the ground with lots of stuff hanging from it. You have to go through without touching anything in case the spirits get through - but I broadly suspect the villagers use the road which runs alongside most of the time. We visited a traditional house where a lady in tribal costume (it is lovely heavily embroidered stuff) was spinning thread. She had a wonderful wizened face and seemed very cheerful about letting us into her home, which basically consisted of a veranda and two cubicle bedrooms joining onto a corridor which functioned as lounge (with an ancient TV in it), kitchen and fire pit. Rather terrifyingly, the whole house was up on poles and the floor was simply strips of bamboo. Not only can you see the gaps though this, but bends when you walk on it. I am not a tiny Yao hilltribian and I had visions of just disappearing straight through!
Our final stop for the day was the Golden Triangle, where Thailand, Laos and Burma all meet. They are basically seperated by a fork in a river so you can get a ferry boat between them and pop over to Burma to get some drugs or do some gambling if you like! Next to the viewpoint were some amazing steps up to a temple which were very ornately carved like a big three-headed snake and I'm afraid I may have found them slightly more fascinating than the view! However, we took it all in and then went to see the nearby Opium Museum (another not very good one - they don't really seem to have quite got the hang of the whole museum thing) where we learned that opium comes from the sap of the poppy, not the seed (I have always got that wrong), had a look at some opium weights (which looked suspiciously like an ornament I have at home) and learned about the punishments for smuggling and dealing. Once we'd been round, Chaiyan took us down to the river for a freshly hacked open coconut (I managed about 1/8 of that) and a look at the view as the sun set - very pretty!
Our hotel for this evening was The Legend Chiang Rai. It was dark when we arrived so we didn't get to see a lot of it, but my room had a foyer/washroom and a gigantic wet room with a shower in the middle and a great big barrel full of water (similar to the type you get in saunas) to one side. The wet room also had huge folding doors that opened up to the outside world - interesting!
On 1st December I woke up at Sukothai Heritage Resort, stepped outside into the sunshine and enjoyed looking at the beautiful pools full of lotus flowers, hanging orchids and dragonflies. What a wonderful way to start December! We boarded our bus and set off for Sukothai Historical Park, a set of absolutely stunning ruins framed by pools full of bright pink lotus blossoms. We had the option of travelling around the site by bicycle or motor transport but as it was so hot we chose motorised and got chauffeured around on some sort of reverse rickshaw - motorbike at the back for the driver and seats on the front for us! At the park instead of lots of towering stupa, we saw giant Buddha statues set amongst columns and highly decorated stonework covered in carvings of dancers and devotees. A couple of really rather grand standing Buddhas were so gigantic they had walls built around them which I assumed were to hold them up. It sort of gave the impression that they were standing in cupboards though! This was the first capital of the kingdom of Siam, so an important place and a completely different style. It was also the only place we were able to go inside a stupa - and although a little small and dungeony, still interesting to finally look up and see the wooden structures supporting the tower interior.
Our next stop was the Ramkhmhaeng National Museum. It was quite small and not terribly interesting - but it was home to "The mystic tunnel-like stairway corridor", so automatically one of the best places I visited! (The MTLSC did not go anywhere - just up - and was hung with framed pictures of things you would see if you went inside a temple we were to visit later on (but could not climb inside). There was also a display of pottery gone wrong from ancient times (piles of pots which had fallen over in the kiln) - brilliant!
Now on to the temple which was the real home of the MTLSC: Wat Sri Chum. It did not sound like much: a big box with a giant Buddha sitting inside it and a tall triangular doorway - but it was actually a triumph of architectural design! The doorway perfectly framed the face of the Buddha during approach - but did not give any impression of scale until you were inside. Then, sealed off from the rest of the world, all that there was was silence - and the statue. Very well designed! Our visit was a short one, but we did stop at the stalls outside to pick up some handmade bits and bobs from the local ladies...
We travelled back past the hotel and into the land owned by the airport to visit the Organic Agriculture Project: an initiative to teach local people to grow better and more healthy crops - which are then served to passengers using the airline. We had to dress up in farming clothes (which are designed for Thai people who are generally a lot smaller and less curvaceous than me - I had to wear a gigantic top to actually fit my boobs in, my crop trousers were more like knee length and the less said about the flip-flops the better! I did however get a most excellent farmer's hat!
First, we visited the ducks to collect duck eggs (which is probably quite exciting for city folk, but quite normal if half of your family are farmers), but the little Easter baskets they gave us were very cute and twee. Then we drove around the farm on the back of a truck to visit the water buffalo (and the baby water buffalo). They were just chilling by the edge of a pond and quite curious to see us, but they did have big horns and ropes through their noses... Next, we visited a place where the picked and dried tiny bananas and then covered them in honey to make delicious sweet treats that were sold in the city (I tried one and it was quite chewy) and saw the gardens where they grew ginger and other herbs.
Our next stop was the rice sorting place where we saw an ancient German machine which husked the rice and met the ladies who sat all day and checked the rice grain by grain to remove the duff ones. We had a go and it was actually quite easy - but it does seem totally mad that people would sit and do this and haven't found some better way... Finally, we went to the paddy field to help to grow some rice. They grow the rice in small beds then uproot, separate and re-plant the plants with more space around them, let them grow some more and then do the same again. The beds are really VERY muddy and the ladies were expert in getting the plants exactly the right distance apart - ours were all a bit more haphazard. I suspect with a little cushion to sit on and more comfortable clothing I could have stayed there all afternoon helping with the planting! We were treated after this to some pandan juice (a vile bright green drink made from leaves) and had some time back at the hotel which gave me a chance to go swimming and relax for the evening with a beer!
Day 6 - Sukothai to Chiang Rai
Our plan for this morning was to get up early and go and 'feed the monks'. Chaiyan explained that monks can only eat the food people give them, so it is an important part of culture to go and present them with rice, water and other useful stuff. Unfortunately, the monks had a funeral to plan so we weren't able to do this in the usual way. We left at a far more sensible time and went to their monastery, which was a small and completely unassuming un-touristy place which had a little open-sided hall for prayers and devotions decorated with things including an ID chart of all the monks and a photo of the princess with a whole load of slap on and looking a bit tarty and not at all religious! A handful of local people had come to pay their respects so we sat at the back behind them and when the time came approached the monks and unloaded our carrier bags full of goodies. You have to lay them out and then push them toward the monk, all the time bending down and putting your hands together, which is quite complicated and gave me a little fit of the giggles!
Work all done, we jumped onto our bus and made the first part of our journey towards Chiang Rai. About halfway we stopped at a pineapple farm, which I thought would be a bit blah because I have seen pineapples growing in botanic gardens
. It is a little different when there are hundreds of them all over the hillside - especially when the farmer has wrapped the leaves of the plan over the fruit to stop them getting sunburn! The farmer was a nice man and actually lived on site in a little wooden hut elevated off the ground and covered with a thin straw roof. After we had wandered around the farm and tried on more hats, the farmer showed us how to cut a pineapple ready for eating. When it has a big stalk coming out the bottom that you can hold on to, life is a little easier. Basically, you slice off all the scaly outsides until you have a yellow, spotty fruit left - and then (this is the clever bit) - you cut around the fruit in a spiral shape to cut out all the spots. Then you are only left with nice fruit flesh, which you can quarter up and eat on a stick. I am not a big pineapple fan, but it is much nicer when it is properly fresh - and I also discovered that there are two types of pineapple: crunchy (which we have here and is all fibrous) and sweet (which is much smaller and more pulpy and tastes a bit like strawberries)...
The farmer also played a joke on me, which was rather sweet. He put some seeds in my hand and then poured water on them. I had no idea if I was meant to eat them or what - but then they began popping! The water makes them explode and fire their seeds everywhere, which is apparently a children's toy!
We travelled on further to Phayao where we had lunch in a small place next to an enormous lake (I think possibly the biggest lake in Thailand?). Here we got to choose our own dishes so had a look at the menu - it served garlic frog! I didn't choose that but was pleased to be able to try some new things and ended up eating quite a lot of freshly caught prawns because nobody else fancied them. When we had eaten, we went to have a look at the lake and saw a pier with lots of barrels and floating walkways attached to it - a place where local people could keep their own fish! We walked on and had a look and then visited a little coffee shop which had the most amazing teracotta spirit house so we could use the loos and pick up some provisions!
Our next stop was the home of the Yao Hill Tribe. It was half traditional village and half developed, which was quite a weird combo. People still live in the same type of huts as our pineapple farmer, but they also have pickup trucks! We were the only people visiting at that time so we did get pestered a little by local ladies trying to sell us little bracelets that they had made - but it was still interesting to see! We had to enter the village through the spirit gate, which is essentially three pieces of wood forming a square with the ground with lots of stuff hanging from it. You have to go through without touching anything in case the spirits get through - but I broadly suspect the villagers use the road which runs alongside most of the time. We visited a traditional house where a lady in tribal costume (it is lovely heavily embroidered stuff) was spinning thread. She had a wonderful wizened face and seemed very cheerful about letting us into her home, which basically consisted of a veranda and two cubicle bedrooms joining onto a corridor which functioned as lounge (with an ancient TV in it), kitchen and fire pit. Rather terrifyingly, the whole house was up on poles and the floor was simply strips of bamboo. Not only can you see the gaps though this, but bends when you walk on it. I am not a tiny Yao hilltribian and I had visions of just disappearing straight through!
Our final stop for the day was the Golden Triangle, where Thailand, Laos and Burma all meet. They are basically seperated by a fork in a river so you can get a ferry boat between them and pop over to Burma to get some drugs or do some gambling if you like! Next to the viewpoint were some amazing steps up to a temple which were very ornately carved like a big three-headed snake and I'm afraid I may have found them slightly more fascinating than the view! However, we took it all in and then went to see the nearby Opium Museum (another not very good one - they don't really seem to have quite got the hang of the whole museum thing) where we learned that opium comes from the sap of the poppy, not the seed (I have always got that wrong), had a look at some opium weights (which looked suspiciously like an ornament I have at home) and learned about the punishments for smuggling and dealing. Once we'd been round, Chaiyan took us down to the river for a freshly hacked open coconut (I managed about 1/8 of that) and a look at the view as the sun set - very pretty!
Our hotel for this evening was The Legend Chiang Rai. It was dark when we arrived so we didn't get to see a lot of it, but my room had a foyer/washroom and a gigantic wet room with a shower in the middle and a great big barrel full of water (similar to the type you get in saunas) to one side. The wet room also had huge folding doors that opened up to the outside world - interesting!