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| Author : sue_and_nathan | Diary name : yearaway | ||
| 2 May 2001 : Phitsanuloke - Thailand | |||
| Last few stops in Thailand | |||
| In the middle of a very hot afternoon we boarded the train from Chiang Mai and headed south to Nakhon Lampang. The train was a wonderful way to see the country. The prehistoric diesel locomotive ambled through the countryside enabling us to see everything that was going on around us. Lampang, just like Chiang Mai (and probably lots of other Northern cities) was built as a walled rectangle along the a river. It's a quiet, sleepy town and apparently lots of Thais visit to get a real taste of Northern Thailand. It's a great little place, perfect for relaxing and just watching life going on around you. That's mainly what we did, although we got a bit of sightseeing in. We got up early (for us) one morning determined to do some proper sightseeing and hailed ourselves a songthaew (a bit like a van thing with an open back). We haggled with the ever smiling driver for his services and ended up with his 'best price'. We were happy, but we could see from his widening smile that we'd also made him very happy and probably paid far,far too much!! We jumped in the back and after some banging noises and smoke the engine started! It scorched off from the mark (as if!) and we were soon speeding along at top speed - that is until we stopped on the outskirts of town "Five minutes!" he said and disappeared into a house obviously telling his wife to put the champagne and oysters on ice! He reappeared, this time with a bag of fruit and a small child (his kid) who was accompanying us on our day out to the elephant conservation centre. We were both in two minds about the elephant place before we arrived - some people had told us that the animals are badly kept in some places in Thailand. This place wasn't the same though - the elephants were treated really well - and although we didn't really much like the 'show', the need for the place was made very obvious (and Thai people probably wouldn't pay to visit without the 'show'). There are about 2000 working elephants that aren't needed in Thailand anymore since the Thai government cracked down on logging and so there are few alternatives apart from this sort of place or the nastier examples other people had told us about, or even death for the elephants. The centre was set up by the Princess of Thailand who was always told by the king that she was 'releasing chickens' (the literal translation of a phrase which means making boo boos). When she got a little older she told the king she would like to release elephants instead and this centre was set up to do just that. We enjoyed the feeding bit, with the elephants vacuuming bananas up out of our hands!! A few days in Lampang and then we headed for Phitsanuloke which is where we are now. Horrible train journey here! - we were stuck for five hours on a train with all the windows open and all the bugs in the world on the carriage with us. Sue nearly got knocked out by a huge beetle/cockroach thing flying into her head!! We made up for it by checking into a dead posh hotel with a marble bathroom and a view of the city. We came here to visit Sukhothai which is a very famous temple complex all in ruins now. We spent the day cycling around and looking at giant Buddhas in the sunshine - took lots of photos, said hello to lots of young monks and Nathan got sunburnt! This is probably one of the best places we've seen so far - amazingly beautiful - would recommend it to anyone visiting the Land of Smiles! This is about it for Thailand. Next time we write we'll be in Vietnam! | |||