I spent the four days at the Sihanoukville beach, and about two hours at Jomtien beach and that's all. I have been relaxing more, but I wasn't really so crazy about the beaches all that much, there's only so much sitting around and staring at them that I can take. I suppose if I were more active I'd be snorkeling or scubing, or trying to sail or something.
I thought about traveling to Surin, Thailand when I left Siem Reap, Cambodia because it is almost straight north about a three hour drive, but I was all tuckered out and took the easy flight to the coast to recuperate. It would have been quite an adventure, but I wasn't up to it (you apparently go through Pol Pot's old stronghold). What I did a few days ago was catch the northeast train line from Bangkok because I heard the Thai train system is comfortable and reliable. It seemed like a good plan at the time: take a night train and sleep all night, roll into town rested and hit the ground running. What I rode was not the Thai train system I heard about. This was slow, old and creaky and late. While cheap, it was uncomfortable as hell. I'd hoped to book a sleeper car on a quiet, comfortable, modern train, but due to a glitch in online booking (thank you very much, Verified by Visa!) I was unable to book the sleeper when I tried. They were sold out when I eventually was able to go to the train station in person for the ticket--not that a sleeper would have helped much. I'm certain I could not have slept a wink, as noisy and bumpy as this train was.
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| Oh no, this is not going to be good... |
I got the best seat I could buy, one step down from the sleeper section. The rest of the seats were wood benches like church pews, but most people were sleeping. I don't know how they did it.
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| I figured out the seats swiveled around 180 degrees, it helped some. |
The train left the station at about 11:40 PM. All the windows were open on all the cars--it was like driving down an old bumpy dirt road in a beat up '56 Chevy pickup with the windows down. Few Thais seemed to know how to raise the windows: women found it almost impossible, since you needed some upper-body strength to make it happen. They had shutters you had to raise up, but then you had to know this trick to get them to stay up by fiddling with the bottom with one hand while holding the thing up with the other hand. Not hard to figure out, but no one seemed to think of asking the ticket masters to help with it. I ended up raising people's shutters in my car when it seemed like they wanted them up but didn't know how to do it, women with babies mostly.
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| It was a choice of shutters, or glass windows |
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| Two windows down at night, one stuck there partly open |
Moving from car to car was an experience because it was all open to the elements, and this train was jumping around all over the track. Fall off and nobody hears from you again, sort of scary.
Nobody had any chickens or goats on the train, it wasn't that bad, but it was over two hours late. There were at least five times where we had to diverge onto other tracks to let other red-eyes past. This took us up to 13 hours I think, the whole time lurching, clacking, creaking, and roaring like a tornado when going over a bridge. I tried to sleep, could not even a little bit. The only nice part was watching the sun rise over rural Thailand, revealing some very nice clouds turning red and yellow over rice fields.
If I'd known the trip would be like this, I'd have booked it during the day so I could see the countryside, and not completely mess up my sleep cycle by taking a red-eye. Staying up all night like that tends to affect me for days afterward, and sure enough. Well, live and learn from my mistakes. My return to Bangkok from here will be travel by luxury bus. No more Thai trains for me (would other lines be better I wonder?), and no damn mini-vans either! I made sure to book one of those big luxury liner buses. "They tell me" it's about a five hour trip to Bangkok on one of those. They look good, hope the shocks are new. I tried to book airfare on something but the only company that flew out this way, Nok Air, suspended it's service recently.
My hotel here in Surin is the Majestic. I read it's the newest hotel, situated in the bus station mall. It's OK, 900 baht and that includes a pretty good breakfast. There seems to be a lot of farang here. I see half dozen or so here in this hotel, but none of them want to speak with me. I see them around town a bit, so I guess some expats like this place. Took a walk last night and saw some place that was sort of "expat central", I'll stop by there today and see what's going on. I like Surin, it's relatively quiet. There are the usual motor bikes everywhere. Taxis are scarce, but you can get one if you call some place and arrange to be picked up. There are some tuk tuks, but there are at least as many of the three wheeled human-powered bicycle taxis around. I tried talking to several, and they speak absolutely no English. I eventually did take a ride in one, and I'm way too big so it was not comfortable. The driver pretended to know what I was saying when I know he hadn't a clue, so I ended up in the wrong place and demanded more money. They're called sam law. I was surprised to find little info on the web about them.
I do remember the name for bathroom: hong nam. I finally memorized it after pantomiming urination at least two times in order to find one. No, I was not able to keep a straight face, and yes he instantly knew what I was talking about.
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| And one more of the kind of utility bikes I see a lot of here. You know how much a front rack for my hand-made Amsterdam bike cost? 200 freakin' dollars. For a front cargo rack. This one looks like somebody made it. The rear one too. |
I went to vist Wat Burapharam, a temple built for the king to visit. The patron monk (don't know what else to call him) was named Loungpu Dun, a monk who died about 80 years ago.
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| The big temple in Surin |
I also made the trip to Buriram to see Wat Phanom Rung, really because I'm running out of things to do here in Surin. It does seem there is growth here, but it's hardly the big apple. The one hour each way taxi ride to Buriram cost 1500 baht, and he made me pay for gas, about 300 baht I think. That's about $57 to have a look at a temple for about two hours. On the way, the taxi driver ran over a stray dog running across the very busy highway. He just kept on going, apologizing to me because I yelled at him to look out. I've been told life is cheap here. The temple was very nice, situated on a hill top and in better shape than any in Siem Reap. There were supposed to be views of Cambodia, but too many trees to see anything. Frankly, in hindsight, I kind of wished I'd have just looked at some pics online for free. However, it was a beautiful day atop this hill with a nice breeze going that helped cool things off.
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| These were the nicest ones of these...things....I ever saw, very well-preserved. I think they're multi-headed snakes |
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| Very similar to Wat Tom, the temple I visited after Angkor Wat |
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| The guide said parts of this temple were taken by the United States at some point in time, and only recently returned. He did not say what entity took them, or exactly how much was taken. |
The clunky old computers at the Majestic Hotel in Surin would lock up hard when I tried to hook my camera up to them, so had to go out to a coffee shop across the street from the hotel that has internet. Much better computers, but still a very slow connection. At least they have pretty good espresso here.
I went to the big local monster "hypermarket", Big C Supercenter. It's just like Walmart! Maybe I can find something interesting to do along the way. There was an area near the theater that had game machines of all sorts, each one of them making a horrible noise, and all together (about 50 of them) they blended together into a nightmarish swirling vortex of white noise. No one seemed to mind. It is another example of the difference in noise levels. Could I live here?
I had a massage yesterday, but she didn't do it like the other ones I had in Bangkok. It was more just a kneading of the muscles. Maybe she thought I couldn't take the real deal. I'll have you know I have grown accustomed to the pain of Thai massage. Wow, when they find a knot they work at it relentlessly with an elbow, and it hurts. It's the next day when it feels better. I tried it again at another place the next day and it was different, but no better. It seems you just have to shop around and hopefully luck out. When you find one that suits you, it's best to tip him/her and keep coming back so you can continue to get used to each other...what I imagine having a regular hair dresser would be like.
I catch the bus back to Bangkok today for the last time. It leaves at about 10:40 AM, and should arrive in BKK about 4:30 PM, barring eventualities. That's so much better than the train! These little trips haven't been too bad, I think I've been cranky about describing some of them. I'm glad to have seen so much of the country. There's 5 more nights, so I booked all that time at one hotel, again in the Rangsit area, though further west I think. It's called the Hotel Rama Gardens and I booked it because it's sort of upscale and looks like a peaceful, relaxing place to spend my last week. No more traveling around for me, though I will take day trips out to various places I should not miss, for instance the old capital city of Thailand, Ayutthaya. I might skip the floating market. Not sure what else to do around that area...any suggestions?
