Tales From a Female Traveller

The King of Something Hot

Okay.. so that's a title from a computer game that I bastardised from "Tropico: the king of somewhere hot." that we saw when we were buying our DVD's in Siam Square.. but you will see why below.

After we flew into Bangkok from Chiang Mai we checked into a hotel called Tong Poon which was close to Siam Square. We had decided that in the morning we would take a day trip to Lop Buri (pronounced Lop booree) where the famous Monkey Temple is and also on the way back from Lop Buri to Ayattuya (pronounced A-ya-too-ya), the old ancient capital of Thailand with more temples. Lop Buri was okay but the monkeys were crazy. They stole Byron's sunglasses and one of them scratched my hand (which now has little lumps all over it). You bought a bunch of seeds for 10 baht and the entrance fee was 30 baht, the temple is located right in the middle of the town on a small hill and the monkeys are EVERYWHERE... on the street amongst the traffic, on the traffic lights, on the rooftops and just all over the place stealing from the markets anything they can get their little hands on. When you feed them though, they are quite gentle and I was struck by just how human they actually are... they have tiny little fingers and can use thumb and forefinger as good as any human can and their expressions on their face are just so.. human. They also have social heirarchy, the younger monkeys obey the older one's and there are some dominant males that won't even let any monkey have any seed... bullies I suppose. They run and play like children and they groom each other. They also fight over their young, which was quite odd and a little hard to work out who the parent was. We visited a few other temples but decided to move on to Ayattuya at about 2:40.. and seeing as we had been accidently ripped off with our train ticket there (366 Baht for a one way ticket.. EACH) we made sure they knew we meant two PEOPLE instead of CLASS 2...which only cost 40 baht each this time. The train wasn't even any less enjoyable for less money.

Ayattuya was a little better and it was so much more organised that Lop Buri and for a tour of the temples for about 2 hours we paid 200 baht for a Tuk Tuk. At the first temple we arrived at we made an offering to the temple (which they were restoring because it housed one of the oldest seated Buddhas in Thailand) and were blessed by a monk. We dropped some money into a box, and you shrink to your knees, hands in prayer position and placed at the top of your forehead (the highest point of respect because the head is sacred), at which point the monk before us flicked some "holy water"over our heads and prayed for us. A truly beautiful experience.. it actually makes you feel happy and peaceful. Once we gave our donation and put our names on a roof tile a yellow band was tied around our wrists.. which is supposed to be worn until it rots off.. Mine rotted off the day we arrived in Phomn Penh (pronounced P-nom Pen) in Cambodia and Byron's rotted of thismorning. We saw some more temples (there's only so many of them you can take in before you become blase about them) before catching our train back to Bangkok where we had dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe.

Boy, what a night... We drank two bottles of wine between us and sang every song the band played because they were all western songs like Torn by Natalie Umbruglia, One way or Another by Blondie, Summer of 69 by Brian Adams and even a few Black Eyed Peas songs.. and of course.. it all ended with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.. what else. A really great night.. we got so drunk that I actually think I was still gone the next morning. Here's where all the fun REALLY begins....

The day started out normally, we packed up our things from the hotel Tong Poon in Bangkok and even though we were running a little late on account of lack of sleep we met our cab driver from yesterday and he took us to a place where we could drop off our laundry and from there he took us to the Post Office so we could send some things back home. We wandered around Siam Square markets for a while and spent more money on clothes and DVD's and waited 20 Thai minutes for them to be made (in reality that was about an hour)... we rushed to have lunch because we had to pick up our laundry at 2 and leave for the airport at 3 so we could catch our flight to Cambodia. We had the worst lunch ever... some disgusting burger made with Buddha knows what and headed out the front to try our luck with a cab. When we got in he wouldn't turn on the meter and insisted we pay 70 baht, which was 20 too much.. so we demanded to get out... he drives around the front of the building.. stops.. and motions for us to leave the cab.. so Byron opens the door and BANG!!!!!.... Another cab slams straight into it!!!! Within minutes we were out of the cab and a policeman had arrived (they're on every corner directing traffic) and the other cabbie was yelling at our cabbie about Byron opening the door... it was all very surreal. We weren't yelled at once. We were yelled ABOUT.. but not yelled at. The policeman led us all to the cop shop and sat us all down.. it was very odd... I think that the other cabbie was probably in the wrong more than Byron because the cop was very very angry with him alone and I think it was because he had witnessed us trying to exit our cab, and this other cabbie had come flying up the inside and smashed into the door, tearing off his own mirror. We both stayed really calm though and just co-operated all the way. I knew both cab drivers would have insurance and I warned Byron not to sign anything if it was given to us and in the end... we paid them off... about 3500 baht for make it all go away. Our cab driver even took us back to our hotel. So for about 100 bucks we walked away from a car accident practically scot free.. but in Thai terms.. it was the most expensive cab ride ever!... so Byron really is... The King of Something Hot.

posted by Lucyspeak @ 11:48 pm