The Temples of Angkor

Roj, (our hired driver for the next three days), picked us up at 7.30am for the first of 3 day temple spotting. We had a very pleasant journey out to Angkor Thom, our first stop. Many people, (myself included), believe that Angkor Watt is esentially one big ol' temple, which it is. What I didn't know until I started to read up on it was that there is a whole complex of temples that tend to get lumped in together under the name 'Angkor Watt'. The complex covers an area so huge it'd be nigh on impossible to see them all in the three days we had so Roj was to take us to the 'best'.

Angkor Thom was our first stop and it really was spectacular. To get to Angkor Thom, (which is part of a 'mini-complex' called Banyon), you first pass through the south gate which is stunning in it's own right. The gate is approached by a stone bridge which is flanked on both sides by man-sized carved figures, (Smiling Gods on the left and frowning Demons on the right), both clutching a huge dragon. Sadly most of the heads are now replicas as most of these temples & Watts have been plundered.
Angkor Thom itself was unfortuantely festooned in Japanese tour groups so it was difficult to take in it's majesty for more than a few minutes at a time before a wee Japanese lass appeared in front of you doing the 'peace' sign in front of a beautifully carved relief while her mates snapped away and giggled like, well... like Japanese school girls really.
Outside Thom is the incredible Terrace of Elephants, a massive stone wall carved with the most intricate and beautiful depictions of elephants. The whole area really is a deeply moving place. Looking around we could see these vast ruinous temples slowly crumbling under the weight of the centuries, (and now under the weight of tourism), but this was surrounded by the most beautiful and peacefull scenery littered with other abandoned temple buildings that the surrounding jungle just couldn't completely swallow.

After fending off several hundred Cambodians who all wanted us to buy something, (all the stalls sell Tomb Raider on DVD along with a couple of other seemingly random Angelina Jolie films), we headed of to by far the most fascinating and wonderful of all the temples in Angkor, Ta Prohm. This is the temple that made Angkor internationally famous as it was the one used in the Tomb Raider film.
Bizzarely, just a couple of days previous on the good ol' BBC WORLD, Beth & I had watched with mounting horror a piece about the damage tourism was causing to Angkor. Apparently if you'd come here as little as five years ago you would've had the place pretty much to yourself, now it literally teems with life. Buses vomit out hordes of Japanese and Western tourists to clamber over these ancient stones and do in five years what nature and the encroaching jungle hasn't been able to do it several hundred. The frowning journalist showed one particular set off steps that were clearly ruined and mostly worn away and told us that just five years ago it was pretty much intact. The number of visitors to Angkor has risen by 40% in just one year. I very much doubt it can carry on in this way, it made us very sad and yet here we were doing exactly that. We like to think of ourselves as ecologically minded people and we did our best to respect the place and not to just crash about but there's no real 'structure' here so it's often impossible to get anywhere without climbing over something ancient.



Anyhow, rant over for now. Ta Prohm. It's stunning. You'll almost certainly have seen this place in pictures or on the telly, (or in Tomb Raider), it's the one with the trees growing out of it. Not in it's grounds or around it, but out of the actual rocks. It really is amazing. The roots of these huge trees, (which themselves look older than than some modern countries and have taken on a similar colour to the walls), twist in and out of the stones and trees perch precariously on top of arches are temple walls. It's the perfect symiosis. The roots are causing the structures to crumble and fall apart and yet it's now only these very root systems that are keeping the walls together. They look like some giant alien parasite, both feeding and destroying. Despite the presence of tourists it was remarkably quiet here and we took our time to soak up the peace in preparation to our visit to Angkor Watt.



Everyone knows Angkor Watt and it would seem everyone goes there too. It sits in an open space approached by a massive stone bridge wider than many in London. Even the hordes of tourists in their hundreds are made to look tiny and insignificant. The Watt itself is huge and covered around the edge by equally huge reliefs depicting legends involving Gods & Demons. They have such crazy stories, I'm sure there was one about a dragon who gave birth to a king and his brother in a sea of milk. Nuts.





Unfortunately the Japanese tourists were out in force and clambering up and down the tiny steps that were only ever meant for the Gods and a select few. Outside the Watt Beth & I settled down next two one of the ornamental ponds to watch the sunset behind Angkor. It's difficult to take in the full splendour though when there's a mini-village of stalls selling fizzy-pop and crap souvenirs just behind you. We did our best to ignore the constant cries of "Buy something?", or "You wan wata? One dolla." One young girl came up and plonked her little sister in Beth's lap and asked, (with a big ol' grin on her face), if we wanted her for a dollar. They have a great sense of humour here and know how irritating the whole selling thing can be to us. The baby was cute as hell and Beth immediately fell in love with it.



The next day Roj took us on what is known as the Grand Tour. We took in Preah Khan, Preah Neak Pean, Ta Som, Eastern Mebon, Pre Rup, Banteay Kdei & Sras Srang. I wish I could think of something to write for each of these but after a while they all kind of blur into one. There's only so many ancient rocks and bas-reliefs you can look at before 'temple-fatigue' kicks in. Preah Khan and Preah Neak Pean stood out in our memories though, the first because we got there around mid-day so all the tour groups were having lunch. Consequently we were two amongst only about twelve people there so it was possible to wander freely and soak up the quiet. Preah Khan also has the crazy 'tree becoming rock' thing going on.



Preah Neak Pean is a great mini-temple that sits smack in the middle of a man-made reservoir surrounded by four smaller pools. Each of the smaller pools, (that sit at the four cardinal compass points), contains a fountain shaped like a human head, a lion, an elephant and a horse. The tiny central island is a small sandstone tower next to which is a statue of a giant horse 'rescuing' drowning seamen from the waters.
Neak Pean was built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII who ruled in the late 12th century. The King ordered the construction of a vast reservoir to provide water to its' workers. Stretching a half kilometer by 900 meters, the artificial lake stored millions of cubic meters of water to irrigate the rice fields during the dry season. Neak Pean sits at the center of the reservoir.

That evening had amazing wine & food at a highly cosmopolitan bar called 'Linga', (Thank God for the French influence here), which was amazing but the place turned unexpectedly into a slightly seedy gay pick-up bar at precisely 8.58pm.

Our final day of temple spotting took us to a handfull of places that don't really need mentioning. The standout however was Banteay Srei or The Citadel of Women, a bizzare and utterly brilliant 'mini-me' temple of pink sandstone. It's just like one of the normal sized temples but shrunk down to mini proportions. It's brilliant. The reliefs are superb here and in a very good state of repair. You feel like a giant wandering about here and having to crouch under doorways, (something I've become used too here in the land of wee-people).



Our three days over we headed back to Siem Reap to sup coffee and devour cake in The Blue Pupkin, one of the finest coffee shops I've ever been in anywhere.

Cambodia - Siem Reap

We flew to Cambodia to avoid the road trip and border crossing which we'd heard was an absolute horror and arrived in Siem Reap to find our airport pick-up driver Roj holding a sign for Mrs England. We followed Roj towards some lovely new cars that were all stylish and probably highly airconditioned but went right on past them to our personal mode of transport which can only be described as a motor scooter with a cart attached to the back. I can only describe it this way as that's exactly what it was. The scooter bit was missing all the dials and had no horn. The 4km journey to our hotel was our first literal taste of Cambodia, it tastes of dust. Hot dust.
The Cambodian government have obviously recently proposed an initiative that states that under no circumstances should any shop have a functioning pavement immediately outside of it. Seriously, the place is like Dresden. There's practically no pavement at all, anywhere. It's all been lovingly replaced by rubble, loose earth and vast trenches of water. A stroll through the town can be life threatening, either tripping over rubble, falling down big holes or being mowed down by Tuk-Tuk drivers.

Laos - Back to Luang Prabang (Beth takes the plunge!)

We got lucky in Nong Khia and managed to join a group of French folk on a boat back to Luang Prabang so it only cost $10. Unfortunately whilst stepping on to the boat Beth, (still wearing her rucksack), decide that this was the best time to take a dip. The pier, (which was really just a few dozen bamboo poles floating near the boat), went one way and the boat went the opposite. Beth remained undecided as to which to go with and fell arse first into the water. Having got her sodden self into the boat she then stripped down to her pants to get changed. The locals looked on aghast at the free 'Stoopid Westerner' show in full flow.
I wish I had a picture to go with this but Beth had the camera so you'll just have to use your imaginations.
Back in LP I treated Beth to a few hours in a Spa as part of her birthday treat while I sat and had a beer. She came out looking radiant and with a slightly far-away look in here eyes. After that we headed to a great French restaurant where we splashed out on great wine and lovely food. I've never been so gratefull to the French in all my life as I have been of late, all through Laos & Cambodia you can get French wine & baguettes. After the dubious, overly-sweet approximation of bread they have in Malaysia & Thailand and the mostly rubbish lager a baguette and a drop of vino has never seemed so welcome a sight. They also put up some cracking houses.
I'll freely admit to being rather ignorant of the French Empire, up until now I didn't even think they'd had one, not on a large scale anyway, but there's evidence of it all over S.E. Asia, (except Thailand), and it's something I'll definitely have to bone-up on when I get back to Blighty.

Laos - Muang Ngoi Neua

The boat trip to Muang Ngoi took us upstream along the Nam Ou through some spectacularly beautiful countryside where people washed their linen, mended their fishing nets or children just played on the riverbanks below sleepy looking villages, one of which was to be our temporary home for the next three days.
Muang Ngoi is a small village that has electricity for only a few hours in the evening and no roads. It's idylic in other words. We stayed in a 'harbour-front' guest house with solar-heated water for a mere $5 and reveled in the lack of modern distractions, there really was nothing to do here but relax.
It's funny thing but these places are gearing up in a huge way for tourism, apparently there's only been paople coming to Muang Ngoi for five years and they're going wholeheartedly after the 'new' income. Everywhere you turn there's building work, and every third house has become a guesthouse or restaurant. And it's not confined to the out of the way places either, we've seen it everywhere from Muang Ngoi to Siem Reap.
For our second day we took a walk inland to go see a cave, (very cavey), and then on through arid paddy-fields, now full of grazing buffalo, to Ban Na village where there was also building work in full flow and four restaurant/guesthouses at the mouth of the village. There we had a Coke with the smiley Nong & his wife. They didn't speak a word of English but we communicated as best we could as Beth dished out the cigarettes. They were very proud of their guestbook and looked on expectantly as we thumbed through the comments from backpackers the World over.
Muang Ngoi is just the kind of place that I'd love to return to in five years time to see how much it will have changed but then I'd probably find it depressing. In their pusrsuit of the toursit Dollar a lot of it's cahrm will be probably be lost and no doubt 24hr electricity, internet cafes and higher prices will change things. That said, it's exactly this money that they're chasing so vigorously that'll give their kids a better education and provide much needed medical facilities. Up until a short time ago Muang Ngoi didn't even have a school. Now, thanks to tourism, it does.
Reluctantly we headed off the following day back to Nong Khiaw to spend a night there before heading back to Luang Prabang.

Laos - Nong Khiaw

The five hour bus journey to Nong Khiaw wasn't the horror we'd expected, (roads in Laos used to be amongst the worse you'd ever see), as most of the major roads are undergoing renovation on a large scale. Our driver did however have to stop in a small town to replace the oil filter. On the whole though the journey was actually really good fun. We got to see some great scenery as we jolted and rocked our way to Nong Khiaw.
Nong Khiaw is an odd place. It used to be seperated from it's sister settlement Muang Ngoi by the Nam Ou river until the Chinese kindly built a bridge to link the two. Now the Eastern side, (Muang Ngoi), is the kind of resort side while Khiaw is the business side as it has the dock. The town had clearly only recently acquired electricity as all the switches and junction boxes in the place were brand new gleaming white and didn't have a speck of dust on 'em. The place was also full of kids starring goggle-eyed at the telly all day long. I guess it's still a novelty for them but I don't hold out much hope for the next generation.
After the cosmopolitan style of Luang Prabang it was good to see how a small town operates and how they're dealing with the sudden interest from tourists. Guesthouses are springing up everywhere and I doubt it'll be long before they're closely followed by internet cafes and massage parlours.
The view from the bridge along the Nam Ou river was breath taking and it was blissfully easy to stand and gaze at the locals talking on the riverbanks, swimming in the water and doing the laundry whilst the rickety wooden boats shipped anything from pigs and charcoal to tourists up and down the river. This was precisely what we were to do the next day as we were taking an hour's trip upstream to Muang Ngoi Nuea.

Laos Luang Prabang

The flight from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang in Laos was a pretty hairy affair as we were strapped into a wobbly old prop plane. You can really feel all the turbulence in one of those things. Though seeing Luang Prabang stretching out before us as we came into land made up for the bumpy ride. As soon as we landed we started to understand why Laos has a reputation as most beautiful and relaxing country in S. E. Asia. The tiny little airport is surrounded by palm trees and smiley cab drivers. It looked almost like an island destination in the South Seas.
When we arrived in LP itself we split into two fact-finding units, the girls went off to find accommodation whilst the boys checked out the local beer. (It was great, they suggested it and everything!) Once accomodation had been sorted we took a brief stroll around the town.
Luang Prabang is the most beautiful and relaxing town I have ever seen, it's just wonderful. It was a French colony way back and as a result has an amazing mix of Buddhist & French colonial architecture. The whole place sits on a riverine peninsula surrounded by mountains. Its no wonder it received a World Heritage sight status.
The place is a heady mix of cultures where slick modern restaurants and bars sit perfectly at ease alongside Wats and temples culminating in something that is simoultaneously historic and cosmopolitan. Its easy to see why people get stuck here.



Over the next five days Beth & I took in a few of the sites, (including many temples and the now obligatory waterfall), and took a fair few pictures but mostly we spent our time eating in great cafes during the day, then repeating the experience in the evening with Ethan & Rachael. Tough work travelling innit?



One thing we did experience was a night at the local theatre where the LP rep company put on a traditional display of dancing & music followed a frankly baffling piece of theatre about a princess and some gods. Thank Buddha they gave us a cheat sheet with the plot in English or I would never have worked out what the bleedinä hell was going on. Ethan sat there nodding sagely but later admited to not having had the sheet and therefore being in the dark the whole way through.
The music was interesting but I can't help but think that someone has played a cruel trick on them and given them fourteen different instruments, all of which went 'ting'.
We'd ended up staying the first night in a reasonable, but not great, guesthouse for US$14 so the next morning while Beth was lounging in bed I went off to find us a new place and we ended up in the excellent Sayo guesthouse. Id pulled a sneaky one on Beth & told her that I'd found a slightly more cheery room for a bit less cash when in fact I'd booked us in for two nights to the frankly majestic VIP room. It was huge! There was a big bed, a day bed, fridge (stocked) and telly with our first bathtub of the trip. Beth was over the moon and I earned a few more Brownie points.
After a while though we began to get the feeling that maybe we should see a little more of Laos so begrudgingly we booked a trip out to spend five days in the villages of Nong Khiaw & Muang Ngoi Neua.

Trek (Day three)

That night the temperature dropped to -837 degrees, (seriously), in our communal hut but thanks to the miracle of Doctor Lee's wonderful sedatives and the fairly hefty walk we all slept much sounder.
Today was rafting day! The guides had spent the morning knocking up a bamboo raft or two for us to travel down the river on. And trust me they were as basic as they sound. Bamboo lashed together with twisted vine-like leaves, it was excellent. Ethan & I had to go at the back with our sticks to help steer the damn thing whilst Lucky 'drove'from the front. Beth & Rachel got the easy job of balancing in the middle and comparing serious issues such as damaged nails and yelling helpfull comments back at us such as "Left. Right. No, RIGHT!" [This is not true, if it wasn't for our balancing skills, the raft would have gone over due to some desperately bad steering down the back end of the boat. BD] Ethan & I lost our poles a few times but managed to get 'em back 'cos were true woodsmen and old hand at this boat/raft game.
Anyhow, the banter was great and we entered into a kind of race with the other raft whilst splashing one-another in a terribly grown up fashion which resulted in Soa boarding our raft to annoy us but Ethan got the upper hand and pushed him in. Hee-hee. See, not juvenile at all.
Eventually we got to the lunch spot utterly knackered and in need of a beer before we took the hour+ long trip back to civilisation. We stopped off along the way at a funky little butterfly/orchid farm. Which was nice. I can see why people become obsessed with orchids and spend their whole lives in search of rarer and rarer species, they're beautiful.
We'd found out that Racel & Ethan were getting the flight to Luang Prabang with us a couple of days later so we exchanged numbers and organised a big ol'Mexican dinner the following night with the rest of the group.

Trek (Day two)

The following morning we all awoke and formed an orderly queue for the cold shower. After this we headed off on another walk over the hills through some amazing jungley jungle stopping off briefly at a sacred termite mound which Helmut bashed with a stick. Good idea Helmut.
The scenery here is quite spectacular and I couldn't help but feel as if we really had come somewhere untouched and that the rest of the World was so far away both in distance and in thought.
We stopped for a brief beer stop at an 'All Bar One' nesteld in the forest. Just joshing, it was a funky little hill village and it was around this point that Beth had a revelation... She'd done this exact trek before. The main reason she realised was that sitting beneath a hut was a woman weaving. It was the same woman. Weaving the same stuff. In the same place. Beth has an exact duplicate of this picture at home from five years before.



Lunch was taken at a kind of outpost like place where they keep the elephants for... well... elephant rides. We had to wait a while for ours as they only had two and we needed three. One of the drivers had wrapped his around a tree earlier that day and the other two needed refuelling and an emergency MOT.



Beth & I had done the elephant thing before so we let Lee take the drivers seat and sit on the poor beasts head. There were a few hairy moments when we went downward and realised that, unlike the previous occasion, we didn't have any kind of seat belt to keep us from toppling out. I could half see me doing a kind of comedy roll-slide out along the elephant's head and down his trunk to land legs akimbo in the dust.
The elephants trudged along and we all took snaps of each other whilst listening to Lee wax lyrical about everything from religion to the different species of bamboo until eventually we rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of our next destination. The picture before us was stunning. The river meandered past this incredible, stilted village that seemed to grow out of the side of the riverbank. It immediately put me in mind of all those Hollywood Vietnam war films, a rather sad image to conjure up. That night we again sat around a campfire watching Lucky make fools of us but this time we were treated our other guide's, (Soal), singing and guitar playing.
Again it was shockingly cold and I slept fitfully dreaming of elephants telling me how to grow bamboo, singing magicians, giant German termites and bloody roosters. The roosters sadly weren't a dream.

Chiang Mai - Three day trek (Day one)

The day after our cookery class Beth & I set off on a three day trek up into the hills of northern Thailand to mingle with the hill tribes and no doubt battle with the elements and take a few cold showers. We both had a pinch of trepidation over this as we had no idea what kind of a group we would get, we'd been told it was a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 12. As it happened we got a bloody good group. We had the required crazed German by the name of Helmut who was definitely out to do his own thing. (Apparently he runs some kind of adventure tour back home so this was a kind of fact-finding mission. He kept dissappearing off to jump in streams or harass the locals.) We also had a mercifully un-loud American called Lee who turned out to be one of the most fascinating men we'd ever encountered, he'd done everything. I kid you not. He's an ER surgeon who is also a blacksmith & printmaker who's writting a book on diets and Nordic walking. He also speaks Japanese and lives on a huge farm in New York with two turtles called Martha & Not Martha. He was a great guy to talk with but...he didn't stop talking. Ever. Not once. Seriously.
Anyhow, the trek started off well with a brief stop at a waterfall were Beth & I stripped off and dived in along with our new found friends Rachael & Ethan, (who live on a highly exclusive boat), then quickly dived right back out again when we realised how chuffing cold the water was and how much the falls hurt.
After that we got the opportunity to dip our feet in a blissfully relaxing hot spring. Given the walk we had to take next I can't help but think we shouldn't have done that bit after, but hey, I didn't design the place.
The walk was tough for a confirmed lazy-bugger like myself. And it was hot. And my feet hurt. And I wanted my Mum. But the walk did have a purpose and that was to get us to our first hill tribe. Beth & I were dead excited about this and many questions raced through our minds. what would they be like? How would they react to us? Would we see true rural life? Where were we to sleep? As it happened it was a little dissapointing in certain aspects. We kind of just arrived in the village and then settled down to drink their beer. There was no big welcome, no dancing and chanting, no introductions or tour of the village. It all seemed a little awkward. "Hello, I've just come to see your quaint little village. I'm from the West you know. Goodness me, is that a mangy chicken? How terribly rustic. Would you mind if I used your internet access? No internet access you say, dear me. Well maybe I'll just drink your beer then." It all made me feel even more like an outsider than I'd expected. That said, it was a cool place, chickens & pigs everywhere and loads of dogs who were utterly failing to annoy the aforementioned chickens or pigs. When we asked a villager why the obviously hungry dogs don't eat the chickens he just chuckled and mimed chucking a rock at the dog's head. Guess that'd work.
After supper we sat around a campfire and our superb guide, Lucky, entertained us with a variety of tricks that all involved making us look daft. After which we headed off to our communal sleeping hall.
Suffice to say that where there's chickens there's roosters and the feckers made sure that my first night's sleep was a quick one. That and the astonishing cold that crept right down deep into my bones meant I didn't exactly curl up tight in the arms of Morpheous, more like that I arm-wrestled him in a confined space filled with water, roosters and other annoyances and lost spectacularly. Oh well, there was always tomorrow.

A bloody rooster.

Chiang Mai - Cookery course

We flew to Chiang Mai in an effort to save time but when we got here Chiang Mai was 'full'. We wandered the streets getting irritable and eventually found ourselves a lovely guesthouse run by the equally lovely 'Jimmy' who helped us plan our stay in the city and before long we walked away having booked ourselves onto a cookery course and a three day trek.
The cookery course was fun, we were driven out of the city to a small organic farm to learn how to cook a handfull of Thai dishes. We went via the market where the fascinating world of rice was explained to us and ingredients were bought. The market was fun, there were pigs-heads, live fish and some great veg kicking around. The cooking itself was a real laugh but kind of dissapointing as all the prep, (as chefs say), was done for us. We all had our own station with utensils, oils and a burner and we were walked through green curry paste which we used to make a green curry funnily enough, stir-fried chicken in oyster sauce, Tom-Yam soup with prawns, Bananas in coconut milk and spring rolls.
The paste tuition was kind of redundant as we knew how to make it already as was the curry and the stir-fry. The Tom-Yam soup was new to us but not really something we'd make at home, (give us tomato or French onion anyday), the banana in coconut milk went an interesting shade of grey and frankly spring-rolls are a damn sight easier to buy. That all said though we did have a great time and the trip around the farm to teach us about the ingredients with the brilliantly named 'Bun' was really informative.

Here's Beth with a chilli. It's a green one.

Bangkok

We'd booked ourselves into a highly recommended guest house called the 'Siam 2' as it had it's own pool and air-con. As it happened we needn't have bothered as we didn't use either. Nice to have the option though. Again we meet up with Marc, Sorcha & Woody and we trawled the Khao San road like good little tourists. It's nuts. There's a 'Boots' and endless stalls selling knock-off watches, bags and things. We fell for the cheap prices and bought a bag which lasted approximately three hours before one of the straps came off. Pay shit prices - get shit I guess. We also took the opportunity to grab a few cds, we would've bought more but Marc had bought the whole streets worth.
The KS road is interesting and everything but unless you want to buy knock-off Rolex watches, replica 'North Face rucksacks or t-shirts with huge 'Billabong' logos or the current Thai phrase "Same, same but different' then there's really no point going there.
Marc had told us about a great sounding cocktail bar that was on the 41st floor of a hotel and we wobbled off there to meet Sorcha, Nick and him. When we arrived the place was without doubt the plushest place I've ever seen that wasn't in 2D on a big screen with a Hollywood film star crashing around in. There was a bloody three-piece band playing to one fat man in the lobby for Buddah's sake and there was I in a t-shirt, well-travelled combat trousers and Birkenstocks. I felt marginally under-dressed it had to be said. My awkwardness increased when I got the bar's entrance on the 40th floor only to be told by a very friendly Thai woman that they didn't allow people in without shoes and I could borrow a pair if I liked. I panicked, got all flustered and had to phone Marc to ask him what to do. He texted me to let me know I was a berk so I borrowed a pair of leather loafers that were jsut the wrong side of the right size and walked, gingerly, up to the very roof of the building with Beth by my side barely suppresing a fit of the giggles.
The view and the place was astonishing. It's so high and there's no other tall buildings near it so you feel like you literally have your head in the clouds. It's amazing. The building is also very narrow so it has the impression that the slightest breeze and the whole thing will bend like a reed in the wind. The Thai planners had obviously taken this into consideration and planned an extensive guard-rail system to make you feel safe. They'd then taken that initial plan, screwed it up, chucked it in the bin and gone ith 'Daredevil Bob McCrazy's' idea and added a quarter-inch one instead.
The next day the Boases left and Beth & I walked around the city taking in a few sights. We saw the famous reclining Buddah and did some merit-making in the traditional way by paying money, took in a few Watts, (they all look pretty similar after a while), and took some snaps of a crazy mosaic temple. The architect of which had clearly taken his pet bull to the china shop when the inevitable happened and, (now that he'd had to buy all the smashed stock), had thought it a great idea to build a monument to his folly. I swear I saw a tea-cup in there somewhere.
We also took a wee little boat trip along the river, which was nice.
That evening we hit the night market and singularly failed to buy anything of any note. Beth was pretty pissed off that all the clothes were in Thai women's sizes i.e. ridiculously tiny. One stall holder even laughed at her when she asked if anything would fit her. I'm not even a woman and I've gotta say, "ouch!".