Following the Tomb Raider Trail

In the light of various travel advice; that the border between Thailand and Cambodia is a hot bed of industrial scale scams; that descriptions of the Cambodian border town of Poipet include phrases such as "Be wary. In this town the bad things you've heard are true", and "a town of no redeeming features, appealing only to those of warped  aesthetic"; that Poipet is the outlet from which all the corrupting influences in Cambodian tourism vents itself; I decided to break it into two parts. I travelled to Aranyaprathet, the border town on the Thailand side yesterday, and stayed in a hotel there. Today, I got up in a fairly leisurely manner, had breakfast, and arranged a tuk-tuk to the border. All the descriptions I had read suggested it would take about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to pass the border formalities; about a further hour to arrange travel on to Siem Reap, the journey taking anything from 2 1/2 to 4 hours. As a result I was very pleased to travel from hotel to hotel in four hours total.

Cambodia is (at least the route from Poipet to Siem Reap) is flat. There are a few small, isolated hills close in to Siem Reap. Even from the road it is apparent that this is the poorest, least developed country I have been in. Most of the buildings are built on stilts - allowing movement of air beneath the building while providing shelter from the rains. Many of them are built out of galvanised iron.

If feels a lot hotter in Cambodia than Thailand, though the temperatures are only a degree or two higher. The rainy season has different aspects in the two countries - in Thailand when the rain starts, the rain taps are turned on, they pour out rain steadily for an hour and a half to two hours, then the taps are turned off. In Cambodia, the rain descends as part of the display and bluster of a tropical storm - first of all the wind machines, then the storm clouds, then the rain enters on the wings of the storm. All in all a much more showy display. 

Thai Trains

Things to like about travelling on the Thai train system.
Thai trains are reliably unreliable add 1-1 1/2 hours per four hours timetabled.
Monkeys
Third class is best for tourists - no air conditioning, so open windows which permit photography; everything moving so slowly, and stopping so often that there is time for it.
Herons/cranes/egrets/other small wading, long legged birds (named, in honour of Pete Groves famous universal bird naming system* - wading chaffinches)
*["There are only two types of birds: chaffinches, and web-footed chaffinches"]
Bright birds [scarlet wings, black body] or [blur of bright blue wings batting like hell for a banana grove] - parakeets/parrots/macaws (or all of these only found in the true home of the weird and the wonderful, South America?) - bright chaffinches
Banana hedged rice paddies
Vendors continually working the passengers to sell their fruit, or sweets, or drinks, or cooking ingredients (mainly today spring onions)
Man working rice paddy in a traditional "coolie" hat
Nut palms
Thirty nine variants of plants I've never seen before
Meticulously trimmed station gardens, full of tropical plants
Fist sized fuschia flowers - but none variegated
Hibiscus acting like a weed
Acres of faintly pink lotuses
Acres of bright red water lilies/lotuses(?)
Spoon and straight billed, large and small, multiple varieties of wading chaffinches
School kids using the train as their commute from school, or scout group, or guide group
Wats like explosions of joy in their colour, decoration and vibrancy
Priority seating areas labelled "For monks, the disabled, pregnant women, and elderly citizens" - always in that order
Water buffalo
Thai cattle
Station labelling which gives not only the name of the station you are at, but also the name and distance of the preceding and succeeding stations (and if there is a junction both arms of the junction)
Trains rung out from the station by the manual ringing of a large, highly polished, brass bell.
Single plants that have decided today is the day, to deck themselves out in their best floral finery
Ramshackle jollity and camaraderie
Vendors who are murderously quick at ripping off the struggling non-Thai traveller - prices going up 10 fold between two breaths
The feeling that timetables are all very well, and they do show we tried, but.....
The honesty of the arrival and departure boards; which have columns (for arrivals): arrival time, delay, real arrival time (and corresponding columns for the departures board)

Trouble with Traffic

So off on an overnight train to Chiang Mai. This is a very old city that was only really accessible to the rest of the world from the 1920's onwards. The core of the city is the old city - a one mile square area, surrounded by a moat, with walls and gates adding to the original security of the city. Adding in the advent of motorised traffic has meant that one direction of traffic runs on the road just inside the moat, while the other direction runs on the road just outside the moat. Tie in the fact that there is only at most one bridge across the moat on each side of the square, and you have the start of a difficult puzzle in order to get about the city. The outside of the old city seems to have its streets modelled on the Fishbone cause and effect diagrams, which does not help with learning where to go to get to where you want to. Finally the system to convey the public around is unique to the city. There are tuk-tuks, but the majority of bulk traffic is conducted in pick up trucks equipped with a long bench one each side. These act as communal taxis and buses, but do not run to fixed routes, or even regular routes. They need to be flagged down in the street, at which point the destination and the fare is negotiated. This may involve agreement as to the route, but depends on additional people filling up the vehicle, so can involve substantial waits while the vehicle fills up.

All in all a complicated travel system, and one I never really got a handle on during my time in Chiang Mai. As a consequence, I did much of my tourism here on foot, and within the radius of foot travel.

A real prayer tree, Wat Lok Molee. Each leaf, gold coloured, has a prayer inscribed on it.

One of the places I did visit was a Wat Lok Molee, Amphoe Muang. This is very close to the old city moat, and hence the tourist area. It was a royal temple of great importance for one of the Thai dynasties. It is still maintained, with a population of monks, and some small numbers of locals attending and offering sacrifices there. However, it is very quiet and over the two and a half hours I was there, there were possibly as many as a dozen other people there. One of the really nice things about this Wat was the information board which started off almost apologetically "An old and significant site, there is no record of the temple's founding date, but its name first appeared in historical texts in 1367".
By contrast, visiting the main Wat outside Chiang Mai, which is on a mountain completely surrounded by forest, I was astounded by the noise, rather than the quiet. This was due to both the cicadas (at least two varieties, judging from the sounds) and another insect. Though I did not get to see one of these other insects, I was told that they are very small. They make up for this by the volume of their call - they sounded like jet engines spooling up ready for takeoff.

Wat Pho

The first of my major tourist excursions was to Wat Pho, the site of the reclining Buddha in Bangkok. The excursion was interesting in part because I did it all myself, but more as I did it with a backpackers point of view rather than that of an organised trip. This meant using local transport, and local facilities for the excursion. So leaving my hostel, I walked to the nearest sky train station, about 10 minutes away. Then a ticket for the Central Pier stop, cost 40 baht (about 80 pence). A 35 minute journey on an air conditioned fast train, changing once at the central station, which is where the various arms of the sky train meet, and onto my destination. A short walk to the pier, and catching a water express at a cost of 30 Baht. Then a thoroughly enjoyable river trip lasting about three quarters of an hour.

I got off at the stop for Wat Pho, crossed the road, and entered the temple complex (an area as far as I could tell of similar dimensions to the Tower of London).

The Wat itself is a riot of buildings, decoration, the Thai equivalent of stupas (can't remember the proper name), temples, halls, schools,  and a visitor throughput about equivalent to that of Westminster Abbey. The nice thing though, was that probably a majority of the visitors start their experience there by offering a sacrifice at a small shrine area just by the entrance, which although small, caters for all those who wish to use it without its users or the plain tourists getting in each others way.

It's Abbreviated to OCD - duh

One Sunday in Bangkok, I went down to the railway station to buy some tickets for other destinations in Thailand. Returning to my hostel, I took the wrong exit from the Sky train, and so found myself wandering through the biggest amulet market in Bangkok, and hence almost certainly in Thailand, and in the world. Over a very large area - probably some acres, though I did not explore the full extent of it - there are table top stalls in every conceivable spot. Down both sides of every pavement; alongside alleyways; packed into the market area proper; and with the gaps being filled by the out of a suitcase hucksters. Every single one of these stalls (and there must be low thousands of them) is selling amulets to the vast, knowledgeable, expert, fanatic crowd of  Thai amulet collectors. 

Most of the amulets on sale seem to be flat and about 5mm long. They do go up regularly to about 2cm in size, though much less frequently than the small ones. Each stall may have one or two bigger amulets - up to statuettes about 30cm high. So in total, there is on sale, every Sunday, a few million amulets. The devotees spend a massive amount of time going through the stalls, examining the wares on offer. This usually seems to involve examination under a powerful hand lens on all sides; comparing the amulet on offer to the remainder of the stalls offerings; discussion; negotiation; and all the infrastructure of the fanatic collector in full pursuit of his (almost invariably as customers; not always so as vendors) obsession.

I have no idea what makes an amulet special, collectible, or which differentiates it from the everyday amulet. It could be antiquity; craftmanship; precious material; the amount of luck it brings; the maker; or just because it seems nice. There are at least five large circulation magazines - three of them weekly, the other two monthly - supporting the market, and appealing to the discerning cognoscenti. These, to judge from their marketing in main stationers, railway stations, and supermarkets, have circulations comparable to those of the popular home and women's magazines.

Altogether, one of the quirkier aspects of cultural difference I have seen so far on my travels.

New Fields

I landed in Bangkok. This is my first time in this city, apart from transiting the airport; the first time in Thailand; the first time in South East Asia; and the first time in a tropical country. So being an open minded, cosmopolitan, experienced traveller, why were there so many surprises for me? It can't possibly be that I came to this city with expectations could it?

My first surprise was that Thai traffic drives on the left. I had thought it was only English speaking ex British colonies that had this habit - the rest of the world having standardised on the right hand side of the road. On the drive to my hostel, I was also surprised by the fact that, not only is Bangkok a modern, vibrant, city, but they seem to have achieved this without the adverse side of Chinese development - if its more than six months old it is too old and needs to be demolished. Equally the Chinese, who use vast amounts of concrete, always seem to have the attitude "slap some more concrete here, and never mind how it looks". Bangkok by contrast looks as if they know how to both use concrete, and how to finish it off so it looks good. Equally, Bangkok has its own pattern of wear on concrete buildings. I expect this is a pattern shared by all countries subject to a rainy season - the rain leaches dirt and solutes out the concrete from the top down. So all the older concrete buildings look very dirty at the top and much cleaner at the bottom.

The taxi operated in a way I have not seen before - though it makes as much sense as any other. When there are tolls for expressways, the passenger is expected to pay, not the driver. There is a lot of traffic and it moves considerably quicker that what I have become accustomed to over the last three months. Much of Bangkok's streets are laid out on a plan similar to the ginnels in the North of the UK. There will be a main street with a large number of straight offshoots. These are just wide enough for one vehicle to go down the offshoot. some of these run straight from major city intersections direct into farms and farmlands. Unlike ginnels, the houses and other buildings front onto these. My taxi driver was unwilling to go down the alleyway  , leaving me to negotiate the length of the alleyway with all my luggage. Had I mentioned that I was surprised by how hot it was? Though to be fair, the humidity was having less effect than I anticipated. I later learnt that Bangkok has a very equable climate at this time of year - varying between 34 and 36 oC during the day and 26-28 during the night.

Bangkok shares with Beijing and Moscow a first rate metropolitan transport system. This is basically three fold. Down the East of the city is the Metro, which provides NS routes throughout Bangkok, and which extend Westwards to include the Railway Station. There is the Skytrain - an elevated railway that runs down the middle of the city again providing NS routes throughout the city, and which links in at several points with the Metro. It has an Eastward extension to the main international airport. It also links in with the third part of the transport system. This is the river, which has fast river buses; shopping and hotel boats; and (regrettably) now comparatively few long tail boats, which seem all to be used for tourist excursions. Why is it that a city that has a functioning, vibrant river system of transport, seems so much more alive and fun to be in than one that does not. It is not even a question of knowing about the river - just being there and being part of the life of the city seems to be enough.

Most of the tourist sights seem to be in one area - round the royal palaces and the two main temples there - the Emerald Buddha Wat and the Reclining Buddha Wat. The reclining Buddha (above) is immense - I think I heard somebody say it was 61 metres long. The complex is very extensive, incorporating a Thai Buddhist Massage school, and the Thai equivalent of the Tibetan medicinal tankas - pictures on one of the walls showing the channels, the attributes, the massage remedies for various aliments.

There are plenty more surprises awaiting me, I am sure.

It's the Only Way to Tavel

I decided to make use of my return air ticket to Thailand. This meant leaving on 2012-07-09, and returning early in September. As the 9th was the day that the Olympic torch was due to pass through Aylesbury, I added even more leeway to my ridiculous margins I allow whenever I am travelling by air. As a result I got to  Heathrow too early (by half an hour) to drop my luggage off, but not too early to check in using one of the automated ticket booths.

When I did check in I was delighted to see that my bog-standard Economy Class ticket had been upgraded to Premier Economy - basically the same thing, but with more leg room and space generally. This is precisely the class I try to book, on those airlines which do not charge an arm and a leg to gain these extra few inches.

Anyway I went onto spend the remaining time as one does in an airport - mooching around; eating; looking at the shops; emailing; writing; reading. Eventually it became time to go to the gate - except the flight had been delayed and information as to why the delay, and how long it would be, were in short supply. Then the gate came up and a herd of people, including me, made our way to the appropriate gate. At this point I was very surprised, and further delighted, to find I had been upgraded again - to Business Class.

So we select few were called first. Onto the plane, and stroll gently up the stairs to the top cabin on a 747, to be ushered to out seat/bed/capsule that is the lot of Business Class, and First Class. Once seated, we were immediately offered our choice of orange juice, champagne or water, and a complimentary newspaper - from a very wide selection. Then we were given our travel packs - bed socks, eye mask, ear plugs, toothbrush and paste, eye freshener, lip balm, skin cleanser, anti-ageing cream; plus a blanket and pillow.  Then the menus were handed out - with multiple choices for each course. Very good food, with if required, champagne cocktails to start. All served on china and glass, with each course separately served - none of this aircraft tray nonsense.

As I had had a good meal in the airport, I passed on the initial meal and chose to sleep. The seat transformed itself into a full length bed, with the aid of the multi- position footstool. On with the eye mask, and settled down to the first good night's sleep I have had on an aircraft. When I awoke, some seven hours into the flight, there were multiple choices - both in drinks, and in-flight entertainment. The selection of films was about three times wider than that in economy class. I watched The Exotic Marigold Hotel - always worth watching the theatrical dames in action. Then breakfast - full English, or continental.

Our immigration cards were handed out together with our priority immigration channel passes - this meant we could go to an immigration channel reserved for Business and First Class passengers - the advantage of which was that there were no queues. Then collect luggage (no special treatment here) and off to a taxi to take me into Bangkok.

So why aren't all journeys like this? Just because we were taking up the resources (carbon footprint, cabin space, attendant service, etc) equivalent to about six economy passengers. Just because, normally, it is massively expensive. Just because upgrades like this are not normally available. This is the only way to travel.