Border crossing

Here is the border gate between Thailand and Kayin State. Unlike crossings between Thailand and government-controlled Myanmar, there are no passports here, just a nod and a wink between the Karen soldiers and our escort, who vouched for us.

Rebel Burma

In Mae Sot, we were invited to celebrate Karen New Year over the border in Kayin State, a small part of Burma under the control of a rebel Karen army. This involved an escort of tribal people, and much faffing, including the moment when our trusty car broke down on the way to the Thai-Burmese border.

Merry Christmas!

Paul and I arrived in Mae Sot on Christmas Eve. Mae Sot is on the border with Myanmar, and is a hub for various organisations providing aid, education and medical care to Burmese and Karen refugees (the Karen are one of the various "hill tribes" that inhabit northern Thailand and Myanmar). There is a lively community of aid workers, English teachers and medical students in the town, and we were invited to spend Christmas Day with them. Instead of turkey and Christmas pudding, we were treated to sticky rice in bamboo, jackfruit and curry.

Spirit Houses

These are spirit houses. Many of the homes, shops, cafes and businesses in Thailand have a spirit house outside in order to house the local spirits. If you don't have one the spirits will take up residence in your home with you, which would obviously cause countless problems. The ones in the picture are from the garden of a restaurant in Sukhothai, and have offerings of food, drinks flowers and incense.

Sunset in Sukhothai

Another amazing sunset, this time in Sukhothai.

Public transport

This is one of the many crazy vehicles that have conveyed me around Thailand. It's a larger verson of the common Sorngthaew ("two benches") truck. The Thais think nothing of filling a vehicle like this with 30 people or more. Those who can't cram in hang off the back.

Sukhothai

Today Paul and I arrived in Sukhothai. The old city features a historical park containing the ruins of various Buddhist temples from the time when it was the capital city of Thailand (13th to 14th century). I think this one is Wat Si Chum, but they tend to blend into one another after a while.

Phitsanulok

This is me, Vicky and Paul. We met Vicky on the train from Lopburi to Phitsanulok. She bought some trackie bottoms in the market, but cut the bottom of each leg off just below the knee. I'm such a card, because I came up with the hilarious idea of wearing the excess material as hats. Oh, we did laugh.

Flying vegetables

In Phitsanulok, the night market chef's speciality is "flying vegetables", a dish of fried morning glory, which is cooked very theatrically as shown here. When it's ready, the chef sounds a gong, and catapults the veg through the air to a waiter some ten metres away, who catches it on a plate. Just to add to the spectacle, our waiter climbed onto the roof of a nearby transit van to catch our order.

Lopburi

Lopburi is famous for its population of monkeys, who hang around the local shrine. It's all fun and games until one of them decides to go after a pedestrian or tourist, at which point locals with catapults fend them off. I haven't got my rabies shots so I've been keeping a respectful distance.

Karaoke

In Lopburi we got quite drunk at a bar with an English teacher and his crazy Thai friends. On our return to the hotel, we were roped into singing karaoke at the hotel bar. The joke ended when they charged us 40 Baht per song.

The night market in Ayuthaya

On the night of 18th December, we stayed up late drinking Beer Chang and listening to music. On the way back to the guesthouse we stumbled upon the night market, in full swing at 2am. Among the treats on offer were live bullfrogs, tied together by the back legs, catfish which were unceromoniously being chopped up alive, eels and all sorts. I settled for a grilled waffle.

Ayuthaya

Here we are in a tuk-tuk on our way to a bar in Ayuthaya. From left to right, me (a bit sunburnt), Britta, Gesine (both from Frankfurt), Sarah and Paul (both from the Netherlands). By this time, I'd been travelling with the German girls for a few days, and from here on I travelled for a week or so with Paul.

The robes of Buddha

At one of the temples we visited in Ayuthaya, we saw an interesting ceremony taking place. The Thais were all paying to collect silver trays, each of which held a huge swathe of saffron material. They then took it in turn to hand their trays to a man at the foot of the Buddha statue, who took the cloth and threw it up over his shoulder into Buddha's lap. A group of men standing in the lap (as shown in the picture here) would then attach one end of the cloth to a pulley that hoisted it over Buddha's left shoulder. Once a sufficient number of cloths had been hoisted, the loose ends were thrown out across the room, and the congregation huddled underneath the material to pray.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Here's the bridge itself, which you can walk across (as long as there's not a train coming).

Elephant kiss

And here's me being molested by a baby elephant. Despite my protests, the mahout didn't rush in to have the animal put down. Instead, I was charged 20 Baht for the photo. I've now resolved to give tourist activities a wide berth for a while.

Elephant ride

Here's me doing the tourist thing. Seconds after this photo was taken, I was subjected to verbal abuse by a local man.

The floating nun

This is the famous "floating nun", at a temple near Kanchanaburi. I thought it was the most hilarious kitsch I'd ever seen. Britta, who I went with, was less impressed - her German guidebook had somehow translated "floating" as "levitating" so this was a sore disappointment for her.

Silly beggars

And here I am indulging in the stunt that eventually led to my glasses getting broken. Stupid waterfall.

A grand day out

This photo was taken at one of the many waterfalls at Erawan national park. This was the one day when this group of people were all together, and it was pretty phenomenal. From left to right, me (white as ice cream), Veronique from Montreal, Yossi from Jerusalem, Jeff from Alaska. Front centre, Brian from San Diego.

Smell the history

The Hellfire Pass is just one of a number of cuttings made in the rock along the route of the railway. Here is another one. They all look pretty much the same. I think you're supposed to imagine the prisoners slaving away with picks and shovels to cut through the rock.

The old railway line

From the pass, you can follow the route the old railway took towards Burma (Myanmar). After the war, the Thai government ripped up the rails, and only a few sleepers remain. There's a great view of the surrounding countryside though. Somewhere down on the plain is the location of one of the POW camps that housed the prisoners working on the railway.

The Hellfire Pass

A short trip out of Kanchanburi is the Hellfire Pass, one of the cuttings made by Allied POWs who were building the Burma-Thailand railway under Japanese supervision during WWII. At the head of the trail is a museum and this memorial.

Sunset

Better than a kick in the teeth.

Kanchanaburi

This is the view from my balcony in Kanchanaburi. I arrived here on 6th December. The town features the famous "Bridge on the River Kwai", part of the "Death Railway" that the Japanese army constructed to join the Thai and Burmese railway systems together during WWII. Allied POWs were used as forced labour, along with local people. Trains still run across the bridge today, and carry on as far as Nam Tok, which is the terminal stop.

Ko Pha Ngan

My first destination outside Bangkok was the island of Ko Pha Ngan. I arrived in Hat Rin on 2nd December, and was dismayed to find that the island was being battered by unseasonal rains. It came down in buckets, sheets, and sheet-filled buckets all day and all night, and the roads frequently turned into rivers. There was barely a soul there, so after two miserable nights I packed up my things and went back to the mainland and Bangkok. I found out later that two girls were drowned in the sea a few days after I left, due to the stormy currents. The camera's still on the blink, so here's a photo from the interweb that sums up the mood of the place.