Wats and wats of Wats and Wats

It feels like ages since I've last blogged as so much has happened! The reality of course is that it has only been a couple days but when you go from Kanchanaburi to Bangkok to Chang Mai all in the course of a day time sort of skews. That is the end of the story though so let me start at the beginning.

After a night with some new found friends, more 4 more Canadians of course, we all split up for another day of adventures. Cory and Anthony went on a tour that took them atop elephants, down bamboo rafts, into a village, up to some waterfalls, along hellfire pass, and then over the bridge. Morgan and Mike did more or less what I had the day before, and I decided to just do hellfire pass. The trek did seem interesting but I just didn't feel like it was going to give me enough time to wander around the pass which is what I really wanted to do. It also meant that I was going to have to get up 2 hours earlier which I wasn't so keen given my late night. Instead, after breakfast I set out to locate the public bus depot and then jumped on what I was hoping was a bus that would take me to hellfire pass. The disadvantage to not going on a tour is you are never exactly sure where you are going to get dropped off and then how far the walk is going to be afterwards, but really that's all part of the fun. I was also the only non-thai on the bus which was kind of neat. The bus ride took around 2 hours as it was 80km out of town. This left me with less time than I would have liked to explore but I still got a decent amount. Perhaps I should explain what hellfire pass is. Hellfire pass was part of the death-railway line along with the bridge over the River Kawi. The pass itself was a horrific section of track (the section in the museum / park is 4km long) where the POWs were forced to chisel the railway bed out of stone using tools akin to that of cavemen. Large amounts of them of course died. What is left is just the railway bed which you can walk down and to witness their work. At 4km the walk doesn't seem that daunting but given that it is not a circle you have to walk 4km back as well and there is the heat which was probably at least 34 degrees. All told I walked about 6km of the pass (there and back) and then made it back to the road with just enough time to jump on one of the last buses back to town with my shirt turned see through with sweat.

Later that night me and the boys then met up with our kindred countrymen and headed out to one of the night markets. I picked myself up another cell phone (this one used and cheaper) and we also made our first foray into eating insects. As the pictures will prove I tried some form of worm and then either a cricket or a grasshopper. I would have been up for the giant cockroach but I couldn't convince anyone else to try it with me as they thought it would be too juicy inside. I wasn't the biggest fan of the cricket as it didn't have that much taste but the worms or maggots were actually quite yummy. For those interested they tasted like roasted pumpkin seeds and I ate probably15-20 of them.

The next morning I awoke to find out that all of the guys had decided to take a thai cooking class. I didn't want to do this because I needed to be back in Bangkok earlier to catch a bus. The night before we had talked about it and I decided that I wanted to head north up to Chang Mai and then into Laos and the rest of the guys (minus Cory who is leaving in a day or two) wanted to do Cambodia first. The reason for the difference of opinion is that I really want to have time to spend in Laos and as such am willing to skip Vietnam. They don't want to miss Vietnam so we went our separate ways. It's a little sad as we had all grown used to traveling together but it did make the most sense. There is a chance we might meet up again at some point but at the moment I have my doubts. What this means for people reading my blog for updates on everyone is that I'll no longer be able to tell you of their adventures as well. You are of course more than welcome to keep reading, but you'll have to convince them to start writing e-mails :)

The result of this sadly was we didn't actually get to meet up in Bangkok to say goodbye and good luck. The boys had though they could be back in the city by 6pm but I needed to be out at the bus station by 7:30 so when they hadn't made it by 6:30 I had to take off. Also, Cory if you are reading this I'm sorry that I inadvertently stole your Lonely Planet. I had borrowed it a couple days ago and had always planned on returning it I just never really saw you again! I'll keep it though and give it back to you at a later date if you like. One amusing thing about missing the boys on Koh San Road in Bangkok was that I ran into pretty much everyone else I had met on the trip. The group of Canadians we had be partying with at the full moon were there (Grant, Katie, and Krista), the other Canadians from Kanchanaburi were there (although this was less of a fluke as we were supposed to meet at 5pm I just happened to run into them earlier), one of the German guys from our Villa stay was there, I got to see everyone except the people I'd been traveling with for almost four weeks. Figure that one out.

Anyway, I then jumped the night bus to Chang Mai and got into the city around 6am. This is a bit of a tricky time as nothing is actually open. The bus ride itself was pretty uneventful as I managed to sleep through most of it but I will offer one piece of advice for anyone riding air conditioned buses overnight. Bring warmer clothing! They gave me a blanket / towel to cover myself with as a sheet but as it was meant for thai people it was a little short. By the end of the night I was absolutely frozen solid. I suppose that might have been good after all of the sun but I won't be happy if I wind up with a cold.

As for Chang Mai itself what I did for 5 hours this afternoon was go on a walking tour of probably 15 Wats. After running into 2 Brits that we had met on Railay beach at the beginning of our trip I befriended yet another Canadian and we set out to explore the city on foot. After about 20 minutes we were joined by the 2nd American I've met on the trip and our trio explored the city for the rest of the afternoon. The Wats here were interesting because many of them were in a more dilapidated state which is the first of this kind I've seen. All and all it was another good day full of tons of walking and likely too much sun. I think I'm going to try and take it easy tonight and maybe see if I can find a movie theatre to watch the Indiana Jones movie.

Here is a little fun rap I've come up with. I can't take credit for the original idea, that was Mike and Anthony, but here's my version of it. Warning, some coarse language is used. Not suitable for anyone over 14.

The Bangkok Rap
Fuck you I won't ride in your tuk tuk,
Hassle me and you're out of luck luck,

I know you're just tryna make a buck buck,
But fuck you I won't get in that tuk tuk.
I don't want no suit please,
Don't care if you're on your knees,
Don't try and shoot the breeze,
I don't want you suit please.
Don't need no ping pong show,

Oiled up andlubed hell no,
objects flying, crowds, don't go,
Don't want no ping pong show.
So fuck you I won't ride in your tuk tuk,
Armi, Gucci, not my buck buck,

Ping pong shows are the suck suck,
Fuck you I won't get in a tuk tuk.
I think that's all I've got. As you can see it's been a busy last couple daze!