After finding our way back to Chiang Mai, we stayed around for a couple of days so that we could witness one of the largest gatherings of Buddhist monks on Earth – An event called 10,000 alms for 10,000 monks. As the name suggests, a whole lotta monks show up and accept a whole lotta gifts from an absolute mess of generous Buddhist followers. All these alms (donations which come in the form of either food or money) are passed on to the impoverished people of Southern Thailand, making the event quite worthy in our opinion. This is only the second year that it has been running, but monks traveled from as far as Laos and Burma to take part. It was out of this world to see so many thousands of people lining the streets at 6am taking part in the ceremony. Kate perched herself in a raised roadside café, taking some nice distance photos of the whole shemozzle. 
I felt a little more heavy duty and spent half an hour gently fighting my way to the front of the mess, so I could get a really nice photo of the length of the procession. Finally, having two cameras is starting to pay off! A little unexpected bonus of reaching the front was that I had a microphone handed to me and took part in an impromptu television interview for some random Thai news channel (no I don’t know which one, the reporter hardly spoke any English.). I just chucked my camera to a random passerby and told them to take some photos of me being ‘on TV’. Great, unexpected fun.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, that night we went to a little golf driving range that we found just outside of town. Now, I have been to one before… Why didn’t anyone tell me how incredibly fun it can be, just letting loose 120% pure rage on a small golf ball… Then repeating the procedure about 300 times…. For less that $3. Wow. Sign me up. It was awesome fun, and something I intend to do again… and again.All good things come to an end though, and with sore wrists and thousands of photos in tow, we left Chiang Mai on a train headed for the little known town of Lampang. Nice spot, but what is with train and bus stations often being built so far out of town? Humping all 25kg or so of luggage (each) into town is a backbreaking business, but it was worth it in the end when we finally found a little room in a hostel by the river, which overlooked the local night market. Great, loud fun. The night market wasn’t too bad, and it was the first time this side of the trip that we have been stared at like freaks again. This town doesn’t see many whities it seems.
The day after arriving in Lampang we jumped onto another rented motorbike and blasted 30km out of town to an elephant conservation centre, and the elephant hospital next door to it. It should be noted that we had another flat tyre on the way there, making it two from two bikes that have hated us recently. some consolation was taken in the fact that we broke down right next to a massive market that sold a bunch of tasty stuff. Anyway, the elephant hospital was pretty quiet. it really felt like a hospital, only outdoors... and for elephants. but the atmosphere was quite sombre, and the elephants all looked quite ill. still, it was nice to know that at least some of the elephants thailand are being well cared for. so many are still used for entertaining tourists or illegal logging at the expense of the health of the animal. not that im some kind of animal lover, i sure dont want one as a pet, but i despise animal cruelty.The Elephant Conservation Centre (government funded) next door to the Hospital (NGO) was a similar experience, though perhaps a little more glamorous for the sake of the number of tourists that visit it daily. it felt a little more plastic to me, with elephant friendly shows and elephant bathing sessions and stuff. fun but cheesy. Kate and I skipped the shows and walked off to the stables, and were lucky enough to find a few baby elephants who were fascinated by us and came right over to us to wrap their trunks around us.
We left Lampang the day after and headed south to Phitsanulok late in the evening, since our train was delayed by 3 and a half hours. Since it was late, we took the first cheap room we could find... only 5 aussie dollars a night! wow, how could this possibly go wrong? OK, so we checked in and found that the bed was unusually rubbery feeling... turns out the mattress was made of vinyl, as were the pillows... hmm. we spoke to an elderly tourist downstairs who told us that by DAY the place was a brothel, and by NIGHT it was an elaborately decorated guest house... great. So, moving on, we had our showers and came back to the room to figure out that i had brought the wrong padlock key and had locked ourselves out of the room with our own lock... so late at night, there i am wrapped in nothing but a towel, down at the check-in desk, asking the confused, non-english speaking owner if he can help me and my all-but-naked wife to break into a room. yes, we are in a hurry. he found some bolt cutters, and we were back in the vinyl comfort of our cell before you could say 'this is the most humiliated i have ever been'.next day we left for Sukhotai, which is where we are now... currently fighting off swarms of mosquitoes in the interest of keeping our blog up to date. commitment i tell you! No brothel hostels here, although it has been the first hostel ever that we found a welcome CONDOM on the pillow in our room... no mint?
//Brendan
Loved the Brothel story.
ReplyDeleteI told Robyn 3 times that Brendan spent the night in a brothel. Twice she said "what!!!" and the third time she approached reality with "I hope he had Kate with him"
To which I replied "yes., he got a really good price"