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5/02 Monkeys and Wats
The wats of Phetburi are interesting and numerous, but for atmosphere they don't compare to Sukhotai, Ayuttiah, or Chiang Saen. We started out at ....., which has 5 Khmer style prangs. They are supposed to be 2-3 hundred years old, but have been kept up. For some reason, they aren't very
interesting compared to ruined ones, but it does give you a good idea what Angkor wat might have looked like.
We walked towards the hill with the royal palace, and it started to rain. Luckily, we were walking by a web cafe, so we ducked in there to check our email. By the time we were done, the rain had stopped, so it was off to the hill.
One of the interesting things about the hill complex is the monkeys. There are monkeys everywhere, as well as vendors selling bananas and corn for you to feed to them. They are well-fed, and always looking for a handout. Becky wasn't too thrilled about them, and she made that point very clear. As we were walking around, we saw a Thai family sitting on some benches. A monkey came up and walked onto one of their shoulders. When Becky saw that, she was ready to leave, but I talked her into going up the hill to see the palace and temples. We were walking up the hill, and I stopped to read a sign describing the palace complex. They next thing I know, I hear Becky calling me. I looked over, and a monkey was walking towards her. Becky proceeds to move away, and drop the water bottle. The monkey grabs the water bottle and runs up a tree. After a few futile attempts to get the cap off of the bottle, he gives up and loses interest.
We made it up to the palace and museum, and it started to rain again. It would end up drizzling most of the day. The Palace and Museum was very interesting, as it had a lot of the furniture and items that were used when this was a retreat for Kings Rama IV and Rama V. Some of the carved wooden furniture was incredibly ornate. I wanted to take photos, but there was no photography allowed.
We continued wandering around the buildings and temples and stupas, most with great views of the surrounding countryside. Fortunately, the only place where there were monkeys was around the palace, so usually we could walk around in peace.
We walked around town a bit, visiting some of the other wats, and then decided to get some fruit. We bought rambutans and mangosteens, since Becky hadn't had either before. I think she liked the rambutans more. Later in the evening we went out again looking for a place to get a bite to eat. There really wasn't a well defined night market, and the stalls we did find didn't look that good, so we ended up going back to our guesthouse and eating there. At least the food here is good.
5/03 To Hua Hin
Hua Hin was mentioned in our Footprints guidebook as a tranquil little beach resort town. Well, I think it is actually a mini Pattaya
We got here quite quickly from Phetburi, once we found the bus. We went to the A/C bus station, found out it only handled busses to Bangkok, then headed to look for southern busses. We walked by a bus on a sidestreet, continued walking, then realized that the bus we had passed was ours. We made it here by 10:30, splurged on an A/C room for 650, then headed out to see the town. We found a nice Indian restaurant for lunch, then walked along the beachfront road checking out the businesses and bars. It's amazing how many little bars you can run into in a small amount of road frontage.
We walked into town to check out the older section, then headed back in for a drink and to look for a travel agent. We wanted to see if we could go to one of the national parks or to the waterfall, but they all were either to expensive, or didn't want to organize a trip for tomorrow.
We went back to the room to relax and cool off a bit. I wanted to journal and work on my web page, so I fired up the computer, and "Operating System not Found" came up again. At least this time I knew what to look for. I went into the Bios, and sure enough, the IDE Adapter wasn't recognized. I took it apart again, worked on the connectors, put it back together, and sure enough, it worked again!
I was ready to go out again to see the town's nightlife, so we headed out for dinner. We were walking around, checking out all the seafood restaurants, when we came across one busy one. We decided to check it out, and I ended up getting the sizzling seafood platter, and
Becky got a crab dish. They were both excellent, and unlike the place in Pattaya, it didn't overly fill me up. We walked the streets a bit, went into a bar (Celtic Bar - as in the Scottish Football club), played a bit of darts, a bit of pool, and called it a night.
Another thing I have noticed about this town and Pattaya is that they are both big on transvestite cabaret shows. Some of them are stunning, but then there was this one on the street with arms a bit too muscular and the standard tattoos of good luck charms that many of the people in the country get.
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