Travelling Around Britain and the World

Saturday 21 November 2015

To Samut Songkhram and the Gulf of Thailand: Thailand and Laos Part 14

South to the Coast via Two Unusual Markets and an Excellent Lunch


Thailand
We were up early and on the road before nine, heading south towards the gulf of Thailand and the seaside.

Several stops were planned, but not until we had followed the Mae Klong River out of Kanchanaburi Province and across the flat land of Ratchaburi to Samut Songkhram the smallest of Thailand’s 78 provinces and only slightly larger than Rutland.

Thailand, with our day's journey from Kanchanaburi to Samut Songram then south down the cost marked in red

Samut Songram Province

Tha Kha Floating Market

The low lying land near the river mouth is criss-crossed by waterways and the home of several floating markets. We visited Tha Kha, one of the smallest and more difficult to get to; largely unvisited by tourists it remains a genuine local market.

Parking some way down the road from a bridge, we walked past a line of shops and stalls mainly selling foodstuffs.

Tha Kha floating market, Samut Songkhram

The market was small, but colourful and undoubtedly real, we saw no other foreigners.

Tha Kha floating market, Samut Songkhram

Chart hired a boat for a gentle circular potter through the canals. The water may have been scummy but we enjoyed gliding peacefully past paddy fields and coconuts, well mostly we did….

Through the scummy waters of the canals, Tha Kha, Samut Songkhram

…One of those legendary, though possibly true, statistics is that more people are killed annually by falling coconuts than by shark attacks. This may be encouraging to those venturing into the sea around Australia or South Africa, but on a Thai canal, where the probability of encountering a Great White is vanishingly small, it is of little comfort. Even a near miss could punch a hole through the boat, immersing us in unpleasant water of unknown depth.

Potentially murderous coconuts, Tha Kha, Samut Songkhram

Despite our fears we returned unbombarded by nuts. Chart left us to our own devices for a while and we had a further look round before, perversely, buying a couple of (safely harvested) coconuts. There is no better drink on a scorchingly hot morning.

Lynne takes pre-emptive revenge on a coconut, Tha Kha, Samut Songkhram

Walking back through the stalls with Chart we stopped at a business making coconut based sweets. Being Saturday there was no production and little to see so Chart suggested we look round the owner’s house, which was above the manufacturing area, behind a small menagerie.

Removing our shoes we climbed the wide stairs to the first floor accommodation of a large rambling house of dark, polished wood. Despite our misgivings the inhabitants seemed to think it perfectly normal for a couple of complete strangers to be walking round their home.

There was, as always, a family shrine...

Family Shrine, Tha Kha, Samut Songkhram

.....but in Thailand it is also common to find a royal shrine, with pictures of the King (taken some time ago, he is much older than that [update: he died 13/10/2016 aged 88]) his queen consort and offspring.

Royal Shrine, Tha Kha, Samut Songkhram

There was little furniture; South East Asians seem happy to sit, kneel or squat on the floor. Even the kitchen had no table - no one would think of working at the height we do. There is ample storage and equipment, but the cooker and sink are at floor level.

Foodie shrine, Tha Kha, Samut Songkhram

King Rama II Memorial Park

A short drive away, King Rama II Memorial Park consists of a museum, which was closed, and traditional Thai houses in pleasant parkland.

Rama II Memorial Park, Samut Songkhram

King Rama II, who was born near here, was a patron of the arts and the exhibits reflect that. Downstairs in the main house, next to the obligatory shop, a lesson in traditional dance was in progress.

Dancing lesson, Rama II Memorial Park, Samut Songkhram

Next door were models of local fishing craft while upstairs was an ethnographic exhibition where models showed aspects of daily life during Rama II's reign (1809-1824). Male and female roles were strictly defined, as Lynne noted (a little sourly, I thought) men worked, drank, wrestled and played games, while women raised children, cooked, sewed and took trouble with their appearance.

Fishing boat, Rama II Memorial Park, Samut Songkhram

Walking back to the car park we passed a pond with the most magnificent lily pads.

Lily pads, Rama II Memorial Park, Samut Songkhram

Bang Kung, A Military Camp and a Temple

20 minutes away is Bang Kung Camp with its statues of boxers – Thai boxing involves kicking as well as punching. The camp was an important outpost of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya during Burmese incursions.

Thai Boxers, Bang Kung Camp

On the same site, Wat Bang Kung is small temple so overgrown by a banyan tree that if the door had not been hacked clear it would have been entirely encased.

Wat Bang Kung, encased in a banyan tree

Inside is one of those Buddha images that people like to cover with gold leaf. Unlike in Burma, they allow women to apply the gold, which is, I suppose, a step forward in terms of equality but I wonder how impressed the Buddha would have been by anyone believing they gained merit by putting gold leaf on a statute. (Yes, I know. It is totally inappropriate for a lapsed member of the Church of England to tell Buddhists how to practice Buddhism.)

Wat Bang Kung Buddha image with a woman applying gold leaf

Once you have applied your gold leaf you should nobly share the merit gained by banging a bell. Lynne was keen to do this, despite not actually applying any gold leaf. One of the bells was part of a repurposed artillery shell, common in Vietnam and Laos where such things are easily come by, but rare in Thailand which has enjoyed 70 years of peace.

Lynne shares her merit, Wat Bang Kun

A Perfectly Poached Squid beside the Mae Klong

It was now lunchtime, and little further on we pulled off the road into a ‘resort hotel’, two words guaranteed to make my heart sink.

A tour group was already in residence in the open air restaurant pleasantly situated beside the Mae Klong River. We perused the menu more in hope than expectation, selecting fish cakes and squid.

The fish cakes arrived first. The flakes of firm, fresh fish accompanied by a fiery dipping sauce exceeded our expectations by a wide margin. The squid turned out to be a cook-your-own meal in a fish shaped boiler. We have encountered these before and it can be a tricky business. Raw squid is tough, overcooked squid resembles a squash ball, and the window between the two is small and sometimes elusive. Experience has taught us that once the broth is boiling, it is best to turn off the flame and let the squid poach gently as the liquid cools. For once we got it spot on, the squid was a fresh as those we used to enjoy at Maria's in Portugal, and the broth was subtle, lemony and in every way delightful. Our initial misgivings had been entirely misplaced, this was one of the best meal of the trip.

Fish cakes and squid beside the Mae Klong River

Samut Songkhram City

The Original 'Siamese Twins'

Well fed we continued south to the coast and the city of Samut Songkhram. Near here in 1811 the wife of a fisherman gave birth to a pair of conjoined twins, Chang and Eng. Locally they were known as 'The Chinese Twins' as their father was from Thailand's Chinese community, but when they were 'discovered' in 1829 by a Scottish entrepreneur and travelled the world as part of a freak show they became known as The Siamese Twins, a name which has stuck to their condition ever since.

In many ways the brothers were admirable. They managed to take control of their own lives and in 1839 they found they liked North Carolina and had enough money to settle there and buy a farm. They became American citizens, adopted the surname Bunker and married two local sisters. Between them they had 21 children. There are several questions I would love to ask about this, and maybe Chang and Eng (and their wives) would reply that it is none of my business. Their 1,500 or so living descendants meet at regular reunions.

Chang and Eng painted by an unknown artist in Paris in 1835 or 6
The painting is in the North Carolina Collection gallery, borrowed by me from Wikipedia

Other aspects of their life were less admirable; like most North Carolina farmers at that time, they were slave owners and their support of the confederacy in the American Civil War lost them much of their wealth. They died within hours of each other in 1874.

Samut Songkhram Railway Market

Samut Songkhram’s market is also, in its own way, a freak show. Strung alongside the railway track outside the station, some of the merchandise and parts of the stalls have to be moved every time a train comes through.

Samut Songkhram 'railway' market

The market sells an immense variety of goods and foods; we particularly liked the huge tiger prawns. The tiger prawns on menus all over the world come from Thailand and its neighbours. They look magnificent, but for both texture and flavour, I actually prefer the smaller cold water prawns of the north Atlantic.

Tiger prawns and other things, Samut Songkhram 'railway' market

The station had been closed for several months for engineering work so the market had been spared the continual moving and we did not get to see how it all works. I wonder if the locals might come to realise that a market uninterrupted by trains is a good idea and go somewhere else?

From Samut Songkhram we headed down the coast to Cha Am for two days lazing on the beach.

Thailand and Laos

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Friday 20 November 2015

Kanchanaburi, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Hellfire Pass: Thailand and Laos Part 13

The Burma Railway and Man's Inhumanity to Man

Kanchanburi

Burma Railway Museum and 'The Railway Man'


Thailand
A short drive took us into Kanchanaburi from our resort hotel. In 1942-3 the town had been the main depot at the southern end of the infamous Burma railway.

Our first stop was at the Thailand-Burma Railway Museum. Privately funded and run by Australian historian Rod Beattie, it naturally concentrates on the 60,000 POWs who worked on the railway; British and Australian troops captured at the fall of Singapore and Dutch taken when the Japanese overran the Dutch East Indies. 13,000 POWs died (7,000 British, 3,000 Australian, 3,000 Dutch), but it is important to remember that there were as many as 300,000 East Asian workers among whom the death rate was even higher. At first they were recruited on contracts, but these were never honoured and they became slave labourers. Later all pretence was dropped and men - Burmese, Thais and Malayans- were pressed into service, snatched from their homes, fields or market places.

Decades earlier the British had considered building a 400km railway from southern Thailand across the Three Pagodas Pass into Burma, but had abandoned the project after surveys suggested that driving a railway through such inhospitable country would be too expensive, both financially and terms of lives that would be lost. For the Japanese the cost was lower - they paid no wages and their workers were expendable.

The approximate route of the Burma Railway (in green)

While in the museum I picked up a copy of The Railway Man, Eric Lomax’s autobiography written in the 1990s. I read a few paragraphs where the author constructs a radio to obtain news of the outside world. It was a compelling and vivid account of bravery and resourcefulness.

We had intended to see the film when it was released in 2014 but it disappeared too fast from our local cinema. We watched a DVD after returning home. Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth head a powerful cast, but despite some dramatic set pieces the film failed to engage and it was easy to see why it stayed so briefly in the cinema. I later read the book. It tells of how a strange and solitary youth is socialised by his time in the army and how his early experiences as a prisoner make a man of him. After the discovery of the map and radio he and his companions had made, he endures the utmost brutality and takes desperate actions to survive. The end of the war does not end his suffering and decades later he makes the difficult decision to seek healing through reconciliation. It is a powerful and moving testament.

The Railway Man, film poster borrowed from Wikipedia

I re-watched the film. The chronology is distorted, the important chapters dealing with Lomax’s time in jail are omitted and the end is changed for cheap dramatic effect. In reality the first meeting in Kanchanaburi with his torturer’s translator (not his actual torturer) was carefully set up. The film ignores the important role of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and has Lomax ambushing the translator in a museum and threatening violence. The main theme of the book is the redemptive power of forgiveness and reconciliation, the main theme of the film is unclear.

Inevitably, the prisoners look too fit and well; make-up can simulate tropical ulcers but not starvation. The museum’s photographs show ribs like xylophones and high bony shoulders, but your eyes are always dragged to the prominent ring of the collar bone, through which the head of a recognizable young man, sometimes still capable of a grin, is threatening to fall. Those who are not skeletal are bloated with beriberi, an often fatal disease caused by malnutrition.

The Kanchanaburi War Graves

Eric Lomax survived. Those British, Australian and Dutch soldiers who did not were buried near where they died. After the war their remains were collected and re-buried, 7,000 in Kanchanaburi, 1,500 in nearby Chungkai and the remainder at Thanbyuzayat in Burma. The Kanchanaburi cemetery is a Dutch/Commonwealth cemetery differing slightly from the usual Commonwealth War Graves format, but every bit as well-kept. A service of Remembrance was taking place on the far side; not an unusual occurrence.

War Graves, Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi: The Bridge on the 'River Kwai'

The bridge on the River Kwai is only a few minutes away. It does not resemble the bridge in the film (which was shot in Sri Lanka) nor is it in remote jungle, but it is the bridge about which Pierre Boule’s* 1952 novel was written - at least a repaired and restored version. It is not actually on the ‘River Kwai’ either. The two branches of the Mae Klong meet in Kanchanaburi. The bridge crosses the Khwae Yai (Big Branch) just above its confluence with the Khwae Noi (Small Branch) and Kwhae (Branch) became Kwai.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi

The Bridge remains in use, Kanchanaburi being the terminal for the small section of the railway still functioning, but tourists are free to walk across it and have a good look.

Walking across the Bridge on the River Kwai

Eric Lomax called his book The Railway Man not just because he was forced to work on the Burma Railway but because he was a train buff. He understood the irony, but could not help being interested in the trains the Japanese used, and two are on display at the end of the bridge.

Train used on the Burma Railway, Kanchanaburi

He was particularly fascinated by the trucks that could be modified to travel on road or rails.

Truck-Train, Burma Railway Kanchanaburi

Many decades ago, my mother took me and some young friends to see The Bridge on the River Kwai. We all took it so seriously, but on re-viewing I wonder if there has ever been a worse multi-Oscar winning film. The demands of Hollywood required an American action hero be crow-barred into the plot. The bone of contention between the British colonel and the Japanese is that officers as well as men were being forced to work - maybe against the Geneva Convention but to 21st century sensibilities it seems he was fighting to maintain the class privileges two world wars did so much to erode. If the prisoners in The Railway Man looked too well, those in ‘Bridge’ were positively bronzed and fit, and finally a mistreated and eventually shot Alec Guinness, staggers around like the ham actor he was not.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, film poster borrowed from Wikipedia

A, our guide for the first part of this journey from Bangkok to Sukhothai and Laos told us that his father had been an officer in the Royal Thai Air Force. The first American attempts to bomb the bridge in 1945 led to the deaths of many civilians but left the bridge undamaged. On subsequent missions they carried Thai navigators, among them A's father. They were eventually successful, but precision bombing was in the future (if it exists at all) and A's father felt responsible not just for destroying a bridge, but also for the deaths of innocent people. He never spoke of it without weeping.

We drove north, the modern highway taking a different route from the railway. After a while we left the main road in what seemed a rural area, but soon found ourselves among buildings more like the edge of a town than a village. In densely populated Thailand it is not always easy to know where you are or what sort of area you are in. We stopped for lunch at a large open barn of a restaurant. There were a few other customers, mostly European, but Chart promised good food. My ‘beef with curry paste’ and Lynne’s tomyum soup were indeed good – far better than the much more expensive tourist food at our hotel.

After lunch we visited the nearest hospital so Lynne could have her wound checked and dressing changed. It was a 'government hospital', a little less smart and affluent than yesterday's private hospital, but clean, well-staffed and efficient. Lynne felt fine, the wound looked clean and we decided we did not need any more hospital visits.

Hellfire Pass

We continued to the Hellfire Pass Museum, opened in 1996 at the top of a steep wooded slope. Jointly sponsored by the Royal Thai Armed Forces and the Australian Government, it covers much the same ground as the Kanchanaburi Museum, but with perhaps a little more emphasis on the huge numbers of Asian victims of the railway.

The path down the slope from the museum to Hellfire Pass

It also, of course, focuses on Hellfire Pass, a narrow cutting driven through solid rock by half-starved prisoners of war and local slave labour in six weeks, working eighteen hours a day. The sight of emaciated prisoners working at night by torchlight was said to resemble a scene from hell.

Working on a Thailand Railway Cutting, July 1943 by the official war artist Murray Griffin. This has become one of the most famous images of the hellish conditions experienced when constructing the Thai–Burma railway, though Griffin painted this from accounts by other POWs. He spent the whole of his captivity in Changi.
Picture and caption borrowed from Australian Prisoners of War on the Thai-Burma Railway

A trio of middle aged Thai women who had been photographing each other at every opportunity, prevailed on me to take a picture of them together. They were enjoying their visit, somewhat inappropriately, we thought, laughing and joking their way round the museum. Chart was upset, 'They should behave with respect,' he said. 'This is a serious place and a memorial.' He was, of course, right, though it was really only a museum, the 'serious place and memorial' was reached via a series of wooden staircases down the wooded slope behind the museum.

Looking west through the bamboo to the hills across the valley we commented, yet again, that places of great suffering are not marked out as such by nature. They are often banal, like the killing fields of Choeung Ek or the flat farm lands of Silesia, sometimes they are beautiful.

View acros the valley from the southern end of Hellfire Pass

75m long and 25 deep Hellfire Pass was built by drilling holes in the rock using hammers and metal picks, filling the resulting hole with explosives and then, after the detonation, clearing the rubble by hand. Little of the railway remains in situ. There are some sleepers...

Original sleepers, Hellfire Pass

... but the rails are not original.

Not original rails Hellfire Pass

Just before a tree that has made a sturdy start on reclaiming the pass for nature, the broken end of a pick embedded in the rock is the only other remnant of the men who worked and died here.

Lynne and Chart inspect a broken pick, Hellfire Pass

But they are not forgotten. At the end is a monument, and evidence of recent visits.

Australian Memorial, Hellfire Pass

I am not a great one for patriotism and national flags, but there are times when a flag can cause the stiffest upper lip to tremble.

The end of Hellfire Pass

We climbed from the depths of the pass in the glare of the afternoon sun.

The Burma Railway and Childhood Memories

When I was growing up in Buckinghamshire, Les and Pearl Price lived two doors down. Everybody knew Les had been an unwilling participant in the building of the Burma railway and that the Japanese had done 'horrible things to him', which was why Les and Pearl's children, Paul and Verity were adopted. I was six or seven, so my understanding was limited. Les and Pearl became friends of my parents - they attended the annual Burma Star gathering at the Royal Albert Hall as their guests on several occasions.

In the late fifties/early sixties, before the advent of supermarkets, even a commuter village on the outer London fringes boasted a full set of shops, a butcher, fishmonger, baker, grocer, greengrocer, two newsagent/tobacconists and more.

The shops changed hands occasionally and sometime around 1960, Hillary's the grocers became McTavish's. I remember Mr McTavish as being a big cheerful man with (I thought) a strange way of speaking. We soon learned that he was another Burma Railway survivor. Les went to visit. 'As soon as I saw him,' I heard Les tell my parents, 'I thought, "poor bugger”. We used to give people like him all the clothing we had, but they suffered terribly.'

It was years before I understood that remark. I have never suffered from sunburn, at that age I had probably never heard of it. McTavish was a fair-skinned, sandy-haired Scot with no natural defences to any sun, never mind the remorseless sun of Thailand. He and men like him would have endured another layer of suffering over and above that of their darker skinned comrades.

The Burma Railway: Tourist Line

Although most of the railway was dismantled in 1947, a small section remians, from south of Hellfire Pass through to Kanchanaburi.

Lynne waits on Wang Pho station

We drove to Wang Pho station, bought tickets and did not have long to wait for the train. The railway for which so many suffered and died is now a toy train taking tourist for a short trip beside and finally across the 'River Kwai'.

The train arrives, Wang Pho Station

A cheerful crowd of brightly dressed, well-fed people leaned out of the windows to take pictures of themselves, the train and the railway, particularly where it crosses sections on wooden trellises vaguely reminiscent of the bridge in the film.

Crossing a trestle section of the Burma Railway

Were we being disloyal to the memory of Les Price and Mr McTavish? I don't know, I felt a little uncomfortable, but my behaviour was the same as everybody else's, so I have no grounds to feel superior. Perhaps they would be pleased that their efforts were not entirely in vain, part of the railway was at least being used and for a peaceful purpose….but still.

Children rafting on the 'River Kwai'

We left the train at Ai Lit, the station before Kanchanaburi and drove back to our hotel arriving at dusk.

Comparative Non-Problems

There was little outside our hotel except a dual carriageway, but on the far side we had spotted a small general store and as our 'Premium Lao Whisky' had survived no further than Champasak we needed a replacement. I would not wish to compare our situation with that of Les Price and Mr McTavish but resort hotels always feel like luxurious prison camps, perhaps more Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner than the real thing.

We walked up the drive to the exit where the security guard gave a smart salute but did not check our papers or advise us to turn back. Crossing the busy road was exciting but we discovered a well-worn path over the grass of the central reservation - others had been this way before. The woman in the little shop was obviously used to dealing with escapees and we soon found or way back to camp clutching a half bottle of SangSom Rum.

We approached dinner with trepidation but Lynne declared her spring rolls with chicken, prawn, mushroom and water chestnuts ‘delicious’, while my tilapia in three flavours was a touch ‘cheffy’ but so much better than last night’s gutless green curry.

*Pierre Boule was a French secret agent who was captured in 1943 and endured forced labour in Southeast Asia. He wrote over 20 novels, the only other one well known to an English speaking audience is, rather incongruously, Planet of the Apes.

Some names have been changed to protect privacy.

Thailand and Laos
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Thursday 19 November 2015

Ayutthaya, Another Minor Disaster and The King and I: Thailand and Laos Part 12

Another Former Capital, a Hospital Visit and a Former Royal Residence

Thailand

Mentally prepared to reach Ayutthaya at 4.30, sleep on the rattly train from Ubon Ratchthani was elusive and we were up before the attendant came to wake us.

A Brief Visit to a Pleasant if Nameless Hotel

Arriving right on time, we stepped out into the warm night. Only the day before we had realised that our itinerary said we would be met at the station by our hotel's representative but it did not name the hotel nor give a local contact number. We were relieved to see a woman standing on the platform holding a piece of paper bearing our name.

She led us from the station past benches of rough sleepers. She may not quite have been a ‘representative’ but she did have a tuk-tuk, and we climbed dutifully into the back. Ayutthyaya tuk-tuks are green, have an idiosyncratic design and are, unsurprisingly known as 'kermit tuk-tuks’.

Kermit tuk-tuk, Photographed later in the day (obviously)

The city has only 55,000 inhabitants, but the length of the drive made it seem larger. Bowling along in the cool of the morning would have been pleasant, if we were not so tired and we were relieved when we eventually stopped outside what looked more a large house than a hotel. We were checked in by the night watchman who showed us not to a room but a suite which, even in our tired state, looked seriously impressive. After a cup of tea we resumed our interrupted sleep.

In the morning we discovered the hotel pool was only a few paces from our door and beyond that the waterway surrounding central Ayutthaya. Across it was a temple with an impressive prang.

View from beside the hotel pool, Ayutthaya

After a leisurely breakfast, Chart, our new guide arrived. He came with a driver and van into which we packed our bags before setting off with Chart in a Kermit tuk-tuk. We never discovered the name of the hotel - shame we would have recommended it.

Ayutthaya - A Little History

Ayutthaya was founded in 1351 by U Thong, later King Ramathibodi I, who was forced to leave his capital at Lopburi by an outbreak of smallpox. In following years, with the Khmer Empire in terminal decline and Sukhotthai weakening, he and his successors made Ayutthaya the new Thai capital and secured an empire with borders similar to modern Thailand.

Our day in Ayutthaya, Thailand's second capital, started in Ubon Ratchathani and ended in Kanchanaburi.
The map also shows Sukhothai, the first capital and Bangkok, the current capital

It was a city of rivers and canals (now mostly gone), many inhabitants living on boats. By 1700 Ayutthaya’s population was estimated to be over a million and its great wealth attracted foreign traders from China, Persia and the European powers. Each had their own ghetto and dock exporting rice, spices, timber and hides.

This golden age ended abruptly in 1767. After centuries of incursion and counter-incursions the Burmese finally sacked Ayutthaya, leaving it in ruins and transporting thousands of prisoners back to Myanmar. The city was abandoned, a new Thai dynasty arose and built their capital at Bangkok, 80km to the south.

Ayutthaya by Tuk-tuk

The Phra Noon Buddha

Our first stop was at the 16th century Phra Noon Buddha.

With our Kermit tuk-tuks at the Phra Noon Buddha, Ayutthaya

Built of brick covered with concrete he is 37m long and 8m high. From a distance the face looks uncharacteristically miserable....

The Phra Noon Buddha, Ayutthaya

… but on closer inspection that appears the consequence of centuries of weathering rather than the sculptor’s intention. As in Myanmar local people like to attach gold leaf to favoured images, here the authorities have attempted to protect the revered statue by providing a smaller replica which people are welcome to gild.

Head of the Phra Noon Buddha, with the smaller semi-gilded replica, Ayutthaya

There is little left of Wat Lokayasutharam, the temple behind.

Wat Lokayasutharam, Ayutthaya

The Chedi Phou Khao Thong

Kermit next took us to the Chedi Phou Khao Thong on the city’s edge. A 50m high Mon style chedi was built here in 1569 by the Burmese King Bayinnaung after one of his more successful incursions. It fell into disrepair and in the 18th century a Thai chedi was erected on the same foundations. Allegedly, visitors can climb to the first level, which gives views over the city, and visit the shrine inside. It appeared closed - perhaps for safety reasons, the structure has an alarming list to starboard.

Chedi Phou Khao Thong, Ayutthaya

If we had climbed the chedi I might have been able to get my bearings, but Ayutthaya remained a steadfastly confusing city. Amid the huge area of destroyed palaces and temples on the island are unexpected intrusions of modernity, a block here, two blocks there, while in the modern city, there are sudden outbreaks of antiquity, like this chedi at the end of a very modern dual carriageway.

King Naresuan the Great and an Outbreak of Roosters

Nearby is an equestrian statute of King Naresuan the Great. Born in Phitsanulok, near Sukhothai in 1555 he was taken hostage by Bayinnaung during his 1564 incursion to ensure his father's loyalty as a vassal monarch. Brought up in the Burmese court, Naresuan was schooled in the art of warfare and at the age of 16 was made viceroy of Phitsanulok. When Bayinnaung died in 1581 he seized his chance and by 1590 he had united the thrones of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya and ruled over a united and independent Siam until his death from smallpox in 1605.

Naresuan the Great, Ayutthaya

Naresuan was the subject of a three part biopic released between 2007 and 2011. The film included a well-known story that, when a hostage, he had wagered with his hosts/captors that if his fighting cock was victorious, then he would free Siam. The cock duly won. After the film, cockerels started appearing, first near the statue, but now throughout the city. No-one knows who started it, but anyone wishing to donate a bird can buy one in any temple or cockerel statue outlet (of which Ayutthaya has many).

Lynne among the chickens, Ayutthaya

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

We sped back into the centre - tuk-tuks do not really go fast, it just feels that way - to Wat Phra Si Sanphet. When U Thong founded the city he built himself a wooden palace. A century later one of his successors built a new palace a little to the north and constructed Wat Phra Si Sanphet (Temple of the Holy Splendid Omniscient) on the old palace site. It was comprehensively destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. and King Rama I, the founder of Thailand’s present ruling dynasty, used many of the bricks to build his new capital in Bangkok…

Destroyed statue, Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Ayutthaya

...though the three main chedis have been restored.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Ayutthaya

In the surrounding park a model of the vanished royal palace was on display despite being only half finished. Three young men were working on it, one of them painting plastic trees green; a strange job but someone has to do it.

Painting trees, the old royal palace, Ayutthaya

Sugar Rotis

We said goodbye to Kermit at the market. Among with the usual array of dried fish, fruit, and vegetables were sugar roti stalls, an Ayutthaya speciality. They start as regular rotis, though dyed unnatural colours, the maker smearing the wet mixture onto the hotplate with her right hand and flipping it with the spatula in her left...

Making roti, Ayutthaya market

... then you buy some spun sugar - a rainbow of colours are available - wrap the sugar in he roti and transform an India breakfast savoury into a sweet snack. It should not work but the soft/crunchy, sweet/savoury combination is strangely moreish.

Spun sugar, Ayutthaya market

Round Central Ayutthaya by Boat

Leaving the market we descended to a jetty to embark on a circumnavigation of the island along the Lopburi, Chao Phraya and Pasak Rivers - and bit of interconnecting canal.

The Pasak is a serious working river and the trains of huge slow moving barges looked intimidating from our small boat.

Tug hauling barges on the Pasak River

On our journey we saw hospitals and factories, temples old.....

Old temple, Ayutthaya

...and new...

Modern temple, Ayutthaya

...and the original (or more probably restored) Portuguese church from the great days of Ayutthaya.

Portuguese Church, Ayutthaya

As we disembarked, our driver reappeared and drove us in the van to Chart’s chosen restaurant. The menu could have been Lao, but the air-conditioning and eye-watering prices reminded us where we were - actually, Thailand is cheap by European standards but when you have just arrived from Laos….

One Temple too Many and a Trip to A&E (or the ER for American readers)

After lunch Chart suggested we visit one final temple, the 14th century Wat Phra Mahathat, the Temple of the Great Relic. In the heart of the old town, it was not spared the destruction of 1767, but a prang has survived....

Prang, Wat Phra Mahathat, Ayutthaya

... and a Buddha's head peers out from between tree roots, allegedly the most photographed object in Ayutthaya (so why should I ignore it?)

Head in the roots, Wat Phra Mahathat, Ayutthaya

We had climbed a small flight of brick steps to a ruined chapel when, without warning, it started raining. From this exposed spot (the chapel roof having disappeared 250 years ago) we hurried for the small flight of brick stairs to the sheltering trees below.

Along with several others I followed Chart down before turning in time to see Lynne diving over the side of the steps.

Ruined chapel, Wat Phra Mahathat, Ayutthaya

After an elegant plummet she landed well on the packed-earth floor, rolling to absorb the shock but as she rolled her forehead struck the concrete surround of a small tree with an unpleasant thunk.

Chart and I rushed to help as a crimson tide surged down her face. Lynne could see the blood, but was otherwise unhurt and far more concerned about her glasses.

By the time we had located them, thankfully, undamaged, Lynne was on her feet and surrounded by locals, tourists and security guards all offering water to wash the wound and tissues to staunch the flow. The quantity of help offered was overwhelming. I was wiping away blood when a Germanic voice behind me ordered ‘stop wiping it, put pressure on the wound.' The tone irritated me but I was too busy to explain that I had not yet found the wound so I had to keep wiping away the blood to locate its source. He was only trying to help, though.

The rain stopped as suddenly and mysteriously as it had started.

I had just found the wound when a Japanese tourist bustled up carrying a comprehensive first aid kit, produced a large adhesive pad and stuck it on Lynne's head. Applying pressure to the pad stopped the blood, though Lynne’s t-shirt looked like it had starred in a Sam Peckinpah western.

Thanking her, and everybody else, we marched Lynne back to the entrance through a growing crowd of concerned onlookers. Once in the van Chart gave directions to the nearest private hospital and ten minutes later we drove into the ambulance entrance, a wheelchair appeared and Lynne was whisked into the treatment room.

A young nurse ran through some relevant questions in remarkably good English, shaved hair from around the wound and sent me away. I think we probably jumped a queue, but I was not paying attention to that and really did not care. Lynne says a doctor arrived quickly, local anaesthetic was injected and three stitches inserted.

Lynne later that evening, stitched but unbowed and tougher than she looks

By the time she emerged with an elaborate dressing on her head I was at cashier’s paying the £45 bill. We were impressed by the hospital and the treatment and grateful we were in relatively wealthy Thailand rather than Laos where two days earlier we had passed a grubby, poverty stricken hospital and commented that we would not fancy going there in an emergency.

Bang Pa-In, a Former Royal Retreat

Our plan had been to next drive 20 km downstream to visit Bang Pa-In and then make the two and a half hour journey to Kanchanaburi. I assumed this would change, but Lynne insisted she was fine and Chart thought we still had sufficient time.

A popular retreat for the kings of Ayutthaya, the first palace was built at Bang Pa-In, in the 17th century.

It was abandoned with the fall of Ayutthaya but in the mid nineteenth century steamboats brought Pa-In into easy travelling distance of Bangkok and King Mongkut (Rama IV) built a modest palace here. The current buildings are the work of his son King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) who reigned from 1868 to 1910.

King Mongkut and Prince Chulalongkorn, Unknown photographer, sourced from Wikipedia

Anna Leonowens and the 'King and I'

Mongkut had been a monk for 27 years before succeeding his brother but prior to that had travelled and studied widely. Deciding his many wives and children required educating in the ways of the west he sought advice from the British consul in Singapore and appointed Mrs Anna Leonowens, a widow living in Penang, as governess.

The Indian born daughter of a British army sergeant and an Anglo-Indian mother, Leonowens’ life reads like a picaresque novel. Her 1870 memoir The English Governess at the Siamese Court was fictionalised in 1944 as Anna and the King of Siam and in 1951 Rogers and Hammerstein turned that into The King and I. Leonowens was an embellisher of stories, if not a downright lier, and her memoirs caused some offence, while the 1956 multi-Oscar winning film musical remains banned in Thailand. The current King Bhumibol (Rama IX) [Update: he died in October 2016 and was succeeded by his son, Rama X] watched it when visiting the USA in 1960 and complained that his great-grandfather was not a ‘polka dancing despot’ but ‘really quite a mild and nice man.’ The Thai ambassador to the US took exception to ‘its ethno-centric attitude and its barely hidden insult on the whole Siamese nation as childish and inferior to the Westerners.’ I can see his point.

Anna Leonowens, 1905 portrait by Robert Harris, sourced from Wikipedia

That said, Leonowens nurtured Chulalongkorn’s fascination with all things European. We crossed the remarkable bridge to the curiously Romano-French Varobas Bimarn (The Excellent and Shining Heavenly Abode). Here we removed our shoes and Lynne donned a traditional Thai skirt - a strange outfit for trailing round room after room of reproduction Louis XV furniture. Only the throne room was in Thai style.

Lynne in a clean shirt with her hat pulled down low on Chulalongkorn's 'classical' bridge with Varobas Bimarn in the background

Aisawan Thiphya-art (The Divine Seat of Personal Freedom) is Pa-In’s only purely Thai architecture.

Aisawan Thiphya-art (The Divine Seat of Personal Freedom), Pa-In

Beyond Rama V’s garden house….

Garden House, Pa-In

…we reached Uthayan Phumisathian (The Garden of the Secured Land). While admiring the topiary elephants we were heard a thump-thumping and turned to see a column of sweaty soldiers, jogging past perfectly in step.

Uthayan Phumisathian (The Garden of the Secured Land), Pa-In

Behind the garden, the Sage’s Lookout Tower has a style all of its own. Chulalongkorn used it to survey his palaces and their grounds.

Ho Withun Thasana (The Sage's Lookout Tower) Pa-In

The Palace of Heavenly Light was a present to the king in 1889 from Bangkok’s Chinese chamber of commerce. Chinese inside and out - all the contents were imported from China - we had time only for a quick look round but the ebony and red lacquer interior was worth seeing.

The Palace of Heavenly Light, Pa-In

From the palace we crossed a branch of the river to a Buddhist monastery, again of idiosyncratic design. We were pulled over the water in a transporter powered by a gang of monks.

The transporter over to the monastery, Pa-In

The remarkable temple feels deeply weird. Although unimpressed by western religion, Chulalongkorn admired western religious architecture.

Buddhist Temple (yes, really) Pa-In

From outside the temple mimics a church and even inside the triptych pseudo-altarpiece echoes Christian decoration, but the symbolism is entirely Buddhist.

Inside the Buddhist Temple, Pa-In

To Kanchanaburi and a Regrettable Green Curry

The light was fading as we left Pa-In. Driving in the dark in Thailand is not for the fainthearted, but braving animals, cyclists and unlit vehicles our driver brought us safely to Kanchanaburi where we checked in to the sort of a resort hotel I prefer to avoid.

At the outdoor restaurant I ordered Thai green curry and was given a concerned look followed by 'you can eat spicy food?' Despite my emphatic ‘yes’ the dish that arrived was uncompromisingly bland. A green curry without chillies is like a night without wolves as The Count used to say on Sesame Street.

Thailand and Laos


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Location: Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya District, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Thailand
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