Goodbye Thailand, Hello Myanmar

Looking over Chiang Mai showing pollution over city

Our last few days in Thailand were spent driving round the beautiful mountainous (and slightly cooler) north west of the country where the road winds up and down valleys and crosses passes between villages. The western side of the country accommodates refugees from Myanmar of the Karen (or long neck) tribe. As refugees they are not allowed to work in Thailand so a few villages have established themselves to attract tourists to both see them in their traditional dress, and to purchase traditional handicrafts from them in order to provide an income. We eventually decided to visit one of the villages where we were welcomed and allowed to photograph them in their traditional dress.

Karen Long Neck Tribe

The north west mountains also contain numerous caves, many of which extend for kilometres under the mountains, but we elected to visit the crystal cave, a very unusual series of caverns only discovered in the mid 1990's where the walls are covered in minute pure white crystals of calcium carbonate and aragonite. Only two other caves are known with similar structures, and because they are very fragile visitors are not allowed to take anything hard such as cameras into the caves.

River marking border with Myanmar (on the right)

And so we crossed into Myanmar, exiting Thailand on the last day of our visa. We have to have a guide in Myanmar so we were helped through the Myanmar immigration and customs and were soon on the road. It is immediately obvious how much poorer the country is, lots of very old vehicles, bullock carts in regular use and the villages far less well developed.

Numerous old vehicles on the road

Monks collecting food each morning

The road for the first 40kms from the border has recently been upgraded, but the following 60kms, until we reached the more main north south road was appalling, bumpy and very broken tarmac reduced our speed to around 30kms per hour. With it being the middle of the dry season everywhere is very brown and dusty with a lot of haze, so no clear views, but there are immediate and very clear differences to Thailand.

Kyauk Ka lat Pagoda - Hpa An

Friendly Locals

Shewe San Taw Pagoda Taungoo

Though still a Buddhist state there are far fewer temples, and they are more subdued than the brightly coloured (almost gaudy) Thai Temples. Road building is an almost entirely manual process, with hundreds of people involved in carrying rock and aggregate in baskets to form the road base, then tar heated by lighting a fire under a barrel is spread by hand before macadam is applied and rolled. On some of the main roads they are using large diggers to excavate a level roadbed with the macadam surface applied by machine. There is very little machinery for the agricultural sector with lots of water buffalo for ploughing and hand harvesting, all the signs of a less developed economy. However the people are very welcoming and unassuming, and apart from the main two tourist sites there are only shops for locals.

At Hpa An we visited Kyauk Ka Lat - an unusual pagoda set on a rock outcrop in the middle of a lake, very scenic with a lot of devout Burmese making a pilgrimage to the stupa, and in Taungoo the gold Shwe San Taw Pagoda. A beautiful well maintained pagoda, which clearly does not normally get overseas visitors.  

Manual road building

Having only 8 days to cross Myanmar we have a lot of driving to do, but two days are set aside for sightseeing, one at Inle Lake, and one at Bagan,
Inle is a large (20kms x 10kms) shallow lake in the mountains. In the dry season it is only 7m deep and is noted for the leg rowing fishermen. It has become a tourist destination, with villages around the lake making traditional crafts to sell to the tourists, including weaving lotus plant fibre into fabrics - hand making wooden boats which they sell elsewhere in Myanmar and a hand bellow operated forge, all in houses on stilts rising from the lake. Being at a higher altitude it has a much cooler climate and is surrounded by rich agricultural land growing rice and vegetables.

Leg rowing fisherman Lake Inle

As we were relaxing in the late afternoon a very lively wedding party processed through the town, hundreds of guests all dressed in their best traditional costumes carried gifts in procession with bands of musicians interspersed playing drums and cymbals, incredibly colourful.

Wedding procession

Bagan is the old capital of an empire which covered much of SE Asia in the 10th to 13th centuries. Both in the old city and across square kms of the surrounding plain by the Irawaddy River are thousands of temples and stupas built during the 11th to 13th centuries by wealthy people to gain merit for their next incarnation. It is an extraordinary sight and a major tourist destination, though with so many temples it is easy to get away from the crowds.

Bagan temples

Bagan Temples

In two days we ross into NE India where we are unlikely to have much access to the internet, so it may be some time before the next update.    

 

 

Bagan sunset
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Historical North

Tourist elephants at Ayutthaya

Since leaving Plodd Stop we have headed north to the historical centre of Thailand and alternated days between visiting old temples and going to cooler climes in the beautiful National parks.

Wat Si Samphet Ayutthaya

Stopping first in Ayutthaya, we spent a day wandering round the ancient temples of the old Capital of Thailand from the 12th to 18th centuries. With its easy access to Bangkok it is very touristy with plenty of coaches bringing people for day trips including rides on the "ceremonial" elephants. Spread over a large area it was hot and thirsty walking through the extensive parkland which has been established around the monuments.

Wat Mahathat Ayutthaya

Wat Si Samphet was built on the site of the old royal palace in the 15th century with each of these elegant Chedi housing the remains of a previous king. Across the park the other major temple Wat Mahathat is one of the older temples built in the 14th Century and the main temple for the city. It is famous for its fallen Buddha head surrounded by tree roots.

Green Pea Fowl - Ban Bueng

After the heat of Ayutthaya we headed to the wildlife sanctuary at Ban Bueng. This out of the way reserve attracts few tourists (6 the previous day), and the staff seem somewhat unwelcoming, as though we are an intrusion on their peace. Their campground is closed as they had an incident with an elephant a few years ago, so we ended up camping at a nearby fire research centre where the security man was very helpful. In the reserve the next day three coachloads of schoolchildren arrived but were soon swallowed by the forest so we walked a couple of the trails, seeing some lovely birdlife and a few deer. This park has the densest population of tigers in Thailand and their pug marks are sometimes seen near the camp - but not by us.

Wat Sorasen Sukhothai

Back to the historic circuit we drove to Kamphaeng Phet - a smaller town with deserted temple ruins, then north to Sukhothai. This was the capital of Sukhothai Kingdom which separated from Khumer rule in the 14th century and is considered the foundation of modern Thailand.

Big Buddha at Wat Si Chum

The main centre of the old town was surrounded by a wide moat and walls enclosing an area 2kms by 2kms, inside which are the main temples. many smaller temples were built also built outside this area.


Wat Mahathat Sukhothai

Buddha Head

Wat Si Sawai

Borrowing bikes from the hotel we cycled round the town in the evening cool, enjoying the evening sun lighting the monuments, then the following morning visited the main temple sights.These included the famous Big Buddha at Wat Si Chum noted for its incredibly long fingers on its hands, The main and huge Wat Mahathat with numerous Buddha figures and Wat Si Sawai. Interestingly Wat Si Sawai was originally built as a Hindu Temple and was later converted to a Buddhist shrine, explaining its completely different form.

Doi Inthanon National Park

Back to the mountains we headed to Doi Inthanon National Park where we camped for two nights at 1100m, and drove to the highest point in Thailand at 2600m. The top has a small shrine to King Inthanon and is a very popular outing from Chiang Mai, but no real viewpoint, though part way up there are two new shrines built by the Air Force to commemorate the 60th Birthdays of the revered previous king and queen. These huge structures occupy a lovely location on the mountainside with views across the other peaks, and are surrounded by beautiful colourful gardens. Doi Inthanon has numerous beautiful waterfalls on its many rivers.

Colourful gardens round king and queen 60th Birthday Stupas

Back down to Chiang Mai where we have spent a couple of days while the car is serviced and enjoyed wandering along its friendly and tourist occupied streets. We visited the more famous of the 300+ temples here, it is easy to get templed out, most of which are still active with many Buddhist monks in attendance, even offering chat to a monk session to learn more about Buddhism.
In less than a week we shall cross into Myamnar on the next stage of the journey.

 

Main Assembly Hall Wat Mahathat Chiang Mai

14th century Wat Mahathat Chiang Mai

Statur

Wat Phra Singh Chiang Mai

 

Wat Phan Tao

 

Waterfall in Doi Inthanon

Elephants supporting Chedi in Sukhothai

Red Billed Blue Magpie

 

Sunset in Sukhothai

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

Tropical Thailand

Preparations for Chinese New Year

We had an easy crossing in to Thailand, through the Betong border. We presented our insurance and carnet and completed the Temporary Import form, then helped the Thai customs man to fill in and stamp the carnet in the relevant places before being waved through the customs inspection area and we were free to travel. The combined formalities at both border posts took little over an hour.

Western peninsula beach near Krabi

New temple

The southern most province of Thailand has long been unsettled due to its mainly Muslim population wanting independence from Thailand so the advice is not to linger. We stopped only to get some cash and to buy a couple of SIM cards - 30 days unlimited internet for £2.50 - before heading around 200kms north to Hat Yai where we booked into a very comfortable small hotel. Hat Yai is one of the main towns in southern Thailand and in the morning we walked to a floating market, though it only operates at night, and a temple still under construction, something we have seen all over the southern part of Thailand, hundreds of new Buddhist temples being constructed or extended.

Islands near Phuket where James Bond was filmed

Dusky Langur

Having cleared the unsettled zone we took a more leisurely approach to travel the long narrow peninsular portion of Thailand, heading first to the west coast beaches. We found some lovely places where we could camp by the beach, but sadly most were strewn with rubbish left by picnickers. Around Krabi on the west coast large limestone mountains dominate the landscape with small sandy beaches wedged between, making it a fast developing tourist haven. We camped on a beach just north and returned to the fossil beach at low tide to see the millions of fossil gastropods and bivalves in a relatively thin layer of rock, which looks almost like concrete.

Wild Asian Elephant

Wild Gaur

Phuket is probably Thailand's most famous tourist destination, and wanting to understand the attraction we headed there for a night, camping on a small secluded beach by a café. This large island must have been beautiful before the tourist developments with a mix of long and small sandy beaches separated by rocky outcrops and a relatively large forested area in the centre, but the huge resort developments and incessant congestion takes away a lot of the pleasure. The limestone scenery so dominant along this coastline continues and we visited a viewpoint looking out over numerous small limestone islands rising sheer from the water, used for the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.
Leaving the west coast we headed to the east and found a fantastic camp spot by a secluded beach under coconut palms where after two weeks of moving on we had a day sitting enjoying the cool sea breeze and the beautiful warm water.
Passing the narrowest part of Thailand we headed to a couple of National parks. At Kui Buri park we took a short tour and were thrilled to see around 50 wild elephant as well as a couple of Gaur. In the three herds we saw were many very entertaining baby elephant scampering around. Further north at Ban Krang dusky langur spent the night in the trees above our camp then entertained us the following morning playing in the trees by the campsite.

Bridge on the River Kwai

Just north west of Bangkok at Kanchanaburi is the bridge on the River Kwai. The bridge itself is a major tourist attraction so somewhat overwhelmed with people, but nearby are the amazingly moving Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries, and a couple of interesting museums depicting the history and living conditions endured by the PoW's and often not discussed the appalling conditions endured by the 200,000 SE Asians brought in to work on the railway.

Hell Fire Cutting

Whilst the bridge is famous the worst conditions were in the camps further north where the PoW's and Asians had to make cuttings through rock outcrops using hand tools only. Teams of three would use a 10lb hammer and a long chisel to cut holes in the rock for dynamite charges, then the rubble would be moved by hand, a lot of the work completed during the wet season when temperatures are in the mid 30's with 100% humidity. One person died for every sleeper that was laid on this section of track - an enormous price to pay.

Death railway Trestle Bridge still in use

Taking another break from the heat of the lowlands we headed to Kao Yai National Park at 700m. The morning chorus of gibbons near the campsites and visitor centres is a call to try and find them, and we were lucky enough to find two groups of gibbon in the trees. The park is also home to elephant, one of which came through the campsite causing great excitement and passed within a few metres of our van.

White Handed Gibbon
 

We are now at Plodd Stop - an overlanders rest place where we have enjoyed chatting with other Dave the owner, and other overlanders on various travels in SE Asia.

 

 

Bridge on the River Kwai

 

Rubber tapping                                                                        Porcupine

 

 

 

Sunrise at secret beach