to all of you, who want to read about something else than this sad play performed by the us of a: here are some more tales from our trip!
after one week at bangkok, we headed north to
ayuthaya. from 1350 to 1767 this was the capital of the kingdom of siam. european ambassadors described the city as the most powerful and splendid they had ever seen. the kings of siam traded with the whole world from china to india and europe. they were also very clever at diplomatics and were able to cooperate with the colonial powers without loosing their own independence. due to this policy thailand remained the only country in south-east asia not integrated in a colonial empire. would be good, if todays politicians remind themselves that there is that kind of thing...
unfortunately ayuthaya was conquered by the burmese who destroyed almost everything of its former glory. all that's left today, are some ruins (mainly of wats/temples) - only a tiny part of the former metropole.
our next destination was
lopburi. during the ayuthaya time this place was established as a second capital, in order to serve as a retreat if there were some riots at ayuthaya. besides the ruins of the former palace, there are many things to see about the pre-historic times of thailand. there are also some nasty monkeys who attack everything that looks like a plastic-bag. some of the houses are almost wrapped into fences in order to protect themselves...
whilst we were staying there, a festival was about to begin. we got the chance to see some historical performances during which the ruins were beautifully lit. it looked all very awesome and we enjoyed this extraordinary sight!
the next destination was another historical site: sukhothai was thailands first capital (during the 13th and 14th century). many thais still refer to these times as the golden age, for the emperors cared very much about the development of art. nowadays the sukothai style of religious art and architecture is aknowledged as being the most classic one of all thai styles. luckely this capital wasn't conquered and destroyed in the old days and many buildings and buddha images are still in a very good condition. manuela & i enjoyed wandering through the monuments of
sukothai and si satchanalai historical park and discovered many witnesses of this great period.
finally we reached
chiang mai. we decided to attend a two weeks course in
thai massage. it was quite tough - we had never done something like that before. however, step by step we learned to develop our skills and by the end we passed the final examination with flying colours (not only because it was soooo easy;-)). now we can give each other as many relaxing massages as we want to...
we also tried to learn some
thai. kai, our excellent and charming teacher, tried her very best, but thai is a very difficult language and needs a lot of practicing. we will try our best to improve vocabulary and pronounciation during the last weeks of our stay. the good thing about learning thai is, that people appreciate very much, when foreigners are learning to speak their language. sometimes, after we have said one phrase, they started talking very fast which left us standing there without one single word understood. nevermind, keep on trying!
after two weeks of studying we went to explore chiang mai. there are countless wats and some very interesting museums. we liked the
hill tribe museum about the different communities living in the hills of northern thailand. on one evening we went to see a dinner-show including traditional food, classical dance and hilltribe customs. although it was a very touristy thing, it was excellt performed and we had a great evening.
we also went on a trekking tour for three days. it was the first time that a combination of thai
cooking course and trekking (including elephant riding and bamboo rafting) was offered. this was exactly the thing we were after. we had a lot of fun during these days. the food was delicious (prepared by ourselves!) and our guides and teachers were the best you could imagine. we stayed for two days with people from the karen and lahu hilltribes, which gave us a kind of idea about how this people live nowadays. it was funny to see several tourist groups trekking by during our cooking lessons in this so called "remote area":-)
last but not least we got a chance to ride on an elephant, i even got to sit on the head - it's much more gentle than riding a horse;-) from the back of the grey giant we hopped on a bamboo boat. the ride down the river was unforgettable. i enjoyed the rafting very very much!
back at chiang mai we finished our sightseeind:
wat doi suthep, wat phra singh, wat chedi luang, wat suan dok... there are more than 300 of them. one could spend all one's life visiting wats at chiang mai;-)
on our last night at the northern capital, we went on a river-dinner-boatcruise. it was sooooo romantic! afterwards we strolled once more through the beautiful night-markets. the best once are the ones on sunday where you can get heaps of mouthwatering food.
posted by christoph 12:06
