Bangkok Food Adventure

Returning to Bangkok, we signed-up for a Bangkok Food Adventure cycle tour, organized by Grasshopper Adventures.  This entailed a night time cycle tour around the backstreets of Bangkok, sampling Indian, Chinese and Thai street food along the way.  With only the two of us on this particular tour, we were led by our Thai guide, Thom, through numerous offstreet alleyways and across several klongs (canals) that constitute the 'real' Bangkok, learning about some of the history of the city and its inhabitants.  Not forgetting to stop off at several points on the way to sample some of the diverse food offerings to be found in the different ethnic quarters of the city, which included sticky Indian sweets, and culminated in a massive feast of flash fried crispy pork and morning glory.  Alison also developed a liking for fried insects, particularly the tasty grasshoppers.
Definitely a great way to see parts of the city that one would not normally get to see on the standard tourist itinerary, with some excellent food and a history lesson thrown in.

Erawan Waterfall

The Kwai river valley region is home to several national parks.  Arguably one of the most spectacular is the Erawan national park, which is home to the very popular tourist destination: the Erawan waterfall.  The waterfall is made up of 7 levels, each of which provides varying degrees of opportunity for a refreshing swim in the various pools.  By the time you reach the top level, you will almost certainly be in need of a cool-down.  The pools also provide a free fish foot spar, if you can stand having your toes nibbled by the smaller inhabitants of the pool.

Death Railway

Travelled by train from Bangkok's Thonburi station to Kanchanaburi, location of the famous bridge over the river Kwai.  Except that it is actually the the Mae Klong river, but was renamed Kwai Yai because of the general expectation that the location of the bridge made famous by the novel was in fact over the Kwai.
On this occasion the journey from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi was on time (unlike my previos experience when it took almost 5 hours for a 2.5 hour journey), and provided a pleasant alternative to traveling by the rather boring road route.
Apart from the scenic countryside, one of the main reasons for visiting Kanchanaburi is to learn more about the building of the Thailand-Burma "Death" railway, and the appalling conditions suffered by allied POWs and native workers on this daunting project.  On day 2 we took a taxi to the Hellfire Pass Museum, which takes its name from the nearby railway cutting constructed by the POWs though the inhospitable jungle.   Prior to this trip I had been reading the novel: The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which graphically describes the horrific experiences of the POWs building this part of the railway.  The Hellfire Pass Museum helped to provide a complementary perspective on these events.
For our return journey to Kanchanaburi we elected to pick up the train at its terminus at Nam Tok and  ride back to base via the scenic route that runs along the Kwai river.

Thailand Revisited

We are taking the opportunity presented by Tim and KM’s forthcoming wedding in Koh Lanta to see some of the sights of Thailand, before heading down to Lanta for the wedding itself.  Most of the places on our itinerary are ones that I have previously visited during the 12 or so years that I have been working in Thailand, but which are new to Alison.

First off, a day and a half exploring Bangkok via the Chao Praya river, including a long tailed boat ride around some of the canal system that criss-crosses the city.  A good way of seeing the other side of Bangkok life.

We stopped off at Wat Arun, which has been significantly restored since I last looked around it over 10 years ago.

Doha

Back here again for another project implementation. It's at least a couple of years since my last trip and quite a lot of new building in evidence, not least the new airport, which is a vast improvement on the old one.  But still nothing to do in the evenings, which is made even worse on this trip by the fact that we are staying in a serviced apartment, with no bar to retire to after work.  So I will be taking the opportunity to update this blog for the whole of the last yer to fill in the many gaps.  Expect to see a load of very out of date posts appear in your mail box if you are a subscriber to this blog.

Topsham Ash Scattering

NOS Alive - Lisbon