Wander More Work Less

The train was right on time. For a while I thought it was running ahead of time but no. The walk from the station to the hotel was a straight forward 900 metres taking about 15 minutes albeit we arrived feeling very hot. We walked along the sea front through the night market which looks yummy. Unfortunately it's only a Friday and Saturday thing. We will need to look for other food options tomorrow.  The hotel reception area is very nice, quite flash. The room is small and basic but we do have a sea view room. We will see if there is a view of the sea or anything else tomorrow when it's not dark. We are paying just 1,200 Bhat per night which is only $63 NZD and it includes breakfast. All our other hotels we arranged through Booking.com but this one we had to do via email as their website booking system was broken.  Everything else can wait for tomorrow. The priority tonight is a shower and then some sleep. It has been a long travel day but another successful one. 

Our next holiday stop is the seaside town called Prachuap Khiri Khan. It's to the South of Bangkok and for the next few days will be referred to as PKK. PKK is also the name of the province. A more well known city to the North of PKK is called Hua Hin but we decided to visit a less touristy spot to relax for a few days. Our train departs at 3.10 pm and hopefully arrives just after 8pm. Time to eat some waffles for brunch along with a nice coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. Then it's more book reading time. I've definitely read this Lee Child one before but can't remember it very well so decided to keep reading. Jack has only beaten up one guy so far. A slow start for him. 😂 The train boards on time. We have booked a Class 2 seat with fan, no aircon. 242 Bhat each, or $13 NZD. The seats are comfortable and can even be reclined. Just one thing bugs me compared to the other trains. Smoking! Between the carriages people go out to get their fix. You can't help but notice t...

Our day starts at 6am, too early for a free breakfast! ☹️ We have a few snack bars and biscuits that we purchased yesterday. We are taking the train back to Bangkok. 100 Bhat, $5 each and you buy your ticket on the train. It's scenery we have already been past the other day but there is still plenty to watch out the window. 2.5 hour journey. We jump off one stop before the end of the line so that we can connect into the MRT system. The nearby MRT metro station is easy to find and the ticket machine easy enough to operate once you push the English button. 32 Bhat, $1.70 each for a ticket to Bang Sue train station, also known as Krung Thep Aphiwat. The same station we used for our day trip to Ayutthaya. Now we have 4.5 hours to wait for our next train. With no free WiFi! Sarah has gone searching for food and drink. 🤞 She not only found food she found the correct boarding platform as we were waiting at the wrong place. Not hard to do as the terminal is huge and the signs slightly con...

I was keen to see the train crossing the bridge so popped down there just before 7am to watch it travel across. Unfortunately I hadn't realised that the GoPro wasn't recording at the time. ☹️ I headed back for breakfast with Sarah who was now up.  After breakfast we headed back to the bridge again so Sarah could browse the market stalls. They have a lot of bracelets, clothes, all sorts of things. Plenty of the food stalls were now open and smelt really good. We were going to walk across to the other side of the bridge but it was closed at half way as they are replacing some of the sleepers. A couple of people ignored the closed sign and walked through anyway. We had no urgent need to cross so decided not to get in the way of the workers.  Shopping finished it's time for a coffee back at the hotel and some book reading. My Rhys Dylan book is nearing the end and getting very good. It was a good book, now finished and I'm starting a Lee Child one that I may have already re...

We went up to the pool level to check the sunset which was not quite setting. Slightly too early. For dinner we thought we should try somewhere different so walked a bit further towards the bridge. There was a large open air, i.e. roof and no sides, place that looked promising. Turned out their meals are quite small portions but there was free entertainment.  The entertainment was the fact they were putting out dishes onto 10 reserved tables that had no one sitting at them. We assumed a tour group had not yet turned up. We ordered a Chang, Penang curry, and fried crispy pork with basil. Basil !!! Sorry that's an inner family joke. We had to write the dishes we wanted onto an order pad and then showed the waiter what we wanted from the menu and he wrote it down again in Thai. A bit odd but we saw others were also asked to do the same.  The tour group eventually turned up just before our meals did. They arrived in 2 large double decker buses like we had seen going to the falls t...

Happy Waitangi Day! Wow that was a successful and awesome excursion. We started the day with breakfast, same deal as yesterday, but with actual coffee this time. Then we hopped in our rental car and went 67km to Erawan National Park and the Erawan Falls. Another place we had never heard of prior to planning this trip. I didn't want to discuss the driving here until we had returned the rental car without any dents in it. They drive on the left which makes things easier and the roads are very well built and maintained. Nice and smooth and straight. Yesterday we had two lanes in each direction most of the way but today it quickly turned into single lanes. Driving in town is a bit nuts with all the scooters everywhere and no one seems to know what the speed limit is or how to indicate when changing lanes. But out of town there's hardly any traffic and it's a pleasant drive. Disappointed not to see the elephants that the signs kept warning us to watch out for. Most of the time w...

At 2pm we picked up the car and headed further West. 75km to the Hellfire Pass Interpretative Centre which is free to enter with donations appreciated. The woman on reception was recording which country visitors were from, she amazingly studied at Otago University when she was younger. The centre was built in 1985 with funding support from the Australian government. The centre has a number of information boards and a small thetre playing recordings mainly from Australian POWs who survived Hellfire Pass. The images and stories of how people were treated were quite sickening. The loss of lives of both the POWs because of malnutrition and disease was awful and the local Malay and Thai people the Japanese enslaved suffered even greater losses. 16,000 POWs and over 100,000 local labourers died in the construction of the railway.  We then descended a lot of steps outside to get down to the now disused railway track bed and walked through one of the cuttings that were part of the Hellfire...

We had the French Toast breakfast option. The other options appeared to be Thai or Japanese. Breakfast was fine but nothing awesome. The coffee was not really coffee, even at the second request, I think they still brought me hot chocolate. After breakfast we went towards the bridge and booked a 24 hour rental car for pickup at 2pm. 1,000 Bhat seemed a pretty good deal, $52 NZD and a Honda Jazz will be safer than a scooter. Oh I forgot to mention yesterday the weird name of our hotel - Inchantreedopool. We have no idea what it means. There are trees and a pool here so maybe "enchanted trees and pool"? Our next morning activity is a walk to the War Cemetery which is around 2.5km away. The route takes us along a busy main industrial road, not so flash. The cemetery is for some of the allied prisoners of war who died here while held captive by the Japanese. They were enslaved to build the Siam to Burma or as it is known now The Death Railway. Such a waste of lives and a horrible ...

At 11.30am it was deemed time to make our way to the Thonburi Train Station for our next trip leg to Kanchanaburi. This involved a short 400m walk from our hotel, then a river ferry crossing, and a slightly longer 1km walk to the station via a quick geocache find. We didn't actually know what time or how often the river crossing ferry left but turned up and only had to wait 5 minutes which made the trip much quicker than we thought it would be. We (meaning me 😉) had obviously scoped out the pier departure point the other day and knew where we had to get off even though the ferry to Chinatown that we had already used was a different route.  Near the end of the second walk we were beside a busy road across from a large market but couldn't see the station. I was starting to doubt my navigation skills but the map insisted we were close. I decided to head through the market hoping the station was on the other side of it. It was and I should not have been so worried. But when it...

Our train today doesn't leave until 2pm so we get to have a sleep in and a slow start to the day which is nice. Sarah took our clothes down to a laundry mat that is only about 100m from our hotel. Good to be able to take advantage of that while here instead of washing things in the bathroom and waiting all day for them to dry.  Just after 8.30am I head out to the bank to exchange our remaining USD for THB. 192 becomes 6,385. Kind of makes you feel richer for about 10 seconds until you think about the conversion fees. But it's a good way to top up our cash spending money.  The laundry room is a success and we now have nice clean and dry clothes again. 140 Bhat is $7 well spent. Sarah is happy as she was completely out of certain unmentionables. I've obviously been better at bathroom washing duties than her. 😉 10am is brunch time. Two American breakfasts are the go to again. The combo of carbs, coffee, etc is hard to beat in terms of value. Walking back to the hotel thinking...

Our last dinner and night in Bangkok for this visit. Tomorrow we are on the move again. We went back to the tried and tested place that we have been to twice now. The service was a bit slower tonight but the food was still super tasty. We shared a chicken pad Thai, a massaman chicken curry, a side of fries, and a large Chang. Total cost 410b Bhat, around $22. After dinner we checked out a foreign exchange banking place but then realised we didn't have our passports on us so will do that tomorrow. 

Another early start to the day as we are heading out for a day trip to Ayutthaya, the historic capital of Siam, now Thailand. It was the second capital city after Sukhothai which is much further North. Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 and was the capital until it was destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. What we are visiting is the historic parks and temples that still remain. A "modern" city has been rebuilt in the same location.  At 6am we order a Grab car and wait in reception for it to arrive. It takes about 10 minutes and then we head off to the main train station in Bangkok, Krung Thep Aphiwat. It takes about 30 minutes to get there and costs 234 Bhat about $12. Train tickets to Ayutthaya are only 20 Bhat each, a real bargain. The train is leaving at 7.10am so we have time to get something for breakfast. Pork Bao buns for Sarah and a pork and rice snack pack for me.  The train carriage is what you might expect for 20 Bhat. Basic vinyl bench seats with fans and open windows. N...

We decided to have dinner at the same place we had lunch mainly because the people were nice and it was a low key place. Plus they had nice food. We ordered a large Chang beer, a red curry stir fry (A), and a coconut curry (S), both with chicken. They were both delicious albeit on the spicy side of the scale. What we would call at least medium at home maybe hotter. Total cost was 380 Bhat, $20.  After dinner we walked back towards where the bus dropped us off last night and then across one street to Khao San Road. A fairly famous street in Bangkok just because it had a lot going on. It was early when we were there so was busy but not crazy. Lots of food and bars and people trying to get you to drink in their bar. The highlight though was Sarah eating a deep fried grasshopper. A promise she had made to the girls at work. Video proof is attached. The grasshopper looked the better option than the scorpions that's for sure. One grasshopper = 10 Bhat and Zero Barf. 😂

It was time for brunch so we popped down the street to where we went last night but to a more proper sit down cafe. We both ordered the American breakfast, two eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, tomato, toast, juice and tea or coffee all included for 165 Bhat per person, about $9. It was nice too and just what we needed.  Appetites satisfied we headed to the nearby river pier and paid 40 Bhat each to travel on the hop on hop off tourist ferry. We just got off once and then walked into the middle of Bangkok's Chinatown. Many smaller skinny streets with little to no traffic and stall after stall of $2 shop type items plus a few other things. Lots of street food carts here as well.  Walking tour completed we jumped on a more basic ferry that only cost 21 Bhat back to the pier where we started at. A good excursion and even though it was hotter now I was nowhere near as damp as this morning. I'm guessing the humidity had dropped with the sun up more. My body is fine with dry heat. Sarah pe...

We chose this hotel, Chillax Heritage, because of its location. It's within walking distance of the bus drop-off, the Grand Palace and temples, Kaosan Road, river ferries and our train departure station.  This morning we headed off to the Grand Palace, which didn't open until 8.30am, and because there's no free breakfast we had a later get up time. We walked the 900m and it was very hot even at 7.30am. Feck it's going to be so hot after lunch. Before you get to the palace ticket office and entrance there is an air-conditioned underground oasis with some nice old photos of the city.  Entrance to the palace is 500 Bhat each around $25. So not cheap but when in Rome they say it's best to check these things out. Surprisingly given the large number of people about there was no queue to buy the tickets or to get in. The palace grounds are amazingly decorated with many coloured pieces of glass and gold. There are also some very beautiful paintings and statues.  We wandered...