Travel for Breakfast

Chiang Rai Days

2009-12-30T05:14:00.000-08:00

What to do without visiting a wat

Chiang Rai is a fairly unprepossessing town in northeast Thailand. Most tourists who visit are there for a day or two while passing through to Laos, and may visit some of the historic wats, take a trip or two out of town to somewhere like the White Temple, and visit the Night Bazaar in the evening. Few people spend a week or more. This is a shame because Chiang Rai is a very friendly town and a pretty good place to explore normal northern Thai life away from the main sights and activities. If you do want to spend more time here are some ideas for things to do, places to see, from longtail boat trips and walking market shopping expeditions to coffee and classical music. This complements my reviews of Chiang Rai wats and the Night Bazaar.

There is a TAT Tourist Office in town. It has free maps and some useful info on places to go too. There is also a quarterly free English-language Chiang Rai magazine with some ideas for places to visit in and outside town as well as useful maps.

Take a Longtail boat
With the dusky Mae Kok river running through Chiang Rai, it is a good point to take a trip or tour on a longtail boat to see the forested hills sweep by. They can be chartered from the pier near to the bridge past the Bamboo Wat. Prices depend on distance and bargaining charm. You can go upstream to Ban Ruamit Elephant camp, My Dream at Khaew Waaw Dam village and Tha Ton or downstream as far as Chiang Mai.

Sniff the flowers

Orchids in 2009

Chiang Rai hosts a colourful flower show every January on the enthusiastically named Chiang Rai beach. Its worth going for the extensive displays of orchids alone. You can catch one of the many longtails ferrying passengers between the pier and the beach for about 20B a person one way.

Tell the time

Clock tower counting down to new year 2009

The artist who designed the White Temple also donated a new clocktower to Chiang Rai. He felt the old one was a bit shoddy and that Chiang Rai needed a new tourist sight. It is a gold tower in his flamboyant neo-Thai style. Not only does it tell the time but it also displays its own mini light-show on the hour at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm. It is near to the local produce market, to where the old clock has been relocated, at the junction of thanons Suksathit, Phahonyothin, Jet Yot and Banphrakan.

Drink tea, do coffee

Panja Bakeshop

Chiang Rai has lots of great little, independent café-cum-bakeries dotted throughout town. Each serves Chinese and black teas, coffee and home-baked cakes. There are plenty to choose from by strolling around town. Here are three of my favourites. Panja Bakeshop is a very friendly Thai-Chinese café on Th Suksathit between the produce market and the clocktower. It is great for small Chinese-style savoury or sweet pastries. You can also say hello to Elvis the fish. BaanChivitMai is a Swedish-run place near to the old bus station in the centre of town. It has delicious cakes and a vast range of 5B cookies as well as internet. All profits go to local charity work. Doi Chaang is the café of one of the local premium coffee estates. An air-con ground floor room and a first floor balcony surround two side of an atrium full of plants cascading around a naturalistic fountain. It is just north of the Night Bazaar on Th Ratanaket.

Listen to classical music

Orchestral manoeuvres in Doi Chaang

Doi Chaang hosts free chamber concerts by the Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra. They are currently weekly on Sunday afternoons. The atrium fills with young violinists, cellists and a worker of the double bass playing a range of light classical classics. The orchestra leader is a very dedicated music teacher.

Read a book
There are two secondhand bookshops in town where you can buy and part-exchange paperbacks. Gare Garon is near the bus station, while the cheaper Orn’s Bookshop is just past Wat Jet Yot. Orn’s is the eponymous shop of a very friendly German ex-pat.

Walk to the shops

Walking Market food market

Every Saturday night Th Thanalai is closed to traffic and converted into the Walking Market, a very long market boasting plenty of stalls selling local handicrafts, clothes and food. One adjoining square is given-over to a large food market with stalls selling a range of meals and snacks. Music and dance performances are scattered along its length. The market competes well with the Chiang Rai Sunday Walking Market for atmosphere and range of stalls, while surpassing its more famous twin on food. It begins about 4pm and gets pretty crowded by 8pm, before closing about 10pm. It is a great place to browse and buy gifts, eat some great food and join in with Thais doing one of their favourite leisure activities – shopping combined with eating.

Do lunch

Rimkok pool

Most of the upmarket resorts in and around town put on sumptuous and extensive buffet lunches. You can enjoy a vast range of Thai and Western meals, salads, fruit and desserts for about 150 baht a person. The Rimkok, just outside of town on the otherwise of the river, has a particularly good one for 140 baht. It is served in the restaurant near the pool. If you’re vegetarian simply ask them to cook you some veggie meals when you buy your ticket and they’ll being them to your table shortly after you sit down. We were served four different veggie Thai dishes. The Rimkok also has the only pool open to non-guests. You can enjoy the long, curving pool with outdoor jacuzzi for the day at 80 baht a person. Go five times and your sixth visit is free.

Discover where old spirit houses go to die

Spirit Houses under the Big Tree

There is a beautifully big tree near the public library. Turn left off the main road at the tourist office and go down the quieter road, take a right turn, left and another right on the same road and you'll see the spreading canopy of the tree span the road. People deposit old spirit houses under this auspicious tree.

Walks from My Dream

2009-12-15T04:51:00.000-08:00

Khaew Waaw Dam

If you stay at My Dream guesthouse you can do 1 and 2 day treks with Nan. These combine off-road driving and walking in the nearby mountains visiting neighbouring Lahu, Akha and Karen villages.

Rice paddies

You don’t need to go on a trek if you wish to explore the beautiful forest area around the guesthouse. There are at least four directions you can walk independently along easy-to-follow dirt roads and mountain paths. The routes can take you through the stunning countryside of tropical rainforest, bamboo and rice paddies, either along the Mae Kok river or up into the mountains. You can easily make up your own half or full day treks if you take your own water and food. I’ve outlined four routes below. If you get up with the sun you may be rewarded with an atmospheric misty morning that characterises images of rural East Asia. In Khaew Waw Dam you can also discover hand-made traditional weaving. Or travel towards Chiang Rai and go for an elephant ride.

Rice 'hay'

Weaving
You can also spend time in Khaew Waw Dam village itself. There are two shops selling snacks and drinks; one also stocking fruit and veg, the other making som tams. Many households weave traditional Karen textiles during the dry season. A Thai woman from Isan called Atitaya and her French husband Thom live right next door to the guesthouse with their family. She also weaves, collecting plants from the surrounding to dye her cotton with natural colours before spinning and weaving the threads. She does this all by hand on a home-made bamboo spinning wheel and loom to produce amazing scarves and bedspreads. She speaks good English and is happy to talk about how she makes her textiles and show her work. Do call round to see if she is there if you stay at My Dream.

Ati weaving

Elephants
A few kilometres down the road back to Chiang Rai is Ban Ruamit Elephant Camp. I don’t know about you but I’m always in two minds about elephant camps and rides. On one hand it seems like an abuse of these wonderful giants, yet on the other the money camps bring in from rides can help to look after the highly endangered Asian elephant. It really depends on the camp as to whether this is abuse or care. Ban Ruamit seems like a good camp. The elephants do have to spend all day in a small riverside area, but by the early evening they are free to wander the nearby jungle until the following morning. The income the camp generates probably does mean that these elephants are being conserved rather than sent down to Bangkok to follow a mahout around the streets. Rides cost 200B or 400B for a half or full hour which includes a trip around the village and down part of the river. You can also buy bananas, sweetcorn and sugar cane to feed the elephants at 20B a bag. There’s the usual tourist tat souvenir stalls and a couple of cafes.

Close encounters of the trunk kind

Walking Route 1 – Hot Spring Refresher
Turn right out of My Dream, join the dirt road back to Chiang Rai passing the shop. After about 250m and just before the road takes a short incline you’ll see a gap in the trees on your right. Take this to the hanging bridge and cross the river. Turn left on the other side and follow the dirt road beside the river. This road is used by pick-ups and motorbikes so you’ll encounter some traffic. The route gives you great views of the river as you walk through bamboo stands, bananas and forest. You’ll pass a Lahu village on your right soon after the bridge. Another 2km brings you to an Akha village, which still has a village swing. A further 2km brings you to the national park where there are natural hot springs you can look at, though these ones are too hot for a dip, toilets and a refreshment stall selling snacks and drinks, as well as instant noodles and eggs they’ll boil for you.

Natural hot springs in national park

About 1km further on brings you to the hot springs you can get into. About 30B buys you entry, 10B use of a towel and 50B a private changing room rather than the small communal one. These are a tourist destination so they have been built up. You have a concrete wall around the spring itself, a small hot pool you can boil eggs in (you buy the eggs from any of the cafes and shops at 20B for five in a basket and after 30 minutes you should have soft-boiled eggs), and a what is effectively an open-air swimming pool at about 37+ oC you can get into. The far end has the hottest water. If you don’t want to walk back you can either hitch a lift on a passing pick-up or pay about 200-300B to get someone to drive you back to the bridge. Just ask for the bridge, Khaew Waw Dam or My Dream.

Boiling eggs

Route 2 – Village Stroll
This time turn right once over the bridge and follow the same dirt road upriver. It passes similar landscape to the hot springs route. After a couple of kilometres you’ll come to another Lahu village. The forest looks impressive and is still part of the national park. You can walk for as long as you like along this road taking in the same sort of views.

Local buffalo

Route 3 – River Jungle
Turn left out of My Dream and walk up to the dirt road next to the other shop with som tams. Turn left here and walk upriver along the road. You’ll be away from the river for the first kilometre or so. You’ll pass an army general’s forest landscape garden and come to rice paddies with buffalos dotted with bamboo drying platforms and shelters. When you reach the fork in the road take the left one. You’ll quickly be surrounded with thick bamboo and forest. This soon drops back down to the river and gives a great forest experience. There are tribal villages further along the road (which also means some traffic).

Route 4 – Mountain Rice Climb

Misty mountain hop

This is my favourite of the four. Take the right hand path at the fork of route 3. You’ll notice that the path becomes partly grassed-over which is because hardly any vehicles use this route except for the occasional person on a motorbike getting to their rice paddies. This is the most tranquil route with the best views. You’ll soon begin to climb steadily. The land rises to your left through forest and bamboo. On your right you overlook the valley of a mountain stream. The valley is quite wide and flat to begin with then narrows. Nearly all of the flat land is terraced into rice paddies dotted with the bamboo shelters, drying stands and occasional houses of the people who work the paddies. You’ll see cleared areas amongst the stalks of harvested rice surrounded by mounds of rive hay. These are threshing floors used to separate the rice from the stalks. There are also buffalo, pigs and geese. After about 2 or 3km you come to a point where you really must turn around for a spectacular view down the valley. It’s even better on a misty morning.

Mountain view

The path winds upwards through more and more picturesque forest and bamboo-clad slopes, the air becoming fresher and fresher, the paddies gradually narrowing, the stream burbling away next to you. Beyond the viewpoint you feel like you’re on a high mountain route. You can basically keep on walking along this path until you need to turn around. You’ll eventually come to some tribal villages if you keep going and should be able to visit one or two and make it back to My Dream before dark depending on your walking speed.

High bridge

My Dream Guesthouse

2009-12-08T05:10:00.000-08:00

My Dream

Many years ago a Karen man from Chiang Mai province worked in a guesthouse in Chiang Rai. He lived with his wife in the small Karen village Khaew Waaw Dam a few kilometres out of town on the Mae Kok River. For the last ten years his dream has been a reality for tourists staying in his village. After a week at My Dream Guesthouse it is firmly in my top five guesthouses in Thailand.

Riverside bungalows

Anan and his wife Polly have worked hard to create a small place to stay that is more than just a collection of wooden bungalows by a river. For a start the bungalows are arranged around an immaculate forest garden, alive with birdsong and colourful dashes of passing butterflies. Each of his 13 teak and bamboo rooms is tastefully and simply decorated, each with a large bed encased within a mosquito net that hints at the opulence of a four-poster. He was determined to create the garden, despite others in the village questioning why he spent time on something that didn't earn money, so that visitors would get the most pleasure from their stay in rural northern Thailand. His ethos that shines through in lovingly tended flowering bushes and lawn brightens everything that is provided at the guesthouse and reflects his effusive, sunny disposition. He welcomes new guests with a smile and laughing conversation when he is not on a mountain leading one of the treks he offers to guests. You can do one, two or three day treks around tribal villages in the surrounding mountains.

Delicious large portions of Thai food are served in the riverside restaurant. If, like us, you have a baby evening meals are brought on a tray to your balcony. A fire is lit on the small private beach each evening from where you can sit and gaze at the milky way or find your way around by the light of the full moon. The view from the beach is of the surging river flowing by and the forest-and-bamboo-clad hills beyond. The beach and garden are perfect for hanging out with a family or just taking it easy after a trek.

My Dream beach

During our week staying at My Dream we met Didi, a French cycling tour leader, who was returning to My Dream for his fourth year in a row with 14 cyclists on a two-week mountain biking tour. He values the personal service that Anan provides. A rep from a Swiss tour company offering tours for two to three people stayed the night to check out the guesthouse for their next brochure. Some of the guests come with pre-arranged tours to use My Dream as a base before heading higher into the mountains for trekking. Many companies employ Anan to lead the treks for them. We also met a young Austrian who was passing through on his way from Tha Thon to Chiang Mai, partly travelling along the river itself. If you don't fancy a long trek but prefer to move beyond the garden there are plenty of easy activities to leave the guesthouse for, from visits to elephant camps and hot springs to hikes into the mountains, more of which in my Khaew Waaw Dam blog entry which I'll post soon.

Anan with his daugher Dia

Everything at the guesthouse has been thought about to make your stay memorable, to remember My Dream and to remember Anan who dreamt of having a forest guesthouse by the river. Live his dream and make it part of one of your own.

Garden view to the river

Getting there and costs

You can reach My Dream by land or water. It is on the long-tailed boat taxi service connecting Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Tha Ton. A one-way trip between My Dream and Chiang Rai costs about 120 baht per person and takes 1 1/2 hours down river to the town. Expect a little longer upstream. Polly's father runs the only taxi in Khaew Waaw Dam. He goes into Chiang Rai about 6.30am every day except Sunday. He will pick you up from your guesthouse in Chiang Rai on his return trip sometime between 11am and 1pm if you ring and arrange with Anan a day in advance. Depending on occupancy this will either cost the regular fare or be courtesy of My Dream. The journey takes about half an hour. You can also hitch pretty easily from the village down towards Chiang Rai so it is possible to make the return trip for free.

Garden-facing rooms and bungalows currently cost 300 baht per night, riverside bungalows 500 baht. Most meals cost between 40 and 50B. Meals on rice are 50B or 40B if you're vegetarian. There are two small shops in the village selling snacks, drinks and some fruit and veg. One pounds up a wicked som tam (papaya salad) for 15B.

PinPao Guesthouse, Old Sukthothai

2009-11-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

I've just posted a comment on my review of the Orchid Hibiscus to update it and break the news about Paolo and Pinthong's new place in Old Sukhothai - PinPao.

The comment is here too if you don't want to read about the OH.

Paolo and Pinthong have just opened another guesthouse - the eponymous PinPao which is a large new house on the main road into Old Sukhothai. They were just putting the finishing touches to PinPao while we were there and Pinthong showed us around a couple of days before they opened its doors to guests for Loi Krathong. The place is fantastic inside. It is a guesthouse rather than bungalows or rooms around a garden so it is different in character to the Orchid Hibiscus. Each room is ensuite and slightly differently sumptiously decorated in Pinthong's signature contemporary Thai style. Expect lots of plump cushions, cereamic flowers and handpainted woodwork. PinPao is on the riverside and breakfast will be set on a terrace overlooking the river. Paolo and Pinthong are looking into boat trips along the river to the Historical Park.

A wooden footbridge leads over to a swimming pool set in a concrete lido, with more ceramic flowers, and garden. The pool and garden were coming to the end of construction when we looked around.

PinPao is another five-star mid-range guesthouse for Sukhothai, building on the success of the Orchid Hibiscus. Prices are the same - currently 800baht for a double room with the same style breakfast included. PinPao also has a cafe specialising in authentic Italian coffee, as you'd expect from Paolo. The main advantage of the PinPao over the Orchid are its position on the main road which put it much closer to the Historical Park. This means it is an easy walking distance to the Park and other amenities of Old Sukhothai. You can expect the same high quality service and rooms as well as a swimming pool but not quite the same extent of gardens nor family romos. If 800baht is your budget, even just for a few nights of a longer trip, I doubt you'll be disappointed by either of Paolo and Pinthong's guesthouses while in Old Sukhothai.

The White Temple

2009-11-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

There is a new Buddhist temple being built outside Chiang Rai, if merely built is the right word. Imagined into existence is possibly a better description for this phantasmagoric brainchild of Thai artist Chaloemchai Khositphiphat and his overworking imagination.

It is close to the city of historical temples yet so far removed from them as to almost deserve a different classification. For one there is not the quiet reverent space of many temples, but a bustling tourist attraction complete with shopping and dining area, camera-snapping Thais and guardians keeping the masses in line. Welcome to Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, the

Attention to detail is incredible with the outside of the building and other structures decorated lavishly with ornate swirling designs. The exterior is white with silver mirrors and changes colour with cloud and sun. Under cloud it has a deathly pale yellow palor, which when set behind leafless trees, is reminiscent of a Tim Burton film set. When the sun shines the mirrors twinkle and the white takes on the hues of its surroundings - grass green, sky blue and clothings reds, yellows and oranges.

The art inside the hall does strike me as being the product of a talented fantasy-loving teenager or 70s heavy metal album cover artist. That, however is not a surprise or such criticism as it may sound. Where, after all, did the artists of psychedelic album covers or fantasy novel covers get some of their inspiration? Hindu and Buddhist religious art. The wat's art brings these influences together.

It is a lot of fun with hints at attempts to make statements. Superman, Spiderman and the Matrix sit alongside Buddhist apsaras, garudas and demons. The World Trade Centre is shown during its destruction by Al Qaida with a demon-headed serpentine petrol pump pipe snaking around one of the towers. Yet how much do intended meanings resonate after a single visit? That probably depends on your attitudes to politics, fantasy and Buddhist religious art.

The dream is still being built and all power to him for making something so bold that it generates reactions from visitors. You will either love or hate it but you're unlikely to feel indifferent towards it.

As you enter you come face-to-face with a gold structure bearing a white Buddha in its ornate folds and twists.

After passing the first structure between ponds with white fish you are next greeted at the approach to the central hall by concrete hands reaching out to the air and your sense of fun. Some hold skulls up next to others proffering alms bowls.

Apsaras or bodhisatvas float in the air either side of the approach to the central hall. Every inch of the white building is adorned with white mirrors.

To either side of the hall are matching pairs of Buddhas facing each other.

The purity of white certainly makes a statement that cannot fail to influence you in some way, even if only while there. It is perhaps part Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, part Taj Maha, part Southfork.

The temple is very easy to reach from Chiang Rai. A sangthaew from the produce market station near Wat Phra Singh costs 20 baht and they leave regularly through the day. You should not have to wait more than 20 minutes. Tell the drivers you want a minibus not taxi to catch one of the regular departures rather than charter a whole vehicle for yourself at maybe 500-700 baht. You can also catch a local bus to Phayao from the old bus station in the city centre or a Chiang Mai bus from the new station on the city's edge. The journey takes less than 30 minutes. To return to Chiang Rai go up to the main road and flag down a passing sangthaew or bus. A sangthaew driver spotted us walking towards the road and waited for us to get to him.

Loi Krathong, Thailand

2009-11-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

Krathongs made from coloured ice cream cornets

Loi Krathong, Chiang Mai 2009

Loi Krathong is one of Thailand's major annual festivals and a must do for anyone visiting the country in the autumn. The festival is a celebration of water through light, thanking water for the fertility it provides and apologising for pollution we cause by sending small floats of plants and flowers with incense and candles into rivers and other waterways. The Thai for the floats is krathong and to loi is to float them on their way. Millions of Thais throughout the country make or buy krathongs then gather at specific locations in each city, town or village that have traditionally been used for centuries to loi their krathongs. The candles seem to go out quite quickly and darkened krathongs tend to gather along the water's edge, so anyone expecting to see rivers sparkling with lights may be disappointed unless the weather is totally calm. Think giant vegetable soup with too many cooks. Households light candles at their boundaries and entrances, in many ways similar to Hindu diwali.

Kom Loi about to be released

Where the festival is so enjoyable is because it s an almighty excuse for Thais to do what they love best - eating, shopping, having fun and listening to loud music. Food and gift stalls line the streets, performances are held and processions of motorised krathongs head down streets. It is as much a celebration of modern Thai life as it is one of tradition. The best way to experience it is to throw yourself right in, while keeping out of the water. You might also need to keep your head down from the odd stray firework or quickly descending kom loi, a miniature candle-powered hot air balloon that are set floating in the sky in droves. Many have wishes attached to them. Not all manage to ascend to the heavens before they reach a tree or power cables or simply lose their upward momentum above a crowd.

The festival is not the same date every year according to the Gregorian calender because it is fixed to the 13 month lunar calendar, falling on the full moon of the 12th month. Wherever you are in Thailand at the time of Loi Krathong you will undoubtedly enjoy. I have met farang women staying in villages who have been dressed as Thai women and put on the top of krathongs in processions. Three of my favourite places to loi a krathong are Chiang Mai, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.

Tha Phrae gate, Chiang Mai

People in Chiang Mai know how to enjoy life and bring this zest for fun to Loi Krathong over 4 days or so. Each night activity is focused around the Tha Phrae Gate and Narawat Bridge on the Ping River. Where Tha Phae gate is a laidback market full of teanagers comically posing for photos below lanterns, the River is a cacophony of noise and sound resounding to fireworks carronading from the bridge. Call into a wat on the route to the river to sign a kom loi with a wish and float it away with the help of young monks. A procession that begins at the gate converges on the river on the night of Loi Krathong itself.

Buddhist Loi Krathong ceremony, Chiang Rai

Sukhothai Historical Park

Where Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai is one great street party, in Sukhothai it is the creation of a magical, twinkling world of light and dark over four evenings. The World Heritage Historical Park is taken over with thousands of candles and lanterns on the chedis and in the ponds. A sound and light show animates Wat Mahathat with colourful lights and loud noises culminating in a firework display. The road to the park and the lanes in the park are lined with food and gift stalls.

Picnics below the lights in Sukhothai

Buddhas for sale in a Loi Krathong market

Ayutthaya may be a World Heritage Historical Park similar to Sukhothai but Loi Krathong is totally different. Here it is a brash six-day fairground and festival featuring lots of loud dance music, dodgems, shows and sound stages of boy bands. This action is concentrated in one corner near Wat Mahathat but the main loi locations are on the Chao Praya river near Wat Yai Chai Mongkol. Plenty of people loi on the ponds of the historical park too and boys tread water to either help the krathongs away from the banks or to salvage and resell them later.

Kom Loi gang

Ethnological Museum of Thrace

2009-08-04T03:23:00.000-07:00

The Art of Collective Memory

On a quiet street in downtown Alexandroupolis, situated near a cafe and a church, is an imposing historical building dates from the last years of the 19th century. Neo-classical marble columns stand guard above a flight of steps and to either side of a solid wooden door. We approached after a diversion behind the church, where a kindly lady pointed us in the right direction, to find the door closed and locked. This was a while after the stated opening time. Was the museum closed? We knocked. Soon, we heard footsteps approaching and a young face appeared in the door's window. 'Come in', he called throwing open the door and welcoming us into a warm wooden room lined with display cases that smelt and felt of well-worn age. A museum where you knock to have the door opened for you is a rare thing.

Inside time seemed to pause, to take on the sheen of past ages when Thrace was a very different region, Greece another country altogether and Turkey was the Ottoman Empire. All three and their turbulent history converge on this quiet house once owned by a successful businessman which unwinds away from the history of empires to expose the people's history of the communities who lived on this crossroads between Europe and Asia.

This is not a museum of high culture, of distant difficult-to-relate-to people. This is a museum of the everyday, of ordinary folks doing the ordinary things they needed to do before communiting, industrialisation and office jobs became the norm. It's a story of hard graft and simple pleasures. The museum is divided into themed rooms. Dress, religion and agricultural work make up a large part of the displays as you would imagine. An exhibition of mannequins sporting traditional clothes in front of a map of the region and black and white photographs from a time when these clothes were commonly worn is interesting, not solely for the clothes but for the similarities I've seen in the traditional clothes of South-East Asian hilltribes and the Maya of Central America. It seems that there are common uses of textiles in all three regions which tend towards a black material for the body of a jacket which is then adorned in multi-coloured embroidery. A universal language of the stitch?

Rooms of agricultural tools from before mechanisation always fascinate and impress me. They are hand-made tools for hand-made work, each as individual as the person who made them and worn smooth, buckled or bent through hard labour on the soil. They resonate with a time when calloused hands fed millions, when food was wrung from dry earth. They put into perspective the easy availability of over-ready meals and Kenyan green beans on supermarket shelves.

One thing that makes the museum distinctive is the presence of evocative, sociological descriptions for each room. Where many museums such as this rely on the functional or sentimental to explain their collections, here we are encouraged to think beyond the surface and deeper into the social meanings of the practices that the objects were used in, whether religious, ceremonial or utilitarian. The museum is to be applauded for taking this approach.

Three of the rooms are devoted to pleasure, to simple pleasures that ease stiff backs and reward days of hard work. These are alcohol, tobacco and sweets. I'm not sure if I've been to a museum with so much space given to this unholy trinity. The room of sweets has fascinating videos of traditional boiled sweets and Turkish Delight being made by hand in copper pans and on marble tables. The amount of work and art in making the sweets makes a packet of polos seem like a cheap fix. I took to the maker, a kindly grey-haired gentleman with the smile of a man who enjoys making things to make other people happy. I went into a shop selling hand-made sweets, ouzo and dried fruit after leaving the museum and looked upon the shelves of delights with child-again eyes of wonder. The video of the sweet man put magic back into the simplest of pleasures that can otherwise be so easily overlooked. I thank the museum for that and for revealing the rich texture of work-worn tools.

There was something very big missing from the museum, however. Not quite an elephant in the room perhaps, but massive enough to make me wonder whether this was historical gloss or deliberate avoidance. What of Thrace's position on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, and all the violence that has brought? Greek Thrace is only one part of Thrace, the other two regions having been situated in Bulgaria and Turkey since the 1920s. Community violence and enforced mass migrations followed when Ataturk created Turkey out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire following World War 1. Thrace had a very mixed ethnic make-up of Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Greek Turks and Turkish Greeks at the time most of the tools in the museum were used. There is no reference to this at all. I like to think the museum has opted to avoid the burden of addressing this issue so that the lives of people shine out without being reduced to shadows in a wider political story. It is easier to for the people behind the displays to take centre stage when they're not subjugated to the chorus of national histories.

The Museum is at 63, 14th of May Street, Alexandroupolis. Current opening hours are Tues - Sat 10:00 - 14:00 & 18:00 - 21:00, Sun 10:00 - 13:30. Tel: +30 25510 36663. Email: info[at]emthrace.org

Ice Cold in Alexandroupolis

2009-07-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

Ordinary times in Greece.

I like visiting ordinary places, the nowhere towns and villages that lie beyond the tour agent's brochures and country visitor guides. They are the places where you have the chance to meet the real country. This is not to say that popular tourist destinations are less real than other places. Real people live in real houses and go about real lives in Barcelona, Amsterdam and Prague for example. But, as a tourist in a tourist honeypot you only experience the country through the prism of tourist activities, tourist restaurants and tourism staff. Your view of your host country is therefore mediated through a protective environment created specifically to give you a good holiday experience and to take your money in return. And why not? If you choose to spend your hard-earned cash to visit a foreign country you wish to have a wow factor, amazing memories and your pleasure well and truly catered for.

But what about the country behind the brochure? The places without the incredible historic sites, national parks, resorts or sublime beaches? I decided to go to just such an ordinary city in Greece - one of the most visited countries in Europe. I would avoid the sun-kissed Aegean islands with their idyllic beaches and the Classical cities of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Instead I would go somewhere ordinary for a weekend but still travel there as a tourist. So, I chose Alexandrouplis, a port on the Thracian coast nearer to Istanbul than Athens. So far removed from Classical Greece is Alexandrouplis, that its origins date to the late 19th century as a town that grew up around an Ottoman Turkish railway line but only after the area's capture by Russian troops during the Russo-Turkish war.

The legacy of the Russians are wide, straight boulevards that were planned to facilitate troop movements but now provide a wide, open welcoming and modern feel. The lack of narrow widing streets instantly banish any stereotypes of quaint Aegean towns. These streets are not the main attractions of Alex, despite the sales, occasional pavement cafes and baklava bakeries, so let's leave them behind after a diversion to the fantastic Thracian Ethnology Museum. Nor are the small, slightly sruffy beaches littered with discarded cigarette butts, though the coarse sand dotted with marble pebbles and the warm Aegean are welcoming enough when compared to inland England.

What makes Alex a place for a weekend break is the restaurant-lined sea-front promenade. A somewhat busy road during the day, it is transformed into a pedestrian haven at night when bollards prevent cars driving along it towards dark. Alexandrouplians love to promenade in the evenings and take over the road in their droves. From 6 weeks to 90 years old, couples, families and groups saunter along the road to create the most convivial perambulating street party in Europe. The pace is languid, as befits summer night-time temperatures in the high 20s centigrade, yet the atmosphere is bubbles with what can only be termed as glee. Things really get busy after 9 or 10pm when the street becomes difficult to see through the legs, prams and buggies. Stalls selling Middle Eastern jewellery and battery-powered dogs with manic eyes line the sides of the street. Portrait artists set up their easels and wait for subjects to sit themselves in front of the passing gaze and passing interest of thousands of strollers. Trendy open-air bars blast out pumping dance tracks to crowds drinking ice-cold beers and warmly-mixed cocktails.

Apart from walking, almost everyone is out to eat. Every inch of the pavement above the concrete breakwater is packed with tables belonging to restaurants over the road. Alexandrouplis is one of the best and largest outdoor restaurants outside of Thailand. Each venue serves some of the best and freshest meals you can consume anywhere in the world. Menus bulge with a variety of traditional local salads, fish, seafood and meat. Whether creating a meze of small dishes or eating your way through a three-course meal, the wide range of dishes and variety provided by each chef's take on the same dishes will ensure you can happily satisfy your palate without repetition for at least a month.

As a vegetarian, I tried two totally different Greek salads, two totally different cabbage and carrot salads, three totally different types of bread, fried cheese and rocket salad. Each was dressed in the sweetest, lightest, delicious olive oil. What better way to finish a meal than to join the throng and stroll along the prom. The restaurant tables thicken towards the locally iconic lighthouse above the Luna Park fairground, with its fast kart track offering exhilarating rides at 2 euros for 3 minutes. Near here is a baklava bakery for honey-drenched sweets to snack on while walking.

Neither walking or eating are, however, the main occupation of the multitude. While chatter rises into the air in crescendoes, nor is conversation the prime activity. What everyone spends most of their time pursuing is people-watching. Whether walking or sitting, drinking or eating, talking or in silence, each and everyone is looking at their stranger-companions. You are as part of the entertainment as you are being entertained. And what this creates is one of the largest slow-paced festivals of conviviality in the world. That in its own right is enough to recommend Alexandroupolis for a weekend visit, as long as you're able to consider visiting a town without top theatre, without the finest architecture, without world class museums and art galleries, without the best beaches, without the best-preserved ancient monuments. If you can manage with all that then drink in one of the happiest of evening atmospheres with thousands of locals that can be found anywhere.

I stayed in Hotel Park during my stay. Sat on busy Avenue Dimicratis and opposite a small wooded park, it is locally owned and been in the same family for 30 years. The friendly owner speaks good English. All rooms are en-suite with air con and there is a breakfast room and small swimming pool. Rooms are 30 - 40 euros for a single and 60 - 80 euros for a double depending on the season. Alexandroupolis has an airport with connections from Athens and Thessaloniki, is on the Athens to Istanbul rail line and has regular buses to Thessaloniki.

Edale

2009-04-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

The start of the Pennine Way is the perfect walking base

Edale and long-distance walking are synonymous in Britain. This small bright green valley hidden amongst the Peak District hills between Sheffield and Manchester is the official start of the southern end of the Pennine Way, the arduous rain-lashed route along the spine of England that ends in Scotland over 268 miles to the north. It is the country's oldest and most famous long-distance footpath that attracts 12,000 sturdy hikers to attempt the full route every year. If setting off for a walk along half of England isn't your idea of a day out in the country don't be put off by Edale. This mecca for walkers has plenty of shorter routes on offer that you can tackle in a day, from steep hikes up wide-open moors to more gentle strolls along the valley. All are doable on a day trip or by staying in one of the valley's many guest houses and campsites.

Grindsbrook

The actual start of the Pennine Way is the Nag's Head Inn, a traditional walker-friendly pub serving real ales and decent meals in the centre of Grindsbrook, Edale's only village. Even if you don't intend to walk all the way to Scotland, you can still down a pint and wander along the easy first few miles or feet of the route, depending on how lazy you're feeling.

The Nag's Head (fr0m www.peak-experience.org.uk)

The first section of the Pennine Way

The first part of the Pennine Way meanders gently through pastures of sheep and cows until Upper Booth, the most distant of Edale's farms less than 2 miles from Grindsbrook. You can rest your feet in the historic gritstone farmyard while savouring an ice cream, tea or coffee served from the barn. It is easy to find your way back to Grindsbrook via Barber Booth, another historic farming settlement. Booths can be found throughout Edale. They are small groups of farms and cottages that are first documented during the reign of Elizabeth I but probably originated after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Each was a cattle ranch cut out of the wooded waste of the damp valley on the edge of settlement.

A typical Edale view

If you feel that staying in the valley is to constraining there are plenty of paths that radiate out like threads in a spider's web from Edale onto the surrounding hills, ridges and moors. Jaggers Clough tempts the more serious hiker beyond the tea and ice creams of Upper Booth. Named after the packhorse men who used to transport Cheshire salt, Yorkshire iron and Derbyshire millstones across the Peak District, Jaggers winds steeply up the hillside towards the iconic Kinder Scout. Today the moorland is all open access land so you can wander at will beyond the farmland. This right to roam was fought for with passion by working class men from the surrounding industrial towns who clashed with the gamekeepers of landed aristocracy across the Peak District moorlands. This fight reached its zenith on Kinder where hundreds of urban ramblers joined together in the Mass Trespass one spring morning in 1932. Kinder was then private land and the trespassers were met with force by gamekeepers and police. Their leaders were arrested and jailed but the Trespass led to the formation of National Parks in England and Wales and ultimately to the Act of 2000 that made all moorland open access. Victory was a long-time coming and it is us today's walker who can reap the benefits.

The moorlands are magnificent at any time of the year. In spring the air is cut by the call of curlews, in June the white cotton grass spreads across bogs in snow-like flurries. But the moors really come alive in August when the miles and miles of heather bursts into vivid purple flowers. Summer is also the best time to catch the comical cackle of the low-flying red grouse.

Once you reach the moors there are many other ways to go than on to Kinder, either following the well-trod paths or going over the rough ground of this open access land, and coming back down to the valley via one of the many streamside paths. A look at a map will show you the dozens and dozens of walking options starting from Grindsbrook or any of the many guest houses and campsites in the valley. You can also find lots of information about walking around Edale and the moors at the excellent National Park Moorland Centre. The Centre is heated from a ground-source heat pump and has an insulating living roof of moorland plants.

The National Park Moorland Centre

Visit in spring for the delight of seeing newborn lambs

You can reach Edale easily for a day out by train. Though the valley appears remote it is less than 20 miles from Sheffield and Manchester and is on the railway line between the two with an hourly train service at present. If you prefer to stay longer to make more of the many footpaths there are plenty of guest houses and campsites to choose from. Stonecroft B&B uses organic ingredients and caters for vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diets. All of the campsites have fairly basic facilities with shower and toilet blocks in converted farm buildings. Google maps has a list of campsites. Accommodation can get full during weekends and holidays so it is worth booking or at least calling ahead if you're heading out spontaneously to take advantage of a weekend of good weather. Certainly, the weather can make or break a walking weekend in Edale whether or not you're setting off on the first leg of the Pennine Way or simply ambling around between booths.

Sukhothai

2009-01-27T05:38:00.000-08:00

Ancient capital of Siam

We pedalled past the white seated Buddha statues, each a moment of stationary meditation glimpsed amongst the trees. We had hired the bikes the previous evening from one of the many hire shops lining the approach road to the ancient city of Sukhothai. Paolo, our guest house owner, recommended the place. Visitors on old single-gear sit-up-and-beg bicycles cruise the roads that run through and around the ruins. Sukhothai is a delightful place for a bicycle ride, whether or not you're greatly interested in archaeology. The roads are predominantly level, the Historical Park is mostly woodland with large ponds that reflect the towering chedis or Buddha statues. Thai drivers are, on the whole, slow and courteous, though they have a tendency unusual to Sukhothai for announcing their approach behind you with a blast on the horn. Well-intended I'm sure but annoying after a short while. The site is spread out over a large area so bicycles really are the way to go. They make visiting all the main temples in the Historical Park easy to do in a day. There are also numerous temples beyond the original city walls, which form a rectangle 2km across, that require some form of transport to reach. Mopeds and mini-vans are other options but if you have the energy and fitness, bicycles allow you to take in the surrounding landscape and say hello to many people in passing.

We visited the Historical Park over five days, catching it in early morning and late afternoon light. The core of the Park are the temples and ponds that formed the very centre of ancient Sukhothai. Here are the remains of at least eleven of the grandest temples, many still hosting graceful Buddha statues, separated by tranquil ponds. The best-preserved is Wat Mahathat, a sprawling range of brick walls, columns, chedis and platforms set in a garden of trees and lawns. Mahathat was the spiritual heart of the city and would have held important relics of the Buddha under its spire-like chedi. Today, a large Buddha statue serenely sits in mediation at the front of the ruined temple hall and is still an important pilgrimage site. There are always offerings of candles, incense and flowers laid in front of his feet and, if you're lucky, you may see orange-robed and chanting monks leading a ceremony.

Two giant standing Buddhas flank either side of the chedi, their arms held out in supplication. Their robes are so finely made from limestone stucco that they seem to sway. Bridges and pathways radiate out from Matathat for you to explore the surrounding temples, each with its own character and distinctive Buddha image. One chedi is supported on a base of very patient elephants. There is enough to explore for at least a morning and if the heat becomes too much by mid-day there are plenty of fruit sellers under shady trees while the modern town with its cafes and restaurants is only a short distance away. It is worth hanging out in the Historical Park until sunset when you will find the Buddha images and temples are silhouetted against the rich oranges and blues of the sky. We had cloudless skies during our visit and while we missed out on the textured multi-hued skies that sun-lit clouds bring, even the gentle transition of a sky darkening from blue to black via bands of orange and red is a spectacle worth seeing.

One morning as I wandered to the west of Matathat, before the sun had risen above the trees, I stood entranced as clouds of white mist drifted languidly above the ponds. The whole world was white, pierced only by the vibrant purple of floating lotus blossoms. As the sun broke over the tree tops, the towering chedi of a temple beyond the pond glowed orange against a backdrop of still-dark woodland. The orange light seemed to slide down the chedi to engulf it and a white-stuccoed Buddha image until he shone bright amongst the pale land.

Sunrise is a magical time of day elsewhere in Sukhothai. The following morning I cycled, shivering in the pre-dawn cold, to Wat Saphan Hin set on a hilltop to the west of the city. The sun rises directly above the city and over a flat plain extending from the bottom of the hill to beyond the horizon. The morning I was there the sun rose as a solid orange globe in a cloudless sky. Here, the statue is of Buddha standing with his right arm extended and his hand facing out to greet the new day across the ancient city.

I was only able to cycle out so early and to see so much because I chose to stay in Old Sukhothai. There are, confusingly, two towns by that name. New Sukhothai is a typical noisy, polluted Thai town 15km east of the old city and the main tourist centre for visitors to the ruins. Getting from New to Old Sukhothai involves negotiation a taxi ride or taking one of the infrequent buses. Either way, the journey is about 30 minutes. You do benefit from easier connections to the rail and bus stations if you're on a flying visit as well as a larger selection of guesthouses and restaurants to choose from. If you really want to immerse yourself in the ruins and have time to explore the different places without trying to fit them all into one day, then I'd recommend Old Sukhothai as the place to stay. The town lines two sides of the main road after it enters the original eastern gate of the city and has a choice of cafes and restaurants as well as a 7-Eleven and two budget backpacker guesthouses where you can find a room for as little as 150 baht. There is also a decent day market if you want to buy fresh fruit and veg, and a small night market with hot and cold food stalls. One new discovery we made was a little stall selling mugs of hot ginger tea over tofu. The road that heads north along the outside of the eastern city wall has mid-range and up market guesthouses. We chose the Orchid Hibiscus because of the promise of bungalows set in a flower garden and an outdoor swimming pool. We weren't disappointed as you can read here.

One of my favourite morning rides was to Wat Phra Achana, where the box-like brick and mortared Mandapa hall still shelters one of the most famous Buddha statues in Thailand. Here Buddha is shown in a popular pose, sitting in the half-lotus position with the fingers of his right hand extended to the ground in the act of subduing Mara. This notable scene from the life of Buddha represents the tim when Mara, a mythical being, tried to tempt Buddha with demons, monsters and storms out of his meditation. By touching the ground, the Buddha called up the Earth Goddess who drowned Mara and his demons. His right hand is covered in tiny squares of gold leaf placed there by worshippers honouring Buddha in hope of merit. I went so early that I had the temple to my self until the ground staff and security arrived. It wasn't until almost 10 O'Clock before the first major tour parties arrived to break the spell of tranquility. That was when I chose to leave, only to be swamped by hundreds of cycling Thai teenagers who peddled brightly coloured pink and yellow bicycles passed the ice cream seller without a pause, screeched to a halt at the end of the parking lot and proceeded to charge towards the Mandapa in a hail of shouts and laughter. At least one Sukhothai bicycle hire shop was clearly doing good business today.

Orchid Hibiscus, Sukhothai

2009-01-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

Orchid Hibiscus Gardens

We have spent our six nights visiting Sukhothai Historical Park at the aptly named Orchid Hibiscus Guesthouse. Orchids and other flowers brighten the beautifully landscaped gardens within which the rooms and bungalows are set.

In front of one of the rooms

Oval Orchid swimming pool

The OH is a bit of a price step-up for us at 800 baht for a double room, which is way more than our usual 200-300 baht on this trip. But is is worth it. The only guesthouse in Old Sukhothai below 1200 baht that has a pool. A decent-sized oval pool with lots of space for yoga at that. Most guesthouses are at New Sukhothai 15km away which is useless when you are getting up for the dawn light. By staying in Old Sukhothai we can both easily cycle to the ruins when we like. The gardens and pool are an ideal place to relax during the heat and flat light of the middle of the day. There are a couple of budget guesthouses in Old Sukhothai too, so if you want to see the ruins it is much more convenient to take a tuk-tuk from the bus station in New Sukhothai straight to the Old and find a place next to the Historical Park.

Paolo & Pinthong

We certainly recommend OH to anyone on a mid-range budget. As well as the 800 baht doubles there are 1200 baht family bungalows. All are around and in a beautiful garden, the rooms are nicely decorated and the owners – Paolo and Pinthong – are incredibly friendly without being in your face. They lay on an expansive breakfast of eggs, toast, jam and marmalade and wild honey still in its comb and served on a bamboo stick. Breakfast can easily continue for an hour and is best eaten after an early visit to the ruins. You will need to cycle plenty to work it off. The service is impeccable – any question or problem immediately rectified without fuss. All the staff are friendly and efficient, even to the point of moving your drying washing into the sun if you forget. The garden is maintained every day and the whole place is immaculately clean. There are an outdoor jacuzzi for use at 300 baht a person, and a couple of chilling areas with bamboo hammocks and wooden benches. They also have mopeds to hire and recommend a bicycle hire place that will come and collect your bike the morning after you’ve finished with it so that you don’t have to think about returning it yourself.

Part of the Orchid breakfast

Outdoor jacuzzi

Go on, treat yourself if you plan to visit Sukhothai.

Teak Town

2009-01-10T07:51:00.000-08:00

Say a little Phrae for you

One of many Buddha images in a Phrae wat

We moved on south from Chiang Rai and the tranquillity of the Akha Hill House on Wednesday 7th January. Our next major destination was Sukhothai with the ruins of the 12th-15th century Thai capital. We decided not to bash on down the road in one 7 – 8 hour bus journey but to stopover midway at the small town of Phrae, pronounced Prayer. We were attracted to the guidebook description of a walled town comprising mostly traditional Thai teak houses, a scattering of historical wats and a place rarely visited by tourists. Phrae sounded like a town away from the main tourist hotspots that might give us an insight into normal Thai life. Another attraction was the promise of a vegetarian restaurant, which we decided we would head for as soon as we checked-in to our hotel. This was something of a departure for us because we rarely head for any guidebook listed restaurants, usually just wandering out to find a night market or street food stalls.

Another thing about the non-tourist towns is that they tend not to have backpacker or other visitor guesthouses which means the chance to stay in a normal hotel. We checked into the Paradorn, a typical Thai business hotel with dozens of rooms on three soulless corridors, because an ensuite room was going to be about 300 baht and they advertised free wifi. This is where I am now, having just skyped friends in UK over the din of the late night karaoke from the adjacent Japanese Steak House. The over-ampilifed hits of yesteryear and flat crooning of a group of Thais is a bit of s shock after the total nighttime peace and quiet of the Akha Hill House.

We have just reeled back to the hotel totally stuffed after going crazy in Yota Vegetarian Restaurant - complete vegetarian heaven – for the second night in a row. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we walked in to the restaurant on our the first to find a buffet of dishes that were all veggie versions of the many Thai dishes we have so often seen but not been able to eat in the night markets we’ve visited. They may still be talking about the greedy farangs who had two rice plates each piled with three dishes each, four big, fat spring rolls, and a serving of mock duck with hoisan sauce. I’ve only seen mock duck and mock chicken sliced and in tins but here it was displayed as large wads of the stuff, next to the mock beef, mock fish and mock hotdogs. Every dish we tried was absolutely delicious, and we must have got through 75% of what was on offer. We baulked at the latter and the mock tripe with boiled eggs in oily gravy. We left with full bellies and plans, happily fulfilled, for our return visit the next night.

In between stuffing ourselves at Yota’s we walked around compact Phrae for a day, calling in to all the old wats and a birthday-cake pink historical wooden house called Vongburi.

A gable end glitters in the morning sun

The wats in Phrae are worth a day to visit. They are all traditional wooden temples with dark red painted columns, tiled roofs, beautiful glittering gold and coloured glass gable ends and golden Buddhas. Architecturally, they are northern Thai Lanna and Nan styles as well as Burmese and Lao. Northern Thai wats tend to go in for very elaborate yet graceful entrances. Like the old wats of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, each temple has its own personality. One very dark wat becomes brightly illuminated like a fairground organ in the late afternoon when the monk arrives to receive and bless evening observants. Another is a monk university and cagey groups of 20-something orange-robed monks can be found after classes hanging around the gates in groups and clouds of cigarette smoke or poring over manga comics.

MangaMonk

Akha Hill House

2009-01-07T05:54:00.001-08:00

A village guesthouse in the tribal mountains of north-east Thailand

Akha Hill House

The view from grew increasingly wild as Tao our driver wound the pick-up truck out of Chiang Rai, first skirting along the side of the surging Mae Kok River then climbing up a steep dirt road deep into the hills. Our destination was a tiny Akha hill village perched on the side of a hill 25km west of Chiang Rai. Here one of the villagers has managed a small guesthouse for 18 years. The Akha Hill House was the brainchild of Mr Apae; a way of bringing some much-needed income to an area that had traditionally earned a living growing opium poppies. The guesthouse was founded as a homestay at the same time that the Thai government was creating projects to substitute opium with other crops, such as tea and lychees. The business has flourished ever since, attracting backpackers, families and more affluent tourists from Thailand as well as abroad. It really is a guesthouse these days. If you arrive expecting to live and stay with a family, learning about their daily lives, then you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you are looking for a peaceful mountain retreat that is the sole business of one Akha family and helps to cascade income to neighbouring families then the Hill House is unlikely to let you down.

A very happy Mr Apae

The road culminates in a series of tight bends through bamboo forests before threading its way past an oolong tea plantation where rows of dark-green low bushes march uphill in regular file. Delicate flowers the colour of fried eggs brighten the dark lustre of the leaves which are destined to be dried and exported to the tea-drinking markets of the world. A bamboo sign across the road proclaims our arrival at the Akha Hill House. To either side are slopes that descend down to narrow, forested gullies cut by mountain streams, the rush of water over boulders creating a musical score to the view back down the road we have come along. Bamboo, bananas, lychee bushes and natural forest shroud hills crowding in to either side of a long valley. A range of mountains forms the distant backdrop.

The view from our room with a view

Elevated bamboo and mud-brick bungalows, each with a terrace out front, are carefully placed to make the most of this tropical mountain view. You could picture the pandas chewing on young bamboo shoots, except this isn’t China and at only 1,500 metres above sea level it is probably too low for China’s iconic animal to bother itself with. As we discovered the next morning, the bungalows are also perfectly located to allow each guest to catch sunrise right from their bed if they are prepared to open the door. The more enthusiastic early risers can turn the mountain valley into the ideal foreground for stunning sunrise photographs.

Johun, an apprentice at Akha Hill House concentrates on his English

The guesthouse offers a free pick-up ride from Chiang Rai which arrives at about 5.30pm, so before the delights of sunrise there is the evening fire to enjoy. Guests and staff, foreign, Thai and Akha, gather around the fire to warm themselves against the freshening night chill and swap stories. Mr Apae employs a number of apprentices who are setting up their own homestays in other Akha villages and he encourages them to both improve their own English and teach some Thai with the foreign guests. We were soon learning about Akha culture and the attractions of the surrounding region as well as the Thai words for fire and wood. The apprentices also learn about community tourism through practical experience that includes leading tours and managing the restaurant. Johun is an enthusiastic 24 year-old plant sciences graduate who leads all-day walks where he describes agricultural and jungle plants. Later in 2009 he plans to open a small homestay in his village close to the Myanmar border and is currently working out how to create a website. It looks like he is keen to model himself on Mr Apae’s success.

The guesthouse offers a menu of typical Thai dishes sprinkled with a few Akha specialities such as banana tree soup and chilli paste in which to dip boiled vegetables. Staff and most guests make their way to bed by 10.00pm and then you are left to enjoy the chorus of the night sung by crickets, cicadas and frogs under the stars and moon.

A banana flower creates its fruit

Mr Apae provides a range of treks and activities, none of which are pushed or promoted to you while staying at the guesthouse. Should you wish to find out more, all you need to do is ask Mr Apae who will sit with you and go through what he has on offer. Most guests do one of two treks. One is a walk into the jungle to learn about jungle and local crops, try your hand at fishing in a stream, cook lunch in bamboo and visit a nearby waterfall that contains an impressive force of water even in the dry season. Another trip to an elephant camp, oolong tea plantation and hot springs can be done by a combination of foot, car and long-tail boat.

Strolling to the waterfall, just a 15 minute walk from the guesthouse

The way to the waterfall

Some guests do what we did, hang out on their terrace and wander around the local area. Over three days we slowly made our own way to the waterfall, tea plantation and hot springs, none of which were more than 5km away and all were accessible along well-maintained paths. We walked through forests of tall trees, stands of bamboo as well as plantations of bananas and lychee trees. On the way we wandered through the village, browsing handicraft shops set up by enterprising families and encouraged by Mr Apae, and a nearby Chinese village populated by descendents of the remnants of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalists who fled China when the Communists took control in 1949. Here we found a small roadside vegetarian café selling som tam, the ubiquitous Thai green papaya salad, and noodles with mushrooms and tofu. The owner was keen to teach us the Thai words for ingredients and different varieties of chilli condiments but I’m afraid we seem to have ultimately failed to pass our exams.

Making som tam

Oolong tea plantation

We bumped into one group retuning from a tour and were invited to share oolong tea and cherry wine with them. Another day, a Sunday, while looking for the village shop, which was closed, we were invited to sample the local vodka by a friend of the shop owner as they drank away the afternoon. I also spent a relaxing hour or so in the guesthouse sauna during our last evening, warming myself to steam infused with blood vine, a very medicinal smelling local herb, which is pumped into a small bamboo and mud-brick hot room. Afterwards I enjoyed the subtle flavour of banana tree and coconut soup while frogs proclaimed their territories or sexual prowess in the gully below.

Pouring the local oolong

We spent three days, four nights at the Akha Hill House in a 350 baht bungalow with en-suite hot water shower and toilet. Rooms with shared bathrooms in the main building are available for 200 baht but you don’t get the stunning views. Bungalows go progressively upmarket to 1,500 baht VIP set-ups which come with TV, a strange necessity in such a tranquil setting. The free pick-up leaves Chiang Rai bus station at 4.30pm each day and can collect you from your hotel. It returns to Chiang Rai at 9.30am where Tao spends the day meeting foreigners arriving in the city by bus. A more delightful tout you couldn’t hope to meet. You can also get to the guest house along the river from either Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai. The boat pier is 5km from the guesthouse at the bottom of the steep dirt road but if you ring ahead they will collect you.

And the local puppies didn't wake up for much

Wat to do in Chiang Rai

2009-01-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

On the trail of the temples of Chiang Rai

The orange-robed monk greeted me in soft, measured English. He had just gently closed the massive, dark red teak doors of the temple behind him and carefully put on his sandals waiting for him on the steps. An umbrella hung by its handle from the crook of his left arm.

‘Where are you from?’

England I replied with a smile and short bow of the head to show respect.
‘Do you know the meaning of the doors?’

I didn’t and was glad of the opportunity to find out something about the history of Wat Phra Singh, the first of Chiang Rai’s five ancient temples I was planning to visit over the next two days. His voice was so calming that I quickly felt a feeling of tranquillity wash over me as he pointed to the four carvings of animals that towered above our heads. One door was decorated with a lion that represented fire and an elephant for earth. The other door bore mythical Buddhist creatures, a Garuda, which symbolised air and a many-headed serpent-like Naga that was water. All of these, the monk explained, form the four elements that are inside us all. He gestured that he had to go. 'Hope to see you again,' he said as he left.

One of Chiang Rai's many golden Buddha images

Chiang Rai is a historic city that lies in the far north-east of Thailand. It sits on the edge of a flat plain at the foothills of the mountain range that forms the border with Myanmar and Laos. As the mountains rise to the north-east there lies the infamous Golden Triangle where once most of the world’s opium poppies were grown by hill tribes. Now the poppies have all but gone, replaced with tea, lychees and others crops promoted by the Thai government and the UN.

Three Buddhas

We visited between Christmas and New Year, when it seems that nearly half of Bangkok has decamped on holiday to eat in the Night Bazaar and pray in the temples known in Thai as wats. There are five historic temples in the town, each with a wooden hall inside a square compound. Most Thais visit all of them over two or three days. To sit or stand in a temple, where everyone is welcome, is to watch the Thais combine tourism and devotion in one visit. Small family groups shake off their flip-flops, trainers and shoes at the door, approach the Buddha statue to pray on their knees then take photos of each other in front of the Buddha.

Wat Phra Singh

A monk given a blessing in Chiang Rai

Wat Phra Singh is known for its old doors and a statue of the Buddha in the style of the kings of Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam until the Burmese sacked it the 18th century. Nearby is Wat Phra Kaew, perhaps the most important of the city’s temples to Thais. It was here in 1434 that lightning struck the hall, splitting open the resident Buddha statue to reveal a smaller Buddha ornately carved from a single piece of jade. The original travelled across the region before settling in the main temple hall of the King in Bangkok. A replica on display in Wat Phra Kaew draws thousands of pilgrims every day. There is also an excellent museum that explains the symbolism and purpose of objects used in the temples such as trays, bowls and candlesticks as well as some of the temples’ architectural elements. The Buddha statues in main hall are unusual in being carved from burnished wood rather than golden.

Outside Wat Phra Kaew

Wat Jet Yot is near the Night Bazaar and is really only notable for astrological paintings on its ceiling. Two wats are sat on top of two small hills to the west of the city; approached by paths lined by snaking dragon sculptures. Wat Ngam Meuang’s claim to fame is a shrine to King Mengrai, the 13th century monarch who founded Chiang Rai in 1262 AD to be his capital. His statue is garlanded with flowers and, somewhat unusually, small plastic toy elephants. A short walk along a quiet wooded road leads to the hilltop Wat Phrat That Doi Chom Thong which has a fine view of sunset across the distant hills and a very old chedi that locals claim as built in 940 AD despite Chiang Rai not being founded for another 300 years. It was fro this hill that King Mengrai surveyed the site for his new city.

King Mengrai

The view from Wat Phrat That Doi Chom Thong

I returned to Wat Phra Singh twice but sadly I never saw the umbrella wielding soft-spoken monk again. What I did was to look at the temple doors with a deeper understanding, turning the ornate carvings from mere pretty decorations to symbols of Buddhism belief.

Chian House, Chiang Rai

2009-01-04T04:08:00.001-08:00

Chian House
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

Another guest house with a swimming pool. Though the colder mountain climate of Chiang Rai made a dip enticing for only a very brief time during the hottest time of the day.

Chian House wasn't in the usual rash of guide books last time we looked. It should be. For 200 baht you get a good size ensuite double room with hot shower and a large bed set in one of the buildings around a courtyard. The owner and staff are extremely friendly and helpful. As well as the transient guests, there is a decent population of ex-pats and Thais who often gather in a semi-private area each evening to chat. The food is cheap and plentiful, though the green curry was disappointingly bland. There are also an internet computer, bikes and mopeds to rent, a small library and a TV with cable for those in need of foreign language programmes.

The restaurant and pool area is a great place for a leisurely breakfast, afternoon rest with a book or an evening when you need to put your feet up rather than explore the excellent Chiang Rai Nigh Bazaar.

Changing Years in Chiang Rai

2009-01-04T03:36:00.001-08:00

Spending time in the Night Bazaar

Thai Dancers entertain the diners in the Night Bazaar

Chiang Rai is in many ways the Newcastle of Thailand. It is right up there in the far north-east corner, located on the bank of a major river with hills in the near distance. A chill wind blows from the north in the winter and a market is the main nightly drinking venue. There, the similarities end. The river was never a centre of shipbuilding, the chill wind brings down evening temperatures to maybe 12 or 15 degrees centigrade and the Night Bazaar is a far cry from the alcopop-strewn excesses of the Toon's Bigg Market. Thais and farangs flock to the Bazaar in their thousands but no one shouts, no one throws up on the pavement and there are absolutely no gangs of women teetering in high-heels and very little else.

One of the many food stalls in the Night Bazaar

Dining out at the Night Bazaar

The Night Bazaar is, in fact, a place for culture and as well as shopping, drinking and eating, a sort-of refined Camden Market or small urban festival. The core of the market is a stage flanked on two sides by rows of small eateries selling everything from stir-fries, Thai curries and beer, to tempura, fish, Indian curries and fruit shakes. The eateries corral a vast open eating area of yellow tables and chairs that are almost all permanently inhabited by groups of young and old. Many have ceramic pots above charcoal burners full of dark liquids brought to their tables for them to dip pork, fish or vegetables. The stage reverberates to an ever-chaning though seemingly always over-amplified sequence of comperes, singers, musicians, dances, comedians and drag artists. Some Thais laugh along to the comperes and comedians - but not very often. We met John Muir, a friend from Sheffield, in Chiang Rai on the 30th December 2008. John had just flown in for a two-week holiday in Thailand and Laos. We checked out the Night Bazaar for food on our first night in the city. The day after we began celebrating New Year's Eve in the Bazaar too, beginning with fruit shakes before moving on to a restaurant for dinner. John then left on New Year's Day to go to Laos.

Some of the evocatively named dishes on offer in the Night Bazaar

A somewhat Zen-like approach to food menus can be found in the Night Bazaar. The moustache is tiny squid roasts and The meatballs fries, enter the wood sound more like wise sayings of Confucius rather than a few dishes. I think it is the use of English grammar that evokes a philosophical nature. Perhaps the last dish on the menu actually translates as fried meatballs on a skewer?

Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra

The stage is only one of three in the Night Bazaar. A little stage in a corner features perfomances by the Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra. A smaller stage in another open-air piazza hosts the same artists as the main stage on alternating rotation, so you can catch your favourites or not avoid the bad 'uns twice - depending on your luck. This stage features a decent restaurant under a wide-canopied tree, a beautiful setting though the food varies from good to average. Fortunately, a mad waiter sporting a mullet speaks very good English to facilitate ordering from the extensive menu.

All around are stalls selling. Clothes and handicrafts are the main items on sale. Whether it is the latest street fashion or second hand trousers, or the typical range of Thai handwoven textiles and multi-coloured tribal hats, the Night Bazaar has probably has something to tempt your wallet or purse. There is also a speciality green tea stall and one of the funkiest shoe shops I've seen. All-in-all, there is enough to keep you in the Nigh Bazaar for a couple of hours and to make it a regular nightly haunt.

Chiang Rai day market

Happy Marketeers celebrate the end of the day shift

As well as visiting the Night Bazaar, we called in at a number of historical temples sprinkled through the town like golden fairy dust. More on these in another post. There is also a great day market for fresh fruit and veg, where we found a group of stallholders dancing and singing while packing up for the day on New Year's Eve. The annual Flower Festival was being held on Chiang Rai beach so we took one of the many long-tail boats that were ferrying people to the festival. We only had a short time because we were being picked up to go to the Akha Hill House later that day, so we concentrated on the displays of orchids having never seen so many in one place before.

When we came across a host of purple orchids

Chiang Rai is a very attractive small city because it is one of the few major centres in Thailand which is fairly tranquil. The streets are pretty quiet away from the town centre and there is very little noise at night. The suburbs, what there are, are very lowrise and wooded, with some big old rainforest trees left marooned in gardens and roadsides. Overall, if you want ro find a laidback Thai town then Chiang Rai is worth checking out.

Expecting A Shower

Moustache Squid Dish

2009-01-02T04:39:00.001-08:00

Moustache Squid Dish
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

A somewhat Zen-like approach to food menus. The moustache is tiny squid roasts and The meatballs fries, enter the wood sound more like wise sayings or riddles than a few dishes. I think it is the use of English grammar that evokes a philosophical nature. Perhaps the last dish on the menu actually translates as fried meatballs on a skewer?

Once More Through Bangkok

2008-12-29T03:14:00.001-08:00

We arrived yesterday, the 28th, from Trat once more into Bangkok. This is our fourth stopover in the capital as we travel across Thailand. This time we are here overnight and are about to leave in a couple of hours on a night bus to Chiang Mai. You usually do have to pass through Bangkok to travel to different parts of the country. We also had a couple of important jobs to do.

First was a regular antenatal check-up which we successfully had today at the Seventh Day Adventist Mission Hospital, a private hospital not far from the Democracy Monument. The high-class private hospital made the whole process incredibly easy with friendly, efficient English speaking staff.

Then I went off to buy a replacement Nikon lens for one I damaged earlier in Kanchanaburi. I spent most of the afternoon trying to find a basic 18-55 DX VR at a cheaper price than in the UK but it ended up costing about £40 more. Somewhat ironic given that Nikon lenses are actually made in Thailand!

Snorkelling off the Elephant

2008-12-28T06:05:00.001-08:00

Koh Chang coral reefs

Our two and half weeks on Koh Chang and Koh Whai came to an end on the 27th December. There are many ways to fill up your time on these islands. Taking a walk along a beach, getting around to a breakfast of fresh fruit, rattling through a few chapters of a book. Everything you do seems to expand to fill the time available so that a small event can feel like a major accomplishment.

We spent a lot of time in the water and most of that was snorkelling. I probably did more snorkelling that just about all my previous snorkelling trips put together. This was largely because of being able to snorkel right off the beach. We both took at least one opportunity each day to take under water. I often swam three times a day for 1 to 2 hours, gauging how long i was out by how wrinkled my fingers became. We also took a fantastic trip with BB Divers, out of Bang Bao, to Koh Raum. The trip wa ostensibly a diving trip but three of us went along to snorkel. There was a guide available for us, but the water was so clear and calm, and the amazing reefs so close to the boat that we simply went off on our own.

A forest of Staghorn Coral

We have seen plenty of different types of coral and sea life between us. Hard corals include large expanses of staghorn corals, more pert chysanthymum and carnation formations, brain corals, flat plate-like corals and large coral mounds with undulating surfaces. We have also seen some rounded soft corals and individual crinoid-like corals waving their floral tentacles while secured by a hard coral tube. Sometimes brightly coloured Christmas Tree Worms and Clams can be found within the coral, having burrowed into the hard mounds below the coral's surface to find a home. Both filter feed on plankton floating by but have developed very different public faces to do so.

Christmas Tree Worms

Clams

I keep forgetting to look into a dark cracks between the rich display of coral colours, and it is in these gaps that some of the interesting sea life keep themselves hidden. We have seen an octopus, a moray eel and a baby sting ray betwee na dunder the corals. I also followed a pulsating rainbow cuttlefish across the sand and watched entranced by a small crayfish clearing out its burrow, throwing sand past its guardian fish on look out duty. I always enjoy spotting a chimney sponge reaching up from the deeper water.

A Brown Chimney Sponge smiles for the camera

There have been many, many fish to swim with, far too many to know the names of. One of my favourites is the anenome fish which can resist the poison in the sea anenome's tentacles to use the anenome as a hiding place. It peeks from behind tentacles and tentatively swims out, while always keeping close to the anenome, with a nervous curiousity. It makes a clicking noise every time you bob close to it on the current.

A pink anenome fish sneaks a peak from behind an anenome

Pink anenome fish getting curious in front of a sea anenome

We certainly recommend BB Divers to anyone interested in diving or snorkelling off Koh Chang. You can find out more info on their website - http://www.bbdivers.com - or by email - bbdivers@gmail.com. And where does the elephant come into snorkelling? Chang is Thai for elephant.

Sugar Cane 2, Kanchanaburi

2008-12-18T06:47:00.001-08:00

Sugar Cane is a pleasant mostly quiet place on the riverside about 10 minutes walk from the Bridge. I say mostly because the karaoke and party boats do ply the river from town to the bridge, passing the guesthouse. These are largely amusing diversions. However, we were in Kanchancaburi during the Bridge Week, which means many more boat-fulls of partying Thais and Farangs each night. There was also a lot of volume coming over from the fairground stage until about 1am. None of this really disturbed us though.

The guesthouse riverside platform. Great for morning yoga, afternoon sunsets and evening fireworks!

The little rooms with fan and bathroom were 200 baht a night and decent enough. The walls could have been cleaned, especially of the ancient splashes of toothpaste above the basin. The restaurant was good. The owner was very nice and four teenage girls, two organised and friendly, two pretty feckless, ran the place. A really nice guy was there for overnight security too. The girls even waved us off as we left.

Though the rooms are pretty small, and in that no smaller than most backpacker standard rooms or bungalows, they are en-suite which makes a difference for a longish visit. The guesthouse is arranged around a rectangular space which is part garden but mostly a gravel parking area. The Bamboo House, closer to the Bridge, has a much nicer and well-planned garden. The river-view restaurant produces good Thai food at reasonable prices and there is a metal platform over the river with a view of sunset and the Bridge. We saw the nearing of the moon, Venus and Jupiter from this platform in advance of the Sky Smile on the 1^st December.

Kanchanaburi

2008-12-09T21:24:00.001-08:00

We stayed at Kanchanaburi for two weeks, with a two-night visit to Erawan National Park in the middle. We have also published some thoughts on our Guest House, Sugar Cane 2.

We shouldn’t have even been at Kanchanaburi for this period because we had planned to be on Koh Whai for a few weeks after Ayutthaya. We even travelled to Trat, the nearest town to the pier for Koh Whai, but continual winds made the crossing uncertain. We travelled to the pier when we were told the boat was running only to find that strong winds were making the sea too rough for the speedboat. The forecast of a monsoon coming in from Vietnam encouraged us to head to Kanchanaburi early and let the weather calm down on the east coast. Given how much we did in Kanchanaburi and around in terms of cycling and hiking, this was certainly a good move as it would have been much harder for Georgia to be so active later in her pregnancy.

Kanchanaburi is in-effect four separate towns. There is the Thai town itself, typical in being built-up, polluted and noisy. This is where the bus station is found, along with a small night market, day market, the Allied War Cemetery and Thai Burma Railway Centre. The river beside the town forms a town in its own right, comprising restaurants, bars and the pier for the infamous karaoke boats. There is also the JEATH War Museum which is in the grounds of an interesting Buddhist temple. This area was the original backpacker locale a couple decades ago. Further towards the Bridge there is the current foreign tourist strip along a road running between the river and the main road. It is a combination of low-end and mid-range guest houses, mostly set on the river, with numerous roadside bars, restaurants, internet centres, Thai massage parlours, pharmacies, moped and bicycle rentals and bookshops, along with the ubiquitous 7-Eleven, lining the road. This is the place for 50 baht beers and the chance to meet other tourists. When we were there, most bars were sporting perhaps one to three foreigners, most of them sipping their beers in silence. This could be a sign of the worldwide economic downturn and preceded the airport blockade. Many of the tourists on view are male and heavy on skinheads, tattoos and younger female Thai partners. We guess that most of the large numbers of tourists we saw at the Bridge itself eat and drink in their guesthouses or hotels. The fourth town is where we stayed. This was a quieter area of bars and hotels on the same road as the main tourist strip. Everything is more spaced out, creating a semi-rural feel, and frequented by a mix of Thais and foreigners. Here are a series of large open-air bars where beers are more expensive at 100 baht a bottle, but for this you get beautiful wooded gardens, many lit by lanterns in the trees, that are set back from the road, some very tight live house bands, and waitresses on hand to keep your glass filled with that 100 baht beer whenever you’re in danger of reaching the bottom of your glass. Strangely the food on offer is little more expensive than that in the roadside bars further back towards the main town. One bar in particular, called the Resort, was where we found ourselves drinking when we went out at night. The double-priced beers were worth it given that I was usually only having one a night and Georgia wasn’t drinking at all. If you’re on for a few bottles you might prefer the economy of the tourist bars, but for that you have to put up with pollution and a less salubrious environment. We were happy to pay the extra, which would could a whole lot more in the UK for the equivalent level of quality. The Bridge is in easy walking distance from this area which is great because you get to pass some good food vendors on the street, including one of the main purveyors of quail’s egg wantons.

Bangkok City-Break

2008-12-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

The King and I

Demon of the Royal Palace

Lotuses in Jim Thompson's Garden

We are back in Bangkok for the weekend. We’re passing through on our way to Trat and the islands in the eastern Gulf of Thailand. An overnight stop makes the long journey from western to eastern Thailand bearable. Two nights and we have time to see a couple of our favourite places from our time in Bangkok in 2004. These are Jim Thompson’s House and the Grand Palace with Wat Phra Kaew.

Standing in Jim Thompson's Garden behind his House

Jim Thompson was an international man of mystery. He came to Thailand to help liberate it from the Japanese at the end of WW2 but the war ended before he arrived so he worked in the region for the precursor of the CIA. On retirement he stayed in Bangkok where he helped to revive the silk industry and built a beautiful house out of five traditional Thai teak houses, furnished with Thai and Chinese antiques and surrounded it with a tame and cool jungle garden. This was 1959. Eight years later he went missing during a walk in Malaysia, never to be seen again. His house is an elegant legacy to Thai style and his own tastes.

Golden statue in Wat Phra Kaew

The Grand Palace was the home of the Kings of Thailand until recently. This massive walled sanctuary in the centre of old Bangkok is now the major tourist attraction in town. The ridges of elegant traditional steeply pitched red-tiled Thai roofs break the skyline one after the other. They compete with technicolour prangs and golden chedis to dazzle with their gold and enamel splendour. There can be few places in the world with such sumptuous architecture that renders the art of the most beautiful handwoven silks into wood, stone and clay.

Wat Demons?

The jewelled highlight of the Palace is the Royal Temple – Wat Phra Kaew. Westminster Abbey falls into the Wats deep shadow by comparison, little more than a dusty parish church next to an eruption of rubies, sapphires, emeralds and gold. Multi-hued enamel-coated demons hold up towering prangs next to the three wats that are giant jewellery boxes turned inside out. The gorgeous serene faces of mythical creatures that are half-bird and half-woman stalk the terraces in between. The Emerald Buddha, a jade statue, sits high up on a golden mound of lotus buds and attracts Thai pilgrims to pray at its feet at the very spiritual heart of the Thai Kingdom.

Ramakian Monkey

Sitting with Queen Sita

This exquisite world of make believe is enclosed within four walls on which the story of the Ramayama, known as the Ramakian in Thailand, is rendered in gold leaf pictures that together must form one of the largest figurative paintings in the world. The skill of the craftsmanship, the ornate detail, the epic scale of the story and sheer size re breathtaking. Stroll around the cool cloisters in front of this work and behold a tapestry of colour that makes the Bayeux Tapestry look like a well-stiched hankerchief. The dazzling art and architecture will hold you through the heat and beyond hunger to be refreshed and fed by splendour meant for the minds of kings.

Restoring the Ramakian

Skewered to Eat

2008-12-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

Skewered to Eat
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

Wanting Quails’ Egg Wantons

My latest Thai food craze is Quials’ egg wantons. We first discovered them in Kanchanaburi on the many fried food street vendors stalls. Most of the time when walking down street lined with food vendors there is no point in us looking at them. Invariably everything is meat or fish. Skewer of five or six fat-coated pork balls are a ubiquitous Thai delicacy. As are squares of processed fish that on first glance looks temptingly like tofu. Delicious wanton parcels hide chicken and pork, again. Less attractive are slashed shiny hot dogs. All are served dipped in pots of various chilli sauces, some with fish and prawns, others light and dark red sweet chilli. Racks and rack of skewers shove food in your face of no use to the vegetarian because of the three commandments of Thai food – thou shall eat chicken, fish and pork.

The thing is, we would really love to be able to join in the Thai love for grazing skewered snacks with chilli sauce. Vegetable spring rolls are a rarity mostly confined to tourist ghettos and tempura is totally absent from the streets. The discovery that some of the yellow crispy rice batter of wantons concealed quails’ eggs was like waking up on Christmas Day to discover that amongst all those presents with other peoples’ names on were some for you after all. We could join in the party at last!

I have never had quails eggs in Britain. A bit too much of a costly luxury. But at 10 baht for a skewer of five, which works out at about 20 pence given the plummeting pound, it was time to discover and indulge, which did mean overlooking the living conditions of the quails. I'm usually very strict to only have free range organic eggs in the UK except when going out for the occasional fried breakfast.

And yes, I did want the hot chilli sauce please, despite being a farang. Darker and hotter the better.

Kayak Down the River Kwai

2008-12-08T05:50:00.000-08:00

After enjoying our canoe journey down the River Macal in Belize last year, in fact juat about the same time last year, we decided to do the same down the Kwai. We hired a two-person kayak from Safarine, one of three tour companies offering kayak trips and rentals in Kanchanaburi. We mainly went with them because a, they were closest to our guest house and b, we had been recommended them by four lively retired Poles who we had met the first weekend in town when they reached shore at our guesthouse after a 400km journey down the River. The four men with huge appetites for alcohol, food and conversation after living on rations and with their own company for 12 days all live in Melbourne. We decided on something a bit more manageable. We were dropped off about 12km upstream at 11am and told to land the kayak at the Chinese Temple. The Safarine guide estimated it would take us about 3 hours.

The Kwai is not sluggish but we were paddling into a head wind which meant that at times we had to make something of an effort. Mostly, it was very plain going and was no where as strenuous as canoeing the shingle shallows and still deeps of the Macal. We passed between woodland, bamboo, fields as well as some very top-end luxury river resorts and architect-designed private houses. The River Kwai is clearly a play ground for the better off of Thai society.

A floating karaoke bar

After about two hours we were beginning to flag. We realised that out chances of finding a place to pull in and have lunch were diminished by most of the resorts being curiously closed. No sign of life emanated across manicured lawns or from tethered floating restaurants. Each place we passed was as quiet as a holiday resort in mindwinter, despite December being the start of the dry season and our trip taking place on a Friday which was the King’s Birthday and therefore a public holiday. Kanchanaburi had filled over the previous night with young Thais making the most of a long weekend. Upstream and upmarket was all empty hotels and proverbial tumbleweed.

We then spotted movement on one set of floating restaurants and made straight for it, hoping it was sign of life. Then we saw the sign – the Duneshine. This was Kanchanaburi’s longest established luxury resort, one we had passed the week before on bicycles and had been entertained by their brightly lit floating restaurants passing our guesthouse on weekend evenings. Our eyes lit up as we pulled the kayak on to the river bank, walked through the landscaped grounds and discovered their was restaurant was open. Glass noodle salad and noodles wrapped in an omelette refreshed us for what we knew now to be the last few kilometres back to Kanchanaburi.

We passed below the Bridge Over the River Kwai within the hour, drifted past our guesthouse like the many karaoke boats had done every night and spotted the distinctive pagoda of the Chines Temple above the trees. Our micro adventurette was over, during which we had treat ourselves to a good lunch at a luxury hotel.

Chinese Temple to starboard bow

Death Railway

2008-12-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

Through the Thai mountains across the Bridge of Sighs.

Bridge Over the River Kwai

One of the biggest draws for visitors to Kanchanaburi is the Bridge Over the River Kwai. This World War 2 railway bridge, built in Thailand by tens of thousands of Asian workers and Allied POWs under Japanese control, has become symbolic of the cruel treatment of prisoners in the 1940s. Thousands died during the railway’s construction. It is the British war film starring Alec Guinness, which has perhaps transported the bridge to this height. The film is an icon of the British stiff-upper-lip and courage in the face of appalling odds. Bizarrely a Frenchman wrote the novel that the film is based on.

The bridge is a somewhat small piece of engineering to carry such a heavy historical load. The building of the Death Railway, or Thailand-Burma Railway, as it is known is encapsulated in seven iron girder spans, each a little taller than head height. It lives up to the weighty expectations placed on its sturdy concrete pillars, ensuring that the history is not forgotten while those with memories of the events fade away.

The Bridge is just one small part of the railway that runs through more than 400km of hazardous mountain jungle. According to contemporary accounts it was a relatively easy part of the construction project. Easy here is certainly relative. The easy part compares to most people’s idea of immense suffering with the ever-present threat of beatings, diseases, malnutrition and death. The rest of the railway line got harder the further into the mountains it went. Today, you can still travel as far as Nam Tok, about 60km into the hills, and in doing so cross original wooden trestles holding the line onto the side of a vertical cliff above the river. This is the main photo opportunity for tourists riding the line.

Wooden trestles still survive to hold the railway line on to the side of a cliff above the River Kwai

The Railway was built by the Imperial Japanese Army to create a land route from Thailand to Burma, the two countries being separated by a high mountain range. The sea route around the Malay Peninsula was prone to attacks by Allied battleships. They knew it would be a difficult feat of engineering because of the inaccessible terrain. This prohibited the use of heavy machinery resulting in the line being built totally by hand – picks, shovels and dynamite. All materials were carried in by foot and mule until the track began to be laid at the working railhead could be reached via the track.

Riding the Line

While the Bridge is the main ‘attraction’, you can’t move far in Kanchanaburi without coming across evidence and memories of the suffering endured by slave workers on the Death Railway. As well as the bridge and railway line, there are two large Allied War Cemeteries, the excellent interpretation of the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre, the JEATH War Museum which was commissioned by the Abbot of the Buddhist monastery in which it stands and features reconstructions of bamboo prison huts hosting a photographic exhibition, and a memorial erected to the dead by the Japanese in 1944.

Chungkai Allied War Cemetery

Kanchanaburi Allied War Cemetery

Estimates put the total number of deaths of slave workforce at about 100,00, most of who were Asian workers lured to the line by lies of paid jobs, and about 16,000 allied POWs. The all-powerful advancing Japanese Army had captured most of the POWs during their rapid onslaught in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. By far the most POWs came from Britain, taken prisoner soon after arriving in Singapore when it inevitably fell to the Japanese. Large numbers of Dutch were captured in Indonesia. The deaths of so many of these captives building the railway have become one of the most enduring stories of World War 2.

Some of the most touching moments of visiting places associated with the railway include seeing the blank eyes of POWs stare out from black and white photos, their shrunken bodies displaying ribs. Walking around the cemeteries you are struck by the ages of the men who died, so many in their early 20s, and the way that deaths cluster on certain runs of days, presumably when conditions or work rate became extremely terrible. One story that lodges in the heart is of the man who’s father survived years of captivity to return home, conceive two children then die of aggressive hypertension. The bravery of doctors who treat sick men with primitive equipment made from borrowed and improvised materials and almost no drugs comes to the fore again and again.

These stories of brutality, suffering and of the personal strength of those who tried to live through are mere glimpses into a past of unimaginable terror and courage. They still draw thousands of relatives of these men to Thailand every year, while the number of survivors themselves dwindles.

Monk Light

2008-12-04T04:49:00.000-08:00

Monk Light
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

One of a number of monks packing up tables laid with food at Wat Panang Choeng, Ayutthaya, Thailand. The meal was put on for hundreds of visitors during Loi Krathong in November 2008.

Erawan Waterfalls

2008-12-04T04:46:00.000-08:00

Bathing with the Doctor Fish of the Elephant Falls

The bus back from Erawan had the destinations pretty clearly spelled out on the windscreen.

We saw the blunt front end of the bus slowly making its away along the road, pick-up trucks and mopeds weaving around it. Luckily the driver also saw us, standing by the side of the road, opposite a pet food store that had done a roaring trade from passing moped riders in the 20 minutes we had waited, and pulled over. Georgia shouted ‘Erawan?’ over the clunking chug of the ancient engine, to which the driver nodded. Had he really heard as pistons thumped and the whole bus rattled? A quick double-check on our way up the steps confirmed we had and we were on our way for a two-night camping stay at Erawan National Park, home of a nationally famous seven-tiered waterfall.

River View Camping

A bone-shaking hour later and we were at the campsite, completing our camping hire form. A 150 baht 3 person tent rather than the smaller 90 baht 2 person version. Sleeping bags, pillows and what we would discover was optimistically called a lantern. Thai National Park tents are both excellent quality and enjoyable designed, being covered in a muted psychedelic abstract pattern of repeating trees, trunks and white birds. Our tent, kindly upgraded to a palatial 220 baht model for no extra cost, had a view of the River Kwai Yai, which also meant we could hear every vehicle along the road opposite.

The waterfalls are worth more than the couple of hours romp that most tour companies give their groups. The clear cool blue water pours over a ridge to cascade over a series of limestone steps until it reaches flat ground 1.5km downstream. Most of the pools are created by the waterfalls themselves by depositing calcium carbonate in shelves, mounds and ridges in much the same way as limestone water furs up a kettle. Except in Erawan the process creates a series of amazing bathing pools, each with its own Jacuzzi and water massage system. Each of the seven tiers is extremely different in character depending on the nature of the waterfall and the pool created. What every tier shares is the experience of a jungle paradise with lush rainforest trees, creepers and palms crowding all around to create a vibrant green frames to cool blue pictures. David Hockney would surely be inspired to develop a Rousseauesque phase.

You can easily reach Erawan by bus from Kanchanaburi bus station. The one and a half hour journey takes you right to the Park HQ for 50 baht. There is also a 200 baht entry fee. It is easy to do it in a day as long as you remember the last bus back leaves Erawan at 4.00pm. Otherwise there are bungalows and, of course, the range of tents to hire at the HQ. By camping, we were given ourselves two and a half days to explore the falls and their surrounding jungle. It was a bit like having a festival with seven stages and numerous art trails. Each fall even had its own sound, a variation on rushing water set to different rhythms and pitches.

Erawan Two

Feeding frenzy with Doctor Fish

Levels one and two are both large bulbous falls that rush over wide, steep drops into series of swimming pools that continue downstream in wide steps. These are the family playgrounds, surrounded by bamboo platforms, toilets and food. Here, though, are the most vociferous of the ‘Doctor Fish’, a sort of trout-cum-catfish that nibbles your toes, feet, legs, in fact any part of your body while in the water for dry skin. The feeling can be a ticklish massage or a slithery hell depending on how you feel. Swimmers at level two have to brave the largest shoal of the biggest fish to get into the pool. Once swimming you’re completely safe from their raspy teeth but when you want to get out again…then it’s once more time to run the scaly gauntlet.

Erawan Four

Waterfall three is an impressive tall torrent hidden behind a bluff and difficult to get a clear view of how impressive the drop is or to slip into the pool for a swim. Quickly on to waterfall four, a large inviting pool backed by two large limestone mounds that the water seems almost to float over. A good clearing in the jungle creates a bright patch of sun-warmed water in the centre of the pool.

Water Spirit Houses

The longest trek is from four to five. It takes nearly 500m of scrambling uphill and climbing steep, rickety wooden steps, passing trees wrapped in brightly coloured cloths representing spirits houses. With Georgia being 5 and a half months pregnant we had to take it slowly. It wasn’t going to stop her however, and did enlisit one aside of ‘good girl’ from a passing tourist.

Erawan Five

And waterfall five was worth the effort. For those who have visited Pamukkele in Turkey you will have a good picture of what waterfall five looks like. Here the falls are a series of broad, level cataracts formed of beds of calcium carbonate. The water falls and bubbles from one level to another over vertical edges reminiscent of their underground cousins – stalactites. This creates a natural spa of aquamarine pools of the clearest water, limestone steps connecting one to the other, and hydrotherapeutic massaging waterfalls complete with limestone benches to sit on. It seems that Paradise really does keep getting better the more steps you take.

Erawan Five Downstream

Which brings us on to waterfall six, as tall and hidden away a gem as three, kept secret by vines and trees, and to the finale – waterfall seven. This is the one that all the tour groups head towards. Waves of Russians, French, Britons, Thais and Americans, amongst many others, take off their trekking kit to reveal a wide range of skimpy, clinging, baggy or demure (depending on nationality) bathing gear and with trepidation walk, shuffle or leap into the pool. The air is filled with shrieks, not from cold water because the temperature of all the pools is pleasantly refreshing after the hike. The Doctor Fish, waiting at the edge of the pool for tourist toes to tickle and nibble, are the cause of the shouts. For most visitors this is their first experience of the slithering fish come to feed on their dead skin cells. It is enough to put many tourists off from taking the plunge. Other visitors keep still in disgusted pleasure, photographing the brown shoals fighting over scraps between their toes.

Erawan Seven with Georgia

Like a James Bond film on a very bad day

The background to the pool is a steep series of limestone steps receding into the forest. Water cascades down them at a pace, forming a riot of many mini-falls that pound down from one to another. I scrambled up these, crossing a ‘ravine’ by a fallen tree, part of which was being ‘fossilised’ with calcium carbonate, pushing through branches and bracing myself against the force of the water. I felt almost adventurous enough to feel I could hold my own in a brief conversation with Ray Mears. Eventually the steps became too steep, the water too powerful to climb any higher. So I returned for a good swim in the pool below before descending all the way back to the very bottom via a swim and a fishy nibble in every other pool on the way. Except that I opted out of the feeding frenzy that awaited at waterfall two and instead enjoyed the recently arrived shrieking Russians discovering for themselves the Attack of the Thai Doctor Fish.

Erawan Seven as far as I went

Water Lights

Sky Smile

2008-12-03T05:13:00.000-08:00

Sky Smile
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

The Sky Smile on the 1st December 2008 seen from western Thailand. The waxing moon is bottom right, Venus top left and Jupiter top right. We saw it on a beautifully clear night while camping in Erawan National Park near Kanchanaburi.

And again with the Earthshine visible on the Moon.

Kwai Bridge Fireworks

2008-12-03T05:12:00.000-08:00

Kwai Bridge Fireworks
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

The River Kwai Bridge Week, Kanchanaburi, Thailand opens with a bang as the sound and light show is brought to a finale with fireworks.

The Show uses coloured lights, sound effects, narration, actors, smoke, explosions, remote-controlled planes, fire and fireworks to retell the story of the Japanese invasion of South-East Asia, the building of the Thai-Burma Railway, the death of thousands of workers and Allied POWs and the bombing of the Bridge Over the River Kwai by the Allies during World War 2!

The photo was taken from the River Kwai Floating Restaurant. Thank you to Rose for giving me permission to photograph from the restaurant.

Fizzy Offering

2008-11-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

Fizzy Offering
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

Offerings of food and drink in front of a spirit house in Thailand. Almost every building has a spirit house populated with small plastic models of people to represent the good spirits that are invited to dwell here and so ward off bad spirits.

Wat Tham is Love?

2008-11-30T05:22:00.001-08:00

Wat Tham Khao Noi?

This may sound like a question but it is, infact, the name of one of two twin hilltop temples just south of Kanchanaburi that we visited on Monday 24th November. We took a bus out of the central bus station to a junction near a dam then got on the back of two motorcycle taxis over the dam wall for the 6km ride to the base of the hill.

As we motored along, I sped while Georgia’s driver took it more slowly for her and the bump, I looked up for the hill and its temples. The only hills I could see where miles away and devoid of any roofs, prangs or chedis. I began to think we must be heading the wrong way, abducted by highwaymen motorcycle taxi drivers taking us deep into woodland to bag our wallets. The photos I had seen of the temples showed three pagodas crowning a steep wooded mountain top that clearly towered over the surrounding land. The guide books talked of a funicular railway to take pilgrims and tourists to the top.

The road took turns in alternate directions. The hills were not visibly getting any nearer so clearly they were more than 6km away. Then, after one final turn to the left the pagodas came into view, barely rising above the nearest banana plantation. What in my expectation had been a cloud-scraping mountain turned out to be a much less lofty hill, one that could easily be at home in Norfolk. We were delivered to the base of the protuberance right at the start of the not-much-larger-than-toy-sized funicular, a track of not more than 100 metres on which ran two silver ‘carriages’ with enough space to take maybe four or five families. We succumbed, shunning the short flight of steps next door for a 10 baht, 10 second shudder up the escarpment and on to the plateau.

The two temples are one Thai Buddhist and one Chinese Buddhist. The Thai temple - Tham Khao Noi - has a giant, golden mosaic-covered Buddha that sits within a flame shaped canopy next to red-roofed temple halls and two orange pagodas tapering to golden points. No surface is left unpainted, ungilded or devoid of a twist or turn of some form of architectural embellishment. Each pagoda contains numerous Buddha statues in window niches on seven dark floors. The small windows allow in only narrow shafts or light that are hardly augmented by strip lighting. Sometimes two or three Buddhas are stuffed into a niche or a larger group are deposited seemingly randomly on a table. The views down onto the other temple buildings and across vivid green rice paddies to distant wooded hills are those of built and natural tranquillity.

But all the time there is another presence looming. This is the Chinese pagoda of Wat Tham Suew next door. Totally different in style, the hexagonal, vertical-walled pagoda is seven floors of large, flat pastel colours, each floor under a sloping tiled roof so archetypical of Chinese style. Buddha statues could be glimpsed silhouetted in the doors. Inside, a single Buddha statue occupies the centre of each floor and the feeling is of natural light, open, uncluttered spaces that are freshened by gentle breezes. Outside the ornate clutter of the Thai pagodas make architecturally wrought attention-grabbing stratagems less anyone dwells too much within the Chinese pagoda.

The way up to the Chinese pagoda is not gifted with a funicular, but instead is a series of Escher-like stairways and walkways threading through a number of temples complete with Chinese statues of characters that clearly evoke thought-provoking stories on ways of living. Inside the pagoda, the walls are decked with thousands of tiles, each with a small Buddha image. As we descended back to terra firma we heard chanting and a bell from one of these and saw a lone orange-robed monk praying before one of the Buddhas. The long decay of the bell and the sonorous chant held peace in the air.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Poon

2008-11-27T02:29:00.001-08:00

Descending through the bowels of the earth.

Buddha in a Cave

We visited one of the many caves in this limestone region of Kanchanaburi. The karst limestone forms teeth-like hills above ground, while below are found tunnels and chambers that prompts the idea that this is what it must be like to travel inside bowels and spines. Some of the caves are used as temples, others have more harrowing histories as Japanese World War 2 POW camps.

We visited Wat Khao Poon, a temple to Buddha and Ganesha and once a Japanese field hospital. After clambering down a flight of steep steps we came into a large, brightly-lit and roomy chamber with statues of the reclining Buddha and the rotund Chinese smiling Buddha. Beyond this is where the fun begins. Snaking and ducking along a series of narrow passages, brings us to one chamber after another. Each passage creeps further and further down into the ground, through broken and weathered limestone that looms into view as angular and bulbous formations akin to bones and bodily organs. Thankfully, very few of the walls ooze dampness.

Mighty Ceiling Stalactites

Large fossilised waterfalls spring into each passage and chamber in the form of massive stalactites and stalagmites that cascade from roof to floor in absolute stillness. Some stalactites are ridged into furrows and fins, while others look like petrified ripples on a beach. Some form columns while others flow over the limestone corners and curves. In places, the stillness is broken by a gentle drip of water, showing that the processes of stalactite formation are still busy. Everything else is motionless - apart from us. The pale blue grey whiteness of the limestone is devoid of any colour energy; the warm fetid air is immobile while no sound echoes come back from footfall. But we keep descending; down, down, down between the rock.

Ganesha

This lack of movement, in many ways, makes Wat Khao Poon a perfect place for meditation. Perhaps it is this, and a veneration of natural elements, that brought people to worship down here centuries ago. Each chamber is a temple or shrine. As we clamber through each opening we find statues of the Buddha, Brahma, Shiva and Ganesha set against the background of bent limestone and ribbed stalactites. Some images are dark, others golden, but most are draped in bright orange cloths. They are accompanied by dying flowers and burnt incense, while surfaces are covered in small squares of gold leaf. Each is a testament to an unseen act of worship.

Laughing Buddha

Eventually we begin to climb, the turn in direction coming after the largest chamber with the largest Buddha statue. The air begins to turn a little fresher and at last the white fluorescence of the artificial lights give way to a warmer hue. We look up to see an opening, beyond which the green leaves and branches of a tree striate the blue sky. We return above ground, leaving the underworld once more in peace.

Bridge Over the River Kwai

2008-11-25T06:14:00.001-08:00

Bridge Over the River Kwai
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

We're currently staying in Karanchaburi, spending a few days at the Sugar Cane 2 Guest House right on the banks of the River Kwai. Yes that river, that bridge, that defiantly whisteld World War 2, that classic British film of British stiff-upper-lipness starring Alec Guinness.

The area is very beautiful which belies the terrible past it bore witness too as the Japanese forced thousands of POWs and tens of thousands of South Asian labourers to hand-build a railway line from Thailand to Burma - the infamous Death Railway. Visiting the huge POW cemeteries, of those died building the line through malaria-infested mountain jungle using picks, shovels, dynamite and wheelbarrows is very moving. Even more so, if knowing that many thousands more forced labourers from South East Asia were buried in unmarked graves, any fixed place for the memories of them being lost forever.

Trat-a-rat-a-tat

2008-11-17T21:03:00.000-08:00

We're now in a small eastern town called Trat, or Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrat, as you have to pronounce it before the Thais understand where you want to go. It is a maze of narrow alleys between wooden buildings buzzing with hundreds of mopeds. Walking around it is probably as close to getting an idea of what it must be like to be a slow, old hornet living in a hornet colony. The night market has probably one of the best places to eat we have found so far. All of Thailand is one big open-air restaurant with lots of vendors cooking up great stir-fries, soups and salads at each city or town's market. It is like having a vast open-air restaurant at each place with numerous kitchens and chefs to choose from. You can make up a three course meal in the same place from different cooks.

We're now on our way to an island for a couple of weeks holiday and snorkelling before our first antenatal check-up. We've already got advice on which clinics to go to, when, and translations of the questions we want to ask.

Offering to a Prang

2008-11-17T20:35:00.000-08:00

Offering to a Prang
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

As you wander around Ayutthaya you come across these offerings to Buddha in different ancient temples. Each is a little reminder that the faith that built these magnificent temples still holds them sacred.

Chedi-Chedi, Prang-Prang

2008-11-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

Navigating ancient Ayutthaya, the Venice of the East

Wat Si Sanphet

The diminutive Thai security guard approached me out of the gathering gloom of dusk, the spotlight casting his giant shadow against the illuminated chedi. We close now he politely said, beckoning me towards the exit. It was sadly time to drag myself away from the magical temple courtyard of Buddha statues, broken columns, white-flowering trees, bell-shaped chedis and towering prangs all brightly lit in yellows, oranges and greens. I had just taken my last photograph of the row of three graceful chedis of Phra Si Sanphet, each topped with spires of ever-diminishing discs, that glowed against the now-black sky. The tour parties had long departed; leaving me to watch the sunset paint the sky red behind the technicolour temples in tranquil solitude. I reluctantly headed for the exit, taking one last glance over my shoulder at the multicoloured wonderland before cycling back to my hotel through the historical parkland.

Wat Si Sanphet Sunset

Ayutthaya was founded 700 years ago on an island formed by the confluence of three fast-flowing rivers as the second great royal capital of Siam. Completely encircled by the rivers and criss-crossed with canals, it was aptly dubbed the Venice of the East by the first European explorers to set their eyes on the city in the 1500s. The city was a metropolis capital, religious centre and trading port. Ships regularly visited its riverside wharves from Europe, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, India, Persia, Arabia and China while Siamese ships sailed in the opposite directions across the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. The great Chinese naval captain Zheng visited Ayutthaya in 1407 and made a benefaction to the nearest temple to the portside warehouses. Foreign trading communities lived in specially designated residential quarters where they were allowed to govern themselves and follow their own religions. Ayutthaya flourished for 400 years until sacked by the Burmese army in 1767.

Wat Phra Ram with lotus flowers

The Buddhist Kings of Siam built monumentally beautiful temples, known as wats, to honour their departed fathers. The Burmese destroyed much, decapitating most of the Buddha statues, but the main temple structures survived the flames and hammers. Most of the temples and palaces that remain today are preserved in an historical park of fragrant trees, lotus-filled canals and white-painted bridges that occupies much of the western half of the island. Modern Ayutthaya takes up the remaining half, its streets following the same grid pattern followed by the canals. The city lies on the flat floodplain about an hour and a half drive north of Bangkok.

Buddha head at Wat Matathat

The very centre of the Siamese Kingdom was found under the prang of Wat Matathat, a type of temple that lay at the heart of every major Siamese city and under which lay buried a relic of Buddha. Following archaeological excavations in 1956, the relic has been on display in one of the city museums. Matathat is notable for a fallen Buddha head that has been taken up by the twisted roots of a banyan, a Buddhist holy tree. This growing together of nature and art is seen as very auspicious by Thais and it is sometimes decorated with cloth and offerings to request merit from the Buddha.

Nagas and Garuda of Wat Rathchaburana

Next door to Matathat is Wat Ratchaburana which has the best surviving prang in Ayutthaya rising above the trees. Each temple is laid out as a square and aligned on the compass points. The prang is in the very centre and represents Mount Meru, the holy mountain of the Buddhist heaven. Chedis surround the prang, each representing a cosmic plane. Chedis at the four corners stand for the four human universes of physical being. Ratchaburana’s prang still preserves the stucco relief statues of garudas, nagas and other mythical beasts. Robbers unfortunately dug below the prang and made off with a treasure of royal gold but thankfully two of them were caught and some of the gold objects saved.

Wat Phra Ram sunrise

Across the park, the prang of Wat Phra Ram is reflected in the surrounding canals, and best seen at sunrise or sunset. Next to it is Wat Phra Si Sanphet with its line of three chedis. This was the temple of the Siamese royal family and the adjacent remains of the extensive palace lie in manicured lawns.

Flowers for a King

These four wats comprise the core of ancient Ayutthaya and are easily visited on foot or by bicycle through the historical park. They all become magical lanterns towering into the night sky when the spotlights are turned on at sunset.

Wat Phanan Choeng

Other ruined chedis and walls pop up on the roadside throughout the modern city. Further away and off the island are three major riverside temples. Wat Phanan Choeng, the temple associated with Zheng He, is to the east of the island. Very much an active working temple, it is bustling with devotees praying in the halls decorated with Chinese script and dragons.

Wat Yai Buddhas doing here?

It is a short distance to the delightful garden temple of Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, which is again busy with devotees. Hundreds of Buddha status, each draped on orange sashes, line the four walls of the central courtyard and gaze down impassively in front of the central chedi. Climb up into the chedi and you find seven Buddhas covered in gold leaf and set in niches. Thais come to speak merit requests into small pieces of paper, wipe them on the Buddhas then cast them in to baskets. Gardens of flowering trees and shrubs extend outside the courtyard and make a suitable environment for a giant sculpture of a reclining Buddha to enjoy dappled shade.

Wat Chai Wattanaram

To the west of the island is Wat Chai Wattanaram, which has more chedis surviving around the central prang than any other temple. Visit in the late afternoon to enjoy the breathtaking sunset then stay to watch it also come alight after dark. Two rarely-visited temples to the west of the island contain an ornate Ayutthaya-style Buddha-as-King statue and the only Burmese temple architecture in the city. These off-island temples can be visited by the more adventurous on bicycle, and Thai drivers tend to be relatively considerate, or by Sawngthaew, the small three-wheeled open-sided taxis that buzz around the roads.

One Chedi of three at Wat Si Sanphet

You can visit all the temples independently, which are open from 7.30am to 6.30pm for an entry fee of 20 to 30 baht at each, or join one of the many tours that take you around all of the main wats in one day or the five illuminated wats at night. Most people spend one hot day or an overnight afternoon/morning visiting the temples. But, if you have more time, slow down to take in only two or three temples a day, wander through the historical park and make sure you visit the Historical Study Centre and the Museum to see the gold objects and Buddha relic excavated from below the prangs of Wats Matathat and Ratchaburana.

Golden Buddha

The temples are best seen in early morning and late afternoon when the wats take on an orange hue and their architecture is picked out by the shadows of the low sun. Make sure you stay later at Chai Wattarama or Si Sanphet to savour the vibrant colours when sunset mixes with the illuminated wats. That is the time when the colourful magic visits and you won’t want to return to the black and white world outside.

Reflections on a Wat

Poolside in Ayutthaya

2008-11-13T23:41:00.001-08:00

Poolside in Ayutthaya
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

What better place to stay when in hot Ayutthaya then a guesthouse with a pool? It is unusual to say the least to find a backpacker-priced guesthouse with a pool.

We found a couple in big, old colonial courtyard houses in Nicaragua but they were both owned by the same people who had installed what amounted to little more than puddles as part of the backpacker luxury package. Very welcome they were too.

The Ayutthaya pool is much bigger, maybe 10 metres in length, and a one-off in town. It is part of the Sherwood Inn, on one of the roads close to the Ayutthaya ancient ruins. Its very presence epitomises the attitude of the guesthouse manager of providing good, friendly service at a budget price. A double room wil set you back just 280 baht, or 5.50 GB pounds before the exchange rate worsens due to the sinking pound.

Not only is there a pool that is long enough to swim lengths, pleasantly short lengths that is, but there is also plenty of space for yoga, reading and enjoying meals from the great kitchenv Add in a poolside balcony, that has almost become Georgia's private workspace as she completes an editorial contract, and the presence of only five rooms and the Sherwood makes for a very relaxing base to explore the ruins.

Buddha on a Mountain

2008-11-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billbevan/sets/72157608730241568/

While Georgia went to a local hotel pool, I headed off down the still-quiet streets at 7am to visit the Golden Mount, a temple built on top of a large artificial mound founded on a raft comprising thousands of logs. Strangely surrounded by a market and fair ground, including shooting games, the temple mount is an oasis of calm above the noisy city. A spiralling path winds around the outside of the mount to a temple topped with a red draped golden stupa. Early-rising Thais were already praying and offering flowers and incense to the golden Buddhas inside. Others were making more unusual offerings at the stupa. Marker pens were laid out amongst the flowers and incense for people to write messages on the red cloth cloaking the base of the stupa. Most people would write a message, most likely a wish, take a small orange pillow with a folded cut-out cardboard flower, kneel to offer it to the stupa then circle the stupa three or four times. After they finished, they would pin a 20 baht note onto a criss-cross of washing line suspended above head height.

Lady Boys and Tofu...

2008-11-07T04:16:00.000-08:00

...never let you down.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billbevan/sets/72157608730241568/

It is great to be back in Bangkok again. The city reaches out with an instant warm welcome unsurpassed by any other major capital we have yet been to. It starts at the airport with the gentle smiles and easily given directions from courteous staff and continues on the quite airport express bus into the city centre that cruises along empty four-lane highways - at least until it meets the clogged arteries of dowtown. The easy welcome carries on in the reception desks of the backpacker hotels as you are handed keys to check out the rooms, but most of all the pleasant feeling of arrival is everywhere on the streets. This is due to two major cultural Thai traits. Thais don't rush and they eat on the streets. Every Thanon and Soi is lined with eateries, offering cheap stir-fries, fresh chilled fruit that varies from the recognisable pineapple and melon to the more Asian exotica that is the aptly named Dragon Fruit and the pungent Durian.

In our first two days here we have done some of our favourite activities in Bangkok. After checking in to the cheap but very clean Bella Bella Guesthouse in Banlampu, the first thing we did was to grab some fresh stir-fried food from a street vendor. We found a stall specialising in vegetarian food, so we didn’t have to hover over the dried shrimps and say no repeatedly until we had received the food without their liberal application, while enjoying fantastically cooked and delicious tofu with garlic, fried vegetables with tofu and spicy salad with tofu. Next door was a smoothie bar run by two lady boys. All around were pot plants on the street. We then took a ferry down the river to get a cool breeze and away from the traffic noise and followed that with a Thai massage in a tranquil garden. Georgia then called into a 7-11 for an ice lolly. That finished the evening, and a stretch of 32 hours flying without sleep, perfectly. We were in bed after 9pm, jetlag beating.

The next day, Friday 7th, we visited the Royal Barges Museum, a floating delight of sparkling gold leaf, coloured glass and ornate wood carving. There are four graceful boats still kept to in immaculate condition to carry the royal family along the river for major ceremonies. The bowhead of each is carved into a mythical being that carried one of Brahma or Vishnu in Indian epics, including a multi-headed serpent-like Naga, a garuda and a bird. The walk to the museum was along narrow alleys between houses given a glimpse of how Bangkok may have been 50 years ago before the rise of concrete and futuristic skyscrapers. We went on the river again then had a failed evening of shopping and drinking, the mall had closed by the time we got there, the skybar enforced a no sandle dress code. We made up for it with a beer under a tree back on the street of or guest house.

Stottie Welcome to Newcastle

2008-11-07T04:14:00.000-08:00

P_DSC_6805_1
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

Which other airport boasts a Greggs the Bakers next to the Check-In desks? Every airport should have one so that pasties, buns and stotties are available the minute you land or for a last taste of Britain before flying. I was tempted to take a stottie to show off our ethnic cultural food to Thais but the added weight would have put my bags over the weight allowance. They will have to wait another time. Even better were the normal highstreet prices, infact a cheese and onion pastie here was 10p cheaper than Sheffield city centre. Tea was good but the coffee was reportedly washing-up water standard.

Miraflor

2008-03-03T17:05:00.000-08:00

24th - 25th February.

Miraflor

The bus had just 36km to crawl up into the mountains from Esteli. We got to it a little before departure time at 6am, led there by our hostel night guard, to find it already packed but with enough room for us to find two seats together. Two hours later, after slugging it up an unmade dirt road that climbed steeply higher and higher, we reached La Pila, the location of our homestay.

We were welcomed at La Pila with breakfast, the mother of the family spotting us get off the bus and hastily frying us some gallo pinto, eggs and plantains. Though our homestay was booked, there is no way the office in Esteli can contact the homestay family so she keeps an eye on the bus for gringos. La Pila is a group of farmhouses scattered across the hillsides. Families grow beans, maize and coffee, and raise cows and chickens.

Homestay Family

Unknown until we get off the bus, our guide for the day had been on the bus too. Her lack of communication rarely changed throughout the whole tour. She sadly gave a solid impression of boredom and irritation the whole time.

Flying Orchid

The Miraflor area gets its name from a German NGO volunteer who came up with the name as a 'brand' to build a a community tourism project around. He thought there were lots of flowers people would like to come and see - hence Miraflor - view the flower. We did see some flowers but would not say the area could be particularly noted for its flora. Perhaps another time of year. That is except for the Orchid Orphanage, a small area of woodland with orchids rescued from dead trees killed by a hurricane a few years back.

On our way to the Orphanage we passed through woodlands thick with epophytes called Old Man's Beard that hang in thick, grey droves from branches.

Tree Beard

The tour ended with a visit to a beautiful little waterfall which Georgia braved. The water was far too cold for me.

Waterfall

Georgia putting on a brave face

We were soon joined by a group of local chicos from La Pila having a great time.

Chico Splash

After our tour we took ourselves along La Pila's 'high street' a dirt road running along the contour where the traffic comprises the twice-daily bus, a couple of pick-ups and lots of horses. To either side are views up to trees or far across hills goldened with the setting sun, cows in fields, birds singing in trees and chickens or pigs scratching the dirt for dinner. The area is a totality of tranquility and beauty. Along the way we found a long-abandoned Operation Raleigh concrete pre-school.

Seat of Loneliness

Revolutionary Esteli

2008-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

23rd February 2008

A visit to the Gallery of Heroes and Martyrs of the Revolution, and a conversation with Nina, a Sandinista veteran combatant.

You cannot take this as just another wayside attraction. The gallery is, of course, one of the main ‘things to do’ for tourists visiting Esteli – a purpose-built gallery with things to look at and read, and a history to peruse. The brightly coloured mural adorning two outside walls greets you with a semi-psychedelic invitation to ‘decode’ the faces and figures superimposed one over the other. This is the bright side of the Gallery. Inside is the story of a 64-year people’s struggle against US Imperialism and Fascist dictatorship starting with General Sandino’s uprising against US Marines stationed in Nicaragua to impose US policy and ending with the fizzling out of Reagan’s narcotic and arms funded 1980s Contra War against the victorious Sandinistas who had won the revolution against the dictators in 1979.

The story is illustrated with photographs of those who died fighting and of bands of Sandinista combatants in training or fighting behind barricades.

Over an hour of silent perusal leaves one affected by the bravery, passion and commitment of those who risked and lost their lives to fight oppression. But this is only a tiny part of the story. The faces, the clothes and the biographies of the deceased, as well as poems by one poet, do leave you amazed at how people could gather the bravery to fight the National Guard in the streets. But…there is so much more to know and understand of personal stories.

In steps Nina, getting water to make lunch for other women veterans of the revolution. Eye contact, a smile and an invitation to talk lead quickly on to the discovery of something of what it was like for an individual to live and fight through the 1970s.

Nina in front of photographs of those who lost their lives fighting for freedom. Her two sons are top left and bottom left.

She was a guerrilla from Esteli who was based in the mountains, leaving her two sons and three daughters to oppose the dictator in the town. Her serious expression, strong posture and large, working hands suggest a woman of substance, who has worked hard in the past. As indeed she has; having risked her life, endured danger and lost people close to her for a strongly held cause. She tells us of the three insurrections in town between 1978 and 1979. Of small groups of combatants, the displays mention on insurrection being led by 24 people, being joined by ordinary people in the town to fight the National Guard. Of how her group came down from the nearby mountains to attack National Guard targets based in town. Of how the women of the town helped the combatants by giving secret signals from their houses to invite the Sandinistas in for food and drink, which gave the guerrillas the strength to fight on and on. She talks with passion, eyes alive with memories and desire to teach gringos about the struggle. Of course she had to take up arms. No one could sit back and watch while people around her starved, could not write for want of education or were ill from lack of health care.

She describes the joy when eventually, in September 1979, the Sandinistas defeated the National Guard in Esteli causing Somoza to flee the country. They had won, one of the handful of true people’s revolutions in the world. She twinkles as she tells us how they fired their rifles in the air in celebration while people of all ages came back out on to the streets banging pots and pans. But all around were the bodies of the dead, who they had to bury somewhere with the danger of sporadic firing from the National Guard piercing the streets. When families could identify bodies they reclaimed them, where they couldn’t they buried the dead together in large graves, often under the floors of houses.

Her regrets are that for 16 years following elections right-wing governments kept power and have impoverished the country further. She claims the country is poorer that it was in the 70s, that there is worse education and less land for people. She feels that the days of the struggle were better than today, perhaps the nostalgia of one who fought with others for a cause and had difficulty knowing what her life was about subsequently, especially so given the right-wing governments that followed the eventual end of Reagan’s Contra War. She hopes that the current Sandinista government of Ortega has long enough in power to begin to right the severe problems.

We leave after taking a photograph of her, which she insists is by the photographs of her two sons killed by the National Guard, and many thank yous and hugs. She is clearly pleased there are foreigners who want to learn about the difficulties and ultimate success of the Sandinista revolution.

Puro puros: a Nicaraguan cigar factory

2008-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

After a night in the high hills of the Miraflor area outside Esteli, we returned by bumpy bus for a very quick shower and breakfast before heading to Esteli’s cigar factory for a tour. It was really interesting, much more interesting than I had expected and I am very pleased we went. Not least for some of the striking handrolled gifts we have acquired for friends and family. The tour was led by the very personable head of packaging and I was group translator (enjoyable).

Hand-Rolling as Art

The strongest impression I carry with me is of just how hand made these handmade cigars are. Every leaf is dealt with many times by a number of different variously skilled workers during the overall process, which takes well over a year to complete for even the most basic cigar.

The process begins with unrolling the dried up leaves, pulling out the centre stalks and flattening them out. Beautiful whole leaves of the correct kinds of colour grade are reserved aside to be used as the capas, or outside leaf cigar coverings. Some will be tinted with special colourants, but most are used in their natural state after processing.

Broken leaves are used inside the cigars. No leaves are wasted. There is a cleaning and drying rack for any that arrive with surface mould.

Maturing the Leaves

The smell of ammonia from the next stage had all the group coughing involuntarily and me wondering how long these guys live and what their lung disease rates are. Here the leaves are bundled and stacked in large ‘compost’ heaps, to mature over 6 months or so. No chemicals are used, only water, and the ammonia is released by the leaves themselves. If that doesn’t put you off smoking, I don’t know what would! The stacks are temperature monitored. 120° F is a critical point at which the stack must be rearranged in order to prevent it catching fire. Each stack is restacked many times over during the 6 months. Only men work in this job. I dread to think what it would do to a pregnant woman.

Selecting the Right Leaves

At the next stop in a further sorting and selecting room the tour rather fell apart as the entire labouring team, led by some bolder women, lost all shyness to become entranced by my hair. Much fondling and many questions later, the tour dynamic was never quite as disciplined a group as before!

Hair is their interest

The cigar rolling room was the most amazing and exciting part of the process

Hand-Rolled Express

Long benches and tables reminiscent of a school science lab, with a big press at each side and dozens of teams of two people hand rolling and hand wrapping each cigar. The A team were definitely on the front row, and at a guess I would say the chubby guy at the far left to the front row was MR PURO! He rolled the biggest cigars with the greatest focused ease of anyone in the room. Real Grouchos... destined for Russian mafia and type A personality clubbable men, perhaps?

Mr Puro

Every rolled cigar is fitted to the appropriate sized mould and stacks of moulds are pressed for 2-5 minutes each way up before being hand wrapped in the selected casing leaf or leaves.

Finishing the Cigar

Newspaper wrapped groups of 100 cigars are labelled with the date, shape type, overall style, tobacco mix used and a code for who produced them and them taken to the drying room for at least 6 months.

The Store of Smokes

We didn’t ask about salaries for the leaf sorters, but the rollers are the crème de la crème, earning between 20 and 27 cordobas each person of a team of two per 100 rolled. The difference in payment reflects the difference in the level of skill. A team of two rolls 500 or 600 cigars per day. 100 cordobas is a little over US$5, 150 cordobas, would be about 4GBP. I am certain that MR PURO was on 27 cordobas per 100!

Every client has its own tobacco mix, and so each cigar rolled already has its destination. Beyond that there are dozens of variations according to wrapping leaf, colour, shape, size, etc.

The quality control man wears an apron and walks between the rows visiting each team and selecting a few cigars at random, pricking a hole and drawing on the unlit cigar to get a sense of the smoking quality this team is producing currently.

Packaging

Those fancy cigars people buy? Each size shape and style is sold by this maker at the same price to the client. It is the client who decides the mark up and, believe me, it is hefty! Perhaps, as scientists have recently demonstrated with regards to wine, the more we pay for a luxury product the more we enjoy it. I don’t think this is a demonstration of gullibility, snobbishness or stupidity, more a demonstration of the power of directing attention. I suspect that the more attention we direct to a sensation, the more subtly we are able to appreciate it and the more there is to appreciate.

Boxing.

He is so focused on his work he really doesn't need the wall of diversions behind him.

Inside the compound, a team of woodworkers create many shapes, sizes and colours of cigar box for the many international clients this factory serves. Brands are added by carving, pokerwork or adhesive labels.

The women(for they are all women) who package the cigars earn differently according to their role.

Packing

Those who stick the ring label around each cigar individually by hand, package each cigar in cellophane and stack them in the overall wrappings earn 2 cordobas per 25 completed cigars. Each ahs one of those roles and each gets the 2 cordobas per 25. 2 cordobas is about ten cents US or slightly over 1 penny sterling.

The women who stuff the boxes, label them and iron on the skin-tight cellophane wraps are paid a 60 cordoba day rate, US$3, 7.30 to 4.30 am, with an hour for lunch and a half hour for breakfast, food not included.

Iron Seal

We questioned the use of labels declaring ‘Handmade in Honduras’. The manager shrugged: ‘The client sends the packaging they want used and we use it.’!

It was a great morning. If you get the chance, go some day.

Esteli : first impressions

2008-02-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

LOVE IT!!!! I feel very good about this place. The climate, for a start, is lovely... all warm during the day, with glorious clear blue sky and then warm enough for a summer dress yet cool enough not to be bitten by bitey things in the night.

The local connections. Esteli is twinned with Sheffield. Freedom Road in Walkley is twinned with Cale Libertad in the Monte Sinai barrio of Esteli, a social housing project. The two streets and a third Freedom Road in Australia celebrate their connection with simultaneous street parties at least once a year and have swapped letters, recipes and family news by Internet. Last year, I saw a fabulous concert in Walkley’s community centre by a well established Nicaraguan musician and his English wife, a classically trained musician who has been living in a small agricultural community just outside Esteli for the last 5 years and whose life is now here, and entirely different from what she might have projected 7 years ago!

The setting. Esteli is up from the b*stard hot dry low plain leading in form Leon. The journey up in the bus was great. The bus was full of young UNAN students who board weekly in Leon and then have to face hot crowded 3, 4, 5, 6 hour commutes home at weekends to Esteli and the communities surrounding it. I sat next to a trainee medic, from an extended family of medics. Like UK medical students, she said that she doesn’t have much time to go out partying during the week.

So, Esteli lies up from the B*stard hot plain and in the foothills of the Selva Negra, Black Forest, mountains, apparently named by German settlers for the similarity to their own Black Forest back home. The town slopes off to each side, so peripheral streets give views out to the relatively green hills and farmlands and forest reserves beyond town.

Our accommodation and a great ‘coincidence’. We dropped in first to a Peace Corps stronghold (the town has a long political history of NGO and Internacionalista involvement from the War). Bill went off exploring other hostals and came back suggeting one run by an English woman. An unusual choice for us, as we tend to favour locally owned places. Hot, tired, grubby we walked in and dumped our bags. My attention was vaguely taken with a young woman on the sofa.

Sure enough. It was Hannah, the musician from Limon/Walkley concert. It was a beautiful coincidence, the more so, since she was simply visiting the hostal to see a friend, and because I had lost her email address, from our conversation in Walkley. She now has a young child, Roxanna.

Hostal and cafe Luz are the initiative of Janey, who came to Nicaragua’s Miraflor reserve as a volunteer, loved it and has come back to stay. She also is now raising her child here. Profits from the businesses go into local grassroots projects, and Janey hasa great sense of what interested travellers will want to know about Esteli town and the local surrounds. She is well networked into an ecotourism, homestay project set in the Miraflor reserve and enthusiastic to share information with visitors to help them access exactly what they are interested in, rather than leaving people simply taking a standard package.

I am hoping to milk a cow.

Tortugas and Las Peñitas

2008-02-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

20th - 22nd February.

The waves roll in from the wide, blue Pacific, tumbling over into surging lines of foaming water before crashing into the dark yellow beach. The noise makes conversation impossible below a shout when walking at the edge of the surf. Welcome to Las Penitas, a small beach destination only a 45 minute bus ride south of Leon.

Here, the Pacific takes prisoners if you are not careful when entering the ocean. The undertow tugs at your legs, the occasional wave threatens to bowl you over. This is not a gentle swimming beach like those we have seen in the Caribbean. This sea is a monster who will gobble you up and, if your family is lucky, spit out your remains somewhere along the shore. It is a sea to treat with respect and caution – and is a whole load of fun to play in; leaping over the smaller waves, diving under the big crashers. Timing is of the essence to avoid being slammed into the hard sand and shingle. It gets the adrenalin coursing and every so often encourages a return to the beach to regather your wits.

More gentle, much more gentle, is the mouth of the river with is sheltered behind a long sand island where turtles come to lay their eggs. The river is not sluggish, and just lying in the shallow warm waters you are gently turned and pushed towards the sea. The broad expanse of fresh water is home to numerous birds, waders, gulls and vultures, who line the banks and sand bars or stalk fish in the shallows. Further upstream the river slowly narrows to a mangrove-flanked wilderness that is a joy to explore by kayak, the silence only broken by the quiet directions of our guide Miguel pointing out a well-hidden camouflaged bird, the splash of an oar or fish, the call of birds or the rustle of something moving in the undergrowth. The occasional small log boat, ironically piled high with fresh-cut logs, chunters by or the larger, and more polluting, local fishing boat taking tourists on a noisy and dirty tour.

Arms tired from the unaccustomed effort of paddling, legs from being kept straight out in front and spirits drop until Miguel turns us around and we row with the current. We are tiring now and the mangrove does not appear to be moving past any quicker than when we went upstream but in less than 45 minutes we are back near the start of our journey, which had taken 2 hours upstream. Here we see the highlight, today’s freshly-hatched Atlantic Green Turtle babies desperate to find the sea. Except, they are penned in so that they can be released when it is dark and less of their predators are around. This is a hatchery where turtles break out of their eggs in a grid numbered from A-Z and 1-10. The eggs are laid along the beach at night by turtles returning to their own birth place and gathered up to be kept under the protection of guards. Our little 40 or so newly-borns come from V3. The urge to get to the sea is unabated for hours as the baby turtles continually cross and recross their pen searching for the water. It supposedly makes these tiny little things stronger and better equipped to make their dash through the pounding surf. They must be tossed and rolled like on a giant rollercoaster gone mad given the impact those waves have on us. Maybe two to five in a 1,000 will survive to return one day and give birth themselves on their beach. But will they find V3 if they do?

Leon

2008-02-22T19:47:00.001-08:00

13th – 19th February

Lion of Leon

Leon – gently-fading, paint-peeling, left-leaning, Sandinista-supporting, heat-sweltering, Colonial-Spanish, ex-capital of Nicaragua.

Door Man

Door to Somewhere...once

We have had a very enjoyable few days here. In many ways it is just an ordinary small city with little major ‘pull’ to attract tourists. It is not a Granada or Antigua. And that is what is good about it. This means that people who live here either ignore you or treat you like anyone else without trying to sell you anything. Quite a few people randomly come up asking for a dollar and sometimes people stare for the novelty of seeing a gringo in town.

There are few major sites.

Viewing the Cathedral

The most obvious is the splendidly blocky cathedral is the largest in Central America and squats there like a manga sumo wrestler. It is tough and uncompromising, not graceful.

Nuns Gather at Night

What it is notable for are massive paintings of the Stations of the Cross inside, and four Atlas-like sculptures high up on the front supporting cross walls.

Bloody Heavy these Colonial Cathedrals

There are a few other interesting colonial churches, the yellow La Recollocion being the most architecturally beguiling and the 19th Century El Calvario being simply awful; a demented cross between Trumpton and Legoland. A small adobe church in the suburb of Sutiava is an interesting indigenous church.

Attendance at La Recollocion

The streets are almost invariably lined with colonial period single-storey buildings. All equivalent to those in Antigua yet peeling paint is testimony to the lack of funds for restoration and give a greater appeal for lived-in character. The theatre is a boldly coloured delight.

Leon Theatre

Drama Queen of Leon

Like many Central American colonial towns there is plenty of street life, from fruit and hot dog vendors to the tinkling bell alert of a hand-pushed ice cream cart or the Sunday special toy cars for children. The central park, outside the cathedral, is one of the best used we have seen so far. The market is enjoyable and a great place to buy your fruit, vegetables, tamales, tortillas and cheese. In Sutiava, the Casa de Queso is recommended for cheese-lovers.

Street Food

Bottle Shop in the Park

Our highlights, for very different reasons, are:

The Ortiz Art Foundation. A private family’s amazing collection of Latin American art, mostly Central American, from the 15th century to contemporary housed in two large, beautiful courtyard colonial houses. The collection is a major one by any means and holds one intriguing contemporary art piece after another that largely have clever techniques and sense of humour in common. Worth more than one visit.

The Sandinista tour and Sandinista memorials. You can read more of these below.

Lazybones Hostel. Perhaps the best accommodation we have yet stayed in on this trip. Two courtyards form the focal points for a relaxed and well-kept hostel that gets the right balance between easy-goingness, services and tranquillity. With a pool, free internet and WiFi, free tea and coffee (a blessing after the tea desert that is El Salvador) and a pleasant courtyard of rocking chairs below a grand mural aswell as the right attitude from the owners creating a peaceful, respectful clientele it is a lovely home-from-home. A double costs C$325 at the time of writing. Highly recommended!

The Cocinita Vegetarian Restaurant. Set in another lovely colonial building, the food is great. The only thing we had a problem with was what to do with the first large choice of meals for the first time. We’re used to having the ‘one’ thing on the menu we can eat! It took us a while to choose, overcome as we were with curry, tofu, falafels, gratin, pasta, gazpacho, etc, etc, etc… Everything we had was delicious. If you head towards it – don’t give up. It really is there despite the lack of life in the vicinity or obvious sign. Look for the large table in the entrance with the chess pieces – the table has two large chess boards built-in to it.

With the Sandinistas in Leon

2008-02-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

Saturday 16th February

Check out photos from the tour on flickr here

We decided to take the Sandinista Tour of Revolutionary Leon this afternoon with a veteran combatant of the FSLN. We eventually parted after four hours walking around the war-torn monuments and places, the museums and memorials to thousands of brave individuals who had the commitment and passion to stand up against the military of a vicious dictatorship. Our guide was Dionisio, a quiet spoken man of humility yet conviction. In many ways there was a massive gulf between us. Here was a man who every night risked his life to man watch-towers, follow coded instructions and make bombs in the violent struggle against death camps, tanks and indiscriminate bombing. He could have been killed by the National Guard, Contras, or one of his own home-made bombs – as his younger brother was. While we have led very protected, privileged lives and are able to visit the country to find out something about the Sandinistas beyond The Clash album and the news of the Iran-Contra Affair.

Leon was the capital of the long-running revolution against dictatorship in Nicaragua. This left-leaning and poor university town has long been a centre for liberal thought and art. Opposition here was some of the strongest and involved a cadre of a few hundred armed combatants fighting an underground guerrilla war whilst supported by thousands of the population. Here fighting was sometimes street-by-street. Actions could be an assassination attack on a house of National Guard one night, the defence of a church against tanks the next. The FSLN – or Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional – was formed in 1961 to lead the fight against the dictatorship of the Somoza political dynasty. They took their name from the anti-Imperialist struggle of Augusto César Sandino during the 1930s.

Dionisio fought in the streets of Leon during the 1970s and is still an active member of the party, now in power again at last following the 2006 elections. He took us to the political prison, known as Prison 21 after the year it was built, where prisoners held 100 to a small room were regularly tortured with beatings, teeth filings, electric shocks and suspense upside down in water. It was all the more poignant when he only told of his two tortured stays in the political prison, but only after Georgia asked him. We saw two churches shelled by the military in the 1970s because the Sandinistas used the bell towers as watch towers. There is the street where four students were gunned down during a demonstration in 1959, the places they fell marked by four crosses painted on the road below a memorial. The courtyard building, then a social club, where the first of the three Somoza dictators was assassinated in 1956 by poet Rigoberto López Pérez disguised as a waiter. Near sunset we went to the Museum of Heroes and Martyrs which houses the photographs and some personal effects of people killed in the struggle. We ended at a the third mural on the tour which was painted in the 1990s to depict the history of Nicaragua from indigenous roots, via Conquistadors and the struggle to end with two children running hand-in-hand to a future Nicaragua of open land, lakes and mountains.

Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect of the tour was to spend time with someone who risked his life to fight fascism and could tell us his personal recollections of fearing the National Guard taking him during the day because of scratches on his arms and legs caused by crawling defensively on the ground and of fighting them at night at locations communicated by secret signs.

I recommend booking this tour which is easy. Go to the FLSN headquarters on the central park, opposite the cathedral and ask for Dionisio. The tour is $10 per person.

Revolutionary Léon with Dionysius

2008-02-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

What a day! It started with Lovely Léon, a glowing sunrise, relatively lazy start and then a trip to the university pool for some lane swimming around the edges of a few young kids having their swimming lessons – just like Sheffield university pool on a Saturday morning. Taking a taxi to UCC costs 12C, an hour’s swimming (and no one will chuck you out) is 20C, or for people with a longer stay $20 pcm unlimited access. And walking back to the mercado central only takes about 10 to 20 minutes, enjoyable if it is not too hot.

This afternoon we spent with Dionysius, ex combatante and still a committed member of the FSLN and a great tutor into the big picture and local intricacies of la lucha (the struggle) in Léon. I have read a bit about the battles and remember the coverage and feeling an interest in the sandanistas and internacionalistas, the red and black flags, the sense of international grassroots commitment supporting this cause that I didn’t quite know what it was all about. If I am honest, I didn’t even know who was meant to be the goodie and who the baddie among the famous names [Somoza baddie dictator, Sandino goodie 1920s to 1930s, Sandanista goodie 1970s, depending on your point of view OF COURSE!]

Léon boasts the site of death of Somoza, killed at the party to celebrate his re-election by Roberto Lopez. Lopez was killed on the spot with at least 50 bullets. His body was taken away and never seen again. Many believe it was minced in a meat mincer and fed to the inmates of the notorious Carcel 21. The 21 prison, named for the year in which it was inaugurated and ‘home’ to thousands of political prisoners between then and its closure in 1979.

I had not realised that the years of struggle went on for so long. From the early US intervention in the 1920s and 30s, supporting the dictatorship and then the years upon years of tyranny, until the revolution came to a head after many insurgencies in the 1970s. It was followed by the Contra War, Reagan’s crowning glory in which the US government sold drugs to US children and weapons to Iran to raise the untraceable money to fund their counter-revolutionary actions in Nicaragua and rebuild the rightwing dictatorship. That came to an end as recently as 1988. [remember Ollie North?]

Dionysius showed us various sites and museums of the city. His commentary began from a book of faded copies of old photos, comparing how it looked in 1978-9 (the time of the 9 months non stop battle climax in Léon) and rather a generalist approach. It seems to me that gradually he realised we were really very interested and slowly more began to emerge. We had spent a fair amount of time in 21 Prison, with its folkloric mosaics and puppets, and the monochrome wall paintings of the various tortures affected there, before he responded to my question ‘were there prisoners who got out alive and are still alive?’: ‘Oh yes. I was in here twice. Once for 2 days, once for 7. They did ... to me.’ Fill the ... gaps with the following: hung me upside down from that mango tree with my head in the well.

5 of his family died in the struggles. If I had lived in Northern Ireland during the same period I would have more direct experience to relate to the struggle here. As it is, our lives have been so secure and comfortable that it is hard to imagine the courage and push that it takes to fight for so many years against a cruel government. In Léon perhaps it was helped by what Dionysius portrays as a kind of all in it together sense of the whole town being united against the guardia nacional, the national guard. I guess there must be an energy that comes from that sense of togetherness.

I asked if he had family and if so, did he talk about those times with his family, and also whether there were people these days who didn’t want to remember and wanted to look away from it all. He told me his children and all his family are very closely involved in politics still, so it part of their everyday conversation. But yes there are people who prefer not to remember. He said only 2 of the 9 top commandants from the 1970s are still involved in the FSLN, Ortega (current just recently elected president) and..???

He said that the sandanistas were not the only ones fighting Somoza and gave a pretty unreconstructed Marxist analysis of the layers of people opposed to Somoza, the rich, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. ‘The FSLN, the proletariat, we were the ones fighting and being wounded on the streets, many others got themselves rich after the victory, many of the bourgeoisie ‘fought’ from abroad, and just came over later to take a seat.’

We were interested in the nature of the actions and how they were organised and communicated, and in what daily life was like for people during the years of the struggle. Dionysius said that for much of the struggles the streets were normal between 6 am and 6 pm. People went to the market, went to work, etc. At 6pm the curfew began...and the guerrilla and guardia actions. ‘I was a different person, a different person. Yes I went out about my business in the day. I could pass people in the streets. At night I put on my mask. A different person.’
Each combatante had an organisation contact person. There was a secret code and tightly organised secret signals. They involved chalked signs on doors and lampposts, the classic dropped handkerchief, even, a system of communicating where to be and when, and where NOT to be if an action had to be called off. And the guardia... did they initiate actions too? ‘Oh sure. They would go to houses and get everyone out, kill people too.’

How many people were involved? About 300 combatantes and about 700 guardia. ‘But it was all of us, the whole town united together. We were 300 combatantes, but all the people supported us. There were thousands of weapons stashes, in among people’s homes.’

We saw churches razed by aerial rockets and tanks, another bell tower riddled with bullet holes: AHA, OF COURSE! The towers made excellent lookout spots for the FSLN.

We took in murals, the museum of the martyrs and heroes, a collection of c 300 photographs of the dead from Léon, from the 1950s to 1980s, mainly 1978-9. Dionysius pointed out his younger brother and his cousin.

A slightly weird call on the way is Ruben Dario’s house. It looks lovely. But we were already knackered... it is an intense tour and for us ran to nearly 4 hours rather than the projected 2, and that is with at least 2 places to go back to tomorrow! The Dario is a little relief after the prison, and good to read the international acclamations of this great poet, essayist, journalist, political ambassador and reformer of the Hispanic poetic tradition, and to see his clear neat attractive cursive handwriting. But we didn’t do it justice.

We ended the tour with the mural to the 4 students killed by the national guard in 1959 at a demonstration against a local massacre, and then a 3-wall mural showing the land since the conquest, the two US sponsored interventions, the revolution and a brighter future, and then sat below the memorial to the 9 senior commandants and talked about what has happened since the end of the Contra war. 16 years of elections and the Sandanistas only just recently elected for the first time. Dionysius’s take on it is that the country has been robbed of natural and financial resources, the infrastructure lamentably ignored and run down, the rich have ruled on behalf of the rich, education, health, agriculture, all have been privatised and that if the sandanistas are not able to win a second term shortly, then one further rightwing government should permanently secure Nicaragua’s plac e as one of the poorest countries in Central America and the whole world. He prefaced this with ‘Of course I have hope. The personal hope never fails. However, realistically, ...’ and then a detailed look at the last 16 years of government and social politics.

It was a privilege to spend the time with him and learn from him.

Ruta De Las Flores

2008-02-13T17:04:00.000-08:00

9th – 11th February

El Salvador

Pinnies are El Salvador

After Santa Ana we wanted to get into more country than city and so headed into one of El Salvador’s two main tourist routes. These recent creations aim to encourage Salvadoreans more than foreigners to go out and spend some tourist dollar. In the west, and near to Santa Ana, was the Ruta De Las Flores which we went on. The other is in the east and is the more serious and disturbing Ruta De La Paz which gives visitors the opportunity to see communities emptied by army massacres and talk to individuals who fought on either side or lost their families during the Civil War of the 1980s. We are interested in discovering something about this but the Ruta De La Paz is well off our route through El Salvador and we will be in places to learn about Nicaragua’s Civil War.

Apaneca

Apaneca Door

The Ruta De Las Flores is four mountain towns connected by a flush of winter flowers and brightly painted electricity poles sporting flowery scenes. The bus ride from the nearest town, Achuapan, climbs through scenic wooded valleys. We made straight for the village of Apaneca, or Up Ya Knickers as we so maturely called it, because one guide book describes it as the most delightful of the towns. Seeing the others later, we’re very happy with our choice.

They don’t get many foreign visitors round these parts we thought after a thousand stares and shouted English words from passing youths – Hello, Goodbye, Good Afternoon to you all too!

The climate is fantastic, the people incredibly friendly, the pinnies as frilly as they can be. There are plenty of flowers too, as well as a pleasant lake in an old volcanic crater which made for a good Sunday walk along Elvis Presley Boulevard (don’t turn right onto Las Vegas Boulevard).

We made a day trip to Juayua, famed for its Black Christ statue in the church, and Nahuizalco, known for its handicrafts. Each was significantly larger and grimier than the last – great to visit but Apaneca is the most tranquil to stay in. The throbbing market in Nahuizalco was bedecked with all colours of frilly pinnies and some stall holders even let me photograph them. The frilly pinny is the national women’s dress of El Salvador. Any woman who cooks or sells something appears to wear one with a sassy swagger but rarely with any attempt to match colours with blouses or skirts beneath.

Jesus Pupusas

The market comedors and Jesus Loves You pupuseria are great places for well-made good-value food where you can people watch. At the latter you also get a Charismatic Christian pop band and lots of clapping thrown in for free because it is right outside one of the many non-conformist churches.

Getting There
It is easy to get a chicken bus from Ahuachapan, on the international and Tica bus routes, to Apaneca or Juayua – destination Sonsonate. The current fare is about $0.50.

Accommodation
We stayed in the Hostal Rural De Orquideas which has four en-suite rooms with hot showers along one side of a lovely grassy courtyard, with rocking chairs and hammocks on the verandah. There is also an odd assortment of ‘antiques’ from iron flat irons to reel-to-reel tape players and 1970s phones.

Santa Ana, El Salvador

2008-02-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

Santa Ana Theatre from Alcalde

After leaving Atitlan on Friday, a boat, three chicken buses and a ‘first class’ bus later we were in Santa Ana, El Salvador’s second city. The border crossing was easy and aided by a 20 minute wait giving us the opportunity to get drinks or pupusas. For Georgia and me it also meant we could ask the migracion control for an entry stamp. They aren’t given between Central American countries who have an immigration agreement between them – but we both wanted some evidence in our passport for visiting a new country we have not been to before. It’s only fair.

Our first impressions of El Salvador were of another country of mostly friendly people. Buses were as crowded, brightly painted and driven to death as in Guate. People do look different, possibly looks or fashion. There’s a more Latin Caribbean look as made famous by Cuba and more personal energy. Also, frilly pinnies for anyone cooking or selling street food are big fashion items and highlight the sassiness that defines El Salvadorean women.

Santa Ana Cathedral

Santa Ana itself is a big, everyday city built around a central park bustling with street food vendors and fringed with historic buildings. We passed two mariachi bands tuning up on our walk to the central park from our hotel, Tazumal, outside of which were a cluster of prostitutes and adult-only bars. Historic in Santa Ana is not the 16th century colonial architecture of Antigua but late 19th/early 20th century Neo-Gothic and Neo-Renaissance. Three sides of the park are formed by he cahtedral, the theatre and the alcalde (Municipality).

Down the Alcalde

The Theatre is a restored gem of Edwardian Central Americana that still has boxes with padded wooden chairs that come straight out of a Western. If only there had been a play or concert on the weekend we were in Santa Ana we would have stayed to attend the elegant theatre in style. Instead, we had to be content with a look around and a visit to a good photography exhibition in the lobby.

Theatre crest with the Volcano known as the `Light of the Pacific`

Getting There
International buses between Guatemala City and San Salvador stop in Santa Ana on an anonymous street corner. It’s a long walk into the more central part of the city with hotels and definitely worth taking a taxi after dark.

Accommodation
The Hotel Tazumal is a very decent budget hotel. Clean, secure, with large en-suite rooms around a green courtyard. Rooms towards the back are quieter. The staff are very friendly and helpful. Cold water only showers but free coffee and biscuits in the morning.

Goodbye San Marcos

2008-02-12T06:08:00.000-08:00

After nearly two weeks we realised it was time to move on. We left Atitlan on Friday, passing through the amazing Friday market on Solola, a small town above the lake that is home to perhaps the most ornate embroidered traditional Mayan clothes, both for men and women, in the immediate area. I wish I had known about the week before to go for a day`s photography!

We also left our great hostel mates – Marieanne, Paul and Tracey. Marieanne and Paul are two Canadians, she an English language lecturer, he an investment advisor, travelling around Central America after looking after students on an exchange in Nicaragua. We had lots of good conversations about novels and films, as well as sharing pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and firing up the hostel’s sauna. Tracey is an American singer-songwriter. We heard her new songs, nearly one every day, come through the walls, catching segments of lyrics such as ‘…clean sheets and fancy underwear on…’ She stormed Blind Lemon’s open mic with songs about men. The open mic is something of a San Marcos Friday night institution and about as rocking as it gets. Some people stay until after 11pm! The entertainment was mixed but mostly of a high standard, from the Mitchellesque poignancy of Rose, the gutsy and thrusty country-blues of Tracey to the comical, hunching, shirt tails-flapping Rob with his cigar box mandolin and Poncho-wearing, Catweasle-bearded Yassi bravely covering Mano Chou’s King of the Bongos.

Overall, San Marcos is a place to relax, to experiment with a course in mediation or holistic therapy, to read a book sipping a coffee, to meet other travellers or to eat a taco in the village street. We’d certainly go back again.

Three Men and Their Hats

2008-02-06T15:54:00.000-08:00

No Evil
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

Three Maya men from Santiago watch the world go by on market day.

Lago de Atitlan

2008-02-04T13:58:00.001-08:00

Monday 5th February.

View from the beach

We have now been at Lake Atitlan for over a week. This is a high altitude lake in the mountains of Southern Guatemala. Mountains, including three extinct(?) volcanoes ring the huge lake. Dotted around its shores are numerous villages and towns occupied by Mayans. Three different tribes live around the lake, including the K'ichee' who had lived at Utatlan when the Spanish arrived in the region. The lakeside locations and mountain backdrops gives the impression of each village being an island as most transport is by lake lanchas. There is a lakeside road around three sides but boating it is more fun.

Fishing the Lake

We have been partly relaxing on the beach and partly working on UK contracts while here. We have chosen San Marcos to stay because it is one of the smallest and quietest of the villages. Apart from the main road and a few side streets, most of the tourist accommodations are in a wooded area only accessible by footpaths which gives a nicer, slower pace to life. The village mostly attracts tourists to yoga, meditation courses, holistic therapies and generally chill-out. We have not been to any courses or classes yet, and may not, despite there being a tempting all-day course on impriving your eyesight enough to get rid of glasses. John Hegley would be enraged. Instead we visited one of the larger towns that day - Santiago. There was a very large and purple market in the town. People in each village who where traditional Mayan clothes tend to have their own colours and designs. Santiago women where purples huipeles (blouses) so most people and a lot of clothes stalls were purple.

Purple People

Our main interest for visiting Santiago was to go to the shrine of Saint Maximon. He's a strange one. Sort of a patron saint of sinners and groups marginilised in society. He's popular with prostitutes and gays along with lots of other people hoping he can help them. His effigy is hosted by a different family each year and pilgrims give offerings of alcohol and tobacco. Now, there's more to this than simply the giving of vices, I think, because in much traditional Mayan ceremonies tobacco and alcohol are used to invoke and communicate with spirits.

We were led to the shrine by one of the many young boys who guide you for a couple of quetzals. The shrine is currently a dark, somewhat shabby, room with coloured streamers and plastic aubergines hanging from the ceiling. Christ lying prone in a funeral cask lines one wall. The room is lit by candles and a dim fluorescent light. Inside waits Maximon, a wooden carved head bedecked with two fedoras, numerous ties, a jacket and traditional Santiago three-quarter length trousers. His two attendants, a man and a woman site beside him.

We were fortunate to witness a woman coming to have her knees healed. She was asked by the woman to sit in front of Maximon, give a monetary offering, wear one of his hats and a jacket. The female attendant started preying in Spanish to Christ then changed to Mayan while the man alternately placed cigarettes and alcohol in the saint's open mouth. The woman guide or shaman chewed up a cigar, mixed it with saliva in a cup then filled her mouth with the mixture which she spat and rubbed on the pilgrim's knees and shoulders. She then returned to Spanish to prey to Christ and the pilgrim left. We hope her knees get better.

Siesta Time

View over San Juan

We have also gone on a couple of lakeside walks. On one I walked the three hour hike from San Pedro to San Marcos via San Juan and San Puablo. From San Juan it was right on the lake beach until the posh foreigners houses near San Marcos where I cut through a coffee finca. Most of the shore above the beach is filled with small vegetable gardens growing onions (San Puablo’s speciality), carrots, salads, cabbages and herbs. Little gardens are terraced into the gentle slope looking a lot like British allotments but with more sun. The fine sandy soil and easily pumped lake water are perfect for onions and carrots. I talked to lots of gardeners along the route who were all interested to know where I was from. Not many people walk the route following guide book warnings of armed robberies on the quiet roads. I think the danger along the lakeside is minimal and it seems a shame few people get the opportunity to talk to these friendly and welcoming people.

Path to Jaibalito

Our other walk was from San Marco to Jaibalito, in the opposite direction to San Pedro. After the initial section along a quiet road, the rest mostly followed along a mountain path through woods with great views over the lake. The temperature, vegetation, smells and views were very reminiscent of the Aegean! Saw an interesting collapsing building on the way which suggests someone with problems with builders! Jaibalito is another beautiful, quiet little village where we discovered a fantastic European-owned restaurant and hostel called Posada Jaibalto in time for lunch. Not only where the prices incredibly cheap, but the food was delicious and the salads were fresh-picked from the garden.

Oops!

Getting There
It is easy to get to Lake Atitlan from nearby towns such as Antigua and Chichicastenango by ordinary 'chicken' bus. From either direction change at Los Encuentros for the bus to Solola which stops at the central park. The bus to Pana leaves from the park, on a Pana sign-posted road diagonally opposite the Los Encuentros drop-off. From Pana you can get lanchas to all the other lakeside villages.

Accommodation in San Marcos
We started off at the budget Unicornia hostel which has good, basic cabanas around a yard and garden, a shared kitchen, clean toilets and a hot shower. The kitchen can get crowded at times and the hostel is very popular so often fully occupied. It is a fantastic place to meet people but can feel a little crowded at times. It is run by a great Guatemalan guy called Chus though he is planning to sell in the next year or so.

After a few nights we moved to Giardino, simply because it had flat space for yoga along, was quieter and set in nicer wooded gardens, had a larger room and, with only four rooms and a large kitchen, it meant making meals was much easier. The cleaning isn't to the same standard as Unicornio and it has taken a lot of requests to get them to do something about a blocked toilet and kitchen sink. The impression is of a place where the owner isn't really investing in maintenance and the hostel is starting to look run-down.

Conquest

2008-01-31T15:17:00.001-08:00

Sunday 31st January

After Chichi market I wanted to visit two nearby places which were – are – central in the Spanish conquest of this part of the Americas, the subjugation of the Mayas and the preservation of the Mayan creation myth.

In 1524, Pedro de Alvarado was sent by Hernán Cortés to conquer the southern highlands of what would become Guatemala. This area was home to a number of different Mayan tribes, dominant among them being the K'ichee' who had themselves conquered neighbouring tribes and had their capital on a ridge. The capital was a medium-sized Mayan city called K'umarcaaj and now known by the Nahuatl name of Utatlan. Not as grand as Tikal or Copan but still comprising stone stepped pyramids, open plazas, a ball court and elite residences. It was a flourishing city at the time of the Spanish conquest. It had only been settled about 1400 on a ridge surrounded on three sides by steep, pine-clad ravines. The Spanish knew they would have to bring the K'ichee' under their domination if the conquest of this area was to be successful.

The Spanish enlisted the help of a neighbouring tribe and attacked the K'ichee' who they defeated in battle. The K'ichee' kings then invited them to the capital under truce. The Spanish arrived, kidnapped the two K'ichee' kings and burnt them alive at the stake in the central plaza, beneath the three temples dedicated to the gods credited with creating the world and the Mayan people - Tohil, Avilix and K'ucumatz.

Utatlan today with the remains of ceremonial fires

I wanted to see K'umarcaaj. Today it is a small, unrestored archaeological site open to the public. My reaction was one of deep sadness. Much of this the result of the barbarous killings enacted here. Part was also to do with the feel of the site today. It has little money to fund its care and it appears as a cross between a neglected park and a neglected recreation ground. Stubby grass, a bare concrete or limestone stucco floor to the central plaza, electricity poles and burning fires reek of desolation. Mayan people coming to the site to hold ceremonies in a place still sacred to them, and perhaps to commemorate the acts that happened here, make the fires along with burning incense and candles.

Shrine carved into the crumbling remains of the temple dedicated to Tohil

Another reason for the bare appearance of the city is that the Spaniards robbed most of the stone from Utatlan to build the Catholic church in the nearby ‘new town’ of Santa Cruz de Quiche. The white-painted church towers over the town.

The church of Santa Cruz de Quiche, built of stone robbed from Utatlan

Back to Chichi where a significant event occurred in 1702 that was to help preserve a significant aspect of K'ichee', and Mayan, culture. A group of K'ichee' bravely showed Friar Francisco Ximénez of the convent at Chichi a copy of the K'ichee' Popol Vuh, or tribal council book, in 1702. I say bravely because the Catholic priests burnt nearly all Mayan books or codexes as anti-Christian. Instead of following the inquisitional orthodoxy, Ximénez copied the original he was shown from the Mayan hieroglyphs to Latin script. The Popol Vuh recorded the K'ichee' creation myth featuring hero twins and a history of the K'ichee' tribe. Without the friar’s act of academic interest all of this would have been lost to the flames. The Popol Vuh is now the key document for understanding Mayan cosmology, creation mythology and the immediately pre-Colombian history of the Guatemalan highlands.

Mayans and tourists mingle in the cloisters of the convent in Chichi

Getting There
From Chichicastenango get a chicken bus to Santa Cruz. It is only about 30 minutes. The bus arrives at the Santa Cruz bus terminal. Minibuses to Utatlan - signed Las Ruinas on their front - leave from the central park. Either take a tuk tuk and the driver will drop-you off at the correct spot or walk north for four blocks and west for two. It is about 10 minutes by minibus to Utatlan. They take you right to the entrance. To return to Santa Cruz go down to the main road, about a five minute walk, and wait. The minibuses are frequent and it is easy to visit Utatlan and return to Chichi in an afternoon.

Chichicastenango

2008-01-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

Sunday 26th January

The place with the unpronounceable name. Well almost, it has taken me nearly 4 months and a visit to the place itself to learn to pronounce it correctly. It was always that 'cas' in the middle that threw me each time. Now I'm fluent and ready to take on saying town names such as Chimaltenango and Quetzeltenango - no problem!

Chichi market

Thousands of Mayans from the surrounding area and dozens of tourists shipped in from Antigua and Pana come to Chichi every Thursday and Sunday for the massive market. It is a riot of colour as most of the women and some of the men still wear traditional handwoven clothes, with designs differing from one village to the next. The market fills the main square and church steps and comes in four parts - the covered fruit and vegetable market, the main part of the square and surrounding streets selling everything from ceremonial incense to cheap clothes via hardware and live turkeys, the flower market on the church steps and finally the market for the tourists selling textiles, masks and woodcarvings. The first three are almost solely for Mayans and the core of the square are a group of cheap eating places.

Chichi Textiles

We tourists really only drift around the edges of this temporary village even though it is one of the main tourist destinations in Guate. It never felt like a zoo when I was there as there are just so many Mayan people doing what they are there to do. And with the place being so packed they don't hold much quarter trying to get around static tourists looking confused or taking photos.

The whole market is extremely exciting and dynamic and if you can find a spot to one side to watch it, it is mesmerising.

Better than Tesco anyday.

One of the main events of Sunday is morning mass in the Catholic church. Except this church integrates traditional Mayan rituals with Catholicism. Elders from the town and surrounding area attend on mass, the priest reminds them all that whatever way they worship it is Christ they come for, then after he finishes people light candles and murmur on 12 square altars laid along the aisle from the front to the back of the church. Many people also burn incense before entering the church to bless the spirit of the church itself.

Getting There
I went to Chichi by chicken bus from Antigua. You get the buses from behind the market. You first take a bus to Chimeltenango, then a bus to Los Encuentros and then the final bus to Chichi. There was no wait at any of the changes and the buses are quick! The final stretch is a half-hour ride up and down steep roads with tight zig-zag bends that the drivers take at speeds Michael Schumacher would find difficult to match while the conductors lean out of the door shouting at every other vehicle to get out of their way. The bus ride is an experience in itself.

Accommodation
I stayed in the basic and cheap Posada Belen on one side of town. The balconies overlook a wooded ravine on one side and the town on the other. It is nothing fancy but rooms are large. The shared shower had hot water two days out of three.

Mayan elders attending mass

Blessing the spirit of the church. Note the Harley Davidson jacket!

Antigua

2008-01-29T16:51:00.000-08:00

View through the Arch to Volcano Agua

Antigua is a fantastic old historic Spanish colonial city. Low buildings, flat, bright colours, cobbled streets, big doors, looming cathedrals, grid lay-out. Plus plenty of abandoned churches and buildings left unrepaired from the earthquake in the 1770s.

A typically impressive Antiguan door

Plus a plethora of cafes, restaurants and bars - many set in delightful courtyards fringed with arched cloisters and brimming with flowering plants. It is a food and drink delight set in stylish surroundings. I made the most of the great numbers of delicious cakes on offer. It is a place to wander from old building to old building, a tea, coffee or hot chocolate in a cafe and to drop in to a gallery or museum. We stopped by one art exhibition opening, found a great open air courtyard restaurant/bar with a great band, and explored the ruined cathedral which is Escher like in the way its surviving arches and their shadows intersect. It is like Barcelona without the modern bits.

A typical Antiguan street

Add to this three volcanoes looming overhead, one still active and periodically emitting smoke, for a very special town indeed.

We stayed in a beautiful room in a casa which was way over our budget but we can save a bit later. It was worth it for the rooftop terrace - great views and yoga space - nice rooms and quiet. No drunken backpackers talking rubbish in an adjacent courtyard until late into the night. My we're getting old!

La Merced

We were very close to the awesomely ornate La Merced church who's bells rang out for mass at 6 - both in the morning and at night. Outside was a great place to buy pupusas at the weekend - cheese filled maize tortillas with salad, refried beans, guacamole and chilli.

Taking your bicycle to mass

The other main standing church is the cathedral by the park.

Cathedral Traffic Lights

Cathedral Saint and Door

There are also well-used public pilas in the city. These are washing stations for clothes. Most villages and towns have, or had them, though more and more people have their own at home. Even the Antigua pilas are stylish!

I would happily return to Antigua to live for a few months and spend plenty of time walking around the streets taking photographs, going to see live bands and putting on weight from eating too many cakes.

Copan Ancient Mayan City

2008-01-19T10:16:00.000-08:00

Copan

I visited the ruins of Copan on 8 days during our stay at Copan Ruinas. Somewhat confusingly the modern town is known as Copan Ruinas, though its real name is San Jose de Copan, rather than the archaeological site which is known as Las Ruinas. I’ll just use Copan for the archaeological site and ‘the Town’ for, well, the town from now on.

Stella H

Copan is the municipal park of Mayan cities compared to Tikal’s jungle fastness. The site is compact and the main area comprises a beautifully kept level lawn surrounded by trees that are reached by low yet very, very long flights of stone steps. This is the Gran Plaza that stretches north of the Acropolis. Perhaps the biggest comparison with anything in Britain is with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Stella N

For it is across this lawn that Copan’s biggest contribution to world culture or tourist attraction, depending on how you view these monuments, are arranged. These are ten massive stone sculptures of the Kings of Copan. Such sculptures, known as stelae, are a feature of Mayan religious and socio-political art. A stela depicts a king or major city event and is inscribed with Mayan hieroglyphs that convey the important person or event the stela was made and erected for. There is always an altar in front.

Stella H

The stelae of Copan are one of the biggest and best-surviving Mayan groups anywhere. Their real importance is that deep relief carving was not taken to such a high artform anywhere else in the Mayan world. This is in part due to the volcanic stone that is hard when first quarried then hardens on exposure to air to create a very long-lasting rock. Nearly all other Mayan cities are on limestone and the carving never reached the same depth of relief or survived the elements for long.

Is that a rabbit?

There are stelae throughout the whole of Copan but it is in the Gran Plaza that they are closely arranged. Seven of the ten were erected and so depict one king – known as 18 Rabbit because of the lupine resemblance of one hieroglyph. Over a number of years he created a procession route for public ceremonies that is now the de facto ancient sculpture park. Each is about twice the height of a person and bare the king dressed in religious costumes tailored full of cosmological meanings. It looks like he is tweaking his nipples while blessed out on a Class A drug. In fact he is holding a staff across his chest from the ends of which exit the sun deity in various anthropomorphic forms. His face is below a mask, which on each stelae represents a different god, and is surrounded by other deities. One has two stylised macaw beaks, which some earlier ‘scholar’s took for elephant trunks and evidence for cross-Pacific communication.

Ball Court

The other two main features of the plaza are the ball court and Hieroglyphic Stairway. The ball game was played throughout ancient MesoAmerica and involved teams using their hips, chests and shoulders to throw a solid rubber ball onto sloping stone sides with the aim of scoring through a hoop while watched from above by the nobility. The game re-enacted Mayan cosmology such as the passage of the sun through the Underworld and winning or losing teams either forfeited jewellery or their lives in sacrifice to the gods. The Stairway comprises glyphs written on the individual blocks of the steps and is the longest piece of ancient Mayan text.

South of the Plaza des Estella rises the stone Acropolis, an artificial mountain aligned on the cardinal points. Here is the heart of kingship and government in Copan. Two raised plazas hosted more private ceremonies for nobility and the nine governors of the regions commanded by the city. All nine governors and the king would meet regularly in the Popol Nah, or Mat House, Copan’s town hall. It is called a Mat House because it was were leaders brought their mats to sit on in front of the person who had the right to sit on the very front mat. This form of council was the basic elder-led administration in any community and was replicated in Copan’s Popol Nah at the city-state level.

Macaws on a King

One of the delights of Copan is the group of ten or more semi-tame macaws that hang out near the ticker office and occasionally erupt into the plaza in a riot of colour and calls. They did this twice while I was there, once sitting on top of a stelae to search around and preen each other.

My week of photography at Copan was greatly enabled by Rene Viel, a French archaeologist who lives in Copan, and Oscar Cruz, the manager of the archaeological park. Oscar granted me a week's free access to the site and two museums as a result of Rene requesting access for me. Thank you to you both.

All-in-all, it was a very enjoyable week during which I got to know the personalities of Copan and hopefully have brought them out in the photographs.

Antigua

2008-01-17T17:18:00.001-08:00

We are now in Antigua Guatemala, the third colonial Spanish capital of Guatemala before yet another earthquake forced a move to the capital´s present geologically stable location in the 1700s. The town is all single storey Hispanic colonial buildings and cobbled streets with views of two volcanoes.

We´re looking forward to exploring the historic buildings, cafe culture and volunteering for the PROBIGUA literacy project by taking photographs and doing interviews of people who have benefitted from their support for promotional use.

We´re also hiking up a live volcano on Saturday!

Community Tourism in San Juan

2007-12-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

29th - 31st Dec

Homestay and guided tour in the Lenca Highlands, Honduras

View from our homestay door

I am sitting looking over coffee plants and chickens eating a salted taron grapefruit while the slap, slap of fresh tortillas being made comes from the kitchen where Doña Soledad is making my lunch. It is 11am New Year’s Eve and we are coming to the end of a visit to the tourism co-operative of San Juan, a village south of Gracias. We are staying in Doña Soledad’s house, a hearty and jovial 84 year-old who welcomed us in with a hug and a kiss. She spends most of her day in the kitchen, beside the wood burning hot plate. Her husband goes out to milk their cows, her adopted son Leonardo to work their land full of coffee plants, bananas, beans, maize and other fruits and vegetables. Meals have been mostly of food from her own land, much of it organic, including freshly squeezed milk, cheese, curd cheese, beans, bananas, free range yard eggs, coffee and maize tortillas.

Georgia picking coffee

We made tortillas with her the first night. I would say ‘helped’ except for the mis-shapen attempts we produced. On the last day she demonstrated how she roasts coffee beans on her hot plate and we helped turn the beans so that they did not burn. As they roast, the smell comes increasingly of coffee, except in our case and because of our 'help' it was dominated by a heady aroma of charcoal.

Roasting the coffee beans

That's fresh coffee!

Soledad’s daughter Gladys runs a stationers cum button shop cum café which quadruples as the visitor centre for the co-operative. This was where we arrived to and were shown a well-produced information folder that explains the aims of the co-operative, how it benefits its members and the activities provided through it.

Leonardo, Soledad's son, and Georgia pick coffee

Over the last couple of days we have got to know them all, especially Doña Soledad, and so got much closer to Hondurans than before. The co-operative is only four years old and was founded due to the plummeting coffee prices on the international market. With declining incomes a group of villagers and a Peace Corps worker identified the sorts of activities and infrastructure needed to increase small-scale community tourism. The current twenty members of the co-operative earn much needed income but also the visitor learns much more about contemporary and traditional Honduran life than if simply passing through and staying at a hotel. We have certainly got to know the people and lifestyles very well.

Danilo our guide and Campesinos

We had a full-day 24km hike into the mountains yesterday to visit the Waterfalls of the Elves. While not seeing any elves we did spend a great day with Danilo, a small farmer who as a guide earns 50% over the average daily wage for a coffee worker. Not only did we learn about the plants and history of the area, we were introduced to other members of the community and felt like we were being right in a real part of Honduras.

A waterfall, no elves in sight!

More photos are on our flickr photostream, link above left.

Thank You Gracias

2007-12-31T17:04:00.000-08:00

26th-29th Dec

Capital of the Lenca Highland, Honduras

Gracias

One of the Gracias churches

Gracias is a small mountain town in the western Highlands of Guatemala, an area occupied by the indigenous Lenca people. The bus journey from the coast rose through ever-more stunning countryside flanked by high mountains. We met a British-Irish couple who now live in San Francisco on the bus and shared stimulating conversations to pass the four hour journey. On arrival, we hopped in a tuk-tuk to the Finca Bavaria, a German-Honduran owned small walled coffee finca and hotel on the edge of town. Our room was set in a beautiful but somewhat neglected garden of forest trees, flowers, bananas, mangoes and coffee plants, all hidden behind a high stone wall and foreboding black steel gates – German style. The family who run the finca for the owners comprise a friendly but somewhat dotty hombre, a scowling senora and their pleasant, smiling daughter. The gates were purportedly closed at 10pm, to be opened on knocking, but were closed by 9.30 and opened with comments of ‘ooh, isn’t it late?’

Gracias Chat Up

The town is a small grid pattern of low pan-tiled painted houses, with a labyrinthine market at its centre. Two white Hispanic churches are the highest buildings in the town, one of them set next to a small wooded park. It gets its name from its founder, Spanish Conquistador Juna de Chevez, who called it Thank You to God when he came to this part of Central America in 1536. It is one of the oldest towns in Honduras, and has twice been it capital albeit briefly. An indigenous Lenca revolt against Spanish rule was brutally put down here when the Lenca leader Lempira was murdered on the pretence of an invitation to peace talks. He is now a national hero and his name is the name of the Honduran currency.

Lenca Hombre

Gracias doesn't get many tourists which means that there is a different atmosphere in town than elsewhere we have visited so far. People are going about their normal lives and as visitors we can see what that means in Honduras rather than solely being on holiday mode and seen by locals as a source of cash. One feature is that there are lots of men in cowboy hats.

Oranges are the only fruit

The market is a delight to explore and buy tortillas, fruit, vegetables and cheese. The outer walls are honeycombed with small shops selling everything from saddles and hardware to clothes and plastic things. Gracias is a place to wander around aimlessly and absorb how people live in highland Honduras. We also climbed to the nearby 19th century Castillo and spent an afternoon in hot springs situated 8km outside the town in a wooded gorge. A group of American and British backpackers arrived mid-afternoon and we shared beers over conversation – the ideal way to enjoy communal bathing. The only issue being the overly-amplified music which was further let down by Depeche Mode, Metallica and Eye of the Tiger.

More photos on our flickr photostream, link top right.

Rolling into Roli’s Place, Omoa

2007-12-27T08:25:00.001-08:00

22nd December onwards.

Backpackers in Omoa, Honduras

We picked out Omoa as the place for Christmas and maybe New Year because the guide book said it was a quiet fishing village with a good backpacker’s hostel called Roli’s Place, a Honduran resort and a quiet beach nearby. Georgia remembered it as a nice resort with a good beach 10 years previously. It shouldn’t be too built-up or noisy yet still some Honduran Christmas action.

It is easy to get to. The bus from the Guatemalan border to Puerto Cortes passes through the village and drops you off at the road to the backpackers and the beach. The walk to Roli’s is all flat, 1 km, through the village. The hostel is beautiful, with gorgeous gardens alive with hummingbirds and butterflies attracted to the flowers. The dock is a short stroll away.

But this is where most of the attractions of Omoa sadly end. The beach has been washed away by a recent expansion of the gas factory, a new breakwater changing the currents and so leaving a narrow strip where once football and volleyball pitches lay. The nearby quiet beach is quiet, surrounded by mangroves, with ospreys in the sea, but it is covered in rubbish. Many mangroves were cut down for the gas terminal and large lorries transporting gas trundle through the village.

If you want somewhere to hang out, recover from travelling and enjoy peaceful nights sleep then Roli’s is perfect. Duck in if you are on the coast road. His 10.30pm quiet curfew is strictly adhered to so it is not for the party crowd. He boasts of throwing out the backpacks of those repeatedly breaking the curfew and when we were there a couple of backpackers were given a firm warning for talking outside the dorm after 11pm. He does provide free use of sea kayaks, bicycles, table tennis, table football and a kitchen, all set in his tranquil gardens, which make it an ideal port f call for quiet recuperation from the road. There are a variety of very nicely kept double rooms at 160 - 220 lempiras, a dorm at L70, or you can either sling a hammock or camp for L50 a person in 2007.

In December 2007 Roli was talking of selling up and leaving, so I don't know what the future holds for the place. As of November 2008 he seems to still be in business. Its worth checking his website - www.yaxpactours.com - to check.

There is one great attraction if you find you need to stopover at Omoa – the Paticceria Italiana. Sheltered behind white Roman columns is an Italian bakery owned by an extremely charming Neapolitan. He bakes awesome panetone, delicious pan blanco, exquisite cakes and great pizza as well as having a good supply of Californian champagne. What a find!

San Ignacio, Belize

2007-12-15T19:21:00.000-08:00

12th-14th December

San Ignacio isn't a pretty town but it lies beautifully nestled at the confluence of two rivers in the western hills of Belize. It is easy to get to by bus from Belize City, the journey taking about 5 hours. If you arrive and hang out in the central park you'll quickly meet many of the local tour guide operators. There is quite a bit of budget accommodation along the main thoroughfare and a side street right in the centre of town. We stayed in a cabana set in the lawned campsite of Cosmos Camping and Cabanas on the outskirts of town and right by the Macal River. We opted for a 1km walk to get into the centre for peace and quiet at night and a rural setting near to the river. Basically, we wanted to get away from the main east-west road runs right through the centre of the town so it gets clogged up with traffic during most of the day. There were no other people staying while we were there, which could have made the place a bit desolate but the tranquility made up for feeling a little out on a limb. We'd often see the extremely friendly owner on our way into town because his house was on the roadside. He offers freshly squeezed orange juice if he sees you pass by, which is worth taking him up on.

The main highlights of a trip to San Ignacio include:

Going on a tour. We kayaked 14km down the River Macal, passing between forested hills, cruising over rapids and picnicking on a sand bank. We booked with a guy called D'Alessandro who was one of the guides who picked up on us in the central park. We chose him purely because he was friendly and not pushy. The kayak tripped consisted of D'Alessandro and his brother driving us 14km up the river, winding through beautiful farmland, where they put the kayak in the water and asked us to drop it off in San Ignacio just after the bridge before sunset. That was it.

Eating at the South Indian Restaurant! Belizean food is much of a muchness so to find an Indian restaurant run by a guy from Kerala was a godsend.

Meeting the many very friendly, laid-back people of Belize.

Iguanas

2007-12-15T18:37:00.001-08:00

14th December

Iguana spotting in San Ignacio, Belize

We spotted them first from our kayak. An unusual lump on a branch, high in tree. We hove to and saw it was an orange iguana, all menacing black stripes and spine spikes. Glowering it was.

Once you see one iguana you start to see lots of them. On Friday evening just before sunset I counted 14 hanging out on branches, almost one in each tree over a couple of hundred metres alongside the river. They appear to be soaking up the last warmth from the suns rays before the cool of night. If you're in San Ignacio head for a riverside track a bit before sunset and get counting.

Mennonites

2007-12-15T18:31:00.000-08:00

12th December

Belize is one country that is home to one of those old-fashioned German protestant communities who (mostly) left the present behind sometime in the 1700s. The Mennonites are akin to the more famous Amish. Formed out of German reformation thinking, they eschew most worldly goods, vanities and excesses for a simple life that is closer to their god. They live in distinct, even segregated, communities. We passed through one on the way from Indian Church to Orange Walk. Rows of prim, grey wooden houses, pinched white curtains at the windows, look out in orderly fashion across tidy fields with the occasional evergreen hedge for decoration. Horse-drawn buggies canter along the road, except when parked up under the veranda, and form the dominant traffic challenged only by the occasional Hispanic pick-up. Men and boys where work shirts, jeans and braces or dungarees and straw hats. Women wear loose dark dresses that come below the knee, and scarves or wide-brimmed straw hats.

Not all Mennonites are the same. While some refuse all modern inventions, so travelling by foot, buggy or bicycle, others drive cars and have mobile phones. In the north they wear more cowboy-like upturned hats, in the west the brims turn down. Some are clean-shaven while others have beards as shaving is a sign of bodily vanity.

The Mennonites are in Belize by invitation, arriving in 1962 from Canada after the Canadian government decided all residents had to be citizens. The pacifist, non-aligned Mennonites give no allegiance to secular nation states resulting in some problems up north. Belize needed skilled input to kick start its agricultural production and asked the Mennonites to come along. They now control something like 80% of all Belizean beef, dairy, poultry and egg production, as well as being major house builders.

Lamanai

2007-12-15T18:26:00.001-08:00

11th December 2007

Lamanai is a Mayan city next to lagoons and amongst jungle in northern Belize. They are much smaller than Tikal, comprising a couple of beautiful restored pyramids, a ball court and some palace/administrative buildings around plazas. What mostly drew us here was an amazingly well-preserved white stucco mask – probably the face of a god or king – that had been preserved under a later pyramid until archaeologists discovered it in the late 20th century. The visit was well worth it, the 4 metre high mask being one of the best preserved in the Mayan world.

We also enjoyed the excellent visitor centre and museum, howler monkeys, picnic lunch by the lagoon and photographing lots of delicate, gorgeous mushrooms found by Georgia.

On the Road to Indian Church

2007-12-15T18:13:00.001-08:00

10th December 2007

We’re on the road again, Caye Caulker fast receding behind our speed boat ferry across a calm, blue Caribbean Sea. C.C. is certainly very much a resort island, nightclubs, sports bars and all. It was great for a week-long holiday. The snorkelling and weather were both good. We unfortunately moved hotels twice to get one decent and quiet – our second being a party venue next to a club – which was Lorraine’s well away from the town and right on the beach. We met some great people and had some great conversations on C.C. with Brits, Canadians, French, Germans and Turks.

A week feels like long enough so we are heading for a tiny village called Indian Church to stay a couple of nights an visit the nearby Mayan ruins of Lamanai. It feels like we’re travelling again rather than being on a long holiday.

We walked across Belize City to get a local bus to Orange Walk, a Hispanic-Mennonite town in the north. We had a three hour wait for the one bus to Indian Church – which runs twice a week – so had lunch, hung out in the central park, ate some crispy apple like fruit with salt, chilli and lime bought from a buy with a trike and got on the bus with everyone an hour before it left. The bus was packed with women returning from the market, children from a school, and a few men. The large, round-backed driver squeezed behind the steering wheel, edged forward, let someone on, edged forward, let someone on, edged forward then eased the bus onto the dirt road. Two hours down a rain-filled pot-holed muddy road running first between sugar cane fields then jungle, dropping off groups of perhaps three at one village, five at the next, and we were at Indian Church. Population 200, three shops (one the venue for watching TV), two comedors, two guest houses, a generator for electricity (only on between 6.30 and 9.30pm) and no light pollution.

Caye Caulker, Belize, Snorkelling

2007-12-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

4-8^th December

Coral, brightly coloured fishes, eels, rays, octopuses and turtles –one great tour company called Anwar and a wholly terrible, unprofessional one called Tsunami!

We have been Swimming with the Fishes…….or to be exact, swimming with the Yellow-Tailed Snappers, French Grunts, Pink Squirrelfish and Horse-Eyed Jacks. More Pirates of the Caribbean than fishes of the Caribbean? That’s what the coloured little fishes of the reef we have seen are called. We have seen large colonies of coral towering above the sea-bed, plus rays, eels, octopuses and turtles.

We have been doing what we mostly came to Caye Caulker for – snorkelling. And we love it. We’ve been out on three tours – and here’s a recommendation and a word of warning. Two tours by Anwar were good, one of them excellent. The third with Tsunami was appalling. We strongly recommend anyone who wants to go out with a good and knowledgeable guide to go with Anwar and to avoid Tsunami like the disaster they are named after. But more of this later.

Belize has the world’s second largest Barrier Reef, a line of coral than runs straight down the eastern coast and facing the Caribbean. It is broken places by natural channels and beyond it lies a series of coral and sand atolls. Caye Caulker is one of the sand islands – cayes – just inside the reef and only one of two that are inhabited. The local inhabitants have been long-time lobster fishermen until tourism took off. There is a largish local village sprawled along the key and a strip of hotels, hostels, restaurants, gift shops, jewellery stalls, dive centres and tour shops along the east-facing reef-side.

Two of our trips have been with the impeccable Anwar’s Tours, one with a fantastic guide and all-round top person called Emer. With enthusiasm, dedication and expert knowledge, he has pointed out pinnacle, elkhorn, antler, fire, brain and common sea fan corals. He takes time to point out corals, fishes, lobsters and eels then rises to the service to tell us what they are. He also takes time to answer all questions and explain how the reef works. He’s a star and if you go to Caye Caulker go to Anwar’s for a tour ans ask for one led by Emer if you can. He’s one of the best tour guides we have been with of any sort anywhere in the world.

Strangely the two Anwar’s tours have also been with the same Minnesotan couple celebrating her 60^th birthday. We first went to the local Caye Caulker reef where we saw decent coral and some fish, second to Hol Chan and the Coral Gardens where we saw great coral and lots of fish.

We have also seen the entertaining, disappearing Christmas tree worms which do look like tiny, brightly-coloured Christmas trees. They disappear into their protective coral homes when they sense danger nearby. The corals rise as mounds from the sea bed, each mound a community of different types of hard an soft corals. Most are brown or green with a few purples and yellows thrown in to brighten things up.

Emer has dived to show us a multitude of multi-coloured fishes, the names of most of which are so quickly forgotten as one darting, bright treasure follows on from another. We have seen a variety of parrot, butterfly and angel fish, lots of sub-surface bobbing pipe fish, large shoals of silver and yellow fish hugging close to the coral, large black groupers, plus everyone’s favourite - the barracuda. Just floating looking down on the vibrant, three-dimensional worlds is enough of a delight to make an hour pass as if it is fifteen minutes.

Our third tour could not have been more of a contrast. The disaster that is Tsunami tours were the only company with a confirmed trip to Tunneffe Atoll, out beyond the barrier reef. The boat trip out was exhilarating due to the swell fronting strong winds. At our first stop Rene the guide swam off at breakneck speed leaving us all trailing in his wake. He pointed out only one fish but was keener to get to deeper water to harpoon his dinner. Half of the group were left behind, including three older, less fit Americans. Rene shouted at them to keep up and complained to me they should not be on the tour. A long swim later and we all made it back to the boat tired but the three Americans were struggling and Rene had to go back to escort them in. They only made it out of the boat one more time during the day.

We stopped on the sandy atoll itself for lunch and at three more locations to snorkel. Despite Tsunami saying the guide would show us coral and fish and that we could not snorkel by ourselves, Rene did not do any more guiding and either sat in the boat smoking cigarettes or went off on his own to hunt, bringing back a lobster and a fish. He also threw a live turtle in the boat for us to look at and shouted at one guy who put it back in the water as soon as anyone possibly could, poor turtle.

The large coral formations towering from the sea bed were stunning at Turneffe and because we had two good tours previously, both of us were happy to snorkel and look for things ourselves. We swam around colonies of different coloured corals, many with fish. But, not once did Rene offer to tell us where the good coral was, which direction to swim or how far unless we pressed him. Any of us could have gone too far and found a strong, cold current.

I hired an underwater digital camera from Tsunami which did not work the whole trip. When I brought it back, Heather who was running the shop was rude and offensive as she accused me of mistreating the camera while explaining that tourists lie to her and damage the cameras themselves. I said the memory card was faulty, in my opinion, which she worked out too while miserably bad mouthing tourists. Then refused a refund until she had checked with the woman who hired me the camera and we had to go back the next day to see if she would consider a refund. The whole attitude of Tsunami – their health and safety, guiding, communication and customer service was of the lowest standard you could imagine – in other words ‘utter shite’.

My highlights are the fish I’ve not seen before and long wanted to swim with.

We have had the honour at one location of being visited time again by a fly-past of at least 22 sting rays, silently gliding over the sea bed in graceful formations. A couple of larger spotted eagle rays have slipped past, their matt black bodies seeming to cast dark shadows across the water.

G. adds: yes... we have seen wonderful life under the water, and eagle rays are surely one of my favourite ever creatures on the planet to see. I loved the way that Emer pointed out all the little and more commonly seen fish as well as the 'big 5' so beloved of tour guides. the day after, I went back to Anwar's shop and spent an hour perhaps just sitting with the guide and browsing the reference books going over what we'd seen and identifying more or variations. They're a great outfit.

Yaxha

2007-12-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

The last weekend in El Remate before we go to Caye Caulker in Belize for a 10 day holiday. Can't wait.

On Saturday I visited La Blanca and Yaxha while Georgia worked on a couple of inHeritage comics. I was kindly given a lift by Lou, an American living in El Remate with half a dozen businesses and ideas for a hundred more. We met the archaeologists digging in La Blanca, were comically charged 80Qs for two lunches that should have been 40Qs and settled on 50Qs, then he dropped me off at Yaxha for the afternoon before returning to collect me after sunset.

Yaxha is another fantastic jungle-clad Mayan city that has recently been renovated and had some great infrastructure added to it - wooden walkways and decent signs. It's right next to a lake too.

Here's some photos

Yaxha Pyramid

Lake Sunset from Templo Mayor

Stucco Glyph

Tikal for the Weekend

2007-11-12T15:17:00.000-08:00

Monday, 11th November and we are resting after a weekend at Tikal. I’ve been going up two or even three times a week to photograph the most visited and best preserved/reconstructed ancient Mayan city in Guatemala. But that involves an early start and a departure well before sunset, as well as the inevitable haggling over fare. Esta 10 quatzales por una Guatemelteca and usually 15 for uno turisto. Pero muchos collectivos quiren 20 or even 30 quatzelas. No me gusta! It’s a pain haggling with the minibus drivers so we decided to have a weekend away and stay in the luxury Jungle Lodge right next to the gates of the site. We could stay for sunset on Saturday and be up for sunrise on Sunday as well as treat ourselves to dinner on white linen under a palm-thatched roof and Victorian black and white photos of the temples being cleared of jungle.

We checked in with Oliver who has clearly been on a tourism training course that said a real smile is with the eyes and closed them everytime he did smile which was about twice a minute. We had a nice little room with a balcony overlooking a narrow, beautifully planted garden, into the jungle. Georgia was greatly attracted to the open air swimming pool surrounded by jungle. The Lodge lives up to its name!

We managed to eventually find out that for 50 quatzels we could enter the site an hour before official opening at 6am with a guard to be escorted to Temple 4 to watch sunrise. Oliver didn’t tell us this, the ticket seller didn’t tell us this. Only a guar overhearing our enquiry told us this.

We have had two great days wandering around probably the most dramatic Mayan city in Central America. It was one of the biggest and most influential in its day, though not the biggest. However, they still mostly survive as forested mounds with little uncovered to understand a Mayan city. What really makes Tikal are the six dramatic pyramid temples that soar above the forest canopy, Temple 4 is the highest at 70 metres and from here you can see jungle as far as every horizon, look down on mighty rainforest trees, watch branches and trees shake to the swinging and clambering of spider monkey foraging for fruit, follow parrots, toucans, vultures and hawks flutter, swoop, soar and glide above the trees. There are few rainforests in the world with such majestic and high viewing platforms.

Sunset was one where a large dark red fiery disc, fractured by fingers of cloud, sinks lazily towards the horizon. Flocks of green parrots squawked their way from one tree to another in search of a roost. Darkness and silence descended with it.

Sunrise was a gentle, gradual lightening of promise for a new day. The night had been quiet except for the chilling roar of a group of agitated howler monkeys and dark save the overwhelming lights of stars, planets and the Milky Way glimpsed between clearings. We climbed Temple 4 to look over the silhouetted proud crowns of four other pyramids to the east. Then, as half light burrowed into the shadows the jungle began to awake. First the howler monkeys let out their loud roars stating they were here, that others should not invade their tree-top territories. They opened their mouths, inflated their throats, and the jungle raged to the sound of demons unleashed from hell. Then, surprisingly, came silence with the dawn. The howlers stopped. Except it was totally quiet. Now that they could be heard, the birds filled the morning light with song. Sparsely came the notes at first until the sun was above the horizon, then every tree seemed alive with every type of song and call as they too announced their territorial presence. Branches began to bend to the first spider monkeys searching for food, toucans flitted to the tops of fruit trees. Ungainly in their swooping flight and comical with their oversized and overcoloured beaks, they kept high in twos and threes. If ever a bird was created based on the winning entry in a young children’s art contest, the toucan would be it.

Dawn went through a slow blending of grey, yellow and orange hues. Subtly, the clouds grew pink and orange high in the sky, the sun shielded by a larger cloud. Yellow vertical bands of light shimmered on the horizon below the cloud. After the light show, the dozens of other tourists left to start their various tours. We remained on high and were treat to the sound and sight of the jungle without camera shutters or flash bulbs. Cloud hung low in the hollows of the ground, casting treetops in silhouette. The bright oranges and pinks gave away to misty whites and diluted golds and then the sun climbed above the cloud and the jungle shimmered like a sea, the temples like majestic sailing ships waiting to set sail. What a way to spend a Sunday morning!

I have put some of my photographs of and from Tikal on my photography website - Tikal Photos
Enjoy!

Skulls, Drunks and Broken Taps

2007-11-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

El Remate, the Peten, northern Guatemala.

On Thursday we decided to head to the village of San Jose on the other side of Lake Peten Itza. It was November 1st, All Saints Day. This is widely and strongly celebrated here because of the mix of Catholic faith and traditional religion which honoured the dead and ancestors. People across the country walk in large numbers to the cemeteries to have picnics with their dead families, wash and paint the graves, and place wreaths of bright flowers. We had been told that San Jose, having a alrge Maya population, had a traditional ceremony where Three Skulls were taken in procession around the village.

The day started well with a beautiful boat trip across the lake from the town of flores to the village of San Andreas only 2km from San Jose. Andreas has the hotels and we´d been recommend Villa Benjamin on the basis of its view and restaurant. After disembarking we climbed the near vertical village streets, following directions further and further up the hill. THe directions got shorted each time suggesting we were really getting closer until the last person we asked pointed and used only one word - arriber - up! When we reached the hotel the view was truly spectacular - right across the jungle-fringed lake and down into the turqoiuse waters below where kids leapt off a wooden dock. The only hitch was the somewhat shady hotel managed who couldn´t say anything - and I mean anything - without winking or suggesting in hushed tones he was doing us the sort of favour that should have involved him producing silk stockings and silver watches from a raincoat. His somewhat dubious antics put us off but being tired and hungry, by now it was 2pm ,we decided just to have lunch before deciding our next move. As the food was great and his wife more normally friendly, we thought we´d take a room as we were here. The gardens were beautiful and we wouldn´t have to speak to him. We paid then heard the shattering news that they were leaving at 4m the next morning to visit her family grave so there would be no breakfast.

Not disheartened by the news, lack of light in the baño, unfinished electrical wiring, cobwebs or fake stone walls, we set off along the road to San Jose for a sunset walk beside the lake. The water shimmered blue and aqua in one direction, shades of pink and purple in the other. We hung out on a dock by San Jose´s part-built concrete promenade which promised tourists, cafes and car parks galore. We then thought, as it was nearly 6 and our reports varied between 6 and 7 for the start of the ceremony, we should find the church where the action was meant to begin.

Skulls
We climbed to the sound of bells and the vision of a white bell tower to find a church almost empty except for three skulls lined up in front of the alter, each with a raised cross on its forehead. After about 20 minutes of sitting in the empty church, except for the occasional bit of activity as a mujer brought a decoration or alter piece out, we thought best to get a drink and come back later.

Drunks
We pitched up at a small bar for a soda and a licuado de papaya to be hailed from the back by a guy saying ´why not come in´. Why not chat with the locals. The three guys didn´t instanly look like they had been drinking for that long. There were the husband of the woman doing all of the work, his father-in-law (both from El Salvador) and a local friend. Georgia was soon speaking Spanish to the father in law and friend while the other guy decided to talk at me ni English. Neither of us spoke much for the next half hour or so. My amigo had come to Peten after a vision of god while on magic mushrooms after leaving the US Army cadets. He had seen eyes appear on the floor and walls, then the earth at way and in hunger. A voice spoke to him, saying ´why do you think it doesn´t not explode´before two hands cupped the earth. Taking this as a sign that he hd to go to the Peten and show the locals how to save the rainforest by growing vegetables on rafts of waste in the lake, he had ended up drunk in San Jose.

Skulls again
The church bell rang again and we took this as our cue to escape, climbed back up to the chruch to find a full Catholic mass about to begin. THe church was packed, there were plenty of chicos and chicas hanging around outside the open doors and as the mass progressed more people wandered in and out. A dog sallied in, wagging its tale as it sauntered downthe aisle until it found someone it knew and sniffed them. It soon became bored and wandered out again. That was probably the highlight for me. Realising that the mass was going to go on for a long time and that any procession wasn´t shaping up to be that spectacular we decided to walk back to our hotel.

Broken Tap
We crashed out in our room but as the toilet cistern wouldn´t stop filling up Georgia went to flush it again and turn off a dripping tap. Suddenly water was flooding everywhere and I found Georgia trying to keep the tap on the faucet. I took over so she could get the manager, as our room and the balcony flooded. Thankfully he turned off the ater without trying to sell us a new plumbing system or blackmarket coffee and we moved room. About two hours later there was a knock on the door and he shouted something, apparently prompted by his wife. It seemed to be that he wanted us to pay for the tap we´d clearly broken. Giving the general unfinished and uncared for state of the rooms we thught we´d not enter into the conversation.

Flores, Guatemala

2007-10-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

Flores in the lake

We approached Santa Elena with sun bursting through the leaden sky of clouds after a rain-soaked journey thinking this a good sign for better weather until the rain came back in time for us getting out of the collectivo. Santa Elena is the muddy (or dusty depending on the weather), busy, noisy, polluted mainland cousin to the historic island town of Flores which is joined to the former by a causeway. Santa Elena guards the approach to Flores like Rapunzil’s mean father. Both are on Lake Peten Itza, the largest lake in northern Guatemala. It is surrounded by jungle-covered hills where villages nestle against the shore.

Bright Street of our hotel

We were whisked through the ugly to the good by another collectivo who just happened to be waiting at our drop-off point. Our arranger drove us around a few hotels until yes we agreed with him, the one he recommended was the best. This was the Mirador Del Lago at 60 Quetzals for a fan double with a private bathroom. As it was at our price with a decent room and warm water from the shower we happily took it and he presumably happily received his commission.

Typical Flores door

Flores is a town of narrow cement and limestone-cobbled streets lined with brightly painted buildings. The island was the ancient Mayan city of Taxapal and still today bits of Mayan buildings and burials are found during construction work. At least some, we were told, were found by archaeologists working alongside the builders.

Casa Veija - an old house hidden in a backstreet of Flores

Today, Flores, is a major tourist hub for backpackers and holidaymakers visiting the ancient Mayan city Tikal, just over an hour’s drive away. This means lots of gift shops selling Tikal t-shirts and traditional clothes, internet cafes and many, many restaurants selling Western specialities for prices expensive compared to local. Where a meal of squash and salad in Santa Elena would be 15 Quetzels, in Flores a meal costs twice as much. We found a great street taco place near the lakeside with a cheap buffet of salads and salsas.

Pizzeria wall advertising

Tulum Too-rar-ay

2007-10-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

Return to Tulum, Mexico

Tulum Beach

It was great to return to Tulum, to start where I ended my last trip to Mexico in 1999. I thought we'd look for the place I stayed before but couldn't remember the name and the pouring rain meant we took the nearest affordable beach cabana to where the taxi dropped us. We had thought about a place called El Mirador but the taxi driver assured us it had closed 2 years ago.

View from our cabana

We stayed at El Mirador in a typical Mexican sand-floored, wood and concrete palm leaf thatched cabana right on the beach for 250 pesos. All it took as a left turn and a short walk and we were in the Caribbean. El Mirador is one of a number of places on a strip along the beach. If you want to have good access to the beach then it is best to head to this strip. If you're on a budget there are cheaper places to stay in Tulum itself, the town that is about 1 mile from the beach and ruins. Buses run between the town and beach so it is easy to get to the sand, but you miss waking up to the sound of surf, the general tranquility of the rural beach-side setting and being in the sea minutes after getting out of bed. You pays your money and makes your choices.

A quick look around suggested some things were a bit different and then the owner of the cabanas supplied the answer - Hurrican Wilma had hit this part of the Yucatan coast 2 years ago randomly decimating some cabanas while leaving others standing. Half of his were out of order while the others were fine and he hadn't the money to yet rebuild the ones he had lost. But where was the place I stayed before? I was sure it was only a little further along the beach towards the headland with the Mayan ruins. And there they were - or what was left of them. A few sticks, some rectangular depressions in the sand and lost of debris. The place I had stayed, and my memory at last caught up to tell me it was El Mirador, had been flattened by Wilma. The cabana I had shared with a German backpacker was a wall, a door and a place where rubbish collected.

Remains of the old place

Tulum works out as a great place to rest up after a long-haul flight. Highlights are of course swimming in the turquoise sea, lying on the fine white sand and the Mayan city on the nearby cliff. If you're after a beach holiday or want to get together with other backpackers then it should suit you really well. The Mayan city is worth a visit for its breathtaking location as much as its architectural interest, as well as being one to tick off the list if you're on a Ruta Maya journey. Highlights include the Castillo, the most visible building on the site, which is seven and half meters tall and has a small shrine may have been used as a beacon for incoming canoes. The Temple of the Frescoes is perhaps the most impressive building. Figurines of the Maya “diving god” or Venus deity decorate niches in the temple's façade. The architecture is similar to nearby Chichen Itza, though on a smaller scale. There's a few Tulum photos on my flickr photostream - flickr stream

We had met an American who lived in Isla de Mujeres who claimed that as it was the rainy season we would get an hour of rain each day at 3pm but that a low depression was moving south-west from Florida. How quickly we were to discover it was heading our way. The first day the rains came at mid-day and stayed for the rest of the day. Then the second held dry until 3pm but after a dawn downpour and then the rains came at midday on the 3rd day too. Each day we had a 3 or 4 hour window of sun to swim and sunbathe in before huge dark grey towering columns of clouds moved in from the sea like marauding armies crossing a plain. Spectacular to watch, bands of rain drenched everything in their paths. The first night we watched four lightning storms play themselves out silently behind different cloud banks, like the spaceships in Close Encounters silently communicating to each other. The light show was awesome. So were the gale force winds and sheets of rain. Our plans to go to Caye Caullker in Belize for a week or two of snorkelling were looking somewhat unlikely. This was simply reinforced reading a Mexican paper over a woman's shoulder. Even my limited Spanish could not hide the two pages of news about the low front that could turn into a tropical depression that was swinging in towards Belize and the Yucatan from the Caribbean. The news warned of two to three days of stormy weather. There wouldn't be a lot to see at sea.