April 21 Day 65
We got up, had breakfast at the hostel with weird Thai orange juice that tasted like Tang but had pulp of some sort in it. We got our bikes and headed off to check out the rest of our temples.
The first one wasn't covered by our ticket and took us by an active temple, where a monk seemed to be lecturing a pair of locals, before entering the ruin site. This was an active ruin, with several modern Buddhas, benches and chairs in one area and lots of offering vendors.
We were just heading towards a shrine covered in more plastic chickens when a large group showed up. Their leader explained to us that it was a class of students studying English who had come up with questions to ask tourists. The first one asked a few questions and the rest had to be almost forced to speak to us before asking what we liked best about Thailand. It was over fairly quickly and we had some nice pictures taken with them before heading off to look at the chickens.
All of the other sites were a short bike ride away. The first was a fully restored temple with groups of monks walking through the grounds. It had a big Buddha and lots of worshipers. It seemed quite modern until you got to a photo show at the back which showed the temple in its pre-restored state with a large Buddha lying amongst the ruined temple. The current state was much more useful to the local worshipers but the ruined version would have been more atmospheric to tourists. Another thing we noticed was the clicking of bundles of sticks, shaken until one came out to give an answer to a question. I thought it was a process unique to Taoism but apparently not.
Right next to this functional temple was the most famous of the ruined sites with the three iconic stupas that are a symbol of the city. The towers were impressive and in relatively good condition. As we walked around we found a headless Buddha on a pedestal and a nice row of trees. The next temple we went to had another nice stupa and few other visitors, but we had seen enough temples and needed to move on.
Our last stop in town was at the historical museum, which was made up of three buildings. The first was the main one, with a big hall full of Buddha statues and finely carved doors. Far more attractive was the gold room, which was heavily air conditioned. We found out that a gru was a secret hiding place for treasure in certain stupas. In the ac room at the other end of the hall was a set of relics found in a gru including gold work that for some reason displayed under blurry plastic and an actual relic of the Buddha which wasn't visible but was said to be about half the size of a grain of rice.
on the second floor the AC room was full of students but we couldn't tell whether they were the same ones who had interviewed us.
We headed to the other two museum buildings. The first was an impressive recreation of a Thai house on stilts full of dull documents. The third building had pottery and almost no information in English.
We biked back to the hostel, showered again and packed up for our departure. We took a tuktuk to the minivan and learned we had 40 minutes before departure. We rushed to find a close place to eat and settled on a posh place where we were the only customers. We had to get most of the stuff to go and the woman who ran the place gave us some lychees as a going away present.
The minibus took us to the southern bus terminal in Bangkok and we crossed the road in our backpacks to get to the other terminal. We quickly found the bus to Hue Hin and unfortunately found that Meg's salad had leaked over all of our other food and we had to toss the lot. On both buses we had to pay for an extra seat because of the space our backpacks took up.
We got to Hue Hin after three hours on the second minibus, quicker but with less space and a poorer view than the train. The second minibus didn't have curtains so the AC couldn't overcome the direct sunlight and we were pretty sweaty. At one of the stops we had another lemon soda that was salted but not so much this time so we were able to finish them.
We didn't have a map so we got a tuktuk to our guesthouse and got checked in. We dropped off our laundry and then had a soak in the pool before heading out to dinner. The waterfront street was alive with touts and so we headed to an Italian place recommended by the woman at our guesthouse desk. We cut by a Chinese Temple to the beach and had to cut through an insanely opulent Hilton to find the restaurant.
One thing no one told us about Hue Hin was it seemed to be the number one place for lonely older guys to pick up younger Thai women. We hadn't seen this in any other Thai cities this trip at all, but here it was everywhere. Not underaged women, but definitely women much more attractive than the men and several decades younger. During dinner (which was tasty) Meg counted 10 couples in 20 minutes not counting free agents of either gender.
Once back at our guesthouse ,which was huge and spread over at least two sites, we didn't say hi to the single guys staying there as the though of what they might be up to creeped us out. Is that our own bias?
We got up, had breakfast at the hostel with weird Thai orange juice that tasted like Tang but had pulp of some sort in it. We got our bikes and headed off to check out the rest of our temples.
The first one wasn't covered by our ticket and took us by an active temple, where a monk seemed to be lecturing a pair of locals, before entering the ruin site. This was an active ruin, with several modern Buddhas, benches and chairs in one area and lots of offering vendors.
We were just heading towards a shrine covered in more plastic chickens when a large group showed up. Their leader explained to us that it was a class of students studying English who had come up with questions to ask tourists. The first one asked a few questions and the rest had to be almost forced to speak to us before asking what we liked best about Thailand. It was over fairly quickly and we had some nice pictures taken with them before heading off to look at the chickens.
All of the other sites were a short bike ride away. The first was a fully restored temple with groups of monks walking through the grounds. It had a big Buddha and lots of worshipers. It seemed quite modern until you got to a photo show at the back which showed the temple in its pre-restored state with a large Buddha lying amongst the ruined temple. The current state was much more useful to the local worshipers but the ruined version would have been more atmospheric to tourists. Another thing we noticed was the clicking of bundles of sticks, shaken until one came out to give an answer to a question. I thought it was a process unique to Taoism but apparently not.
Right next to this functional temple was the most famous of the ruined sites with the three iconic stupas that are a symbol of the city. The towers were impressive and in relatively good condition. As we walked around we found a headless Buddha on a pedestal and a nice row of trees. The next temple we went to had another nice stupa and few other visitors, but we had seen enough temples and needed to move on.
Our last stop in town was at the historical museum, which was made up of three buildings. The first was the main one, with a big hall full of Buddha statues and finely carved doors. Far more attractive was the gold room, which was heavily air conditioned. We found out that a gru was a secret hiding place for treasure in certain stupas. In the ac room at the other end of the hall was a set of relics found in a gru including gold work that for some reason displayed under blurry plastic and an actual relic of the Buddha which wasn't visible but was said to be about half the size of a grain of rice.
on the second floor the AC room was full of students but we couldn't tell whether they were the same ones who had interviewed us.
We headed to the other two museum buildings. The first was an impressive recreation of a Thai house on stilts full of dull documents. The third building had pottery and almost no information in English.
We biked back to the hostel, showered again and packed up for our departure. We took a tuktuk to the minivan and learned we had 40 minutes before departure. We rushed to find a close place to eat and settled on a posh place where we were the only customers. We had to get most of the stuff to go and the woman who ran the place gave us some lychees as a going away present.
The minibus took us to the southern bus terminal in Bangkok and we crossed the road in our backpacks to get to the other terminal. We quickly found the bus to Hue Hin and unfortunately found that Meg's salad had leaked over all of our other food and we had to toss the lot. On both buses we had to pay for an extra seat because of the space our backpacks took up.
We got to Hue Hin after three hours on the second minibus, quicker but with less space and a poorer view than the train. The second minibus didn't have curtains so the AC couldn't overcome the direct sunlight and we were pretty sweaty. At one of the stops we had another lemon soda that was salted but not so much this time so we were able to finish them.
We didn't have a map so we got a tuktuk to our guesthouse and got checked in. We dropped off our laundry and then had a soak in the pool before heading out to dinner. The waterfront street was alive with touts and so we headed to an Italian place recommended by the woman at our guesthouse desk. We cut by a Chinese Temple to the beach and had to cut through an insanely opulent Hilton to find the restaurant.
One thing no one told us about Hue Hin was it seemed to be the number one place for lonely older guys to pick up younger Thai women. We hadn't seen this in any other Thai cities this trip at all, but here it was everywhere. Not underaged women, but definitely women much more attractive than the men and several decades younger. During dinner (which was tasty) Meg counted 10 couples in 20 minutes not counting free agents of either gender.
Once back at our guesthouse ,which was huge and spread over at least two sites, we didn't say hi to the single guys staying there as the though of what they might be up to creeped us out. Is that our own bias?
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| The class that interviewed us amongst the ruins. |
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| Okay, what's up with the chickens? Is this dude their leader? |
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| Me and the iconic stupas. |
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