Hey Petchaburi!

With a 5-day weekend ahead of us, I was at a loss of what to do. Ella and I were originally going to do nothing, as we were both pretty swamped with work. But determining to not let the holiday go to waste, we decided to take at least 2 or 3 days off. Looking online, I found some stuff for Petchaburi. A small town about 2 hours from Bangkok, it seemed to have a few things to do. So off we went with Dmytro to check out what's up with this place.

Color me pleasantly surprised. I guess because our expectations were nil, but I enjoyed Petchaburi a lot more than I thought I would. Considering you can get there faster than across the city at rush hour, it really should be included in more Bangkok travel guides and whatnot. I mean, you're not going to spend a week there without going crazy. But it makes for an awesome weekend getaway. 

After we arrived, we checked into the one of... two guesthouses in the entire city. It was already late afternoon, so we decided to just take a stroll around downtown and see what we could find. We found Wat Mahathat Worrawihan, though it's kind of hard to not. A tall, bleached, marble white temple in Khmer (Cambodian) style, it sticks out like sore thumb compared to the 1 or 2 story places nearby. It's a wat. Pretty, but you've seen one Thai wat, you've seen 95% of them.

Walking around, we didn't see too much else of note. Mostly just taking in the city, before stopping to get dinner. Because of the holiday, a lot of places were closed. We did find a duck noodle place, which turned out to be surprisingly good. It's not often you find duck, even in Thailand. It's more of a Chinatown thing. So this was a rare treat, and as always, was about $1 for a meal. Dmytro went a bit crazy and got a double helping with rice. Let it be known, he hates ducks.

So for the first proper day, we decided to rent motorbikes and check out the beach. The beach is only about 15km from the city, but I dreaded having to pay another 300b to corrupt cops along the way. Fortunately, and this is a big feather in Petchaburi's cap, there were cops along the way, but none decided to stop and extort money from the poor foreigners. So, that was nice. The beach, Chao Samran, was unique in many respects. First it was near empty, unusual for a holiday. Also, it was covered with tiny crabs. About the size of your pinky, they burrowed out holes by rolling the sand into little balls. So, the beach was covered with these little balls of sand, and tiny crabs that rushed into their holes when you approached. I managed to trap a bigger one by putting my finger over his hole, and he ran around in a state of panic trying to escape this giant, wondering where his hole went. So, let it be known that I terrorized the local wildlife. The ocean itself was surprisingly muddy. I was imagining bottling this mud and selling it for a killing in Seoul or something.

Back in town, we kept going on the bikes to look at Khao Luang Cave. Now, this place was impressive. I've always liked caves, but especially unique caves. This one was filled with monkeys (my nemesis!), and of course, buddha. But it had a lot of incense, combined with the holes in the roof, made for some really neat looking sunbeams to come down into the cave and illuminate different parts. I especially like this pic Ella took of me, but in general all the pics down there looked really neat.

Back on the road, we wanted to go see a coffee shop in the shape of a giant Cadillac, but it was closed. Instead we saw a sign for a cable car, which I was skeptical of. Turns out it is a real cable car, something I've never seen in Thailand. We took it to the top of the Mount Phranakhornkiri (Seriously... is this actually the name of it?). On top were more... monkeys. Ugh. Except at least they were a little cute, trying to open water bottles while tiny monkey babies clung onto them. This is the tallest mountain around, and has a well-maintained park along with, you guessed it, temples and palaces. Still, it had great views of the surrounding area, and we got some great pics.

It had been quite a day, so we went back to the hotel for some R&R. Not before picking up some Khao Soi, AKA the best Thai food in the world. Unfortunately, our guesthouse was right above a bar which decided to make some noise for the holiday. Probably the only bar in town, it kept us up the previous night. This time, we adopted the "If you can't beat them, join them" attitude and stopped in for a few drinks. That made sleeping much easier.

The next, final day was to Ban Pun Palace. Built by a German architect about 100 years ago, it was only briefly used by royalty. It was converted to various things, before sitting unused for a long time. Eventually some people decided "Eh, maybe we should let tourists in." So they fixed it up, and despite it being on a military base, let people check it out. It looks quite different compared to other things in Thailand, as to be expected for something designed by a European fellow around WWI. Overall, it was a typical big and drafty palace minus the unique spiral staircase. It had green marble columns, and looked sort of out of a fairy tale. But your imagination will need to be enough, as they did not allow photos inside. The outside is honestly 90% of the appeal anyway.

And that was mostly it for Petchaburi. We went to the train station to go back, and I was surprised that Dmytro had never been on a Thai train before. When it arrived, we got on, and oh wow. It was full of migrants carrying crates of goods, livestock, you name it. There was standing room only, and I was immediately regretting the four hour commute nestled between two chickens. Someone suggested we hop off and catch a bus, and we did moments before the doors closed. Back in the air conditioned van while snacking on honey roasted peanuts, eating the cost of a $0.90 train ticket sounded like a pretty good decision.

Yes, I'm sure you can.

Yo yo! I figure it's time to update this blog as to what's going on in my life lately, and the crazy adventures I've been having in and around Bangkok. One of these adventures involved a holiday to Petchaburi, a surprisingly awesome place that should really be considered in tour guides as a Bangkok getaway. But that definitely deserves its own entry for next time.

For the boring life stuff - the 1st semester is halfway over, which means I should have a lot of holiday in October to look forward to. Also, I just finished the summer semester of school. By far the most hectic one I've done so far, it was a lot of work crammed into a little time. Starting in August, only 1 semester to go until I'm a master of something something.

Ella wanted to go see this old customs house near the river, and it sounded like as good an excuse as any other. Blueberry and Maggie came along, and we had a nice little day trip. First we stopped at Old Siam Plaza, the first big shopping mall in the city. It's managed to stay alive despite its small size by looking quirky and unique. Overall I like it there. It's definitely cooler than the sterile Central World stores that look exactly like every other mall in the world. Also, we found lots of gun shops. I didn't know you could buy guns in Thailand. But maybe for the Chinese folks especially, it was quite a sight.

Old Siam Plaza is not actually the oldest store in the city though, that's Nightingale Department Store across the street. This department store is... well, let's just say everything has been there since 1950. The products, the building, and the sales clerks. It was totally empty, and I am unsure how this place survives. They sell those belt massage things from old-timey catalogs, for christ sakes. The one thing I can say about Nightingale, if you need "vintage" or "retro", they're a good place to start.

So, we hopped on the riverboat to go see the customs house. It's old an abandoned, with no way inside. And lots of warnings about falling pieces of the building. We tried to get to the other side, and were greeted with a very dismissive guard who would not even respond when Blueberry spoke to him in Thai. He wouldn't even explain, he would just turn his head and ignore us. Quite rude. I'm sure his job is like, SUPER busy, so he can't be interrupted. Anyway, Ella and I did go a week or so later. We just walked right past and ignored him. He yelled at us, but we also decided to "ignore" him. We got a few pics, but overall it's the same old building on the back that it is on the front. There are some cool bridges connecting the different parts - one of which you can barely make out in the pic. But it seems like a lot of squatters are hanging out here. This seems like a really bad idea, because literally pieces of the building are falling off, enough to see exposed rooms. But hey, you do get your own fussy guard with that cheap rent, so, little of column A, little of column B?

On the way back, we saw a mosque. Religious buildings are kind of Ella's thing, so we stopped. Quite small, but I asked the man if we could look inside. He said sure, just take off your shoes. Then he asked me a series of odd questions.

"Sir, are your ladies clean?"

"Excuse me?"

"The ladies with you. They are clean, yes?"

Well, Ella took a shower that morning. I did not ask about the hygiene habits of my friends, which is my fault, really.

"...Yes?"

"You know, ladies, every month they are unclean."

"Oh? ... ... OH!"

So is that a thing for mosques? Women can't enter during their period!? I learned something new I guess. Also, how would anyone know? They have to pray in a separate chamber anyway. Plus, your god made women like that. I'm sure he understands. Regardless, the others looked around while our exchange was going on, and were fairly unimpressed. So we decided to set off.

Nearby there was one more sight to see, which I had passed before but never went inside. Wat Yannawa, AKA "The Boat Temple", is pretty much that. A wat that looks like a big boat. We bought coconut ice cream inside, and you know... saw buddha statues on a boat looking thing. I don't really have much else to say about it, but it's right next to the metro station if you need more boat-shaped places of worship in your life.

As far as out-of-town adventures, Ella and I decided to take a day trip to the Maeklong Market. You've probably never heard the name of this place, but you likely know what it is. It's the thing where a train passes through the middle of a market, and everyone pulls back their awnings while the train passes inches away from everything. Then they push back the awnings, and boom, regular market again. Well, that's in Thailand, and I can confirm that is exactly what happens.

It's not the easiest place to get to, though - if you actually want to ride on the train, which I did. For all the complaints you can give to the State Railway Department, all of the tracks are connected. Except one. The Maeklong Line is completely disconnected from the rest of the Thai system, and even has different trains on a more narrow gauge. Even the line itself isn't connected. They never built a bridge across a river, so you have to stop, take a ferry, and get back on. (something-something-government-efficiency-joke)

So to make it there, we got up bright and early and set out to the terminus for this boondoggle, a small station called Wongwian Yai. Located in the southwest part of the city, it's completely unassuming and you could walk right past it without knowing it's a train station. A tiny platform filled with vendors, we paid about 45 cents for the first half of the trip. This shit is local. There are zero foreigners, anywhere. Everyone is looking at us. And the food - wow! Probably the cheapest I've seen in Bangkok. I got a big fried... thing? With ham and white sauce on the inside. It was delicious, and only 10 baht for a piece big enough to be my breakfast. Everything else there was super cheap too. Man, I want to live near Wongwian Yai. When the train came we plunked down in the aircon cabin, and the seats were surprisingly comfortable. When they came to check our tickets, it turns out we purchased 2nd class. If we wanted to stay here, we needed to upgrade. Now, normally I am against luxury. But when 2nd class is a wooden bench, no aircon, and crammed between two chickens, I am willing to spend an extra 30 cents.

Fear me. I have become the 1%.

When we arrived, the procedure was pretty much as expected. Disembark, ferry, walk to the next station in the line. We purchased another ticket, and had an hour before the train left. With no food options at this somehow even smaller station, we passed this nice coffee shop that also had soup, salad, and bread. The salads were HUGE, and everything was grown by the shop owner. Along with homemade croissants and mushroom soup. Really nice place, considering the location. I guess she caters to the "poor but still adventurous traveler" market.

So for round two, I jumped towards the front window when we arrived. And yeah... people were folding up their awnings. It was hard to get a great view, as there was only a tiny window behind a tiny window to see out of. We got out and went around the now restored market. And aside from the train thing... that's about all this market and town has for it. It's a fresh market near the ocean. There are fruits, vegetables, and seafood. Nothing I felt really compelled to buy and lug for two hours back to Bangkok, it just seems like a place where locals do their shopping. The train left again in an hour, and I wanted a video of it. So we walked around for a bit, then got some coffee and just chilled out. The train left, we got our video... and yeah, van back to Bangkok I suppose. I guess I'm glad I did it. Whenever someone talks about that market in the future, I can say I've been there. Plus it's not like I was doing anything else that Saturday. But for tourists coming here only for a few days, I'd find it really hard to recommend. It's basically a full day thing, with not much payoff aside from a few pictures and video. Such as these.