Sukhothai and Chiang Mai

After a day of exploring the Sukhothai temples (once again on a bicycle, in the searing heat!), I headed to Chiang Mai - a laid-back and tidy old city which is the business and government centre for all of Northern Thailand. I found my way to the very cool and comfortable Julie's Guesthouse. Unfortunately, Boobie wasn't able to make it to Chiang Mai to meet me, as we had planned, and an Austrian friend whom I met earlier in Koh Chang also didn't arrive on Friday as she was meant to, so my on first night here I was rather lonely and had my first really bad bout of home-sickness since I have been travelling. To make matters worse, I was woken up at 6:30am by the sound of water gushing out of a broken pipe in my bathroom and, as the guesthouse office doesn't open till 8:00am, there was absolutely NO ONE around to help me and fix the problem...I positioned the pipe so that most of the water went directly down the drain and just closed the door and tried to sleep, hoping that I wouldn't flood the whole hotel! They gave me a teeny tiny discount on the room and moved me to another room where, believe it or not, last night when I was closing the louvre windows to try to shut out some of the outside Saturday night partying noise 2 slats of glass fell out and smashed all over the footpath outside! Being 10:30pm, the office was once again shut so there was again no one to help me out, so I just swept up the glass as best i could and tried to sleep with the now huge gaping hole in the window through which even more sound was coming than before!! Despite all of the problems I have had, though, it is still a very nice and friendly guesthouse! One thing I have still not been able to get used to in Thailand is big, fat, Western men with their temporary Thai "girlfriends." There were several of them on our snorkelling trip in Koh Chang, but you see them everywhere here. I can see why the women do it - a huge amount of money and they get to go on 'holidays' where everything is paid for. But, apart from the obvious physical reasons, what do the men get out of having a woman pretend to be head over heels in love with them for a week or two, knowing that she will be playing the same role with someone else the following week? But then, I guess if these men are not really interested in real, fulfilling relationships! I am also still getting used to how clean and developed Thailand is, compared to India, and how little poverty there is. There are 7-Elevens everywhere and, even in the countryside, there are HUGE villas...of course off the tourist trail I am sure there are much poorer areas but, generally, it seems a very well-off country. The only complaint is that no net cafes seem to be able to read DVD, so I cannot upload any of my photos from Koh Chang or Ayuthaya, which I burnt onto DVD! And, from the sounds of it, I won't have much more luck in Laos either!

From Auroville to Delhi to Bangkok

After saying goodbye to my German sunyasis (spelling??) and my doggie woggies, I headed back up to Delhi for some last minute administrative things (such as posting yet another big box of stuff that I couldn't fit in my bag!). Then, before I knew it, I was on a jet plane, leaving India - after almost 3 months there, it felt so strange to be finally leaving...I had gotten so used to living in India! So I said goodbye to Tara and Shaggy and all of my Delhi friends and, after a brief stop-over in Singapore, I met up with Boobie in the huge and very badly designed new Bangkok airport!! We had 3 wonderful and luxurious days in the Marriott Hotel and Spa - I was very spoilt and worried that I would not be able to adjust back to the backpacker lifestyle again!! Hahaha! But 5 delicious days on Koh Chang island (3 of which were with Boobie), living in a very simple but beautiful beach shack, sipping on pina coladas, watching the sunset over the water set me straight immediately!!! I was originally only going to stay 2 days, but the Tree House Guest House was so wonderful that we just couldn't tear ourselves away. I also met an Austrian biochemist who just finished her PhD and a Greek-German cross-cultural trainer who spoke Indonesian!!! What a small world! Boobie had to get back to Singapore for work and I headed back to Bangkok and ended up sharing a room on Kao San Road with a very sweet Cambodian woman and then made my way up to the ancient capital of Ayuthaya. It is a very quaint little town, surrounded by a moat and littered with wonderful old temples - many in Khmer style. I met a wonderful bunch of Mexicans - one of whom won Mexican Fear Factor - who I hung out with and explored the temples and night market. It was a very nice place with enchanting temples but it was sometimes a bit hard to keep up the temple-exploring stamina in the scorching heat of the day! Luckily, our hotel organised a late afternoon boat trip to see some of the outer temples and a night tour of a handful of the temples that are lit up at night and both of those experiences were absolutely wonderful - the temples looked so different and mesmerising at night! Then today I spent the day travelling to another ancient capital of Sukhothai and sampled my first Thai train - very clean and sort of old-colonial feeling, but VERY hot and stifling, even in 2nd class! Am just getting my photos burnt onto DVD now, so will try to add some more in the next few days!

Just an update

Well, yesterday I made it into the Central Chamber of the Matrimandir (big golden ball thingy) totally by accident! I was trying to find my way to the Meditation Petals, but someone directed me into this entrance, so I just went in and walked upstairs and found myself at the entrance of the central chamber. These 2 European workers found me there and were baffled as to how I got in and, in exchange for helping them organise the socks that visitors have to wear inside the building, they let me in, avoiding all the usual red tape! Inside it was totally like being on Superman's home planet (not Kryptonite, but the other one where everything is white and crystal...am I thinking of the right movie...hmmmm...). Anyways, everything is white (the carpet, the walls, the pillows to sit on, the socks they make you wear) and most Aurovillians also wear white clothes there too, although that is not a requirement. So, everyone sits on pillows around this huge crystal ball, through which a ray of light from the ceiling shines, and everyone just meditates (or just sits there as I did). Although it was very peaceful staring into this big glass ball, because the room is circular all of the sounds (tummies rumbling, people coughing, legs moving, one person snoring!) are amplified and reverberate throughout the room! What I loved the most, however, was sitting under the big old Banyan tree outside, watching the light change as the sun set...I can see how people have deep, non-materialistic thoughts under Banyan trees! Hehehe! It made me think that all communities would be much better off if there were such peaceful, non-denominational places where citizens could just go and think, reflect, meditate, or just sit peacefully in every town or city. It is very pacifying and calming...good for all that stress we build up in our daily lives!!