Holiday in Thailand

Jesse: I didn’t want to leave Cha-am. Sitting on the beach was just too pleasant. But eventually Carrie persuaded me that we should see at least one more city before we left. So after bidding farewell to Aaron we hopped on a bus to Phetchaburi (commonly known as Phetburi). While the provincial capital, Phetburi is kind of a sleepy town. We arrived at took a motorbike taxi to the guest house Carrie had seen in the guidebook. However it didn’t have AC and I am getting to old to sweat my nights out like some dreadlocked backpacker. Carrie, feeling somewhat apologetic for making me drag the bag to that place left me at an ice-cream parlor while she went to go find us a guesthouse with AC. She had no luck but I had some good ice cream.

Eventually we had to bear the cost and stay at a hotel. But bonus, on the way to the hotel we saw a sidewalk swarming with monkeys! I mean who doesn’t like Monkeys? The Sun Hotel was nice, with clean, spacious, and air conditioned rooms. It was more money than we wanted to spend (860 baht/night), but oh well. We even got to watch some Discovery Channel. Back in the states I thought “The Deadliest Catch” was kind of boring but after months without English TV I watched contentedly.

After a few hours of relaxing we headed off to dinner at Rabieng Rim Nam. It’s a lovely old teak house on the river with teak shutters that open out onto the river. The food was a great and while dining I looked out and saw a giant monitor lizard swimming in the river. It was about 4 feet long and the biggest wild reptile I have ever seen. After dinner we rented a motorbike and cruised back to the hotel for some beers and TV. The next morning we crossed the street to Phra Nakhon Khiri, the old palace of king Mogkut. Due to some whim of geology there is a two peaked mountain on the western edge of Phetburi, and it was there that king Mongkut had his palace built. In the afternoon the palace is crawling with monkeys but in the mornings, when we were there they all go down the slope to rob food vendors and play in traffic. The palace was impressive, with its grounds covering both peaks. We saw the sights and descended about noon for a tasty iced coffee and rest at the hotel.

After our nap we motored to the north end of town where we drove up another mountain to Khao Luang. Khao Luang is a 4 chambered cave filled with over 200 statues of the Buddha. Many of them were placed there by king Rama IV, who apparently became a monk at the end of his rule (The current king is Rama IX). It was an interesting sight but my favorite part was parking lot because it was full of Monkeys. Apparently there are four tribes of monkeys that live on or around the parking lot and they wait in beady eyed bands for tourists to feed them. I’ve fed animals before at the zoo but there was something quite strange about having a monkey look you in the face with its human eyes, while it reaches out a little hand a picks up the food from you. I loved it. We took a lot of pictures of monkeys. The next day we headed back to Bangkok.