Checking in from Ayutthaya, City of Gorgeousness (as my free tourist pamphlet puts it). I traveled almost 12 hours on 3 buses yesterday to get here from Sangkhlaburi. You will see on the map that the distance is hardly that great; travel time was due to a) lack of connecting highways, and b) the (non-tourist) Thai bus system being part Greyhound and part yellow school bus, picking up and dropping off passengers almost anywhere en route (many of whom were in fact school children). Still, happy to be here. Ayutthaya does have a certain gorgeousness about it; it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and is filled with some very scenic ruins, which I visited today. I’m off to Chiang Mai in the north tomorrow by train. But I will post accounts & pics of Sangkhlaburi and Ayutthaya either before I leave or after I arrive. I have had almost no time here in Ayutthaya to get site things sorted out, but it has been for a good reason. Cryptically yours and until tomorrow, Thomas.
« Sangkhlaburi • Photo Update »
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link
http://wherewherewhere.net/2007/03/02/ayutthaya-briefly/trackback/
March 2, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Forbis
Is there anything deterring you from going into Burma?
March 2, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Lauren
Because he’d be funding the military! And tourist sites are built/maintained by forced laborers! And hotels are fronts for heroine trading!
Aung Sang Suu Kyi called for a tourism boycott, right? I would listen to her. She sounds like a brave lady. A brave lady under house arrest.
March 2, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Lauren
Okay. I looked it up. This is what Aung Sang Suu Kyi said: “Burma will be here for many years, so tell your friends to visit us later. Tourism to Burma is helping to prolong the life of one of the most brutal and destructive regimes in the world.”
Not that I think you would be enough of a sucker to patronize government-established hotels and/or shops, Tom. I’m sure you’d stay in a small inn and that most of your money would go to poor Burmese people. I just wanted to answer John’s question.
March 3, 2007 at 6:40 am
Thomas
Sorry, I realize that my Sangkhlaburi post was misleading–you can cross the Burmese border there, but as a tourist you are only allowed a day trip. I wasn’t planning on continuing into Burma (yet); I do want to go, but I will have to fly from Bangkok into Yangon (Rangoon) and arrange visas in advance. I’m heading to northern Thailand today for a few days and then am crossing into Laos.
The question of traveling to Burma isn’t an easy one. Like Lauren says, Aung San Suu Kyi has discouraged tourism there. Another case can be made that your dollars, if spent carefully, can honestly help individuals there.
I had a few conversations with a Burmese man, Richard, when I was in Sangkhlaburi; he had to come to Thailand to find work (they are kind of a labor-class/second-class in the border regions.) Richard was extremely friendly and polite, genteel almost in that former-colonial-subject way. But when I asked him about the Burmese gov’t, the anger that flared underneath was intense, almost shocking. I can’t help but think that maybe the good will outweigh the bad by conscious tourism to Burma and by spreading the word as much as possible about what is going there, even if just via this site.
I also met some aid workers who are helping with the numerous refugee camps set up for Mon and Karen peoples along the Burmese border. I’d really like to follow up/learn more about the whole situation.
March 5, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Forbis
Jesus, Lauren, why didn’t you jump all over Maresca’s ass 2 weeks ago when he was gushing over his new pal who’s going to host him in Damascus? Damascus, as in Damascus, Syria?
March 5, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Forbis
Anyway…
I was prompted to ask about Burma because of a photograph of Pagan that the “National Geographic” published in a June 2001 article about Marco Polo.
I guess I’m now morally bound to cease reading “National Geographic”…
…and Marco Polo…