Phitsanulok, Tuesday

1729 Been back at hotel for maybe half an hour. Woke up about 8am but went back to sleep, cancelled the 930 alarm and snoozed on the 10am alarm until about 1pm. Not great but meh.

Went out to the trio of attractions under the Sgt Major Thawee banner, but shall write about those later.

Went and had a late lunch/early dinner at a little place round corner from hotel with some dishes of food on the street where you pick and then they serve you inside. Woman on the stall spoke some English, so I had some rather dark chewy bits of chicken with some other egg concotion and rice and a small bottle of Fanta, for 40 (I had 2x20 notes and so I handed those over, but I awkwardly left a small amount of change on table afterwards).

Now back at hotel thinking about organising a Spanish lesson; best I can get tonight is 9pm, which would probably stop me going out for a quiet dinner-and-beer as I did last night, or 11am tomorrow, which would at least force me to get up but is a bit late. On the other hand, I have no particular plans for tomorrow but am regarding this as a bit of a rest, that's probably OK. Not booked it yet though.

Also wondering if I should aim to be in Sukothai for that festival instead of Chiang Mai. It apparently goes even more for it and there is a sound and light show at the nearby Wat. However, I am inclining to spend it in Chiang Mai, as I suspect there is more to do in general there and if I am going to spend 4-5 nights somewhere to cover the whole festival then Chiang Mai is probably the place to be. I just need to decide about that so I can get some accommodation booked. If I don't do that festival in Sukothai, I think I might go there for a night or two from here - I think it's only an hour or two by bus.

1742 Yeah, booked the 11am lesson. Even in the unlikely event I decide not to 'waste' another night here, I doubt I'd get my money back for tomorrow night and so I can check out when I want, so leaving at midday after the lesson would be fine.

1832 OK, booked a room in half-decent looking location for four nights in Chiang Mai checking in Friday 15th November. THB 2600 for the four nights, which is OK I think. Phew! I am not sure what I'll do on Tuesday when I check out, I fly out of Bangkok on the Friday so maybe it would be best to fly back down there, given there is no train service as far as Chiang Mai at the moment. I suppose I could get the bus to the place the train runs to and get an overnight train down to Bangkok to arrive Wednesday morning, but it might be better and give me that bit of extra time in Bangkok to fly. Need to see about booking that soon if going to do it, but doesn't have to be tonight.

2024 OK, done some laundry, showered, slobbed along a little. Time to go out.

2053 At place was at last night, appears to have no name. Wandered along night market hoping to see the 'flying vegetables' mentioned in guide book but although next place down (further than I went yesterday) is called something like 'the flying vegetable', I haven't seen many food stalls altogether and no one has evidently ordered such a thing. Guide book or something at Buddha foundry today (a newspaper article on wall, if latter) said they toss them across the street, so I might guess it's not something you miss.

Feels slightly dull coming back here but apart from a possibly not open and not very exciting looking self-styled pub I saw in town on walk back from today (fuck, just had phone call from 'unknown', I suppose in reality it is an agent or similar but I am slightly worried it's a family emergency, but presumably the caller ID would work) which didn't seem great even if open, what's the harm? Staff seem pleased to have me back, they remembered my order, the view over the river is pleasant and no different to anywhere else along here.

I am thinking I might go to Sukothai (oh, boat going along river now with small party on, looks like they're all having dinner on it) tomorrow. I have paid for tomorrow night's accomodation here but that is a sunk cost. The place is pleasant enough but I don't have 'forever' and I already had a pretty chilled out not-really-doing-much couple of days today and yesterday. Tomorrow just might be overdoing it, and if I do want to chill out more maybe it will be nice in Sukothai. I think unless I anticipate huge accommodation pressure it would generally be savvier to book two nights and extend to a third. However, in a way I might not have relaxed so much yesterday and today had I not thought I had a third day lined up. I suppose if I really do mean I will add a third day when I want it that shouldn't be such an issue.

2111 Fried squid with black pepper v good, did have some vegetables with it too. Despite my reducing fear of illness and keeping an eye out, I didn't spot any opportunities to purchase fresh fruit today, except possibly I could have got a short stubby green-looking banana had I wanted one. I might - I can't remember - have seen somewhere doing fruit juice, but in terms of playing the 5-a-day game (and assuming that approximates what will also make me feel best bowel-wise in the short term), fruit juice only counts for a maximum of 1 a day and while I admittedly don't buy it every day, I can trivially buy a carton of orange juice at a grocery store. (I don't do it every day partly because that means I end up quaffing half a litre or a litre all in one go, which is insanely sugary.)

Anyway, this afternoon's tourism. I went first - GPS helping slightly, presumably it worked since it turned out I'd have been right even if it hadn't - to the folklore museum. There was no one at the front desk but it said ring for attention. After a minute or two I noticed a dangling bell. My attempt to swing the clapper gently resulted in a deafening peel, which I hastily stilled by reaching up to grab the bell itself. I paid - they couldn't change a 100 for the 50 entrance feel, I had 3x20 notes and they fetched my 10 change - and went in. I think this is a family run thing. I felt enormously outnumbered by the number of people who seemed to be watching me. In the end I got given a guided tour by two school-aged girls, who spoke some English but not much (tiring of continually saying 'OK', I asked how old something was at one point, but they didn't understand me). They were charming and in a way it was nice to have the guided tour (perhaps it was just me, but I enjoyed at second-hand the relish they seemed to have for demonstrating a rat trap with a rubber rat) (the snake trap was also interesting, a sort of thin bamboo pentagonalish lattice, apparently you put it over the entrance to the snake's den or whatever you call it, it then sticks its head through the central hole but as it's wider near its middle it gets stuck, and it either doesn't have the wit to back out or can't without tending to cut itself on the bamboo), but at the same time I didn't like to linger to read the quite extensive English text on a lot of exhibits, so I perhaps missed out on a certain amount of what the museum had to offer. But they were quite charming, be it friendliness or cunning psychology they made me pose for a photo with them, and I was manipulated to the extent of buying a couple of postcards at the gift shop. (I'd have bought a souvenir pen, only it didn't have the name of the town or museum on it.)

I think the restaurant across the river has someone singing live to a guitar. But I don't really regret not going there, on purely practical grounds the nearest bridge seems a modest hike and it's more live rock type music that really floats my boat. Actually it may be recorded, it almost sounds too good (the 'sound balance', not just the actual quality of the performer) to be live.

Anyway, after the folklore museum I wandered down to the Buddha foundry. (As I said earlier, all these places are under the same banner and owned by the same man, or his family. He must be getting on a bit now as he joined the army in 1955, I don't know if he is still alive or night. Sounds like a decent chap anyway, from what I hear about him.) That was a bit weird as it's free (guide book says so, it isn't explictly stated it's free on the sign, so I wandered in tremulously looking for a ticket office) and basically there are one or two people at work (not many) and you just sort of wander freely through the open-air-with-shed-roof kind of factory looking at the stuff lying around and some posters on the wall. Were it not for the posters and, at the far end of the vaguely L-shaped yard, an entry to the bird garden, you'd kind of wonder if you were actually supposed to be there at all.

I didn't see much actual work take place and certainly no dramatic pouring of molten bronze or whatever, but especially given it was free it was quite cool to see these Buddha statues (some of them larger than a real person, though none as large as the original - they are all replicas of (I think) the Buddha at Wat Mahathat I saw the other day, and after casting one same-size replica for a temple in Bangkok the guy said he would never cast another that size, all the others are at least slightly smaller) in various stages of preparation, and also in an oddly not-disrespectful-but-not-templesque-respectful factory state of matter-of-factness.

The bird garden costs 50 (you get a free postcard) but it works on the honour system, it seems - there's a box for money and a box of postcards. I saw one woman feeding the birds when I was walking round, but she paid no attention to me at all. Alas I didn't have change having used my 3x20 at the folklore museum and spent 20 in coins on postcards, so I had to put 100 in. In a way I don't mind, I'd have paid 50 to see the Buddha place, but since the bird place was slightly grim I'd rather (as if it really matters) not have my 'extra' 50 show up in the accounts of the bird place.

As the guide book said it was a good opportunity to see some attractive birds ("it says here you have a keen interest in ornithology?", ho ho) including some huge ones, but the cages weren't huge and it was just a bit grim. Maybe the guide book put that idea into my head, but I don't think so. One cage had a bird, some kind of starling I thing, which I could have sworn had a broken leg, it was certainly half-dragging itself about the cage floor in what to my inexpert eye looked decidedly wrong. But what can you do, and taking the big picture into perspective and how much animal suffering there is, to say nothing of human suffering, I can't get too worked up at them. I must say though, *if* that bird did have a broken leg, I'd have felt better had it been tended to or put down, and I could have irrationally or not stomached the smallish cages and all that. For all I know it was fine or only broke its leg that morning and it hadn't been noticed but would be soon, it wouldn't be fair of me to get on a high horse over it. (Not that I have an audience of thousands of readers anyway.)

Anyway, despite my late start and the moderate but not excessive walk out there, I was back in town by about 4 or 5. As I crossed back over the railway line a bell went off. I thought it was a no-barrier crossing but actually a pair of thin wires with lights between them lowered from above to block it off.

After that I went into that little food-on-the-street-but-sit-in-back restaurant and went back to hotel as already described.

Bit disappointed earlier when booking Chiang Mai hotel that my time will be nearly up when that's over and I need to hurry back to Bangkok and maybe worry again over whether to make any attempt to see a sex show or at least walk down Soi Cowboy. Maybe I should have a look on eg Thorn Tree forums and see if there's any advice on there.

But I suppose I shouldn't be disappointed, I still have 16 days (ish, not worrying about off-by-one errors etc) in the country, Chiang Mai sounds good even without the festival, I've had a quietly enjoyable time here and Lopburi was quite good (monkeys and the nightclub), so I have been and will enjoy myself. Also, as I always say, better to be sorry to be leaving than glad to be getting out.

Bit dubious as to whether I 'ought' to do some kind of trek. But a) I am trying to dispose of all that 'ought'/'should' stuff b) I am not sure I have the required fitness (but how can I tell? I mean, I can walk, FFS) or equipment (but for a two day one night trek, which I think exists if is a bit short, how much do I need) c) I am not sure I feel up to the inevitable rafting part d) I am not entirely sure I want to do it, except that maybe it's cool and how will I know if I don't do it? e) Much as I try to fight against it in various forms, the 'why the fuck can't I do it, if everyone else can?' angle occurs. Anyway, I am kind of not worrying about that too much just now, maybe as i get nearer Chiang Mai. (Also, I am sure if I need accommodation there before going out on a trek before returning to booked accommodation for festival, that will be no problem - it's just the festival period I was worried about.)

Oh, I booked the hotel for CM through booking.com. Very painless. I half wish I'd paid something as I might feel it was more binding (I can cancel for free up to 14 Nov), but am sure it will be OK. Also, checking in on 15 Nov I suppose I have a bit of a chance to hoover up what free accommodation there is on the spot before the real last-minute non-booked people turn up over next day or two. 17 Nov is the full moon and the main night, I think.

It's 2146 now. I think I am the only customer. I haven't quite finished this first beer and I don't think there's a problem getting another, I only got here about this time yesterday, not to mention what they said about 11ish last night about closing at midnight.

If (more like when, I think I will go from here, question is just about if I leave tomorrow or day after) I go to Sukothai I can/should hire a bike (pedal bike I assume) to get round the ruins, which will be moderately adventurous by my standards. I quite enjoyed (ah, there is a cat here) cycling round the ruins at Coba in Mexico, it's just a shame it was so hectic.

I think that's most of what I wanted to write, so let me maybe muse a bit on leaving tomorrow and stare soulfully out at the river and think about getting another beer...

Oh, they had a monkey trap at the folklore museum. A coconut with a small hole, into which you put a hard-boiled egg which the monkey apparently refuses to let go of so can't get its hand out, and the egg doesn't disintegrate. Also double ended version of this (cylindrical rod) so you can catch two monkeys at once. I had heard of this monkey greed trap before, can it really be true? Are monkeys really that stupid?

The animal traps were fascinating, and somehow lacking the macabre quality of the gin-trap-and-snare style exhibitions I have seen elsewhere. Would have liked a bit more time to study them, to be honest.

2205 Seeing the (CRT) TV down the other end, I am reminded the folklore museum included a wall of phones/TVs/radios. What looked like an old school mobile/car phone was described to me as the first phone in Thailand, which I guess can't be right - maybe the first mobile. They pointed out a small (5" ish) portable TV and said "no colour! black & white! very old!". I'm sure it was just limited English, but that "very old!" was also used to describe some other exhibits like 19th century toys, and - although my experience of black & white TVs was admittedly limited - it did make me feel positively ancient. (At the 5" ultra portable level, I distinctly remember them being advertised as new in various catalogues when I was a kid, though at the 14" kind of level black and white was well on the way out even then.)

2237 Been perusing guide book. Bit dismayed at need to use vehicular transport (linguistic difficulties, extortion potential) to get to bus terminal here (but the alternative is to try to pick one up in street near that plaza, and if maybe they aren't labelled in Latin Alphabet and come once an hour and I'm on the wrong side of the road, it's a recipe for disaster) and from bus terminal into town in New Sukhothai, but I am probably going to head over there tomorrow hopefully not too late after Spanish lesson. I hope to be able to take advice on getting over to Old Sukhothai from my accommodation, though the basic plan is to rent a bike once I get there and give myself heatstroke cycling around (and heart palpitations as I try to use GPS for backup).

2250 Nearly finished this beer. Another is slightly tempting but not that much so; I think it would mainly be an attempt to postpone the annoying uncertainty around tomorrow's proposed trip.

Now I've been clued in by my visit to the folklore museum, I see there is a solitary boat house (a house floating on some kind of raft, I think) on the opposite riverbank. No lights showing.

I feel a desire to eat more but I'm not really hungry. I'm sure it's just the beer talking. I probably won't manage it, but I half hope I might be up early enough tomorrow to have the free breakfast before the Spanish lesson. In a way it's a shame I've saddled myself with that at 11am when I might otherwise have been away earlier, but on the other hand I might easily have felt I didn't 'have' to get up and stayed in bed super late without it. Meh. Modulo my uncertainties about travel to bus stations etc, it's only about an hour by bus to new Sukhothai so I could in principle be there in my new accommodation by 2pm, probably more like 3pm. While I might have some difficutly arguing my case, should there be a big fuck up, if I come back to Phitsanulok tomorrow after a failure or some kind I do in theory have a room paid for, which in theory should add some reassurance.

2259 Got bill (270, 2x80 beers, 10 rice, 100 squid), making it 300. Changed a 1000 note so as to be sure I don't offer any tuk-tuk drivers chance to rip me off on change any more than can be helped tomorrow. (I had a 500 left after paying 100 at the garden bird place, made sure I changed that at a 7-Eleven, but paying this bill out of my remaining smaller bills from that would have left me with not much in small bills for the tuk-tuks/buses tomorrow.)

Old woman just came round for the second time. I think she is selling bananas. Really I should have bought one, I feel a bit bad, given she's probably dirt poor and I need fruit so would have been win-win. Oh well, maybe something to bear in mind in future. To be fair the first time she came round I thought she was begging, I didn't see she had bananas, so the second time I was naturally dismissive in the seen-you-before sense. No doubt my karma is fucked now. ;-)

Is one other couple at a table, who I think came in while I was here. Anyway, if I do come back, this place is at south end of night bazaar, just north of that place called flying vegetable, the first place you come to at the end of the clothes stalls (though there is another bar/restaurant further north, but hidden behind clothes stalls).

Not finished beer yet but about to leave. It's 2304.

0102 Bed. Should have gone to bed earlier, but so it goes. Still a chance of breakfast and no major worries about lesson. (I did leave when I said, just been dithering around in room writing pointless tripadvisor reviews etc.)