We then had a great time walking through the huge market. We didn't even get to see it all as at 9.30 it was time for the LadyBoy Show. As I said to one of the other ladies later, it's like the train trip, something you need to experience. It probably wasn't as polished as some of the shows down south, but we still had a good laugh. Mind you some of them I thought wouldn't have made attractive boys, let alone girls. But there were a few that would be difficult to pick. The show went for about an hour, where they mime different songs. The Tina Turner takeoff we thought was probably the best one, and there was another where one side was made up a boy and the other a girl. He did an excellent job of switching from one side to the other. By the time the show finished, and adding in that most of us didn't get a lot of sleep on the train, it was difinately time for bed.
Saturday had a number of options for those that were interested such as elephant tours and ziplining with the gibbons. We gave it quite a bit of thought and decided to do the half day cycling tour of the local countryside along with two others from the group. They are very thorough, even taking our heights the day before so that the correct bikes were set for us. The bikes and tour leader arrived at 8.30. These were seriously good bikes, mountain bikes, with good helmets and plenty of water. They had so many gears I lost track, but he said he had set it on the best for the flat roads, and we found it unnecessary to change at all.
The first challenge was getting out of the city and its traffic. This was while contending with the fact I had ridden very little in the last thirty years. But as they say, it's like riding a bike!
It was great fun. Our guide was excellent and we stopped at quite a number of places. There was a local temple, what was once a leper hospital but now used for rehabilitation and the elderly, rice paddy fields, market gardens, and all the while our guide Santi was explaining things so well. We went down roadways, laneways and even a little off road, but mostly avoiding the busy roads, although there were a few we had to cross. The local people were so friendly, waving and saying hello as we passed. At one stage we stopped at a funeral. These are very different affairs and there were security directing traffic around and a live band playing. I felt strange that we were welcome to come in and even take photos
Interesting bridge near the old leper hospital
Band at the funeral
The funeral
Rice fields
Market garden behind
Lunch was included in the tour and this was at a little restaurant in the country. After lunch we made a number of stops at ancient excavated sites. I had no idea these were here, and it was like a mini Angkor Wat. Our final stop was a temple that housed the ashes of who was once the queen of this area before it became part of Thailand. It was then about 30 minutes back to the hotel, and being thankful as we got into the city that it was a Saturday afternoon and the traffic wasn't heavy.
At the ruins of the ancient town with our guide
It was a great tour and we were so glad we did it. I had been concerned how we would cope, but we have done so much walking lately our fitness levels have gone up and we managed the 28 k's easily. In fact we were even back half an hour early.
No need to say where Jim went for the next two hours.
In the evening we had all arranged to walk up to the building a few blocks away that was 20 stories to watch the sunset from the top. However, when we got there we were told that it didn't open until 6.30, so we all gave up on the idea and headed back to the NIght Market. We were all quite happy with the food stalls there, and after dinner we looked over the stalls we hadn' t got to the night before.
No comments:
Post a Comment