"A few days away from Bangkok" by Mary Rose Kent

A few days away from Bangkok by Mary Rose Kent

[Note from Roger: Mary Rose was a soprano section leader with the San Francisco Choral Society of which I am also a member.]

I just had to blow this popsicle stand for a few days. I decided to go to Kanchanburi, which is the town nearest The Bridge on the River Kwai. I went there in 1988 with my friend Bo and had a lovely time--it was peaceful and very interesting. Well, what a difference 19 years makes. I hated it the moment I got off the train, but had no choice but to spend the night since the last train out of town was already gone. Actually, I should have known I was in for a crushing disappointment just from the fact that the Thai railway charges farang a special price of 100 baht for a third-class seat, whereas Thais pay something like 30 or 35 baht. Kanchanburi has become yet another town that has given itself over entirely to tourism, which means you can't go anywhere without somebody aggressively wanting your business and your baht. And you don't even have to arrive to have this be so--about 45 minutes out of town guesthouse proprietors were on the train passing out information, pressing people to commit to staying at their place. I lucked out because I was sitting across from a Thai man about my age and had just happened to have done a simple transaction with a fruit vendor in Thai, so I think they assume the two of us were married. Anyway, it was another bad portent. (I want to interject here that as much as I hate this "tourism is all we have" phenomenon, I can't blame anyone--who wouldn't rather make money than be left in the dust? Especially someplace like Kanchanburi--the gateway to something historic and known throughout much of the world. Still, I find it so completely unappealing that I tend to shy away from places where this is so.) I wandered up and down the main drag, being annoyed left and right, until I finally found a place that seemed like it might not be horrendously bad; there were so many ways to go wrong--noisy speed boats up and down the river, karaoke parlors, street noise. Which form of torture was likely to be the least torturous? I opted for medium river noise and, bonus, got some fairly mild karaoke noise thrown in for free. I was so wasted tired that I actually fell asleep while everyone was still at it, waking to my alarm at 5:00 so that I could catch the 7:15 train back to Thonburi (the west side of Bangkok, across the river) and still have a chance of getting to Hualamphong with enough time to go somewhere else without arriving after dark. I opted for Lopburi, which is a couple of hours north of Bangkok and can be reached by any number of trains--it's large enough to be a stop for all but the most rapid of the express trains, but even on a commuter train, which is what I ended up on, it takes less than three hours to get there. Lopburi has some beautiful ruins, although it is best known for its monkeys, which tend to congregate in one area and are therefore easily avoided. I really wanted to just have a few nights of good sleep and maybe check out some birds, which I figured would be flittering around the ruins.

The train up was fine. I've decided to always go third class since then I can be assured of having windows that open. The trains to Isaan seem to have second class windows that open, but I've been caught off-guard too often on other trains to want to risk it any longer. Shortly after I took my seat, I was joined by three young German women who had just arrived in Thailand. Now here's something I just don't get--spend a 1000 euros, fly for 10+ hours, race from the airport to the train station, and then once on the train read a book rather than check out the scenery you've just put out so much to visit. To each her own, I guess. I'm always glued to the window, which means I'm always filthy whenever I arrive at my destination, but hey, that's pretty easily remedied, and I see lots of groovy stuff. Mostly birds, of course, but not only--on this last trip I saw a 4-foot monitor lizard in some reeds just outside a fairly large city. Because I am myself, I couldn't just let things be and so did interrupt the book reading for a couple of things--old spirit houses that had been left at a specially designated "old spirit house" bodhi tree, with the attendant explanation of spirit houses and, later, the Open-Billed Storks that roost in the area just north of Bangkok. At one point there were three separate swarms of them circling the skies--hundreds and hundreds of storks all at once. It was spectacular. Fortunately, the woman I kept bugging seemed amenable to these interruptions.

Despite difficulties in getting there, arrival in Lopburi confirmed that I was on the right track--there was a feeble offer of a pedi-cab that my "mai ao na kha" (don't want, thanks) took care of and I spent a half-hour wandering around the small city center looking for a place to stay. There was a hotel right across from the train station that I rejected out of hand (and then forgot about completely) and so I ended up at the Hotel Nett. I had a vague memory of having stayed there five years ago, but with nothing attached to it, so I figured it would be fine. And, indeed, it would have been fine if it hadn't been for those itty bitty red ants with the fierce fiery bite. When the fourth one wandered onto my bed, I went downstairs for a new room. They offered to spray my room for me, but I really didn't want to spend the night in a Raid-ed room, living in fear of ant reprisal, so I moved to a room down the hall, which was larger and quieter (and 90 baht more). However, the windows didn't have screens, so they had to be kept closed, which meant the fan just moved around my pre-breathed very hot air. I woke up several times in the middle of the night feeling like there wasn't actually any air at all, but still managed to get a half-way decent bit of sleep. In the morning I realized that I could tape the polyester lace curtains to the wall and have it work as a makeshift mosquito net, but before I could implement my plan, I noticed an ant on the table next to my bed. Shriek!!! Sure enough, there was a string of them in the bathroom, where there hadn't been the night before. (The bulk of the ant problem in my previous room was also in the bathroom, as was my initial ant problem in Bangkok when I arrived last August.) And that was the end of that. I packed up and moved to a hotel around the corner I hadn't noticed the day before, a rather industrial place , but ant-free. But ant-free is not problem free, no indeedy it is not. One of the things I really hate about Thailand is that noise is allowed to continue unabated--if you want to be loud, be loud. Mai pen rai. If it's the middle of the night, mai pen rai. Might disturb others? Ha! Mai pen rai. I didn't fall asleep until after midnight, only to turn be awakened a bit after 1:00. Why? The person in one of the rooms across the central light well had the TV turned all the way up to 11! I finally fell asleep around 2:00 simply because I needed sleep, only to awaken at 5:00 to the TV still blaring away, having slept the minimum my body needed, I guess. So my plans to catch up on sleep, which I needed to do desperately since my neighbor turns on his radio full blast at 7:00 every single morning. And since I live in a guesthouse, going to bed early doesn't work because there's always some Bozo out there talking full-voiced at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, someone stomping down the hall like his/her feet are made of bowling balls, a child crying (God bless the French for always bringing several children with them!) or some such like.

On the day I arrived, I spent some of the early afternoon in one of the ruins checking out birds, but was finally driven away not by the heat, which was extreme, but the very loud Thai pop, which was excruciating. Nothing says relaxation to me like a beautiful park setting and the most hideous music imaginable pumped up to sonic levels. Mai pen rai. I decided to escape the recreation for some internet action, and resumed bird watching after 4:00, when the tweeters get all worked up before beddie-bye. At least this part of my trip was successful.

So here's the bird report, leaving out the standard travel sightings--egrets/herons, drongos, coucals, kingfishers, and storks. On the way to KCB I saw the a Red-Wattled Lapwing and a Red Avadavat. Normally, I've got my eyes fairly well fastened to the telephone wires, but I was on the wireless side, which worked in my favor this time since I saw both of these birds on the ground. (I tried to find photos that looked most closely like what I actually saw rather than the very best photo available from Google Images.) The next morning while waiting for the train back I saw bunches of Sooty-Headed Bulbuls. the way back to BKK I also saw my very first ever owl. I only saw the back, but it looked a lot like the Collared Owlet except my bird book says Collared Owlets are about the same size as Sparrows, and this was probably twice that--not all that large, but not sparrowish in size. So, it's an unidentified sighting, but exciting nonetheless, being my first.

On the ride up to Lopburi I saw a Little Cormorant in a tree, a Black-Shouldered Kite (from cruising through Google Images it seems that these beautiful birds are found all over the world), some Small Pratincoles, and a trio of Shrikes: several Brown Shrikes, a couple of Burmese Shrikes and one very gourmet Long-tailed Shrike.

Birding in Lopburi itself garnered a Streak-Eared Bulbul (which I see in my backyard all the time) and a Pied Fantail (fanned) and unfanned in the early afternoon and an Asian Brown Flycatcher, and a Lineated Barbet later in the day. Although I've made an effort to not be repetitive of other reports, I have to add the Indian Roller, which flew over my head as I was leaving the park--when you look at this picture, imagine seeing this fly overhead and land only 10 feet (3 meters) away. One of the great things about birding in Lopburi is that because there's really nothing else around here, it's easy to see field birds in the town parks. Next time I come up here, I think I'm going to rent a bike and ride out of town. Of course, it's easy for me to say this while I sit in an air-conditioned internet cafe--we'll see how this plan strikes me when the time actually comes and it's in the mid- to high 90s (35-38 for those of you not using Fahrenheit). On the train back I saw more Red-Wattled Lapwings and another Little Cormorant in another tree, which is usually how these things go--you see them once and then they're suddenly everywhere. But because I'm now hooked on looking down as well as up, I also saw a Black-Winged Stilt in a rice paddy. And, I saw a couple of new variations by my old friends: a pair of Egrets doing some sort of mating dance (I assume) and a Black Drongo on the back of a cow, itself a variation on the classic Cattle Egret on the back of a water buffalo, which I saw on my 2002 trip.

Despite the lack of sleep, something must have worked because although I could easily have spent a couple more days away, I was happy to be back. I have a visa run coming up in a couple of weeks, so you'll likely hear from me then. (Unless I decide to extend at the immigration office and get a new visa in early April instead. Time will tell.) I also have my trip after that all planned out.

Cheers,
Mary Rose