I have had a couple of complaints about my silence lately. The easy cop-out would be to say that I went to Burma from Chaing Mai (top of this map) and the evil fascists who run that country don't allow Internet use there. In fact my Swedish friend Mia was waiting for me in the middle of Rangoon. I however was in bed in Chaing Mai with a terrible case of backache. It hasn't really gone away but I've had lots of vigorous Thai massages including a miost violent 2 hour one from a blind man in Phisanalouk and a 55 kilo woman called Oi! walking on my back in Phuket. Anyway, really very little to report from my last two weeks in Thailand. One week doing not much but rest in Chaing Mai, a couple of days sight-seeeing at the ancient capitals of Soukathai and Ayuttaya (just north of Bangkok in the middle of this map), four days on the beach in Phuket and now I'm back in Singapore on my way to Australia. Ayuttaya was the only really impressive stop. It has several interesting temple complexes, and some slightly newer monuments--all a 40 cent train ride north of Bangkok. It was Thailand's capital from roughly 1300 to 1750 when the Burmese moved in and sacked it. The next King moved the capital to the now sprawling mess of Bangkok, knowing that no one in their right mind would want to capture it! As this photo shows Ayutthan Buddhists are now worshiping at the altar of east AND west.
The full set of temple photos from Phisanalouk, Soukathai and Ayuttaya is here. My camera which has now started behaving very badly is hopefully being fixed in Singapore as I write this....more from Australia soon!
