by Mark Butland | 25/01/2022 | Thailand 2022
Then the trip changed course. One of our group tested positive for Covid, which meant ten days of isolation for us in a Thai hotel. We weren’t allowed out of the hotel, apart from forty-five minutes a day of fresh air on the roof terrace, and we made the most of every...
by Mark Butland | 14/01/2022 | Thailand 2022
We moved on to Ayutthaya, the second capital of Siam and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded around 1350 and became the Siamese capital after Sukhothai, until the Burmese army razed it in 1767. It was never rebuilt on the same spot, and UNESCO...
by Mark Butland | 13/01/2022 | Thailand 2022
Next was Erawan National Park, green jungle all round and home to a seven-tier waterfall. The park was set up in 1975, and the falls are named after Erawan, the three-headed white elephant of Hindu mythology. The top tier is said to look like an elephant’s head. Rocky...
by Mark Butland | 12/01/2022 | Thailand 2022
It was an early start to reach the Maeklong Railway Market, which sits about 80km south-west of Bangkok. The market is built right along the railway line, and when a train is due the stallholders pull back their stalls and awnings so it can squeeze through, then set...
by Mark Butland | 11/01/2022 | Thailand 2022
We saw Bangkok from the saddle today. The cycling tour took us down narrow backstreets and tiny alleyways and along the old canals, well away from the main roads. Bangkok was once built around its waterways, which earned it the name “Venice of the East”. Most of the...
by Mark Butland | 10/01/2022 | Thailand 2022
By mid-morning our PCR results had come back negative, which meant we were free to leave the Nouvo City Hotel and head out to explore the neighbourhood around it. We spent a couple of hours walking the busy streets in the heat, which in Bangkok lasts for most of the...
