Last part of our tour of England

24th August,

Today brought sunshine, this we were pleased with because we were going to Hadrains Wall at Vindolanda near Hexham. This is an ancient site of the Roman village of Vindolander which has been excavated in the past 40 years . Just in the last 5 years they have found many artificts from bones, jewellery to armour, and many roman sandals from children to adults.  (Photos below)

       

                                    What remains of the ancient roman fort of Vindolander 

       

       

      

       

       

        

                                                Water trench (aqueduct ) the romans used

       

       

       

       

                                        

                                        

        

        

        

        

         

        

      

         

                                   

                                    

From here we then went to the Roman Army Museum just a few miles away. Here we saw a unique 3 D film  of where in this area the ruin's were found after doing a low flight over the area to mark out the forts etc.  There are still today many areas that have not had any excavations done to them , due to the costing etc in this . It is mostly done voluntary in the summer with many people coming back on a regular basis to do this even as far away as NZ and Aussie.   

We were lucky enough to find accommodation at a pub called The Old Black Bull just 13 miles north of York. The owners and staff were wonderful , made us most welcome and asked us to join in on there qiz night while we were there. This we did , we got 25 out of 35 with some help from the locals a great laugh. Here we meet Val and Lynn Scott from Christchurch, which helped make the evening more enjoyable as it then became the kiwi team. 

      

25th August

Today brought rain. This we did not want as we are visiting York .

Once in the town of York we visited Yorkminster church . This is a very large cathedral built out of sandstone. A walk around the square seeing the different buildings and once again shops.

        

        

       

We had been told about a Viking village which was found underneath the streets of York. This dated back to 866AD. The Jorvik Viking Centre has the remains of 1,000 year old houses which are revealed beneath your feet from under a glass floor . Seeing where the layout etc was. In displays on the walls show objects that have been found since excavations started on the site. This started between 1976 -1981 archaeologists from York Archaeological Trust revealed the houses, workshops and backyards of the Viking age city of Jorvik as it stood 1,000 years ago.

You can see the blacksmith's furnace ,the amber worker , homes, and interesting a outside  toilet no privacy here.

                                  

                                  

Taking photos here was very difficult as the chairs we were in moved very quickly .

We then walked up through a street called The Shambles . This was a very narrow street consisting of old buildings erected many century's ago.  ( photos below )

                                     

                                       

                                          

         

       

                                     

This photo is of a shoe scraper which is placed outside many of the buildings for men to clear there mud of there boots.

Then we went to the Roman Bath a House. This too was found underneath a hotel when it was being renovated 10 years ago.

       

           

         

                                   This armour was found down under the building also.

There is a stone wall that runs around most of the centre of York. This is the remnants of the stone wall that protected the city .

        

On our way back to Mansfield we called in to see Kathy and her mum Ada Moffitt at Colne.  It was wonderful to spend extra time visiting them. 

                                                  

           Marg with Ada Moffat (a friend who used to live in NZ)who just celebrated her 100 th birthday.

27th August

       

                   Mel, Marg, John and Peter out for dinner on our last night in England 

        

        Marg, Jane ( Mels daughter) John and Mel at Subway. Where Jane works  saying goodbye 

The last two days here in Mansfield have been running around sorting out last minute things. We have had a wonderful time in England ,Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and met some interesting people on our way. Many thanks everyone for making it that way, especially Mel and Peter for your hospitality  and loaning us a car to have a look around. All in all we did just under 5000 miles.

Bangkok

28 th August 

This is our finally week of our holiday . We left Mansfield this morning at 9.ooam for the airport at Manchester . So pleased we did leave earlier than necessary . It took us 2 hours 15 minutes to get to the airport due to traffic build ups and road works around round abouts.  We needed to be there two hours before . It took us 1 1/2 hours to go through the process of booking in etc. After being awake for over 26 hours we arrived in Bangkok at 1.00pm with a mild temperature of 32 degs on the 29th August.  Once we arrived at our hotel both John and I were very tired . We had a sleep for two hours then had a look around the area we are staying in. The long flights sure do tire you out .  Our hotel is on a bend in the Chao Phraya River with only a small distance to the main shopping centre.

30th August

Had a great sleep. Woke to a overcast day around the 30 degs.

Saturdays are market days here in Bangkok. We went to the Chatuchak weekend markets. Wow after a short train ride then one change of trains, we arrived there. The market  is very very large . The stall spaces are only 2 by 2.5 metres with no gap between the stalls . They are in a lock up with pull down door. Some had air conditioning .Not a lot of room for stuff . Some of the stalls were very organised and some sure could do with it. Lots of stalls selling shoes, handbags, tea shirts , dresses etc. The only thing we found a problem with, there was not many larger clothes items to buy. Mostly sizes 6 to 14, which suits the locals.  We had a good 5 hours walking around it and I'm sure we did not see it all .

The food stalls were mostly on the outer circle of it. 

We saw a small boat pulling 4 barges full of what looked like sand and there was another small boat pushing the rear barge. The photo was taken from our apartment at the Riverfront  on the 26th floor of overlooking the river.

     

                         This is where  we stayed in Bangkok at the Riverfront Apartments 

     

     

      

        

                                                  Our view at night from our room 

        

                                            Night view from our room 26 floors up 

31st August

Today we decided to go to the centre of Siam. This is the area that has many multiple story complexes such as the Paragon centre, the Siam Centre and the MBK Centre. We noticed that being a Sunday the traffic here was very light, except when you got to the main town centre.

1st September ,

The alarm went off at 5.00am this morning. The reason behind this is we are being picked up outside our hotel at 6.15am. Today we are going to the Jeath War Museum in Kanchanaburi. The ride will take nearly 3 hours to get there .

The Jeath museum was established to collect various items connected with the construction of the Death Railway by prisoners of war (PoW's) during the Second World War  1942 - 1943. More known as the Bridge over the River Kwai.

The first thing we saw was a bamboo hut  ( a copy of an original ) which the prisoner lived and slept in.

The shelf were they all slept was made of bamboo slated together . Each prisoner had 2 1/2 ft to sleep on above the ground. If you woke up during to night to go to the toilet and got off the bed you slept the remaining of the night in the floor, as the space was quickly used up by other prisoners.

Photos were not allowed to be take. In respect of the soldiers that died as there are many personal

records of letters of what happened to them and photos. There are also many articles written by former prisoners, their relatives, there friends and writers who interviewed many of the prisoners telling of the suffering of the prisoners of war.

The letter JEATH means.   Japan (J),  England. (E),  American and Australia  (A), Thailand. (T),  and Holland. (H) . The Japanese were the controllers of the railway project.  Thailand was involved as the conquered country and the other four countries were involved as POW's on the actual construction of the 415 kilometres long Death Railway and the bridge of the Rive Kwai.

The Death Railway  was strategic railway built between Thailand and Burma.  It was 415 k long ( 303 kms in Thailand and 112 kms in Burma) and passed through the Three Pagoda Pass in Sangkhlaburi district, the most northern part of Kanchanaburi Province.

Construction began on September 16th 1942 at Nong Pladuk, Thailand. By approx 30,000 prisoners of war from the above countries and more than 200,000 impressed labourers from India, China, Indonesia , Malaysia , Singapore , Burma and Thailand . Of these, more than 16,000 pow's and 100,000 impressed labourers died of many diseases, due to starvation and lack of medical equipment.

The Japanese engineers predicted it should take 5 years to complete this railway line , but the Japanese army forced the prisoners to complete it in only 16 months , finishing it on the 25 th December 1943.    ( the information above I got off a information brochure they gave us at the Museum

which  I thought was very interesting . ) Hope you enjoyed reading about it. HOW TERRIBLE WAR IS. 

MAY PEACE ALWAYS CONQUER VIOLENCE

       

                                 

                                    

        

        

        

From the museum we went to the Japanase cemetery and was shown that if was all overgrown with weeds and not looked after by their people. 

The Thailand government  has made a promise that the cemetery for the prisoner of wars would be maintained to a high order . The cemetery  is broken up into 6 sections. Each section contains the soldiers of their country so they are buried next to each other as they fought and died together. 

Both John and I felt emotional when we walked on to the cemetery seeing 6,800 graves. After walking around , many if the soldiers were very young when they died 19 to 23 years old.

        

        

                                   

The land that was gifted for the cemetery was where the original hospital was for the soldiers .

From here we went to see the Bridge over the River Kwai. The centre panels of the bridge are different 

 to the ends. this is where the bombs destroyed the bridge. There are now two lines on the bridge the smaller line is the original line that was build. The outer line is the one that is used today but only to a station not far into the hills.

        

       

This is the end of the bridge. Note the two railway tracks on the bridge centre ones are the original

Rail tracks .

      

                                   John standing on the Bridge of the River Kwai

        

                            Marg standing  in the middle of the bridge with other tourist.

         

                 Tourist shop and local accommodation on the edge of the bridge end.

                                         

        

                 Looking at a long tail boat from the top of the bridge note the engine and the tail.

       

                                             Accommodation next to the bridge 

        

                           Cattle roaming along side the river by the bridge.

         

            Tea shirts everywhere with the Bridge over the River Kwai on them.

         

                These bananas are known as monkey bananas they are the size of a females thumb. 

Next stop was the Tiger Temple. Wow that's what I thought when we saw the beautiful tigers. They are looked after by monks since they are born. The mother tiger only feeds them for a couple of days or 4 weeks at the most then they get annoyed with the babies . The monks  take over the feeding and walking of the baby tigers. Doing this they get used to being handle by people. Without this we would. To be able to get up close to these beautiful animals.

                                       

                                       

                                       

                                       

                                                         Marg walking the tiger with a monk

      

                                            John walking the tiger with a monk  

                                           

     

                                              Asian water buffalo at the tiger santury

On our return from seeing the tigers we drove pass some fields growing Tapioca . The driver kindly stopped the van so we could see it close up and take some photos.  The  roots are ground up into flour. The root system is as long  as your arm and as thick also with possibly 3 roots on one plant.

They take cuttings from the main plant and just stick them in the ground to grow. 

          

                                                             Tapioca growing 

         

                                    A close up view of the Tapioca leaves  

Below are some photos that we took randomly fron the van on our way back to the hotel.

        

       

                                           

 A local police bike called a Tiger Boxer 200cc ( big enough I suppose when you are only chasing 100cc scooters.)

          

                                

                                                       Family of 5 on the scooter

       

                         Local fisherman smoking his fish outside near our apartment 

       

                                                             Local living accommodation

                                                    

          

         

                                                                      Temple 

       

                                                         36 seconds to green light

        

       

                                                   Fuel prices. ( 28b to $1au)

It was interesting talking to our tour guide. She was telling us that the public schools are 6 days a week from 7.30am to 12.30 daily with Sunday off. Private schools are 8 am to 4pm daily  5 days a week.

The average apartment people rent are 24 sq meters like a bed sitter and cost 8000 Baht a month .

Wages a factory workers gets 300 baht a day, office workers get 18000 baht a month. When writing  this baht was worth 28 to our Aussie dollar. 

We also noticed that there were many sections of the motorway that has10 lanes. 

2 down,  3 up this is one side and the other was the opposite. Scooters run down the edge of the road the wrong way and nobody stops them even if it is not allowed. Wild dogs roam freely around the footpath and live of scraps from the food venders. We have seen many dogs that have been run over and just left on the side of the road. Yak.

There are a lot of street stalls selling food. They have to get a licence from the government for this and they pay a very small charge.  There is no benefit for the elderly here . Either you work right up till you die or have family that will look after you. If you do not work you do not get any money to live. The average age of people dying over here is around 65 to 70 longer if you have family to look after you.

The population of Thailand is 65 million and 12 million live  in Bangkok. There  are 35 thousand Temples in Thailand and 80 canals surrounding the Bangkok area.

3rd September

Today we took a tour on a Rice Barge up the Chao Praya river and around a few of the canals. It was very interesting seeing the homes from a very different prospective. The Muslims live of one side of the canal and the Buddists on the other.  Going up the river you sure could see how the very poor do live.

They live by selling goods to the tourists from small boats.

Whilst on the boat we were given samples of 12 different fruits to try , all very tasty. John and I both had not had sticky rice before. This was presented to us in a heart shape ( like a biscuit) very nice. We sure are going to try and do this when we  get back to Aussie.

        

         

         

         

         

         

          

           

       

        

       

                              Hand fed fish by the monks. These are protected.

       

       

         

         

           

         

          

         

 

                                      

4th September

We decided to do a temple tour. Doing tours is a lot easier than finding taxis that charge you a lot and we were told not to trust Tuk Tuk drivers.

Our first stop was at the Sukhothai Traimit Golden Buddha. This is the largest golden Buddha image In the world. It is made of pure gold. It measures 12 feet 5 inches in diameter and has the height of 15 feet 9 inches from the base to the crown and it weighs  approximately  5.5 tons, with the price value of 28.5 million pounds and is over 700 years old. This is a valuable treasure of Thailand and of Buddhism.

Originally the Golden Buddha was completey covered with plaster to conceal it from the enemy invading Thailand and was installed as the principal Buddha image in the main temple building of Choti- Narmada Temple . When the temple was deserted in about 1931 , the East Asiatic Company, with official permission extended its operations into land area of the deserted temple . It was then moved to where it is today. In 1955 it was discovered that it was pure gold when the building was completed and while preparations were being made to move the Buddha to the building a piece of plaster was partly broken. Only then did the people realise that  it was a Golden Buddha image. It is now been treasured for its historical , artistic and cultural values to this day. A saying says

May the sanctity of Sukhothai Traimit Golden Buddha image bless you with good luck and fulfill your wishes at all times .

       

                                     

                                                             Looking up to the ceiling 

                                     

        

                                                     A large golden bell calling for prayer

         

                                                   Temple stature on guard 

From here we went to Reclining Buddha. This is amazing. it is 45 metres long and 15 metres high. It's feet are studded with mother of pearl .

                                      

                                                                He is leaning on the arm 

        

          

                                                 Mother of pearls on the Buddha's feet 

      

                                                      The pillow his head rest on

       

Then from here we went to the Marble temple . The temple was made out of Italian marble .

          

          

          

                          

                          

                          

                                                  Bridge over to the temple below 

                            

         

       Friday 5th Sept.

Leisurely day today as we get ready for our evening trip to Sydney. Went to the airport early and booked our gear through to cairns. We did a last bit of shopping and had a bite to eat before we left.

An absolute fantastic 74 days overseas.