Elephants and Yucky Things in Chantaburi

  Chantaburi, Thailand
Friday, November 9, 2007

Ros:
We've managed our first move from Bangkok without too much bother at all! We left our hotel at about 11am and had breakfast at the rather nice 'French' cafe around the corner, overlooking the river. Then we set off to the bus terminal to head for Chantaburi.

We'd booked into a guest house we'd found recommended on the internet last night, so it was a relief to arrive today and discover the review was correct, and it's a really nice place! We're staying in the River Guest House, right on the river(as you'd expect really!) with a really nice terrace. Our room has an ensuite shower room, aircon and a balcony overlooking the river. All for 350baht (about 4 pounds!). The guest house even has a cat. And the slowest internet connection in the world.

Anyhow, we're staying here for a couple of nights before carrying on heading in the direction of some islands and Cambodia. Unfortunately there's no food on offer in the guest house so we had to head into town. Which was a bit of an adventure. There aren't a lot of tourists in Chantaburi so vegetarian wasn't really an option. We found a restaurant that did vegetable soup (which Hugh ate, it was icky - a few boiled-to-death veggies in grey water). Then we headed for the night market and found some plain noodles (which again, I wasn't sure about so Hugh ate) and some corn on the cob (yay!). And some cakes. Then we stopped off at a hotel to have some yummy fruit shakes in their fairy-light lit garden (a beer garden says Hugh). We're now back at the guest house.

Two funny little anecdotes for today...
1) We were sitting in the restaurant when Hugh suddenly said, in quite a calm manner, 'there's an elephant, get your camera'. 'What?' I say. 'What sort of an elephant?'. 'An elephant elephant' says Hugh. I turn around, and there's an elephant with its head in the restaurant. Now Chantaburi is quite a modern, wealthy town by the looks of things, full of posh cars and motorbikes. So this modern elephant had a red light on its tail for the traffic.

An elephant comes to tea

2) We were just attempting to make this computer start when we decided to try a cake from the market. I open the first packet and it smells disgusting - like garlic bread. Certainly not like cake. So I refuse to touch it. 'Ooh' says Hugh, 'maybe it is garlic bread!' And he tries a bit. Needless to say it wasn't garlic bread. His reaction was so funny I'm still giggling (I really hope this translates over writing)... (to be said whilst screwing up your face as much as possible) 'It's like garlic bread with syrup on the top, except it's probably not garlic, it's fish...what's wrong with these people???'
I'm glad I trusted my senses and didn't try it!!

Hugh says he shall write the next installment. I'm afraid we can't upload photos as the computer can barely cope with text!

Goodnight all :)

Where we're staying in Chantaburi:

River Guest House, Chanthaburi

The River Guesthouse - by the bridge over the river and the gem market.
Paying 350THB for an aircon ensuite room with a balcony overlooking the river. Fairly noisy hotel but really great location. Small bed! (but comfy). Nice and clean. Have to walk a bit of a way to find food.
Two recommendations for veggies:
There is a 'pure Indian vegetarian restaurant' over the road from the guesthouse (how did we miss this when writing the entry above??). We had lunch there on our last day and it was pretty good. A bit like sitting in someone's front room (well, it was really sitting in someone's front room) but the menu was tri-lingual so we got on ok. Curry was bit wierd but samosas were lovely as was the lassi and the chai. Otherwise there is a really nice thai place just over the bridge that is past Robinsons Dept store and the night market. It's the one with tables overlooking the river. They understand 'pom kin jeh'! Ask the guesthouse for a map - think it's the one called Panjim Restaurant, although there's no sign.