We had booked a daytime 13 hour coach ride back to Bangkok. We needed to be up by 5:30am, ready for the Bolt taxi to take us to the bus station for 6:30. I thought the journey would be ok, but with only a twenty minute food break (two drivers in tandem) it was brutal. I am getting too old for these journeys. I had been all for getting straight on the overnight train to Ubon Ratchathani the day of our arrival in Bangkok, but I was glad Tim persuaded me to book an extra day’s R and R.

On our day in Bangkok we headed for Chinatown. We travelled by water taxi, which is a relaxing way to see the city. We also used the Bangkok metro for the first time and were very impressed with it. South and South East Asian countries are now beginning to put the poor old London Underground to shame.

The first place we visited was Wat Traimit where we saw the Golden Buddha. This was covered in stucco to protect it from theft for many years, until somebody realised the treasure beneath.

We had lunch in the Talat Noi area of Chinatown, where a few trendy coffee shops are opening up and the yuppies are beginning to move in. It is famous for its street art, which is quite impressive. For the moment, the main shops to be found are still engineering/ tool workshops, which Tim was interested in.

We had coffee (Tim) and matcha latte (me) in a cafe called ‘Hugs’, which was full of art. Our substantial lunch in a small local cafe was about a quarter the cost of our drinks! The area is much more conveniently located for transport connections and a few hostels have opened up, so I think that we’ll try staying them as an alternative to Khao San Road in future.

After lunch we headed over to Lumphini Park, where enormous monitor lizards lurk in the bushes and in the ponds. Tim got chatting to a German man who told him that a few ‘lost’ Europeans live rough in the park. I didn’t spot any. We were there at dusk and it was full of Thai people exercising and socialising. The pollution in Bangkok was worse than on our previous visit, but still not as bad as the levels we experienced in India.

The next day we relaxed in the Khao San Road area doing various jobs like booking hotels and sorting out money. We headed over to the new Hua Lamphong train station in Bangkok to catch the 9pm sleeper train to Ubon Ratchathani. This has been funded by Chinese money as part of the pan Asia rail network plan, which will link up China, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore via a super fast service. The station is enormous – more like an airport than a station. The food in the food court is excellent. We were even able to have a shower before getting on our train! All the people working there seem proud and happy to be part of the project. It is experiences like this that make me convinced that the future lies in Asia rather than Europe and America; we are at a massive turning point in history that nobody in the UK is prepared for.

The train was pretty comfortable and I slept reasonably well. We were sharing with a big group of Thai OAPs, who I think may have been taking a trip to Ubon Ratchathani to visit temples.

As we arrived in Ubon Ratchathani at 6:30am we were too early to go straight to our accommodation. We visited the market, which luckily was just over the road from the home stay we booked. We left our big bags inside the homestay gate and wandered the fresh goods stalls for a bit. Everything looked just killed or fished and there was delicious looking fruit and veg. There were also stalls selling Thai breakfasts of noodles in soup and rice porridge. We both tried the rice porridge, which was delicious.

Our homestay hosts were three elderly sisters. The one that welcomed us didn’t mind about us leaving our bags and checked us in early for no extra charge. She said that the house, which is old and very large was her late mother’s. It feels very homely with polished wooden floors, family shrines and numerous ornaments everywhere. It is also home to a very cute and friendly dog. We have a big room with air conditioning and a shared bathroom.

After breakfast and check in we visited the town centre park where we found the Ubon Ratchathani town pillar shrine. This has a regular stream of local worshippers. As well as the usual food or flowers people were leaving small models of animals. I am not sure what this relates to, but it was somehow touching seeing all the little animal figures around the shrine. We escaped from the heat of the day by visiting the well laid out town museum. It tells the history of the area. There are interesting historical artefacts including some beautiful statues and information about the prehistoric cave paintings in the area.

After a nap, we visited Wat Luang, right on the river and just round the corner from our homestay. It was peaceful wandering in the cool evening air. We drank iced tea in a little river cafe and watched the sun set and the bats fly out across the Mon river. It was nicknamed ‘Moon River’ by American GIs stationed in the area and the setting is as romantic as that name. An excited group of young women were in dress up nearby. It turned out they were pharmacists from the hospital on their way to a new year celebration meal.

We ate at the night food market, which happens at weekends in Ubon. There were a multitude of stalls selling everything from intestine stew to chicken feet. We finally picked pork skewers and sticky rice, finishing off with some rather strange (to us) but quite tasty Thai puddings. Their ingredients included rice, coconut and sweetcorn.

On our last day we visited Wat Thung Si Mueang. This has one building with beautiful old murals on its walls and two slightly spooky statues of past monks in. There is an imprint of the Buddha’s foot in a box behind its altar. Another wooden building is on stilts in a pond inevitably full of holy carp. The idea is to prevent precious Buddhist scripts from being eaten by hungry termites or other insects. The scripts can be seen wrapped up inside the temple when you cross the bridge to go inside.

At Wat Thung Si Mueang

The last Wat we visited seemed more recently built. There were merit boxes for every day of the week, for people to ‘send merit to lovers’. The Wat was full of visiting Thai groups and families. We met an English visitor who had his own haulage company and is now retired and living permanently in Thailand. He was fed up with the UK and seemed determined never to return. We could see his point of view, but didn’t share his politics.

After that we ate pork on rice in a local cafe and treated ourselves to Thai tea and lavender icecream in a trendy new icecream parlour. It was time to head back to our homestay and make preparations for our journey the next day.

I would like to spend a bit more time in Ubon – the place is full of Wats that we didn’t get to see and the surrounding countryside has waterfalls and historic rock paintings to be discovered. Maybe we will manage to return one day. Tomorrow we head across the border to Pakse in Laos.