Thailand Annotated: Stop 5, Karabi

We flew into Karabi and had a cab waiting. We got there early afternoon, got a little lunch and figured out what we wanted to do. There was one last Watt we wanted to visit. Problem was, it's out of town a ways. What were two young rebels to do?



That's right, we got our bikes and race out there like two bats out of a cold, unloving hell. Shit yeah.


Motorbikes (they don't call them scooters, which I appreciated so much when I found myself on one) are one of the biggest ways to get around in Thailand.


The thing about driving in Thailand is that there are rules and they're very much the same as American (except they drive on the left side of the road and they have a U-turn lane in most big roads so you go past where you want to go then u-turn and take a left. They do shit like this in Michigan too.), but the difference is these rules are in no way enforced. The only real rule is you have to watch out for everyone else. And because everyone's nice, or at least confrontation averse, it generally works out well. This, as well as the relative sleepiness of the roads around Karabi town, made us think we could ride the bikes without problem.
So, we set out on our bikes, and I gotta say, these things were super-fun. They gave us a 10 second overview of how to start the bike and you know, start it and stop it, but pretty much we were tossed into the deep end. And Dinah had a rough idea how to get out there. It was farther away than I expected, but we got there without incident.


And the Watt (Watt of the Tiger Budha) was one of my favorites. Possibly not because of the actual Watt itself, but also because the grounds are awesome.


The next couple of pictures are ones Dinah took on our way to the temple. In the first one, if you look at the top of the cliff on the right side you can see a small shiney dot (can you see it?), that's the Chedi. That's also about 1500 stairs (or so) up the side of the mountain there. Long story short, I came thousands of miles to this spot, but 1500 stairs is a deal breaker. Sorry.


BUT. It's not like that's the main part of the Watt or that everything else we saw wasn't cool, because, as I said, this was probably my favorite Watt (though Emerald Budha is right there).


So, we get there and we park our hogs (yeah, I called my scooter a hog, I'm badass that way), and set out looking for the Watt. First, though, we were confronted by monkeys. These were the frist monkeys we'd seen in Thailand, though we'd heard they were around and very good at stealing your food. So, we snapped a picture and moved on. But, we almost missed it because they build a front on it that made it look like a school. See, front the guidebooks we knew this Watt was carved out of a cave, so that's what we expected. After figuring it out and making our way inside we weren't dissappointed.

So, a temple in a cave is just a great idea. They carved it. Anyhoo, so we enter the cave and are immediately waved over to a fold up table a little ways from the entrance. Behind the table is someone who I assumed was a teenage boy monk(Dinah was sure it was a nun of some sort, and there never was a good way to figure this one out). So the monk (or nun) offers Dinah and I a little rope braclet and asked for a donation. The little braclets are for luck, I guess and they're sort of nice.
But then we headed into the cave. Which is sort of misleading. There is a cave and it's cool, but the first area is more of a lobby filled with a lot of Budhas. We came in during a service of some sort, so I asked permission to make sure I could go up the stairs into the cave. There wasn't a lot to the cave, but it was cool climbing up some stone stairs and seeing another Budha. The one they had up there seemed to be a copy of the Emerald Budha.
On the stairs on the way to the cave area were three cat-statues, which I guess is where the Watt gets its name. I mean, I don't want to quibble, but something about "Tiger Budha" gave me a picture that was a little different. I guess I was expecting a Budha on a Tiger or in some sort of Tiger-like position, or something. But, you know statues...okay.
I wasn't dissappointed overall, though largely because the grounds were awesome. While we didn't do the steps to the Chedi (there's a picture of the steps though, so you can sympathize or, because this is the internet, criticize), there was still a lot to see.
Like a 1000 year old tree. The signs of which tree was the 1000 year old tree were in Thai, so we have pictures of Dinah with a lot of old looking trees. I've only included one here, but I think it was the one we were kind of sure was the right one.
And there was another cave that had other altars and such in them. The pictures from this cave didn't turn out as well as we would've liked, because it was dark in the cave, but it was cool.
Pictures:

Inside the cave of outside the Watt:

Here you can see Monks only washrooms and washrooms for "Normal People". Just thought it was kind of a cool look at something.

Dinah with the 1000 year old tree.

Dinah took these pictures on the way back to city. Soon after these were taken, we decided to buzz around on our motor bikes for the rest of the afternoon. It was fun. But as we were about to learn, it was a responsibility, not right. (heh. My dad would be proud.)

So, we're turning a corner, Dinah in front and me following up. We're cruising into the park along the river way and Dinah loses control and does a herky-jerky, foot on the ground, but accelerating thing and nearly crashes into a curb.

She got it all under control really quickly, but it was frightening. We ate some icecream and recovered.



And here I am at the night market. This is where we ate that night. We started just by walking around the (small) town and ran into a market we didn't know about and then moved onto this one. We sat down and ate and had the Thai beer face off. Chang v. Sing Ha. Sing Ha wins hands down. I knew going in that Chang was the underdog and I wanted to give it a fair shot. But yeah.

Of course Sing Ha is still not the best beer we had on the trip. That distinction would belong to Beer Lao. Too bad it doesn't get distributed here yet. Soon, hopefully.

After the beers and the meats and I believe some Banana-crepe, we headed back to our place (which was nothing spectacular, but serviceable) and went to bed. The next day was the last of our planned activities--we were going to take cooking classes.
The lady, "Ya", was awesome. She came to pick us up and we rode in the back of her truck on the way there. It was kind of a long ride.
But we got there and learned how to make us some curries and other dishes. We've already tested out these recipes and it's been pretty good.

Anyway. There's only one post left. And it'll probably be the most boring. There's not a lot of stories to tell about the time we spent bumming on the beach. We did a lot of reading and relaxed. But there are some good pictures and I'll throw them up with some stories, such as they are.