A Little Behind

Yeah, I have this boyfriend, his bum is so cute and tight :P. Lol, actually my title is going more along the lines of my postings. I have a couple of things I want to write about, but I'm running a little slow in the writing and posting department.

Post haste then, I want to touch on Uttaradit for a little bit. The best thing I can say about the city was that I was really happy when I got to leave :))). Lol, usually, I can find a silver lining in a place or a thing, but my trip to Uttaradit (in the South part of Northern Thailand ;) was really... disheartening...

I went there for just a day, and stayed in a guest house near the center of the city. During Thaksin's regime, it was supposed to become a hub of commerce and government assistance. But after his ouster, the city lost its importance and now receives little interest from the government... or tourists.

I really don't want to be negative, but I can kind of see why...

It's dark there. The buildings are damaged from time and pollution, not that different than other places, but the city feels more gritty, more tough. It's evident in the people there too. No one, ok save for one elderly fruit seller, greeted me with a smile. People were just riding around aimlessly on their scooters, eating food from outdoor foodstalls. Listless legs sat tucked in chairs, and people just kind of seemed incredulous if I talked, played, or bargained with them.

Maybe it was me though...

Anyway, there are a couple tourist destinations (A dam (lol) and a forest) in the Uttaradit province. I just couldn't go to them because there was no transportation. People don't often travel there I guess.

In the city they do have a market, where I bought a pair of socks for 40 Baht (a little more than $1). I tried to bargain a little, but they had none of it... They also have a monument area dedicated to a warrior for King Taksin. That the people prize this as the monument, it probably says something about the city and its residents.

The monument has a surrounding museum that explains the city's past. I went to this museum, which turned out to be two converted houses with three guides (high school girls in their uniforms :) waiting for someone, anyone, to look at the museum's contents.

They seemed pretty nice, but without any ability to speak English :0). It was an interesting conversation, but from what I understood, the city is known for its special swords. That's right, they have special metal (rare iron) I guess, and swords are/were their specialty. I wondered how business was going...

Supposedly their last big project was the world's largest sword. The Thai government decided to commission a local artisan for a full rendering from the precious iron resources in the province. I read a little bit about it in English. There's some kind of supernatural quality for the sword, and it was built for the Queen of Thailand's 60th Birthday.

The English explanation talked about the grandeur of the sword, the time and effort put into it. I read all inscritpions, asked my guides, trying to figure out the cost of the sword. I looked at the Thai version and saw the Thai numerical script, it was over one-million baht. I wondered why the Thai version could provide the cost for such a large sword, and western people were not informed as to its cost.

What is it about the sword that's so secret? I have a couple of guesses, but I can't say for sure.

I know when I left the city, the bus station was kind of run-down. The signs telling tourists about the city and the province were caked in dirt. As we rode the bus from town, we passed a bunch of wooden and cardboard shacks, people washing their clothes in buckets, hanging things out to dry on what looked like tied-together shoelaces. The air was thick with dust.

We passed the museum and the monument on the way out. I could kind of see inside. It looked like three girls were waiting --- hopefully a couple people went by to see it.