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Published: October 12th 2007
The Tuk Tuk
So named after the sound of its 2-stroke engine at idle. If it was named after the sound its passengers made, it would be called a 'My God, hold on we're going to die'Our first stop in Thailand was to be a place called Ao Nang, a beach area 13km from Krabi in the South of the country. By far the cheapest way to get there from Langkawi caused another outburst from Able Seaman Cunningham.
Oh my God, a boat AND a bus!?
We turned up at the port and bought tickets for the 45 minute ferry journey to the port of Satun, the most Southerly entry point to the Thai mainland. Mercifully the water was so calm it looked like a mirror and there was not a vomiting schoolchild in sight.
A travel operator on the ferry sold us the bus tickets from Satun to Krabi, but he required payment in Thai currency (baht) and all we had was a few Malaysian ringgit. Our ticket man said this was no problem and that after passport control we could take the local 'bus' to the ATM which was 15 mins away in the centre of Satun. We would then be dropped off at the bus station to pick up the proper bus to Krabi. It all sounded a bit dodgy but you learn after a while that sometimes you have few options but to trust people and see what
happens.
It took a few minutes of broken English for him to fully communicate this complicated arrangement to us, by which time we'd realised that the local 'bus' he was talking about was the Toyota pick-up truck standing nearby. Over the flat bit at the back of the truck, someone had fashioned a crude roof from some Mechano and a bit of waterproof sheeting. There must've been a Mother Theresa lookalike competition that day in Satun, and this 'bus' was filled to capacity with entrants and their children, shopping etc. On the back of the pick-up someone had welded a couple of extra bits of Mechano as a step. This was the only vacant place we could go so we jumped on, holding on for dear life to the roof rack which was red-hot thanks to the sun. The driver courteously kept the speed down to about 100km/h on the bends and the two of us remained silent throughout the journey, focusing all our concentration on our grip.
Thankfully we arrived at the ATM still attached to the bus. All the Mother Theresa's got out allowing us to take seats for the journey back. We had everything crossed hoping
that the bus for the 6 hour journey to Krabi would be something a little more substantial and were happy to see a large Mercedes air-conditioned bus loom into view. The ticket man was true to his word and the journey was pleasant enough.
Upon arrival in Krabi we were besieged as usual with people offering us all sorts of taxis, hostels and other unrelated services. Paul was ready to make a beeline for the tourist office but Imogen's bat-like hearing detected a local bus driver (in another make-shift Toyota pick-up ensemble) shouting that he could take us to Ao Nang for 50 baht each (there's 70 to the pound). His bus even had
empty seats so we jumped in and he dropped us at the door of the hostel.
Ao Nang The Ao Nang Paradise Resort foyer looks very pleasant despite nestling between a noisy bar and a restaurant. We were quickly checked in and shown to a very nice room, far better than we expected for the price. We were tired after a whole day on the move and it was nice to be somewhere peaceful and more importantly, air-conditioned. But those moments of peace were
short-lived as Imogen lifted the lid of the toilet to reveal the most enormous centipede in the bowl. Flush as we might it was there to stay, proving itself to be an accomplished swimmer. We'd recently seen something similar at the snake sanctuary, in a tank and labelled poisonous so we erred on the side of caution and collared a member of staff to help. He fished it out with sticks and then efficiently beat it to death in front of us with his flip-flop. Nice.
Our thoughts quickly moved on to dinner and we headed out onto the main road which was littered with restaurants of all types. Both of us love Thai food, so we gorged on satay and green Thai curry etc before waddling to bed to digest and pass out.
Unfortunately the rain had followed us to Ao Nang and for the next couple of days we could only nip out for a bite to eat or a quick stroll around town between showers. We spent the rest of the time relaxing and reading, which was pretty much all we had planned to do in Ao Nang anyway. After a couple of days the
Ladyboy in transition?
(And that's just Paul on the left!) sun came out and we were able to sunbathe and swim in the pool, which was surrounded by palm trees with a breathtaking view of the mountains behind. For our last night we returned to our favourite restaurant for dinner, followed by a few drinks and some games of Connect 4 with the proprietor of the aptly named 'Umbrella Bar'. The great thing was we'd discovered we could live quite comfortably in Thailand for a few quid per day.
Chiang Mai Whilst in Ao Nang we had decided to book ourselves on a 3-day residential Thai cookery course with the
Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, staying in their Jasmine Rice Resort for our accommodation. To save time we got a cheap flight from Krabi with AsiaAir, Thailand's equivalent of EasyJet. A lady called Rutch who manages the Jasmine Rice Resort collected us from the airport. It was dark when we arrived but our room was beautifully furnished and decorated, had cold beers in the fridge and Rutch told us our dinner would be ready at 8pm. This was great news as we were starving. Little did we know this would be the last time we starved for several days...
The school and
Cooking up a storm!
With our teacher Sompon. Note Paul hasn't even learned how to put on his apron yet. resort is owned and run by a chef called Sompon Nabnian. The school is next to his rather splendid house on the outskirts of town and he has an acclaimed restaurant in central Chiang Mai called the Wok. We also discovered he is something of a Thai version of Jamie Oliver, as he was star of a TV show on UKTV called 'Thai Way' and is currently working on a second series. We admitted we'd never seen it.
Nevertheless here is a man who understands the significance of Lord Cunners and Lady McKenzie strolling into town. We were the only patrons at the Jasmine Rice restaurant and Sompon himself cooked and served an incredible gourmet meal of his own Thai cuisine just for us. The dishes just kept coming. We've never been so full. When the waves of dishes finally relented, Paul asked if they could carry him back to his room.
Next morning we woke up and were able to take in the views of Jasmine Rice Resort for ourselves. It is built in the middle of a paddy field (hence the name) and is absolutely stunning. The restaurant is linked via wooden bridges over the paddy and
there is a big swimming pool. We sat down for breakfast and it was like a rerun of the previous night's assault on our stomachs. A full English breakfast! Then it was time for school.
For the first morning we were taken to the local market and shown all the local ingredients we would be using. For the second morning we made our own curry paste (no mean feat which involves a lot of hitting).
The format for each day was otherwise the same. We made 6 different meals - four main dishes, a light starter or salad and a dessert. Sompon or one of his assistants would prepare the dish in front of us in the furiously air-conditioned classroom, then we would all go to our individual cooking stations outside and make it ourselves. The ingredients and relevant utensils magically appeared at our cooking stations while we were in class, and afterwards everything magically disappeared and reappeared later on clean again. This is how cooking should be!
After we cooked each dish we had to eat it, and it soon became clear that we were going to be eating 6 meals each day on top of the breakfast
and the previous evening's meal. Needless to say we had words with Rutch and asked her to tone down future breakfasts considerably. Dinner was completely ignored!
After our second day of school Rutch offered to take us to the Sunday market in central Chiang Mai, known as the Walking Market. Several roads are closed to make way for hundreds of stalls. The only other residents at Jasmine Rice were an American couple from San Francisco called Genio (man) and Lori and they joined us for the trip.
Within minutes we had spotted a stall selling various deep-fried insects and Lori challenged us all to eat one. A bag of 50 deep fried crickets was a bargain at 20 baht (about 30p). Imogen offered to be the 'official photographer' for the occasion, which was kind of her. Lori ate Imogen's cricket too, as she rather liked them. That evening the four of us stocked up on cans of beer and sat out drinking and watching the sun go down. We had an impromptu late night swim. Genio and Lori moved on the following night and Rutch decided to treat us to a special something from another local market. We hoped
it wasn't more crickets and thankfully it was a different treat - roast pig tongue! And to wash it down, she bought us a bottle of Thai whiskey (distilled from rice). After a couple of whiskeys Paul actually ate quite a lot of the tongue, mainly because the whiskey sends you mad. For those of you who ever sampled the delights of Jongi Bols from Paul's Dad's drinks cabinet many years ago, the sensation is deeply similar.
Next day it was time to leave Jasmine Rice Resort and move on. Rutch (now our honorary Thai mother) drove us into the centre of Chiang Mai where we had booked a hostel called MD House for a few more nights. We settled in and organised our next few days.
Chiang Mai is Thailand's second largest city (after Bangkok) and was first settled in 1296. It was originally a proper walled city and whilst much of the huge red brick wall is now gone, there are still many sections remaining. Impressively the moat which encircled the wall is still there. Planning restrictions have prevented any buildings of more than 3 or 4 storeys being built within the city boundaries and this
lends Chiang Mai a pleasant small town feel, far removed from Bangkok's chaos. The traffic is still pretty bad but people almost unanimously seem to prefer Chiang Mai's laid back streets to those of Bangkok. As in Bangkok, Chiang Mai has many Buddhist temples (wat's) to visit. We went to Wat Suan Dok on the outskirts of town specifically because every evening they have something called 'Monk Chat'. Believe it or not, this is where Westerners can sit and chat to the monks. The idea is that we get a better understanding of their monk ways and they get to improve their English.
We sat down with some monks who had travelled from Cambodia and their first question was,
Why has Chelsea's season not started as expected?
. It was a great experience and the monks are far more down to earth than we expected. Nevertheless we were impressed with their piety and commitment to their religion. And Imogen quite liked their orange 'dresses'.
Inspired by a TV show called 'Celebrity Detox' we had watched several years ago, involving the likes of Kim Wilde and Keith Duffy from Boyzone, we decided to have a go at colonic irrigation. We spent a day abstaining from everything other than
Paul has an enema
Those are his 'lubers' fruit and soft vegetables and the following day turned up at some strange clinic Imogen had found on the internet. Imogen went first and had a colonic irrigation. When questioned afterwards about the experience she said,
Well I don't think I'll be doing it again...
.
Paul went for a 1 litre coffee enema. He found the insertion strangely pleasant but was shocked when the lady doing it commented,
If you like I can push it in and out like a ladyboy
. The coffee was thankfully at room temperature and the litre disappeared slowly into his colon. Then all the equipment was removed and the coffee had to stay in for at least 10 minutes. Amusingly the two Thai lady assistants remained in the room and their English wasn't great so Paul had to try and make small talk with them whilst concentrating on not redecorating the white wall in front of him.
We both 'took one for the blog' this time. At least it counteracted the effect of all the food we'd gorged on for 3 days straight while at cookery school.
Although we have used a Tuk Tuk as our symbol of Thailand, officially it's the elephant. At major road intersections and in all the temples there are many statues of elephants. The Asian elephant can
be found in the wild here in small numbers, and Chiang Mai has 3 places where you can go elephant trekking if you want to. But having been somewhat perturbed by the elephant act we saw at the circus in Kuala Lumpur we decided we did not want to ride on them. We had heard about an elephant sanctuary nearby where injured working elephants (i.e. those injured during illegal logging or carrying tourists) lived out their days in a sort of elephant heaven. It was run by a lady called Lek and you could book a tour to visit. So we looked on the internet and quickly found it - it is called
Elephant Nature Park.
The next morning a coach picked us up and first took us to a market in Chiang Mai where we loaded up 2 pick-up trucks with bags of bananas and melons. We were then driven about 60km into the mountains and eventually descended into a beautiful lush green valley surrounded on all sides by tree covered mountains. It was like a scene from Jurassic Park. This was home to 31 rescued elephants. First we fed them the fruit we'd bought in the market, then we walked
down to the river with them, jumped in, rinsed them down with buckets of water and then scrubbed them clean with brushes. This wasn't like a trip to the zoo looking through bars, it was proper hands on! Sod monkeys, we love elephants now!
After lunch we did some more feeding and had another cleaning session in the river. Imogen got a kiss from one of the baby elephants although once you've experienced the 'juice' from an elephant's trunk you'll probably not do it again. We got to meet Lek briefly in the afternoon before heading home in the evening. We were there for one day but if you're really committed you can stay and work for a week, a month or even 3 months as a volunteer.
Bangkok Being the budget travellers we are, we decided to fly to Bangkok (cheating we know - but it saves an awful lot of time!). On arrival we were pleasantly surprised how easy it was to catch the bus to our hostel. Our location at Sukumvit 25 was ideal for getting around and also near the infamous 'Soi Cowboy' (Bangkok's seediest street - made famous during the Vietnam war when lots
Phwoar what a cracker!
That really is a man... honest. Don't you feel ashamed now?! of American soldiers were stationed here). On our first evening it seemed appropriate to do something traditional. We therefore ended up having a (very quick) stroll down Soi Cowboy before seeking out some Ladyboy action at the Mambo cabaret. The show involved about 20 Ladyboys singing and dancing whilst wearing sexy girl outfits. All the routines were seriously camp and highly amusing. They even had a fat one that could make stomach dance. Most of them had adams apples, big hands and feet or looked like blokes, but the star of the show was absolutely incredible. As she/he danced in hotpants even Imogen was compelled to shout,
My God she's GORGEOUS!
. Paul was going through a whole range of emotions from attraction to shame. Very confusing indeed, but great entertainment nevertheless.
Next day we explored some of the city and made a plan for the rest of our stay. In the afternoon we got chatting to another travelling San Franciscan called Tiffany, in an internet cafe. We agreed to meet up with her that evening to visit Patpong. Some of you may have heard of the Patpong area of Bangkok and we felt it was our duty as tourists to check
it out (our new friend Tiffany didn't yet realise she was going to 'take one for the blog' with us). And we can confirm that Patpong's Go-Go bars are exactly as people describe. We shan't be going back in a hurry, and if you want more information on the 'delights' of Patpong you can ask us when we're home.
Despite the interesting start to our friendship, Tiffany still joined us the next day for a tour of the city centre. We took a hair-raising tuk tuk ride to Wat Po, a temple housing the largest reclining effigy of the Buddha in the world at 42m in length. Then we walked around the imposing walls of the Grand Palace and went in for a look. Fortunately we were well warned about the scam where a local tells you it's closed (it's open every day until 16:30) and instead whisks you off on a rubbish tour which costs you a load more money. Sadly there were still people trying it on but we just told them where to go. After a wander around the Grand Palace buildings and grounds we had some lunch and headed back to our hostel. There should
have been plenty of time left in the afternoon to see something else, but we made the mistake of travelling overground in Bangkok's infamous traffic rather than picking up the fantastic and efficient MRT underground system. Fortunately we still had plenty of time to go to the Lumphini stadium in the evening to watch the Muay Thai (Thai boxing). We got ringside seats and had a great view of all the action, both in the ring and also the crazed betting going on in the stands around the stadium.
It was decided that our final day in Thailand should be a fairly relaxed one, as we knew we had a bit of a challenge ahead of us in India. One place we wanted to see was the Kao San Road and its street market. Unfortunately it rained which put a bit of a dampener on the place, but we still got the opportunity to buy a couple of things and have a go at some barter. Toby will be sad to hear that the 'Your Mum Bar' at the end of the street has sadly become a Burger King outlet so needless to say, we didn't get a photo. In the evening we we decided to have a couple of quiet drinks before leaving Bangkok. As there was a massive thunderstorm raging we just popped into one of the local bars and were dumbstruck to spot Keith (a distant relation of Paul's) sitting having a pint of Tiger! After several minutes of explanations and expletives we had a last meal of traditional Thai food and a few drinks with him. A fitting end to our Thailand adventure.
We're both filled with excitement and apprehension about the next leg of our journey -
Calcutta here we come!
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Helen
non-member comment
mMMMmm foood
So you'll be cooking us a 6-course Thai meal upon your return?! Sounds lovely!