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Published: February 28th 2015
'The Beach', Phi Phi Island
Thats why they didn't want anyone to find out.Country number 3, Thailand, after arriving in Bangkok late in the evening with little time to explore, I left early the next morning for Phuket a large island with, I now know, a somewhat dubious reputation for all things 'ping pong' and well, sleaze. It’s only one resort really, Patong Beach and yes having spent one evening in it, its reputation is not undeserved.......This place makes Banus of a night look like a Legion of Mary group outing.
I was staying in a guest house out of town, run by a Swedish guy and his Thai partner, small, just five rooms, nothing sleazy just a straight up guesthouse...but just for guys. Hey I got to optimise my chances!!!!
Phuket is ok, but like any other holiday island, lots of tourists, hotels, restaurants. It’s the Islands off Phuket that, for me, are the real draw. I took two day trips to these. The two most famous islands, PhiPhi, where the film The Beach was made and also James Bond Island which featured in The Man with the Golden Gun, I bet you will recognise it when you see the pics. Despite being overrun with tourists these places really are spectacular.
The high light of the two trips a canoe ride in island lagoons. The canoes are inflatable ones, there is a guy doing the paddling. He takes you through tiny entrances, some of which you have to lie down as they are so small. In one of these, the canoe was too wide so he deflated it a little, on hearing this I thought we had torn the boat and were sinking. One of my fellow travellers suggested that the canoe may have been too wide as a result of the width of my arse. Cheeky, good job it wasn't a few years ago or I would be still there now!!
So after days of sun, sea, sleeping, the odd massage and a few cocktails on the beach it was back to Bangkok and the start of my one month South East Asia odyssey.
Quick flight back to Bangkok Sunday in time for a meeting with my new travel companions and tour guide. Completely different in many ways from my India chums. This group, just one other guy and his wife, the rest single ladies. Nine in the group, 5 Canadians, 2 UK, 1 German and
myself. Our tour guide, Sarah, lovely 26 year old from the USA.
Next stop Chang Mai, Northern Thailand. Travelling by overnight bus, now this sounds horrendous but after overnight trains in India it's a doddle. With the help of a sleeping tablet I slept about 8 of the ten hours. We arrive early morning to Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand's capital and much quieter, older and less manic than Bangkok.
An early start on day 2 in Chiang Mai saw us on a converted pick up truck en route to a day of Bamboo rafting and ‘Jungle’ trekking to see some hill tribes. The bamboo rafting was good craic, just flat rafts of thick bamboo tied together. You sit on them a little chap punts you down the river. Then lunch and on to the jungle trek. This to my surprise really was a good trek, over two hours, mainly up hill, through fairly thick vegetation…. He really did use that machete you know, at about 35C and very humid. The Hill tribes, well these were little villages, set up about 30 years ago by displaced Burmese people, only recently recognised by the Thai government and given citizenship. It
was interesting but a little staged at times I think. A much appreciated and deserved cold beer was had by all in the last one…cheers guys.
Country number 4 Laos: Our main means of transport in Laos was by slow boat along the Mekong, and boy was it slow…. Our guide Sarah advised us not to expect things to happen in Laos, well as expected, as we were going to experience Laos time. I soon came to realise that this made Spanish Mañana look like German efficiency. For example we arrived at 1000h for our first Slow Boat, it was due to depart at 1100h. It left finally at 1315h. These boats look very quant, from a distance. When you get closer to them, that is you have traversed the very steep bank, lugging your gear with you, you realise they are sort of falling apart. The seating, is made up of old car seats, attached together with bits of wood, but not fixed to the floor.
Now, I haven't told you yet about LaoBeer, it is the only beer made in Laos, comes in pint bottles and is really good. My favourite beer in Thailand
is Leo….hence the title of this blog. I mention this know because as we waited and waited for this slow boat to get moving, many of the passengers kept jumping off to buy bottles of this beer. Now 1000h is too early, even for me, but as lunch time approached it didn't seem like a bad idea. As soon as we got going a little make shift bar opened up and copious amounts of this beer were sold to very happy travellers. Well, a great little party ensued which helped pass away the next 8 hours on this boat. We arrived at Pak Bang which is just a little town on the banks of the Mekong that has grown up as a stopping off point for the river boats. Dinner there, then early to bed because tomorrow we do it all again, this time for nine hours.
Up bright and early the next morning, and down to the jetty for day 2 of the slow boat experience. This time the boat was slightly bigger but with, I would say, twice as many people on board. I inquired later how many there were on it and was told 167. It
had one squat loo, no flush just a big bucket full of river water to swill it out. You hoped the guy or girl before you did this procedure. You can imagine the queue that developed for this facility. But there was no alternative for guys or girls. Not for the first time on this trip I was very grateful at having the ability to pass urine in the standing position!!!! One more thing about the slowboat, of the 167 people on board only 10 of us had life jackets. These were supplied to us by our tour company, my guess was as an ‘arse covering’ exercise for the insurance company. Now we, like eejits, had to haul these bright orange jackets with us everywhere for the two days. I wondered were these really such an advantage, because if we were sinking the other 157 poor buggers who didn't have one would be grabbing on to you…….
After 9 hours we arrive at Luang Prabang. This is a UNESCO World Heritage centre and it is beautiful. A small little city that still has a feel of its french colonial past. Lots of nice little hotels and guesthouses,
great restaurants and bars overlooking the Mekong. Really nice and worth the long trip to get there. I could easily have stayed here longer than our 2 nights. But onwards we went.
We left the Mekong and traveled by road to VangVieng. Well, this felt like going from the ‘sublime to the ridiculous’. This little place has developed again as a stop off point on the road from Luang Prabang to Vien Tiane, the capital. It was here that you could see that Laos had not learned anything from the mistakes of its big neighbour Thailand, in terms of how not to develop its tourist industry.
How can I best describe this place, an article I read about it said that, “Vang Viang was what society would be like it were ruled by teenagers”. It sort of reminded me of Lord of the Flies on Speed. Let me try to paint a picture for you. The average age of the tourist, almost all backpackers, is about 20. Most common accommodation is in the form of hostels with dorms costing 2 bob a night. The town is on another beautiful, fast flowing river and the
daily activity on this river is called ‘Tubing’
Tubing is a process whereby you get into a truck or tractor inner tube and float down the river between 2 designated points. This process takes about 1 to 3 hours. The length of time taken depends on how many times you stop off at the various bars along the way. Yes, lots of little bars have set up in the river and guys pull you and your tube in for beers, you stay in the water mind, or beach buckets full of Lao Whiskey and mixer of your choice. It is absolute madness. In 2011, twenty-seven people died doing this and the associated madness, for example jumping from trees into the not very deep river. After the day tubing its on to the bars and restaurants of the town where you can buy magic mushroom pizzas or pepperoni and pot ones. I kid you not. No guys I did not partake in the pizzas nor did I go tubing. Way too mad for an oldie like me.
Instead our little group spent our day biking to a blue lagoon and cave out of town. Half
of our number decided against the bike and took a TukTuk, the more intrepid of us went for the bikes, after all it was only a 15km round trip. How bad could it be? Answer, bloody awful.
I’ll start with the bikes, these were so called mountain bikes, but the gears didn't work. The saddle was about the width of your fore arm, with the foam padding on my one missing. Not to be deterred I put the saddle in the correct position for my height and we set off. Within 100 metres I realise that the saddle is not going to stay in that position but just kept dropping down. After 150 metres we run out of tarmac road and we are on serious dirt tract. It’s about 1000h so only about 28C and not too humid yet, we push on, quickly overtaken by our pals in the TukTuk…..I think they were laughing at us. Despite the, now boulders sticking out of this dirt track and inspired by the thought of the cool blu water of this lagoon, supplied by an underground stream, we finally get there. We drop the bikes, no need to lock them,
nobody would rob them they are such feckin wrecks, we pay our entry fee to find a dirty greenish pond full of very excited Korean tourists.
No, we didn't get in, and after about an hour of R&R we set off again. It’s now just past mid day, about 37C and very humid. The pain on sitting back on the now freely rotating saddle was intense, my back was broken from leaning over because the saddle wouln’t stay up and my head was burning because the factor 100 I use for my bald noggin wouldn’t stay on with the torrent of sweat coming from my head. Honest to God I felt like one of those women from Tenko on a bike. Anyway we made it back, helped enormously by a break for two Loa beers served by an enterprising lady who had set up a little bar on the way. The after effects of this bike ride took about 2 days to recover from, it was only then that I stopped walking like John Wayne.
That evening was the Hot Air Balloon flight. I had done this before in Kenya on that Safari trip
I did, and loved it. That one though didn't go much higher than the tree line as the whole purpose was to see game on the ground. This one, on the other hand, went very much higher, I think to about 2000M so you have got to stop yourself thinking about the fact that you are that high, in a wicker basket, held up by hot air. Seriously, once you got over that the views were breath taking.
We finished this eventful day with a visit to ……Gary’s Irish Bar. Yes there is one Irish bar in Laos and of course it is in this little town. You will all be shocked to here that within about an hour I had forgotten the pains of the day(helped by the Volterol 75mg and Laos beers) and was up singing.
Just two more days in Laos, spent in Viantiene, the quiet capital, which again has a strong french vibe going on. Could have spent a few more days here too, but alas it was back across the Thai border and the 11 hour overnight sleeper train back to bangkok. No more Lao, back to
Leo.
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Bottoms...
While laughing at the inflatable canoe 'width' joke, I remembered a certain photo of your rear-end on an Indian overnight train. I wonder when I should post that on facebook? [:)]