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here's something I cooked earlier!
Enjoying the food at the cooking class, if not the company!Chiang Mai
8
th-11
th January
So, on to Thailand. This was a very short boat border crossing and was probably our simplest so far. It was also the last time we would see the Mekong Delta…. Bye bye lovely Mekong! When we arrived on dry land Thailand side I did my usual of saying Thank you in Laotian to the border guard. Every time I’ve managed to do this without fail, saying Thank you in the last country’s language…idiot! Then we headed off on a minibus journey to Chiang Mai. It didn’t take long to realise that this country has a lot more wealth then any of the other Southeast Asian countries so far, and after two months in the poverty of Cambodia and Laos it was actually quite a culture shock. The roads were massive and were all sealed. The minibus we travelled in was huge and we had loads of room. When we stopped off for lunch it was at quite a smart looking service station and we were spoken to in excellent English and given knives and forks. We couldn’t use them and had to ask for chopsticks!!
When we arrived in Chiang Mai we managed
to find a very cheap place with a very welcoming lady on reception. Our room had an en-suite, hooray! However, the en-suite’s walls did not reach to the ceiling and there was a foot gap at the top so you could hear everything if you were in the bedroom. Details not needed, suffice to say it was not the most romantic arrangement, but by this stage in our travelling we know each other pretty well!
After both using the fabulous en-suite we headed out to the night market in Chiang Mai which happened to be on only once a week on the day we arrived! It was HUGE and extremely busy. We had a good old wander round, but were both feeling a bit out of sorts and couldn’t quite put our fingers on why. We realised after a while that we really were experiencing culture shock. It was just so hectic compared to Laos where the only people you will see whilst you’re out is a few sleepy shop keepers! Anyway, we managed to find a slightly less crowded spot where they were selling meals. We ordered some Thai green curry and sat ourselves at one of the
makeshift plastic tables. We were shortly joined by a local who helped us pick which extra bits of veg and herbs to put in our tasty food and we tucked in whilst chatting to him about Chiang Mai.
The next day we spent a bit more time wandering around and getting used to the busier world of Thailand. We found a Boots, which was a bit of a surprise and about a hundred 7/11 stores!
We had booked ourselves onto a cooking class late afternoon and on our way there we spotted Dan and Bella having a drink in a café, stalkers! We made plans to meet up after our class and headed off.
The cooking class was OK; we learnt how to make curry pastes and some nice dishes along the way. Unfortunately the other people in our group were a little bit weird and slightly pretentious, and we got the feeling we were being looked down on a little bit, which was a shame. This was not helped when we were all asked if we wanted a lift back to our accommodation. Everyone said yes but we explained we were meeting friends so would be
fine. However, the driver wanted to know where we were staying so we told him the name of our place. It happened to have a similar name to another place round the corner which was a lot more upmarket. Another couple in the group were staying at this place and said “oh same as us, it’s nice isn’t it” The driver then laughed and said “oh no, they stay much smaller place…much, much smaller” and then proceeded to make actions with his fingers to explain how small. He laughed and then drew a map for the other guests to show them where it was, just so they could all go and see how small it was! Thanks mate!
Revenge was had when one of the group who was particularly snobby got a chilli seed in his eye! Now, it must have hurt, we’re not denying that, but he caused the biggest scene ever. He started flapping and pushed me out of the way so that he could run to the tap. He then pushed his wife away whilst she was trying to help him/comfort him. All the people working in the cooking class place were having a good old
laugh at him of course; we wanted to join in but held ourselves together!
After escaping the snooty people we headed off to meet Dan and Bella. They soon cheered us up and we had a laugh snooping around some different night market stalls, we even found a place to have a beer and surprise, surprise Dan and Michael spotted some TV screens showing football! Cue big sighs from Bella!
After this we headed back through the streets of Chiang Mai. We took a bit of a detour and ended up in a very seedy street with lots of old white men and young Asian ladies. The places they were in were basically brothels, and it was a bit grim, especially when we were treated to the sight of fat old man snogging the face off a very young looking girl. Grim! We did get the chance to play spot the lady boy as well though which was a little less depressing, but very hard…some of the time, not so hard the rest of the time!
Our last two days in Chiang Mai were spent being very lazy! We had tried to get to go to an
elephant sanctuary but they had no room for us on the days we had free before we had to get to Bangkok to meet Helen. So to cheer us up we spent the time by the pool with Dan and Bella and their hotel. It was nice to just relax and not do a lot with some good company. To be honest we were pretty shattered, believe it or not travelling is pretty tiring! We had some lovely smoothies. Played stupid games in the pool and wandered around the town streets a bit. Dan and Michael caught up with the football one night, watching Thierry Henry score his famous comeback goal for Arsenal. We all got a bit choked up; even Bella was close to tears!
On the night of the 11
th we said our goodbyes to Dan and Bella as we were getting a night bus to Bangkok. This was to be our final goodbye, as our travelling paths will not be crossing again. We stayed cool though, no tears!
Bangkok
12
th-16
th January
Our night bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok went very smoothly. Apart from being woken up in the middle of
the night for a stop at a service station, we have no complaints at all. However, it went a little bit too smoothly and we arrived in Bangkok a lot earlier than anticipated, we were there at 4am! We were dropped off and immediately mobbed by taxi drivers trying to make us pay ridiculous amounts of money for our journey, which we knew wasn’t far, problem we didn’t know in which direction. We opted to ignore the touts and started walking in the dark. We eventually found the infamous Khao San road, which was fairly near where we were staying. It looked like it had been a busy night here. There were a few people still up drinking outside the bars and a few dancing pretty wildly. There were also lots of very, very rubbish lady boys….basically very manly men with lots of make-up on over their stubble! We also witnessed a few prostitute and potential punters haggling, which we thought was hilarious! You can literally barter over anything here, brilliant! After wandering along here we made it up to our guesthouse. It was completely boarded up and looked like it was closed down, there was a Thai lady (who
looked like a prostitute) waiting outside though and so we rang the bell. A very sleepy looking lady in pyjamas answered the door and the other lady snuck in whilst we tried to explain we had a reservation. Unfortunately we couldn’t check in until 1pm. It was now 4.30am. Oh dear. She left us in the reception/kitchen/dining/lounge room area and put the TV on for us. I tried to sleep leaning on one of the wooden tables next to the fag tray, this did not work so I tried lying on 3 wooden stools, and this did not work. I watched the football that was on with Michael. For the next few hours the doorbell rang a couple of times and poor sleepy pyjama lady dutifully got up each time to let people into their rooms or to turn them away as there was no room. By 7 am we decided to go out as it was getting light out. Nowhere was open, eventually we found a sweet little Japanese bakery that was open, hooray! It was warm and had yummy fresh cooked bread smells!
After some coffee, tea and bakery goodness we went for a bit of a
wander and places were beginning to open by 9am. We went to a little park at the side of the river; there was some evidence of the recent flood here. Then we headed back to the guesthouse and we finally made it into a room a little bit early…12.30pm! Next we had to try and sort out our visas as we were going to be in Thailand for 4 days longer than the 15days we were given at the border. This turned out to be a big pain in the backside. We had to get a taxi to a place miles away from the centre and then wait around for hours, oh and pay a ridiculous price for this privilege. It was not the best way to spend a day when you’ve had minimal sleep. Anyway the red tape was finally sorted and we could go back to our guesthouse.
After a quick nap we headed out and wandered down to Chinatown area. We passed a lady with a BBQ where we got ourselves some of the yummiest sausages ever. They were Thai green curry sausages, basically two of our favourite things combined! Amazing!!
After lots more wandering
we found a little Indian curry house tucked down an alleyway. We walked into a dingy dark underground house which looked like a dodgy working men’s club. We were cooked a lovely curry with roti’s for a very cheap price indeed. It was great, what with that and the sausages we were feeling very pleased and it made up for the earlier visa issues!
On the way back we got ourselves an extra treat! Walking along a road near a rather grand looking building. There were lots of school children lining the road and police trying to organise them into straight lines. We decided to hang around and see what the fuss was all about. After a while quite a crowd had gathered, and then our waiting was explained. The queen of Thailand herself came out of the building and into a very posh car. The crowd were very excited and a young lady next to us swooned with the excitement. Yep she actually swooned, I can’t think of any other word to describe it, she had to be held up by her friend!!
Next day was a very exciting day; Helen Miller was on her way to
visit us! We spent the day wandering round and getting used to Bangkok sights and smells!! We also spotted a huge lizard in the very dirty river running near Khao san road. In the afternoon we got on a jam packed mini bus to meet Helen at the airport! After a while of waiting with our signs to welcome her we were rewarded with her lovely smiley face. In my excitement I was holding her welcome to Thailand sign upside down – doh!
We got a taxi back to our new guesthouse whilst we chatted away, Helen told us all about her exciting plane journey sitting next to a very chatty old Scottish man called George….we think she fancied him!!!
Our new guesthouse Sivarin was lovely, it was the cleanest place we have stayed in whilst away and the owner was very friendly, clearly taking great pride in her little place.
That evening we went out to see the life of Khao san road and surrounds. We had ourselves some yummy food at a little side street restaurant where Helen braved some local fare, and enjoyed it and we were entertained by Magic Max. Magic Max was
a magician who, at first seemed pretty poor, showing us some rather lame card tricks, but then he pulled out all the stops and managed an amazing trick involving ripped cards and a Satsuma. I will not spoil the end in case you ever go and see him. We were all super impressed though! After that we had a few drinks and avoided the tuk-tuk drivers who were trying to convince us to go to “fun” places. Basically they are all trying to take you to see a ping pong show. For those of you don’t know what that is, it’s basically women shooting stuff out of their vagingos! We weren’t really up for that, we’d also heard enough stories of people being charged extortionate prices and being threatened at such places to know they were definitely no go!
Next day we headed out for a full explore of Bangkok. It was a pretty busy day and Helen did well considering she was still feeling the effects of jet lag. We started off with a taxi ride to Siam Square where we had a good wander and we stumbled across a very weird funfair that was going on, there
were lots of hyper children, and adults and lots of colourful sights. Following this we decided we needed a bit of a relax so we walked to Lumphini park, which is a lovely big park and we saw lots more of the big lizards we had spotted the day before.
After being seriously harassed by another tuk-tuk driver, this time trying to do the gem scam trick (basically you get ripped off and threatened!) we decided to get the sky train to the massive, massive Chatuchak market. It was huge, and absolutely swarming with people, it was crazy. Unfortunately there were a few children selling things, dancing, playing instruments as well, you never get used to seeing it. After a lot of wandering around and taking in the market scene we headed off, slowly as we fought our way through the crowds. We decided it would be nice to go to a Sky bar that evening and see the lights of Bangkok from up high, so we made our way to the Banyan Tree to enjoy a cocktail. We weren’t allowed to wear flip flops so we were given huge black manly shoes, which looked beautiful with mine and
Helen’s pretty dresses! The view from the top was pretty impressive and it wasn’t as expensive as we had feared, hooray!
So, we were feeling pretty tired after a long day and decided we didn’t fancy walking all the way back to our guesthouse, so we ordered ourselves a taxi. On the way back we counted all the 7/11 stores that we could see. We got to 20 and gave up counting; this was during a 20 minute taxi ride! Back at the guesthouse me and Helen left Michael talking to some old guy from Yorkshire, whilst we grabbed some snacks. When we got back Michael looked close to tears. This guy was boring, so very boring! He was nice bless him but I think he was a little senile and kept telling the same story over and over again. Michael quickly repaid our favour of leaving with him and so I sat with him for what felt like an hour! Helen was very tired by this point; jet lag was taking its toll so we let her have an early night and headed out to Khao san road. We found somewhere showing football and
with live music. We were kept entertained for the night by a Danish lad who was prancing around and having lots of fun; he even joined in with the live music and sang a song, very badly! He explained to us that he wanted to be like the “Yes man” and was saying yes to everybody. Thing is pretty sure no one asked him to do any of the things he was doing, think he was just saying yes to himself! His entertainment made up for the rubbish food and the stroppiest waitress in the world ever, she was mean and was not enjoying her job. Guessing it had something to do with the pretty awful Beer Chang dress that she had to wear for her uniform! We also got the chance to play spot the lady boy again, this time they all seemed pretty good.
Next day we did the obligatory visit to the Grand Palace, which was very impressive. Again left us wondering where all the money comes from, when there are children outside starving…..hmmm…. After more street wandering, which is probably one of our favourite things to do in Asia we headed out for drinks on
the road next to Khao san. Whilst we were sitting there I smiled at a Thai lady as she walked past. Her reaction was to smile hugely at me and then walk over and start shaking my hand with both of her hands and her eyes closed. She then continued to shake my hand for about 5 minutes without opening her eyes. Slightly odd, but very sweet! She then very briefly shook Helen’s hand, and pretty much rejected Michael’s hand offering. I think I clearly had the best aura!
Next day was our last day in Bangkok as we were heading off on the night bus to seaside town Khao Lak. We did more of our favourite wandering and headed to the crazy hectic China town market where you could literally buy anything, you think of it you could buy it, we settled for some bracelets for 50p!
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