Thai tours to Northern Hedonists and Bangkok Lady Boys

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This will be brief and cover the whole of our Thai trip as I've lost patience with re-uploading photos etc when Travelblog went down.

Bangkok, a little disappointing after the glory of Hong Kong, but thankfully cheaper. It has it's own charms though, where else can you be served a bucket of elephant strength Red Bull and Whiskey by a chavtastic lady boy in a converted Shell petrol station?

We ended up at a political Rally in protest of marshal law, handed fliers we couldn't read until a lovely old man translated. Spent the afternoon listening to protest songs and asking questions, and he asked to show us round the temples and palaces the next day. He seemed harmless enough and was very helpful so we agreed.

The Wats and palaces of Bangkok are stunning. It's a gold spired city. Our guide was wonderful, taking us all over the city, by bus, by hidden canal taxi (Seriously, take the water taxi, it's lovely, and gets you to your destination in a fraction of the time it would take if you went by road)

He asked to be paid in the politest way, he only asked for 50 baht between us which was so low! We'd already made up our minds to give him 200 baht each as he'd been so nice. I think he was a little overwhelmed.

Went to see Harry Potter (yay!) in the amazing 188 screen cinema complex in Siam Square. They do cinemas well here, You can have reclining leather easy chairs, or even club like cinemas with individual sofas and cushions. A nightmare trek trying to find the toilet though.

We send out passports off to the embassy for Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laos visas. While this is happening, unwilling to stay much longer in smoky Bangkok, we head up to the hills and clean air of northern Thailand. A mere 10 hour bus ride that gets you into the adrenaline and health orientated city of Chang Mai.

We spend a couple of days in this small, relaxed city. Enclosed by crumbling walls you can cycle round in a few hours, it's a lovely place to spend a little time. Full of travellers cafes and vegetarian food, courses in anything you desire to learn and trips catering to every taste and type. There are also a couple of markets well worth a visit, most of the products are available in Bangkok but the atmosphere is far less manic than the city and there are some local delicacies worth a try. I found a cart with a huge wooden vat of set black jelly wobbling away. Plant jelly I'm informed, and it gets ladled into a bowl with a heap of crushed ice and brown sugar. It's not bad, tastes a bit like smoke jelly, but way too sugary.

We take the bikes and cycle round the town visiting the numerous and impressive temples. You can chat to the monks and everything!

This was wonderful until it started to monsoon! We got soaked, so very soaked, it was raining so hard we could barely see the road in front of us, trying to avoid the motorbikes with the rain in your eyes is interesting. We made it back to the hostel (just!) got changed and decided to stick out the storm in the Internet cafe over the road (I was just so glad I could listen to BBC 6Music radio online again after China!)

Only the rain kept coming until it was lapping at the door of the cafe, blocking our way back by at least a foot of water. this was fine, except the cockroaches came scuttling in, escaping the floodwater like rats from a sinking ship. Not fun.

A scenic 4 hour minibus ride took us to Pai, a tiny place right near the Burmese border. The surface of it can not convey what lies beneath this addictive town.

First night there and we stayed in the cheapest accommodation so far, 75p each for a basic bungalow with mozzie nets and a very pleasant riverside location - garden layout and kittens included. We book Elephant trekking and a 3 day rafting/trekking trip, then we go for dinner. It is downhill from there. Sat enjoying dinner in a quiet cafe we are handed a leaflet for Shisha bar, with the promise of flavoured tobacco and free drinks. Why not?

Okay, so it's a small bar packed with many lovely people and this leads to many good conversations, a lot of good music and too many good drinks. When this bar closes, we get lifts on the back of scooters with friendly randoms to the next bar, then the next one, a big bamboo construction overlooking the fields of Pai and possessed of low tables, candles and cushions. about 5 in the morning the party gets taken back to a private house overlooking a beautifully lamp lit swamp, another bamboo house with a hammock and a comfy balcony owned by a guy from Norfolk, same guy who owns the Shisha bar. At some point I decide to go walking through the neighbouring fields, in the dark with a friend, looking up at the most stars I'd seen in months and discussing Chinese politics and good music. My idea of a pretty good night out. Only to be informed with good humor on our return that the neighbouring farmers have guns and don't take kindly to tresspassers. Ooops.

It's breakfast time by the time we make it back to our bungalow in town. We only *just* make it for 11am to go sit on elephants, horribly hungover. And really, on top of an Indian elephant, under the glare of the tropical midday sun is not the best place to be if your feeling queasy. After the first 30 mins however, all cares are forgotten, elephants are fun! We trekked up to the hills and down to the river, splashing around in the water with them is one of my highlights. The trainer gives the elephant a command while you're sat on it's back, whereby it starts to roll around until you fall off into the water. Good times.

Back in Pai we have a quiet night (only a few drinks in Shisha) and head off early to go rafting. While not exactly white water, it's good fun and our young guides are a good laugh. We get to the camp a little early, after lunch on the river bank with the clouds of bright blue butterflies. So we head off into the jungle. In flip flops. To Tiger cave. It's not what I was expecting, some big, shallow open cave. It's a hole in the ground, straight down and very dark. I didn't even think to bring a torch. I nearly bottle it, absolutely freak out when I get down in the hole and the whole thing is covered in thick cobwebs and the odd body of a huge dead spider. I really want to just leave, but I manage to convince myself that I cannot miss out on experiences because of some stupid fear. Just. Really I just close my eyes and try not to touch anything.

The cave is great, if claustrophobic, we end up squeezing through tiny gaps, getting bruised and scraped and very, very muddy. I abandon the flip flops and proceed barefoot across the cool sandy cave floor. Only one torch between us means it gets very dark at times, which is an experience when you are crammed in some hole in the pitch black silence. We get to the end of the cave to find a beautiful rock formation, like a glittering frozen waterfall. What else is there to do after this but arrange stones in mystic patterns and then go back? Back through those tiny gaps, to pick up flip flops and head back to camp where we attempt to get the cave mud out of our clothes in the equally muddy river with shampoo. There are no showers so we wash in the river too, digging our heels into the silt to push against the fast current.

After dinner we sit round a camp fire chatting and playing silly games when I notice fireflies in the trees. My obsession with all shiny and glowy things it pretty big, so I've jumped away from the fire and I'm legging it down to the river banks in the dark. Sat on a rock by the side of this bubbling river watching the hundreds of fireflies blinking in their perfectly timed little Mexican waves, weaving in and out of the trees. And the stars! The clearing the camp was in was like having your own private viewing window for every star that ever lived (and some that don't). Framed by massive black silhouettes of trees, flat on the rock by the river with the fireflies all around, it was all rather nice.

We set off on the river early the next morning, to more white water rapids, the most amazing waterfalls to splash around in, natural hot springs on the sandy river banks where you could cover yourself in warm mud and wash it off in warm water infused with flakes of what was probably Pyrite but obviously looked like tiny flecks of gold.

We drove afterwards to a tiny mountain village, home to one of our rafting guides, where we would spend the night before trekking for hours the next day. The village, bamboo huts, some simple, some not so, was mostly on stilts, the spaces beneath home to chickens, pigs, cows, buffalo, cats, dogs..

Our room was great, split bamboo floor, roof of thatched leaves, nothing more extravagant than a mattress on the floor with a mosquito net and square open fire in the centre of the room. Perfect. But to be honest, we were bored stiff, sat in this village, people too shy to talk to us, or not wanting to. There was some sort of ritual around the main house (where we were), someone had a bad dream and so a pig was killed and eaten to dispel the bad vibes. Not a nice thing to see, but at least every last bit of it went to use and it seemed most of the village turned out to partake in the ritual.

Things picked up from there, we were chatting to our guides as more and more people joined us, then someone brought a bottle of the local moonshine rice wine they owed Pol, one of our guides. It got good from there, as more moonshine was consumed and we learnt some local drinking games, which we persistently won, probably just as well considering the strength of the stuff.

By 10pm there was Nilam and I, our guides Pol and Ask, who were beyond help, and about 10 other village members in varying states of drunkenness, all dancing to 'Apple, Papaya, Banana, Orange' . All men too, the women were too shy to join us. Or maybe they realised alcohol is for fools. Especially if it means you gottsta danse!

Our party broke up around 1am after repeated threats from the wife of the village leader for him to come in now or sleep with the buffalo.

Fully aware that drinking rice wine before an arduous 5 hour hike up some mountains was not the best plan, we build a small fire and pass out under the mosquito net.

Too soon it's morning and we head up into the main house kitchen for breakfast of eggs and bread. The kitchen is awesome, a huge fire with great blackened pans and pots, so basic but perfectly workable. Then I don my borrowed rubber shoes (I lost my trainers on a bus in China) and we set off. And it's hard. Half an hour up the slippery hill and I'm dying. Thankfully Pol is so hungover the pace is slow. Half way up we stop at a local rest point, where the locals take a break during their two day trek to the farmlands, uphill, with baskets on their heads. I resolve to stop moaning. Then I get me a bamboo walking cane and it's a breeze from there. I loved that cane, so sad to let it go.

Muddy but accomplished we get the bus back to Pai, where we meet a couple of lovely European girls and invite them out to Shisha that night. A shower to rinse off the mud and we're back out, a plethora of fun people and good times.

We get sucked into this little Pai world - a world of tasty restaurants, green mountains, calm vibes and bars made of bamboo and rattan where you could easily spend the night deep in conversation. We don't actually manage to see any of the sights around the town. We meet people who were just passing through but stayed for years. we resolve to leave as soon as Nilam has finished her massage course and I have finished my Yoga course (taught by this amazing woman called Mam who was 60 years old, could bend duble backwards while stood on her head!). We're not sure we want to leave but we should probably pick up our passports from Bangkok. Ahhh, who needs a passport anyway. I realise I've been forgetting to take photos recently, I've been having so much fun just being in places, you forget.

I manage to get bitten on the eye by an insect and end up in the provincial little hospital, sandwiched between the locals and the hill tribe villagers in traditional dress, whether this counts as an authentic hill tribe experience is debatable. The doctor mearly shines a torch on my eye (he did the same to all the previous patients) and prescribes me drugs! Nice.

Reluctantly we head back to Bangkok and onward to Cambodia!

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Photos

Buddha in gold leaf
gold leaf is stuck on all the statues as an offering. I love it.

Royal Palace
English on the bottom, Thai on the top, chewy in the middle

Mother of Perl inlays on Buddhas feet
they tell the story of Buddhism

90ft Buddha
He's quite tall