Thailand.....the land of smiles :O)

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Thailand.......the land of smiles! That's what they call it. I have to say, in Bangkok, I couldn't see it. All I could see in Ko San Rd was bars, 'brits abroad' and old western men draped in young thai girls. It wasn't pretty.

I did find a silver lining though......shopping! Thai people do it better than the english! On my first night, I spent about 45 minutes in boots on Ko San road, trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.....after nearly a year in India and Nepal, I couldn't believe I was in Boots! Then, finding the shopping malls a few days later was mind boggling. For those that haven't been, the shopping malls over here are amazing! Modern, glass lifts, spotlessly clean, shops that you can't even afford to look in......they even have a lamborghini show room inside one of the shopping malls, between the ladies wear and the computer floors! I almost found it a little bit sick actually......After a year in India, it seemed a bit excessive if you know what I mean. It didn't stop me looking around though and restocking my backpack with some decent clothes again! I also upgraded my ipod. I'd gone nearly a year on a 2gb of music and was desperate for something new. I'd taken to putting the pod on shuffle as I no longer had any inspiration to choose anything in particular. An upgrade was well overdue. I also invested in some new music and films.....40GB of it! It did mean I spent an extra 2 days in Bangkok on the internet, going through all the stuff the ipod guy had in his catalogue and sorting out what I wanted, but it's been well worth while. I now have so many new tunes, I'm not sure if I'll ever listen to it all. I'm a very happy girly! Thanks to all you guys who gave me inspiration! You know who you are :O)

The other thing I did was visit the dentist. That was another mind boggling, space age experience......modern, spotlessly clean - the dentists even wear masks over their heads as well as over their mouths! I'd meant to go in India, as I'd heard the dentists over there were surprisingly really good and very cheap, but I'd not got around to it......or maybe I'd put it off, jus

Having shopped til I dropped, I thought I should spend a few hours sightseeing before I got on a bus out of Bangkok. To be honest, I didn't really like the place. People aren't all that friendly there.......or not that I encountered anyhow. The traveling crowd here seem a lot different to India. In India you can talk to anyone. In Bangkok a lot of people seemed to think you had an alterior motive for a conversation. I was ready to leave. As well as the sightseeing, I also needed to go to the internet cafe to recharge my ipod as there was no plug socket in the room I was staying in. They did offer to recharge things downstairs for you, but charged you almost the cost of an extra nights stay for each item you wanted to recharge!

My bus didn't leave until the evening, so I spent the morning and early afternoon going to the palace, chinatown, and the reclining buddha. After that, I went and packed and spent the next few hours in the internet cafe charging up the new pod to keep me entertained on the journey. After that, I headed out to find a ride to the bus station.

The english spoken over here is pretty limited and I have to say, even when they speak english, I have real problems understanding the accent. It's getting better now I'm getting used to it, but the first week or two was pretty hard going. It tended to be an ongoing 'just nod in all the right places' moment! Negotiating a lift to the bus station to the bus station was no exception. The taxi wanted stupid money. Ok, so it may have been a pretty bright pink taxi, (all the taxis in Bangkok are amazing bright colours.....pink, green, you name it) but they wanted almost the same as you'd pay in England for a ride in it! After that, I moved onto the tuk tuks. (that's the modern equivalent of the indian rickshaw, with lots of added chrome and comfy seat!) The guy in the first one I asked said no, but then when I asked the one parked next to him, realised where I wanted to go and changed his mind. After negotiation I got it down to 170 baht. Mind you, he'd started at 300 or something stupid like that. Having got in, and was enjoying the ride, he said something to some guy we drove past about the airport, which left me wondering whether I was in fact going directly to the bus station, or whether he'd be taking me on a detour via the airport due to the language barrier! Maybe that's why it was so flipping expensive.

Actually, it wasn't. It was just expensive. It was quite a long ride though, give him his due. About 20 minutes we pulled up at the bus station. Walking into the ticket area was quite a shock as well. There wasn't one ticket counter, but at least 40, from what I could tell, all selling tickets to different places. The trouble being the places they sold to were written in Thai :O/ Luckily there were some people who directed me to the right counter for Chang Mai. Well, I say 'right counter'. Who knows if they were touts or not, maybe they just directed me to 'their counter'! Whatever though, after 5 minutes I was clutching my ticket to Chang Mai and heading downstairs to where you departed. After stocking up on scooby snacks for the journey and a quick visit to the ladies, I headed out to the departure bay.

The buses are amazing over here. You even get a 'bus hostess'! Not that she speaks english, but it's pretty shocking after India! On top of that you get a fully reclining seat, tv, an evening meal, water and breakfast......the scooby snacks weren't needed after all. Very nice. Mind you, you pay probably 3 or 4 times what you'd pay for the same distance in India!

From what I've seen, everything is more expensive over here. Hotels are maybe 2 or 3 times the price. Local food, double. Western food, well the same as you'd pay in the UK. I've not found anything cheaper yet and I don't think I'm going to, to be honest. It definitely won't be a long stay, like it was in India, put it that way. I think I'll be bankrupt in a yr here!

The bus was going to Chang Mai, up North. Having arrived there, I decided to bypass Chang Mai and get on another bus to Pai straight off. I'd had enough of city life for a bit. The bus to Pai took another four hours. I think I must have slept for a lot of it though as it didn't seem that long. When I got here, I went straight to 'Golden Huts' which was a place by the river a guy in Bangkok had recommend. It was a good recommendation. I got a fab hut overlooking the river. Really big, with bathroom for 300Bt. That's about 4pound 50. Probably 2 - 3 times what I'd pay in India, but for over here (from what I've seen), pretty reasonable.

About 10 15 years ago, no-one had heard of Pai. It was just a small town in the north. Now it's a backpackers paradise. There are over 100 hotels in Pai and the surrounding area. Apparently, in season it's full. Luckily, we're not 'in season' right now! Right now, it's ok. There are a few people, but it's not crowded as such. There's a lot of live music, lots of trekking, rafting, cooking, and other things to keep you occupied. If you want to be occupied that is. Otherwise, you can just chill and 'do nothing in Pai'. That seems to be the local saying over here.....there are even t-shirts with it on!

I 'did nothing' for a couple of days and then signed up to go jungle trekking and meet some of the hill tribes. It was fab. There was an Israeli family (Mum, Dad and 2 kids) who came too. At first I wondered how it would be as they didn't seem overly friendly in the truck on the drive to Soppong, but after a while they seemed to let their guard down and they turned out to be really nice.

Our guide was Dae, a young guy, but really helpful and full of information on the area and the hill tribe people. He was also a pretty good cook. Luckily, it was only a couple of days, because I had no idea how hot it was going to be. You break into a sweat doing nothing almost. It was a fab trip though. We were joined by a couple of dogs from the village where we started out.....Soppong. They were lovely. Just street dogs, but really friendly. They stayed with us the whole of the first day. Apparently every time Dae does that walk, they go with him.

One of the first things Dae did was find some suitable bamboo plants to make us all a walking stick each. That was what the huge knife was for.....I had wondered! Mid morning we stopped for a snack........sticky rice with caramelised coconut. It didn't look that appetising, but it tasted great.

Lunch was equally as impressive.......noodles, or rice with extra spicy sauce! Dae didn't cook that apparently, it was a take out from his friend's restaurant in pai! It was all done really nicely though, laid out on banana leaves with fresh pineapple for after. Very nice. We were racing against the clouds moving in though and just as we finished eating the heavens opened. What a difference 10 minutes makes! It went from really hot and sunny to hot and steamy....especially wrapped up in a plastic mac. It was ok though....put a new light on things anyhow!

It was only another couple of hours or so walking before we got to the village......or so Dae said. He didn't judge times and distances too well....or maybe he didn't want to scare us......or maybe we were just very slow! Anyhow the 2 hours was probably more like 3. When we got close to the village we had a small river to cross. Normally, it's not a problem but because of the rain we'd had it was running really high and really fast. It's funny how rain over here has such a quick impact on the river levels. Having said that, it's probably because when it rains it's not a quick shower.... it buckets down :O/ It didn't look so bad though, only a couple of feet deep, but when you got into the middle it was pretty hard to stay on your feet. The current was dead strong. The dogs weren't impressed and I wondered if this would be the point they turned back home, but once Dae had made sure we were all across, he went back for the dogs! aaaaahhhhh....bless him! One by one, the dogs joined us on the other side!

Approaching the village, it looked really rustic. It wasn't long til you spotted the motorbikes, tv ariels and solar pannels though! Other than that, it was pretty rustic. The houses were all wooden structures raised up on bamboo stilts, I guess so they didn't get flooded out during the rainy season. As it was, it was tail end of the rainy season and just really muddy. I dread to think what it would be like in the middle of the rainy season. When we got to the house where we were staying, they'd put bowls of water outside on the 'veranda' for us to wash. After that, Dae showed us to our room. It was pretty basic. All in together, mattress on the floor job. It was really quaint though. The kitchen was similar to the places I'd come across while trekking in Nepal and India, except there was no mud stove, it was literally just an open fire in one corner......bit dodgy in a wooden hut, but guess the need for a fire outweighs the risk! My days of worrying about any kind of health n safety seem a million miles away now!

After putting our stuff up in the room, we had tea laid out for us. They have green tea over here, which tastes fab, but I can't get used to the tea floating about in there. Hasn't anyone heard of a tea strainer over here?? Once you've picked all the bits out though, the tea is great.....I almost like it as much as I like tea back home. While we were having that and some rice cake type things, an open air market miraculously set itself up around us. I guess that's how these guys make some money, but I have to say, I'm not a fan of being put on the spot like that. Anyhow, once we'd all bought what we were going to, they packed up again and disappeared. That gave us a bit of spare time to have a walk round the village while Dae made us dinner. We were shown around the village by the only guy who spoke English......well a few words! At that point it was more than I could speak thai anyhow! Not that it would have helped if I could, because they didn't speak Thai anyway. They were a Lahu hill tribe, originally from Tibet, and had their own dialect. Luckily Dae seemed to know the dialect! The village was suprisingly big. They had a school and probably around 80 houses in all. All the same basic style though. The motorbikes, solar panels and tvs were the only mod cons here.

Dinner was fantastic. Enough food to feed most of the village. We were also treated to a bit of local dancing and singing by the village kids, which was quite cute. After dinner, we sat chatting with Dae for a while and found out a bit more about the Lahu people. Apparently they're farming people, who set up villages on high ground, as opposed to the Karen tribe, who we were visiting the next day, who tended to stay down at water level, by rivers for fishing and irrigation. Also, they moved regularly, hence why the huts were pretty basic. The guy had told us earlier that it only took him a few days to construct.....all by himself as well! The people there were relied on selling the stuff they made (textiles mainly) to make some money, apart from which they were self sufficient. This was pretty clear by the number of animals in the village.....pigs and chickens everywhere! The people in the village very rarely managed to change their life as it were. It was tradition to marry within the tribe .... not necessarily the same village, but the same tribe, so although it wasn't uncommon for Lahu people to go to college, most of them would go back to the village to work and marry. Apparently they needed as many people as possible to work in the fields so virtually none of them would go on to find work outside the village.

The stars were amazing that night. The rain had cleared and held off, so we spent a few hours out on the veranda, eating our way through the feast Dae had prepared, drinking local whisky (which was very similar to the roxy in Nepal......like blow your head off pure alcohol!) and chatting. When I made it to bed, I slept like a baby.

Just how many chickens there were in that village became very clear about 4.30 the next morning. Christ, it was like they were on echo. There didn't seem much hope of a lie in, so I braved the cold and mosquitos to relieve my bladder and was greeted by one of the dogs. The other one seemed to have disappeared the night before. I think she had a run in with one of the female village dogs when we'd arrived and we'd not seen her since. This guy seemed quite happy to see me though. All the animals in the village were well awake. Pigs n piglets, chickens n chicks running around all over the place. No sign of any people as yet though so after paying a viit I headed back to bed. Next thing I knew it was 7ish. I knew that knack for sleeping through anything would come in handy!

Breakfast was equally as big. Omlettes, pancakes, and enough rice to feed an army. Having eaten Dae hurried us up to get packed and set off. We were late apparently!

The kids really weren't up for it today. The day before they'd done really well and walked for miles at a reasonable pace without any complaints. They were probably knackered and today weren't having any of it! Dae's 30 minutes became an hour or an hour and a half today. We walked through some beautiful places though.....thick jungle, along rivers. It was really lovely. We got to the lunch stop at the Karen tribe village pretty late. Dae had warned us that if we didn't make up some time before we got there, we'd have to pass on the bamboo rafting, which we were supposed to do after lunch, before visiting the caves. We had tried to make up some time, and by the time we got to the village we were all absolutely knackered. We decided to give the rafting a miss and get a truck down to the caves instead. It was a bit of a shame, but I think the other's were so tired, they were really grateful for an extra 15 minutes sit down over lunch and not having to walk another hour to the put in point for the rafting.

The Karen tribe village was much more well set up than the Lahu village. Proper roads, more substantial houses, big water tanks, a field full of solar panels. Apparently it was mainly because they were so much closer to modern life and also because they didn't move regularly like the lahu people. It was funny, when I was taking photos i was concious of trying to take pictures without all the modcons to make it look as authentic as possible. I had to check myself to take photos to show it how it really was and not the 'ideal remote tribe village' I'd imagined it was going to be.

After lunch the heavens opened again, just as we were in the back of the pickup on the way to the caves. The truck dropped us at the river where we had a very quick bamboo raft trip over to the other side. The rain was coming down in buckets now. Despite rain macs, we were soaked. We had to walk across another bit of the river which was now thigh height and made sure the bits which weren't already wet soon were. By the time we got to the caves, the weather had dried up a bit. We celebrated arriving with an icecream! We were knackered. We thought by taking the truck option there was no more walking to do but that wasn't quite the whole truth. Another of Dae's '10 minutes'! Bless him!

The caves were pretty cool. Or I thought so anyhow. Full of stalactites and stalacmites. Apparently there are much better caves in Israel, so the others weren't overly impressed.

After the caves, it was back in the truck to come home. On the way back we saw the river that we were supposed to be bamboo rafting down that afternoon. It had burst it's banks and flooded the road! Guess we'd had a lucky escape by giving that a miss!

When we got back to Pai, I was looking forward to getting back to my lovely hut by the river, having a hot shower and getting into bed. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. They'd given my hut to someone else :O( All they had left was this really shitty room which made me depressed as soon as I walked into it! I decided to go and find somewhere else instead. Not the evening I'd planned! I didn't walk far, just to the next guest house up the road......I was too knackered!

The huts next door were a dissappointment. I was kept awake most of the night by the water pump for the shower block just outside and woke up to find I was sharing the bed with ants. Hence, I moved the next day to another place. A bit more expensive, 400baht a night, but relative luxury, with clean white sheets and .....wait for it.......a duvet! wow.....haven't had one of those since home! I even got a towel....a proper towel's a real luxury after using a travel towel :O) I was a happy bunny once more.

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