Advertisement
Published: February 5th 2007
Edit Blog Post
We got the bus from Cambodia to Bangkok which involves going along a very bad road which most people found to be one of the most horrendous road journeys ever! However, we didn't think it was too bad in comparison to some of the other roads we had been on so far. We arrived at the infamous Khao San Road at about 7pm and it was heaving. We wandered around looking for a guest house amongst hundreds of people and loads of stalls selling incredibly cheap clothes and "very strong cocktails". After finding somewhere to stay, we dumped our bags and went out to have a look and a few beers. We were drinking Singha beer which is 6% and despite only having a couple, we had pretty bad headaches the next morning.
After taking a couple of Nurofen, we jumped into a tuk-tuk to try and see some of the sights. Big mistake. The guy took us to 2 temples, one of which was closed and about 3 tailor shops and 2 travel agencies. When we walked into the first tailor shop, the man said "hello, what would you like, a suit sir?" and we said "no we don't
want anything but our driver made us come in here". It was quite emabarrasing. We then realised that the driver gets commission off any suits or tour packages we buy as he got really angry that we would not buy anything. In the end we told him to bring us back to the hotel as we had had enough and so he drove like a maniac. After that, we felt quite subdued so we went out for some serious retail therapy and a few beers (not Singha beer though).
The next day we walked to the Grand Palace but some bloke told us it was closed and would we like a suit! However, we went to the Grand Palace and it was open (people will do anything to sell you a suit here) so we had a look around in the intense midday heat. It was very impressive but packed with other tourists. We spent the rest of our time here shopping, wandering around and drinking beer before heading north to Chiang Mai for Christmas. We got the night bus which was really uncomfortable but had booked ourselves in to a really nice guest house that had a christmas
tree and a dog dressed up as Father Christmas!
On Christmas Eve, we had a look around the night market and a lovely meal. We were going to go out for a few beers but every bar we went to had drunk British weirdos in so we had an early night as we were quite tired from our lack of sleep on the bus. The next day was Christmas Day and so we put on our Santa hats with flashing lights and waited to be picked up for the tour we had booked ourselves on. When the pick-up truck arrived, there were 4 Canadians with their Santa hats on so we were not the only ones looking like idiots. We went trekking to a waterfall and then to the elephant camp where we went on an elephant ride through the jungle and along the river. At one point whilst we were sitting on our elephant, Rich fed him some bananas. The elephant obviously wanted some more so he threw his trunk backwards over his head towards us. Unfortunately, he sneezed at this point and Kerry was splattered with elephant snot and dribble! Merry Christmas! Then we had lunch that
was noodles and vegetables, not quite a traditional christmas lunch, before going white water rafting. As we were going down one of the rapids, Rich and an Israeli guy got bounced out of the raft and into the water! The water level was quite low as it is the dry season, so Rich was getting battered against the rocks as I screamed at the guides to pull him out. After only 10 seconds (although it seemed like minutes) Rich was back in the raft paddling again with a few bumps and bruises and a dead leg! Then we went bamboo rafting which was much calmer and quite relaxing. We got back to Chiang Mai and spoke to our families before finding an english pub serving roast turkey. We got talking to an old, fat, chain-smoking, heavy drinking english bloke and his fiancee who looked no older that 20 who were getting married in a couple of days. In fact, the whole pub was filled with similar couples which didn't look quite right. We quickly left after our lovely roast turkey dinner as Kerry was not feeling well. Unfortunately, it looks like she had food poisoning and she had to stay
in bed for 3 days. Rich put his nurse's uniform on and tried to nurse me which is probably why I was ill for so long!!
On New Year's Eve, we got the bus to Chiang Rai and booked ourselves into a nice guest house with an english owner who seemed very nice if not a bit eccentric. We had a look around the town and then went back to our guest house where we booked a tour for the next day. This was when we discovered the owner was a raging alcoholic who drank beer until about 4pm when he hit the brandy and was well into conspiracy theories. We got collared for an hour as we heard him rant on about how the American and British governments have staged recent terrorist attacks to control us and our minds!!! As he went to get another drink, we quickly legged it out of the office to get ready to go out. In Chiang Rai, there is a huge outdoors night market. There are literally hundreds of tables and chairs set out in front of a stage surrounded by loads of food stalls. We sat here drinking beer with another
english couple and a very drunk danish guy watching ladyboy caberet and the Thai equivalent of the Spice Girls!! At midnight there were fireworks and loads of chinese paper lanterns lighting up the sky. Then we went to an english bar that was full of old drunk British men talking crap so it was just like another afternoon working in the pub!!
On New Year's Day we went out with a lovely little Thai lady in her car for the day. She took us to the local hilltribe villages where we saw the long neck Karen tribe. The women put brass rings around their neck from the age of about 3 onwards to make their necks look longer. Actually, it pushes their collarbone down and they do not take them off until death as their necks would not be able to support themselves. They say its very comfortable but some of them weigh over 5kg and we could not even hold them for very long! We went to a town called Mae Sai which is separated from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) by a small stream and is just like one big market. Then we went to the Golden
Triangle where Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos and was where most of the opium fields were before it was made illegal. We went to the opium museum where there were loads of pictures of the former poppy fields and old hilltribe women who used to smoke a lot of it. It is now illegal in Thailand and the government go round the villages every week or so to check that no opium poppies are being grown. However, from the look of some of the old dears about, we think that there may be some hanging around somewhere!!!
Then we headed to Chiang Khong where we stayed for one night ready to cross over the border to Laos. And that as they say is another story.....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.173s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.096s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb