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Hello reader!
So my organised tour of Cambodia and Vietnam are over and I have said my goodbyes to my new friends and my new love (Vietnam) and have flown back with the lovely Kiwis Tim & Sarah and Laura to Bangkok where we would meet up with Ellie and share a couple more days before everyone moves on...
Our Air Asia flight was short yet bumpy and I foolishly forgot I had my Swiss Army knife in my hand luggage so that had to go. We arrived in hot hot Bangkok and strolled around busy Khao San Road eating a lot of falafel. I was liking Bangkok a lot more second time round as I had become a master of haggling and was more used to the unclean streets, beggars and touts that I had to face.... In the evening we all met up for a brown curry (a red and green curry at the same time, think I may copyright that..) and headed for a night of partying and samsong buckets (STRONG cocktails). I wish I could tell you more about that evening but it is so hard to recall..
21st of Feb, day 30, and
I woke up with a well deserved hangover. I don't like these things to beat me so me and my chums squeezed into a taxi and headed for the weekend market I visited on my last trip to BKK. It was so hot walking around the 8000 stalls. I got a replacement Swiss Army knife (dirt cheap) and a straw hat which I still think looked pretty cool. After lunch we said our goodbyes to Tim and Sarah as they had to fly back to middle earth. They were a lovely couple. Both beautiful, nice and funny. The lovely Laura then followed a few hours later. I just chilled by Ellie's pool for a while before we visited the huge MBK shopping centre. Quite impressive by any standards. Perhaps 7 floors selling everything. We ate at a cool Japanese place where the chef cooks in front of you.
Day 31 and I changed hotels for a cheaper place (although I discovered I had no bed sheets)and headed to Siam Square (looked like downtown Dubai) where I visited the popular Jim Thompson’s House. JT was a Yank who did a lot for Thailand’s silk trade and in his traditional style
house he has lots of paintings and antiques and the sort...I did a tour with some Germans who had the worse haircuts known to man/woman/walrus.. I struggled with the heat so just again crashed out at Ellie’s pool and watched some Israeli chaps disgrace themselves with poor chat up lines with some random ladies. In the evening I met Ellie in Chinatown where I was molestered by an elephant. China town was the biggest I have seen (Well I had only seen London and Manchester at this point..) but it was mostly food places or stalls selling dodgy DVDs. Still managed to eat a goose (thought it was duck) and said goodbye to Ellie who would be flying to Sydney the next day.
23/02/09, Day 32 and today is my first day on my own :-(. I was a little bit worried about how I would get on so I thought it be best if I booked a 2 day excursion rather than just strolling about. So I booked a 2 day trip to Kanchanaburi about 3 hours west of Bangkok. I was picked up a 7am and insantly met a Japanese girl called Saki who was on my
Tim and Sarah....and me!!!
Lovely couple....lovely straw hat...bus but was just doing a half day tour. We went to the Floating Market together which was cool to chug around (again it was a bit like The Man With The Golden Gun). We were then taken to a cobra show where yours truly had a King Cobra (not the beer) wrapped round his head...made a good picture. We then watched a show where these chaps chased round these snakes (sone were more than 12ft long), many still had venom in. I then joined a different bus and went to the Burma railway war cemetery where it was sad to see so many graves of British young men (younger than me) had died in the construction of the now called Death Railway. Also popped to the JEATH Museum which was average before being able to walk across the Bridge over the River Kwai, despite it was still a working bridge! One wrong step and you would had easily falling through to the river below. Next we jumped in another minibus for our ride to our river raft house which was to be our home for the night. Here I met a guy called Matt from Kent (in fact worked
in Ellie's parents hotel - small world!) and Sarah & Dessi along with 3 Reading chaps I had met on the way. The location was beautiful as we watched the sun set and little boats cruise down the River Kwai in front of us and even had a crocodile alert. First day traveling on my own it went a lot better than expected as we chilled with beers and had a great nights sleep without the banging noise of Bangkok in my earshot.
After waking up to my bedroom swaying after a speed boat came past and made some waves, we went bamboo rafting down the river. A boat dragged us a mile or so upstream, untied us and then watched us float down. The raft was constantly about 6inches under the water but we were told it was quite safe. This was followed by elephant riding. Was a lot of fun and got to feed them too....We then went to the very interesting Hellfire Pass Museum which gave some horrid facts about the Death Railway - 12,000 Prisoners of War plus 90,000 Asians died making it under the watch of those then naughty Japanese folks. We then got
to walk down some of the railway and struggled in the heat but soon realised that this was nothing compared to working 16 hours a day chipping at rock with little food and water as thousands of people had to do 60 odd years ago.....In the afternoon we went to the Tiger Temple. Now, they were tigers for sure but I'm not sure where the temple bit came from. It was the hottest I had ever been as we queued to have our picture taking with the big cats. We were informed that they were not drugged but to me they must had been...or drunk! We got to pat them and all sorts (by allsorts I generally mean just pat them..). Got some great pictures to go with the cobra round my neck, quite a few days for animals.
After heading back to Bangkok Matt, Sarah and I checked in a dodgy little place and we met up with 2 of Matt’s friends (Nadine and Jess) and Saki (the Japanese girl I had met the day before). We strolled down the Khao San Road and took in the sights, eating street food and having a few beers (tricked into
buying an 8% strong bottle of cider) and we headed to the Soi Cowboy district which is a colourful affair to say the least. Wasn't really my cup of tea so we headed back to the Khao San where we enjoyed the company of some Germans (there is a video floating around of me speaking English to them but then dropping in the odd German word in a kind of Julio Geordio style)...it was ze gut! It got to day light and Matt and I ended up playing guitar with the locals. Having been traveling for a month now I had managed to get very good at haggling as demonstrated when a guy tried to sell me a hammock for 15 Pounds, I got him down to 1 Pound before realising I didn't actually need a hammock! So I spent the next hour trying to sell it for him but it seems I am better at haggling than I am at selling... Despite losing my phone in the mix it was a fun fun evening.
25th Feb, and I dragged myself out with a very deserved hangover. Matt and I both decided we wanted to go north to Chiang
Me and cobra
Just a normal day... Mai so we booked a coach for the night. Didn't do too much in the day at all. Said goodbye to Sarah who was heading south to the islands. The bus was quite comfortable but stopped waaay too often... Think it was bout 13 hours when we reached Chiang Mai.
Day 35 and Matt and I booked in the 1st place we found which was pretty nice, had a swimming pool and was very cheap by Bangkok standards. Seemed a little chilly t'north, as it does in many northern hemisphere countries. We walked about and booked up a 3 day trek for the next day. Bought a new mobile and looked around a monastery. We were strictly told not to speak to the monks, but after 5 minutes of looking around a monk started chatting to us (ooh they like a good natter!!). Nice bloke, seemed to know a lot about London, and Buddha, which was nice. He told us about a place we could find out more so we made our way with his instructions. Now, this monk fella might had been enlightened and knew a bit about Buddha but he knew fooook all about giving directions!!!! We
ended up in some field somewhere, which is quite hard to do bearing in mind we started in the centre of Thailand’s second biggest city! We decided that trying to be cultured didn't work so dipped in our ice cold pool. So far I had liked Chiang Mai. It had moat running through the old town and it reminded me of Amsterdam (I've never been but it still reminded me of it..). In the evening we strolled through a disappointing night market and ate at the one food stool there - the curry was Burmese influenced as is a lot of food in t'north... We tried finding a decent bar for a quick drink but really struggled. we found plenty of bars but they were filled with 1 or 2 50 year old Germans and about 8 or 9 young Thai girls...not my thing so after walking around which felt like forever we decided to just have an early one in preparation of the trekking we had ahead of us.
We woke up to day 1 of our 3 day trek. 13 of us squeezed into the back of a mini bus trailer thing. We were the only English
along with some people form Israel, France, Switzerland, German, Holland and Wales. We stocked up the essentials, mostly Red Bull (It was invented in Thailand I was told) and checked in with the tourist police should we go missing. Started with another elephant trek but this time WE HAD NO BLOODY DRIVER!!! Went up some steep slopes, into some water and almost fell out a few times. I watch the elephant in front of me use his truck to pick up a water bottle that its passenger had dropped expecting mine would do the same but oh no - it just stamped on my bottle..the little git...Anyhow, we started our 3 hour hike for about 6km and ended up about 1200metres above sea level (no idea what we started at). It was hard work and i was sweating buckets but the views made it worthwhile. We stopped off at the odd waterfall for a refreshing although freezing swim. We got to out hill top village where they had half decent facilities and ate a home cooked curry and burst a few chords on the old guitar. Between us there were maybe 6 or so players which added to the fun.
It was a long but fun day and amazing to stare at the stars with the jungle around me.
Day 37 of my trip and day 2 of my trek arises and despite sharing the room with a dozen other people I actually slept quite well...apparently I was shouting in my sleep but I didn't hear a thing.... I also remember having a dream about my guitar teaching brother Paul refusing to teach me a few songs, strange that... Anyhow we left Lahu to commence the so called easier day...EASIER MY ARSE!! We started going up at silly angles which was hard but i was coping ok. the worse was coming down. who would had thought it. My trusted Puma trainers were making me slip on my backside all over the place...literally had to run down the mountain and hope to hit a tree...we chilled at another waterfall where we befriended a guy called Jack (from Harrow) and Betty (from Holland). The trekking on this day was very hard work and it was good to get to our river base camp where the old guitar and campfire came out as well as a random game of card with some
Swiss girls involving codes.
Woke up the next morning after a freezing nights sleep and had a short trek to our white water rafting place. It was my first time doing it and although it was judged to be quite lame by other standards, it was quite hectic in parts especially when our guide jumped out to rescue his flip flops...This was followed by bamboo rafting where Matt actually fell through the middle in a Frank Spencer spectacle...After boarding dry land and watching a local do amazing roundhouse kicks 8 foot in the air we retreated back to town and had an end of trek night out with Matt, Swiss girls, Jack and Betty. After strolling through the impressive weekend market we partied at the Heaven Beach Bar which had one of the best live covers band I have seen...they were spot on for Thai guys...A club was involved and I got home a silly o’clock...
2nd of March was not too eventful during the day. Checked into a Japanese guesthouse with Betty and Jack and said goodbye to Matt who was heading back to Bangkok. In the guesthouse we were treated to a free although random performance
of a Japanese dance involving a nutter painted white portraying a baby, dragon and mother....bit odd to be fair, and very strange when he started randomly pouring water on Jack and trying to kiss him (priceless look on Jacks face). It was nice to mix with the Japs and even got a free curry out of them. Got on well with a guy called Joichi from Tokyo and Yann from France.
I had made it to 40 days and 40 nights, a bit like that bearded religious chap about 2000 or so years ago, and to celebrate that Christian tale I thought it would be appropriate to spend 2 days and 1 night at a Buddhist meditation centre with some monks. Jack, Betty and I all had to dress in ridiculous white clothing ( I looked like I should be in a 90’s boy band). We arrived at Wat Suan Dok temple and was relatively surprised to see a few monks in their traditional orange gowns carrying a Starbucks coffee, laptop and mobile phone..my how religion has moved on with the times. We met up with around 30 other westerners all looking to get involved and had an introduction
by one “lazy monks” (his words not mine). This was actually called Monk Chat. We then traveled out of town to a newly built complex and checked into our en-suite accommodation which other than lacking a TV was perhaps better than anywhere I have stayed in the previous month (all free too). We strolled around and ate dinner (vegetarian boring rice) and then started our first lot of meditation. There are 4 types - sitting, standing, walking and laying. All involve repetitive chanting. It was doing nothing for me. I had an embarrassing moment during the laying down mediation when after about 2 minutes of chanting I fell asleep and started to snore in front of everyone.. This was actually a relief because I have been known to shout and swear during my slumber so just to snore a bit was a good thing. These mediations were followed by some hot chocolate, jammy dodgers and an early night.
4/3/09 Day 41 The next morning started with a 5am wake up. We dragged ourselves for our early morning mediation and attempted some yoga exercising that an all too enthusiastic Dane/Dutch guy wanted to give. Still not much of a fan.
They had asked for a volunteer and the very bored Jack raised his hand, however there was some confusion as he was asked to teach the class. The look on his face and him telling the head monk that “I think there’s been a terrible misunderstanding” sent the class laughing….this was all followed by some average breakfast, offering of the psalms to the monks and some more meditation (I fell asleep again). We were then able to discuss with the monk students about Buddhism which was quite interesting but its not for me. I wasn’t there to be converted or enlightened but its just a bit silly. I tried to be open-minded and abide by the not talking rules but in the end I felt like a naughty school boy by whispering to people at the back of class and having to bite my lip at times.
After returning to town, and reality, we headed back to the Heaven Beach Bar and met up with 5 girls from the mediation centre (The Monk Girls) and Yann (French dude from guesthouse). The Monk girls can be broken down into 2 groups - Ruth and Amy (Traveling together) and The Kent
Girls (Hannah, Nicola and Becky). We all had a fun filled evening as I introduced them to the best band in town. The night ended by Jack telling me off for eating chicken bought at a roadside stall, but then he was not as bothered when we were eating fried cockroach…some people….
5/3/09. I woke up to the sound of Yann playing a tiny guitar and joined in for a few numbers. I said goodbye to Jack who was heading to the Thai Islands and I booked myself on a Thai cooking course. This started off buying a few ingredients at a local market then heading to the kitchens a bit out of town. The teacher was very amusing but no one can compete with Han who did the cooking course in Vietnam. The delightful food I cooked included Tom Yam Goong (Hot & sour prawn soup), Paneang Curry, Chicken with cashew nuts and Pad Thai (I must eat that stuff about 2 ties a day). It was really fun and I impressed myself in the kitchen once more. I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t learn how to make the curry paste but it was fun all
the same.
That evening I joined Betty and some yank friends she had made at the Thai Boxing arena in Chiang Mai. I had heard many people say that they enjoyed going here but I hated the whole experience. First of all I was sitting with annoying yanks (I don’t want to generalise but they were awful). Secondly, the first 3 flights involved children who had no protection at all. They were beating the hell out of each other whilst people betted on the outcome. It was sick. I am proud to say that even though it was quite pricey, I walked out in disgust after the 3rd fight. I got into an argument with one yank who said “They’re not getting hurt” as I watched 2 nine year olds stumbling out of the ring with blood come from their heads after being repetitively kicked. One of the lowest points of the trip. I didn’t want this to ruin my evening so I met up with the Monk Girls and headed back to our regular establishment - The Heaven Beach Bar. I was introduced to 2 of the Kent Girls friends from back home who were in town that
night - James from Kent and Joe from Loughbrough. We exchanged hello’s but didn’t really chat. Midway through the bands set we were all evacuated as a fire had broken out next door. The girls decided that this was a good time to leave as they had an early flight to catch in the morning. So all of a sudden it was just me left with the bit moody looking James and Joe. Rather than just leaving they invited me for a beer and we ended up getting on really well and having an excellent evening. They both had the same kind of humor as me (not always a good thing) and we had a lot of fun making fun out of the locals who tried chatting us up (I presume they were hookers) by teaching them made up English words. Sounds childish but we were entertained. Both were heading to Laos so there was a chance I would see them again.
Day 43 started off as a lazy day before me and Betty (She’s the Dutch girl, who has been UK once and that was to Uxbridge of all places) got a 4hour bendy mountain bus ride to
Pai north of Chiang Mai where we met with Ruth and Amy from the meditation centre. Pai is described as a popular hippy place but it was very quiet and not many people around. Later on, Betty educated me with some popular Dutch music, or “Crap” as I would describe it.
The next day I braved riding a moped for the first time, and within 20 minutes I had Amy on the back with Betty and Ruth on another. I actually found the first 3 seconds of riding the hardest as its difficult to keep balanced but driving it is easy and despite the roads were hilly and bendy (we were up in the mountains), there were not many other vehicles about so I felt safe. Our appalling map didn’t help us one bit but we did go through some rural villages, saw some waterfalls and then jumped in 80’C boiling hot springs where people were literally cooking an egg. We also visited a crack in the land which randomly occurred back in November 2008. That night was filled with food from a decent Italian place and Betty and I were embarrassed when we went to a Reggae bar
Me and Jack in our whites
Cricket match was cancelled... as there were 7 or 8 musicians in the band and just us 2 in the audience. I thought it was almost patronising to clap.
Our last day in Thailand (for now) was a lazy one which included a walk down the river. There was nothing to dislike about Pai. Lots of bars and restaurants, just with no one in them. We then jumped into a cramped minibus for 7 hours in the evening to the border town (Chiang Kong) for Laos. As we arrived at 3am and were leaving for Laos at 7am we crashed in a dorm that was infested by hippy idiots who were smoking, chatting nonsense and giggling a lot. After about 1 hours sleep I escaped the hippy idiots and crossed into Laos. At the crossing I met a couple of nice bearded chaps. One looked like a lanky bearded Frank Lampard and the his friend was short with ginger hair…so of course he was now known as Bearded Paul Scholes.
So that’s Thailand Part 2 done as I head into Northern Laos with Betty, Ruth and Amy. I am not going to comment about the whole country as I still have more
than half to do still but I really enjoyed my time up t’north. Beautiful scenery, good food, fun activities (and the odd boring meditation session) and met some really cool people.
See you in Laos!
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