02.03.2004 - Chiang Mai: Got some washing back from the loathsome drabs on wheels. The lad from the BMP tourist office dropped our passports back with the Laos visas, hot off the Bangkok - Chiang Mai nighttrain. Phew!
Got the 3 hour minibus to Chiang Khong, N.N.East of Chiang Mai which faced out over the Mekong river, looking into the Laos People's Democratic Republic. There was no bridge but rather a river crossing area on either side. A bridge is in the works we've since read.
The town was quite small, but memorable from the fact that black ash was falling from the sky in copious amounts, as the Laotians seem to love that age-old slash and burn tactic. Made for acrid air for the most part. We could also see a mad fire across the river half way up a mountain. A sense of foreboding set in for some reason: a very poor communist country (one of the world's 10 most poor countries I think I read somewhere).
Called home to let them all know where I was last before disappearing into the maw of madness. Ahem.
Hit the sack (so to speak) early, not before looking into unknown Kadath, I mean Laos, by ash-grey moonlight.
03.03.2004 - Laos - Huay Xai / Pakbeng - The BMP punters dropped a whole mess of us down the river crossing by 08:00, and we officially 'left' Thailand, before even crossing the Mekong.
The crossing took about four minutes, then we were over. The differences between the Thai and Lao were almost immediately apparent. Not sure it was because we had all had our expectations hightened (lowered?) by all we'd heard about the place. Anyway, the official people we dealt with were the stereotypical communist types, who didn't smile much and just barked orders.
It was also clear how much poorer people were, as the Thai seem to really put a lot of time into their image, but the Lao we saw first were very rag-tag in comparison, with very old clothes (hand-me-downs perhaps), and their personal hygiene seemed much inferior. In short, they looked wrecked in comparison to the Thai. Their grasp of English was also commensurately lower that their much richer neighbours.
With a sense of trepidation, we cashed in THB2000 (or approx. EUR40) for Laos Kip. With great hilarity, we each got about 500,000 each!!! CROY-KEY!
The tourist crowd got us into a sawngthaew and brought us upriver to where the 'slow boat' was leaving from. Yet again we had to surrender our passports to some dude looking like his dress sense was based on mid-1980s Duran Duran styles. The fecker also wanted 200 Baht for no apparent reason. When questioned as to why, he suddenly said "ahhh, I mean 20 baht". We still don't know why he wanted it. I paid the Kip eqivalent which was 75,000. Think it was for the pleasure of disembarking from the boat for the night further downstream. Feckers.
The slow boat itself was rather impressively overcrowded. Shades of the yearly multiple river deaths in the Philippines and Bangladesh came to mind. The thing listed to starboard for most of the time which was a little unnerving when going over many of the frequent rapids of the Mekong river.
The boat was also replete with a full compliment of Brits, Yanks, Canucks and other assorted Anglos (including a heap from Tallaght). Two really rude Pommies asked me could they borrow my Lonely Planet Laos guidebook for a while and proceeded to hang on to it for another FIVE hours! They even traced the entire map from the book! Scroungers! That, on top of the very slim benches on the boat made for uncomfortable travelling.
We finally got into the layover town of Pakbeng, about halfway along the course of the upper Mekong (in Laos territory). It was a small, dusty town in the middle of high hills. A small army of local men/boys descended the sand bank to try to make a few bob from carrying our bags to our guesthouses. They seem to grab the bags and expect you to identify your bag, then they won't give it back to you until you have checked in for the night and give them 100 baht! Cheeky fuppers!
The electricity goes after 22:00 in Pakbeng, so all the shops just use candlelight when the sun goes. Mad Ted! Mad! Was a little unnerved by having all these lads (speaking from out of the blank darkness!) asking us if we wanted to buy grass!!!
Me, MickeyLove, Richie and new 'friends' Claire from Oz and Sarah from England had eats in a (literally) rat-infested Indian restaurant up the hill again from the ferry 'pier'. Had our first proper BeerLao beers!! A most excellent beverage I must say! Nice price too!
Righto, more about our travels in the Laos PDR soon - same time, same channel!
DM
Friday, March 12, 2004
27.02.2004 - [ Sorry for the delay in getting around to this. Laos is only discovering the internet and as for broadband access...well lets say it's not really broadband :-/ ]
Right, Bangkok. Boarded the nighttrain bound for Chiang Mai at about 21:30. Got some snacks in and a few Chang beers for the early hours of the evening prior to being shaken asleep by the train. Micaela and I shared a two bunk room, while Richie was in an adjoining room sharing with a Japanese punter with little or no English. Think his name was Shiguro or something. Still, the language of beer, snacks and gestures got us through the awkward beginnings etc. Turn out one of his parents is Korean and the other Japanese. At 19 years old, we thought him fairly brave to be travelling on his tod. Cool.
28.02.2004 - Chiang Mai : The beds on the train were fairly comfortable and the train didn't buck too much, but the aircon went beserk sometime during the night and starting trying to cryogenically freeze us. Only going to the north of Thailand lads, not Mars.
The BMP travel agency bus met us in the station and brought us to their office for various bits of information etc. We were sent to the Chiang Mai Inn as the BMP guesthouse itself was full. THe guy there told us we coud not get a visa on arrival in Laos at Huay Xai, so we were forced to have our passports sent back to Bangkok by express and thereby stay another night in Chiang Mai. Blues.
The Thai (Chinese?) guy that ran the Chiang Mai Inn was a bit of a wit - he kept on using Cockney rhyming phrases and bad Italian. He then floored me by saying "conas ata tu?". Took a few moments to recover!
Had our first taste (in Thailand that is) of sticky rice with our meal. Boy is is sticky. You have to gouge yourself out a lump of it, twirl it into a ball then dip it in your meal's sauce. That's a new experience for me!! Deadly buzz as one would say in the common parlance of our times.
29.02.2004 - Cripes - a leap year. Micaela was delighted to find out that she had one more day than expected away from her 30th! He he. "Captain, they do say that time is the fire in which we burn!" (1000 Laos Kip to the first person who gets the quote).
Today we did one of the one-day treks, which included an hour's elephant trek. Sent some fotos already methinks. We then wandered in a Hmong tribal village in the hills (felt more like a human zoo though), an hour or so at the Mae Wang waterfall. Richie and Micaela went in for a swim, I thought it too cold. After lunch we rafted down the Mae Wang river for an hour. I managed to impressively smash my knee off a river rock as we were entering the rapids at the end of the journey, and I was steering from behind (so to speak), while the Thai punter at the front was trying in turn to tip all three of us into the water. Cowboys Ted! They're only a bunh of cowboys! Only bruised.
While dryin ourselves off, we were suddenly under siege by a gaggle of Burmese refugee women selling all sorts of jewelry and other tat. The fuppers wouldn't take no for an answer, so MiceyLove and myself went away with a bag of rubbish! Richie just gave them the "Matrix sign", where he puts on a stern face, holds up his hand and they can't touch him. It actually worked!
Had eats in the lovely Riverside restaurant near the Ping river just outside the old city to the east. It was a really beautiful location, marred only by the myriad hoardes of innumerable mozzie legions, lessened only in impact by lashings of Singha beer and good food.
Had a wander through the famous Chiang Mai night market and had to dodge the odd ladyboy. Had a few pinocoladas in this really sad ex-pat bar on Thanon Thapae, with the usual old, fat western lads with local ladies. I felt unusual so I had to get out and leave the other two to it. Nothing to do with the chillis though...
01.03.2004 - Chiang Mai - Micaela felt hungover (glad I left early!), and we had brekkie she tried to vom a few times to accelerate the recovery with little success. We knew she was on the mend when she starting talking again (a lot) ;0)
Had a few more CDs made from our mostly full CF cards. Done in 30 mins. Groovy.
Had evening scrans in a really hippy/doper place called the Rooftop bar/restaurant. We found ourselves all but climbing into the attic of this building, had to take our sandals off and go barefoot! The place was dark with neon strip lightbulbs and mad wall murals in neon paint. The usual suspects were there, Bob Marley, Che Guevara and lots of hashplanet leaves! We sadly missed the sunset from there, but mellowed out anyway ('something' added to the veggie dishes?!). At one stage I was looking out the open ceiling and though I saw Mars in the sky as it was reddish in colour. Then Micaela said it was moving and I was sure there was in fact something in the curry! Nope... turned out that there were in fact about 10 such 'balloons' in the sky as part of some ceremony off to the east. Freaky but nice too look at.
Bought a couple of T-shirts in the night market from this little hottie who turned out to be from Nepal. Scorchio!
Have to go now (lunch then taxi to Vientiane's Wattay Airport for the (hopefully not too scarey flight to Ha Noi!). Will try to update again whist there. Bo bo...
Right, Bangkok. Boarded the nighttrain bound for Chiang Mai at about 21:30. Got some snacks in and a few Chang beers for the early hours of the evening prior to being shaken asleep by the train. Micaela and I shared a two bunk room, while Richie was in an adjoining room sharing with a Japanese punter with little or no English. Think his name was Shiguro or something. Still, the language of beer, snacks and gestures got us through the awkward beginnings etc. Turn out one of his parents is Korean and the other Japanese. At 19 years old, we thought him fairly brave to be travelling on his tod. Cool.
28.02.2004 - Chiang Mai : The beds on the train were fairly comfortable and the train didn't buck too much, but the aircon went beserk sometime during the night and starting trying to cryogenically freeze us. Only going to the north of Thailand lads, not Mars.
The BMP travel agency bus met us in the station and brought us to their office for various bits of information etc. We were sent to the Chiang Mai Inn as the BMP guesthouse itself was full. THe guy there told us we coud not get a visa on arrival in Laos at Huay Xai, so we were forced to have our passports sent back to Bangkok by express and thereby stay another night in Chiang Mai. Blues.
The Thai (Chinese?) guy that ran the Chiang Mai Inn was a bit of a wit - he kept on using Cockney rhyming phrases and bad Italian. He then floored me by saying "conas ata tu?". Took a few moments to recover!
Had our first taste (in Thailand that is) of sticky rice with our meal. Boy is is sticky. You have to gouge yourself out a lump of it, twirl it into a ball then dip it in your meal's sauce. That's a new experience for me!! Deadly buzz as one would say in the common parlance of our times.
29.02.2004 - Cripes - a leap year. Micaela was delighted to find out that she had one more day than expected away from her 30th! He he. "Captain, they do say that time is the fire in which we burn!" (1000 Laos Kip to the first person who gets the quote).
Today we did one of the one-day treks, which included an hour's elephant trek. Sent some fotos already methinks. We then wandered in a Hmong tribal village in the hills (felt more like a human zoo though), an hour or so at the Mae Wang waterfall. Richie and Micaela went in for a swim, I thought it too cold. After lunch we rafted down the Mae Wang river for an hour. I managed to impressively smash my knee off a river rock as we were entering the rapids at the end of the journey, and I was steering from behind (so to speak), while the Thai punter at the front was trying in turn to tip all three of us into the water. Cowboys Ted! They're only a bunh of cowboys! Only bruised.
While dryin ourselves off, we were suddenly under siege by a gaggle of Burmese refugee women selling all sorts of jewelry and other tat. The fuppers wouldn't take no for an answer, so MiceyLove and myself went away with a bag of rubbish! Richie just gave them the "Matrix sign", where he puts on a stern face, holds up his hand and they can't touch him. It actually worked!
Had eats in the lovely Riverside restaurant near the Ping river just outside the old city to the east. It was a really beautiful location, marred only by the myriad hoardes of innumerable mozzie legions, lessened only in impact by lashings of Singha beer and good food.
Had a wander through the famous Chiang Mai night market and had to dodge the odd ladyboy. Had a few pinocoladas in this really sad ex-pat bar on Thanon Thapae, with the usual old, fat western lads with local ladies. I felt unusual so I had to get out and leave the other two to it. Nothing to do with the chillis though...
01.03.2004 - Chiang Mai - Micaela felt hungover (glad I left early!), and we had brekkie she tried to vom a few times to accelerate the recovery with little success. We knew she was on the mend when she starting talking again (a lot) ;0)
Had a few more CDs made from our mostly full CF cards. Done in 30 mins. Groovy.
Had evening scrans in a really hippy/doper place called the Rooftop bar/restaurant. We found ourselves all but climbing into the attic of this building, had to take our sandals off and go barefoot! The place was dark with neon strip lightbulbs and mad wall murals in neon paint. The usual suspects were there, Bob Marley, Che Guevara and lots of hashplanet leaves! We sadly missed the sunset from there, but mellowed out anyway ('something' added to the veggie dishes?!). At one stage I was looking out the open ceiling and though I saw Mars in the sky as it was reddish in colour. Then Micaela said it was moving and I was sure there was in fact something in the curry! Nope... turned out that there were in fact about 10 such 'balloons' in the sky as part of some ceremony off to the east. Freaky but nice too look at.
Bought a couple of T-shirts in the night market from this little hottie who turned out to be from Nepal. Scorchio!
Have to go now (lunch then taxi to Vientiane's Wattay Airport for the (hopefully not too scarey flight to Ha Noi!). Will try to update again whist there. Bo bo...
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
20.02.2003 - Ok, I've been a bad boy and neglected all you faithful readers back in the rainy place. Actually, we had trouble finding places and our social life picked up a good bit when we got to Bangkok (wink ;), what with meeting Cormac (Pip is dead - long live Cormac!) and Richie Long.
Right, avoided the beach as my legs were not just a little red from the sun. Bought a cheapo digital watch by some backstreet jokers called Jaga. Did a websearch expecting to find nought, and it turns out they are a Greek outfit! Cost about EUR9 or THB500 or so... Believe it or not also - it actually is water proof (unlike the cheapo Arab piece of crap I bought in south Lebanon in the 80s which fried immediately upon hitting water :)
On the same spree, I also bought a rather snazzy long-sleeved cotton shirt thing with a stitched Dragon logo on the front for THB300. Pretty nice.
Had dinner in tha Bai Toey Thai restaurant again as it was so good the last time. Some particularly creepy winged insect took it upon himself to repeatedly piss on my arm and leg! At first I thought it was beginning to rain, then I turned around as another bolt of liquid was arriving from the direction of the overhanging branch. Then MickeyLove (yes - Micaela, which probably makes me Pauline (all you League Of Gentlemen fans will get that one)). I took a photo of the little shit then swatted him away with my peaked cap. He wasn't loving that. Phuck him I say! I have a picture of the ugly blighter too.
21.02.2004 - Took a tuk-tuk to Phuket town and bought a combined bus/ferry ticket to Koh Samui, crossing the southern Thailand provinces. Once we reached Surat Thani on the Bay of Thailand, we were dumped at the offices of the Phantip Travel Agency, then boarded another bus to Don Sak, where we got the actual ferry to Samui. We took the opportunity to book ourselves into the Calm Beach Resort, as we weren't into all that lively Samui scene of rave parties 'n all. Us old folk that is...
8 out of every 10 passengers on the ferry were westerners. How queer!! Once we got off on Samui island, we got a sauwng-thaew bus to Bo Phut beach and overshot the bloody place by a few Km. Two motorcycle taximen brought us to the right place for a (tourist tier) price.
The Calm Beach Resort was pretty damned nice when we arrived (in the dark). Their restaurant overlooked the beach, they had torches set into the sand, and the waiters and waitresses (too many of them too) were either high on something or locked. But the effect was quite, dare I say it, romantic?! Nuff said.
22.02.2004 - Had planned to get up around 06:00 to catch the sunrise to the east. Had set the alarm, it went off, but we didn't get up. How surprising is that?! I later tried a traditional Thai breakfast of glass noodles, chicken and shallots in a light broth. Nice it was, but like having your dinner in the morning. Too gingery too.
Hit the beach for a few hours at about 10:15. Assaulted once more by beach vendors. One guy just would not give up and ended up flogging me a for 900 baht. I'm not saying what it is/was because it will be a present at some stage and the intended recipient might be reading!! The guy was quite sound all the same and was an exemplary salesman i.e. just wouldn't f*cking give up!
Had a craving for non-Asian food and had a pizza in a place up the beach. Not too bad either... Went to see the Big Buddha in the afternoon which is close to the Samui airport. Not bad but on entering it became clear that it was some sort of Buddhist theme park, with throwing games, "Let Buddha tell your fortune!" style games et al., all trying to get your money etc. Bit tacky though. And through all this, the genuinely devout were trying to get their prayers in with cameras going on all the time. Poor feckers.
23.02.2004 - Right, finally did it - I got up at about 06:30, to find it was still totally dark, but managed to get down to the beach at about 07:00 and catch the sun peeking over the eastern mountain range. Got some nice shots.
Our rather astute hostess had booked us flights on a Bangkok Airways flight to Bangkok the following morning. Cost something like THB3650 or so (EUR75), which was fine.
Went for a walk up towards the Bo Phut village again and wandered into the rather nice Fishermans Village there. Got a particularly nice picture of a fishing boat for me mammy to paint :)
Called Cormac in the evening from our dinner table in the Smile House Restaurant (the staff weren't in fact particularly cheery however...). He recommended the Pinnacle Hotel on Soi Ngam Duplee in the Lum Phini district in Bangkok. About EUR20 a night he said. Lavley!
24.02.2004 - Packed the bags, had the last set of banana and honey pancakes (they're mad about pancakes here it would seem), then got a car to the airport. Actually the 'man of the house' took us up. He also performed each evening with a guitar and a sound system. Pretty good too. The Samui airport made Knock look like Heathrow...
We were collared by the tourism gestapo on arrival in Bangkok international and booked our rooms in the Pinnacle (including a room for Richie) and a taxi to the hotel. Of course a commission was levied, but we didn't realise the extent until we arrived at the hotel and saw the 'going' rates for rooms etc. Fuppers!
Managed to find an open food court in the Suan Yam night bazaar area. Had some really quite fiery Green Chicken Curry. Del-ish. Sticking with -ish words, Bangkok traffic is every bit as bad as they say - hellISH you might say. The air is utterly fetid and most street vendors go around with surgical masks on. Felt like buying some myself. Who needs to spend money on smoking when you can breath real Bangkok air!?!
Bought a Chang Beer teeshirt, which is apt, as the nation's second beer is everywhere and is in fact quite palatable (not to mention rotten cheap)!
Spoke to Cormac from the hotel. He dropped by at about 20:30 and then took us the 'Cabbages and Condoms' restaurant. Ahem. Obviously didn't know WHAT to expect, but in fact it turned out to be a really excellent place. Took a video clip for posterity. Then he took us to the, cough, 'Tilac' go-go bar with all de young ladees dancing on platforms in...well not much. Interesting to say the least, but the most offputting thing was all the western saddos in their 40s through to their 70s with big pot bellies ogling the dancers. Ewww...
Cormac then dragged us to his school and we saw his classroom and I took another movie clip for the laugh. He wanted us to come in the following day to speak to his students!! Mad Ted Mad!
25.02.2004 - We got up early to get to the Vietnam embassy on Wireless Road. They closed at 11:30 for lunch; we got there at exactly that time and tried to at least fill out the forms so we could just breeze in and back out after lunch, but we were unceremoniously told to piss off by a woman behind the counter.
Went back into the embassy at 13:30 and had to leave our passports and THB2500 (EUR42 or so). Hmm...
After that, we returned to the Pinnacle hotel, met Richie and went out to the Suan Yam night bazaar for a scutther of bevvies. They had Erdinger and Franciskaner, so that was us sold for the night! Got not a little pickled :)
26.02.2004 - Felt crap this morning naturally. When we got downstairs I swear we saw Richie at the breakfast table half bent over asleep into his Cornflakes! He looked pretty rough!
We then went took a taxi to the Bangkok GPO to sent off a load of tat we had both been building up along the way. Unfortunately, the taximan was a utter moron. Ok, fair enough, he had no more than 3 words of English, but we showed him repeatedly on the city map of Bangkok where we wanted to go. He just wasn't getting it, so he stopped, jumped out of the taxi, made a call in a phone box, got back into the taxi. His mobile then rang and he hands it to me!! Some woman with 100% better english than him (i.e. 10 words of english) asked me where we wanted to go. He was then still at sea. Needless to say, we eventually got there and the fupper still tried to overcharge us!
ANYWAY... the parcel included (in my case) the Canon Ixus box and the I mentioned earlier. Also there were a load of sachets of Kopi Merah or Red Coffee, which we bought in Malaysia. Sounds horrific - coffee with beetroot! Tasty stuff though.
Then we went on the hunt for mosquito nets in the Bo Bae market. Took an hour or more, but we found some in a Mary St. style army bargains place.
Had some rice/pork/egg goop in a food court called Couchee or something like that. Looked terrible but was not so bad.
Walked off in the direction of the Grand Mount, an important Buddhist stupa. Nice enough. Took loads of pitcures in a slightly maudlin buddhist cemetery beside it.
We decided that we had time to see the royal Grand Palais before getting back to collect our passports from the Vietnam embassy. Hailed a taxi and it took far longer than expected to get there.
Needless to say, the palace was magnificent. We only saw about a quarter of it (the best quarter) before we had to leave for the embassy. Got another taxi, which took alomst 70 minutes in rush hour to get to Wireless road. The embassy was of course closed for the day at 16:30. DOH!
Decided to go back to the hotel. Richie and I got haircuts in a little place beside the Pinnacle. Funny. Not. My barber was like a little Mengele when he put on a surgical mask. Circular glasses too. Shivvver. He was small and wirey and in his 50s which was creepy. For THB100 (EUR2), you can't go wrong though!
All four of us went out to the Palo Palo Italian restaurant for eats. It was one of those places where the table cloth is paper and they give you crayons. So naturally MickeyLove was in her element, drawing mermaids and dubious approximations of Richie, myself and Cormac with big appendages! Sorry MiCa, couldn't resist... ;-)
Finally had a few White Russians down a Soi close to Silom Road. Nice, happening street.
Right more when we get out of commie-land, or earlier if possible...
By now... DM
Right, avoided the beach as my legs were not just a little red from the sun. Bought a cheapo digital watch by some backstreet jokers called Jaga. Did a websearch expecting to find nought, and it turns out they are a Greek outfit! Cost about EUR9 or THB500 or so... Believe it or not also - it actually is water proof (unlike the cheapo Arab piece of crap I bought in south Lebanon in the 80s which fried immediately upon hitting water :)
On the same spree, I also bought a rather snazzy long-sleeved cotton shirt thing with a stitched Dragon logo on the front for THB300. Pretty nice.
Had dinner in tha Bai Toey Thai restaurant again as it was so good the last time. Some particularly creepy winged insect took it upon himself to repeatedly piss on my arm and leg! At first I thought it was beginning to rain, then I turned around as another bolt of liquid was arriving from the direction of the overhanging branch. Then MickeyLove (yes - Micaela, which probably makes me Pauline (all you League Of Gentlemen fans will get that one)). I took a photo of the little shit then swatted him away with my peaked cap. He wasn't loving that. Phuck him I say! I have a picture of the ugly blighter too.
21.02.2004 - Took a tuk-tuk to Phuket town and bought a combined bus/ferry ticket to Koh Samui, crossing the southern Thailand provinces. Once we reached Surat Thani on the Bay of Thailand, we were dumped at the offices of the Phantip Travel Agency, then boarded another bus to Don Sak, where we got the actual ferry to Samui. We took the opportunity to book ourselves into the Calm Beach Resort, as we weren't into all that lively Samui scene of rave parties 'n all. Us old folk that is...
8 out of every 10 passengers on the ferry were westerners. How queer!! Once we got off on Samui island, we got a sauwng-thaew bus to Bo Phut beach and overshot the bloody place by a few Km. Two motorcycle taximen brought us to the right place for a (tourist tier) price.
The Calm Beach Resort was pretty damned nice when we arrived (in the dark). Their restaurant overlooked the beach, they had torches set into the sand, and the waiters and waitresses (too many of them too) were either high on something or locked. But the effect was quite, dare I say it, romantic?! Nuff said.
22.02.2004 - Had planned to get up around 06:00 to catch the sunrise to the east. Had set the alarm, it went off, but we didn't get up. How surprising is that?! I later tried a traditional Thai breakfast of glass noodles, chicken and shallots in a light broth. Nice it was, but like having your dinner in the morning. Too gingery too.
Hit the beach for a few hours at about 10:15. Assaulted once more by beach vendors. One guy just would not give up and ended up flogging me a
Had a craving for non-Asian food and had a pizza in a place up the beach. Not too bad either... Went to see the Big Buddha in the afternoon which is close to the Samui airport. Not bad but on entering it became clear that it was some sort of Buddhist theme park, with throwing games, "Let Buddha tell your fortune!" style games et al., all trying to get your money etc. Bit tacky though. And through all this, the genuinely devout were trying to get their prayers in with cameras going on all the time. Poor feckers.
23.02.2004 - Right, finally did it - I got up at about 06:30, to find it was still totally dark, but managed to get down to the beach at about 07:00 and catch the sun peeking over the eastern mountain range. Got some nice shots.
Our rather astute hostess had booked us flights on a Bangkok Airways flight to Bangkok the following morning. Cost something like THB3650 or so (EUR75), which was fine.
Went for a walk up towards the Bo Phut village again and wandered into the rather nice Fishermans Village there. Got a particularly nice picture of a fishing boat for me mammy to paint :)
Called Cormac in the evening from our dinner table in the Smile House Restaurant (the staff weren't in fact particularly cheery however...). He recommended the Pinnacle Hotel on Soi Ngam Duplee in the Lum Phini district in Bangkok. About EUR20 a night he said. Lavley!
24.02.2004 - Packed the bags, had the last set of banana and honey pancakes (they're mad about pancakes here it would seem), then got a car to the airport. Actually the 'man of the house' took us up. He also performed each evening with a guitar and a sound system. Pretty good too. The Samui airport made Knock look like Heathrow...
We were collared by the tourism gestapo on arrival in Bangkok international and booked our rooms in the Pinnacle (including a room for Richie) and a taxi to the hotel. Of course a commission was levied, but we didn't realise the extent until we arrived at the hotel and saw the 'going' rates for rooms etc. Fuppers!
Managed to find an open food court in the Suan Yam night bazaar area. Had some really quite fiery Green Chicken Curry. Del-ish. Sticking with -ish words, Bangkok traffic is every bit as bad as they say - hellISH you might say. The air is utterly fetid and most street vendors go around with surgical masks on. Felt like buying some myself. Who needs to spend money on smoking when you can breath real Bangkok air!?!
Bought a Chang Beer teeshirt, which is apt, as the nation's second beer is everywhere and is in fact quite palatable (not to mention rotten cheap)!
Spoke to Cormac from the hotel. He dropped by at about 20:30 and then took us the 'Cabbages and Condoms' restaurant. Ahem. Obviously didn't know WHAT to expect, but in fact it turned out to be a really excellent place. Took a video clip for posterity. Then he took us to the, cough, 'Tilac' go-go bar with all de young ladees dancing on platforms in...well not much. Interesting to say the least, but the most offputting thing was all the western saddos in their 40s through to their 70s with big pot bellies ogling the dancers. Ewww...
Cormac then dragged us to his school and we saw his classroom and I took another movie clip for the laugh. He wanted us to come in the following day to speak to his students!! Mad Ted Mad!
25.02.2004 - We got up early to get to the Vietnam embassy on Wireless Road. They closed at 11:30 for lunch; we got there at exactly that time and tried to at least fill out the forms so we could just breeze in and back out after lunch, but we were unceremoniously told to piss off by a woman behind the counter.
Went back into the embassy at 13:30 and had to leave our passports and THB2500 (EUR42 or so). Hmm...
After that, we returned to the Pinnacle hotel, met Richie and went out to the Suan Yam night bazaar for a scutther of bevvies. They had Erdinger and Franciskaner, so that was us sold for the night! Got not a little pickled :)
26.02.2004 - Felt crap this morning naturally. When we got downstairs I swear we saw Richie at the breakfast table half bent over asleep into his Cornflakes! He looked pretty rough!
We then went took a taxi to the Bangkok GPO to sent off a load of tat we had both been building up along the way. Unfortunately, the taximan was a utter moron. Ok, fair enough, he had no more than 3 words of English, but we showed him repeatedly on the city map of Bangkok where we wanted to go. He just wasn't getting it, so he stopped, jumped out of the taxi, made a call in a phone box, got back into the taxi. His mobile then rang and he hands it to me!! Some woman with 100% better english than him (i.e. 10 words of english) asked me where we wanted to go. He was then still at sea. Needless to say, we eventually got there and the fupper still tried to overcharge us!
ANYWAY... the parcel included (in my case) the Canon Ixus box and the
Then we went on the hunt for mosquito nets in the Bo Bae market. Took an hour or more, but we found some in a Mary St. style army bargains place.
Had some rice/pork/egg goop in a food court called Couchee or something like that. Looked terrible but was not so bad.
Walked off in the direction of the Grand Mount, an important Buddhist stupa. Nice enough. Took loads of pitcures in a slightly maudlin buddhist cemetery beside it.
We decided that we had time to see the royal Grand Palais before getting back to collect our passports from the Vietnam embassy. Hailed a taxi and it took far longer than expected to get there.
Needless to say, the palace was magnificent. We only saw about a quarter of it (the best quarter) before we had to leave for the embassy. Got another taxi, which took alomst 70 minutes in rush hour to get to Wireless road. The embassy was of course closed for the day at 16:30. DOH!
Decided to go back to the hotel. Richie and I got haircuts in a little place beside the Pinnacle. Funny. Not. My barber was like a little Mengele when he put on a surgical mask. Circular glasses too. Shivvver. He was small and wirey and in his 50s which was creepy. For THB100 (EUR2), you can't go wrong though!
All four of us went out to the Palo Palo Italian restaurant for eats. It was one of those places where the table cloth is paper and they give you crayons. So naturally MickeyLove was in her element, drawing mermaids and dubious approximations of Richie, myself and Cormac with big appendages! Sorry MiCa, couldn't resist... ;-)
Finally had a few White Russians down a Soi close to Silom Road. Nice, happening street.
Right more when we get out of commie-land, or earlier if possible...
By now... DM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)