(Vang Vieng - Laos - 07.03.2004) - We were told our bus would arrive between 10:00 and 10:30. The fecker turned up at 09:00 on the dot. Luckily we were already up and mostly ready to go. Can communists tell the time one wonders...?!
What followed were five torturous hours in mad heat, in a stuffed mini-bus and over bumpy, partially tarmac'd roads. The bus depot in Vang Vieng was a vast and strangely broad area of tarmac. Turns out it was the town's airstrip! Security? ... Arse!
There were the usual locals sitting around in their tuk-tuks, spiders waiting to pounce on the latest batch of backpackers. Told 'em all to piss off as we had already decided to go to a place mentioned in the Lonely Planet called the Na Na Gueshouse. We got a triple room for the princely sum of U$3 a night!
Had to get the owner's in as the bog light was knackered (started was dead). Cue a local electrician and a brace of giggling girls that worked in the guesthouse, while we are trying to recover from the journey.
I bailed on dinner after ordering it and having a few bites as the auld stomach was getting a bad case of the gurgles. Didn't go any further than that luckily.
(Vang Vieng - Laos - 08.03.2004) - Kip and buckets of water sorted the stomach out thankfully. No Arthur's Revenge for me :)
After breakfast (actually it was after our 'second breakfast' as Pippin would say), we decided to go off in the direction of the caves that Vang Vieng is famous for. Had to pay a tithe to cross this fairly rickety bamboo bridge across the Mekong. Walked about 2km, and finally found the Khan caves. A sign told us that we were expected to pay and entrance fee of LKP5000, but there was no one there to collect it, so we helped ourselves!
The entrance to the cave was mad stuff - climbing up a bamboo ladder, then down another one into the maw of chaos. Ok, it was pretty cool looking though. We followed the arrows into a low opening and walked into pure darkness. I had my maglite with me and lit up a small and dangerous-to-the-head cavern. I ducked below a sheet stalactite and nearly soiled myself upon seeing a rather creepy statue of Buddha which emerged out of the darkness as if by TGV. Took a picture as the face of the statue was not what you normally see. Slightly unsettling. That was the sum of that cave (unless you wanted to swing downwards on ropes etc.), so we exited stage left.
We left looking to find the Jang (or Chang) caves. We had to pay the bloodsucking bridge owners again, dodge a few dragster-style taxis, and head for the Vang Vieng Resort, though which you have to go to get to the caves.
The damn caves were closing as we arrived and there was a big outdoor party going on nearby. Thought at first it was a wedding, but none of them were dressed up. Presumed it was just a party for the hell of it. We sat and had a few BeerLaos, then were joined by three or four young Lao boys who were interested in our cameras. We took a few pictures of them and showed them the pictures. They nearly shat themselves with laughter.
The cheeky monkeys followed us the whole way back to town practically. Could hardly shake the feckers off. They were daycent auld skins however.
Had our evening nosh in a fabulous Indian restaurant called Nazim. The food was superb. It was richly complimented by the copious amounts of BeerLao ;0)
More to follow. We are just about to leave Australia for New Zealand, so I have yet to catch up on Vietnam, Cambodia Hong Kong and all of Oz, so bear with me! With all the rainy days expected in NZ, I'm sure I'll catch up eventually!
DM
Saturday, April 10, 2004
10.04.2004 - Airlie Beach (Australia) - Righto, you're all annoyed by the lack of updates. I know I know. Been busy y'see!?! Anyway, enough gay banter, here's some of the catchup comin' atcha right now...:
(Pakbeng > Luang Prabang - Laos - 04.03.2004) - We got to the boat "jetty" (i.e. we stretched from the rock over the water's edge onto the boat - there was not so much as a stick in the water to represent anything like a pier etc.). They must have heard our bitching because we were divided onto two boats this time. There were more Lao onboard this time. It seems the Lao share a trait with their Thai cousins - they love to hock major loogies and them deposit them noisily in the vicinity of away from themselves at high speed. Charmed I'm sure.
About 30 minutes away from Luang Prabang, the boat started suddenly doing a docking manouver. We discovered that we were stopping at a set of mad caves called the Pak Ou caves at a place called Tam Ting. It cost us a full LKP5000 (about EUR0.38!) to step off the boat and another 8000 then to go into the caves. It was peanuts really, but still seemed a little cheeky!
The Pak Ou caves were compact but really amazing. It is a limestone cave which formed a cave with a large opening facing toward the river. Some locals turned it into a Buddhist temple of sorts way back and since then, the devout have amassed Buddha statues numbering in the thousands. Very impressive.
About 30 minutes after that, we arrived into the town of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage City. Faced down most of the local flies all vying to get you to stay in their hovel for a 'dolla' a night. Went with one recommmended by two English girls we met when we got off the boat.
We all had a nice dinner down on Sisavong St. where the night market gets going after dark.
Two noisy girls arrived in about 03:00 and started roaring at each other. Then one went to the communal loo down the corridor and I swear I thought a caravan of elephants was going by. Followed by more shouting and giggling. Micaela lost the rag and went in to quieten them. She asked them to go to sleep and the harpie that opened the door to her said she couldn't sleep as it was proving too difficult for her. Must have given in to one of the many grass-selling touts hiding in the shadows outiside. They quietened down for an hour or two then one of the twats ran up and down the corridor banging on all the doors and trying to open all the doors. Slapperama.
(Luang Prabang - Laos - 05.03.2004) - Turns out those two girls (whom I thought were Brits) were from 'Norn Iron', to my shame. Still, they were filthy slappers of the highest order. Thank god I didn't actually set eyes on them or they would have gotten a beating.
Had brekky at the foot of the amusingly titled Phou Si Hill in central Luang Prabang. We were stopped by an 'old boy' (as Richie was calling all males over 40) calling himself Mr.Nou, who did personalised treks to "where other tours don't go". He had fairly decent english, but I thought he was really shifty, but Richie and Micaela thought he was pukka. As with all these dudes, he whipped out pictures taken of him and people he took off into the jungle to prove he wasn't a serial pederast! Just kidding. He probably was fine, but I was having none of it for my part.
We traipsed around the town visiting some of the many temples called Wats (Thailand, Cambodia) or Vats (Laos). After walking down a road crammed with the things, we went into and booked a one-day trek (for the following day) in the Luang Prabang area with a company called ActionMax, founded in Vietnam and run by a Frenchman. Looked really good.
We went to visit the former Royal Palace (L. Prabang used to be the Laos capital), but it was closing, but they recommended we see the nightly performance of traditional Lao drama. Bought tickets and went to see it. It was an enactment of a load of Lao legends and was completely acted (not voiced) while an orchestra of 6 and two singers sang the words to the drama. Pretty interesting.
Bought a "Let's Speak Lao" booklet in the night market afterwards so I could make conversation with the local people. Naturally, the only language you need here is dollars :-D
We were asked a number of times on the way back to our guesthouse whether we wanted any grass. These guys would come out of the dark ether at you without warning, scaring the crap out of you. Disconcerting to say the least.
Very cheap (and prarticularly good) beer, grass is freely available and the food is dynamite - my first visit to a communist country gives me a good feeling about communism!! Rock on guys...
Got to the tour place bang on time for our trek to the Laos outbak. Our guide's name was Sommai from Attapeu in the south. For someone who only learned his first word of ENglish last year sometime, he was doing pretty well! FIrst off we took a tuk-tuk to the hills and took a 2 hour trek across rural countryside, punctuated by small Hmong tribal villages. The Hmong are like the Lapplanders - one of those migrating peoples that still travel from Myanmar through to Vietnam and southern China with no fixed abode really.
The trek finished up at the Kuang Xi waterfall area, an amazing waterfall with a complex series of pools with very cold water. We all had a plunge after lunch and froze our nuts off. Micaela too thought it very cold. Actually, we could tell... he he...
Richie and I hiked up to the top where there was another series of pools overlooking the lower ones. Due to time constraints, I didn't get in. Richie did though.
When we got back to town, we showered and rushed to get to the top of Phou Si Hill for the sunset. Locals can go up for free, but tourists are charged LKP8000. For a communist country, that smacks just a teensy weensy bit of capitalism to me! Unfortunately, there was a lot of cloud cover so when we finally got settled up the top, it disappeared behind the clouds and that was it. Bugger.
Had eats and much needed BeerLao's in an excellent reataurant called Indochine. There was talk of monkey's falling from the sky later on. Can't remember why... ;-)
LaterZ
(Pakbeng > Luang Prabang - Laos - 04.03.2004) - We got to the boat "jetty" (i.e. we stretched from the rock over the water's edge onto the boat - there was not so much as a stick in the water to represent anything like a pier etc.). They must have heard our bitching because we were divided onto two boats this time. There were more Lao onboard this time. It seems the Lao share a trait with their Thai cousins - they love to hock major loogies and them deposit them noisily in the vicinity of away from themselves at high speed. Charmed I'm sure.
About 30 minutes away from Luang Prabang, the boat started suddenly doing a docking manouver. We discovered that we were stopping at a set of mad caves called the Pak Ou caves at a place called Tam Ting. It cost us a full LKP5000 (about EUR0.38!) to step off the boat and another 8000 then to go into the caves. It was peanuts really, but still seemed a little cheeky!
The Pak Ou caves were compact but really amazing. It is a limestone cave which formed a cave with a large opening facing toward the river. Some locals turned it into a Buddhist temple of sorts way back and since then, the devout have amassed Buddha statues numbering in the thousands. Very impressive.
About 30 minutes after that, we arrived into the town of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage City. Faced down most of the local flies all vying to get you to stay in their hovel for a 'dolla' a night. Went with one recommmended by two English girls we met when we got off the boat.
We all had a nice dinner down on Sisavong St. where the night market gets going after dark.
Two noisy girls arrived in about 03:00 and started roaring at each other. Then one went to the communal loo down the corridor and I swear I thought a caravan of elephants was going by. Followed by more shouting and giggling. Micaela lost the rag and went in to quieten them. She asked them to go to sleep and the harpie that opened the door to her said she couldn't sleep as it was proving too difficult for her. Must have given in to one of the many grass-selling touts hiding in the shadows outiside. They quietened down for an hour or two then one of the twats ran up and down the corridor banging on all the doors and trying to open all the doors. Slapperama.
(Luang Prabang - Laos - 05.03.2004) - Turns out those two girls (whom I thought were Brits) were from 'Norn Iron', to my shame. Still, they were filthy slappers of the highest order. Thank god I didn't actually set eyes on them or they would have gotten a beating.
Had brekky at the foot of the amusingly titled Phou Si Hill in central Luang Prabang. We were stopped by an 'old boy' (as Richie was calling all males over 40) calling himself Mr.Nou, who did personalised treks to "where other tours don't go". He had fairly decent english, but I thought he was really shifty, but Richie and Micaela thought he was pukka. As with all these dudes, he whipped out pictures taken of him and people he took off into the jungle to prove he wasn't a serial pederast! Just kidding. He probably was fine, but I was having none of it for my part.
We traipsed around the town visiting some of the many temples called Wats (Thailand, Cambodia) or Vats (Laos). After walking down a road crammed with the things, we went into and booked a one-day trek (for the following day) in the Luang Prabang area with a company called ActionMax, founded in Vietnam and run by a Frenchman. Looked really good.
We went to visit the former Royal Palace (L. Prabang used to be the Laos capital), but it was closing, but they recommended we see the nightly performance of traditional Lao drama. Bought tickets and went to see it. It was an enactment of a load of Lao legends and was completely acted (not voiced) while an orchestra of 6 and two singers sang the words to the drama. Pretty interesting.
Bought a "Let's Speak Lao" booklet in the night market afterwards so I could make conversation with the local people. Naturally, the only language you need here is dollars :-D
We were asked a number of times on the way back to our guesthouse whether we wanted any grass. These guys would come out of the dark ether at you without warning, scaring the crap out of you. Disconcerting to say the least.
Very cheap (and prarticularly good) beer, grass is freely available and the food is dynamite - my first visit to a communist country gives me a good feeling about communism!! Rock on guys...
Got to the tour place bang on time for our trek to the Laos outbak. Our guide's name was Sommai from Attapeu in the south. For someone who only learned his first word of ENglish last year sometime, he was doing pretty well! FIrst off we took a tuk-tuk to the hills and took a 2 hour trek across rural countryside, punctuated by small Hmong tribal villages. The Hmong are like the Lapplanders - one of those migrating peoples that still travel from Myanmar through to Vietnam and southern China with no fixed abode really.
The trek finished up at the Kuang Xi waterfall area, an amazing waterfall with a complex series of pools with very cold water. We all had a plunge after lunch and froze our nuts off. Micaela too thought it very cold. Actually, we could tell... he he...
Richie and I hiked up to the top where there was another series of pools overlooking the lower ones. Due to time constraints, I didn't get in. Richie did though.
When we got back to town, we showered and rushed to get to the top of Phou Si Hill for the sunset. Locals can go up for free, but tourists are charged LKP8000. For a communist country, that smacks just a teensy weensy bit of capitalism to me! Unfortunately, there was a lot of cloud cover so when we finally got settled up the top, it disappeared behind the clouds and that was it. Bugger.
Had eats and much needed BeerLao's in an excellent reataurant called Indochine. There was talk of monkey's falling from the sky later on. Can't remember why... ;-)
LaterZ
Friday, March 19, 2004
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
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
Thursday, February 19, 2004
16.02.2004 - Took an 07:20 taxi from the Cathay Hotel to the ferry port for the trip to Pulau Langkawi. The damned aircon on the ferry was stuck in cryogenic mode for the whole journey, making us shiver. The journey was uneventful otherwise.
A taxi tout took us to Pantai Cenang beach where we booked into the Amzar Beach Hotel for two nights. Quiet enough place but that suited us. Had lunch on the beachfront and then went for a swim followed by a light sunburning! Caught the sunset and went for eats in the German-run Beach Garden Resort mentioned in the LP for South-East Asia.
17.02.2004 - Got up early and hit the beach again about 10:30. Stayed until 12:00 or so as it was getting too hot and I was sheltering the previous days' sunburn. Had lunch in the Sandy Beach Resort then took a boat tour of the nearest islets of the S.W.Langkawi group. The guy just dumped all 7 of us on a deserted island and pissed off for 90 minutes! There was N O T H I N G to do there except wait for the plonker to come back. Luckily the rest of the tour was better - we saw rare brown eagles flying above a small bay (the boatman threw them some (frickin bones) chopped meat and they swooped down to get it; then we saw the hungry shark-like fish in a floating fish-farm; then lastly we were taken to a small island which has it's own fresh water lake. The fresh and very nreaby salt waters don't mix amazingly.
Had a full meal in the German breach resort place and a few cocktails too. Seemed only fair :) Lastly we got tickets for a ferry/bus journey from Cenang to Kuah port; landing in Satun in southern Thailand, then 7 hours to Phuket town on Phuket island.
18.02.2004 - Got the bus (well, a taxi) to Kuah, then a 60 minute trip to Satun. Had to set our watches back an hour as Thailand is an hour behind MY. We got our first 'saongthewn' (spelling?!) open-backed bus to some smal town where we were packed onto a tour bus which stopped briefly in another small town at about 13:00. Had some spicy fishy rice thing which was cool. Some toothless, local langer started talking to me and ended up giving me a frickin arm massage, which was actualy quite sore. He tried the same game with Micaela but she handily sidestepped him. Our bus was imminent again anyway.
The journey was long and hot, but we could see very marked differences with the southern muslim Thailand, which slowly gave way to much more buddhist Thailand towards Krabi. Each and every (buddhist) house, office, bar or restaurant has a little shrine outside which was nice. They resembled little buddhist temples.
We arrived in Phuket town eventally, dodged the taxi/hotel/pisshead touts and went to get some Thai Bahts out of the wall. The Baht it runnning at 49.6 to the Euro. Hoo hoo. Monopoly money really.
We got a samlor taxi to Ao Karon (Karon Bay) on the west side of the island and booked into the Karon Seaview Bungalows place. Seemed a little seedy at first then it was fine.
19.02.2004 - Went out onto the beach after touring the ridiculously priced markets (with plenty of fake big-brand clothing etc.) and lay on the beach for a few hours. You are obliged to rent a set of deckchairs with parasol for THB200 for the whole day. Not bad. Went in for a swim with waterproof sunblock on. Later in the evening it turned out that the parasol was crap and in fact I had become quite sunburned all over my front, from feet/legs to forehead. DOH! GOt some aloe vera gel and applied it liberally!
Had dinner/cocktails in the "B.J.Beach" resort (!?@%#?!) and watched the sunset. Cool. I got two CDs burnt of my 512Mb CF card. Groovy...
A taxi tout took us to Pantai Cenang beach where we booked into the Amzar Beach Hotel for two nights. Quiet enough place but that suited us. Had lunch on the beachfront and then went for a swim followed by a light sunburning! Caught the sunset and went for eats in the German-run Beach Garden Resort mentioned in the LP for South-East Asia.
17.02.2004 - Got up early and hit the beach again about 10:30. Stayed until 12:00 or so as it was getting too hot and I was sheltering the previous days' sunburn. Had lunch in the Sandy Beach Resort then took a boat tour of the nearest islets of the S.W.Langkawi group. The guy just dumped all 7 of us on a deserted island and pissed off for 90 minutes! There was N O T H I N G to do there except wait for the plonker to come back. Luckily the rest of the tour was better - we saw rare brown eagles flying above a small bay (the boatman threw them some (frickin bones) chopped meat and they swooped down to get it; then we saw the hungry shark-like fish in a floating fish-farm; then lastly we were taken to a small island which has it's own fresh water lake. The fresh and very nreaby salt waters don't mix amazingly.
Had a full meal in the German breach resort place and a few cocktails too. Seemed only fair :) Lastly we got tickets for a ferry/bus journey from Cenang to Kuah port; landing in Satun in southern Thailand, then 7 hours to Phuket town on Phuket island.
18.02.2004 - Got the bus (well, a taxi) to Kuah, then a 60 minute trip to Satun. Had to set our watches back an hour as Thailand is an hour behind MY. We got our first 'saongthewn' (spelling?!) open-backed bus to some smal town where we were packed onto a tour bus which stopped briefly in another small town at about 13:00. Had some spicy fishy rice thing which was cool. Some toothless, local langer started talking to me and ended up giving me a frickin arm massage, which was actualy quite sore. He tried the same game with Micaela but she handily sidestepped him. Our bus was imminent again anyway.
The journey was long and hot, but we could see very marked differences with the southern muslim Thailand, which slowly gave way to much more buddhist Thailand towards Krabi. Each and every (buddhist) house, office, bar or restaurant has a little shrine outside which was nice. They resembled little buddhist temples.
We arrived in Phuket town eventally, dodged the taxi/hotel/pisshead touts and went to get some Thai Bahts out of the wall. The Baht it runnning at 49.6 to the Euro. Hoo hoo. Monopoly money really.
We got a samlor taxi to Ao Karon (Karon Bay) on the west side of the island and booked into the Karon Seaview Bungalows place. Seemed a little seedy at first then it was fine.
19.02.2004 - Went out onto the beach after touring the ridiculously priced markets (with plenty of fake big-brand clothing etc.) and lay on the beach for a few hours. You are obliged to rent a set of deckchairs with parasol for THB200 for the whole day. Not bad. Went in for a swim with waterproof sunblock on. Later in the evening it turned out that the parasol was crap and in fact I had become quite sunburned all over my front, from feet/legs to forehead. DOH! GOt some aloe vera gel and applied it liberally!
Had dinner/cocktails in the "B.J.Beach" resort (!?@%#?!) and watched the sunset. Cool. I got two CDs burnt of my 512Mb CF card. Groovy...
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