While You Were Sleeping

It's really weird being 6 hours ahead, I've been out all morning whilst you lot have been in bed, I still haven't got my head around it yet.

Today we used a song-thaew for the first time (I won't even TRY and write it in thai-english, I'm guessing that's a phonetic spelling). It was a refreshing change from the tuk tuk drivers. Here's the view from the back of a song-thaew.

Sara in the back of the song-thaew

You flag them down in the street and you can either just tell him where you're going and jump in the back then pay 10 or 20 baht when you get out, or you can charter them and they work out pretty cheapie cheaps. We decided to go to the temple on the mount today, Doi Suthep, and the guy who picked us up was an old gent who said it would cost 400 baht between us there and back charter, which wasn't too bad we thought.

That's until he stopped halfway at a place where there were people selling souvenirs and drinks/food etc and began yelling out of the window at people. Oh no!! I thought the tuk tuk nightmare was happening all over again, but no, there was no pressure to get out and buy anything. All of a sudden a younger man appeared at the window.

'I take you, I take you'

After a couple of questioning looks from us he said 'I'm his son'

Ahhhhh, ok! After making sure we were still paying the same price we leapt in the back and he drove us up the mountain, the LONG winding road on the mountain.

We got to Doi Suthep pretty early, thank gawd, as we hadn't realised that there are two hundred and something steps to climb to the temple! Bastards! It's a beautiful temple and I bought a pack containing a lotus flower, 2 candles and 3 sticks of incense which are offerings to Buddha. When you enter temples you have to cover your shoulders and knees (and presumably your decolletage...the buddha does not likey bewbies), so I slung my scarf around myself and wandered in.

It's obviously a well visited temple, both by tourists and worshippers. The local people would circle the stupa and then kneel in front of the buddha and deliver their offerings. There are other touristy bits going on, check out these two...



The view would be better if the atmosphere wasn't so smoky...pollution is the keyword in SE Asia.

200 and something frigging steps!

Ring a bell 3 times for good luck

On the way back we decided to visit the waterfall, our song-thaew driver again dropped us and waited for us to come back. The falls are pretty dry at the moment, so we didn't spend too long about it. We were then driven home and prepared for the excess to be added to our fare for the extra stop.

'400 baht please'

Wow, I was in love with this man...he DID get a tip :D

This was good, I've now learned that not EVERYONE in Asia wants to rip you off!



As for this afternoon, I've spent it mostly eating....for lunch the spiciest soup I've EVER come across. In its defense it was named Spicy Beef soup with fresh chillies.....and for dinner we went to a vegetarian place and I had a fried rice dish with garlic, onions, shallots and spring onions....hoping it'll keep the bugs at bay. I didn't get bitten last night, fingers crossed for tonight.

Spicy red beef soup with fresh chillies...frigging heck

Mmmmm, Thai beer (Chang)

Apart from that, it was massage time, I opted for a foot massage and Sara went for a full thai massage. Mine was lovely and relaxing for the most part, except when she jammed her fingers in between my toes, and when she got this weird stick out and started poking my feet with it! Then, at the end she grabbed both of my feet, crossed one over the other and pushed all her bodyweight onto them, for a moment I thought she'd thought I'd asked for a foot binding (look it up..Japanese, not pleasant). Ouch!

Then she gave me a shoulder massage seemingly for free, though...massage didn't seem the best word to describe it...torture? Closer to the truth. I'm going to have finger bruises tomorrow, and at one point she put her forearms on my shoulders and all her bodyweight down on them, I could clearly feel her bewbies on the back of my head.

OUCH!!

Apparently Saras was more like seeing a grumpy osteopathist with a hangover, I'm not sure she'll be able to walk tomorrow after being thumped, twisted, bent and trodden on.

Seen Sara off today, back to Bangkok, and tomorrow I'm off on a 7 hour bus ride to Chiang Khong, overlooking the Mekong river and Laos...my next stop.

Chiang Khong is quite tiny with a population of 9000 but I should have web access there, if I don't then I'll update you in a few days, I'll be on a slowboat to Luang Phrabang for 2 days...watch how mental I get after that!

On the road ag'in.....xxxx

Hee hee hee

What I'll remember most about Chiang Mai: Song-thaews and TESCO lotus (yes....TESCO, I think the 'Lotus' is an attempt to asianify it).

Big Trouble in Little Thailand

Apparently, though I'd have known nothing of it had Sophia not text me yesterday.

You'll remember me mentioning seeing the red shirts around town in my last blog. Apparently at some point yesterday they stormed parliament, forcing MP's to take for the hills, and the PM declared a state of emergency in Bangkok.Ironic that I was mincing around in a city in a state of emergency without even noticing, only concerned with haggling the tuk tuk driver down to a sensible price for my journey!

Yus yus, Becki has done her first hagglement! Ok, so I only haggled him down from 200 baht to 140 baht, but not bad for a first go methinks, I'll be an expert by the time I come home.

Mind you, he turned out to be a right nutcase. The other two drivers I'd had had lulled me into a false sense of security. I have no idea what was written on his Thai drivers license, but I feel sure that it must have been something along the lines of 'Graduated from the Evil Knievel School of Motoring'. I just held on for dear life and hoped I would survive. For those of you who don't know what the view is like from inside a tuk tuk, here it is...this is one from my more sedate tuk tuk driver.


Anywhoo! I eventually made it to the station, in one piece, where he tried to take my 150baht without giving me change. Whereupon I grinned, made a 'give it here' gesture and said 'change!!', he just smiled and handed it over. I made it onto the train after a free-for all in the toilets...what's queuing?? The train was mad, check this out.


The 2 chairs slide together to make the bottom bunk, and the top bunk descends from above, curtains maintain our privacy. We ended up on this train for 18 hours!! Luckily we were asleep for much of it. It was supposed to be 15 hours, but we're running on Thai time people.

Chiang Mai is lovely, we made it to the SpicyThai hostel which lives up to its great name, free interwebs, free cable telly, free breakfast and the most helpful staff ever!

Sara and I (the Spanish girl I randomly met on the train who was heading for the Spicy Backpackers too) went temple wandering this afternoon, and I ate some wonderful food. Red snapper stir-fried with garlic and pepper, nom nom nom!!


These young monks were the first to the icecream man when he turned up...if Id know this is how they lived I'd have become a nun years ago!

Gorgeous dragons inlaid with stained glass guard the gates to the temple

Thank you Dave!

Oh huzzah! More upbeat than yesterday izzit?

Thank you to Dave for his suggestions of the Je Hoy Cafe and Ad Here the 13th Blues Bar. The food at the cafe was lovely, though there were two next to each other and whether I was at the correct one, or whether the same people run the both I have no idea.

I had prawns cooked with chilli, garlic and basil (100 baht), a chang beer (big one 60 baht) and a bottle of water (10 baht). The prawns came with rice and everything was a grand total of roughly $3.00, I'm forced to work in dollars because this keyboard has no pound sign....racialists!

The blues bar was excellent, I have pictures and a short video when I find somewhere that will let me upload it. A mojito, blue lagoon and (small) singha beer later ($8ish) I was wibbling home, it was about a 10 minute walk, but all in one direction. Let me tell you, when you land in a foreign country with 50% humidity and your physiology is still desperately trying to catch up.....DON'T go drinking, I didn't deserve this hangover, at least I don't think so.....

The music was good, and then a live band turned up, very good, lovely lovely. I finally did something with my time!!

I checked out this morning, and purchased some sexy purple 3/4 length fishermans pants. Those'll be nice for long train/plane/boat journies. I also got a very hippyish long sleeved cotton thingymabob for evenings and insect...bastards. They really like your ankles :(

So....now I'm just hanging out at the lodge and chilling until I get a taxi to the station, my train is at half 7 but I'll get there early to have a wander. I very cleverly forgot to bring an adaptor with me and so I'll look for one at the station, along with something to treat mossie bites, though they're not annoying me too much at the moment, and YES I am taking my pills mummy and daddy, I don't fancy malaria.

I'll leave you todays news from Bangkok:
The Red shirts (UDD, National United front of Democracy against Dictatorship - those of the blood) have taken up position in the main shopping district in Bangkok, thoroughly pissing off many people. Anti-riot police are there, but the army has taken a position of non-force, fearing that the use of force could result in violent clashes. On my lovely tuk tuk ride round the shops yesterday we went past this a few times, I wondered what on earth was going on...now I know.

Thailand are appealing to Jakarta for the release of around 100 members of a seafaring nomad tribe. They were passing through Indonesian territory in their traditional boats when they were arrested on fishing and trespassing offences. he reason I love this story is because I LOVE the idea that we still have seafaring nomads in this world, lets not pressure them to extinction too soon please. :)

Traditional nomad boat - pinisi

Breathe Becki....Breathe

I would if it wasn't so stifling HOT!

No matter how many times someone warns you how warm it will be, you're not prepared. Turns out I'm a sweater....shiny, sexy, oh yeah baby...oh yeah.

I'll be honest, I'm using my 2 days in Bangkok to essentially acclimatise myself to the 'culture' here. The reason I say 'culture' rather than culture is because I'm not referring to the gorgeous temples, architechture, palaces etc etc, I'm talking about the fact that everyone here seem to be after parting you from your money.

In my short time in Bangkok I've fallen for the 2 main tuk tuk scams, the ubiquitous overcharging, which isn't SO bad as it's still cheap by our standards. I didn't mind paying a bit more as it was my first trip and quite fun. The driver had pictures and stickers up all over the inside roof of his tuk tuk (I do have pictures and will get them up as soon the brain fug clears and I know what I'm doing). Then there's the less fun tuk tuk scam, the 'I'll take you to see the Standing Buddha and the lucky buddha....and then 4 of my mates shops...ok? I get free gas'. I didn't waste much money, but it's 2 hours of my trip stolen from me that I can't get back....and I HATE salesmen at the best of times. I tried as hard as I could not to get angry, it's the worst thing you can do, but I looked sufficiently pissed off by the end that he didn't try and charge me his fee :D

I'm looking at it as an education though...I won't fall for those tricks again! And what I have to be very careful of is not letting it sour me. I've spent the last couple of days in lethargy, getting used to the weather and being constantly sweaty, headache from an epic caffeine comedown (just remedied that with a cup of tea and can of coke), disorientation....and on top of it these guys are swindling me. Ag! I also have a touch of the jetlag, it's amazing what travel and time difference can do to you!

I was so tired last night that I went to bed at around 8:30ish,roughly arranged a mossie net around myself (to the least effect possible I'm sure!!) and drifted off under the fan. When I woke up it was about 10:30am and I thought....shite! Jumped up and into the shower. Whilst my brain was busy processing whatever it was processing I didn't notice that it was dark outside. When I DID notice it was dark outside, all I thought was 'oh, they don't tell you it's still dark at 11am in the morning in all the books'. In fact, I was out of the guesthouse and halfway down the road before it struck me.....maybe it was 11:30 in the evening...not the morning.

Just maybe....

I still wasn't convinced and actually sat in my bed reading for a while to see whether it got any lighter.

What a penis.

Whilst I'm orientating myself I'm mostly hiding out in my guesthouse the Shanti Lodge, which does wonderful food (thanks Fabrice) and is just a short walk from Khao San Road if you know where you're going. Thank gawd for Shanti Lodge. The only problem I've found is that because it's out of the way and quiet (and possibly because it's not 'in season', I've not met many people yet, they're mostly couples.

One thing I am DETERMINED to achieve whilst I'm here is visiting the Blues Bar and Jok cafe that Dave recommended to me, I can't let the whole 2 days in Bangkok pass in a lethargic blur. I'm doing that tonight.

I'm sorry to say that I probably won't see any of the great things that Bangkok has to offer, seeing as I'm leaving for Chiang Mai tomorrow on the train (A/C thank gawd), but it was never one of the places I was really looking forward to anyway, roll on the rest of SE Asia. I'm looking forward to Chiang Mai, as the cultural capital I suspect it has more soul, and by all accounts it's cooler too! That HAS to be made of win. Also, staying in dorms, it'll be hard to avoid meeting people.

Goodbye Bankok, and thanks for the education....moving on....to better, happier blog posts with pictures!!

Tarrah for now everyboday xxx

The thing I'll remember most about Bangkok: Bright pink taxicabs!!

What a Massive Bird!

Is what I thought as I walked into the departure lounge. Apparently I was about to step onto a two tier boeing 747....lets face it, I'l never get to the top tier...so I'll just worship it from afar.

I'm flying with Qantas today, and it's a lovely sparse flight. Spare enough that the gentleman I'm sharing my little bank of seats with and I have a 'breathing seat' between us, which has been taken up by various items and body parts at various stages of the journey.

Arms and legs...minds out of the gutter please!

the annoying couple behind us (whose latest endeavour involves seeing how many times they can push the blind up and down on the window in 30 seconds, waking 50% of fellow passengers up, causing the other 50% to go blind, and causing at least 16 epileptic fits) managed to wage a seemingly well-meaning hate campaign upon their young row-neighbour.

It began with psychological warfare, the conversational version of water torture, amd so when the 'kindly old lady got up to find him some of his own space and was successful, he was almost apopleptic in his joy as he launched himself across the plane. It's a shame that for purposes of balance he has to return to his seat at the end of the flight.

As I type I can smell a pooey scent wafting by. I DO hope that's coming from the toilets and not from me. I know that long haul travel plays hell with my bowels, but surely we haven't reached this stage yet.

The food is surprisingly god, though I suspect they're trying to fatten us up...although I haven't figured out their motive yet.... inner was good, 3 courses, tabbouleh salad for starter, chicken in taragon sauce with roaties and green veg for mains (I got the last chicken! Hope you enjoy your porky goo-lash suckers!!), and 'eton mess' for dessert (jam with vanilla foam on top..pavlova my arse!)

Then Tea/coffee

Then...randomly....hot chocolate or peppermint tea

THEn not ten minutes later a goodie bag comes round containing, along with a bottle of water, a mars bar, polos and a Byron Bay fig and pecan cookie. FIG and PECAN? If you're gonna do it, do it right..no token gestures towards health please.

If I'd known I was getting polos I wouldn't have bothered with the peppermint tea.

I also suspect they're trying to hydrate us to death, they keep stalking around in the dark with torches, illuminating the big jug of water they're carying. It's really quite sinister.

So 6:30am in the UK and I reckon about 4 hours left in the air for me, though you won't get this until (now) later when I have net connection..poor things. Those last four hours will probably consist mostly of the flight attendants filling us with tea and coffee and then watching the queues for the loos grow...taking bets on who'l pee themselves first.

LATER! Updates on whether or not Becki crapped her pants and her first day in Bangkok...hopefully with pictures..tuk tuk hell...

Mosquito Repellent?

I've been doing a bit of research into natural mosquito repellents. Initially I was happy to go along with the DEET, it seems to be most peoples recommendation when it comes to keeping beasties at bay.

After looking into it, DEET seems to be nasty stuff. It's a solvent, and apparently it can dissolve some plastics, and spandex. I can't be doing with that, my yellow catsuit will never survive. For something present in low concentrations in many insect repellents, it's actually recommended that you don't expose your skin to it directly too often, it can cause irritation and reactions.

Oh and don't use it in or near water because it MAY be toxic to some aquatic animals.

Oh.....and, you know....wash it off when you don't need it....it's nasty stuff.

So, I want something a bit better for me and for the environment. Problem is, whatever it is is gonna make me stink!

I've come across some weird and wonderful suggestions. I think the best ones must be Vicks Vapour Rub and Listerine (I actually have a travel-size listerine and spray bottle...just incase nothing else works).

Here are some of the more sensible suggestions:

Garlic! You can use this in a number of ways, I'll go through them in order of descending stinkiness. Some people swear by actually squeezing a fresh clove and rubbing it on wrists and around ankles. Hmmmm. Others suggest just eating a decent quantity of garlic, and others suggest taking an odourless garlic supplement. I'm unsure whether the last one would work, as it's the stink that keeps the insects (and fellow travellers if you're not careful) away.

Vitamin B1. Apparently for some people 100mg tablet of vitamin B1 a day works really well. Again, it creates a smell that is repellent to the beasties. I live in optimism that it's undetectable to humans! Some people say that they've tried it and it doesn't work at all, I guess it's down to peoples individual physiology, some people may exude substance through the skin more effectively than others. Judging by the scummy state I'm in the morning after a heavy session...I'm thinking I do that quite well!

Lemon and Lime. I asked Wilfy for his advice, having grown up in Pakistan and travelled the world with the navy. After immediately mentioning garlic, he then said lime. I've heard that lemon performs similarly. I may purchase some citrus fruits and rub myself all up with them ;o). Kinky eh? Anythings gotta be better than taking a raw garlic bath.


Essential oils. There are a LOT of essential oils that are mentioned in relation to keeping the insects at bay, some better for your skin than others. The four main oils I seem to keep coming across are citronella, lavender, lemongrass and eucalyptus. Mix them up with olive oil/water in a spray bottle and voila! Homemade repellent.


Apart from this it seems that you shouldn't use perfumed anything, or perfume itself...these nice scents attract the beasties!

So! I have decided I'm going to:

• Invest in some essential oils


• Eat tonnes of garlic...nom nom nom


• Start taking vitamin B1 on Friday

And turn to the listerine if all else fails (natural??)

If I was a kind and sweet person, I'd try them all one at a time so that I could see which work and which fail, then let you know what the findings are. I'm not kind and sweet and I hate mossie bites so I'm going all out.

Wish me luck, and if you have any natural remedies that have never failed you, let me know :o)

I wonder if they sell Vicks in Cambodia??.....

Keep your eyes peeled

This blog will be well and truely coming to life over the next few months.

I'm travelling South East Asia for 3 months, starting in Thailand and visiting Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and then finishing off visiting a mate for a week in Sydney.

Watch this here space :D xx