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

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!!