Day 28 - 30: Slow boat to Luang Prabang

We arrived in Luang Prabang yesterday afternoon after a 2 day journey in a slow boat up the Mekong. The alternative was either a bus or a speedboat. Having been on plenty of buses, and having both read horror stories about the speedboats and also seen them in action (incredibly noisy, passengers wearing helmets, cramped space for 8 people...) we chose the slow boat option.

We ate breakfast at the slow boat pier and had a bit of a giggle at some of the English translations on the "Free Stye" menu. These included "Friced noodle on the face" and "Friced Tiger Cry". Both of which sound pretty rare, and possibly tasty and/or painful:

There were plenty of people on the boat, but it wasn't too cramped and was relatively comfortable. Thankfully I brought a travel pillow after reading the guidebook; even though the seats were well padded, my arse is mainly bone and so after about 3 hours I was glad of the extra padding. The views up the Mekong are mainly jungle on either side, but we got a few shots on the first day.

We stopped at Pekbang in the evening, as the slow boats don't travel the river in the evening. This is a tiny little town which has developed mainly because of the slow boat stop and consequently has a decent array of competitively-priced places to eat and stay. We picked Vatsana courtesy of Trip Advisor, and were thankful - they had the softest, largest, most comfortable bed we'd slept in since starting our trip. We ate at a restaurant two doors down; nothing special, but I did get to try fried buffalo which was pretty good.

The second day we trundled back onto the boat for 8:30am and the weather was appalling with rain all day long. The boat was different to the first day, only had one toilet instead of two, and had a leaky roof. Lev and I put our joint IT skills together to craft a makeshift gutter using duct tape and plastic bags:

Perhaps we should have stuck to IT.

Some more shots from the second day:

Luckily, things had cleared up by the time we hit the Luang Prabang pier at about 4pm so we had a wander around the city, scouting for accommodation. The first thing we noticed was the price difference between Laos and Thailand. We were used to most guesthouses charging between 200 and 400 baht (4 - 8 GBP) but in Laos there is a lot of competition - much undeserved - between boutique guesthouses which charge in US dollars, where prices start at about $25 (17 GBP) and rise to anything up to $50 per night. We managed to track down one in our budget called Sokdee Guesthouse, for 70,000 kip (~ 5.60 GBP) and it was a fairly comfortable, very quiet place with free internet access chucked in. Julie and Lev joined us there and at night we all wandered over to the night market, a huge handicraft market which stretched on for what seemed like a good mile. Just off the market was a decent sized food court, where you could load up a plate of various veg, noodles, rice, crackers and other gubbins for about 60p, and then stick a freshly BBQ'd half chicken on for an extra 90p or a rack of pork ribs for 60p. Suffice to say, we were completely stuffed last night after the meal. Having said that, we managed to find room for an orange sponge cake on the way back to the guesthouse.

Today we went two doors down for breakfast at Saffron which was excellent, and then had a wander along the Mekong to the coast. Luang Prabang is surrounded by water on 3 sides, and is a pretty small city. You could comfortably walk the entire length of the old town in an hour. We stopped in a few wats (you can never get enough of wats, right?) including the city's heritage site - Wat Xieng Thong.

We ate at Morning Glory cafe for lunch, a lovely little spot with views over the Nam Khan river. A couple of fruit shakes and a shared large chicken, bacon and salad baguette, and we were ready to carry on. After some further scouting around, I found a new guesthouse (Soutikone) for 4.80 GBP per night which has massive, nicely furnished rooms, and is in an area we will be exploring over the next couple of days. We also booked a meal for tomorrow at Tamarind which is supposed to be one of the nicest restaurants in the city. Cheap accommodation means we can spend more on lovely food!

Tomorrow we will be visiting Big Brother Mouse. This is an education establishment that helps promote literacy amongst Lao people, and they have sessions at 9am - 11am where English-speaking volunteers can come in and help Lao students improve their English, both reading and speaking. This will be a great way for us to give something to the community, coming from a comparatively privileged western background, and also allow us to interact with local people and improve our own language skills. I'm really looking forward to it!

Day 25 - 27: The Gibbon Experience

At 9am we piled into the Gibbon Experience office for the pre-event safety briefing. There were about 16 people in total, but we would eventually split into 3 groups: the people doing one-day treks, and two other groups of 5 and 6 people doing the 2 night/3 day treks. We were in a group with 2 Russians (Inessa and Orla) and two Russian-Americans (Lev and Julie). All 4 of them were great fun for the entire trip, and we were pretty lucky to get a good group.

The first day started with a 3 hour drive to the base camp/village and then a 1.5 hour hike, mostly uphill, to our treehouse. We had lunch (chicken baguettes - yum) and did a couple of ziplines before we got there, and the views were superb. Gilly managed to acquire the first leech of the trip on her foot. Leeches turned out to be a common occurrence throughout the 3 days, and they are disgusting, slimy things but pretty harmless (other than the blood "donation" you provide). Spraying DEET on them soon sorts them out.

We'd heard that Treehouse 1 was the best in terms of "luxury" so we'd requested that - we weren't disappointed. Rosewood floors, clean running water, spotless mattresses and linen...it was superb. There was also a cold water shower which was refreshing after a hard day's slog and the view from the bathroom is probably one of the best you'll find in the world. Each couple had a floor to themselves so we weren't cramped for space, and the dining area was equally fantastic. It took 10 people 8 months to build this treehouse, and then they had to rebuild it once after some berk left a candle lit when they went to bed, and managed to burn half of it down - hence why it was newer and nicer than the rest.

Once we'd arrived, that was pretty much it for the first day. It was pushing 4pm, and at about 5pm a canopying old Lao lady ziplined over with our dinner, which was a tiffin filled with pork curry, rice and various vegetables. Considering this is all cooked in the jungle, it tasted great. We also got given a bottle of wine to share between the 6 of us. I can't vouch for the vintage as it was Laos-made, but it tasted vaguely winey and we think it may have been plum. Gilly and I taught the two Russian girls (with help from Lev and Julie) how to play Uno, the other 4 taught us how to play Durak (translates as "fool") which apparently all Russian people know how to play, and we hit the sack at about 9:30pm.

Let me be clear - although it is called the Gibbon Experience, we didn't expect to see any gibbons. This was prevalent in all of the reviews we read beforehand. If we got to hear gibbons singing to each other, that was apparently rare too, so our expectations were realistic. As it turned out we didn't see any gibbons for the whole time we were out there, but we did hear them singing both mornings. It was an eerie, beautiful sound, and when coupled with the mist that spread over the jungle after dawn and until about 9am, it made for an ethereal experience.

The next day the canopying granny brought over breakfast - rice, vegetables and omelette. Those privy to my food habits will know I am not partial to eggs, actively avoiding them where possible. However, I have now been converted to omelettes and will consider myself an omelette eater should anyone wish to put it on record. This was down to a number of things: sheer hunger, a lack of choice, and desperation to eat something other than the ubiquitous rice that accompanied every meal. Boiled eggs, scrambled eggs and fried eggs are all still off the table though, and will remain so.

Breakfast was followed by a long trek to the various other treehouses around the jungle. They were all comfortably laid out, but none of them were as nice as ours - I was glad we had settled on Treehouse 1. We got around by alternate 20-30 minute walks followed by 1 or 2 ziplines. They were excellent fun, and if the treks between them were smaller, I would be happy ziplining all day. I took a couple of videos of the journey across one; I will probably upload them at some point when I find an internet cafe with a decent upload speed. At present I'm happy to find a computer that actually works.

We got back to the treehouse at 4pm, when we had "lunch" of vegetables, rice and some more vegetables, and supergran arrived an hour later with dinner (basically the same thing we had for breakfast - omelette et al). A bit of forethought from the organisers would have us take lunch in one of the treehouses we stopped at rather than leave it so late and then overwhelm us with two meals in an hour.

Something that the organisers also need to address more urgently is the total lack of medical supplies. We knew we had to pack our own mosquito repellant and sun cream but we assumed - wrongly - that there would be a first aid kit for scrapes, etc. This is not the case. If you injure yourself out there, you have nothing available to help you. It's a case of physician, heal thyself. And when this particular physician was only packing plasters (and these, only courtesy of his wonderful girlfriend), taking the top layer off the heel of my hand whilst ziplining was probably not a good idea. I just had to wash it and hope not to get it infected. Similarly, Julie fell down the stairs in the evening on the way to the bathroom and luckily only bruised her coccyx...if she had broken anything, it was 10pm at night and the guide didn't stay anywhere near the treehouse. There are no procedures for emergencies, and upon questioning I was told by the guide (Noushon) that their boss did have some medical kit in the treehouses a couple of months ago but didn't buy any more for whatever reason. This seems incredible to me, especially as there is a pharmacy attached to the Gibbon Experience tour shop. If you are considering doing this trip, pack everything you think you will need medically, and hope that you don't get anything more than aching legs.

As it happened, I also managed to get two leeches in the day, both of which munched on the skin between my toes before getting full and falling off. Cheeky gits. The problem is, they have an anti-coagulant which stops the blood from clotting, so I spent a good two hours with blood seeping into my sandals. Thankfully, and I'm thankful pretty much every day for them, my Keen sandals are waterproof so I just chucked them under the shower when I got back. Newport H2 sandals are amazing. They have all the benefits of hiking shoes but don't smell, are breathable, and are comfortable enough to wear all day.

That night we were woken up by the sound of tree rats fighting outside our bedroom. We'd seen one of them in the rubbish bag in the kitchen, but they are fairly skittish and didn't bother us. If I'd been more awake I would have got up and thrown something at them but as it turned out they shut up after about 5 minutes of squealing.

The next day we left after more omelette for breakfast and took our last few ziplines back to the village, then took a truck to a restaurant for lunch (after a brief stop to pull the second truck out of a mud road ditch) before heading back to Houay Xai.

I can definitely recommend the experience but with the caveats mentioned above regarding medical supplies. The company would also benefit from investing in English lessons for their guides. They could speak basic English, but this was all self-taught; on guide whose English was very good had learned it from speaking to tourists and reading a dictionary. Proviing lessons will allow them to explain more about the different plants and animals in the jungle; they were keen to do so but simply didn't have the vocabulary.

We went to eat at My Laos restaurant at night again (our third visit) and I had the excellent fried fish with chilli which Gilly had on our first night. Our guesthouse was Arimid but I couldn't recommend it. The owner is called Mr. Singhkam and is a retired French professor, and is one of the nicest Lao you'll meet. However, the room was a cramped basic affair with hard beds and dodgy wiring. Consequently, sleep was fitful.

Tomorrow we are catching a slow boat to Luang Prabang which takes two days with a stop at night in Pekbang. 5 hours on a cramped boat will be hot and unpleasant but will offer great views and the chance to meet more people.

The Experience in Photos: Yeepeng Lantern Festival

A few pics from the lantern festival on October 29th, 2011 in Chiang Mai:

Day 23 - 24: Arrival in Houay Xai, Laos

We took a bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Kong and then crossed the border to Houay Xai yesterday. We're now officially in Laos. Houay Xai is a very quiet town. It maks Kanchanaburi look like Soho. This is probably because few people actually stay here; it's more of a dropping off point before they jump on a slow boat to Luang Prabang.

We decided to stay and book onto the Gibbon Experience. This looks great fun - like Go Ape, but actually sleeping in treehouses, and ziplining for a large part of the day between areas. We decided to go for the Classic trek (1.5 hours walking per day) rather than the Waterfall trek (4 - 5 hours walking per day). We'd already had our fill of walking in Chiang Mai so wanted to spend the time doing ziplining instead. We are setting off tomorrow for a 3 night/2 day excursion, and can't wait. We have no illusions about seeing any gibbons - the chances are remote - but we're just going for the ride and the scenery. If we see some primates, so much the better. There are tales of spiders in the treehouses as big as your fist, and people waking up to find rats sleeping on their face, so this promises to be quite exciting. Gilly in particular cannot wait for the chance to have a siesta with added vermin.

There is really not much else going on here. There are a handful of bars, a couple of decent eateries ("My Laos" is excellent), and the place we're staying (Sabaydee guesthouse) is spotless, huge, and has excellent views. I will hopefully have more to talk about when we return on the 7th, but for now I leave you with a couple of snaps from the area:

View over Huay Xai (Thailand in the background):

View from our room 1:

View from our room 2:

Last night's moon from the bar:

Day 20 - 22: Chiang Rai Hilltribe Museum, White Temple and Black House

It's been a busy but enjoyable three days. Chiang Rai was our destination after Chiang Mai, and it's an odd little city which mixes the western bar vibe of Kanchanaburi with more traditional Thai aspects. The centre is quite small and we soon became familiar with the layout, unlike Chiang Mai which boasted a dizzying number of sois (side treets) and where you could quickly lose your bearings.

The first place we hit was a small museum dedicated to the hilltribes of Thailand, and which also provided some insight into the opium trade over the centuries. For instance, I didn't realise that we took control of Hong Kong becase Britain defeated China in a war over opium (we wanted to keep trading it, they wanted to ban trade of it as they considered it dangerous). Similarly, we learned that the longneck Karen people (Paduang) you may have seen with elongated necks covered in rings are actually Burmese refugees who have been presented with the choie of deportation back to Burma, or working in tourist zoos for people to stare at and take pictures. It's both shocking and saddening, and like the Death Railway museums we saw, makes you wonder about our humanity. Unlike the railway though, this is still happening to the Paduang and all I can say is that under no circumstances should you encourage this kind of barbarism by visiting their "camp" on a tour - it would only cause their masters to exploit them further.

We ate at a roadside cafe the first night for the princely sum of 60 baht (£1.20). I had a green chicken curry with which I was also offered some small dark cubes of something the server described as "but". I thought it was tofu of some variant, but when I cut into a cube, it looked suspiciously like liver. Then I realised that she was actually offering me "blood". Yummy. I gave it a try regardless, it didn't really taste of anything - possibly because I was trying to swallow it as fast as possible to avoid any potential nastiness. I didn't die, so I guess it was OK. Gilly went for a fish curry but forgot to ask about the spice level and consequently spent the meal suffering from heat sweats. She won't be making that mistake again. to make up for it, we decided to try out Swensen's ice cream parlour. We'd seen a couple of these in Thailand but didn't want to get too "westernised" when we first arrived so never ate there. This was a mistake. They do unbelievable good ice creams and desserts; I went for a stcky chocolate sundae, whilst Gilly opted for a waffle filld with banana and three different types of ice cream. Sadly we didn't have our cameras to take photos, so we may have to visit again to rectify the situation...

The next day we went to the White Temple, a phenomenally impressive work of art set in immaculate grounds. All sweeping Gothic spires and pristine white carvings of the grotesque and fantastical, it looked like a twisted version of a Gaudi building, covered in icing. The photos don't do it justice, but there a few at the bottom of the post to give you an idea.

The whole place is the brainchild of Chalermchai Khositpipat an incredibly prolific artist and sculptor who at his peak was churning out 200 works a year. A little eccentric by all accounts, he has the plan for the finished grounds completed and expects his masterpiece to be ready in 2070, long after his death. He has about 60 acolytes working who he is training in his unique style. And I do mean unique - where else can you find art that mixes Buddhist iconography and modern-day characters such as Superman, Harry Potter, Spiderman and the Predator within its murals? If you see one sight in Chiang Rai, make sure it's the White Temple.

We ate last night at da Vinci's after getting another craving for some western food. We shared a huge pizza from their wood-fired pizza oven, and a massive mixed salad that came with a mountain of bread, all enjoyable. I would suggest if you want something different, go down the street to Aye's; they are part of the same chain and we saw people ordering food from da Vinci's having it delivered by a guy from Aye's, presumbly after it was cooked there. Very odd.

Today we went to the polar opposite of the White Temple: the Black House. Created by another famous Thai artist Thawan Duchanee, the contrast to to the first location couldn't have been starker. Here, everything was horns, skulls, pelts and dark teak. Stone carvings were weathered, and the teak buildings were strewn haphazardly over the grounds. It had a more organic feel than the White Temple, but I still preferred the clean lines and more intricate attention to detail of the former site. That's not to say the Black House isn't worth visiting, far from it. A tuk tuk there will cost about 250 baht, but go after 1pm as they close for lunch between 12 and 1.

And this almost concludes travels around our first country. Tomorrow we are getting a bus to Chiang Kong and then crossing the border to Huay Xai in Laos. Our first stint in Thailand has been very, very enjoyable. The people, food, sights....all fantastic. I can only hope the rest of SE Asia is as fun!

White Temple:

Black House:

Day 19 - Chiang Mai Thai Cooking Class

We decided to learn how to cook Thai food, following a recommendation from Hayley. This was a fortuitous decision as the day was overcast and then started to rain later on, whilst we were a good half hour away from Chiang Mai on the Thai Farm. Before that though, our amiable teacher, Turian (don't snigger, Mass Effect fans) had taken us tp the local market and explained the various rices and sauces we will be using in the class. We then drove to the farm itself, and were given a tour of the well-stocked garden, as Turian showed us all of the organic vegetables and herbs used in the dishes we would be preparing. The menus we selected were:

Rob:
- Tom Yam soup with shrimp
- Green chicken curry
- Stir-fry chicken with basil
- Spring rolls
- Bananas in coconut milk

Gilly:
- Thai vegetable soup
- Yellow chicken curry
- Stir-fry chicken with cashew nuts
- Pad Thai
- Mango with sticky rice

We picked a few things from the garden, but the majority of the ingredients were ready for us to start chopping and using courtesy of the frighteningly efficient farm staff.

It turns out that Thai food is very easy to make. Stir-fry chicken with basil literally took 5 minutes to chop the stuff and about 3 minutes to cook. The soup was even quicker, and the bananas were literally a minute. The only thing that took me any time was the curry - I had to make my own green curry paste by smashing stuff up with a pestle and mortar, mix it with the chicken, then chuck the whole lot in a pan with veg and water. Dead simple really. It tasted far, far better than the stuff we get in jars back home. Also, people who know me will know that I hate soup. Hate it. Today was no exception, even though I made it myself. I dislike pretty much any food you have to drink. Soup, custard...no thanks. Hopefully this will put to rest any badgering to try more soup from Gilly - if I don't like the stuff I make myself, there's no hope.

Anyway, here's some before and after shots for posterity:

Soup (before and after)

Green curry (before and after)

Stir-fry chicken with basil (before and after)

It turns out that I'm not very good at making spring rolls despite my best efforts. The cornpaper simply wouldn't stick, no matter how much egg I used. Turian kept saying "spring roll FAIL" which was amusing, if hurtful. I jest, she was fantastic and incredibly patient with us all.

Of course, we ate pretty much everything we made so by the time the course finished at 4pm, we were completely stuffed and still had some Pad Thai and spring rolls left over to snack on in the evening.

We had a fantastic time, and I can highly recommend Thai Farm to anyone visiting Chiang Mai!

Day 18 - Yeepeng Lantern Festival

October 29th was a rollercoaster of a day. We'd heard from one of the girls that a lantern festival was happening somewhere near a university, but after a bit of research by her boyfriend, it turned out that it was a fairly closed religious festival and that the monks were not keen on tourists going along to it. We had also heard that a more open event was taking place by the Three Kings monument. After a bit of thought we decided to go to the monument. There were lanterns there but after investigation with some locals it turned out they were in preparation for the "main" lantern festival on November 10. Dilemma! Further soul-searching abounded and we decided to risk it and head to the festival at Mae Jo university. I thought it would be worth checking with Dao (hereafter known as Magnificent Dao) at the Libra; it turned out that she had already organised 3 bus loads of people to go there! Tourist-free festival my arse. Magnificent Dao leapt into action, flagging down a songthaew (red pickup taxi thing) and negotiating a 200 baht return journey for each of us - Gilly and I, Hayley, James (an English guy Hayley met on a cooking course) and Nevo, an Israeli guy we struck up a conversation with in our guesthouse at lunch.

The journey was an exercise in frustration. We got about 1.5 miles away from the entrance and hit masses of traffic, mainly songthaews full of farangs (foreigners) and dozens and dozens of bikes and scooters weaving in and out of them, slowing things down. It was about 7pm and had got dark, and we needed to stay in the songthaew in order to find out where he was going to park in order to get back to him when we left. There followed a torturous journey around lane after lane of grass paths as the driver was directed from one traffic helper to another. We could see the lanterns being released into the sky a mere 300m away but were helpless to get closer. We finally ended up in a pitch dark field, and had to work our way back to the festival entrance. Fortunately Nevo had brought a torch, but it didn't stop my ankles being made a meal of by whatever biting things we were walking through in the field.

It was worth it though; once we got to the festival, we were treated to a breathtaking show of fire. Thousands of torches lit the ground, their flames being used for people to light lanterns to release. Jaunty music was piped out of huge speakers, and the area was covered with people, Thai and farang alike, taking pictures. The atmosphere was one of both calm and awe, with monks and non-monks alike mixing to light lanterns. It didn't feel like we were intruding at all, indeed it seemed like tourists (and their cash) were expected and welcomed. I love playing with fire so was more than happy to take the opportunity to buy, light and release two lanterns with Gilly, and watch them join the multitude of others in the night sky.

The festival music stopped at about 9:30 so we found our way back to the songthaew with some acrobatics over a gate which was previously open and now locked, and went back to the guesthouse road. We grabbed some great food from Chiang Chabaad Cocktail Bar, just round the corner (massaman curry for me, yellow curry for Gilly) and turned in for the night, relieved that we hadn't missed a fantastic evening.

Day 17 - Chiang Mai Halloween Party

After enjoying a lazy day after the trek, we went to town and splashed out on some Italian food in the evening at Pum Pui. Garlic bread to start was followed by a basket of complementary bread, a massive pizza for me, and a huge bowl of pasta for Gilly, washed down with a half-litre carafe of white wine, all for 16 quid. We felt like splurging on some western food; I love Thai food to bits, but there's only so many stir fries and curries you can eat without craving something a bit more homely.

Yesterday we decided to be a bit more active and walked the best part of 5km to the Chiang Mai University Art Museum in the baking heat. We were almost wilting when we arrived, with the mercury close to 32 C. The art was a little all over the shop, and not really our thing (it was a gallery of exhibits made from recycled / raw materials - noble, but a bit bland). It killed a couple of hours though. On the way back we found an excellent little art cafe called Minimal which had some superb photos in, and made the trip that little bit more worthwhile. After stopping off for a customary Cornetto lunch (ice cream lunches are the best) we headed back to the guesthouse to hit the pool and cool off. Typically, the minute my toes touched the water, the clouds gathered and the temperature dropped about 5 degrees. I can't get a break. We said goodbye to the two Pauls and two Toms who were heading out to Laos on a 16 hour minibus drive - something we'll be avoiding, methinks - and then went over to Hayley's guesthouse (Kavil) for some food.

A couple of the ladies that run the guesthouse were heading out for a Halloween party, and invited us to join them. They cracked open a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label and were liberally sharing it around. When I say liberally, I mean that by the time we left the guesthouse, there was only half a bottle left. The owner was a lady called Eve, and she was joined by a younger girl named Benny. They were both completely nuts, and had a fantastic sense of humour. We also saw Max - Eve's younger brother - who was painting a mural in one of the back rooms, which looked stunning. The food at Kavil is great; we shared a plate of chicken with cashew nuts, a penang curry, and a pad thai between 3 of us, with a plate of spring rolls to finish, all cooked from scratch. To say we were stuffed would be an understatement.

We weren't planning on doing much that evening, but have taken the attitude of trying to say "yes" to any invitations we get, in order to broaden our experiences and meet new people. So after food, we waddled out towards the Halloween party which was a good 3km away, whilst Eve cajoled a group of German guys en route to join us. Fortunately, the rest of the Johnnie Walker had made its way into some plastic bottles mixed with water to ensure we didn't get thirsty on the way(!). I love whisky, but generally only when it's neat or - at a push - on the rocks. So this watered down stuff tasted pretty bad, but it's probably for the best as I wanted to have my wits about me in case the club was dodgy. There was nothing to worry about as it turned out, and we were treated to a club full of the most amazing costumes we'd ever seen. The creativity that went into some of these was insane.

Unfortunately the music was dire (I believe it was "techno" but to me it was just a very loud, bassy beat/noise) and it meant that we only stayed for an hour or so before grabbing a tuk-tuk ride/crazy death-trap adventure back to the guesthouse. Tomorrow we will be taking it easy in the daytime before heading to a lantern festival in the evening.

Below are a selection of the best pics from the evening:

Day 14 - 16: Chiang Mai Trekking and a Rest Day

We spent a wonderful, if exhausting, two days trekking near some Chiang Mai villages. After booking it through our guesthouse (Libra), we got up at 7:30am and headed straight to Mork Fa waterfall, which was magnificent. I think I preferred it to Erawan waterfall, it seemed a lot less touristy. In fact, we didn't see another tourist or group for the entire trip - one of the reasons we went with Libra. After the waterfall, we went to a hot spring which was incredibly hot - we couldn't sit down in it for more than 5 minutes without getting cooked. The amount of heat that is generated by a geyser is amazing, I wasn't expecting it at all. Once we were done there, the actual trekking started. This was tough. It took us about 3 and a half hours of walking through jungle, with 4 - 5 five minute breaks. Most of it was hilly (up and down) and whilst the distance to our destination as the crow flies was 9km, we must have walked a good 11-12km, if not more due to the path we took. The heat was sweltering, and we were thankful that most of the walking was out of the direct sunlight, as it would have been unbearable. We visited two villages which were mostly empty as the villagers were out farming, and took in some great sights of the mountains. However, we were not smelling our best when we finally reached the Karen village at about 5:30pm. Our guide was a Karen native called Noo, who had left to help run the trek with the guesthouse - he was great fun. He cooked us some very tasty dinner (chicken and potato curry, stir-fried chicken and lots and lots of rice) and taught us the word "Abuya" (a-boo-ya) which means Hello, Goodbye, Thank you, Cheers, and a number of other things. Quite handy really. He also gave us some "happy water" to try...this is basically home-brewed white spirit with an ever-so-slight fruit tang, and was one of the strongest drinks I've ever tasted. We built a fire, and sat around playing cards with the other trekkers who had joined us at the Libra - Paul, Paul, Tom, Tom (all 4 from the UK), and Monique - a UK-born American who works as a professional clown in Colorado. They were a great group, and we had a lot of fun over the two days.

At about 9:30pm the lights suddenly all went out, and we were plunged into pitch dark. This was probably because the village uses solar power to generate electricity...it was pretty terrifying when it happened though. We'd brought torches, but didn't spend too much longer outside as the various bugs floating around made a bee-line straight for the torchlight. We did get to see a firefly though, something I'd never seen before. Our lodging was a hut in the village, furnished with sleeping mats, a couple of pillows and some old duvets, all covered with mosquito nets. It wasn't the best night's sleep I'd had, but the trek had tired me out enough to get a good 7 hours before morning.

The next day we had breakfast (a mountain of toast and fresh fruit) and then the elephants were brought down from the mountain to get washed in the river. I got up on one of them and poured water over it, I'm not sure if it minded or not but it didn't try to shake me off so I took that to be a good sign. After the elephant bath we then got to ride them. They really are beautiful, gentle creatures and are very intelligent. The one Gilly and I were riding grabbed and broke off a nearby branch with its trunk and proceeded to scratch its head with it. After an hour or so riding, we came back to the village and fed bananas to them which was hilarious. Our elephant crammed loads into its mouth and then took some more off Gilly and held them curled in its trunk whilst munching the current mouthful...greedy sod.

We headed back to the river and got on a bamboo raft. This is basically 19 bamboo logs secured by what looked to be banana leaf. It was controlled by Noo at one end and another villager at the other, with the rest of us sat in a line down the middle. It must have taken a good 2.5 hours to get down the river; the two guides were fishing with a bit of fishing line and a carrot attached to a bamboo cane. Noo caught nothing, but the other guy - who couldn't have been older than 13 - managed to get a fish. He held it in his mouth until it died, then tied it to the raft. Lunch for him was sorted, then. I had a go fishing and managed about as well as Noo. I don't think it's a sport I'll ever fancy doing. Unfortunately disaster struck on the river when Gilly slipped getting on the raft, and lost her sunglasses. If anyone finds them in the river, please let me know. Otherwise, there's probably going to be a really cool fish swimming around right now.

After lunch (noodles, chicken, veg, and a papaya salad which was insanely hot), we got kitted out for some whitewater rafting on the Mae Tang River. Now, our insurance covers us up to Grade 3 whitewater rafting but because of the recent floods in Thailand, the river was pretty turbulent, and was around Grade 4...we decided to do it anyway. I'm glad we did as it was fantastic. The only other rafting we've done was in Wales which was about as calm as you could get - it was good, but not particularly adrenaline-filled. This was the other end of the scale, and whilst we didn't fall in or tip over, we got a massive soaking on a number of occasions down the 10km trip we took.

Wet and tired, we piled into the van and headed home. It was an amazing trip, and we were glad we took the opportunity to do it. It was also very reasonably priced - about 50 GBP each for the whole thing, including rafting, food, accommodation, the works. Outstanding. The shower I had in the guesthouse was very, very welcome though. We'd also amassed a decent pile of laundry to do so we gave that to our guesthouse to do all at once rather than have us try and scrub it in the sink. Handwashing is OK for the odd thing, but sometimes it's worth letting the professionals do it, especially if the clothes smell as bad as ours did...

Today we are taking it easy. We've moved a couple of doors down to SK Guesthouse which has a pool and is also cheaper. The 4 guys we went trekking with have also moved, so we'll be heading out for some beers and cards tonight I think. We went shopping in the main Chiang Mai shopping centre and I picked up another t-shirt, but Gilly had no luck finding sunglasses she liked so we'll probably have to wait until the Sunday market again.

As expected, the monstrosity of awfulness which is Santander has screwed us yet again by not letting us withdraw money on our debit card from ATMs. This is despite me confirming twice that we were going travelling. I'm now going to have to get a SIM card and call their horrendous customer service line to try and get things rectified. It makes my blood boil how utterly incompetent one bank can be. Fortunately we've got enough cash to keep us going for about another week, but whoever picks up the phone when I call is going to get an earful. If I can give you one piece of consumer advice it would be don't ever, ever, EVER use Santander. Ever.

Day 12 & 13 - Chiang Mai

Arrived at Libra Guesthouse after a short flight and taxi ride, at about 11pm. Not a good start, the room wasn't bad but we had twin beds despite booking a double room, and were joined by a cockroach in the bathroom. Woken at 6:30am by people walking past our room outside (we were on the ground floor), talking, making noise...and then the workmen across the road started up. But then things got better.

Dao is the lady that runs the guesthouse, and as soon as I told her we didn't sleep too well, she apologised and immediately moved us to a double room on the second floor. She had been having an argument with her staff about whether we were two guys or a couple and eventually settled on the former (note to self - specify this when emailing guest houses in future). She then got out a map, and sat with us for about 20 minutes pointing out the highlights of Chiang Mai, things to do and see, and places to eat. We've booked on a 2 day/1 night trek with the guesthouse which promises to travel a less well-trodden route and includes a stop at a waterfall (can't get enough of those...) a stop at a hot spring, a trek with some elephants, some bamboo rafting and an overnight stay at a Karen village. To date there's only 3 of us booked on the trip, but a few Germans may be joining us. It'll either be Tuesday or Wednesday depending on when we can get the numbers together. It's pretty reasonable too - it works out at about 70 quid all in, including food and accommodation.

We checked out the Chiang Mai cultural centre yesterday afternoon which told the story of Chiang Mai's history and had plenty of things to read and listen to, but it was presented in quite a dry format and wasn't as stimulating as the counterpart in Bangkok. We also visited Chiang Man, a fairly ancient wat on the way there (almost 800 years old).

In the late afternoon, we went back to the guesthouse to sit in some hammocks in the shade; the heat has been blisteringly hot, and really takes it out of you. We met a fellow resident - Hayley, from Melbourne - and decided to join her in the evening as she was headed to the massive Sunday market that Chiang Mai hosts each week. We met some of her friends en route: Eli and her partner Huey, and Eli's friend Anna, all from Australia. It's been great to chat with new people and get ideas of places to visit when we eventually head over there. We've all arranged to meet up for the Lantern Festival next Saturday, which promises to be excellent. We saw a few hundred of the lanterns set up next to the Three Kings monument in Chiang Mai, and I imagine they will look spectacular lit up.

The Sunday market was amazing. I cannot even fathom how people can cram so much "stuff" into one street. It's probably a good kilometre or two long, with arts, crafts, clothing and food all lining the street, and two huge food courts either side. Everything is crazily cheap, and pretty good quality too; I could quite easily see myself coming back with two massive suitcases and filling them with beautiful pictures, carvings and clothes. But unfortunately not on this trip! Gilly went with the intention of getting some light trousers, and succeeded. Somehow, a new dress also ended up getting purchased. Ah well, on her back be it. The food in the food courts was amazing. We ate some of the nicest samosas we've ever tasted, and filled up on various rices, chicken balls, odd sausage-type things and prawn toast. Delicious.

Today we went up to Doi Suthep and had a wander around; a lovely building, but something about the nature of the Buddhist culture makes me uneasy. Everything I've seen appears to revolve around money. Donation boxes line the walls, and giant "trees" made out of banknotes abound in many of the temples or wats we've visited. Locals come to pray to the Buddha and throw numbered sticks on the ground to get "lucky" numbers they can use to play the lottery, and hundreds of boxes promoting good fortune are available for you to buy anything from a long life to happiness (depending on the boxes you decide on). This clashes uncomfortably with the solid gold idols and monuments which are on display, as well as the stupid amount of wealth flaunted in the many, many palaces around the country. I make no secret of my atheism, but I feel that a religion which promotes the purchasing of happiness with hard currency is perhaps not as sacrosanct as it would like the wider world to believe. This is just my opinion, however.

We're heading to a little restaurant around the corner from the guesthouse tonight with Hayley for some yummy dinner. I probably don't need the qualifier...it's always yummy. We'll find out later if the trek is on for tomorrow, otherwise we'll probably head out of the old city and check out some of the outskirts. As we're going to be here until Saturday at least, we've got plenty of time to wander around at our leisure. It's nice not to feel rushed. Our visas expire on November 10th so we definitely need to have left and be in Laos before then.

Day 10 & 11 - Kanchanaburi Creams

We're sat at the airport, filling the 4 hours until our Chiang Mai flight. Thankfully, we have a puzzle book, cards, and the all-important Kindle. It was touch and go whether we'd actually get here today. We had booked a minibus yesterday with Toi's Tours (opting to give a competitor to Good Times our business, since the lady running it was very smiley whilst Good Times appeared to be the Tesco of tour operators, ad didn't have the trip we wanted a few days back). Great, we thought - we can relax now and just hop on the bus today. We were woken at 7:30 by the woman who had travelled down the road to our guesthouse and had a frantic look on her face (according to Gilly anyway, I was basically still asleep..).

The minibus wasn't running due to the floods.
Crap. How can we get to the airport?
You could take a taxi.
For a 3.5 hour journey...how much would that be?
1800 baht (£36)...

...which was 800 more than the minibus. Not outrageous, but to put it into context, two nights' stay in our Chiang Mai guesthouse is only 700. We had no option, of course, luckily our budgeting included a fair amount of contingency for emergencies like this. We'll just have to eat at some more street vendors for a couple of nights to get back on track, and the food is so good anyway, it's not exactly a hardship.

Speaking of food, we avoided the Jolly Frog guesthouse in Kanchanaburi due to a number of recent reviews mentioning bedbugs. However, we went there for some drinks last night and watched a fundraising band comprising mainly children play (really well) in aid of Baan Dada children's home, Maybe I should ease off the XBox when I get back and pick up the guitar that's been gathering dust for 8 years. We then went back today for lunch, and it was huge, filling, delicious and cheap. Even if you don't stay there, you can do a lot worse for mealtimes.

I mentioned in a previous post that ants are not our friend. This turned out to be an understatement after I got bitten three times on one foot and twice on the other. These bites aren't painful, but by the gods do they itch. Of course, the bites are located exactly where my sandals rub against my feet, meaning I'm in an itchy stupor every time I walk. I've smeared Anthisan cream all over the bites, and can only hope that reapplying it every few hours will sort them out. The ants here are practically indestructible. Gilly thought she'd killed one by squashing it this morning, but a minute later it started moving again. She smashed it to a pulp with some tissue against the table, opened the tissue and it was STILL ALIVE. I think they must have some sort of metal exoskeleton or something. I wager if you threw one into the fire it would melt into a pool of quicksilver before reforming again, like a goddamn Terminator.

Ice creams here are lovely, and there's so much more variety than the UK. This is probably due to our summer lasting 4 days, but there's definitely a market for black cherry Cornettos back home.

Looking forward to Chiang Mai, it's smaller than the capital and supposedly a lot more laid back too.

Day 9 - Kanchanaburi: Lessons Learned

We are still in Kachanaburi and will be now until Saturday.

Things we've learned:

- Travelling involves a lot of forward planning when it comes to travel between places. When you have the bare bones of an itinerary and are effectively making it up as you go along, last minute decisions to skip flood areas and jump on a plane to a relatively safe city can be tricky to organise. Case in point: we wanted to book a flight to Chiang Mai last night for today. We could have done so if we hadn't left the cards in the safety deposit box which was unavailable until morning. This morning we found almost all flights for today and tomorrow had sold out. So now we have booked another two nights at Ploy, and will be getting to Bangkok airport to catch a 9pm flight to Chiang Mai with Air Asia on Saturday. We've also attempted to book a room at Diva Guesthouse for our arrival and will hopefully be staying there at least two nights. For me, Chiang Mai seems more appealing than Bangkok. Everything aside from public transport appears to be cheaper which means we can indulge in the things it is known for: expeditions. It may still be quite touristy, but we both want to spend a day with some elephants and there appears to be plenty of places offering just that.

- Washing clothes by hand is difficult if you are expecting the same level of freshness you get from a machine. It simply won't happen. My quick drying clothing is acceptable, but until we decide to risk a boil wash in a local laundrette, we will probably have to make do with a fragrance of Eau de Damp (avaiable in Boots now).

- We should probably keep at least one card with us at all times in case some spontaneous purchases are required.

- Ants are not our friend.

- Mosquitos have some sort of cloaking mechanism which renders them invisible just long enough for them to have a nice meal on (and of) your leg, before buggering off.

- The humidity can be draining. It has been a sticky 26-27 today with no breeze, and little respite. At least in Bangkok we had a few storms each day to clear the air. Probably not too good for the locals though.

- Gilly is inordinately good at playing Cribbage. Considering her vocal distaste for anything involving maths, this is perplexing.

- The Kindle has been a lifeline. It's allowed us to keep on top of the flood situation and also find our way to places and book them. I would hate to think what a RTW trip would have been like to undertake 20 years ago, reliant solely on word of mouth to find recommended digs. Trip Advisor has come in for some stick, but it is in my opinion the best travel review site I've used, bar none.

- I'm getting a taste for Asian beer. I've never really been a lager fan aside from Corona, but the two main lagers here are not far off that taste: Singha is probably my favourite at 5% but Chang at 6.4% isn't too bad either. At just over a quid a bottle, they are good value too. I haven't dared touch the wine here. Red wine in Asia is likely best avoided unless it's imported; a guy came into the bar last night clutching a bottle off Penfolds red like it was a 30 year old single malt.

- Air Asia is one of the worst websites I've used for booking flights. They make Easyjet's costing system look transparent. You have to opt out of buying insurance not once, but twice during the booking process. You also get pre-allocated seats you have to opt out of if you don't want another bundle of costs added to the total. Doing it in an internet cafe was bad enough; I fear if I try to do it on the Kindle there may be a Kindle-shaped hole in the bedroom window after a couple of minutes.

We now need to fill today and tomorrow with things to do...or not. Truth be told, it's nice having a break from hitting the sights every few days or so. Kanchanaburi is a quiet town, and since we won't be spending as long in our first run of Thailand as first planned, we can rest up a bit and take our time when we get into Chiang Mai.

Day 7 & 8 - Kanchanaburi

Checked into the Ploy Guesthouse, our cheapest accommodation yet, and also the best. Thai-style beds, free drinking water, a massive en suite, breakfast included, marvellous. We visited the Death Railway Museum not long after arriving. This told the shocking and moving tale of the building of the Thailand-Burma railway, where the Japanese used POWs and drafted in Asian labourers to toil away, often around the clock and under brutal conditions. The museum pulled no punches, it was very matter-of-fact and I would highly recommend visiting if you came to this small town.

We ate at the Apple Guesthouse Restaurant last night, a place we may have stayed at if they hadn't been booked up. As it turns out, the Ploy exceeded all expectations. The restuarant was also excellent, however. I had chicken with basil, chilli and rice, and Gilly went for fried rice with pineapple, chicken and cashews. Yum.

Today we went all touristy and booked a tour out with a local shop. It made sense really, most of the sights in Kanchanaburi are spread out (probably a 100 mile round trip all told), so a tour took us to the main places we wanted to visit: Erawan waterfall, Hellfire Museum, a ride on the "Death Railway" and the River Kwai bridge. The Hellfire Museum was dedicated to a specific cutting through the sheer rock face that the POWs had to labour around, by drilling and then blasting rock. Hundreds of thousands died building the railway due to the conditions; it was very humbling.

The railway ride was hot but scenic, but unfortunately the bridge area had been turned into a tourist hotspot for souvenirs and other associated junk. The bridge itself was not particularly impressive as a structure, but if you consider what went into building it, that's another matter entirely. In an attempt to keep our budget from spiralling out of control, we went to the Night Bazaar not far from the guesthouse and grabbed some tasty freshly cooked food from a stall.

Ayuttaya is now off the agenda thanks to the floods, so we are going to need to review our travel plan. One option is to somehow get to Chiang Mai where the flooding is no longer an issue, but that may mean going back to Bangkok. Much last minute planning awaits...

Day 6 - Thai massage and Chinatown

Currently writing this whilst being driven at breakneck speed in a minibus to Kanchanaburi; I don't think the waist seatbelt will do me much good if we hit something. I count myself lucky - Gilly doesn't have one. To be honest, in an accident at this speed neither of us will know much about it, which I take some comfort in. Driving in Bangkok is nuts. People cut in front of each other, overtake on either side and use indicators sparingly. If that's not enough, the road markings appear to be more of a rough guideline; I've seen a couple of roads which have one way arrows on them, whilst traffic freely flows in the opposite direction. Yet no-one seems to use their horn. Maybe it's some sort of Buddhist fatalism I'm not aware of, and they assume that when it's their time to die in a 12-car pile-up then so be it.

I neglected to mention our trip to Siam Centre in downtown Bangkok, mainly because we didn't actually visit any of the shops there. It was basically an upmarket Khao San road, but didn't appear to have much we were interested in. We did have a conversation with a guy outside a bank who claimed he worked there and gave us a talk about the floods in the area, before then trying to get us to go to a "Tourist Office" where we would no doubt have been fleeced.

We also, by chance, stumbled across the Big Buddha late at night a couple of nights back. This would be the Big Buddha that all of the scam artists and tuk-tuk drivers would try and get you to visit as they have a load of gem merchants and whatnot gathered in the area, but apparently not at 9pm. Good news for us. True to its name, it was big, but not as big as the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.

My back has been really sore over the last couple of days, so we decided to indulge in a 1 hour all over Thai massage at the hotel for a bargain 4 quid each. It wasn't as painful as I'd expected and we both felt a good kind of ache afterwards. Sadly my back is still not 100% but I bought a pot of tiger balm from the masseuse which tingles and warms when rubbed over my back, and this should hopefully keep me going until it feels better.

We travelled the length and breadth of Khao San Road trying to find a pair of light long trousers for Gilly. Some of the temples and attractions have a strict dress code policy of not showing any leg from the knee up, but even Gilly's long shorts which came down to her lower calves weren't sufficient for the Vimanmek Palace who seemed to be rejecting women's outfits regardless of length and directing them to the conveniently located sarong stall where they could purchase one for 40 baht (80p). Very handy...one would think they were taking advantage of tourists.

Sadly, most of the clothing was pretty rubbish, and the trousers were more MC Hammer than Princess Jasmine, so Gilly wasn't too keen. I was on the lookout for some polyester shirts as they are lighter, dry faster, and help with heat much better than cotton. Khao San road only appeared to sell cotton. We were advised that Cambodia was the place to get wicking tops, so it may be a few months before I can trade off some of my cotton t-shirts.

At night we went to Chinatown on the recommendation of Gilly's masseuse, and enjoyed a fab meal (albeit under cover from the rain) of curried crabmeat, chilli-fried prawns and rice. It was delicious.

Kanchanaburi awaits!

Bangkok Day 4 & 5 - Vimanmek Palace, Queen's Gallery, Jim Thompson House, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre

Whilst not a sewer, Green House is possibly the worst place I've ever stayed in. Beds as hard as concrete, pillows uncomfortably lumpy, a dangerously rusty bathroom door in a fairly grim en suite, and worst of all, it faces a street which has "singers" performing until around 3:30am. If it wasn't hard enough to get to sleep with all of that, I was woken at 4:30am by some American pillock trying to get one of his friends to come out with him. She wasn't too keen, but was still more than happy to give him a rundown of her day's events, the highlight apparently being when she bought a taco. "They're like sooooo AMAZING!!!" Super.

We trekked over to Vimanmek Palace in the morning, which was built by King Rama V, the most beloved and progressive king that Thailand had, and it was crazy. Acres of sprawling gardens filled with magnificent buildings, all glorifying the Thai monarchy. Two of the buildings were photo galleries comprising pictures the reigning monarch (Rama IX) had taken. The blurb accompanying these photos was sycophantic to the point of propaganda. Every shot he had taken was for a reason and allegedly incorporated one moral or another, or showcased his wonderful ability with a camera. Apparently he was so technically proficient as a photographer he developed his own camera filters and revolutionised Thai photography. He also plays about 5 different instruments. What a guy. The centrepiece of the Vimanmek Palace was the Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall, a ridiculously decadent building filled with more gold treasures than the mind can comprehend. For his 80th birthday/60th year of reign hundreds of artisans spent 1 - 2 years crafting each piece, from a golden latticed longship, through to gold carriages, intricately carved wood panels stretching up 15-20 feet high, huge tapestries studded with diamonds, emeralds, and other gold and silver gubbins. There was literally tens of millions of pounds worth of gold on show, all in glory of this chap on the throne. I half expected to find the Ark of the Covenant stashed away in the corner. Sadly photography was forbidden, and I didn't want to risk stealthily snapping a few things in case the King's guard got mean.

We also hit a few arty places in the last few days. I love galleries. A lot of modern art doesn't do much for me; a couple of lines on a bit of canvas with a splodge in one corner isn't something I could enjoy looking at. Realism and some of the more fantastical paintings though, that's another story. Both the Queen's Gallery and the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre had these in abundance, and they were fantastic. I'll be sticking some of the more eye-catching paintings up on Flickr soon. The upload speed for Flickr isn't great so I'm probably going to be playing catch up for a few months.

Yesterday we went to the Golden Mount, a huge bell-shaped temple which still houses monks in the surrounding area. Monks are everywhere in Bangkok, and anachronistically can be seen riding buses, smoking fags, calling people on mobile phones, and fiddling with MP3 players (Note to Dad - an MP3 player is like a Sony Walkman but smaller and without the need for cassette tapes). All very bizarre.

Following that, we went to Jim Thompson House, a wonderful collection of houses interlinked and made from teak, all meticulously preserved. He was an American entrepreneur who got rich from the silk trade and was adopted by Thailand as a hero for helping promote their export business. He then disappeared one day, aged 61 and was never heard from or seen again. There's a bit of a legend surrounding him simply because of this. Some say he went to a Buddhist temple, in a Rambo-esque fit of pique. The guidebook optimistically suggests it was more likely he was hit by a car whilst out walking and buried at the side of the road. Either way, it was all a long time ago now so he's probably not in the best condition whatever happened.

We checked into Thai Cozy House for the next couple of nights, which was a lovely change to the last dump. For an extra 2 quid a night, we got free bottled water, a 15 minute Thai massage each (I'm going back tonight for a full hour as my back is killing me) and breakfast. Nice room, nice bed, nice pillows. Woke up today completely refreshed.

Food-wise it's been too hot for us to feel hungry in the day so we've taken to eating breakfast and then getting a decent meal at night. The last two nights we have eaten at the same place - Lotash Seed on Rambuttri Road. Run by a local family, it has fantastic Thai dishes made by the owner's sister who gave us some good recommendations, and the owner (See) who spoke excellent English and spent a good hour talking to us about Thai life. It's a wonderful place to eat amongst the lasagnes, chicken and chips and other English garbage food offered in the tourist district.

Tomorrow we're getting a minibus to Kachanaburi (home of the River Kwai), and staying in a guesthouse there for a couple of nights. From there we'll try and get to Ayutthaya, but it depends on the floods. It has rained consistently and persistently every day we've been here which has broken the humidity nicely, and hasn't actually bothered us that much. However, I think we're ready to move on from Bangkok. The constant harrassment from tuk-tuk drivers, people asking where we're going and trying to direct us to one flavour of Buddha or another (we've had Black Buddha, Golden Buddha, Big Buddha and Lucky Buddha to name a few) and more recently tailors. Every other shop on the Khao San road is selling tailor-made suits. Even two streets along in the hotel complex we're staying at has a bloody tailor attached to it. One of the guys running it tried to pitch to me this morning as we were eating breakfast. Incredible. Obviously where tourists go, hawkers follow. I'm hoping for a bit of a break from the hard sell in the next destination, but won't hold my breath.

Bangkok Day 2 + 3: Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wash Out.

Bangkok is an interesting city. Going by my own experiences of travel, it seems to be a mish-mash of Western consumerism coupled with a wide range of eateries similar to Greece and the kind of hard-sell you'd find in a country like Tunisia. However, the hard-sell ranges from blatant to downright devious. Yesterday we decided we were going to visit the Grand Palace. On the way there, we were stopped by a tuk-tuk driver asking us where we wanted to go and upon telling him he informed us that it was a "Buddhist holiday", so only Thais could enter in the morning and tourists could visit at 2:30. Instead, he suggested we took a trip with him to the Standing Buddha which is apparently a massive 40ft Buddha statue. I'd read about this kind of con in the guidebook (i.e. telling you something is closed and shepherding you somewhere else, usually via a gem shop) so we were just about to move on when another guy came over, shooed him away and then proceeded to look at our map and tell us about the various sights we could visit. He said he worked in the government, and that there were a lot of people scamming you on the road. He gave us some advice on the quality of clothing and other tat on Khao San Road, and said we should best avoid it to not get ripped off. All seemed like reasonable advice. Then he started asking questions: If you took a tuk-tuk to this site, this site and that site, how much do you think it would cost? Alarm bells started ringing. It would have cost 60 Baht (about 1.20). All we needed to do was hop in a tuk-tuk. But we want to go to the Grand Palace! Ah yes, but that's closed. You didn't know? Ahaha, it's a Buddhist holiday - it opens again at 2:30 for tourists. He then started pointing out the various modes of transport on the road and whether they were official or not. Taxis with meters in? Not official. These yellow tuk-tuks? They are official government tuk-tuks. You want to get in one? Erm, no thanks...time to move on. As we did, we went past the original scammer who had pulled up in a tuk-tuk expectantly, as if he was convinced the "government official" would have convinced us to ride in his 3-wheeled death trap and visit a load of cheap tat shops run by his mates. He was disappointed.

It didn't stop there though. As we continued to the palace, we were verbally greeted by a number of people, one was a "doctor" who told us the palace was closed whilst we were waiting to cross the road. Another was at a temple we passed - she told us her name was Chanarwa. Little old lady, on holiday from Chiang Mai. Had been to Bangkok 3 times in her life, and was here again on holiday for a week. Took us into the temple to see rows of Buddhas, showed us around the courtyard, all very nice. Sat us down in the main part of the temple and proceeded to point out on our map the Standing Buddha (45 ft high - it must have grown since earlier in the morning), and also informed us that the Palace was closed until 1:30 for tourists (I guess they had so many expectant tourists, they decided to open it for us an hour earlier - very nice of them). At this stage I'd had pretty much enough. We got up, went out to the courtyard and wandered around taking photos, as she followed and tried to herd us back outside. In the end she gave up, and when we finally arrived at the palace we found it was - shock! - open. Imagine our lack of surprise.

The Grand Palace was a bizarre mix of Thai and Chinese architecture, the majority of it covered in gilt, mosaic and glass. Ostentatious probably doesn't describe it; it was like an authentic version of the kind of thing you'd find in Las Vegas, all spires, garish colours and weird ornamentation. The photos in my Flickr feed will probably explain it better than I can. The main highlight was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which appeared to be made out of jade. The mercury rose uncomfortably in the afternoon and we staggered on through the heat to Wat Pho which had similar architecture, slightly less loud, with the centrepiece of the site being a massive (and I mean massive) reclining Buddha. This thing was monstrous, and barely fit within the temple that housed it (also huge).

In the evening we went out to a restaurant called The Flow, which had lovely food but a waitress with a permanent scowl. I told her (in Thai) that the food was delicious, and she said "You speak Thai?". I said "No", and she made a face that was somewhere between a grimace and a sneer, like I'd comically fallen into a cesspool. At least I was making the effort to try and speak the lingo. When we were in France, the locals loved it when you made an effort. To be fair, the staff at the guesthouse were delighted when I said "thank you" in Thai; I guess most tourists don't bother trying.

Today we were going to go to Museum Siam - the Museum of Discovery. Unfortunately, the only thing we discovered was that it was closed due to the worst floods Thailand has seen in 50 years. I wouldn't say that this was unusual for us. We tend to bring out extreme weather in the areas we visit; when we went to Skiathos, they had a month's worth of rain dropped on the island in the space of 30 minutes. When we went to Barcelona, they had the first snow they had experienced for 9 years. I guess we should have been expecting this. We were caught in a torrent shortly after we found it was closed and managed, somehow, to get a #53 bus back to the road our guesthouse was in. It was an odd bus, in that the ticket lady was holding a clipboard and marking off how many people got on and off the bus, but not actually collecting money. We got to our stop and she ushered us out, and I was expecting to pay someone at the bus stop...but there was no-one there. Free bus ride - woohoo! It went some way to make up for horrendous drenching we got. Typically, as I sit typing this the weather has much improved.

Tomorrow we're moving away from the Sivarin Guesthouse to Green House which is on a road parallel to Khao San Road. By all accounts it's not going to be as nice, but it'll be cheap and in the centre of the backpacker community which is something we've not yet experienced. Plus, we've only booked one night there so if it turns out to be a cockroach-infested sewer, there's plenty of similar sewers to choose from in the area.

Bangkok - Arrival

We arrived in Bangkok at 3:40, tired but well fed.

Despite a brief moment when the check in monitor gave us a glimmer of hope that we may have some extra legroom, we were crammed into a massive sardine tin with cattle class space to manoeuvre. Tesco farm hens would have looked at us and smirked (if one can smirk with a beak) before flapping their wings in the luxury of their massive barn. We had the inordinate pleasure of being seated half a metre from a screaming shit, regaling us with piercing shrieks just because he could, whilst Gilly was lucky enough to be positioned in front of a toddler who kicked her seat back every ten seconds.

There was a point where we thought things may go wrong when the check in assistant in Heathrow said we needed to have an onward flight. We don't have an onward flight until April which is obviously outsidde the 30 day window for visitors. Luckily after a phone call to check, she said it was OK. We need to be in Laos by November 10 at the latest but otherwise the Thai authorities didn't care. We got a taxi to the Sivarin Guesthouse which is a nice, fairly basic place by UK standards but I suspect a bit pricier than many of the tourist flophouses which are bound to be dotted around.

Had a second crisis when Gilly found her camera lens coated in a weird sticky film which may actually have come from the camera itself. Easily wiped off but a little worrying. Mine appeared to be unharmed so we at least have one camera if the worst happens to hers.

Looking forward to the breakfast in the morning, hopefully followed by a trip to the palace. Right now though, I'm mostly looking forward to sleep.

Farewell to Wimbledon

I spent a great night in the company of friends in Wimbledon yesterday. After a couple of drinks in the Hand and Racquet, we went to Han restaurant in New Malden for food and karaoke. The food was excellent, but the service unforunately wasn't. I might be picky here, but if someone orders food it doesn't bode well if the waiter forgets to tell the kitchen to cook it. Still, it worked out in the end as we got an upgraded karaoke booth and no-one paid for their food. Quite a maverick business model, but probably not a recommended one. Everyone had a great night (I believe, anyway. After the second bottle of wine things got a bit hazy...) and I'm going to miss the Wimbledon gang very much. Also had a smashing curry at lunchtime courtesy of a cracking cafe near Mo. It will be interesting to see how curries differ in Asia compared to the UK.

I took out the stuff I'll be wearing and also ditched some sun cream and a few cables, and the bag is now a lot more manageable. Less is definitely more in this case, I've estimated a 12.4% reduction in the chance of a slipped disc, and a 35.1% reduction in likelihood of me throwing the damn thing in a Bangkok river two days after arrival.

Speaking of rivers, we've now booked our first three nights' accommodation at a guesthouse close to the river, specifically the Sivarin Guesthouse which is about 1km from the Khao San road and about 2km from the Grand Palace. It's very reasonably priced and includes breakfast, whilst not being in the centre of the tourist hub. I'm now starting to get excited about the trip. With the last few weeks of sorting out work, the car, the house and all the associated admin that comes with being out of the country for a year (something the government can't seem to comprehend- "You want to leave the UK? WHY? How are you going to support yourself? You must tell us everything immediately!"), I haven't really had time to think about the trip itself. Now I can finally start looking into some of the fantastic things we're going to be doing. Three days to go!

Stuff, Addendum

Today we walked from Harrow and Wealdstone station to Gilly's parents' house. This is a 1.1 mile journey. We did this whilst carrying our fully loaded backpack/daypack combination, and have come to the following conclusions:

- Not properly packing your backpack can result in pain.
- Not properly adjusting your properly packed backpack can result in pain.
- 12kg worth of stuff is not fun to carry on your back for any length of time in an ill-packed, ill-adjusted backpack, as it results in pain.
- 12kg worth of stuff is probably 4kg worth of stuff too much to take with us.

Tomorrow's task will be a concerted effort to shave off precious weight from an already fairly sparse inventory. I'm now only taking flip-flops and wearing the Keens (sod the trainers...), and I'm going to seriously reduce the amount of over-the-counter medicines I'll be taking. I also need to decide if I have too many clothes. The answer is probably yes. I've got about 6 bottles of sun cream for both of us. Plus a bottle of after-sun. I think that's 5 bottles too much. I may burn more easily than a Tesco Express during a UK riot, but I'll be damned if I'm going to put my back out lugging 5 litres of the stuff around. I'll just wear more clothes. That'll make my back lighter, need less sun cream, and make me feel like less of a tourist. Granted, I'll probably sweat more, but I hear that backpackers are supposed to reek anyway otherwise they're not considered hardcore. I've got some wicking tops. It'll be fine. It'll be completely fine.

Other things I've learned in the last few days:

- If you have voicemail switched on whilst abroad, and someone leaves you a message, you will get charged for it...even if you don't listen to it. My provider's tariff du jour is 60p per left message, regardless of length. Here's a fun wheeze - if someone you dislike is going abroad and you have their number, help rack up a massive phone bill by leaving a crazy amount of voicemails for them. Not only will they have to sift through 35 messages to see if anyone has left them anything worth listening to (which will cost them), but they will get landed with a bill on top of that, just for the courtesy of having the messages there in the first place. You're getting charged for something completely beyond your control, which is madness. The sooner there is a global crackdown on this kind of nonsense from network providers (as there has been in the EU), the better.

- You can SORN your car online. That is, as long as the DVLA isn't busy "upgrading their system". Apparently, this can take up to 48 hours. That's one hell of an upgrade.

- You don't need 3rd party fire and theft insurance for cars being kept off-road. You just need something called "laid-up cover" or "off-road cover" (depending on who you talk to). I learned this to my cost after buying TPF&T and later fuinidng out I could buy laid-up cover at a fifth of the cost - thanks Fi! - from certain insurers. I'll be using Footman James, but Direct Line will do it for existing customers, and there are a couple of others too; have a look on Google if it's something you'll need.

- Santander have possibly the worst telephone customer service I've ever experienced. This is in stark contrast to their branch staff, who couldn't be more helpful. If there was a way to transpose the two, this would help our journey immensely. As it is, I fear I'll be forced to navigate the murky waters of Santander's telephone banking on a frequent basis to unblock cards, ask why money hasn't been transferred, and tolerate "supervisors" who have even less inclination to help than their call centre monkey subordinates. Tip:- if you are with Santander, move. You probably haven't heard it here first, but there's a reason why they are consistently in the bottom three banks for customer service.

- Kindle 3G connectivity in the UK rocks. Fact. I hope it's the same worldwide...

- The Student Loans Company want you to tell them if you're out of the UK for 3 months. This is presumably so they can send a P.I. after you and check you're not busy making lots of cash waiting bars abroad, whilst neglecting to pay them. They also want you to prove how you're supporting yourself. For us, it's not a problem as we've saved up so can show them bank details. If you're staying with family and/or friends though, I'm not quite sure how you can "prove" this...

6 days to go and still lots to do. Tomorrow we have a whole day free so should be able to get the rest of the admin work done and make a start on converting heavy bags to light ones. Perhaps I can get a small canister of helium and fill up the bag. Hmmm...I may have stumbled upon a possible Dragon's Den pitch. I think I'll call it Heliobag. I've just checked and no-one has trademarked that name. I can practically hear Bannatyne salivating as I type.

Stuff, and the accumulation thereof

It turns out that we have a lot of stuff. I'm not entirely sure how, but in the 4.5ish years spent sharing a flat, we've managed to gather enough things to fill 12 carloads. This includes two estate cars and also takes into account us chucking away (or freecycling) another two carloads worth of crap. In less than a week we'll have the equivalent of less than 1/3 of a car seat strapped to our back, which needs to keep us going for a year. To put it into perspective, when we went camping in June, we took an entire boot full of stuff. For two nights.

We're not hoarders by any stretch, but the sheer amount of items we've accrued makes me wonder if we need it all. Now that I've got a Kindle, I could theoretically get rid of my book collection, but I like books. I like the feel and the smell of them, and the Kindle strips them down to some sterile entity which, whilst retaining the essence of "story", neglects the tactile pleasure in having the thing in your hand, and turning crisply printed pages to reveal the gems within. "A real page-turner!" has become "A real right-arrow clicker!". Call me picky, but it doesn't feel the same. On the other hand, I currently have more books on my Kindle than I could fit into our second bedroom, floor to ceiling. I guess there are pros and cons both ways.

I imagine when we decide where we ultimately want to live (which may have vastly changed after our time away), some hard choices will need to be made. As much as I would love to spend a week travelling from Harrow to Milton Keynes via Bromsgrove, Widnes and Liverpool simply picking up our belongings only to move them to a spare room/cupboard/attic/the bin, I'm hoping that living on nothing but a week's worth of clothes will help us realise that we don't actually need that much. I say that, but I'm sure once we're back in the thrall of first-world consumerism, best-laid plans will head straight down the newly-purchased eco-toilet (with built-in flush sensor, MP3 player socket, and synonym checker for those trickier crossword moments - all absolutely essential).

I may have been a little hasty with my praise about Kindle blogging - the email version I got seemed to have stripped out the apostrophes when viewing it on the Kindle (but oddly, not on a PC). If any readers are viewing this on a mobile, iPad or similar, do me a favour and leave a comment letting me know if the apostrophes are alive and well.

Stuff, I can do without. Having the Kindle make me look like I have the grammatical ability of an eleven year old with ADD is beyond the pale.

Jobless

I've been out of work for two days now. I'm not sure if i was expecting some sort of revelatory sense of freedom, but after a day pulling up weeds, cleaning windows and hoovering up more spiders than should even be possible to find in a habitable dwelling, I'm wondering when the actual fun times are going to start.

We're moving out on the 3rd, a date which looms ominously close. I can't express in words the oddity of packing for a RTW trip. It's like if you are going away for a fortnight in Greece, but instead of picking two weeks' worth of your best clothes, you are picking about 5 days' worth of stuff you don't really care about, ensuring it is all lightweight, easy to wash and dry, and under no circumstances white. I haven't actually tried packing my 70L pack yet, always finding some reason to put it off. When the beast is filled though, I'm expecting to immediately want to halve the contents for fear of herniating my back. In the unlikely event that this isn't necessary, I will consider it a Good Thing and forget all about it until we get on the airport bus.

Writing this on a Kindle isn't as difficult as I imagined. I wouldn't recommend trying to write a novel, or even use the keyboard for any great length of time if you're not a fan of hand cramp, but in small doses it does the job well. how good it will be when I'm 6000 miles away and reliant on 3G connectivity remains to be seen.

Saying "Hello"

A few days back, I was walking along my road and as I walked past a gentleman who must have been in his 60s, he said "Hello!" This took me aback somewhat, and I managed to stammer out "H-hello!" with a quick smile before we passed. I'd never seen the chap before; he was complete stranger. The fact that I was taken aback in itself took me aback...why should a simple friendly greeting be so odd?

It is though, isn't it? As a country, we are renowned by Americans for our "British Reserve" when it's actually a combination of shyness, ignorance and a fear that has been drilled into us by everyone including schools, the media, and even our parents.

"Don't talk to strangers!"
"If you see someone you don't recognise and aren't sure about them, cross the street."
"Be wary of overly friendly strangers, they could be terrorists!"
and so on.

We don't talk to people on the street that we don't know. We rarely talk to them on the bus, or the train, or the tube. Tube journeys especially are an odd experience when travelling alone. Hundreds upon hundreds of people standing around, earphones blocking out any chance of conversation and acting as a warning not to interact with their owners. As a race, humans need interaction with their fellows to survive, so why do we take such pains to exclude it from our lives?

I write this, as very soon we'll be solely reliant on strangers for survival, and it is going to take a concerted effort to break the social conditioning of keeping your head down and marching on, in order to get by. We'll need to talk to strangers to get directions, to get food, to get lodgings. We'll need to make conversation with people we've never met before and may be reliant on them at some stage for one thing or another, and will need to learn to trust them in a short space of time when there is no good reason to do so and which, in our current society, would be considered "madness". Does that scuba diving trainer actually know what they're doing? Has the bungee jump runner definitely attached the harness properly? Did the guy who directed us to a hostel really send us the right way?

In context, a man saying "Hello!" to me on the street is trivial. He perhaps lives on the road and may have seen me previously. He may have simply been being polite. Whatever the reason, it certainly highlighted the change in attitude I will need to make in the next few weeks.