How not to travel to Malaysia

Our bungalow [Enlarge]

As we said in our crap Taiwan post, our plan for the next phase of our trip is to cross into Malaysia and then head down the peninsula towards Singapore. When we took our open water diving course, we asked the dive shop for recommendations for a good cheap place to do lots of dives and increase our experience. They suggested the Perhentian Islands, which just happen to be more or less on our way to Singapore. So fully rested after two weeks in paradise that's where we decided to go next. The islands are about 20 km off the east coast of Malaysia, in the north of the peninsula, just across the border from Thailand. Not far from Koh Lanta, really.

But this is South East Asia, where 'not far' always seems to translate to a marathon of hot dusty travelling.

The border between Thailand and Malaysia has six crossings: four by road and two by rail. Pretty much all the routes converge on the southern city of Hat Yai, so we set an initial course for there. Through our resort in Koh Lanta we were able to book a minibus to get us to Trang, a large-ish town to the south-east of Lanta. On the way we got caught up in a tropical rainstorm but it passed before we got turfed out at Trang.

We arrived in the centre of Trang at about 10:15 and were deposited straight into the hands of a load of touts, as usual. We spent a few moments trying to find someone selling minibuses to Hat Yai. There was nothing immediately obvious so we asked a westerner who'd just pulled up on a motorbike, and who from the look of him clearly lived in Hat Yai. He couldn't help us, but while we were talking to him, we were approached by a local man in his seventies. In excellent English he asked if we needed help. When we said we were looking for a bus to Hat Yai, he volunteered to take us in his car to the right place. Our scam-o-meter twitched a little but we felt like letting this one play out and see where we ended up. As we walked together to his car he explained that when he had been a student in the US and Australia, locals had often given him a ride when he was stuck, so now he repays those favours in his home town. It also gives him time to practice his English.

It took a couple of stops to find the right bus. During the journey we found out that our new friend had been on Koh Lak during the 2004 Tsunami. Since he retired he's been a tour guide, leading eco-trips to the national park there. Almost every day he would go down to the beach to try to drum up business with the tourists, but on the morning of December 26th, he had an appointment with a resort owner, so he had a lie in. As a result he didn't go down to the beach as usual—a decision which could well have saved his life. In the aftermath of the disaster he volunteered as a Thai-English interpreter, communicating between medical staff and patients in the hospital in Phuket. He is still in contact with some of the people he helped in the weeks afterwards.

It took a while with several false starts, but eventually he found us a public bus to Hat Yai, leaving at 11:15 from the main bus station in Trang. The scam-o-meter had been wrong, and this had in fact been a case of a kind local simply helping us out. It's such a shame that the scumbags in Thailand do so much to spoil the country's reputation for kindness and hospitality. We boarded the bus and waved our new friend off. We were the only farangs (foreigners) on the bus today, but only the small children were unselfconscious enough to stare at us. At 11:30-ish the bus began to move. It trundled around town picking up people until every seat was full.

As time ticked away and the GPS told us we were making glacial progress towards Hat Yai, we found ourselves wishing that we'd just gone with the touts when we first arrived into Trang. We would have paid more for a tourist minibus but it would have got us to Hat Yai in plenty of time to catch the train we ideally wanted: the 14:40 to Butterworth in Malaysia. The only train to Butterworth until the next day. But on our distinctly non-express bus it took more than three hours to get to Hat Yai. We told the steward we wanted the train station, and he got the driver to drop us at a big traffic circle with only ten minutes to go until the train was due to leave. As we consulted the GPS to find the direction to the station, we were not impressed to discover that we had been dropped over a kilometre away from it!

We started walking quickly but when a passing sawngthaew (a kind of big tuk-tuk) offered its services at a non-scamtasic price we gratefully jumped in and told the driver to make a beeline for the station toute suite. Glenn put the GPS away so that we would be ready to jump out at the station and make a dash for the ticket office. But after about four minutes and a few turns we seemed to be heading in completely the wrong direction. So out came the GPS again and it confirmed that we were indeed doing just that. Glenn knocked on the window but the driver was too focused on his windscreen to notice. So then Glenn hung out the side of the sawgthaew and put his head in through the side window of the cab, which caused the driver to look a little surprised. After a brief exchange which comprised lots of choo-choo miming, the driver suddenly seemed to understand and did a virtual handbrake turn.

We arrived at the station about two minutes before the train was due to leave. Of course Thai trains rarely run on time but we just knew that this one would be sure to set a new record for punctuality. Glenn ran ahead to the ticket window and Isla watched as he paused for a moment and then turned and walked away. The train was on time... And full! Every single seat was taken. From first class sleeper to third class benches, there was no availability and so after the frantic panic to get to the station it turned out that we had made it, but we still were not going to be taking the train to Butterworth that day.

Plan B... We crossed the street to a sprinkling of minibus offices. "We'd like to go to Penang please." (Penang is the island next to Butterworth, which was where we were actually headed. Georgetown is the main city on the island and is the old British colonial capital of Malaya—and that's where we were staying the night).

The minibus agent looked glum. He had just sold the last two tickets to Penang not ten minutes previously. What a coincidence. But being a very helpful agent he could arrange a private taxi for us! We went door-to-door, but always got the same response. Either they had sensed that we would be good for a taxi and closed ranks, or there really were no spaces on the minibuses.

This journey was starting to look like a mess. In our efforts to avoid the touts all we seemed to be doing was digging a hole for ourselves. Yet again we cursed ourselves for being too optimistic with our travel plans. Because we like to plan a whole journey in advance so that we have the security of knowing that we're not going to be stranded anywhere, we had booked a hotel in Penang, onward travel to the Perhentian Islands tomorrow, and our accommodation for the first few days in Perhentian. But as we discovered, we still managed to get stranded, because we didn't conceive of the possibility that the train across the border would be completely full. We either need to chill out and take these multi-stage journeys one step at a time, or just pay the goddamn tourist touts to take us on the whole journey we want to do.

Now we had a simple choice: spend the night in Hat Yai and write off the hotel, the onward tickets and the first night's accommodation in Perhentian; or punish our wallet some more and stump up for the taxi. After doing some sums the taxi came out as the logical choice.

Our 'taxi' driver was Malaysian, had obviously come to Hat Yai with a delivery of some sort, and had been waiting for some farang to come along and pay him to drive home. The joy of being those idiots. The border crossing, 50 km south of Hat Yai, was very busy, and the driver told us to get out of the car and walk through the border. As we stood in the huge queue for Thai passport control the driver drove straight past us, through the gate and off around the corner out of sight. We then confounded our annoying day with a minute of utter panic as we remembered that (in the briefest moment of lost concentration) we had left all our stuff in the car! As we stood there wondering how we could have been so absolutely stupid for the umpteenth time today, and realising that we didn't even have the driver's licence plate number, we caught a glimpse of him through the crowds: he had parked up and was standing waiting for us on the other side.

Back in the car the driver told us that the reason all the transport was fully booked and the border was so busy is that it was Sunday afternoon and so many Thais work in Kuala Lumpur during the week. We passed through the other stages in the border crossing without incident and at last we were fully checked, controlled, stamped and immigrated, and speeding south on a wide highway admiring our new ninety-day Malaysian visas which had been thoughtfully squeezed into a space on an already crowded page of our passports.

It was dark when we arrived on the car ferry into Georgetown on Pulau Penang (Penang Island). Georgetown is a funny mix of British colonial and Chinese architecture. It's a bit shabby and grubby, but it seems OK, even in the dark. Our bed for the night is in Hutton Lodge, just off Georgetown's main street: Penang Road. The staff are friendly and very helpful, and the shower is probably the best one we've had in Asia—gallons of hot water at a decent pressure. Having spent a little while walking around town to get something to eat and find an ATM, we notice that Malaysia doesn't seem to have the same problem with touts as Thailand. It seems at first glance to be a lot more laid back. Things are looking up.

Day 597
Koh Lanta Yai to George Town

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Scuba diving

Diving [Enlarge]

After a few days of early nights and long sleeps, and lying in hammocks doing nothing from dawn until dusk, we felt more relaxed and rested than we had for well over a year. So it was time to begin looking around for things to do on our paradise island. LaLaanta resort offered plenty: a beautiful bay with clean sand and clear ocean, sea kayaks to borrow, two swimming pools, a small library of paperback books to read and DVDs to watch, free wifi internet throughout the resort—including in the hammocks! Still, we thought we should just check that we weren't missing anything.

Jun, our wonderful Vietnamese hostess, was happy to provide information on what was available on the island. Among the many options we could try elephant trekking, rent a motorbike, go snorkelling or scuba diving. We have always half intended to try scuba diving but never quite got round to it. So when we read that the diving in this part of Thailand is world class, it just seemed rude not to have a go. After chatting with one of the owners of Scubafish we both signed up for a four day open water scuba diving course, which would get us a basic PADI qualification that lasts a lifetime.

We had a day of training in a pool where we got to try out the equipment and learned some skills, then early the next morning we were picked up and taken to the pier on the other side of the island, where the company keeps its boat in the low season. We boarded the MV Moskito and set sail for Koh Haa, a group of tiny uninhabited islands about 15 kilometres west of Koh Lanta.

The two hour trip to the dive site was very pleasant. We ate breakfast, chatted with the other divers and enjoyed the view. Our instructor, Julie, briefed us about the first of our two dives and told us what species of fish we could hope to see. It was a long list. Then it was time to kit up and hit the water.

MV Moskito [Enlarge]

Even before we stepped off the boat we could see that we were surrounded by tropical fish. Coming from Britain, we think of the sea as a grey, cold place. For us it was like looking down into a giant aquarium. Our fifty-minute first dive felt more like five minutes as we swam round the coral reef marvelling at the colours, the variety and the sheer enjoyment of being able to breathe underwater. And got the hang of the whole don't-float-don't-sink thing. There were so many best bits: when Julie pointed out the real-life Nemos (clown fish) hiding in the anemone coral, or when a hawksbill turtle swam playfully past us, or when a banded sea snake uncurled itself from the reef and headed straight up towards the surface to breathe.

After a lazy lunch back on the boat we dived again. This time we had to demonstrate our underwater skills (this is a course after all), but there was still plenty of time for fish spotting. When we were finally dropped back at LaLaanta at about 18:00 we were exhausted, but very happy.

We had another day of study and practice in the pool on Monday. We also had to take a written exam—well, fifty multiple choice questions, no cheating! We did fine and managed to get done early.

Tuesday saw us up and ready to go for our second day of open water diving at 07:00, and back on the Moskito to Koh Haa. This time we went down to 18 metres. The visibility was over 20 metres, the water was warm (30°C / 86°F) and were able to start learning how to relax under water. When we got back to the surface we realised that the weather had changed while we'd been beneath the surface. The sea was now really choppy and it made doing the final skill (take off all your gear and put it back on again) quite hard. And getting back on the boat was a bit of a challenge, but the boat crew were there to lend a hand. After another yummy lunch we did our final dive, this time to 16 metres.

And then we were certified divers! We are now allowed to dive anywhere in the world to a depth of 18 metres. We're hooked. Being weightless under the water is amazing. On the boat back we got loads of recommendations for other places to dive in the places we're heading towards (many of them cheaper than here). This is definitely something we'll do again.

Journey to paradise

Sunset at LaLaanta [Enlarge]

Thailand has some of the best beaches in the world, and that's where we were heading. It's currently low season which means the possibility of typhoons, tropical storms, monsoons... but it's not like that all the time. You can be unlucky, but most days have perfectly good weather.

We spent a few days in Bangkok in our now customary hotel, the Prince Palace (quirky but we kinda like it) before heading down to the station for our overnight train to the south-west corner of the country. We were heading for the island of Koh Lanta. We chose that island because we wanted somewhere cheap but comfortable, and quiet. The whole island seems to be pretty quiet in low season, but we wanted Really Quiet. So we chose LaLaanta Hideaway Resort, which is right at the southern tip of the island and consists of twenty beachside bungalows nestled in the jungle right next to a national park.

The train was slow and comfortable and dropped us off at Surat Thani, near the east coast—the other side of the peninsula from where we wanted to be. Note: If you're taking the train from Bangkok to Koh Lanta, forget about connecting with buses to Krabi and just stay on the train until it reaches Trang. You'll see why in a moment. It was just after dawn when we, and a handful of other crumpled westerners tumbled off the train and into the waiting grasp of the bus touts. They certainly get up early! We'd actually already got our onward bus ticket to Krabi on the west coast because we'd bought a combined train and bus ticket. But what we hadn't known at the time of purchase is that the train company had effectively just sold us on to the touts. Our ticket was for one of their buses.

What follows is an all too typical story of being passed from one bus to another, circling the streets of Surat Thani endlessly collecting groups of weary travellers who had been ferried in from all over the country, then being dropped off in the middle of nowhere (done so that you have no other options) and sold to more touts, etc etc blah blah.

We passed amazing limestone karsts just like you see in any movie featuring Thailand. The AC on the bus was reasonably effective at protecting us from the heat outside—it seemed to be one of the few functions on the bus that was still working. The speedometer registered zero throughout the trip, the oil pressure gauge was in negative territory and the odometer had stopped turning a long time ago at 527,163 kilometres. The driver, like other Thai drivers we had last year, didn't have a clue how gears worked. Luckily the route wasn't too hilly. But he made excellent use of the horn, which was still operational, and we finally got to Krabi.

Koh Lanta car ferry [Enlarge]

Our next task was to find a minibus from Krabi to Koh Lanta. In the high season there's apparently a direct passenger ferry, but in the low season the only way onto the island is on the vehicle ferry which crosses a much narrower stretch of water, but leaves from a pier a long way out of Krabi. Finding a minibus was actually very easy, because we were dumped in a farmhouse outside Krabi which belonged, surprise surprise, to a minibus company! We grudgingly paid our 350 baht (GBP 5.24 / USD 10.40) each—sadly we couldn't be bothered to start walking into town in search of a cheaper option.

Okay. Next stop Koh Lanta? No. Next stop the minibus company's office in town to change vehicle, then another stop or two to make sure the bus was completely full.

It was almost a shock when we realised that we were finally speeding towards the Koh Lanta car ferry. Having loaded his cargo, the minibus driver was obviously on a time bonus. He barely touched the brakes until we were at the ferry port. Reading up on the journey to Koh Lanta in low season (when the car ferry is the only option) we had been warned to expect long queues at the car ferry. It can take as much as four hours to get from Krabi to the island. But for the first time in the whole day something went perfectly and there were no queues—we drove straight onto a waiting ferry!

Off the ferry, another white knuckle ride in the minibus and finally another car ferry, and we were on the right island. Phew. We had been in contact with LaLaanta on the mobile and their driver was waiting in Saladan town to pick us up. About forty-five minutes later we were delivered safely to our own personal paradise island resort, at the end of a long dirt track.

LaLaanta is everything the website says. Our new home is a beautiful bungalow with bamboo bits and a thatched roof, and the odd gecko behind the curtains. It's great! Did we say we wanted somewhere quiet? It's a case of be careful what you wish for, because it turns out we're the only guests! And the few other resorts on the beach are closed, which means that we have the entire bay to ourselves... We now have plans for at least the next two weeks. After a year of crazy working schedules we are on holiday! We celebrated in the beach bar over a beer: the first, no doubt, of many.

Day 582-583
Bangkok to Koh Lanta Yai

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

A pleasant surprise

Our plane to Bangkok arriving [Enlarge]

We were second in the queue to check in to our KLM flight from Taipei to Bangkok. Why does Dutch carrier KLM fly from Taipei to Bangkok? Because Bangkok is just a stopover en route to Amsterdam. As always, Glenn asked very politely for a seat with extra leg room. The check in desk person allocated us a pair of seats at the front of a section with no neighbours, which was very nice of her (as we've noted before, Asian women love Glenn).

After immigration we searched for ways to spend our final 122 Taiwanese dollars (GBP 2.02 / USD 4.02) on food. The best value, we eventually decided, was two Starbucks toasted paninis costing 55 and 65 dollars. That's all we needed, because we would be getting another sandwich or something later during our lowish-priced flight.

Thirty minutes before boarding we went to our gate. The plane was a 747—our first 747 ever!—and it looked like it was going to be full. As we sat waiting there was an announcement "Could passengers Malte Isla and Livett Glenn please contact a member of staff." Our first thought was that they'd done something to our luggage. Detonated it in a controlled explosion? We showed the man our boarding cards to say who we were. He told us that because the flight was overbooked, we were going upstairs to business class! Oh yeah, baby!

We said a few posts ago that we feel that travelling by boat or train is really travelling, and flying is cheating. Well we were wrong. Flying is best, KLM is our new favourite airline and Holland is the Greatest Country In The World. We really should visit some day.

As we supped our pre-flight champagne we checked out the dinner menu options, and donned our active noise reduction headphones to flick through the available movies. After we took off, we dined on a smoked halibut and salmon starter followed by a choice of Siam perch, sweet and sour pork or beef Penang (we both had the beef), and fresh fruit salad with opera gâteau. We swilled it down with a surprising Austrian red, Johanneshof Zweigelt 2006 ("cherries, herbs and oak"), then finished with a glass of VSOP cognac. After dinner we reclined in our lie-flat seats with massage function and we hoped that maybe there would be a strike at Air Traffic Control or Bangkok would be fog-bound which would prevent us from landing. But sadly the four-hour flight came to an end in no time.

We don't know why we were chosen over the other 386 economy people for an upgrade. But we don't care. The only downside to our flight to Bangkok is that it's going to be very hard to go back to a tatami mat on the floor after this.

Day 578
Taipei to Bangkok

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Flight to Hanoi

Suvarnabhumi Airport [Enlarge]

The Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Hà Nội (Hanoi) was clean, comfortable and on time. Air Asia is a proper budget carrier like RyanAir and EasyJet in the UK (except it has good customer service). It doesn't do allocated seating, but we managed to get a seat with extra legroom in the exit row, so the passenger scrum actually worked to our advantage.

We discovered that northern Vietnam on a March evening is a little chilly. It felt even more so because we were coming from the heat and humidity of Bangkok. Leaving the airport, we dodged the taxi touts and soon found our man holding a board with Glenn's name on it (the airport is about 35 kilometres from the city centre so we had booked the hotel's transfer service to avoid any taxi-related issues). The guy led us to his car and we set off onto the expressway. We had switched back to driving on the right again—Thailand is the only country in South East Asia which drives on the left. The landscape outside was pretty much the standard fare of flat paddy fields and tiny shack-like houses, but surrounding them were huge advertising boards with laser displays and lights. It seemed that nobody in Hà Nội owns a car, as 99 percent of vehicles buzzing around us were motorbikes or mopeds, all of which had at least two people on board, sometimes four or five. It was pretty weird.

As we neared Hà Nội proper we saw the first few French-style houses: very tall (five or six stories) but with an amazingly narrow frontage and lots of balconies. They looked like they should have been part of a terrace, but that their neighbours had been demolished to leave them standing isolated. We learned later that narrow houses are common here because of an old tax which was based on the width of the front of the building. A bit like the window tax back home which caused so many windows in Georgian houses to be bricked up.

Hanoi Elegance Hotel [Enlarge]

We had booked our room at the Hanoi Elegance Hotel on Hostelworld. It is located in the heart of the Old Town, and turned out to be very clean and welcoming, although most rooms (including ours) do not have windows. We dumped our bags and headed out for a late dinner. On the hotel's recommendation we tried Little Hanoi a few blocks away, which is a backpacker-friendly place with a good line in Vietnamese dishes for beginners, mostly based on noodles. We chose the chicken noodles, which came with loads of stir-fried vegetables and a pair of chopsticks, and were delicious. Back in the room we had a very long, very good sleep (probably because it didn't get light in the morning in our windowless room) and we woke up too late to get any breakfast.

Day 105
Bangkok to Hanoi

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Leaving Thailand

Khlong Mahanak [Enlarge]

Our time in Bangkok has drawn to a close. We've loved it here, although some of our love for Thailand is probably due to the fact that we came here straight after our bad experience in India. We've met many people who all described Bangkok as dirty, smelly, too busy and polluted. We can't believe they're talking about the same city.

After we picked up our Vietnam visas we decided that we didn't have time to do justice to an overland trip through Cambodia and Vietnam. We've done travelling on bad roads, and spending entire days and nights on board buses and trains. It's worthwhile if you do a journey then spend a few days at your destination before moving on, but we would not have time to stop because of the need to get to Hong Kong and source some more Malarone antimalarial tablets. To travel the length of Vietnam's reunification railway takes about 34 hours; we could split it into chunks of six to ten hours per day and do it in four legs, but we still wouldn't see much of the places we went through en route because we would be travelling all the time and only stopping to sleep. We concluded that we might as well pick one destination and fly straight to it—then we will be able to spend time actually seeing the place. So we chose Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, for no good reason. We are going to fly there later today with Air Asia for 6100 baht for both of us (GBP 96.43 / USD 186.23), which is cheaper than we could do it overland. We will have to leave Cambodia for the next time we sell everything to go travelling.

We've spent the last few days enjoying Bangkok (our new favourite city) and trying all of the different ways of getting around. Probably the biggest complaint that people have about the city is the clogged-up roads. It's true, the traffic is bad, but you never need to travel by road! Firstly there are abundant river taxis up and down the winding Chao Phraya river. You can buy a hop-on-hop-off tourist ticket if you like, but there's no need—at 100 baht (GBP 1.58 / USD 3.05) it is overpriced given that a journey on the normal service from the furthest north pier, Thewet, to Saphan Taksin in the centre costs only 13 baht (GBP 0.21 / USD 0.40).

Riding a torpedo on Khlong Mahanak [Enlarge]

Then there are the boats which speed along the famous Khlongs (canals). These have been our most used method of transport because there is a stop right next to our hotel, serving the large wholesale clothes market in the Bobae Tower. From there we could speed directly to the 'National Stadium' skytrain station. Like regular narrow boats, but on steroids, they are often known as 'torpedos' because of the speed they travel at. They have tarpaulins along the sides, against which the passengers can find a little shelter behind against the spray coming over the bow and into the boat. Getting a face full of canal water is the only drawback of this method of transport. Again it's cheap: 8 baht each (GBP 0.13 / USD 0.24) for the journey we did most often. Just leap on and pay the crash-helmeted ticket collectors who cling to the outside of the boats.

The Bangkok Mass Transit System (skytrain) is fab. Elevated high above the traffic chaos it whisks you in near-silent, deliciously freezingly air conditioned comfort across the congested city centre. The Mass Rapid Transit (metro) is even newer than the skytrain. The only similarity between it and the London Underground is that they're both subterranean railways. Bangkok's metro is so clean and shiny that you want to take your shoes off in case you make dirty footprints, and like the skytrain it has such good-quality air conditioning that you never actually want to leave it. To be fair to the London Underground, it has been open for 140-odd years longer than Bangkok's metro, so it has had time to get a bit grubby.

People of Thailand and City of Bangkok: we think you're fab. We will definitely be back!

Thai cookery course

Ingredients for Thai cookery course [Enlarge]

There was one last thing that we wanted to do before leaving Thailand. We both love Thai food, but have never successfully made an authentic tasting dish at home despite numerous efforts—so we fancied taking a cookery class. No matter where you are in Thailand you are never far from a Thai Cookery School. Based on website and price we chose the Silom Thai Cooking School, and phoned on the off chance that they had space for us the very next day. They did, and when the proprietor Sanusi ('Nusi') picked us up from the hotel the next morning, we discovered we were the only students that day. He'd been full the day before, but we were about to get a private lesson, which meant that we could choose our own menu! In the taxi to the market, Nusi asked us what we wanted to make. Glenn said that learning about curries and soups would be a bonus, but personally he would be happy just to learn the secrets of his favourite Thai dessert (which he didn't know the name of, or even what was in it). He could only describe it: crunchy red balls with a slimy coating, in warm coconut milk. [Trust me, it's delicious!—Glenn.]

We stopped at the local market and Nusi led us through the various stalls, telling us all about the fresh produce on offer and dropping things into our baskets. He identified some of the hitherto unknown vegetables that we had previously seen in our Thai dishes. For instance, did you know that those crunchy green things like large peas which float in your green curry are actually aubergines (US: eggplants)?!

Fully stocked up and ready to go, it was a short walk back to Nusi's house, where he has a large open-air kitchen. We put on aprons and set to work thoroughly washing the vegetables and herbs we had bought. Then we sat down on the floor in another room where a huge heavy pestle and mortar, and two chopping boards and knives had been set out. Nusi showed us the ingredients needed for our first dish, tom kha gai, a spicy coconut-milk soup with chicken. We chopped and crushed our ingredients and then moved to the cooking area where coconut milk was already warming in a wok. All we had to do was to add the ingredients and simmer gently until the chicken was cooked right through. It was dead easy, even for Can't Cook Won't Cook Glenn, and the effort was all in the preparation. One of the ingredients was super-hot bird's eye chillies, and Nusi told us to add a whole chilli (per bowl of soup) if we liked it spicy, or half if we liked it milder. After nearly two months of eating first Indian curries and then the arguably even hotter Thai dishes, we thought we'd be daring, so we added about three quarters of a chilli each. The next four courses were the perennial favourite chicken with cashew nuts; then a salad with glass noodles; fish cakes with sweet chilli sauce; and finally green chicken curry. All of the above would work just as well with pork or beef, but presumably it was easier for Nusi to just have one type of meat on hand when there were just the two of us.

The best bit of course was the tasting and after every course we got to sit down and eat the product of our labours. So what was the result of the taste test on our three-quarter chilli tom kha gai? It was very nice, but it made us cry and break out in a sweat. Nusi's response was to say that most Thai people would have used around ten chillies if they'd been cooking for themselves. Pathetic Europeans.

The highlight of Glenn's day was undoubtedly learning how to make his dessert of red rubies (that's the proper term) in coconut milk. This is a dessert he's had in the UK as well as on this trip, but has never been able to identify what the rubies are. It consists of warm, sweet coconut milk and small red lumps. These are crisp in the middle, with the look and texture of watermelon, but they are gelatinous on the outside. We have always presumed that it must be some kind of melon or pomegranate that goes gelatinous when partially cooked in coconut milk. But now we know that the crispy lumps are diced water chestnut or turnip (!) soaked for twenty minutes in water with a little red food colouring. They are then drained and coated in tapioca flour before being added to a wok containing boiling water. The tapioca flour makes them go gelatinous on the outside. When they're cooked they float to the surface of the water, and you just scoop them out.

Incidentally, we asked Nusi what he thought the green caterpillars were, floating in the dessert at our Northern Thailand lunch buffet. He was sure they had simply been tapioca shapes.

Glenn wasn't all that bothered about coming along today because he hates cooking normally, but in the end he was glad he came. We both really enjoyed it. We can't wait to put our new skills into practice when we come home.

Bangkok wildlife

Shark watching [Enlarge]

Yesterday we walked very slowly to the Vietnam embassy to collect our passports, but despite our best efforts we were still hot and sweaty by the time we arrived. It must be the humidity. Even on the hottest day in the UK (which is a lot hotter than the low thirties Celcius we're having here) it's possible to keep your cool so long as you don't rush. But here the thick, hot air gets in to every shadow and under every tree. There is no escape.

Picking up our visas was no problem. On the way back out of the embassy door with our freshly visa'd passports safely stowed, we met an American who was going to Vietnam to look for islands to buy. That's something we've yet to see on Rightmove. Come to think of it, maybe we could also be tempted by a Scaramanga-style hideaway! (Yes, we've found time to watch the James Bond DVD we bought on Monday.)

We were meeting Jeremy for dinner. We first met him at Agra station in India, and we shared a taxi to Jaipur with him and his friend Andy. He has an apartment in Bangkok and lives here for a few months each year. We were already on the right side of town, so it seemed pointless to go all the way back to the hotel before coming back out again in the evening. We found a great place to go for three or four hours: in the basement of the Paragon Mall there's a 10,000 square metre underwater world with penguins, sharks, rays, three metre long Mehkong catfish, called Siam Oceanworld… We had to go and see it, and it was really, really great. All our photos are here.

When we were fully fished out, we took the Skytrain to meet Jeremy. Last time we saw him was when we'd parted company with him and Andy at Jaipur station. He took us to one of his favourite Thai restaurants, tucked away down a side street where we would never have found it. We compared notes on India—his impressions on the place were pretty much identical to ours. He and Andy had fared no better than us after we parted, had also given up on Jaipur in disgust, and had flown to Goa for the rest of their fortnight's holiday. We don't blame them. It's a small sample, but it made us feel better to know that we weren't the only ones to really hate India.

After dinner Jeremy took us to see the infamous Phat Phong red light area of Bangkok where a string of girly shows compete for business along the street. Men standing outside the bars hold signs with 'menus' outlining their various offerings. Most intriguing were the 'ping pong' shows—we wondered what they were going to do with the ping pong balls. Interestingly Isla got as many offers to sample the delights of Phat Phong as Glenn and Jeremy did, but we all decided to pass on the opportunity. We didn't see any ladyboys either, but then again the whole point is that you don't realise they're ladyboys. And of course none of us were looking.

We took the Skytrain back to the end of the line and then walked the final few blocks to the hotel. This part of town was much quieter, and we were sharing the streets only with cockroaches, huge rats and stray cats, all digging through the rubbish which had been left out for collection overnight. Although night time, it was still oppressively hot as always.

A good day.

Visa teasers

Bangkok City of Life [Enlarge]

Ah, visas. How we love them. Every one is different. Some like UAE and Thailand are freely given, others like Jordan, Turkey and Laos are paid for on arrival, and then there are the ones like Syria and India for which you have to visit the embassy. And the forms are different, but there's always at least one question that you can't fill in because it's not designed for independent or overland travellers. So what do you put when they ask you for your address in the country you're visiting, or for details of your return flight out? You could make something up—the name of a hotel or a travel agent—they probably won't check but they might. You could leave it blank and hope that it doesn't matter, or you could write in something vague like "travelling". A combination of the latter two has yet to cause us problems, but yesterday's visa application was for China. Chinese visas are the stuff of legend on the web: stories abound about how picky the Chinese officials are, how they will check out your entire itinerary, and how you mustn't leave any boxes blank. We needed to get it right because we've already paid the deposit for a tour! Our travel agent in Beijing had sent us a letter of introduction to take to the embassy, along with their itinerary and lots of passport photographs.

We went straight to the Chinese embassy in Bangkok more or less as soon as we arrived back on the overnight train. As we understood it, the visa process takes four days: this was Tuesday, and we wanted them before the weekend. After getting in a taxi and failing to persuade the driver to take us to the embassy ("Too far!"), we were forced to use a combination of two canal boats, a metro and our legs to get to Ratchada Phisek Road way out in the east of town. It was 10:00 by the time we got to the embassy. The visa office occupies a large square room and feels not unlike a major post office. You take a numbered ticket and wait. There were a lot of other people seeking a China visa in Bangkok that day. Admittedly it was the second day that they were open after the week-long Chinese New Year holiday, but even so, it was busy. Our ticket was number 260 and the funky laser display was only showing 95! There were five windows open and the embassy was due to close at 11:30. Unsure of whether we would make it to the head of the queue in time, we took a couple of application forms and filled them in. We noticed that there was a same day priority option—so much for it taking four days! It was a bit more expensive but it would mean that we would have our passports back and we wouldn't need to cross town again in a few days. So we ticked the priority box and then grabbed a seat when we saw one come free. The woman beside us had ticket number 343—suddenly 260 didn't seem so bad. We had observed that if no one came forward to one of the five windows within ten seconds of their number being called the number would move on and they would presumably have to start from scratch. So as our number approached we lurked close by the window. We were poised, ready, as above the third window from the left the numbers two, six, zero appeared. We leapt forwards and flung our forms and supporting documents under the glass. It was then that we noticed that each window had two members of staff behind it processing applications! They must have been unusually busy. The lady glanced over our documents and handed back the letter of invitation and itinerary, keeping the two forms and passports. Then she told us to return at 15:00 to collect the visas. And that was it!

We had four hours to kill. We were out in the suburbs so there wasn't too much to do touristically. On the way from the Metro station we had passed a big Tesco superstore (yes, they have even made it to Thailand) so we went for a nose around there. Their range of ready-meals included Thai green curry: just like at home. In fact if you didn't look too closely at the deli counter it could have been home. We wandered into the next door mall, had a Coke and topped up on soap and shampoo. Later we treated ourselves to a Thai Pizza Hut lunch. Then, in an inexplicable fit of impulse purchasing, we bought The Man With The Golden Gun on DVD, to watch on the laptop later. We justified the purchase because it was cheap and we hadn't seen a movie for a while, but mainly because the film is partly set in Bangkok.

All of a sudden it was 14:30 and time to go back to the embassy. It's amazing how you can while away time in a mall, especially if the alternative is to go outside into the superheated streets. When the doors opened on the stroke of three, the waiting mass poured into the embassy and up the stairs, forming a queue at the payment counter. Once we had paid our 5,900 baht (GBP 93.26 / USD 180.00) for two double-entry priority visas, we took our receipt to the collection counter and got our visa'd passports with no problems. Yet again, all the horror stories on the web had proven to be inaccurate.

OK, we've got our Chinese visa sorted, so where next? Our China tour starts on the overnight train from Hong Kong to Shanghai on 25th March. We actually want to be in Hong Kong several days before that, firstly to see the place (and Macau), and secondly to buy some more Malarone before our current stocks run out. We know—well, we've found on the internet for all that's worth—that there are at least two travel clinics in Hong Kong able to dispense Malarone to travellers.

Sticking to our ideal of going overland, we would go through Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam, then by train up the Vietnam coast to Hanoi, then train across China to Hong Kong. The problem is, although Hong Kong is part of China, for visa purposes it's completely separate. As British citizens we can visit Hong Kong for 180 days without needing a visa. To travel overland from Vietnam through China to Hong Kong would count as entering and then exiting China, thus using up our visa. We would then need a new Chinese visa to get back in once we were finished in Hong Kong, which we wouldn't be able to apply for until a certain period of time had elapsed. OK, but surely we have a double-entry Chinese visa so there's no problem, right? Wrong. We need a second entry into China for a special reason which we will talk about later. And tourists can't get more than two entries at a time.

So overland to Hong Kong is out. Our preferred option is to fly from Hanoi to Hong Kong. It's not very far—about the same as London to Glasgow. We can still get to Hanoi overland from Bangkok. Cambodia issues visas on arrival at the two main border crossings with Thailand, but we need to get our Vietnam visas before we set out. You know what this means. We trundled off this morning to the Vietnam embassy—thankfully much nearer to our hotel than the Chinese one—filled in more forms with more photos, handed over yet more money and surrendered our passports again. This time it cost 5,000 baht (GBP 79.03 / 152.54 USD ), and is an overnight job. We have to go back at 16:00 tomorrow to collect our passports and, hopefully, our visas.

Return to Bangkok

Vientiane's Champs-Elysées (Lane Xang Avenue) [Enlarge]

Getting from Vientiane to Nong Khai in Thailand is a multi-stage process: Transport 24 kilometres from Vientiane to the Friendship Bridge; walk through the Laos border; minibus across the Friendship Bridge (pedestrians not allowed); walk through the Thai border; tuk-tuk three kilometres to Nong Khai. Luckily there is also a bus service which runs all the way from Vientiane to Nong Khai, so we decided to take that rather than piecing together separate transport for each stage. We had borrowed someone else's Laos guidebook and found that there were three buses a day, and the next one was due at 10:30 from Vientiane's Market Place bus station. We checked out of our hotel and walked the few blocks to the bus station. It was stiflingly hot and muggy, even at 09:45. Low cloud meant the humidity was even higher than usual. A leisurely walk with our small bags left us soaked in sweat. It got better: when we reached the bus station we found that the timetable had changed, and there was no longer a 10:30 bus! The next one was at 12:40. A local taxi tout helped us to clarify our options. We could get a local bus to the border—he pointed out the local bus crammed full of people, shopping and livestock—or we could get a tuk-tuk. His tuk-tuk. Neither of these options was appealing, especially since they would only get us as far as the Laos border at the start of the Friendship Bridge. We chose to go with our own, third way: wait for the 12:40 air conditioned bus. We found a nice cool café round the corner to have breakfast.

After a couple of croissants and a leisurely read of the previous day's Bangkok Times we wandered back at the bus station. The clouds had lifted and the air was less humid, but it was still blisteringly hot. Nevertheless the bus was on time and we were at the border post in no time at all. Every border crossing we've done has been different and not one of them has gone according to plan. We'd read up on what we needed for the Laos/Thai border and arrived at Laos immigration with our pre-completed departure cards, passports and a crisp 20,000 kip note to cover our exit tax (GBP 1.07 / USD 2.07). The guards took the departure cards, stamped the passports, then decided to waive the exit fee! There was a booth marked "exit tax" or something similar, but the person inside just waved us through. We have no idea why.

Back on the waiting bus we crossed the Friendship Bridge back into Thailand. Ever wondered what happens when you cross a land border from a country where they drive on the right to one where they drive on the left? The road turned into a dual carriageway, then each carriageway curved round like a bow tie before turning back in on itself. The two halves met in the middle at what was basically a cross-roads. You make sure nothing is coming from the other direction, cross over and the road goes back to being a single carriageway with you on the other side. Simple.

And then we were back in Thailand. It didn't take long for us to know that we'd made the right decision to stay the previous night in Vientiane. Nong Khai doesn't have a lot to offer. We took a tuk-tuk to the railway station to buy our tickets for the night train back to Bangkok, then another tuk-tuk back into town to find somewhere to eat an early dinner. There are restaurants in Nong Khai, but we somehow managed to miss them. Eventually, right at the end of the street on the river front we came across Tony's, an English pub, guest house and restaurant. There was a blackboard outside boasting at the size of the pies, the greasiness of the all-day breakfasts, the milkiness of the hot tea, etc. In England we would have walked straight past the place. But we were out of options and we had a twelve hour train journey ahead of us. Glenn went for the house special, the steak and ale pie with mash, peas and gravy. Isla, ever adventurous tried the sausage and mash. How wrong first impressions can be! The home-made steak and ale pie was the best that Glenn had ever tasted, and Isla was delighted to find that her mash was lumpy, just like her dad makes it. Just goes to show that you never can tell unless you try!

We got a third and final tuk-tuk back to the train station and boarded our train. We had treated ourselves to a two-berth first class compartment back to Bangkok. It had a washbasin and was clean in all the places that mattered, like the bedding. We left Nong Khai on time and shut the curtains on the night. Two hours into the journey we asked the steward to make up our beds and we went to bed. We discovered that it is much easier to sleep on a night train than a night bus. The rocking was very soothing and with our ear plugs in even the train's horn was drowned out. We woke up at 05:30 on the outskirts of Bangkok with the GPS reading 21 kilometres to go, and we arrived into the station exactly on time.

We were even earlier arriving at the Prince Palace Hotel than we had been last time we got to Bangkok, and again they had no double rooms available yet. We must have looked a bit crumpled and travel weary because after a few minutes of sitting in the lobby to wait for someone to check out, the receptionist called us over and said he would upgrade us to a suite and we could have the key now. Result! After exploring our suite (OK, it's not all that big—it's just that we're used to budget accommodation, so humour us) we took a quick shower changed our clothes. We were ready to hit the town and face our next challenge… the China visa.

Day 094
Vientiane to Bangkok

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Cruise down the Mehkong

Crossing the Mehkong to Laos [Enlarge]

Only the tourists and chickens were awake at 05:45 when we went downstairs for breakfast at the Chiang Saen River Hill Hotel. By 06:15 we were outside in the still-dark street stepping over sleeping dogs to reach the waiting fleet of MPVs. The vehicles set off whenever they were full and we were the first one to leave. By the time we had travelled for an hour downriver to the border town of Chiang Khong, we had been overtaken by several of the other MPVs, because our driver didn't understand that you need to change down to a lower gear to go up steep hills. By about half past seven we were all standing outside the Thai border post, only half awake. The office wasn't due to open until eight, but the hotel tour manager told us that he had a special arrangement and our passports would be getting stamped as he spoke. We were sent down the hill, still passportless, to the river bank—where we were parted from our bag as people and luggage were loaded onto different longtail boats to cross the Mehkong to the Laos side. Once everyone had arrived on the other side and the bags had been unloaded, our passports materialised and were handed through the window en masse. We got them back complete with their Laos visas, and then individually queued at the immigration window to get our entry stamps. A Laos visa and immigration 'stamp' is a work of art, carefully constructed by the issuing officials who need to apply no fewer than ten individual rubber stamps, in two colours, across a double-page spread in the passport to define exactly what each person's entry conditions are. Border guards the world over must dream of being Laotian and getting to do that much stamping.

We walked up the hill into Huayxai to where another MPV was waiting to whisk us a few hundred metres to the river boat on which we would be cruising to Luang Prabang in the Laos interior. There was no pier or jetty; we boarded the boat via a plank from the muddy beach. One of the other passengers had broken her ankle and was on crutches so she was lifted on board. We must say it was a slick operation on the part of the hotel; everything working perfectly and just in time.

Our 'luxury' boat didn't quite look like it had done in the photograph, but it had comfortable seats that had obviously been scavenged from a minibus—and most of them were attached to the floor. There was a bar area selling hot drinks, Pepsi and Beer Lao. The moment the boat started moving it got very cold on board—we found out just what other travellers' huge rucksacks actually contain, as fleeces, jackets, scarves and blankets were produced from the bottom of the bags. We had to make do with putting our shirts on over our T-shirts, but we were assured that by 10:30 or so the sun would be working its magic and we would be wishing it was cool again. Several of the group, which consisted of about 25 people in total, were in the mood for a Beer Lao even though it was not even 09:00. We weren't quite ready for a beer yet so we had a coffee instead.

As we made a left turn to follow the river away from the Thai-Lao border into the heart of Laos, the landscape slipped serenely past us: the jungle-clad cliffs looked like the setting for Jurassic Park or King Kong. We passed tiny isolated villages of bamboo stilt houses, with neither power lines nor roads connecting them to the outside world. Until recently, the waterways were Laos's only feasible means of communication—they are only just beginning to be surpassed by the roads which are being surfaced and widened. Although changing rapidly, the Lao People's Democratic Republic is still extremely poor and underdeveloped outside the main cities—the first printing press only arrived in the country in 1957.

Stop at Pak Beng, Mehkong cruise [Enlarge]

Late February is towards the end of the dry season, so the water level was very low. The level of the 'high water' line during the monsoon season was clearly visible on the river banks and we estimated it was at least twenty metres above our heads. The river banks mostly consisted of tall, steeply sloping beaches of fine sand. Hundreds of sandbanks, rocks and islands divided the river into alternative channels. Several times the boat was shaken by strong rapids, currents and whirlpools, through which the skipper had to plot a skilful course. We could see why the speedboats are such a risky option.

At about 10:30 we couldn't resist our hotel-supplied packed lunches any longer (it was almost five hours since breakfast, after all). Our big white cake boxes held fried chicken, sandwiches, a hard-boiled egg, some raisin bread, a banana, a satsuma, a carton of iced green tea and two tiny plastic bags, one containing a brownish powder and one filled with white granules. Someone wondered whether we had all been set up as drugs mules by a sophisticated cross-border smuggling ring, but harmlessly they turned out to be pepper and salt. Apart from the cheese (which was that prefabricated rubbery stuff that has 'cheese' listed as one of its ingredients), it was not a bad packed lunch! By 11:00 most of the lunch was gone and Glenn felt that it was not unacceptably early to partake of his first Beer Lao. We had heard good things about Beer Lao. It is only produced in Laos, never under license in other countries and although it is now being exported we had never had the opportunity to taste it before. It tastes mellower and a lot less chemical than Thai Singha.

Being on a boat with no local people apart from the crew, with a good stock of beer and some pretty crummy music playing on the sound system at the back, was not the way we had originally wanted to travel down the Mehkong. But given that the alternatives were to be pummelled on a speedboat for six hours, or to squat between chicken crates for two days on a local boat, we reckon we made the right choice. And doing it this way meant that we hopefully wouldn't catch deafness or bird flu.

We briefly moored up in the isolated village of Pak Beng, roughly the halfway point, where one of the crew ran up the hill to get a stamp in the boat's log book… and fetched another case of Beer Lao. If we'd been on the slow slowboat this would have been our overnight stop. It didn't look too bad, but we were glad to be pushing on towards Luang Prabang. It was 14:00, and if this was half way we needed to get a move on. The tour company's poster had advertised our arrival time as 17:00, but when we'd asked yesterday evening we were told that we would arrive between 18:30 and 19:00. Tour company posters, we have found, almost always lie about arrival times so that you're not put off. It was now clear that we were not even going to make the later estimate. The sun was due to set at 18:14 (another cool ferature of the GPS is telling you local sunrise and sunset times), so it would be fully dark long before we got to Luang Prabang. As the Mehkong is too dangerous for boats to travel at night, we wondered what would happen. Would we pull over to the nearest river bank and make camp under the stars? The beer drinkers certainly wouldn't go thirsty.

Mehkong cruise [Enlarge]

We continued down river admiring the beautiful Laos countryside as the sun got lower in the sky, the light illuminating the trees became golden and the shadows lengthened. At low latitudes it gets dark very quickly once the sun sets and by about 19:00 it had got so dark that the skipper and his mate couldn't see anything out of the front of the boat. One of the crew went back to the engine room and fetched a torch. He then stood at the front of the boat and used it to try to pick out the rocks. We were curious as to why they had chosen to put the only electric light on the boat in the toilet! So the last three quarters of an hour of the journey was spent under the stars and a half moon, just the occasional bonfire lighting up the jungle as we passed. There was a slight edginess on board as we all hoped the skipper's knowledge of the river wasn't going to let him down. We were all relieved when we saw the lights of Laos's ancient capital and present day second city beginning to line the south bank of the river, having gone for so long in total darkness. The folk of Luang Prabang had certainly gone to town with the decorations. The whole of the waterfront was a mass of lights prompting one of the group to wittily dub the place Laos Vegas. We moored up between two other boats and again in the absence of a jetty the only way onto dry land was to walk a plank across to another boat, and then down onto the muddy beach. We hope the girl on crutches made it!

We shouldered our bag and walked up the steep access road into the town centre to find our guest house, booked on Hostelworld the previous evening. It was at the far end off Luang Prabang and wasn't easy to find. Our room was small and had no AC, but the bathroom was very clean and it was only USD 12 a night. Everything was fine, until we pulled the bed covers back and saw hundreds of tiny brown dots hopping about. The bed was full of fleas. We went straight back out into town to look for somewhere else—we had passed a nice looking place on the way to our booked guest house so we decided to try there first. It was more expensive but they did have a room available, for one night only. We will have to find somewhere else for tomorrow night. After failing to find any wildlife in our new room, we went back out for our first taste of Laos food in a nearby restaurant and found it to be very different to Thai: drier, less spicy, but with harsher and earthier flavours. And virtually all the dishes seemed to be built around 'Mehkong weed' which, given the colour of the river, was a bit offputting. Their beer is better than Singha though!

Day 091
Chiang Saen to Luang Prabang

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Northern Thailand day trip

On our trip we've tried to keep a balance between doing backpacker stuff (staying in hostels, visiting web cafés, drinking beer, swapping anecdotes and eating in Pizza Hut), doing tourist stuff (being transported around and shown things), and doing cultural immersion stuff (just being in a place meeting the locals, eating what they eat and catching their buses). The variety has been good.

Today was definitely a tourist stuff day. We had signed up for a day trip to see some of the sights of Northern Thailand on our way to the Laos border. At 07:00 we were sitting outside the Seven Suns guest house with our bag waiting for our pick up. When it arrived, our guide jumped out and crossed the road to meet us. She was slim, with long hair and lots of makeup, but she had very broad shoulders. We don't think she has always been a woman. She also had the most annoyingly loud voice, especially if you were directly behind her in the MPV. But we couldn't fault her enthusiasm—at seven in the morning she still managed to make us feel that ours was the first tour she had ever hosted.

Boiling eggs in the hot springs [Enlarge]

It was going to be a long journey from Chiang Mai to our next overnight stop at Chiang Saen, and our itinerary showed that we had a lot of places to visit en route. Clearly we would not be pausing for long at each place. Thailand's roads were a model of modernity and civilised behaviour after our experience of driving in India, and it wasn't long before we made our first stop at some hot springs. Walking around the site it seemed that hot water and tourist stalls sprung from the ground in equal measure. A strong smell of sulphur hung in the air. Apart from shopping for all the usual tat (who on earth ever buys this stuff?) the big attraction here seemed to be eating boiled eggs cooked by nature in the bubbling pools. We didn't see many eggs being sold, although hundreds were being boiled by the local ladies in little baskets lowered on hooks into the shallow water. We preferred to buy a coffee and slice of cake from one of the stalls, after which we spent a baht in what must have been a contender for the world's cleanest public toilet—you had to take off your shoes and put on a pair of slippers to get in!

Monks at the Wat Rong Khun (white temple) [Enlarge]

Our next destination was the brand new, kitsch glitterball of a temple that is Wat Rong Khun. Buddhist temple architecture always makes a garish statement, but Wat Rong Khun takes things a stage further. The entire building is brilliant white, with tiny mirrored tiles embedded in it to add extra sparkle. It has been designed by a renowned Thai artist called Chalermchai Kositpipat, and he is financing its construction himself. A combination of cash flow problems and micro-management mean that the first of nine planned buildings has taken nine years to complete, and the bizarre murals showing stills from Hollywood movies that decorate the walls inside still aren't quite done. When it's finsihed Chalermchai Kositpipat intends to dedicate his masterpiece to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. If they get a move on with the construction it could be ready for his 150th birthday in 2077.

Even a monkey can taste the difference [Enlarge]

We paused next at what our lady guide called the Monkey and Fish Caves. Outside the mouths of these caves, semi-wild monkeys hang around waiting to be fed bananas and peanuts by the tourists. Sometimes if the tourists are not too forthcoming they jump on them and help themselves. There is a small, fairy-light adorned temple there too, which they have free reign over. They seem to also like posing to have their photos taken. At this strange place you can also (for a fee, of course) set an eel free, or maybe a bird, to carry your worries away. There must have been more significance to this place than our guide told us—she was a bit vague on cultural and historic detail.

After checking for monkeys on our backs we got back in the MPV and hurried to a lunch stop nearby. As we pulled in to a large restaurant car park full of coaches, our minds were cast back to our tour of Turkey, when these lunch stops always consisted of dodgy mass-produced buffets. Yes, this one was a buffet, but it certainly wasn't dodgy or mass-produced. The food was excellent, drinks were included (unlike in Turkey where they charge you the price of a three course meal for a can of Pepsi) and the smiley staff kept encouraging us to go back for more. And Glenn found a new benchmark for pudding excellence. Dessert consisted of large and small sago (tapioca) pearls, jellied fruity bits and strange green caterpillar-like objects (Glenn didn't think they were actually caterpillars, but even if they were, he said they sure tasted good), all floating in warm sweet coconut milk and set off by some ice cubes. Thai desserts you either love or you hate, and this one was surely the exemplar of its class.

We had a chance to talk to the other members of our group over lunch, who by chance were all long-term travellers like ourselves—two other Brits, one French-Canadian (with a hyphen) and one French/Canadian (with a slash). The shortest duration out of all our trips was three months, and the guy doing this trip said it was so nice to be at a table where he isn't the longest-term traveller for a change!

Myanmar / Thailand border bridge [Enlarge]

After finishing off lunch with some jasmine tea, we hopped back in the MPV and headed to Mae Sai, the most northerly town in Thailand and also the site of a bridge marking the border crossing with Myanmar (Burma). We're not sure why we were taken there. The only reason to visit, other than making the crossing into Myanmar, seems to be to buy the counterfeit goods which are shipped down the Mehkong from China, and then fill the stalls that line Mae Sai's main street. We watched a constant stream of local people walking across the bridge in both directions, either armed with empty shopping bags, or laden down with full ones. It seemed that both the Thais and the Burmese were finding that there were good deals to be made across the water. If we had been in Mae Sai for longer we would have liked to cross into Myanmar just for the hell of it, but we didn't have time.

Golden Triangle [Enlarge]

Next we came to the Golden Triangle. After a bad experience in our most recent visit to a Golden Triangle, in India, we were keen to see what this one had to offer. Fact of the day: there are twenty Golden Triangles in the world [source: Wikipedia]. This particular one is located at the point where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar all meet at the confluence of the Mehkong and Ruak rivers. The 'golden' refers to the lucrative opium trade which has been carried on there for the best part of a century. These days it's more of a tourist site and we all posed for the obligatory group photo under the Golden Triangle sign.

Giant gold Buddha statue [Enlarge]

In the town of Sop Ruak itself, there was a choice to visit the Opium Museum or to look around the river front. We weren't too bothered about the museum so we went to see the giant gold Buddha and watch the mad, mad speedboats tear up and down the Mehkong.

There was just one final stop to make, at Wat Chedi Luang in Chiang Saen, an old temple with parts dating back to the thirteenth century. We were all weary from our whistlestop tour so we were very glad when we were dropped at the Chiang Saen River Hill Hotel, our home until the morning. After a welcome drink we were left in the capable hands of the hotel and our tour guide returned with her MPV to Chiang Mai. We all handed over our passports and 36 US dollars each, with the promise that we would see get them back next morning all visa'd up and ready to go. Funny that the first time we ever use a US banknote should be in Thailand! Considering the actual visa costs 35 dollars and the hotel was getting just one dollar for their efforts, we thought this was good value if it ensured a hassle-free crossing. They even photocopied the photos out of our passport so we didn't have to provide one of our own. We have another early start tomorrow: we're leaving the hotel at 06:15 for the hour-long journey to the border.

All our photos from the day are here.

Day 090
Chiang Mai to Chiang Saen

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Quad biking and whitewater rafting

Finished white water rafting [Enlarge]

Our pick up arrived on schedule at 08:20 this morning to take us out to Mae Tang for our day of excitement. There were six other people on the hour-long MPV ride: a German couple of about our age who were going mountain biking in the morning, then joining us for the rafting in the afternoon, and a family from upstate New York who were on the same programme as us. We dropped the Germans, Cornie and Michael, at their biking location and carried on uphill.

Our first activity was All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) driving, otherwise known as quad biking. We got helmets, gloves and a mesh scarf to cover our nose and mouth, and the expedition leader gave us a briefing on how to use the ATV. It was a bigger and more sophisticated one than we thought it would be, with a 250cc engine and five-speed gearbox.

After a quick practice we hit the road. We had a forty kilometre route to cover through the jungle. The trail was very dry and rough, but it was pretty easy ground for the ATVs. We got back to base three hours later with dust in every place.

After a lunch of salad, chicken and fresh fruit, we were ready for some rafting action. Again we had an instruction briefing and then we got into groups of four. We teamed up with Cornie and Michael who had spent their morning mountain biking. We got in the raft and then our skipper ran through the instructions with us again. Once he was happy that we knew our right from our left, our forwards from our backwards and our 'get down' from our 'on the job' he pushed the raft into the flow and we set off.

Because Thailand is well into its dry season at the moment the water level was fairly low and the river was therefore not too violent. In the monsoon season the rapids can be up to grade 4+. But today they were probably only grade 3 in all honesty. Parts of the route were a gentle meander through beautiful scenery which our skipper made more interesting by having us declare war on another raft. He also made up for the fact that the rapids hadn't been rough enough to capsize us, by ordering us over to one side of the raft so that he could tip it over by himself. During the rough sections we had needed to move to one side a few times, and he was such a good skipper that we obediently complied when he suddenly shouted "over left!", even though we were now on a flat section. Duh!

Eventually we arrived at the end of the course, where we had started the ATV ride from earlier in the day. We lifted the raft up the bank. There were cubicles where we could have a wash and change our clothes, and cold drinks which were very welcome. The company had been videoing us from the bank as we ran the rapids and had the footage showing on a TV, with the option to buy the DVD for 300 baht. They said they would deliver it to each guest house the same evening so we decided to buy it. Dressed in clean, dry clothes we climbed back into the MPV to be driven back to Chiang Mai.

We had a fantastic day. Both activites were pitched just right for us: challenging enough and long enough to be exciting and a proper experience of each activity. In the UK we would have paid probably five times as much for a fifth the experience. We're pretty tired and we have an early start tomorrow, so we stayed in the guest house for dinner. In the morning we will head north to explore a little of rural Thailand before we visit our fifteenth country, Laos.

The DVD of the rafting was delivered to the guest house as promised but we can't persuade it to let us take screen grabs, so we're afraid there is no photographic evidence of the day apart from the photo above of the rafts after we had finished.

Chiang Mai

Bangkok to Chiang Mai [Enlarge]

With a week to kill before the Chinese embassy in Bangkok reopens from the week-long break for Chinese New Year, we came 700 kilometres north to Thailand's second city, Chiang Mai. When we were in Bangkok deciding what to do, we got the idea to take a slow boat down the Mehkong River from the Thai border to Luang Prabang in central Laos. The slow boats generally take two days to make the trip to the world heritage city, and by all accounts conditions are variable on board the different vessels: some have hard wooden seats, while others have no seats at all—you may get to sit on a crate full of chickens if you're lucky. We learned that the alternative is a speedboat which can do the journey in six hours or less. Unless it crashes, that is—which apparently they do with great regularity, as the wake from a passing boat can be enough to flip them over. Flipping over in a speedboat is not a good idea. The other disadvantage of the speedboats is the noise: their engines are unsilenced and they bounce over the waves, constantly pounding against the surface of the river. Ear plugs are essential. Apparently it's quite good fun for the first five minutes or so, but less so for the next five hours and 55 minutes.

Anyway, we wanted to actually see the magnificent jungle scenery and passing Laotian villages, and take our time. Everything we'd read said that despite the uncomfortable or non-existent seating and the need to make an overnight stay in the remote but touristy Laos village of Pak Beng, the slow boat down the Mekhong is a fantastic experience and not to be missed.

We bought our train ticket on Saturday afternoon for the Monday morning train, due to depart Bangkok at 08:30. Having left a bag containing all the non-essentials in the hotel's luggage store we walked down to the station. The train ride was pleasant: for the first two thirds of the journey we travelled relatively quickly through Thailand's flat central plains of rice paddies, tea plantations, and lakes full of waterlilies and fishing herons. The train steward came round with free cake and Pepsi and the train was comfortable, if a little grubby. Then the landscape abruptly changed to mountainous jungle and we began to twist and turn through bamboo forests and banana groves. It was everything we had imagined south-east Asia would be.

Travelling in the same carriage as us were three American college students. They were also going to Chiang Mai and they were talking about taking the slow boat down the Mehkong. They were real fratboy types who called each other Dude! without a hint of irony. Their only aim on their trip to Laos seemed to be to get as wasted as possible on Beer Lao. We hoped we wouldn't be stuck on a boat for two days with them.

Our train finally pulled into Chiang Mai station well after dark. We'd emailed our guest house to get a pick up from the station, but we hadn't checked our email again before leaving Bangkok, so we didn't know whether they would be coming or not. With our fingers crossed we went looking for someone with something like a 'Welcome Mr Glenn and Mrs Isla' sign. There were plenty of signs, but none for us. Eventually, after most of the train passengers had long since left the station, we gave up looking and went outside to get a tuk-tuk and make our own way to the guest house. There were only a few tuk-tuk drivers remaining—the ones who hadn't managed to persuade any of the new arrivals to get into their vehicles, and so because they were keen to get back into town we managed to bargain one down to 40 baht (we learned later that tourists do well if they get it down to 100!)

Our guesthouse, the Seven Suns, is cheap and spotlessly clean. The room has TV, fridge and air con, a big comfy bed, and lots of character. We love it. It turns out that they did email us, to say sorry but they no longer do station pickups, and we should get a tuk-tuk. Not a problem. We had a decent green curry at the guesthouse and a good sleep. We can't work out why sitting on a train all day doing nothing always makes us so tired.

This morning we walked into the centre of Chiang Mai to look at our options for the next few days. After peering through several travel agents' windows and studying their boards we found an agent that looked and felt reputable. The woman behind the counter knew her product and spoke excellent English, and her shop had a proper sign rather than one made of cardboard and felt-pen.

The agent offered plenty of things to do, from trekking, to visiting hill tribe villages, to watching elephants play football. We would have loved to do some trekking or mountain biking, but in the stifling heat they were definitely out. We weren't too keen on a 'human zoo' hill tribe experience or seeing anthropomorphic elephants. We found a day's programme involving a 40 kilometre quad bike ride through the jungle in the morning, followed by ten kilometres of white water rafting down the Mae Tang river in the afternoon. Perfect. While we were bargaining the price down on this, we spotted a poster for a one day, luxury slow boat down the Mekhong to Luang Prabang. We asked the agent about it. It is indeed a slow boat, like the two-day one, but it makes no stops en route, it starts a little earlier in the morning and it goes a little faster so that it can do the whole journey in one day. And it is fitted out with comfy seats and a bar, especially for soft tourists. For 3000 Baht each (GBP 44.23 / USD 86.73) (plus another USD 35.00 each for our Laos visas) we would be picked up from our guesthouse in Chiang Mai, taken the couple of hundred kilometres to the Laos border by AC minibus, stop at several of the sights of Northern Thailand en route, stay the night in a three-star hotel near the border, have our Laos visas fully taken care of by the hotel, be ferried across the Mehkong River from Chiang Khong in Thailand to Huayxai in Laos, be taken a few hundred metres upstream by minibus to our waiting slow boat, and then spend the day sailing down the mighty Mehkong to Luang Prabang. We decided to take both the tours: quad biking and rafting, and the slow boat. By paying a little bit more for the slightly faster slow boat, this should ensure that we don't have to share it with the college kids from the train.

Without much prompting at all (we must be getting good at bargaining) the price fell by 500 baht each for the boat, and 300 baht each came off the price of the quadding and rafting. We were pretty happy with that and if we get what we've been promised it will be great value. We will get soaked in the rafts so we bought a cheap t-shirt each in Chiang Mai's market so that we can change afterwards—we are now travelling so light that we don't have any spare clothes!

There is a recommended restaurant just a few doors down from our guesthouse, called Huen Phen, which specialises in Northern Thai food. We decided to try there for dinner this evening. We had a filling meal of succulent bamboo shoots stuffed with pork, salami-like sausage, sticky rice and (of course) Thai beer courtesy of Singha. As usual, Glenn found room for some dessert: warm coconut milk with banana. The whole meal was excellent. Well fed and with the next couple of days sorted we are relaxed, happy and totally back on track.

Day 087
Bangkok to Chiang Mai

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.