Beach bound

Tuesday night we met up with an old friend of mine who moved to Thailand about 7 years ago. Ironically we pick "johns place", which was a typical expat hangout. Very apt. I knew we might have a few beers and catch up on the time that has passed, but I wasn't prepared for the session that was to follow. It was my first, and hopefully my last, major hangover of the trip. It was great fun, but I'm not sure Lorna (Tonys wife) is going to let him out with me again anytime soon.

Wednesday morning was like the rise of the living dead. Rachel even went to breakfast solo, so the fact that I missed a meal will give you some idea of how bad I was. Eventually I got out of bed, then it was packing the bags, saying goodbye to chiang mai and off to the airport ........ Phuket bound. We landed on the beach island of Phuket about 3pm. We were dreaming of coconut filled drinks with fancy umbrellas, sun, sand and scuba........ as if it was going to be that easy. Me and Rachel agreed, the next 90 minutes were probably the worst 90 minutes of our life. Out of the hundreds of taxi drivers at the airport, we picked the one that was either high on meth, mentally ill or very possibly both. I can't even put it into words, because however well I describe it .......... it was a hundred times worse in real time.

The first 30 seconds of the journey was fine, then came the cat noises, constant jumping in the seat, punching the steering wheel, screaming to himself, almost getting in a wreck, picking the sores on his face, blaring techno music like we were in a rave, and lots more . What made things worse was that the traffic was awful, and we were stuck with a guy that I didn't want to be within 3 feet of. It was so bad, that I diverted him to the nearest town (patong), just so we could get out ....... have a beer, then once we had collected ourselves mentally, find a sane taxi to take us the rest of the way. We paid up front ....... but he can keep it, we just wanted out.

 We arrive at Kata beach about 6.30pm. After arriving in the party town of Patong, it felt like a couples paradise. Intimate fresh seafood restaurants (with their fresh seafood displayed out the front on ice) lined the main high street. It was seconds from the beach and was a relaxing change from the two busy cities we have visited before. Once we had erased the taxi drive from our brains, we could start concentrating on our objective. Eat, drink, scuba and relax ....... this looked like the perfect place.

 We walked the street market, haggled a few random local purchases, then settled down for an early valentines lobster dinner like no other. We are due to get picked up at 5.45 in the morning to head to our liveaboard boat that will be our home for the next few days. Dive, eat, sleep and repeat is the boats motto .......... sounds perfect......... providing we don't need to take a taxi there. I'm allergic to Thai taxis.

An unforgettable experience

After seeing the way the elephants were treated the other day by their mahouts (trainers), we decided we wanted nothing to do with any elephant camps that mistreat these animals, and just work them to death for the sake of tourism. We searched for something a little different, and came across the elephant nature park. This place is amazing. It's an elephant sanctuary that was started by one woman (Lek), with the idea of firstly rescuing elephants that were being mistreated, or severely injured (a lot of times by owner abuse), and secondly, educating people about what really goes on with these animals in Thailand.

Some of it was sad to see / hear, like the story of an elephant called "Hope", that refused to work after it gave birth, and her baby fell down the mountain and died. The owner then fired a sling shot into her eye, which blinded her. She still refused to work, so he stabbed her in the other eye with an arrow, blinding her totally. Lek rescued her, along with many other elephants with similar stories, and that is how the sanctuary started. We got to feed them, bath them in the river, spend the day with them up close, and basically just hang out with them. No fences, no chains, no hooks ....... just you, the elephants, lots of mud, and a bucket of fruit.

It really was a once in a lifetime opportunity. They weren't aggressive at all. lets face it, if they wanted to, they could have just swatted us with their powerful trunks pretty easily.

Easy rider Thai style

So this morning we decided that we should rent a motor bike, head into the mountains, and basically enjoy a day totally on our own schedule. What we forgot to add into that plan was a map that covered a larger area than the one we had (which for all purposes was as useful as a chocolate fire guard for a long distance motorbike trip). Who cares anyway...... maps are over rated.

We battled the roads of Chiangmai on our 400cc honda phantom, and made it out of the city in one piece. We knew that the tiger kingdom was to the north, so that's the direction we were heading. Once out of the town it was great to unbutton the shirt and just ride into the mountains, although I realized real quick that sun cream would have been a nice addition.

 I normally don't do animals in captivity, but tiger kingdom is actually a place were they have a breeding program for tigers that otherwise probably wouldn't make it in the wild. There are something like 35 tigers here, which when you consider there are only a total of 700(ish) in the wild, it's a pretty high percentage. Because many of them are born in captivity they are very tame towards humans, this means that against all my natural instincts you get in the animal enclosure with these guys. The cubs were fun and rolling around playing with you, but luckily the larger cats didn't really want to play ....... I'm fine with that. It's was actually a really cool experience, and I'm glad we took the opportunity to see these guys up close and personal. If you are ever in Chiangmai Mai, check this place out.

 After playing around with tigger and co, we jumped back on the bike and carried on heading north. We weren't really heading anywhere specific, we were just enjoying the winding mountain roads, great sunny weather and the amazing scenery. It wasn't until we were getting low on gas, hadn't seen any other tourist (or towns) for a while and couldn't read any of the roads signs at the t junction, that we started to think about how we might get back to town. Luckily we found this little old policeman and his dog, in his little hut at the side of the road. Once he had stopped starring at Rachel, we used our best sign language to help get directions to Chiangmai. He had a helpful map, which I'm sure he was amazed we weren't already in possession of, and then we were back on track. 50 miles later we were rocking into Chiangmai ..... albeit a little sore and supporting a red farmers tan. It might not have been the relaxing day we were after ...... but it was a fun day non the less.

Sundays are for rest, vacations are for experiences!

After landing in Chiang Mai and getting our bearings, we booked ourselves on several fun expeditions to keep us busy over the next few days. This city feels a lot more like what I expected from Thailand, friendly, inviting, fun and traditional.......... and a little chaotic.

We landed, checked in and headed straight to a Thai cooking class we had booked for that evening. There's just something refreshing about hitting up the local market and not having a clue what 75% of the items are ...... these are the same items you're about to cook a 4 course meal with. After the market we headed back to the guides' house for our lesson in traditional Thai cooking. After plenty of chili, coconut, random items I can't spell, and the occasional pan fire ..... we are now both ready to throw down a dinner party Thai style, that His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyade would be proud of. 




 We woke early the next morning for our adventure trek into the jungle. This was to include the elephant camp, jungle trekking to a waterfall, visiting the long neck tribe in the mountains, white water rafting, and then finishing up, half dead and exhausted, getting paddled the rest of the way down the river on a bambo raft. What they forgot to mention to us when we booked it, is that there will be 11 of us "riding Mexican" in the back of a pick up truck for 90 minutes to get there. The day started early with breakfast at 7.30, then was the surprise of the pick up truck. At first there were the two of us, then we picked up two more, and two more ..... you get the picture.

After about 90 minutes we arrive at the elephant camp. People started to get on the elephants to head back down the mountain. After seeing the appalling treatment (and use of hooks to control these amazingly friendly creatures), we actually declined the rides and took the truck back down to wait for the others (we looked like tree hugging hippies, but there was just no way we were going to be part of that). Whilst down there we stocked up on raw sugar cane and bananas from the locals, and fed the gang of exhausted and over worked elephants when they rocked up with all the others.

 Then it was on to the jungle trek. By now it's 90 degrees and the humidity was getting to sauna levels. We were told it was a 2 mile jungle trek, but again the language barrier proved to be a problem, and that turned out to be 2 miles each way...... and let me tell you it was no walk in the park..... it was most definitely a walk in the jungle.

 

 The rafting was as you would expect. 6 novice tourist that had to be told which end of the paddle goes in the water, beasted by a drill sargent that was our raft captain for an hour. There were easy times, fun times, exhausting times and then times where you actually thought you might not make it out. The main thing is that there were smiles the whole time, and I'm writing this, so we made it out of our sticky situations.

 If we though the pick up truck was bad in the morning, after that day it was dam right torture going home. Who cares though ...... this was what we signed up for.

 Chiangmai really is an amazing place. You will hate it if your idea of a vacation involves laying by the pool day after day repeating the same drink, eat, sleep pattern ..... but if you want outdoors adventure, experiencing a different culture, and just a dam good time ...... put Chiangmai on you bucket list, you won't regret it. Tomorrow we plan to rest ....... or that was our plan anyway.

Bangkok or not?

We arrive in Bangkok at 3am. Our sleep pattern up to this point has been erratic at best, so we decided to head to the hotel, check in, shower and head out to see what this city is all about. What we notice first of was this truly is a city that never sleeps. As we head down the street in the direction we "think" we should be heading (towards the old city / backpacking district), we are pretty much stepping over the people from the night before. The rush hour traffic is building up around them, and it feels like any other major asian city at this time. Not really what we were expecting, but then I'm not sure what we were expecting? The food street vendors we were passing weren't really serving anything we could recognize be sight or smell, so although the locals are lining up to get some of these culinary delights...... we decided to skip it.

 We gave up dealing with the chaos and opted to jump in a taxi and let the guy overcharge the two obviously lost tourists. We make it to the old city (back packing area), find a coffee shop, and although its 7am at this point ....... I opted for a beer (although Rachel wisely took a coffee), then another, and another ....... and all of a sudden the city was a lot easier to deal with :-)

 Rachel persuaded me to take a pedicure (maybe because of the beer, maybe because of the jet lag, but I said yes). Not something I have ever done before, but considering I'm asking her to undertake several "firsts" on this trip ..... I could hardly say no. I was actually pleasantly surprised.,

After we took care of the pampering we then dealt with the city. The tut tut tour was fun, although I feel it would have been more fun without the exhaust fumes and traffic jams that would make Houston look rural. Considering our 34 hour + journey here, I knew it was going to be a short day. We tried to fight it, but after the touring, some amazing food, a few drinks in a bar full of middle aged white men and 20 something year old Thai girls, and an accidental stroll through the market street full of sex toys and Viagra (we realized we were in the red light district by mistake) ....... we decided that a 12 hour sleep is what was needed seeing as in the morning we were up at 5 to head to the airport ....... Ching Mai bound.

The journey to the other side of the world.

I knew it was going to be a fun journey when we boarded our plane at 7am to San Francisco. Rachel went ahead and took the middle seat, and then the 400 lbs dude, who obviously wasn't as hygiene conscious as us, and hadn't got up at 3am to shower, took his seat next to Rachel (and half of Rachel's also). Rachel's face was a picture, but never more so than when he would get up and turn around to face the aisle, unidentified parts of his body mass would poke out from under his shirt, and his butt would be inches from Rachel's face. She said she was grossed out, but I don't know ....... if I wasn't there I think she might have gone in for a cheeky bum pinch. We get to San Fran a little early, we had an hour to connect our flight, and everything looks like its going smooth. But my trips never go smooth, so something was wrong. We boarded our first class flight from San Fran to Tokyo. Rachel was like a kid at Christmas, as its not only her first time to Asia, but its her first international first class flight. Our plan was to try and make the most of the full bed, and sleep 10 or so hours out if the 12 on this leg of the journey. Rachel took one look at the drinks menu, along with the a la carte food menu, and suddenly she's does want to sleep anymore. She wants to enjoy what's on offer. So we put our feet up and suck down a few glasses of champagne. We decided to start a movie and try and wind down before we take off. A few more glasses later we get to the end of the movie. Hang on, we haven't even left the gate? We are then told by the captain that the plane is broken, we need a new plane, and by the time that plane gets here, we need a new crew. I think to myself "now it's starting to look like one of my trips". So we disembark the plane and are told to come back in 5 hours. Long story short, we go and grab some seafood (rude not to considering we are in San Fran), a few glasses of wine in the lounge, and head back to the gate. It's was like deja vue. At one point they told us we were looking at staying the night in Tokyo, and fly the next day (putting us a day behind), but then they decided that because most of our flight were also on the Tokyo to Bangkok flight, the flight from Tokyo will get held, and fly 5 hours later (once we all arrive). This is fantastic news. So right now we are on that flight to Bangkok, we have been traveling for 28 hours, and we have 6 more left. We will end up arriving in Bangkok at 4am, so to be positive about this ........ we should definitely beat the crowds to the tourist attractions on day one :-) And the journey begins .......

Adios Saigon

We have our last two days in Saigon before we have to deal with our 30 hours of travel back to the states. Time for some fun, drinking, and generally relaxing after our brutal tour. This is just an amazing city to hang out in. The people, the place and the atmosphere just make you feel so welcome. It’s organized chaos, but it’s somehow become normal to us.

We had to go and pick up our suits that we had made for us last week before we had headed north. They fit like a glove. I wasn’t expecting much to be honest, we did it more for the experience, but I’m impressed. The amount of money you save having them made here, almost makes it worth coming here once a year just to get suited and booted. After the suits, we decided to just get lost in the city and see where that takes us. It was a hot and humid 95 degrees, so we had to make sure we stayed hydrated, unfortunately the first bar we went in to fill up on fluids, somehow trapped us there for 7 hours. It was a well deserved, and well need wind down, but it made for a messy afternoon.

We woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning to jump on a tourist bus and head 2 hours to the Cu Chi tunnels. These are the tunnels the Viet Kong lived in when they were fighting the Americans during the war. It was crazy to see how basic these guys lived, and how they managed to beat the mighty American super power with not much more than an AK47 and some sharpened bamboo. It literally was as simple as that. We saw the crude “tiger traps” (that were pits hidden by leaves and filled with these sharpened bamboo that would impale the enemy), and we crawled through the tunnels where these people lived for a decade during the war. It was so basic, yet so complex. It was basic to the local people that knew how to navigate these dark, tiny tunnels, yet a dangerous maze for the enemy. No high tech gadgets here, just old fashioned jungle fighting skills. It was an interesting day.

We picked up a few more gifts to take back to the states, grabbed a beer and a massage from some random off the street (whilst we were enjoying the beer), a bite to eat and then went to pack.

It’s been a great trip and south east Asia will see me again soon.