Goodbye Thailand

I'm writing this sitting in a restaurant overlooking the magnificent Mekong River in the North of Thailand. This river separates the country from Laos. It's amazing to see a different country just over the river, and even more exciting to think we'll be there tomorrow!!

We caught an overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in the North. We reserved our own private cabin on the train (your own room, with a sink to wash in etc) as we'd been told it was worth doing... hmmmm... well not sure I'd agree with that. The cabin itself was pretty old and dirty, plus for the price we paid, it wasn't worth the money. The food was horrible and they had the aircon on all night which meant it was freezing! Having said that, it was nice having our own space and we had a couple of drinks each and put our Ipod speakers on and watched the Thai countryside go by without any disruptions, so it was nice to have our own space.

From Chiang Mai, we caught another minibus to a little town called Pai. This was a place recommended to us and it sounded beautiful... high up in the mountains, chilled out cafes and live music. It was definately one of our favourite places in Thailand. The drive up to Pai takes you up a steep, winding road through the mountains, past rice paddies and rivers. The town itself is nestled in a valley with mountains all around it.
On our first day we picked up a map and found a hiking trail (7km) to a local waterfall. We fancied a bit of exercise so we headed off in search of it. On the way we met a monk, and also a cool Brit/NZ couple who we befriended and walked with. Three and a half hours, several river crossings, uphill climbs, and nests of spiders later, we realised that this short stroll to a waterfall had in fact turned into a bit of a trek!! We had been following the monk the whole way, he was adamant he had done the walk before and knew the route. Having said that, he didn't have a watch on, and each time we asked him "how much longer" he would answer "half an hour, only half an hour". This went on for at least two hours! By this time it was 3pm, and we realised that if we didn't turn back soon the light would be running out, and we'd find ourselves stuck in the middle of the jungle with no food, water, or shelter! We asked the monk what he was doing - turns out he was sleeping at the waterfall for the night! On this thought, we turned around and quickly made our way back to civilisation. By now me and Jon hadn't had a drink of water for a good few hours, and we'd been hiking in the boiling heat, so we were both pretty dehydrated by the time we made it back. What a surreal day!

On the next two days, we hired out a bike each and ventured out and around Pai. We went to another waterfall accessible by road (much more sensible!). We found it easily and stayed there a while watching the local Thai kids slide up and down a makeshift slide into a little rockpool. We also drove around and saw a Chinese tribal village, and also a Lisu village. Later on that evening we met up with the couple we had met on the hike and some of the people they'd met in their guesthouse, and we all had a cool evening sampling the local beer.

After four days in relaxing Pai we decided to head off. We could have easily have stayed there for another four days as it's such an amazing place to chill out and meet people. It's quite hippy-orientated though so be prepared if you don;t like crustys with their hair braided it's the wrong place for you! Me and Jon had a good laugh comparing some of the hippy styles we saw so it's a good place for people watching heehee ;o)

We went back to Chiang Mai via the local rust bucket (bus) and spent a few days there doing boring stuff like sorting out our visa for Laos, posting things back home (Mum - expect a big box to arrive in about a month), getting photos developed.
Chiang Mai is a beautiful but big town. It has great shops with different goods than in the South (lots of items are portrayed as distinctly "Northern" style) but unfortunately we had agreed not to buy anything until Bangkok so we had to make do with window shopping :o(
We did catch a bus out to the local elephant camp, where we saw the cutest little baby elephant! (Well he looked cute until he let off the most rip-roaring fart in front of us!! - Much louder than any of Jon's surprisingly). The elephants put on a show for the guests in which they performed tricks such as painting, darts and elephant football. It was quite fun to watch but you can't help wondering whether it's a good thing for these amazing animals to be "dancing" in front of a group of tourists - hmmm I think not.

After Chiang Mai we caught a bus to Chiang Rai - a bit futher North. Here we hired out another bike and took an amazing ride through the mountains of North Thailand to another hill tribe village. It gets so cold in the mountains - me and Jon had gone out in shorts and t-shirts, we must have had icicles hanging off our noses by the time we'd got back to our guesthouse - what the locals must have thought of us, they were all wrapped up in their winter jackets with scarfs hahaha... typical tourists!

So we leave Thailand tomorrow after two months here. We've had such an amazing time, even though thing's haven't always gone our way. It's said it's easier to travel Thailand than India, which is true, but whilst being here we've had to encounter illness, losing our bank card, breaking our camera and spending far too much money than we'd planned! Hopefully we will make it up in the next few weeks.

We both can't wait to reach Laos and start exploring a country that only opened it's doors to tourism ten years ago - so much of it will be untouched. Thailand is great but when you can buy a Maconald's happy meal and shop in Boots in most of the main towns, it get's a bit too much like home!

Inner City Life

Jon and I finally got to celebrate my birthday for this year! Due to the nightmare of "abscess-gate" we had to postpone my birthday treats (which should have been on 5th Jan), so we decided to celebrate one month later, on 5th Feb.
We checked into a lovely spa on the east coast of Thailand. We had two nights here, I got my nails done and a lovely full body massage, Jon lounged around by the pool, we ate some lovely dinners and celebrated my "birthday" with a six hour bike ride around a National Park (hard work but beautiful scenery) followed by a nice bottle of wine ;o)

After two relaxing days we felt fully refreshed and raring to go again. Our next stop was Kachanaburi, to the west of Thailand near Myanmar (Burma). The main part of our trip was to see the "Death Railway Bridge" which is famous for it's gory history during WW2. The bridge over the river Kwai and railway connecting it was built by thousands of Prisoner's of War, along with hundreds of thousands of poor civilians. They were forced by the Japanese army to work in horrific conditions, in the sweltering heat often with no food or water. They endured regular beatings and lived with many injuries and illnesses. As a result 16,000 foreign men died, along with over 100,000 poor Asian men. It's an area with loads of interesting history so we wanted to visit this on our travels.
We had a long train journey before arriving at Kachanaburi. At first glance it looks like any other Westernised strip... we were horrified, we were expecting to find a place filled with history, instead it looked like it had been taken over by Brit's Abroad! Argh! Thankfully it is only one road that has been ruined by Western bars. It's such a shame, it's a beautiful area, yet you have these bars with cheesy dance music blaring out, one bar is even brazen enough to advertise (actually painted in massive letters on it's wall) "GET SH*T FACED HERE ON A SHOESTRING". Disgusting! Why do people think they can come to a different country and get away with this, I'm surprised the local authorities haven't closed it down.
Anyway, after our initial shock we found a room overlooking the River Kwai in a peaceful area. On our first day we hired out mopeds each and explored the local area. We visited the famous bridge, which as predicted had hordes of tourists taking pictures of it. It was still nice to see a piece of history though. We also visited a WW2 cemetery, which was a very sombre moment for us. This is one of the smaller war cemetery's in the world yet there was still probably over 2000 graves. It was tragic to read the names and ages of the young men who had been killed, barely any of them were over 30, and many had died as a result of building the Death Railway Bridge.
On our second day we ventured even further out on our mopeds. We visited an area called Erawan which is even nearer the Myanmar border. It's a place of natural beauty, and it was a great ride seeing mountains, lakes, forests. It took us about three hours getting there and two getting back. I don't think the bikes were made for such long distances as they were both struggling a bit nearer the end haha! I'm actually amazed me and Jon both made it in one piece seeing as neither of us have ridden a motorbike before. Nevertheless it turned out ok!

We left Kachanburi on 9th Feb and caught a train to Bangkok. This was our first proper time in the big city as we didn't get to see any of it when we flew in by plane. We headed straight to the famous "Khao San Road" which is the most well known backpacker's haunt. It's a cool road with lots of bars and cafes on it. Nearly everyone walking down the road was a tourist, and the Thai's cater for us well - nearly ever bar or cafe is aimed towards Westerners, as are the clothes stalls and the guest houses.
We decided to stay a few minutes away from the madness, in a more quieter square just North of Khao San Rd. We paid slightly more for our room but it's worth it to have somewhere clean and with an attached bathroom.
On our first evening we went to the cinema and watched a film. The complexes over here are amazing, everything is so hi-tech and shiny and new!
On our second day in Bangkok we headed straight for the shopping district. OH MY GOD If I could ever spend my life savings anywhere it's here. Every shop has the most amazing clothes in, and a lot are cheaper than back home. I wouldn't say everything is cheap like I thought in the past, but if you hunt around you can find some great bargains. Jon and I didn't buy anything this time around because obviously we've still got three months left of our travels, but we made mental images of where the good shops were so we can rinse our credit cards in May!
Later on that evening we decided to go clubbing for our first time in ages. We jumped in a cab and told him our destination..... two and a half hours, two cabs, and a tuk-tuk later we still hadn't reached our destination. We'd been dropped off in the middle of a residential area, an Elvis tribute club, and back to where we started (Khao San Rd). The taxi drivers round here have an annoying habit of saying they know your destination and then just guessing it! Finally we made it to the bars/clubs, a lot later than planned.
Now it's our last day here. So far we have done a river tour, and seen the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddah. Bangkok is a great and vibrant city with a lot to do. We leave tonight on a train to the North. We're looking forward to coming back here in May for a few days and seeing some more.