RaveBurbleBlog

That night we had a rum on the guesthouse balcony, whiling away the time watching a little toad nearby hop around harvesting insects. A cute little brown guy who blended in so well with his surroundings, you’d miss him if you weren’t reptile-spotting fools like ourselves. Well, Gill had a rum or two and I had the remains of a hip flask of whiskey that was still gracing my bag from the final night in Chiang Mai. Just tidying things up, you understand. A bad night’s sleep was had, due to the heat and humidity and the fan’s ability to do nothing more than shift the heat from one part of the room to another, then back again. I started to actually look forward to the colder weather back in New Zealand and had fantasies about snuggling under feather duvets and wearing more than one layer of clothes.

Our last day in Bangkok found us doing one more round of the Khao San area, for something to do and to escape the heat of our sauna room. Oh, for a verandah off our room once more, to poke our heads over and catch breezes, even the slightest of which is almost exciting in such stifling heat. Waterfight anyone? We realised, in retrospect, just how lucky we had been in Chiang Mai, with Chow delivering free buckets of ice to our room whenever we fancied it, a private bathroom to shower in at any time and fresh air right outside our bedroom door.

In one of the many shops we meandered into, I had the cheek to ask how much an item was. When the guy told me, I said ‘no thanks’, as I didn’t have anywhere near enough money for it, even with a hefty discount, and I didn’t want to waste his time. This guy was having a bad hair day for sure, because he kept asking me to name a price. I said ‘no thanks’ again a couple of times, but something had lit his fuse and he wouldn’t drop the subject. ‘Why you no tell me no price?!’ he yelled after a while. ‘Don’t talk to me like that’ I said and started to walk out of the shop. He still kept on and I had to keep walking before we actually came to blows or something. I walked into another shop one or two doors down, and who should walk in? Yep, the same guy. He worked in that shop too! He went to the back of the shop and started slamming things around in a temper, so I made myself scarce again. Goodness me, I guess I didn’t read the paper the day that Thailand passed a law that it’s a crime to not buy something. Consequently, the next stall vendor that spoke pleasantly actually got some money out of me. And so now, somewhat ironically considering my feelings on the creatures, I am wearing a bracelet that consists of a snake’s backbone.

We found a little gateway into the Wat and slipped through to find some food stalls and lovely tall, shady trees. A few monks wandered around and a dog or two, and we lingered over fried rice and soup. It’s funny how the last day or two of a journey almost don’t count, because you spend them mentally packing your bags and anticipating lugging baggage through two lots of airports and customs and other such logistics. That night, we yet again graced the guesthouse balcony and sat at a table next to a couple of French guys and an Argentinian. The French guys were blatantly chatting up an English women at the table on the other side of them, and at one stage turned around to catch us rolling our eyes at her. They asked if we understood French, to which I replied ‘Tres petite’ and so they explained that they were teaching their Argentinian friend chat-up lines from French movies. I just hope the guy never uses them, ‘cos the girls are more likely to slap his face or run away if he tries…

It turned out they were really nice young men and we had a fine old yak about French movies, rugby (they were gracefully brief about mentioning the World Cup), politics, America, the media and the Rainbow Warrior affair - about which they cringed and apologised several times over. Like they could help what their government does any more than we can help what ours gets up to. From what they said, the French people were extremely embarrassed about that whole affair, and very ashamed. I had only bought the subject up because I was curious as to what the French government and media had told the average guy on the street about it. Turns out they didn’t know about the bombers receiving medals upon returning to France. Funny how some things don’t quite get round to being told.

The next day rolled around finally and it was time to leave at last. We shared a taxi with a Chinese girl, all giggling at how the taxi driver and his friend had to strongly exercise their lateral thinking skills to get all our luggage as well as ourselves in. She was really nice and harked from the same area in China that the Terracotta Warriors were found in and gave us both a keyring each from her home town. She said she liked to bring things from her hometown to give to others when she was travelling and we were pretty impressed by the thoughtfulness of that, coming from a fairly young person.

The airport scenario was surprisingly straight forward, considering all the news coverage about the ’swine flu’. Same thing when we landed in New Zealand. We got handed a piece of paper with info on it about the flu when we walked up the ramp from the plane, and that was about it. Pretty low key, when you think how the papers have been front-paging it for several days. I still didn’t dare sneeze though and tried to look as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as it is possible to look when you’ve just spent 12 hours trying to sleep sitting up in a one-foot-square space. Customs didn’t have a problem with my bow and arrow - just inspected it for holes in the wood - but they spotted my Thai axe pillow, dammit, which is apparently stuffed with hay, so that went off for treatment and I won’t see it until next week when I’ve forked out a bit more money for that. So it goes. It was a wee bit stressful, considering Thai airways had put our flight back by an hour so we had that much less time to get to Manukau and catch our bus home, but turned out the bus was late, so all was good. We paid a killer taxi fee compared to Thai tuk-tuk prices though. We could’ve eaten for two weeks on the money we forked out to him!

The last and final irony of the trip was having no transport from the bus stop to our house - all of a couple of km’s away. We could get all the way to North Thailand and back but not from the bus stop to home! Nobody I could think of was home or available to give us a lift and to top it off, the weather was cold and looking like raining. We came up with a plan to get around it, albeit a somewhat long-winded one, but then our wonderful local travel agent came to our rescue, turned up with her car and ferried us home. Thanks again Seugnet, you’re still our heroine.

So, we are now safely ensconsed in our homes once again and the Great Journey to Thailand is complete. So cheers all, we’re safe and sound, haven’t been bombed or shot, fallen out of a rickshaw or contracted a piggy disease and the trip was brilliant fun. Love to you all, and may I suggest that if you want an interesting, cheapish holiday, wander on up to Chiang Mai and say gidday to Chow for us.

Sawasdee Kha

The train journey was fine. The seats were a little smaller than last time, but they still turned into good beds so all was well. We sat with another English couple - she has just spent a year in Chiang Mai studying Thai, the lucky thing. Apparently she speaks it with a Yorkshire accent though. We arrived in Bangkok at about 6.am and The train journey from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was fine. The seats were a little smaller than last time, but they still turned into good beds so all was well. We sat with another English couple - she has just spent a year in Chiang Mai studying Thai, the lucky thing. Apparently she speaks it with a Yorkshire accent though. We got to watch a beautiful sunset, sleep through the night and arrived in Bangkok at about 6.am and found ourselves being rushed around by a guy with a trolley, who loaded our luggage onto it then charged us 80 baht at the other end of the station, cheeky bugger. We were then shuffled onto a tuk-tuk by a driver who spoke of 50 baht while our feet were still on the ground, then after he’d loaded our (admittedly significantly sized) luggage on and tied it up with rope and took off with us on board, turned around and shouted ‘300 baht’. I bit my tongue until we got to our guesthouse then had a wee bit of a chat with him about this. He got a little irate that I had the mortal cheek to argue over the price with him but eventually we met half way and off he flew, probably raining curses upon us and 3 of our future generations. Welcome back to Bangkok!

Gill had lost her little electric kettle somewhere along the way, so we had to go and fork out for coffee for the first time during this trip. It costs more to have a coffee than it does to have a meal around these parts. And then the service was rude. Just to get up their noses, I poured our milk into a saucer and gave it to the cat. After all, it had cost us a small fortune. They weren’t very amused, but tough toenails. The cat enjoyed it and I enjoyed my tiny moment of rebellion.

We settled into our cell - one window and a small fan mounted on the wall - shifted the beds to the other side of the room so the fan actually had some effect on the inhabitants rather than being useless and ornamental, and wandered back outside to take a tuk-tuk to Pahurat, the Indian district of Bangkok. My mission was to find some indian toothpaste to take back home. Turned out to be a mission all right! We walked up and down the street about 4 times before we finally found an Indian person. I bought a shirt off her, I was so glad to see her. And she was so glad to see us that she gave me some gorgeous blue bangles. About an hour later, I noticed my arm was turning blue. Ahh, India. I was looking part Shiva by the time I got to bed last night.

Finally, several corners past where it was reputed to be, we found the ‘Indian Emporium’. There was an Indian guy in a saree standing outside the door dancing. He was advertising goodness knows what and for a while we sat near the door and amused ourselves by watching the reactions of the public when they saw him. Actually, for an Indian, he wasn’t a very good dancer. I told him he needed to stick his hips out more if he wanted to look feminine - I wonder if he tried it. I took a quick wander along the Indian stalls outside the emporium and was pretty shocked at how dear it was. Having been to India, I know what the real prices are for a lot of the stuff and they’re charging an arm and a leg and another leg for what really should only cost a few fingers. But, yes Paul, I got some toothpaste.

On the way home our tuk-tuk broke down so we had to get out and walk. We cruised down Khao San road, which is a major backpackers area around here, and sat at a bar half way along for a Sprite. It’s quite an amusing road to watch. We saw a pirate go by with large plastic boobs and electric guitar sunglasses, a fair variety of westerners with sweat pouring off them as they walked in the midday sun and your usual run of Khao San ladyboys. Some of them are quite convincing, but a few of them need to take lessons on how to walk like a female.

Back to our sauna/cell for a snooze. Then we went back out and explored the other end of our road, which is tucked behind a Wat not too far from the river. Turns out it’s a dead end, but we got directed up some stairs, down some others, through a cafe and out onto the street by Khao San again! Seems we can’t avoid this place. So, what else to do but have some street food and go for another wander. Then back to bed, as it’s not only hot here but very humid as well. You can have a cold shower, but by the time you’ve got back to your room you’re hot again! However, on the bright side, Gill found her kettle, so this morning we were able to enjoy the luxury of 2 coffees - each! Heh heh. We sat under a frangipani tree savouring them and watching chipmunks play tightrope walker along the power lines.

We were actually up quite early for two reasons - one, because we went to bed so early, and two, because of the enthusiasm of at least 7 roosters on the other side of the Wat wall. I actually woke up (before dawn, damn them) having written a poem about them in my subconscious, irritated state. It goes like this:

Oh cockerals, how keen are thee
To outcrow those who whisper not
Methinks the contest prize should be
A hatchet sharp and boiling pot.

The things you think of in your sleep huh?

Anyway, well fortified by some good solid caffeine, we struck out for a jaunt along the river - which of course we had to find first. Having dived down an alleyway and walked along a road for a bit, we came across a tuk-tuk driver who said we had at least an hour’s walk yet to get there. Fortunately, we turned down his offerings of a 1000 baht fling around Bangkok in his little vehicle and turned the next corner to find ourselves looking at the river. Grrr.

Note: I saw a taxi go by this morning with an ‘I (heart) Farangs’ sticker on the window (I love foreigners). I felt like stopping and writing ‘bahts’ next to the Farang bit. Bangkok does this to me - I get really cynical around these people. They just don’t get that a little pleasantness goes a long way, no matter who you are nor how rich or poor. And telling porky pies does not help us (farangs) build any trust with them.

Anyhow, after a walk along the riverfront and running the gauntlet of ‘only 1000 baht’ river boat rides, we got ourselves a 120 baht all day pass and spent the day hopping on and off the taxi boats and having a lovely old time. We got off God only knows where and had the best bowl of noodle soup we’ve had in Thailand, then we went and saw the Reclining Buddha, who is a heck of a lot bigger than I thought he would be (he’s 50 foot high or something ridiculous, and that’s lying down!) and the surrounding compound which is so ornate it reminded me of a whole bunch of birthday cakes, wandered around Chinatown, which teems with red and gold stuff and plastic things and back on the boat to go as far as we could go and back again. Good fun and it was a lot cooler that being in our sauna/cell or spending the day avoiding dodgy tuk-tuk drivers.

So, we’re back home at the guesthouse and I’m off to find the hip flask of whiskey I stashed in my luggage somewhere in Chiang May and watch the goldfish out in the garden that are hopefully scoffing the man-eating mosquitoes.

Sawasdee Kha

The train journey was fine. The seats were a little smaller than last time, but they still turned into good beds so all was well. We sat with another English couple - she has just spent a year in Chiang Mai studying Thai, the lucky thing. Apparently she speaks it with a Yorkshire accent though. We arrived in Bangkok at about 6.am and The train journey from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was fine. The seats were a little smaller than last time, but they still turned into good beds so all was well. We sat with another English couple - she has just spent a year in Chiang Mai studying Thai, the lucky thing. Apparently she speaks it with a Yorkshire accent though. We got to watch a beautiful sunset, sleep through the night and arrived in Bangkok at about 6.am and found ourselves being rushed around by a guy with a trolley, who loaded our luggage onto it then charged us 80 baht at the other end of the station, cheeky bugger. We were then shuffled onto a tuk-tuk by a driver who spoke of 50 baht while our feet were still on the ground, then after he’d loaded our (admittedly  significantly sized) luggage on and tied it up with rope and took off with us on board, turned around and shouted ‘300 baht’. I bit my tongue until we got to our guesthouse then had a wee bit of a chat with him about this. He got a little irate that I had the mortal cheek to argue over the price with him but eventually we met half way and off he flew, probably raining curses upon us and 3 of our future generations. Welcome back to Bangkok!

Gill had lost her little electric kettle somewhere along the way, so we had to go and fork out for coffee for the first time during this trip. It costs more to have a coffee than it does to have a meal around these parts. And then the service was rude. Just to get up their noses, I poured our milk into a saucer and gave it to the cat. After all, it had cost us a small fortune. They weren’t very amused, but tough toenails. The cat enjoyed it and I enjoyed my tiny moment of rebellion.

We settled into our cell - one window and a small fan mounted on the wall - shifted the beds to the other side of the room so the fan actually had some effect on the inhabitants rather than being useless and ornamental, and wandered back outside to take a tuk-tuk to Pahurat, the Indian district of Bangkok. My mission was to find some indian toothpaste to take back home. Turned out to be a mission all right! We walked up and down the street about 4 times before we finally found an Indian person. I bought a shirt off her, I was so glad to see her. And she was so glad to see us that she gave me some gorgeous blue bangles. About an hour later, I noticed my arm was turning blue. Ahh, India. I was looking part Shiva by the time I got to bed last night.

Finally, several corners past where it was reputed to be, we found the ‘Indian Emporium’. There was an Indian guy in a saree standing outside the door dancing. He was advertising goodness knows what and for a while we sat near the door and amused ourselves by watching the reactions of the public when they saw him. Actually, for an Indian, he wasn’t a very good dancer. I told him he needed to stick his hips out more if he wanted to look feminine - I wonder if he tried it. I took a quick wander along the Indian stalls outside the emporium and was pretty shocked at how dear it was. Having been to India, I know what the real prices are for a lot of the stuff and they’re charging an arm and a leg and another leg for what really should only cost a few fingers. But, yes Paul, I got some toothpaste.

On the way home our tuk-tuk broke down so we had to get out and walk. We cruised down Khao San road, which is a major backpackers area around here, and sat at a bar half way along for a Sprite. It’s quite an amusing road to watch. We saw a pirate go by with large plastic boobs and electric guitar sunglasses, a fair variety of westerners with sweat pouring off them as they walked in the midday sun and your usual run of Khao San ladyboys. Some of them are quite convincing, but a few of them need to take lessons on how to walk like a female.

Back to our sauna/cell for a snooze. Then we went back out and explored the other end of our road, which is tucked behind a Wat not too far from the river. Turns out it’s a dead end, but we got directed up some stairs, down some others, through a cafe and out onto the street by Khao San again! Seems we can’t avoid this place. So, what else to do but have some street food and go for another wander. Then back to bed, as it’s not only hot here but very humid as well. You can have a cold shower, but by the time you’ve got back to your room you’re hot again! However, on the bright side, Gill found her kettle, so this morning we were able to enjoy the luxury of 2 coffees - each! Heh heh. We sat under a frangipani tree savouring them and watching chipmunks play tightrope walker along the power lines.

We were actually up quite early for two reasons - one, because we went to bed so early, and two, because of the enthusiasm of at least 7 roosters on the other side of the Wat wall. I actually woke up (before dawn, damn them) having written a poem about them in my subconscious, irritated state. It goes like this:

Oh cockerals, how keen are thee
To outcrow those who whisper not
Methinks the contest prize should be
A hatchet sharp and boiling pot.

The things you think of in your sleep huh?

Anyway, well fortified by some good solid caffeine, we struck out for a jaunt along the river - which of course we had to find first. Having dived down an alleyway and walked along a road for a bit, we came across a tuk-tuk driver who said we had at least an hour’s walk yet to get there. Fortunately, we turned down his offerings of a 1000 baht fling around Bangkok in his little vehicle and turned the next corner to find ourselves looking at the river. Grrr.

Note: I saw a taxi go by this morning with an ‘I (heart) Farangs’ sticker on the window (I love foreigners). I felt like stopping and writing ‘bahts’ next to the Farang bit. Bangkok does this to me - I get really cynical around these people. They just don’t get that a little pleasantness goes a long way, no matter who you are nor how rich or poor. And telling porky pies does not help us (farangs) build any trust with them.

Anyhow, after a walk along the riverfront and running the gauntlet of ‘only 1000 baht’ river boat rides, we got ourselves a 120 baht all day pass and spent the day hopping on and off the taxi boats and having a lovely old time. We got off God only knows where and had the best bowl of noodle soup we’ve had in Thailand, then we went and saw the Reclining Buddha, who is a heck of a lot bigger than I thought he would be (he’s 50 foot high or something ridiculous, and that’s lying down!) and the surrounding compound which is so ornate it reminded me of a whole bunch of birthday cakes, wandered around Chinatown, which teems with red and gold stuff and plastic things and back on the boat to go as far as we could go and back again. Good fun and it was a lot cooler that being in our sauna/cell or spending the day avoiding dodgy tuk-tuk drivers.

So, we’re back home at the guesthouse and I’m off to find the hip flask of whiskey I stashed in my luggage somewhere in Chiang May and watch the goldfish out in the garden that are hopefully scoffing the man-eating mosquitoes.

Sawasdee Kha

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO HOO - WHAT A RIDE!”

Once again, enjoying lolling around on our verandah, we were discussing snakes and lizards as per usual. Chow told me a story about his cat at his home in the country, who was stalking and catching a bird. Meanwhile, a large snake that he had - a python, I believe - was creeping up behind the cat. The cat caught the bird, the snake caught the cat, the cat turned around to see what on earth was going on and let the bird go, while the snake was having a few problems trying to get this wriggly, furry bit of prey to fit down its throat. So while the snake and cat were tussling, 3 people were on the other end of the snake trying to pull it off the cat. They finally succeeded and the snake and cat both left looking completely puzzled at their foiled hunting attempts. I’d love to have been there to get a photo of that. Snake, cat and bird, all in a row.

Yesterday we stayed in our room most the time, as the HEAT is back. At around 4ish in the avo we hired a tuk-tuk and got the driver to take us right around the outside of Chiang Mai wall. We were total, unabashed tourists, stopping him here and there so we could take photos of things. He also took us to a Wat that was incredibly ornate - probably took about 50 photos there.

Gill’s getting pretty soft on Mama cat and buying her fish, etc, at the market down the road. Mama cat of course thinks that this is pretty alright and is slowly moving her kittens closer to us so she can eat and watch them at the same time. The kittens look to be about 6 weeks old now and the 3 of them can make a fish disappear in less than 15 minutes.

Artist guy is still making dunnos. I wonder what they are for?

I gave Chow an English lesson this morning. Considering he’s learnt everything he knows so far out of a book, he’s doing darned well. A couple of French people turned up while we were at it and I made the mistake of greeting them a la Francais. They gabbled on for quite a while before I could say (in French) that I don’t speak French (well, very little anyway). It was nice to listen to though. They didn’t have much English and it took us all a while to sort out that the guy - who wanted to fly from here to India - had been booked onto Royal Nepal airlines by Chow. Chow gets his R’s and L’s around the wrong way, so it came out sounding pretty something like Loyor Enpar. I can’t read Thai so I couldn’t tell anything by what he had written down, but we managed to untangle things after 10 minutes or so. I hope the guy gets on the right plane.

Tonight is our last night in Chiang Mai. Tomorrow we take the overnight train again to Bangkok, then spend 3 nights there before coming home to NZ. Cross fingers for us that nobody does any protesting in the next few days.

Sawasdee Kha

Saturday - It got up to 39 degrees yet again, so we had brunch at the usual cafe then slept through most of the day or lay around under wet sarongs right in front of the fan, wishing it was a ceiling fan. We don’t know how to stop it turning so we get cool for a few seconds then have to wait for it to come round again - by which time we’re sweltering already. At the cafe an old lady came along selling little jellyish cake things that looked like fish roe to me. Gill was brave enough to try one and it turned out that they were a kind of chicken jelly with satay inside. They were tasty enough but the texture was pretty weird so we turned down offers of more from the cafe owners, bless them.

Come evening, we went off to the night market and did the rounds there for something to do. While we sat in the food hall a Traditional Thai Dancing show started in front of us. It’s amazing what these people can do with their fingers! They bend them backwards and make amazing, graceful shapes with them. Chow told us later than he was a kid, he’d hold his fingers under hot water then bend his fingers backwards until they were very strong and pliable. I’m not sure if I really want to try thai dancing that badly…

Yesterday, we played tourists again and went on a trip out to Maeteman to an elephant camp. We woke up to thunderstorms and lightening and were a little worried that the trip would be cancelled, but it was still on. We jumped into a van around the corner and found we were sharing the trip with an Israeli couple on their honeymoon and a couple of young Danish guys. The elephant show was pretty cool. Elephants play football really well. They’re not bad at basketball either. I got to sit on top of one - they are so tall and broad and bristly! No wonder tigers think twice before bothering them. Their trunks are incredibly agile. Picture a strong, intelligent, hairy snake and you’re getting the idea of a close-up of an elephant’s nose.

After the show we were shuttled onto ox-carts and taken for a ride up to a hill-tribe camp where some of their crafts were for sale. Once again, I was told how to look at a t-shirt (made by a tribal person?), that the boxes I was looking at were boxes, I really couldn’t live without a puppet and it was good luck for me to have a wooden roughly built cowbell or some such device in my home. I got fed up pretty quickly and not one of them made a baht out of me. They may look poor, but there were tourists teeming around this place and I’d lay bets that these ‘tribals’ have a Rolls Royce or two parked out the back of their straw huts somewhere. I saw plenty of satellite dishes too. Remeniscent of a Flintstones movie it was - rustic living with all the bells and whistles. After that, onto howdahs and an elephant ride down into the river and back to the main camp. They have great big ramps dotted around, with many steps up them to get onto the elephants backs. Man those things are tall! The ride is a bit like surfing sitting on your bum. It feels pretty safe though, except when the elephant walks up the steps from the river. It was about then I was praying to whatever rope God there may be around here that everything was tied on and checked for fraying…

After a buffet lunch (where they had the mortal cheek to charge us for a drink of water and a can of Sprite!) we were shepherded down to the river rafts. We had to run the gauntlet through a bunch of Thai guys who took rather a fancy to the young Danish fellas. One of them approached the dark-haired one in a very flirtatious manner and the poor man had to duck and dodge while the Thai guys cracked up laughing. The river rafts consisted of two layers of bamboo, one on top of the other, and small benches thrown on top for sitting on. There were two drivers (or captains?) poling the raft all the way downriver. It was a really nice trip that went on for two kilometers, taking us past elephants, trees dripping with fruit, waterfalls, funky treehouses, and other visual delights. The front captain, an oldish but very spritely fellow, and I kept making crocodile jokes and the cheeky bugger told us he’d take us all the way to Bangkok for 200 baht each. When he threw water at my foot with his pole I told him he’d only get 180 baht if he didn’t behave himself (having honed my bartering skills nicely with all my market-going) but I have to say, I actually could have easily sat on that raft for hours and gone to Bangkok - to hell with our train tickets. It would’ve have been even nicer if the Danish guys hadn’t chattered and yakked and scared all signs of nature away all the way down. I think the honeymooners felt the same, but were too polite to say so. But what the heck, they were really nice guys, and they’ve recently been to New Zealand, so they obviously have discerning taste.

Next stop was a Karen tribe camp (where the long-necked women live - them that have metal coils around their necks), but Gill and I sat outside and chilled while the others went in. We couldn’t bring ourselves to go and stare at a people zoo. We feel bad enough about doing it to animals. Then, onto the part I was really looking forward to, apart from the elephants - the Butterfly, Orchid and SNAKE FARM! This has been my personal challenge - to go to a snake farm and touch a snake. There were only three of us at the show - me and the Israeli couple. I sat right in the back of the stands in case any escapism went on (yep, fraidy cat, that’s me). The show was short but pretty cool. It started off with a guy versus two cobras. The guy was very quick with his movements, but I noticed the snakes weren’t striking as quick as I thought they would, so I’m guessing they make sure they’re well fed first. After playing with his pets for a while, he milked one of its venom and shoed us the fangs at close quarters. Then he brought one of the cobras up to where we were, blast him, and the emcee said that in Thailand if you touch a cobra, it brings good luck to you for the rest of your life. What to do? So I actually touched my first snake. The skin is very beautiful, I admit, but I’m not in any hurry to do that again. He played with a few more snakes, then the emcee anounced the last part of the show - the jumping snakes. The guys reached into a box very gingerly, ducking and diving, then one of them got hold of a snake and threw it into the audience! I realised as he was doing it that it was a joke, but the Israeli guy kicked his bag off the stand in fright and his wife leapt behind him so quickly she was just a blur of movement. I nearly wet my pants laughing. Once the Israelis got over their fright they took the whole thing in good spirits, but the snake guys must have apologised about six times before they realised we were okay about it.

Finally, they played around with a ‘young’ python, who, as a wee fella, was only six feet long or so. Then they challenged us to wear him around our shoulders. This I had to do. If once only in my life, I had to try it. It was about as creepy as I thought it would be. The snake was really heavy, I could feel it’s muscles constricting and moving along my back, and they were holding it’s face rather close to mine. Never will I forget the feeling of having a set of long muscles with fangs at one end on the back of my neck. The Israeli guy took a couple of photos of me and Mr Python and in the first one you can see the look of ‘eucchh’ on my face quite clearly. So I’ve decided to cancel my trek down the Amazon River as I just couldn’t handle one of those or an anaconda falling on me from out of a tree. I’m sure if that happened, they’d find me frozen stiff with a look of sheer horror permanantly stamped on my face, should they manage to do an autopsy on said miscreant serpent. Blecchh.

The final leg of the journey was to an elephant poo paper-making place. Enough said.

Last night, back to the Sunday market. I now knew what I was after and what prices to pay, so I covered everything I needed to do and hied off back to the guesthouse. I sat around with the locals for a while and discovered that one of the guesthouse guys who’s an effeminate sort of a chap has just graduated from university (majoring in Tourism). He’s cut his long hair and fingernails short, as the King was at the graduation ceremony, and I gather it’s just not the done thing to turn up as a Ladyboy. For the rest of the evening, he alterately crowed about graduating and mourned the loss of his locks and claws. One of the guys from down the Rabbit Hole was there and we got chatting about snakes and lizards and things. He told me that when he was a boy (in Louisianna, U.S.A.), tomboy girls would catch the smallish lizards around the place and wear them as earrings. Apparently they hang on until you press the back of their jaws then you can take them off again. He told me this with a perfectly straight face and I figure it’s either one hell of a good story or one hell of a tall tale. Either way, it’s a pretty funky fashion idea. I put it to him that perhaps you could also use these lizards as clothespegs to hang your washing out. but he seemed to think this was a pretty way out idea. I was thinking of all the plastic the world could save…

Anyway, for the first time in ages, we were actually almost cold last night. The rain cooled everything down really nicely and it was rather odd not to be super hot. The frogs were croaking all over the neighbourhood - love songs apparently, as they have to mate really quickly while the temperature is down. I reckon there’s a few million tadpoles going to be born shortly, from what I could hear.

It was cooler again today - only 36 degrees. Hanging out on our verandah as usual, we saw our cooking school teacher go by. Today is her 25th birthday. A guy from a few doors away walked past with his poodle, who thinks he’s a rottweiler, on a piece of string. Fat dog actually ran down the road this morning (we wiped our eyes and took another look!), so we figured there must have been some sort of emergency, i.e. free food being handed out. Little dog followed after her, little legs blurring as she tried to keep up. Mama cat went by with a mouse flopping out of her mouth. Another successful family meal going down. Ratty Norvegicus (our chubby little neighbourhood rat) darted in and out of the art gallery potplants then disappeared. Artist guy has been sawing and hammering all day. Twice I’ve asked him what he was making and twice the answer has been ‘dunno’. For a guy that doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s pretty industrious about it. Mind you, we saw him watering his plants in the rain yesterday, so we’ve started to wonder about the state of his cerebral health. Tonight I watched a little frog hop across the road, have his leg stood on by an unaware pedestrian, just miss being squashed by a motorbike/sidecar and make it to the other side to be almost stood on again by artist guy. Then it turned around and started back across the road! Little dog spotted it and played with it right in the middle of the traffic, and then finally it found a hole and leapt down it, out of sight. Talk about nerve racking!

Gill has just been feeding Mama cat and kittens secretly, over the side of the verandah, and it sounds like a party is starting up down the Rabbit Hole across the road. I’m off to find some liquid of some sort, as our respite from the heat is feeling like it’s over.

More observations:

It takes exactly 5 minutes for ice to melt in a glass of water here.

Serviettes (napkins) in Chiang Mai cafes are either really tiny or they put toilet rolls into kitch plastic dispensers and them on the tables.

Sawasdee Kha

The evening after our zoo day, we had a wee party on our verandah. I had decided that a bottle of gin was in order, so I went and bought one at the 7/11 (otherwise known as a Dairy in NZ) for 260 baht (or about $12.60 NZ). Chow, Gill myself and a Phillipine girl called Lyn swanned about with a guitar, some gin and whiskey and several buckets of ice. Very civilized. Chow and Lyn put a sand lizard on the ground by my foot, thinking to scare me, which didn’t work at all, to their great disappointment. Gill suggested quietly to me that I should go and get my scorpion and do the same back, which worked a treat. When Lyn spotted it, we both jumped back and climbed on our chairs in horror (this was at night time, so the light was working in our favour) and she was totally taken in, poor thing. I think she had murderous intentions towards us for a little while after that. Chow then passed me a fancy whiskey bottle that had a cobra inside it with a large scorpion in its mouth. He was lucky I didn’t drop it! He then told us that the cobra would have been put in the bottle when small, then the scorpion dropped in once the snake was bigger, then both of them drowned in whiskey. We couldn’t believe the cruelty of it! And in a Buddhist country? But for some people, dollars speak a darn sight louder than morals. I also really hate seeing the insects set in resin or in frames at the markets. They’re pretty impressively sized bugs, but I refuse to support such a practice. Every time I see this I shake my head at the person selling them. I have to say I’ve seen a lot less of this than I saw in Bangkok in 2005. Maybe more tourists are refusing to buy them. I hope so.

Okay, stepping down off my soapbox, last night we went for food in our favourite cafe again, where you can get a nice Thai meal for about $1.25NZ. At cafes here, they serve their food takeaway in cellophane bags, which are then puffed up a bit with air trapped in them and rubber bands are put around the top. Many Thai people buy their dinner this way and a lot of snacks, like potato chips and nuts are sold this way also. Across the road from us was a traffic light. When the light goes green for pedestrians, the light counts down from 10 to 0, which doesn’t take long at all. You have to scuttle across the road rather than walk.

Last night we went in search of the Pinte Blues club which is mentioned in our second-hand Rough Guide to Thailand that I bought in Bangkok. (We never take this with us - we consult it in our room then take notes in a tiny notebook. There’s nothing like a falang with a guidebook to yell to the locals ‘I’m new here and I don’t have a clue. Come and rip me off!’) Nobody around our area had any idea about this blues bar, which has been here since 1985! We kept walking along Moonmaung Road (just round the corner from our guesthouse) until we found it - not actually very far away, close to a piece of Old Chiang Mai Wall. First we spotted the neon sign, then we saw an awesome Harley Davidson sitting at the curb outside it. This Harley had 4 saddlebags, a large American flag hanging off the back and every part of it that didn’t consist of steel had studs in it. We stopped, gawping like idiots, then spoke to the owner who sat beside it. At first we couldn’t make out whether it was a he or a she, as he/she’s voice was very deep, and was dressed in black t-shirt and shorts, white socks and sandshoes and a fuzzy white hairstyle. Considering some of the falangs we see around here, this gave us no clues whatsoever. It wasn’t till we sat down and watched for a while that we figured out, due to anthropological observation, that this was indeed a She.

After a few drinks, and many times fending off Hill-tribe women with - yes, wooden frogs - and flower sellers, our Laughing Tuk-tuk driver pulled up close by (we seem to be a magnet to this guy - and no, he hadn’t seen us yet) and I sent Gill home with him. I then went and had a chat with the Harley Davidson Rideress. I was dying to know what her story was. Turns out, was was a chief engineer for Hilton Hotels for many years, then adopted a Thai daughter and has retired here in Thailand.  It took her every day for 5 years to decorate this huge bike, which she rides all over Thailand on. We sat on the street chatting (I love how they just put chairs and tables out on the road here and the traffic just roars past, weaving around you) and then she started her bike, which as it turned out was lit up with LED lights more busily that your average christmas tree, her dog leapt up onto the back seat, she turned her stereo on so it blasted out George Thoroughgood and off she blasted.

As you do.

Observations:

• If you sit still long enough around here, everything will come to you. Flower leis, alcohol, food vendors with entire shops hanging off the side of their scooters, wooden frogs, beautiful Thai women in skyscraper shoes, lizards, dogs, etc.
• Thai dogs are very good at riding on scooters. They have terrific balance and ride like naturals.
• There are no parking meters. You just squeeze in wherever you can. Somehow it works.
• There are little sprayjets of water hanging down over the streets and sometimes rows of fans spurting out larger sprays to keep people cool.
• Bridges here have cool statues of elephants or whatever on them.
• Traffic police somehow manage to blow whistles even thought they wear masks over their mouths.
• Thai people love fish and the vendors keep them swimming around live then chop their heads off and cook them for you.
• They also love loud music and kitchy dancing groups doing strange jerky movements on television.

Today we hired Chow and the guesthouse car for the day and went outside the city to Sunkompang Village. This cost us 300 baht ($15NZ), which when split between us, worked out a darned sight cheaper than a tuk-tuk would have. We felt like royalty having an actual car and a driver to ourselves. We went out to an umbrella-making factory and watched how the process is done. When we got to the umbrella painters, Gill got her handbag painted with butterflies and I got a Ganesha (elephant god) and an Om sign painted on my camera case. They wanted to paint my bag, but I explained to them that it was made in India and would last a lot less longer than the painting on it.

We then went to a silk-making factory where you can watch the entire process from the moths mating, to the worms eating mulberry leaves, to them making cocoons to the cocoons being boiled (ugghh) to the silk bobbin winding and weaving on the looms. We were then led into a shop in which the prices nearly made me eat my tongue in fright. I went back out to the factory and played with a pop-ball with a boy in there who had to stick around his mum, who works one of the looms, all day. He was a nice young guy, aged about 11, and I gave him the pop-ball so he had something to do while he was hanging around. He loved it, and his mum was pretty pleased too, so that, as well as seeing the silk-making process made the visit worthwhile for me.

Next, we walked over to a factory next door where they made jade products and jewellery. There was a multitude of women there to serve us and no other  customers. Once again, we were shadowed so closely they were almost tripping over us. So far, these factory/shops were charging like wounded bulls for their products - by our experience, about four times what you could buy the same stuff for in the markets. But then you see huge, flash tourist buses full of falang pull up outside and you see how they get away with it. They had a lot less luck with the two part-scottish kiwis who wandered around taking photos and drinking their nice cold FREE water.

Chow then took us to a Thai Antique place. Yeah right! It was run by Kashmiri guys who featured mostly Kashmiri carpets and stuff from Rajasthan and other parts of India who I think were a little put out that I recognised a lot of it for what it was. However, the guy running that particular show had promised Chow 400 Baht just for taking us to the door, so we were happy to go through the motions to help our Thai mate out.

Finally, a wood-carving factory. We got herded through there like cows late for milking because it was nearly closing time for the workers. Out the back they had a huge teak trunk and another huge rosewood trunk drying ready for carving and various and sundry bits of furniture and carvings, once again with terrifying prices. When we were pushed back out the front to the showroom, I was looking for something small enough to afford and found myself once again being followed around. By this stage, I was in a ‘Get Mad or Get Even’ sort of a state and Get Even won out. So every time I felt the serving girl behind me and heard her draw a breath to give me a selling spiel, I’d move forward a few steps then stop. She would do the same thing, then just as she was about to speak, I’d move forward again. I don’t know about her, but I was actually starting to enjoy this game and started to quietly get the giggles. It was like going shopping with Inspector Clouseau (enter Pink Panther music). Childish, I know, but it was either that or tell her where to go and how to get there, so I was just taking the politest option.

Finally, we went back home, via the train station to buy our ticket back to Bangkok in a few days time, and staggered back to our room. Gill is now asleep and I’ve imbibed in two very warm gin and Sprites (my left arm for some ice!) and am thinking about a nice cheap dinner. Yay for living in cheap neighbourhoods.

Sawasdee Kha

Yesterday we travelled out to Wat Umong. Yes folks, we made it outside The Wall. We jumped into a tuk-tuk with The Laughing Tuk-tuk Driver who giggled at everything he said, so we figured either he must be a very funny man or we’re extremely amusing from his point of view or he’s slightly gaga. Or maybe all of the above. He had by far the slowest tuk-tuk we’ve been on by far so we got to appreciate the unlovely eau-de-exhaust coming off all the other vehicles as they passed us most the way there. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he giggles so much - he’s high on carbon monoxide or whatever it is that cars breathe…

Wat Umong was pretty cool. It’s a Wat out of town a little, built by one of the past kings for a monk that was apparently a little deranged and liked to wander into the forest sporadically. The king liked to talk with this monk, so he built a Wat for him in the forest so that he could consult the monk whenever he liked. It’s a peaceful place with tunnels built overground (not quite what I expected in a tunnel, but there you have it) with Buddhas sitting inside niches in the walls. It has sayings (many in Thai but some in English) nailed to the trees, a large lake where you can sit and feed the apparently starving hoards of catfish (that’s their story and they’re sticking to it), a museum which, unhelpfully remained closed, a statue of the Emaciated Buddha (a depiction of what he looked like after he’s starved himself for about three years before discovering that excesses in action weren’t actually all that useful - you can imagine what he looked like, I’m sure), various buildings here and there and, best of all, a cup-cake lizard! We didn’t see him but we heard him and a monk confirmed for us that it definately was a lizard. He also went on to mime (which is largely how Gill and I communicate here) that it indeed will stick to your skin and possibly bite you, and he’s scared of them. Huh. So Gill and I have now had our suspicions verified by a monk, so we now see that the locals on our soi (street) are definately either deaf or in denial due to lizard-fear.

Our laughing tuk-tuk driver took us from there to the Chiang Mai Zoo. The zoo is on thirty something acres of land at the base of and part way up the Doi Suthep (mountain) nearby Chiang Mai. Here you pay 220 baht for an all day pass which lets you in to see the pandas (all 2 of them) on loan from China, the rest of the zoo apart from the aquarium (which we didn’t need to see, coming from New Zealand) and ’service cars’ - open air buses that you can hop on and off all day to see various parts of the place. There’s no way you can walk around this zoo as it’s just too big and you’d probably die of the heat if you tried. The first thing we did was stop to feed an elephant. Talk about big Trev! It had impressive tusks that curved round in front of it and when Gill fed it some bananas it curled it’s trunk around her hand. She got a heck of a buzz out of that.My favourite part was the reptile section. At last, I got to see snakes. (I hate the things, I think they’re creepy - it’s downright unnatural to have fangs and no legs.) I wanted to make myself look at them to try and get over my ridiculous fear of them. Ridiculous because we have no snakes in NZ, so it’s not like it’s going to be a problem. They were in netting cages, kind of like medium-size aviaries, and were pretty hard to see at first. While I was peering into the first one, Gill touched me and I nearly jumped out of my skin. They really do give me the creeps! But once I got used to being around them and convinced myself that they couldn’t slither through a millimetre-wide opening, I was quite fascinated. They weren’t very big, but there was quite a variety of them and it was amazing to see just how well camouflaged they are. You could stand there for several minutes before you realised you were staring right at one. Sadly, most of the larger snakes were absent, as they were building new glass enclosures for them, so the biggest ones I got to see were Burmese Pythons that were sleeping in one big coil on the other side of the room from me. I’m working up to visiting a snake farm next. Or whatever they call the facilities where they milk them for venom.

The pandas were pretty groovey. They look just like panda bears, funnily enough, but it was still really cool to see them with our own eyes (as if you’d borrow someone else’s - that’s such a stupid saying). They were in separate enclosures from each other and one was lying around on a high branch portraying the epitome of having had a hard day, while the other one was chewing enthusiastically on some branches of bamboo. After a while, this one got up and came down to look at the people that the zoo kindly puts on show for it, then it climbed back up the wall, turned around and gave a demonstration on how pandas use the toilet. It would seem that there are only two places in it’s enclosure it uses for this purpose and when you go back out of the room, it’s possible to purchase your very own supply of Panda Poo toilet paper. No, the pandas don’t wipe their backsides, before you ask facetiously…

We watched gibbons swing around their island. These creatures are the most amazing acrobats, and so graceful about it. But their arms are so long that when they walk, they have to hold their hands out sideways else they’d keep getting tangled in the foliage, I suppose. They come in various colours and some have white gloves on their hands, or so it seems.

Other reptiles included enormous crocodiles that lay so still we wondered if they were stuffed, moniter lizards, other colourful little lizards and turtles of so many types we lost count. In one enclosure, there were a whole lot of rabbits socializing with the turtles. I suggested to Gill that these rabbits may be snake fodder but we’re not going to talk about that any more…

Miraculously, we were sitting out at the gate wondering how to get a ride home when our laughing tuk-tuk driver pulled up beside us. We know he wasn’t waiting for us as he knew we’d be hours at the zoo, so this was rather a happy coincidence (pardon the pun). On the way home, we tried to get him to go to Warorot Market so I could pick some clothes up from my tailor and he took us to 2 other markets before we actually got to the right place. He didn’t charge us any extra and he was still giggling a lot, so that was okay. When we finally got to the right place, he got out of the tuk-tuk and walked off. We stood around wondering what we should do when he finally came back, having gone off to get change for us when we hadn’t even paid yet! Yet another demonstration of the amount of trust these people have. (There’s been a few times when I’ve left my shoes or something lying around, to find it still there when I’ve gone back hours later.)

We got home at about 6.30 p.m., had a rum each then promptly fell asleep for the next 12 hours. Who would have thought that looking at things could be so exhausting?

I’m sitting in an internet cafe down the road from our place and Ugly Cat (one of the toms around here) has just walked in mewing loudly and plonked himself behind me. He’s got a lot to say for himself and I think it’s my cue to leave, as he’s rather large and seems pretty annoyed about something. We’re off to find a scooter a bit later and if I can remember how to ride a motorised 2-wheeled thing, we’ll wander around inside The Wall on it and see how well two blondes can get lost.

Sawasdee Kha

On Saturday night we went over to Waialu Road to the Saturday market.  It’s held in one long line of outside stalls along the road and it goes for ages! It was nice to be in an outside one though - nowhere near as sauna-like as the inside ones. There are many disabled and blind people there with amps and instruments - some traditional and some modern - busking for money. This is really good value as you get entertained as you shop, and I’m sure it’s financially rewarding for them, as well as satisfying that they can do something to help themselves.

The stalls were an Alladin’s cave of handcrafts and other goodies. You can buy all sorts of food and drinks, such as meat and meatballs on sticks, Crysanthenum juice, Rosella Juice (hopefully not squeezed parrots), black jelly made of some sort of Thai herb and mixed with sugar, and the one we tried was coconut ice cream. The sign on the ice cream stand was a little unfortunate. ‘Ancient Ice Cream.’ Erm, well, we’ll try some anyway and hopefully it’s not gone off by now. It was delicious. Not as creamy as our ice cream, but more refreshing as it doesn’t leave that ’sugar thirst’ afterwards.

The crafts included metal 3-d pictures, made by putting a thin sheet of metal over some asphalt and chiseling designs into it. Some of them were enormous, and all very detailed and clever. We saw lacquer-ware, pottery, lanterns of many kinds, really intricate soap carvings and weaponry, such as crossbows and bows and arrows, all handmade. I bought a bow and arrow set, which hopefully they’ll let me back into NZ with. Other crafts included golliwogs, Rastafarian dancing dolls (I picked one up to look at it and got the fright of my life when it started wriggling), ornate letterboxes and silverware. You could also buy ancient bells, opium bowls and pipes (wasn’t willing to try that one on with NZ customs) and collectable amulets, which are clay images of Buddha, etc, enclosed in plastic or pyrex or something. Those stalls had men gathering around them with magnifying glasses to inspect them closely with, comparing and chattering with each other - something akin to an avid stamp collectors’ gathering. My favourite things were dragons made out of jute. Some of these were huge and you could watch the people making them right in front of you. Needless to say, I am now the proud owner of a jute dragon, which I’ve put beside my bed to hopefully scare our resident cockroach away.

Yesterday, we walked down the main road a few blocks and went to the Sunday market, which is held by the Tha Pae gate (there are four or five gates in the wall surrounding the old part of the city). Once again, a huge myriad of goodies. And once again, we found ourselves fending off the hoards of hilltribe ladies who all want to sell wooden frogs to Westerners (falang). I’m trying to teach Gill not to stop and tell them she already has one, as they take this as encouragement and don’t really have any english (or chose not to, it’s a little hard to tell). We’re getting better at refusing now. I’ve learnt to say ‘Mae ao’ (which sounds like you’re trying to imitate a cat) and look away. This seems to be reasonably effective. At this market, there were more wicked stallholders that ensorcelled me with jute animals and I now have in my possession a black jute scorpion. Gill and I have made a pact - she’s not to look at any more handbags and I’m not to look at jute creatures.

I put Gill into a tuk-tuk and sent her home after a couple of hours, then I wandered the market alone. Part of it was actually being held in a Wat (temple) complex, so I got to see a Wat up close for the first time. It was awesome, with huge banyan trees and gold buildings and Buddha statues, etc. One of the structures was surrounded by a 6 ft wall and I was blown away to see a chicken perching on the wall, eyes closed. Thousands of people teeming around him and he just sat there calmly seemingly meditating.Lovely.

As I was leaving the market, I came across a Japanese girl having her photo taken by her friend. Mischief came over me and I did a silly pose beside her. They actually took the photo then thanked me. Huh? I then came across a ‘ladyboy’ primping and preening in front of another camera so I did the same thing again, this time behind him so he didn’t know I was there. His friend took the photo then showed him and cracked up laughing. On the way home, I encountered a cockroad so big it nearly knocked me over. We skirted around each other at the last minute and both of us got away alive.

Today we stayed in the room, having showers and lying in front of the fan, it was so hot. The temperature early this evening was 36 degrees, so I hate to think what it was at 3p.m. We went to Gill’s tailor’s shop/home for dinner and had several Lanna-style dishes who’s names I cannot pronounce, plus a variety of fruit (one of which turned out to be plums, which are apparently hard to find here because it’s only cold enough in the mountains to grow them). Dish after dish came out, until we were getting pretty worried we would explode impolitely all over the room. The tailor lives above her shop, which is at the back of the undercover food market on the corner of our soi (street). We all sat round a plastic table in her shop and her daughter interpreted for us. Afterwards, it was time for some entertainment. Which turned out to be us. The tailor wanted us to sing for our supper and hauled out her karaoke system. We could only recognise about four songs, these having been redone by a young group of gorgeous Thai girls, who sing so fast we only managed about one in every four words. It was hilarious. Then the tailor sang a few Thai songs. After that she wanted us to attempt some Thai songs written in the english alphabet. This, of course, turned into a complete disaster and was soon given up as a bad idea, thank goodness. When we got up to leave, she plied us with rice biscuits and fruit in a plastic bag and sent us on our way with not the least chance of being hungry for the next twenty four hours.

Every night and every morning, we hear a creature out in the garden behind us calling out ‘CupCake,CupCake!’ When we asked what makes that noise, we were told that a lizard a lot bigger than a gecko makes it. The locals are afraid of this lizard, as it apparently can leap at you, grasp onto you with it’s sticky feet, and if it bites it doesn’t let go! However, they are totally disagree that there is one here and say they only live in the country. Every time we mention we’ve heard it again, they try to put it down to birds fighting or some such thing. We’re not sure if they don’t want us to be scared by it, or they’re so scared of it they’re in complete denial that there could possibly be one here. We’re thinking of hunting it down soon and taking a photo to show that it does indeed exist and we’re not going nutty. (Well, it might not disprove our nuttiness, but it will help with the lizard situation.) If we do manage to do this though, we won’t tell them exactly where we find it in case they hunt it down and kill it, which is the last thing we want to have happen.

Anyway, time to go and lie in front of the fan again, as it hasn’t got any cooler here at all.

Sawadee Kha
D

Continuing from my previous post, on the afternoon of the 14th, Chow kindly donated a large bucket with a huge block of ice in it to the NZ troops and we made very good use of it from our verandah. This made the results of our shooting even more effective than ever. Watching our victims shudder as the ice water hit their back was quite satisfying.

We went back to our (now) favourite cafe for dinner - all this battling makes a person very hungry. I had a nice beef curry and rice and the cook gave me some soup to try also. They have a huge pot split down the middle, one side with water and the other side with soup in and it’s always simmering. For soup, they put some vegetables in a basket on a long stick, dip it in the soup for a few seconds then serve the lot in a bowl. It’s very tasty and we’ve add it to our ever growing list of favourite dishes.

That night I got to experience a Chiang Mai karaoke bar - dragged along by the local Thais and Westerners. So much for the early night I had planned… A pretty wild scene, yet very safe feeling at the same time. The ratbags from down the Rabbit Hole were up on the bar dancing and the staff took no notice whatsoever. Others were standing on the rotating barstools, also dancing, and miraculousy nobody fell over and nothing got broken.  I seemed to be the only one cringeing on their behalf. Guess they’ve had a lot of practise at this.

On the 15th (last day of Songkran), Artist Guy across the road acquired a tuk-tuk from somewhere and decorated it almost to death with wreaths of flowers and a Ganesh statue, then hung a sign on it saying ‘Let’s Go Crazy - Happy Songkran Tuk-Tuk. 120 baht per person.’ It did a few rounds, then he kindly organised for only Gill and I and the driver to be on it and we did one last round of the main canal. This is only a few hundred metres down the road but we were away for about 4 hours. Once again, Gill caught many people by surprise with her wicked shooting, but unfortunately, the road by now was so flooded that sometimes we were stuck in the same place for about 10 or 15 minutes at a time. People actually specially lined up along the canal side of the road and got us with a continuous line of buckets. It was a close shave, but we held our own.

Later on, Chow (who has now adopted Gill as ‘Mama’ and me as ‘Sister’ cooked us some shrimp fried rice and delivered it to our rooms, where we were flopping about in exhaustion. It was a lovely thing to do and he told us that many of the staff gave him advice while he cooked it, so we feel very lucky and very spoilt. I felt a little bad as I don’t eat shrimp or cucumber, so I had to give Gill my shrimp and hide the cucumber in the rubbish bin in the bathroom while his back was turned, but I ate the rest with relish (it was ‘Aroi’ - delicious) and he was satisfied that he had looked after us. Later on I took the plates back to the kitchen and scared some little podgy scuttling furry thing that was too short to be a rat. Dunno what it was, but I’m still curious.

After dinner I showed Chow some postcards of New Zealand and then gave him a short English lesson with some of the kid’s books I brought over with me (courtesy of our local library, bless them). Gill’s lesson of the day, given by artist guy, was that as an elder, she shouldn’t greet people younger than her until they had greeted her otherwise she shortens their life. She was horrified - you don’t read that in the guidebooks! So after all this time of her trying to be polite in Thai society, turns out she was doing people a horrible disfavour. Aww heck, you just can’t win sometimes, huh?

Our street turned into a street party/disco as the night went on and even those that had been too serious or dignified up until now were fully into it. I popped downstairs to say hi and before I knew it I was being pulled upwards and told to do what was apparantly an obligatory dance on the table. Not so easy when it’s slippery, wobbly and people are still throwing water at you, but I managed it and must have been okay because they let me get down again.

Yesterday, Songkran was finished finally. This was a mixed blessing, as it was nice to walk around without being shot at but at the same time it was a stinking hot day and we really could have done with a good drenching! A guy from across the road gave me a guitar pick (Thai) as a souvenir because he liked my guitaring the other night, bless his lovely heart.

Gill shouted us a lesson at the local cooking school that’s been walking by every day and from 4 p.m. until 9.15 p.m. we had a combination of intense cooking lessons and equally intense eating. The instructor was a gorgeous bubbly Thai girl with a great sense of humour and the class was well worth going to. I highly recommend doing this to anyone that’s contemplating it. She took us to the market first and explained the differences between noodles, rices, vegetables and tofus and then she took us through her great organic garden behind the school. We learned to make curry pastes, curry dishes, noodle dishes, appetisers and deserts. In our group, we had a Swiss guy, 2 French girls, 3 Americans, 2 Australians and ourselves. This of course turned into a competition between the Aussies and the Kiwis and there were as many cheeky remarks flying as there were ingredients. Naturally, we couldn’t move when we got home, due to overeating, and we weren’t too keen on having breakfast this morning.

We lazed around on the verandah having coffee this morning and watched the local wildlife. Fat dog and little dog had their visit. We could hear the Thai mynah bird that lives at the guesthouse greeting all and sundry (it speaks Thai and English) and Gill watched another local dog hop into the wishing-well across the street - lotus plants and all - and have a bath. Goodness only knows what the fish thought.

We have discovered that we have a mother cat that has a hidey-hole between the roof below us and the bottom of our storey.  She’s slowly getting used to seeing us and is starting to bring her 2 kittens out to play and feed just below us. Tonight I saved some meat from my beef soup dinner so she can have it for breakfast in the morning. She’s a tortoiseshell with beautiful green eyes just like my cat (Otis) at home.

We also have a gecko on the wall across from us, a large cockroach in the bathroom and a rat across the road that runs around in broad daylight.

We went to the Wararot Market today, where the locals shop. It’s absolutely huge and at one stage we lost each other for a while. But with the help of an Indian cotton merchant, we eventually got back together. This place is full of interesting stuff, from material shops to cooking utensil stalls to stalls with slabs of meat, live crabs, snakey-looking eel things in tubs (never did find out which they were - Chow says he has often shot king cobras as they’re yummy to eat), fried grubs of some sort and very interesting, though not always pleasant, aromas, amongst other things.

Again, we got home exhausted and I think Songkran has finally caught up on everyone as the street is noticably quiet. As for me, I’m off to bed. Ciao.

Night before last: Full-scale war occurred again. This time there were guys on the verandah next to ours patrolling with huge guns. I sat across the road in front of the ‘Nice Kitchen’ and watched the action from a different viewpoint. Several rums were handed to me in quick succession, which I only drank to be polite. They pour very weak drinks here though, so even though our locals had been drinking for hours, they were still very mellow and easy-going. I was quite impressed at their lack of loutish behaviour. Gill joined us after a while and we sat around talking and playing guitar and bongos and singing. At about 10p.m. I was ordered to get on a tuk tuk and our friend Chow drove a few of us (me the only Westerner) around the perimeter of Old Chiang Mai. He’s a Bangkok driver, so a lot madder than Chiang Mai drivers, but of course I was already used to that from being in Delhi and Bangkok so I just sat back and enjoyed. At one stage we went past some other falang (foreigners) and I called out to them to help me and that I was being held hostage, but for some reason they just laughed and didn’t come to my rescue. So much for solidarity.

This morning in our street, from up on our verandah -

Fat dog and little dog have their visit.

Artist guy (at the Be Happy Cafe/Gallery) is hanging up yet more decorations (todays lot are paper jellyfish) and preening his beloved plants. He has set up his almost 24/7 music system, which begins with thai music then graduates to western as the morning gets older. Come afternoon, the volume appears to rise in proportion to the mischief going on. Today, besides his coffee menu, he has a menu for beer and whisky as well. Today he is marking as the ‘big day of Songkran’. Big hangover potential anyway.

Locals and falang attending the local cooking schools walk to the food market and then back swing baskets of fresh ingredients.

An old man rides by on his ancient black bicycle that has a bouquet of plastic sticking up in the back carrier.

Dakota, a 13 year old American boy living here for a year, who’s mother is supposed to be teaching but hasn’t got around to it yet, is patrolling the street with a bazooka, looking very serious.

Today is a clear day and down the street, I can see the nearby ‘mountain’ with a Wat near the top. As I look, the first Thai squirrel I have seen scuttles across the road via the power line.

A scooter just drove by with a man and a tiny child on it, who is holding a machine gun - obviously taking no chances.

We had brunch round on Moonmaung St (the main drag)  then bought our drinking water supplies for the day at the 7/11 store. Across the canal, huge crowds were gathered, cheering and having waterfights. We got back safely to the guesthouse (Gill cheating by walking beside a little ol’ lady, while I got drenched) and we applied arnica inside and out to Chow, who had topped off a chair the night before, trying to catch a gecko for us to have in our room. The gecko in question absconded and Chow ended up with a sore back and empty hands.

I went back down the road to sort our one of those awful, kitch cat statues from China for Gill. She had commented on them the other day, so I bought her one as a Songkran present. They’re horrible little things that sit there waving one arm all day, and now she’ll have to look at it forever because it was a present. Heh heh. Awful, I know, but I couldn’t resist and now every time we look at it we giggle.

I walked for a few miles down the main road trying to find a 7/11 that had a supply of Sprite and took a bit of footage of the goings on. The crowd is now even bigger and spread to both sides of the canal. It has now reached the point of insanity. Wonderful fun though, absolutely no aggravation happening and almost everyone in Chiang Mai seemed to be enjoying themselves. On the way home I walked down an alleyway that had a sign up saying “Mr Deny - Personal Trips’. The English signage here is as delightful as the ones in India.

Chow took Gill and I for another round on the tuk tuk - fully equipped with guns and a huge bucket of water with a very large block of ice in it. People here only sprinkle the elders very gently with a tiny bit of water, and the looks of surpise on their faces when Ma Baker shot them with a strong stream of icy cold water was brilliant. On the second round, they were onto us and we wore many bucket-fulls of water in the face, back, head - everywhere. Those miscreants who were mounted on the back of utes usually had ice cold water like us. The canal water thrown by people standing at the side was lovely and warm in comparison. The main street was actually awash and flooding by this stage, which blew us away. It takes an immense amount of work to flood a street bucket by bucket.

Unfortunately, Chow managed to bump into a little silver hatchback car in front of us a put a ding in the back of it. He and the driver had a fairly civilized chat about it, then the driver’s wife got on the tuk tuk with Gill and I and Chow drove off to deliver us home then sort out the insurance with the car owners. Our new passenger was a snotty young thing who didn’t even say hello. Of course, she copped a lot of bucket-fulls of water along with us, which she seemed very unimpressed about, and Gill, in a very naughty mood by this time, shifted on the seat, which was now like a soaked sponge, so that young miss snotty-features got a soaked backside as well. Oh these elders - what to do with them?

Poor old Chow is having a bit of rotten luck really - hurting his back and having a wee car accident, so I shouted the whiskey tonite to cheer him up a little. He’s determined to keep smiling though, bless his heart, and wouldn’t accept any help or money from us.

Later in the evening, yet another water battle ensued - after we’d changed into dry clothes, which seems to be a futile activity really. Artist guy had moved his stereo system to the Nice Kitchen front yard and it’s been on full volume the whole evening. Gill watched some older woman give the locals a telling off about the loudness of the music then get drenched by a bucketfull as she stepped back out on the street. Gill thought it was hysterical and apparently everyone around her was falling about laughing. It really is ridiculous to be serious at a time when every man and his dog is celebrating and having such a good time. People like that need to learn to stay inside their homes during Songkran.

Later again, back off to the ‘Heavenly Beach’ nightclub for some more dancing with locals and the other falang down our street who live at a Guesthouse called The Rabbit Hole, which we think goes rather nicely with the Wonderland sheets we sleep in. We went past the tree again where frogs sit there making funny noises. Chow and Steve the welsh guy tried to tell me that the frogs are snoring, but I think they’re pulling my leg.

Okay, have to go now. We have an appointment with a tuk-tuk and a bucket of water. love to you all and thanks again to those of you who have written.

Sawasdee Kha
Deb and Gill

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO HOO - WHAT A RIDE!”