Off the Couch and On the Road

It was one of those really long days, kind of like Boxing Day or New Year’s Day, where nobody feels like doing anything and nothing is open. And normally you would just chill out at home or visit friends, and you could always rely on McDonald’s to be open.

Normally you could also count on walking down the street without having water thrown on you. We couldn’t rely on any of the above, and having washed and dried our clothes ready for flights, weren’t too keen on continuing the new year celebrations, despite the heat.

So we ate pizza, chilled out and caught up on emails. It was a long day.

The following morning – an early flight, another airport, a different currency. Next stop, Nepal.

-Sarah

PS As I will be trekking for the next two weeks or so, I won’t be able to update this blog, so you will have to make do with Desperate Housewives or Grey’s Anatomy for your entertainment. I know, they’re not as entertaining, but you will make it. I promise! I also haven’t been able to upload photos, so again you’re going to have to wait until I am in London. Why wait for photos of waterfalls and pigs when you can have mountains, waterfalls and pigs – I know, enticing right? Right?

The road from Siam Reap back to the Thai border was pretty rough. Rough would actually be an understatement, if Bonds sponsored roads like that in Sydney, they would sell a hell of a lot more sports bras. Apparently the concept of finishing one part of the road before digging up another didn’t quite allow the Cambodian government to generate as much revenue, so they dig up the entire stretch, wait for the rainy season when the road is washed away, and then ask Thailand for more money to fix the road they originally paid for in the first place. Not stupid, those Khmers.

It was a long four hours, but once we hit the Thai border we were blessed with paved roads and less cows, and the remaining four hours went more smoothly. It was a bit sad to be back in Bangkok where we first started, going our separate ways. Tired from the bus ride, I had an early night and a few of us ended up treating ourselves to a traditional Thai massage the following morning before lunch on Khao San Road and a chilled out afternoon.

Not having seen the Grand Palace, museum and the temple of the Emerald Buddha (which is actually Jade, but green stone is green stone, right? And plus, Emerald has kind of a cool Wizard of Oz feel to it) I did the touristy thing the next morning, more out of obligation than anything, but the site was amazing and if you mentally blocked out the millions of Japanese tourists it was a great morning.

That day was pretty much the start of the Thai new year festival, ‘Songkran’, which is a water festival, so we head out that night to a bar Sakai knew in Silom to take part in the festivities.

Prepared with water pistols, we entered the street party, where bars had shut their doors, placed plastic around the furniture, and pumped the music into the street. Hoses were flowing with water in big garbage bins and everyone was dancing and trying to soak as many people as they could.

It was awesome, and we were soaked through in about 5 seconds flat. We took our positions and fought back – the kids were the worst culprits and it seemed the more little and innocent they looked, the more water they poured on you. We used buckets, hoses and our water pistols, aiming mostly for terrified tourists running down the street, and there was a point where buckets of flour and water were passed around to throw onto anyone close enough to aim at (mostly innocent looking children with massive water pistols).

The locals were really into the spirit of the new year, even out tuk-tuk driver provided us with water to fill the pistols on the way home so we could hit innocent bystanders on the street with shots of water.

It was the most awesome new year’s celebrations, and if Thailand should export one thing, it should be the water festival.

Well, maybe two things, because Tiger Balm rocks. It’s just not as fun.

-Sarah

The following morning we left for a 6-hour bus ride to Chiang Khong, where we would spend a night before crossing the border into Laos. The bus trip was broken into a few 2-hour trips and we stopped for lunch at another temple (can’t remember where it was or what it was called, but it was dubbed the ‘tacky temple’ and looked like something the white witch would live in within Narnia).

We arrived in Chiang Khong late afternoon, the town of which was really only one street filled with guesthouses, and spent the afternoon playing cards and going through the differences in Laos culture. We ate a local restaurant, where a Thai man and his 4 year-old daughter sang Eric Clapton with black hats flashing with red and green lights in a voice reminicent of Elvis with a Thai accent. We wanted to get up and start singing too, but that damn 4 year-old was holding onto that mic tighter than a Pamela Anderson t-shirt. Ah well, Karaoke would have to wait.

-Sarah

Trains are ok. They really are. But when they try to be something they’re not (ie. a bed) they ultimately suck. They really do. Sleeping on that carriage was like laying in half a single bed with a bunch of kids on Ritalin jumping up and down on either side. So I spent at least 10 hours laying awake trying not to throw up. The Thai whisky and beer probably didn’t help either.

We were actually right next to what was the ‘disco carriage’ on the train, which played Venga Boys and YMCA while serving beer in 1.6 litre bottles. So we were kept entertained until about 10pm when we all tried to fall asleep, failing miserably.

We arrived at Chiang Mai in northern Thailand at about 8am and felt much better after a big breakfast. Technically we could do whatever we wanted today, but it was a unanimous decision led by a whole-hearted whisky toast the night before, that we would ride elephants before we left Thailand.

Sakai arranged the transport and a guide, and we were so excited we could barely contain ourselved the whole way there. And they were gorgeous. It was two people per elephant, so Kate and Ihopped onto the back of one armed with a bunch of bananas for bribery purposes and set off on the track.

Except this elephant didn’t want to follow it’s handler on the track, did it. So we hung precariously to the seat with a small chain holding us in while it ignored the handler and kind of plodded along some unknown path into the bush. Which was kind of funny, and out Thai handler giggled and kept shaking his head. Trust me to choose the rogue elephant.

Once we had run out of bananas though, our cute little elephant seemed to get quite angry, and snorted at us while whipping our feet with it’s ears. Now, I have health insurance, but I doubted at that frantic moment whether it covered loss and damage due to ‘elephant on a rampage’. It set off into a jog (do elephants jog?) and came up to a tree-house filled with buckets of bananas. The Thai handler was yelling at this stage, hitting the elephant with a kind of pick (and still giggling) while trying to catch us up to everyone else, who’s elephants were quite demure in comparison, riding in a long straight line further down the track.

Our elephant trumpeted in anger, tossed aside a few of the buckets with it’s trunk, stole sevaral large bunches of bananas, and stormed off, leaving our guide 2 storeys up in a tree platform, still giggling, and us screaming with terror and laughing hysterically down the mountain. By ourselves. With no handler and a rogue elephant. God it was fun.

After our elephant adventure, we changed and head off to the Chiang Mai women’s prison. Their rehabilitation program is one of the most respected in Thailand and involved teaching the women(amongst other things) to practise Thai massage so they could earn a living after they are released. And apparently their massages were the best kept secret in Thailand, so we checked it out. And it was the best massage ever. Amazing. The girls giggled, laughed and talked so much that we wondered how any of them could commit a crime, and asked Sakai what they were in for. Apparently for some it’s prostitution, other for saying a bad word against the King (even stepping on a flyaway Baht note is punishable with a jail term, as you are stepping on the King’s head). But we decided they were all lovely and left the jail feeling stretched and relaxed. And kind of glad we weren’t wearing yellow so they didn’t confuse us for prisoners and let us leave.

The early evening was spent at Wat Phrathat on the mountain of Doi Suthep. According to legend, holy relics discovered during the reign of King Kuena (1355-1385) were placed in a howdah on the back of a white elephant, which carried t5hem up the mountain before dropping dead from fatigue. The king built the temple to store the remains and the site has since been expanded to include a monastery where monks and nuns live and work on either side of the temple (at the top of 300-odd stairs which killed our nicely massaged legs). Monks are the highest level of person in Thailand, even higher than the royal family, and every make is encouraged to become a monk at some point in their life. There were small boys there on a school holiday program (getting it over and done with early, I guess) and we were lucky enough to be able to kneel before a monk and have white string tied to our wrists (right for men, left for women) as good luck and a wish for happiness.As he was tying the string, he was smiling and mumbling what sounded to me like “happy-happy-lucky-lucky-best-wishes-to-you-happy-happy-lucky-lucky”. It may have been more serious and complex than that, but I doubt it.

If the string fell off within three days, we had to hang it from a tree or something higher than us, or we could keep it on for as long as we wanted. It wasn’t a touristy area of the temple and in fact very few people ever have that experience. I personally am keeping mine on until everyone asks me where I got the string and what it is for, so I can casually drop in that a Buddist monk in Thailand blessed me with luck and happiness. Very casually. Nothing to it really. Just a good contact, you know how it is.

We watched the chanting of the monks and nuns at 6pm and walked back down the stairs to fresh strawberries and dinner at a local seafood restaurant, whose main selling point on all it’s signage was fried chicken. Of course.

-Sarah

Bangkok is full of contradictions. It’s street stalls next to skyscraper malls, traffic with no obvious rules yet an undercurrent of order that allows you to walk out in front of it and have traffic swerve neatly around you. Very neatly. So neatly in fact that I often waited for a Thai local to cross first and kind of hurried off beside them. And it was fascinating and scary all at once.

We left first thing and walked down to the Nae Nam Chao Phraya (river) to catch a boat down the back canals (Khlongs) of Bangkok, seeing the parts of the old city unaffected by modern life. Except for Coke and Pepsi, naturally.

Kids swimming in the brown water would wave madly and everyone always had a smile as we sailed past, their back doors not much higher than the waterline. We pulled up at the pier just outsideWat Pho, hosting the largest and most holy Buddha in Thailand.The Golden Buddha is so big they actually built the temple around him, but there are hundreds of other Buddhas and statues built to honour various royals right throughout the site.

Our tour guide was great, I didn’t remember any of it, but the entire temple was magnificent. And you have to give credit to Buddism. Our guide showd us Chinese and Hindu statues, telling us that “Buddism is very flexible, we welcome everybody”. In fact, it is not a religion but a philosophy, has no unique creed, no single authority and no single sacred book, which is pretty awesome, especially when they’re so damn happy all the time. They even call the toilet “the happy room”, due to the state one is usually in when they exit 🙂

We had some free time in the afternoon to go to the mall and find the bits and pieces we needed before we left the city, including a good bottle of Thai whisky to help us get through the 15-hour train trip to Chiang Mai.

-Sarah