Grand Voyages, Great Lies

Cuts and Bruises;

…..Whose idea was it to put alcohol next to a  river inhabited by jagged rocks? ….Along with mass loud music to contrast the ominous back drop of overcast skies and dark, strangely ,blackened green mountains?…. Plus the inconvenience of a building sight before you step into the bars, concrete and stones knocking around, then100s of half naked 20ish year olds drinking copious amounts from buckets….. and then being permitted to fling themselves from great heights with the added animal-ism of a trapeze? Give them some marker pens,body paint,cameras and no inhibitions…and oh yeah they can drink straight spirits laced with snakes and hornets for FREE- who ever was hideous enough to imagine such things…and let them become reality??- well…if your out there…I adore you.

This is Vang Veing, Laos…

…..The infamous tubing river talked about in awe by so many travelers of the partying style….where water tubing is the name but the actual activity is definitely not on the agenda-why? A tube is pointless because, surprisingly with a river full of bars offering free booze the mass party never really brawls past the 4th bar….. the only time people are in the water is when their somersaulting off the swings and zip lines, playing a game of alcohol enhanced volley ball or getting pushed in to the battered river by a potential or current ‘friend’ or ‘lover'( I use these terms very loosely.) Other than that the main thing in the water must be reminisces of the hornet and dead snake whiskey -which is a novelty- and also free…..the alcohol percentage of the river is surely akin to a premium beer by now with all the spills, throws and little Laos girls emptying failed buckets.

Off course their not mop buckets….I’m pretty sure that would result in more death, from experience the buckets can  hold 2/3s of a  bottle of whiskey with a smattering of lemonade (mixer of your choice) and a fair amount of ice…….and a few hornets plus various missing legs from their friends.

To put this in perspective this is just the day time…night offers a whole new scene with the imaginatively named ‘Bucket Bar’ offering free buckets and music to dance all night to on platforms around fires….the other clubs that side of the haggled bridge offer similar experiences, and like at the river the crowd moves on as one and continue till 6am (though frequenting still no more then 3 bars….)

Its beautiful, hellish, amazing, surreal, gnarly and cheap…but mostly I know that if I had a soul, I would of lost it in Vang Veing….the cuts and the busies would make a concrete wall proud. We never knew walking could be so difficult, I have a total of nine cuts just on one foot, my back despises me and my vital organs….especially heart and lungs are refusing to co-operate with one another.

We have been Vang Vieng-ed…luckily my injuries are as less visible then Kate’s and I’m sure shes in quite a bit more pain…. a swollen finger being the least of her worries followed by a bruise the size of Sweden on her thigh- a whole new meaning to treacherous waters since she flipped from one of the swings. Plus just to show that accidents are more likely to happen in the home, she achieved a a gash on her chin from slipping on a flip flop….I wish it had been a banana skin for cliched comical value- though we really mustn’t laugh- it cost 20quid for 3stiches at the conveniently placed ‘Hopital de Vang Veing’… to be fair I thought the hospital would be a little rushed seeing as the combination of alcohol and rocky rivers/rope swings/bridges, but the staff had no one else to repair and Kate seemed a mild form of entertainment…. especially after the wound was cleaned and stitched and the comedy bandage we’d joked about on the way there actually became reality..

The experience has to be seen to be believed I could write a book just on the things we’ve seen/heard done in the last 5 days. My advice for people as they roll in however….is ‘Get out while you can’ ….(naturally this spurs them on as they know they’re in for a gnarly but fun time.) Just 2 days and this town is to small- from what i watch when i rise early one day ; war wounds, shoe-less walks of shame and ‘bhang’ overs are an essential part of this place it seems….

15hrs is a long time in side a car…

After our hellish journey to get here we hould of known what to expect.

We left Chaing Mai on a 5hr mini bus ride to the border on the way we stop for a ‘toilet break’..except this is no ordinary stop, we’ve landed at ‘The White Temple’ (not that we’d heard of it before but its something of a tourist attraction) without being told, and after being jolted awake, seeing an incredibly beautiful and unexpected fairy ,ice queen esque palace is mind boggling to say the least…….we just step out of the van and its there behind the toilets….no info, no explanation from our driver, just handfuls of Thai tourists and this beautifully ornate white temple compiled of from many buildings in a royal icing like sculpture….

on schedule we arrive at the border town..its obviously been going too well so far….so we were then told that it was impossible for us to carry on with our journey the same day and we must leave in the morning instead….Thankfully it wasn’t to difficult to negotiate (after some insistence) free accommodation and a meal as ‘compensation’- though the witchy woman we dealt with did hate us as we refused to by her dollar, needed for the visa fee -at an extortionate exchange rate .

A tad narked but accepting that this is how things are in south east Asia..we spent the rest of that day walking and finding some creature comforts (wine and good noodle soup) Little did we know we’d be much worse off the next day…..already 12hrs behind schedule we jump on the boat to cross the river….actually we’d seriously considered swimming it or commandeering a boat after the wine the evening before,…at that point we didn’t know the small river was actually the border. Damn we could of just swum to Laos.

We exchange baht for Kip, another new currency and one that would mess a bit with our heads due to one pound being 12000 Kip,luckily everything is cheaper in Laos then in Thailand so spending becomes easier…..also helped along by the alcohol…

We get our visa and then are told that leaving before 5pm is not negotiable..and its 9.30am. Bullshit. Then they say we can leave at 12 if we take local transport despite the fact we have paid for a mini bus. More bullshit.If it was India I wouldn’t of booked anything in advance and hopped on and off local buses all the way….but South East Asia seems to want to only offer private transport to tourists, and in packages. Maybe if I become as accustomed to here as I did India and Neapal then ill find cheaper, less scam prone way to travel….but I’m new to this game, language and cost of living.

Eventually were told for an extra 20,000kip we can leave at 10am on the mini bus….we consider paying….then as we take a long time deciding, the guy gives in to our group of 12 and takes us to a mini bus that will drive us to Vang Vieng with no extra cost then what we have already paid. So basically we end up getting what we were promised for the fee we paid…They’ll try to get anything out of you honestly, though coming from India we accept that’s how things are, there’s no point being angry, we got what we wanted in the end, at least we are moving even if we cant take the original 12hr delay back

The mini bus in itself isn’t that bad, though it is full, has little leg room for the smallest person but its bearable,and decent on any normal journey…. the 15hr drive on road still being built ( we even stop for 30min to actually wait for a road to dry) is hideously bumpy so sleep is not an option….15hrs is a long time inside a car without sleep and we naurally become delirious and amuse ourselves with ridiculous and stupid things, stories from our new found friends ..unfortunately to add to the trauma Mr, Jelly ,our driver- insisted on playing 90s pop at full blast…and not the good stuff…..Backstreet Boys, A1, Boyzone and Westlife amongst the worst. Plugging into your i-pod isn’t that easy when at full volume you can still here Ronan Keating and Five…and the insult to the injury was a quite inappropriate lady, of around 40 making comments I will not repeat should you ever want to look at a banana in the same way again….lets just call her May.

Among our team was an entertaining Canadian….(his tattoo he showed us right above his crotch confirmed his nationality) and some girls from New Zealand both of which we would spend time with over the next few days (as if 15hrs of each other wasn’t enough) in Luang Praubhang- our introduction to Laos and Vang Veing The patriotic Nate ‘hospital’ Canada and Kiwis were a refreshing and wonderful escape from some of the absolute twats that turn up or are born out of Vang Veing due to the nakedness and alcohol. Though we couldn’t of been much better ourselves seen as one ‘Mojito Dan’ shouted for paracetmol everytime we stepped near the bar he promoted…though in my opinion it was his own fault…he asked us if we had any questions…and yes..yes we did..

Where was the free alcohol he spoke of? How long was it free for? How much did he get paid? Where was the free whiskey he claimed to know of? What time were the bars open till? Where was the free gin buckets he wanted to give us?

And that was just the first night……after all of the cuts and bruises above, we got out alive…surprisingly.

The return to the adventure,  I’m sat here in Chaing Mai, Thailand at a not so un-godly hour, braving the mozzies lying in a hammock in our uber hip and therefore very popular guest house…..the room wasn’t much better but now I swear the buggers are biting my threw the hammock..its bloody hot in the room plus mozzies….at least out here I’m getting a night breeze. We cant find where the damn fiends are coming into our room as in theroy, the gauzed windows should make it mozzie proof…yet I’ve still been bitten…. on my stomach….

Enough about mosquitos and their plan to destroy us through frustration (one just tried to get me on the nose)` so I’ve retreated under my sheet I brought out with me…

Its been ver frustrating without a place to type my ramblings down as and when I want……if I write short hand I just write notes and nothing much makes sense. First of all the adaptor to my computer broke- queue me on missions around Calcutta and bangkok trying to find a replacement…then just as we are about to go to a magically place where I will find out if a replacement is actually possible…..we discover we’ve been robbed…..Laptop, camera, Kate’s phone and money (thankfully not passports) and we curse the damn devils for all eternity for robbing us of some amazing images from the start of our Indian trip( on the laptop) and the end (on my camera),,,the latter of which I will describe as best as possible before they fade.

First I think the most important thing is to get  up to date…I have such a back log of things which I’ve not been able to write about (or have written about but was unable to access and then was robbed of) so a quick summary will get me up to speed and I’ll back track on the missed during some of the long journeys and painful hangovers I’ve yet to come and re conjure the full adventures and insert them to the right time frame.

Summary goes something like this;

Delhi; Merav prepares to leave for home but not before we take her on a day trip to see the Taj in Agra…I mean it has to be done even if I have now lost the photos…a train ride from hell is followed by wine and then by another bout of food poisoning for me leaves us just about fit enough to book our flights to Thailand….from Calcutta for a ridiculously cheap price.

So we journey on to Varanassi, which carries on as it was when I last left it (which takes some of the mystery with it) and its secret passage way type corridors.  This time Merav is replaced with Kate…we cross to ‘the other side’ of the river…and mostly we don’t get lost…also had several specials from the blue lassi shop and some night time walks down to the ghats….plus a clever young colour seller, and amazing but simple sight in the washing of the steps and a man laying himself in front of us in some kind of worship and not letting us past until we hop over him.

Calcutta becomes one of our favourite cities with the freedom we have in the night time and the easy access around the different points in the city…an awesome adventure in the heat,…to an old surreal English graveyard….a freaky trip to a posh shopping complex…..the amazing colour festival that is Holi day, gin prevails and then some…. cheap wine and  whiskey at dawn…..all these amazing tales will come out eventually I promise.

Then we, I especially, freak out about leaving India, but get on our plane excitedly and arrive in the humidity of Bangkok and its high rise buildings, modern cars, lack of  human rickshaws,cows and smooth rides on smooth roads in vehicles with smooth wheels.

THE NOW

Heres where I slow down and bring you right up to date for we only left bangkok 3 nights ago.

In the taxi from the airport I couldn’t take it in, where were the retro cars decrepit advertisements and litter masses? What were these..motorways/highways? High rise buildings and gigantic ad campaigns. Getting out of the taxi was another shock. FLESH and lots of it. Thai women in there denim shorts on mopeds with toned tanned legs and high heels, tourists in their floaty dresses all white and pasty but showing shoulders and cleavage none the less!

we hobbled in awe down the busy Kho San road in search of a room that would accommodate us…..we took the first one at 300bt a night still shocked by the heat and the activity of the main street. We noticed later that despite the clean simple room and the clean large shared bathrooms, the walls wore nothing but planks of flimsy wood and ours with a number scribbled on paper taped to the door was probably and additional late add on….most likely over the kitchen as we could of invited people back to use it as a sauna.

The busy and surrounding roads (Kho San obviously been the most OTT) where lined with street vendors serving everything from the traditional padtahi for 60p a plate to whole squid, fish broths and fried grasshoppers a stoners paradise. And soon we were to meet some people who prided themselves in trying every sort of weird snack available, I’m all for trying weird things, I ate the fried grass hoppers, live shrimp; which jumped about in the box and your your mouth, and the dried frogs…but I drew the line at a microwaved chicken burger from the abundant 7/11 newsagents (which unlike their name suggests are open 24hrs)

Apart from the mass of flavours and smells which included mango sticky rice and fresh fruits mingled late at night with the alcohol from the bucket bars….there were clothes or all varieties which could reveal any part of you you chose, dresses so mini they should be illegal…but hey I’m the prude that just come from India…..many a slogan t-shirts that were offensive to every gender, male female and lady boy….

Oh the Ladyboys. The bars were fronted by tiny beautiful Thai women in heels and sexy dresses promoting certain beers, all the Thai girls are soo beautiful its a wonder men bother anywhere else in the world. The lady boys may put them off, in Bangkok particularly the quality of get up is so that even sober women have difficultly spotting them (Kate). You’ve got to know what to look for…it wasn’t long till we met more than one guy that had got themselves tangled up with a Ladyboy at some stage during a night on buckets.

Learning more about this new gender it seems boys get sex changes very young, parents are proud of their lady boy sons and they are very accepted even which their own separate toilets at schools in the city so were told….we discussed at length why the gender change only seemed to go one way from male to female….then realised back in Manchester its very similar your much more likely to see a male transvestite as its accepted that women can dress like men anyway.

So bangkok was 6days with evenings spent drinking buckets of cocktails (long island iced tea and Sangsom that infamous Thai whiskey mixed with red bull were among our favourites) and dancing at a nearby, fun and not so seedy club on the main road. Frequented by Thai men, women and ladyboys as well as the handful of Westerners. This activity was very much necessary for us, me especially having not danced to anything but a street mela since leaving home and the only club id visited was an empty one in Kathmandu…..

So the nights were spent laughing, talking, drinking, bucketing and dancing having an awesome time with the people we’d met and the days that followed involved a late rise and hangover breakfast (more then once without realising it at a British cafe called ‘Oh My Cod’..Oh the shame) then consisted  of  one trip or another out into the city itself, you can see a lot of people getting stuck on the Kho San road….it has everything you need to a point. The roads behind are lined with more relaxed cool/retro/ chic restaurants cafes, tea shops and massage parlours (actually massage parlours)

its a nice area in that sense…except for the expense of course…

Coming from India we were horrified at the prospect of such prices when in realty the city was cheap compared to back home, we ended up deciding to more then double our budget in order to live cheaply but not have to worry about buying that next bucket, we were hear to have fun after all.. we met some very generous people who taught us to ‘splash out’ but I don’t think they’d be proud of our attempts  however extravagant they seemed to us.

One day we went to the crazy weekend market, so big theirs a bus around it. There was more of our sort of 2nd hand old style clothes here as apposed to the sexy floral things on Kho San road….we like to dress up…but the Kho San sometimes calls for something extra when everyone is in their tiny little skirts and barely there dresses. Also here we food the live shrimp and dried frogs and live dogs….these weren’t for eating though, very ‘cute’ and preened (fluffy to the point of shag pile rugs and dandelions)…not my sort of thing at all and I couldn’t help being intrigued by how the  bredding process and the possible or inevitable defects.

Sitting down and having a beer at the bars and people watching is very entertaining and the best way to get to know the goings on of a place, hip young Thai teens shopping for retro gear, Chinese and japanese tourists out for bargains and to soak up the delights, Westerners exploring or appearing to know their way around from frequent visits. There’s so many people here of every variety that you could never complain of craving one sort of company or another as I did in India at times.

Thailand is colourful, but in a very different way to India….its less about the bright solid or floral masses and more about western styles like fuchsia pink scooters driven by girls in heels, or enormous  computer advertisements clearly in expensive prime space and well looked after, unlike the peeling Hindi posters…. I suppose it is wrong to even bate the countries against one another, especially in cities, they are there own, though at the moment simple description doesn’t seem enough to justify the shock we were in and the many western luxuries we are still getting used to. And its not.

The subway wasn’t so much of a shock having experience trams better then home in india and the sky train likewise as all I could see were high rise buildings with nothing beautiful or messy about them. The malls were huge but then again we have the Trafford Centre back home although every huge shop here was Burberry or Hermes, purely designer, none of even your upper high street. The  food section wasn’t quite on the same scale as anything I had ever seen, as it seemed to stretch for miles in each direction, while out side in the main square was a car promotion show which involved a young children’s talent contest……A boy in aviators and leather pulling stud moves and a young girl who in no way at all cute, wiggled her no existent hips in a short skirt while talking on a mobile phone,,,…..

We were taken one day for Chang beer or its more expensive equivalent in what was once claimed as the tallest tower in Asia…(its been since beaten obviously and their probably building another to beat its successor as we speak) ….We looked out on the city from a magnificent height (this was the day we discovered my laptop and camera stolen…an activity to distract me from my outrage) we spotted all the retro shaped private swimming pools and helicopter landing pads on the posh hotels while studded in between where the run down and not so posh apartment flats? I don’t really know what to call them, they were only a tad more decrepit then everything else and with bangkok being a very young city  everything was round about in the same style…very strange when you thing of Britain having architecture from Victorian times to the 60s to now..the city almost looked model like and futuristic with its winding raised high ways that weaved inbtween the buildings like vipers

while other traffic struggled on the ground roads below. The one beer appropriately turned into a tower of chang which we digested slowly.

The view really became itself though for me when darkness fell. On the roads a strip of yellow headlights continuing for miles in traffic and jams ,with read breaks lights luminous on the backs of cars headin in the opposite direction. Advertisements lit up, smiled and shone  in thia part of the city with nothing atall so garish (though still Thai)  as the tacky but fun Kho San road (it was more akin to India with its mish-mash of vendors and stalls and  occasional tinsel)

We were dying after a week on no more then 8hrs of rest/sleep ( we hadn’t slept well in Calcutta a week early either) so when our friends had left us head- fucked insisting we must go to Laos (many people had done this, though not quite so well) we got sorted to head to Chaing Mai which thankfully though not as I expected…. it was a great place to sober up- well to some extent…and chill out, re-fuel, and supply our selves with necessary items and procedures that would secure our sanity now that our plans had changed yet again. From Chaing Mai we would head to Laos,….and do Cambodia after the full moon party on the souther islands later in the month (this meant back tracking across a country…not something we had done or had planned…but  Thailand is small and narrow…so we can, and why not?

After the business of bangkok we were shocked at the restful atmosphere of Chaing Mai. We’d had a far to comfortable train ride in sleeper class, with sheets, blankets and even pillows….inevitably with having so little sleep and being hit with ridiculous comfort we failed to fall into any sort of deep slumber. A nice clean journey all the same though,.

We looked up a random guest house in my faithful but old L.P. Julies we would found out was thee place to stay , there were queues every morning with people looking for the cheap funky rooms surrounded by good travel services helpful advice and chilled places to hang out. It was so colourful though all most overwhelming with the activities that were on offer.

We hired a moped, and just as riding a bike, I hadn’t forgot after four months and was grateful for the freedom, I got the feeling that if you didn’t drive in Chaing Mai you could get very trapped. We escaped one day up to Doi Sutep, which took about an hour on the bike, once again with Kate as my backseat driver making appropriate warning ‘wooaaah!‘ every now and them. The roads were unfortunately stricter then India and it frustrated me that I couldn’t go which ever way I like down a one way street or do a u-turn in the moving traffic…which by the way are a ploy to get you to spend more on petrol as driving round and missing turnings adds up eventually.

The windey up road hill to the temple of Doi Sutep reminded me of playing racing video games and was much fun in the heat of the day to feel the cool breeze speeding past us and being hit by the occasiaonal angry fly buzzing in the opposite direction.

It was fortunate that just as we got 200m from the top of the hill where the temple stood that our tyre decided to give in….the reason for its demise we found after a handy thai man had wheeled it to his work shop was that the inner tube had now split right down the seam….it was an impressive reason for a flat tyre and I was surprised we had made it thus far before I felt the wobble and decided it was time to pull over. Efficiently as most if not all Thais are the tyre was fixed and inner tube replaced for 1.50 sterling and we got a free lesson on changing an inner tube before we sat down to noodle soup and pad thai.

The temple itself was an impressive if not slightly enforced mass of gold and red, beautiful though I enjoyed the contrast of the screened construction work going on about the temple while the Buddhists held flowers between their hands and walked around the wat. After being beautifully blinded with the clean clean gold we were eager to return down the steep hill…well I was with the snaking roads and the sun beginning to set.

We breezed through the dappled light soaring round the curves (albeit not as well as the locals) our faith restored in our previously collapsed tyre drinking in the yellowy orange light and looking forward to some wine coolers back at Julies.

Our plans had changed so vary much in the last week it was weird just booking tickets to laos which like Nepal had never been on the original plan…its so exciting that we can just plod off to Vietnam or Cambodia with the only hindrance being a shorter amount of time and money else where…but then more places; more new things more beauty more fun are all available.

The last day in Chaing Mai involved more a mission to get me re acquainted with the technology that was stolen from me…cue a nice red camera with which I can take a photo of my own choice any time anywhere (you so miss that luxury) and surprisingly a laptop- a tad more expensive then I would of liked but hey its worth it to be able to type whenever I want for example 2am when I cant sleep. If I limited myself to Internet cafes I’d never record the things  I want to remember ( visual and description is a must with a memory like mine)