Grand Voyages, Great Lies

 

We made our way by boats ferries and buses ect to Bangkok. Which was as usual….except this time we decided after all the hype we must visit a ‘pingpong show.’ We might not like the idea of it but it seemed like something we had to do..just once…..I wont go into descriptions or even adjectives….and be grateful…all I will say is that I can never look at Christmas lights or bananas in the same way again…

 

Ok maybe a little description and conclusion for those of you who know what I’m talking about…. The girls looked a tad bored at preforming for what must have been the eighth time that night on a rolling schedule….it was impressive don’t get me wrong…however, I wouldn’t choose to sit through that again by choice….Males on the other hand; some found it sexy others were less then impressed…..sicken one might say….I know most women, however impressed and intrigued they were by the skills of these women, were obviously hurt by the sexism.

 

The worst thing for our group was that we arrived at the finale. Take a wild guess at what that involved…..and sat to watch the rest of the show as it rolled round continuously……To be fair you’ll hear so much about ‘pingpong’ all around Thailand its worth going just to see what all the fuss is about….and it is worth making a fuss about…on a more serious note its very worth questioning how it came about and why it still carries on….

 

So that and the weekend markets were the last things we treated Hannah too….The weekend markets being where you can get just about anything if your prepared to look. At the night markets you can get stuck in the vortex of car-boot style selling mostly in the dark and you take the chance of paying 20baht for a dress, that may or may not be what you make it out to be, in the torch light of the stall holder….all good fun…..We also went to MBK the massive shopping mall… one floor sells one thing it seems…and the floors carry on forever…..and you can find the same thing 100times over for pretty much the same price…….

 

While we were staying in Bangkok this time, the protesting that we had seen going on when we first arrived here in march, had grown in scale quite considerably and Bangkok was soon declared in a state of emergency as the red shirt anti-government protesters attacked government buildings and blocked yet more roads….We could hear the chanting through the night as before…on the rotating mega speakers (we were also staying in a different place yet again… it was more open so you could hear the goings on),…One night there’s helicopters flying around and police sirens going off.

 

Many people have left bangkok to get out of the way, though as of yet there was no threat to the tourists or the road we were staying on..though the main streets are dead and shops start to shut at the main backpacker street is on high alert due to protesters frequenting it, the atmosphere is darker and although I’d like to believe many businesses were shutting earlier for the upcoming new years festival it appeared more that the stores had just decided to shut earlier due to the demonstration …The same demonstrators in-between the time we had left bangkok for the first time and gone to laos had collected and the spilled1000litres of human blood in front of the government building…demonstrating the red-shirt protesters (mainly country folk) want for the government to step down- as they believe they came into power illegitimately.

 

…The papers the morning two days before were due to leave bangkok for Cambodia ,tell us of the clashes that had happened in the night between, the protesters and the police…17dead and 500 injured in bangkok..many close to the government building quite near to the backpacker district Banglampoo and the Kho Sarn road……A lot of the other information I learned later, the death toll rose into the 20s, 27 last I heard, though I’m not sure of the source, the day we left the protesters carried coffins representing their lost fellows, to the government building….at least two of the coffins contained bodies I read. We receive a lot of messages from people back home telling us to be careful…but to be honest, though its not a nice atmosphere to be in, as long as you stay out of the way and don’t get mixed up in it your safe, there not targeting tourists after all. And both parties are determined to keep violence to a minimum.

 

So return to bangkok; it was a slightly easier journey then on the way in as we treat ourself to a train from the border crossing at Veintiene…though everyone’s train appears to be at different times even though were crossing in the hands of the same company, lets just say things get a little heated as we race in a tuk tuk to make the 3.30 train that is on our ticket…which actually leaves at 6.30pm

Another comfortable over night train ride aided by Spy and Chang – we can finally sleep and its beyond heaven….plus its always a ‘darling’ to wake in the morning and have a Thai man pack away your bed and turn it into an extra large chair that in India would of housed 4 people….Out the windows is pink cherry blossom on the occasional tree,not so often seen so that it is sickly, in-between wooden greens and browns and withering yellows of banana palms. Green fluffy grasses add texture with occasional sparse hordes of trees that are a welcome, almost English hindrance to the luscious colours…… the mango and papaya trees redeem the exotic.

Oddly every here and there a blue water tower juts amidst the foliage…(the colour blue popular in Thailand despite it contrasting hugely to everything else…I’m glad they don’t try and blend everything together.) The train travels at a pace which back home would be painfully slow but here fits in with the laid back atmosphere and allows you to take in the smells of wood burning from farms/house/plastics which add life to the pretty pictures.

 

Returning to bangkok we took a place that had been recommended to us with air con at a small price….though now complaining of the cold instead of the sauna like qualities of our previous room.Not drunk or hungover and now well rested we explored off the Khao San road and found many a treasure.We weren’t weighed down with Aussies anymore and had a night off from drinking, so were free to make purchases the next day in sober mind….we found some supermarkets that to us were heaven, as they sold all the coinvent items you wanted to find in a supermarket back home….I also discovered that this is the place the none tiny Thai women buy bras, a little cheaper then back home and not so bad….typically you try to buy a bra or bikini on the Khao San and you’ll be lucky if it fits your thumb.

We found sushi (for the first time more then 6 months and walked passed a million apparently edible things we couldn’t decipher…we’d slowly grown accustomed to the once unknown street snacks in India….and now we had to start all over again.

 The Sister Arrives

The next day Hannah was finally getting here….it had seemed ages ago that I was booking flights with her over Skype and now her plane landed that evening….we had a whole plan of how we’d ease her in to bangkok that night, where we’d take her to drink, what she should drink and so things….I hadn’t counted on her flight being 3.30hrs late- queue me waiting at bangkok airport buying and English newspaper (The Independent) and keeping my eye on the arrivals board…..

I’d left Kate at the inn on Rambuttri where we were staying and had jaunted off to get a taxi to the airport to for the sister collection…I’d had a few Spy ( Su—Pii!) wine coolers (beware children india has turned me into the ridiculous lightweight I started out as….) and opted for a motorcycle taxi,..agreeing in my tipsiness to pay a tad more then I should of done…..it was well worth it though….sat side saddle because of the near absence of my skirt ( even I can get away with such things in bangkok) I was catapulted along the bangkok highways and back streets at 130kmh by an elderly driver….thai women style with my legs crossed and wind beating my face… enjoying every dangerous minute.I wasn’t sure if I’d actually make it to the airport alive at the rate.,his driver was nudging the motorbike here and there in and out of cars, lorries and buses at top speed..I craned to look at the speedometer…but his was broken….so I glanced as we passed another motorcycles..and 130 seemed acceptable….I laughed as my driver pointed out a short cut – a whole in some rocks underneath a concrete bridge which motorbikes were crawling into occasionally, like bees entering a hive`…..I suppose he took my laughter as enthusiasm and thus we took the next short cut which came up…surprisingly similar to the first, except with a dirt track to some railway lines which had planks in-between the tracks for a dashed crossing….upon making it to the airport I noted to remind my sister that she was a lucky girl having me survive to meet her there…..and I’d do that ride again in an instant …( and does the next week on the island)

We took Hann out that night to our favourite bucket bar, thee Club for some dancing and then Gazebo Bar, for sheesha,… for my annoying antics that night I was striped of my harmonica at 7am and then on awakening rewarded with one hell of a hangover.

 

Boarding the bus, after a humid hungover 10min wander through Bangkok’s back streets led by our travel agent, was heaven…unlike Indian buses, as I may have described before, these VIP clean reclining, blanketed double deckers…complete with toilet, also showed movies (namely the latest pirated ones bought on the ko san for 2pounds or so)….despite the comfort and the entertainment of Tim Burtons Alice in wonderland, we didn’t sleep well when the lights finally went out….plus we were interrupted from slumber for ‘last stops’ at eateries in league with the bus companies.

 

We did make it to the pier in Surat Thani however at around 7am, then caught the ferry to koa phanang…..the views of islands and beaches over blue seas and skies were surely images cut from a magazine, that conventional tropical beauty so available to all that land on the shore., I usually prefer things a bit more gritty, but there’s no arguing that the immediate beauty leads to a relaxed and smile-y state.

 

On the ferry along with a few cockerels and boxed chickens some men were filing curved spikes and attaching them to metal platforms…innocently in the beautiful morning light we presumed they were some kind of show jewellery (though they looked darkly familiar)….when Hann inquired we were told they were for attaching to birds legs for cock fights on the island….lovely…the look on our faces went from interest to stifled disgust, I remembered that I knew very well that in South East Asia and Indonesia cock fighting is a major sport for villages with the losing cock being spit roasted for the evening meal.

Buckets and Fire 

Arriving at Thong Sala we were a long way from our reservation at the beautiful Mai Phen Rai ….wed splashed out a bit…though still only paying five pounds a night, we thought it’d be worth it to have a nice chilled place to stay away form the carnage on Haad Rin beach every night….however we hadn’t counted on it being so expensive and inconvenient to get to the main town from our secluded paradise- don’t get me wrong I’m all for a bit of getting away, as long as I have freedom to move around….. when I want it.

With kho Phanang being a centre of tourism the thai people have less morals when it comes to taking your money….luckily Mai Phen Rai (meaning never mind in thai) was an honest and hospitable place…..a restaurant and reception on one side of its private cove, and huts on the jutting rocks facing into the beach….our hut being one of these it was necessary to boulder our way to each and every time.We vowed never to attempt it drunk and if we managed to return one night from Haad Rin, we would remain on the beach and claim a deck chair as a comfortable bed for the night….luckily as the parties in Haad Rin continued past 7am we never had to worry about scaling the rocks until we were relatively sober and the sun was up.

The first couple of days were overcast and one night storms caused Hann to think she would be washed away from the rocks, the echoes from waves crashing against the rocks however made the weather seem more violent then it actually was…nevertheless the taxi boats didn’t run the next day on the rough seas which would have been awesome to take a kayak out on (though a boat had capsized in the bay the previous night :/), so a taxi up the steep dirt hills across the island it was, until we reached Haad Rin, where the infamous full moon party was to take place in a couple of days.

 

Haad Rin was as to be expected really…desolate of people during the day due to self induced wounds and hangovers of the tourists, like Vang Vieng on many levels, complete with the cafes constantly showing friends, family guys and jackass movies for people to wallow in and nurse their hangovers with carbohydrates and more beer.

 

The beach fine fine sand helped by all that plodding and dancing….the sea warm and prices un varying…the clothes cheap and un interesting, cheap alcohol in excess for reasonable prices….

We inquired about rooms to stay nearer the beach as a pit stop incase we failed to make it through a night and didn’t want to pay 20quid to return to the other side of the island…..the dingiest places wanted 600 per person…we were paying 275 per person for paradise…no way were we giving that one up….even if it added up paying for taxi boats and trucks…

 

Our beach was just what the doctor ordered after a harsh night out…well we stayed drinking buckets watching fire pois and fire jumpers, dancing on the sand platforms and drinking yet more buckets till the sun came up. Haad Rin is a beach party taken to the extreme…though after all I’ve heard I’ve seen more drugs out at a lame student bar on a Wednesday night…its just a beach lined with bucket bars along with several fire poi players and fire baton twirling…and anything one can don with fire…skip, limbo ect…surreal and fun for sure…chancing the night away..

 

I think we were expecting something more from the full moon however….it was just as the Friday night had been ….except when you looked down from your spot on the tables and across the beach you realised that you’ll never bump into all those people you met along your travels ….all of whom on a night after many gins said hey! Yea! See you full moon!….the beach was carnage…though more blood would of provided excitement…the music (like that of James blunt that plays at central bar where I am now)…was a tad repetitive…though I stumbled upon a ‘dubstep’ open bar and played antisocial …not talking or dancing with anyone but yourself…..To be fair the whole night was a giant leech feast…with some decent people thrown in ..

 I had a great time don’t get me wrong..but with so many nights out in Thailand I cant really pick it as the best….the highlight for me was a guy tall dark guy from Glasgow lighting my cigarette with a lighter from the sporran of his kilt…a perfect moment…then it was back to the sandy dancing until the sun came up….

 

And that was full moon….a good party…..amazing  an all, but then so is whole travelling lark….no epic stories….(well not ones that can be written) no injuries (per se)  just laughs, sand and sea…..(contact me personally for more details on the unspeakables) oxo

 

 

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 ... [Continue reading this entry]