Matt came stumbling into the room at about 5.30am, he'd not been to bed and was going straight to the airport. I wrapped myself in a blanket and followed him into the girls room to say our goodbyes.
Matt was flying to Perth, buying a camper van and driving around Australia, we would be crossing paths again around xmas in Sydney. Nicky was also going to Perth but was only going to stay in Australia for about 3 months, so I probably won't be seeing her in Oz, but as I have found with Andy, and more so with my mate Grace, people tend to stay there a lot longer than they originally planned.
Handshakes and hugs later Matt and Nicky were disappearing into the lift, I gave them a wave and a yawn as the doors closed. Back to bed. I told Vanessa that I wanted to be up at 10am and we would go and do something fun, I wanted to do the tiger brewery tour, but she wasn't so keen. That's what happens when you're up all night drinking whiskey.
11.30am and I get up. I wake Vanessa and put some clothes in the wash and check out. I don't think we left the hostel until about 1pm, so i had about 5 hours of my last day left. We went back to a place called Clarke Quay, which is where the Clinic bar is, thanks to Sibley's photos I'd seen this before, a bar with a hospital theme, and may have been the scene for Gazza's infamous dentists chair incident. Anyway that doesn't matter because it wasn't open. I got a text from my mate Kathryn's sister who lives there inviting me out for Chinese, but as I was leaving at 6 I had to turn her down. She instead told me about a bar in the Swissotel, near Raffles. it's on the 71st floor and the views of the city are amazing. So me and Vanessa went for a drink and an Asia BBQ. It was higher than the singapore 'london eye' that I went on, and the beers were cheaper than the bars we'd been drinking in the previous nights. So it was an afternoon well spent.
(at this point you should realise that that part of the entry refers to the 'Getting High' part of the title. I'm sure my mother is breathing a sigh of relief!)
We strolled through the park in the rain, walked past the registry of Marriages, there was a queue and I told Vanessa that I thought it was a bit too soon for all that, she was visibly devastated. We had quite a good chat though as we walked for a couple of hours. She was born in Brazil, one set of grandparents were Japanese, One great grandfather was Italian, she had a bit of American in there as well, and a Welsh uncle. This was through marriage though so didn't count. Turns out that she's just broken up with her boyfriend and just up sticks and ran off around the world for a few months. A bit drastic I thought, ahem...........
Didn't leave the hostel for the airport until about 7pm. Vanessa was by herself so she came to the airport to see me off. I think this was the first time I've gone to an Airport with a girl and I've been the one leaving. She was going back to London on Sunday, to try and find a job and a place to live, so if anyone knows of a spare room going.....
We had a sandwich and said our goodbyes, again getting myself a facebook friend in the process, and a possible tour guide for Japan at some point, or at the very least a drinking buddy for London. She waved to me as I disappeared round the corner, I don't think she was looking forward to being by herself for the next 2 nights, but she's an attractive girl, she'll find someone to kick around with.
I got to the gate, 25 minutes before it closed, perfectly timed I thought. I phoned my mate Alex in Brisbane, he'd offered to pick me up from the airport when I landed, but hadn't heard from him since the 13th of May. Best leave it until about midnight his time to remind him that I'm coming in at about 7am the next day, I thought. Turns out he hadn't forgotten and has got a party on the Saturday night, result. I tried to phone my parents but they were both out, probably working and dog walking.
So I passed through security, got on the plane and here I am. I was amused to find that in my choice of programmes that I could watch were The Michelangelo Code (produced by ZCZ films – my last employer), or The Art of the Heist (produced by Electric Sky Productions, my second to last employer). I watched the Extras Christmas Special, (Susan can you apologise to Waldermar for me!) I think I work in the wrong type of programming.
So as I write this I'm just under 2 hours from Brisbane, I've over the middle of Australia, and I'm wondering how on earth I got here.
The past 6 weeks have blown me away to be honest. I'm going to try and not be the person that my mate Anna warned me about, the kind of person who only ever talks about traveling, but it's going to be hard. I've seen and done some incredible things, had some rough times and some of the best times of my life. Met some amazing people, many of whom I'll probably never see again, but will always keep in contact with and remember. I think more than anything I've grown as a person, I think my travels have given me a better perspective of the world. I had a drink with my Dad a couple of days before I left and he said to me that he hoped that going away would help me realise how fortunate I was. I can honestly say now that I do, and I don't think that I will take the opportunities that I've been given for granted. Now there's a massive part of me that wants to give something back, I think I've been pretty selfish in my life so far, well not really selfish, but I don't think I've really done enough, or thought enough about other people, and it's time I grew up and did something for someone else. The only problem is that the only way I can think of doing this is to teach English. I wouldn't have a problem with this but I've made so many teacher's lives a misery that it's going to come back and bite me on the arse, but I guess that's karma.
But who knows maybe I'll love Australia so much that I'll never come back to Asia, I guess that you never know what's round the corner.
And so here draws an end to this blog. I've tried to document everyday that I've been away so far, but I'm going to be in Australia for a year, and I can't be bothered to write 365 entries, so maybe I'll do one a week, one one every 2 weeks, but I'm hoping to just get a job as soon as so it's won't be half as entertaining.
So with 90 minutes of my flight left I'll sign off, I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog as much as I have writing it. And I'll leave you with one final heart felt comment;
there is one universal truth I that have found through my travels; no matter where you go in the world, not matter what nationality, race, religion, creed or colour, regardless of social status or wealth, no one, but no one, likes the French.
Thanks for reading, now get back to work.
Rob.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
SINGAPORE-ING DOWN
Our only full day in Singapore, was cut a bit short as Matt and I didn't get home until about 7.30am, and so slept until after midday. Did some washing and then went out to meet the Irish girls.
Nicky and Vanessa came with, and we rode the metro around town. The irish girls never showed up, apparently they weren't feeling so well after last night and had been in bed all day. I don't know why they felt so bad, it was us on the Sambuca, not them.
We spent the day wandering around various shopping centres, and saw the fountain of wealth (I could do with all the help I could get when it costs 5 quid a beer in this town). Matt and I got on the Singapore Flyer (like the London eye, but bigger, and, obviously, in Singapore). Took some great photos, the harbour is incredible, I haven't seen so many ships since I watch Flags of our Fathers.
We walked around for a bit more, tried to phone the Irish contingent to see if they wanted to come to the night safari with us, but couldn't get through, so we decided to go without them. The safari was going to take about 4 hours and it was 8pm now, so it was going to be another late night. On the way there in the cab the heavens opened. The rain was so heavy it would make your head bleed, if it was mixed with razor blades.
we got to the Safari anyway, more in hope than expectation, I didn't know of any animals that liked the rain, and so it proved. The tour had been cancelled, you could still get the tram into the park but the chances of seeing any animals were very slim, and for an entrance fee of about £20 we thought better of it. So we had a Singapore Sling instead and got the bus back to town.
It took about an hour to get back with various buses and metros. The plan is to go out and get drunk, well it's Matt's plan anyway, I think he has designs on the brazilian and tonight is his last night. He and Nicky leave tomorrow morning at about 6am, so this is his last night in Asia. It'll be sad to see him go, we've had a fantastic 6 weeks traveling together and done some amazing things, but I'll see him at xmas in Sydney, and I get to spend all day tomorrow with the brazilian girl, which i don't think he's too happy about!
After a few vodka and red bulls in the dorm, we headed out, just in time for last orders at the Prince of Wales. They had a sign out side advertising for a live in bar man, I was tempted, but one live in stint at a pub called the Prince of Wales is enough I think, although Singapore would be a better location that Wood Green!
The district we were staying in was called little india, so I shouldn't have been surprised with the bar we ended up in. Walking past it looked quite dodgy, you couldn't see in through the windows, so this is usually a sign of a gay bar or some kind of girly bar, either way we were 2 blokes and 2 girls, so could probably cope with either. The guy sat drinking outside told us it was open until 3am and only (!) $9 a beer (about £3.50), so we dived in through the door.
On a very small stage in the middle of the floor were 3 Indian girls dancing in full sari dresses, it was fantatsic. We were the only white people in there, and it was a little bit like walking into the slaughtered lamb from American Werewolf in London. A bit scary at first, but then everyone loosened up and had a great time. There was a french guy in there who lived in Singapore, who was friends with a couple of Indian guys wearing turbans. One of them was about 6 foot 6, and was spitting image of the bad guy in Temple of Doom who gets crushed by a conveyor belt. We he asks you to get up and dance with the girls, you don't say no. And I didn't. I think as a beginner I had quite a good attempt at Indian dancing, I don't think I offended anyone, which was my primary objective, rhythm comes second to that. Vanessa and Nicky got up for a bit, Matt stayed firmly on his seat, I think bangladesh is more his scene.
A few beers later and a great deal of pointy dancing and head bobbing, we went outside. I met a native who struck up a conversation with me about football, he then rolled up his trouser leg to reveal a Liverpool crest tattoo on his shin. we bonded instantly. I even got chatting to the French lad, who was a nice bloke, but there's always an exception. The two Indian Jones baddies came over and chatted for a bit, one of them lived in Australia for 9 years so we spoke about that, and he gave me his business card. I've no idea why, but he did.
Matt and Vanessa wanted to go on to a club, Nicky had already gone to bed, and I thought I'd better leave them alone, gooseberry isn't my favourite fruit. And anyway I had one day left in Singapore and didn't want to be up until 7am again and ruin it by being in bed all day.
Nicky and Vanessa came with, and we rode the metro around town. The irish girls never showed up, apparently they weren't feeling so well after last night and had been in bed all day. I don't know why they felt so bad, it was us on the Sambuca, not them.
We spent the day wandering around various shopping centres, and saw the fountain of wealth (I could do with all the help I could get when it costs 5 quid a beer in this town). Matt and I got on the Singapore Flyer (like the London eye, but bigger, and, obviously, in Singapore). Took some great photos, the harbour is incredible, I haven't seen so many ships since I watch Flags of our Fathers.
We walked around for a bit more, tried to phone the Irish contingent to see if they wanted to come to the night safari with us, but couldn't get through, so we decided to go without them. The safari was going to take about 4 hours and it was 8pm now, so it was going to be another late night. On the way there in the cab the heavens opened. The rain was so heavy it would make your head bleed, if it was mixed with razor blades.
we got to the Safari anyway, more in hope than expectation, I didn't know of any animals that liked the rain, and so it proved. The tour had been cancelled, you could still get the tram into the park but the chances of seeing any animals were very slim, and for an entrance fee of about £20 we thought better of it. So we had a Singapore Sling instead and got the bus back to town.
It took about an hour to get back with various buses and metros. The plan is to go out and get drunk, well it's Matt's plan anyway, I think he has designs on the brazilian and tonight is his last night. He and Nicky leave tomorrow morning at about 6am, so this is his last night in Asia. It'll be sad to see him go, we've had a fantastic 6 weeks traveling together and done some amazing things, but I'll see him at xmas in Sydney, and I get to spend all day tomorrow with the brazilian girl, which i don't think he's too happy about!
After a few vodka and red bulls in the dorm, we headed out, just in time for last orders at the Prince of Wales. They had a sign out side advertising for a live in bar man, I was tempted, but one live in stint at a pub called the Prince of Wales is enough I think, although Singapore would be a better location that Wood Green!
The district we were staying in was called little india, so I shouldn't have been surprised with the bar we ended up in. Walking past it looked quite dodgy, you couldn't see in through the windows, so this is usually a sign of a gay bar or some kind of girly bar, either way we were 2 blokes and 2 girls, so could probably cope with either. The guy sat drinking outside told us it was open until 3am and only (!) $9 a beer (about £3.50), so we dived in through the door.
On a very small stage in the middle of the floor were 3 Indian girls dancing in full sari dresses, it was fantatsic. We were the only white people in there, and it was a little bit like walking into the slaughtered lamb from American Werewolf in London. A bit scary at first, but then everyone loosened up and had a great time. There was a french guy in there who lived in Singapore, who was friends with a couple of Indian guys wearing turbans. One of them was about 6 foot 6, and was spitting image of the bad guy in Temple of Doom who gets crushed by a conveyor belt. We he asks you to get up and dance with the girls, you don't say no. And I didn't. I think as a beginner I had quite a good attempt at Indian dancing, I don't think I offended anyone, which was my primary objective, rhythm comes second to that. Vanessa and Nicky got up for a bit, Matt stayed firmly on his seat, I think bangladesh is more his scene.
A few beers later and a great deal of pointy dancing and head bobbing, we went outside. I met a native who struck up a conversation with me about football, he then rolled up his trouser leg to reveal a Liverpool crest tattoo on his shin. we bonded instantly. I even got chatting to the French lad, who was a nice bloke, but there's always an exception. The two Indian Jones baddies came over and chatted for a bit, one of them lived in Australia for 9 years so we spoke about that, and he gave me his business card. I've no idea why, but he did.
Matt and Vanessa wanted to go on to a club, Nicky had already gone to bed, and I thought I'd better leave them alone, gooseberry isn't my favourite fruit. And anyway I had one day left in Singapore and didn't want to be up until 7am again and ruin it by being in bed all day.
KL
ok, if that guy doesn't turn his alarm off someone's going to get hurt. By someone else obviously, I'm not about to confront a native on his own train, I just muttered a couple of idle threats from behind the safety of the curtain, the sheet, and possibly the pillow.
It was about 5am, and this guy had robbed me of an extra hour or so of sleep, unforgivable in my eyes. The train had made up the time and we got into KL at about 6.30am. The station at Kl is great, huge, clean and organised. I put my bag in the left luggage place and had a hot shower for the first time in god knows how long. I had an authentic McDonalds breakfast which didn't sit well at all, and we headed into town.
The only thing I knew about KL was the pretonus towers so we headed there on the metro. I don't know why but I love riding the metro lines in different countries, makes you realise just how bad the tube is in London.
We got out at a shopping mall in the bottom of the towers and went on a kind of science-y museum tour of the Petronus company, showing us how much they cared for the environment and how there were working to preserve the natural resources of malaysia. For a bit I almost forgot they were an evil oil company hell bent on the rape of the natural world.
However they did have some really cool toys and things to play on. Matt has a great picture of me on a digger. We ended spending far too much time wandering around this little play house, and were in danger of not actually getting to see the outside of KL, so we rushed through the last couple of rooms and headed outside.
We couldn't go up the towers as all the tickets had sold out for that day, which was a shame, but I got some good photos of the towers from the ground. We walked to the KL Tower (the 4th highest telecommunications tower in the world, and looked almost identical to the Stratosphere in Vegas). We went up and got some really good views of the city and the twin towers.
By this time it was almost 1 and our train to singers (that's Singapore to those in the know, which I'm not, so I will refer to it as Singapore from now on) was at 1.55 so we had to get a shake on. We arrived at the station with more than 30 minutes to spare, Matt went for another McDonalds and I had this curried fish with rice and potato bravas, really nice. On the way out I noticed that the TVs were showing a preseason Liverpool game, I hadn't noticed and missed most of it, and didn't have time to see any more, it was like someone was taunting me.
As expected the train was late, but not too late so it was alright. The journey took about 7 hours, and passed with a mixture of sleep, ipod, watching film trailers on the TV, and playing solitaire with my FHM cards (I don't think the Muslims were impressed with that.
Another train border crossing later and we were in Singapore. After the giant station in KL I was expecting something more than what I got. I was very much underwhelmed with the Singapore train station, there was nothing there. Nothing. No signs saying welcome to Singapore, no information desk, a small cafe and a ticket office. It was about the size of Brighton station, which considering that Singapore was a country, and Brighton was just a seaside city in east Sussex, is a bit shit.
We hadn't booked anywhere to stay and so walked around with our stuff for about an hour until we got in a cab, who took us in the general direction of where all the other backpackers were, we had a bit of help from a friendly cafe owner, and then Nicky (who had been with Matt and me in Laos) told us where she was, so we headed there.
A quick shower later and we were out. Nicky had been in the Phillippines for the past 2 weeks, and had met a new friend called Vanessa, a Brazilian girl who lives in London. I think Matt took a shine to her so I acted like the good wingman and when we went to Ministry of Sound danced all night with Nicky so he could work his magic on her. I also met an American guy called Eugine, he works “for uncle Sam”, his business card says he's Special Assistant Office of the Secretary. I've no idea what that means but he travels a lot and never stays in the same place for too long, which could only mean to me that he's some kind of CIA hitman. During the night I also got chatting to 3 Irish people (seriously are they following me?) a lad called Damien who lives here and his 2 sisters Neve and Louise. It was great fun watching the protective brother watching his sisters on the dancefloor.
When we got kicked out of there we went to McDonalds for breakfast, Eugine said he'd pay but ended up ducking out of it, typical CIA hitman behaviour. we were sitting there for about 2 hours, and had a really good chat. Eugine had to get a flight to Australia in about 2 hours so didn't bother going to bed, we got in a cab together, the cab couldn't stop outside the hotel where he was staying as it was a diplomatic hotel and there were motorcades all over the place, very strange at 7am. After he got out we chatted to the cab driver for a while, turns out he's part of the Singapore Mafia, and was on the run for 10 years for drug trafficking, it was quite entertaining listening to his tales of border jumping through Thailand and Cambodia, but then he got caught but because of his mafia connections he got quite a good lawyer who got him off.
Didn't believe a word of it, but entertaining nonetheless.
It was about 5am, and this guy had robbed me of an extra hour or so of sleep, unforgivable in my eyes. The train had made up the time and we got into KL at about 6.30am. The station at Kl is great, huge, clean and organised. I put my bag in the left luggage place and had a hot shower for the first time in god knows how long. I had an authentic McDonalds breakfast which didn't sit well at all, and we headed into town.
The only thing I knew about KL was the pretonus towers so we headed there on the metro. I don't know why but I love riding the metro lines in different countries, makes you realise just how bad the tube is in London.
We got out at a shopping mall in the bottom of the towers and went on a kind of science-y museum tour of the Petronus company, showing us how much they cared for the environment and how there were working to preserve the natural resources of malaysia. For a bit I almost forgot they were an evil oil company hell bent on the rape of the natural world.
However they did have some really cool toys and things to play on. Matt has a great picture of me on a digger. We ended spending far too much time wandering around this little play house, and were in danger of not actually getting to see the outside of KL, so we rushed through the last couple of rooms and headed outside.
We couldn't go up the towers as all the tickets had sold out for that day, which was a shame, but I got some good photos of the towers from the ground. We walked to the KL Tower (the 4th highest telecommunications tower in the world, and looked almost identical to the Stratosphere in Vegas). We went up and got some really good views of the city and the twin towers.
By this time it was almost 1 and our train to singers (that's Singapore to those in the know, which I'm not, so I will refer to it as Singapore from now on) was at 1.55 so we had to get a shake on. We arrived at the station with more than 30 minutes to spare, Matt went for another McDonalds and I had this curried fish with rice and potato bravas, really nice. On the way out I noticed that the TVs were showing a preseason Liverpool game, I hadn't noticed and missed most of it, and didn't have time to see any more, it was like someone was taunting me.
As expected the train was late, but not too late so it was alright. The journey took about 7 hours, and passed with a mixture of sleep, ipod, watching film trailers on the TV, and playing solitaire with my FHM cards (I don't think the Muslims were impressed with that.
Another train border crossing later and we were in Singapore. After the giant station in KL I was expecting something more than what I got. I was very much underwhelmed with the Singapore train station, there was nothing there. Nothing. No signs saying welcome to Singapore, no information desk, a small cafe and a ticket office. It was about the size of Brighton station, which considering that Singapore was a country, and Brighton was just a seaside city in east Sussex, is a bit shit.
We hadn't booked anywhere to stay and so walked around with our stuff for about an hour until we got in a cab, who took us in the general direction of where all the other backpackers were, we had a bit of help from a friendly cafe owner, and then Nicky (who had been with Matt and me in Laos) told us where she was, so we headed there.
A quick shower later and we were out. Nicky had been in the Phillippines for the past 2 weeks, and had met a new friend called Vanessa, a Brazilian girl who lives in London. I think Matt took a shine to her so I acted like the good wingman and when we went to Ministry of Sound danced all night with Nicky so he could work his magic on her. I also met an American guy called Eugine, he works “for uncle Sam”, his business card says he's Special Assistant Office of the Secretary. I've no idea what that means but he travels a lot and never stays in the same place for too long, which could only mean to me that he's some kind of CIA hitman. During the night I also got chatting to 3 Irish people (seriously are they following me?) a lad called Damien who lives here and his 2 sisters Neve and Louise. It was great fun watching the protective brother watching his sisters on the dancefloor.
When we got kicked out of there we went to McDonalds for breakfast, Eugine said he'd pay but ended up ducking out of it, typical CIA hitman behaviour. we were sitting there for about 2 hours, and had a really good chat. Eugine had to get a flight to Australia in about 2 hours so didn't bother going to bed, we got in a cab together, the cab couldn't stop outside the hotel where he was staying as it was a diplomatic hotel and there were motorcades all over the place, very strange at 7am. After he got out we chatted to the cab driver for a while, turns out he's part of the Singapore Mafia, and was on the run for 10 years for drug trafficking, it was quite entertaining listening to his tales of border jumping through Thailand and Cambodia, but then he got caught but because of his mafia connections he got quite a good lawyer who got him off.
Didn't believe a word of it, but entertaining nonetheless.
PENANG ON HALF DAY CLOSING
Stop poking me! There's nothing ruder than a train conductor just thrusting his fingers into your back to wake you up. Having just re read that sentence I suppose there is something ruder.
We got up and moved to the carriage that was going to Butterworth, we tried paying off the conductor on that part of the train, no dice. We would be stopping here for about 10 minutes so I jumped off and legged it to the ticket office. I got the tickets no problem, which makes me wonder why I couldn't just buy them back at Surit Thani, there were other people on this train who came from Koh Phangan and they seemed to get on no problem, maybe they were organised and booked in advance. Losers.
I made it back onto the train and we set off for another 7 hours in to Malaysia. After these journeys the 1hour and 50 minute journey from Euston to Crewe is going to seem like nothing. I slept for a bit, but couldn't really get comfortable. we got to the immigration control which was a bit of a joke. We go off the train, went through passport control, walked around through customs and out through the same door we came in, and go back on the train. If wed just hung around on the platform we could have avoided the customs. Which were also a bit of a joke, I was going through and the guy said “can I see inside you bag please”, I said no problem, he then asked me if I had anything to declare i said no and he thanked me and off I went, all before I could even take off my bag to open it for him, they're very trusting over here, especially for a country that has really strict penalties on drug trafficking, although I'm not sure they'd kill you for smuggling anti histamines, but you never know.
we arrived in Butterworth at about 2pm, and had to wait until about 9.40 for our next sleeper to KL. So instead of waiting around the station we got the ferry to Penang. A small island off the north west of Malaysia. There's a bridge going across which is the longest bridge in asia apparently, the penang bridge. I found out that they are building a second bridge, called The Penang Second Bridge. The ideas department must have had an early lunch the day they came up with that name.
We walked around Penang, found a guest house where we could have a shower, get changed and dump our stuff for the afternoon. We went for a wander to try and find something to eat, everything was closed. No exaggeration, everything. After about 2 hours of wandering, and Matt ducking into every available bit of shade to stop his bald head turning an even more pleasant shade of crimson, we found ourselves back at the guest house. we still had about 2 hours to kill so we ate at the cafe next door, there were quite a few back packers around, which is usually a good sign. I spent an hour on the internet just messing around, and then we got a cab to the ferry port.
Once again we were horribly early for our train, which once again was delayed. We were at the station by about 8pm and the train didn't leave until after 9, and I hate being early for things at the best of times. The train decided to arrive at about 10.30pm, and left at about 10.45, i was really ready for bed, i was exhausted, after the previous night of very little sleep and a day of walking around in the sun, I was up and into bed before the train doors had shut.
We got up and moved to the carriage that was going to Butterworth, we tried paying off the conductor on that part of the train, no dice. We would be stopping here for about 10 minutes so I jumped off and legged it to the ticket office. I got the tickets no problem, which makes me wonder why I couldn't just buy them back at Surit Thani, there were other people on this train who came from Koh Phangan and they seemed to get on no problem, maybe they were organised and booked in advance. Losers.
I made it back onto the train and we set off for another 7 hours in to Malaysia. After these journeys the 1hour and 50 minute journey from Euston to Crewe is going to seem like nothing. I slept for a bit, but couldn't really get comfortable. we got to the immigration control which was a bit of a joke. We go off the train, went through passport control, walked around through customs and out through the same door we came in, and go back on the train. If wed just hung around on the platform we could have avoided the customs. Which were also a bit of a joke, I was going through and the guy said “can I see inside you bag please”, I said no problem, he then asked me if I had anything to declare i said no and he thanked me and off I went, all before I could even take off my bag to open it for him, they're very trusting over here, especially for a country that has really strict penalties on drug trafficking, although I'm not sure they'd kill you for smuggling anti histamines, but you never know.
we arrived in Butterworth at about 2pm, and had to wait until about 9.40 for our next sleeper to KL. So instead of waiting around the station we got the ferry to Penang. A small island off the north west of Malaysia. There's a bridge going across which is the longest bridge in asia apparently, the penang bridge. I found out that they are building a second bridge, called The Penang Second Bridge. The ideas department must have had an early lunch the day they came up with that name.
We walked around Penang, found a guest house where we could have a shower, get changed and dump our stuff for the afternoon. We went for a wander to try and find something to eat, everything was closed. No exaggeration, everything. After about 2 hours of wandering, and Matt ducking into every available bit of shade to stop his bald head turning an even more pleasant shade of crimson, we found ourselves back at the guest house. we still had about 2 hours to kill so we ate at the cafe next door, there were quite a few back packers around, which is usually a good sign. I spent an hour on the internet just messing around, and then we got a cab to the ferry port.
Once again we were horribly early for our train, which once again was delayed. We were at the station by about 8pm and the train didn't leave until after 9, and I hate being early for things at the best of times. The train decided to arrive at about 10.30pm, and left at about 10.45, i was really ready for bed, i was exhausted, after the previous night of very little sleep and a day of walking around in the sun, I was up and into bed before the train doors had shut.
LEAVING KP AND STARTING THE MAMMOTH JOURNEY TO SINGAPORE
Felt a bit better that I'd actually had a good night on the island, and that the trip hadn't been a waste of time. I think I would have had a better time if I'd been about 10 years younger, but at least I say that I've done it, left the t-shirt behind though.
Andy and Jared were going to head to Koh Tao, an island north of here, just for a bit of R&R, as Matt and I had to be in singapore by the 25th we didn't have enough time to go with them, and it was in the opposite direction, so we got a ferry back to the mainland where we would get a night train to Malaysia.
Said yet more goodbyes, I'll see Andy sometime, not sure where or when, maybe back at home, maybe in australia. I'm going to keep in touch with Jared in the hope that he makes it big as an actor and I can sponge off him in the future.
The Ferry was pretty unremarkable, we had a couple of beers and chatted to yet more Irish girls, they were on their way to Laos so we told them about tubing and what else to expect in Vang Vieng (mainly watching Friends, when the power is on that is).
We got to the station at Surit Thani at about 10, we couldn't book tickets all the way to Butterworth (in Malaysia) as the guy said it was fully booked, but we could get sleeper tickets to pretty much the border, after that the train would split and the front half would go off to Butterworth. The guy at the ticket office said that we should just get on and maybe the conductor would be able to help us out (for 'help us out' see 'pay him money')
The train arrived late at about 1.30am, there's only so many trips to the 7-11 you can do before you get thoroughly bored of it, and we just sat in the station for a couple of hours with the other white faces.
When we got on the train we explained the situation to the conductor, who wasn't taking our offer of a bribe to get us on the next train, but just told us to jump off and buy a ticket and jump back on. I had a nasty image of the train pulling away as I bought a useless ticket. Time for sleep, which I didn't get a lot of on a rickety rocking and rolling top bunk.
Andy and Jared were going to head to Koh Tao, an island north of here, just for a bit of R&R, as Matt and I had to be in singapore by the 25th we didn't have enough time to go with them, and it was in the opposite direction, so we got a ferry back to the mainland where we would get a night train to Malaysia.
Said yet more goodbyes, I'll see Andy sometime, not sure where or when, maybe back at home, maybe in australia. I'm going to keep in touch with Jared in the hope that he makes it big as an actor and I can sponge off him in the future.
The Ferry was pretty unremarkable, we had a couple of beers and chatted to yet more Irish girls, they were on their way to Laos so we told them about tubing and what else to expect in Vang Vieng (mainly watching Friends, when the power is on that is).
We got to the station at Surit Thani at about 10, we couldn't book tickets all the way to Butterworth (in Malaysia) as the guy said it was fully booked, but we could get sleeper tickets to pretty much the border, after that the train would split and the front half would go off to Butterworth. The guy at the ticket office said that we should just get on and maybe the conductor would be able to help us out (for 'help us out' see 'pay him money')
The train arrived late at about 1.30am, there's only so many trips to the 7-11 you can do before you get thoroughly bored of it, and we just sat in the station for a couple of hours with the other white faces.
When we got on the train we explained the situation to the conductor, who wasn't taking our offer of a bribe to get us on the next train, but just told us to jump off and buy a ticket and jump back on. I had a nasty image of the train pulling away as I bought a useless ticket. Time for sleep, which I didn't get a lot of on a rickety rocking and rolling top bunk.
THE MORNING AFTER THE FULL MOON
Woke up at about 3pm with a sense that I'd just had one of the worst nights of my life. “It was alright”, reflected Andy, he'd wandered around for a couple of hours the same as me, and came home at about 7am.
I was feeling really annoyed that we'd wasted so much time on this island so I wanted another night out tonight, as I didn't feel like I'd had a good enough time last night. I wasn't feeling that bad, so was well up for another night of drinking.
The Canadians left at about 9.30pm, we all said our goodbyes and exchanged the customary email addresses and facebook names. I've now got Canada pretty sorted if I ever want to go there. which i think I do, not sure when, but one day.
we headed out to the beach, stopped off at an internet cafe to plan our next movement off the island. The beach was pretty quiet, well compared to last night. You could actually move around now, and actually had quite a good night, wasn't wandering around looking for people, had a few drinks, nothing too heavy, had a go at skipping the fire rope, got a friction burn on my leg, that was the extent of my injuries.
We lost Jared and went drinking down the beach, after a few drunken conversations with Irish people and irish people pretending to be scottish (don't ask, i never really understood), we went back to the bungalow to find Jared asleep on the porch. Bless him.
I was feeling really annoyed that we'd wasted so much time on this island so I wanted another night out tonight, as I didn't feel like I'd had a good enough time last night. I wasn't feeling that bad, so was well up for another night of drinking.
The Canadians left at about 9.30pm, we all said our goodbyes and exchanged the customary email addresses and facebook names. I've now got Canada pretty sorted if I ever want to go there. which i think I do, not sure when, but one day.
we headed out to the beach, stopped off at an internet cafe to plan our next movement off the island. The beach was pretty quiet, well compared to last night. You could actually move around now, and actually had quite a good night, wasn't wandering around looking for people, had a few drinks, nothing too heavy, had a go at skipping the fire rope, got a friction burn on my leg, that was the extent of my injuries.
We lost Jared and went drinking down the beach, after a few drunken conversations with Irish people and irish people pretending to be scottish (don't ask, i never really understood), we went back to the bungalow to find Jared asleep on the porch. Bless him.
FULL MOON PARTY
woke up in usual fashion, not really knowing where I was and wondering how I got here. That all quickly passed, and I filled Andy in on what happened to Jared (as i later found out that's how to spell his name).
Matt and some of the girls were going into town on motorbikes, me and Andy decided that walking would probably be a safer option, after what happened to jared last night. So we set off for town along the beach. It was quite a nice walk, for about 20 minutes, then 2 hours later we got there. I was happy to stump up the 100 bt for a cab back.
We walked around the town in daylight, it was so much like Newquay it was scary. everyone here was English or Irish (the majority being Irish). I've nothing against Newquay, I had a really good weekend when I was there last, which was ironically with Andy. Is that irony or just co-incidence? I've been spending too much time with American's I can't tell anymore.
We went shopping for plasters to patch up my ripped feet on the rocks from the sea yesterday, and bought some t-shirts and spent a bit of time on the net. we got a cab back to the bungalows at about 5. There were a couple of english girls in the cab with us, one of them was studying media, took me all of 45 seconds to bring up Bo Selecta, media whore that I am. They seemed suitably impressed, so that was the main thing.
After a power nap and something to eat, a shower, another power nap and a couple of beers we were ready for this famed Full Moon Party. Everyone had been building it up so much it was only going to disappoint, which I should have known about, and is the precise reason why I won't watch The Big Lebowski.
As usual Andy was preening himself in the mirror for far too long and Matt, Jared, the Icelandic girls, the canadians and Paulo the brazillian left before us, we arranged to meet in about 30 minutes at a bar on the beach. about 45 minutes later we got on to the beach. To call it rammed would be an understatement, it was shoulder to shoulder. really crammed. It was about midnight by the time we got down there so everyone had been on it for a few hours and really hammered, we looked out for everyone else but couldn't see them all night. I had a couple of buckets which I knew from Bangkok were a bad idea, bumped into Tammy the girl from New Orleans that we went tubing with in Laos, then I lost andy, Tammy disappeared, so I was on my own. I wandered around for an hour or so, got really annoyed and went home at about 5am, got into a fight with a taxi driver (not something that I've ever done before, but he was refusing to take me to my hotel even though it was about 100 yards away, and was driving past it. I said why don't you just drop me off outside the door as it's on your way, and he shoved me off the back of his wagon! we had a slight wrestle and he drove off. It seems taxi drivers are the same the world over.) I couldn't get into the room as andy had the Key so I slept on the beach for an hour until the sun came up and Jared came home.
All in all it was possibly the most over rated waste of time I've ever had. I feel a bit stupid that I'd planned the latter part of my trip around it, in hindsight I wish I would have spent more time in some other part of Thailand, or maybe a few days more in Laos, and Cambodia of course.
Matt and some of the girls were going into town on motorbikes, me and Andy decided that walking would probably be a safer option, after what happened to jared last night. So we set off for town along the beach. It was quite a nice walk, for about 20 minutes, then 2 hours later we got there. I was happy to stump up the 100 bt for a cab back.
We walked around the town in daylight, it was so much like Newquay it was scary. everyone here was English or Irish (the majority being Irish). I've nothing against Newquay, I had a really good weekend when I was there last, which was ironically with Andy. Is that irony or just co-incidence? I've been spending too much time with American's I can't tell anymore.
We went shopping for plasters to patch up my ripped feet on the rocks from the sea yesterday, and bought some t-shirts and spent a bit of time on the net. we got a cab back to the bungalows at about 5. There were a couple of english girls in the cab with us, one of them was studying media, took me all of 45 seconds to bring up Bo Selecta, media whore that I am. They seemed suitably impressed, so that was the main thing.
After a power nap and something to eat, a shower, another power nap and a couple of beers we were ready for this famed Full Moon Party. Everyone had been building it up so much it was only going to disappoint, which I should have known about, and is the precise reason why I won't watch The Big Lebowski.
As usual Andy was preening himself in the mirror for far too long and Matt, Jared, the Icelandic girls, the canadians and Paulo the brazillian left before us, we arranged to meet in about 30 minutes at a bar on the beach. about 45 minutes later we got on to the beach. To call it rammed would be an understatement, it was shoulder to shoulder. really crammed. It was about midnight by the time we got down there so everyone had been on it for a few hours and really hammered, we looked out for everyone else but couldn't see them all night. I had a couple of buckets which I knew from Bangkok were a bad idea, bumped into Tammy the girl from New Orleans that we went tubing with in Laos, then I lost andy, Tammy disappeared, so I was on my own. I wandered around for an hour or so, got really annoyed and went home at about 5am, got into a fight with a taxi driver (not something that I've ever done before, but he was refusing to take me to my hotel even though it was about 100 yards away, and was driving past it. I said why don't you just drop me off outside the door as it's on your way, and he shoved me off the back of his wagon! we had a slight wrestle and he drove off. It seems taxi drivers are the same the world over.) I couldn't get into the room as andy had the Key so I slept on the beach for an hour until the sun came up and Jared came home.
All in all it was possibly the most over rated waste of time I've ever had. I feel a bit stupid that I'd planned the latter part of my trip around it, in hindsight I wish I would have spent more time in some other part of Thailand, or maybe a few days more in Laos, and Cambodia of course.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
ARRIVING IN KOH PHANGAN
Woke up at 5.30am. We were at the point where we get another bus to the boat.
I ran off the bus and threw up in the toilet. That 'Chicken' sandwich had had it's final revenge. I started to worry that I was getting ill again, butfelt ok after a bit of pepsi and a stolen sleep lying across my bag.
The boat journey was ok, Andy said that it was the most uncomfortable boat trip he'd even been on, as i had actually experienced the worst boat trip ever, this one was quite nice.
Matt had a motor bile and met us at the pier. The canadians were getting in at about the same time as me, and Matt had met up with 4 Icelandic girls who he'd come here with.
We got to the bungalows, which are really nice. Right on the beach, the sea is a bit manky though, so we went in for about 10 minutes and that was enough. It's really shallow for about 100 metres and then it gets deep. However that 100 metres is just sharp stones that cut us to shreds. Enough of this. It started to rain so we went on to the verrandas of our respective bungalows. I'm in with Andy and Gerard, across from us are Pam, Namcy and Sharon, and Matt is staying with a Brazilian bloke called Paulo. I went for a bit of a power nap, and didn't wake up for about 3 hours. I didn't get much sleep on the bus, so I probably needed it.
We all had dinner togther, I was introduced to the icelandic girls (I can neither remember their names or even pretend to be able to pronounce them), who seem nice enough. We piled into a taxi and headed to the beach where the party is going to be tomorrow night.
We watched fire jugglers for a bit, (they seem rally good at first, then they accidentially throw a flaming stick at you) and there were various expats playing organised games on the beach. Some of the group got buckets, I stayed away as tonight was going to be the warm up for the main party, and I wanted to save myself for that. Andy and I lost everyone else on the beach and went for a bit of a scout around and a few drinks. We called it a night at about 2am and got a taxi back. The canadians rolled in at about 3am, Matt was already home, and Gerard limped in at 4.30am, woke me up and asked for some antiseptic cream.
Turns out he'd been in a motorbile accident. He thought it was a good idea to walk home when a ladyboy and a bloke stopped and offered him a lift, our place is near a really steep hill and the bike couldn't make it up, somehow the ladyboy thought it was a good idfea to ten try and ride into a ditch, Gerard jumped off and unbalanced the bike. He's ok, got a big friction burn down his shin, the other guy knocked himself out, but I don't think it was very serious, anyway Gerard said that a bus load of people stopped to help out so he walked home.
It's weird that even though she used to be a man, she has now taking on the driving abilities of a woman. Those doctors are amazing.
Full Moon Party tomorrow. May not be updating this for a while why I recover.
I ran off the bus and threw up in the toilet. That 'Chicken' sandwich had had it's final revenge. I started to worry that I was getting ill again, butfelt ok after a bit of pepsi and a stolen sleep lying across my bag.
The boat journey was ok, Andy said that it was the most uncomfortable boat trip he'd even been on, as i had actually experienced the worst boat trip ever, this one was quite nice.
Matt had a motor bile and met us at the pier. The canadians were getting in at about the same time as me, and Matt had met up with 4 Icelandic girls who he'd come here with.
We got to the bungalows, which are really nice. Right on the beach, the sea is a bit manky though, so we went in for about 10 minutes and that was enough. It's really shallow for about 100 metres and then it gets deep. However that 100 metres is just sharp stones that cut us to shreds. Enough of this. It started to rain so we went on to the verrandas of our respective bungalows. I'm in with Andy and Gerard, across from us are Pam, Namcy and Sharon, and Matt is staying with a Brazilian bloke called Paulo. I went for a bit of a power nap, and didn't wake up for about 3 hours. I didn't get much sleep on the bus, so I probably needed it.
We all had dinner togther, I was introduced to the icelandic girls (I can neither remember their names or even pretend to be able to pronounce them), who seem nice enough. We piled into a taxi and headed to the beach where the party is going to be tomorrow night.
We watched fire jugglers for a bit, (they seem rally good at first, then they accidentially throw a flaming stick at you) and there were various expats playing organised games on the beach. Some of the group got buckets, I stayed away as tonight was going to be the warm up for the main party, and I wanted to save myself for that. Andy and I lost everyone else on the beach and went for a bit of a scout around and a few drinks. We called it a night at about 2am and got a taxi back. The canadians rolled in at about 3am, Matt was already home, and Gerard limped in at 4.30am, woke me up and asked for some antiseptic cream.
Turns out he'd been in a motorbile accident. He thought it was a good idea to walk home when a ladyboy and a bloke stopped and offered him a lift, our place is near a really steep hill and the bike couldn't make it up, somehow the ladyboy thought it was a good idfea to ten try and ride into a ditch, Gerard jumped off and unbalanced the bike. He's ok, got a big friction burn down his shin, the other guy knocked himself out, but I don't think it was very serious, anyway Gerard said that a bus load of people stopped to help out so he walked home.
It's weird that even though she used to be a man, she has now taking on the driving abilities of a woman. Those doctors are amazing.
Full Moon Party tomorrow. May not be updating this for a while why I recover.
THE FIRST PROPER HANGOVER
Felt terrible this morning (I am writing in the present tense because I've now caught up on the blog, and am commenting on things that happened today, understand? No? oh well, get back to work then)
I missed the check out time and extended it to 4pm, I went back to bed for a couple of hours, sent Sophia an apologetic text and wrote more of my blog. Andy came up to the room and then we went to the pool for an hour or so.
I've burnt my shoulders a little, and sitting in the sun with a hangover did nothing for me. I checked out, left my bag with the travel agent and went for a wander down the road. As I had a hangover I treated myself to a chocolate milk from the 7-11, and a double cheese burger from Burger King. which made me feel much better.
We bought some DVDs to watch on the bus tonight, and then made our way to the bus station. On our way past we walked past a Muay thai boxing training place, you could have a full days lesson for about 300 bt, if I'd known that before then I would have definitely tried it. Something to do when I come back to Bangkok I suppose.
We sat at the bus place for about an hour waiting for our sleeper coach. Met an American guy called Gerard, he was on his way to the full moon party as well so I think he's going to join our merry little bunch of misfits. although he looks quite young so we might have to keep him away from Sharon.
The bus is quite nice, the seat in front reclines into your knees and the aircon drips on you, but apart from that it's ok. We watched Narc and then Die Hard 4.0, we couldn't watch the DVDs that we bought earlier as Andy had packed them in his big bag which was now in the luggage bit in the bottom of the bus. Idiot.
We stopped at about midnight and had a 'chicken' sandwich and a beer, hopefully that will help me sleep, we're due in to Surit Thani (where we get the boat from) at about 6am, so I could probably do with a bit of a nap.
I missed the check out time and extended it to 4pm, I went back to bed for a couple of hours, sent Sophia an apologetic text and wrote more of my blog. Andy came up to the room and then we went to the pool for an hour or so.
I've burnt my shoulders a little, and sitting in the sun with a hangover did nothing for me. I checked out, left my bag with the travel agent and went for a wander down the road. As I had a hangover I treated myself to a chocolate milk from the 7-11, and a double cheese burger from Burger King. which made me feel much better.
We bought some DVDs to watch on the bus tonight, and then made our way to the bus station. On our way past we walked past a Muay thai boxing training place, you could have a full days lesson for about 300 bt, if I'd known that before then I would have definitely tried it. Something to do when I come back to Bangkok I suppose.
We sat at the bus place for about an hour waiting for our sleeper coach. Met an American guy called Gerard, he was on his way to the full moon party as well so I think he's going to join our merry little bunch of misfits. although he looks quite young so we might have to keep him away from Sharon.
The bus is quite nice, the seat in front reclines into your knees and the aircon drips on you, but apart from that it's ok. We watched Narc and then Die Hard 4.0, we couldn't watch the DVDs that we bought earlier as Andy had packed them in his big bag which was now in the luggage bit in the bottom of the bus. Idiot.
We stopped at about midnight and had a 'chicken' sandwich and a beer, hopefully that will help me sleep, we're due in to Surit Thani (where we get the boat from) at about 6am, so I could probably do with a bit of a nap.
EMOTIONAL GOODBYES AND HAPPY HELLOS
3 hours sleep is never enough. Sophia said she would come to the airport with me, but that was never going to happen, she could barely open her eyes. I packed up my stuff, and put some photos that I took onto a USB stick and gave it to her.
She gave me a set of her earings and said that maybe if a girl saw those they would know I had a lady and leave me alone, I jokingly asked her if this meant that I had a lady, she scoffed and said “well I'm not ladyboy am I?”, relief all round.
And so I left Sophia waving to me at the side of the road, I'd collected an earing and lost a key ring, Rob-Bear would be staying in Cambodia for the foreseeable future.
Saying goodbye to her was probably the most difficult goodbye I've had so far, and not just because of how much I liked her, it was more than that. With everyone else I've met during my trip they've all been travelers. and the thing about travelers is that they travel, so there's always the chance that you could end up in Norway or New Orleans or Rotterdam, or they could end up in London. Or you may find yourselves in a completely different place together. The world is getting smaller, and with things like Facebook it's easy to stay in touch and organise meet ups. But not with Sophia. She can't really leave Cambodia, and if she does she goes to Thailand for a couple of days. There was a very real possibility that I would never see her again, and if I did then it would be down to me to sort it out.
I was pretty down, and the Man Utd logos on the engines of my plane did nothing to help my mood. Thank god I was meeting up with Andy.
I got back to the guest house I'd locked my bag up in and checked the internet. I had a message from Andy saying he was in the room and I should come up and knock for him, I did, there was no answer. Knowing Andy like i do I was pretty confident that he'd be trying to bronze himself by the pool, so i went up there, out of order. Shit, losing someone in this city is really easy, and when you don't have a phone to rely on it's a very real possibility. Then I found him in a cafe.
I lived with Andy for about a year, and he'd been in australia for about 3 years. I'd seen him briefly just after new year for about 3 days, but it was really good to see him again. It's really nice to have a friendly face from back home when you're out here, it's someone you can completely trust, and you look out for each other, which everyone does anyway, but when it's a mate from back home, you're sure.
We spent the day sightseeing, saw the standing Buddha, but didn't get to see the lying Buddha. I think I'll just put the pictures of the standing Buddha on their side. we walked the back streets and got a bit lost and took a tuk tuk back to Khao San Road. After some Pad Thai and a quick nap we were out on the town.
we had a curry in one of the bars, with a couple of large beers, then hit the buckets. The red bull in this part of the world is very different and sends you a bit loopy. I had 2 vodka red bull buckets and was trolleyed. I think we went to a couple of bars after wards, I may have had an argument with Andy, but I know I sent Sophia a couple of texts, I should have kept my phone in the room.
She gave me a set of her earings and said that maybe if a girl saw those they would know I had a lady and leave me alone, I jokingly asked her if this meant that I had a lady, she scoffed and said “well I'm not ladyboy am I?”, relief all round.
And so I left Sophia waving to me at the side of the road, I'd collected an earing and lost a key ring, Rob-Bear would be staying in Cambodia for the foreseeable future.
Saying goodbye to her was probably the most difficult goodbye I've had so far, and not just because of how much I liked her, it was more than that. With everyone else I've met during my trip they've all been travelers. and the thing about travelers is that they travel, so there's always the chance that you could end up in Norway or New Orleans or Rotterdam, or they could end up in London. Or you may find yourselves in a completely different place together. The world is getting smaller, and with things like Facebook it's easy to stay in touch and organise meet ups. But not with Sophia. She can't really leave Cambodia, and if she does she goes to Thailand for a couple of days. There was a very real possibility that I would never see her again, and if I did then it would be down to me to sort it out.
I was pretty down, and the Man Utd logos on the engines of my plane did nothing to help my mood. Thank god I was meeting up with Andy.
I got back to the guest house I'd locked my bag up in and checked the internet. I had a message from Andy saying he was in the room and I should come up and knock for him, I did, there was no answer. Knowing Andy like i do I was pretty confident that he'd be trying to bronze himself by the pool, so i went up there, out of order. Shit, losing someone in this city is really easy, and when you don't have a phone to rely on it's a very real possibility. Then I found him in a cafe.
I lived with Andy for about a year, and he'd been in australia for about 3 years. I'd seen him briefly just after new year for about 3 days, but it was really good to see him again. It's really nice to have a friendly face from back home when you're out here, it's someone you can completely trust, and you look out for each other, which everyone does anyway, but when it's a mate from back home, you're sure.
We spent the day sightseeing, saw the standing Buddha, but didn't get to see the lying Buddha. I think I'll just put the pictures of the standing Buddha on their side. we walked the back streets and got a bit lost and took a tuk tuk back to Khao San Road. After some Pad Thai and a quick nap we were out on the town.
we had a curry in one of the bars, with a couple of large beers, then hit the buckets. The red bull in this part of the world is very different and sends you a bit loopy. I had 2 vodka red bull buckets and was trolleyed. I think we went to a couple of bars after wards, I may have had an argument with Andy, but I know I sent Sophia a couple of texts, I should have kept my phone in the room.
BRIDGING BARRIERS
Honestly this girl will not get out of bed for anything, reminds me a little bit of myself if truth be told. We just made check out at 12, and we were getting a bus back to Phnom Penh at 2pm. She asked me why we couldn't stay another day, I said she was welcome to but I had to get back to Bangkok to meet Wooly, she got a bit grumpy at the idea of staying by herself, and instead took the action of doing everything really slowly in the hope that we would miss the bus and be forced to stay. Sneeky Cambodian. I explained that this tactic would only force me to get a taxi back to the city and I would leave her here alone. I think she understood.
We had lunch on the beach, she bought some strange mango type fruit in slices and dipped it in this rancid fishy sauce, I was nearly sick, I guess it's an acquired taste. She bought herself a bracelet that she got a boy to thread my name into it, which was sweet. I asked her if she had a big pile of these in her room with various names on. She wasn't impressed. She doesn't show emotion very easily, and I think me belittling her efforts to be affectionate weren't appreciated.
She'd spent the early afternoon listening to my ipod, but was disappointed at the lack of hip hop on it, which is something that I always prided myself on. On the coach we watched the 90 minutes of Tom and Jerry cartoons that I had on it. It's nice to know that whenever you run into a language or cultural barrier it can be transcended quite easily by a mouse hitting a cat with a frying pan.
we stopped off for lunch at that service station again. She bought some weird looking apple thing, which I tried and it wasn't too bad. the thing about fruit in this country is that it seems to come it two distinct categories; under ripe, or rotting. This was a bit under ripe, Sophia was dipping her bit of the apple thing in some salt and eating it, seriously, what is wrong with these people? As I took another bite into the centre of it, she said to me “be careful of the pips, they make stomach very bad”, flashes of my previous troubles in cambodia came into my mind, and I spat it out of the bus window. which would have been fine if we'd actually started moving, but we were still at the stop. luckily I missed the woman walking along the side of the bus.
On the second part of the journey we watched the Simpsons movie on my ipod, for some reason she didn't like James Bond, women!
We arrived back in Phnom Penh and went back to the bar were she worked to see her sister and cousin. I checked in to a nearby guest house that smelt of feet and went to use the internet while she got showered and changed at home. We went for dinner on a sort of pontoon thing, the seats were really comfy and I nearly fell asleep. She'd never had spaghetti before so I ordered a carbonara. Honestly, who puts onions in a carbonara? I'll tell you who, Cambodians.
We headed back to the bar to pick up her sister and cousin and went to another bar nearby for a drink. I was quite happy to note that in this bar, and thinking about it, in most of the bars around town, apart from the girls who worked there I was the youngest person in there by a good 15 years. Made me feel young again.
Somehow I said something wrong which caused her to storm off, now I think I'd done quite well up to this point not to cause this sort of reaction, it just wouldn't be a night out with a girl unless I said the wrong thing at one point and made her angry. I'm sure Laura and Emma can testify to this.
After she calmed down we went to a really swanky karaoke bar. I'd had dealings with Cambodian karaoke bars before, so I was on guard. we pulled up at this really nice looking hotel/casino place. The car park was full of really expensive cars, and I got really worried. I was about 30 minutes out of town, on my own with 3 Cambodian locals, I thought I'd been caught in a honey trap. Bollocks. I said I felt uneasy and Sophia looked at me like I was crazy, we walked in and were shown to a room. Oh dear god, it was an actual karaoke room! I'd been searching asia for one of these bad boys and now I'd found it. Yet another benefit of having a local on your arm.
I sang a couple of english songs, which the girls weren't really impressed with, and they spent most of the hour singing 'famous' cambodian songs. Sophia is really good, I was really impressed. On the second night that we met she was telling me that she had a crazy dream of being a singer, but there's no money in it unless you're really good. Which she was. I found out that her step cousin was quite a famous singer in Cambodia.
She sang a couple of songs for me, she told me what they meant but honestly it could have been anything, but the videos were quite entertaining. You just couldn't get the mic off her. Hmmmmm; beautiful, funny, doesn't like getting out of bed, and loves karaoke? all we need now is a complete devotion to Liverpool Football Club and I think we have a winner! Sadly she likes football but doesn't have a club, although i found out that her sister fancies “number 8 and Number 9” (which to my delight I discovered was Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, there's hope for that family yet).
It was about 2am, my plane left at 8.40am and I had to be up at 6. Time for bed.
We had lunch on the beach, she bought some strange mango type fruit in slices and dipped it in this rancid fishy sauce, I was nearly sick, I guess it's an acquired taste. She bought herself a bracelet that she got a boy to thread my name into it, which was sweet. I asked her if she had a big pile of these in her room with various names on. She wasn't impressed. She doesn't show emotion very easily, and I think me belittling her efforts to be affectionate weren't appreciated.
She'd spent the early afternoon listening to my ipod, but was disappointed at the lack of hip hop on it, which is something that I always prided myself on. On the coach we watched the 90 minutes of Tom and Jerry cartoons that I had on it. It's nice to know that whenever you run into a language or cultural barrier it can be transcended quite easily by a mouse hitting a cat with a frying pan.
we stopped off for lunch at that service station again. She bought some weird looking apple thing, which I tried and it wasn't too bad. the thing about fruit in this country is that it seems to come it two distinct categories; under ripe, or rotting. This was a bit under ripe, Sophia was dipping her bit of the apple thing in some salt and eating it, seriously, what is wrong with these people? As I took another bite into the centre of it, she said to me “be careful of the pips, they make stomach very bad”, flashes of my previous troubles in cambodia came into my mind, and I spat it out of the bus window. which would have been fine if we'd actually started moving, but we were still at the stop. luckily I missed the woman walking along the side of the bus.
On the second part of the journey we watched the Simpsons movie on my ipod, for some reason she didn't like James Bond, women!
We arrived back in Phnom Penh and went back to the bar were she worked to see her sister and cousin. I checked in to a nearby guest house that smelt of feet and went to use the internet while she got showered and changed at home. We went for dinner on a sort of pontoon thing, the seats were really comfy and I nearly fell asleep. She'd never had spaghetti before so I ordered a carbonara. Honestly, who puts onions in a carbonara? I'll tell you who, Cambodians.
We headed back to the bar to pick up her sister and cousin and went to another bar nearby for a drink. I was quite happy to note that in this bar, and thinking about it, in most of the bars around town, apart from the girls who worked there I was the youngest person in there by a good 15 years. Made me feel young again.
Somehow I said something wrong which caused her to storm off, now I think I'd done quite well up to this point not to cause this sort of reaction, it just wouldn't be a night out with a girl unless I said the wrong thing at one point and made her angry. I'm sure Laura and Emma can testify to this.
After she calmed down we went to a really swanky karaoke bar. I'd had dealings with Cambodian karaoke bars before, so I was on guard. we pulled up at this really nice looking hotel/casino place. The car park was full of really expensive cars, and I got really worried. I was about 30 minutes out of town, on my own with 3 Cambodian locals, I thought I'd been caught in a honey trap. Bollocks. I said I felt uneasy and Sophia looked at me like I was crazy, we walked in and were shown to a room. Oh dear god, it was an actual karaoke room! I'd been searching asia for one of these bad boys and now I'd found it. Yet another benefit of having a local on your arm.
I sang a couple of english songs, which the girls weren't really impressed with, and they spent most of the hour singing 'famous' cambodian songs. Sophia is really good, I was really impressed. On the second night that we met she was telling me that she had a crazy dream of being a singer, but there's no money in it unless you're really good. Which she was. I found out that her step cousin was quite a famous singer in Cambodia.
She sang a couple of songs for me, she told me what they meant but honestly it could have been anything, but the videos were quite entertaining. You just couldn't get the mic off her. Hmmmmm; beautiful, funny, doesn't like getting out of bed, and loves karaoke? all we need now is a complete devotion to Liverpool Football Club and I think we have a winner! Sadly she likes football but doesn't have a club, although i found out that her sister fancies “number 8 and Number 9” (which to my delight I discovered was Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, there's hope for that family yet).
It was about 2am, my plane left at 8.40am and I had to be up at 6. Time for bed.
THE FIRST BEACH I'D SEEN SINCE BRIGHTON
Having a native Cambodian with you has so many benefits, I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before! Whenever someone tries to get you into their tuk tuk, i just shrug and point to Sophia and she sorts it all out for me. magic. At the bus station a guy asked to see my tickets so I gave them to him, he muttered something about waiting for the bus to turn up and started to help other people with luggage. I lost sight of him, and then another guy asked to see my tickets. Bugger. I thought I'd be done in a not so elaborate ticket taking scam, I scouted around for the guy who took them in the first place, but couldn't see him. Damn, I was going to have to fork out another $10 for 2 tickets, but then I saw Sophia with them waving at me, turns out it wasn't a scam but she'd got the tickets back anyway. I think it works best if I pay for things and she does all the talking.
The bus journey was 4 hours, which obviously meant it took nearer 5. I tried to sleep, but couldn't, due to the really loud kung fu movies they were playing on the TV. We stopped over for something to eat at a sort of service station, where I had to make use of the squat toilet. I'd avoided it thus far during my travels, even through dysentery, but was forced to this time. Sophia ordered us some sort of food, not too sure, it was rice and beef and vegetables, if she hadn't been there I would have gone for the tried and tested Pringles option. But I suppose this way was more authentic.
On the second leg of the journey they showed a Thai film about a boy who grows up with an Elephant, when he gets older some poachers come and kill his father and steal the old elephant and it's baby. The boy vows revenge and some ass kicking is administered. Even though it was in Thai, with Kymer subtitles, I sort of got the gist, Sophia explained some parts, and quite helpfully told me what was about to happen next, “this is his father, he dies soon”, thanks for that.
We pulled up at Shanokville, a small town by the sea, quite popular with locals and back packers, a chilled laid back sort of place. quite nice. We got on two motorbikes and they took us to a nice place with a pool, it was only for one night so thought I'd splash out on an $18 room with air con, I'd just have to tighten my belt for the rest of the trip. Sounds cheap I know, but when you consider I'd been staying in places that cost about $4 a night, it's quite a hike.
We checked in and went to the beach, I asked if there were sharks in the water and she told me to shut up! I think she's a bit afraid of them. She told me how she nearly drowned hee a couple of years ago and now won't go too far into the sea. Also, she was saying how she always wanted a house by the sea but ever since the Tsunami she's been more than happy to stay in towns. I keep forgetting that the Tsunami had such a big impact, not just in Thailand but all over SE Asia, although she didn't know about the cyclone that hit the Phillippines a couple of weeks ago, I don't think telling her about that made her feel any better.
We had lunch on the beach, my baguette managed to stay sand free. I was sticking to safe foods over here this time, really don't want to end up in hospital, as the insurance company were still dragging their heals with the money from last time, and any more accidents or illnesses might just tip me over the edge and send me back home to mum.
After mucking around in the surf, and I had a brief 'from here to eternity' moment by myself, which wasn't very graceful or dignified. Sophia hadn't seen Dr No, so trying to recreate the e Ursula Andress moment was a non starter, so we just went for a walk along the beach and had a drink in a bar We only had a day and a night here so we headed back to the hotel for a go in the pool. After which Sophia went to for a lay down. For about 4 hours, jesus that girl can sleep! Wanting to make the most of the day, I went for a jaunt into town, to buy some trousers as mine had ripped, although I ripped them about 3 weeks ago, I'd just been putting off buying a new pair. I'd tried to mend them using the sewing machine i bought in the market, but i still need to work on my technique it seems.
I returned at about 7pm, she was still asleep, I wrote some of my blog and went to have a beer on the verranda and read a book that I had stolen from the Okay guest house. It was called “Off the Rails in Phnom Penh”, a tale of expats living in Cambodia, and how their behaviour is drastically different to how it is back home, how the unacceptable becomes the norm out here, and the kind of people who make this country their home. Just an idea......
I went back in the room, she was up! and changed, and rushing me out of the door. I threw on a shirt and we went back down to the beach for dinner. I decided to brave the shellfish platter. It was really nice, we were sat on a large wicker padded chair right by the water, the moon was almost full (almost time for a full moon party!), and there were a few clouds but you could see loads of stars. It's easy to see why people don't want to go home.
The few clouds turned into one big black one that pissed down, we'd finished dinner by this point, and I helped the staff get the chairs and tables in, Sophia asked why i was helping them, so I explained the concept of karma to her, which for a Buddhist she should have already known about. We sat there and chatted for a couple of hours, she kept making reference to what she wanted to be in the 'next life', like she had already given up on this one. It broke my heart. Sophia never really had an education, and learnt English from watching HBO and listening to music, god only knows what she could have achieved in a western society, she deserved so much more than this.
After the rain had stopped we went for another walk along the beach, had a couple more drinks in a couple more bars and went back to the hotel. I'd managed to spend the day at the beach in nearly 40 degree weather and not get burnt, this had a lot to do with the fact that I had to buy some suncream here, and due to their obsession with white skin being beautiful they don't have anything under factor 40, so it was like wearing a coat.
The bus journey was 4 hours, which obviously meant it took nearer 5. I tried to sleep, but couldn't, due to the really loud kung fu movies they were playing on the TV. We stopped over for something to eat at a sort of service station, where I had to make use of the squat toilet. I'd avoided it thus far during my travels, even through dysentery, but was forced to this time. Sophia ordered us some sort of food, not too sure, it was rice and beef and vegetables, if she hadn't been there I would have gone for the tried and tested Pringles option. But I suppose this way was more authentic.
On the second leg of the journey they showed a Thai film about a boy who grows up with an Elephant, when he gets older some poachers come and kill his father and steal the old elephant and it's baby. The boy vows revenge and some ass kicking is administered. Even though it was in Thai, with Kymer subtitles, I sort of got the gist, Sophia explained some parts, and quite helpfully told me what was about to happen next, “this is his father, he dies soon”, thanks for that.
We pulled up at Shanokville, a small town by the sea, quite popular with locals and back packers, a chilled laid back sort of place. quite nice. We got on two motorbikes and they took us to a nice place with a pool, it was only for one night so thought I'd splash out on an $18 room with air con, I'd just have to tighten my belt for the rest of the trip. Sounds cheap I know, but when you consider I'd been staying in places that cost about $4 a night, it's quite a hike.
We checked in and went to the beach, I asked if there were sharks in the water and she told me to shut up! I think she's a bit afraid of them. She told me how she nearly drowned hee a couple of years ago and now won't go too far into the sea. Also, she was saying how she always wanted a house by the sea but ever since the Tsunami she's been more than happy to stay in towns. I keep forgetting that the Tsunami had such a big impact, not just in Thailand but all over SE Asia, although she didn't know about the cyclone that hit the Phillippines a couple of weeks ago, I don't think telling her about that made her feel any better.
We had lunch on the beach, my baguette managed to stay sand free. I was sticking to safe foods over here this time, really don't want to end up in hospital, as the insurance company were still dragging their heals with the money from last time, and any more accidents or illnesses might just tip me over the edge and send me back home to mum.
After mucking around in the surf, and I had a brief 'from here to eternity' moment by myself, which wasn't very graceful or dignified. Sophia hadn't seen Dr No, so trying to recreate the e Ursula Andress moment was a non starter, so we just went for a walk along the beach and had a drink in a bar We only had a day and a night here so we headed back to the hotel for a go in the pool. After which Sophia went to for a lay down. For about 4 hours, jesus that girl can sleep! Wanting to make the most of the day, I went for a jaunt into town, to buy some trousers as mine had ripped, although I ripped them about 3 weeks ago, I'd just been putting off buying a new pair. I'd tried to mend them using the sewing machine i bought in the market, but i still need to work on my technique it seems.
I returned at about 7pm, she was still asleep, I wrote some of my blog and went to have a beer on the verranda and read a book that I had stolen from the Okay guest house. It was called “Off the Rails in Phnom Penh”, a tale of expats living in Cambodia, and how their behaviour is drastically different to how it is back home, how the unacceptable becomes the norm out here, and the kind of people who make this country their home. Just an idea......
I went back in the room, she was up! and changed, and rushing me out of the door. I threw on a shirt and we went back down to the beach for dinner. I decided to brave the shellfish platter. It was really nice, we were sat on a large wicker padded chair right by the water, the moon was almost full (almost time for a full moon party!), and there were a few clouds but you could see loads of stars. It's easy to see why people don't want to go home.
The few clouds turned into one big black one that pissed down, we'd finished dinner by this point, and I helped the staff get the chairs and tables in, Sophia asked why i was helping them, so I explained the concept of karma to her, which for a Buddhist she should have already known about. We sat there and chatted for a couple of hours, she kept making reference to what she wanted to be in the 'next life', like she had already given up on this one. It broke my heart. Sophia never really had an education, and learnt English from watching HBO and listening to music, god only knows what she could have achieved in a western society, she deserved so much more than this.
After the rain had stopped we went for another walk along the beach, had a couple more drinks in a couple more bars and went back to the hotel. I'd managed to spend the day at the beach in nearly 40 degree weather and not get burnt, this had a lot to do with the fact that I had to buy some suncream here, and due to their obsession with white skin being beautiful they don't have anything under factor 40, so it was like wearing a coat.
FLYING SOLO
Woke up quite early, well early for me, and most of the expats in bangkok, and went to get some passport photos done for my Cambodian visa. I checked out of the guest house and put my big bag into the locker room, I;d decided that I could survive for 3 days with just my day pack. Which was full.
I got the minibus to the airport, just me, my passport and 3 days worth of clothes. Traveling light. I met a guy on the mini bus from New Zealand, he was going to Phnom Penh so we could share a taxi together into the city.
we chatted the whole way about one thing or another. He was in his 40s so obviously the conversation turned to age gap relationships in SE Asia, what else? He'd spent about 10 months in Cambodia and loved it. He was on his way to Vietnam but had to go to Cambodia to get some documents signed or something. Had quite an enjoyable flight, despite flying on the official airline of Man Utd, Air Asia, this would require quite a long time in church for forgiveness, but I couldn't afford to have morals at this point.
We touched down and got the visa quite quickly. I tried to call Sophia, we'd spoken yesterday and the day before so she knew I was coming, but I had no idea if she was working or not, and my phone didn't work in the country so I was a bit lost. Jimmy and I got a tuk tuk (they don't seem to have regular taxis in Cambodia, just tuk tuks and motorcycles), and went back to the Okay Guest house, it was familiar and I knew my way to and from there. Jimmy decided to stay somewhere else where his friend was so we arranged to meet up later that night. I went for a bit of a walk to try and find a phone box, 20 minutes later I found one that was out of order, they're all too willing to sell you phone cards over here, but there are very few public phone boxes to use them in. Anyway I managed to use a phone in a hotel and found out that she wasn't working but was in a bar near work.
I didn't really know what to expect from this little reunion, certainly nothing serious, but on the 2 occasions we'd met before I learnt quite a lot about her and her situation, it gave me more of an appreciation of what the people here have to live with, what their expectations are, and how very few people achieve their dreams and they just have to make do with what they have, and have nothing to look forward to really. So it's completely understandable why so many of these girls go off with older western men, it offers them a chance of a better life, maybe a life outside of Cambodia. Any thoughts that Sophia was after me just for my money were quickly dispelled as she knew I didn't have any! But when you earn $60 a month from bar work, even the little money I had must have seemed like a lot.
I got to the bar where she worked, it was a convenient place to meet. She was chatting to her friends behind the bar, she looked grumpy. “Look what they did to my hair, I don't like it”, she'd obviously had her hair done and bought herself a new outfit because I was coming, although she'd never admit that of course. We went for dinner and had a couple of drinks. I called Jimmy and got him to meet us at the bar later on. He was with 2 of his friends, a guy who lives in Phnom Penh and some other guy who looked like a former hippie and heroin addict. They didn't stay for long. I played Sophia at pool for a while, whilst watching a Liverpool vs Arsenal game from 2002 on LFC TV. Some how I lost a best of 7 series when I was 3-1 up, there was some dirty tricks applied by the opposition, and a hefty slice of cheating, and the table was terrible. Plus she spends all her time there playing pool. It just wasn't fair!
We were going to the beach tomorrow for the day and were coming back the next afternoon, so she went home to pack a bag. “You want to see my room?”, now all night she'd said that I couldn't see her room as it was too messy, but had somehow relented. I was curious as she lived with her 2 sisters in a small room, and I wanted to see what the set up was.
We walked down a really dark alley round the back of the bar, it stank of urine, there was a guy who had set up home there, and built himself a small shelter. We got to a doorway and climbed about 3 sets of stairs before we got to some iron gates. There was one shared bathroom and toilet for that floor. Through the gates I could see a small set of wooden stairs going into what looked like a loft. Sophia called to her sister in Cambodian and she walked down the stairs to let us in. Sophia had 5 sisters and one Brother, he was in the army. She lived here with her younger sister and one of her older sisters. She was away at the moment, so another one of her older sisters was staying instead, with her husband and 1 year old son. I climbed the stairs and almost knocked myself out on the ceiling. The room was about 10 feet wide, and about 15 feet long, and about 5 feet tall. There were two mattresses on the floor which they all slept on, and there was a small portable gas stove in the room, with a TV and CD player. I felt quite privileged that she was showing me this side of her, I was seeing a part of Cambodian life that not many back packers will ever see. The rent on that place was about $60 a month, which is what she makes from the bar. Last month including tips she made about $200, which is a very good wage over here. But she gives some of that money to her mum and nephews, and her younger sister. When you make that little money it's hard to see a way of bettering yourself. Made me really appreciate what I had, and made me realise how lucky I was to be born in the UK.
I sat on the bed while Sophia packed her bag, for some reason we all stated to watch an old episode of Monkey, but it was slightly different to the Monkey that I remember, different actors. I think she put it on because in this episode one of the characters sings a song in English, so I wouldn't feel left out. Her nephew was up and running around, which considering it was 2am probably wasn't a good thing, and I felt a bit guilty that we had disturbed them.
The bus to shanokville was leaving at about 8.15am and we had to be in reception to get the tuk tuk there at about 7.30am, so I was dead on my feet, luckily Sophia's brother in law was a motorbike taxi driver and gave us a lift back to Okay.
I got the minibus to the airport, just me, my passport and 3 days worth of clothes. Traveling light. I met a guy on the mini bus from New Zealand, he was going to Phnom Penh so we could share a taxi together into the city.
we chatted the whole way about one thing or another. He was in his 40s so obviously the conversation turned to age gap relationships in SE Asia, what else? He'd spent about 10 months in Cambodia and loved it. He was on his way to Vietnam but had to go to Cambodia to get some documents signed or something. Had quite an enjoyable flight, despite flying on the official airline of Man Utd, Air Asia, this would require quite a long time in church for forgiveness, but I couldn't afford to have morals at this point.
We touched down and got the visa quite quickly. I tried to call Sophia, we'd spoken yesterday and the day before so she knew I was coming, but I had no idea if she was working or not, and my phone didn't work in the country so I was a bit lost. Jimmy and I got a tuk tuk (they don't seem to have regular taxis in Cambodia, just tuk tuks and motorcycles), and went back to the Okay Guest house, it was familiar and I knew my way to and from there. Jimmy decided to stay somewhere else where his friend was so we arranged to meet up later that night. I went for a bit of a walk to try and find a phone box, 20 minutes later I found one that was out of order, they're all too willing to sell you phone cards over here, but there are very few public phone boxes to use them in. Anyway I managed to use a phone in a hotel and found out that she wasn't working but was in a bar near work.
I didn't really know what to expect from this little reunion, certainly nothing serious, but on the 2 occasions we'd met before I learnt quite a lot about her and her situation, it gave me more of an appreciation of what the people here have to live with, what their expectations are, and how very few people achieve their dreams and they just have to make do with what they have, and have nothing to look forward to really. So it's completely understandable why so many of these girls go off with older western men, it offers them a chance of a better life, maybe a life outside of Cambodia. Any thoughts that Sophia was after me just for my money were quickly dispelled as she knew I didn't have any! But when you earn $60 a month from bar work, even the little money I had must have seemed like a lot.
I got to the bar where she worked, it was a convenient place to meet. She was chatting to her friends behind the bar, she looked grumpy. “Look what they did to my hair, I don't like it”, she'd obviously had her hair done and bought herself a new outfit because I was coming, although she'd never admit that of course. We went for dinner and had a couple of drinks. I called Jimmy and got him to meet us at the bar later on. He was with 2 of his friends, a guy who lives in Phnom Penh and some other guy who looked like a former hippie and heroin addict. They didn't stay for long. I played Sophia at pool for a while, whilst watching a Liverpool vs Arsenal game from 2002 on LFC TV. Some how I lost a best of 7 series when I was 3-1 up, there was some dirty tricks applied by the opposition, and a hefty slice of cheating, and the table was terrible. Plus she spends all her time there playing pool. It just wasn't fair!
We were going to the beach tomorrow for the day and were coming back the next afternoon, so she went home to pack a bag. “You want to see my room?”, now all night she'd said that I couldn't see her room as it was too messy, but had somehow relented. I was curious as she lived with her 2 sisters in a small room, and I wanted to see what the set up was.
We walked down a really dark alley round the back of the bar, it stank of urine, there was a guy who had set up home there, and built himself a small shelter. We got to a doorway and climbed about 3 sets of stairs before we got to some iron gates. There was one shared bathroom and toilet for that floor. Through the gates I could see a small set of wooden stairs going into what looked like a loft. Sophia called to her sister in Cambodian and she walked down the stairs to let us in. Sophia had 5 sisters and one Brother, he was in the army. She lived here with her younger sister and one of her older sisters. She was away at the moment, so another one of her older sisters was staying instead, with her husband and 1 year old son. I climbed the stairs and almost knocked myself out on the ceiling. The room was about 10 feet wide, and about 15 feet long, and about 5 feet tall. There were two mattresses on the floor which they all slept on, and there was a small portable gas stove in the room, with a TV and CD player. I felt quite privileged that she was showing me this side of her, I was seeing a part of Cambodian life that not many back packers will ever see. The rent on that place was about $60 a month, which is what she makes from the bar. Last month including tips she made about $200, which is a very good wage over here. But she gives some of that money to her mum and nephews, and her younger sister. When you make that little money it's hard to see a way of bettering yourself. Made me really appreciate what I had, and made me realise how lucky I was to be born in the UK.
I sat on the bed while Sophia packed her bag, for some reason we all stated to watch an old episode of Monkey, but it was slightly different to the Monkey that I remember, different actors. I think she put it on because in this episode one of the characters sings a song in English, so I wouldn't feel left out. Her nephew was up and running around, which considering it was 2am probably wasn't a good thing, and I felt a bit guilty that we had disturbed them.
The bus to shanokville was leaving at about 8.15am and we had to be in reception to get the tuk tuk there at about 7.30am, so I was dead on my feet, luckily Sophia's brother in law was a motorbike taxi driver and gave us a lift back to Okay.
WEEKEND MARKET AND LONELINESS IN BANGKOK
The phone was ringing. what on earth is this all about? “we're in Matt's room are you coming”, as much as I like Matt, this was not something I wanted to get involved with, not at this time in the morning. It was Pam, apparently last night we'd arranged to meet up in the lobby at 11am, I told her her was making the mistake of assuming I remembered anything from last night. I got showered and changed and met them downstairs. Sharon had just got home, and was in the room, Pam and Nancy were trying to find our room numbers to wake us up but could only fin d Matt's which was why they were in his room this morning.
They were leaving this evening and so had to check out, Sharon hadn't got any sleep last night, not sure why, maybe she was reading him bedtime stories all night, so I agreed to let her sleep in my bed for the afternoon. Later on I would remember that my Mum had warned me about trusting people too much, and that Sharon might actually be in on a scam to relieve me of my possessions! Then I had a rethink, it would be a pretty elaborate scam taking about 3 days to relieve me of my fisher price laptop and maybe a few pairs of pants.
The 4 of us got to the weekend market, Pam designated a meeting point in case we got separated, always being a teacher, but forgot to say a time. Matt and I lost them after about 3 minutes. Being the metrosexuals that we are, we bought some hand held sewing machines, just in case, and walked through the market and saw all manner of tat, although there was about 100 meters of puppies, kittens and rabbits for sale. we went back to the meeting point and made a half hearted attempt to wait for them, which lasted as long as it took for us to get in a cab.
a brief stop at McDonalds later and we bumped into Nancy and Pam on Khao San Road, they hadn't bought anything at the market, which made mine and Matt's purchase of sewing machines even more gay, however I had backed it up with buying a digital camera. I'd not brought one with me as I thought I'd be able to get it cheaper over here, but never got round to it, and I've just been taking copies of other people's photos, but as I thought I'd be on my own for the next 4 days I should probably buy one, and it would come in handy for the full moon party as Matt's camera was quite chunky.
we killed some time before they had to get their bus at about 7.30pm, I walked with them to the pick up point, and said my goodbyes. I would be seeing them in about 6 days anyway when I got down to the island. In fact it was a really good thing as this way Matt could sort out accommodation for us, and all I had to do was turn up the day before the party. Sorted.
They left and I was on my own. It was sort of liberating, I didn't have anyone to rely on but myself, which at the same time was a bit scary. But i was ok. I'd not really been on my own at all this trip, so it was a funny feeling, but at the same time exciting.
I made several trips to the internet cafe, spoke to my parents on skype, told them I was going back to Cambodia, mum looked confused as she thought I'd hated it, maybe I'd given that impression in my blog, but nothing could be further from the truth. Apart from meeting Sophia, I'd really enjoyed my time there, and really wanted to see the beaches in the south hopefully I'd get a chance to do that this time.
They were leaving this evening and so had to check out, Sharon hadn't got any sleep last night, not sure why, maybe she was reading him bedtime stories all night, so I agreed to let her sleep in my bed for the afternoon. Later on I would remember that my Mum had warned me about trusting people too much, and that Sharon might actually be in on a scam to relieve me of my possessions! Then I had a rethink, it would be a pretty elaborate scam taking about 3 days to relieve me of my fisher price laptop and maybe a few pairs of pants.
The 4 of us got to the weekend market, Pam designated a meeting point in case we got separated, always being a teacher, but forgot to say a time. Matt and I lost them after about 3 minutes. Being the metrosexuals that we are, we bought some hand held sewing machines, just in case, and walked through the market and saw all manner of tat, although there was about 100 meters of puppies, kittens and rabbits for sale. we went back to the meeting point and made a half hearted attempt to wait for them, which lasted as long as it took for us to get in a cab.
a brief stop at McDonalds later and we bumped into Nancy and Pam on Khao San Road, they hadn't bought anything at the market, which made mine and Matt's purchase of sewing machines even more gay, however I had backed it up with buying a digital camera. I'd not brought one with me as I thought I'd be able to get it cheaper over here, but never got round to it, and I've just been taking copies of other people's photos, but as I thought I'd be on my own for the next 4 days I should probably buy one, and it would come in handy for the full moon party as Matt's camera was quite chunky.
we killed some time before they had to get their bus at about 7.30pm, I walked with them to the pick up point, and said my goodbyes. I would be seeing them in about 6 days anyway when I got down to the island. In fact it was a really good thing as this way Matt could sort out accommodation for us, and all I had to do was turn up the day before the party. Sorted.
They left and I was on my own. It was sort of liberating, I didn't have anyone to rely on but myself, which at the same time was a bit scary. But i was ok. I'd not really been on my own at all this trip, so it was a funny feeling, but at the same time exciting.
I made several trips to the internet cafe, spoke to my parents on skype, told them I was going back to Cambodia, mum looked confused as she thought I'd hated it, maybe I'd given that impression in my blog, but nothing could be further from the truth. Apart from meeting Sophia, I'd really enjoyed my time there, and really wanted to see the beaches in the south hopefully I'd get a chance to do that this time.
BEING AN IDIOT
It was a strange feeling not having anyone other blokes in the group but Matt, the Canadian girls were really nice and friendly though so it was ok. I got up at about 12, sorted out some insurance things and made a couple of phone calls.
It was Pam's 27th birthday today so we were all going out for a big one tonight, which meant, for me a day of relatively low activity and saving money.
Met up with Matt and he'd said that he'd been talking to the girls and they were going to be getting the over night bus tomorrow night to Kho tao, one island away from where the full moon party was. He said that he wanted to have a bit of beach time before the party and was going to go with them. My dilemma was that I had to stay in bangkok until the 16th until my mate Andy turned up. I used to live with Andy in London, and he'd been in Australia for the past 2 years, I'd seen him for about 3 days at new year, but was really looking forward to seeing him again. he was on his way home but was having a bit of a stop over in Thailand, and was coming to the full moon party with us. So I was going to be stranded in Bangkok on my own for 4 days, I didn't fancy this at all, its a great city, but anything more than about 3 days here seems too much, and I'd been here in total for about 7. So rather than stay I thought I'd do a little trip on my own, so i decided to get a cheap flight to Cambodia, I really liked it there and would much rather go back and see the things I didn't get a chance to see the first time, and maybe not get ill this time. Oh who am I kidding, I was going back to see a girl.
I had tried to arrange for her to come to Thailand but she couldn't make a visa in the time, as I had to leave on the 17th to make it down to the islands, so I thought I might as well jump on a plane and go and see her. I justified it to myself that although it was nothing serious and after this little trip we would probably never see each other again, when else would I get the chance to spend about 60 quid and spend 3 days with her. So I booked it up on the internet and would fly out the day after tomorrow. Yes I knew I was being an idiot, but SE Asia does strange things to otherwise rational human beings.
Matt and I were milling around in the lobby, the girls had gone off to get massages (Matt wasn't allowed to go because the company that did it said they were a family run business and only did girls, make of that what you will), and we had lost them momentarily, so we waited and then decided to just go out and maybe we'll bump into them later on down the road (that is to be taken literally, as you always bump into people on Khao San Road). I'd forgotten my malaria tablet for today, which was all the more important as I was going back to Cambodia, and headed back to the room. As I passed the desk in the lobby I saw a note covered in hearts and stars, the work of primary school teachers, Canadian ones at that. “Hello boys, come up to our room, we've got booze, pre birthday party!”, they knew us so well. So after a few quite strong vodka and sprite/red bull/iced tea, we headed out on the town for some buckets, which went straight to our already light heads, and we ended up in “The Club”, the place I was the other night. Sharon managed to pull a 22 year old Australian boy (he looked about 18), which for a 36 year old isn't bad going. we went to a few bars, an in between walking from one to the other I was left with sharon and the child. Nice. I had Matt's camera though so i was able to document the evening. I'm not sure if she should be allowed to be a teacher, certainly not in high school anyway, I've got a feeling I'll be reading a news story about her in a few years time. I suppose it'll make the next game of “I have never” more interesting.
It was Pam's 27th birthday today so we were all going out for a big one tonight, which meant, for me a day of relatively low activity and saving money.
Met up with Matt and he'd said that he'd been talking to the girls and they were going to be getting the over night bus tomorrow night to Kho tao, one island away from where the full moon party was. He said that he wanted to have a bit of beach time before the party and was going to go with them. My dilemma was that I had to stay in bangkok until the 16th until my mate Andy turned up. I used to live with Andy in London, and he'd been in Australia for the past 2 years, I'd seen him for about 3 days at new year, but was really looking forward to seeing him again. he was on his way home but was having a bit of a stop over in Thailand, and was coming to the full moon party with us. So I was going to be stranded in Bangkok on my own for 4 days, I didn't fancy this at all, its a great city, but anything more than about 3 days here seems too much, and I'd been here in total for about 7. So rather than stay I thought I'd do a little trip on my own, so i decided to get a cheap flight to Cambodia, I really liked it there and would much rather go back and see the things I didn't get a chance to see the first time, and maybe not get ill this time. Oh who am I kidding, I was going back to see a girl.
I had tried to arrange for her to come to Thailand but she couldn't make a visa in the time, as I had to leave on the 17th to make it down to the islands, so I thought I might as well jump on a plane and go and see her. I justified it to myself that although it was nothing serious and after this little trip we would probably never see each other again, when else would I get the chance to spend about 60 quid and spend 3 days with her. So I booked it up on the internet and would fly out the day after tomorrow. Yes I knew I was being an idiot, but SE Asia does strange things to otherwise rational human beings.
Matt and I were milling around in the lobby, the girls had gone off to get massages (Matt wasn't allowed to go because the company that did it said they were a family run business and only did girls, make of that what you will), and we had lost them momentarily, so we waited and then decided to just go out and maybe we'll bump into them later on down the road (that is to be taken literally, as you always bump into people on Khao San Road). I'd forgotten my malaria tablet for today, which was all the more important as I was going back to Cambodia, and headed back to the room. As I passed the desk in the lobby I saw a note covered in hearts and stars, the work of primary school teachers, Canadian ones at that. “Hello boys, come up to our room, we've got booze, pre birthday party!”, they knew us so well. So after a few quite strong vodka and sprite/red bull/iced tea, we headed out on the town for some buckets, which went straight to our already light heads, and we ended up in “The Club”, the place I was the other night. Sharon managed to pull a 22 year old Australian boy (he looked about 18), which for a 36 year old isn't bad going. we went to a few bars, an in between walking from one to the other I was left with sharon and the child. Nice. I had Matt's camera though so i was able to document the evening. I'm not sure if she should be allowed to be a teacher, certainly not in high school anyway, I've got a feeling I'll be reading a news story about her in a few years time. I suppose it'll make the next game of “I have never” more interesting.
BOATS, TIGERS AND TRAINS
Matt was hammering on my door, it was 7am and I was late. Knew those buckets were a bad a idea.
The day was going to be a long one, leaving at 7am, going to the floating market, then the tiger temple, then onto the Death railway and the Bridge over the River Kwae. We were due back at 7pm, a 12 hour day, and I wasn't really feeling up to is. But it seems it was more up to it than Joey, who couldn't get out of bed, Jesse made it on one hours sleep.
The floating market was just like you see on TV, loads of boats with fruit, veg, small stoves cooking various meats, all slowly making their way through a network of small canals. Didn't buy anything though, the produce was pretty much all what you can buy in town anyway, so I didn't fancy wasting what little money I had left.
after another 90 minutes on the bus and a stop over for a not too bad lunch, we got to the Tiger Temple. I'd heard bad things about this place, that the tigers are poorly treated and drugged. They all seemed happy enough and were pretty sleepy while it was hot, but started to liven up when it started to rain. we all got pictures with some of the tigers, I got the best shot as one of the bigger ones was yawning, and it looks like it was growling, a facebook profile picture for a long time yet.
The bridge over the River Kwae was also good. It had been the thing I was most looking forward to doing, the museum was a little disappointing, quite small, but tells you evrything you need to know about the forced labour by the Japanese of Allied POWs and thais during the second world war. Although the bridge is still working for trains you can walk the length of it quite happily, it's not the safest thing in the world as there are no barriers to stop you falling into the river if you slipped.
2 hours later we were on the way back. natalie was in a different bus to Matt, Jesse and me so we didn't see her again, as we never arranged to meet up that night, and she was leaving in a couple of days, maybe not actually saying goodbye is better than a long and drawn out farewell. We'd befriended a group of Canadian teachers on the bus, Sharon, Pam and Nancy. We'd bonded over telling riddles, geography questions and dirty jokes. I was in charge of the geography questions, obviously.
Joey was waiting for us in the lobby, he'd had to check out by 12 and had been waiting around for us for about 6 hours.
We all went out for an indian, us lads and the Canadian teachers, we sat at a roadside restaurant, a rat ran between Joey's legs which made everyone scream and jump up on their chairs like the maid used to in Tom and Jerry cartoons. we went for a couple of drinks in Gullivers at the end of Khao San Road, and had a good game of 'I have never', which always helps you get to know new people, a little bit too well it turns out! The dutch lads had to leave for the airport at 11.30, so we said goodbye and everyone else turned in for the night.
The day was going to be a long one, leaving at 7am, going to the floating market, then the tiger temple, then onto the Death railway and the Bridge over the River Kwae. We were due back at 7pm, a 12 hour day, and I wasn't really feeling up to is. But it seems it was more up to it than Joey, who couldn't get out of bed, Jesse made it on one hours sleep.
The floating market was just like you see on TV, loads of boats with fruit, veg, small stoves cooking various meats, all slowly making their way through a network of small canals. Didn't buy anything though, the produce was pretty much all what you can buy in town anyway, so I didn't fancy wasting what little money I had left.
after another 90 minutes on the bus and a stop over for a not too bad lunch, we got to the Tiger Temple. I'd heard bad things about this place, that the tigers are poorly treated and drugged. They all seemed happy enough and were pretty sleepy while it was hot, but started to liven up when it started to rain. we all got pictures with some of the tigers, I got the best shot as one of the bigger ones was yawning, and it looks like it was growling, a facebook profile picture for a long time yet.
The bridge over the River Kwae was also good. It had been the thing I was most looking forward to doing, the museum was a little disappointing, quite small, but tells you evrything you need to know about the forced labour by the Japanese of Allied POWs and thais during the second world war. Although the bridge is still working for trains you can walk the length of it quite happily, it's not the safest thing in the world as there are no barriers to stop you falling into the river if you slipped.
2 hours later we were on the way back. natalie was in a different bus to Matt, Jesse and me so we didn't see her again, as we never arranged to meet up that night, and she was leaving in a couple of days, maybe not actually saying goodbye is better than a long and drawn out farewell. We'd befriended a group of Canadian teachers on the bus, Sharon, Pam and Nancy. We'd bonded over telling riddles, geography questions and dirty jokes. I was in charge of the geography questions, obviously.
Joey was waiting for us in the lobby, he'd had to check out by 12 and had been waiting around for us for about 6 hours.
We all went out for an indian, us lads and the Canadian teachers, we sat at a roadside restaurant, a rat ran between Joey's legs which made everyone scream and jump up on their chairs like the maid used to in Tom and Jerry cartoons. we went for a couple of drinks in Gullivers at the end of Khao San Road, and had a good game of 'I have never', which always helps you get to know new people, a little bit too well it turns out! The dutch lads had to leave for the airport at 11.30, so we said goodbye and everyone else turned in for the night.
LITTLE GREEN MEN AND THE MICHAEL JACKSON REGIMENT
Got up reasonably early and went to meet Natalie at her hotel on Khao San Road. We stopped and had breakfast before meeting everyone else in the lobby of our guest house.
As the Dutch lads only had a couple of days left we decided to do as much of the touristy cultural stuff, so we all arranged to go to the Grand Palace and see the temples and the Emerald Buddha. Natalie had already seen it so went to the mall and then the cinema, she says she's Canadian, but acts very much like an American.
As part of a scam the tuk tuk drivers would take us to the palace as long as we stopped over at a tailors and made out like we were going to buy something, the drivers then get enough fuel to keep them on the road for 3 days. It's nice when you and a local team up to scam someone else, and no one deserves it more than the suit makers.
I felt a bit stupid browsing through the catalogs of some truly terrible suits, I could feel the pressure growing from the shop assistants, when as luck would have it I got a phone call and had to leave the shop. Saved by the bell. I went back in after about 20 minutes, they weren't going to waste their time with me now, and had focused their attention on Jesse, who was quite close to buying one, the gullible fool.
we left there without any purchases, and went to the palace. Joey and Jesse were wearing shorts and ripped jeans and so had to dress in these rather charming pair of nylon slacks, before they could go in. The grouns of the temples are quite impressive, and there was a procession of guards who marched past us, one set were wearing white gloves (hence the MJ reference in the title of the blog).
The decorations of the temples are really good, and the emerald buddha is quite spectacular, much smaller than I thought, a little green guy sat on top of about 25 feet of crystals and gems.
The lads went shopping afterwards, Nicky and I went back to the guest house, she was leaving that afternoon to go to the islands, and had to pack up her stuff. I graed the opportunity for a bit of a nap and a go on t'interweb.
Nicky left at about 6, she was flying out of singapore the same day as me and Matt so we'd see her in a couple of weeks. And so we were down to 5 (including Natalie). Matt wasn't feeling so go so he decided to spend the night in, me and the dutch lads went to meet Natalie and have a few drinks. I bumped into Mandy again on the street, I think she's started following me now.
Upon realising that I was quite tired, we hit the vodka redbulls, then some 2 4 1 buckets, and we were well away. We all got beaten by some 8 year old girls in a thumb war and had to buy roses, which was handy as it was 'Ladies Night' in the Lava club down the road. Joey and me were up for it a bit more than the other two so we dashed off. I bumped into that girl from Manchester again, she was a bit drunk, but i think we managed to avoid confrontation this time. Ladies night in Lava wasn't what we all thought it would be. As we got down the stairs, all we could see was thai girls, some thai ladyboys, and a scattering of blokes. We were in trouble, these girls could be a nightmare if they get a whiff of cash, so without breaking stride, we turned on out heels and went back up the stairs to the street.
where we found an Elephant. as you do. It was knocking on for 1am, we'd booked a whole day trip tomorrow starting at 7am, so going to another club at that time probably wasn't the smartest idea, but then I've never been the smartest person. we picked up the other two and went for a dance. I got bored at about 2.30 and left the crazy dutch bastards dancing on the stage and went to bed.
As the Dutch lads only had a couple of days left we decided to do as much of the touristy cultural stuff, so we all arranged to go to the Grand Palace and see the temples and the Emerald Buddha. Natalie had already seen it so went to the mall and then the cinema, she says she's Canadian, but acts very much like an American.
As part of a scam the tuk tuk drivers would take us to the palace as long as we stopped over at a tailors and made out like we were going to buy something, the drivers then get enough fuel to keep them on the road for 3 days. It's nice when you and a local team up to scam someone else, and no one deserves it more than the suit makers.
I felt a bit stupid browsing through the catalogs of some truly terrible suits, I could feel the pressure growing from the shop assistants, when as luck would have it I got a phone call and had to leave the shop. Saved by the bell. I went back in after about 20 minutes, they weren't going to waste their time with me now, and had focused their attention on Jesse, who was quite close to buying one, the gullible fool.
we left there without any purchases, and went to the palace. Joey and Jesse were wearing shorts and ripped jeans and so had to dress in these rather charming pair of nylon slacks, before they could go in. The grouns of the temples are quite impressive, and there was a procession of guards who marched past us, one set were wearing white gloves (hence the MJ reference in the title of the blog).
The decorations of the temples are really good, and the emerald buddha is quite spectacular, much smaller than I thought, a little green guy sat on top of about 25 feet of crystals and gems.
The lads went shopping afterwards, Nicky and I went back to the guest house, she was leaving that afternoon to go to the islands, and had to pack up her stuff. I graed the opportunity for a bit of a nap and a go on t'interweb.
Nicky left at about 6, she was flying out of singapore the same day as me and Matt so we'd see her in a couple of weeks. And so we were down to 5 (including Natalie). Matt wasn't feeling so go so he decided to spend the night in, me and the dutch lads went to meet Natalie and have a few drinks. I bumped into Mandy again on the street, I think she's started following me now.
Upon realising that I was quite tired, we hit the vodka redbulls, then some 2 4 1 buckets, and we were well away. We all got beaten by some 8 year old girls in a thumb war and had to buy roses, which was handy as it was 'Ladies Night' in the Lava club down the road. Joey and me were up for it a bit more than the other two so we dashed off. I bumped into that girl from Manchester again, she was a bit drunk, but i think we managed to avoid confrontation this time. Ladies night in Lava wasn't what we all thought it would be. As we got down the stairs, all we could see was thai girls, some thai ladyboys, and a scattering of blokes. We were in trouble, these girls could be a nightmare if they get a whiff of cash, so without breaking stride, we turned on out heels and went back up the stairs to the street.
where we found an Elephant. as you do. It was knocking on for 1am, we'd booked a whole day trip tomorrow starting at 7am, so going to another club at that time probably wasn't the smartest idea, but then I've never been the smartest person. we picked up the other two and went for a dance. I got bored at about 2.30 and left the crazy dutch bastards dancing on the stage and went to bed.
GIGGING ON KSR AND BUMPING INTO OLD FRIENDS
strangely it felt good to be back in Bangkok, it was familiar, and they had a Mcdonalds and a Burger King (who, by the way, do delivery, amazing). We found a cheap guest house. There was a place a bit further out that charged 200 bt (just over £3) for a single room with fan, but a shared bathroom, but we went for a place that was 290 bt (about £4), which had your own bathroom (cold shower) and there was a pool on the roof. So it was probably worth it.
After checking in we hit McDonalds, then burger king. Honestly these dutch lads put their food away somewhere, with Matt it's quite obvious where it goes, but these two are all skin, bone, hair and teeth. Still they were only 19 and I took great delight in telling them that “when you get to my age.......”, they didn't seem to care though, the ignorance of youth.
after a quick power nap and a cold shower, I went up to the pool. Only Joey made it as everyone else was still asleep. Me and Joey had a good conversation about great dutch footballers of the 80s, 90s and 2000s. I waited for everyone to come round and went to the internet to check my emails. I'd sent a message to natalie the Canadian girl I'd met on my first night here, just seeing if she was around in Bangkok as she'd been to the islands for a while and maybe coming through this way. I got a message back from her saying that she'd got in that morning and was on her own, so we arranged to meet up for a drink. i was quite excited to see her again, even though we'd only met once before and that was about 3 weeks ago (not that long in real time, but an age when you're traveling), yet another example of bonding with people really quickly.
Met Natalie, and we all went out for drinks. The dutch lads and Matt hit Mcdonalds for the third time in one day, I decided to give it a miss, I don't need supersizing thanks very much. Natalie was keen to go to a ping pong show, as was Matt and Nicky. Joey wasn't too sure but I told him he couldn't leave Thailand without seeing one. Jesse had seen on and was adamant that there was no way he would go. I couldn't leave Natalie with complete strangers so I went along as well. These things don't get any better on second viewing!
everyone was a little let down with the quality of the 'show', I had tried to warn them but they wanted to go in anyway. removing all images of.....people removing things, it was time to break out the guitar, bongo and keyboard and hit the streets. It was still quite early so the music was thumping out of the bars so we just kept drinking instead. we went to a bar that had a live band, who were terrible, when ever the singer came to a point that he couldn't hit the right notes he would encourage the audience to join in. He murdered about half of our set, so we left in disgust.
Natalie went back to her room to get more money, it seems drinking with us costs more than she realised. We were stood on the street looking for a place to go, I said why not this place behind us, as I turned round, I saw a familiar face.
“Mandy?”. Now I went to 6th Form with Mandy, and hadn't seen her in about 10 years, despite her living in london, we only got back in touch about 6 months ago thanks to Facebook, and never managed to get our acts togther and meet up. at one point she was in Camden and I was in Belsize park (about 2 tube stops, which would have taken about 5 minutes), but due to a hangover I couldn't make it. So that made it weird that we would meet up in Bangkok. i knew she was traveling around SE Asia, but had no idea she would be in Bangkok. we chatted about back home and the good old school days, and both decided that life was a lot better these days and that school wasn't actually very good.
The bar closed and it was time for the gig. Natalie made some sort of excuse that she was tired and went to bed, mandy and her boyfriend went for somee food and never came back, and god knows where Matt went. Nicky had gone home an hour or so before, so the only people there for the gig were, the band. Still we played on anyway. We rattled out a couple of numbers and got some attention from passing people, but not enough so we moved up the road to outside the 7-11. The 'man' didn't like our brand of youthful pop rock, and felt threatened and moved us down the street, it was just like what they did to Jim man! we tried to play in a bar but got told if they had music then the police would know they were serving after hours. The police station was about 50 yards away, and it was an open ended bar with about 100 people milling around, but the guitar would have given it away apparently.
deflated we called it a night. The band was no more. But it had been fun while it lasted. I hung up my bongo playing hat, and turned my back on music. As Les McQueen said; It's a shit business.
After checking in we hit McDonalds, then burger king. Honestly these dutch lads put their food away somewhere, with Matt it's quite obvious where it goes, but these two are all skin, bone, hair and teeth. Still they were only 19 and I took great delight in telling them that “when you get to my age.......”, they didn't seem to care though, the ignorance of youth.
after a quick power nap and a cold shower, I went up to the pool. Only Joey made it as everyone else was still asleep. Me and Joey had a good conversation about great dutch footballers of the 80s, 90s and 2000s. I waited for everyone to come round and went to the internet to check my emails. I'd sent a message to natalie the Canadian girl I'd met on my first night here, just seeing if she was around in Bangkok as she'd been to the islands for a while and maybe coming through this way. I got a message back from her saying that she'd got in that morning and was on her own, so we arranged to meet up for a drink. i was quite excited to see her again, even though we'd only met once before and that was about 3 weeks ago (not that long in real time, but an age when you're traveling), yet another example of bonding with people really quickly.
Met Natalie, and we all went out for drinks. The dutch lads and Matt hit Mcdonalds for the third time in one day, I decided to give it a miss, I don't need supersizing thanks very much. Natalie was keen to go to a ping pong show, as was Matt and Nicky. Joey wasn't too sure but I told him he couldn't leave Thailand without seeing one. Jesse had seen on and was adamant that there was no way he would go. I couldn't leave Natalie with complete strangers so I went along as well. These things don't get any better on second viewing!
everyone was a little let down with the quality of the 'show', I had tried to warn them but they wanted to go in anyway. removing all images of.....people removing things, it was time to break out the guitar, bongo and keyboard and hit the streets. It was still quite early so the music was thumping out of the bars so we just kept drinking instead. we went to a bar that had a live band, who were terrible, when ever the singer came to a point that he couldn't hit the right notes he would encourage the audience to join in. He murdered about half of our set, so we left in disgust.
Natalie went back to her room to get more money, it seems drinking with us costs more than she realised. We were stood on the street looking for a place to go, I said why not this place behind us, as I turned round, I saw a familiar face.
“Mandy?”. Now I went to 6th Form with Mandy, and hadn't seen her in about 10 years, despite her living in london, we only got back in touch about 6 months ago thanks to Facebook, and never managed to get our acts togther and meet up. at one point she was in Camden and I was in Belsize park (about 2 tube stops, which would have taken about 5 minutes), but due to a hangover I couldn't make it. So that made it weird that we would meet up in Bangkok. i knew she was traveling around SE Asia, but had no idea she would be in Bangkok. we chatted about back home and the good old school days, and both decided that life was a lot better these days and that school wasn't actually very good.
The bar closed and it was time for the gig. Natalie made some sort of excuse that she was tired and went to bed, mandy and her boyfriend went for somee food and never came back, and god knows where Matt went. Nicky had gone home an hour or so before, so the only people there for the gig were, the band. Still we played on anyway. We rattled out a couple of numbers and got some attention from passing people, but not enough so we moved up the road to outside the 7-11. The 'man' didn't like our brand of youthful pop rock, and felt threatened and moved us down the street, it was just like what they did to Jim man! we tried to play in a bar but got told if they had music then the police would know they were serving after hours. The police station was about 50 yards away, and it was an open ended bar with about 100 people milling around, but the guitar would have given it away apparently.
deflated we called it a night. The band was no more. But it had been fun while it lasted. I hung up my bongo playing hat, and turned my back on music. As Les McQueen said; It's a shit business.
KAYAKING (OR GETTING DUMPED OUT OF A BOAT AT THE FIRST SIGN OF A RAPID)
Felt good. Thank god (which i did do), got into the pick up truck and headed off to the start point.
We would be in the truck with all our stuff for about an hour and a half, then we would kayak until about 1pm, have lunch then kayak for another hour and then the truck would pick us up and drive us to Vietaine, which would take about 2 hours.
“Has everyone done this before?”, I nodded. Why do I insist on lying when it's clearly not in my best interests? It's like at school when I was sat in Physics and my teacher would say “Do you understand?”, of course I didn't, it was physics, but I just smiled and nodded. Which is probably why I didn't do very well in my GCSEs. A smile and a nod can only get you so far.
Back to the travels; Matt and I got in one kayak and the rest paired up, Tammy and Nicky, Or and the Nanny, and team Holland. They were quite good about my mickey taking of the dutch, and at points Joey would peel off some of his burnt skin and say in his best Goldmember accent “That's a keeper”. Top lads. Toite lads.
“This was easy”, I thought, our kayak was steaming ahead of everyone else, we stopped for the first rapid so our instructor could repeat the instructions. I didn't like the way he said “when your boat turn over”, When? not 'if'? Anyway the tour operator said it was 'easy' rapids, and I'd kayaked on Bala lake before so there was no real danger.
As I surfaced spitting water out of my mouth, trying desperately to hold on to the boat and the paddle whilst trying to flip it back up, I thought 'easy rapids' my arse. We managed to clamber back on and paddle our way out of the whirlpool, I have no idea why but everyone seemed to find it very amusing.
Still it was only the first one, and a couple of other people had gone in as well, so I think this was probably the most difficult one. Matt advised me to keep paddling no matter what as it helped keep you balanced. OK, no problem. The second rapid approached.
well at least I'm getting good practice at getting out of the water. This was impossible! we got back on the boat again, but got caught in a currant and could only go back to the raid, magic, we managed it, but it sapped the energy out of my arms, not that there was much energy there after a Laos breakfast of fried bread and sticky rice. Matt changed with one of the instructors to have a go in a single kayak, which seemed a lot easier to maneuver. The third rapid approached and we cleared it no problem. Must have been Matt holding me back, that Duke of Edinburgh certificate means nothing on the mean rivers of Laos.
As we stopped for lunch, I asked Jesse if he could play “dueling Banjo's” on his guitar, he'd not seen Deliverance, neither had anyone else I think, so the joke went over everyone's head, which is what the water had been doing to me most of the morning.
After lunch I got in the single Kayak, far easier, I thought. However there were no more rapids to negotiate so I'll never really know.
We were sat in the back of the pick up for about 2 hours on the drive back to Vietaine. Matt, Jesse, Joey, Nicky and I would be crossing the boarder back to Thailand, Tammy, Or and the nanny would be leaving us. And such is life a travel group breaks up once again. we say our goodbyes, and they are gone. But as with everyone else I've met whilst being away, you don't lose a friend, you gain a facebook contact.
The boarder crossing went really smoothly, got a taxi from a guest house, crossed the boarder, no one tried to scam us, or sell us anything, just a couple of stamps and we were away. we got on a bus that took us across the friendship bridge, Laos and Thailand are separated by a river), and we got stamped into Thailand.
We went to the train station to try and buy the tickets for the over night train tomorrow but it was closed, we consulted the bible (lonely planet) about accomodation and found a nice cheap, clean place that was 180 bt for a twin room. So it was about £1.50 each.
we had dinner by the river front and spent most of the night watching a huge lizard trying to stalk a huge butterfly. (the butterfly got away in the end).
I felt like going out and having a proper night, but the day of kayaking, and an early start, coupled with the fact it was sunday and nothing was open, meant we were back in bed by 11pm. Tomorrow would see another day of traveling, and another train.
I'M ON A NIGHT TRAIN!
Jesse had managed to buy guitar strings before I got out of bed, so the band could live again. “Rob and the Musicians” were about to embark on the Thailand leg of their SE Asia tour, we'd already rocked Laos, and now it was time to play Bangkok.
We minced around town for a bit, the train wasn't until 1830 so we had loads of time to see the sights of Non Khai, there isn't much to see, but it was a nice quiet town, with very few western faces.
There was a sculpture park which was great, I was particularly impressed with the 20 foot tall 7 headed serpent. Beats the socks off the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (sorry Susan). It was an extra 10 baht for foreigners, I tried to argue that I was a local, but fell at the first hurdle when she started speaking to me in Thai. Nothing gets past these lot.
For some unknown reason when we were walking around the market later that afternoon, Joey decided to buy an electric keyboard. Well it was another piece to the band, the only problem was that he couldn't play it, I could barely sing so we were on a fairly even keel I thought. The market was nice, quite big and lots to see and buy, it was nice to haggle again after being in Laos, I was never sure if you were supposed to haggle in Laos, so I just avoided buying anything. That was the safest way of avoiding embarrassment and saving money.
We stocked up on crisps and drinks for the train journey. We were leaving at about 6.30pm, and would arrive in Bangkok at 6.30am, I was hoping that the train would be delayed so we'd get a bit of a lie in, knowing transport in this part of the world, it wasn't out of the question.
We all had second class sleeper bunks, which were nice enough, top bunks, with a fan. We broke out all our loose currency from Cambodia, Laos and Thailand and had a game of Poker, Nicky started winning, until I pulled it back, and was chip leader until we had to stop in case the police came on and stopped us. I didn't know Sting was so against poker. The guitar came out and we had a bit of a sing song, couldn't hear the guitar because the noise of the train, so that didn't last very long. I wandered into the buffet car for a drink or two with Jesse and Nicky (who had attracted the attention of a really drunk bloke from Nottingham, who was traveling with his beautiful Thai girlfriend). after Jesse and Nicky went to bed, I joined in the conversation with an American bloke called Nat, and a canadian called Brian. Brian had lived in Bangkok for the past 17 years or so, he was 53 with a 24 year old girlfriend, who he'd been with for 6 years. Not making any judgments, just throwing it out there. The conversation started to move onto sex tourism and I decided that it was probably time to call it a night. I climbed up to my bunk, pulled the curtain across and tried to sleep. The train was really bumpy, I was too concerned about falling out to sleep, that combined with my sunburn hurting every time I rolled over, meant that I probably got about 2 hours sleep. And the train was early getting into Bangkok. Typical.
We would be in the truck with all our stuff for about an hour and a half, then we would kayak until about 1pm, have lunch then kayak for another hour and then the truck would pick us up and drive us to Vietaine, which would take about 2 hours.
“Has everyone done this before?”, I nodded. Why do I insist on lying when it's clearly not in my best interests? It's like at school when I was sat in Physics and my teacher would say “Do you understand?”, of course I didn't, it was physics, but I just smiled and nodded. Which is probably why I didn't do very well in my GCSEs. A smile and a nod can only get you so far.
Back to the travels; Matt and I got in one kayak and the rest paired up, Tammy and Nicky, Or and the Nanny, and team Holland. They were quite good about my mickey taking of the dutch, and at points Joey would peel off some of his burnt skin and say in his best Goldmember accent “That's a keeper”. Top lads. Toite lads.
“This was easy”, I thought, our kayak was steaming ahead of everyone else, we stopped for the first rapid so our instructor could repeat the instructions. I didn't like the way he said “when your boat turn over”, When? not 'if'? Anyway the tour operator said it was 'easy' rapids, and I'd kayaked on Bala lake before so there was no real danger.
As I surfaced spitting water out of my mouth, trying desperately to hold on to the boat and the paddle whilst trying to flip it back up, I thought 'easy rapids' my arse. We managed to clamber back on and paddle our way out of the whirlpool, I have no idea why but everyone seemed to find it very amusing.
Still it was only the first one, and a couple of other people had gone in as well, so I think this was probably the most difficult one. Matt advised me to keep paddling no matter what as it helped keep you balanced. OK, no problem. The second rapid approached.
well at least I'm getting good practice at getting out of the water. This was impossible! we got back on the boat again, but got caught in a currant and could only go back to the raid, magic, we managed it, but it sapped the energy out of my arms, not that there was much energy there after a Laos breakfast of fried bread and sticky rice. Matt changed with one of the instructors to have a go in a single kayak, which seemed a lot easier to maneuver. The third rapid approached and we cleared it no problem. Must have been Matt holding me back, that Duke of Edinburgh certificate means nothing on the mean rivers of Laos.
As we stopped for lunch, I asked Jesse if he could play “dueling Banjo's” on his guitar, he'd not seen Deliverance, neither had anyone else I think, so the joke went over everyone's head, which is what the water had been doing to me most of the morning.
After lunch I got in the single Kayak, far easier, I thought. However there were no more rapids to negotiate so I'll never really know.
We were sat in the back of the pick up for about 2 hours on the drive back to Vietaine. Matt, Jesse, Joey, Nicky and I would be crossing the boarder back to Thailand, Tammy, Or and the nanny would be leaving us. And such is life a travel group breaks up once again. we say our goodbyes, and they are gone. But as with everyone else I've met whilst being away, you don't lose a friend, you gain a facebook contact.
The boarder crossing went really smoothly, got a taxi from a guest house, crossed the boarder, no one tried to scam us, or sell us anything, just a couple of stamps and we were away. we got on a bus that took us across the friendship bridge, Laos and Thailand are separated by a river), and we got stamped into Thailand.
We went to the train station to try and buy the tickets for the over night train tomorrow but it was closed, we consulted the bible (lonely planet) about accomodation and found a nice cheap, clean place that was 180 bt for a twin room. So it was about £1.50 each.
we had dinner by the river front and spent most of the night watching a huge lizard trying to stalk a huge butterfly. (the butterfly got away in the end).
I felt like going out and having a proper night, but the day of kayaking, and an early start, coupled with the fact it was sunday and nothing was open, meant we were back in bed by 11pm. Tomorrow would see another day of traveling, and another train.
I'M ON A NIGHT TRAIN!
Jesse had managed to buy guitar strings before I got out of bed, so the band could live again. “Rob and the Musicians” were about to embark on the Thailand leg of their SE Asia tour, we'd already rocked Laos, and now it was time to play Bangkok.
We minced around town for a bit, the train wasn't until 1830 so we had loads of time to see the sights of Non Khai, there isn't much to see, but it was a nice quiet town, with very few western faces.
There was a sculpture park which was great, I was particularly impressed with the 20 foot tall 7 headed serpent. Beats the socks off the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (sorry Susan). It was an extra 10 baht for foreigners, I tried to argue that I was a local, but fell at the first hurdle when she started speaking to me in Thai. Nothing gets past these lot.
For some unknown reason when we were walking around the market later that afternoon, Joey decided to buy an electric keyboard. Well it was another piece to the band, the only problem was that he couldn't play it, I could barely sing so we were on a fairly even keel I thought. The market was nice, quite big and lots to see and buy, it was nice to haggle again after being in Laos, I was never sure if you were supposed to haggle in Laos, so I just avoided buying anything. That was the safest way of avoiding embarrassment and saving money.
We stocked up on crisps and drinks for the train journey. We were leaving at about 6.30pm, and would arrive in Bangkok at 6.30am, I was hoping that the train would be delayed so we'd get a bit of a lie in, knowing transport in this part of the world, it wasn't out of the question.
We all had second class sleeper bunks, which were nice enough, top bunks, with a fan. We broke out all our loose currency from Cambodia, Laos and Thailand and had a game of Poker, Nicky started winning, until I pulled it back, and was chip leader until we had to stop in case the police came on and stopped us. I didn't know Sting was so against poker. The guitar came out and we had a bit of a sing song, couldn't hear the guitar because the noise of the train, so that didn't last very long. I wandered into the buffet car for a drink or two with Jesse and Nicky (who had attracted the attention of a really drunk bloke from Nottingham, who was traveling with his beautiful Thai girlfriend). after Jesse and Nicky went to bed, I joined in the conversation with an American bloke called Nat, and a canadian called Brian. Brian had lived in Bangkok for the past 17 years or so, he was 53 with a 24 year old girlfriend, who he'd been with for 6 years. Not making any judgments, just throwing it out there. The conversation started to move onto sex tourism and I decided that it was probably time to call it a night. I climbed up to my bunk, pulled the curtain across and tried to sleep. The train was really bumpy, I was too concerned about falling out to sleep, that combined with my sunburn hurting every time I rolled over, meant that I probably got about 2 hours sleep. And the train was early getting into Bangkok. Typical.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
LAZY DAY
We did absolutely nothing. Had lunch togther and decided that we would all stick together as a group and do a kayaking trip back down to Vietaine, it cost about 4 times more than the bus but would be worth it.
Went to the market, which was shutting up as we got there, then it started to rain. Heavily. The lightning was really bad and blacked out the power in the whole town. Knowing how laid back they all were here there was no chance the power would come back on before tomorrow. Having said that, no Friends! every cloud....
We headed out for a drink I started to feel quite sick again, it got really bad and I went home at about 6pm for a bit of a lay down. If i didn't feel any better by the morning there was no way I would go Kayaking tomorrow.
I got up at about 9pm, still feeling a bit dodgy, but if I didn't make it out tomorrow I woudn't see Tammy or Or again, as they were heading to Vietnam and southern Laos, (the dutch lads would be coming with us back to Bangkok). I took my torch (the electric still wasn't back on), and went looking for them. I saw them, they were all drunk and i was the only sober one. Nothing worse than that.
Matt, Jesse Joey and me ended up in a bar about an hour later, the night had taken it's toll on them and they moved onto water, I had been on sprite all night and was feeling superior and smug. Nothing better than that!
Jesse and Joey went home, Matt and I sat and talked to an English couple, about back home, traveling and whatever else we could think about. It was raining quite heavily and so I didn't fancy the walk back to the guest house just yet.
I was feeling loads better by the time I had got back into bed, if I could get through the night without feeling bad then I would probably make it Kayaking, which was good as I was looking forward to it.
Went to the market, which was shutting up as we got there, then it started to rain. Heavily. The lightning was really bad and blacked out the power in the whole town. Knowing how laid back they all were here there was no chance the power would come back on before tomorrow. Having said that, no Friends! every cloud....
We headed out for a drink I started to feel quite sick again, it got really bad and I went home at about 6pm for a bit of a lay down. If i didn't feel any better by the morning there was no way I would go Kayaking tomorrow.
I got up at about 9pm, still feeling a bit dodgy, but if I didn't make it out tomorrow I woudn't see Tammy or Or again, as they were heading to Vietnam and southern Laos, (the dutch lads would be coming with us back to Bangkok). I took my torch (the electric still wasn't back on), and went looking for them. I saw them, they were all drunk and i was the only sober one. Nothing worse than that.
Matt, Jesse Joey and me ended up in a bar about an hour later, the night had taken it's toll on them and they moved onto water, I had been on sprite all night and was feeling superior and smug. Nothing better than that!
Jesse and Joey went home, Matt and I sat and talked to an English couple, about back home, traveling and whatever else we could think about. It was raining quite heavily and so I didn't fancy the walk back to the guest house just yet.
I was feeling loads better by the time I had got back into bed, if I could get through the night without feeling bad then I would probably make it Kayaking, which was good as I was looking forward to it.
TUBING TAKE 2
The last thing you need to see when you wake up is two freakishly tall dutchmen with silly hair and a girl from New Orleans jumping on your bed because it's the 4th of July, when you're hungover.
Breakfast under the watchful gaze of a Steven Gerrard poster made me feel a bit better, although I could have done with a couple more hours sleep, but nonetheless we all went tubing again.
The first couple of bars passed with soft drink for me, I wasn't really in the mood for drinking just yet. we floated down to where we had all first met, I had a lay down and was promptly attacked by Whiskey the nippy little puppy that belonged to the bar. Not as bad as Fernando though.
We went back to the mud bar, didn't fancy getting covered in clay, so made a discreet side entrance, and headed straight for the football pitch, if there was anything that was going to give me some energy it was football. The pitch was empty so i started to kick the ball around on my own. I was quickly joined by 2 local Lao lads, it was nice to interact with them without they were trying to scam me.
Matt, Jesse and Joey joined in and we had a 3 a side game for a bit. Matt and Jesse dropped out and within about 30 minutes we had a 15 a side game going on. everyone just chasing the ball, everyone covered in mud. Fun while it lasted, but then a few tasty tackles went in and I didn't fancy a second stint in hospital, and fancied even less the thought of being carried off the river with a broken ankle.
I found Jesse, Matt, tammy and Nicky. But no Or. Oh no not again, I thought, but was pleasantly surprised to find that he'd pulled. Good lad! He then spent the rest of the day with his squeeze, an 26 year old divorced London Nanny from Halifax (I'm sure she was just what Or's jewish Israeli parents had in mind for a prospective daughter in law).
I was standing at the mud bar with a beer in hand when a girl came up to me and said “you're from Crewe aren't you?”. ok. So, this was possibly the last thing I expected to hear in Laos, and I didn't recognise this girl from school, so I was a bit puzzled as to how she knew this. “We met you in Bangkok, we were sttood on the street singing songs about manchester and you started swearing at us”, sounds like something I would do. Then I remembered on my first night two drunk girls singing, “Oh Manchester is wonderful” so I responded with the only version i knew. How on earth she remembered me from that 30 second encounter I'll never know. We had a brief chat, they're the only chats you can have with someone you met on the street over 2 weeks ago. So in the past 3 days I'd met 3 people that I'd met along my travels. How cool. I wonder who was next (again I'm writing retrospectively so i know who was next, and it was a fairly big one!)
We stayed on the river a bit too long and ended up floating back in the dark. Not a nice experience, but still quite fun. We got back to the guest house at 9 and arranged to meet at 10 to carry on the Independence Day festivities. I got out of the shower and fell asleep, but managed to wake before the dutchies came round. Matt was still sound asleep when they got here and we had to drag him out of bed.
Tammy hadn't made it, typical, the 4th of July and the only American in the group was asleep. We had dinner, and all felt terrible. An early night was called and we shuffled back to bed. “Wooooooo! 4th of July baby, woooooooo!”. Or words to that effect.
Breakfast under the watchful gaze of a Steven Gerrard poster made me feel a bit better, although I could have done with a couple more hours sleep, but nonetheless we all went tubing again.
The first couple of bars passed with soft drink for me, I wasn't really in the mood for drinking just yet. we floated down to where we had all first met, I had a lay down and was promptly attacked by Whiskey the nippy little puppy that belonged to the bar. Not as bad as Fernando though.
We went back to the mud bar, didn't fancy getting covered in clay, so made a discreet side entrance, and headed straight for the football pitch, if there was anything that was going to give me some energy it was football. The pitch was empty so i started to kick the ball around on my own. I was quickly joined by 2 local Lao lads, it was nice to interact with them without they were trying to scam me.
Matt, Jesse and Joey joined in and we had a 3 a side game for a bit. Matt and Jesse dropped out and within about 30 minutes we had a 15 a side game going on. everyone just chasing the ball, everyone covered in mud. Fun while it lasted, but then a few tasty tackles went in and I didn't fancy a second stint in hospital, and fancied even less the thought of being carried off the river with a broken ankle.
I found Jesse, Matt, tammy and Nicky. But no Or. Oh no not again, I thought, but was pleasantly surprised to find that he'd pulled. Good lad! He then spent the rest of the day with his squeeze, an 26 year old divorced London Nanny from Halifax (I'm sure she was just what Or's jewish Israeli parents had in mind for a prospective daughter in law).
I was standing at the mud bar with a beer in hand when a girl came up to me and said “you're from Crewe aren't you?”. ok. So, this was possibly the last thing I expected to hear in Laos, and I didn't recognise this girl from school, so I was a bit puzzled as to how she knew this. “We met you in Bangkok, we were sttood on the street singing songs about manchester and you started swearing at us”, sounds like something I would do. Then I remembered on my first night two drunk girls singing, “Oh Manchester is wonderful” so I responded with the only version i knew. How on earth she remembered me from that 30 second encounter I'll never know. We had a brief chat, they're the only chats you can have with someone you met on the street over 2 weeks ago. So in the past 3 days I'd met 3 people that I'd met along my travels. How cool. I wonder who was next (again I'm writing retrospectively so i know who was next, and it was a fairly big one!)
We stayed on the river a bit too long and ended up floating back in the dark. Not a nice experience, but still quite fun. We got back to the guest house at 9 and arranged to meet at 10 to carry on the Independence Day festivities. I got out of the shower and fell asleep, but managed to wake before the dutchies came round. Matt was still sound asleep when they got here and we had to drag him out of bed.
Tammy hadn't made it, typical, the 4th of July and the only American in the group was asleep. We had dinner, and all felt terrible. An early night was called and we shuffled back to bed. “Wooooooo! 4th of July baby, woooooooo!”. Or words to that effect.
THE VERY DARK CAVES
The last thing you want to see when you wake up is two freakishly tall dutchmen with silly hair, but alas that's what I had to deal with this morning.
Or was sitting downstairs, looking pretty sheepish, I wasn't sure if he'd even remember me, but he said he remembered talking to me about TV, and then I was talking to him when he was unconcious. He thanked me, and I said, “don't worry about it, anytime”, and quickly retracted the second part of the statement.
The 7 of us went to see some caves. The Lonely Planet suggested a trio of caves (sadly there was no chocolate or toffee to be had), so off we went completely aware that we would end up paying over the odds for whatever they had in store.
we got a tuk tuk to the river, where we had to cross. The two men in the boat were trying to charge us 10,000 kip each both ways. we refused, so they left. Shit. we were stranded at the side of a river, a good 20 minute drive from town, of course we were gong to pay, knew it and so did they. it and so did they. After we stood there looking like idiots for a few minutes, they came back and we managed to renegotiate a price of about 15,000 kip return. saving ourselves about 25p each. Might not seem like a lot, but the locals pay a fraction of what we do, but I suppose we can afford it.
The first cave was a joke, it was just a big entrance with a budda inside. It was about 10 feet deep and about 10 feet tall. Not much of a cave, more of a large bus shelter.
The second one was great, we'd acquired a guide from somewhere, and he took us across the rice fields to the underwater cave. we jumped into rubber rings and headed in. The bit where you enter the cave is about 4 inches about the water, so it required a bit of swimming, and the currant was quite strong, there was a rope that you could hold on to and pull yourself along. it was supposed to be about 200 metres long, but after about 15 metres the rope ran out and the guide said we had to turn back as the water levels were too high and we wouldn't be able to go any further. a bit of a disappointment. On the way out of the cave, I forgot to grab the rope and got swept away, I managed to get to a small island and hold on before i got washed away. The guide helped me back, which was good of him. As we sat on the dock part, drying off we lamented the fact that we didn't go further, then Tammy rightly pointed out that there were 2 people ahead of us and they hadn't come back, so either they made it further, or they had drowned. Either way we were going back in! We got back to the point where the rope ended, the waters were really fast, and there wasn't much room for the rubber ring, so we managed to use the roof of the cave to pull ourselves along, until we got a still bit of water, up ahead we saw the rings of the two people in front. we past them as they were going out, so at least they hadn't drowned. We ditched our rings and must have walked, crawled, swam for another 100 metres, it was great fun, not very dangerous, but we were still in some pretty tight spaces. And all this without the guide!
It was getting on a bit so we skipped the 3rd cave, as we walked back we saw a monkey in a cage, no reason for it to be there, these were farmers, why would they have a monkey in a cage? Unless it had been caught stealing the rice and it was now in prison.
Still wet and a bit tired we made it back to town, the tuk tuk driver had waited for about 3 hours for us, which goes to show how much we had paid him if he could afford to waste the rest of the day.
We lounged in the room for a bit, and watched HBO (it was that or sit in a bar and watch Friends, and I'd seen Ross and Rachel split up about 200 times already), we hadn't arranged to meet up with the foreign team, but there were only a few bars to choose from so we were bound to bump into them, and we did. Tammy got some bad news from back home and went to bed early, we all stayed out drinking. I didn't feel like a late on as we were going tubing again tomorrow, as Or, Tammy and Jesse had missed out on half of it.
We headed back to the Cue Bar with guitars and instruments in hand. No one could be bothered with playing though, so we just sat around chatting and drinking. I was about to leave when my path was blocked by a large German guy and his swedish girlfriend. “Christian!”. This was the nice German bloke i had met in Siem Reap about 2 weeks ago. Us bumping into each other again was an obvious sign for us to have a drink together we thought. So we did, until about 4am and I forgot where I was staying, and wandered the streets until I found my guest house, in a town this small it doesn't take a lot of wandering.
Or was sitting downstairs, looking pretty sheepish, I wasn't sure if he'd even remember me, but he said he remembered talking to me about TV, and then I was talking to him when he was unconcious. He thanked me, and I said, “don't worry about it, anytime”, and quickly retracted the second part of the statement.
The 7 of us went to see some caves. The Lonely Planet suggested a trio of caves (sadly there was no chocolate or toffee to be had), so off we went completely aware that we would end up paying over the odds for whatever they had in store.
we got a tuk tuk to the river, where we had to cross. The two men in the boat were trying to charge us 10,000 kip each both ways. we refused, so they left. Shit. we were stranded at the side of a river, a good 20 minute drive from town, of course we were gong to pay, knew it and so did they. it and so did they. After we stood there looking like idiots for a few minutes, they came back and we managed to renegotiate a price of about 15,000 kip return. saving ourselves about 25p each. Might not seem like a lot, but the locals pay a fraction of what we do, but I suppose we can afford it.
The first cave was a joke, it was just a big entrance with a budda inside. It was about 10 feet deep and about 10 feet tall. Not much of a cave, more of a large bus shelter.
The second one was great, we'd acquired a guide from somewhere, and he took us across the rice fields to the underwater cave. we jumped into rubber rings and headed in. The bit where you enter the cave is about 4 inches about the water, so it required a bit of swimming, and the currant was quite strong, there was a rope that you could hold on to and pull yourself along. it was supposed to be about 200 metres long, but after about 15 metres the rope ran out and the guide said we had to turn back as the water levels were too high and we wouldn't be able to go any further. a bit of a disappointment. On the way out of the cave, I forgot to grab the rope and got swept away, I managed to get to a small island and hold on before i got washed away. The guide helped me back, which was good of him. As we sat on the dock part, drying off we lamented the fact that we didn't go further, then Tammy rightly pointed out that there were 2 people ahead of us and they hadn't come back, so either they made it further, or they had drowned. Either way we were going back in! We got back to the point where the rope ended, the waters were really fast, and there wasn't much room for the rubber ring, so we managed to use the roof of the cave to pull ourselves along, until we got a still bit of water, up ahead we saw the rings of the two people in front. we past them as they were going out, so at least they hadn't drowned. We ditched our rings and must have walked, crawled, swam for another 100 metres, it was great fun, not very dangerous, but we were still in some pretty tight spaces. And all this without the guide!
It was getting on a bit so we skipped the 3rd cave, as we walked back we saw a monkey in a cage, no reason for it to be there, these were farmers, why would they have a monkey in a cage? Unless it had been caught stealing the rice and it was now in prison.
Still wet and a bit tired we made it back to town, the tuk tuk driver had waited for about 3 hours for us, which goes to show how much we had paid him if he could afford to waste the rest of the day.
We lounged in the room for a bit, and watched HBO (it was that or sit in a bar and watch Friends, and I'd seen Ross and Rachel split up about 200 times already), we hadn't arranged to meet up with the foreign team, but there were only a few bars to choose from so we were bound to bump into them, and we did. Tammy got some bad news from back home and went to bed early, we all stayed out drinking. I didn't feel like a late on as we were going tubing again tomorrow, as Or, Tammy and Jesse had missed out on half of it.
We headed back to the Cue Bar with guitars and instruments in hand. No one could be bothered with playing though, so we just sat around chatting and drinking. I was about to leave when my path was blocked by a large German guy and his swedish girlfriend. “Christian!”. This was the nice German bloke i had met in Siem Reap about 2 weeks ago. Us bumping into each other again was an obvious sign for us to have a drink together we thought. So we did, until about 4am and I forgot where I was staying, and wandered the streets until I found my guest house, in a town this small it doesn't take a lot of wandering.
TUBING, AND THE FORMING OF THE BAND
What a fantastic day. Had breakfast, and headed down to the tubing place at about 1pm, to pick up the rubber rings and get the tuk tuk up to the top of the river. The river runs for about 2km, and at certain times of the year it takes up to and hour and a half to tube down to the end, there about 6 or 7 bars that throw you rings, or stick out long poles for you to grab and they pull you in. we hit the first bar after being in the water for about 25 seconds, wasn't really worth getting wet for.
The bars are great, most have got really big rope swings over the river, I saw quite a few people let go way before they should have done and smack face first into the water, which was greeted with sounds of “oooohh!!” from the assembled onlookers at the bar. At the time we started i was number 177, I think they get upwards of 700 people per day going down the river. It was a bit manic.
had my first beer in about 5 days, felt really good, but wasn't going to over do it. Matt and I had a couple of goes on the swing, I perfectly executed a “landing on my head” maneuver (of which there is a video), and Matt performed possibly the best bombs I had ever seen.
We floated down to a couple of more bars, ended up on a small veranda type wooden shed just relaxing. The bar was playing the Arctic Monkeys, and all the other places were playing some really bad dance mixes of really bad songs, so we decided to stay there for a while. we were joined by what was to become my next traveling group. An American girl called Tammy, 2 dutch lads Jesse and Joey, and an Israeli guy called Or. All really sound people, and not the typical Vang Vieng crowd, so that was fine. everyone was quite drunk, and we were all getting along really well, then the bar starts to play Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis. Jesse pipes up “I love this song, I can play it on my guitar”. I fire a look at him, “Do you have your guitar with you?” I ask. “Yes”, he says, “it's back in my room”. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a band. buoyed by the excitement of this new musical union we head down to the “Mud Bar”.
I'm not sure if this was it's proper name, but it seemed to fit as everyone gets covered in this clay mud that they bring out in wheel barrows. when people get out of the water there is a small army of people wait to smeer big handfuls of the stuff over you. It is, in essence, an excuse for boys to feel up girls, and to a lesser extent vice versa. There was a volley ball court and a small football pitch, I was too busy being drunk and dancing to play football, so I just clowned around with the rest of the revellers, everyone was having a great time.
I spotted Tammy in the group of dancers (it wasn't hard, she's covered in piercings and tatoos, and has dreadlocks. “My friend Or is in a bit of trouble” she said. Instant sobriety ensued. Or was sat on a bench, practically unconscious, he would later claim that he had taken a drink from someone and it might have been spiked, a scary thought, but as Matt said later, “it's always you're 8th or 9th drink that gets spiked isn't it?”. anyway the travelers spirit kicked in, and although we'd only known Or for about 30 minutes evryone banded together to help him out. we took turns sitting with him, trying to get him to drink some water, and trying to get him to come around. Time was dragging on, and the tubes had to be back at the place by 6 or you get fined, it was about 5.30 and we'd spent about 20 minutes on the river, there was no way we'd be back in time. Me and Matt carried Or to a place where you can get a boat across the river, and up onto a bank that led to a car park, from there you could get a tuk tuk back into town. If this wasn't there I don't know what we would have done, there was no way he could tube back. Tammy and Jesse went with Or back to the guest house, leaving Matt, Nicky, Joey and me to tube back. we would have to return the other 3 people's tubes as well or they would be fined $7. It took about 45 minutes to float back.
as the river winds towards the end, you turn a corner and behind you there is the huge mountain that was always to your right hand side, but now it towered over you, and is really impressive. As the river runs at different speeds you tend to spend a lot of time on your own during that stretch, unless of course you hold onto each other's rafts. So as I floated backwards on my own looking up at the landscape, I started to wonder how on earth I got here. This is so far away from my life back home, and if recent events hadn't of panned out the way they had, then I don't know if I would have done this. I guess in a strange kind of way I owe someone a thank you.
We arrived back at the tube collection place just as it was getting dark, lost 20,000 from our 100,000 kip deposit (under £2), so no great shakes. And arranged to meet up with the dutchies and Tammy later (I didn't think Or would be making it out tonight).
We went out, had a few drinks, and a good time. It felt like ages since I'd been part of a group, and it was nice to get back to that. We broke out the guitars, and quickly discovered that possibly the only song we all knew was Don't Look Back in Anger, but we attempted others with varying degrees of success.
As we walked between bars I bumped in to a lad I'd met in Bangkok, Joe and his girlfriend Marney. He had played pool with us for a few hours and then had a barney with his girlfriend, and left. Strange night, but they were supposed to fly to australia the next day, they had got to the airport and realised that they wanted to spend more time in Asia and stayed. so bumping into them both was a bit unexpected. so they joined the merry band and we went to the only open bar, the Cue Bar, to play some more tunes and drink some more beer Lao.
A grand day out.
The bars are great, most have got really big rope swings over the river, I saw quite a few people let go way before they should have done and smack face first into the water, which was greeted with sounds of “oooohh!!” from the assembled onlookers at the bar. At the time we started i was number 177, I think they get upwards of 700 people per day going down the river. It was a bit manic.
had my first beer in about 5 days, felt really good, but wasn't going to over do it. Matt and I had a couple of goes on the swing, I perfectly executed a “landing on my head” maneuver (of which there is a video), and Matt performed possibly the best bombs I had ever seen.
We floated down to a couple of more bars, ended up on a small veranda type wooden shed just relaxing. The bar was playing the Arctic Monkeys, and all the other places were playing some really bad dance mixes of really bad songs, so we decided to stay there for a while. we were joined by what was to become my next traveling group. An American girl called Tammy, 2 dutch lads Jesse and Joey, and an Israeli guy called Or. All really sound people, and not the typical Vang Vieng crowd, so that was fine. everyone was quite drunk, and we were all getting along really well, then the bar starts to play Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis. Jesse pipes up “I love this song, I can play it on my guitar”. I fire a look at him, “Do you have your guitar with you?” I ask. “Yes”, he says, “it's back in my room”. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a band. buoyed by the excitement of this new musical union we head down to the “Mud Bar”.
I'm not sure if this was it's proper name, but it seemed to fit as everyone gets covered in this clay mud that they bring out in wheel barrows. when people get out of the water there is a small army of people wait to smeer big handfuls of the stuff over you. It is, in essence, an excuse for boys to feel up girls, and to a lesser extent vice versa. There was a volley ball court and a small football pitch, I was too busy being drunk and dancing to play football, so I just clowned around with the rest of the revellers, everyone was having a great time.
I spotted Tammy in the group of dancers (it wasn't hard, she's covered in piercings and tatoos, and has dreadlocks. “My friend Or is in a bit of trouble” she said. Instant sobriety ensued. Or was sat on a bench, practically unconscious, he would later claim that he had taken a drink from someone and it might have been spiked, a scary thought, but as Matt said later, “it's always you're 8th or 9th drink that gets spiked isn't it?”. anyway the travelers spirit kicked in, and although we'd only known Or for about 30 minutes evryone banded together to help him out. we took turns sitting with him, trying to get him to drink some water, and trying to get him to come around. Time was dragging on, and the tubes had to be back at the place by 6 or you get fined, it was about 5.30 and we'd spent about 20 minutes on the river, there was no way we'd be back in time. Me and Matt carried Or to a place where you can get a boat across the river, and up onto a bank that led to a car park, from there you could get a tuk tuk back into town. If this wasn't there I don't know what we would have done, there was no way he could tube back. Tammy and Jesse went with Or back to the guest house, leaving Matt, Nicky, Joey and me to tube back. we would have to return the other 3 people's tubes as well or they would be fined $7. It took about 45 minutes to float back.
as the river winds towards the end, you turn a corner and behind you there is the huge mountain that was always to your right hand side, but now it towered over you, and is really impressive. As the river runs at different speeds you tend to spend a lot of time on your own during that stretch, unless of course you hold onto each other's rafts. So as I floated backwards on my own looking up at the landscape, I started to wonder how on earth I got here. This is so far away from my life back home, and if recent events hadn't of panned out the way they had, then I don't know if I would have done this. I guess in a strange kind of way I owe someone a thank you.
We arrived back at the tube collection place just as it was getting dark, lost 20,000 from our 100,000 kip deposit (under £2), so no great shakes. And arranged to meet up with the dutchies and Tammy later (I didn't think Or would be making it out tonight).
We went out, had a few drinks, and a good time. It felt like ages since I'd been part of a group, and it was nice to get back to that. We broke out the guitars, and quickly discovered that possibly the only song we all knew was Don't Look Back in Anger, but we attempted others with varying degrees of success.
As we walked between bars I bumped in to a lad I'd met in Bangkok, Joe and his girlfriend Marney. He had played pool with us for a few hours and then had a barney with his girlfriend, and left. Strange night, but they were supposed to fly to australia the next day, they had got to the airport and realised that they wanted to spend more time in Asia and stayed. so bumping into them both was a bit unexpected. so they joined the merry band and we went to the only open bar, the Cue Bar, to play some more tunes and drink some more beer Lao.
A grand day out.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
YOU'RE FIT, BUT MY GOSH DON'T YOU KNOW IT
I really enjoyed this bus trip, it was only 4 hours long, and we got to sit at the back, so had a seat either side of us free. The road was long and winding, the scenery is stunning, Laos is such a beautiful country. I just sat at the back and listened to my ipod and watched the world go past the window. I could have sat on that bus for hours.
We arrived in Vang Vieng, such a strange little town. Built purely for the tourists, nothing cultural about this place at all! it's set out in like a grid, with bars and restaurants and guest houses making up about 90% of the businesses, there were some shops, and the occasional tour operator, but mainly just places to go and get drunk. Which is just what I wanted when you're on anti biotics.
I wondered what there was to this town before the tourism boom hit Laos, I bet there was maybe a mud track and a few houses, with fishermen and farmers making up the locals.
There was quite a lot to do here, the tubing I will get to later, there were caves to explore, you could go on a elephant ride, kayaking, swimming in crystal clear waters and waterfalls. we arranged the tubing for the next day, as i would be off the drugs by then and ready to start drinking again.
We had a bit of a walk around town, where ever you go, there's always this huge mountain looming over you, it's quite spectacular. We stopped off at a bar/restaurant for something to eat, I'd been warned off spicy food by the quacks in Cambodia so I was strictly on western food, not that I had much of an apatite anyway. All the bars in Vang Vieng have TVs and DVD players, and for some reason all bar two of them are showing a season of Friends, it's quite bizarre, what's more bizarre is the amount of people who sit around in there all day and watch episodes of a 10 year old mediocre sit com.
and now on to the people who frequent this town; As i've been traveling, and most other people will testify to this I think, one of the main principles that you live by is that at no point will you look your best. You're clothes will be dirty, and you maybe have gone a few days without washing your hair, and maybe haven't showered that day, everybody does it, and it's fine. Not here. It's like a get together from a Gap advert, horrendous. Everyone is about 19, with highlighted hair and immaculately tanned, and that's just the boys. Not my kind of place at all. Never has a Streets song seemed more appropriate. I spent about an hour in the internet Café chatting on Skype, and then went to bed, tomorrow was going to be really good fun, and I wanted to be on good form.
We arrived in Vang Vieng, such a strange little town. Built purely for the tourists, nothing cultural about this place at all! it's set out in like a grid, with bars and restaurants and guest houses making up about 90% of the businesses, there were some shops, and the occasional tour operator, but mainly just places to go and get drunk. Which is just what I wanted when you're on anti biotics.
I wondered what there was to this town before the tourism boom hit Laos, I bet there was maybe a mud track and a few houses, with fishermen and farmers making up the locals.
There was quite a lot to do here, the tubing I will get to later, there were caves to explore, you could go on a elephant ride, kayaking, swimming in crystal clear waters and waterfalls. we arranged the tubing for the next day, as i would be off the drugs by then and ready to start drinking again.
We had a bit of a walk around town, where ever you go, there's always this huge mountain looming over you, it's quite spectacular. We stopped off at a bar/restaurant for something to eat, I'd been warned off spicy food by the quacks in Cambodia so I was strictly on western food, not that I had much of an apatite anyway. All the bars in Vang Vieng have TVs and DVD players, and for some reason all bar two of them are showing a season of Friends, it's quite bizarre, what's more bizarre is the amount of people who sit around in there all day and watch episodes of a 10 year old mediocre sit com.
and now on to the people who frequent this town; As i've been traveling, and most other people will testify to this I think, one of the main principles that you live by is that at no point will you look your best. You're clothes will be dirty, and you maybe have gone a few days without washing your hair, and maybe haven't showered that day, everybody does it, and it's fine. Not here. It's like a get together from a Gap advert, horrendous. Everyone is about 19, with highlighted hair and immaculately tanned, and that's just the boys. Not my kind of place at all. Never has a Streets song seemed more appropriate. I spent about an hour in the internet Café chatting on Skype, and then went to bed, tomorrow was going to be really good fun, and I wanted to be on good form.
NIKKI ARRIVES
Matt had met a girl on this travel buddy website called Nikki. He'd met up with her a couple of times in London, and she was joining us today to travel in Laos with us, which was great as we needed a bit of a pick up, and with an extra person comes more things to talk about.
She arrived at about 2pm after being stuck between the borders of Laos and Thailand with no money, no one took cards and she couldn't cross into Laos without paying for her visa.
I was half way through my course of pills now, which gave me a good feeling, I sat in the internet cafe thinking about what to do next and started watching videos about tubing in Vang Vieng. Tubing was the main reason we'd come to Laos, and we were always going to go there, but watching those videos reignited my passion for it. I felt much better. we booked our bus tickets to take us to Vang Vieng the next morning. I was entrusted to look after the tickets, somehow I had become the responsible one, I guess traveling was changing me more than I realised.
Vietaine is nice, there's just nothing to do there, we walked around the town for a while, saw the Victory Monument (it's a monument to celebrate the independence gained from France, like beating the french is anything to shout about), we tried to go to the night market, but the tuk tuk driver didn't have a clue and just drove round until he saw a supermarket. We got off and paid him about $2 which wasn't bad considering he hadn't actually taken us where we wanted to go. He wasn't happy though and followed us for about 10 minutes until we gave him the slip.
we went to a jazz bar, Matt when home early and Nikki and I stayed for a few more drinks, cokes obviously.
She arrived at about 2pm after being stuck between the borders of Laos and Thailand with no money, no one took cards and she couldn't cross into Laos without paying for her visa.
I was half way through my course of pills now, which gave me a good feeling, I sat in the internet cafe thinking about what to do next and started watching videos about tubing in Vang Vieng. Tubing was the main reason we'd come to Laos, and we were always going to go there, but watching those videos reignited my passion for it. I felt much better. we booked our bus tickets to take us to Vang Vieng the next morning. I was entrusted to look after the tickets, somehow I had become the responsible one, I guess traveling was changing me more than I realised.
Vietaine is nice, there's just nothing to do there, we walked around the town for a while, saw the Victory Monument (it's a monument to celebrate the independence gained from France, like beating the french is anything to shout about), we tried to go to the night market, but the tuk tuk driver didn't have a clue and just drove round until he saw a supermarket. We got off and paid him about $2 which wasn't bad considering he hadn't actually taken us where we wanted to go. He wasn't happy though and followed us for about 10 minutes until we gave him the slip.
we went to a jazz bar, Matt when home early and Nikki and I stayed for a few more drinks, cokes obviously.
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