Thailand
So after a day flying from from Bali to Jakarta and then from Jakarta to Thailand we arrived tired in Bangkok to discover 3 things:
1. The news reports were in fact correct - much of Thailand was flooded and the river which flows through the center of Bangkok was definitely going to burst its bank within a few days...
2. Despite avidly following news reports about the floods with something bordering on an unhealthy fixation Charlotte had booked us into a hotel right next to the river....
Not the best of starts!!
After much apologising and several frustrating phone calls between Charlotte and various Bangkok airport staff and Air Asia employees we were dis-heartened to discover that the Air Asia cleaning staff had not diligently handed the very expensive camera into lost property, but instead somewhere out there in S E Asia someone is in possession of a $400 camera and a photo of Charlotte looking like she has a big black knob... but even this couldn't cheer Matt up.
Here's a picture from the i-pod which is what Charlotte was wanting to photograph before "the loss" took place.
After a lot of grovelling by Charlotte Matt rallied pretty quickly and was not as angry as she thought he might have been. We took our minds off the missing camera and all the pictures which we had lost and set about "Operation River Watch" with our American friend Scott who we had hooked up with again having left him in India.
We had a chilled out few days discovering the parts of Bangkok which were not flooded, hanging with Scott, taking him to McDonalds for his birthday and drinking coffee whilst always keeping one eye on the river (sadly no photos though as still wrangling with travel insurance company at this point!). After Scott left for Burma we hooked up with Bre and Mike (more American's) who we'd met in Indonesia and Charlotte reminded herself why she should be on an international ban of drinking buckets of Sang-Son Whiskey and Coke. Fortunately she has a forgiving boyfriend and no more will be said here about her behavior!
We were really enjoying our time in Bangkok but when the hotel built a wall across the front door to stop the flood waters getting in we decided that they must know something we didn't and it was time to head North!
In an attempt to get herself out of the camera/Sang-Song dog house Charlotte bought the bus tickets for us to leave the next day. This went successfully enough as did the purchase of a replacement camera. Everything was looking rosey again - well, until we woke up the next morning and started to pack. It appears that during the night someone must have broken into our room and stolen the bus tickets. So, to Matt (and Charlotte's) horror, Charlotte was forced to go back to Mr Thai and beg for replacement tickets. Mr Thai was slightly confused as to how the tickets could have been misplaced in such a short time - but he could see the rising panic in Charlotte's face and kindly agreed.
We took the bus to Chang Mai that evening which was a good plan as the flooding was starting to get pretty deep as we travelled out of the city.
We both took a Valium (which you can buy over the counter - and by now we both needed for one reason or another!!) and settled in for the 14 hour journey. It was all going well until the bus broke down about midnight and we were woken up and herded into a Thai Karaoke bar at the side of the motorway filled with crazy drunk locals singing loudly and waving whiskey bottles around! This was not something which either of us coped with very well (thanks largely to the valium) and was one of the most surreal things which has happened to us yet! Some welding, drilling, numerous Thai versions of terrible songs and two more break downs later and we arrived in Chang Mai.
We checked into a guest house which cost less than $2 a night and appeared to be inhabited by single men - mainly of our parents age who were all friendly enough. Touch ! But after the sun went down and the lady-boys came out we kind of felt like the odd ones out in what turned out to be essentially a transexual brothel and decided that it was probably a good time to leave and head to Pai - immediately!
The journey to Pai was much less traumatic and we arrived to find a beautiful small town in the middle of the hills with a friendly cool vibe, lots of small bars and street food stalls. It was exactly what we were after.
After a few days at the "Happy House" Hostel we had met some new mates and everything seemed right with the world again.
Matt was even allowed off the leash to head out with Luke who had lived in the hostel for 14 months!!
During this "free-time" Matt was able to answer the question that we know is on all of your lips "What does a ladyboy look for in a man ?" unfortunately the answer is errr..well...Matt ! After 2 nights of constant harassment, many suggestive remarks, and offers which we won't repeat here Matt was forced to take Charlotte to the bar and parade her around in front of his new stalker in the vain hope that it would get the message - Charlotte was just gutted that she had missed all the fun/fear of the previous 2 nights.
Whilst in Pai we hired the worlds crappest bike (Charlotte had to get off every time we hit a hill) and went fishing.
Charlotte fished for her first time and caught 2 piranha fish - YES PIRANHA!! and a baby Coy Carp. Matt caught nothing but constantly reminded Charlotte that it's called "fishing" not "catching".
To cheer him up we booked to go on a white water rafting trip the next day. Now everyone had warned us - "take sunscreen" - 8 hours on a river and you'll fry. So Matt - who doesn't have Charlotte's gypsy skin - was particularly concerned about this advice and after checking with Charlotte that she had "definitely" put the cream in the bag was alarmed to discover when we arrived at the river that it wasn't there. Charlotte can only assume that someone must have taken it out of the bag and driven it back to the guest house and put it back on the bed where we found it later. Very inconsiderate and pretty bad luck! For Matt this was the final straw. And his reaction must have been surprising to the 8 people we were about the start rafting with - who would have been forgiven for thinking it was a slight "over reaction" and possibly a bit frightening! However, when Matt was shouting about "sunscreen" Charlotte knew he meant "camera/bus tickets/the only time Matt asked her to look after the passports and she left them in the internet cafe/the time she bought the wrong train tickets for Agra". But there you have it - our first fight in 4 months - not the most dignified start to a rafting trip and it didn't go unnoticed that no-one swoped to the second boat with us when the groups split after 30 mins on the water - but hey hoy we had a good day, considering that we both secretly hoped the other person might drown!!
However all was forgiven later that day when our 4X4's front wheel skidded off the road and hung over a cliff edge. We all had to jump out of the back and wedge rocks under the back wheels to stop it falling down into the ravine !! Nothing like a near death experience to put things into perspective. Anyway, in future Charlotte has promised to try not to loose/break/forget stuff and Matt has agreed to try and not get (too) angry when she does. We'll keep you posted on how it goes !
We celebrated our first fight/making up by going out for "a few beers" as we had to get up early for our bus to Loas the next day.
Unfortunaetly nobody had told us that we needed passport photos for our Laos Visa - and that we needed to take them with us to the border. Advice to future travellers - have passport photos taken the night before you go out "for a few beers" - not in a mad panic the morning after! Myra Hindleys corpse after a crack overdose is not a good look - and you'll definately get your bag searched!!
So armed with these beauties we left Pai and headed to Chiang Kong - the border with Laos to board a slow boat down the Mekong - we'll let you know how that went soon !
So after a day flying from from Bali to Jakarta and then from Jakarta to Thailand we arrived tired in Bangkok to discover 3 things:
1. The news reports were in fact correct - much of Thailand was flooded and the river which flows through the center of Bangkok was definitely going to burst its bank within a few days...
2. Despite avidly following news reports about the floods with something bordering on an unhealthy fixation Charlotte had booked us into a hotel right next to the river....
3. Charlotte had left Matt's very expensive camera (30th birthday present from his mum and dad - so sorry Vic and Bren) on the plane.
Not the best of starts!!
After much apologising and several frustrating phone calls between Charlotte and various Bangkok airport staff and Air Asia employees we were dis-heartened to discover that the Air Asia cleaning staff had not diligently handed the very expensive camera into lost property, but instead somewhere out there in S E Asia someone is in possession of a $400 camera and a photo of Charlotte looking like she has a big black knob... but even this couldn't cheer Matt up.
Here's a picture from the i-pod which is what Charlotte was wanting to photograph before "the loss" took place.
After a lot of grovelling by Charlotte Matt rallied pretty quickly and was not as angry as she thought he might have been. We took our minds off the missing camera and all the pictures which we had lost and set about "Operation River Watch" with our American friend Scott who we had hooked up with again having left him in India.
We had a chilled out few days discovering the parts of Bangkok which were not flooded, hanging with Scott, taking him to McDonalds for his birthday and drinking coffee whilst always keeping one eye on the river (sadly no photos though as still wrangling with travel insurance company at this point!). After Scott left for Burma we hooked up with Bre and Mike (more American's) who we'd met in Indonesia and Charlotte reminded herself why she should be on an international ban of drinking buckets of Sang-Son Whiskey and Coke. Fortunately she has a forgiving boyfriend and no more will be said here about her behavior!
(no one who is sure who the couple are at the back left!!)
We were really enjoying our time in Bangkok but when the hotel built a wall across the front door to stop the flood waters getting in we decided that they must know something we didn't and it was time to head North!
In an attempt to get herself out of the camera/Sang-Song dog house Charlotte bought the bus tickets for us to leave the next day. This went successfully enough as did the purchase of a replacement camera. Everything was looking rosey again - well, until we woke up the next morning and started to pack. It appears that during the night someone must have broken into our room and stolen the bus tickets. So, to Matt (and Charlotte's) horror, Charlotte was forced to go back to Mr Thai and beg for replacement tickets. Mr Thai was slightly confused as to how the tickets could have been misplaced in such a short time - but he could see the rising panic in Charlotte's face and kindly agreed.
We took the bus to Chang Mai that evening which was a good plan as the flooding was starting to get pretty deep as we travelled out of the city.
We both took a Valium (which you can buy over the counter - and by now we both needed for one reason or another!!) and settled in for the 14 hour journey. It was all going well until the bus broke down about midnight and we were woken up and herded into a Thai Karaoke bar at the side of the motorway filled with crazy drunk locals singing loudly and waving whiskey bottles around! This was not something which either of us coped with very well (thanks largely to the valium) and was one of the most surreal things which has happened to us yet! Some welding, drilling, numerous Thai versions of terrible songs and two more break downs later and we arrived in Chang Mai.
We checked into a guest house which cost less than $2 a night and appeared to be inhabited by single men - mainly of our parents age who were all friendly enough. Touch ! But after the sun went down and the lady-boys came out we kind of felt like the odd ones out in what turned out to be essentially a transexual brothel and decided that it was probably a good time to leave and head to Pai - immediately!
The journey to Pai was much less traumatic and we arrived to find a beautiful small town in the middle of the hills with a friendly cool vibe, lots of small bars and street food stalls. It was exactly what we were after.
After a few days at the "Happy House" Hostel we had met some new mates and everything seemed right with the world again.
Matt was even allowed off the leash to head out with Luke who had lived in the hostel for 14 months!!
During this "free-time" Matt was able to answer the question that we know is on all of your lips "What does a ladyboy look for in a man ?" unfortunately the answer is errr..well...Matt ! After 2 nights of constant harassment, many suggestive remarks, and offers which we won't repeat here Matt was forced to take Charlotte to the bar and parade her around in front of his new stalker in the vain hope that it would get the message - Charlotte was just gutted that she had missed all the fun/fear of the previous 2 nights.
Whilst in Pai we hired the worlds crappest bike (Charlotte had to get off every time we hit a hill) and went fishing.
Charlotte fished for her first time and caught 2 piranha fish - YES PIRANHA!! and a baby Coy Carp. Matt caught nothing but constantly reminded Charlotte that it's called "fishing" not "catching".
To cheer him up we booked to go on a white water rafting trip the next day. Now everyone had warned us - "take sunscreen" - 8 hours on a river and you'll fry. So Matt - who doesn't have Charlotte's gypsy skin - was particularly concerned about this advice and after checking with Charlotte that she had "definitely" put the cream in the bag was alarmed to discover when we arrived at the river that it wasn't there. Charlotte can only assume that someone must have taken it out of the bag and driven it back to the guest house and put it back on the bed where we found it later. Very inconsiderate and pretty bad luck! For Matt this was the final straw. And his reaction must have been surprising to the 8 people we were about the start rafting with - who would have been forgiven for thinking it was a slight "over reaction" and possibly a bit frightening! However, when Matt was shouting about "sunscreen" Charlotte knew he meant "camera/bus tickets/the only time Matt asked her to look after the passports and she left them in the internet cafe/the time she bought the wrong train tickets for Agra". But there you have it - our first fight in 4 months - not the most dignified start to a rafting trip and it didn't go unnoticed that no-one swoped to the second boat with us when the groups split after 30 mins on the water - but hey hoy we had a good day, considering that we both secretly hoped the other person might drown!!
However all was forgiven later that day when our 4X4's front wheel skidded off the road and hung over a cliff edge. We all had to jump out of the back and wedge rocks under the back wheels to stop it falling down into the ravine !! Nothing like a near death experience to put things into perspective. Anyway, in future Charlotte has promised to try not to loose/break/forget stuff and Matt has agreed to try and not get (too) angry when she does. We'll keep you posted on how it goes !
We celebrated our first fight/making up by going out for "a few beers" as we had to get up early for our bus to Loas the next day.
Unfortunaetly nobody had told us that we needed passport photos for our Laos Visa - and that we needed to take them with us to the border. Advice to future travellers - have passport photos taken the night before you go out "for a few beers" - not in a mad panic the morning after! Myra Hindleys corpse after a crack overdose is not a good look - and you'll definately get your bag searched!!
So armed with these beauties we left Pai and headed to Chiang Kong - the border with Laos to board a slow boat down the Mekong - we'll let you know how that went soon !
No comments:
Post a Comment