Monday 26th - Longtails and Ladyboys

Prised myself out of my gorgeous comfy bed. After sleeper carriages and futon mattresses bedsprings seemed like luxury enough, but aircon? controlled from the bedside table? and a room to myself? and a bathrobe? Hammy Heaven!

Went to meet Kerrie and decided to go on a canal trip. Because it was Kerrie we had to go to the quay by tuktuk! Hairy! The driver took us down sois so narrow I could have stolen people's breakfast from restaurants as we were passing. In fact I'm not entirely sure that we didn't actually drive through a restaurant at one point! We got to the pier in one piece, more by luck than judgement, and Kerrie did her usual hard bargaining, and then off we went down the canals. Some really nice houses, and some absolute shacks, and a fish farm. My first longtail!

From there K went to the Grand Palace and I wwent to see the giant reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. Really annoyed that my camera battery packed up before I got there, cos it's beautiful.

Caught up with Kerrie again and we went to look for the amulet market, but just found a tiny and v dodgy alleyway smelling of catpiss!

We grabbed lunch in the AuThang, where we'd eaten on our first night, and then split up as I had another appointment at the tailors before the Ladyboy show.

Had a quick swim in the rooftop pool (flash!) and then rushed downstairs to wait for my 4 o'clock pick up. And waited. Guy from the tailor's called about 4 30 to say the driver was stuck in traffic A few phone calls and an hour and a half later he eventually showed up.

When I tried the suit on it was enormous , despite all the measuring yesterday, but they did some pretty vicious pinning and I think it'll be just fine.

Idiot driving boy got lost again on the way to MBK (which is one of the biggest shopping malls in Bangkok and about a mile from the tailors.. kuh!) so I had about 20 minutes to grab something to eat and find K. Settled for a Santa Burger, v amused by the chap in there with white hair and an extravagant beard. Perhaps he's on the payroll!

After a couple of abortive attempts to catch up with K we dicided to meet at the show. when the taxi tout tried to charge me 250 Baht and walked away when I said I wanted a meter cab it dawned on me to check the map and realised it was a 5 minute walk!

Found K and went into the Asia hotel. fact that there was an Elvis impersonator in the bar set off a few warning bells.



What to say about the Ladyboys? Some of them were more convincing than others... notably the ones with moustaches! It was pretty toe-curling in places, K spent most of the evening muttering alternately that she wanted to leave and that she was going to kill her brother (who was the one who'd told her to go!).

Eventually we escaped and hopped in a tuktuk - K's favoured mode of transport. One last joint trawl down the Ko San Road then back to the Viengtai to help her pack before I ambled back to Buddy's.

Felt a bit odd being finally on my own. A little bit daunting but really exiting too!

Sunday 25th

Arrived back in Bangkok at some ungodly hour. We piled into taxis back to the Viengtai and then went for one last group breakfast. After that I crashed for a bit til it was time to move over to my new hotel, the Buddy Lodge on the Ko San Rd. Really beautiful room, very colonial with a balcony, but strange to be on my own. Only for a bit though as had to meet Kerrie and Carmen for a trip to the tailors!

Got measured up for a sensible suit whilst Carmen picked out gorgeous silks for dresses and party outfits. So unfair!

Went back to the Last Cocktail (the streetbar opposite the Hotel) and met up with everyone (apart from Hannah) one last time. Carmen had to go early cos she was joining another tour, but Kerrie and I went for a meal with the boys before Thom and Coen left for the airport. Nok came to meet us at the bar. The boys had already bought each other croaking frogs, on the grounds that they all hate them, and then Nok bought Jens another one! She gave Kerrie a tiny elephant and me a Ganesh. He's a god of art and she chose him for me because fo my photography.

Kerrie was quite insistent that we went to Patpong, largely because her brother wouldn't tell her wat he'd seen there. Nok looked a bit unsure but in the end we all agreed. Jens came too - in the taxi Nok kept saying "he my husban' - I kill you!" as practice for protecting him from the "ladies"!

When we got there it looked a lot like any other street market - except the bars weren't open to the street and the bargirls - if they were girls - looked really bored and dead-eyed. That and the enormous neon sigh saying "Super Pussy"!
I'll spare you the details of what happened next. Suffice to say that there were ping pong balls and fairy lights emerging from places where ping pong balls and fairy lights have no business being in the first place! I did have a slightly surreal conversation with a ladyboy who, it turned out, really did just want to improve her English.

After that we were all feeling slightly queasy. I bought some t-shirts for Lorna's boys and then we headed for home having said our goodbyes to Jens. Nok said she hadn't really wanted to go to Patpong, but she hadn't wanted to say goodbye! Sob!

Saturday 24th OUCH!

Woke up very sore. Ankle bad, cuts and bruises all up my right side and a bit of a hangover!

Kerrie, bless her, helped me hobble to a chemist and I struggled about town a bit, but in the end I went back to the hotel and watched the walking wounded from the night before stagger back in! Apparently the thai cooking lessons were not enhanced by the olympian hangovers and i didn't miss much at the pottery factory.

Caved and hobbled up the road for a MacDonalds... turns out everybody else did the same! International hangover food. Tasted so bland after all the good Thai stuff.

Very amusing to hear the increasingly dramatic stories about my fall. No-one actually saw what happened, but they seemed to have decided that I'd fallen off increasingly high walls. I suspect if I'd left it much longer before pointing out I'd just tripped over some rubble the story would have had me plummeting from a third floor balcony!

We caught the night train to Bangkok. Quite an experience. Chatted to Nok for a bit, she'd had index prints made up of some of her best pictures from the trip, which was really sweet of her.

Coen, Tom, Kerrie, Jens and I went to the "party cabin".. i.e. the dining car with open windows so people could smoke, bad music and intermittent disco lights) then we all crashed about 10.

I really enjoyed it - lying in my little bed (up to my eyeballs in painkillers) and watching the world go by. You could see these thin red lines running up the hills as we trundled through the countryside. Forest fires. They don't worry as long as the fires aren't threatening property as it's part of the trees' life cycle. and the fires don't seem to rage, just steadily burn in these thin lines.

Friday 23rd - Children, Cycles, Chiang Mai

We all got up early to go with Ken, Nok and Boi to give alms to the monks, then we walked through the school playground, where we got mobbed! The kids were really funny, all taking it in turns to ask what are names were. They get taught English to a scary high standard very young. The night before I'd been helping one of the kids at the house with her homework, and she needed to know vocab like "Swiss Army Knife"!


After breakfast we headed out on some slightly rickety Raleighs with Ken in the lead. First stop was the local kindergarten. Thai kids are so unbelievably cute, though god alone knows what they must make of 6 giant farangs turning up and chasing them round the playground... they'll probably be in therapy for years! We messed around with them for a bit, and even sang them a song! Unsurprisingly, this resulted in one of them bursting into tears... the kindergarten teacher obviously sensed my overwhelming maternal nature and handed him to me. Hard pushed to say which one of us was most horrified, although at least I didn't cry. So that was another t-shirt covered in snot!

Back on the bikes, and off to the village temple. It's relatively new, and indoors there's a mural on the two longest walls showing how the community raised the money to build it. There's even a chap having a quick wee! Don't think you'd find that pictured on too many English church walls!

From there we cycled through beautiful lush farm land to a mushroom farm to pick lunch. There were two really cute puppies to play with, but that apart it wasn't the most exciting part of the trip!

On to a textile project, where I bought some pressies and a new bag for me. By now my thighs were killing me, cos my bike was built for your average Thai.. I was in real danger of hitting my knees on the handlebars!

After lunch we said our goodbyes to Aoi and her family and headed for Chiang Mai. We stopped in the way at some hot springs. They've been developed into a park, so we spent a happy half hour in the swimming pool. Much messing around and dunking like the bunch of big kids we all are! We had a stroll round and looked at people cooking eggs in the hottest pools, before hopping back into the songthaew and heading into town.

Time for a quick change and then into a minibus (an actual minibus!! with proper seats and a roof and everything!) and headed up to Wat Phra Doi Suthep. We drove up a mountain road (hairpins and vertical drops ahoy!) for about half an hour and then had to climb 380 steps to get to the temple! The story goes that the King wanted to decide where to build his Wat for the Buddha's relics, so he put them on the back of a white elephant. The elephant got to the top of the hill, walked around what was to become the outline of the temple and promptly dropped down dead. After 380 steps after that bike ride I had every sympathy!

The temple is absolutely gorgeous, far bigger and more opulent than anything we'd seen outside of Bangkok. Nok took us into a chapel where we all got blessed by a monk. One by one he sprinkled us all with holy water and tied a white string around our wrists, saying "good luck, good luck". Very simple but very moving.


We were able to stay til closing time (Nok knows the people at the temple.. but then Nok knows everyone!) to hear the monks chanting at sunset.



Back into town, off to the night market for dinner (and almost buying a Paddington bag), then to the Muay Thai boxing arena. It's kinda run down and seedy looking.. the area where we were sitting was almost completely full of farang.. I spent half the night chatting up some bloke from Nuneaton! The boxing's absolutely vicious.. out of the 5 bouts we saw, 2 ended with someone being carried unconscious and bleeding from the ring.. I just can't imagine Skippy doing it for fun! I watched the last bout from the betting pit, which was full of Thai smoking and betting.. got some slightly odd looks, I was quite glad to be 'with' the Midlands boys!

It was only just gone midnight by then, so as we'd already planned, we went out to get mashed! Headed to a bar round the corner from the hotel and ended up drinking towers of beer and buckets of Mekong Whisky and coke. Mekong's a legend amongst travellers; it's supposed to to have amphetamine in it, although Nok insists it's just that people drink so much of it that they want to have something to blame their behaviour and/or hangovers on! Anyway, we all got vewwy vewwy dwunk.

Somehow I managed to fall over just outside the hotel. I must have gone over like Del Boy falling through the bar, cos I had cuts on my shoulder, elbow and knee, as well as spraining my ankle! Koen pretty well had to carry me up to the third floor and then Jens appeared with his Danish Army first aid kit! He and Carmen patched me up whilst our ever caring leader giggled and took photos!

Thursday 22nd. part 2

Having said a sad goodbye to our little elephant chum, back into the songthaew and off to visit a hill tribe. As it turned out, it was some sort of holiday, so the hill tribe weren't doing a whole lot (notably not brewing the local moonshine, which was a bit of a disappointment!).. but we had a nose round the village and had the chance to buy some of the local weaving... I wasn't really paying attention whilst they were explaining what was what, cos I was too busy taking photos of the excessively cute kid.. so what I thought was a scarf turned out to be a man's tunic! .. ah well, it'll make a cool cushion cover (they're kinda teeny up this way!)


Another bumpy drive through the hills and we got to Aoi's family compound. They met us with little silver bowls of water - which was fantastic as I'd been sat in the back of the songthaew and got covered in dust! This was our "homestay" on the trip: Carmen, Kerrie and I shared the upper floor of the main building - it was really pretty with mattresses on the floor and coloured mozzie nets. Weirdest selsction of stuff scattered all round the place.. a bit like an Irish theme pub.. In our room there was an old typewriter, some random musical instruments and a newspaper clipping of the fall of Singapore.. though my favourite was the photo downstairs of the King of Thailand with Elvis! We chilled out for a bit (and made a sizeable dent in the Singha supplies) until the local kids arrived to play us some music. I'm afraid we all got the giggles cos the kids looked so utterly bored!

Afterwards they came round with the instruments for us to try. Luckily, I got the guitary thing, so that was relatively easy!

Then we ate Aoi's second fantastic meal of the day, before heading outside to watch her kids do a Taekwondo demonstration. Following that there was a dancing demonstration, which we ended up having to join in with! We all got handed a pair of lighted candles.. slightly worrying after "some" Singhas... after a bit of waving them around, we set them around the fishpond and then we sent up a flying lantern with a string of fire crackers attached. No light pollution so we could see it go up for miles! Really cool.

Sat up late playing Jenga with the gang and Ken. He's off to the monastery for 15 days next week. All Thai men do it as a tribute to their mums. It's really pretty cool, but I'm not sure Ken's looking forward to it that much.. and all his beautiful hair's got to come off!

Thursday 22nd - Elephant!

The day I'd planned this whole trip around. The reason I'd come to Thailand in the first place, to be honest.








Back into the songthaew first thing and off to the Elephant Conservation Trust (and not conversation trust as i just typed! ) We drove for about an hour up into the hills through the forest to get there, turned off the highway and had spotted a few nellies by the time we got to the carpark!

We took a bus up to the display centre. First stop elephant bathing! Whilst we were waiting for the main event the mahoots bought two over and Nok told us we could go down and stroke them! A mahoot pulled me over and stood me next to his elephant, and it sort of nuzzled up towards me! It just felt so amazing, being so close to such a huge animal and not sensing anything but gentleness. Their skin's really dusty and smoother than I'd expected.. bit like chamois leather.

Then the main troop arrived. They have a "mahoot school" where you can go for a few days and learn some basic elephant maintenance, so the elephants were all being ridden by the "trainees" - straight into the lake! Then the real mahoots joined in and helped scrub their charges down, whilst the elephants did their bit by diving in or lying down.






From there we went to the elephant show. They were led in by two carrying a drum whilst another beat it. Other talents on display included picking up the mahoot's hat and putting it on his head, playing Chang, Chang, Chang (the elephant song), and painting pictures (OK, I bought one.. I intend to tell my visitors, quite truthfully, that it's a vibrant abstract by a talented young Thai artist ;0) ). It could have been really tacky, but somehow wasn't; I think it's because the stuff they're doing is closely related to the skills they have for logging anyway.. with the possible exception of the painting!!

And then the elephant ride! Carmen and I clambered into a howdah (they have a sort of raised bus-stop to make it easier to get in!) and off we went. The gentle rocking motion takes some getting used to but it felt amazing.. just resting my feet on the elephant's shoulder and feeling the solidity and the strength .. we'd seen some elephant bones at the royal palace and they looked like something out of the Flintstones! I didn't think it could get much better than that. Wrong!!

We got back on the bus and headed up to the Elephant Hospital, where we met Aoi, who was going to look after us at the village homestay. She'd cooked us an amazing buffet, and when we'd all finished stuffing our faces she told us about the hospital and the story of Matala. Matala is the first lady of the hospital. She had her foot blown off by a landmine 8 years ago. It was all over the news when they brought her in, and she became the fundraising figurehead for the hospital. They're training her up with a prosthetic now. She doesn't accept visitors, although we could see her in her paddock down the hill, but Aoi took us over to see a baby elephant who's also lost her foot to a landmine. Cutest. Thing. Ever. We got to feed her bananas! She hopped over to us and climbed up the fence to get closer. We started off peeling them for her, and then she got bored with that and just helping herself whilst we were still fumbling with the skins!

She tried to get someone's water bottle, so Aoi thought she might want a drink (turns out elephants are that smart!). The trick is to make a cup with your hands and get someone to pour some water into them. So I gave it a go, and our little friend shoved her trunk into my hands, paused for a moment, and then snorted the water straight back out and all over me! Not a banana; not interested!

PS. Despite the tender ministrations of the laundry in Chiang Mai that t-shirt ended up in the bin... turns out elephant snot is really really hard to wash out!

Wed 21st Lampang

Long bus ride first thing to Lampang - followed by a songthaew to our guesthouse, Baan Fai - the Cotton House.. funnily enough it's a converted cotton mill!

Then into Lampang. Went to the Wat, which was beautiful. There was a ceremony about to start but there were monks lolling around on sofas and a dog sitting in the middle of the temple!

Actually, there were dogs everywhere - there seemed to be a pack of them living under the Bodhi Tree.

We all signed one of the crutches the locals use to prop up the branches of the tree.. which was cool.. there are already hundreds of crutches there, and they put coloured sashes round the trunk to honour the tree spirit.

By the time we left, the ceremony seemed to have finished. Bizarrely the monks were leaving with new wheelie suitcases! I never did find out what a monk has to keep in his suitcase!

From there we went on to the Herbal Centre for a sauna and body scrub. The sauna was fine. The body scrub was a bit uncomfortable, not least because by the time I got in there the sun had dropped and it was a bit chilly. Certainly too chilly to be having yogurt rubbed into my nekkid ass!

I wasn't in the best of moods by the time we got to the Riverside Restaurant... then the waiter gave one of the lads my pizza! Took several Singhas and a large slice of cake to restore my sunny mood!