Bangkok

If there is one small niggle about travel over here it is that you are given no information in English about any of the journeys. So, you are never quite sure if or when you will stop, whether you can get food along the way or not etc. None of the staff ever speaks enough English to be able to tell us - which is fair enough - but given the number of Westerners who use their services a little printed info wouldn’t go amiss. We learned in India that most of the time people bring their own food along; if only for the fact that this is what they can afford. From our perspective we can never be certain that what might be available will be ‘safe’ for us. We eat from food stalls most of the time over here but these are relatively tame compared to the ‘transport cafe’ equivalent that some of the buses stop at.

I have been driven to wistfully wonder how long you would need to live here before you could risk a takeaway salad and a couple of chicken wings without throwing all caution to the wind? On the one hand we would love to pick up a take away soup, or fried rice or two at the start of the journey - but on the other hand do we risk keeping it for 3-4 hours before we eat it!?!?!?!? So far we have erred on the side of caution and make do with buns or sandwiches if we can find them. Most of the time this means that we start the journey with a bag full of white, refined flour and sugar in various forms.

On the trip down to Bangkok I had just fallen into a carbohydrate-induced stupor on the bus when we pulled up for a stop. Brett gently prodded me and asked if I wanted to get off as it seemed as if we were going to stop for a while. In my carb grouchiness I declined. 5 minutes later he came back to tempt me with the promise of Earl Grey tea (the holy grail as it were) which did eventually draw me back from the depths. The food stop was really lovely. Masses of dried fruits and candied this and that, which the Thais seem to love, and a really great food court. As both Brett and I had already eaten our store of processed food we were both beyond eating anything else. I can't be certain but I'm fairly sure that Brett shed a quiet tear while waiting for me.

The other drawback about not knowing when you will stop is the tricky task of planning when and what to drink. I now realise that the main reason people travel when they are young is because they can do so secure in the knowledge that their bladders are robust enough to carry them through the longest of journeys without a twinge. This is no longer true for me and rationing before and during trips is a sad necessity.

Suffice to say, we arrive in Bangkok on Saturday evening after 7 hours of dehydration and the aftereffects of too much refined sugar and carbohydrates.

We find that our hotel is slap, bang in the middle of the wholesale clothes market(we now know where all those market traders get their miles of gaudy shirts, shorts and skirts) and 20 yards away from the wholesale fruit and veg night market. It is fascinating see the range of goods in the market and to see yards upon yards of the different fruits; massive pineapples and watermelons; smooth skinned avocados; mountains of mandarins etc. One morning as we are going out we see the last of the avocados being picked over by traders - by now of course they are being offered the bin end price and there is no doubt that their own clients will be more 'East Street' than 'Whiteladies Road'. They look delighted with themselves as they pile sack upon sack of fruit onto their trolleys.

It was strange to be back amongst the hustle and bustle of a city after what seems like so long away from it all. Penang was busy enough but Kuala Lumpur was the last big city for us about a month ago.

Bangkok is not for the fainthearted. The traffic is horrendous, the air and water pollution is grim, the public transport is abysmal and just about everyone we come into contact with is out to try to scam just that extra 100 bhat or so from you. It has been lovely in Malaysia and Thailand so far as this hadn’t been such a problem but ... Bangkok is out to make you pay.

Our first evening (Saturday) we needed to check out transport information for the next part of our trip on Monday so we decided to take a taxi to Khao San Road (for those who aren’t aware this is the heart of backpacker land in BKK). For some reason getting a taxi outside the front of our hotel was a nightmare. I think the hotels conspire in the whole business. There was always someone just outside our hotel who would gladly drive you anywhere - but the prices they quoted were so outrageous they quickly realized that we were NEVER going to be using them. As it was a very big hotel full of foreign tourists you’d think there’d be taxis queuing up round the block, but it was next to impossible to get a taxi and the hotel wouldn’t call you one as you weren’t going to use their drivers.

We quickly figured out that it was best just to walk round to the nearest main street and hail a taxi or Tuk Tuk. Taxi drivers here will not use their meters if they can avoid it and regularly try to charge you about twice the going rate. We had managed to persuade our taxi driver to use the meter from the bus station to the hotel when we arrived so we had some idea what the fares should be. Indeed, when they do use the meter it is relatively cheap for us. We paid just over 2 quid (120 Bhat) for a journey that would have been the best part of 30 quid in the UK.

The first evening our taxi driver waved off our question about how much it would be and then said 150 baht so we told him to stop the taxi. He, of course, pretended not to hear until we insisted. At which point he grudgingly dropped his price to 100. Although we knew that was still too high we agreed as it was more hassle than it was worth to try to find another taxi willing to use the meter in a neighbourhood that we still weren’t familiar with.
However, the fare would have been closer to 45 if he had put the meter on.

And, they’re all in on it... The next day we had to go to the bus station out of town to book our tickets and the meter fare was 95 bhat. When we went to get a taxi back we had to go through the taxi rank and the man in charge looked us straight in the eye and said he “could” do it for 400 - like he was doing us a huge favour. When we told him it had cost us 95 to get there and didn’t offer to bargain with him at all, insisting on the meter, he waved us away growling at us to "have the meter then". It’s not that I object to them wanting to fiddle the tax man or whoever, quote me a fair price off the meter and I'll pay it (I'll even tip them), but don’t treat me like a walking cash machine.

But back to Saturday night...

Our taxi driver drives like he is being pursued by the hounds of hell so it is no surprise when we pull up to what feels like the gates of hell; aka Khao San Road.

I am drawn to think that if you have spent a summer holiday at club 18-30 in Ibiza or somewhere similar then KSR would probably be a homecoming of sorts. The road is probably 300-500m long and lined with pubs, cocktail bars (which often means a barrel with 10 bottles of booze on top and 20 chairs around it), market and food stalls and peole hawking pretty much everything. Plus, it is rammed full of people. For the first hour I was just in shock. After the last 6-8 weeks of relative calm and civilisation, KSR was a step too far too soon for me. Once my system had acclimatised about an hour later it was interesting to sit and watch the shenanigans of the different crowds of people. The buzz was very good natured and there was none of the aggression that we often have in the UK when so much alcohol is around. KSR certainly does let you know that you can get, and do, pretty much whatever you want in Bangkok.

Not so much sight-seeing in BKK this time around as we know we will be back for a day or two before we fly out in January. We wander some of the markets and decide to risk China Town for dinner on Sunday night. It is interesting to see once again how seriously how the Asians take their food. Brett is hoping for some more Cantonese food but we don't manage to find it so we have to make do with a local restaurant where the food is very good so he isn't too disappointed. Tuesday sees us packing up and skipping gently to the next part of our trip, which is Christmas on one of the islands on the East coast ... and only 12 hours overnight on the (yes you guessed it) bus. We have splashed out on VIP this time - loos and reclining seats - and hope this will make the trip slightly more bearable.

Still in Northern Thailand

We stayed another 4 days in Chinag Mai in the end. Monday found us queuing at the immigration office for our visa extensions as planned. In the end we were on ly allowed a 7 day extension -as the rules for that had also changed - so we are probably stuck with having to be on the move over the New Year so that we can come back into Thailand with less than 15 days to go before we leave in January.

We are not the only people affected by the change and the general feeling is that it is a bit of a nonsense really, particularly when the Thais are at risk of being in dire straights with the reduction in tourists this year because of the various recessions and the Bangkok airport fiasco. How wise is it of them to deny genuine tourists the opportunity to spend our money here? The change to the visa extension rules has affected a lot of travellers arriving at land borders (as many of them do) and many are just choosing to change their itineraries to spend more time in other countries. If we didn’t already have a flight booked out of Bangkok we wouldn’t return but choose somewhere else to finish our trip. Thailand is very nice but I suspect the neighboring countries have just as much to offer.

Tuesday was a day for visiting a couple of out of town Wats and the Elephant conservation facility about 90km outside of Chiang Mai. It was interesting to see one of the oldest Wats in Thailand - predominantly made of wood and very, very beautiful.

Coincidentally, it is a sacred site for anyone born in the year of the Ox - so Brett inadvertently gained a bit of good Buddhist karma to boot.

Just around the corner we find the newest addition to the Wat compound. This one is very ornate in red and gold.

Food at the market... Not sure what the black stuff is as no-one can translate it for us. But they eat a lot of it as a dessert.

Other than eating, shopping and shipping said purchases, the rest of our time was spent trying to organise car hire so that we could take a leisurely drive down through to the South. Not to be - nary a car to be had in the whole of the North of Thailand. So it was back onto the bus for us and a 5 hour jaunt to Sukothai about 300kms south. I’d like to say that rolling through the Thai countryside was a moving and illuminating experience. Unfortunately, I slept most of the way having managed to catch another bug. I do wonder if stopping and relaxing for more than a couple of days gives the bugs time to really take hold! Still, what I did see was lovely. A lot more of the traditional wooden houses - some more dilapidated than others. The roads here are generally well organized and maintained. They don’t have many motorways as such - only 1 or 2 main highways with other good dual carriageways elsewhere. However, the number of Thais travelling long distances by car seems limited. Once you are outside the main towns then traffic is really quite light. Most families have at least a moped or two - but not all of them have cars and there is a very extensive bus transport network that a lot of Thais seem to use instead. Although people in the bigger town/cities are doing well enough there is ample evidence that you are never too far away from a village where many families share their front porches or back gardens with chickens or the odd cow.
We eventually arrived at Sukothai, which was once the capital of Thailand and has some interesting ruins set in the most wonderful parkland. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours cycling round the park here.

Keeping the grounds tidy.

I notice a group of workers carefully (!) climbing one of the ruins following the latest Thai 'safety at work' directives of course. It turns out that it is time to tidy up the Buddha.

The weather it must be said is just perfect for us. It is officially ‘winter’ which means the temperatures have tumbled to at least 27/8 degrees during the day with probably 14 - 19 degrees late at night. The locals are all walking around in coats, scarves etc, and even the dogs have been given their winter coats to wear! But for us it is the first time that it has been pleasant to just wander around and we have managed without the air con. It won’t last much longer as we move further south but, for now, it is a great change from wading through the heat of the day.

Sukothai doesn’t have much to offer apart from the ruins. The ‘old town’ is a street of shops and amenities that have emerged to service the visitors to the ruins and the ‘new town’, 12 km away, is a regular Thai town of about 40,000. Great food market and some lovely food stall food - but very little in the way of true ambience.
We eventually dragged ourselves to the one bar in town called “Chopper”. Whether it was ever a hard core biker bar or only aspired to this we were never sure. There was a very surreal moment when two of the male staff started dancing together (with slightly more lady boy swaying than strictly necessary) and then crawling around on the floor teasing the resident pooch. Not quite the Friday night biker bar behaviour that we had anticipated. The following day it was back on the bus for us to transfer to Bangkok for a couple of nights before we head to the beach for Christmas. The political situation is quiet for now and will probably keep like this until the new Government comes closer to being a reality.

Thailand

So, we finally decide to make the break and leave for Thailand. We had planned to wait another 5 or 6 days in Malaysia to see how the politicos resolved their ‘issues’ but the weather was (uncharacteristically) so bad that another week on the beach didn’t seem like such a good idea after all. The information we were getting from people arriving from Thailand was reassuring as, apart from the disruption to travel plans in and out of Bangkok, there were no stories of any difficulties for travellers. A lot of people in Langkawi were only there because of the lack of flights into Thailand, and there were many conversations about plans of how to get around the after affects of the blockade.

As I was feeling a bit culture-deprived we agreed on a North to South itinerary with Wats (temples) and history before our next beach sojourn.

A quick jaunt on the ferryboat took us away from Langkawi just across the Thai border. Here we encountered the first major mishap of our trip. The Thai authorities had brought in a change THE WEEK BEFORE to the visa regulations and, because we had arrived through a land border rather than by air, we would only be given a 15 day visa exemption rather than the 30 day one we were expecting. This would require some careful planning as 15 days was nowhere near the 38 days we had planned on staying here! More on this later ...

We were then squeezed (i.e. 13 adults, 2 children and enough luggage to stock Maceys) into one of the local minivans. Luckily it was only a short 1 hour trip to take us to the nearest city where we could link up with transport further afield. Hat Yai, is a medium sized city catering primarily as a transport hub between Southern Thailand and the rest of the country. The buildings were fairly careworn but the atmosphere was OK and there was enough to keep us fed and sheltered until the following day when we would fly out to Chiang Mai in the North. A good meal followed by a foot massage and a beer/cider (what bliss) wasn’t a bad way to celebrate our arrival in Thailand.

However, here we also encountered our first experience of the seedier side of Thai tourism as we managed to end up in a bar where a couple of Thai women were playing tag ‘seduction’ with a Norwegian man on the last night of his holiday in Thailand. In fairness he was a willing participant, indeed he let us know of his other “girlfriends” around Thailand and it seems that having the company of these Thai women had been part and parcel of his holiday. Over the next few days we see a lot of Western men with Thai women. This is the first time that we have seen local women with Westerners since we started our trip and, inevitably, we are drawn to the conclusion that this is part of Thailand’s notorious sex industry.

We take a mid-morning flight out of Hat Yai and arrive in Chiang Mai in the North West of Thailand in time for a cup of coffee beside the river at the guesthouse we had booked. For once the guesthouse has lived up to its internet description and delivers a beautiful, tiered Thai style building with lots of teak and bamboo and a gorgeous garden that edges up to the river. It is a peaceful oasis amid the city clamour.

We spend the first 12 hours after we arrive trying to sort out a solution to our visa problem. We wear out at least 3 computer keyboards looking at the different visa regulations for the neighbouring countries and travel times and prices to see where we might easily go so that we can re-enter the country through an airport and get the extra 30 days that we need. Unfortunately, the advertised cheap flight fares are so loaded with airport taxes that it soon becomes depressingly obvious that a ‘visa run’ would cost over 300 quid. The cheaper 12 hour round trip by minvan to cross into Laos or Cambodia begins to look attractive until we realise that a) we would miss out on half of our itinerary because we would have to stay in the North of the country an extra week until our visa runs out and b) we would be spending Christmas Eve doing the visa run and Christmas Day recovering from it!!!!! Plan 452 variation 64 therefore becomes a morning in Thai immigration to extend our current visa by 10 days with an overland visa run from the Southern Islands back into Malaysia just after the New Year. This means that we can still have our Christmas on the beach (hooray, what a huge relief I hear you all echo) and will probably be able to do it by boat or at most 4 hours in a minivan rather than 12.

Chinag Mai is a delightful historic city. It was once a walled city with the added bonus of an inner moat to protect it. It is a mixture of old wooden, stilted houses and more recent two-storey, balconied terraced houses with an abundance of trees, ferns, bamboo and vines shading courtyards and gardens everywhere.

Although it is a large city with some bigger, busy main roads there are many small higgledy-piggledy lanes and cross streets. There are very few buildings over 3-4 storeys (mainly just the new bigger hotels) which helps to maintain a lovely old town atmosphere. Although tourism is a mainstay here (with bars, guesthouses and internet cafes all around) you don’t have to go too far off the main streets to be immersed in local life where no-one speaks English and you are obviously one of very few foreigners to be seen from one month to the next. The Thais that we meet are unfailingly polite and smiling – if a little bemused at our swivel necked walking style, gawping at the sights that they doubtless no longer see.

The streets are teeming with cars, autorickshaws, millions of mopeds and lined with eating stalls. Most of the local shops are the typical one room, one family enterprises that have become familiar to use all over Asia so far. A couple of the bars are obvious throwbacks to the backpacker trail and look as if they have been lifted from an old John Wayne movie set; after they had been neglected for 40 years.

The main sights and experiences revolve around the old Wats, elephants, and traditional Thai craft industries. We have managed to visit quite a few Wats as they are on practically every street corner.The architecture, decorations, temple guardians, Buddhas and mosaics are truly breathtaking.

Disappointingly, it seems that the remaining hill tribe villages have been co-opted onto the tourist trail with trips to vist them all neatly packaged into tour days that we are inclined to give a miss. Instead we have planned to hire a car with a driver for a day and will bribe them if necessary to miss every factory outlet and craft performance on the way.

The other tourist must-do is SHOPPING!!!! There are so many market places and stalls here that Brett, whose shopping tolerance is limited to 45 minutes on the Gloucester Road, is soon reduced to a pitiful wreck that even the best cafe latte can’t lift. As the shopping highlights are silk, silver, pottery and sculpture I am going to have to ditch the boy one of these days for some serious retail therapy. Ok – I’m not actually in need of the therapy part of it really but my shopping DNA is screaming at me to indulge and who am I to argue!!

Today is “Sunday Walking Street” day where they close off one of the main streets and have stalls and performances of local arts, crafts and traditions so we will give that a go and let you know anon...

Tomorrow (Monday) is a red letter day with the political situation here as the opposition party will know whether they have enough members to form a new government. Whichever way it goes there is no way to know if there will be any major repercussions so we will have to wait and see. In general, any major events have always tended to centre around Bangkok and we are optimistic that we will be able to avoid any potential fallout. If necessary, we can leave overland very quickly if things get too risky or we can hunker down out of the way of any trouble until it is resolved.

Kerala (Southern India)

We spend my birthday a little differently this year!

We are on the move from Delhi to the coast. We take an Air India flight to Trivandrum amidst a very tropical storm and, it is with some relief, that we arrive an hour late at the local airport. Luckily, we had organised a taxi from the hotel to pick us up. I say luckily because it is very late when we arrive in Kovallam and it appears that we have arrived in a ghost town – so it is just a well that the driver knew where we were going. Our worst fears are allayed the following morning when we are able to explore a little more and find that there are some restaurants and shops etc. just down the road and around the corner. It is very early in the season here and the hotel we are saying in is sprucing itself up. Which is just as well because it is a dump. The overworked and under-serviced air conditioning in our room wafts the occasional puff of lukewarm air over us. I say occasional as the power cuts in and out regularly and, as we haven’t adjusted to the heat and humidity yet, our first night is a challenge. We decide that 2 days is enough here and decamp to Varkala, a much more relaxed and prettier beach 60km further north.

Varkala Beach

A week here is lovely and we relax for the first time in months (yeah, I know – it’s tragic and you all really feel for us!). While the beach is very oriented towards Western tourists it is nice to get off the beaten track with a couple of trips. We see various temples and buildings along with some lovely waterways.

Working on the river

Anyone for a coconut - or two?

I love the definite preponderance of kitsch – just as you think you have seen the most brightly coloured temple, something new comes along.

Island Temple

I am interested in the local backwaters as it gives me a chance to see what life is like when there aren’t 16 million other people around. While the amenities are fairly basic the houses certainly have more space. As ever, the buildings look as if they are only a centimetre or two from total collapse. Roofs, walls and doors are very rickety and often seem to consist of wooden planks or bamboo reeds patched up with tarpaulin or plastic sheets. Any concrete structures are covered in mould with fading paint most of the time. I wonder if Dulux have found a way of making outdoor paint mould-resistant??? I know the paint we use at home has to be stored in temps less than 30 degrees and not applied in damp conditions; so not really suitable for here at all. Granted the original colours must have been very colourful – they do like their colours here. Lots of houses are pink, purple, yellow, bright green or various combinations thereof and Brett is very worried that I’m picking up decorating tips here.

Brett has mentioned that he felt as if he was being voyeuristic during the backwater trip but I wondered if travelling per se is not voyeuristic and the least we can do is to be a sensitive about it as possible. If we didn’t want to see how people live then we would just stick to the resorts and not venture off the beaten track. The alternative was to take a tourist houseboat to experience ‘real life’ on the river. These have been proliferating over the last few years and some of the locals were mentioning how they were not being managed well so that noise, diesel and congestion on the river was now threatening the delicate ecosystem. So, we drift through the tiny backwaters

guided by a local man who manages to avoid taking us through people’s backyards too much - rather than chugging up the diesel polluted main waterways.

He took us to his house to pick up his boat and proudly showed us different plants etc. that his family grow locally. We didn­­­­­’t know tapioca grew on trees until now and it was interesting to see how they use the abundance of coconut trees! If you are getting your coir rug for Xmas then chances are it comes from around here.

Our guide greeted all of the others on the waters, many of whom were relatives, and – it seemed to us at least – chastised a few younger men for not maintaining their boats properly. Here too we could see the transition from the older style huts

to the more modern houses where local people now live. Around the houses each family has enough land to cultivate so the standard of living is relatively good.

I feel that our stay here has given us the opportunity to see a more relaxed and sustainable way of life for some Indian people. While there is still huge poverty with many, many people living in subsistence conditions, there are communities who live more comfortably, without belonging to the privileged middle classes.