Sunday, 14/10/2012 – 122 A.D.
Felt a bit sickly this morning. Although it could be due to constant exposure to heat and a reasonable amount of alcohol in very small doses, it may also be the anti-malarials finding cumulative strength and striking back. Plus I’ve felt a slight sore throat coming on, but sore throats aren’t much, are they? How did kids manage to get days off school with them? I probably tried it a few times. Anyway, I watched Tim eat his two eggs on toast with a knot in my stomach. However, 30 minutes later when I forced myself to eat an apple, I felt great. And I told Tim that if I ever complain of feeling slightly sick again that he should demand I force something down. Ever the cynic, he wasn’t sure my reaction to such words would be favourable! We shall see…
It was the morning after our last night in Tawan Court, and something occurred yesterday which I failed to mention (I think that blog entry was long enough anyway!) When we got back from our day out, Tim discovered that a 1000 baht note he had left inside his paperback novel was no longer there. Now, 1000 baht is only about £20, but it’s the thought that someone had been into the room and taken it, probably hoping he’d forget he ever put it there. The only person who had been in the room was the maid to change the sheets, so she was prime suspect. Tim told the owner what had happened and he said they’d have a word with her the next morning when she was working again. From what I understand, it was a bit uncomfortable all round, with the owner having to translate between Tim and maid, with maid denying that she took it, and the question of getting the police involved brought into the equation. Tim didn’t want to involve the police, just felt that he had to mention it, or that kind of thing would keep going on. And he’s aware that it’s a basic rule that you don’t leave any valuables in your room where they can accessed, he just had a brief lapse.
Anyway, the owner was cool that the police wouldn’t be involved and we did the usual check out and left our bags. The owner’s credit card machine was up the wall and he tried both of our cards several times. Normally we would think it is scam, but Longtip said the same thing yesterday when we tried to pay for elephant trekking on the card. We promised to return later with cash – the owner had our bags after all, so what were we going to do? As polite as he was, I think he just wanted to be rid of us, to be honest, and hope that we don’t write a bad review of his place!
The morning was spent doing the north side of the old city of Chiang Mai. It was much like the south side, but seemed even hotter, if that was possible. And we eventually found the huge semi-ruined temple that we had somehow missed two days ago. I tried to read the background behind it, but it was written in such broken English that I couldn’t get an accurate feel for it. All I worked out was that part of it was destroyed by an earthquake several hundred years ago…isn’t that always the case with most of the structures of the ancient world?
The grand plan was to go back to the market we’d found the previous evening when we’d been preoccupied with the cabaret, have something to eat, then do a bit of browsing before boogering off to the train station and heading south once again. After a sweaty walk to said spot we realised that we would have to adjust our plans. The thing about night markets is that…they’re open at night…and not during the day. There was no one around, like a city abandoned in the wake of an earthquake (topical!) Same went for the Night Bazaar – deserted! The best laid plans of mice and Grayboys…
After snacking in a place other than planned, we collected our bags and headed to the station via tuk-tuk, arriving with a couple of hours to spare until the train left. This would be the 16:00 – 06:30 sleeper to Bangkok…not the kind of train you want to arrive on time, given that it gets in at such an early hour! Still, with Thai Railways' previous record, this was unlikely, and we could only sit and contemplate which kind of farmyard animal the engine would collide with this on this leg of our trip.
With about 30 minutes before departure we figure we can board the train – coach 13, right at the end. This sleeper carriage is different to what we are used to. It’s still second class, but instead of there being a long dormitory-style set-up, there is a corridor along one side of the carriage and open berths of four bunks, two up, two down, along the way. Given that we booked two bottom bunks, in the hope of some better legroom all round, we run the risk of some dodgy people snoring above us. And, although the bottom bunks are reasonably-sized, the top ones look a little pokey – will they fall down on us in the night?
[Using train aircon to finish drying underwear, we've all done it.]
Ten minutes to go and we’ve got our stuff spread out all over the bottom bunks, assuming that no one has been daft enough to book two top ones. For a brief minute we think we’ve got away with it. Then we hear ominous sounds at the far end of the carriage: “Funf, sieben und acht.” German girls – who else! Three of them to be precise, all looking like they just blew out the candles on their sixteenth birthday cakes. Two are above Tim and I, the third is in the next berth, above / below goodness knows who else. Obviously we are well used to dealing with German girls and we know that you get fond initial pleasantries and they’ll be perfectly friendly with you whenever you ask anything, but apart from that they keep themselves to themselves, as if it’s a sin to interact too much with other cultures, let alone a couple of British lads in shorts.
Thy do keep themselves to themselves as the train gets going, which is fine by us. We have more than enough blogging to do, plus a couple of films to watch. We downloaded them earlier using Asia’s great internet connections – you miss sitting down to watch a film when the only channels you have are BBC World News, Fox News Live and 12 others that you can’t translate. As I sit / lie for the next seven hours on my seat-cum-bed, I find myself getting tired earlier than usual. Possibly it’s the sore throat coming on, or the gentle rocking of the train, but I sense that when I do finally turn in I’ll be wide awake and counting every single cockerel that we hit along the line. But blogging comes first, as does retrieving my fesh underwear from out of my big bag that is stored up besides the top bunks where the German girls are reading their Kindles…
Cometh the midnight hour, or whenever it is, I turn in to sleep. Can’t, at least initially, but then drift off. Wake up with sweat on and very sore throat. Now I know why kids get off school with this! After dreaded walk to toilet and back, I go to sleep properly, with the obligatory waking up every once in a while to think, ‘Where the ruddy hell am I???’
Suddenly there is a shout. Sounds like “Bangkok”. Then my curtain is pulled away by the attendant. It is definitely Bangkok and I am in just a pair of sleep shorts. I could have been dressed in even less! I may not have been alone! Alright, so they’re German girls and it was never going to happen, but in theory it could have occurred. I check the watch…6.20. How the hell has this train managed to get in 20 minutes early??? I was hoping for a lie in! Or to rise at a decent hour at least. Shorts on, T-shirt on, anti-malarial down, no cleaning of teeth or wee and wash hands, just get off train before irate attendant gets angry. German girls are in no hurry, but our association ends here, so who cares.
Back to Bangkok station again. We’re a little dazed and confused, not sure what to do next. We go and sit on some blue plastic seating, avoiding the chairs that are reserved especially for monks. It’s still early, but a lot of the seats are taken and they’re filling up fast. For the next 15 minutes or so, the two of us sit in silence, before I suggest having a walk around and seeing if we can find some special tuk-tuks. We’ve heard that there are government-sponsored tuk-tuks that will take you round all day for just 20 baht and they have yellow flags on their roofs, but we haven’t seen any of them. Maybe we’ve just not been looking. Anyway, I don’t see any that morning and I retake my seat as Tim goes for a wander. I notice that there are a lot of young people around us who know each other, like a sixth form college excursion. Suddenly an old geezer directly in front of me turns around and says what sounds like, “They fon Laos Lubyu.” It’s 6:45 in the morning, I’m knackered, I’m not thinking clearly and I tell the chap politely that I don’t understand. He insists on getting his message across, which later becomes, “I am from Thailand, but I know they are from Laos, and they love you.” That’s nice to hear, though I hope he’s only referring to the girls. I tell him I “lub” them as well, then Tim comes back having not seen a government tuk-tuk.
So we get a normal one to our hotel, the Boonsiri, which is a lot closer to Kaho San Road and all the touristy bits of the city than the last place. Unfortunately we’re too early for our room to be ready, so we go the find the Macdonalds on the nearby map. I know, I know, it’s Western food and it’s cheating, but at this point I just want an egg macmuffin and a cup of coffee I can trust. The area around the hotel doesn’t feel unsafe, but it’s a bit rundown, with some really dodgy food stalls and plenty of people lying asleep on the kerbside with bottles in hand. Plus it’s got a red light district feel to it, but not the semi-glamourous kind the tourists flock to. Here the ladies simply sit alone on the pavement on plastic chairs and stare blankly forward until a punter comes their way. Macdonalds has never felt so much like sanctuary!
A few hours later and we’re into our room on the third floor of the hotel. Catnaps occur. We ask about laundry, but the prices are ridiculously high – 20p for a handkerchief, £1 per shirt and £1.40 for a dress. Ha! We’re used to paying a pound a kilo, and that includes ironing. After doing some dodgy handwashing, lightning strikes outside and we hear possibly the loudest thunder we’ve ever heard in our lives. I’m hoping that my memories of Bangkok will not always be of rain! A little later I step outside and see a small bird trapped in the corridor, fluttering desperately against the window to escape. Uh-oh, isn’t a bird in the house a sure sign of bad luck? I go back to the room and give Tim a shout – he’s more nature-orientated than me, but when we go back into the corridor, the bird has gone. Was it ever really there? Am I actually still in the middle of a catnap? Sticking with the creature theme, there are a couple of tiny flies buzzing about the room that I know will take a keen interest in me. I spot a miniscule yellow bug scurrying across the woodwork of the headboard and I squash it under my fist. It’s been a while since I’ve had to kill an insect, and I don’t usually do it as a rule (not that I’m Buddhist or anything), but this is Asia, and it’s them or me.
The main reason we split our Bangkok visit in two was because of all the messing about with visas. Hopefully our Vietnam ones should be ready and we take a trip across town to see if they are. Yes! I feel like Tony Montana in Scarface when he gets his green card to stay in America! The local area has the Siam Centre and various other shopping complexes, but these are too upmarket for us now, so we head back to base. Upon arriving at the hotel we see that the cute little tabby cat that sits on the doorstep has a live mouse in its mouth. What’s with this place – first birds in the house, then mice at the mercy of a kitty! We’re not sure whether to let nature take its course or whether to intervene, given that the cute pussy could turn out to be carrying nasty diseases and scratch us, but in its attempt to play with its prey it lets it go and the mouse scurries out of sight. Let’s hope that’s a good omen to cancel out the bad one from earlier!
That evening we return to Khao San Road, this time with no wish whatsoever to see any ping pong shows. Instead we have a nice meal – eating out has happily become the norm – and Tim buys a couple of T-shirts, now having got the art of haggling down to a tee. To celebrate his success, we stop for a beer at one of the more rowdy places, where seats are scare and people are loud. Immediately a couple of ladies take the seats next to us and I notice that the younger one wears a top with the Union Jack upon it. We’ve been seeing loads of Union Jacks emblazoned upon all kinds of garments, handbags, etc., on our travels - is our national flag in vogue? And why? I asked the lady this, but didn’t get much of a coherent answer from her. Except that she was French. And that was all it took to get the conversation going and Beatrice (mum) and Justine (daughter) introduced themselves, and so the craic continued. I had a good laugh, but I could tell Our Kid wasn’t really up for it, so when our new French friends asked if we wanted to come with them to their favourite bar, I said...yes. Whoops. However, after conferring the situation with Timbo as we made our way along the crowded streets, we decided to secretly do a tactical withdrawal. Not sure if the ladies figured we’d got separated while stopping to look at yet more T-shirts, or whether we’d been cheeky “roast beef” and run away. And I’ll guess we’ll never know.
Back at the hotel, I spend the moments right up until going to sleep by blogging. Seems to be taking a lot longer these days, but if you’re reading these words, and you obviously are, then it’s worth it.
And my sore throat felt much better, but I’ll thank the Chang for that one!
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